Fascinated, he stared for a long time. “Uncle Rhombur! Come see what I found!”
Smiling tolerantly, Rhombur strode across the deck, ready to do his best to explain whatever the child had encountered.
“There, behind the doctor kits.” Victor pointed with a small finger. “See, it’s bright and pretty.”
Rhombur stood behind the boy, bent over to squint. Proud and proprietary, Victor reached deeper inside. “Look at how all the lights blink. I’ll get it so you can see better.”
The boy grasped the device, and Rhombur suddenly sucked in a sharp breath. “No, Victor! That’s a—”
Duke Leto’s son jostled the impedance leads, and activated the tamper-lock timer.
The explosives detonated.
Knowledge is pitiless.
— Orange Catholic Bible
When flames erupted from the aft end of the skyclipper cockpit, the shock wave slammed into Leto like a meteor.
A burned and broken mass of flesh smashed into the front viewing wall beside him, then dropped to the floor. Too large for a child, too small to be a man— a whole man— it left a smear of blackened bodily fluids.
Searing heat roared around him as the air crackled with flames. The rear of the dirigible blazed, engulfed in orange fire.
Yelling uselessly in horrified confusion, Leto wrestled the rudder controls as the wounded skyclipper bucked and reared. Out of the corner of his eye, he couldn’t stop looking at the broken form beside him.
It twitched. Who was it? He didn’t want to know.
A parade of awful images assaulted his retinas, one at a time, lasting the merest fraction of a second. Behind him, he heard a screaming wail that changed abruptly, then dwindled as the flailing silhouette of a man was sucked through a gaping blast hole torn in the bottom of the cabin. The man’s entire body was in flames. It had to be either Rhombur or one of the three guards.
Victor had been at the center of the explosion. . . .
Gone forever.
The crippled skyclipper began to plummet, losing buoyancy as the flammable gas was consumed inside the dirigible’s body. The fabric tore away, and yellow-white fire towered higher. Smoke filled the cockpit.
Leto’s flesh was hot, and he knew his fine black uniform would soon be in flames. Beside him, the wreck of the unidentified body made a mewling sound of pain. . . . He seemed to have the wrong number of arms and legs, and his face was a bloody mass of twisted, unrecognizable flesh.
The skyclipper was crashing.
Below, pundi rice paddies spread out in sinuous rivers, jewel-like ponds, and peaceful villages. The people had gathered, waving pennants to greet his passage. But now, seeing the fireball overhead like the hammer of God, they scrambled for shelter as the skyclipper died in the air. The smaller escort craft flurried around the flaming vessel, but they could do nothing but follow.
Leto tore his mind from its stunned paralysis—Rhombur! Victor!— when suddenly he saw that the airship was hurtling toward one of the farming villages. He would crash in the midst of the gathered people.
Like an animal, he wrestled with the rudders to change the angle of descent, but the flames consumed the hydraulic systems, ate away the buoyant enclosure. Most of the villagers scattered like a panicked herd; others stared helplessly, realizing they could never get away in time.
Knowing in his heart that Victor must be dead, Leto was tempted just to let himself vanish in the bright flames and the explosion. He could close his eyes and lean back, allowing gravity and heat to crush and incinerate him. How simple it would be just to give up. . . .
But when he saw all those people down there— some of them children like Victor— Leto forced back his despair, leaned forward, and fought the controls. There had to be some way to alter course and avoid the village.
“No, no, no . . .” he moaned deep in his throat.
Leto felt no physical pain, only grief that ripped through his heart like a knife. He could not bear to consider all he had lost, could not waste a moment of reflexes and skill. He was fighting for the lives of the people who believed in him and relied on him.
At last one of the rudders turned, and the skyclipper’s nose tipped upward the barest fraction of a degree. Tearing open an emergency panel below his controls, Leto saw that his hands were red and blistered. All around, the flames grew hotter and hotter. But he reached inside and tugged on the curved red levers with all his strength, hoping the escape cables and controls remained active.
