The Winds of Dune (60 page)

As soon as the two men came aboard, the Heighliner’s security launched a thorough search of the lower crew decks. Duncan and Gurney hurried without additional escort directly to Ennzyn’s private cabin.

Gurney tried to convince his companion to show restraint. “Bear in mind, Duncan, that this man showed us how to find Paul and Bronso when they were with the Jongleur troupe. He helped us save them.”

Duncan paused. “I remember that full well. Is that another test of my memories?”

“No, a reminder of our obligations.”

“If he is involved with spreading sedition against the Imperium, then we have no obligations to this man.” Using an electronic master lock tool, Duncan unsealed the cabin door and forced it open.

Gurney hoped the Wayku steward wasn’t there, but this hope faded quickly. As soon as the corridor light flooded the chamber, the Wayku man lurched to his feet, where he stood surrounded by piles of instroy paper documents, stacks of reproduced manifestoes.

Sighting his quarry, Duncan lurched inside with a speed that Gurney had seen him use only in battle. As the Wayku reached for a small device under the metal table, trying to activate a switch—an incendiary?—

Duncan pushed Ennzyn aside, and Gurney caught him, holding his arms behind his back.

The steward seemed unruffled by the unexpected vehemence of their reaction. His dark glasses and headphone had been knocked askew and fell to the cluttered deck; data streams poured onto the backs of the lenses, and faint voices emanated from his headphones. As soon as the units fell off, wisps of smoke emerged from the electronics.

With an attitude of forced calm, Ennzyn studied the two men, recognized them. “Why, it is Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck from House Atreides. Do you need my help once more?”

“We need to find Bronso again,” Gurney said. “You helped us track him down before.”

“Oh, but the circumstances are entirely different now. That other time, it was in the young man’s best interests to have him return home to his father. This time, I don’t trust that you two gentlemen are quite so altruistic. It would be no kindness to Bronso if I were to help you find him.”

Duncan showed no sympathy or patience. “We are under orders from Regent Alia to find him.” He gestured to the incriminating documents. “You are obviously in communication with Bronso of Ix.”

Ennzyn didn’t seem the least bit afraid. “I receive information only via complicated channels, and I am not in contact with him at this time. I believe he is involved in another important mission unrelated to his literary and historical endeavors.” He smiled faintly. “Bronso knows how to hide, and the Wayku know how to keep secrets.”

“That is unfortunate for you. Gurney, we will take him back to Arrakeen to stand before Alia.”

Oddly enough, this caused Ennzyn great distress. “Wayku are not allowed to set foot on any planet. It is forbidden.”

“Then I am dubious about your chances for survival.” Duncan turned to his companion. “Did you find anything unusual among these?”

Gurney stopped his casual sifting through the stacked documents. “No. Just multiple copies of the same thing.” He looked heavily at the Wayku captive, knowing what would happen to Ennzyn as soon as he was brought before Alia’s interrogators. “Duncan, this man was Paul’s friend, as well. Ennzyn came to us, revealed the boys’ location, and by doing so he probably saved Paul’s life. Duke Leto would have considered that a debt.”

“Duke Leto is dead.”

“But is honor dead, as well?”

The ghola looked troubled by the conundrum. “What do you propose we do with this man? He has obviously committed crimes.”

With a loud clamor, five Guild security men rushed down the corridor and met them at the open doorway to Ennzyn’s cabin. “We found
other stockpiles of documents, sirs. We don’t yet know which of the Wayku are involved.”

“Ennzyn is involved,” Duncan said.

Gurney looked at the captive, tried to understand what had driven this man—and so many of his vagabond people—to assist an outlaw like Bronso. Seeing no easy way out of the problem, but certain of what Alia would do to Ennzyn, he said, “Let these Guildsmen take care of the matter. The Wayku are their responsibility.”

The lead guard snapped to attention. “We will bring this man and his allies before the highest levels of Guild administration. We will prove our loyalty to Regent Alia.”

Duncan hesitated a long moment, choosing among orders, obligations, and humanity. Ennzyn looked at him as though he didn’t care one way or the other, but Gurney could detect a gray pallor and a faint sheen of perspiration on his skin.

“Very well, but on one further condition. Dispatch a message throughout the Guild. All Wayku are to be questioned, all their decks to be searched, all copies of Bronso’s documents to be confiscated. We will eliminate this distribution method for the traitor, here and now.” Duncan appeared satisfied. “We have shut down Bronso’s ability to spread his lies. That is a sufficient triumph.”

Gurney’s shoulders sagged, and he wondered if his suggestion had caused even greater damage. Now Bronso would be painted into a corner, and more desperate. Even so, he wasn’t likely to give up.

In the court of public opinion, suspicion alone is often enough to convey guilt. Mentats do not think that way. We ask questions.

—
The Mentat’s Handbook

B
ecause so many people in the demolished shantytown of Arrakeen were unofficial immigrants—without citizenship papers, jobs, or families—the total number killed in the sandworm attack was impossible to determine.

