Dune (72 page)

The guard moved in, hustled the Sardaukar away.

Paul bent toward his lieutenant.

“Muad'Dib,” the man said. “I failed you in . . . .”

“The failure was mine, Korba,” Paul said. “I should've warned you what to seek. In the future, when searching Sardaukar, remember this. Remember, too, that each has a false toenail or two that can be combined with other items secreted about their bodies to make an effective transmitter. They'll have more than one false tooth. They carry coils of shigawire in their hair—so fine you can barely detect it, yet strong enough to garrote a man and cut off his head in the process. With Sardaukar, you must scan them, scope them—both reflex and hard ray—cut off every scrap of body hair. And when you're through, be certain you haven't discovered everything.”

He looked up at Gurney, who had moved close to listen.

“Then we best kill them,” the lieutenant said.

Paul shook his head, still looking at Gurney. “No. I want them to escape.”

Gurney stared at him. “Sire . . . .” he breathed.

“Yes?”

“Your man here is right. Kill those prisoners at once. Destroy all evidence of them. You've shamed Imperial Sardaukar! When the Emperor learns that he'll not rest until he has you over a slow fire.”

“The Emperor's not likely to have that power over me,” Paul said. He spoke slowly, coldly. Something had happened inside him while he faced the Sardaukar. A sum of decisions had accumulated in his awareness. “Gurney,” he said, “are there many Guildsmen around Rabban?”

Gurney straightened, eyes narrowed. “Your question makes no . . . .”

“Are there?” Paul barked.

“Arrakis is crawling with Guild agents. They're buying spice as though it were the most precious thing in the universe. Why else do you think we ventured this far into . . . .”

“It is the most precious thing in the universe,” Paul said. “To them.”

He looked toward Stilgar and Chani who were now crossing the chamber toward him. “And we control it, Gurney.”

“The Harkonnens control it!” Gurney protested.

“The people who can destroy a thing, they control it,” Paul said. He waved a hand to silence further remarks from Gurney, nodded to Stilgar who stopped in front of Paul, Chani beside him.

Paul took the Sardaukar knife in his left hand, presented it to Stilgar. “You live for the good of the tribe,” Paul said. “Could you draw my life's blood with that knife?”

“For the good of the tribe,” Stilgar growled.

“Then use that knife,” Paul said.

“Are you calling me out?” Stilgar demanded.

“If I do,” Paul said, “I shall stand there without weapon and let you slay me.”

Stilgar drew in a quick, sharp breath.

Chani said, “Usul!” then glanced at Gurney, back to Paul.

While Stilgar was still weighing his words, Paul said: “You are Stilgar, a fighting man. When the Sardaukar began fighting here, you were not in the front of battle. Your first thought was to protect Chani.”

“She's my niece,” Stilgar said. “If there'd been any doubt of your Fedaykin handling those scum . . . .”

“Why was your first thought of Chani?” Paul demanded.

“It wasn't!”

“Oh?”

“It was of you,” Stilgar admitted.

“Do you think you could lift your hand against me?” Paul asked.

Stilgar began to tremble. “It's the way,” he muttered.

“It's the way to kill offworld strangers found in the desert and take their water as a gift from Shai-hulud,” Paul said. “Yet you permitted two such to live one night, my mother and myself.”

As Stilgar remained silent, trembling, staring at him, Paul said: “Ways change, Stil. You have changed them yourself.”

Stilgar looked down at the yellow emblem on the knife he held.

“When I am Duke in Arrakeen with Chani by my side, do you think I'll have time to concern myself with every detail of governing Tabr sietch?” Paul asked. “Do you concern yourself with the internal problems of every family?”

Stilgar continued staring at the knife.

“Do you think I wish to cut off my right arm?” Paul demanded.

Slowly, Stilgar looked up at him.

“You!” Paul said. “Do you think I wish to deprive myself or the tribe of your wisdom and strength?”

In a low voice, Stilgar said: “The young man of my tribe whose name is known to me, this young man I could kill on the challenge floor, Shai-hulud willing. The Lisan al-Gaib, him I could not harm. You knew this when you handed me this knife.”

“I knew it,” Paul agreed.

Stilgar opened his hand. The knife clattered against the stone of the floor. “Ways change,” he said.

“Chani,” Paul said, “go to my mother, send her here that her counsel will be available in—”

“But you said we would go to the south!” she protested.

“I was wrong,” he said. “The Harkonnens are not there. The war is not there.”

She took a deep breath, accepting this as a desert woman accepted all necessities in the midst of a life involved with death.

“You will give my mother a message for her ears alone,” Paul said. “Tell her that Stilgar acknowledges me Duke of Arrakis, but a way must be found to make the young men accept this without combat.”

Chani glanced at Stilgar.

“Do as he says,” Stilgar growled. “We both know he could overcome me . . . and I could not raise my hand against him . . . for the good of the tribe.”

“I shall return with your mother,” Chani said.

“Send her,” Paul said. “Stilgar's instinct was right. I am stronger when you are safe. You will remain in the sietch.”

She started to protest, swallowed it.

“Sihaya,” Paul said, using his intimate name for her. He whirled away to the right, met Gurney's glaring eyes.

The interchange between Paul and the older Fremen had passed as though in a cloud around Gurney since Paul's reference to his mother.

“Your mother,” Gurney said.

“Idaho saved us the night of the raid,” Paul said, distracted by the parting with Chani. “Right now we've—”

“What of Duncan Idaho, m'Lord?” Gurney asked.

“He's dead—buying us a bit of time to escape.”

The she-witch alive!
Gurney thought.
The one I swore vengeance against, alive! And it's obvious Duke Paul doesn't know what manner of creature gave him birth. The evil one! Betrayed his own father to the Harkonnens!

