A successful search depends on persistence and good fortune, but a successful mission depends on the character of the person to whom it is given.

—XAVIER HARKONNEN, Memoirs of Serena Butler’s Jihad

Considering the amount of wealth and commerce flowing from Arrakis, Griffin Harkonnen was surprised to see that the main spaceport city was little more than a crowded slum. With the spice trade, he had expected a modern metropolis, but instead he saw people living in hovels made of fused brick and polymer. Every window, door, and crack was sealed to prevent dust from getting in. Arrakis had a reputation of sucking away wealth and hope faster than fortune-seekers could earn it back from the desert.

When he arrived and saw all the hopeless people who had no chance of getting offworld, Griffin’s heart fell, as he felt homesick for rustic Lankiveil, no matter the hardships of living there. But he refused to abandon his quest, his duty.

“Avenge our family honor, Griffin,” his sister had said. “I know I can count on you.”

He had always known that searching an entire planet for one man would be difficult—even for a flamboyant, attention-grabbing person like Vorian Atreides—but when he looked at the stark cliffs and the endless desert beyond, he couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to come here.

If Griffin’s research was accurate, Vorian Atreides was quite wealthy, hiding his fortunes on various planets. On Kepler, Griffin had seen for himself that the man was well liked, even revered. If the Emperor had asked Atreides to leave Kepler, why wouldn’t he choose to build an estate somewhere and live in comfort?

The man had told his family where he intended to go after departing from Kepler. The secret had not been difficult to discover. Griffin didn’t think Atreides was on the run, or hiding, and had no reason to believe his prey would take extreme measures to change his name or disguise his identity. He had no idea Griffin was tracking him down, so why would he flee? Why would he hide? Even so, Griffin doubted he would be easy to find. This vast, desolate planet seemed like an easy world on which to disappear.

Valya had hated the Atreides scion for so long that she saw him only as a monster who needed to be punished for what he’d done to House Harkonnen. But Griffin wanted to understand the man he was going to kill, gathering as much information as he could on Vorian’s long life, including his early years in the machine empire before he’d changed sides and joined Serena Butler’s Jihad … as well as his friendship with Griffin’s ancestor Xavier Harkonnen, the great atomic purge that had obliterated all the Synchronized Worlds, and finally the momentous Battle of Corrin, after which Vorian Atreides had blackened the Harkonnen family name for all time.

But why would a man like that willingly come to a place like Arrakis? For even more riches, Griffin assumed, for the spice that was making some people wealthy.

He stood alone for a time, surrounded by the bustle of uncaring crowds, and then set off into the town. His skin was still soft and moist, and he was already sunburned.

From behind him, a zeppelin-size water tanker flew in, dispatched from some world where water could be scooped up from an alien ocean, then desalinated and flown here. Knowing the costs of commercial transport from working the whale-fur deal, Griffin thought how desperate this world must be for water if it was commercially viable to fly a ship from one planet to another and make a profit from it. He also understood why the melange mined here was so expensive. Simple economics.

Griffin was cautious with his own limited funds, secreting cash in various pockets and packs on his body. He had budgeted his every move, making certain he would have enough to buy his passage back to Lankiveil. He knew he would be forced to hire local investigators, and offer generous bribes in hopes of retrieving scraps of information.

He saw suspensor-borne pallets filled with canisters of concentrated spice, all of which bore the logo of Combined Mercantiles. Beggars approached him constantly, and he wanted to help them, but he simply had no funds to spare, if he was to accomplish his mission. Many of the destitute people were offworlders like himself, huddled in rags against buildings, wrapped in their misery and covered with dust.

Equally relentless, vendors kept pestering Griffin, trying to sell him water-retention masks, eye coverings, weather-predictive devices, magnetic compasses (which never seemed to point the same direction two times in a row), and even magic talismans guaranteed to “ward off Shai-Hulud.” He was obviously from another world, and thus a target for scams; Griffin turned down all offers.

Other people were obviously natives: He could tell that at a glance by their dark and leathery exposed skin, by the manner in which they moved and kept to the shadows, and how they covered their mouths and nostrils. They had a hard attitude about them and an undisguised disgust for naïve offworlders, but he thought they might be his best source of information. However, when he stopped an old desert man to ask questions, the man flashed a warding sign with two upraised fingers, said something in a language Griffin didn’t understand, and then scuttled away into an alley.

Discouraged, Griffin found lodgings and showed the proprietor an image of Vorian Atreides. The obese proprietor shook his head. “We try not to notice people around here. And even if that man did come into my establishment, he was most likely wrapped in a headdress with noseplugs and face mask. Nobody’s ever seen a person dressed like that around here.” He nodded toward the image.

Without revealing his own name, in case someone tipped off his prey, Griffin asked vendors on the streets, paying token amounts to anyone who showed interest. Those who gave him information exuberantly were clearly lying, in hopes of a larger bribe. Moving on, he contacted a local investigator, offering payment only if the man produced results; the investigator was not enthusiastic about the arrangement, but said he would look into the matter, as long as it didn’t take too much time.

Determined, Griffin realized he would have to do most of the work himself. He had come all this way, had promised his sister, and knew he had gotten physically closer to finding Vorian Atreides than ever before.

