Intentionally, Gurney Halleck broke the stirring equipment in the obsidian-processing vat, which caused a rupture in the container. Polishing liquid gushed all over the already-mucky ground. He stood back and braced himself for the punishment he knew would come.

The first step in his cold, desperate escape plan.

Predictably, the guards rushed forward, raising their spark-clubs and gauntleted fists. In the two months since Bheth’s murder, the Harkonnens were sure they’d snuffed out any candle of resistance in this blond-haired man. Why they didn’t simply kill him, Gurney wasn’t sure. Not because they admired his spirit, or because he was so tough. Instead, they probably got a sadistic pleasure from tormenting him and letting him come back for more.

Now he needed to be injured severely enough to require medical attention. He wanted the guards to hurt him worse than usual, breaking a few ribs perhaps. Then the medics would treat him in the infirmary and ignore him as he healed. That was when Gurney would make his move.

He fought back when the guards attacked, flailing and clawing at them. Other prisoners would have surrendered meekly— but if Gurney hadn’t struggled, they would have been suspicious. So he resisted fiercely and, of course, the guards won. They punched and kicked him and hammered his skull against the ground.

Pain and blackness swam up around him with a nauseating thickness, but the guards, filled with adrenaline now, did not relent. He felt bones crack. He coughed blood.

As Gurney fell into oblivion, he feared that he’d gone too far, that they might actually kill him this time. . . .

For days, the workers in the slave pits had been loading a shipment of blue obsidian. The fenced-off cargo hauler lay waiting on the landing field, its hull plates ion-scarred from many trips up to orbit and back. Guards watched the shipment, but without much attention. No man came to the heart of a slave pit willingly, and as far as the guards were concerned no treasure in the universe would tempt even the greediest of thieves.

This large order had been commissioned through Hagal merchants by Duke Leto Atreides. Even Gurney knew that the Atreides had been generations-long adversaries of House Harkonnen. Rabban and the Baron took a smug delight in knowing that they were selling such an expensive shipment to their greatest adversary.

Gurney cared only that the cargo was due to leave soon . . . and that he meant to follow it far away from the slave pits.

When he finally swam back out of his agony-filled stupor, he found himself in an infirmary bed. The sheets were stained from previous patients. The doctors wasted little effort to keep the slaves alive; it simply wasn’t cost-effective. If the injured prisoners could be healed with a minimum of time and attention, then they would be sent back to work. If they died . . . Harkonnen sweeps would pick up replacements.

As full awareness returned, Gurney lay motionless, careful not to moan or call attention to himself. On an adjacent cot, a man writhed in pain. Through slitted eyes, Gurney saw that the bandaged stump of the man’s right arm was soaked with blood. He wondered why the doctors had bothered. As soon as the potbellied work supervisor saw the maimed slave, he would order his termination.

The man cried out, either from horrible pain or an awareness of his fate. Two medical techs held him down and injected him with a hissing spray— no mere tranquilizer. Within moments he gurgled and fell silent. Half an hour later, uniformed men hauled the body away, humming a rhythmic marching tune as if they did this all day long.

A doctor loomed over Gurney, checking him, poking; though he made appropriate moans and weak mewling sounds, he did not stir from feigned unconsciousness. The doctor snorted and shuffled away. Over the years, the medical techs had already spent far too much time tending Gurney Halleck’s repeated injuries, as far as they were concerned.

When the lights went out in the slave-pit complex for nighttime shutdown, the infirmary droned into a low stupor. The doctors indulged in their own chemical addictions, semuta or other drugs from the pharmacy stores. They made a final perfunctory check of the still-comotose patient. Gurney groaned, pretending to be trapped in nightmare-wracked sleep. One doctor hovered over him for a moment with a needle, perhaps a painkiller but more likely a sedative, then shook his head and went away. Maybe he wanted Gurney to sweat if he woke up in the night. . . .

As soon as the medical techs left, Gurney opened his eyes and touched his bandages, assessing his injuries. He wore only a tattered beige hospital smock, patched and frayed— like his own body.

He had numerous bruises and clumsily stitched gashes and cuts. His head ached: a cracked skull or at least a severe concussion. But even as he’d fought back, Gurney had been careful to protect his limbs. He could still move.

He swung his bare feet off the edge of the bed onto the cold, gritty infirmary floor. Nausea rose within him, but passed. When he inhaled deeply, his ribs ached like a fire of broken glass. But he could live with that.

