Dune: House Harkonnen

by Brian Herbert; Kevin J. Anderson

  Liet sniffed the air, squinted at the cliffs and rock formations, and saw a glint of frost through the low-hanging blanket of cold. “Maybe they are explorers, heading toward the pole to find cleaner ice to excavate.”

  “If that’s the case, why bother covering their tracks?”

  Liet looked in the direction the track pointed, up a rugged cliff face dripping with dusty mud frozen into free-form shapes. Attuned to the details of his environment, he stared and stared, studying every shadow, every crevice. “Something doesn’t look right.”

  His awareness heightened, alarms went off in his body, and he gestured for Warrick to be still. Sensing no other sound or motion, the two crept forward. Since childhood, Liet and Warrick had known how to move without sound or trace across the desert.

  Liet still could not determine what exactly struck him as out of place, yet as they approached, the sense of wrongness increased. Though the cold numbed their delicate senses, they moved ahead with the utmost care. Picking their path up stairsteps of frost-hardened dust, they saw what to Fremen eyes was obviously a trail.

  People had moved along here up the slope.

  The two young men tried to make themselves invisible against the cliff, thinking like part of the landscape, moving like natural components. Halfway up the slope, Liet noticed a faint discoloration in the wall, a patch too even, too artificial. The camouflage had been done well, but with a few clumsy mistakes.

  It was a hidden door large enough for spacecraft. A secret storehouse for Rondo Tuek? Another Guild operation, or a smuggler’s hideout?

  Liet stood motionless. Before he could say anything, other patches opened beside the path, pieces of rock and ice so carefully camouflaged that even he hadn’t noticed them. Four rough-looking men lunged out. They were muscular and wore casual uniforms cobbled together from several sources. And they held weapons.

  “You move well and quietly, lads,” one of the men said. He was tall and muscular, with bright eyes and a gleaming bald head. His mustache was dark and striking across his upper lip and down to his chin. “But you’ve forgotten that here in the cold, one can see steam from your breath. Didn’t think of that, did you?”

  A pair of grizzled men gestured with their weapons for the captives to enter the mountain tunnels. Warrick placed his hand on the crysknife hilt at his waist and looked over at his companion. They would be willing to die back-to-back if need be.

  But Liet shook his head. These men wore no Harkonnen colors. In some places the insignia had been torn from armbands and shoulder pads. They must be smugglers.

  The bald man glanced at one of his lieutenants. “We obviously have some fine-tuning to do with our camouflage.”

  “Are we your prisoners?” Liet asked, looking meaningfully at the guns.

  “I want to learn what we did wrong that you could spot our hideout so easily.” The muscular bald man lowered his weapon. “My name is Dominic Vernius— and you are my guests . . . for now.”

  The increasing variety and abundance of life itself vastly multiplies the number of niches available for life. The resulting system is a web of makers and users, eaters and eaten, collaborators and competitors.

  — PARDOT KYNES,

  Report to Emperor Shaddam IV

  For all his wiles and schemes, even with all the blood on his hands, Hasimir Fenring could be so wonderful to her. Lady Margot missed him. He was away, having gone with Baron Harkonnen deep into the desert to inspect spice harvester sites after receiving an angry message from Shaddam about a shortfall in melange production.

  With cold adherence to his clear-cut goals, her husband had committed numerous atrocities in the Emperor’s name, and she suspected he’d had a hand in the mysterious death of Elrood IX. But her Bene Gesserit upbringing had taught her to value results and consequences. Hasimir Fenring knew how to get what he wanted, and Margot adored him for it.

  She sighed each time she entered the lush wet-planet conservatory her husband had commissioned for her. Dressed in a comfortable yet stunning glitterslick housedress that changed color for each hour of the day, Margot pressed her hand against the palm-lock of the moisture-sealed door. As she stepped through the ornate mosaic arch into the verdant chamber, she breathed deeply of the rich air. Automatically, soothing music began to play, with baliset and piano.

  The walls radiated yellow afternoon sunlight, where panes of filter glass converted the white sun of Arrakis to a color reminiscent of Kaitain days. Thick leaves waved in forced-air circulation like the banners of cheering citizens. Over the past four years, the plants in this chamber had flourished beyond her wildest expectations.

