Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (26 page)

Eight years old, Ishmael had been foraging by himself for a long time now. His maternal grandfather, who had raised him after the death of his parents, had taught him well. Ishmael knew how to unearth secret stashes of qaraa eggs that even the giant eels couldn’t find.

He’d found a good patch of salad leaves and had caught two fish, one of a species he’d never seen before. His basket clattered and jiggled as the venomous creatures inside crawled up and down the walls, thrusting spiny black legs through the tiny holes. He had captured eighteen milkbugs today, too, each as large as his hand. The family would eat well tonight!

But as he approached the village, guiding his boat smoothly through the brown water, Ishmael heard shouts and screams along with buzzing sounds. Static discharges. Ishmael paddled quickly but cautiously. The reeds were too tall for him to see anything.

As he rounded an oxbow, he saw the slaver ships, one of the biggest fears of his tribe and the reason they had built their village in such an isolated place. Several huts had been toppled, while others were afire. Impossible!

The boy wanted to yell and charge in fighting, but better judgment told him to flee. Ishmael watched Tlulaxa slavers pointing their stun-projectors, dropping one villager after another. Some of the people tried to hide inside dwellings, but raiders smashed their way through.

The Zensunni had no locks on their doors, no shielded places to hide. As followers of Buddallah, they were a peaceful people. Never had there been war among villages on Harmonthep; at least Ishmael had never heard of such a thing.

His heart pounded. Such a loud commotion would attract the giant eels, though the predators were generally sluggish in the daytime. If these raiders did not quickly retrieve stunned villagers who had fallen into the water, the eels would have a feast. . . .

Without making so much as a ripple on the water, Ishmael moved his boat closer to one of the raider ships. He saw his cousin Taina crumple from a stun-blast and then be grabbed by dirty-looking men who loaded her motionless body onto a wide metal raft.

Ishmael didn’t know what to do. He heard a roaring sound in his ears— his own blood flowing, his gasping breath.

Then his grandfather, Weyop, pushed forward to the center of the huts, and faced the chaos. The old leader carried a thin bronze gong dangling from a pole, symbol of his office as the village spokesman. Ishmael’s grandfather did not seem at all afraid, and the boy felt instant relief. He had faith in the wise man, who always found a way to resolve disputes. Weyop would save the villagers now.

But deep in his heart, Ishmael felt a terrible dread, knowing that this would not end so simply.

RYX HANNEM PROVED to be a fairly good shot. After the novice had stunned his first captive, he continued with enthusiasm. Keedair kept a mental count, estimating the haul, though he would not have an accurate tally until the unconscious bodies were placed inside stasis coffins for transport.

Keedair clenched his jaw as the Zensunnis wailed and pleaded— probably in much the same manner as the population of Giedi Prime had begged during the recent thinking-machine conquest. Keedair had business associates in Giedi City, but he doubted he’d ever see them alive again.

No, he couldn’t dredge up any sympathy for these Zensunni bastards.

Hannem called attention to an old man who stepped forward. “What does he think he’s doing, sir?” The old man repeatedly banged a metallic gong on a long staff. Hannem raised his stunner. “Do we take him?”

Keedair shook his head. “Too old. Don’t even waste a stun-blast on him.”

Two of the experienced slavers thought the same way. They broke the tribal leader’s staff and pushed him into the water, then laughed when he shouted curses in a mixture of his native tongue and Galach, a universal language among the human planets. The humiliated old man swam to shore.

The remaining villagers wailed and wept, but most of the healthy young ones were already stunned and in the boats. Old women and dirty children cried out, but attempted no resistance. Keedair looked knowingly at Ryx Hannem.

Suddenly a boy sprang out of the reeds behind them, jumping from a narrow boat. He threw sticks at Hannem and Keedair, yelling something about his grandfather. Keedair ducked. A rock narrowly missed him.

Then the boy grabbed a basket out of his boat and hurled it at Hannem. The flimsy wickerwork broke and spilled a swarm of huge spiny-legged insects that tumbled over Hannem’s chest and face, biting. The copilot let out a thin shriek as he batted at the creatures, squashing them, but they continued to scramble up his arms and clothes. Their smashed bodies oozed a thick milky substance that looked like pus.

