Unknown

Even the poorest House can be rich in loyalty. Allegiance that must be purchased by bribes or wages is hollow and flawed, and could break at the worst possible moment. Allegiance that comes from the heart, though, is stronger than adamantium and more valuable than purest melange.

Far across the galaxy, within the cargo hold of another Heighliner, a single unmarked Ixian space cruiser rested alone and indistinguishable among the crowded ships. The runaway cruiser had hopped from one freight line to another, changing designations each time.

Inside the unmarked ship, Dominic and Shando Vernius sat as passengers amidst the tattered remnants of their armed forces. Many of the family guard had been killed, and many had not made it to the escape ship in time; others had decided to take their chances in the aftermath of the revolution. No one aboard had said anything for a long time.

Lady Shando’s personal manservant Omer squirmed, twitching his narrow shoulders; his straight black hair had been cut exactly at the collar line, but now both collar and hair looked a bit ragged. Omer was the only one of her household staff who had chosen to accompany the family into exile. A timid man, he had abhorred the prospect of attempting to make a new life among the Tleilaxu.

Ambassador Pilru’s curt reports had made it eminently clear that they could expect no assistance from Landsraad military forces or the Emperor. By declaring themselves renegade they had severed all ties— and all obligations— to Imperial Law.

The seats, storage bins, and lockers aboard the renegade ship were filled with gems and valuable items, anything that could be sold for ready cash. Their flight might last for a long, long time.

Dominic sat next to his wife, holding her small and delicate hand. His hairless brow was creased with concern. “Elrood will send out teams to track us down,” he said. “We’ll be hunted like animals.”

“Oh, why won’t he just leave us alone now?” Omer muttered, shaking his straight black hair. “We’ve already lost everything.”

“Not enough for Roody,” Shando said, turning to her manservant. She sat straight-backed and regal. “He’s never forgiven me for talking him into letting me go. I never lied, but he thinks I tricked him.”

She looked out the narrow port edged with gleaming ser-chrome. The Ixian ship was small, with no overt markings of House Vernius: a simple vehicle used for hauling cargo or steerage passengers. Shando squeezed her husband’s hand and tried not to think of how far their fortunes had fallen.

She remembered the day of her departure from the Imperial Court, bathed and perfumed and decked with fresh flowers from Elrood’s greenhouses. The other concubines had given her gifts of brooches, jewels, radiant scarves that glowed from body heat. She had been young and excited then, her heart swelling with gratitude for the memories and experiences, yet aching to start a new life with a man she desperately loved.

Shando had kept her romance with Dominic secret and left Elrood under what she thought were good terms, terminating her service with his blessing. She and the Emperor had made love one last time, talked fondly of memories they shared. Elrood hadn’t understood her desire to leave Kaitain, but he had plenty of other concubines, after all. Her loss had meant little to him . . . until he learned she’d left him out of love for another man.

Now Shando’s ragged flight from Ix was far different from her departure from Kaitain. She sighed bitterly. “After a reign of almost a century and a half, Roody has learned how to wait for his revenge.”

Long past any shadow of jealousy, Dominic chuckled at the pet name. “Well, now he’s gotten even with us. We’ll have to be patient ourselves and find some way to restore our House’s fortunes. If not for us, then for our children.”

“I trust Paulus Atreides to keep them safe,” Shando said. “He’s a good man.”

“We must trust no one else to keep ourselves safe, however,” Dominic said. “That will be quite enough of a challenge for us.”

Dominic and Shando would soon separate, take new identities, and go into hiding on isolated planets, all the while hoping to be reunited one day. They had paid a huge bribe to the Guild, so that no records would be kept of their respective destinations. Husband and wife clung together, knowing that from this point on, nothing in their lives was certain.

Alone within the remnants of war-torn Ix, C’tair Pilru buried himself in a tiny transmission-shielded room. He hoped none of the suboids would find him. It seemed to be his only chance to survive the carnage.

