Dune: House Harkonnen

by Brian Herbert; Kevin J. Anderson

  He checked his records, memorizing the passwords and override commands he had hoarded for years. His identity cards and signal jammers should be sufficient to get him past any scrutiny. Even there.

  Taking on a hauteur to complete his masquerade, he emerged from his hidden chamber into the expansive grotto. He strode to the front of a crowd and stepped aboard a linked transport. After slipping his card through the scanner port, he punched in the location for the sealed research pavilion.

  The private bubble closed around him and detached itself from the rest of the transport system. The vessel cruised in midair above the crisscrossed paths of surveillance pods. None of the transeyes turned toward him. The transport bubble recognized his right to travel to the laboratory complex. No alarms were raised. No one paid attention to him.

  Below, workers moved about in their labors, guarded by an increasing number of Sardaukar. They did not bother to look up at the vessels drifting across the enclosed grotto sky.

  One step at a time, C’tair passed through successive guarded gates and security fields, and finally into the hivelike industrial mass. The windows were sealed, the corridors glowing with an orange-tinged light. The stuffy air was warm and humid, with a putrid undertone of rotting flesh and unpleasant human residue.

  Huddled in his disguise, he walked along, trying to conceal the fact he was lost and uncertain of his destination. C’tair didn’t know where the answers might lie, but he dared not hesitate or look confused. He didn’t want anyone to take notice of him.

  Robed Tleilaxu moved from chamber to chamber, absorbed in their work. They pulled hoods over their ears and heads, so C’tair did the same, glad for the added camouflage. He withdrew a sheaf of ridulian-crystal reports written in a strange code that he could not decipher, and pretended to study them.

  He turned down corridors at random, changing course whenever he heard other people approaching. Several gnomish men marched past him, speaking to each other in heated voices in their private Tleilaxu language, gesturing with long-fingered hands. They paid no attention to C’tair.

  He located biological laboratories, research facilities with plazchrome-plated tables and surgical scanners— visible through open doorways that seemed to be protected by special scanning devices that he didn’t want to try to penetrate. Nothing, however, provided him with the answers he needed. Breathing hard and sweating with tension, he followed main corridors that led toward the heart of the research pavilion.

  Finally, C’tair found a higher level, an open-windowed observation gallery. The corridor behind him was empty. The air smelled metallic with chemicals and disinfectants, a scrubbed, sterile environment.

  And a faint but distinct odor reminiscent of cinnamon.

  He peered through the broad window into the huge central gallery of the laboratory complex. The vast chamber was large enough to be a spacecraft hangar, holding tables and coffin-sized containers . . . row upon row of “specimens.” He stared in horror at the pipes and sample tubes, at all the bodies. All the women.

  Even knowing how vile the Tleilaxu were, never before had he imagined such a nightmarish reality. The shock dried his unshed tears to a stinging acid. His mouth opened and closed, but he could form no words. He wanted to vomit.

  In the gigantic complex below he saw at last what the Tleilaxu criminals were actually doing to the women of Ix. And one of them, barely recognizable, was Miral Alechem!

  Staggering with revulsion, he tore himself away. He had to escape. The sheer weight of what he’d seen threatened to crush him. It was impossible, impossible, impossible! His stomach knotted, threatening to double him over— yet he dared not show any weakness.

  Unexpectedly, a guard and two Tleilaxu researchers rounded the corner and came toward him. One of the researchers said something in an unrecognizable guttural language. C’tair didn’t respond. He staggered away.

  Alarmed, the guard shouted after him. C’tair stumbled down a side corridor. He heard an outcry, and his need for survival burned away his stunned malaise. After penetrating this far, he had to get out. No other outsider suspected what he had now seen with his own eyes.

  The truth was far worse than anything he could have imagined.

  Bewildered and desperate, C’tair worked his way back to the lower levels, aiming for the external security grids. Behind him, guards rushed toward the observation galleries he had just left behind, but the Tleilaxu had not yet sounded an all-out alarm. Perhaps they didn’t want to disrupt their daily routine . . . or maybe they simply couldn’t believe that one of the foolish Ixian slaves had managed to penetrate their tightest security.