He took several staggering steps across the room. The techs kept dim glowglobes burning in case of an emergency. All around, patients snored or whimpered in the night, but no one noticed him. The inkvine scar along the side of his face throbbed, threatening an encore of terrible pain, but Gurney ignored it. Not now.

Standing in front of the sealed medicine cabinet, he saw a rack containing needle-tipped ampoules of kirar, the drug Rabban had used to make him sit paralyzed and helpless during the prolonged rape and murder of Bheth. Gurney jiggled the cabinet door, then snapped the latch, trying to minimize the damage so that the doctors wouldn’t immediately see what he had done.

Not knowing the proper dosage, he grabbed a handful of the yellow ampoules. Each container was like a wasp made of smooth polymers. He turned away, paused. If anyone spotted the broken cabinet and the missing ampoules, they might guess what he had in mind— so Gurney took handfuls of other potent drugs as well, painkillers and hallucinogens, which he tossed into the medical incinerator, keeping only a few painkillers for himself, just in case he needed them. The Harkonnens would assume someone had stolen a variety of drugs, not just the kirar.

He searched for clothes, found a bloodstained surgical uniform and decided it was better than his hospital gown. Wincing from the pain of moving his unhealed body, he dressed, then found some energy capsules but no solid food. He swallowed the oval tablets, not knowing how long he might need them to sustain him. Crouching low, he jimmied open the infirmary door and slipped out into the darkness, a shadow among shadows.

Gurney bypassed the crackling, electricity-laced fences that surrounded the compound, a system designed more for intimidation than for security. The barriers were easy enough to break through. Bright glowglobes spread garish pools of light across the pitted landing area, but the globes were tuned and positioned badly, leaving large islands of murky gloom.

Flitting from one dark patch to another, Gurney approached the bulky containers that sat unguarded, filled with obsidian. He worked open a metal hatch that squeaked. He hesitated, but any delay would only invite more attention, so he thrust himself into the chute. As quietly as he could, he let the hatch fall back shut.

He slid down a rough metal ramp that caught and tore his stolen garment, until he landed on the mounds of chemically treated blue obsidian. The sides were rough-edged glass, but Gurney didn’t care about a few extra cuts and scratches. Not after all he’d been through. He took care not to sustain any deep cuts.

He wallowed deeper. Each chunk of obsidian was the size of his fist or larger, but they were ragged and mismatched. Many pieces came in wide, glossy slabs. This bin was nearly full, and the crews would top it off in the morning with a final load before launching the cargo hauler. Gurney tried to cover himself enough to avoid being seen.

The weight of the volcanic glass pressed down as he shoveled it over the top of his head. Already, he could barely breathe. The cuts burned his skin, but he slowly worked his way deeper, pressed into a corner so that at least two sides were solid metal. He tried to push support pieces around him that would hold some of the load above. The oppressive weight would only get worse when additional obsidian was poured on top of him, but he would survive somehow . . . and even if he didn’t, he could accept his fate. Dying in an attempt to escape from the Harkonnens was better than living under their boot.

When he had managed to slough loose obsidian chunks over the large flat piece above his head, he stopped. He couldn’t see anything, not even the faint blue glow from the activated glass. Already, breathing was nearly impossible. He shifted his arm just enough to bring out the yellow ampoules of kirar. He took a deep breath to fill his lungs.

One dose of the paralysis drug had not placed him into a suffiently deep coma, but three would probably kill him. Holding them in one hand, he jabbed two ampoules into his thigh at the same time. The others he kept beside him, in case he needed additional doses en route.

Paralysis spread with a rush, a flood crashing through his muscle tissue. The drug would put him into a hibernation coma, reduce his breathing and his bodily needs to the fringes of death itself. Maybe, if he was lucky, it would even keep him alive. . . .

Though Duke Leto Atreides did not know he had a stowaway in his shipment, Gurney Halleck owed his passage off Giedi Prime to the ruler of Caladan, the enemy of the Harkonnens.

If he survived long enough to reach the off-world distribution center on Hagal, Gurney hoped to escape while the blue obsidian was being reloaded for cutting, polishing, and transport. He would get away and find passage off-planet again if necessary. After lasting on Giedi Prime for all these years, he doubted any place in the Imperium could be worse.

Gurney conjured an image of his unwitting benefactor, the Duke of House Atreides, and felt a smile struggling to form on his face before the hibernation crashed around him.