Navigators of Dune

44

The loss of the huge spice bank on Arrakis was a disaster by any measure, and Josef had not even begun to calculate the second- and third-order costs to Venport Holdings. The initial investigation suggested that the raiders had used giant sandworms.

The stunning attack revealed a considerable vulnerability, of which he had been entirely unaware. Not only had the catastrophe cost him an incalculable fortune in spice to be sold throughout the Imperium, Norma’s Navigators would now face short supplies. And because she had pulled all of his battleships away from the siege of Salusa in response to the raid, Josef had lost that gambit as well.

A cascade of setbacks.

Knowing how much his great-grandmother valued and protected her Navigators, he wasn’t surprised she would rush off to save the spice bank — but, oh, the damage she had done in that moment of almost certain victory. It made the VenHold fleet look like skittish, impotent cowards, running away from Roderick Corrino and the half-Manford’s capering savages. The timing could not have been worse.

Now it would require all of his capabilities to rebound. The victory he sought was not about achieving wealth and power, but to safeguard humanity’s future. If he let the antitechnology fanatics win, the human race would certainly face an unprecedented dark age.

He left part of his fleet at Arrakis to make damned certain no one threatened his spice operations again. Josef and his remaining ships returned to Kolhar, where he could regroup and prepare his next move. He looked forward to seeing Cioba again. She would help him decide what to do.

But when the VenHold ships arrived at the headquarters planet, his wife had more bad news for him. While the bulk of the warships had been away, Admiral Umberto Harte had staged a daring overthrow of the foldspace carrier that had been holding his Imperial battle group hostage. They were gone.

Cioba showed him images as he stared in disbelief. “They nearly tore the hull apart, then made their way to the Navigator deck and took control.” She turned her dark eyes downward. “I sent ships to intercept them, but the carrier folded space and vanished before we could block their way.”

Josef reeled, feeling as if another giant boulder had crashed down on him from an unexpected direction. Norma Cenva, in her tank, listened and finally pronounced in a grave, eerie voice, “The Emperor has captured one of my Navigators.”

Josef struggled to control his anger. He refused to let yet another disaster destroy him. He would find a way to snatch a victory out of even this collapse. He was Josef Venport, Directeur of Venport Holdings, and he refused to throw away a lifetime of work—generations of work.

Canceling all meetings, he locked himself in his high tower offices, asking to be alone. Brooding, he paced the room and looked out the plaz windows at the bustle of arriving and departing ships on the landing field. He worked out which part of the problem to tackle first.

Even with Harte’s ships returned to the Imperial Armed Forces, it wasn’t likely the Emperor would come to Kolhar, or Arrakis, in a direct attack. Emperor Roderick badly needed the reinforcements at Salusa, and although Admiral Harte’s ships were not spacefolders, they did represent a significant military force. They could defend the planet, if Josef ever attempted his siege again. And who knew what the Butlerians might do with all those antique ships?

Worse, though, they had kidnapped one of his Navigators!

For years, rival foldspace shipping companies such as Celestial Transport and EsconTran had tried to learn how to create the superior mutated humans, but no one else had succeeded — even though it was obvious they were immersed in tanks of spice gas, that was only part of the secret.

Now, however, Roderick had a live specimen that he could poke and prod and interrogate and even dissect. Josef dreaded what the Imperial researchers would discover. It was just possible that his scientists might be able to derive the secret.

Navigators … Norma Cenva … spice … foldspace travel … the vast wealth in interplanetary banks … the tapestry of commercial interactions that held the Imperium together. It was all connected, with Navigators at the center. Josef would not let it all unravel.

Restless and agitated, he emerged from his office, surprised to find Cioba waiting for him there in the hall. With her Sorceress blood and Sisterhood training, she sometimes showed hints of prescience herself.

He reached out to stroke the side of her classically lovely face with its porcelain complexion, her long and silky brown hair. “Sometimes you surprise me, my love. How did you know?”

“Wherever you’re going, I am pledged to accompany you.”

