Sandworms of Dune Read online

  “More than once.”

  Watched over by Face Dancers, they spent the next two hours at the castle’s trash heap, taking turns shooting the raucous birds with the disk gun. Oblivious to the danger, the gulls swooped and shrieked at one another, fighting over morsels of rain-splattered garbage. Paolo took a shot, then the Baron. Despite its antiquity, the gun was quite accurate. Each spinning, microthin disk chopped a bird into bloody meat and dislodged feathers. Then the surviving gulls squabbled over the fresh gobbets.

  Between them, they killed fourteen birds, although the Baron did not do nearly as well as the child, who had quite an aptitude for cool marksmanship. As the Baron raised the disk gun and aimed carefully, the girl’s annoying voice rang in his head again. That’s not my gun, you know.

  He took the shot and missed by a wide margin. Alia giggled.

  “What do you mean it’s not yours?” He ignored Paolo’s puzzled stare as the boy took the weapon for his turn.

  It’s a fake. I never had a disk gun like that.

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Paolo asked.

  After reaching into a pocket the Baron offered several capsules of orange melange substitute to Paolo, who obediently took them. He grabbed the weapon back from the boy. “Don’t be ridiculous. The antiquities dealer provided a certificate of authenticity and documentation when he sold the weapon to me.”

  Grandfather, you shouldn’t be so easily fooled! My own gun shot larger disks. This is a cheap imitation and doesn’t even have the maker’s initials on the barrel, like the original.

  He studied the carved ornamental handle, turned the gun toward his face, then looked at the short barrel. No initials. “And what about my other things, the objects supposedly owned by Jessica and Duke Leto?”

  Some are real, some are not. I’ll let you find out which are which. Knowing the nobleman’s penchant for buying historical artifacts, the dealer would return to Caladan soon. No one made a fool of the Baron! The Baron ghola decided the next meeting would not be quite so cordial. He would ask a few incisive questions. Alia’s voice faded away, and he was glad to have a moment of peace inside his head.

  Paolo had consumed two of the orange capsules, and as the melange substitute took hold, the boy dropped to his knees and stared beatifically into the sky. “I see a great victory in my future! I’m holding a knife that drips with blood. I’m standing over my enemy . . . over myself.” He frowned, then beamed again, yelling, “I am the Kwisatz Haderach!” Then Paolo let out a bloodcurdling scream. “No . . . now, I see myself dying on the floor, bleeding to death. But how can this be, if I am the Kwisatz Haderach? How can this be?”

  The nearest Face Dancer grew animated. “We were instructed to watch for signs of prescience. We must notify Khrone immediately.”

  Prescience? the Baron thought. Or insanity?

  Inside his mind, the presence of Alia laughed.

  DAYS LATER, THE Baron strolled along the top of the cliff and gazed out to sea. Caladan did not yet have the lovely, grimy industrial capacity of his beloved Giedi Prime, but at least he’d paved over the gardens in the vicinity of the castle. The Baron hated flowers with their eye-straining colors and sickening odors. He much preferred the perfume of factory smoke. He had great ambitions of turning Caladan into another Giedi Prime. The march of progress was more important than any esoteric plans the Face Dancers had for young Paolo.

  On the lowest level of the restored castle, where other great houses would have prepared chambers for “policy enforcement activities,” House Atreides had instead used the space for food storage rooms, a wine cellar, and an emergency shelter. Being a more traditional nobleman, the Baron had installed dungeons, interrogation rooms, and a well-equipped torture chamber. He also had a party room on that level, where he often took young boys from the fishing village.

  You can’t remove the marks of House Atreides with such cosmetic changes, Grandfather, said the pestering voice of Alia. I preferred the old castle.

  “Shut up, devil child! You were never here in life, either.”

  Oh, I visited my ancestral home when my mother lived here, when Muad’Dib was Emperor and his jihad splashed blood across the star systems. Don’t you remember, Grandfather? Or weren’t you inside my head then?

  “I wish you weren’t inside mine. I was born before you! I can’t possibly have your memories inside me. You’re an Abomination!”

