Dune: House Harkonnen

by Brian Herbert; Kevin J. Anderson

  With the arrival of their planetary governor, workers climbed down from scaffoldings and picked their way along packed snowfield paths into the large square. When completed, the towering buildings would look down upon the square like gods from on high; even incomplete, the soaring stonework remained impressive.

  The weather had cooperated since the avalanche, but in another month or two, the hard snap of winter would force them to cease their efforts and huddle within the stone buildings for half a year. Bifrost Eyrie would not be finished this season. With the magnitude of construction work, perhaps it would never be complete. But the people would continue to build, enhancing their prayer in stone to the skies of Lankiveil.

  When the crowds had gathered, Abulurd raised his hands to speak, rehearsing again in his mind. Then all the words drained from his mind to be replaced with nervousness. Looking like a queen beside him, Emmi reached out to touch his arm, giving her support. Then she whispered his opening lines, helping him remember what he needed to say.

  “My friends,” he said loudly, grinning with embarrassment, “Buddislamic teachings encourage charity, hard work, and assistance to those in need. There can be no better example of heartfelt cooperation than what you volunteers are doing now to rebuild—”

  The gathered people began to murmur, gesturing toward the sky and whispering among themselves. Abulurd hesitated again, turning to look over his shoulder. Just then, Emmi cried out.

  A formation of black ships appeared in the azure sky, swooping toward the mountains, attack craft that bore the griffin of House Harkonnen. Abulurd’s brows knitted, more in puzzlement than alarm. He looked over at his wife. “What does this mean, Emmi? I did not call for any ships.” But she had no better idea than he did.

  Seven fighters roared low, engines cracking through the air with sonic booms. Abulurd felt a flash of annoyance, afraid the thunderous sound would provoke fresh avalanches— until the ships’ gunports opened. The people of the mountain stronghold began milling back and forth in confusion, shouting. Some ran, searching for shelter. Abulurd could not understand what he was seeing.

  Three of the sleek craft slowed to a hover over the square where the villagers were gathered. Lasguns extended, targeted.

  Abulurd waved his hands, trying to get the pilots’ attention. “What are you doing? There must be some mistake.”

  Emmi pushed him away from the speaking podium, where he was a prime target. “There’s no mistake.”

  The villagers scrambled for cover as the vessels settled down to land in the square. Abulurd was convinced the pilots would have landed right on top of the crowd if the spectators had not moved fast enough. “Stay here,” he said to Emmi as he strode toward the trio of landed ships to demand answers.

  The four remaining vessels circled in the air and came back. With a buzzing crackle of static, hot lasgun beams lanced out to slice scaffolding from the stone buildings like a fisherman gutting his catch.

  “Stop!” Abulurd shouted to the skies, clenching his fists— but none of the military men could hear him. These were Harkonnen troops, loyal to his own family, but they were attacking his people, the citizens of Lankiveil. “Stop!” he repeated, reeling backward from the shockwaves.

  Emmi grabbed him and pulled him aside as one of the ships swooped low, creating a sharp, hot wind with its passage.

  More lasgun fire lanced out, this time targeting the milling mass of people. The blasts slew dozens in a single sweep.

  Chunks of ice toppled from the glaciers, crystalline blue-white blocks that fell in a flash of steam as they were cauterized from the main mass. Half-completed buildings were crushed under the onslaught as lasgun beams chopped them to bits.

  The four attack craft came around a third time while the other vessels powered down and stabilized on the ground. Their doors hissed open, and Harkonnen troops boiled out, wearing dark blue commando assault uniforms, insulated against the cold.

  “I am Abulurd Harkonnen, and I order you to stop!” After quick glances in his direction, the soldiers ignored him.

  Then Glossu Rabban stepped out of the craft. Weapons bristled from his belt and military insignia covered his shoulders and breast. An iridescent black helmet made him look like a gladiator in an ancient coliseum.

  Recognizing his grandson, Onir Rautha-Rabban raced forward, his hands clasped in front of him, beseeching. His face was splotched with anger and horror. “Please stop! Glossu Rabban, why are you doing this?”

