Princess of Dune, page 27
Zenha gave a grim nod, shifting his expectations. “We all knew it was an impossible challenge. Likely a suicide mission.”
“I kept my mouth shut, even when they tried their worst,” she insisted, then let out a scoffing laugh. “I’ve been through enough pain on Salusa that I could withstand whatever they threw at me. I don’t know how well the others fared.”
Zenha’s thoughts became darker. “None of you had any information that I didn’t want the Emperor to learn. I don’t care if he knows we’re coming for him.” She had known to travel to Otak to find them, but even if the interrogators extracted that information, Zenha already planned to take this task force away on the next Heighliner. They would be gone before the Imperials could track them down.
“Why did the Emperor leave the palace? That changes our plans.”
A wide grin crossed Maldisi’s battered face. “Oh, we scared the hell out of him, sir, with all those attempts to kill him. His propaganda ministers frantically tried to cover up the news, embarrassed by the very idea that so many of us got close to him.” Her chuckle sounded like a wet rattle. The doctor bent over to check on her, but she brushed him away. “Shaddam has taken his Sardaukar, Count Fenring, and even your darling Princess Irulan and gone into hiding.” Her sarcasm was thick. “They’re all hunkered down on Arrakis. That’s why I was able to break away on Kaitain. All of them disorganized and incompetent! The Emperor left one of his other daughters behind as a figurehead.”
Frowning, Zenha sat on the bed next to her. Maldisi raised an injured hand, seemingly unconcerned that the torturers had torn off her nails, one by one. She mused at the mangled fingers. “Good thing I was never one to lacquer my nails.”
Zenha grimaced at her wounds, but knew the doctor’s regrowth pads would help her heal swiftly. “You’ll be back on duty for the next fight. The scars will give you character.” He was impressed with her, found beauty in her hardened features, her outgoing and determined personality.
“I already have plenty of character, sir.” She sat up straighter. “In another few days, the doctor will release me to return to combat training. Gotta get ready, sir. Do you have any ideas on how we can strike the Emperor on Arrakis?”
“Oh, we’re not going to Arrakis.” He smiled as the thoughts filled his head. Her debriefing had given him another option, a perfectly acceptable way to do an end run and accomplish his mission. It was as audacious as anything else he had done so far. “If the Emperor took his Sardaukar and a large entourage into hiding, then he left the Golden Lion Throne more vulnerable than it’s been in a long time. With the assassination attempts, he thinks he is our only target. But that is not my main goal at all. I wouldn’t think so small.”
Maldisi’s shadowed eyes lit up as he rose from the infirmary bed, ready to issue orders and send word across his Liberation Fleet. On the next Heighliner, he would dispatch an urgent call wherever his loyal ships had gone.
“We are going to use all our might to take the Imperial capital.”
The difference between schemes and dreams depends on the perspective of the participant.
—Old Earth saying
Though he wanted to know every detail about the ecology of Arrakis, Liet-Kynes turned a blind eye to other things. Especially now. He heard dangerous gossip, but when it concerned the outrageous plans of his daughter and stepson, he did not want to know. He refused to ask any details of their plans, because though his heart and passion belonged to the Fremen, he had also sworn a formal oath to serve the Imperium.
And he knew the Emperor had brought his Truthsayer to Arrakis. Better that Liet did not know.
He moved through Sietch Tabr now, noting the Fremen workers who churned spice substrates to make fabrics. Others in the tribe assembled equipment, repaired ornithopters, tended beehives. Chani and Liet-Chih had already been gone for days, but if asked, he could honestly say that those two often went on desert journeys, just exploring the wasteland. How could he know where they were?
He rubbed his temples, hung his head. Naïve and audacious, the band of restless youths couldn’t possibly harm the Emperor, and they would be fools to try. Surely they would realize the truth of it, once they blew off steam. Maybe his daughter would talk some sense into her companions. Chani was an intelligent and well-grounded young woman. She often managed to control her hotheaded brother.
