Reverend Mother Mohiam all but rolled her eyes at the suggestion, but granted him leave, gesturing for the Baron to take his time. Tossing aside a bloodstained towel, she lounged back on the divan, comfortable to wait.
Despite his despicable personality, Vladimir Harkonnen was an attractive man, well built with pleasant features: reddish hair, heavy lips, pronounced widow’s peak. However, the Bene Gesserit instilled in all their Sisters the critical belief that sexual intercourse was a mere tool for manipulating men and for obtaining offspring to add to the genetically connected web of the Sisterhood. Mohiam never intended to enjoy the act, no matter her orders. Nevertheless, she did find it pleasurable to have the Baron under her thumb, to be able to force him into submission.
The Reverend Mother sat back, closed her eyes, and concentrated on the flow and ebb of hormones in her body, the inner workings of her reproductive system . . . preparing herself.
She knew what the Baron’s answer had to be.
• • •
“Piter!” the baron strode down the halls. “Where’s my Mentat?”
De Vries slipped out of an adjoining hall, where he’d been intending to use the hidden observation holes he’d placed in the Baron’s private chambers.
“I’m here, my Baron,” he said, then swigged from a tiny vial. The sapho taste triggered responses in his brain, firing his neurons, stoking his mental capabilities. “What did the witch request? What is she up to?”
The Baron wheeled, finally finding an appropriate target for his rage. “She wants me to impregnate her! The sow!”
Impregnate her? de Vries thought, adding this to his Mentat database. At hyper speed he reassessed the problem.
“She wants to bear my girl-child! Can you believe it? They know about my spice stockpiles, too!”
De Vries was in Mentat mode. Fact: The Baron would never have children any other way. He loathes women. Besides, politically, he is too careful to spread his seed indiscriminately.
Fact: The Bene Gesserit have broad genetic records on Wallach IX, numerous breeding plans, the results of which are open to interpretation. Given a child by the Baron— a daughter instead of a son?— what could the witches hope to accomplish?
Is there some flaw— or advantage— in Harkonnen genetics they wish to exploit? Do they simply wish to do this because they consider it the most humiliating punishment they can inflict upon the Baron? If so, how has the Baron personally offended the Sisterhood?
“The thought of it disgusts me! Rutting with that broodmare,” the Baron growled. “But I’m nearly mad with curiosity. What can the Sisterhood possibly want?”
“I’m unable to make a projection, Baron. Insufficient data.”
The Baron looked as if he wanted to strike de Vries, but refrained. “I’m not a Bene Gesserit stud!”
“Baron,” de Vries said calmly, “if they truly have information about your spice-stockpiling activities, you cannot afford to have that exposed. Even if they were bluffing, your reaction has no doubt already told them all they need to know. If they offer proof to Kaitain, the Emperor will bring his Sardaukar here to exterminate House Harkonnen and set up another Great House in our stead on Arrakis, just as they removed Richese before us. Elrood would like that, no doubt. He and CHOAM can withdraw their contracts from any of your holdings at any time. They might even give Arrakis and the spice production to, say, House Atreides . . . just to spite you.”
“Atreides!” The Baron wanted to spit. “I’d never let my holdings fall into their hands.”
De Vries knew he had struck the right chord. The feud between Harkonnen and Atreides had started many generations before, during the tragic events of the Battle of Corrin.
“You must do as the witch demands, Baron,” he said. “The Bene Gesserit have won this round of the game. Priority: Protect the fortunes of your House, your spice holdings, and your illicit stockpiles.” The Mentat smiled. “Then get your revenge later.”
The Baron looked gray, his skin suddenly blotched. “Piter, from this instant forward I want you to begin erasing the evidence and dispersing our stockpiles. Spread them to places where no one will think to look.”
“On the planets of our allies, too? I wouldn’t recommend that, Baron. Too many complexities setting it up. And alliances change.”
“Very well.” His spider-black eyes lit up. “Put most of it on Lankiveil, right under the nose of my stupid half brother. They’ll never suspect Abulurd’s collusion in any of this.”
“Yes, my Baron. A very good idea.”
