A man may flee swiftly, and far, but he can never run from himself.

—Zensunni aphorism

The sky of Arrakis was a clear, dry wasteland—olive green smeared with veils of ever-present dust. Today the winds were light, and the weather stations predicted no storm activity, so the crew chief allowed Vorian Atreides to fly one of the scout aircraft while the VenHold spice-harvesting operations continued in the valley.

Even though the grizzled old Calbir had tested Vor’s proficiency in the cockpit several times now, he still treated him like a novice pilot, lecturing him through the checklist, warning him to keep watch for violent thermal updrafts or unexpected localized cyclones. “Never underestimate Arrakis, young man, because this planet doesn’t care a whit about you.”

Vor promised to be careful and flew off, intent on watching for any change in the sky, the slightest ripple of an approaching sandworm. This was his third solo scout flight in a week, and he knew his capabilities.

At dawn, the spice scouts had spotted rusty splotches on dunes in the middle of an enclosed valley surrounded by rocks. The sheltered valley was large, but still too small to be the sole domain of a giant sandworm, although the heavy vibrations of the spice-harvesting machinery would eventually attract one of the creatures. Fortunately, the only opening to the greater desert was a narrow bottleneck in the cliffs, so they knew exactly where a worm would have to enter.

While the excavator scuttled across the open sands of the valley, moving sometimes to the safe bastion of rocks, Vor took the skimcraft in a wide arc, circling from horizon to horizon, watching for any sign of a marauding worm. He kept his eyes open as he flew his patrol, but he expected the men to have more than the usual amount of time to reap their harvest. The valley’s high walls formed a natural fortress.

He gained altitude and circled the desert basin, scanning the undulating expanse of dunes below in search of wormsign. So far, the sandy wasteland looked serene, calming, and hypnotic.…

Vor relaxed, inhaled deeply, and pondered how clean and liberating the sheer emptiness was, the sharp edges and abrupt shadows, the mind-opening vistas and the freedom of being away from centuries of thoughts. He missed Mariella, their family, and friends back on Kepler, but he took comfort in knowing they were safe from slavers. The bittersweet pang was strong in his heart, though it would fade as the years went by … as it had before.

Letting his memory line plunge deeper, he thought of Leronica, the first woman to whom he’d given a normal human lifetime, and their sons, Estes and Kagin. He considered the rise and fall of his best friend Xavier Harkonnen during the terrible Jihad … and the beautiful, tragic Serena Butler. So many memories, such a long time.

He thought as well of his protégé, Abulurd Harkonnen, in whom he had invested so many hopes, but who had disobeyed Vor’s direct orders—for the best of reasons and the worst of tactics—when the very fate of humanity hung in the balance. Abulurd had betrayed him, and all of humanity, in the final clash against the thinking machines, and Vor had seen to it that Abulurd was convicted and banished.

Yes, being so alone helped him to crystallize his memories and put them away on a shelf of his mind like artifacts in a museum. It also let Vor move on with his life … his long, long life.

He glanced down again, scanning the desert as he completed his broad circle. Still no sign of a worm, only the skirl of a dust-devil pirouetting on top of a dune.

A burst transmission came across the comm line, crackling with static in Vor’s cockpit. There was always static because of the dust and the ambient charge in the atmosphere, but now he heard shouts, a gabble of frightened voices, a loud blow.

“Gods below, what the—”

“We’re under attack!”

Then a scream and a surge of static filled the comm line before falling silent.

Vor’s fingers paused just above the transmit button as he wheeled the aircraft about and streaked back toward the sheltered valley. He wanted to ask for details, demand explanations, but caution advised him to remain silent, sensing this might not be a sandworm encounter. Vor didn’t want to let the attackers, if human, know he was coming. He was dozens of kilometers away, but he pushed the skimcraft engines to their peak acceleration.

When he approached the bottleneck valley, though, he reduced power to the aircraft’s roaring intake engines to make them much quieter. From afar, he could still see the dissipating dust plumes from the excavator’s exhaust stack. He swooped down into the valley and saw three of the dune rollers smoldering, their engines blasted, human bodies strewn on the sand. The engines of the excavator had been shut down in the middle of the valley, and the huge metal hulk sat, dust-covered, on its treads, a few bare patches of its metal hull glinting in the sunlight.

