"Remember what I told you, son," Paulus said, referring to intense counseling he had given the boy in recent days. "Learn from Ix, learn from everything."
"But use your heart to know what is true," his mother added.
"Always," he said. "I'll miss you both. I'll make you proud of me."
"We already are, lad." The older man stepped back to the formal guard escort. He exchanged Atreides salutes with his son -- an open right hand beside the temple -- and all the soldiers did the same. Then Paulus bounded forward to give Leto a hearty hug ....
Moments later the robo-piloted shuttle rose away from the black cliffs, churning seas, and cloud-wreathed croplands of Caladan. Inside, Leto sat in a plush chair in the observation lounge, peering out a windowport. As the craft reached the indigo darkness of space, he saw the metallic island of the Guild Heighliner with sunlight glinting off its surface.
At their approach, a yawning black hole opened in the underside. Leto took a deep breath, and the immense ship swallowed the shuttle. He envisioned what he had once seen in a filmbook about Arrakis, a sandworm inhaling a spice harvester. The metaphor unsettled him.
The shuttle slid smoothly into the docking port of a Wayku passenger ship that hung in its designated berth inside the cavernous hold of the Heighliner. Leto boarded, his suitcases floating along behind, and made up his mind to do as his father had instructed.
Learn from everything. His determined curiosity pushing his intimidation aside, Leto climbed a stairway to the main passenger lounge, where he found a seat on a bench by another window. Two soostone merchants sat nearby, their rapid conversation sprinkled with jargon. Old Paulus had wanted Leto to learn how to fend for himself. So, to enhance the experience, Leto was traveling as an ordinary passenger, with no special amenities, no pomp or entourage, no indication that he was the son of a Duke.
His mother had been horrified.
Aboard the ship, Wayku vendors wearing dark glasses and ear-clamp headsets moved from passenger to passenger, selling confections and perfumed beverages at exorbitant prices. Leto waved off a persistent vendor, though the spicy-salty broths and broiled meat sticks smelled delicious. He could hear an overflow of music from the man's headset, saw his head, shoulders, and feet moving to the beat of music piped into his skull. The Wayku did their jobs, tended to the customers, but managed to live in their own sensory cacophony; they preferred the universe within to any spectacle they might experience outside.
This mass-transit craft, operated by the Wayku under Guild contract, carried passengers from system to system. A disgraced House Major whose planets had all been destroyed in the Third Coalsack War, the Wayku were gypsies now and lived as nomads aboard Guild Heighliners. Although ancient surrender terms prevented members of their race from setting foot on any planet in the Imperium, the Guild had, for undisclosed reasons, granted them sanctuary. For generations, the Wayku had showed no interest in petitioning the Emperor for amnesty or a revocation of the severe restrictions placed upon them.
Looking through the window of the lounge, Leto saw the dimly illuminated cargo hold of the Heighliner, a vacuum chamber so large that this passenger ship was, by comparison, even smaller than a grain of pundi rice in the belly of a fish. He could see the ceiling high overhead, but not the walls kilometers away. Other ships, large and small, were arrayed in the hold: frigates, cargo haulers, shuttles, lighters, and armored monitors. Strapped-together stacks of "dump boxes" -- unpiloted cargo containers designed to dump material directly from low orbit onto a planet's surface -- hung next to the main exterior hatches.
Guild regulations, etched on ridulian crystals mounted to the main wall of every room, prohibited passengers from leaving the isolation of their ship. Through adjacent windows Leto snatched glimpses of passengers inside other craft -- a potpourri of races bound for all parts of the Imperium.
The Wayku deckhands finished their first round of service, and the passengers waited. The trip through foldspace took no more than an hour, but preparations for departure sometimes required days.
Finally, with no announcement whatsoever, Leto detected a faint, smooth purring that seemed to come from far away. He could feel it in every muscle of his body. "We must be heading out," he said, turning to the soostone merchants, who seemed unimpressed. From the quick diverting of their eyes and the way they studiously ignored him, Leto thought they must consider him an uncultured yokel.
