Dune (46 page)

The roar of Stilgar’s voice echoed up to him: “Get back, you wormheaded
lice! She’ll break my neck if you come near!”

A voice out of the basin said: “The boy got away, Stil. What are we–”

“Of course he got away, you sand-?brained . . . Ugh-?h-?h! Easy, woman!”
“Tell them to stop hunting my son,” Jessica said.

“They’ve stopped, woman. He got away as you intended him to. Great gods
below! Why didn’t you say you were a weirding woman and a fighter?”

“Tell your men to fall back,” Jessica said. “Tell them to go out into the
basin where I can see them . . . and you’d better believe that I know how many
of them there are.”

And she thought: This is the delicate moment, but if this man is as sharp-
minded as I think him, we have a chance.

Paul inched his way upward, found a narrow ledge on which he could rest and
look down into the basin. Stilgar’s voice came up to him.

“And if I refuse? How can you . . . ugh-?h-?h! Leave be, woman! We mean no
harm to you, now. Great gods! If you can do this to the strongest of us, you’re
worth ten times your weight of water.”

Now, the test of reason, Jessica thought. She said: “You ask after the Lisan
al-?Gaib.”

“You could be the folk of the legend,” he said, “but I’ll believe that when
it’s been tested. All I know now is that you came here with that stupid Duke who
. . . Aiee-?e-?e! Woman! I care not if you kill me! He was honorable and brave,
but it was stupid to put himself in the way of the Harkonnen fist!”

Silence.

Presently, Jessica said: “He had no choice, but we’ll not argue it. Now,
tell that man of yours behind the bush over there to stop trying to bring his
weapon to bear on me, or I’ll rid the universe of you and take him next.”

“You there!” Stilgar roared. “Do as she says!”

“But, Stil–”

“Do as she says, you wormfaced, crawling, sand-?brained piece of lizard turd!
Do it or I’ll help her dismember you! Can’t you see the worth of this woman?”

The man at the bush straightened from his partial concealment, lowered his
weapon.

“He has obeyed,” Stilgar said.

“Now,” Jessica said, “explain clearly to your people what it is you wish of
me. I want no young hothead to make a foolish mistake.”

“When we slip into the villages and towns we must mask our origin, blend
with the pan and graben folk,” Stilgar said. “We carry no weapons, for the
crysknife is sacred. But you, woman, you have the weirding ability of battle.
We’d only heard of it and many doubted, but one cannot doubt what he sees with
his own eyes. You mastered an armed Fremen. This is a weapon no search could
expose.”

There was a stirring in the basin as Stilgar’s words sank home.

“And if I agree to teach you the . . . weirding way?”

“My countenance for you as well as your son.”

“How can we be sure of the truth in your promise?”

Stilgar’s voice lost some of its subtle undertone of reasoning, took on an
edge of bitterness. “Out here, woman, we carry no paper for contracts. We make
no evening promises to be broken at dawn. When a man says a thing, that’s the
contract. As leader of my people, I’ve put them in bond to my word. Teach us
this weirding way and you have sanctuary with us as long as you wish. Your water
shall mingle with our water.”

“Can you speak for all Fremen?” Jessica asked.

“In time, that may be. But only my brother, Liet, speaks for all Fremen.
Here, I promise only secrecy. My people will not speak of you to any other
sietch. The Harkonnens have returned to Dune in force and your Duke is dead. It
is said that you two died in a Mother storm. The hunter does not seek dead
game.”

There’s safety in that, Jessica thought. But these people have good
communications and a message could be sent.

“I presume there was a reward offered for us,” she said.
Stilgar remained silent, and she could almost see the thoughts turning over
in his head, sensing the shifts of his muscles beneath her hands.

Presently, he said: “I will say it once more: I’ve given the tribe’s word-
bond. My people know your worth to us now. What could the Harkonnens give us?
Our freedom? Hah! no, you are the taqwa, that which buys us more than all the
spice in the Harkonnen coffers.”

