Paul of Dune

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Marie executed a series of speed-somersaults, spinning past him and then coming around from behind. Finally, just as he turned to face her, she landed with her hands on the grass and launched her tiny body toward him in a proven Bene Gesserit bullet maneuver. She hit the middle of his abdomen — and passed completely through his body, landing in tumbling disarray on the rough lawn.

  Thallo laughed at her astonishment “I’m too fast for you!” His lips moved as he spoke, but once more the voice did not seem to come from the right direction. “I am the Kwisatz Haderach. I can do anything.”

  Marie brushed herself off, glanced over at the observers, whose expressions showed consternation. “How did you really do that?” she asked in a low voice.

  His face remained cool, like a porcelain mask. “Does a magician reveal the secret of his tricks?”

  “To his best friend, he would.”

  “Friends.” He had a perplexed, troubled expression. Then he whispered, “I can’t tell you here.”

  Thallo stood like a statue, exploring his own internal realms. What was he thinking? Was he performing Mentat calculations? His face had gone uncharacteristically blank, and though he stared back toward Marie, he didn’t seem to see her. His expression shifted, as if currents were ebbing and flowing in his psyche. She noticed how quiet the training field had grown. On the other side of the bluish grass, the observers seemed to be holding their breath.

  “Follow me.” Abruptly adopting a childlike personality, Thallo shouted, “Hide and seek!” With that, he darted off. As she ran after him, Marie heard the lab technicians trying to keep up, and calling ahead for assistance. She saw a guard spring into action, running toward them from the right.

  With his long, muscular legs and athletic ability, Thallo easily outdistanced the guard and the technicians. Marie kept up with him as she ran down a short slope and entered a moss-overgrown tunnel that passed beneath a walking bridge. In the shadows, Thallo ducked to his right and disappeared from view. She hurried after him into another tunnel, but to her surprise she heard him call from behind, “Not that way. Over here — now!”

  Confused, she turned and saw him in low light, just inside the entrance of another tunnel. Thalidei was riddled with them, but he couldn’t possibly have moved so swiftly. “How did you get here?”

  “More magic.” Then, whispering in her ear, Thallo added, “That was just an enhanced solido holo-image out there. I adapted their technology beyond what even the Tleilaxu think they can do. That’s why you couldn’t touch me. I have been waiting down here all the time.”

  A light flickered out in the opposite tunnel as the guards pushed inside, angrily trying find them. They did not guess what Thallo had done to their own systems.

  Thallo continued in an excited rush, “I can defeat any security and surveillance system they have. This time I will let them catch me, but only because I’m not ready yet.”

  “Not ready for what?”

  “We don’t have much time.” He whispered his confession to her. “By being so close to perfection, I can plainly see how far I fall short of the mark. Dr. Ereboam knows I am not the flawless Kwisatz Haderach. As soon as the other Masters realize it, they will terminate the experiment — and Ereboam as well. Then they will try again.”

  Their pursuers came at them from different directions in the shadowy tunnels, shouting, shining lights. Looking meek and immature again, Thallo stepped forward and raised his hands in mock surrender.

  THAT EVENING, THALLO disabled the security systems around him and used the same trick for Marie, leaving full-spectrum holos of them in their respective beds. Though the girl was uneasy about slipping past her unsuspecting parents, she calculated that it was a wise investment to see what her purported friend had in mind. Information is the best defensive weapon. Before she could confide in her mother and father, she needed to understand Thallo’s game.

  On a moonless night, the pair of playmates slipped away into silent and brooding Thalidei. They found a place to sit in the middle of a skeletal, abandoned construction site near the shore of the fetid-smelling lake, and they talked for much of the night. As they gazed back toward the flickering lights of the city, Marie continued her own work of understanding, and perhaps even shaping, the young man’s psyche as her parents had taught her, hoping to shift Thallo’s loyalty to her instead of to the Tleilaxu.

