When the terrible news reached the smuggler base on Salusa Secundus, Gurney Halleck had spent the day alone outside the ruined prison city. Working on a ballad about this desolate planet, he sat atop the remains of an ancient wall, strumming on his baliset. Bricks around him had melted into glassy curves from an ancient wave of atomic heat.

He gazed across a rise, imagining the lavish Imperial structure that might have stood here long ago. His rough but powerful voice drifted beyond the scrub brush and dry land to the accompaniment of the baliset. He paused to shift to a minor key for the mood it imparted . . . and then tried again.

The sickly-colored clouds and the hazy air put him in the proper frame of mind. For his melancholy music he’d actually been thankful for the weather, though the remaining men in the underground fortress grumbled about the capricious storms.

This hellhole was better than the slave pits of Giedi Prime any day.

A gray ornithopter approached from the south, an unmarked craft that belonged to the smugglers, beating its wings through the sluggish sky. Gurney watched out of the corner of his eye as it landed on a salt pan beyond the ancient ruins.

He concentrated on the images he wanted to evoke in his ballad, the pomp and ceremony of the royal court, the exotic peoples who had journeyed here from distant planets, the finery of their raiment and manners. All gone now. Focusing his thoughts inward, he rubbed the inkvine scar on his jaw. Echoes of bygone times began to tint the perpetual dreariness of Salusa with their glorious colors.

He heard distant shouts and saw a man running up the slope toward him. It was Bork Qazon, the camp cook, waving his arms and yelling. Streaks of food covered the front of his apron. “Gurney! Dominic is dead!”

Stunned, he swung his baliset over his shoulder and dropped to the ground. Gurney swayed on his feet as Qazon told him the tragic news that had been brought in by ’thopter— that Dominic Vernius and all of their comrades had died in an atomic incident on Arrakis, apparently while under attack by Sardaukar.

Gurney couldn’t believe it. “The Sardaukar . . . used atomics?”

Once word got back to Kaitain, Imperial Couriers would spread the news as Shaddam wanted it remembered. The Emperor would write his own distorted history, falsely painting Dominic as a heinous criminal who had been at large for decades.

The cook shook his head, his eyes red, his wide mouth slack. “My guess is Dom did it himself. He’d planned to use the family stockpile in a suicide attack on Kaitain.”

“That’s crazy.”

“He was desperate.”

“Atomics— against the Emperor’s Sardaukar.” Gurney shook his head, then knew he had decisions to make. “I have a feeling this isn’t over, Qazon. We need to clear this camp out, fast. We’ve got to disperse. They’ll be after all of us now, with a vengeance.”

The news of their leader’s death hit the men hard. Just as this wounded world could never regain its past glory, neither could the remnants of the smuggler band. The men could not continue without Dominic. The renegade Earl had been their driving force.

As darkness fell, they sat around a strategy table discussing where they would go next. Several suggested Gurney Halleck as their new leader, now that Dominic, Johdam, and Asuyo were all dead.

“It’s not safe to remain here,” said Qazon. “We don’t know what the Imperials have learned about our operations. What if they took prisoners and interrogated them?”

“We’ve got to set up a new base to continue our work,” another man said.

“What work?” asked one of the oldest veterans. “We banded together because Dom called us. We’ve lived together for him. And he’s not here anymore.”

While the smugglers debated, Gurney’s thoughts drifted to the children of their fallen leader, who lived as guests of House Atreides. When he smiled, the inkvine scar wrinkled with a flare of residual pain. He put it out of his mind and instead thought of the irony: the Atreides Duke had also unknowingly rescued him from the Harkonnen slave pit, by ordering a shipment of blue obsidian at exactly the right time. . . .

He made up his mind. “I’ll not be joining any of you at a new base. No, I’m bound for Caladan. I intend to offer my services to Duke Leto Atreides. That’s where Rhombur and Kailea Vernius are.”

“You’re crazy, Halleck,” slope-shouldered Scien Traf said, chewing on a splinter of resinous wood. “Dom insisted that we stay away from his children, so as not to put them in danger.”

“The danger died with him,” Gurney said. “It’s been twenty years since the family went renegade.” He narrowed his blue eyes. “Depending on how fast the Emperor moves, perhaps I can get to those two children before they hear the tainted version of events. Dominic’s heirs need to know what really happened to their father, not the garbage the official Couriers will report.”

“They’re not children,” Bork Qazon pointed out. “Rhombur’s in his mid-thirties now.”

“Aye,” Pen Barlow agreed. He took a deep puff on his cigar, exhaled dark smoke. “I remember when they were knee-high to a chairdog, little urchins running around the Grand Palais.”

