Dune: House Atreides (32 page)

The sensation was marvelous! He envisioned himself as a revered Navigator, expanding his mind to the farthest reaches of the Imperium, encompassing everything . . . .

D'murr soared along, without leaving the test chamber -- or so he thought.

THE TEST WAS far worse than C'tair could have imagined.

No one ever told him what he was expected to do. He never had a chance. He choked on the spice gas, became dizzy, fought to keep control of his faculties.

The melange overdose stupefied him, so that he could not remember who he was or why he was there. He struggled to maintain focus, but lost himself.

When he eventually returned to consciousness, his clothes clean and his hair and skin freshly washed (perhaps so the Guild could reclaim every particle of melange?), the shapely red-haired proctor looked down at him. She gave C'tair a winsome, sad smile, and shook her head. "You blocked your mind to the spice gas, thereby shackling yourself to the normal world." Her next words came like a death sentence. "The Guild cannot use you."

C'tair sat up, coughing. He sniffed, and his nostrils still tingled from the potent cinnamon stench. "I'm sorry. Nobody explained what I was supposed to --

"

She helped him to his feet, anxious to usher him out of the Embassy Building.

His heart felt like molten lead. The proctor didn't need to answer him as she led him out to the reception area. C'tair looked around, searching for his brother, but the waiting room was empty.

Then he learned that his own failure wasn't the worst thing he had to face.

"Where's D'murr? Did he succeed?" C'tair's voice filled with hope.

The proctor nodded. "Admirably." She extended her hand toward the exit, but he sidestepped her. C'tair looked back toward the inner corridor and the sealed testing chamber where his brother had gone. He needed to congratulate D'murr, even though the victory was now bittersweet. At least one of them would become a Navigator.

"You will never see your brother again," the proctor said, coldly. She moved to block the way back in. "D'murr Pilru is ours now."

Recovering after an instant of shock, C'tair broke past the proctor and ran to the sealed chamber door. He pounded against it and shouted, but received no answer. Within minutes, Guild guards surrounded him -- more businesslike than gentle -- and peeled him away.

Still dizzy from the unaccustomed aftereffects of melange exposure, C'tair didn't realize where they were taking him. Blinking and disoriented, he found himself standing on the crystal walkway outside the blocky gray embassy. Below him, other walkways and streets bustled with traffic and pedestrians traveling from one tower building to another.

Now he was more alone than ever.

The testing proctor stood on the embassy steps, barring C'tair from reentering.

Even though his mother worked somewhere inside, deep in the banking section, C'tair knew that the doors of this facility, as well as the doors to the future he had counted on, were now locked to him.

"Rejoice for your brother," the proctor called from the steps, her voice finally showing some life. "He has entered another world. He can travel to places you'll never imagine."

"I can never see him, or talk to him again?" C'tair said, as if part of him had been ripped away.

"Doubtful," the proctor said, crossing her arms over her chest. She gave him an apologetic frown. "Unless he . . . suffers a reversal. His first time, your brother immersed himself so completely in the spice gas that he started the . .

. conversion process right there and then. The Guild cannot deny such talent.

He has already started to change."

"Bring him back," C'tair said, his eyes tear-filled now. He prayed for his brother. "Just for a little while." He wanted to be happy for his twin -- and proud. D'murr had passed the test that meant so much to both of them.

The twins had always been so close. How could they possibly go on without one another? Perhaps his mother could use her Guild banking connections, so that they would at least be able to have their farewells. Or maybe his father would use ambassadorial privilege to get D'murr back.

But C'tair knew that would never happen. He could see that now. His mother had already known it, had been afraid of losing both sons.

"The process is, in the majority of cases, irreversible," the proctor said with finality.

Guild security guards marched out to stand beside her, ensuring that C'tair did not become irrational and try to force his way inside.

"Trust me," said the proctor. "You don't want your brother back.

The human body is a machine, a system of organic chemicals, fluid conduits, electrical impulses; a government is likewise a machine of interacting societies, laws, cultures, rewards and punishments, patterns of behavior.

Ultimately, the universe itself is a machine, planets around suns, stars gathered into clusters, clusters and other suns forming entire galaxies . . . .

