I'm an idiot. Let's try this again, this time with the TEXT, maybe.
Sorry.
I know I'm flooding the list (at least compared to my usual rate of posts)
but I've been weird lately, and just want to include all of y'all who hate
me in it. So, read and enjoy!
I personally LOVE this idea, even though I've already read the book Dune
and seen alot of episodes of (and read alot of fics of) Ranma 1/2, but I
still get off on it! I really, really love it. Seriously. I'm pregnant
with it's child.
........
sorry
Send viruses to: H17@SJNMA.ORG
*********************************
This fanfic was made by the newest recruit at Saint John's Northwestern
Military Academy, and I have but one thing to say: HELP!!!
*****
Ranma 1/2 is owned and created by Rumiko Takahashi and Dune was created
by Frank Herbert and is owned by whoever he willed it to or the company
he sold the rights to it to.
*****
Don't ask. I just had the idea. I know it doesn't work PERFECTLY, but
it still interests me, and you can't stop me from writing it, either.
Ha.
And yes, I know that I'm just typing 'Dune' and adding Ranma 1/2
characters, but I don't care. This is a time waster, it's halfway
amusing, and there are some good opportunities for cliche jokes in it,
so feh.
*****
BOOK I: DUNE
A beginning is the time for taking
the most delicate care that the balances
are correct. This every sister of the
Bene Okonomiyaki knows. To begin your
study of the life of Not'Deep, then,
take care that you first place him in
his time: born in the 57th year of the
Padishah Emperor, Kunoji IV. And take
the most special care that you locate
Not'Deep in his place: the planet
NerimArrakis. Do not be decieved by
the fact that he was born on
CaladaNagasaki and lived his first
fifteen years there. NerimArrakis,
the planet known as Dune, is forever
his place.
-from "Manual of Not'Deep"
by the princess Ukyo
IN the week before their departure to NerimArrakis, when all the final
scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone
came to visit the mother of the young boy, Ranma.
It was a warm night at castle CaladaNagasaki, and the ancient
pile of stone that had served the Saotome family as home for twenty-six
generations bore that cooled-sweat feeling it acquired before a change
in the weather.
The old woman was let in by the side door down the vaulted
passage by Ranma's room and she was allowed a moment to peer in at him
where he lay in his bed.
By the half-light of a suspensor lamp, dimmed and hanging near
the floor, the awakened boy could see a withered female shape at his
door, standing one step ahead of his mother. The old woman was a witch
shadow - hair like matted spiderwebs, hooded 'round darkness of feaures,
eyes like glittering jewels.
"Is he not small for his age, Nodoka?" the old woman asked. Her
voice wheezed and twanged like an untuned baliset.
Ranma's mother answered in her soft contralto: "The Saotomes are
known to start late getting their growth, Your Reverence."
"So I've heard, so I've heard," wheezed the old woman. "Yet he's
already fifteen."
"Yes, Your Reverence."
"He's awake and listening to us," said the old woman. "Sly
little rascal." She chuckled. "But royalty has need of slyness. And if
he's really the Quickact Handsmack . . . well . . . . "
Within the shadow of his bed, Ranma held his eyes open to mere
slits. Two bird-bright ovals - the eyes of the old woman - seemed to
expand and glow as they stared into his.
"Sleep well, you sly little rascal," said the old woman.
"Tomorrow you'll need all your faculties to meet my gom jabbar."
And she was gone, pushing his mother out, closing the door with
a solid thump.
Ranma lay awake wondering: <What's a gom jabbar?>
In all the upset during this time of change, the old woman was
the strangest thing he'd seen.
<Your Reverence>
And the way she called his mother Nodoka like a common serving
wench instead of what she was - a Bene Okonomiyaki Lady, a duke's
concubine and mother of the ducal heir.
<Is a gom jabbar something of NerimArrakis I'm gonna need to
know before we go there?> he wondered.
He mouthed her strange words: <Gom jabbar . . . Quickact
Handsmack.>
There had been so many things to learn. NerimArrakis would be
a place so different from CaladaNagasaki that Ranma's mind whirled with
the new knowledge. <NerimArrakis - Dune - Desert Planet.>
Konatsu, his father's master of assassins, had explained it:
their mortal enemies, the Kunos, had been on NerimArrakis eighty years,
holding the planet in quasi-feif under a CHOAM Company contract to mine
the geriatric spice, melange. Now the Kunos were leaving to be
replaced by the house of Saotome in feif-complete - an apparent victory
for the duke Genma. Yet, Konatsu had said, this appearance contained
the deadliest peril, for the Duke Genma was popular among the Great
Houses of the Landsraad.
"A popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful,' Konatsu
had said.
<NerimArrakis - Dune - Desert Planet.>
Ranma fell asleep to dream of a NerimArrakeen cavern, silent
people all around him moving in the dim light of glowglobes. It was
solemn there and like a cathedral as he listened to a faint sound - the
drip-drip-drip of water. Even while he remained in the dream, Ranma
knew he would remember it upon awakening. He always remembered the
dreams that were predictions.
The dream faded.
Ranma awoke to find himself in the warmth of his bed-thinking...
thinking. This world of Castle CaladaNagasaki, without play or
companions his own age, perhaps did not deserve sadness in farewell.
Dr. Ono, his teacher, had hinted that the faufreluches class system
was not rigidly guarded on NerimArrakis. The planet sheltered people
who lived at the desert edge without caid or bashar to command them:
will-'o-the-sand people called Fremen (but who Ranma referred to as
Macho Tomboys, for reasons only known to him), marked down on no
census of the Imperial Regate.
<NerimArrakis - Dune - Desert Planet.>
Ranma sensed his own tensions, decided to practice one of the
mind-body lessons his mother had taught him. Three quick breaths
triggered the responses: he fell into the floating awareness . . .
focusing the consciousness . . . aortal dilation . . . avoiding the
unfocused mechanism of consciousness . . . to be conscious by choice
. . . blood enriched and swift-flooding the overload regions . . .
