Elemental (20 page)

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Authors: Steven Savile

BOOK: Elemental
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Dark picked himself up again, oblivious to the fact that his knee was pouring blood. It wasn't surprising he'd tripped. It was too hot, too hot to live. The moss was squirming around him like meat full of struggling worms. The brightness was too intense to see by, and all he could do was fall forward step by step. It was only a matter of yards now.
Daniel's mother let out a soft sound, a kind of gurgle, but Daniel didn't even hear it. He was staring in the other direction, toward the door to the cellar. There was something down there. The room was full of heat and there was a smell. Daniel looked back at his mother, and realized it was coming from her.
Dark fell against the door and it gave way before him. Daniel stared at the cellar door as it creaked slowly open, revealing the darkness of the stairs that led down into the gloom beneath the house. Suddenly his mother's chest rose up, and her breaths lost all rhythm, stopped being many and became just single spasms, part of no sequence, no longer a necessary condition. Dark felt the heat reach a peak, felt himself lost in it, lost in this room of churning, dying flesh. He felt it contract harder and tighter, and knew that it couldn't last, that this would have to end.
Daniel tore his eyes away from the cellar door and knelt by his mother, gripping her hand. He didn't need the doctor to tell him this was the end, that this was the final minute, that time stopped here. His mother let out a moan that escalated into a rasping gasp, and Dark felt himself spiralling upward faster and faster, losing his sense of himself, propelled upward until there was just a blur.
Her chest hitched again, and as Daniel glared through his tears at her face, his mother's eyes suddenly opened. She saw him, he knew, saw him and knew who he was, and then she died.
For a moment Daniel thought he saw something coming out of her mouth, the faintest of shapes escaping in the air, and then there was just afterward, and tomorrow, and the cooling huddle of his life up till then.
BY BRIAN HERBERT AND KEVIN J. ANDERSON
 
