Dune: House Harkonnen

by Brian Herbert; Kevin J. Anderson

  A blur. He saw the Harkonnens on Arrakis, packing up, leaving all their spice production behind. Troops of armed Sardaukar guards marched blurred figures to an Imperial transport, taking them away from holdings on the desert world. He saw the Harkonnen blue-griffin banner taken down from the fortress in Carthag and the Residency at Arrakeen.

  And replaced with the green-and-black of House Atreides!

  A strangled noise came from his throat, and his Mentat mind sifted through the prescient images, forced them into a pattern, and tried to translate what he had seen.

  The Harkonnens will lose their spice monopoly. But not necessarily because of the amal being developed by the Tleilaxu in collusion with the Emperor.

  How, then?

  As the drugs’ multitentacled hold tightened, smothering him, his mind streaked down one avenue of synapses after another. Each time, he found nothing, only dead ends. He circled around and tried again, but reached the same conclusion.

  How will it happen?

  Heavy consumption of mixed drugs was not an approved method of stimulating mind powers; but he wasn’t a normal Mentat, a gifted person accepted into the School and trained in the arcane methods of data-sorting and analysis. Piter de Vries was a “twisted” Mentat— grown in a Tleilaxu axlotl tank from the cells of a dead Mentat and trained by others who had broken from the Mentat School. After dispensing their warped training, the Tleilaxu retained no control over their Mentats, though de Vries had no doubt that they had another fully grown ghola, genetically identical to him, just waiting in case Baron Harkonnen happened to lose patience with him one too many times.

  The Tleilaxu “twisting” produced an enrichment that could be obtained in no other way. It gave de Vries greater capabilities, far beyond what normal Mentats could attain. But it also made him unpredictable and dangerous, potentially beyond control.

  For decades the Bene Tleilax had experimented with drug combinations on their Mentats; in his formative years, de Vries had been one of their subjects. The effects had been unpredictable and inconclusive, resulting in alterations— improvements, he hoped— to his brain.

  Ever since he’d been sold to House Harkonnen, de Vries had performed his own tests, refining his body, tuning it to the condition he wanted. With just the right mixture of chemicals he had achieved a high degree of mental clarity for faster processing of data.

  Why will House Harkonnen lose the spice monopoly? And when?

  It seemed wise to suggest to the Baron that he reinforce his operations, double-check the secret melange stockpiles hidden on Lankiveil and elsewhere. We must protect ourselves from this disaster.

  His heavy eyelids flickered, lifted. Bright particles of light swam into his eyes; with difficulty, he focused his vision. He heard squealing. Past the half-closed door, two uniformed men wheeled a squeaky gurney, on top of which lay a misshapen lump that had once been a human form.

  Why will House Harkonnen lose its spice monopoly? Sadly, he realized the drugs he had administered were wearing off, dissipated in the effort to unravel the troubled prescient vision. Why? He needed to take this to an even deeper level. I must learn the answer!

  In a frenzy he detached the drug tray from his neck, dumping juice and capsules on the floor. Falling to his knees, he gathered all the pills he could find and swallowed them. Like an animal, he lapped up spilled sapho juice, before he huddled in a jittering heap on the cold floor. Why?

  When a pleasurable feeling came over him, he lay back on the sticky, wet surface, staring at the ceiling. His involuntary body functions slowed, giving him the outward appearance of death. But his mind was racing, its electro-chemical activity increasing, neurons sorting signals, processing, searching . . . electrical impulses leaping synaptic gaps, faster and faster.

  Why? Why?

  His cognitive pathways fired in all directions, crossed, sizzled; potassium and sodium ions collided with other radicals in his brain cells. The internal mechanisms broke down, no longer able to handle the fire-hose flow of data. He was on the brink of vaulting into mental chaos and slipping into a coma.

  Instead, his marvelous Mentat mind went into survival mode, shutting down functions, limiting the damage. . . .

  • • •

  Piter de Vries awoke in a pool of spilled drug residue. His nostrils, mouth, and throat burned.

