But not until now had Waff actually seen the Armageddon that the whores had wrought on this sacred world.
The ecosystem of Rakis had been fundamentally destroyed. Half of the atmosphere was burned away, the ground sterilized, most life forms dead—from the microscopic sandplankton all the way up to the giant sandworms. It made the old Dune seem comfortable by comparison.
The sky was a dark purple, touched with an underburn of orange. As their ship circled, searching for a spot less hellish than others, Waff studied a panel of atmospheric readings. The moisture content was abnormally high. At some point in its geologic history, Arrakis had possessed open water, but sandtrout had sealed it all away. During the bombardment, underground rivers and seas must have been vaporized as they were released from aquifers.
The Honored Matres’ horrific weapons had not only turned the soft dunes to a baked moonscape, they had also thrown up great clouds of dust that had not settled entirely out of the atmosphere, even decades later. The Coriolis storms would be worse than ever before.
He and his team would likely have to wear special bodily protection and supplemental breather masks; their small dwelling huts would need to be sealed and pressurized. Waff didn’t mind. Was that so different from wearing a stillsuit? By degrees, perhaps, but not fundamentally harder.
His lighter circled over the remains of a sprawling metropolis that had been called Arrakeen in the days of Muad’Dib, then the Festival City of Onn during the reign of the God Emperor, and later—after Leto II’s death—the moated city of Keen. No longer concerned about secrecy, now that the seaworms had successfully taken hold on Buzzell, Waff was happy to have four assistants help him with the hard work he was sure to face on this Obliterator-blasted planet.
Studying the surface, he discerned lumpy geometric shapes that had once been angled streets and tall buildings. Surprisingly, in the dimness of seared daylight, he also spotted numerous artificial illumination sources and a few dark structures of recent construction. “There seems to be a camp down there. Who else would come to Rakis? What could they possibly want here?”
“The same as us,” said the Guildsman. “Spice.”
He shook his head. “Too little here anymore, at least until we bring back the worms. No one else has that skill.”
“Pilgrims perhaps? There may still be those who make a hajj,” a second assistant said. Waff knew that a dizzying mishmash of religious splinter groups and cults had sprung from Rakis.
“More likely,” suggested a third Guildsman, “they are treasure hunters.”
Waff quoted quietly from the Cant of the Shariat: “ ‘When greed and desperation are coupled, men accomplish superhuman feats—though for the wrong reasons.’ ”
He considered choosing a different place for their base camp, then accepted the idea that joining resources with the strangers might help them all last longer in the harsh environment. No one knew when—or if—Edrik might be coming back for them, or how long the sandworm work would take, or how much longer Waff himself would last. He planned to be here for the remainder of his days.
After the lighter landed unannounced at the edge of the camp, the Guildsmen waited for instructions from Waff. The Tleilaxu man settled goggles over his eyes to protect against the caustic wind, and emerged. For long journeys outside, he might have to wear a supplemental oxygen mask, but the Rakian atmosphere was surprisingly breathable.
Six tall and dirty men faced him from the encampment. They wore rags wrapped around their heads, carried knives and antique maula pistols. Their eyes were red-veined, their skin rough and cracked. The foremost man had shaggy black hair, a square chest, and a rock-hard potbelly. “You are fortunate that I’m curious about why you are here. Otherwise, we would’ve shot you out of the sky.”
Waff held up his hands. “We are no threat to you, whoever you are.”
Five men leveled their maula pistols, and the other slashed the air with his knife. “We have claimed Rakis for ourselves. All spice here is ours.”
“You’ve claimed a whole planet?”
“Yes, the whole damned planet.” The first man tossed back his dark hair. “I’m Guriff, and these are my prospectors. There’s damned little spice left in the burned crust, and it’s ours.”
“Then you may have it.” Waff performed a perfunctory bow. “We have other interests, as geological investigators and archaeologists. We wish to take readings and run tests to determine the extent of damage to the ecosystem.” The four Guild assistants waited beside him in complete silence.