Paul pressed past him, jumped up to the ledge. He glanced back, noted that the wounded and dead had been removed, and he thought bitterly that here was another chapter in the legend of Paul Muad'Dib.
I didn't even draw my knife, but it'll be said of this day that I slew twenty Sardaukar by my own hand.

Gurney followed with Stilgar, stepping on ground that he did not even feel. The cavern with its yellow light of glowglobes was forced out of his thoughts by rage.
The she-witch alive while those she betrayed are bones in lonesome graves. I must contrive it that Paul learns the truth about her before I slay her.

 

THE CROWD in the cavern assembly chamber radiated that pack feeling Jessica had sensed the day Paul killed Jamis. There was murmuring nervousness in the voices. Little cliques gathered like knots among the robes.

Jessica tucked a message cylinder beneath her robe as she emerged to the ledge from Paul's private quarters. She felt rested after the long journey up from the south, but still rankled that Paul would not yet permit them to use the captured ornithopters.

“We do not have full control of the air,” he had said. “And we must not become dependent upon offworld fuel. Both fuel and aircraft must be gathered and saved for the day of maximum effort.”

Paul stood with a group of the younger men near the ledge. The pale light of glowglobes gave the scene a tinge of unreality. It was like a tableau, but with the added dimension of warren smells, the whispers, the sounds of shuffling feet.

She studied her son, wondering why he had not yet trotted out his surprise—Gurney Halleck. The thought of Gurney disturbed her with its memories of an easier past—days of love and beauty with Paul's father.

Stilgar waited with a small group of his own at the other end of the ledge. There was a feeling of inevitable dignity about him, the way he stood without talking.

We must not lose that man,
Jessica thought.
Paul's plan must work. Anything else would be the highest tragedy.

She strode down the ledge, passing Stilgar without a glance, stepped down into the crowd. A way was made for her as she headed toward Paul. And silence followed her.

She knew the meaning of the silence—the unspoken questions of the people, awe of the Reverend Mother.

The young men drew back from Paul as she came up to him, and she found herself momentarily dismayed by the new deference they paid him.
“All men beneath your position covet your station,”
went the Bene Gesserit axiom. But she found no covetousness in these faces. They were held at a distance by the religious ferment around Paul's leadership. And she recalled another Bene Gesserit saying:
“Prophets have a way of dying by violence.
”

Paul looked at her.

“It's time,” she said, and passed the message cylinder to him.

One of Paul's companions, bolder than the others, glanced across at Stilgar, said: “Are you going to call him out, Maud'Dib? Now's the time for sure. They'll think you a coward if you—”

“Who dares call me coward?” Paul demanded. His hand flashed to his crysknife hilt.

Bated silence came over the group, spreading out into the crowd.

“There's work to do,” Paul said as the man drew back from him. Paul turned away, shouldered through the crowd to the ledge, leaped lightly up to it and faced the people.

“Do it!” someone shrieked.

Murmurs and whispers arose behind the shriek.

Paul waited for silence. It came slowly amidst scattered shufflings and coughs. When it was quiet in the cavern, Paul lifted his chin, spoke in a voice that carried to the farthest corners.

“You are tired of waiting,” Paul said.

Again, he waited while the cries of response died out.

Indeed, they are tired of waiting,
Paul thought. He hefted the message cylinder, thinking of what it contained. His mother had showed it to him, explaining how it had been taken from a Harkonnen courier.

The message was explicit: Rabban was being abandoned to his own resources here on Arrakis! He could not call for help or reinforcements!

Again, Paul raised his voice: “You think it's time I called out Stilgar and changed the leadership of the troops!” Before they could respond, Paul hurled his voice at them in anger: “Do you think the Lisan al-Gaib that stupid?”

There was stunned silence.

He's accepting the religious mantle,
Jessica thought.
He must not do it!

“It's the way!” someone shouted.

Paul spoke dryly, probing the emotional undercurrents. “Ways change.”

An angry voice lifted from a corner of the cavern: “We'll say what's to change!”

There were scattered shouts of agreement through the throng.

“As you wish,” Paul said.

And Jessica heard the subtle intonations as he used the powers of Voice she had taught him.

“You will say,” he agreed. “But first you will hear my say.”

Stilgar moved along the ledge, his bearded face impassive. “That is the way, too,” he said. “The voice of any Fremen may be heard in Council. Paul-Muad'Dib is a Fremen.”

“The good of the tribe, that is the most important thing, eh?” Paul asked.

Still with that flat-voiced dignity, Stilgar said: “Thus our steps are guided.”

“All right,” Paul said. “Then, who rules this troop of our tribe—and who rules all the tribes and troops through the fighting instructors we've trained in the weirding way?”

Paul waited, looking over the heads of the throng. No answer came.

Presently, he said: “Does Stilgar rule all this? He says himself that he does not. Do I rule? Even Stilgar does my bidding on occasion, and the sages, the wisest of the wise, listen to me and honor me in Council.”

There was shuffling silence among the crowd.

“So,” Paul said. “Does my mother rule?” He pointed down to Jessica in her black robes of office among them. “Stilgar and all the other troop leaders ask her advice in almost every major decision. You know this. But does a Reverend Mother walk the sand or lead a razzia against the Harkonnens?”

Frowns creased the foreheads of those Paul could see, but still there were angry murmurs.

This is a dangerous way to do it,
Jessica thought, but she remembered the message cylinder and what it implied. And she saw Paul's intent: Go right to the depth of their uncertainty, dispose of that, and all the rest must follow.

“No man recognizes leadership without the challenge and the combat, eh?” Paul asked.

“That's the way!” someone shouted.

“What's our goal?” Paul asked. “To unseat Rabban, the Harkonnen beast, and remake our world into a place where we may raise our families in happiness amidst an abundance of water—is this our goal?”