He felt sick at heart to lose these grand industrial capabilities—so many ships that could have expanded the VenHold Spacing Fleet, all that profit turned to vapor and scraps! It was difficult, but in his mind he tried to write off the loss. He could not save the facility or his investment here—but if he crippled the Butlerians, the cost would be justified.
Although Josef noticed no difference in the mayhem around him, his Mentat watched the movements of the rival ships closely, and said, “Gilbertus Albans has taken command. I recognize his techniques.”
But to Josef, the chaos of weapon fire and colliding ships was impenetrable.
Draigo’s eyes flicked from side to side as he processed intricate calculations. “We have a small survival ship in the administrative hub, sir. I suggest we depart from this control center. Gilbertus will target it soon. He’ll locate us in moments.”
Josef couldn’t believe what the Mentat had just said. “But we’re winning! Look at how many ships they’ve lost!”
“And they still have many more to lose, sir. Now, however, they are operating without restraint—and under such circumstances, the rules and odds change.” He looked squarely at Josef, and there was real emotion and concern in his expression. “We cannot win, sir. Trust me.”
For a moment Josef refused to listen … but he had trusted Draigo and his plans as much as he trusted Norma Cenva. He had always relied on his talented experts, knew he’d be a fool not to listen. “If you’re convinced, then let’s get out of here.”
“Shall I sound the evacuation of any remaining personnel?”
“You can try. We’ll have to hope the barbarians let some of our people live—but we both know it’s me he wants.”
Josef and Draigo bolted for the small evacuation craft, sealed themselves inside, and launched from the docking clamp. Josef glanced at the Thonaris admin-hub as they drifted away, saw the frozen body of Arjen Gates mounted outside like a lawn ornament, and felt the great sense of his own financial and personnel loss. Such a waste!
The evac-ship wasn’t equipped with Holtzman engines, and he had no Navigator. He didn’t know how they were going to get away from the star system at all, but Draigo would make it possible for him to survive another hour … even if in that hour he had to watch the destruction of everything around him. The small ship pulled away from the administrative hub, lost in a flurry of activity as countless vessels whipped by and projectiles flew all around.
“And how do you project we’ll get safely away, Mentat?”
The Mentat hesitated for an uncomfortably long moment. “I am currently unable to determine that.” Josef felt a heavy weight in his chest. It had never occurred to him that Draigo might not have an answer.
Moments later, a barrage of projectiles tore open the empty admin-hub. Watching the proof of his Mentat’s conclusions, Josef felt lost, even discouraged, and at last he recognized the fundamental change that Draigo had spotted earlier: The barbarians were reckless, not caring if they had to sacrifice five manned ships for every one they destroyed. The human cost was staggering, but Manford’s fanatics were steadily diminishing the VenHold forces and facilities. The spacedocks had been destroyed, along with most of the automated factories.
“We’re not going to escape, are we, Mentat? It’s only a matter of time before they target us.”
“With no way to fold space, we can’t escape.” Draigo adjusted the communications system in the evac-ship. “I’ve scrambled the transmission to slow their ability to find us. Would you allow me to contact their Mentat, sir?”
Josef frowned. “Will he negotiate for the barbarians?”
“I don’t believe so. But I would like to … bid him farewell.”
With a sigh, Josef nodded. “I have nothing more to lose.”
As their tiny, unmarked lifeboat drifted among the wreckage and chaos, Draigo activated the screen and identified himself to the Butlerians. “This is the Mentat serving Venport Holdings. I would like to speak with Gilbertus Albans, please.”
In moments, his Mentat teacher appeared, not looking at all surprised. “I recognized your tactics, Draigo. I’m sorry we find ourselves on opposite sides of the battlefield in a real clash instead of a game.”
“A Mentat must be loyal to his employer. I’ve done my best to defend Josef Venport and protect these shipyards—just as you’ve done your best to destroy them.”
“At the command of Manford Torondo,” said Gilbertus.