His mother had once shown him this place concealed behind a dungeon wall of the Grand Palais, shielded up in the thick crust. As members of the Vernius Court, sons of the Ambassador to Kaitain, C’tair and D’murr had been assigned a place for personal safety should any emergency ever arise. With the same methodical efficiency she employed daily as a Guild banker, S’tina had prepared for every likelihood, and made sure her sons remembered. Sweaty, hungry, and terrified, C’tair had been relieved to find the hiding place intact amidst the chaos, gunfire, and explosions.

Then, safe and numb, the shock of what was happening to his city— his world—hit him full force. He couldn’t believe everything that had already been lost, how much grandeur had turned to dirt and blood and smoke.

His twin brother was gone, whisked off by the Guild to be trained as a Navigator. At the time he had resented that loss, but at least it meant D’murr was safe from the revolution. C’tair would not wish this ordeal on anyone . . . but he hoped that his brother had somehow received the news by now. Were the Tleilaxu covering it up?

C’tair had tried to contact his father, but the Ambassador had been trapped on Kaitain at the height of the crisis. Amid fires and explosions and murderous suboid gangs, C’tair had found himself with few options other than to hide and survive. The dark-haired young man would be killed if he tried to make it to the Vernius administration chambers.

C’tair hid in his enclosed room with the glowglobes extinguished, listening to faint tremors of distant fighting and the much louder sounds of his own breathing, his own heartbeat. He was alive.

Three days earlier, he had watched the revolutionaries destroy a wing of the Guild facility, the section of the blocky gray building that housed all Ixian banking functions. His mother had been in there. He and D’murr had visited her offices enough times during their childhood.

He knew S’tina had barricaded herself in the records vaults, unable to escape and unwilling to believe the rebellious suboid fighters would dare attack a neutral Guild stronghold. But the suboids did not understand politics or the subtle strands of power. S’tina had sent C’tair a final transmission, telling him to hold out, to stay safe, arranging for where they would meet again once the violence died down. Neither of them had believed the situation could get worse.

But while C’tair had watched, explosions planted by suboid rebels tore part of the building free. The structure broke away from its hold on the cave roof. Burning, groaning, tumbling, the wreckage fell with a monumental crash to the grotto floor, killing hundreds of watching rebels, as well as the Guild bankers and functionaries. Everyone inside.

The air filled with smoke and screams, and the fighting continued. He had known it would be useless to make his way down there to search for his mother. Instead, realizing that his entire world was falling apart, C’tair had run to the only shelter he knew.

Hidden within the transmission-shielded bolt-hole, he slept huddled in a fetal position, then awoke with a vague sense of determination partially dulled by his anger and grief. C’tair found and inventoried provisions laid up in nullentropy storage chambers; he checked outdated weapons in the small armory closet. Unlike some of the larger algae-rooms, this secret place had no orship. He hoped the chamber wasn’t on any charts, classified or unclassified. Otherwise, the Tleilaxu and their duped suboid followers would certainly find him.

Stunned and listless, C’tair holed up and passed the time, not certain when he might be able to escape, or even send a message. He didn’t think any outside military forces would ever arrive to rescue Ix—it should have happened long before now. His father had departed for good. A few panicked rumors said that House Vernius had fled, gone renegade. The Grand Palais was already abandoned and ransacked, soon to become the headquarters for the new masters of Ix.

Had Kailea Vernius departed with her family, fleeing the destruction? C’tair hoped so, for her sake. Otherwise, she would have been a target for the angry revolutionaries. She was a beautiful young woman bred for Court functions and finery and palace intrigues, never for tooth-and-nail survival.

It made him sick to think of his beloved city, pillaged and trampled. He remembered the crystal walkways, the stalactite buildings, the magnificent achievements of the Heighliner construction, a craft that could be whisked away like magic by the powers of a Guild Navigator. How often had he and D’murr explored long tunnels, looked out at the massive grottoes, watched prosperity spread to all Ix’s inhabitants? Now the suboids had ruined everything. And for what? He doubted even they understood.

