A Duke must always take control of his household, for if he does not rule those closest to him, he cannot hope to govern a planet.

 

-DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES

 

 

SHORTLY AFTER THE NOONDAY MEAL, Leto sat on the carpeted floor of the playroom, bouncing his four-and-a-half-year-old son on his knee.  Though he had grown big for the game, Victor still squealed with unbounded glee.  Through armor-plat windows the Duke could see the blue Caladan sky kissing the sea at the horizon, with white clouds scudding above.

 

Behind him, Kailea watched from the doorway.

 

"He's too old for that, Leto.  Stop treating him like a baby."

 

"Victor doesn't seem to agree."  He bounced the dark-haired boy even higher, eliciting louder giggles.

 

Leto's relationship with Kailea had improved in the six months since he'd installed the fabulously expensive blue obsidian walls.  Now the dining hall and Kailea's private tower chambers echoed the splendor of the Grand Palais.  But her mood had darkened again in recent weeks, as she brooded (no doubt egged on by Chiara) over how much time he spent with Jessica.

 

Leto no longer paid any attention to her complaints; they ran off him like spring rain.  In sharp contrast, Jessica demanded nothing from him.  Her kindness and occasional suggestions energized him and allowed him to perform his duties as Duke with compassion and fairness.

 

For Kailea's sake, and for Victor's as well, Leto would not harm her reputation on Caladan.  The people loved their Duke, and he let them maintain their illusions of fairy-tale happiness in his Castle -- much the same way Paulus had feigned a pleasant marriage with Lady Helena.  The Old Duke had called it "bedroom politics," the bane of leaders all across the Imperium.

 

"Oh, why do I make the effort to talk with you at all, Leto?" Kailea said, still standing at the playroom doorway.  "It's like arguing with a stone!"

 

Leto stopped bouncing Victor and looked over at her, his gray eyes hard.  He kept his voice carefully neutral.  "I didn't realize you were making much of an effort."

 

Muttering an insult under her breath, Kailea whirled and stalked down the corridor.  Leto pretended not to notice she had left.

 

Spying her blond-haired brother carrying a baliset over one shoulder, Kailea hurried to catch up with him.  But upon seeing her, Rhombur just shook his head.  He held up a wide hand to forestall what he knew would be a flood of complaints.

 

"What is it now, Kailea?"  He touched one hand to the baliset strings.  Thufir Hawat had continued teaching him how to play the nine-stringed instrument.  "Have you found something new to be angry about, or is it a subject I've heard before?"

 

His tone took her aback.  "Is that any way to greet your sister?  You've been avoiding me for days."  Her emerald eyes flashed.

 

"Because all you do is complain.  Leto won't marry you . . . he plays too rough with Victor . . . uh, he spends too much time with Jessica . . . he should take you to Kaitain more often . . . he doesn't use his napkin right.  I'm tired of trying to mediate between you two."  He shook his head.  "To top it all off, it seems to irritate you that I'm completely content with Tessia.  Stop blaming everyone else, Kailea -- your happiness is your own responsibility."

 

"I've lost too much in my life to be happy."  She raised her chin.

 

Now Rhombur actually looked angry.  "Are you really too self-centered to see that I've lost as much as you have?  I just don't let it eat at me every day."

 

"But we didn't have to lose it.  You can still do more for House Vernius."  She was ashamed of his ineffectiveness.  "I'm glad our parents aren't here to see this.  You're a pitiful excuse for a Prince, brother."

 

"Now that does sound a little like Tessia, though the way she says it isn't so grating."

 

She fell silent as Jessica emerged from a passageway and turned toward the playroom.  Kailea flashed the other concubine a dagger-glare, but Jessica smiled congenially.  After entering the playroom to join Leto and Victor, she closed the door behind her.

 

Looking back at Rhombur, Kailea snapped, "My son Victor is the future and hope of a new House Atreides, but you can't understand that simple fact."

 

The Ixian Prince just shook his head, deeply saddened.

 

 

 

 

 

"I TRY TO BE PLEASANT TO HER, but it's no use," Jessica said, inside the playroom.  "She hardly says a word to me, and the way she looks at --"

 

"Not again."  Leto heaved a perturbed sigh.  "I know Kailea's causing damage to my family, but I can't find it in my heart to just send her away."  He sat on the floor, while his son played with toy groundcars and ornithopters.  "If it weren't for Victor --"

 

"Chiara is always whispering something to her.  The results are obvious.  Kailea is a powder keg, ready to explode."

 

Holding a model 'thopter in his hands, Duke Leto looked up at Jessica helplessly.  "Now you're showing spite of your own, Jessica.  I'm disappointed in you."  His face hardened.  "Concubines do not rule this House."

 

Because he knew Jessica had spent years in Bene Gesserit training, Leto was surprised to see all color drain from her face.  "My Lord, I . . . didn't mean it that way.  I'm so sorry."  Bowing, she backed up and left the room.

 

Leto stared blankly at the toy, then at Victor.  He felt completely lost.

 

A short while later, concealed like a shadow, Jessica observed Kailea in the Castle foyer, whispering to Swain Goire, the household guard who spent much of his time watching over Victor.  Goire's loyalty and dedication to the Duke had always been clear, and Jessica had seen how much he adored his young ward.

 

Goire seemed uneasy about receiving so much attention from the ducal concubine; seemingly by accident, Kailea brushed her breasts against his arm, but he pulled away.

 

Having been schooled in the intricate ways of human nature by the Bene Gesserit, Jessica was only surprised that Kailea had taken so long to attempt this petty revenge against Leto.

 

 

TWO NIGHTS LATER, unnoticed even by Thufir Hawat, Kailea slipped quietly into Goire's bedroom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We create our own future by our own beliefs, which control our actions.  A strong enough belief system, a sufficiently powerful conviction, can make anything happen.  This is how we create our consensus reality, including our gods.

 

-REVEREND MOTHER RAMALLO, Sayyadina of the Fremen

 

 

THE SWORDMASTER PRACTICE HALL on the new Ginaz island was so opulent that it would not have been out of place in any Landsraad ruling seat or even in the Imperial Palace on Kaitain.

 

When Duncan Idaho stepped onto the gleaming hardwood floor, a veneer of light and dark strips laid down and polished by hand, he looked around in wonder.  A dozen reflected images stared back at him from beveled floor-to-ceiling mirrors, bounded by intricately wrought gold frames.  It had been seven years since he'd seen surroundings this fine, in Castle Caladan, where he'd trained under Thufir Hawat in the Atreides hall.

 

Wind-bowed cypress trees surrounded the magnificent training facility on three sides, with a stony beach on the fourth.  The ostentatious building was startling in its stark contrast with the students' primitive barracks.  Run by Swordmaster Whitmore Bludd, a balding man with a purple birthmark on his forehead, the ornamentation of this practice hall would have made shaggy-haired Mord Cour laugh.

 

Though an accomplished duelist, foppish Bludd considered himself a noble and surrounded himself with fine things, even on his remote Ginaz island.  Blessed with an inexhaustible family fortune, Bludd had spent his own money to make this fencing facility the most "civilized" place in the entire archipelago.

 

The Swordmaster was a direct descendant of Porce Bludd, who had fought valiantly in the Butlerian Jihad.  Prior to the battle exploits that had bought him fame and cost him his life, Porce Bludd transported war-orphaned children to sanctuary planets, paying the tremendous costs out of his huge inheritance.  On Ginaz, Whitmore Bludd never forgot his heritage -- or allowed others to forget, either.

 

As Duncan stood with the others in the echoing hall -- smelling lemon and carnauba oil, seeing splinters of light from chandeliers and mirrors -- the finery seemed foreign to him.  Paintings of dour-looking Bludd noblemen lined the walls; a massive fireplace befitting a royal hunting lodge reached to the ceiling.  A fully stocked armory held racks of swords and fencing paraphernalia.  The palatial decor implied an army of servants, but Duncan saw no other souls besides the trainees, the assistant instructors, and Whitmore Bludd himself.

 

After permitting the students to gape in astonishment and uncertainty, Swordmaster Bludd strutted in front of them.  He wore billowy lavender pantaloons bound at the knees, and gray hose down to short black boots.  The belt was wide, with a square buckle the size of his hand.  His blouse shirt had a high, restrictive collar, long ballooning sleeves, tight cuffs, and lace trimmings.

 

"I will teach you fencing, Messieurs," he said.  "No brutish nonsense with body shields and kindjal daggers and power packs.  No, most vehemently no!"  He withdrew a whip-thin blade with a bell-shaped handguard and a triangular cross section.  He swished it in the air.  "Fencing is the sport -- no, the art of swordsmanship with a blunted blade.  It is a dance of mental reflexes, as well as of the body."

 

He thrust the flexible epee into a scabbard at his side, then ordered all of the students to change into fancy fencing outfits: archaic musketeer costumes with studded buttons, lacy cuffs, ruffles, and cumbersome billows -- "the better to display the beauty of fencing," Bludd said.

 

By now, Duncan had learned never to hesitate in following instructions.  He pulled on knee-high calfskin boots with cavalier spurs, and slipped into a blue-velvet shortcoat with a lace collar and voluminous white sleeves.  He donned a rakish, broad-brimmed felt hat with the variegated pink plume of a Parella peacock tucked into its band.

 

Across the room, he and Hiih Resser made eyes and faces at each other, amused.  The attire seemed better suited to a holiday masque than to fighting.

 

"You will learn to fight with finesse and grace, Messieurs."  Whitmore Bludd strutted back and forth, immensely pleased with all the finery around him.  "You will see the artistry in a fine duel.  You will turn every movement into an art form."  The foppish but powerfully built Swordmaster picked at a speck of lint on his ruffled shirt.  "With only a year left in your training, one assumes you have the potential to rise above animal attacks and cloddish brawls?  We will not lower ourselves to barbarism here."

 

Morning sunlight passed through a high, narrow window and glinted off Duncan's pewter buttons.  Feeling foolish, he examined himself in the wall mirror, then found his usual place in formation.

 

When the remaining students lined up on the hardwood practice floor, Swordmaster Bludd inspected their uniforms with many sighs and disapproving noises.  He smoothed wrinkles, while scolding the young men for incorrectly buttoned cuffs and criticizing their attire with surprising seriousness.

 

"Terran musketeer fencing is the fifteenth fighting discipline you will learn.  But knowing the moves does not mean you understand the style.  Today you will compete against one another, with all the grace and chivalry that fencing demands.  Your epees will not be blunted, and you will wear no protective masks."

 

He indicated racks of fencing swords between each bank of mirrors on the wall, and the students moved forward to arm themselves; all the blades were identical, ninety centimeters long, flexible, and sharp.  The students toyed with them. Duncan wished he could use the Old Duke's sword, but the fabulously tooled weapon was made for a different kind of fighting.  Not fencing.

 

Bludd sniffed, then swished his thin epee in the air to recapture their attention.  "You must fight to your fullest ability -- but I insist that there be no injuries or blood on either opponent.  Not so much as a scratch -- no, most vehemently no!  And certainly no damage to the clothes.  Learn the perfect attack, and the perfect defense.  Lunge, parry, riposte.  Practice supreme control.  You are each responsible for your fellows."  He swept his ice-blue gaze across the trainees, and his birthmark darkened on his forehead.  "Any man who fails me, anyone who causes a wound or allows himself to be injured, will be disqualified from the next sequence of competitions."

 

Duncan drew deep, calming breaths, centering himself to face the challenge.

 

"This is a test of your artistry, Messieurs," Bludd said, pacing the polished floor in his black boots.  "This is the delicate dance of personal combat.  The goal will be to score touches upon your opponent's person without cutting him."

 

The spotlessly clean Swordmaster picked up his feathered hat and set it firmly on his head.  He indicated marked combat rectangles inlaid into the beautiful parquet floor.  "Prepare to fight."

 

 

DUNCAN QUICKLY DEFEATED three comparatively easy opponents, but his fourth adversary, Iss Opru -- a smooth stylist from Al Dhanab -- made himself a difficult target.  Even so, the dark-skinned Opru had insufficient skill in offense to match his defense, and Duncan outscored him by a single point.

 

In a nearby combat box, a student buckled at the knees, and bled from a wound in his side.  The assistant trainers rushed in and removed him on a litter.  His opponent, a Terrazi with shoulder-length hair, scowled at his stained blade, awaiting his punishment.  Whitmore Bludd snagged the Terrazi student's sword and viciously flogged his backside with it, as if it were a metal whip.  "Both of you are a disgrace to your training -- him for allowing the wound, you for not exercising sufficient restraint."  Without protest, the Terrazi stumbled to the losers' bench.

 

Now, two liveried servants -- the first Duncan had seen -- rushed in to clean up the blood and polish the parquet in preparation for the next match.  The fighting continued.

 

Duncan Idaho, along with Resser and two other perspiring finalists, stood panting in the center of the practice hall, awaiting their final dueling assignments.  Frustrated and uncomfortable, they had come to loathe their extravagant costumes, but so far none of the finalists had been scratched, none of the heavy fabric had been torn.

 

"Idaho and Resser over here!  Eddin and al-Kaba, there!" Sword, master Bludd called out, designating combat rectangles on the floor.

 

Obediently, the students moved into position.  Resser eyed Duncan, sizing him up as a foe instead of as a friend.  Duncan crouched, flexing his knees and balancing on the balls of his feet.  Leaning forward with his arm slightly bent, he extended the epee toward Resser, then drew back in a brief salute.  With a confident look, the redheaded Grumman did the same.  Evenly matched, they had dueled one another many times in full protective gear, with other weapons.  Duncan's speed usually compensated for lanky Resser's superior height and reach.  But now they had to follow Bludd's rules of fencing, inflict or receive no scratches, not even damage the expensive, anachronistic outfits.

 

Bouncing on his feet to stay loose, Duncan said nothing.  The flexible sword would do the talking for him.  Perspiration prickled his black hair beneath the felt hat and the distracting peacock plume.  He stared up at his freckled opponent.

 

"En garde," Bludd said.  His blue eyes flashed as he raised his blade.

 

At the signal to begin, Resser lunged forward.  Duncan parried, deflecting his opponent's blade with a sound like singing chimes, then took half a step to the right and delivered a precise riposte, skillfully diverted by the tall Grumman.  Swords clattered together, steel skimming steel, as the two felt each other out.

 

Both men were sweating, panting, their expressions fading into blank stares as they moved back and forth within the clear boundaries of dark wood on the parquet floor.  So far Resser had done nothing unexpected, as usual.  Duncan hoped he could use that trait to defeat his opponent.

 

As if sensing the direction of his friend's thoughts, the redhead began to fight with the fury of a warrior possessed, scoring one touché on Duncan and then two, careful not to damage his opponent but also relying on Duncan to mount a perfect defense.

 

Duncan had never seen such energy in his friend, and he struggled to elude a series of vicious thrusts.  He backed up, waiting for the flurry of activity to ebb.  Sweat ran down his cheek.

 

Still, Resser pressed on at a frantic pace, as if under the influence of a stimulant.  Their swords clattered loudly.  Duncan could spare no fraction of his attention to note the progress of the other match, but heard shouting and a final clang of blades that told him the two other contestants had finished.

 

Swordmaster Bludd gave Duncan's match the full weight of his scrutiny.

 

The redhead's point touched him on his padded shirt, then seconds later on the forehead. Resser was scoring points, leaving no scratches, following the rules.  Four points now, and with five he would win the match.  If this had been a fight to the death, I would be dead now.

 

Like a carrion bird waiting for a feast, Bludd watched every move.

 

Under Resser's onslaught, Duncan's muscles seemed to be slowing, holding him back and preventing him from applying his normal skills.  He looked at the epee in his right hand and dredged up resources and strength within himself, drawing upon everything he had learned in seven years on Ginaz.  I fight for House Atreides.  I can win.

 

Resser danced deftly around him with the epee, making him look foolish.  Duncan's breathing slowed, and his heart rate diminished.  Maximize chi, he thought, visualizing the energy that flowed along precise paths in his body.  I must become a complete Swordmaster to defend my Duke -- not make a pretty performance to please these instructors.

 

Resser ceased scoring as Duncan danced away.  The chi within him mounted, building pressure, waiting for the right moment to be released.  Duncan focused the energy, aiming it. . . .

 

Now he was on the attack.  He confused the lanky redhead with moves synthesized from various fighting disciplines.  He whirled, kicked, used his free hand as a weapon.  They both staggered outside the boundaries of the fencing area, then back into the rectangle.  Duncan attacked again.  A fist to the side of Resser's head, knocking off the feathered cap, a kick to the stomach -- all without drawing blood.

 

Stunned, Resser thudded to the floor.  Duncan knocked his rival's sword away and leaped on top of him, placing the tip of his own blade at the Grumman's throat.  Victory!

 

"Gods below!  What are you doing?"  Swordmaster Bludd shoved Duncan off Resser.  "You clod!"  He grabbed the flexible sword away, and slapped Duncan twice across the face.  "This isn't a street brawl, fool.  We're doing musketeer fencing today.  Are you an animal?"

 

Duncan rubbed his face where he'd been struck.  In the heat of combat he had fought for survival, ignoring the frivolous restrictions imposed by the instructor.

 

Bludd slapped Duncan several more times, harder each time, as if the student had personally insulted him.  In the background, Resser kept saying, "It's all right -- I'm not hurt.  He bested me, and I couldn't defend myself."  Humiliated, Duncan backed away.

