The Battle of Corrin

In truth, is it better to remember or to forget? We must balance this decision between our history and our humanity.
— BASHAR ABULURD HARKONNEN,
private logs
The murder of the Grand Patriarch caused an uproar in the League of Nobles. Accusations and suspicions flew in all directions, while Viceroy Butler attempted to maintain calm and stability. All powerful people had their share of political rivals, but bland Xander Boro-Ginjo had never been the sort of man to inspire the passionate sort of hatred that his assassination implied. It was difficult to believe anyone’s reaction to him could have gone beyond mere annoyance or impatience.

Although Faykan expressed his anger and shock at the assassination, he was slow to announce a replacement for the Grand Patriarch. For the time being, Abulurd’s brother appointed a panel of deputies to take over Xander’s duties, which, once the responsibilities had been delegated and disseminated, turned out to be largely ceremonial and insignificant.

A handful of those who hoped to become the next Grand Patriarch urged a quick resolution. The Viceroy made a firm statement that since all those close to Xander must, by default, be considered suspects, he would appoint no successor until the investigation had been completed. Abulurd suspected his brother was stalling for time, though he could not understand why.

The new bashar devoted most of his energies to the ongoing research work in the laboratory facilities near the Grand Patriarch’s administrative mansion, which was now cordoned off for the investigation. One of his lab workers hurried from an outside office with an alarmed expression on her face. “You should see what’s happening in the streets, Bashar. The Cult of Serena is rallying. A huge crowd.”

“Again?” Because the laboratory was isolated for protection, he’d been unaware of any disturbance outside. Abulurd had had little contact with his niece, Rayna, since bringing the waifish plague survivor to Salusa, but he knew her penchant for destroying sophisticated equipment. “Stay here and barricade the doors. Protect your work at all costs, because if the Cult gets inside you know what they’ll do.”

The lab technicians and engineers, who had no training in self-defense or combat, looked alarmed at his suggestion. “If they get… inside?”

“Just do your best,” he said when he saw their stricken expressions. He went outside to see what had set the crowd off today.

In the streets Rayna Butler— now a thin woman in her thirties, still pale and hairless— marched at the head of her crusaders. They surged along the boulevards carrying banners and placards, chanting, brandishing weapons. Her zealous, violent following had developed on ragged worlds with few remaining laws. Here in Zimia, however, Rayna kept her adherents under greater control according to her agreement with Faykan. Abulurd feared, though, that it was merely a temporary measure. The Cult of Serena was a pot of hopeless humanity rising to a roiling, angry boil.

Many of the fanatics carried images of heroic figures, including the Three Martyrs, and screamed for justice. Uneasy home owners and shopkeepers came out to watch the procession go by, afraid that the mob might go on a rampage, given the right spark.

“Do you know what set them off this time?” Abulurd asked a nearby shopkeeper.

“The Parliament just released an image of the man who murdered the Grand Patriarch,” the shopkeeper answered, glancing at the military insignia on Abulurd’s work clothes.

“They’ve caught him, then? They know who it is?”

“No one knows. No one recognizes him.”

“Why is the Cult of Serena so incensed?” Abulurd watched the followers stride by, demanding bloody justice. “They never cared about the Grand Patriarch before.”

“Now that he’s dead, they say he was a holy man who accepted Rayna’s vision.”

Abulurd frowned. The Cult of Serena had a penchant for seizing causes to increase their prominence. The shopkeeper handed him a printed image, a photograph captured by surveillance eyes mounted around the Grand Patriarch’s administrative mansion. It had been matched with another picture taken from Xander Boro-Ginjo’s offices. Abulurd frowned at the features of the bald, olive-skinned assassin. The man looked somehow familiar.

The text report summarized that this person had initially infiltrated the Grand Patriarch’s offices and caused a disturbance before guards escorted him out, but he had escaped before the arrest could be processed. The stranger had come back some nights later, slipped into the Grand Patriarch’s bedchambers, and killed him there. Presumably a hired assassin. No one recognized him from the usual group of Boro-Ginjo’s rivals or acquaintances.

Charges of incompetence had already been leveled in numerous directions. Some people even suggested reinstituting the harsh Jihad Police to impose order. Abulurd thought of all the supposed machine spies the Jipol had caught and the numerous purges they had done during the days of Xavier Harkonnen, which he’d been studying. Could Xander’s assassin be one of the insidious humans who were loyal to Omnius? Were any of them still left alive, or had they disappeared long ago like Jipol itself?

