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Power andfear--fearand power!
The Baron could see the path ahead of him. One day, a Harkonnen would be Emperor. Not himself, and no spawn of his loins. But a Harkonnen. Not this Rabban he'd summoned, of course. But Rabban's younger brother, young Feyd-Rautha. There was a sharpness to the boy that the Baron enjoyed... a ferocity.
A lovely boy, the Baron thought. A year or two more--say, by the time he's seventeen, I'll know for certain whether he's the tool that House Harkonnen requires to gain the throne.
"M'Lord Baron."
The man who stood outside the doorfield of the Baron's bedchamber was low built, gross of face and body, with the Harkonnen paternal line's narrow-set eyes and bulge of shoulders. There was yet some rigidity in his fat, but it was obvious to the eye that he'd come one day to the portable suspensors for carrying his excess weight.
A muscle-minded tank-brain, the Baron thought. No Mentat, my nephew... not a Piter de Vries, but perhaps something more precisely devised for the task at hand. If I give him freedom to do it, he'll grind over everything in his path. Oh, how he'll be hated here on Arrakis!
"My dear Rabban," the Baron said. He released the doorfield, but pointedly kept his body shield at full strength, knowing that the shimmer of it would be visible above the bedside glowglobe.
"You summoned me," Rabban said. He stepped into the room, flicked a glance past the air disturbance of the body shield, searched for a suspensor chair, found none.
"Stand closer where I can see you easily," the Baron said.
Rabban advanced another step, thinking that the damnable old man had deliberately removed all chairs, forcing a visitor to stand.
"The Atreides are dead," the Baron said. "The last of them. That's why I summoned you here to Arrakis. This planet is again yours."
Rabban blinked. "But I thought you were going to advance Piter de Vries to the--"
"Piter, too, is dead."
"Piter?"
"Piter."
The Baron reactivated the doorfield, blanked it against all energy penetration.
"You finally tired of him, eh?" Rabban asked.
His voice fell flat and lifeless in the energy-blanketed room.
"I will say a thing to you just this once," the Baron rumbled. "You insinuate that I obliterated Piter as one obliterates a trifle." He snapped fat fingers. "Just like that, eh? I am not so stupid, Nephew. I will take it unkindly if ever again you suggest by word or action that I am so stupid."
Fear showed in the squinting of Rabban's eyes. He knew within certain limits how far the old Baron would go against family. Seldom to the point of death unless there were outrageous profit or provocation in it. But family punishments could be painful.
"Forgive me, m'Lord Baron," Rabban said. He lowered his eyes as much to hide his own anger as to show subservience.
"You do not fool me, Rabban," the Baron said.
Rabban kept his eyes lowered, swallowed.
"I make a point," the Baron said. "Never obliterate a man unthinkingly, the way an entire fief might do it through some due process of law. Always do it for an overriding purpose--and know your purpose!"
Anger spoke in Rabban: "But you obliterated the traitor, Yueh! I saw his body being carried out as I arrived last night."
Rabban stared at his uncle, suddenly frightened by the sound of those words.
But the Baron smiled. "I'm very careful about dangerous weapons," he said. "Doctor Yueh was a traitor. He gave me the Duke." Strength poured into the Baron's voice. "I suborned a doctor of the Suk School! The Inner School! You hear, boy? But that's a wild sort of weapon to leave lying about. I didn't obliterate him casually."
"Does the Emperor know you suborned a Suk doctor?"
This was a penetrating question, the Baron thought. Have I misjudged this nephew?
"The Emperor doesn't know it yet," the Baron said. "But his Sardaukar are sure to report it to him. Before that happens, though, I'll have my own report in his hands through CHOAM Company channels. I will explain that I luckily discovered a doctor who pretended to the conditioning. A false doctor, you understand? Since everyone knows you cannot counter the conditioning of a Suk School, this will be accepted."
"Ah-h-h, I see," Rabban murmured.
