"Herbert, Brian & Anderson, Kevin J. - Dune - House Corrino" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

Dune: House Corrino
Brian Herbert & Kevin J Anderson

The axis of spin for the planet Arrakis is at right angles to the radius of its orbit. The world itself is not a globe, but more a spinning top somewhat fat at the equator and concave toward the poles. There is a sense that this may be artificial, the product of some ancient artifice.

Ч Report of the Third Imperial Commission on Arrakis

UNDER THE LIGHT OF TWO MOONS IN A DUSTY SKY, the Fremen raiders flitted across the desert rocks. They blended into the rugged surroundings as if cut from the same cloth, harsh men in a harsh environment.

Death to Harkonnens. All members of the armed razzia squad had sworn the same vow.

In the quiet hours before dawn, Stilgar, their tall and black-bearded leader, stalked catlike ahead of a score of his best fighters. We must move as shadows in the night. Shadows with hidden knives.

Lifting a hand, he commanded the silent squad to halt. Stilgar listened to the pulse of the desert, his ears probing the darkness. His blue-within-blue eyes scanned towering rock escarpments profiled against the sky like giant sentinels. As the pair of moons moved across the heavens, patches of darkness shifted moment by moment, living extensions of the mountain face.

The men picked their way up a rock buttress, using dark-adapted eyes to follow a steep, tool-hewn trail. The terrain seemed hauntingly familiar, though Stilgar had never been here before. His father had described the way, the route their ancestors had taken into Hadith Sietch, once the greatest of all hidden settlements, abandoned long ago.

"Hadith"Чa word taken from an old Fremen song about the patterns of survival in the desert. Like many living Fremen, he carried the story etched into his psyche ... a tale of betrayal and civil conflict during the first generations of the wandering Zensunni here on Dune. Legend held that all meanings originated here, in this holy sietch. , ,i .,

Now, though, the Harkonnens have desecrated our ancient place.

Every man in Stilgar's commando squad felt revulsion at such sacrilege, lack in Red Wall Sietch, a flat stone held tally marks of all the enemies hiese Fremen had slain, and tonight more enemy blood would be shed.

The column followed Stilgar as he picked up the pace down the rocky trail. It would be dawn soon, and they still had much killing to do.

Here, far from prying Imperial eyes, Baron Harkonnen had been sing the empty caves of Sietch Hadith to conceal one of his illegal spice oards. The embezzled stockpile of valuable melange appeared on no in' ;ntory sheet ever submitted to the Emperor. Shaddam suspected nothing "Х the ruse. But the Harkonnens could not hide such activities from the 'es of the desert people.

In the squalid village of Bar Es Rashid at the base of the ridge, the arkonnens had a listening post and guards up in the cliffs. Such minor ifenses presented no obstacle to the Fremen, who long ago had built nu-erous shafts and entrances into the mountain grottoes. Secret ways ...

Stilgar found a split in the trail and followed the faint path, searching r the hidden opening into Sietch Hadith. In low light he saw a patch of rkness beneath an overhang. Dropping to all fours, he reached into the rkness and located the expected opening, cool and moist, without a orseal. Wasteful.

No bright light, no sign of guards. Crawling inside the hole, he etched a leg down and located a rough ledge, where he rested his boot, ith his other foot he found a second ledge, and below that another. Steps ng down. Ahead, he discerned low yellow light where the tunnel sloped the right. Stilgar backed up and raised a hand, summoning the others to low.

On the floor at the base of the rough steps he noticed an old serving vl. Tugging off his nose plugs, he smelled raw meat. Bait for small preda-5? An animal trap? He froze, looking for sensors. Had he already tripped lent alarm? He heard footsteps ahead, and a drunken voice. "Got an-er one. Let's blow it to kulon-hell."

Stilgar and two Fremen darted into a side tunnel and drew their milky iknives. Maula pistols would be far too noisy in these enclosed spaces, ten a pair of Harkonnen guards blundered past them, reeking of spice r, Stilgar and his comrade Turok leaped out and grabbed them from be-i

Before the hapless men could cry out, the Fremen slit their throats, i slapped spongepads over the wounds to absorb the precious blood. In efficient blur of motion, Fremen removed hand weapons from the still' ching guards. Stilgar seized a lasrifle for himself and passed one to )k.

Dim military glowglobes floated in ceiling recesses, casting low light, razzia band continued down the passageway, toward the heart of the

ancient sietch. When the passage skirted a conveyor system used for the transportation of materials in and out of the secret chamber, he detected the cinnamon odor of melange, which grew stronger as the group went deeper. Here, the ceiling glowglobes were tuned to pale orange instead of

yellow.

Stilgar's troop murmured at the sight of human skulls and rotting bodies, propped against the sides of the corridor, carelessly displayed trophies. Rage suffused him. These might have been Fremen prisoners or villagers, taken by the Harkonnens for sport. At his side, Turok glanced around, searching for another enemy he might kill.

Cautiously, Stilgar led the way forward and began to hear voices and clanging noises. They came to an alcove rimmed with a low stone railing that overlooked an underground grotto. Stilgar imagined the thousands of desert people who must have thronged into this vast cavern long ago, before the Harkonnens, before the Emperor . . . before the spice melange had become the most valuable substance in the universe.

At the center of the grotto rose an octagonal structure, dark blue and silver, surrounded by ramps. Smaller matching structures were arranged around it. One was under construction; plasmetal parts lay strewn about, with seven laborers hard at work.