Sisterhood of Dune (39 page)

“She’s never had the chance,” Valya added. “All her life, her brothers took care of any problems, saved her from herself. She acts out where she can, as she did in pursuing an inappropriate romance with a young chef in the Palace, forcing her brothers to send her here to Rossak, just to put her someplace where she can’t cause further trouble.”

Raquella nodded. “It would be better if she learned to be strong and competent herself. I don’t believe the Emperor has any particular expectations from our school, other than to keep her out of trouble. But we would be ignoring an important opportunity if we did not try to make her one of us. One day, Anna Corrino will return to her family, and we should make certain she is dedicated to the Sisterhood.”

Valya allowed her frustration to creep into her voice. “She shows no interest in her classroom studies nor in her mental exercises.”

Dorotea frowned at her. “You’re essentially her warden, watching to make sure she isn’t hurt—but what good is that doing her? Just hiding and protecting her will not make her stronger. She needs to undergo the same vigorous training all acolytes must endure.”

“She’s the Emperor’s sister,” Valya said. “We don’t dare let her come to harm.”

The Reverend Mother nodded in agreement. “Then you must make sure that doesn’t happen, but we will fail Anna if we don’t train her. We should push, not coddle, the girl. Our goal is to improve each Sister. We’ve got to move forward, not tread water. Exposure to hardships hones the human body and psyche—with appropriate safeguards, of course.” She nodded, making up her mind about how to accomplish this. “We’ll place the girl in a demanding situation, send her on a survival quest for a few days. And I want you both to accompany her, watch her. Go deep into the jungles, away from the cliff city.”

Valya privately understood the Reverend Mother’s secondary purpose: Now that Dorotea had begun asking questions about Ingrid, she wanted the other woman away from the cliff city.

*   *   *

VALYA HARKONNEN DIDN’T
like being forced to do things. It made her feel trapped, out of control—and she had left Lankiveil to escape that. But she could see the advantages of spending days in isolation with the Emperor’s sister.

Now Dorotea, Valya, and Anna trudged up a rocky, volcanic slope unlike the dense silvery-purple jungles behind them. They wore lightweight jackets and layered outdoor clothing, and carried no tents, gear, or provisions. As a first training exercise for Anna, the Reverend Mother wanted them to live off the land, drink water from pools, and eat berries, fungi, and protein-rich insects.

They had been away from the civilized caves for three very long and miserable days, but at least they had kept the Corrino girl alive. The experience was very different from Anna’s outings in the palace gardens.

As expected, Anna protested having to go on the survival exercise, clinging to the minimal creature comforts of the cave settlement, but a stern Dorotea reminded her that an acolyte must follow the rules of the Sisterhood. “You’re not in Zimia anymore. All acolytes are equals here, and the Reverend Mother determined your assignment.”

Valya tried to sound more sympathetic. “It’s an important part of becoming a Sister, to make you strong. Remember, the Emperor gave strict instructions that you cannot return to your family until you complete your training.”

The girl had smiled at Valya, agreeing to try … but her dedication wore off quickly. Within hours of their dawn departure, Anna complained of hurting feet, of tangled underbrush, of biting insects. She didn’t like the flavor of the water they found in streams and treated with antibacterial tablets; she claimed to be desperately hungry but wouldn’t eat berries or fungi, much less grub worms from a rotting log. Unable to sleep at night on the ground, she overreacted to every small sound. On the trek today she was sure they had gotten lost; she kept trying to stop and rest, or turn back, but her companions would not allow it.…

Three long days passed. Often, Valya and Dorotea exchanged glances or shakes of the head. For Valya, this had become a survival mission of a different sort.…

She couldn’t help but wonder where Griffin was now, if he had managed to track down and kill Vorian Atreides. With her brother’s intelligence and fighting abilities, it seemed certain that he had an easier task than
this.

Sister Dorotea made a habit of lecturing her companions on what was edible and what was not, but her superior attitude and didactic methods had grown annoying. From her own years on the planet, and many months of working with Karee Marques, Valya knew full well what to eat from the jungle. This was her tenth survival exercise away from the cliff city; Dorotea, on the other hand, had been gone from Rossak for years.

