Espionage and Mysticism (c. 10,125)

[Lilith Piacevole]

Sand. It covered the landscape from horizon to horizon, oppressive in its uniformity, an endless sea of rolling dunes baking in the midday heat. It was easy to see why no man wished to be caught alone in that desert which stretched from pole to pole, why few ventured too far beyond the relative safety around the sinks and basins. And if the threat of becoming lost and dying of thirst in that torrid hell wasn't enough, there were the worms...and the Harkonnens...and the Fremen, the wild ones from the Deep Desert.

Every one of these was a present and very real danger to any smuggler hoping to obtain a few scraps of spice from right under their collective noses, and live to tell the tale. The lesser of evils was ever under consideration: most would rather risk a Harkonnen patrol in the comparatively safer “second zone” nearer to various settlements and rock plains where the worms and wild Fremen didn't often venture rather than brave the open deserts of the South, practically uncharted, where all bets were off. Sometimes, though, the lure of spice proved too strong; it was said that great quantities of it could be found in the Deep Desert, ripe for the picking, and the occasional story turned up of this or that smuggler band having come across such a treasure. Greed had a way of turning people's heads, and risks were taken more freely...especially when a genuine Fremen claimed she could help them find what they were looking for.

This has been the case for Alban's band, one of the oldest and most successful smuggler groups on Arrakis who were, to a certain extent, tolerated both among the Fremen and the Harkonnen overlords. The price was steep however and they were constantly spread out, employing temporary help and holding the location of their core settlements a carefully-guarded secret, in order to stay one step ahead of their scrutiny. As of late however, things had been getting tough, with more and more of their Harkonnen contacts either disappearing or turning against them – Alban knew this had something to do with the new planetary governor, whose actions so far had been aimed at reinforcing his family's rule, coming down especially hard on those looking to undermine their profits.

The rest of his people knew it too: difficult times were ahead, and they were worried. Therefore, when Mobius Turgenova and his motley crew approached them in that seedy Arrakeen bar with what he'd called “a mutually beneficial proposal”, Alban had listened. The Fremen woman had been with him, making some of Alban's men rather edgy: they didn't trust them, those from the Deep Desert, and knew better than most how unpredictably vicious they could be...and the contempt they held most offworlders in. Yalara, her name was, had seemed more approachable, and her appearance was less ascetic than Alban was used to, but she had that curious milky white knife only the wild ones carried, so he'd kept his concern. Turgenova he knew by hearsay and reputation, and he vouched for his Fremen associate, who claimed she could guide them over the open sands in an area sufficiently far from any prying eyes, where Harkonnen patrols never ventured and Fremen only rarely. There were other dangers, of course: worms, storms, with nothing but the open desert in their path for miles and miles should something go wrong...but Alban found himself considering it. In the end, it was put to vote, with four of his men in favour and three against.

So, there they were in their unmarked crawler, buzzing upon the sand like a giant, metallic beetle in a cloud of dust as its funnel burrowed into the spice-rich sand directly below. A single spotter fluttered overhead – they didn't dare more, nor could they afford it, and a caryall hovered on standby, ready to swoop in and pluck the craft when its burrowing inevitably attracted a worm. Inside, the atmosphere was crackling with pure tension, straining each heavily sweating face manning the controls, overseeing the mining process, studying readings from the seismographs planted outside, all the while keeping in close contact with the lone spotter circling above. Everything depended on getting as much spice in as possible before a worm came, then getting the craft and its crew to safety in time; many a crawler had been swallowed up by rampaging worms of storms, though the latter was fortunately not in the immediate forecast. Here, in the Deep Desert however, meteorological conditions could change rapidly, so those instruments monitoring them were kept an eye on.

“Let's go, let's go!” barked Ishmael, the supervisor with most spice mining experience. “Half a load, we need to work faster! Why is nobody at Console 3? C'mon people, this ain't a pleasure cruise. You-” he snapped, pointing at a young woman with short-cropped red hair, who was watching something on a niched screen - “leave that, it can wait! Get to your post and let's pump this baby for all it's got!”

The woman nodded sharply as she leapt to her feet, heading for the indicated console. Moments later her hands were flying on the controls, sweat beaded on her forehead, dripping along the grooves of her face.

“This is going to be a long day”, Lilith thought as the crawler rumbled and vibrated worryingly around her, pushed to the limits of its working capacity.

[Mobius Turgenova]

Mobius wiped the sweat from his brow and watched Alban's harvester crew get to work. The heat of Arrakis, you never got used to it not even when you'd been there for as many years as he had, and it was worst in the Deep Desert. Why was he out here in such a forsaken and dangerous place mining spice which could be obtained, albeit in more limited quantities, far more safely in the “second zone”? He knew why of course, and there were two reasons, first was the new hard line governor who was cracking down on illicit mining operations close to the cities in a way his predecessors never had then there was his own reputation. He had a point to prove here, he had to show his rivals that Mobius Turgenova was still a force to be reckoned with here on Arrakis. To understand why he felt this way was to go back some six months to a meeting in one of Arrakeen's run down seedy bars and a group of shadowy looking figures sharing a table in the far corner. The idea of underworld camaraderie was usually vastly overstated by those law enforcement types who didn't really know what they were doing. Criminals were by their very nature bitter rivals with anyone else engaged in the same type of illegal activity, and assassination attempts against other gangs were far more commonplace than meetings to discuss possible alliances. Occasionally though, very occasionally, the leaders of all the top criminal organisations on Arrakis found themselves sitting in the same seedy bar in the same rundown neighbourhood, discussing matters so sweeping in their magnitude that they affected them all. The appointment of a new planetary governor was one such matter.

"Word from Carthag is that the Emperor has been in the Baroness's ear about the amount of smuggling going on" began Mobius, "and she has agreed to install a new tough guy governor to whip things into shape".

"Tough guy, eh? I'm sure he'll fold like all the others when we drop a big case of spice on his desk".

Talak headed what was perhaps the second largest smuggler organisation Arrakis. Mobius's gang was still larger in its reach, but he was aware that his reputation had taken a battering over the recent botched Kaitain contract. Rivals like Talak were more daring, more vocal in their criticism of late, and even some among his own people were doubting him now. Most believed Tek and Yalara when they spoke of a hopeless situation which they had been lucky to escape with their lives, but some were muttering over mugs of spice beer and games of cards. Whether because they thought the contract should never have been accepted in the first place, because they thought the involvement of Vladimir should have been seen as clearly foolhardy, or because they thought more should have been done to stand up to him they believed Mobius had failed them. Sometimes he wasn't sure he disagreed with them.

"Maybe" he replied, "but with the edict coming from as high as the Emperor himself I wouldn't be so sure. At the very least we can expect the cost of our bribes to go up, and that means we either have to work harder or make do with less. I really would expect at least a show of coming down hard too, just in case the big man on Kaitain sees fit to send a Sardaukar legion or two to check things out. The Baroness may be a soft touch as Harkonnens go but she won't risk losing this fief, not for anything".

Mobius might no longer have been as invincible as he would have liked, but he still expected his words to carry weight when he brought information to the table and did not appreciate dismissive tones.

I wonder what's brought this on. We've always had a pretty good under the table relationship with the Harkonnens, better than with the Richesse anyway; those guys were regular pencil-necked by the book types.

Mobius thought back to that meeting in the Kaitain bar.

"Do not toy with me, smuggler. You have no idea of my power and influence."

Could it be? Since the abortive attempt to abduct and kill the Reverend Mother there had been no sign of any bounty hunters or assassins sent to claim his life, not by the Bene Gesserit and not by the mysterious hooded stranger. Could it be that retribution would come like the hammer wind on Salusa, and not as he'd feared like a gom jabbar?

"So, we pay higher bribes. Work harder, hire more men if we have to. It's nothing we haven't done before. I'm not sure what you expect to gain by bringing us this information, Mobius. Absolution from your sins on Kaitain perhaps?"

The woman with the whiney voice was Cyan, the only female at this top table of criminality, and that particular chip on her shoulder often lead to her trying to punch above her weight by being unnecessarily blunt. Rumour had it she had reached the pinnacle of her organisation by cutting off the genitals of the previous boss, but Mobius wasn't intimidated by her blue dyed mohawk and he wasn't intimidated by reputation or insults either.

"I'm just suggesting maybe we need to consider pooling our resources a bit while the heat is on" he continued, "Working together we can exploit the more risky border areas, perhaps even the Deep Desert".

"The Deep Desert's a suicide mission" spat Talak, "You've had your tame Fremen in your ear again haven't you Mobius? I'd watch her if I were you. One of these days you're going to wake up with one of those worm tooth knives in your gut. Never trust a desert bitch".

Mobius groaned inwardly. In fact it was he who had been in Yalara's ear, not the other way around. The Fremen woman detested anything that might bring her back into contact with her former people and it had taken a serious combination of temptation and coercion before she'd agreed to be his guide in the Deep Desert. Talak and his like would never believe that though. In truth he was probably jealous that Mobius had a Fremen in his group, but he'd never admit it and instead resorted to cheap remarks.

"None of us are interested in helping you prove you've still got balls after Kaitain, Turgenova" chipped in Bigsley, an oily little man who Mobius had always detested, "If you want to go chuck yourself into a worm's mouth then you go do it, but don't think you're taking any of our men or equipment down with you".

"Of course if you do bring back any spice from the Deep Desert we'll happily buy it off you" chuckled Cyan.

"But I think it's less a question of how much spice he brings back than of who's going to bring back his corpse to give him a proper burial!" laughed Talak.

None of them would listen, and that had left Mobius only one other option. A harvest of this size really required combining forces with another gang; it was too much for anyone to take on by themselves. Fortunately Alban had listened, seen the potential for profit here, and not been blinded by old rivalries. So here they were, deep in the harshest and most dangerous territory on an already harsh and dangerous world, and so far it had all been going pretty well. Mobius patted Alban on the shoulder.

