Текст книги "Mentats of Dune"
Автор книги: Brian Herbert
Соавторы: Kevin Anderson
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 38 страниц)
Chapter 15 (Anyone who searches for the meaning)
Anyone who searches for the meaning of life is on a fool’s journey. Human life has no redeeming purpose or value.
– the cymek GENERAL AGAMEMNON, A Time for Titans
On a side street in Arrakis City, Vorian Atreides remained with Captain Phillips in the crowded, noisy gaming den for the better part of an hour. They watched the gamblers, the drug consumers, and those who imbibed potent spice beer or expensive offworld liquors. The dingy place smelled of dust, melange, and a faint background odor of urine from a poorly sealed reclamation chamber. Vor frowned; no true desert worker would be so careless as to let that moisture go to waste. He shuffled his boots to find a more comfortable position for his sore infected toe.
Griffin Harkonnen had frequented places like this, spreading bribes, endangering himself, desperate to find any information about where Vorian Atreides had hidden on the desert world.…
Captain Phillips wanted to eavesdrop on conversations, hoping to find a supplier who could offer a cargo of melange for a better price than Qimmit’s. So far, Phillips had remained silent, but now he caught Vor’s gaze, then nodded over his shoulder. Vor took a careful, casual sip of his spice beer while glancing where the captain had indicated. He spotted Qimmit in the crowd, chatting with miners and Combined Mercantiles businessmen.
“He’s moving in our direction … and not by accident,” Phillips said. “I’ve been watching him inch his way toward us.”
With his dusty stillsuit hood down to reveal his matted, unruly hair, Qimmit glided through the throng, pretending not to look at the two men.
“We won’t need to find an alternate supplier if he decides to lower his price,” the captain continued. “Qimmit is a crafty one, but he’s the least crooked of the possible suppliers. At least he never sells me diluted product.”
“Should we turn our backs on him?” Vor asked. He guessed that Qimmit had never expected them to walk away in the first place, and he wouldn’t want to lose their business to a rival. “To show him he’ll have to work to get us back?”
Phillips clicked his glass against his companion’s, nodded. “A good negotiating ploy, Vorian Kepler.”
Kepler. The alternate surname still jarred Vor. He wished he could tell the captain the full truth, but Vor preferred to remain anonymous.
They were trying to catch the bartender’s attention to order refills when a disingenuous voice said from behind, “If you two are here, then you haven’t found another supplier. Still need a load of spice?”
Vor and the captain turned to face the grinning spice merchant, with their schooners still empty. Phillips appraised the merchant with cool reserve. “We haven’t selected another supplier yet.”
Qimmit patted the captain’s back and looked at him with unfocused blue eyes. “You’re in luck, old friend. I’ve been talking with one of my associates, and his crew just returned after excavating a large spice deposit in the deep desert. The melange is earmarked for Combined Mercantiles, of course, but he is allowed a certain percentage for, ah, discretionary use. He delivered the haul to a warehouse here in town, and he’ll be putting his percentage up for auction. But if that happens, it goes through inspectors, packagers, shipping administrators, all of whom expect bribes. Rather than bother with all that, I convinced him to offer you the load under a revised pricing structure – if we can come to a quick agreement. I am in a volatile business.”
The captain responded in a terse tone, as if holding a grudge, and Vor didn’t think it was an act. “Revised pricing structure? Exactly what price do you propose?”
Qimmit rattled on about profit margins, equipment losses, and storage fees, and grinned again as he offered a purported discount, which brought the price down to only slightly more than Captain Phillips had offered in the first place. The deal was struck, and Qimmit saved face, while Phillips got the load for an acceptable cost. The two men finally got the bartender to provide another round of spice beer for all three of them – and the merchant paid.
Captain Phillips finished his drink, seemingly unaffected by the potency, and turned to Vor. “We’d better load the cargo right away and get back to the ship. Weathersats show a sandstorm rolling in tomorrow morning, and I don’t want to be trapped on this rock.”
* * *
AS THEY HURRIED out through the dusty city, making their way along convoluted alleys that had an aversion to straight lines, Vorian and Captain Phillips encountered dusty-robed desert people gathered around a battered transport vehicle that had landed in an open square near a collapsed warehouse.
