Road to Dune (24 page)

“And I will be true to my word,” Jesse told them all. “Once the Emperor acknowledges my claim here on Duneworld, any freedman who wishes to depart will be given passage offplanet, at my expense. House Linkam will also make it worthwhile for those who choose to stay.”

Gurney found cause for celebration in the mess hall. “‘And he seized all the gold and silver and all the vessels that were found in the house of God. He seized also the treasuries of the king’s house.’ That we have done, My Lord! According to the final sum, we have beat the bloody Hoskanners, by the grace of the gods and demons. I’ve already begun to compose a song about it.”

“Your songs are always lies or exaggerations, Gurney,” Jesse pointed out.

“Ho, but in this case there’s no need. The events themselves are fantastic enough.”

The surviving sandminers understood the terrific news, though many of them still seemed stunned and broken to have faced such a disaster at their moment of greatest accomplishment. Every one of them had lost friends on the destroyed harvesters and carryall. Jesse looked at them all, feeling their heartache as part of his own. He was the nobleman, responsible for their safety and their future. Even with the thrill of victory, he promised himself that he would never forget the tremendous cost … .

Gurney led Jesse outside into the brittle daylight and over to one of the rock-camouflaged storage silos. Dr. Haynes’s plantings extended out in broad chevrons of greenery, windbreak lines where scrub fought against the encroaching sands. Gurney said, “It may not be so easy to collect your prize, My Lord, if General Tuek is right about an Imperial army hidden in that inspection ship.”

“The Grand Emperor did not come to Duneworld to pat me on the back. We’d better have enough melange to impress him.”

Inside the dim cavern of one of their storehouses, the spice foreman stood with his hands on his hips, his square chin tilted up and his face alight with pride. Looking around, Jesse saw crate after crate of compressed raw spice. The containers covered the floor and were stacked to the ceiling.

“This is just a tiny fraction of it. We’ve tallied up all the caches in caves and hidden in the desert. We beat the Hoskanners by a good margin, and our time is not yet up.”

Jesse could not believe the wealth he saw. “Don’t forget to count the melange we’ve already released for distribution over the past two years.”

Gurney laughed. “A drop in the bucket compared to the treasure we amassed afterward! I tell you, the Empire is starving for this stuff. We’ll get a good price for every speck of it. Of course, the Grand Emperor and his cronies will get their share, but there’s plenty left for us.”

Jesse hung his head. “No profit is worth the misery we’ve been through, the people we’ve lost.”

“You were forced into this situation, laddie—and you turned a trap into victory.”

“We’re not out of the trap yet. Guard our stockpiles with your life, Gurney. As soon as we can arrange for transport and proper security, I’ll contact the Emperor’s inspection ship and demand that he declare me the winner of this damnable challenge.”

“And then Duneworld will be yours.”

Jesse’s shoulders felt heavy. “Alas, the rains and seas of Catalan would suit me better, Gurney.”

WHEN JESSE FINALLY met with the planetary ecologist in his laboratory office, Haynes’s eyes were glazed with wonder and fascination. “I must know everything you experienced, Nobleman.” He sat at a conference-room table, his hands clasped in front of him, elbows resting on the hard surface. He leaned forward, ready to drink in every word. “You’ve seen things I only dreamed of. No man has ever returned from a sand whirlpool. No man has ever seen what creates the spice!”

And so, to the best of his ability, Jesse described all that he had witnessed and endured. He paced the room, then relented and poured himself a cup of spice coffee from a sealed urn. The burn of melange in his mouth gave him a delicious thrill.

Haynes took notes and asked probing questions, but mostly he sat and listened. When Jesse finished, the planetary ecologist stared at the chamber wall, his gaze distant, as if his imagination was roaming across the dunes to rich spice fields and worm sands, to gasping fumaroles and hidden tunnels beneath the desert, running like blue veins through a living planet. “Nobleman Linkam, you have helped me complete the working theory I’ve been developing for so many years.”

Inside the room under bright artificial lights, test beds of hardy plants grew, each of them given carefully monitored rations of water. Some of the species looked weak and withering, while others thrived. Jesse inspected some of the strange adaptations to an arid environment.