"We're going to clean up here today my friend" he said with a grin, "Wait until Talak and those other doubting Thomases see the spice we bring back today!"

Maybe after today he could finally put that business on Kaitain behind him.

[Yalara Ishaq]

Yalara hated this expedition, she really hated it. Being out here in the Deep Desert, even hundreds of metres up in a 'thopter, reminded her too much of everything she was trying to leave behind. She didn’t want reminding of that, she wanted to concentrate on the future, a future which would be assured when she saved up enough to buy passage off Arrakis and settle permanently on a more hospitable world. Yet there were occasional moments, when the desert wind touched her cheek in just the right way or a particular scent caught in her nose, when she felt a faint longing for the rawness of wild Dune. Out there, in the endless rolling expanses of sand with nothing but your wits and your stillsuit between you and the great unknown of death, that was freedom. She hated such feelings, and she hated herself for having them, for they immediately made her think about why she had turned her back on that life. They made her think of that night in the empty yali, and they made her think of him.

"What's the matter, Fremen?" enquired the pilot, almost reading her mind, “Missing the desert are we? Pah! Bet you’d like to be back down there really. Maybe, maybe when we’ve finished loading up we’ll leave you there, eh?"

Yalara ignored him, even when he finished his baiting by spitting noisily onto the deck of the ‘thopter. Among Fremen this would be a sign of respect, but she knew the pilot did not mean it so. Every fibre of her Fremen self wanted to rebuke him for wasting precious moisture, but that would just be giving the bored ruffian the entertainment he was after.

“Oops” he continued sarcastically, “Looks like I spilt a little water down there. Are you going to lick it up, Fremen? I hear you people do that. Mustn't waste a drop, eh?”

Yalara clenched her fists in annoyance but refused to rise to him or take her eyes from the sands below, where the slightest ripple could be an approaching worm bringing death for all the people down there on the harvester. Mobius had promised her double her usual cut for this assignment, along with dire warnings of what failure could mean for the gang. She couldn't let him down, she couldn’t let herself down by letting her emotions get in the way of what should be a ridiculously profitable operation if she did her part right. Yet she really felt a palpable sense of wrongness being here. This was Sietch Rajji territory, admittedly on the very edge of their area where they would be unlikely to patrol frequently, but nevertheless it was Fremen land and that meant Fremen could come.

Stop it, Yalara. Even if they did come then won’t see you all the way up here.

Her inner voice spoke the truth, high up in the ‘thopter nobody down on the ground would know who and what she was. There would be no disgusted looks, no hurled insults calling down burning upon her for abandoning her tribe. Yet if Fremen did come and try to disrupt the harvesting operation she would have to watch the smugglers kill her own people.

No! They are not your people, not any more.

She forcefully reminded herself that she had turned her back on being a Fremen the night she walked out of Blackrock Sietch nearly six years ago. The smugglers, her gangmates, they were her people now. She just wished she could get them to see it that way sometimes. Admittedly the pilot trying desperately to get a rise out of her just now was one of Alban's men, but her comrades in Mobius Turgenova’s outfit were often little better. With time most had grown to respect her but she still counted few of them as actual friends and they still tended to view her as the outsider both on account of her Fremen heritage and her sex. Sometimes she wished there was another woman in the group, just so they’d drop the “only girl” thing. It probably wouldn’t happen though, smugglers were notoriously chauvinistic and could possibly give even Fremen men a run for their money when it came to saying that certain things just weren’t women’s work.

“Hey, Mack, how’s the harvesting going? Are we nearly done yet? I’m bored to crap up here. That Fremen girl sure ain't very talkative."

The pilot appeared to have given up trying to goad her for now and turned his attention to the radio, chattering away to one of his friends down there on the crawler. Yalara still didn’t look at him though, not once shifting her gaze from the desert. It was a good thing she didn’t, for at that moment she saw what they had all been dreading and yet expecting since they arrived: worm sign. It was time to load up the last of their spice and get the hell out of here.

[Lilith Piacevole]

Lilith had been on Arrakis nearly three months to the date. The trip from Wallach IX took her first to Chusuk, then Naraj, from where she booked another passage to Arrakis – economy class, carrying fake identity papers and a fake story, all carefully prepared during her extended stay on Wallach. While she recovered from her pregnancy, Lilith had been training, both physically and in the skills required by her cover-up story: she was to become Anoia Numri, former member of a raiders group on Naraj and, since her mission was to infiltrate a smuggler band, her mechanical skills were honed in preparation. Emphasis was given to piloting an ornithopter and operating various Dune-specifc machinery, such as spice harvesters and carryalls. As no such craft was available for training, Lilith had no choice but to make do with schematics and simulations.

From the moment she set foot on Arrakis, Lilith began the careful separation from her Bene Gesserit persona, which included tools and weapons that would give her away if found, keeping only a few carefully concealed poison darts and a small dagger. For the rest, nothing except her wits, and that included obvious displays of Bene Gesserit training – someone might recognize it. Unlike Lilith Piacevole, Anoia Numri had short hair, cropped above the chin, and spoke with a Narajan dialect; even her planet of origin had been selected with a purpose – it had a cold climate, like Wallach, which would explain Lilith's pale complexion. The Sisterhood had provided her with enough money to establish herself on Arrakis, so Lilith wasted no time in procuring herself a room in a Carthag boarding house, owned by a poor family of workers for a local stillsuit manufacturing facility. It was there that she procured her first stillsuit, though she soon discovered it was merely an inferior copy of the ones Fremen wore. Still, better than nothing when faced with the planet's oppressive heat and water shortage. Water, Lilith also discovered early on, was an object of constant awareness in this place, where every drop of it was conserved, and wasting even the tiniest amount was unthinkable. Water, put simply, was life. It shocked her to find out that people gathered in front of the Governor's residence twice a day at mealtimes, when a servant emerged with a few soggy rags which were then squeezed for their moisture and sold.

With the first step of obtaining shelter completed, Lilith turned her attention to the next: finding passage into the underworld, and from there into Mobius Turgenova's gang, both of which would prove quite a challenge. She began by keeping her ear to the ground, wandering the shady quarters of Carthag and listening in bars, one in particular standing out from the rest: the Worm's Tooth, a dive near the city limits. It had a reputation, apparently, for being frequented by notorious criminals and other shady characters, where one entered at their own risk and some never came out at all. It also had trouble keeping its staff, Lilith assumed for the same reason, so it was no trouble obtaining a job there tending the bar, even though it meant wearing an outfit reminiscent of a stillsuit, but made of a much thinner fabric that hugged her figure and fell open at the chest to offer a generous display of cleavage. No wonder they couldn't keep their employees – her first appearance was greeted by an assortment of hoots and wolf whistles (every new girl got the “treatment”, a colleague had warned), but they quieted down fairly quickly after several patrons returned to their tables clutching a sore arm and cursing under their breath.
By the end of the week, Lilith had been accepted as a part of the scenery, leaving her free to watch and listen. It proved frustrating; even after she'd identified two smuggler groups, finding a way to approach them in her current guise was no easy task: she needed an in, a weak link, someone vulnerable.

Eventually, one came along. He was young, seventeen, maybe eighteen SY, and the target of much teasing from his fellow gangmates. For this reason, he often sat alone at the bar where Lilith worked, watching her with those whiteless eyes of his, shooting her smiles when he thought she wasn't looking. She carefully played on this, showing the right amount of interest combined with just enough physical enticement to ensnare him: one conversation lead to another, and a few nights later Lilith was meeting him in private after work. His name was Azif, a city Fremen, and it didn't take her long to get him to admit he was a smuggler, member of a band lead by a man called Kasib. He'd joined up less than four months ago in order to provide for his poverty-stricken family, who suffered greatly under the Harkonnen yoke. Azif spoke fervently of his ambitions, which included proving himself worthy to Kasib and his gang, where his youth and naiveté made him the target of frequent jabs and cruel pranks. His infatuation with Lilith grew, fascinated by her exotic, offworld looks and the stories she told him of the universe beyond Arrakis, and it was in the afterglow of their first tryst that she began planting suggestions into his mind. It started with a story of shared hardship, of how she'd been an outsider in her own group of raiders on Naraj, followed by the admission that she had not come to Dune just to serve in bars. She could wield a weapon and pilot a 'thopter; maybe those skills could be put to better use than fending off ruffians in a bar? Maybe – and Lilith worded this with great care – Kasib could use an extra pair of hands? As an offworlder and a woman, she had little chance of getting him to take her seriously, but if Azif put in a good word...and so it began.Azif did, albeit reluctantly, mention Lilith – Anoia – to his boss, who even agreed to meet her at one of his warehouses.

When she arrived, she was greeted with mocking grins and barely contained amusement, while Azif stood apart looking glum. The interview was short and wishy-washy, and Lilith got the impression more than once that Kasib was on the verge of laughing in her face and throwing her out. Opinions shifted when they put her in a 'thopter, and she proved capable of flying it as well as landing it with ease. Kasib especially changed his tune and was considering Lilith's membership, when someone saw fit to point out that a woman would only slow them down and hinder them in combat. Lilith did not hold back then, but slid up to him, removing his weapon and securing him into an armlock, holding him there grunting and cursing for all to see. This settled all arguments, and she was made a probationary member of the gang, though the man with the injured pride continued to watch her resentfully, looking for payback.

It was in the company of Kasib and his men that Lilith took part in her first spice harvesting expedition, and she was with them when Spiros Alban came by asking for people to help him with an operation in the Deep Desert. The way silence fell at the sound of those words alone revealed much. No men volunteered, but Lilith had noticed Alban and Turgenova's people congregating more often than the average rival gangs, and saw this as an opportunity to get one step closer to her goal.

