Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [245]
“Are our shields up anyway?” Leto asked.
“Vermilion hells, no shields, Leto!” Rhombur said, with alarm in his voice. He laughed. “You should have learned more about Heighliners on Ix—or were you looking at my sister the whole time?”
Leto flushed crimson, but Rhombur explained quickly. “Aboard a Heighliner, shields interfere with the ship’s Holtzman propulsion system, preventing it from folding space. An active shield disrupts a Navigator’s ability to hold his navigation trance. We’d be dead in space.”
“It is also forbidden under our Guild transport contract,” Hawat said, as if the legal reason might somehow carry more weight.
“So we’re all here unprotected, naked, and trusting,” Leto grumbled, still seeing the Harkonnen ship through the plaz ports.
Rhombur said with a defeated smile, “You’re making me remember how many people wish me dead.”
“All ships inside this Heighliner are equally vulnerable, Prince,” Hawat said. “But you should not concern yourself just yet. Your greatest peril lies ahead, on Kaitain. For now, even I intend to rest a bit. Here on board our frigate, we are as safe as we can be.”
Leto looked out and up at the distant roof of the Heighliner hold. High above in a minuscule navigation chamber, a single Navigator in a tank of orange spice gas controlled the enormous bulk of the ship.
Despite Hawat’s assurances, he remained uneasy. Beside him, Rhombur fidgeted as well, but struggled to cover his anxiety. With an agitated breath the young Duke sat back, trying to let his tension drain away and prepare for the political crisis he was about to initiate on Kaitain.
Storms beget storms. Rage begets rage. Revenge begets revenge. Wars beget wars.
—Bene Gesserit Conundrum
The Guild Heighliner’s external hull hatches were sealed, the cavernous openings closed, and the vessel made ready to depart. Soon the Navigator would go into his trance, and the ship would be under way. The next and final destination on this route would be Kaitain, where representatives of the Great and Minor Houses of the Landsraad had begun arriving for the coronation of Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV.
The Navigator maneuvered the enormous vessel away from the gravity well of Caladan and out into open space, preparing to engage the huge Holtz-man engines that would carry it in wild leaps across foldspace.
The passengers aboard family frigates within the liner’s holding bay discerned no movement whatsoever, no motion from the engines, no change in position, no sound. The packed ships hung in their isolated spaces like data bricks in a secure library complex. All Houses followed the same rules, putting their faith in the ability of a single mutated creature to find a safe course.
Like giedi-cattle in a slaughter pen, thought Rabban as he climbed into his invisible attack ship.
He could have wiped out a dozen frigates before anyone figured out what was going on. Given free rein, Rabban would have enjoyed causing such mayhem, the exhilarating sensation of extravagant violence. . . .
But that was not in the plan, at least not for now.
His uncle had developed a scheme of beautiful finesse. “Pay attention and learn from this,” he’d said. Good advice, Rabban admitted to himself. He had been discovering the benefits of subtlety and the enjoyment of a revenge long savored.
This didn’t mean Rabban would forsake the more blunt forms of violence at which he excelled; on the contrary, he would simply add the Baron’s methods to his homicidal repertoire. He’d be a well-rounded person by the time he took over the leadership of House Harkonnen.
In an unobtrusive movement, the hatches of the Harkonnen family frigate slid open, and the containment field faded just long enough to let Rabban’s sleek warship descend into the sealed vacuum within the Heighliner hold.
Slowly, quietly, patiently.
Before anyone could see his fighter craft, he engaged the no-field, working the controls the way Piter de Vries had shown him. He felt no different, saw no change in the view transmitted from his monitors. But now he was a killer ghost: invisible,