Then the unexpected impossible realization struck Abulurd like a blow. He squinted to get a closer look at the man’s face. The features hadn’t changed much— he looked almost exactly like historical images. Jipol Commander Yorek Thurr!

In order to help the task force Vor had requested, Abulurd had studied the records of his grandfather’s career and his fall from grace. He knew Thurr very well. Although the Jipol commander had been a clandestine figure, avoiding holophotos whenever possible, Abulurd had gained access to confidential League files and committed the man’s face to memory. Thurr and Camie Boro-Ginjo had waged an effective and merciless campaign to discredit Xavier’s tremendous accomplishments and paint him as a cowardly traitor. Even Vorian Atreides had been unable to turn the tide against their calculated demonization of his friend.

But Thurr’s spaceship had exploded sixty-five years ago, and the man was surely dead. It made no sense. Why would someone else disguise himself to look like a shadowy, all-but-forgotten figure from history?

He turned to the shopkeeper. “Can I keep this?”

The man shrugged. “Sure. You planning to catch the killer and turn him over to the mob? That’d be fun to watch.”

With a vague nod, Abulurd hurried off to the Hall of Parliament. He would show Faykan comparable images and pose his question, though he could offer no theory as to how Thurr could still be alive or why an impostor would choose that likeness.

Inside the reception foyer of the assembly chamber, he was informed that the Viceroy was engrossed in a trade meeting and would not be available for at least an hour. Abulurd left word that he needed to speak with him as soon as possible.

Frustrated, the bashar wandered down the marble-lined corridor until he came upon the Cogitor Vidad resting on an ornate pedestal. The last of the ancient Cogitors, Vidad seemed somewhat lost and pathetic, pondering his deep thoughts for endless days, alone.

Abulurd paused before the preservation canister. This copious brain had diligently absorbed every aspect of human history since the Ivory Tower Cogitors emerged from isolation in the time of Serena Butler. Abulurd took a moment to locate the Cogitor’s optic sensors. He didn’t know if he should rap his knuckles on the curved canister wall to get the brain’s attention. “Cogitor Vidad, I am Bashar Abulurd Harkonnen. I wish to speak with you.”

“You may speak with me,” Vidad answered through a speakerpatch in the pedestal. “But only briefly. I have important thinking to do today.”

Abulurd held the printed image near Vidad’s optic sensors and explained his theory. He asked the Cogitor to consult his own historical files, calling to mind any relevant information regarding the former Jipol commander.

“The resemblance is truly similar,” Vidad admitted, “strikingly so. I suspect that this person has intentionally made himself look like Yorek Thurr, or perhaps it is a clone. The Tlulaxa outlaws have become adept at such things.”

“He looks almost exactly as Thurr did in the last images before he was presumed dead,” Abulurd said. “Either the real Thurr survived and has stopped aging, or someone copied his appearance from old holophotos.”

“There are many possible explanations,” Vidad said. “Long ago, in the time of the Old Empire, people developed an anti-aging treatment. We Cogitors used this to preserve our brains for millennia. There have been other instances— “

Abulurd gasped. “You mean like Vorian— Supreme Bashar Atreides. General Agamemnon gave him the life-extension treatment, and he’s barely aged since his twenties.”

“Such a treatment could have kept Yorek Thurr preserved all this time. If he were still alive.”

Holding the printed picture, Abulurd paced in front of the pedestal. He felt weak as he followed the thought to its next step. “But if the machines are the only ones with access to the life-extension treatment, how did a Jipol commander get his hands on it? Do you think one of our scientists duplicated the process?”

“Always a possibility, but not a likely one. If such a treatment were available in the League of Nobles, do you truly believe it could be kept secret? The youth-enhancing properties of melange have caused the drug to spread exponentially. A perfect life-extension treatment could never be kept quiet in the League of Nobles. Consider simpler alternatives.”

Abulurd knew Vidad spoke the truth. “But— you mean— ” He stopped himself. “You’re saying the Jipol commander was probably in league with the thinking machines or the cymeks?”

“A legitimate speculation,” Vidad said. “If this is truly Yorek Thurr.”

As anger swelled within him, Abulurd crumpled the printed image. All the while that he’d been blackening Xavier Harkonnen’s name, Thurr might have been in league with Omnius! He felt outraged, betrayed.

“And now it seems he returned to assassinate the Grand Patriarch,” Vidad said.

Silently vowing revenge, Abulurd left the Cogitor behind on his pedestal. The bashar no longer needed a meeting with Faykan: He needed to hunt down the turncoat assassin.





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