Sandworms of Dune

by Brian Herbert

  Entering the Keep, Duncan and Murbella marched into the echoing great hall, side by side. Watcheyes followed them, along with a pair of sentinel robots. The robots greatly disturbed the people who waited there, but in the future humans must learn to set aside their fears and preconceptions.

  Without Omnius, the thinking-machine empire continued to function but without a unified mind or mission. Duncan would direct them, but he refused to simply continue the endless cycle of enslavement. They had potential to be more than tools or puppets, more than just a destructive force. Some of the machines were merely that, but more sophisticated robots and advisory mechanisms could grow and develop into something far superior. Erasmus himself had become independent, developing a unique personality when he was isolated from the homogenizing influence of the evermind. With so many thinking machines spread across so many planets, other prominent figures would arise if given the opportunity. If guided. If Duncan allowed them.

  He had to achieve a balance.

  The Mother Commander’s imposing chair stood high and empty in front of a segmented window that looked out on the arid, dying landscape. Janess stood to one side, welcoming Murbella to the empty seat, with nearly a hundred of the New Sisterhood’s guards standing at high alert in the chamber. Though all of the insidious Face Dancers had been exposed and killed, Janess was not letting down her guard, and Duncan felt proud of his daughter.

  She bowed formally. “Mother Commander, we are glad to have you back. Please, take your place.”

  “It is no longer only my place. Duncan, your daughter has been raised in the Bene Gesserit ways, but she also made a point of learning about you. She trained herself to become the equivalent of a Ginaz Swordmaster.”

  Thinking bittersweet thoughts about all he had missed, Duncan formally shook his daughter’s hand and found her grip pleasingly strong. Until this moment they had been strangers who shared a bond of blood and patriotic allegiance. Their real relationship was just beginning.

  Murbella had fought a long and bloody battle to combine the opposing forces of the Honored Matres and the Bene Gesserits, after which she had wrestled with the disparate groups of humanity to forge them into one whole. On an even larger scale, Duncan, through his newfound abilities, was shaping an even greater, farther reaching union.

  Everything was woven together in a tighter tapestry than history had ever known, and at last Duncan grasped the extent of his newfound strength. He was not the first human in history to possess great power, and he vowed not to forget what he had learned as a pawn of the God Emperor, Leto II.

  The human race would never forget the thousands of years under that terrible reign, and Duncan’s comprehensive racial memory held a roadmap that showed him where the pitfalls were, thus enabling him to avoid them. The great Tyrant had suffered from a flaw he hadn’t recognized. Weighed down by his sense of terrible purpose, Leto II had isolated himself from his humanity.

  In contrast, Duncan clung to the knowledge that Murbella would be with him, and Sheeana, too. He could talk with his daughter Janess as well, and perhaps even his other surviving daughter, Tanidia. In addition, he had all the memories of great and loyal friends, of dozens of loves, and a succession of comrades, wives, families, joys, and beliefs.

  Though he was the ultimate Kwisatz Haderach with immeasurable power, Duncan had known the best parts of being human. Life after life. He didn’t need to feel alienated and worried, when he could be filled with love instead.

  But his would not be a conventional kind of love. His love needed to extend much farther, to every living person, and to thinking machines. One form of sentient life was not superior to the other. And Duncan Idaho was greater than the flesh that encompassed his body.

  EPILOGUE

  In a war, be watchful for unexpected enemies and unlikely allies.

  —BASHAR MILES TEG,

  final log entries

  More than a year had passed on Qelso. The unnatural desert continued to spread as sandtrout reproduced and commandeered more and more of the planet’s water. Though their fight seemed hopeless, Var’s commandos stood against the forces that were killing their environment.

  Stilgar and Liet-Kynes did their best to assist in the struggle. Both desert-bred gholas felt that their more important work was to show the natives how they could live in cooperation with the encroaching desert, rather than fight it.