Best-selling authors Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have previously collaborated on the Prelude to Dune trilogy (
House Atreides, House Harkonnen,
and
House Corrino
), the Legends of Dune trilogy (
The Butlerian Jihad, The Machine Crusade, The Battle of Corrin
), and
The Road to Dune
.
When Frank Herbert wrote his original six Dune novels, the last two—
Heretics of Dune
and
Chapterhouse Dune
—were the first parts of the grand climax to the epic saga. Frank Herbert died before completing the story, leaving only a detailed outline for “Dune 7.” Using that outline, the Herbert and Anderson team are currently writing
Hunters of Dune
and
Sandworms of Dune,
the chronological finale to the story.
“Sea Child” introduces part of that story arc, with the beleaguered Bene Gesserit Sisterhood facing their destructive dark counterparts, the Honored Matres, who have destroyed the planet Dune. “Sea Child” takes place during the events of
Chapterhouse Dune,
and should be enjoyed by any fans of the Dune series.
Brian Herbert lives on an island off the coast of Washington State; Kevin J. Anderson lives in Monument, Colorado, with his wife, author Rebecca Moesta.
Bene Gesserit punishments must carry an inescapable
lesson, one which extends far beyond the pain.
—Mother Superior Taraza, Chapterhouse Archives
As she had done
since the brutal Honored Matres had conquered Buzzell, Sister Corysta struggled to get through the day without attracting undue notice. Most of the Bene Gesserit like herself had already been slaughtered, and passive cooperation was the only way she could survive.
Even for a disgraced Reverend Mother such as herself, submission to a powerful though morally inferior adversary galled her. But the handful of surviving Sisters here on the isolated ocean world—all of whom had
been sent here to face years of penance—could not hope to resist the “whores” that arrived unexpectedly, in such overwhelming force.
At first, the Honored Matre conquerors had resorted to primal techniques of coercion and manipulation. They killed most of the Reverend Mothers during interrogation, trying unsuccessfully to learn the location of Chapterhouse, the hidden homeworld of the Bene Gesserits. Thus far, Corysta was one of twenty Sisters who had avoided death, but she knew their odds of continued survival were not good.
Back in the terrible Famine Times after the death of Leto II, the God Emperor of Dune, much of humanity had scattered into the wilderness of star systems and struggled to survive. Left behind in the core of the old Imperium, only a few remnants had clung to the tattered civilization and rebuilt it under Bene Gesserit rule. Now, after fifteen hundred years, many of the Scattered Ones were coming back, bringing destruction with them. At the head of the unruly hordes, Honored Matres swept across planets like a raging spacestorm, returning with stolen technology and grossly altered attitudes. In appearance, the whores bore superficial similarities to the black-robed Bene Gesserits, but in reality they were unimaginably different, with different fighting skills and no apparent moral code—as they had proved many times with their captives on Buzzell.
As dawn gathered light across the water, Corysta went to the edge of a jagged inlet, her bare feet finding precarious balance on slippery rocks as she made her way down to the ocean's edge. The Honored Matres kept the bulk of the food supplies for themselves, offering little to the surviving inhabitants of Buzzell. Thus, if Corysta failed to find her own food, she would starve. It would amuse the whores to find out that one of the hated Bene Gesserits could not care for herself; the Sisterhood had always taught the importance of human adaptation for survival in challenging environments.
The young Sister had a knot in her stomach, pangs of hunger similar to the pains of grief and emptiness. Corysta could never forget the crime that had sent her to Buzzell, a foolish and failed effort to keep her baby secret from the Sisterhood and their interminable breeding program.
In moments of despair, Corysta felt she had two sets of enemies, her own Sisters and the Honored Matres who sought supremacy over everything in the old Imperium. If the Bene Gesserits did not find a way to fight back—here and on other planets—their days would be numbered. With superior weaponry and vast armies, the Honored Matres would exterminate the Sisterhood. From her own position of disadvantage, Corysta could only hope that her Mother Superior was developing a plan on Chapterhouse that would enable the ancient organization to survive. The Sisterhood faced an immense challenge against an irrational enemy.
In a fit of violence, the Honored Matres had been provoked into unleashing incredible weapons from the Scattering against Rakis, the desert world better known as Dune. Now, the legendary planet was nothing more than a charred ball, with all sandworms dead and the source of spice obliterated. Only the Bene Gesserits, on faraway Chapterhouse, had any stockpiles left. The whores from the Scattering had destroyed tremendous wealth simply to vent their rage. It made no sense. Or did it?
Soostones were also a source of wealth in the Known Universe, and were found only on Buzzell. Therefore, Honored Matres had conquered this planet with its handful of punished Bene Gesserit Sisters. And now they meant to exploit it … .
At the water's edge, Corysta reached into the lapping surf, withdrawing her hand-woven traps that gathered night-scurrying crustaceans. Lifting her dark skirt, she waded deeper to retrieve the nets. Her special little cove had always provided a bounty for her, vital food that she shared with her few remaining Sisters.
She found footing on the slick, rounded surface of a submerged rock. The moving currents stirred up silt, making the water murky. The sky was steel gray with clouds, but she hardly noticed them. Since the arrival of the Honored Matres, Corysta spent most of her time with her gaze lowered, seeing only the ground. She'd had enough punishment from the Bene Gesserit. As unfair as it was in the first place, her suffering had been exacerbated by the whores.
As she pulled in the net, Corysta was pleased to feel its heaviness, an indicator
of a good catch.
Another day without starvation
. With difficulty she pulled the net to the surface and rested it on the rocks, where she discovered that its tangled strands did not hold a clatter of shellfish but, instead, contained a weak and greenish creature. To her surprise, she saw a small humanoid baby with smooth skin, large round eyes, a wide mouth, and gill slits. She immediately recognized the creature as one of the genetically modified “phibian” slaves the whores had brought to Buzzell to harvest soostones. But it was just an infant, floating alone and helpless.
Catching her breath, Corysta splashed back to the shore rocks behind her. Phibians were cruel and monstrous—no surprise, considering the vicious whores who had created them—and she was afraid she would be beaten for interfering with this abandoned child. Adult phibians would claim the infant had been caught in her nets, that
she
had killed it. She had to be very careful.
Then Corysta saw the baby's eyes flutter open, its gills and mouth gasping for oxygen. A bloody gash marred the infant's forehead; it looked like an intentional mark drawn by the single claw of a larger phibian. This child was weak and sickly, with a large discoloration on its back and side, a glaring birthmark like ink spilled on a quarter of its small body.
An outcast
.
She had heard of this before. Among the phibians, the claw wound was a mark of rejection. Some aquatic parent had scarred its own frail child in disgust because of the birthmark, and then cast the baby away to perish in the seas. Stray currents had brought it to Corysta's nets.
Gently, she untangled the creature from the strands and washed the small, weak body in the calm waters. It was male. Responding to her ministrations, the sickly little phibian stirred and opened its alien, membranous eyes to look at her. Despite the monstrous appearance, Corysta thought she saw humanity behind the strange eyes, a child from the sea who had done nothing to deserve the punishment inflicted upon it.
She gathered the baby in her arms, folding him in her black robe to hide him from view. Looking around, Corysta quickly ran home.
 
