Dune (50 page)

The troop rushed forward, filling the ring, pushing Paul aside. They hid
Jamis in a frenzy of huddling activity. Presently a group of them hurried back
into the depths of the cavern carrying a burden wrapped in a robe.

And there was no body on the rock floor.

Jessica pressed through toward her son. She felt that she swam in a sea of
robed and stinking backs, a throng strangely silent.

Now is the terrible moment, she thought. He has killed a man in clear
superiority of mind and muscle. He must not grow to enjoy such a victory.

She forced herself through the last of the troop and into a small open space
where two bearded Fremen were helping Paul into his stillsuit.

Jessica stared at her son. Paul’s eyes were bright. He breathed heavily,
permitting the ministrations to his body rather than helping them.

“Him against Jamis and not a mark on him,” one of the men muttered.

Chani stood at one side, her eyes focused on Paul. Jessica saw the girl’s
excitement, the admiration in the elfin face.

It must be done now and swiftly, Jessica thought.

She compressed ultimate scorn into her voice and manner, said: “Well-?l-?l,
now–how does it feel to be a killer?”

Paul stiffened as though he had been struck. He met his mother’s cold glare
and his face darkened with a rush of blood. Involuntarily he glanced toward the
place on the cavern floor where Jamis had lain.

Stilgar pressed through to Jessica’s side, returning from the cave depths
where the body of Jamis had been taken. He spoke to Paul in a bitter, controlled
tone: “When the time comes for you to call me out and try for my burda, do not
think you will play with me the way you played with Jamis.”

Jessica sensed the way her own words and Stilgar’s sank into Paul, doing
their harsh work on the boy. The mistake these people made–it served a purpose
now. She searched the faces around them as Paul was doing, seeing what he saw.
Admiration, yes, and fear . . . and in some–loathing. She looked at Stilgar,
saw his fatalism, knew how the fight had seemed to him.

Paul looked at his mother. “You know what it was,” he said.

She heard the return to sanity, the remorse in his voice. Jessica swept her
glance across the troop, said: “Paul has never before killed a man with a naked
blade.”

Stilgar faced her, disbelief in his face.

“I wasn’t playing with him,” Paul said. He pressed in front of his mother,
straightening his robe, glanced at the dark place of Jamis’ blood on the cavern
floor. “I did not want to kill him.”

Jessica saw belief come slowly to Stilgar, saw the relief in him as he
tugged at his beard with a deeply veined hand. She heard muttering awareness
spread through the troop.

“That’s why y’ asked him to yield,” Stilgar said. “I see. Our ways are
different, but you’ll see the sense in them. I thought we’d admitted a scorpion
into our midst.” He hesitated, then: “And I shall not call you lad the more.”

A voice from the troop called out: “Needs a naming, Stil.”

Stilgar nodded, tugging at his beard. “I see strength in you . . . like the
strength beneath a pillar.” Again he paused, then: “You shall be known among us
as Usul, the base of the pillar. This is your secret name, your troop name. We
of Sietch Tabr may use it, but none other may so presume . . . Usul.”

Murmuring went through the troop: “Good choice, that . . . strong . . .
bring us luck.” And Jessica sensed the acceptance, knowing she was included in
it with her champion. She was indeed Sayyadina.

“Now, what name of manhood do you choose for us to call you openly?” Stilgar
asked.

Paul glanced at his mother, back to Stilgar. Bits and pieces of this moment
registered on his prescient memory, but he felt the differences as though they
were physical, a pressure forcing him through the narrow door of the present.

“How do you call among you the little mouse, the mouse that jumps?” Paul
asked, remembering the pop-?hop of motion at Tuono Basin. He illustrated with one
hand.

A chuckle sounded through the troop.

“We call that one Muad’Dib,” Stilgar said.

Jessica gasped. It was the name Paul had told her, saying that the Fremen
would accept them and call him thus. She felt a sudden fear of her son and for
him.

Paul swallowed. He felt that he played a part already played over countless
times in his mind . . . yet . . . there were differences. He could see himself
perched on a dizzying summit, having experienced much and possessed of a
profound store of knowledge, but all around him was abyss.

And again he remembered the vision of fanatic legions following the green
and black banner of the Atreides, pillaging and burning across the universe in
the name of their prophet Muad’Dib.