Keedair grabbed Hannem’s stun-projector and directed it at the scrappy youth. As the boy fell, Keedair also sprayed his copilot with a paralyzing blast. It wasn’t the best way, but at least it incapacitated the aggressive venomous insects, in addition to Hannem. Once aboard the cargo ship, they would put the injured slaver into a stasis coffin, along with the new captives. Keedair didn’t know if the lad would die, or just have nightmares for the rest of his life.

He shouted for the rest of the Tlulaxa to gather up the unconscious people. It looked as if they might need the second cargo ship after all.
Not a bad day
, he thought. He studied the motionless form of the native boy; the scrappy Zensunni youth was certainly impetuous and foolish. This one would be a handful for whichever human master purchased him.

But that wasn’t Keedair’s concern. Let Poritrin deal with the problem. Even stunned and dirty, the wiry boy looked healthy enough, though maybe a little young to take with the other slaves. Out of annoyance, Keedair decided to include the youth anyway. This one had caused him trouble and might need punishment, especially if Hannem ended up dying.

The old village elder stood on the shore, soaking wet, shouting Buddislamic sutras at the raiders, telling them the errors of their ways. Bodies floated in the water, facedown. Some of the desperate villagers used poles to nudge the bodies back toward shore, sniveling and wailing the whole time.

Keedair saw large black serpentine forms swimming along the narrow canals, attracted by the noise. One of them raised its head out of the water and snapped a fang-filled mouth. The sight of the ferocious animal sent a shudder down Keedair’s back. Who knew what other creatures lived around here?

Anxious to be away from the stinking swamps, he urged his crew to hurry. He watched as the new slaves were loaded onto the ships. He would be glad to get back aboard his own clean vessel. Nevertheless, the profits from this operation would be well worth the inconvenience and discomfort.

When all was ready, he climbed back into his own ship, started the engines and retracted the mud-encrusted stabilizers. As he lifted off into the hazy sky, Tuk Keedair looked down into the marsh and watched the giant eels begin to feed on a few stray bodies.

Z
ufa Cenva chose her most talented student to be Rossak’s first weapon against the cymeks on Giedi Prime. Strong and dedicated, the Sorceress Heoma appeared more than ready to answer the call.

From her cliff city on Rossak, Zufa coordinated the operation with the League Armada. The chief Sorceress bit her lower lip and blinked stinging tears of pride from her eyes.

Serena Butler’s unexpected and ill-advised mission provided the necessary impetus to galvanize the Armada into an offensive. Amidst the arguing and saber-rattling, Xavier Harkonnen had put forth a well-integrated operational plan for the attack. Then he had convinced his commanding officer to let him spearhead the strike. Now, high over Rossak, the battle group of ballista battleships and javelin destroyers was ready to depart from the orbital stations.

The initial retaliation against the machine invaders must be a dramatic and complete victory, much more than a localized fight. Each planet affected the others, like the links of a chain. Tercero Harkonnen would lead an Armada battle group, carrying Tio Holtzman’s brand new field-portable scramblers to knock out key robotic installations.

A Sorceress, though, must deal with the cymeks, whose human brains would be unaffected by the scrambler pulse. Eager for the opportunity, Heoma had accepted her role without hesitation.

She was a lean young woman, twenty-three years old, with ivory-white hair, almond eyes, and a plain-featured face that belied the strength and turmoil within her powerful mind. But Zufa knew more than just this woman’s mental skills; she knew Heoma as a dear person, a daughter like she wished she’d had herself. Heoma was the eldest of five sisters; three of the others had already been indoctrinated as Sorceress trainees.

Zufa stood before her top protégé and placed her hands on Heoma’s bony shoulders. “You understand how much rides on this. I know you will not disappoint me, or humanity.”

“I will achieve everything you expect of me,” Heoma promised. “Perhaps even more.”

Zufa’s heart swelled. As the straight-backed Heoma boarded the shuttle, the chief Sorceress called after her, “You won’t be alone. We all ride on your wings.”