Draigo wore a defeated smile. “As soon as I realized you had taken command, my own projections showed that even with my best skills I could not win. You had the better set of assets to use against me.”
“Nevertheless, I’m proud of you. You fought well. But you understand that this is goodbye, Draigo. Manford Torondo will not allow you to be taken prisoner.”
“Your Half-Manford can go to hell,” Josef said.
Manford Torondo broke into the channel. “The robot Erasmus wrote that human beings were merely an expendable resource, but it is machines that are really expendable. And their allies—”
Draigo switched off the transmission.
Josef looked at him with heavy eyes. “Any other suggestions, Mentat?”
“None, sir. I have reviewed all of the known data.”
Just then, so close and so suddenly that even Draigo let out a startled cry, a large VenHold ship appeared, folding space from nowhere. The cargo bay doors opened up like a yawning mouth in front of the small escape craft.
Josef recognized the female voice that came over the comm system—his own wife Cioba! “Norma Cenva and I are here to retrieve you, Josef. We will take you aboard!” Without asking how the two women had known to come here, Draigo quickly flew their ship into the hold of the rescue vessel.
Below and behind them, the Butlerians had noticed the new ship and turned their weaponry toward it. The first few blasts erupted nearby, without hitting their mark.
“How did you know to come here?” Josef asked over the comm.
In her wavering, ethereal voice, Norma said, “They may have Mentats, but I can trump them with my prescience.”
As fiery explosions continued throughout the shipyards, Josef saw that all was indeed lost. Norma Cenva’s vessel closed its hull like an embrace around their evac-ship, and as Cioba ran into the hold to see her husband, the cargo ship winked away and vanished into the safety of foldspace.
Persistence is a virtue, but obsession a sin.
—THE ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE
The twin offspring of Agamemnon sprinted after him, leaving Griffin’s dead body on the hot sands.
Vor knew that even if he barricaded himself inside the small weather station, Andros and Hyla could tear through the wall in minutes. Instead, he scrambled up onto the rocks, climbing the loose stone with hands and feet, pulling his way up a boulder field to a small ridge. The open terrain beyond might have been good for meteorological measurements, but it offered Vorian very few options for escape.
“Where are you running, Brother?” Hyla called. “Convince us to keep you alive.”
He didn’t answer.
Andros and his sister climbed patiently after him, going over the rocks like liquid flowing uphill, defying gravity. When Vor reached the top of the ridge, he regarded the steep slope on the other side that led nowhere except to the empty sands. Maybe he could circle around and try to scramble back to the twins’ landed aircraft, but they had shut down their engines, and he knew the startup and takeoff process would take several minutes; Andros and Hyla would never let him get that far ahead of them.
He still had his personal shield and the Maula pistol; the spring-loaded projectile weapon was functional though he doubted if it would be effective against the twins. Still, the projectiles could delay them. He cocked the weapon and turned, bracing himself.
Andros and Hyla were pulling themselves over a line of wobbly boulders that had slid down the slope. Even though, genetically speaking, these were his brother and sister, he felt no hesi
tation, no remorse. Vor had killed Agamemnon decades ago, and a little more family blood on his hands would make no difference. He had watched these two murder Griffin Harkonnen, a noble young man who had not deserved to die like that.
Still climbing, Andros looked up at him and shouted, “At least your wife didn’t run when we wanted to ask her questions. But she was an old woman.”
As anger flooded through him, Vor aimed at the other man’s forehead and squeezed the trigger. The loud report from the Maula pistol sounded like a contained explosion, but Vor’s aim—or the weapon—was off. A boulder just to the left of the young man’s head cracked, and tiny rock fragments sprayed out in all directions. Andros flinched.
Hyla stood up and Vor fired a second time, aiming directly at the center of her chest. This time the bullet struck, and he saw the crater in her jumpsuit, the red ripped flesh at her sternum. The impact drove her backward, but Andros slowed to help her and reached out to grab her arm. She cried out, but regained her strength very quickly. Vor aimed the Maula pistol again and squeezed the trigger. The weapon made only a grinding sound. He tried twice more, but the pistol was jammed. He discarded it.
