He maintained his dull demeanor, pondering a shift in jobs.  A curious work partner could be dangerous, perhaps even a Face Dancer mimic.  C'tair might need to flee before anyone closed in on him.  The Tleilaxu had systematically wiped out the Ixian middle class as well as the nobles, and would not rest until they had ground even the dust under their boot heels.

 

Accompanied by a Master, robed guards approached them one afternoon in the middle of a shift.  With hair hanging limp in front of his fatigued eyes, C'tair was drenched in sweat.  His curious work mate stiffened, then concentrated furiously on the task at hand.

 

C'tair felt cold and sick.  If the Tleilaxu had come for him, if they knew who he was, they would torture him for days before executing him.  He tensed his muscles, ready to fight.  Perhaps he could throw several of them down into the one-way magma pit before he himself was killed.

 

Instead, the guards stepped up to the fidgety man beside C'tair.  Leading them, a Tleilaxu Master rubbed his spidery fingers together and smiled.  He had a long nose and a narrow chin; his grayish skin looked as if it had been leached of all life.  "You, Citizen-suboid . . . or whatever you are.  We have discovered your true identity."

 

The man looked up quickly, glanced over at C'tair as if beseeching him for help, but C'tair studiously averted his gaze.

 

"There's no longer any need to hide," the Master continued in a syrupy voice.  "We've found records.  We know that you were actually an accountant, one of those who kept inventories of Ixian-manufactured items."

 

The guard clapped a hand on the man's shoulders.  The worker squirmed, panicked.  All pretense slid away.

 

The Tleilaxu Master stepped closer, more paternal than threatening.  "You misjudge us, Citizen.  We have expended a great deal of effort to track you down because we have need of your services.  We Bene Tleilax, your new masters, require intelligent workers to assist us in our government headquarters.  We could use someone with your mathematical expertise."

 

The Master gestured around the hot, stinking chamber.  The clatter of the automated conveyor rolled on, dumping rocks and twisted scraps of metal over the lip into the blazing pit.  "This work is far beneath your skills.  Come with us, and we will give you something much more interesting and worthwhile to do."

 

With a thin smile of hope, the man nodded faintly.  "I'm very good at accounting.  I could help you.  I could be very valuable.  You have to run this like a business, you know."

 

C'tair wanted to scream a warning.  How could the man be so stupid?  If he'd survived for a dozen years under Tleilaxu oppression, how could he not be aware of such an obvious trick?

 

"There, there," the Master said.  "We'll have a council meeting, and you can tell us all your ideas."

 

The guard looked sharply at C'tair, and the Ixian's heart froze again.  "Is our business of concern to you, Citizen?"

 

C'tair made every effort to keep his face slack, not to show fear in his eyes, to keep his voice slow and dull.  "Now there'll be more work for me."  He looked forlornly at the assembly line.

 

"Then work harder."

 

The guard and the Tleilaxu Master took their captive away.  C'tair went back to his labors, staring at the debris, picking over every item before it toppled into the long shaft. . . .

 

Two days later, C'tair and his work shift were ordered to gather out on the floor of the main grotto so they could watch the execution of the accountant "spy."

 

 

WHEN HE ACCIDENTALLY STUMBLED upon Miral Alechem during his monotonous daily routine, C'tair covered his surprise well.

 

He had changed jobs again, nervous by the arrest of the hidden accountant.  He never used the same identity card more than two days in a row.  He moved from assignment to assignment, enduring a few curious looks, but Ixian workers knew better than to question.  Any stranger could well be a Face Dancer who had infiltrated work gangs in an attempt to pick up talk of unrest or secret sabotage plans.

 

C'tair had to bide his time and make new plans.  He frequented different food stations, standing in long lines where bland cooked fare was distributed to the workers.

 

The Tleilaxu had put their biological technology to work, creating unrecognizable food in hidden vats.  They grew vegetables and roots by splitting cells so that the plants produced only shapeless tumors of edible material.  Eating became a process rather than a pleasurable activity, as much a chore as the routine tasks during a shift.

 

C'tair remembered times he had spent in the Grand Palais with his father, the Ambassador to Kaitain, and his mother, an important Guild Bank representative.  They had sampled outworld delicacies, the finest appetizers and salads, the best imported wines.  Such memories seemed like fantasies now.  He could not recall what any of that food had tasted like.

 

He straggled at the end of the line so that he did not have to fight the press of other workers.  When he received his helping from the server, he noticed the large dark eyes, raggedly cropped hair, and narrow but attractive face of Miral Alechem.

 

Their gazes locked and recognition flashed between them, but both knew enough not to speak.  C'tair glanced behind him toward the seating areas, and Miral raised her spoon.  "Sit at that table, worker.  It's just come free."

 

Without questioning, C'tair sat at the indicated place and began eating.  He concentrated on his meal, chewing slowly to give her all the time she needed.

 

Before long, the line ended and the food shift was over.  Finally, Miral came over, bearing her own food tray.  She sat down, stared at her bowl, and began eating.  Although C'tair did not look directly at her, they soon began a mumbled conversation, moving their lips as little as possible.

 

"I work at this food distribution line," Miral said.  "I've been afraid to change assignments because it might draw attention to me."

 

"I have lots of identity cards," C'tair said.  He had never given her his correct name, and he was going to leave it that way.

 

"We are the only two left," Miral said.  "Of the whole group."

 

"There will be others.  I've still got a few contacts.  For now, I'm working alone."

 

"Can't accomplish much that way."

 

"Can't accomplish anything at all if I'm dead."  When she slurped her food and didn't answer, he continued, "I've been fighting alone for twelve years."

 

"And you haven't accomplished enough."

 

"It will never be enough until the Tleilaxu are gone and Ix has been returned to our people."  He clamped his lips together, afraid he had spoken too vehemently.  He took two slow mouthfuls from his bowl.  "You never told me what you were working on, those technological items you were scavenging.  Do you have a plan?"

 

After glancing at him, Miral quickly tore her glance away.  "I'm building a detection device.  I need to find out what the Tleilaxu are doing in that research pavilion they keep so carefully guarded."

 

"It's scan-shielded," C'tair mumbled.  "I've already tried."

 

"That is why I need a new device.  I think . . . I think that facility is the reason behind their entire takeover."

 

C'tair was startled.  "What do you mean?"

 

"Have you noticed that the Tleilaxu experiments have entered a new phase?  Something very dark and unpleasant is happening."

 

C'tair paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth, looked over at her, and glanced down at his nearly empty bowl.  He would need to eat more slowly if he wished to finish this conversation without anyone noticing.

 

"Our women have been disappearing," Miral said with a slash of anger in the back of her voice.  "Young women, fertile and healthy.  I've watched them vanish from the work rolls."

 

C'tair had not remained in one place long enough to notice details like that.  He swallowed hard.  "Are they abducted for Tleilaxu harems?  But why would they take 'unclean' Ixian women?"

 

Supposedly, no outsider had ever seen a Tleilaxu female; he'd heard that the Bene Tleilax guarded their women zealously, protecting them from the contamination and perversions of the Imperium.  Maybe Tleilaxu women were kept hidden because they were as gnome-ugly as the men.

 

Could it just be a coincidence that the missing females were all healthy and of childbearing age?  Such women would make the best concubines . . . but the mean-spirited Tleilaxu did not seem the type who would indulge in extravagant sexual pleasures.

 

"I think the answer has something to do with what's going on in that shielded pavilion," Miral suggested.

 

C'tair set his spoon down.  He only had one bite left in his bowl.  "I know this much:  The invaders came here with a terrible purpose, not just to take over our facilities or conquer this world.  They have another agenda.  If they simply wanted to take over Ix for their own profit, they would not have dismantled so many factories.  They would never have ceased production of the new-design Heighliners, reactive fighting meks, and other products that brought a fortune to House Vernius."

 

With a nod, she said, "I agree.  They intend to accomplish something else -- and they're doing it behind shields and closed doors.  Perhaps I'll learn what it is."  Miral finished her meal and stood up.  "If I do, I'll let you know."

 

After she left, C'tair felt a glimmer of hope again for the first time in many months.  At least he wasn't the only one fighting the Tleilaxu.  If one other person was involved in the effort, others must be forming pockets of resistance as well, here and there.  But he hadn't heard of anything happening, not for months.

 

His hopes sagged.  He couldn't stand the thought of waiting for the right opportunity, day after day, week after week.  Perhaps he'd been thinking too small.  Yes, he needed to change tactics and contact someone outside for assistance.  He would have to reach off-world, no matter what the risk might be.  He needed to search for powerful allies to help him overthrow the Tleilaxu.

 

And he knew of one person who had far more at stake than he did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Unknown surrounds us at any given moment.  That is where we seek knowledge.

 

-MOTHER SUPERIOR RAQUELLA BERTO-ANIRUL:  Oratory Against Fear

 

 

IN THE ORNATE MUMMER'S PORTICO of the Imperial Palace, Lady Anirul Corrino stood with a delegation from Shaddam's Court.  Each person was dressed in extravagant finery, some ridiculously gaudy, as they awaited the arrival of yet another dignitary.  It was a daily routine, but this guest was different. . . .

 

Count Hasimir Fenring had always been dangerous.

 

She squinted into Kaitain's ever-flawless morning sunlight, watched trained hummingbirds flit over flowers.  From orbit, the vigilant weather-control satellites manipulated the flow of warm and cool air masses to maintain an optimal climate around the Palace.  Against her cheeks Anirul felt the delicate kiss of a warm breeze, just the right accent on a perfect day.

 

Perfect . . . except for the arrival of Count Fenring.  Though he had married a Bene Gesserit equally as shrewd as himself, Fenring still made Anirul's skin crawl; a disturbing aura of shed blood surrounded him.  As the Kwisatz Mother, Anirul knew every detail of the Bene Gesserit breeding scheme, knew that this man had himself been bred as a potential Kwisatz Haderach in one of the offshoots of the program -- but he'd been found lacking and was instead a biological dead end.

 

But Fenring possessed an extraordinarily sharp mind and dangerous ambitions.  Though he spent most of his time in Arrakeen as the Imperial Spice Minister, he kept his boyhood friend Shaddam under his thumb.  Anirul resented this influence, which even she, as the Emperor's wife, did not have.

 

With a pompous clatter, an open coach drawn by two golden Harmonthep lions approached the palace gates.  Guards waved the Count in, and the carriage rounded the circular drive in a commotion of wheels and enormous alloy-shoed paws.  Footmen stepped forward to open the carriage's enameled door.  Anirul waited with her retinue, smiling like a statue.

 

Fenring stepped down to the slate of the portico.  He had decked himself out for the reception in a black frock coat and top hat, a crimson-and-gold sash, and gaudy badges of office.  Because the Emperor admired regal trappings, it amused the Count to play along.

 

He removed his hat and bowed, then looked up at her with large, glittering eyes.  "My Lady Anirul, so nice to see you, hmmmm?"

 

"Count Fenring," she said with a simple bow and a pleasant smile.  "Welcome back to Kaitain."

 

Without a further word or modicum of civility, he put his top hat back on his misshapen head and walked past her on his way to an immediate audience with the Emperor.  She followed him at a distance, flanked by the other peacock members of the Court.

 

Fenring's access to Shaddam was direct, and it seemed obvious to Anirul that he cared little for the fact that she disliked him; nor did he question why she had formed such an opinion.  He had no knowledge of his failed place in the breeding scheme, or the potential he had missed.

 

Working with Sister Margot Rashino-Zea, whom he'd later married, Fenring had assisted in arranging Shaddam's marriage to a Bene Gesserit of Hidden Rank -- Lady Anirul herself.  At the time, the new Emperor had needed to secure a subtle but powerful alliance in the uneasy transition after the death of old Elrood.

 

Foolishly, Shaddam failed to see his precarious position, even now.  The flare-up with Grumman was only one manifestation of unrest throughout the realm, as were the constant gestures of defiance, vandalism, and defacings of Corrino monuments.  The people no longer feared or even respected him.

 

It disturbed Anirul that the Emperor thought he no longer required Bene Gesserit influence, and rarely consulted his ancient Truthsayer, the Reverend Mother Lobia.  He had also grown more annoyed with Anirul for producing no sons, pursuant to her secret orders from the Sisterhood.

 

Empires rise and fall, Anirul thought, but the Bene Gesserit remain.

 

As she followed Fenring, she watched his athletic steps as he made his way toward her husband's throne room.  Neither Shaddam nor Fenring understood all the subtleties and behind-the-scenes activities that glued the Imperium together.  The Bene Gesserit excelled in the arena of history, where the glitter and pomp of ceremony had no importance.  Compared with Kwisatz Mother Anirul, both the Padishah Emperor and Hasimir Fenring were rank amateurs-and didn't even know it.

 

Inwardly she smiled, sharing her amusement with the crowded Sisters in Other Memory, her constant companions from thousands of past lives.  The millennia-long breeding program would culminate soon in the birth of a male Bene Gesserit of extraordinary powers.  It would happen in two generations . . . if all plans came to fruition.

 

Here, while masquerading as a devoted wife to the Emperor, Anirul pulled all the strings, controlled every effort.  She commanded Mohiam back on Wallach IX, who worked with her secret daughter by Baron Harkonnen.  She watched the other Sisters as they laid plans within plans to connect Jessica with House Atreides . . . .

 

Ahead of her, Fenring moved confidently, knowing his way around the city-sized Imperial Palace better than any man, better even than Emperor Shaddam himself.  He crossed a magnificent jewel-tiled entry and stepped into the Imperial Audience Chamber.  The immense room contained some of the most priceless art treasures in a million worlds, but he had seen them all before.  Without a backward glance, he tossed his hat to a footman and strode across the polished stone floor toward the throne.  It was a long walk.

 

Anirul hovered next to one of the massive support columns.  Courtiers flitted about in self-important business, entering private gossip stations.  She skirted priceless statuaries as she made her way toward an acoustically superior alcove where she often stood within easy listening distance.

 

On the translucent blue-green Golden Lion Throne sat the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV, the eighty-first Corrino to rule the Imperium.  He wore layers of military-style clothing, accented by jangling medals and badges and ribbons.  Weighed down by the trappings of rank, he could barely move.

 

His withered Truthsayer, Lobia, stood in an alcove off to one side of the crystal throne.  Lobia was the third leg of Shaddam's advisory tripod, which included the high-browed Court Chamberlain Ridondo and Hasimir Fenring (though, since the Count's well-publicized banishment, the Emperor rarely consulted him in public).

 

Shaddam refused to notice his wife.  Fifteen Bene Gesserit Sisters stationed in the Palace were like shadows flitting silently between rooms . . . there, but not there.  As he intended them to be.  Their loyalty to Shaddam was unquestioned, especially after his marriage to Anirul.  Some served as ladies-in-waiting, while others cared for the royal daughters Irulan, Chalice, and Wensicia, and would tutor them one day.

 

The ferretlike Imperial Observer bobbed along a river of red carpeting, and then up the wide, shallow steps of the dais to the base of the throne.  Shaddam leaned forward on his perch while Fenring came to a stop, bowed deeply, and looked up with a smile twitching his lips.

 

Even Anirul didn't know why the Count had rushed here from Arrakis.

 

But the Emperor did not look pleased. "As my servant, Hasimir, I expect you to keep me advised about events in your purview.  Your latest report is incomplete."

 

"Hmmm-ahh, my apologies if Your Highness feels I have omitted something of importance."  Fenring spoke quickly as his mind raced through possibilities, trying to guess the reason for Shaddam's ire.  "I do not wish to trouble you with trivialities that are best handled by myself."  His eyes flicked from side to side, calculating.  "Ahhh, what concerns you, Sire?"

 

"Word has reached me that the Harkonnens are suffering heavy losses of men and equipment on Arrakis through guerrilla activities.  Spice production has begun to fall off again, and I have been troubled by numerous complaints from the Spacing Guild.  How much of this is true?"

 

"Hmmm-ah, my Emperor, the Harkonnens whine too much.  Perhaps it is a ploy to raise the price of melange on the open market, or to justify a request for lower Imperial tariffs?  How has the Baron explained it?"

 

"I could not ask him," Shaddam said, springing his trap.  "According to reports from a Heighliner that just arrived, he has gone to Wallach IX with a fully armed frigate.  What is that all about?"

 

Alarmed, Fenring raised his eyebrows, then rubbed his long nose.  "The Bene Gesserit Mother School?  I, hmmm, to be honest I was not aware of that.  The Baron doesn't seem the sort who would consult with the Sisterhood."

 

Equally astonished, Anirul leaned forward at her listening post.  Why would Baron Harkonnen possibly go to Wallach IX?  Certainly not to obtain advisors, for he had made no secret of his dislike for the Sisterhood after they'd forced him to provide a healthy daughter for the breeding program.  Why then would he bring a military ship?  She calmed her racing pulse.  This didn't sound good.

 

The Emperor snorted.  "Not much of an Observer, are you, Hasimir?  Why, too, has there been a bizarre defacement of my most expensive statue in Arsunt?  That's right in your backyard."

 

Fenring blinked his large, dark eyes.  "I was not aware of any vandalism in Arsunt, Sire.  When did it happen?"

 

"Someone took the liberty of adding anatomically correct genitalia to the front of my Imperial likeness -- but because the perpetrator made the size of the organ so small, no one even saw it until recently."

 

Fenring had trouble stifling a laugh.  "That is most, hmmm, unfortunate, Sire."

 

"I don't find it so amusing, especially when added to other outrages and insults.  This has been going on for years.  Who is doing it?"

 

Abruptly, Shaddam stood from his throne and brushed a hand down the front of his uniform, jangling the medals and badges.  "Come to my private den, Hasimir.  We must discuss this in greater detail."