“Don't bother coming back”, Kasib had spat when she confessed her intentions, and while Lilith wasn't particularly keen to lose her first solid underworld contact, it was a risk she had to take. Alban hesitated for a few moments when Lilith approached him, peering suspiciously from beneath his brushy brows, then uttered only two questions: “Have you done this before?” and “Do you understand the risks?” Since the answer to both questions was yes, Lilith was on board as hired help for the harvesting trip, and promised a cut of the profits equal to that of his own people. A good portion of Alban's men had scattered after a particularly nasty Harkonnen raid and were lying low, hence why he needed a couple of extra hands on the crawler; she was one of two such replacements.

Alban took Lilith and the other two into the desert that night, to one of his bases concealed in a rocky outcropping not far from Carthag; they were to leave early in the morning. There was much activity around, people going about their duties in preparation for the high-risk extraction mission ahead, and among them Lilith spotted two of Turgenova's men. So, what she'd suspected all along was true: this was some kind of joint venture, which made it a golden opportunity for her, if she played her cards right.

Lilith knew the spice harvesting equipment had to be stored somewhere in that labyrinthine compound, and late that night she ventured out of her quarters to investigate. Following her intuition and the clues her Bene Gesserit senses were able to pick up, Lilith located the holding bay two levels down, behind a large metallic hatch – a palmlock glowed nearby, but there were no guards to be seen and the barren rock walls seemed to conceal no surveillance cameras. Palmlocks had been part of Lilith's recent Advanced Tactical training, and she now carried the knowledge of how to bypass even those of finest Ixian manufacture, such as this one. Once inside, she headed for the insect-like bulk of the quiet harvester, ready to set Step Three in motion.

***

“You - leave that, it can wait! Get to your post and let's pump this baby for all it's got!”

Lilith had been bending over a screen, monitoring the readings from the seismographs outside when Ishmael's command tore her attention away from it. She nodded and leaped for Console 3, quickly adjusting the controls for maximum extraction, plunging the harvester funnel even deeper into the spice-rich sands below. The way it rattled and groaned worried her, for she could see signs of poor maintenance everywhere, yet it was perfect for her own little plan. After all, battered machinery pushed to its limits broke down sooner or later...

Suddenly, there was a crackle and a voice boomed through the speakers.

“Alpha Ten to crawler! Worm sign!” it announced. “I repeat, worm sign! Collision course north-west, estimated time fifteen minutes! Over!”

The atmosphere inside the crawler became, if possible, even more strained, but nobody moved from their posts. Work until the very last moment, that was the deal and everyone knew it. They toiled frantically, buoyed by adrenaline and the elation of knowing they carried almost a full load of spice already. A full load! That was a small fortune. It wasn't until the estimated collision time dropped to five minutes that Alban waved his hands and barked at the top of his lungs:

“Okay people, stop, stop! We're done here!” Then, in his transmitter:“Crawler to Alpha Ten- shutting down operations and ready for the pickup! Over!”

Those at the consoles moved in unison, pulling a lever which was supposed to bring the harvester to a full stop. It didn't. In fact, it was almost as though its burrowing funnel began spinning even faster, causing the entire contraption to shake violently.

“What the hell are you doing?!” demanded Alban. “I told you to stop! That damn worm will be here in four minutes!”

“It doesn't work! The blasted thing won't stop!”

“It's overloading!”

Pandemonium was unleashed; there were people darting to and fro, bending over controls with looks of panicked confusion, barking suggestions, trying various manoeuvres...yet nothing seemed to work; the funnel kept digging as the worm got closer and closer. The situation was desperate: a carryall could not fasten its grippers on a harvester unless its mining equipment was shut down, the tons of sand blasting from the top made it impossible. Even if it could, there was no way to lift it to safety; its vibrations would cause both craft to fall right out of the sky to the ruin of all. The crew knew not to expect desperate rescue attempts – if it came to that, they were to be abandoned to their deaths.

“Check the generator room! Anyone who knows their way around one of those things, with me now! I think the problem's there!” someone yelled; among those who obeyed was Lilith.

At first sight, he appeared correct; a strident alarm signal went off the moment they entered, and the readings were off the scale. Something, somewhere, was jammed, and it was working the harvester to its very limits and beyond; if they did not find a way to stop it within the next two minutes, it would cause it to explode. Either that, or the worm got there first, which amounted to the same thing. Then, a voice rose above the rest:

“Scanner reports anomaly in the high density oscillator! One of the valves has broken loose, that's what's messing with the controls!”

It was Lilith.

“Can it be replaced?” breathed Ishmael, his face moist with sweat. Lilith shook her head.

“No, there isn't enough time...but I think I can bypass the circuits and redirect it...” she began as she removed a panel, revealing the inner machinery. Everyone held their collective breath while she worked, seconds trickling by at an alarming rate, and gave an exultant shout when she stood up, grinning from ear to ear:

“It worked!” she announced. The awful whirring ceased; the crawler settled quiescently on the sand. With shaking hands, Alban lifted the transmitter to his lips and bellowed in the microphone:

“Get us the hell out of here!”Thirty seconds later, five loud metallic snaps confirmed the caryall had made contact, lifting the craft into the air and not a moment too soon; gathered on the main deck, every pair of eyes stared right into a great cavern lined with jagged blades rising towards them. A veritable furnace glowed deep down, ready to engulf them as it would engulf a fly. It all but brushed the bottom of their craft in a breath-quenching moment then began curving downwards, eventually plunging into the depths of the desert from whence it came. It was gone.

Inside the crawler, the feeling of accomplishment and elation ruled supreme; people were cheering, laughing and chanting victoriously, patting each other's backs and hugging everyone in sight, while a couple lay sprawled on the floor, breathing heavily with relief. Spiros Alban wrenched himself away from a trio of his exultant gangmates and made his way towards Lilith's stationary form.

“What was your name again?” he asked, studying her with renewed appraisal.

“Numri, sir. Anoia Numri.”

“Nice work there, Numri. You saved our asses today.”

Lilith did her best to look pleased; it wasn't difficult. She was pleased; her risky plan had paid off.

[Mobius Turgenova]

“Alpha Ten to crawler! Worm sign! I repeat, worm sign! Collision course north-west, estimated time fifteen minutes! Over!”

Mobius tensed up instantly as the words came over the radio. It was only natural to feel a slight rush of adrenaline; you didn't fuck with the giant worms of Arrakis, not if you wanted avoid a sandy grave anyway. He didn't panic though, nor betray any outward sign of worry to the men working around him. He couldn't afford to show fear as a leader, and in any case they had all been expecting this. A worm would surely come, they always came, lured more strongly than a Harkonnen to a whore house by the rhythmic thumping and grinding of the spice harvester. The men here were all experienced spice gatherers anyway and none of them would panic either, not if they didn't want harsh words from their supervisors. There was no real cause for alarm anyway, thanks to Yalara's keen eyes. Mobius had no doubt that it had been her who had spotted the worm, her Fremen eyes able to scan the desert better than even the most experienced smuggler peering through a set of magnifying lenses. Her skills would buy them valuable extra minutes harvesting time while the carryall came to pick them up.

“Okay people, stop, stop! We're done here!” announced Alban after a final ten minutes of feverish activity, before continuing into his intercom, “Crawler to Alpha Ten- shutting down operations and ready for the pickup! Over!”

Swiftly and obediently those operating the harvesting equipment reached for their shutdown levers, bringing the crawler to a complete stop ready to be collected. Except that didn't happen, instead the vehicle began to shake violently as the mining equipment didn't slow down but rather sped up. Fear began to seep into the smuggler leader's mind now.

“What the hell are you doing?!” shouted Alban into the ear of one of the operators, “I told you to stop! That damn worm will be here in four minutes!”

“It doesn't work! The blasted thing won't stop! It's overloading!” came the panicked reply.

Chaos broke out as some of the crew began desperately pulling on the levers while others ran this way and that shouting and cursing. Mobius was very afraid now but he could not afford to give in to fear. He was a leader of men and they were looking to him for answers. This had never happened before in all his years in the business. Smugglers in fact usually kept their spice harvesting equipment maintained to a higher standard than the legitimate operators. Their resources were limited and they could not depend upon calling for backup, so it was essential that everything worked right first time. He needed to find out what was going on here and he needed to find out fast, and while he was no mechanic he had enough common sense to know that the answer must lie in the crawler's main generator room.

“Check the generator room!" he yelled, raising his voice to make himself heard over the commotion, "Anyone who knows their way around one of those things, with me now! I think the problem's there!”

There was no sign of Joaquim the gang's mechanic and no time to find him now but a small group of smugglers, Ishmael and Alban among them, quickly ran to Mobius' side. As they hurried off in the direction of the generator he figured that he would just have to hope at least one of them knew one end of a servo spanner from another. An alarm was blaring when they arrived and you didn't need to be a wrench-head to know that something was wrong from the anguished whining and groaning sounds the generator was making, but they needed someone with the skills to actually fix it. Damn it! Where was Joaquim? For that matter he also found himself wishing he'd brought Tek along on this expedition. Granted the Ixian's skills lay more in microcircuitry and optics than in this kind of heavy-duty equipment but maybe he could have done something.

“Scanner reports anomaly in the high density oscillator! One of the valves has broken loose, that's what's messing with the controls!”

Mobius looked to the source of the voice, which turned out to be a young redhead girl he didn't recognise. She must be part of Alban's group.

“Can it be replaced?” asked Ishmael, but the girl shook her head.

“No, there isn't enough time...but I think I can bypass the circuits and redirect it...” she replied as she began to unclip a covering panel on the side of the crawler's generator.

Ishmael looked at Alban who in turn shot a questioning glance at Mobius, but he held up his hand to silence both of them. If this girl thought she could fix the problem then let her try, they had no other obvious options and precious little time. Anger mixed with fear as Mobius again looked around for his mechanic; if they got out of this alive that man was going to chewed out like there was no tomorrow. Everyone held their breath as the redhead delved into the exposed wires and piping, questing for the crucial piece of circuitry that would allow her to affect the bypass.

“It worked!” shouted the girl triumphantly, and the terrible noise quietened.