Our job is to keep the machinery functioning.

-Suk Inner School, Primary Doctrine

Both frowning, Crown Prince Shaddam and Chamberlain Aken Hesban watched the approach of a diminutive, scrawny man who nonetheless walked as tall as a Mutellian giant. After years of training and conditioning, all Suk doctors seemed compelled to take themselves far too seriously.

"That Elas Yungar looks more like a circus performer than a respected medical professional," Shaddam said, looking at the arched eyebrows, black eyes, and the steel-gray ponytail. "I hope he knows what he's doing. I want only the best care for my poor ailing father."

Beside him, Hesban tugged on one of his long mustaches, but made no response.

He wore a floor-length blue robe with golden piping. For years, Shaddam had disliked this pompous man who hovered too close to his father's presence, and he vowed to choose a new Chamberlain after assuming the throne. And so long as this Suk doctor could find no explanation for Elrood's gradually worsening illness, Shaddam's ascendancy would be assured.

Hasimir Fenring had emphasized that even all the resources of the exalted Suk Inner School could not stop what had been set in motion. The catalyst chemical implanted in the old man's brain would register on no poison-snooper, since it was not itself poison, but would only convert to a dangerous substance in the presence of spice beer. And as he felt worse and worse, old Elrood consumed ever-increasing quantities of the beer.

No more than a meter in height, the shrunken doctor had smooth skin but ancient eyes from the vast medical knowledge hammered into his mind. A black diamond tattoo marked the center of Yungar's creased forehead. His ponytail of steel-gray hair, secured in the back by a silver Suk ring, was longer than a woman's, reaching nearly to the floor.

Wasting no time on further pleasantries, Elas Yungar broached a familiar subject. "You have our payment?" He looked first at the Chamberlain, then at the Crown Prince, where his gaze settled. "Fresh accounts must be established before we can begin treatment. Given the Emperor's age, our care could be quite prolonged . . . and ultimately fruitless. He must pay his bills, like every other citizen. King, miner, basket-weaver -- it makes no difference to us.

Every human wants to be healthy, and we cannot treat everyone. Our care is available only to those willing and able to pay for it."

Shaddam rested a hand on the Chamberlain's sleeve. "Ah yes, we will spare no expense for my father's health, Aken. It is already arranged."

They stood just inside the high-arched doorway of the Imperial audience chamber, beneath glorious ceiling frescoes of epic events from the history of the Corrino family: the blood of the Jihad, the desperate last stand on the Bridge of Hrethgir, the destruction of thinking machines. Shaddam had always found ancient Imperial history ponderous and boring, with little relevance to his current goals. Centuries and centuries ago didn't matter -- he just hoped it wouldn't take that long for a change in the Palace.

In the echoing hall, the Padishah Emperor's magnificent jeweled throne sat invitingly empty. Court functionaries and a few dark-robed Bene Gesserit scuttled about in side passages and alcoves, trying to remain unseen. A pair of heavily armed Sardaukar guards stood at the dais steps, attentive. Shaddam wondered whether they would obey him right now, knowing his father lay sick in his chambers. He decided not to test the idea. Too soon.

"We are all familiar with promises," the doctor said. "Still, I wish to see the payment first." Stubborn tone, an impertinent upward gaze that didn't move from Shaddam, even though the Crown Prince hadn't done much talking. Yungar chose to play strange power games, but soon he would be out of his league.

"Payment before even looking at the patient?" the Chamberlain gasped. "Where are your priorities, man?"

Finally, Dr. Yungar deigned to look over at Hesban. "You have dealt with us before, Chamberlain, and you know the costs of producing a Suk doctor, fully conditioned, fully trained."

As heir to the Golden Lion Throne, Shaddam was familiar with Suk Imperial Conditioning, which guaranteed absolute loyalty to a patient. In centuries of medical history, no one had ever managed to subvert a graduate of the Inner School.

Some members of the royal Court had a hard time reconciling the legendary Suk loyalty with their incessant greed. The doctors never wavered from the clear but unstated position that they would not minister to anyone -- not even to an Emperor -- on a mere promise of remuneration. Suk doctors extended no credit.

