Tales of Dune Read online

  “All that wealth must have been stolen from the Emperor’s share. It's probably been there for years.” She nodded to reinforce her own convictions. “You don’t want to dirty your hands with it.”

  “But my own half-brother has deceived me.”

  “He must have plans for it. He didn’t tell you because he knew you’d feel honor-bound to report it.”

  Abulurd chewed a mouthful of the tart stringreens and swallowed, washing it down with a Caladan blanc. With the smallest hints, Emmi could always tell exactly what he was thinking. “But I do feel honor-bound to report it.”

  She considered for a moment, then said, “If you call attention to this stockpile, I can think of many ways it could harm us, harm the people of Lankiveil, or harm your own family. I wish you had never found it.”

  He looked into her jasper-brown eyes to see if any glimmer of temptation had crossed them, but he saw only concern and caution there. “Perhaps Vladimir is avoiding taxes or just embezzling to fill the coffers of House Harkonnen,” she ventured, her expression turning hard. “But he is still your brother. If you report him to the Emperor, you could bring disaster upon your House.” Then she frowned even more deeply. “And our son is coming back. What if he is implicated?”

  Abulurd realized another consequence and groaned. “If the Baron is imprisoned, then I would have to control all of the Harkonnen holdings. Assuming we keep the Arrakis fief, I'd have to go back there, or else live on Giedi Prime.” Miserably, he took another drink of the wine. “I couldn't stomach either option, Emmi. I like it here. I won’t even mention the stockpile to Glossu.”

  Emmi reached over to touch his hand. She stroked it, and he raised her hand to his lips, kissing her fingers. “Then we’ve come to our decision,” she said. “We know the spice is there . . . but we’ll just leave it be.”

  As far as Rabban was concerned, his uncle could not have conceived a more cruel punishment than to send him to this dreary planet. At least Arrakis was warm and had clear skies, and Giedi Prime offered all the comforts of civilization.

  Lankiveil was just . . . miserable.

  Time dragged at such a sluggish pace that Rabban found himself appreciating the geriatric benefits of melange. He would have to live longer than a normal life span just to make up for all this abysmally wasted time. . . .

  He had absolutely no interest in the villages that dotted the convoluted fjords: they held nothing but smelly fishermen, native hunters, and a few vegetable growers who found fertile land in the cracks of the steep black mountains.

  Rather than going to see his parents—that would be just too much to bear—Rabban spent most of his time on the largest island in the north, close to the glacial ice sheet and far from the swimming lanes of the Bjondax fur whales. It was not civilization by any standard, but at least it had factories, processing plants, and a spaceport to send loads of whale-fur to orbit. Here, he could be with people who understood that resources and raw materials existed for the benefit of whatever House owned them.

  He lived in CHOAM company barracks and commandeered several large rooms for himself. Though he occasionally gambled with the other contract workers, he spent most of his time brooding and thinking of ways to change his life as soon as he returned to Giedi Prime.

  Unfortunately, his father traveled up to the CHOAM processing centers, ostensibly on an inspection tour. Abulurd met his son in the barracks building with an optimistic expression on his hangdog face as if he expected some kind of teary-eyed reunion. He embraced his only son, and Rabban broke away quickly.

  Glossu Rabban, with square shoulders and a blocky face, heavy lips and a widow’s peak, took after his mother more than his father, who had thin arms, bony elbows, and big knuckles. Abulurd’s ash-blond hair looked old and dirty, and his face was weathered from being outside too much.

  The only way Rabban got his father to leave, after hours of inane jabbering, was to promise that he would indeed come down to Tula Fjord and stay with his parents. A week later, he arrived at the main lodge, smelling the sour air, feeling the clamminess sink into his bones. Enduring their coddling, Rabban swallowed his disgust and counted the days until he could meet the Heighliner that would take him home.

  In the lodge they ate elaborate meals of smoked fish, boiled clabsters, seafood paella, snow mussels and clams, pickled squid, and salted ruh-caviar, accompanied by the bitter, stringy vegetables that survived in the poor soil. The fishwife, a broad-faced woman with red hands and massive arms, cooked one dish after another, proudly serving each one to Rabban. She had known him as a child, had tried to spoil him, and now she did everything but pinch his cheeks. Rabban hated her for it.

