Hunters Of Dune

by Frank Herbert

  NINETEEN YEARS AFTER

  ESCAPE FROM CHAPTERHOUSE

  Those who think they see most clearly are often more blind than the rest.

  --Bene Gesserit aphorism

  S

  heeana danced among the worms again as she had done as a child on Rakis. Inside the Ithaca's huge cargo hold, the seven creatures rose around her, twisting and waving their bodies like flexible metronomes. They formed a bizarre audience as Sheeana stamped her bare feet, flailed her arms, and twirled on the crest of the dune.

  Among the people of Rakis, the sacred dance had been called Siaynoq. She kicked up dust and sand with her frenzied movements, losing herself. Siaynoq burned away her emotions and her excess restless energy. The intensity was enough to drive doubts from her mind and misery from her heart.

  Responding to her dance, the worms pulled themselves high above her and swayed. Sheeana drove herself harder. Sweat droplets flew from her forehead and soaked her matted hair. She had to cleanse her thoughts, to burn this fear and doubt from her mind.

  Three years ago, after leaving the dead plague planet of the Honored Matres behind its failing no-shield, Sheeana had felt the dark specter of dismay building in her mind. A world full of dead women, along with their followers and slaves--wiped out by something they could not comprehend, something that had blindsided them.

  Sheeana knew that the hated Honored Matres deserved whatever appalling punishment they had brought down upon themselves. But every single person on an entire planet? Surely they had not all deserved to die in such a horrific fashion.

  And that was only one world. How many other strongholds had been extinguished by the Enemy's plagues? How many trillions had perished from a disease with a 100 percent mortality rate? And how many more would the Enemy kill, now that the whores had fled like a pack of wild dogs into the vulnerable Old Empire--drawing the incredible foe with their scent?

  Sheeana tripped in her dance on the soft sand. Regaining her balance, she did a backflip and continued her gyrations. Despite the exertions, she did not find the inner peace she desperately sought. The endless dance only clarified her troublesome ideas. The melange-heavy breath of the sandworms drifted around her like the mist of an approaching storm.

  At the brink of total exhaustion, Sheeana collapsed onto the sand. First she let her knees buckle, then she rolled over, heaving great hot breaths. She lay back, looking up at the high ceiling of the cargo hold. Her muscles ached, her limbs trembled. With her eyes shut, she could feel her heart beating to the rhythm of imagined war drums. She would have to consume a great deal of melange to restore herself.

  One of the creatures came close, and she could feel the sand vibrating beneath her. She sat up as the monster glided past, pushing up a dune mound and then stopping. Finding a last scrap of energy within her, Sheeana pulled herself forward and leaned against the worm's hard, curved rings. It was encrusted with dust, and she could feel the solidity of this thing, the power it contained.

  She lifted her arm and rested it against the side of the beast, wishing she could just climb up on the ring segments of this worm and ride off to the horizon. But here inside the no-ship, the horizon--the hull--was not far away. "Old Shaitan, I wish I had your knowledge."

  Long ago, when she and the simpering Tleilaxu Master Waff and Reverend Mother Odrade had ridden into the desert of Rakis, a sandworm had carried them purposely to the empty remains of old Sietch Tabr. Inside, Odrade had found a hidden message from Leto II. With his incredible prescience, the God Emperor had foreseen that encounter in the far-distant future and had left words specifically for Odrade.

  With such prescience, how could the God Emperor not have predicted the destruction of Rakis--or had he? Had the Tyrant made his own plans? How far did the Golden Path extend? Had his supernatural foresight been responsible for Sheeana's rescue of the last worm, so that it could reproduce on a new world, Chapterhouse? Surely, Leto II had not foreseen the Honored Matres or the Enemy of Many Faces.

  Sheeana wondered if she still saw too little of the overall picture. Despite their struggles, maybe they were all unwittingly following an even larger plan the God Emperor had laid out for them.

  Sheeana felt the pearl of Leto II's awareness in the strong sandworm against her. She doubted that any plan devised by Bene Gesserits or Honored Matres could really be more prescient than the God Emperor himself.

