Read Online Road to Dune by Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson - Free Book Online

grinning.
    “Duneworld has a way of making its own rules,” English said.
    Jesse made up his mind. “We raid the advance bases.”
    Deep in thought, he took a sip of spice coffee. As he gazed through the plaz toward the sands, he could feel the soothing effects of melange. “Collect all the data compiled by advance survey teams and as much intelligence as you can find about the spice operations of the Hoskanners. We’ll need access to that information before we can rise above their mistakes and reach another level. Otherwise we won’t know what we’re doing.”
    Dorothy burst into the conference room, her face flushed. “We’ve just received an emergency transmission, My Lord! A carryall broke down and stranded one of the spice harvesters. They’re calling for an emergency rescue before a worm comes.”
    “We have two other carryalls, don’t we?” Jesse asked. “Send one quickly.”
    Now English looked distressed. “Sir, one carryall is in the repair depot, and the other is in a spice field near the equator. Much too far away. They’ll never get there in time.”
    “What about all those men?” Jesse demanded. “Isn’t there a full spice crew on that harvester?”
    Dorothy’s face darkened. “They shut down operations and dampened their noise and vibrations. But even if they lie low, they’re sure a sandworm will come soon.”
    Jesse fairly lunged out of the room. “William, get me our fastest transport shuttles, anything that can carry crewmen. We’ll save as many as we can. Gurney, Esmar—come with me! There’s no time to lose.”
    6

Nobility is not the same thing as bravery.
—NOBLEMAN JESSE LINKAM,
private notes

    F or more than three decades General Esmar Tuek had served House Linkam, first as a member of the guard force, then working his way up to security chief. In earlier years he had tried to keep Jabo Linkam from accidentally killing himself, and the same with Linkam’s eldest son, Hugo, but those noblemen had gone to great lengths to avoid using what little brains they had.
    Now, at long last, Tuek had a chance to serve someone with a solid head on his shoulders. Jesse was a thoughtful man willing to perform honest work for what he wanted, much loved by his people back on Catalan. But was the young nobleman just as big a fool as his predecessors for letting himself be goaded into Valdemar Hoskanner’s challenge? Perhaps it would still end badly.
    Racing to rescue the stranded spice harvester, Gurney Halleck handled the controls of the transport ship with a kinesthetic accelerator connected to his fingertips. English stood behind him in the cockpit, struggling to hold his balance while guiding their course.
    The roaring ship flew so low over the dunes that the noise of its passage rattled the sands. Looking back through the aft porthole, Tuek saw a monstrous worm surface just behind them, questing with its blind head.
    The spice foreman had suggested a low and erratic flight pattern to confuse the creatures, and hopefully to prevent them from going after the disabled equipment. “They’re unpredictable beasts,” English said. “I wouldn’t count on anything. There’s never been a truly safe or effective means of harvesting melange.”
    Twenty years before, Donell Mornay, an inventor with the third Imperial expedition to this desolate planet, had developed the initial techniques for excavating spice, under contract from the young Grand Emperor Wuda. Mornay’s early harvesters had been much smaller machines, and when most of them were devoured by worms, he conceived the flying carryalls to lift the mobile factories to safety and deposit them at other rich spice veins, a leapfrog process that always kept the harvesters one step ahead of the worms. When everything worked properly.
    The Hoskanners improved the guerrilla mining technique with larger harvesters and more powerful carryalls. With any luck—and Tuek wasn’t sure if House Linkam had any left—Jesse might further refine