Chapter 70 (Even an Emperor must)

When Taref arrived aboard the Imperial Barge, dressed in an approved maintenance uniform for servicing the FTL and Holtzman engines, the ghost of Manford Torondo accompanied him.

Not long ago, he had celebrated killing the Butlerian leader in Arrakis City, pleased to report his triumph to Directeur Venport. But afterward, Taref had suffered terrible, recurrent nightmares of the whizz-clack of the Maula pistol, the screams of the crowd, the legless body sprawled on the dusty street. Dead. The man’s skull had exploded, his blood and brains spraying in all directions.

Dead!

It was not possible that Manford could have survived. And yet he was back, and very much alive. The Butlerian leader said he was blessed by God and indestructible, and Taref had seen the proof of that claim. His entire view of the universe had shifted.

Life was hard and cheap in the desert, and Taref had been familiar with killing … though he had never done it in such a personal way before. Even all those people lost aboard the pilgrim ship and the other EsconTran spacefolders he had sent off into the depthless nowhere of the universe … those were just distant casualties. Now Directeur Venport wanted him to do the same thing to the Emperor’s ship. But this was personal, too — like killing Manford Torondo. Another important name and face, the leader of the Imperium, a man with so much power that he could simply annex the entire planet of Arrakis on a whim.

As the third son of a Naib, Taref had little status in his tribe, but he had always scorned status because it measured things he did not care about. Directeur Venport had offered him an escape from Arrakis — and now a return to it — which came with a price he was willing to pay. A price that was, in its own way, quite high. But one more mission and he would be free. Directeur Venport had promised to release him from any remaining obligations.

According to Venport’s orders, the Emperor of the Known Universe must be irrevocably lost on his journey home.

Taking his diagnostic tools, Taref worked in the engine room of the Imperial Barge with two other mechanics, workers from Arrakis City he had never seen before. They didn’t know about his special mission. Directeur Venport trusted only him, and he had impressed upon Taref how terribly dangerous, yet necessary, this mission was.

The ghost of Manford Torondo mocked him: “Once more you try to kill a great leader, and again you will fail, because God Himself does not wish it. You are a tool of God, not a tool of that evil man.”

“You cannot speak to me,” Taref muttered aloud. The hum of the resting engines drowned out his words. It was a large and complex engine compartment, crowded with both types of stardrives. The barge was practically empty, with the Emperor’s entourage gone as Taref spoke aloud in the emptiness. “You are not even truly dead.”

“Because you failed,” said the voice. It was not really a ghost, couldn’t be. It was just Taref’s conscience, his own imagination.

He went to the FTL and foldspace diagnostic panels, the latter of which looked similar to the EsconTran panels he had serviced and sabotaged on several ships at Junction Alpha. He ignored the voice as he selected his tools, made adjustments to one of the engine couplings, then altered a programming flow. Regardless of which engines the pilots chose to use when departing, the navigational calibration was now corrupted.

“I serve myself,” he said. “I make my own decisions.”

Manford’s presence found the comment amusing, and laughed inside Taref’s head. “No matter how strong you think you are, if you try to do something God does not wish, you will not succeed.”

Feeling a knot in his stomach, the young man reconsidered. He studied the engine control board, not wanting his conscience haunted by the Emperor’s ghost, in addition to the other one.

What did it all matter to him? What did a lowly desert man know, or care, about interplanetary politics? Before leaving his sietch, he’d never thought much about the Corrino Emperors, nor had he ever heard of Manford Torondo.

The Butlerian movement had nothing to do with the timeless ways of the desert, nor did Emperor Salvador and the politics of seizing the spice operations. Would Imperial control be any different from that of the offworld industrialists? Taref couldn’t understand Directeur Venport’s hunger for riches and power either. Once a person had everything, how could he keep wanting more?

Through all these thoughts, Taref decided he would no longer be a pawn, doing whatever he was ordered to do.

Anxious to get back to the purity of the desert, he packed up his tools, leaving his work only partially done, without the backup sabotage he customarily performed on each vessel. Even so, what he’d done should be enough to destroy the navigation system and send the ship careening wildly into deep space, with no way for the pilots to reach any inhabited world. Taref was the first to board the return shuttle. That was enough. He had one last message to send to Directeur Venport.

EMPEROR SALVADOR HAD made a string of poor decisions, and now he was asserting himself in a grand and irritating way. Josef could barely control his annoyance.

What might have been a simple expedition to the spice fields became an operation as complex and cumbersome as a planetary invasion. The preparations and sheer dithering made Josef want to scream, yet he maintained his smile through it all. It was one of the greatest challenges he had ever faced.

The Emperor had brought hundreds of people aboard his Imperial Barge, uprooting the Salusan court and hauling the bloated party to the desert planet. Josef hadn’t expected the Emperor to take most of them on the tour of the spice operations as well, but Salvador left only a handful of pouting functionaries behind on the barge, probably the ones who had displeased him somehow during the weeks-long journey to Arrakis.

In addition to the court functionaries and advisers, more than a hundred armed Imperial soldiers joined them to protect against desert bandits. “A wise decision, Sire,” Josef said. “This is an extensive spice operation, and while I have my own troops, your added force is always welcome.”

Salvador patted him on the shoulder. “Not to belittle your protective measures, Directeur, but my security team is superior.”

Yet from watching the Imperial guards for only a short time, Josef could see that they were not nearly as sophisticated as his own paramilitary fighters. “I’m sure you’re right, Sire.” And he thought for the thousandth time that Roderick would make a much better Emperor.

According to Cioba, the Sisterhood had identified a grave danger to civilization if this idiot were allowed to bear offspring, and they had surreptitiously sterilized him. But now Josef was in a position to solve the problem in a more permanent way and save the present as well as the future.

The desert expedition required a large overland shuttle, complete with refreshments and two young women who skillfully played balisets during the journey. The loaded shuttle flew across the expanse of dunes, bypassing Arrakis City and leaving no record of their passage, in accordance with Josef’s orders. In orbit, the barge’s skeleton crew remained in contact with the Imperial party, some clearly disappointed that they weren’t joining this merry adventure.

“This looks like an awful place,” Salvador mused as he stared out at the monotonous dunes.