The flyer circled around and headed back to Arrakis City. The desert storm chased them as if it were a living, sentient sky and they had ventured where they did not belong. All the way, the guards chattered about what they had seen. In the spaceport bars that evening, listeners would probably laugh at their stories.
But Venport had seen it for himself. If the rewards of melange were not so tremendous, he would never have risked doing business here. Who could deal with people who survived in such a godforsaken place?
They ride giant worms!
Nothing is ever as it seems. With appropriate equations I can prove this.
— NORMA CENVA, Mathematical Philosophies
Now that she was no longer working for him, riding on his coattails, Tio Holtzman was not surprised at how quickly Norma Cenva faded from public attention. For an entire year he had not thought much about her, not since Aurelius Venport had negotiated her termination from his service. Holtzman smiled. A superior businessman indeed. What had Venport been thinking?
Though she had incomparable mathematical and scientific expertise, Norma simply did not have the knack to see the potential of her own discoveries. Pure genius was only one part of the equation— one needed to know what to do with a significant breakthrough. And that was where Norma had always failed.
Ah well, she was off on her own now and no longer a financial burden to him, even though VenKee’s initial repayments of glowglobe profits would have paid her expenses thousands of times over. How could they all be so naïve?
Venport had offered Lord Bludd a tidy sum of money to purchase a group of “technically adept slaves” to work at Norma’s new facility— somewhere upriver?— so the Savant had happily surrendered an entire group of his troublesome Zensunnis and Zenshiites. After the shutdown of the delta shipyards, Holtzman hadn’t known what to do with all the workers anyway… until one disgruntled slave had had the audacity to confront Lord Bludd himself. The nobleman had rebuked Holtzman for not keeping sufficient control over his workers, and the Savant had been glad to send the troublemakers to Norma Cenva.
He was pleased to be rid of them. And Norma, as well. All problems solved.
But in a sense, Holtzman was also disappointed to have the dwarfish woman gone. For the first few years of her apprenticeship on Poritrin, he and Norma had been a good team, and the Savant had profited greatly from her eager, youthful assistance. But she had wanted to dabble on her own for decades, with no apparent sense of when to give up on a fruitless and costly mathematical development that led nowhere.
Still, he wanted her to know that he didn’t hold a grudge. For years now, he had occasionally sent her polite invitations to formal receptions, but Norma always declined them with the flimsy excuse that she was “too busy.” The tiny woman had never understood how more progress could be achieved through politics and connections than through direct research.
Luckily, his newest young assistants were impatient to make their mark on history. Their work kept his own position secure.
If asked in public, Holtzman invariably said that Norma had served him well, as a competent assistant who showed occasional flashes of insight. Such gentlemanly modesty and generosity only added to the great inventor’s aura and increased stature. Then he would smile and turn the discussions to his own accomplishments.
As time went by, the Savant gave less and less thought to Norma Cenva.
* * *
FADING FROM THE limelight did not concern her in the least. Working in the calculation rooms and inspecting the daily progress of the fabrication of new Holtzman Effect engine components, Norma was perfectly happy with her isolation.
She had never understood all of the machinations around her, nor did she give them much importance. Her major concern was the critical work itself, pursuing concepts without regard to politics, egos, or time-wasting social necessities.
Her funding came from VenKee Enterprises, she owned her slave workers, and Tuk Keedair’s security force had been drawn from outside of Poritrin. No one had any reason to pay attention to her work here in her lab, far from prying eyes.
But the Tlulaxa business partner was much more concerned with security than Norma had ever been. At first, Keedair had suggested establishing an elaborate holosystem that would blur the above ground buildings and the dry-waterfall cave opening. But with the construction and fabrication teams, all the materials sent upriver, and the constant flow of food and supplies, it was impossible to believe that no one would notice the research complex. Instead, Keedair relied on his guards to scare off any curious trespassers, though they looked bored as they paced around the hangar and grounds, on endless patrol.
Before long, Norma would be finished. She hoped to have the prototype space-folding ship ready before Aurelius Venport returned from Arrakis. Norma smiled whenever she thought of that most special man, and missed him very much. She still couldn’t believe the surprise gift he had given her before departing. His fumbling question and the look in his eyes seemed to astonish him as much as it did her….
Perhaps by the time she achieved the dream that had dominated her thoughts since the beginning of the Jihad, Norma could give Aurelius an answer to his question. She did love him with all her heart and had never realized it. For her whole life she had shunted her emotions aside. No longer. When he came back to Poritrin, things would be different.
But first—
The heart of her work, the large old-style cargo ship, rested on a drydock platform inside the hangar. Sluggish and antiquated, it was worthless as a commercial vessel because of its inability to keep up with the craft of highly competitive space merchants. But it was everything Norma needed.
Now, high inside the clatter and bustle of the construction hangar, Norma stood on a suspensor platform over the patched hull. Making mental notes, she supervised a crew of Zensunni workers as they made mechanical modifications below, following the daily instructions she gave them.
The workers scurried around inside the large hull, shouting to each other and clanging tools. The rear of the old vessel had been torn open, its outdated engines gutted and removed, part of the cargo area reconfigured to hold her newly designed components. It was all coming together perfectly. After decades, she could see the end in sight, and it made her giddy.