  This Kwisatz Haderach candidate had more potential than she’d realized at first. Maybe he really could peer into the murky future as he claimed, and maybe he did know with absolute certainty that he was doomed to failure. But if so, he had a blind spot when it came to Marie, and a glaring weakness that she intended to exploit. Thallo was desperate to escape the clutches of the Tleilaxu, and Marie would help him do exactly that.

  Danger is the background noise of my life. I cannot separate out a particular threat any more than you could hear a single pop of static in the midst of a lost signal.

  —The Life of Muad’Dib, Volume 1, by the PRINCESS IRULAN

  The Great Surrender ceremony was planned with even more care and precision than any military strike in Paul’s Jihad. When she was not spending time with Rugi, Irulan kept an eye on the preparations, making suggestions from time to time. Armies of devoted volunteer servants, all cleaned up and given new household uniforms, had decorated the enormous citadel in its entirety. Immense banners hung from the cliff faces to the north.

  The people of Arrakeen, from beggars to merchants to city guards, had pleaded for a chance to perform even the most menial activities, just so they could say they had been a part of the event. Several deadly knife fights had occurred as people fought over limited slots on the expanded staff.

  Security around Paul had been further tightened. Before being allowed to attend the ceremony, every Landsraad representative was interrogated a second time to weed out possible threats. Paul’s Fedaykin security did indeed uncover two admittedly inept schemes to smuggle weapons into the Celestial Audience Hall. The would-be assassins’ planning had not factored in the sheer size of the chamber in which Muad’Dib would receive them all. None of their little weapons even had the range to reach the Emperor, unless they happened to be seated in the front few rows, and neither of the suspicious nobles had the social standing to be anywhere but the rear of the room. Now, instead of attending the ceremony, the two awaited further interrogation sessions in deep, stone-walled cells.

  Irulan saw to it that her sister Rugi had one of the most prominent seats in the hall, right in the first row near the inlaid stone dais. Emperor Muad’Dib would sit in a newly carved elaccawood throne designed and built especially for the occasion. He said the elaccawood from Ecaz reminded him of the War of Assassins from so long ago.

  Paul had installed two lower chairs on either side of the new ceremonial chair, one for Irulan, the wife in name only, and the other for Chani, the more significant wife of his heart. One step lower and in the front rested a child-sized but equally ornate chair for Alia. Thus, Muad’Dib was surrounded by three uniquely powerful women.

  In an apparent contradiction, Paul had issued orders that — for safety — no one was to use a personal shield in the huge audience chamber. For centuries, the fear of the devastating pseudo-atomic consequences of a lasgun-shield interaction had been a cornerstone of the rules for all forms of warfare. No man would have overstepped those bounds, knowing that the blast would kill not only a target but himself, as well as cause inconceivable collateral damage.

  But the emotions, fanaticism, and hatred spurred by his Jihad had lifted many such restraints. One person firing a cleverly concealed lasgun — even a tiny one — upon a shielded person could vaporize the huge palace, Muad’Dib and his entire family, and much of Arrakeen. An act of once-inconceivable brutality was now a very real possibility. There would be no active shields for the ceremony.

  The Celestial Hall was a cavernous, vaulted chamber displaying the pinnacle of architectural finesse and ostentation. Familiar with the Imperial Palace on Kaitai
n, Irulan had not thought she could be impressed with grandeur, but this was beyond even her ability to absorb. Everyone from the lowest handler of the dead to the wealthiest monarch of a conquered world would feel cowed by this immensity. Yes, Whitmore Bludd had surpassed all expectations.

  As part of the upcoming ceremony, Paul intended to commend the Swordmaster-turned-architect in front of all these people, though Bludd had abashedly insisted that his work spoke more eloquently for him than any words he could possibly say. “How could I require adulation from the audience, when I have your respect, and I have this magnificent citadel to show for all history?” Nevertheless, it was plain to see that Bludd would bask in the recognition.

