Dune: The Duke of Caladan

by Brian Herbert

  Harishka paused before a row of animated blossoms that puckered and shifted as if to attract attention. She abruptly changed the subject to more mundane matters. “Now that I have the Emperor’s Truthsayer here, we can also discuss broader Sisterhood politics. We must exert our influence as Shaddam considers candidates to fill all the vacancies among the noble houses.”

  Mohiam nodded. “The well-established families have designated successors, but many weaker Houses will likely fall or be replaced. More ambitious nobles will seek to make advantageous moves.” She felt a sense of relief, even happiness. In the wake of Lethea’s horrific acts, it seemed so comfortable to be talking about the Sisterhood’s usual schemes.

  Mohiam listed candidates the Emperor had already proposed, and the two women reviewed what they knew of the personalities and characters of these likely new members, how a clever Sister could exploit them through the arts of seduction, Truthsaying, and statecraft. They discussed particular Sisters who might be suitable for specific nobles—exactly as the order had done when assigning a very young and pretty Jessica to Leto Atreides on Caladan.

  Harishka said, as if broaching a difficult subject, “When you return to the Imperial Court, we will need your eyes and ears even more than usual. There is a certain situation at a major noble house, one that is in flux. The Sisterhood has lost influence with House Tull, one of the most powerful in the Landsraad.”

  Mohiam took a moment to recollect what she knew of House Tull, details she had seen on Kaitain. “We have a Sister there already … Zoanna? Doesn’t she have the Tull patriarch wrapped around her finger?”

  “Not anymore. A month ago, the old man died in bed with her, and he was succeeded by his son, Viscount Giandro Tull. Giandro was not present at the Otorio disaster, because he was planning the funeral ceremony for his father. But that is not our difficulty now. In the wake of the old Viscount’s unfortunate death, his son declared Sister Zoanna unwelcome on his planet. Worse, he is suspicious of Bene Gesserit influence and refuses to allow a replacement Sister into his House. He is bitter toward our order.”

  Mohiam thought of a handful of other noble families that had spurned assistance from the Sisterhood, though it was rare. “Even if he wants no concubine in his bed, a Viscount still needs the services of a Truthsayer. Bene Gesserit political counsel is unparalleled.”

  “He doubts our motives and has rejected all overtures. Now he refuses to respond to us. We need to get a Sister back into his court.”

  Mohiam could see the Mother Superior’s deep concern. “When I return to Kaitain, I will investigate. We can find a Sister acceptable to the new Viscount, though it may take time.”

  Suddenly, a young, flushed Acolyte rushed into the greenhouse. “Mother Superior! Lethea is awake and speaking!” The young woman looked like a startled rabbit.

  Harishka and Mohiam hurried back to the ancient woman’s medical chamber, where several Sisters remained outside the door, hesitant to go inside. One Reverend Mother stood guard, waiting for the Mother Superior.

  Even from the corridor, Mohiam could hear the old woman bellowing from her bed, “Bring me Jessica! Jessica of Caladan!”

  Allies, business associates, and friends are three entirely different categories. Do not confuse your definitions or your feelings. The results could be disastrous.

  —MALINA ARU, CHOAM Ur-Director, Private Administrative Briefings

  An unpleasant man, an unpleasant place, Malina Aru thought. It is difficult to decide which is worse. Even so, she needed to verify that Baron Harkonnen was true to his word.

  After roundabout, secretly arranged transport, the Ur-Director reached Arrakis hidden aboard a regularly scheduled Guild Heighliner. From orbit, the great ship dispatched dump boxes with supplies for the Harkonnen garrisons, and Imperial merchants shipped down ridiculously expensive luxuries. New spice crews arrived, wide-eyed dreamers believing false promises of riches, or disillusioned workers clinging to scant hope, knowing Arrakis was their last chance.

  Malina was unaccustomed to the survival culture among the locals, who went to great lengths to hoard even the smallest breath of water vapor. In the past, she had seen hollow-eyed beggars so desperate for money that they squabbled and prostrated themselves for a few micro-solaris tossed in the gutter. The people of Arrakis treated water in much the same way. Each day’s existence was like a suffocating person sucking in one last breath.

