Road to Dune (16 page)

Jesse worked inside the mansion’s banquet hall, showing his face and letting the people see that he was responsible for this easing of their misery. Esmar Tuek stood at his side, probing eyes alert, surreptitiously scanning every visitor.

When one bearded man reached the head of the line, the veteran held up the scanner, retrieving images from security files and charts of identity points. At a signal from Tuek, two Catalan guards took the man into custody, despite his protestations. “What have I done? You can’t seize an innocent man!”

General Tuek held up the scanner screen. “We have detailed files of all Hoskanner sympathizers and suspected saboteurs.” He smiled. “Now, the rest of you are welcome to step forward.”

A handful of men and women drifted out of line and tried to slip away from the mansion. Tuek sent men after them to make more arrests.

Jesse let his anger show, speaking loud enough for everyone in line to hear him. “Hoskanner agents have already done enough damage to my House, and to all of you. Now they dare to come take the water I intend to give to my loyal workers?”

While the people grumbled, Tuek leaned closer to Jesse. Satisfied, he said with a grim smile, “You can expect to hear from Bauers about this, My Lord. Arresting Hoskanners? He will be incensed.”

“No, Esmar. As much as he might want to free those agents, he can’t admit to any connection with anyone who may be working for the Hoskanners. However, it does give me a bit of leverage. I’m going to contact him first.” Jesse rose to leave. “Our Imperial friend is going to help us break the water sellers’ strike, though he doesn’t know it yet.”

THE NEXT DAY, in a formal announcement from the steps, Jesse offered an ultimatum to the unruly merchants. “I have no patience for your price gouging when people are suffering. You can survive with decreased profits for a time—as the rest of us have had to. Either accept my terms or depart from Duneworld. If you leave, however, you forfeit all assets and go with nothing.”

Predictably, the indignant water sellers stormed over to the huge inspection ship and pleaded with Counselor Bauers to intervene. Smiling with amused helplessness, the man declined. “Hmmm, Grand Emperor Wuda made it clear that Nobleman Linkam can do as he pleases, with no rules or restrictions, in order to produce the maximum amount of spice. Ahhh, my hands are tied because of the edict.” His nose twitched.

Before Jesse had issued his hard-line statement, he’d reached a secret deal with Bauers. Though he despised the terms, he saw no alternative but to offer the exposed Hoskanner saboteurs as a bribe, delivering them to the Imperial ship in exchange for the inspector’s cooperation. Without admitting any connection to the Hoskanners, Bauers had agreed. Very quickly.

Later, when the water sellers and producers called upon him and pleaded for leniency, Jesse magnanimously granted amnesty. “Now, let’s all work together.”

It was another short-term victory, but he savored it nevertheless. Finally, he felt a little momentum on his side.

19

Everybody complains.

—GURNEY HALLECK

O
n a seemingly quiet evening, Gurney Halleck slipped into the old communal buildings that served as residences for the people Jesse had brought from Catalan. These were the best dwellings in Carthage.

Though he was the spice foreman in charge of freedmen, convict laborers, and Catalan workers alike, Gurney had always liked to socialize with his crews. He came into the Catalan residences hoping to relax for a change. He wanted to listen to quiet talk of the sea and the rain among men he had considered friends back home—men who now served under him as sandminers.

Immediately upon entering the main hall, however, the jongleur sensed a mood more sour than the odor of crowded, unwashed bodies. As the Catalan men organized their gear and supplies for the following day’s harsh work out on the sands, they complained of thirst, isolation, grit in everything, sand-burn, sunburn, windburn. Gurney had come to expect such grumbling from the convicts or disenchanted freedmen, but not Jesse’s loyal men.

“Now, now, what’s set you all off tonight?”

Unhappy-looking women in drab desert garb distributed packaged food and drinks. Some of the packs were open, revealing chunks of gray meat with sticks of too-bright vegetables. The men ate with grimy hands, inadvertently adding a seasoning of raw melange to the bland food.

“There’s nowhere to
live
on this hellhole, Gurney!” one of the men said. “Not under or above ground, not in rock caves. And look at this stuff!” He prodded the unappetizing preserved food. “What I wouldn’t give for some hot fish and lemon stew!”

