Warrick laughed. “In most challenges, you are a brave man, Liet-Kynes. But when facing a beautiful woman, you are a shameful coward.”
Liet drew a deep, indignant breath. “I have composed a love poem for her. I mean to write it down on spice paper and leave it in her chamber.”
“Oh?” Warrick teased. “And would you have the nerve to sign it with your own name? What is this beautiful poem you’ve written?”
Liet closed his eyes and recited:
Many
nights I dream beside open water, hearing the winds pass high;
Many
nights I lie by the snake’s den and dream of Faroula in summer heat;
I
see her baking spice bread on red-hot sheets of iron;
And
braiding water rings into her hair.
The
amber fragrance of her bosom strikes my innermost senses;
Though
she torments and oppresses me, I would have her no other way;
She
is Faroula, and she is my love.
A
storm wind rages through my heart;
Behold
the clear water of the qanat, gentle and shimmering.
Liet opened his eyes, as if emerging from a dream.
“I’ve heard better,” Warrick said. “I’ve written better. But you show promise. You might find a woman to accept you after all. But never Faroula.”
Liet feigned offense. In silence, the two watched the Fremen children continue to capture sandtrout. Deeper in the canyon, he knew his father rambled on about ways to increase plant growth, how to add supplementary vegetation to improve the turnover and retain nitrates in the soil. He’s probably never played with a sandtrout in his life, Liet thought.
He and Warrick thought of other things and stared into the night. Finally, after a long silence, both spoke at once, their words tumbling over each other. Then the two laughed and agreed. “Yes, we will both ask her when we return to Red Wall Sietch.”
They clasped hands, hoping . . . but secretly relieved that they had taken the decision out of their own hands.
• • •
Amid the bustle of Heinar’s Sietch, the Fremen greeted the return of Pardot Kynes.
Young Faroula pressed her hands against her narrow waist, watching the party file past the moisture-sealed doorways. Her long dark hair hung in silky loops strung with water rings down to her shoulders; her face was narrow and elfin-looking. Her large eyes were midnight pools below her striking eyebrows. A slight flush danced along her tanned cheeks.
She regarded Liet first, then Warrick. Her face held a stern expression with only the faintest upturn of lips to show that she was secretly pleased, rather than offended, by what the two young men had just asked her.
“And why should I choose either of you?” Faroula regarded both suitors for a long moment, making them squirm with the agony of anticipation. “What makes the two of you so confident?”
“But . . .” Warrick struck his chest. “I have raided many Harkonnen troops. I have ridden a sandworm down to the south pole. I have—”
Liet interrupted him. “I’ve done everything Warrick has— and I am the son of Umma Kynes, his heir and successor as Planetologist. There may be a day when I leave this planet to visit the Imperial Court on Kaitain. I am—”
Faroula impatiently dismissed their bluster. “And I am the daughter of Naib Heinar. I can have any man I choose.”
Liet groaned deep in his throat, his shoulders sagging. Warrick looked at his friend, but drew himself up, trying to recapture his bravado. “Well, then . . . choose!”
Faroula laughed, covered her mouth, and restored her tight expression. “You both have admirable qualities . . . a few of them, at least. And I suppose if I don’t make up my mind soon, you’ll end up killing yourselves trying to show off for me, as if I asked for escapades like that.” She tossed her head, and her long hair jingled with the bound water rings.
She put a finger to her lips, pondering. Her eyes glinting with mirth, she said, “Give me two days to decide. I must think on this.” When they refused to move, her voice became crisper. “Don’t just stand there ogling me! You must have work to do. One thing I tell you: I’ll never marry a lazy husband.”
Both Liet and Warrick nearly tripped as they scrambled to find something important-looking to occupy themselves.
• • •
After waiting for two long, agonizing days, Liet discovered a wrapped note in his room. He tore open the spice paper, his heart pounding and sinking at the same time: If Faroula had chosen him, wouldn’t she come to tell him herself? But as his eyes scanned the words she had written, his breath came fast and cold in his throat.
“I wait in the distant Cave of Birds. I will give myself to whichever man reaches me first.”