Another person might have panicked and sped back to Arrakis City to make a report and call for reinforcements, but Vor was not the sort of man to let a crisis continue without his intervention. Although his aircraft probably had enough fuel to reach another settlement, by the time he made his report and brought help, it would be far too late. By then, sandworms might have erased all evidence.

He had to find the answers to what had attacked the spice crew, and help anyone who might still be alive. It had happened so fast, and there was no cause in sight! Less than fifteen minutes had passed since he received the emergency signal. If a paramilitary force from a rival spice operation had struck the excavator, Vor had no weapon except for his own wits and fighting skills. Even his personal shield belt was sealed inside his locker aboard the large excavator.

Vor landed on the tread-marked sands and left the skimcraft’s take-off engines active but on standby. Whatever force had hijacked and devastated the operations out here must have seen his scout craft land—if they were still here. Anyone familiar with how the melange business worked knew that at least one flyer scouted each harvesting operation.

He sprang out of the cockpit and landed on the soft dunes, then sprinted toward the towering metal machine. Three burned corpses lay sprawled next to an overturned dune roller—bodies of men he knew. Vor didn’t let himself think of their names. Not yet. He had seen bodies on battlefields before … but this wasn’t supposed to be a battlefield.

He felt an eerie reminder of when he’d tried to stop the slavers on Kepler, how he’d arrived too late to prevent the human cargo ships from taking his family and neighbors, from lifting off into the sky with them.

The spice-filled cargo pods remained intact, and no one had pulled the emergency launch; the evacuation pod was still locked in the upper bridge.

The entry ramp was open, showing the huge excavator’s cavernous, dark interior, but Vor decided instinctively not to enter that way. Instead, he ran around to the front of the giant machine. During active operations, a broad, sand-covered scoop and conveyor gobbled the top layer of the desert, then dumped the sand into the processing bins and centrifuges.

Ducking, Vor scrambled up the conveyor and entered the processing machine through the intake ramp, climbing out through the first boxlike hopper. Covered with dust, he fought back the urge to cough from the strong cinnamon smell of spice in the air. He crept forward.

The bodies of three more workers lay on the stained metal deck. A container of harvested spice had been smashed open, the reddish powder spilled recklessly onto the floor. He looked from side to side, deconstructing shadows, but saw no movement, heard no noise.

It must have been a surgical operation, a powerful assault and retreat before countermeasures could be employed. He remembered his fellow crewmembers talking about the enemies Josef Venport had created when they ran roughshod over competitors in the melange business. This reeked of a retaliatory strike.

The excavator creaked and thrummed, even though the engines had been shut down. The heat from the sun and the cooling metal caused it to settle. With no one outside spotting for wormsign, Vor realized that a sandworm could venture through the bottleneck in the cliff walls at any time. But he was more concerned about a different sort of enemy now; someone had murdered his crewmates, his friends, and honor impelled him to discover who.

With soft footsteps he crept up the flat metal steps to the shadowy crew deck, which should have been empty, since all workers were required to be on duty during active spice-harvesting operations. Even so, Vor discovered a single body there, a man sprawled on the deck, his neck broken. Moving as silently as he could, he retrieved his shield belt from his locker and clipped it on, but did not activate it yet.

He also secured a flare gun from an emergency locker, took a heavy pry bar from a tool kit and, carrying the makeshift weapons in each hand, made his way up one more level to the operations deck. Although fear made Vor cautious, his emotion drove him forward. Was the whole spice crew dead? He had to see if anyone needed rescuing. He was only one man, but accustomed to acting alone. He had secured numerous victories in the Jihad, brought down entire machine planets through prowess and clever ideas. He felt ready to face the murderers and saboteurs who had done this, though he realized he could not defeat an entire paramilitary force. He began to feel he had overcommitted himself, and he always had to worry about a sandworm.

Creeping up the metal stairs to the entrance hatch of the operations deck, he froze. Just inside the door, old Calbir’s face stared at him, his eyes open and mouth partly agape—but it was the head only, propped up on a communication panel. The rest of the crew chief’s body lay slumped in the chair two meters away. Judging by the ragged stump of the neck, it looked as if Calbir’s head had been torn from his body. Another man lay dead inside the open hatch of the escape pod, his body sprawled facedown and a gaping, bloody wound on his back.

At the main control panel, with arms crossed over their chests, stood a young man and woman who looked to be about twenty years old. Wiry and feral, like panthers, they were covered with blood from their hands to their shoulders. “You must be Vorian Atreides,” said the man. “We knew you wouldn’t run away.”

