Troops had breached the sealed laboratory domes and surged inside to capture the refugee weapons scientists. The soldiers had incurred more casualties in doing so, but now Denali was completely under Imperial control. All in all, Roderick was satisfied; he would have suffered far more significant losses in the space battle if Norma Cenva had not made her surprising bargain with him. All of her Navigator ships had simply withdrawn from the battlefield, leaving the VenHold laboratories completely vulnerable.
When Admiral Harte informed him that Denali was secure, Roderick descended to the surface to claim his hard-fought victory. All resistance had been quashed, and every one of the domes was under firm control, locked down by Imperial forces. Accompanied by his heavily armed escort, the Emperor took a military shuttle down through the murky clouds. He brought his Truthsayer along, but he remained silent as they rode through the bumpy air currents, lost in his own thoughts. He felt a sharp sadness over how much this conflict had cost him personally—Salvador, sweet Nantha, and now Anna as well.
But Roderick clung to his triumph. Both of his main enemies were now defeated.
The Butlerians were all but neutralized, their charismatic leader dead, most of their resources stripped away. Their fanatical core group was bottled up on Lampadas, where they would be closely monitored so that they never ran rampant across the Imperium again.
With the scheme Roderick had proposed to Norma Cenva, all the Navigator-guided spacefolders would form a politically unaffiliated Spacing Guild to ensure safe transportation throughout the Imperium. Never again would one power-hungry person place a commercial stranglehold on so many planets.
Directeur Venport had been broken, his trading empire disrupted, his vast wealth seized, and now his last stand had failed. Denali was under Imperial control—but that wasn’t enough. Josef Venport himself had to face justice.
After troops escorted his entourage into the laboratory domes, Admiral Harte greeted him with a sharp salute. Uniformed soldiers marched them toward the administrative chamber where the Directeur had barricaded himself. This enemy had to meet the same fate as Manford: death.
A black-garbed Mentat stood coolly by, a prisoner, but seemingly unconcerned about his future. Draigo Roget had already made his own deal when he surrendered to the Imperial troops: He offered his services to manage the spice operations on Arrakis, under the umbrella of Imperial control. Roderick knew Norma Cenva would prefer such a smooth transition to a prolonged clash between Imperial forces—who knew little about harvesting and distributing melange—and the leaderless Combined Mercantiles crews that were still working in the deserts. Although Venport’s pet Mentat would have to be watched closely for his loyalty, he was certainly competent to handle those operations. The complexities of the melange business would not be left to an amateur.
Draigo had cemented the deal by conceding an extraordinary percentage of the spice profits to be poured into the Salusan treasury. Fielle reminded Roderick that the Imperium’s finances had long been weakened by Salvador’s ill-advised decisions as well as numerous destructive misadventures with the Butlerians. A steady flow of profits from uncontested spice operations would be a swift and significant source of income.
As he stepped forward, Roderick looked around. “Where is Directeur Venport? I will see him for myself.”
Admiral Harte looked uncomfortable. “There is a slight … uh, complication, Sire.”
Roderick’s nostrils flared. “What do you mean? Was he killed? I ordered him to be taken alive. He was the whole reason for the ground assault—otherwise I could have just turned the planet into slag, bombarding it from orbit.”
“The Directeur has not been killed, Sire. But … Norma Cenva wishes to speak with you.”
Roderick saw that the armored door of the administrator’s chamber had been blasted aside. He wasn’t surprised. Venport would have barricaded himself to the last: The Directeur was not a man to surrender, but in the end he had lost. The Emperor strode forward, climbing over debris, looking around for Venport.
Inside, the small office was dominated by Norma Cenva’s Navigator tank. Thick clouds of swirling gas filled the box, but Roderick could see the familiar distorted form inside. Norma spoke before he could say anything. “You have your victory, Emperor Roderick Corrino. I withdrew my ships as promised, and thereby allowed you to conquer Denali. In return, you will form a Spacing Guild, and you will protect my Navigators. No harm will come to any of them. As you promised.”