  During the many months since the pair had departed from the noship, the dry sands had extended much farther into the continental forests and plains. Var’s camp had moved time after time, retreating from the oncoming dunes, and the desert kept following them. Though they had killed dozens of sandworms using water cannons and moisture bombs, Shai-Hulud was not so easily thwarted. The worms grew larger, despite all the efforts of the Qelso commandos.

  With the first faint light of dawn, Liet stepped out of his rockwalled sleeping chambers and stretched. Although he and Stilgar were still teenagers, they remembered being adults once and having wives. Among the commando women on Qelso, many would accept either of them as a husband, but Liet had not yet decided when he could justify getting married and fathering children. Maybe he would have another daughter, and name her Chani. . . .

  No matter how much Liet-Kynes worked to remake Qelso, it would never be Dune. The fertile landscape was giving way to dry waves of sand, but it would not be the same. Eons ago, had Arrakis been fertile? Had some forgotten superior civilization transplanted sandtrout and sandworms there, much as Mother Superior Odrade had when she sent her Bene Gesserit to Qelso? Perhaps it had been the Muadru, who left mysterious symbols on rocks and cliffs, and in caves across the galaxy. Liet didn’t know. His father might have been intrigued by the mystery, but Liet considered himself more practical.

  Preparing for the day’s work, he looked over at Stilgar, whose eyes had begun to turn blue-within-blue. For years the people here had stubbornly denied themselves the use of melange, but Stilgar called it a sacred reward from the desert, a gift from Shai-Hulud. He had small groups harvesting spice for their own uses, and Liet knew that spice was like a velvet chain—pleasant enough, until one tried to break free of it.

  Two chattering and flirtatious teenage girls brought the men breakfast on a tray, knowing what Stilgar and Liet preferred for their morning meal. The girls were lovely, but so young. Liet knew they saw only his youthful body, not knowing how many years he carried in his mind. At times like these, he truly missed his wife Faroula, Chani’s mother. But that had been so long ago. . . .

  Stilgar, however, remained the same. After they finished their coffee and sweet cakes, Liet stood and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Today we will go out into the deep dunes and plant weather devices. We need better resolution to track the desiccation patterns.”

  “Why do you obsess over details? The desert is the desert. It will always be hot and dry, and here on Qelso it will keep growing.” The former naib did not see anything particularly tragic or wrong with the dying ecosystem. To Stilgar, it was the natural order of things. “Shai-Hulud continues to build his domain no matter what you do.”

  “The scientist pursues knowledge,” Liet said, and his companion had no answer for that.

  Taking one of the small flyers the Ithaca had left behind, he had gone to the northern and as yet undamaged latitudes where the forests stood tall, the rivers flowed, and snowcaps crowned the mountains. Cities and towns still flourished in the valleys and on the hillsides, though the people knew they would all be gone before long. Var’s commandos were poignantly reminded every day of how much they were missing, how much they had lost. Stilgar did not see it.

  The two friends, along with a group of rugged volunteers, donned newly manufactured stillsuits and adjusted the fittings. When the commandos marched into the open desert, they walked in single file on the dunes. Liet had them practice the random stutter-step that would not attract a worm. The yellow sun grew swiftly hotter, reflecting off the granular sands, but they plodded onward, practicing their li
ves here. Far in the distance Liet saw the rusty-brown smear of powdery smoke that indicated a spice blow, and he thought he saw the rippling tracks of a worm moving out there.

  Stilgar shouted and pointed up at the sky. The desert men instinctively clustered together in a defensive formation.

  Hundreds of huge metallic ships suddenly descended, made of angular plates bristling with weapons and powered by enormous engines. The vessels looked like nothing Liet had ever seen before. Enemy ships?

  For a moment he hoped the Ithaca had returned with them, but these were unlike the no-ship and unusual in their formation, moving in a coordinated fashion. They dropped indiscriminately onto the open desert, scattering sand and flattening dunes. Their pilots seemed oblivious to the fact that the dull vibrations would attract sandworms. As Liet stood gaping at the ships’ sheer size, he had no doubt that their weapons could brush aside a worm attack as if it were no more than a nuisance.

