Hunters of Dune

by Brian Herbert

  Below, she spotted Chapterhouse workers as well as offworlder support staff setting up a temporary spice-harvesting camp on a patch of orange sand. The vein of fresh spice was large for Chapterhouse, minuscule by the former standards of Rakis, and a mere speck compared to what the Tleilaxu had once produced in their axlotl tanks. But the patches were growing, and so were the worms that produced them.

  Choosing a landing site, the Mother Commander banked the aircraft and slowed the flapping motion of the wings. She saw her two Spice Ops Directors standing together on the sand, taking silicon or bacteriological samples for laboratory analysis. Several isolated research stations had already been established far out in the desert belt, allowing scientific teams to analyze possible spice blows. Harvesting equipment waited to be deployed—small scrapers and gatherers, not the monstrous hovering carryalls and factories that had once been used on Rakis.

  After landing the ornithopter, Murbella just sat in the cabin, not yet ready to emerge. Bellonda trudged over, brushing gritty dust from her work clothes. With an expression of annoyance on her sunburned face, Doria followed, squinting into the sunlight that reflected off the cockpit.

  Finally emerging, Murbella drew a warm, dry breath that smelled more of bitter dust than of melange. “Out here in the desert, I feel a sense of serenity, of eternal calmness.”

  “I wish I did.” Doria dropped her heavy pack and kit onto the dirt. “When will you assign someone else to work the spice operations?”

  “I am quite content with my responsibilities,” Bellonda said, primarily to irritate Doria.

  Murbella sighed at their petulant competitiveness and bantering. “We need spice and soostones, and we need cooperation. Show me you are worthy, Doria, and perhaps I will send you to Buzzell, where you can complain about the cold and damp, rather than the arid heat. For now, my command is that you work here. With Bellonda. And, Bell, your assignment is to remember what you are and to make Doria into a superior Sister.”

  The wind blew stinging sand into their faces, but Murbella forced herself not to blink. Bellonda and Doria stood side by side, wrestling with their displeasure. The former Honored Matre was the first to give a curt nod. “You are the Mother Commander.”

  BACK IN THE Keep that evening, Murbella went to her workroom to study Bellonda’s meticulous projections of how much spice they could expect to harvest in coming years from the fledgling desert, and how swiftly productivity would rise. The New Sisterhood had expended spice widely enough from their stockpiles that outsiders believed they had an inexhaustible supply. In time, though, their secret hoards could dwindle to nothing more than a cinnamony aftertaste. She compared the amount to the soostone profits starting to roll in from Buzzell, and then to the payments the Richesian weapons shops demanded.

  Outside, through the Keep’s windows, she saw distant, silent flashes of lightning, as if the gods had muted the sounds of the changing weather. Then, as if in response to her thoughts, dry wind began to pummel the Keep, accompanied by claps of thunder. She went to the window, looked out at the twisting tongues of dust and a few dead leaves swirling along a footpath between buildings.

  The storm intensified, and a startling patter of large raindrops struck the dusty plaz, leaving streaks in the blown grit. The weather of Chapterhouse had been in upheaval for years, but she didn’t recall Weather Control planning a rainstorm over the Keep. Murbella couldn’t remember the last time rain had come down like this. An unexpected storm.

  Many dangerous storms were out there—not just the oncoming Enemy. The most powerful strongholds of the Honored Matres remained on various worlds like festering sores. And still no one knew where the Honored Matres had come from, or what they had done to provoke the relentless Enemy.

  Humanity had evolved in the wrong direction for too long, wandering down a blind path—the Golden Path—and the damage might be irreversible. With the Outside Enemy coming, Murbella feared they might well be on the threshold of the greatest storm of all: Kralizec, Arafel, Armageddon, Ragnarok—by any name, the darkness at the end of the universe.

  The rain outside lasted for only a few moments, but the howling wind continued long into the night.

  Do our enemies occur naturally, or do we create them through our own actions?