The twins ascended after him again, making even better time now. Thinking fast, searching for alternatives, Vor gazed across the bright, burning sands, where tiny dots of rock protruded at widespread intervals like rotting teeth. The nearest one was nearly a kilometer away. At a dead run across the powdery dunes, he would need at least fifteen minutes to reach it, and nothing at all waited for him out there.
Still, he had a plan.
Recklessly dropping down the steep slope, bouncing from one unstable boulder to the next, he reached the end of the rocks and ran out onto the sand, stumbling across the soft surface. Ishanti had taught him how to disguise his footsteps, how to move without rhythm so as to not attract a sandworm. Right now, however, Vor ran at his natural pace, already panting. He had no water; his supplies were back at the weather station. The twins were coming.
They had killed Griffin.
And Mariella.
Behind him, Andros and Hyla began to descend the slope, closing the gap. Hyla’s voice sounded strong as she yelled, “Even if you reach those rocks, where will you run? There’s nothing but sand!”
Vor didn’t waste his breath calling back to them. He pulled as far ahead as possible—but it wasn’t enough, and they were gaining on him. Halfway to the nearest rocky protrusion, he decided it was time to take his greatest risk, hoping he had enough time to reach the rocks.
When he activated the personal shield, it issued a faint, vibrating crackle. Static electricity seemed to charge the dust around him. He unclipped the shield belt, left the power supply activated, and dropped the belt onto the sand. He ran with even more frantic energy toward the small rock island, unearthing reserves of strength within himself that he didn’t know he had. Vor was sure that his rhythmic footfalls had already sent an irresistible summons to a sandworm. Now, with the throbbing shield belt, there should be no question.…
The twins continued after him across the dunes, following his footprints as he had hoped. Andros called out in his piercing voice, “Look at you running like a coward! You are an embarrassment to Agamemnon.”
Vor’s throat burned and his eyes stung, but when he reached the top of a dune, he saw that he had almost made it to the solid outcropping. Like an iceberg, the rock’s roots grew larger beneath the surface. A few more steps, and he felt rock beneath the sand. He pulled himself higher, panting, and then turned to watch.
Andros and Hyla reached the shield belt he had thrown away. They knew they were closing in, and that Vor had nowhere to go beyond his small rock island. The two were so intent on him that they didn’t seem to notice the vibrations in the sand, or the large mounded ripple rushing toward them.
But Hyla hesitated, sensing something, while Andros picked up the shield belt with a sour frown. He tossed the device over his shoulder—just as a sandworm lunged up from beneath the dunes, its maw open. Scooping hundreds of cubic meters of sand, the creature rose so high that the children of Agamemnon looked like tiny specks falling down a whirlpool.
The worm swallowed them.
Vor squatted down to watch the sandworm circling the area. Though he was all alone, without supplies, abandoned in the middle of the desert, he felt safe for the first time in a long while.…
At last he had time to reflect on the trouble he had caused on Arrakis, even though he had only meant to live here in peace. He thought of the people he had recently lost: Ishanti, who had treated him well, and Griffin Harkonnen, an unintended enemy, who might have understood and even forgiven Vorian. And he thought of Mariella.
Over the centuries he had grieved for many losses, but now he was saddened by the waste of these three lives. The Harkonnens had hated him for generations since the exile of Abulurd, and he had hoped to achieve some sort of resolution. But once the family learned what had happened to Griffin, he doubted the breach would ever be healed.
Sitting on the lonely rock, Vorian felt centuries-tired, and wished he could just find a place where he didn’t have to keep looking over his shoulder. He watched as the worm eventually buried itself in the sand and went away, but he decided to rest awhile before making his way back to the weather-monitoring station and the aircraft that could take him away from here once and for all.
Most public events sponsored by governments are for show. Savvy leaders understand that perceptions are the foundation of their power.
