Paul of Dune

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Without further delay, Paul marched out of his throne room and gestured for the Guild representative to go with him. “Stilgar, you will accompany me as well. This is a military matter. I may require your knowledge and advice.”

  Olar was the type of ambassador Paul preferred: Even though the man was filled with questions and his expression exhibited a great deal of alarm, he was smart enough not to voice every thought that sprang to his mind. Other more garrulous diplomats would have begged for clarification, and made excuses or apologies regardless of what the problem was.

  But these Guildsmen knew damned well what they had done: how they had knowingly aided bloodthirsty rebels and were about to assist in an appalling attack on the world Paul had called home for much of his life. Seeing Muad’Dib’s mood, Olar had concluded correctly that he would get no answers, and that questions would only make matters worse.

  When the shuttle was finally aboard the Heighliner and had settled into a docking clamp, a walkway extended so that Paul could disembark onto the shell decks. At the end of the walkway stood Guild security men wearing sidearms and blocking his way.

  Stilgar barked, “Stand aside and remove your weapons in the presence of Muad’Dib!”

  Another Guild representative, also in a gray robe, stood behind the security men like a shadow. “Apologies, Sire. For reasons of safety and security, it is Spacing Guild policy that no outsider can disturb a Navigator aboard a Heighliner. All matters must be brought before the appropriate officials. As the highest-ranking representative aboard this ship, I will be happy to deal with the Emperor’s concerns.”

  “You may come with us, then, but I will speak with the Navigator.”

  “Sire, perhaps I was not clear —” the man began. The security men still did not move.

  Paul said, “This is my ship, as are all Guildships. Instruct your guards to stand aside immediately and tell your Navigator to anticipate my arrival, unless he would like to spend the rest of his life breathing whatever spice vapors remain in his tank, for if you defy me I will allow no further melange to leave Arrakis.”

  Olar interceded. “This is an extraordinary request, but Emperor Muad’Dib so rarely makes demands upon us. I suggest we listen to what he has to say.”

  The Guild official, who probably outranked Olar, scowled but gestured for the security men to stand aside. Paul strode between them, with Stilgar half a step behind. The Guildsmen led the way to the Navigator’s deck.

  The Navigator was an exotic creature, enclosed in a tank of thick orange gas that reeked of melange, even through its seals. The dense cloud disguised some of the creature’s deformities — which were somehow linked to his mental enhancements — but through the thick plaz Paul could discern the bobbing, overlarge head on a wattled stalk of a neck. He had never seen a Steersman personally, but he could not waste time staring now.

  “Beric,” said Olar. “Our Emperor Muad’Dib wishes to —”

  Paul interjected loudly, without preamble. “I know of the plot Memnon Thorvald intends to launch against my homeworld of Caladan, and I know of the Guild’s collusion with him.”

  “Sire, we have no knowledge of this whatsoever,” Olar said.

  “The Spacing Guild is loyal to Muad’Dib,” stated the other official, whose name was insignificant to Paul. “We know that you control the spice, and thus control all space travel. Why would we support any rebellion?”

  Beric the Guild Navigator, interestingly, said nothing.

  Paul said, “With my prescience, I have seen Thorvald’s warships being taken aboard two Guild Heighliners. I have also seen that this very ship in which I stand has carried the troops and weaponry of twelve other rebel noblemen who are allied with him. Thus, I know the Guild is not only aware, but is willingly cooperating.”

  “Perhaps… prescient vision… imperfect,” Beric finally said, a distorted voice through the speakers of his tank.

  “And is your prescient vision imperfect, when you choose safe paths for a ship to travel?” Paul countered.

  “Not… mine,” Beric said. “But prescience is…” His eerie voice trailed off, as he apparently decided not to pursue a particular line of reasoning.

  Paul looked around the thick-walled chamber. The smell of recycled spice was dizzying. Indeed, in the Navigator’s presence with its folds of tangled timelines, the acuity of Paul’s predictive vision was greatly diminished. Admittedly his own prescience did not always function perfectly. In this case, however, his melange dream had shown him all of the ships and all of Thorvald’s soldiers. Without any doubt, he had seen the attack they meant to lead.

