Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [62]
When he reached the top of an exposed sandwich of rock that was rust and tan in his light beam, he squatted on his heels and looked all around, assessing his wilderness surroundings. He wondered if the hunters were coming yet. They wouldn’t be far behind him.
Animals howled in the distance. He flipped off the light to conceal himself better. The old injuries to his ribs and back burned with pain, and his upper arm throbbed where the pulsing locator beacon was implanted.
Behind him, more shadowy bluffs rose tall and steep, honeycombed with notches and ledges, adorned with scraggly trees like unsightly whiskers sprouting from a facial blemish. It was a long, long way to the nearest city, the nearest spaceport.
Forest Guard Station. His mother had told him of this isolated hunting preserve, a particular favorite of the Baron’s nephew. “Rabban’s so cruel because he needs to prove he’s not like his father,” she had once said.
The young boy had spent most of the nearly nine years of his life inside giant buildings, smelling recycled air laden with lubricants, solvents, and exhaust chemicals. He had never known how cold this planet could get, how frigid the nights . . . or how clear the stars.
Overhead, the sky was a vault of immense blackness, filled with tiny light-splashes, a rainstorm of pinpricks piercing the distances of the galaxy. Far out there, Guild Navigators used their minds to guide city-sized Heighliners between stars.
Duncan had never seen a Guild ship, had never been away from Giedi Prime—and now doubted he ever would. Living inside an industrial city, he’d never had reason to learn the patterns of stars. But even if he had known his compass points or recognized the constellations, he still had no place to go. . . .
Sitting atop the outcropping, looking out into the sharp coldness, Duncan studied his world. He huddled over and drew his knees up to his chest to conserve body heat, though he still shivered.
In the distance, where the high ground dipped into a wooded valley toward the stark silhouette of the guarded lodge building, he saw a train of lights, bobbing glowglobes like a fairy procession. The hunting party itself, warm and well armed, was sniffing him out, taking their time. Enjoying themselves.
From his vantage point, Duncan watched and waited, cold and forlorn. He had to decide if he wanted to live at all. What would he do? Where would he go? Who would care for him?
Rabban’s lasgun had left nothing of his mother’s face for him to kiss, nothing of her hair for him to stroke. He would never again hear her voice as she called him her “sweet Duncan.”
Now the Harkonnens intended to do the same to him, and he couldn’t prevent it. He was just a boy with a dull knife, a handlight, and a rope. The hunters had Richesian beacon trackers, heated body armor, and powerful weapons. They outnumbered him ten to one. He had no chance.
It might be easier if he just sat there and waited for them to come. Eventually the trackers would find him, inexorably following his implanted signal . . . but he could deny them their sport, spoil their fun. By surrendering, by showing his utter contempt for their barbaric amusements, he could gain a small victory at least: the only one he was likely to have.
Or Duncan Idaho could fight back, try to hurt the Harkonnens even as they hunted him down. His mother and father hadn’t had an opportunity to fight for their lives, but Rabban was giving him that chance.
Rabban considered him a mere helpless boy. The hunting party thought that gunning down a child would provide them with some amusement.
He stood up on stiff legs, brushed his clothes, and stopped his shivers. I won’t go down like that, he decided—just to show them, just to prove they can’t laugh at me.
He doubted the hunters would be wearing personal shields. They wouldn’t think they’d need such protection, not against the likes of him.
The knife handle felt hard and rough in his pocket, useless against decent armor. But he could do something else with the blade, something