Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (45 page)

“Course, there could be more of them than we realize,” the bartender said. “They all look the same wrapped up in desert clothes.”

As Keedair savored the liquor, a tingle went through his body, not quite euphoria, but a rush of well-being. Then an idea lit his mind. He was a businessman, after all, constantly on the lookout for opportunities. It didn’t matter where the merchandise came from.

“And what about this spice beer?” He tapped his nearly empty glass with a stubby fingernail. “Where do the Zensunnis find ingredients? Doesn’t seem to me that anything could grow out there at all.”

“Spice is a natural substance in the desert. You can find patches out in the dunes, exposed by the wind or spice blows. But monster sandworms live out there, and fierce storms that’ll kill you. Let the Zensunnis have the place, if you ask me. The nomads bring in loads of the stuff to Arrakis City, for bartering.”

Keedair considered taking samples of melange back to the League Worlds. Would there be a market for it on rich Salusa, or among the nobles on Poritrin? The substance certainly had an unusual effect on the body . . . soothing in a way he had never experienced before. If he could sell it, he might offset some of the cost of this exploration trip.

The bartender nodded toward the door. “I don’t get enough spice beer that I can sell to you as a middleman, but a band of nomads came in this morning. They’ll stay inside their tents during the heat of the day, but you’ll find them in the market in the evening, on the east end of the spaceport. They’ll sell you whatever they have. Just be sure they don’t cheat you.”

“Nobody cheats me,” Keedair said, revealing his sharp teeth in a cruel grin. He noticed, though, that his words came out alarmingly slurred.

He would have to let the spice beer wear off before he met with the Zensunni.

AWNINGS OF BROWN-AND-WHITE fabric offered patches of shade. The nomads sat by themselves, separated from the bustle of the spaceport. These Zensunnis had constructed tents and shelters from scavenged tarpaulins and cargo wrappings. Some of the fabrics appeared to be made from a different kind of polymer, an odd sort of plastic unlike anything Keedair had seen before.

The sun fell behind the barricade of mountains, leaving the sky awash with orange pastels and fire hues. A wind came in as the temperature dropped, bringing dust and stinging sand. The awnings flapped and rattled, but the nomads paid no heed, as if the noise were music to them.

Keedair approached them alone, still swaying slightly, though he felt clearer-headed after drinking only water for the rest of the afternoon . . . and paying the exorbitant price. Noticing him, two hopeful women went into their stores to haul out items for sale, spreading them on a flat tabletop. One man stood near them, his lean face tattooed with a geometric symbol, his eyes dark and suspicious.

Without saying a word, Keedair allowed the women to display their colorful cloths, along with odd-shaped rocks that had been scoured in sandstorms and a few laughably corroded items of long-forgotten technology that Keedair could never sell to even the most gullible and eccentric antique collector. He shook his head gruffly each time until the lean man— whom one of the women referred to as Naib Dhartha— said he had nothing else.

Keedair got to the point. “I’ve tasted spice beer. The man who sold it to me suggested I talk to you.”

“Spice beer,” Dhartha said. “Made from melange. Yes, it is obtainable.”

“How much can you deliver, and what would it cost me?”

The naib spread his hands and revealed a hint of a smile. “Everything is open to discussion. The price depends on the amount you desire. Enough for a month of personal use?”

“Why not a cargo ship full?” Keedair said, noting shock on the faces of the nomads.

Dhartha recovered himself quickly. “That will take time to gather. A month, maybe two.”

“I can wait— if we reach an agreement. I’ve come here with an empty vessel. I need to take something back with me.” He looked down at the scavenged objects and the wind-scoured art rocks. “And I certainly don’t want to carry anything like
that
. I’d be the laughingstock of the League.”

Despite a natural Tlulaxa interest in biological products, Keedair was not wedded to the business of slavery. He would go his own way and never return to the Thalim solar system, if necessary. Many of the Tlulaxa were religious fanatics anyway, and he grew tired of their dogma and politics. Drugs and drink would always be in demand, and if he could introduce something new and exotic, a drug the richest nobles had never tried, he might turn a handy profit.

