One of the court Mentats sat rigidly in his chair. “They will appeal, Sire.”
Shaddam sniffed. “If Moritani has a case, let him make it.”
Fenring tapped his fingers on the table, considering consequences. Shaddam had already dispatched two legions of Sardaukar to oversee the Tleilaxu on Ix, and now he was sending more to Grumman. In other trouble spots around the Imperium he had increased the visible presence of his crack military troops, hoping to smother any thoughts of rebellion. He had increased the ranks of the Bursegs throughout the military, adding more mid-level commanders to be dispatched with troops, as needed.
Even so, small and annoying instances of sabotage or defacement continued to occur in random places, such as the theft of commemorative coins bound for Ecaz, the balloon effigy of Shaddam floating over the Harmonthep stadium, the insulting words painted on the cliffs of Monument Canyon. . . .
As a result, the loyal Sardaukar were spread too thinly, and because of the costly Project Amal, the Imperial treasury had insufficient funds to train and supply new troops. Thus, the military reserves were being depleted, and Fenring saw troubled times ahead. As House Moritani’s actions proved, some forces in the Landsraad sensed weakness, smelled blood. . . .
Fenring considered reminding Shaddam of all this, but instead he held his own counsel as the meeting continued. His old friend seemed to think he could handle things without him— so let the man prove it.
The Emperor would get himself deeper and deeper into trouble, and finally he would have to call his exiled “Spice Minister” back to Kaitain. When that occurred, Fenring would make him grovel . . . before finally assenting.
Organizational structure is crucial to the success of a movement. It is, as well, a prime target for attack.
— CAMMAR PILRU, Ixian Ambassador in Exile
Treatise on the Downfall of Unjust Governments
Before the next meeting of the resistance group, C’tair disguised himself as an introverted suboid worker. Under the guise, he spent days of reconnaissance in the underground warrens where the rebels planned to gather.
Interspersed with islands of stalactite buildings, the holoprojected sky looked wrong, mimicking light from a sun that did not belong to Ix. C’tair’s arms ached from placing heavy crates on self-motivated pallets that delivered supplies, equipment, and raw materials into the sealed-off research pavilion.
The invaders had commandeered a cluster of industrial facilities and modified the construction, building over rooftops and connecting side passages. Under House Vernius, the facilities had been masterfully designed to be both beautiful and functional. Now they resembled rodent nests, all sloping barricades and armored gables that shimmered beneath defensive fields. Their covered windows looked like blind eyes.
What are the Tleilaxu doing in there?
C’tair wore drab clothes, let his face hang slack and his eyes grow dull. He focused on the tedious monotony of his tasks. When dust or dirt smudged his cheeks, when grease smeared his fingers, he did nothing to clean himself, just plodded like clockwork.
Although the Tleilaxu did not consider suboids worthy of attention, the invaders had rallied these workers during their takeover of Ix. Despite promises of better conditions and better treatment, the Tleilaxu had ground the suboids under their heels, far more than their experiences under Dominic Vernius.
When he was off shift, C’tair lived in a rock-walled chamber within the suboid warrens. The workers had little social life, did not speak much to each other. Few noticed the newcomer or asked his name; none of them made overtures of friendship. He felt more invisible there than when he had hidden in a shielded chamber for months during the initial revolt.
C’tair preferred invisibility. He could accomplish more that way.
Slipping off by himself, he evaluated the secret meeting place beforehand. He took bootleg equipment into the empty supply chamber to scan for surveillance instruments. He did not dare underestimate the Tleilaxu— especially since two more legions of Imperial Sardaukar had been stationed here to keep even tighter control.
He stood in the center of the chamber and turned in a slow circle, concerned about the five tunnels leading into the chamber. Too many entrances, too many spots for an ambush. He pondered for a moment, then smiled as an idea occurred to him.
The following afternoon he stole a small holoprojector, with which he imaged comparable featureless rock. Moving silently, he set up the projector inside one of the openings and switched it on. A false barrier of rock now blocked one of the tunnels, a perfect illusion.
