“He is not in Carthage, Sire,” Dorothy said, keeping her eyes averted. “And he has left no official proxy to act in his stead.”
“This is the nobleman’s concubine, a mere commoner,” Bauers said with a sniff, then added as if it were a joke, “Hmm, and she also serves as the business manager for House Linkam. The former sapho addict is Esmar Tuek, their security chief. Note his red lips, from the sapho cure.”
“An odd pair.” Wuda scowled and squirmed, as if preparing to rise from his throne in indignation, then deciding it wasn’t worth the effort. “What sort of insult is this? When is your nobleman expected back?”
Tuek answered. “We’re not certain, Sire. He is working the spice fields with his men, striving to do the best possible job on your behalf.”
“If he’s working so hard, then where is the melange to show for it?” the Grand Emperor demanded. “His output has been shameful, an embarrassment! All across my Empire, people are clamoring for his head.”
Dorothy was sure the Emperor must be exaggerating. “Nobleman Linkam has recently increased production, Sire. Since he has several months remaining in his challenge, he hopes to deliver greater quantities to you soon.”
“So he’s hopeful, is he? Well, so am I! And whatever I hope for holds precedence!”
Dorothy wasn’t sure what distinction the Emperor was trying to make, but he had grown quite red in the face. “We will do whatever you command, Sire.”
“Of course you will! And don’t speak unless you have something intelligent to say.” He snorted, looking disdainfully at the diagem promise ring Jesse had given her. “A concubine business manager! And a worn-out sapho addict!”
Bauers swept in from the side. “Shall I escort them out of here, Sire?”
“Not until you learn exactly where Nobleman Linkam is, so that we may go out and see what he is doing. We flew halfway across the Known Universe to come here. We must take care of this matter promptly and get spice production back to normal. I should never have listened to Nobleman Hoskanner. This whole challenge is nonsense.”
“We don’t know exactly where our master is,” Tuek repeated. Though he spoke the truth, as Dorothy did, it was obvious to both of them that Jesse didn’t want to be found.
Dorothy added, “Because of continual danger from worms, spice operations shift from day to day.”
The Grand Emperor showed his displeasure by putting his face through a variety of unpleasant expressions. “Incompetence, utter incompetence! You don’t even know where your nobleman is, and he left no one in charge. No wonder the spice exports have collapsed.”
Bauers emitted a wicked chuckle. “Hmm, the disadvantages of having a commoner for a business manager.”
Because the Emperor laughed at the joke, Dorothy and Tuek were forced to chuckle along with him.
As Bauers herded them out of the grand salon, Dorothy noticed a mark on the lower part of his neck, mostly hidden by his voluminous black collar. It looked like a gray tattoo, but she could see only the rounded top of it.
Noting her interest, Bauers quickly got behind her and pushed them toward the doorway.
Is he hiding something? she wondered.
26
Sometimes, it is wise not to investigate every mystery you encounter.
—SANDMINER’S ADMONITION
Two men stood outside the brown barracks dome watching the murk settle in the late afternoon sky. Very soon, Jesse wanted to declare victory by fiat; the only score that would impress Emperor Wuda was an overwhelming amount of melange and the secret of an immensely effective new production technique. He would have to return with so much spice in hand that Valdemar’s promises and bribes would look paltry by comparison.
Jesse Linkam would turn the old order of commerce and politics on its ear.
Though Dr. Haynes was technically in Imperial employ, he had agreed to keep all aspects of the shock-canister technology confidential. If Emperor Wuda tried to seize the spice and deny House Linkam its profits and glory, General Tuek already had orders to destroy the designs and all of the supporting work. Now that the idea was out there, however, somebody could recreate it—but that would take a considerable amount of time and effort to accomplish, and the Empire was desperate for spice now. Jesse still maintained the upper hand.
