Sisterhood of Dune Read Online Free PDF

compression fire-suppressant canister to fight the smoldering roof by leaning out a high gable. As he rushed into the room, Vor was giddy to see her aged but beautiful face—seamed and careworn features, her hair like spun silver. He was so glad to find her safe and alive that he almost wept, but the fire demanded his attention. He took the canister from her and sprayed at the flames through the window. The fire had traveled along the edge of the rooftop, but the house was not yet fully involved.
    “I was afraid they’d take you with all the others,” Mariella said. “You look as young as our grandsons.”
    The flames began to flicker out under the dispersed spray. He set the canister aside and pulled her close, holding her as he had done for more than half a century. “And I was worried about you.”
    “I’m way too old for them to be interested in me,” Mariella said. “You would have realized that, if you stopped to think.”
    “If I’d stopped to think, I wouldn’t have gotten there before all the ships lifted off. As it is, I managed to kill only one of the slavers.”
    “They took almost everyone else who could perform manual labor. A few might have hidden, and a few were just killed, but how are we…” She shook her head and looked down at her hands. “It’s not possible. They’re all gone.”
    “I’ll get them back.”
    Mariella responded with a sad smile, but he kissed the familiar lips that had been part of his life, his family, his home for so long. She was much like his previous wife, Leronica Tergiet, on another world, a woman with whom he had also stayed as she bore him children, then grew old and died, while he never changed.
    “I know where they’re going,” Vor said. “The ships are taking them to the slave markets on Poritrin. The slaver told me.”
    *   *   *
    HE AND MARIELLA’S brothers went to the other homes, searching for survivors. They found a number of them, scattered, and rallied them to control the spreading blaze, help the injured, tally the missing. Only sixty of the valley’s several hundred inhabitants had been left behind, and most were either old or infirm. Ten had fought back and were killed. Vor dispatched messages to the other settled valleys on Kepler, warning them to be on guard for slavers.
    That night, Mariella got out photos of their children, their families, their grandchildren, and spread them around the table, on the shelves. So many faces, so many people needing to be rescued.…
    She found him in the smoky-smelling attic of their home, where he had uncovered a storage trunk. Opening it, Vor removed a pressed and folded old uniform, crimson and green, the familiar colors of the Army of Humanity, formerly the Army of the Jihad.
    The package had been sealed away for many, many years.
    “I’m going to Poritrin to get our people back.” He held up the uniform shirt and ran his fingers over the smooth fabric of the sleeves, musing about how many times the uniform had been patched, how many bloodstains had been removed. He had hoped never to go into battle again. But this was different.
    “And after I save them, I need to make sure it never happens again. I’ll find some way to protect this planet. The Corrinos owe me that.”

 
    It is easy to look backward and cast blame on others, but more difficult to gaze ahead and take responsibility for your own decisions and your own future.
    — GRIFFIN HARKONNEN , final dispatch from Arrakis
    It was a hard winter on Lankiveil, but the Harkonnens had to make do. For generations—since Abulurd Harkonnen’s exile here for his actions in the Battle of Corrin—the once powerful family had been left to forget about their lost glory on Salusa Secundus.
    And most of them had indeed forgotten.
    Relentless sleet streamed down, then froze to a glassy coating of ice each night. In their wooden homes huddled on the shores of the fjord, the locals had to thaw and kick their doors open every morning just to face the