As the blaze in the rear of the skyclipper increased, metal clamps thumped open. The tattered dirigible sack split free, disconnected from the cockpit cabin. Guidance sails broke away and flew off in the winds, some singed, some already on fire, like flaming kites without strings.
The cockpit cabin dropped off, and the remainder of the dirigible sack— suddenly freed of the weight of passengers and the thick-walled cabin— rose like a comet blazing in the sky. Correspondingly, the self-contained cabin dropped at a steeper angle. Glider wings extended, snapping into place, braking the descent. Damaged suspensor mechanisms struggled to function.
Leto pushed hard against the control grip. The hot air seemed to be melting his lungs with every breath he gasped. The tangled trees bordering soft islands in the rice marshes rose up at him. Their thorns were stiff fingers with sharpened ends, a forest of claws. He loosed a wordless howl. . . .
Even the Old Duke’s end in the bullring would never be remembered as more spectacular than this final flash of glory. . . .
At the last possible instant, Leto added just a little lift and power, as much as he could wring from the damaged suspensors and engines. He skimmed past the crowded village, singeing ramshackle roofs, and crashed into the rice marshes beyond.
The cockpit cabin hit the saturated ground like an ancient artillery shell. Mud, water, and shattered trees sprayed up into the air. The walls folded and collapsed.
The impact hurled Leto from his seat into the front bulkhead, and then dropped him back down to the floor. Brownish water poured through ruptures in the cabin until finally, with a groan and a shriek, the wreckage came to a rest.
Leto slipped into peaceful darkness. . . .
The greatest and most important problems of life cannot be solved. They can only be outgrown.
— SISTER JESSICA, private journal entry
In a light tropical rain, the survivors among the senior Swordmasters strode along the explosion-pocked pavement of what had formerly been the historic central plaza of the Ginaz School.
Duncan Idaho, already battle-proven, stood in their midst; he had discarded his torn tunic. Beside him, Hiih Resser kept his shirt on, though it was drenched in blood— mostly not his own. Both of them were full-fledged Swordmasters now, but they had no desire to celebrate their triumph.
Duncan just wanted to go home, to Caladan.
Though it had been more than a day since the Grumman sneak attack, fire and rescue crews still worked in the rubble, using sleek dogs and trained ferrets to sniff for signs of life. But buried survivors were few.
The central plaza’s once-lovely fountain had been demolished by shrapnel. Smoking debris lay all around. The odor of death and fire lingered in the air, not dissipated by the sea breezes.
The Moritani soldiers had intended only a damaging hit-and-run strike; they had made no preparations— and had no stomach— for a prolonged battle. Shortly after the Ginaz fighters rallied their weapons for defense, the Grummans left their fallen soldiers behind. They abandoned their damaged aircraft and rushed back to waiting frigates. No doubt, Viscount Moritani was already publicly justifying his heinous actions— and privately celebrating his sneak attack, no matter how much blood it had cost his own men.
“We study and teach fighting, but Ginaz is not a military world,” Whitmore Bludd said; his fine clothing looked all the worse now, soot-stained and bedraggled. “We strive to remain independent of political matters.”
“We made assumptions and got caught sleeping,” Je
h-Wu said, turning his perpetual sarcasm on himself for once. “We would have killed any new student for such blind arrogance. And we are guilty of it ourselves.”
Weary to the bone, Duncan looked at the men who had once been so proud, and saw how defeated they looked.
“Ginaz should never have been a target for aggression.” Rivvy Dinary bent over to pick up a mangled strip of metal, once part of an ornamental clockwork sculpture. “We assumed—”
“You assumed,” Duncan cut him off, and they had no answer.
• • •
Duncan and his redheaded friend took the body of Trin Kronos and dumped it out into the crashing surf near the main training center— the same spot where the kidnappers had dropped the corpses of their other four victims. The gesture seemed right, the appropriate symbolic response, but the pair took no satisfaction from it.
