[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]an enemy."
"There are other ways an enemy can strike, my Lord," Jessica said with a low
warning in her voice.
Kailea stiffened, but Leto didn't notice. Instead he looked at the witch. "I'm
fully aware of that."
Already, wheels were turning in Kailea's mind. At the conclusion of the meal
she excused herself and went to tell Chiara what Leto planned to do.
THAT NIGHT LETO SLEPT on a cot in a hangar of the Cala Municipal Spaceport,
while his household staff went about making preparations for the gala event,
delivering announcements and gathering supplies. Within a few days the sail-
enhanced skyclipper would begin its grand and colorful procession.
Left alone in her chambers, Kailea summoned Swain Goire and seduced him, as she
had done many times in the past. She made love to the guard captain with a
feral passion that surprised and exhausted him. He looked so much like Leto,
but was such a different man. Afterward, when he had fallen asleep beside her,
she stole a tiny code-locked key from a concealed pocket in his thick leather
belt, which was curled on the floor. Only rarely used, it would be some time
before Goire noticed the missing key.
The following morning, she pressed the small object into Chiara's leathery palm
and squeezed the old woman's fingers over it. "This will give you access to the
Atreides armory. Move with care."
Chiara's ravenlike eyes sparkled, and quickly she tucked the key into secret
folds of her layered garments. "I will handle the rest, my Lady."
War, as the foremost ecological disaster of any age, merely reflects the larger
state of human affairs in which the total organism called "humanity" finds its
existence.
-PARDOT KYNES, Reflections on the Disaster at Salusa Secundus
ON THE ADMINISTRATION ISLAND of Ginaz, the five greatest living Swordmasters met
and judged their remaining students in the oral examination phase of their
curriculum, grilling them on history, philosophy, military tactics, haiku,
music, and more -- all according to the exacting requirements and traditions of
the school.
But this was a somber, tragic occasion.
The entire school archipelago remained in an uproar, outraged and grieving for
the six slain students. Flaunting their barbarity, the Grummans had dumped four
of the bodies in the surf near the main training center, where they had washed
up on shore. The other two -- Duncan Idaho and Hiih Resser -- remained missing,
likely lost at sea.
On the top floor of the central tower, the Swordmasters sat along the straight
side of a semicircular table, their ceremonial swords extended point-outward on
the surface in front of them, like the rays of a sun. Each student who stood in
front of the table would see the threatening points while he answered rigorous
questions.
They had all passed. Now Karsty Toper and the school administration would
arrange travel for the successful students to return to their respective homes,
where they would apply what they had learned. Some had already gone to the
nearby spaceport.
And the Swordmasters were left with the consequences.
Fat Rivvy Dinari sat in the center, drawing out the sword of Duke Paulus
Atreides and a jeweled Moritani heirloom knife, found among the possessions of
Idaho and Resser. Beside him, Mord Cour hung his gray-maned head. "We have had
much experience sending back the keepsakes of fallen students, but never like
this."
Sinewy master Jamo Reed, though hardened from overseeing his prison island for
many years, could not stop weeping. He shook his head. "If Ginaz students die,
it should be during difficult training -- not because they are murdered."
Ginaz had lodged formal protests, issuing culturally tailored insults and
censures, none of which meant anything to Viscount Hundro Moritani. He had
never made satisfactory amends for his brutal attacks on Ecaz. The Landsraad
and the Emperor were now holding hearings on the best means of response, with
the leaders of many Great Houses traveling to Kaitain in order to speak with the
Council. But they had never managed more than censures, fines, and slaps on the
hand even for a "mad dog" like the Viscount.
The Grummans believed they could get away with anything.
"I feel . . . violated," Jeh-Wu said, his dreadlocks hanging in disarray. "No
one has ever dared to do this sort of thing to a Swordmaster."
Foppish Whitmore Bludd sat up straighter and fiddled with the ruffles on his
shirt, the heavy cuffs at his wrists. "I propose that we rename six of our
islands after the murdered students. History will remember the dastardly crime,
and we will honor the Six."
"Honor?" Rivvy Dinari slapped his fat palm on the tabletop, making the sword
blades jangle. "How can you use such a word in this context? I spent three
hours last night by Jool-Noret's burial vault, praying and asking what he would
do in such a situation."
"And did he answer you?" Scowling, Jeh-Wu stood up and went to look out the
window, at the flat spaceport and the foamy reefs. "Even in his own lifetime,
Jool-Noret never taught anybody. He drowned in a tidal wave, and his disciples
tried to emulate him. If Noret never helped his closest followers, he certainly
won't help us."
Bludd sniffed, looking offended. "The great man taught by example. A perfectly
valid technique, for those capable of learning."
"And he had honor, just like the ancient samurai," Dinari said. "After tens of
thousands of years, we have grown less civilized. We have forgotten."
Frowning in contemplation, Mord Cour looked over at the obese Swordmaster. "You
are forgetting history, Dinari. The samurai may have had honor, but once the
British arrived in Japan with guns, the samurai vanished . . . within a
generation."
Jamo Reed looked up, his lean face devastated beneath a snowy white cap of
frizzy hair. "Please, we must not fight among ourselves or else the Grummans
will have beaten us."
Jeh-Wu snorted. "They've already --"
A commotion at the doorway interrupted him. He turned from the window as the
other four Swordmasters rose to their feet in shock.
Dirty and disheveled, Duncan Idaho and Hiih Resser pushed past the objections of
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