Alia remained seated in her chair, hands folded in front of her on the desk. She wasted neither time nor breath on pleasantries, nor did Udine mince words. “The Sisterhood dispatched me here, Regent Alia, regarding the matter of Bronso of Ix.”
Alia arched her eyebrows. “Proceed.”
“We have unexpectedly come upon certain information that may help you in your efforts to capture him. We have recent knowledge of Bronso’s movements, and strong evidence where he may be, even now.”
“Where?” Alia had one hand ready to call for her amazon guards and dispatch a hunting team immediately, but she was also wary of tricks.
“We believe that he is here, on Arrakis.”
Alia jerked with surprise. “Why would he come here again? That’s a foolish risk to take.”
“Perhaps he has business here.”
“How do you know this?” And why should I believe you? she thought.
“For years, Bronso’s mother was held in protective custody on Wallach IX. Tessia Vernius is a valuable specimen.”
Alia frowned. “I remember something about her mental breakdown—it occurred before my birth.”
“We no longer have her.” Udine remained erect, still keeping her eyes slightly averted. “Bronso rescued her.”
Alia laughed sharply. “Bronso freed a captive from the Bene Gesserit Mother School?”
Udine was not amused. “He is quite clever, and elusive, as you well know. We do not yet know his allies, nor how he spirited her away. However, you can find Bronso through Tessia—and we believe she is on Arrakis.”
“Why do you say that? What is your evidence?”
“While Tessia was in her coma, we implanted certain diagnostics within her. One of them was a device that can be used as a locator.” Udine handed over a small data plaque. “The tracker coordinates indicated Arrakis, and we have every reason to believe that Bronso is with her.”
Alia could barely contain her excitement. This was the best lead she’d had in some time. “Excellent news, Reverend Mother. All Imperial subjects have been asked to assist in the hunt for Bronso of Ix. The Regency appreciates that you have volunteered this valuable information, but I warn you, there had better not be tricks here.”
Udine folded her arms across her chest. “No tricks on our part, my Lady, but the news is not all good. We tracked Sister Tessia to Arrakis, but lost the trail here . . . perhaps from one of your sandstorms. We no longer have a signal.” She shook her head. “It is most frustrating, but we thought you would like to know what we learned. Though the information is not perfect, we hope that your gratitude will reflect upon the standing of the Sisterhood. We long to return to some positions of influence.”
Annoyed, Alia set aside the data plaque showing the last known coordinates. “The information you brought me is next to worthless. Tell Harishka not to expect anything from me.”
“But you promised a reward. Your announcements, your condemnations of Bronso of Ix have all made it plain that—”
“I made it plain that anyone who reported valuable information would receive the blessings of Muad’Dib.” Alia raised both hands in a benedictory, but dismissive, gesture. “There, you have half a blessing. Let that be enough for you. The Bene Gesserit have done nothing but try to destroy me and my brother.”
Udine looked sickened rather than outraged. “We have not made any moves against you or your Regency, Lady Alia.”
The Regent rose to her feet, walked around her desk to stand by the taller Reverend Mother. “Oh? Have you forgotten how Lady Margot Fenring—Reverend Mother Fenring—trained and unleashed her daughter Marie upon me and Paul, hoping to assassinate us? That girl pretended to be my friend, but I killed her anyway. Shall I list more offenses?”
Udine was taken aback. “Lady Fenring acted without our knowledge! That was not a Bene Gesserit plan.”
“Lady Fenring is a Bene Gesserit, therefore it was a Bene Gesserit plan. I am not interested in excuses. Now, scurry back to your Mother School, content in the knowledge that you have assisted us.” When Udine continued to argue, Alia whirled the woman around and pushed her toward the doorway. “Enough! Now leave!”
The shocked Reverend Mother started to say something, then reconsidered, and hurriedly departed. The amazon guards escorted her away.
Paul-Muad’Dib did not have a historical monopoly on creating fanatics, but he perfected the art.