The desert people came forward with a quick efficiency of movement, like ants working together on a silent mission. Walking shoulder to shoulder, they entered the cargo bay, then returned down the ramp, each pair carrying a body loosely wrapped in a polymer tarpaulin.
Phillips stopped, his expression a mixture of fear and disgust. Vor knew what the people were doing. “Casualties, Captain – retrieved from a spice crew, judging by the orange dust swirling around. Frequent accidents occur.”
“I know,” Phillips said, “but I thought sandworms caused most of the deaths.”
“Worms aren’t the only hazard in the desert,” Vor said. “I remember one accident that involved an airtight evac compartment hauled away from a spice factory. It became a death trap with poisonous exhaust sealed inside.” He nodded toward the wrapped bodies the desert people were whisking away. “That hauler flies around Arrakis City, looking for bodies in the streets, whether knifed or shot, or simply dead from lack of hope.”
After each body was removed from the hold, workers quickly ran their hands over the garments, but found few treasures to retrieve. Obviously, the victims had already been robbed.
Phillips shook his head. “What a waste of life.”
“Nothing goes to waste in this place,” Vor said. He lowered his voice. “You might think the bodies are just discarded out in the desert, dumped in a mass grave of some kind. Few will speak of what I am about to tell you, but there are rumors that the desert people are so desperate for water that they render down the bodies for whatever moisture is found within the flesh.”
Phillips looked decidedly queasy, but Vor recognized the necessities in such a harsh place. “We have the option to leave here, Captain. Many of these people don’t. When they die on Arrakis, they vanish.” He felt a heaviness in his chest.
Not wanting the body of Griffin Harkonnen to suffer a similar fate, Vor had sent it home so that the young man could be buried on family ground.
Griffin had been a young man out of his depth who sought unwise and unchanneled revenge. Vor understood why Griffin blamed him for the disgrace of House Harkonnen, but the young man hadn’t needed to die.
I couldn’t save him, Vor thought. And the Harkonnens continued to hate him. Was that all Vor had accomplished with his life? Was that his legacy now, the shadow that would cling to his family name?
He was the son of the hated cymek Titan Agamemnon, but Vor had overcome that to become the greatest Hero of the Jihad. He had won the Battle of Corrin and defeated the thinking machines forever. But he was also responsible for the disgrace of his protégé Abulurd Harkonnen, which had effectively brought down that entire noble house and sent them into exile.…
He wished he could have traveled to Lankiveil with Griffin’s body, faced the family, explained what had happened rather than writing a brief, cryptic note. But the Harkonnens already hated him too much and would have killed him on the spot. His peace overture would have been seen as pouring salt on an open wound. He had shirked his responsibility, though, and there was no excuse for that, no matter how painful it might have been.
Uneasy, Captain Phillips turned away from the wrapped bodies. “I can’t get off this planet soon enough.”
* * *
AS THE CARGO ship lifted off from Arrakis and headed for the Nalgan Shipping spacefolder waiting in orbit, Vor sat in the copilot seat. He instinctively watched the instruments and everything the captain did, though he had other things on his mind.
In his long, long life, Vor had always tried to do the moral thing, taking actions he would not later regret. But in living for more than two centuries, he’d done too many things that he wished had turned out differently … things that hung in his memory, incomplete. At the end of the Jihad, he had retired and tried to vanish into history, but history would not let him go. His own memories would not let him go.
No matter which planet he visited, he saw reminders of the past, and things he wanted to change about the future. Thoughts of Griffin Harkonnen, and memories of how Vorian had harmed the Harkonnens – whether intentionally or accidentally – moved to the forefront of his awareness and whispered like ghosts around him.
Vor didn’t know what his legacy would be if he vanished entirely from the Imperium. How would he define the purpose of his life? For decades he’d been a warrior – a hero to most, but a villain to others. He had left a trail of death, destruction, and broken dreams. In all that time, he especially regretted losing two much-loved women – Leronica, who died on Salusa Secundus at age ninety-three even before the end of the Jihad, and most recently his dear Mariella, whom he’d married on Kepler and then stayed with as she, too, grew old … until Emperor Salvador forced him to leave Kepler and vanish again. Given the choice, Mariella had opted not to go with him, and instead remained with their children and grandchildren.