<one does not obtain food-safety-freedom by instinct alone> . . .
animal consciousness does not extend beyond the given moment nor into
the idea that its victims may become extinct . . . the animal destroyes
and does not produce . . . animal pleasures remain close to sensation
levels and avoid the perceptual . . . the human requires a background
grid through which to see his universe . . . focused consciousness by
choice, this forms your grid . . . bodily integrity follows nerve-blood
flow according to the deepest awareness of cell needs . . . all
things/cells/beings are impermanent . . . strive for flow-permenance
within . . .
Over and over and over within Ranma's floating awareness the
lesson rolled.
When dawn touched Ranma's window sill with yellow light, he
sensed it through closed eyelids, opened them, hearing then the renewed
bustle and hurry in the castle, seeing the familiar patterned beams of
his bedroom ceiling.
The hall door opened and his mother peered in, hair like shaded
bronze held with black ribbon at the crown, her oval face emotionless
and green eyes staring solemnly.
"You're awake," she said. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yes."
He studied the tallness of her, saw the hint of tension in her
shouders as she chose clothing for him from the closet racks. Another
might have missed the tension, but she had trained him in the Bene
Okonomiyaki Way - in the minutiae of observation and Okonomiyaki
cooking. She turned, holding a sleeveless red silk shirt for him.
It carried the red Saotome hawk crest across the chest.
"Hurry and dress," she said. "Reverend Mother is waiting."
"I dreamed of her once," Ranma said. "Who is she?"
"She was my teacher at the Bene Okonomiyaki school. Now, she's
the Emperor's truthsayer. And Ranma . . . ." She hesitated. "You must
tell her about your dreams."
"Sure thing, mom. Is she the reason we got NerimArrakis?"
"We did not GET NerimArrakis." Nodoka flicked dust from a pair
of black pants, hung them with the shirt on the dressing stand beside
his bed. "Don't keep Reverend Mother waiting."
Ranma sat up, streched his back. "What's a gom jabbar?"
Again, the training she had given him exposed her almost
invisible hesitation, a nervous betrayal he felt as fear.
Nodoka crossed to the window, flung wide the draperies, stared
across the river orchards toward Mount Syubi. "You'll learn about . .
the gom jabbar soon enough," she said.
He heard the fear in her voice and wondered at it.
Nodoka spoke without turning. "Reverend Mother is waiting in my
morning room. Please hurry."
The Reverend Mother Khu Lon of the Amazons sat in a tapestired chair
watching mother and son approach. Windows on each side of her
overlooked the curving southern bend of the river and the green
farmlands of the Saotome family holding, but the Reverend Mother
ignored the view. She was feeling her age this morning, more than a
little petulant. She blamed it on space travel and association with
that abominable Spacing Guild and its secretive ways. But here was a
mission that required personal attention from a Bene okonomiyaki-
with-the-Sight. Even the Padishah Emperor's Truthsayer couldn't evade
that responsibility when the duty call came.
<Damn that Nodoka!> the Reverend Mother thought. <If only she'd
borne us a girl as she was ordered to do!>
Nodoka stopped three paces from the chair, dropped a small curtsy,
a gentle flick of left hand along the line of her skirt. Ranma gave
the short bow his dancing master had taught - the one used "when in
doubt of another's station."
The nuances of Ranma's greeting were not lost on the Reverend
Mother. She said: "He's a cautious one, Nodoka."
Nodoka's hand went to Ranma's shoulder, tightened there. For a
heart-beat, fear pulsed through her palm. Then she had herself under
control. "Thus he has been taught, Your Reverence."
<What does she fear?> Ranma wondered.
The old woman studied Ranma in one gestalten flicker: face oval
like Nodoka's, but strong bones . . . hair: the Duke's black-black but
with browline of the maternal grandfather who cannot be named, and that
thin, disdainfrul nose; shape of directly staring green eyes: like the
old Duke, the paternal grandfather who is dead.
<Now, there was a man who appreciated the power of bravura - even
in death,> the Reverend Mother thought.
"Teaching is one thing," she said, "the basic ingredient is
another. We shall see." The old eyes darted a hard glance at Nodoka.
"Leave us. I enjoin you to practice the meditation of peace."
Nodoka took her hand form Ranma's shoulder. "Your Reverence, I-"
"Nodoka, you know it must be done."
Ranma looked up at his mother, puzzled.
"Nodoka straightened. "Yes . . . of course."
Ranma looked back at the Reverend Mother. politeness and his
mother's obvious awe of this old woman argued caution. Yet he felt an
angry apprehension at the fear he sensed radiating from his mother.
"Ranma. . . ." Nodoka took a deep breath. ". . . this test you're
about to recieve . . . it's important to me."
"Test?" he looked up at her, frowned. "I'll need to study if I'm
gonna take a test!"
"Remember that you're a duke's son," Nodoka scolded. "You should
speak with more formality!" With that, she whirled and strode from the
room in a dry swishing of skirt. The door closed solidly behind her.
Ranma faced the old woman, holding anger in check . . . . barely.
"Where do you get off, lady? My mom's THE lady Nodoka, not some
serving wench!"
A smile flicked the corners of the wrinkled old mouth. "The Lady
Nodoka WAS my serving wench, lad, for fourteen years at school." She
nodded. "And a good one, too. Now, YOU come here!"
The command whipped out at him. Ranma found himself obeying
before he could think about it. <Using the Voice on me,> he thought.
He stopped at her gesture, standing beside her knees.
"See this?" she asked. From the folds of her gown, she lifted a
green metal cube about fifteen centimeters on a side. She turned it
and Ranma saw that one side was open - black and oddly frigtening. No
light penetrated that open blackness.
"Put your right hand in the box," she said.
Fear shot through Ranma. He started to back away, but the old
woman said: "Is this how you obey your mother?"
He looked up into bird-bright eyes.
Slowly, feeling the compulsions and unable to ingibit them, Ranma
put his hand into the box. He felt first a sense of cold as the
blackness closed around his hand, then slick metal against his fingers
and a fuzzy something brush against his hand.
A predatory look filled the old woman's features. She lifted her
right hand away from the box and poised the hand close to the side of
Ranma's neck. He saw a glint of metal there and started to turn toward
it.