  —MOTHER SUPERIOR ALMA MAVIS TARAZA,

  Bene Gesserit Archives, open records for acolytes

  T

  he very existence of the Leto II ghola was an offense to Garimi. Little Tyrant! A baby with the destruction of the human race in his genes! How many more reminders of Bene Gesserit shame and human failure must they face? How could her fellow Sisters refuse to learn from mistakes? Blind hubris and foolishness!

  From the very beginning Garimi and her staunchly conservative allies had argued against the creation of these historical gholas, for obvious reasons. Those figures had already lived their lifetimes. Many had caused great damage and turned the universe upside down. Leto II—the God Emperor of Dune who became known as the Tyrant—was the worst, by far.

  Garimi shuddered to think of the unspeakably huge risks Sheeana was taking with all of them. Not even Paul Atreides, the long sought-after and yet uncontrolled Kwisatz Haderach, had caused as much damage as Leto II. Paul had at least maintained an element of caution, keeping part of his humanity and refusing to do the terrible things that his own son had later embraced. Muad’Dib at least had the good grace to feel guilty.

  But not Leto II.

  The Tyrant had sacrificed his humanity from the beginning. Without remorse, he had accepted the awful consequences of merging with a sandworm and he forged ahead, plowing through history like a whirlwind, casting innocent lives around him like discarded chaff. Even he had known how hated he would be when he said, “I am necessary, so that never again in all of history will you need someone like me.”

  And now Sheeana had brought the little monster back, despite the risk that he might do even more damage! But Duncan, Teg, Sheeana, and others felt Leto II might be the most powerful of all the gholas. Most powerful? Most dangerous, instead! At the moment, Leto was just a one-year-old baby in the crèche, helpless and weak.

  He would never be this vulnerable again.

  Garimi and her loyal Sisters decided to make their move without delay. Morally, they had no choice but to destroy him.

  She and her broad-shouldered companion Stuka slipped along the dim corridors of the Ithaca. In deference to ancient human biological cycles, Duncan the “captain” had imposed a regular diurnal shifting of bright lights and dimness to simulate days and nights. Though it was not necessary to adhere to such a clock, most people aboard found it socially convenient to do so.

  Together, the two women stalked around corners and dropped through tubes and lift platforms from one deck to the next. Now, as most of the passengers prepared for sleep, she and Stuka entered the silent crèche near the expansive medical chambers. Two-year-old Stilgar and three-year-old Liet-Kynes were in the nursery, while the other five young gholas were with proctors. Leto II was the only baby currently in the crèche, though the axlotl tanks were sure to create more, eventually.

  Using her knowledge of the ship’s controls, Garimi worked from the hall station to bypass the observation imagers. She wanted no record of the supposed crime that she and Stuka were about to commit, though Garimi knew she could not keep her secret for long. Many of the Reverend Mothers aboard were Truthsayers. They could ferret out the murderers with proven methods of interrogation, even if they had to question all the refugees aboard.

  Garimi had made her choice. Stuka, too, swore she would sacrifice her life to do what was right. And if the two of them didn’t succeed, Garimi knew of at least a dozen other Sisters who would gladly do the same, given the chance.

  She looked at her friend and partner. “Are you ready for this?”

  Stuka’s wide face, though young and smooth, seemed to carry an infinite age and sadness. “I have made my peace.” She took a deep breath. “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-
killer.” The two Sisters intoned the rest of the Litany together; Garimi found that it had never ceased to be useful.

  With the surveillance imagers successfully deactivated, the pair entered the crèche, using all of the Bene Gesserit stealth and silence they could manage. Baby Leto lay in one of the small monitored cradles, by all appearances an innocent little child, looking so human. Innocent! Garimi sneered. How deceptive appearances could be.

  She certainly did not need Stuka’s assistance. It should be simple enough to smother the little monster. Nevertheless, the two angry Bene Gesserits shored up each other’s confidence.

  Stuka looked down at Leto and whispered to her companion. “In his original life, the Tyrant’s mother died in childbirth, and a Face Dancer tried to murder the twins when they were only hours old. Their father went off blind into the desert, leaving the babies to be raised by others. Neither Leto nor his twin sister were ever held warmly in their parents’ arms.”

