Dabeet knew he should go. Yet this had been so fleeting, so impossible, so sudden. He wanted to know everything, yet he knew that she didn’t have time to answer his questions. She had a hope, still—the hope that her songs would waken something in the minds of her… of her people. How dare he even think of interfering.
She began to sing in a language made of highly articulated yips and growls, sighs and whispers, with rhythm and pitch in patterns that bespoke a kind of music, though nothing like anything Dabeet had ever heard.
Andrew took him by the arm and led him from the room.
Andrew palmed the door closed.
“With all the cameras off,” said Dabeet, “how will we know when she is through?”
“Don’t you know how quickly toxoplasmosis works on living creatures on this world?” asked Andrew. “It was in the reports.”
“Yes, I know,” said Dabeet. “She has only a few hours.”
“And then what?” asked Valentine. “Do they have a death ritual of some kind? A funeral? A burial?”
“Not for those that die of the cat disease,” said Andrew. “It’s in the reports. They shun the bodies, for fear of picking up the cysts from the corpse. They eat nothing that dies of cat disease.”
“We really should have found a solution to the toxoplasmosis problem centuries ago,” said Valentine.
“We did,” said Dabeet. “We made it a high crime to bring any cat into space.”
“So a colony of criminals arrived with their cats,” said Valentine.
“Such a terrible chance that this is where they came,” said Dabeet.
“I think we need to find a virus that seeks out and kills the Toxoplasma gondii,” said Valentine.
“Or a virus that kills only cats,” said Dabeet. “That’s the one we need. Because even without toxoplasmosis, the cats have killed off dozens of species of small animals just for the fun of it.”
“How many of the people here have caught the parasite?” asked Andrew.
“We check everybody every three months,” said Dabeet. “Nobody has it.”
Andrew and Valentine said nothing.
“I’ll use my authority to compel everybody to be tested here, by E.S. personnel, instead of by local medical technicians,” said Dabeet.
“Would they really conceal infections?” asked Valentine.
“Toxoplasmosis isn’t usually dangerous to humans,” said Dabeet. “But it does predispose us to be kind to cats.”
“Are people still bringing in cat skins for the bounty?” asked Andrew.
“As many as ever,” said Dabeet.
“But nowhere near fast enough to keep up with feline population growth?” asked Andrew.
“Nothing can keep up with feline population growth,” said Valentine.
“How will the people react to the decision to deny the colony continuing status?” asked Andrew.
Dabeet didn’t want to answer. But he owed the truth to this speaker for the dead. “They will have their continuing status,” he said. “We will also continue our efforts to exterminate the cats and perhaps Toxoplasma gondii. And the llop will have a vast reserve of choice habitat that will be theirs forever.”
“Until Catalunya becomes an independent world and makes their own laws,” said Valentine.
“That’s possible,” said Dabeet, “though I’ll recommend that Starways Congress never grant independence without a firm guarantee—”
“Firm guarantees will become worthless as soon as the side with all the power decides that the llop are dangerous wild animals,” said Valentine.
“She drew the picture,” said Andrew. “She came here to find her companion. She gave her life for her people. How can you say that the llop aren’t sentient?”
“Because they aren’t,” said Dabeet. “Not with all the companions dead. We’ll search for more. On an island somewhere, perhaps. It’s not impossible. Or a genetically related species that we might be able to alter for them. We’ll try. But I was sent here with clear instructions.”
“To discover that the llop are not sentient and Ken Argon was a loon,” said Valentine.
“Yes,” said Dabeet.
“I think you don’t want me to speak the death of Ken Argon,” said Andrew.
“Yes, I do,” said Dabeet. “For me. For my staff. Some of them, anyway. But not for the people of Tarragona.”
“Some of them might change their minds,” said Valentine. “If they knew the truth.”
“No,” said Dabeet. “They’ll blame the pirates and the cats and say, ‘Why should we pay for their crimes? The damage was already done before we got here. A tragic disease, not of our causing, not of our bringing. Tragedy is no reason we should give up this beautiful world,’ they’ll say. Ken Argon was a renegat, a traitor, the enemy.”
