He saw Archduke Ecaz standing with other nobles. “Armand, get as many as possible into the lifts! Go to the landing field and take any ships you can.” The most important delegates would have their fancy ships ready for liftoff. Responding to Leto’s command without hesitation, the Archduke herded people toward the lift doors.
Leto shouted into the site-wide address system again. “Evacuate! Evacuate!” His words boomed throughout the huge city and museum complex. He suddenly doubted if he could save himself, and thought of Jessica, of Paul.…
The panicked crowd pressed toward the elevators. Armand Ecaz crammed himself into one car already overloaded with nobles. He and Count Dinovo blocked others who tried to force their way in. The etched metal doors slid shut, and the elevators dropped away. Leto hoped his friend would make it in time.
The guests remained disoriented, few understanding the magnitude of the threat. Pushing toward the exit door with the Emperor, the assistant chamberlain bellowed in a loud, deep voice, “Be calm. Everything is under control!”
“And my Truthsayer?” Shaddam insisted as he, Count Fenring, and the Empress were rushed along by Sardaukar. “Make sure she is taken to the roof.”
Leto’s stomach felt like ice, and he thought of his Caladan pilot, Arko, and the bright-eyed entourage who had come with him here to Otorio, hoping to see amazing sights. The Atreides yacht would be down there … and he knew they were doomed.
As uniformed Sardaukar herded the Emperor and his companions through the exit door, others whisked old Reverend Mother Mohiam out a different door. Suddenly, an officer grabbed Leto by the arm. “This way, Atreides.” It was the same colonel bashar who had looked at Leto with odd recognition, the one who took his warning seriously. “There is room for you in the Emperor’s escape lighter.”
With an implacable grip, the Sardaukar rushed him toward the exit door and a narrow set of stairs that led from the reception gallery up to the Monolith roof. Shaddam was ahead of them, climbing swiftly, followed by the Empress and urged along by Fenring. Other attendees swirled after them to the exit door, but the Sardaukar officer knocked them out of the way, pushing Leto at a run.
Leto said, “Why are you saving me? We have to rescue all these people.”
“All will not be rescued,” said the Sardaukar. “You reported the danger and gave us fair warning. Is that not reason enough to save you?”
“No!” he replied, as if the answer were obvious. “All these nobles, everyone here—there must be some way to help them!”
“Emperor Shaddam gave orders to evacuate you if at all possible. I am following orders. The rest of these are already dead.”
Leto was whisked up the narrow, steep stairway to the rooftop platform. He had tried to help the others escape by other means, though he was sure it would be a futile gesture. There wasn’t enough time. At least Armand Ecaz had already rushed a group out of the Monolith to street level, and maybe some of the landed ships would fly away.
The Sardaukar officer pushed him. “Faster! We are running out of time.”
The Emperor’s party burst onto the open rooftop, where several small spacecraft sat ready. Shaddam and Aricatha were just ahead of him. The nearest ship had glowing interior lights, the engines already activated, a pilot preparing for liftoff. The Emperor, the Empress, and Count Fenring ran toward the lighter, scrambling into the cramped passenger compartment. Shaddam stooped and struggled to get inside, while the more nimble Fenring urged the Empress in alongside him.
Nearby, another group of evacuees rushed into a second lighter, which was also prepared to leave. Reverend Mother Mohiam looked like a startled crow in her black robes. The colonel bashar pushed Leto into the Emperor’s craft, crushing him against other passengers, then he climbed inside and sealed the hatch.
The Sardaukar yelled to the pilot, “Our Emperor is aboard. Go!” More nobles flooded the rooftop, rushing toward the evacuation ships. Several Sardaukar remained behind, sacrificing their lives so the lighter could take off unimpeded. They blocked more panicked guests who boiled up the narrow evacuation stairway.
The lighter’s pilot lurched them into the air on suspensor engines. The alarming acceleration crushed the passengers against the bulkhead. Leto was pressed against the plaz windowport, dizzy and disoriented while the vessel spun, aligning its axis and swooping around the Imperial Monolith in its steep ascent out of the danger zone.
