Archiwum
- Index
- Brian Lumley Nekroskop 1 Nekroskop
- Aldiss, Brian The Dark Light Years v11
- Brian Westlake The Endangered List (pdf)
- Walter Jon Williams House of Shards
- Frank Herbert Hellstrom's Hive
- Stone_Lyn_ _Szepty_i_westchnienia
- 162. Schuler Candace Przeszlosc nie umiera
- Anna Mayle Stolen Child 4 Daybreak for a Stolen Child
- Ebook 1000 Atkins Diet Recipes
- Janrae Frank Journey of Sacred King 01 My Sister's Keeper
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- aeie.pev.pl
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
pensions and other benefits. Morale among the Sardaukar must be ebbing, as they
are called upon to do more with fewer and fewer resources."
Margot noticed her husband had grown dangerously quiet. Having narrowed his
large eyes to slits, he was staring at the foolish drunk.
A woman whispered something to the Grumman ambassador. He ran a finger over the
lip of his wineglass. "Oh yes, I apologize for stating the obvious to someone
who knows our Emperor so well."
"You're an idiot, Ord," Narvi thundered, as if he'd been waiting for any chance
to shout an insult.
"And you're a fool and a dead man." The Grumman ambassador stood up, knocking
his chair over behind him. He moved too swiftly, too accurately. Had his
drunkenness all been an act, an excuse, just to provoke the man?
Lupino Ord drew a gleaming cutterdisk pistol and, with ear-piercing reports,
fired it repeatedly at his adversary. Had he planned this, provoking his Ecazi
rival? Cutterdisks tore Narvi's face and chest apart, killing him long before
the poisons on the razor edges could have any effect.
Diners cried out and scattered in all directions. Footmen grabbed the reeling
ambassador and wrestled the expended weapon from him. Margot sat frozen in
place, more astonished than terrified. What have I missed? How deep does this
animosity between Ecaz and House Moritani go?
"Lock him in one of the underground tunnels," Fenring commanded. "Station a
guard at all times."
"But I have diplomatic immunity!" Ord protested, his voice squeakier now. "You
don't dare hold me."
"Never assume what I might dare." The Count glanced at the shocked faces around
him. "I could simply allow my other guests to punish you, thus exercising their
own . . . immunity, hmmm?" Fenring waved an arm, and the sputtering man was
taken away until protected passage back to Grumman could be arranged.
Medics hurried in, the same ones Fenring had seen earlier at the conservatory
disaster. Clearly, they could do nothing for the mutilated Ecazi ambassador.
Quite a body count around here today, Fenring mused. And I didn't kill any of
them.
"Hmmm-ah," he said to his wife, who stood by him. "I fear this will become an .
. . incident. Archduke Ecaz is bound to issue a formal complaint, and there's
no telling how Viscount Moritani will respond."
He commanded the footmen to remove Narvi's body from the hall. Many of the
guests had scattered to other rooms of the mansion. "Shall we call people
back?" He squeezed his wife's hand. "I hate to see the evening end like this.
Maybe we could bring in the Jongleurs, have them tell amusing stories."
Baron Harkonnen came up beside them, leaning on his wormhead cane. "This is
your jurisdiction, Count Fenring, not mine. You send a report to the Emperor."
"I'll take care of it," Fenring said, tersely. "I'm journeying to Kaitain on
another matter, and I will provide Shaddam with the necessary details. And the
proper excuses."
In the days of Old Terra there were experts in poisons, deviously clever persons
who dealt in what were known as "the powders of inheritance."
-Filmbook excerpt, Royal Library of Kaitain
GRINNING WITH PRIDE, Court Chamberlain Beely Ridondo marched through the
doorway. "Your Imperial Majesty, you have another new daughter. Your wife has
just delivered a fine and healthy girl."
Instead of rejoicing, Emperor Shaddam IV cursed under his breath and sent the
man away. That makes three! What use is another daughter to me?
He was in a foul mood, worse than any since the struggles to remove his decrepit
father from the Golden Lion Throne. At a brisk pace Shaddam entered his private
study, passing beneath an ancient plaque that read, "Law is the ultimate
science" -- some nonsense from Crown Prince Raphael Corrino, a man who'd never
even bothered to wear the Imperial crown. He sealed the door behind him and
thumped his angular frame into the textured, high-backed suspensor chair at his
desk.
A man of middle height, Shaddam had a loosely muscled body and an aquiline nose.
His long nails were carefully manicured, his pomaded red hair combed straight
back. He wore a gray Sardaukar-style uniform with epaulets and silver-and-gold
trim, but the military trappings no longer comforted him as they once had.
In addition to the birth of yet another daughter, he had much on his mind.
Recently, at a gala concert in one of the inverted-pyramid stadiums on
Harmonthep, someone had released a giant inflated effigy of Shaddam IV.
Obscenely insulting, the gaudy caricature made him look like a buffoon. The
inflatable construction had drifted over the vast laughing crowds until the
Harmonthep dragoon guards had shot it down in flaming tatters -- and any fool
could see the symbolism in that act! Despite the most rigorous crackdown and
interrogation, even Sardaukar investigators were not able to determine who'd
been responsible for creating or releasing the effigy.
In another incident, hundred-meter-high letters had been scrawled across the
granite wall of Monument Canyon on Canidar II: "Shaddam, does your crown rest
comfortably on your pointy head?" In scattered worlds across the Imperium,
dozens of his new commemorative statues had been defaced. Nobody had ever seen
the perpetrators.
Someone hated him enough to do this. Someone. The question kept gnawing at his
Imperial heart, along with other worries . . . including an impending visit from
Hasimir Fenring to report on the secret synthetic spice experiments being
conducted by the Tleilaxu.
Project Amal.
Initiated during his father's reign, this research was known to only a few.
Perhaps the most closely guarded secret in the Imperium, Project Amal could, if
successful, give House Corrino a reliable, artificial source of melange, the
most precious substance in the universe. But the damned Tleilaxu experiments
were taking years too long, and the situation upset him more and more with each
passing month.
And now . . . a third cursed daughter! He didn't know when -- or if -- he would
bother to gaze upon this useless new girl-child.
Shaddam's gaze moved along the paneled wall, to a bookcase that contained a
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]