Dune: House Atreides (31 page)

But before then, all the proper wheels would have been set in motion.

"Yes, Hidar Fen Ajidica. We do have the place for your efforts, I believe,"

Elrood said. "A perfect place."

Dominic must not know until it is too late, the Emperor thought. And then he must know who did it to him. Right before he dies.

The timing, as in so many matters of the Imperium, had to be precise.

The Spacing Guild has worked for centuries to surround our elite Navigators with mystique. They are revered, from the lowest Pilot to the most talented Steersman. They live in tanks of spice gas, see all paths through space and time, guide ships to the far reaches of the Imperium. But no one knows the human cost of becoming a Navigator. We must keep this a secret, for if they really knew the truth, they would pity us.

-Spacing Guild Training Manual Handbook for Steersmen (Classified) The austere Guild Embassy Building contrasted severely with the rest of Ixian grandeur in the stalactite city. The structure was drab, utilitarian, and gray among the sparkling and ornate cavern towers. The Spacing Guild had priorities beyond ornamentation or ostentation.

Today C'tair and D'murr Pilru would be tested, in hopes of becoming Guild Navigators. C'tair didn't know whether to be excited or terrified.

As the twin brothers marched shoulder to shoulder across a shielded crystal walkway from the Grand Palais, C'tair found the Embassy Building so aesthetically repulsive that he considered turning around and leaving. In the face of the Guild's enormous wealth, the lack of splendor seemed odd, to the point of making him ill at ease.

As if thinking the same thing but coming to a different conclusion, his brother looked at C'tair and said, "Once the wonders of space are opened up to a Guild Navigator's mind, what other decorations are necessary? How can any ornamentation rival the wonders a Navigator sees on a single journey through foldspace? The universe, brother! The whole universe."

C'tair nodded, conceding the point. "All right, we'll both have to use different criteria from now on. 'Think outside the box' -- remember what old Davee Rogo used to tell us? Things are going to be so . . . changed."

If he passed these examinations, he would have to be up to the challenge, though he had no real desire to leave the beautiful cavern city of Vernii. His mother S'tina was an important Guild banker, his father a respected ambassador, and -with help from Earl Vernius himself -- they had arranged to give the twins this remarkable chance. He would make Ix proud of him. Maybe someone would erect a sculpture in his honor someday, or name a side grotto after him and his brother

. . . .

While their father attended to diplomatic duties with the Emperor and a thousand functionaries on Kaitain, his twin sons remained in the underground city, grooming and preparing themselves for "bigger things." Over the years of their subterranean childhood, C'tair and his brother had come to the Guild facility many times to see their mother. Always before, they had been guests in the building, but this time the twins were going for a much more rigorous ordeal.

C'tair's future would be determined in a few hours. Bankers, auditors, and commerce specialists were all humans, bureaucrats. But a Navigator was so much more.

No matter how much he tried to shore up his confidence, C'tair wasn't certain he would pass the mind-twisting tests anyway. Who was he to think he could become one of the elite Guild Navigators? His high-ranking parents had only given the twins an opportunity to be considered, not a guarantee. Could he make the cut?

Was he really that special? He ran a hand through his dark hair, found sweat on his fingertips.

"If you perform well enough on the test, you'll both become important representatives of the Spacing Guild," his mother had said, smiling with a severe pride. "Very important." C'tair felt a lump grow in his throat, and D'murr drew himself taller.

Kailea Vernius, Princess of the household of Ix, had also wished the two of them well. C'tair suspected the Earl's daughter was leading them on, but he and his brother both enjoyed flirting with her. Occasionally, they even pretended to be jealous when Kailea referred in passing to young Leto, heir to House Atreides.

She played the twins against each other, and he and D'murr engaged in a good-natured rivalry for her affections. Still, he doubted their families would ever agree to a match, so it was unlikely that there could be any future in it.

If C'tair joined the Guild, his duties would take him far from Ix and the underground metropolis he loved so well. If he became a Navigator, so many things would change . . . .