His heart ached from missing both of those women, and his children, and his grandchildren. Many decades ago, he’d been estranged from his twin sons by Leronica, and had left all of them behind. He probably had many other grandchildren he didn’t know about, even great-great-grandchildren, and more.
Since Griffin’s death, he had simply been going nowhere, wandering without a destination, keeping his head down … but why shouldn’t he at least try to do some good? He had not been born to be a passive bystander – and he could not remain invisible indefinitely. He longed to accomplish something that really mattered.
As the spice-loaded shuttle approached the Nalgan spacefolder in orbit, he gazed out at the stars. Since signing aboard as a footloose crewman, he had continued to feel the guilt gnawing at him, and this return to Arrakis only made the sting more painful.
Vor decided he had to heal the wounds. For the sake of all his descendants, regardless of where they were, the name of Atreides was bigger than he was.
When the cargo ship settled into its docking hold aboard the spacefolder, Vor said to Captain Phillips, “I’m sorry, but I have … another calling. I’ll need to leave the ship as soon as I can arrange alternate passage.”
The captain looked shocked, even dismayed. “But I’ve come to depend on you! Do you need a raise?” He smiled awkwardly. “Do you want my job? I’d be happy to switch places – I’d never offer that deal to anyone else, but you’re the most qualified pilot and worker I’ve ever had.”
“No, it’s not about money or position.” In fact, Vor had great wealth distributed across numerous planetary banks, a fortune he had acquired over his long life. “There are … certain issues I need to resolve from my past. I regret the damned short notice. I’m sorry to do this to you.”
Phillips waited for further details, but Vor kept them to himself. Finally the captain sighed. “It’s obvious to anyone that you’re overqualified for your job – I should have guessed you were carrying a book of secrets in your brain.”
Vor gave a mysterious nod. Actually, my secrets would fill many volumes, not just one book. “Maybe our paths will cross in the future.”
Phillips placed a muscular arm over his shoulder. “No need to arrange for alternate transportation. I’ll get you wherever you want to go, and Nalgan Shipping will pay for it. What is our destination?”
After a moment of intense thought, Vor said, “Lankiveil.”
Chapter 16 (The desert is endless)
The desert is endless. Even if one journeys across the dunes all through the day and night, at sunrise the horizon will be just as far away and look the same as the day before.
– saying of the desert
When Draigo Roget returned to Arrakis City and breathed the crackling dry air, he viewed the details around him with the catalog focus of a trained Mentat. He also drew upon his own experiences. He had been to this planet many times.
Among Draigo’s other duties, Directeur Venport had delegated oversight of the spice-harvesting operations to him. With his Mentat focus and loyalty to VenHold, he had already improved the efficiency and profitability of the work.
Since leaving the Lampadas school, Draigo had trained several Mentat candidates of his own. Given the volatility of the Butlerian fanatics, Directeur Venport knew it was too dangerous to infiltrate more operatives into the Mentat academy right now. If he did, the paranoid Manford Torondo might discover them – and kill them. Better that Draigo teach the candidates himself.
Through VenHold intermediaries, he had obtained a supply of a promising new thought-focusing drug, sapho, and had begun administering it in small doses to some of his students as an experiment; Headmaster Albans kept a supply in the Lampadas school, but had not used it. Draigo’s early results looked promising, but he intended to proceed slowly.
Several of Draigo’s trainees worked in Arrakis City as Combined Mercantiles employees, and two of his new Mentats met him at the spaceport. Needing no pleasantries, Draigo asked for a report as they made their way to company headquarters. The first Mentat, a small man with a high voice, delivered a crisp summary of their activities. “We’ve been studying weather patterns on Arrakis, analyzing images from our new proprietary meteorological satellites. The weather is capricious, but we are developing general models. The more efficiently we predict storms, the better we can plan our harvesting operations.”
“And reduce equipment losses,” said the second Mentat, a taller, slightly older man.
“Any progress on coping with the giant sandworms?” Draigo asked. “Can we detect them earlier or drive them away when they attack our spice-harvesting operations?”
“No progress, sir,” said the first Mentat. “The sandworms cannot be stopped.”
Draigo paused to think about that for a moment, then gave a curt nod. He accepted their conclusion. “Unfortunate.”