“Of course it’s a good idea!” He frowned, looked around. Thinking of his half brother had reminded him of his cherished nephew. “Where is Rabban? Maybe the witch can use his sperm instead.”
“I doubt it, Baron,” de Vries said. “Their genetic plans are usually specific.”
“Well, where is he anyway? Rabban!” The Baron spun about and paced the hall, as if looking for something to stalk. “I haven’t seen him in a day.”
“Off on another one of his silly hunts, up at Forest Guard Station.” De Vries suppressed a smile. “You are on your own here, my Baron, and I think you’d better get to your bedchamber. You have a duty to perform.”
The basic rule is this: Never support weakness; always support strength.
—The Bene Gesserit Azhar Book,
Compilation of Great Secrets
The light cruiser soared out over a night wasteland unmarked by Giedi Prime’s city lights or industrial smoke. Alone in a holding pen in the belly of the aircraft, Duncan Idaho watched through a plaz port as the expanse of Barony prison dropped behind them like a geometrical bubo, festering with trapped and tortured humanity.
At least his parents were no longer prisoners. Rabban had killed them, just to make him angry and willing to fight. Over the past several days of preparations, Duncan’s anger had indeed increased.
The bare metal walls of the cruiser’s lower hold were etched with a verdigris of frost. Duncan was numb, his heart leaden, his nerves shocked into silence, his skin an unfeeling blanket around him. The engines throbbed through the floor plates. On the decks above, he could hear the restive hunting party shuffling about in their padded armor. The men carried guns with tracking scopes. They laughed and chatted, ready for the evening’s game.
Rabban was up there, too.
In order to give young Duncan what they called “a sporting chance,” the hunting party had armed him with a dull knife (saying they didn’t want him to hurt himself), a handlight, and a small length of rope: everything an eight-year-old child should need to elude a squadron of professional Harkonnen hunters on their own well-scouted ground. . . .
Above, in a warm and padded seat, Rabban smiled at the thought of the terrified, angry child in the hold. If this Duncan Idaho were bigger and stronger, he would be as dangerous as any animal. The kid was tough for his size, Rabban had to admit. The way he had eluded elite Harkonnen trainers inside the bowels of Barony was admirable, especially that trick with the suspensor tube.
The cruiser flew far from the prison city, away from the oil-soaked industrial areas, to a wilderness preserve on high ground, a place with dark pines and sandstone bluff faces, caves and rocks and streams. The tailored wilderness even hosted a few examples of genetically enhanced wildlife, vicious predators as eager for a boy’s tender flesh as the Harkonnen sportsmen themselves.
The cruiser alighted in a boulder-strewn meadow; the deck canted at a steep angle, then shifted to norm as stabilizers leveled the craft. Rabban sent a signal from the control band at his waist.
The hydraulic door in front of the boy hissed open, freeing him from his cage. The chill night air stung his cheeks. Duncan considered just dashing out into the open. He could run fast and take refuge in the thick pines. Once there, he would burrow beneath the dry brown needles and drift into a self-protective slumber.
But Rabban wanted the boy to run and hide, and he knew he wouldn’t get very far. For the moment Duncan had to act on instinct tem
pered with cleverness. It wasn’t the time for an unexpected, reckless action. Not yet.
Duncan would wait at the cruiser until the hunters explained the rules to him, though he could certainly guess what he was supposed to do. It was a bigger arena, a longer chase, higher stakes . . . but in essence the same game he had trained for in the prison city.
The upper hatch slid open behind him to reveal two light-haloed forms: a person he recognized as the hunt captain from Barony, and the broad-shouldered man who had killed Duncan’s mother and father. Rabban.
Turning away from the sudden light, the boy kept his dark-adapted eyes toward the open meadow and the thick shadows of black-needled trees. It was a starlit night. Pain shot through Duncan’s ribs from the earlier rough training, but he tried to put it out of his mind.
“Forest Guard Station,” the hunt captain said to him. “Like a vacation in the wilderness. Enjoy it! This is a game, boy— we leave you here, give you a head start, and then we come hunting.” His eyes narrowed. “Make no mistake, though. This is different from your training sessions in Barony. If you lose, you’ll be killed, and your stuffed head will join Lord Rabban’s other trophies on a wall.”