Several people breathed audible sighs of relief, and Mobius turned to Alban. With trembling hands he raised the transmitter to his lips and gave the order for the carryall to lift them off to safety, and it was not a moment too soon. Those who rushed to the windows found themselves staring into the very maw of the beast as it rose up from the sand ready to devour them, but by fractions of a second they were saved. Now securely attached to the flying wing of their carryall the harvester was whisked up and out of reach of the monster; they had just diced with death and won by the skin of their teeth.

"Oh god... what a monster" breathed Ishmael, still looking a little green around the gills.

Among the crawler crew in general though terror and panic had been replaced with elation and relief. People were cheering and slapping one another on the back, although the mood was slightly soured by the news over his private intercom that Joaquim the mechanic had been found, apparently crushed during the panic in the control room and now laid up with a broken leg. Nevertheless Mobius looked around for Alban to shake his hand; if one guy with a busted leg was the worst to come out of this then they should be very happy indeed. Spiros Alban though was no longer nearby and was instead already congratulating their young saviour. Anxious not to be sidelined Mobius hurried over to do likewise.

“Numri, sir. Anoia Numri.” he heard the girl reply as he hurried over.

“Nice work there, Numri" replied Alban, "You saved our asses today.”

"Indeed you did!" cut in Mobius, "That was some extremely fancy engineering work there. Where did you learn to do that? And more importantly what's an obviously trained mechanic like you doing pulling levers when you could be putting those skills to work and earning some serious money? By the way I'm Mobius Turgenova and I financed this operation".

Alban shot Mobius a dark look, obviously suspecting that he was trying to lure the girl over to join his gang instead, and that was in fact exactly what he was doing. Just because they had been partners in this particular operation didn't make them allies, and all was fair in love and smuggling. Besides Alban had clearly not been using the girl's talents to their fullest and that left him in less of a position to complain if Mobius poached her. With Joaquim laid up he would be needing a new mechanic on his crew, and if Alban didn't like it then it would be up to him to make a counter-offer. Two sets of eyes now focused on the girl Anoia Numri, waiting for her to make her mind up, or perhaps to come up with a counter-offer of her own.

[Lilith Piacevole]

Still giddy with adrenaline in the aftermath of her risky ploy to infiltrate Turgenova's gang, Lilith realized how genuinely, utterly afraid she had been there, for a couple of moments while her fingers picked their way through the generator's guts to establish the bypass. The familiar words of the Litany had set themselves in motion of their own accord, restoring calm and clearing her head, but the danger remained very much real. It was risky to work too quickly and risky not to; however eager everyone was to get the crawler to safety, someone might later remember how she'd seemed to know precisely where the problem was, and wonder about it. At the same time, every second mattered, as proven by their ultimately narrow escape. With some luck, that's all they would later remember of the incident.

Now though, Lilith could relax and focus on the rest of her plan, especially since trailing Spiros Alban was none other than Mobius Turgenova himself, who wasted no time in getting his foot in the proverbial door.

"Indeed you did!" he cut in "That was some extremely fancy engineering work there. Where did you learn to do that? And more importantly what's an obviously trained mechanic like you doing pulling levers when you could be putting those skills to work and earning some serious money? By the way I'm Mobius Turgenova and I financed this operation".

Had she allowed herself an inch of restraint less than what she was capable of, Lilith could scarcely have been able to keep from gloating at these words; it was as though every piece of the puzzle was fitting into place, one by one, almost scarily well. Something immediate and grating stopped her though: the memory of how overconfidence could be a trap, one she had already let herself fall into once before. No, she couldn't rest on her laurels just yet; the mission was far from accomplished and there was much work left to be done.

Assuming a suitably content expression, Lilith nodded to Mobius' introduction, leaving it at that; smugglers were not, after all, known for subscribing to many formalities, and Anoia Numri was supposed to be a little rough around the edges.

“Where I come from, knowing your way around gear like that is considered a survival skill of sorts”, she shrugged, “as for pulling levers – hey, a girl's gotta eat. Just until I can get my hands on a better deal.”

Lilith gave Alban a bit of a non-committal smirk, noting the dark looks he was aiming at Mobius; he had only hired her for this one operation, without any further commitment to him or his people beyond that, so he could hardly complain about Turgenova's obvious sales pitch. She was glad now that she'd left Kasib's group – not that smugglers weren't expected to follow their own interests first- but a reputation of dependability was useful especially when you were a nobody, like her.

“Why d'you ask?” she ventured, deciding a bit of boldness was in order and shot Mobius a roguish grin “You offering anything?”

[Mobius Turgenova]

“Where I come from, knowing your way around gear like that is considered a survival skill of sorts”, replied the girl with a shrug, “as for pulling levers – hey, a girl's gotta eat. Just until I can get my hands on a better deal.”

That set off a tiny alarm bell in his head, but Mobius paid it little mind. "Where I come from" - well everyone had to come from somewhere, everyone had their past and their own personal demons to contend with. Tek for example was on the run from the Ixian authorities, Yalara had been forced to flee from Fremen society, and he himself had certainly accumulated sufficient baggage during his years in the business that he might well use a similar turn of phrase to Anoia Numri's. Provided they left whatever trouble that was following them at the door and didn't bring strife into his operation he was happy to welcome all comers.

“Why d'you ask?” continued Numri , “You offering anything?”

"Anyone who can be that cool under fire and save an entire crawler full of people from becoming worm chow is worth checking out in my book" he replied, "but more to the point my team's mechanic had a fall upstairs when the shit was hitting the fan and he'll be out of commission for at least six months. I'd like to take you on as his replacement, temporary at first but if you play your cards right who says you might not get to stick around. I don't know what Spiros here was paying you but while you work for me you'll get full shares same as any other member of my team".

"I'm paying her perfectly fairly" cut in Alban, taking the opening which Mobius had offered him but seemingly declining to make a counter-offer of his own, "But I'm not looking for any more full time crew right now, and hey I suppose your need is greater what with your guy being laid up and all. Have to admit I didn't expect this deal to include you poaching my casuals, Turgenova, but well I got enough spice out of it not to care and managed to avoid becoming worm food into the bargain. Don't worry I'll still share a spice beer with you when we get back".

Mobius smiled to himself, pleased that he had guessed right regarding the girl being only a casual and that Alban wasn't looking to add any more full share members to his team right now. Still given how Numri had just saved their butts he was surprised the other leader hadn't put up a bit more of a fight. Like most gang bosses Spiros Alban didn't have a terribly high opinion of women trying to break into the business though; maybe that was in his mind when he declined to make a counter-offer. Mobius did find himself wondering just how a new female mechanic would go down with his men. Well they had learned to accept Yalara and then would just have to accept Anoia Numri too. He wasn't running a boys' club and if the best talents that he wanted to acquire for his team happened to be female then so be it, and if he could get that talent without he and Alban standing there haggling like slavers in the pits on Giedi Prime so much the better.

The rest of the flight back was fairly uneventful and Mobius didn't see Anoia again until some time after they touched down at Depot 19; clearly Alban was determined to wring those last couple of hours service out of her while she remained in his employ and when they finally arrived it was all hands on deck to begin unloading their precious cargo. Depot 19 was an out of the way freight handling facility located on the edge of the Arrakeen settlement which handled just enough legitimate licensed traffic to keep itself legal but was well known in smuggler circles as a safe place to unload contraband. Harkonnen security was lax with all of the guards being paid off by at least one underworld group or another and the shipping director was happy to falsify any cargo manifest placed under his nose in exchange for a small cut of whatever was being laundered through his facility. The air was already thick with the aroma of melange when they stepped off the now immobile harvester and they only served to add to it once their own holding bays were opened and the men began to decant the raw spice into shipping containers ready for transport. Mobius and Alban stood to one side, sipping spice beer and counting their respective stacks of containers as one by one they were filled and sealed. It was a straight 50/50 split, in recognition that Mobius had financed the expedition and paid for the services of the carryall while Alban had provided his crawler and most of the crew, but even half of what they had taken today was worth a small fortune and would easily wipe out any debts that Mobius had accumulated since the Kaitain debacle. Would that damage to his reputation could be paid off so easily, but surely this daring expedition out into the Deep Desert had to go some way towards restoring his credibility. After all, Talak and the others had been convinced that he'd come back in a box if he came back at all.

Finally all the spice was divided up and the two groups headed back to their respective strongholds. In the case of Mobius and his gang there wasn't far to go; the buildings occupied by Tiger Traders were only a short groundcar ride away from Depot 19. Even with their convoy of cargo carriers and accounting for Arrakeen's usual crowded streets they were back within an hour. Once they were all safely ensconced in the main hanger, Mobius decided it was as good a time as any to give a little speech and introduce the new girl.

"Alright, listen up people!" he called out in his best voice for bring a rabble to order as the gang milled around and jumped off the various trucks and transports, "A fuckton of spice isn't all we picked up today. We got ourselves some new blood too. Joaquim took a tumble back there on the crawler and won't be going anywhere for a few months, so Anoia Numri here is going to be our new team mechanic at least until then. OK, everybody please give it up for the newbie and remember she's the one who saved our asses out there in the desert today, so I want you to make her feel nice and welcome".

Some muted applause and cheering followed, but Mobius could still see suspicion on the faces of the others. That was to be expected; in this business trust always had to be earned. Saving them all from death by worm would buy her a lot of credibility but it would take time before she was considered one of the gang.

"Ooh! Another girl! Hey, Yalara! You up for a threesome?!"

A wave of snickering passed through the crowd.

"Shut it, Mack" replied the dark-haired Fremen woman icily, "Or the only threesome you'll be getting is you, me, and my Crysknife".

Mobius smiled uncertainly, unsure whether Mack's suggestion was serious or just the usual high jinks. Well, either way, Yalara knew how to look after herself and the new girl had better know too if she wanted to last more than one night under their roof. Smuggling was not a profession which welcomed women, as demonstrated by the ease with which he had swiped the girl out from under Alban.

