Persistence is a virtue, but obsession a sin.

—the Orange Catholic Bible

The twin offspring of Agamemnon sprinted after him, leaving Griffin’s dead body on the hot sands.

Vor knew that even if he barricaded himself inside the small weather station, Andros and Hyla could tear through the wall in minutes. Instead, he scrambled up onto the rocks, climbing the loose stone with hands and feet, pulling his way up a boulder field to a small ridge. The open terrain beyond might have been good for meteorological measurements, but it offered Vorian very few options for escape.

“Where are you running, Brother?” Hyla called. “Convince us to keep you alive.”

He didn’t answer.

Andros and his sister climbed patiently after him, going over the rocks like liquid flowing uphill, defying gravity. When Vor reached the top of the ridge, he regarded the steep slope on the other side that led nowhere except to the empty sands. Maybe he could circle around and try to scramble back to the twins’ landed aircraft, but they had shut down their engines, and he knew the startup and takeoff process would take several minutes; Andros and Hyla would never let him get that far ahead of them.

He still had his personal shield and the Maula pistol; the spring-loaded projectile weapon was functional though he doubted if it would be effective against the twins. Still, the projectiles could delay them. He cocked the weapon and turned, bracing himself.

Andros and Hyla were pulling themselves over a line of wobbly boulders that had slid down the slope. Even though, genetically speaking, these were his brother and sister, he felt no hesitation, no remorse. Vor had killed Agamemnon decades ago, and a little more family blood on his hands would make no difference. He had watched these two murder Griffin Harkonnen, a noble young man who had not deserved to die like that.

Still climbing, Andros looked up at him and shouted, “At least your wife didn’t run when we wanted to ask her questions. But she was an old woman.”

As anger flooded through him, Vor aimed at the other man’s forehead and squeezed the trigger. The loud report from the Maula pistol sounded like a contained explosion, but Vor’s aim—or the weapon—was off. A boulder just to the left of the young man’s head cracked, and tiny rock fragments sprayed out in all directions. Andros flinched.

Hyla stood up and Vor fired a second time, aiming directly at the center of her chest. This time the bullet struck, and he saw the crater in her jumpsuit, the red ripped flesh at her sternum. The impact drove her backward, but Andros slowed to help her and reached out to grab her arm. She cried out, but regained her strength very quickly. Vor aimed the Maula pistol again and squeezed the trigger. The weapon made only a grinding sound. He tried twice more, but the pistol was jammed. He discarded it.

The twins ascended after him again, making even better time now. Thinking fast, searching for alternatives, Vor gazed across the bright, burning sands, where tiny dots of rock protruded at widespread intervals like rotting teeth. The nearest one was nearly a kilometer away. At a dead run across the powdery dunes, he would need at least fifteen minutes to reach it, and nothing at all waited for him out there.

Still, he had a plan.

Recklessly dropping down the steep slope, bouncing from one unstable boulder to the next, he reached the end of the rocks and ran out onto the sand, stumbling across the soft surface. Ishanti had taught him how to disguise his footsteps, how to move without rhythm so as to not attract a sandworm. Right now, however, Vor ran at his natural pace, already panting. He had no water; his supplies were back at the weather station. The twins were coming.

They had killed Griffin.

And Mariella.

Behind him, Andros and Hyla began to descend the slope, closing the gap. Hyla’s voice sounded strong as she yelled, “Even if you reach those rocks, where will you run? There’s nothing but sand!”

Vor didn’t waste his breath calling back to them. He pulled as far ahead as possible—but it wasn’t enough, and they were gaining on him. Halfway to the nearest rocky protrusion, he decided it was time to take his greatest risk, hoping he had enough time to reach the rocks.

When he activated the personal shield, it issued a faint, vibrating crackle. Static electricity seemed to charge the dust around him. He unclipped the shield belt, left the power supply activated, and dropped the belt onto the sand. He ran with even more frantic energy toward the small rock island, unearthing reserves of strength within himself that he didn’t know he had. Vor was sure that his rhythmic footfalls had already sent an irresistible summons to a sandworm. Now, with the throbbing shield belt, there should be no question.…

The twins continued after him across the dunes, following his footprints as he had hoped. Andros called out in his piercing voice, “Look at you running like a coward! You are an embarrassment to Agamemnon.”

Vor’s throat burned and his eyes stung, but when he reached the top of a dune, he saw that he had almost made it to the solid outcropping. Like an iceberg, the rock’s roots grew larger beneath the surface. A few more steps, and he felt rock beneath the sand. He pulled himself higher, panting, and then turned to watch.

Andros and Hyla reached the shield belt he had thrown away. They knew they were closing in, and that Vor had nowhere to go beyond his small rock island. The two were so intent on him that they didn’t seem to notice the vibrations in the sand, or the large mounded ripple rushing toward them.

But Hyla hesitated, sensing something, while Andros picked up the shield belt with a sour frown. He tossed the device over his shoulder—just as a sandworm lunged up from beneath the dunes, its maw open. Scooping hundreds of cubic meters of sand, the creature rose so high that the children of Agamemnon looked like tiny specks falling down a whirlpool.

The worm swallowed them.

Vor squatted down to watch the sandworm circling the area. Though he was all alone, without supplies, abandoned in the middle of the desert, he felt safe for the first time in a long while.…

At last he had time to reflect on the trouble he had caused on Arrakis, even though he had only meant to live here in peace. He thought of the people he had recently lost: Ishanti, who had treated him well, and Griffin Harkonnen, an unintended enemy, who might have understood and even forgiven Vorian. And he thought of Mariella.

Over the centuries he had grieved for many losses, but now he was saddened by the waste of these three lives. The Harkonnens had hated him for generations since the exile of Abulurd, and he had hoped to achieve some sort of resolution. But once the family learned what had happened to Griffin, he doubted the breach would ever be healed.

Sitting on the lonely rock, Vorian felt centuries-tired, and wished he could just find a place where he didn’t have to keep looking over his shoulder. He watched as the worm eventually buried itself in the sand and went away, but he decided to rest awhile before making his way back to the weather-monitoring station and the aircraft that could take him away from here once and for all.