  In a sense, the Urdir found it affirming to see just what humans would do to stay alive. People always wanted something, and someone could make a profit by providing it. That was what kept the CHOAM Company in business.

  After the commercial cargo and transport ships disembarked from the Heighliner hold, Malina traveled down in an unmarked lighter with a CHOAM security escort. Her pilot had the coordinates of the Baron’s surreptitious meeting site—out in the middle of nowhere, completely unobserved.

  She considered the fat man arrogant and disgusting in countless ways, and it offended her that he would demand that she come to see the specialized operations with her own eyes. As a concession to the harsh desert environment, she wore a tan scarf over her hair, a long-sleeved airy blouse, a lightweight long skirt. She rarely saw the necessity of doing things in person, did not understand why her physical presence was required now.

  Nevertheless, she was here.

  The pilot headed across the hostile desert of undulating dunes broken by lava outcroppings and irregular mountain ranges. They flew too high to spot any spice-harvesting operations on the great open sands.

  After flying for more than an hour, the pilot raised his voice to say, “We are approaching the precise coordinates, Ur-Director, but I see nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “The Orgiz refinery complex is out here somewhere. Use scans.”

  The line of rough mountains consisted of black striated rocks, jagged and sinuous peaks. Her pilot dropped lower and talked to himself, perhaps forgetting he had left his speaker on. “Why would they place a refinery so far from any transport lanes? No one could ever find it.”

  “You answered your own question.” Malina peered down at the razor-edged cliffs as the lighter continued its descent. When they circled overhead, she saw cracks between the mountains, gorges and narrow defiles that might have been river canyons in ancient times, if there had ever been water on this planet. “Those are the mountains on the chart. A landing area is down there, somewhere, but the Harkonnen operations take great pains to remain unseen. Find it.”

  She had studied the unreliable charts of Arrakis because, as Ur-Director, she preferred to know everything about her most important accounts. By long-standing tradition, or flaw, the maps of this world were sketchy and inaccurate, with no Guild surveillance available from space, no detailed weather satellites or accurate topographical images. The absence was so blatant it had to be intentional. Why?

  The arrogance of a ruler who chose to be willfully oblivious about vital facts had always bothered her, but the Padishah Emperor accepted this sort of ignorance. Shaddam IV was a singularly incurious man. Not knowing the details of the spice melange—one of the most important substances in the Imperium—seemed a critical failure to her. Someday, if the Noble Commonwealth did break the Imperium into countless thriving, independent worlds, Arrakis might be governed by someone more knowledgeable. For now, CHOAM was just a customer.

  After her pilot narrowed the search with a scan, the Orgiz refinery became visible. The sheltered basin in the rugged mountains was like a fortress surrounded by high rock walls, accessible only by air and with superior flying skills.

  The pilot braked his descent, tilted the lighter, and slid between the towering walls. The refinery’s landing zone was demarcated with low lights. Using suspensor engines, he dropped to a precise landing on the hard field among several ’thopters and Harkonnen gunships.

  Once the craft was secured, her CHOAM security guards emerged first, fanning out to form a cordon. Malina stepped out into the pounding heat. Her nostrils and lu
ngs crackled as she breathed dry air that was saturated with the cinnamon odor of melange.

  A Harkonnen reception committee waited at the edge of the landing zone. With suspensor-lightened steps, an enormous zeppelin of a man came forward to meet her. Though she had seen the Baron recently on Giedi Prime, he seemed out of place here in the bleak spice refinery complex, weaker than in the more civilized surroundings of the Harkonnen homeworld. Even as he stood upright, flanked by personal guards, the Baron seemed vulnerable in the stark desert.

  He grinned and bowed before her, overly friendly. “My dear Ur-Director, I am pleased we could meet in this very special place. Let me show you our newly reopened complex. The potential for our cooperation is great.”

