At the Mentat School on Lampadas, Gilbertus Albans reflects on decades of exceptional students, including Draigo Roget and several Sisters trained as Mentats. Karee Marques, one of the last pureblood Sorceresses and the best of the Sisters Gilbertus trained, returns to the school after notifying him of her arrival.

Gilbertus welcomes the aged Karee at the dock and leads her inside. He is conscious that his own apparent age has not changed in years and hopes Karee does not notice, since Sisters are highly perceptive. In his office, Karee presents him with a carefully tied parcel, joking that it may have “explosive implications” for Mentats but poses no direct danger.

Gilbertus's caution reflects the school's history and current risks: he must protect Erasmus's hidden memory core, he remembers a past sabotage attack by a rival school, and Manford Torondo has recently arrived with many Butlerians and requested a meeting. When Gilbertus opens the parcel, he finds vials of ruby-red sapho, a Rossak-developed distillation from Ecaz barrier roots that Karee says improves concentration, focus, mental order, and acuity, especially in Mentats.

Karee explains that sapho stains skin red but has no known side effects, and she offers Gilbertus the distillation process if the school finds it useful. Gilbertus does not take it immediately; instead, he decides to study it further and later consult Erasmus, seeing it as a possible tool for improving the human mind.

The next morning, Alys Carroll escorts Manford Torondo into Gilbertus's office. Manford announces that Emperor Salvador has given the Butlerian movement more than two hundred Army of Humanity warships, enabling a broader campaign against forbidden technology and resistant worlds. He demands that Gilbertus provide Mentats trained as battle tacticians to help project military scenarios.

Gilbertus is uneasy because Erasmus's memory core is hidden nearby and because Manford's anti-technology crusade is intensifying. Alys immediately volunteers and says other Butlerian-minded students will do the same. Gilbertus agrees to create a battlefield curriculum, saying it may take months, but Manford orders him to begin that very day.