 

When he raised his head in a haughty Imperial gesture, Fenring reacted too smoothly.  Anirul realized that, although the affronts Shaddam mentioned had been real enough, the discussion had merely been a ploy to bring the Count here for another purpose.  Something they would not discuss in front of others.

 

Men are so clumsy when they try to keep secrets.

 

While she would have found those secrets interesting enough, Anirul was much more concerned and alarmed about what the Baron intended at Wallach IX.  She and the Truthsayer Lobia, on opposite sides of the Imperial throne, communicated by discreet hand signs.

 

A message would be dispatched to the Mother School immediately.  Crafty old Harishka would have ample opportunity to plan an appropriate response.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking, and the methods by which thoughts are communicated, inevitably create a system permeated by illusions.

 

-Zensunni Teaching

 

 

AS THE ARROGANT-LOOKING WITCH Cristane guided Baron Harkonnen through the maze of shadowy passageways, his walking stick clicked like gunshots on the cold flagstone floor.  With his six guards behind him, he hobbled forward, trying to keep up.

 

"Your Mother Superior has no choice but to listen," the Baron said in a strident voice.  "If I don't get the cure I need, the Emperor will learn of the Sisterhood's crimes!"  Cristane ignored him; she tossed her short, chestnut hair and never looked back.

 

It was a damp night on Wallach IX, the outside silence broken only by cold breezes.  Yellow globes illuminated the corridors of the complex of school buildings.  No Sisters stirred, and only shadows moved.  The Baron felt as if he were walking into a tomb -- which it would be if he ever brought his case before the Landsraad.  Breaking the Great Convention was the most serious offense the witches could commit.  He held all the cards.

 

Haloed by pulsing light from poorly tuned glowglobes, Cristane marched ahead until she seemed to fade from view.  The young witch glanced back, but did not wait for him.  When one of the guards tried to assist the Baron, he responded by shoving the arm away and continuing on his own, as best he could manage.  A shiver ran up his spine, as if someone had whispered a curse in his ear.

 

The Bene Gesserit had hidden fighting skills, and there must be swarms of them in this lair.  What if the Mother Superior didn't care about his accusations?  What if the old hag thought he was bluffing?  Even his armed Harkonnen troopers could do nothing to keep the witches from killing him in their own nest, should they choose to attack.

 

But the Baron knew they dared not act against him.

 

Where are all the witches hiding?  Then he grinned.  They must be afraid of me.

 

With an angry huff, the Baron reviewed the demands he would make, three simple concessions and he would not file formal charges in the Landsraad:  a cure for his disease, delivering Gaius Helen Mohiam to him intact and ready for utter humiliation . . . and the return of the two daughters he'd been coerced into fathering.  The Baron was curious about how his offspring fit into the witches' plans, but he supposed he could back off on that demand, if necessary.  He didn't really want a couple of female brats anyway, but it gave him negotiating room.

 

Sister Cristane moved ahead, while the guards hung back to match the Baron's painful, plodding pace.  She turned a corner into shadows ahead of him.  The pulsing glowglobes seemed too yellow, too filled with static.  They began to give him a headache, and he wasn't seeing clearly.

 

When the Baron's entourage turned the corner, they saw only an empty hall.  Cristane was gone.

 

The cool stone walls echoed with the disconcerted gasps of the Harkonnen escort.  A weak breeze, like cadaverous breath, oozed across the air and stole under the Baron's clothing.  Involuntarily, he shivered.  He heard a faint whisper, like scuttling rodent feet, but saw no movement.

 

"Run ahead and check it out!"  He nudged the squad leader in the side.  "Where did she go?"

 

One of the troopers unshouldered his lasrifle and ran along the glowglobe-illuminated corridor.  Moments later he shouted back, "Nothing here, my Lord Baron."  His voice had an eerie, hollow quality, as if this place sucked sound and light from the air.  "No one in sight anywhere."

 

The Baron waited, his senses alert.  Cold sweat trickled down his back, and he narrowed his spider-black eyes, more in consternation than in terror.  "Check all passageways and rooms in the vicinity, and report back to me."  The Baron looked down the corridor, refusing to step deeper into the trap.  "And don't be so edgy that you shoot each other."

 

His men disappeared from view, and he no longer heard their shouts or footsteps, either.  This place felt like a mausoleum.  And damned cold.  He hobbled into an alcove and stood silently with his back to a wall, ready to protect himself.  He unholstered a personal flechette pistol, checked its charge of poisoned needles . . . and held his breath.

 

A glowglobe flickered over his head, dimmed.  Hypnotic.

 

With a sound of running boots, one of his men reappeared, short of breath.  "Please come with me, my Lord Baron.  You need to see this."

 

Unsettled, the man led the way down a short set of stairs and past a library where filmbooks were still playing, their whispering voices droning into empty air, with no listeners.  Cushion indentations remained on some of the chairs, where patrons had sat only moments ago.  Everyone had disappeared without bothering to shut off the programs.  The muffled speakers sounded like the voices of fading ghosts.

 

The Baron's distress grew as he hobbled from room to room with the troopers, then finally from building to building.  They found no one, not even when his men used primitive life-tracer scanners.  Where were the witches?  In catacombs?  Where had his escort Cristane gone?

 

Anger made the Baron's cheeks hot.  How could he present his demands to the witch mother if he couldn't find her?  Was Harishka trying to buy time?  By avoiding the confrontation, she had short-circuited his revenge.  Did she think he would just go away?

 

He hated to feel helpless.  Swinging his walking stick, the Baron smashed the nearest library reader, then flailed about, breaking everything he could find.  With glee, the guards set about overturning tables, knocking down shelves, tossing heavy volumes through glass windows.

 

It accomplished nothing.  "Enough," he said, then led the way down the corridor again.

 

Presently he stood in a large office; gold lettering on the door marked it as the workroom of the Mother Superior.  The dark, highly polished desk was clear of objects, no files or records anywhere; its chair sat at an angle, as if pushed back abruptly.  On a ceramic dish, incense still burned, imparting a faint odor of cloves.  He knocked it onto the floor in a flurry of aromatic ash.

 

Damned witches.  The Baron shivered.  He and his men backed out of the room.

 

Outside again, he became disoriented, a disconcertingly alien feeling of being lost.  Neither he nor his guards could agree upon the correct route back to the shuttle.  The Baron strode across an outdoor park and into a passageway that skirted a large stucco-and-timber building where lights burned inside.

 

In the grand dining hall, hundreds of still-steaming meals rested on long plank tables, benches arranged neatly in place.  No other people were in the room.  No one.

 

With his finger, one of the troopers nudged a chunk of meat in a bowl of stew.  "Don't touch that," the Baron barked.  "Could be subdermal poison."  It would be just the sort of thing the witches would try.  The trooper recoiled.

 

The squad leader's pale-eyed gaze darted around; his uniform was damp with perspiration.  "They must have been here only minutes ago.  You can still smell the food."

 

The Baron cursed and swung his wormhead cane across the table, knocking plates, cups, and food to the floor.  The clatter echoed off the walls and ceiling of the hall.  But there was no other sound.

 

His men used detection equipment to check under the floors, in the walls and ceilings, sweeping in all directions without success.

 

"Check the calibration on those life-tracers.  The witches are here somewhere, damn them!"

 

As he watched his men work feverishly, the Baron fumed.  His skin crawled.  He thought he heard a faint, smothered laugh, but it vanished into the haunted silence.

 

"Do you want us to torch this place, my Baron?" the squad leader asked, eager for the conflagration.

 

He imagined the entire Mother School in flames, the convoluted wisdom and history and breeding records consumed in an inferno.  Perhaps the black-clad witches would be trapped inside their hidden boltholes and roasted alive.  That would be worth seeing.

 

But he shook his head, angry at the answer forced upon him.  Until the witches gave him the cure he desperately needed, Baron Harkonnen dared not strike against the Bene Gesserit.

 

Afterward, however . . . he would make up for lost time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is no reality -- only our own order imposed on everything.

 

-Basic Bene Gesserit Dictum

 

 

FOR JESSICA it was like a child's game . . . except this one was deadly serious.

 

Rustling like bats, hundreds of Sisters filled the dining hall, amused to watch the Baron's antics, dodging him as if it were a game of invisible tag.  Some crouched under tables; Jessica and Mohiam pressed against the wall.  All the women were in silent breathing mode, concentrating on the illusion.  No one spoke.

 

They were in plain sight, but the befuddled Harkonnens could neither see nor sense them.  The Baron saw only what the Bene Gesserit wanted him to see.

 

On top of the head table stood the dark, aged Mother Superior, smiling like a schoolgirl in the middle of a prank.  Harishka folded rail-thin arms across her chest as the pursuers grew more and more frustrated and noticeably agitated.

 

A trooper passed only centimeters in front of Jessica.  He waved a life-tracer, nearly striking her face.  But the guard saw nothing but false readings.  On the dial of the scanner, data blinked and flared as the soldier moved past Jessica -- though to him nothing registered on the gauge.  Devices could not easily be fooled . . . but men were different.

 

Life is an illusion, to be tailored to our needs, she thought, quoting a lesson she had learned from her teacher Mohiam.  Every Acolyte knew how to trick the eye, the most vulnerable of human senses.  The Sisters made barely audible sounds, dampened their slight movements.

 

Knowing the swaggering Baron was on his way, Mother Superior had summoned the Sisters into the great dining hall.  "Baron Harkonnen believes he is in control," she had said in her crackling voice.  "He thinks to intimidate us, but we must remove his strength, make him feel impotent."

 

"We are also buying time for ourselves to consider this matter . . . and giving the Baron time to make his own mistakes.  Harkonnens are not known for their patience."

 

Across the room, the clumsy Baron nearly brushed against Sister Cristane, who slid smoothly away.

 

"What the hells was that?"  He whirled, sensing the movement of air, a brief scent of fabric.  "I heard something rustle, like a robe."  The guards raised their weapons, but saw no targets.  The heavyset man shuddered.

 

Jessica exchanged a smile with her teacher.  The Reverend Mother's normally flat eyes danced with glee.  From her high table, Mother Superior stared down at the flustered men like a bird of prey.

 

In preparation for the mass hypnosis that now smothered the Baron and his men, Sister Cristane had allowed herself to be visible to them, so she could lead them into the web.  But gradually the guide had faded from view as the Sisters concentrated, focusing their efforts on these pliable victims.

 

The Baron hobbled closer, his face a mask of unbridled fury.  Jessica had the opportunity to trip him, but chose not to.

 

Mohiam moved to glide beside him, said something faint and eerie.  "You shall fear, Baron."  In a directed-whisper that carried only to the fat man's ears, this man she despised so much, Mohiam created a barely discernible susurration that twisted words from the Litany Against Fear into something altogether different:

 

"You shall fear.  Fear is the mind-killer.  Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration."  She walked around him, spoke to the back of his head.  "You cannot face your fear.  It will pass inside you and infect you."

 

He thrashed with his hand, as if to bat away a bothersome insect.  His expression looked troubled.  "When we look upon the path of your fear, there will be nothing left of you."  Smoothly, Mohiam slipped away from him.  "Only the Sisterhood will remain."

 

The Baron stopped dead in his tracks, his face pale, his jowls twitching.  His black eyes glanced to the left, where Mohiam had been standing only seconds before.  He swung his cane in that direction, so hard that he lost his balance and fell to the floor.

 

"Get me out of here!" he bellowed to his guards.

 

Two troopers rushed to help him to his feet.  The squad leader guided them to the main doors and out into the passageway, while the remaining guards continued to search for targets, swinging the snub noses of their lasrifles back and forth.

 

At the threshold, the Baron hesitated.  "Damned witches."  He looked around.  "Which way back?"

 

"To the right, my Lord Baron," the squad leader said in a firm voice.  Unknown to him, Cristane hovered invisibly at his side, whispering directions in his ear.  Upon reaching the shuttle, they would find it already set on automatic pilot, ready to take the Baron back through the planet's complex defenses to their frigate in orbit.

 

Unsuccessful, frustrated, helpless.  The Baron was not accustomed to such feelings.  "They wouldn't dare harm me," he muttered.

 

Nearby, several Sisters snickered.

 

As the Harkonnens fled like gaze hounds with their tails between their legs, ghostly laughter from the dining hall followed them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Immobility is often mistaken for peace.

 

-EMPEROR ELROOD CORRINO IX

 

 

WITH GOOD HUMOR, Rhombur's new concubine Tessia accompanied him around the grounds of Castle Caladan.  It amused her that the exiled Prince seemed more like an excited, clumsy child than the heir to a renegade House.  It was a sunny morning, with lacy clouds drifting high overhead.

 

"It is hard to get to know you, when you fawn upon me so, my Prince."  They walked together along a terraced hillside path.

 

He clearly felt out of his league.  "Uh, first you've got to call me Rhombur."

 

She raised her eyebrows, and her sepia eyes sparkled.  "I suppose that is a start."

 

He flushed deeply as they continued to walk.  "You must have smitten me, Tessia."  He plucked a field daisy from a spray of flowers on a grassy embankment and extended it to her.  "Since I'm the son of a great Earl, I suppose I shouldn't allow that, should I?"

 

Tessia accepted the offering and spun the flower coyly in front of her plain but intelligent-looking face.  She peeked around the petals at him; her expression grew warm and understanding.  "There are some advantages to living in exile, I suppose.  Nobody notices who you're smitten with."

 

Then she pointed a stern finger at him.  "Though I would respect you more if you did something to counteract the dishonor that's fallen on your family.  Simply being an optimist hasn't achieved anything for years, has it?  Trusting that everything will turn out right, thinking that you can do nothing more than sit here and complain?  Talking is no substitute for doing."

 

Surprised by the remark, Rhombur spluttered his response.  "But I've, uh, requested that Ambassador Pilru file petition after petition.  Won't my oppressed people try to overthrow the invaders, waiting for me to return?  I expect to march back and reclaim my family name . . . anytime now."

 

"If you sit safely here and wait for your people to do your work for you, then you do not deserve to rule such a populace.  Have you learned nothing from Leto Atreides?"  Tessia put her hands on her slender hips.  "If you ever intend to be an Earl, Rhombur, you must follow your passions.  And get better intelligence reports."

 

He felt decidedly uncomfortable, stung by the truth in her words, but at a loss.  "How, Tessia?  I have no army.  Emperor Shaddam refuses to intervene . . . and the Landsraad, too.  I was only granted limited amnesty when my family went renegade.  Uh, what else can I do?"

 

Determined, she grasped his elbow as they continued their brisk walk.  "If you permit me, perhaps I might make suggestions.  They teach us many subjects on Wallach IX, including politics, psychology, strategy facilitation. . . .  Never forget that I am a Bene Gesserit, not a serving wench.  I am intelligent and well educated, and I see many things that you do not."

 

Rhombur stumbled along with her, trying to regain his mental balance.  Suspicious, he said, "Is this something the Sisterhood put you up to?  Were you assigned as my concubine just to help me get Ix back?"

 

"No, my Prince.  I won't pretend, though, that the Bene Gesserit wouldn't prefer to have a stable House Vernius back in power.  Dealing with the Bene Tleilax is far more difficult . . . and confusing."  Tessia ran her fingers through her close-cropped brown hair, making it look as mussed as the Prince's perpetual tangles.  "For myself, I would rather be the concubine of a Great Earl within the fabled Grand Palais on Ix, than of an exiled Prince who lives off the good graces of a generous Duke."

 

He swallowed hard, then plucked another field daisy and sniffed it himself.  "I would rather be that person, too, Tessia."

 

 

LOOKING DOWN FROM A CASTLE BALCONY, Leto watched Rhombur and Tessia stroll hand in hand across a field of wildflowers swaying in the ocean breeze.  Leto felt a heavy ache in his heart, a warm envy toward his friend; the Ixian Prince seemed to be walking on air, as if he had forgotten all about the troubles on his overthrown homeworld.

 

He smelled Kailea's perfume behind him, a sweet, flowery scent reminiscent of hyacinth and lily of the valley, but he hadn't heard her approach.  He looked back at her, and wondered how long she had been standing there, watching him stare down at the inseparable lovers.

 

"She's good for him," Kailea said.  "I never had much fondness for the Bene Gesserit before this, but Tessia is an exception."

 

Leto chuckled.  "He does seem quite taken with her.  A testament to Sisterhood seduction training."

 

Kailea cocked her head; she wore a jewel-studded comb in her hair, and had taken particular care to apply the most flattering touch of makeup.  He had always found her beautiful, but at this moment she seemed . . . aglow.

 

"It takes more than dueling practice, parades, and fishing trips to make my brother happy . . . or any man."  Kailea stepped out onto the sunlit balcony with Leto, and he became uncomfortably aware of how alone they were.

 

Back before the fall of Ix, when she had been the daughter of a powerful Great House, Kailea Vernius had seemed a perfect match for Leto.  Given time, in the normal course of events, Old Duke Paulus and Earl Dominic Vernius probably would have arranged a marriage.

 

But things were much different now. . . .

 

He could not afford to become entangled with a young woman from a renegade House, a person who -- in theory -- carried a death sentence if she ever tried to become involved in Imperial politics.  As a noble daughter, Kailea could never become just a casual lover, like a girl from the village below Castle Caladan.

 

But he couldn't deny his feelings.

 

And wasn't a Duke entitled to take a concubine if he wished?  There was no shame in it for Kailea, either, especially with her lack of prospects.

 

"Well, Leto -- what are you waiting for?"  She stepped close to him, so that one of her breasts grazed his arm.  Her perfume made him dizzy with pheromones.  "You are the Duke.  You can have anything you desire."  Kailea drew out the last word.