“Yes, that is what I promised,” Roderick said in clipped words. “I am the Emperor, and I am true to my word.” He looked around the room. “But I will not forgive Josef Venport. He is to be turned over to me so that he can face justice.”
“You may not take him.” Norma drifted closer to the viewing port. “Because in doing so, you would break your promise.”
Roderick drew a deep breath. “I made my command clear. Venport is guilty of crimes against the Imperium, so his life is forfeit. I will not negotiate on this!”
“You already have. You made a vow in front of many witnesses. It was not open to interpretation. You have your victory here. You may have everything else on Denali, but you may not have my Navigators. You agreed.”
Roderick was confused. “What does that have to do with Directeur Venport and his crimes?”
“Josef is now one of the Navigators you swore to protect.” She stirred, and the cinnamon fumes swirled to reveal another figure inside the chamber with her. “He is currently undergoing his metamorphosis. I will help him in every way possible, and my prescience tells me there is a good chance he will survive.”
The Emperor felt a surge of rage that this barely human woman had outmaneuvered him, tricked him. Josef Venport was not going to escape after the appalling things he had done.
But she said, “If you break your promise to me, I will take all my Navigators away, and our ships will never serve the Imperium. The universe is ours.”
Roderick could not let this ruthless man escape without punishment for his crimes, for killing Salvador. He looked deeper into the tank and recognized his enemy, his face in agony and his clothes mostly eaten away by the harsh melange gas. Josef Venport writhed and choked, drifting in panicked circles as his hands thrashed. His fingers were splayed so widely in his suffering that some of the bones were obviously broken. His eyes were closed, and his face had a waxy consistency, as if portions of it were melting, changing his features. Much of his hair had already fallen out.
“You may not have my Navigators,” Norma repeated.
And as Roderick looked at Venport’s slow, horrific transformation, he thought he just might be satisfied after all.…
The priorities of truly great people differ markedly from those of lesser mortals.
—A voice from Other Memory
According to the witnesses on Corrin, Vorian Atreides was killed in the midair spaceship explosion. He was dead, and that was a good beginning. Vor had to start over, as if reborn. A clean slate—again.
His private spacefolder was a slower old-model vessel, much like the Dream Voyager he had flown for years. Vor knew all of the ship’s systems, as well as its inherent flaws.
Beaten and bloodied, still alive but upset that he had not been able to end the feud, he had dragged himself back to his ship, as Korla and the scavengers demanded. They had promised to protect Willem, but by making him leave, the feud was not ended.
Entering the cockpit, swaying from the pain, Vor had inspected his ship, knowing all the systems so well, and as he powered up the engines, he had sensed something wrong … the subtlest fluctuation, a minor variance—which led him to inspect inside the energy-train console.
He saw that the New Voyager’s engines had been rigged to explode in the air. While the ship had rested here, unoccupied, someone had sabotaged it, planted explosives set to detonate as soon as it gained altitude. He knew with a chill that Valya and her commandos must have set up this contingency just in case he happened to elude them. They
had no intention of letting him escape alive.
As Vor bent over, angry, to disconnect the booby trap so he could fly away and claim his own small victory, he hesitated. Then he saw the rest of the solution.
He’d lived long enough with Harkonnen hatred that he knew their vendetta would continue so long as Valya and Tula thought he remained alive. Abulurd’s bitter descendants would only be satisfied if they knew for certain that he was dead.
And so he ended the feud in the only way he could see. He had to die, as far as they were concerned.
He activated the ship’s engines, while bleeding profusely over the controls, the cockpit, the deck—thanks to the injuries Valya had inflicted. The blood would add veracity: If any of the Sisters decided to scan the wreckage that fell from the sky—and they would, he was sure of it—his DNA would be there. They would be convinced he was aboard.
