Navigators of Dune

by Brian Herbert

  The crowd response was subdued at first, but gradually it built to louder and more sustained applause as the listeners found the courage to express their real feelings. There would be some among the thousands who still sympathized with the Butlerian cause, but the mounting cheer suggested something else to Roderick—that for all the fury and energy of the fanatics, perhaps the rest of the populace had not approved, but were merely too afraid to voice their real objections. As he listened to the crowd, he detected a ragged edge of relief.

  He took Haditha’s hand and continued. “Both of those extremists hurt us profoundly. Because of them we lost three members of our family, and our grief is still a painful wound—yet, it is but a microcosm of what others have suffered. The blind ambitions of two men inflicted such a cost on humanity. On each extreme, opposing one another at every turn and harming the Imperium, Torondo and Venport each thought that he alone could drive our future—and both of them failed. We must be vigilant that such devastating ambitions do not tear our society apart ever again.

  “As your Emperor I need your help to continue along a new path—one that is much larger than any one person. I seek no glory, for I am but a guide for all of us. Yes, I am just a man.” He smiled and looked at Haditha, then raised her hand high. “I have my Empress at my side, and she is ready and willing to anchor me when I need it. She watches over the people, as I do—she has already demonstrated her energy and skill by managing the relief efforts to help the victims of the recent terrible flood.”

  Haditha spoke, “My husband cares for his subjects, as I do. Whether a tragedy hurts one village or the entire Imperium, the pain is part of all of us.” She touched her crown. “The Emperor’s heart is with you. I will continue to advise him, support him, and be his sounding board.”

  “You fully deserve that crown you wear,” Roderick said, smiling warmly at her, “but it is a weighty one. I have another token for you, one that is made much lighter by love.”

  An elderly aide stepped forward from the sidelines to present a flat, ornate box that contained a flower headdress. Surprised, Haditha let out a small gasp as she saw it.

  Because of Salvador’s chilly, loveless relationship with his wife, he had set an unwise precedent by cutting Empress Tabrina out of his rule. Roderick intended to establish a new precedent, and he meant for all his subjects to see that. The citizens had been inundated with titanic events and an uncertain future, and they needed something to celebrate. They needed to be reminded of what made humanity so special.

  He removed the colorful headdress. “Haditha is my partner and my adviser. She rules beside me to temper my decisions and help me fulfill my role. Truly, she is your Empress, as much as I am your Emperor. No Corrino rules alone.”

  Tears sparkled in Haditha’s eyes as he placed the headdress gently around her more traditional crown. Even though Haditha knew full well the significance of the ornamentation, Roderick explained it to the crowd. “This headdress is composed of fifteen flowers from the planet Isla in the Papeete star system. After we were married, Haditha and I honeymooned on Isla. Though these flowers were cut years ago, they will never fade. They will live forever, as will my love for her.” He kissed her, then faced the cheering audience. “A fitting addition to my Empress’s crown, I think.”

  Haditha looked perfectly regal and she spoke in a strong voice, tinged with emotion. “I accept this honor with tremendous gratitude and humility. I will seek to do it justice. For the future of the Imperium.”

  “For the future of the Imperium,” Roderick repeated.

  He turned as the curved screen behind them withdrew to reveal a large Navigator tank. Attendants wearing uniforms from the new Spacing Guild pushed the tank forward on suspensors. Roderick continued into the voice amplifier, “Norma Cenva, the first and foremost of all Navigators, has her own announcement to make.”

  He was still upset at how she had tricked him regarding Josef Venport’s fate, but he did not believe Norma had done the treacherous Directeur any favors. Venport had been moved into his own tank now, where he continued to undergo his difficult metamorphosis. The mutation and warping of his body had already rendered the ambitious man nearly incapable of speech, or of thinking about anything except the vast universe. Norma seemed to consider it a wondrous thing; Roderick wondered if Venport would agree.