The young woman’s lips curled in a smile. “He looks like you, Andros. The resemblance is striking.”

Vor had expected to see an entire army, considering the damage they’d left in their wake, but these two were apparently alone. He noted something oddly familiar in their faces, their gray eyes, their dark hair. The deadly pair uncoiled their arms, like cobras preparing to strike, and their skin flickered with an underlying metallic sheen. They moved forward in unison, approaching him with a fluid, predatory gait.

“Stun only, Hyla,” the man said.

The young woman pulled out a stubby hand weapon. “We want to talk with you, Vorian … and maybe toy with you a bit, until we obtain some answers. You can’t possibly know this, but we have a lot in common, and so much potential together.”

Not caring what they meant, Vor activated his personal body shield, and the thrumming ripple appeared around him a fraction of an instant before the woman fired her stunner. The burst struck ineffectually against his shield.

“I thought you said no one used shields in desert operations!”

Many decades ago, Vor had seen those types of weapons when the cymeks quelled disturbances among their captive human populations. He also knew they had much more lethal settings.

When the stun failed to incapacitate Vor, the young man threw himself forward. Vor swung the pry bar—and when the thick metal rod struck Andros in the ribs, he could tell the man wore no shield of his own. Seeing all the death and mayhem, Vor did not hold back his strength. The impact was solid, and Andros winced, but he grabbed the pry bar and yanked it out of Vor’s hand.

Vor staggered away. The blow should have smashed the young man’s rib cage, but he didn’t even appear bruised! Now Hyla launched herself at him, and Vor fired the flare gun at her chest. The flash of the exploding projectile threw her back into Andros and caught both of them on fire. They still came at him, with flames consuming their clothing.

Vor swung over the railing and dropped down to the lower deck. If these two—two!—had slaughtered the entire crew, it was foolish for him to stand and fight them. Only a few seconds ahead of the pair, Vor ran into the crew quarters, sealed the heavy bulkhead door, and moved to the opposite end of the deck.

The eerie, murderous couple began battering at the metal door, and then an explosive burst shattered the lock. He had hoped to gain more time than this, but the two followed him, rushing forward with their clothes smoldering and skin blackened, not acting as if they were injured at all.

He didn’t underestimate them, though he had no idea who they were or how they had obtained such powers. He had to think of some way to incapacitate them, or at least get enough of a head start so he could make it back to his waiting skimcraft.

Questions clamored in his mind: Who were these people? They did not seem to be saboteurs from a rival spice operation. Andros and Hyla—he did not recognize their names, but they had been sure he wouldn’t know anything about them. What did they want? And that odd familiarity in their faces, as well as the similarity of appearance between Vor and Andros, an observation Hyla had made. A coincidence, or did it signify something more?

Vor raced the length of the excavator, dropped down another deck, and made his way to the spice-filled cargo pods, where an emergency exit hatch would let him back outside. He reached the sealed metal door, popped it open, and stepped outside onto a catwalk along the outside of the excavator. Hot wind whistled around the melange cargo pod; he was more than fifteen meters above the ground.

Normally, the ejection mechanism for an emergency launch of the cargo pods would be operated from the excavator’s bridge, but the manual, secondary controls were here. Facing an oncoming worm and the loss of the giant vehicle, Vor doubted many spice workers would have the presence of mind to save the melange cargo when they themselves were doomed, but now he was glad for the fail-safe. He activated the sequence; he had less than a minute.

Andros and Hyla emerged from the escape hatch and ran after him onto the catwalk around the cargo pod. “We just want to talk with you,” Hyla called in a flat, emotionless voice. “If you’re useful, we may decide not to kill you.”

Vor reached an escape pole and a thin metal ladder that ran down the outside of the spice harvester. He began to slide, but the rungs interfered, slowing him.

When he was three meters above the sand he let go and dropped, just in time to see Andros and Hyla stop at the ladder. The young man fired his weapon, and the beam’s impact melted a round patch of sand into glass half a meter to his left.

At that moment, the ejection procedure blasted the anchor bolts free and heaved the melange cargo pod up into the air, hauling his two pursuers with it.

Vor sprawled on the ground, got to his feet again, and ran across the cloying sand toward his landed scout flyer. He looked back, watching the cargo pod rise into the air. The young man and woman clung to the catwalk, dangling, as the cargo pod rose higher, fifty meters above the ground. Andros and Hyla both let go at the same time, as if by mutual decision.

