The Winds of Dune (63 page)

At the sietch, slipping away from the other pilgrims to gather the necessary items, Jessica altered her appearance to that of an ordinary village woman in a stillsuit and gray robe. When she departed an hour later,
wearing yet another identity as a government inspector of weather stations, she journeyed aboard an industrial transport that flew high above the weather patterns, covering great distances to reach new terraforming stations built in a bustling base near the southern pole. From there, after assuming the identity of a man in loose desert garb, she piloted a small, unmarked ornithopter herself out into the deep Tanzerouft, following the location coordinates that Bronso had secretly provided.

“I need your help—for my mother’s sake,” Bronso had said.

In her small craft, she circled over a wide expanse of whiteness, a salt flat that hinted of ancient seas on this arid planet. At the eastern perimeter of the flat, in a sheltered area of rocks, she found what she was looking for: the wreck of a spice factory amid veiny orange sands. The wind picked up, making the landing difficult, but she managed it anyway, after which she locked down the struts and stilled the vibration of the articulated wings. Several small dust devils whipped around the wreckage of the spice factory, circling, gaining strength and then fading. Little storms . . .
ghibli,
the Fremen called them.

As she stepped out, a tired-looking man emerged wearing a scuffed old uniform and carrying several weapons. He looked like a smuggler, and wore a face mask, fitted in the Fremen fashion. The man stood silently, waiting for her to come to him. As she approached, Jessica became more certain of his identity, and for a long moment the two just looked at each other, before she moved forward to embrace Bronso. “It has been so many years!”

“With so many events, my Lady. I would never have imagined life might bring me to this.” His eyes were sharp, as he twisted the fire jewel ring on his finger. “But I finally have good news. Come, I have to show you.”

With a surprising spring in his step, Bronso led her inside the old spice factory and down a plazcrete stairway into an underground redoubt. She heard the wind whistling through the wreck above, the scour of sand like hissing whispers against the hull. “Paul had this place dug as a bolt-hole with barrier walls to keep worms out, and to prevent sounds from escaping,” Bronso said.

Jessica had heard that her son had secure locations such as this one on various worlds, places where he and his family could go if necessary—but she hadn’t known where any of the safe havens were.

He turned to her with a smile. “It was the perfect place for us to hide.”

“Us?”

Bronso led her into an austere metal-walled chamber with mauve chairs arranged around a central metal table that once must have been a mess area for a spice crew. Holo photos shifted on the walls, a succession of desert scenes.

Tessia sat there, prim and motionless.

Jessica drew in a quick breath, and Bronso’s mother raised her head to smile. “My son helped me escape from the Bene Gesserit. I knew he would come, eventually. I waited for him—and the Sisters never did understand how I defeated their guilt-casting.”

With real joy, Jessica moved forward to embrace her friend. “Tessia, I’m so glad to see you safe!” She looked at Bronso. “How did you manage it?”

“I had help . . . the way I’ve managed everything so far.” He sat down heavily in one of the mauve chairs next to his mother. “But she’s not safe with me. You know the dangers I face, and I can’t keep doing my work if I have to worry about her. That’s why I called you here. Can you take her, find a home for her on Caladan? When I arrived at the Carthag Spaceport, I ran a scan on my mother, and found a Bene Gesserit tracking device implanted in her neck. I disabled it electronically there, and destroyed it later. Even so, the Sisterhood may know that Tessia is on Dune. There could be danger for her. I need your help.”

Jessica weighed the risks, the consequences. She had come to loathe the Sisterhood and its unrelenting schemes, the way they sent tentacles everywhere. And Alia hated anyone connected to Bronso. This would not be simple . . . But honor—Atreides honor—allowed her only one answer. “Of course I’ll do it. I can arrange for secret passage back to Caladan.”

Tessia sounded wistful. “Caladan . . . I’d rather go to my own home.”

Bronso’s words were clipped. “Caladan is a far better choice. Ix isn’t safe anymore, and the Sisterhood might go looking for you there.”

“Yes, I liked Caladan. Rhombur and I were happy there. . . .”

Jessica immediately saw practical problems, even though she could not turn down the request. “She can’t be seen with me, because Alia will know you and I have been in touch. But I can keep your mother hidden
for a few days, then arrange for her to travel to Caladan under an assumed name. The Bene Gesserits must never know where she is, and neither must my daughter.”

Tessia smiled at both of them.

A few tears of relief ran down Bronso cheeks, but he wiped them away. “I can’t thank you enough. Caladan is the perfect place for her.”

“We’ll have to be very careful, Bronso. Ultimately, her identity could leak out, and we don’t want to bring down the wrath of Alia—or the Bene Gesserits—on Caladan and its people. That is my priority, as Duchess. But for a while Caladan will be safe, under conditions of utmost secrecy, until we can find a long-term home for her. Give me a week to make the proper arrangements.” Perhaps Gurney could help; he was due to return with Duncan in the next day or so, and he could surely find a way to slip Tessia away.