They arrived in front of the embassy reception chamber, half an hour early.

D'murr paced beside his anxious brother, who was entranced and noncommunicative, as if completely focused on his thoughts and desires. Though the two young men looked identical, D'murr seemed so much stronger, so much more dedicated to the challenge, and C'tair struggled to emulate him.

Now, in the waiting area, he swallowed hard, repeating the words he and his brother had shared, like a mantra, in their quarters that morning. I want to be a Navigator. I want to join the Guild. I want to leave Ix and sail the starlanes, my mind joined to the universe.

At seventeen, they both felt rather young to endure such a grueling selection process, one that would lock them permanently on a life, path, no matter what they might decide later on. But the Guild wanted resilient and malleable minds inside bodies that had sufficiently matured. Navigators who trained at young ages often proved to be the best performers, some even reaching the highest rank of Steersman. Those candidates taken too early, however, could mutate into ghastly shapes fit only for menial tasks; the worst failures were euthanized.

"Are you ready, brother?" D'murr asked. C'tair drew strength and enthusiasm from his twin's confidence.

"Absolutely," he said. "We're going to be Navigators after today, you and I."

Fighting misgivings, C'tair reassured himself that he wanted this; it would be a great credit to his abilities, an honor for his family . . . but he could not remove the spectre of doubt that nagged at him. In his heart he didn't want to leave Ix. His father, the Ambassador, had instilled in both of his sons a deep appreciation for the underground engineering marvels, the innovations, and the technological acumen of this planet. Ix was like no other world in the Imperium.

And, of course, if he left, Kailea would be forever lost to him as well.

When they were summoned forward deeper into the labyrinth of the embassy, the twins walked through the portal, side by side, feeling very alone. They had no escorts, no one to cheer them to victory or console them if they failed. Their father wasn't even present to offer his support; the Ambassador had recently been sent to Kaitain in preparation for another Landsraad subcommittee meeting.

That morning, as the ominous hour ticked closer and closer, C'tair and D'murr had sat at the breakfast table in the ambassadorial residence, picking over a selection of colored pastries while S'tina played a message their father had holo-recorded for them. They'd had little appetite, but they listened to Cammar Pilru's words. C'tair tried to hear some special hints or knowledge, anything he could use. But the Ambassador's shimmering image merely gave them encouragement and platitudes, like echoes of a well-worn speech he had used many times in his diplomatic duties.

Then, after a final hug, their mother had stared at each of them before she hurried off to her daily duties at Guild Bank headquarters, a section of the drab building that now hung before them. S'tina had wanted to be at her sons'

side during the testing, but the Guild had forbidden it. Navigator testing was an intensely private and personal matter. Each of them had to do it by himself, relying on his abilities alone. So their mother would be in her office, probably distracted, probably worried for them.

As S'tina said goodbye, she did manage to hide most of the horror and despair on her face. C'tair had noticed the flicker, but D'murr had not. He wondered what his mother had hidden from them during their preparations for the test. Doesn't she want us to succeed?

Navigators were the stuff of legends, shrouded in secrecy and Guild-fostered superstitions. C'tair had heard whispered rumors about bodily distortions, the damage that intense and constant immersion in spice could wreak upon a human physique. No outsider had ever seen a Navigator, so how were those people to know what kind of changes might surge through the body of someone with such phenomenal mental abilities? He and his brother had laughed at the silly speculations, convincing each other how outrageous such ideas could be.

But are they so outrageous? What does Mother fear?

"C'tair -- keep focused! You look upset," D'murr said.

C'tair's tone overflowed with sarcasm. "Upset? Absolutely. I wonder why! We are about to take the biggest test of our lives, and no one knows how to study for it. I'm worried we haven't prepared enough."

D'murr looked at him with intense concern, gripping his brother's arm. "Your nervousness may be your failing, brother. A Navigator test isn't about studying. It's about natural ability and the potential to expand our minds.

