Dune: House Corrino
Page 58
There is no doubt that the desert has mystical qualities. Deserts, traditionally, are the wombs of religion.
— Missionaria Protectiva Report to the Mother School
Though grand events could take place in the politics of the Imperium, this sea of sand never changed.
With the hoods of their jubba cloaks thrown back and stillsuit masks hanging loose, two rugged men stood on a rocky ledge, gazing across the moonlit dunes of Habbanya Erg. Sharp-eyed Fremen manned the desert-watch station on False Wall West, watching for spice blows.
Since early morning, Liet-Kynes and his companion spotters had smelled the aromatic gases of an enormous pre-spice mass carried on breezes across the erg. Down on the open sand, listeners had heard rumbling sounds from the belly of the desert, deep disturbances. Something was happening beneath the ocean of dunes… but a spice blow usually came swiftly, with little warning and much destruction. Even the trained Planetologist was curious.
The night was quiet, a bated breath. Overhead, an ominous new comet blazed across the skies, trailing a river of mist behind it. The spectacle was an important, but undeciphered, omen. Comets often signified the birth of a new king, or the death of an old one. Portents abounded, but not even the Naibs or the Sayyadinas could agree as to whether the omen was good or ill.
High on the cliffs, able men and boys watched for a signal from the spotters, prepared to rush across the sands with tools and sacks to harvest the fresh spice before a worm could come. The Fremen had gathered melange in this manner since the time of the Zensunni Wanderers, when refugees had first fled to this desert planet.
Gathering spice by cometlight… As the ivory blue Second Moon rose into the sky, Liet looked at the shadow on its bright face that resembled a desert mouse. “Muad’Dib comes to watch over us.”
Beside him, Stilgar watched with eyes as sharp as a bird of prey’s. Suddenly, even before the spice blow, he called out a wormsign. A mound of sand in rapid motion ran parallel with the rocks that sheltered Red Wall Sietch. Liet squinted, trying to discern details. Other spotters noticed the movement as well, and excited shouts rang out.
“Worms do not come this close to our sietch,” Liet muttered, “unless there is some reason.”
“Who are we to know Shai-Hulud’s reasons, Liet?”
With a slow-motion roar, the great beast heaved itself out of the sand below the high rock barrier. In the still of the night, Liet heard his Fremen companions draw quick gasps of breath. The enormous sandworm was so ancient that it seemed to be made from the creaking bones of the world.
Then, high on a cliff above, another spotter called out a second wormsign, then another and another— leviathans swimming beneath the dunes, converging here. The abrasive flow of sand made an undertone of whispering thunder.
One by one, more monsters emerged and formed a great circle with sparks of fire in their gullets. Except for the grating of sand, the worms were eerily quiet. Liet counted more than a dozen of them, stretching themselves as if to reach the comet in the sky.
But sandworms were violently territorial. Never were more than two seen together, and those two would be battling. But here they had… congregated.
Beneath his boots, Liet felt a vibration through the stone of the mountain. A sharp, flinty odor rose to mingle with the scent of melange leaking from the sand. “Summon everyone from the sietch. Bring my wife and children to me.”
Runners vanished into the tunnels.
The huge, sinuous worms moved in synchronization, rising around the first behemoth, as if worshipping it.
Watching the spectacle, the Fremen made signs to Shai-Hulud. Liet could only stare. This would be something to speak of for generations to come.
In concert, the worms turned their rounded, eyeless heads to the sky. At the center of the circle, the ancient colossus towered like a monolith over the others. Overhead, the shimmering comet cast as much illumination as the First Moon, spotlighting the desert monsters.
“Shai-Hulud!” the Fremen whispered from all around.
“We must get word to Sayyadina Ramallo,” Stilgar said to Liet. “We must tell her what we have seen. Only she can interpret this.”
With a rustle of her robe, Liet’s wife Faroula appeared at his side with their children. She handed their eighteen-month-old daughter Chani to him, and he held the child high so that she could see over the adults in front of her. His stepson Liet-chih stood in front of them to watch.
Out on the moonlit sand, the circle of worms writhed in an eerie dance, making a rushing friction noise. They moved counterclockwise, as if intending to create a whirlpool in the desert. At the center, the most ancient of all worms began to slump, its skin peeling, its rings sloughing off. Bit by bit, the old one dissolved into tiny living pieces— a silver river of embryonic sandtrout, like amoebas, that struck the sand and tunneled beneath the dunes.
