Defiantly, Sheeana glared up at him. “Why have you done this to us? You said you knew of the Bene Gesserit order.”
Var’s face contorted, as if he had hoped to avoid speaking to her. He leaned close to Sheeana. “Yes, we know the Bene Gesserit. They came here years ago and delivered their demon creatures to our world. An experiment, they said. An experiment? Look what they did to our beautiful land! It is becoming nothing more than useless sand.” He held his knife, considered Sheeana for a long moment, then sheathed it. “When we finally realized what those women were doing, we killed them all, but too late. Our planet is dying now, and we will fight to protect what’s left of it.”
The first law of commercial viability is to recognize a need and meet it. When acceptable needs do not present themselves, a good businessman creates them in any way possible.
—CHOAM primary commercial directive
When yet another Navigator died in his tank, few of the Spacing Guild’s Administrators mourned the loss. The giant Heighliner was simply brought back to the Junction shipyards to be refit with one of the Ixian mathematical compilers. It was considered progress.
After long years of practice, Khrone easily concealed his pleasure at the sight. So far every aspect of the wide-reaching plan had proceeded as expected, one domino falling after another. Posing in his familiar disguise as an Ixian inspection engineer, the leader of the Face Dancer myriad waited on a high, copper-floored platform. He observed the clamorous shipyards, while warm breezes and industrial fumes drifted around him.
Nearby, the human administrator Rentel Gorus was not quite as proficient at covering his satisfaction. He blinked his milky eyes and looked up toward the piloting bay of the ancient, decommissioned ship. “Ardrae was one of the oldest remaining Navigators in our commercial fleet. Even with his spice supplies drastically cut, he clung to life much longer than we expected.”
A plump CHOAM representative said, “Navigators! Now that these drains on our resources are disappearing one by one, Guild profits should increase significantly.”
Without prompting from his master, the Mentat assistant recited, “Knowing the lifetime of that Navigator, and considering the quantities of melange required to institute his initial mutation and conversion, I have calculated the total amount of spice consumed during his service to the Guild. With fluctuating prices based on the relative glut during the Tleilaxu years and recent skyrocketing costs due to severe shortages, the Guild could have bought three full-sized Heighliners, complete with no-field capabilities, for the same cost in spice.”
The CHOAM man muttered in disgust, while Khrone remained silent. He found it most effective simply to listen and observe. Humans could be counted on to draw their own conclusions (often erroneous ones) so long as they were pointed in the proper direction.
Savoring his secrets, Khrone thought of the numerous ambassadors the Guild had sent to the front, attempting to negotiate nonaggression treaties with the thinking machines, hoping to declare themselves neutral for the survival of the Guild. But many of those emissaries had been Khrone’s Face Dancer plants, who intentionally achieved no success. Others—the human ones—never returned from the encounters.
With Richese conveniently obliterated by rebel Honored Matres (secretly guided by Khrone’s Face Dancers), humans had no choice but to turn to Ix and the Guild in order to obtain the technological items they required. The Junction shipyards had always been immense complexes for constructing huge interstellar ships.
Murbella’s defensive fleet was growing with remarkable speed, but Khrone knew that even these efforts would not be very effective against the sheer size and scope of Omnius’s military, which had been thousands of years in the making. The fabrication facilities of Ix (also controlled by Face Dancers) were still delaying the development and modification of the Obliterator weapons upon which the Sisterhood’s defense relied. And since every new Guildship was controlled by an Ixian mathematical compiler rather than a Navigator, the Mother Commander and her allies would have many surprises in store.
“We will build more ships to make up for the obsolescence of the Navigators,” Administrator Gorus promised. “Our contract with the New Sisterhood seems infinite. We have never had so much business.”
“And yet interplanetary trade is down drastically.” The CHOAM representative nodded to both Khrone and Gorus. “How is the Sisterhood to pay for these expensive ships and armaments?”
“They have met their obligations with an increased flow of melange,” Gorus said.
