The gargantuan worm plowed straight through the sand toward its quarry. The abandoned machinery rested silently on the ground, but the lifting engines of the escape vessel roared and pounded, the vibrations stimulating the worm’s hunting instinct. Like a launched artillery shell, the sandworm emerged from the covering of sand and stretched itself into the air, higher and higher. The heavy lifter strained, its engines thumping to heave it out of danger, and the huge maw of the great worm opened wide, spewing gouts of sand like furious saliva.
The worm reached its apex, yearned and stretched, just missing the heavy lifter. Its chomping motion stirred the air and made the lifter waver, rising and falling as the sandworm collapsed back down to the dunes, crushing the abandoned machinery beneath it. Then the pilot regained control and continued his ascent, heading at full speed toward the sharp demarcation of a cliff line.
The stranded workers with Adrien muttered with relief to see their comrades escape, but they kept themselves still. Rescue ships could not come back for them until the worm had gone.
The worm thrashed in the wide basin, devouring the harvesting machinery, then dug itself into the desert again. Adrien watched, holding his breath, as the worm’s wake rippled the sands, passing toward the horizon in the opposite direction.
The dirty prospectors seemed pleased and relieved at having out-smarted the desert demon. Laughing quietly in a backwash of fear, they congratulated themselves. Adrien turned to watch the heavy lifter as it continued to lumber toward the black cliffs. On the opposite side of the ridge, in a sheltered gorge protected from the open sands and the worms, another VenKee station would provide beds and a place for them to rest. They would send back a pickup crew for Adrien and the others.
He didn’t like how the sky had changed to a murky greenish color in the vessel’s path behind the line of rock. “Do you men know what that is? A storm brewing?” He had heard of the incredible sand hurricanes on Arrakis, but had never encountered one himself.
The mechanic looked up from his array of tools; two of the spice prospectors pointed. “A sandstorm, all right. Small one, a burst event, not nearly as bad as a Coriolis storm.”
“The lifter is flying right into it.”
“Then that’s very bad.”
As Adrien watched, the lifter began to shake. Emergency blips accompanied the pilot’s shouts over the comline. Soft-looking tendrils of sand and dust folded around the heavy lifter like a lover’s embrace. The flyer jerked erratically, spinning out of control, until it slammed into the black cliffs, leaving only a small burst of orange flame and black smoke that quickly disappeared in the whirlwind.
The damned worms always get their spice back, Adrien thought. One way or another.
It was an unfortunate truth of risky business ventures: No matter what precautions were taken, unexpected disasters always awaited the unprepared. “You men finish your repairs as soon as possible,” he said in a soft but firm voice, “so we can get out of here and back to Arrakis City.”
* * *
LATER, WHEN HE stood in a souk marketplace in Arrakis City surrounded by spice prospectors, Adrien addressed the men, many of whom continually tried to cheat VenKee Enterprises. It was their way, and he was savvy enough to prevent them from getting away with it.
“You’re raising your prices too much.” Without wavering in his stance, Adrien stared down a stocky, bearded prospector who was almost twice his size. Like the other natives, the prospector wore a desert-camouflage cloak, and dusty tools ringed a thick belt at his waist. “VenKee cannot tolerate it.”
“Getting the spice is dangerous,” the bearded man responded. “We must be fairly compensated.”
A second prospector said, “Many crews have been lost without a trace.”
“It is not my fault when men take too many chances. I don’t like to be cheated.” Adrien stepped closer to the intimidating men, because it was the opposite of what they would expect. He had to appear strong and formidable. “VenKee has given you a large contract. You are secure in your jobs. Be happy enough with that. Old women do not complain as much as you.”
The desert men stiffened at the insult. The bearded leader put a hand at his side as if to grab a weapon. “Do you want to keep your water, offworlder?”
Without hesitation, Adrien planted both palms on the prospector’s dusty chest and shoved him abruptly and forcefully, making the man stumble backward. The fallen man’s desert companions drew their knives while others helped him to his feet, furious.