 

Bludd's rage did not subside.  "You may think you're the best student in the class, Idaho -- but you're a failure in my eyes."

 

Duncan felt like a small child being backed into a corner by an adult with a strap.  He wanted to fight back, wanted to stand up to this ridiculous-looking man, but didn't dare.

 

He recalled the ill-tempered Trin Kronos using the same reasoning with fat Swordmaster Rivvy Dinari.  If you are bound by nonsensical strictures, you'll be beaten by any opponent willing to bend the rules.  His primary purpose was to defend his Duke against any possible threat, not to play fencing games in costumes.

 

"Think about why you're a failure," Whitmore Bludd thundered, "and then explain it to me."

 

Tell that to the dead soldiers on the losing side.

 

Duncan thought hard.  He did not want to echo the shameful thinking of the spoiled Kronos, though it made more sense than he had realized before.  Rules could be interpreted differently, depending on the purpose they served.  In some situations there was no absolute good or evil, simply points of view.  In any event, he knew what his instructor wanted to hear.

 

"I am a failure because my mind is imperfect."

 

His answer seemed to surprise the muscular man, but a bemused smile gradually formed on Bludd's face.  "Correct enough, Idaho," he said.  "Now get over there with the other losers."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Challenge:  Time?

Answer:  A brilliant, many-faceted gem.

 

Challenge:  Time?

Answer:  A dark stone, reflecting no visible light.

 

-Fremen wisdom, from The Riddle Game

 

 

WITH HIS BALISET SLUNG by a leather strap over one shoulder, Rhombur Vernius hiked down the steep zigzag trail to the bottom of the black cliff.  Castle Caladan loomed high over the rock face, stretching toward the billowing cumulus clouds and the cerulean sky.  A strong early-afternoon breeze caressed his face.

 

Behind him, in one of those soaring Castle towers, his sister spent too much time brooding.  As he paused to look back, he saw Kailea up there now, standing on her balcony.  With forced cheer, he waved to her, but she did not respond.  For months they had hardly spoken to one another.  This time he shook his head and decided not to let her usual rebuff bother him.  His sister's expectations outweighed her reality.

 

It was a warm spring day, with gray gulls soaring on thermals over the whitecaps.  Like one of the poor village fishermen, Rhombur wore a short-sleeved blue-and-white-striped shirt, fishing dungarees, and a blue cap jammed over his blond hair.  Tessia sometimes walked along the shore with him, while other times she let him ponder by himself.

 

With Kailea's dark moods in mind, the Ixian Prince descended a wooden stairway that cantilevered out over the cliff.  He took care on the rough, moss-covered section of trail.  It was a treacherous route, even in good weather:  A careless misstep and he could tumble to the rocks below.  Hardy green shrubs clung to crevices on the sheer rock face, along with orange and yellow succulents.  Duke Leto, like his father before him, preferred to leave the path essentially natural, with minimal maintenance.  "The life of a leader should not be too soft," the Atreides men liked to say.

 

Rather than discussing his concerns with Tessia, Rhombur decided to soothe his troubled spirits by spending time on a small boat, drifting alone and playing the baliset.  Not confident of his musical abilities, he preferred to practice away from the Castle anyway, where no critical ears could hear him.

 

After traversing a black-shingle downslope to the main dock, he took a steep wooden stairway down to a finger pier where a white motorboat bobbed gently in the waves.  A purple-and-copper Ixian insignia marked the bow above letters that named the craft after his missing father:  Dominic.

 

Each time Rhombur saw the name, he dreamed that his father might still be alive, somewhere in the Imperium.  The Earl of House Vernius had disappeared -- and with the passage of time all hope of locating him had faded.  Dominic had never sent word, made no contact at all.  He must be dead.

 

Rhombur unslung the baliset and laid the instrument on the dock.  A cleat on the stern of the boat was missing one bolt, so he climbed aboard and opened a toolbox in the cockpit, where he found another bolt and a ratchet to tighten it down.

 

He liked to maintain his own boat, and sometimes hours would pass as he worked on it, sanding, painting, lacquering, replacing hardware, installing new electronics and fishing accessories.  It was all so different from the pampered life he'd led on Ix.  Now, as he stepped back onto the dock and made the simple repair, Rhombur wished he could be the leader that his father had been.

 

The chances of that seemed virtually nil.

 

Though Rhombur had made efforts to help the mysterious rebels on Ix, he hadn't heard from them in over a year, and some of the weapons and explosives he'd sent had come back undelivered, despite bribes paid to transport workers.  Even the most highly paid smugglers had been unable to infiltrate the material into the cavernous underground city.

 

No one knew what was going on there.  C'tair Pilru, his primary contact with the freedom fighters, had fallen silent.  Like Dominic himself, C'tair might be dead, the valiant struggle crushed with him.  Rhombur had no way of knowing, no means of breaching the intense Tleilaxu security.

 

Hearing footsteps on the dock, Rhombur was surprised to see his sister approaching.  Kailea wore a showy dress of silver and gold; a ruby clasp secured her copper-dark hair.  He noticed that both of her shins were red and bruised, and that the hem of her dress was soiled.

 

"I tripped on the trail," she admitted. She must have run after him, hurrying to catch up.

 

"You don't often come down to the docks."  He forced a smile.  "Would you like to go out on the boat with me?"

 

When Kailea shook her head, her curls bounced against her cheeks.  "I'm here to apologize, Rhombur.  I'm sorry I've been so mean to you, avoiding you, hardly saying anything at all."

 

"And glaring at me," he added.

 

Her emerald eyes flashed, before she caught herself and softened.  "That, too."

 

"Apology accepted."  He finished tightening down the cleat, then climbed back into the cockpit of the Dominic to put the tools away.

 

She remained on the dock after he stepped aboard.  "Rhombur," Kailea began in a plaintive tone that was only too familiar.  It meant she wanted something, though her face was all innocence.  "You and Tessia are so close -- I just wish I had the same relationship with Leto."

 

"Relationships require maintenance," he said.  "Uh, like this boat.  With some time and care, you could repair things between you two."

 

Her mouth twisted in a grimace of distaste.  "But isn't there anything more you can do about Leto?  We can't go on this way forever."

 

"Do about him?  It sounds like you want to dispose of him."

 

His sister did not answer directly.  "Victor should be his legal heir, not a bastard without name, title, or property.  There must be something different you can say to Leto, something more you could try."

 

"Vermilion hells, Kailea!  I've tried fifty different times and fifty different ways, and he always turns me down.  It's already driven a wedge between us.  Because of you, I may have lost my best friend."

 

The glow of sunshine on her skin looked like distant firelight.  "What does mere friendship matter, when we're talking about the future of House Vernius -- the Great House of our forefathers?  Think about the important things, Rhombur."

 

His expression turned to stone.  "You've turned this into a problem, when it never had to be.  You alone, Kailea.  If you couldn't accept the limitations, why did you agree to become Leto's concubine at all?  You two seemed so happy at first.  Why don't you apologize to him?  Why not simply accept reality?  Why don't you make an effort?"  Rhombur shook his head, stared at the fire-jewel ring on his right hand.  "I'm not going to question Leto's decisions.  I may not agree with his reasons, but I understand them.  He is Duke Atreides, and we owe him the respect of following his wishes."

 

Kailea's expression, which she had been keeping under control, changed to a disdainful sneer.  "You're not a Prince.  Chiara says you're not even a man."  She lifted one foot and stomped at the baliset, but in her rage lost her balance and dealt it only a glancing blow.  The instrument skidded off the dock into the water, where it floated behind the boat.

 

Swearing, Rhombur leaned out over the edge of the dock and retrieved the baliset, as Kailea whirled and left.  While drying the instrument with a towel, he watched her climb the steep path back to the Castle, half-running and half-walking. She stumbled, got back up, and kept going, trying to maintain her dignity.

 

No wonder Leto preferred the calm, intelligent Jessica.  Kailea, once so sweet and kind, had become hard and cruel.  He didn't know her anymore.  He sighed.  I love her, but I don't like her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It requires a desperate and lonely sort of courage to challenge the accepted wisdom upon which social peace of mind rests.

 

-CROWN PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO, In Defense of Change in the Face of Tradition

 

 

 

THE TOWERING GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS of Corrinth, the capital city of Kaitain, rose around Abulurd Harkonnen like a drug-induced fantasy.  In his wildest dreams he had never visualized so many soaring edifices, jeweled inlays, and polished slabs of precious stone.

 

On Giedi Prime, where he'd grown up under the watchful eye of his father Dmitri, cities were crowded, with dirty settlements erected for function and industry rather than beauty.  But here, it was quite different.  Colorful chime kites were tethered to the tall buildings, writhing on breezes in the perpetually blue skies.  Prismatic ribbons drifted across the sky and shed rainbows on the flagstones below.  Kaitain was obviously more concerned with form than substance.

 

Within an hour, the sunny dazzle of perfect skies made Abulurd dizzy, causing an ache in the back of his skull.  He longed for the overcast skies of Lankiveil, the damp breezes that cut right to the bone, and the warm embrace of Emmi.

 

But Abulurd had an important task to perform, an appointment at the daily Landsraad Council meeting.  It seemed a mere formality, but he was determined to do it, for the sake of his family and his infant son, and it would change his life forever.  Abulurd longed for the days to come.

 

He strode along the promenade under banners of Great and Minor Houses that flapped precisely in the gentle winds.  The imposing buildings seemed even more massive and powerful than the cliffs bounding the fjords of Lankiveil.

 

He had taken care to wear his grandest whale fur cloak adorned with precious jewels and hand-worked scrimshaw amulets.  Abulurd had come to Corrinth as a legal representative of House Harkonnen to reclaim his title as subdistrict governor of Rabban-Lankiveil.  It had always been his right, but never before had it mattered to him.

 

Because he walked without an escort or a retinue of sycophants, the clerks and functionaries dismissed Abulurd as not deserving of notice.  They looked out the windows, sat on balconies, or bustled to and fro with important documents scribed on ridulian crystal sheets.  To them, he was invisible.

 

When seeing him off at the Lankiveil spaceport, Emmi had coached him, making him rehearse for her.  According to the rules of the Landsraad, Abulurd had the authority to request an audience and to file his documents.  The other nobles would see his request as minor . . . trivial, even.  But it meant so much to him, and he had put it off for too long.

 

During the months of Emmi's pregnancy, happy again, they had reopened the main lodge and tried to bring life and color back into their lives.  Abulurd subsidized industries, even seeded the waters with fish so that boatmen could earn a livelihood until the Bjondax whales chose to return.

 

Then, five months ago, Emmi had quietly given birth to a healthy baby boy.  They named him Feyd-Rautha, partly in honor of his grandfather Onir Rautha-Rabban, the slain burgomaster of Bifrost Eyrie.  When Abulurd held the baby in his arms, he saw quick, intelligent eyes and an insatiable curiosity, exquisite features, and a strong voice.  In his heart this was now his only son.

 

Together, he and Emmi had searched for the old Buddislamic monk who had been responsible for the pregnancy.  They wanted to thank her and have her bless the healthy infant, but they could find no trace of the wizened woman in sky-blue robes and gold embroidery.

 

Now, on Kaitain, Abulurd would do something to benefit his new son more than a simple monk's blessing could ever accomplish.  If it went well, little Feyd-Rautha would have a different future, untainted by the crimes in House Harkonnen's extended history.  He would grow up to be a good man.

 

Standing tall, Abulurd entered the Landsraad Hall of Oratory, passing beneath a mottled coral archwork that rose over his head like a bridge across a mountain chasm.  Upon arriving at the capital world, he had made an appointment with an Imperial scribe to add his name to the agenda.  When Abulurd refused to bribe the functionary, though, the scheduling secretary was unable to find a slot open until the end of a long session, three days hence.

 

So Abulurd had waited.  He despised bureaucratic corruption and preferred to inconvenience himself rather than bow to the unfortunate standards of Shaddam IV's court.  He disliked long-distance travel, would rather have stayed home tending his own affairs or playing board games with Emmi and the household staff, but the requirements of noble status forced him to do many things he came to regret.

 

Perhaps today he would change all that for the better.

 

Within the Hall of Oratory, meetings were held by representatives of the Great and Minor Houses, CHOAM directors, and other important officials who had no noble titles.  The business of the Imperium continued daily.

 

Abulurd expected his appearance to draw little attention.  He'd not forewarned his half-brother, and knew that the Baron would be upset when he found out, but Abulurd continued into the enormous hall, proud and confident -- and more nervous than he had ever been in his life.  Vladimir would simply have to accept this.

 

The Baron had other problems and obligations.  His health had failed greatly over the years, and he'd put on such an enormous amount of weight that he now walked with the aid of suspensors.  How the Baron kept going despite all that, Abulurd didn't know; he understood little of the engines that drove his half-brother.

 

Abulurd quietly took a seat in the gallery and called up the agenda to see that the meetings had already fallen an hour behind the time slots -- which was to be expected, he supposed. So he waited, straight-backed on the plastone bench, listening to dull business resolutions and minor adjustments to laws that he didn't pretend to care about or even understand.

 

Despite the light shining through stained-glass windows and the heaters mounted under the cold stone, this enormous hall had a sterile feel to it.  He just wanted to go home.  When they finally called his name, Abulurd emerged from his distraction and marched toward the speaker's podium.  His knees were shaking, but he tried not to show it.

 

On their high bench, the council members sat in formal gray robes.  Glancing over his shoulder, Abulurd saw empty seats in the section where formal Harkonnen representatives should have been.  No one had bothered to attend this minor daily meeting, not even Kato Whylls, the long-standing ambassador from Giedi Prime.  No one had thought to inform Whylls that the day's business would involve House Harkonnen.

 

Perfect.

 

He faltered as he remembered the last time he'd intended to address a group of people -- his citizens rebuilding Bifrost Eyrie, and the horrors that had befallen them before he could speak his piece.  Now, Abulurd drew a deep breath and prepared to address the Chairman, a lean man with long braided hair and hooded eyes.  He could not remember which House the Chairman belonged to.

 

Before Abulurd could speak, however, the Master of Arms rattled off his name and titles in a long and droning sequence.  Abulurd hadn't known so many words could follow his name, since he was a relatively unimportant person in the faufreluches system.  But it did sound impressive.

 

None of the sleepy members of the council appeared the least bit interested, however.  They passed papers among themselves.

 

"Your Honors," he began, "sirs, I have come to make a formal request.  I have filed the appropriate paperwork to reclaim the title that is due me as subdistrict governor of Rabban-Lankiveil.  I have effectively served in this capacity for years, but I never . . . submitted the proper documents."

 

When he began to lay forth his reasoning and his justification in a voice rising with passion, the Council Chairman raised a hand.  "You have followed the formal procedures required for a hearing, and the necessary notices have been dispatched."  He shuffled through the documents in front of him.  "I see the Emperor has received his notice as well."

 

"That is correct," Abulurd said, knowing that the message intended for his own half-brother had been sent by a slow, circuitous Heighliner route -- a necessary sleight of hand.

 

The Chairman held up a single sheet of parchment.  "According to this you were removed from your position on Arrakis by the Baron Harkonnen."

 

"Without my objection, your Honor.  And my half-brother has filed no objection to my petition today."  This was true enough.  The message was still en route.

 

"Duly noted, Abulurd Harkonnen."  The Chairman looked down.  "Nor, I see, does the Emperor object."

 

Abulurd's pulse accelerated as he watched the Chairman study the papers, the legal notices.  Have I forgotten something?

 

Finally, the Chairman lifted his gaze.  "Everything is in order.  Approved."

 

"I . . . I have a second request," Abulurd announced, somewhat unsettled that things had gone so rapidly and smoothly.  "I wish to formally renounce my Harkonnen name."

 

This caused a brief titter among the attendees.

 

He summoned the words he had rehearsed so many times with Emmi and imagined her there beside him.  "I cannot condone the actions of my family members," he said, without naming them.  "I have a new son, Feyd-Rautha, and I wish him to be raised untainted, without the black mark of a Harkonnen name."

 

The Council Chairman leaned forward, as if really seeing Abulurd for the first time.  "Do you fully understand what you're doing, sir?"

 

"Oh, absolutely," he said, surprised at the strength in his voice.  His heart swelled with pride at what he had just said.  "I grew up on Giedi Prime.  I am the second surviving son of my father, Dmitri Harkonnen.  My half-brother, the Baron, rules all Harkonnen holdings and does as he chooses.  I ask only to keep Lankiveil, the place I call my home."

 

His voice softened, as if he thought a compassionate argument might move the bored men listening to his speech.  "I want no part of galactic politics or ruling worlds.  I served my years on Arrakis and found that I didn't like it.  I have no use for riches, power, or fame.  Let such things remain in the keeping of those who desire them."  His voice choked in his throat.  "I want no more blood on my hands, and none for my new son."

 

The Chairman rose solemnly and stood tall in his gray robes.  "You renounce all affiliation with House Harkonnen forever, including the rights and privileges pertaining thereto?"

 

Abulurd nodded vigorously, ignoring the muttering voices around the chamber.  "Absolutely and without equivocation."  These people would have a great deal to talk about for days to come, but it mattered nothing to him.  By then he would be on his way back home to Emmi and their baby.  He wanted nothing, only a normal, quiet life and personal happiness.  The rest of the Landsraad could continue without him.  "Henceforth, I will take my wife's honored name of Rabban."

