Dune: House Corrino

by Brian Herbert; Kevin J. Anderson

  — CAMMAR PILRU, AMBASSADOR-IN-EXILE FOR IX

  He had never been averse to taking risks, but now C’tair actually relished them. It was time to be overt.

  During his work shifts, he whispered into the ears of strangers as they labored alongside him, selecting those who appeared the most oppressed. One by one, the bravest among them took up the rallying cry.

  Even suboid workers, whose minds were too dim to comprehend political implications, came to understand how they had been betrayed by the Tleilaxu. Years ago, the invaders had seduced them with promises of a new life and freedom— but their lot had only grown progressively worse.

  Finally, the oppressed population had more than a vague hope. Rhombur had truly returned! Their long nightmare would be at an end. Soon.

  * * *

  Waiting in a tiny alcove where he was supposed to meet his companions, Prince Rhombur heard a scuffle down the corridor and powered up his synthetic limbs, ready to fight. Leto’s troops were due to arrive within hours, and C’tair had already slipped up to the surface, crawling through cramped ducts and emergency shafts so that he could plant the last few smuggled explosive wafers at key places in the Sardaukar surface defenses. A few well-timed blasts would leave the port-of-entry canyon unprotected against the arriving Atreides army.

  But all their work would be for naught if Rhombur was discovered here too soon. The noise grew closer.

  Then scarred Gurney Halleck lurched into the alcove carrying a broken body. The corpse looked barely human, with smooth, waxy features, lifeless eyes, and a doll-like head that lolled on a snapped neck.

  “Face Dancer, posing as a suboid. I thought he showed too much curiosity in me. I took a chance, deciding he had to be more than one of your feebleminded workers.”

  He dropped the dead shape-shifter in a heap on the stone floor. “So I broke his neck. Good thing, too. ‘The hidden enemy is the greatest threat.’ ” He looked intently at Rhombur and added, “I think we have a serious problem. They know about us now.”

  * * *

  To Count Fenring’s surprise the Master Researcher made no overt move against him, but he still felt like a prisoner.

  Never taking his safety for granted, the Count remained alert, playing along until he could find an opportunity to escape. He had seen many disturbing behaviors and side effects among the people who had consumed too much synthetic melange, including the Sardaukar. Very bad…

  The diminutive Tleilaxu scientist, increasingly erratic and unpredictable in his behavior, spent an entire morning in his office showing numbers to the Imperial Spice Minister, demonstrating production enhancements and the quantities of amal that his axlotl tanks could produce, to keep his program going for just a little while longer. “The Emperor will have to dole it out carefully at first, as rewards for those who are most loyal to him. Only a few should receive this blessing. Only a few are worthy.”

  “Yes, hmmm.” Fenring still had many questions about the synthetic melange, but saw too much danger in asking them. He sat across the desk from Ajidica, examining hard-copy documents and mini-holos the Master Researcher passed across to him.

  Ajidica was filled with uncontrollable nervous energy. He had a glazed, defiant look on his pinched face, combined with a supreme haughtiness, as if he considered himself a demigod.

  All of Fenring’s instincts screamed warnings, and he just wanted to kill the man and be done with it. Even guarded carefully, a deadly fighter like Count Hasimir Fenring could find a thousand ways to commit murder— but he would never escape unscathed. He saw the fanatical loyalty, the hypnotic control the Master Researcher had over his personal guards and ferociously devoted staff… even, most disturbingly, on the Sardaukar troops.

  Other changes were happening as well. In recent days, the Ixian populace had grown unruly and dissatisfied; incidents of sabotage had increased tenfold. Graffiti had blossomed on the walls like Arrakeen flowers in the morning dew. No one knew what had triggered it after so much time.

  Ajidica’s response had been to squeeze even harder, further restricting the minimal freedoms and rewards the people retained. Fenring had never approved of the draconian tactics the Tleilaxu employed against the Ixians; he considered it shortsighted politics. Day by day, the unrest increased and pressure built, as if a lid had been clamped on a boiling pot.