Adrien crossed his arms over his chest, giving them a maddeningly confident smile. “And do you want to keep your business with VenKee? You think there are no other Zensunnis waiting to grab at what I offer? You have wasted my time bringing me here to Arrakis, and you waste my time with your childish whining. If you are honorable men, you will fulfill the terms to which we all agreed. If you are not honorable, then I refuse to do further business with you.”
Though he remained casual, he knew he was not bluffing at all. The desert tribes had grown accustomed to gathering and selling their spice. VenKee was the only regular customer, and Adrien was VenKee. If he should decide to blacklist these men, they would have to go back to scraping out a living from what the deserts of Arrakis could provide… and many Zensunnis had forgotten how to do that.
They stared at each other in the heat and the stink of the crowded souk. In the end, he offered them a token increase for their product, a cost he would pass on to the users of melange, many of whom were wealthy. His customers would be willing to pay, probably wouldn’t even notice the difference, as melange was so rare and expensive. The desert men marched off, only half satisfied.
When they were gone, Adrien shook his head. “Some perverse genie fouled up this planet as much as possible… and put spice right in the middle of it.”
The universe may change, but the desert does not. Arrakis keeps its own clock. The man who refuses to acknowledge this must face his own folly.
— The Legend of Selim Wormrider
As soon as the day’s heat began to diminish, the group of Zensunni men emerged from their shaded hiding places and prepared to continue their journey down from the Shield Wall. Ishmael was not overly anxious to get to the noise and stink of civilization, but he would not let El’hiim go unsupervised to the VenKee settlement. The son of Selim Wormrider too often chose a dangerously comfortable path around offworlders.
Ishmael covered his exposed leathery skin with protective garments, showing common sense, even if the brash younger members of his tribe did not. He wore a mask across his wizened face to retain moisture exhaled in breathing, while filtration layers of sandwiched fabric acted as a distilling suit to save his perspiration. He wasted nothing.
The other men, though, were careless with their water, assuming they could always purchase more. They wore garments of foreign manufacture, designs chosen for fashion rather than desert utility. Even El’hiim sported bright colors, spurning desert camouflage.
Ishmael had promised the boy’s mother on her deathbed that he would watch over him, and he had tried— perhaps too often— to make the younger man understand. But El’hiim and his friends were another generation entirely; they looked on him as an ancient relic.
The rift between him and Ishmael ran deep. When his mother was dying, El’hiim had begged her to seek outside medical treatment in Arrakis City, but Ishmael had adamantly opposed the influence of untrustworthy outsiders. Marha had listened to her husband instead of her son. In El’hiim’s view that had led directly to her death.
The young man ran away, stowing aboard a VenKee ship that took him to distant worlds— including Poritrin, still devastated from the slave uprising in which Ishmael and his followers had escaped to Arrakis. Eventually El’hiim came back home to his tribe, but he was forever shaped by what he had seen and learned. His experiences had convinced him more than ever that the Zensunni should adopt outside practices— including the gathering and selling of spice.
To Ishmael,
it was anathema, a slap in the face to Selim Wormrider’s mission. But he would not abandon his earlier promise to Marha, so he reluctantly accompanied El’hiim, even in his folly.
“Let us pack up and redistribute the weight,” El’hiim said, his voice bright with anticipation. “We can easily make the VenKee settlement in a few hours, and then we’ll have the rest of the night to ourselves.”
The Zensunni men chuckled and moved eagerly, already anticipating how they would spend their tainted money. Ishmael frowned, but he kept his words to himself. He had already said them so often he sounded like a nagging harpy. El’hiim, the new Naib of the villagers, had his own ideas on how to lead the people.