Their goal was a cluster of thermal pools that they hoped to reach by midday. Seen in glimpses through the scattered canopy, the sky was lead gray, hinting at rain, and it was hotter here, away from the seasonal breezes on the cliff faces. Once they had climbed above most of the trees, the ground consisted of rough, porous black rock left from a lava flow. The jumbled dark rock lay in long dikes, with verdant fingers of jungle that looked like purplish fjords below.

Now that the ordeal was nearly over, Valya looked up to see the gray sky thickening and darkening as the rain set in. She quickened her pace and took the lead from Dorotea; even Anna began walking faster because she didn’t want to be left alone. “I want to reach the hot springs,” Valya said, “so we can fashion a shelter.”

“Do you know Sister Ingrid?” Dorotea asked as she pushed through the underbrush, bending a mucus-covered fern out of the way. “I recommended her to Rossak after meeting her on Lampadas. I’m concerned about her; she seems to have just vanished.”

“That sounds melodramatic.” Valya was careful to tell the precise truth, which would keep falsehood indicators out of her tone; after her service in the Imperial Court, Dorotea was quite adept at detecting lies. “She’s probably been found by now.”

“I’m glad she didn’t come with us out here,” Anna said, then wandered off the path to look at a patch of spine-covered fungi.

Hearing a crash and a squeal, Valya saw a blur of movement running toward them, low to the ground. Anna screamed.

With hardly a glance at each other, Valya and Dorotea put themselves between Anna and the animal, dropping into defensive postures, keeping their centers of gravity low. The tusked, hairy beast tore up underbrush that grew among the lava boulders, then stomped toward them on legs like pistons.

At the last possible moment, in her own blur of movement, Valya sidestepped and kicked the animal, stunning the creature and knocking it on its side. Her fighting reflexes came naturally to her after so many years of training with Griffin. As Dorotea pulled Anna to safety, Valya leaped onto the creature’s neck and drove her heel down with enough force to crush its throat and vertebrae; a gout of blood squirted from the beast’s mouth and nostrils. Even grievously wounded, the animal squirmed and tried to stand again, before its legs buckled and it tumbled over, dead.

Barely panting, Valya turned to look at the wide-eyed Anna. “You can always be perfectly safe, if you know how to protect yourself. Wouldn’t that be a useful skill for an Emperor’s sister to have?”

The young woman nodded, still speechless.

Dorotea stared at her, also awed. “Where did you learn to fight like that? I saw moves that we don’t learn in the Sisterhood.”

“My brother and I taught each other.” She brushed herself off, then became more pragmatic. “There could be more of these beasts nearby, and the sky is looking ominous. I don’t think we should try for the hot springs. Let’s go directly back to the school.”

As if on cue, the ground rumbled and split, tossing black lava rocks aside as a narrow seam opened up, squirting a column of steam along with a thin, fast-flowing stream of scarlet magma into the jungle, setting the plants aflame.

“I agree,” Dorotea said. “We can head for the base of the cliff and follow it back.” Anna Corrino did not complain.

Dorotea led the way and ducked into the thickening jungle, beating a path down the slope again. Valya sensed the ground growing unstable beneath them. A steam vent opened up, the hissing exhalation of a fumarole, and she hurried Anna along, crashing through plants and stumbling over the rough lava rock.

They worked their way out of the volcanically active zone and located a faint trail, likely a game path. Valya and Dorotea found enough breaks in the jungle to get their bearings and decided they could make their way back to the cliff city by nightfall. They found the base of the rock wall and followed it, thrashing through underbrush. The rain held off for a surprisingly long time, then began to fall, streaming down, making Anna hunch her shoulders and gaze miserably at the ground. To Valya, on the other hand, the weather reminded her of a pleasant squall on Lankiveil.

Just ahead, Dorotea shouted in alarm, and Valya hurried Anna forward to see what was wrong. The older Sister was staring at the grisly fragments of a carcass, bones, and a skull that was clearly human, all ripped to pieces; the torn, pale-green fabric of an acolyte’s robe hung in shreds from bushes. Valya’s heart sank.

“It’s Ingrid,” Dorotea said, weeping. “I knew something had happened to her!” She extricated a thin gold chain tangled in the bloody bones. Valya recognized a small charm with the symbol of the Butlerians, a fist closed around a stylized gear.