 

"And what makes you think there's anything I . . . desire?"  To his own ears, his voice sounded strangely hollow.

 

Raising her eyebrows, she gave him a coy smile.  "Surely you are accustomed to making difficult decisions by now?"

 

He hesitated, frozen.  Indeed, he thought, what am I waiting for?

 

They both moved at the same time, and he took her warmly into his arms with a long-held sigh of relief and growing passion.

 

 

FROM THE TIME LETO WAS YOUNG, he remembered watching his father spend sunny days in the courtyard of Castle Caladan, where he would listen to the petitions, concerns, and well-wishes of the people.  Old Paulus's bearish, bearded father had called it "going about the business of being a Duke."  Leto carried on the tradition.

 

A line of people trudged up the steep path to the open gates, to participate in an archaic system in which the Duke settled disputes.  Though efficient legal systems existed in all the large cities, Leto did this for the opportunity to maintain contact with his people.  He liked to respond personally to their complaints and suggestions.  He found it better than any number of surveys, opinion polls, and reports from supposed experts.

 

As he sat under the warm morning sun, he listened to one person after another as the line shuffled forward.  An old woman, whose husband had gone to sea in a storm and never returned, asked that he be declared dead, and went on to request Leto's blessing and dispensation to marry her husband's brother.  The young Duke told her to wait a month on both accounts, after which he would approve her petition.

 

A ten-year-old boy wanted to show Leto a sea hawk he had raised from the time it was a chick.  The large red-crested bird clutched the boy's leather-cuffed wrist, then flew up into the open air of the courtyard, circled (much to the terror of the sparrows nesting in the eaves), and came back to the boy when he whistled. . . .

 

Leto loved to focus his attentions on personal details here at home, where he could actually see how his decisions mattered to the lives of his people.  The immense Imperium, supposedly spanning "a million worlds," seemed too abstract, too vast to matter much here.  Still, the bloody conflicts on other worlds -- such as between Ecaz and Grumman, or the ages-old animosity between House Atreides and House Harkonnen -- affected their own populations in as personal a way as anything he saw here.

 

Leto had long been eligible for marriage -- very eligible, in fact -- and other Landsraad members wanted to enter into an alliance with House Atreides and mingle bloodlines.  Would it be one of the daughters of Armand Ecaz, or would some other family make him a better offer?  He had to play the dynastic game his father had taught him.

 

For years now he'd longed for Kailea Vernius, but her family had fallen, her House gone renegade.  A Duke of House Atreides could never marry such a woman.  It would be political suicide.  Still, that did not make Kailea any less beautiful, or desirable.

 

Rhombur, happy with Tessia, had suggested that Leto take Kailea as his ducal concubine.  For Kailea there would certainly be no shame in becoming the chosen lover of a Duke.  In fact, it would secure her precarious position here on Caladan, where she lived under a provisional amnesty, with no guarantees. . . .

 

Next, a balding man with squinting eyes opened a smelly basket.  A pair of House Guards closed in on him, but moved back when he lifted out a warm, reeking fish that must have been dead for days.  Flies buzzed around it.  When Leto frowned, wondering what insult this could be, the fisherman blanched, suddenly realizing the impression he had made.  "Oh no, no, m'Lord Duke!  This ain't an offerin'.  No -- look, ye.  This fish has sores.  All my catch in the southern sea had sores."  Indeed, the belly of the fish was rough and leprous.  "The seakelp rafts out there are dyin' and they stink to the heavens.  Somethin's wrong, and I thought ye should know 'bout it."

 

Leto looked over at Thufir Hawat, calling on the old warrior to use his Mentat skills.  "A plankton bloom, Thufir?"

 

Hawat scowled, his mind racing, and then he nodded.  "Likely killed off the seaweed, which is now rotting.  Spreading disease among the fish."

 

Leto looked at the fisherman, who hurriedly covered his basket and held it behind his back to keep the smell far away from the Duke's chair.  "Thank you, sir, for bringing this to our attention.  We'll have to burn the dead kelp islands, maybe add some nutrients to the water to restore a proper plankton-and-algae balance."

 

"Sorry about the stink, m'Lord Duke."  The fisherman fidgeted.  One of Leto's guards took the basket and, holding it at arm's length, carried it outside the gates, where the sea breezes would absorb the odor.

 

"Without you, I might not have learned about the problem for weeks.  You have our gratitude."  Despite Caladan's excellent satellites and weather stations, Leto often learned information -- more accurately and swiftly -- through the people rather than these mechanisms.

 

The next woman wanted to give him her prize chicken.  Then two men were disputing the boundaries of pundi rice fields and dickering over the value of an orchard lost by flood when a crumbling dike spilled water into the lowlands.  An old lady presented Leto with a thick sweater she had knitted herself.  Next, a proud father wanted Leto to touch the forehead of his newborn daughter. . . .

 

The business of being a Duke.

 

 

TESSIA EAVESDROPPED outside the sitting area of the Castle apartment she shared with Rhombur, while Leto and the Prince discussed Imperial politics:  the embarrassing vandalism of Corrino monuments, the declining health of Baron Harkonnen, the escalating and unpleasant conflict between Moritani and Ecaz (even with Sardaukar peacekeeping troops in place on Grumman), and the continued efforts of Leto's diplomatic corps to interject a note of reason to the situation.

 

The conversation eventually turned to the tragedies that had befallen House Vernius, how long it had been since the overthrow of Ix.  Expressing resentment for this had become routine for Rhombur, though he never found the courage to take the next step toward reclaiming his birthright.  Safe and content on Caladan, he had given up hoping for revenge . . . or at least had put it off for another, undetermined day.

 

By now, Tessia had had enough.

 

While still at the Mother School, she'd read thick files on House Vernius.  Her knowledge of the history and politics of technology was a common interest with Rhombur.  Even knowing all the Sisterhood's plans within plans, she felt as if she'd been made for him -- and therefore obligated to nudge him into action.  She hated to see him . . . stuck.

 

Wearing a floor-length black-and-yellow caliccee dress, Tessia placed a silver tray with flagons of dark beer on the table between the men.  She spoke up, surprising them with her interruption.  "I've already promised you my help, Rhombur.  Unless you intend to do something about the injustice to your House, don't complain about it for another decade."  Raising her chin arrogantly, Tessia spun about.  "I, for one, don't want to hear it."

 

Leto saw the flash in her intense, wide-set eyes.  In astonishment, he watched her leave the room with only a faint rustle of her dress.  "Well, Rhombur, I expected a Bene Gesserit to be more . . . circumspect.  Is she always so blunt?"

 

Rhombur looked stunned.  He picked up his beer and swallowed a gulp.  "How, in only a few weeks, did Tessia figure out exactly what I needed to hear?"  A fire burned in his eyes, as if the concubine had merely provided the spark for the tinder that had been piling up inside him for so long.  "Maybe you've been too kind all these years, Leto.  Making me overly comfortable while my father stays in hiding, while my people remain enslaved."  He blinked.  "It's not going to turn out for the best all by itself, is it?"Leto stared at him for a long moment.  "No, my friend.  No, it isn't."

 

Rhombur could not ask Leto to send massive forces on his behalf, because that would invite open warfare between House Atreides and the Bene Tleilax.  Leto had already risked everything to prevent that from happening.  Right now, he was just a piece of flotsam, without a purpose.

 

The Prince's face darkened with determination.  "Maybe I ought to make a grand gesture, return to my homeworld, take a formal diplomatic frigate with a full escort -- uh, I could rent one, I suppose -- and land in the port-of-entry canyon on Ix.  I'd publicly reclaim my name, demand that the Tleilaxu renounce their illegal seizure of our planet."  He huffed.  "What do you think they'd say to that?"

 

"Don't be foolish, Rhombur."  Leto shook his head, wondering if his friend was serious or not.  "They'd take you prisoner and perform medical experiments on your body.  You'd end up in a dozen pieces and a dozen different axlotl tanks."

 

"Vermilion hells, Leto -- what else am I going to do?"  Distracted and disturbed, the Prince stood up.  "If you will excuse me?  I need to think."  He trudged up a low riser to his private bedchamber and shut the door.  Leto stared after his friend for a long moment, sipping his drink, before returning to his private study and the piled inventory documents awaiting his inspection and signature. . . .

 

Watching from an upstairs balcony, Tessia flitted down the winding stairs and slid open the bedroom door.  Inside, she found Rhombur on the bed, staring at a picture of his parents on the wall.  Kailea had painted it herself, longing for the days in the Grand Palais.  In the picture, Dominic and Shando Vernius were dressed in full regalia, the bald Earl in a white uniform with purple-and-copper Ixian helixes adorning the collar, and she in a billowing lavender merh-silk gown.

 

Tessia massaged his shoulders.  "It was wrong of me to embarrass you in front of the Duke.  I'm sorry."

 

He saw the tenderness and compassion in her sepia gaze.  "Why apologize?  You're right, Tessia, though it's difficult for me to admit it.  Maybe I'm ashamed.  I should have done something to avenge my parents."

 

"To avenge all of your people -- and to free them."  She heaved an exasperated sigh.  "Rhombur, my true Prince, do you want to be passive, defeated, and complacent . . . or triumphant?  I'm trying to help you."

 

Rhombur felt her surprisingly strong hands working expertly at his knotted muscles, loosening them, warming them.  Her touch was like a soothing drug, and he was tempted to sleep so that he could forget his troubles.

 

He shook his head.  "I gave up without a fight, didn't I?"

 

The concubine's fingers worked down his spine to the small of his back, arousing him.  "That doesn't mean you can't fight again."

 

 

WITH A DEEPLY PUZZLED EXPRESSION, Kailea Vernius brought a shiny black packet to her brother.  "It has our family crest on it, Rhombur.  Just came from a Courier in Cala City."

 

His sister had green eyes and copper-dark hair held back by glazed-shell combs.  Her face had grown into the lush beauty of womanhood with the soft edges of youth; she reminded Rhombur of their mother Shando, who had once been a concubine of Emperor Elrood's.

 

Perplexed, the Prince gazed at the helix on the package, but saw no other markings.  Dressed in common, comfortable clothes, Tessia came up behind Rhombur while he used a small fishing knife to cut open the parcel.  His brow wrinkled as he brought out a sheet of ridulian paper with lines, triangles, and dots on it.  Then he caught his breath.

 

"It looks like a sub rosa message, an Ixian battle code written in a geometrical cipher."

 

Kailea pursed her lips.  "Father taught me the complexities of business, but little of military matters.  I didn't think I needed them."

 

"Can you decode it, my Prince?"  Tessia asked in a voice that made Rhombur wonder if his Bene Gesserit concubine also had special translation skills.

 

He scratched his tousled blond hair, then reached for a notepad.  "Uh, let me see.  My tutor used to beat the codes into my head, but it's been years since I've thought about them."  Rhombur sat cross-legged on the floor, then began scribbling the Galach alphabet in a scrambled order he'd memorized.  He scratched out lines and recopied the pattern more carefully.  With old memories coming back to him, he stared at the paper and his pulse quickened.  Someone with inside knowledge had undoubtedly prepared this.  But who?

 

Next Rhombur took a ruler and, measuring carefully, made a new sheet into a grid.  Across the top, he wrote the scrambled alphabet, one letter inside each square, then added a pattern of coding dots.  Placing the mysterious message next to his decryption sheet, he lined up dots with letters, then transcribed one word at a time.  "Vermilion hells!"

 

 

Prince Rhombur Vernius, Rightful Earl of Ix:  The Tleilaxu usurpers torture or execute our people for perceived infractions, then use the corpses for horrible experiments.  Our young women are stolen in the darkness.  Our industries remain overrun by invaders.

 

There is no justice for Ix -- only memories, hopes, and slavery.  We long for the day when House Vernius can crush the invaders and once again free us.  With all due respect, we request your assistance.  Please help us.

 

 

The note was signed by C'tair Pilru of the Freedom Fighters of Ix.

 

Rhombur leaped to his feet and hugged his sister.  "It's the Ambassador's son -- Kailea, do you remember?"

 

Eyes lit with half-forgotten happiness, she remembered how the dark-haired twins had flirted with her.  "Nice-looking young man.  His brother became a Guild Navigator, didn't he?"

 

Rhombur grew silent.  For years he'd known such things were happening on his world, but he'd avoided thinking about it, hoping the problems would go away.  How could he contact the rebels on Ix?  As an exiled Prince without a House, how could he address the tragedy?  He hadn't been willing to consider all the possibilities.

 

"Mark my words," Rhombur vowed.  "I'm going to do something about this.  My people have waited too long."

 

He pulled back from his sister, and his gaze moved around to Tessia, who stood watching him.  "I'd like to help," she said.  "You know that."

 

Rhombur drew his concubine and his sister to him in a great bear hug.  Finally, he had a sense of purpose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To learn about this universe, one must embark on a course of discovery where real dangers exist.  Education cannot impart this discovery; it is not a thing to be taught and used or put away.  It has no goals.  In our universe, we consider goals to be end products, and they are deadly if one becomes fixated on them.

 

-FRIEDRE GINAZ, Philosophy of the Swordmaster

 

 

TRANSPORT ORNITHOPTERS CARRIED the Ginaz students in groups, descending as they flew along the edge of a forbidding new island, beside black-lava cliffs worn slick over the centuries by cascading waterfalls.  The mound of sharp rock rose out of the water like a rotten tooth, without jungles, without greenery, without apparent habitation.  Surrounded by deep, treacherous water, the mountainous island -- nameless, except for its military designation -- lay at the eastern end of the archipelago.

 

"Ah look, another tropical paradise," Hiih Resser said, in a dry tone.  Peering through one of the small portholes, crowded beside his classmates, Duncan Idaho knew this place would only hold new ordeals for all of them.

 

But he was ready.

 

The 'thopter gained altitude and flew up the windward side to the curving mouth of a steep crater.  Smoke and ash still coughed out of vents, adding a heavy, hot pall to the humid air.  The pilot circled around so they all could identify a single shining 'thopter landed on the crater rim; the small craft would be used in some part of their training, no doubt.  Duncan could not guess what might be in store for them.

 

The 'thopter cruised to the base of the volcano, where jutting elbows of cracked reefs and steaming fumaroles formed their camp.  Colorful self-erecting tents dotted flat surfaces of the lava rock, encircling a larger compound.  No amenities whatsoever.  When they landed, many of the students rushed out to choose their tents, but Duncan could not see how any one was preferable to another.

 

The tall Swordmaster waiting for them had leathery skin, a mane of thick gray hair that hung to the middle of his back, and haunting eyes set deeply into bony sockets.  With a twinge of awe, Duncan recognized the legendary warrior, Mord Cour.  As a child on Hagal, Cour had been the sole survivor of his massacred mining village; he'd lived as a feral boy in the forested cliffs, taught himself to fight, then infiltrated the bandit gang that had destroyed his village.  After gaining their trust, he single-handedly slew the leader and all the bandits, then marched off to join the Emperor's Sardaukar.  He had served as Elrood's personal Swordmaster for years before retiring to the academy on Ginaz.

 

After making them recite the Swordmaster's Pledge in unison, the legendary warrior said, "I have killed more people than any of you pups have ever met.  Pray that you do not become one of them.  If you learn from me, then I will have no excuse to slay you.""I don't need any incentive to learn from him," Resser said to Duncan out of the corner of his mouth.  The old man heard the muttered words and snapped his glance over to the redheaded student.  In the back of the group, Trin Kronos, one of the other Grumman trainees (though much less friendly), snickered, then silenced himself.

 

As Mord Cour held Resser with his piercing gaze, waiting, Duncan cleared his throat and took one step forward.  "Swordmaster Cour, he said that none of us needs an incentive to learn from a great man like you, sir."  He gripped the hilt of the Old Duke's sword.

 

"No one requires an excuse to learn from a great man."  Cour swiveled around to look at all the students.  "You know why you are here?  Here, on Ginaz, I mean?"

 

"Because this is where Jool-Noret started everything," the dark-skinned trainee from Al-Dhanab said promptly.

 

"Jool-Noret didn't do anything," Cour said, shocking them all.  "He was a tremendous Swordmaster, skilled in ninety-three fighting methods.  He knew about weapons, shields, tactics, and hand-to-hand combat.  A dozen other skilled fighters followed him like disciples, begging Noret to teach them advanced skills, but the great fighter always refused, always put it off with the promise he would train them when the time was right.  And he never did!

 

"One night a meteor struck the ocean offshore and sent a wave crashing into the island where Jool-Noret lived.  The water flattened his hut and killed him in his sleep.  It was all his followers could do to recover his body, that mummified relic they'll be proud to show you back on the administration island."

 

"But, sir, if Jool-Noret taught nothing, why was the Ginaz School founded in his name?" Resser said.

 

"Because his disciples vowed not to make the same mistake.  Remembering all the skills they'd wanted to learn from Noret, they formed an academy where they could teach the best candidates all the fighting techniques they might require."  The ash-choked breezes ruffled his hair.  "So, are you all ready to learn how to become Swordmasters?"

 

The students answered with a resounding "Yes!"

 

Cour shook his long gray mane and smiled.  The gusts of ocean wind sounded like sharp fingernails scraping the lava cliffs.  "Good.  We will begin with two weeks of studying poetry."

 

 

IN THE MINIMAL SHELTER of their colorful tents, the trainees slept on the rocks -- cold during the night, baking hot during the day.  Gray clouds of spewed ash blocked the sun.  They sat without chairs, ate dried and salted food, drank tepid water that had been stored in old casks.  Everything had an aftertaste of sulfur.

 

No one complained about the hardships.  By then, Swordmaster trainees knew better.

