Sandworms of Dune

by Frank Herbert

  Emerging from the back of his mind, Alia interrupted him, insisting that the machines would discard him when he had fulfilled his purpose. When he sputtered internally in protest, she screeched over him: You're going to get us killed, Grandfather! Think back to your first life--you weren't always such a gullible fool!

  The Baron shook his head briskly, wishing he could get her out of his mind. Maybe his Alia tormentor was the result of a tumor pressing upon a cognitive center of his brain. The malignant little Abomination was deeply entrenched in his skull. Maybe a robot surgeon could cut her out. . . .

  The Face Dancers led him and his young ward across a platform and down a set of stairs to the square. Giddy, Paolo ran ahead and did a brief dance of joy. "Is this all mine? Where is my throne room?" He looked back at the Baron. "Don't worry--I'll find a place for you in my court. You have been good to me." Was that a scrap of leftover Atreides honor? The Baron scowled.

  The Face Dancers nudged the Baron into a lift tube, while allowing Paolo to enter unassisted. Instead of climbing to the apex of the tower as the Baron expected, however, the lift plunged in free fall toward the bowels of hell. Swallowing the impulse to scream, he said, "If you're really the Kwisatz Haderach, Paolo, perhaps you should learn to use your powers . . . immediately."

  The boy shrugged dumbly, showing little recognition of the peril they were in.

  As soon as the lift settled to a smooth stop, the walls melted away around them to reveal an immense, underground chamber. Here, as outside, nothing remained stationary. Rotating walls and a clearplaz floor left the Baron dizzy and disoriented, as if the two humans stood in a vault of space.

  A mist rose and congealed in the shape of a large man, a faceless, ghostlike figure. The foggy form, nearly twice the height of a grown man, stopped in front of them and moved its arms to make a swirl of icy air that smelled of metal and oil. Within the countenance, two glowing eyes became apparent. From a misty mouth, a deep voice said, "So, this is our Kwisatz Haderach."

  Paolo lifted his chin and recited what the Baron had told him, with considerable passion. "I'll be the one who can see all places and all things simultaneously, the one who will lead the multitudes. I am the shortening of the way, the rescuer, the messiah, the one spoken of in countless legends."

  Words flowed from the fog. "You have a charismatic presence that I find fascinating. Humans exhibit an irresistible compulsion to follow physically attractive, charming leaders. Properly harnessed, you could be an effective and destructive tool for us." The fog creature laughed, swirling the cold wind around him. Then his otherworldly eyes riveted on the Baron. "You will see that the boy cooperates."

  "Yes, of course. Are you Omnius?"

  "I speak for the evermind." The fogginess shifted as the mist flowed into itself and resolved into the gleaming metallic shape of a polished robot with an exaggerated but menacing smile molded onto his face. "For the sake of convenience, I call myself Erasmus."

  The walls of the chamber shifted like a kaleidoscope to reveal hundreds of angular combat robots stationed around the perimeter like strange beetles. Their metal eyes glittered in the same hostile fashion.

  "Perhaps I will question you now. Or later? Indecision is a very human thing, you know. We have all the time in the world." The smile on the robot's platinum face had locked into place. "I so love your cliches."

  TWENTY-THREE YEARS AFTER

  ESCAPE FROM CHAPTERHOUSE

  Even with a Navigator's incredible mental advancement, I cannot forget the fundamental thread that ties us to the rest of humanity: the old emotion of hope.

  --NAVIGATOR EDRIK,

  unacknowledged message to the Oracle of Time

  The four specialized Guild craft were shaped like hornets, sleek sensor-studded ships that skimmed low over the waves of Buzzell. Scan eyes pointed down at the water, searching for movement. From the lead ship Waff peered through the spray-specked plaz windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of seaworms. The Tleilaxu's excitement and anticipation were palpable. Worms were down there somewhere. Growing.

  He had released the creatures just over a year ago, and judging from the flurry of rumors the Guild had picked up, the seaworms must have thrived. None of the Bene Gesserit witches on the rocky islands understood where the serpentine creatures had come from. Now, Waff thought with a thrill, it was time to reap the harvest he had sown. He couldn't wait to see them, to know that he had accomplished his holy mission.