That must not happen, he told himself.

“Is that the name you wish, Muad’Dib?” Stilgar asked.

“I am an Atreides,” Paul whispered, and then louder: “It’s not right that I
give up entirely the name my father gave me. Could I be known among you as Paul-
Muad’Dib?”

“You are Paul-?Muad’Dib,” Stilgar said.

And Paul thought: That was in no vision of mine. I did a different thing.

But he felt that the abyss remained all around him.
Again a murmuring response went through the troop as man turned to man:
“Wisdom with strength . . . Couldn’t ask more . . . It’s the legend for sure . .
. Lisan al-?Gaib . . . Lisan al-?Gaib . . . ”

“I will tell you a thing about your new name,” Stilgar said. “The choice
pleases us. Muad’Dib is wise in the ways of the desert. Muad’Dib creates his own
water. Muad’Dib hides from the sun and travels in the cool night. Muad’Dib is
fruitful and multiplies over the land. Muad’Dib we call ‘instructor-?of-?boys.’
That is a powerful base on which to build your life, Paul-?Muad’Dib, who is Usul
among us. We welcome you.”

Stilgar touched Paul’s forehead with one palm, withdrew his hand, embraced
Paul and murmured, “Usul.”

As Stilgar released him, another member of the troop embraced Paul,
repeating his new troop name. And Paul was passed from embrace to embrace
through the troop, hearing the voices, the shadings of tone; “Usul . . . Usul .
. . Usul.” Already, he could place some of them by name. And there was Chani who
pressed her cheek against his as she held him and said his name.

Presently Paul stood again before Stilgar, who said: “Now, you are of the
Ichwan Bedwine, our brother.” His face hardened, and he spoke with command in
his voice. “And now, Paul-?Muad’Dib, tighten up that stillsuit.” He glanced at
Chani. “Chani! Paul-?Muad’Dib’s nose plugs are as poor a fit I’ve ever seen! I
thought I ordered you to see after him! ”

“I hadn’t the makings, Stil,” she said. “There’s Jamis’ of course, but–”

“Enough of that!”

“Then I’ll share one of mine,” she said. “I can make do with one until–”

“You will not,” Stilgar said. “I know there are spares among us. Where are
the spares? Are we a troop together or a band of savages?”

Hands reached out from the troop offering hard, fibrous objects. Stilgar
selected four, handed them to Chani. “Fit these to Usul and the Sayyadina.”

A voice lifted from the back of the troop: “What of the water, Stil? What of
the literjons in their pack?”

“I know your need, Farok,” Stilgar said. He glanced at Jessica. She nodded.

“Broach one for those that need it,” Stilgar said. “Watermaster . . . where
is a watermaster? Ah, Shimoom, care for the measuring of what is needed. The
necessity and no more. This water is the dower property of the Sayyadina and
will be repaid in the sietch at field rates less pack fees.”

“What is the repayment at field rates?” Jessica asked.

“Ten for one,” Stilgar said.

“But–”

“It’s a wise rule as you’ll come to see,” Stilgar said.

A rustling of robes marked movement at the back of the troop as men turned
to get the water.

Stilgar held up a hand, and there was silence. “As to Jamis,” he said, “I
order the full ceremony. Jamis was our companion and brother of the Ichwan
Bedwine. There shall be no turning away without the respect due one who proved
our fortune by his tahaddi-?challenge. I invoke the rite . . . at sunset when the
dark shall cover him.”

Paul, hearing these words, realized that he had plunged once more into the
abyss . . . blind time. There was no past occupying the future in his mind . . .
except . . . except . . . he could still sense the green and black Atreides
banner waving . . . somewhere ahead . . . still see the jihad’s bloody swords
and fanatic legions.

It will not be, he told himself. I cannot let it be.

= = = = = =

God created Arrakis to train the faithful.
-from “The Wisdom of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
In the stillness of the cavern, Jessica heard the scrape of sand on rock as
people moved, the distant bird calls that Stilgar had said were the signals of
his watchmen.

The great plastic hood-?seals had been removed from the cave’s opening. She
could see the march of evening shadows across the lip of rock in front of her
and the open basin beyond. She sensed the daylight leaving them, sensed it in
the dry heat as well as the shadows. She knew her trained awareness soon would
give her what these Fremen obviously had–the ability to sense even the
slightest change in the air’s moisture.