  The Master Researcher’s office door slammed open, and Commander Cando Garon marched in. The young Sardaukar leader had tangled hair and a rumpled uniform with dirty gloves, as if he no longer bothered with a military dress code. In his strong grip he dragged a small, weak creature, one of the suboid workers.

  Garon’s eyes were dark and dilated, flicking about with rapid movements. His jaw was clenched, his lips curled in feral displeasure mixed with triumph. He looked more like a ruthless bully than the commander of disciplined Imperial troops. Fenring felt a flutter of uneasiness in his chest.

  “What is this?” Ajidica snapped.

  “I believe it’s a suboid,” Fenring said dryly.

  The Tleilaxu researcher scowled with distaste. “Take that filthy… creature out of here.”

  “First, listen to him.” Garon tossed the pale worker to the floor.

  The suboid scrambled to his knees and looked from side to side, not comprehending where he was or what kind of trouble he was in.

  “I told you what to do.” Garon kicked the weak man in the hip. “Say it.”

  The suboid fell over, gasping in pain. The Sardaukar commander lunged at him, grabbing one of his ears with a gloved hand. He twisted until blood dripped from it. “Say it!”

  “The Prince has returned,” the suboid said, then repeated it over and over, like a mantra. “The Prince has returned. The Prince has returned.”

  Fenring felt hairs prickle on the back of his neck.

  “What is he talking about?” Ajidica asked.

  “Prince Rhombur Vernius.” Garon nudged the suboid, ordering him to say more. Instead, the simpleminded man whimpered and repeated the phrase.

  “He’s talking about the last survivor of the renegade Vernius family, hmmmm?” Fenring pointed out. “He is still alive, after all.”

  “I know who Rhombur Vernius is! But it has been so many years. Why should anyone care about him now?”

  Garon slammed the suboid’s head against the hard floor, making him scream in pain.

  “Stop!” Fenring said. “We need to interrogate him further.”

  “He knows nothing more.” Garon balled his gloved fist and pounded the helpless man’s back. Fenring could hear ribs and vertebrae crack. The wild commander punched again, an out-of-control pile driver.

  The suboid drooled blood onto the floor, twitched, and died.

  Sweating and agitated, the Sardaukar commander straightened. His eyes were bright and feral, as if looking for something else to kill. Blood had spattered all over his uniform, and he didn’t seem to mind.

  “Just a suboid,” Ajidica said, with a sniff. “You’re correct, Commander— we would have gotten no further information anyway.” The Master Researcher thrust a small hand into his robes and withdrew a tablet of compressed synthetic spice. “Here you are.” He tossed it to Garon, who snatched the tablet out of the air with lightning-fast reflexes and gobbled it, like a trained dog receiving a treat.

  Garon’s wild-eyed gaze focused on Fenring. Then the officer strode toward the door, leaving the bloody mess on the floor. “I’ll go find others to interrogate.”

  Before he could depart, loud alarms rang out. Fenring leaped to his feet, while the Master Researcher looked around, more in annoyance than in fear. He had not heard such sirens in the twenty-two years that he had resided on Ix.

  From the rhythm of the alarm, Commander Garon knew what was happening. “We are under attack, from the outside!”

  * * *

  The Atreides military fleet dropped through the atmosphere and slammed into the Sardaukar defensive grid. Attacking warships descended into the port-of-entry canyon, where hundreds
of grottoes were covered by heavy doors used for deliveries and exports.

  C’tair’s sabotage bombs went off, startling the Sardaukar and knocking out their main sensor nets and installations. The surface-to-air guns went dead as control decks shorted out. The bored Tleilaxu perimeter guards could not respond to the astonishing attack that had appeared out of nowhere.

  The Atreides ships launched explosives, melting armor plates and blasting rock. Sardaukar scrambled to mount a defense, but after so many years of complacency their weapon stations were designed to quell internal disturbances and intimidate would-be infiltrators.

  Led by Duncan Idaho, the fleet arrived exactly on schedule. Transports landed and soldiers boiled out, their swords drawn for close-in shield fighting where lasguns could not be used. They howled a war cry for their Duke and for Prince Rhombur.

  The battle for Ix had begun.

