Justice may be impartial, but righteousness is deeply personal.
— BASHAR ABULURD HARKONNEN,
private journals
Speaking from a safe retreat while Rayna’s zealots surged through the streets, Viceroy Butler declared martial law. But the Zimia Guard was not large enough to reestablish order. They had no way to control the rush of fanatics, short of authorizing wholesale slaughter using all available weapons.
The League of Nobles maintained large archives of electronically stored data. Though the archives were not processed with AI programming or technology— a fine distinction that many people did not acknowledge— the very presence of computerized systems was a thorn in Rayna’s side. The Demon Scourge had already thrust League civilization into turmoil, and a great deal of scientific and military information, as well as family records and historical documents, had been lost in the panic. Now Rayna was expanding the scope of the purge.
The records of millennia were being thrown into fires, the magnitude of the loss even greater than the destruction of the Library of Alexandria on Old Earth. If this continued, the human race was sure to face an extended dark age, if it ever recovered at all.
Not all records were accurate, of course, Abulurd Harkonnen thought. Perhaps if the false historical records were destroyed, it would be easier to restore his grandfather Xavier to his rightful place as a Hero of the Jihad.
Not wishing to be a target, Abulurd removed his bashar’s uniform and donned civilian clothes. If he had thought it might be effective, he would have gone into the streets with his personal sidearm. But members of the Cult of Serena were perfectly willing to sacrifice their own lives. One man could never stand against them.
But he hoped to be able to protect his own laboratory.
When he arrived in the facility after sunset, some of the buildings around the Grand Patriarch’s administrative mansion were on fire, though the nondescript research building was unharmed— so far. Abulurd was both relieved and disappointed to discover that none of his scientists or engineers had come to defend the research facility. Perhaps they were all at home protecting their families.
Inside the building, he sealed away all the records and test results about the machine mites. In the laboratory the prototype distorter device his engineers had developed was still sitting out on a bench after undergoing several final tests. He would have to reprimand his staff for not locking up their valuable equipment, which a zealous Cultist could have found and hammered into wreckage.
Before he could lock the distorter away in its proper place, he heard someone moving about in an interior analysis chamber. Abulurd held his breath to listen. Perhaps one of his engineers had come to stand guard over their research after all. He set the prototype distorter back on the lab bench and approached cautiously. None of the lights had been turned on. Shadows were long, and the intruder’s sounds were cautious and rushed. Not an engineer, then. Someone who shouldn’t be here. One of the Martyrists?
Pausing to power up his personal shield in case he was attacked, Abulurd pushed the room’s illumination to full intensity, dazzling the stranger. The man shielded his eyes and moved like a lizard on a hot rock. He fired two rapid shots from a Maula pistol, but Abulurd’s shield stopped the projectiles. The intruder skittered away, seeking shelter behind a bank of laboratory instruments. He saw the man’s olive skin and bald scalp, his features familiar from history. The man Abulurd had been searching for.
Abulurd drew the chandler pistol from his side and grabbed a ceremonial dagger with the other hand. He could not fire the pistol’s crystal needles while his shield was on, and he dared not switch off the protection now. “I know who you are, Yorek Thurr.”
The intruder laughed, but with a nervous edge. “At last my fame precedes me! It’s about time.”
Crouching, Abulurd circled. “I’m glad I have a chance to meet you face-to-face. The League investigation force doubts you could still be alive after all these years, but I didn’t underestimate your abilities.”
Having used comparison techniques on historical images of the Jipol commandant with the image taken of the Grand Patriarch’s murderer, Abulurd had no doubts whatsoever about the killer’s identity. Afterward, when he’d delivered his analysis to his skeptical brother, Faykan promised to take the information under advisement, but obviously had treated it with as much seriousness as he gave the task force to clear Xavier Harkonnen’s name.
