Hunters of Dune dc-7

by Herbert Brian

  "Then open your eyes!" Khrone paused in mid-step, calmed his voice, and continued in a more relaxed tone. "I invite you to travel among the worlds of the Old Empire. Your appearance may be alarming to most people, but enough anomalies have crawled back out of the Scattering that no one will question you too closely. I can provide a list of key planets and point out what you should look for. They will all be ready to fall like a house of cards as soon as the outside military forces arrive. Have our masters launched the battle fleet yet, or will they wait until they have the Kwisatz Haderach in hand?"

  "That is not for us to say," three representatives said in unison, their augmented minds linked, their voices overlapping in an eerie echo.

  "Then you make it difficult for me to conclude my activities. Why should our masters withhold vital information from me?"

  "Perhaps they do not trust you," said another of the hodgepodge representatives. "Your progress has been unimpressive so far."

  "Unimpressive?" Khrone snorted. "I have the Baron Harkonnen ghola, and I have the Paul Atreides ghola. It is guaranteed."

  At the entrance to the thick-walled laboratory chambers, Khrone unsealed and hauled open a heavy door. Inside, a somewhat plump ten-year-old jerked to his feet, looking around warily with piggish eyes, as if he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't. Recovering quickly, the adolescent snickered at them, captivated by the horrifically mangled observers.

  Khrone did not speak a word to the ghola, but turned back to the six representatives. "You see, the next phase of our plan is imminent. I expect to restore this Baron's memories soon."

  "You can try to do it," the youth spat at him, "but you haven't yet convinced me that it's to my benefit. Why won't you let me play with little Paolo? I know you're keeping him here on Caladan."

  "Exactly why do we need the Baron Harkonnen?" asked one of the hideous observers, ignoring the boy. "Our masters are interested only in the Kwisatz Haderach."

  "The Baron will help us facilitate this. He will be like a wrecking bar to the Paolo ghola. After he becomes himself again, our Baron will be a valuable tool to unlock the powers of the superhuman. Historically, the problem with a Kwisatz Haderach is one of control. Once he helps me raise Paolo properly, I am confident the Baron can assure our hold on him." The young man grinned at the newcomers. "You certainly are ugly. What happens if you pull out those tubes?"

  "He does not seem cooperative," observed one of the spies.

  "He will learn better. Reawakening a ghola's memories is a very painful process," Khrone said, still ignoring the young Harkonnen. "I greatly look forward to the task."

  The Baron ghola let out an eager laugh that sounded like twisting metal. "I can't: wait for you to try."

  Khrone paused at the door, reminding himself to keep all security systems in place, especially with the mercurial Baron, who was quite prone to mischief.

  Khrone led the delegation of nightmarish humans into another room and carefully locked the chamber behind him. He did not want Vladimir Harkonnen to run loose.

  "Our Atreides ghola is progressing nicely."

  Before entering the castle's main chamber, Khrone turned a cool stare toward the hideous patchwork people. "Our victory is foreordained. Soon I will go to Ix to complete another step in the plan." Khrone meant victory for the Face Dancers, but the ambassadors would interpret it as they wished. "The rest is just a formality."

  12

  Reputation can be a beautiful weapon. It often spills less blood.

  BASHAR MILES TEG, first incarnation

  Foremost among the Mother Commander's weapons were her flesh-and-blood fighters. The rebel Honored Matres on Gammu wouldn't have a chance against the Valkyries. They had made a serious mistake in attempting to strike Chapterhouse with their Obliterators.

  After their attack failed, the dissidents on Gammu had expected Murbella to overreact and retaliate instantly. But she had exercised the meticulous care and patience she'd acquired from her Bene Gesserit training. Now, striking back after a month's delay, she knew that every aspect of the plan was perfectly arranged.

  Before setting off for Gammu, Murbella reviewed and revised her options based on the latest intelligence reports, as well as the information she had gleaned from Sharing with Priestess Iriel before she died. It was still unclear whether or not the renegade whores would make a suicidal stand on Gammu, triggering any last Obliterators they possessed, rather than let the world fall to the New Sisterhood. This would be Murbella's most critical battle to date, the toughest enclave of rebels.

