Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [131]
Her lips formed a frown, not quite a little girl’s pout but rather an expression of concern. Her accelerated education and maturity made her seem much older than her years. “Nobody knows how to fall in love, Usul. Remember the story? Paul Atreides and his mother were in terrible danger when they joined the Fremen. Everyone you knew was dead. You were so desperate.” She drew a quick breath. “Maybe that’s the only reason we fell in love.”
He stood close to her, embarrassed, not knowing what he was supposed to do. “How can I believe that, Chani? A love like ours was the stuff of legend. That doesn’t happen by accident. I’m just saying that if we are to fall in love again when we get older, then we’ll have to do it ourselves.”
“Do you think we’re getting a second chance?”
“All of us are.”
She hung her head. “Of the things I’ve read, the saddest was the story of our first baby, our original son Leto.”
Paul was surprised at the lump that automatically formed in his throat. He had read his old journals about their baby boy. He’d been so proud of their little son, but because of his damnable prescience, he had known that the first little Leto would be killed in a Harkonnen raid. That poor boy had never had a chance, hadn’t even lived long enough to be christened Leto II, after Paul’s father.
According to the records, his second son—the infamous one—had been willing to go down the dark and forbidding path where Paul himself had refused to go. Had Leto II made the right choice? The God Emperor of Dune had certainly changed the human race, and the course of history, for all time.
“I’m sorry, I made you sad, Usul.”
He took a step away from her. Around them the engine room seemed to vibrate with anticipation. “Everyone hates our Leto II because of what he turned into. He did very bad things, according to history.” The first Chani had died in childbirth, barely living long enough to see the twins.
“Maybe he’ll get a second chance, too,” she said. The ghola of the little boy was now four years old and already showing unusual acuity and talent.
Paul took her hand and impulsively kissed her on the cheek. Then they both left the engine room. “This time, our son could do things right.”
The day hums sweetly when you have enough bees working for you.
—BARON VLADIMIR HARKONNEN,
the original
I
n a state of high agitation, the twelve-year-old boy gazed out on a pristine meadow of colorful flowers. A waterfall cascaded over a rocky precipice and splashed into an icy blue pool. Too much of this so-called “beauty” was painful and unsettling. The air carried no industrial chemicals; he hated even to breathe the stuff into his lungs.
To break the boredom and work off some of his energy, he had gone for a long walk, kilometers from the compound where he had been sentenced to live on the planet Dan. Caladan, he reminded himself. The curtailed name offended him. He had read his history and seen images of himself as the old, fat Baron.
Exiled here for three years now, the young Vladimir Harkonnen found he missed the laboratories of Tleilax, Matre Superior Hellica, and even the smell of slig excrement. Trapped here, tutored and trained and prepared by the humorless Face Dancers, the boy was impatient to make his mark. He was, after all, important to the plan (whatever it was).
Shortly after he’d been sent away to Caladan for the trivial crime of sabotaging the axlotl tank holding the ghola of Paul Atreides, the new baby had been born in Bandalong—healthy, despite Vladimir’s best efforts. Khrone had whisked the infant Atreides away from Uxtal and brought him to Caladan for training and observation. Apparently, the Face Dancers had something vital for the Atreides to accomplish, and they needed a Harkonnen to help them