Dune: House Atreides (39 page)

"They've found us already!" Kailea tumbled into a low bulkhead seat behind Leto's and was automatically surrounded by a personal safety field. Leto felt the warmth of another PSF cocooning him as Rhombur tried to lock himself into the piloting seat.

On the orship's surveillance screen, Rhombur saw Tleilaxu soldiers and armed suboids filling the hidden chamber's access tube, firing lasgun bursts to break open the hidden doorways. The attackers were already through the second barrier. Captain Zhaz and a few remaining men lay in smoking mounds on the floor.

"Maybe your parents got away," Leto said. "I hope they're safe."

Rhombur thrust his hands into the finger-control field, removing the orship from tutorial mode and preparing for actual takeoff. Leto sat back, trying to relinquish command. The external simulation still filled his eyes, distracting him with visions of pristine Ixian landscapes.

Blue light flashed from outside the craft. An explosion rocked all of them.

Leto heard Rhombur grunt in pain and shook his head to scatter the rest of the tutorial hologram. The Ixian Prince slumped forward in his chair; blood trickled down his face.

"What the hells?" Leto said. "Rhombur?"

"This is real, Leto!" Kailea shouted. "Fly this thing out of here."

Leto jammed his fingers against the panel, struggling to switch from tutorial to active status, but Rhombur hadn't finished prepping the ship. Another explosion blasted through the wall of the chamber, strewing algae-covered shards of rock.

Ominous figures surged into the main room below.

Rhombur groaned. From beneath them, suboids shouted and pointed up at the ship that held the three refugees. Lasgun fire scorched the stone walls and the orship's plated hull. Leto activated the auto-launch sequence. Despite his earlier concerns, he now fervently hoped the ship's interactive computer mind would function efficiently.

The orship shot straight up through a channel, then a rock cap, a layer of snow, and finally into an open sky full of dazzling clouds. Steering with his fingers, Leto narrowly avoided a brilliant stream of laser bursts, automated defenses the rebels had commandeered. He squinted against the sudden sunlight.

Looping high in the stratosphere and trying to get a bead on any enemy that might strike them from space, Leto noticed a hulking Heighliner in low-planetary orbit. Two streaks of light shot out of the massive craft in separate V-patterns -- a familiar signal to Leto: Atreides ships.

From the comboard Leto "sent an identifier signal in the special battle language his father and teachers had hammered into him. Rescue craft fell in on each side of the orship, acting as escorts. The pilots signaled him to acknowledge his identity. Bursts of purple from the starboard craft pulverized a cloud below, where enemy ships had been concealed.

"Rhombur, are you all right?" Kailea took a moment to assess her brother's injuries.

The young Vernius heir stirred, put a hand to his head, and groaned. A ceiling-mounted electronics box had struck him on the skull, then shattered on the floor. "Uh, vermilion hells! -- didn't get the blasted PSF activated in time."

He blinked repeatedly, then swiped dark blood from his eyes.

Using his new skills, Leto followed his escort into the safety of the waiting Heighliner, where he saw two large Atreides battle frigates. As his orship hovered inside the hold, a message came over the comsystem in Galach, but he recognized a familiar Caladanian drawl. "Good thing we got the Heighliner to wait an extra hour. Welcome aboard, Prince Leto. Are you and your companions all right? How many survivors?"

He looked over at Rhombur nursing his battered skull. "Three of us, more or less intact. Just get us away from Ix."

After the orship was parked between Atreides escorts within assigned stalls inside the immense Heighliner hold, Leto looked to each side. Through the portholes of the larger ships he saw uniformed Atreides soldiers in green-and-black livery, familiar hawk crests. He breathed a deep, relieved sigh.

Next he looked with concern at Rhombur, whose sister was wiping blood off his brow with a cloth. Focusing on Leto, the Ixian Prince said, "Well, forget the simulations, friend. It's always best to learn by doing."

Then he passed out and crumpled to one side.

Even the poorest House can be rich in loyalty. Allegiance that must be purchased by bribes or wages is hollow and flawed, and could break at the worst possible moment. Allegiance that comes from the heart, though, is stronger than adamantium and more valuable than purest melange.

