Road to Dune (7 page)

Before beginning, Jesse moved around the table and poured the rich, aromatic coffee for his companions, demonstrating that he was different from other noblemen. “I was greatly disturbed by what I saw during yesterday’s inspection tour. The Hoskanners have prepared a nasty trap for us here.”

“You’ve got that right, laddie,” Gurney grumbled. “This might as well be a prison planet for House Linkam: We can’t leave until we complete our sentence.”

“Even then, going home doesn’t seem to be an option,” English said, his tone as bitter as spice-coffee dregs. “Not for most of us.”

Jesse studied the scarred crew manager, whom Tuek had approved. In the days when House Linkam had fared better, English’s grandfather had been on close terms with Jesse’s. English seemed competent and dependable enough, but Jesse knew there were no certainties in life. Risks had to be taken. He had to rely on people.

But people are prone to fallibility,
he thought,
and betrayal. They change with every breath they take.

Nevertheless, he made up his mind. He looked around the table. “Even though most of the sandminers here are—or were—convict laborers, I do not consider them slaves. I’ve worked with the people on Catalan, watched them take pride in the most menial tasks if they had some reason to do so. I intend to give the people on Duneworld a
reason
to work hard. Our only chance of winning this challenge is if the populace is on our side. We can’t do it without them.”

“Very few workers are on Duneworld by choice, My Lord,” English said. “The Hoskanners ground them under their heel, worked them to death, stole their hope as soon as they transferred here from prison planets.”

“Then I will give them hope. For their benefit and for ours, I will show them that I am different from Valdemar Hoskanner.” Jesse flashed a hard smile. “General Tuek, Mr. English, I want you to put out the word. Inform the sandminer crews that if House Linkam wins this challenge, I give my oath as a nobleman that every freedman shall have his passage offplanet. I’ll pay for it myself if I have to.”

“My Lord!” Tuek said. “House Linkam doesn’t have the finances for that, nor can we afford to lose all of our most experienced crewmen!”

“Esmar, if we win the challenge, then we will have sufficient spice income to pay for it. We can begin training the senior convict laborers to take over for the freedmen, and perhaps we can entice some of the freedmen to stay.”

English’s eyes sparkled. “My comrades will be extremely glad to hear this news, My Lord.”

Jesse drew a deep breath, knowing he had stepped off a precipice, and he only hoped he could survive the landing. Though Linkam family finances had improved under his stewardship, his family’s credit standing remained low, thanks to the damages his father and brother had done. To fund this bold and risky venture, he had borrowed large sums from the Imperial bank and reluctantly accepted aid from a few politically allied Houses.

In scrambling for money, Jesse had been chagrined to discover that many of the noble families who had prodded him into contesting the Hoskanner monopoly now refused to support him when it counted most. He’d felt like an unprepared victim thrown into an arena while others cheered or jeered from the safety of their seats, casting wagers as to his fate. Jesse should have expected little else from most of them.

Despite all obstacles, though, he was determined to win the spice challenge. He had to get the workers on his side. Once he broke the Hoskanner monopoly, he would share the profits as he saw fit, rewarding his few supporters lavishly and leaving others in the financial deep freeze.

This planet is a treasure chest,
he thought,
and I must find the key to open it.

“I chose the course of dignity and honor, though it may have been a foolish one.” Jesse slumped into his high-backed chair. “If only I knew more about how much the Hoskanners were producing here.”

Tuek brought out a document, slapped it on the table, and slid it over to Jesse. “I do have a little something for you, My Lord.”

Jesse recognized columns of spice-production figures. “Hoskanner numbers for the past two years? Where did you get this?”

“From an impeccable source.” The old veteran looked at English.

The new spice foreman said, “I wasn’t that significant when the Hoskanners were here, but documents did get passed around, to compare month-by-month results and motivate the spice foremen into competing with one another. They made copies for internal purposes and … lost track of some of them.”

Tuek added, “William had to call in a lot of favors for this information, but it makes for interesting reading.”

“Excellent,” Jesse said. “Now we’ll know where we stand.”

“Or how far behind we are,” Gurney suggested, with a smirk. “Look at the numbers, laddie.”