The Combined Mercantiles building was cool inside, and the air remained dry. There were no real windows in the sealed facility, but on the wall of the conference room was a fake picture window showing a rugged shoreline and crashing waves under a sky filled with thick rain clouds, a place the Arrakis natives had never seen.
“We brought several Freemen candidates, as you requested. Some refused, but one was curious enough to convince the others.”
“A curious Freeman?” Draigo said. “That is a good sign.”
Six dusty, tanned young men sat in the room around a long table. Draigo Roget studied them in silence, and they did the same to him. All had blue-within-blue eyes, indicating a lifetime of exposure to melange – which would need to be disguised, so as not to rouse suspicions offworld. That problem could be resolved.
Some of the desert people were uneasy, and regarded the wall image of the ocean with awe and intimidation. One of the young men was more fascinated than the others, and his intensity seemed to encourage them to pay attention. Because they were wrapped in spice-fiber robes covered with grit, and their bodies encased in the distillation suits necessary for desert survival, it took Draigo a moment to realize that one of the group was a female.
After a long pause of mutual assessment, the Mentat said, “I have been wanting to speak with you. You are the free people of the desert?”
A young man, with a lean face and pointed chin, glanced at his companions, then rose to his feet. “We are not free people, if we are prisoners of the enticing offer your men made to us.”
“And you want to hear it, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“We should go back out to the sietch,” said a scowling Freeman with creased, weathered skin. “We do not belong here.”
“I don’t belong out there either,” said the young man with the pointed chin. “We discussed this. I thought you wanted to learn about the other worlds.”
“I have the whole desert to see,” grumbled the scowling Freeman. He slumped back into his chair.
The lone woman among them looked at Draigo and pressed, “How do we know we can trust you?” She was so lean and leathery that her beauty had been leached out by the heat and the arid climate. Her body had no spare moisture whatsoever to fill out her breasts in a normal manner, and her distilling suit concealed even the hint of a curve.
Draigo chuckled. “We have done nothing to make you doubt us. We showed you hospitality, offered you water, and you drank it. You may leave if you don’t wish to be here, but first take a look at the world featured on the wall. We can take you there.” He pointed. “And to many other planets. Do none of the Freemen dream of the rest of the universe? If you don’t like it, you can go back to your squalid desert.”
“Why did you ask us to come here?” said another of the young men.
“Because you have been sabotaging our spice-harvesting equipment,” Draigo said, stating a fact, not accusing them. “You ruined some of our flyers, contaminated their energy packs with sand and breached their airtight seals.”
The young man with the pointed chin scowled. “We know nothing of such crimes. You cannot prove we had any part of that.”
“I don’t care whether it was you,” Draigo said. “And even if I were to punish you, someone else would come, and someone else after that. It would be like using one hand to block sand from entering a home while leaving the door wide open.”
“Then why are we here?” demanded the young woman.
“First, tell me your names,” Draigo said.
“A name is a private thing, not given lightly,” she said. “Have you earned it?”
Draigo smiled. “I offered you water. Is it so much to ask for your names in return?”
The woman smiled stiffly and said, “I am Lillis. The others can give you their names if they like. I am not afraid.”
Draigo chuckled again. “At least one is without fear.”
“I am Taref,” said the one with the pointed chin, who seemed to be the leader. The other four, with varying degrees of reluctance, introduced themselves as Shurko (the gruff one), Bentur, Chumel, and Waddoch.
Draigo paced the room. He had been out in the desert aboard the spice factories himself; twice he had even watched huge worms destroy harvesting equipment that could not be whisked away in time. He tended to agree with his Mentats’ assessment that no obvious defenses existed against such leviathans. He had even heard through reliable sources that the Freemen knew how to ride sandworms across great distances. Draigo wasn’t sure he believed that incredible story, but there were so many reports.…
“Your people have been sabotaging our equipment. I doubt you do it because you hate the offworlders who harvest spice. Combined Mercantiles provides necessary materials here in Arrakis City, if you choose to purchase them, but otherwise we leave tribes alone out in your desert. I think young people like yourselves vandalize our equipment because you are bored and restless. It is entertainment and a challenge. You wish to make a mark.”