  At the other side of the square, the ground troops withdrew lasrifles and opened fire on screaming villagers, who had no place to go. Before the old burgomaster could reach Rabban on the boarding ramp, soldiers grabbed him and dragged him away.

  His face stormy, Abulurd marched toward Rabban. Harkonnen troops moved to block his way, but he snapped, “Let me pass.”

  Rabban looked over at him with cold metal eyes. His thick lips were drawn into a satisfied line above his blocky chin. “Father, your people must learn that there are worse things than natural disasters.” He raised his chin a notch. “If they find excuses to avoid paying their tithes, they will face an unnatural disaster— me.”

  “Call them off!” Abulurd raised his voice even as he felt completely impotent. “I am governor here, and these are my people.”

  Rabban looked at him in disgust. “And they need an example to understand the kind of behavior that’s expected of them. It’s not a complicated issue, but obviously you don’t provide the proper inspiration.”

  Harkonnen soldiers dragged the struggling Onir Rabban toward an abrupt cliff edge. Emmi saw what they meant to do and screamed. Abulurd whirled to see that they had brought his father-in-law to the sheer, ice-frosted precipice. The chasm below ended only in a soup of clouds.

  “You can’t do that!” Abulurd said, aghast. “That man is the lawful leader of this village. He’s your own grandfather.”

  Smiling, Rabban whispered the words, with no emotion, no sense of command. “Oh, wait. Stop.” There was no chance the troops could hear him. They already had their orders.

  The Harkonnen guards grabbed the burgomaster by both arms and held him like a loose sack of cargo at the brink. Emmi’s father cried out, his arms and legs flailing. He looked over at Abulurd, his face filled with disbelief and horror. Their eyes met.

  “Oh, dear me, please, no,” Rabban whispered again, with a grin curving his lips.

  Then the soldiers shoved the old man over, and he disappeared into the void.

  “Too late,” Rabban said with a shrug.

  Emmi fell to her knees, retching. Abulurd, who couldn’t decide whether to comfort her or rush forward to strike his son, remained paralyzed.

  With a clap of his meaty hands, Rabban called out, “Enough! Fall in!”

  Loud signals came from the landed battleships. With military precision, the Harkonnen troops marched back to their ships in perfect ranks. They left wailing survivors who scurried over to the bodies, searching for companions, loved ones, anyone who might need medical attention.

  On the ramp of the flagship, Rabban studied his father. “Be thankful I was willing to do your dirty work. You’ve used too light a touch on these people, and they’ve grown lazy.”

  The four flying vessels completed one more attack run, which devastated another building, causing it to collapse in a rumble of rock dust. Then they flew off, regrouping in a formation in the sky.

  “If you force my hand again, I’ll have to show a little more muscle— all in your name, of course.” Rabban turned about and strode back into his command ship.

  Appalled and disoriented, Abulurd stared in utter horror at the obliteration, the fires, the awful cauterized bodies. He heard a mounting scream like a song of mourning— and realized it came from his own throat.

  Emmi had staggered over to the cliff edge and stood sobbing as she stared down into the bottomless clouds where her father had disappeared.

  The last Harkonnen ships lifted into the sky on suspensors, leaving scorch marks on the
clearing in front of the now-devastated mountain city. Abulurd sank to his knees in utter despair. His mind filled with a roaring hum of disbelief and a bright agony dominated by the smug expression of Glossu Rabban.

  “How could I have ever sired such a monster?” He knew he would never find an answer to that question.

  Love is the highest achievement to which any human may aspire. It is an emotion that encompasses the full depth of heart, mind, and soul.

  — Zensunni Wisdom from the Wandering

  Liet-Kynes and Warrick spent an evening together near Splintered Rock in Hagga Basin. They had raided another one of the old botanical testing stations for usable equipment, taking inventory of a few tools and records the desert had preserved for centuries.

  For two years following their return from the south polar regions, the young men had accompanied Pardot Kynes from sietch to sietch, checking the progress of old and new plantings. The Planetologist maintained a secret greenhouse cave at Plaster Basin, a captive Eden to demonstrate what Dune could become. Water from catchtraps and windstills irrigated the shrubs and flowers. Many Fremen had received samples grown in the Plaster Basin demonstration project. They took sweet pieces of the fruit as a holy communion, closing their eyes and breathing deeply, relishing the taste.