One night after sunset, he passed through a moisture-sealed door into a drinking establishment, where filthy, sullen men sat around consuming spice beer, spending all of their wages, because they had long since given up on buying passage off of Arrakis. Griffin found it disheartening to see people who had stopped trying to regain their self-worth. He vowed to never let that happen to him.…

After determining the precise amount he was willing to invest, he paid for drinks and asked for information or suggestions on how he might find a particular person, whom Griffin did not always name. Some men tried to make him pay them before they would even look at the image of Vorian, or asked for payment after just looking at the image, even when they had no information. Over the course of two hours, Griffin grew frustrated with the bantering, after expending only minimal amounts of his cash. He moved to a corner table and sipped a single glass of potent spice beer, but the bitter-cinnamon drug rushed directly to his head, and he ordered a glass of water instead, which cost twice as much as the thick beer did.

By the time he gave up and left the bar, the men were laughing at him. “Come back tomorrow. We’ll think about it, see if we have more information,” said a gruff leader who had a persistent cough.

Begrudging the waste of money from the evening, Griffin unsealed the door of the drinking establishment and returned to the night streets. He didn’t like this place at all. In the cooler night air he tried to get his bearings, turned in the direction where he thought he’d find his lodgings, and headed down a narrow side street.

On this vile planet, Griffin was actually beginning to miss Lankiveil, and couldn’t wait until he saw his parents again, along with his little brother and sister. One day, even Valya would return there from Rossak. The frigid, dark oceans of Lankiveil, the fishing fleets, and the winter ice storms were all rugged and unpleasant, but it had become a sort of home. Grudgingly, he admitted to himself that Lankiveil had toughened the Harkonnens, making them better able to meet challenges, but even the necessities for surviving there seemed like nothing in comparison with the crucible of this desert planet.

Hearing the scuffle of footsteps behind him, he turned to see a shadowy figure approaching. Griffin tensed, placed his left hand on the shield belt controls and his right palm on the hilt of his fighting knife. Thanks to Valya, he had plenty of experience in hand-to-hand combat.

Realizing he’d been spotted, the stranger paused, then flashed a handlight in Griffin’s face, blinding him.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Griffin demanded, trying not to sound intimidated.

The person came closer, dimmed the handlight, and Griffin recognized one of the reticent patrons of the drinking establishment, a ruddy man with a thick crop of silver hair. “You have money to pay for information.” The man stepped closer. “In exchange for all of it, I’ll give you something you don’t expect.”

“And what’s that?” Seeing a sharp glint in the man’s eyes, Griffin subtly activated his shield. In the shadows of the side street, the hum was loud, and he saw a slight distortion in the air.

He watched his adversary for tiny movements, alert for any trick or feint. He wished Valya were there with him. The man didn’t comment on the shield, and it occurred to Griffin that he might not know what it was. Shields were standard-issue throughout the Landsraad League, but he realized that he hadn’t noticed anyone wearing them on the desert planet.

The man came closer and drew his long knife. “I’ll show you how it feels to die.” He laughed and thrust the blade forward like a stinging scorpion, obviously expecting an easy, soft target. Griffin turned, and the shimmering Holtzman field deflected the blow. His pulse raced and adrenaline flowed, readying him for an intense flurry of combat … but this man did not seem up to Griffin’s fighting abilities.

His attacker tried to recover from his surprise, and clumsily drove the dagger in again, but he was unaccustomed to fighting against a shielded man. Griffin used his dagger to slice the back of the man’s hand. Thick, dark blood spurted from the veins as he recoiled with a yelp. Griffin swung his knife sideways around the partial shield and stabbed the man in the lower left side. The blade went in deep, and the attacker grunted and coughed. He nearly pulled Griffin down to the ground with him as he collapsed to his knees.

In sick astonishment, he cried, “You’ve murdered me! You’ve murdered me!”

But Griffin had been careful. Though he and Valya had never actually harmed each other in their many sparring matches, they knew vulnerabilities very well. “It’s not a lethal blow.” He knelt beside the groaning man. “But I can change that.” He held the bloody tip close to the man’s face. “Who sent you to kill me?”

“No one! I just wanted your money.”

“Well, that was poorly planned. Is everyone here so clumsy?”

The man yowled in pain. “I’m bleeding to death!”

Griffin looked from side to side, sure the commotion would draw someone within seconds. He pressed the dagger against the man’s throat. “I’ll end the pain quickly enough if you don’t answer my question.”

“All right! I wanted more than your money!” the man wailed. “I also meant to take your water!”

“Take my water? I don’t have much water.”

“Your body’s water! The desert people can distill it … sell it.” The man sneered at him. “Are you satisfied now?”

Griffin pressed the dagger tip harder against the thug’s throat. “And where should I look for Vorian Atreides? Do you have information on that, too?”

The man groaned and clutched the knife wound in his side. “How should I know where he is? Most people who come here from offworld go to work on spice crews. Check with the Combined Mercantiles offices, see who they hired.”

Shadowy figures emerged from doorways and flitted down the side street. The man squirmed and screamed again. Deciding he would get no further information out of him, Griffin stood. “We need medical attention here,” he called out. The people crowded around the groaning thug, who looked up at them. He flailed his hands and tried to squirm away.

Griffin was astonished to see a knife flash in a woman’s hand. She jerked quickly, drove the blade under the man’s chin and up into his brain. The victim spasmed, then fell dead, spilling very little additional blood. “He was a thief,” she said, leaning over to wipe the blade on his clothing. “Now we’ll take his water.” She looked up at Griffin’s astonished expression, as if expecting him to challenge her. “Unless you claim it?”

Griffin stammered, “No … no.” He turned and fled down the side street toward his lodgings, just wanting to get out of there but alert and ready with his knife in case someone else attacked him.

Behind him, the silent, dusty people wrapped the thug’s body and carried it quickly down another alley. Griffin heard a door seal, but when he glanced back, all signs of them were gone.

What a barbaric place! And Vorian Atreides had chosen to come to Arrakis?