Dune: House Atreides Read online

Now Fafnir was dead for fifteen years, and still the old vulture showed no signs of ever dying. At the very least, Elrood should abdicate with good grace. Meanwhile, Shaddam had lost his drive, and instead occupied his time enjoying the pleasures of his station. Being Crown Prince posed few hardships in life. But Fenring wanted much more— for his friend, and for himself.

  Shaddam glowered at the other man. The Crown Prince’s mother, Habla, had cast him aside as an infant— her only child by Elrood— and let her lady-in-waiting, Chaola Fenring, serve as wet nurse. From boyhood, Shaddam and Hasimir had talked about what they would do when he ascended to the Golden Lion Throne. Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV.

  But for Shaddam such conversations no longer held their childhood magic. Too many years of reality had settled in, too much waiting to no purpose. His grip on hope and his enthusiasm for the job had faded into apathy. Why not spend the days playing shield-ball?

  “You’re a bastard,” Shaddam said. “Let’s start another game.”

  Ignoring his friend’s suggestion, Fenring shut down the console. “Maybe so, but the Imperium has too many critical matters that require attention, and you know as well as I do that your father is bungling the job. If a company head ran his business the way your father runs the Empire, he’d be sacked. Think of the CHOAM scandal, for example, the soostone skimming operation.”

  “Ah, yes. Can’t argue with you on that, Hasimir.” Shaddam heaved a deep sigh.

  “Royal impersonators— a Duke, a Duchess . . . a whole damned family of fakes, right under your father’s nose. Who was watching? Now they’ve disappeared to a rogue planet somewhere beyond Imperial control. That should never have occurred, hmm-m-m-m? Just imagine the lost profits for Buzzell and the adjoining systems. What was Elrood thinking?”

  Shaddam looked away. He didn’t like to bother with serious Imperial matters. They gave him headaches. Given his father’s apparent vigor, such details seemed distant and, by and large, irrelevant to him.

  But still Fenring persisted. “The way it looks now, you won’t get a chance to do better. One hundred and fifty-five years, and still in remarkable health. Fondil III before him lived to be one hundred seventy-five. What’s the longest a Corrino Emperor has ever lived?”

  Shaddam frowned and looked longingly at the gaming apparatus. “You know I don’t pay attention to things like that, even when the tutor gets angry with me.”

  Fenring jabbed a finger at him. “Elrood will live to two hundred, mark my words. You have a serious problem, friend . . . unless you listen to me.” He raised his thin eyebrows.

  “Ah, yes, more ideas from the Assassins’ Handbook, I suppose. Be careful with that information. You can get in a lot of trouble with it.”

  “Timid people are destined for nothing better than timid jobs. You and I, Shaddam, have much more in our futures. Think of the possibilities, hypothetically of course. Besides, what’s wrong with poison? It works nicely and affects only the targeted person, as required by the Great Convention. No collateral deaths, no loss of revenue, no destruction of inheritable property. Nice and neat.”

  “Poisons are for House-to-House assassinations, not for what you’re talking about.”

  “You didn’t complain when I took care of Fafnir, hm-m-m-m-ah? He’d be in his sixties now, still waiting to taste the throne. Do you want to wait that long?”

  “Stop,” Shaddam insisted, digging in his heels. “Don’t even imagine such a course. This isn’t right.”

  “And denying you your birthright is? How effective an Emperor would you be if you couldn’t exercise power until you were old and senile— like your father? Look what’s happened on Arrakis. By the time we replaced Abulurd Harkonnen, the damage to spice production was already done. Abulurd had no idea how to crack the whip, so the workers didn’t respect him. Now the Baron cracks it too much, and so morale is way down, leading to rampant defections and sabotage. But you can’t really blame the Harkonnens. It all traces back to your father, the Padishah Emperor, and the bad decisions he’s made.” He continued more quietly. “You owe it to the stability of the Imperium.”

  Shaddam glanced up at the ceiling, as if searching for spy-eyes or other listening devices, though he knew that Fenring kept his private penthouse impeccably shielded and regularly scanned. “What kind of poison are you considering? Hypothetically speaking, only?” Again he stared across the lights of the city at the Imperial Palace. The shimmering structure seemed like a legendary grail, an unattainable prize.

