Sisterhood of Dune (24 page)

As Vor entered the Emperor’s personal office, he noted the gilded desk and tables, the priceless paintings on the walls, the ornately woven curtains tied back with gold braids. He remembered his years of fighting in the old League of Nobles; he had been a hero to the people and could easily have crowned himself the first Emperor after the Battle of Corrin. Back then, Faykan Butler had been afraid of Vor’s popularity, not understanding that Vor never had imperial ambitions. He had been paid off and sent away … which was exactly what Vor wanted.

Now, summoned by Roderick and Salvador Corrino, he could guess that they wanted the same thing. And he would make them pay dearly—again.

The three men sat at a whorled elaccawood table, and Vor opened the discussion by talking about the dark practice of slavery on the fringe worlds, as well as the cruel men who had recently struck Kepler. “Perhaps it’s time for me to lead a different crusade.” Vor let the anger bubble in his voice, making sure they knew he could cause plenty of trouble if he wished. “Didn’t the Jihad teach us that human beings should not be treated in such a way?”

“Slavery is still an important part of the economy out in the frontier,” Roderick observed.

“Then frontier planets need to be protected from the slavers.”

At the head of the table, Salvador looked unsettled. “There are so many planets, how can we watch them all?”

Vor narrowed his eyes. “You can start by watching Kepler. Protect
my
world.” Leaning forward, forcing himself to remain calm, Vor described the day that many of his people had been taken; he submitted a full roster of their names, as well as his bill of sale to prove that he had purchased them from Poritrin. “I freed them this time, but that doesn’t solve the problem. More slavers will prey on my world—and even if they don’t strike my valley again, they will go to one of the other settled areas. You must not allow that to happen, Sire.”

Roderick’s expression was hard. “We hear your passion, Vorian Atreides, but in an Imperium burdened with crises, a few unruly slavers on minimally populated planets are not our predominant concern.”

“If I chose to rally the people, I could make it a predominant concern,” Vor said.

Salvador’s anger flared, but Roderick remained calm. “Perhaps you could use your celebrity to accomplish that—and perhaps we can come to some
reasonable
accommodation. What, precisely, would you like us to do about your situation?”

“You can’t ask us to outlaw slavery entirely!” Salvador blurted out.

“I could ask for that, but it would not be practical.” His gaze shifted to the Prince. “What can you do in exchange for my silence, you mean?” Vor paused, and provided the answer. “Simple enough. Issue an Imperial decree announcing that Kepler is off-limits to slavers, then give me a dozen or so warships to discourage anyone who doesn’t listen.”

Salvador rocked back as if he had been slapped. “One doesn’t speak to the Emperor in such a manner. It is customary to make requests, not demands.”

Vor found that humorous. “I knew your great-great grandfather. I fought at his side, and his son’s, and his grandson’s—long before you called yourselves Corrinos and long before the Imperium existed at all.” He leaned across the table. “Considering the fact that my family was kidnapped and sold into slavery, you will forgive me for skipping a few niceties. I came here to request your help, but I can just as easily call upon the people. You saw their reaction at the parade. They would rally around a living legend. They’ve seen statues with my face, and coins imprinted with my likeness—just like an Emperor. But I’m sure you would rather they cheered for you than for me.”

While Salvador reddened, Roderick made a calming gesture to his brother, then said, “Our Imperium is fragile enough as it is—the CET riots, the Butlerians, so many powerful interests pulling us in all directions.” He spoke as if his words were written on fine parchment even before he uttered them. “We shall not tolerate you creating more unnecessary turmoil. Our people must think of the future, not be reminded of the bloody past.”

Salvador’s voice was darker. “Have you come to set yourself up as the next Emperor? As the people shout out?”

Vorian gave a cold laugh. “I left such personal aspirations behind long ago, and do not intend to revisit them. I have retired and want to be left alone. As I come before you, Sire, I swear my allegiance to you, and swear that I have no interest in taking any role in government or in appearing before the full Landsraad.” His gray eyes hardened. “But I do want my family and planet protected. Keep my people safe and you have nothing to worry about. I will slip back into obscurity. You’ll never see me again.” Vor looked away. “Frankly, I’d rather have it that way, too. I just want to go home and be left in peace.”