“I won’t rest easily until I know for sure that my mother is safe. Take her with you, but let me know when everything has been taken care of.” He told her of an identity he would assume for himself and a secure place in a slum in the city of Carthag. “That is how you can reach me. And I always know where you are. Meet me in a week? By then, we will have other matters to discuss.”

Tessia had nothing to pack or carry. Jessica was already considering where she could hide the woman in Arrakeen for a few days. After Bronso hugged both of them one last time, whispering a long and heartfelt goodbye into his mother’s ear, Jessica led Tessia to the exit of the wrecked spice factory, and the copper-haired man bade them farewell. He looked as if a great burden had been lifted from him.

“Please be careful, Bronso,” Jessica said.

“I always am.”

As night began to fall out in the desert, the two women slipped away, crossed the patch of spice sand, and boarded the ornithopter. Jessica powered up the engines and lifted off.

A Fremen stood on a dune in the distance, watching through oil-lens binoculars. A veteran Fedaykin in a weathered stillsuit, Akkim had been studying sandworm migrations, one of the many scientific projects
sponsored by Muad’Dib’s School of Planetology. He was not certain how much longer this particular project would last, because it involved placing electronic tracking devices on the great worms of the deep desert—and the Qizarate criticized the practice, saying it tampered with the sacred domain of Shai-Hulud. However, Kynes-the-Umma—the father of terraforming Dune—had been a scientist and highly admired, even revered among the tribes.

Akkim didn’t care about the politics, or the religious implications, which he considered to be minimal. Mostly, he just liked an excuse to ride the great worms and spend extended periods of time in the open desert. He was one of the best wormriders on all of Dune, the winner of numerous races and other competitions at grand convocations, whenever the members of many tribes gathered.

For nearly a month, he’d been summoning the monsters with thumpers, riding them, and implanting electronic tracking devices between their armored segments. One worm after another. He wondered how many there were, and was sure that his fellow students in the School of Planetology could use his data to come up with an estimate.

A short while ago, Akkim had been afoot on the sands, heading toward a wrecked and apparently abandoned spice factory he had spotted on his travels. He walked desert fashion, taking care not to cause vibrations that might draw a worm. His mapping experience told him that the wreckage had once been atop a fortified shelter for the Emperor Muad’Dib, and thus he considered it a sacred—and secret—site. He intended to install a signal device there, so that his comrades could confirm its geographic location. Dunes and spice sands in the Tanzerouft had a curious way of shifting, of moving over time as if they were living creatures, but this site was in a stable area, sheltered among the rocks.

While scrambling up a line of exposed rock that lay like the vertebrae of an enormous skeleton across the desert, he had gotten a view of the factory wreckage which lay like a beached beast up on the tumble of boulders and outcroppings, far from the open sands. That was how it had survived out here in the open for so long.

He was surprised to see three people emerging from the decaying mound of machinery—two women and a man. An ornithopter had landed nearby on the hardpan, and the women boarded it, surrounded by small whirlwinds of dust, while the man stayed behind in the abandoned
spice factory. Akkim hurried to get out his binoculars, but the oil lenses needed adjustment, and by the time he got them set, the aircraft was already airborne and flying away in a blur of articulated wings. With his spotter imager feature on the binoculars, he took pictures of the craft, though there were no identification markings.

Smugglers
, he thought.

Pointing the oil lenses at the spice factory, he studied the man watching the ’thopter leave. He wore what looked like an old smuggler uniform, and his face was partially concealed by a stillsuit mask. Using the binoculars, Akkim captured more images to add to his report. He had encountered plenty of spice smugglers out in the wilderness, hard but industrious men who refused to pay the Imperial tariffs.

Akkim took care not to be seen, feeling some trepidation. There were likely to be more smugglers inside the bolt-hole, probably using it as a base, and they would be armed, while he was just a lone researcher. Akkim did not move. Presently, the redheaded smuggler went back inside.

The Fremen waited. Just after sunset, he crept around the wreckage site, and found another ’thopter, gray and unmarked like the other one, well camouflaged. The School of Planetology did not care about the movements of smugglers, but Regent Alia would. He placed one of his spare worm-tracking devices on the undercarriage of the craft, and concealed another signal unit on the derelict spice factory.
Someone
would surely be interested.

In the falling darkness, Akkim sprinted across a rock surface, down onto the flat, and back up onto more rocks, climbing higher until he passed over a low ridge and dropped down into the open desert beyond. Safely out of view, he activated a thumper he had planted that afternoon and waited, listening to its rhythmic pounding noise.

Presently, he saw an undulating, subterranean motion out on the dunes, the approach of a great worm. With the ease of a lifetime of practice, Akkim mounted the beast, dug in his maker hooks, and set them to guide the monster. He would ride all night and another day to reach Arrakeen, taking his report back to the School.

Ultimately, trust is a matter of perception and detection, of small and large things, parts that add up to a whole. In deciding whether or not to trust, judgment is usually visceral and rarely based on strict evidence
.

—
DUKE LETO ATREIDES