“We’ll never receive war reparations, even if we are victorious. My family fortunes will be confiscated, my personal power stripped.” He lowered his voice, trying to hide the despair. “And all to get even with me for taking his woman away from him a long, long time ago.”
“I’ll do whatever you want me to do, Dominic,” she said softly. “You made me your wife instead of your concubine. I’ve always told you . . .” Her words trailed off.
“I know, my love.” He squeezed her hand. “I’d do anything for you, too. It was worth the cost . . . even this.”
“I await your orders, m’Lord,” Ambassador Pilru said, deeply agitated. His son C’tair was out there somewhere, hiding, fighting, perhaps already dead.
Dominic chewed the inside of his mouth. “Clearly, House Vernius has been singled out for destruction, and there is but one alternative. All the fabricated charges mean nothing, and the paper shield of the law lies torn into shreds. The Emperor intends to destroy us, and we cannot fight House Corrino, especially against treachery such as this. I don’t doubt that the Landsraad will stall and then pounce upon the spoils of war.” Glowering, he squared his broad shoulders and stood straighter. “We will take our family atomics and shields and flee beyond the reach of the Imperium.”
Pilru bit back an outcry. “Going . . . renegade, my Lord? What about the rest of us?”
“Unfortunately, we have no choice, Cammar. It’s the only way we can escape with our lives. I want you to contact the Guild and request emergency transport. Invoke any favors they owe us. The Guildsmen observed your session with the Emperor, so they know our situation. Tell them we want to take our military forces with us, too— what little we have left.” Dominic hung his head. “I never imagined it would come to this . . . thrust from our Palace and our cities. . . . “
The Ambassador nodded stiffly, then departed through the shimmer of a shielded doorway.
One wall of the administrative center flashed alive with four projections on separate panels of battles raging all over the planet— color scenes transmitted by portable comeyes. Ixian losses continued to mount.
Shaking his head, Dominic said, “Now we must speak to our closest friends and retainers and inform them of the dangers they will face if they accompany us. It will be much more difficult and dangerous to flee with us than to be subjugated by the Tleilaxu. No one will be forced to go with us; it will be volunteers only. As a renegade House, all of our family members and supporters will be hunted by glory-seekers.”
“Bounty hunters,” Shando said, her voice heavy with mingled sorrow and anger. “You and I will have to separate, Dominic— to throw them off our trail and increase our chances.”
On the wall, two image panels fizzled out, as the Tleilaxu found transmitting comeyes and disabled them.
Dominic softened his voice. “Later, after our House and planet have been restored to us, we’ll remember what we did here and what was said. This is history. High drama. Let me tell you a little story, a parallel case study.”
“I do enjoy your stories,” she said with a gentle smile on her strong yet delicate face. Her hazel eyes danced. “Very well, what will we tell our grandchildren?”
Momentarily he focused on a fresh crack in the ceiling and water that trickled down a wall. “Salusa Secundus was once the Imperial capital world. Do you know why they moved it to Kaitain?”
“Some problem with atomics,” she replied. “Devastation on Salusa.”
“According to the Imperial version, it was an unfortunate accident. But House Corrino only says that because they don’t want to give people ideas. The truth is that another renegade family, a Great House whose name was stripped from historical records, managed to land on Salusa with their family atomics. In a daring raid they bombed the capital and set off an ecological catastrophe. The world still hasn’t recovered.”
“An attack with atomics? I didn’t know that.”
“Afterward the survivors moved the Imperial throne to Kaitain, in a different, more secure solar system, where young Emperor Hassik III rebuilt the government.” Seeing the concern on his wife’s face, he drew her closer and held her tightly. “We won’t fail, my love.”
The last wall panels fizzled and went dead as the Tleilaxu knocked out the remaining comeyes.
In the Imperium there exists the “principle of the individual,” noble but rarely utilized, whereby a person who violates a written law in a situation of extreme peril or need can request a special session of the court of jurisdiction in order to explain and support the necessity of his actions. A number of legal procedures derive from this principle, among them the Drey Jury, the Blind Tribunal, and the Trial by Forfeiture.