Looking down, Leto saw the bright museum complex below, a smear of images, countless figures running along the bright streets. A flurry of other ships rose into the air like startled dragonflies. Leto was relieved to see some others getting away at least.
Shaddam and Aricatha belted themselves into seats in the crowded passenger compartment. Fenring had squirmed into a corner, pulling his knees up to his chest against the acceleration. Leto and the colonel bashar struggled to situate themselves as heavy thrust crushed them against the deck.
“I cannot believe this,” Shaddam said. “My museum complex, my festival!”
Leto forced his words out against the crushing acceleration. “All those people.” He looked at the lighter’s passenger compartment. “I wish we could have saved more.”
“No time.” The Sardaukar narrowed his gaze and added a sharp frown. “I made a risky decision to include you, Atreides. I will not hear your objections.”
“You said the Emperor ordered it.”
“I know the Emperor’s wishes.” The officer fell silent as they streaked higher. What did he mean by that?
Leto’s heart ached for his Caladan pilot and crew, remembering how Arko had wanted to buy souvenirs for his sweetheart and his young nephews. The pilot and crew would surely have been out in the city, looking at exhibits, sampling delicacies from food vendors. Even if they had heard Leto’s warning over the site-wide comm system, Arko and the others were loyal to their Duke. Even if they made it back to the space yacht, they would have waited for him, refusing to leave without Leto. They would have waited.…
He squeezed his eyes shut.
“Is it possibly a false alarm?” Fenring asked. “Are we overreacting?”
“No, sir,” said the colonel bashar. “Duke Leto’s warning is confirmed. Three sabotaged dump boxes will impact the museum complex.”
“Damn this Jaxson Aru!” Shaddam shouted. “I want him found and executed—slowly and painfully.”
“We must escape first, Sire, hmmm?” Fenring said. “Let us wait to be vindictive until we are safely back on Kaitain.”
“They are simply objects falling from orbit,” Aricatha said. “How can the aim be so precise as to strike the Imperial Monolith?”
The Sardaukar frowned, and Leto already knew the answer. “The kill zone from so many explosive, high-mass impacts will extend for dozens of kilometers. They do not need to be pinpoint accurate.”
The escape ship lurched to starboard, and the acceleration increased. The pilot called back, “Here they come! I’m giving them a wide berth.” The lighter rocked back and forth, buffeted by turbulence.
Leto caught a glimpse of an orange ball hurtling down through the air, a tumbling mass of molten metal like an old-style artillery projectile, with explosives added. Farther in the distance, he saw two more orange streaks, projectiles plummeting toward the surface. Leto had seen these objects from orbit and knew their size and the tons of inert mass in each of them. There was no possible way to stop them.
Shaddam’s face was crimson as he stared. Working against the acceleration, Leto shifted his body so he could see through the windowport that faced the planet. The dread inside him felt stronger than gravity. Under the press of acceleration, Leto felt the small lump of the holo-player with Jessica’s message. “Jessica…,” he whispered. “Paul…”
The three massive objects hammered into the surface of Otorio, one after another in quick succession, annihilating the Emperor’s new city.
Leto squeezed his eyes shut an instant before the impacts, and the flare of released light still seared
through his eyelids. Those sequential flashes had signified the end to thousands of lives.
“Those rare artifacts can never be replaced,” Shaddam snarled.
“But we survived,” Fenring said, “thanks to the astute observations of Duke Leto Atreides.”
“We owe you our lives,” said Empress Aricatha.
Leto felt a surge of resentment and strained against the acceleration to sit upright. “Yes, we survived. I survived.”
Down below, the blazing light rippled outward. The city complex was a molten scar.
“Breathe easily, dear cousin,” Shaddam said to him. “We are safe.”
Leto turned back to the windowport and stared at the rising holocaust below.
When do dreams become reality, and when does reality slip into dreams?
—PRINCESS IRULAN, The Book of Muad’Dib
It wasn’t the first time Paul had dreamed of the mystery girl. As he slept, his mind’s eye saw the young woman standing high on a rock formation, profiled against the sunset, a painter’s palette of spectacular colors splashed across the sky. The sunlight was too yellow, the shadows too sharp, the terrain too dry to belong on Caladan.