  All of this Pardot Kynes had promised . . . and all of this he had given them. He was proud that his visions were becoming reality. He was also proud of his son. “One day you will be Imperial Planetologist here, Liet,” he said, nodding solemnly.

  Though he spoke with passion about awakening the desert, bringing in grasses and biodiversity for a self-sustaining ecosystem, Kynes could not teach any subject in an orderly or structured fashion. Warrick hung on every word he said, but the man often began with one topic, then rambled on to other subjects at his whim.

  “We are all part of a grand tapestry, and we each must follow our own threads,” Pardot Kynes said, more pleased with his own words than he should have been.

  Oftentimes he would recount the stories of his days on Salusa Secundus, how he had studied a wilderness no one else had bothered with. The Planetologist had spent years on Bela Tegeuse, seeing how the hardy plant life flourished despite the dim sunlight and acidic soil. There had also been journeys to Harmonthep, III Delta Kaising, Gammont, and Poritrin— and the dazzling court on Kaitain, where Emperor Elrood IX had given him this assignment on Arrakis.

  Now, as Liet and Warrick made their way from Splintered Rock, a heavy wind picked up— a heinali or man-pusher. Bending into the stinging gusts, Liet pointed to the lee of a rock outcropping. “Let us set up our shelter there.”

  His dark hair bound in a shoulder-length ponytail, Warrick trudged forward, head lowered, already removing his Fremkit pack. Working together, they soon had a protected, camouflaged camp and hunkered down to talk far into the night.

  In two years, the young men had told no one about Dominic Vernius and his smuggler base. They had given their word to the man, and kept it a secret between themselves. . . .

  They were both eighteen and expected to marry soon— but Liet, dizzy with the hormones of his age, could not choose. He found himself more and more attracted to Faroula, the willowy, large-eyed, but tempestuous daughter of Heinar, the Naib of Red Wall Sietch. Faroula was trained in the lore of the herbalist, and would, one day, be a well-respected healer.

  Unfortunately for him, Warrick desired Faroula as well, and Liet knew that his blood-brother was more likely to gather the courage to ask the Naib’s daughter before he could make his own clumsy move.

  The two friends fell asleep listening to the whispering fingernails of sand blown against their tent. . . .

  The following dawn, when they climbed out, knocking powdery dust from the sphincter opening of the tent, Liet stared across the expanse of Hagga Basin. Warrick blinked in the bright light. “Kull wahad!”

  The night windstorm had blown the dirt clear of a broad white playa, the salty remnants of an ancient dried sea. Scoured clean, the lake bed wavered in the rising heat of the day. “A gypsum plain. A rare sight,” Liet said, then added in a mutter, “My father would probably run down and do tests.”

  Warrick spoke in a low, awed voice. “It is said that he who sees Biyan, the White Lands, can make a wish and it is sure to be granted.” He fell silent and moved his lips, expressing his deepest, most private desires.

  Not to be outdone, Liet uttered his own fervent thoughts in a rush. He turned to his friend and announced, “I wished that Faroula would be my wife!”

  Warrick gave him a bemused smile. “Bad luck, my blood-brother— I wished for the same thing.” With a laugh, he clapped Liet on the shoulder. “It seems that not all wishes can come true.”

  • • •

  At dusk the two met Pardot Kynes as he arrived at Sine Rock Sietch. The sietch elders solemnly went through a greeting ceremony, pleased with what they had accomplished. Kynes accepted their welcome with brusque good grace, offhandedly forgoing many of the formal responses in his eagerness to inspect everything himself.

  The Planetologist went to inspect their plantings under bright glowglobes that simulated sunlight within crannies of rock. The sand had been fertilized with chemicals and human feces to create a rich soil. The people of Sine Rock grew mesquite, sage, rabbitbush, even a few accordion-trunked saguaros, surrounded by scrubby grasses. Groups of robed women went from plant to plant as if in a religious ceremony, adding cupfuls of water so the plants could thrive.