—Law of the Imperium: Commentaries
Despite disastrous military losses during the unexpected revolt, many secret places still remained on Ix. Centuries ago, during the paranoid times after House Vernius took over the machine operations, engineers sworn to secrecy had laid down an unrecorded honeycomb of transmission-shielded rooms, algae-chambers, and hideouts masked from discovery by remarkable Ixian ingenuity. It would take centuries for an enemy to ferret them out; even the ruling House had forgotten half of them.
Guided by Captain Zhaz and the troop of personal bodyguards, Leto and Rhombur concealed themselves in an algae-walled chamber, which was entered via an access tube that led upward into the crust of the planet. Routine enemy scans would detect only the life signs of the algae, since massive dampening fields surrounded the rest of the isolated chamber.
“We’ll only have to stay here a few days,” Rhombur said, struggling to recapture his usual optimism. “Surely by then, Landsraad or Imperial forces will have come to our rescue, and House Vernius can begin rebuilding Ix. Things will all work out.”
Narrowing his eyes, Leto remained silent. If his suspicions were correct, it could well take much longer than that.
“This chamber is just a rendezvous point, Master Rhombur,” Captain Zhaz said. “We’ll await the Earl and follow his orders.”
Rhombur nodded vigorously. “Yes, my father’ll know what to do. He’s been in plenty of challenging military situations before.” He smiled brightly. “Some of them with your own father, Leto.”
Leto clapped a strong hand on the other Prince’s shoulder, in a display of support for his friend. But he didn’t know how many of Dominic Vernius’s previous battle engagements had been desperate defensive measures like this; it was Leto’s impression that Dominic’s victories in the past had always been overwhelming charges against crumbling groups of rebels.
Remembering what his father had taught him—know the details of your surroundings in any difficult circumstance—Leto took a moment to inspect their hideaway. He searched for escape routes, vulnerable points. The algae-chamber had been hacked out of solid crustal rock, with an outer shell of thick green growth that gave the air a sour, organic taint. The bolt-hole had four apartments, an extensive kitchen complete with survival supplies, and a last-chance emergency ship that could make low-planetary orbit.
Frictionless, noiseless machinery operated nullentropy bins at the core of the chamber, keeping food and beverages fresh. Other bins contained clothing, weapons, filmbooks, and clever Ixian games for hidden refugees to while away the time. The endless waiting could be the most difficult part of this protected sanctuary, and boredom was an often-overlooked part of isolation and escape. The Ixians, though, had thought of all necessary preparations.
It was already evening, as determined by their chronos. Zhaz set up his guards in the outer corridors and at the camouflaged doorhatch. Rhombur rattled off an endless stream of questions, most of which the captain could not answer: What was going on outside? Did they dare hope to be freed by Ixian loyalists, or would Tleilaxu invaders imprison them, or worse? Would an Ixian come to notify Rhombur of the death of his parents? Why hadn’t the others shown up at the rendezvous point yet? Did they have any idea how much of the capital city of Vernii remained intact? If not, who could find ou
t for them?
The klaxon of an intruder warning interrupted him. Someone was trying to enter the chamber.
Captain Zhaz flipped out a handheld monitor, pressed a button to illuminate the room and activate a videoscreen. Leto saw three familiar faces pressed close to the comeyes in the secondary corridor— Dominic Vernius, and his daughter Kailea, her dress torn and her coppery hair in disarray. Between them they supported the Lady Shando, who seemed barely conscious, her arm and ribs crudely bandaged.
“Permission to enter,” Dominic said, his voice tinny and granular across the speakers. “Open up, Rhombur. Zhaz! We need medical attention for Shando.” His eyes were shadowed, his teeth very white beneath the bushy mustache.
Rhombur Vernius rushed toward the controls, but the guard captain stopped him with an urgent tug at his arm. “By all the saints and sinners, remember the Face Dancers, young master!” Leto suddenly realized that Tleilaxu shape-shifters could assume familiar guises and walk into the most secure area. Leto held the Ixian Prince’s other arm while Zhaz interrogated and received a countersign. Finally, a message appeared from the shielded chamber’s biometric identity scanner. Confirmed: Earl Dominic Vernius.
