Free Dune: House Atreides by Frank Herbert Page B

greater malice.

    Without making a sound, he found a narrow, rusted access ladder and scrambled up into the darkness, wasting no time on thought. Duncan had to do the unexpected, hide where they'd have trouble reaching him. The rungs, pitted and scarred with age, hurt his hands.

    This section of ancient Barony still functioned; power conduits and suspensor tubes shot through the main structure like wormholes -- straight, curved, hooking off at oblique angles. The place was one enormous obstacle course, where the Harkonnen troops could fire upon their prey without risking damage to more important structures.

    Above him in a main corridor, he heard booted feet running, filtered voices through helmet communicators, then a shout. A nearby pinging sound signaled that the guards had homed in on his locator implant.

    Hot white lasgun fire blasted the ceiling over his head, melting through metal plates. Duncan let go of the ladder and allowed himself to drop, freefall. One armed guard peeled up the hot-edged floor plate and pointed down at him. The others fired their lasguns again, severing the struts so that the ladder fell in tandem with the small boy.

    He landed on the floor of a lower shaft, and the heavy ladder clattered on top of him. But Duncan didn't cry out in pain. That would only bring the pursuers closer . . . though he had no real hope of eluding them for long because of the pulsing beacon in his shoulder. How could anyone but Harkonnens win this game?

    He pushed himself to his feet and ran with a new, frantic desire for freedom.
    To his dismay, the small tunnel ahead opened into a wider passage. Wider was bad. The bigger men could follow him there.

    He heard shouts behind, more running feet, gunfire, and then a gurgling scream.
    The pursuers were supposed to be using stun guns, but Duncan knew that this late in the day's hunt, most everyone else would have been captured -- and the stakes were higher. The hunters didn't like to lose.

    Duncan had to survive. He had to be the best. If he died, he couldn't go back to see his mother again. But if he lived and defeated these bastards, then perhaps his family would get their freedom . . . or as much freedom as Harkonnen civil service workers could ever have on Giedi Prime.

    Duncan had seen other trainees who had defeated the pursuers before, and those children had disappeared afterward. If he could believe the announcements, the winners and their captive families had been set free from the hellhole of Barony. Duncan had no proof of this, though, and had plenty of reasons to question what the Harkonnens told him. But he wanted to believe them, could not give up hope.

    He didn't understand why his parents had been thrown into this prison. What had minor government office workers done to deserve such punishment? He remembered only that one day life had been normal and relatively happy . . . and the next, they were all here, enslaved. Now young Duncan was forced nearly every day to run and fight for his life, and for the future of his family. He was getting better at it.

    He remembered that last normal afternoon out on a manicured lawn planted high up in one of the Harko City terraces, one of the rare balcony parks the Harkonnens allowed their subjects to have. The gardens and hedges were carefully fertilized and tended, because plants did not fare well in the residue-impregnated soil of a planet that had been too long abused.

    Duncan's parents and other family members had been playing frivolous lawn games, tossing self-motivated balls at targets on the grass, while internal high-entropy devices made the balls bounce and ricochet randomly. The boy had noticed how different, how dry and structured the games of adults were compared with the reckless romping he did with his friends.

    A young woman stood near him, watching the games. She had chocolate-colored hair, dusky skin, and high cheekbones, but her pinched expression and hard gaze detracted from what might have been