The workers turned to Gurney, using him as a target for their complaints. “We’re so overworked we don’t get time to eat in peace, and even on long and dangerous shifts, we still don’t harvest enough melange.”

Another man hurled a spice shaker against the wall. “Even if we win the accursed challenge, what will our prize be? Will we ever see our homes again?”

“When will Nobleman Linkam reinstitute our wages? It’s bad enough being miserable, but to do it for no pay?”

Gurney chuckled. “You know the nobleman’s good for it! You have food, water, and a bunk to sleep in. Would you rather I had General Tuek come and tell you stories about how he had to survive during the Lucinan campaign?”

With forced good cheer, like a man hoping to calm a storm by waving his hands against the wind, Gurney sat on top of a metal crate and played his baliset, picking out familiar tunes without singing the words. “Come now, listen.” He might have been their spice foreman, but he was also still a jongleur. He began to sing in his most soothing voice.

“In swirling sand,

With men on the ground,

Cinnamon filled the air,

As the worm drew near.

“‘Damn the spice!’ he shouted,

And plunged into danger,

The bravest of nobles,

The bravest of men.”

But the sandminers didn’t want to listen. Instead, they began to throw food and insults at Gurney, forcing him to back toward the door. Even so, it seemed to him like a good-natured release of steam; he had made himself the butt of their dissatisfaction, allowing them to take out their ire on him. He held up his hands. “All right, lads! I’ll talk to the nobleman! I’ll see what I can—”

Just then, the freedman captain of a spice harvester rushed into the main hall, slamming the heavy moisture-seal door behind him. “Where is the spice foreman? It’s happened again!” He unsealed his face mask and knocked dust off his cloak.

The mood shattered. Gurney set his baliset aside and strode forward. “I’m here—what is it?”

“Two more spice harvesters gone, Gurney! Along with half of my mates and the entire crew of the other harvester!” Dirt and dust seemed to ooze from every pore of the man’s body, with every agitated exhalation. “I barely made it off that rattletrap carryall alive. The other survivors are in the Carthage infirmary right now. General Tuek told me to find you!” The rest of his words came out in disarray as he described the disaster.

“That leaves us with only seven harvesters!” a man groaned.

Gurney listened, feeling as if he’d been shot in the stomach. He tried to calculate how many men had just been sucked down a worm’s gullet. Freedmen, convicts, Catalan refugees. So much loss. He didn’t see how House Linkam could survive any more.

He muttered, “Even the sandworms are in league with our enemies.”

KNOWN SPIES AND saboteurs should be used as harsh examples, not bargaining chips. Esmar Tuek was not happy with the arrangement his nobleman had made. By releasing the captives to Bauers, Tuek and his interrogators lost the opportunity to obtain important information.

Since their arrival on Duneworld, he’d suspected that someone was feeding the Hoskanners details about what went on inside the Linkam household. His careful questioning of the newly arrested Hoskanner sympathizers and saboteurs had uncovered disturbingly accurate information about finances, habits, and new security measures. He was fully aware of one person who had access to all that information inside the headquarters mansion.

His suspicions turned to Dorothy Mapes, a woman who didn’t seem to know her place. She had always been at odds with Tuek, challenging his decisions, using her wiles with Jesse to seize advantages for herself. Though not noble born, she was at the heart of House Linkam’s business dealings, tracking productivity, controlling finances, dealing with suppliers who did not fulfill their contracts, influencing Jesse in clever ways.

Tuek had seen ambitious, conniving women manipulate and corrupt Jesse’s gullible father and brother. The current patriarch was smarter, tougher, and more practical than his noble predecessors. But still he was a man—and therefore vulnerable. Dorothy knew every detail of the Linkam business, from records of the spice crews to Jesse’s work routes and itinerary.

The security chief decided to watch her carefully. She was, potentially, a very dangerous woman … .

20

For everything measurable, there is always something greater … and something smaller.

—IKPAT THE GREAT

D
r. Haynes transmitted a long-awaited message from the forward research base. He had a prototype of his “shock canister” ready for testing against an actual sandworm.

