The importance of genealogy, breeding, and ancestry is brought to the forefront again when Leto and Jessica admire each other upon their arrival to Arrakis. It is revealed that Jessica’s ancestry is unknown, to the Duke, and to Jessica herself. As they set up their new family home, Jessica retains the housekeeper, a Fremen woman named the Shadout Mapes, who is eager to serve a Bene Gesserit woman, doubtless due to the consequences of the Missionaria Protectiva. Their encounter covers water as wealth, and Jessica’s comments that she understands the semantic meaning of Mapes’s title, as well as ancient tongues fulfills the housekeeper’s expectation of a legend. Through observing minutiae, Jessica lays bare her housekeeper’s inner life, correctly guessing her history, and revealing that she knows there is a concealed weapon in her bodice.
Slowly, Mapes reaches into the neck of her dress to withdraw a milk-white blade. Mapes presses Jessica to ask if she knows the significance of this weapon. It could only be one thing, Jessica knew, the fabled crysknife of Arrakis, the blade that had never been taken off the planet, and was known only by rumor and wild gossip.
With the distinct sense that she is still being tested, Jessica stumbles into the answer that its meaning is a ‘maker’. She keeps her own counsel, but internalizes that the key word is “Maker”. True to her word, that the weapon was a gift, Mapes hands over the blade to Jessica, a tooth of shai-hulud, a sandworm.
Yueh, straining under the pressure of keeping secrets from Jessica, has a short conversation with her, touching on the kidnapping and potential death of his wife at the hands of the Harkonnens, and the life-prolonging drug, the spice. Jessica senses he is hiding something, but hesitates just short of pulling it out of him, and departs to explore the rest of their new quarters.
Deep into her explorations of the house, Jessica finds a door hidden behind a palm lock, supposed to verify the identity of the person seeking entry. Using her training, Jessica is able to distort the lines in her palm to unlock the door. She catches the housekeeper looking with resentment into the door, and pushes it to find it contains a water-laden greenhouse housing non-native plants. ““Every available space in the room was crowded with exotic wet-climate plants.” Not only is the room not sealed to reclaim moisture, the place is sustained by a constant spray of irrigation, and the glass that forms the walls is filtered to transform the appearance of the Arrakeen sun into a softer, yellower star. Jessica “estimate[s] that this pleasure room used water enough to support a thousand persons on Arrakis—possibly more.” On a leaf, she makes a discovery, a note beyond the Harkonnen’s sphere of influence, from the Emperor’s former proxy, which contains a hidden message. Using a second coded system that evaded even Hawat, the trained mentat, Jesssica finds a message: “Your son and the Duke are in immediate danger. A bedroom has been designed to attract your son. The H loaded it with death traps to be discovered, leaving one that may escape detection.”
“The threat to your Duke involves defection of a trusted companion or lieutenant. The H plan to give you as gift to a minion. To the best of my knowledge, this conservatory is safe. Forgive that I cannot tell more. ”
Paul, having palmed Yueh’s sleeping tablet, retires to his room, which is fitted out with all the smart automations allowed within the confines of this technology-free environment. With a desire to explore, Paul slips out of bed, and almost immediately is confronted with a hunter-seeker, a common assassination weapon. It is controlled remotely from a close distance, and relies on motion to target its prey. Paul’s trained immobility saves him, and he is able to seize the thing out of the air and crush it as the door opens to reveal the Shadout Mapes. She interprets his actions as saving her life. Thus, she tells him that contractually she owes him a water burden.
To pay off her debt, she tells Paul that the Fremen know there is a traitor in their midst.
The duke, meanwhile, is shoring up the operations of the spice collection on-planet. Though knowing that Caladan is his ancestral home, he devotes himself to the task of governance of Arrakis. He instructs Gurney to retain the “spice drivers, weather scanners, dune men—any with open sand experience.” with a 20% wage increase.
Like the lady Jessica, he is able to convey with his members and subordinates non verbally, a slap of the arm here, a signal there, which duties to priorities and sanction. The position he holds requires levers of propaganda, performance, and politics. While acting, he is aware the whole time that the Harkonnens have made an assassination attempt on Paul.
The aroma of rachag stimulant fills the air as the Duke Leto invites Paul to a full chamber meeting. He and Paul consider the matter of Hawat’s failure to catch the hunter -seeker, but ultimately both agree that Hawat’s training saved Paul, and the Duke refuses his resignation, graciously telling him that his only failure was overestimating the Harkonnens as the device was so simple. Whether he is feigning or has actually relaxed, he does not let any of his anxiety of the attempt bleed into the meeting. The men report the population of Arrakis and shrewdly plan whether the Atreidies and the Fremen can establish a relationship of trust. It is revealed that the Fremen conduct widespread smuggling operations. The Duke chooses not to fight this, but grants amnesty as long as he receives a tithe. This maneuver is not unexpected, but when Halleck points out that the Emperor is jealous of all Spice profits, the Duke reveals the rest of his plan. He will openly declare the tithe as part of business operations, deduct it from the support costs, defy the Harkonnens to object to this legal business, and cut out local officials who concealed Harkonnen secret profit skimming.