"Stop!" she snapped.
<Using the Voice again!> He swung his attention back to her face.
"I hold at your neck the gom jabbar," she said. "The gom jabbar,
the high-handed enemy. It's a needle with a drop of poison on its tip.
Ah-ah! Don't pull away or you'll feel that poison."
Ranma tried to swallow in a dry throat. He could not take his
attention from the seamed old face, the glistening eyes, the pale gums
around silvery metal teeth that flashed as she spoke.
"A duke's son MUST know about poisons," she said. "It's the way
of our times, eh? Musky, to be poisoned in your drink. Aumas, to be
poisoned in your food. The quick ones and the slow ones and the ones
in between. Here's a new one for you: the gom jabbar. It kills only
animals."
Pride overcame Ranma's fear. "You callin' me an animal, lady?"
"Let us say I suggest you may be human," she said. "Steady! I
warn you not to try jerking away. I am old, but my hand can drive this
needle into your neck before you escape me."
"Who are you?" he whispered. "How did you trick my mom into
leaving me alone with you? Are you from the Kunos?"
"The Kunos? Bless us, no! Now, be silent." A dry finger
touched his neck and he stilled the involuntary urge to leap away.
"Good," she said. "You pass the first test. Now, here's the
way of the rest of it: If you withdraw your hand from the box you die.
This is the only rule. Keep your hand in the box and live. Withdraw
it and die."
Ranma spoke with his usual arrogance. "If I yell there'll be
servants and guards in here in a flash and YOU'LL die."
"Servants and guards will not pass you mother who stands guard
outside that door. Depend on it. your mother surviveed this test.
Now it's your turn. Be honored. We seldom administer this to
men-children."
Curiosity reduced Ranma's fear to a manageable level. He heard
truth in the old woman's voice, no denying it. If his mother stood
guard out there . . . if this were truly a test . . . . And whatever it
was, he knew himself caught in it, trapped by that hand at his neck:
the gom jabbar. He recalled the response from the Litany against
Fear as his mother had taught him out of the Bene Okonomiyaki rite.
<"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the
little-death that brings toatal obliteration. I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has
gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear
has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.">
He felt calmness return, said: "Get on with it, hag."
"Hag!" she snapped. "You've courage, and that can't be
denied. Well, we shall see, sirra." She bent close, lowered her
voice almost to a whisper. "You will feel fear in this hand within
the box. Fear. But! Withdraw the hand and I'll touch your neck
with my gom jabbar - the death so swift it's like the fall of the
headsman's axe. Withdraw your hand and the gom jabbar takes you.
Understand?"
"What's in the box?"
"Fear."
He felt increased fuzziness rubbing against his hand, pressed
his lips tightly together. <How could this be a test?> he wondered.
The fuzziness emitted the faintest 'meow.' Ranma wet his pants.
The old woman said: "You've heard of animals chewing off a
leg to escape a trap: There's an animal kind of trick. A human would
remain in the trap, endure the pain and fear, feigning death that he
might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind."
The fuzziness turned into the rough, even strokes of a cat's
tongue. "W-w-w-why are you d-d-doing this...?" Ranma stammered, trying
to keep from soiling himself furthur, and failing miserably.
"To determine if you're human. Be silent."
Ranma clenched his left hand into a fist as the cat licked
increasingly harder. It mounted slowly: faster and harder and faster
and harder and faster and harder. . . and harder. He felt the
fingernails of his free hand biting the palm. he tried to flex the
fingers of the cat-ed hand, but couldn't move them.
"C-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-cat!" Ranma whispered.
Ranma soiled himself again, and began to tremble and sweat.
"Silence!"
Pain throbbed up his arm as the cat started to scratch and
bite his hand. Every fiber cried out to withdraw the hand from that
. . . kitty carrier . . . but . . . the gom jabbar. Without turning
his head, he tried to move his eyes to see that terrrible needle poised
beside his neck. he sensed that he was breathing in gasps, tried to
slow his breath and couldn't.
Cat!
<I...HATE...CATS...!>
His world emptied of everything except that hand immersed in
kitty hell, the ancient face inches away staring at him.
There were multiple cats, now, each one biting and scratching
the flesh off of his hand.
His lips were so dry he had difficulty separating them.
<.....................c............................c........c.
......c......c....c...c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-cat!!!>
He thought he could feel skin curling back under the teeth and
claws of those hellspawn contained in the box, leaving nothing but
well-worn bone spattered with flesh and blood.
It stopped!
As thought a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped.
Ranma felt his right arm trembling, felt sweat bathing his
body. He was in a puddle of his own urine.
"Enough," the old woman muttered. "Kull wahad! No woman-child
ever withstood that much. I must've wanted you to fail." She leaned
back, withdrawing the gom jabbar from teh side of his neck. "Take your
hand from the box, young human, and look at it."
He fought down an aching shiver, stared at the lightless void
where his hand seemed to remain of its own volition. Memory of pain
inhibited every movement. Reason told him he would withdraw a
fleshless stump from that box.
"Do it!" she snapped.
He jerked his hand from the box, stared at it astonished. Not a
mark. No sign of agony on the flesh. he held up the hand, turned it,
flexed the fingers. Smelling it, he noted no odor of cat dander or
saliva.
"Pain by nerve induction," she said. "Can't go around maiming
potential humans. There're those who'd give a pretty for the secret of
this box, though." She slipped it into the folds of her gown.
"But the pain-" he said.
"Pain," she sniffed. "A human can override any nerve in the
body."
Ranma felt his left hand aching, uncurled the clenched fingers,
looked at four bloody marks where fingernails had bitten his palm. He
dropped the hand to his side, looked at the old woman. "You did that
to mom once?"
"Ever sift sand through a screen?" she asked.
The tangential slash of her question shocked his mind into a
higher awareness: <Sand through a screen.> He nodded.
"We Bene Okonomiyaki sift people to find the humans."
He lifted his right hand, willing the memory of the pain.
"And that's all there is to it - pain?"
"I observed you in pain, lad. Pain's merely the axis of the
test. Your mother's told you about our ways of observing. I see the
signs of her teaching in you. Our test is crisis and observation."