Because of the severe spice-production shortfalls, Jesse decided to gamble everything on the new concept. He would have his other harvesters ready to move if Haynes’s device worked as projected. They would wait safely and quietly away from the worm zone while another harvester did its work. In the event that the shock canister failed to stun the sandworm, his standby harvester crews would lose a day of productivity on other fields; if the test worked, though, they might be able to exceed a month’s total haul in only a few hours. It was worth the gamble, especially now.

“This is more than a test; it’s a huge opportunity,” he said to Gurney. “I don’t want to waste it. Are your men prepared for a massive melange harvest?”

“I’m always ready for a massive melange harvest,” the spice foreman said, with a gleam in his eyes. He had already mapped out a particularly rich vein for the following day’s mining operations. “This field has more than we could take even if the sandworms were on a week-long vacation. I’ve never dreamed of having the chance—until now.”

“Then issue orders to the carryalls. I want them ready to deliver all seven of our remaining spice harvesters for a full-force push.”

“If that depth-charge stunner works, laddie.”

“Yes, Gurney.
If
it works.”

AT THE FORWARD research base, Dr. Haynes proudly displayed a barrel-sized canister that held a powerful static generator. Covered with diamond-hard plating to withstand a worm’s gullet, dozens of flexible whiskers sprouted from the device in every direction. Each antenna was insulated with live-rubber shielding and capped with a powerful discharge bulb.

“Judging from readings I took of worm-generated energy fields, this device should pack enough of a jolt.”

“‘And the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth.’” Gurney scratched his chin. “Aye, the worm will swallow quite a bitter pill.”

Jesse nodded. “Let’s get ready. We’ll deploy the first spice harvester just like we would on a normal day, so the crews won’t suspect. The minute a worm shows itself, we drop the shock canister—and pray.”

Dr. Haynes took a solo ornijet to deploy the prototype himself. While Gurney readied the harvester crews on the ground, Jesse joined Tuek in a scout flyer to observe the test. The nobleman felt tense and eager; so much hung on the success of this new technique. He sensed that Counselor Bauers was ready to take drastic action back in Carthage—perhaps even pull the plug on the whole Linkam operation.

They flew up into a shatteringly bright day. The first harvester had already been dispatched to churn through the spice vein, while spotters watched for the arrival of the inevitable worm. “We need sharper eyes than ever before, lads,” Gurney transmitted from the desert floor.

This time the spice operations would also serve as bait.

The six other fully crewed harvesters were mystified at the change of plans and complained because they were kept waiting instead of working the fields. No one but Haynes’s small team knew about the shock canister.

Tuek guided their flyer above the dust plume generated by the lone harvester. He looked at Jesse with a knowing smile on his red-stained lips as he heard the spice foreman bellowing over the comm system to marshal the men. “Gurney’s just a jongleur, but he treats the spice crews like soldiers under his command.”

“An apt comparison. We’re at war against a dangerous planet as well as the Hoskanners.”

“And devil-worms.”

The huge mobile harvester went about its work, following a routine that had gone on for more than a year. Usually, the operations reminded Jesse of a swarm of gnats darting in to bite skin, draw a drop of blood, then fly away before a hand could swat them. Now, though, the waiting seemed interminable.

Gripping the flyer’s controls, Tuek was clearly uneasy—but not about the test. Something else weighed heavily on the old veteran’s mind. Finally, he summoned his courage and said, “My Lord … Jesse, there is a matter I must discuss with you.”

“I’ve been wondering what was eating you, Esmar. Out with it.”

After only a brief hesitation, the security chief spoke. “I fear your own concubine might be a Hoskanner spy.” Before Jesse could even express his shock, Tuek quickly continued, “Someone has been leaking vital details to our enemies … when equipment is ordered, the maintenance schedules of our harvesters and carryalls, even guard duty rosters. I learned that much from interrogating the Hoskanner sympathizers. Ask yourself, how many times has Counselor Bauers obtained information he shouldn’t have? How often do Hoskanner saboteurs know exactly where to find vulnerable machinery?”