Payment had to be tangible and immediate.

Yungar spoke in an irritating whine. "Though we are perhaps not as prominent as the Mentats or the Bene Gesserit, the Suk School is still one of the greatest in the Imperium. My equipment alone costs more than most planets." Yungar pointed to a suspensor pod at his side. "I do not receive your payment on my own behalf, of course. I am only a custodian, holding it in a fiduciary capacity.

When I return, your credits go with me to the Suk School, for the benefit of mankind."

Hesban glared at him with unconcealed loathing, his face turning ruddy, his mustaches twitching. "Or at least to benefit that portion of mankind that can afford your services."

"Correct, Chamberlain."

Seeing the doctor's staunch and misplaced self-importance, Shaddam shuddered.

When he sat on the throne himself, he wondered if he could initiate any changes to put these Suks in their place . . . . He caught his rambling thoughts and quelled them. All in due time.

He sighed. His father Elrood had let too many threads of control slip right through his fingers. Fenring was right. As much as Shaddam despised dirtying his fingers with blood, removing the ancient Emperor was a necessary action.

"If cost of treatment is your paramount concern," the Suk doctor said, quietly goading the Chamberlain, "you are welcome to hire a less expensive physician for the Emperor of the Known Universe."

"Enough bickering. Come with me, Doctor," Shaddam said, taking charge. Dr.

Yungar nodded, then turned his back on the Chamberlain, as if he was of no consequence whatsoever.

"Now I know why you people have the shape of a diamond tattooed on your foreheads," Hesban growled as he followed behind them. "You always have treasure on your minds."

The Crown Prince led the way to a security-shielded antechamber and passed through a shimmering electrical curtain to the inner vault. On a golden table at the center of the room lay opafire pendants, danikins of melange, and fold-pouches partially open to reveal glittering soostones.

"This will be sufficient," the Suk said. "Unless the treatment proves to be more involved than we expect." With his floating equipment pod at his side like a dutiful pet dog, the doctor shuffled back the way they had come. "I already know the way to the Emperor's chamber." Without explanation, Yungar hurried through a doorway and up the grand staircase that led to the guarded bedroom suites where the Emperor rested.

Sardaukar guards remained behind at the force field that protected the treasure vault, while Shaddam and Hesban marched after the doctor. Fenring would already be waiting at the dying old man's side, making his annoying humming noises and making sure none of the treatment could potentially be successful.

THE WITHERED EMPEROR lay on an enormous four-poster bed beneath a canopy of the finest merh-silks embroidered in the ancient Terran method. The bedposts were carved ucca, a fast-growing hardwood native to Elacca. Soothing fountains, set into alcoves in the walls, trickled fresh water, bubbling and whispering.

Scented glowglobes tuned to the low range floated in the corners of the room.

As Shaddam and Fenring stood together and watched, the Suk doctor waved a liveried attendant away and mounted the two shallow steps to the bedside. Three lovely Imperial concubines hovered behind the ailing man, as if their mere presence could revitalize him. The old man's stink clung to the air, despite the ventilation and the incense.

Emperor Elrood wore slick royal satins and an old-fashioned sleeping cap that covered his liver-spotted scalp. He lay atop the covers, since he had complained about being too warm. The man looked haggard, could barely keep his eyes open.

Shaddam was pleased to see how markedly his father's health had declined since the Tleilaxu Ambassador's visit. Still, Elrood had good days and bad days, and he had the annoying habit of recovering his vitality after a significant downslide like this one.

A tall mug of cool spice beer rested on a tray beside his clawed and ring-bedecked hand, next to a second empty mug. And mounted on the bed canopy, Shaddam noted the waving insect arms of a poisonsnooper.

You must be thirsty, Father, Shaddam thought. Drink more of the beer.

The doctor opened his suspensor pod to reveal shiny instruments, clicking scanners, and colored vials of testing liquids. Reaching inside the kit, Yungar brought out a small white device, which he passed over Elrood.

After tugging off the satin sleeping cap to reveal the sweaty scalp, Dr. Yungar scanned Elrood's skull, lifting the old man's head to check all around. Looking small and weak and old, the Emperor grumbled at the discomfort.