Despite several days of labor that seemed harder than the worst battle he’d ever fought, Gurney Halleck wore an incongruously boyish grin on his lumpy face. The bruise in the center of his forehead was a fading blotch of yellow and purple. “The Emperor’s spies may have learned about our stockpiles, laddie, but they have no inkling how much spice we’ve gathered or how we did it. The numbers, and our method, would astonish even Bauers himself.” The jongleur’s grin widened further.
“Exactly how much do we have, Gurney? The last tally I saw, we were approaching eighty percent of our goal.”
“Should be well over ninety percent now. Now that we’ve gotten rid of that bastard Rew and others who were poisoning morale, our sandminers have been working like madmen. To quote an old saying, ‘All work and no play … makes for bigger bonuses!’ I’m awfully proud of the men.” The spice foreman narrowed his eyes. “They all deserve a huge reward.”
“After we win, I’ll be generous until it hurts, Gurney. As soon as the Emperor locates me, he intends to force me to leave Duneworld. Don’t think he hasn’t already reached a backroom deal with Valdemar Hoskanner. The clock is ticking, and a lot of things could still go wrong.” He gazed toward the horizon. The new weather satellites had spotted a storm brewing out there.
“This morning’s scouts found a rich vein nearby,” Gurney reported. “Maybe the biggest yet. It surfaced sometime during the night. If we use one more shock canister and put all seven spice harvesters on it, we might actually top our production goal. In a matter of hours.”
“Only if the weather holds. We’ve been in communication silence, but the Grand Emperor must have arrived in Carthage by now. He’s probably bellowing for me, but we’ve moved around so much that even Esmar can’t figure out where we are.”
“Yes indeed. All those storms, static discharges, and faulty Hoskanner equipment.” His smile became sly. “No way to track us down. Very difficult to keep effective lines of communication open … especially when we don’t want to.”
“Esmar still thinks there’s a standing Imperial army hidden inside that inspection ship. If he’s right, I hope they don’t stage a military takeover of Carthage.” He clenched his teeth. “No rules! That foul Wuda fails to follow his own conditions when it looks as if the contest might not turn out the way he wants.”
“He may be Emperor, My Lord, but he is no nobleman. He has no honor.”
Jesse shook his head sadly. “You’re right.”
“The men are tired, and it’s late in the day, but we can still deploy a last shock charge and continue spice operations into the night until the storm forces us to halt.” Gurney’s rough skin looked ruddy in the oddly colored light. “Or we can pack up and wait for tomorrow.”
“Each tomorrow holds too much uncertainty. Send out the crews and hope the weather doesn’t turn on us. This time, I’ll deploy the canister myself. Let’s win this game, Gurney.”
27
Genuine trust is even rarer than the spice melange.
—GENERAL ESMAR TUEK,
Security Briefings
Restless and unable to sleep because of the Emperor’s threats, Dorothy spent part of the night alone in the dry, empty conservatory. It was a silent and private place, though no longer secret. With all the plants dead and brittle, no one had a reason to go in there anymore.
Sitting alone in the darkness, smelling the powdery decay around her, she closed her eyes and imagined the room as it had been when she first saw it, so verdant and moist, an oasis in the barren desert … an outrageous display of Hoskanner wealth and power.
But had she and Jesse been correct in killing this little piece of Eden? The plants did not belong here on Duneworld, but
neither did she. No human did. The fungi, flowers, and fruit shrubs were a reminder of other places, of more pleasant environments. Was it really a reckless waste of water, as she and Jesse had insisted, or should they have seen it as a sign of hope? The thought of the greenery, moisture, and teeming life was so blissful that she laid her head on the table and drifted off to sleep … .
An abrupt shadow superimposed itself on Dorothy’s dream. She sat up in alarm, though she didn’t know why she felt such urgency. Looking around, she saw nothing out of place, but something was not right. Emerging from the sealed conservatory, she sensed immediately that the mansion was too silent.