Aurelius would be proud of her.
While Norma based her plan for folding space on concise mathematical formulas and proven laws of physics, such concepts were merely building blocks for something much grander, an intricate, almost ethereal design that could not be committed to paper or envisioned all at once. At least not yet. It was growing in her mind.
Each day she built upon her previous work, often staying up all night to modify and recalculate, installing a modular panel here, a magnetic winding or a Hagal quartz prism there. Like a master chef, she added ingredients as they occurred to her, going with a prescient sense bolstered by her theoretical proofs. Currents of thought and movement occurred to her on a mounting, incredibly large scale, as if by divine inspiration.
Savant Holtzman would laugh at me if I even suggested such a thing!
As work progressed, the crews performed quality-control and bench tests according to her exacting specifications. Each part must function properly.
Watching the breakthrough engines take shape beneath her, Norma felt a rush of excitement. Much was at stake here, not only for herself and VenKee Enterprises, but for the entire human race.
The implications of her remarkable technology would continue long past the defeat of the thinking machines. Space-folding engines would change the human race and reshape the future. Consequences cascaded like waterfalls in her imagination, stretching her ability to grasp them. At times such as this, when Norma took the capabilities of the human mind to unbelievable extremes, she hoped it would not drive her insane.
But if she could surmount the technological challenges of this venture, Norma and her backers would travel between star systems, exponentially faster than the limits of contemporary technolog
y. It would aid the Army of the Jihad immensely, and she had every reason to expect that it would lead, at last, to victory.
On top of it all, Aurelius would secure commercial opportunities he had never dreamed possible. Norma could not wait for him to come back— to discuss this, and much more.
Guard every breath, for it carries the warmth and moisture of your life.
— Zensunni admonition to children
Beneath the cave overhang Selim looked with pride at his hardened followers, then glanced at Marha with an expression more akin to love. The young woman was full of energy and determination, exuberance mixed with common sense. For nearly two years, she had excelled among them, making herself indispensable.
“Arrakis is ours because we have taken it,” Selim announced. “We have learned to survive under the harshest circumstances, without depending upon the benevolence of strangers or trade with offworld intruders.”
Taking Marha’s strong hand in his, he pulled her to her feet and they both stood, staring at each other with spice-blue eyes. “Marha, you have proven yourself a worthy member of our band, but I am also pleased to accept you as my wife— if you will have me.”
Initially she had come as an admirer, a competent follower and fellow outlaw. Now she would be his mate. Marha had worked harder and followed his visions with more dedication than any other member of his outlaw band. She had made it perfectly clear to everyone, including him, that no one but she would be a suitable bride for the legendary leader.
Only a week ago, she had come to Selim at dawn, where he stood at the window rock and gazed out upon the sea of dunes. In the utter stillness, Marha stepped up to him and cast a necklace of jangling tokens at his feet, making a loud clatter in the small cave.
Hundreds of spice tokens, taken from hopeful women working the melange fields. Many, many times more than the wedding price Naib Dhartha had imposed on his people.
Knowing how much courage it must have taken for her to see him as a husband as well as a legendary leader, Selim had grinned. “How can I refuse an offer such as this?”
Now Marha smiled at him, revealing perfectly white teeth. Her face looked radiant; the crescent-moon scar above her left eye stood out plainly on her flushed face. “Ever since I was an awestruck girl, listening to the whispered stories of the great Wormrider, I dreamed of this moment. Yes, of course I will have you as my husband, Selim.”
While the outlaw leader made his proud announcement, his lieutenant Jafar, dressed in a distilling suit, walked alone out onto the empty sand. Now everyone could see the gaunt, dedicated man through the cave opening. Taking up his chosen position, Jafar pounded his drum; the gathered outlaws heard the faint thumping muffled by distance. Their anticipation built as Selim remained silent and watched.
After he had drummed long enough to be certain a worm would come, the outlaw lieutenant tucked the drum under his arm. As he sprinted, his long legs carried him swiftly over the dune crests. In the open vastness behind him, wormsign appeared, indicating the rippling progress of an approaching behemoth.
Breathless, Jafar reached a shelter of rocks, but instead of climbing to safety he remained at the shoreline of sand, striking sharp, resonant blows on the stone with a metal hammer. The sandworm drove toward the vibrations, but could not come closer to the rock barrier, which extended like an iceberg far beneath the surface of the sand. Finally, it rose into the open sky, its gaping mouth open and questing, tiny crystalline teeth glinting. Dust and sand tumbled from its segmented body. The creature let out a roar that sounded like the scraping wind from a heavy storm.
Selim raised his voice and shouted at the top of his lungs. “Shai-Hulud, hear me! I have summoned you to bear witness.” He pulled Marha close to stand beside him in the wash of light. “I claim this woman as my wife, and she accepts me. From this day forward, we are married in your eyes. Let no one doubt it.”
The outlaws let out a loud cheer, deafening as it reverberated inside the cave chamber. The worm lifted itself higher— as if in a benediction— then plunged deep into the dunes again, sending up a spray of sand as it tunneled far below, to a hidden hoard of melange.