  Alone with the responsibilities of supreme command, she stood high atop the western rampart of Chapterhouse Keep. The attack itself, and victory, would occur swiftly. More than just excising the festering sore of rebel Honored Matres, the New Sisterhood needed the Gammu military-industrial complex for further defenses against the oncoming Enemy.

  Murbella had already sent in operatives to soften the resistance: secret assassins, adept disseminators of propaganda, and members of the Missionaria Protectiva to rally the ever-growing religious groups against "the whores who killed the blessed Sheeana on Rakis." It was exactly what Duncan Idaho would have done.

  The Honored Matres on Gammu were led by a charismatic and bitter woman named Niyela, who boldly claimed to trace her ancestry back to House Harkonnen — an obvious lie, since Honored Matres were unable to traverse the webs of Other Memory and could not remember their predecessors. Niyela had made her claim only after spending time digging through old records from the days when Gammu was a grimy industrial planet called Giedi Prime. Even after so long, the local population held a visceral hatred for the Harkonnens. Niyela apparently used that to her advantage.

  The Honored Matres had set up extensive defenses on Gammu, including sophisticated scanners to detect and destroy incoming aircraft and missiles, specifically tailored to foil the New Sisterhood's traditional mode of attack.

  For the time being, small gaps remained in their coverage, especially in the least populated regions of the planet.

  Janess assured the Mother Commander she could bring their forces in through one of the gaps and mount an overwhelming surprise attack. For the first time, her fighting women would rely primarily on their Swordmaster skills.

  After gathering all their ships and summoning Guild transport, the Valkyries launched.

  FROM THE NIGHT side of Gammu, scores of troop transports disembarked from an orbiting no-ship and headed down toward a region of broad, frigid plains.

  Flying only meters above the icy ground, Murbella's ship raced overland toward the capital city of Ysai. Behind them, a formation of small troop shuttles cruised along like a school of hungry piranhas. Under her direction, the stealth shuttles paused just long enough to release their swarms of female commandos into the city, and then streaked off without firing a shot, triggering no alarms.

  Just shy of dawn, Murbella and thousands of her black-uniformed Sisters filtered into Ysai to engage the defenders from the inside out, attacking where they were least expected. Although the entrenched whores had anticipated a large-scale lightning assault with attack 'thopters and heavy weaponry from above, the Sisterhood's commandos fought like scorpions from the shadows, striking, stinging, killing. The hand-to-hand combat made famous by the ancient Swordmasters of Ginaz required no technology more sophisticated than a sharp blade.

  The Mother Commander chose her own target after reviewing the personal habits of Honored Matre Niyela. Accompanied by a small guard of fighters, Murbella ran directly to Niyela's ostentatious apartment near the central Guild Bank buildings in Ysai. The Valkyries in their combat singlesuits seemed to be cloaked in black oil. Half of the assassination operations were over before the whores managed to sound the first alarms.

  Brightly clothed Honored Matres guarded the entrance to Niyela's dwelling, but Murbella and her companions struck in force, firing silent projectiles that hit their marks. Murbella bounded up an interior stairway, followed by Janess and her most trusted fighters. On
the second level, a tall, athletic woman emerged from shadows in the hall. Dressed in a purple leotard and a cape adorned with chains and sharp crystal shards, she moved with the grace of a predatory feline.

  Murbella recognized Niyela from Priestess Iriel's vivid memories. "Strange, you don't look at all like Baron Harkonnen," she said. "Perhaps some of his most prominent features did not breed true. Maybe that's a good thing."

  As if springing an ambush, fully fifty Honored Matres emerged from doorways to take up protective positions around Niyela, arrogantly assuming the smaller assault squad would buckle and retreat upon seeing them. Like a deadly dance, the well-trained Valkyries paired off against them, flashing blades in their hands and sharp spines in their combat suits.

  Murbella had eyes only for Niyela. The two leaders faced off, circling. The other women seemed to expect a "softened" Mother Commander to cringe at the prospect of combat.