—from The Mind of a Killer, a pamphlet published by Bronso of Ix
Jessica had to take extraordinary precautions when she went out to meet Bronso. Considering the mood in the Regency, she felt this might be the most dangerous thing she had ever done.
It did not prove difficult for her to arrange for transportation from Arrakeen out to Sietch Tabr. She had connections and history there, and no one questioned her request to make a personal pilgrimage, nor her desire for privacy. She had done this several times before, and as the Mother of Muad’Dib, was not to be challenged.
Each day, a certain number of offworld visitors flooded out to the famed sietch, like irritating dust blown on the wind, and transport ’thopters departed every hour, weather permitting. Before entering the crowded passenger cabin of the aircraft, Jessica had smeared her face and ragged clothing with dust and slouched her posture, so that when she stepped off, surrounded by the swirl of others, she was just another pilgrim in a press of bodies wanting to see where Muad’Dib had made his first Fremen home, where Chani had given birth to the royal twins, and where the blinded, broken man had vanished into the desert.
At the sietch, slipping away from the other pilgrims to gather the necessary items, Jessica altered her appearance to that of an ordinary village woman in a stillsuit and gray robe. When she departed an hour later, wearing yet another identity as a government inspector of weather stations, she journeyed aboard an industrial transport that flew high above the weather patterns, covering great distances to reach new terraforming stations built in a bustling base near the southern pole. From there, after assuming the identity of a man in loose desert garb, she piloted a small, unmarked ornithopter herself out into the deep Tanzerouft, following the location coordinates that Bronso had secretly provided.
“I need your help—for my mother’s sake,” Bronso had said.
In her small craft, she circled over a wide expanse of whiteness, a salt flat that hinted of ancient seas on this arid planet. At the eastern perimeter of the flat, in a sheltered area of rocks, she found what she was looking for: the wreck of a spice factory amid veiny orange sands. The wind picked up, making the landing difficult, but she managed it anyway, after which she locked down the struts and stilled the vibration of the articulated wings. Several small dust devils whipped around the wreckage of the spice factory, circling, gaining strength and then fading. Little storms . . . ghibli, the Fremen called them.
As she stepped out, a tired-looking man emerged wearing a scuffed old uniform and carrying several weapons. He looked like a smuggler, and wore a face mask, fitted in the Fremen fashion. The man stood silently, waiting for her to come to him. As she approached, Jessica became more certain of his identity, and for a long moment the two just looked at each other, before she moved forward to embrace Bronso. “It has been so many years!”
“With so many events, my Lady. I would never have imagined life might bring me to this.” His eyes were sharp, as he twisted the fire jewel ring on his finger. “But I finally have good news. Come, I have to show you.”
With a surprising spring in his step, Bronso led her inside the old spice factory and down a plazcrete stairway into an underground redoubt. She heard the wind whistling through the wreck above, the scour of sand like hissing whispers against the hull. “Paul had this place dug as a bolt-hole with barrier walls to keep worms out, and to prevent sounds from escaping,” Bronso said.
Jessica had heard that her son had secure locations such as this one on various worlds, places where he and his family could go if necessary—but she hadn’t known where any of
the safe havens were.
He turned to her with a smile. “It was the perfect place for us to hide.”
“Us?”
Bronso led her into an austere metal-walled chamber with mauve chairs arranged around a central metal table that once must have been a mess area for a spice crew. Holo photos shifted on the walls, a succession of desert scenes.
Tessia sat there, prim and motionless.
Jessica drew in a quick breath, and Bronso’s mother raised her head to smile. “My son helped me escape from the Bene Gesserit. I knew he would come, eventually. I waited for him—and the Sisters never did understand how I defeated their guilt-casting.”
With real joy, Jessica moved forward to embrace her friend. “Tessia, I’m so glad to see you safe!” She looked at Bronso. “How did you manage it?”
