Navigators of Dune

85

According to the witnesses on Corrin, Vorian Atreides was killed in the midair spaceship explosion. He was dead, and that was a good beginning. Vor had to start over, as if reborn. A clean slate — again.

His private spacefolder was a slower old-model vessel, much like the Dream Voyager he had flown for years. Vor knew all of the ship’s systems, as well as its inherent flaws.

Beaten and bloodied, still alive but upset that he had not been able to end the feud, he had dragged himself back to his ship, as Korla and the scavengers demanded. They had promised to protect Willem, but by making him leave, the feud was not ended.

Entering the cockpit, swaying from the pain, Vor had inspected his ship, knowing all the systems so well, and as he powered up the engines, he had sensed something wrong … the subtlest fluctuation, a minor variance — which led him to inspect inside the energy-train console.

He saw that the New Voyager’s engines had been rigged to explode in the air. While the ship had rested here, unoccupied, someone had sabotaged it, planted explosives set to detonate as soon as it gained altitude. He knew with a chill that Valya and her commandos must have set up this contingency just in case he happened to elude them. They had no intention of letting him escape alive.

As Vor bent over, angry, to disconnect the booby trap so he could fly away and claim his own small victory, he hesitated. Then he saw the rest of the solution.

He’d lived long enough with Harkonnen hatred that he knew their vendetta would continue so long as Valya and Tula thought he remained alive. Abulurd’s bitter descendants would only be satisfied if they knew for certain that he was dead.

And so he ended the feud in the only way he could see. He had to die, as far as they were concerned.

He activated the ship’s engines, while bleeding profusely over the controls, the cockpit, the deck — thanks to the injuries Valya had inflicted. The blood would add veracity: If any of the Sisters decided to scan the wreckage that fell from the sky — and they would, he was sure of it — his DNA would be there. They would be convinced he was aboard.

Even though post-Jihad humanity shunned all automated systems and computerized guidance, he knew crude methods of making the ship fly by itself — at least enough to take off and rise toward orbit, unguided. The New Voyager didn’t have to go far to serve his purpose.

They would all see it with their own eyes.

Willem would be devastated — first losing Orry, and now Vorian. The two had grown quite close. In fact, the last time Vor had felt so paternal toward anyone was, ironically, with Griffin Harkonnen. But young Willem had to be just as convinced as the Sisters. His grief would be real.

Willem would survive, though, and he would recover from his grief. Vor had caused much sorrow in his life; this was just one more instance to add to his mental balance sheet.

But he would live with the guilt — and he would live. Because of that, the feud would be over, and Willem would have a life too. The young Atreides would go to the Imperial Court and make a good life for himself, the life he deserved … a life without a Harkonnen blood feud weighing him down.

Or so Vor hoped.

As the engines powered up and the ship prepared to take off under its automated guidance, Vor climbed out through a small access hatch, bringing supplies with him, then crawled away into the rubble.

From there, he watched his ship explode.

Afterward he ducked underground, finding a bolt-hole in the rubble, and sealed himself in. He would wait for several days, until it was safe.

HE HID UNTIL he knew the scheduled trading spacefolder had come and taken Willem away. Finally, Vor emerged into the ruddy sunlight of Corrin, remembering how many years he had lived here, back when it was the thinking-machine capital.

He was done here, though. He wrapped himself with rags and a patchwork radiation suit, slipped into the tunnels he knew so well, kept himself among the shadows — as so many of the scavengers did — while the rest of them worked at excavating valuable items from the ruins.

Their next trading ship would depart in a week, with dozens of people aboard, and Vor intended to be among them. Horaan Eshdi, the woman he had saved from the flowmetal outburst, was surprised when he approached her among the groups of workers in the rubble operations, but also pleased to see him alive. “I need your help,” he said, in a low voice.

“You have earned it,” she replied. “Whatever you need.”

When the next trade spacefolder arrived at Corrin, she helped him to hide his identity by giving him a salvaged wardrobe from one of the miners killed in the flowmetal flood. He muffled his face and wrapped his skin to protect against the harsh red sunlight. Horaan let him pass, looking haughty, attracting no questions. The scavengers didn’t pay much attention to their companions as they moved toward the cargo shuttle that came down from an EsconTran ship.

Vor kept his head down as he climbed aboard with the group of boisterous traders. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Horaan had joined the group, but she stayed away from him now. Good. He did not need, nor want, any company. He felt the comforting rumble of engines as the shuttle took off, heading for the spacefolder. He leaned back against the bulkhead and closed his eyes.

He would make his way, independently. As he had done so many times before.

It was the price Vorian Atreides had to pay for the existence he wanted, the new situation he needed, after going through so much. And it was the price he had to pay for Willem’s future.

After living for more than two centuries, Vor had grown weary of his old persona and all the baggage it carried. He craved something new and fresh, and a universe of options lay before him. It was like shedding his skin.

It was not only a matter of where he was going, but much more. He had many ideas, and plenty of experience, in knowing how not to be found. Out in the Imperium, after so much time, no one even thought to connect Vorian’s face with the visage they saw in history books, on memorial statues, even on Imperial coins. He would make his way to other worlds, backwater worlds, where he might even find a Tlulaxa surgeon who could make cellular alterations to his face. And Vor would survive, for however long his life-extension treatment might last.

He could obtain different features through surgery, and an entirely different existence, but he would still be Vorian Atreides, always an Atreides, on the inside. He could hardly wait to step into the skin of the new person he intended to become.