Vorian rides across the desert on a great sandworm with Ishanti, who remains wary of him and criticizes his lack of desert preparations. Vorian explains that he had only expected a routine return to the spice harvester, not a massacre and a crash, but Ishanti treats the desert’s unpredictability as a basic test of survival. Vorian suffers from thirst and dryness, while Ishanti withholds water and lets him endure the lesson.

After hours of travel, Ishanti guides the exhausted worm toward gray mountains and teaches Vorian how to dismount safely. Vorian follows her into the rocks, noticing hidden trail markers and realizing she is taking him to the mysterious desert people he had hoped to encounter. They enter a concealed cave guarded by armed men with pale knives, and Ishanti tells the guards that Vorian has not yet earned her full trust but must be allowed to speak with their leader.

Inside the cool grotto, Ishanti introduces Vorian to Naib Sharnak and recounts the massacre of the spice crew by two seemingly unstoppable hunters. Vorian confirms that the attackers claimed to be after him, though he does not know who they are or how they found him. Ishanti, representing Combined Mercantiles, worries that the attackers might be a competitor’s secret weapon or inhuman assassins, while Sharnak decides that any threat to the desert is a threat to the Freemen.

Sharnak sends scouts to examine the wreckage and tells Vorian to remain with the Freemen. Vorian does not resist because he has nowhere to go and had actually come to Arrakis hoping to meet the desert people. Two days later, the scouts Inulto and Sheur return and report that a worm has erased everything: machines, aircraft, dune rollers, bodies, and evidence.

With no proof left behind, Ishanti decides she must return to Arrakis City and report the danger to Venport headquarters. She offers to take Vorian back to civilization, but Vorian chooses to stay with the Freemen because he is intrigued by rumors of their long lives. When Sharnak attributes their longevity to melange, Vorian reveals that he is 218 years old and received a cymek life-extension treatment before Serena Butler’s Jihad. Sharnak is skeptical but unsettled, while Ishanti dismisses the old men’s reflections and departs at sunrise in her skimcraft to report the assassin threat.