Alia enters an Imperial Council meeting already sensing conflict among Paul, Chani, Irulan, Stilgar, and Korba. She needles Korba by calling the Qizarate spies rather than divines, exposing the tension between Paul’s religious bureaucracy and those closest to him. Paul notices Alia’s womanhood and reflects on her strange condition as a Reverend Mother awakened before birth.

The Council turns to the Tupile Treaty. Stilgar explains that the Guild wants Paul to sign without learning Tupile’s location, the sanctuary for defeated Great Houses. Irulan urges using melange as leverage, but Chani and Alia warn that such pressure could cause chaos or corner enemies into violence. Paul agrees to sign the treaty as it stands, explaining that prescience cannot simply be aimed at Tupile and that trying to find it might only conceal it further.

Stilgar next raises unrest in the Ixian Confederacy, where there is agitation for a constitution and resistance to Imperial taxes. Paul rejects any constitution, arguing that organized social power can become a tyranny without conscience, and forbids one by Order in Council. He then decides to use his signature on the Tupile Treaty as leverage to force Ixian submission to the Imperial tax through the Guild’s control of transport.

The Council discusses reports that Irulan’s father is drilling his remaining legion on Salusa Secundus. Paul warns that such maneuvers could get the former Emperor killed and make him a martyr, while Irulan admits nostalgia for her father’s reign is growing. Stilgar then presents a Bene Gesserit request to discuss preservation of Paul’s bloodline, which exposes Chani’s anguish over her inability to conceive despite prayer, doctors, and desert rites.

Irulan argues that Paul must produce an heir to prevent civil strife, implicitly offering herself as mother. Paul withdraws to the balcony, overwhelmed by the machinery of empire, the endless pilgrimage to Arrakis, the continuing Jihad, and the terrible future he has foreseen. Chani comforts him, and Paul returns to reject Irulan’s proposal, saying her motives are bound to Bene Gesserit orders and personal power rather than love. Irulan reacts with fury and refuses his pity.

Finally, Stilgar reports that the Guild again proposes sending a formal embassy to Arrakis. Korba objects with fanatical hatred of the Guild, but Paul allows the embassy, expecting a Steersman and hinting he may have a use for one. Irulan privately realizes that Paul cannot see a Steersman directly, confirming that the conspirators can remain hidden behind Guild prescience.