Dune (45 page)

“The masses of Arrakis will know that we work to make the land flow with
water,” his father said. “Most of them, of course, will have only a semimystical
understanding of how we intend to do this. Many, not understanding the
prohibitive mass-?ratio problem, may even think we’ll bring water from some other
planet rich in it. Let them think anything they wish as long as they believe in
us.“

In a minute I’ll get up and tell him what I think of him, Kynes thought.
Standing there lecturing me when he should be helping me.

The bird took another hop closer to Kynes’ outstretched hand. Two more hawks
drifted down to the sand behind it.

”Religion and law among our masses must be one and the same,“ his father
said. ”An act of disobedience must be a sin and require religious penalties.
This will have the dual benefit of bringing both greater obedience and greater
bravery. We must depend not so much on the bravery of individuals, you see, as
upon the bravery of a whole population.“

Where is my population now when I need it most? Kynes thought. He summoned
all his strength, moved his hand a finger’s width toward the nearest hawk. It
hopped backward among its companions and all stood poised for flight.

”Our timetable, will achieve the stature of a natural phenomenon,“ his
father said. ”A planet’s life is a vast, tightly interwoven fabric. Vegetation
and animal changes will be determined at first by the raw physical forces we
manipulate. As they establish themselves, though, our changes will become
controlling influences in their own right–and we will have to deal with them,
too. Keep in mind, though, that we need control only three per cent of the
energy surface–only three per cent–to tip the entire structure over into our
self-?sustaining system.“

Why aren’t you helping we? Kynes wondered. Always the same: when I need you
most, you fail me. He wanted to turn his head, to stare in the direction of his
father’s voice, stare the old man down. Muscles refused to answer his demand.

Kynes saw the hawk move. It approached his hand, a cautious step at a time
while its companions waited in mock indifference. The hawk stopped only a hop
away from his hand.

A profound clarity filled Kynes’ mind. He saw quite suddenly a potential for
Arrakis that his father had never seen. The possibilities along that different
path flooded through him.

”No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall
into the hands of a Hero,“ his father said.

Reading my mind! Kynes thought. Well . . . let him.

The messages already have been sent to my sietch villages, he thought.
Nothing can stop them. If the Duke’s son is alive they’ll find him and protect
him as I have commanded. They may discard the woman, his mother, but they’ll
save the boy.

The hawk took one hop that brought it within slashing distance of his hand.
It tipped its head to examine the supine flesh. Abruptly, it straightened,
stretched its head upward and with a single screech, leaped into the air and
banked away overhead with its companions behind it.

They’ve come! Kynes thought. My Fremen have found me!

Then he heard the sand rumbling.

Every Fremen knew the sound, could distinguish it immediately from the
noises of worms or other desert life. Somewhere beneath him, the pre-?spice mass
had accumulated enough water and organic matter from the little makers, had
reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of carbon dioxide
was forming deep in the sand, heaving upward in an enormous ”blow” with a dust
whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had been formed deep in the sand
for whatever lay on the surface.

The hawks circled overhead screeching their frustration. They knew what was
happening. Any desert creature would know.

And I am a desert creature, Kynes thought. You see me, Father? I am a desert
creature.

He felt the bubble lift him, felt it break and the dust whirlpool engulf
him, dragging him down into cool darkness. For a moment, the sensation of
coolness and the moisture were blessed relief. Then, as his planet killed him,
it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong,
that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error.

Even the hawks could appreciate these facts.

= = = = = =

Prophecy and prescience–How can they be put to the test in the face of the
unanswered questions? Consider: How much is actual prediction of the “waveform”
(as Muad’Dib referred to his vision-?image) and how much is the prophet shaping
the future to fit the prophecy? What of the harmonics inherent in the act of
prophecy? Does the prophet see the future or does he see a line of weakness, a
fault or cleavage that he may shatter with words or decisions as a diamond-
cutter shatters his gem with a blow of a knife?

-“Private Reflections on Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

“Get their water,” the man calling out of the night had said. And Paul
fought down his fear, glanced at his mother. His trained eyes saw her readiness
for battle, the waiting whipsnap of her muscles.