In an isolated chamber high atop the craft, a Guild Navigator swimming in a tank of gas saturated with melange began to encompass space with his mind. He envisioned and threaded a safe passage through the fabric of foldspace, transporting the Heighliner and its contents across a vast distance.
At dinner the previous evening in the Castle's dining hall, Leto's mother had wondered aloud if Navigators might somehow violate the machine-human interaction prohibited by the Butlerian Jihad. Knowing Leto would soon be off to Ix and at risk of moral tainting, she innocently made the suggestion as she nibbled on a mouthful of lemon-broiled fish. She often used a most reasonable tone when she uttered her provocative statements. The effect was like dropping a boulder into a pool of still water.
"Oh, nonsense, Helena!" Paulus said, wiping his beard with a napkin. "Where would we be without Navigators?"
"Just because you have become accustomed to a thing, does not make it right, Paulus. The Orange Catholic Bible says nothing about morality being defined by personal convenience."
Before his father could argue the point, Leto interrupted. "I thought that Navigators just saw the way, a safe way. Holtzman generators actually operate the spacecraft." He decided to add a quote he remembered from the Bible. " 'The highest master in the material world is the human mind, and the beasts of the field and the machines of the city must be forever subordinate.' "
"Of course, dear," his mother said, and dropped the subject.
Now, he didn't notice any change of sensation upon passing into foldspace. Before Leto knew it, the Heighliner arrived in another solar system -- Harmonthep, according to the transport schedule.
Once there, Leto had to wait for five more hours as cargo ships and shuttles went in and out of the Heighliner hold, as well as transports and even a superfrigate. Then the Guild ship moved off again, folding space to a new solar system -- Kirana Aleph, this time -- where the cycle occurred once more.
Leto took a nap in the sleeping compartments, then emerged to buy two of the sizzling meat sticks and a potent cup of stee. Helena might wish he'd been escorted by Atreides house guards, but Paulus had insisted that there was only one way for his son to learn to take care of himself. Leto had an agenda and instructions, and he vowed to do just that.
Finally, on the third stop, a Wayku deckhand ordered Leto to descend three decks and board an automatic shuttle. She was a stern-looking woman in a gaudy uniform and did not seem to be in the mood for conversation. Her headset thrummed with an undercurrent of melody.
"Is this Ix?" Leto inquired, reaching for his suspensor-buoyed suitcases. They followed him as he moved.
"We are in the Alkaurops system," she said. Her eyes couldn't be seen because of her dark glasses. "Ix is the ninth planet. You get off here. We've already jettisoned the dump boxes."
Leto did as he was instructed, making his way toward the indicated shuttle, though he wished he had been given more warning and more information. He didn't know exactly what he was supposed to do once he arrived on the high-tech industrial world, but he assumed Earl Vernius would greet him or at least send some sort of welcoming party.
He took a deep breath and tried not to let his anxiety grow too intense.
The robo-piloted shuttle plummeted out of the Heighliner hold toward the surface of a planet traced with mountains, clouds, and ice. The automated shuttle functioned according to a limited set of instructions, and conversation wasn't in its repertoire of skills. Leto was the only passenger aboard, apparently the only traveler bound for Ix. The machine planet welcomed few visitors.
As he looked
out the porthole, though, Leto had a sinking feeling that something had gone wrong. The Wayku shuttle approached a high mountain plateau with Alpine forests in sheltered valleys. He saw no buildings, none of the grand structures or manufacturing facilities he had expected. No smoke in the air, no cities, no sign of civilization at all.
This couldn't possibly be the heavily industrialized world of Ix. He looked around, tensing up, ready to defend himself. Had he been betrayed? Lured here and stranded?
The shuttle came to a stop on a stark plain strewn with flecked granite boulders and small clumps of white flowers. "This is where you get out, sir," the robo-pilot announced in a synthesized voice.