  The sky was overcast, with patches of fog lying low over the sea. At regular intervals, the scanning crews dropped sonic pulsers into the water. The throbbing signals would map the movements of large underwater denizens, and theoretically attract the seaworms just as Fremen thumpers had once attracted the huge monsters on old Rakis. Near Waff in the cockpit, five silent Guildsmen monitored the equipment while separate, smaller hunting platforms circled lower, keeping pace with the hornets. Periodically the platforms went back to check the points where the pulsers had been dropped.

  The leviathans of the deep from the ancient scriptures were more than just God's judgment on powindah unbelievers. This was the return of the Prophet, God's Messenger resurrected from the ashes of Rakis, in an adaptive new form.

  The initial sightings of the beasts had occurred within six months. At first the tales told by the amphibious soostone harvesters had been met with disbelief, until the seaworms attacked in full view of island settlements. According to eyewitness accounts--and Bene Gesserits were well trained in accurate observation--the monstrous things had grown far larger than Waff had predicted. Truly, a sign from God that his work was blessed!

  So long as they were fed, the worms continued to grow and multiply. Seaworms apparently preferred to eat the large cholisters that produced soostones, tearing into beds tended by Phibians. The aquatic people had rallied to drive away the sea monsters, but they had failed.

  Waff smiled. Of course they had failed. One could not change a path that God had laid down.

  The angry witches had led hunting parties, taking boats out onto the waters, guided by vengeful Phibians. They begged Chapterhouse for weapons to kill the seaworms. But with Enemy forces attacking hundreds of fringe worlds, and the industries of Junction and Ix consuming most of the New Sisterhood's resources, they were stretched far too thin.

  The Bene Gesserits needed soostone wealth to build and replenish their armies faster than the Enemy could destroy them, but if the seaworms produced what Waff hoped, the creatures would be worth far more than any gem. Soon, there would be multiple sources of spice, including a new and more potent form. Waff could transplant the creatures to any ocean planet, where they could thrive without reconfiguring an entire ecosystem. Considering their current monopoly on melange, that would not make the Sisterhood happy.

  The pilot circled the lead hornet ship. Guild assistants stared fixedly at monitors. "Picking up shadows at various depths. Numerous tracks. We are close."

  Waff moved eagerly to the other side of the craft and stared down at the choppy waves. Pulse beacons continued to emit siren songs, and hunting platforms flitted alongside. "Be ready to move as soon as you detect a worm. I want to see one. Let me know when you have a sighting."

  Down in the water, he noticed two slick-skinned Phibians, who seemed curious about the pulse beacons and the flurry of activity. One raised a webbed hand in an incomprehensible signal as the hornet ships and hunting platforms streaked overhead.

  "Seaworm surfacing," announced one of the Guildsmen. "Target acquired."

  The little Tleilaxu rushed forward to the cockpit. Below, a long, dark shape appeared in the water, breaching like a great whale. "We must capture and kill it. That is the only way to see what's inside."

  "Yes," said the Guildsman. Waff narrowed his eyes, never able to understand these people. Was the man agreeing with him, or simply acknowledging the orders? This time he didn't care.

  Waff glanced at the projected map, noting that their search had taken them to one of the inhabited rocky islands.
Once he verified the success of the new worms, there would be no need to continue keeping secrets. The witches could do nothing about the seaworms, nor what they produced. They could not stop his work. Today, after his team captured a specimen and confirmed the results of his experiments, the truth would be obvious.

  We will show the witches what lies beneath the waves, and let them draw their own conclusions.

  The lead hornet craft slowed, its engines buzzing. The moment the seaworm emerged from the waves, ringed and glistening, Waff's hunters fired a fusillade of supersonic harpoons from their hovering platforms. The barbed tips hit the beast before it could realize its danger and submerge. Spear points caught in the soft rings, anchoring themselves as the worm thrashed and writhed. Waff felt joy, as well as a twinge of sympathetic pain. From behind the lead craft, three other hornet ships shot more harpoons into the trapped creature, pulling back on hyperfilament cables.