That was all the note said. Liet stared at it for a few moments, then ran through the sietch passages until he reached Warrick’s quarters. He pulled aside the curtain-hanging and saw his friend frantically packing a satchel and a Fremkit.
“She’s issued a mihna challenge,” Warrick said, over his shoulder.
It was a test in which Fremen youths proved themselves worthy of manhood. The two looked at each other, frozen for a moment, their gazes locking.
Then Liet whirled and rushed back to his own quarters. He understood too well what he had to do.
It was a race.
It is possible to become intoxicated with rebellion for rebellion’s sake.
— DOMINIC VERNIUS, Ecaz Memoirs
Even two years in a Harkonnen slave pit did not break the spirit of Gurney Halleck. The guards considered him a difficult prisoner, and he wore that fact like a badge of honor.
Though beaten and pummeled regularly, his skin bruised, his bones cracked, his flesh slashed— Gurney always recovered. He came to know the inside of the infirmary well, to understand the miraculously fast ways the doctor could patch up injuries so the slaves could work again.
Following his capture at the pleasure house, he had been thrown into the obsidian mines and polishing pits, where he had been forced to work harder than his worst days of digging trenches for krall tubers. Still, Gurney did not miss the easier duty. At least he would die knowing he had tried to fight back.
The Harkonnens did not bother to ask questions about who he was or why he had come here; they saw him as no more than another functioning body to perform tasks. The guards believed they had subdued him, and nothing else mattered to them. . . .
Initially, Gurney had been assigned to the cliffs of Mount Ebony, where he and his crewmates used sonic blasters and laser-heated handpicks to chip away slabs of blue obsidian, a translucent substance that seemed to suck light from the air. Gurney and his fellow laborers were chained together with cuffs that could extrude shigawire to sever their limbs if they struggled.
The work crew climbed up narrow mountain paths in the frosty dawn and worked through long days of battering sun. At least once a week, some slaves were killed or maimed by falling volcanic glass. The crew supervisors and guards didn’t care. Periodically, they just made new sweeps around Giedi Prime to harvest additional slaves.
After surviving his stint on the cliffs, Gurney was transferred to a work detail in the processing pits, where he waded in emulsifying solutions to prepare small pieces of obsidian for shipment. Wearing only thick trunks, he worked up to his waist in foul-smelling gelatinous liquid, some sort of lye and abrasive with a mild radioactive component that activated the volcanic glass. The treatment made the finished product shimmer with a midnight-blue aura.
To his bitter amusement, he learned that rare “blue obsidian” was sold only by the gem merchants of Hagal. Though assumed to be from the crystal-rich mines of Hagal itself, the source of the valuable obsidian was a carefully held secret. House Harkonnen had been quietly providing the glowing volcanic glass all along, fetching a premium price for their resources.
Gurney’s body became a patchwork of small
cuts and slashes. His unprotected skin soaked up the foul, burning solution. No doubt it would kill him within a few years, but his chances of survival in the slave pits were slim anyway. After Bheth had been taken six years ago, he’d given up on any sort of long-term planning. Nonetheless, as he slogged through the liquid, churning the knife-edged chunks of obsidian, he kept his face lifted toward the sky and the horizon, while the other slaves stared into the muck.
Early one morning, the work supervisor stood on his podium with odor-filters plugged into his nostrils. He wore a tight-fitting blue tunic that displayed his scrawny chest and the rounded paunch of his belly.
“Stop daydreaming down there. Listen up, all of you.” He raised his voice, and Gurney heard something strange in the timbre of the words. “A noble guest is coming to inspect our operations. Glossu Rabban, the Baron’s designated heir, will oversee our quotas, and likely demand more work from you lazy worms. Get ahead of yourselves today, because tomorrow you’ll have a vacation while you stand at attention to be inspected.”
The work supervisor scowled. “And don’t think this isn’t an honor. I’m surprised Rabban’s even willing to put up with your stink.”