And the Baron thought: Indeed, I hope you do see. I hope you do see how vital it is that this remain secret. The Baron suddenly wondered at himself. Why did I do that? Why did I boast to this fool nephew of mine--the nephew I must use and discard? The Baron felt anger at himself. He felt betrayed.
"It must be kept secret," Rabban said. "I understand."
The Baron sighed. "I give you different instructions about Arrakis this time, Nephew. When last you ruled this place, I held you in strong rein. This time, I have only one requirement."
"M'Lord?"
"Income."
"Income?"
"Have you any idea, Rabban, how much we spent to bring such military force to bear on the Atreides? Do you have even the first inkling of how much the Guild charges for military transport?"
"Expensive, eh?"
"Expensive!"
The Baron shot a fat arm toward Rabban. "If you squeeze Arrakis for every cent it can give us for sixty years, you'll just barely repay us!"
Rabban opened his mouth, closed it without speaking.
"Expensive," the Baron sneered. "The damnable Guild monopoly on space would've ruined us if I hadn't planned for this expense long ago. You should know, Rabban, that we bore the entire brunt of it. We even paid for transport of the Sardaukar."
And not for the first time, the Baron wondered if there ever would come a day when the Guild might be circumvented. They were insidious--bleeding off just enough to keep the host from objecting until they had you in their fist where they could force you to pay and pay and pay.
Always, the exorbitant demands rode upon military ventures. "Hazard rates," the oily Guild agents explained. And for every agent you managed to insert as a watchdog in the Guild Bank structure, they put two agents into your system.
Insufferable!
"Income then," Rabban said.
The Baron lowered his arm, made a fist. "You must squeeze."
"And I may do anything I wish as long as I squeeze?"
"Anything."
"The cannons you brought," Rabban said. "Could I--"
"I'm removing them," the Baron said.
"But you--"
"You won't need such toys. They were a special innovation and are now useless. We need the metal. They cannot go against a shield, Rabban. They were merely the unexpected. It was predictable that the Duke's men would retreat into cliff caves on this abominable planet. Our cannon merely sealed them in."
"The Fremen don't use shields."
"You may keep some lasguns if you wish."
"Yes, m'Lord. And I have a free hand."
"As long as you squeeze."
Rabban's smile was gloating. "I understand perfectly, m'Lord."
"You understand nothing perfectly," the Baron growled. "Let us have that clear at the outset. What you do understand is how to carry out my orders. Has it occurred to you, nephew, that there are at least five million persons on this planet?"
"Does m'Lord forget that I was his regent-siridar here before? And if m'Lord will forgive me, his estimate may be low. It's difficult to count a population scattered among sinks and pans the way they are here. And when you consider the Fremen of--"
"The Fremen aren't worth considering!"
"Forgive me, m'Lord, but the Sardaukar believe otherwise."
The Baron hesitated, staring at his nephew. "You know something?"
"M'Lord had retired when I arrived last night. I ...ah, took the liberty of contacting some of my lieutenants from... ah, before. They've been acting as guides to the Sardaukar. They report that a Fremen band ambushed a Sardaukar force somewhere southeast of here and wiped it out."
"Wiped out a Sardaukar force?"
"Yes, m'Lord."
"Impossible!"
&nbs
p; Rabban shrugged.
"Fremen defeating Sardaukar," the Baron sneered.
"I repeat only what was reported to me," Rabban said. "It is said this Fremen force already had captured the Duke's redoubtable Thufir Hawat."
"Ah-h-h-h-h-h."
The Baron nodded, smiling.
"I believe the report," Rabban said. "You've no idea what a problem the Fremen were."
"Perhaps, but these weren't Fremen your lieutenants saw. They must've been Atreides men trained by Hawat and disguised as Fremen. It's the only possible answer."
Again, Rabban shrugged. "Well, the Sardaukar think they were Fremen. The Sardaukar already have launched a program to wipe out all Fremen."
"Good!"
"But--"
"It'll keep the Sardaukar occupied. And we'll soon have Hawat. I know it! I can feel it! Ah, this has been a day! The Sardaukar off hunting a few useless desert bands while we get the real prize!"