Ishmael realized he was just a stubborn old man himself, with the weight of one hundred and three years on his aching bones. A hard life in the desert, as well as a steady diet of the spice melange, had kept him strong and healthy, while these others had grown soft. Though he looked like a Methuselah from the ancient scriptures, he was convinced he could still outwit and outfight any of these young whelps, should they challenge him to a duel.
None ever would, though. That was another way in which they failed to follow the old ways.
They picked up their heavy packages of condensed, purified melange, which they had harvested from the sands. Though he disagreed with the idea of selling spice, Ishmael shouldered a burden at least as heavy as the others carried. He was ready to depart before his younger companions had finished fumbling with their equipment, then waited in stoic silence until finally El’hiim set off with a noisy and lighthearted step. The band emerged into the sunset and picked their way down the steep slopes.
In the elongated shadows of approaching dusk, twinkling lights from the VenKee settlement shone out in the protected lee of the Shield Wall. The buildings were a jumble of alien structures, erected with no plan whatsoever. It was like a cancerous growth of prefabricated houses and offices that had spewed from cargo ships.
Ishmael narrowed his blue-within-blue eyes and stared ahead. “My people built this settlement, after arriving from Poritrin.”
El’hiim smiled and nodded. “Yes, it has grown quite substantially, hasn’t it?” The younger Naib was more talkative, wasting the moisture of breath from his uncovered mouth. “Adrien Venport pays well and always has a standing order for our spice.”
Ishmael trudged onward, sure-footed on the loose rocks. “Do you not remember your father’s visions?”
“No,” El’hiim said sharply. “I do not remember my father at all. He allowed a worm to swallow him before I was even born, and all I have are legends. How can I know what is truth and what is myth?”
“He recognized that offworld trade in spice will destroy our Zensunni way of life and eventually kill Shai-Hulud— unless we can stop it.”
“That would be like trying to stop sand from blowing in through door seals. I choose another path, and over the past ten years we have seen plenty of prosperity.” He smiled at his stepfather. “But you always find a way to complain, don’t you? Isn’t it better that we natives of Arrakis gather the spice and profit from it, rather than someone else? Should we not be the ones who harvest melange and bring it to VenKee? Otherwise, they will send in their own outsiders, their own teams— “
“They already have,” one of the other men said.
“You ask which sin is more palatable,” Ishmael said. “I choose neither.”
El’hiim shook his head, looking at his companions as if to indicate how hopeless the old man was.
Many years before, after Ishmael had accepted El’hiim’s mother as his wife, he’d tried to raise the young man according to traditional values, following the visions of Selim Wormrider. Perhaps Ishmael had applied too much pressure, unwittingly forcing his stepson to turn in another direction.
Before Marha died, she had made him swear to shelter and advise her son, but over the years that promise had become like a sharp rock caught in his shoe. Though he harbored grave concerns, he’d had no choice but to support El’hiim in becoming Naib. From that point on, Ishmael felt as if he were sliding down the shifting slope of a steep dune.
Recently, El’hiim had shown his poor judgment when he’d arranged for two small carrier craft to come to one of the hidden Zensunni camps in the deep desert. El’hiim saw it as a convenient way to exchange supplies that were too heavy to carry far, but to Ishmael the small aircraft looked too much like the slaver ships that had captured him as a boy.
“You are leaving us vulnerable!” Ishmael had strained to keep his voice down so as not to embarrass the Naib. “What if these men mean to abduct us?”
But El’hiim had brushed aside his concerns. “These aren’t slavers, Ishmael. They are merchants and traders.”
“You have placed us at risk.”
“We’ve entered into a business relationship. These men are trustworthy.”
Ishmael shook his head, letting his anger grow. “You have been seduced by your own comfort. We should be trying to bring to an end all spice-exporting operations and refuse the tempting conveniences.”
El’hiim had sighed. “I respect you, Ishmael… but sometimes you are incredibly shortsighted.” He had walked off to meet with the visiting VenKee merchants, leaving Ishmael behind in rage….