Gurney narrowed his eyes. The ignominious thug Rabban coming here? He began to hum a song to himself, one of the acidly satirical tunes he had sung in the Dmitri tavern before the initial Harkonnen attack:
Rabban, Rabban, the blustering brute,
No brain in his head but rotten fruit.
His muscles, his brawn
Make a thinking man yawn.
Without the Baron, he’s destitute!
Gurney couldn’t help smiling, but kept his face turned away from the work supervisor. It wouldn’t do to let the man notice any amusement in a slave’s expression.
He couldn’t wait to see the lumbering bully face-to-face.
• • •
When Rabban and his escort arrived, they carried so many weapons Gurney had to restrain a chuckle. What was he afraid of? A bunch of work-weakened prisoners who had been battered into submission for years?
The guards had activated the cores of the cuffs so that razor-edged shigawire dug into his wrists, reminding him that a sharp jerk could slice all the way to the bone. The enhanced restraints were meant to keep the prisoners cooperative, perhaps even respectful, in front of Rabban.
The ancient man bound to Gurney had such angular joints that he had an insectlike appearance. His hair had fallen out in patches, and he jittered with a neurological disorder. He had no comprehension of what was going on around him, and Gurney pitied the fellow, wondering whether this might be his own fate one day . . . if he lived that long.
Rabban wore a black-leather uniform, padded to emphasize his muscular physique and broad shoulders. A blue Harkonnen griffin adorned his left breast. His black boots were polished to a high gloss, his thick belt studded with ornamental brass. Rabban’s broad face had a ruddy appearance, as if it had been sunburned too often, and he wore a black military helmet that gleamed in the hazy sunlight. Holstered at his hip was a shining flèchette pistol accompanied by packs of spare needle cartridges.
A nasty inkvine whip hung at his waist; no doubt Rabban would look for any opportunity to use it. Blackish-red fluid inside the long-dead stem flowed like still-living blood, causing the spiked strands to twist and curl in reflex. Its juice— a poisonous substance that had commercial properties for coloring and dyeing— could cause a great deal of pain.
Rabban gave no droning speeches in front of the slaves. It wasn’t his job to inspire them, merely to terrify the supervisors to squeeze out more productivity. He had already seen the slave-pit operations, and now he moved up and down the line of prisoners, offering no encouragement.
The work manager followed, jabbering in a voice made thinner by the odor-filters jammed into his nostrils. “We’ve done everything possible to increase efficiency, Lord Rabban. We’re feeding them a bare minimum of nourishment to keep them functioning at peak performance. Their clothing is inexpensive but durable. It lasts for years, and we can reuse it when prisoners die.”
Rabban’s stony face showed no pleasure whatsoever.
“We could install machinery,” the work supervisor suggested, “to do some of the menial tasks. That would improve our output—”
The beefy man glared. “Our objective is not merely to improve production. Destroying these men is every bit as important.” He glared at them all from a position close to Gurney and the jittering, spidery old man. Rabban’s close-set eyes locked on to the pathetic prisoner.
In one fluid motion he drew the flèchette pistol and fired a round point-blank at the old man. The prisoner barely had time to raise his arms in a warding gesture; the spray of silvery-needle projectiles chopped through his wrists and plunged through his heart, dropping him dead before he could even squawk.
“Frail people are a drain on our resources.” Rabban took a step away.
Gurney didn’t have time to think or plan, but saw in an impulsive instant what he could do to strike back. Jamming a wad of the dead prisoner’s durable tunic around his own wrists to keep the wire from cutting the skin, Gurney stood up with a roar, yanking with all his might. The rag-muffled shigawire dug and cut against his padded wrists and sliced the rest of the way through the mangled, nearly severed wrists of the dead man.
Using one of the dead prisoner’s detached hands like a handle, he lunged toward an astonished Rabban, gripping the shigawire like a razor-fine garrote. Before Gurney could slice open the burly man’s jugular, Rabban moved with surprising speed. Gurney overbalanced and succeeded only in knocking the flèchette pistol out of the other man’s hand.