  There is no mystery about the source from which love draws its savage power: It comes from the flow of Life itself— a wild, torrential, outpouring that has its source in the most ancient of times….

  — LADY JESSICA, JOURNAL ENTRY

  When Jessica’s labor began, the Bene Gesserit were ready for her. Few understood the full reasons, but every one of the Sisters knew this long-awaited child was important.

  The sunny birthing room had been laid out in accordance with Anirul’s exacting specifications. Careful attention was paid to ancient Feng Shui practices, as well as to lighting and air-flow patterns. Philaroses, silver orchids, and Poritrin carnations grew inside suspensor-borne planter globes above the bed. The room on the top level of the Imperial Palace was open to the eyes of the universe, reaching nearly to the fluffy underlayers of weather-control clouds.

  Jessica lay back, concentrating on her body, and her environment, and most of all on the child anxious to come out of her womb. She avoided eye contact with Reverend Mother Mohiam, afraid her guilt would show on her face. I have challenged her before, resisted her dictums… but never in a matter of such consequence.

  Soon, the Sisters would know her secret.

  Will the Reverend Mother kill me for my betrayal? In the hours after the birth, Jessica would be completely vulnerable. In her old teacher’s eyes, failure would be a greater crime than outright treachery.

  Between labor spasms, Jessica inhaled the flowers’ sweet scents and thought of far-off Caladan, where she wanted to be with her Duke and their child. “I shall not fear…”

  Mohiam sat nearby, watching her prize student attentively. A drained-looking Lady Anirul had insisted on coming to the birthing room, despite Medical Sister Yohsa’s stern admonitions. Who could resist the command of the Kwisatz Mother at such a time? Heavily medicated, Anirul claimed to have made a temporary peace with the clamor in her head.

  Jessica tried to rise out of deference, but the Emperor’s wife wagged a stern finger at her. “Put on the birthing gown we have provided for you. Lie back and concentrate on your muscles. Prepare your mind and body, as you have been taught. I will not have anything go wrong with this delivery. Not after waiting for ninety generations!”

  Yohsa came closer, touched Anirul’s arm. “My Lady, she has just begun dilating. We will call you when the hour approaches. It will be some time yet before she—”

  Anirul cut her off. “I have already borne five daughters to the Emperor. This young woman will heed my advice.”

  Jessica dutifully removed her clothes and donned the long kai-sateen gown Anirul had provided. It was so light and smooth that she barely felt it against her skin. As she climbed back onto the curved birthing bed, Jessica felt a tingle of anticipation that overcame her worries. When I leave this bed, I will have a son, Leto’s son.

  For nine months she had nurtured and protected this baby. Until twelve days ago, when a sensory-projected Reverend Mother Mohiam had shown her the truth of the Kwisatz Haderach program, she had thought only of her love for her Duke, and how much he needed another son after the tragic death of Victor.

  At Anirul’s side, Mohiam wrinkled her lips in a smile. “Jessica will do well enough, my Lady. She has always been my finest student. Today, she will show the worth of all the training I have given her.”

  Overwhelmed by the thought of what these powerful women might do, Jessica wished Leto could be with her now. He would never allow harm to come to her or their child. They had spent the previous evening together, and she’d been grateful just to hold him again in her bed, her skin touching his. To Jessica, such gentle comfort mattered more than moments of high passion.

  By the soft light of glowglobes in their chambers, Jessica had noticed a change in the Duke. He had become his old self again, the hard but powerful Leto Atreides she loved, more alive than he had been in a long time.

  But he was scheduled to speak to the Landsraad today. The Duke of a Great House had far more important duties than hovering anxiously at the bedside of his concubine.

  In the birthing room now, surrendering to the natural processes of her body, Jessica lay back and closed her eyes. She had no option but to cooperate with the Bene Gesserit and hope. I can bear another child, a daughter next time. If they let me live.

  Jessica knew she had preempted their plans by moving the male birth up by a full generation. Still, genetics was an uncertain science, the gambling dice of a higher, undefined power. Could my son be the one anyway? It was a frightening, exhilarating possibility.

