Unless he could escape. Griffin couldn’t bear the thought of never being able to speak to his family again. That was what finally convinced him to act. He had to tell all of them what he had found, especially Valya. He had to live for that.
The desert people led harsh lives and took what they needed … and so would Griffin from now on, making his own fate. If the Naib was going to murder him anyway, then Griffin would go out into the desert, where he might have a chance of survival, albeit a minimal one.
The Freemen placed only one lackluster guard in front of his cell, confident that the unending sands around them formed an inescapable prison. Sniveling, feigning weakness, Griffin begged for the guard to come inside. “A scorpion! It stung me!”
When the man came into the cell, wearing an annoyed and impatient expression, Griffin spun and with all his strength delivered a sharp chop down where the guard’s neck intersected his shoulder, stunning him. The Freeman had tried to react in time, flinching back, but could not avoid being struck; he had not expected such fighting skills from what he considered a weak offworlder. He crumpled to the floor.
Panting and perspiring, Griffin used his own belt to tie the man, and gagged him with a swatch of cloth from the cot in his cell. Then in the darkness he crept out of the chamber, stealing along the stone corridors.
Several Freemen moved about, but he kept to the shadows and waited until the tunnels were quiet again. He knew his sister would have wanted him to find Vorian’s cell, kill the man while he slept, and escape, but Griffin had no idea where his enemy was being kept. For now, he could only hope to get away and survive the desert ordeal … so that he could get home to his family.
He found the storage cistern where the Freemen kept their communal water supply, which was carefully regulated but unguarded. In their culture, water thieves were hated more than murderers—but since the desert men had kidnapped Griffin and might still intend to steal his body’s water, he felt justified taking a pack and a full literjon. He also found a desert kit with a dust mask and compass, on a rock shelf of supplies near the exterior moisture-sealed door.
He headed out, hoping to find some small settlement or a spice-harvesting operation out there in the arid wilderness. He knew his odds were not good. There were many ways to die in the desert.
* * *
VOR LAY AWAKE, staring at the rough stone walls and gazing into his past and his conscience. When the night sentries called out the alarm, he swung off his hard sleeping pallet and pulled aside the door covering, certain that Andros and Hyla had returned. He would fight them—better to die in combat against a true enemy, than to be exiled by the Freemen.
Ishanti ran to his chamber before he could move down the dim corridor, and seemed relieved to encounter him. “Well, at least you two weren’t foolish enough to run away together.”
“Run away? Who ran away?”
“The Harkonnen man stole water and fled into the desert … though what the fool intends to do out there, I have no idea.”
Pieces clicked into place in Vor’s mind like the gears of a clockwork mechanism. “What does he have to lose? You plan to kill him anyway.”
“Now that he has stolen water from us, that’s exactly what we will do.”
Vor was already moving. “We’ll stop him. He can’t have gone far. If the Naib gets the people out to search, we can still save him—and retrieve your precious water.” Not that he expected them to be grateful.
Before she could answer, Sharnak met them, his face as tight as a clenched fist in the low light. “Now we see how offworlders repay our courtesy.”
Vor responded with a wry smile. “Courtesy? You put a hood over his head, drugged him, and kidnapped him from his lodgings. You threatened to execute both of us. You have an odd definition of ‘courtesy.’”
Ishanti laughed. “The man swore a blood feud against you, and now you speak on his behalf? You are a strange man, Vorian Atreides.”
“Nothing about life is simple.” Since his hard conversation with the young Harkonnen, Vor had pondered much about what he’d done to Abulurd’s descendants. Blaming and punishing the entire family for the sins of their great-grandfather was an unjust thing to do. His own father, Agamemnon, was one of humanity’s greatest criminals, and Vor refused to accept any blame for those crimes. Griffin Harkonnen didn’t deserve that, either.
At the very least, Vor knew he should have kept his promise to rehabilitate the record of Xavier Harkonnen. Maybe he should have gone to Lankiveil to check on Abulurd’s descendants, as well; he had no animosity against them. He said to himself in a quiet voice, “If you live for centuries, there is plenty of time to do things you regret.”