Jesse whistled. “If these figures are right, the Hoskanners produced an incredible amount of melange! Has this much spice been distributed throughout the Empire? I had no idea its use was so widespread.”

Tuek cautioned, “Could be a trick. Inflated amounts.”

But Jesse shook his head. “If this was a trick, Valdemar would have under-reported to escape Imperial tariffs and lull us into a false sense of security.”

Studying the document, Gurney said, “Sorry to state the obvious, laddie, but the Hoskanners had a whole fleet of spiceprocessing machinery. The twelve decrepit spice harvesters and three old carryalls they left us are not nearly adequate.”

“The equipment spends more time in repair shops than in service,” English said. “The Hoskanner scum took the most qualified crews with them, too, paid them a bonus for
not
helping us, including passage offworld.” Though the scarred spice foreman glowered at the injustice, Jesse suspected that English himself would have taken the offer, had the Hoskanners made it to him.

“Only eighty-one experienced freedmen stayed behind,” Tuek said. “And our workers from Catalan need a lot of training. We’ve got a long way to go.”

Jesse stood and began pacing. “I expected some of this. Immediately after accepting the challenge, I had Dorothy order six new spice harvesters and two more carryalls from the Ixian machine works, even paid for rush delivery.” Jesse grimaced. “Last night, after the inspection tour, I sent for six more spice harvesters and another carryall.”

“Can you afford it, My Lord?” Tuek asked.

“More than I can afford
not
to.”

“That’s twelve new harvesters and twelve old ones,” Gurney said. “Still less equipment than the Hoskanners had.”

“Then we’ll just have to work harder and smarter than they did,” Jesse said. “According to Dorothy, we’ve sold most of our valuable family heirlooms and mortgaged everything else. She says we’re not stretching the budget—we’re breaking it.” He sighed. “But what choice do we have if we want to win? For the survival of House Linkam, we must win!”

English self-consciously rubbed the waxy scar tissue on his cheek. “The Hoskanners had a lot of trouble with the weather. Sand ate into the biggest spice harvesters and damaged the factory modules. The dust here is more corrosive and statically charged than anyone expected. Even with thirty harvesters, at least a quarter of them were down for repairs at any one time.” He paused. “But there is a way to improve on that. I think.” The room fell silent. Looking at Jesse, the spice foreman cleared his throat. “The Grand Emperor said this game has no rules, right?”

Jesse nodded. “It’d be nice to have that work to our advantage for a change.”

“The Emperor’s first inspection crews set up advance bases out in the desert, sealed structures that have been sitting there for years, filled with machinery and supplies. Some of my freedmen know where they are. Everything’s in perfect working order, because they used live-rubber shielding over the structures.”

“Never heard of it,” Tuek said.

“A very expensive material. It’s incredibly malleable, and could be fitted over the engine housings and other sensitive areas to keep sand out of the harvesters. There might not be enough live-rubber shielding for all the machines, but it’ll definitely help. I’ve thought about it for years, but never got around to suggesting it to the Hoskanners. I was nobody to them, and they probably wouldn’t have listened anyway.” He smiled. “Besides, I rather enjoyed watching them struggle.”

“Doesn’t that property belong to the Emperor?” Tuek pointed out. “Technically?”

“No rules—the Emperor said it himself.” Gurney was grinning.

“Duneworld has a way of making its own rules,” English said.

Jesse made up his mind. “We raid the advance bases.”

Deep in thought, he took a sip of spice coffee. As he gazed through the plaz toward the sands, he could feel the soothing effects of melange. “Collect all the data compiled by advance survey teams and as much intelligence as you can find about the spice operations of the Hoskanners. We’ll need access to that information before we can rise above their mistakes and reach another level. Otherwise we won’t know what we’re doing.”

Dorothy burst into the conference room, her face flushed. “We’ve just received an emergency transmission, My Lord! A carryall broke down and stranded one of the spice harvesters. They’re calling for an emergency rescue before a worm comes.”

“We have two other carryalls, don’t we?” Jesse asked. “Send one quickly.”

Now English looked distressed. “Sir, one carryall is in the repair depot, and the other is in a spice field near the equator. Much too far away. They’ll never get there in time.”