  The desert dragons began to churn the sands again. She looked up to the high plaz window and saw two small figures there, looking down at her.

  Dirt is something solid you can hold in your hand. Using our science and our passion, we can mold it, shape it, and bring forth life. Could there be a better task for any person?

  --PLANETOLOGIST PARDOT KYNES,

  petition to Emperor Elrood IX, ancient records

  F

  rom the high observation gallery above the cargo hold, two boys peered through a dust-smeared plaz window to watch Sheeana and the sandworms.

  "She dances," said eight-year-old Stilgar with clear awe in his voice. "And Shai-Hulud dances with her."

  "They're only responding to her movements. We could find a rational explanation for it if we studied her long enough." Liet-Kynes was a year older than his companion, who showed amazement at the dance. Kynes couldn't deny that Sheeana did things with the worms that no one else could do. "Don't try to do that yourself, Stilgar."

  Even when Sheeana was not inside the hold with the great beasts, the two young friends often came to the observation gallery and pressed their faces against the plaz to stare at the uneven sands. This tiny patch of captive desert beckoned to them. Kynes squinted, letting his vision grow blurry to make the walls of the cargo hold disappear, so that he could imagine a much larger landscape.

  During their intensive lessons with Proctor Superior Garimi, Kynes had seen historical images of Arrakis. Dune. With penetrating curiosity, young Kynes had delved deep into the records. The mysterious desert planet seemed to call to him, as if it were an integral part of his genetic memories. His quest for knowledge was insatiable, and he wanted to know more than dry facts about his past life. He wanted to live them again. All of his reborn life, the Bene Gesserit had trained him and the other ghola children for that eventuality.

  His father Pardot Kynes, the first official Imperial Planetologist sent to Arrakis, had formulated a grand dream of converting the wasteland into a huge garden. Pardot had provided the foundation for a new Eden, recruiting the Fremen to make initial plantings and setting up great sealed caves where plants were grown. Kynes's father had died in an unexpected cave-in.

  Ecology is dangerous.

  Thanks to work and resources invested by Muad'Dib and his son Leto II, Dune had eventually become lush and green. But as a cruel consequence of so much poisonous moisture, all the sandworms had died. Spice had dwindled to a trickle of a memory. Then, after thirty-five hundred years of the Tyrant's rule, the sandworms returned again from Leto's body, reversing the ecological progress and restoring the vast desert to Arrakis.

  The scope of it! No matter how much battering leaders and armies and governments did to Arrakis, the planet would restore itself, given enough time. Dune was stronger than all of them.

  Stilgar said, "Just looking at the desert soothes me. I don't exactly remember, but I do know that I belong here."

  Kynes also felt at peace looking at this swatch of a long-lost planet. Dune was where he belonged, as well. Thanks to the advanced Bene Gesserit training methods, he had already studied as much background as he could get his hands on, learning about ecological processes and the science of planetology. Many of the original and still-classic treatises on the subject had been written by his own father, documented in Imperial archives and preserved for millennia by the Sisterhood.

  Stilgar rubbed his palm across the observation window, but the blur of dust was inside the plaz. "I wish we could go in there with Sheeana. A long time ago I knew how to ride the worms."

  "Those were different worms. I've co
mpared records. These come from sandtrout spawned by the dissolution of Leto II. They are less territorial, but more dangerous."

  "They are still worms," Stilgar said with a shrug.

  Down on the sand, Sheeana had stopped her dance and was resting against the side of one worm. She looked up, as if she knew the two ghola boys were in the observation chamber, watching her. As she continued to stare toward them, the largest of the worms also lifted its head, sensing they were there.

  "Something's happening," Kynes said. "I've never seen them do that before."

  Sheeana dodged lightly away as the seven worms came together and piled one on top of the other, twisting into a single, larger unit that reared up high enough to reach the observation plaz.

  Stilgar pulled away, more in reverence than fear.

