Navigators of Dune

20

After Josef had purchased the isolated sietch outright, Modoc’s people packed up and prepared to depart. They would find another home out in the deep Tanzerouft, and the new VenHold spice bank would be hidden and secure out in the most barren wilderness on Arrakis.

Although Josef was impatient to see the sietch, his inspection expedition was delayed when the satellites predicted inhospitable weather. “An impending Coriolis storm, Directeur,” said the Mentat Rogin. “It would not be safe to take fliers out there. Even the black marketeers have hunkered down until it passes.”

Josef narrowed his gaze, looked out on the sands, saw dust clouds in the distance. “Have the spice crews been withdrawn?”

“Many of them,” said Tomkir, “but some are risking it on the fringe of the projected storm path. They work on commission.”

“But the Freemen are going away unprotected?”

“The desert people are often irrational. And yet they survive.”

Josef frowned. “What about the spice crews working under Imperial contract?”

“Three Imperial operations are still working, despite the weather. It’s possible they are very brave and willing to take such great risk. More likely, they simply don’t have access to our weather satellites, and are unaware of the danger they’re in.”

Josef stroked his mustache. “So they are vulnerable — I can’t pass up such an opportunity. We have a significant mercenary fighting force, and it’s time to use them. Launch a raid immediately to strike those Imperial operations, seize whatever spice they’ve harvested, and destroy the equipment and crew.” He shrugged. “Easily explainable as storm damage.”

As his Mentats scrambled to implement the orders, Josef glanced at Norma’s sealed Navigator tank while she spoke. “We will use the additional spice to fill the vaults in our new stockpile.”

The storms whipped through the desert, exactly as predicted. Josef’s mercenary commandos slipped in to attack the Imperial crews without mercy. They jammed communications so the contract workers could not transmit an alarm, although static from the wind-borne sand was sufficient to block most signals anyway. The Imperial guardian ships in orbit were unaware of the disaster that had wiped out their ground crews.

Josef considered it excellent progress.

With a series of rapid strikes as the storm worsened, VenHold commandos destroyed the harvesters and seized a significant haul of melange. Once he consolidated his military forces, he would engage in overt strikes against the rest of the Imperial operations, but he wasn’t ready to do that yet. In this particular case, the storms gave him plausible deniability, and Emperor Roderick could not retaliate. It was a risk Josef considered worth taking.

WHEN THE STORMS finally passed and the confiscated spice had been cached in various hidden holding vaults, Josef insisted on going out to inspect his new spice bank. By now, the Freemen had abandoned the caves, and Modoc would be waiting there to turn over the site, and to receive his final payment.

Under cover of night, when there was less chance they would be seen by the few remaining Imperial patrols, an expedition cruised low above the desert and flew for hours out into the great emptiness. Josef transmitted ahead for the Naib to meet them, but when the desert-rigged fliers landed in a sheltered basin surrounded by high, moonlit rocks, they saw no sign of life. The stronghold looked desolate and empty. When they received no response, Josef began to grow uneasy. What if Modoc had betrayed him, taken the payoff, and given him false coordinates?

Before he could formulate a retaliation, two of his guards spotted movement up in the rocks, and several figures in camouflaged desert cloaks crawled out of cracks where they had hidden. The shadowy figures approached in the moonlight, and he was relieved to see that one of them was Modoc. “You have come to inspect your new desert fortress, Directeur?” He looked around warily. “You didn’t bring the demon in her tank this time?”

“She travels where and when she wishes.”

The desert man chuckled. “Even more mysterious! I told my comrades that I had seen her appear out of thin air, and they did not believe me. But when they saw the wealth I brought to our tribe, they no longer questioned my claims.”

Modoc gestured to his companions, who flitted among the rocks. Josef’s private guards emerged from their fliers and took positions to protect the Directeur.

The Naib gestured, showing off his sietch. “The sheltered walls keep us safe from sandworms. Shai-Hulud knows of this place, but He cannot enter. You have seen a sandworm before?”

“Yes, I watched my cymek machines destroy one of them.”

Modoc grinned, and his comrades chuckled. “Ho! Now you say things that even I cannot believe.”

“I don’t care whether you believe it.” Josef strode forward. “Show me my spice bank.”

Modoc clapped his hands and yelled at the desert people. “The Directeur is waiting!”

Josef’s guards kept their weapons at hand, but the desert people seemed unconcerned about any threat from these outsiders. Together, they climbed a rugged thread of trail that was clearly visible in the light of First Moon; they picked their way among the rocks, slipping through cracks so narrow that Josef was forced to turn sideways and inch his way along. These places would have to be widened with explosives so that his people could move materials in and out efficiently. He felt tense and vulnerable — if this was an ambush, his party was doomed.

The group passed through a narrow defile where rugged rock walls towered on either side of them, their way illuminated now by glowglobes. Finally they emerged into an open warren of caves where hundreds of shadowy people moved about in the dim light, packing up belongings, emptying out chambers, draining every last drop of hoarded water from reservoirs.

“I thought you said the place was ready,” Josef said.

“Most are gone, but a few still linger, clinging to the past.” Modoc sniffed. “This was our home for many generations. Naib Rurik, my father, never wanted any change. He would have buried himself in the sand rather than accept any comforts from outside.”

Some Freemen grumbled as they departed. Sensing their displeasure, Josef frowned. “You said your people agreed with this decision to give over these caves to me.”

Modoc seemed proud. “I am their Naib. They do as I say.”

As Josef looked around, he was satisfied with the secure location. This sietch had never been detected by his company’s overflights or census scans; therefore, he was confident it would stay hidden as his fortress stockpile. Combined Mercantiles could fill it with enough melange to ride out any shortage or political turmoil. Arrakis was his most fortified planet, and this stockpile would be the most fortified place on the surface.