 

The Council Chairman rapped his sonic gavel, which echoed with a boom of finality through the hall.  "So noted.  The council approves your request.  Notification will be sent immediately to Giedi Prime and to the Emperor."

 

While Abulurd stood stunned by his good fortune, the Sergeant at Arms called the next representative, and he found himself ushered out of the way.  Rapidly leaving the building, he put the Hall of Oratory behind him.  Outside, sunshine splashed his face again and he heard the tinkle of fountains and the music of chime kites.  His step had a new lightness, and he grinned foolishly.

 

Others might have trembled at the momentous decision he had just made, but Abulurd Rabban felt no fear.  He'd achieved everything he'd hoped to accomplish, and Emmi would be so pleased.

 

He raced to pack up the few possessions he'd brought with him and headed for the spaceport, anxious to return to quiet, isolated Lankiveil, where he could begin a new and better life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is no such thing as a law of nature.  There is only a series of laws relating to man's practical experience with nature.  These are laws of man's activities.  They change as man's activities change.

 

-PARROT KYNES, An Arrakis Primer

 

 

EVEN AFTER SIX MONTHS on Salusa Secundus, Liet-Kynes still marveled at the wild and restless landscape, the ancient ruins and the deep ecological wounds.  As his father had said, it was . . . fascinating.

 

Meanwhile, in his underground hideout, Dominic Vernius studied records and pored over stolen reports of CHOAM activities.  He and Gurney Halleck scrutinized Spacing Guild manifests to determine how best to sabotage business dealings in ways that would cause the most harm to the Emperor.  His occasional contacts and spies who gave him scant details of the Ixian situation had vanished.  He had once received occasional intelligence from his lost ancestral home, but finally even that source had dried up.

 

Dominic's reddened eyes and frown-creased face showed how little sleep he had been getting.

 

For himself, Liet finally saw beyond the intrigues of the desert people and interclan rivalries for control of spice sands.  He observed the politics between Great and Minor Houses, shipping magnates, and powerful families.  The Imperium was far more vast than he had imagined.

 

He also began to grasp the magnitude of what his father had accomplished on Dune, and felt a growing respect for Pardot Kynes.

 

Wistful at times, Liet imagined what it would take to return Salusa to the glory it had enjoyed long ago, as the focal point of the Imperium.  There was so much left to understand here, so many questions still unanswered.

 

With some well-placed weather installations, along with hardy colonists willing to replant prairies and forests, Salusa Secundus might live and breathe again.  But House Corrino refused to invest in such an enterprise, no matter what rewards they might reap.  In fact, it seemed that their effort was directed toward keeping Salusa the same as it had been for all these centuries.

 

Why would they do that?

 

As a stranger on this world, Liet spent most of his free time with a pack and survival gear, wandering across the ravaged landscape, avoiding the ruins of long-destroyed cities where prisoners inhabited the ancient Imperial government buildings:  towering museums, immense halls, great chambers with collapsed ceilings.  In all the centuries Salusa had been a Corrino prison world, no one had tried to rebuild.  Walls were leaning or tumbled over; roofs had huge holes.

 

Liet had devoted his first weeks to studying the underground smuggler base.  He instructed the hardened veterans in how to erase traces of their presence, how to alter the collapsed hangar so that it looked as if it were inhabited by only a few feral refugees, attracting nothing more than a cursory glance.  When the smugglers were safely hidden, and Dominic satisfied, the young Fremen went out exploring on his own, as his father had done. . . .

 

Moving with great care so as not to dislodge pebbles or crumbled dirt that might leave a mark of his presence, Liet climbed a ridge to look down upon a basin.  Through binoculars he saw people moving under the crackling sunlight:  soldiers in mottled tan and brown uniforms:  desert camouflage used by the Emperor's Sardaukar troops.  Extravagant war games, again.

 

A week ago, he'd watched the Sardaukar root out a nest of prisoners barricaded in an isolated ruin.  Liet had been hiking nearby and saw the Imperials attack with all their might, wearing full body shields, using flamethrowers and primitive weapons against the convicts.  The one-sided battle had gone on for hours, as well-trained Sardaukar fought hand-to-hand against hardened prisoners who boiled out of the stronghold.

 

The Emperor's men had slaughtered many prisoners, but some had fought back extremely well, even taking down several Sardaukar, commandeering their weapons, and prolonging the fight.  When only a few dozen of the best fighters remained holed up and ready to die, the Sardaukar planted a stun-bomb.  After the troops fell back behind barricades, a pulse beacon of intense light, coupled with the motivational force of a Holtzman field, knocked the surviving prisoners unconscious . . . allowing the Sardaukar to swarm inside.

 

Liet had wondered why the Imperial soldiers didn't just plant a stunner in the first place.  Later, he wondered if the Sardaukar might have been culling the prisoners, selecting the best candidates. . . .

 

Now, days later, some of those surviving captives stood out on the scorched basin wearing tattered, mismatched clothes, the remnants of prison uniforms.  Around them, the Sardaukar formed regimented lines, a human grid.  Weapons and pieces of heavy equipment were parked at strategic positions around the perimeter, tethered down with metal spikes and chains.

 

The men seemed to be training, prisoners and Sardaukar alike.

 

As he crouched on the top of the ridge, Liet felt vulnerable without his stillsuit.  The dry taste of thirst scratched in his mouth, reminding him of the desert, of his home, but he had no catchtube at his neck for a sip of water. . . .

 

Earlier that day they had distributed another load of melange smuggled from Dune, selling it to escaped prisoners who hated the Corrinos as much as Dominic did.  In the common room, Gurney Halleck had raised a cup of spice-laced coffee in a salute to his leader.  He strummed an F-sharp chord on his baliset, added a minor chord, and then sang in his bold, gruff voice (which, though not melodious, was at least exuberant) --

 

 

Oh, cup of spice

To carry me

Beyond my flesh,

To a distant star.

Melange, they call it

Melange!  Melange!

 

 

The men cheered, and Bork Qazon, the Salusan camp cook, poured him a fresh cup of spice coffee.  The broad-shouldered Scien Traf, formerly an Ixian engineer, patted Gurney on the back, and the one-time merchant Pen Barlow, ever-present cigar in his mouth, laughed boisterously.

 

The song had made Liet want to walk on the spice sands himself, to savor the pungent cinnamon odor as it wafted up from a sandworm he rode.  Perhaps Warrick would come to escort him back to Red Wall Sietch, once they returned from Salusa.  He hoped so.  It had been too long since he'd seen his friend and blood-brother.

 

Warrick and Faroula had been married for nearly a year and a half.  Perhaps by now she was even carrying his child.  Liet's life would have been so different if only he had won her hand instead. . . .

 

Now, though, he crouched in the rocks of a high ridge on a different planet, spying on the mysterious movements of Imperial troops.  Liet adjusted the binocular's high-definition oil lenses for the best possible view.  As the Sardaukar drilled across the barren basin, he studied the speed and precision with which they moved.

 

Still, Liet thought, a desperate group of well-armed Fremen might be able to defeat them. . . .

 

Finally, the surviving prisoners were led out onto the training field in front of new Sardaukar barracks, alloy tentments clustered like bunkers on the open flat, metal sides reflecting hazy sunlight.  The soldiers seemed to be testing the prisoners, challenging them to keep up with their exercises.  When one man faltered, a Sardaukar killed him with a purple blast from a lasgun; the others didn't pause.

 

Liet-Kynes turned his gaze from the military drills to the bilious sky, which bore ominous patterns he'd been taught to recognize.  The air looked soupy as it roiled a deep orange edged with streaks of green, as if from indigestion.  Clumps of ball lightning drifted across the sky.  Clusters of static like huge snowflakes channeled the flow of wind toward the basin.

 

From stories told by Gurney Halleck and the other smugglers, Liet knew the dangers of being exposed in an aurora storm.  But part of him -- the curious part he'd inherited from his father -- watched in awed fascination as the electrical and radioactive disturbance flowed closer.  The tempest was accompanied by tendrils of exotic color, ionized air and cone-shaped funnels known as the hammer-wind.

 

Uneasy at being so exposed, he found cracks in the outcropping behind him.  The talus caves provided enough shelter for any resourceful Fremen to wait out the harsh weather, but the troops below were unprotected.  Did they have the gall to think they could survive against such raw, elemental power?

 

Seeing the clouds and discharges approach, the ragged prisoners began to break ranks, while the uniformed troops stood firm.  The commander barked orders, apparently telling them to return to their places.  Seconds later, a powerful gust of precursor wind nearly toppled the craggy-faced man from his wobbly, levitating platform.  The tall leader shouted for everyone to fall back to their metal bunkers.

 

The Sardaukar marched in lockstep, perfectly trained.  Some of the prisoners tried to emulate the soldiers, while others just fled into the reinforced shelters.

 

The aurora storm struck only moments after the last of the tentments had been sealed.  Like a living thing, it ripped across the basin, flashing multicolored lightning.  A great fist of hammer-wind pounded the ground; another slammed into one of the tentments, flattening the metal-walled shelter and crushing everyone inside.

 

Boiling, crackling air swept toward the ridge.  Although this was not his planet, Liet had understood the potentially lethal nature of storms since childhood.  He ducked down from his exposed vantage, slid along the rocks until he could worm his way between two tall boulders and deep into a crack of rock.  Within moments, he heard the demonic howling, the crackle of air, the discharges of ball lightning, the pounding slams of hammer-wind.

 

In the narrow slice of visible sky between the rocks, Liet watched a kaleidoscope of colors that flashed with retina-searing glare.  He huddled back, but sensed he was as safe as he could be.

 

Breathing calmly, patiently waiting for the storm to blow over, he stared at the frenzied intensity of the aurora storm.  Salusa exhibited many similarities with Dune.  Both were harsh worlds, with unforgiving lands, unforgiving skies.  On Dune, ferocious storms could also reshape the landscape, crushing a man into the ground or stripping flesh from his bones.

 

Somehow though, unlike this place, those terrible winds made sense to him, linked as they were to the mystery and grandeur of Dune.

 

Liet wanted to leave Salusa Secundus, to return to his homeworld with Dominic Vernius.  He needed to live in the desert again -- where he belonged.

 

 

WHEN THE TIME WAS RIGHT, Dominic Vernius took part of his smuggling crew back in his frigate, accompanied by the two small lighters.  Dominic piloted his own flagship, guiding the vessel into its assigned berth in the hold of the Guild Heighliner.

 

The renegade Earl went to his stateroom to relax and contemplate.  Though he'd spent years operating in the shadows of the Imperium, a gadfly to annoy Shaddam IV, he had never struck a clear and decisive blow.  Yes, he had stolen a shipment of the Emperor's commemorative coins, and he'd floated the hilarious balloon caricature over the pyramid stadium on Harmonthep.  Yes, he had scrawled the snide hundred-meter-tall message on the granite canyon wall ("Shaddam, does your crown rest comfortably on your pointy head?"), and he had defaced dozens of statues and monuments as well.

 

But to what end?  Ix was still lost, and he had no new information on the situation there.

 

Early in his self-imposed exile, Dominic had rallied his troops, men selected because of their loyalty in past campaigns.  Remembering how they had defeated the Ecazi rebels years before, he had led a small force, heavily armed and well trained, in a raid against the new Tleilaxu stronghold.

 

With weapons and the advantage of surprise, Dominic had hoped to blast his way in and overthrow the invaders.  At the port-of-entry canyon, he and his men rushed from their ships, firing lasguns.  But they had encountered astonishing defenses from the Emperor's own Sardaukar.  The damned Corrinos!  Why were their troops still involved here?

 

Years ago, the element of surprise had been turned against Dominic, and the crack Imperial soldiers killed fully a third of his men.  He himself had been hit in the back by debris from a lasgun blast and left for dead; only Johdam had dragged him back to one of their ships, in which they beat a desperate retreat.

 

In Dominic's secret stronghold at the south pole of Arrakis, his men had nursed him back to health.  Since he had taken precautions to conceal the identity of the avenging attack force -- to avoid repercussions against the Ixian people should the assault fail, or against his children on Caladan -- the Tleilaxu had never learned who had come after them.

 

As a result of the debacle, Dominic had sworn to his men that he would never again try to recapture his hereditary world in a military action, which could only end poorly.

 

Out of necessity, Dominic had decided to settle for other means.

 

His sabotage and vandalism, however, had been largely ineffectual, no more than tiny blips on House Corrino balance sheets, or Imperial embarrassments.  Shaddam IV didn't even know that the outcast Earl Vernius was involved.

 

Though he continued the struggle, Dominic felt worse than dead -- he was irrelevant.  He lay back in his cabin on the frigate, assessing everything he had achieved . . . and all that he'd lost.  With a solido holo-portrait of Shando standing on a pedestal nearby, he could look at her and almost imagine she was still there, still with him.

 

Their daughter Kailea must be an attractive young woman by now.  He wondered if she was married, perhaps to someone in the court of Leto Atreides . . . certainly not to the Duke himself.  The Atreides emphasis on political marriages was well-known, and the Princess of a renegade House had no dowry.  Likewise, though Rhombur was old enough to become the Earl of House Vernius, the title was valueless.

 

With immense sadness sagging his shoulders, he gazed at the holo-image of Shando on the pedestal.  And in his grief, she spoke to him.

 

"Dominic . . . Dominic Vernius.  I know your identity."

 

Startled, he sat up, wondering if he had descended into a labyrinth of madness.  Her mouth moved mechanically.  The holo of her face turned, but her expression did not change.  Her eyes did not focus on him.  The words continued.

 

"I am using this image to communicate with you.  I must present a message from Ix."

 

Dominic trembled as he approached the image.  "Shando?"

 

"No, I am the Navigator of this Heighliner.  I have chosen to speak through this holo-image because it is difficult to communicate otherwise."

 

Reluctant to believe this, Dominic fought back superstitious fear.  Just seeing the likeness of Shando move, seeing her face come alive again, infused him with a trembling awe he had not experienced in a long time.  "Yes, whoever you are.  What is it you want of me?"

 

"My brother, C'tair Pilru, sends these words from Ix.  He begs me to give you this information.  I can do no more than instruct you."

 

Her lips moving faster, and using a different voice this time, Shando's holo-image repeated the words C'tair had sent in a desperate message to his Navigator brother.  In growing horror, Dominic listened, and learned the extent of damage the Tleilaxu usurpers had inflicted on his beloved world and its people.

 

Rage simmered within him.  When he had begged for assistance during the first Tleilaxu attacks, damnable old Emperor Elrood IX had stalled, thereby guaranteeing the defeat of House Vernius.  Bitter at their loss, Dominic only wished the old man hadn't died before he could find a way to kill him.

 

But now Dominic realized the Imperial plan was much broader, much more insidious.  At its core, the entire Tleilaxu takeover had been an Imperial plot, with Sardaukar troops still enforcing it nearly twenty years later.  Elrood had set up the conflict from the start, and his son Shaddam perpetuated the scheme by oppressing the remaining subjects of House Vernius.

 

Presently the voice from the Shando-likeness changed again, returning to the more ponderous and disconnected words of the Navigator.  "On my route in this vessel, I can take you to Xuttuh, formerly known as Ix."

 

"Do it," Dominic said, with hatred icing his heart.  "I wish to see the horrors for myself, and then I" -- he put a hand to his breast, as if swearing a vow to Shando -- "I, Lord Dominic, Earl of House Vernius, will avenge the suffering of my people."

 

When the Heighliner went into orbit, Dominic met with Asuyo, Johdam, and the others.  "Return to Arrakis.  Go to our base and continue our work.  I'm taking one of the lighters."  He stared at the pedestal as if he could still see his wife there.  "I have business of my own."

 

The two veterans expressed their surprise and confusion, but Dominic pounded his fist on the table.  "No further argument!  I have made my decision."  He glared at his men, and they were amazed to see such a transformation in his personality.

 

"But where are you going?" Liet asked.  "What do you plan to do?"

 

"I am going to Ix."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One uses power by grasping it lightly.  To grasp with too much force is to be taken over by power, thus becoming its victim.

 

-Bene Gesserit Axiom

 

 

THE BARON DID NOT TAKE the news about his half-brother at all well.

 

At the Harko City Spaceport, men were loading his private frigate with the amenities, supplies, and personnel he would need for a trip to Arrakis.  In order to keep spice operations running smoothly, he had to spend months at a time on the desert hellhole, squeezing his fist to prevent smugglers and the accursed Fremen from getting out of hand.  But, after the damage Abulurd had done years ago, the Baron had turned the most economically important planet in the Imperium back into a huge moneymaker.  House profits were increasing steadily.

 

And now, just when everything seemed to be going his way, he had to deal with this!  Abulurd, for all his stupidity, had an incredible knack for doing precisely the wrong thing, every time.

 

Piter de Vries, sensing his superior's displeasure, approached with mincing steps, wanting to assist -- or to appear to be doing so.  But he knew better than to come too close.  For years he had survived by avoiding the Baron's wrath, longer than any of his master's previous Mentats.  In his younger, leaner days, Vladimir Harkonnen had been capable of lashing out like a cobra and striking a person in the larynx to cut off his breathing.  But now he had grown so soft, so corpulent, that de Vries could easily slither out of the way.

 

Simmering, the Baron sat in the Keep's stone-walled accounting room.  His oval blackplaz table looked polished enough to ice-skate on.  A huge globe of Arrakis stood in one corner, an art object any noble family would have coveted.  But rather than show it off at Landsraad gatherings or blueblood social events, the Baron kept it in his private room, savoring the globe for himself.