He heard the confirmation in her voice, said: "It's truth!"
She stared at him. <He senses truth! Could he be the one?
Could he truly be the one?> She extinguished the excitement,
reminding herself: <"Hope clouds observation.">
"You know when people believe what they say," she said.
"Yea."
The harmonics of ability confirmed by repeated test were in
his voice. She heard them, said: "Perhaps you are the Quickact
Handsmack. Sit down, little brother, here at my feet."
"I'm fine standing."
"Your mother sat at my feet once."
"I'm not my mom."
"You hate us a little, eh?" She looked toward the door,
called out: "Nodoka!"
The door flew open and Nodoka stood there staring hard-eyed
into the room. Hardness melted from her as she saw Ranma. She
managed a faint smile.
"Nodoka, have you ever stopped hating me?" the old woman asked.
"I both love and hate you," Nodoka said. "The hate - that's
from pains I must never forget. The love - that's . . . ."
"Just the basic fact," the old woman said, but her voice was
gentle. "You may come in now, but remain silent. Close that door and
mind it that no one interrupts us."
Nodoka stepped into the room, closed the door and stood with
her back to it. <My son lives,> she thought. <My son lives and is
. . . human. I knew he was . . . but . . . he lives. Now, I can go
on living.> The door felt hard and real against her back. Everything
in the room was immediate and pressing against her senses.
<My son lives.>
Ranma looked at his mother. <She told the truth.> He wanted to
get away alone and think this experience through, but knew he could not
leave until he was dismissed. The old woman had gained a power over
him. <They spoke truth.> His mother had undergone this test. There
must be terrible purpose in it . . . the pain and fear had been
terrible. He understood terrible purposes. They drove against all
odds. They were their own necessity. Ranma felt that he had been
infected with terrible purpose. He did not know yet what the terrible
purpose was.
"Some day, lad," the old woman said, "you, too, may have to
stand outside a door like that. It takes a measure of doing."
Ranma looked down at the hand that had known pain, then up to
the Reverend Mother. The sound of her voice had contained a difference
then from any other voice in his experience. The words were outlined
in brilliance. There was an edge to them. He felt that any question
he might ask her would bring an answer that could lift him out of his
flesh-world into something greater.
"Why do you test for humans?" he asked.
"To set you free."
"Free?"
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope
that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with
machines to enslave them."
"'Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man's
mind,'" Ranma quoted.
"Right out of the Butlerian Jihad and the Orange Catholic
Bible," she said. "But what the O.C. Bible should've said is: 'Thou
shalt not make a machine to counerfeit a HUMAN mind.' Have you studied
the Mentat in your service?"
"I've stidied WITH Konatsu, hag."
"Why you little insolent . . . ." She paused and regained her
posure, chanting a calming litany to herself. "The Great Revolt took
away a crutch," she said. "It forced HUMAN minds to develop. Schools
were started to train HUMAN talents."
"Bene Okonomiyaki schools?"
She nodded. "We have two chief survivors of those ancient
schools: the Bene Okonomiyaki and the Spacing Guild. The Guild, so
we think, emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Okonomiyaki
performs another function."
"Politics," he said.
"Kull wahad!" the old woman said. She sent a hard glance at
Nodoka.
"I've not told him, Your Reverence," Nodoka said.
The Reverend Mother returned her attention to Ranma. "You
did tht on remarkably few clues," she said. "Politics indeed. The
original Bene Okonomiyaki school was directed by those who saw the
need of a thread of continuity in human affairs. They saw there
could be no such continuity without separating human stock from
animal stock - for breeding purposes."
The old woman's words abruptly lost their special sharpness
for Ranma. He felt an offense against what his mother called his
*instinct for rightness.* It wasn't that Reverend Mother lied to
him. She obviously beleived what she said. It was something
deeper, something tied to his terrible purpose.
He said: "But my mother tells me many Bene Okonomiyaki of
the schools don't know their ancestry."
"The genetic lines are always in our records," she said.
"Your mother know that either she's of Bene Okonomiyaki descent
or her stock was acceptable in itself."
"Then why couldn't she know who her parents are, hag?"
"You call me 'hag' one more time . . . " the calming
litany didn't help this time, "and I'll castrate you with my
bare hands!"
Nodoka stepped in front of her son. "Reverend Mother!
Can't you control your anger?"
Visibly fighting down the urge to throttle Ranma, the
old hag replied: "My apologies Nodoka, Ranma."
Jessica then turned to Ranma, scowling. "Treat the
Reverend Mother with more respect, or I'll tell Duncan to
mess you up a little during practice, okay?"
Ranma just nodded as Nodoka stood behind her son.
"Getting back to your question, some do . . . but many
don't. We might, for example, have wanted to breed her to a close
relative to set up a dominant in somne genetic trait. We have
many reasons."
Again, Ranma felt the offense against rightness. He
said: "You take a lot on yourselves, grandmother."
The old woman glared at Ranma, said: "Watch it there,
boy."
Ranma looked innocent. "Grandmothers are respected. I
was merely trying to show you more respect, GRANDMOTHER."
The Reverend Mother knew he was lying, but you didn't
need truthsense to figure that out. She let it slide in favor
of getting out of that place as quickly as possible. "We carry
a heavy burden," she said.
Ranma felt himself coming more and more out of the shock
of the test. He leveled a measuring stare at her, said: "You
say maybe I'm the . . . Quickact Handsmack. What's that, a
human gom jabbar?"
"Ranma," Nodoka said. "You mustn't take that tone with-"
"I'll handle this little . . . male, Nodoka," the old
woman said. "Now, lad, do you know about the Truthsayer drug?"
"You take it to improve your ability to detect falsehood,"
he said. "My mother's told me."
"Have you ever seen truthtrance?"
He shook his head. "No."
"The drug's dangerous," she said, "but it gives insight.
When a Truthsayer's gifted by the drug, she can look many places
in her memory - in her body's memory. We look down so many avenues
of the past . . . but only feminine avenues." Her voice took on a
note of sadness. "Yet, there's a place where no Truthsayer can see.
