Dune (49 page)

In the moonlight and reflection off gray stone, Paul saw a small figure in Fremen robes, a shadowed face peering out at him from the hood, and the muzzle of one of the projectile weapons aimed at him from a fold of robe.

“I am Chani, daughter of Liet.”

The voice was lilting, half filled with laughter.

“I would not have permitted you to harm my companions,” she said.

Paul swallowed. The figure in front of him turned into the moon's path and he saw an elfin face, black pits of eyes. The familiarity of that face, the features out of numberless visions in his earliest prescience, shocked Paul to stillness. He remembered the angry bravado with which he had once described this face-from-a-dream, telling the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam: “I will meet her.”

And here was the face, but in no meeting he had ever dreamed.

“You were as noisy as shai-hulud in a rage,” she said. “And you took the most difficult way up here. Follow me; I'll show you an easier way down.”

He scrambled out of the cleft, followed the swirling of her robe across a tumbled landscape. She moved like a gazelle, dancing over the rocks. Paul felt hot blood in his face, was thankful for the darkness.

That girl!
She was like a touch of destiny. He felt caught up on a wave, in tune with a motion that lifted all his spirits.

They stood presently amidst the Fremen on the basin floor.

Jessica turned a wry smile on Paul, but spoke to Stilgar: “This will be a good exchange of teachings. I hope you and your people feel no anger at our violence. It seemed . . . necessary. You were about to . . . make a mistake.”

“To save one from a mistake is a gift of paradise,” Stilgar said. He touched his lips with his left hand, lifted the weapon from Paul's waist with the other, tossed it to a companion. “You will have your own maula pistol, lad, when you've earned it.”

Paul started to speak, hesitated, remembering his mother's teaching:
“Beginnings are such delicate times.
”

“My son has what weapons he needs,” Jessica said. She stared at Stilgar, forcing him to think of how Paul had acquired the pistol.

Stilgar glanced at the man Paul had subdued—Jamis. The man stood at one side, head lowered, breathing heavily. “You are a difficult woman,” Stilgar said. He held out his left hand to a companion, snapped his fingers. “Kushti bakka te.”

More Chakobsa,
Jessica thought.

The companion pressed two squares of gauze into Stilgar's hand. Stilgar ran them through his fingers, fixed one around Jessica's neck beneath her hood, fitted the other around Paul's neck in the same way.

“Now you wear the kerchief of the bakka,” he said. “If we become separated, you will be recognized as belonging to Stilgar's sietch. We will talk of weapons another time.”

He moved out through his band now, inspecting them, giving Paul's Fremkit pack to one of his men to carry.

Bakka,
Jessica thought, recognizing the religious term:
bakka—the weeper.
She sensed how the symbolism of the kerchiefs united this band.
Why should weeping unite them?
she asked herself.

Stilgar came to the young girl who had embarrassed Paul, said: “Chani, take the child-man under your wing. Keep him out of trouble.”

Chani touched Paul's arm. “Come along, child-man.”

Paul hid the anger in his voice, said: “My name is Paul. It were well you—”

“We'll give you a name, manling,” Stilgar said, “in the time of the mihna, at the test of aql.”

The test of reason,
Jessica translated. The sudden need of Paul's ascendancy overrode all other consideration, and she barked, “My son's been tested with the gom jabbar!”

In the stillness that followed, she knew she had struck to the heart of them.

“There's much we don't know of each other,” Stilgar said. “But we tarry overlong. Day-sun mustn't find us in the open.” He crossed to the man Paul had struck down, said, “Jamis, can you travel?”

A grunt answered him. “Surprised me, he did. 'Twas an accident. I can travel.”

“No accident,” Stilgar said. “I'll hold you responsible with Chani for the lad's safety, Jamis. These people have my countenance.”

Jessica stared at the man, Jamis. His was the voice that had argued with Stilgar from the rocks. His was the voice with death in it. And Stilgar had seen fit to reinforce his order with this Jamis.

Stilgar flicked a testing glance across the group, motioned two men out. “Larus and Farrukh, you are to hide our tracks. See that we leave no trace. Extra care—we have two with us who've not been trained.” He turned, hand upheld and aimed across the basin. “In squad line with flankers—move out. We must be at Cave of the Ridges before dawn.”

Jessica fell into step beside Stilgar, counting heads. There were forty Fremen—she and Paul made it forty-two. And she thought:
They travel as a military company
—
even the girl, Chani.

Paul took a place in the line behind Chani. He had put down the black feeling at being caught by the girl. In his mind now was the memory called up by his mother's barked reminder: “My son's been tested with the gom jabbar!” He found that his hand tingled with remembered pain.

“Watch where you go,” Chani hissed. “Do not brush against a bush lest you leave a thread to show our passage.”

Paul swallowed, nodded.

Jessica listened to the sounds of the troop, hearing her own footsteps and Paul's, marveling at the way the Fremen moved. They were forty people crossing the basin with only the sounds natural to the place—ghostly feluccas, their robes flitting through the shadows. Their destination was Sietch Tabr—Stilgar's sietch.

She turned the word over in her mind: sietch. It was a Chakobsa word, unchanged from the old hunting language out of countless centuries. Sietch: a meeting place in time of danger. The profound implications of the word and the language were just beginning to register with her after the tension of their encounter.

“We move well,” Stilgar said. “With Shai-hulud's favor, we'll reach Cave of the Ridges before dawn.”

Jessica nodded, conserving her strength, sensing the terrible fatigue she held at bay by force of will . . . and, she admitted it: by the force of elation. Her mind focused on the value of this troop, seeing what was revealed here about the Fremen culture.

All of them,
she thought,
an entire culture trained to military order. What a priceless thing is hereforan outcast Duke!

