Dune: House Atreides (72 page)

Klaxons sounded. Panicky conversation spat out of the comsystem like shrapnel from a maula pistol. Frantic voices in Imperial Galach and battle code sounds spilled over from the crowded comlinks inside the Heighliner: "The Atreides have declared war on the Tleilaxu! Weapons fired!"

Smug about his successful attack, Rabban shouted to the crew, "Activate our frigate's weapons array. Make sure no one fires on us -- those Atreides are ruthless, you know." He chuckled.

Cargo-handling equipment gripped the small craft, then lowered it into a space between false bulkheads. Panels snicked shut over the opening, which even Guild scanners could not detect. Of course no one would search for the craft anyway, since there was no such thing as an invisible ship.

"Defend yourselves!" another pilot shouted over the comsystem.

A Tleilaxu whine ensued. "We give notice that we intend to fire back. We are well within our rights. No provocation . . . blatant disregard for Guild rules."

Another voice, coarse and deep: "But the Atreides frigate shows no weapons.

Maybe they were not the aggressors."

"A trick!" the Tleilaxu screeched. "One of our ships is destroyed, another severely damaged. Can you not see with your own eyes? House Atreides must pay."

Perfect, Rabban thought, admiring his uncle's plan. From this crux point, several events could occur, and the plan would still work. Duke Leto was known to be impetuous, and everyone now believed he had committed a heinous and cowardly act. With any luck, his ship would be destroyed in a retaliatory attack, and the Atreides name would go down in infamy for Leto's treacherous deed.

Or this could just be the beginning of along and bloody feud between House Atreides and the Tleilaxu.

In either case, Leto would never be able to untangle himself.

ON THE COMMAND bridge of the Atreides frigate, Duke Leto struggled to calm himself. Because he knew his ship had not fired, it took him some seconds even to understand the accusations being shouted at him.

"The shots came from very nearby, my Duke," Hawat said, "from right under our bow."

"So that was no accident?" Leto said, as a dismal feeling came over him. The destroyed Tleilaxu ship still glowed orange, while the pilot of the other vessel continued to scream at him.

"Vermilion hells! Somebody actually fired on the Bene Tleilax," Rhombur said, peering out the armor-plaz porthole. "And it's about time, if you ask me."

Leto heard the cacophony of radio traffic, including the outraged Tleilaxu distress calls. At first he wondered if he should offer assistance to the damaged ships. Then the Tleilaxu pilot started howling the Atreides name and demanding his blood.

He noted the burned-out hull of the destroyed Tleilaxu craft -- and saw the guns on its wounded companion swiveling toward him. "Thufir! What's he doing?"

The open comlink blared a furious debate between the Tleilaxu and those who refused to believe in Atreides culpability. Increasingly, voices supported the Tleilaxu position. Some claimed to have seen what happened, claimed to have witnessed the Atreides ship firing upon the Tleilaxu. A dangerous momentum was building.

"Vermilion hells, they think you did it, Leto!" Rhombur said.

Hawat had already dashed to the defensive panel. "The Tleilaxu have powered up weapons for a counterstrike against you, my Duke."

Leto ran for the comsystem and threw open a channel. In only a few seconds his thoughts accelerated and compressed in a manner that astonished him, for he was not a Mentat capable of advanced reasoning powers. It was like dream-compression, he realized . . . or the incredible array of visions that reportedly flashed across a person's mind when faced with imminent death.

That's a grim thought. He had to see a way out of this.

"Attention!" he shouted into the voice pickup. "This is Duke Leto Atreides.

We did not fire upon the Tleilaxu ships. I deny all accusations."

He knew they would not believe him, would not cool down soon enough to avoid an eruption of open hostilities that could result in a full-scale war. And in a flash he knew what else he had to do.

Faces from his past scrolled across his mind, and he locked on to a memory of his paternal grandfather Kean Atreides gazing at him with expectation, his face a crease-map of his life experiences. Gentle gray eyes like his own held a disarming strength that his enemies often overlooked, to their great peril.

If only I can be as strong as my ancestors . . . .

"Do not fire," he said, addressing the Tleilaxu pilot and hoping all the other captains would listen.