“And what is your theory?” Jesse asked.

Haynes shook his head, as if suddenly intimidated. “I can’t be sure of all the details yet. There are many small threads I still wish to tie together.”

“I’m not asking you for a rigorous scientific explanation, Dr. Haynes. At the moment, I’d just like a layman’s understanding of this planet that’s absorbed so much of my sweat and blood for the past two years.”

Haynes surrendered. “I have long suspected a network of tunnels and vents beneath the sand. Until now, I never imagined that they might be part of an elaborate ecosystem, a labyrinth filled with fungusoid ‘spice plants,’ as you call them. It adds a new foundation to the ecology of Duneworld, which has always seemed sparse and mysterious, with too few components to support a biological web.”

“Like only seeing the tip of an iceberg. There is much more to it beneath the surface.”

“Exactly.”

“But what’s the connection between these spice plants, the sandworms, and everything else?” On a flat specimen shelf, small trays contained samples of melange of varying colors and densities; Jesse knew that spice was graded according to quality, though even the lowest form still provided a heady rush. Right now, the smell of the open samples made his nostrils tingle. He leaned closer to sniff.

Haynes looked down at the notes on his datapad. “My theory—and mind you, it is only a theory—is that the spice, the fungusoid plants, the sandtrout, and even the worms are all connected.”

Jesse touched a fingertip to the darkest spice sample, tasted it on the tip of his tongue. “You mean mutually dependent on one another? Parasites? Symbiotes?”

Haynes shook his head. “This may be difficult to accept, Nobleman, but I am beginning to conclude they are all aspects of the
same life-form—
phases in a complex growth and development cycle.”

“How can that be? Sandtrout, worms, and plants are nothing alike.”

“Is a caterpillar like a butterfly? Is a larva like a beetle? A nymph like a dragonfly? The sandworms and spice plants could be—for lack of a more accurate comparison—male and female forms of a bipartite organism. Fungusoid organisms grow, and at a certain climactic point they reach to the surface, where they spew billions of microspores. In the atmosphere, the plants immediately die, as you witnessed. The spice we consume is composed of these microspores mixed with powdery plant residues, distributed by the winds. In turn, the spores germinate and grow, forming tiny creatures that devour the sand plankton and then grow into what we see as sandtrout.”

Haynes held up a finger, as if making a place mark in his flow of thoughts. “It’s fascinating, if my conjecture is correct. The sandtrout themselves may be the larval forms of the monstrous worms, while some of the little creatures may burrow deep and take root as spice plants. Perhaps each ‘male’ sandtrout grows into a giant creature, or somehow links together with others of its kind to form a colony organism, since each sandworm ring appears to be autonomous.”

“This is all difficult to grasp,” Jesse said. “A life cycle so alien, so incomprehensible.”

“We are on an alien, baffling planet, Nobleman.”

Jesse stopped in front of a row of cages holding kangaroo rats, tiny rodents that went busily about their lives even in confinement. He wondered if they would rather be free out in the desert, like the ones he and Barri had encountered, or if they even had such an awareness.

“Worms seem to guard the spice sands,” Jesse said. “Are they preventing other worms from attacking their young? Or preventing our sandminers from stealing the spores?”

Haynes shrugged. “As good an explanation as any. I never suspected that sand whirlpools and fumaroles might be crucial links in the chain of spice distribution. After reaching some catalyst point, a perfect balance of temperature and chemicals, the fungal organisms reproduce in explosive proportions. They draw large amounts of sand—silica—as nourishment or structural material. This, combined with minerals and chemicals in the volcanic gases, triggers even more growth and reproduction. They find an outlet to the air, where they dump their spores and then die.”

With a wan smile, the planetary ecologist rested his elbows on the table. “Or the real explanation could be something entirely different, almost beyond human comprehension. I just don’t know.”

As he poured himself another cup of the strong spice coffee, Jesse thought of all the giant worms they had incapacitated with shock canisters, all the melange they had excavated from rich veins. He took a long drink. “Harvesting so much spice, is there a chance we’re destroying a fragile life cycle that has existed here on Duneworld for millennia? Humans have only been on this planet for a few years.”

“There’s always that chance. I simply don’t have enough information yet.”

