Dune (28 page)

“This the ‘thopter we’re supposed to use?” he asked, and turned to watch his
companion’s lips.

“It’s the one the traitor said was fixed for desert work,” the other said.

Scarface nodded. “But it’s one of them little liaison jobs. Ain’t room in
there for more’n them an’ two of us.”

“Two’s enough,” said the litter-?bearer, moving up close and presenting his
lips for reading. “We can take care of it from here on, Kinet.”

“The Baron he told me to make sure what happened to them two,” Scarface
said.

“What you so worried about?” asked another trooper from behind the litter-
bearer.

“She is a Bene Gesserit witch,” the deaf one said. “They have powers.”

“Ah-?h-?h . . . ”The litter-?bearer made the sign of the fist at his ear. “One
of them, eh? Know whatcha mean.”

The trooper behind him grunted. “She’ll be worm meat soon enough. Don’t
suppose even a Bene Gesserit witch has powers over one of them big worms. Eh,
Czigo?” He nudged the litter-?bearer.

“Yee-?up,” the litter-?bearer said. He returned to the litter, took Jessica’s
shoulders. “C’mon, Kinet. You can go along if you wants to make sure what
happens.”

“It is nice of you to invite me, Czigo,” Scarface said.

Jessica felt herself lifted, the wing shadow spinning–stars. She was pushed
into the rear of the ‘thopter, her krimskell fiber bindings examined, and she
was strapped down. Paul was jammed in beside her, strapped securely, and she
noted his bonds were simple rope.

Scarface, the deaf one they called Kinet, took his place in front. The
litter-?bearer, the one they called Czigo, came around and took the other front
seat.

Kinet closed his door, bent to the controls. The ‘thopter took off in a
wing-?tucked surge, headed south over the Shield Wall. Czigo tapped his
companion’s shoulder, said: “Whyn’t you turn around and keep an eye on them
two?”

“Sure you know the way to go?” Kinet watched Czigo’s lips.

“I listened to the traitor same’s you.”

Kinet swiveled his seat. Jessica saw the glint of starlight on a lasgun in
his hand. The ‘thopter’s light-?walled interior seemed to collect illumination as
her eyes adjusted, but the guard’s scarred face remained dim. Jessica tested her
seat belt, found it loose. She felt roughness in the strap against her left arm,
realized the strap had been almost severed, would snap at a sudden jerk.

Has someone been at this ‘thopter, preparing it for us? she wondered. Who?
Slowly, she twisted her bound feet clear of Paul’s.

“Sure do seem a shame to waste a good-?looking woman like this,” Scarface
said. “You ever have any highborn types?” He turned to look at the pilot.
“Bene Gesserit ain’t all highborn,” the pilot said.

“But they all looks heighty.”

He can see me plain enough, Jessica thought. She brought her bound legs up
onto the seat, curled into a sinuous ball, staring at Scarface.

“Real pretty, she is,” Kinet said. He wet his lips with his tongue. “Sure do
seem a shame.” He looked at Czigo.

“You thinking what I think you’re thinking?” the pilot asked.

“Who’d be to know?” the guard asked. “Afterwards . . . ” He shrugged. “I
just never had me no highborns. Might never get a chance like this one again.”

“You lay a hand on my mother . . . ” Paul grated. He glared at Scarface.

“Hey!” the pilot laughed. “Cub’s got a bark. Ain’t got no bite, though.”

And Jessica thought; Paul’s pitching his voice too high. It may work,
though.

They flew on in silence.

These poor fools, Jessica thought, studying her guards and reviewing the
Baron’s words. They’ll be killed as soon as they report success on their
mission. The Baron wants no witnesses.

The ‘thopter banked over the southern rim of the Shield Wall, and Jessica
saw a moonshadowed expanse of sand beneath them.

“This oughta be far enough,” the pilot said. “The traitor said to put’em on
the sand anywhere near the Shield Wall.” He dipped the craft toward the dunes in
a long, falling stoop, brought it up stiffly over the desert surface.

Jessica saw Paul begin taking the rhythmic breaths of the calming exercise.
He closed his eyes, opened them. Jessica stared, helpless to aid him. He hasn’t
mastered the Voice yet, she thought, if he fails . . .

The ‘thopter touched sand with a soft lurch, and Jessica, looking north back
across the Shield Wall, saw a shadow of wings settle out of sight up there.

Someone’s following us! she thought. Who? Then: The ones the Baron set to
watch this pair. And there’ll be watchers for the watchers, too.

