Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [73]
But they did not surrender.
The Fremen snatched at the ground and threw sharp rocks with deadly aim, but the projectiles bounced harmlessly off the shimmering shields. The Harkonnens laughed and pressed closer.
Out of sight, Kynes climbed from his groundcar, fascinated by the tableau. He adjusted his stillsuit, loosening binders to give him more freedom of movement. He made sure the face mask was in place but not sealed. At the moment, he didn’t know whether to observe from a distance, as he had done with the Laza tiger . . . or whether he should aid in some way.
The Harkonnen troops outnumbered the Fremen two to one, and if Kynes came to the defense of the youths, he would likely find himself either wounded or at least charged with interference by Harkonnen officials. A sanctioned Imperial Planetologist wasn’t supposed to meddle in local events.
He rested his hand near the weapon blade at his waist. In any event, he was ready, but hopeful that he would see no more than an extended exchange of insults, escalating threats, and perhaps a scuffle that would end in hard feelings and a few bruises.
But in a moment, the character of the confrontation changed—and Kynes realized his stupidity. This was not a mere taunting game, but a deadly serious standoff. The Harkonnens were out for a kill.
The six soldiers waded in, blades flashing, shields pulsing. The Fremen youths fought back. Within seconds, one of the natives was down, gushing bright foaming blood from a severed neck artery.
Kynes was about to shout, but swallowed his words as anger turned his vision red. While he’d been driving along, he had made grandiose plans of using the Fremen as a resource, a true desert people with whom he could share ideas. He had dreamed of adapting them as a grand workforce for his sparkling scheme of ecological transformation. They were to be his willing allies, enthusiastic assistants.
Now these blockheaded Harkonnens were—for no apparent reason—trying to kill his workers, the tools with which he intended to remake the planet! He could not let that happen.
While the third member of their band lay bleeding to death on the sands, the other two Fremen, with only primitive milky blue knives and no shields, attacked in a wild frenzy that astounded Kynes. “Taqwa!” they screamed.
Two Harkonnens fell under the surprise rally, and their four remaining comrades were slow in coming to their aid. Hesitantly, the blue-uniformed soldiers moved toward the youths.
Indignant at the Harkonnens’ gross injustice, Kynes reacted on impulse. He slid toward the bravos from the rear, moving quickly and silently. Switching on his personal shield, he unsheathed the short-bladed slip-tip he kept for self-defense—a shield-fighting weapon, with poison in its point.
During the harsh years on Salusa Secundus, he had learned how to fight with it, and how to kill. His parents had worked in one of the Imperium’s most infamous prisons, and the day-to-day environments in Kynes’s explorations had often required him to defend himself against powerful predators.
He uttered no cry of battle, for that would have compromised his element of surprise. Kynes held his weapon low. He wasn’t particularly brave, merely single-minded. As if driven by a force beyond the person who held it, the tip of Kynes’s blade passed slowly through the bodyshield of the nearest Harkonnen, then pushed hard and thrust upward, into flesh, cartilage, and bone. The blade penetrated beneath the man’s rib cage, pierced his kidneys, and severed his spinal cord.
Kynes yanked out the knife and rotated halfway to his left, sliding the knife into the side of a second Harkonnen soldier, who was just turning to face him. The shield slowed the poisoned blade for a moment, but as the Harkonnen thrashed, Kynes drove the point home, deep into the soft flesh of the abdomen, again cutting upward.
Thus, two Harkonnens lay mortally wounded and writhing before anyone had made an outcry. Now