Now, as night fell, the group of men reached the base of the Shield Wall. Outlying buildings, moisture condensers, and solar-power generating stations had sprung up like mold from sheltered places against the high cliff.
Ishmael maintained his steady pace, though the other desert men hurried, eager to partake of so-called civilization. In town, the background noise was a cacophony unlike anything heard in the open bled. Many people talked, machinery pounded and boomed, generators buzzed. The lights and smells were an offense to him.
Already, word of their arrival had passed up and down the VenKee town streets. Company employees came out of their dwellings to meet them, dressed in odd costumes and carrying incomprehensible gadgets. When the news reached the VenKee offices, a merchant representative strutted down the street, happy to receive them. He raised his hands in welcome, but Ishmael thought his smile was oily and unpleasant.
El’hiim offered the man a hale greeting. “We have brought another shipment, and you may buy it— if the price is the same.”
“Melange is as valuable as always. And our town’s amenities are yours if you desire them.”
El’hiim’s men gave a boisterous acknowledgment. Ishmael’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. Stiffly, he removed his pack of spice and dropped it on the dusty ground at his feet, as if it were no more than garbage.
The VenKee representative cheerfully called for porters to relieve the desert men of their burdens, taking the melange packages to an assay office where they could be weighed, graded, and paid for.
As the artificial lights grew brighter to fend off the desert darkness, raucous alien music pummeled Ishmael’s ears. El’hiim and his men indulged themselves, spending newfound money from the spice shipment. They watched water-fat dancers with pale and unappetizing skin; they drank copious quantities of spice beer, allowing themselves to become embarrassingly drunk.
Ishmael did not participate. He simply sat and watched them, hating every minute and wanting to return home, to the safe and quiet desert.
Since there has been no upload linkage between me and the evermind for centuries, Omnius does not know my thoughts, some of which might be considered disloyal. But I do not mean them to be that way. I am just curious by nature.
— Erasmus Dialogues
Surrounded by festering death, moans of pain, and the full range of pleading expressions, Erasmus diligently recorded every test subject with equal care. Scientific accuracy required it. And the deadly RNA retrovirus was nearly ready to be launched.
He had just come from the last in a series of meetings with Rekur Van to discuss the best methods for plague dispersal, but the robot had been frustrated— as much as a thinking machine could be— when the Tlulaxa kept changing th
e subject, nagging about the progress of the reptilian regrowth experiment. Van was obsessed with the prospect of regrowing his limbs, but the robot had other priorities.
In order to calm him, Erasmus had adjusted the biological patches on the man’s shoulders and lied by overstating the results. Tiny bumps were indeed growing under the patches, with definite evidence of new bone growth, though at an almost negligible rate. Perhaps this was interesting in its own right, but it was only one of many important ongoing tests. He had found it necessary to increase the medications this morning, enough to focus the limbless human on what was most relevant, rather than on silly personal matters.
In one of his favorite plush robes, a rich blue this time, Erasmus strolled from chamber to chamber, maintaining a pleasant smile on his flowmetal face. The infection rate was nearly seventy percent, with an expected mortality of forty-three percent. Many of those who recovered, though, would be permanently crippled due to tendon ruptures, another result of the disease.
A few of the experimental victims shrank from him, cowering in corners of their filth-smeared cells. Others stretched out their hands beseechingly, their sickness-dulled eyes desperate; those prisoners, the robot decided, must be delirious or delusional. But of course paranoia and irrational behavior were expected symptoms of the virus.
Erasmus had installed and amplified a new set of olfactory sensors so that he could sample and compare the stenches wafting through his labs. He felt it was an important part of the experience. Over the years, tirelessly running tests and mutating batches of viruses, Erasmus felt proud of his accomplishments. It was easy to develop a sickness that killed these fragile biological beings. The trick was to find one that swept through their populations swiftly, killed a large percentage of the victims, and was nearly impossible to cure.
Dune: The Battle of Corrin Page 5