Navigators of Dune

In this case, though, Vor was both the pursuer and the pursued. He wanted the Harkonnen assassins to come here, and he needed to kill his enemies before they got to him. Willem’s arrival complicated the situation, but he could depend on his young companion as well. Willem was eager to fight at his side. Too often in his life, Vor had tried to go it alone. Now, the pair worked and planned together.

They were ready.

Korla’s scavengers had few sophisticated systems inside their outpost in the rubble, but the people were security conscious, guarding their own possessions. In order to keep peace among her workers, the Queen of Trash had installed sensors and alarms throughout the underground warren, even in sections damaged by the recent flowmetal instability. Her people had to worry more about stealing from one another than about any outside threat, since few visitors came to Corrin. Yet there was little of portable value here, except for what they themselves excavated.

Out of an abundance of caution, as soon as Willem joined him, Vor began choosing new and secret quarters for them, never spending more than one night in each place before moving on. On a wild and ungoverned planet such as this, it was hard to say how many people knew their whereabouts at any given moment.

Vor intended for Valya and Tula Harkonnen to find him—but on his own terms. He didn’t want to be blindsided, as they had been on Chusuk. Vor and Willem were lucky to have survived that; next time, he needed to see the enemy coming.

Without notifying Korla or anyone else, Vor used a specialized tool to unlock a chamber he knew was unoccupied—the home of one of the dead miners from the recent flood of liquid metal. He left their previous quarters locked so that a casual observer—or a dedicated assassin—would think they still lived there.

After the other scavengers were asleep, he and Willem took their meager belongings and moved quietly in the darkness. Vor also left tiny monitoring devices on the tunnel walls, particularly just outside his former chamber, which would alert him to any tampering. He had spent several weeks preparing for the eventual attack, building up secret defenses, even implanting tiny but powerful explosives in inconspicuous places, as an added surprise.

Feeling momentarily safe in their new hidden room, Vor sat on a wall bench, taking first watch while Willem caught some sleep on one of the bunks. After three hours, he would awaken the young man, and they would switch places. The darkness around them was illuminated only by the faint glow of a holo display that transmitted a projection of the tunnels. At present, it showed only the dim, empty passageways and numerous sealed chambers where the scavengers slept.

Vor checked the weapons kit secured to his waist; Willem had one of his own in a storage alcove next to his bunk. Each kit contained a knife, a projectile pistol, compact tools, and a pry bar.

Vor liked this room because it was one of several that had an emergency escape hatch on the rear wall. When he’d broken his way inside and checked the rear exit, he was quite satisfied. The back hatch led out into an adjacent tunnel and up to the desolate surface.

On the bunk, Willem fell into a fitful sleep, but Vor remained alert, staring at the motionless holoprojection of the tunnels. Watching.

* * *

OUTSIDE, THE REMAINING members of the Sisterhood squads slid invisibly through the ruddy gloom, converging on the scavenger settlement. The women had discovered numerous ways into the warren settlement, but now they focused on a rarely used venting system that granted them access to the tunnels.

When Valya, Tula, and two other commando Sisters passed through a nondescript hatch into the deep protected rooms below, Tula entered before her sister. Valya glanced behind her into the brooding night, then entered and closed the hatch quietly behind them. The team descended into the complex, reaching the corridors of barricaded sleeping rooms.

Working with nimble fingers, Sister Ninke used tools to disconnect the crude alarm system from the first sealed door. After finishing, she stepped back to let one of the other commandos open it carefully. Even with the security systems disabled, the old salvaged door squeaked.

Inside the dim room, two figures stirred, men who reacted to the unexpected noise, but not fast enough. In a blur, Cindel fell on the first man with her dagger, while Valya slipped past them and killed the second man. The men hardly uttered any sounds. Valya could not afford an alarm being sounded now.

Illuminating a small handlight, Tula shone a glow into the faces of the two victims, but both were older, dark-skinned men. Neither was an Atreides, but Valya had not expected the mission to be so easy.