Beside him, the Baron’s nephew gave Duncan a thick-lipped smile. Rabban trembled with excitement and anticipation, and his sunburned face flushed.
“What if I get away?” Duncan said in a piping voice.
“You won’t,” Rabban answered.
Duncan didn’t press the issue. If he forced an answer, the man would simply have lied to him anyway. If he managed to escape, he would just have to make up his own rules.
They dumped him out onto the frost-smeared meadow. He had only thin clothes, worn shoes. The cold of the night hit him like a hammer.
“Stay alive as long as you can, boy,” Rabban called from the door of the cruiser, ducking back inside as the throb of the engines increased in tempo. “Give me a good hunt. My last one was very disappointing.”
Duncan stood immobile as the craft lifted into the air and roared off toward a guarded lodge and outpost. From there, after a few drinks, the hunting party would march out and track down their prey.
Maybe the Harkonnens would toy with him a while, enjoying their sport . . . or maybe by the time they caught him they would be chilled to the bone, longing for a hot beverage, and they’d simply use their weapons to cut him to pieces at the first opportunity.
Duncan sprinted toward the shelter of trees.
Even when he left the meadow behind, his feet left an obvious trail of bent grass blades in the frost. He brushed against thick evergreen boughs, disturbed the chuff of dead needles as he scrambled upslope toward some rugged sandstone outcroppings.
In the handlight beam, he saw cold steam-breath bursting like heartbeats from his nostrils and mouth. He toiled up a talus slope, tending toward the steepest bluff faces. When he struck the rocks, he grasped with his hands, digging into crumbling sedimentary rock. Here, at least, he wouldn’t leave many footprints, though pockets of old, crystalline snow had drifted like small dunes on the ledges.
The outcroppings protruded from the side of the ridge, sentinels above the carpet of forest. Wind and rain had eaten holes and notches out of the cliffs, some barely large enough for rodents’ nests, some sufficient to hide a grown man. Driven by desperation, Duncan climbed until he could barely breathe from the exertion.
When he reached the top of an exposed sandwich of rock that was rust and tan in his light beam, he squatted on his heels and looked all around, assessing his wilderness surroundings. He wondered if the hunters were coming yet. They wouldn’t be far behind him.
Animals howled in the distance. He flipped off the light to conceal himself better. The old injuries to his ribs and back burned with pain, and his upper arm throbbed where the pulsing locator beacon was implanted.
Behind him, more shadowy bluffs rose tall and steep, honeycombed with notches and ledges, adorned with scraggly trees like unsightly whiskers sprouting from a facial blemish. It was a long, long way to the nearest city, the nearest spaceport.
Forest Guard Station. His mother had told him of this isolated hunting preserve, a particular favorite of the Baron’s nephew. “Rabban’s so cruel because he needs to prove he’s not like his father,” she had once said.
The young boy had spent most of the nearly nine years of his life inside giant buildings, smelling recycled air laden with lubricants, solvents, and exhaust chemicals. He had never known how cold this planet could get, how frigid the nights . . . or how clear the stars.
Overhead, the sky was a vault of immense blackness, filled with tiny light-splashes, a rainstorm of pinpricks piercing the distances of the galaxy. Far out there, Guild Navigators used their minds to guide city-sized Heighliners between stars.
Duncan had never seen a Guild ship, had never been away from Giedi Prime— and now doubted he ever would. Living inside an industrial city, he’d never had reason to learn the patterns of stars. But even if he had known his compass points or recognized the constellations, he still had no place to go. . . .
Sitting atop the outcropping, looking out into the sharp coldness, Duncan studied his world. He huddled over and drew his knees up to his chest to conserve body heat, though he still shivered.
In the distance, where the high ground dipped into a wooded valley toward the stark silhouette of the guarded lodge building, he saw a train of lights, bobbing glowglobes like a fairy procession. The hunting party itself, warm and well armed, was sniffing him out, taking their time. Enjoying themselves.
From his vantage point, Duncan watched and waited, cold and forlorn. He had to decide if he wanted to live at all. What would he do? Where would he go? Who would care for him?
