Hunters of Dune dc-7

by Herbert Brian

  Garimi's frown etched deep creases around her lips and on her forehead. "In other words, this was not caused in the same manner as the whores turned Rakis into a charred ball."

  "No, only the people are gone." Duncan shook his head, studying the information as it flowed across the screens, including city layouts and atmospheric details. "Either they left, or they perished. Do you think they were hiding from the Outside Enemy, so desperate to remain unseen that they covered their entire world in a no-field?"

  "It is an Honored Matre world?" Garimi asked.

  Sheeana reached a decision. "This place could hold a key to what we are running from. We have to learn what we can. If Honored Matres lived down there, what drove them away, or what killed them?"

  Garimi held up one finger. "The whores came to the Bene Gesserit demanding to know how we control our bodies. They were frantic to understand how Reverend Mothers can manipulate our immune functions, cell by cell. Of course!"

  "Speak clearly, Garimi. What do you mean?" Teg's voice was abrupt, the hardened battle commander.

  She turned a sour look on him. "You are a Mentat. Make a prime projection!"

  Teg did not bristle at the scolding. Instead, his eyes became glazed for just a moment, and then his expression returned. "Ahh. If the whores wanted to learn how to control immune responses, then perhaps the Enemy attacked them using a biological agent. The whores did not have the skills or the medical science to make themselves impervious, therefore they wanted to learn the secrets of Bene Gesserit immunity, even if they had to obliterate planets to do so. They were desperate."

  "They were terrified of the Enemy's plagues," Sheeana said.

  Duncan leaned forward to stare at the peaceful yet ominous image of the tomb world below them. "Are you suggesting that the Enemy discovered this planet even behind the no-field, and seeded it with a disease that killed everyone?"

  Sheeana nodded at the large screen. "We must go down there and see for ourselves."

  "Unwise," Duncan said. "If a plague killed every single person—"

  "As Miles just pointed out, we Reverend Mothers can guard our bodies against the contamination. Garimi can go with me."

  "This is foolhardy," Teg said.

  "Being safe and careful has bought us little in the past sixteen years," Garimi said. "If we turn our backs on this opportunity to learn about the real Enemy, and the Honored Matres, then we deserve our fate when they come back to haunt us."

  *

  GARIMI PILOTED THE small lighter through the time-scoured atmosphere and over the ghostly metropolis. The empty city was ostentatious and impressive, composed primarily of tall towers and massive buildings with a superfluity of angles. Each structure had a thick solidity that expressed a certain loudness, as if the builders demanded grandeur and respect. But the buildings were crumbling.

  "Showy extravagance," Sheeana commented. "It denotes lack of subtlety, perhaps even insecurity in their power."

  Inside her head, the ancient voice of Serena Butler awoke. In the Time of Titans, the great cymek tyrants built huge monuments to themselves. That was how they reinforced their own belief in their significance.

  Similar things had happened long before that, Sheeana supposed. "As humans, we learn the same lessons over and over and over again. We are doomed to repeat our mistakes."

  When she caught the Proctor Superior looking at her oddly, Sheeana realized she had spoken aloud. "This place has the undeniable mark of the Honored Matres. Spectacular yet unnecessary lavishness. Domination and intimidation.

  The whores bullied those they conquered, but in the end it wasn't enough. Even their incredible expenditure to generate a self-sustaining no-field proved inadequate against the Enemy."

  Garimi's lips formed a hard smile. "How it must have galled them to be forced into hiding! Cowering behind invisibility, and still failing."

  They set the lighter down in the middle of an empty street. Looking at each other for reassurance and resolve, Sheeana and Garimi opened the airlock hatch and stepped out onto the graveyard world. They each took a cautious breath.

  Wispy gray clouds scudded across the skies, like memories of industrial smoke.

  With their perfect immune-system control, the Sisters could guard every cell in their bodies and fend off any remaining vestiges of a plague. The Honored Matres, however, had forgotten—or never possessed—such skills.