Possibly C’tair could find a passage to the surface, contact a transport ship, use stolen credits to buy a passage off of Ix and make his way to Kaitain, where he would contact his father. Was Cammar Pilru even still the Ambassador? Of a government in exile? Probably not.

No, C’tair could not leave here and abandon his world to its fate. This was Ix, his home, and he refused to run. He did vow to survive, though . . . somehow. He would do whatever it took. Once the dust settled, he could wear old clothes and meekly pretend to be one of the disaffected Ixians coping with new planetary masters. He doubted he would ever be safe, however.

In ensuing weeks, C’tair was able to sneak out of his hideout late in the programmed subterranean nights, utilizing an Ixian life-tracer to avoid Tleilaxu guards and other enemy personnel. With disgust he watched magnificent Vernii crumble in front of his eyes.

The Grand Palais was now occupied by the ugly gnome-men, treacherous gray-skinned usurpers who had stolen an entire world under the indifferent eyes of the Imperium. They had flooded the underground city with their furtive, robed representatives. Ferretlike invader teams scoured the stalactite buildings in search of any nobles in hiding. Face Dancer troops proved much more efficient than the reckless lower classes.

Far below, suboids reveled in the streets . . . but they didn’t know what else to do. Soon, they grew bored and went sullenly back to their old jobs. Without Face Dancer instigators to tell them what to want or demand, the suboids had no organized meetings, no way to make their own decisions. Their lives became the same again, under different masters, with tighter production quotas. C’tair realized that the new Tleilaxu overseers would have to begin making enormous profits in order to pay the material costs of this takeover.

On the streets of the underground city, C’tair shuffled unnoticed among the defeated populace— shift supervisors and families of mid-ranked workers who had survived the purges and had nowhere to go. Dressed in drab clothes, he crossed damaged walkways into the ruined upper city and took lift tubes down to the rubble of the manufacturing centers. He couldn’t hide forever, but he couldn’t be seen yet either.

C’tair refused to accept that the battle was already lost. The Bene Tleilax had few friends among the Landsraad, and they certainly couldn’t withstand a coordinated resistance. Yet, Ix seemed to offer none.

Standing in a small, cowed group of pedestrians on a sidewalk made of interlocked tiles, he watched blond, chiseled-featured soldiers march by. They wore gray-and-black uniforms— definitely not Ixians or suboids, and certainly not Tleilaxu. Tall and erect, the haughty soldiers carried stunners, wore black riot-control helmets, and enforced order. A new order. With horror, he recognized them.

The sight of Imperial troops assisting in the takeover made C’tair furious as he comprehended greater depths to this conspiracy . . . but he masked his emotions in the crowd. He couldn’t allow anyone to notice him. Around him, he heard the grumbling of Ixian natives— despite Sardaukar enforcement, even the middle classes were none too content with their changed situation. Earl Vernius had been a good-natured if somewhat preoccupied ruler; the Bene Tleilax, on the other hand, were religious fanatics with brutal rules. Many of the freedoms Ixians took for granted would soon vanish under Tleilaxu government.

C’tair wished he could do something to get even with these treacherous invaders. He vowed to make that his focus for as long as it might take.

As he crept along the gloomy, damaged streets on the grotto floor, it saddened him to see buildings blackened and crumbling from the ceiling. The upper city had been gutted. Two of the diamond pillars supporting the immense rock roof had been blown, and the resulting avalanches had buried entire blocks of suboid dwelling complexes.

With a muffled groan, C’tair realized that virtually all of the grand Ixian public artworks had been destroyed, including the stylized Guild Heighliner model that had graced Plaza Dome. Even the beautiful fiber-optic sky on the rock ceiling was damaged and the projections were splotchy now. The dour and fanatical Tleilaxu had never been known to appreciate art. To them, it simply got in the way.