  The Honored Matre leader suddenly kicked out with a callused and deadly foot, but Murbella moved faster and eluded the blow. In a blur of motion, she counterattacked from one side with her fists and elbows, backing her adversary away. Then Murbella laughed, which unnerved her opponent.

  In an unrestrained response, the Honored Matre threw herself at Murbella, fingers outstretched like knives, but Murbella thrust up with her left elbow, catching Niyela with the armored spine protruding from her combat suit. The slice shed blood down Niyela's arm. Murbella landed a solid kick in the other woman's solar plexus, driving her back into the wall.

  Bumping into the stone barrier, Niyela slumped, as if beaten. She sprang to one side and darted back, but Murbella was ready for her, countering every move, driving Niyela backward until she had nowhere left to go. Even her Honored Matre followers could not resist the dizzyingly swift fighting techniques that the Mother Commander had drilled into her soldiers. All fifty of the guards were dead, leaving their leader alone and defeated.

  "Kill me." Niyela spat the words.

  "I'll do worse." Murbella smiled. "I will take you to Chapterhouse as my prisoner."

  *

  THE FOLLOWING day, the victorious Mother Commander marched through the streets of Ysai and mingled with curious crowds. The Cult of Sheeana had taken firm root here, and the Gammu natives saw their liberation as a miracle, interpreting the army of Sisters as soldiers fighting for their beloved martyr.

  Noting various clear behavioral markers, Murbella suspected that some women in the crowd were actually Honored Matres who had changed their distinctive clothes. Were they cowards, or the seeds of a fifth column who would continue to resist on Gammu? Even with the signs of victory around her, Murbella knew that the fighting and consolidation would continue for some time, if not in Ysai itself then in the outlying cities. She would have to assign teams to root out any remaining nests of rebels.

  She was not the only one to notice the lurking Honored Matres. Her agents surged forward, making arrests, thinning the crowd. Anyone captured would be given the opportunity to convert. Niyela herself would begin enforced training back on Chapterhouse. Those who didn't cooperate would be put to death.

  Murbella's triumphant forces took more than eight thousand Honored Matres back to Chapterhouse, and more would follow after the mop-up operations were completed under the direction of Janess. The conversion process would be difficult, monitored closely by troops of Truthsayers and now-loyal Honored Matres—but no more difficult than the original forced unification. The Mother Commander could not afford to discard so many potential fighters, despite the risk.

  Thus the New Sisterhood grew even stronger, with more and more numbers added to their forces.

  Part VII: SIXTEEN YEARS AFTER ESCAPE FROM CHAPTERHOUSE

  1

  Is Love born to us, as natural a part of our humanity as breathing and sleeping? Or is hove something we must create within ourselves?

  MOTHER SUPERIOR DARWI ODRADE, private Bene Gesserit records (censored)

  Two more years passed aboard the no-ship. Paul Atreides, his body now ten years old, his mind stuffed full of all the external memories the library archives could provide and the histories of what he was supposed to be, walked with the girl Chani.

  She was rail-thin and petite, two years his junior. Though she had grown up far from the arid wastelands of Arrakis, her body's metabolism, genetically adapted from her Fremen heritage, still did not squander water. Chani wore her dark red hair pulled back in a braid. Her brown skin was smooth and her mouth quick to flash a smile, especially when she was with Paul.

  Her eyes were a natural sepia, not the blue-within-blue eyes of spice addiction, which Paul had seen in every historical image of an older Chani, the beloved concubine of Muad'Dib and mother of his twin children.

  As they descended from one deck to another, making their way to the aft engine section of the great no-ship, Paul let his hand slip into hers. Though they were still just children, it seemed a comfortable thing to do, and she did not pull away. All their lives they had played together, explored together, and never questioned that they were supposed to be partners, just like in the old stories.

  "Why do you find the engines so fascinating, Usul?" she said, calling him by the Fremen name that she had learned from her own diaries and journal recordings in the ship's archives.

