The tremendous storm was shot through with so many swirling elecran discharges that Paul could not count them.
“Instruments are acting up, too many spurious results,” Duncan cautioned. “Do not rely on the readings.”
“The electrical energy is interfering.” Paul channeled his calm focus again. “I will trust my eyes and instincts.”
“Skirt the edge of the storm, so we don’t lose sight of the coastline. We still need to find our way home.”
Paul altered course, but the tempest was widening fast. Clouds had climbed above them, and heavy sheets of rain lashed the cockpit windscreen. The winds shook the aircraft, threatening to knock it out of the sky.
“I don’t trust my readings, but we’re definitely losing elevation.” As he banked the flyer, he looked out the side window and saw the crackling elecrans less than a thousand meters below, sending out bright flashes of static sparks. Though he had altered course, the flyer still seemed to be heading directly toward them.
The elecrans below snapped out jagged lightning bolts. For a moment, Paul felt entirely disoriented, as if the aircraft had turned upside down, and the skyful of lightning was suddenly overhead. But he’d been in flight training enough to know that he had to rely on his true internal sense of direction. He knew up and down, knew where the shore and Castle Caladan were, although he could not see it through the rain and mist.
The aircraft was losing speed as well as altitude, but he encountered a headwind no matter which direction he turned in an attempt to improve conditions. Beneath them, as if sensing prey, the nest of elecrans quested upward, stretching higher and higher. Paul felt a prickle of electricity on his skin, making his hair stand up.
Duncan fired the forward lascannon, disrupting and decapitating several elecrans. But the elemental swirls of energy quickly re-formed.
As the flyer continued to drop toward the ocean, the sizzling entities combined to form a single hydra-like creature with multiple heads of massed lightning, each one thrusting upward.
“This is too great a danger,” Duncan said. “I’m taking the controls.”
“No, I need to do this.” Paul saw a way to survive and escape, the vision as vivid as if he had glimpsed the immediate future. He knew what was going to happen, and what he had to do.
En masse, the combined elecrans extended higher, like a stretched cone of lightning that maintained contact with the surface of the water. The amalgamated creature flared so brightly that Paul could hardly look at it. Images were burned onto his retinas.
Duncan fired the lasbeam again, scrambling the creature’s energy patterns and making it recoil. Paul concentrated solely on flying, gripping the controls to adjust the tight wings and stabilize their trajectory, catching thermal updrafts and finding tailwinds that helped them accelerate, but the craft ultimately dropped again.
They were only a few hundred meters above the writhing electrical mass now, and arcs of lightning whipped upward, even as Duncan continued to fire the lasbeam. The aircraft’s hull and wings sparked with electricity, and the cockpit’s interior seemed alive with static.
Paul recalled his father’s tale of being on a boat during an elecran storm. His men had fired lasguns at the waves beneath an elecran, flashing the water to steam and severing the elemental creature’s contact with the sea, which turned it into a harmless mist. Now Duncan was firing at the base, but the attempt had very little effect on such a large, combined creature, not generating enough steam to cut contact with the ocean.
Using a tailwind, Paul flew directly toward the top of the elecran.
“Paul, what are you doing? You’ll kill us!”
Paul didn’t reply, fixing his attention on flying. Duncan did not try to seize the controls but chose to keep firing instead. “I’m targeting the elecran’s head, the apex of energy there. It’s … the nexus of the combined elecrans. Maybe we can break them apart.”
“I have another idea,” Paul said.
Electricity lashed out in jagged bolts, and one strike rocked the flyer, sending a blast of sparks from the cockpit panel. At the last possible moment, Paul banked hard right and accelerated in a steep climb.
In its haste to reach the pesky interlopers the combined elecrans lunged toward the aircraft and pulled itself higher with such power that it detached from the water in its attempt to reach them. With the connection snapped, the elemental creature dissipated into an expanding cloud of sparkles that flashed and faded.