C’tair had lived with suspicion and fear for so long that he never expected his plans to go well. But that didn’t mean he stopped hoping. . . .
• • •
The freedom fighters arrived one by one as the appointed time approached. No one risked traveling with any other rebel; each wore a disguise, each came prepared with an excuse for his business down in the suboid tunnels.
C’tair arrived late— safely late. The furtive resistance fighters exchanged vital equipment and discussed plans in harsh whispers. No one had an overall strategy. Some of their schemes were so impossible C’tair had to force himself not to laugh, while others seemed like suggestions he might want to imitate.
He needed more crystalline rods for his rogo transmitter. After each attempt to communicate with his distant Navigator brother, the crystals splintered and cracked, leaving him with pounding headaches.
The last time he’d tried the rogo, C’tair had been unable to contact D’murr, sensing his twin’s presence and a few staticky thoughts but without linking up. Afterward, lying awake for hours in his darkened chamber, C’tair felt lost and depressed, entirely alone. He realized just how much he had counted on his brother’s well-being, and on hearing that others from Ix had escaped and survived.
At times, C’tair wondered exactly what he had accomplished in all his years of struggle. He wanted to do more, wanted to strike forcefully against the Tleilaxu— but what could he do? He stared at the gathered rebels, people who talked a great deal but accomplished little. He watched their faces, noting greed in the black marketeers and ferretlike nervousness in others. C’tair wondered if these were truly the allies he needed. Somehow he doubted it.
Miral Alechem was also there, bartering furiously for more components to add to her mysterious plan. She seemed different from the others, willing to take necessary action.
Unobtrusively, he worked his way over to Miral and caught the gaze of her large, wary eyes. “I’ve studied the components you buy”— he nodded toward the few items she held in her hands—“and I can’t fathom your plan. I might . . . I might be able to help. I’ve done a good deal of tinkering myself.”
She took a half step back, like a suspicious rabbit, trying to read the meaning behind his words. Finally, she spoke through pale lips, but her mouth remained drawn. “I have an . . . idea. I need to search—”
Before she could continue, C’tair heard a movement in the tunnels, footsteps that were at first faint and then louder. The lookout guards shouted. One ducked inside the room as projectile gunfire rang out.
“We’re betrayed!” shouted one of the rebels.
In the confusion, C’tair saw Sardaukar soldiers and Tleilaxu warriors converging from the four exits, blocking the tunnels. They fired into the gathered resistance fighters as if it were a shooting gallery.
Screams, smoke, and blood filled the air. Sardaukar hurried in with hand weapons drawn; some used only their fists and fingers to kill. C’tair waited for the smoke to thicken, for the rebels to fly into a greater frenzy— and then lunged forward.
Seeing no escape, Miral crouched low. C’tair grabbed her by the shoulders. She began to fight him, thrashing as if he were her enemy, but C’tair pushed her backward toward the solid rock wall.
She fell directly through. He plunged after her into the holo-covered opening. He felt a twinge of guilt for not shouting to the others, but if all the rebels disappeared thr
ough the same escape hatch, the Sardaukar would be upon them in moments.
Miral looked around in confusion. C’tair grabbed her arm and dragged her along. “I planned for an escape ahead of time. A hologram.” They began sprinting through the tunnel.
Miral stumbled beside him. “Our group is dead.”
“It was never my group,” C’tair said, panting. “They’re amateurs.”
She looked at him as they ran, her dark eyes boring into his. “We must separate.”
He nodded, then both took divergent tunnels.
Far behind him, he heard the Sardaukar cry out as they discovered the disguised opening. C’tair ran faster, taking a left tunnel, then an uphill branch, doubling back to a different grotto. Finally, he reached a lift tube that would take him out into the immense cavern.
Like a suboid going to work on the late shift, he fumbled for one of his identity cards and swiped it through a reader. The lift tube whisked him toward the stalactite buildings that had once been inhabited by bureaucrats and nobles who served House Vernius.
