Dune (36 page)

But report followed report—faster and faster.

Two legions landed at Carthag.

Five legions—fifty brigades!—attacking the Duke's main base at Arrakeen.

A legion at Arsunt.

Two battle groups at Splintered Rock.

Then the reports became more detailed—there were Imperial Sardaukar among the attackers—possibly two legions of them. And it became clear that the invaders knew precisely which weight of arms to send where. Precisely! Superb Intelligence.

Hawat's shocked fury had mounted until it threatened the smooth functioning of his Mentat capabilities. The size of the attack struck his mind like a physical blow.

Now, hiding beneath a bit of desert rock, he nodded to himself, pulled his torn and slashed tunic around him as though warding off the cold shadows.

He had always expected their enemy to hire an occasional lighter from the Guild for probing raids. That was an ordinary enough gambit in this kind of House-to-House warfare. Lighters landed and took off on Arrakis regularly to transport the spice for House Atreides. Hawat had taken precautions against random raids by false spice lighters. For a full attack they'd expected no more than ten brigades.

But there were more than two thousand ships down on Arrakis at the last count—not just lighters, but frigates, scouts, monitors, crushers, troop-carriers, dump-boxes....

More than a hundred brigades—ten legions!

The entire spice income of Arrakis for fifty years might just cover the cost of such a venture.

I underestimated what the Baron was willing to spend in attacking us,
Hawat thought.
I failed my Duke.

Then there was the matter of the traitor.

I will live long enough to see her strangled!
he thought.
I should've killed that Bene Gesserit witch when I had the chance.
There was no doubt in his mind who had betrayed them—the Lady Jessica. She fitted all the facts available.

“Your man Gurney Halleck and part of his force are safe with our smuggler friends,” the Fremen said.

“Good.”

Hawat glanced back at the huddle of his men. He had started the night just past with three hundred of his finest. Of those, an even twenty remained and half of them were wounded. Some of them slept now, standing up, leaning against the rock, sprawled on the sand beneath the rock. Their last 'thopter, the one they'd been using as a ground-effect machine to carry their wounded, had given out just before dawn. They had cut it up with lasguns and hidden the pieces, then worked their way down into this hiding place at the edge of the basin.

Hawat had only a rough idea of their location—some two hundred kilometers southeast of Arrakeen. The main traveled ways between the Shield Wall sietch communities were somewhere south of them.

The Fremen across from Hawat threw back his hood and stillsuit cap to reveal sandy hair and beard. The hair was combed straight back from a high, thin forehead. He had the unreadable total blue eyes of the spice diet. Beard and mustache were stained at one side of the mouth, his hair matted there by pressure of the looping catchtube from his nose plugs.

The man removed his plugs, readjusted them. He rubbed at a scar beside his nose.

“If you cross the sink here this night,” the Fremen said, “you must not use shields. There is a break in the wall. . . .” He turned on his heels, pointed south. “ . . . there, and it is open sand down to the erg. Shields will attract a. . . .” He hesitated. “. . . worm. They don't often come in here, but a shield will bring one every time.”

He said worm,
Hawat thought.
He was going to say something else. What? And what does he want of us?

Hawat sighed.

He could not recall ever before being this tired. It was a muscle weariness that energy pills were unable to ease.

Those damnable Sardaukar!

With a self-accusing bitterness, he faced the thought of the soldier-fanatics and the Imperial treachery they represented. His own Mentat assessment of the data told him how little chance he had ever to present evidence of this treachery before the High Council of the Landsraad where justice might be done.

“Do you wish to go to the smugglers?” the Fremen asked.

“Is it possible?”

“The way is long.”

“
Fremen don't like to say no,
” Idaho had told him once.

Hawat said: “You haven't yet told me whether your people can help my wounded.”

“They are wounded.”

“We know they're wounded!” Hawat snapped. “That's not the—”

“Peace, friend,” the Fremen cautioned. “What do your wounded say? Are there those among them who can see the water need of your tribe?”

“We haven't talked about water,” Hawat said. “We—”

“I can understand your reluctance,” the Fremen said. “They are your friends, your tribesmen. Do you have water?”

“Not enough.”

The Fremen gestured to Hawat's tunic, the skin exposed beneath it. “You were caught in-sietch, without your suits. You must make a water decision, friend.”

“Can we hire your help?”

The Fremen shrugged. “You have no water.” He glanced at the group behind Hawat. “How many of your wounded would you spend?”

Hawat fell silent, staring at the man. He could see as a Mentat that their communication was out of phase. Word-sounds were not being linked up here in the normal manner.

“I am Thufir Hawat,” he said. “I can speak for my Duke. I will make promissory commitment now for your help. I wish a limited form of help, preserving my force long enough only to kill a traitor who thinks herself beyond vengeance.”

You wish our siding in a vendetta?”

“The vendetta I'll handle myself. I wish to be freed of responsibility for my wounded that I may get about it.”

The Fremen scowled. “How can you be responsible for your wounded? They are their own responsibility. The water's at issue, Thufir Hawat. Would you have me take that decision away from you?”

The man put a hand to a weapon concealed beneath his robe.

Hawat tensed, wondering:
Is there betrayal here?

“What do you fear?” the Fremen demanded.

These people and their disconcerting directness!
Hawat spoke cautiously. “There's a price on my head.”

“Ah-h-h-h.” The Fremen removed his hand from his weapon. “You think we have the Byzantine corruption. You don't know us. The Harkonnens have not water enough to buy the smallest child among us.”

But they had the price of Guild passage for more than two thousand fighting ships,
Hawat thought. And the size of that price still staggered him.

“We both fight Harkonnens,” Hawat said. “Should we not share the problems and ways of meeting the battle issue?”