Rabban’s lasgun had left nothing of his mother’s face for him to kiss, nothing of her hair for him to stroke. He would never again hear her voice as she called him her “sweet Duncan.”
Now the Harkonnens intended to do the same to him, and he couldn’t prevent it. He was just a boy with a dull knife, a handlight, and a rope. The hunters had Richesian beacon trackers, heated body armor, and powerful weapons. They outnumbered him ten to one. He had no chance.
It might be easier if he just sat there and waited for them to come. Eventually the trackers would find him, inexorably following his implanted signal . . . but he could deny them their sport, spoil their fun. By surrendering, by showing his utter contempt for their barbaric amusements, he could gain a small victory at least: the only one he was likely to have.
Or Duncan Idaho could fight back, try to hurt the Harkonnens even as they hunted him down. His mother and father hadn’t had an opportunity to fight for their lives, but Rabban was giving him that chance.
Rabban considered him a mere helpless boy. The hunting party thought that gunning down a child would provide them with some amusement.
He stood up on stiff legs, brushed his clothes, and stopped his shivers. I won’t go down like that, he decided—just to show them, just to prove they can’t laugh at me.
He doubted the hunters would be wearing personal shields. They wouldn’t think they’d need such protection, not against the likes of him.
The knife handle felt hard and rough in his pocket, useless against decent armor. But he could do something else with the blade, something painfully necessary. Yes, he would fight— for all he was worth.
Crawling up the slope, climbing from rock to fallen tree, maintaining his balance on the scree, Duncan made his way to a small hollowed-out hole in the lumpy sandstone. He avoided the patches of remaining snow, keeping to the iron-frozen dirt so as to leave no obvious tracks.
The tracer implant would bring them directly to him, no matter where he ran.
Above the cave hollow, an overhang in the near-vertical bluff wall provided his second opportunity: loose, lichen-covered sandstone chunks, heavy boulders. Perhaps he could move them. . . .
Duncan crawled inside the shelter of the cave hollow, where he found it no warmer at all. Just da
rker. The opening was low enough that a grown man would have to belly-crawl inside; there was no other way out. This cave wouldn’t offer him much protection. He’d have to hurry.
Squatting there, he switched on the small handlight, pulled off his stained shirt, and brought out the knife. He felt the lump of the tracer implant in the meat of his upper left arm, the back of the tricep at his shoulder.
His skin was already numb from the cold, his mind dulled by the shock of his circumstances. But when he jabbed with the knife, he felt the point dig into his muscle, lighting the nerves on fire. Closing his eyes against reflexive resistance, he cut deeply, prodding and poking with the tip of the blade.
He stared at the dark wall of the cave, saw skeletal shadows cast by the wan light. His right hand moved mechanically, like a probe excavating the tiny tracer. The pain shrank to a dim corner of his awareness.
At last the beacon fell out, a bloody piece of micro-constructed metal clinking to the dirty floor of the cave. Sophisticated technology from Richese. Reeling with pain, Duncan picked up a rock to smash the tracer. Then, thinking better of it, he set the rock down again and moved the tiny device deep into the shadows where no one could see it.
Better to leave the tracer there. As bait.
Crawling outside again, Duncan scooped up a handful of grainy snow. Red droplets spattered on the pale sandstone ledge. He packed the snow against the blood streaming from his shoulder, and the sharp cold deadened the pain of his self-inflicted cut. He pressed the ice hard against the wound until pink-tinged snow melted between his fingers. He grabbed another handful, no longer caring about the obvious marks he left in the drift. The Harkonnens would come to this place anyway.
At least the snow had stanched the flow of blood.
Then Duncan scrambled up and away from the cave, careful to leave no sign of where he was going. He saw the bobbing lights down in the valley split up; members of the hunting party had chosen different routes as they climbed the bluff. A darkened ornithopter whirred overhead.
Duncan moved as quickly as he could, but took care not to splash fresh blood again. He tore strips from his shirt to dab the oozing wound, leaving his chest naked and cold, then he pulled the ragged garment back over his shoulders. Perhaps the forest predators would smell the iron blood scent and hunt him down for food rather than sport. That was a problem he didn’t want to consider right then.
Dune: House Atreides Page 14