The open field of Navigator tanks held hundreds of sealed chambers, each containing a candidate in metamorphosis. Some writhed and thrashed, inhaling melange gas; others drifted, curled in fetal positions. Thanks to modifications in the process, under Norma’s careful guidance, two-thirds of the Navigator candidates survived the transformation, which was a vast improvement from earlier efforts.

He and Cioba passed workers using mobile pumping reservoirs to fill the spice tanks. The VenHold employees bowed in respect to the Directeur, but Josef was preoccupied with thoughts of how extraordinarily expensive melange was going to be until he managed to build up his stockpile again — a very difficult task if he had to worry about the security of his operations on Arrakis. The efforts of the Emperor and the barbarians had redoubled against him.…

Norma’s platform was empty. She had vanished on one of her own voyages, as she sometimes did. “The universe is ours,” she often said. But the destruction of the melange stockpile as well as the loss of the Navigator Dobrec had affected her deeply.

Josef just stared at the empty space, feeling empty himself. He needed to speak with his great-grandmother, commiserate with her, even scold her for what had happened. Norma’s mind was so distant from political realities, though, that he was not at all certain she understood the consequences of what she had done at Salusa, and the dire position Venport Holdings was now in. So much political damage to mitigate!

“Maybe it’s best that she is not here,” Cioba said. “Our needs and priorities frequently align with Norma’s — but not always. She is focused on her Navigators, while we have to consider the entirety of Venport Holdings — and your own aspirations. What do you wish to achieve, my husband? If you could control every action and reaction, what would your preferred outcome be?”

Josef frowned. “My own aspirations? I thought they were clear, especially to you. I want to protect my company, conduct business across the Imperium, and ensure the steady growth of civilization. Without me, we would revert to a dark time of low technology and rampant superstition, of omens and signs and ignorance.”

He saw one of the newer Navigator candidates spasming in the orange melange gas, her distorted face stretched in a rictus of pain, her eyes swollen shut behind reddened eyelids. Most of her hair had fallen out, and the remainder hung in odd tufts and wisps. The transformation process seemed like a horrific procedure, but in the end, successful Navigators did not regret it — or so they claimed.

“To achieve my goals, I need to have both Navigators and spice — and I need the barbarians defeated.” He felt a knot in his chest. “Of utmost importance, I need the cooperation of Emperor Roderick, or some other Emperor sitting on the throne in his place … preferably not me.”

Cioba stepped closer to the tank where the proto-Navigator twitched and turned to look at him. “After the fall of the thinking machines, humanity needed to achieve its potential,” Cioba said. “Mankind became free to expand, explore, and evolve. Headmaster Albans founded his Mentat School to train minds that could think like the most advanced computers. Mother Superior Raquella founded the Sisterhood school to improve human abilities as well. Other schools also explore human potential.”

She touched the smooth plaz of the tank, and the creature inside jerked away, as if that faintest of vibrations felt like a thunderclap. “And these Navigators — this is evolution too. Forced evolution. A supreme demonstration of what humans can achieve.”

Josef drew close and peered into the tank, noting the awful physical changes that he himself had authorized. He didn’t remember this particular candidate at all, was unaware of her name, didn’t know where she had come from or whether she had openly volunteered or been forced into the tanks.

Looking around at all the tanks, he saw dozens of the creatures, many almost completely transformed, their heads and eyes enlarged, their bodies atrophied, their skin flaccid and discolored. Evolution … advancement of the species … but was this what humanity was destined to be?

He looked around and raised his voice, as if all of the Navigators were listening to their conversation. The VenHold employees with their pumping tanks and medical monitors studiously pretended not to hear. “I promise I have only the best of intentions for humanity. I don’t need more power or wealth for myself — I have enough of both. I just want to do what is right for civilization.”

Cioba’s expression grew hard, and her voice carried a tone of warning. “I’m sure General Agamemnon and the Twenty Titans also had the best of intentions.”

Josef was so surprised by her comment that he felt a chill go down his spine. He looked up to see movement inside all the Navigator tanks. The drifting, twisted forms, the successfully transformed candidates as well as the newer volunteers, all turned their faces in his direction, and Josef was certain that they were staring directly at him.