Within the ceiling levels, he raced across connecting walkways, slipped between buildings, and looked down at the glittering lights of corrupted manufactories. Finally, inside the crustal levels of what had once been the Grand Palais, he made his way to the shielded bolt-hole he had abandoned long ago.
He slipped to the chamber and locked it. He hadn’t found it necessary to hide there for a long time— but tonight he’d come closer to capture than ever before. In the silent darkness, C’tair rolled onto the musty-smelling cot that had been his bed for so many tense evenings. Panting, he stared at the low ceiling, black above him. His heart pounded. He could not relax.
He imagined seeing stars above his room, a blizzard of tiny lights that showered across the open night sky on Ix’s pristine surface. As his thoughts traveled out into the sprawling expanse of the galaxy, he envisioned D’murr flying his Guild ship . . . safely away from here.
C’tair had to contact him soon.
The universe is our picture. Only the immature imagine the cosmos to be what they think it is.
— SIGAN VISEE, First Head Instructor,
Guild Navigator School
D’murr, a voice said in the back of his awareness. D’murr . . .
Within the sealed navigation chamber atop his Heighliner, D’murr swam in spice gas, kicking his webbed feet. Orange eddies swirled around him. In his navigation trance, all star systems and planets were a grand tapestry, and he could travel along any thread he chose. He derived supreme pleasure from entering the womb of the universe and conquering its mysteries.
It was so peaceful in deep, open space. The brightness of suns came and went . . . a vast, eternal night dotted with tiny points of illumination.
D’murr performed the higher-order mental calculations required to foresee a safe course through any star system. He guided the immense ship through the limitless void. He could encompass the reaches of the universe and transport passengers and freight to any place he desired. He saw the future and conformed to it.
Because of the outstanding abilities he had demonstrated, D’murr was among only a few mutated humans who had risen through the Navigators’ ranks so swiftly. Human. The word was little more than a lingering memory for him.
His emotions— strange detritus from his original physical form— swung him in a way he had not expected. In the seventeen Standard Years he’d spent growing up on Ix with his twin brother C’tair, he had not possessed the time, wisdom, or desire to understand what it meant to be human.
And for the past dozen years, admittedly by his own choice, he’d been removed from that dubious reality and vaulted into another existence, part dream, part nightmare. Certainly his new appearance could frighten any man who was unprepared for the sight.
But the advantages, the reasons he had joined the Guild in the first place, more than compensated for that. He experienced cosmic beauty unknown to other life-forms: What they could only imagine, he actually knew.
Why had the Spacing Guild accepted him at all? Very few outsiders were admitted to the elite corps; the Guild favored their own Navigator candidates— those born in space to Guild employees and loyalists, some of whom had never walked upon solid ground.
Am I only an experiment, a freak among freaks? Sometimes, with all the contemplative time on a great voyage, D’murr’s mind wandered. Am I being tested at this very moment by some means that can scan my aberrant thoughts? Whenever the wild awareness of his previous human self came over him, D’murr felt as if he were standing on the edge of a precipice, deciding whether or not to leap into the void. The Guild is always watching.
While floating in the navigation chamber, he journeyed among the remnants of his emotions. An unusual sense of melancholy enveloped him. He had sacrificed so much to become what he was. He could never land on any planet unless he emerged in a wheeled and enclosed tank of spice gas. . . .
He concentrated hard, drove his thoughts back into line. If he allowed the human self to become too strong, D’murr might send the Heighliner reeling off course.
“D’murr,” the nagging voice said again, like the throbbing pain of a mounting headache. “D’murr . . .”
He ignored it. He tried to convince himself that such thoughts and regrets must be common for Navigators, that others experienced them as often as he did. But why hadn’t the instructors warned him?
I am strong. I can overcome this.
On a routine flight to the Bene Gesserit world of Wallach IX, he piloted one of the last Heighliners constructed by Ixians, before the Tleilaxu took over and reverted to an earlier, less efficient design. Mentally he reviewed the passenger list, seeing the words imaged on the walls of his navigation tank.