We are repelled by it, terrorized. It is said a man will come one
day and find in the gift of the drug his inward eye. He will look
where we cannot - into both feminine and masculine pasts."
"Your Quickact Handsmack?"
"Yes, the one who can be many places at once: The Quickact
Handsmack. Many men have tried the drug . . . so many, but none
has succeeded."
"They tried and failed, all of them?"
"Oh, no." She shook her head. "They tried and died."
To attempt an understanding of
Not'Deep without understanding his
mortal enemies, the Kunos, is to
attempt seeing Truth without
knowing Falsehood. It is the
attempt to see the Light without
knowing Darkness. It cannot be.
-from "Manual of Not'Deep"
by the Princess Ukyo
IT WAS A relief globe of a world, partly in shadows, spinning under
the impetus of a tan, fat hand that flowered with palm trees. The
globe sat on a freeform stand at one wall of a windowless room whose
other walls presented a patchwork of grass skirts, palm fronds,
coconut wallpaper and maps of the ancient Hawaiian islands of Earth.
Light glowed in the room from golden balls hanging in mobile
suspenor fields.
An ellipsoid desk with a top of jade-green petrified elacca
wood stood at the center of the room. Veriform suspensor chairs
ringed it, two of them occupied. In one sat a dark-haired youth
of about sixteen years, slim of face and with arrogant eyes. The
other held a slender, short woman with effeminate face, considering
that SHE was a WOMAN and SHE was Principal Kuno's DAUGHTER.
Both man and womn stared at the globe and the man
half-hidden in shadows spinning it.
A chuckle sounded beside the globe. A basso voice with a
hawaiian accent rumbled out of the chuckle: "There it is, Sasuke -
da biggest mantrap in all history, brah. And da Duke's headed into
its jaws. Is it not a magnificent thing that i, da great Principal
Vladimir Kuno, do, brah?"
"Assuredly, master," said the man. His voice came out
tenor with a nasal, annoying quality.
The fat hand descended onto the globe, stopped the spinning.
Now, all eyes in the room could focus on the motionless surface and
see that it was the kind of globe made for wealthy collecttors or
planetary governors of the Empire. It had the stamp of Imperial
handicraft about it. Latitude and longigude lines were laid in with
hair-fine platinum wire. The polar caps were insets of finest
cloudmilk diamonds.
The fat hand moved, tracing details on the surface. "I
invite all you to observe," the annoyingly hawaiian-accented voice
rumbled. "Observe closely, mah little wahine, and you, too, Kodachi,
my other wahine: from sixty degrees north to seventy degrees south -
these exquisite ripples. Their coloring: does it not remind you of
sweet caramels, brah? Or perhaps da hawaiian islands? And nowhere
do you see blue of lakes or rivers or seas. And these nice polar
caps - so small, wahine. So small. Could anyone mistake this place?
NerimArrakis! Truly unique, brah. A superb setting for a unique
victory."
A smile touced Sasuke's lips. "And to think, master: the
Padishah Emperor believes he's given the Duke your spice planet. How
poignant."
"That's a nonsensical statement," the Principal rumbled.
"You say this to confuse young Kodachi, brah, but it is not necessary
to confuse my daughter."
The horribly whipped youth stirred in his chair, smoothed
a wrinkle in the black leotards he wore. He sat upright as a discreet
tapping sounded at the door in the wall behind him.
Sasuke unfolded from his chair, walked to the door, cracked it
wide enough to accept a message cylinder. Sasuke opened the cylinder,
unrolled the message and read it. A chuckle sounded from him. Another.
"Well?" the Principal demanded.
"The fool answered us, master!"
"Whenever did a Saotome refuse the opportunity for a gesture,
brah?" the Principal asked. "Well, what does he say?"
"He's most uncouth, Master. Addresses you as 'Kuno' - no
'Sire et Cher Cousin,' no title, nothing."
"It's a good name," the Principal growled, and his voice
betrayed his impatience. "What does dear Saotome say, brah?"
"He says: 'Your offer of a meeting is refused. I have
ofttimes met your treachery and this all men know.'"
"And?" the Principal asked.
"He says: 'The art of kanly still has admirere in the Empire.' He
signs it: 'Duke Leto of Arrakis.'" Sasuke bagan to laugh. "Of Arrakis!
Oh, my! This is almost too rich!"
"Be silent, brah," the Principal said, and the laughter stopped
as though shut off with a switch. "Kanly, is it?" the Principal asked.
"Vendetta, heh? And he uses da nice 'ol word so rich in tradition to
be sure I know he means it."
"You made the peace gesture," Sasuke said. "The forms have been
obeyed."
"For a Mentat, you talk too much, brah," the Principal said.
And he thought: <I must do away with that one soon. He has almost
outlived his usefuleness.> The Principal stared across the room at
his Mentat assassin, seeing the feature about him that most people
noticed first: the eyes, the shaded slits of blue within blue, the
eyes without any white in them at all.
A grin flashed across Sasuke's face. It was like a mask grimace
beneath those eyes like holes. "But, Master! Never has revenge been
more beautiful. It is to see a plan of the most exquisite treachery:
to MAKE Leto exchange CaladaNagasaki for Dune - and without
alternative because the Emperor orders it. How waggish of you!"
In a cold voice, the Principal said: "You have a flux of da
mouth, Sasuke."
"But I am happy, my master. Whereas you . . . you are touched
by jealousy."
"Sasuke!"
"Ah-ah, Principal! Is it not regrettable you were unable to
devise this delicious scheme by yourself?"
"Someday I will have you strangled, brah."
"Of a certainty, Principal. Enfin! But a kind act is never
lost, eh?"
"Have you been chewing verite or semuta, Sasuke?"
"Truth without fear surprises the Principal," Sasuke said.
His face drew down into a caricatrue of a frowning mask. "Ah, hah!
But you see, Principal, I know as a Mentat when you will send the
executioner. You will hold back just so long as I am useful. To
move sooner would be wasteful and I'm yet of much use. I know
what it is you learned from that loveley dune planet - waste not.
True, principal?"
The Principal continued to stare at Sasuke.
