Dune (74 page)

“I’ll wait here a bit with the Fedaykin,” Paul said.

Stilgar gave a knowing shrug toward Gurney, moved to the hole in the rock
wall, was lost in its shadows.

“The trigger that blasts the Shield Wall aside, that I leave in your hands,
Gurney,” Paul said. “You will do it?”

“I’ll do it.”

Paul gestured to a Fedaykin lieutenant, said: “Otheym, start moving the
check patrols out of the blast area. They must be out of there before the storm
strikes.”

The man bowed, followed Stilgar.
Gurney leaned in to the rock slit, spoke to the man at the telescope: “Keep
your attention on the south wall. It’ll be completely undefended until we blow
it.”

“Dispatch a cielago with a time signal,” Paul ordered.

“Some ground cars are moving toward the south wall,” the man at the
telescope said. “Some are using projectile weapons, testing. Our people are
using body shields as you commanded. The ground cars have stopped.”

In the abrupt silence, Paul heard the wind devils playing overhead — the
front of the storm. Sand began to drift down into their bowl through gaps in the
cover. A burst of wind caught the cover, whipped it away.

Paul motioned his Fedaykin to take shelter, crossed to the men at the
communications equipment near the tunnel mouth. Gurney stayed beside him. Paul
crouched over the signalmen.

One said: “A great-?great-?great grandmother of a storm, Muad’Dib.”

Paul glanced up at the darkening sky, said: “Gurney, have the south wall
observers pulled out.” He had to repeat his order, shouting above the growing
noise of the storm.

Gurney turned to obey.

Paul fastened his face filter, tightened the stillsuit hood.

Gurney returned.

Paul touched his shoulder, pointed to the blast trigger set into the tunnel
mouth beyond the signalmen. Gurney went into the tunnel, stopped there, one hand
at the trigger, his gaze on Paul.

“We are getting no messages,” the signalman beside Paul said. “Much static.”

Paul nodded, kept his eye on the time-?standard dial in front of the
signalman. Presently, Paul looked at Gurney, raised a hand, returned his
attention to the dial. The time counter crawled around its final circuit.

“Now!” Paul shouted, and dropped his hand.

Gurney depressed the blast trigger.

It seemed that a full second passed before they felt the ground beneath them
ripple and shake. A rumbling sound was added to the storm’s roar.

The Fedaykin watcher from the telescope appeared beside Paul, the telescope
clutched under one arm. “The Shield Wall is breached, Muad’Dib!” he shouted.
“The storm is on them and our gunners already are firing.”

Paul thought of the storm sweeping across the basin, the static charge
within the wall of sand that destroyed every shield barrier in the enemy camp.

“The storm!” someone shouted. “We must get under cover, Muad’Dib!”

Paul came to his senses, feeling the sand needles sting his exposed cheeks.
We are committed, he thought. He put an arm around the signalman’s shoulder,
said: “Leave the equipment! There’s more in the tunnel.” He felt himself being
pulled away, Fedaykin pressed around him to protect him. They squeezed into the
tunnel mouth, feeling its comparative silence, turned a corner into a small
chamber with glowglobes overhead and another tunnel opening beyond.

Another signalman sat there at his equipment.

“Much static,” the man said.

A swirl of sand filled the air around them.

“Seal off this tunnel!” Paul shouted. A sudden pressure of stillness showed
that his command had been obeyed. “Is the way down to the basin still open?”
Paul asked.

A Fedaykin went to look, returned, said: “The explosion caused a little rock
to fall, but the engineers say it is still open. They’re cleaning up with
lasbeams.”

“Tell them to use their hands!” Paul barked. “There are shields active down
there?”

“They are being careful, Muad’Dib,” the man said, but he turned to obey.

The signalmen from outside pressed past them carrying their equipment.

“I told those men to leave their equipment!” Paul said.
“Fremen do not like to abandon equipment, Muad’Dib,” one of his Fedaykin
chided.

“Men are more important than equipment now,” Paul said. “We’ll have more
equipment than we can use soon or have no need for any equipment.”

Gurney Halleck came up beside him, said: “I heard them say the way down is
open. We’re very close to the surface here, m’Lord, should the Harkonnens try to
retaliate in kind.”

“They’re in no position to retaliate,” Paul said. “They’re just now finding
out that they have no shields and are unable to get off Arrakis.”