Khrone finally nudged the conversation where he wished it to go. “Why not accept payment in horses or petroleum or some other outdated and useless substance? If your Navigators are dying and your ships function perfectly well with Ixian mathematical compilers, the Guild no longer needs melange. What good is it to you?”
“Indeed, its value is greatly diminished. Over the past quarter century, following the destruction of Rakis, the Tleilaxu worlds, and so much more, those who could afford spice recreationally have dwindled to a tiny number.” The CHOAM representative glanced at his Mentat, who nodded in agreement. “Chapterhouse might have a monopoly on melange, but by their very iron grip, by decreasing the amount of spice available for popular consumption, they have strangled their own market. Few people really need it anymore. Now that they have learned to live without spice, will they be so keen to reacquire their addictions?”
“Probably,” Gorus said. “You need only drop the price, and we’d have a stampede of customers.”
“The witches still control Buzzell,” the Mentat pointed out. “They have other ways to pay.”
The CHOAM man disdainfully raised his eyebrows. He made very expressive noises without words. “Luxury items during war? Not a good economic investment.”
“Providing soostones is no longer easy for them either,” Gorus pointed out, “since sea monsters are destroying the shell beds and attacking their harvesters.”
Khrone listened intently. His own spies had brought back disturbing, but intriguing, reports about strange happenings on Buzzell, and a possible secret Navigator project centered there. He had demanded more information.
Khrone watched while jawlike machinery on a large crane pried open the pilot’s bay on the gigantic decommissioned Heighliner. Heavy suspensor lifters strained and groaned as they pulled out the Navigator’s thick-walled plaz tank. During the slow, clumsy extraction, the tank caught on the edge of the hole in the Heighliner’s structure. A hull plate broke off and spun downward, striking the side of the Heighliner and ricocheting with a shower of sparks, then tumbling until it finally slammed into the ground far below.
Wisps of orange spice gas escaped from the Navigator’s chamber, stray exhaust vapors leaking into the atmosphere. Only a decade or so ago, such a quantity of wasted spice gas would have been enough to buy an Imperial palace. Now the CHOAM representative and Administrator Gorus watched it dissipate without comment. Gorus spoke into a tiny microphone at his collar. “Deposit the tank in front of us. I wish to stare at it.”
The crane raised the thick-walled chamber, swung it away from the hulk of the Heighliner, and brought it over to the observation platform. Suspensors lowered the container gently to the copper-floored deck, where it settled with a distressingly heavy thump. Spice gas continued to vent from the chink in the thick plaz.
The melange vapors smelled strangely flat and metallic, telling Khrone that the Navigator had inhaled and exhaled them until very little spice potency remained. At a curt direction from the milky-eyed Administrator, silent Guild workers unsealed a cap on the tank, causing the remainder of the spice to blast out in a death rattle.
As the polluting gas drained, the murky clouds swirled and thinned, revealing a silhouetted form slumped inside. Khrone had seen Navigators before, of course, but this one was flaccid, gray-skinned, and very dead. The bulbous head and small eyes, webbed hands, soft amphibious-looking skin gave the thing the appearance of a large, misshapen fetus. Ardrae had died days ear
lier, starved for melange. Though the Guild now had plenty of spice in their stockpiles, Administrator Gorus had cut off the Navigators’ supplies some time ago.
“Behold, a dead Navigator. A sight few will ever see again.”
“How many still survive among your Guildships?” Khrone asked.
Gorus seemed evasive. “Among the ships still in our inventory, only thirteen Navigators remain alive. We are on a death watch for them.”
“What do you mean the ships ‘still in your inventory’?” the CHOAM man asked.
Gorus hesitated, then admitted, “There were some still flown by Navigators, vessels that we had not yet managed to equip with mathematical compilers. They have . . . how shall I say this? Over the past few months they have disappeared.”
“Disappeared? How many Heighliners? Each ship is hugely expensive!”
“I do not have precise numbers.”