  At the Mentat’s side, the Baron paced back and forth, scolding him like a child. “Look at the mess you’ve made, Piter. All that wasted melange, and I almost had to purchase a new Mentat from the Tleilaxu. Don’t ever be so thoughtless and wasteful again!”

  De Vries struggled to sit up, wanting to tell the Baron about his vision, the destruction of House Harkonnen. “I . . . I have seen . . .” But he could not get the words out. It would take a long time before he was able to string sentences together coherently.

  Worse yet— even with his desperate overdose, he still did not have an answer for the Baron.

  Too much knowledge never makes for simple decisions.

  — CROWN PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO,

  Discourses on Leadership

  Within the ice-choked arctic circle of Lankiveil, commercial whale fur boats were like cities on the water, enormous processing plants that lumbered across the steel-gray waters for months before returning to spaceport docks to disgorge their cargo.

  Abulurd Harkonnen, the Baron’s younger half-brother, preferred smaller vessels with native crews. To them, whale hunting was a challenge and an art, rather than an industry.

  Biting wind blew his ash-blond hair around his ears and shoulders as he squinted pale-eyed into the distance. The sky was a soup of dirty clouds, but he’d grown accustomed to the climate. Despite the glamorous and expensive Harkonnen palaces on other planetary holdings, Abulurd had chosen this frigid, mountainous world to call home.

  He had been out on the sea for a week now, cheerfully attempting to assist the swarthy crew, though his appearance was far different from that of the Lankiveil natives. His hands were sore and covered with blisters that sooner or later would turn to calluses. The Buddislamic whalers seemed bemused that their planetary governor wanted to come out and work, but they knew his eccentricities. Abulurd had never been one for pomp and ceremony, for abusing his power, or showing off his riches.

  In the deep northern seas, Bjondax fur whales swam in herds like aquatic bison. Golden-furred beasts were common; those with exotic leopard spots were much rarer. Standing next to rattling prayer wheels and streamers, lookouts on observation platforms scanned the ice-thick sea with binoculars, searching for lone whales. Off-shift whalers took turns praying. These native hunters were selective of the beasts they killed, choosing only those with the best coats that would bring in the highest prices.

  Abulurd smelled the salt air and the omnipresent tang of impending sleet. He waited for the action to begin, for a fast hunt when the captain and his first mate would bellow orders, treating Abulurd as just another crewman. For now, he had nothing to do but wait and think about home. . . .

  At night, when the whaling boat rocked and swayed, accompanied by the patter and thump of ice chunks bumping against the reinforced hull, Abulurd would sing or play a local betting game that involved stacked beads. He would recite required sutras with the gruff, deeply religious crew.

  Glowing heaters inside the boat cabins could not match the roaring fireplaces in his bustling main lodge on Tula Fjord or his romantic private dacha at the mouth of the fjord. Although he enjoyed the whale hunt, Abulurd already missed his quiet and strong wife. He and Emmi Rabban-Harkonnen had been married for decades, and the separation of days would only make their reunion sweeter.

  Emmi had noble blood, but from a diminished Minor House. Four generations ago, before the alliance with House Harkonnen, Lankiveil had been the fief of an unimportant family, House Rabban, which had devoted itself to religious pursuits. They built monasteries and seminary retreats in the rugged mountains, instead of exploiting the resources of their world.

  Long ago
, after the death of his father, Dmitri, Abulurd had taken Emmi with him to spend seven unpleasant years on Arrakis. His elder half-brother Vladimir had consolidated all the power of House Harkonnen in his iron fist, but their father’s will had given control of spice operations to Abulurd, the kind and bookish son. Abulurd understood the importance of the position, how much wealth melange brought to his family, though he never grasped the nuances and political complexities of the desert world.

  Abulurd had been forced to leave Arrakis in supposed disgrace. But no matter what they said, he preferred to live on Lankiveil with manageable responsibilities, among people he understood. He felt sorry for those being trampled by the Baron’s overzealous efforts on the desert planet, but Abulurd vowed to do his best here, though he had not yet bothered to reclaim his rightful title of subdistrict governor. The tedious politics seemed like such a waste of human effort.