Guriff laughed loudly and heartily. “There isn’t much of an ecosystem left here.”
“Then where does breathable oxygen come from?” He knew that Liet-Kynes had asked that question in the ancient days, curious because the planet had neither widespread plant life nor volcanoes to generate an atmosphere.
The man just stared. Obviously, he had not thought about this. “Do I look like a planetologist to you? Go ahead and look into it, but don’t expect any help from us. Here on Rakis, you are self-sufficient or you die.”
The Tleilaxu man raised his eyebrows. “And what if we wish to share some of our spice coffee with you, as a token of friendship? I understand that water is more easily obtainable than in the old days.”
Guriff glanced at his prospectors, then said, “We’re happy to accept your hospitality, but we have no intention of reciprocating.”
“Nonetheless, our offer stands.”
INSIDE GURIFF’S DUSTY hut, Waff used his own supplies of melange (left over from his sandworm experiments) to brew coffee. Guriff didn’t have a desperate shortage of water in his camp, though his dwelling smelled of long-unwashed bodies and the savory sweetness of a drug smoke that Waff could not identify.
At his command, the four Guildsmen erected the shelters brought down from the Heighliner, setting up armored sleeping tents and laboratory enclosures. Waff saw no reason to assist them. He was a Tleilaxu Master after all, and these were his workers, so he would allow them to perform their tasks.
While they drank a second pot of spice coffee, Guriff grew more relaxed. He didn’t trust the diminutive Tleilaxu, but he didn’t seem to trust anyone. He took pains to say he harbored no particular hatred toward Waff’s race, and that his scavengers held no grudges against others of low social position. Guriff cared only about Rakis.
“All that melted sand and plascrete. By chipping away the upper crust of glass, we were able to get down to the foundations of the sturdier buildings in Keen.” Guriff produced a hand-drawn chart. “Scraping out buried treasure. We found what we think is the original Bene Gesserit Keep—a few heavily barricaded bomb shelters filled with skeletons.” He smiled. “We also uncovered the extravagant temple built by the Priests of the Divided God. It was so huge we couldn’t miss it. Full of trinkets, but still not enough to pay for our effort. CHOAM is expecting us to find something much more extraordinary, though they seem happy enough to sell containers of ‘genuine Rakian sand’ to gullible fools.”
Waff didn’t reply. Edrik and the Navigators had obtained such Rakian sand for him to use in his original experiments.
“But we’ve got a lot more digging to do. Keen was a big city.”
In his previous life, Waff had seen those structures before they were destroyed. He knew the ostentation that the deluded Priests placed in all the rooms and towers (as if God cared about such gaudiness!). Guriff and his men would indeed find plenty of treasure there. But the wrong kind.
“The Priesthood’s temple had collapsed worse than most other large buildings. Maybe it was a direct target of the Honored Matre attack.” The prospector smiled with thick lips. “But deep in the sublevels beneath the temple, we did find chests of stored solaris and hoarded melange. A worthwhile haul. More than we expected, but not so much. We’re after something bigger. The Tyrant buried a huge spice hoard deep in the southern polar regions—I’m sure of it.”
Waff made a skeptical sound as he sipped spice coffee. “No one has been able to fi
nd that treasure for fifteen hundred years.”
Guriff held up a finger, noticed a hangnail, and chewed on it. “Still, the bombardment may have churned up the crust enough to reveal the mother lode. And, thanks be to the gods—there are no worms left to torment us.”
Waff made a noncommittal sound. Not yet.
WITHOUT BOTHERING TO sleep, knowing his time was short, the Tleilaxu man began to make preparations to continue his work. His Guild companions seemed confident that the Navigator would eventually return, though Waff wasn’t so sure. He was here on Rakis, and this gave him great pleasure.
While the Guild assistants finished connecting the generators and sealed the prefab shelters, the Tleilaxu researcher went back aboard the near-empty lighter. In the cargo hold he smiled paternally at his magnificent specimens. The armored worms were small but ferocious. They looked ready to tackle a dead world. Their world.