  The dusty commandos looked to the two gholas for answers. Liet had none, though, and despite the impossible odds, Stilgar appeared ready to attack, if need be.

  With an ominous humming and clanking, the ships extended support struts and raised themselves on thick, powerful anchors. Then numerous doors began to open, turning loose an army of metal-skinned machines: heavy lifters, ground crushers, and excavators. Moving on treads, the lumbering self-guided behemoths crawled across the dunes. Behind them marched ranks of heavyset metal robots that smashed forward like deadly warriors . . . or were they workers? Helpers?

  The commandos had only small weapons. Some of the eager ones drew their projectile launchers, dropped to their knees on the soft sand, and took aim. “Wait!” Liet cried.

  A hatch at the top of the largest landed ship opened and a pale form emerged, stepping out onto an observation platform. A human form. When the man called down to them, his voice echoed in an eerie chorus transmitted from thousands of speakerpatches on the lines of machine forces. “Stilgar and Liet-Kynes! Don’t be so quick to declare yourselves our enemies.”

  “Who are you?” Stilgar shouted defiantly. “Come down here so that we may speak to you face to face.”

  “I thought you would recognize me.”

  Liet did. “It’s Duncan—Duncan Idaho!”

  Flanked by an honor guard of robots and accompanied by a troop of human workers wearing outfits that Liet did not recognize, Duncan came down to stand with them on the dunes. “Liet and Stilgar, we left you here to face the onslaught of the desert. You said this was your calling.”

  “It is,” Stilgar said.

  “And the Jews? Are they here with you?”

  “They formed a sietch of their own. They are thriving and happy.”

  Duncan’s honor guard stepped forward, women in black singlesuits and similarly garbed men who walked beside the females as equals. One of the women wore insignia and carried an air of command. He introduced her as his daughter Janess. “I confronted the Enemy, the thinking machines, and ended the war.” He extended his hands, and all of the robot workers turned to face him. The awesome ships themselves seemed to be alive and aware of every move Duncan made. “I have found a way to bring us all together.”

  “You surrendered to thinking machines,” Stilgar said, his tone acidic.

  “Not at all. I decided to show my humanity by not annihilating them. In many solar systems, they are building great things, achieving impressive works on planets inhospitable to humans. We work for the same purpose now, and I have brought them here to assist you.”

  “Assist us?” one of the commandos said. “How can they help? They’re just machines.”

  “They are allies. You face an insurmountable task. With as many robot crews as you require, I can help you accomplish what you need.” Duncan’s dark eyes glittered, as he watched from a million eyes all at once. “We can build a barrier against the desert, stop the sandtrout from spreading, and keep the water on a portion of the continent. Shai-Hulud will have his domain, while the rest of Qelso remains relatively unscathed. Humans can have their lives and slowly learn to adapt to the desert, but only if they choose to.”

  “Impossible,” Liet said. “How can a force of worker robots stand against the tide of the desert?”

  Duncan flashed a confident smile. “Don’t underestimate them—or me. I fill the roles of both Kwisatz Haderach and Omnius. I guide all the factions of humanity and control the entire Synchronized Empire.” He shrugged, and smiled. “Saving one planet is well within the scope of my capabilities.”

  Liet couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You can stop the desert and turn back the worms?”

  “Qelso will be both desert and forest, as I am both human and machine.” At a gesture and a thought from Duncan, the massive excavating equipment rumbled out into the sand, heading toward the boundary where the dunes met the still-living landscape.

  Liet and Stilgar followed Duncan, who walked ahead of the heavy convoy. As a planetologist, a ghola, and a human being, Liet had innumerable questions. But for now, watching the machines begin their work, he decided to wait and see what the future held.

  When Leto II envisioned his Golden Path, he foresaw the direction that humankind should take, but he had blind spots. He failed to see that he was not the ultimate Kwisatz Haderach.