 
On Buzzell, deep, plankton-rich oceans swallowed all but a few patches of rough land. It was as if the cosmic creator had accidentally left a water tap running and filled the planet to overflowing.
On the only patch of dry land suitable for use as a spaceport, Corysta worked with several other beaten Bene Gesserit Sisters. The women carried heavy sealed boxes of the milky gems called soostones. After all their specialized training, including a remarkable ability to control their bodily chemistry, Corysta and these defeated Sisters were nothing more than menial laborers forced to work while the brutal Honored Matres flaunted their dominance.
Two Bene Gesserit women walked beside Corysta with their eyes cast down, each one carrying a heavy satchel full of the harvested gems. The Honored Matres enjoyed grinding the disgraced Reverent Mothers under their heels. During their exile here, Corysta and her fellow Sisters had all known one another's crimes and supported one another. But in their current situation, such minor infractions and the irrelevant penance and retribution meant nothing. She and her companions knew the impatient whores were sure to kill them soon, rendering their life histories meaningless. Now that the phibians had arrived as a specialized workforce, the Sisters were no longer necessary for the economic processes of Buzzell.
On Corysta's left, five adult phibians rose out of the water, lean and powerful forms with frightening countenances. Their unscaled skins shone with oily iridescence; their heads were bullet-shaped, streamlined for swimming. The Honored Matres had apparently bred the creatures using technology and knowledge brought by Tleilaxu gene masters who had also fled in the Scattering. Experimenting with human raw materials, had those Tleilaxu outcasts cooperated willingly, or had they been forced by the whores? The sleek and glistening phibians had been well designed for their underwater work.
The humanoids stood dripping on the land, carrying nets full of gleaming soostones. Corysta no longer found the jewels appealing. To
her, they had the look and smell of the blood that had been spilled to get them. Thousands of Buzzell inhabitants—exiled Sisters, support personnel, even smugglers and traders—had been slaughtered by the Honored Matres in their takeover.
The whores in charge of the work crew snapped orders, and Corysta took a webbed net from the first phibian. On the creature she smelled salty moisture, an iodine-laced body odor, and an undertone of fish. The slitted eyes were covered by a moist nictitating membrane.
Looking at the repugnant face, she sensed coldness, and wondered if this might be the father of her sea child, who was now secretly recovering in her hut. As that thought crossed her mind, the adult phibian struck a blow that knocked her backward. In a bubbly voice, the creature said, “Too slow. Go work.”
She grabbed the satchel of soostones and scurried away. She did not want the Honored Matres to focus on her. Her instinct for survival was ever-present.
No one would be coming to rescue them. Since the devastation of Rakis, the Bene Gesserit leadership had holed up on Chapterhouse to hide from the unrelenting hunters. She wondered if Taraza was still Mother Superior of the order, or if—as rumor suggested—the Honored Matres had killed her on Rakis.
On this backwater world, Corysta and her companions would never know.
 
 
That evening, in her hut lit by a glowing fish-oil lamp, Corysta cradled the phibian baby in her arms and fed it broth with a spoon. How ironic that her own child had been taken from her by the Breeding Mistresses, and now in a strange cosmic turnabout she had been given this … creature. It seemed a cruel joke played by Fate, a monster in exchange for her beautiful baby.
Immediately she chastised herself for thinking that way. This poor
subhuman child had no control over its surroundings, its parentage, or the fate that had befallen it.
She held the moist, cool baby close in the dim light and could feel the strange humming energy of its body next to hers, almost a purring sensation that made no detectable sound. At first the baby had fussed about the spoon, refusing to eat from it, but gradually, patiently, Corysta had coaxed it to accept the thin broth boiled with crustaceans and seaweed. The baby hardly ever whimpered, though it looked at her with the saddest expression she'd ever seen.
Life was so unpredictable, moment by moment and year by year, and so chaotic within the much larger chaos of the entire universe. People were anxious to do this and that, to go in directions they imagined were important.
As Corysta gazed down at the phibian and made gentle eye contact with it, she had the sensation of supreme balance, that the time they were spending together had a healing influence on the frenzied cosmos … that all of the chaos wasn't really what it appeared to be, that her actions and experiences had a larger, significant purpose. Each mother and child extended far beyond their own parochial circumstances, far beyond the horizons they could see or even begin to imagine.

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