Road to Dune (17 page)

“That doesn’t mean we have a traitor, Esmar. Many people have that information. You’re a paranoid old fool.”

“And you’re a lovestruck one. If Dr. Haynes proves his new technique today, it’s more crucial than ever that we keep this a secret.”

“I have already decided that the crews will be kept isolated to prevent them from passing the word. Nobody in Carthage will know.”

“She’ll know.”

Frowning, Jesse said, “Dorothy was at the original meeting where Dr. Haynes proposed his idea. I have trusted her for twelve years—nearly as long as I’ve trusted you, Esmar.”

The security chief concentrated on his flying, but his shoulders sagged. “Both your father and especially young Hugo lost fortunes, bought expensive trinkets for femme fatales, and allowed themselves to be duped into dangerous romantic intrigues.”

“Dorothy’s not like that. She is the mother of my son. You’d better have hard evidence if you plan to say any more to me.”

Tuek scowled. “No evidence, My Lord, just strong suspicions, which I developed through a process of elimination. It is what I do as your security chief.”

Jesse silenced him coldly. “I’ve heard enough, General Tuek. I refuse to discuss the matter further.”

Wrapping his pride around him like thick armor, the veteran spoke not a word as they sat together and waited. It was almost a relief to him when the sandworm came.

“Wormsign!” The spotter’s message repeated over all the channels. Workers in the first spice harvester switched to emergency procedures, just as they would on any other day. Gurney would take no chances. Most of the men didn’t know that something was fundamentally different about the current operations.

Tuek indicated the ominous rippling line as the immense creature burrowed straight toward the spice operations, altering the desert landscape with its passage. Jesse spotted a darting movement as a small ornijet streaked down to intercept the worm’s path. “That’s Dr. Haynes.”

The planetary ecologist landed and planted himself halfway between the monster and the spice harvester. Jesse directed Tuek to swoop close to the landing site, in case Haynes needed a rescue. “I’ve lost enough men and equipment. I’m not about to lose our planetary ecologist, too.”

The bottom bay doors of Haynes’s ornijet deposited the shock canister onto the dune. The Imperial scientist emerged, going about his activities with brisk but efficient movements while the oncoming worm picked up speed. Perhaps the creature sensed the small craft and intended to gulp an appetizer before charging to the gigantic harvester … .

While Jesse watched, circling above with Tuek, the ecologist bent over the prototype, going through a swift checklist, extending the wiry antennae.

“Why isn’t he leaving?” Jesse’s pulse quickened.

“Dr. Haynes does not leave details to chance.”

Finally the ecologist thrust a short pole into the sand next to the diamond-hard canister. Touching his collar, Haynes transmitted, “For insurance, I’m activating one of our static-shield generators. It always drives the creatures into a frenzy.”

“Get out of there!”

Haynes switched on the generator. From above, Jesse watched the oncoming worm turn, spraying sand as if the small beacon had enraged it. The monster surged toward the bait, dramatically increasing its speed.

Dashing to his ornijet and scrambling inside, Haynes slammed the access door. The hurtling worm left a wake of tan powder behind it like a stampeding bull, reminding Jesse of the maddened beast that had killed his brother, Hugo. “Doctor, you’d better hurry!”

“Oh, yes, Nobleman. I can hear the worm. I feel the vibrations.”

The ornijet lifted off with blast jets. The wings flapped furiously as it gained altitude, first a few meters, then twenty, then fifty.

The static-shield generator continued its call, and the huge worm lunged, its mouth open wide enough to engulf the whole dune. The armored prototype tumbled into the gullet, looking altogether insignificant in the swirl of sand going down.

“The worm’s taken it!” Jesse exclaimed. “It’s swallowing the charge!”

In the sand-and-air turbulence, Haynes’s ornijet dipped and swirled, but the planetary ecologist regained control and soared away.

The shock canister’s automatic trigger activated. As the antennae contacted the beast’s softer inner flesh, the device unleashed its powerful sting.

The worm swallowed convulsively, and sparks burst out in spectacular, rippling surges. The creature reared and writhed, opening its folded mouth to cough out dust and sand. Sparking loops of discharge lightning crackled from its yawning throat as if the beast had vomited a tiny thunderstorm.