  Instead of pursuing further revenge, Roderick would expend his energies on rebuilding the Imperium. The blind desire for revenge, on so many sides, had already caused too much damage.

  The strange woman undulated in the tank, her huge eyes shining through the gas. The expectant audience stared at her in fascination; few had ever seen a Navigator before. Norma’s words were focused as they came out of the speakerpatch on the tank, as if she had to concentrate heavily in order to achieve precise diction and smooth delivery.

  “I am the first Navigator, and the sacred protector of all my kind. The Emperor and I have reached an accord. The Spacing Guild will be the Navigators’ strength and shelter, the fabric that binds worlds and star systems together. My Navigators will continue to roam the cosmos. The universe is ours.”

  When Norma fell silent, she turned to stare straight up through the roof of the tank, although what she could see with her eyes and her mind went far beyond Roderick’s capacity to comprehend.

  The Emperor knew the audience had not yet grasped the importance of what this agreement would do for humankind. Their collective awe was fitting, though, because this was truly the beginning of a new era.

  “You are strong now, Roderick,” Haditha whispered to him beside the tank. “Finally, you can become the Emperor we always needed, and we can build the Imperium that the human race deserves, after so many generations of suffering. All obstacles have been overcome.”

  “All known obstacles.” Roderick smiled grimly. “I only wish I could see into the future and discover what lies ahead for us.”

  Beside him, Norma Cenva stirred uneasily in her tank.

  The unexpected is not always a surprise.

  —Mentat observation

  When he arrived on Arrakis as the new Imperial Overseer of Spice Operations, Draigo Roget studied the stark desert landscape. No other planet was as stunning as this one—constantly changing, yet always the same.

  He’d served here previously under Directeur Venport, but during that assignment he had considered the arid heat to be oppressive. Now the situation was very different. This time his life depended on his performance.

  Draigo should have been executed by Imperial order, but as a Mentat with his wealth of experience, he was an invaluable asset, not to be wasted, and Emperor Roderick had given him a second chance. He prided himself on being a survivor, and during the final negotiations on Denali, he’d salvaged an opportunity, even in Venport’s defeat. He had convinced the Emperor that he could be useful to the Imperium.…

  Now he stood on a promontory above one of his harvester machines and gazed out at the expanse of dunes. It was good to be alive! Among so many complex projections, even a Mentat could experience such joy.

  In the harsh atmosphere of this world, he wore one of the native distilling suits, which had been fitted properly by a Freeman expert. Through his sealed goggles, he saw uncountable waves of wind-sculpted dunes extending into the distance like a vast, arid ocean.

  A rare bird winged away from the line of rocks—a desert hawk or perhaps a carrion bird. He watched the hypnotic flapping of the great wings until the speck became smaller and smaller. It was so peaceful … like standing in the eye of an Imperial storm.

  A desert-rigged flyer rested on the rock behind him. He’d flown out here to observe the harvesting operations from a distance, and soon he would take off to visit the crews in their barracks in Arrakis City. In serving the Emperor, Draigo wanted to interview each of the workers, so that he could better assess and manage them. A Mentat was a human being as well as a human computer, and he would glean additional details through personal observations.

  One rea
son he wanted to know the crews: because they would work harder for him if they respected him, and he intended to remake the spice operations, increasing efficiency and safety. He had already delivered Mentat projections to Emperor Roderick, suggesting the best route for success. He was like a Navigator seeking safe passageways for the Emperor to take.

  From now on, the production and distribution of melange would be steady, predictable, and profitable. That would pacify the growing number of addicted citizens … and would also satisfy Norma Cenva, who needed sufficient quantities to sustain her Navigators. Including Josef Venport.

  He wished he could have achieved success for the Directeur, but Roderick Corrino was his master now. Headmaster Albans had taught him that a Mentat was required to provide his master with the best possible answers.