Heart pounding, Paul flew a circle around where the elecrans had been, and now even the ocean storm seemed a far more surmountable challenge. The elemental creatures were no more than sparking mist that spread back down to the water, where they would eventually re-coalesce.
Paul grinned. “I’ll fly us back now. We’ve had enough fun for one day.”
Duncan wiped perspiration from his forehead. “I never doubted you for a moment. I’ll never call you ‘boy’ again.”
Loyalty is at the core of my being, and honor is synonymous with the Atreides name. The only matter for debate is to whom do I pledge my loyalty?
—DUKE LETO ATREIDES, letters to his son, Paul
“Speak to me of Caladan, Duke Leto,” said Empress Aricatha. “After Shaddam and I married, he promised that I could visit many worlds in the Imperium. Should I make Caladan one of them?”
She was nimble, friendly, and when she spoke with guests, she mentioned specific details to demonstrate that she genuinely remembered each person at the reception. Leto was impressed with her.
Her question incited a brush of homesickness, and he smiled wistfully. “Everyone finds beauty in the homeworld of their heart. For me, Caladan will always be a masterpiece of waves and shore. My family’s castle is imposing, yet the most comfortable place I can imagine. It has been in the Atreides family for twenty-six generations.” He let out a soft sigh. “I like to stand out on a high balcony and watch the seacoast as the tide comes in. On a moonless night, the ocean is phosphorescent and the entire horizon glows faint green. Often my Lady Jessica joins me.” He missed her and thought of the private holo-message she had sent along with him.
Aricatha’s generous lips formed a smile. “Why, Duke Leto Atreides, you are a romantic.”
He had never thought of himself as such. “I am the Duke of Caladan,” he said, as if that were an answer.
As twilight deepened outside, lights illuminated the museum complex like awakening fireflies. In the center of his reception, Shaddam—who appeared weary of greeting so many people—made his way toward a set of wall controls that worked the citywide public address system.
The Empress saw him and turned away from Leto. “We must talk at greater length later. My husband is about to deliver a speech to be projected throughout the city. It is meant to be a grand address worthy of the history scrolls.” She moved off to be at Shaddam’s side.
Most of the crowd fell into an expectant hush, while some applauded to show their enthusiasm. Leto turned to listen.
Before the Emperor could speak, though, the entire tower plunged into blackness.
The power went out as if it had been cut by a headsman’s ax. The darkness filled with the gasp of hundreds of attendees who were startled and confused, but not yet afraid, assuming it was some kind of technical failure. A hubbub of indignant questions and complaints swished like waves against a shore.
The broad plaz windows looked out upon a black city shrouded in night, and Leto’s eyes adjusted to the darkness outside. To his surprise, not a single light shone across the entire museum complex. Shaddam’s new city looked more like an abandoned tomb than a grand memorial.
Leto was instantly alert. Though he assumed Shaddam would be the primary focus of any assassin, his mind assessed the sheer number of targets in this room, himself among them. He instinctively took a step closer to the Empress and Shaddam in the darkened reception hall. Uniformed Sardaukar also swept into position, closing in around the Emperor.
Not far away, Aricatha said in a lo
w, firm voice, “Everything for this event was planned down to the minutest detail! I expect that my husband will find the culprits, and heads will roll.”
Shaddam bellowed, “Where are the lights?”
Fenring was there with him, grabbing his arm. “We must assume there’s danger, Sire.”
Leto remembered the suspicious man he had seen in the alley behind the Serena Butler statue. Had security been able to investigate yet?
The Emperor called, “Protectors! To me!” A temporary handlight came on, held by the colonel bashar of the Sardaukar.
Just then, a wave of shimmering, glowing figures manifested like ghosts around the room. The pale, luminescent figure of a man congealed in the air near the vitrine case that held Faykan Butler’s dagger. Four identical projections appeared at strategic points around the crowded hall. The life-sized figures manifested like white smoke. He was a young, powerful man with heavy brows and tight, dark hair like a thundercloud around his head. His expression was filled with power and energy, exactly the same on each image, repeated multiple times.