Andrew and Valentine nodded as if the same puppeteer were moving their heads.
“I’m glad you came,” said Dabeet. “I had to know. Even though I also knew what the E.S. wanted the outcome to be. Soon they would have replaced me and sent someone more obedient. Perhaps my replacement is already on his way.”
“He is,” said Andrew.
Dabeet smiled ruefully. “Andrew, do you really know who my father was?”
Andrew shook his head. Though whether that meant “No, I don’t know” or “No, I won’t answer you,” Dabeet had no way of knowing.
“Andrew,” said Dabeet. “Don’t speakers for the dead fearlessly say what no one wants to hear, as long as it’s true?”
“We do,” said Andrew. “But Dabeet, my friend, you are not dead.”
Our next story is the latest entry in the long running Dune saga. It takes us back to Frank Herbert’s Dune, the novel that launched the series. Authors Brian Herbert—Frank’s son—and Kevin J. Anderson offer us a tale that takes place during the two-year gap where Gurney Halleck is off on his own, and Paul Atreides is becoming the Fremen leader. For decades readers have asked, “What was Gurney doing?” This is his story.
THE WATERS OF KANLY
FROM THE LOST YEARS OF GURNEY HALLECK
BRIAN HERBERT AND KEVIN J. ANDERSON
I
“Blood is thicker than water.
Water is more precious than spice.
Revenge is most precious of all.”
—songs of Gurney Halleck
The baliset strings thrummed and the flywheel spun, producing a sad song… as it always did.
Gurney Halleck used the multipick, focused on the music that came from his beloved instrument, immersed in the mood, the sorrow, the anger. With the music, he didn’t need to think about the crackling dry air, the rock-walled caves of the smugglers’ hideout, the grief that had set deeply into his bones, still undiminished even after a full year.
Harkonnen forces had swept into the Atreides stronghold in Arrakeen as soon as the household shields were dropped, thanks to an as-yet unidentified traitor, no doubt someone trusted… and deadly. Gurney was convinced that person was the she-witch Jessica, and because of her Duke Leto was dead. Young Master Paul was dead, too, and so was the loyal Duncan Idaho, a Swordmaster like Gurney.
And so, if reports were to be believed, was Jessica herself.
After the Harkonnens had once again taken over Arrakis, the planet commonly known as Dune, Gurney Halleck was the only surviving Atreides lieutenant, he and 73 other men. The Atreides Mentat, Thufir Hawat, had been captured alive, now forced to serve the vile Baron Harkonnen. Only Gurney and his men remained free, and they spoke often of seeking revenge.
But it was difficult and long delayed.
He let the emotions flow as he sang a sad refrain…
“A man of his people, not of himself,
Duke Leto betrayed, oh how can it be?
Of all the nobles, why our gallant Duke?
I shall never forget, shall never forgive…”
Gurney looked up as a shadow fell over him, cast by the light of the glowglobes suspended near the rock ceiling. A burly man stood a head taller
than Gurney with blocky features that looked as if they had been carved from lava rock by an inexpert sculptor who had imbibed too much spice beer. Orbo was one of the reliable smugglers who had served their leader Staban Tuek reliably for years, a muscular man who excelled in physical endurance and strength, but was never called upon to do much thinking.
Gurney kept playing absently, though his singing faltered into silence as he saw the angry expression on Orbo’s face. The large group sat inside the rock-walled assembly hall of the smugglers’ hideout, their improvised sietch in the deep desert. The natural caves had been cut deeper with heavy equipment, the living chambers outfitted to look like the cabins and piloting deck of a spice freighter.
Many of Gurney’s men were in the assembly room playing gambling games, talking about their long-lost homes on Caladan, describing their prowess with women from bygone days. Few discussed business, because Staban Tuek was the one who determined the time and the place of their raids, and his smugglers followed.
Gurney’s fingers stilled on the baliset strings. Orbo’s face rippled with uneasiness and anger, as he seemed to be having difficultly articulating what was upsetting him.