Draigo watched their expressions. These young Freemen were guarded, but not well practiced in concealing their emotions. He saw a hunger in their brown and leathery faces, their dark, intensely blue eyes.
“Let me offer you an opportunity, a way to channel your abilities. You know the desert … and you know that the desert is not everything in the universe.” He gestured toward the projection wall. “Wouldn’t you like to go somewhere different, perhaps to a planet with so much water you could immerse yourself in it, or look up in the sky and see droplets falling through the air, like sand whipped up by a storm?” He listened to their muttering, nodded again at the oceanscape. “Caladan isn’t even a special world. No one else in the Imperium finds it remarkable at all.”
“How can that be?” Lillis couldn’t take her eyes from images of the stormy sea. “So much water in one place!”
Draigo laughed. “It’s called an ocean. Most worlds have them, at least the ones on which people live. Wouldn’t you like to see that planet firsthand, and others like it? I can take you from this desert, show you there’s much more than the dunes of Arrakis.”
“I have misgivings about this,” said Shurko. “My family and the desert have always been good enough for me.”
Taref snorted. “I have heard you say otherwise.”
Shurko looked cowed. “I was just agreeing with you when I said it. But that does not mean I meant to abandon the desert entirely.”
“If you are uneasy about it, then you’re not the sort of person I’m searching for,” Draigo said. “And if you go with us, we can bring you back in a year if you like, a much wiser and more experienced person.”
“I want to see the ocean,” Taref said, as if daring the others to disagree with him. He had the mannerisms of a natural leader, but his skill-set and his confidence were not yet well honed. “And you all have said as much to me when we were out in camp.”
His remaining companions looked at one another. They had been waiting for Taref’s lead, and they all agreed to accept the offer, although with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Shurko wavered and finally said, “Then I will go along as well.”
Draigo hardened his voice. “I’m not interested in volunteers who change their minds so easily. What we ask will be difficult, but exhilarating. A chance that no other Freeman has been given. Do you want to be the first … or do you want to be nothing?”
Now, however, it was a matter of pride for Shurko. “I give you my word. I will go with my friends. We will stay together.”
Lillis expressed caution. “What is it you want from us in return?”
Draigo smiled. “Do what you’ve already proved you can do so well – sabotage. We’ll train you. On Arrakis you may understand how spice-harvesting machinery works, but spaceships with Holtzman engines are vastly more complicated. A person requires decades of education and innate intelligence to understand how a foldspace engine functions.” He paused to look at the desert people, not bothering to conceal a little disdain. “Fortunately, it takes far less training to make such an engine not function.”
Waddoch was surprised. “Sabotage? Why would you want us to ruin one of your own spaceships?”
“I want you to sabotage the spaceships of a rival company: EsconTran.”
The name obviously meant nothing to the Freemen. His two Mentat trainees were alert and attentive. Draigo tried a different explanation. “Do you not have tribes? Rivalries?”
“Of course,” said Taref. “All of us do. I am the son of a Naib.”
“The third son of a Naib,” Lillis said.
“Because of my two older brothers, I will never rule the tribe.”
“Our company has rivalries with other shipping companies. We wish to harm them.” Now the desert people understood the situation.
Taref lowered his voice, which was rich with wonder and awe. “Even if I will never be Naib, I will be the only one of my family to behold a fortune in water such as that.” He looked to the window wall. “I will be the only one to see what is out there.”
Draigo nodded. “First, let me take you and your companions to Kolhar. We will instruct you there, create convincing new identities for each of you. Because you come from Arrakis, you won’t be in any Imperial security records. Your names and identities will raise no concerns, but we need to give you eye films to cover your blue eyes, or they will draw too much attention. Ostensibly, you’ll be simple workers, proficient in basic engine maintenance, because we will give you that expertise. And then you’ll secretly make certain adjustments to critical parts and systems. EsconTran already has a dismal safety record, and with your help we can make it far worse.”
Taref glanced at his companions, then back at the faux-ocean window. When he finally turned to face Draigo, the Mentat recognized the sparkling hunger there, a longing to see new vistas and to break free from the dreary desert. “If you take us away from here and show us new worlds, Draigo Roget, then wrecking a few spaceships for you is a small price for us to pay.”