Far across the galaxy, within the cargo hold of another Heighliner, a single unmarked Ixian space cruiser rested alone and indistinguishable among the crowded ships. The runaway cruiser had hopped from one freight line to another, changing designations each time.

Inside the unmarked ship, Dominic and Shando Vernius sat as passengers amidst the tattered remnants of their armed forces. Many of the family guard had been killed, and many had not made it to the escape ship in time; others had decided to take their chances in the aftermath of the revolution. No one aboard had said anything for a long time.

Lady Shando's personal manservant Omer squirmed, twitching his narrow shoulders; his straight black hair had been cut exactly at the collar line, but now both collar and hair looked a bit ragged. Omer was the only one of her household staff who had chosen to accompany the family into exile. A timid man, he had abhorred the prospect of attempting to make a new life among the Tleilaxu.

Ambassador Pilru's curt reports had made it eminently clear that they could expect no assistance from Landsraad military forces or the Emperor. By declaring themselves renegade they had severed all ties -- and all obligations -

- to Imperial Law.

The seats, storage bins, and lockers aboard the renegade ship were filled with gems and valuable items, anything that could be sold for ready cash. Their flight might last for a long, long time.

Dominic sat next to his wife, holding her small and delicate hand. His hairless brow was creased with concern. "Elrood will send out teams to track us down,"

he said. "We'll be hunted like animals."

"Oh, why won't he just leave us alone now?" Omer muttered, shaking his straight black hair. "We've already lost everything."

"Not enough for Roody," Shando said, turning to her manservant. She sat straight-backed and regal. "He's never forgiven me for talking him into letting me go. I never lied, but he thinks I tricked him."

She looked out the narrow port edged with gleaming ser-chrome. The Ixian ship was small, with no overt markings of House Vernius: a simple vehicle used for hauling cargo or steerage passengers. Shando squeezed her husband's hand and tried not to think of how far their fortunes had fallen.

She remembered the day of her departure from the Imperial Court, bathed and perfumed and decked with fresh flowers from Elrood's greenhouses. The other concubines had given her gifts of brooches, jewels, radiant scarves that glowed from body heat. She had been young and excited then, her heart swelling with gratitude for the memories and experiences, yet aching to start a new life with a man she desperately loved.

Shando had kept her romance with Dominic secret and left Elrood under what she thought were good terms, terminating her service with his blessing. She and the Emperor had made love one last time, talked fondly of memories they shared.

Elrood hadn't understood her desire to leave Kaitain, but he had plenty of other concubines, after all. Her loss had meant little to him . . . until he learned she'd left him out of love for another man.

Now Shando's ragged flight from Ix was far different from her departure from Kaitain. She sighed bitterly. "After a reign of almost a century and a half, Roody has learned how to wait for his revenge."

Long past any shadow of jealousy, Dominic chuckled at the pet name. "Well, now he's gotten even with us. We'll have to be patient ourselves and find some way to restore our House's fortunes. If not for us, then for our children."

"I trust Paulus Atreides to keep them safe," Shando said. "He's a good man."

"We must trust no one else to keep ourselves safe, however," Dominic said.

"That will be quite enough of a challenge for us."

Dominic and Shando would soon separate, take new identities, and go into hiding on isolated planets, all the while hoping to be reunited one day. They had paid a huge bribe to the Guild, so that no records would be kept of their respective destinations. Husband and wife clung together, knowing that from this point on, nothing in their lives was certain.

Ahead lay uncharted space.

ALONE WITHIN THE remnants of war-torn Ix, C'tair Pilru buried himself in a tiny transmission-shielded room. He hoped none of the suboids would find him. It seemed to be his only chance to survive the carnage.

His mother had once shown him this place concealed behind a dungeon wall of the Grand Palais, shielded up in the thick crust. As members of the Vernius Court, sons of the Ambassador to Kaitain, C'tair and D'murr had been assigned a place for personal safety should any emergency ever arise. With the same methodical efficiency she employed daily as a Guild banker, S'tina had prepared for every likelihood, and made sure her sons remembered. Sweaty, hungry, and terrified, C'tair had been relieved to find the hiding place intact amidst the chaos, gunfire, and explosions.