  He couldn’t seem to get the foul tastes out of his mouth, or the odors from his fingers or clothes. Only pungent wood smoke from the great fireplaces managed to relieve his anguished nose. His father found it quaint to use real fire instead of thermal heaters or radiant globes. . . .

  One night, bored and brooding, Rabban latched upon an idea, his first imaginative spark in two years. The Bjondax whales were docile and easily killed—and Rabban knew he could interest wealthy nobles from Great and Minor Houses in coming to Lankiveil. He remembered how much joy he had taken in hunting feral children at Forest Guard Preserve, how thrilled he had been to kill a great sandworm on Arrakis. Perhaps he could start a new whale-hunting industry, pursuing the enormous aquatic beasts for sport. It would add profit to the Harkonnen treasury and turn Lankiveil into something better than the primitive hellhole it was now.

  Even the Baron would be pleased.

  Two nights before he was due to depart for home, he suggested the idea to his parents. Like an ideal family, they sat together at table eating another meal from the sea. Abulurd and Emmi kept looking at each other with pathetic sighs of contentment. His ebony-eyed mother didn’t speak much, but she provided unwavering support to her husband. They touched affectionately, brushed a hand from one shoulder to an elbow.

  “I plan to bring some big-game hunters to Lankiveil.” Rabban sipped a watery glass of sweet mountain wine. “We’ll track down the fur whales—your native fishermen can act as guides. Many people in the Landsraad would pay handsomely for such a trophy. It’ll be a boon to all of us.”

  Emmi blinked and looked over to see Abulurd’s mouth drop open in shock. She let him say what they were both thinking. “That would be impossible, son.”

  Rabban flinched at the offhand way this weakling called him son. Abulurd explained, “All you’ve seen are the processing docks up in the north, the final step in the whale-fur business. But hunting proper specimens is a delicate task, done with care and training. I’ve been on the boats many times, and believe me, it’s not a lighthearted task! Killing Bjondax whales was never meant for . . . sport.”

  Rabban’s thick lips twisted. “And why not? If you’re the planetary governor here, you’re supposed to understand economics.”

  His mother shook her head. “Your father understands this planet better than you do. We just can’t allow it.” She seemed surrounded by an impenetrable veil of self-assurance, as if nothing could shake her.

  Rabban simmered in his chair, more disgusted than angry. These people had no right to forbid him anything. He was the nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, the designated heir of a Great House. Abulurd had already proven he couldn’t handle the responsibility. No one would listen to a failure’s complaints.

  Rabban pushed himself away from the table and stalked off to his suite. There, in a bowl made from an abalone shell, the house servants had arranged clumps of sweet-smelling lichens peeled from tree bark, a typical Lankiveil bouquet. With a swat from his thick hand, Rabban knocked it aside, shattering the shell on the weathered plank floor.

  The abrasive sounds of Bjondax whale songs awoke him from a restless sleep. Outside the window in the deep channel, the whales hooted and honked in an atonal sound that made Rabban’s skull resonate.

  The night before, his father had smiled wistfully, listening to the m
usic of the beasts. He’d stood with his son out on the split-log balcony, which was slick from an ever-clinging mist. Gesturing out to the narrow fjords where dark shapes swam, Abulurd said, “Mating songs. They’re in love.”

  Rabban wanted to kill something.

  Fresh from hearing his father’s flat refusal of the simple plan to bring hunters to Lankiveil, he couldn’t imagine how he shared a heritage from such people. He’d spent too long enduring the annoyances of this world; he’d tolerated the smothering attentions of his mother and father; he’d despised how they had thrown away the grandeur they could have achieved, and then allowed themselves to be content here.

  Rabban’s blood began to boil.

  Knowing he could never sleep with the whale-racket outside, he dressed and plodded down into the quiet great room. Orange embers in the cavernous fireplace lit the room as if the hearth were filled with lava. A few servants should be up, some cleaners in the back rooms, a cook in the kitchen preparing for the day ahead. Abulurd never posted guards.

