Navigators of Dune

28

Chusuk’s scars from the Jihad had been nearly erased. The planet had been a smoldering wreck after the brutal thinking machines were driven out, but with songs of victory and freedom in their hearts, the survivors had reclaimed their world, rebuilt their cities. The people focused on universities, festivals, cultural expressions, and craft guilds that built the finest musical instruments in the Imperium. Chusuk had become a planet of art and poetry, as if the nightmarish subjugation of the thinking machines had altered the psyche of the population, inspiring them and providing emotional depths for them to draw upon.

Tula Harkonnen could try to forget her own dark past here, vanish into everyday life, and exist as a normal young woman with a quiet demeanor and shy disposition. No one on Chusuk knew who she really was … any more than the people of Caladan had known when Valya sent her there to seduce and murder Orry Atreides.

Now, she dressed in plain clothes and bound her long blonde hair back. Tula was too beautiful to be invisible, but she tried not to draw attention to herself. When she played her family baliset, she was proficient enough that people stopped and listened, while some skilled practitioners offered her some advice.

No one could see the blackness that surrounded her heart. The young woman had been so fierce a fighter, so focused on reclaiming Harkonnen honor against the vile Atreides that she believed everything Valya told her — and did as she was commanded.

But each night now as she went to sleep in her lonely bed on Chusuk, Tula thought of her traumatic wedding night, of how handsome Orry had looked dozing beside her, languid and fully vulnerable after their lovemaking … unprepared for the sharp, swift edge of her knife.

Initially she had not questioned the mission, but once it was complete and she returned to Wallach IX, she had begun to wonder about what she’d done. Following orders like a soldier, Tula had killed a young man whose only crime was that he had Atreides blood in his veins. But young Orry had been isolated on Caladan all his life, generations removed from the harm that Vorian Atreides had committed against their great-grandfather. Orry had known nothing about how Griffin had died on Arrakis.

Valya had been vehement, though: “Only the death of an Atreides innocent can begin to repay the crimes that Vorian committed against our family.”

Tula wasn’t foolish enough to think that the price had been paid in full. Every day that she recovered here on Chusuk, she expected Valya to dispatch Sisters to find her. Ostensibly, they would claim they were coming to “protect” her and bring her back to Wallach IX so she could continue her training and go after the Atreides again, in another way. But now Tula was afraid of that training. She was also sure that Vorian and Willem Atreides would try to track her down to kill her. An unending cycle of violence.

Tula’s emotions swung like a pendulum. She just wanted to be left alone and forget she was a Harkonnen, forget she was anyone at all. But she doubted that was an option. If Vorian ever found her, he would make her pay the ultimate price … and if Valya found her, she would make Tula pay in a different way.

Tula liked to bring her baliset into the market, where she would find a place under the colorful awnings. She played songs — not to attract an audience, but simply to create music near other poets and musicians who did the same. She chose favorite tunes of the fur-whalers on Lankiveil, songs no one on Chusuk had ever heard. She also created her own melodies, exploring the music with her fingers and imagination.

Each day a young man, nearly her age, set up a workbench nearby, where he could listen to her. He was surrounded by the fumes of lacquer and turpentine as he built handcrafted balisets, which he also played to test them. He flashed Tula a smile whenever she turned her attention toward him.

She didn’t want to encourage him, didn’t want to use the Sisterhood’s psychological manipulation and seduction techniques she’d mastered in order to make herself irresistible — regrettably — to Orry Atreides. Tula could easily have enticed the young baliset maker into her bed, but the very thought formed a knot in her stomach. She concentrated on her own music instead.

The young man finally identified himself as Liem Valjean. “Your instrument is in tune, but if you adjust the flywheel, the tone will be richer. I think you have a slightly defective one.” He asked if he could see her baliset, and checked the pegs securing the strings, repaired and balanced the flywheel, and then began to play the instrument.

He was highly skilled, and the music he evoked was far superior to her own. When he offered to instruct her, she hesitated for only a moment. Liem was not her mission; she didn’t need to spy on him, seduce, or slay him. On the other hand, aside from Danvis, she could not think of anyone she even considered a friend. And a friend was what she desperately needed.

She played her baliset as he watched and listened. At first she picked out a sad song, and then she decided to play something livelier and more cheerful, one that Liem seemed to like better, as did she.