AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Kinet put a hand on the pilot's arm. "Look, Czigo, no need to...."
Jessica twisted her neck, spat out the gag. She pitched her voice in low, intimate tones. "Gentlemen! No need to fight over me." At the same time, she writhed sinuously for Kinet's benefit.
She saw them grow tense, knowing that in this instant they were convinced of the need to fight over her. Their disagreement required no other reason. In their minds, they were fighting over her.
She held her face high in the instrument glow to be sure Kinet would read her lips, said: "You mustn't disagree." They drew farther apart, glanced warily at each other. "Is any woman worth fighting over?" she asked.
By uttering the words, by being there, she made herself infinitely worth their fighting.
Paul clamped his lips tightly closed, forced himself to be silent. There had been the one chance for him to succeed with the Voice. Now--everything depended on his mother whose experience went so far beyond his own.
"Yeah," Scarface said. "No need to fight over...."
His hand flashed toward the pilot's neck. The blow was met by a splash of metal that caught the arm and in the same motion slammed into Kinet's chest.
Scarface groaned, sagged backward against his door.
"Thought I was some dummy didn't know that trick," Czigo said. He brought back his hand, revealing the knife. It glittered in reflected moonlight.
"Now for the cub," he said and leaned toward Paul.
"No need for that," Jessica murmured.
Czigo hesitated.
"Wouldn't you rather have me cooperative?" Jessica asked. "Give the boy a chance." Her lip curled in a sneer. "Little enough chance he'd have out there in that sand. Give him that and...." She smiled. "You could find yourself well rewarded."
Czigo glanced left, right, returned his attention to Jessica. "I've heard me what can happen to a man in this desert," he said. "Boy might find the knife a kindness."
"Is it so much I ask?" Jessica pleaded.
"You're trying to trick me," Czigo muttered.
"I don't want to see my son die," Jessica said. "Is that a trick?"
Czigo moved back, elbowed the door latch. He grabbed Paul, dragged him across the seat, pushed him half out the door and held the knife posed. "What'll y' do, cub, if I cut y'r bonds?"
"He'll leave here immediately and head for those rocks," Jessica said.
"Is that what y'll do, cub?" Czigo asked.
Paul's voice was properly surly. "Yes."
The knife moved down, slashed the bindings of his legs. Paul felt the hand on his back to hurl him down onto the sand, feigned a lurch against the doorframe for purchase, turned as though to catch himself, lashed out with his right foot.
The toe was aimed with a precision that did credit to his long years of training, as though all of that training focused on this instant. Almost every muscle of his body cooperated in the placement of it. The tip struck the soft part of Czigo's abdomen just below the sternum, slammed upward with terrible force over the liver and through the diaphragm to crush the right ventricle of the man's heart.
With one gurgling scream, the guard jerked backward across the seats. Paul, unable to use his hands, continued his tumble onto the sand, landing with a roll that took up the force and brought him back to his feet in one motion. He dove back into the cabin, found the knife and held it in his teeth while his mother sawed her bonds. She took the blade and freed his hands.
"I could've handled him," she said. "He'd have had to cut my bindings. That was a foolish risk."
"I saw the opening and used it," he said.
She heard the harsh control in his voice, said: "Yueh's house sign is scrawled on the ceiling of this cabin."
He looked up, saw the curling symbol.
"Get out and let us study this craft," she said. "There's a bundle under the pilot's seat. I felt it when we got in."
"Bomb?"
"Doubt it. There's something peculiar here."
Paul leaped out to the sand and Jessica followed. She turned, reached under the seat for the strange bundle, seeing Czigo's feet close to her face, feeling dampness on the bundle as she removed it, realizing the dampness was the pilot's blood.
Waste of moisture, she thought, knowing that this was Arrakeen thinking.
Paul stared around them, saw the rock scarp lifting out of the desert like a beach rising from the sea, wind-carved palisades beyond. He turned back as his mother lifted the bundle from the 'thopter, saw her stare across the dunes toward the Shield Wall. He looked to see what drew her attention, saw another 'thopter swooping toward them, realized they'd not have time to clear the bodies out of this 'thopter and escape.
"Run, Paul!" Jessica shouted. "It's Harkonnens!"
Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife--chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now, it's complete because it's ended here."
--from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
A MAN in Harkonnen uniform skidded to a stop at the end of the hall, stared in at Yueh, taking in at a single glance Mapes' body, the sprawled form of the Duke, Yueh standing there. The man held a lasgun in his right hand. There was a casual air of brutality about him, a sense of toughness and poise that sent a shiver through Yueh.
Sardaukar, Yueh thought. A Bashar by the look of him. Probably one of the Emperor's own sent here to keep an eye on things. No matter what the uniform, there's no disguising them.
"You're Yueh," the man said. He looked speculatively at the Suk School ring on the Doctor's hair, stared once at the diamond tattoo and then met Yueh's eyes.
"I am Yueh," the Doctor said.
"You can relax, Yueh," the man said. "When you dropped the house shields we came right in. Everything's under control here. Is this the Duke?"
"This is the Duke."
"Dead?"
"Merely unconscious. I suggest you tie him."
"Did you do for these others?" He glanced back down the hall where Mapes' body lay.
"More's the pity," Yueh muttered.
"Pity!" the Sardaukar sneered. He advanced, looked down at Leto. "So that's the great Red Duke."
If I had doubts about what this man is, that would end them, Yueh thought. Only the Emperor calls the Atreides the Red Dukes.
The Sardaukar reached down, cut the red hawk insignia from Leto's uniform. "Little souvenir," he said. "Where's the ducal si
gnet ring?"
"He doesn't have it on him," Yueh said.
"I can see that!" the Sardaukar snapped.
Yueh stiffened, swallowed. If they press me, bring in a Truthsayer, they'll find out about the ring, about the 'thopter I prepared--all will fail.
"Sometimes the Duke sent the ring with a messenger as surety that an order came directly from him," Yueh said.
"Must be damned trusted messengers," the Sardaukar muttered.
"Aren't you going to tie him?" Yueh ventured.
"How long'll he be unconscious?"
"Two hours or so. I wasn't as precise with his dosage as I was for the woman and boy."
The Sardaukar spurned the Duke with his toe. "This was nothing to fear even when awake. When will the woman and boy awaken?"
"About ten minutes."
"So soon?"
"I was told the Baron would arrive immediately behind his men."
"So he will. You'll wait outside, Yueh." He shot a hard glance at Yueh. "Now!"
Yueh glanced at Leto. "What about...."
"He'll be delivered to the Baron all properly trussed like a roast for the oven." Again, the Sardaukar looked at the diamond tattoo on Yueh's forehead. "You're known; you'll be safe enough in the halls. We've no more time for chit-chat, traitor. I hear the others coming."
Traitor, Yueh thought. He lowered his gaze, pressed past the Sardaukar, knowing this as a foretaste of how history would remember him: Yueh the traitor.
He passed more bodies on his way to the front entrance and glanced at them, fearful that one might be Paul or Jessica. All were house troopers or wore Harkonnen uniform.
Harkonnen guards came alert, staring at him as he emerged from the front entrance into flame-lighted night. The palms along the road had been fired to illuminate the house. Black smoke from the flammables used to ignite the trees poured upward through orange flames.
"It's the traitor," someone said.
"The Baron will want to see you soon," another said.
I must get to the 'thopter, Yueh thought. I must put the ducal signet where Paul will find it. And fear struck him: If Idaho suspects me or grows impatient-if he doesn't wait and go exactly where I told him--Jessica and Paul will not be saved from the carnage. I'll be denied even the smallest relief from my act.