He remembered that Kailea Vernius had dabbled in painting and motile sculptures. She had talked with C’tair about certain styles that were all the rage on Kaitain and had greedily absorbed any tourist images his father brought back from ambassadorial duties. But now the art was gone, and so was Kailea.

Slipping unnoticed into the ruins of a collapsed outbuilding in what had once been a botanical park, C’tair stopped suddenly, transfixed. Something caught his eye, and he squinted to clear his vision.

Out of the smoldering rubble emerged the hazy image of a familiar old man, barely visible. C’tair blinked— could this be his imagination, a stuttering hologram from a diary-disk . . . or something else? He hadn’t eaten all day, and he was tense and weary to the point of collapse. But still the image was there. Wasn’t it?

Through smoke and acrid fumes, he recognized the form of the old inventor Davee Rogo, the crippled genius who had befriended the twins and taught them his innovations. As C’tair gasped, the apparition began to whisper in a frail, creaking voice. Was it a ghost . . . a vision, a mad hallucination? Eccentric Rogo seemed to be telling C’tair what to do, what technological components he needed, and how to put them all together.

“Are you real?” C’tair whispered, stepping closer. “What are you telling me?”

For some reason the blurry image of old Rogo did not respond to questions. C’tair didn’t understand, but he listened. Wires and metal parts lay strewn at his feet where a machine had been wrecked by indiscriminate explosives. These are components I need.

Bending over and scanning warily for unwanted observers, he gathered the pieces that stood out in his mind, along with other technological remnants: small bits of metal, plaz crystals, and electronic cells. The old man had given him some kind of inspiration.

C’tair stuffed the items into his pockets and beneath his clothing. Ix would change mightily under the new Tleilaxu rule, and any scrap of his civilization’s precious past might prove valuable. The Tleilaxu would confiscate everything if they found him. . . .

In the following days of haunted exploration, C’tair never saw the image of the old man again, never truly comprehended what he had encountered, but he worked hard to add to his technological collection, his resources. He would continue this battle . . . alone, if necessary.

Each night he passed under the noses of the enemy as they settled in for permanent occupation. He ransacked empty portions of the upper and lower city, before rebuilding teams could clean up and remove unwanted memories.

Remembering what the vision of Rogo had whispered into his imagination, he began to construct . . . something.

When the Atreides rescue ships returned to Caladan and approached the spaceport fields of Cala City, the Old Duke made only minimal attempts at a grand welcome. The times and circumstances were too somber for the usual protocol ministers, band, and banner carriers.

Duke Atreides stood in the open air, squinting up into the cloud-dappled sunshine as the ships landed. He wore his favorite cape of spotted whale-fur to block the brisk wind, though it did not match his patterned tunic. All the mustered retainers and household troops waited at attention beside the receiving platform, but he didn’t care about his dress, or the impression he might make. Paulus was just glad to have his son home, and safe.

Lady Helena stood beside him, rigid-backed and dressed in a formal gown and cape, her appearance impeccable. As the frigate settled down onto the spaceport landing area, Helena regarded her husband with an “I told you so” expression, then she composed her face into a welcoming smile for all to see. No observer would ever guess at the repeated shouting matches they’d engaged in while the Heighliner was en route, bringing their son home.

“I don’t see how you could offer those two sanctuary,” she said, her voice quiet but icy. Her lips continued to smile. “The Ixians have gone beyond the strictures of the Jihad, and now they’re paying the price for it. It’s dangerous to interfere with the punishments of God.”

“These two Vernius children are innocents and will stay here as guests of House Atreides for as long as necessary. Why must you keep arguing with me? I have made my decision.”

“Your decisions need not be etched in stone. If you listen to me, perhaps this veil will be lifted from your eyes and you can see the peril we all face because of their presence.” Helena stood exactly as close to her husband as any observers would expect. “I’m concerned for us, and for our son.”