  —Bene Gesserit fact-finding commission

  In the eleven years Jessica had been back home, she had realized more and more that some things did not add up. This planet might indeed be Caladan, or Dan, but this was not the same home she and her Duke had loved so long ago.

  On a stormy evening, as she walked through the restored castle, the incongruous details finally became more than she could bear. Pausing in an upper hallway, she opened a finely carved elaccawood cabinet, an antique that some decorator had placed there. This time, she stood staring at the ornate interior, and on impulse pressed a wooden extrusion in one corner. To her surprise, a panel opened, and inside she found a small blue statuette of a griffin. Perhaps placed there by the Baron ghola, the griffin was the ancient symbol of House Harkonnen. He must have hidden it there as a clever reminder of the falseness of the castle.

  As she stared at the statuette, feeling the wrongness of the object, she considered all of her hard work since returning to Caladan. She had directed crews of local laborers to dismantle the Baron’s torture devices and the Face Dancer Khrone’s offensive laboratories from the underground chambers. Through it all she had worked side by side with the cleaning teams, sweating and angry as she scrubbed away every stain, every odor, every hint of the unwanted presence. But Castle Caladan still reeked with reminders. How could she make a fresh start when so much of the past—at least this awkward, out-of-focus echo of the past—hung all around her?

  Behind her, moving silently, Dr. Yueh said, “Are you all right, my Lady?”

  She looked at the Suk doctor. He wore an expression of deep concern on his buttery face; his dark lips turned downward as he waited for an answer.

  “Everywhere I turn, I am reminded of the Baron.” She frowned at the griffin figurine in her hand. “Some of the articles in this castle are authentic, such as that dropleaf desk with the hawk crest, but most are bad copies.”

  Making up her mind, Jessica stepped to a segmented window at the end of the hall and swung it open to let in the stormy night air. In a dramatic gesture, she hurled the griffin figurine out to the crashing sea. The waves would soon erode it and break it into unrecognizable pieces. A suitable fate for the Harkonnen icon.

  A cold, wet wind whispered into the hall, bringing spatters of rain. Outside, scudding clouds parted to reveal a crescent moon on the horizon, casting cold yellow light on the water.

  Moments later she tore down a wall tapestry that she had never liked, and was about to throw that out the window, too, but—not wanting to spoil this beautiful planet—she instead tossed the tapestry on the floor, promising herself to cast it on the trash heap the following morning. “Maybe I should just tear this whole place down, Wellington. Ca
n we ever remove the taint?”

  Yueh was shocked at the suggestion. “My Lady, this is the ancestral home of House Atreides. What would Duke Leto—”

  “This is a mere reconstruction, fraught with errors.” A gusting breeze blew her bronze hair away from her face.

  “Maybe we waste too much time trying to recreate what we see in our old memories, my Lady. Why not build and decorate your home as you choose?”

  She blinked as cold rain blew into her face, drenching her jade green dress and wetting the rug. “I thought this place would help my Leto, give him comfort, but maybe it was more for me than for him.”

  A ten-year-old boy with coal-black hair came running down the hall, his smoke gray eyes widening with excitement and alarm when he saw the open window. He was even more surprised when neither Jessica nor Yueh reacted to the blowing rain that drenched the rugs and tapestries. “What’s happening?”

  “I was considering moving somewhere else, Leto. Would you like me to find us a normal home in the village? Maybe we’d be happier down there, away from this pampered life.”

  “But I like this castle! It’s a Duke’s castle.” Jessica could not think of her Leto as a child. He wore fishing dungarees and a striped shirt, just like the ones he had worn when Jessica had first come to Caladan as a concubine purchased from the Bene Gesserit. The young nobleman had put a knife to her throat that day, a bluff . . .

  Yueh smiled. “A Duke . . . Such titles no longer mean anything with the Imperium long gone. Do the people of Caladan even need a Duke anymore?”

  Jessica’s reaction was automatic, making her realize she had not thought through her notion. “The people still need leaders, no matter what title we use. And we can be good leaders, as House Atreides has always been in the past. My Leto will be a good Duke.”