he tired flesh and weary spirit of this witch-crone of history I loved Jessica and she failed me, as she has failed all the past So was rewarded my trust So began the ritual of betrayal which will end in death without peace What future, bright of dim, can our species hold if there is DO plan, DO obedience to the code, no faith in die righteousness of the moth ers who would preserve refine, and renew by withstanding the allure of the vacant present for the treasure of what can be9 I have knowledge that runs backward, like tiny pebbles marking the steps of a path already traversed, to the beginning What I cannot see is the end that is a new beginning lost in the future The keeper of the treasure that lies beyond must guard it with diligence, even with cruelty I have guarded the entrance to the future, and I must be defeated in order to win I, too, must fulfill a destiny Should mat be as the enemy of him who is the One? He and I will end together Shall we begin together, too? It will be the time of our passing and with it the time of mhu inanity will once again descend upon us for a long age My obligation is the preservation of the hero ic aims passed from age to age, growing in Stature and power as they were handed on If that tradition is threatened or diluted, then too is the hope we have cherished forever Our ideal of the human must advance and be upheld with authority and by authority And it must remain within our control, or afl we have achieved will revert back again to the mechanical stenli ty we fought to overcome That must never be We will have created a model mat can and will inspire a whole race whom we can then also guide and teach We will have achieved a race of men we can succor as seedlings nurture as shoots tend and crossbreed that the flower of genius may be ever renewed The truth of oils vision has on occasion, I do believe, banished the quality of pity in me I have labored too long in the vineyard of a passion to create the perfect fruit from which shall spring a burgeoning human garden And this will be my our, legacy to the future For we are the mythmakers the founda lion, the rock, and all else is as sand in the wind Construsimus monumentum perenmus illud imperatorum MOTHER OF JESSICA References found both in Book of the Voices, the journals of Duncan Idaho-13015, and in Lady Ghamma's Commentaries to the Voices add startling information about R M Gams Helen Mo hiam s relationship to the Atreides line One question that had always bothered Ghanima (and Empire historians and geneticists) was the identity of her father s maternal grandmother His Harkonnen background apparently distressed Paul Muad Dib, the clash of Harkonnen and Atreides blood was al-Harba s theme m the memorable Arrakeen Tarot (1(H04) The playwright, when dealing with Paul's awareness of himself as the genetic climax of an extended breeding program, gives Paul the famous soliloquy Blood Blood Blood Blood Blood I ve wallowed in out freyn gore so long That shedding the body s water of one more Harkonnen rabble is but to kiss my crysknife And wet it m my very veins Harkonnen Atreides Atreides Harkonnen It s all the same, and now at last 111 cry no more nor shed a solitary tear For any scum It is myself I weep for brute From long dead Vladimir love from absent Jessica Strength from that father who did die too soon And who knows what from that nameless worn an who bedded That young Baron and damned my mother Blood Blood Blood Blood Blood (AT II m 2638) AI-Harba focused directly on the question of Paul s unknown grandmother, in the playwright s exquisite pun, that "nameless worn an" who "damned" Paul's mother The artist so often perceives more clearly than the historian There is also evidence that information identifying Jessica s mother was censored and destroyed by Leto II The Welbeck Abridgement of the Bene Gessent annual empire assessment indicates feat in 12335, when Bene Gessent historians, m an attempt to increase the annual supply of melange for the Sisterhood, threatened to reveal the God Emperor s complete ancestry, he assassmat ed them en masse and destroyed die portion of the Mikkro-Fishedotte which detailed his ancestry Although Leto razed the B G records, he did not tamper with his sister's notes, and through Ghanima's patient work with the Voices the truth was preserved During her work with the memory Voices, Ghamma found herself singularly attracted to Voices with variations of one name Ellen, Elena, Helen, Elamc.