  Opening her eyes, she saw two Medical Sisters move in like sentinels on either side of her bed. Whispering to each other in a language even Jessica did not understand, they checked diagnostic equipment while touching probes and sensors to her skin. At the foot of the bed with Yohsa, Lady Anirul watched everything, her doe eyes deeply sunken above her hollow cheeks. Like a person risen from her deathbed, the Emperor’s wife instructed the women in every detail, making them nervous and irritated.

  Yohsa’s concern was divided between Jessica and Lady Anirul. “Please, my Lady, this is simply a routine delivery. There is no need for your attentions. Return to your own chambers and rest. I have a new prescription for you, to quiet the voices of Other Memory.” Yohsa reached into her pocket.

  Anirul waved the smaller woman aside. “You understand nothing. You have already given me too many drugs. My friend Lobia is trying to warn me of something… from deep inside. I need to listen, not plug my ears.”

  Yohsa’s voice took on a scolding tone. “You should never have probed so deeply without companion Sisters.”

  “Are you forgetting who I am? This is a matter that involves my Hidden Rank. You will not challenge me.” Grabbing a surgical lasknife from a tray, she spoke in a menacing tone. “If I tell you to plunge this into your own heart, you will do it.” The other Medical Sisters stepped back, not knowing what to make of this.

  Anirul glared at Yohsa, her doe eyes ablaze. “If I determine that your continued presence endangers the success of the project, I will kill you myself. Be careful, very careful.”

  Mohiam, however, glided closer and intervened. “Have the voices given you advice, my Lady? Can you hear them now?”

  “Yes! And they are louder than ever before.”

  With a quick movement, Mohiam pushed the endangered Medical Sister beyond the reach of the agitated woman. “Lady Anirul, it is your right and duty to shepherd this special birth, but you must not interfere with these women.”

  Still holding the lasknife, her body twitching as if she were fighting Other Memory for control of her mind and muscles, Anirul took a seat on a suspensor chair beside Jessica. The other two Medical Sisters stood off to one side, but at a hand signal from Mohiam they resumed their work.

  Amidst this chaos, Jessica took calming breaths and cycled through techniques that Mohiam had taught her….

  Anirul tried to quell her raging anxiety, so that her dangerous emotions would not contaminate the birthing room. Feral thoughts raced through the Kwisatz Mother’s troubled mind, struggling to be heard over the internal and external disorder. She bit the
knuckles of one hand. If anything went wrong in the next few hours, the Kwisatz Haderach program could be set back for centuries, and possibly ruined for all time.

  It must not happen.

  Anirul suddenly looked down at the lasknife in surprise, then set it on a nearby table, but still within reach. “I am sorry, child. I did not mean to upset you,” she murmured. Presently she continued in a prayerlike tone, “At this most important time, you must use Prana-Bindu skills to guide the baby through your birth canal.” She looked at the shining implement on the table. “I will cut your daughter’s umbilical cord myself.”

  “I am ready to begin,” Jessica announced. “I will intensify my labor now.” How they will hate me when they see.

  She exercised precise Bene Gesserit control over her body, over every birthing muscle, and exerted pressure. What would Lady Anirul do? Her eyes bore the signs of madness, but was the Emperor’s wife capable of murder?

  Jessica vowed to remain alert and ready to protect Leto’s son in any way possible.

  The Emperor still speaks by the authority of the people and their elected Landsraad, but the great council is becoming more and more a subordinate power and the people are fast turning into an uprooted proletariat, a mob to be aroused and wielded by demagogues. We are in the process of transforming into a military empire.

  — PREMIER EIN CALIMAR

  of Richese, speech to the Landsraad

  A swift and impressive display of force. Shaddam was quite pleased with the effect. Arrakis— and the Imperium— would never be the same again.

  Unannounced and unexpected, an armada of Guild ships appeared in the skies over the desert world. Five Heighliners, each more than twenty kilometers long, took their places in orbit, within sight of the Harkonnen capital of Carthag.

  An astonished Baron Harkonnen stood on the Residency’s shielded balcony and stared up into the night sky. A borealis display of ionization discharges rippled overhead in patterns that made his corpulent flesh crawl. “Damnation! What is going on up there?”