  The streets and landing pad were overgrown with tall grasses and hardy weeds that had cracked the armorpave. Wild shrubs grew into writhing shapes, composed mostly of thorns upon which a casually tossed victim could be impaled. Stunted trees resembled racks of swords and spearheads. At one time, Sheeana supposed, the Honored Matres must have considered these plants ornamental. Other knobby growths composed of interlocked lumps rose up like leprous fungi.

  The city was not silent, though. A gentle wind blew, moaning a somber song through broken windows and half-collapsed doorways. Flocks of long-feathered birds had taken up residence in the towers and on rooftops. Gardens, probably once tended by slaves, had grown into a wild riot of vegetation. Engorged trees had uprooted flagstones; flowers poked from cracks in buildings like patches of brightly colored hair. A raw wilderness, bursting from its boundaries, had conquered the city. The planet had gleefully reclaimed itself, as if dancing on the graves of millions of Honored Matres.

  Sheeana walked forward, on guard. This empty metropolis had an ominous and mysterious feel, though she had satisfied herself that no one remained alive.

  She trusted her Bene Gesserit senses and reflexes to alert her to danger, but perhaps she should have brought along Hrrm or one of the other Futars, as a guardian.

  The two women stood in somber contemplation, absorbing their surroundings. Sheeana gestured to her companion. "We have to find an information center—a library complex or a data core."

  She studied the architecture around her. The skyline had a weathered and broken appearance. After a century or more without maintenance, some of the tall towers had collapsed. Poles that must once have held colorful banners were now naked, the fragile fabric had disintegrated with time.

  "Use your eyes and what you've been taught," Sheeana said. "Even if the whores did originate from unschooled Reverend Mothers, maybe they were mixed with Fish Speaker refugees. Or maybe they have another origin entirely, but they carry some of our history in their subconscious."

  Garimi gave a skeptical snort. "Reverend Mothers would never have forgotten so many basic skills. We know from Murbella that the whores have no access to Other Memory. Nothing in our history explains their sheer violence and unmitigated rage."

  Sheeana remained unconvinced. "If they came from the Scattering, the whores have some commonality with human history, provided we go back far enough. In general, architecture is based on standard assumptions. A library or information center has a different look than an administrative complex or private dwelling. In a city such as this, there will be business buildings, receiving centers, and some sort of central information storehouse."

  The two walked past the stark thorntrees, studying the structures they saw.

  The buildings were blocky and fortresslike, as if the populace had feared that at any moment they would need to run inside and protect themselves from a violent external attack.

  "This city must have been built before the planetary no-field was put in place," Garimi said. "Note the siege mentality evident in these structures."

  "But even the strongest weapons and battlements can't defend against a plague."

  By nightfall, after searching in dozens of dark buildings that smelled of animal dens, Sheeana and Garimi discovered a records center that appeared to be less of a public library than a detention center. Here, surrounded by heavy shielding, some archives had remained intact. The pair dug into the background of this place, activating unusual but oddly familiar shigawire spools and engraved Ridulian crystal sheets.

  Garimi returned to the lighter to transmit an update to the no-ship, inform
ing the others of what they had found. By the time her companion came back, Sheeana was sitting gravely beside a portable glowglobe. She held up the crystal sheets. "The plague that struck here is more virulent and terrible than any disease ever recorded. It spread with impossible efficiency and had virtually a one-hundred-percent mortality rate."

  "That's unheard of! No disease could possibly be so—"

  "This one was. The proof is here." Sheeana shook her head. "Even the horrific plagues from the Butlerian Jihad were not so efficient, and that epidemic spread everywhere and nearly brought an end to human civilization."

  "But how did the Honored Matres stop the disease once it took root here? Why didn't it infect everyone and kill them all?"

  "Encapsulation and quarantine. Utter ruthlessness. We know the whores operate in isolated cells. They fled from their heartland, always moving forward, never backward. There wasn't a cooperative trading network."

