Sisterhood of Dune (21 page)

The Emperor sat forward on his throne, and his voice sounded across the chamber’s speaker system, again too loud. “Kepler? Never heard of the place.” He looked around, but no adviser stood close to him. “That’s where you’ve been all these years?”

“I had hoped to begin anew there. After all I contributed to the Jihad, this isn’t too much to ask, is it, Emperor Salvador?”

“No, of course not. If you truly are who you say, then you deserve it. You retired a hero.”

Vorian stood straight, not bowing before the throne. “I am here to request protection for my planet and people. While I would prefer that you shut down the Poritrin flesh markets and outlaw the practice of slavery, I know that will never happen. It’s not realistic, because of the entrenched interests.” He looked at the befuddled economics expert who still seemed anxious to complete his presentation. “However, Sire, I will accept your guarantee of protection for Kepler, so that slavers never bother us again.” He continued to look at Salvador as if the rest of the audience did not exist … as if Valya did not exist. “I know you Corrinos can grant that much.”

“If you can prove who you are.” Salvador stepped down from his throne. His initial confusion had gradually slipped into awe. “I suppose that’s a possibility, Supreme Bashar. Do you still hold that rank?”

“Supreme Bashar,” Vor said. “Also, Hero of the Jihad, and before that I was Primero. I don’t know the ranks of your current military. Because of my honorable service, I was granted permission to use my rank as long as I lived—and in my case, that is a very long time. I will submit genetic proof of my identity, if that’s what you require.”

Salvador blinked, obviously not sure how to deal with such a legendary figure; mutters of admiration rippled through the crowd. “We need to discuss this further, sir, but for the moment we provisionally welcome you back to Salusa. House Corrino remembers your outstanding service during the Jihad and the great victories you achieved on our behalf. If not for your heroism, Supreme Bashar Atreides, none of us would be here today.” He came forward to shake Vorian’s hand.

The Emperor’s deferential attitude made Valya cringe. She thought she’d be sick.

The chamber erupted in cheers and shouts of approval, but Valya had to restrain herself from screaming. After what this bastard had done, how could the Emperor even consider honoring him?
This
man had crushed House Harkonnen and tossed her family on the garbage heap of history. He should be thrown into the deepest Salusan prison.

She wanted to launch herself toward him and attack with every fighting method she knew—but not now, not yet. She had learned patience and planning during her years in the Sisterhood. Now she was here to assist Reverend Mother Raquella and become a companion to the Emperor’s sister. She did not want to throw away the opportunity to restore legitimacy to her family.

Her brother, on the other hand, could take care of the rest. She trusted Griffin, and she knew he would do it for her. Now that Valya knew Vorian Atreides was alive, and which planet he called home, Griffin could track him down and take the revenge that his family honor required.

Sadly, I must admit to myself that I am the pinnacle of my bloodline. All my descendants are disappointments, despite the advantage of their breeding.

—
GENERAL AGAMEMNON
,
New Memoirs

The twins had remained imprisoned in their preservation vault, immobile and fully aware, for more than a century. In all that time, Andros and Hyla had nothing to do but think and stew and plan. Having never left the laboratory, they had little grasp of the Jihad or of the League humans who fought against the Synchronized Worlds.

The silence inside the sealed facility now seemed heavy and unnatural, as if the walls still reverberated with screams.

“We killed them all too soon.” Andros stood in the laboratory module, studying the interesting red patterns splashed on the walls, the strewn body parts of the Swordmasters and Butlerians who had inadvertently released them. “They might have provided more information.”

Swordmaster Ellus had been quite reluctant to divulge any secrets, but he did eventually, though Hyla had been forced to use her fingers to extract several of his teeth.

“We can be forgiven our impatience.” She tapped her fingertips together and felt the tackiness of drying blood. “I’ve been restless, and Juno never allowed us much time to practice the skills she gave us.”

Thanks to what Ellus had revealed between his screams, Andros and Hyla knew the basic story of humanity’s great purge against Omnius and the final victory at Corrin and how the cymek rebellion had ultimately failed. The battle that had wiped out so many neo-cymeks and robotic battleships at this laboratory outpost had been little more than an unmarked skirmish in the much-larger war. Even so, it had left the twins stranded, preserved inside the vault for year after year after year.