  Alia chuckled in a particularly disconcerting way. Yes, Grandfather. I’m that, and much more. Perhaps that’s why I have the power to be inside you. Or, perhaps you are just flawed—completely mad. Have you considered the possibility that you might be imagining me? That’s what everyone else thinks.

  Servants hurried by, glancing fearfully at him. Just then the Baron saw a groundcar negotiating the steep road from the spaceport. “Ah, here is our guest.” Despite Alia’s intrusion, he expected this to be an entertaining day.

  After the groundcar pulled up, a tall man stepped out of the rear compartment and made his way past statues of great Harkonnens that the Baron had erected in the past year. A suspensor platform floated behind the antiquities dealer, carrying his wares.

  What do you plan to do with him, Grandfather?

  “You know damned well what I’m going to do.” High on the wall above, the Baron rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation. “Make yourself useful for a change, Abomination.” Alia giggled, but it sounded as if she was laughing at him.

  The Baron hurried down as a haunted-looking house servant escorted the visitor inside. Shay Vendee was an antiquities dealer, always pleased to meet with one of his best customers. As he strolled in with his goods trailing behind him, his round face shone as radiantly as a small red sun.

  The Baron greeted him with a moist handshake, clasping with both hands and holding on a little too long, squeezing a bit too hard.

  The merchant extricated himself from his customer’s grip. “You’ll marvel at what I’ve brought, Baron—amazing what turns up with a little digging.” He opened one of the cases on the suspensor platform. “I saved these treasures especially for you.”

  The Baron brushed a speck off one of the jeweled rings on his fingers. “First I have something to show you, my dear Mr. Vendee. My new wine cellar. I am quite proud of it.”

  A look of surprise. “Are the Danian vineyards operating again?”

  “I have other sources.”

  After the dealer disengaged his suspensor platform, the Baron led him down a wide rock staircase into increasing gloom. Oblivious to the danger, Vendee chattered cordially. “Caladan wines used to be quite famous, and deservedly so. In fact, I heard a rumor that a cache was found on the ruins of Kaitain, bottles perfectly preserved in a nullentropy vault. The nullentropy field prevented the wine from aging and mellowing—in this case for thousands of years—but even so, the vintage must be quite extraordinary. Would you like me to see if I can acquire a bottle or two for you?”

  The Baron stopped at the bottom of the dim stairs and peered with spider-black eyes at his guest. “So long as you can provide the appropriate documentation. I wouldn’t want to be duped into buying anything fake.”

  Vendee wore a look of horror. “Of course not, Baron Harkonnen!”

  Finally, they passed through a narrow corridor illuminated by smoking oil lamps. Glowglobes were too efficient and harsh for the Baron’s taste. He loved the dank, gritty smell of the air; it almost masked the other odors.

  “Here we are!” The Baron pushed open a heavy wooden door and led the way into his fully stocked torture chamber. It had the traditional accoutrements: racks, masks, electrified chairs, and a strappado, by which a subject could be alternately hoisted into the air and dropped. “This is one of my new playrooms. My pride and joy.”

  Vendee’s eyes opened wide in alarm. “I thought you said we were going to your wine cellar.”

  “Why, over there, my good man.” With a good-natured expression, the Baron pointed to a tabl
e from which loose straps hung. A wine bottle and two glasses sat on top. He poured red wine into both glasses and handed one to his increasingly agitated guest.

  Vendee glanced around, nervously eyeing the red stains on the table and rock floor. Spilled wine? “I have just made a long journey, and I’m tired. Maybe we should go back up to the main rooms. You will be absolutely delighted with the new items I’ve brought. Quite valuable relics, I assure you.”

  The Baron fingered one of the straps on the table. “There is another matter, first.” He narrowed his eyes. From a side door a sunkeneyed boy marched in, carrying what looked like two ornate old weapons, disk handguns of ancient manufacture.

  “Do these look familiar? Examine them carefully.”

  Vendee held one weapon to examine it. “Oh, yes. The antique gun of Alia Atreides. Used by her own hands.”