The work supervisor shrieked and backed away. Rabban, seeing his pistol gone, lashed out with his inkvine whip, striking Gurney across the face on his cheek and jaw, barely missing his eye with one of the thorny strands.
Gurney had never imagined a whip could hurt so much, but as the blazing cuts registered on his nerves, the inkvine juice seared like potent acid. His head exploded in a nova of pain that tunneled through his skull and into the core of his mind. He dropped the old man’s still-bleeding hand, letting it dangle from the shigawire bond on one of his own wrists.
Gurney toppled backward. The nearby guards rushed in; his fellow prisoners shrank away in terror, clearing a wide area. The guards closed in to kill Gurney, but Rabban held up a broad hand for them to stop.
Writhing, Gurney felt only the inkvine pain in his cheek and neck while Rabban’s face burned into his vision. He might be slain soon— but for now, at least, he could hold on to his hatred for this . . . this Harkonnen.
“Who is this man? Why is he here, and why did he attack me?” Rabban glared at the work supervisor, who cleared his throat.
“I . . . I’d have to check our records, my Lord.”
“Then check the records. Find out where he came from.” Rabban fashioned a thick-lipped smile. “And see if he has any family left alive.”
Gurney summoned to mind the insipid words of his sarcastic song: Rabban, Rabban, the blustering brute . . .
But as he looked up into the broad, ugly face of the Baron’s nephew, he realized that Glossu Rabban would have the last laugh after all.
What is each man but a memory for those who follow?
— DUKE LETO ATREIDES
One evening, Duke Leto and his concubine had been shouting at one another for more than an hour, and Thufir Hawat was troubled. He stood in the ducal wing, just down the hall from the closed door of Leto’s bedroom. If either of them emerged, Hawat could slip down one of the side passageways that honeycombed the Castle. No one knew the back corridors and secret ways better than the Mentat.
Something crashed in the bedroom. Kailea’s voice rose over the Duke’s deeper, equally furious tones. Hawat didn’t hear everything they said . . . nor did he need to. As Security Commander, he was responsible for the Duke’s personal well-being. He didn’t want to intrude, but in the present atmosphere his primary conc
ern was the potential for violence between Leto and his concubine.
The Duke shouted, exasperated, “I don’t intend to spend my life arguing with you about what cannot be changed.”
“Then why don’t you just have Victor and me killed? That would be your best solution. Or send us away to a place where you don’t have to think about us— like you did to your mother.”
Hawat couldn’t hear Leto’s response, but he understood all too well why the young Duke had banished Lady Helena.
“You’re no longer the man I fell in love with, Leto,” Kailea continued. “It’s Jessica, isn’t it? Has the witch seduced you yet?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. In the year and a half she’s been with us I’ve never visited her bed once— though I have every right to do so.”
Several moments of silence ensued. The Mentat waited in a state of tension.
Kailea finally said with a sarcastic sigh, “Same old refrain. Keeping Jessica here is just politics. Refusing to marry me is just politics. Hiding your involvement with Rhombur and the rebels on Ix is just politics. I’m sick of your politics. You’re as much a schemer as any in the Imperium.”
“I’m not a schemer. It’s my enemies who plot against me.”
“The words of a true paranoid. Now I understand why you haven’t married me and made Victor your rightful heir. It’s a Harkonnen plot.”
Leto’s reasonable tones slipped into open rage. “I never promised you marriage, Kailea, but for your sake I never even took another concubine.”
“What does it matter, if I’m never to be your wife?” Choking laughter punctuated the scorn in Kailea’s words. “Your ‘faithfulness’ is one more show you put on to appear honorable—just politics.”
Leto sucked in a sharp breath, as if the words had been a physical blow. “Perhaps you’re right,” he agreed in a voice as icy as a Lankiveil winter. “Why did I bother?” The bedroom door slammed open, and Hawat melted into the shadows. “I am neither your pet, nor a fool, Kailea— I am the Duke.”
Leto strode down the hallway, muttering and cursing. Behind the partially open door, Kailea began sobbing. Soon she would call Chiara, and the plump old woman would comfort her through the long night.
Dune: House Harkonnen Page 36