  Malina did not smile back at him. Instead, she looked around at the cliff walls, the sand scattered everywhere, the pipes and pumps of the refurbished complex, the tall storage silos, the gleaming metal conduits already corroded and covered with dust. “Why did I need to come here in person, Baron? This wastes my time. We are in basic agreement, and images would have sufficed.”

  “Ah, but images could be falsified.” His forced laughter rumbled like an out-of-tune musical instrument. “More importantly, for a scene as magnificent as this, images would never do it justice. Look around you.” He raised his hands as he turned, and his suspensor belt took him in a slow, ungainly pirouette. “My father, Dmitri, made Orgiz a thriving refinery complex, but nearly forty years ago, under my incompetent half brother, Abulurd, it was destroyed by desert rabble.

  “Orgiz lay ruined and abandoned until recently, when we secretly reopened and brought it back to full production.” He lowered his voice. “And everything is completely off the books. This refinery is no longer subject to monitoring by the Emperor or his Spice Observer Fenring. As far as they know, it is no more than ruins.”

  Malina surveyed the substantial and impressive facility, where cargoes of raw melange from spice harvesters could be filtered, distilled, packaged, and even disguised. The Orgiz landing field held unmarked supply ships ready to launch for the Heighliner above.

  Malina frowned. “And the refinery was this extensive years ago? How is it possible that some desert band could shut such a place down? What kind of weapons do they have?”

  The Baron looked uncomfortable. “As I said, my brother’s governorship here was disastrous, his security systems astonishingly lax.”

  Malina scrutinized the Harkonnen soldiers standing at attention. “Even so…” She shot him a piercing glare and waited for an answer.

  The Baron seemed to realize he would be required to provide more detail. “The rabble, ah, somehow drove one of those giant worms into the canyons. The creature was trapped inside this walled basin, unable to find its way out. It went berserk and spent days in a frenzy, destroying everything.” He rumbled a deep, dissatisfied grunt in his throat. “One worm. It was years before anyone would even go back to the site, because we could not be certain the monster had gone.”

  Malina’s face pinched. “Now you have rebuilt the refinery in secret—and you pass along the cost to me. That is why your spice is so expensive.”

  “Urdir,” he said, “with this facility, we can produce an entirely separate stream of spice. Plainly, the cost of these operations requires that I charge a premium without the surtax on all of the discretionary melange we provide.”

  Around them, the Harkonnen security detail was as expressionless and rigid as statues, but she was sure they could turn deadly in a moment.

  “We will work out any additional details,” the Baron said, “but I believe we have a meeting of the minds. Orgiz is a functional platform for us to ship an agreed-upon amount of spice through CHOAM distribution channels.” His round, fat face darkened with concern. “So long as Count Fenring and the Emperor never get wind of what we do here. Shaddam could strip House Harkonnen of the Arrakis governorship, just as they did to House Richese before us.”

  “Oh, you certainly have my agreement, Baron, but since I came all this way, you will now take the time to show me your operations in detail. I want to understand the process flow and every aspect of your business.” Malina pressed her lips together. They were already dry and cracked. Amazing how rapidly this planet stole water from the body! “The alliance is acceptable—so long as you do not demand that I come to this godforsaken place again.”

  The most honorable course of military action rarely wins the battle.

  —SUPREME BASHAR CORREA DOBLÉ

  With elite Sardaukar standing on each side of his immense throne, the Emperor shouted to his assembled aides. Even after making revisions to the list, he remained dissatisfied with the current candidates to fill the Landsraad vacancies.

  Throughout the morning, Chamberlain Ridondo had ushered in numerous advisers and scribes, and Shaddam had read summary after summary. He didn’t recognize most of the names, though his dear Empress likely would. So far, the dossiers did not impress him. He needed to know that all Landsraad replacements he approved would be loyal to him, even with the brewing unrest fostered by Noble Commonwealth sedition.

  “I need more names. I eliminated half the ones you submitted based on their private sentiments and public statements.” He glanced at Ridondo, then down at the Imperial functionaries. “You should never have wasted my time with them.”

  The advisers cowered, which was the appropriate response.

