Dune [Frank Herbert's Dune Saga Collection: Books 1 - 6]

Tears of cold started in Duncan’s eyes. He had been thinking much of old Gurney as they prepared to leave the no-globe, Gurney with his cheek scarred by a Harkonnen inkvine whip. Trusted companions would be needed now, Duncan thought. He did not trust Lucilla much and Teg was old, old. Duncan could see Teg’s eyes glinting in the starlight.

Slinging a heavy antique lasgun over his left shoulder, Duncan thrust his hands deep into his pockets for warmth. He had forgotten how cold this planet could get. Lucilla seemed impervious to it, obviously drawing warmth from one of her Bene Gesserit tricks.

Looking at her, Duncan realized he had never trusted the witches much, not even the Lady Jessica. It was easy to think of them as traitors, devoid of any loyalty except to their own Sisterhood. They had so damned many secret tricks! Lucilla had given up her seductive ways, though. She knew he meant what he had said. He could feel her anger simmering. Let her simmer!

Teg stood quite still, his attention focused outward, listening. Was it right to trust the single plan he and Burzmali had worked out? They had no backup. Was it only eight days ago they had settled on it? It felt longer despite the press of preparations. He glanced at Duncan and Lucilla. Duncan carried a heavy old Harkonnen lasgun, the long field model. Even the extra charge cartridges were heavy. Lucilla had refused to carry more than a single tiny lasgun in her bodice. One small burst was all it held. An assassin’s toy.

“We of the Sisterhood are noted for going into battle with only our skills as weapons,” she said. “It diminishes us to change that pattern.”

She had knives in her leg sheaths, though. Teg had seen them. Poison on them, too, he suspected.

Teg hefted the long weapon in his own hands: a modern field-style lasgun he had brought from the Keep. Over his shoulder, a mate to Duncan’s weapon hung from its sling.

I must rely on Burzmali, Teg told himself. I trained him; I know his qualities. If he says we trust these new allies, we trust them.

Burzmali had been obviously overjoyed to find his old commander alive and safe.

But it had snowed since their last encounter and the snow lay all around them, a tabula rasa upon which all tracks would be written. They had not counted on snow. Were there traitors in Weather Management?

Teg shivered. The air was cold. It felt like the chill of off-planet space, empty and giving starlight free access to the forest glade around them. The thin light reflected cleanly off the snow-covered ground and the white dusting on the rocks. Dark outlines of conifers and the leafless branches of deciduous trees displayed only their whitely diffused edges. All else was deepest shadow.

Lucilla blew on her fingers and leaned close to Teg to whisper “Shouldn’t he be here by now?”

He knew that was not her real question. “Can Burzmali be trusted?” That was her question. She had been asking it one way and another ever since Teg had explained the plan to her eight days ago.

All he could say was: “I have staked my life on it.”

“Our lives, too!”

Teg too disliked the accumulated uncertainties, but all plans relied ultimately on the skills of those who executed them.

“You’re the one who insisted we must get out of there and go on to Rakis,” he reminded her. He hoped she could see his smile, a gesture to take the sting out of his words.

Lucilla was not placated. Teg had never seen a Reverend Mother this obviously nervous. She would be even more nervous if she knew of their new allies! Of course, there was the fact that she had failed to carry out her full assignment from Taraza. How that must gall her!

“We took an oath to protect the ghola,” she reminded him.

“Burzmali has taken that same oath.”

Teg glanced at Duncan standing silently between them. Duncan gave no sign that he heard the argument or shared the nervousness. An ancient composure held his features motionless. He was listening to the night, Teg realized, doing what all three of them should be doing just now. There was an odd look of ageless maturity on his young features.

If ever I needed trusted companions, it’s now! Duncan thought. His mind had gone questing backward into the Giedi Prime days of his pre-ghola roots. This was what they had called “a Harkonnen night.” Safe within the warm shielding of their suspensor-buoyed armor, the Harkonnens had enjoyed hunting their subjects on such nights. A wounded fugitive could die of the cold. The Harkonnens knew! Damn their souls!

Predictably, Lucilla caught Duncan’s attention with a look that said: “We have unfinished business, you and I.”

Duncan turned his face up into the starlight, making sure she could see his smile, an offensive and knowing look that caused Lucilla to stiffen inwardly. He slipped the heavy lasgun from his shoulder and checked it. She noted the ornate scrollwork on its stock and along the barrel. It was an antique but still it gave off a deadly sense of purpose. Duncan rested it over his left arm, right hand on the grip, finger on the trigger, exactly as Teg was carrying his own modern weapon.

Lucilla turned her back on her companions and sent her senses probing onto the hillside above them and below. Even as she moved, sound erupted all around. Globs of sound filled their night—a great burst of rumblings off to the right, then silence. Another burst from downslope. Silence. From upslope! On all sides!

At the first sound, all three of them crouched into the shelter of the rocks outside the no-globe’s cave entrance.

The sounds filling their night carried little definition: intrusive racketing, partly mechanical, partly squeaks and wails and hisses. Intermittently, a subterranean drumming made the ground vibrate.