Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [291]
He rounded up fellow officers who had fought with him during the Rebellion on Ecaz, people to whom he owed his life a dozen times over. In searching out these men, he knew he put himself at great peril, but Dominic trusted his former comrades. Despite the large bounty that remained on his head, he knew none of them would be willing to pay the price in conscience of betraying their former commander.
Dominic hoped that the overwhelmed new Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV would not think to track down the subtle movements and disappearances of men who had fought under Vernius back when Shaddam had barely been in his teens and not even the heir apparent to the throne . . . back in the days when Crown Prince Fafnir had been first in the line of succession.
Many years had passed now, long enough that most of those veterans sat around talking about the glory days, convincing themselves the war and the bloodshed had been more exciting and more glorious than it really was. About a third of them chose not to join him, but the others quietly signed on and awaited further orders. . . .
When Shando had gone into hiding, she’d erased all records, changed her name, used unmarked credits to buy a small estate on the gloomy world of Bela Tegeuse. Her one mistake had been in underestimating the persistence of the Emperor’s Sardaukar.
Dominic would not make his wife’s mistake. For what he had in mind, he would go where no one could see him . . . a place where he could prey upon the Landsraad and be a thorn in the Emperor’s side.
That was about the only weapon he had left.
Ready to begin his real work, Dominic Vernius took the pilot controls of an unregistered smuggler’s craft loaded with a dozen loyal men. These comrades had gathered up hoarded cash and equipment in order to join him in striking a blow for glory and honor—and perhaps vengeance along the way.
Then he went to the Vernius family’s stockpile of atomics—forbidden weapons, nevertheless held in reserve by every Great House of the Landsraad. Absolutely restricted by the articles of the Great Convention, the Ixian atomics had been secreted away for generations, sealed on the dark side of a moonlet orbiting the fifth planet in the Alkaurops system. The Tleilaxu vermin on Ix knew nothing of this.
Now Dominic’s smuggler ship carried enough doomsday firepower to annihilate a world.
“Vengeance is in the hands of the Lord,” stated the Orange Catholic Bible. But after what he had gone through, Dominic did not feel terribly religious, nor did he care to be bound by the niceties of law. He was a renegade now, and beyond the touch—or protection—of the legal system.
He envisioned himself as the greatest of all smugglers, hiding where no one would find him, yet where he could inflict great economic damage on all the powerhouses that had betrayed him and refused to offer help.
With these atomics, he could make his mark on history.
Shielded from the outdated weather-satellite network maintained by the Guild, Dominic brought his ship and his atomic stockpile down in an uninhabited polar region of the desert planet Arrakis. A brisk, cool wind whipped the ragged uniforms of his men as they stepped onto desolate land. Arrakis. Their new base of operations.
It would be a long time before anyone heard of Dominic Vernius again. But when he was ready . . . the entire Imperium would remember.
A world is supported by four things: the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous, and the valor of the brave. But all of these are as nothing without a ruler who knows the art of ruling.
—PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO,
Discourses on Galactic Leadership
Leto worked his way down to the shore alone, zigzagging along the steep cliffside path and staircase to reach the old quays below the edifice of Castle Caladan.
Through cloud patches, midday sunlight glimmered off the placid water that stretched to the horizon. Leto paused on the sheer, black-rock cliff, shading his eyes to look beyond the aqueous kelp forests, the fishing fleets with their chanting