  He knew.

  “Would you like me to describe every one of their ships?” Paul said. “Shall I name every one of the planets where they were picked up? The Guild has willingly provided transport to those who are leading an insurrection against me. All of Thorvald’s allies will be aboard two specific Heighliners. They intend to launch an assault against Caladan — against Caladan! They want to take my mother and Gurney Halleck hostage, or kill them… and you have cooperated in this.”

  Listening to the accusations, Stilgar seemed to tense, like a tightly wound spring; he clearly did not like this Navigator. The naib’s blue-within-blue gaze flicked back and forth, and he wrapped his hand around the crysknife at his waist, ready to kill if necessary.

  Both Olar and the unnamed official vehemently denied the charges, but Paul would hear none of it. “These are the commands of your Emperor. The Heighliners containing Memnon Thorvald and the ships in his rebel fleet will be taken out into deep space. There, the Navigators will empty their holds. Completely. Every enemy war vessel, with all soldiers aboard, are to be stranded there. Leave them surrounded by emptiness, with no hope of finding their way home, with no extra supplies and no additional air.”

  Olar bit back a yelp. “Sire, that will kill them all!”

  “Yes, that will kill them all — for a start. Stil, I want you to arrange for a military assault on Lord Thorvald’s home planet. Bring as many weapons as you require — enough to sterilize that whole world. Everyone dead.”

  “Sterilize?” Stilgar opened and closed his mouth, not sure what to say. Then: “Is that really necessary?”

  Paul saw in the desert man’s eyes the thought of how long his people had struggled to nurture life on Dune, following the long-term vision of Pardot Kynes and his son Liet. How could Muad’Dib possibly suggest annihilating all plant and animal life on an entire planet? Now, when so much work was being done to breathe a renewed ecosystem onto Arrakis?

  But Thorvald was willing to attack Caladan. And Paul’s mother. Duncan Idaho had once told him, while they were fleeing the assassin-trackers in the wilds of Caladan, “There is no room for compassion toward people who are trying to kill us.”

  Worse, if the appalling Caladan attack succeeded, then other enemies might grow bolder and target additional victims the Emperor cared about, all of whom were easier to get to than he was: Chani, Alia, Stilgar, and even Irulan.

  He could not allow it. The lesson must be taught — a lesson that would stop further violence. Let the perpetrators feel the pain they would have inflicted upon me.

  “Sterilized, Stil. The Guild will provide transportation for whatever ships you choose to send. And when it is done” — he turned back to the Navigator in his tank — “only then will I consider forgiving you for your indiscretions.”

  Olar swallowed twice more. “You cannot mean this, Sire. Ejecting those ships into deep space, sterilizing a planet —”

  “Five years ago when the Emperor’s troops were here, I threatened to destroy all spice on Arrakis in order to make my point. Why should I make any lesser threat now? You have seen the ferocity of my followers. If it is meant to be, my Fremen will have no objection to staying on Dune, without space travel, completely cut off. They can survive, will survive. They don’t care if anyone else does.”

  Finally, from inside his tank, Beric conceded. “What you command, my Lord, shall be do
ne.”

  Paul was gratified to note that this Navigator had the good sense to be afraid of Muad’Dib.

  Once, I struggled in my small body, knowing that others saw something innocent and harmless. They underestimated me. My Harkonnen grandfather underestimated me, and I killed him with the gom jabbar. Now that people view me with awe, I have the opposite problem. They are beginning to believe I am perfect, infallible, and omnipotent.

  —ALIA, letter to Lady Jessica on Caladan

  In her private rooms, Alia kept the poisonous scorpions inside their tank, mainly to protect others. Occasionally, with her door closed and the moisture seals in place, she opened the tank and let the creatures run loose, skittering into corners and under her bed. Some of them even liked to climb the stone blocks of the walls, as if trying to escape into the freedom of the desert.