"Where are we?" Leto demanded. "I'm supposed to be going to the capital of Ix."
"This is where you get out, sir."
"Answer me!" His father would have used a booming voice to wrench a reply from this stupid machine. "This can't be the capital city of Ix. Just look around you!"
"You have ten seconds to exit the craft, sir, or you will be forcibly ejected. The Guild operates on a tight schedule. The Heighliner is already prepared to depart for the next system."
Cursing under his breath, Leto nudged his drifting luggage and stepped onto the rubble-strewn surface. Within seconds the white, bullet-shaped craft rose and dwindled to a pinpoint of orange light in the sky, before it disappeared from view entirely.
His pair of suitcases hovered beside him, and a clean-smelling wind ruffled his hair. Leto was alone. "Hello?" he shouted, but no one answered.
He shivered as he stared at rugged mountain ridges dusted with snow and glacial ice. Caladan, mostly an ocean world, had very few mountains approaching this grandeur. But he had not come to see mountains. "Hello! I'm Leto Atreides, from Caladan!" he called out. "Is anyone here?"
A sick feeling clenched his chest. He was far from home on an unknown world, with no way to find out where in the vast universe he was. Is this even Ix? The brisk wind was cold and sharp, but the open plain remained eerily quiet. Oppressive silence hung in the thin air.
He had spent his life hearing the lullaby of the ocean, the songs of gulls, and the bustle of villagers. Here he saw nothing, no welcoming party, no signs of habitation. The world looked untouched . . . empty.
If I've been stranded here, will anyone be able to find me?
Thickening clouds concealed the sky, though he saw a distant blue sun through a break in the cover. He shivered again and wondered what he should do, where he should go. If he was going to be a Duke, he had to learn to make decisions.
A drizzle of sleet began to fall.
The paintbrush of history has depicted Abulurd Harkonnen in a most unfavorable light. Judged by the standards of his older half brother, Baron Vladimir, and his own children Glossu Rabban and Feyd-Rautha Rabban, Abulurd was a different sort of man entirely. We must, however, assess the frequent descriptions of his weakness, incompetence, and foolhardy decisions in light of the ultimate failure of House Harkonnen. Though exiled to Lankiveil and stripped of any real power, Abulurd secured a victory unmatched by anyone else in his extended family: He learned how to be happy with his life.
-Landsraad Encyclopedia of Great Houses, post-Jihad edition
Though the Harkonnens were formidable foes in the arena of manipulations, subterfuge, and disinformation, the Bene Gesserit were undisputed masters.
In order to achieve the next step in their grand breeding scheme, a plan that had been in place since ten generations before the downfall of thinking machines, the Sisterhood needed to find a fulcrum that would make the Baron bend to their will.
It didn't take them long to figure out the weak point in House Harkonnen.
Presenting herself as a new domestic servant on cold and blustery Lankiveil, the young Bene Gesserit Sister Margot Rashino-Zea infiltrated the household of Abulurd Harkonnen, the Baron's younger half brother. Beautiful Margot, hand-selected by Kwisatz Mother Anirul, had been trained in the ways of spying and ferreting out information, of connecting mismatched tidbits of data to construct a broader picture.
She also knew sixty-three ways to kill a human being using nothing but her fingers. The Sisterhood worked hard to maintain their appearance as brooding intellectuals, but they also had their commandos. Sister Margot was counted among their best.
The lodge house of Abulurd Harkonnen sat on a rugged spit of land that extended into deep water bordered by narrow Tula Fjord. A fishing village surrounded the wooden mansion; farms pushed inland into the thin and rocky valleys, but most of the planet's food supply came from the frigid sea. Lankiveil's economy was based on the rich whalefur industry.
Abulurd lived at the base of dripping mountains, whose tops were rarely seen through the looming steel-gray clouds and lingering mist. The main house and surrounding village was the closest thing to a capital center this frontier world had to offer.
