Dune 05 - The Faces Of A Martyr (Short Story)

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THE FACES OF A MARTYR

A Tale of the Butlerian Jihad

Herbert & Anderson/DUNE: The Faces of a Martyr/ ii

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events

portrayed in this story are either fictitious or are used

fictitiously.

DUNE

The Faces of a Martyr

A Tale of the Butlerian Jihad

story, or portions thereof, in any form.

THE FACES OF A MARTYR

A Tale of the Butlerian Jihad

By Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

“I’m sorry,” Rekur Van said to his fellow Tlulaxa researcher as he slipped

the knife deftly through the victim’s spine, then added an extra twist. “I need

this ship more than you do.”

Blood seeped around the slender steel blade, then spilled in a final dying

gush as Van yanked the knife back out. His comrade jittered and twitched as

nerve endings attempted to fire. Van tumbled him out the hatch of the small

vessel, discarding him onto the pavement of the spaceport.

Explosions, shouts, and weapons fire rang through the streets of the main

Tlulaxa city. The fatally wounded genetic scientist sprawled on the ground, still

shuddering, his close-set eyes dimming as they blinked accusations at Rekur

Van. Discarded, like so many other vital things. . .

He wiped the blood on his garments, but his hands remained sticky. He

would have time to launder the clothes and clean his skin, once he escaped.

Blood . . . it was the currency of his trade, a genetic resource filled with useful

DNA. He hated to waste so much of it.

Herbert & Anderson/DUNE: The Faces of a Martyr/ 2

But now the League of Nobles wanted blood. His blood.

Though he was one of the most brilliant Tlulaxa scientists and well

connected with powerful religious leaders, Van had to flee his homeworld to

escape the lynch mobs. Outraged members of the League blockaded the planet

and swept in to exact their justice. If they caught him, he could not begin to

imagine the retribution they would inflict upon him. “Fanatics—all of you!” he

shouted uselessly toward the city, then sealed the hatch.

With no time to retrieve his priceless research documents and forced to

leave his personal wealth behind, Van used his bloodstained hands to operate

the stolen ship’s controls. Without a plan, wanting only to get off the planet

before the vengeful League soldiers could seize him, he launched his vessel into

the sky.

“Damn you, Iblis Ginjo!” he said to himself. It gave him very little

consolation to know that the Grand Patriarch was already dead.

Ginjo had always treated him as a lower form of life. Van and the Grand

Patriarch had been business associates who depended on each other but shared

no feelings of trust. In the end, the League had discovered the horrific secret of

the Tlulaxa organ farms: missing soldiers and Zensunni slaves were cut up to

provide replacement parts for other wounded fighters. Now the tables had

turned. All of the Tlulaxa were in turmoil, scrambling for their lives to escape

the League’s indignant vengeance. Flesh merchants had to go into hiding, and

legitimate traders were run off of civilized worlds. Disgraced and ruined, Van

was now a hunted man.

But even without his laboratory records, his mind still carried vital

knowledge to be shared with the highest bidder. And sealed in a pocket he took

with him a small vial of special genetic material that would allow him to start

over again. If he could only get away. . .

Reaching orbit in his stolen ship, Van saw powerful javelin battleships

manned by angry jihadis. Numerous Tlulaxa vessels—most of them flown by

Herbert & Anderson/DUNE: The Faces of a Martyr/ 3

inexperienced and panicked pilots such as himself—streaked away in a pell-

mell fashion, and the League warships targeted all Tlulaxa craft that came within

range.

“Why not just assume we’re all guilty?” he snarled at the images, knowing

no one could hear him.

Van increased acceleration, not knowing how fast the unfamiliar ship could

go. With the end of his sleeve, he wiped away a blot of drying blood on the

control panel so he could read the instruments better. The League javelins took

potshots at him, and an angry voice came over the commline.

“Tlulaxa craft! Stand down—surrender or be destroyed.”

“Why not use your weapons against the thinking machines?” Van retorted.

“The Army of the Jihad is wasting time and resources here. Or have you

forgotten the real enemies of humanity?” Surely any supposed Tlulaxa crimes

were minimal compared to decades of devastation by the computer evermind

Omnius.

Apparently, the javelin commander did not appreciate his sarcasm.