Emperor Roderick understood the value of spice production — even the fool Salvador wasn’t blind to the outrageous profits — but the Imperial Armed Forces were inferior to the advanced warships that Venport Holdings could bring to bear, and Josef had just dealt a crippling blow to the Imperial forces.

For the time being, though, Roderick would likely target Kolhar, assuming it to be the heart of Josef’s operations, but Arrakis was so much more important. Always spice …

Once commerce got back to normal, after this problem with the vengeful Emperor was resolved one way or another, Josef would build additional secure stockpiles on other planets, and distribute the supplies as well as the risk. For now, they would keep loading melange here in the abandoned sietch, far from prying eyes.

Many of the caves were natural chambers and tunnels, while others had been carved by hand out of the desert stone. All of them would be mapped, catalogued, and filled with concentrated spice. His Combined Mercantiles operations already had seventeen dispersed stockpiles from their prior operations, and now they would consolidate all that spice here, where it could be more easily protected.

The Naib led him through the dusty chambers, showing off the honeycomb of passages. Although the Freemen had felt safe here, Josef intended to add several more layers of security, including scantronics. Impatient, he looked around at the people still moving about. “When will they all be gone so I can begin my operations?”

“Three days, Directeur. Possibly sooner. We had to hunker down during the storms.” The Naib lifted his chin in pride. “But our ancestors were the Zensunni wanderers, and we have not forgotten how to move swiftly and silently. The sietch will be ready for you, as promised.”

These desert people had already moved most of their belongings, their children, and their elderly across the desert. Such a journey could kill even a healthy, resourceful man, but somehow the tribe members didn’t appear to be overly concerned. Josef would be glad to have them gone.

Maybe Modoc’s people would all die out in the sands, devoured by the enormous worms, or they might simply collapse from exposure. That would be fine with him, because then no one would learn about the spice bank. It was a system ancient pharaohs had utilized, putting builders and architects to death after the construction of a pyramid.

But Josef didn’t want to kill people who had helped him. As a general rule, that was bad business.

THE IMPERIAL TROOPS that had been stranded on Arrakis didn’t know what hit them. After more than a month of uneasy coexistence, with neither side ready to ignite a shooting war, the Imperials had lowered their guard. Josef’s mercenaries had already seized most of their spice operations during the recent storms, and now he struck even harder. He made the calculations, and Norma encouraged him to finish what he had already begun. He would not disagree with the prescient Navigator woman.

The flow of spice had to remain uninterrupted, and under Combined Mercantiles control. Norma needed to care for her Navigators — she’d made that abundantly clear — and VenHold required continuing supplies of melange to feed the clamoring market that this feud had already disrupted. Thus, he needed to eliminate interests that were in opposition to his own.

Since the Imperial warships were cut off and had no hope of imminent reinforcements, they could not withstand a concerted attack. Norma summoned her Navigators and brought in a dozen more VenHold warships. Soon enough, Josef’s forces overwhelmed the remaining Imperial ships without firing a shot, taking the enemy commanders into “temporary detention” until Emperor Roderick could arrange for their release and return to Salusa Secundus.

Now, Josef could push his spice operations without further complications, and within a week he had made significant progress in filling his spice bank. Modoc’s Freemen had evacuated, per the agreement, and the teams now working inside the sietch were all trusted VenHold employees.

The Mentats Rogin and Tomkir organized the inventory stored inside the numerous cave chambers and passageways. Engineering crews installed armored doors and moisture-sealed vaults to preserve the melange.

Among the workers were three silent and eerie men who walked with a swaying gait, as if their spines had been irreparably curved. From their large heads and smooth skin, Josef knew that these were Navigator candidates who had nearly drowned in the spice gas before their transformation was terminated. They had been rescued, but were forever altered; now, they volunteered to work in the VenHold spice bank, and Norma had a special connection to them. The three moved in complete silence, as if they could communicate through thoughts and expressions.

From her tank, Norma approved of the large, protected stockpile. Her sealed chamber appeared just inside the narrow defile and the open area that led to the cave warrens. When Josef explained the continuing plans, she listened in silence, absorbing the data.

In order to gain ready access to the modified sietch, his engineers had blasted open a cave roof and torn down several rock walls. Right now, two cargo fliers cruised through the dusty air carrying large loads of packaged melange, some of it stolen from black marketeers. Other supplies had been moved into the sietch from other VenHold stockpiles.

The cargo fliers hovered over the open area while spice-laden pallets dropped out of their belly compartments. Suspensor packs lowered the deliveries to the ground, stirring up a burst of sand. Josef no longer had to worry about Imperial patrols, and although someone might notice all this activity, the only possible prying eyes now belonged to desert nomads or poachers, and Josef would install enough security to be proof against that.

“This is excellent progress. So much spice for my Navigators,” Norma said in her otherworldly, wistful voice. “Enough to create hundreds more.”

“With this stockpile, we’ll have enough to last for years — for my purposes, and yours.”

“The universe is ours,” Norma agreed.

VenHold now had so much spice it would take weeks to load everything into the secure chambers, but he could see that the situation was well in hand here. It was time to go back to Kolhar, to make sure the defenses would stand against any Imperial attack. By overthrowing the Emperor’s spice operations here, he might have provoked Roderick into making a hasty move. “We need to go home, Grandmother. Our place is back on our homeworld until the end of this dispute.”

Her voice took on a strange, alarming tone. “Yes. We must hurry.”

Her comment gave him an uneasy feeling. He wondered if Norma had seen something through her spice-enriched prescience, something she had not told him yet.…