  Garimi nodded coldly. "And their strict violence probably served them well.

  They would have allowed no mistakes."

  Sheeana selected a shigawire spool and played the recording. An image of a stern Honored Matre flashed orange eyes into the recorder. She appeared to be defiant, holding up her weak chin, baring her teeth. The woman seemed to be on trial, facing a stern tribunal and a growling audience. Female voices howling with anger strayed into the recording from the fringes.

  "I am Honored Matre Rikka, an adept of the seventh level. I have assassinated ten to reach my rank, and I demand your respect!" The outcries from the audience showed no respect at all. "Why do you put me here on this stand? You know I am right."

  "We're all dying!" another shout came. "It is your own fault," Rikka snapped back. "We brought this fate on ourselves. We provoked the Enemy of Many Faces."

  "We are Honored Matres! We are in control. We take what we wish. The stolen Weapons will make us invincible."

  "Really? Look what we reaped from it." Rikka held up her bare arms to show dark lesions covering her skin. "Look well, for you will all experience it soon."

  "Execute her!" someone cried. "The Long Death."

  Rikka bared her teeth in a feral grin. "To what purpose? You know I will die soon anyway." She showed the lesions on her arms again. "So will all of you."

  Instead of responding to the question, an ancient female judge called for a vote, and Rikka was indeed sentenced to the Long Death. Sheeana could only imagine what that meant. Honored Matres were vile enough: What could they conceive of as the worst possible death?

  "Why didn't they believe her?" Garimi said. "If the plague was spreading before their eyes, the whores must have known Rikka was right."

  Sheeana shook her head sadly. "Honored Matres would never admit weakness or mortality. Better to lash out at a perceived enemy, than to concede that they were all going to die anyway."

  "I do not understand these women," the Proctor Superior said. "I am glad we did not stay behind on Chapterhouse."

  "We may never know where the whores originally came from," Sheeana said. "But I have no desire to live in their tomb." As far as she could tell, the plague seemed to have burned itself out, devouring every available victim and then leaving nothing else to infect.

  "I wish to leave this place as well." Garimi suppressed a shudder, then seemed embarrassed by it. "Even I would not consider this place as a new home for us.

  The remnants of death will stay in the atmosphere for centuries to come."

  Sheeana agreed. Reinforcing their opinions, Teg reported from the no-ship that the satellites generating the planetary field of invisibility were failing.

  Within a few years, the cloak would fade away entirely. And, since the Enemy had already found and destroyed this world, she and her followers would not be safe and invisible from the hunters here.

  Gathering the documentation they had found, Sheeana and Garimi left the detention center and records vault, and hurried back to the lighter in the gathering darkness.

  7

  Information is always available, if one is willing to go to extreme lengths to obtain it.

  The Mentat Handbook

  The Honored Matres wanted everything, and Uxtal feared that the eight new axlotl tanks in Bandalong would not be enough. Soon—as ordered by Hellica and Navigator Edrik — he would decant eight gholas of the Tleilaxu Master Waff, the Masheikh, the Master of Masters, who had been stored in Hellica's chamber of horrors. Eight chances to recover the lost knowledge of mélange production.

  If that didn't work, he would make eight more, and more again, a constant stream of possible reincarnations, all to obtain one set of memories, one key to knowledge that Uxtal could not figure out for himself.

  The Matre Superior had given the Lost Tleilaxu researcher everything he needed, and the Navigators had paid her well for his efforts. But the problem was not so simple. After he removed the identical Waff copies from those wombs, Uxtal would have to bring them to maturity, and then break loose their memories and knowledge from past lives, like a man with a crowbar smashing open a sealed crate.

  But that was no easy process, either. Even the twelve-year-old Baron Harkonnen ghola had still not awakened. Thankfully, that was no longer his problem, since Khrone had decided to perform the task himself on Dan.

