Furious that his plot had failed, Baron Harkonnen raged up and down the halls of his family Keep on Giedi Prime. He screamed demands that his personal staff find a dwarf for him to torture; he needed a creature to dominate, something he could crush entirely.

When Yh’imm, one of the Baron’s entertainment monitors, complained that it wasn’t exactly sporting for him to persecute a man solely on the basis of his physical size, the Baron ordered Yh’imm’s legs amputated at the knees. In that way, the soon-to-be-shortened entertainment monitor would fit the Procrustean bill nicely.

As the howling, pleading man was hauled away to the Harkonnen surgeons, the Baron summoned his nephew Glossu Rabban and the Mentat Piter de Vries to attend him for a vital discussion, to be held in the Baron’s workroom.

Waiting for them at a worktable spread with papers and ridulian crystal reports, the Baron boomed in his basso voice, “Damn the Atreides, from the boy-Duke to his bastard ancestors! I wish they’d all died in the Battle of Corrin.”

He whirled when de Vries entered the workroom doorway, and the Baron nearly lost his balance with suddenly clumsy muscle control. He grasped the edge of the table to steady himself. “How could Leto survive that trial? He had no proof, no defense.” Muted glowglobes floated overhead in the room. “He still doesn’t have a clue what really happened.”

The Baron’s bellow echoed through the enclosure and out an open door into the halls, which were lined with polished stone and brasswork. Rabban hurried down the corridor. “And damn Shaddam for his meddling! Just because he’s Emperor, what gives him the right to take sides? What’s in it for him?”

Both Rabban and de Vries hesitated at the iron-arched entrance to the workroom, not anxious to step into the maelstrom of the Baron’s wrath. The Mentat closed his eyes and rubbed his thick eyebrows, trying to think of what to say or do. Rabban went to an alcove and poured himself a strong glass of kirana brandy. He made slurping animal noises as he drank.

The Baron stepped away from the table and paced the floor, his movements oddly jerky, as if he were having difficulty controlling his equilibrium. His clothes seemed tight on him from his recent weight gains.

“It was supposed to start a sudden war, and after the carnage who could pick up the pieces? But somehow the damned Atreides kept everyone from killing each other. By insisting on a risky Trial by Forfeiture— ancient rites be damned!— and his willingness to sacrifice himself just to protect his precious friends and crew, Leto Atreides has gained favorable attention in the Landsraad. His popularity is soaring.”

Piter de Vries cleared his throat. “Perhaps, my Baron, it was a mistake to pit them against the Tleilaxu. Nobody cares about the Tleilaxu. It was difficult to foster a general sense of outrage among the Houses. We never planned for this matter to come to trial.”

“We made no mistakes!” Rabban grunted, immediately defending his uncle. “Do you value your life, Piter?”

De Vries didn’t respond, nor did he show any fear. He was a formidable fighter in his own right, with tricks and experience that could undoubtedly defeat Rabban’s brawn, should it come to physical combat.

The Baron looked at his nephew, disappointed. You never seem to grasp anything buried beneath even a single layer of subtlety.

Rabban glared at the Mentat. “Duke Leto is just an impetuous young ruler from an unremarkable family. House Atreides makes its income through selling . . . pundi rice!” He spat the words.

“The fact is, Rabban,” the twisted Mentat said smoothly, with the voice of a snake, “that the other members of the Landsraad Council actually seem to like him. They admire what this boy-Duke has accomplished. We’ve made him a hero.”

Rabban finished his drink, poured another, slurped it.

“The Landsraad Council becoming altruistic?” The Baron snorted. “That’s even more unbelievable than Leto winning his case.”

From the surgery rooms down the long, dim halls, grisly noises could be heard, screams of agony that echoed along the corridors all the way to the Baron’s workroom. The muted glowglobes flickered, but maintained their low level of illumination.

The Baron looked piercingly at de Vries, then gestured toward the operating rooms. “Perhaps you’d better attend to this yourself, Piter. I want to make certain that idiot entertainment monitor survives his surgery . . . at least until I’ve made sufficient use of him.”

“Yes, my Baron,” the Mentat said and scuttled down the halls to the medical chambers. The screams grew higher-pitched and womanish. The Baron heard the sounds of sizzling cutterays and a grinding saw.

The Baron thought of his newly shortened plaything and what he would do to Yh’imm as soon as the painkillers began to wear off. Or could it be possible the doctors had managed their task without using any painkillers? Perhaps.

Rabban let his thick-lidded eyes fall closed in supreme pleasure, just listening and enjoying. Given the choice, he would rather have hunted the man down in Giedi Prime’s wilderness preserve. But the Baron thought that sounded like too much trouble— all that running and chasing and climbing snow-covered rocks. He could come up with far better ways of spending his time. Besides, the Baron’s limbs and joints had been growing increasingly sore of late, his muscles were weakened and trembled, his body was losing its edge. . . .

For now the Baron would simply make up his own sport. Once Yh’imm’s stumps were cauterized and sealed, he would pretend the hapless monitor was Duke Atreides himself. That would be fun.

The Baron paused and realized how foolish it was for him to be so upset over the failure of a single plan. For uncounted generations the Harkonnens had spun subtle traps for their hated mortal enemies. But the Atreides were difficult to kill, especially when their backs were to the wall. The feud extended all the way back to the Great Revolt, the betrayal, the accusations of cowardice. Since that time, Harkonnen had always hated Atreides, and vice versa.

And so it would always be.

“We still have Arrakis,” the Baron said. “We still control melange production, even though we’re under CHOAM’s thumb and the watchful eye of the Padishah Emperor.” He grinned at Rabban, who grinned back at him, strictly out of habit.

Deep in the heart of the dirty and dark grandeur of Harkonnen Keep, the Baron clenched his fist and raised it high in the air. “As long as we control Arrakis, we control our own fortunes.” He clapped a hand on his nephew’s padded shoulder. “We will wring spice from the sands until Arrakis is nothing more than an empty husk!”