Leto recognized the watery, lambent translucency. “Holograms.” He looked around but could see little by the faint light of the images. “There must be splitters, projectors hidden around the room.”
“Who is that man?” one of the attendees grumbled. “Does anyone recognize him?”
The holographic images glowered at all of them, holding everyone’s attention without speaking. While the current of surprised conversation grew louder in the reception hall, Shaddam shouted over them all, and the Sardaukar barked orders, organizing and protecting the attendees.
Pressed against the tall windows, other guests pointed through the plaz panes to the city below. Leto now saw countless flickering white lights across the complex like an army of identical holos, appearing among the exhibits, fountains, statues, and auditoriums. Viewed from the height of the Imperial Monolith, they looked like thousands of tiny, pale candle flames, all over the city.
Then the holo-figures spoke in eerie resonant unison, drowning out the background noise. “The city grid has been neutralized. Quiet darkness has returned to Otorio, as it should be. This planet will have one more moment of peace before it is forever emblazoned in history.”
Leto guessed that many thousands of holograms were issuing the same statement across the city. Everyone would hear what this man had to say. By an odd trick of projection, Leto thought the shimmering image was looking directly at him. The transmitted voice grew louder. “I have something to say, and you will hear me. The whole Imperium will hear me, because I speak with a thunderous voice.”
“He seems quite full of himself,” muttered one of the pompous lords.
“You do not know me, but you will. I am Jaxson Aru. My message will be carried far and wide, from planet to planet, because freedom will not be silenced.”
“Aru?” Empress Aricatha said. “We know that name.”
Leto remembered a Frankos Aru, who was currently the President of the CHOAM Company. Was this Jaxson related to him?
The holograms continued speaking. “The Corrino Imperium has outlived its usefulness, and we must break it apart. The only way to do that is to cut off its head.”
The Sardaukar fighters tensed, drew closer to Shaddam.
“You all stand here at a crime scene,” Jaxson Aru continued, “one of many Corrino crime scenes. The Emperor stole this world to inflate his ego—just as he has stolen from every single noble family in the Landsraad. We should be kings of our own planets, rulers of our own destinies. The Corrinos have smothered you for thousands of years, and you put up with it! No, you enable it. That ‘noble’ house and the entire core of the Landsraad must be replaced.”
The glow of the holograms washed over the audience. Under the pale illumination, Leto saw Shaddam frown. “What do we know about this man?”
Fenring said quickly, “I briefed you about him not long ago, Sire, hmmm? He is the son of Malina Aru, the Urdir of CHOAM, but little else is known about him.”
“What does that—”
Jaxson raised his voice from the holograms. “Why do you all tolerate an ancient and corrupt Imperium, monopolized by one greedy family, when we could have thousands of thriving independent planets, each controlled by its own leaders and its own people? That is how the human race survives!”
Across the plaza, the distant crowd was also stirring in the darkness. Leto could see them moving about like angry insects among the countless pale Jaxson Aru projections.
One of the nobles in the reception chamber shouted in a loud enough voice to drown out the projected words. “He speaks treason! I am loyal to the Padishah Emperor.”
Leto observed intensely, listening for further explanations as a knot formed in his stomach. Any plot as complex as this would be expressed in more than a simple indignant statement. Jaxson Aru might speak his manifesto and hope to change minds or recruit other rebels, but Leto didn’t think he would be satisfied with only that. There had to be something else afoot.
He looked around, increasingly agitated. He knew there were aircraft on the rooftop of the Imperial Monolith—one level above the penthouse reception hall—but if all these people had to evacuate, the accelerated lift was the main means of escape down to street level. What if Aru had sabotaged the reception somehow? Planted a bomb in the tower?
Leto leaned closer to Aricatha. “I do not like this, Empress. We must prepare ourselves for whatever may come.”
The Emperor turned to the site-wide communicator he had been about to use. “With this, I can summon security from across the complex. My voice will drown out everything that foolish man says.” He waved a hand to activate the speaker, but the system remained dead, all the power out.