Another image took shape in his mind: his father, the Old Duke, with green eyes and the same expression, but on a face that was Leto's age now, in his teens.

In a microflash, more images appeared: his Richesian uncles, aunts, and cousins, the loyal servants, domestic, governmental, and military. All of them carried the same blank expression, as if they were one multiplexed organism, studying him from different perspectives, waiting to make a judgment about him.

He saw no love, approval, or disrespect in their faces -- just a nothingness, as if he had truly committed a heinous act and no longer existed.

The sneering face of his mother appeared, faded.

Don't trust anyone, he thought.

A feeling of despondency settled over Leto, followed by extreme, bitter loneliness. Deep inside himself, in a lifeless and bleak place, Leto saw his own emotionless gray eyes, staring back at himself. It was cold here, and he shivered.

"Leadership is a lonely task."

Would the Atreides lineage stop here with him at this nexus-moment, or would he father children whose voices would be added to those of all the Atreides since the days of the ancient Greeks? He listened for his children in the cacophony, but did not sense their presence.

The accusing eyes did not waver.

Leto spoke the words to himself. Government is a protective partnership; the people are in your care, to thrive or die based upon your decisions.

The images and sounds faded, and his mind became a quiet, dark place.

Barely a second had passed in his tension-spawned mental journey, and Leto knew exactly what he had to do, regardless of the consequences.

"Activate shields!" he shouted.

PEERING AT AN observation screen in the belly of the seemingly innocent Harkonnen frigate, Rabban was surprised by what he saw. He raced up from one deck to the next, until finally he stood red-faced and puffing in front of his uncle. Before the indignant but timid Tleilaxu pilot could open fire, a shield began to shimmer around the Atreides ship!

But shields were forbidden by Guild transport contract, because they shattered a Navigator's trance and disrupted the foldspace field. The Heighliner's enormous Holtzman generators would not function properly with the interference. Rabban and the Baron both cursed.

The Heighliner shuddered around them as it plunged out of foldspace.

I N THE NAVIGATION chamber high atop the cargo enclosure, the veteran Navigator felt his trance crumble. His brain waves diverged and circled back into themselves, spinning and twisting out of control.

The Holtzman engines groaned, and foldspace rippled around them, losing stability. Something was wrong with the ship. The Navigator spun in his tank of melange. His webbed feet and hands flailed, and he sensed darkness ahead.

The massive ship veered off course, hurled back into the real universe.

WHILE RHOMBUR WAS thrown to the carpeted deck of the frigate in a tumble of purple-and-copper cloth, Leto grabbed a bulkhead rail to keep his balance. He uttered a silent prayer. He and his valiant crew could only ride this out and hope the Heighliner didn't emerge inside a sun.

Like a tree beside Leto, Thufir Hawat somehow maintained his balance by sheer force of will. The Mentat teacher stood in a trance sorting through veiled regions of logic and analysis. Leto wasn't certain how such projections could benefit them now. Perhaps the question -- the odds of disaster following shield activation inside a Heighliner -- was so complex that it required layers and layers of mentation.

"Prime projection," Hawat announced, at long last. He licked his cranberry-colored lips with a tongue of matching hue. "Thrown out of foldspace at random, odds of encountering a celestial body are calculated at one in . . ."

The frigate jerked, and something thudded belowdecks. Hawat's words were drowned out in the commotion, and he slipped back into the secret realm of his Mentat trance.

Rhombur stumbled to his feet, tugging an earclamp headset in place over his tousled blond hair. "Activate shields on a moving Heighliner? That's as crazy as, uh, someone firing on the Tleilaxu in the first place." With wide eyes he looked at his friend. "This must be a day for crazy events."

Leto leaned over a bank of instruments, made a number of adjustments. "I had no choice," he said. "I see it now. Someone is trying to make it look like we attacked the Tleilaxu -- an incident that could spark a major war among the factions of the Landsraad. I can envision all the old feuds coming into play, and battle lines being drawn here on the Heighliner." He wiped his brow, smearing sweat away. The intuition had come from his gut level, like something a Mentat might have realized. "I had to stop everything now, Rhombur, before it escalated."

The Heighliner's erratic motion finally ceased. The background noise quieted.