The young woman wore a strange suit that clung to her form, a tube extending from her collar to her mouth. She moved with light, agile steps down a dusty path as Paul followed her, captivated. She slowed enough to make sure he followed her, and then ducked into a rocky, dimly lit tunnel.
In the dream, Paul wore an Atreides jacket, but it was scuffed and torn, as if he had been in a battle. Recently. The air was hot, dry, and dusty as he followed her inside the cleft, hurrying to keep up. His eyes adjusted to the shadows.
She paused, smiled back at him, and led him deeper into the tunnels and chambers.
He caught up with her inside a cavern and got a better look at her. She looked to be about his age, quite beautiful with an elfin face, dark red hair, and intense blue eyes that gazed at him in a way he’d never seen before. He reached out to take her hand, and she smiled again, in her special way. He knew her in his heart, somehow, but he didn’t know her name. He reached out—
The image faded as he woke, gasping. Paul sat up in bed, shivering. He felt lost, longing for the mysterious young woman. He wanted the dream back, but it was gone, leaving him with only a faded image of her form, her face, and a distant recollection of the touch of her hand.
Paul closed his eyes and searched for her in the darkness of his mind, trying to return to the dream. He lay back with a sigh and finally drifted off to sleep again, still looking for her in the haze of slumber. He remembered the hot dryness of the air and tried to bring that back as a door into his vision.
Inside his bedchamber in the castle, he fell into another dream, but she was not there, no matter where he looked. This was different.
Unable to locate her or the distinctive rock formation again, he found his dream-self instead standing in the shadowy corridor of a large stone-walled structure—Castle Caladan? No, that didn’t look right. In some large and imposing structure, he was running to warn his father. It was urgent! Somewhere in the darkness ahead, Duke Leto was in danger, real danger, and Paul needed to reach him in time! The corridor branched off in two directions. Which one should he take?
Acting on instinct, Paul chose the one on the left and ran headlong through the ominous shadows, barely able to see ahead. He didn’t care about his personal safety, so desperate was he to warn his father.
The corridor brightened, but only a little, and ahead he saw the familiar, powerful, dark-haired Leto standing with his back to him, looking away.
“Father!” Paul called out.
The Duke did not move, did not seem to hear him.
“Father, there is danger!” It was a powerful sensation. His pulse raced, his heart pounded, though he didn’t know what the danger was.
Suddenly, a trio of black-garbed assassins leaped out of alcoves and fell upon Duke Leto, stabbing him with knives. His father wore no shield and quickly succumbed to the deadly attack. Paul bounded forward to stop them, but when he threw himself in their midst, the attackers faded.
His father lay on the floor, bleeding, dying. His gray eyes stared at Paul, and he tried to reach out to his son, but did not have the strength. When Paul bent down to touch him, Leto faded beneath his fingertips, just as the assassins had. The wet red bloodstain remained on the floor where the Duke had lain.
“Father!” Paul shouted into the nightmare, then he screamed.
He awoke again and realized that he had actually cried out. Glowglobes in the room surged to full illumination. He blinked, dazzled by the light, and saw a man in the doorway, sword drawn.
“Young Master? Are you all right?” Gurney Halleck, the scarred and burly weapons master of House Atreides, lunged into the room. He looked around, ready to defend the ducal heir. “Gods below!”
Paul sat on the edge of his bed, shaking. “It’s not me, Gurney. I’m safe. It’s my father! He is in great danger. Right now!”
Gurney looked perplexed, rubbed the inkvine scar on his jaw with his free hand, keeping the sword ready with the other. “He is far away, on Otorio.”
“But it’s something terrible. The Duke is in great danger.”
“How do you know?” Gurney laid a hand on Paul’s shoulder.
“I just know!”
I feast on life, I feast on death.
