l the spice they depended on The second argument is strategic only if the Guild were close by could they watch over the defeated houses protecting them from themselves and others A defeated force, even if it had the transport, could not venture forth with ambitions of revenge while the Guild patrolled the area Guild recon naisance ships could therefore guard both the sanctuary and Tupile at the same tune Add to this the disappearance from history of those few houses who took refuge on Tupile and the argument gains circumstantial weight One comment that deserves repeating is that Tupile, or the Tupiles, have never been proven to be a single star system The wealth of the Guild's agents and factors suggests that they drew from many populated worlds and many worlds suggests more than one star By inference, then as much as a whole sector may have been more or less under Guild control and exploitation as it grew Keeping a region of this size secret would not be impossible as other realities prove (the Tleilaxu for example) The Spacing Guild must have had wide latitude in desig nating this or that planet as Tupile If anyone knew the truth of the situation it would have been Emperor Leto II, and his knowledge of Tupile may yet come to light among the Rakis manuscripts S T Further references SPACING GUILD FOUNDATION SPAC ING GUILD OPERATIONS VENPORT AURELIUS CEVNA NORMA 497 VEMPORT,AURELKIS (140-79' B G > Ixian scientist and explorer, called "Foster-father of the Spacing Guild Numbers of scientist-refugees from Richese were resettled on the abandoned planet Komos (renamed Ix) at the outset of the Butfenan Jihad, and among their offspring the most energetic and intelligent was Aurehus Venport As a young man he gamed notoriety for advocating an overt maintenance of technology and for his astonishing progress in the field of interstellar spacecraft His views were shared by Norraa Cevna, with whom he also shared a liaison that lasted until his disappearance Cevna shared his desire but differed with him on method, throughout their union, she provided a diplomatic brake on his enthusiasm By 110 B G Venport's researches had taken him beyond the capabilities of Ix's fledgling technology The Ixians therefore encouraged Venport to build three ships, take his people, and leave the planet These "Aurehan exiles" began ten years of wandering hampered by uncertain navigational techniques, but reached at last a planet which historians, more for convenience than for enlightenment, call Tupile " Tupile met the requirements Venport had in mind from the beginning: material resources, a salvageable industrial base, an intelligent labor supply, and a location at the boundary of the known worlds While Tupile certainly had even less technological expertise man Ix, as a technologically virgin planet it had something to offer which Venport wanted desperately the opportunity for complete control and boundless power The Aurehan ex- iles presented themselves to the Tupilians as saviors destined to restore the planet s science bringing back the wealth and leisure they had known before the Jihad Venport's instm men* in the scheme was a quasi religious organization of the Ixians which he named the Society of Mystic Manners The Tupihans, mindful of then1 former prosperity and of their present wretchedness welcomed the exiles Venport unquestionably displayed the chansma and the shrewdness needed for his adopted role, and the Tupihans were eager for help from any quarter Venport combined the resources of planet and people with the trained cadre and scien tific knowledge he had brought from Ix m little more than a decade Tupihan technolo gy was recreated But more important to Venport himself he had made giant strides toward his secret goal ihe development of hyperspace vessels able to function without computer assisted navigaUon Of course the Ixians had not erected a technological socie ty from nothing in the Jihad Tupile had been scourged not torn to pieces Even so the exiles achieved a marvel of organization During this same period (100-85 B G) the Society of Mystic Manners discovered the navigational use of melange probably through the mysterious befnending of Cevna by an alleged Bene Gesscnt outcast Dardamus Leona Shard The properties of spite smoothed the way for the test of the prototype spacecraft The Golden Advent in84BG withNorma Cevna as both captain and navigator The voyage was a partial success the Advent crossed several light years and returned to Tupile as planned within five days but Cevna 498 collapsed from the stress of her combined role and Venport himself had to navigate the last short leg of the tnp in normal space Venport's disappointment tarnished his joy the obsession of his life had been achieved by someone else (even though a loved one), and had brought her the power and recognition he craved Cevna was unable to appreci ate the honor she had gained disabled for months, she showed little sign of improvement As Arki id Sidak one of the Ixians, wrote of Venport's envy, "Never has one man traveled so far only to realize on reaching harbor mat the real captain had been Penelope" (Fragments of an Odyssey, p.