  "Don't damage it too much!" Waff intended to kill the thing anyway--a necessary sacrifice in the name of the Prophet--but if the carcass and internal organs were too mangled, his dissection would be more difficult.

  The group of hornet craft went into hover mode above the waves, their cables taut and straining as the seaworm thrashed. Milky fluid oozed into the water, dissipating before the Tleilaxu researcher could order one of the Guildsmen to collect samples. Other seaworms circled their struggling brother like hungry sharks.

  The worm was twenty meters long--a tremendous rate of growth for such a short time. He was impressed. If the creatures were reproducing as rapidly as they were growing, the oceans of Buzzell would soon be teeming with them! He couldn't ask for more.

  The wounded beast quickly tired. Engines humming with the strain, the Guild vessels began to drag the feebly struggling worm toward the nearest reef, which was barely visible in the wispy fog banks. The small hunting platforms returned to the hornet ships, docking inside their cramped cargo holds.

  The island was one of the main Sisterhood outposts for soostone processing, complete with barracks, warehouses, and a flattened spaceport capable of handling small ships. Let the witches see this!

  Flying in formation, the hornet ships towed the captive worm to shore. In the water below, at least twenty Phibians appeared carrying crude spears and tridents--as if they thought they could pose a threat to the giant creatures! Shouting curses and threats, the Phibians attacked the tangled worm, stabbing and cutting.

  Annoyed at the interference, Waff turned to his Guildsmen. "Drive them away!" Using small cannons mounted on the deck of the lead hornet ship, Guildsmen took potshots at the Phibians, killing two. The others dove underwater. At first they left the bloody corpses bobbing in the waves, but a number of the Phibians returned moments later. When they attempted to retrieve their fallen comrades, a second seaworm streaked in and devoured the bodies.

  The droning hum of the hornet ships attracted a crowd of women on the docks as the sluggish prize was dragged into the village harbor. Dark-clad Sisters left their barracks, perhaps thinking that smugglers or CHOAM representatives had arrived. From the recent depredations of the seaworms, most soostone operations had stalled. Sorting bins and packaging lines were silent and unmanned.

  His chest swelled with pride, Waff jumped down from the ramp onto the metal and stone wharf as the Guildsmen hoisted the ringed creature onto the main dock. Its narrow tail drooped into the water. Exhausted from its struggles and oozing fluids from the harpoon wounds, the captive worm thrashed one more time, expending the last of its energy. Though Waff and his servants had conquered and subdued the worm, he still felt impressed to be so close to the magnificent creature.

  Seven curious Phibians floated by the dock pilings, staring upward. In their bubbling, hissing voices, they mumbled in awe.

  Waff stood triumphantly before the large, dripping thing. Slime trickled from the dead seaworm onto the dock, and a gush of milkygray fluid flowed from its mouth. The long sharp teeth were very fine, like needles. Rather than reeking of fish, the seaworm had a distinct sharp-sweet odor with a hint of pungent cinnamon.

  Perfect!

  Women came forward to confront Waff. "We've never captured and killed a seaworm before," said a Sister in a brown dress who introduced herself as Corysta. She seemed delighted to see the leviathan dead. "They have caused great havoc in the seas."

  "And they will continue to do so. Learn to adapt your operations." Waff perfunctorily turned from her to issue instructions to his crew, then told Corysta and the other Bene Gesserits to stay back. "We are on strict Guild business. Do not attempt to interfere."

  Though dead, the seaworm twitched as nerve impulses continued to fire. Waff ordered the Guildsmen to lash down the carcass, so that he could dissect it without interruption. The Guild assistants brought him a lascutter, a superfine shigawire saw, spreaders, and shovels.

  Setting the lascutter to full power and holding it in both hands, Waff swept sideways in a broad arc and sliced the seaworm open, so that the round, dripping segments flopped apart. Guildsmen hurried forward with spreaders to pull open the wound and expose the internal structure. Waff reveled in the gore. The Prophet must be so pleased with him.

