Paul of Dune

the medics and retired to his quarters to recover.

Meanwhile, Paul shut himself inside the enormous citadel, not out of fear or paranoia, but because he was so overwhelmed with fury that he did not trust himself to be seen among the populace. Though he’d had murky dreams, his prescience had been unable to prevent this. Such a reckless, hateful attack against him, with no regard for all the innocents who had been slain in the attempt.

Duke Leto must have felt like this after the wedding-day massacre sucked him into the bloody War of Assassins; it was why his father became such a hardened man, a protective psychological response that anchored him against the tragedies. At the time, Paul had not understood the depths of his father’s difficulties, but he did now.

Investigators stripped the Celestial Audience Hall down to its structural components. Chemical signatures were analyzed. Work logs were inspected to discover who might have had an opportunity to set up such a plot. The conspiracy had to be large and widespread; too many pieces had fit together perfectly. Unfortunately, by ordering his soldiers to blast the panels from which the hunter-seekers had emerged, Korba had also destroyed some of the evidence.

The modified assassination devices were traced to an exiled Ixian merchant who had provided many technological toys and amusements for Muad’Dib. But the man’s ship had recently — and conveniently —  been destroyed in a small Jihad skirmish on Crell.

Many of the new servants hired for the Great Surrender ceremony were interrogated, and an unfortunately high percentage of them died during the aggressive questioning. Korba was certain they must be hiding something from him, even though no one divulged any useful information.

Despite the nagging objections of his conscience, Paul allowed the merciless inquisition to continue. Innocent deaths? There had already been plenty, and there would be more. He even considered recruiting Bene Gesserit Truthsayers, but decided against the idea, because he could not entirely convince himself that the Sisterhood was not involved.

But whom could he trust? Paul had only a few faithful confidantes — Chani, Stilgar, Alia. He could also trust his mother, and Gurney Halleck, but they were both far away on Caladan. Perhaps Korba, too, and Bludd. What about Irulan, though? He neither trusted nor distrusted her. She had lost her sister in the attack, and his truth- sense picked up no deception on her part. Could it have been a botched Corrino scheme, with Shaddam’s youngest daughter as a sacrificial lamb? Or some hitherto unknown Harkonnen heir?

Other names and questions surfaced in Paul’s mind, but he set them aside. He didn’t want to go too far along that line of thinking, because paranoia could drive him mad. I must be more alert than ever. New security measures must be established to keep my enemies off balance.

Not surprisingly, amidst the uproar, Memnon Thorvald dispatched a pompous-sounding message through disguised intermediaries, taking credit for the massacre. Expressing satisfaction from his hidden planetary base, he crowed about how he had infiltrated the Emperor’s security and struck close to Muad’Dib’s loved ones. But too many of the details in his claims were wrong, his narrative rife with contradictions about what had actually occurred. It appeared that in this instance, at least, Thorvald was merely being an opportunist, attempting to use the tragedy to his advantage. But the rebel leader did not seem knowledgeable enough to have put such an extravagant scheme into place.

In addition to invoking echoes of the Elaccan flying disks from the wedding-day attack, whoever had assembled this plot knew Paul well enough to choose hunter-seekers, a weapon once used in an attempt to kill him in the Arrakeen residency after he first arrived on Dune. This time, where one hunter-seeker might fail, more could succeed — especially given the variety of poisons. The plotter, or plotters, understood Muad’Dib’s abilities quite well.

But not well enough to kill him.

The sheer mechanics of installing so many hunter-seekers and the bomb beneath the elaccawood throne required extended, unfettered access to that section of the citadel construction site. Looking into this, Korba’s Qizarate seized all workers involved in the project and questioned them with more fanaticism than finesse. Oddly, many of the suspect workers had recently been killed on the streets, the victims of random robberies or assaults. The ones who remained alive passed the closest questioning.