  Since their adventure out on the open dunes catching sandtrout, Alia and Marie had been watched much more closely. Fortunately, they had plenty of other activities with which to occupy themselves. For the past several days, they had gone back to hiding in particular sections of the vast citadel complex, each girl using logic and detective work to discover where the other might conceal herself. The amazon guards allowed them a certain freedom of movement, and they seemed to accept this childish version of Alia more easily than the frighteningly intelligent one.

  Today, the two girls remained locked in Alia’s chambers, where they could talk and play in private. Having loosed her scorpions again, Alia sat on her pallet and let the creatures crawl over the blankets and climb up her arms and legs; some were in her hair.

  Alia lay back and relaxed, letting the scorpions skitter over her body. “Even if they sting me, the poison will have no effect. I am a Reverend Mother. I can control my body chemistry.” She cupped one of the arachnids in the palm of her hand. It twitched its long tail, threatening to sting, but did not harm her.

  Marie sat down on the bed beside her. The scorpions scuttled away, then turned about and approached cautiously. Alia warned, “I let them out only for myself. Their poison will be fatal to you if you are stung. You must be careful.”

  “I am being careful, and I’m not worried.” Marie plucked one of the creatures from the blanket on Alia’s pallet. Gently, she folded its angular legs together, then set it on her forearm. Agitated, the scorpion twitched its tail back and forth, then raised its claws in a combat position. “They won’t sting me either.”

  Not moving, Alia watched with curious intensity, not wanting to startle the scorpion. The one in her hair moved about as if searching for a place to nest, then came forward to peer over her bangs.

  Marie picked up a second scorpion and set it on her leg, while Alia breathed evenly, fascinated. “They won’t sting me,” Marie said again, with complete confidence.

  And they didn’t.

  All blessings be upon Muad’Dib, just as His blessings flow like cool water upon the faithful. His Holiness cherishes beauty and purity. In Him, we shall all be safe. Muad’Dib the Protector.

  —Fremen hymn

  The face of Guild Representative Olar was somber and unreadable as he offered a cylinder to Paul — a solido holographic recording encased in ornate and costly trappings. “Muad’Dib issued his command and did not require proof from the Spacing Guild. We accept that as a measure of your trust.”

  “I had no doubt you would follow my instructions,” Paul replied from a heavy chair of polished windstone. When the Emperor made no move, Stilgar accepted the gift from the Guild and regarded it curiously.

  With Irulan and Chani, they were in a small, thick-walled war council room. Though Paul sensed the import of Olar’s message, he chose to meet him here in this austere, windowless place, rather than in the cavernous audience chamber with all the trouble of having security teams sweep and resweep, scanning visitors and crowds of onlookers for hidden weapons. Rumors were already rushing through the citadel and the streets of Arrakeen that the Guildsman had returned.

  Olar took two respectful steps backward. “Then consider this recording neither evidence nor proof, but merely an item of interest. An Emperor should witness firsthand the absolute defeat of his enemies.”

  Stilgar inserted the cylinder into a display mechanism. Images recorded by the Navigator in a distant Guild Heighliner began to unfold in the air before them. The viewfield showed the starry void of space, and the Guildship’s curved doors open to expose an immense hold. Then hundreds of warships were dropped pell-mell from docking cradles and ejected into the emptiness, as if the Heighliner had spewed them from its belly. Afterward, like a great metal whale, the craft moved on, leaving the smaller craft scattered and disoriented.

  The audio was filled with comline chatter from the stranded crews and passengers: demands, curses, pleas. One of the embedded images showed Thorvald himself, with his pale skin and large silver-shot beard shaking with fury. “We paid you! We demand our passage.”

  The Heighliner did not respond.

  “Where are we?” Thorvald shouted. But the Heighliner merely drifted away until the cluster of rebel warships was merely a spray of sparkling lights in its wake, not unlike the stars from which the stranded people had emanated.

  Left alone, in the absolute emptiness.

  The projection faded, and the viewfield vanished.

  In the chamber, Olar spoke. “They are in a great desert of space, and the nearest star system is eighteen parsecs distant. No one but the original Navigator can find them, Sire.”

