On Rossak, Valya descends from the cliff city into the dangerous jungle for her daily secret assignment. She enters a hidden laboratory beneath a giant tree, where the ancient Sorceress Karee Marques conducts pharmaceutical experiments using Rossak plants, fungi, venoms, and animal extracts.

Karee tells Valya about a possible breakthrough involving mucus from burrowing slugs. Karee hopes the paralytic substance can be refined to bring a Sister close enough to death for her mind to cross the barrier into Reverend Mother awareness without killing her. Valya recognizes the possibility but remains wary because Sister Tiana has recently died during another failed attempt.

Karee mistakenly thinks Valya is volunteering for the next trial, but Valya quickly denies it. Although Valya wants advancement in the Sisterhood and has been drawn into Raquella’s inner circle and its secret breeding records, Valya does not intend to sacrifice herself. Valya views the Sisterhood as a path out of House Harkonnen’s disgrace and imagines future influence as a missionary Sister, in a noble household, or even at the Imperial Court.

The chapter then shifts to Reverend Mother Raquella, who receives Dr. Ori Zhoma, head of the Suk Medical School. Zhoma was once a promising Sisterhood trainee but was expelled after secretly selling Rossak drug extracts on the black market, even though she claimed the profits helped the school. Raquella protected Zhoma’s public reputation, allowing her to build an important career among the Suk doctors.

Raquella takes Zhoma to the infirmary, where failed Reverend Mother candidates remain comatose, brain-damaged, or mentally altered. Seeing the suffering women, Raquella wonders whether her own transformation was only an anomaly and whether the Sisterhood should stop risking lives. Zhoma argues that humanity must continue pushing beyond its limits after the defeat of the thinking machines, and her conviction restores Raquella’s confidence in the Sisterhood’s purpose.