Exploding projectiles streaked silently past him, and Van reacted with a sudden

lurch of deceleration; the artillery detonated some distance from its intended

target, but the shockwave still put his stolen ship into a spin. Flashing lights and

alarm signals lit the control panels in the cockpit, but Van did not send out a

distress signal. Noiselessly, he tumbled out of control, playing dead—and the

League ships soon left him to hunt other hapless Tlulaxa escapees. They had

plenty of victims to choose from.

When the League battleships were finally gone, Van felt he was safe

enough to engage stabilizers. After several exaggerated attempts, he

compensated for the out-of-control rolling and got his ship back on course. With

no destination in mind, intent only on escaping, he flew out of the system as far

and as fast as he could go. He did not regret what he was leaving behind.

For most of his life, Van had worked to develop vital new biological

Herbert & Anderson/DUNE: The Faces of a Martyr/ 4

techniques, as had generations of his people before him. During the Jihad, the

Tlulaxa had made themselves fabulously wealthy, and presumably

indispensable. Now, though, Serena’s fanatics would raze the original organ

farms, destroying the transplant tanks, and “mercifully” putting the donors out

of their misery. Short-sighted fools! How the League would complain in

coming years when eyeless or limbless veterans wailed about their injuries and

had nowhere else to go.

The myopic League idealists didn’t consider practical matters, didn’t plan

well at all. As with so many things in Serena Butler’s Jihad, they chased

unrealistic dreams, were driven by foolish emotions. Van hated those people.

He grasped the ship’s control bar as if to strangle it, pretending it was Iblis

Ginjo’s thick neck. Despite a full résumé of despicable acts, the Grand Patriarch

had succeeded in keeping his own name clean while shifting blame onto an old,

hard-bitten war hero, Xavier Harkonnen, and the whole Tlulaxa race. Ginjo’s

ever-scheming widow falsely portrayed her fallen husband as a martyr.

The League could steal the “honor” of the Tlulaxa people. Mobs could

take their wealth and force his people to live as outlaws. But the betrayers could

never take away Rekur Van’s special knowledge and skills. This scapegoat was

still able to fight back.

Finally, Van made up his mind where he should go, where he should take

his secret and innovative cloning technology, as well as viable cells from Serena

Butler herself.

He headed out past the boundaries of League space to find the machine

worlds, where he intended to present himself to the evermind Omnius.

On Salusa Secundus, capital of the League of Nobles, a screaming, unruly

crowd set fire to the figure of a man.

Stony silent, Vorian Atreides stood in the shadows of an ornate arch,

watching the crowd. His throat was clenched so tightly that he could not shout

Herbert & Anderson/DUNE: The Faces of a Martyr/ 5

his dismay. Though he was a champion of the Jihad, this wild throng would not

listen to him.

The effigy was a poor likeness of Xavier Harkonnen, but the mob’s hatred

for him was unmistakable. The mannequin dangled from a makeshift gibbet

above a pile of dry sticks. A young man tossed in a small igniter, and within

seconds outstretched flames began to consume the effigy’s symbolic Army of the

Jihad uniform—like the one Xavier had been so proud to wear.

Vorian’s friend had devoted most of his life to the war against the thinking

machines. Now an irrational throng had found a uniform and used it to mock

him, stripping it of all medals and insignia, in much the same way Xavier had

been stripped of his rightful place in history. Now they were burning him.

As the fire caught, the figure danced and smoldered on the end of its tether.

Raucous cheering rattled the windows of nearby buildings, celebrating the death

of a traitor. The people considered this an act of vengeance. Vor considered it

an abomination.

After Vor learned how brave Xavier had exposed the Tlulaxa organ farms

and brought down the treacherous Grand Patriarch Ginjo, he had rushed to

Salusa. He’d never expected to witness such an appalling and well-orchestrated

backlash against his friend. For days Vor had continued to speak out, trying to

stop the hysterical anger from striking the wrong target. Despite his high rank,

few came to his support. The smear campaign against Xavier had begun, and

history was being rewritten even while it was still news. Vor felt like a man

standing on the beach in a Caladan hurricane, holding up his hands to ward off a

tidal wave.

Even Xavier’s own daughters bowed to pressure and changed their names

from Harkonnen to their mother’s surname of Butler. Their mother Octa, always

quiet and shy, had withdrawn in misery to the City of Introspection, refusing to

see outsiders. . . .

Wearing street clothes to conceal his identity, Vor stood among the crowd,

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