Ages ago, the Fremen had been able to summon and ride sandworms, but those original creatures had died out when Leto II’s terraforming operations had turned Arrakis into a garden world with green plants, flowing rivers, and moisture from the sky. Such an environment was fatal to sandworms. But when the God Emperor was assassinated and his body fissioned into sandtrout, the whole process of desertification began anew. The freshly spawned worms became far more vicious than their predecessors, tackling the huge challenge of recreating the Dune That Once Was.
Waff now faced a challenge many times more difficult. His modified creatures were armored to resist the most severe environment, with mouths and head ridges powerful enough to crack through the vitrified dunes. They could dig deep beneath the black surface; they could grow and reproduce—even here.
He stood before the dusty holding tank in which the worms churned. Each specimen was about two meters in length. And strong.
Sensing his presence, the creatures twitched restlessly. Waff looked outside to where the sky had turned the deep purple-brown of dusk. Storms swirled gritty dust through the atmosphere. “Be patient, my pets,” he said. “Soon I will release you.”
We are naïve to think that we control a precious commodity. Only through guile and eternal wariness do we keep it out of the hands of our competitors.
—Spacing Guild internal report
Edrik moved his Heighliner away from the ruins of Rakis, no longer concerned with the Tleilaxu Master. Waff had served his purpose.
More important, the Oracle of Time had summoned all surviving Navigators, and Edrik would give them joyous news. With the seaworms obviously thriving on Buzzell, there would be plenty of ultraspice for the taking. The unusual concentrated form might even be superior to the original spice: a frighteningly potent melange to keep Navigators alive without the meddling, greedy Administrator faction or the witches of Chapterhouse.
Freedom!
It had amused him to see Waff taking his worm samples to Rakis, hoping to establish a new spice cycle. Edrik didn’t think the little researcher could do much there, but an alternative source of melange would be a bonus. But even without that, never again would the Navigators be strangled by power games. The four Guildsmen whom Edrik had sent to accompany Waff were spies and would secretly report everything the Tleilaxu achieved.
Inside his tank, Edrik smiled to himself, pleased that he had thought of all eventualities. With the first package of Buzzell ultraspice safely stored in his security chamber, the Navigator guided his Heighliner out into the emptiness of space. Even the Oracle would congratulate him for this remarkable news.
Before he could travel toward his scheduled rendezvous, however, the emptiness rippled around him. When Edrik studied the distortions, he realized what they were. Moments later, scores of Guildships appeared like buckshot in space, winking through foldspace and emerging forward and back, above and below, to surround his Heighliner completely.
Edrik transmitted on a band that only fellow Navigators should have received. “Explain your presence.”
But none of the imposing newcomers answered. Studying the glyphs and cartouches on the sides of the enormous hulls, he realized that these were new Guildships, guided by Ixian mathematical compilers.
The computer-controlled vessels closed in. Sensing the threat, Edrik transmitted with greater alarm, “What is your justification?”
The other Guildships formed a smothering blanket around his Heighliner. The silence of the great vessels was more intimidating than any voiced ultimatum. Their proximity distorted his Holtzman fields, preventing him from folding space.
Finally a voice spoke, flat and dull in timbre, yet unnervingly confident. “We require your cargo of seaworm spice. We will board your ship for inspection.”
Edrik assessed these enemies, his mind racing through a labyrinth of possibilities. The ships appeared to belong to the Administrator faction. They functioned with Ixian devices, so they had no need for Navigators or melange. Why then would they want to confiscate the ultraspice? To prevent Navigators from having it? To ensure the Guild’s complete reliance on Ixian navigation machines?
Or could this be another foe entirely? Were these ships flown by CHOAM pirates hoping to seize a valuable new asset? Witches from Chapterhouse wanting to force continued dependence on the Sisterhood’s melange?
But how would any outsiders know about the ultraspice?