Now that the naïve Griffin had escaped into the desert, Vor felt a genuine concern for him. “We need to find him and bring him back. Then decide what to do with us; take my water if you must, but not his. I don’t want him to pay any more for the things I’ve done.”
“He’s a foolish offworlder, and we should let the sandworms devour him,” Naib Sharnak said.
Ishanti shook her head. “He has stolen Freemen water and supplies. We will retrieve those, at least. If he is so intent on dying, the fool can do it without wasting our water. Vor and I will go together.”
* * *
THEY TOOK ISHANTI’S skimcraft, but Vor insisted on operating the controls. The desert woman raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure you can handle this?”
“I’ve been flying craft like these for several of your lifetimes.” They lifted off from the line of cliffs and soared into the moonlit night. Vor peered out across the wasteland of sand. “He won’t bother to try hiding his tracks—he doesn’t know how. He’ll just be trying to run.”
They spotted the signs of Griffin’s passage quickly enough. Leaving the line of rocks, he had set off across the dunes that filled the large basin. At the western horizon, perhaps twenty kilometers in the distance, Vor discerned another line of mountains; Griffin was running straight toward them, likely hoping to reach the shelter before dawn. He had already gone perhaps three kilometers, slogging a long line of footprints through the soft sand like the track of a centipede.
“Your enemy is stupid, Vorian Atreides,” said Ishanti. “He’s lucky he hasn’t summoned a sandworm with all that stumbling around.”
During Vor’s time among the spice workers, old Calbir had taught him exactly what to look for. In the moonlight across the undulating expanse of sand, he spotted a vibrating ripple on the surface, shadows pulsating forward in a concentrated wave. “He has.” Vor accelerated the skimcraft. “We have to save him.”
“I knew you’d say that.” Ishanti pointed to the west. “He’s on a line of steep, soft dunes now—we can’t land there. See that valley to the east? Drop me on the edge of those dunes.”
“What will you do there?”
“Draw the worm’s attention. Circle low, and I’ll drop out of the skimcraft. Then you can fly back and retrieve that idiot before Shai-Hulud comes.” Ishanti grabbed a pack that was clipped to the inner wall of the cockpit and held on to the door frame.
As he swooped low in the direction she had requested, Vor asked, “You’ll be all right?”
She snorted. “You’ve seen me summon a worm before. I’ll be fine.” She popped open the hatch and flashed a smile at him. “Hurry, you don’t have much time. If we can’t save your friend, we lose all that water and Naib Sharnak will be annoyed.” She laughed at her own cruel joke. Then, as he throttled back, she tumbled out of the aircraft and landed in a crouch on the soft sand. As Vor circled the skimcraft, he saw her dig in her pack to remove the items she needed.
The young Harkonnen had heard the flying craft approach, and now he, too, saw the sandworm plowing a dry wave straight toward him. Half of the enormous head emerged, an open scooping maw that shoveled the dunes.
Vor accelerated, but if he couldn’t land the craft on the steep dunes, he didn’t know how he could possibly save Griffin in time.
Suddenly the wor
m changed course and charged like a bull toward where Ishanti waited. She must have used one of the Freemen syncopated mechanisms that sent drumbeat vibrations into the sand.
Vor found a place to land in a trough between dunes. After hesitating, Griffin stumbled and slipped down the dune face, hurrying toward the aircraft. He might have been willing to die out in the desert, but the sight of the monstrous sandworm had changed his mind.
The intense Harkonnen yanked open the skimcraft door to scramble aboard, then paused upon seeing Vor. “You! Why did you come after me?”
“To save you. Not many others were willing to do so.”
Griffin hauled himself inside along with a shower of sand and dust, then pulled the hatch closed again. “I should have stolen one of these skimcraft,” he said, looking at the universal controls. “Then I wouldn’t have to deal with you.” He sat in the copilot’s seat.
Vor smiled ruefully.
“You think this means I forgive you?” Griffin asked, brushing sand from his mustache and goatee.
“I haven’t thought that far ahead. Now keep quiet. I need to concentrate so I can rescue my friend. She risked her life to divert the worm from you.”
