New duties, new responsibilities . . . and more good-byes. As a mostly recovered Xavier Harkonnen stood with Serena Butler inside the Zimia Spaceport, the departure facility seemed a sterile environment with echoing plaztile floors. Even the warmth of Serena’s expression did not compensate for the utilitarian structure. Window walls looked out onto the fused pavement where shuttles took off and landed every few minutes, going to and from the larger long-distance ships that waited in orbit.

In one wing of the spaceport, work crews shored up sections of a hangar damaged during the cymek attack. Large cranes lifted temporary walls and braces into place. Out on the landing field, huge blast craters had been filled in.

Dressed in a crisp gold-and-black Armada uniform reflecting his new grade, Xavier gazed deeply into Serena’s unusual lavender eyes. He knew how she saw him. His facial features were not particularly striking— ruddy complexion, pointed nose, generous lips— but overall she found him attractive, especially the soft brown eyes and his infectious, though rarely used, smile.

“I wish we could spend more time together, Xavier.” She fingered a white rose floweret on her lapel. The spaceport drone of other people, noisy repair crews and heavy machinery surrounded them.

Xavier noticed Serena’s younger sister Octa watching them. A seventeen-year-old with long strawberry-blond hair, she’d always had a crush on Xavier. Willowy Octa was a nice enough girl, but recently he wished she would give him and Serena a little more privacy, especially now that they would be apart for so long.

“So do I. Let’s make these minutes count.” Surrendering to the urge he knew they both shared, he leaned forward to kiss her, as if his lips were drawn by a magnetic force. The kiss lingered, then grew intense. At last Xavier pulled back. Serena looked disappointed, more with the situation than with him. They both had important duties, demands on their time and energy.

Newly installed in his position, Xavier was about to embark with a group of military specialists on an inspection tour of League planetary defenses. After the nearly successful cymek strike against Salusa two months ago, he would make certain there were no weaknesses on other League Worlds. The thinking machines would exploit the tiniest flaw, and free humans could not afford to lose any of their remaining strongholds.

Serena Butler, meanwhile, would focus on expanding the League domain. After the battlefield surgeons had been so successful with the fresh tank-grown organs provided by Tuk Keedair, Serena had spoken passionately about the services and resources the Unallied Planets such as Tlulaxa could provide. She wanted them to formally join the union of free humans.

Already, more flesh merchants had arrived on Salusa with their biological wares; previously, many nobles and League citizens had been uneasy about the mysterious outsiders, but now that the war-wounded faced terrible losses of limbs and organs, they were willing to accept cloned replacement parts. The Tlulaxa never explained where they had developed or obtained such sophisticated biological technology, but Serena praised their generosity and resources.

At any other time, her speech in the Hall of Parliament might have been forgotten, but the cymek attack had underscored her point about the vulnerability of the Unallied Planets. What if the machines next chose to wipe out the Thalim system and thereby eliminate the Tlulaxan ability to give sight to blind veterans, new limbs to amputees?

She had studied hundreds of survey documents and ambassadorial reports, trying to determine which of the nonsignatory planets were the best candidates for induction into the League brotherhood. Unifying the remnants of humanity had become her passion, to make the free people strong enough to put down any machine aggression.

Despite her youth, she had already led two successful aid missions, the first when she was only seventeen. In one she had taken food and medical supplies to refugees from an abandoned Synchronized World, and in the other she had provided relief for a biological blight that almost destroyed the pristine farms on Poritrin.

Neither she nor Xavier had time for themselves.

“When you return, I promise I will make it up to you,” she said, her eyes dancing. “I’ll give you a banquet of kisses.”

He allowed himself a rare laugh. “Then I plan to arrive very hungry indeed!” Xavier took her hand and kissed it gallantly. “When we dine again, I shall come calling with flowers.” He knew their next rendezvous could be months away.

She gave him a warm smile. “I have a particular fondness for flowers.”

He was about to pull Serena close, but they were interrupted by a familiar brown-skinned child coming from another direction— Xavier’s eight-year-old brother, Vergyl Tantor. The boy had been permitted to leave school to see him off. Breaking free of an elderly instructor escort, Vergyl ran to hug his idol, nuzzling his face into the crisp uniform shirt.

“Take care of our estate while I am gone, little brother,” Xavier said, playfully rubbing his knuckles on the boy’s wiry hair. “You are in charge of tending my wolfhounds— you understand?”

The boy’s brown eyes widened, and he nodded gravely. “Yes.”

“And obey your parents, otherwise you can’t hope to grow up to become a good officer in the Armada.”

“I will!”

An announcement summoned the inspection team to board the shuttle. Hearing it, Xavier promised to bring something back for Vergyl, Octa, and Serena. While Octa watched from a distance, smiling hopefully, he hugged his little brother again, squeezed Serena’s hand, and strode off with the officers and engineers.

Staring at the window wall where they could watch the waiting military shuttle, Serena glanced down at the boy and thought of Xavier Harkonnen. Xavier had been only six years old when thinking machines had killed his natural parents and his older brother.

Because of interfamily agreements and the written wills of Ulf and Katarina Harkonnen, young Xavier had been raised as the foster son of powerful and then-childless Emil and Lucille Tantor. The noble couple had already made arrangements for their holdings to be administered by Tantor relatives, distant cousins and nephews who would not normally have inherited anything. But when Emil Tantor began to raise Xavier, he was quite taken with the orphan and legally adopted him, though Xavier retained his Harkonnen name and all associated noble rights.

After the adoption, Lucille Tantor unexpectedly conceived a son, Vergyl, who was twelve years younger than Xavier. The Harkonnen heir, not worried about dynastic politics, concentrated on a course of military studies, intending to join the League Armada. At the age of eighteen Xavier received the legal entitlement to the original Harkonnen holdings, and a year later he became an officer in the Salusan Militia. With his impeccable performance and rapid promotions, everyone could see Xavier was a rising star in the military ranks.

Now three people who cared about him watched the shuttle lift into the sky on a plume of orange exhaust. Vergyl held Serena’s hand, bravely trying to comfort her. “Xavier will be all right. You can count on him.”

She felt a pang for her departing love, but smiled warmly at the wide-eyed boy. “Of course we can.”

She would have it no other way. Love was one of the things that separated humans from machines.