“The new command post is all prepared, though, m’Lord,” Gurney said.

“They’ve no need of me in the command post yet,” Paul said. “The plan would
go ahead without me. We must wait for the –”

“I’m getting a message, Muad’Dib,” said the signalman at the communications
equipment. The man shook his head, pressed a receiver phone against his ear.
“Much static!” He began scribbling on a pad in front of him, shaking his head
waiting, writing . . . waiting.

Paul crossed to the signalman’s side. The Fedaykin stepped back, giving him
room. He looked down at what the man had written, read:

“Raid . . . on Sietch Tabr . . . captives . . . Alia (blank) families of
(blank) dead are . . . they (blank) son of Muad’Dib . . . ”

Again, the signalman shook his head.

Paul looked up to see Gurney staring at him.

“The message is garbled,” Gurney said. “The static. You don’t know that . .
. ”

“My son is dead,” Paul said, and knew as he spoke that it was true. “My son
is dead . . . and Alia is a captive . . . hostage.” He felt emptied, a shell
without emotions. Everything he touched brought death and grief. And it was like
a disease that could spread across the universe.

He could feel the old-?man wisdom, the accumulation out of the experiences
from countless possible lives. Something seemed to chuckle and rub its hands
within him.

And Paul thought: How little the universe knows about the nature of real
cruelty!

= = = = = =

And Muad’Dib stood before them, and he said: “Though we deem the captive dead,
yet does she live. For her seed is my seed and her voice is my voice. And she
sees unto the farthest reaches of possibility. Yea, unto the vale of the
unknowable does she see because of me.”
-from “Arrakis Awakening” by the Princess Irulan

The Baron Vladimir Harkonnen stood with eyes downcast in the Imperial
audience chamber, the oval selamlik within the Padishah Emperor’s hutment. With
covert glances, the Baron had studied the metal-?walled room and its occupants —
the noukkers, the pages, the guards, the troop of House Sardaukar drawn up
around the walls, standing at ease there beneath the bloody and tattered
captured battle flags that were the room’s only decoration.

Voices sounded from the right of the chamber, echoing out of a high passage:
“Make way! Make way for the Royal Person!”

The Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV came out of the passage into the audience
chamber followed by his suite. He stood waiting while his throne was brought,
ignoring the Baron, seemingly ignoring every person in the room.

The Baron found that he could not ignore the Royal Person, and studied the
Emperor for a sign, any clue to the purpose of this audience. The Emperor stood
poised, waiting — a slim, elegant figure in a gray Sardaukar uniform with
silver and gold trim. His thin face and cold eyes reminded the Baron of the Duke
Leto long dead. There was that same look of the predatory bird. But the
Emperor’s hair was red, not black, and most of that hair was concealed by a
Burseg’s ebon helmet with the Imperial crest in gold upon its crown.

Pages brought the throne. It was a massive chair carved from a single piece
of Hagal quartz — blue-?green translucency shot through with streaks of yellow
fire. They placed it on the dais and the Emperor mounted, seated himself.

An old woman in a black aba robe with hood drawn down over her forehead
detached herself from the Emperor’s suite, took up station behind the throne,
one scrawny hand resting on the quartz back. Her face peered out of the hood
like a witch caricature — sunken cheeks and eyes, an overlong nose, skin
mottled and with protruding veins.

The Baron stilled his trembling at sight of her. The presence of the
Reverend Mother Gains Helen Mohiam, the Emperor’s Truthsayer, betrayed the
importance of this audience. The Baron looked away from her, studied the suite
for a clue. There were two of the Guild agents, one tall and fat, one short and
fat, both with bland gray eyes. And among the lackeys stood one of the Emperor’s
daughters, the Princess Irulan, a woman they said was being trained in the
deepest of the Bene Gesserit ways, destined to be a Reverend Mother. She was
tall, blonde, face of chiseled beauty, green eyes that looked past and through
him.

“My dear Baron.”

The Emperor had deigned to notice him. The voice was baritone and with
exquisite control. It managed to dismiss him while greeting him.

The Baron bowed low, advanced to the required position ten paces from the
dais. “I came at your summons, Majesty.”

“Summons!” the old witch cackled.