  “So you said.” Taking the other handgun from the serving boy, the Baron said to Vendee, “You sold me a fake. I happen to know that the gun you hold is not the original weapon used by Alia.”

  “I have a reputation for integrity, Baron. If anyone has told you otherwise, they are lying.”

  “Unfortunately for you, my source is beyond reproach.”

  You are lucky to have me inside you to point out your mistakes, Alia said. If you believe I am real.

  Indignantly, Vendee placed the gun on the table and turned to leave. He only made it halfway to the door.

  The Baron pulled the trigger of his own weapon, and a large, spinning disk shot out and hit the dealer squarely in the back of his neck, decapitating him. Swiftly, smoothly. The Baron was sure it hadn’t hurt a bit.

  “Good shot, eh?” The Baron grinned at the serving boy.

  The servant did not flinch at the murder. “Will that be all you desire from me, sir?”

  “You don’t expect me to clean up this mess myself, do you?”

  “No, my Lord. I will get right to it.”

  “Then wash yourself afterward.” The Baron looked him over. “We’ll have even more fun this afternoon.” Meanwhile, he went back upstairs to study what the antique dealer had brought with him.

  Once, I was born of a natural mother, and then reborn many times as a ghola. Considering the millennia over which the Bene Gesserit, the Tleilaxu, and others have meddled with the gene pool, I wonder—are any of us truly natural anymore?

  —ship’s log, entry of

  DUNCAN IDAHO

  Today, Gurney Halleck would be born again. Paul Atreides had looked forward to this during the months-long gestation process. Since the recent birth of his sister Alia, the waiting had become nearly unbearable. But in a matter of hours, Gurney would be removed from the axlotl tank. The famed Gurney Halleck!

  In his studies under Proctor Superior Garimi, Paul had read much about the troubadour warrior, had seen images of the man and heard recordings of his songs. But he wanted to know the real Gurney, his friend, mentor, and protector from an epic time. Someday, though their ages were topsy-turvy now, the two would remember how close their friendship had been.

  Paul couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he rushed to get ready. Whistling an old Atreides song that he’d learned from Gurney’s recorded collection, he stepped into the corridor, and Chani emerged from her own quarters to join him. Two years his junior, the thirteen-year-old was whip-thin and fast, soft-spoken and beautiful, only a preview of the woman she would become again. Knowing their destinies, she and Paul were already inseparable. He took her hand, and the pair happily hurried toward the medical center.

  He wondered if Gurney would be an ugly baby, or if he had only become a rolling lump of a man after being battered by the Harkonnens. He hoped the Gurney ghola would have a natural skill with the baliset, too. Paul was confident that the no-ship’s stores could re-create one of the antique musical instruments. Maybe the two of them could play music together.

  Others would be there for the new birth: his “mother” Jessica, Thufir Hawat, and almost certainly Duncan Idaho. Gurney had many friends aboard. No one on the ship had known Xavier Harkonnen or Serena Butler, the other two gholas who would be decanted today, but they were legends from the Butlerian Jihad. Each ghola, according to Sheeana, had a role to play, and any one of them—or all of them together—might be the key to defeating the Enemy.

  Aside from the ghola children, many other boys and girls had been born over the years of the Ithaca’s long flight. The Sisters bred with male Bene Gesserit workers who had also escaped from Chapterhouse; they understood the need to increase their population and prepare a solid foundation for a new colony, if the no-ship ever found a suitable planet to settle. The Rabbi’s group of Jewish refugees, who had also married and begun families, still waited for a new home to fulfill their long quest. The no-ship was so vast, and the population aboard still so far below its capacity, that there was no real concern about running short on resources. Not yet.

  As Paul and Chani approached the main birthing creche, four female proctors ran toward them down the hall, urgently calling for any qualified Suk doctor. “They’re dead! All three of them.”

  Paul’s heart stuttered. At fifteen, he was already training in some of the skills that had once made him the historical leader known as Muad’Dib. Summoning all the steel he could put into his voice, he demanded that the second proctor stop. “Explain yourself!”

  The Bene Gesserit blurted, surprised into her answer. “Three axlotl tanks, three gholas. Sabotage—and murder. Someone destroyed them.”