Sparks began to fade from the worm’s mouth as the depth charge continued all the way down, blasting one independent ring segment after another. The sinuous body spasmed, rolling on the open dunes. At last, the beast crashed to the ground and lay twitching.

Jesse responded swiftly. “Gurney, have the carryalls bring in the other six spice harvesters! The worm is down. I repeat,
the worm is down!
”

While the sandminers from the remaining harvesters rattled off confused questions, the spice foreman dredged up and transmitted another one of his quotes, which he’d been saving for just such a successful test. “‘May their bellies be filled with treasure, O Lord. May their children have more than enough!’”

The planetary ecologist circled around and dropped his ornijet onto the churned, fresh sand next to the hulk of the motionless beast.

“Haynes, what are you doing?” Jesse shouted into the comm.

“This is an unparalleled opportunity, Nobleman. I remind you that my commission still comes from the Emperor, and my assignment is to understand Duneworld. I have never had a chance to see a worm so close. I can learn more in an hour than I have conjectured in the past two years.”

“If he stays at the beast’s side, he can give us early warning when the worm starts to awaken,” Tuek pointed out.

“Exercise extreme caution,” Jesse said to Haynes, though he suspected the intensely curious man would do as he pleased anyway.

Safe from the guardian worm, the remaining harvesters were dropped along the rich vein. While a few spotters cruised overhead, alert for storms and other hazards, the sandminers ran out like giddy children on a candy hunt. They could see the giant desert demon lying incapacitated, and they ran out into the rust-powdered sands, digging, scooping, reveling in their unexpected success. Sandminers threw in redoubled efforts, though they could not fight off their joy. Some of them threw handfuls of melange at each other, as if they were at play. The men laughed and threw themselves into the work; after more than two hours of frantic labor, none of them wanted to pause for even a few minutes of rest. Load after load of rich melange filled the cargo containers. Carryalls could not move the bounty away as fast as the men collected it.

All the while, Gurney shouted encouragement, urging them to greater speed, even singing songs. The sandminers were delirious with sudden hope, fully aware of the extravagant bonuses they would at last receive.

“If William English had survived,” Jesse said in a low voice, “this one day’s haul might have been enough to earn him passage back home.”

While the operations continued, Jesse told Tuek to fly him to the fallen sandworm as well. The old veteran frowned, and the stains around his lips made him look as if he had just devoured a large quantity of bloody meat. “You intend to be as foolish as our planetary ecologist?”

Coldly, still stung by the veteran’s suspicions of Dorothy, he replied, “It’s not often I get to look at a helpless enemy face-to-face. This worm represents as much of a challenge to us as the Hoskanners. Let me feel my moment of victory.”

Dutifully, Tuek landed near the lifeless monster. It looked at least a kilometer long. Jesse disembarked and hurried over to the amazed scientist, who stood close to the towering mass. “Is it dead?” The air was filled with the cinnamon redolence of spice.

Haynes had taken scrapings of the hard outer covering of the ring segments. He shook his head. “It’ll take far more than that to kill one of these creatures, Nobleman Linkam. This worm won’t be any trouble for hours, I suspect. Your crews should have plenty of time to do their work.”

“After a year and a half of adversity, we’ve finally turned the corner.” Jesse stared at the enormous sandworm. The sharp smell of cinnamon yelled in his nostrils—raw spice, acrid like the ooze from the sandtrout that had sent English into a drug-induced frenzy.

The leviathan stirred, causing Jesse and Tuek to jump back.

“It’s done that several times now,” Haynes said. “I think it’s having worm dreams.”

Before it stopped and settled down again, the creature exhaled a great wind that carried enough vaporous melange to make Jesse dizzy, a sensation that passed as the air cleared. “Even with today’s huge haul, I have decided that we’ll send only a modest increase to Bauers—just enough to show progress, keep him from shutting us down, but not enough to spark his interest. I want the Emperor and Valdemar Hoskanner to believe we’re still struggling.”