During the final preparations, with stern words and a hard expression, Zufa had spoken to the strongest Rossak men, chastising them for their inability to play a useful part in the crucial fight. Simply because they were impotent telepathically did not preclude their participation in other ways. The assault on Giedi Prime needed their help as well. With her flinty gaze, the statuesque Sorceress had shamed six of them into accompanying Heoma as bodyguards.

The Rossak men brought their personal supplies of stimulants and mind-numbing painkillers, provided by Aurelius Venport. They had undergone rigorous weapons training and learned powerful hand-to-hand combat techniques. When the time came, they would become fanatic warriors, charging into battle with no concern for their own survival, with no goal but to enable the Sorceress weapon to get close enough to the cymeks. Venport had prepared the drugs carefully, creating a cocktail that would keep the men functional through the worst horrors.

As she watched the shuttle ascend in a silvery arc to the waiting javelins and ballistas, Zufa’s thoughts were in turmoil, full of regret and anticipation. She tried to wall those emotions behind a shield of confidence and a vow of duty.

Aurelius Venport came to stand silently beside her, as if he too was at a loss for words. The man was perceptive enough to pick up on Zufa’s sadness at seeing her prize student depart. “It’ll be all right.”

“No it won’t. But she will succeed.”

Venport looked at her with a warm understanding that penetrated Zufa’s prickly demeanor. “I know you wish you could have been the first weapon yourself, my dear. Heoma is certainly talented, but
you
are unquestionably more skilled than anyone. Just remember that you’re still recovering from your miscarriage, and that weakness might have jeopardized the mission.”

“And I am bound by the higher responsibility of training others.” Zufa watched the shuttle disappear into the thin clouds. “I have no choice but to remain here and do what I can.”

“Funny. I was thinking the same thing about my own work.”

Recalling the gullible male bodyguards, the Sorceress studied her mate with undisguised scorn. His patrician eyes were incisive, clear of corrupting drugs, but his independent attitude grated on her. “Why did you not volunteer to join the operation, Aurelius? Or is it not in you to do something selfless, beyond your perception of yourself?”

“I am a patriot in my own way.” Venport returned her expression with a wry smile. “But I never expect you to see it.”

She had no response for that, and the two of them continued to stare blankly at the sky long after the shuttle had reached the stations in orbit.

D
espite Magnus Sumi’s optimistic report, the secondary shield-transmitting station on Giedi Prime was not at all near completion.

When Serena’s covert team landed on the rocky, wind-swept island in the northern sea, they spent a day bringing their supplies and equipment to shore, breaking open the barracks buildings and restarting the power-generating huts. The parabolic towers for the scrambler-shield transmitters stood like frost-encrusted skeletons. But none of the systems were functional.

Once Brigit Paterson had scanned the status of the work, the engineer came to Serena with a frown on her wind-chapped face. “The best I can say is that it won’t be
impossible
to complete the work.” She shrugged her broad shoulders. “The framework and heavy construction are all completed, but most of the components have not yet been wired. The substations aren’t linked, and the cables haven’t even been strung to the highest girders.” She pointed to the ice-slick bars moaning in the breeze.

Serena did not envy the volunteer who would climb up there and finish the vital linkages. “We don’t know exactly when Xavier is bringing the Armada for us, but if you’re not done by the time those ships arrive, we may as well not bother. We’ll have let him down, along with the people of Giedi Prime.”

Brigit summoned her engineers for an emergency meeting. “We brought enough stimulants along. We can work round the clock, provided we rig area lighting to illuminate the platforms.”

“Do it,” Serena said, “and press us into service if there’s anything we can do. Commander Wibsen was looking forward to a few days of rest, but we’ll shake him out of his bunk if we have to, and make him useful.”

Brigit gave a wry smile. “I’d like to see that.”

Over the next week they worked unmolested. The thinking machines did not know they had sneaked in, or what they were doing. Suffering no more than a few minor bruises, the team completed the most perilous parts of the job. While the task was ninety-percent complete— at least, according to the plan on paper— Brigit Paterson said the remaining steps were the most time-consuming ones.