Kodachi squirmed in her chair. <These wrangling fools!> she
thought. <My father cannot talk to his Mentat without arguing. Do
they think I've nothing to do except listen to their arguments?>
"Feyd," the Principal said. "I told you to listen and learn
when I invited you in here. Are you learning, wahine?"
"Yes, father." the voice was carefully subservient.
"Sometimes I wonder about Sasuke," the Principal said. "I
cause pain out of necesssity, but he . . . I swear he takes a
positive delight in it. For myself, I can feel pity toward da poor
Duke Leto, brah. Dr. Ono will move against him soon, and that'll be
da end of all the Saotomes. But surely Leto will know whose hand
directed the pliant doctor . . . and knowing that will be a terrible
thing."
"Then why haven't you directed the doctor to slip a kindjal
between his ribs quietly and efficiently?" Sasuke asked. "You talk
of pity, but-"
"Da Duke MUST know when I encompass his doom," the Principal
said. "And de other Great Houses must learn of it. The knowledge
will give them pause. I'll gain a bit more room to maneuver. The
necessity is obvious, but I don't have to like it."
"Room to maneuver," Sasuke sneered. "Already you have the
Emperor's eyes on you, Principal. You move too boldly. One day
the Emperor will send a legion or to of his Sardaukar down here
onto Kuno Prime and that'll be an end to the Principal Vladimir
Kuno."
"You'd like to see that, wouldn't you, Sasuke?" the
Principal aked. "You'd enjoy seeing da Corps of Sardaukar pillage
through my cities and sack 'dis castle. You'd truly enjoy dat,
brah."
"Does the Principal need to ask?" Sasuke whispered.
"You should've been a Bashar of da Corps," the Principal
said. "You'er too interested in blood and pain. Perhaps I was
too quick with my promise of da spoils of NerimArrakis."
Sasuke took five curiously mincing steps into the room,
stopped directly behind Kodachi. There was a tight air of
tension in the room, and the youth looked up at Sasuke with
a worried frown.
"Do not toy with Sasuke, Principal," Sasuke said. "You
promised me the Lady Nodoka. You promised her to me."
"For what, Sasuke?" the Principal asked. "For pain?"
Sasuke stared at him, dragging out the silence.
Kodachi moved her suspensor chair to one side, said:
"Father, do I have to stay? You said you'd-"
"Kodachi, my wahine, grows impatient," the Principal
said. He moved within the shadows beside the globe. "Patience,
kodachi." And he turned his attention back to the Mentat. "What
of the Dukeling, the child Ranma, my dear Sasuke?"
"The trap will bring him to you, Principal," Sasuke
muttered.
"Dat's not my question," the Principal said. "You'll
recall dat you predicted da Bene Okonomiyaki witch would bear a
daughter to da Duke. You were wrong, eh, Mentat?"
"I'm not often wrong, Principal," Sasuke said, and for the
first time there was fear in his voice. "Give me that: I'm not
often wrong. And you know yourself these Bene Okonomiyaki bear
mostly daughters. Even the Emperor's consort had produced only
females."
"Father," said Kodachi, "you said there'd be something
important here for me to-"
"Listen to my nephew," the President said. "She aspires
to rule my Principality, yet she cannot rule herself." The
Principal stirred beside the globe, a shadow among shadows.
"Well then, Kodachi Kuno, I summoned you here hoping to teach
you a bit of wisdom. Have you observed our good Mentat? You
shouldv'e learned something from this exchange."
"But, Father-"
"A most efficient Mentat, Sasuke, wouldn't you say,
Kodachi?"
"Yes, but-"
"Ah! indeed BUT! But her consumes too much spice, eats
it like candy. Look at his eyes, wahine! He might've come
directly from da NermiArakeen passionate boutbursts. Efficient,
Sasuke, BUT he still can err."
Sasuke spoke in a low, sullen tone: "Did you call me in
here to impair my efficiency with criticism, Principal?"
"Impair your efficiency? You know me better, Sasuke. I
wish only for my daughter to understand da limitations of a
Mentat, brah."
"Are you already training my replacement?" Sasuke demanded.
"Replace YOU? Why, Sasuke, where could I find another Mentat
wit' your cunning and venom?"
"The same place you found me, Principal."
"Perhaps I should at dat," the Principal mused. "You do seem
a bit unstable lately, brah. And da spice you eat!"
"Are my pleasures too expensive, Principal? Do you object
to them?"
"My dear Sasuke, your pleasures are what tie you to me. How
could I object to dat? I merely wish my daughter to observe dis
about you."
"Then I'm on display," Sasuke said. "Shall I dance? Shall I
perform my various functions for the eminent Koda-"
"Precisely," the Principal said. "You are on display. Now, be
silent, brah." He glanced at Kodachi, nothing his daughter's lips,
the full and pouting look of them, the Kuno genetic marker, now twisted
slightly in amusement. "This is a Mentat, Kodachi. It has been trained
and conditioned to perform certain duties. Da fact that it's encased
in a human body, however, must not be overlooked. A serious drawback,
that. I somethimes think da ancients wit' der thinking machines had
da right idea, wahine."
"They were toys compared to me," Sasuke snarled. "You yourself,
Principal, could outperform those machines."
"Perhaps," the Principal said. "Ah, well. . . ." He took a deep
breath, belched. "Now, Sasuke, outline for my daughter da salient
features of our campaign against da House of Saotome, Function as
a Mentat for us, if you please, brah."
"Principal, I've warned you not to trust one so young with this
information. My observations of-"
"I'll be da judge of dis," the Principal said. "I give you an
order, Mentat. Perform one of your various functions."
"So be it," Sasuke said. He straightened, assuming an odd
attitude of body. "In a few days Standard, the entire household
of the Duke Genma will embark on a Spacing Guild liner for
NerimArrakis. The Guild will deposit them at the sity of Arrakeen
rather than at out city of Carthag. The Duke's Mentat, Konatsu,
will have concluded rightly that Arrakeen is easier to defend."
"Listen carefully, Kodachi," the Principal said. "Observe da
plans within plans within plans."
