Dune: The Machine Crusade (54 page)

While she waited for a ship to transport her to Rossakin exile, Norma had time to consider matters that had never concerned her before. Previously, her work had been all-consuming, and she’d hardly paid attention to anything else. Now she wished she had not been so politically naïve.

All the respect she thought she had earned over decades of dedicated service had been snuffed out like an ember ground beneath a boot heel. Lord Bludd and all of Poritrin— even most of the League— believed that Holtzman himself had been responsible for all of her accomplishments, and that she had been no more than a “minor lab assistant.” Banking on his established reputation, Holtzman had the unwavering support of Lord Bludd. Norma had never had time for politics or currying favor.

Now Norma found herself caught in a realm she did not understand.

Desperately, she worried about how upset Aurelius would be and how much money she had cost him because of this debacle. She had let him down.

AFTER REMOVING ALL technical documents from the laboratory offices and taking them to his own blufftop headquarters, Savant Holtzman generously permitted Norma to return and pick up whatever keepsakes she could find. “A final gesture of courtesy,” the gray-bearded scientist said with a sniff as they stepped off the hover platform and entered the hangar. “But you can take only what you can carry.”

She extended her small arms. “Only what I can carry? I see.”

For a tiny woman, not physically strong or attractive, Norma Cenva had quite a list of accomplishments. While she could not resist the demand that she leave Poritrin, Norma could use the superior power of her intellect to give Holtzman a little surprise as her parting gift for all he had done for her. And
to
her.

“Don’t complain,” he said. “I am not required to allow this.”

Earlier, she had been forbidden to remove any plans, calculations, or electronic notepads. That had not concerned her, though, since she had always possessed an excellent memory, and was able to retain comprehensive details in her mind.

Inside the hangar, the old-model cargo ship still stood on its drydock platform, much too large for a few Dragoon thugs to haul away. The cavernous structure was silent, without the usual hum of activity. Her teams of slaves had been sent to their barracks, awaiting further orders; many had already been reassigned to other crews, but a hundred or so remained to help with the dismantling operations. Her staff workers had all fled. Tools, common diagnostic devices, and construction equipment lay about in disarray.

Norma’s calculation offices were a shambles. Every cabinet and drawer had been opened and ransacked. Furniture was overturned. Black scorch marks showed where Dragoons had attempted to burn through the rock walls of the grotto in search of secret compartments and passageways. Norma stared with a sense of loss, emptiness, and dismay.

“No one took any of your personal things,” Holtzman was quick to say, as if he had a conscience. He led her to a metal box— distressingly small— that contained some of her memorabilia. “That soostone is valuable, but I told the guards to leave it alone.”

Norma looked at him in disbelief, appalled that he seemed to expect her appreciation for this. Instead, she rummaged through the box and took out the silky-smooth, exotic soostone, along with one of the dried Bludd roses she had pressed between two thin sheets of clearplaz.

According to myth, the soostone had an ability to focus and enhance telepathic powers, but Norma had never found this one to be anything more than a pretty gem. Unlike her mother, Norma had none of the innate mental skills of a Sorceress of Rossak. It would take more than a bauble, however expensive, to bring them to life.

Nonetheless she considered the soostone precious because Aurelius had given it to her. Why hadn’t she agreed to marry him that night? If she had accepted his proposal, he might have remained behind with her… and then none of this would have happened. She heaved a sigh of regret.

“That is everything,” Holtzman said, impatient now. “We have been through your office meticulously.”

“Yes… I can see that.” She picked up the memento box and set it on a worktable. It seemed so light, so tiny. “Am I permitted to keep some of my supplies? VenKee paid for them.”

“Fine, fine. But hurry up. Your chartered ship is due to depart this afternoon, and I have no intention of keeping the captain waiting.” He gestured to the clutter and debris. “Anything you can carry. Lord Bludd has instructed us not to help you in any manner, I am sorry to say.”

Struggling with the weight, she dragged over a holographic projector and its case full of accessories. She continued gathering objects together, including a calculation panel and two cartons of sealed, unused electronic notepads. As the pile mounted, Holtzman and the Dragoon guards exchanged amused glances.