As he swung into the cockpit, Vor watched the two plummet to the ground. They landed simultaneously in crouch positions, even from such an impossible height, and then bounded up again, springing toward the aircraft without the slightest injury or hesitation.

Vor punched the craft’s engines, lifting off vertically from the sands even before the cockpit canopy sealed. Flying such a craft was second nature to him, and now he wheeled it around and headed toward the rocky outcroppings that encircled the valley. If he could get out to the open desert, he would fly straight toward Arrakis City—

Before he gained much altitude, a small explosion struck the undercarriage of his aircraft, and one of the engines coughed, roared, then failed. The pursuers had fired their antique cymek weapons, damaging the engines. The flyer began to spin, but Vor wrestled with the controls, trying to maintain altitude, not sure whether it was better to crash on the open sands beyond the bottleneck, or in the rocks where he could at least hide.

Smoke poured from both engines. The young man fired again, but missed. Vor was very close to the ground now, but with a burst of auxiliary power he was able to streak away, trying to get as much distance as possible from his pursuers. His mind rushed. There was no place to hide out in the dunes, but he could take cover in the rocky ridge, maybe set up an ambush, though Andros and Hyla would not be easy targets.

In the rear imager, he saw the two tiny figures racing across the open valley, literally running after the wounded flyer as it tried to escape. The belly of his slowing craft scraped a high dune, sending a rooster tail of dust and sand into the air. Vor held on, jarred by the impact, and tried to keep flying, but the aircraft struck the ground again and plowed into the sand. He managed to pull up a final time, closing in toward the line of rocks that formed a barrier around the valley. Finally, he skidded into the soft sand and slewed to an abrupt, jarring stop against the first rocks. His body shield protected him from heavy bruising during the crash.

He popped open the canopy, leaped out, and ran onto weathered slabs of rock, picking his way, using hands and feet to climb when necessary. He glanced over his shoulder to see the two figures relentlessly jogging toward him, leaving lines of footprints across the soft sand.

The sun-heated rocks burned Vor’s fingertips, but he kept climbing. Once he reached a vantage point, he watched the two pause to study his crashed flyer, but within seconds they began to ascend into the rocks. He kept an eye out for the telltale ripples of worm movement: Drawn by the commotion, sooner or later one of the beasts would find its way through the bottleneck into the enclosed valley. But for now, the sands remained placid.

Vor’s heart was pounding as he climbed to the top of the ridge—where he was startled to encounter a strange woman standing, apparently waiting for him. She wore desert garb camouflaged to look like the rocks, and she carried a backpack with tools attached to it. She was so close, Vor couldn’t believe that she had sneaked up on him. The woman was of indeterminate age, her skin weathered, but her eyes bright. Wisps of brown hair flitted around the hood that covered her head.

“You must be from the spice crew down there,” she said casually, as if asking his favorite color. Noseplugs sealed her nostrils, giving her voice a nasal twang.

“I’m the only survivor.” Vor indicated the figures who were now coming into the rocks. “Those two ambushed the harvester and murdered everyone. I don’t know who they are, but they’re as strong as combat meks.” He turned his attention to her. “And who the hell are you?”

“I am Ishanti. I work for Josef Venport, keeping watch on some of the outer spice operations. But I never expected this. We have to get away and make our report.”

Still breathing heavily, Vor looked to the expanse of tan desert beyond the rocks. “Do you have a flyer? How can we escape?”

“I have no vehicle.”

Vor blinked. “Then how did you get all the way out here?”

“I used what the desert has to offer—which we’ll use again now. Follow me. I have an idea.” Ishanti flitted along the rocks, keeping herself low and hidden by her desert robe, but she told Vor to let himself be seen. They passed a rocky notch filled with loose gravel. Up a slope ahead of them, several boulders were precariously balanced at the top of a chute.

Seeing Vor’s silhouette, Andros and Hyla scrambled like spiders up the rocky notch. Ishanti watched them and smiled. “All it takes is a little push.” She and Vorian both pressed their weight against the boulders, knocking the two largest ones loose. The heavy rocks began to bounce and tumble, caroming off the walls. The small avalanche picked up momentum, rushing downward.