  Garimi shot her a sour glance. “Don’t start going soft on me,” she husked. “This is more than just a baby. In that crib lies a beast, not a mere child.”

  “But we do not know where or when the Tleilaxu acquired the cells to make this ghola. How could scrapings have been stolen from the immense God Emperor? If that was truly where the cells came from, why wasn’t he born as a half man, half sandworm? More likely, they kept secret samplings of the boy Leto’s cells from before he underwent his transformation. That means this child is technically still an innocent, his cells taken from an innocent body. Even when he gets his memories back, he will not be the hated God Emperor.”

  Garimi glowered at her. “Do we dare take that risk? Even as children, Leto II and his twin sister Ghanima had special and awesome powers of prescience. No matter what else, this is still an Atreides. He still has all the genetic markers that led to two dangerous Kwisatz Haderachs. That cannot be denied!” Her voice began to grow too loud. Glancing down at the stirring child, Garimi saw his bright eyes looking at her with a startling sentience, his mouth slightly open. Leto seemed to know why she was there. He recognized her . . . and yet he did not flinch.

  “If he is prescient,” Stuka said uncertainly, “then maybe he knows what we’re going to do to him.”

  “I was thinking exactly the same thing.”

  As if in response, one of the monitoring alarms bleeped, and Garimi raced to the controls in order to bypass them. She could not allow a signal to alert the Suk doctors. “Quickly! We have no more time. Do it now—or I will!”

  The other woman picked up a thick pillow and raised it above the baby’s face. Garimi frantically worked at the alarm panel as Stuka pushed the pillow down to smother him.

  Then Stuka screamed, and Garimi whirled to see a brief flash of tan segments, a writhing shape that rose up from the monitoring cradle. Stuka recoiled in panic. The pillow in her hands was shredded, its fabric spraying out in tatters.

  Garimi couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her vision seemed to be doubled, as if two separate things were occurring in the same place at the same time. A wide-ringed mouth of tiny crystalline teeth lashed out from the crib, striking the broad-shouldered woman in the side. There was a splash of blood. Gulping panicked breaths, Stuka clutched at a gash that ripped through her robes and laid open the skin down to the ribs.

  Garimi stumbled forward, but by the time she got to the small bed she saw only the quietly resting child Leto. The boy lay back, gazing up at her calmly with his bright eyes.

  Ceasing her cries of pain, Stuka used her Bene Gesserit abilities to stop the flow of blood from the jagged tear in her side. She fought for balance as she reeled away from the crib, her eyes wide. Garimi looked from her back to the child in its cradle. Had she truly seen Leto transform into a sandworm?

  There were no surveillance images. Garimi could never prove what she thought she had seen. But how else to explain Stuka’s wound?

  “What are you, little Tyrant?” Garimi saw no blood on the small fingers or mouth. Leto blinked back at her.

  The crèche door burst open, and Duncan Idaho swept in, followed by two proctors and Sheeana. Duncan stood there, his face dark with anger, saw the blood, the shredded pillow, the baby in its crib. “What in the seven hells are you doing here?”

  Garimi backed away from the crib, keeping her distance, afraid that little Leto might turn into the vision worm again and attack. Looking at Duncan’s fiery eyes, she almost concocted a lie that Stuka had come to kill the baby and that she, Garimi, had arrived in time to defend the child. But that lie would crumble quickly upon further examination.

  Instead, she drew herself up straight. A Suk doctor arrived in response to the alarms Duncan had triggered. After checking the baby, she went to where Stuka had collapsed in fatigue. Sheeana peeled away the tattered robe to expose the deep gash that had bled extensively before Stuka—in a surge of energy—managed to staunch the flow. Duncan and the proctors stared at it in awe.

  Garimi tore her gaze away, now more fearful of Leto II than ever. She gestured angrily at the cradle. “I suspected this child was a monster before. Now I have no doubt whatsoever.”

  Despite the words of egalitarians, all humans are not the same. Each of us contains a unique mix of hidden potential. In times of crisis, we must discover these abilities before it is too late.