 

THEY APPROACHED Cave of the Ridges at dawnbreak, moving through a split in the basin wall so narrow they had to turn sideways to negotiate it. Jessica saw Stilgar detach guards in the thin dawnlight, saw them for a moment as they began their scrambling climb up the cliff.

Paul turned his head upward as he walked, seeing the tapestry of this planet cut im cross section where the narrow cleft gaped toward gray-blue sky.

Chani pulled at his robe to hurry him, said: “Quickly. It is already light.”

“The men who climbed above us, where are they going?” Paul whispered.

“The first daywatch,” she said. “Hurry now!”

A guard left outside,
Paul thought.
Wise. But it would've been wiser still for us to approach this place in separate bands. Less chance of losing the whole troop.
He paused in the thought, realizing that this was guerrilla thinking, and he remembered his father's fear that the Atreides might become a guerrilla house.

“Faster,” Chani whispered.

Paul sped his steps, hearing the swish of robes behind. And he thought of the words of the sirat from Yueh's tiny O.C. Bible.

“Paradise on my right, Hell on my left and the Angel of Death behind.
” He rolled the quotation in his mind.

They rounded a corner where the passage widened. Stilgar stood at one side motioning them into a low hole that opened at right angles.

“Quickly!” he hissed. “We're like rabbits in a cage if a patrol catches us here.”

Paul bent for the opening, followed Chani into a cave illuminated by thin gray light from somewhere ahead.

“You can stand up,” she said.

He straightened, studied the place: a deep and wide area with domed ceiling that curved away just out of a man's handreach. The troop spread out through shadows. Paul saw his mother come up on one side, saw her examine their companions. And he noted how she failed to blend with the Fremen even though her garb was identical. The way she moved —such a sense of power and grace.

“Find a place to rest and stay out of the way, child-man,” Chani said. “Here's food.” She pressed two leaf-wrapped morsels into his hand. They reeked of spice.

Stilgar came up behind Jessica, called an order to a group on the left. “Get the doorseal in place and see to moisture security.” He turned to another Fremen: “Lemil, get glowglobes.” He took Jessica's arm. “I wish to show you something, weirding woman.” He led her around a curve of rock toward the light source.

Jessica found herself looking out across the wide lip of another opening to the cave, an opening high in a cliff wall—looking out across another basin about ten or twelve kilometers wide. The basin was shielded by high rock walls. Sparse clumps of plant growth were scattered around it.

As she looked at the dawn-gray basin, the sun lifted over the far escarpment illuminating a biscuit-colored landscape of rocks and sand. And she noted how the sun of Arrakis appeared to leap over the horizon.

It's because we want to hold it back,
she thought.
Night is safer than day.
There came over her then a longing for a rainbow in this place that would never see rain.
I must suppress such longings,
she thought.
They're a weakness. I no longer can afford weaknesses.

Stilgar gripped her arm, pointed across the basin. “There! There you see proper Druses.”

She looked where he pointed, saw movement: people on the basin floor scattering at the daylight into the shadows of the opposite cliffwall. In spite of the distance, their movements were plain in the clear air. She lifted her binoculars from beneath her robe, focused the oil lenses on the distant people. Kerchiefs fluttered like a flight of multicolored butterflies.

“That is home,” Stilgar said. “We will be there this night.” He stared across the basin, tugging at his mustache. “My people stayed out overlate working. That means there are no patrols about. I'll signal them later and they'll prepare for us.”

“Your people show good discipline,” Jessica said. She lowered the binoculars, saw that Stilgar was looking at them.

“They obey the preservation of the tribe,” he said. “It is the way we choose among us for a leader. The leader is the one who is strongest, the one who brings water and security.” He lifted his attention to her face.

She returned his stare, noted the whiteless eyes, the stained eyepits, the dust-rimmed beard and mustache, the line of the catchtube curving down from his nostrils into his stillsuit.

“Have I compromised your leadership by besting you, Stilgar?” she asked.

“You did not call me out,” he said.

“It's important that a leader keep the respect of his troop,” she said.

“Isn't a one of those sandlice I cannot handle,” Stilgar said. “When you bested me, you bested us all. Now, they hope to learn from you . . . the weirding way . . . and some are curious to see if you intend to call me out.”

She weighed the implications. “By besting you in formal battle?”

He nodded. “I'd advise you against this because they'd not follow you. You're not of the sand. They saw this in our night's passage.”

“Practical people,” she said.

“True enough.” He glanced at the basin. “We know our needs. But not many are thinking deep thoughts now this close to home. We've been out overlong arranging to deliver our spice quota to the free traders for the cursed Guild . . . may their faces be forever black.”

Jessica stopped in the act of turning away from him, looked back up into his face. “The Guild? What has the Guild to do with your spice?”

“It's Liet's command,” Stilgar said. “We know the reason, but the taste of it sours us. We bribe the Guild with a monstrous payment in spice to keep our skies clear of satellites and such that none may spy what we do to the face of Arrakis.”

She weighed out her words, remembering that Paul had said this must be the reason Arrakeen skies were clear of satellites. “And what is it you do to the face of Arrakis that must not be seen?”

“We change it . . . slowly but with certainty . . . to make it fit for human life. Our generation will not see it, nor our children nor our children's children nor the grandchildren of their children . . . but it will come.” He stared with veiled eyes out over the basin. “Open water and tall green plants and people walking freely without stillsuits.”

So that's the dream of this Liet-Kynes,
she thought. And she said: “Bribes are dangerous; they have a way of growing larger and larger.”

“They grow,” he said, “but the slow way is the safe way.”

Jessica turned, looked out over the basin, trying to see it the way Stilgar was seeing it in his imagination. She saw only the grayed mustard stain of distant rocks and a sudden hazy motion in the sky above the cliffs.