  “Perhaps something slow-acting, hm-m-m-m? So Elrood will appear to be aging. No one will question what’s happening, since he’s so old already. Leave it to me. As our future Emperor, you shouldn’t concern yourself with the details of such matters— I have always been your expediter, remember?”

  Shaddam chewed his lower lip. No one in the Imperium knew more about this man than he did. But could his friend ever turn on him? Possibly . . . though Fenring knew full well his best path to power lay through Shaddam. How to keep this ambitious friend under control, how to stay a step ahead of him— that was the challenge.

  Emperor Elrood IX, aware of Hasimir Fenring’s deadly skills, had made use of him in a number of clandestine operations, all of which had been successful. Elrood even suspected Fenring’s role in Crown Prince Fafnir’s death, but accepted it as part of Imperial politics. Over the years, Fenring had murdered at least fifty men and a dozen women, some of whom had been his lovers, of either sex. He took a measure of pride in being a killer who could face the victim or strike behind his back, without compunction.

  There were days Shaddam wished he and the pushy Fenring had never formed a boyhood relationship: Then he wouldn’t be hemmed in with difficult choices that he didn’t want to think about. Shaddam should have abandoned his crib-companion as soon as he could walk. It was risky to be around such an unrelenting assassin, and at times he felt tainted by the association.

  Still, Fenring was his friend. There was an attraction between them, an undefinable something of which they’d spoken on occasion without fully understanding it. For the present Shaddam found it easier to accept the friendship— and for his own sake, he hoped it was friendship— instead of trying to sever it. That course of action could be extremely dangerous.

  Close beside him, Shaddam heard a voice that broke his train of thought. “Your favorite brandy, my Prince.” Looking to one side, Shaddam saw Fenring offering him a large snifter of smoky-dark kirana brandy.

  He accepted the snifter but stared at the liquid suspiciously, swirling it around. Was there another color to it, something not quite mixed in? He put his nose over the lip, inhaling the aroma as if he were a connoisseur— though he was actually trying to detect any foreign chemical. The brandy smelled normal. But then Fenring would have made sure of that. He was a subtle and devious man.

  “I can drag out the snooper if you like, but you never need worry about poison from me, Shaddam,” Fenring said with a maddening smile. “Your father, however, is in an entirely different position.”

  “Ah, yes. A slow-acting poison, you say? I suspect you already have a substance in mind. How long will my father live after you begin the process? If we do this at all, I mean.”

  “Two years, maybe three. Long enough to make his decline appear natural.”

  Shaddam raised his chin, trying to look regal. His skin was perfumed, his reddish hair pomaded and slicked back. “You understand, I might only entertain such a treasonous idea for the sake of the Imperium— to avoid continued calamities at the hands of my father.”

  A crafty smile worked at the edges of the weasel face. “Of course.”

  “Two or three years,” Shaddam mused. “Time for me to prepare for the great responsibilities of leadership, I suppose . . . while you attend to some of the more unpleasant tasks of empire.”

  “Aren’t you going to drink your brandy, Shaddam?”

  Shaddam met the hard gaze of the oversize eyes, and felt fear course along his spine. He was in too deep not to trust
Fenring now. He drew another shaky breath and sipped the rich liqueur.

  • • •

  Three days later, Fenring slipped like a ghost through the shields and poison-snoopers of the Palace and stood over the sleeping Emperor, listening to the smooth purr of his snores.

  Not a care in the universe, this one.

  No one else could have gotten into the most secure sleeping chamber of the ancient Emperor. But Fenring had his ways: a bribe here, a manipulated schedule there, a concubine made ill, a doorman distracted, the Chamberlain sent off on an urgent errand. He had done this many times before, practicing for the inevitable. Everyone in the Palace was used to Fenring slinking around, and they knew better than to ask too many questions. Now, according to his precise assessment— which would have made even a Mentat proud— Fenring had three minutes. Four, if he was lucky.

  Enough time to change the course of history.