Looking up, Valya saw through the rain that they were close to the inhabited tunnels. She and Raquella had dumped the acolyte’s body much deeper into the jungle and away from any trail, but predators must have dragged it here.

Fortunately, a nauseated Anna said exactly the right thing. “Poor Ingrid must have fallen off the cliff. Animals dragged her here … and ate her!”

Dorotea wore a hard expression that looked as if it had been sharpened on a whetstone. “But
how
did she fall off the cliff? That doesn’t sound like her. She was always sure-footed.” Dorotea wiped her rain-and-tear-soaked face, gazed up at the high natural wall.

“Should we take the body back, or leave it here?” Anna asked. She did not seem eager to touch the corpse.

Valya remained steely, knew what she had to say. “It is the way of the Sisterhood to leave the body here, for nature to take its course.”

Clutching the chain in her hand, Dorotea walked slowly away from the gruesome site, as if her muscles would not respond to commands. Thinking about damage control, Valya moved to Dorotea’s side and put a comforting arm around her. “I know she was your friend.”

As she consoled the older Sister, however, she saw a flash of jealousy on Anna’s face, but Valya needed to stay close to Dorotea, as well, to make sure she did not ask too many of the wrong questions.

A man may flee swiftly, and far, but he can never run from himself.

—Zensunni aphorism

The sky of Arrakis was a clear, dry wasteland—olive green smeared with veils of ever-present dust. Today the winds were light, and the weather stations predicted no storm activity, so the crew chief allowed Vorian Atreides to fly one of the scout aircraft while the VenHold spice-harvesting operations continued in the valley.

Even though the grizzled old Calbir had tested Vor’s proficiency in the cockpit several times now, he still treated him like a novice pilot, lecturing him through the checklist, warning him to keep watch for violent thermal updrafts or unexpected localized cyclones. “Never underestimate Arrakis, young man, because this planet doesn’t care a whit about you.”

Vor promised to be careful and flew off, intent on watching for any change in the sky, the slightest ripple of an approaching sandworm. This was his third solo scout flight in a week, and he knew his capabilities.

At dawn, the spice scouts had spotted rusty splotches on dunes in the middle of an enclosed valley surrounded by rocks. The sheltered valley was large, but still too small to be the sole domain of a giant sandworm, although the heavy vibrations of the spice-harvesting machinery would eventually attract one of the creatures. Fortunately, the only opening to the greater desert was a narrow bottleneck in the cliffs, so they knew exactly where a worm would have to enter.

While the excavator scuttled across the open sands of the valley, moving sometimes to the safe bastion of rocks, Vor took the skimcraft in a wide arc, circling from horizon to horizon, watching for any sign of a marauding worm. He kept his eyes open as he flew his patrol, but he expected the men to have more than the usual amount of time to reap their harvest. The valley’s high walls formed a natural fortress.

He gained altitude and circled the desert basin, scanning the undulating expanse of dunes below in search of wormsign. So far, the sandy wasteland looked serene, calming, and hypnotic.…

Vor relaxed, inhaled deeply, and pondered how clean and liberating the sheer emptiness was, the sharp edges and abrupt shadows, the mind-opening vistas and the freedom of being away from centuries of thoughts. He missed Mariella, their family, and friends back on Kepler, but he took comfort in knowing they were safe from slavers. The bittersweet pang was strong in his heart, though it would fade as the years went by … as it had before.

Letting his memory line plunge deeper, he thought of Leronica, the first woman to whom he’d given a normal human lifetime, and their sons, Estes and Kagin. He considered the rise and fall of his best friend Xavier Harkonnen during the terrible Jihad … and the beautiful, tragic Serena Butler. So many memories, such a long time.

He thought as well of his protégé, Abulurd Harkonnen, in whom he had invested so many hopes, but who had disobeyed Vor’s direct orders—for the best of reasons and the worst of tactics—when the very fate of humanity hung in the balance. Abulurd had betrayed him, and all of humanity, in the final clash against the thinking machines, and Vor had seen to it that Abulurd was convicted and banished.

Yes, being so alone helped him to crystallize his memories and put them away on a shelf of his mind like artifacts in a museum. It also let Vor move on with his life … his long, long life.