Without a word, Norma folded space, and her sealed tank withdrew with a clap of muffled thunder.
Roderick looked at Admiral Harte, drew a breath, and said, “All Imperial ships, stand down immediately. Cease firing on the VenHold vessels.” His brow furrowed. “But continue our bombardment of the surface.”
Less than five minutes later, without warning, every one of the original VenHold defense ships circling Denali simply folded space and vanished, abandoning the laboratory planet, leaving it naked and vulnerable. It reminded the Emperor of what Norma had done with the VenHold fleet besieging Salusa.
Roderick smiled at the suddenly undefended installation. “Admiral Harte, dispatch our troops — thousands of armed soldiers in personnel carriers. Swarm the planet and arrest the scientists.” He took a deep, agitated breath. “And bring me Josef Venport.”
81
Things of great value can vanish in an instant.
As Valya coiled to kill him, Korla’s booming voice seemed to make time stop. “Enough! Step away from that man or you’ll be suffering mortal wounds of your own.”
Vorian lay battered and broken on the ground, expecting the next strike to be the deathblow. He was prepared for it. One way or another he had to stop this vendetta, even if it meant the end of his own long life. At least Willem could survive and thrive.
But Korla was preventing the end of the feud. “Let her finish me,” Vor croaked.
“No!” Willem shouted. “Kill him, and I’ll kill you.”
“No,” Vor said. “No, you won’t. This vendetta has gone on too long, for too many generations. It has to stop here!”
The scavengers who had gathered to watch the duel now put an end to it. The hard-bitten workers who had survived so much hardship raised their brute-force projectile rifles and aimed them toward the surviving commando Sisters. They also had daggers at their hips and were ready to fight. If any of the Sisters moved, they would be gunned down. Although Vor understood that they would not surrender easily with their deadly fighting skills, the odds were not in their favor.
“That’s enough, I said,” Korla repeated. “Vorian Atreides leaves here alive.”
Valya flashed a sharp glance at her. “We came all this way to kill the Atreides. I intend to do so.”
“In life, we don’t always get what we want,” Korla said in a mocking tone. “You’ve had your fun. You’ve beaten him.”
“Not enough.”
“But I said it was enough,” Korla answered, with a swirl of her flowmetal cape. “And I rule here, not you.”
Valya seemed torn between her desire to kill Vor and her desire to make him suffer for as long as possible. She looked at all the deadly weapons pointed at her commandos, hundreds of armed scavengers against a handful of women. After reaching an apparent crisis in her mind, she pulled away from Vor, lifted her hands in capitulation, and sneered down at his broken form. “You want me to let him run away.”
“Yes,” Korla said.
“That won’t put an end to it,” Vor said.
“But I will not need to bother with it anymore. Go — get to your ship. Fly out of here before I change my mind.”
Valya’s dark eyes had a sudden unreadable gleam. “Yes, go. Escape in your ship, and we will keep hunting you.” Then, looking over at the pregnant Tula, she added in a voice that made Vor’s blood cold, “Besides, if I ever change my mind, I always have an Atreides I can kill.”
Tula recoiled in shock, and Willem growled, “That’s my brother’s child. It belongs on Caladan, with my family.”
“It is my child!” Tula said.
“It belongs to the Sisterhood,” Valya snapped. “That will be good enough for me to know … and for you to know, Vorian Atreides. Even if you get away, you will always remember that I have your bloodline in my grasp, along with my own bloodline.” She laughed. “I find that acceptable. Go to your ship. Get out of here.”
Feeling his bruises, the cracks in his bones, the blood streaming down his face, Vor pushed himself up from the ground. He wiped blood from his mouth. “I’m your target, not another innocent person. Not Willem. Not an unborn baby.” He turned to the young man, who stood seething. “I want you to go now, Willem — and be safe. Remember where I told you to go.”
Willem interjected. “No, Vor, I’m coming with you now. We’ll leave together on your ship.”
He shook his head. “I put you in too much danger, and that will be the case for as long as you’re with me. I go alone into my unknown future. For your own sake, for the sake of House Atreides, you’ve got to break away from me. Create your own life, and do well.” He suspected Willem would want to return to see Princess Harmona on Chusuk before going to the Imperial Court on Salusa Secundus. “I’ve provided you with everything you need to succeed. You have leadership qualities. Use them.”
Before Valya could declare another blood vendetta against Willem, Korla stepped forward. “Willem will stay here, under my protection, until these bitches are long gone.” Her scavengers gestured with their weapons. Vor looked at the Queen of Trash, and she gave a brief nod. “Go, Vorian Atreides — take your ship. Fly to safety while we hold them here.”
Oddly, Valya just smiled.
The scavengers, including Horaan Eshdi, kept their weapons trained on the frustrated Sisters. Korla said to Valya, “Once Vorian is away safely, you can all go back to whatever you call home. And don’t bother us again.”
Vor did not feel victorious. He just felt cold inside.
Bleeding from dozens of injuries, he glanced at Willem, whose face was filled with a plea. Vor knew this was the last time he would ever see the young man, and said to him, “I’ve tried to leave my past behind many times already. Maybe this time I will succeed.” He limped off through the rubble, winding his way between the unbalanced spires and collapsed skyscrapers of what had once been the thinking-machine metropolis.
Though held back by all the weapons trained against her, Valya called out, “We will keep coming for you, Vorian Atreides.”
He paused and looked back at her. “I know you will.”
THE SCAVENGERS DID not lower their guard even after Vor departed.
Willem wanted to lash out at someone; he felt confused and dissatisfied. He was even more sickened by Tula than he had been before, this young woman who had conceived a child just before murdering his brother. What terrible things would the Sisterhood do to that infant, that innocent child? He had to find some way to save it … but how could he continue his quest to murder Tula, if she was the mother of Orry’s child?
The scavengers waited, their weapons ready. Valya and the commando Sisters looked like bombs waiting for a spark to light the fuse. It was obvious that they didn’t like to feel helpless.
“Well, this is a nice little standoff,” Korla remarked.
With an intense, irresistibly evocative Voice, Valya barked, “Drop your weapons.”
Startled, some of the scavengers did, and their projectile rifles clattered on the rubble. The other Sisters prepared to move forward in attack, but the remaining scavengers primed their weapons.
“Not another word from you!” yelled Korla. “You can command some of us with that witchery, but not all of us at the same time. And we’ll gun you down before you can speak again.”
Sheepish, the scavengers who had reacted to the strange vocal command grabbed their projectile rifles again and stood closer. More than a hundred deadly weapons remained targeted on the Sisters.