“We are sharing,” the Fremen said. “I have seen you fight Harkonnens. You are good. There've been times I'd have appreciated your arm beside me.”

“Say where my arm may help you,” Hawat said.

“Who knows?” the Fremen asked. “There are Harkonnen forces everywhere. But you still have not made the water decision or put it to your wounded.”

I must be cautious,
Hawat told himself.
There's a thing here that's not understood.

He said: “Will you show me your way, the Arrakeen way?”

“Stranger-thinking,” the Fremen said, and there was a sneer in his tone. He pointed to the northwest across the clifftop. “We watched you come across the sand last night.” He lowered his arm. “You keep your force on the slip-face of the dunes. Bad. You have no stillsuits, no water. You will not last long.”

“The ways of Arrakis don't come easily,” Hawat said.

“Truth. But we've killed Harkonnens.”

“What do you do with your own wounded?” Hawat demanded.

“Does a man not know when he is worth saving?” the Fremen asked. “Your wounded know you have no water.” He tilted his head, looking sideways up at Hawat. “This is clearly a time for water decision. Both wounded and unwounded must look to the tribe's future.”

The tribe's future,
Hawat thought.
The tribe of Atreides. There's sense in that.
He forced himself to the question he had been avoiding.

“Have you word of my Duke or his son?”

Unreadable blue eyes stared upward into Hawat's. “Word?”

“Their fate!” Hawat snapped.

“Fate is the same for everyone,” the Fremen said. “Your Duke, it is said, has met his fate. As to the Lisan al-Gaib, his son, that is in Liet's hands. Liet has not said.”

I knew the answer without asking,
Hawat thought.

He glanced back at his men. They were all awake now. They had heard. They were staring out across the sand, the realization in their expressions: there was no returning to Caladan for them, and now Arrakis was lost.

Hawat turned back to the Fremen. “Have you heard of Duncan Idaho?”

“He was in the great house when the shield went down,” the Fremen said. “This I've heard . . . no more.”

She dropped the shield and let in the Harkonnens,
he thought.
I was the one who sat with my back to a door. How could she do this when it meant turning also against her own son? But ... who knows how a Bene Gesserit witch thinks . . . if you can call it thinking?

Hawat tried to swallow in a dry throat. “When will you hear about the boy?”

“We know little of what happens in Arrakeen,” the Fremen said. He shrugged. “Who knows?”

“You have ways of finding out?”

“Perhaps.” The Fremen rubbed at the scar beside his nose. “Tell me, Thufir Hawat, do you have knowledge of the big weapons the Harkonnens used?”

The artillery,
Hawat thought bitterly.
Who could have guessed they'd use artillery in this day of shields?

“You refer to the artillery they used to trap our people in the caves,” he said. “I've . . . theoretical knowledge of such explosive weapons.”

“Any man who retreats into a cave which has only one opening deserves to die,” the Fremen said.

“Why do you ask about these weapons?”

“Liet wishes it.”

Is that what he wants from us?
Hawat wondered. He said: “Did you come here seeking information about the big guns?”

“Liet wished to see one of the weapons for himself.”

“Then you should just go take one,” Hawat sneered.

“Yes,” the Fremen said. “We took one. We have it hidden where Stilgar can study it for Liet and where Liet can see it for himself if he wishes. But I doubt he'll want to: the weapon is not a very good one. Poor design for Arrakis.”

“You . . . took one?” Hawat asked.

“It was a good fight,” the Fremen said. “We lost only two men and spilled the water from more than a hundred of theirs.”

There were Sardaukar at every gun,
Hawat thought.
This desert madman speaks casually of losing only two men against Sardaukar!

“We would not have lost the two except for those others fighting beside the Harkonnens,” the Fremen said. “Some of those are good fighters.”

One of Hawat's men limped forward, looked down at the squatting Fremen. “Are you talking about Sardaukar?”

“He's talking about Sardaukar,” Hawat said.

“Sardaukar!” the Fremen said, and there appeared to be glee in his voice. “Ah-h-h, so that's what they are! This was a good night indeed. Sardaukar. Which legion? Do you know?”

“We . . . don't know,” Hawat said.

“Sardaukar,” the Fremen mused. “Yet they wear Harkonnen clothing. Is that not strange?”

“The Emperor does not wish it known he fights against a Great House,” Hawat said.

“But you know they are Sardaukar.”

“Who am I?” Hawat asked bitterly.

“You are Thufir Hawat,” the man said matter-of-factly. “Well, we would have learned it in time. We've sent three of them captive to be questioned by Liet's men.”

Hawat's aide spoke slowly, disbelief in every word: “You ...
captured
Sardaukar?”

“Only three of them,” the Fremen said. “They fought well.”

If only we'd had the time to link up with these Fremen,
Hawat thought. It was a sour lament in his mind.
If only we could've trained them and armed them. Great Mother, what a fighting force we'd have had!

“Perhaps you delay because of worry over the Lisan al-Gaib,” the Fremen said. “If he is truly the Lisan al-Gaib, harm cannot touch him. Do not spend thoughts on a matter which has not been proved.”

“I serve the . . . Lisan al-Gaib,” Hawat said. “His welfare is my concern. I've pledged myself to this.”

“You are pledged to his water?”

Hawat glanced at his aide, who was still staring at the Fremen, returned his attention to the squatting figure. “To his water, yes.”

“You wish to return to Arrakeen, to the place of his water?”

“To . . . yes, to the place of his water.”

“Why did you not say at first it was a water matter?” The Fremen stood up, seated his nose plugs firmly.

Hawat motioned with his head for his aide to return to the others. With a tired shrug, the man obeyed. Hawat heard a low-voiced conversation arise among the men.

The Fremen said: “There is always a way to water.”