Such a thing might have driven a lesser person mad, Hyla thought.

“We should leave here,” Andros said. “We’ll take their ship, study their records, and find everything else we need to know.”

“Juno created us to be superior specimens.” Hyla looked around at the slaughter. “We just proved that, but there is so much more we need to know and see and do.”

“Juno never returned after Omnius attacked this outpost, and our preparation was incomplete,” Andros said. “We’ll have to do the rest ourselves.”

The Titan Juno—General Agamemnon’s chosen mate for more than a thousand years—had been one of the oldest cymeks. Juno, Agamemnon, and the rest of the Twenty Titans had taken over complacent humanity, ruling as tyrants before surgically shedding their organic bodies and placing their brains in preservation canisters, so they could live for centuries inside machine bodies. First, however, Agamemnon had preserved his own sperm in order to create offspring when he deemed it appropriate, but his other sons had failed him, causing Agamemnon to erase them all.

Juno, however, established this secret test program, where she created Hyla and Andros from Agamemnon’s sperm and a slave female’s eggs. General Agamemnon knew nothing of the plan. Juno had enhanced the children—impregnated their skin with flowmetal, intensified their reflexes, and saturated their minds with sophisticated combat skills and tactical knowledge—imprinting their pliable brains with all the information they would need to become invincible weapons. Worthy children of Agamemnon.

Juno had hoped to launch a larger-scale breeding program once the twins proved the concept. Stalking back and forth in her bulky combat body in front of their indoctrination chambers, Juno had talked with great anticipation about when she would introduce the twins to their legendary father. The words from Juno’s speakerpatch carried genuine sadness and anger when she talked about how Vorian Atreides, Agamemnon’s thirteenth son and greatest hope, had betrayed him after all.

The twins had listened to every word, absorbing all of that vengeful spite.

The robot attack on this outpost had destroyed the neo-cymek tenders, the laboratory assistants. Hyla was bitter that the cymek queen had so quickly discarded them. According to Swordmaster Ellus in his last gurgling revelations, Juno was dead, as was Agamemnon—both betrayed by
Vorian Atreides.

“Will we take anything with us from the laboratory?” Andros asked.

“There’s nothing we need here. I’m sick of this place. You and I are sufficient. We’ll let the vacuum of space reclaim the outpost.”

The two made their way to the docked Butlerian ship and rapidly familiarized themselves with the controls inside the cockpit. The pilot had mounted three prominent religious icons on a makeshift altar: a beautiful woman, an infant child, and an androgynous, hairless woman raising her hands and preaching. Hyla discarded the items.

The vessel’s navigation system held charts of prominent worlds in the newly formed Imperium. Hyla also found historical accounts of the Jihad against Omnius, celebrations of the great hero Vorian Atreides … their brother.

“We have work to do,” Andros said, “and a long journey ahead of us.”

“We have time. We’ve already waited a century. Now let’s go find our brother.”

Andros activated the ship’s engines, and the craft rose from the cratered ground, leaving the haunted outpost behind.

The history of cooperation between the Suk School and the Sisters of Rossak is not surprising, since Dr. Mohandas Suk and Raquella Berto-Anirul worked together on a plague-relief medical team during the Jihad. Today, the two groups continue to sponsor cooperative educational forums, but we suspect that their ties run much deeper.

—intelligence report to Prince Roderick Corrino

The more he thought about it, the Emperor was deeply troubled by the reemergence of Vorian Atreides, not to mention the demands he made. A legendary war hero, revered by generations of schoolchildren, a leader who had helped save the human race during its greatest conflict … and conveniently back again after eighty years of absence? What did the man really want? A handful of military patrol ships to guard a planet that nobody cared about? That seemed highly suspicious.

Salvador was trying to be cautious in this matter of the Atreides scion and the verification of the man’s identity. Yes, the longevity of Vorian Atreides was well known and well documented, but anyone with similar features could
claim
to be the long vanished Hero of the Jihad, based upon statues and images in history books. Nobody alive remembered exactly what Vorian looked like in the flesh, or his mannerisms, or the tone of his voice. Besides, the gullible mobs continued to spot the renegade Toure Bomoko around every corner, so appearances were not exactly reliable.