 

In the rough environment, they learned about metaphors and verse.  Even on ancient Terra, honor-bound samurai warriors had valued their prowess in composing haikus as much as they valued their skill with a blade.

 

When Mord Cour stood on a rock beside a steaming hot spring and recited ancient epics, the passion in his voice stirred the students' hearts.  Finally, when the old man saw that he had made them all teary-eyed, he smiled and clapped his hands.  Jumping down from the rock, Cour announced, "Success.  Good, now it is time to learn fighting."

 

 

CLAD IN FLEXALLOY CHAIN MAIL, Duncan rode astride an enormous armored turtle that kept snapping at its reins and its rider.  Lashed into his saddle, legs spread to encompass the broad plated shell, he balanced a wooden pike with a blunted metal tip.  He held the shaft over one wrist and stared across at the three similarly armed opponents.

 

The fighting turtles were hatched from stolen eggs and raised in cove pens.  The sluggish behemoths reminded Duncan of when he'd had to fight while wearing thick plate armor.  But their horned jaws could slam shut like blast doors and, when they had a mind to, the turtles could lurch forward with hellish speed.  Duncan could see from chipped and broken plates on the shells that these beasts were veterans of more combat than he had ever seen.

 

Duncan rapped his lance on the turtle's thick shell, thumping like a drummer.  His beast stomped forward toward Hiih Resser's mount, thrashing its monstrous head from side to side and snapping at anything in reach.

 

"I'm coming to unseat you, Resser!"  But Duncan's turtle chose that moment to stop, and no amount of urging could get it to move again.  The other turtles wouldn't cooperate, either.

 

The turtle-joust was the ninth fighting event in a decathlon the students had to pass before they were admitted to the next level of the class.  Through five grueling days breathing ash-thick air, Duncan had never placed lower than third -- in swim-fighting, long-jumping, crossbows, slingshots, javelins, aerobic weightlifting, knife throwing, and tunnel-crawling.  Throughout, standing on his high rock, Mord Cour had watched the proceedings.

 

Resser, who had become Duncan's friend and rival, also achieved a respectable score.  The other Grumman students formed a clique of their own, clustering around the bullyish leader Trin Kronos, who seemed immensely full of himself and his heritage (though his demonstrated fighting abilities did not set him much apart from the others).  Kronos crowed about his proud life serving House Moritani, but Resser rarely talked about his home or family.  He was more interested in squeezing every bit of ability from Ginaz.

 

Each night, deep into the hours of darkness, Duncan and Resser would set to work in the base-tent library with a pile of filmbooks.  Ginaz students were expected to learn military history, battle strategies, and personal fighting techniques.  Mord Cour had also impressed upon them the study of ethics, literature, philosophy, and meditation . . . all the things he had not been able to learn as a feral boy in the forested cliffs of Hagal.

 

In evening sessions with the Swordmasters, Duncan Idaho had memorized the Great Convention, whose rules for armed conflict formed the basis of Imperial civilization following the Butlerian Jihad.  Out of such moral and ethical thinking, Ginaz had formulated the Code of the Warrior.

 

Now, while struggling to control his curmudgeonly turtle, Duncan rubbed his red eyes and coughed.  His nostrils burned from the ash in the air and his throat felt scratchy.  Around him, the ocean roared against the rocks; fumaroles hissed and spat rotten-egg stink into the air.

 

After constant, ineffective prodding, Resser's turtle finally lunged forward, and the redhead had all he could do to remain seated and keep his blunted lance pointed in the right direction.  Soon all the turtles began to move, lumbering together in a slow-motion frenzy.

 

Duncan dodged simultaneous pike thrusts from Resser and the second opponent, and struck out at the third with the butt of his own weapon.  The blunt end of the lance bashed the student squarely on the chest armor, sending him sprawling.  The downed trainee landed heavily on the rough ground, then rolled out of the way to avoid the snapping turtles.

 

Duncan flattened himself against the shell of his mount, evading another thrust from Resser.  Then Duncan's turtle halted in its tracks to defecate -- which took a long time.

 

Glancing around, helpless in his saddle, Duncan saw the remaining mounted adversary go after Resser, who defended himself admirably.  While his turtle completed its business, Duncan waited for precisely the right moment, positioning himself to one side on the hard shell, as near to the combatants as he could get.  Just as Resser countered with his own weapon and knocked down the other combatant, he raised his lance in a show of triumph -- as Duncan knew he would.  At that very moment, Duncan reached over and slammed his pike into the redhead's side, tumbling Resser off the turtle.  Only Duncan Idaho remained, the victor.

 

He dismounted, then helped Resser climb to his feet and brushed sand from his chest and legs.  A moment later Duncan's turtle finally began to move, lumbering about in search of something to eat.

 

 

"YOUR BODY IS YOUR GREATEST WEAPON," Mord Cour said.  "Before you can be trusted with a sword in battle, you must learn to trust your body."

 

"But Master, you taught us the mind is our greatest weapon," Duncan interrupted.

 

"Body and mind are one," Cour responded, his voice as sharp as his blade.  "What is one without the other?  The mind controls the body, the body controls the mind."  He strutted along the rugged beach, sharp rocks crunching under his callused feet.  "Strip off your clothes, all of you -- down to your shorts!  Take off your shoes.  Leave all weapons on the ground."

 

Without questioning orders, the students peeled off their clothing.  Gray ash continued to fall around them, and brimstone gases sighed up from fumaroles like hell's breath.

 

"After this final test, you can all be quit of me, and of this island."  Mord Cour pursed his lips in a stem expression.  "Your next destination has a few more flowers and amenities."  Some of the students gave a ragged cheer, tinged with uneasiness about the ordeal they were soon to face.

 

"Since all of you passed a 'thopter-pilot competency test before coming to Ginaz, I'll keep my explanation brief."  Cour gestured up the steep slope to the high crater lip, surrounded in hazy gray murk.  "A craft awaits you on top.  You saw it on your way in.  The first to reach it can fly away to your clean and comfortable new barracks.  Coordinates are already locked into the piloting console.  The rest of you . . . will walk back down the mountain and camp here on the rocks again, without tents and without food."  He narrowed the eyes on his ancient face.  "Now, go!"

 

The students raced forward, using their energy reserves to get a head start.  Although Duncan wasn't the fastest student off the mark, he chose his route more carefully.  Steep cliff bands blocked some paths halfway up the sheer cone, while other couloirs tapered off to dead ends before reaching the top.  Some gullies looked tempting, thin streams and waterfalls promised a slippery, uncertain ascent.  Upon seeing the 'thopter high up on the crater rim during their initial approach, he'd studied the slope with avid interest, preparing himself.  Now he drew upon everything he had observed.  And he started up.

 

As the terrain steepened, Duncan gained on those ahead of him, skillfully choosing gullies or couloirs, scrambling up rugged, knobby conglomerate rock while others got sidetracked into easy-looking gravel chutes that crumbled beneath their feet and sent them tumbling back down.  He ran along connecting ridges and rounded shoulders that did not lead directly to the top but provided easier ground and permitted a faster ascent.

 

Years ago, when he'd raced for survival in the rugged Forest Guard Preserve on Giedi Prime, Rabban had tried to hunt him down.  By comparison, this was easy.

 

The rough lava rock was sharp beneath Duncan's bare feet, but he had an advantage over most of his fellow students:  calluses developed by years of walking without shoes on the beaches of Caladan.

 

He skirted a hot spring and climbed a fissure that gave him precarious hand- and footholds.  He had to wedge himself into the crack, searching for protrusions and crannies he could use to haul himself up another body length.  Some of the rotten rock broke loose and tumbled.

 

Elsewhere, he had no doubt that Trin Kronos and some of the other self-centered candidates would be doing their best to sabotage the competition, rather than focusing on increasing their own pace.

 

By sunset he reached the lip of the volcano -- the first in his class.  He had run without resting, climbed dangerous scree slopes, chosen his route carefully but without hesitation.  With other competitors not far behind him, coming up all sides of the cone, he leaped over a steam vent and ran for the waiting ornithopter.

 

As soon as he spotted the craft, he looked over his shoulder to see Hiih Resser stumble up close behind him.  The redhead's skin was scratched and covered with ash.  "Hey, Duncan!"  The air was thick with fumes and dust belched out from the crater.  The volcano rumbled.

 

Close to victory Duncan put on a burst of speed, closing the distance to the 'thopter.  Resser, seeing he had no chance of winning, dropped back, panting, and gracefully acknowledged his friend's victory.

 

At the crater's far rim, Trin Kronos pulled himself up from an alternate route, his face flushed and angry at seeing Duncan so close to the waiting 'thopter.  When he saw Resser, his fellow Grumman student, stagger to a breathless halt and concede, Kronos looked even more furious.  Though they came from the same world, Kronos often went out of his way to express scorn for Resser, to humiliate the redhead and make his life miserable.

 

In this class, it was survival of the fittest, and many of the students had developed an intense dislike for each other.  Just watching the way Kronos harassed his fellow Grumman trainee, Duncan had formed a harsh opinion of the spoiled son of a nobleman.  Once Duncan flew off in the 'thopter, Kronos would probably wait for his Grumman friends, and they would pummel Resser to vent their own frustrations.

 

As Duncan placed one foot in the empty craft, he reached a decision.  "Hiih Resser!  If you can get here before I strap in and take off, I'm sure the 'thopter will carry two of us."

 

Farther away, Trin Kronos put on a burst of speed.

 

Duncan snapped on his safety harness, touched the retractor bar to shorten the wings for jet-boost takeoff, while Resser stared in disbelief.  "Come on!"

 

Grinning, the redhead found new energy.  He sprinted forward as Duncan slid the starter switch into position.  In his years of service to the Duke, he'd been taught to fly by some of the best pilots in the Imperium.  Now he went through the motions smoothly.Railing against Duncan's decision to break the rules, Kronos raced forward, his feet kicking up broken rock.  The 'thopter's instrument panel flashed on.  An illuminated orange box told Duncan the jetpods were armed, and he heard the low, powerful hiss of the turbines.

 

Resser leaped onto the 'thopter skids just as Duncan raised the vehicle with the jet assists.  Panting, the redhead grabbed the edge of the cockpit door and held on.  He gulped in lungfuls of air.

 

Seeing he would never make it to the vessel, Trin Kronos stooped to snatch up a jagged, fist-sized lava rock and threw it, striking Resser's exposed hip.

 

Duncan depressed a glowing action-sequence button, and the wings snapped up and down, climbing high above the lava cap of the volcano.  The jetpods kicked in, and the wings went into lift attitude.  He let up on the power.  Resser hauled himself all the way inside in a tangle of arms and legs.  Wheezing and out of breath, he wedged himself into the meager open space beside Duncan in the cockpit and began to laugh.

 

The wind of the ornithopter's beating wings blasted the disappointed Kronos.  Left behind, the young man hurled another rock, which bounced harmlessly off the plaz windowshield.

 

Duncan waved cheerfully and tossed Kronos a handlight from the 'thopter's supply kit.  The Grumman caught it, expressing no gratitude for the assistance in the growing dark.  Far behind him, the other students, fatigued and aching, would return to camp on foot to spend a miserable, cold night out in the open.

 

Duncan boosted power, extended the wings to their fullest setting.  The sun sank below the horizon, leaving a red-orange glow across the water.  Darkness began to fall like a heavy curtain over the string of islands to the west.

 

"Why did you do that for me?" Resser asked, wiping sweat off his brow.  "This was supposed to be a solo test.  The Swordmasters certainly didn't teach us to help each other."

 

"No," Duncan said with a smile.  "It's something I learned from the Atreides."

 

He adjusted the instrument panel illumination to a lambent glow, and flew by starlight to the coordinates of their next island.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Never underestimate the power of the human mind to believe what it wants to believe, no matter the conflicting evidence.

 

-CAEDMON ERB, Politics and Reality

 

 

 

 

IN AN EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND how the Sisterhood had short-circuited his demands, the Baron and Piter de Vries huddled in the metal-walled conference room of the Harkonnen military frigate.  The ship orbited Wallach IX, weapons ready . . . but with no target.  For two days, hourly comlink messages had been sent to the Bene Gesserit, without any response.

 

For once the Mentat had no answers as to where or how the witches had hidden; no probabilities, projections, or summations.  He had failed.  The Baron, who accepted no excuses for failure (and de Vries had failed him), was prepared to kill someone in a most unpleasant manner.

 

Feeling like an outsider, a brooding Glossu Rabban sat to one side watching them, wishing he could offer some insight.  "They're witches after all, aren't they?" he finally said, but no one seemed interested in the comment.  No one ever listened to his ideas.

 

Disgusted, Rabban left the conference room, knowing his uncle was glad to see him go.  Why were they even discussing the situation?  Rabban couldn't tolerate sitting around, getting nowhere.  It made them all appear weak.

 

As the Baron's heir-presumptive, Rabban thought he had done well for House Harkonnen.  He'd overseen spice operations on Arrakis, had even launched the first surreptitious strike in what should have been an all-out Atreides-Tleilaxu war.  Time and time again he had proven himself, but the Baron always treated him as if he were slow-witted, even calling him "a muscle-minded tank brain" to his face.

 

If they had let me go down to the witches' school, I could have smelled them out.

 

Rabban knew exactly what needed to be done.  He also knew better than to ask permission.  The Baron would only say no . . . and the Baron would be wrong to deny him.  Rabban would solve the problem himself and claim his reward.  At long last his uncle would see his capability.

 

In heavy black boots, the burly man strode through the frigate corridors, intent on his mission.  Around him the armed ship droned along in the silent embrace of gravity.  He heard snatches of conversation as he passed cabins and duty stations.  Men in blue uniforms hurried by, performing their duties, always deferential to him.

 

When he gave his command, the men dropped their tasks and hurried to slide open a bulkhead wall.  Rabban stood with his hands on his hips, satisfied to gaze upon the hidden chamber that held a sleek, highly polished vessel, a one-man warcraft.

 

The experimental no-ship.

 

He had flown the invisible fighter inside a Guild Heighliner more than a decade ago, and the ship had performed its duty impeccably . . . completely silent and unseen.  His pilotry had been flawless, though the scheme had ultimately failed.  Too much planning had been the fatal error before.  And Leto Atreides -- damn him -- had refused to behave as expected.

 

This time, though, Rabban's plan would be simple and direct.  The ship and its contents were invisible.  He could go anywhere, observe anything -- and no one would suspect.  He would spy on what the witches were up to, and then he could wipe out the entire Mother School if he wished.

 

He engaged the whisper-quiet engines of the attack craft, and it dropped through the bottom of the orbiting frigate.  With increasing anticipation, Rabban activated the no-field generator -- and the ship vanished in open space.

 

During his descent toward the planet, all ship's systems functioned properly.  The glitches from recent test flights had been repaired.  High over a range of grass-covered hills, he banked toward the stucco and sienna-roofed buildings of the Mother School.  So, the witches thought they could just disappear when the Baron demanded an audience?  Were they snickering at their own cleverness?  Now, the witches refused to answer repeated demands for a conference.  How long did they imagine they could avoid the issue?

 

Touching a sensor button, Rabban armed the weapons.  A massive, unexpected strike would engulf libraries and rectories and museums in flames, leveling them all to rubble.

 

That'll get their attention.

 

He wondered if the Baron had even discovered his departure yet.

 

As the silent craft swooped toward the school complex, he saw shifting crowds of women outside the clustered buildings, foolishly confident that they no longer needed to hide.  The witches thought they could thumb their noses at House Harkonnen.

 

Rabban cruised lower.  His weapons system grew hot; targeting screens glowed.  Before he wrecked the main buildings, perhaps he would pick off a few of the vulturelike females one at a time, just for sport.  With his silent and unseen ship, it would seem like a fiery finger of God striking them down for their arrogance.  The no-ship came into range.

 

Suddenly the witches all looked up at him.

 

He felt something press against his mind.  As he watched, the women shimmered and vanished.  Then his vision blurred, and he felt his head throbbing . . . hurting.  He pushed a hand against his temple, trying to focus.  But the pressure within his skull increased like a bull elephant rampaging against his forehead.

 

Below, the images shimmered.  The crowds of Bene Gesserit flickered into view again, then dissolved into afterimages.  The buildings, the landmarks, the planetary surface, all wavered.  Rabban could barely see the controls.

 

Disoriented, his head splitting with agony, Rabban grasped the piloting console.  The no-ship squirmed like a living thing beneath him, and the vessel went into a spin.  Rabban let out a gargling, befuddled cry, not even realizing his danger until crash-foam and restraint webbing slammed around him.

 

The no-ship caromed into an apple orchard, ripping a long brown furrow across the ground, then tumbled over onto its back.  After a groaning pause, the ruined craft skidded down an embankment and into a shallow creek.

 

The mangled engines caught fire, and greasy blue smoke filled the cockpit.  Rabban heard the hiss of fire-suppression systems as he clawed himself free of the foam and protective restraints.

 

Choking on bitter smoke, blinking acid tears from his eyes, Rabban activated an escape hatch in the belly of the ship and crawled from the wreckage.  He tumbled off the hot, slippery metal and landed on his hands and knees in the steaming water of the creek.  Befuddled, he shook his head.  Looking back at the no-ship, he saw that its hull flickered in and out of visibility.

 

Behind him, women swarmed down the embankment, like black-robed locusts. . . .

 

 

WHEN BARON HARKONNEN received the unexpected comlink message from Mother Superior Harishka, he wanted to strangle her.  For days, his shouts and threats had gone unanswered.  Now, though, as he paced the floor of the frigate's command bridge, the old crone initiated contact herself.  She appeared on the oval system screen.