Next she removed several modules from a stack of spare parts in the corner. Kneeling on the rock floor, she began snapping them together. She had counted on Holtzman’s ignorance, and he had not let her down. A wide, flat platform took shape in front of her, as the men stood by and watched.

She installed a red activator pack, then switched it on. Humming in sequence, the entire assembly rose gently off the floor. With a satisfied smile, Norma turned to the Savant and said, “One of the new commercial-model suspensor platforms VenKee Enterprises is bringing to market next month.” Noting Holtzman’s surprise and annoyance, she added, “I invented it.”

Norma guided the platform over to the tall stack of heavy possessions— meaningless objects, mostly, with the exception of the soostone and rose… but that wasn’t the point. Quickly, she loaded them onto the suspensor pallet.

“I’m ready to go now,” Norma finally announced. The suspensor platform, filled with her things, floated behind her, following like a loyal pet.

When one of the Dragoon guards grinned at Holtzman’s expense, the fiery inventor snapped, “Let her have this little trick. At least it will be her last.”

Soon they would take her to Starda Spaceport and escort her away from Poritrin. Though she had lived most of her life here, and for years had given everything in service to Tio Holtzman, she never expected to return.

As Norma departed with the loaded suspensor platform, she looked back at the giant prototype ship she had modified, and knew this was probably the last time she would ever see it. She had finished her work, and after another month of tests, should have been ready to demonstrate it for Aurelius in triumph. She had come so close to proving that his faith in her was not misplaced….

But what would he think of her now?

A
total loss.

Tuk Keedair stared at the disastrous remains of the huge project and tried to grasp the scope of the investment— and the potential profits— he and Venport had just lost. That bastard Holtzman had seized all notes and blueprints, and without Norma Cenva the project did not exist.

The past two years of effort amounted to nothing.

For the first time in many decades, Keedair would be honor-bound to slice off his coveted braid. According to tradition among his people, the merchant could keep it only so long as he made a profit, and his braid had grown very long indeed. Now, thanks to petty politics and Holtzman’s greed, he might as well shave his head bald.

Perhaps he should just go back to being a slaver.

The Tlulaxa businessman shook his head as he wandered around the spacious interior of the cargo ship. So close! Norma’s innovative engines had been completed and installed, though never tested. He had pressed Norma for updates and explanations, but she considered such details burdensome and a waste of time. She had adapted her new systems to the existing controls in the old cargo vessel; any pilot could fly the “space-folder” craft just like the old merchant ship. In theory.

Now, the entire project was just… theory.

Since VenKee Enterprises did a great deal of business throughout the League of Nobles, Keedair had used whatever influence he could bring to bear, filing legal papers against Savant Holtzman and Lord Bludd, threatening expensive lawsuits and a League boycott of interstellar commerce. Unswayed, Bludd had refused to release any of Norma’s records, holding them under the guise of “Poritrin security.”

But Keedair had liberally spread his bribes and managed to get himself freed from confinement long enough to race back to the complex with a fleet of suspensor trucks and a bunch of loathsome slaves. Now that the Dragoons seemed to have abandoned the place, the Tlulaxa attempted to salvage anything he could.

Since Holtzman’s unpleasant aggression, Keedair had not rested, spending every hour trying to inventory and save what he could of this ambitious undertaking, if only for scrap metal. His only option was to dismantle and remove as many assets as possible and liquidate them to recover some of the enormous investment.

Holtzman’s own salvage crew— carrion birds— had been dismissed for the day of celebration, the anniversary of Bel Moulay’s crushed slave rebellion. This made the construction site no longer worth the supervision of a large contingent of Dragoons. Keedair intended to use the time to grab everything he could, before Lord Bludd discovered what he was doing. He had a flying suspensor truck with him and would fill its cargo box.

Like Norma, he had recently sent desperate messages to Aurelius Venport, but his partner was across space on Arrakis and it would be months before he could get here. Perhaps Keedair should just take the prototype ship and fly off to the desert world himself— he certainly knew the coordinates, after so many spice runs.