We'll have to pass safely through the void. Now it's your turn to remember what old Davee Rogo told us: You can only be successful if you let your mind go beyond the boundaries that other people have set for themselves. C'tair, open up your imagination and go beyond the boundary with me."

His brother's confidence seemed unshakable, and C'tair had no choice but to nod.

Davee Rogo -- until this morning, he hadn't thought about the crippled and eccentric Ixian inventor in years. When they'd been ten, the twins had met the famous innovator Rogo. Their father had introduced them, imaged holograms of them with the man for the ambassadorial scrapbook shelf, then fluttered off to meet other important people. The two boys, though, had continued talking with the inventor, and he had invited them to visit his laboratory. For two years afterward, Rogo had set himself up as an offbeat mentor to C'tair and D'murr, until his death. Now the twins had only Davee Rogo's advice to remember, and his confidence that they would succeed.

Rogo would be scolding me for my doubts now, C'tair thought.

"Think about it, brother. How does one practice for the job of moving huge ships from one star system to another in the wink of an eye?" To demonstrate, D'murr winked. "You'll pass. We both will. Get ready to swim in spice gas."

As they strode up to the embassy's inner reception desk, C'tair stared across the underground city of Vernii, beyond the glittering chains of glowglobes that illuminated the site where another Heighliner was already under construction.

Perhaps someday he would fly that very vessel. Thinking of how the visiting Navigator had whisked the immense new Heighliner out of the cavern and into open space, the young man felt an infusion of desire. He loved Ix, wanted to stay here, wanted to see Kailea one last time -- but he also wanted to be a Navigator.

The brothers identified themselves and waited. They stood together at the flat marbleplaz counter in silence, each brooding with personal thoughts, as if a trance might increase their chances of succeeding. I will keep my mind completely open, ready for anything.

A shapely female testing proctor appeared in a loose gray suit. The Guild's infinity symbol was stitched on her lapel, but she wore no jewelry or other ornamentation. "Welcome," she said, without introducing herself. "The Guild seeks the finest talent because our work is the most important. Without us, without space travel, the fabric of the Imperium would unravel. Think on that, and you will realize how selective we must be."

She did not smile at all. Her hair was reddish brown and close-cropped; C'tair would have found her attractive at any other time, but now he could think of nothing beyond the impending examination.

Checking their identification yet again, the proctor escorted the brothers to isolated, separate testing chambers. "This is an individual test, and each of you must face it alone. There is no way you can cheat, or even help each other," she said.

Alarmed at being separated, C'tair and D'murr looked at each other, then silently wished the other luck.

THE CHAMBER DOOR closed behind D'murr with a loud and frightening slam. His ears popped from the difference in air pressure. He was alone, intensely alone

-- but he knew he was up to the challenge.

Confidence is half the battle.

He noted the armored walls, the sealed cracks, the lack of ventilation. Hissing gas boiled from a single nozzle in the ceiling . . . thickening clouds of rusty orange, with a sharp gingery tang that burned his nostrils. Poison? Drugs?

Then D'murr realized what the Guild had in mind for him.

Melange!

Closing his eyes, he smelled the unmistakable cinnamon odor of the rare spice.

Rich melange, an incredible wealth of it in the confined air, filling the chamber and permeating his every breath. Knowing the value of Arrakis spice from his mother's meticulous work in the Guild Bank, D'murr sucked in another large gulp. The sheer cost of this! No wonder the Guild didn't test just anyone -- the price for a single examination would be enough to build a housing complex on another planet.

The wealth controlled by the Spacing Guild -- in banking, transportation, and exploration -- awed him. The Guild went everywhere, touched everyone. He wanted to be part of it. Why did they need frivolous ornamentation when they had so much melange?

He felt possibilities spinning all around him like an elaborate contour map, with ripples and intersections, a locus of points, and paths that led into and out of the void. He opened his mind so that the spice could transport him anywhere in the universe. It seemed like such a natural thing to do.

As the orange fog enfolded D'murr, he could no longer see the featureless walls of the testing chamber. He felt melange pressing into his every pore and cell.