  In preparation, he had already killed and autopsied two of the original small specimens in his laboratory, so he knew the creatures' basic arrangement of organs. The worm was a biologically simple creature, and working on this larger scale made the process easier. Water and slime oozed onto the dock, splattering Waff. Under other circumstances he might have been disgusted, but this was the sacred essence of his Prophet. The Tleilaxu man sniffed more deeply, and there--a definite undertone to the smell--he caught the vital, pungent aroma of pure melange. No doubt about it.

  Waff buried his arms up to his shoulders in the organs, feeling around, identifying specific structures by their shapes and textures. Guild assistants used wide scoops to shovel offal onto the dock. Witches and Phibians watched in fascination, but Waff paid little attention to them.

  Ignoring the obviously confused and impotent Sisters, he laser-cut deeper into the worm, sliced along its length and rummaged through the stinking debris, until finally a large bluish-purple lump of soft liverlike material spilled out. Waff stepped back for a breath, then leaned closer, poking and prodding with his fingers. He made a cut with the lasknife at its lowest setting.

  A rich oily-cinnamon odor boiled out, so thick it could be seen as fumes. Waff reeled dizzily. The intensity of the melange nearly bowled him over. "Spice! The creature is saturated with melange! Extremely concentrated spice."

  The Sisters looked at each other and came closer with curious expressions. "Spice? The seaworms produce spice?" The Guildsmen stood close to Waff and his dripping prize, blocking the Bene Gesserits.

  "The seaworms destroyed our soostone beds!" another woman shouted.

  Waff stared them down. "These creatures may have destroyed one economy on Buzzell, but they created an even more important one." His assistants picked up the large, melange-saturated organ and carried it back to the nearest hornet ship. Waff would have to test the substance thoroughly, but he already felt confident in what he would find.

  Up in the orbiting Heighliner, Edrik the Navigator would be pleased.

  Dripping with slime and seawater, Waff hurried back to the ship.

  Some see spice as a blessing, others as a curse. To everyone, however, it is a necessity.

  --PLANETOLOGIST PARDOT KYNES,

  Original Arrakis Notebooks

  After her long and exhausting journey across the Old Empire, from the planets preparing for battle, to the Guild shipyards, to the soostone operations on Buzzell, Mother Commander Murbella returned to Chapterhouse with renewed determination. Since she had been gone for many months, her quarters in the Keep now looked like a stranger's rooms. Harried acolytes and male workers scurried to unload her belongings from her ship.

  After a polite knock on the door, an acolyte stepped in. The young woman had short brown hair and a furtive smile. "Mother Comma
nder, Archives sent these updated charts. They were supposed to be waiting for you upon your arrival." She held out thin maps with finely detailed lines, then drew back, startled, when she noticed the hulking combat robot, deactivated but still standing in the corner of the room like a war trophy.

  "Thank you. Don't mind the machine--it is as dead as they will all soon be." Murbella took the reports from the girl's hands. With a second glance, she realized the young woman was her own daughter Gianne, her last child with Duncan Idaho. Another daughter, Tanidia, also raised by the New Sisterhood, had been shipped off to work among the Missionaria.

  Do Gianne or Tanidia even know who their parents are? Years ago she had made the choice to tell Janess of her parentage, and the young woman had thrown herself into the study and understanding of her famous father. But Murbella had let her other two daughters be raised among the Bene Gesserit in the more traditional way. She doubted they knew how special they were.

  Gianne seemed hesitant, as if hoping the Mother Commander would ask her for something else. Though she knew the answer, on impulse Murbella asked, "How old are you, Gianne?"

  The girl seemed startled that she knew her name. "Why, twenty-three, Mother Commander."

  "And you have not yet undergone the Agony." It was not a question. Occasionally, the Mother Commander had been tempted to use her position to interfere with the girl's training, but had not done so. A Bene Gesserit was not supposed to show such weakness.

  The young woman seemed ashamed. "The proctors suggest that I would benefit from more focus and concentration."

  "Then devote yourself to that. We need every Reverend Mother we can find." She glanced at the ominous combat robot. "The war has worsened."

  MURBELLA REALIZED SHE could not rest, could not waste the time. She demanded to see her advisors, Kiria, Janess, Laera, and Accadia. The women arrived, expecting a meeting, but Murbella herded them out of the Keep. "Prepare a 'thopter. We leave immediately for the desert belt."