  Sheeana scrambled up the side of the entwined creatures, all the way to the top of the tallest ringed head. While the two ghola boys watched in astonishment, she resumed her gyrations for several minutes, but now she was on top of the worm's head, both a dancer and a rider. When she stopped, the worm tower divided and unraveled into its seven original components, and Sheeana rode one of them back down to the ground.

  Neither of the ghola boys spoke for several minutes. They looked at each other with grins of wonder.

  Below, an exhausted Sheeana walked with dragging steps toward the lift. Kynes considered making some excuse to rush down and speak with her while she was fresh from the sands, as a good planetologist should do. He wanted to smell the flinty odor of worms on her body. It would be very interesting and potentially informative. He and Stilgar both longed to understand how she could control the creatures, though each boy had a different reason for wanting to know.

  Kynes followed her departure with his gaze. "Even after we get our memories back, she's going to be a mystery to us."

  Stilgar's nostrils flared. "Shai-Hulud does not devour her. That is enough for me."

  I will die four deaths--the death of the flesh, the death of the soul, the death of the myth, and the death of reason. And all of these deaths contain the seeds of resurrection.

  --LETO ATREIDES II,

  Dar-es-Balat recordings

  D

  oria's life had become ridiculous, as Bellonda-within reminded her incessantly.

  You're getting fat yourself, said the other Reverend Mother.

  "It's your fault!" Doria snapped. Indeed, she had gained weight, and a significant amount, though she'd continued her vigorous training and exercises. Each day she monitored her metabolism with her own inner techniques, but to no avail. Her once lithe and wiry body now showed noticeable signs of bulk. "You weigh like a heavy stone inside me." She heard Bellonda's chuckle clearly in her head.

  Grousing to herself as quietly as she could, the former Honored Matre tramped up the face of a small dune, slogging through loose sand. Fifteen other Sisters traipsed along behind her wearing identical singlesuits. They chattered amongst themselves while reading aloud from the instruments and charts they carried. This group actually liked doing such miserable work.

  These spice-ops recruits took regular spectral and temperature readings on the sand, mapping out the narrow spice veins and limited deposits. The readings were dispatched to the desert research stations, then combined with firsthand observations to determine the best locations for harvesting operations.

  As the planet's free moisture diminished dramatically, the growing worms were finally producing more melange--more "product," as the Mother Commander put it. She was anxious to press the New Sisterhood's advantage, to pay for the huge shipments of armaments being assembled on Richese, and to bribe the Guild to facilitate the ongoing war preparations. Murbella spent melange and soostone wealth as fast as it came in, then demanded more, and more.

  Behind Doria, two young Valkyrie trainees practiced fighting maneuvers on the soft sand, attacking and defending. The women had to adjust their techniques depending on the steepness of dune slopes, loose dust or packed sand, or the buried hazards of dead trees.

  Feeling the hot blood of her Honored Matre past, Doria would rather have been fighting, too. Perhaps she would be allowed to join the final assault on Tleilax, whenever Murbella decided she had gathered enough forces for the great battle. What a victory that would be! Doria could have fought on Buzzell, on Gammu, on any number of the recent battlefields. She would have made an excellent Valkyrie herself--and now she was little more than . . . than an administrator! Why couldn't she be allowed to shed blood for the New Sisterhood? Fighting was her best skill.

  Trapped in her position, Doria continued to come out to the desert, but she had grown impatient over the years. Am I sentenced to babysit this planet forever? Is this my punishment for the single mistake of killing fat old Bellonda?

  Ah, you admit it was a mistake now? prodded the annoying voice within.

  Quiet, you bloated old fool.

  She could never get away from Bellonda inside her head. The constant taunting reminded Doria of her own shortcomings and even offered unwanted advice in how to fix them. Like Sisyphus, Doria would roll that boulder up a hill for the rest of her life. And now she found her body growing fat as well.

  Inside her head, Bellonda actually seemed to be humming. Presently, the internal voice said, In ancient times on Terra, people had something called a doorbell, which a visitor rang when coming to a door.

  "So what?" Doria said aloud, then quickly turned her face away from the trainees, who looked at her oddly.