"Alright, enough jaw-jaw. We got all these containers to check and put in the warehouse before we get ourselves some downtime, so let's get on it" continued Mobius before turning to Anoia , "Not you, newbie. You go unpack your gear first and then come pitch in. Leave it laying around here and one of these guys'll have swiped it before you even turn around. Yalara, why don't you show her where to go? She can have Maddox's quarters. He won't be needing them now on account of doing a long stretch in jail".

Yalara looked peeved. Mobius had actually thought he was rewarding her for her expert work as a spotter by sparing her from some of the cargo handling duty, but in hindsight he realised that she probably resented being picked on to show the newbie who just so happened to be another woman around. Well too bad, she'd get over it, and frankly the two of them would have to get used to being lumped together like that as the only two females in the group.

[Yalara Ishaq]

“What do you mean you had it all in hand? Don't bullshit me Mobius! I saw what happened. A few seconds more and you'd have been taken! Didn't I tell you what a bad idea mining so far out was?"

"Calm down" replied Mobius in that infuriatingly soothing tone he knew how to affect when he was trying to close down a discussion, "Yes it was a close one, but we pulled it off, and thanks to your skills as a spotter you'll be getting double shares. This business is always risky, but to those who take the greatest risks come the greatest rewards".

Yalara was still fuming, but he was right she supposed. Smuggling was an inherently risky way to earn a living. Perhaps once again she was letting her old Fremen mindset, that one must revere the desert and Shai-Hulud, get tangled up with her new life as part of a team who took risks on a daily basis to make money from this world's resources. Damn it though that had been just too close! She certainly hoped Mobius didn't get it into his head to start undertaking such operations on a regular basis, even if the double shares she'd receive today did bring her dream of retiring to Caladan that much closer.

Putting such thoughts out of her mind for now she stalked off to help the others unloading the spice from the harvester, not even bothering to acknowledge the smile the 'thopter pilot tried to flash her. He'd sure changed his tune once the "dirty Fremen" had spotted the worm which almost swallowed all his buddies, and indeed at one point had been nearly hysterically begging her to share any secret desert knowledge that might help them drive the beast off. If it took this kind of crisis to earn his respect though then frankly he could shove it up his ass; she didn't need it. The unloading was hard backbreaking work, but Yalara always made sure to do her share of such activities. She had a hard enough time fitting in as it was without inviting accusations that she was too much of a girl to get her hands dirty. A couple of times while heaving a heavy cargo container over to the filled pile she thought she saw out the corner of her eye a scrawny red haired girl talking with Spiros Alban. It was unusual to set eyes on another female, but other than that thought she paid it no mind.Finally the work was done, the spice all safely packed, and Mobius was shaking hands with Alban at the conclusion of their colaboration. The gang all gathered their equipment and climbed aboard the ragtag convoy of trucks and cargo haulers ready for the short ride back to their base of operations. Yalara quickly grabbed her gear and hurried to bag a good spot, preferably away from some of the more lascivious males in the group; she could do without that kind of bother.

The journey was uneventful and nobody stopped them to query their purpose or destination. Most of the guards in and around Depot 19 were corrupt anyway and as far as anyone else knew they were a perfectly legitimate group of spice miners moving their haul for transport. The only thing which slowed them down slightly was avoiding the water beggars and riffraff wandering the streets. Once back at base the atmosphere was jovial, with the rollercoaster of emotions which had followed the worm attack finally giving way to a general feeling that luck was on their side and they had just made it big. As everyone jumped down from the transports, Mobius called for their attention. Standing beside him was the redhead who had been talking to Alban earlier.

"Alright, listen up people! A fuckton of spice isn't all we picked up today. We got ourselves some new blood too. Joaquim took a tumble back there on the crawler and won't be going anywhere for a few months, so Anoia Numri here is going to be our new team mechanic at least until then. OK, everybody please give it up for the newbie and remember she's the one who saved our asses out there in the desert today, so I want you to make her feel nice and welcome".

A few people in the assembled crowd clapped and cheered, Yalara not among them. She didn't put her emotions on display for someone she didn't know and didn't like the way this girl was suddenly garnering all the praise, the small matter of who had spotted the worm in the first place quietly forgotten.

"Ooh! Another girl! Hey, Yalara! You up for a threesome?!"

She recognised that voice. Mack Brubaker was among the worst of the misogynists assembled here and it had taken many kicks in the shins, jabs in the ribs, and at last a knife at his throat before he had finally learned to keep his hands to himself. Sadly it seemed he was unwilling to do likewise with his crude and tasteless comments.

"Shut it, Mack" she replied in a contemptuous tone, "Or the only threesome you'll be getting is you, me, and my Crysknife".

She meant it too. Mack had pushed her before and if he did so again she wouldn’t be above inflicting serious injury. Let him just try to arrange his threesome.

"Alright, enough jaw-jaw” continued Mobius after an awkward pause, “We got all these containers to check and put in the warehouse before we get ourselves some downtime, so let's get on it. Not you, newbie. You go unpack your gear first and then come pitch in. Leave it laying around here and one of these guys'll have swiped it before you even turn around. Yalara, why don't you show her where to go? She can have Maddox's quarters. He won't be needing them now on account of doing a long stretch in jail".

Yalara bristled and shot the boss a poisonous look. Why did he think she would want to show the new arrival where to sleep? Was it because they were both female? Did he expect some kind of natural womanly bond to form between them as a result? Damn, even Mobius who was better than most of his men could be a sexist pig sometimes. It wasn’t worth making an argument over though, not in front of all the others; that would only make her look like a whining girl who didn’t want to do as she was told.

"Come along then, new blood. Let me show you our luxurious accommodations" she addressed the redhead, attempting to cover up her annoyance by injecting a dose of sarcasm, "It's just down here. If you find any of Maddox's old junk in there just toss it out. By the time he gets out of that Harkonnen jail I doubt he'll care anymore - that's if he ever gets out".

She wasn't joking with the last comment. In fact there was little a smuggler dreaded more than interment by Dune's Harkonnen overlords. Some would even take their own lives rather than face capture, and Yalara suspected she’d be among them if it ever came to that, for she knew that both as a woman and a Fremen she’d be subjected to especially harsh treatment inside.

“I'll tell you this for free too” she added, with just a touch of sympathy in her voice as she thought on what it was like to be a lone woman surrounded by rough uncouth men, “Lock your door at night and sleep with a knife under your pillow. I had to cut one or two of these guys but eventually they got the message that we don’t have a team prostitute”.

[Lilith Piacevole]

“So, Numri. You've made up your mind then?”

Lilith looked Spiros Alban squarely in the face, noting the hint of disappointment in his tone.“Having second thoughts, chief?” she thought, though her actual comment carried a little more tact:

“Well, since you're not looking for more full-timers...”

Alban's thoughts seemed to drift for a moment, then he shook his head as if to chase away an invisible fly.

“That I'm not. Not right now, in any case, but if things don't work out with Turgenova look me up. You've got some useful skills.”

Oh, now her skills were useful! Lilith smirked at this, unafraid to let Alban know she wasn't oblivious to the way he'd only began to truly appreciate her worth after being acknowledged by one of his own peers.

“Will do”, she answered and lifted the large duffel bag containing her gear onto her shoulder. There was no point in making a big deal out of it, especially since she'd gotten what she wanted in the first place: admission into Turgenova's gang. With a final word of goodbye to Alban and those of his crew she could spot here and there, Lilith joined the other group on their way to the cargo bay where their newly-unloaded cargo and transport vehicles awaited. Everyone was tired and still flushed with adrenaline from their recent brush with death, and she was paid little heed when she jumped in the back of a groundcar following to convoy back to what must have been Turgenova's headquarters.

There, the man himself motioned her over to his side as he stood near the railings of an elevated platform overlooking the rest of the hangar, and called his people to attention:

"Alright, listen up people! A fuckton of spice isn't all we picked up today. We got ourselves some new blood too. Joaquim took a tumble back there on the crawler and won't be going anywhere for a few months, so Anoia Numri here is going to be our new team mechanic at least until then. OK, everybody please give it up for the newbie and remember she's the one who saved our asses out there in the desert today, so I want you to make her feel nice and welcome".

Lilith surveyed the gathered smugglers while they absorbed this. Some looked intrigued, some even appreciative as they gave her a token round of applause, though most were simply suspicious. That was to be expected of course, if Lilith had learned something since her arrival on Arrakis was that no underworld group welcomed outsiders with open arms, especially if they happened to be female. Therefore, when one of the men raised his voice in semi-jocular sarcasm, she wasn't at all surprised:

"Ooh! Another girl! Hey, Yalara! You up for a threesome?!"

Lilith, who chose not to dignify the comment with as much as a glance, looked instead at the woman called Yalara. She wasn't difficult to spot, as the only other female in the group, and although everyone who lived on Dune long enough tended to become tanned and ascetic-looking, something about her reminded Lilith of the few Deep Desert Fremen she'd seen around Carthag or Arrakeen; her indigo eyes had the same lethal edge to them as they bore into the man who'd just spoken.

"Shut it, Mack”, she snapped “Or the only threesome you'll be getting is you, me, and my Crysknife".

Crysknife...definitely a Fremen, then. Interesting.

"Alright, enough jaw-jaw.” cut in Mobius. “We got all these containers to check and put in the warehouse before we get ourselves some downtime, so let's get on it."

He then turned to Lilith:

"Not you, newbie. You go unpack your gear first and then come pitch in. Leave it laying around here and one of these guys'll have swiped it before you even turn around. Yalara, why don't you show her where to go? She can have Maddox's quarters. He won't be needing them now on account of doing a long stretch in jail".

Lilith nodded curtly and began the short descent into the hangar proper, ignoring the looks she got, whether they were curious, mocking or lascivious, though she did acknowledge a few welcoming nods. Posture was everything: she affected an air of casual confidence, pacing the floor with even strides, knowing how first impressions tended to cement in people's memory, and most of those men were already ready to underestimate her. It would still happen, Lilith was absolutely certain of it, but appearing to be intimidated then would only be a setback for the future.

