Chapter 29

Moving through the dunes, Ghanima suppresses grief over Leto’s apparent death and channels it into Fremen resolve. She approaches the qanat near Tabr and notices an un-Fremen blaze of light at a covert entrance, signaling lax or corrupted security. A man and woman stand silhouetted within, their movements furtive and watchful.

Observing carefully, Ghanima recognizes the man as Palimbasha, a Tabr mathematics teacher with political ambitions. She spots a device on his belt—a keyed transmitter—implying his role in releasing the hunter-tigers. Concluding he serves House Corrino, she infers broader sietch infiltration and that other entrances may be similarly watched.

Ghanima judges the woman—Muriz—to be complicit but weak, and decides to take Palimbasha first. Injured yet deliberate, she improvises a blowpipe from her sandsnorkel, fits a poisoned needle as a dart, and creeps closer, masking the attack amid insects swarming the glowglobe.

Her dart strikes. Palimbasha dismisses it as a bite, then collapses, dead from the poison. Ghanima closes the distance, presses her crysknife into Muriz, and announces Palimbasha’s death, taking Muriz under threat. The outcome confirms the Corrino plot’s reach within Tabr and gives Ghanima a living source for names and methods.