Dune: House Atreides (71 page)

SETTLED IN, LOUNGING on his plush hawk-crested chair, Leto stared out the window into the crowded cluster of ships inside the Heighliner bay. He sipped a mug of mulled wine that reminded him of Kailea and the stormy night when they had rummaged through the Old Duke's Possessions. He longed for peaceful interludes and warm companionship, though he knew it would be a long time before his life became settled again.

"The ships are so close together here," he said. "It makes me uneasy." He watched two Tleilaxu transports take positions near the Atreides frigate.

Beyond the transports a Harkonnen frigate hung in its Guild-assigned place.

"Nothing to worry about, my Duke," Hawat said. "By the rules of warfare dictated by the Great Convention, no one can fire a weapon inside a Heighliner.

Any house breaking that rule faces permanent forfeiture of its access to Guild ships. No one would risk that."

"Are our shields up anyway?" Leto asked.

"Vermillion hells, no shields, Leto!" Rhombur said, with alarm in his voice. He laughed. "You should have learned more about Heighliners on Ix -- or were you looking at my sister the whole time?"

Leto flushed crimson, but Rhombur explained quickly. "Aboard a Heighliner, shields interfere with the ship's Holtzman propulsion system, preventing it from folding space. An active shield disrupts a Navigator's ability to hold his navigation trance. We'd be dead in space."

"It is also forbidden under our Guild transport contract," Hawat said, as if the legal reason might somehow carry more weight.

"So we're all here unprotected, naked, and trusting," Leto grumbled, still seeing the Harkonnen ship through the plaz ports.

Rhombur said with a defeated smile, "You're making me remember how many people wish me dead."

"All ships inside this Heighliner are equally vulnerable, Prince," Hawat said.

"But you should not concern yourself just yet. Your greatest peril lies ahead, on Kaitain. For now, even I intend to rest a bit. Here on board our frigate, we are as safe as we can be."

Leto looked out and up at the distant roof of the Heighliner hold. High above in a miniscule navigation chamber, a single Navigator in a tank of orange spice gas controlled the enormous bulk of the ship.

Despite Hawat's assurances, he remained uneasy. Beside him, Rhombur fidgeted as well, but struggled to cover his anxiety. With an agitated breath the young Duke sat back, trying to let his tension drain away and prepare for the political crisis he was about to initiate on Kaitain.

Storms beget storms. Rage begets rage. Revenge begets revenge. Wars beget wars.

-Bene Gesserit Conundrum

The Guild Heighliner's external hull hatches were sealed, the cavernous openings closed, and the vessel made ready to depart. Soon the Navigator would go into his trance, and the ship would be under way. The next and final destination on this route would be Kaitain, where representatives of the Great and Minor Houses of the Landsraad had begun arriving for the coronation of Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV.

The Navigator maneuvered the enormous vessel away from the gravity well of Caladan and out into open space, preparing to engage the huge Holtzman engines that would carry it in wild leaps across foldspace.

The passengers aboard family frigates within the liner's holding bay discerned no movement whatsoever, no motion from the engines, no change in position, no sound. The packed ships hung in their isolated spaces like data bricks in a secure library complex. All Houses followed the same rules, putting their faith in the ability of a single mutated creature to find a safe course.

Like giedi-cattle in a slaughter pen, thought Rabban as he climbed into his invisible attack ship.

He could have wiped out a dozen frigates before anyone figured out what was going on. Given free rein, Rabban would have enjoyed causing such mayhem, the exhilarating sensation of extravagant violence . . . .

But that was not in the plan, at least not for now.

His uncle had developed a scheme of beautiful finesse. "Pay attention and learn from this," he'd said. Good advice, Rabban admitted to himself. He had been discovering the benefits of subtlety and the enjoyment of a revenge long savored.

This didn't mean Rabban would forsake the more blunt forms of violence at which he excelled; on the contrary, he would simply add the Baron's methods to his homicidal repertoire. He'd be a well-rounded person by the time he took over the leadership of House Harkonnen.

In an unobtrusive movement, the hatches of the Harkonnen family frigate slid open, and the containment field faded just long enough to let Rabban's sleek warship descend into the sealed vacuum within the Heighliner hold.

Slowly, quietly, patiently.

