Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [108]
A shapely female testing proctor appeared in a loose gray suit. The Guild’s infinity symbol was stitched on her lapel, but she wore no jewelry or other ornamentation. “Welcome,” she said, without introducing herself. “The Guild seeks the finest talent because our work is the most important. Without us, without space travel, the fabric of the Imperium would unravel. Think on that, and you will realize how selective we must be.”
She did not smile at all. Her hair was reddish brown and close-cropped; C’tair would have found her attractive at any other time, but now he could think of nothing beyond the impending examination.
Checking their identification yet again, the proctor escorted the brothers to isolated, separate testing chambers. “This is an individual test, and each of you must face it alone. There is no way you can cheat, or even help each other,” she said.
Alarmed at being separated, C’tair and D’murr looked at each other, then silently wished the other luck.
The chamber door closed behind D’murr with a loud and frightening slam. His ears popped from the difference in air pressure. He was alone, intensely alone—but he knew he was up to the challenge.
Confidence is half the battle.
He noted the armored walls, the sealed cracks, the lack of ventilation. Hissing gas boiled from a single nozzle in the ceiling . . . thickening clouds of rusty orange, with a sharp gingery tang that burned his nostrils. Poison? Drugs? Then D’murr realized what the Guild had in mind for him.
Melange!
Closing his eyes, he smelled the unmistakable cinnamon odor of the rare spice. Rich melange, an incredible wealth of it in the confined air, filling the chamber and permeating his every breath. Knowing the value of Arrakis spice from his mother’s meticulous work in the Guild Bank, D’murr sucked in another large gulp. The sheer cost of this! No wonder the Guild didn’t test just anyone—the price for a single examination would be enough to build a housing complex on another planet.
The wealth controlled by the Spacing Guild—in banking, transportation, and exploration—awed him. The Guild went everywhere, touched everyone. He wanted to be part of it. Why did they need frivolous ornamentation when they had so much melange?
He felt possibilities spinning all around him like an elaborate contour map, with ripples and intersections, a locus of points, and paths that led into and out of the void. He opened his mind so that the spice could transport him anywhere in the universe. It seemed like such a natural thing to do.
As the orange fog enfolded D’murr, he could no longer see the featureless walls of the testing chamber. He felt melange pressing into his every pore and cell. The sensation was marvelous! He envisioned himself as a revered Navigator, expanding his mind to the farthest reaches of the Imperium, encompassing everything. . . .
D’murr soared along, without leaving the test chamber—or so he thought.
The test was far worse than C’tair could have imagined.
No one ever told him what he was expected to do. He never had a chance. He choked on the spice gas, became dizzy, fought to keep control of his faculties. The melange overdose stupefied him, so that he could not remember who he was or why he was there. He struggled to maintain focus, but lost himself.
When he eventually returned to consciousness, his clothes clean and his hair and skin freshly washed (perhaps so the Guild could reclaim every particle of melange?), the shapely red-haired proctor looked down at him. She gave C’tair a winsome, sad smile, and shook her head. “You blocked your mind to the spice gas, thereby shackling yourself to the normal world.” Her next words came like a death sentence. “The Guild cannot use you.”
C’tair sat up, coughing. He sniffed, and his nostrils still tingled from the potent cinnamon stench. “I’m sorry. Nobody explained what I was supposed to—”
She helped him to his feet, anxious to usher him out of the Embassy Building.
His heart felt like molten lead. The proctor didn’t need to answer him as she led him out to the reception area. C