Now, the gathered fighting men shook their heads in dismay as they inspected the damaged administration building. Duncan vowed to never forget the arrogance of the Swordmasters, how it had led to so much trouble. Even the ancients understood the danger of hubris, of the pride before the fall; had men learned nothing in all these thousands of years?
Like his companions, Duncan now wore a Swordmaster’s khaki uniform and red bandanna. Black bands encircled their left arms, in honor of more than a hundred Swordmasters who had died in the Moritani assault.
“We relied on Imperial law to protect us,” an injured Mord Cour said, sounding weak and small. He seemed very different from the man who had taught the drama of epic poetry and made students weep as he recited legendary stories. Both of his arms were bandaged. “But the Grummans didn’t care. They have flouted our most sacred traditions, spat upon the very foundation of the Imperium.”
“Not everyone plays by the rules,” Duncan said, unable to suppress his bitterness. “Trin Kronos told us himself. We just didn’t listen to him.” Rivvy Dinari’s jowly face flushed.
“House Moritani will get a slap on the wrist,” Jeh-Wu said, his lips puckered into a frown. “They’ll be fined, perhaps embargoed— and they will continue to laugh at us.”
“How can anyone respect the prowess of Ginaz now?” Bludd groaned. “The school is disgraced. The damage to our reputation is immense.”
Mord Cour stared up at the hazy sky, and his long gray hair hung like a shroud around his head. “We must remake the school. Just like the followers of Jool-Noret did, after their Master drowned.”
Duncan studied the grizzled old Swordmaster, remembered the man’s tumultuous lifetime after his village had been wiped out, how he had lived a feral life in the mountainsides of Hagal, then returned to join— and slay— the bandits who had killed his neighbors and family. If anyone could accomplish such a dramatic resurrection, Cour could.
“We will never be so helpless again,” Rivvy Dinari promised, his voice filled with emotion. “Our Premier has promised to station two full combat units here, and we are acquiring a squad of minisubs to patrol the waters. We are Swordmasters, righteous in our prowess— and this enemy caught us completely unprepared. We are ashamed.” With a graceful move, he kicked a twisted scrap of metal, sending it clattering into the street. “Honor is slipping away. What is the Imperium coming to?”
Overwhelmed by his own thoughts, Duncan stepped around a splash of blood on the pavement, which glistened in the warm rain. Resser bent to look at it, as if he could draw some information from the rusty puddle, some indication of whether the fallen victim was enemy, or ally, or bystander.
“A lot of questions need to be asked,” Bludd said, his voice edged by suspicion. “We must dig deeply enough to find out what really happened.” He puffed out his chest. “And we will. I’m a soldier first and an educator second.”
His companions grunted in agreement.
Seeing something sparkle in a pile of rubble, Duncan stepped over debris to retrieve it. He pulled out a silver bracelet, wiped it on his sleeve. Tight clusters of charms hung from the band . . . tiny swords, Guild Heighliners, ornithopters. Rejoining the others, Duncan handed it to Dinari.
“Let us hope it didn’t belong to a child,” the bulky man said.
Duncan had already seen four dead children dragged from the debris, the sons and daughters of school employees. The final death toll would be in the thousands. Could it all be traced back to the single insult of expelling Grumman students, which had been a justifiable act in response to House Moritani’s outrageous attack on innocent Ecazi civilians . . . which had been caused by the assassination of an ambassador at a banquet on Arrakis . . . which in turn had been provoked by suspected crop sabotage?
But the Grumman students had made their own choices about staying or leaving. It was all so senseless. Trin Kronos had lost his life over it, and too many others with him. When would it end?
Resser still intended to return to Grumman, though it seemed suicidal for him to do so. He had his own demons to face there, but Duncan hoped he would survive them, and eventually make his way to Duke Leto. After all, Resser was a Swordmaster.
A few of the Swordmasters halfheartedly suggested offering their services as mercenaries for Ecaz. Some of the Masters insisted that they regain their honor first. Skilled fighters were needed on Ginaz to rebuild the decimated school faculty. The famed academy would be years recovering from this.
