Unknown

There is no such thing as a law of nature. There is only a series of laws relating to man’s practical experience with nature. These are laws of man’s activities. They change as man’s activities change.

Even after six months on Salusa Secundus, Liet-Kynes still marveled at the wild and restless landscape, the ancient ruins and the deep ecological wounds. As his father had said, it was . . . fascinating.

Meanwhile, in his underground hideout, Dominic Vernius studied records and pored over stolen reports of CHOAM activities. He and Gurney Halleck scrutinized Spacing Guild manifests to determine how best to sabotage business dealings in ways that would cause the most harm to the Emperor. His occasional contacts and spies who gave him scant details of the Ixian situation had vanished. He had once received occasional intelligence from his lost ancestral home, but finally even that source had dried up.

Dominic’s reddened eyes and frown-creased face showed how little sleep he had been getting.

For himself, Liet finally saw beyond the intrigues of the desert people and interclan rivalries for control of spice sands. He observed the politics between Great and Minor Houses, shipping magnates, and powerful families. The Imperium was far more vast than he had imagined.

He also began to grasp the magnitude of what his father had accomplished on Dune, and felt a growing respect for Pardot Kynes.

Wistful at times, Liet imagined what it would take to return Salusa to the glory it had enjoyed long ago, as the focal point of the Imperium. There was so much left to understand here, so many questions still unanswered.

With some well-placed weather installations, along with hardy colonists willing to replant prairies and forests, Salusa Secundus might live and breathe again. But House Corrino refused to invest in such an enterprise, no matter what rewards they might reap. In fact, it seemed that their effort was directed toward keeping Salusa the same as it had been for all these centuries.

As a stranger on this world, Liet spent most of his free time with a pack and survival gear, wandering across the ravaged landscape, avoiding the ruins of long-destroyed cities where prisoners inhabited the ancient Imperial government buildings: towering museums, immense halls, great chambers with collapsed ceilings. In all the centuries Salusa had been a Corrino prison world, no one had tried to rebuild. Walls were leaning or tumbled over; roofs had huge holes.

Liet had devoted his first weeks to studying the underground smuggler base. He instructed the hardened veterans in how to erase traces of their presence, how to alter the collapsed hangar so that it looked as if it were inhabited by only a few feral refugees, attracting nothing more than a cursory glance. When the smugglers were safely hidden, and Dominic satisfied, the young Fremen went out exploring on his own, as his father had done. . . .

Moving with great care so as not to dislodge pebbles or crumbled dirt that might leave a mark of his presence, Liet climbed a ridge to look down upon a basin. Through binoculars he saw people moving under the crackling sunlight: soldiers in mottled tan and brown uniforms: desert camouflage used by the Emperor’s Sardaukar troops. Extravagant war games, again.

A week ago, he’d watched the Sardaukar root out a nest of prisoners barricaded in an isolated ruin. Liet had been hiking nearby and saw the Imperials attack with all their might, wearing full body shields, using flamethrowers and primitive weapons against the convicts. The one-sided battle had gone on for hours, as well-trained Sardaukar fought hand-to-hand against hardened prisoners who boiled out of the stronghold.

The Emperor’s men had slaughtered many prisoners, but some had fought back extremely well, even taking down several Sardaukar, commandeering their weapons, and prolonging the fight. When only a few dozen of the best fighters remained holed up and ready to die, the Sardaukar planted a stun-bomb. After the troops fell back behind barricades, a pulse beacon of intense light, coupled with the motivational force of a Holtzman field, knocked the surviving prisoners unconscious . . . allowing the Sardaukar to swarm inside.

Liet had wondered why the Imperial soldiers didn’t just plant a stunner in the first place. Later, he wondered if the Sardaukar might have been culling the prisoners, selecting the best candidates. . . .

Now, days later, some of those surviving captives stood out on the scorched basin wearing tattered, mismatched clothes, the remnants of prison uniforms. Around them, the Sardaukar formed regimented lines, a human grid. Weapons and pieces of heavy equipment were parked at strategic positions around the perimeter, tethered down with metal spikes and chains.

As he crouched on the top of the ridge, Liet felt vulnerable without his stillsuit. The dry taste of thirst scratched in his mouth, reminding him of the desert, of his home, but he had no catchtube at his neck for a sip of water. . . .

Earlier that day they had distributed another load of melange smuggled from Dune, selling it to escaped prisoners who hated the Corrinos as much as Dominic did. In the common room, Gurney Halleck had raised a cup of spice-laced coffee in a salute to his leader. He strummed an F-sharp chord on his baliset, added a minor chord, and then sang in his bold, gruff voice (which, though not melodious, was at least exuberant)—

Melange, they call it—

The men cheered, and Bork Qazon, the Salusan camp cook, poured him a fresh cup of spice coffee. The broad-shouldered Scien Traf, formerly an Ixian engineer, patted Gurney on the back, and the onetime merchant Pen Barlow, ever-present cigar in his mouth, laughed boisterously.