As part of his manhunt, Abulurd had used his own connections to study records of new arrivals on Salusa Secundus, backtracking the paths of refugees by their documentation. He’d found several surveillance images that looked strikingly similar to the half-forgotten Jipol commandant, but the trail had gone cold. Though the League had cast a wide net for the killer of Xander Boro-Ginjo, the net had a great many holes.
“Everyone has been searching for the Grand Patriarch’s assassin,” Abulurd said, “but I alone have been looking for you. And now, during the greatest frenzy in the streets, you have come right to me, like a gift.”
Thurr’s leathery face looked at least half a century younger than he had any right to appear, frozen on the verge of old age. Grinning carelessly, he seemed to be enjoying this confrontation, and exhibited no concern.
In the harsh light of the research center, Thurr maintained his grip on the Maula pistol, though it was useless against Abulurd’s shield. Thurr wore protection as well, but had not activated the power source. Apparently, he preferred the freedom to use his projectile weapon over the coverage the Holtzman field would give him.
“To what do I owe the honor of your obsession, young man?” Thurr asked. “Perhaps I can use you in my future plans. Wouldn’t you like to be a part of history?” He moved like a panther stalking prey.
“You have used people enough as it is.” Abulurd squared his shoulders. “My grandfather was Xavier Harkonnen— a hero in the war against the thinking machines— and you destroyed his reputation. You manipulated the truth and bled away the honor of my family.”
“Yes, but it was all for a good cause, don’t you see?”
“No. I don’t.” Abulurd stepped closer to him, holding out his dagger, which he could use while maintaining the protection of his body shield. “Why did you come to my lab?”
“Isn’t this where you keep the remaining samples of my lovely mechanical pets? The devourers I helped develop on Corrin.” Gleeful, Thurr raised his eyebrows. The historical records had portrayed him as ruthless and coldly intelligent, but now the feral look in the traitor’s eyes carried an added sharpness, as if something had become twisted inside his head. He was still as malicious and scheming as ever, but his toehold on sanity seemed to be slipping.
“Ah, what an effect I’ve had working for Omnius— far more significant historically than anything I did as the commandant of the Jihad Police. Even when I worked for Jipol, I was completing a mission for Omnius, who provided me with this marvelous life-extension treatment. Oh, I still kept many important secrets from the machines, but all the while I planted red herrings, threw out false trails for Grand Patriarch Ginjo and his deluded though vehement devotees.
“Everything would have been perfect if only his widow had given me my due. That would have been the crowning achievement of a glorious career. My own kind of historical immortality! But when that was stolen from me, I had to do something else. The hungry little mites were merely an experiment. I developed them when I was bored with my endless captivity on Corrin. The retrovirus I suggested was far more devastating. Don’t you agree?”
“I cannot grasp the magnitude of your evil,” Abulurd said.
“Proof that you lack imagination.”
Abulurd clenched the hilt of the knife, wanting to kill this man before he confessed to even more horrors. “Why are you telling me all this? Is your conscience heavy and you want to get it off your chest?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Surely I’ve earned the right to brag after all I’ve achieved? Besides, I mean to kill you anyway, so allow me that much satisfaction beforehand.”
Though he still held the pistol in one hand, Thurr lifted a small translucent storage box in the other. Abulurd recognized one of the lab’s secure sample containers; the seal had been breached, the locking mechanism broken. With his finger, Thurr flipped the lid. “I’m disappointed that you kept only twelve of my hungry little friends intact… but a dozen will certainly do the job here.”
Once activated, the tiny voracious mechanisms began to buzz and jostle. Thurr flung the open box at Abulurd. The box bounced off of Abulurd’s shield, and the machine mites scattered in the air like angry hornets. Abulurd backed away, looking for shelter, but the mechanical devourers spread out and pursued him.
Flattening himself against the wall, hidden among shadows and confusing shapes of equipment, Thurr observed and chuckled.
The buzzing mites swirled in the air, scanning the room, identifying Abulurd’s human shape as the most obvious available target. They darted after him, tiny crystalline jaws whirring, ready to chew through flesh.