 

"Piter, what am I to do?"  He gestured toward a cluster of message cylinders newly arrived via bonded Courier.  "The CHOAM Corporation demands an explanation, warning me in none-too-subtle terms that they expect shipments of whale fur to continue from Lankiveil despite the 'change in rulership.' "  He snorted.  "As if I would decrease our quotas!  They remind me that spice production on Arrakis is not the only vital commodity House Harkonnen controls.  They've threatened to revoke my CHOAM directorship if I fail to meet my obligations."

 

With a flick of his wrist he hurled a copper-sheathed message cylinder at the wall.  It clanged and clattered, leaving a white nick on the stone.

 

He picked up a second cylinder.  "Emperor Shaddam wants to know why my own half-brother would renounce the Harkonnen name and take the subdistrict governorship for himself."

 

Again he hurled the cylinder at the wall.  It struck with a louder clink beside the first white mark.  He picked up a third.  "House Moritani on Grumman offers covert military support in case I wish to take direct action."  The third cylinder struck the wall.  "House Richese, House Mutelli -- all curious, all laughing behind my back!"

 

He continued to throw message cylinders until his table was clear.  One of the metal tubes rolled toward Piter, and he picked it up.  "You didn't open this one, my Lord."

 

"Well, do it for me.  It probably says the same as all the others."

 

"Of course."  The Mentat used one of his long fingernails to cut the seal on the capsule, and slid the cap off.  Bringing out a piece of instroy paper, he scanned it, his tongue darting over his lips.  "Ah, from our operative on Caladan."

 

The Baron perked up.  "Good news, I hope?"

 

De Vries smiled as he translated the cipher.  "Chiara apologizes for her inability to get messages out before this, but she is making progress with the concubine, Kailea Vernius, turning her against the Duke."

 

"Well, that's something anyway."  The Baron rubbed his fat chin. "I would have preferred word of Leto's assassination.  Now that would have been really good news!"

 

"Chiara likes to do things in her own way, at her own pace."  The instroy message faded, and de Vries balled it up, then tossed it and the cylinder aside.  "We aren't sure how far she'll go, my Lord, for she has certain . . . standards . . . in royal matters.  Spying is one thing; murder is quite another, and she's the only one we could get past Thufir Hawat's security."

 

"All right, all right."  The two of them had been over this before.  The Baron pushed himself up from his seat.  "At least we're throwing a bit of sand in the Duke's eye."

 

"Perhaps we should do more than that to Abulurd?"

 

Aided by the suspensor system at his waist, the fat man misjudged the strength of his own flabby arms and nearly flew off his feet.  Wisely, de Vries said nothing about that, and absorbed data so that he could perform a proper Mentat analysis as soon as his master demanded it.

 

"Perhaps."  The Baron's face reddened.  "Abulurd's older brother Marotin was an idiot, you know.  Literally, I mean.  A drooling, brain-damaged moron who couldn't even dress himself, though his mother simpered over him, as if Marotin was worth the resources expended to keep him alive."  His jowly face was blotched with pent-up rage.

 

"Now it seems that Abulurd is just as brain-damaged, but in a more subtle way."  He slammed his flat palm down on the oily blackplaz surface, leaving a handprint that would gradually be broken down by self-cleaning systems in the furniture.

 

"I didn't even know his bitch Emmi was pregnant.  Now he's got another son, a sweet little baby -- and Abulurd's robbed the child of his birthright."  The Baron shook his head.  "You realize, that boy could be a leader, another Harkonnen heir . . . and his foolish father takes it all away."

 

With his master's frustration building, de Vries took extra care to stay out of reach, on the opposite side of the oval table.  "My Lord, as near as I can tell, Abulurd has followed the precise forms of law.  According to Landsraad rules he is allowed to request, and receive, a concession that few of us would even have considered.  We may not think it wise, but Abulurd was within his rights as part of House Harkonnen --"

 

"I am House Harkonnen!" the Baron roared.  "He doesn't have any rights unless I say so."  He came around the desk.  The Mentat stood frozen, afraid the corpulent man might attack him after all.  Instead, he bobbed toward the door of the chamber.  "We go to see Rabban."

 

They walked through the echoing halls of the blocky Keep to an external armored lift that dropped them from the Keep's spiked pinnacles down to an enclosed arena.  Glossu Rabban worked with the House Guard to prepare for the evening's scheduled gladiatorial combat, a tradition the Baron had established as a precursor to each of his long journeys to Arrakis.

 

Inside the arena, silent slaves cleaned the tiers of seats, polishing and sweeping away debris.  The Baron's great contests always drew large crowds, and he used such spectacles to impress guests of other Great Houses.  Heavy durasteel doors at the gladiator-pit level remained closed, trapping caged beasts for combat.  Hirsute, shirtless workers hosed down the empty pens of slain creatures or slaves, then dusted them with odor-suppressants.

 

Sweating, though he didn't appear to be doing any work, Rabban stood in the midst of the men.  Wearing a sleeveless jerkin of studded leather, he rested his hands at his waist, pursed thick lips, and glowered at the activity.  Other laborers raked the sand of the arena floor, sifting out bone fragments and shattered blades.

 

Kryubi, captain of the House Guard, directed his soldiers.  He decided where to station each armed man to provide an appropriately impressive military presence for the upcoming festivities.

 

Buoyed by his suspensor belt, the Baron glided down the waterfall of steps, passed through a spiked iron gate, and emerged on the stained arena floor.  His feet barely touched the ground, giving his walk a ballet-like grace.  Piter de Vries followed him with similar dancing steps.

 

Kryubi stepped up and saluted.  "My Baron," he said, "everything is prepared.  We shall have a spectacular event tonight."

 

"As always," de Vries said, a smile twisting his sapho-stained lips.

 

"How many beasts do we have?" the Baron asked.

 

"Two Laza tigers, my Lord, a deka-bear, and one Salusan bull."

 

With glittering black eyes the Baron studied the arena and nodded.  "I'm weary this evening.  I don't want a long combat.  Release the beasts and all five chosen slaves at once.  We'll have a free-for-all."

 

Kryubi gave a brisk salute.  "As you wish, my Lord."

 

The Baron turned to his Mentat.  "The blood will fly tonight, Piter.  Maybe it will distract me from what I'd like to do to Abulurd."

 

"Do you prefer to be merely distracted, my Baron?" the Mentat asked.  "Or do you prefer . . . satisfaction?  Why not have your revenge on Abulurd?"

 

A moment of hesitation, then:  "Revenge will do quite nicely, Piter.  Rabban!"

 

His nephew turned to see the Baron and his Mentat standing there.  On stocky legs, Rabban marched across the arena floor to the two men.

 

"Did Piter tell you what your fool father has done now?"

 

Rabban's expression contorted.  "Yes, Uncle.  Sometimes I can't understand how such a clod can get through the day."

 

"It's true that we don't understand Abulurd," de Vries said.  "But one of the important laws of statecraft suggests that to utterly defeat one's enemy, one must understand him, learn his weaknesses.  Learn where it will hurt the most."

 

"Abulurd's entire brain is his weakness," the Baron mumbled, his tone dark.  "Or maybe just his bleeding heart."

 

Rabban chuckled, too loudly.

 

The Mentat held up one long finger.  "Consider this.  His infant son, Feyd-Rautha Rabban, is now his greatest vulnerability.  Abulurd has taken an extraordinary step in order to -- as he puts it 'see that the child is raised in a proper fashion.'  Apparently, this means a great deal to him."

 

The Baron looked at his broad-shouldered nephew.  "We wouldn't want Rabban's little brother turning out like Abulurd, would we?"

 

Rabban glowered at the possibility.

 

De Vries continued, his voice as smooth as oiled ice.  "And so, what is the most terrible thing we could do to Abulurd under these circumstances?  What would cause him the greatest pain and despair?"

 

A cold smile crossed the Baron's face.  "Brilliant question, Piter.  And for that, you shall live another day:  Two days, in fact -- I feel generous."

 

Rabban's expression remained blank; he still hadn't caught on.  Finally, he began to snigger.  "What should we do, Uncle?"

 

The Baron's voice became sickly sweet.  "Why, we must do everything possible to make sure that your new little brother is 'raised properly.'  Naturally, knowing the consistently bad decisions your father has made, we cannot in good conscience allow Abulurd Rabban to corrupt this boy."  He looked over at the Mentat.  "Therefore, we must raise him ourselves."

 

"I shall prepare the documents immediately, my Lord Baron," de Vries said with a smile.

 

The Baron shouted for Kryubi to attend them, then turned to his nephew.  "Take all the men you need, Rabban.  And don't be too secretive about it.  Abulurd must understand full well what he has brought upon himself."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No one has yet determined the power of the human species . . . what it may perform by instinct, and what it may accomplish with rational determination.

 

-Mentat Objective Analysis of Human Capabilities

 

 

GUIDED BY DOMINIC VERNIUS, the lighter slipped under the Ixian detection grid, masked by clouds.  He cruised low across the pristine surface of his lost homeworld, drinking in the sight of the mountains and waterfalls, the dark pine forests clinging to granite slopes.

 

As the former lord of Ix, Dominic knew a thousand ways to get inside.  He hoped at least one of them still worked.

 

Fighting back tears of dread, he flew onward, intent on his destination.  The Imperium knew Ix for its industry and technology, for the marvelous products it exported through CHOAM distributors.  Long ago, House Vernius had chosen to leave the surface unspoiled, burying unsightly production facilities deep underground, which greatly enhanced security and protected valuable Ixian secrets.

 

Dominic remembered the defensive systems he himself had designed and established, as well as those put in place generations before.  The threat of technological espionage from rivals such as Richese had always been sufficient for the Ixians to keep up their guard.  Surely the Tleilaxu usurpers had instituted their own safeguards, but they would not have found all of Dominic's personal tricks.  He had hidden them too well.

 

An organized assault team might be doomed to failure, but Earl Vernius was confident that by himself he could still get back inside his own world.  He had to see it with his own eyes.

 

Although each of the hidden openings into the subterranean realms made for weak spots in overall security, Dominic had understood the need for emergency exits and secret routes known only to himself and his family.  Deep within the crustal city of Vernii -- his beloved capital city -- there had been numerous shielded chambers, hidden tunnels, and escape hatches.  Dominic's children, along with young Leto Atreides, had used those bolt-holes during the bloody overthrow.  Now Dominic would use one of the many long-hidden back doors to slip in.

 

He flew the lighter over a series of poorly concealed ventilation shafts, from which steam emerged like thermal geysers.  Elsewhere out on the flat plains, large shafts and cargo platforms opened to allow shipments of materials, mostly outbound.  In this deep, forested canyon, narrow guarded ledges and hollows allowed occasional ships to land.  Dominic scanned the terrain as he cruised along until he spotted the subtle markings, the fallen trees, the stains on rugged rock walls.

 

The first disguised entry door was sealed up, the tunnel filled with what must have been meters of solid plascrete.  The second door was booby-trapped, but Dominic spotted the explosive connections before he entered his pass-code.  He didn't try to disarm the device.  He flew off again.

 

Dominic dreaded what he might find below in his once-beautiful city.  In addition to the horrifying message passed along from the Ixian patriot C'tair Pilru, his own bribed investigators had brought rumors about conditions on Ix.  Yet he had to know what the Tleilaxu and the damned Corrinos had done to his cherished planet.

 

Then they would all pay.

 

Next, Dominic landed the lighter in a small hollow surrounded by dark firs.  Hoping he remained within the surveillance grid, he stepped out and stood still, smelling the cold clear air, the spicy pungency of copper-pine needles, the wet sharpness of rushing water.  In the grottoes beneath him, under a kilometer of rock, the air would be warm and thick, redolent of chemicals and a crowded populace.  He could almost hear and feel familiar sounds, a faint buzz of activity, a barely discernible vibration under his feet.

 

He located the brush-covered hatch opening of the escape shaft and operated the controls after careful inspection for further traps and explosives.  If the Tleilaxu had found this one, then they had been thorough indeed.  But he found no sign.  Then he waited, hoping the systems still functioned.

 

At last, after the brisk wind had raised goose bumps on his flesh, a self-guided lift chamber rose up, ready to take him deep into the network of caves to a secret personal storeroom at the rear of what had once been the Grand Palais.  It was one of several rooms that he had set up in his younger days for "contingencies."  That had been before the Ecazi Revolt, before he had married . . . long before the Tleilaxu takeover.  It was safe.

 

Whispering Shando's name, Dominic closed his eyes.  The chamber descended at frightening speed, and now he hoped that C'tair's sabotage efforts hadn't damaged these hidden systems.  He took deep breaths, summoning images from his past on the projection screen of his eyelids.  He longed to return to the magical underground city -- but feared the harsh reality that awaited him.

 

When the lift chamber came to a stop, Dominic emerged holding a compact lasgun.  He also had a flechette pistol in a shoulder holster.  The dark storeroom smelled of dust and the mildew of inactivity.  No one had been there for a long time.

 

He moved about carefully, went to the hidden locker where he'd stored a pair of nondescript coveralls worn by midlevel workers.  Hoping the Tleilaxu had not made drastic changes in work uniforms, he dressed and slipped the lasgun into a custom-fitted holster strapped to his skin, beneath the clothing.

 

Disguised and hoping for the best, knowing he could not turn back, Dominic crept through the dim corridors and located a plaz-walled observation deck.  After two decades, he took his first look at the reshaped city beneath the ground.

 

He blinked in disbelief.  The magnificent Grand Palais had been stripped, all the glittering marble taken away, one entire wing destroyed in an explosion.  The immense building now looked like a warehouse with injured shadows of greatness, now an ugly warren of bureaucratic offices.  Through panes of windowplaz he saw disgusting Tleilaxu going about their business like cockroaches.

 

Across the projected sky, he watched oblong devices studded with blinking lights cruising in random paths, studying all movement.  Surveillance pods.  Military equipment designed by Ixians to be sent into battle zones.  Now the Tleilaxu used that same technology to spy on his people, to keep them cowering in fear.

 

Sickened, Dominic moved to other observation decks in the grotto ceiling, slipping in and out of groups of people.  He stared at their haunted eyes and gaunt faces, trying to remind himself that these were his people, rather than images from a nightmare.  He wanted to talk to them, to reassure them that he would do something, and soon.  But he could not reveal his identity.  He did not know enough about what had occurred there since he and his family had gone renegade.

 

These loyal Ixians had depended on Dominic Vernius, their rightful Earl, but he had failed them.  He had fled, leaving all of them to their own fates.  A feeling of unbearable guilt overwhelmed him; his stomach knotted.

 

With cold calculation, Dominic stared across the cavernous city, looking for the best observation points, pinpointing heavily guarded industrial facilities.  Some were shut down and abandoned, others surrounded by buzzing security fields.  On the grotto floor, suboids and Ixian inhabitants worked together like downtrodden slaves.

 

Lights flared on the balconies of the freakishly altered Grand Palais.  Public address speakers boomed out, the words reverberating and synchronized so that echoes rippled like force waves up and down the grotto.

 

"People of Xuttuh," said an accented voice in Galach, "we continue to find parasites in our midst.  We will do what we must to obliterate this cancer of conspirators and traitors.  We Bene Tleilax have generously provided for your needs and granted you a part in our holy mission.  Therefore, we will punish those who would distract you from your sacred tasks.  You must understand and accept your new place in the universe."

 

Down on the grotto floor, Dominic could see squads of soldiers rounding up work gangs.  The troops wore the distinctive gray-and-black uniforms of Sardaukar and carried deadly Imperial weapons.  So, Shaddam no longer even tried to hide his involvement.  Dominic seethed.

 

On a Grand Palais balcony, a pair of terrified prisoners flanked by Sardaukar were nudged forward by robed Tleilaxu Masters.  The speaker boomed again.  "These two were captured in the act of committing sabotage against essential industries.  During interrogation they identified other conspirators."  An ominous pause followed.  "You may anticipate further executions within the week."

 

Only a few isolated voices in the throng dared to cry out in protest.  High above, Sardaukar guards pushed the thrashing prisoners to the brink of the balcony.  "Death to those who oppose us!"  The guards -- Imperial guards -- shoved them over the edge, and the crowds scattered below.  The victims fell across the gulf of empty air, with hideous shrieks that ended abruptly.

 

In horrified fury, Dominic stared.  Many times he had stood on that balcony to deliver orations.  He had addressed his subjects from there, praising them for their work, promising greater rewards for productivity.  The balcony of the Grand Palais should have been a place for the people to see the kindness of their leaders -- not an execution platform.

 

Below, shots rang out, and the sizzle of lasgun fire.  The Sardaukar clamped down, enforcing order among the angry and restless populace.

 

The voice from the speakers crackled out a final punishment.  "For the next three weeks, rations will be reduced by twenty percent.  Productivity will remain the same, or further restrictions will be imposed.  If volunteers come forward to identify additional conspirators, our rewards will be generous."

 

With a swish of robes, the smug Tleilaxu Masters turned about and followed the Sardaukar guards back into the desecrated Palais structure.

 

Outraged, Dominic wanted to charge into the city and open fire on the Sardaukar and the Tleilaxu.  But alone, a surreptitious spy, he didn't have the firepower to accomplish more than a token attack -- and he dared not expose his identity in such a futile gesture.