“Then I shall teach you my way of battle,” Jessica said, and she sensed the
unconscious ritual-?intensity of her own words.

“Now, will you release me?”

“So be it,” Jessica said. She released her hold on him, stepped aside in
full view of the bank in the basin. This is the test-?mashed, she thought. But
Paul must know about them even if I die for his knowledge.

In the waiting silence, Paul inched forward to get a better view of where
his mother stood. As he moved, he heard heavy breathing, suddenly stilled, above
him in the vertical crack of the rock, and sensed a faint shadow there outlined
against the stars.

Stilgar’s voice came up from the basin: “You, up there! Stop hunting the
boy. He’ll come down presently.”

The voice of a young boy or a girl sounded from the darkness above Paul:
“But, Stil, he can’t be far from–”

“I said leave him be, Chani! You spawn of a lizard!”

There came a whispered imprecation from above Paul and a low voice: “Call me
spawn of a lizard!” But the shadow pulled back out of view.

Paul returned his attention to the basin, picking out the gray-?shadowed
movement of Stilgar beside his mother.

“Come in, all of you,” Stilgar called. He turned to Jessica. “And now I’ll
ask you how we may be certain you’ll fulfill your half of our bargain? You’re
the one’s lived with papers and empty contracts and such as–”

“We of the Bene Gesserit don’t break our vows any more than you do,” Jessica
said.

There was a protracted silence, then a multiple hissing of voices: “A Bene
Gesserit witch!”

Paul brought his captured weapon from his sash, trained it on the dark
figure of Stilgar, but the man and his companions remained immobile, staring at
Jessica.

“It is the legend,” someone said.

“It was said that the Shadout Mapes gave this report on you,” Stilgar said.
“But a thing so important must be tested. If you are the Bene Gesserit of the
legend whose son will lead us to paradise . . . ” He shrugged.

Jessica sighed, thinking: So our Missionaria Protectiva even planted
religious safety valves all through this hell hole. Ah, well . . . it’ll help,
and that’s what it was meant to do.

She said: “The seeress who brought you the legend, she gave it under the
binding of karama and ijaz, the miracle and the inimitability of the prophecy–
this I know. Do you wish a sign?”

His nostrils flared in the moonlight. “We cannot tarry for the rites,” he
whispered.

Jessica recalled a chart Kynes had shown her while arranging emergency
escape routes. How long ago it seemed. There had been a place called “Sietch
Tabr” on the chart and beside it the notation: “Stilgar.”

“Perhaps when we get to Sietch Tabr,” she said.

The revelation shook him, and Jessica thought: If only he knew the tricks we
use! She must’ve been good, that Bene Gesserit of the Missionaria Protectiva.
These Fremen are beautifully prepared to believe in us.

Stilgar shifted uneasily. “We must go now.”

She nodded, letting him know that they left with her permission.
He looked up at the cliff almost directly at the rock ledge where Paul
crouched. “You there, lad: you may come down now.” He returned his attention to
Jessica, spoke with an apologetic tone: “Your son made an incredible amount of
noise climbing. He has much to learn lest he endanger us all, but he’s young.”

“No doubt we have much to teach each other,” Jessica said. “Meanwhile, you’d
best see to your companion out there. My noisy son was a bit rough in disarming
him.”

Stilgar whirled, his hood flapping. “Where?”

“Beyond those bushes.” She pointed.

Stilgar touched two of his men. “See to it.” He glanced at his companions,
identifying them. “Jamis is missing.” He turned to Jessica. “Even your cub knows
the weirding way.”

“And you’ll notice that my son hasn’t stirred from up there as you ordered,”
Jessica said.

The two men Stilgar had sent returned supporting a third who stumbled and
gasped between them. Stilgar gave them a flicking glance, returned his attention
to Jessica. “The son will take only your orders, eh? Good. He knows discipline.”

“Paul, you may come down now,” Jessica said.

Paul stood up, emerging into moonlight above his concealing cleft, slipped
the Fremen weapon back into his sash. As he turned, another figure arose from
the rocks to face him.

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 Gains 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.”