Paul awakens before nightfall inside the sealed stilltent, buried by sand after a storm. Jessica is awake too, though she has waited silently for Paul. Duncan has not returned, and Paul concludes that the receiver is useless. Surrounded by reclaimed air and moisture, both Paul and Jessica feel the harsh reality of life on Arrakis pressing in.

Jessica struggles with thirst, grief, and a dream in which Duke Leto's name is endlessly erased by sand. The dream leads Jessica to think of Jessica's unknown Bene Gesserit mother and of Jessica's newly revealed Harkonnen blood. Paul, meanwhile, turns immediately toward strategy: to strike the Harkonnens through spice, because desert power and the Fremen are the key to Arrakis.

Paul prepares to leave because Duncan has been gone long enough that, if captured, Duncan's ability to resist interrogation may soon fail. Paul opens the buried tent with a static compaction tool, climbs to the surface, and has Jessica pass up the pack. Jessica follows, increasingly aware that grief has left Jessica focused only on preserving Paul and Jessica's unborn daughter.

Outside, Paul collapses and recovers the tent while the desert night reveals animal sounds, starlight, and distant danger. Paul and Jessica climb to a ledge and see far-off bursts of orange fire and purple lasgun lines over the rocks. Jessica identifies the flashes as jetflares and lasguns, and Paul realizes Harkonnen ornithopters are sweeping the desert as if exterminating everything alive.

Paul decides that the only chance is to move south through the rocks and avoid the open desert, because the Harkonnens are killing anything that moves. As Paul begins to lead Jessica away, both hear the low hiss of aircraft and see dark ornithopters above them, bringing the immediate danger directly overhead.