“Unfortunately,” Roderick said, “the people know you are alive now. They will come to you at Kepler, beg you, pester you, ask you to come to the aid of the Imperium by taking up the mantle of a legend. How long will you be able to resist their demands for you to return to public life?”

“As long as necessary.”

Vorian understood that Salvador would feel threatened, would never be the center of attention when the great war hero was present. Since the current Emperor was not even the legitimate child of Emperor Jules Corrino, the dynasty was already weakened. Vor could take over the Imperium, if he wanted it. But he didn’t.

“I give you my word I will remain on Kepler with my family. You need never see me on Salusa again.”

Salvador remained silent, considering the offer. Roderick said, “The solution isn’t quite that simple, Supreme Bashar. You have stepped back into the limelight. The people
know
you are still alive after they’ve assumed you to be long dead. You cannot stay on Kepler. You have to vanish again.”

“I prefer to keep a low profile anyway. I’ll change my name if I must.”

Roderick shook his head. “You won’t be able to stay hidden on Kepler. People know you too well there.” His face was hard. “This is one guarantee we will require of you as a condition of our help. Leave the planet and Kepler will never need to worry about the threat of slavers again. We’ll issue a decree of Imperial protection and provide a few warships in orbit to keep slaver ships away, as you requested. Imperial troops will operate the guard ships initially, but the vessels will eventually be turned over to the control of the local Kepler government. Under this arrangement your people will be safe, your family and friends—but
you
must leave, go to some other planet.”

“Vanish back into history, where you belong!” Salvador interjected.

Vor swallowed, but could taste only dust. Leave Kepler? Leave Mariella, their children, and grandchildren? He had been happy there for decades, watching the babies grow up to become parents and his wife grow old.… while he had not aged a day.

But he also remembered the lumbering slaver ships, how they had so easily stunned the entire village, whisking away all the captives they wanted and killing a dozen others. He had promised he would find a way to keep them safe.…

“My solution repays the Corrino debt of honor, protects your people, saves a whole world,” Roderick said. “Just move on and quietly vanish again for the rest of your life, however long that may be.”

Before Vor could answer, the Emperor cut in. “That’s our offer. Take it or leave it.”

Unable to forget the burning fields and buildings on Kepler, or the crowded, stinking slave markets of Poritrin, Vor understood the reality. It was time for him to turn the page and begin the next chapter in his long life.

When he agreed, he saw the Emperor breathe an unmistakable sigh of relief.

On my own planet, I make my own rules. And I have many planets.

—
JOSEF VENPORT
, VenHold internal memo

With a private space fleet at his command and dedicated Navigators to guide him safely through foldspace, Josef Venport could travel wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. His wife, Cioba, could easily handle the intricate management activities back on Kolhar, while he went off to deal with other important business. Some of his destinations were unknown to anyone else in the Landsraad League, planetary coordinates held only in the grossly expanded minds of the Navigators. The galaxy was a vast place, and even something as large as a solar system could easily be overlooked.

Many isolated colonies and outposts had been established, and forgotten, during the millennium of thinking-machine rule; Emperor Salvador—and especially the barbarian fanatics—did not need to know about them. The sanctuary planet of Tupile was one such world, the hiding place to some of the Imperium’s most-wanted fugitives (after they paid exorbitant fees to VenHold). Josef didn’t care much about the people who hid there; it was simply a business transaction.

Dr. Zhoma had come through for him with the genetic samples, as he’d known she would. The Suk School had no other choice, and her little misdeed wasn’t, after all, so much to ask.

His own particular interest at the moment was the unpleasant planet Denali, a small, hot world with a thick and poisonous atmosphere, where no human could survive except inside sturdy colony modules. Josef had made a point of establishing his own private outpost in a solar system that no scout would ever notice, on a world where the Butlerians would never discover the research projects funded by Venport Holdings.

