“Father always said you were just putting me off, getting me out of the way.”
With an effort, Malina maintained an unreadable expression. “Your father said altogether too much, and there are reasons why he was quietly retired to Otorio before he died. I regret that you spent so much time with him. I should have taken more direct control.”
Again, Jaxson was quick to take offense, and she held up a calming hand to forestall further comment. Jaxson had always been a challenging young man, but Malina knew how to handle him. She had trained her notoriously vicious spinehounds, and she could tame Jaxson as well. She just needed to use a different sort of disciplinary collar on him.
Reaching into her trim jacket, she removed the gilded sheet of fine-weave paper stamped with the golden Corrino lion. “This is the invitation for us to attend his ridiculous reception. He did not send it as a provocation or an insult. Shaddam is simply oblivious. He has no idea what he has done to our heritage.”
She tore the invitation to shreds and lifted her hands to let the scraps flutter beyond the veranda, blowing on the smoky breezes. “I will not attend. Your brother, the President of CHOAM, will not attend. No CHOAM Company representative of any kind will be there, because I instructed them to make excuses. You see, we are on the same side.”
“Will anyone even notice?” he asked bitterly. “What will that accomplish?”
“Whatever your imagination and patience can envision. I have taught you, do not sacrifice what you truly want for what you want right now. You all have your own roles in this.” Malina pressed her thin lips together. Frankos, her oldest child, had assumed the mantle of CHOAM President, the public face of the enormous company, while Jalma, her only daughter, had married the powerful but senile old Count Uchan, head of a House Major with seven planets under his—her—control.
“I need to do more than sit quietly in meetings, Mother. There is work to be done. I have my own network, and we can achieve things of great consequence.”
Malina knew he had met with a few outspoken rebellious Landsraad nobles. Sometimes, it was good for them to vent their frustrations and plan audacious protests that would never come to fruition. “When you are ready, I can connect you with influential agitators in the Noble Commonwealth movement. The plan is vast and complex, and we have already accomplished significant erosion over several generations. The foundations of the Imperium are showing cracks, and Shaddam doesn’t even realize it.”
Jaxson fumed. “The Emperor doesn’t realize it because the damage is too little and too slow. You celebrate a quiet refusal to pay Imperial taxes, to conceal holdings and divert resources. I don’t want to wait for the slow pace of evolution. We need a revolution to bring freedom to the Imperium. Humanity cannot sustain a thousand more years of Corrino decadence. The modern Imperium serves no purpose except for despotism.”
Har and Kar looked up at Jaxson, as if fascinated by his speech, but Malina had heard the words many times. “Slogans do not achieve progress. Demonstrate your growth and knowledge.” Her voice became harder, and his head snapped up as if she had whipped him. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood used a similar technique called Voice, but for Malina, it was simply to demonstrate how well she understood every fiber of Jaxson’s being. “I will expand your responsibilities, but you must follow my guidance!”
She noticed something that gave her pause, a tempered steel that had been growing within him. He pushed back. “That doesn’t serve my purposes, Mother. I spent countless hours talking with my father when he was alive.” Even as she began to frown, he raised his voice. “You always disrespect him! Now that he is dead and his grave desecrated on Otorio, you’ll never know what an asset he could have been to CHOAM, if only you had let him.”
Malina turned away from the smoky, dark sky and faced her son. The spinehounds rose to their paws and stood at her side.
“It is possible to break up the Imperium in my own lifetime,” he said. “Your gradual and dithering plan may appear sound to an academic mind, but most people cannot hold on to an esoteric dream that will take centuries to achieve. You and I both know bureaucracy, Mother. Any delay tends to breed another delay, and the end result never arrives. In order to break something, you need more than a slow, gentle nudge. Sometimes a bludgeon is required!”
She shook her head.
He turned back to the door. “I am already packed. I will let you know my progress, because we are indeed on the same side. My efforts will give a permanent public face to our cause.”
“This is brash and ill-considered. I will not fund you,” Malina warned, suspecting it was a useless threat. “CHOAM accounts are not open to your use, and any expenses must be approved by me.”
Jaxson laughed at her. “I have my own sources of funding.”
That alarmed Malina even further. “What are you intending to do?”
“You will find out soon enough, and you will recognize its effectiveness. But you can’t stop me. The wheels are already in motion.”
When does a student stop being a student, or is all of life a continuous lesson?
—CHANI KYNES, comment to her father
Paul Atreides, barely past his fourteenth birthday, took the controls of the military training aircraft. He gripped the directional yoke, getting a feel for the air and wind currents, and the craft responded to the slightest motion of his hands in one direction or the other.
In the seat beside him, Duncan Idaho shut down his instructor’s controls, letting the boy operate the craft himself. Duncan was Paul’s main protector and trainer, a Swordmaster with many talents, including being a skilled pilot.
This was not the young man’s first piloting session in this class of fast-attack flyer. He was familiar with its hybrid operational features, which enabled it to be a comparatively slow ornithopter with articulated wings, or after shortening and fixing the wings, a speedy flyer. Paul liked the combination, since it gave him a good range of adaptability. He shifted to ’thopter mode, lifting and dropping the wings as smoothly as he could.
“Too jerky,” Duncan said, his voice stern and encouraging at the same time. “Think of a graceful bird flying, like a spreybird. The flyer won’t do it on its own.”
Concentrating, Paul calmed himself with a Bene Gesserit breathing exercise his mother had secretly taught him. Once he quelled his anxiety, he understood exactly what Duncan meant, knew how to correct his moves. He loosened his grip on the control yoke just enough to let the craft fly smoothly.
“That’s it, boy. Do it the way I taught you.”
Paul didn’t mention that his mother also deserved credit. Duncan and the Lady Jessica often seemed at odds, strong-willed people both driving the young man to achieve his best. His mother had spoken of it once to Paul, theorizing that she and Duncan were in an odd competition for his attention and affections. But no one else knew the exact Bene Gesserit techniques she was sharing with her son; Duke Leto would not approve. Ironically, Paul knew, neither would the Sisterhood, but Jessica had made up her own mind.
Duncan and Lady Jessica weren’t his only trainers, however. Paul also received personal combat instruction from the troubadour warrior Gurney Halleck and from Thufir Hawat, the Atreides Mentat and Master of Assassins. The latter, despite his title, taught more defensive than offensive tactics, instructing Paul in how to avoid trouble, and to survive it.