  He and Emmi had only one son, thirty-four-year-old Glossu Rabban, who, according to Lankiveil tradition, was given the distaff name from his mother’s bloodline. Unfortunately, their son had a coarse personality and took after his uncle more than his own parents. Although Abulurd and Emmi had always wanted more children, the Harkonnen bloodline had never been particularly fecund. . . .

  “Albino!” shouted the lookout, a sharp-eyed boy whose dark hair hung in a thick braid kinked over his warm parka. “White fur swimming alone— twenty degrees to port.”

  The vessel became a hive of activity. Neuro-harpooners grabbed their weapons while the captain increased the engine speed. Men scrambled up deck ladders, shading their eyes and staring into water laden with icebergs that looked like buoyant white molars. It had been a full day since the last chase, so the decks were clean, the processing bins open and prepped, the men anxious.

  Abulurd waited his turn to peer through a set of binoculars, staring across the whitecaps. He saw flashes that might have been an albino whale, but were instead just chunks of drifting ice. Finally, he spotted the creature as it breached, a creamy arc of white fur. It was young. Albinos, the rarest of the breed, were ostracized from the pod, cut loose and left without the support of the swimming herd. Rarely did they survive to full adulthood.

  The men bent to their weapons as the vessel bore down upon its prey. Prayer wheels continued to spin and clack in the breeze. The captain leaned out from the bridge deck and shouted in a voice resonant enough to break solid ice. “If we get this one undamaged, we’ll have enough shares to go home.”

  Abulurd loved to see the sheer joy and exhilaration on their faces. He felt the thrill himself, his heart pounding to keep the blood moving in this intense cold. He never took a share of the whaling profits, since he had no use for additional money, but allowed the men to divide it among themselves.

  The albino beast, sensing pursuit, swam faster, heading toward an archipelago of icebergs. The captain increased the throbbing engines, churning a wake behind them. If the Bjondax whale dove, they would lose it.

  Fur whales spent months at a time beneath the heavy ice sheets. There, in dark waters fed by volcanic vents full of nutrients and warmth, the whales devoured swarms of krill, spores, and Lankiveil’s rich plankton that did not require direct sunlight for photosynthesis.

  With a loud pop, one of the long-range rifles planted a pulse-tag on the white whale’s back. In response to the prick, the albino dove. The crewman working the controls sent a jolt of electricity through the pulse-tag, which made the whale breach again.

  The boat came about, grinding the starboard side against an iceberg, but the reinforced hull held as the captain closed the gap. Two master harpooners, moving with forced calm and precision, got into separate pursuit boats, sleek craft with narrow prows and ice-cutting keels. The men strapped themselves in, sealed the clear protective canopy over them, and dropped the craft into the icy water.

  The pursuit boats bounced across the choppy water, striking chunks of ice but closing on the target. The main boat circled, approaching from the opposite direction. Each of the master harpooners crossed in front of the albino whale, popping the canopy enclosures and standing up in their compartments. With perfect balance, they hurled long stun-staves into the whale, delivering a blast of numbing energy.

  The whale rolled and came toward the whaling boat. The master harpooners pursued, but by now the main boat was close enough and four other harpooners leaned over the deck. Like a well-practiced Roman legion hurling javelins, they pitched stun-staves with enough force to render the whale unconscious. The two pursuit craft approached the furred hulk and, working as a team, the master harpooners delivered the coup de grâce.

  Later, as the pursuit craft were winched up to the boat, furriers and skinners strapped on spiked footwear and rappelled down the vessel sides to the floating carcass.

  Abulurd had seen whales taken many times before, but he had an aversion to the actual butchering process, so he crossed to the starboard deck and stared northward at the mountain ranges of icebergs. Their rugged shapes reminded him of the steep rocks that formed the fjord walls near where he lived.

  The whaling vessel had reached the far northern limit of even the native hunting waters. CHOAM whaling crews never ventured into these high latitudes, since their enormous vessels could not navigate the treacherous waters.