“I had help . . . the way I’ve managed everything so far.” He sat down heavily in one of the mauve chairs next to his mother. “But she’s not safe with me. You know the dangers I face, and I can’t keep doing my work if I have to worry about her. That’s why I called you here. Can you take her, find a home for her on Caladan? When I arrived at the Carthag Spaceport, I ran a scan on my mother, and found a Bene Gesserit tracking device implanted in her neck. I disabled it electronically there, and destroyed it later. Even so, the Sisterhood may know that Tessia is on Dune. There could be danger for her. I need your help.”
Jessica weighed the risks, the consequences. She had come to loathe the Sisterhood and its unrelenting schemes, the way they sent tentacles everywhere. And Alia hated anyone connected to Bronso. This would not be simple . . . But honor—Atreides honor—allowed her only one answer. “Of course I’ll do it. I can arrange for secret passage back to Caladan.”
Tessia sounded wistful. “Caladan . . . I’d rather go to my own home.”
Bronso’s words were clipped. “Caladan is a far better choice. Ix isn’t safe anymore, and the Sisterhood might go looking for you there.”
“Yes, I liked Caladan. Rhombur and I were happy there. . . .”
Jessica immediately saw practical problems, even though she could not turn down the request. “She can’t be seen with me, because Alia will know you and I have been in touch. But I can keep your mother hidden for a few days, then arrange for her to travel to Caladan under an assumed name. The Bene Gesserits must never know where she is, and neither must my daughter.”
Tessia smiled at both of them.
A few tears of relief ran down Bronso cheeks, but he wiped them away. “I can’t thank you enough. Caladan is the perfect place for her.”
“We’ll have to be very careful, Bronso. Ultimately, her identity could leak out, and we don’t want to bring down the wrath of Alia—or the Bene Gesserits—on Caladan and its people. That is my priority, as Duchess. But for a while Caladan will be safe, under conditions of utmost secrecy, until we can find a long-term home for her. Give me a week to make the proper arrangements.” Perhaps Gurney could help; he was due to return with Duncan in the next day or so, and he could surely find a way to slip Tessia away.
“I won’t rest easily until I know for sure that my mother is safe. Take her with you, but let me know when everything has been taken care of.” He told her of an identity he would assume for himself and a secure place in a slum in the city of Carthag. “That is how you can reach me. And I always know where you are. Meet me in a week? By then, we will have other matters to discuss.”
Tessia had nothing to pack or carry. Jessica was already considering where she could hide the woman in Arrakeen for a few days. After Bronso hugged both of them one last time, whispering a long and heartfelt goodbye into his mother’s ear, Jessica led Tessia to the exit of the wrecked spice factory, and the copper-haired man bade them farewell. He looked as if a great burden had been lifted from him.
“Please be careful, Bronso,” Jessica said.
“I always am.”
As night began to fall out in the desert, the two women slipped away, crossed the patch of spice sand, and boarded the ornithopter. Jessica powered up the engines and lifted off.
A Fremen stood on a dune in the distance, watching through oil-lens binoculars. A veteran Fedaykin in a weathered stillsuit, Akkim had been studying sandworm migrations, one of the many scientific projects sponsored by Muad’Dib’s School of Planetology. He was not certain how much longer this particular project would last, because it involved placing electronic tracking devices on the great worms of the deep desert—and the Qizarate criticized the practice, saying it tampered with the sacred domain of Shai-Hulud. However, Kynes-the-Umma—the father of terraforming Dune—had been a scientist and highly admired, even revered among the tribes.
Akkim didn’t care about the politics, or the religious implications, which he considered to be minimal. Mostly, he just liked an excuse to ride the great worms and spend extended periods of time in the open desert. He was one of the best wormriders on all of Dune, the winner of numerous races and other competitions at grand convocations, whenever the members of many tribes gathered.
For nearly a month, he’d been summoning the monsters with thumpers, riding them, and implanting electronic tracking devices between their armored segments. One worm after another. He wondered how many there were, and was sure that his fellow students in the School of Planetology could use his data to come up with an estimate.