“But first tell me exactly what melange is,” Keedair continued. “Where does it come from?”

Dhartha gestured to one of the women, who ducked under the sheltered overhang. A hot breeze picked up, and the polymer fabric flapped louder than before. The sun had settled toward the horizon, forcing him to squint as he looked in that direction. This prevented him from reading nuances in the desert man’s expression.

Within moments, the woman brought out small, steaming cups of a rich black liquid that smelled of pungent cinnamon spice. She served Keedair first, and he looked down, curious but skeptical.

“Coffee mixed with pure melange,” Dhartha said. “You will enjoy it.”

Keedair recalled how expensive water had been in the bar and decided that this nomad was investing in their conversation. He took a sip, cautious at first, but could think of no reason why the fellow might poison him. He tasted the hot coffee on his tongue and felt an electric sensation, a delicious taste that reminded him of the spice beer he still had in his system. He would need to be careful, or he would lose his business edge.

“We harvest melange out in the Tanzerouft, the deep desert where the demon sandworms go. It is very dangerous there. We lose many of our people, but the spice is precious.”

Keedair took another drink of coffee and had to stop himself from agreeing too readily. His assessment of the possibilities grew. Now, as the two men shifted positions, Keedair could look upon Dhartha’s lean face. The Naib’s eyes were not just dark; they were deep blue. Even the whites had taken on a strange indigo tinge. Most odd. He wondered if it could be an unusual defect caused by Zensunni inbreeding.

The desert man reached into one of his pockets and withdrew a small box, which he opened to display a compressed, flaky brown powder. He extended it toward Keedair, who stirred the contents with the tip of his little finger.

“Pure melange. Very potent. We use it in our beverages and meals back in the cave villages.”

Keedair touched the spice-speckled tip of his finger to his tongue. The melange was strong and exhilarating, yet soothing. He felt energetic and calm at the same time. His mind seemed sharper, not fuzzed the way excessive alcohol or drugs affected him. But he held back, not wishing to appear overly anxious.

“And if you consume melange over a long period of time,” Dhartha was saying, “it helps you retain your health, keeps you young.”

Keedair made no comment. He had heard similar claims about various “fountain of youth” substances. None of them, in his experience, had ever proven effective.

He snicked shut the cover of the small box and put it in his own pocket, though it had not been offered to him as a gift. He stood. “I will come back tomorrow. Then we shall talk more. I need to consider this matter.”

The desert naib grunted in affirmation.

Keedair walked toward his shuttle within the parking perimeter of the spaceport. His mind spun with preliminary calculations. His fellow slavers would be disappointed at not even attempting a raid, but Keedair would pay them the minimum required by contract. He needed to ponder the possibilities of this potent spice before discussing a price with the nomads. Arrakis was far, far from normal space trading routes. The idea excited him, but he wasn’t certain he could profitably export the exotic substance.

Realistically, he doubted if melange would ever be more than a mere curiosity.

S
hortly before midnight, Aurelius Venport sat at a long opalwood table in an echoing chamber deep inside the Rossak cave city. He had furnished this room for his business meetings with drug prospectors, biochemists, and pharmaceutical merchants, but Zufa Cenva sometimes used it for her own private meetings.

Even in the late darkness, the chief Sorceress was out in the dangerous jungles, training her young protégés and preparing them for suicide attacks. Venport did not know whether Zufa was eager or afraid for her volunteers to be called again.

He very much hoped his mate didn’t get ideas of her own, though she would probably love to make herself a martyr. Zufa took him for granted, blamed him for his imagined failings, but still Venport cared for the cold, pale Sorceress. He didn’t want to lose her.

Zufa had been due back more than an hour ago, and he’d been waiting for her. It did him no good to be impatient, though. The haughty Sorceress operated on her own schedule, considering his priorities unimportant.