Gurney stood up and rested his baliset on his shoulder. “I’ll go to Caladan and explain everything.” He nodded to all of them. “Some of you will want to continue the trade, no doubt. Take the remainder of the equipment with my blessing. I . . . I don’t want to be a smuggler any longer.”

Arriving at the Cala Municipal Spaceport, Gurney Halleck carried only a single bag with a few changes of clothes, a wrapped bundle of solari coins— his share of the smuggling profits— and his beloved baliset. He also brought news and remembrances of Dominic Vernius— enough, he hoped, to gain entrance to the ducal Castle.

During the foldspace journey he’d drunk too much and gambled in the Heighliner casino decks, pampered by Wayku attendants. He’d met an attractive woman from Poritrin, who thought Gurney’s songs and good humor more than made up for his scarred face. She stayed with him for several days until the Heighliner went into orbit over Caladan. Finally, he had kissed her goodbye and marched off for the shuttle.

On cool, moist Caladan he spent his money quickly to make himself presentable. Without land or family, he’d never had anything to save it for. “Money was invented to spend,” he always said. It would have been a foreign concept to his parents.

After passing through a series of security checkpoints, Gurney at last stood in the Castle’s reception hall, watching as a stocky man and a beautiful young woman with copper-dark hair approached him. He could see traces of Dominic in their features. “You are Rhombur and Kailea Vernius?”

“We are.” The man had tousled blond hair and a broad face.

“The guards said you know our father?” Kailea asked. “Where has he been all these years? Why didn’t he ever send us a message?”

Gurney gripped his baliset, as if it gave him strength. “He was killed on Arrakis in a Sardaukar attack. Dominic ran a smuggler base there, and another on Salusa Secundus.” He fidgeted, accidentally strummed a single chord, then nervously thumbed another one.

Rhombur slumped into a chair, almost missed the seat, then caught his balance. Staring straight ahead, blinking and blinking, he reached out with his hand, fumbling to find Kailea’s. She grasped his.

Uncomfortable, Gurney continued, “I worked for your father, and . . . and now I have no place else to go. I thought I should come to you and explain where he’s been these past two decades, what he’s done— and why he had to stay away. He thought only of protecting you.”

Tears streamed down the faces of the Vernius children. After the murder of their mother, years ago, the news fit an all-too-familiar pattern. Rhombur opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out, and he closed it again.

“I’ll place my skills with a blade against any man in the Atreides House Guard,” Gurney said. “You have powerful enemies out there, but I won’t let you come to harm. It’s what Dominic would have wanted.”

“Please be more specific.” Another man emerged from a side entrance on Gurney’s right, tall and lean, with dark hair and gray eyes. He wore a black military jacket with a red hawk crest on the lapel. “We want the full story, no matter how painful it is.”

“Gurney Halleck, this is Duke Leto Atreides,” Rhombur said dully, after wiping the tears from his eyes. “He knew my father, too.”

Leto received a hesitant handshake from the scarred, sullen-looking visitor. “I’m sorry to bring such terrible tidings,” Gurney said. He gazed at Rhombur and Kailea. “Recently, Dominic infiltrated Ix again, after receiving some disturbing news. And what he witnessed there . . . horrified him so much that he came back a broken man.”

“There were many ways to get back in,” Rhombur said. “Emergency access points that only the Vernius family knew. I remember them myself.” He turned back to Gurney. “But what was he trying to do?”

“As near as I can tell, he was making preparations to attack Kaitain with the Vernius family atomics. But the Emperor’s Sardaukar learned of the plan, and they ambushed our base first. Dominic set off a stone burner and destroyed them all.”

“Our father’s been alive all this time,” Rhombur said, then looked at Leto. His gaze searched the arched entrances, the long Castle halls, as if he hoped to see Tessia. “He’s been alive, but he never told us. I wish I could have fought at his side, just once. I should have been there.”

“Prince Rhombur— if I may call you that,” Gurney said, “everyone who was there is now dead.”

The same transport that delivered Gurney Halleck also brought a formal diplomatic Courier from Archduke Armand Ecaz. The woman had close-cropped maroon hair and wore the respected, age-old uniform trimmed with braids and decked with dozens of pockets.

She tracked down Leto where he stood in the banquet hall, chatting with some of the household staff who polished the expensive wall of blue obsidian to a warm luster. Thanks to Gurney Halleck, Leto now knew the blue obsidian came not from Hagal, but from Harkonnen slave pits. Even so, Gurney had asked him not to tear it down.