  “How long will their life-support systems last?” Irulan asked.

  “A few days, at most. They were expecting only a brief passage.”

  Paul’s brow furrowed as he completed his mental arithmetic. “Wait twelve days and have your Navigator retrieve the ships. When you return with the bodies — all of them — I will grant the Guild a generous reward of melange.”

  Olar bowed, but not before a faint smile touched his lips.

  Paul could see from the hard expression on Chani’s face that she would have inflicted a more heinous Fremen torture upon this man who had caused so much harm to the Jihad and to her beloved. But he had seen enough excesses and would not add to them unnecessarily.

  Paul turned to his Minister of State. “Stilgar, see to it that this recording is widely distributed amongst my subjects. Many of them have had a taste for Thorvald’s blood for a long time.”

  Next he regarded Irulan. “Prepare a message cylinder for Caladan as well. I fear I have trampled the feelings of those people. There are things I want them to know.”

  WHEN THE COURIER arrived with the sealed message cylinder and its accompanying copy of the Heighliner holo recording, Jessica stood in a high tower of Castle Caladan. For a long moment, she avoided breaking the seal. It disturbed her to think that she did not really know her own son, that she could not guess what demands Paul — or perhaps it was safer to think of him as the Emperor Muad’Dib — would make of her. What Imperial plans did he have for Caladan? What if he summoned her back to Arrakis and insisted that she sit at his side? And what would happen if she refused?

  Out of habit, she murmured the Litany Against Fear, then opened the cylinder. She ignored the brief formal message from Irulan and sank into a window seat to read the words Paul had written in Atreides battle language on a sheet of spice paper.

  “Mother, I have not forgotten Caladan. Its people, its land and oceans are dear to me. I have done, and will continue to do, everything in my power to preserve them.”

  She felt a knot form in her stomach as Paul described Thorvald’s plot to devastate Caladan. The knot tightened as she watched the recording of what he had done… and then read of his further intention.

  Finally she pressed her lips together and nodded to herself. Yes, her son had asked without asking, wanting her to let the people know. She would show this message to Gurney first, and then they would do as her son wished.

  AT STILGAR’S SUGGESTION, the punitive assault on Ipyr — the home planet of Memnon Thorva
ld — was conducted by House Atreides battleships. Thorvald’s intent to harm Caladan was a blow aimed toward Paul himself, and House Atreides would respond with indomitable force. The punishment inflicted upon Ipyr would resonate across the worlds of the Imperium.

  A Heighliner carried one hundred of the largest and most powerful Atreides vessels, each loaded to capacity with weapons, explosives, highly toxic chemical bombs, defoliants, and wide-dispersal incendiaries.

  Paul had never given such a frightening command before: Sterilize the world. Memnon Thorvald’s people had to be more than defeated, more than exterminated. They must be… gone.

  The Atreides ships gave no warning, engaged in no negotiations, gave no quarter to the people of Ipyr. They switched off all but their battle communications systems, so no one would hear the wails of terror, the cries for mercy or, afterward, the resounding silence. The heavily armed vessels circled down, calling up charts of every single planetary settlement, and the annihilation began.

  BY THE TONE of the cheering outside the Cala City stadium, Jessica knew that her announcement was exactly what the people needed to hear. In the now rarely used amphitheater that Old Duke Paulus had constructed for his gala bullfighting spectacles, Jessica spoke in a clear voice. Gurney Halleck stood beside her, wearing his best black Atreides uniform.

  “Let no one believe that my son has forgotten his beloved Caladan,” Jessica said. “The galaxy knows him as its Emperor, while Fremen praise him as their Muad’Dib. He is the military leader of the most expansive Jihad the human race has experienced in more than ten thousand years… but he is also my son. And the son of your revered Duke Leto.”

  Cheering, the people waved their green pennants.

  Gurney gave a gruff rumble of agreement, then stepped forward to describe how Thorvald had intended to bring his rebel ships to Caladan, to burn the villages and slaughter the people, inflicting great harm on the homeworld of House Atreides.