While Edrik’s Heighliner hung helpless in space, small interdiction ships emerged from the surrounding Guild vessels. He had no choice but to allow boarders onto his ship.
Though Edrik did not recognize him, a man wearing appropriate Guild insignia marched along the decks and ascended to the restricted level, brushing aside all security barriers. Six well-muscled men accompanied him. The leader smiled condescendingly when he stood before the Navigator’s tank and looked into it. “Your new spice has fascinating possibilities. We require it from you.”
Edrik boomed from within his chamber, intentionally amplifying the speaker system. “Go to Buzzell and obtain your own.”
“This is not a request,” said the man, his face bland. “We have learned the intensity of this substance and believe it to be a remedy for our difficult situation. We will take it to the heart of the thinkingmachine empire.”
Thinking machines? What did the Administrator faction have to do with the Enemy? “You may not have it,” Edrik repeated, as if he had any say in the matter.
The bland-faced Guildsman gestured to his burly bodyguards, and they withdrew iron-tipped hammers from their slick gray robes. The leader gave them a calm, matter-of-fact nod.
Panicked, Edrik swam backward in his tank, but he had nowhere to go. The muscular bodyguards did not care that he was inside the container or that exposure to the air would kill him. With thick arms, they swung their heavy sledges and smashed the thick plaz walls.
Jagged cracks split out in starburst patterns, and concentrated orange spice gas whistled out through the breaches. The guards did not react to the melange streaming into their faces, though the concentration should have made a normal human reel. Their bland-faced leader watched like a man smelling an approaching storm while Edrik’s atmosphere drained out.
When the air pressure was no longer sufficient to buoy him, the Navigator collapsed to the floor of his tank. Weakly, he raised his webbed hands and demanded answers in a voice that was little more than a gasp. The Guildsman and his companions offered no explanations.
Withering and twitching, Edrik lay on the floor. He extended a rubbery arm and tried to crawl, but with all the spice gas draining away, the air was too thin. He could no longer breathe, could hardly move. Even so, the Navigator was slow to die.
The bland-faced man stepped closer to the shattered wall, and his features metamorphosed. Khrone said to his Face Dancer companions, “Take the concentrated spice. With this substance, Omnius will awaken his Kwisatz Haderach.”
The others departed to search the decks and soon uncovered the hoard of modified melange. When the disguised guards returned to the interdiction ships, Khrone held one of the
heavy packages in his arms. He inhaled deeply. “Excellent. Remove all of our people from this Heighliner. When we are safe, destroy the ship and everyone aboard it.”
He looked coolly down at the dying Edrik. Only a few rusty curls of gas continued to ooze from cracks in the tank. “You have served your purpose, Navigator. Take solace in that.” The Face Dancer strutted away.
Edrik continued to heave great breaths, but barely a scent of melange remained. By the time the computer-controlled Guildships got into formation in space, he could barely keep from slumping into unconsciousness.
The opposing vessels opened fire. Edrik’s Heighliner exploded before he could utter a curse.
There is an art to legend-telling, and an art to living the legend.
—a saying of Ancient Kaitain
The Ithaca’s replenishing operations had taken place in the stillrich northern latitudes, far from any visible population centers. Garimi managed the complex process with dozens of flying craft from the hangar decks, leaving Duncan on the command bridge. He felt trapped there, unable to leave because of the protective veil that the no-ship usually afforded him. He hated having to remain behind while others did the risky work . . . and he didn’t even know what the old man and woman wanted from him.
He had no idea what was going on back in the Old Empire, with Murbella and Chapterhouse. He knew only that the Enemy was still searching for him—and he was still hiding, as he had been for decades. Was this truly the best way to fight, the best way to defend humanity? He had been adrift for as long as the Ithaca, and of late, the waters of uncertainty seemed deeper than ever.
It had been two days now without word from Teg or Sheeana and their team. If their group was simply meeting with the natives, someone should have checked in by now. Duncan feared another trap like the one they had encountered on the planet of the Handlers.
Sandworms of Dune Page 20