  With the same perfect timing he had demonstrated during the shield-ball game, as well as during his rehearsals on mannequins and two unfortunate servingwomen from the kitchen storehouses, Fenring froze in place and waited, gauging the breathing of his victim like a Laza tiger about to pounce. In one hand he cradled a long microhair needle between two slender fingers, while in the other hand he held a mist-tube. Old Elrood lay on his back, in the precisely correct position, looking like a mummy, his parchment skin stretched tight over his skull.

  Guided by a certain hand, the mist-tube moved closer. Fenring counted to himself, waiting. . . .

  In a space between Elrood’s breaths, Fenring squeezed a lever on the tube and sprayed a powerful anesthetic mist in the old man’s face.

  There was no discernible change in Elrood, but Fenring knew the nerve deadener had taken effect, instantaneously. Now he made his thrust. A fiber-fine, self-guiding needle snaked up the old man’s nose, through sinus cavities, and into the frontal lobe of his brain. Fenring paused no more than an instant to dispense the chemical time bomb, then withdrew. A few seconds and it was done. Without any evidence or even any pain. Undetectable and multilayered, the internal machinery had been set in motion. The tiny catalyst would grow and do its damage, like the first rotten cell in an apple.

  Each time the Emperor consumed his favorite beverage— spice beer— his own brain would release tiny doses of catalytic poison into his bloodstream. Thus an ordinary component of the old man’s diet would be chemically converted into chaumurky— poison administered in a drink. His mind would gradually rot away . . . a metamorphosis that would be most enjoyable to watch.

  Fenring loved to be subtle.

  Kwisatz Haderach: “Shortening of the Way.” This is the label applied by the Bene Gesserit to the unknown for which they sought a genetic solution: a male Bene Gesserit whose organic mental powers would bridge space and time.

  —Terminology of the Imperium

  It was another cold morning. The small blue-white sun Laoujin peeked over terra-cotta-tiled rooftops, dissipating the rain.

  Reverend Mother Anirul Sadow Tonkin held the collar of her black robe shut against the moisture-laden wind that whipped up from the south and dampened her short bronze-brown hair. Her hurried footsteps carried her across the wet cobblestones, straight toward the arched doorway of the Bene Gesserit administration building.

  She was late and ran, even though it was unseemly for a woman of her status to be seen rushing about like a red-faced schoolgirl. Mother Superior and her selected council would be waiting in the chapter chamber— for a meeting that could not begin without Anirul. Only she had the Sisterhood’s complete breeding projections and the full knowledge from Other Memory in her head.

  The sprawling Mother School complex on Wallach IX was the base of Bene Gesserit operations throughout the Imperium. The historic first sanctuary of the Sisterhood had been erected here, dating from post–Butlerian Jihad days at the beginnings of the great schools of the human mind. Some of the buildings in the training enclave were thousands of years old and echoed with ghosts and memories; others had been constructed in more recent centuries, with styles carefully designed to match the originals. The bucolic appearance of the Mother School complex fostered one of the primary precepts of the Sisterhood: minimal appearance, maximum content. Anirul’s own features were long and narrow, giving her a doelike face, but her large eyes had a depth of millennia in them.

  The half-timbered stucco-and-wood structures, a combination of classical architectural styles, had moss-streaked sienna roof tiles and beveled lume-enhancement windows, designed to concentrate natural light and warmth from the tiny sun. The simple, narrow streets and alleys, in tandem with the quaintly archaic appearance of the instructional enclave, belied the subtle complexities and sheer weight of history taught inside. Haughty visitors would not be impressed, and the Sisterhood did not care a whit.

  Throughout the Imperium the Bene Gesserit kept a low profile, but they were always to be found in vital areas, tilting the political equilibrium at crux points, watching, nudging, achieving their own aims. It was best when others underestimated them; the Sisters encountered fewer obstacles that way.

  With all of its superficial deficiencies and difficulties, Wallach IX remained the perfect place to develop the psychic muscles required of Reverend Mothers. The planet’s intricate hive of structures and workers was too valuable, too steeped in history and tradition to be replaced. Yes, there were warmer climates on more hospitable worlds, but any acolyte who could not endure these conditions had no place among the agonies, harsh environments, and often painful decisions a true Bene Gesserit would face.