—IMPERIAL STUDY OF GOVERNMENT PRACTICES
The edict issued by Emperor Salvador Corrino allowed the disbanded Sisters of Rossak only a few days to vacate their planet and forsake the school that Reverend Mother Raquella had built over the past eight decades. He stationed Imperial forces to ensure that his orders were carried out, while he returned to Salusa Secundus with Dorotea and a hundred members of her faction. Raquella was not given the opportunity to say goodbye to her granddaughter, or Sister Valya, or anyone else.
Everyone in the Sisterhood was to be dispersed, old and young alike. Only a handful of Sisters with important connections could decide where they wanted to go, but most were sent back to the worlds where they had lived before going to Rossak.
* * *
BEING THE EMPEROR’S brother did not entitle Roderick Corrino to a life of luxurious relaxation. On the day after the Imperial forces returned from Rossak, he longed to sleep late and relax in his bed with Haditha, and enjoy breakfast with her and their children. But the Imperium called.
He hadn’t slept well, haunted by Salvador’s impetuous execution of the Sisterhood’s Mentats, and the disbanding of the Rossak School. Roderick had a great deal of damage to mitigate. He hoped Sister Dorotea might provide an insightful perspective and be willing to work with him. Roderick continued to believe the trained Sisters had considerable value, and he was glad he’d convinced his brother to spare Dorotea’s faction at least. Better to save something than nothing at all.…
Roderick had done what he could to salvage the situation. Using funds from Sisterhood bank accounts that the Emperor had confiscated, Sister Dorotea and a hundred of her handpicked followers were busy setting up a new training facility for their order on Salusa Secundus. There would be no breeding program or Azhar Book, and no other publications or programs that had not first been approved by representatives of the Imperial government.
Sister Dorotea would bear close watching, but Roderick had always found her valuable. She still had to sort out her personal ambitions from her expressed loyalties to the Emperor; Roderick needed to determine where they overlapped and where they might conflict.…
As he went about his morning ablutions, preoccupied but as quiet as possible, Roderick considered the numerous critical events he would have to balance. Though his brother had the title and glory of being Emperor, Roderick spent more time implementing policy and ensuring that the government functioned smoothly, despite some of Salvador’s rash and ill-advised decisions.
Too much had been done, in his opinion, to appease Manford Torondo and his rabble-rousing followers—not because Salvador believed in their extremist views, but because they wielded enough power to bully him. Salvador’s brash actions against the Sisterhood were clearly an attempt to take the initiative away from Manford, but it had not gone well. Roderick didn’t deny that antitechnology extremists could cause a great deal of civil unrest, but he was more worried that his brother had made many pronouncements without first consulting him.
For most of their lives, Salvador had used him as a sounding board, for help with important decisions. Roderick wondered what had changed. He sensed a withdrawal on his brother’s part, a desperation and a will to survive. Maybe he felt he was losing control of his Imperium. But Salvador was his brother and the rightful Emperor, and Roderick had his own duties.
He needed to reassert his influence over Salvador and be a voice of reason, before his brother turned into a tyrant. During the CET riots and Emperor Jules’s bloodbath against the delegates seeking sanctuary at the Palace, they had all seen the price to be paid for allowing emotions and paranoia to run unchecked, but Salvador was not much of a student of history.…
Ready for the day, though it was not yet dawn over the city of Zimia, Roderick emerged from his private wing and walked down the corridor to the Emperor’s private administration offices. He was surprised to find Salvador already waiting for him. Grinning, the Emperor said, “Hurry, come along with me. I’ve got good news to show you!”
Roderick fell into step beside his brother. “These days, we both could use a bit of that.”
Like an excited boy squirming to keep a secret, Salvador refused to tell him what to expect as they rode in a fast carriage to the large central plaza of the capital city, in the midst of imposing government buildings. There, Imperial guards were already at work cordoning off the area, keeping crowds of early-rising onlookers from getting closer. Escorted by gold-uniformed troops, the two Corrinos made their way through the people. Roderick smelled an odd, burning odor that irritated his nose.
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