Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [106]
“If you perform well enough on the test, you’ll both become important representatives of the Spacing Guild,” his mother had said, smiling with a severe pride. “Very important.” C’tair felt a lump grow in his throat, and D’murr drew himself taller.
Kailea Vernius, Princess of the household of Ix, had also wished the two of them well. C’tair suspected the Earl’s daughter was leading them on, but he and his brother both enjoyed flirting with her. Occasionally, they even pretended to be jealous when Kailea referred in passing to young Leto, heir to House Atreides. She played the twins against each other, and he and D’murr engaged in a good-natured rivalry for her affections. Still, he doubted their families would ever agree to a match, so it was unlikely that there could be any future in it.
If C’tair joined the Guild, his duties would take him far from Ix and the underground metropolis he loved so well. If he became a Navigator, so many things would change. . . .
They arrived in front of the embassy reception chamber, half an hour early. D’murr paced beside his anxious brother, who was entranced and noncommunicative, as if completely focused on his thoughts and desires. Though the two young men looked identical, D’murr seemed so much stronger, so much more dedicated to the challenge, and C’tair struggled to emulate him.
Now, in the waiting area, he swallowed hard, repeating the words he and his brother had shared, like a mantra, in their quarters that morning. I want to be a Navigator. I want to join the Guild. I want to leave Ix and sail the starlanes, my mind joined to the universe.
At seventeen, they both felt rather young to endure such a grueling selection process, one that would lock them permanently on a life-path, no matter what they might decide later on. But the Guild wanted resilient and malleable minds inside bodies that had sufficiently matured. Navigators who trained at young ages often proved to be the best performers, some even reaching the highest rank of Steersman. Those candidates taken too early, however, could mutate into ghastly shapes fit only for menial tasks; the worst failures were euthanized.
“Are you ready, brother?” D’murr asked. C’tair drew strength and enthusiasm from his twin’s confidence.
“Absolutely,” he said. “We’re going to be Navigators after today, you and I.”
Fighting misgivings, C’tair reassured himself that he wanted this; it would be a great credit to his abilities, an honor for his family . . . but he could not remove the spectre of doubt that nagged at him. In his heart he didn’t want to leave Ix. His father, the Ambassador, had instilled in both of his sons a deep appreciation for the underground engineering marvels, the innovations, and the technological acumen of this planet. Ix was like no other world in the Imperium.
And, of course, if he left, Kailea would be forever lost to him as well.
When they were summoned forward deeper into the labyrinth of the embassy, the twins walked through the portal, side by side, feeling very alone. They had no escorts, no one to cheer them to victory or console them if they failed. Their father wasn’t even present to offer his support; the Ambassador had recently been sent to Kaitain in preparation for another Landsraad subcommittee meeting.
That morning, as the ominous hour ticked closer and closer, C’tair and D’murr had sat at the breakfast table in the ambassadorial residence, picking over a selection of colored pastries while S’tina played a message their father had holo-recorded for them. They’d had little appetite, but they listened to Cammar Pilru’s words. C’tair tried to hear some special hints or knowledge, anything he could use. But the Ambassador’s shimmering image merely gave