 

His jaw ached as he ground his teeth together.  Gripping the railing, he realized that he had stood on this very observation platform, long ago, with his new bride, Lady Shando.  Holding hands, they had gazed across the immense cavern at the fairyland structures of Vernii.  She had been bright-eyed, wearing elegant clothes from the Imperial Court at Kaitain.

 

But the Emperor had never forgotten the insult of her departure from his concubine service.  Elrood had waited many years for his chance at revenge, and all of Ix had paid for it. . . .

 

Dominic's chest clenched.  He'd had it all:  wealth, power, a prosperous world, a perfect wife, a fine family.  Now the cavern city was severely wounded, with barely a hint remaining of its former splendor.

 

"Oh, look what they've done, Shando," he whispered in a morose voice, as if he were a ghost along with her.  "Look what they've done."

 

He remained in the city of Vernii for as long as he dared, letting the wheels of reprisal turn in his mind.  By the time he made ready to depart, Dominic Vernius knew exactly what he would do to strike back.

 

History would never forget his vengeance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Power and deceit are tools of statecraft, yes.  But remember that power deludes the ones who wield it -- making them believe it can overcome the defects of their ignorance.

 

-COUNT FLAMBERT MUTELLI, early speech in Landsraad Hall of Oratory

 

 

 

 

ONCE AGAIN, Abulurd enjoyed the peaceful nights on Lankiveil.  He had no regrets about renouncing his powerful family connections.  He was content.

 

Roaring fires in the hearths of the great rooms warmed the restored and redecorated main lodge in Tula Fjord.  Lounging in the common area adjacent to the big kitchen, he and Emmi felt satisfied, their stomachs full from a large feast of grupper paella they had shared with the servants to celebrate being together again.  Most of the original staff had been located and brought back.  Finally, Abulurd looked forward to the future.

 

That very morning two Bjondax whales had been seen at the mouth of the fjord, testing the waters.  Fishermen reported that recent catches were the best in over a year.  The normally dismal weather had turned sharply cold and dusted the cliffs with a clean blanket of snow; even under the cloudy night skies, the whiteness added a pearly overtone to the shadows.

 

Baby Feyd-Rautha sat on a handwoven carpet beside Emmi.  Good-natured, the boy was prone to giggles and a variety of facial expressions.  Clinging to one of his mother's fingers as she held him upright, Feyd began to take his first wobbly steps, testing his balance.  The bright child already had a small vocabulary, which he employed often.

 

In celebration, Abulurd considered bringing out a few old instruments and calling for folk music, but before he could do so he heard a grating noise outside, the hum of engines.  "Are those boats?"  When the servants fell silent, he could indeed make out the sounds of aquatic motors.

 

The fishmistress, who was also their cook, had brought a large basin into the sitting room adjacent to the common area, where she used a flat knife to pry open stoneclams and shuck the meat into a pot of salted broth.  Hearing the commotion outside, she wiped her hands on a towel and looked over her shoulder through the windowplaz.  "Lights.  Boats coming up the fjord.  Movin' too fast, if you ask me.  Dark outside -- they could hit somethin'."

 

"Turn up the house glowglobes," Abulurd commanded.  "We need to welcome our visitors."  Outside, a wreath of illumination blazed around the wooden structure, shedding a warm glow onto the docks.

 

Three seacraft roared along the rocky waterline, arrowing straight for the main lodge.  Emmi clutched baby Feyd.  Her wide, normally calm face carried a ripple of uneasiness, and she looked at her husband for reassurance.  Abulurd made a soft gesture to quell her fears, though he felt a knot forming in his own stomach.

 

He opened the big wooden doors just as the armored boats lashed up against the docks.  Uniformed Harkonnen soldiers disembarked onto the quay, their heavy bootsteps like cannon fire.  Abulurd took a step backward as the troops marched up the steep stairs toward him, weapons shouldered but ready for use.

 

Abulurd sensed that all of his peace was about to end.

 

Glossu Rabban strode onto the dockboards; with brisk stomping footsteps, he followed the vanguard of armed men.

 

"Emmi, it's. . . it's him."  Abulurd couldn't utter his son's name.  More than four decades separated Glossu Rabban from his young sibling, in whom the parents now placed all their hopes.  The baby seemed incredibly vulnerable -- Abulurd's household had no defenses.

 

On impulse, reacting foolishly, Abulurd swung shut the heavy door and barred it, which only served to provoke the oncoming soldiers.  They opened fire and blasted the century-old barricade.  Abulurd scrambled back to protect his wife and child.  The aged wood smoked and splintered, falling to one side with a dreadful sound like a headsman's ax.

 

"Is this how you welcome me, Father?"  Rabban gave a gruff laugh as he stepped through the smoke and over the wreckage.

 

The servants began to move about in a flurry.  Behind the basin of salted broth, the fishmistress held her little shellfish knife as a pathetic weapon.  Two manservants emerged from the back rooms with spears and fishing knives, but Abulurd raised his hands to keep them calm.  The Harkonnen soldiers would slaughter them all, just like at Bifrost Eyrie, if he didn't handle this properly.

 

"Is this how you ask for a welcome, Son?"  Abulurd gestured to the wreckage of the door.  "With armed soldiers and military boats arriving in the middle of the night?"

 

"My uncle has been teaching me how to make an entrance."

 

The men in blue Harkonnen livery stood motionless, weapons in plain view.  Abulurd didn't know what to do.  He looked at his wife, but she sat by the roaring fire, clutching the baby close.  By the hunted look in her eyes, Abulurd knew she was wishing she'd hidden the child somewhere in the main lodge.

 

"Is that my new little brother, Feyd-Rautha?  A prissy-sounding name."  Rabban shrugged.  "But if he's my own flesh and blood . . . I suppose I have to love him."

 

Holding the child even tighter, Emmi tossed her straight hair behind her shoulders, hair that was still black despite her advancing years.  She met Rabban's gaze with hard eyes, angry at what she saw and torn by a few scraps of love for her own son, whom she could not abandon.  "Let us hope that blood is all you two share.  You did not learn to be cruel in this house, Glossu.  Not from me, and not from your father.  We always loved you, even after you caused us so much pain."  Surprisingly, she stood and took a step toward him, and Rabban flushed with flustered anger as he inadvertently took a step back.  "How could you have turned out the way you have?"

 

He glowered at her.

 

Emmi lowered her voice, as if she were asking herself the question, not him.  "We are so disappointed in you.  Where did we go wrong?  I don't understand it."

 

Her wide, plain face softened with love and pity, but hardened again as Rabban burst out in cruel laughter to cover his own unease.  "Oh?  I'm disappointed in you two as well.  My own parents, and you didn't even invite me to the naming ceremony of my little brother."  He stepped forward.  "Let me hold the brat."

 

Emmi drew back, protecting her good son from the bad.  Rabban feigned a look of sadness, then strode closer.  The Harkonnen troops raised their weapons and advanced.

 

"Leave your mother alone!" Abulurd said.  One of the soldiers put up a single hand and stopped him from rushing forward.

 

Rabban turned to him.  "I can't sit idly by and let my own brother be corrupted by an embarrassing weakling like you, Father.  Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, your half-brother and head of our Great House, has already filed documents and received full Landsraad approval to raise Feyd-Rautha in his own household on Giedi Prime."  One of the guards took out an ornate scroll of imprinted saarti parchment and tossed it on the floor at Abulurd's feet.  Abulurd could only stare at it.  "He has adopted the boy formally and legally as his foster son."

 

Smiling at his parents' horrified expressions, Rabban said, "In the same manner that he has already adopted me.  I am his heir-designate, the na-Baron.  I'm a Harkonnen as pure and proper as the Baron himself."  He extended his thick arms.  The troops kept their weapons steady, but Emmi backed closer to the fire.  "See, you have nothing to worry about."

 

Jerking his head to one side, Rabban signaled two of the nearest men, who opened fire on the fishmistress where she stood, still holding the little curved knife.  During Rabban's brief stay in the main lodge, the husky woman had cooked many meals for him.  But now the lasgun beams cut her down before she could even scream; the fishmistress dropped her knife and tumbled forward into the basin.  Clams turned over, and sour-smelling water spilled onto the wooden floor.

 

"How many more of them will you force me to kill, Mother?" he inquired, almost plaintively, still reaching out with his thick-fingered hands.  "You know I'll do it.  Now give me my brother."

 

Emmi's gaze flicked from Rabban's to all of the terrified household servants, to the baby boy, and then to Abulurd, who did not have the courage to meet her eyes.  He could only make a strangled cry in his throat.

 

Though she gave him no sign of surrender, Rabban pulled the infant roughly from her numb arms, and she did not resist -- out of fear that all the other people in the house would be slaughtered just the way the Harkonnen troops had slaughtered the innocent workers at Bifrost Eyrie.

 

Unable to bear the thought of her baby being taken away, Emmi gave a small gasp, as if the anchors that had always given her strength and stability had just been severed.  The child began to cry upon seeing the broad, stony face of his much older brother.

 

"You can't do this!" Abulurd said, still unwilling to push his way past the armed guards.  "I am planetary governor here.  I will contest this with the Landsraad."

 

"You have no legal rights whatsoever.  We didn't contest your meaningless title as planetary governor, but when you renounced your Harkonnen name, you forfeited your position, all nice and tidy."  Rabban held the struggling baby at arm's length as if he didn't know what to do with a child.  The parchment legal document still lay untouched on the floor.  "You are effectively nothing, Father.  Nothing at all."

 

Taking the boy, he headed back toward the smoking ruins of the door.  Abulurd and Emmi, both wild with grief, screamed after him, but the guards turned around, pointing their weapons.

 

"Oh, don't kill anyone else," Rabban said to them.  "I'd rather hear a houseful of whimpering as we leave."

 

The soldiers marched down the steps to the docks, where they boarded the armored boats.  Abulurd held Emmi tightly, rocking her back and forth, and they supported each other like two trees fallen together.  Both of their faces were streaked with tears, their eyes wide and glassy.  The servants in the house wailed in anguish.

 

Rabban's military boats cruised off across the black waters of Tula Fjord.  Abulurd gasped, unable to breathe.  Emmi shuddered in his arms and he tried to comfort her, but he felt utterly helpless, ineffective, and crushed.  She stared at her open, callused hands, as if expecting to see her baby there.

 

Off in the distance, though he knew it was only his imagination, Abulurd thought he could hear the child crying even over the roar of the departing boats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Never be in the company of anyone with whom you would not want to die.

 

-Fremen Saying

 

 

WHEN LIET-KYNES RETURNED from Salusa Secundus to the smuggler base at Dune's south pole, he found his friend Warrick awaiting him.

 

"Look at you!" the taller Fremen said with a laugh.  Warrick threw back his hood as he rushed across the crunching gravel at the bottom of the hidden chasm.  He embraced Liet and pounded him sharply on the back.  "You're waterfat and . . . clean."  He sniffed deprecatingly.  "I see no mark of the stillsuit upon you.  Have you washed all the desert from yourself?"

 

"I'll never get the desert out of my blood."  Liet clasped his friend.  "And you . . . you've grown."

 

"The happiness of married life, my friend.  Faroula and I have a son now, named Liet-chih in your honor."  He smacked a fist into his palm.  "And I've continued to fight the Harkonnens every day, while you've grown pampered and soft among these outsiders."

 

A son.  Liet felt a twinge of sadness for himself, but it passed, replaced by genuine joy for his friend and gratitude for the honor of the name.

 

The smugglers unloaded their cargo with little conversation or banter.  They were uneasy and sullen because Dominic Vernius had not accompanied them back to Arrakis.  Johdam and Asuyo shouted orders for stowing the material they had brought from Salusa Secundus.  Gurney Halleck had remained behind on Salusa, to supervise the smuggler operations there.

 

Warrick had been at the antarctic base for five days now, eating the smugglers' food, telling the men how to survive the deserts of Dune.  "I don't think they'll ever learn, Liet," he whispered with a snort.  "No matter how long they live here, they'll still be off-worlders."

 

As they strode back into the main tunnels, Warrick shared his news.  Two times in a row, he had taken the spice bribe down to Rondo Tuek, trying to find out when his friend would return.  It had seemed a long time.  "What ever drove you to go to a place like Salusa Secundus?"

 

"A journey I had to take," Liet responded.  "My father grew up there, and spoke of it so often.  But I'm back now, and I intend to stay.  Dune is my home.  Salusa was just. . . just an interesting diversion."

 

Pausing, Warrick scratched his long hair; it was matted and kinked from many hours under a stillsuit hood.  No doubt Faroula kept his water rings for him, as a wife should do.  Liet wondered what the elfin young woman looked like now.  "So, will you return to Red Wall Sietch, Liet -- where you belong?  Faroula and I miss you.  It makes us sad that you feel the need to stay apart from us."

 

With a hard swallow, Liet admitted, "I was foolish.  I wanted time alone to consider my future.  So many things have changed, and I have learned so much."  He forced a smile.  "I think I comprehend my father better now."

 

Warrick's blue-within-blue eyes widened.  "Who would question the Umma Kynes?  We simply do his bidding."

 

"Yes, but he's my father, and I wanted to understand him."

 

From a high vantage inside the frozen walls, they gazed across the layered terraces of the dust-impregnated ice cap.  "Whenever you're ready, my friend, we can summon a worm and return to the sietch."  Warrick pursed his lips to squelch an expression of mirth.  "If you remember how to put on your stillsuit."

 

Liet snorted and went to his locker, where he had stored the desert equipment.  "You may have beaten me in our race to the Cave of Birds" -- he shot a sidelong glance at his taller friend -- "but I can still call a larger worm."

 

They bade farewell to the other smugglers.  Although the hardened old men had been Liet's companions for almost a year, he did not feel close to them.  They were military, loyal to their commander and accustomed to regimented training.  They talked endlessly of bygone days and battles on far-off worlds, of leading charges beside Earl Vernius for the glory of the Imperium.  But their passions had soured, and now they simply did what they could to annoy Shaddam. . . .

 

Liet and Warrick trekked across the antarctic wasteland, avoiding the dirt and grit of the water merchant's industries.  Warrick looked back at the cold, unmarked terrain.  "I see you've taught them a few things, even beyond what we showed them the first time.  Their stronghold is not quite so obvious as before."

 

"You noticed, eh?" Liet said, pleased.  "With a good Fremen teacher, even they can learn the obvious."

 

Reaching the desert boundary at last, they planted their thumper and summoned a worm.  Soon, they headed due north into the wild flatlands where dust and storms and capricious weather patterns had always discouraged Harkonnen patrols.

 

As their mount plowed through the sands, taking them toward the equatorial regions, Warrick spoke at great length.  He seemed happier and more filled with stories and good-natured anecdotes than ever before.

 

Still feeling a dull pain in his heart, Liet listened to his friend talk about Faroula and their son, their life together, a trip they had taken to Sietch Tabr, a day spent in Arrakeen, how one day they wanted to go to the greenhouse demonstration project in Plaster Basin. . . .

 

All the while, Liet found himself daydreaming.  If only he'd called a larger worm, or driven it harder, or rested less, he might have arrived first.  Both young men had made the same wish upon the Biyan, the uncovered white lake bed, so long ago -- to marry the same girl -- and only Warrick's wish had been granted.

 

It was the will of Shai-Hulud, as Fremen would say; Liet had to accept it.

 

At night, they made camp, then sat on a dune crest, where they tossed tally sticks into the sand.  Afterward, watching the stars glide silently overhead in the darkness, they sealed themselves inside the stilltent.  With the soft feel of the desert beneath him, Liet-Kynes slept better than he had in months. . . .

 

They traveled hard and fast.  Two days later, Liet found himself longing to see Red Wall Sietch again:  to greet his mother Frieth, to tell his father what he had seen and done on Salusa Secundus.

 

But that afternoon, Liet stared across the sands at a brownish-tan smudge on the horizon.  He removed his stillsuit plugs and inhaled deeply, smelling ozone, and his skin tingled with static electricity in the air.

 

Warrick frowned.  "It's a big storm, Liet, approaching rapidly."  He shrugged with forced optimism.  "Perhaps it will just be a heinali wind.  We can brave it."

 

Liet kept his thoughts to himself, not wishing to give voice to unpleasant suspicions.  Evil possibilities spoken aloud could attract the evil itself.

 

But as the knot of weather grew closer and louder, rising ominously tall and brown in the sky, Liet stated the obvious.  "No, my friend, it is a Coriolis storm."  Grimly, he clamped his mouth shut.  He remembered his experience years before in the meteorological pod with his father, and more recently in the aurora storm on Salusa Secundus.  But this was worse, much worse.

 

Warrick looked over at him and gripped a ridge on the worm's back.  "Hulasikali Wala.  The wind of the demon in the open desert."

 

Liet studied the oncoming cloud.  At the highest levels, the murk was caused by tiny dust particles blown to great altitudes, whereas closer to the ground, the winds would pick up the heavier, scouring sand.  Hulasikali Wala, he thought.  This was the Fremen term for the most powerful of all Coriolis storms.  The wind that eats flesh.

 

Beneath them, the sandworm became agitated and restless, reluctant to continue.  As the deadly storm approached, the creature would dive to safety underground no matter how many spreaders and Maker hooks they applied to open its body segments.

 

Liet scanned the wind-fuzzed dunes that spread like an endless ocean in all directions.  Open, unbroken desert.  "No mountains, no shelter."

