Chapter 4: Dead Man Walking
The market woke with the city. Vendors hauled tarps over their stalls, shouting prices before the second sun cleared the horizon. Water merchants opened their sealed containers with ceremonial care. The smell of cooking meat mixed with spice dust and unwashed bodies.
I moved through the growing crowd, keeping to the edges. Morvani's clothes were generic enough—sand-worn robes, patched stillsuit underneath, the kind every third person wore. My face meant nothing to most of these people. That changed with the ones who mattered.
A water merchant glanced my way. His eyes widened. He looked away quickly. Too quickly.
Word was spreading. Morvani lived. The man who should have died in the Harkonnen raid had walked out of it somehow.
I needed to understand what that meant. What obligations came with this corpse's identity. What enemies. What opportunities.
Information first. Always information.
The market's eastern section housed the specialists—not food or water or basic supplies, but services. Guides who knew the deep desert. Forgers who could fake Guild documentation. And information brokers who traded secrets like currency.
I found Hetch's stall wedged between a weapons merchant and someone selling suspiciously authentic-looking Harkonnen uniforms. The stall was barely more than a tarp stretched between poles. Underneath, Hetch sat on a stool that had seen better decades.
He was old. Properly old—not the sun-weathered look everyone developed on Arrakis, but genuinely ancient. Skin like cracked leather. Eyes milky with cataracts. But those eyes tracked movement with predator precision.
"Water," he croaked as I approached.
Standard greeting. I held up my flask. Quarter full. "Information."
"What kind?"
"The kind about a dead man who isn't."
Hetch's lips peeled back. Might have been a smile. Hard to tell. "Morvani. Heard you died screaming."
"Heard wrong."
"Clearly." He gestured at the stool opposite him. I sat. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything I should already know."
That got a wheezing laugh. "Memory problems? Spice damage? Or something else?"
"Does it matter?"
"To your price it does." He leaned forward. "I'll make this simple. You owe the Sirat Syndicate. Water-debt. Six months' worth. Turok doesn't forgive debts, but he doesn't kill useful debtors either. He'll want payment or service."
Six months of water-debt. On Arrakis, that was substantial. Enough to buy weapons. Information. Lives.
"How useful was Morvani?"
"Not very. Ran basic routes. Failed more than he succeeded." Hetch tilted his head. "But he survived. That counts for something. Most runners last three months before the desert gets them."
"Who else knows I'm alive?"
"By now? Everyone in the warrens. The Sirat crews definitely. Whether the Harkonnens know..." He shrugged. "Depends if they're still looking."
"Enemies?"
"Besides Sirat? Morvani wasn't important enough for real enemies. Maybe some runners you outbid for routes. Petty stuff."
That was good. Debts I could work with. Petty grudges were manageable. If Morvani had been tangled in serious feuds, this identity would be worthless.
"Allies?"
Hetch's expression shifted. Something calculating. "Depends. How much water are you offering?"
"I'm asking if Morvani had any."
"No. He ran alone. Kept his head down. Smart enough not to make waves, too useless to make friends." The old man's milky eyes fixed on me. "You're different though. Something changed. The way you sit. The way you talk. Either you hit your head in that raid, or..."
He left it hanging. Testing.
I met his gaze. "Or?"
"Or Morvani died in that raid, and someone else is wearing his face." His voice dropped. "I've seen it before. This business, sometimes people become other people. Sometimes it's choice. Sometimes necessity. I don't care which. I'm just noting the observation."
Perceptive. Dangerous. I needed to establish boundaries.
"You're noting that you want more water for keeping observations to yourself."
Another wheeze-laugh. "Smart. Yes. One liter. My silence is worth one liter."
Highway robbery. But necessary. "Half now. Half when I confirm you kept quiet."
"Deal." He extended a withered hand. We clasped forearms in the desert way. "You'll find Turok at his headquarters. Third level down, western tunnels. The guards will know you're coming—they always know. My advice? Run or grovel. Those are your options."