Tuek gazed up at the massive hulk with a grim expression, as if contemplating how he might wrestle such an opponent. With narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow, the old general turned to Jesse. “You understand that these crews will need to be kept quarantined, My Lord? Now that this trick has worked, if they are allowed back in Carthage, the news will leak, and you can be sure the Hoskanners will try to sabotage what we’re doing.”

Jesse permitted himself a feisty smile. “We’ll erect additional barracks and spice storage facilities in remote places. We’ll keep the men busy enough—and earning enough bonuses—to quell their complaints. With only half a year remaining, we need every moment to build up our reserves.”

21

The purpose of night is to prune the limbs of yesterday.

—GURNEY HALLECK, unfinished poetry

A
s weeks passed with the sandminers sequestered in hastily erected barracks, far from Carthage’s few amenities, House Linkam amassed a significant hoard of melange. Out in the western mountains Gurney established natural warehouses inside rock caves and in camouflaged silos, then posted his most trusted men to guard the treasure.

After each successful worm-stun operation, the isolated workers tallied the spice yield, which translated into bonuses. In less than a month, they had earned as much as they would have banked in half a year under the Hoskanners. Many freedmen sat in amazed disbelief as they realized they finally had a chance to earn passage off this planet.

Some unhappy workers, however, cursed the spice foreman and complained about their quarantine. After several of these disgruntled sandminers tried to escape from a temporary camp and were revealed to be Hoskanner spies, Gurney threw them into a makeshift brig, seized their spice shares, and distributed them among the remaining men.

Meanwhile in Carthage, Jesse used various excuses along with modest increases in the spice he delivered to keep Counselor Bauers at bay. Although Tuek’s cordon of soldiers still contained the inspection ship’s crew (despite their protests), the Grand Emperor’s man could come and go as he pleased. Even so, Bauers learned little and grew increasingly displeased.

No one knew where all the missing spice-harvesting crews had gone. Rumors of underhanded treatment of the men began to spread, and Jesse declined to provide any acceptable explanations.

As he stood in his ship looking out on the city, Counselor Bauers couldn’t help smiling to himself, a feral slash that cut across his face. To survive, Jesse Linkam had begun to think like the Hoskanners … .

Jesse lay in bed beside Dorothy. Sworn to secrecy about the shock-canister method, she kept an unofficial accounting of how much melange had been gathered. To boost morale, she suggested that Jesse begin quietly providing the exiled spice crews with additional comforts and entertainment, even female companionship, if they wanted it. Jesse also decided to donate his personal chef from the mansion, though Piero Zonn would have even more problems out in a dusty base camp than in the questionable civilization of Carthage. Still, he would be commanded to do what he could for the sandminers; without them, the Hoskanners could never be defeated.

Meanwhile, back in the city, the water reserves of House Linkam had been exhausted. While the people appreciated the generosity, as soon as they began to be turned away their grumbling started once again. Jesse thought of their hardships, feeling guilt because finally his teams were hauling in huge melange harvests, yet he had to pretend to be poor.

With the tighter markets and the higher demand for melange across the Empire, Jesse had Tuek snoop out a few black-market connections. The old veteran was easily able to bring in extra water shipments, using a portion of the never-reported spice hoard to pay for the precious liquid. Thus, Jesse soon reinstituted the water benefits for all supplicants. Times were still hard for the townspeople, but no one in Carthage would go thirsty while he was their nobleman … .

After making love that night, Jesse and Dorothy spoke of old times on Catalan, and wished they could be back home. He toyed with the triangular stone of the diagem promise ring on her finger, remembering when he had given it to her out on a lonely reef where they had tied up their boat. The day had been full of intimate moments, romance, and shared dreams. But now Jesse never completely let down his guard in Dorothy’s company, troubled by the suspicions Tuek had voiced about her. He held his concubine’s firm, warm body against his own, listening to her breathe. Although she lay very still and silent, he knew she was only pretending to sleep so as not to disturb him. How much else was she pretending?

He didn’t want to think about it.

AS A TANGERINE dawn profiled the rooftops of Carthage, Ulla Bauers marched to the front arches of the headquarters mansion. Dressed in full Imperial regalia, he strode officiously past the stark, empty pedestals from which all the Hoskanner statues had been so rudely removed.