  The research pavilion wing he had destroyed with wafer-bombs three years ago had been entirely rebuilt, but the self-guiding supply rail had been moved to a different portal. He raced over there, hoping to slip through lighter security.

  Summoning a transport bubble, he climbed inside, using his stolen identity card and brusquely dismissing one of the guards who tried to question him. Then C’tair drifted away from the security installation toward the nearest work complex, where he could shuck his disguise and melt in among the other laborers again.

  Before long, he heard a strident alarm raised behind him, but by now he had escaped the compound and the Tleilaxu secret police. He alone carried a hint of what the invaders were actually doing, why they had come to Ix.

  The knowledge did not comfort him, though. Now he felt a despair deeper than any he had experienced since beginning his fight.

  Treachery and quick-thinking will defeat hard-and-fast rules any day. Why should we be afraid to seize the opportunities we see?

  — VISCOUNT HUNDRO MORITANI,

  Response to Landsraad Court Summons

  On the heaving deck of the unmarked boat, a wild-eyed giant gazed down on his captives. “Look at the would-be Swordmasters!” He laughed hard enough that they could smell his reeking breath. “Weaklings and cowards, pampered by rules. Against a few stunsticks and a squad of half-trained soldiers, what good are you?”

  Duncan stood on deck next to Hiih Resser and four other Ginaz students, nursing cuts and bruises, not to mention skull-splitting hangovers. They had been released from their shigawire bindings, but a squad of heavily armed soldiers in yellow Moritani livery waited nearby, holding an assortment of weapons. Overhead, the knotted gray sky brought darkness a full hour before its time.

  The deck of the dark boat was wide and clear, like a practice floor, but slick with spray from drizzle and whitecaps that washed over the rails. The Swordmaster trainees kept their balance, as if this were just another exercise, while their Grumman captors held on to stay-ropes and support rails; some of them looked a bit seasick. Duncan, though, had lived for a dozen years on Caladan, and he felt completely comfortable on a boat. Loose equipment had been tied down in the rough seas. He saw nothing nearby that could provide a weapon for the prisoners.

  The ominous boat headed out through the channels of the archipelago. Duncan wondered how even Grummans dared to do such a thing. But House Moritani had already flouted the rules of kanly and launched inexcusably vicious attacks on Ecaz. After the Ginaz School had expelled the Grumman students in disgrace, no doubt their anger had been stoked. As the only one to remain behind, Hiih Resser would face worse treatment than any of his companions. Looking at the redhead’s bruised and swollen face, Duncan could see that Resser understood as much.

  Standing before them, the huge man had a braided black beard from cheekbones to chin, dark hair that cascaded over broad shoulders. Teardrop fire-jewels dangled from his ears. Entwined into his beard were bright green extrusions like small branches; the ends were lit in slow-burning embers so that foul gray smoke curled around his face. Two shiny maula pistols were tucked into his waistband. He had identified himself only as Grieu.

  “What good has all this uppity training done for you? You get drunk, you get complacent, and you stop being supermen. I’m glad my son pulled out early, without wasting any more time.”

 
; Another wiry young man in a yellow Moritani tunic stepped out of the main cabins. With a sinking heart, Duncan recognized Trin Kronos as he took his place beside the black-bearded man. “We came back to help you celebrate the completion of your training, and to show you that not everyone needs eight years to become adept at fighting.”

  With his beard smoldering, Grieu said, “So, let’s see how well you fight. My people need a little practice.”

  The Moritani-uniformed men and women moved with an animal grace. They carried swords, knives, spears, crossbows, even pistols. Some wore martial-arts outfits, others wore the more fanciful garb of Terran musketeers or swashbuckling pirates, as if in mockery of the Ginaz training islands. As another joke, they tossed two blunt wooden swords to the captives; Resser caught one, and Klaen, a musically inclined student from Chusuk, caught the other. The toys were laughably inadequate against maula pistols, flèchette guns, and arrows.

  At a signal from the hirsute Grieu, Trin Kronos stepped in front of the battered Ginaz students and raked his deprecating gaze over them. He paused in front of Resser, then Duncan, and finally moved on to the next student, Iss Opru, a dark-skinned native of Al-Dhanab. “This one first. As a warmup.”