One of the piranha mites collided with the invisible barrier of his personal shield, striking with the speed of a bullet. It ricocheted off, and the other devices circled, closing in more slowly. Abulurd had no doubt that they would soon discover how to penetrate the Holtzman field.
As he backed against one of the stations where his engineers worked, he glanced down and saw his salvation. Grabbing the prototype he had set on the laboratory bench, he switched on the distortion field.
The crude device couldn’t fry the tiny motors of the devourers, but suddenly Abulurd’s shape became indistinct and invisible to their discrimination routines. The machine mites buzzed in circles, confused, and then orbited wider, casting a broad net in their search for the victim that had suddenly disappeared.
Tentatively, Abulurd held up the distorter and walked two steps out into the middle of the laboratory room. The machine mites did not respond to his movement. With their jaws spinning and their levitation engines driving them in random trajectories, they did not react to him at all.
Annoyed at this interference, Thurr demanded, “What have you done? How did you— “
Suddenly the machine mites spotted him. They changed course and zoomed toward their creator. Thurr scrambled away and activated his personal shield. The dozen tiny killers swarmed around, bumping into the force field, bouncing off and trying again. They were like carrion birds pecking a carcass. Abulurd activated the security controls for the door. The chamber barricades sealed into place and an automatic distress alarm was transmitted to enforcement personnel, though with Rayna’s mobs in the streets, he doubted anyone would respond soon.
“You have conceived your own fate, Yorek Thurr.”
The first of the devourers tunneled slowly through the indistinct barrier of the traitor’s personal shield. Once inside the zone of protection, the piranha mite bounced about wildly in a ravenous attack. Soon it signaled the shield-penetration trick to its eleven counterparts, and the voracious machines pressed closer, slower, until all of them had passed through.
The mites began to attack Thurr’s body, latching mechanical jaws on to his arms, his neck, his cheeks. He swatted at them ineffectively. As they consumed him, the traitor screamed and writhed, flailing his hands. Though blood poured from chewed holes in his shoulder and his side, he seemed more infuriated than terrified at his impending death.
One of the killing machines circled the top of his head, cutting a wide trough across his tanned scalp, exposing the white bone of his skull. Others bored into Thurr’s stomach and burrowed through his thigh. One emerged, bloodied but still gnashing its artificial teeth as it broke through his rib cage, circled around in the air, then dove in for another meal. It spewed flecks of meat like raw sausage from its exhaust openings.
Thurr howled. He collapsed to his knees and in a desperate gesture managed to snatch one of the silvery balls out of the air and clench it in his hand. As he watched, the machine mite gnawed its way through his closed fist, severing Thurr’s knuckles so that his fingers dropped off.
Abulurd watched the gruesome spectacle, sick with horror, yet also remembering that this man had betrayed humanity, murdering billions, and he had desecrated the memory of Xavier Harkonnen. Reminding himself of those things helped deafen Abulurd to the screams.
Because there were only twelve piranha mites, it took them several long minutes to do enough physical damage to kill their victim. Even after Thurr had fallen and his twitching ceased, the mites bored out his skull, then searched the room for other viable targets. Abulurd’s distorter prevented them from seeing anyone else. Presently, the devourers returned to Thurr’s body and continued to mutilate it.
Abulurd could not tear his gaze away. He let the piranha mites proceed with their horrific destruction until the traitor was entirely erased. Finally, their limited test power sources exhausted, they fell to the ground like fervid, fang-studded pebbles.
When finally, belatedly, three pale and harried-looking guards responded to the emergency alarm Abulurd had triggered, they stared with sick horror at the mangled flesh that lay piled like waste scraped from the floor of a butcher shop.
“I know this isn’t our highest priority during the mob action,” Abulurd said to them, “but that was the assassin, the man who killed Grand Patriarch Xander Boro-Ginjo.”
“But… who was he?” one of the guards asked.
Abulurd thought long before answering, then finally said, “No one worth remembering.”