One can draw maps of planets and continents with extreme accuracy, but the map of a life contains unchartable terrain.

—ABULURD HARKONNEN, Memoirs from Lankiveil

By midafternoon, the sleet stopped and the skies cleared, a taunting reminder of how pleasant Lankiveil could be. Muffled in his warm whale-fur jacket, Griffin Harkonnen watched fishermen haul their craft out of the boathouses; he knew it would take them until nightfall to get the vessels ready, but he admired them for trying.

He had gone over the budget and the tax projections, and knew how much the hard winter had hurt the economy. Several docks needed to be repaired, and an avalanche had closed one of the roads through the mountains. Someday, through his own efforts, he hoped the planetary treasury would grow strong enough to allow his people to do more than eke out a living in difficult times.

He looked up as a smoky roar split the sky: a shuttle coming down from orbit, the regular delivery ship that bore packages of expensive supplies, formal documents, mail dispatches, and news releases from Salusa Secundus. He didn’t expect a response yet from the governmental examination he had taken, since bureaucracy and approvals ground slowly through the administrative red tape. But soon—when he received the results of the tests he knew he had passed—he would become a full-fledged Landsraad representative, and the distasteful proxy relationship could be ended.

After the shuttle landed, Griffin went to sign for the delivery, although some of the new captains specifically wanted Vergyl Harkonnen’s mark. By now, though, most of the starship captains knew the young man by sight. Griffin made a point of meeting each of them, never wanting to ignore possible connections.

Some of the vessels that came to outlying planets such as Lankiveil were operated by the VenHold Spacing Fleet, but Celestial Transport made more frequent stops in this sector. After the shuttle landed in the small, paved spaceport, local cargo handlers emerged from their homes, ready to help unload and distribute the offworld shipments.

Griffin was professional and cordial as he went to greet the shuttle captain, but the offworlder sounded annoyed as he held out the manifest sheet. “Miserable planet! I’ve been in orbit since early yesterday, but the storm clouds were thick as a planetary shield. Didn’t think I’d ever be able to land.” He seemed to be blaming Griffin. “Your deliveries and dispatches aren’t worth crashing my ship over.”

“It wasn’t my choice to live on this forsaken place,” Griffin said, biting back his long-held resentment. “We’re glad you made it, Captain. The weathersats say the storms will close in again tomorrow.”

“Oh, I’ll be long gone by then—I’m already behind schedule because of the delays here.” With a brusque gesture, the captain handed Griffin a packet of diplomatic papers and letters.

While the crew and local porters unloaded supplies from the shuttle’s cargo hold, Griffin checked items off the manifest, then transferred funds from the treasury to pay for the municipal deliveries. He offered hospitality to the captain, but the man wanted to be off again the moment his hold was empty. Gray clouds began congealing overhead after only an hour of clear weather.

As soon as the shuttle had lifted into the sky and he finished overseeing the cargo crates sent to the harbor warehouses, Griffin took the documents back to the dark-wood house he shared with his family. In the study by a warm fire, he sat back and sorted through the packets, expecting to spend the rest of the day conducting business.

Because Lankiveil felt so isolated, he was always happy for news dispatches from the Imperium. He longed for, but didn’t expect, a letter or holorecording from his sister; she was rarely allowed to write. A quick sorting of the packages led to disappointment—nothing from her, and no approval document that named him Lankiveil’s planetary Landsraad representative. Nor did he find a dispatch from his uncle Weller with an update of his progress from planet to planet, making new trade agreements for whale fur.

With growing displeasure, he saw that the stack contained only government reports, a few commercial inquiries, and an official-looking document from the offices of Celestial Transport. Coming into the room to say hello, his father glanced through the correspondence, saw nothing that interested him, and went off to consult the chef about dinner.

Griffin worked his way through the pile. Then, when he opened the CT dispatch, he felt a chill like a wash of icy spray curling up over the bow of a fishing boat. The letter began with five words that had signified catastrophic news throughout history. “We regret to inform you…”

The commercial spacefolding vessel bearing the passenger Weller Harkonnen, along with the entire cargo of whale fur from Lankiveil, had been lost en route to Parmentier. Due to a navigational hazard, all goods and passengers had vanished somewhere in deep space. They were considered unrecoverable.

The letter went on. “Space travel over such vast distances and poorly charted routes has always been a risky venture, and accidents inevitably happen. Celestial Transport is attempting to work through this difficulty, and we appreciate your patience in the matter. Please allow us to express our sincerest personal sympathies.”

The letter bore the replicated signature of Arjen Gates, head of the company. Griffin knew there must be over a thousand similar letters to the next-of-kin of the other passengers. An attachment referenced a waiver and disclaimer statement on the original shipping documents that Griffin had signed when engaging the transport.

Weller was gone, and the cargo with him. At first, Griffin thought more about the loss of his beloved uncle, then, as he read the dispatch again, he also began to grasp the severity of the blow to the Harkonnen treasury. There would be very little compensation, only a minimal payment that was described in the fine print of the bill of lading. Griffin had invested much of their family wealth into the whale-fur business venture, and House Harkonnen would be decades recovering from this. His carefully orchestrated plan to expand Harkonnen commercial influence had just collapsed into the vacuum of uncharted space.

As if in a dream, Griffin heard his father cheerfully whistling in the kitchen. Vergyl and the family chef had such good rapport. The young man sat stunned and silent for a long time, unwilling to destroy his father’s happiness. He would wait until the following day before telling anyone.

When Valya learned the news, she would no doubt find some way to trace the blame back to Vorian Atreides. Griffin, though, began to wonder if the Harkonnen family was cursed.