“What about all those men?” Jesse demanded. “Isn’t there a full spice crew on that harvester?”

Dorothy’s face darkened. “They shut down operations and dampened their noise and vibrations. But even if they lie low, they’re sure a sandworm will come soon.”

Jesse fairly lunged out of the room. “William, get me our fastest transport shuttles, anything that can carry crewmen. We’ll save as many as we can. Gurney, Esmar—come with me! There’s no time to lose.”

6

Nobility is not the same thing as bravery.

—NOBLEMAN JESSE LINKAM,
private notes

F
or more than three decades General Esmar Tuek had served House Linkam, first as a member of the guard force, then working his way up to security chief. In earlier years he had tried to keep Jabo Linkam from accidentally killing himself, and the same with Linkam’s eldest son, Hugo, but those noblemen had gone to great lengths to avoid using what little brains they had.

Now, at long last, Tuek had a chance to serve someone with a solid head on his shoulders. Jesse was a thoughtful man willing to perform honest work for what he wanted, much loved by his people back on Catalan. But was the young nobleman just as big a fool as his predecessors for letting himself be goaded into Valdemar Hoskanner’s challenge? Perhaps it would still end badly.

Racing to rescue the stranded spice harvester, Gurney Halleck handled the controls of the transport ship with a kinesthetic accelerator connected to his fingertips. English stood behind him in the cockpit, struggling to hold his balance while guiding their course.

The roaring ship flew so low over the dunes that the noise of its passage rattled the sands. Looking back through the aft porthole, Tuek saw a monstrous worm surface just behind them, questing with its blind head.

The spice foreman had suggested a low and erratic flight pattern to confuse the creatures, and hopefully to prevent them from going after the disabled equipment. “They’re unpredictable beasts,” English said. “I wouldn’t count on anything. There’s never been a truly safe or effective means of harvesting melange.”

Twenty years before, Donell Mornay, an inventor with the third Imperial expedition to this desolate planet, had developed the initial techniques for excavating spice, under contract from the young Grand Emperor Wuda. Mornay’s early harvesters had been much smaller machines, and when most of them were devoured by worms, he conceived the flying carryalls to lift the mobile factories to safety and deposit them at other rich spice veins, a leapfrog process that always kept the harvesters one step ahead of the worms. When everything worked properly.

The Hoskanners improved the guerrilla mining technique with larger harvesters and more powerful carryalls. With any luck—and Tuek wasn’t sure if House Linkam had any left—Jesse might further refine the techniques.

Finally, the fast transport reached the weathered spice harvester sitting in the orange-and-brown sand. The quiet machine looked like a frightened rabbit huddling motionless, hoping not to be noticed.

“A rich, rich vein,” English said, his voice dismal. “A shame to just abandon it.”

“We’ll salvage what we can from the cargo holds—if there’s time,” Jesse said, watching tensely. “The crews made a good haul before they got into trouble. I’ve already called for help from the Carthage shipping yards. More carriers are on the way.”

As the rescue transport arrived, a flurry of small ornijets rushed in from the west. Hovering overhead, five of them dipped vacuum tubes into the harvester’s cargo hold, sucking up melange like hummingbirds sipping nectar.

Tuek dropped a rescue chute onto the sand beside the massive vehicle and switched on the mechanism’s motor. “Put it in reverse,” Jesse ordered. “I’m going down myself.”

“My Lord, you don’t need to do that. With all this increased activity, a worm will come soon. Bet on it!”

“I didn’t ask your opinion, General.” Hearing the rebuke in the nobleman’s voice, Tuek did as he was told.

“Wormsign! Less than twenty minutes out!” English shouted, listening to a report from the ornijet scouts. “They have to hurry! Get salvage crews right now—off-load the spice! Save the melange!”

“Damn the spice!” Jesse called. “Save the men!”

He rode the stepped conveyor down to the sand. More than fifty sandminers had already boiled out of the harvester, seasoned freedmen and convicts still working off their sentences, along with new arrivals from Catalan. Jesse urged the men into the rescue chute. From above, Tuek barely heard their voices over the machinery sounds as he reset the conveyor.