How they had scurried to tighten their stillsuits when the cave was opened!

Deep within the cave, someone began chanting:

“Ima trava okolo!
I korenja okolo!”

Jessica translated silently: These are ashes! And these are roots! “

The funeral ceremony for Jamis was beginning.

She looked out at the Arrakeen sunset, at the banked decks of color in the
sky. Night was beginning to utter its shadows along the distant rocks and the
dunes.

Yet the heat persisted.

Heat forced her thoughts onto water and the observed fact that this whole
people could be trained to be thirsty only at given times.

Thirst.

She could remember moonlit waves on Caladan throwing white robes over rocks
. . . and the wind heavy with dampness. Now the breeze that fingered her robes
seared the patches of exposed skin at cheeks and forehead. The new nose plugs
irritated her, and she found herself overly conscious of the tube that trailed
down across her face into the suit, recovering her breath’s moisture.

The suit itself was a sweatbox.

”Your suit will be more comfortable when you’ve adjusted to a lower wafer
content in your body, “ Stilgar had said.

She knew he was right, but the knowledge made this moment no more
comfortable. The unconscious preoccupation with water here weighed on her mind.
No, she corrected herself: it was preoccupation with moisture.

And that was a more subtle and profound matter.

She heard approaching footsteps, turned to see Paul come out of the cave’s
depths trailed by the elfin-?faced Chani.

There’s another thing, Jessica thought. Paul must be cautioned about their
women. One of these desert women would not do as wife to a Duke. As concubine,
yes, but not as wife.

Then she wondered at herself, thinking: Have I been infected with his
schemes? And she saw how well she had been conditioned. I can think of the
marital needs of royalty without once weighing my own concubinage. Yet . . . I
was more than concubine.

”Mother.“

Paul stopped in front of her. Chani stood at his elbow.

”Mother, do you know what they’re doing back there?“

Jessica looked at the dark patch of his eyes staring out from the hood. ”I
think so.“

”Chani showed me . . . because I’m supposed to see it and give my . . .
permission for the weighing of the water.“

Jessica looked at Chani.

”They’re recovering Jamis’ water,“ Chani said, and her thin voice came out
nasal past the nose plugs. ”It’s the rule. The flesh belongs to the person, but
his water belongs to the tribe . . . except in the combat.”
“They say the water’s mine,” Paul said.

Jessica wondered why this should make her suddenly alert and cautious.

“Combat water belongs to the winner,” Chani said. “It’s because you have to
fight in the open without stillsuits. The winner has to get his water back that
he loses while fighting.”

“I don’t want his water,” Paul muttered. He felt that he was a part of many
images moving simultaneously in a fragmenting way that was disconcerting to the
inner eye. He could not be certain what he would do, but of one thing he was
positive: he did not want the water distilled out of Jamis’ flesh.

“It’s . . . water,” Chani said.

Jessica marveled at the way she said it. “Water.” So much meaning in a
simple sound. A Bene Gesserit axiom came to Jessica’s mind: “Survival is the
ability to swim in strange water.” And Jessica thought: Paul and I, we must find
the currents and patterns in these strange waters . . . if we’re to survive.

“You will accept the water,” Jessica said.

She recognized the tone in her voice. She had used that same tone once with
Leto, telling her lost Duke that he would accept a large sum offered for his
support in a questionable venture–because money maintained power for the
Atreides.

On Arrakis, water was money. She saw that clearly.

Paul remained silent, knowing then that he would do as she ordered–not
because she ordered it, but because her tone of voice had forced him to re-
evaluate. To refuse the water would be to break with accepted Fremen practice.

Presently Paul recalled the words of 467 Kalima in Yueh’s O.C. Bible. He
said: “From water does all life begin.”

Jessica stared at him. Where did he learn that quotation? she asked herself.
He hasn’t studied the mysteries.

“Thus it is spoken,” Chani said. “Giudichar mantene: It is written in the
Shah-?Nama that water was the first of all things created.”

For no reason she could explain (and this bothered her more than the
sensation), Jessica suddenly shuddered. She turned away to hide her confusion
and was just in time to see the sunset. A violent calamity of color spilled over
the sky as the sun dipped beneath the horizon.