Terrible Purpose (Dune Fanfiction)

Chapter Five

This chapter is brought to you by: Bloody Mary - Lady Gaga

As soon as Nyla thrust the airlock door open and she and Paul hopped through, they pushed through the leaves in the lush plants of the weirding room and ran into their mother. Paul, still holding the hunter-seeker in his hand, glanced at the fountain, and threw his hand and the thing it clutched under the falling water.

Jessica stared at the hand, clutching Nyla tight. "What is that?"

He spoke casually, but Nyla caught the effort behind the tone: "Hunter-seeker. Caught it in my room and smashed its nose, but I wanted to be sure. Water should short it out."

"Immerse it!" she commanded.

He obeyed.

Presently, she said: "Withdraw your hand. Leave the thing in the water."

He brought out his hand, shook water from it, staring at the quiescent metal in the fountain. Nyla broke off a plant stem and prodded the deadly sliver.

It was dead.

Nyla dropped the stem into the water, and Jessica regarded her two children. They studied the room with a searching intensity that she recognized - the Bene Gesserit Way.

"This place could conceal anything," Nyla said.

"I've reason to believe it's safe," Jessica said.

"My room was supposed to be safe, too." Paul replied. "Hawat said -"

"It was a hunter-seeker," Jessica reminded him. "That means there has to be someone inside the house to operate it. Seeker control beams have a limited range. The thing could've been spirited in here after Hawat's investigation."

But Nyla thought of the possibility of a traitor once more. Not Hawat, surely. Oh, please not Hawat .

"Hawat's men are searching the house right now," Paul said. "That seeker almost got Nyla."

"There is a summons from your father to -"

"That can wait," Paul said.

Nyla's mind swirled, thinking about the hunter-seeker. It took all of her training to prevent a fit of hysterical trembling.

Paul spoke matter of factly: "It's the Harkonnens, of course. We shall have to destroy them."

A rapping sounded at the airlock door - the code knock of one of Hawat's corps.

"Come in," Nyla called softly.

The door swung wide and a tall man in Atreides uniform with a Hawat insignia on his cap leaned into the room. "There you are," he said. "The housekeeper said you two would be here." He glanced around the room. "We found a cairn in the cellar and caught a man in it. He had a seeker console."

"I'll want to take part in the interrogation," Jessica said.

"Sorry, my Lady. We messed him up catching him. He died."

"Nothing to identify him?" she asked.

"We've found nothing yet, my Lady."

"Was he an Arrakeen native?" Nyla asked.

Jessica nodded at the astuteness of the question.

"He has the native look," the man said. "Put into that cairn more'n a month ago, by the look, and left there to await our coming. Stone and mortar where he came through into the cellar were untouched when we inspected the place yesterday. I'll stake my reputation on it."