"Come along then, new blood. Let me show you our luxurious accommodations" the Fremen woman told Lilith who had been observing the play of emotions on her dark features: silent outrage, which quickly gave away to resignation. If Mack's comment and the general attitude of the rest were anything to go by, Yalara had a difficult time being the only woman in a band of chauvinistic men. In all honesty, Lilith herself had found it irksome when she first delved into the underworld of Dune and still did, especially because her methods of retaliation were limited by necessity. She was, after all, Bene Gesserit, member of an all-female society, wildly respected and often feared throughout the Imperium for their prodigious skills, and so not altogether used to being discriminated against based on her gender.

"It's just down here.” continued Yalara and pointed to a flight of stairs leading to the lower levels. “If you find any of Maddox's old junk in there just toss it out. By the time he gets out of that Harkonnen jail I doubt he'll care anymore - that's if he ever gets out".

Lilith nodded briefly; the Harkonnens were known for their excesses and brutality but actually being confronted with them on Arrakis while living among the very people they oppressed had given her a glimpse into their regime she doubted most Great Houses had.

“I'll tell you this for free too” Yalara added in a somewhat softer tone “Lock your door at night and sleep with a knife under your pillow. I had to cut one or two of these guys but eventually they got the message that we don’t have a team prostitute”.

Lilith shot her a shrewd smirk; oh, she need not worry about that. Any roughneck trying to creep into her quarters at night had better keep his pants on risk losing something very dear to him. She didn't, however, tell the Fremen woman any of this, more interested at the moment in the opportunity presented to her. She could make use of their shared status within the group to establish some sort of bond which might later help her in her investigation, and Lilith believed she knew just how to get the ball rolling:

“Duly noted”, she replied, “I've had run-ins with their sort before, and I know a kick in the nuts works better than a thousand words. By the way”, she went on, adopting a casually appreciative tone, “it was you out there on that Spotter, wasn't it? I gotta say, you've got sharp eyes: a few more seconds and we'd be sleeping with the worms tonight.”

[Yalara Ishaq]

“Duly noted”, replied the new girl, “I've had run-ins with their sort before, and I know a kick in the nuts works better than a thousand words. By the way it was you out there on that Spotter, wasn't it? I gotta say, you've got sharp eyes: a few more seconds and we'd be sleeping with the worms tonight.”

Yalara's eyes, which were indeed sharp, narrowed. What was this? She was supposed to be grateful for a few crumbs of praise from the new hero of the hour while her own contribution had been completely forgotten? She was a hair's breadth away from opening her mouth to tell the newbie to mind her own business when suddenly she stopped herself. Between the chauvinistic smugglers, Fremen who would like nothing better than to stake the traitor out in the midday sun, and members of rival gangs didn't she have enough enemies already? Was it really worth adding one more to the list just for the sake of wounded pride?

“Thank you” she replied, hoping the tone of comradeship she tried to adopt didn't sound too forced, “It seems like between us we proved today that women can be useful in more places than just the kitchen and the bedroom, but I wouldn't count on these guys remembering that tomorrow”.

She paused, her naturally suspicious nature urging her to leave it at that. After all hadn’t she only just now mentally grumbled about Mobius assuming the two would become friends merely by dint of both being women? Then again it didn’t hurt to be polite. Giving the new girl the brush off would only help cultivate the stereotype of the aloof and prickly Fremen not wanting to mix with offworlders. Perhaps she should give this Anoia a chance.

"Tell you what” she continued, “your room is just here. Go dump your gear and then once the unloading is finished, meet me back at the junction we just passed and I'll give you a proper tour of the place. Okay?"

The new girl agreed, and once back in her own quarters Yalara peeled off her stillsuit and carefully emptied the reclaimed water it held into one of several sturdy containers she kept for the purpose. She was not quite sure why she bothered with this really; Mobius paid handsomely to ensure there was always water available at the base and many of the smugglers didn't even wear stillsuits, with those who did tending to treat them only as portable water sources in the field and wasting whatever was left over upon their return. Old Fremen habits die hard though.

She mused on this as she slipped on a loose comfortable grey jumpsuit which had been with her since her days at Blackrock Sietch, one of the few possessions she'd packed that night when she crept out into the desert turning her back on everything she'd known. Her father hadn't told her exactly how he'd acquired it, but the faded infinity logo on the back still just visible beneath accumulated dust and grime hinted at its provenance. That the Fremen had dealings with the Spacing Guild was something she had only learned after leaving the tribe, discovering that Mobius Turgenova currently held to contract to deliver a spice bribe which kept the Guild with their orbiting observation devices from peering too closely into Fremen affairs. She tended not to go on the collection runs now, even her skills in the desert not worth the trouble her presence had caused on one or two occasions. Fortunately the Fremen they'd met those times seemed more interested in protecting the secrecy of the deal than in exacting revenge upon on an outcast but it was not worth testing that theory to destruction.

Mobius always returned from those meetings with a smile on his face in any case for it was a lucrative deal indeed, worth easily as much as the spice they had just put their lives on the line for but with only a fraction of the risk. Other gangs were always trying to muscle in on it and would do almost anything to take his place as confidante of the desert natives, but Mobius had proven himself trustworthy and the Fremen were unwilling to drop him just because Talak or Cyan came along with a cheaper offer. Her people were honourable, she would give them that. Her former people, she corrected herself again as she made sure to pull the sleeves of the jumpsuit down to hide the tribal tattoo on her forearm. She kept thinking about going into Carthag and paying to have that removed, or even seeing if Church would do it in exchange for some of her share from the next mission, but somehow never got around to it. It would only take money from her savings and push her dream of off-world living even further into the future, she told herself as she hurried back to the hanger to help with the unloading.

When this was finally done she made her way back to the intersection where she had agreed to meet the new girl. Most of the other smugglers were in their rooms already, relaxing after a hard day's work, and those who weren't would be either in the mess hall grabbing a late dinner or thinking about heading out into the city to spend some of what they had earned today. For that matter she wondered whether Anoia might have received a better offer of a night out from one of the men, but no there she was waiting as planned.

"Hey newbie" she began in greeting, once again making an effort to sound personable, "Everything going alright? I saw you working up a sweat back there with the last of the unloading; that's good, these guys will take any excuse to blather on about weak women not pulling their weight. So what do you want to see first? Around here is mostly sleeping quarters but down there we've got the infirmary, although I don't know if Doc Church is in right now. That-a-way is the mess hall and after that it's all storage. Down this other hallway over there are Tek's and the boss's rooms. I wouldn't bother Mobius if I were you, and I expect Tek will be locked in his room doing whatever it is Ixians do".

[Tek]

Tek stared at the figures displayed in fine lines on his desktop console with an unreadable expression which masked his content.

Numbers. Tek found them reassuring. They were invariably dependable, predictable, yielding precisely the same outcome each and every time without exception as long as one knew how wield them. This held true from the simplest calculation to the most complex of equations, a neatly ordered reality that often felt like the only thing in the Universe that made absolute sense.

Running his long, nimble fingers over the keyboard, Tek fed the data into a simulation program meant to pre-test his next generation transmitters which he hoped to equip the team with in the future. Arrakis was notoriously harsh on equipment and the desert storms wrecked havoc with delicate circuitry, the clouds of static often masking signals even from those that did function. A small fortune was being spent on replacing communication devices, vital to maintaining the safety and coordination of any venture into the desert and a solution needed to be found. As such, Tek was designing more sophisticated and better insulated transmitters, and as a bonus, ones with a higher range of frequencies he planned to use to tap into the Harkonnens' communications channels at will. If – no, when – he was successful, avoiding patrols should become a much easier task.

He was ready. With one final check that every figure was in its proper place, Tek prepared to run the simulation. A slight tingle climbed up his spine as he lifted his index finger, positioning it over the Execute button; the vaguest of smiles tugged at the corners of his thin lips – the finger hovered in place, descending closer, and closer, and then...

A loud and deeply jarring sound shattered the moment. Three bangs rang out in the near-complete silence of Tek's room, otherwise disturbed only by the soft humming of his equipment, their source easily pinpointed: the plasteel door at his back. His hand quivered slightly over the keyboard then, reluctantly, retreated.

“Hey Tek!” boomed a voice on the other side of the door. “The rest of us are going to grab some spice beer and a nice game of cards, wanna come with?”

Had he been given to such outward displays of emotion, Tek would have sighed. The man standing outside his quarters was Abdul Aziz, the only one who still bothered to try and persuade the Ixian to join the gang for outings, despite the large number of occasions he had declined participating in such “recreational ventures” as he mentally called them. Tek had all the recreation he desired right there in his own room, though he resisted aiming a glance towards the foot of his bed where an inconspicuous piece of machinery lay quiescent.

“Soon”, he thought, experiencing an infinitesimal thrill of delicious anticipation.

“You go on without me”, Tek's level voice rang out, delivering a most predictable reply. “I have something I need to finish tonight.”

Spider did not persist, and instead left him be, much to Tek's relief. In the past, more than one member of the gang had tried their hand at breaking into the Ixian's innersanctum, only to discover at their own inconvenience how tightly sealed it was. Some had even complained to Mobius about it, claiming it was odd and downright suspicious, although personally Tek could not see why: all he had installed were a tri-stage security system which scanned the prints, cornea and voice modulations of the user fitted atop a reinforced plasteel door that could survive anything barring a nuclear blast and, after a verbal warning, delivered an electric shock to anyone not authorized to open it. Completely standard stuff.

At last, Tek had the peace and quiet to run his simulation, which he perused with mounting satisfaction. By all predictions, his new transmitters would have a better than 97% chance of functioning a whole 56% longer than the common sort. As for the increased frequency capabilities, he already had a working prototype that only needed a few more tweaks before it became reliable enough to be integrated.