“It would be regrettable should we have to destroy you out of hand,” the
voice above them said.

That’s the one who spoke to us first, Jessica thought. There are at least
two of them–one to our right and one on our left.

“Cignoro hrobosa sukares hin mange la pchagavas doi me kamavas na beslas
lele pal hrobas!”

It was the man to their right calling out across the basin.

To Paul, the words were gibberish, but out of her Bene Gesserit training,
Jessica recognized the speech. It was Chakobsa, one of the ancient hunting
languages, and the man above them was saying that perhaps these were the
strangers they sought.

In the sudden silence that followed the calling voice, the hoop-?wheel face
of the second moon–faintly ivory blue–rolled over the rocks across the basin,
bright and peering.

Scrambling sounds came from the rocks–above and to both sides . . . dark
motions in the moonlight. Many figures flowed through the shadows.

A whole troop! Paul thought with a sudden pang.

A tall man in a mottled burnoose stepped in front of Jessica. His mouth
baffle was thrown aside for clear speech, revealing a heavy beard in the
sidelight of the moon, but face and eyes were hidden in the overhang of his
hood.

“What have we here–jinn or human?” he asked.

And Jessica heard the true-?banter in his voice, she allowed herself a faint
hope. This was the voice of command, the voice that had first shocked them with
its intrusion from the night.

“Human, I warrant,” the man said.

Jessica sensed rather than saw the knife hidden in a fold of the man’s robe.
She permitted herself one bitter regret that she and Paul had no shields.

“Do you also speak?” the man asked.

Jessica put all the royal arrogance at her command into her manner and
voice. Reply was urgent, but she had not heard enough of this man to be certain
she had a register on his culture and weaknesses.

“Who comes on us like criminals out of the night?” she demanded.

The burnoose-?hooded head showed tension in a sudden twist, then slow
relaxation that revealed much. The man had good control.

Paul shifted away from his mother to separate them as targets and give each
of them a clearer arena of action.
The hooded head turned at Paul’s movement, opening a wedge of face to
moonlight. Jessica saw a sharp nose, one glinting eye–dark, so dark the eye,
without any white in it–a heavy brown and upturned mustache.

“A likely cub,” the man said. “If you’re fugitives from the Harkonnens, it
may be you’re welcome among us. What is it, boy?”

The possibilities flashed through Paul’s mind: A trick? A fact? Immediate
decision was needed.

“Why should you welcome fugitives?” he demanded.

“A child who thinks and speaks like a man,” the tall man said. “Well, now,
to answer your question, my young wali, I am one who does not pay the fai, the
water tribute, to the Harkonnens. That is why I might welcome a fugitive.”

He knows who we are, Paul thought. There’s concealment in his voice.

“I am Stilgar, the Fremen,” the tall man said. “Does that speed your tongue,
boy?”

It is the same voice, Paul thought. And he remembered the Council with this
man seeking the body of a friend slain by the Harkonnens.

“I know you, Stilgar,” Paul said. “I was with my father in Council when you
came for the water of your friend. You took away with you my father’s man,
Duncan Idaho–an exchange of friends.”

“And Idaho abandoned us to return to his Duke,” Stilgar said.

Jessica heard the shading of disgust in his voice, held herself prepared for
attack.

The voice from the rocks above them called: “We waste time here, Stil.”

“This is the Duke’s son,” Stilgar barked. “He’s certainly the one Liet told
us to seek.”

“But . . . a child, Stil.”

“The Duke was a man and this lad used a thumper,” Stilgar said. “That was a
brave crossing he made in the path of shai-?hulud. ”

And Jessica heard him excluding her from his thoughts. Had he already passed
sentence?

“We haven’t time for the test,” the voice above them protested.

“Yet he could be the Lisan al-?Gaib,” Stilgar said.

He’s looking for an omen! Jessica thought.

“But the woman,” the voice above them said.

Jessica readied herself anew. There had been death in that voice.

“Yes, the woman,” Stilgar said. “And her water.”