 

"I'm sorry I wasn't available when you visited, Baron, and I apologize that our comsystems were down.  I know that you have something to discuss with me."  Her tone was maddeningly pleasant.  "But I wonder if you might like to have your nephew returned first?"

 

Seeing her thin lips smile beneath those evil almond eyes, he knew his corpulent face must reflect his utter confusion.  He spun to look at his troop captain, then at Piter de Vries.  "Where is Rabban?"  Both men shook their heads, as surprised as he was.  "Bring me Rabban!"

 

Mother Superior gestured, and a few Sisters brought the burly man into view on the screen.  Despite bloody scrapes and gashes on his face, Rabban appeared defiant.  One of his arms hung limp at his side; his trousers were ripped at the knees, revealing jagged wounds beneath.

 

The Baron cursed under his breath.  What has that idiot done now?

 

"He suffered some sort of mechanical malfunction in his vessel.  Was he coming to visit us, I wonder?  Perhaps to spy . . . or even to attack?"  Next, a video image of the wrecked no-ship appeared on the screen, still smoldering at the edge of a ruined orchard.  "He was flying a most interesting craft.  Note how it phases in and out of view.  Some sort of a damaged invisibility mechanism?  Most ingenious."

 

The Baron's eyes nearly bulged out of his head.  Gods below, we've lost the no-ship, too!  Not only had his stupid nephew been caught by the Sisterhood, he had let the no-ship -- the Harkonnens' most powerful secret weapon -- fall into the hands of the witches.

 

Moving silently, Piter de Vries whispered in his ear, trying to calm him.  "Take slow, deep breaths, my Baron.  Would you like me to continue negotiations with the Mother Superior?"

 

With a supreme effort, the Baron composed himself, then stepped away and turned back to the screen.  He would deal with Rabban later.  "My nephew is a complete dolt.  He did not have my permission to take the ship."

 

"A convenient explanation."

 

"I assure you he will be severely punished for his brash actions.  Of course we will also pay for any damages he caused to your school."  He grimaced, chagrined at how easily he had conceded defeat.

 

"A few apple trees.  No reason to file a claim . . . or report to the Landsraad -- if you cooperate."

 

"Cooperate!"  His nostrils flared, and he reeled backward, nearly losing his balance.  He had evidence against them.  "And would your report include a summary of how your Reverend Mother unleashed a biological weapon upon my person, in violation of the Great Convention?"

 

"Actually, our report would include a bit of speculation," Harishka said with a vise-tight smile.  "You may recall an interesting incident a few years back when two Tleilaxu vessels were mysteriously fired upon inside a Guild Heighliner.  Duke Leto Atreides was accused of the atrocity, but denied the charges -- which seemed preposterous at the time, since no other ship was nearby.  No visible ship, at least.  We have confirmed that there was also a Harkonnen frigate in the vicinity, en route to Emperor Shaddam's coronation."

 

The Baron forced himself to remain motionless.  "You have no proof."

 

"We have the ship, Baron."  The image of the flickering wreckage appeared on the screen again.  "Any competent court would come to the same conclusion.  The Tleilaxu and the Atreides will be most interested in this development.  Not to mention the Spacing Guild."

 

Piter de Vries looked from the Baron to the comscreen, wheels turning in his intricate mind, but he could find no acceptable solution.

 

"You're talking yourself into a death sentence, witch," the Baron said in a low growl.  "We have proof that the Bene Gesserit unleashed a harmful biological agent.  One word from me, and --"

 

"And we have proof of something else, don't we?" Harishka said.  "What do you think, Baron -- do two proofs cancel each other out?  Or is our proof far more interesting?"

 

"Provide me with the cure for my disease, and I'll consider withdrawing my accusations."

 

On the screen Harishka looked at him wryly.  "My dear Baron, there is no cure.  The Bene Gesserit use permanent measures.  Nothing can be reversed."  She seemed mockingly sympathetic.  "On the other hand, if you keep our secrets, we will keep yours.  And you may have your troublesome nephew back -- before we do anything else that might be irreversible."

 

De Vries interrupted, knowing the Baron was about to explode.  "In addition, we insist on the return of our crashed vessel."  They could not allow the Sisterhood access to the no-field technology, though the Harkonnens themselves did not understand it.

 

"Impossible.  No civilized person would want to see such an attack craft repaired.  For the sake of the Imperium, we must take steps to arrest the development of this deadly technology."

 

"We have other ships!" the Baron said.

 

"She is a Truthsayer, my Baron," de Vries whispered.  The old Bene Gesserit looked at them deprecatingly while the Baron sweated for a better response.

 

"What will you do with the wreckage?"  The Baron clenched his fists together so hard that his knuckles cracked.

 

"Why . . . make it disappear, of course."

 

 

WHEN RABBAN RETURNED, the Baron gave him a cane thrashing and locked him in his stateroom for the duration of the trip back to Giedi Prime.  Despite all his foolish impulsiveness, the burly man remained the heir-presumptive of House Harkonnen.

 

For now.

 

The Baron paced the floor and pounded on the walls, trying to imagine the worst punishment he could inflict upon his nephew, an appropriate penalty for the incredible damage Rabban's clumsy attack had caused.  Finally, it came to him, and he smiled tightly.

 

Immediately upon returning home, Glossu Rabban was sent to the remote planet of Lankiveil, where he would live with his weakling father Abulurd.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is the Atreides way to be examples of honor for our children, so that they may be the same for their own progeny.

 

-DUKE LETO ATREIDES, First Speech to the Caladan Assembly

 

 

 

 

 

EIGHTEEN MONTHS HAD PASSED.

 

A full moon bathed Castle Caladan in silver, casting shadows of the turrets along the edge of the cliff that overlooked a troubled sea.  From his discreet vantage in the ornamental garden, Thufir Hawat saw Duke Leto and Kailea Vernius strolling along the verge of the precipice, star-crossed lovers.

 

She had been his official, but unbound, concubine for more than a year, and sometimes the two enjoyed quiet, romantic moments like this one.  Leto was in no hurry to accept any of the numerous offers of marriage alliances that came to him from other Houses of the Landsraad.

 

Hawat's constant surveillance irritated the Duke, who demanded some measure of privacy.  But as Security Commander of House Atreides, the Mentat did not care.  Leto had a troubling tendency to place himself in vulnerable positions, to be too trusting of the people around him.  Hawat would rather incur his Duke's disfavor by being too attentive, than allow a fatal mistake to slip past his scrutiny.  Duke Paulus had died in the bullring because Hawat hadn't watched closely enough.  He vowed never to make such an error again.

 

As Leto and Kailea walked in the chill night, Hawat worried that the trail was too narrow, too close to a deadly drop into the rocky surf.  Leto refused to permit guardrails.  He wanted the path exactly as his father had left it, since the Old Duke had also walked along the headlands, pondering problems of state.  It was a matter of tradition, and the Atreides were brave men.

 

Hawat scanned the darkness with infrared glasses, saw no movement in the shadows other than his own troopers stationed on the trail and along the base of the rock face.  With a tiny blacklight he signaled two of the men to take different positions.

 

He had to be constantly on the alert.

 

Leto held Kailea's hand and looked at her delicate features and her dark copper hair blowing in the night breeze.  Her coat collar was turned up around her slender neck.  As stunningly beautiful as any lady of the Imperium, Rhombur's sister carried herself like an Empress.  But Leto could never marry her.  He must remain true to traditions, as his father had done, and his grandfather before that.  The course of honor . . . and political expediency.

 

However, no one, not even the ghost of Paulus Atreides, could argue against such a union if the fortunes of House Vernius were ever restored.  For months, with Leto's wholehearted support, Rhombur had secretly been sending modest funds and other resources to C'tair Pilru and the Freedom Fighters of Ix through surreptitious channels, and he had received bits of information in return, schedules, surveillance images.  Now that he had taken some action at last, Rhombur seemed more vital and alive than he'd been in a long time.

 

Pausing at the top of the trail that led down to the beach, Leto smiled, knowing Hawat was somewhere nearby, as always.  He turned to the woman beside him.  "Caladan has been my home since childhood, Kailea, and to me it is always beautiful.  But I can see you're not really happy here."  A nightgull flew up into the air, startling them with its thin screams.

 

"It's not your fault, Leto.  You've already done so much for my brother and me."  Kailea didn't look at him.  "This just isn't . . . where I had imagined I would be."

 

Knowing her dreams, he said, "I wish I could take you to Kaitain more often, so that you might enjoy the Imperial Court.  I've seen how you light up at gala events.  You're so radiant that it makes me sad having to bring you back to Caladan.  It isn't glamorous here, not the life you were accustomed to."  The words were an apology for all the things he could not offer her -- the luxury, the prestige, the legitimacy of belonging to a Great House again.  He wondered if she understood the sense of duty that bound him.

 

Kailea's soft voice sounded uncertain; she had seemed nervous all afternoon.  She paused on the path.  "Ix is gone, Leto, and all the glamour with it.  I have accepted that."  They turned to gaze in silence upon the night-black ocean before she spoke again.  "Rhombur's rebels can never overthrow the Tleilaxu, can they?"

 

"We know too little about what's really going on there.  Reports are scattered.  You think he's better off not trying?"  Leto looked hard at her with his smoke-gray eyes, trying to understand her anxiety.  "Miracles can happen."

 

She seized the opening she had been waiting for.  "Miracles, yes.  And now I have one to tell you, my Duke."  He looked at her with a blank expression.  Kailea's lips curved in a complex smile.  "I am going to have your child."

 

Stunned, he froze in place.  Far out at sea, a pod of murmons sang a deep song as a counterpoint to throbbing sonic buoys that marked the treacherous reefs.  Then, slowly leaning down, Leto kissed Kailea, felt the familiar moistness of her mouth.

 

"Are you pleased?"  She sounded very fragile.  "I didn't try to conceive.  It just happened."

 

He stepped away from Kailea, held her at arm's length so he could study her face.  "Of course!"  He touched her stomach gently.  "I've imagined having a son."

 

"Perhaps now would be a good time for me to consider obtaining another lady-in-waiting?" Kailea asked, anxiously.  "I'll need assistance in preparing for childbirth -- not to mention help with the baby when it is born."

 

He hugged her with strong arms.  "If you want another lady-in-waiting, then you shall have her."  Thufir Hawat would check out any candidates for the Atreides household with his usual thoroughness.  "I'll get you ten if you wish!"

 

"Thank you, Leto."  She stood on her toes to kiss his cheek.  "But one should be sufficient."

 

 

DUST AND HEAT hung over everything.  Hoping that the dry climate might help his condition, Baron Harkonnen spent more time on Arrakis.  But he still felt miserable.

 

In his Carthag workroom, the Baron reviewed spice-harvesting reports, trying to concoct new ways to conceal earnings from the Emperor, from CHOAM, from the Spacing Guild.  Owing to his increasing bulk, the desk had been customized with a cutout to accommodate his belly.  His flaccid arms rested on the gritty desktop.

 

A year and a half ago, the Bene Gesserit had brought him to an impasse, with threats and counterthreats, blackmail in both directions.  Rabban had lost their no-ship.  He and the witches had remained at a safe but uneasy distance from each other.

 

Still, the wounds rankled, and he grew weaker -- and fatter -- every day.

 

His scientists had been trying to build another no-ship, without the assistance of the Richesian genius Chobyn, whom Rabban had slain.  The Baron saw red every time he thought of his nephew's numerous blunders.

 

Plans and holorecordings of the original construction process had been flawed, or so the Baron's scientists claimed.  As a result, their first new prototype had crashed into the obsidian slopes of Mount Ebony, killing the entire crew.  Serves them right.

 

The Baron wondered if he would prefer a sudden death like that to torturous debilitation and decay.  He had poured an enormous amount of solaris into a state-of-the-art medical research facility on Giedi Prime, with the grudging, part-time assistance of the Richesian Suk doctor Wellington Yueh, who was still more interested in his cyborg research than in finding ways to help the suffering Baron.  The Richesian Premier still hadn't sent him a bill for the services, but the Baron didn't care.

 

Despite all this effort, there had been no results, and continued threats didn't seem to help.  For the Baron, the simple act of walking, which he'd once done so effortlessly and with such grace, was now a major task.  Soon the wormhead cane would not be enough.

 

"I have news of an interesting development, my Baron," Piter de Vries said, gliding into the dusty Carthag offices.

 

He frowned at the interruption.  The gaunt Mentat, wearing a pale blue robe, hid his sapho-stained smile.  "The concubine of Duke Leto Atreides has sent inquiries to the Imperial Court, seeking the services of a personal lady-in-waiting.  I came to inform you as soon as I was able.  However, because of the urgency involved, I . . . took the liberty of setting a plan in motion."

 

The Baron raised his eyebrows.  "Oh?  And what is this interesting plan that you felt needed no approval from me?"

 

"There is a certain matron living in the household of Suuwok Hesban, the son of Elrood's former Court Chamberlain Aken Hesban.  For some time now, she has provided us with excellent information on the Hesban family.  At my instigation, this matron, Chiara Rash-Olin, has let it be known that she is interested in the Atreides position, and is to be interviewed on Caladan."

 

"Inside the Atreides household?" the fat man said.  He saw a crafty smile form on the slender Mentat's face, which mirrored the Baron's own delight.  "That provides some . . . interesting opportunities."

 

 

KAILEA WAITED IN THE LOBBY of the Cala Municipal Spaceport, pacing a floor of embedded seashells and limestone fossils.  Behind her stood dashing Captain Swain Goire, whom Leto had assigned as her personal bodyguard.  The guard's dark hair and lean features reminded her of Leto's own.

 

She was early for the arriving shuttle and its passenger from Kaitain.  She had already met Chiara, interviewing the matronly woman here on Caladan.  The new lady-in-waiting came with impeccable references, had even worked for the family of Emperor Elrood's personal Chamberlain.  She was able to tell endless stories about the splendid court life on Kaitain.  Kailea had accepted her immediately.

 

Why an intelligent old woman would ever want to leave the Imperial capital for the comparative backwater of Caladan, she could not understand.  "Oh, but I love the sea.  And I love the peace," Chiara had answered.  "When you get older, lovely child, you may feel the same way."

 

Kailea doubted that, but could hardly contain her excitement at the good fortune in finding this woman.  She had waited anxiously while Thufir Hawat inspected Chiara Rash-Olin's past, questioned her about previous years of service.  Even the old Mentat had been unable to find fault with her background.

 

As her pregnancy progressed, Kailea had counted the days until Chiara began to fulfill her duties.  On the day of the scheduled arrival, Leto was holding court in Castle Caladan, listening to the complaints and disputes of his people, but Kailea had departed early for the nearby airfield, which was dotted with skyclippers, 'thopters, and other aircraft.

 

With barely restrained anticipation, Kailea studied the large spaceport building, marking details she hadn't noticed before.  The original bulbous shape had been modified with interior moldings, modern windows, and decorations.  But it still looked old and quaint, unlike the marvelous architecture of Kaitain.

 

She heard an atmospheric thump, felt it even through the floor.  A streak of blue-orange light broke through the cloud cover from the supersonic descent of the bullet-shaped lighter.  The small vessel slowed abruptly on high-powered suspensors, then came to a gentle perch on the field.  Shields pulsed, flicked off.

 

"Precisely on time," Swain Goire said beside her.  The handsome captain stood straight and tall, like a hero from a filmbook.  "The Guild prides itself on punctuality."

 

"Not soon enough for me."  Kailea hurried forward to meet the disembarking passengers.

 

Chiara chose not to dress the part of a servant.  Over her plump form she wore a traveling suit of comfortable zeetwill, and her iron-gray hair was coiffed into an elegant swirl, capped with a jeweled beret.  Her pink cheeks glowed.

 

"What a pleasure to see you again, dear," Chiara purred.  She breathed deeply of the moist, salty air.  Behind her trailed eight suspensor-borne trunks, bulging at their clasps.

 

With a glance at Kailea's barely rounded belly and then into her green eyes, she commented, "It must be a routine pregnancy so far.  You're looking well, my dear.  A little peaked, perhaps, but I have remedies for that."

 

Kailea beamed.  At last she had an intelligent companion, someone with Imperial sophistication to help her with the troubling details -- household matters and business decisions required by her demanding, though loving, Duke.

 

Walking beside the old lady-in-waiting, Kailea asked the foremost question on her mind.  "What's the latest from the Imperial Court?"

 

"Oh, my dear! There is so much to tell you."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is true that one may become rich through practicing evil, but the power of Truth and Justice is that they endure . . . and that a man can say of them, "They are a heritage from my father."

 

-Fifth Dynasty (Old Terra) calendar:  The Wisdom of Ptahhotep

 

 

AS FAR AS RABBAN WAS CONCERNED, his uncle could not have conceived a more cruel punishment for the no-ship debacle.  At least Arrakis was warm and had clear skies, and Giedi Prime offered all the comforts of civilization.

 

Lankiveil was just . . . miserable.

 

Time dragged at such a pace that Rabban found himself appreciating the geriatric benefits of melange.  He would have to live longer than a normal life span just to make up for all this abysmally wasted time. . . .

 

He had absolutely no interest in the isolated monastic fortresses deep in the mountains.  Likewise, he refused to go to the villages that dotted the convoluted fjords:  They held nothing but smelly fishermen, native hunters, and a few vegetable growers who found fertile land in the cracks of the steep black mountains.

 

Rabban spent most of his time on the largest island in the north, close to the glacial ice sheet and far from the swimming lanes of the Bjondax fur whales.  It was not civilization by any standard, but at least it had factories, processing plants, and a spaceport to send loads of whale fur to orbit.  There, he could be with people who understood that resources and raw materials existed for the benefit of whatever House owned them.

