Dune: House Atreides (19 page)

Perhaps he could move them ....

Duncan crawled inside the shelter of the cave hollow, where he found it no warmer at all. Just darker. The opening was low enough that a grown man would have to belly-crawl inside; there was no other way out. This cave wouldn't offer him much protection. He'd have to hurry.

Squatting there, he switched on the small handlight, pulled off his stained shirt, and brought out the knife. He felt the lump of the tracer implant in the meat of his upper left arm, the back of the tricep at his shoulder.

His skin was already numb from the cold, his mind dulled by the shock of his circumstances. But when he jabbed with the knife, he felt the point dig into his muscle, lighting the nerves on fire. Closing his eyes against reflexive resistance, he cut deeply, prodding and poking with the tip of the blade.

He stared at the dark wall of the cave, saw skeletal shadows cast by the wan light. His right hand moved mechanically, like a probe excavating the tiny tracer. The pain shrank to a dim corner of his awareness.

At last the beacon fell out, a bloody piece of micro-constructed metal clinking to the dirty floor of the cave. Sophisticated technology from Richese. Reeling with pain, Duncan picked up a rock to smash the tracer. Then, thinking better of it, he set the rock down again and moved the tiny device deep into the shadows where no one could see it.

Better to leave the tracer there. As bait.

Crawling outside again, Duncan scooped up a handful of grainy snow. Red droplets spattered on the pale sandstone ledge. He packed the snow against the blood streaming from his shoulder, and the sharp cold deadened the pain of his self-inflicted cut. He pressed the ice hard against the wound until pink-tinged snow melted between his fingers. He grabbed another handful, no longer caring about the obvious marks he left in the drift. The Harkonnens would come to this place anyway.

At least the snow had stanched the flow of blood.

Then Duncan scrambled up and away from the cave, careful to leave no sign of where he was going. He saw the bobbing lights down in the valley split up; members of the hunting party had chosen different routes as they climbed the bluff. A darkened ornithopter whirred overhead.

Duncan moved as quickly as he could, but took care not to splash fresh blood again. He tore strips from his shirt to dab the oozing wound, leaving his chest naked and cold, then he pulled the ragged garment back over his shoulders.

Perhaps the forest predators would smell the iron blood scent and hunt him down for food rather than sport. That was a problem he didn't want to consider right then.

With loose pebbles pattering around him, he circled back until he reached the overhang above his former shelter. Duncan's instinct was to run blindly, as far as he could go. But he made himself stop. This would be better. He squatted behind the loose, heavy chunks of rock, tested them to be sure of his strength, and dropped back to wait.

Before long, the first hunter came up the slope to the cave hollow. Clad in suspensor-augmented armor, the hunter slung a lasgun in front of him. He glanced down at a handheld device, counterpart to the Richesian tracer.

Duncan held his breath, making no move, disturbing no pebbles or debris. Blood sketched a hot line down his left arm.

The hunter paused in front of the hollow, noting the disturbed snow, the bloodstains, the targeting blip on his tracer. Though Duncan couldn't see the man's face, he knew the hunter wore a grin of scornful triumph.

Thrusting the lasgun into the hollow ahead of him, the hunter ducked low, bending stiffly in his protective chest padding. On his belly, he crawled partway into the darkness. "Found you, little boy!"

Using his feet and the strength of his leg muscles, Duncan shoved a lichen-smeared boulder over the edge. Then he moved to the second one and kicked it hard, pushing it to the abrupt dropoff. Both heavy stones fell, tumbling in the air.

He heard the sounds of impact and a crack. A sickening crunch.

Then the gasp and gurgle of the man below.

Duncan scrambled to the edge, saw that one of the boulders had struck to one side, bouncing off and rolling down the steep slope, gathering momentum and taking loose scree along with it.

The other boulder had landed on the small of the hunter's back, crushing his spine even through the padding, pinning him to the ground like a needle through an insect specimen.

Duncan climbed down, gasping, slipping. The hunter was still alive, though paralyzed. His legs twitched, thumping the toes of his boots against the frost-hard ground. Duncan wasn't afraid of him anymore.