The awestruck Fremen muttered. Several children hauled outside by parents and warders chattered with excitement and asked questions that no one could answer.
“Is it a dream, husband?” Faroula inquired. Chani stared wide-eyed, her irises and pupils not yet totally blue from exposure to the spice melange. She would remember this night.
“Not a dream… but I don’t know what it is.” Cradling their daughter in one arm, Liet took Faroula’s hand. Liet-chih’s eyes flickered, watching the moving worms.
The circling creatures churned about as the ancient one fissioned into thousands of embryos. The huge hulk broke apart, leaving only a cartilaginous husk of support ribs and rings. The shining downpour of sandtrout burrowed into the disturbed dunes and disappeared from view.
Moments later, the remaining worms dived beneath the sand, their mysterious ritual concluded. They surged away in many directions, as if knowing their brief truce would last no longer.
Shivering, Liet pulled Faroula close and felt her rapid heartbeat against his side. The little boy, waist-high to his mother, remained speechless.
Gradually the sands folded over in the wake of the immense creatures, leaving the stirred silica much as it had been at the beginning of the night, an endless sequence of dunes like the waves of an ocean.
“Bless the Maker and His water,” Stilgar murmured, his voice joined by his Fremen companions. “Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people.”
A significant passing, Liet thought. Something tremendous has changed in the universe.
Shai-Hulud, king of the sandworms, had returned to the sand, opening the way for a new ruler. In the greater scheme of things, birth and death were intertwined with the remarkable processes of nature. As Pardot Kynes had taught the Fremen, “Life— all life— is in the service of Life. The entire landscape comes alive, filled with relationships and relationships within relationships.”
The Fremen had just witnessed a remarkable omen, that somewhere in the universe an important birth had occurred, one that would be hailed across millennia to come. In his daughter’s ear Planetologist Liet-Kynes began to whisper the thoughts that he could translate into words… and then fell silent as he sensed that she understood.
A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.
— First Law of Mentat
On the soft expanse of a carefully manicured moss garden under a mist of nutrient-rich fountains, Mother Superior Harishka performed her daily exercises, engrossed in the tiniest workings of her aged body. She wore a black leotard, while ten Acolytes in white garments did their own calisthenics nearby. They watched the sinewy old woman in silence, striving to be half as limber.
Closing her almond eyes, the Mother Superior focused her energies inward, calling upon her deepest mental resources. As a Breeding Mistress in her younger years, she had given birth to more than thirty children, each one containing the bloodline of a leading Landsraad family.
All part of her unquestioning service to the Sisterhood.
> Wallach IX’s morning air was cool with a slight breeze; distant hills still bore the patchwork cloak of melting snow. The small blue-white sun, the weak heart of the solar system, tried unsuccessfully to shoulder its way through a gray cloud cover.
Behind her, a Reverend Mother approached from the whitewashed buildings of the Mother School complex. Carrying a small, jeweled box, Gaius Helen Mohiam walked softly on the chessboard of dark and light green moss, barely leaving footprints. She paused a few meters away, waiting while Harishka continued her exercise routine.
With her eyes still closed, Harishka whirled and performed a jeté in Mohiam’s direction, then feinted to the right. The Mother Superior’s left foot shot out in a toe-pointing kick that stopped a fraction of a centimeter from the Truthsayer’s face.
“You are sharper than ever, Mother Superior,” Mohiam said, unruffled.
“Do not patronize an old woman.” Harishka’s dark eyes opened, and focused on the box in Mohiam’s hand. “What have you brought for me?”
The Reverend Mother lifted the lid and withdrew a pale blue soostone ring. She slipped it onto one of Harishka’s wrinkled fingers. Touching a pressure pad on the side of the ring, Mohiam summoned a virtual book in the air. “The journal of the Kwisatz Mother, discovered in her royal apartment after her death.”
“And the text?”
“I saw only the first page, Mother Superior, in order to identify the work. I did not consider it proper to read further.” She bowed her head.
Harishka worked the pressure pad on the side of the ring, slowly flipping the virtual pages in front of her eyes. As she did so, she spoke to Mohiam in a conversational tone. “Some people say it is cold here. Do you agree?”