The song had made Liet want to walk on the spice sands himself, to savor the pungent cinnamon odor as it wafted up from a sandworm he rode. Perhaps Warrick would come to escort him back to Red Wall Sietch, once they returned from Salusa. He hoped so. It had been too long since he’d seen his friend and blood-brother.

Warrick and Faroula had been married for nearly a year and a half. Perhaps by now she was even carrying his child. Liet’s life would have been so different if only he had won her hand instead. . . .

Now, though, he crouched in the rocks of a high ridge on a different planet, spying on the mysterious movements of Imperial troops. Liet adjusted the binocular’s high-definition oil lenses for the best possible view. As the Sardaukar drilled across the barren basin, he studied the speed and precision with which they moved.

Still, Liet thought, a desperate group of well-armed Fremen might be able to defeat them. . . .

Finally, the surviving prisoners were led out onto the training field in front of new Sardaukar barracks, alloy tentments clustered like bunkers on the open flat, metal sides reflecting hazy sunlight. The soldiers seemed to be testing the prisoners, challenging them to keep up with their exercises. When one man faltered, a Sardaukar killed him with a purple blast from a lasgun; the others didn’t pause.

Liet-Kynes turned his gaze from the military drills to the bilious sky, which bore ominous patterns he’d been taught to recognize. The air looked soupy as it roiled a deep orange edged with streaks of green, as if from indigestion. Clumps of ball lightning drifted across the sky. Clusters of static like huge snowflakes channeled the flow of wind toward the basin.

From stories told by Gurney Halleck and the other smugglers, Liet knew the dangers of being exposed in an aurora storm. But part of him— the curious part he’d inherited from his father— watched in awed fascination as the electrical and radioactive disturbance flowed closer. The tempest was accompanied by tendrils of exotic color, ionized air and cone-shaped funnels known as the hammer-wind.

Uneasy at being so exposed, he found cracks in the outcropping behind him. The talus caves provided enough shelter for any resourceful Fremen to wait out the harsh weather, but the troops below were unprotected. Did they have the gall to think they could survive against such raw, elemental power?

Seeing the clouds and discharges approach, the ragged prisoners began to break ranks, while the uniformed troops stood firm. The commander barked orders, apparently telling them to return to their places. Seconds later, a powerful gust of precursor wind nearly toppled the craggy-faced man from his wobbly, levitating platform. The tall leader shouted for everyone to fall back to their metal bunkers.

The Sardaukar marched in lockstep, perfectly trained. Some of the prisoners tried to emulate the soldiers, while others just fled into the reinforced shelters.

The aurora storm struck only moments after the last of the tentments had been sealed. Like a living thing, it ripped across the basin, flashing multicolored lightning. A great fist of hammer-wind pounded the ground; another slammed into one of the tentments, flattening the metal-walled shelter and crushing everyone inside.

Boiling, crackling air swept toward the ridge. Although this was not his planet, Liet had understood the potentially lethal nature of storms since childhood. He ducked down from his exposed vantage, slid along the rocks until he could worm his way between two tall boulders and deep into a crack of rock. Within moments, he heard the demonic howling, the crackle of air, the discharges of ball lightning, the pounding slams of hammer-wind.

In the narrow slice of visible sky between the rocks, Liet watched a kaleidoscope of colors that flashed with retina-searing glare. He huddled back, but sensed he was as safe as he could be.

Breathing calmly, patiently waiting for the storm to blow over, he stared at the frenzied intensity of the aurora storm. Salusa exhibited many similarities with Dune. Both were harsh worlds, with unforgiving lands, unforgiving skies. On Dune, ferocious storms could also reshape the landscape, crushing a man into the ground or stripping flesh from his bones.

Somehow though, unlike this place, those terrible winds made sense to him, linked as they were to the mystery and grandeur of Dune.

Liet wanted to leave Salusa Secundus, to return to his homeworld with Dominic Vernius. He needed to live in the desert again— where he belonged.

When the time was right, Dominic Vernius took part of his smuggling crew back in his frigate, accompanied by the two small lighters. Dominic piloted his own flagship, guiding the vessel into its assigned berth in the hold of the Guild Heighliner.

The renegade Earl went to his stateroom to relax and contemplate. Though he’d spent years operating in the shadows of the Imperium, a gadfly to annoy Shaddam IV, he had never struck a clear and decisive blow. Yes, he had stolen a shipment of the Emperor’s commemorative coins, and he’d floated the hilarious balloon caricature over the pyramid stadium on Harmonthep. Yes, he had scrawled the snide hundred-meter-tall message on the granite canyon wall (“Shaddam, does your crown rest comfortably on your pointy head?”), and he had defaced dozens of statues and monuments as well.