  —BASHAR MILES TEG

  D

  uring the uproar that followed the attempt on young Leto’s life, Miles Teg watched the predictable power plays among the Bene Gesserit.

  The initial escape from Chapterhouse had made them set aside their differences for a time, but over the years factions had formed, and festered like unhealed wounds. The schism grew as time passed and the ghola children provided a powerful wedge. In recent years, Teg had observed smoldering embers of uneasiness and resistance among Garimi’s faction, centered around the new gholas. The crisis over Leto II had been like touching an igniter to kindling soaked with accelerant.

  Teg’s mother had raised him on Lernaeus, guiding him in Bene Gesserit ways. Janet Roxbrough-Teg was loyal to the Sisterhood, though not mindlessly so. She taught her son useful skills, showed him how to protect himself from Bene Gesserit tricks, and made him aware of how the ambitious women schemed. A true Bene Gesserit would take any necessary action to achieve a desired goal.

  But the attempted murder of a child? Teg was concerned that even Sheeana had miscalculated the risks.

  Garimi and Stuka stood defiantly in the boxes of the accused, not bothering to hide their guilt. The heavy doors of the large audience chamber were sealed, as if someone feared the two women might try to flee the no-ship. The thick air in the confined room had the sour, pungent odor of melange exuded from perspiration. The other women were quite agitated, and even most of the conservative faction had turned against Garimi, for now.

  “You have acted against the Sisterhood!” Sheeana gripped the edge of the podium. Her voice projected loud and clear as she raised her chin, her blue-within-blue eyes flashing. She had tied back her thick, copper-streaked hair, revealing the dusky skin of her face. Sheeana was not much older than Garimi, but as acting leader of the shipboard Bene Gesserits, she projected the authority of much greater age. “You have broken a trust. Do we not have enough enemies already?”

  “It seems you do not see all of them, Sheeana,” Garimi said. “You create new ones in our own axlotl tanks.”

  “We have welcomed disagreement and discussion, and we have made our decision—as Bene Gesserits! Are you a tyrant yourself, Garimi, whose wishes simply tread over the will of the majority?”

  Even the staunch conservatives grumbled at that. Garimi’s knuckles turned white as she stood there.

  From the front row next to Duncan, Teg observed with his Mentat abilities. The plazmetal bench beneath him was unyielding, but he hardly felt it. Young Leto II had been brought into the gathering chamber. An eerily quiet child, his bright eyes watched all activities around him.

  Sheeana continued, “These histori
cal gholas may be our chance for survival, and you tried to kill the one who could be the greatest help of all!”

  Garimi scowled. “My dissent is a matter of record, Sheeana.”

  “Disagreement is one thing,” Teg said aloud, his voice carrying the weight of command. “Attempted assassination is quite another.”

  Garimi glared at the Bashar for interrupting. Stuka spoke. “Is it assassination when one kills a monster instead of a human?”

  “Have a care,” Duncan said. “The Bashar and I are also gholas.”

  “I do not call him a monster because he is a ghola,” Garimi said, gesturing toward the toddler. “We saw him! He carries the Worm within him. That innocent baby transformed into a creature that attacked Stuka. You have all seen her wounds!”

  “Yes, and we have heard your imaginative explanation.” Sheeana’s voice dripped with skepticism.

  Garimi and Stuka looked deeply offended and turned to the Sisters in the raised benches, lifting their hands for support. “We are still Bene Gesserit! We are well-trained in observation and in the manipulation of beliefs and superstitions. We are not frightened children. That . . . abomination transformed into a worm to defend himself from Stuka! Ask us to repeat our stories before a Truthsayer.”

  “I have no doubt that you believe what you say you saw,” Sheeana said.

  Speaking with utter calm, Duncan interjected, “The ghola baby has been tested—as have all the new gholas. His cellular structure is perfectly normal, exactly as we expected. We checked and double-checked the original cells from Scytale’s nullentropy capsule. This is Leto II, and nothing more.”

  “Nothing more?” Garimi let out a sarcastic laugh. “As if being the Tyrant is not enough? The Tleilaxu could have tampered with his genetics. We found Face Dancer cells among the other material. You know not to trust them!”