  Around the elaccawood throne, the ornately patterned walls were comprised of kaleidoscopically repeating keyhole arches, each the size of a pigeonhole, alternating with small windows of stained glass cut into various geometric shapes. Irulan knew that the intricate pattern had been designed to conceal any number of the Emperor’s spy-eyes and sensors. Bludd had been very secretive and dedicated about all his work, like an enthusiastic child working on a special project. Now, the Swordmaster sat in a seat of honor in the front row just below her, resplendent in such fine clothes that he reminded her of one of the peacocks that had once strutted around the palace grounds on Kaitain. He wore his thin rapier and a broad smile.

  Nearby, Korba seemed to be praying; he had emphatically refused to be recognized for his part in the work, wanting no name associated with the palace other than Muad’Dib’s.

  When the ceremony finally began, Irulan felt small and overwhelmed to be facing the hundreds of noble representatives who had answered Paul’s direct summons, as well as the uncounted thousands who had crowded into the opulent fortress. After Muad’Dib’s bureaucratic corps tallied all those ambassadors who answered the summons from other planets, comparing names against a chart of expected visitors, the Emperor would know who had spurned his command. Then punitive operations would begin.

  As the crowd fell into a hush, Irulan looked at Rugi waiting among the sea of faces near the front. During the course of her stay with Irulan here on Arrakis, Rugi had begun to blossom. Day by day, her confidence had grown. Even so, Irulan was surprised that today, for the first time in her memory, Rugi was beautiful. Dressed in Corrino finery, she wore her family pride like a garment. Gone were the shyness and insecurity she had shown at first. Rugi’s demeanor made it clear that she was an Emperor’s daughter.

  Irulan glanced at Chani, noticing how serene and beautiful the Fremen woman looked. Since she’d been raised in a political arena, Irulan was willing to accept political realities. She knew Paul had chosen her merely to secure his rule, while he kept his desert concubine as mate. Of course, Muad’Dib could take whatever he wanted. No one would challenge him if he chose two wives or took a dozen lovers. Irulan didn’t care if he bestowed all his love on his Fremen woman, but Chani, like a she-wolf, was not inclined to share her man.

  Because of the design of the chamber, the background sounds were muted. The walls that surrounded the great throne and its platform, as well as the huge hall, were textured so as to drown out the murmurous crowd noises.

  When Paul stood, the onlookers fell into silence as if they had all been struck dumb. “At the end of war, there is peace.” His voice was repeated and amplified cleverly by hundreds of speakers throughout the Celestial Hall. “Over eight hundred representatives and their entourages have come to bow in my name and carry the banner of Muad’Dib. My victory is inevitable — and I would much prefer to do the rest without bloodshed.” He paused, and the spectators remained quiet, hanging on his words.

  In the ensuing moments of silence, Irulan heard an unnatural, sinister humming sound. Chani noticed it too and spun, trying to pinpoint the source. Irulan saw movement and realized that dozens of the tiny cubbyholes had begun to open up. Small black mouths emitted a faint buzzing noise. Swordmaster Bludd was already on his feet, yelling a warning.

  A swarm of hunter-seekers flew out into the room like angry wasps.

  I see the monster growing around me, and within.

  —from Muad’Dib and the Jihad by the PRINCESS IRULAN

  Humming on their small suspensor fields, the hunter-seekers drifted out like predatory eels, accelerating as they acquired targets. Cylindrical shafts as long as a hand, each sporting a poisoned needle at its nose, they rode forward noisily on suspensor fields.

  With a flash of icy dread, Paul realized that he had seen this before in a dream — many little attackers, countless stinging needles, a thousand painful deaths. His prescient visions were often confusing and rarely literal. And now another recent dream clicked into place, like a tumbler in a complex locking mechanism: a vivid image of the detailed design carvings on the audience chamber walls blurred together with the wooden fish carving leaping over the wooden waves… and the image sharpened enough so that he knew where he had seen it before: on the old headboard of his bed in the Arrakeen Residency.

  The headboard that had folded down so that the first hunter-seeker could emerge. That was what the dream had been trying to tell him, but he had not been able to interpret it properly. Not soon enough.