Hawat finally snapped out of his trance. "You are right, my Duke. Almost every House has a representative ship aboard this Heighliner, en route to the Emperor's coronation and wedding. The battle lines drawn here would extend out into the Imperium, with war councils called and planets and armies aligning themselves on one side or another. Inevitably more factions would arise, too, like the branches of a jacaranda tree. Since the death of Elrood, alliances are already shifting as Houses look for new opportunities."

Leto's face flushed hot; his heart jackhammered. "There are powder kegs all over the Imperium, and one of them is right here within this cargo hold. I'd rather see everyone on this Heighliner die -- because it would be nothing compared to the alternative. Conflagrations in every corner of the universe.

Billions of deaths."

"We've been set up?" Rhombur asked.

"If war breaks out here, no one will care whether or not I really fired. We've got to stop this cold, and then take the time to sort out the real answers."

Leto opened a comlink and spoke into it, his voice brisk and commanding. "This is Duke Leto Atreides calling Guild Navigator. Respond, please."

The line crackled, and an undulating voice came back, ponderous and distorted, as if the Navigator could not recall how to converse with mere humans. "All of us could have been killed, Atreides." The way he pronounced the House name --A-tray-a-dees -- brought to Leto's mind the word "traitor." "We are in unknown sector. Foldspace gone. Shields negate navigation trance. Shut down Atreides shields immediately."

"Respectfully, I must refuse," Leto said.

Across the comsystem he could hear other messages being shouted to the navigation chamber -- accusations and demands from the ships aboard. Muffled, angry tones.

The Navigator spoke again. "Atreides must shut off shields. Obey Guild laws and regulations."

"Refused." Leto stood firm, but his skin had gone pale and cold, and he knew his expression just barely concealed his terror. "I don't think you can get us out of here as long as my shields are on, so we stay here, wherever we are, until you accede to my . . . request."

"After destroying a Bene Tleilax ship and activating your shields, you are in no position to make any requests!" cried an accented voice, a Tleilaxu.

"Impertinent, Atreides." It was the mutated Navigator's rumbling, underwater-sounding voice.

More muffled communications ensued, which the Navigator abruptly silenced.

"State . . . request . . . Atreides."

Pausing, Leto met the inquiring but respectful gazes of his friends, then spoke into the comsystem. "First, we assure you we did not fire upon the Tleilaxu, and we intend to prove it. If we lower our shields, the Guild must guarantee the safety of my ship and crew, and transfer jurisdiction of this matter to the Landsraad."

"The Landsraad? This ship is under Spacing Guild jurisdiction."

"You are bound by honor," Leto said, "as are the members of the Landsraad, as am I. There is in the Landsraad a legal procedure known as Trial by Forfeiture."

"My Lord!" Hawat protested. "You can't mean to sacrifice House Atreides, all the centuries of noble tradition --"

Leto shut off the voice pickup. Placing a hand on the warrior Mentat's shoulder, he said, "If billions have to die for us to keep our fief, then Caladan isn't worth the price." Thufir lowered his gaze in acquiescence.

"Besides, we know we did not do this -- a Mentat of your stature shouldn't have much difficulty proving that."

Reactivating the comlink, Leto said, "I will submit myself to Trial by Forfeiture, but all hostilities must cease immediately. There must be no retaliation, or I will refuse to deactivate my shields, and this Heighliner will remain here, nowhere."

Leto thought of bluffing, threatening to fire lasguns at his own shields to cause the dreadful atomic interaction that would leave the gigantic Heighliner nothing but bits of molten flotsam. Instead, he tried to be reasonable. "What is the point in further argument? I have surrendered, and will submit myself to the Landsraad on Kaitain for a Trial by Forfeiture. I am merely trying to prevent a full-scale war over a mistaken assumption. We did not commit this crime. We are prepared to face the accusations and the consequences if we are found guilty."

The line went dead, then crackled back on. "Spacing Guild agrees to conditions.

I guarantee safety of ship and crew."

"Know this, then," Leto said. "Under the rules of Trial by Forfeiture, I, Duke Leto Atreides, intend to give up all legal rights to my fief and will place myself at the mercy of the tribunal. No other member of my House may be subjected to arrest or to any legal proceeding. Do you acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Landsraad in this matter?"