Squeezing past the man's bulky, armored body into the hollow, Duncan shone his handlight down into the man's glazed, astonished eyes. This wasn't a game. He knew what the Harkonnens would do to him, had already seen what Rabban had done to his parents.

Now Duncan would play by their rules.

The dying hunter croaked something unintelligible at him. Duncan did not hesitate. His eyes dark and narrow -- no longer the eyes of a child -- he bent forward. The knife slipped in under the man's jawline. The hunter squirmed, raising his chin as if in acceptance rather than defiance -- and the dull blade cut through skin and sinew. Jugular blood spurted out with enough force to splash and spatter before forming a dark, sticky pool on the floor of the cave.

Duncan could not spend time thinking about what he had done, could not wait for the hunter's body to cool. He rummaged through the items on the man's belt, found a small medpak and a ration bar. Then he tugged the lasgun free from the clenching grip. Using its butt, he smashed the blood-smeared Richesian tracer, grinding it into metal debris. He no longer needed it as a decoy. His pursuers could hunt him with their own wits now.

He figured they might even enjoy the challenge, once they got past their fury.

Duncan crawled out of the hollow. The lasgun, almost as tall as he was, clattered as he dragged it behind him. Below, the hunting party's trail of glowglobes came closer.

Now better armed and nourished by his improbable success, Duncan ran off into the night.

Many elements of the Imperium believe they hold the ultimate power: the Spacing Guild with their monopoly on interstellar travel, CHOAM with its economic stranglehold, the Bene Gesserit with their secrets, the Mentats with their control of mental processes, House Corrino with their throne, the Great and Minor Houses of the Landsraad with their extensive holdings. Woe to us on the day that one of those factions decides to prove the point.

-COUNT HASIMIR FENRING,

Dispatches from Arrakis

Leto had barely an hour to rest and refresh himself in his new quarters in the Grand Palais. "Uh, sorry to rush you," said Rhombur as he backed through the sliding door into the crystal-walled corridor, "but this is something you won't want to miss. It takes months and months to build a Heighliner. Signal me when you're ready to go to the observation deck."

Still unsettled but mercifully alone for a few moments, Leto rummaged through his luggage, made a cursory inspection of his room. He looked at the carefully packed belongings, much more than he could ever need, including trinkets, a packet of letters from his mother, and an inscribed Orange Catholic Bible. He had promised her he would read verses to himself every night.

He stared, thinking of how much time he would need just to make himself at home

-- a whole year away from Caladan -- instead left everything in its place.

There would be time enough to do all that later. A year on Ix.

Tired after the long journey, his mind still boggling at the weighty strangeness of this underground metropolis, Leto stripped off his comfortable shirt and sprawled back on the bed. He had barely managed to test out the mattress and fluff up the pillow before Rhombur came pounding on his door. "Come on, Leto!

Hurry up! Get dressed and we'll, uh, catch a transport."

Still fumbling to get his arm through his left sleeve, Leto met the other young man in the hall.

A bullet tube took them between the upside-down buildings to the outskirts of the underground city, and then a lift capsule dropped them to a secondary level of buildings studded with observation domes. After emerging, Rhombur bustled through the crowds gathered at the balconies and broad windows. He grabbed Leto's arm as they pushed past Vernius guards and assembled spectators. The Prince's face was flushed, and he turned quickly to the others there. "What time is it? Has it happened yet?"

"Not yet. Another ten minutes."

"The Navigator's on his way. His chamber's being escorted across the field right now."

Muttering thanks and pardons, Rhombur led his confused companion to a broad metaglass window in the sloping wall of the observation gallery.

At the far end of the room another door glided open, and the crowd parted for two dark-haired young men -- identical twins, from the looks of them. Small in stature, they flanked Rhombur's sister Kailea as proud escorts. In the brief time since Leto had last seen her, Kailea had somehow managed to change into a different dress, less frilly but no less beautiful. The twins seemed drunk with her presence, and Kailea seemed to enjoy their fawning attention. She smiled at both of them and guided them toward a good spot at the observation window.

Rhombur took Leto to stand beside them, far more interested in the view than in the members of the crowd. Glancing around, Leto assumed that all the people there must be important officials of some sort. He peered down, still at a loss as to what was going on.