Before anyone could see his fighter craft, he engaged the no-field, working the controls the way Piter de Vries had shown him. He felt no different, saw no change in the view transmitted from his monitors. But now he was a killer ghost: invisible, invincible.

From anyone else's viewpoint, and from external sensors, all electromagnetic signals impinging on the no-field would reflect off and bend around, transforming his ship into an empty spot. The attack craft's engines, more silent than the softest whisper, made no detectable sound or vibration.

No one would suspect a thing. No one could even imagine an invisible ship.

Rabban activated the no-ship's attitude jets, silently coaxing the deadly craft away from the innocent-looking Harkonnen frigate, toward the Atreides vessel.

This attack ship was too big for his liking, not very maneuverable and rather bulky for a quick fighter, but its invisibility and stone-silence made all the difference.

His thick fingers danced over the control panels, and he felt a measure of glee, of power, glory, and satisfaction yet to come. Soon a ship full of nasty, brutish Tleilaxu would be destroyed. Hundreds of them would die.

Always before, Rabban had used his position in House Harkonnen to get what he wanted without question, to manipulate other people and kill those few who were unfortunate enough to stand in his way. But that had been mere play for his personal amusement. Now he was performing a vital function, an act upon which the future of House Harkonnen depended. The Baron had picked him for this mission, and he vowed to do it well. He certainly didn't want to be sent back home to his father.

Rabban maneuvered the ship into place slowly, gently -- no hurry, now. He had the entire transspace voyage in which to start a war.

With the no-field around his attack craft, he felt like a hunter concealed in a blind. This was a different kind of hunting, though, requiring more sophistication than blowing up sandworms on Arrakis, more finesse than chasing children in the Harkonnen forest preserve. Here, his trophy would be a change in Imperial politics. In the end he would hang the trophies of greater power and fortunes for House Harkonnen on his wall, stuffed and mounted.

The invisible attack craft approached the Atreides frigate, almost close enough to touch.

Noiselessly, Rabban powered up his weapons systems, making sure his full array of multiphase projectiles was ready to launch. He would rely on manual targeting in a case like this.

At point-blank range, he couldn't possibly miss.

Rabban turned his no-ship, pointing the gunports toward two nearby vessels, Tleilaxu transports that had, through a substantial Harkonnen bribe paid to the Guild, been ordered to park adjacent to the Atreides frigate.

Bound from Tleilax Seven, the ships undoubtedly carried genetic products, the specialty of the Bene Tleilax. Each ship would be commanded by Tleilaxu Masters, with a crew of Face Dancers, their shape-shifting servants. The cargo might be slig meat, animal grafts, or a few of those abominable gholas -- clones grown from the flesh of dead humans, copies nurtured in axlotl tanks so that bereaved families could once again see fallen loved ones. Such products carried high price tags and made the gnomelike Tleilaxu extremely wealthy, despite the fact that they undoubtedly would never be granted Great House status.

This was perfect! With all the Landsraad listening, young Duke Leto Atreides had declared his vendetta against the Tleilaxu, swearing vengeance for what they had done to House Vernius. Leto had not been circumspect with regard to the statements he'd made on the record. Everyone knew how much he must hate the occupants of these Tleilaxu ships.

As a bonus, the renegade Rhombur Vernius was at this very moment aboard the Atreides frigate, yet another person to be caught in the Harkonnen web, yet another victim in what would soon be a bloody Atreides-Tleilaxu war.

The Landsraad would accuse Duke Leto of being a hothead -- brash, impetuous, and violent, pushed to ill-advised acts by his misplaced Ixian friendships and his inconsolable grief over the death of his father. Poor, poor Leto, so inadequately trained to cope with the pressures bearing down on him.

Rabban knew full well what conclusions the Landsraad and the Imperium would draw, because his uncle and the twisted Mentat had explained it to him in detail.

Hovering immediately in front of the Atreides frigate, invisible and cloaked in anonymity, Rabban targeted the nearby Tleilaxu ships. With a smile on his generous lips, he reached for the controls.

And opened fire.

Tio Holtzman was one of the most productive Ixian inventors on record. He often went on creative binges, locking himself up for months on end so that he could work without interruption. Sometimes upon emerging he required hospitalization, and there were constant concerns over his sanity and well-being. Holtzman died young -- barely past thirty Standard Years -- but the results of his efforts changed the galaxy forever.