 

Warrick didn't answer, continuing to search for the slightest irregularity across the spreading paleness.  "There!"  He stood atop the worm's back and pointed with one outstretched finger.  "A small outcropping.  Our only chance."

 

Liet squinted.  Already the wind slapped irritating dust in his face.  He saw only a tiny fleck of brownish black, a knob of rock like a misplaced boulder jutting out of the sands.  "Doesn't look like much."

 

"It is all we have, my friend."  Warrick thrashed with his goad sticks to turn the worm toward the tiny embankment before the Coriolis storm hit.

 

A flurry of high-velocity grit whipped their faces, scratched at their eyes.  They kept their stillsuit plugs firmly pressed into their nostrils and their mouths clamped tight, then pulled hoods forward to cover their faces, but Liet still felt as if the grit penetrated the pores of his skin.

 

The hoarse wind whispered in his ears and then grew louder, like the breath of a dragon.  The increasing electrical fields nauseated him, gave him a pounding headache, which would only decrease if he grounded himself well on the sand.  An impossibility out here.

 

As they approached the tiny cluster of rocks, Liet's heart sank.  He could see it now, a mere elbow of hardened lava exposed by scouring winds.  Barely the size of a stilltent with rough edges, cracks, and crannies.  Certainly not large enough to shelter both of them.

 

"Warrick, this will not work.  We must find another way."

 

His companion turned to him.  "There is no other way."

 

The sandworm reared and thrashed, resisting the direction Warrick wanted it to take.  As they approached their unlikely sanctuary, the storm rose above them as a great brown wall in the sky.  Warrick released his hooks.  "Now, Lie!  We must trust to our boots, and skills . . . and to Shai-Hulud."

 

Letting go of the ropes, Liet plucked his Maker hooks free and leaped.  The worm dove into the sand, tunneling with a vengeance; Liet scrambled off its rough back, jumping away from the wake of soft sand.

 

The Coriolis storm rushed toward them with a dry, swishing sound, scouring the ground and howling like an angry creature.  Liet could no longer differentiate between desert and sky.

 

Fighting against the wind, they scrambled onto the rock.  Only one crevice was deep enough for a man to huddle inside, pull down his cloak, and hope to be shielded from the ravenous blasting sand.

 

Warrick looked at it, then faced the oncoming storm.  He raised his head high.  "You must take the shelter, my friend.  It is yours."

 

Liet refused.  "Impossible.  You're my blood-brother.  You have a wife and child.  You must go back to them."

 

Warrick gazed at him with a cold but distant glare.  "And you are the son of Umma Kynes.  Your life is worth more than mine.  Take the shelter before the storm kills us both."

 

"I won't let you sacrifice your life for me."

 

"I won't give you the choice."  Warrick turned to step off the rock, but Liet grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

 

"No!  How do Fremen choose in situations like this?  How do we decide the best way to preserve water for our tribe?  I say your life is worth more because you have a family.  You say I'm worth more just because of who my father is.  We cannot resolve this in time."

 

"Then God must choose," Warrick said.

 

"All right, then."  Liet snatched a tally stick from the sash at his side.  "And you must abide by the decision."  When Warrick frowned, Liet swallowed hard as he added, "And so must I."

 

They both removed their sticks, turned to the soft dune, shielding the angle of their throw from the blasting wind.  The storm beast came closer and louder, a roiling universe of eternal darkness.  Warrick threw first, the pointed end of his bone dart embedding itself into the soft surface.  Seven.

 

As Liet threw his own bone stick, he thought, if he won, his friend would die.  And if he lost, he himself would die.  But he could think of no other way.

 

Warrick strode out to kneel where the sticks had landed.  Liet hurried to see.  His friend wouldn't cheat, which was anathema to Fremen.  But he didn't trust Warrick's watering eyes, which stung from the blowing dust.  His tally stick stood at an angle, revealing the mark of nine.

 

"You have won."  Warrick turned to him.  "You must get inside the shelter, my friend.  We have no time to delay, no time to argue."

 

Liet blinked moisture from his irritated eyes and shuddered.  His knees felt weak, ready to collapse in despair.  "This can't be.  I refuse to accept it."

 

"You have no choice."  Warrick gave him a push toward the rock.  "These are the vagaries of nature.  You've heard your father talk about it often enough.  The environment has its hazards, and you and I . . . we have been unfortunate this day."

 

"I cannot do this," Liet moaned, digging in his bootheels, but Warrick shoved him violently, knocking him backward onto the rock.

 

"Go!  Don't make me die for nothing!"

 

Shaking, Liet moved trancelike toward the crack in the rock.  "Come in here with me. Together, we can share the shelter.  We'll squeeze in.

 

"Not enough room.  Look with your own eyes."

 

The storm's howling rose to a crescendo.  Dust and sand pelted them like bullets.  The two shouted at each other though they stood only a few steps apart.  "You must take care of Faroula," Warrick said.  "If you argue with me and die out here, too, who will watch over her?  And my son?"

 

Knowing he was defeated, knowing there was nothing else he could do, Liet embraced his friend.  Then Warrick pushed him down into the crack.  Liet squirmed and struggled, trying to squeeze deeper, hoping there might be enough space for Warrick to have partial shelter at least.  "Take my cloak!  Cover yourself.  It might protect you."

 

"Keep it, Liet.  Even you will have a hard time surviving this."  Warrick gazed down at him.  His cloak and stillsuit whipped about from the angry wind.  "Think of it this way -- I shall be a sacrifice to Shai-Hulud.  My life will perhaps gain a bit of kindness for you."

 

Liet found himself crushed against the rocks, barely able to move.  He could smell the atmospheric electricity from the sand tempest, saw it crackling in the oncoming dustwall.  This was the greatest violence that Dune could hurl at them, far worse than anything found on Salusa Secundus, or anywhere else in the universe.

 

Liet reached up, extending his hand; without a word, Warrick grasped it.  Already Liet could feel the harsh abrasives against his skin.  The wind tore at him like tiny teeth.  He wanted to pull Warrick closer, to give him at least a partial shelter in the crack, but his friend refused; he had already made up his mind that he had no chance.

 

The gale blew louder, with hissing, shrieking claws.  Liet could not keep his eyes open, and tried to shrink farther into the unyielding rock.

 

In a huge burst of the storm, Warrick's hand was torn from his.  Liet tried to surge up, to grab him and pull him back, but the rock held him pinned and the wind slammed him down.  He could see nothing except the roiling Coriolis forces.  Dust blinded him.

 

Warrick's scream could not even be heard over the gale.

 

 

AFTER HOURS OF ENDURING HELL ITSELF, Liet emerged.  His body was covered with powdery dust, his eyes red and barely able to see, his clothes torn from the rocks and the probing fingers of wind.  His forehead burned.

 

He felt sick, sobbed in despair.  Around him, the desert looked clear and pristine, renewed.  Liet kicked out with his temag boots, wanting to destroy all of it in his anger and grief.  But then he turned.

 

Impossibly, he saw the dark figure of a man, a silhouette standing high on a sand dune, a tattered cloak blowing about him.  His stillsuit showed gaps where it had been mangled.

 

Liet froze, wondering if his eyes had deceived him.  A mirage? Or had the ghost of his friend returned to haunt him?  No, this truly was a man, a living being turned away from him.

 

Warrick.

 

Gasping, crying out, Liet staggered across the powdery sand, leaving deep footprints.  He climbed, laughing and crying at the same time, unable to believe his eyes.  "Warrick!"

 

The other Fremen stood unmoving.  He did not rush to greet his friend, and simply faced away, staring northward toward home.

 

Liet could not imagine how Warrick had survived.  The Coriolis storm destroyed anything in its path -- but somehow this man remained standing.  Liet cried out again and stumbled to the top of the dune.  He regained his balance and rushed to his friend, grasping his arm.  "Warrick!  You're alive!"

 

Warrick turned slowly to face him.

 

The wind and sand had torn away half of his flesh.  Warrick's face was scoured off in patches, his cheeks gone to expose long teeth.  His eyelids were stripped, leaving a round, blind stare unblinking in the sunlight.

 

The backs of Warrick's hands revealed exposed bone, and the sinews in his throat moved up and down like pulleys and ropes as he worked his jaw and spoke in a monstrous, garbled voice.

 

"I have survived, and I have seen.  But perhaps it would have been better if I had simply died."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If a man can accept his sin, he can live with it.  If a man cannot accept personal sin, he suffers unbearable consequences.

 

-Meditations from Bifrost Eyrie, Buddislamic Text

 

 

IN THE MONTHS AFTER the kidnapping of his infant son, Abulurd Harkonnen drove himself nearly mad.  A broken man, he cut himself off from his world once again.  All the servants were dismissed.  He and his wife loaded a single ornithopter with only their most important possessions.

 

Then they burned the main lodge to the ground, reducing all of its memories to embers and smoke.  The walls, roof, and support beams blazed brightly.  The framework roared and crackled like a funeral pyre into the murky skies of Lankiveil.  The large wooden building had been Abulurd and Emmi's home for decades, their place of happiness and warm recollections.  But they left without once looking back.

 

He and Emmi flew across the mountains until they set down in one of the silent mountain cities, a place named Veritas, meaning "truth."  Resembling a fortress, the Buddislamic community had been built under a sheltering granite overhang, a shelf of rock that jutted out from the main mountain mass.  Over the centuries, monks had deepened the hollow, digging a warren of tunnels and private cells where devoted followers could sit and think.

 

Abulurd Harkonnen had a good deal to ponder, and the monks accepted him without question.

 

While not devoutly religious, nor even following the forms of Buddislam, Abulurd and Emmi spent much time together in silence.  They gave one another solace after all the pain and grief.  They sought to understand why the universe insisted on striking out at them.  But neither of them could find an answer.

 

Abulurd believed he had a good heart, that he was fundamentally a good person.  He tried to do everything right.  Yet somehow he found himself in a pit of demons.

 

One day, he sat in his stone-walled chamber, where the light was dim and flickering, shed by burning candlepots that sent perfumed smoke into the air.  Auxiliary thermal heaters hidden in the rock niches warmed the air.  He huddled in loose, plain garments, not in prayer but deep in contemplation.

 

Kneeling beside him, Emmi stroked the sleeve of his tunic.  She had been writing poetry, the structured verse found in the Buddislamic sutras, but the words and metaphors were so sharp and painful that Abulurd could not read them without feeling the sting of tears.  She set her parchment and calligraphy pens aside, leaving the stanza unfinished.

 

Now, both stared into the flickering candles.  Somewhere in the halls of Veritas, monks were singing, and the vibrations of their chants traveled through the stone.  The muffled sounds became hypnotic tones without distinction.

 

Abulurd thought of his father, a man who had looked much like him, with long hair, a muscular neck, and a lean body.  Baron Dmitri Harkonnen had always worn loose-fitting clothes to make himself appear more imposing than he really was.  He'd been a hard man, willing to face difficult decisions in order to advance his family fortunes.  Each day was an effort to increase the wealth of House Harkonnen, to raise his family's standing in the Landsraad.  Receiving the siridar-fief of Arrakis had elevated the stature of the Harkonnen name among the noble families.

 

Over the millennia since the Battle of Corrin, the Harkonnen bloodline had earned a well-deserved reputation for cruelty but Dmitri had been less harsh than most of his predecessors.  His second wife Daphne had softened him a great deal.  In later years, Dmitri became a changed man, laughing exuberantly, showing his love for his new wife and spending time with his youngest son, Abulurd.  He even cared for severely retarded Marotin, when earlier generations of Harkonnens would have simply slain the infant under the guise of mercy.

 

Unfortunately, the more affectionate Dmitri became, the harsher his eldest son Vladimir grew, as if in reaction.  Vladimir's mother Victoria had done her best to instill a power lust in her son.

 

We are so different.

 

Meditating in the stone chamber, focused on the subtle, shifting colors of candle flames, Abulurd did not regret failing to follow in his half-brother's footsteps.  He had neither the heart nor the stomach for the deeds that so delighted the Baron.

 

As he listened to the distant vibrations of the monks' music, Abulurd considered his family tree.  He'd never understood why his father had christened him Abulurd, a name fraught with scorn and infamy since the aftermath of the Butlerian Jihad.  The original Abulurd Harkonnen had been banished for cowardice after the Battle of Corrin, forever disgraced.

 

It had been the final victory of humans against the thinking machines.  At their last stand on the legend-shrouded Bridge of Hrethgir, Abulurd's long-dead namesake had done something to bring down censure from all the victorious parties.  It had created the original rift between Harkonnen and Atreides, a blood feud that had lasted for millennia.  But details were sketchy, and proof nonexistent.

 

What did my father know?  What did that other Abulurd really do at the Battle of Corrin?  What decision did he make at the Bridge?

 

Perhaps Dmitri had not considered it a matter for shame.  Perhaps the victorious Atreides had merely rewritten history, changed the story after so many centuries in order to blacken the Harkonnen reputation.  Since the Great Revolt, myths had collected like barnacles on history, obscuring the truth.

 

With a shudder, Abulurd drew a deep breath, smelling the candlepot incense inside their tiny room.

 

Sensing her husband's uneasiness, Emmi stroked the back of his neck.  She gave him a bittersweet smile.  "It will take some time," she said, "but I think in this holy place we may find some small measure of peace."

 

Abulurd nodded and swallowed hard.

 

He clasped Emmi's hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the weathered skin of her knuckles.  "I may have been stripped of my wealth and power, dearest.  I may have lost both of my sons . . . but I still have you.  And you are worth more than all the treasures in the Imperium."  He closed his pale blue eyes.  "I just wish we could do something to make amends to Lankiveil, to all these people who have suffered so much simply because of who I am."

 

In anguish he pressed his lips together, and his eyes shimmered with a thin sheen of tears that could not block the images:  Glossu Rabban covered with whale blood and blinking in the spotlight at the end of the dock . . . Bifrost Eyrie devastated by Rabban's troops . . . the disbelieving expression on Onir Rautha-Rabban's face just before the guards flung him off the cliff . . . even the poor fishmistress -- Abulurd remembered the smell of her burned flesh, the crash of the overturned bucket, water spilled on the hardwood floor, soaked up by the apron of the dead woman as she sprawled in it.  The baby crying. . . .

 

Had it been so long ago that life had been good and peaceful?  How many years had it been since he'd gone on a friendly whale hunt with the native fishermen, when they had hunted down an albino whale. . . .

 

With a start he recalled the artificial iceberg, the illicit and enormous spice stockpile hidden in the arctic waters.  A Harkonnen treasure hoard greater than any wealth these people could imagine.  That stockpile had been placed right under Abulurd's nose, no doubt by his own half-brother.

 

Now, in the stone-walled room, he stood up quickly and smiled.  Abulurd could not suppress his sheer delight.  He looked over at his wife, who couldn't comprehend his excitement.

 

"I know what we can do, Emmi!"  He clapped his hands, thrilled at the prospect.  At last he had found a way to make reparations to the hardworking people, whom his own family had so terribly wronged.

 

 

ABOARD A CARGO-CARRYING ICE-CUTTER that had filed no trip plan and transmitted no locator signal, Abulurd led a group of Buddislamic monks, a whale fur crew, and his former household servants on an expedition.  They cruised through the ice-clogged waters, listening to chunks grind against each other like mortar stones.

 

A night mist of suspended ice crystals drifted across the waters, diffusing the boat's searchlights as the craft forged ahead, seeking the anchorage of the artificial iceberg.  Using sounding apparatus and scanners, they searched the waters, mapping out the floating mounds.  Once they knew what they were looking for, tracking down the impostor became simple enough.

 

In the hours before dawn, the craft tied up against the polymer sculpture that looked so much like crystalline ice.  The awestruck workers, whalers, and monks crept like trespassers into the corridors that extended beneath the water.  Inside, untouched for years, sat container after container of the precious spice melange, covertly removed from Arrakis and hidden here.  An Emperor's ransom.

 

Early in his long reign, Elrood IX had established severe restrictions against illegal stockpiles such as this.  If the cache were ever discovered, the Baron would be punished, with an immense fine levied and perhaps the loss of his CHOAM directorship, or forfeiture of the quasi-fief of Arrakis itself.

 

For a few moments of desperate hope, Abulurd had considered blackmailing his half-brother, demanding the return of his baby boy under threat of revealing the illegal spice stockpile.  No longer a Harkonnen, Abulurd had nothing to lose.  But he knew that wouldn't work in the long run.  No, this was the only way to bring some sort of closure, to salvage some good from a nightmare.

 

Using suspensor pallets and a fire-brigade line, the furtive crew spent hours loading their cargo ship with melange, all the way to the top decks.  Though disgraced, Abulurd still retained his title as subdistrict governor.  He would send feelers out to his former contacts.  He would find smugglers and merchants to help him dispose of this stockpile.  It would take months, but Abulurd intended to liquidate it for hard solaris, which he would distribute as he saw fit.  To benefit his people.

 

He and Emmi had considered, but discarded, the idea of spending heavily on a military defense system for Lankiveil.  Even with all of this spice, they realized, they could not hope to build anything to oppose the combined might of House Harkonnen.  No, they had a better idea in mind.

 

While sitting alone in the warm closeness of their monastic cell, he and Emmi had developed an elaborate plan.  It would be a monumental task to distribute such enormous wealth, but Abulurd had his trusted assistants, and knew he would succeed.

