Navigators of Dune

He was so surprised he couldn’t even laugh. “Those primitive barbarians could never break through our advanced defenses.”

“Heed my warning, Josef. Trust my prescience. My Navigators need to be evacuated.” Norma’s ornate vault vanished in a rush of displaced air, leaving Josef and Cioba confused and alarmed.

“She’s been behaving strangely,” he said, “ordering one evacuation after another.”

“At Salusa, she sensed that the spice stockpile was being raided—and she was right,” Cioba pointed out. “We have to trust her.”

“Even with her prescience, we arrived at Arrakis too late,” Josef said, feeling a sudden chill. “I have no idea what she’s worried about this time, but if she wants us to leave, I think we should.”

While he and Cioba dressed themselves and grabbed a few possessions, Josef sounded an alarm for all spaceport operations and ground troops. He increased the planetary shields and called for VenHold warships to take a defensive posture—only to discover that Norma had already withdrawn two large foldspace carriers from orbit and brought them down to the Navigator field.

Taking a fast groundcar, he and Cioba raced out to the valley, which was in turmoil. Dazzling glowglobe security lights blazed in the air, shining down on the two landed spacefolders that covered the barren ground. Enhanced suspensor fields added structural integrity to the vessels that were normally meant for open space rather than the stress of a planetary gravity field.

The cargo hatches were open, and uniformed VenHold employees used antigravity clamps and suspensor rigs to move the tanks containing the proto-Navigators. They wrestled with one at a time, keeping the melange gas supply connected to the tanks.

Josef was shocked to see such a large-scale evacuation. One breathless VenHold worker with a stubble of beard spoke to him. “We are moving as swiftly as possible, Directeur—as ordered.”

“By Norma?” Josef asked, trying to calm himself.

The man didn’t seem to know. “We were given only one hour. Both of these carriers have to be loaded and ready to depart. Our Holtzman engines are on standby. The Navigator on deck is preparing to fold space without even leaving the surface. I don’t know how that’s—”

Cioba interrupted, “Has anyone been told the exact nature of the danger?”

The frantic workers could not answer, but they continued to load the Navigator tanks with great haste, clearing the eighty sparkling tanks.

“The planetary shields are in place,” Josef said, but even he wasn’t convinced it would be enough.

Norma’s tank appeared on its dais, overlooking the mostly empty Navigator field. “We depart in moments, Josef. Join us. We are beneath the shields now, but will reappear above them.”

“How can I just leave everything behind—my industries, spaceport, ships, construction yards?”

“You have no choice,” Norma said, “if you wish to live.”

Josef looked at Cioba, then they hurried aboard the nearest carrier. The rest of the Kolhar workers hunkered down to defend themselves against a threat they had not even seen yet.

Once the great ships were sealed, the Navigators simply winked them out of existence, disappearing from the ground and reappearing in far orbit above Kolhar, bypassing normal dimensional paths to get around the planetary shields.

But even in orbit, they were far from safe.

* * *

MANFORD TORONDO’S FLEET appeared without warning.

The faithful aboard had been drilled en route from Salusa Secundus, and every person knew their role. The captains of the 115 ships fully understood Manford’s plan.

At first, his faithful had been horrified to learn about the stockpile of atomics that Anari had distributed among their vessels—atomics exactly like the ones that had devastated so many thinking-machine worlds. Despite the current prohibition against such doomsday weapons, the Butlerians did relish the idea of bombarding the headquarters of the machine lovers.

Manford knew that Directeur Venport had no chance against such an onslaught, but he also knew that his forces could not afford a prolonged space conflict against superior enemy warships. He had to saturate Kolhar with the atomics and then leave as quickly as possible.

When his Butlerian spacefolders emerged into real space and accelerated toward the planet, he looked across at Anari, who was staring through the windowport at their destination ahead. The Swordmaster contacted the other captains, then gave him a hard grin. “Only two of our vessels were lost in transit, Manford—navigation errors. Acceptable losses for a mission such as this. We have no need of the monster Navigators Venport uses. Your followers are blessed, and we are destined to achieve a great victory today.”

“Indeed we are, Anari.”