Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [174]
—PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO, Discourses on
Leadership in a Galactic Imperium, 12th Edition
Her chocolate hair in disarray, her clothes torn and inappropriate for the desert, the woman ran across the sands, seeking escape.
Janess Milam looked up over her shoulder, blinking sun-scalded tears from her eyes. Seeing the shadow of the suspensor platform that held Baron Harkonnen and his nephew Rabban, she put on a burst of speed. Her feet dug into the powder-sand, making her lose her balance. She staggered toward the open wasteland, where it was hotter, drier, deadlier.
Buried in the lee of a nearby dune, the thumper throbbed, pulsing . . . calling.
She tried to find a refuge of rocks, cool caves, even the shadow of a boulder. At the very least, she wanted to die out of sight so they wouldn’t be able to laugh at her. But the Harkonnens had dropped her into a sea of open dunes. Janess slipped and tasted dust.
From their safe vantage on the suspensor platform, the Baron and his nephew watched her struggles, the pitiful flight of a tiny human figure on the sand. The observers wore stillsuits like costumes; their masks hung loose.
They had returned to Arrakis from Giedi Prime only a few weeks before, and Janess had arrived on the previous day’s prison ship. At first, the Baron had thought to execute the treacherous woman back at Barony, but Rabban had wanted her to suffer in front of his eyes out on the scorching sands, in punishment for helping Duncan Idaho escape.
“She seems so insignificant down there, doesn’t she?” the Baron commented, without interest. Sometimes, his nephew did have unique ideas, though he lacked the focus to carry them through. “This is much more satisfying than a simple beheading, and beneficial to the worms. Food for them.”
Rabban made a low sound in his thick throat, remarkably like an animal’s growl. “It shouldn’t be long now. Those thumpers always call a worm. Always.”
The Baron stood tall on the platform, feeling the hot sun, the glistening sweat on his skin. His body ached, a condition he’d been experiencing for several months now. He nudged the suspensor platform forward so they could get a better view of their victim. He mused, “That boy is an Atreides now, from what I hear. Working with the Duke’s Salusan bulls.”
“He’s dead, if I ever see him again.” Rabban wiped salty sweat from his sunburned forehead. “Him, and any other Atreides I catch alone.”
“You’re like an ox, Rabban.” The Baron gripped his nephew’s strong shoulder. “But don’t waste energy on insignificant things. House Atreides is our real enemy—not some insignificant stableboy. Stableboy . . . hmmm . . .”
Below, Janess skidded on her face down the slope of a dune and scrambled to her feet again. With a basso laugh the Baron said, “She’ll never get far enough away from the thumper in time.” The resonant vibrations continued to throb into the ground, like the distant drumbeat of a death song.
“It’s too hot out here,” Rabban grumbled. “Couldn’t you have brought a canopy?” Pulling his stillsuit’s water tube to his mouth, he drew in an unsatisfying sip of warm water.
“I like to sweat. It’s good for the health, purges poisons from the system.”
Rabban fidgeted. When he tired of watching the woman’s clumsy run, he looked across the seared landscape, searching for the tracks of an oncoming behemoth. “By the way, whatever happened to that Planetologist the Emperor foisted on us? I took him worm hunting once.”
“Kynes? Who knows?” The Baron snorted. “He’s always out in the desert, comes in to Carthag to deliver reports whenever he feels like it, then disappears again. Haven’t heard from him in a while.”
“What happens if he gets hurt? Could we get in trouble for not keeping a better eye on him?”
“I doubt it. Elrood’s mind isn’t what it used to be.” The Baron laughed, a thin, nasal tone of derision. “Not that the Emperor’s mind was much even in its prime.”
The dark-haired woman, coated now with clinging dust, fought her way across the dunes. She kicked up sand, falling and struggling back onto