—BARON VLADIMIR HARKONNEN
In the bedroom wing of his Carthag headquarters, the Baron finished strangling the boy with one powerful hand. He felt dissatisfied and frustrated. Avoiding a twinge of pain from his other, broken wrist, he shoved the scrawny, naked body off the bed. The young man had resisted like a feral cat, even had the audacity to bite the Baron’s lower lip, making it bleed. Now he touched his sore mouth, muttering a curse. Another injury!
After the rebel attack on the shuttle, his left hand and wrist ached in their medcast, but they were healing. The wound on his head was better, though a deep gash remained above one ear, inside his hairline. He had not expected so much resistance from his pleasure slave. Next time, he would have to ensure the drugs were stronger.
Nor had he expected such violent audacity from the Fremen rabble. More frustration. He should have been at the Padishah Emperor’s gala on Otorio, conducting business, being seen. The Baron worried that Shaddam had noticed his absence, and worried more that he hadn’t.
He swung his bare feet slowly out of the massive bed and retrieved his suspensor belt from a table. After he activated the device, his enormous body felt lighter, even agile. He liked the way the field made his skin tingle.
Two young men, only a little older than the strangled boy, pushed a curtain aside and hurried in with a towel and a robe. As the Baron stood there, they wrapped a clean white cloth around his waist and between his legs, and secured it with a clasp. They slipped the black robe over his shoulders and cinched it at the waist before backing away with simultaneous bows.
The Baron looked down at the slender, broken body on the floor and flexed his good hand. “Hand me that garbage.”
They bent, lifted up the body, and placed it in his reach.
With his good hand, he clasped one of the young victim’s arms and walked lightly with his suspensors, dragging the body along to a sealed and armored window. He opened the pane to a wash of dry heat and maneuvered the compliant corpse onto the windowsill. As the other two servants observed in wide-eyed silence, he grunted and nudged the body through the open window. Looking down, he watched it tumble over the side of the headquarters building and thump onto the sand-covered streets.
The Baron usually ordered underlings to do his killing, but on occasion, he liked to feel the brute force himself. The beautiful boys were like fresh flowers he could pick and discard, before selecting another one.
He watched from the high window, knowing what would happen next. Desperate people were so predictable. Poor street rabble appeared, wearing rags over their ubiquitous stillsuits, and snatched up
the body, wrapping it and rushing away. According to rumor—which the Baron believed—the poorest scum in the city rendered the bodies down to reclaim water. How desperate their lives must be!
Leaving the contrast of his lavishly appointed chamber, the Baron took a lift down to the dining hall level, where more Harkonnen servants escorted him to his expanded seat at the head of the long banquet table. The other chairs in the dining hall were empty, though places had been set all around the table.
Rabban strode into the hall, accompanied by his lean younger brother, Feyd-Rautha, who was temporarily visiting from Giedi Prime. Rabban moved like an armored vehicle, while Feyd had a liquid grace. The Baron’s Mentat, Piter de Vries, slithered and glided behind them, his eyes calculating. The stains of sapho juice on his lips looked like blood.
Nursing his throbbing injured hand, the Baron slumped into his chair, like a king about to hold court. “I am hungry.” He called out, “Bring in our special guests.”
A procession of twenty servants came forward through the main doors, each carrying a covered platter. They took positions on the long sides of the table, and one stood behind the Baron’s chair.
After his nephews and Mentat seated themselves in their customary places, the Baron waved his good hand, knowing this had all been rehearsed. In clockwork unison, the servants removed the covers to reveal severed heads resting on plates—the dead rebels who had tried to commandeer the shuttle. In order to fill all the seats at the table, Rabban had rounded up and executed additional suspicious people in Carthag alleys, whether or not they had anything to do with the assassination plot. It didn’t matter.
The eyes of the “guests” were open, staring into eternity.
The Baron focused on the only female among them, the pilot. “Welcome to your first baronial banquet, my dear.” As he spoke, more servants hurried forth with additional platters heaped with food for the feast. Shaking with fear, they placed the food on the table and methodically filled the empty plates in front of the severed heads in a mockery of generosity. Meanwhile, other servants put slabs of meat onto the Baron’s plate, then served his living guests. Poison snoopers above the table scanned the meal and indicated that it was untainted.
Dune: The Duke of Caladan Page 7