  On a world where every drop of moisture was precious and beggars wandered the streets asking for water squeezings, where colorfully costumed water-sellers jingled their bells and charged exorbitant prices for just a sip, her private retreat was an extravagant waste. And worth every drop. As her husband always said, the Imperial Spice Minister could afford it.

  Deep in her past, among the echoes of ancient lives still available to her, Margot remembered a sheltered wife in a strict Islamic household, a woman named Fatimah after the only daughter of Mohammed. Her husband had been wealthy enough to care for three wives, keeping them inside his house, giving each one a courtyard of her own. After her marriage ceremony, Fatimah had never gone outside the home again, nor had the other wives. Her entire world was contained within the lush courtyard, with its plants and flowers, and an open sky above. The trickling water in its central fountain provided a musical accompaniment to her stringed instruments. Sometimes butterflies or hummingbirds would drop down to feast on the nectar. . . .

  Now, countless generations later, on a planet orbiting a sun farther away than that ancient woman could ever have imagined, Margot Fenring found herself in a similar place, sheltered and beautiful and full of plants.

  A clockwork servok with long arms of pipe and hose misted the air, spraying the pruned trees, ferns, and flowers. The cool moistness chilled Margot’s skin, and she breathed it into her lungs. Such luxury, after so many long years! She lifted a wet fan leaf, thrust her fingers into the loamy soil at the plant’s base. No sign of the juice-sucking aphid mutants this plant had carried when it arrived from its tropical homeworld of Ginaz.

  As she examined the roots, the voice of Reverend Mother Biana whispered to her from Other Memory. The long-dead Sister, who had been groundskeeper at the Mother School two centuries earlier, counseled Margot in the gentle ways of horticultural science. The music— Biana’s favorite song, a haunting troubadour melody from Jongleur— had sparked the inner ghost.

  Even without Biana’s memory-assistance, Margot prided herself on her knowledge of plants. Specimens from all over the Imperium flourished in the conservatory; she thought of them as the children she could not have with her genetic eunuch husband. She enjoyed watching the plants grow and mature on such a hostile world.

  Her husband was also good at surviving hostile situations.

  She stroked a long, silken leaf. I will protect you.

  Margot lost track of time, forgetting even to emerge for her meals. A Bene Gesserit Sister could fast for a week, if necessary. She was alone with her plants and her thoughts and the Other Memory of long-dead Sisters.

  Contented, she sat on a bench by a fluted fountain at the center of the room. She placed a rootbound philarose on the bench beside her, and closed her eyes, resting, meditating. . . .

  By the time she returned to herself, the sun had gone down in a blaze on the horizon, casting long shadows from rock escarpments to the west. Interior lights had turned on in the conservatory. Wonderfully rested, she carried the philarose to the potting bench and removed the plant from the container it had outgrown. She hummed the Jongleur tune to herself as she packed dirt around the roots in a new pot, completely at peace.

  Turning around, Margot was startled to see a leathery-skinned man less than two meters away. He stared at her with deep blue eyes . . . something oddly familiar about him. He wore
a jubba cloak, hood thrown back. A Fremen!

  How had the man gotten in, despite all of the conservatory’s stringent security measures and alarms, despite the palm lock keyed to her hand alone? Even with her enhanced Bene Gesserit senses, she had not heard him approach.

  The philarose pot fell from her hands with a crash, and she dropped smoothly into a Bene Gesserit fighting stance, her body loose and poised, her trained muscles ready to deliver toe-pointed kicks that could disembowel an opponent.

  “We have heard of your weirding way of battle,” the man said without moving. “But you are trained never to employ it precipitously.”

  Wary, Margot took a slow, cold breath. How could he possibly know this?

  “We received your message. You wished to speak with the Fremen.”

  Finally, she placed the man. She had seen him in Rutii, an outlying village during one of her tours. He was a self-styled priest of the desert, who administered blessings to the people. Margot recalled the priest’s discomfort when he’d noticed her watching him, how he had stopped his activities and had gone away. . . .

  She heard a rustling in the shrubbery. A shrunken woman stepped into view, also Fremen, also familiar. It was the Shadout Mapes, the housekeeper, prematurely graying and wrinkled from the sun and wind of the desert. Mapes, too, had eschewed her customary household attire and instead wore a drab traveling cloak for a desert journey.