  Now he counted at least a dozen of the weapons, then saw at a glance that they had a modified design based on bootlegged Ixian models: self-guiding tracker systems and kill-programming driven by rudimentary impulses. Though based on the same general principles, these looked different from the one that had emerged from his headboard, which had been a mere sliver of metal. These hunter-seekers were more complex, though their primitive programming could target only general victims, not specific individuals. Nevertheless, a Caladan dragon shark was primitive as well, and extremely deadly.

  The faint sound of ominous movement, the gaudily dressed audience members, the grand celebration — every instant echoed in Paul’s mind in a horrible flash of déjà vu: His father’s wedding day, the flying razor-edged disks, Swordmaster Dinari and his heroic death, Archduke Armand mangled. Ilesa so lovely in her nuptial gown… then covered in blood.

  Chani!

  He could not let it happen again.

  In a cluster, four hunter-seekers shot toward the throne. With a swift and desperate push, he forced Chani to the floor even as she stood to fight. “Stay down!” In a blur, he then knocked Irulan sideways, sending her to scrabble for shelter under her overturned chair, while Alia bounded down the steps and out of the way.

  The first hunter-seeker slammed its needle prow into the center of the throne where Paul had been sitting only seconds earlier.

  Reacting without hesitation, Fedaykin guards sprang from the aisles and the sides of the chamber and dove forward to protect Muad’Dib with their own bodies. Bludd bounded onto the stage, his rapier drawn to slash at the whirring projectiles.

  But Paul was moving to stop the hunter-seekers himself. The floating needle weapons came so fast that he could avoid them only one at a time. One buzzed beneath his arm, and he twisted violently to the left to avoid its sting. Two Fedaykin threw themselves in the hunter-seekers’ paths to intercept the deadly devices with their chests. The men lay writhing and spasming from the discharged poison; they would be dead within moments.

  So much panicked movement, and so many people swarming around the throne area, confused the devices’ targeting. At least twenty hunter-seekers had been launched, maybe more, and many had already found victims.

  With a sharp thrum of metal like a struck tuning fork, Bludd’s rapier knocked one of the flying devices out of the air. He stood his ground in front of Irulan, who took advantage of whatever protection her overturned chair might offer. Another hunter-seeker came close, and Bludd battered at it with a flurry of his thin blade.

  Without understanding the nature of the threat, the terrified audience began to flee the Celestial Audience Chamber. Those in the front rows turned to run, pushing up against the crush of bodies packed into the immense hall.

  Another volley of hunter-seekers emerged from t
he ornamented openings, and the second wave came streaking toward Paul. Chani lay rigid on the floor, knowing that any movement would draw the attention of the questing devices. But when one of the nearby Fedaykin was struck and collapsed thrashing beside her, she rolled over, instinctively trying to help him.

  Paul saw a hunter-seeker change its trajectory and flash toward Chani, but he had become preternaturally aware of each movement around him. With furious speed, he jumped to grab the thing out of the air. Knowing the suspensor field would make a firm grip difficult, he squeezed hard as he clamped down.

  He felt a painful, burning sting.

  A Mentat assessment flashed the immediate answer to him. The middle of the hunter-seeker’s cylindrical shaft was girdled with another ring of short, fine needles, also dripping poison. Though the lethal points bit into his hand, he squeezed tighter, seized control, and smashed its nose onto the polished stone of the platform.

  He could already feel the poison working its way into his blood, but he had the ability to neutralize it. With the Bene Gesserit cellular powers he had learned, Paul identified the chemicals, unlocked their modes of toxicity, and altered the molecules to neutralize the poison. It took only a moment, but it was a moment he did not have. More hunter-seekers sped toward him.

  But now he was immune to that particular toxin, and his body’s biochemistry manufactured the antidote. Lunging back to his feet, he grabbed another hunter-seeker that buzzed directly in front of his face. He felt the sting of the needles again as he smashed it to the floor.

  Turning to find another target, however, Paul realized that the second device had contained a different poison from the first — equally deadly, but one that required a new, independent effort for him to alter its chemistry and make himself immune. Either of the toxins would have been fatal to a normal human, and Paul had to expend the extra effort to counteract two toxins instead of just one. It was nonsensically redundant.