"What if I pick neither?"
"Then you're more interesting than Morvani ever was." He gestured dismissal. "Half-liter. Now."
I poured water from my flask into his cupped hands. He drank like a man dying of thirst—which, on Arrakis, everyone was, always. When he finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of one hand.
"Go careful, not-Morvani. Whatever you're planning, this city eats plans for breakfast."
I left him there. Moved back into the market's flow.
Half my water gone. Information gained. Worth it. Probably.
The crowd had thickened. Morning commerce in full swing. I wove through groups of hagglers, avoiding the clusters where deals got physical. Near a food vendor, I stopped.
My stomach had been complaining for hours. The dried meat was long gone. I had one coin left—Morvani's last coin.
The vendor sold spice-cakes. Small ones, barely a mouthful. But they'd quiet my stomach and might tell me something about this body's relationship with melange.
"One," I said, placing the coin on the counter.
The vendor—a young woman with the blue-tinted eyes of long-term spice exposure—scooped one cake into a cloth wrapper. "Fresh this morning. Good batch."
I bit into it.
The taste hit like a physical blow. Cinnamon, yes, but underneath—complexity. Layers of flavor my tongue couldn't quite identify. And something else. Something that made my sinuses open, my vision sharpen, my thoughts accelerate.
This was spice. Real melange. And my body craved it.
I finished the cake in three bites. The vendor watched with knowing eyes.
"First time in a while?"
"Something like that."
"You've got the look. The need. Don't wait too long between doses." She leaned closer. "Some people think they can quit. The desert always wins that bet."
I nodded thanks and moved on. But she was right. I could feel it now—the slight edge to my perception, the way colors seemed more vivid. The SS stat at 1% wasn't just a number. It was physical dependency already forming.
The System was turning me into a spice addict. Slowly. Inevitably.
Another cost I hadn't fully considered.
I made my way toward the western tunnels. Hetch's directions proved accurate. The passages sloped downward, deeper into Arrakeen's foundation. The walls here were older—pre-Harkonnen construction, probably dating back centuries.
Two guards flanked a heavy door. Big men. Armed. They watched me approach with professional disinterest.
"Morvani," the left one said. Not a question.
"I'm expected."
"Yeah. You are." He knocked twice on the door. It opened from inside. "Good luck."
The way he said it sounded like condolences.
Inside, the passage continued another twenty meters before opening into a larger chamber. This had once been some kind of storage vault—the walls still bore faded Imperial markings. Now it served as headquarters for the Sirat Syndicate.
Men and women worked at makeshift desks. Counting water rings. Sorting spice packets. Cleaning weapons. They glanced up as I entered, assessed me with experienced eyes, went back to their tasks.
At the chamber's far end, a stone platform had been carved out. On it sat a desk. Behind the desk sat Turok Sirat.
He was massive. Not tall—maybe five-ten—but broad. Shoulders that could carry a stillsuit's weight indefinitely. Arms thick as my thighs. His face was a map of violence—scars crossing scars, one eyebrow bisected by burn tissue, two fingers missing from his left hand.
He looked up from papers he'd been studying. His eyes were dark. Calculating.
"Morvani. They said you died."
I stopped three meters from his desk. Close enough to talk, far enough to dodge if he threw something.
"They were wrong."
"So I see." He set down the papers. Leaned back. "How did you get out?"
"The Harkonnens weren't thorough."
"Harkonnens are always thorough. Try again."
I'd prepared for this. "I was in the back room when they came in. Found a passage. Ran."
"Where does this passage go?"
"Forgotten water cache. Old smuggler work. No one's used it in years."
His eyes narrowed. "Show me."
"No."
The room went quiet. Everyone had stopped working. Watching.
Turok's expression didn't change. "No?"
"You want the cache, I'll trade for it. But not today. Today I'm here about the debt."