Czigo shut off his wing rotors. Silence flooded in upon them.

Jessica turned her head. She could see out the window beyond Scarface a dim
glow of light from a rising moon, a frosted rim of rock rising from the desert.
Sandblast ridges streaked its sides.

Paul cleared his throat.

The pilot said: “Now, Kinet?”

“I dunno, Czigo.”

Czigo turned, said: “Ah-?h-?h, look.” He reached out for Jessica’s skirt.

“Remove her gag,” Paul commanded.

Jessica felt the words rolling in the air. The tone, the timbre excellent–
imperative, very sharp. A slightly lower pitch would have been better, but it
could still fall within this man’s spectrum.

Czigo shifted his hand up to the band around Jessica’s mouth, slipped the
knot on the gag.

“Stop that!” Kinet ordered.

“Ah, shut your trap,” Czigo said. “Her hands’re tied.” He freed the knot and
the binding dropped. His eyes glittered as he studied Jessica.

Kinet put a hand on the pilot’s arm. “Look, Czigo, no need to . . . ”

Jessica twisted her neck, spat out the gag. She pitched her voice in low,
intimate tones. “Gentlemen! No need to fight over me.” At the same time, she
writhed sinuously for Kinet’s benefit.

She saw them grow tense, knowing that in this instant they were convinced of
the need to fight over her. Their disagreement required no other reason. In
their minds, they were fighting over her.

She held her face high in the instrument glow to be sure Kinet would read
her lips, said: “You mustn’t disagree.” They drew farther apart, glanced warily
at each other. “Is any woman worth fighting over?” she asked.
By uttering the words, by being there, she made herself infinitely worth
their fighting.

Paul clamped his lips tightly closed, forced himself to be silent. There had
been the one chance for him to succeed with the Voice. Now–everything depended
on his mother whose experience went so far beyond his own.

“Yeah,” Scarface said. “No need to fight over . . . ”

His hand flashed toward the pilot’s neck. The blow was met by a splash of
metal that caught the arm and in the same motion slammed into Kinet’s chest.

Scarface groaned, sagged backward against his door.

“Thought I was some dummy didn’t know that trick,” Czigo said. He brought
back his hand, revealing the knife. It glittered in reflected moonlight.

“Now for the cub,” he said and leaned toward Paul.

“No need for that,” Jessica murmured.

Czigo hesitated.

“Wouldn’t you rather have me cooperative?” Jessica asked. “Give the boy a
chance.” Her lip curled in a sneer. “Little enough chance he’d have out there in
that sand. Give him that and . . . ” She smiled. “You could find yourself well
rewarded.”

Czigo glanced left, right, returned his attention to Jessica. “I’ve heard me
what can happen to a man in this desert,” he said. “Boy might find the knife a
kindness.”

“Is it so much I ask?” Jessica pleaded.

“You’re trying to trick me,” Czigo muttered.

“I don’t want to see my son die,” Jessica said. “Is that a trick?”

Czigo moved back, elbowed the door latch. He grabbed Paul, dragged him
across the seat, pushed him half out the door and held the knife posed. “What’ll
y’ do, cub, if I cut y’r bonds?”

“He’ll leave here immediately and head for those rocks,” Jessica said.

“Is that what y’ll do, cub?” Czigo asked.

Paul’s voice was properly surly. “Yes.”

The knife moved down, slashed the bindings of his legs. Paul felt the hand
on his back to hurl him down onto the sand, feigned a lurch against the
doorframe for purchase, turned as though to catch himself, lashed out with his
right foot.

The toe was aimed with a precision that did credit to his long years of
training, as though all of that training focused on this instant. Almost every
muscle of his body cooperated in the placement of it. The tip struck the soft
part of Czigo’s abdomen just below the sternum, slammed upward with terrible
force over the liver and through the diaphragm to crush the right ventricle of
the man’s heart.

With one gurgling scream, the guard jerked backward across the seats. Paul,
unable to use his hands, continued his tumble onto the sand, landing with a roll
that took up the force and brought him back to his feet in one motion. He dove
back into the cabin, found the knife and held it in his teeth while his mother
sawed her bonds. She took the blade and freed his hands.

“I could’ve handled him,” she said. “He’d have had to cut my bindings. That
was a foolish risk.”

“I saw the opening and used it,” he said.

She heard the harsh control in his voice, said: “Yueh’s house sign is
scrawled on the ceiling of this cabin.”