  In ancient, preserved poetry, the first Paul Muad'Dib had described Chani's voice as "the perfectly beautiful tones of fresh water chuckling over rocks."

  Listening to her now, the new Paul could see how he had once come to that conclusion.

  "The Holtzman engines are so strange and powerful, able to take us anywhere we can imagine going." He reached out to tap her small, pointed chin with his fingertip, then said in a conspiratorial whisper, "Or maybe the real reason is because nobody watches us in the engine rooms."

  Chani's brow furrowed. "On a ship this size, there are plenty of places for us to be alone."

  Paul shrugged, smiling. "I didn't say it was a very good reason. I just wanted to go there."

  They entered the giant engineering bay, where in normal times only certified Guildsmen could go. Under the present circumstances, Duncan Idaho, Miles Teg, and some Reverend Mothers knew enough about these foldspace engines to keep them functioning. Fortunately, no-ships were so exquisitely and sturdily built that little went seriously wrong, even after so many years without standard upkeep. The Ithaca's major operating systems and self-repair mechanisms were sufficient to perform regular maintenance. The more important the component, the more redundancy was designed into it.

  Nevertheless, both Teg and Duncan, using their Mentat abilities, had set about studying and memorizing all known specifications of the immense vessel to prepare themselves for any crisis that might occur. Paul supposed Thufir Hawat would also contribute his wisdom, once he grew up and became a Mentat again.

  Now the boy and girl stood surrounded by throbbing machinery. Although the no-field projectors were located in different parts of the ship, with repeaters and reinforcing stations mounted throughout the hull, these giant engines were similar to the foldspace designs that had been used back in the time of Muad'Dib, and much earlier in the Butlerian Jihad. Tio Holtzman's then-dangerous foldspace engines had been the key to ultimate victory over the thinking machines.

  Paul stared up at the massive machines, trying to sense their driving mathematical force, though he didn't understand it all. Chani, a few inches shorter than he, surprised him by standing on her tiptoes and kissing his cheek. He spun to face her, laughing.

  She saw the surprise on his face. "Isn't that what I'm supposed to do? I've read all the files. We're destined for each other, aren't we?"

  Growing serious, Paul held her small shoulders and gazed into her eyes. Then he reached out to stroke her left eyebrow, and drew his fingers down her cheek. He felt awkward doing this. "It's strange, Chani. But I can sense a tingle… "

  "Or a tickle! I feel it, too. A memory just beneath the surface."

  He kissed her on the brow, experimenting with the
sensation. "Proctor Superior Garimi made us read our history in the archives, but those are just words. We don't know it here." He tapped his chest over the heart. "We can't know exactly how we fell in love before. We must have said a lot of private things to each other."

  Her lips formed a frown, not quite a little girl's pout but rather an expression of concern. Her accelerated education and maturity made her seem much older than her years. "Nobody knows how to fall in love, Usul. Remember the story? Paul Atreides and his mother were in terrible danger when they joined the Fremen. Everyone you knew was dead. You were so desperate." She drew a quick breath. "Maybe that's the only reason we fell in love."

  He stood close to her, embarrassed, not knowing what he was supposed to do.

  "How can I believe that, Chani? A love like ours was the stuff of legend. That doesn't happen by accident. I'm just saying that if we are to fall in love again when we get older, then we'll have to do it ourselves."

  "Do you think we're getting a second chance?"

  "All of us are."

  She hung her head. "Of the things I've read, the saddest was the story of our first baby, our original son Leto."

  Paul was surprised at the lump that automatically formed in his throat. He had read his old journals about their baby boy. He'd been so proud of their little son, but because of his damnable prescience, he had known that the first little Leto would be killed in a Harkonnen raid. That poor boy had never had a chance, hadn't even lived long enough to be christened Leto II, after Paul's father.

  According to the records, his second son—the infamous one—had been willing to go down the dark and forbidding path where Paul himself had refused to go. Had Leto II made the right choice? The God Emperor of Dune had certainly changed the human race, and the course of history, for all time.

  "I'm sorry, I made you sad, Usul."