Spice raids or the sabotage of Harkonnen equipment did not bother him, because the Baron and his ilk had inflicted enough damage here already—not just on the Fremen, but on the planet itself. Yet attempting to assassinate the Padishah Emperor was another matter entirely. It had to be just talk. Had to be.
Still, he was sick with dread and waited for news. Chani, Khouro, and the others had been gone for so long.…
* * *
AFTER WEEKS OF shadowing the old housekeeper as her apprentice, Chani had learned how to be invisible in the Residency. She achieved the optimal balance between when people noted her presence and when they simply paid no attention to her at all.
But she paid attention all the time—to every room, calendar event, meeting, and change of guard. She did not dare smuggle an imager or find some way to record the things she witnessed, but she kept clear pictures of everything in her mind. The importance of her mission sharpened her thoughts.
Four times now, she had accompanied household workers on errands into the city to purchase items from the bazaar or to deliver documents to city administration offices. Now she arranged to go on a household errand of her own, unaccompanied. This was her chance. She needed to be by herself for a prearranged meeting with her fellow conspirators.
Wearing her stillsuit and household garments, she hurried through the Arrakeen streets, pulling the hood down to shadow her face. Most people she passed also looked at their feet, rather than around them.
Chani made her way down a narrow backstreet to the unmarked tavern in a shaded cul-de-sac. The place was a well-known drinking establishment for spice crews and shipyard workers.
After steeling herself, she unsealed the corroded hatch and pulled it open to enter the dim, busy tavern. Though she was only fourteen, no one gave her a second glance. The noise inside was loud and droning, but furtive. People talked in low voices, complaining, expressing their misery, or just sitting in sullen weariness.
As soon as Chani entered, Khouro caught her eye. Chani hurried to the table he shared with Jamis and five others in dirty, patched uniforms from the silo farm. The men hunched their shoulders and pressed their heads close, as if whispering about some sort of romantic assignation. They clutched small drinks, milky gray or brightly colored liquids. The bar held dusty bottles of imported liquors, far too expensive for average crew workers. Most people drank raw spice beer; some just spent their water rations.
Khouro slid a glass over to her when she sat down. “We’ve been waiting, Chani.”
She furrowed her brow. “I needed to leave without drawing attention, and now I am here.”
Khouro tapped the glass he extended to her. “Specialty of the house. It’s water, but flavored with an offworld fruit.”
She frowned down at the glass and leaned closer to sniff. “Why would they do that?” She took a sip, rolled the tart flavor around on her tongue. The water seemed polluted.
“Because offworld dilettantes have so much water they find it dull and boring, so they try to create variety.”
Chani took another sip, refusing to waste it. Even with the bad taste, it was still water.
Jamis rubbed his shoulder against Khouro’s. “We work all day under the sun around the spice silos. Factory groundtrucks come in and deliver new loads from spice tankers. Other vehicles load shuttles and CHOAM ships for delivery to Guild Heighliners.” He ground his teeth together. “It’s miserable work.”
Her brother placed his elbows on the table and drank his spice beer. “But we have many crew workers, and they know many others, all of whom are connected to the desert societies of Dune.” He smiled at her. “And all hate the Harkonnens! We have allies here, and places to hide once we take action.”
“It is no surprise they hate the Harkonnens,” Chani said. “But what about the Emperor?”
“They understand the importance of what we propose,” Khouro said. “Cut off the head, and the rest of the serpent will wither. Now…” His eyes grew harder. “Tell us what you’ve learned.”
Chani took out a blank sheet of spice paper and used a stylus to sketch out a careful interior layout of the Residency: the floors, workers’ quarters, banquet halls, briefing rooms, offices, and noble living quarters. She talked while she drew, and used two more sheets of paper to detail other floors, especially the wing that housed the Emperor and his staff.
“Sardaukar guards fill the halls, and Count Fenring has spies throughout the Residency,” she said. “I know some items from the Emperor’s personal calendar, but his movements are kept closely guarded.”
