Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [268]
“You make me sad,” Fenring said, sounding disappointed. “I will take your answer back to the Crown Prince.” He crossed his arms over his chest and bowed in farewell, extending his palms forward. The motion triggered two needle guns mounted to his wrists. In silence, they fired deadly paralytic darts into the pilot’s throat.
The Tleilaxu clenched in a spasm, reflexively firing the fléchette pistol. Fenring easily ducked out of the way. The long spikes hammered into the wall and hung there quivering. A second later, an occupant in the adjacent room pounded on the wall for quiet.
Still in darkness, Fenring studied his work. The evidence was all here, and the Bene Tleilax would understand what had happened. After the outrageous assassination attempt on Leto Atreides—despite Shaddam’s specific orders for them to drop the matter—Hidar Fen Ajidica had much to atone for.
The Tleilaxu prided themselves on their ability to keep secrets. No doubt they would discreetly remove the pilot’s name from the witness list and not mention him again. Without his testimony, their case would be weaker.
Fenring hoped, though, that this murder wouldn’t make the little men even more vengeful. How would Hidar Fen Ajidica respond?
Departing from the locked room, Fenring slid through the shadows. He left the body, just in case the Bene Tleilax wanted to resurrect him as a ghola. After all, despite the little man’s failings, he might have been a good pilot.
In plotting any course of revenge, one must savor the anticipation phase and all its moments, for the actual execution often differs widely from the original plan.
—HASIMIR FENRING,
Dispatches from Arrakis
The Baron Vladimir Harkonnen couldn’t have been more delighted at the way events were turning out. He might have taken deeper pleasure if the rest of the Imperium could appreciate the delicious complexities of what he had done—but of course he could never reveal those.
As an important House, as well as the current stewards of spice production on Arrakis, the Harkonnens received fine accommodations in a distant wing of the Imperial Palace. Tickets for reserved seats at the coronation and the wedding had already been delivered to their quarters.
And, of course, before all the pomp and ceremony, it would be the Baron’s sad duty to watch the terrible trial of Leto Atreides. He tapped his fingers against his leg and pursed his generous lips. Ah, the burdens of nobility.
He lounged in a plush indigo chair, cradling a crystal sphere in his lap. From the depths of the transparent ball shone holo-images of fireworks displays and light shows, previews for the spectacle that would shower Kaitain in a few days’ time. In a corner of the room a musical fireplace whispered quiet notes, making him yawn. Lately, he felt tired so often, his body weak and shaky.
“I want you to leave the planet,” the Baron told Glossu Rabban without looking up from the crystal sphere. “I don’t want you here during the trial or the coronation.”
The broad-shouldered, thick-lipped man bristled. His brown hair had been hacked short, without finesse, for the public appearance, and he wore a padded dra-leather vest that made him look even more like a barrel than usual. “Why? I did everything you asked, and our plans turned out beautifully. Why send me away now?”
“Because I don’t want you here,” the Baron said, running a hand along his widow’s peak to smooth down his thick hair. “I can’t have anyone taking a look at you and thinking you might have had something to do with poor, dear Leto’s plight. You have that . . . gloating manner about you.”
The Baron’s nephew frowned and drew a deep breath, still defiant. “But I want to be there so I can look in his eyes when he receives his sentence.”
“That is exactly why you must