But he wasn’t that much of a fool.

TIME PASSED SLOWLY for Ishmael, as he knew the inevitability of what was about to happen during the anniversary celebration. He felt the impossibility of his position, trapped as he was between conflicting obligations.

After Tio Holtzman had sent his guards in with orders from Lord Bludd, the slaver Keedair had disbanded most of the Buddislamic workforce and sent them back downriver into the delta city. Aliid and his handful of followers were among the first to go, leaving Ishmael behind. In Starda, clandestine Zenshiite saboteurs had managed to obtain assignments on work crews where overblown preparations were under way for the anniversary festival.

Now only Ishmael and a hundred of his most faithful Zensunni followers remained in the remote spaceship construction site, working under the guidance of the flesh merchant to salvage what they could. Ishmael watched as his son-in-law Rafel drove heavy lifting machinery, guiding mobile pallets and flying cargo shuttles out to pickup points on the plateau above the river. Teams loaded supplies and saleable equipment aboard the big empty ship inside the hangar.

Ishmael’s daughter Chamal stayed close to him as his anchor of caring and love, while her young husband showed his own strength and support. Everyone looked to Ishmael to hold them together, to lead them. Since he could quote all the Sutras and had taught them the Zensunni belief system for so long, they expected him to have direct guidance from Buddallah.

Ishmael did not know what to do, but worse than indecision would be to admit his impotence to the slaves who looked up to him. Then he would have failed them all, rather than just himself.

For several days he felt mounting dread, until finally Poritrin’s day of celebration arrived. Aliid’s day of blood and fire. And he still did not know what to do.

Addressing a few of his people as they gathered close around him, Ishmael said, “Even this far from Starda, we cannot hide from the consequences of what our Zenshiite brothers intend to do. Aliid is forcing us to act. Soon all of Poritrin will be in chaos, and we need to survive.”

While they listened, other men and women who had been with him for many years kept pretending to work. Now that the project had been shut down, no work supervisors remained behind to watch their every move.

In the abandoned, stripped-down laboratory and hangar, only the humorless Tlulaxa merchant bothered to keep the slaves busy; Keedair cared nothing for Lord Bludd’s parties, where most of the free populace would be. Since the disgrace of Norma Cenva and the mandated shutdown of all operations, the former slaver kept the Zensunnis on the job by waving a stun gun at them occasionally, hoping to minimize VenKee’s losses.

Inside the cavernous, echoing building, while the slaves pretended to go about their tasks with their usual lack of enthusiasm, Ishmael continued the whispered discussions.

“If we report Aliid to the Dragoons, perhaps they will arrest him and his ringleaders,” said a hard-eyed woman whose hair had turned gray, though she was far younger than Ishmael. “And leave the rest of us alone.”

“It is the only chance for the rest of us to survive. Otherwise, the Dragoons will kill us all,” an older man agreed. “What happened before with Bel Moulay will be a mere shadow.”

Ishmael glared at both of them. “I do not value my life so much that I would betray a friend. I disagree with Aliid’s tactics, but none of us should ever doubt his determination.”

“Then we must fight beside him and hope the Zenshiites win,” insisted Rafel, holding his wife’s arm. Chamal looked uncertain, but brave. “We deserve our freedom, all of us. Slave owners have oppressed us for generations and now Buddallah is giving us this chance. Shouldn’t we take it?”

Ishmael’s mind whirled. He knew from sad experience that even if he reported the impending uprising, Lord Bludd would never be reasonable. But, remembering his love for his grandfather’s peaceful and calm ways, Ishmael could not turn into a savage animal.

The determined Aliid intended to set fire to Starda and overrun city buildings, farms, and even mines to the north… a surprise revolt in which the Zenshiite slaves would rise up and kill their masters, slaying not only Dragoon guards but women and children, too. After generations of pent-up anger and suffering, the angry mob was not likely to show restraint. It would be a bloodbath.