The ship on the landing field extended its struts, and locked down. Exasperated, Paulus turned to her. “Helena, I owe Dominic Vernius more than you can know— and I do not shirk my obligations. Even without the blood-debt we owe each other after Ecaz, I’d still offer to protect his children. I do this as much from my own heart as from a sense of duty. Soften your heart, woman. Think of what those two children have been through.”

A gust of wind whipped her auburn hair, but Helena did not flinch. Ironically, she was the first to raise her hand in greeting as the boarding door opened. She spoke out of the side of her mouth. “Paulus, you’re baring your throat to the Imperial executioner, and smiling while you’re doing it! We’ll pay for this folly in ways you can’t imagine. I just want the best for everyone.”

Around them, the house guards studiously ignored the argument. A green-and-black banner snapped in the breeze. The ship’s ramp extended.

“Am I the only one who thinks of our family honor instead of politics?” Paulus growled.

“If I lived my life only by safe decisions and advantageous alliances, I would be no man at all, and certainly not one worthy of being a Duke.”

The soldiers marched out and stood at attention, forming a path for the three who had been rescued from Ix. Leto emerged first, taking a deep breath of the sea-freshened air, blinking in the hazy sunshine of Caladan. He was washed and dressed in clean clothes again, but his manner still conveyed weariness; his skin seemed gray, his dark hair mussed, his brow above the hawklike eyes and nose scarred by memories.

Leto took another huge breath, as if he couldn’t get enough of the salt-iodine scents of the nearby sea, the hint of fish and woodsmoke. Home. He never wanted to spend time away from Caladan again. He looked beyond the ramp to meet his father’s bright gaze— sparkling to see his son again, fiery with indignation and rage at what had happened to House Vernius.

Rhombur and Kailea came out uncertainly to stand beside Leto at the top of the ramp. Kailea’s emerald eyes were haunted, and she looked around the new world, as if the sky was far too vast overhead. Leto wanted to comfort her. Again, he held himself back, this time because of his mother’s presence.

Rhombur drew himself up and made a visible attempt to square his shoulders and straighten his tousled blond hair. He knew he was now all that remained of House Vernius, the face that all members of the Landsraad would see while his father the renegade Earl went into hiding. He knew the fight was just beginning. Leto put a strong hand on his friend’s shoulder and urged him toward the reception platform.

After a moment of stillness, Leto and Paulus moved toward each other at the same time. The Old Duke pressed his salt-and-pepper beard against the side of his son’s head; they pounded one another on the back, saying no words. They drew apart, and Paulus placed broad, callused hands on his son’s biceps, just looking at him.

Leto looked past his father to see his mother standing behind them, wearing a warm, but forced, smile of greeting. Her glance flicked toward Rhombur and Kailea and then back to him; Leto knew Lady Helena Atreides would receive the two exiles with all the ceremony due important visiting dignitaries. He did note, however, that she had chosen jewelry and colors resplendent with the markings of House Richese, rival to Ix, as if to twist a knife into the Vernius exiles. Duke Paulus didn’t seem to notice.

The Old Duke turned to give a vigorous greeting to Rhombur, who still wore a small bandage over his head injury. “Welcome, welcome, lad,” he said. “As I promised your father, you and your sister will remain here with us, protected by the might of House Atreides, until all this blows over.”

Kailea stared up at the scudding clouds as if she’d never seen open sky before. She shivered, looking lost. “What if it never blows over?”

Following her obligation, Helena came forward to take the Vernius daughter by the arm. “Come, child. We’ll help you settle in, just in case this has to be your home for a while.”

Rhombur gripped the Old Duke with an Imperial handshake. “Uh, I can’t express my appreciation enough, sir. Kailea and I both understand the risk you’ve taken to shelter us.”

Paulus gestured toward the Castle on the cliffs. “House Atreides values loyalty and honor far above politics.” He took a hard and insightful look at his exhausted son. Leto drew a deep breath, receiving the lesson like a sword thrust. “Loyalty and honor,” Paulus repeated. “That is the way it must always be.”