The concubine hurried down the wide central staircase to the second level, where she found two of Tuek’s guards lying in the hall, arms and legs akimbo like insects sprayed with poison. She froze, listening for any movement, then glided forward to check them for pulses. Both men were alive, but unconscious. Gas? Something incredibly fast-acting, she decided. Sniffing the air, she caught a faint, unusual odor reminiscent of pine and burnt sugar.
As she ran down the corridor, she found more bodies. The night staff had fallen in their tracks. The mansion’s sealed ventilation system must have been compromised; a powerful soporific would have done its work in short order. The isolated conservatory, kept secret by Valdemar Hoskanner, used an independent system.
Heart pounding, she raced to Barri’s bedchamber. The door to the boy’s room was open, and she nearly tripped over Tuek’s motionless form sprawled on the floor, his hand gripping a stun gun. Apparently the security chief had suspected something amiss, but not in time to do anything about it.
“Barri!” Stumbling inside, she saw that her son’s bedding was in disarray, and expected to find him unconscious like all the others. But he was not there.
My son is gone!
Dashing to the window, Dorothy saw three dark forms running through the front rock garden where the Hoskanner statues had been discarded. She judged them to be large men, and they carried a bundle about the size of a young boy. Frantically, she overrode the seals, cracked the casing around the window, and broke it open to the dry night air. “Stop!”
The men looked up at her, but sped onward. They were much too far away for her to catch them. A mother’s anguished cry rose on a warm night breeze. Her throat was constricted by a rattling necklace of horror. The ungainly rhythm of her own heartbeats pounded in her ears.
As the dark figures kept running, Dorothy broke her paralysis and hurried back to Tuek’s unconscious form, where she wrenched the stunner out of his slack grip. As soon as she reached the open window, she depressed the firing stud without knowing how far the weapon could shoot. Though she sprayed the area, the stunner’s beam dissipated into the empty night, and the kidnappers disappeared with the boy. She tossed the useless weapon on the bed.
At once furious and terrified, Dorothy went back and tried to rouse the incapacitated veteran, shaking him as hard as she could. “Wake up, damn you! General Tuek, do your job!” He didn’t move. She slapped his face, but he was too deep in unconsciousness. White-hot anger infused her. This man should have protected her son!
“Damn you, damn you, damn you!” She hit him harder across the face, and the triangular diagem of Jesse’s pledge ring cut the skin on his rough cheek. Blood trickled down the side of his weathered face, but she didn’t care.
Someone with intimate knowledge of the household must have abducted Barri. Everything had been coordinated too perfectly, executed with precision. Inside her head, Dorothy heard the needle-stick noises that came with fear, skin-rasping fingernails followed by a bloom of sound in the murky shadows around her, cutting the stillness of the mansion.
Spinning, she saw Dr. Cullington Yueh sauntering toward her. He had escaped, too! He wore a gas filter over his kindly face and held the gilded ceremonial scalpel in his hand, its razor edge glinting in the low light.
Dorothy’s eyes widened with realization. She didn’t need to say anything, but looked around for something with which to defend herself. A small statue was out of her reach.
“I don’t know how you escaped the gas, Dorothy.” He pulled his mask aside and let it hang on his neck. “Oh, my job would have been easier if you’d gone to sleep like the others. Then I … I could have …”
Her skin grew hot, and she struggled to keep from flying at him with her fists. “Why, Cullington? What do you have to gain?” Her words tasted like acid. “Is Barri dead? What are they going to do to him? Tell me—now!”
The old surgeon bowed his head in shame and extended his prized ceremonial scalpel to her, handle first. His face was covered with perspiration. “Take my life, I beg you, for I must pay the price of betrayal.”
She snatched the weapon, but hesitated before using it. “What sort of trick is this?”
“I had no choice but to allow them in, and now I cannot go on. Kill me. That will put an end to it all. Oh, I’m sure my Wanna is dead anyway.”
“What happened to Barri? How can I get him back? Why would you do this to us?”
