Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [237]
“It will do, Chobyn,” the Baron said. “If it works.”
De Vries scuttled back and forth along the length of the ship. “If no one knows to look for the ship, Rabban, you won’t be in any danger. Imagine the chaos you can create! You’ll be like a killer ghost.”
“Oh, yes!” Rabban paused as realization flooded across his face. “Me?”
Chobyn closed an access hatch behind the engines. “Everything is simple and functional. The ship will be ready by tomorrow when you depart for the Padishah Emperor’s coronation.”
“I have verified it, my Baron,” de Vries said.
“Excellent,” the Baron said. “You have proven yourself most valuable, Chobyn.”
“I’m going to pilot it?” Rabban said again, as if he still couldn’t believe the idea. His voice cracked with excitement. Baron Harkonnen nodded. His nephew, despite his shortcomings, was at least an excellent pilot and an excellent shot, along with being the Baron’s heir apparent.
The inventor smiled. “I believe I made the correct choice in coming to you directly, Baron. House Harkonnen has immediately seen the possibilities of my discovery.”
“When the new Emperor learns of this, he’ll demand a no-ship for himself,” Rabban pointed out. “He might even send the Sardaukar in to take it away from us.”
“Then we must make sure Shaddam doesn’t find out. At least not yet,” Piter de Vries replied, rubbing his hands together.
“You must be a brilliant man, Chobyn,” the Baron said. “Coming up with all this.”
“Actually, I just adapted a Holtzman field to our uses. Centuries ago Tio Holtzman’s mathematics were developed for shields and foldspace engines. I simply carried the principles several steps further.”
“And now you expect to become wealthy beyond your wildest dreams?” the Baron mused.
“Deservedly so, would you not agree, Baron?” Chobyn said. “Look what I’ve done for you. If I’d stayed on Richese and gone through channels, I would have had to endure years of legalities, title searches, and patent investigations, after which my government would have taken the lion’s share of profit derived from my own invention—not to speak of the imitators who would set to work once they got wind of what I was doing. A minor adjustment here, another there, and then someone else has a different patent, one that accomplishes essentially the same thing.”
“So you kept it a secret until you came to us?” Rabban said. “No one else knows of the technology?”
“I’d have been foolish to tell anyone else. You have the only no-field generators in the universe.” Chobyn crossed his arms over his stained jumpsuit.
“Perhaps for the time being,” the Baron said, “but the Ixians were a clever lot, and so are the Tleilaxu. Sooner or later someone else will have something like this, if they don’t already.”
Rabban maneuvered himself closer to the unwary Richesian.
“I see your point, Baron,” Chobyn said, with a shrug. “I am not a greedy man, but I would like to profit from my own invention.”
“You are a wise man,” the Baron said, flashing a meaningful glance at his burly nephew. “And deserve to be paid in full.”
“It’s good to keep secrets about important things,” Rabban chimed in.
He stood directly behind the rotund inventor, who beamed at the praise and wiped his hands on his pant legs.
Rabban moved swiftly, like a whiplash, wrapping his muscular forearm around Chobyn’s neck, then squeezed tightly like a vise. The inventor gasped but could make no other sound. Rabban’s face reddened with the strain as he pulled back with his arm until he was rewarded with the loud crack of a crushed spine.
“We must all be more careful with our secrets, Chobyn,” the Baron muttered, smiling. “You haven’t been careful enough.”
Like a broken doll, Chobyn collapsed with only a rustle of his clothes to the oil-stained floor. Rabban had been so forceful that Chobyn gurgled no death rattle, gasped out no final curses.
“Was that wise, my Baron?” de Vries asked. “Shouldn’t we have tested