Josef Venport travels freely through foldspace using his private fleet and loyal Navigators, leaving Cioba to manage Kolhar. His destinations include secret, forgotten colonies outside normal Imperial knowledge, such as Tupile for fugitives and Denali for VenHold research that must remain hidden from Butlerian scrutiny.

Josef arrives on Denali, a poisonous, hot world where humans survive only inside sealed modules. The site contains old cymek wreckage and serves as a secure research base, designed with quarantines and fail-safes against dangerous experiments, including plagues or possibly sentient computer routines.

Administrator Noffe, a Tlulaxa scientist rescued by Josef after Butlerian repression on Thalim, greets him. Noffe explains that recovering the scientific progress lost after the Jihad would take more than a lifetime, and he takes pride in work that would outrage anti-technology fanatics.

Noffe shows Josef ongoing experiments involving preserved brains from failed Navigator candidates. Josef views these failed transformations as useful research material, because understanding their altered minds may someday allow VenHold to reproduce Navigator abilities without such extreme physical mutation.

In Noffe's office, Josef reveals the purpose of his visit: he has brought fresh biological samples from Vorian Atreides, obtained through Dr. Zhoma and the Suk School. Josef explains that Vorian remains youthful after more than two centuries because of a cymek life-extension procedure performed by General Agamemnon.

Josef orders Noffe to use the samples to rediscover the lost life-extension process and adapt it for VenHold. Josef frames the project as essential to survival, arguing that he and his allies must live long enough to save humanity.