A personal Navigator flew him aboard a small spacefolder to the Denali system, after which Josef personally guided the shuttle through the orange-gray clouds that denoted sulfur and chlorine gases. He landed in the paved clearing next to the cluster of garishly lit metal domes, the laboratory modules and living spaces for his scientists.

Josef looked through the cockpit windows into the corrosive murk as the connecting airlock sealed his shuttle to the docking module. Outside, he could see a few discarded skeletal forms of cymek walkers, hulking machine bodies that had once held the brains of near-immortal men and women. Long ago, this harsh planet had been a cymek outpost, and the debris of their mechanical bodies lay strewn about, dumped into a scrap heap for spare parts.
Research materials.
Just one of many projects here on Denali.

Though he visited this secret facility only rarely, he transmitted strict orders that the teams were not to interrupt their work just to greet him with frivolous fanfare. Josef did not want to disturb the individual scientists; there was too much at stake.

As he entered the complex, he drew a breath and caught a sharp whiff of brimstone and harsh chlorine, trace contaminants from the outside air that scrubbers could not remove. Josef supposed his research teams no longer even noticed the odors.

With small hands knotted in front of him, Administrator Noffe greeted Josef. Noffe was a hairless Tlulaxa scientist, the side of his face marred by three startlingly white blotches. Noffe had never explained where the marks had come from, but Josef imagined some kind of laboratory accident, a splashed bleaching chemical that caused permanent damage. VenHold hadn’t hired Noffe to be pretty anyway, but to be brilliant.

The Tlulaxa chief of research always sounded breathless. “Even if we had ten times as many facilities and a hundred times as many researchers, Directeur Venport, it would take more than a lifetime just to recreate the progress that’s been lost since the end of the Jihad.” It was a sobering thought.

Though he was an advocate of progress, Josef was not blind to the dangers raised by some of the research; hence, the other reason for the planet’s isolation. Each lab module had a rigorous quarantine system, protective walls, and self-contained fail-safe circuits so that if an experimental plague were to escape or a computer subroutine were to achieve aggressive sentience, the entire module could be isolated and, if necessary, annihilated.

Noffe had been a well-known researcher back on Thalim, where he had dedicated himself to cloning and genetics investigations, determined to create good works to erase the blotch of shame on his race’s history. But the Butlerian mobs had not liked that. They had come to the Tlulax system, conquered the planet, demolished the genetic and cloning laboratories (which they didn’t understand), and imposed harsh restrictions on all Tlulaxa scientists. Under a new draconian rule, they set up a religious board whose approval was required to conduct even the most basic laboratory tests. Noffe spoke out against the injustice, complaining that the zealots didn’t understand how they were harming humanity. And so they arrested and convicted him.

But Josef Venport had recognized the scientist’s potential and arranged for Noffe’s escape, whisking him to Denali and appointing him administrator, where he had been quite content and productive for several years now. Noffe took a cold pleasure in overseeing avenues of investigation that would make the barbarians squirm and gnash their teeth.

Josef carried a small sealed case of biological samples as he followed the small man into the adjoining module. “I have a new project for you, Administrator. Something close to my heart.”

“I’m always open to new ideas. But first let me show you what we’ve accomplished since my last report.” Noffe led him on a cursory inspection of the numerous projects underway at Denali. He was quite proud to guide Josef into a room filled with tanks that held exposed human brains, some swollen and mutated, others shriveled. “The brains of failed Navigators are particularly interesting and responsive,” Noffe said. “We’ve even made preliminary contact with some of the subjects in the preservation canisters.”

Josef nodded. “Excellent work. I’m sure they must be proud to provide such a service, after failing to become Navigators.”

“We learn from failures as well as successes, Directeur.”

Back on Kolhar, Norma Cenva churned through volunteers, expanding and enhancing their minds to make them sophisticated Navigators—but many of the candidates did not survive the transformation, their bodies collapsing, their skulls unable to sustain the physical growth of gray matter. Since the mutated failures would die anyway, Josef dispatched the subjects to Denali so that Noffe’s researchers could perform their experiments. It was a fundamental first step in understanding the remarkable changes undergone by a Navigator; someday, it might be possible to reproduce those mental skills without requiring such extreme bodily changes.