Sandworms of Dune - Brian Herbert [55]
Two more of the long, sinuous monsters appeared from the deep water and circled around the Phibians. The aquatic people clustered in a defensive formation; one male with a scar on his forehead drew a wide, flat-bladed knife used for scoring cholisters on the ocean floor. The other Phibians brandished their own weapons, which were laughable against a sea serpent.
Knee-deep in waves, Corysta slipped on the algae-slick rocks. Murbella ran after her, fixated on what she saw in the water. “What are those creatures?”
“Monsters! I have never seen them before.”
The scarred male Phibian emitted a loud vibrating sound and slapped one webbed hand on the water with a sharp crack. The clustered Phibians bolted like a startled school of fish, several diving underwater, others swimming briskly across the waves.
Though they had no eyes, the swimming worms knew where the Phibians were. With a blur and a flick of long serpentine bodies, they pursued the aquatic workers, driving them toward the rocky shore.
Murbella and Corysta watched the largest worm lunge and grab one of the Phibians, scooping him down into the wet gullet. The other worms attacked like a group of frenzied sharks.
Murbella waded out to grab Corysta’s shoulder, preventing her from swimming farther into the churning water. They were both helpless to prevent the violence. “My Sea Child,” Corysta moaned.
The seaworms thrashed and splashed as they fed. Bloody waves lapped against Murbella’s legs, and she dragged the sobbing Corysta back to shore.
A planet is not merely an item for study. Rather it is a tool, perhaps even a weapon, with which we can make our mark on the galaxy.
—LIET-KYNES,
the original
Now that Stilgar and Liet had their ghola memories back, they had become the no-ship’s experts on extreme recycling, making the most of their reduced resources. The Ithaca’s life-support systems had been designed by geniuses out in the Scattering, descendants of those who had survived the horrific Famine Times. The highly efficient technology could serve passengers and crew for long periods, even in the face of the increasing population. But not in the face of deliberate sabotage.
Tall and lean, with the body of a youth and the aged eyes of a naib, Stilgar looked ready to embark on a desert journey. He and Liet-Kynes had been bound at first by common interests and more recently by their awakened pasts. Liet refused to talk about the crisis through which Sheeana had broken him—it was a matter too private even for close friends.
For himself, Stilgar couldn’t forget what the witches had done to him. To the very depths of his being he was a desert man of Arrakis. Watched over by Proctor Superior Garimi, he had read of his history as a young commando against the Harkonnens, later as naib, and then as a supporter of Muad’Dib. But to trigger his ghola memories, the Sisters had tried to drown him.
At a water-filled recycling reservoir, Sheeana and Garimi had tied weights around his ankles. Stilgar fought, but the witches were more than a match for him. “What have I done? Why are you doing this to me?”
“Find your past,” Sheeana said, “or die.”
“Without your memories you are useless, and better off drowned,” Garimi said. They dumped him into the pool.
Unable to free himself from the weights on his ankles, Stilgar had quickly sunk. He had struggled mightily, but the water was everywhere, more oppressive than the thickest dust cloud. Trying desperately to peer upward, he made out only the vague wavering shapes of the two women up there. Neither lifted a hand to help him.
His lungs screamed, and blackness closed in around his eyesight. Stilgar thrashed violently and grew weaker every second. He was starving for breath. He wanted to cry out—needed to—but there was no air. Exhaled bubbles roared out of his open mouth. When it was more than unbearable, he inhaled a huge gulp into his lungs, flooding his air passages. He couldn’t see any way out of the tank—
—and suddenly it was no longer a tank, but a wide,