Sandworms of Dune - Brian Herbert [87]
Waff made a noncommittal sound. Not yet.
WITHOUT BOTHERING TO sleep, knowing his time was short, the Tleilaxu man began to make preparations to continue his work. His Guild companions seemed confident that the Navigator would eventually return, though Waff wasn’t so sure. He was here on Rakis, and this gave him great pleasure.
While the Guild assistants finished connecting the generators and sealed the prefab shelters, the Tleilaxu researcher went back aboard the near-empty lighter. In the cargo hold he smiled paternally at his magnificent specimens. The armored worms were small but ferocious. They looked ready to tackle a dead world. Their world.
Ages ago, the Fremen had been able to summon and ride sandworms, but those original creatures had died out when Leto II’s terraforming operations had turned Arrakis into a garden world with green plants, flowing rivers, and moisture from the sky. Such an environment was fatal to sandworms. But when the God Emperor was assassinated and his body fissioned into sandtrout, the whole process of desertification began anew. The freshly spawned worms became far more vicious than their predecessors, tackling the huge challenge of recreating the Dune That Once Was.
Waff now faced a challenge many times more difficult. His modified creatures were armored to resist the most severe environment, with mouths and head ridges powerful enough to crack through the vitrified dunes. They could dig deep beneath the black surface; they could grow and reproduce—even here.
He stood before the dusty holding tank in which the worms churned. Each specimen was about two meters in length. And strong.
Sensing his presence, the creatures twitched restlessly. Waff looked outside to where the sky had turned the deep purple-brown of dusk. Storms swirled gritty dust through the atmosphere. “Be patient, my pets,” he said. “Soon I will release you.”
We are naïve to think that we control a precious commodity. Only through guile and eternal wariness do we keep it out of the hands of our competitors.
—Spacing Guild internal report
Edrik moved his Heighliner away from the ruins of Rakis, no longer concerned with the Tleilaxu Master. Waff had served his purpose.
More important, the Oracle of Time had summoned all surviving Navigators, and Edrik would give them joyous news. With the seaworms obviously thriving on Buzzell, there would be plenty of ultraspice for the taking. The unusual concentrated form might even be superior to the original spice: a frighteningly potent melange to keep Navigators alive without the meddling, greedy Administrator faction or the witches of Chapterhouse.
Freedom!
It had amused him to see Waff taking his worm samples to Rakis, hoping to establish a new spice cycle. Edrik didn’t think the little researcher could do much there, but an alternative source of melange would be a bonus. But even without that, never again would the Navigators be strangled by power games. The four Guildsmen whom Edrik had sent to accompany Waff were spies and would secretly report everything the Tleilaxu achieved.
Inside his tank, Edrik smiled to himself, pleased that he had thought of all eventualities. With the first package of Buzzell ultraspice safely stored in his security chamber, the Navigator guided his Heighliner out into the emptiness of space. Even the Oracle would congratulate him for this remarkable news.
Before he could travel toward his scheduled rendezvous, however, the emptiness rippled around him. When Edrik studied the distortions, he realized what they were. Moments later, scores of Guildships appeared like buckshot in space, winking through foldspace and emerging forward and back, above and below, to surround his Heighliner completely.
Edrik transmitted on a band that only fellow Navigators should have received. “Explain your presence.”
But none of the imposing newcomers answered. Studying the glyphs and