  Mapes said, in a throaty voice, “Much water is wasted here, my Lady. You flaunt the richness of other worlds. This is not the Fremen way.”

  “I am not Fremen,” Margot responded sharply, not yet ready to strike out with the paralyzing command of Bene Gesserit Voice. She had deadly weapons at her disposal that were unimagined by these primitives. “What do you want with me?”

  “You have seen me before,” the man said.

  “You are a priest.”

  “I am an Acolyte, one of the Sayyadina’s assistants,” he answered without taking a step closer.

  Sayyadina, Margot thought. Her pulse quickened. That was a title she’d heard before, signifying a woman who seemed eerily like a Reverend Mother. Such a name was taught by the Missionaria Protectiva.

  Suddenly all became clear. But she had spoken her request to the Fremen so long ago, she had given up hope. “You heard my communication, my whispered message.”

  The priest lowered his head. “You say that you have information about the Lisan al-Gaib.” The appellation was pronounced with a deep resonance and respect.

  “And so I do. I must speak with your Reverend Mother.” Calmly, stalling for time to settle her thoughts, Margot scooped up the plant she had dropped. Leaving the pot’s shards and dirt on the floor, she placed the philarose into a fresh container, hoping it would survive.

  “Sayyadina of another world, you must come with us,” Mapes said.

  Margot brushed dirt from her hands. Though she allowed no flicker of emotion on her face, her heart pounded with anticipation. Perhaps, finally, she would have hard information to report to Mother Superior Harishka. Maybe she would learn what had happened to the missing Sisters who, a century ago, had vanished into the deserts of Arrakis.

  She followed the two Fremen out into the night.

  To know what one ought to do is not enough.

  — PRINCE RHOMBUR VERNIUS

  The waves played a slow lullaby beneath the wicker-wood coracle, fostering a false sense of peace over troubled thoughts.

  Duke Leto reached over the side and grabbed a floating sphere in the thick mesh of leaves drifting along with them. He drew out a jeweled knife from its golden sheath at his side and cut the ripe paradan melon from its underwater plant structure. “Here, Rhombur, have a melon.”

  He blinked in surprise. “Uh, isn’t that the Emperor’s knife? The one Shaddam gave to you after the Trial by Forfeiture?”

  Leto shrugged. “I prefer practicality over showiness. I’m sure my cousin won’t mind.”

  Rhombur took the dripping melon and turned it in his hands, inspecting the rough husk in the hazy sunshine. “Kailea would be horrified, you know. She’d rather you placed the Emperor’s knife on a suspensor plaque inside an ornamental shield.”

  “Well, she doesn’t go out fishing with me much.”

  When Rhombur made no move to shuck the melon, Leto took it back, used the tip of Shaddam’s jeweled blade to peel off the tough covering, then cracked the rind. “At least this won’t burst into flames if you let it sit out in the sun,” Leto chided, remembering the coral-gem debacle that had destroyed one of his favorite boats and stranded the two young men on a distant reef.

  “Not funny,” Rhombur said, for he had been to blame.

  Leto held up the knife, watching how the light glinted on the edge. “You know, I wore this as part of my formal uniform when I went to meet with Viscount Moritani. I think it got his attention.”

  “He’s a hard man to impress,” Rhombur said. “The Emperor has finally withdrawn his Sardaukar, and everything’s quiet. Uh, do you think the Moritani-Ecazi feud is over now?”

  “No, I don’t think it is. The entire time I was on Grumman, I felt my nerves tingling. I think the Viscount is just biding his time.”

  “And you’ve put yourself in the middle of it.” With his own knife, Rhombur cut away a section of the melon and took a bite. He winced, spat it over the side. “Still a little sour.”

  Leto laughed at his facial expression, then grabbed a small towel from a cubby. Wiping his hands and the ceremonial knife, he stepped inside the cabin, out of the bright sun, and started the engines. “At least all my duties aren’t so unpleasant. We’d better get moving down to the delta. I promised I’d be at the barge port by noon to greet the first loads of this season’s pundi rice harvest.”