Leto turned and greeted the Courier, but in a brisk series of businesslike moves, she presented identification, delivered a sealed message cylinder, then waited while the Duke processed a thumbprint receipt. She spoke very little.

Fearing more bad news— when had a Courier brought anything else?— both Thufir Hawat and Rhombur came into Leto’s presence from opposite doorways. Leto met their questioning looks with the unopened cylinder.

Duke Leto yanked out one of the heavy side chairs from the dining table, scraping the feet across the stone floor. Workers continued to polish the obsidian wall. With a sigh, Leto slumped into the seat and cracked open the cylinder. His gray eyes scanned the words while the Prince and the Mentat waited in silence.

Finished, Leto looked up at the portrait of the Old Duke hanging on one wall, facing the stuffed head of the Salusan bull that had killed him in the Plaza de Toros. “Well, this is something to consider.” He did not explain further, as if he’d rather have advice from long-dead Paulus.

Rhombur fidgeted. “What is it, Leto?” His eyes were still red around the edges.

Setting the cylinder on the table, the Duke caught it before it could roll off. “House Ecaz has formally suggested a marriage alliance with Atreides. Archduke Armand offers the hand of his second daughter Ilesa.” He tapped the cylinder with the finger that bore the ducal signet ring. The Archduke’s eldest daughter had been killed by Moritani’s Grummans. “He’s also included a list of Ecazi assets and a suggested dowry.”

“But no image of the daughter,” Rhombur said.

“I’ve already seen her. Ilesa is beautiful enough.” He spoke in a distracted tone, as if such matters would not affect his decision.

Two of the household servants paused in their polishing, astonished to hear the news, then returned to their labors with increased vigor.

Hawat’s brow furrowed. “No doubt the Archduke is also concerned about the renewed hostilities. An Atreides alliance would make Ecaz far less vulnerable to Moritani aggression. The Viscount would think twice about sending in Grumman troops.”

Rhombur shook his head. “Uh, I told you the Emperor’s simple fix would never solve the problem between those two Houses.”

Leto stared off into the distance, his thoughts spinning. “Nobody ever disagreed with you, Rhombur. At the moment, though, I think the Grummans are more upset with the Ginaz School. Last I heard, the academy publicly provoked Viscount Moritani in the Landsraad by calling him a coward and a mad dog.”

Hawat looked grave. “My Duke, shouldn’t we distance ourselves from this? The dispute has gone on for years— who knows what they will do next?”

“We’re too far in it, Thufir, not just by our friendship with Ecaz, but now Ginaz as well. I can no longer remain neutral. Having examined records of the Grumman atrocities, I’ve added my voice to a Landsraad vote calling for censure.” He allowed himself a personal smile. “Besides, I was thinking of Duncan at the time.”

“We must study the marriage offer carefully,” the Mentat said.

“My sister’s not going to like this,” Rhombur muttered.

Leto sighed. “Kailea hasn’t liked anything I’ve done for years. I am Duke. I must think about what’s best for House Atreides.”

Leto invited Gurney Halleck to dine with them that evening.

For hours in the afternoon, the brash smuggler refugee had challenged and brawled with several of the best Atreides fighters— and had actually beaten most of them.

Now, in the quieter hours, Gurney proved to be a master storyteller, reciting tale after tale of Dominic Vernius’s exploits to eager listeners. At the long table in the banquet hall, he was seated between the mounted Salusan bull’s-head and the painting of the Old Duke dressed as a matador.

In a somber voice, the scarred smuggler told of his bone-deep hatred of the Harkonnens. He even talked again about the shipment of blue obsidian, some of which adorned the banquet hall, that had allowed him to escape from the slave pits.

Later, in another demonstration of his swordsmanship, Gurney used one of the Old Duke’s swords against an imaginary opponent. He had little finesse, but considerable energy and remarkable accuracy.

Nodding to himself, Leto glanced at Thufir Hawat, who pursed his lips in approval. “Gurney Halleck,” Leto said, “if you would like to remain here with the Atreides House Guard, I would be honored to have you.”

“Pending a thorough background check, of course,” Hawat added.

“Our weapons master, Duncan Idaho, is away at school on Ginaz, though we expect him back soon. You can assist in some of his duties.”

“Training to be a Swordmaster? I wouldn’t want to intrude on his job.” Gurney grinned, rippling the inkvine scar on his jaw. He extended a beefy hand toward Leto. “For the sake of my memories of Dominic, I would like to serve here, by the children of Vernius.”

Rhombur and Leto each gripped his hand, welcoming Gurney Halleck to House Atreides.