 

He lived in CHOAM company barracks and commandeered several large rooms for himself.  Though he occasionally gambled with the other contract workers, he spent most of his time brooding and thinking of ways to change his life as soon as he returned to Giedi Prime.  On other occasions, Rabban used an inkvine whip he had acquired from a Harkonnen employee, and occupied himself by thrashing the twisted black strands at rocks, ice chunks, or sluggish ra-seals sunning themselves on the metal piers.  But that, too, grew boring.

 

For most of his two-year sentence, he stayed away from Abulurd and Emmi Rabban-Harkonnen, hoping they would never learn of his exile.  Finally, when Rabban could hide his presence no longer, his father traveled up to the CHOAM processing centers, ostensibly on an inspection tour.

 

Abulurd met his son in the barracks building with an optimistic expression on his hangdog face as if he expected some kind of teary-eyed reunion.  He embraced his only son, and Rabban broke away quickly.

 

Glossu Rabban, with square shoulders and a blocky face, heavy lips and a widow's peak, took after his mother more than his father, who had thin arms, bony elbows, and big knuckles.  Abulurd's ash-blond hair looked old and dirty, and his face was weathered from being outside too much.

 

The only way Rabban got his father to leave, after hours of inane jabbering, was to promise that he would indeed come down to Tula Fjord and stay with his parents.  A week later, he arrived at the main lodge, smelling the sour air, feeling the clamminess sink into his bones.  Enduring their coddling, Rabban swallowed his disgust and counted the days until he could meet the Heighliner that would take him home.

 

In the lodge they ate elaborate meals of smoked fish, boiled clabsters, seafood paella, snow mussels and clams, pickled squid, and salted ruh-caviar, accompanied by the bitter, stringy vegetables that survived in Lankiveil's poor soil.  The fishwife, a broad-faced woman with red hands and massive arms, cooked one dish after another, proudly serving each one to Rabban.  She had known him as a child, had tried to spoil him, and now she did everything but pinch his cheeks.  Rabban hated her for it.

 

He couldn't seem to get the foul tastes out of his mouth, or the odors from his fingers or clothes.  Only pungent woodsmoke from the great fireplaces managed to relieve his anguished nose.  His father found it quaint to use real fire instead of thermal heaters or radiant globes. . . .

 

One night, bored and brooding, Rabban latched upon an idea, his first imaginative spark in two years.  The Bjondax whales were docile and easily killed -- and Rabban felt he could interest wealthy nobles from Great and Minor Houses in coming to Lankiveil.  He remembered how much joy he had taken in hunting feral children at Forest Guard Preserve, how thrilled he had been to kill a great sandworm on Arrakis.  Perhaps he could start a new whale-hunting industry, pursuing the enormous aquatic beasts for sport.  It would add profit to the Harkonnen treasury and turn Lankiveil into something better than the primitive hellhole it was now.

 

Even the Baron would be pleased.

 

Two nights before he was due to depart for home, he suggested the idea to his parents.  Like an ideal family, they sat together at table eating another meal from the sea.  Abulurd and Emmi kept looking at each other with pathetic sighs of contentment.  His ebony-eyed mother didn't speak much, but she provided unwavering support to her husband.  They touched affectionately, brushed a hand from one shoulder to an elbow.

 

"I plan to bring some big-game hunters to Lankiveil."  Rabban sipped a watery glass of sweet mountain wine.  "We'll track down the fur whales -- your native fishermen can act as guides.  Many people in the Landsraad would pay handsomely for such a trophy.  It'll be a boon to all of us."

 

Emmi blinked and looked over to see Abulurd's mouth drop open in shock.  She let him say what they were both thinking.  "That would be impossible, son."

 

Rabban flinched at the offhand way this weakling called him son.  Abulurd explained, "All you've seen are the processing docks up in the north, the final step in the whale fur business.  But hunting proper specimens is a delicate task, done with care and training.  I've been on the boats many times, and believe me, it's not a lighthearted task!  Killing Bjondax whales was never meant for . . . sport."

 

Rabban's thick lips twisted.  "And why not?  If you're the planetary governor here, you're supposed to understand economics."

 

His mother shook her head.  "Your father understands this planet better than you do.  We just can't allow it."  She seemed surrounded by an impenetrable veil of self-assurance, as if nothing could shake her.

 

Rabban simmered in his chair, more disgusted than angry.  These people had no right to forbid him anything.  He was the nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, the heir-apparent of a Great House.  Abulurd had already proven he couldn't handle the responsibility.  No one would listen to a failure's complaints.

 

Rabban pushed himself away from the table and stalked off to his suite.  There, in a bowl made from an abalone shell, the house servants had arranged clumps of sweet-smelling lichens peeled from tree bark, a typical Lankiveil bouquet.  With a swat, Rabban knocked it aside, shattering the shell on the weathered-plank floor.

 

 

THE ABRASIVE SOUNDS of Bjondax whale songs awoke him from a restless sleep.  Outside the window in the deep channel, the whales hooted and honked in an atonal sound that made Rabban's skull resonate.

 

The night before, his father had smiled wistfully, listening to the beasts.  He'd stood with his son out on the split-log balcony, which was slick from an ever-clinging mist.  Gesturing out to the narrow fjords where dark shapes swam, Abulurd said, "Mating songs.  They're in love."

 

Rabban wanted to kill something.

 

Fresh from hearing his father's refusal, he couldn't imagine how he shared a heritage from such people.  He'd spent too long enduring the annoyances of this world; he'd tolerated the smothering attentions of his mother and father; he'd despised how they had thrown away the grandeur they could have achieved, and then allowed themselves to be content here.

 

Rabban's blood began to boil.

 

Knowing he could never sleep with the whale racket outside, he dressed and plodded down into the quiet great room.  Orange embers in the cavernous fireplace lit the room as if the hearth were filled with lava.  A few servants should be up, some cleaners in the back rooms, a cook in the kitchen preparing for the day ahead.  Abulurd never posted guards.

 

Instead, the inhabitants of the main lodge slept with the quiet snores of the unambitious.  Rabban hated it all.

 

He gathered a warm garment, even deigned to take mittens, and crept outside.  He trudged down rugged steps to the waterline, the docks, and the fishing shed.  The cold condensed a frost from the mist in the air.

 

Inside the dank and reeking shed, he found what he wanted:  worn, jag-tipped vibro-spears for hunting fish.  Certainly sufficient to kill a few fur whales.  He could have brought along heavier weaponry, but that would have taken away all the sport.

 

Drifting in the placid fjord, Bjondax whales crooned in unison; their songs resonated like belches from the cliff walls.  Gloomy clouds muffled the starlight, but an eerie illumination shone down so that Rabban could see what he was doing.

 

He untied one of the medium-sized boats from the dock -- small enough that he could handle it by himself, yet with a thick hull and sufficient mass to withstand being bumped by lovesick fur whales.  He cast off and powered up the humming motor, easing into the deep channel where the beasts splashed and played, singing foolishly to each other.  The sleek forms drifted through the water, surfacing, bellowing with their vibrating vocal membranes.

 

Grasping the controls with a mittened hand, he guided his boat into deeper waters and approached the pod of whales.  They swam about, undisturbed by his presence.  Some even playfully collided with his craft.

 

He looked into the dark water to see the adults spotted like leopards -- some with mottled patches, others a creamy gold.  Numerous smaller calves accompanied them.  Did the animals bring their children with them when they came to the fjords to spawn?  Rabban snorted, then hefted the handful of jagged vibro-spears.

 

He stopped the engine and drifted, poised as the Bjondax beasts went about their antics, oblivious to danger.  The monsters fell silent, apparently taking notice of his boat, then began hooting and burbling again.  Stupid animals!

 

Rabban threw the first of many vibro-spears, a rapid sequence of powerful thrusts.  Once the slaughter began, the whale song rapidly changed its tone.

 

 

THROWING ON THICK ROBES and slippers to cover themselves, Abulurd and Emmi raced toward the docks.  Confused servants turned on the lights in the main lodge, and glowglobes shone into the darkness, startling shadows away.

 

The soothing whale songs had turned into a raucous cacophony of animal screams.  Emmi gripped her husband's arm, helping him retain his balance as he stumbled down the stairs to the shore, trying to see out into the darkness, but the house lights behind them were too bright.  They discerned only shadows, thrashing whales . . . and something else.  Finally, they activated the glowbeacon at the end of the dock, which sprayed illumination across the fjord.

 

Emmi let out a dismayed sound, like grief being swallowed whole.  Behind them, servants clattered down the steep staircase, some carrying sticks or crude weapons, not knowing whether they might be called upon to defend the main lodge.

 

A powerboat approached across the waters, its engine humming as it dragged a heavy load toward the dock.  When Emmi nudged him, Abulurd ventured out onto the boards to make out who might be at the helm of the vessel.  He did not want to admit what in his heart he already knew.

 

The voice of Glossu Rabban called out, "Throw me that rope so I can tie up here."  Then he came into the light.  He was sweating from exertion in the cold and had taken off his jacket.  Blood covered his arms, his chest, his face.

 

"I've killed eight of them, I think.  Got two of the smaller fur whales tied up here, but I'll need help retrieving the other carcasses.  Do you skin them right at the dock, or take them to some kind of facility?"

 

Abulurd could only stare in paralyzed shock.  The rope fell like a strangled snake from his grasp.  Leaning over the edge of the boat, Rabban grabbed the rope and looped it around a dock cleat himself.

 

"You . . . killed them?" Abulurd said.  "You murdered them all?"

 

He looked down to see the floating corpses of two Bjondax calves, their fur matted and soaked with blood oozing from numerous stab wounds.  Their pelts were torn.  Their eyes stared sightlessly like plates from the water.

 

"Of course I killed them."  Rabban's heavy brow furrowed.  "That's the idea when you go hunting."  He stepped from the swaying boat and stood on the dock as if he expected to be congratulated for what he had done.

 

Abulurd clenched and unclenched his fists as an unaccustomed sensation of outrage and disgust burned within him.  All his life he had squelched it, but perhaps he did have the legendary Harkonnen temper.

 

From years of experience he knew that Bjondax whale-trapping needed to be done at certain times and locations, or else the great herds would shun a place.  Rabban had never bothered to learn the basics of the whale fur business, had practiced none of the techniques, barely knew how to command a boat.

 

"You've slaughtered them in their mating grounds, you idiot!" Abulurd cried, and a look of insulted shock splashed across Rabban's face.  His father had never spoken to him like this before.

 

"For generations they have been coming to Tula Fjord to raise their young and to mate before returning to the deep arctic seas.  But they have a long memory, a generational memory.  Once blood has tainted the water, they will avoid the place for as long as the memory lasts."

 

Abulurd's face turned blotchy with horror and frustration.  His own son had effectively cursed these breeding grounds, spilling so much blood into the fjord that no Bjondax whale would return there for decades.

 

Rabban looked down at his prizes floating dead beside the boat, then scanned back across the fjord waters, ignoring what his father had just said.  "Is anyone going to help me, or do I have to get the rest of them myself?"

 

Abulurd slapped him hard across the face -- then stared in horror and disbelief at his hand, amazed that he had struck his son.

 

Rabban glowered at him.  With only a little more provocation, he would kill everyone who stood there.

 

His father continued in a forlorn voice.  "The whales won't come back here to spawn.  Don't you understand?  All of these villages in the fjord, all of the people who live here, depend on the fur trade.  Without the whales, these villages will die.  All the buildings up and down the waterline will be abandoned.  The villages will become ghost towns overnight.  The whales won't come back."

 

Rabban just shook his head, unwilling to understand the severity of the situation.  "Why do you care about these people so much?"  He looked at the servants behind his parents, the men and women who'd been born on Lankiveil with no noble blood and no prospects:  just villagers, just workers.  "They're nothing special.  You rule them.  If times are hard, they'll put up with it.  That's the fact of their lives."

 

Emmi glared at him, finally displaying the powerful emotions she kept inside.  "How dare you speak like that?  It's been hard to forgive you for many things, Glossu -- but this is the worst."

 

Still, Rabban exhibited no shame.  "How can you both be so blind and foolish?  Don't you have any conception of who you are?  Of who I am?  We are House Harkonnen!" he roared, then lowered his voice again.  "I'm ashamed to be your son."

 

He strode past them without another word and went to the main lodge, where he cleaned himself and packed his few things, then left.  Another day remained before he had permission from the Baron to leave the planet.  He would spend the time out at the spaceport.

 

He couldn't wait to be back at a place where life made sense to him again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A man who persists in stalking game in a place where there is none may wait forever without finding any success.  Persistence in search is not enough.

 

-Zensunni Wisdom of the Wanderings

 

 

FOR FOUR YEARS, Gurney Halleck uncovered no clues about his sister's whereabouts, but he never abandoned hope.

 

His parents refused to speak Bheth's name anymore.  In their quiet, colorless evenings they continued to study the Orange Catholic Bible, reassuring themselves by finding quotes that affirmed their lot in life. . . .

 

Gurney was left alone with his grief.

 

On the night of his beating, with no help from the Dmitri villagers, his parents had finally dragged Gurney's broken and bruised body back inside the prefab dwelling.  They owned few medical supplies, but a hardscrabble life had taught them the rudiments of first aid.  His mother put him on the bed and nursed him as best she could, while his father stood by the curtains, sullenly waiting for the Harkonnens to return.

 

Now, four years later, the scars from that night gave Gurney a rougher profile than he'd had before; his ruddy face carried an unsettled look.  When he moved, he felt sharp aches deep in his bones.  As soon as he was able, he'd crawled out of bed and gone back to work.  Doing his share.  The villagers accepted his presence without comment, not even showing how relieved they were to have his assistance to help fill their quotas.

 

Gurney Halleck knew he no longer belonged with them.

 

He no longer took pleasure in his evenings down at the tavern, so he remained at home.  After months of painstaking effort, Gurney managed to reassemble his baliset enough to make music, though its range was more limited and the tone remained distorted.  Captain Kryubi's words had burned into his brain, but he refused to stop composing his songs or singing them in his own room, where other people could pretend not to hear them.  The bitter satire had dried from his lyrics, however; now the songs were focused on remembrances of Bheth.

 

His parents were so pale and washed-out that he couldn't call to mind an image of them, though they sat in the next room.  Yet even after so many years, he still recalled every line of his sister's face, every graceful nuance of her gestures, her flaxen hair, her expressions, her gentle smile.

 

He planted more flowers outside, tending the calla lilies and daisies.  He wanted to keep the plants alive, to keep Bheth's memory clear and bright.  As he worked, he hummed her favorite songs -- and it felt as if she were there with him.  He even imagined that they might be thinking of each other at the same time.

 

If she was still alive. . . .

 

Late one night, Gurney heard movement outside his window, saw a shadowy shape creeping through the darkness.  He thought he was dreaming until he heard a louder rustle, a sharp intake of breath.  He sat up quickly, heard something scurry away.

 

A flower lay on his windowsill, a fresh-cut calla lily like a totem, a clear message.  Its creamy bowl of petals held down a scrap of paper.

 

Gurney grabbed the lily, outraged that someone would taunt him with Bheth's favorite flower.  But as he smelled the heady scent of the blossom, he scanned the note.  It was half a page long, written in rushed yet feminine handwriting.  He read it so quickly he gathered only the gist of the message.

 

The first few words were:  "Tell Mother and Father I am alive!"

 

Clutching the scrap, Gurney flung himself over the sill of the open window and sprinted barefoot through the dirt streets.  He glanced from side to side until he saw a shadow dart between two buildings.  The figure hurried on its way to the main road, which led to a transit substation and then on into Harko City.

 

Gurney did not call out.  That would only make the stranger put on speed.  He bounded along with a rolling gait, ignoring twinges of pain in his patchwork-healed body.  Bheth was still alive!  His feet scraped on the rough, dry ground.

 

The stranger left the village behind, striking out for the fringe fields; Gurney guessed he had a small private vehicle parked out by the crop patches.  When the man turned and saw the vague silhouette sprinting toward him, he bolted.

 

Already panting, Gurney rushed forward.  "Wait!  I just want to talk to you."

 

The man didn't stop.  In the moonlight, he saw booted feet and relatively nice clothes . . . not a farmer by any means.  Gurney had lived a hard life that kept his body tuned like a clock spring, and he quickly closed the distance.  The stranger stumbled on the uneven ground, giving Gurney just enough time to bend over and ram into him like a charging D-wolf taking down prey.

 

The man sprawled in the dust.  He scrambled up again, lurching off into the fields, but Gurney tackled him.  They rolled over the edge into a two-meter-deep trench where the villagers had planted stunted krall tubers.

 

Gurney grabbed the front of the man's fine shirt and shoved him up into a half-sitting position against the dirt wall of the trench.  Rocks, gravel, and dust pattered all around them.

 

"Who are you?  Have you seen my sister?  Is she all right?"  Gurney shone his chrono-light on the man's face.  Pale, widely set eyes, darting around.  Smooth features.

 

The man spat dirt from his teeth and tried to struggle.  His hair was neatly cut.  His clothes were far more expensive than anything Gurney had ever seen.

 

"Where is she?"  Gurney pressed his face close and held out the note as if it were accusatory evidence.  "Where did this come from?  What did she say to you?  How did you know about the lily?"

 

The man sniffled, then pulled one of his arms free to rub a sore ankle.  "I . . . I am the Harkonnen census taker for this district.  I travel from village to village.  It's my job to account for all the people who serve the Baron."  He swallowed hard.

 

Gurney tightened his hold on the shirt.

 

"I see many people. I --"  He coughed nervously.  "I saw your sister.  She was in a pleasure house near one of the military garrisons.  She paid me money she'd managed to scrape together over the years."

 

Gurney took deep breaths, focused on every word.