A short while ago, Akkim had been afoot on the sands, heading toward a wrecked and apparently abandoned spice factory he had spotted on his travels. He walked desert fashion, taking care not to cause vibrations that might draw a worm. His mapping experience told him that the wreckage had once been atop a fortified shelter for the Emperor Muad’Dib, and thus he considered it a sacred—and secret—site. He intended to install a signal device there, so that his comrades could confirm its geographic location. Dunes and spice sands in the Tanzerouft had a curious way of shifting, of moving over time as if they were living creatures, but this site was in a stable area, sheltered among the rocks.
While scrambling up a line of exposed rock that lay like the vertebrae of an enormous skeleton across the desert, he had gotten a view of the factory wreckage which lay like a beached beast up on the tumble of boulders and outcroppings, far from the open sands. That was how it had survived out here in the open for so long.
He was surprised to see three people emerging from the decaying mound of machinery—two women and a man. An ornithopter had landed nearby on the hardpan, and the women boarded it, surrounded by small whirlwinds of dust, while the man stayed behind in the abandoned spice factory. Akkim hurried to get out his binoculars, but the oil lenses needed adjustment, and by the time he got them set, the aircraft was already airborne and flying away in a blur of articulated wings. With his spotter imager feature on the binoculars, he took pictures of the craft, though there were no identification markings.
Smugglers, he thought.
Pointing the oil lenses at the spice factory, he studied the man watching the ’thopter leave. He wore what looked like an old smuggler uniform, and his face was partially concealed by a stillsuit mask. Using the binoculars, Akkim captured more images to add to his report. He had encountered plenty of spice smugglers out in the wilderness, hard but industrious men who refused to pay the Imperial tariffs.
Akkim took care not to be seen, feeling some trepidation. There were likely to be more smugglers inside the bolt-hole, probably using it as a base, and they would be armed, while he was just a lone researcher. Akkim did not move. Presently, the redheaded smuggler went back inside.
The Fremen waited. Just after sunset, he crept around the wreckage site, and found another ’thopter, gray and unmarked like the other one, well camouflaged. The School of Planetology did not care about the movements of smugglers, but Regent Alia would. He placed one of his spare worm-tracking devices on the undercarriage of the craft, and concealed another signal unit on the derelict spice factory. Someone would surely be interested.
In the falling darkness, Akkim sprinted across a r
ock surface, down onto the flat, and back up onto more rocks, climbing higher until he passed over a low ridge and dropped down into the open desert beyond. Safely out of view, he activated a thumper he had planted that afternoon and waited, listening to its rhythmic pounding noise.
Presently, he saw an undulating, subterranean motion out on the dunes, the approach of a great worm. With the ease of a lifetime of practice, Akkim mounted the beast, dug in his maker hooks, and set them to guide the monster. He would ride all night and another day to reach Arrakeen, taking his report back to the School.
Ultimately, trust is a matter of perception and detection, of small and large things, parts that add up to a whole. In deciding whether or not to trust, judgment is usually visceral and rarely based on strict evidence.
—DUKE LETO ATREIDES
Carthag, the second most populous city on Dune, had been called “a pustule on the skin of the planet” by Planetologist Pardot Kynes. The former Harkonnen capital boasted a population of more than two million people, though such numbers were only estimates, because many of those who lived and worked in the city eluded census takers.
Lady Jessica had her own reasons to dislike Carthag. Even after so many years, the Harkonnen stench still lingered, but she had agreed to this secret meeting. Besides, her news was good, and Bronso would be glad to hear that Tessia had been placed on a Guildship under an assumed name. By now, she was on her way to Caladan, armed with the name of someone on the Atreides homeworld, who would help her start a new life for herself under an assumed identity. Tessia was a strong woman, obviously damaged and scarred by tragedy, but greatly healed. She would have to relearn how to live as a normal person, but Caladan was the place for her to begin that effort.
During their secret discussions out in the desert, Bronso had arranged the time and place for this meeting; since then, though, Duncan and Gurney had recently returned with their supposedly triumphant news of progress with the Spacing Guild, which had imposed widespread crack-downs among the Wayku stewards. Jessica just had to trust Gurney to do his best to delay the inevitable.
The Winds of Dune Page 39