  Grieu grunted in approval. Kronos shoved Opru out of line, to the center of the deck. The other fighters stood tense and waiting.

  “Get me a sword,” Kronos said, without looking over his shoulder. His eyes remained locked with Opru’s. Duncan saw that the student had automatically crouched in a perfect fighting stance, ready to react. The Grummans clearly felt they had all the advantages.

  Once he held the long blade, Trin Kronos provoked the dark-skinned captive, waving its sharp point in his face, swishing it expertly across the top of his head so that hairs were sliced away. “What are you going to do about this, sword-boy? I’ve got a weapon, and you don’t.”

  Opru did not flinch. “I am a weapon.”

  As Kronos continued to advance and taunt, Opru suddenly ducked under the blade and chopped the edge of his hand against his opponent’s wrist; the sneering young man cried out and dropped his weapon. With a fluid motion, Opru snatched the pommel before the sword hit the floor, rolled away, and sprang to his feet.

  “Bravo,” the giant said, while Kronos howled and nursed his wrist. “Son, you’ve got a lot to learn.” Grieu shoved the young man away. “Stay back so you don’t get hurt even more.”

  Opru clutched his stolen sword, knees bent, ready to fight. Duncan tensed, with Resser beside him, waiting to see how this game would play out. The other captives coiled, ready to attack.

  Opru circled at the center of the deck, keeping the blade pointed, weaving, ready to strike. He stayed on his toes, kept his gaze moving, intent on the black-bearded giant.

  “Isn’t that pretty?” Grieu strode around to get a better view. Acrid smoke twined around his face from the embers in his beard. “Look at his perfect form, right out of a textbook. You dropouts should have stayed in school, and then you might have looked good, too.”

  With his uninjured arm, Trin Kronos yanked one of the maula pistols from his father’s belt. “Why prefer form over substance?” He pointed the pistol. “I prefer to win.” And fired.

  In an instant of shock, the captives understood that they would all be executed. Without hesitation, before Iss Opru’s body had crumpled to the wet deck, the Swordmaster trainees launched into an all-out offensive with violent, sudden abandon. Two of the smug Grummans died from broken necks before they even realized the captives had begun to attack.

  Resser rolled to his right, and a wild projectile hit the deck and ricocheted off into the swollen waves. Duncan dove in the opposite direction as the Moritani soldiers hauled out all their weapons.

  The mob of Grumman fighters closed in behind the giant Grieu, then fanned out around the remaining captives. Individuals broke off from the swarm to attack the students at the center and then retreated under a hail of defensive blows and spinning kicks.

  The giant whistled in mock appreciation. “Now that is style.”

  Klaen, the Chusuk student, ran forward with a blood-curdling yell, launching himself at the nearest of the two men holding cocked crossbows. He held up the wooden blade to catch two crossbow quarrels and then slashed sideways, gouging out the eyes of an enemy who did not back away quickly enough; the blinded Grumman fell screaming to the deck. Behind Klaen, a second student— Hiddi Aran of Balut— shadowed him, using the Chusuk man as a shield in a repeat of an exercise they had run a year before. This time Klaen knew he would be sacrificed.

  Both men with crossbows fired their quarrels over and over again. Seven bolts skewered Klaen’s shoulders, chest, stomach, and neck. But still his momentum drove him forward, and as he collapsed, Hiddi Aran leaped over his falling comrade and slammed his body into the nearest crossbow archer. With a speed that broke bones, he tore the crossbow out of the hands of his attacker. One quarrel remained in the bow, and he spun in a fluid motion to shoot the second archer through the hollow of his throat.

  He dropped the now-empty crossbow and snatched the second one out of the dying archer’s hands before it could strike the deck— only to face an explosion of fire as the big, bearded Grieu drew his second maula pistol and placed a projectile through the middle of the Balut student’s forehead.

  Gunfire erupted all around them, and Grieu bellowed in a voice like an avalanche, “Don’t shoot each other, idiots!” The command came too late: one Grumman fell with a projectile in his chest.