 

The spice money would be sent through cities and villages, dispersed to hundreds of mountain strongholds and fishing towns.  The people would rebuild their Buddislamic temples.  They would upgrade old whale fur-processing equipment, widen streets and docks.  Every native fisherman would receive a new boat.

 

The money would be doled out in thousands of small pieces, and it would be completely unrecoverable.  The spice stockpile would increase the standard of living for the poor people of this planet -- his citizens -- giving them comforts they'd never imagined possible in their hard lives.

 

Even when the Baron discovered what his half-brother had done, he could never reclaim the ill-gotten fortune.  It would be like trying to recapture the sea with an eyedropper. . . .

 

As the ice-cutter raced back to the rocky fjord villages, Abulurd stood at the bow, smiling into the frigid mist and shivering with anticipation.  He knew how much good he would do with this night's effort.

 

For the first time in years, Abulurd Harkonnen felt deeply proud.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The willingness to learn is a choice.

 

-REBEC OF GINAZ

 

 

 

 

 

TODAY, THE SWORDMASTER TRAINEES would live or die based on what they had learned.

 

Standing beside an assortment of weapons, the legendary Mord Cour conferred in low tones with junior training master Jeh-Wu.  The testing field was damp and slick from a light rain earlier that morning.  The clouds still hadn't drifted away.

 

Soon I will be a Swordmaster, both in body and mind, Duncan thought.

 

Those who passed -- survived? -- this phase would still face an intense battery of oral examinations covering the history and philosophy of the fighting disciplines they had been studying.  Then, the victors would return to the main administration island, view the sacred remains of Jool-Noret, and go back home.

 

As Swordmasters.

 

"A tiger on one arm and a dragon on the other," Mord Cour called out.  His silvery hair had grown a full ten centimeters since Duncan had last seen him on the barren volcanic island.  "Great warriors find a way to overcome any obstacle.  Only a truly great warrior can survive the Corridor of Death."

 

Of the original 150 trainees in the class, only 51 remained -- and each failure taught Duncan a lesson.  Now he and Hiih Resser, arguably the top students, stood side by side, as they had for years.

 

"Corridor of Death?"  The tip of Resser's left ear had been cut off in a knife-fighting exercise; since he thought the scar made him look like a battle-hardened veteran, the redhead had decided never to undergo any cosmetic surgery to repair the damage.

 

"Just hyperbole," Duncan said.

 

"You think so?"

 

Taking a deep, calm breath, Duncan focused on the comforting presence of the Old Duke's sword in his hand.  The pommel's inlaid rope pattern gleamed in sunlight.  A proud blade.  He vowed to be worthy of it, and was glad to carry the sword now.

 

"After eight years, it's too late to quit," he said.

 

Enclosed by a shield-fence, the outdoor training course was hidden from the gathered trainees.  To survive the obstacles and reach the end of the course they would have to react to assassin meks, solido holo-illusions, booby traps, and more.  This would be their final physical test.

 

"Come forward and choose your weapons," Jeh-Wu called.

 

Duncan buckled two short knives to his belt, along with the Old Duke's sword.  He hefted a heavy mace, but exchanged it for a long battle lance.

 

Jeh-Wu tossed his dark dreadlocks and stepped forward.  Though his voice was hard, it held a hint of compassion.  "Some of you might consider this final test cruel, worse than any real combat situation could possibly be.  But fighting men must be tempered in a fiery forge of true dangers."

 

While he waited, Duncan thought of Glossu Rabban, who had showed no mercy hunting human prey on Giedi Prime.  Real monsters like the Harkonnens could devise sadistic exercises far worse than anything Jeh-Wu might imagine.  He took a deep breath, tried to stop the self-defeating flow of fear, and instead visualized himself surviving the ordeal.

 

"When Ginaz delivers a Swordmaster to a noble House," old Mord Cour continued, "that family depends on him with their lives, their safety, their fortunes.  Since you bear this responsibility, no test can be too difficult.  Some of you will die today.  Do not doubt it.  Our obligation is to release only the best fighters in the Imperium.  There can be no turning back."

 

The gates opened. Attendants boomed out names, one at a time, from a list, and several of the trainees stepped through, disappearing behind the solid-front barricade.  Resser was among the first to be called.

 

"Good luck," Resser said.  He and Duncan clasped in the half handshake of the Imperium, and then he was summoned.  Without looking back, the redhead slipped through the ominous doorway.

 

Eight years of rigorous training culminated in this moment.

 

Duncan waited behind other toughened students, some oily with nervous sweat, some blustering with bravado.  More trainees passed through the gate.  His stomach knotted with anticipation.

 

"Duncan Idaho!" one of the attendants finally thundered.  Through the opening, Duncan could see the previous student evading weapons that came at him from all directions.  The young man whirled, dodged, stutter-stepped, then disappeared from view among the obstacles and meks.

 

"Come on, come on.  It's easy," the heavyset attendant growled.  "We've already had a couple of survivors today."

 

Duncan uttered a silent prayer and ran forward into the unknown.  The gate slammed shut behind him with an ominous clank.

 

Focused on what he was doing, letting his mind settle into a fugue state of instant reaction, he heard a blur of voices filling his mind:  Paulus Atreides telling him he could accomplish anything he set his mind to; Duke Leto counseling him to take the high ground, the moral course, never to forget compassion; Thufir Hawat telling him to watch all points in a full hemispherical perimeter around his body.

 

Two meks loomed on either side of the corridor, metal monsters with glittering sensor-eyes that followed his every movement.  Duncan began to dash past, then stopped, made a feint, dove and tumbled by.

 

Watch all points.  Whirling, Duncan swung backward with his lance, heard it strike edged metal, deflecting one of the meks' weapons, a thrown spear.  Perfect perimeter.  Warily, he danced forward on the balls of his feet, maintaining balance, ready to dart in any direction.

 

The words of his school instructors came to him:  shaggy-haired Mord Cour, iguana-faced Jeh-Wu, enormously fat Rivvy Dinari, pompous Whitmore Bludd, even stern Jamo Reed, keeper of the prison island.

 

His tai-chi instructor had been an attractive young woman, her body so flexible that it appeared to be composed entirely of sinew.  Her soft voice had a hard edge.  "Expect the unexpected."  Simple words, but profound.

 

The fighting machines contained mechanisms triggered by eye-sensors that followed his rapid/cautious movements.  But, in compliance with Butlerian strictures, the meks could not think like him.  Duncan rammed the metal butt of his lance into one mek, then whirled and did the same to the other.  He spun away in a gymnastics maneuver, barely eluding impaler-knives that stabbed at him.

 

As he crept along, he studied the wooden path under his bare feet, looking for pressure pads.  Blood spattered the floorboards; off to the side of the course he saw part of a mangled body; he did not take time to identify it.

 

Farther ahead, he blinded meks with thrown knives that shattered their glassy eyes.  Some he toppled with powerful kicks.  Four were only holoprojections, which he detected by noticing subtle differences in light and reflection, a trick Thufir Hawat had taught him.

 

One of the island instructors had been a mere boy with a baby face and a killer's instincts . . . a ninja warrior who taught stealth methods of assassination and sabotage, the supreme skill of melting into the slightest shadows and striking in absolute silence.  "Sometimes the most dramatic statement can be made with an unseen touch," the ninja had said.

 

Synthesizing eight years of training, Duncan drew parallels between the various disciplines, similarities of method -- and differences.  Some techniques were clearly useful for what he faced at that moment, and his mind raced to sort them out, selecting appropriate methods for each challenge.

 

Darting past the last of the deadly meks, his heart pounded against the inside of his chest.  Duncan scrambled down the slope to the rugged shore, following course markers, still bounded by the shield-fence.  Glowing red suspensors directed him over a frothy blue-white pool of geysers and volcanic hot springs, but waves from the aquamarine sea lapped over the rim of the rocky bowl, cooling the temperature to just below scalding.

 

Duncan dove in and stroked down to underwater lava tubes bubbling with mineral water.  Already desperate for air, he swam through the heated water until he emerged in another steaming hot spring where fierce-looking meks plunged in to attack him.

 

Duncan fought like a wild animal-until he realized that his mission was to get through this Corridor of Death, not to subdue all opponents.  He blocked kicks, drove meks back, and broke free to dash along the trail, toward the jungle highlands and the next phase. . . .

 

Across a deep chasm hung a narrow rope bridge, a difficult challenge of balance, and Duncan knew it would get worse.  In the middle of the span, solido-projected bolo-beasts appeared, ready to attack him.  He slashed out with his lance, battered them with his rigid hands.

 

But Duncan didn't fall.  A student's worst enemy is his own mind.  Panting, he focused his thoughts.  The challenge is to control fear.  I must never forget that these are not real adversaries, no matter how solid their blows feel.

 

He had to use every skill he had learned, assemble the diverse techniques -- and survive, just like a real battle.  The Ginaz School could teach methods, but no two combat situations were identical.  A warrior's greatest weapons are mental and physical agility, coupled with adaptability.

 

Concentrating on the direct route across the chasm, he took one step after another.  Using his spear to knock aside the unreal opponents, he reached the opposite end of the rope, sweating and exhausted, ready to drop.

 

But he pushed on.  Toward the end.

 

Through a short, rocky gorge -- the perfect place for an ambush -- he sprinted along a planked path, pounding a steady rhythm on it with bare feet.  He saw pits and trapdoors.  Hearing a burst of gunfire, he rolled and tumbled, then sprang back to his feet.  A spear flew at him, but Duncan used his lance for leverage and vaulted over the obstacle, spinning his body in a blur.

 

As he landed, a glimmer of motion streaked toward his face.  With lightning speed he whipped the lance staff in front of his eyes, felt two sudden, sharp impacts in the wood. A pair of tiny flying meks had embedded themselves in the shaft, like self-motivated arrowheads.

 

He saw more blood on the deck, and another butchered body lying on the ground.  Though he was not supposed to think of fallen comrades, he regretted the loss of even one talented student who had made it through so much training . . . only to fall there, in the last challenge.  So close.

 

Sometimes he caught glimpses of Ginaz observers beyond the crackling shield-fence, keeping pace with him, other Swordmasters, many of whom he remembered.  Duncan didn't dare permit himself to wonder how his fellow students had fared.  He didn't know if Resser was still alive.

 

So far he had used the knives and the lance, but not the Old Duke's sword, which remained at his side.  It was a reassuring presence, as if Paulus Atreides accompanied him in spirit form, whispering advice along the way.

 

"Any young man with balls as big as yours is a man I must have as part of my household!" the Old Duke had once told him.

 

With the vanquished meks behind him, blocked on both sides by the shield-fence, Duncan faced the final obstacle -- a huge sunken cauldron of burning oil, a vat spanning the path, blocked on both sides by the shield-fence.  The end of the Corridor of Death.

 

He coughed in the acrid smoke, covered his mouth and nose with his shirt fabric, but he still couldn't see.  Blinking away irritated tears, he studied the buried cauldron, which looked like a hungry demon's mouth.  A narrow rim encircled the vat, slippery with splatters of oil, thick with noxious vapors.

 

The final obstacle.  Duncan would have to pass it somehow.

 

Behind him, a high metal gate shot up across his path, preventing him from returning the way he had come.  It was barbed with shigawire, unclimbable.

 

I never intended to turn back anyway.

 

"Never argue with your instincts, boy," Paulus Atreides had counseled him.  Based on a gut feeling, the Old Duke had taken the young refugee into his household, despite knowing that Duncan had come from a Harkonnen world.

 

Duncan wondered if he could possibly vault over the cauldron, but he couldn't see the far side through the shimmering flames and smoke-smeared air.  What if the cauldron was not really round, but distorted, to trap a student making assumptions?  Tricks within tricks.

 

Was the vat only a holoprojection?  But he felt the heat, coughed in the smoke.  He threw his lance, and it clanked against the metal side.

 

Hearing a heavy ratchet and the rumble of metal plates behind him, he turned to see the huge gate sliding toward him.  If he didn't move, the barrier would push him into the cauldron.

 

Drawing the Old Duke's sword, he swished it through the air. The weapon seemed entirely useless.  Think!

 

Expect the unexpected.

 

He studied the shield-fence on his right, the shimmer of the force field.  And remembered his shield-training sessions on Caladan with Thufir Hawat.  The slow blade penetrates the body shield, but it must move at just the right speed, not too fast and not too slow.

 

He stroked the Duke's sword in the air for practice.  Could he breach the flickering fence and tumble through?  If a slow blade penetrated the shield, the energy of the barrier could be moved, changed, shifted.  The sharp point of the sword could distort the field, puncture an opening.  But how long would a shield remain compromised, if penetrated by a sword?  Could he push his body through the temporary opening before the shield closed again?

 

Behind him, the barbed gate ground closer, nudging him toward the burning cauldron.  But he would not go.

 

Duncan visualized how he would accomplish what he had in mind.  His options were limited.  He stepped toward the pulsing barrier and stopped where he could smell the ozone and feel the crackle of energy on his skin.  He tried to remember one of the prayers his mother had sung to him, before Rabban had murdered her.  But he could recall only fragments that made no sense.

 

Gripping the Old Duke's heavy sword, Duncan leaned into the shield-fence and pierced it as if it were a wall of water, then dragged the blade up, feeling the ripples of the field.  It reminded him of gutting a fish.

 

Then he pushed himself forward, following the sword point, dropping through the resistance -- and fell in a wave of dizziness onto a rough surface of black lava.  He rolled and landed on his feet, still gripping the sword, ready to fight the Swordmasters if they challenged him for breaking the rules.  Suddenly he was safe from the cauldron and the moving gate.

 

"Excellent!  We have another survivor."  Frizzy-haired Jamo Reed, released from prison-island duty, rushed up to embrace Duncan in a bearlike hug.

 

Swordmaster Mord Cour and Jeh-Wu weren't far behind, wearing alien expressions of delight on their faces.  Duncan had never seen either of them look so pleased.

 

"Was that the only way out?" he asked, trying to catch his breath as he looked at Swordmaster Cour.

 

The old man gave a boisterous laugh.  "You found one of twenty-two ways, Idaho."

 

Another voice intruded.  "Do you want to go back and search for the other possibilities?"  It was Resser, grinning from ear to scarred ear.  Duncan slipped the Old Duke's sword into its scabbard and clapped his friend on the back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to define the Kwisatz Haderach?  The male who is everywhere simultaneously, the only man who can truly become the greatest human of all of us, mingling masculine and feminine ancestry with inseparable power.

 

-Bene Gesserit Azhar Book

 

 

BENEATH THE IMPERIAL PALACE, in a network of perimeter water lanes and connected central pools, two women swam in black sealsuits.  The younger of the pair stroked slowly, staying back to help the older whenever she faltered.  Their impermeable suits, slick as oil and warm as a womb, offered flexibility while modestly covering the chest, midriff, and upper legs.

 

Despite the fact that some Bene Gesserit women wore common clothing, even exquisite gowns for special occasions such as Imperial balls and gala events, they were counseled to keep their bodies covered on an everyday basis.  It helped to foster the mystique that kept the Sisters apart.

 

"I can't . . . do what . . . I used to," Reverend Mother Lobia wheezed, as Anirul helped her into the largest of seven central pools, a steaming water-oasis, scented with salts and herbs.  Not so long ago, Truthsayer Lobia had been able to outswim Anirul quite easily, but now, at more than one hundred seventy years old, her health had been declining.  Warm condensation dripped from the arched stone ceiling overhead, like a tropical rain.

 

"You're doing fine, Reverend Mother."  Anirul held the ancient woman's arm and helped her up a stone stairway.

 

"Don't ever lie to a Truthsayer," Lobia said with a wrinkled smile.  Her yellowing eyes danced, but she was gasping for air.  "Especially not the Emperor's Truthsayer."

 

"Surely the Emperor's wife deserves a bit of leniency?"

 

The old woman chuckled.

 

Anirul helped her into a flowform chair, handed her a plush karthan-weave towel.  Lobia lay back with the towel over her and pressed a button to activate the chair's skin massage.  She sighed as the electric fields pulsed her muscles and nerve endings.

 

"Preparations have been made for my replacement," Lobia said in a sleepy voice, over the hum of the chair.  "I've seen the names of the candidates.  It will be good to go back to the Mother School, though I doubt I will ever see it again.  On Kaitain, the climate is so perfect, but I long for the cold and the damp of Wallach IX.  Odd, don't you think?"

 

Anirul perched on the edge of her chair, seeing the age on the Truthsayer's face, heard the ever-present murmur of crowded lives within herself.  As the secret Kwisatz Mother, Anirul lived with a clear and strident presence of Other Memory inside her head.  All the lives down the long path of her heritage spoke in her, telling her things that even most Bene Gesserit did not know.  Lobia, with all her years, didn't know as much about age as Anirul.

 

I am wise beyond my years.  This was not hubris; it was more a sensation of the weight of history and events that she bore with her.

 

"What will the Emperor do without you around, Reverend Mother?  He relies on you to learn who lies and who tells the truth.  You're no ordinary Truthsayer, by any historical measure."

 

Beside her, soothed by the massage cycle, Lobia fell asleep.

 

As she relaxed, Anirul pondered layers of secrecy within the Sisterhood, the strict compartmentalization of information.  The dozing Truthsayer beside her was one of the most powerful women in the Imperium, but even Lobia didn't know the true nature of Anirul's duties -- knew very little, in fact, about the Kwisatz Haderach program.

