At the Arrakeen landing field command post, Duke Leto and Paul discuss the hunter-seeker attack and the warning that a traitor threatens Paul. Leto blames Thufir Hawat for failing to secure the residence, but Paul defends Hawat, arguing that Hawat’s training helped him survive. When Hawat arrives to resign, Leto refuses, restores his confidence, and calls in the staff for a full strategy conference.

Hawat reports that the Fremen may become the Atreides allies: Duncan Idaho has found large sietch communities, reliable Fremen intelligence, gifts, and signs of allegiance to a mysterious figure called Liet. Leto assigns Gurney Halleck to negotiate with the smugglers, offering to tolerate their operations in exchange for a ducal tithe that can be handled legally. Hawat also reveals the immense Harkonnen profits from Arrakis and the poor condition of the spice-harvesting equipment left behind, making clear that the Harkonnens have sabotaged the Atreides position rather than simply departing.

The staff reviews harvesters, carryalls, ornithopters, sandworms, and the dangers of shields in the desert. Paul’s questions expose a major uncertainty: the Fremen appear amused by shields, and the Harkonnens valued crysknives and shield-related systems in ways the Atreides do not yet understand. Leto concludes that Arrakis requires a new kind of power, desert power, and he orders Hawat to prioritize Fremen recruitment, hoping for five battalions before Sardaukar disguised as Harkonnens can attack.

Leto also orders legal reprisals against eliminated Harkonnen agents and their families by forging allegiance documents and confiscating property. Paul privately judges the tactic dangerous because it leaves enemies nothing to gain by surrendering. The meeting shifts when Duncan Idaho arrives with news that Atreides forces captured Harkonnen mercenaries disguised as Fremen after a real Fremen courier warned them. The courier died, but Duncan recovered the man’s crysknife.

Stilgar, the Fremen leader Duncan visited, enters and forbids the blade from being unsheathed before those who have not earned that right. Leto carefully respects Fremen custom, and Duncan prevents a clash by explaining that Stilgar’s spitting on the table is a gift of precious water, not an insult. Stilgar accepts Duncan into a dual allegiance as both Fremen and Atreides soldier; the dead courier, Turok, becomes a symbolic bond between the Fremen and House Atreides. Duncan leaves as Leto’s ambassador to the Fremen, warning that the Harkonnens offer a million Solaris for a crysknife because such a blade could help an infiltrator enter a sietch.

Afterward, Hawat reports rumors of abandoned ecological testing bases that may contain valuable materials, but warns that the Fremen attach deep significance to them and that Kynes, the Imperial ecologist and Judge of the Change, may be involved. Leto wants to know whether the bases exist but reluctantly agrees to proceed gently. The staff disperses in uncertainty rather than confidence. Alone with his father afterward, Paul recognizes Leto’s desperation, worries about Hawat’s troubled behavior, and remembers the Reverend Mother’s warning that there may be no future for Leto.