  Before Hiddi Aran had stopped moving, Duncan dove across the slippery deck to the Chusuk student’s arrow-studded body, yanked one of the crossbow bolts out of the corpse’s chest, and lunged toward the nearest Moritani. The enemy swung a long sword at him, but in a fraction of a second, Duncan was through his guard, rising up to drive the already-bloody shaft under the enemy’s chin and up through the soft palate. Sensing movement, he grabbed the convulsing man around the chest and spun him so that his back absorbed the impact of three shots fired at Duncan.

  With only his dull wooden sword, Hiih Resser yowled an intimidating scream and flailed with the blade. Using wiry, powerful muscles, he smacked the nearest Grumman on the head so hard he heard the skull crack even as his wooden blade shivered into long, sharp splinters. As the Grumman sagged, Resser spun about to jam the splintered end of the toy sword into the eye of another attacker, through the thin bone into the man’s brain.

  The remaining student— Wod Sedir, nephew of the King of Niushe— delivered a sharp kick to send a smoking maula pistol up into the air. His opponent had fired it repeatedly, but missed his weaving target. Wod Sedir followed through with his heel under the Grumman’s jaw, shattering his neck, then grabbed the pistol as it fell and turned toward the other Grummans— but the pistol clicked on an empty charge. Within seconds, he became a pincushion of flèchette needles.

  “Goes to show you,” Grieu Kronos said, “the gunman beats the swordsman every time.”

  After less than thirty seconds, Duncan and Resser found themselves side by side, at the edge of the boat. The only ones left.

  The Moritani murderers closed in on the survivors, brandishing an arsenal of weapons. They hesitated, looked to their leader for direction.

  “How well can you swim, Resser?” Duncan asked, looking over his shoulder at the heaving swells of dark water.

  “Better than I can drown,” the redhead said. He saw the men draw their projectile pistols, weighed the possibility of being able to grab one of the enemy and drag the man over the side of the boat. But he dismissed it as impossible.

  From a safe distance, the Grummans took aim. With a sudden movement of his arm, Duncan knocked Resser back into the railing and lunged after him. Both of them tumbled overboard into the churning sea, far from any visible land, just as the gunfire rang out. Needle flèchettes and blundering maula projectiles blasted the side of the boat, sending up a shower of splinters. In the water, silver needles hissed and stung like a swarm of wasps, but both young men
had already plunged deep, far out of sight.

  The armed attackers rushed to the ruined side of the boat and stared over into the roiling sea. But they spotted nothing. The undertow must have been horrific.

  “Those two are lost,” Trin Kronos said with a scowl, nursing his wrist.

  “Aye,” the big, bearded Grieu answered. “We’ll have to dump the bodies of the others where they’ll be found.”

  All technology is suspect, and must be considered potentially dangerous.

  — BUTLERIAN JIHAD,

  Handbook for Our Grandchildren

  When the terrible news reached the smuggler base on Salusa Secundus, Gurney Halleck had spent the day alone outside the ruined prison city. Working on a ballad about this desolate planet, he sat atop the remains of an ancient wall, strumming on his baliset. Bricks around him had melted into glassy curves from an ancient wave of atomic heat.

  He gazed across a rise, imagining the lavish Imperial structure that might have stood here long ago. His rough but powerful voice drifted beyond the scrub brush and dry land to the accompaniment of the baliset. He paused to shift to a minor key for the mood it imparted . . . and then tried again.

  The sickly-colored clouds and the hazy air put him in the proper frame of mind. For his melancholy music he’d actually been thankful for the weather, though the remaining men in the underground fortress grumbled about the capricious storms.

  This hellhole was better than the slave pits of Giedi Prime any day.

  A gray ornithopter approached from the south, an unmarked craft that belonged to the smugglers, beating its wings through the sluggish sky. Gurney watched out of the corner of his eye as it landed on a salt pan beyond the ancient ruins.

  He concentrated on the images he wanted to evoke in his ballad, the pomp and ceremony of the royal court, the exotic peoples who had journeyed here from distant planets, the finery of their raiment and manners. All gone now. Focusing his thoughts inward, he rubbed the inkvine scar on his jaw. Echoes of bygone times began to tint the perpetual dreariness of Salusa with their glorious colors.