darkness and located the expected opening, cool and moist, without a doorseal. Wasteful.
No bright light, no sign of guards. Crawling inside the hole, he stretched a leg down and located a rough ledge, where he rested his boot. With his other foot he found a second ledge, and below that another. Steps going down. Ahead, he discerned low yellow light where the tunnel sloped to the right. Stilgar backed up and raised a hand, summoning the others to follow.
On the floor at the base of the rough steps he noticed an old serving bowl. Tugging off his nose plugs, he smelled raw meat. Bait for small predators? An animal trap? He froze, looking for sensors. Had he already tripped a silent alarm? He heard footsteps ahead, and a drunken voice. “Got another one. Let’s blow it to kulon-hell.”
Stilgar and two Fremen darted into a side tunnel and drew their milky crysknives. Maula pistols would be far too noisy in these enclosed spaces. When a pair of Harkonnen guards blundered past them, reeking of spice beer, Stilgar and his comrade Turok leaped out and grabbed them from behind.
Before the hapless men could cry out, the Fremen slit their throats, then slapped spongepads over the wounds to absorb the precious blood. In an efficient blur of motion, Fremen removed hand weapons from the still-twitching guards. Stilgar seized a lasrifle for himself and passed one to Turok.
Dim military glowglobes floated in ceiling recesses, casting low light. The razzia band continued down the passageway, toward the heart of the ancient sietch. When the passage skirted a conveyor system used for the transportation of materials in and out of the secret chamber, he detected the cinnamon odor of melange, which grew stronger as the group went deeper. Here, the ceiling glowglobes were tuned to pale orange instead of yellow.
Stilgar’s troop murmured at the sight of human skulls and rotting bodies, propped against the sides of the corridor, carelessly displayed trophies. Rage suffused him. These might have been Fremen prisoners or villagers, taken by the Harkonnens for sport. At his side, Turok glanced around, searching for another enemy he might kill.
Cautiously, Stilgar led the way forward and began to hear voices and clanging noises. They came to an alcove rimmed with a low stone railing that overlooked an underground grotto. Stilgar imagined the thousands of desert people who must have thronged into this vast cavern long ago, before the Harkonnens, before the Emperor… before the spice melange had become the most valuable substance in the universe.
At the center of the grotto rose an octagonal structure, dark blue and silver, surrounded by ramps. Smaller matching structures were arranged around it. One was under construction; plasmetal parts lay strewn about, with seven laborers hard at work.
Slipping back into shadows, the raiders crept down shallow stairs to the grotto floor. Turok and the other Fremen, each man holding his confiscated weapons, took positions in different alcoves overlooking the grotto. Three raiders raced up the ramp that encircled the largest octagonal structure. At the top, the Fremen vanished from view, then reappeared and made rapid hand signals to Stilgar. Six guards had already been killed without making a sound, dispatched in deadly crysknife silence.
Now the time for stealth had ended. On the rock floor, a pair of commandos pointed their maula pistols at the surprised construction workers and ordered them up the stairs. The sunken-eyed laborers complied grudgingly, as if they didn’t care which masters held them captive.
The Fremen searched connecting passageways and found an underground barracks with two dozen guards asleep among bottles of spice beer scattered on the floor. A strong odor of melange permeated the large common room.
Scoffing, the Fremen charged in, slashing with knives, kicking and punching, dealing out pain but no fatal wounds. The groggy Harkonnens were disarmed and herded to the central grotto.
His blood running hot, Stilgar scowled at the slouching, half-drunken men. One always hopes for an honorable enemy. But we have found none tonight. Even here, in the highly secure grotto, these men had been sampling the spice they were supposed to guard— probably without the Baron’s knowledge.
“I want to torture them to death right now.” Turok’s eyes were dark under the ruddy glowglobe light. “Slowly. You saw what they did to their captives.”
Stilgar stopped him. “Save that for later. Instead, we shall put them to work.”
Stilgar paced back and forth in front of the Harkonnen captives, scratching his dark beard. The stink of their fear-sweat began to overpower the melange odor.