A storm in the desert leaves many scars and erases many others.

—a saying of the Freemen of Arrakis

After she had extracted all the information the black-market pilot could give, Ishanti spent two weeks quietly investigating the desert activities. Soon she found the illicit spice-harvesting operations.

The chief of the poachers, Dol Orianto, had made boastful comments in Arrakis City bars. He seemed to think there was nothing to be worried about. “This planet is big enough for competition—there were plenty of independent melange operations during the spice rush. Venport doesn’t own the whole world!” Orianto had laughed, and his workers chuckled with him.

The small industrial outpost in the mountains above Carthag was obvious and undefended, and the VenHold teams moved in. The attack was over quickly, and Ishanti and her forty attack skimcraft flew away from the industrial outpost, leaving the smoking ruins of habitation buildings behind and charred bodies strewn on the rocks. The spice-storage silos remained intact—Directeur Venport had been adamant that the contraband melange was much too valuable to be discarded in a fit of pique.

At first, Ishanti considered letting one or two of the poachers live so they could send a grim report to Arjen Gates and Celestial Transport. Instead, she recorded images of the attack, deciding that a simple message pack would do the job. That way they could control the message.

Now, inside the noisy passenger compartment of the skimcraft, Ishanti shouted to her companions—many of them female Freemen warriors—above the thrum of articulated wings. “Once we finish here, we’ll salvage the equipment and retrieve the spice as a special gift.” Secretly, she would also send an immediate message to Naib Sharnak out in the deep desert settlement, informing her people that if they moved quickly they could take away all the bodies to reclaim the water before anyone knew the difference.

Ishanti had been careful to capture Dol Orianto alive, so that the appalled man could watch the slaughter of his crew. Tied up and tossed on the deck like a piece of discarded cargo, Orianto squirmed and struggled, but every time he thrashed, the shigawire bindings contracted around his wrists, legs, and throat, drawing lines of blood in the flesh.

“There is nothing you can say to save yourself,” Ishanti said in a cool voice, squatting next to him. “Think carefully now on the only decision you have left, your most important decision: How will you die—bravely, or as a coward?”

He didn’t answer. Tears were pouring out of his eyes … a waste of water, she thought, but his whole body was a waste of water. Still, some messages were necessary and, in the larger scheme of things, more important than a few liters of water.

She had already given the pilot her course, and the skimcraft flew high above the gathering dust clouds. Ishanti had studied weathersat readings to find the nearest Coriolis storm. It was less than an hour away.

When Dol Orianto did not answer her question, she sat back and rode in silence. The chief poacher whimpered but did not beg for his life; she gave him credit for that.

The pilot, an expert on Arrakis weather patterns, guided them over a whirlpool of clouds and dust. From the sealed, scratched ports, the passengers could look down into a frightening maw. The vortex of howling winds struck fear into all desert people. Viewing the gigantic storm now from above, even at a safe altitude, Ishanti found it awe-inspiring, intimidating, and beautiful in a way.

But not beautiful for Dol Orianto.

When they were directly above the sand hurricane, the pilot circled and signaled from the cockpit. Ishanti stood up from her hard metal bench, grabbed the poacher by his shoulders and dragged him to his feet. He was trembling.

“Some things have to be done,” she said, by way of apology. Josef Venport had made his wishes very clear. “Others would call this a glorious death.”

She and her companions clipped their harnesses to the interior wall so they would not be sucked out when the hatch opened. Orianto squirmed harder, tried to get away; the tightening shigawire sliced through his wrists, and his veins gushed blood.

Ishanti closed her eyes, uttered a quick prayer, and heaved him out through the hatch.

The man tumbled headfirst into the sky, toward the yawning mouth of the Coriolis storm. He dwindled to a tiny speck long before the vortex swallowed him up. Yes, some would call that a glorious death.

She closed the skimcraft hatch and signaled to the pilot. “We have all the images we need. Now back to Arrakis City—I have a report to make.”