  Alone at the bow, Abulurd enjoyed the prismatic purity of arctic ice, a crystal glow that enhanced the shrouded sunlight. He heard the grind of colliding icebergs and stared, not realizing what his peripheral vision registered. Something gnawed at his subconscious until finally his gaze centered on one of the monoliths of ice, a squarish mountain that appeared fractionally grayer than the others. It reflected less light.

  He squinted, then retrieved a pair of binoculars left lying on the deck. Abulurd listened to the wet sounds behind him, the men shouting as they cut their prize into pieces ready to take home. He focused the oil lenses and stared at the floating iceberg.

  Glad to have a distraction from the bloody work, Abulurd spent long minutes scrutinizing fragments that had been hacked out of the ice. The shards were too precise, too exact to have broken free from the glacial shelf and drifted about, battering and scraping other icebergs.

  Then, at water level, he saw something that looked suspiciously like a door.

  He marched up to the bridge deck. “You’ll be at work here for another hour, won’t you, Captain?”

  The big-shouldered man nodded. “Aye. Then we go home tonight. Do you want to get down into the wet work?”

  Abulurd drew himself up, queasy at the prospect of being smothered in whale blood. “No . . . actually, I’d like to borrow one of the small boats to go explore . . . something I found on an iceberg.” Normally, he would have asked for an escort, but the whalers were all occupied with the butchery. Even in these cold, uncharted seas, Abulurd would be glad to be away from the smell of death.

  The captain raised his bushy eyebrows. Abulurd could tell the gruff man wanted to express his skepticism, but he maintained his silence. His broad, flat face carried only respect for the planetary governor.

  Abulurd Harkonnen knew how to handle a boat himself— often taking one into the fjords and exploring the coastline— so he declined the offer of other whalers to accompany him. Alone, he cruised away at a slow speed, watching out for dangerous ice. Behind him, the butchering continued, filling the iron-scented air with a richer smell of blood and entrails.

  Twice as he piloted his boat through the maze of floating mountains, Abulurd lost sight of his target, but eventually he found it again. Hidden among the drifting icebergs, this one chunk seemed not to have moved. He wondered if it was anchored in place.

  He brought the small boat up against the rugged side, then momentum-locked it to the ice. A feeling of unreality and displacement shrouded this strange monolith. As he gingerly stepped out of the boat and onto the nearest flat white surface, he realized just how exotic this object was.

  The ice was not cold.

  Abulurd bent to touch what appeared
to be milky shards of ice. He rapped with his knuckles: The substance was some kind of polymer crystal, a translucent solid that had the appearance of ice— almost. He stomped hard, and the iceberg echoed beneath him. Very odd indeed.

  He rounded a jagged corner to the place where he’d seen a geometrically even line of cracks, a parallelogram that might have been an access hatch. He stared at it until he found an indentation, an access panel that appeared to have been damaged, perhaps in a collision with a real iceberg. He found an activation button, and the trapezoidal covering slid aside.

  He gasped as a strong cinnamon scent wafted out, a pungent odor that he recognized instantly. He had smelled enough of it during his time on Arrakis. Melange.

  He breathed deeply just to make sure, then ventured into the eerie corridors. The floors were smooth, as if worn down by many feet. A secret base? A command post? A hidden archive?

  He discovered room upon room filled with nullentropy containers, sealed bins that bore the pale blue griffin of House Harkonnen. A stockpile of spice put here by his own family— and no one had told him of it. A grid map showed how far the storehouse extended beneath the water. Here on Lankiveil, under Abulurd’s own nose, the Baron had secreted a huge illegal hoard!

  Such an amount of spice could have purchased this entire planetary system many times over. Abulurd’s mind reeled, unable to comprehend the treasure he had stumbled upon. He needed to think. He needed to talk to Emmi. With her quiet wisdom, she would give him the advice he needed. Together they would decide what to do.

  Though he considered the whaling crew to be honest, wholesome men, such a stockpile would tempt even the best of them. Abulurd left in a hurry, sealed the door behind him, and scrambled aboard his boat.