  In the distant heat shimmer, he saw one team hustling to fill the harvester with melange before the industrial vibrations attracted a territorial sandworm. From his high vantage, he scanned the sand, but detected no movement that might signal the approach of one of the behemoths. Overhead, a small spotter craft circled, also keeping watch.

  He listened to the faint processing sounds of his stillsuit as it collected and recycled perspiration from his body. The desert natives had a saying that a man’s moisture belonged to his tribe. Draigo appreciated this philosophy, because it spoke of more than just one man’s water on one planet in the Imperium. It was an acknowledgment that no person could function entirely alone, that he required a connection to something larger than himself. So too, any tribe was not entirely alone, but was instead an integral part of the larger organism that comprises the human race, and humanity was ultimately part of—

  Draigo paused in his thought process before it could spiral beyond his comprehension. The Mentat trap. Instead, he calmed his mind by staring again at the simple purity of the desert. From all his training, he understood the games a mind could play. A Mentat needed to maintain control over his thoughts and not let them drift off course.

  In the distance, he thought he saw movement on the sand, but was too far away to be certain. The spotter craft cruised out in a long arc and came back, then circled overhead to double-check before sending urgent messages to the harvester crew. A worm was indeed coming, but the crews were accustomed to this. As Draigo watched, he was impressed by their efficiency. They packed up operations within minutes and prepared to escape.

  It was always a tight calculation—the longer the operations continued, the more spice they harvested, but the greater the likelihood that they would lose their equipment. A spice haul was worth far more than the machinery or the people who ran it, however. It was a simple projection.

  A large lifter approached from the east, rising over a crest of rocks and racing in for a swift pickup. The lifter hovered over the giant harvester, while half a dozen crewmembers scampered on top of the spice excavator to check the connections. Finished, the brave men dropped through hatches, and the harvester’s core and cargo vault was lifted into the sky, leaving only an easily replaceable skeletal framework behind.

  Beneath the abandoned factory hull, the great worm surfaced, its eyeless head questing from side to side, as if to chase intruders from its territory. Safe on his outcropping, Draigo watched with analytical fascination as the worm smashed the abandoned equipment and then plunged back into the dune ridge, burrowing deeper until it left only a gully of stirred sand. All marks would be erased as soon as the next windstorm came to sculpt the dunes all over again.

  Draigo walked back to his desert-rigged flyer, already planning his analysis of this operation, the cost of the sacrificed equipment, and the most efficient dispersal of scout flyers in future operations. He would make any necessary modifications.

  He fired up the engines, and the dusty armored craft lifted up from the rocks and into the rising thermals. When he was airborne, flying out over the dunes, he thought, I am a Mentat, and I shall continue to adapt myself to this world.

  It was his duty to do this. Headmaster Albans had also taught him ethics and dedication. A graduate of the Mentat School on Lampadas might be assigned to one nobleman or another, but now Draigo—the Imperial Overseer of Spice Operations—was himself a master, and Arrakis was his de facto fief, his planet to rule.

  First he needed to know the place, really know it, to avoid making mistakes. He looked forward to the learning experience.

  Your appointment is a significant success for our family, but you must always be alert or we will lose the ground we have gained, as surely as a stone falls under the pull of gravity.

  —Valya’s admonition to Danvis on his arrival at Imperial Court

  Vorian Atreides was dead, and thanks to Valya’s steady efforts, House Harkonnen was finally on the rise again. She took personal credit for the progress. This paramount goal had always shone like a guiding light in her mind, and—as she had hoped—she could guide both the Sisterhood and House Harkonnen into a bright future. She realized her focus was more intense than anyone else’s in the family, more than her siblings or their parents, but she’d stepped into a void. After being downtrodden for more than eight decades, the Harkonnens had grown to accept their situation. They’d become sedentary.

  Valya had never done that.

  For too long, thanks to Vorian Atreides, the Harkonnen name had been synonymous with cowardice and dishonor. But her nemesis—their nemesis—was dead, at last. She’d seen it with her own eyes.