Fearing that the aircraft’s engine noise would attract the beast, he flew high, then swooped low as soon as he saw Ishanti stumbling along the top of a whaleback dune, gaining distance from where she’d planted the rhythmic pounding device. With an intermittent gait like a start-and-stop ballet, the desert woman ran parallel to a flat basin between the dunes, an area that did not offer her any more cover than the dunes themselves. Vor saw that he could easily retrieve her while the worm was busy with the thumping device.
As he circled for a stable place to set down in the basin, Ishanti ran down the face of the dune at an angle toward him. Suddenly she stumbled into a patch of white sand, a pale blemish on the dunes. The sand began to ripple and pound beneath her, vibrating rhythmically. Vor recalled one of the patient lectures Calbir had given him about hazards on Arrakis, including drumsand. Ishanti should have spotted it, but she’d been running away, watching the aircraft. The section of dune let out a pounding series of booms as the compacted sand grains tumbled and settled into acoustic configurations.
The drumsand noise was much louder than the thumper, and Vor saw the worm coming, fast. Ishanti saw it, too, but she had sunk into the loose sand up to her waist. Powder engulfed her like sucking mud, and Vor didn’t dare set down anywhere close, because the skimcraft might sink into the unstable sand.
The sandworm’s head emerged like a battering ram through the wall of the dune, attracted by the still-quelling vibrations of the drumsand.
Ishanti was shouting. He could see the panic in her face.
Griffin was terrified, his eyes wide. “She’ll never make it!”
Vor guided the skimcraft down. “I think I can get close. Toss me that rope from the kit.” The aircraft flew closer. Griffin uncoiled the line and gave it to Vor. “Now tie it to that stanchion.”
As the aircraft swooped toward the lone woman trapped on the dunes, Vor watched the eyeless beast plunge forward. He saw, but refused to believe, that he couldn’t make it in time. Ishanti tried to dig herself out of the powdery sand that had betrayed her.
“What are you going to do?” Griffin said. “It’s not possible. The worm—”
“Take the damned controls!” he yelled, and as soon as Griffin grabbed the piloting stick, Vor yanked open the hatch and rolled it back in its tracks. The sudden lurching breezes nearly pulled him from the piloting seat, but he held on to the anchored rope. The skimcraft raced over the sands, on a collision course with the charging worm.
Wrapping the rope around his shoulders, Vor leaned out of the hatch, dangling into the open, dry air. The aircraft engines roared, but he shouted even louder. “Ishanti! Grab my hand!”
Griffin dropped closer, and Vor hung down, trusting the rope, stretching out his arm.
The worm lunged high, blasting through the sand. Ishanti reached up, but he watched her expression fall as she saw that Vor could never make it, would never get close enough. The worm would take her and smash the skimcraft as well, but Vor refused to give up.
She took the decision away from him. At the last moment, Ishanti dropped her arm and hurled her body loose from the sand and down the dune face, away from the oncoming aircraft.
“No!” Vor cried, but she had done it on purpose, to sacrifice herself.
The sliding sand and Ishanti’s tumbling body diverted the worm by the smallest degree. Struggling to pick herself up from the loose sand, the brave woman turned and faced the monster, ignoring Vor and the skimcraft, accepting her fate. She raised both hands, whether in defiance or prayer, Vor couldn’t tell.
Dangling out of the hatch, unable to stop the monster, Vor shouted to Ishanti, begging her, but the words withered in his throat.
In a thunder of sound, the sandworm rose directly in front of her, and Griffin barely managed to swerve their course away from the dune top. The worm engulfed Ishanti and dove beneath the sands with her, tunneling away and leaving barely a ripple where she had been.
Sick inside, Vor hung there until Griffin dragged on the rope and pulled him back inside. Vor grabbed the cockpit controls and gained altitude; it took him a moment to notice that four other Freemen skimcraft were closing in, surrounding them. So, Naib Sharnak had dispatched others as well, but too late. They had seen everything.
Griffin said nothing. He was ashamed and subdued.