  The stone walls of Sine Rock’s blocked-off canyon retained a bit of moisture every morning; dew precipitators along the top of the canyon recaptured lost water vapor and returned it to the plants.

  In the evening, Kynes walked from planting to planting, bending over to study leaves and stems. He’d already forgotten that his son and Warrick had come to meet him. His warrior escort, Ommun and Turok, stood guard, willing to give their lives should anything threaten their Umma. Liet noticed his father’s intense concentration and wondered if the man even realized the sheer loyalty he inspired among these people.

  At the mouth of the narrow canyon, where a few boulders and rocks provided the only barrier against open desert, Fremen children had tethered bright glowglobes that shone onto the sand. Each child carried a bent metal rod extracted from a Carthag refuse dump.

  Enjoying the private stillness of the gathering night, Liet and Warrick squatted on a rock to watch the children. Warrick sniffed and looked behind them toward the artificial sunlight on the bushes and cacti. “The little Makers are drawn to the moisture like iron filings to a magnet.”

  Liet had seen the activity before, had done it himself as a boy, but was still fascinated to see the young ones poking about to capture sandtrout. “They have easy pickings.”

  One of the young girls bent to let a small drop of saliva fall onto the end of her metal staff; then she extended the rod over the sands. The miniature tethered glowglobes cast deep shadows on the uneven ground. Creatures stirred under the surface, rising out of the dust.

  The sandtrout were shapeless fleshy creatures, soft and flexible. Their bodies were pliable when alive, yet they turned hard and leathery when dead. Many little Makers were found strewn about the site of a spice blow, killed in the explosion; many more burrowed to capture the released water, sealing it away to protect Shai-Hulud.

  One of the sandtrout extended a pseudopod toward the glistening tip of the rod. When it touched the girl’s saliva, the Fremen child turned the metal stick, as if to capture a self-moving flow of taffy. She raised her rod, taking the sandtrout out of the ground, and twirled it to keep the amorphous little Maker suspended in the air. The other children giggled.

  A second child caught another sandtrout and both hurried back to the rocks, where they played with their prizes. They could poke and tug the soft flesh, teasing out a few droplets of sweet syrup, a special treat that Liet himself had loved in his youth.

  Though tempted to try his own hand at the game, Liet reminded himself that he was an
adult now, a full member of the tribe. He was the son of Umma Kynes; the other Fremen would frown to see him engage in frivolous play.

  Warrick sat on the rock beside him, wrapped in his thoughts, watching the children and thinking of a future family of his own. He looked up into the purpling sky. “It is said that storm season is the time for lovemaking.” He wrinkled his brow, then placed his narrow chin in his hands, deep in concentration. He had begun to grow a thin beard.

  Liet smiled; he still kept his own face clean-shaven. “It is time for both of us to choose a mate, Warrick.” They held Faroula in their thoughts, and the Naib’s daughter led them on, feigning aloofness while enjoying their attentions. Liet and Warrick brought her special treasures from the desert whenever they could.

  “Perhaps we should make our selection the Fremen way.” Warrick withdrew from his belt a pair of polished bone slivers as long as knives. “Shall we throw tally sticks to see who may court Faroula?”

  Liet had his own pair of the gambling markers; he and his friend had spent many camp nights challenging each other. Tally sticks were slender carvings with a scale of random numbers etched along the sides, high numbers mixed with low ones. The Fremen threw bone tallies into the sand, then read off the number of the depth; whoever achieved the highest score, won. It required finesse as well as plain luck.

  “If we played tally sticks, I would beat you, of course,” Liet said offhandedly to Warrick.

  “I doubt that.”

  “In any event, Faroula would never abide by the throw of the bones.” Liet sat back against the cool rock wall. “Perhaps it is time for the ahal ceremony, where a woman chooses her mate.”

  “Do you think Faroula would choose me?” Warrick said wistfully.

  “Of course not.”

  “In most things I trust your judgment, my friend— but not in this.”

  “Perhaps I shall ask her myself when I return,” Liet said. “She couldn’t want a better husband than me.”