Then, safe and numb, the shock of what was happening to his city -- his world --hit him full force. He couldn't believe everything that had already been lost, how much grandeur had turned to dirt and blood and smoke.

His twin brother was gone, whisked off by the Guild to be trained as a Navigator. At the time he had resented that loss, but at least it meant D'murr was safe from the revolution. C'tair would not wish this ordeal on anyone . . .

but he hoped that his brother had somehow received the news by now. Were the Tleilaxu covering it up?

C'tair had tried to contact his father, but the Ambassador had been trapped on Kaitain at the height of the crisis. Amid fires and explosions and murderous suboid gangs, C'tair had found himself with few options other than to hide and survive. The dark-haired young man would be killed if he tried to make it to the Vernius administration chambers.

Their mother was dead already.

C'tair hid in his enclosed room with the glowglobes extinguished, listening to faint tremors of distant fighting and the much louder sounds of his own breathing, his own heartbeat. He was alive.

Three days earlier, he had watched the revolutionaries destroy a wing of the Guild facility, the section of the blocky gray building that housed all Ixian banking functions. His mother had been in there. He and D'murr had visited her offices enough times during their childhood.

He knew S'tina had barricaded herself in the records vaults, unable to escape and unwilling to believe the rebellious suboid fighters would dare attack a neutral Guild stronghold. But the suboids did not understand politics or the subtle strands of power. S'tina had sent C'tair a final transmission, telling him to hold out, to stay safe, arranging for where they would meet again once the violence died down. Neither of them had believed the situation could get worse.

But while C'tair had watched, explosions planted by suboid rebels tore part of the building free. The structure broke away from its hold on the cave roof.

Burning, groaning, tumbling, the wreckage fell with a monumental crash to the grotto floor, killing hundreds of watching rebels, as well as the Guild bankers and functionaries. Everyone inside.

The air filled with smoke and screams, and the fighting continued. He had known it would be useless to make his way down there to search for his mother.

Instead, realizing that his entire world was falling apart, C'tair had run to the only shelter he knew.

Hidden within the transmission-shielded bolt-hole, he slept huddled in a fetal position, then awoke with a vague sense of determination partially dulled by his anger and grief. C'tair found and inventoried provisions laid up in nullentropy storage chambers; he checked outdated weapons in the small armory closet.

Unlike some of the larger algae-rooms, this secret place had no orship. He hoped the chamber wasn't on any charts, classified or unclassified. Otherwise, the Tleilaxu and their duped suboid followers would certainly find him.

Stunned and listless, C'tair holed up and passed the time, not certain when he might be able to escape, or even send a message. He didn't think any outside military forces would ever arrive to rescue Ix -- it should have happened long before now. His father had departed for good. A few panicked rumors said that House Vernius had fled, gone renegade. The Grand Palais was already abandoned and ransacked, soon to become the headquarters for the new masters of Ix.

Had Kailea Vernius departed with her family, fleeing the destruction? C'tair hoped so, for her sake. Otherwise, she would have been a target for the angry revolutionaries. She was a beautiful young woman bred for Court functions and finery and palace intrigues, never for tooth-and-nail survival.

It made him sick to think of his beloved city, pillaged and trampled. He remembered the crystal walkways, the stalactite buildings, the magnificent achievements of the Heighliner construction, a craft that could be whisked away like magic by the powers of a Guild Navigator. How often had he and D'murr explored long tunnels, looked out at the massive grottoes, watched prosperity spread to all Ix's inhabitants? Now the suboids had ruined everything. And for what? He doubted even they understood.

Possibly C'tair could find a passage to the surface, contact a transport ship, use stolen credits to buy a passage off of Ix and make his way to Kaitain, where he would contact his father. Was Cammar Pilru even still the Ambassador? Of a government in exile? Probably not.

No, C'tair could not leave here and abandon his world to its fate. This was Ix, his home, and he refused to run. He did vow to survive, though . . . somehow.