As Emperor, he needed to be careful. But if the man was who he claimed to be (and Salvador suspected he was), perhaps he could ride on the coattails of Atreides’s popularity.

In order to give himself time to think, the Emperor sent away the economic experts, the Landsraad attendees, and the Sisters from Rossak, with strict instructions that they were not to speak of the strange visitor they had seen at court, though he knew rumors would leak out soon enough—and then the uproar!—assuming the man’s identity could be genetically verified. Vorian Atreides had accepted, even seemed to anticipate such questions and doubts, and had not objected when the Emperor demanded biological samples for testing. For now, Salvador could only delay something that was probably inevitable.

The man submitted to a hasty medical examination by Dr. Ori Zhoma herself, the head of the Suk School, who had recently returned to Zimia for business at the old Suk headquarters. His blood samples were even now being analyzed.

While waiting for the answers, Salvador didn’t know whether to be honored or nervous. He needed to talk with Roderick. In the meantime, claiming urgent Imperial matters, he offered Vorian Atreides temporary guest quarters in the Palace. The man from the past seemed to understand Salvador’s reticence, felt the awkwardness of their meeting, and took his leave. “I shall await your summons, Sire.”

Rather than attending to other business, though, Salvador sat by himself, wrestling with possible scenarios, and spent the afternoon anticipating Dr. Zhoma’s report.

Finally, the doctor walked into the throne room, efficient and all business. She performed a pro forma bow to the throne, straightened, and delivered her results in a crisp, professional voice. “We have run our tests, Sire, comparing the new samples with DNA extracted from historical Jihad artifacts. This man is indeed who he says he is: Vorian Atreides.”

The Emperor nodded, though he was not entirely pleased with the news. The hero’s appearance might cause instability at a time when the Imperium could least afford it. Salvador and his brother needed to decide what to do.

*   *   *

AFTER NEWS OF
Vor’s return spread, the people of Zimia sprang up in spontaneous celebration, like drooping flowers awakening after a rain. The greatest hero of the Jihad! The legendary Primero who had fought the thinking machines for more than two life spans, from the start of the conflict to its bloody end! The very idea fired their imaginations, excited them, lifted their minds from their troubled, mundane lives. It was as if he had stepped out of a history tome, magically come to life.

Hauling out banners and reenacting pageantry from the days before the Battle of Corrin, the Butlerians marched and chanted, revering the three martyrs: Serena Butler, her baby son, Manion, and Grand Patriarch Iblis Ginjo.

Emperor Salvador accompanied Vor with great smiles in the midst of public acclaim, welcoming him as a long-lost comrade. As the crowds turned out in the Palace square, the Emperor accepted the applause as partially his own. Vor participated in the spectacle like a man enduring an unpleasant medical procedure.

The people treated him as a savior, begging him to touch their babies, to bless their loved ones. The Butlerians adopted him as one of their own, though he did not encourage them. Their movement seemed even more extreme than Rayna Butler’s crusade against all forms of machines and technology back during the darkest days of the Jihad. Rayna’s followers had wrought a great deal of damage, especially on Parmentier, where his own granddaughter Raquella had tended those who fell ill from the Omnius plagues, and Rayna Butler’s followers had turned on her.

These Butlerians made him uneasy.

Decades had passed since Vor last set foot in the capital city, and as he looked around he saw indications of decrepitude; the level of technology had regressed instead of advancing. Subtle signs: vehicles, instruments, even lighting and sound systems for the grand parade in his honor … everything seemed slightly more primitive. But he politely watched as the colorful parade filed past the Imperial viewing stand.

Salvador sat next to him, smiling, while his brother, Roderick, remained behind the scenes arranging the event. As the crowds continued to swell in the Palace square, the cheers and excited voices became deafening. The people called out for Vor, chanting his name and demanding that he give a speech. The Emperor raised his hands and tried to impose order, with little success. But when Vor stood up, the crowd fell into a thunderous hush as swiftly as air rushing from an open airlock.