Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [222]
“I’ve smelled you. A wild animal can’t be any more rank than that.”
The three men stood up inside, and the Baron illuminated a small glowglobe, which floated up to shine against the near wall in the back of the low cave. The place was rough and moss-covered, smudged with dust, showing no sign of human habitation.
“Quite a good mimetic projection, isn’t it?” the Baron said. “The best work our people have done.” He reached forward with a ring-studded hand, and the image of the wall blurred, became indistinct.
Rabban located a slight protrusion of rock and pushed; the entire rear wall rumbled back and fell away to reveal an access tube.
“A very special hiding place,” the Baron said.
Lights flared on, illuminating a passage that led into the heart of the bluff. After they stepped inside and sealed the false-wall projection behind them, de Vries looked around in amazement. “You kept this a secret even from me, my Baron?”
“Rabban found this cave on one of his hunts. We’ve . . . made some modifications using a new technology, an exciting technique. I think you’ll see the possibilities, once I explain it all to you.”
“Quite an elaborate hiding place,” the Mentat agreed. “One can’t be too careful about spies.”
The Baron raised his hands toward the ceiling and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Damn Crown Prince Shaddam to the cesspits! No—make that to the lowest depths of a filth-encrusted, lava-blasted hell-grotto!”
The treasonous outburst shocked even de Vries, and the Baron chuckled. “Here, Piter—and nowhere else on Giedi Prime—I’m not in the least worried about eavesdroppers.”
He led them into a main chamber. “We three could hide here and resist an attack even from contraband atomics. No one would find us. Nullentropy bins hold supplies and weapons to last forever. I have placed everything vital to House Harkonnen in here, from genealogical records to financial documents, to our blackmail material—all the nasty, fascinating details we have on the other Houses.”
Rabban took a seat at a highly polished table and punched a button on a panel. Suddenly the walls became transparent, glowing yellow to spotlight distorted corpses, twenty-one in all, hanging suspended in the gaps between plaz sheets, on display.
“Here’s the construction team,” Rabban said. “It’s our special . . . memorial to them.”
“Rather pharaonic,” the Baron said, in a lighthearted tone.
The flesh of the corpses was discolored and bloated, the faces contorted in macabre death grimaces. The victims’ expressions contained a larger measure of sad resignation than terror of impending death. Anyone building such a secret chamber for the Harkonnens must have realized they’d be doomed from the start.
“They’ll be unpleasant enough to look at while they rot,” the Baron said, “but we’ll eventually have nice clean skeletons to admire.”
The remaining walls were layered with intricate scrollwork showing blue Harkonnen griffins as well as gross and pornographic images of human and human-animal copulation, suggestive designs, and a mechanical clock that would have offended most observers. Rabban looked at it and chuckled as the male and female parts interacted in a steady, eternal rhythm.
De Vries turned around, analyzing the details and applying them to his own Mentat projection.
The Baron smiled. “The room is surrounded by a shielding projection that renders an object invisible in all wavelengths. No scanner can detect this enclosure by sight, sound, heat, or even touch. We call it a no-field. Think of it. We’re standing in a place that doesn’t exist as far as the rest of the universe is concerned. It’s the perfect spot for us to discuss our . . . delicious plans.”
“I’ve never heard of such a field—not from the Guild, not from Ix,” de Vries said. “Who invented it?”
“You may remember our . . . visiting researcher from Richese.”
“Chobyn?” the Mentat asked, then answered his own question. “Yes, that was his name.”
“He came to us in secret with a cutting-edge technique the Richesians had developed. It’s a new and risky technology,