He looked up, saw the curling symbol.

“Get out and let us study this craft,” she said. “There’s a bundle under the
pilot’s seat. I felt it when we got in.”

“Bomb?”

“Doubt it. There’s something peculiar here.”

Paul leaped out to the sand and Jessica followed. She turned, reached under
the seat for the strange bundle, seeing Czigo’s feet close to her face, feeling
dampness on the bundle as she removed it, realizing the dampness was the pilot’s
blood.

Waste of moisture, she thought, knowing that this was Arrakeen thinking.

Paul stared around them, saw the rock scarp lifting out of the desert like a
beach rising from the sea, wind-?carved palisades beyond. He turned back as his
mother lifted the bundle from the ‘thopter, saw her stare across the dunes
toward the Shield Wall. He looked to see what drew her attention, saw another
‘thopter swooping toward them, realized they’d not have time to clear the bodies
out of this ‘thopter and escape.

“Run, Paul!” Jessica shouted. “It’s Harkonnens!”

= = = = = =

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife–chopping off what’s incomplete and
saying: “Now, it’s complete because it’s ended here.”
-from “Collected Sayings of, Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

A man in Harkonnen uniform skidded to a stop at the end of the hall, stared
in at Yueh, taking in at a single glance Mapes’ body, the sprawled form of the
Duke, Yueh standing there. The man held a lasgun in his right hand. There was a
casual air of brutality about him, a sense of toughness and poise that sent a
shiver through Yueh.

Sardaukar, Yueh thought. A Bashar by the look of him. Probably one of the
Emperor’s own sent here to keep an eye on things. No matter what the uniform,
there’s no disguising them.

“You’re Yueh,” the man said. He looked speculatively at the Suk School ring
on the Doctor’s hair, stared once at the diamond tattoo and then met Yueh’s
eyes.

“I am Yueh,” the Doctor said.

“You can relax, Yueh,” the man said. “When you dropped the house shields we
came right in. Everything’s under control here. Is this the Duke?”

“This is the Duke.”

“Dead?”

“Merely unconscious. I suggest you tie him.”

“Did you do for these others?” He glanced back down the hall where Mapes’
body lay.

“More’s the pity,” Yueh muttered.

“Pity!” the Sardaukar sneered. He advanced, looked down at Leto. “So that’s
the great Red Duke.”

If I had doubts about what this man is, that would end them, Yueh thought.
Only the Emperor calls the Atreides the Red Duke.

The Sardaukar reached down, cut the red hawk insignia from Leto’s uniform.
“Little souvenir,” he said. “Where’s the ducal signet ring?”

“He doesn’t have it on him,” Yueh said.

“I can see that!” the Sardaukar snapped.

Yueh stiffened, swallowed, if they press me, bring in a Truthsayer, they’ll
find out about the ring, about the ‘thopter I prepared–all will fail.

“Sometimes the Duke sent the ring with a messenger as surety that an order
came directly from him,” Yueh said.

“Must be damned trusted messengers,” the Sardaukar muttered.

“Aren’t you going to tie him?” Yueh ventured.

“How long’ll he be unconscious?”

“Two hours or so. I wasn’t as precise with his dosage as I was for the woman
and boy.”

The Sardaukar spurned the Duke with his toe. “This was nothing to fear even
when awake. When will the woman and boy awaken?”

“About ten minutes.”
“So soon?”

“I was told the Baron would arrive immediately behind his men.”

“So he will. You’ll wait outside, Yueh.” He shot a hard glance at Yueh.
“Now!”

Yueh glanced at Leto. “What about . . . ”

“He’ll be delivered to the Baron all properly trussed like a roast for the
oven.” Again, the Sardaukar looked at the diamond tattoo on Yueh’s forehead.
“You’re known; you’ll be safe enough in the halls. We’ve no more time for chit-
chat, traitor. I hear the others coming.”

Traitor, Yueh thought. He lowered his gaze, pressed past the Sardaukar,
knowing this as a foretaste of how history would remember him: Yueh the traitor.

He passed more bodies on his way to the front entrance and glanced at them,
fearful that one might be Paul or Jessica. All were house troopers or wore
Harkonnen uniform.

Harkonnen guards came alert, staring at him as he emerged from the front
entrance into flame-?lighted night. The palms along the road had been fired to
illuminate the house. Black smoke from the flammables used to ignite the trees
poured upward through orange flames.