Spice. What Fremen could fail to find it, when necessary? The Guild had demanded more melange, and the desert people had to pay the price, or lose their dreams.

On his belly behind the crest of a towering dune, Stilgar peered through binoculars toward the abandoned village of Bilar Camp. Broken, bloodstained hovels lay at the base of a shifting mountain of sand, blocked from the rear by a small mesa that held a hidden cistern, which was now filled with sealed containers of contraband spice. The Baron’s spice.

Stilgar adjusted the oil lenses, and images sharpened in the crystalline dawn. A squad of blue-uniformed Harkonnen troops went about their business as if confident that no one would dare spy on them. All Fremen considered this place cursed.

While Stilgar watched, a large carryall set down near the abandoned village. He recognized the aircraft, with its retractable wings tucked against its body: a heavy-lift vehicle used to transport spice-harvesting factories out to melange-rich sands and haul them to safety when the inevitable sandworm approached.

He counted thirty Harkonnen soldiers, more than twice the number of raiders he had with him. Nonetheless, the odds were acceptable. Stilgar’s team would have the advantage of surprise. Fremen style.

Two soldiers used an arc-light device to repair the underside of the carryall. In the still air of morning, the hum of activity carried up the dune face. Nearby, the low rock-and-brick walls of the haunted village looked rounded, their edges softened by years of hard weathering.

Nine years ago, the villagers of Bilar Camp had been horribly poisoned by bored Harkonnen scouts. The scouring desert winds had erased most, but not all, marks of the catastrophe. The Bilar Camp villagers had died ripping their own bodies apart, maddened by the poison in the water supply. Fingernail scratches and bloody handprints could still be seen on a few protected walls.

The water-fat Harkonnens believed that superstitious desert dwellers would never come back to such a cursed place. The Fremen knew, though, that this evil had been committed by men, not desert demons. Liet-Kynes himself had witnessed the horrors with his revered father. Now, as the Abu Naib who led all Fremen tribes, Liet had sent Stilgar and his men on this mission.

Along the other side of the dune, Stilgar’s commandos crouched, each holding a slick sandboard. Wearing desert-stained robes, fitted so that the sun would not expose the gray stillsuit fabric beneath, the raiders put their face masks in place. They sipped from catchtubes at their mouths, building energy, readying themselves. Maula pistols and crysknives were strapped to their waists; stolen lasrifles were attached to the sandboards.

Ready.

Stilgar found himself amused at the ineptitude of the Harkonnens. For weeks he had watched their activities, and he knew exactly what they intended to do this morning. Predictability is death— it was an old Fremen saying.

Liet-Kynes would pay the increased Guild spice bribe directly from hidden Harkonnen stockpiles. And the Baron could lodge no complaints.

Below, the carryall repair had been completed. The uniformed soldiers worked together in a brigade line to remove rocks covering the cistern, exposing a reinforced container. They chatted casually, with their backs turned to the high dune. They hadn’t even posted perimeter guards. Such arrogance!

When the Harkonnens had nearly finished uncovering the cistern, into which they would unload more stolen spice from the carryall’s cargo hold, Stilgar made a chopping motion with his hand. The commandos mounted their slick-bottomed sandboards, thumped over the edge onto the steep slope, and careened down the smooth dune face like a racing wolfpack. At the front, picking up speed and riding with bent knees, Stilgar unclipped his lasrifle. The other Fremen did the same.

Hearing the humming whine of sand friction beneath the boards, the preoccupied Harkonnen soldiers turned, but too late. Purple knives of disruptive light cut their legs out from under them, melting flesh and mangling bones.

Stilgar’s raiders jumped off their boards and fanned out to secure the big carryall. Around them, the mutilated soldiers screamed and moaned, thrashing their cauterized stumps. Because of Fremen marksmanship, all of the men still had their vital organs and their lives.

A young soldier with pale wisps of beard looked in terror at the dark-robed desert men and tried to scramble backward across the bloody sand, but he could not move without legs. These Fremen seemed to fill his heart with more fear than did the sight of the blackened stumps of his legs.

Steeling his resolve, Stilgar ordered his men to bind the Harkonnens and wrap their wounds in sponges and sealing cloths to preserve the moisture for the sietch deathstills. “Gag them, so we need not hear their childish crying.” Soon the whimpering voices were silenced.

Two commandos inspected the carryall, then raised their hands in a signal. Stilgar bounded up a gangplank on the heavy aircraft to a narrow interior platform that ringed the modified cargo hold. The spacious enclosure was lined with heavy plating. Overhead, four grappling hooks dangled on chains.

This carryall had been stripped of its decks and equipment, fitted instead with armor. It reeked with the odor of cinnamon. The upper hold was already full of unmarked melange containers that the soldiers had been about to hide inside the cistern. The lower hold was empty.

“Look here, Stil.” Turok pointed down at the craft’s underbelly, at its unpainted crossbeams and fittings of new construction. He touched a toggle beside him, and the armored belly spread apart, open to the desert. Quickly, Turok climbed a metal stairway into the pilot’s cabin and fired up the big engines, which surged to life with a powerful rumble.

Holding a handrail, Stilgar felt a faint vibration, the sign of a well-maintained ship. This workhorse craft would be a good addition to the Fremen fleet. “Up!” he shouted.

Turok had worked on spice crews for years and was proficient in operating all types of equipment. He punched the jet sequence. The carryall lifted with a powerful surge, and Stilgar clutched the handrail to keep his balance. The dangling chains and heavy hooks clattered above the open cargo doors; soon he could see the top of the uncovered cistern below.

While Turok hovered the big carryall, Stilgar disengaged the chains and dropped down the thick hooks. Below, the raiders scrambled over the smooth walls of the reinforced cistern and secured grappling hooks to lifting bars. The chains grew taut, the heavy engines groaned, and the entire spice-filled cistern ripped free of the rock platform, rising until it fit inside the open cargo hold. The carryall doors shut beneath it like the mouth of a gluttonous snake.

“I believe the Emperor has called it a crime to keep so much spice.” Stilgar smiled as he shouted up to his companion. “Is it not good to assist the Corrinos in their quest for justice? Perhaps Liet should ask Shaddam to give us a commendation.”

Chuckling at the irony, Turok brought the lumbering vessel back around and hovered just above the ground. The remaining Fremen climbed aboard, dragging the squirming, maimed Harkonnen captives with them.

The laden aircraft rode low in the sky, but accelerated as it headed out over the open desert, toward the nearest sietch. Seated against a vibrating bulkhead, Stilgar studied his exhausted men, and the doomed prisoners who would soon be thrown into the deathstills. He exchanged satisfied grins with his men, who had removed their face masks to reveal weathered, bearded faces. In the low light of the carryall’s interior, their blue-within-blue eyes glowed.

“Spice and water for the tribe,” Stilgar said. “A good haul for one day.”

Beside him, one of the Harkonnen soldiers moaned and opened his eyes. It was the young, terrified man who had looked at him before. In a moment of mercy, deciding this one had suffered enough, Stilgar drew his crysknife and slit the soldier’s throat, then covered the wound to absorb the blood.

The other Harkonnens did not receive a similar kindness.