Even though post-Jihad humanity shunned all automated systems and computerized guidance, he knew crude methods of making the ship fly by itself—at least enough to take off and rise toward orbit, unguided. The New Voyager didn’t have to go far to serve his purpose.
They would all see it with their own eyes.
Willem would be devastated—first losing Orry, and now Vorian. The two had grown quite close. In fact, the last time Vor had felt so paternal toward anyone was, ironically, with Griffin Harkonnen. But young Willem had to be just as convinced as the Sisters. His grief would be real.
Willem would survive, though, and he would recover from his grief. Vor had caused much sorrow in his life; this was just one more instance to add to his mental balance sheet.
But he would live with the guilt—and he would live. Because of that, the feud would be over, and Willem would have a life too. The young Atreides would go to the Imperial Court and make a good life for himself, the life he deserved … a life without a Harkonnen blood feud weighing him down.
Or so Vor hoped.
As the engines powered up and the ship prepared to take off under its automated guidance, Vor climbed out through a small access hatch, bringing supplies with him, then crawled away into the rubble.
From there, he watched his ship explode.
Afterward he ducked underground, finding a bolt-hole in the rubble, and sealed himself in. He would wait for several days, until it was safe.
* * *
HE HID UNTIL he knew the scheduled trading spacefolder had come and taken Willem away. Finally, Vor emerged into the ruddy sunlight of Corrin, remembering how many years he had lived here, back when it was the thinking-machine capital.
He was done here, though. He wrapped himself with rags and a patchwork radiation suit, slipped into the tunnels he knew so well, kept himself among the shadows—as so many of the scavengers did—while the rest of them worked at excavating valuable items from the ruins.
Their next trading ship would depart in a week, with dozens of people aboard, and Vor intended to be among them. Horaan Eshdi, the woman he had saved from the flowmetal outburst, was surprised when he approached her among the groups of workers in the rubble operations, but also pleased to see him alive. “I need your help,” he said, in a low voice.
“You have earned it,” she replied. “Whatever you need.”
When the next trade spacefolder arrived at Corrin, she helped him to hide his identity by giving him a salvaged wardrobe from one of the miners killed in the flowmetal flood. He muffled his face and wrapped his skin to protect against the harsh red sunlight. Horaan let him pass, looking haughty, attracting no questions. The scavengers didn’t pay much attention to their companions as they moved toward the cargo shuttle that came down from an EsconTran ship.
Vor kept his head down as he climbed aboard with the group of boisterous traders. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Horaan had joined the group, but she stayed away from him now. Good. He did not need, nor want, any company. He felt the comforting rumble of engines as the shuttle took off, heading for the spacefolder. He leaned back against the bulkhead and closed his eyes.
He would make his way, independently. As he had done so many times before.
It was the price Vorian Atreides had to pay for the existence he wanted, the new situation he needed, after going through so much. And it was the price he had to pay for Willem’s future.
After living for more than two centuries, Vor had grown weary of his old persona and all the baggage it carried. He craved something new and fresh, and a universe of options lay before him. It was like shedding his skin.
It was not only a matter of where he was going, but much more. He had many ideas, and plenty of experience, in knowing how not to be found. Out in the Imperium, after so much time, no one even thought to connect Vorian’s face with the visage they saw in history books, on memorial statues, even on Imperial coins. He would make his way to other worlds, backwater worlds, where he might even find a Tlulaxa surgeon who could make cellular alterations to his face. And Vor would survive, for however long his life-extension treatment might last.
He could obtain different features through surgery, and an entirely different existence, but he would still be Vorian Atreides, always an Atreides, on the inside. He could hardly wait to step into the skin of the new person he intended to become.
Those who do not ask for a thing are much more likely to deserve it.
—Mentat teaching
Secure in his rule, the Emperor stood in his flowmetal cape outside the golden-domed Hall of Parliament. Now that he no longer needed to be concerned about the superstitious Butlerians, he wore the exotic cape as a symbol of pride and confidence, and to mark the victory of humans over machines in the Jihad. He did not fear thinking machines, nor fanatics.