 

"I told her my rounds would take me to Dmitri village.  She gave me all her solaris and wrote that note.  She told me what to do, and I did it."  He slapped Gurney's hand away and sat up indignantly.  "Why did you attack me?  I brought you news of your sister."

 

Gurney growled at him.  "I want to know more.  How can I find her?"

 

The man shook his head.  "She only paid me to smuggle this note out.  I did it at great risk to my life -- and now you're going to get me caught.  I can't do anything more for you, or for her."

 

Gurney's hands moved up to the man's throat.  "Yes, you can.  Tell me which pleasure house, which military garrison.  Would you rather risk the Harkonnens finding out . . . or have me kill you now?"  He squeezed the man's larynx for good measure.  "Tell me!"

 

In four years, this was the first word Gurney had received, and he couldn't let the opportunity slip away.  But Bheth was alive.  His heart swelled with the knowledge.

 

The census taker retched.  "A garrison over by Mount Ebony and Lake Vladimir.  The Harkonnens have slave pits and obsidian mines nearby.  Soldiers keep watch over the prisoners.  The pleasure house . . ."  He swallowed hard, afraid to reveal the information.  "The pleasure house serves all the soldiers.  Your sister works there."

 

Trembling, Gurney tried to think how he might get across the continent.  He possessed little knowledge of geography, but he could discover more.  He stared up at the shadowy moon as it dipped behind the smoky clouds, already developing an ill-conceived plan to free Bheth.

 

Gurney nodded and let his hands fall to his sides.  The census taker scrambled out of the trench and ran across the fields in a limping, cockeyed gait from his twisted ankle, kicking up dust and dirt.  He headed toward a shelter of scrub brush, where he must have left a vehicle.

 

Numb and exhausted, Gurney slumped against the trench wall.  He drew a deep breath, tasted determination.  He didn't care that the man escaped.

 

At long last, he had a clue to his sister's whereabouts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The effective ruler punishes opposition while rewarding assistance; he shifts his forces in random fashion; he conceals major elements of his power; he sets up a rhythm of counter movement that keeps opponents off balance.

 

-WESTHEIMER ATREIDES, Elements of Leadership

 

 

AFTER LETO BECAME A FATHER, time seemed to pass even faster.

 

Dressed in toy armor and carrying a laminated-paper shield, the small boy toddled forward, attacked the stuffed Salusan bull ferociously with his feathered vara lance, then retreated.  Victor, the Duke's two-year-old son, wore a green-bordered cap with a red Atreides crest.

 

On his knees and laughing, Leto pulled the spiny-headed toy bull from side to side, so that the black-haired boy, still moving with baby clumsiness, had no easy target.  "Do as I showed you, Victor."  He tried to cover his grin with an expression of deadly seriousness.  "Be careful with the vara."  He lifted his arms and demonstrated.  "Hold it like this, and thrust sideways into the monster's brain."

 

Dutifully, the boy tried again, barely able to lift the scaled-down weapon.  The vara's blunted tip bounced off the stuffed head, close to the white chalkite mark Leto had placed there.

 

"Much better!"  He shoved the toy bull aside, gathered the boy in his arms, and lifted him high overhead.  Victor giggled when Leto tickled his rib cage.

 

"Again?" Kailea said in a disapproving tone.  "Leto, what are you doing?"  She stood at the doorway with her lady-in-waiting, Chiara.  "Don't raise him to enjoy that nonsense.  You want him to die like his grandfather?"

 

With a hardened expression, Leto turned to his concubine.  "The bull wasn't responsible, Kailea.  It was drugged by traitors."  The Duke didn't mention the secret he harbored, that Leto's own mother had been implicated in the plot, and Leto had exiled Lady Helena to live in a primitive retreat with the Sisters in Isolation.

 

Kailea looked at him, still not convinced.  He tried to sound more reasonable.  "My father believed the beasts were noble and magnificent.  To defeat one in the ring takes great skill, and honor."

 

"Still. . . is this appropriate for our son?"  Kailea glanced at Chiara, as if seeking support from the matronly woman.  "He's only two years old."

 

Leto tousled the boy's hair.  "It is never too early to learn fighting skills -- even Thufir approves.  My father never coddled me, and I won't spoil Victor, either."

 

"I'm sure you know best," she said with a sigh of resignation, but the agitated look in her eyes said otherwise.  "After all, you're the Duke."

 

"It's time for Victor's tutoring session, dear."  Chiara glanced at her jeweled wristchron, an antique Richesian bauble she had brought from Kaitain.

 

With a disappointed expression, Victor looked up at the looming figure of his father.  "Go along now."  Leto patted him on the back.  "A Duke has to learn many things, and not all of them are as much fun as this."

 

The lad stood stubbornly for a moment, then trudged on short legs across the room.  With a grandmotherly smile, Chiara picked him up and carried him away to a private tutoring room in the north wing of the Castle.  Swain Goire, the guard assigned to watch over Victor, followed the lady-in-waiting.  Kailea remained in the playroom while Leto propped the stuffed bull against a wall, wiped his own neck with a towel, and drank from a mug of cool water.

 

"Why does my brother always confide in you before he says anything to me?"  He could see she was upset and uncertain.  "Is it true he and that woman are talking about getting married?"

 

"Not seriously -- I think it was just something he spouted off the top of his head.  You know how long it takes Rhombur to do anything.  Someday, maybe."

 

With a look of disapproval, she pressed her lips together.  "But she's just a . . . a Bene Gesserit.  No noble blood at all."

 

"A Bene Gesserit woman was good enough for my cousin the Emperor."  Leto did not mention the pain in his own heart.  "It's his decision, Kailea.  They certainly seem to love each other."  He and Kailea had begun to drift apart as soon as his son was born.  Or perhaps it had started as soon as Chiara had arrived with all her gossip and grand stories about the Imperial Court.

 

"Love?  Oh, is that the only ingredient necessary for marriage?"  Her face darkened.  "What would your father, the great Duke Paulus Atreides, say to such hypocrisy?"

 

Trying to remain calm, he crossed to the playroom door and pulled it shut so that no one could hear.  "You know why I can't take you as my wife."  He remembered the terrible fights of his own parents behind the thick doors of their bedroom suite.  He didn't want that to happen to him and Kailea.

 

Her delicate beauty was masked with displeasure.  Kailea tossed her head, making curls of coppery hair bounce between her shoulder blades.  "Our son should be Duke Atreides one day.  I hoped you might change your mind once you got to know him."

 

"It's all about politics, Kailea."  Leto flushed.  "I love Victor very much.  But I am the Duke of a Great House.  I must think of House Atreides first."

 

At meetings of the Landsraad Council, other Houses paraded their eligible daughters before Leto, hoping to entice him.  House Atreides was neither the richest nor the most powerful family, but Leto was well liked and respected, especially after his bravery during the Trial by Forfeiture.  He was proud of what he had achieved on Caladan . . . and wished Kailea could appreciate him more for it.

 

"And Victor remains a bastard."

 

"Kailea --"

 

"Sometimes I hate your father because of the foolish ideas he pounded into your head.  Since I can offer you no political alliances, and since I have no dowry, no position, I am not acceptable as a wife.  But because you're a Duke, you can command me to your bed whenever you please."

 

Stung to hear how she had phrased her displeasure, he could imagine what Chiara must be saying to Kailea in the privacy of her own chambers.  There could be no other explanation.  Leto didn't particularly like the off-world woman, but to dismiss the lady-in-waiting might burn his few remaining bridges to Kailea.  The two women put on airs together, enjoyed playing at highbrow conversations, imitating Imperial styles.

 

He stared out the streaked windowplaz, thinking of how happy he and Kailea had been only a few years earlier.  "I don't deserve that, not after my family has done everything in its power for you and your brother."

 

"Oh, thank you, so much.  It hasn't hurt your image either, has it?  Help the poor refugees from Ix so that your beloved people can see what a benevolent ruler you are.  Noble Duke Atreides.  But those of us closer to you know you're only a man, not the legend you try to make yourself into.  You're not really the hero of the common people, as you imagine yourself to be.  If you were, you would agree --"

 

"Enough!  Rhombur has every right to marry Tessia if he likes.  If that's what he decides.  House Vernius is destroyed, and there will be no political marriages for him."

 

"Unless his rebels win on Ix," she countered.  "Leto, tell me the truth -- do you secretly hope his freedom fighters don't succeed, so you will always have an excuse for not marrying me?"

 

Leto was appalled.  "Of course not!"  Apparently thinking she'd won, Kailea left the room.

 

In solitude, he considered how she had changed.  For years he'd been smitten with her, long before taking her as his concubine.  He had brought her close to him, though not as close as she wanted to be.  At first she'd been helpful and supportive, but her ambitions had grown too great, and she had complicated his life immeasurably.  Too often recently, he had seen her primping in front of the mirror, styling herself as a queen -- but that was something she could never be.  He couldn't change who she was.

 

But the joy he drew from his son outweighed all other problems.  He loved the boy with an intensity that surprised even him.  He wanted only the best for Victor, for him to grow up to be a fine, honorable man, in the Atreides fashion.  Even though he could not officially name the child his ducal heir, Leto intended to give him every benefit, every advantage.  One day, Victor would understand the things his mother did not.

 

 

AS THE BOY SAT at a tutoring machine, playing shape-recognition games and color identifiers, Kailea and Chiara talked in low tones.  Victor pushed buttons rapidly, achieving high scores for his age.

 

"My Lady, we must figure a way around the Duke.  He is a stubborn man and intends to form a marriage alliance with a powerful family.  Archduke Ecaz is after him, I hear, offering one of his daughters.  I suspect Leto's purported diplomatic efforts in the Moritani-Ecazi conflict are a smoke screen to hide his true intentions."

 

Kailea's eyelids narrowed to slits as she considered this.  "Leto is traveling to Grumman next week to talk with Viscount Moritani.  They have no eligible daughters."

 

"He says he's going there, dear.  But space is vast, and if Leto takes a detour, how would you ever know?  After all my years at the Imperial Court, I understand these things only too well.  If Leto produces an official heir, he'll sweep your Victor under the rug as nothing more than a bastard son . . . ruining your own position."

 

Kailea hung her head.  "I said everything you told me to, Chiara, but I wonder if I'm pushing him too hard. . . ."  Now, where Leto couldn't see her, she allowed her uncertainty and fear to show.  "I'm so frustrated.  There doesn't seem to be anything I can do.  He and I were close before, but it's all gone so wrong.  I had hoped that bearing his son would bring us together."

 

Chiara pursed her wrinkled lips.  "Ah, dear, in ancient times such children were known as 'human mortar' to keep a family whole."

 

Kailea shook her head.  "Instead, Victor has only exposed the problem for all to see.  There are times when I think Leto hates me."

 

"Something can still be worked out, if you just trust me, my Lady."  Chiara placed a reassuring hand on the young woman's shoulder.  "Start by talking with your brother.  Ask Rhombur to see what he can do."  Her voice was sweet and reasonable.  "The Duke always listens to him."

 

Kailea brightened.  "That might work.  It couldn't hurt to try."

 

 

SHE SPOKE WITH RHOMBUR in his Castle suite.  He puttered around in the kitchen with Tessia, helping her prepare a salad of local vegetables.  With a maddening, bemused smile on his face, Rhombur listened attentively while slicing a purple sea cabbage on a cutting board.

 

He didn't seem to grasp the seriousness of his sister's situation.  "You have no right to complain about anything, Kailea.  Leto has treated us royally -- uh, especially you."

 

She let out an exasperated snort.  "How can you say that?  I've got more at stake, now that I have Victor."  She was caught between flying into a rage or crumpling into despair.

 

Tessia blinked her sepia eyes.  "Rhombur, the best hope for both of you is to overthrow the Tleilaxu.  Once you restore House Vernius, all of your other problems become irrelevant."

 

Rhombur leaned over to kiss his concubine on the forehead.  "Yes, my love -- don't you think I'm trying?  We've been secretly sending C'tair money for years, but I still don't know how well the rebels are doing.  Hawat sent in another spy, and the man disappeared.  Ix is a tough nut to crack, as we designed it to be."

 

Both Tessia and Kailea surprised each other by responding in unison.  "You need to try harder."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Universe operates on a basic principle of economics:  everything has its cost.  We pay to create our future, we pay for the mistakes of the past.  We pay for every change we make . . . and we pay just as dearly if we refuse to change.

 

-Guild Bank Annals, Philosophical Register

 

 

IT WAS SAID among the Fremen that Shai-Hulud was to be respected, and feared.  But even before the age of sixteen, Liet-Kynes had ridden worms many times.

 

On their first journey to the southern polar regions, he and his blood-brother Warrick had summoned one worm after another, riding them to exhaustion.  Then they would plant a thumper, ready their Maker hooks, and call the next one.  All Fremen were counting on them.

 

For hours without end, the two young men huddled in stillsuits under hooded robes, enduring the heat of day under a dust-blue sky.  They listened to the sand roaring beneath them, blazing with friction from the worm's passage.

 

Ranging far from the sixty-degree cartographical line of inhabited regions, they crossed the Great Flat and the open ergs, forded trackless seas of sand, reached the equator itself, and continued south toward the forbidden palmaries near the moist antarctic cap.  Those plantings had been established and nurtured by Pardot Kynes as part of his great dream for reawakening Dune.

 

Liet's gaze scanned the immensity.  Winter winds blew the surface of the Great Flat as smooth as a tabletop.  This is surely the horizon of eternity.  He studied the austere land forms, the subtle gradations, and rock outcroppings.  His father had lectured him about the desert for as long as his young mind had understood language.  The Planetologist had called it a landscape beyond pity, without pause . . . no hesitation in it at all.

 

As dusk fell on the sixth day of their journey, their worm exhibited signs of agitation and fatigue, enough that it was willing to dive beneath the abrasive sand, even with its sensitive leading ring segments held open by hooks.  Liet signaled to Warrick, pointing toward a low reef of rock and its sheltered crannies.  "We can spend the night there."

 

Warrick used his goad sticks to turn the worm closer, then they released their hooks and made ready to dismount.  Since Liet had summoned this particular behemoth, he gestured for his friend to run down the rough, segmented hide.  "First on, last off," Liet said.

 

Warrick scrambled down to the sand wake where he could leap off the tail.  He disengaged the airpack-assisted cargo cases filled with raw melange essence and guided them beyond the monster's reach.  Warrick leaped off and made his way to a dune top.  There, he stood motionless, thinking like the sand, as still as the desert.

 

Liet let the worm burrow itself into the ground and jumped away at the last moment, slogging through slumping powder sand, as if it were a swamp.  His father loved to tell stories about miasmic marshes on Bela Tegeuse and Salusa Secundus, but Liet doubted those other worlds contained a fraction of the charm or vigor of Arrakis. . . .

 

As the son of the Umma Kynes, Liet benefited from certain advantages and opportunities.  While he reveled in this important journey down to the antarctic, he knew his birthright did nothing to increase his chances of success.  All young Fremen men were given such responsibilities.

 

The Spacing Guild required its regular spice bribe.

 

For a king's ransom in spice essence, Guild satellites would turn a blind eye toward the secret terraforming activities, would ignore Fremen movements.  The Harkonnens could not understand why it was so difficult to get weather projections and detailed cartographic analyses, but the Guild always made excuses . . . because the Fremen never failed to pay their fee.

 

When Liet and Warrick found a sheltered corner of the lava reef on which to pitch their stilltent, Liet brought out the honeyed spice cakes his mother had made.  The two young men sat in the comfort of long companionship, commenting on young Fremen women from the sietches they had visited.

 

Over the years, the blood-brothers had done many brave things -- as well as many foolish things.  Some had turned into disasters, some near escapes, but Liet and Warrick had survived them all.  Both had taken numerous Harkonnen trophies, receiving scars in the process.

 

Far into the night they laughed about how they had sabotaged Harkonnen 'thopters, how they had broken into a rich merchant's warehouse and stolen precious delicacies (which had tasted awful), how they had chased a mirage across the open pan in search of an elusive white salt playa, so they could make a wish.

 

Content at last, the two went to sleep under the double moonlight, ready to awaken shortly before dawn.  They had several days left to journey.

 

 

PAST THE SOUTHERN WORM LINE, where moisture in the soil and large rocky inclusions made it impossible for sandworms to travel, Liet-Kynes and Warrick marched forward on foot.  Following their instinctive sense of direction, they made their way through canyons and cold plains.  In rocky gorges with tall conglomerate walls, they saw ancient, dry riverbeds.  Their sensitive Fremen noses could detect an increased dampness in the frigid air.

 

The two young men spent a night at Ten Tribes Sietch, where solar mirrors melted the permafrost in the ground, adding enough free water for carefully tended plants to grow.  Orchards had been planted there, along with dwarf palm trees.

 

Warrick stood with a broad grin on his face.  He removed the stillsuit plugs from his nostrils and sucked in a breath of naked air.  "Just smell the plants, Liet!  The very air is alive."  He lowered his voice and looked solemnly at his friend.  "Your father is a great man."

 

The caretakers had a haunted yet ecstatic look on their faces, filled with religious fervor at seeing their efforts bear fruit.  To them, Umma Kynes's dream was not just an abstract concept, but a genuine future to behold.

 

The Fremen there revered the son of the Planetologist.  Some came forward to touch his arm and stillsuit, feeling that this brought them closer to the prophet himself.  "And the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose," one old man cried out, quoting from the Zensunni Wisdom of the Wanderings.

 

The others began a ritual chant.  "What is more precious than the seed?"

 

"This water with which the seed germinates."

 

"What is more precious than the rock?"

 

"The fertile soil it covers."