  “Not only is this an emergency,” Shaddam continued, trying to make them understand, “it is also an opportunity. I intend to fill the vacancies with those I can rely on to carry out my policies and to support me against any controversy. We must be absolutely certain that none of them are involved in Jaxson Aru’s heinous insurrection. Am I clear?”

  “Very clear, Sire,” said Stef Ibbon, a career bureaucrat who led one of the research teams.

  “We will consult with a broader group of experts and deliver new candidates by the end of the day,” said a young woman. He couldn’t recall her name, but knew she was a recent graduate of a top university. The Emperor frowned at her, as did Stef Ibbon, both of them aware that the young woman should not have spoken up in front of others who had far more seniority.

  Then Shaddam looked at her again. Unlike many of these others, she seemed to have confidence, intelligence, and stronger convictions than her colleagues. He recalled that the candidates she had put forward were satisfactory, and many of them remained on the Emperor’s list. “Clearly, I need to disrupt my old focus groups to get better results.” He struggled to remember this young woman’s name. Ah, now he had it! “You are Aina Tere, correct? From this moment forward, I place you in charge of the candidate search.” He glowered at Ibbon. “You will follow her orders from now on.”

  The career bureaucrat paled and lost his voice for a moment, before he managed to reply, “Yes, Majesty, as you wish. We will strive to do better.”

  “Provide her with all your research. Aina Tere will vet the names more carefully, dig deeper to identify the Imperial loyalists on the list, and separate out the traitors.”

  * * *

  DEDICATED AND READY to sacrifice his life should any threat arise against the Emperor, Colonel Bashar Kolona stood beside the throne and listened intently. Shaddam IV was justifiably angry and frightened about the violent assassination attempt, but he was just as concerned by the quieter aspect of the Noble Commonwealth rebellion, the slow advance of planets secretly slipping out of his iron grip.

  The Emperor was beginning to see traitors everywhere, most of them imaginary, but some were genuine rebels. As his Imperial spies dug deeper and exposed evidence of some noble houses that promulgated independence and advocated the breakup of the Imperium, Shaddam refrained from exposing them in public, since that would give them an open platform to air their indignation and grievances. But he began making his list.

  The Sardaukar officer observed, but he kept his thoughts to himself. Many Landsraad nobles were treacherous, and yet some surprised him, Leto Atreides in particular.
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br />   Not long after becoming Duke, young Leto Atreides had discovered his own father’s unwitting participation in the downfall of House Kolona. Even though the seized Kolona holdings had been transferred to House Atreides, Leto’s sense of honor would not allow him to keep assets that had been gained by such means. Years ago, though it cost the wealth and stature of his House, the Atreides Duke had come to Kaitain and voluntarily surrendered his inherited Kolona holdings to distant surviving relatives.

  Because he said it was the honorable thing to do.

  The young colonel bashar had been attending Shaddam at the time and had witnessed Leto’s unexpected generosity. From that point on, Kolona had reconsidered his original low opinion of the Atreides. Now he refused to believe Leto was involved in the Noble Commonwealth rebellion, especially after what he had seen on Otorio. The Sardaukar had immediately taken Leto’s warning with due seriousness, though he was certain the Duke of Caladan did not know who Jopati Kolona was.

  Shaddam’s suspicions, though, ranged widely.

  Now that the Emperor had the attention of young Aina Tere, he continued lecturing his search committee. Shaddam held up the paper. “On this most recent list, I see the name of Count Trum Vichon, a man who has spoken out in favor of planetary rights. Though he did not cite the Noble Commonwealth by name, does that not give any of you pause? In order to build a strong and unified Imperium, do we dare give power to a man who idealizes the very concept of breaking it up?”

  The advisers quickly consulted their notes. One heavyset woman spoke up in a surprisingly high voice. “Vichon has never criticized you or the throne, Sire. I read his speech. The Count merely proposed a political thought experiment, about the challenges of governing such a large star-spanning Imperium, given the time lags and communication delays across vast distances. We thought you only wanted to exclude those who had openly agitated against you.”