Workers, former soldiers, pilgrims, and beggars threw themselves into the recovery effort, working tirelessly because Alia called upon them to, in Muad’Dib’s name. For his own part, Stilgar thought the Regent’s request had an impatient edge. Though it was an unkind thought, he believed she summoned so many workers not because she wanted to help suffering people, but because she wanted to clean up the mess as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, the Qizarate issued a joyful pronouncement that all those devoured by the rogue worm had been transported immediately to Heaven and incorporated into Shai-Hulud. Stilgar was not surprised to hear it.

Despite the destruction, he was glad for the fact that even greater mayhem had not been done. The wild worm might well have torn a path all the way to the Citadel of Muad’Dib, but Stilgar had diverted it in time. Sooner or later, Alia would probably present him with a medal for what he had done, but he had no time for trinkets or celebrations.
Instead, he was determined to find out who had caused the disaster. He had spent his life understanding the desert and the magnificent worms. He knew in his heart that it was no accident.

Stilgar gathered a handpicked team of sandwalkers and wormriders, desert men who could interpret the whispered secrets of the dunes, to read signs even though the winds tried to erase them. His grim assemblage went to the gap in the Shield Wall and combed over the scene.

Stilgar stood by the wrecked qanat, briefly removing his noseplugs so he could absorb the atmosphere around him, staring and sensing as he tried to pick up hints of what had occurred here. He stationed eight spotters out in the open desert to watch for other worms. He turned, looked around, felt the sting of grains against his exposed cheeks with the skirling gusts near the Shield Wall.
Cueshma
, he thought, the Fremen name for a twenty-klick wind, strong enough to stir the desert but not enough to be considered a storm.

Other than the wind, though, the desert was silent and secretive. He couldn’t understand what had drawn the beast here in the first place, why it had crossed the moisture line and attacked Arrakeen with such a single-minded purpose. What could have driven it to such erratic, unnatural behavior?

His men dug through the sand, pulling out chunks of the plazcrete canal wall. The worm had destroyed much of the evidence, but that did not stop the Fremen from searching. Several men poled the sand in widely separated locations, pushing probes down far enough to mea sure any detectable moisture.

Finally the lead man reported, “It’s dry, Stil.”

“If that qanat was full when the worm smashed it, there would still be water down deep. The bulk of the flow was diverted beforehand, the water drained. Sandtrout would have gotten the rest,” Stilgar said.
No accident. Someone wanted the worm to have access into the basin.

Turning around, he passed his gaze along the impressive mountainous barrier that blocked all encroaching worms. During the Battle of Arrakeen years ago, the Padishah Emperor had stationed his forces inside the basin, assuming the area safe, not expecting Muad’Dib to use atomics to blast through the cliff, which enabled his Fedaykin to ride worms into the battle. It had been the turning point in modern history.

But those creatures had been
deliberately
guided through the gap by
seasoned wormriders. How had a lone worm threaded the needle and entered the sheltered area? Even if the barrier qanat had dried, how had the sightless creature
found
such a relatively small opening?

Stilgar was not surprised when his men discovered the remains of a thumper. This suggested that several more might have been strung along like bread crumbs to lead the creature onward. The inexorable throbbing beat would have drawn the blind worm like a magnet, luring it through the passage.

“Treachery,” one of the Fedaykin murmured. “Shai-Hulud was summoned intentionally.”

Stilgar had suspected as much. But by whom?

One of the men held up a lump of twisted metal. “See this thumper’s unusual design. Looks like Ixian technology to me. Bronso of Ix!”

The Naib scowled. “A thumper is no proof of that.” With their clockwork mechanisms and syncopated tampers, the devices were quite simple. “No Ixian expertise is required to make one.”

Under the bright sun and the briskly blowing grains, Stilgar’s searchers kept sifting through the sands. Toward dusk they uncovered the fused circuitry of a shield generator, and another one farther along. Again some of the discoveries suggested Ixian technology, perhaps evidence against Bronso . . . though shield generators could be purchased anywhere.

Shields would drive a worm into a frenzy. Always. After thumpers attracted it to the remains of the qanat, the hidden shield generators would goad the creature into the Arrakeen basin. Someone had meant to create havoc here.

He knew why the men were so quick to conclude that Bronso was to blame. Alia had already announced her suspicions, and the Ixian’s guilt would be proven to
her
satisfaction, one way or another.

I see darkness everywhere, but also the tiniest pinpoint of light marking the hopes of mankind.

—
Conversations with Muad’Dib
by the
PRINCESS IRULAN

I
nside the Citadel’s vaulted exhibition arena, Lady Jessica sat on a hard stonewood bench between Alia and Irulan, watching a private performance of barefoot Jervish Updancers. They moved in a lissome blur, dressed in the blue and gold costumes of their remote planet.