  Keeping her quick breaths under control, Reverend Mother Anirul mounted the rain-slick steps of the administration building, then paused to look back across the plaza. She stood straight, tall, but she felt the weight of history and memory bearing down on her— and for a Bene Gesserit, there was little difference between the two. The voices of past generations echoed in Other Memory, a cacophony of wisdom and experience and opinions available to all Reverend Mothers, and particularly acute in Anirul.

  On this spot the first Mother Superior, Raquella Berto-Anirul— after whom Anirul herself had taken her name— had delivered her legendary orations to the embryonic Sisterhood. Raquella had forged a new school from a group of desperate and pliable acolytes still stinging from centuries under the yoke of thinking machines.

  Did you realize what you were beginning, so long ago? Anirul asked herself. How many plots, how many plans . . . so much you pinned upon a single, secret hope. Sometimes, the buried presence of Mother Superior Raquella actually answered her from within. But not today.

  From her access to the multitude of memory-lives buried in her psyche, Anirul knew the precise stairstep on which her illustrious ancestor had stood, and could hear the exact, long-ago words. A chill coursed her spine, making her pause. Though still young in years and smooth-skinned, she contained an Oldness within her, as did all living Reverend Mothers— but in her, the voices spoke louder. It was reassuring to have the comforting crowd of memories there to provide advice in times of need. It prevented foolish mistakes.

  But Anirul would be accused of distraction and foolish delay if she did not get to the meeting. Some said she was far too young to be the Kwisatz Mother, but Other Memory had revealed more to her than to any other Sister. She comprehended the precious, millennia-old genetic quest for the Kwisatz Haderach better than the other Reverend Mothers because the past lives had revealed everything to her, while keeping the details hidden from most Bene Gesserit.

  The idea of a Kwisatz Haderach had been the Sisterhood’s dream for thousands upon thousands of years, conceived in dark underground meetings even before the victory of the Jihad. The Bene Gesserit had many breeding programs aimed at selecting and enhancing various characteristics of humanity, and no one understood them all. The genetic lines of the messiah project had been the most carefully guarded secret for much of the Imperium’s recorded history, so secret in fact that even the voices in Other Memory refused to di
vulge the details.

  But to Anirul they had told the whole scheme, and she grasped the full implications. Somehow she had been chosen as this generation’s Kwisatz Mother, the guardian of the Bene Gesserit’s most important goal.

  The notoriety and the power, however, did not excuse her for being late to the council meetings. Many still saw her as young and impetuous.

  Swinging open a heavy door covered with hieroglyphics in a language only Reverend Mothers remembered, she passed through into a foyer where ten other Sisters, all dressed in hooded black aba robes like her own, stood in a cluster. A low murmur of conversation filled the air inside the nondescript building. Treasures can be hidden within a drab and unpretentious shell, said one popular Bene Gesserit dictum.

  The other Sisters moved aside for Anirul as she glided through their midst like a swimmer parting water. Though her body was tall and large-boned, Anirul succeeded in projecting a grace in her movements . . . but it did not come easily to her. Whispering, they fell in behind her as she entered the octagonal chapter chamber, the meeting place of the ancient order’s leadership. Her footsteps creaked across the worn planks of the floor, and the door groaned shut, locking behind them.

  White Elacca-wood benches rimmed the timeworn room; Mother Superior Harishka sat on one, like a common acolyte. Of mixed parentage, showing bloodlines from distinctive branches of humanity, the Mother Superior was old and bent, with dark almond eyes peering out from beneath her black hood.

  The Sisters moved to the sides of the chamber and seated themselves on empty white benches, as Mother Superior had. Presently the rustling of robes ceased, and no one spoke. From somewhere, the old building creaked. Outside, drizzle fell in silent curtains, muffling the struggling blue-white sunlight.

  “Anirul, I await your report,” Mother Superior finally said with just a glimmer of annoyance at her tardiness. Harishka commanded the entire Sisterhood, but Anirul was vested with full authority to make command decisions on the project. “You have promised us your genetic summary and projections.”