“Permission granted,” Rhombur said into the voice pickup. “Come in— Mother, what happened?”
Kailea looked stricken, as if the floor had dropped out from beneath her plans for the future and she still couldn’t believe she was falling. All of the newcomers smelled of sweat and smoke and fear.
“Your sister was scolding the suboids and telling them to get back to work,” Shando said with a bit of mirth shining through her pain. “Very foolish.”
“And some of them were about to do it, too—” the young woman said as a flush of anger blossomed beneath the soot smudges on her cheeks.
“Until one pulled a maula pistol and opened fire. Good thing the man couldn’t aim.” Shando touched her arm and side, wincing at the open wound.
Dominic knocked the guards aside and tore open a medkit to tend his wife’s injuries himself. “Not serious, my love. I’ll be around to kiss the scars later. But you shouldn’t have taken such a risk.”
“Not even to save Kailea?” Shando coughed, and her eyes sparkled with tears. “You would have done the same to protect either of our children— or even Leto Atreides. And don’t you deny it.”
Averting his gaze, Dominic grudgingly nodded. “It still upsets me . . . how close you came to death. Then what would I have left to fight for?” He stroked her hair, and she clasped the palm of his hand against her cheek.
“Plenty, Dominic. You’d still have plenty to fight for.”
Watching the exchange, Leto could see what had driven a beautiful young concubine to leave her Emperor, and why a war hero had risked Elrood’s wrath to marry her.
Outside in the hidden corridor, half a dozen armed soldiers took up positions again, sealing the access door behind them. On the external-monitor screen, Leto saw the rest of them— shock troops in case of a violent rebel incursion— setting up lascannons, sensors, and sonic defensive equipment in the chamber’s access tube.
Relieved to see his family safe at last, Rhombur hugged his parents and sister. “It’ll be all right,” he said. “You’ll see.”
Despite her wound, the Lady Shando appeared proud and brave, though salty tracks around her reddened eyes showed evidence of tears. Self-consciously, Kailea glanced over at Leto, then dropped her emerald gaze. She looked defeated now, and fragile, without her usual aloof demeanor. He wanted to comfort her, but hesitated. Everything seemed too unsettled now, too frightening.
“We don’t have much time, children,” Dominic said, wiping perspiration from his brow, then rubbing his sweaty biceps, “and this time calls for desperate measures.” His shaved scalp was smudged with someone else’s blood— ally or enemy? Leto wondered. The torn helix insignia dangled from his lapel.
“Then now is not the time to call us children,” Kailea said with surprising strength. “We’re a part of this fight.”
Rhombur stood tall, looking unusually regal beside his broad-shouldered father, rather than spoiled and stocky. “And we’re ready to help you retake Ix. Vernii is our city, and we have to get it back.”
“No, all three of you are going to stay here.” Dominic held up a wide, callused hand to silence Rhombur’s instant objection. “First order of business is to keep the heirs safe. I’ll hear no argument in this. Each moment of arguing takes me away from my people, and they desperately need my leadership right now.”
“You boys are too young to fight,” Shando said, her delicate face now looking hard and unbreakable. “You’re the future of your respective Houses— both of you.”
Dominic came forward to stand in front of Leto and looked him directly in the eye for the first time, as if he finally saw the Atreides boy as a man. “Leto, your father would never forgive me if anything happened to his son. We have already sent a message to the Old Duke, notifying him of the situation. In response, your father has promised limited assistance and has dispatched a rescue mission to take you, Rhombur, and Kailea to safety on Caladan.” Dominic placed beefy hands on the shoulders of his two children— children who now needed to be much more than that. “Duke Atreides will protect you, give you sanctuary from this. It is all he can do for now.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Leto said, his gray eyes flashing. “You should take refuge with House Atreides as well, m’Lord. My father would never turn you away.”
Dominic gave a wan smile. “No doubt Paulus would do exactly as you say— but I cannot, because that would doom my children.”