“A person is only as cold as her mind tells her she is.”
“Give me more than the textbook answer.”
Mohiam raised her eyes. “To me, it is cold here.”
“And to me, it is quite pleasant. Mohiam, do you think you could teach me anything?”
“I have never thought about it, Mother Superior.”
“Think about it, then.” The old woman continued to glance through the writings Anirul had poured into her journal.
Watching and trying to comprehend, Mohiam knew that Harishka could never stop being an instructor, regardless of her lofty position in the Sisterhood. “We teach those who need teaching,” she said, finally.
“Another textbook answer.”
Mohiam sighed. “Yes, I suppose I could teach you something. Each of us knows things the other does not. The birth of a boy-child proves that none of us always knows what to expect.”
“That is correct.” Harishka nodded, but made an expression of distaste. “The words I speak at this very moment and the thoughts I have are not quite the same as any others I have experienced in the past, or which I will ever create again. Each moment is a jewel unto itself, like this soostone ring, unique in the entire universe. So it is with each human life, which is unlike any other. We learn from one another and teach one another. That is what life is all about, for as we learn we advance as a species.”
Mohiam nodded. “We learn until we die.”
* * *
Alone in her workroom that afternoon, the Mother Superior sat at her highly polished desk and reopened the sensory-conceptual journal. On her right, an incense chalice burned, scenting the air with a faint aroma of mint.
She read Anirul’s day-by-day account of her life as Kwisatz Mother, of the entirely different role she fulfilled for the Corrino family, and of her hopes for her daughter Irulan. Harishka reread one section, which she found chillingly prophetic:
“I am not alone. Other Memory is my constant companion, in all places and all times. With such a repository of collective wisdom, some Reverend Mothers feel it is unnecessary to maintain a journal. We assume that our thoughts will be passed on to a Sister at death. But what if I die alone, where no other Reverend Mother can access my ebbing memories and preserve them?”
Harishka hung her head, unable to suppress the sadness she felt. Because Anirul had been killed before Mohiam could reach her, everything the woman had known or experienced had vanished. Except for fragments, such as this one.
She continued reading: “I do not maintain these pages for personal reasons. As the Kwisatz Mother responsible for the culmination of our work, I keep this detailed chronicle to enlighten those who follow me. In the terrible eventuality— I pray it does not occur!— that the Kwisatz Haderach breeding program falters, my journal could be an invaluable resource for future leaders. Sometimes the tiniest, seemingly insignificant event can mean a great deal. Every Sister knows this.”
Harishka looked away. She and Anirul Sadow-Tonkin Corrino had been close at one time.
Struggling to compose herself, the old woman read on. Unfortunately, the bulk of the writings degenerated into irrational, fragmented words and sentences, as if too many voices had fought for control of the virtual pen. Much of the information was troubling. Even Medical Sister Yohsa had not suspected the extent of Anirul’s mental disintegration.
Turning the virtual pages, Harishka read faster and faster. The journal described Anirul’s nightmares and suspicions, including an entire page on which she wrote out the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear, over and over.
To the Mother Superior, many of the entries looked like madness, incomprehensible scratchings. She cursed softly. Puzzle pieces, and now Jessica has given birth to a boy instead of a girl!
Anirul could not be blamed for that.
Harishka decided to show the virtual volume to Sister Thora, who had designed some of the most complex crypto-codes the order had ever used. Perhaps she could decipher the syllables and sentence fragments.
Jessica’s son was perhaps the biggest mystery of all. Harishka wondered why Anirul had sacrificed her own life for him. Had she considered this… genetic error… significant, or had it been something else? A foolish display of human weakness?
Uttering a prayer that their millennium-spanning breeding program had not been lost forever, she closed the sensory-conceptual journal. It became a gray mist, and disappeared into the soostone ring.
But the words remained in her mind.
Also by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Dune: House Atreides
Dune: House Harkonnen
This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition. Not one word has been omitted.
DUNE: HOUSE CORRINO
A Bantam Book
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2001 by Herbert Limited Partnership.
Visit our website at WWW.BANTAMDELL.COM
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001025777.
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v1.0
Table of Contents
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
&n
bsp; Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105