  So, that is our combined name: Doria-Bellonda. DorBell. Ding-dong, ding-dong, can I come in?

  No, damn you. Go away!

  Fuming, Doria concentrated on the analytical instruments. Why couldn't the Mother Commander find a dedicated planetologist somewhere out in all the surviving worlds of humanity? On her scanners, she saw merely numbers and electronic diagrams that were of no real interest to her.

  Each day for six infuriating years, Doria had gritted her teeth and tried to ignore Bellonda's inner nagging. It was the only way she could go about her tasks. Murbella had told her to subjugate herself to the needs of her Sisters, but like so many Bene Gesserit concepts, "subjugation" worked better in theory than in practical application.

  The Mother Commander had been able to mold others into what she wanted, forging the united Sisterhood, even retraining and incorporating some of the captured rebel Honored Matres. Though Doria had insinuated herself into a position of power beside Murbella, she could not completely suppress the natural violence embedded in her nature, the quick and decisive responses that often resulted in bloodshed. It was not in her nature to compromise, but pure survival dictated that she become what the Mother Commander wanted her to be. Damn her! Has she actually succeeded in making me a Bene Gesserit, after all?

  Bellonda-within chuckled again.

  Ultimately, Doria wondered if she would have to face off against Murbella herself. Over the years, many others had challenged the Mother Commander, and all had died in the attempt. Doria did not fear for her life, but she did fear the possibility of making the wrong decision. Yes, Murbella was stern and maddeningly unpredictable, but after almost two decades, it was not so clear that her merger scheme had been wrong.

  Suddenly Doria tore her mind from its preoccupation, and she noticed the distant mounds of sand in motion, ripples drawing closer and closer.

  The voice of Bellonda harangued her. Are you blind as well as stupid? You have stirred up the worms with all your stomping around.

  "They are stunted."

  That may be, but they are still dangerous. You are as arrogant as ever, thinking you can defeat anything that gets in your way. You refuse to acknowledge a real threat.

  "You weren't much of a threat," Doria muttered.

  One of the trainees cried out, pointing to the two moving mounds out on the sand. "Sandworms! Traveling together!"

  "Over there, too!" another said.

  Doria saw that worms were all around them and closing in as if drawn by a common signal.
The women scrambled to take readings. "Gods! They're twice the size of the average specimens we recorded two months ago."

  Inside Doria's head, Bellonda harped, Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  "Shut up, damn you, Bell! I need to think."

  Think? Can't you see the danger? Do something!

  The worms rushed in from several directions; they showed definite signs of cooperative behavior. The shifting lines in the sand reminded Doria of a pack. A hunting pack.

  "To the 'thopters!" Doria saw that their group had come too far out along the dunes. The flying vehicles were some distance away.

  The newly trained Sisters began to panic. Some of them ran, sliding in tumbles of loose sand down the slipface of the dunes. They dropped their instruments and charts on the ground. A Sister sent an urgent commlink message back to Chapterhouse Keep.

  See where your stupid plan got you, Bellonda said. If you had not killed me, I would have been able to keep watch. I would never have let this happen.

  "Shut up!"

  Those worms are stalking you now. You stalked me, and now they're stalking you.

  One of the Sisters screamed, and then another. More worms rose up from the dunes, homing in on the moving figures. Several Valkyrie trainees stood together, trying to fight against the impossible.

  Doria stared, wide-eyed. The creatures were each at least twenty meters long, and moved with astonishing speed. "Begone! Back to your desert!"

  You're not Sheeana. The worms will not do as you say.

  Crystal teeth flashed as the worms darted forward, scooping up sand and Sisters, swallowing victims into the furnaces of their gullets.

  Idiot! Bellonda-within exclaimed. Now you've killed me twice.

  A fraction of a second later, a worm rose up then dove down, consuming Doria in a single mouthful. At last, the irksome voice went quiet within.

  The magic of our God is our only bridge.

  --from the Sufi-Zensunni scriptures,

  Catechism of the Great Belief