Rhombur looked over at his sister in alarm. Lady Shando nodded and continued; she and her husband had already discussed the various possibilities. “Rhombur, if you and Kailea live in exile on Caladan, then you may be safe, not worth anyone’s trouble. I suspect that this bloody revolt has been engineered with Imperial influence and support, and all the pieces have fallen into place.”
Rhombur and Kailea stared at each other in disbelief, then at Leto. “Imperial support?”
“Why the Emperor wants Ix, I do not know,” Dominic said, “but Elrood’s grudge is against me and your mother. If I go with you to House Atreides, the hunters will come for all of us. They’ll find some reason to attack Caladan. No, your mother and I have to find a way to draw this fight away from you.”
Rhombur stood indignant. His pale skin flushed. “We can hold out here a while longer, Father. I don’t want to leave you behind.”
“The deal is done, my son. It’s already negotiated. Other than the Atreides rescue operation, there is no help coming— no Imperial Sardaukar to assist us, no Landsraad armies to drive back the Tleilaxu. The suboids are their pawns. We have sent appeals to all the Houses Major and to the Landsraad, but no one will move fast enough. Someone has outmaneuvered us. . . .”
At her husband’s side, Lady Shando held her head high, despite her pain and disheveled appearance. She had been the Lady of a Great House, and an Imperial concubine before that, but first of all she had been lowborn. Shando could be happy even without the riches of an Ixian governorship.
“But what happens to the two of you now?” Leto asked, since Rhombur and Kailea didn’t have the courage to inquire.
“House Vernius will go . . . renegade.” Shando let the word hang in an astonished silence for a heartbeat.
“Vermilion hells!” Rhombur finally said, and his sister also gasped.
Shando stood and kissed her children.
“We’ll take what we can salvage, then Dominic and I will separate and go into hiding. Maybe for years. A few of the most loyal will accompany us, others will flee entirely, still others will stay here, for better or worse. We’ll make new lives for ourselves, and eventually our fortunes will turn again.”
Dominic gave Leto an awkward handshake, not quite the Imperial clasp of fingers, but more the way Old Terrans used to do it, since the Imperium— from the Emperor to all of the Houses Major— had let House Vern
ius down. Once they declared themselves renegade, the family Vernius would no longer be part of the Imperium.
Shando and Kailea were crying softly as they hugged one another, while Dominic clasped his son by the shoulders. Moments later, Earl Vernius and his wife hurried out through the chamber’s access tube, taking a contingent of guards with them, while Rhombur and his sister held one another and watched them go.
• • •
The following morning, the three refugees sat in uncomfortable but efficient suspensor chairs, eating energy bars and drinking Ixap juice. And waiting.
Kailea said little, as if she had lost her energy for fighting the circumstances. Her older brother tried to cheer her up, but to no avail. Isolated here, walled off, they had heard no word from outside, didn’t know if reinforcements had arrived, or if the city continued to burn. . . .
Kailea had cleaned herself up, made a valiant effort to reconstruct her damaged gown and torn lace, and then wore her altered appearance like a badge. “I should have been attending a ball this week,” she said, her voice empty as if all the emotion had been scrubbed from it. “The Solstice of Dur, one of the largest social events on Kaitain. My mother said I could attend one when I was old enough.” She looked over at Leto and gave a mirthless laugh. “Since I could have gotten betrothed to an appropriate husband this year, I must be old enough to attend a dance. Don’t you think?”
She plucked at her torn lace sleeve. Leto didn’t know what to say to her. He tried to think of what Helena would have said to the Vernius daughter. “When we get to Caladan, I’ll have my mother throw a grand ball to welcome you there. Would you like that, Kailea?” He knew the Lady Helena resented the two Ixian children because of her religious bias, but surely his mother would soften her heart, considering the situation. If nothing else, she would never be seen committing a social faux pas.
Kailea’s eyes flared at his suggestion, and Leto shrank back. “What, with fishermen dancing a bawdy jig and rice farmers performing some fertility rite?” Her words cut deep, and Leto felt his world and his heritage to be inadequate for someone like her.
Dune: House Atreides Page 29