Tek reached for more keys and switches which printed the test data and specifications on a small data disk which he then slipped into a pocket and, abandoning his work post, left in the direction of Mobius Turgenova's office. Most of the gang had already left so the only ones Tek met on the way were Yalara and a girl he did not recognize, but it wasn't like him to linger when he had somewhere to be, and so slipped right past them without a single glance. He only halted his steady pace before the boss' office door, which he gave three distinct knocks.

“May I come in?” Tek called out. Permission given, he entered just as quickly and faced Mobius who was seated on the couch with a glass of whiskey in his hand. Without further ado, he produced the disk, which would have fitted neatly in a child's palm.

“I have the preliminary data and materials specifications for the new transmitters.”

Tek spoke fluidly and without inflection, eager to present his findings to his boss, and would have liked nothing more than to discuss the matter at length right then and there, but despite his many idiosyncrasies and social shortcomings he wasn't unperceptive. That, he assessed, was the improper moment for such a discussion.

“I shall leave it here for your perusal”, he therefore added, walking over to Mobius' desk and placing the disk on its surface before turning around to face him once more. Social protocol, he knew, dictated that he should refer to the recent spice mining operation which given the jovial sound of Aziz' voice earlier and the relaxed-slash-contented stance Mobius sported right then appeared to have been a success.

“Your risky venture has paid off, then”, Tek commented flatly, as it made no sense to be asking questions regarding matters empirically established to be correct.

“How much have we got?”

[Mobius Turgenova]

With the door closed and the glowglobes turned down low, Mobius leaned back into the comfortable couch which dominated one side of his office and allowed himself a contented sigh. They had done it! In spite of what all those scoffing naysayers who constituted his rivals had said, they had done it. They had been taking a huge risk though and that risk had been realised in the form of a huge worm. He had he nearly died out there today and nearly taken most of his men with him. For now though he refused to let the doubting side of himself have any say; it was a time to be proud, and a time to plan for more such operations in the future.

“May I come in?”

The voice at the door was Tek's. The Ixian was a long way short of being the most social of people, but right now Mobius decided he wouldn’t mind some company. Most of the other guys had turned in early or else were out on the town carousing, but he felt like neither sleep nor merrymaking right now. His mind wouldn't switch off, it was still full of what had happened in the desert, of where his operation could go from here now that they had taken that first step. Tek was better than nobody right now.

"Sure! Come on in!" he called out.

Tek entered without further ado and Mobius gestured for him to sit down, but it seemed the Ixian preferred to stand. For form's sake he also pointed in the direction of the small side table where the whiskey decanter sat but he knew very well that Tek didn't drink.

“I have the preliminary data and materials specifications for the new transmitters.”

Stiff and businesslike as usual; sometimes he wondered if Tek was actually in danger of becoming one of those machines his people were so beloved of. If the androids of legend had been this brusque and formal all the time then Mobius was with the Butlerians all the way. He said nothing, but nodded and smiled his approval, hoping that Tek would pick up on the fact that he had bigger things on his mind than frequencies and data rates right now. The new transmitters were undoubtedly useful, and would become even more so if what he had in mind worked out, but at this moment he wanted to look at the bigger picture.

“I shall leave it here for your perusal”, continued Tek before walking over to the desk and depositing an information disk upon it.

Finally after that the Ixian seemed to get the point that there were larger issues to be talked about. It was about time.

“Your risky venture has paid off, then” he commented, simply stating it as a fact where some men would have felt the need to make it a question, “How much have we got?”

"Three hundred and fifty units" replied Mobius; he said the words slowly, savouring each one.

Tek said nothing but Mobius was sure even the reserved Ixian must be suitably impressed. The crawler had pulled double that from the sands of course, but even allowing for the 50/50 split with Alban's group they still had a very large amount.

"I'm telling you though it was every bit as bad out there as they said it would be, and them some. First the mechanism in the damn harvester jams - locks right up, meaning the wing can't latch on - and then a huge motherfucker of a worm shows up. Biggest I've ever seen. We would have been done for if it wasn't for that new girl Anoia Numri. I'm telling you, she put her hands right inside the relay panel while the thing was still running and rerouted all the circuits. We were damn lucky. What with Joaquim taking that fall if she hadn't been there we'd all be dead".

He took another sip of whisky, and a slightly faraway look came into his eyes, as his mind momentarily placed him back on the vibrating harvester with panic and chaos all around. Just for a second his confidence slipped.

Did I really just risk nearly a hundred men for three hundred units of spice? Did I really do that just so I can look Talak, Cyan, and Biggsley in the face and say look at me I went into the Deep Desert and made it back out?

Suddenly realising where his thoughts were in danger of going he forced the doubting side of his subconscious firmly back into its box, downed the last of his drink, and slammed the glass down on the table. When he refocused his gaze on Tek it was with a harder look in his eyes.

"But what matters is that we did it, we made it, and this is only the beginning. I’m thinking we need to branch out into harvesting for ourselves, buy our own crawler. What happened out there happened because we were relying on someone else’s crappy equipment, and when it was all done we still had to split the load with him. We dominate the shipping and supply side of things but we’ve gotten complacent about that, we’ve gotten lazy. With a harvester of our own we would control it all, end-to-end, our spice from the sands right to the customer’s table”.

He paused and refilled his glass, watching the tall Ixian for any reaction. It was indeed an audacious plan. Illegal gangs on Arrakis tended to specialise: some did the actual spice harvesting, others did shipping and handling, and some just supplied manpower or machinery. Attempting to get a stranglehold in all areas was something Mobius couldn’t remember being attempted since he’d first set foot on Dune, but today’s adventure had spurred him to try it.

“Anyway” he continued, “I’m going to start putting some feelers out, see if anyone is trading up and selling. Even one of the older smaller crawlers will give us an edge to start off with and we can work up from there. With Yalara’s keen eyes up there as spotter and your super-reliable new transmitters improving communication between harvester, spotters and carryall we’ll be onto a winner. And then we’ll be rich, Tek, so rich that you’ll be able to outfit a whole lab for your crazy experiments if you want to. What do you think of that?”

[Lilith Piacevole]

The first thing Lilith did when she reached her new quarters was to peel off her stillsuit and dress herself into something more comfortable: a pair of sturdy working pants, white tank top and the worn but comfortable pair of hiking shoes she'd used since her arrival on Arrakis. She was glad for it; even with the upgrade from the mediocre and ineffectual city-manufactured stillsuits to the real thing made by desert Fremen, Lilith continued to find it chafing and uncomfortable.

Since a shower was out of the question, she then turned her attention to the room which would be her own for the duration of her mission. There wasn't much to see: a cot to sleep on, a tall, narrow closet for clothing, another, shorter one presumably for the rest, a desk and chair and a set of shelves bolted into the wall besides it: all made of durable metal. A second door lead into a reclamation chamber which did include a shower but, if Turgenova was anything like Kasib on the matter of water consumption, it would only function once a month or so, for about ten minutes. Lilith tried the tap: as expected, bone dry.

Next, Lilith took Yalara's advice and began searching around for anything belonging to the previous occupant. She found a couple of old dried food packets that let out a strong cinnamon scent, some worn men's clothes she had no use for, a questionably functional stillsuit repairing kit and a collection of filmbooks which stirred her curiosity until she discovered that they were all distinctly pornographic. From the lot, she kept only the stillsuit kit; the rest went in a dark latex bag, ready for the waste disposal unit.

Lilith didn't bother with unpacking yet; there would be enough time to do it later that night, and instead headed back to the hangar as per Turgenova's instructions, to help the rest of the team finish unloading and storing the spice. It took a bit of quick minutiae observation and good old fashioned trial and error to get into the rhythm of things, but it was hardly Holtzman science and before long Lilith was just another element of a well-oiled team working in unison to finish the job. She glimpsed Yalara several container carriers away, but the two women didn't make eye contact.

Later, her white top stained with sweat and panting slightly, Lilith joined the file of smugglers leaving the docking bay, thinking ahead to the meeting with the Fremen woman, while remembering their previous one. For a moment there she'd been concerned that her attempt at forging a connection would backfire, but the tactic paid off in the end. From her preliminary observations, Lilith was certain Yalara lived apart from the rest of the gang, eager for the companionship of someone who would treat her as an equal and see her for who she was, not her gender. And that made her vulnerable.

“Oy, new girl!”

The voice was not Yalara's, and it rang out from behind Lilith, who swivelled around to face its source, the man she now knew was called Mack.

“Some of us are going into town for some drinks; you could come along, and get to know one another better if you know what I mean.”

“Thanks, but I already got an offer”, Lilith replied with a knowing wink, and while she let Mack chew on that, set off again in search of the intersection Yalara had mentioned. She was there already, waiting.

"Hey newbie" she greeted, "Everything going alright? I saw you working up a sweat back there with the last of the unloading; that's good, these guys will take any excuse to blather on about weak women not pulling their weight. So what do you want to see first? Around here is mostly sleeping quarters but down there we've got the infirmary, although I don't know if Doc Church is in right now. That-a-way is the mess hall and after that it's all storage. Down this other hallway over there are Tek's and the boss's rooms. I wouldn't bother Mobius if I were you, and I expect Tek will be locked in his room doing whatever it is Ixians do".

Lilith nodded breezily as she assimilated that information, mapping out the compound in her mind and venturing a guess as to where her investigation would best be launched. That, too, was for a later time; right now she was more interested in probing Yalara further, for something else had also piqued her interest:

“Ixian, huh?” she commented, thinking about the traces of Ixian equipment she'd seen at the compound on Kaitain, “That's a new one for me. I mean, you don't see them a lot, do you? How's about we go to the mess hall and get ourselves something to eat and maybe a drink? I swear I've never really appreciated a glass of water until I came here.”

Just at that moment, a tall, thin figure draped all in black sped past them, causing Lilith's head to instantly snap around to stare at its rapidly receding form. It came from the direction Yalara had indicated the Ixian's rooms were located.

“Was that...Tek?” she queried, one eyebrow curving with interest.

[Yalara Ishaq]

The new girl nodded in response to the nutshell rundown of what was where and who was doing what around the base.