“Now, Reverend Mother,” the Emperor chided, but he smiled at the Baron’s
discomfiture, said: “First, you will tell me where you’ve sent your minion,
Thufir Hawat.”

The Baron darted his gaze left and right, reviled himself for coming here
without his own guards, not that they’d be much use against Sardaukar. Still . .
.

“Well?” the Emperor said.

“He has been gone these five days, Majesty.” The Baron shot a glance at the
Guild agents, back to the Emperor. “He was to land at a smuggler base and
attempt infiltrating the camp of the Fremen fanatic, this Muad’Dib.”

“Incredible!” the Emperor said.

One of the witch’s clawlike hands tapped the Emperor’s shoulder. She leaned
forward, whispered in his ear.

The Emperor nodded, said: “Five days, Baron. Tell me, why aren’t you worried
about his absence?”

“But I am worried, Majesty!”

The Emperor continued to stare at him, waiting. The Reverend Mother emitted
a cackling laugh.

“What I mean, Majesty,” the Baron said, “is that Hawat will be dead within
another few hours, anyway.” And he explained about the latent poison and need
for an antidote.

“How clever of you, Baron,” the Emperor said. “And where are your nephews,
Rabban and the young Feyd-?Rautha?”

“The storm comes, Majesty. I sent them to inspect our perimeter lest the
Fremen attack under cover of the sand.”

“Perimeter,” the Emperor said. The word came out as though it puckered his
mouth. “The storm won’t be much here in the basin, and that Fremen rabble won’t
attack while I’m here with five legions of Sardaukar.”

“Surely not, Majesty,” the Baron said, “But error on the side of caution
cannot be censured.”
“Ah-?h-?h-?h,” the Emperor said. “Censure. Then I’m not to speak of how much
time this Arrakis nonsense has taken from me? Nor the CHOAM Company profits
pouring down this rat hole? Nor the court functions and affairs of state I’ve
had to delay — even cancel — because of this stupid affair?”

The Baron lowered his gaze, frightened by the Imperial anger. The delicacy
of his position here, alone and dependent upon the Convention and the dictum
familia of the Great Houses, fretted him. Does he mean to kill me? the Baron
asked himself. He couldn’t! Not with the other Great Houses waiting up there,
aching for any excuse to gain from this upset on Arrakis.

“Have you taken hostages?” the Emperor asked.

“It’s useless, Majesty,” the Baron said. “These mad Fremen hold a burial
ceremony for every captive and act as though such a one were already dead.”

“So?” the Emperor said.

And the Baron waited, glancing left and right at the metal walls of the
selamlik, thinking of the monstrous fanmetal tent around him. Such unlimited
wealth it represented that even the Baron was awed. He brings pages, the Baron
thought, and useless court lackeys, his women and their companions — hair-
dressers, designers, everything . . . all the fringe parasites of the Court. All
here — fawning, slyly plotting, “roughing it” with the Emperor . . . here to
watch him put an end to this affair, to make epigrams over the battles and
idolize the wounded.

“Perhaps you’ve never sought the right kind of hostages,” the Emperor said.

He knows something, the Baron thought. Fear sat like a stone in his stomach
until he could hardly bear the thought of eating. Yet, the feeling was like
hunger, and he poised himself several times in his suspensors on the point of
ordering food brought to him. But there was no one here to obey his summons.

“Do you have any idea who this Muad’Dib could be?” the Emperor asked.

“One of the Umma, surely,” the Baron said. “A Fremen fanatic, a religious
adventurer. They crop up regularly on the fringes of civilization. Your Majesty
knows this.”

The Emperor glanced at his Truthsayer, turned back to scowl at the Baron.
“And you have no other knowledge of this Muad’Dib?”

“A madman,” the Baron said. “But all Fremen are a little mad.”

“Mad?”

“His people scream his name as they leap into battle. The women throw their
babies at us and hurl themselves onto our knives to open a wedge for their men
to attack us. They have no . . . no . . . decency!”

“As bad as that,” the Emperor murmured, and his tone of derision did not
escape the Baron. “Tell me, my dear Baron, have you investigated the southern
polar regions of Arrakis?”

The Baron stared up at the Emperor, shocked by the change of subject. “But .
. . well, you know, Your Majesty, the entire region is uninhabitable, open to
wind and worm. There’s not even any spice in those latitudes.”