He reeked with dishonor, appeared barely able to stand. “The Hoskanners. They have imprisoned my wife Wanna on Gediprime. They torture her, yet keep her alive. Each time I refuse to perform Valdemar’s bidding, they send me new images of her agony.”
“You said she was dead!”
“Better if she were.” Yueh shook his head. “They forced me to act as their spy and saboteur. But my life—even hers—is not worth all this.” He gestured at the comatose forms around them, then crumpled to his knees, his face a mask of misery. Suddenly, he grabbed the scalpel and slashed at his forearm, succeeding only in cutting a long, shallow gash before Dorothy grabbed his weapon hand.
“Cullington! Stop this nonsense!” She fought with him for the scalpel, and finally wrenched it from his sweaty palm, as both of them tumbled to the floor.
Lying defeated beneath her, the old man looked at the bloody surgical blade in her hands, then at her face. “Use the knife, please! If I die, then I am no longer their puppet. Wanna would kill me herself if she knew what I was driven to do.”
Dorothy seethed. Tuek had suspected her, but all along Yueh was the real traitor, the clandestine source of information for the enemies of House Linkam. She realized that when the surgeon had tended Gurney Halleck’s injury, he had learned the secret of the new spice-harvesting operations.
Information he must have leaked to Jesse’s mortal enemies … .
“You will not die by my hand, Cullington. Not today. I need to save my son—and you’re going to help me do it.” She threw the scalpel down the corridor, and it skittered away. The old doctor began to stammer excuses, but she took him by the collar and pulled his sweating face close to hers. Blood from the cut on his arm dripped onto the floor, where thirsty stones absorbed the red wetness. “You’re going to do everything I tell you to do. Everything, even if it kills you.”
Broken, Yueh sobbed, and tears streamed down his sagging face. “Oh, with all my heart, I pledge myself to you. From this day forward, my life begins anew.”
28
There are many kinds of storms. Take care not to underestimate any of them.
—NOBLEMAN JESSE LINKAM
The seven spice harvesters were deployed simultaneously, every able-bodied man ready to operate the factory machinery. After months in exile, they could smell the sharp possibility of success, and it smelled like melange.
After opening the comm line, Jesse spoke to the men. They were already charged with anticipation, and he funneled their hopes, strengthening their collective will. “After today, if we bring in even half as much melange as I hope, you can return to Carthage. Go to your homes, your families, and your well-earned rest.” He smiled, hearing an echo of cheers over the speaker. “And, at last, many of you freedmen can leave Duneworld. There’s a ticket offplanet for any man who wants it—or a high-paying job for anyone who chooses to stay with me.”
He watched the crews in their joyous frenzy as ca
rryalls picked up harvesters and lifted into the sky. He’d never seen the men so eager to hit the sands. “But first, let’s fill up those harvesters. This is Duneworld—and the spice is there for the taking!”
With military precision, the carryalls dropped the first industrial vehicles onto the rusty sands. In a matter of moments, the harvesters ratcheted into position and began to dig into the caked desert. Dust plumes churned into the darkening sky. Overhead, circling flyers monitored an oncoming weather front, and satellites mapped its course, unable to project how the storm might shift in its path.
The well-seasoned crews did not allow the weather to slow them. By now, the men had rehearsed the routine enough to be comfortable with working on a high wire over a chasm. Every day entailed hardships and dangers, while small fortunes of melange passed into their personal accounts. Most of the freedmen had already earned enough to buy tickets offworld, and the convict teams saw their passage monies placed in trust, so they could truly leave Duneworld as soon as their sentences ended.
With all the machinery landed in the midst of the reddish vein, the sandminers began loading container after container of fresh, redolent spice, which was processed and compacted, then airlifted away to be added to the dispersed stockpiles.
When the inevitable sandworm finally appeared, it charged in from the northern fringe of the storm, plowing straight at them. Like a fur-whale breaching the Catalan seas, the creature surged above the dunes, a ringed, sinuous body haloed with crackling static electricity.
Road to Dune Page 16
