Navigators of Dune

69

Under the ruins of Corrin where he had made his new home, Vor awoke to the sound of screaming — many people in terrible agony. He was instantly alert. Had Valya Harkonnen come here with assassins?

The screams! As he bolted out of his sleeping chamber into a connecting tunnel, he experienced a bright flashback from the first century of the Jihad: There had been an explosion below decks during a space battle, and backwash fires had caused emergency bulkhead doors to seal the engine compartment. Vor and his fellow soldiers had tried unsuccessfully to free the trapped engineers, and they heard the screams of the men and women being roasted alive for ten of the longest minutes of his life.…

This sounded just as horrific.

His reflexes kicking in, Vor ran toward the screams with no thought for his own safety. He had survived countless challenges in his life, but merely surviving was not enough. Vorian Atreides had been programmed to help others.

In the dimly lit tunnels, numerous doorways led to sleeping compartments, and more of the ragtag scavengers began to emerge as he ran by. Vor didn’t answer their shouted questions, asking him what was going on, couldn’t take the time to reply. He just kept running toward the screams, his mind churning with his own questions. Had the Harkonnens launched a military attack on Corrin? Would they strike the entire settlement just to get at him?

But would Tula or Valya be so blatantly destructive? He didn’t think so. They would want to get me. Personally.

The screams continued outside, and it occurred to him that this might be a trap, designed to lure him out. He ignored the worry.

Ahead, a strange glow shimmered from where a stairway descended to the larger and deeper main tunnel. He peered down to see a river of silvery liquid gushing through the lower tunnel like flowing metal blood, a living substance that pulsed like a mindless amoeba … and frantic scavengers were caught in the powerful flow. Like drowning victims, they flailed their arms and yelled for help. Some wore protective suits, but most were vulnerable. The malicious quicksilver engulfed them. Even as they struggled to get away, the powerful flow seemed to fight back, pulling them under.

Choking on the thick, bitter tang in the air, Vor scrambled down the stairs to reach the trapped scavengers. Their resonance extraction operations had somehow broken down the flowmetal and left it unconstrained. Now it seemed to be on a mindless rampage.

A wiry woman in a protective suit floated toward him in the current, struggling to stay above the surface; her face was covered by a half-mask breather. Boxy equipment floated alongside her, a set of the resonance manipulators that Korla’s people used to extract flowmetal from the ruins. A deep mining team must have triggered this unexpected backlash, and Vor didn’t know how it would ever stop.

The desperate woman yelled something that was muffled by her mask. She reached out to Vor, and he grabbed hold of her gloved hand. Because she was coated with a film of flowmetal, his grip nearly slipped off, but he clenched tighter and used his other hand to grab her by the elbow. He hoisted her onto the stairway, where she shuddered, dripping silvery liquid and retching.

Another man fought against the thickening metallic flood, struggling to reach Vor. But a swell of the flowmetal reached up to engulf his head and sucked him under the shimmering, quivering surface. The man’s screams fell silent.

Two more scavengers were swept past in the flow, still struggling, followed by a dead woman floating facedown, all of them well beyond his reach. The flowmetal pulled the bodies along in a powerful current, lifted them up, and compressed around them like a tightening fist. The men cried out, but their voices were overwhelmed by the sound of cracking bones.

Heaving deep breaths on the precarious stairs, the woman Vor had rescued said, “We hit a big flowmetal vein, and our resonators started a cascade. It broke underground barricades and flooded out — much more than we could handle. Sometimes the damned stuff seems alive!”

Since this had once been the central city of the evermind Omnius, Vor realized that perhaps the flowmetal was alive, in an eerie, machine way. Two more bodies drifted past, already crushed by the flowmetal, their arms and legs twisted at unnatural angles.

The silvery, glowing river made a scraping, grinding noise as it surged through the tunnel like a force of nature, and in a matter of minutes it was past, leaving wreckage and corpses behind. The tunnel was empty now, except for oozing patches that clung to the walls and shining puddles on the floor. Vor felt great sadness that he had not been able to save more of the victims.

Beside him, the rescued woman shuddered with exhaustion and fear. Vor looked behind him to see other bedraggled people crowded at the top of the stairwell, just watching him. Korla stood with them, wearing her scuffed jumpsuit and flowmetal cape.

The rescued woman looked in fearful revulsion at the flowmetal staining her outfit, then shook her head. “Thank you. I’m Horaan Eshdi.”

“And I am Vorian Atreides.”

“Maybe you truly are him,” Korla boomed out. “The real Vorian Atreides might have done something like that.” Her expression went dark. “This is the worst disaster we’ve encountered, but not the first. Last year another flowmetal surge collapsed an entire section of the tunnels, killed twelve of us.”

As the scavengers regrouped, Vor was astonished to hear his own name called over the comm that each of the workers carried — a familiar male voice. “Calling the settlement ahead. Vorian Atreides? Vorian! I know you came here. I see your ship.”

“There’s a small drop-shuttle on its way down from orbit.” Korla checked her comm, frowned at Vor. “Just landed.”

The group of scavengers climbed out to the surface of the blasted world, where the night had a ruddy tinge from the backscattered light of Corrin’s red sun. Around them, the ruined city seemed to be shifting and moving, like boulders in a slow, glowing lava flow.

Korla peered all around her, saw the lights of the landed shuttle, and barked into the comm, “Who’s calling? Identify yourself out there.”

Vor could make out a suited figure picking its way carefully over the unstable ground. An answer came over the comm, “My name is Willem, and I’m looking for Vorian Atreides. I’ll pay a large reward to anyone who can direct me to him.”

At the offer of the reward, the comm-system filled with “helpful” scavenger voices. Vor stiffened, worried that Willem had left his safety on Chusuk. He had wanted the young man to stay away while he faced the Harkonnens himself and ended the decades-long feud. Was it so terrible for Willem to have remained behind with Princess Harmona? But Vor should have known Willem would never be satisfied with a passive, comfortable role on the sidelines. He sighed.

The young man waved to him, trudging over the rubble toward the group of scavengers, and Vor realized he was glad to see him anyway. When they came together, he said, “It’s dangerous here.”

Willem’s eagerness would not be shaken, though. “That’s not much of a welcome! I came a long way to see you. You abandoned me on Chusuk.”

“To recover from your injuries — with a beautiful woman.”

Willem seemed embarrassed. “I am fully recovered. And Harmona is waiting for me, waiting for us to finish the work we have to do.”

“I left a message for you to stay away.”

“I decided to ignore it.” Willem grinned. “And if you were me, you would have done exactly the same thing. I need to be here with you — if they’re coming for you. You’re luring the Harkonnens here.”

Instinctively, Vor glanced up at the starry, red-tinged sky, but saw no sign of any approaching craft. If Willem had tracked him down this quickly, then maybe the Harkonnens would not be far behind.

The young man lowered his voice. “You’re setting a trap, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but it’s my responsibility to spring it. You have a future, and can still have a family. I made arrangements for you on Salusa Secundus, at the Imperial Court. The Emperor will personally give you a position — all you have to do is show up.” His voice took on a pleading tone. “Go live your life, a normal life. Let me take care of this.”

With a stubborn shake of his head, Willem said, “Not alone. You always spoke to me about Atreides honor. I’m not going to abandon you. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.”

Vor looked at him for a long while. This young man was, after all, an Atreides, and Vor had made him understand all the honor and tradition of that name. Willem was doing exactly what he would have done himself. How could Vor possibly send him away?

“All right, then I can use your help.”