Kodachi nodded, thinking: <This is more like it. The old
monster is letting me in on secret things at last. He must really
mean for me to be his heir.
"There are several tangential possibilities," Sasuke said.
"I indicate that House Saotome will go to NerimArrakis. We must
not, however, ignore the possibility the Duke has contracted with
the Guild to remove him to a place of safety outside the System.
Others in like circumstances have become renegade Houses, taking
family atomics and shields and fleeing beyond the Imperium."
"Da Duke's too proud a man for that," teh Principal said.
"It is a possibility," Sasuke said. "The ultimate effect
for us would be the same, however."
"NO, it would not!" the Principal growled. "I must have
him dead and his line ended."
"That's the high probability," Sasuke said. "There are
certain preparations that indicate when a House is going renegade.
The Duke appears to be doing none of these things."
"So," the Principal sighed. "Get on with it, Sasuke."
"At Arrakeen," Sasuke said, "the Duke and his family will
occupy the Residency, lately the home of Count and Lady Mousse."
"The Ambassador to the Smugglers," the Principal chuckled.
"Ambassador to what?" Kodachi asked.
"Your father makes a joke," Sasuke said. "He calls Count
Mousse Ambassador to the Smugglers, indicating the Emperor's
interest in smuggling operations on NerimArrakis."
"Kodachi turned a puzzled stare on her father. "Why?"
"Don't be dense, Kodachi," the Principal snapped. "As
long as the Guild remains effectively outside Imperial control,
how could it be otherwise? How else coud spies and assassins
move about?"
Kodachi's mouth made a soundless "Oh-h-h-h-h."
"We've arranged diversions at the Residency," Sasuke said.
"There'll be an attempt on the life of the Saotome heir - an
attempt which could succeed."
"Sasuke," the Principal rumbled, "you indicated-"
"I indicated accidents can happen," Sasuke sid. "And the
attempt must appear valid."
"Ah, but da lad has such a sweet young head of hair," the
Principal said. "Of course, he's potentially more dangerous than
da father . . . with dat witch mother training him. Accursed
woman! Ah, well, please continue, Sasuke."
"Konatsu will have divined that we have an agent planted on
him," Sasuke said. "The obvious suspect is Dr. Ono, who is indeed
our agent. But Konatsu has investigated and found that out doctor
is a Suk Schoool graduate with Imperial Conditioning - supposedly
safe enough to minister even to the Emperor. Great store is set
on Imperial Conditioning. It's assumed that ultimate conditioning
cannot be removed without killing the subject. However, as someone
once observed, given the right lever you can move a planet. We found
the lever that moved the doctor."
"How?" Kodachi asked. She found this a fascinating subject.
EVERYONE knew you couldn't subvert Imperial Conditioning!
"Another time," the Principal said. "Continue, Sasuke."
"In place of Tofu," Sasuke said, "we'll drag a most interesting
suspect across Konatsu's path. the very audacity of this suspect
will recommend her to Konatsu's attention."
"Her?" Kodachi asked.
"The Lady Nodoka herself," the Principal said.
"Is it not sublime?" Sasuke asked. "Konatsu's mind will be so
filled with this prospect it'll impair his function as a Mentat.
He may even try to kill her." Sasuke frowned, then: "But I don't
think he'll be able to carry it off."
"You don't want him to, eh, brah?" the Principal asked.
"Don't distract me," Sasuke said. "While Konatsu's occupied
with the Lady Nodoka, we'll divert him further with uprisings in a
few garrison towns and the like. These will be put down. The Duke
must believe he's gaining a measure of security. Then, when the
moment is ripe, we'll signal Tofu and move in with our major
force . . . ah. . . ."
"Go ahead, tell her all of it," the Principal said.
"We'll move in strengthened by two legions of Sardaukar
disguised in Kuno livery."
"Sardaukar!" Kodachi breathed. Her mind focused on the dread
Imperial troops, the killers without mercy, the soldier-fanatics of
the Padishah Emperor.
"You see how I trust you, Kodachi," the Principal said. "No
hint of this must ever reach another Great House, else da Landsraad
might unite against da Imperial House and der'd be chaos."
"The main point," Sasuke said, "is this: since House Kuno is
being used to do the Imperial dirty work, we've gained a true
advantage. It's a dangerous advantage, to be sure, but if
used cautiously, will bring House Kuno greater wealth than that of
any other House in the Imperium."
"You have no idea how much wealth is involved, wahine," the
Principal said. "Not in your wildest imaginings. To begin, we'll
have an irrevocable directorship in da CHOAM company."
Kodachi nodded. Wealth was the thing. CHOAM was the key
to wealth, each noble House dipping from the company's coffers
whatever it could under the power of the directorships. Those
CHOAM directorships - they were the real evidence of political
power in the Imperium, passing with the shifts of voting strength
within the Landsraad as it balanced itself against the Emperor
and HIS supporters.
"The Duke Genma," Sasuke said, "may attempt to flee to the
new Fremen scum along the desert's edge. Or he may try to send
his family into that imagined security. But that path is blocked
by one of His Majesty's agents - the planetary ecologist. You
may remember him - Hibiki."
"Kodachi remembers him," the Principal said. "Get on
with it."
"You do not drool very prettily, Principal," Sasuke said.
"Get on with it, I command you!" the Principal roared.
Sasuke shrugged. "If matters go as planned," he said,
"House Kuno will have a subfief on NerimArrakis within a
Standard year. Your father will have dispensation of that fief.
His own PERSONAL agent will rule on NerimArrakis."
"More profits," Kodachi said.
"Indeed," the Principal said. And he thought: <It's only
just. We're da ones who tamed NerimArrakis . . . except for da
few mongrel Fremen hiding in da skirts of a desert . . . and some
tame smugglers bound to da planet almost as tightly as da
native labor pool.>
"And the Great Houses will know that the Principal has
destroyed the Saotomes," Sasuke said. "They will know."
"They will know," the Principal breathed.
"Loveliest of all," Sasuke said, " is that the Duke will
know, too. He knows now. He can already feel the trap."
"It's true the Duke knows," the Principal said, and his
voice held a note of sadness. "He could not help but know
. . . more's the pity."