  After so much anticipation, Valya would have preferred to kill the man herself and watch the life fade from his eyes … but the explosion of his ship in the sky had been satisfying in its own way. She had caused it, and that was enough. Using their own comparisons to genetic records, her commando Sisters had tested blood found on some of the tumbled wreckage and confirmed that it was indeed Vorian’s.

  When she had seen the DNA results, even though she was already certain Vor had been killed in the explosion, she felt a surge of triumph … or at least she wanted to. In her heart, however, the victory felt somehow flat. She didn’t know what she had expected to feel—exhilaration, perhaps? Instead, it was a curious sense of finality, reaching the end of a dark goal that had driven her for so much of her life. Was it enough? It had to be enough.

  But … what now?

  She knew the answer to that even as the whispers of Other Memory became louder in the back of her mind. Now, without that life-consuming distraction, she could focus entirely on letting House Harkonnen rise unhindered to the prominence it deserved. And she could build the Sisterhood into an extremely powerful, if quietly invisible, organization. One success would drive the other, and vice versa.

  She wanted so much for her family, and most of all perhaps for Danvis, who would carry on the bloodline—as an important Landsraad lord, the planetary ruler of Lankiveil. Valya had to make sure her brother was up to the task. Her brother …

  Suddenly, Valya’s heart felt heavy with a pang of memory. Griffin should have been the future patriarch of the family, not Danvis. Griffin, her closest friend, who had shared so much with her, the same goals, the same vision for House Harkonnen.

  Until he was killed by Vorian Atreides. She had heard the man deny it, and even though the Truthsayer verified that Vor had not been lying, Valya refused to believe it. Perhaps Vor in his twisted mind had utterly convinced himself of his lack of culpability. Or maybe he had found some other way to engineer Griffin’s death without actually soiling his own hands, but Valya would not absolve him of responsibility. It was his fault.

  She reminded herself that Vor was dead. She had her revenge. She was triumphant, and she was satisfied. But what now?

  First, she would help her younger brother in every way possible. Danvis was a Harkonnen too. She knew he would do whatever was necessary. Valya would make sure of that, and he would set a bold new course for House Harkonnen.

  Although their father was still the titular Landsraad leader back on Lankiveil, Vergyl was a parochial man whose ambitions did not extend beyond the
seasonal whale-fur harvest. She would make Danvis into much more than that.

  And as for her own sister … Tula had been taken back to Wallach IX, where she was surrounded by Sisters, constantly protected and monitored. She carried an Atreides child in her womb—a disgusting thought, but also a tremendous opportunity, as Valya had finally realized after her revulsion faded. Maybe her revenge wasn’t quite over yet, after all.

  Tula needed serious reeducation in order to put aside her confusing and contradictory emotions, but Valya was confident that since she had been able to refocus even Dorotea’s Orthodox followers, she could certainly reprogram her own sister.…

  * * *

  IN THE IMPERIAL Court after Roderick’s victory celebration over the Butlerians and Venport Holdings, she felt considerable satisfaction as she accompanied her brother to his first formal reception at the Palace. As a newly arrived member of the court, he would be presented at a crowded soiree. Danvis had arrived wearing his finest clothes from Lankiveil, but he still looked out of place here, his outfit years behind the fashion of the times. A bumpkin.

  Valya had immediately intercepted him. Even though all of the Sisters at court dressed in the distinctive dark robes of their order, she dispatched them to find new garments for Danvis, swiftly tailoring them to fit her brother’s lanky form. He had looked uncomfortable and out of place, but now he looked dashing and stylish, an impressive young nobleman arriving at the Palace. A Harkonnen lord.

  Danvis needed to learn so much.…

  A Chusuk orchestra played on an elevated stage, its members dressed in black jackets and frilly white shirts. Several noble couples danced on a floor in front of the musicians, including a wrinkled and ancient Lord and Lady from Zanbar, who performed complicated, surprisingly energetic steps. The traditional music was fast-paced and upbeat.