that the risk of mistreating her and the reward for aiding her were high enough to encourage sincere processing of all strangers, preserving genes that might be significant in the breeding program for the Kwisatz Had-erach Underneath the layer of password and test, the Missionana Protectiva wove a thm but strong anticipation of a messiah figure, an individual whose coming would signal the beginning of the culture's final triumph, the fulfillment of its ultimate hopes DUNE INVOLVEMENT Fremen legends show several signs of having been adjusted by the Bene Gessent Missionana Protectiva The Fremen were waiting a ' Mahdi " for instance The general pattern of transition-lo-success had been implanted long before they arrived on Arrakis However, Arrakis was a very special place, the source of the spice that had become crucially important to the Bene Gessent Their Reverend Mothers needed it, and their Truthsayers appear to have employed it Thus the source of toe spice received special attention from all of the Bene Gessent agencies The Missionana Protectiva provided an umbrella of protec tion not simply for any Bene Gessent adept who might be one small piece in the genetic jigsaw, but for sophisticated initiates as well Dune was also a nexus in the Bene Gessent scheme and deserved extra care from the Missionana Protectiva planners The Missionana Protectiva had established the Fremen short'a (superstitious rituals) long before the tnbe migrated to Arrakis The ilm andfigk (aspects of Zensunm religion) under pinnmgs of their culture had included latent suggestions of a Mahdi for millennia The Fremen knew that someday a Twelfth Imam would emerge from hiding (or be "reborn ) to unite The People, the Community of All Believers and lead them against 'the infidel to realization of the "ideal rehgio-pohtical community, the umma the "brotherhood of prophets ' Thus the Fremen would avenge their persecution and achieve their water nch Paradise This pattern paralleled the transition nexus aligned by the Missionana Protectiva to prepare for the coming of the Kwisatz Haderach somewhere m the galaxy At the time when they reinforced this se quence within the panoply of Fremen/Zensunm beliefs, the Missionana Protectiva could not anticipate that either the "messiah or the Zensunm would ever be physically present on Arrakis The agency s mam concern on Dune was the relationship between the place-not the culture-and the Bene Gessent's intermediate-not merely breeding program-needs A visitor to the spice planet might be an extremely important Sister, perhaps even a Reverend Mother So that planet-with little heed to the civilization inhabiting it-was pnmed for the sacred mystenous stranger ' She might seem to be a witch, a representa trve of dark powers, but she would bnng great favor to the natives if saved and great peril if mistreated She might even, so the rumor was planted, be the Great Mother whose offspring would be the "messiah"/ " savior'YKwtidtz Haderach It