Aboard the skyclipper, Leto relaxed in the command seat. The ship rose high above the city and drifted over the surrounding agricultural areas. So peaceful, gentle, quiet. He moved the rudders, but allowed the winds their whim. In utter silence and perfect grace, they cruised over lush terrain at the head of the procession of ships. He looked down upon broad rivers, thick forests, and marshes where standing pools glittered.

Victor stared wide-eyed out the viewing windows, pointing at sights and asking a thousand questions. Rhombur answered, but deferred to Leto when the name of a landform or clustered village exceeded his knowledge.

“I’m glad you’re here, Victor.” Leto good-naturedly mussed the boy’s hair.

Three guards were stationed aboard, one in the main cabin and the others at the fore and aft exits. They wore black uniforms, with the red hawk epaulets of the Atreides honor guard. Since he had replaced one of their members for this trip, Rhombur wore the same uniform; even Victor, who had also replaced a guard because of weight limitations on the skyclipper, wore the epaulets on his replica of the Duke’s black jacket. On the boy, the epaulets were oversized, but he insisted on wearing them.

Rhombur began to sing folk songs, rhymes he’d picked up from locals. In recent months he and Gurney Halleck had shared baliset duets, playing tunes and singing ballads. At the moment, Rhombur simply enjoyed singing in his rough voice, without any accompaniment.

Hearing a familiar chanty, one of the guards joined in. The man had grown up on a pundi rice farm before joining the Atreides troops, and still remembered the songs his parents had taught him. Victor tried to sing along, too, adding the intermittent but not always correct words of a chorus when he thought he remembered them.

Though large, the sail-driven skyclipper was an easy craft to handle, a vessel made for leisurely voyages. Leto promised himself that he would do this more often. Perhaps he’d take Jessica with him . . . or even Kailea.

Yes, Kailea. Victor should see his mother and father spend more time together, regardless of their political or dynastic differences. Leto still had feelings for her, though she had rebuffed him at every turn. Remembering how cruel his own parents had been to one another, he did not want to leave such a legacy for Victor.

It had been an oversight at first, worsened by his stubbornness when Kailea began making unreasonable demands about marriage— but he realized he should have at least made her his bound-concubine and given their son the Atreides name. Leto had not yet decided to accept Archduke Ecaz’s formal offer of marriage to Ilesa, but one day he would certainly find a politically acceptable match for himself among the Landsraad candidates.

Still, he loved Victor too much to deny the boy’s status as firstborn. If he designated the child as his official heir, perhaps Kailea would warm to him.

Eventually bored with the singing and the skyclipper’s ponderous pace, Victor craned his neck upward to look at the rippling sails outside. Leto let him handle the control grip for a few moments, turning the rudder. The boy was thrilled to see the skyclipper’s nose nudging in response to his commands.

Rhombur laughed. “You’ll be a great pilot someday, boy— but don’t let your father teach you. I know more about piloting than he does.”

Victor looked from his uncle to his father, and Leto laughed to see him ponder the comment with such seriousness. “Victor, ask your uncle to tell you how he set our coracle on fire once, then crashed it into a reef.”

“You told me to crash it into the reef,” Rhombur said.

“I’m hungry,” Victor said, not surprising Leto at all. The boy had a hearty appetite, and was growing taller every day.

“Go look in the storage cabinets in the back of the bridge deck,” Rhombur said. “That’s where we keep our snacks.” Anxious to explore, Victor ran to the rear of the deck.

The skyclipper passed over pundi rice paddies, soggy green fields separated by sluggish canals. Barges drifted along below them, filled with sacks of the native grain. The sky was clear, the winds gentle. Leto could not imagine a better day for flying.

Victor stood on a ledge to reach the topmost cabinets, rummaging among the shelves. He studied iconic images on the labels; he couldn’t read all the Galach words, but recognized letters and understood the purposes of certain things. He found dried meats, and uluus, wrapped berry pastries as a special dessert for the evening. He gobbled one package of uluus, which satisfied his immediate hunger, but he continued to poke about.

With the curiosity of a child, Victor moved to a bank of storage pockets built into the gondola’s lower wall against the dirigible sack that made up the bulk of the skyclipper. Identifying the red symbol, he knew that these were emergency supplies, first-aid equipment, medicines. He had seen such things before, watching in awe as House surgeons bandaged cuts and scrapes.

Opening the first-aid pocket, he withdrew medical supplies, scrutinized gauze wrappings and pill packets. A loose cover plate on the back wall rattled intriguingly, so he popped it out to find another compartment even deeper within. Inside a sheltered wall behind the emergency supplies, Victor found something with blinking lights, a glowing counter, impedance-transfer mechanisms connected to clusters of red energy-storage containers, all strung together.

Fascinated, he stared for a long time. “Uncle Rhombur! Come see what I found!”

Smiling tolerantly, Rhombur strode across the deck, ready to do his best to explain whatever the child had encountered.

“There, behind the doctor kits.” Victor pointed with a small finger. “See, it’s bright and pretty.”

Rhombur stood behind the boy, bent over to squint. Proud and proprietary, Victor reached deeper inside. “Look at how all the lights blink. I’ll get it so you can see better.”

The boy grasped the device, and Rhombur suddenly sucked in a sharp breath. “No, Victor! That’s a—”

Duke Leto’s son jostled the impedance leads, and activated the tamper-lock timer.

The explosives detonated.