Even in the darkest night, the cave room was illuminated by warm, comforting light— a glowing yellow sphere that floated gracefully above the table like a portable, personal sun. Dear Norma had sent it to him from Poritrin as a gift, a compact light source levitated by a new suspensor field she had developed. Based on the same principle as a glowpanel, but much more efficient, the device generated illumination as a by-product of the suspensor field itself. Norma called it a glowglobe, and he’d been considering its commercial possibilities.

Venport took a long drink of bitter herbal ale from a goblet in front of him. He grimaced, then drank some more, trying to bolster his nerve. Zufa should be here any minute, and he was anxious to see her. Out in the jungles the Sorceresses had erected a shrine to honor fallen Heoma. Maybe they were all there now, dancing around it under the starlight, chanting incantations like witches. Or maybe— despite their cool, agnostic logic and determination— they chose private moments to worship a Gaia life force, an Earth mother that embodied feminine power. Anything to set them apart from what they considered to be “weakling” men . . .

Beckoned by the glowglobe, nightbugs flew into the room from the outer corridors. The nocturnal insects had a voracious appetite for human blood, but only men were bothered. It was one of the jokes of Rossak, as if the Sorceresses had cast some sort of a spell on the tiny creatures to keep their men inside during the evenings, while women performed secret rites out in the jungles.

Another quarter of an hour passed, and still Zufa did not join him. Frustrated with her, Venport finished the ale and set the empty goblet on the opalwood table, heaving a disgusted sigh. He rarely asked to see her, but this was important to him. Couldn’t she give him just a few moments of her precious time?

Still, he would continue to seek her understanding and respect. For years, Venport had enjoyed substantial success in exporting medical narcotics and pharmaceuticals manufactured from Rossak plants. In the past month, his men had turned a large profit from the sale of psychedelics to Yardin. The drugs had become a favorite of the Buddislamic mystics who ran the place. The mystics used the Rossak hallucinogen in religious rituals, attempting to attain enlightenment.

Venport stared at a large, milky soostone on the table. A smuggler from Buzzell, one of the Unallied Planets, had sold him the extremely rare and valuable stone. The dealer had claimed that some soostones of extraordinary purity possessed hypnotic focusing abilities. He wanted Zufa to wear it with pride, perhaps on a pendant. The Sorceress could use it to make herself stronger.

He inserted a rolled slip of alkaloid bark into his mouth and crunched down, knowing it would make him relax. He dimmed the glowglobe and adjusted its spectrum to a more orange light, which caused the soostone to dance with rainbow colors. The alkaloid bark made him feel tingly, calm . . . and distant. The uncommon stone shimmered hypnotically, and he lost track of time.

When Zufa entered the room, her pale face was flushed, her eyes bright. She looked like an ethereal creature in the room’s rich glow. She wore a long diaphanous gown with tiny jewels sparkling across it like a field of ruby flowers.

“I see you have nothing important to do,” she said, already frowning.

He gathered his wits about him. “Nothing more important than waiting for you.” Rising to his feet with all the pride he could muster, he picked up the soostone. “I found this, and I thought of you. A gift from Buzzell, where my merchants made an extraordinary profit from—” Noticing an expression of disdain on her face, Venport felt flustered. His voice trailed off.

“And what am I supposed to do with it?” She examined the offering, without touching it. “When have I ever cared for pretty baubles?”

“It’s a rare soostone, said to have certain . . . telepathic enhancement characteristics. Perhaps you can use it as a focusing device when you instruct your trainees?” She stood like a statue, unimpressed, and he continued in a rush, “The Buddislamics on Yardin are clamoring for our psychedelics. I’ve made a lot of credits in the past few months, and I thought this was something you might appreciate.”

“I’m tired and I’m going to bed,” she said, letting him keep the present. “My Sorceresses have already proven their abilities. With machines still threatening every League world, we don’t have time to stare into soostones.”

He shook his head. What would it have cost her merely to accept his gift? Could she not at least have offered him a word of kindness? Hurt so deeply that even the calming bark could not soothe him, Venport shouted, “If we give up our humanity to fight the machines, Zufa, then Omnius has already won!”

She hesitated just a moment, but did not turn back to him. Instead, she went to her chambers and left him standing alone.