“Can you slip into his quarters?” Jamis asked. “So we can kill him as he sleeps?”
Chani shook her head. “I’ve not gone into the Imperial quarters, never even got a glimpse of him or his daughter, the Princess Irulan. The doors are constantly monitored by guards. Shaddam has a satellite throne room where he conducts the business of the Imperium, and he never holds open court. Even Count Fenring rarely appears with him.”
“It sounds like the Emperor is a coward in hiding,” Khouro said.
Chani took another sip of the fruity water to contemplate this, then nodded. “That may be so. He seems concerned about assassination attempts.”
One of the other conspirators, Adamos, sucked in a breath. “Do you think he suspects what we’re planning?”
Khouro grimaced. “We haven’t done anything yet!”
Chani tapped the spice-paper sketches. “The Residency is well fortified. You may have a band of Fremen on the outside, but it would require a sizable army to take down the Emperor.”
Her brother sniffed. “Only if we did it as an outright frontal attack, but you said you work in the kitchens. Can you put something deadly in his food?”
She shook her head. “They test each dish with poison snoopers before putting anything in front of him, and everything he drinks, too.”
“Maybe put some ground glass in his meal,” Jamis suggested. “That would appear on no tester.”
Chani knew it was fruitless. “I’ve tried to think of a way. I watch every day, but I simply have no access to the Emperor. We may have to give up on our plan. It was a wild idea in the first place.”
“What if he goes on a procession through the streets? Or a spice field inspection?” Khouro asked. “Surely he travels to his other ships at the spaceport.”
“Maybe he goes to meet with Baron Harkonnen in Carthag,” Jamis added. “If we could get the Emperor, the Princess Royal, and the Baron all together—one large explosion!” He raised his hands and grinned with delight.
Chani snorted. “Yes, and maybe a sandworm will break through the Shield Wall, come to the Residency, and swallow them all up. You are fools.”
“We are ambitious,” Khouro replied with amused patience. “The possibilities are numerous. We must consider all of them.” He looked around at his companions. “Even our crysknives are a viable option, if we get close enough.”
“You have all the reconnaissance I can give you.” Chani looked down at her half-empty glass of water, then drank it all, because she would not waste it, then waited to finish a few last drops that had settled to the bottom of the glass. “I will deliver any ideas that occur to me, but your plan does not seem possible. It is doomed from the start.”
But Khouro and his companions refused to relent. “Our odds improve greatly if we are willing to give our lives for the cause—and I am!”
The others nodded, which did not surprise Chani. With a heavy heart, she rose from her chair and slipped out of the smelly drinking establishment, remembering all of Mapes’s advice on how to be invisible, unnoticed. As a Fremen, Chani already knew how to do that in desert regions, but here in the city it was different, and the shadout had been very helpful.
Even so, she felt many eyes on her as she opened the moisture-seal door and went back outside.
What works for one Emperor or Empress will not necessarily work for others. Each situation is different, and so is each ruler.
—PRINCESS IRULAN CORRINO, Perspectives on Leadership
Serving as figurehead in the Imperial Palace, Wensicia Corrino arrived in the throne room early in the morning, as she liked to do, giving her time to organize her thoughts and daily activities. She took her new role seriously, and right now she wanted to review her schedule.
Her father and his entourage had been gone for two weeks, and already her routine seemed familiar, comfortable … and right. She was pleased with what she had accomplished so far by invoking her position and her father’s name. Only nine times in the history of the Imperium had a woman served as the lone, powerful Empress. The thought made Wensicia smile.
For years, she had imagined herself as the Princess Royal, sitting at the Emperor’s side instead of Irulan. And whenever she looked over at the massive Golden Lion Throne, she could imagine so much more.
Even though Shaddam was gone from Kaitain, he remained the Padishah Emperor. Still, Wensicia took her proxy role seriously. She would not squander this opportunity, because as the third daughter, she had few chances to prove her skills and prepare. The entire court would be impressed with what she achieved.
