The air in the training room smelled of ozone and old wax. The gray, diffuse light of Caladan streamed through the tall Gothic windows, illuminating the suspended dust.
They were five years old.
Paul sat cross-legged on the floor, frowning as he tried to memorize the political structures of the Landsraad that Thufir Hawat, the Master of Assassins and Mentat of the House, projected into the air with a solid-light device.
"House Harkonnen," Hawat said, his voice raspy as gravel, his white eyes calculating the children's every micromovement, "bases its economy on the brutal maximization of resources. The margin for error is zero. Paul, what is the logical flaw in your strategy?"
Paul hesitated. He was brilliant, yes, but he was a child.
"They rely too heavily... on slave labor?" Paul ventured.
"Incorrect," Hawat barked. It depends on market stability, which they don't control. A fundamental flaw.
In the opposite corner of the room, I, Valerius, sat in a chair far too large for me. I wasn't watching the projection. I was watching a wooden top spinning on the stone table.
But I hadn't touched it in ten minutes. And the top kept spinning.
The Level 10 Archive in my head was a constant torment. I saw the friction of the air against the wood. I saw the imperceptible curvature of spacetime generated by the castle's mass. I knew how to nullify the friction with a thought, applying a minimal psychic counterforce based on principles this civilization wouldn't discover for another ten thousand years.
So the top spun. Eternally.
Hawat turned to me. His lips, stained with sapho juice, pursed. He hated that I ignored him. He hated that he couldn't read me. To a Mentat, I was a black hole of data.
“Valerius,” he said, his tone dropping an octave. “The lesson seems to bore you. Perhaps you already know the answer.”
I looked up. My eyes met his. I knew Hawat was suspicious. He had seen the medical reports: my skin, sometimes too tough for needles; my constant fever, not illness, but my body inefficiently metabolizing solar radiation under the clouds of Caladan.
“The Harkonnen strategy is irrelevant,” I said. My voice was childlike, but the cadence was flat, devoid of doubt. “The failure isn’t economic, Thufir. It’s thermodynamic.”
Hawat blinked. The term was archaic.
“Thermodynamic?”
I got down from the chair. I walked toward the star map projection. Paul was looking at me with that mixture of adoration and bewilderment he always had. He felt my “otherness” more than anyone. We were twins, but he was water and I was rock.
“The Empire is a closed system,” I said, pointing at the stars. “Spice is the energy catalyst. If you extract energy from a closed system without injecting new entropy, the system collapses. It doesn’t matter who sits on the throne. The Spacing Guild’s political stasis is accelerating the heat death of human culture.”
Hawat froze. His Mentat mind processed the words at breakneck speed. What I had just said wasn’t politics. It was a mathematical truth of such vast scale that it bordered on heresy. I was talking about humanity’s downfall not through war, but through evolutionary stagnation.
“Who taught you that?” Hawat whispered. The projection flickered. “Your mother?”
“No one teaches me, Thufir,” I replied, returning to my spinning top. “I remember.”
Hawat took a step back, visibly disturbed. I was about to say something else, but the door burst open.
Duncan Idaho entered. He carried the wind and rain in his armor. His smile was broad, but it faded slightly when he noticed the tension in the room.
"The Duke requests the young masters," Duncan said, looking alternately at Hawat and me. "Shield training."
Paul jumped up, happy to escape the lesson. He ran toward Duncan.
I stopped the spinning top with a finger. The change in inertia was instantaneous, unnatural. There was no deceleration. From motion to absolute stillness in zero seconds.
Duncan, who had the instincts of a legendary swordsman, saw that. He saw the violation of physics. His hand twitched near his sword.
"Come on, Valerius," Duncan said, but his voice lacked the warmth he used with Paul. There was an animalistic caution.
I walked toward them. As I passed Hawat, the old Mentat grabbed my arm. It was an impulsive gesture, an attempt to assert authority.
His fingers tightened around my bicep.
And then, it happened again. Kryptonian physiology reacted to the perceived threat. My muscles didn't yield. They were like titanium cables beneath a layer of silk.
Hawat tried to squeeze harder, using the strength of a war veteran. Nothing. It was like trying to squeeze a granite statue.
I looked into his eyes. I did nothing. I didn't use my strength. I was simply immovable.
Hawat released me as if I had burned him. He looked at me with a new horror. It wasn't just my mind. It was my flesh.
"Be careful, Thufir," I said gently, adjusting my sleeve. "Calculations sometimes break the calculator."
I left the room, following Paul and Duncan.
Behind me, Thufir Hawat, the man who calculated the odds of millions dying, stood trembling, staring at his own hand, wondering why, when he touched a five-year-old boy, he had felt the density of a collapsed star.
And in my mind, the Level 10 Archive whispered blueprints. Blueprints to improve the shield generators. Blueprints to terraform Arrakis in months, not centuries.
But I kept quiet. Silence is my camouflage. For now.