* * *
THAT NIGHT THE bandits celebrated with honey and exotic delicacies stolen from caravans returning from Arrakis City. They consumed large quantities of melange in their revelries, until heads grew light and coruscating vision blurred faces and surroundings to a beautiful soft focus. They were all bound together by the special red dust cast off by the sandworms, a powder that was the dried essence of Shai-Hulud himself.
Their inhibitions faded, and many men and women became newfound lovers in the shadowed passages of the caves. Later, when the celebration finally ended, their group would return to its all-consuming mission. But for one night the spice transported them.
With Marha beside him, Selim traveled the pathways of melange, stepping through open doorways into the future. He sensed her nearby, a dazzling soul and a warm heart that had become an inseparable part of him.
But for this journey, Selim needed to go alone.
On the back wall of the cave, mysterious runes had been scribed long ago by forgotten explorers. No one knew what the inscriptions meant, but Selim had fashioned his own interpretations, and his followers did not question such pronouncements.
Aided by the melange, Selim saw many things that were invisible to the real world.
And now for the first time he saw the true scope of the challenge he faced, the immensity of time over which this epic battle would be played out. He saw that this was not merely a struggle between himself and the hated NaibDhartha, not a conflict Selim could resolve in his own lifetime. It had already gone too far. The temptation and dependence on spice had passed a threshold that no mere man could ever stop.
One lifetime would never be enough. Selim had to insure that his mission would last far beyond his own death. Shai-Hulud would show him how, when the time was right.
Afterward he awoke with Marha warm and naked against him, clinging even in her dreams, as if afraid to let go. She stirred in the dim shadows. Her face was filled with curiosity and appreciation, drinking in every detail of his features.
“Selim, my love, my husband”— she said the last word on an indrawn breath—”I have finally learned to see you, to truly see you, as a man, a human being. At first, I fell in love with the idea of you, the portrait of a hero, an outlaw who could see the future with an unwavering clarity of mission. But you are more than that… a mortal man with a heart. To me, that makes you greater than any legend.”
He kissed her tenderly on the lips. “So, Marha, you alone know my secret. And you alone shall share it with me, keeping me strong, and helping me accomplish what I must.” Selim stroked her dark hair and smiled at her, content with Marha’s devotion. After all the years, myth and reality had merged into the same entity.
She seemed to read his thoughts, understanding him even before he put his hesitation into words. “Have you experienced another vision, my love? What troubles you?”
He nodded somberly. “Last night, after we consumed so much spice, more dreams opened to me.” She sat up with an intent expression, switching from a newlywed wife in the afterglow of love to a devoted follower ready to receive new instructions.
Selim said, “We have raided caravans and thwarted NaibDhartha’s efforts to sell melange, but I have not done enough to drive away the offworlders. The spice trade grows greater every year. It is no wonder Shai-Hulud is disappointed in me. He has given me a quest, and so far I have failed.”
“The Old Man of the Desert has faith in you, Selim. Why else would he give you such an impossible task?” When Marha sat up, his gaze drifted to her perfect breasts and smooth skin in the dim cave light. “We will help you. We will give everything to see that you achieve your goals. This mission is more than any one man could hope to accomplish.”
He kissed her gently on her crescent scar, then sat up straight and looked toward brighter light outside, where the sun wa
shed across the rippling dunes. “Perhaps it is more than one man can accomplish. But not beyond the capability of a legend.”
* * *
STARRY-EYED AND FULL of dreams, young Aziz waited until his grandfather and the cliff dwellers had fallen asleep for the night. Then he gathered the bits of equipment he had hidden away one piece at a time, day by day. He made no sound, scurrying like a muad’dib, one of the small desert mice that populated the crannies and cliffs.
Tonight he would prove himself, not only to NaibDhartha, but to Selim Wormrider. Though neither would want to hear it, both men were Aziz’s heroes, people he respected. The boy saw honor on either side of the conflict, and hoped to bring them together somehow, for the good of the Zensunni people. His secret.
But it was such a difficult task.
For many months, ever since the legendary bandits had rescued him from certain death in the desert, Aziz had been thinking about life among the outlaws. Selim Wormrider was blind to how much Naib Dhartha had done for the Zensunni people. The young man loved his grandfather very much and understood the Naib’s stern ways, which he saw as the price for the tribe’s dramatically improved life, reliable supplies of food and water, even a few luxuries and comforts purchased from interstellar merchants.
But Selim Wormrider had a fire in his eyes and a different sort of honor, a brave confidence and righteousness that overshadowed Naib Dhartha’s more provincial concerns. Selim’s outlaws followed their leader with passion, far more than the spice gatherers showed in their work for NaibDhartha. And the woman Marha— who had run away from this very village— now seemed to have a new center in her life. Obviously, she had no regrets over her own decision.
For many nights Aziz had dreamed of joining the bandit group himself and becoming one of the romantic outlaws. He could talk to the Wormrider, say all the things he should have said months ago when he’d had the opportunity. His eyes shone, bright with the challenge of making the world right again, healing the breach, stopping the long-standing, destructive feud.
Dune: The Machine Crusade Page 33