Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [250]
The Holtzman engines groaned, and foldspace rippled around them, losing stability. Something was wrong with the ship. The Navigator spun in his tank of melange. His webbed feet and hands flailed, and he sensed darkness ahead.
The massive ship veered off course, hurled back into the real universe.
While Rhombur was thrown to the carpeted deck of the frigate in a tumble of purple-and-copper cloth, Leto grabbed a bulkhead rail to keep his balance. He uttered a silent prayer. He and his valiant crew could only ride this out and hope the Heighliner didn’t emerge inside a sun.
Like a tree beside Leto, Thufir Hawat somehow maintained his balance by sheer force of will. The Mentat teacher stood in a trance sorting through veiled regions of logic and analysis. Leto wasn’t certain how such projections could benefit them now. Perhaps the question—the odds of disaster following shield activation inside a Heighliner—was so complex that it required layers and layers of mentation.
“Prime projection,” Hawat announced, at long last. He licked his cranberry-colored lips with a tongue of matching hue. “Thrown out of foldspace at random, odds of encountering a celestial body are calculated at one in . . .”
The frigate jerked, and something thudded belowdecks. Hawat’s words were drowned out in the commotion, and he slipped back into the secret realm of his Mentat trance.
Rhombur stumbled to his feet, tugging an earclamp headset in place over his tousled blond hair. “Activate shields on a moving Heighliner? That’s as crazy as, uh, someone firing on the Tleilaxu in the first place.” With wide eyes he looked at his friend. “This must be a day for crazy events.”
Leto leaned over a bank of instruments, made a number of adjustments. “I had no choice,” he said. “I see it now. Someone is trying to make it look like we attacked the Tleilaxu—an incident that could spark a major war among the factions of the Landsraad. I can envision all the old feuds coming into play, and battle lines being drawn here on the Heighliner.” He wiped his brow, smearing sweat away. The intuition had come from his gut level, like something a Mentat might have realized. “I had to stop everything now, Rhombur, before it escalated.”
The Heighliner’s erratic motion finally ceased. The background noise quieted.
Hawat finally snapped out of his trance. “You are right, my Duke. Almost every House has a representative ship aboard this Heighliner, en route to the Emperor’s coronation and wedding. The battle lines drawn here would extend out into the Imperium, with war councils called and planets and armies aligning themselves on one side or another. Inevitably more factions would arise, too, like the branches of a jacaranda tree. Since the death of Elrood, alliances are already shifting as Houses look for new opportunities.”
Leto’s face flushed hot; his heart jackhammered. “There are powder kegs all over the Imperium, and one of them is right here within this cargo hold. I’d rather see everyone on this Heighliner die—because it would be nothing compared to the alternative. Conflagrations in every corner of the universe. Billions of deaths.”
“We’ve been set up?” Rhombur asked.
“If war breaks out here, no one will care whether or not I really fired. We’ve got to stop this cold, and then take the time to sort out the real answers.” Leto opened a comlink and spoke into it, his voice brisk and commanding. “This is Duke Leto Atreides calling Guild Navigator. Respond, please.”
The line crackled, and an undulating voice came back, ponderous and distorted, as if the Navigator could not recall how to converse with mere humans. “All of us could have been killed, Atreides.” The way he pronounced the House name—A-tray-a-dees—brought to Leto’s mind the word “traitor.” “We are in unknown sector. Foldspace gone. Shields negate navigation trance. Shut down Atreides shields immediately.”
“Respectfully, I must refuse,