When the spotlight of suspicion shone on Korba himself, he protested vehemently. Documents and testimony proved that he had imposed many alterations to the citadel’s detailed plans, some of them at the last minute. Throughout the construction, Korba had demanded architectural changes that seemed capricious and dictatorial; viewed in the current light, they looked doubly suspicious, opportunities to install booby traps.

Hearing these questions raised, Paul recalled a time during the Harkonnen occupation, when he and his Fremen band had captured Gurney Halleck and a group of smugglers out on the open desert. After Gurney had revealed to Paul that some of the men were not to be trusted, Korba had been given the task of searching the men carefully. Several of those smugglers had indeed been disguised Sardaukar, but somehow Korba had failed to find the false toenail weapons, the shigawire garrotes in their hair strands, the daggers hidden in their still-suits. An outrageous lapse in security. Had it been intentional even then?

Listening to Korba take umbrage at the accusations, Paul thought he protested too much. Was it possible that Korba sought to make Muad’Dib into a martyr, using that as a springboard to seize greater religious power for himself? Yes, Paul decided. Korba might very well be capable of that.

And yet, in the end, Paul’s truthsense convinced him that the man was not lying.

When Swordmaster Bludd himself became a target of the investigation, Paul knew that Korba was just being thorough. Bludd had thrown himself into the fight without regard to his own safety, had saved Irulan and shielded Paul from the explosion, and nearly died from a poisoned wound.

Even so, Bludd had brought a body shield, despite Paul’s orders against it. And he had sensed that there was a bomb hidden under the throne. Or had he known?

Paul felt a cold tingle on his skin.

Astoundingly, the recovering Swordmaster did not bother to deny his involvement when Korba confronted him in his quarters. “I had expected you to talk with me sooner. You could have saved yourself a great deal of difficulty.” He sniffed. “And you could have saved the lives of all those poor innocents you interrogated. Before I say more, I demand to speak with Paul Atreides.”

Bludd wore his finest, most outrageously formal outfit. Though Korba himself had begun to dress in the finery of offworld clothiers, unconsciously following the Swordmaster’s lead in fashion, he snapped orders for the foppish man to be stripped, searched, and scanned as thoroughly as they would have done to any captive Sardaukar.

Korba took great delight in yanking the sleeves and collars, ripping the fabric, and slicing open Bludd’s breeches until he stood naked, his well-toned body a patchwork of bandages from his various cuts. Handling him roughly, guards scanned his hair for shigawire garrotes, analyzed his teeth for hidden suicide weapons, tested the sweat from his pores for specifically targeted neurotoxins. They even peeled off his fingernails and toenails to make sure they contained no hidden wafer weapons.

The Swordmaster endured the excruciating pain without so much as a whimper; rather, he looked impatient and offended. “You have nothing to fear from me.” Not believing this, they probed him again.

Finally, bruised and bloody yet still walking with a somewhat graceful limp, Bludd was brought before Emperor Muad’Dib. Instead of his finery, the traitor wore only a plain loincloth. His bandages showed bright spots of fresh blood from wounds that had reopened. He smiled ruefully up at Paul. “I am sorry I could not be more presentable, my Lord. My garments were damaged by your zealots. But no matter.” He shrugged his shoulders. “These rags take me back to my roots. I feel like a young Swordmaster in training on Ginaz, somewhat like Duncan Idaho.”

Paul rose to his feet. He felt weary and furious; wanted to understand Bludd’s motivations as much as he wanted revenge. “You don’t deny what you did?”

“To what purpose? You could detect a lie the moment I spoke it. Ah, I wish it had not come to this. It wasn’t what I intended.”

Korba stepped forward and shouted at the prisoner. “Tell us all of the members of your conspiracy. How far does it spread? How many others are traitors in Muad’Dib’s court?”

Bludd gave the Fremen leader a withering frown. “I needed no one else. This was my plot, and mine alone. I wanted to be a hero — and I succeeded. Everyone saw me save you, Chani, and the Princess.”