  Paul and Chani rushed toward the medical center. Duncan and Sheeana were already in the doorway looking shaken. Inside the chamber, three axlotl tanks had been ripped from their life-support mechanisms and lay in puddles of burned flesh and spilled liquid. Someone had used an incinerating beam and corrosives to destroy not only the life-support machinery, but the core flesh of the tanks and the unborn gholas.

  Gurney Halleck. Xavier Harkonnen. Serena Butler. All lost. And the tanks, which had once been living women.

  Duncan looked at Paul, articulating the real horror here. “We have a saboteur aboard. Someone who wishes to harm the ghola project—or maybe all of us.”

  “But why now?” Paul asked. “The ship has been fleeing for two decades, and the ghola project began years ago. What changed?”

  “Maybe someone was afraid of Gurney,” Sheeana suggested. “Or Xavier Harkonnen, or Serena Butler.”

  Paul saw that the other three axlotl tanks in the creche had not been harmed, including the one that had recently given birth to the spice-saturated Alia.

  Standing by Gurney’s tank, he saw the dead, half-born baby among the burned and dissolved folds of flesh. Nauseated, he knelt to touch the few wisps of blond hair. “Poor Gurney.”

  As Duncan helped Paul to his feet, Sheeana said in a coldly businesslike voice, “We still have the cellular material. We can grow replacements for all of them.” Paul could sense her deep fury, barely controlled by her strict Bene Gesserit training. “We will need more axlotl tanks. I’ll send out a call for volunteers.”

  The ghola of Thufir Hawat entered and stared in disbelief at what had happened, his face an ashen mask. After the ordeal on the planet of the Handlers, he and Miles Teg had bonded closely; Thufir now helped the Bashar with security and defenses aboard the ship. The fourteen-year-old struggled to sound authoritative. “We will find out who did this.”

  “Scan the security images,” Sheeana said. “The killer can’t hide.”

  Thufir looked embarrassed, as well as angry and so very young. “I already checked. The security imagers were deactivated, intentionally, but there must be other evidence.”

  “All of us were attacked, not just these axlotl tanks.” Duncan’s anger was plain as he turned toward young Thufir. “The Bashar has cited several previous incidents that he believes may be sabotage.”

  “Those were never proved,” Thufir said. “They could have been mechanical breakdowns, systems fatigue, natural failures.”

  Paul’s voice was ice
as he took a last, lingering look at the infant that would have been Gurney Halleck. “This was no natural failure.”

  Then Paul’s legs went suddenly rubbery. Dizziness rose around him, and his consciousness blurred. As Chani rushed to grab him, he reeled, lost his footing, and hit his head hard on the deck. For a moment blackness enveloped him, a gloom that brightened into a frightening vision. Paul Atreides had seen it before, but he didn’t know if it was memory or prescience.

  He saw himself lying on the floor in a spacious, unknown place. A knife wound deep inside him sucked out his life. A mortal wound. His life’s blood poured onto the floor, and his vision turned to dark static. Gazing up, he saw his own young face looking back at him, laughing. “I have killed you!”

  Chani was shaking him, shouting into his ear. “Usul! Usul, look at me!”

  He felt the touch of her hand on his own, and when his vision cleared he saw another concerned face. For a moment he thought it was Gurney Halleck, complete with an inkvine scar on his jawline, the glass-splinter eyes, the wispy blond hair.

  The image shifted, and he realized it was the black-haired Duncan Idaho. Another old friend and guardian. “Will you protect me from danger, Duncan?” Paul’s voice hitched. “As you vowed to do when I was a child? Gurney is no longer able.”

  “Yes, Master Paul. Always.”

  The Honored Matres clearly devised their own name for themselves, for no one else would ever apply the term “honor” after seeing their cowardly, self-serving actions. Most people have a very different way of referring to those women.

  —MOTHER COMMANDER MURBELLA,

  assessment of past and present strengths

  Weapons and battleships were as important as air and food during these supposed End Times. Murbella knew she would have to change the way she approached the problem, but she had never expected such resistance from her own Sisterhood.