A Duke was aboard— Leto Atreides. And his friend Rhombur Vernius, exiled heir to the lost fortunes of Ix. Familiar faces and memories . . .
A lifetime ago, D’murr had been introduced to young Leto in the Grand Palais. Navigators overheard snippets of Imperial news and could eavesdrop on business conducted over the communication channels, but they paid little attention to petty matters. This Duke had won a Trial by Forfeiture, a monumental act that had granted him respect throughout the Imperium.
Why would Duke Leto be going to Wallach IX? And why did he bring the Ixian refugee?
The distant, crackling voice cut in again: “D’murr . . . answer me . . .”
With sudden clarity he realized it was a manifestation of his former life. Loyal, kind C’tair attempting to stay in touch, though for months D’murr had been unable to reply. Perhaps it was a distortion caused by the continuing evolution of his brain, widening the gulf between himself and his brother.
The atrophied vocal cords of a Navigator could still utter words, but the mouth was primarily used to consume more and more melange. The mind-expansion of the spice trance pushed away D’murr’s former life and contacts. He could no longer experience love, except as a flickering memory. He could never again touch a human being. . . .
With one of his stubby webbed hands he withdrew a concentrated melange pill from a container and popped it into his tiny mouth, increasing the flow of spice through his system. His mind floated a little, but not enough to dull the pain of the past, and of the attempted mental contact. This time his emotions were too strong to overcome.
His brother finally stopped calling to him, but he would return soon. He always did.
Now, the only sound D’murr heard was the steady hiss of gas entering the chamber. Melange, melange. It continued to pour into him, filling his senses completely. He had no individuality left, could barely tolerate speaking to his own brother anymore.
He could only listen, and remember. . . .
War is a form of organic behavior. The army is a means of survival for the all-male group. The all-female group, on the other hand, is traditionally religion-oriented. They are the keepers of sacred mysteries.
— Bene Gesserit Teaching
After descending from the o
rbiting Heighliner and passing through the intricate atmospheric defensive systems, Duke Leto Atreides and Rhombur Vernius were met in the Mother School’s spaceport by a contingent of three black-robed women.
Wallach IX’s blue-white sun was not visible from the ground. A bone-chilling breeze whipped into the open-air portico where the group stood. Leto felt it through his clothing and could see white feathers of breath curl from his exhalations. At his side, Rhombur pulled the collar of his jacket tight.
The leader of the escort committee introduced herself as Mother Superior Harishka— an honor Leto had not expected. What have I ever done to warrant such attention? When he’d been imprisoned on Kaitain, awaiting his Trial by Forfeiture, the Bene Gesserit had secretly offered him assistance, but had never explained their reasons. The Bene Gesserit do nothing without a clear purpose.
Old but energetic, Harishka had dark almond eyes and a direct manner of speaking. “Prince Rhombur Vernius.” She bowed to the round-faced young man, who swept his purple-and-copper cape in a dashing gesture of his own. “It is a pity what happened to your Great House, a terrible pity. Even the Sisterhood finds the Bene Tleilax . . . incomprehensible.”
“Thank you, but uh, I am certain everything will work out. Just the other day our Ambassador in Exile submitted another petition to the Landsraad Council.” He smiled with forced optimism. “I seek no sympathy.”
“You seek only a concubine, correct?” The old woman turned to lead the way out of the portico and onto the grounds of the Mother School complex. “We welcome the opportunity to place one of our Sisters in Castle Caladan. I am sure she will benefit you, and the Atreides.”
They followed a cobblestone pathway between interlinked stucco buildings with terra-cotta roof tiles, arranged like the scales on a reef lizard. In a flower-filled courtyard, they paused at a stylized black quartz statue of a woman kneeling. “The founder of our ancient School,” Harishka said, “Raquella Berto-Anirul. By manipulating her own body chemistry, Raquella survived what would have been a lethal poisoning.”
Dune: House Harkonnen Page 10