  “Ah, the perils and demands of leadership,” Rhombur said, following him down into the cabin. “Look in the coolpack— I brought along a surprise for you. You know that dark beer you like so much?”

  “You don’t mean the Harkonnen ale?”

  “You’ll have to drink it out here, where no one can see us. Got it from a smuggler. Without using your name, of course.”

  “Rhombur Vernius of Ix, I am shocked to find you consorting with smugglers and black marketeers.”

  “How else do you think I manage to infiltrate supplies to the rebels on Ix? I haven’t been terribly effective so far, but I have indeed contacted some highly unsavory folk.” He unsealed the coolpack and rummaged around for the unlabeled bottles. “And a few of them have proven, uh, quite resourceful.”

  The Duke guided the coracle into the current, following the lush shoreline. Thufir Hawat would probably lecture him for going so far without an Atreides honor guard. “I guess I could drink a bottle or two, then. As long as there’s no Harkonnen profit in it.”

  Rhombur removed two containers from the coolpack and squeezed the tops to extrude spice-straws. “None whatsoever. Apparently, it was stolen during a raid on the brewery. A power outage caused a stir in the bottling plant, and, uh, somehow a pair of small Giedi cattle got loose inside the factory. There was substantial confusion, and a great deal of lost beer. A tragic waste. So many smashed bottles it would have been impossible to account for them all.”

  Standing at the coracle’s engine controls, Leto sniffed at the dark liquid, stopped himself from taking a gulp. “How do we know it isn’t tainted? I’m not in the habit of carrying a poison snooper onboard my own boat.”

  “This batch was bottled for the Baron himself. One look at his fat body, and you can well imagine how much of the stuff he must consume.”

  “Well, if it’s good enough for Baron Harkonnen—salud.” Leto took a sip of the bitter porter, filtered through melange crystals to enhance its flavor.

  Slipping onto the bench behind Leto, Rhombur watched the Duke take them around a rocky point and then head toward a broad delta where barges laden with pundi rice converged. The Ixian Prince didn’t sip from his beer yet. “This is a bribe,” he admitted. “I need a favo
r. In fact, how about two favors?”

  The Duke chuckled. “For one bottle of beer?”

  “Uh, there’s more in the coolpack. Look, I just want to be up-front with you. Leto, I consider you my closest friend. Even if you say no, I’ll understand.”

  “You’ll still be my friend if I say no to both favors?” Leto continued drinking through the straw.

  Rhombur slid his bottle around on the table in front of him, from hand to hand. “I want to do something more significant for Ix, something more serious.”

  “You need more money? How else can I help?”

  “Not money, well not exactly. I’ve been sending C’tair Pilru funding and encouragement ever since he contacted me four years ago.” He looked up, his forehead furrowed. “Word has reached me that the freedom fighters have been decimated, with only a few survivors. I think it’s worse than even he lets on. It’s time for me to stop playing around.” Rhombur’s eyes hardened, taking on a look Leto had last seen on Dominic Vernius during the revolt. “Let’s give them some serious firepower so they can make a difference.”

  Leto took another long sip of beer. “I’ll do anything within reason to help you regain your birthright, and I’ve always made that clear to you. What exactly do you have in mind?”

  “I’d like to send explosives, some of the plaz-wafers in your armory. They’re small and lightweight, so they’re easily concealed and shipped.”

  “How many wafers?”

  Rhombur didn’t hesitate. “A thousand.”

  Leto whistled. “That’ll cause a lot of destruction.”

  “Uh, that’s the point, Leto.”

  He continued to steer the boat over a choppy intersection of currents toward the mouth of the river. Up ahead they could see the pilot boats and colorful seakites flown over the barge docks. “And how do you propose to get supplies onto Ix? Can your smuggler friends get the shipment to where C’tair can intercept it?”

  “The Tleilaxu took control sixteen years ago. They’re making regular shipments again, using their own transports and special Guild dispensations. They’ve had to loosen restrictions because they depend on outside suppliers for raw materials and special items. All the ships land on the rock shelves along the port-of-entry canyon. The hollowed-out grottoes there are big enough to accommodate warehouse frigates, and the tunnels intersect with the underground cities. Some of the frigate captains served under my father a long time ago, and they have, uh, offered to help.”