Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [115]
Skira met her eyes like a mouse facing a rattlesnake. At last she bowed, and then took a small step back. “Yes, Great Honored Matre. I did not mean to offend.”
The Phibian seemed amused. “No more smugglers.”
Corysta explained, “The smugglers have always been smart enough to leave us most of the haul. They were an irritation to the Honored Matres, maybe, but not enough of a thorn to require massive retaliation.”
Skira grumbled, “We would have crushed them sooner or later.”
“What could the smugglers pay you?” Murbella asked the creature, ignoring Skira. “What do Phibians want?”
“Smugglers bring spice. We give soostones.”
So that was it! Though the Guild was desperate for melange, and Murbella still refused to provide them with anything more than a trickle for their bare necessities, smuggling groups and black-market traders had begun to disseminate their own hoarded spice.
From her singlesuit pocket, she produced a small cinnamon-colored tablet and handed it to the Phibian. “We have more melange than smugglers could ever bring to you.”
With a perplexed expression, the creature held it in his webbed hand, and then sniffed cautiously. The thick-lipped smile returned. “Spice. Good.” With a very serious expression, he stared at the tablet of melange in his hand, but did not attempt to swallow it.
“You will get along just fine with the Sisterhood. We think the same way.” Murbella pointed at the tablet of melange. “You keep.”
“Trade?”
She shook her head. “No. A gift, for you.”
“He doesn’t understand the concept of a gift. It’s not part of their culture,” Skira said. “Slaves are not accustomed to having any possessions.” Murbella wondered if all Honored Matres were so blind and simplistic and full of preconceptions.
The Phibian leader said, “Smugglers taught us.”
Either not understanding, or refusing the gift, he handed the tablet back to her—reverently, rather than spitefully—and waded into the water next to his companions. Soon his head disappeared beneath the waves, and the other three deep divers followed.
Skira sniffed. “If your Sisterhood has so much melange, we can pay Phibians with it to stay away from smugglers, and give us all the soostones.”
“As soon as I return to Chapterhouse, I’ll issue new orders. We will provide melange to the Phibians if they need it.” Murbella looked at Corysta, wondering how long it had been since the exiled Sister had received a dose herself. Surely during the Honored Matre domination, the exiled Sisters had been cut off. They would have gone through terrible withdrawal. But then, in her Shared memories with Corysta, she recalled instances where the scarred Phibian—Sea Child—had delivered some of the melange obtained from smugglers, secreting it among the rocks where Corysta could find it. “And we will give spice to any others here who may need it as well.”
Superstitions and nonsense from the past should not prevent us from making progress. If we hold ourselves back, we admit that our fears are more powerful than our abilities.
—THE FABRICATORS OF IX
W
hen the Ixian Chief Fabricator sent his message to the Guild announcing success with the new navigation machines, a small delegation raced to Ix. The speed with which they arrived told Khrone everything he needed to know. The Guild Administrators were much more desperate than they let on.
He and his Face Dancers had drawn out the “invention phase” for eight years now, the shortest time he could justify for the reintroduction of such a drastically sophisticated new technology. He could not afford to raise too many questions from the Guild, or even the Ixians. The extraordinary new device could guide any ship safely and efficiently. No Navigator—and hence, no spice—was necessary.
Khrone would have them eating out of his hand.
Wearing a gray formal suit made of a plazsilk that had an oily sheen, Khrone stood quietly beside Chief Fabricator Shayama Sen. Though the Baron Harkonnen ghola and the one-year-old Paul Atreides needed constant tending in their isolation on Caladan, Khrone had decided to come to Ix to observe