An immense enclosure funneled into the distance where the grotto ceiling and the horizon came together. Down below he saw a full-scale Heighliner, an asteroid-sized ship like the one that had carried him from Caladan to Ix.

"This is the largest, uh, manufacturing facility on all of Ix," Rhombur said.

"It's the only surface hold in the Imperium large enough to accommodate an entire Heighliner. Everyone else uses dry docks in space. Here, in a terrestrial environment, the safety and efficiency for even large-scale construction is very cost-effective."

The shining new ship crowded the subterranean canyon. A fan of decorative dorsal arrays shone from the nearer side. On the fuselage, a gleaming purple-and-copper Ixian helix interlocked into the larger white analemma of the Spacing Guild, symbolizing infinity inside a rounded convex cartouche.

Constructed in place deep underground, the spaceship rested on a suspensor-jack mechanism, which elevated the craft so that large groundtrucks could drive underneath the hull. Suboid workers in silver-and-white uniforms scanned the fuselage with handheld devices, performing rote duties. As the teams of underclass workers checked the Guild craft, readying it for space, lines of light danced around the manufacturing center -- energy barriers to repel intruders.

Cranes and suspensor supports looked like tiny parasites crawling over the Heighliner's hull, but most of the machinery was clustered against the sloping walls of the chamber, moved out of the way . . . for a launch? Leto didn't think it was possible. Thousands of surface-bound workers swarmed like a static pattern across the ground, removing debris and preparing for the departure of the incredible ship.

The buzz of the audience in the observation chamber grew louder, and Leto sensed something was about to happen. He spotted numerous screens and images transmitted by comeyes. Numbed by the spectacle, he asked, "But . . . how do you get it out? A ship this size? There's a rock ceiling overhead, and all the walls look solid."

One of the eager-faced twins next to him looked down with a confident smile.

"Wait and see." The two identical young men had widely set eyes on squarish faces, intent expressions, furrowed brows; they were several years older than Leto. Their pale skin was an inevitable consequence of spending their lives underground.

Between them, Kailea cleared her throat and looked at her brother. "Rhombur?"

she said, flashing a glance at the twins and at Leto. "You're forgetting your manners."

Rhombur suddenly remembered his obligations. "Oh, yes! This is Leto Atreides, heir to House Atreides on Caladan. And these two are C'tair and D'murr Pilru.

Their father is Ix's Ambassador to Kaitain, and their mother is a Guild banker.

They live in one of the wings of the Grand Palais, so you might see them around."

The young men bowed in unison and seemed to draw closer to Kailea. "We're preparing for Guild examination in the next few months," one of the twins, C'tair, said. "We hope to pilot a ship like that someday." His dark head nodded toward the immense vessel below. Kailea watched them both with a worried glint in her green eyes, as if she wasn't too sure about the idea of their becoming Navigators.

Leto was moved by the sparkle and eagerness he saw in the young man's deep brown eyes. The other brother was less social and seemed to be interested only in the activity below. "Here comes the Navigator's chamber," D'murr said.

Below, a bulky black tank floated ahead on a cleared path, borne on industrial suspensors. Traditionally, Guild Navigators masked their appearance, keeping themselves hidden in thick clouds of spice gas. It was generally believed that the process of becoming a Navigator transformed a person into something other than human, something more evolved. The Guild said nothing to confirm or deny the speculations.

"Can't see a thing inside," C'tair said.

"Yes, but that's a Navigator in there. I can sense him." D'murr leaned forward so intently it seemed as if he wanted to fly through the metaglass observation window. When the twins both ignored her, intent on the ship below, Kailea turned instead to Leto and met his gaze with sparkling emerald eyes.

Rhombur gestured down at the ship and continued his rapid commentary. "My father is excited about his new enhanced-payload Heighliner models. I don't know if you've studied your history, but Heighliners were originally of, uh, Richesian manufacture. Ix and Richese competed with one another for Guild contracts, but gradually we won by bringing all aspects of our society into the process: uh, subsidies, conscriptions, tax levies, whatever it took. We don't do things halfway on Ix."