She did not want to ruffle the feathers of the influential Chamberlain Ridondo or cause any muttering or scandal, so she did not take Irulan’s designated chair. Instead, Wensicia had a different throne brought in from the archive warehouse as her own ceremonial seat. Now, an elderly serving woman dusted off the temporary throne, which had been placed next to the slightly larger chair that Irulan used when she sat at court.
Wensicia dismissed the servant. “Enough. You’ve done a good job, and the people will notice.” The old woman bowed and retreated, beaming from the compliment. Wensicia knew her father would never have done that, and now the servant would remember her personal kindness.…
This ceremonial throne had been used by one of her ancestors, the Empress Bertl Corrino. It was not a pretentious seat of state, but rather quite ordinary, made of common stone, but it was solid and suited Wensicia’s purposes perfectly. She had allowed the blemishes and scuffs to remain on the front, a subtle message of humility.
After Zenha’s little rebellion was ended and the Emperor came back to Kaitain, Wensicia hoped she might accompany their father on some of his future military parades or inspections, especially if she did well here. Even more than Irulan—or even Shaddam himself—Wensicia had learned intricate details of the Imperial military, including attending classified briefings. She knew about the inner workings of the officer corps as well as standard recruits, even Sardaukar training routines on Salusa Secundus. She knew inner, highly compartmentalized secrets and backdoor access codes for Imperial warships. Content in the power and stability of his military, Shaddam had never bothered to learn esoteric details, relying on his upper-echelon officers—who were mostly fools. On that, Wensicia and Irulan agreed.…
As usual, Wensicia would hold scheduled audiences in the morning, but the day’s primary event would be her speech to the Imperial Court.
When the Emperor’s party had rushed off on such short notice, they’d left a large hole in the palace staff. In only a few weeks, Wensicia had shifted assignments and granted minor court positions to her own people. Because her father had taken so many courtiers abruptly away, there were numerous interim openings. She took advantage of that.
She had also been busy streamlining various defense projects that had grown bloated and inefficient from years of nepotism and neglect. She couldn’t blame all the malaise on her father, but during his reign, he had appointed too many showpiece officers, granting ranks and command positions on a whim. Now, Wensicia doled out rewards of a different sort, to strengthen what remained of the rank structure.
In the wake of the multiple assassination attempts, she needed increased protection wherever she was on Kaitain. No one could argue with that. As the Corrino proxy on the throne, Wensicia created her own new division of the Imperial Guard, an enhanced police force with a deep interrogation arm to replace the previous interrogators, whom she had executed for letting one of the main assassins escape!
She had been busy. Given her limited mandate from her father, much of it was a matter of negotiation.
For the public eye, Wensicia had taken it upon herself to be prominent and reassuring. Every citizen of the Imperium must see her appear daily in the throne room, to know that House Corrino had not abandoned the palace. Wensicia held regular audiences to keep the business of the Imperium going—and she considered it much more than a pro forma exercise.
On schedule, Chamberlain Ridondo entered the chamber with spidery movements, adhering to the busy schedule. The sallow-skinned man gave her a proper greeting as he placed a sheet of parchment on the ornate table to Wensicia’s right, then adjusted a ridulian crystal player next to it. “Your calendar of today’s events and duties, Royal Highness.”
He stepped back, and she appreciated the dignity and respect he showed her. “Will there be anything else?” The chamberlain had never seemed to notice Wensicia before, not until the Emperor and Irulan left.
“That will be all, thank you.”
Alone again, Wensicia studied her daily schedule, the noble dignitaries and businessmen who would appear before her. She wanted to make each meeting memorable and efficient.
Wensicia had already gotten herself onto various committees. At first, it had seemed like a triumph, but that work bogged down in administrative complexities, bureaucratic momentum, and apathy. Now, acting in her father’s stead, she made small but incontrovertible decisions, accomplishing things that the slow committees would never have gotten done.