But, while Duncan felt a deep sense of loss and anger for what had happened here, his first allegiance was to Duke Leto Atreides. For eight years Duncan had been forged in fire like the layered steel of a sword. And that sword was sworn to House Atreides.
He would return to Caladan.
Why look for meaning where there is none? Would you follow a path you know leads nowhere?
— Query of the Mentat School
The nightmares were bad, but waking was infinitely worse.
When Leto returned to consciousness in the infirmary, the night nurse greeted him, telling him he was lucky to be alive. Leto didn’t feel so lucky. Seeing his dismal expression, the male nurse with heavy spectacles said, “There is some good news. Prince Rhombur survived.”
Leto took a deep, agitated breath. His lungs felt as if he had swallowed ground glass. He tasted blood in his saliva. “And Victor?” He could hardly get the words out.
The nurse shook his head. “I’m sorry.” After a somber pause, the man added, “You need more rest. I don’t want to trouble you with details about the bomb. There is time enough for that later. Thufir Hawat is investigating.” He reached into a pocket of his smock. “Let me give you a sleeping capsule.”
Leto shook his head vehemently, extended a warding hand. “I’ll go back to sleep on my own.” Victor is dead!
Not entirely satisfied, but deferring to the royal patient, the nurse told him not to get out of bed. A voice-activated call-unit hovered in the air over the bed. Leto just had to speak into it.
Victor is dead. My son! Leto had known it already . . . but now he had to face the terrible reality. And a bomb. Who could have done such a thing?
Despite the medical orders, the stubborn Duke watched the night nurse go into a room across the corridor to tend another patient. Rhombur? From his bed, Leto could just see one edge of an open doorway.
Ignoring the pain, Leto pulled himself to a sitting position on the infirmary bed. Moving like a damaged Ixian mek, he levered himself up from crisp sheets that smelled of perspiration and bleach and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His bare feet touched the floor.
Where was Rhombur? Everything else could wait. He needed to see his friend. Someone has killed my son! Leto felt a surge of anger, and a sharp pain across the top of his head.
His vision focused to a pinprick, and he concentrated on a tiny goal in front of him as he took one step, then a second. . . . His ribs were bandaged, and his lungs burned. Plaskin salve made his face feel stiff, like soft stone. He had not looked in a mirror to see the extent of the damage. He didn’t worry about scars, didn’t care at all. Nothing could heal the deep, irreparable dam
age to his soul. Victor was dead. My son, my son!
Incredibly, Rhombur had survived, but where was he?
A bomb on the skyclipper . . .
Leto took one more step, then another away from the diagnostic apparatus beside the bed. Outside, a cold storm blew, splattering raindrops like pellets against the sealed windows behind him. The infirmary lights were dimmed in the gloomy night. He staggered out of the room.
Reeling in the doorway of the room across the corridor, he grasped the jamb to maintain his balance, then blinked before he stumbled toward brighter light inside, where the glowglobes were whiter, colder. The large room was divided by a dark curtain that waved slightly in the shadows. Sharp odors assailed him from chemicals and cold air-purification systems.
Disoriented, he didn’t consider consequences or implications. He only knew for certain, like a tolling bell in his mind, that Victor was gone. Killed in flames or sucked out with the explosion. Was it a Harkonnen assassination plot against House Atreides? A vengeful attack by the Tleilaxu against Rhombur? Someone trying to eliminate Leto’s heir?
It was difficult for the Duke to explore such matters through the fuzz of pain medications, through the stupor of grief. He could barely maintain the mental energy to proceed from one moment to the next. Despair was like a soaked blanket, smothering him. Despite his determination, Leto was sorely tempted to fall into a deep, comforting well of surrender.
I must see Rhombur.
He slid the curtain open, passed through. In low light, a coffin-shaped life-support pod was hooked up to tubes and pipes. Leto focused his efforts and took laboring steps, cursing the pain that caused his movements to falter. A mechanically operated bellows pumped oxygen into the sealed chamber. Rhombur lay within.
Dune: House Harkonnen Page 60