"The debt." He stood. Even sitting down he'd been imposing. Standing, he was a wall. He walked around the desk, approached me. Stopped just inside arm's reach. "Six months' water-debt. How are you going to pay?"
"Work."
"I don't need more failures."
"I survived a Harkonnen raid. Most of your people wouldn't have."
"Luck."
"Maybe. Want to bet it's only luck?"
He studied me. Long enough that my heart started hammering. This was the moment. Accept me or kill me. No middle ground.
"What changed?" he asked.
"What?"
"You were worthless before. Adequate runner, barely. Now you walk into my headquarters and negotiate. What changed?"
The truth was impossible. The lie needed to be close enough to truth.
"I died in that raid," I said. Quiet. "For about thirty seconds, I died. Lungs filled with blood. Couldn't breathe. Saw darkness. Then I came back. The man you knew didn't come back. I did."
Silence.
Then Turok laughed. Deep, genuine laughter that echoed through the chamber.
"A resurrection story. I love it." He turned, walked back to his desk. Sat down. "Fine. Here's the deal. Three months. You run the deep desert routes—the ones that kill everyone. You survive and profit, we're clear. You die, your water belongs to the syndicate anyway."
Three months. Half what Hetch said. Still brutal if the routes were as bad as Turok implied.
"What about—"
"No negotiations. Take it or I have Venn break both your legs and leave you for the Harkonnens."
Movement to my right. A man emerged from shadows I hadn't noticed. Venn. Lean, quick-looking, with a knife fighter's grace. He smiled at me. The smile said he hoped I'd refuse.
"I'll take it," I said.
"Smart." Turok pulled out maps, spread them across his desk. "These are your routes. Memorize them. Departure schedules are marked. First run is tomorrow, dawn. You get a stillsuit—basic model—and water advance. Half-liter. Bring back what's marked on the schedule, or don't come back."
I approached the desk. Studied the maps.
The routes went deep. Really deep. Into sections of desert labeled with warnings—worm activity, unstable sand, temperature extremes. Routes that skirted the edge of Fremen territory. Routes that would kill anyone who didn't know exactly what they were doing.
Perfect.
Because those routes passed through untouched desert. Pure sand that had never been claimed. Sand the System would let me convert into territory.
Let them think I was running spice. I'd be running something else entirely.
"Any questions?" Turok asked.
"The advance. Half-liter. When?"
"Now." He gestured. One of the workers brought a sealed flask. Handed it to me. "Don't drink it before the run. You'll need every drop out there."
I took the flask. Felt its weight. Half a liter of life.
"Anything else?"
"Yeah." I met his eyes. "I'll need my knife back."
"Venn?"
The enforcer pulled my knife from his belt. Tossed it. I caught it one-handed, sheathed it.
"Tomorrow," Turok said. "Dawn. Be here or be dead. I don't care which."
Dismissed. I turned and walked out. Felt eyes tracking me until I left the chamber.
The guards at the door said nothing as I passed. Up through the tunnels. Back into the market district where the suns were climbing toward noon and the heat was building toward murderous.
I found a shaded corner. Sat with my back against stone. Looked at the maps I'd memorized.
Tomorrow. The deep desert. Territory to claim. Spice to collect. Debt to start clearing.
And somewhere out in that sand, worms moved. The System wanted me to claim dominion over them eventually. Tomorrow I'd see one. Maybe more.
Tomorrow I'd start becoming what I needed to be.
Tonight, I'd rest. Prepare. Make sure I knew these routes as well as Turok knew I didn't.
The stillsuit they'd issued was basic—patches on patches, seals that looked questionable, nose plugs that probably leaked. It would keep me alive. Barely.
Good enough.
I had three months to prove I was worth keeping alive. Three months to build power while everyone expected me to die.
The mathematics were simple. Die and lose everything. Survive and gain everything.
I chose survival.
Always survival.
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