The Principal moved out and away from the globe of NerimArrakis.
As he emerged from the shadows, his figure took on dimension - grossly
and immensely fat. And with subtle bulges beneath folds of his dark
robes to reveal that all this fat was sustained partly by portable
suspensors harnessed to his flesh. He might weigh two hundred Standard
kilos in actuality, but his feet would carry no more than fifty of
them.
Kodachi grimaced. "Father, what did I tell you about those
coconuts and pineapples? Sure, they taste good, but they're also
VERY fattening, especially if you eat as many as you do in a day."
The Principal recoiled in shock. "You tink that one can have
too many coconuts or pineapples in one day? I only consume 100
kilos of dem combined a day, and I'm always hungry!"
"Father, you're disgustingly fat."
"Amen. Now, let's eat! Kodachi, send for 50 cartons of
pineapples and coconuts. We will eat before we retire."
Kodachi looked sick.
Thus spoke St. Ranko-of-the-
Knife: "The Reverend Mother must
combine the seductive wiles of a
courtesan with the untouchable
majesty of a virgin goddess,
holding these attributes in tenson
so long as the powers of her youth
endure. For when youth and beauty
have gone, she will find that the
place-between, once occupied by
tension, has become a wellspring of
cunning and resourcefulness."
-from "Not'Deep, Family
Commentaries"
by the Princess Ukyo
"WELL, NODOKA, what have you to say for yourself?" asked the Reverend
Mother.
It was near sunset at Castle CaladaNagasaki on the day of Ranma's
ordeal. The two women were alone in Nodoka's morning room while Ranma
waited in the adjoining soundproofed Meditation Chamber.
Nodoka stood facing the south windows. She sa and yet did not
see the evening's banked colors across meadow and river. She heard
and yet did not hear the Reverend Mother's question.
There had been another ordeal once - so many years ago. A
skinny girl with hair the color of bronze, her body tortured by the
winds of puberty, had entered the study of the Reverend Mother Khu Lon
of the Amazons, Proctor Superior of the Bene Okonomiyaki school on
OkinaWallach IX. Nodoka looked down at her right hand, flexed the
fingers, remembering the pain, the terror, the anger.
"Poor Ranma," she whispered.
"I asked you a question, Nodoka!" The old woman's voice was
snappish, demanding.
"What? Oh. . . ." Nodoka tore her attention away from the past,
faced the Reverend Mother, who sat with back to the stone wall between
the two west windows. "What do you want me to say?"
"What do I want you to say? What do I want you to say?" The old
voice carried a tone of cruel mimicry.
"So I had a son!" Nodoka flared. And she knew she was being
goaded into anger deliberately.
"You were told to bear only daughters to the Saotome."
"It meant so much to him," Nodoka pleaded.
"And you in your pride thought you could produce the Quickact
Handsmack!"
Nodoka lifted her chin. "I sensed the possibility."
"You thought only of your Duke's desire for a son," the old
woman snapped. "And his desires don't figure in this. A Saotome
daughter could've been wed to a Harkonnen heir and sealed the breach.
You've hopelessly complicated matters. We may lose both bloodlines
now."
"You're not infallible," Nodoka said. She braved the steady
stare from the old eyes.
Presently, the old woman muttered: "What's done is done."
"I vowed never to regret my decision," Nodoka said.
"How noble," the Reverend Mother sneered. "No regrets. We
shall see when you're a fugitive with a price on your head and
every man's hand turned against you to seek your life and the life
of your son."
Nodoka paled. "Is there no alternative?"
"Alternative? A Bene Okonomiyki should ask that?"
"I ask only what you see in the future with your superior
abilities."
"I see in the future what I've seen in the past. You well
know the pattern of our affairs, Nodoka. The race knows its own
mortality and fears stagnation of its heredity. It's in the
bloodstream - the urge to mingle genetic strains without plan.
The Imperium, the CHOAM Company, all the Great Houses, they are
but bits of flotsam in the path of the flood."
"CHOAM," Nodoka muttered. "I suppose it's already deciced
how they'll redivide the spoils of NerimArrakis."
"What is CHOAM but the weather vane of our times," the old
woman said. "The Emperor and his friends now command fifty-nine
point six-five per cent of the CHOAM diretorship's votes.
Certainly they smell profits, and likely as others smell those same
profits his voting strength will increase. This is the pattern of
history, girl."
"That's certainly what I need right now," Jesica said.
"A review of history."
"Don't be facetious, girl! You know as well as I do what
forces surround us. We've a three-point civlization: the Imperial
Households balanced against the Federated Great Houses of the
Landsraad, and between them, the Guild with its damnable monopoly
on interstellar transport. In politics, the tripod is the most
unstable of all structures. It'd be bad enough without the
complication of a feudal trade culture wihtch turns its back on
most science."
Nodoka spoke bitterly: "Chips in the path of the flood - and
this chip here, this is the Duke Genma, and this one's his son,
and this one's-"
"Oh, shut up, girl. You entered this with full knowledge of
the delicate edge you walked."
"'I am Bene Okonomiyaki: I exist only to serve,'" Nodoka quoted.
"Truth," the old woman said. "And all we can hope for now is to
prevent this from erupting into general conflagration, to salvage
what we can of the key bloodlines."
Nodoka closed her eyes, feeling tears press out beneath the
lids. She fought down the inner trembling, the outer trembling, the
uneven breathing, the ragged pulse, the sweating of the palms.
Presently, she said, "I'll pay for my on mistake."
"And your son will pay with you."
"I'll shield him as well as I'm able,"
"Shield!" the old woman snapped. "You well know the weakness
there! Shield your son too much, Nodoka, and he'll not grow strong
enough to fulfill ANY destiny."
Nodoka turned away, looked out the window at the gathering
darkness. "Is it really that terrible, this planet of NerimArrakis?"
"Bad enough, but not all bad. The Missionaria Protectiva has
been in there and softened it up somewhat." The Reverend Mother heaved
herself to her feet, then to the top of the cane on which she always
rode around. "Call the boy in here. I must be leaving soon."