After more than a century imprisoned in a preservation vault, the twins Andros and Hyla stand free inside the laboratory outpost that held them. The Swordmasters and Butlerians who released them are dead, slaughtered too quickly for the twins’ liking, though Swordmaster Ellus revealed enough under torture to explain the Butlerian Jihad, the fall of Omnius, and the failed cymek rebellion.

Hyla and Andros understand that the battle at the outpost was only a minor part of the larger war, but it stranded them for decades in conscious immobility. They decide they cannot remain in the ruined facility; instead, they will take the dead Butlerians’ ship, study its records, and learn the state of the Imperium for themselves.

The twins reflect on their origins. Juno secretly created them from General Agamemnon’s preserved sperm and a slave woman’s eggs, enhancing their bodies and minds with flowmetal-infused skin, heightened reflexes, and implanted combat and tactical knowledge. Juno intended them to become superior weapons and worthy children of Agamemnon, but the robot attack destroyed the outpost staff and left the program unfinished.

Ellus’s dying revelations also told the twins that Juno and Agamemnon are dead, both linked to the betrayal of Vorian Atreides, Agamemnon’s thirteenth son. Because Juno had filled the twins with bitterness over Vorian’s betrayal, Hyla and Andros now focus their inherited resentment on their brother.

The twins board the Butlerian ship, discard its religious icons, and examine its navigational charts and historical records. When they find accounts celebrating Vorian Atreides as a hero, Andros and Hyla decide their next purpose: after a century of waiting, they will leave the outpost and search for Vorian.