The secret shipment of explosives arrived intact, passed by bribed off-world delivery crews, hidden among crates, delivered to a specific loading dock in the cave openings in the cliffs of the port-of-entry canyon.

Working with the loaders, C’tair spotted the subtle markings and diverted the innocuous-looking container, as he had done many times before. When he uncovered the cleverly packaged explosive wafers, though, he was astounded. There must be a thousand of them! Other than handling instructions for the charges, there was no message, coded or otherwise, and no source information, but C’tair knew the identity of the sender anyway. This was far more than Prince Rhombur had ever sent before. C’tair felt renewed hope, and the burden of tremendous responsibility.

Only a few other wary, independent rebels remained underground, and they kept to themselves, trusting no one. C’tair was that way himself. Other than Miral Alechem, he felt all alone in his fight, even though Rhombur— and the Tleilaxu— apparently thought there was a much larger, more organized resistance.

These explosives would make up for that.

During his youth, Prince Rhombur Vernius had been a pudgy boy; C’tair remembered him as something of a good-natured buffoon, who spent more time collecting geological specimens than learning statecraft or Ixian industrial processes. There had always seemed to be time.

But everything had changed when the Tleilaxu came. Everything.

Even in exile, Rhombur still had pass-codes and connections with the shipping administration by which raw materials came into the manufacturing city. He had been able to smuggle vital supplies underground, and now these explosive wafers. C’tair vowed to make each one count. Now, his primary concern was to hide the demolitions material before sluggish Ixian suboids discovered the package’s true contents.

Wearing the stolen uniform of an upper-level worker, he transported the shipment of explosives into the stalactite city on a suspensor cart with other everyday deliveries. He did not hurry toward his hiding place. At all times he kept his expression bland and passive, making no conversation, barely responding to comments or insults made by the Tleilaxu Masters.

When he finally reached the appropriate level and ducked through the camouflaged entrance into his sensor-shielded room, C’tair piled the black, rough-textured wafers, then lay back on his cot, breathing heavily.

This would be his first major strike in years.

He closed his eyes. Moments later he heard a click at the door, footsteps, and a rustling noise. He didn’t move or look because the sounds were familiar, a small bit of comfort for him in an uncomfortable world. He smelled her faint, sweet scent.

For months he had been living with Miral Alechem. They had clung to each other’s companionship after making love in a darkened tunnel, hushed and nervous, while hiding from a Sardaukar patrol. In his years as an Ixian patriot, C’tair had resisted the urge for any sort of a personal relationship, spurning close contact with other human beings. It was too dangerous, too distracting. But Miral had the same burning goals, the same needs. And she was so beautiful. . . .

Now he heard her set something down on the floor with a soft thump. She kissed his cheek. “I got a few things, some high-energy wire, a laser pack, a—” He heard her indrawn gasp of breath.

C’tair smiled, kept his eyes closed. She’d spotted the piles of wafers.

“I got a few things, too.” Abruptly, he sat up and explained how he’d come by the explosives, and how they worked. Each black wafer, the size of a small coin and honeycombed with compressed detonation beads, packed enough power to blow up a small building. With just a handful of them, placed correctly, they could cause tremendous, large-scale damage.

Her fingers moved close to the pile, hesitated. She looked at him with her large, dark eyes, and as she did, he thought about her, as he often did. Miral was the best person he’d ever met. It was admirable the way she took risks comparable to his own. She hadn’t seduced him, hadn’t enticed him at all. Their relationship had just happened. They were right for each other.

He thought briefly of his youthful crush on Kailea, the daughter of Earl Vernius. That had been a fantasy, a game, which might have become real if Ix had not fallen. Miral, though, was all the reality he could endure.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “It takes a detonator to set them off.” He pointed to a small red box filled with needle-set timing devices.

She took one of the wafers in each hand, inspecting it like a Hagal jeweler with a new firegem. C’tair could imagine the possibilities streaming through her mind, stress points in the city, places where the explosives would cause the most pain and damage to the invaders.

“I’ve already chosen a few targets,” he said. “I was hoping you’d help out.”

She replaced the wafers carefully, then dropped with him onto the cot in an embrace. “You know I will.” Her breath was hot in his ear. They could hardly wait to get their clothes off.

After making love with an intensity fanned by their great plans, C’tair slept for more hours than he usually allowed himself. When he was rested and ready, he and Miral went through the motions repeatedly in order to ensure that every connection was made, all procedures and safeguards set. After they had rigged several charges in the shielded room, they took the remaining explosives and stepped to the sealed doorway, checking the scanners to make certain the outer corridor was empty.

