Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [70]
Perhaps the Oracle knew of their desperate need for spice, because Chapterhouse kept a stranglehold on supplies to “punish” the Guild for cooperating with the Honored Matres. The vile Mother Commander, flaunting her power yet ignorant of how much damage she could truly cause, had threatened to destroy the spice sands if she didn’t get her way! Madness! Perhaps the Oracle herself would show them another source of melange.
The Guild’s stockpiles dwindled daily as Navigators consumed what they needed in order to guide ships through folded space. Edrik did not know how much spice remained in their numerous hidden storage bunkers, but Administrator Gorus and his ilk were definitely nervous. Gorus had already requested a meeting on Ix, and Edrik would accompany him there in a matter of days. The human administrators hoped that the Ixians could create or at least improve a technological means to circumvent the shortage of melange. More nonsense.
Like a breath of fresh, rich spice gas, Edrik sensed something rising from the depths of his mind, filling his consciousness. A tiny point of sound expanded from within, growing louder and louder. When it finally emerged as words in his mutated brain, he heard them simultaneously thousands of times over, overlapping with the prescient minds of other Navigators.
The Oracle. Her mind was unimaginably advanced, beyond any level even a Navigator’s prescience could attain. The Oracle was the ancient foundation of the Guild, a comforting anchor for all Navigators.
“This altered universe is where I last saw the no-ship piloted by Duncan Idaho. I helped his ship break free, returning him to normal space. But I have lost them again. Because the hunters continue to search for them with their tachyon net, we must find the ship first. Kralizec is indeed upon us, and the ultimate Kwisatz Haderach is aboard that no-ship. Both sides in the great war want him for their victory.”
The echoes of her thoughts filled Edrik’s soul with a cold terror that threatened to unwind him. He had heard legends of Kralizec, the battle at the end of the universe, and had dismissed them as no more than human superstitions. But if the Oracle was concerned about it . . .
Who was Duncan Idaho? What no-ship was she speaking of? And, most amazing of all, how could even the Oracle be blinded to it? Always in the past, her voice had been a reassuring and guiding force. Now Edrik sensed uncertainty in her mind.
“I have searched, but I cannot find it. It is a tangle through all the prescient lines I can envision. My Navigators, I must make you aware. I may be forced to call upon you for assistance, if this threat is what I think it is.”
Edrik’s mind reeled. He felt the dismay of the Navigators around him. Some of them, unable to process this new information that shook their fragile holds on reality, spun into madness within their tanks of spice gas.
“The threat, Oracle,” Edrik said, “is that we have no melange—”
“The threat is Kralizec.” Her voice boomed through every Navigator’s mind. “I will summon you, when I require my Navigators.”
With a lurch, she hurled all of the thousands of great Heighliners back out of the strange universe, scattering them into normal space. Edrik reeled, trying to orient himself and his ship.
The Navigators were all confused and agitated.
Despite the Oracle’s call, Edrik clung to a far more selfish concern: How can we help the Oracle, if we are all starved for spice?
The young reed dies so easily. Beginnings are times of such great peril.
—LADY JESSICA ATREIDES,
the original
I
t was a royal birth, but without any of the customary pomp and circumstance. Had this occurred at another time, on faraway Rakis, fanatics would have run through the streets shouting, “Paul Atreides is reborn! Muad’Dib! Muad’Dib!”
Duncan Idaho could remember such fervor.
When the original Jessica gave birth to the original Paul, it was a time of political intrigues, assassinations, and conspiracies that resulted in the death of Lady Anirul, wife