Piter de Vries

""It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.""

- Piter de Vries

Piter de Vries was a villain of the Dune universe. de Vries was a Twisted Mentat, or a Mentat that was warped that he was able to operate outside the ethical boundries that were imposed on normal Mentats. In the wake of an anti-technology Jihad several thousand years earlier, all computer technology was banned, and Mentats were developed to fill the gap left when computers were banned.

de Vries regularly took juice of Sapho, despite it being quite addictive and turning his lips bright red.

de Vries was a twisted sadist who went to work for Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. During his service to Harkonnen, he found how to break the conditioning of a Suk doctor - doctors who were conditioned to keep from harming those they served. He kidnapped and murdered the wife of Doctor Wellington Yueh, all while telling Yueh that the only way to keep his wife safe and alive was to work for them. He also promised Yueh that continued service to the Harkonnen would lead to his rejoining his wife. This turned out to be true since once Yueh had betrayed the Atreides family he worked for de Vries murdered him as well.

What he didn't plan on was that Yueh had implanted a poison tooth in Duke Leto, so that when Leto was brought to Baron Harkonnen and de Vries, the Duke bit down on his poison tooth and blew the poison out of his mouth when he thought the Baron was in range. However the Duke was in such bad shape by then that it was de Vries who was in range, and who died immediately afterwards.