With sadness, C’tair and Miral bade a silent farewell to the shielded chamber that had been C’tair’s desperate hiding place for so long. Now it would serve one last purpose, enabling them to deliver a stinging blow to the invaders.

The Bene Tleilax would never know what hit them.

C’tair stacked the boxes one at a time with other crates necessary for whatever experiments the Tleilaxu conducted inside their high-security research pavilion. One of the boxes was rigged with explosive wafers, a shipment that looked just like the others being loaded onto the automated rail system. The package would be delivered right into the heart of their secret lair.

He did not waste a glance on the booby-trapped crate. He simply stacked it with all the others, then surreptitiously set the timer, and hurried to add another container. One of the suboid laborers stumbled, and C’tair picked up the man’s designated crate and lifted it onto the railcar bed to avoid a delayed departure. He had given himself a sufficient window of opportunity, but still found it hard not to let his nervousness show. Miral Alechem was in the passageway beneath another building. She would be setting charges at the base of the immense structure that had Tleilaxu offices on upper levels; by now she should have made good her escape.

With a humming sound, the loaded pallet shuddered into motion and cruised along the rail, picking up speed toward the laboratory complex. C’tair longed to know what went on behind those blind windows; Miral had not been able to find out, and neither had he. But he would be satisfied just to cause damage.

The Tleilaxu, for all their bloody repressions, had grown lax over sixteen years. Their security measures were laughable . . . and he would now show them the error of their ways. This strike had to be significant enough to make them reel, because the next attempt would not be so easy.

Staring after the railcar, C’tair suppressed a smile of anticipation. Behind him, workers prepped a new, empty pallet car with more supplies. He glanced up at the grotto ceiling, at the gossamer buildings protruding like inverted islands through the projected sky.

Timing was crucial. All four bombs had to go off close together.

This would be as much a psychological victory as a material one. The Tleilaxu invaders must come to the conclusion that a large and coordinated resistance movement was responsible for these attacks, that the rebels had a widespread membership and an organized plan.

They must never guess that there are only two of us.

In the wake of an outrageous success, others might begin their own struggles. If enough people took action, it would make the large-scale rebellion a self-fulfilling prophecy.

He drew a deep breath and turned back to the other waiting crates. He dared not show any out-of-the-ordinary behavior. Overhead, surveillance pods moved about constantly, lights blinking, transeye cameras imaging every movement.

He did not glance at his chronometer, but he knew the time was close.

When the first explosion shuddered through the cavern floor deep underground, the dull-brained workers paused in their tasks and looked at each other in confusion. C’tair knew that the detonation at the disposal pits should have been sufficient to collapse the rooms, to twist and destroy the conveyor belts. Perhaps the rubble would even seal the tops of the deep magma shafts.

Before anyone could notice the smug expression on his face, the stalactite buildings in the ceiling exploded.

Inside his sensor-shielded bolt-hole within the administrative levels, a cluster of explosive wafers tore out entire levels of the bureaucratic complex. One wing of the Grand Palais was wrecked, left hanging by long girders and broken reinforced strands.

Debris rained into the center of the cavern, and workers fled in panic. A bright light and swirling cloud of rock powder spread from the torn ceiling chambers.

Blaring alarms echoed against the stone walls like thunder. He hadn’t heard such a racket since the initial suboid uprising years ago. Everything was working perfectly.

In feigned horror, he backed away with the rest of the Ixian laborers, standing among them for implied protection, lost in the crowd. He smelled the dust of building materials and the stench of fear around him.

He heard a distant explosion, from the direction of the building where Miral worked, and knew she was clever enough to have gotten away before setting it off. Then at last, precisely as he had hoped, the loaded pallet car arrived inside the loading dock of the secret research pavilion. The final set of explosive wafers erupted in streaks of fire and black clouds of smoke. The sounds of the detonation rang out like a space battle within the thick walls.

Fires began to spread. Armed Sardaukar troops rushed about like heat-maddened beetles, trying to find the source of the concerted attack. They fired at the sky ceiling, just to express their anger. Alarms rattled the walls. Over the PA system, Tleilaxu Masters screamed incomprehensible orders in their private language, while the work crews muttered in subdued fear.

But even in the chaos C’tair recognized a strange look on some of the Ixian faces: a sort of satisfaction, a sense of wonder that such a victory could have occurred. They had long ago lost their heart for fighting.

Now, perhaps they could regain it.

At last, C’tair thought as he blinked in dull-eyed shock, trying to cover his smile. He squared his shoulders, but quickly let them sag as he sought to recapture the demeanor of a defeated and cooperative prisoner.

At last a true blow had been struck against the invaders.