“Don’t you have a fondness for music, man?” Gurney asked. He realized that the big muscular man had often shown discomfort whenever he played and sang.
“Oh, I like music all right,” Orbo said in a voice thick from a lifetime of breathing and speaking dust. “I just don’t like your music. I want happy music, joyful music.” He scowled. “Your songs have too much anger, too much revenge.”
Gurney’s eyes narrowed. This man was treading on dangerous ground and could get hurt for doing so, no matter his size. “Perhaps vengeance is the most important thing I have to sing about… after what House Harkonnen did.”
Orbo shook his head. “We are smugglers and have no time for politics. You are dangerous.”
With the palm of his hand Gurney stopped the flywheel spinning. “When my men and I joined you, I swore to Staban I would delay my revenge and find an appropriate way, but I never promised to forget about it entirely.” His voice hitched, but he clamped down on his emotions. “Thinking about revenge keeps me going.”
Orbo seized the baliset, snatching it right out of his hands. Gurney grabbed for it, but the big man swung it and drove it hard against the heat-smoothed stone wall. He smashed the instrument, causing it to make a discordant jangle, like ghosts of the saddest songs ever sung. With an angry grunt, he tossed the string-tangled splinters in a heap at Gurney’s feet. “Now you don’t have music either, and we can finally have peace.”
At another time, Gurney would have murdered him on the spot. He tightened his jaw, making the inkvine scar there ripple and dance like a purplish dying snake. Several of the other Atreides survivors rose to their feet, casting deadly glances toward Orbo as he stalked off. Gurney raised a hand, stopping them. He quelled his own anger, walling it off into a safe internal compartment, as he’d been doing since that terrible night.
Staban Tuek emerged from a small side chamber he used as an office, his expression dark. First looking at the departing Orbo and then at the wrecked instrument on the floor, he asked, “What have you done now, Gurney Halleck?”
Gurney struggled to control himself. Everything in its time, and there is a time for everything. “As I sit here with my prized possession ruined, your first thought is to ask me what I’ve done?”
“Yes, I do.” He glanced at the tunnel where Orbo had vanished. “That man doesn’t have the imagination to be cruel. You must have done something to irritate him. Seriously irritate him.”
Gurney twitched his fingers as if he could still play an imaginary baliset. “Apparently some of your men don’t like sad songs.”
The smuggler leader snorted. “None of us do. And we’re growing pretty tired of you.” His expression softened and he gave a hint of a smile to mitigate his words. “You obsess on the defeat of your House Atreides rather than victories to come. You and your men are smugglers now and should be thinking of raiding spice, developing black markets, and stealing equipment from the Harkonnens to sell back to them at exorbitant prices.” Staban shook his head. “The past is the past. And remember what I told you when you first came to me after the fall of Arrakeen, when you were burned and dirty, weak and starving.”
“The same night your own father was murdered by the Harkonnen monsters,” Gurney said.
Staban twitched, but narrowed his gaze and focused his words. “I gave you a home but I warned you not to seek revenge too soon, bringing down the anger of our new planetary masters, House Harkonnen. As my father said, ‘A stone is heavy and the sand is weighty; but a fool’s wrath is heavier than both.’”
“I remember the quote,” Gurney muttered, “but I prefer another from Esmar Tuek.” He smiled, softening the features on his lumpy face. “‘There’s more than one way to destroy a foe.’” He kicked the jangling wires and debris of his baliset as if it meant nothing to him. Compared to his plans, the lost instrument was indeed a trivial thing. Revenge against the Harkonnens, against the loathsome acting governor Beast Rabban was paramount. “I’ve been pondering something in the Orange Catholic Bible: ‘A thinking man has infinite options, but a reactive man is doomed to only one path.’”
“You always have a quote. One for every occasion, it seems. Now what the hell does that one mean?”
“It means I have an idea about how to hurt Rabban, one that should also prove profitable for us.”
Tuek was intrigued. “I much prefer this line of thinking. Tell me.”
Gurney brushed himself off and walked with the smuggler leader back to his office, speaking in a low voice. “Regular shipments of supplies and equipment come from offworld to Rabban’s garrison city of Carthag. The Beast should not be entitled to all of them.” He paused, letting the idea sink in. He could see the thoughts churning on Staban’s face.