 

The people continued in a similar fashion, but their adoration made Liet uncomfortable.  He and Warrick decided to depart as soon as the requirements of hospitality had been met, after they had shared coffee with the Naib and slept well in the cold night.

 

The people of Ten Tribes Sietch gave them warm clothing, which they had not needed until now.  Then Liet and Warrick set off again with their valuable burden of concentrated spice.

 

 

WHEN THE TWO YOUNG MEN reached the fabled fortress of the water merchant Rondo Tuek, the structure looked more like a dirty industrial warehouse than a fabulous palace set among glistening mountains of white ice.  The building was square, connected by many pipes and trenches.  Chewing machinery had eaten through the iron-hard soil to secure sparse frost buried in the dirt, leaving behind ugly mounds of debris.

 

Any pristine snow had long since been buried in layers of thick dust and blown pebbles, cemented together by frozen water.  Extracting moisture was a simple operation -- digging massive quantities of soil and cooking out the locked water vapor.

 

Liet broke off a chunk of the frozen ground and licked it, tasting salt as well as ice mingled with the grit.  He knew the water was there, but it seemed as inaccessible to him as if it were on a far-off planet.  They moved toward the big facility with their bobbing cases of distilled spice.

 

The structure was made of pseudocrete blocks fashioned out of debris from the ice-extraction process.  The fortresslike walls were blank and undecorated, studded with windows and augmented by mirrors and power collectors that drank in the low-angled sunlight.  Frost-extraction ovens emitted brown exhaust plumes, showering the air with cracked dust and grit.

 

Rondo Tuek owned an opulent mansion in Carthag, but it was said that the water merchant rarely visited his spectacular city dwelling.  Tuek had made a tidy profit by mining the water in the south and marketing it to the northern cities and the villages of the sinks and pans.

 

However, the southern hemisphere's terrible weather, especially the unpredictable sandstorms, wrecked one shipment in four, and Tuek constantly had to purchase new machinery and hire new crews.  Luckily for him, a cargo of antarctic water brought in enough profit to offset the losses.  Few entrepreneurs were willing to take such risks, but Tuek had hidden connections with the smugglers, the Guild, and the Fremen.  It was widely rumored, in fact, that the water operation was only a front, a legitimate business that concealed his real moneymaking enterprise:  acting as an intermediary with smugglers.

 

Side by side, Warrick and Liet marched past the loud machinery and busy off-worlders to the entrance gates.  Mainly, Tuek used mercenary laborers who never ventured north to spend time in the arid reality of Dune.  The water merchant preferred it that way, since such men were better able to keep secrets.

 

Though Liet was smaller in stature than Warrick, he drew himself up and stepped forward to take the lead.  A man in work overalls and insulated gloves trudged past them toward the work site, looking sidelong at the two.

 

Liet stopped him.  "We are a delegation from the Fremen, here to see Rondo Tuek.  I am Liet-Kynes, son of Pardot Kynes, and this is Warrick --"

 

The worker brusquely gestured behind him.  "He's inside somewhere.  Go find him yourself."  Then he strode toward one of the growling pieces of machinery that gnawed the dirt-encrusted ice-rock.

 

Rebuffed, Liet looked at his friend.  Warrick grinned and clapped him on the back.  "We don't have time for formalities, anyway.  Let us go find Tuek."

 

They ventured into the cavernous building, trying to look as if they belonged there.  The air was chill, though heaterglobes hummed against the walls and corners.  Liet obtained vague directions from other workers, who gestured down one hall and then the next -- until finally the two were totally lost in a maze of inventory offices, control terminals, and storage rooms.

 

A short, broad-shouldered man marched out, swinging both of his arms.  "It's not hard to notice two Fremen in here," he said.  "I'm Rondo Tuek.  Come with me to my private chamber."  The squat man cast a glance over his shoulder.  "And bring your supplies.  Don't leave that cargo lying around."

 

Liet had seen the man only briefly, years ago, at the Fenrings' banquet in the Residency at Arrakeen.  Tuek had wide-set gray eyes, flat cheekbones, and almost no chin, making his face a perfect square.  His rust-colored hair was thinning on top, but stood out in feathery brushes at his temples.  An odd-looking man with an awkward gait, he was the antithesis of the flowing grace common to Fremen.

 

Tuek scuttled ahead.  Liet and Warrick dragged the airpack-assisted containers behind them, hurrying to keep up.  Everything in the place seemed drab and plain, a disappointment to Liet.  Even in the most squalid sietch, the Fremen laid down colorful rugs and hangings, or carved decorative figures out of sandstone.  Ceilings were etched with geometrical patterns, sometimes inlaid with mosaics.

 

Tuek led them to a broad wall as blank as any of the others.  He looked from side to side to make sure his workers had cleared out of the area, then placed his palmprint against a reader.  The lock hissed open to reveal a warm chamber filled with more opulence than Liet had ever imagined possible.

 

Crystal flasks of expensive kirana brandy and Caladan wines stood in alcoves.  A jeweled chandelier shone faceted light against crimson curtains that gave the walls a muted softness, as comfortable as a womb.

 

"Ah, now we see the water merchant's hidden treasures," Warrick said.

 

The chairs were huge and plush.  Entertainment holos lay stacked on a polished-slate table.  Speckled mirrors on the ceiling reflected light from glowing Corinthian columns made of opalesque Hagal alabaster, lit from within by molecular fires.

 

"The Guild brings few comforts to Arrakis.  Fine items are not appreciated by the Harkonnens, and few others can afford them."  Tuek shrugged his broad shoulders.  "And, no one wants to transport them through the hells of the southern hemisphere just to reach my factory."

 

He raised his feathery eyebrows.  "But because of my agreement with your people" -- he pushed a control to seal the doors behind him -- "the Guild sends occasional ships into direct polar orbit.  Lighters come down with any supplies I request."  He patted the heavy cargo containers that Warrick had brought.  "In exchange for your monthly spice . . . payment."

 

"We call it a spice bribe," Liet said.

 

Tuek did not seem offended.  "Semantics, my boy.  The pure melange essence your Fremen take from the deep desert is more valuable than any scrapings the Harkonnen teams manage to find in the north.  The Guild keeps these shipments for their own use, but who can understand what the Navigators get out of it?"  He shrugged his rolling shoulders again.

 

He tapped his fingers against a pad on the slate table.  "I am noting that we've received your payment for this month.  I have instructed my quartermaster to provide you with sufficient supplies for your return journey before you depart."

 

Liet hadn't expected many pleasantries from Tuek, and he accepted the terse, businesslike manner.  He didn't want to stay there any longer, though city folk or villagers might have lingered to admire the exotic trappings and lavish appointments.  Liet had not been born to such fine things.

 

Like his father, he would rather spend his day out in the desert, where he belonged.

 

 

IF THEY PUSHED HARD, Liet guessed they could make Ten Tribes Sietch by nightfall.  He longed for the heat of the sun so he could flex his numb hands.

 

But it was the cold that impressed Warrick.  He stood with his arms spread wide, his desert boots planted on the ground.  "Have you ever felt such a thing, Liet?"  He rubbed his cheek.  "My flesh feels brittle."  He drew in a deep breath, glanced down at his boots.  "And you can sense the water.  It's here, but . . . trapped."

 

He looked at the brown mountains of dust-encrusted glaciers.  Warrick was impulsive and curious, and he called for his friend to wait.  "We've completed our duty, Liet.  Let us not be in such a hurry to return."

 

Liet stopped.  "What do you have in mind?"

 

"We are here, in the legendary ice mountains.  We've seen the palmaries and the plantings your father began.  I want to explore for a day, feel solid ice beneath my feet.  Climbing those stairstep glaciers would be equivalent to ascending mountains of gold.""You won't be able to see raw ice.  The moisture is all frozen into the dust and dirt."  But seeing the eager expression on his friend's face, Liet's impatience melted away.  "It is as you say, Warrick.  Why should we be in such a hurry?"  For the sixteen-year-olds, this could be a grander -- and safer -- adventure than their razzias against Harkonnen strongholds.  "Let us go climb glaciers."

 

They hiked off under the perpetual dim daylight of the southern pole.  The tundra had an austere beauty, particularly to someone accustomed to the reality of deserts.

 

As they left Tuek's industrial excavations behind, the plume of spewed dust and debris cast a brown haze over the horizon.  Liet and Warrick climbed higher, chipping away rocks and finding a film of ice.  They sucked on broken shards of the frozen ground, tasting bitter alkaline chemicals, spitting out the dirt and sand.

 

Warrick ran ahead, delighting in the freedom.  As Fremen, they had been trained all their lives never to let down their guard -- but Harkonnen hunters would not come to the southern pole.  Here, they were probably safe.  Probably.

 

Liet continued to scan the ground and the looming malleable cliffs that towered in great jumbles of frozen brown dirt.  He bent to examine a scuff mark, a partial indentation.  "Warrick, look at this."

 

They studied a single footprint pressed into spongy earth that had softened during the height of a warm season.  Upon closer inspection, they found subtle marks where other tracks had been carefully and intentionally obliterated.

 

"Who has been here?"

 

Warrick looked at him, and added, "And why are they hiding?  We're far from Tuek's water factory."

 

Liet sniffed the air, squinted at the cliffs and rock formations, and saw a glint of frost through the low-hanging blanket of cold.  "Maybe they are explorers, heading toward the pole to find cleaner ice to excavate."

 

"If that's the case, why bother covering their tracks?"

 

Liet looked in the direction the track pointed, up a rugged cliff face dripping with dusty mud frozen into free-form shapes.  Attuned to the details of his environment, he stared and stared, studying every shadow, every crevice.  "Something doesn't look right."

 

His awareness heightened, alarms went off in his body, and he gestured for Warrick to be still.  Sensing no other sound or motion, the two crept forward.  Since childhood, Liet and Warrick had known how to move without sound or trace across the desert.

 

Liet still could not determine what exactly struck him as out of place, yet as they approached, the sense of wrongness increased.  Though the cold numbed their delicate senses, they moved ahead with the utmost care.  Picking their path up stairsteps of frost-hardened dust, they saw what to Fremen eyes was obviously a trail.

 

People had moved along here up the slope.

 

The two young men tried to make themselves invisible against the Cliff, thinking like part of the landscape, moving like natural components.  Halfway up the slope, Liet noticed a faint discoloration in the wall, a patch too even, too artificial.  The camouflage had been done well, but with a few clumsy mistakes.

 

It was a hidden door large enough for spacecraft.  A secret storehouse for Rondo Tuek?  Another Guild operation, or a smuggler's hideout?

 

Liet stood motionless.  Before he could say anything, other patches opened beside the path, pieces of rock and ice so carefully camouflaged that even he hadn't noticed them.  Four rough-looking men lunged out.  They were muscular and wore casual uniforms cobbled together from several sources.  And they held weapons.

 

"You move well and quietly, lads," one of the men said.  He was tall and muscular, with bright eyes and a gleaming bald head.  His mustache was dark and striking across his upper lip and down to his chin.  "But you've forgotten that here in the cold, one can see steam from your breath.  Didn't think of that, did you?"

 

A pair of grizzled men gestured with their weapons for the captives to enter the mountain tunnels.  Warrick placed his hand on the crysknife hilt at his waist and looked over at his companion.  They would be willing to die back-to-back if need be.

 

But Liet shook his head.  These men wore no Harkonnen colors.  In some places the insignia had been torn from armbands and shoulder pads.  They must be smugglers.

 

The bald man glanced at one of his lieutenants.  "We obviously have some fine-tuning to do with our camouflage."

 

"Are we your prisoners?" Liet asked, looking meaningfully at the guns.

 

"I want to learn what we did wrong that you could spot our hideout so easily."  The muscular bald man lowered his weapon.  "My name is Dominic Vernius -- and you are my guests . . . for now."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The increasing variety and abundance of life itself vastly multiplies the number of niches available for life.  The resulting system is a web of makers and users, eaters and eaten, collaborators and competitors.

 

-PARDOT KYNES, Report to Emperor Shaddam IV

 

 

FOR ALL HIS WILES AND SCHEMES, even with all the blood on his hands, Hasimir Fenring could be so wonderful to her.  Lady Margot missed him.  He was away, having gone with Baron Harkonnen deep into the desert to inspect spice harvester sites after receiving an angry message from Shaddam about a shortfall in melange production.

 

With cold adherence to his clear-cut goals, her husband had committed numerous atrocities in the Emperor's name, and she suspected he'd had a hand in the mysterious death of Elrood IX.  But her Bene Gesserit upbringing had taught her to value results and consequences.  Hasimir Fenring knew how to get what he wanted, and Margot adored him for it.

 

She sighed each time she entered the lush wet-planet conservatory her husband had commissioned for her.  Dressed in a comfortable yet stunning glitterslick housedress that changed color for each hour of the day, Margot pressed her hand against the palm-lock of the moisture-sealed door.  As she stepped through the ornate mosaic arch into the verdant chamber, she breathed deeply of the rich air.  Automatically, soothing music began to play, with baliset and piano.

 

The walls radiated yellow afternoon sunlight, where panes of filter glass converted the white sun of Arrakis to a color reminiscent of Kaitain days.  Thick leaves waved in forced-air circulation like the banners of cheering citizens.  Over the past four years, the plants in this chamber had flourished beyond her wildest expectations.

 

On a world where every drop of moisture was precious and beggars wandered the streets asking for water squeezings, where colorfully costumed water-sellers jingled their bells and charged exorbitant prices for just a sip, her private retreat was an extravagant waste.  And worth every drop.  As her husband always said, the Imperial Spice Minister could afford it.

 

Deep in her past, among the echoes of ancient lives still available to her, Margot remembered a sheltered wife in a strict Islamic household, a woman named Fatimah after the only daughter of Mohammed.  Her husband had been wealthy enough to care for three wives, keeping them inside his house, giving each one a courtyard of her own.  After her marriage ceremony, Fatimah had never gone outside the home again, nor had the other wives.  Her entire world was contained within the lush courtyard, with its plants and flowers, and an open sky above.  The trickling water in its central fountain provided a musical accompaniment to her stringed instruments.  Sometimes butterflies or hummingbirds would drop down to feast on the nectar. . . .

 

Now, countless generations later, on a planet orbiting a sun farther away than that ancient woman could ever have imagined, Margot Fenring found herself in a similar place, sheltered and beautiful and full of plants.

 

A clockwork servok with long arms of pipe and hose misted the air, spraying the pruned trees, ferns, and flowers.  The cool moistness chilled Margot's skin, and she breathed it into her lungs.  Such luxury, after so many long years!  She lifted a wet fan leaf, thrust her fingers into the loamy soil at the plant's base.  No sign of the juice-sucking aphid mutants this plant had carried when it arrived from its tropical homeworld of Ginaz.

 

As she examined the roots, the voice of Reverend Mother Biana whispered to her from Other Memory.  The long-dead Sister, who had been groundskeeper at the Mother School two centuries earlier, counseled Margot in the gentle ways of horticultural science.  The music -- Biana's favorite song, a haunting troubadour melody from Jongleur -- had sparked the inner ghost.

 

Even without Biana's memory-assistance, Margot prided herself on her knowledge of plants.  Specimens from all over the Imperium flourished in the conservatory; she thought of them as the children she could not have with her genetic eunuch husband.  She enjoyed watching the plants grow and mature on such a hostile world.

 

Her husband was also good at surviving hostile situations.

 

She stroked a long, silken leaf.  I will protect you.

 

Margot lost track of time, forgetting even to emerge for her meals.  A Bene Gesserit Sister could fast for a week, if necessary.  She was alone with her plants and her thoughts and the Other Memory of long-dead Sisters.

 

Contented, she sat on a bench by a fluted fountain at the center of the room.  She placed a rootbound philarose on the bench beside her, and closed her eyes, resting, meditating. . . .

 

By the time she returned to herself, the sun had gone down in a blaze on the horizon, casting long shadows from rock escarpments to the west.  Interior lights had turned on in the conservatory.  Wonderfully rested, she carried the philarose to the potting bench and removed the plant from the container it had outgrown.  She hummed the Jongleur tune to herself as she packed dirt around the roots in a new pot, completely at peace.

 

Turning around, Margot was startled to see a leathery-skinned man less than two meters away.  He stared at her with deep blue eyes . . . something oddly familiar about him.  He wore a jubba cloak, hood thrown back.  A Fremen!

 

How had the man gotten in, despite all of the conservatory's stringent security measures and alarms, despite the palm lock keyed to her hand alone?  Even with her enhanced Bene Gesserit senses, she had not heard him approach.

 

The philarose pot fell from her hands with a crash, and she dropped smoothly into a Bene Gesserit fighting stance, her body loose and poised, her trained muscles ready to deliver toe-pointed kicks that could disembowel an opponent.

 

"We have heard of your weirding way of battle," the man said without moving.  "But you are trained never to employ it precipitously."

 

Wary, Margot took a slow, cold breath.  How could he possibly know this?

 

"We received your message.  You wished to speak with the Fremen."

 

Finally, she placed the man.  She had seen him in Rutii, an outlying village during one of her tours.  He was a self-styled priest of the desert, who administered blessings to the people.  Margot recalled the priest's discomfort when he'd noticed her watching him, how he had stopped his activities and had gone away. . . .

 

She heard a rustling in the shrubbery.  A shrunken woman stepped into view, also Fremen, also familiar.  It was the Shadout Mapes, the housekeeper, prematurely graying and wrinkled from the sun and wind of the desert.  Mapes, too, had eschewed her customary household attire and instead wore a drab traveling cloak for a desert journey.

 

Mapes said, in a throaty voice, "Much water is wasted here, my Lady.  You flaunt the richness of other worlds.  This is not the Fremen way."