-Biographical Capsules, an Imperial filmbook

When Rabban departed from the Harkonnen frigate, full of his important duty, the Baron sat in a high observation chair, looking out into the enormous Heighliner hold. The Navigator had already initiated the engines, sent the gigantic craft through foldspace. The smaller ships sat arrayed like so much cordwood, unaware of the fire that was rushing toward them . . . .

Even knowing where to look, he couldn't see the invisible ship, of course. But the Baron glanced at his chronometer, knew the time was approaching. He stared out at the unsuspecting Atreides frigate, silent and arrogant in its assigned berth, and kept his eyes on the nearby Tleilaxu craft. Tapping his fingertips on the arm of the chair, he watched and waited.

Long minutes passed.

Planning the attack, Baron Harkonnen had wanted Rabban to use a lasgun on the doomed Tleilaxu ships -- but Chobyn, the Richesian designer of the experimental craft, had left a murky warning scrawled in his notes. The new no-field had some relationship with the original Holtzman Effect that formed the foundation for shields. Every child knew that when a lasgun beam struck a shield, the resulting explosion resembled an atomic detonation.

The Baron didn't dare take that risk, and since the Richesian inventor had already been disposed of, they couldn't ask further questions. Perhaps he should have thought of that ahead of time.

No matter. Lasguns weren't needed to damage the Tleilaxu vessels anyway, since ships transported in a Heighliner hold were prohibited from activating their shields. Instead, multiphase projectiles -- the high-powered artillery shells recommended by the Great Convention to restrict collateral damage -- would do the job. Such shells penetrated the fuselage of a target craft and destroyed the interior of the vessel in a controlled detonation, after which the phased secondary and tertiary explosions snuffed onboard fires and saved the remains of the fuselage. His nephew hadn't understood the technical details of the attack; Rabban only knew how to aim and fire the weapons. That was all he needed to know.

Finally the Baron saw a tiny burst of yellow-and-white fire, and two deadly multiphase projectiles streaked out, as if fired from the front of the Atreides frigate. The projectiles shot like gobbets of viscous flame, then impacted.

The doomed Tleilaxu transport vessels shuddered and glowed bright red inside.

Oh, how the Baron hoped other ships had been watching this!

A direct hit on one ship left it a hollow, incinerated hull in only a few seconds. By design, the other projectile hit the tail section of the second Tleilaxu ship, disabling it without killing everyone aboard. This would give the victims an excellent opportunity to fire back at the Atreides aggressors.

Then things would escalate nicely.

"Good." The Baron smiled, as if he could speak directly to the frantic Tleilaxu crew. "Now you know what to do. Follow your instincts."

AFTER LAUNCHING THE projectiles, Rabban's no-ship darted away, passing between parked frigates that loomed high overhead.

On an emergency frequency, he heard the damaged Tleilaxu ship transmit urgent distress messages: "Peaceful Bene Tleilax transports attacked by Atreides frigate! Violation of Guild law. Assistance urgently requested!"

At that moment, the Guild Heighliner was nowhere -- in transit between dimensions. They could expect neither retaliation nor enforcement until they emerged from foldspace and arrived at Kaitain. By then, it would be far too late.

Rabban hoped this would be more like a tavern brawl; he and his friends often marched into drinking establishments in outlying Giedi Prime villages and stirred up trouble, cracked open a few heads, and had a fine old time.

A control-panel screen in the no-ship showed him a graphic of the immense cargo hold, with a gray dot representing each ship. The dots changed to orange as the ships of various Houses Major powered up their weapons, prepared to defend themselves in what would become an all-out brush war.

Feeling like an unseen mouse on the floor of a crowded dance hall, Rabban piloted the no-ship behind a Harkonnen freighter, around to where no one in any other craft could see the Harkonnen ship open a hatch and allow the guerrilla craft inside.

Within the safety of the mother ship, Rabban switched off the no-field, making the attack craft visible to the Harkonnen crew. His hatch opened, and he stepped forth onto the platform, wiping sweat from his forehead. His eyes sparkled with excitement. "Have the other ships started shooting yet?"