“First,” Gurney continued, “we have to arrange a meeting with the Emperor’s unofficial ambassador to the smugglers.”
II
As far as Gurney was concerned, this was not a man to be trusted.
Count Hasimir Fenring was a weasel-faced, dithering imperialist who held a great deal of power. Apparently, Fenring had been a childhood friend of the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. They had shared many schemes and violent adventures, and according to rumor had even assassinated Shaddam’s father, placing the Crown Prince on the throne. On the surface, Fenring had the ability to seem innocuous and foppish, with a meandering conversational style, yet he had a gaze like a pair of surgical needles. This was a deadly killer and the Emperor’s proxy on Arrakis. Gurney knew well, he was not a man to be underestimated, and might even have been involved in the plot to destroy House Atreides.
Fenring had come to Carthag on official business, to meet with Glossu Rabban and ensure that after a full year the Harkonnen spice-harvesting operations were producing the expected amounts of the valuable geriatric substance melange, found only in the deep deserts of this planet. Count Fenring had countless unofficial dealings on the Emperor’s behalf, of which neither the Harkonnens nor the Landsraad nobles knew anything. Because of his illicit interactions with smuggler bands such as Staban Tuek’s, he held the whispered, unofficial title of “Ambassador to the Smugglers.”
Carthag, a brassy and blustery new city thrown together with prefabricated buildings and no finesse, was a place of dark alleys and sharp corners where Harkonnen troops held as much power over the populace as they could grab, a city where happiness was a rare and expensive commodity.
Through his connections among the merchants and military quartermasters in Carthag, Staban had slipped him a message, and Count Fenring had arranged this meeting in an airlocked bar down a side alley, where the price of water was more expensive than any exotic or extravagant alcoholic drink. The proprietor had paid substantial bribes to Harkonnen guards and officials to ensure that this unofficial drinking establishment remained unharassed, the patrons allowed a small
measure of privacy.
Gurney and Staban wore dusty desert robes, and Gurney kept a stillsuit mask across his face and a cowl around his head, while Staban was more brash, confident that no one would recognize him… or at least no one would care. Eerie warbling semuta music played in the background. Incense wafted pinkish clouds of aroma into the stuffy air. All manner of dusty, dirty patrons filled the bar, many of whom were engaged in whispered conversations, as if they were plotting something illegal.
A man entered through the door seal, and Gurney recognized Fenring, the Imperial representative, a man with secrets and goals of his own. He wore traditional local garb without Harkonnen military markings: drab and dusty folds of cloth, a breathing mask across his face, but he didn’t seem to belong here. At first Gurney thought that Fenring—with his fine upbringing and noble ways—was just uncomfortable in a seedy place like this, but realized as Fenring’s close-set eyes flashed that this wasn’t the case at all. No, the part of Fenring that didn’t belong was an act. At any moment he could glide into the shadows with a dagger or other weapon and do exactly what needed to be done, without flinching or the slightest remorse.
Staban signaled him with a subtle hand gesture, and Fenring glided over with a jouncey step. He sat on a hard chair, removed his head covering. Gurney and Staban already had their drinks; diluted spice beers.
Fenring lifted a finger as the surly, wrung-out waitress came up to him. “Ah, I would like water please. Purified water of course, but with a splash of citrus flavoring. Let’s make it special tonight for this meeting, hmmm?”
“Water,” she said. “I’ll see if I can find something to add taste.”
Though Staban had requested the meeting, Fenring took charge, leaning over the table, glancing at Gurney without recognition but focusing his piercing gaze on the smuggler leader. “I have come to oversee Governor Rabban’s activities here. I fear he will not do well, hmmm.”
“We hope that is the case,” Gurney muttered.
Fenring suddenly paid attention to him. They had met previously, a brief occasion when Gurney was with Duke Leto, but the Count still showed no indication of knowing this. Still, something seemed to be nagging at him, tickling his memory. “Interesting… hmmm.”
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