“Ixian, huh? That's a new one for me” she replied, “I mean, you don't see them a lot, do you? How's about we go to the mess hall and get ourselves something to eat and maybe a drink? I swear I've never really appreciated a glass of water until I came here.”

Yalara gave a nod of her own in reply and flashed a brief smile, never ceasing to be amused by various attitudes offworlders displayed towards Dune's shortage of precious water which as a Fremen was so deeply embadded into her everyday thoughts and instincts that she never even stopped to think about it. Her mind wandered back to the first offworld trip she had taken with Mobius; it had been a spice smuggling mission to a high-paying customer on Poritrin who demanded personal delivery, but in truth she remembered little about either the planet or the client. Yalara remembered the water above all else. Never in her life had she seen so much of it, freely available to the point where it could be wasted and cast aside with reckless abandon, and without any kind of price or duty attached to it as was so much the norm on Arrakis. She had of course read about it countless times in her treasured collection of offworld filmbooks, but seeing for the first time water provided without restriction had nonetheless shaken her to her very core.

Mobius and Maddox had laughed their heads off when she had spent nearly half a day taking one bath after another, but she had been too lost in ecstasy to care. This was the very stuff of the Fremen dream, the story mothers told their infants at bed time and that drunken menfolk huddled around and muttered into their mugs of spice beer about, the idea that Arrakis could someday have water in unlimited quantities. Yalara didn't believe it would ever come to pass; looking out into the endless harsh deserts of this world how could anyone but a wide-eyed child or a drunkard ever picture seas and lakes of pure precious water? Her lack of belief that Arrakis could ever be changed only fuelled further the desire on her part to escape it and settle on some other world however, somewhere she now knew from first-hand experience that the water discipline so deeply ingrained into her Fremen self could finally be cast aside.

Yalara's musings were broken before they got too deep by the arrival of a familiar black-clad figure hurrying past them in the direction of the boss's office. Tek had not been part of the harvesting expedition, instead staying behind to work on some project of his own devising. Doubtless he wanted to bring Mobius up to date on developments, and probably ask about what had happened out in the desert too.

“Was that...Tek?” enquired the new girl, raising an eyebrow in the manner which indicated curiosity.

“Oh yes, that's him” she replied, ever so slightly surprised by Anoia's continued interest.

Then again she had been around Tek for long enough now that he was just part of the scenery, and she supposed that the Ixians were regarded with a certain awe and curiosity in many parts of the galaxy considering the Imperium's general attitude towards advanced technology.

“Tek's alright” she continued as they began to walk in the direction of the mess hall, “As long as you can live with that general Ixian aloofness and the fact that he prefers to bury his head in his machines most of the time rather than be sociable. Frankly though, compared to most of the guys around here, it's a welcome change. I think him and Mobius are about the only men here who haven't tried to hit on me at some point or other. That makes him alright in my book”.

Yalara wouldn't go as far as to call herself and Tek friends, although they had become a little closer during their confinement on Kaitain, but he was indeed one of the few people in the gang that she could talk to without fear that the conversation would eventually take on a sleazy tone and end with her having to elbow ribs or slap wandering hands away. This had led her to wonder if he was in fact homosexual, but she'd seen no more evidence of him seeking the company of men and boys than that of women. Maybe he just made an effort to hide it, as many did. She supposed that being that way inclined among a group like this would be almost as bad as being a woman. Well in any case it was his business and if it meant one less lascivious tongue-dragger to worry about then she was all for it.

The mess hall was a moderately-sized room filled with simple chairs and long tables. It seemed that most of the other smugglers had either turned in early or decided to go out into the city, but a small group could be seen towards the back of the room clustered around one of the tables. Fortunately Yalara recognised them as being among those of the gang she considered to be mostly harmless, and in any case they were far too engrossed in their game of cards to give the two women more than a brief glance as they entered. At one end of the hall a hatch led to the kitchen area and beside it was a small basin. Yalara grabbed a glass from a tray on one of the nearby tables, held it under the tap and turned it. A brief spluttering and clanking from the base's plumbing system followed and finally a miserable-looking trickle of water emerged. The pressure was kept deliberately low both because of limited supply and to deter anyone from trying to use the basin to fill anything larger than a glass; Mobius was not about to pay a fortune to the water barons to keep his gang’s thirst quenched only for some enterprising fellow to have the idea of bottling it and selling it on. Even this was luxury compared to what most on Dune had to endure, but since she had started taking offworld trips Yalara found such limitations increasingly tiresome. Surely it couldn't be too much longer before she had enough saved for the big move.

“Drink up!” she said with a touch of sarcasm, proffering the glass to Anoia.

[Tek]

Tek had not approved of the deep desert mining operation. In his (educated) opinion, the risks outweighed the benefits, particularly with his new generation transmitters in the works. After all, the main reason for their inception had been to make regular operations safer both from a coordination point of view and that of better evading Harkonnen patrols. With mere weeks to go before the entire team could equip them, such a risk had felt unnecessary...and Tek's professional pride just a little bit wounded, considering the amount of time and effort he had invested into the project. He had, of course, kept that to himself; Mobius was the boss and as such the ultimate decision rested with him. Now, Tek was interested to see if it had been worth it.

"Three hundred and fifty units" Mobius said with relish and Tek needed no further elaboration to know that was half a crawler's capacity almost precisely. A hefty amount of spice to be sure, more than twice the quantity the gang usually brought in. He was both impressed and ever so slightly annoyed with his boss, mostly for proving him wrong. Tek did not enjoy being proven wrong.

"I'm telling you though it was every bit as bad out there as they said it would be, and them some” Mobius continued “First the mechanism in the damn harvester jams - locks right up, meaning the wing can't latch on - and then a huge motherfucker of a worm shows up. Biggest I've ever seen. We would have been done for if it wasn't for that new girl Anoia Numri. I'm telling you, she put her hands right inside the relay panel while the thing was still running and rerouted all the circuits. We were damn lucky. What with Joaquim taking that fall if she hadn't been there we'd all be dead".

It sounded much like what Tek had warned Mobius would likely happen out there in the first place, what with the state of the equipment smuggler gangs had to make do with, and the notorious harshness of the deep desert, experiencing a tinge of abstract resentment when the worm was mentioned. Tek wasn't fond of the great worms of Arrakis: great mindless beasts he constantly pitted himself against whenever he devised new ways of making his team's equipment safer and more reliable. In many ways it was a lost battle. Rival gangs, Harkonnen patrols and the wild Fremen posed threats of their own, naturally, but what every spice harvester ultimately feared most were the worms, who invariably charged in with murderous fury. Nothing but massive, solid rock could stand in their way.

Another thing that caught Tek's attention was the fact that this Anoia Numri – whom, he assumed, was the redheaded girl he'd seen talking to Yalara on his way there- was the de facto hero of the day, swooping in to fix the circuitry just when time was running out. To most, Mobius included apparently, this would have seemed like a stroke of pure luck, but Tek had to wonder...Big machinery weren't his specialty but he knew enough about their inner workings to deduce that most people would first have checked the funnel lock-down mechanisms in the event of a jammed harvester. In fact, it was often a confusing business trying to figure out which component was acting out, particularly with stress running high, and in order of likelihood the high density oscillator relay would have been low on Tek's list. But, of course, he was no mechanic.

"But what matters is that we did it, we made it, and this is only the beginning.” Mobius was saying, taking advantage of his companion's silence to brainstorm “I’m thinking we need to branch out into harvesting for ourselves, buy our own crawler. What happened out there happened because we were relying on someone else’s crappy equipment, and when it was all done we still had to split the load with him. We dominate the shipping and supply side of things but we’ve gotten complacent about that, we’ve gotten lazy. With a harvester of our own we would control it all, end-to-end, our spice from the sands right to the customer’s table”.

Now that was quite an ambition. Behind their reflective glass barriers, Tek's eyes narrowed briefly: he knew the statistics by heart, and the number of gangs who had achieved such a feat: exactly 3 in the last century, and not for long, but a quick projection also told him it wasn't impossible...not if they increased their quota and guarded their general expenses for the following year. One thing he wasn't in favour of was buying inferior equipment which would only end up becoming a drain and potential threat.

“Anyway” the boss added “I’m going to start putting some feelers out, see if anyone is trading up and selling. Even one of the older smaller crawlers will give us an edge to start off with and we can work up from there. With Yalara’s keen eyes up there as spotter and your super-reliable new transmitters improving communication between harvester, spotters and carryall we’ll be onto a winner. And then we’ll be rich, Tek, so rich that you’ll be able to outfit a whole lab for your crazy experiments if you want to. What do you think of that?”

If Mobius sought to tempt him, he was succeeding. If there was one thing about life on Ix that Tek missed most was his laboratory. Even though his quarters there at the base were larger than anyone else's to accommodate his equipment, it was but a shadow of his former working area on Ix, and that was only the official one; he had his own, secret laboratory for his illicit experiments, smaller but still far bigger than the glorified bedroom corner he had at his disposal now. Then there was the fact that equipment was hard to come by on Dune and expensive to boot, particularly the delicate and uncommon pieces Tek needed and had to pay for from his own pocket. Before he lost himself in fantasizing about the improvements Mobius' audacious plan could bring however, the Ixian applied his intellect to the matter closer at hand:

“I think that word you're attempting this will get around fast, and many won't like it.”, he began by pointing out in a tone as devoid of inflexion as ever “Most of those who already own crawlers won't be interested in selling away their edge, so we can expect quite a few wrecks tossed our way under the guise of a working machine. Perhaps this Numri girl of yours can be part of the selection process, if she's as good as you say.”

Tek paused to lock his hands behind his back, adjusting his angle of sight to bear directly on his boss.

“But ultimately...it's conceivable, yes. I do think it can be done, as long as we don't take unnecessary risks.”, he ended, unable to resists injecting a tiny word of caution that they should not make their latest operation into a habit, however lucky they had been that day. The deep desert killed, and numbers never lied.