 

On the other side of the underground pool chambers, Anirul watched her husband Shaddam emerge from a steam room, dripping and wrapped in a karthan towel.  Before the door closed she saw his companions, two naked concubines from the royal harem.  The women had all begun to look alike to her, even with her Bene Gesserit powers of observation.

 

Shaddam didn't have much of a sexual appetite for Anirul, though she certainly knew techniques to please him.  In accordance with the Mother Superior's command, she had recently delivered a fourth daughter to him, Josifa.  He had grown more furious with each girl-child, and now he turned to concubines and ignored her.  Realizing that Shaddam lived under the ponderous weight of Elrood's long reign, Anirul wondered if her husband dallied with so many concubines because he was trying to compete with his father's ghost.  Was he keeping score?

 

As the Emperor walked pompously from the steam room toward one of the cold pools, he turned away from his wife and dove in with a small splash.  Surfacing, he stroked efficiently toward the water lanes.  He liked to swim the Palace perimeter at least ten times a day.

 

She wished Shaddam paid as much attention to running the Imperium as he did to his own diversions.  Occasionally Anirul tested him in subtle ways, and found that he knew far less than she did about the interfamilial alliances and manipulations around him.  A grave gap in his knowledge.  Shaddam had been increasing the ranks of his Sardaukar corps, though not enough, and without any overall plan.  He liked to style himself as a soldier and even wore the uniform -- but he didn't have the edge, the military vision, or the talent for moving his toy soldiers around the universe in a productive manner.

 

Hearing a high-pitched squeal, Anirul saw a tiny black shape in the stone rafters above the waterways.  With a fluttering of wings, a distrans bat swooped toward her with yet another message from Wallach IX.  The tiny creature had been transported and set free on Kaitain, where it had homed in on her.  Old Lobia didn't stir, and Anirul knew Shaddam wouldn't return for at least half an hour.  She was alone.

 

Adjusting her vocal cords, the Kwisatz Mother matched the cry of the bat.  It swooped down and landed on her damp, upturned palms.  She stared at its ugly muzzle, the sharp teeth, the eyes like tiny black pearls.  Focusing her attention, Anirul emitted another squeak, and the bat responded with a staccato chitter, a burst of compact signals encoded on the nervous system of the rodent messenger.

 

Hearing this, Anirul slowed it down in her mind; even Truthsayer Lobia didn't know the code.  The high-pitched tone became a series of clicks and bursts, which she translated and sorted.

 

It was a report from Mother Superior Harishka, updating her on the culmination of ninety generations of careful genetic planning. Sister Jessica, the secret daughter of Gaius Helen Mohiam and Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, remained unsuccessful in her sacred mission to bear an Atreides daughter.  Was she refusing, delaying intentionally?  Mohiam had said the young girl was spirited, loyal but occasionally stubborn.

 

Anirul had expected the next daughter in the genetic path to be conceived by now -- the penultimate child who would be mother to their secret weapon.  Yet for some time, Jessica had been sleeping with Duke Leto Atreides -- but still she had not become pregnant.  Intentional on her part?  The attractive young woman had tested as fertile, and she was an adept seductress; Duke Leto Atreides had already sired one son.

 

What is taking her so long?

 

Not good news.  If the long-awaited Harkonnen / Atreides daughter was not born soon, Mother Superior would summon Jessica back to Wallach IX and find out why.

 

Anirul considered letting the bat fly free, but decided not to risk it.  With a clench of her fingers, she broke the creature's fragile neck and disposed of the winged carcass in a matter-recycler behind the pool chamber.

 

Leaving Lobia to sleep in her massage chair, Anirul hurried back upstairs, into the Palace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You carve wounds upon my flesh and write there in salt!

 

-Fremen Lament

 

 

DESPITE THE FACT that Liet-Kynes had no medicines other than a simple first-aid pack in his fremkit, Warrick survived.

 

Blinded by grief and guilt, Liet lashed the near-dead man high onto the back of a worm.  During the long journey back to the sietch, Liet shared his own water, did his best to repair Warrick's ravaged stillsuit.

 

Within Red Wall Sietch, there was much wailing and weeping.  Faroula, who had considerable skill in the uses of healing herbs, never left her husband's side.  She tended him hour after hour as he lay in a blind stupor, clinging to the threads of life.

 

Though his face was bandaged, Warrick's skin could never regrow.  Liet had heard that the genetic wizards of the Bene Tleilax could create new eyes, new limbs, new flesh, but the Fremen would never accept such a healing miracle, not even for one of their own.  Already, the sietch elders and fearful children made warding signs near the curtain hangings of Warrick's chambers, as if to fend off an ugly demon.

 

Heinar, the old one-eyed Naib, came to see his disfigured son-in-law.  Kneeling beside her husband's pallet, Faroula looked stricken; her elfin face, once so quick to flash a smile or snap a witty retort, was now drawn; her intense and curious eyes were wide with helplessness.  Though Warrick had not died, she wore a yellow nezhoni scarf, the color of mourning.

 

Proud and grieving, the Naib called a council of sietch elders, at which Liet-Kynes told the stern men exactly what had happened, giving his testament so that the Fremen could understand and honor the great sacrifice Warrick had made.  The young man should have been considered a hero.  Poems should have been written and honorific songs sung about him.  But Warrick had made one terrible mistake.

 

He had not died when he should have.

 

Heinar and the council somberly made preparations for a Fremen funeral.  It was only a matter of time, they said.  The mutilated man could not possibly survive.

 

Nonetheless, he did.

 

Covered with salves, Warrick's wounds stopped bleeding.  Faroula fed him, often with Liet looking on, desperately wishing he could do something helpful.  But even the son of Umma Kynes could not perform the miracle his friend needed.  Warrick's son Liet-chih, too young to understand, remained in the care of his mourning grandparents.

 

Though Warrick looked like a half-rotted carcass, there was no smell of infection about him, no yellowish suppuration of wounds, no gangrene.  In a most curious manner he was healing, leaving patches of exposed bone.  His staring, lidless eyes could never close in a peaceful sleep, though the night of blindness was always with him.

 

Standing with Faroula in the midst of her vigil, Liet whispered to his friend, telling stories of Salusa Secundus, recalling the times the two had raided Harkonnen troops, when they had acted as bait to kill the enemy scouts who'd poisoned the wells of Bilar Camp.

 

Still, Warrick lay unmoving, day after day, hour after hour.

 

Faroula bowed her head and said in a voice that barely managed to escape her throat, "What have we done to offend Shai-Hulud?  Why are we punished like this?"

 

During the heavy silence in which Liet tried to find an answer for her, Warrick stirred on the pallet.  Faroula gasped and took a half step back.  Then her husband sat up.  His lidless eyes flickered, as if focusing on the far wall.

 

And he spoke, moving the sinews that held his jaws together.  His teeth and his corrugated tongue stirred, forming harsh words.

 

"I have seen a vision.  Now I understand what I must do."

 

 

FOR DAYS WARRICK SHAMBLED, slow but determined, through the passageways of the sietch.  Blinded by the sand, he found his way by touch, seeing with inner mystical eyes.  Keeping to the shadows, he looked like a mockery of a corpse.  He spoke in a low, papery voice, but his words had a compelling edge.

 

People wanted to run, but could not tear themselves away as he intoned, "When I was engulfed by the storm, at the moment I should have encountered death, a voice whispered to me from the sand-laden wind.  It was Shai-Hulud himself, telling me why I must endure this tribulation."

 

Faroula, still wearing yellow, tried to drag her husband back to their quarters.

 

Though the Fremen avoided speaking to him, they were drawn to listen.  If ever a man could receive a holy vision, might it not be Warrick, after what he had endured in the maw of a storm?  Was it just a coincidence that he had lived through what no other man had ever survived?  Or did it prove that Shai-Hulud had plans for him, a thread in a cosmic tapestry?  If ever they had seen a man touched by the fiery finger of God, Warrick was such a one.

 

Staring ahead, he walked compulsively into the chambers where Heinar sat on a mat with the Council of Elders.  The Fremen fell silent, unsure how to respond.  Warrick stood just inside the chamber doorway.

 

"You must drown a Maker," he said.  "Call the Sayyadina, and have her witness the ceremony of the Water of Life.  I must transform it . . . so that I may proceed with my work."  He turned away with his shuffling gait, leaving Heinar and his companions appalled and confused.

 

No man had ever taken the Water of Life and survived.  It was a substance for Reverend Mothers, a magical, poisonous concoction that was fatal to anyone not prepared.

 

Unswerving, Warrick walked into a common chamber where adolescents trampled raw spice in tubs; unmarried women curded melange distillate for the production of plastics and fuel.  Against the walls, the whing and slap of a power loom made a hypnotic rhythm.  Other Fremen labored meticulously on stillsuits, repairing and checking the intricate mechanisms.

 

Solar-powered cookstoves heated a healthy gruel and mash, which the sietch members ate for a light midday meal; larger feasts occurred only after sundown, when dusk had cooled the desert.  An old man with a nasal voice sang a sad lament, recounting the centuries of aimless journeys the Zensunni had endured before finally arriving on the desert planet.  Liet-Kynes sat listlessly with two of Stilgar's guerrilla fighters, drinking spice coffee.

 

All activity stopped when Warrick arrived and began to talk.  "I have seen a green Dune, a paradise.  Even Umma Kynes does not know the grandeur that Shai-Hulud revealed to me."  His voice was like a cold wind through an open cave.  "I have heard the Voice from the Outer World.  I have had a vision of the Lisan al-Gaib, for whom we have waited.  I have seen the way, as promised by legend, as promised by the Sayyadina."

 

The Fremen murmured at his audacity.  They had heard the prophecy, knew that such a one was foretold.  The Reverend Mothers had taught it for centuries, and legend had passed from tribe to tribe, generation to generation.  The Fremen had waited so long that some were skeptical, but others were convinced-and fearful.

 

"I must drink the Water of Life.  I have seen the path."

 

Liet led his friend away from the communal chamber, back to his own rooms, where Faroula sat talking with her father.  Looking up at her husband as he entered, her face was drawn with resignation and her eyes red with weeks of tears.  On a carpet nearby, her baby son began to cry.

 

Seeing Warrick and Liet together, the old Naib turned back to his daughter.  "This is as it must be, Faroula," Heinar said.  "The elders have decided.  It is a tremendous sacrifice, but if . . . if he is the one, if he is truly the Lisan al-Gaib, we must do as he says.  We will give him the Water of Life."

 

 

LIET AND FAROULA both tried to talk Warrick out of his obsession, but the scarred man persisted in his belief.  He stared with lidless eyes, but could not meet their gaze.  "It is my mashhad and my mihna.  My spiritual test and my religious test."

 

"How do you know it wasn't just strange sounds you heard in the wind?" Liet insisted.  "Warrick, how do you know you're not being deceived?"

 

"Because I know."  And in the beatific face of his conviction, they had no choice but to believe him.

 

Old Reverend Mother Ramallo journeyed from a distant sietch to preside over the ceremony, to prepare.  Fremen men took their captive small worm, only ten meters in length, and wrestled it down, drowning it in water taken from a qanat.  As the worm died and exhaled its poisonous bile, the Fremen gathered the liquid into a flexible jug and prepared it for the ceremony.

 

In the midst of the commotion, Planetologist Kynes returned from his plantings, but was so focused on his own concerns that he did not grasp the significance of the event, only that it was important.  He voiced awkward apologies to his son, expressing sadness over what had happened to Warrick . . . but Liet could see that planet-scale calculations and assessments continued in the back of his mind.  His terraforming project could not rest for one moment, not even for the chance that Warrick might be the long-foretold messiah who would unify the Fremen into a fighting force.

 

The population of Red Wall Sietch gathered in their huge meeting chamber.  High above, on the open platform where Heinar addressed his tribe, Warrick stepped forth.  The disfigured man was accompanied by the Naib and the powerful Sayyadina who had served these people for several generations.  Old Ramallo looked as toughened and hard as a desert lizard who would hold her own against a hunting hawk.

 

The Sayyadina summoned the watermasters and intoned the ritual words; the Fremen repeated them, but with a greater anxiety than usual.  Some truly believed Warrick was everything he claimed to be; others could do no more than hope.

 

Murmurs filled the chamber.  Under normal circumstances, partaking in the tau orgy was a joyous event, celebrated only at times of great import:  after a victory against Harkonnens or the discovery of a huge spice deposit or surviving a natural disaster.

 

This time, though, the Fremen knew what was at stake.

 

They looked at the mutilated face of Warrick as he stood, impassive and determined.  They watched with hope and fear, wondering if he would change their lives . . . or fail horribly, as had other men in generations past.

 

In the audience Liet stood beside Faroula and her baby, observing from the foremost tiers.  Her lips were tight in a tense frown, her eyes closed in fearful anticipation.  Liet could sense fear radiating from her, and he wanted to comfort her.  Was she afraid that the poison would kill her husband . . . or rather afraid that he might survive and continue his painful daily life?

 

Sayyadina Ramallo finished her benediction and handed the flask to Warrick.  "Let Shai-Hulud judge now if your vision is true -- if you are the Lisan al-Gaib, whom we have sought for so long."

 

"I have seen the Lisan al-Gaib," Warrick said, then lowered his voice so that only the old woman could hear.  "I did not say it was me."

 

The exposed bones and tendons on Warrick's hands moved as he grasped the flexible nozzle and tilted it toward his lips.  Ramallo squeezed the sides of the bag, squirting a gush of poison into Warrick's mouth.

 

He swallowed convulsively, then swallowed again.

 

The Fremen audience fell silent, a humming mass of humanity who tried to comprehend.  Liet thought he could hear their hearts beating in unison.  He experienced the whisper of each indrawn breath, sensed the blood pounding in his own ears.  He waited and watched.

 

"The hawk and the mouse are the same," Warrick said, peering into the future.

 

Within moments, the Water of Life began to do its work.

 

 

ALL OF WARRICK'S PREVIOUS SUFFERING, all the terrible anguish he had endured in the storm and afterward, were only prelude to the horrific death that awaited him.  The poison pervaded the cells of his body, setting them afire.

 

The Fremen believed that the disfigured man's spiritual vision had deluded him.  He raved and thrashed.  "They do not know what they have created.  Born of water, dies in sand!"

 

Sayyadina Ramallo stepped back, like a predatory bird seeing prey turn on her.  What does this mean?

 

"They think they can control him . . . but they are deluded."

 

She chose her words carefully, interpreting them through her ancient, half-forgotten filter of the Panoplia Propheticus.  "He says he can see where others cannot.  He has seen the way."

 

"Lisan al-Gaib!  He will be everything we dreamed."  Warrick retched so hard that his ribs cracked like kindling.  Blood came from his mouth.  "But nothing like we expected."

 

The Sayyadina raised her clawlike hands.  "He has seen the Lisan al-Gaib.  He is coming, and he will be everything we dreamed."

 

Warrick screamed until he had no more voice to utter a sound, twitched and kicked and thrashed until he had no more muscle control, until his brain was eaten away.  The villagers of Bilar Camp had consumed heavily diluted Water of Life, and had still died in terrible agony.  For Warrick, even such an insane death would have been a mercy.

 

"The hawk and the mouse are the same!"

 

Unable to help him, the Fremen could only watch in appalled dismay.  Warrick's death convulsions lasted for hours and hours . . . but Ramallo took far longer to interpret the disturbing visions he had seen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The stone is heavy and the sand weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both.

 

-DUKE LETO ATREIDES

 

 

WHEN A GRIM and unsettled Dominic Vernius returned to the polar base on Arrakis, his men rushed to greet him.  Seeing the man's expression, though, they knew their leader did not bear welcome news.

 

Under the bald pate and heavy brow, his eyes were haunted, deep-set in shadowed hollows; his once-bronzed skin had aged prematurely, as if all the color and spirit had been scrubbed from him, leaving him with only an iron will.  His last thread of hope had been severed, and now vengeance burned in his gaze.

 

Bundled in a heavy synfur coat open at the front to reveal his mat of white chest hair, the veteran Asuyo stood on the landing platform, his expression lined with concern.  He scratched his bristly shock of hair.  "What is it, Dom?  What's happened, eh?"

 

Dominic Vernius just stared at the towering walls of the crevasse that rose like a fortress around him.  "I have seen things no Ixian should have to witness.  My beloved world is as dead as my wife."

 

In a daze, he walked from his empty ship into the warren of passages that his men had drilled into the frozen walls.  More smugglers greeted him, asked him for tidings . . . but he continued without answering.  In confusion, the men whispered.

 

Aimless, Dominic wandered from one passage to another.  He trailed his fingertips along the polymer-sealed walls, imagining the caves of Ix.  Coming to a stop, he drew a deep breath, and let his gaze fall half-closed.  Through sheer force of will, he tried to summon the glory of House Vernius behind his eyelids, the wonders of the underground city of Vernii, the Grand Palais, the inverted stalactite buildings of crystalline architecture.

 

Despite centuries of fierce competition from Richese, Ixians had been the undisputed masters of technology and innovation.  But in only a few years the Tleilaxu had gutted those accomplishments, closed access to Ix, even driven off the Guild Bank, causing financiers to deal through off-world headquarters of Tleilaxu choosing. . . .

 

In his prime, during the revolt on Ecaz, Dominic Vernius had given everything for his Emperor.  He'd fought and sweated and bled to defend Corrino honor.  So long ago, as if in another lifetime . . .