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components of his rogo transmitter. He felt the ice of fear in his bloodstream,
not because he was concerned he might be caught by Tleilaxu snoopers, but
because he feared the rogo would not function. It had been a year since he'd
tried to use the communications device, and this was his last set of pristine
silicate crystal rods.
He wiped a drop of sweat from his shaggy hair and inserted the rods into the
receptacle. The battered transmitter had been repaired many times. With each
use, C'tair strained the jury-rigged systems -- as well as his own brain -- to
the limit.
As youths, he and his twin had shared a perfect rapport, a brotherly connection
that had allowed them to complete each other's sentences, to look across the
room and know what the other sibling was thinking. Sometimes his longing to
recapture that empathy was almost too strong to bear.
Since D'murr became a Navigator, the brothers had grown farther and farther
apart. C'tair had done his best to maintain that fragile thread, and the rogo
transmitter allowed the two minds to find a common ground. But over the years
the rogo had faltered, and finally the machine was on the verge of breaking down
completely . . . as was C'tair.
He slipped in the last rod, set his jaw with determination, and activated the
power source. He hoped the armored walls of the cargo container would prevent
any leakage that Tleilaxu scanners could detect. After setting off his
explosive wafers two years ago, he no longer had his scan-shielded chamber. As
a result, his risks grew greater every day.
Commander Garon and his Sardaukar were searching for him, and others like him,
narrowing the possibilities, getting closer.
C'tair placed receptors against his skull, smeared on a dab of gel to improve
the contact. In his mind, he tried to summon a connection with D'murr, seeking
the thought patterns that had once been so identical to his own. Though they
still shared a common origin, D'murr was vastly changed . . . to such a degree
that the twins were now almost members of different species.
He sensed a tickle in his consciousness, and then a startled but sluggish
recognition.
"D'murr, you must listen to me. You must hear what I am saying."
He felt a receptiveness in the images, and he saw in his mind the face of his
brother, dark-haired, large-eyed, a snub nose, with a pleasant smile. Exactly
as C'tair remembered him from their days in the Grand Palais, when they had
attended diplomatic functions and both had flirted with Kailea Vernius.
But behind the familiar image, the startled C'tair saw a strange and distorted
shape, a gross, startling shadow of his brother with an enlarged cranium and
stunted limbs, suspended forever in a tank of rich melange gas.
C'tair drove the image back and focused again on the human face of his twin,
whether or not it was real.
"D'murr, this could be the last time we speak." He wanted to ask his brother
for any news of the outside Imperium. What of their father, Ambassador Pilru,
in his exile on Kaitain? If alive, the Ambassador was still trying to rally
support, C'tair theorized, but after so many years it would be a lost, almost
pathetic, cause.
C'tair had no time for chatting. He needed to communicate the urgency and
desperation of the Ixian people. All other forms of communication had been cut
off -- but D'murr, through his Guild connections, had another outlet, a tenuous
thread across the cosmos.
Someone must understand how desperate our situation is!
Frantically, C'tair talked at length, describing everything the Tleilaxu had
done, listing the horrors inflicted by Sardaukar guards and fanatics upon the
captive Ixians.
"You must help me, D'murr. Find someone to take up our cause in the Imperium."
Rhombur Vernius already knew the situation, and though the Prince had done what
he could with secret Atreides backing, that had not been enough. "Find Dominic
Vernius -- he could be our only chance. If you remember me, if you remember
your human family and friends . . . your people . . . please help us. You are
the only hope we have left."
In front of him, only half-seeing with his eyes because his mind was so far
away, stretched across the paths of foldspace to his brother, C'tair saw smoke
curling from the rogo transmitter. The silicate crystal rods began to shiver
and crack. "Please, D'murr!"
Seconds later, the rods shattered. Sparks sizzled from cracks in the
transmitter, and C'tair tore the connectors from his temples.
He jammed a fist into his mouth to cut off a scream of pain. Tears filled his
eyes, squeezed out by the pressure in his brain. He touched his nose, then his
ears, and felt blood leaking from ruptures inside his sinuses. He sobbed and
bit his knuckles hard, but the agony was a long time subsiding.
Finally, after hours of dazed pain, he looked at the blackened crystals in his
transmitter and wiped the blood from his face. Sitting up and waiting for the
throbbing to fade, he found himself smiling despite his hurt and the damaged
rogo.
He was sure he had gotten through this time. The future of Ix depended on what
D'murr could do with the information.
Beneath a world -- in its rocks, its dirt and sedimentary overlays -- there you
find the planet's memory, the complete analog of its existence, its ecological
memory.
-PARROT KYNES, An Arrakis Primer
IN TIGHT FORMATION, armored Imperial prison ships dropped out of the Heighliner
hold and fell toward the festering planet like an airborne funeral procession.
Even from space, Salusa Secundus looked gangrenous, with dark scabs and a filmy
cloud layer like a torn shroud. According to official press releases, new
convicts sent to Salusa had a sixty-percent mortality rate in the first Standard
Year.
After the new cargo of prisoners and supplies had been shuttled down to guarded
unloading points, Spacing Guild crewmen held the bay doors open long enough for
another battered frigate and two unmarked fast lighters to emerge. Leaving no
record of their passage, Dominic Vernius and his men proceeded to the planet
through a gap in the satellite surveillance net.
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