With the vivid images of the amazing underground catacombs before his mind’s eye, Jesse set his jaw. “If I’m awarded permanent control of this planet, it may be necessary to curtail our production. We’ll have to be good stewards of the land and allow some of the melange fields to lie fallow so that the populations of worms and spice plants can replenish themselves.”

The scientist’s face became sad. “That will never happen, Nobleman Linkam—not as long as the Grand Emperors and noble families remain in power. Nobles, starship crews, and wealthy merchants have become increasingly dependent upon the spice, and will demand more and more production. It will only get worse, not better.”

“Spice may be popular, but I think you’re exaggerating its importance.”

Haynes shook his head. “Why do you think the Imperial inspection ship came here to intimidate you after only a year? You may have heard rumors of spice riots on Renaissance and other wealthy planets—they are all true.”

“I thought that was just Hoskanner propaganda, to stir up resentment against House Linkam.” Restless, Jesse found screens that displayed real-time images from the weather satellites. The surface of Duneworld was bland and unremarkable, with few features to help him find the location of the forward research base. Most of the large storms were centered high in the northern hemisphere.

“If anything, Nobleman, those reports minimized the uproar. With Duneworld’s exports drastically reduced, the entire Empire is craving this substance. They desire spice more than anything else.”

Jesse scowled. “Come now, Dr. Haynes—as valuable as it may be, melange is just a luxury commodity. It would be good for some of the pampered nobles to forget their hedonistic pleasures for a while. Once spice becomes too scarce or too expensive, the people will turn to other vices. The Empire offers plenty of them.”

Haynes’s voice had a grim edge. “Most noble families are addicted to melange—
fatally addicted,
I fear—and they are just now beginning to realize the fact. That is the dark side of the spice.”

“Then they’ll have to endure. It’ll toughen them up.” Jesse’s voice grew iron-hard. “Someone will develop treatment plans. Esmar Tuek endured his cure from the sapho drug, which is said to be the worst addiction ever known.”

The planetary ecologist shook his head. “Believe me, Nobleman, sapho is child’s play compared to melange withdrawal. You do not consume spice extravagantly yourself, but after your recent exposure underground, I fear you may be inextricably bound to it as well. The Emperor is desperately dependent on melange, as are many high-ranking families, and the pilots and crews of starships. If the spice flow stops, the whole Empire will fall into a dark age such as the human race has never known. An entire generation will die from the drastic effects of withdrawal.”

Jesse absorbed the startling comments. He tasted the pleasant burning of spice in his mouth and lungs from the saturation underground, from the cups of spice coffee he’d just finished, from the pure sample he’d tasted. Deep inside himself, he already felt an undeniable twinge of longing, not yet a craving but an insistent whisper that suggested how sweet melange would taste right now. Yes, he could envision it becoming an all-consuming personal need.

He thought of the noble families and the Emperor himself panicking because their supplies were cut off. When Jesse had heard his name being reviled due to his apparent failure, such vitriol had not made sense to him, even allowing for Hoskanner rabble-rousing. He had thought that powerful forces were arrayed against him, influential people and alliances working to ensure his failure. Now his fingers tightened into a fist at his side. The Duneworld challenge had been more than a trap. It had widespread consequences that were more severe than he’d ever imagined.

A commotion arose outside the laboratory, and someone pounded on the door. “My Lord,” Gurney said, “the messenger’s ornijet has just returned! He has news from General Tuek. You’d better hear it.”

Sensing something terribly wrong, Jesse hurried to face the man who bore a communiqué from the old security chief. When the messenger handed over the cylinder, Jesse grasped both ends and pulled it apart to display the screen and holographic recording.

The blurry simulacrum of Esmar Tuek looked distraught, his face pummeled with grief and uncertainty. “My Lord, we have been attacked! The headquarters mansion was betrayed from within. All of my men were gassed unconscious—including me. Dr. Yueh is missing, and we fear he has been killed. And … your son has been kidnapped.”

Jesse wanted to shout at the image, but he knew questions would have no effect upon the recorded hologram. His throat clenched. “There is more, My Lord. It appears that the traitor was none other than your concubine, Dorothy Mapes, who is also missing.”