But to what end? Ix was still lost, and he had no new information on the situation there.

Early in his self-imposed exile, Dominic had rallied his troops, men selected because of their loyalty in past campaigns. Remembering how they had defeated the Ecazi rebels years before, he had led a small force, heavily armed and well trained, in a raid against the new Tleilaxu stronghold.

With weapons and the advantage of surprise, Dominic had hoped to blast his way in and overthrow the invaders. At the port-of-entry canyon, he and his men rushed from their ships, firing lasguns. But they had encountered astonishing defenses from the Emperor’s own Sardaukar. The damned Corrinos! Why were their troops still involved here?

Years ago, the element of surprise had been turned against Dominic, and the crack Imperial soldiers killed fully a third of his men. He himself had been hit in the back by debris from a lasgun blast and left for dead; only Johdam had dragged him back to one of their ships, in which they beat a desperate retreat.

In Dominic’s secret stronghold at the south pole of Arrakis, his men had nursed him back to health. Since he had taken precautions to conceal the identity of the avenging attack force— to avoid repercussions against the Ixian people should the assault fail, or against his children on Caladan— the Tleilaxu had never learned who had come after them.

As a result of the debacle, Dominic had sworn to his men that he would never again try to recapture his hereditary world in a military action, which could only end poorly.

His sabotage and vandalism, however, had been largely ineffectual, no more than tiny blips on House Corrino balance sheets, or Imperial embarrassments. Shaddam IV didn’t even know that the outcast Earl Vernius was involved.

Though he continued the struggle, Dominic felt worse than dead— he was irrelevant. He lay back in his cabin on the frigate, assessing everything he had achieved . . . and all that he’d lost. With a solido holo-portrait of Shando standing on a pedestal nearby, he could look at her and almost imagine she was still there, still with him.

Their daughter Kailea must be an attractive young woman by now. He wondered if she was married, perhaps to someone in the court of Leto Atreides . . . certainly not to the Duke himself. The Atreides emphasis on political marriages was well-known, and the Princess of a renegade House had no dowry. Likewise, though Rhombur was old enough to become the Earl of House Vernius, the title was valueless.

With immense sadness sagging his shoulders, he gazed at the holo-image of Shando on the pedestal. And in his grief, she spoke to him.

Startled, he sat up, wondering if he had descended into a labyrinth of madness. Her mouth moved mechanically. The holo of her face turned, but her expression did not change. Her eyes did not focus on him. The words continued.

“I am using this image to communicate with you. I must present a message from Ix.”

“No, I am the Navigator of this Heighliner. I have chosen to speak through this holo-image because it is difficult to communicate otherwise.”

Reluctant to believe this, Dominic fought back superstitious fear. Just seeing the likeness of Shando move, seeing her face come alive again, infused him with a trembling awe he had not experienced in a long time. “Yes, whoever you are. What is it you want of me?”

“My brother, C’tair Pilru, sends these words from Ix. He begs me to give you this information. I can do no more than instruct you.”

Her lips moving faster, and using a different voice this time, Shando’s holo-image repeated the words C’tair had sent in a desperate message to his Navigator brother. In growing horror, Dominic listened, and learned the extent of damage the Tleilaxu usurpers had inflicted on his beloved world and its people.

Rage simmered within him. When he had begged for assistance during the first Tleilaxu attacks, damnable old Emperor Elrood IX had stalled, thereby guaranteeing the defeat of House Vernius. Bitter at their loss, Dominic only wished the old man hadn’t died before he could find a way to kill him.

But now Dominic realized the Imperial plan was much broader, much more insidious. At its core, the entire Tleilaxu takeover had been an Imperial plot, with Sardaukar troops still enforcing it nearly twenty years later. Elrood had set up the conflict from the start, and his son Shaddam perpetuated the scheme by oppressing the remaining subjects of House Vernius.

Presently the voice from the Shando-likeness changed again, returning to the more ponderous and disconnected words of the Navigator. “On my route in this vessel, I can take you to Xuttuh, formerly known as Ix.”

“Do it,” Dominic said, with hatred icing his heart. “I wish to see the horrors for myself, and then I”— he put a hand to his breast, as if swearing a vow to Shando—“I, Lord Dominic, Earl of House Vernius, will avenge the suffering of my people.”

When the Heighliner went into orbit, Dominic met with Asuyo, Johdam, and the others. “Return to Arrakis. Go to our base and continue our work. I’m taking one of the lighters.” He stared at the pedestal as if he could still see his wife there. “I have business of my own.”

The two veterans expressed their surprise and confusion, but Dominic pounded his fist on the table. “No further argument! I have made my decision.” He glared at his men, and they were amazed to see such a transformation in his personality.