The CHOAM man had a hard voice. “Give us your best estimate.”
“Five hundred, perhaps a thousand.”
“A thousand?”
At his side, the Mentat held his silence, but he appeared as upset and startled as the CHOAM representative.
Trying to demonstrate control over the situation, Gorus said in an almost dismissive tone, “When starved for spice, the Navigators grow desperate. It’s not surprising that they take irrational action.”
Khrone himself was concerned, but he didn’t show it. These disappearances sounded like a widespread conspiracy involving a Navigator faction, something he had not expected. “Do you have any idea where they might have gone?”
The Guild Administrator feigned nonchalance. “It doesn’t matter. They will run out of spice and die. Look at these shipyards and see how many vessels we are creating every day. Before long, we’ll make up for the loss of those outdated ships and obsolete Navigators. Have no fear. After so many years of bondage to a single substance, the Guild is making a good business decision.”
“Thanks to your partners from Ix,” Khrone pointed out.
“Yes, thanks to Ix.”
Following a lull, the noise of the shipyards became very loud. Welders went to work, and heavy machinery lifted curved components into place. A cargo hauler half a kilometer wide brought in two sets of Holtzman engines. The men continued to watch the magnificent activities for a long time in silence. None of them even looked again at the pathetic dead Navigator in his tank.
Humanity has many profound beliefs. Chief among them is the concept of Home.
—Bene Gesserit Archives,
Analyses of Motivating Factors
The next time Edrik’s Heighliner went to Buzzell on a run, the vessel left the planet carrying something vastly more important than soostones.
Hidden on the sealed laboratory decks was a package of the uniquely powerful substance extracted from the slaughtered seaworm’s strange, dense organ. With extravagant optimism, Waff had named it “ultraspice.” Tests proved that the potency went beyond that of any spice ever recorded. This remarkable substance would change everything for the Navigator faction.
The Tleilaxu Master also understood the importance of his achievement, and meant to use it to his advantage. Without being summoned, he pushed past Guild security forces and made his way to the restricted levels reserved for the Navigator. Officiously ignoring all challenges, Waff opened thick doors until he stood before the plaz-walled tank that held Edrik in his expensive bath of spice gas. Having succeeded in restoring at least one breed of worms, Waff was no longer a sycophant. He could make brash demands of his own.
Waff’s shortened ghola life span didn’t give him much time to meet his critical goals, thus making him increasingly desperate. He was already well past his physical prime, and now his body was in a rapid plunge to degeneration and death. He probably had no more than a year or so left.
Full of rigid defiance, Waff stood before Edrik’s tank and said, “Now that my altered seaworms are capable of creating spice in a form accessible by Guild Navigators, I want you to take me to Rakis.” He no longer had anything to lose, and everything to gamble. He crossed his thin arms over his chest in triumph.
Swimming slowly, Edrik drifted close to the plaz wall. The swirls of orange gas were hypnotic. “The new melange has not been proved in practice.”
“No matter. Its chemistry has been proved.”
Edrik’s voice grew louder through the speakers. “I am troubled. In its original form, melange has complexities that cannot be revealed in any laboratory analysis.”
“You worry unnecessarily,” Waff said. “Seaworm spice is more potent than anything you have ever consumed. Try it yourself, if you do not believe me.”
“You are in no position to make demands.”
“No one else could have accomplished what I did. Buzzell will be your new source of melange. Seaworm hunters will harvest more ultraspice than you can possibly use, and Navigators will no longer be dependent upon the Bene Gesserit witches or the black market. Even if the Sisters decide to harvest the seaworms and try to create another monopoly, you can ignore them. By changing the worms, instead of the planet, we can place them anywhere. I have given you the road to freedom.”
Waff snorted, raised his voice. “Now I demand my payment.”
“We kept you alive after the Honored Matres were overthrown on Tleilax. Is that not sufficient compensation?”