Since strangers were rare, Margot took precautions not to be noticed. She stood taller than many of the stocky and muscular natives, so she disguised herself with a slight stoop. She dyed her honey-blonde hair dark and cut it thick and shaggy, a style favored by many of the villagers. With chemicals, she treated her smooth, pale skin to make it weathered and lend it a darker cast. She blended in, and everyone accepted her without a second glance. For a woman trained by the Sisterhood, maintaining the sham was easy.
Margot was only one of numerous Bene Gesserit spies dispatched to the widespread Harkonnen holdings, where they would surreptitiously scour any and all business records. The Baron had no reason to suspect such scrutiny at this time -- he'd had very few dealings with the Sisterhood -- but if any of their female spies were discovered, the lean and vicious man would have no compunctions against torturing them for explanations. Luckily, Margot thought, any well-trained Bene Gesserit could stop her own heart long before inflicted pain could force her to reveal secrets.
Traditionally, the Harkonnens were adept at manipulation and concealment, but Margot knew she would find the necessary incriminating evidence. Though other Sisters had argued for digging closer to the heart of Harkonnen operations, Margot had concluded that Abulurd would make the perfect patsy. The younger Harkonnen demibrother had, after all, run the spice operations on Arrakis for seven years: He must have some information. If anything needed to be hidden, the Baron would likely do it here, unexpectedly, right under Abulurd's nose.
Once the Bene Gesserit uncovered a few of the Harkonnens' mistakes and held proof of the Baron's financial indiscretions, they would have the blackmail weapon so desperately needed to advance their breeding program.
Dressed as an indigenous villager in dyed wools and furs, Margot slipped into the rustic great house at the docks. The structure stood tall and was composed of massive wood, stained dark. Fireplaces in every room filled the air with resinous smoke, and glowglobes tuned to yellow-orange did their best to approximate sunlight.
Margot cleaned, she dusted, she helped with the cooking . . . she searched for financial records. Two days in a row, the Baron's amiable half brother greeted her, smiling, welcoming; he noticed nothing whatsoever amiss. A trusting sort, he seemed unconcerned for his own safety, and allowed locals and strangers to wander into the main rooms and guest quarters of his mansion, even close to his person. He had gray-blond hair, long to his shoulders, and a seamed, ruddy face that was disarmed by a perpetual half smile. It was said that he'd been a favorite of his father Dmitri, who had encouraged Abulurd to take over the Harkonnen holdings . . . but Abulurd had made so many bad choices, so many decisions based on people rather than business necessities. It had been his downfall.
Wearing warm and prickly Lankiveil clothing, Margot kept her gray-green eyes downcast and concealed behind lenses that made them appear brown. She could have made herself into a golden-haired beauty and had, in fact, considered seducing Abulurd and simply taking the information she needed, but she had decided against that plan. The man seemed unshakably devoted to his squat and wholesome native wife, Emmi Rabban, the mother of Gloss
u Rabban. He had fallen in love with her long ago on Lankiveil, married her to the dismay of his father, and carried her with him from world to world during his chaotic career. Abulurd seemed impervious to any feminine temptations but hers.
Instead, Margot used simple charm and quiet innocence to gain access to written financial records, dusty ledgers, and inventory rooms. No one questioned her.
In time, taking advantage of every surreptitious opportunity, she found what she needed. Using flash-memorization techniques learned on Wallach IX, Margot scanned through stacks of etched ridulian crystals and absorbed columns of numbers, cargo manifests, lists of equipment decommissioned or placed into service, suspicious losses, storm damage.
In nearby rooms, groups of women skinned and gutted fish, chopped herbs, peeled roots and sour fruits for steaming cauldrons of fish stew, which Abulurd and his wife served for the entire household. They insisted on eating the same meals, at the same tables, as all of their workers. Margot finished her surreptitious scanning well before the meal call sounded throughout the rooms of the great house ....
Dune - House Atreides Page 11