When they reached the site, they found no tracks, no machinery, no
sign of human presence-and yet acres of desert looked devastated. A
mottled rust color stained the sands a darker ochre, as if blood from a
wound had dried in the hot sun.
"Looks like somebody dropped a bomb here," Kiel said.
"Could be the aftermath of a spice blow," Garan suggested. "I'll set
down for a closer look."
As the 'thopter settled onto the churned sands, Kiel popped open the
hatch. The temperature-controlled atmosphere hissed out, replaced by a
wave of heat. He coughed dust.
Garan leaned over from the cockpit and sniffed hard. "Smell it." The
odor of burnt cinnamon struck his nostrils. "Spice blow for sure."
Josten squeezed past Kiel and dropped onto the soft ground. Amazed,
he bent down, picked up a handful of ochre sand and touched it to his
lips. "Can we scoop up some fresh spice and take it back? Must be
worth a fortune."
Kiel had been thinking the same thing, but now he turned to the
newcomer with scorn. "We don't have the processing equipment. You
need to separate it from the sand, and you can't do that with your
fingers."
Garan spoke in a quieter, but firmer voice. "If you went back to
Carthag and tried to sell raw product to a street vendor you'd be hauled
in front of Governor Rabban-or worse yet, have to explain to Count
Fenring how some of the Emperor's spice ended up in a patrolman's
pockets."
As the troopers tromped out to the ragged pit at the center of the
dissipating dust cloud, Josten glanced around. "Is it safe for us to be
here? Don't the big worms go to spice?"
"Afraid, kid?" Kiel asked.
"Let's throw him to a worm if we see one," Garan suggested. "It'll give
us time to get away."
Kiel saw movement in the sandy excavation, shapes squirming, buried
things that tunneled and burrowed, like maggots in rotten meat. Josten
opened his mouth to say something, then clamped it shut again.
A whiplike creature emerged from the sand, two meters long with
fleshy segmented skin. It was the size of a large snake, its mouth an
open circle glittering with needle-sharp teeth that lined its throat.