“You know the law,” said the voice from the rocks. “Ones who cannot live
with the desert–”

“Be quiet,” Stilgar said. “Times change.”

“Did Liet command this?” asked the voice from the rocks.

“You heard the voice of the cielago, Jamis,” Stilgar said. “Why do you press
me?”

And Jessica thought: Cielago! the clue of the tongue opened wide avenues of
understanding: this was the language of Ilm and Fiqh, and cielago meant bat, a
small flying mammal. Voice of the cielago: they had received a distrans message
to seek Paul and herself.

“I but remind you of your duties, friend Stilgar,” said the voice above
them.

“My duty is the strength of the tribe,” Stilgar said. “That is my only duty.
I need no one to remind me of it. This child-?man interests me. He is full-
fleshed. He has lived on much water. He has lived away from the father sun. He
has not the eyes of the ibad. Yet he does not speak or act like a weakling of
the pans. Nor did his father. How can this be?”

“We cannot stay out here all night arguing,” said the voice from the rocks.
“If a patrol–”

“I will not tell you again, Jamis, to be quiet,” Stilgar said.
The man above them remained silent, but Jessica heard him moving, crossing
by a leap over a defile and working his way down to the basin floor on their
left.

“The voice of the cielago suggested there’d be value to us in saving you
two,” Stilgar said. “I can see possibility in this strong boy-?man: he is young
and can learn. But what of yourself, woman?” He stared at Jessica.

I have his voice and pattern registered now, Jessica thought. I could
control him with a word, but he’s a strong man . . . worth much more to us
unblunted and with full freedom of action. We shall see.

“I am the mother of this boy,” Jessica said. “In part, his strength which
you admire is the product of my training.”

“The strength of a woman can be boundless,” Stilgar said. “Certain it is in
a Reverend Mother. Are you a Reverend Mother?”

For the moment, Jessica put aside the implications of the question, answered
truthfully, “No.”

“Are you trained in the ways of the desert?”

“No, but many consider my training valuable.”

“We make our own judgments on value,” Stilgar said.

“Every man has the right to his own judgments,” she said.

“It is well that you see the reason,” Stilgar said. “We cannot dally here to
test you, woman. Do you understand? We’d not want your shade to plague us. I
will take the boy-?man, your son, and he shall have my countenance, sanctuary in
my tribe. But for you, woman–you understand there is nothing personal in this?
It is the rule, Istislah, in the general interest. Is that not enough?”

Paul took a half-?step forward. “What are you talking about?”

Stilgar flicked a glance across Paul, but kept his attention on Jessica.
“Unless you’ve been deep-?trained from childhood to live here, you could bring
destruction onto an entire tribe. It is the law, and we cannot carry useless . .
. ”

Jessica’s motion started as a slumping, deceptive faint to the ground. It
was the obvious thing for a weak outworlder to do, and the obvious slows an
opponent’s reactions. It takes an instant to interpret a known thing when that
thing is exposed as something unknown. She shifted as she saw his right shoulder
drop to bring a weapon within the folds of his robe to bear on her new position.
A turn, a slash of her arm, a whirling of mingled robes, and she was against the
rocks with the man helpless in front of her.

At his mother’s first movement, Paul backed two steps. As she attacked, he
dove for shadows. A bearded man rose up in his path, half-?crouched, lunging
forward with a weapon in one hand. Paul took the man beneath the sternum with a
straight-?hand jab, sidestepped and chopped the base of his neck, relieving him
of the weapon as he fell.

Then Paul was into the shadows, scrambling upward among the rocks, the
weapon tucked into his waist sash. He had recognized it in spite of its
unfamiliar shape–a projectile weapon, and that said many things about this
place, another clue that shields were not used here.

They will concentrate on my mother and that Stilgar fellow. She can handle
him. I must get to a safe vantage point where I can threaten them and give her
time to escape.

There came a chorus of sharp spring-?clicks from the basin. Projectiles
whined off the rocks around him. One of them flicked his robe. He squeezed
around a corner in the rocks, found himself in a narrow vertical crack, began
inching upward–his back against one side, his feet against the other–slowly,
as silently as he could.