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here and work as virtual slaves. I’ve been saving for years and have only half of the credits I need.” He grimaced. “Regrettably, I didn’t notice the odious clause when I signed the contract.”
    “Sounds like a neat little scam,” Tuek said.
    English shrugged. “Scam or not, I wouldn’t have survived the penal caves on Eridanus V, with the dripping acid and the tunnel collapses that maim and kill so many. And even if I did finish my sentence there, I would still have been a convicted felon when I emerged.” He tapped the mark above his brow again. “Here, I am forever a freedman, not a criminal.”
    Suitably impressed, Tuek decided to give the man a chance, while keeping him under close scrutiny. “Mr. English, would you pilot an ornijet and take us on an inspection flight?”
    “Nothing easier, General. I’ll check the locations of the crews that went out today. Only a few of them could get their equipment going.”

    THE THREE MEN left the black mountain battlements and flew over the endless plains of buttery dunes. Gurney stared at the wasteland through the ornijet’s tinted window. “‘A desolation and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither any son of man passth thereby,’” the jongleur offered from his vast repertoire of pertinent quotes. He turned back to look at the blocky structures of Carthage nestled among the dark rocks. “As Isaiah said long ago on another world, ‘He built towers in the desert.’”
    Tuek peered disapprovingly at the dirty city the Hoskanners had built. “I wouldn’t exactly call them towers.”
    As English guided the ornijet deeper into the desert, he opened the wings to full extension. They flapped slowly as the craft rattled and bounced in air turbulence. He wrestled with the controls. “Hold on, gentlemen. Could get worse, could get better.”
    “Ah, now that’s covering your options!” Gurney said with a chuckle.
    “Storm coming?” Tuek asked.
    “Just thermals. Nothing to worry about.” English touched the roughened, waxy skin on the left side of his face. “I can sense bad weather. My knowledge of Duneworld’s storms is unfortunately intimate.”
    After he had stabilized the ornijet, English glanced at the old veteran. “I told you about my tattoo, General Tuek. Would you return the favor and explain those red stains on your lips? I have never seen anything like them.”
    Tuek touched the bright cranberry smears that forever marked his mouth. “I was once addicted to the sapho drug. It makes you euphoric, makes you lose your edge … and it ruins your life.”
    “Sapho makes those stains?”
    “Sapho juice is colorless. These red stains mark that I have taken the cure —and survived.”
    “It was a true addiction?” English looked uncomfortable. “And you have beaten it?”
    “Any addiction can be overcome if a person has strong enough will.” At his sides, Tuek unconsciously clenched and unclenched his hands. He remembered the nightmarish agony, the days of longing for death. He was a veteran of many battles, but breaking his dependence on the drug had been one of his most difficult victories ever.
    Once they had reached the appropriate area, English guided the ornijet toward a column of dust and sand that looked like exhaust from a chimney. “Spice operations.”
    “I can’t wait to see the equipment they left for us,” Tuek said, his tone sour. “Twelve harvesters and three carryalls to deliver them to the spice sands?”
    “The numbers are right, but the machines are in lousy condition.”
    The old warrior scowled. “The Emperor insisted that the Hoskanners leave them for us, but I assume they will not be sufficient for us to exceed the previous production.”
    “We’ll fall far short.”
    “Ho, that’s a cheery thought,” Gurney said. “‘He who looks to the Lord with optimism secures the prize, while the pessimist also secures what he envisions: defeat.’”
    The spice foreman shook his head. “It’s not