  Now, on his regular inspection walk among the pasty axlotl tanks, Uxtal felt satisfaction as he surveyed the rounded fleshy bellies, the atrophied limbs, the faces so slack they looked like cauls of skin. Female bodies could be such useful things.

  Uxtal had already forced reckless speed upon the creation of the Tleilaxu Master gholas. Aware of the constant slippage of time and the growing desperation of the Guild Navigators and Matre Superior Hellica for spice, he decided that speed was more important than perfection. He had used a forbidden, unstable acceleration process, derived from genetic traits associated with a formerly incurable aging disease. As a result, the eight Waffs would be born after only five months in the uterus, and once decanted, they would last two decades at most. They would grow quickly and painfully, and then they would burn out.

  Uxtal considered his solution quite innovative. He didn't care about these gholas, or how many he might have to use up before he gained the necessary information. He only needed one to survive, and to awaken.

  At any other time, he might have felt important, a vital asset, but neither the Honored Matres nor the Navigator seemed to respect him. Perhaps Uxtal should demand respect and insist on better treatment. He could refuse to do any more work. He could demand his due…

  "Stop daydreaming, little man," Ingva snapped.

  He nearly jumped out of his skin and looked quickly away. "Yes, Ingva. I am concentrating. Very delicate work." She can't kill me! She knows it.

  "No mistakes," the sinewy crone warned.

  "No mistakes. Perfect work." He was far too frightened to make a mistake.

  He shuddered to think of the old Waff copies, brain-dead and strapped to inclined tables. Sperm factories. His own situation, while hellish, could have been far worse. Yes, it could have been worse. He tried to summon a hopeful smile, but could not find one within him.

  Ingva slithered up behind him and peered down at the axlotl tank that had once been an injured Honored Matre. "You breathe on them too much. Could contaminate them. Frighten the fetuses."

  "The tanks require close monitoring." Despite his struggles to contain his fear, his voice came out in a squeak.

  She pressed her shriveled body against him, attempting Honored Matre seductive techniques, though her body was like twisted wreckage. "It's such a waste that the Matre Superior has refused to bond you. If Hellica does not want you, then it is time to make you my own toy."

  "She—she would not like that, Ingva. I promise you." He felt nauseated.

  "Hellica will not be Matre Superior forever. Someone might assassinate her any day now. Meanwhile, I could make you work harder, little man. That would gain me great respect, increase my position of power, no matter what happens."

>   Fortunately, a commotion and a thick smell cut through the chemical odors in the axlotl labs, distracting Ingva. A dirty man clad in dirty clothes pushed a dirty cart along the sterile hall, his eyes cast down. "Your delivery of slig meat," called the downtrodden farmer. "Freshly slaughtered, still bloody!"

  Ingva released Uxtal and stalked off toward the man, turning her ire on him.

  "We expected you an hour ago. The slaves need time to prepare our feast for tonight." No longer interested in Uxtal, Ingva went to tend to the meat. He shuddered, trying to keep the look of revulsion and relief from his face.

  8

  The human mind is not a puzzle to be solved but a treasure chest for us to open. If we cannot pick the lock, then we must smash it apart. Either way, the riches inside will be ours.

  KHRONE, communiqué to the Face Dancers

  A cold rainstorm swept in over the oceans of Caladan. Waves crashed against rugged black rocks far below the restored castle. The local fishermen had brought in their boats and tied them to the docks, then huddled at home with their families. In the dim shadows of cultural memory, their Caladanian ancestors had loved their duke, but they did not hold the same reverence for the strangers who had rebuilt the ancient edifice and moved in.

  The castle's plaz windows were sealed against the storm's intensity.

  Dehumidifiers scoured the ever-present clamminess from the air. Thermal generators operated behind blazing holographic fires, warming the temperature to a comfortable level.

  Within a stone-walled chamber lit by fiery artificial light, Khrone laid out the instruments of torture and summoned the Baron ghola. Young Paolo was safe in his own quarters in another village, far from where anyone could find him.

  Today, though, was Baron Vladimir Harkonnen's day.