Jaxson continued his tirade. “Remember the Noble Commonwealth. Learn our cause. Understand your future. Join us.” The holograms paused, then added, “If you survive tonight.”
As a rush of angry disbelief washed over the room, the images faded away like sea mist burned off by a hot morning sun. With the holograms gone, the reception area and the city outside fell back into total darkness. The crowd murmurs grew louder, though Leto noticed several people had fallen silent, including Lord Atikk. The Duke remembered some of the guests surreptitiously talking about the Noble Commonwealth. Were they involved in this debacle?
Temporary lights flickered on as technicians restored some circuits in the Monolith. The Emperor stood boiling with outrage, surrounded by a close cordon of Sardaukar. Leto had seen Shaddam furious before, but never like this. Jaxson Aru’s rebellious display was not only offensive in its own right, but because it had occurred during the grandiose Corrino gala, it was personally embarrassing.
“Find that man!” Shaddam roared. “Tear up every floor plate and expose the wiring in the walls. How did he accomplish this? Find him. Is he here?”
“I believe that was only a recording, Sire,” Fenring said.
“What did he mean, ‘if you survive tonight’?” Leto said and pushed closer to the Sardaukar guards, wary. “Is there immediate danger?”
Three Sardaukar pressed forward at a militaristic pace, cleaving through the crowd. Leto recognized the colonel bashar who had agreed to investigate the surreptitious maintenance worker in the plaza. The officer shouldered one lord—Count Dinovo—aside, heading like a projectile toward the Emperor. “We are taking you now, Sire. We must evacuate.”
“Evacuate? But this is my gala!”
Showing no deference, the colonel bashar seized Shaddam’s arm. “Duke Atreides’s suspicions proved to be valid.” The Sardaukar looked at Leto. “I’m sorry that it took so long to verify, Sire. There is a plot against the throne.”
“Of course there’s a plot! We just watched it unfold,” Shaddam snapped. “Did you not see the holograms? We have to stop the man from spreading more of his sedition.”
The officer reported in clipped words as he urged the Emperor into motion. “The dump boxes and heavy debris in orbit are not emp
ty, as they appeared to be. They are loaded with inert mass and explosives, making each of them a huge and deadly projectile. Their engines have been activated on a swift burn, and three of them are on a direct descent. This museum complex is the target.”
Shaddam balked, but the Sardaukar maintained a firm hold on him. “We are evacuating you, Sire. Right now!”
The most important parenting skill is knowing when to exert control and when to let go.
—LADY JESSICA
When the ocean storm swept in, Jessica knew that Paul and Duncan were out training with one of the modified ’thopter-flyers. She bundled herself against the cold wind and rain and hurried out of the castle. Half an hour earlier watching from a high window, she’d seen the two of them take off from the military airfield on the headlands and fly out over the water, undaunted by the darkening storm. Paul would revel in the chance to test his skill in the adverse weather.
But the thunderheads had grown uglier, thicker. Off in the distance, flickers of light at the base of the black cloud suggested something more ominous than lightning. This hazard went beyond anything she wanted her son to face in a routine exercise. All sensible fishermen had returned their boats to dock, but Paul’s flyer headed out as if to taunt the storm.
She felt a natural fear for his safety, but she also knew his skill.
Beneath her long coat, she wore an elegant white dress, and her bronze hair was arranged in a bun, studded with rare reefpearls, a gift from Duke Leto. Today was the twentieth anniversary of their very first meeting, and she hadn’t forgotten, even though Leto was away at the new Corrino museum. Yet now, realizing that her son could be at risk, she turned her thoughts to more urgent matters.
Leaving the castle grounds, she climbed a rocky path to a high promontory overlooking the ocean. It was not wise to be in such an exposed, windswept place in an electrical storm, but she needed to see. The sounds of thunder and waves drowned out the drone of any nearby aircraft engine. She shielded her eyes against the wet wind and stared out to the ugly line of storm clouds. All those wild flurries of surface lightning suggested this was more than a normal squall.
Dune: The Duke of Caladan Page 5