With a conciliatory sigh, the Tleilaxu ghola held his hands out. “What I ask will cost you little and gain you much honor, a blessing from God.”
The Navigator wore a look of displeasure on his distorted face. “What do you desire, little man?”
“I repeat: Take me to Rakis.”
“Absurd. The world is dead.” Edrik’s words were flat.
“Rakis is where my last body perished, so consider it a pilgrimage.” He continued in a rush, saying more than he had intended. “In my laboratory I created more small worms from the remaining sandtrout specimens. I have strengthened them, made them capable of surviving in the harshest environment. I can repopulate Rakis and bring back the Prophet—” He abruptly fell silent.
At the first rumors that the seaworms were thriving, Waff had turned his efforts to the last few sandtrout in his original stock. Sculpting worm chromosomes for survival in a comfortable ocean environment had been a challenge; much more difficult, though, was the task of toughening the monsters to survive out in the blasted wastelands of Rakis. But Waff did not turn his back on difficulty. All along, his goal had been to bring the sandworms back where they belonged. God’s Messenger must return to Dune.
He studied Edrik, who stroked with webbed hands as he considered the request. “Our Oracle recently sent us a message, calling upon Navigators to leave the Guild and join her in a great battle. That must be my priority now.”
“I implore you, take me to Rakis.” As if to remind Waff of his imminent mortality, a twinge of pain shot through his chest and down his spine. He needed all his effort not to show the anguish of dying, the misery of failure. He had so little time remaining. “Is that so much to ask? Grant me this one favor at the end of my life.”
“That is all you wish to do? Die there?”
“I will spend my last energies on my sandworm specimens. Perhaps there is a way of reintroducing them to Rakis and regenerating the ecological systems. Think of it: If I succeed, you will have yet another source of melange.”
“You will not be pleased with what you find there. Even with moisture recycling, shelters, and equipment, survival on Rakis is more difficult than it has ever been. Your expectations are unrealistic. Nothing useful remains.”
Waff tried unsuccessfully to keep desperation out of his voice. “Rakis is my home, my spiritual compass.”
Edrik thought it over, then said, “I can fold space to Rakis, but I cannot promise to return. The Oracle has called me.”
“I will remain there as long as necessary. God will provide for me.”
Waff rushed back to his private research levels. Intending to
stay on the desert planet, undoubtedly for the rest of his life, he requisitioned all the supplies and equipment he might need for years, allowing him to be entirely self-sufficient on that bleak and lifeless world. After placing the order, he looked at his tanks where the new armored sandworms writhed, eager to be released.
Rakis . . . Dune . . . was his destiny. He felt in his heart that God had summoned him there, and if Waff perished on the planet . . . then so be it. He felt a warm, soothing wave of contentment. He understood his place in the universe.
THE BLACKENED, FAINTLY coppery ball appeared in the Heighliner’s private viewing plates. Waff had been so anxious gathering his things that he hadn’t even felt the activation of the Holtzman engines, the folding of space.
Edrik surprised him by offering additional supplies and a small team of loyal Guild assistants to help with the labor of setting up a camp and administering the experiments. Perhaps he wanted his own people on hand to see if the Tleilaxu man succeeded again with his worms. Waff didn’t mind, so long as they stayed out of the way.
Without introducing himself to the silent members of his new team, Waff directed the transfer of his armored sandworm specimens from the isolated lab, his self-erecting shelters and his equipment, everything they would need for survival on the charred world.
One of the silent, smooth-faced Guild assistants piloted the lighter. Before they reached the dead surface of Dune, the Heighliner had already drifted out of orbit. Edrik was anxious to be on his way to answer the Oracle’s call, carrying its cargo of ultraspice and the tidings of new hope for all Navigators.
Waff, though, had eyes only for the blistered, lifeless landscape of the legendary world.
Bacteria are like tiny machines, notable for their effects on larger biological systems. In a similar way, humans behave as disease organisms among planetary systems, and should be studied as such.
Sandworms of Dune Page 17