  Instead, the inhabitants of the main lodge slept with the quiet snores of the unambitious. Rabban hated it all.

  He gathered a warm garment, even deigned to take mittens, and crept outside. He trudged down rugged steps to the waterline, the docks, and the fishing shed. The cold condensed a frost from the mist in the air.

  Inside the dank and reeking shed, he found what he wanted: worn, jag-tipped spears for hunting fish. Certainly sufficient to kill a few fur whales. He could have brought along heavier weaponry, but that would have taken away all the sport.

  Drifting in the placid fjord, Bjondax whales crooned in unison; their songs resonated like belches from the cliff walls. Gloomy clouds muffled the starlight, but an eerie illumination shone down so that Rabban could see what he was doing.

  He untied one of the medium-sized boats from the dock—small enough that he could handle it by himself, yet with a thick hull and sufficient mass to withstand being bumped by lovesick fur-whales. He cast off and powered up the humming motor, easing into the deep channel where the beasts splashed and played, singing foolishly to each other. The sleek forms drifted through the water, surfacing, bellowing with their vibrating vocal membranes.

  Grasping the controls with a mittened hand, he guided his boat into deeper waters and approached the pod of whales. They swam about, undisturbed by his presence. Some even playfully collided with his craft.

  He looked into the dark water to see the adults spotted like leopards—some with mottled patches, others a creamy gold color. Numerous smaller calves accompanied them. Did the animals take their children with them when they came to the fjords to spawn? Rabban snorted, then hefted the handful of jagged spears.

  He stopped the engine and drifted, poised as the Bjondax beasts went about their antics, oblivious to danger. The monsters fell silent, apparently taking notice of his boat, then began hooting and burbling again. Stupid animals!

  Rabban threw the first of many spears, a rapid sequence of powerful thrusts. Once the slaughter began, the whale song rapidly changed its tone.

  Throwing on thick robes and slippers to cover themselves, Abulurd and Emmi raced toward the docks. Confused servants turned on the lights in the main lodge, and glowglobes shone into the darkness, startling shadows away.

  The soothing whale songs had turned into a raucous cacophony of animal screams. Emmi gripped her husband's arm, helping him retain his balance as he stumbled down the stairs to the shore, trying to see out into the darkness, but the house lights behind them were too bright. They discerned only shadows, thrashing whales . . . and something else. Finally they activated the glowbeacon at the end of the dock, which sprayed illumination across the fjord.

  Emmi let out a dismayed sound, like grief being swallowed whole. Behind them, servants clattered down the steep staircase, some carrying sticks or crude weapons, not knowing whether they might be called upon to defend the main lodge.

  A powerboat approached across the waters, its engine humming as it dragged a heavy load toward the dock. When Emmi nudged him, Abulurd ventured out onto the boards to make out who might be at the helm of the vessel. He did not want to admit what in his heart he already knew.

  The voice of Glossu Rabban called out, “Throw me that rope so I can tie up here.” Then he came into the light. Sweating from exertion even in the cold, he had taken off his jacket. Blood covered his arms, his chest, his face.

  “I’ve hunted eight of them, I think. Got two of the smaller fur whales tied up here, but I’ll need help retrieving the other carcasses. Do you skin them right at the dock, or take them to some kind of facility?”

  Abulurd could only stare in paralyzed shock. The rope fell like a strangled snake from his grasp. Leaning over the edge of the boat, Rabban grabbed the rope and looped it around a dock cleat himself,

  “You . . . killed them!” Abulurd said. “You murdered them all.”

  He looked down to see the floating corpses of two Bjondax calves, their fur matted and soaked with blood oozing from numerous stab wounds. Their pelts were torn. Their eyes stared sightlessly like plates from the water.

  “Of course I killed them.” Rabban’s heavy brow furrowed. “That’s the idea when you go hunting.” He stepped from the swaying boat and stood on the dock as if he expected to be congratulated for what he had done.

