Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [92]
But instead, the flitter’s door remained locked. Panting, Janess released the boy, tossed her chocolate hair, and glared at him. “If you don’t stop it right now, Idaho, I’m going to dump you in the laps of those Harkonnen hunters.”
Turning away from him with disdain, she powered up the flitter’s engines. Duncan could feel an ominous hum travel through the small craft, vibrating through the seat and floor. He crouched back against the wall.
“You’ve already betrayed me to the Harkonnens! You were the one who made those men take my parents and murder them. You’re the reason I had to train so hard, and why they’re hunting me now. I know what you did!”
“Yeah, well, things have changed.” She raised a dusky hand in a meaningless gesture, turning toward the piloting controls. “I’m not helping Harkonnens anymore, not after what they did to me.”
Indignant, Duncan clenched his fists at his sides. Blood from the reopened wound seeped onto his tattered shirt. “What did they do to you?” He couldn’t imagine anything that even approached the anguish he and his family had endured.
“You wouldn’t understand. You’re just a youngster, another one of their pawns.” Janess smiled as she raised the flitter up off the ground. “But through you, I can get back at them.”
Duncan sneered. “Maybe I’m just a boy, but I spent all night beating the Harkonnens at their hunting game. I watched Rabban kill my mother and father. Who knows what else they’ve done to my uncles, aunts, and cousins?”
“I doubt there’s anyone left alive on Giedi Prime with the name of Idaho—especially after the embarrassment you caused them tonight. Tough luck.”
“If they did that, it was a waste of effort,” he said, trying to hide the pain. “I didn’t know my relatives anyway.”
Janess increased the flitter’s speed, boosting them low across the dark trees and away from the wilderness preserve. “Right now, I’m helping you get away from the hunters, so just shut up and be glad. You don’t have any other options.”
She ran the craft without lights, keeping her engines masked, though Duncan couldn’t imagine how they could ever escape from prying Harkonnen eyes. He had killed several of the hunters—and worse, he had outwitted and humiliated Rabban.
Duncan allowed himself the slightest satisfied smile. Coming forward, he slumped exhausted into a seat beside Janess, who had strapped herself into the pilot’s chair. “Why should I trust you?”
“Did I ask you to trust me?” She flashed a dark-eyed glance at him. “Just take advantage of the situation.”
“Are you going to tell me anything?”
Janess flew in silence for a long moment, racing over the bunched treetops before she answered. “It’s true. Yeah, I reported your parents to the Harkonnens. I’d heard rumors, knew your mother and father had done something to get the officials angry—and the Harkonnens don’t like people who make them angry. I was looking out for myself and saw an advantage. By turning them in, I thought I might get a reward. Besides, your parents caused the problem themselves in the first place. They made the mistakes. I was just trying to cash in on it. Nothing personal. Somebody else would have done it, if I hadn’t.”
Duncan scowled, clenching his grimy hands. He wished he had the nerve to use his knife on this woman, but that would cause the flitter to crash. She was his only way out. For now.
Her face contorted into an angry grimace. “But what did the Harkonnens give me in return? A reward, a promotion? No—nothing. A kick in the teeth. Not even a ‘thank you very much.’ ” A troubled look crossed her face, disappearing as quickly as a tiny cloud scudding across the sun. “It’s not easy to do something like that, you know. You think I enjoyed it? But on Giedi Prime opportunities arise rarely enough, and I’d watched too many of them pass me by.
“This should have really changed things for me. But when I approached them to ask for the slightest bit of consideration, they threw me out and ordered me not to come back again. It was all for nothing, and that makes it even worse.” Her nos-trils flared. “Nobody does that to Janess