The desert squadron flew near Vor’s skimcraft, and he did not try to escape. He turned the aircraft around to follow them back to the cave settlement. “She gave her life to save us,” he said. “We’re going back to the Freemen.”
Sometimes it doesn’t take many nails to seal a coffin.
—EMPEROR JULES CORRINO
Emperor Salvador Corrino did not like to witness torture, even when it was conducted on his behalf. He understood it was a necessary tool of state, but he preferred that it be done where he couldn’t see or hear the details. Results. All he wanted was results. Sometimes, though, he couldn’t avoid his obligations.
Dr. Zhoma lay in agony, strapped on a multifunction rack while one of the hooded “truth technicians” plied his shadowy trade. Ironically, the tall, thin man named Reeg Lemonis had learned his skills and adept understanding of the human body’s pain centers during several years in the Suk School’s specialized training division, Scalpel. At the moment, Salvador was sure the Suk administrator regretted that her school had produced such skilled graduates.
Because the Butlerians frowned on complex technology, Lemonis relied on tried-and-true devices. He had already used an extremities vice to crush two of Zhoma’s fingers. Now the man glanced up to acknowledge Emperor Salvador as he attached another clamp and a shock-pack to the doctor’s head.
Roderick stood beside the Emperor, also noticeably disturbed. Zhoma moaned and made incomprehensible sounds, only some of which were recognizable as words. She had endured a remarkable amount of pain before Lemonis produced any interesting results. Roderick had been sickened and fascinated by the process, but the truth technician had not inflicted genuine physical damage until she confessed her plot. After that, even Roderick had little sympathy for her.
Lemonis finished attaching the head clamp, checked the fitting, and looked up. “It’s shocking information, Sire. The good doctor has revealed some appalling secrets, financial improprieties and major fraud—and she’s confessed to murder.”
Salvador shot a quick glance at Roderick. “Murder? Who was the victim?”
The torturer had recorded the exact words, but he summarized. “She killed her predecessor at the school, Dr. Elo Bando. Injected him with dozens of lethal chemicals in his office, then used her position to cover up her crime and rule the death a suicide.”
Salvador blinked in surprise. “Poor Dr. Bando! She wanted his position badly enough to murder for it?” His stomach knotted, and he made a sound of disgust.
&n
bsp; “Not … exactly, Sire. She claims he embezzled large sums of money from you and nearly bankrupted the Suk School. She also insists that he was fabricating many useless treatments for you and charging you outrageous amounts.”
Salvador’s skin felt hot, and his pulse raced. The pounding headache had returned, like something trying to break out from inside his skull. “It’s a lie—you need to use more enthusiastic methods to get to the bottom of this. She’s obviously trying to curry favor now, and she’ll make up any nonsense to stop the pain.”
Roderick’s look was unreadable. “In that case, brother, the rest of this interrogation is fruitless. Lemonis is a very competent Scalpel investigator.”
“Oh, she’s been telling the truth,” the pain technician said; he did not notice the Emperor’s embarrassment. “And she has more to tell us about the plot surrounding you, Sire. It shouldn’t take much longer until we know who put her up to it.”
As Lemonis moved on to his next phase, Roderick looked over at Salvador and said, “She is a Suk doctor, the administrator of the school … the person I picked to be your personal physician. I’m very sorry I let you down.”
“It’s not your fault—she’s clever and deceived us all,” Salvador said. “And you were the one who caught her.” Dr. Zhoma screamed. Salvador winced, waited for the interruption to end, and added, “I trust you completely.”
Less than an hour later, the torturer was satisfied that he had acquired all the available information. Dr. Zhoma lay broken but still alive as Lemonis presented his results to the Emperor. “This doctor has a high tolerance for pain. I have left her conscious so she can answer all your additional questions directly.”
Salvador felt queasy, looking down at all the blood and knowing he would never have survived half of what Zhoma had endured. Her eyes were desperate, her face bruised and bloodied. He leaned over her, breathing slowly in and out, and made his voice as deep and terrible as he could. “And what did you plan for me? Are you an assassin?”
Sisterhood of Dune Page 49