  Abulurd clenched and unclenched his fists as an unaccustomed sensation of outrage and disgust burned within him. All his life he had squelched it, but perhaps he did have the legendary Harkonnen temper.

  From years of experience he knew that Bjondax whale trapping was a precise and delicate business. It needed to be done at certain times and locations, or else the great herds would shun a place. Rabban had never bothered to learn the basics of the whale-fur business, had practiced none of the techniques, barely knew how to command a boat.

  “You’ve slaughtered them in their mating grounds, you idiot!” Abulurd cried, and a look of insulted shock splashed across Rabban’s face. His father had never spoken to him like this before.

  “For generations they have been coming to Tula Fjord to raise their young and to mate before returning to the deep arctic seas. But they have a long memory, a generational memory. Once blood has tainted the water, they will avoid the place for as long as the memory lasts.”

  Abulurd’s face turned blotchy with horror and frustration. His own son had effectively cursed these breeding grounds, spilling so much blood into the fjord that no Bjondax whale would return here for decades.

  Rabban looked down at his prizes floating dead beside the boat, then scanned back across the fjord waters, ignoring what his father had just said. “Is anyone going to help me, or do I have to get the rest of them myself?”

  Abulurd slapped him hard across the face—then stared in horror and disbelief at his hand, as if he couldn’t believe he had struck his son.

  Rabban glowered at him. With the slightest provocation, he would have killed everyone who stood there.

  His father continued in a forlorn voice. “The whales won’t come back here to spawn. Don’t you understand? All of these villages in the fjord, all of the people who live here, depend on the fur trade. Without the whales, these villages will die. All the buildings up and down the waterline will be abandoned. The villages will become ghost towns overnight. The whales won’t come back.”

  Rabban just shook his head, unwilling to understand the severity of the situation. “Why do you care about these people so much?” He looked at the servants behind his parents, the men and women who’d been born on Lankiveil with no noble blood and no prospects: just villagers, just workers. “They’re nothing special. You rule them. If times are hard, they’ll put up with it. That’s the fact of their lives.”

  Emmi glared at him, finally displaying the powerful emotions she kept inside herself. “How dare you speak like that? It’s been hard to forgive you for many things, Glossu—but this is the worst.”

  Still, Rabban exhibited no shame. “How can you both b
e so blind and foolish? Don’t you have any conception of who you are? Of who I am? We are House Harkonnen!” he roared, then lowered his voice again. “I'm ashamed to be your son.”

  He strode past them without another word and went to the main lodge, where he cleaned himself and packed his few things, then left. Another two days remained before he had permission from the Baron to leave this planet. He would spend the time out at the spaceport.

  He couldn’t wait to be back at a place where life made sense to him again.

  The End

  DUNE: FREMEN JUSTICE

  (also published as “Nighttime Shadows on Open Sand”)

  “Nature commits no errors; right and wrong are human categories.”

  —Pardot Kynes, Arrakis Lectures

  Monotonous days. The three-man Harkonnen patrol cruised over the golden swells of dunes along a thousand-kilometer flight path. In the unrelenting desert landscape, even a puff of dust caused excitement.

  The troopers flew their armored ornithopter in a long circle, skirting mountains, then curving south over great pans and flatlands. Glossu Rabban, the Baron’s nephew and temporary governor of Arrakis, had ordered them to fly regularly, to be seen—to show the squalid settlements that Harkonnens were watching. Always.

  Kiel, the sidegunner, considered the assignment a license to hunt any Fremen found wandering near legitimate spice-harvesting operations. What made those dirty wanderers think they could trespass on Harkonnen lands without permission from the district office in Carthag? But few Fremen were ever caught abroad in daylight, and the task had grown dull.

  Garan flew the ’thopter, rising up and dipping down to catch thermals, as if operating an amusement ride. He maintained a stoic expression, though occasionally a grin stole across his lips as the craft bucked and jostled in rough air. As they completed their fifth day on patrol, he continued to mark discrepancies on topographical maps, muttering in disgust each time he found another mistake. These were the worst charts he had ever used.