He was the Emperor.
Empress Haditha, Crown Prince Javicco, and the younger princesses Tikya and Wissoma were at his side, gazing out on a sea of people spreading across Zimia’s central plaza. Landsraad nobles flanked the Imperial seats, while behind them a wraparound screen concealed the real reason for the gathering.
Roderick squinted into the bright noon sunlight. Flags hung from government buildings around the square, fluttering in a gentle breeze. The scarlet-and-gold buntings of House Corrino were draped across balconies above, including the balcony from which Emperor Salvador had addressed his subjects on many occasions.
With the major crises solved in the Imperium, the city was in a celebratory mood. The Emperor and Empress were dressed in their formal attire of state—he wore a Corrino uniform with a scarlet sash across his chest, and Haditha a long gown of matching colors, along with Hagal jewels and her impressive crown, the crown that Salvador had rarely let his own wife wear. But Haditha was different; as far as Roderick was concerned, she deserved it.
As he waited for the cheers to fade, he glanced at Fielle, who remained close. His Truthsayer had certainly proved her worth in the last encounter against Directeur Venport, and he valued her presence, although he wasn’t sure how much he could trust the Sisterhood as a whole. In a fit of pique Salvador had disbanded their entire order, and it had been a mistake. Roderick saw that as allies the Sisters could be useful, and as enemies they could be dangerous, but they were so secretive and controlled that one could rarely tell which side they were on.
Such as Cioba Venport … She had come here because of her Sisterhood connections, but as the wife of an outlaw, she had been held on Salusa as a hostage. She had vanished shortly after hearing the news of her husband’s defeat and was nowhere to be found. Was her loyalty to Venport or to the Sisterhood? One rumor suggested that she had fled to Wallach IX, although the Sisterhood denied it. If true, Roderick doubted if he would ever pry her loose from that insular school. But he would keep watching, and would not forget.
Right now, Fielle had been joined by Mother Superior Valya, the leader of the Sisterhood, who wore heavy, dark garments. Valya was astonishingly young for a role of such enormous importance, but her actions and mannerisms carried the weight of countless generations. Her face looked oddly bruised
, the worst marks covered with obvious makeup.
The Mother Superior had come here to represent the Sisterhood—as well as her own noble family, House Harkonnen from Lankiveil—for the Imperial victory celebration. Valya had used influence and favors to request a place for her younger brother Danvis at court, so that he could enhance his family’s visibility in the Landsraad. Roderick had granted the request.
Now, sitting in a reserved box seat, Danvis Harkonnen wore whale-fur finery from his home, though his clothes were several years out of style. The bright-eyed young man looked thin and pale, out of his depth, but Roderick found him to be fresh-faced and likable.
When the cheers dampened in anticipation, Roderick spoke in an amplified voice that carried out over the farthest fringes of the crowd. “This gathering makes me recall the celebrations under my grandfather Faykan I, at the end of the Jihad. Today we celebrate a different but equally important victory—peace in the Imperium.
“Even after the fall of the thinking machines, we discovered new enemies in our ranks, those who would pull our civilization in different and dangerous directions. Two extremists tried to tear apart the Imperium from opposite sides.” He paused, staring at the ocean of faces, wondering which factions they sided with. There is only one faction now, he reminded himself. My faction.
“Directeur Josef Venport sought to control us through his monopoly on safe space travel and the distribution of spice. He was a rational but selfish and immoral man, and his unethical stranglehold has now been broken. With the fall of Venport Holdings, our new independent Spacing Guild will guarantee commercial foldspace travel to all worlds in the Imperium.”
He let the crowd acknowledge the tremendous opportunity this would create for all of their lives, and then hardened his voice. “On the other hand, Manford Torondo was not at all rational. He was a power-hungry fanatic who manipulated mobs to cause death and destruction, to the detriment of every Imperial citizen. Such extremism has collapsed under its own intolerance.”
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