Andros and Hyla were caught in the funnel, and though they tried to scramble up the rocky walls, the boulders swept them away. Vor expected them to be mangled into pulp, but somehow the young man and woman flowed along above the falling boulders for a time, their feet moving rapidly, until they could no longer keep up and were hurled down the hillside. Vor didn’t allow himself time for a sigh. At the base of the cliff, he saw the two moving toward him again, tossing broken rocks aside, unburying themselves.

“We have to go,” Ishanti said, “down the other side of the ridge and out into the open desert. Or would you rather wait and fight?”

“I already tried that. What’s out in the open desert?”

“Safety. But first, turn off your shield—unless you want to die.”

“It’s kept me alive so far.”

“Out on the dunes it won’t. The field will attract a worm and drive it into a frenzy. The monsters are hard enough to control as it is.”

Control? Vor didn’t know what she meant, but he dutifully switched off his shield. The woman loped down the steep slope, descending like a mountain goat until they reached the desert floor. Without pausing, she ran out onto the open expanse of sand.

He panted after her. “Where are we going?”

Ishanti turned to look at him, her eyes a deep blue-within-blue that Vor had come to recognize as a sign of lifelong spice addiction. “Trust me—and trust what I know of the desert.”

He didn’t hesitate. “All right, I’ll trust you.”

Though she used few words, Ishanti explained as they headed into the dunes. “With the spice operations in the valley, there should be a worm already nearby. We’ll have to hope it comes for us before those two do.”

“Doesn’t sound like much of a choice.”

At the top of a dune crest, she shaded her eyes to scan the line of rocks they had just left. Andros and Hyla were already picking their way down toward the sand. Vor wondered if they were androids, with armored skin and enhanced fighting abilities.

“Normally I’d advise against regular or heavy footfalls,” Ishanti said, “but right now we want to draw their attention. Just run.” Her pack was stuffed with tools and strange instruments, poles, hooks; a coil of rope hung down from the pack. Without slowing, the desert woman pulled out the items she needed. “Keep your eyes open for wormsign—that means Shai-Hulud will be upon us, and we won’t have much time.”

Behind them, Andros and Hyla reached the sand and burst forward, not seeming to tire. Vor could see that his lead was rapidly dwindling. Then he turned forward to see a shimmer like a shock wave, accompanied by vibrations that rumbled through the sand. He pointed. “A worm!”

Ishanti nodded. “Good. The approach is from exactly the right direction. We can make do.” She dropped to her knees, removed more items from her pack. “Stand next to me, and do as I do. There’s a very good chance we’re both about to die, but there’s also a chance we’ll get away.”

Vor didn’t have time to ask questions as the ripple of disturbed sand raced toward him like a frothy whitecap during an ocean storm. Ishanti removed something that looked like a small sonic grenade. She activated its blinking light and tossed it into a hollow in the dunes not far from them. She crouched down on the crest. “Wait and watch. Be ready.”

“I’m ready,” he said, but he didn’t know what to be ready for.

The sonic grenade detonated, sending out a loud pulse that throbbed into the sand, nearly deafening Vor. The approaching sandworm surged from beneath the sand, lifting a cavernous maw large enough to swallow even the largest spice harvester. Though he had lived for centuries and had seen many incredible things, Vor caught his breath, standing there on the dune crest in awe. The eyeless worm turned toward the source of the pulse, scraping its ridged back so close to them that Vor could have thrown a rock and hit it.

Ishanti was actually running toward the sandworm, and he was right behind her. “Come, we only have a few seconds!” Like a madwoman she loped along and sprang onto the lower ridge of the worm, using a hook-tipped pole as a grapple. After she caught on, Ishanti reached her right arm behind her. “Take my hand!”

Amazed at what she was doing, Vor caught her hand, and she hauled him up onto the worm’s back, where she handed him a hook of his own. He didn’t think, only followed her lead. They ascended the line of ring segments, and the monster thrashed, not noticing the insignificant riders.

Ishanti jammed a pry bar into the cracks between the worm’s rings. With a heavy grunt, she pushed it, forcing open the ring to expose soft pink skin underneath. The sandworm flinched, and Ishanti jabbed the tender flesh. Finally, the worm turned to avoid the pain and began to rumble off into the desert.

“Tie yourself down.” She tossed Vor the other end of the coil of rope. “We have to hold on until we get far enough away.”

He did as he was told. Leaving a wake of churned sand behind it, the worm set off with amazing speed. With his hair whipping around his face, Vor turned to see Andros and Hyla standing defeated on the open sands.

Ishanti guided the worm forward, and they raced into the desolation of the deep desert.