Dune (22 page)

“Ah, Dr. Kynes,” the water-?shipper said. “You’ve come in from tramping
around with your mobs of Fremen. How gracious of you.”

Kynes passed an unreadable glance across Bewt, said: “It is said in the
desert that possession of water in great amount can inflict a man with fatal
carelessness.”

“They have many strange sayings in the desert,” Bewt said, but his voice
betrayed uneasiness.

Jessica crossed to Leto, slipped her hand under his arm to gain a moment in
which to calm herself. Kynes had said: “ . . . the shortening of the way.” In
the old tongue, the phrase translated as “Kwisatz Haderach.” The planetologist’s
odd question seemed to have gone unnoticed by the others, and now Kynes was
bending over one of the consort women, listening to a low-?voiced coquetry.

Kwisatz Haderach, Jessica thought. Did our Missionaria Protectiva plant that
legend here, too? The thought fanned her secret hope for Paul. He could be the
Kwisatz Haderach. He could be.

The Guild Bank representative had fallen into conversation with the water-
shipper, and Bewt’s voice lifted above the renewed hum of conversations: “Many
people have sought to change Arrakis.”

The Duke saw how the words seemed to pierce Kynes, jerking the planetologist
upright and away from the flirting woman.

Into the sudden silence, a house trooper in uniform of a footman cleared his
throat behind Leto, said: “Dinner is served, my Lord.”

The Duke directed a questioning glance down at Jessica.

“The custom here is for host and hostess to follow their guests to table,”
She said, and smiled; “Shall we change that one, too, my Lord?”

He spoke coldly: “That seems a goodly custom. We shall let it stand for
now.”

The illusion that I suspect her of treachery must be maintained, he thought.
He glanced at the guests filing past them. Who among you believes this lie?

Jessica, sensing his remoteness, wondered at it as she had done frequently
the past week. He acts like a man struggling with himself, she thought. Is it
because I moved so swiftly setting up this dinner party? Yet, he knows how
important it is that we begin to mix our officers and men with the locals on a
social plane. We are father and mother surrogate to them all. Nothing impresses
that fact more firmly than this sort of social sharing.

Leto, watching the guests file past, recalled what Thufir Hawat had said
when informed of the affair: “Sire! I forbid it!”

A grim smile touched the Duke’s mouth. What a scene that had been. And when
the Duke had remained adamant about attending the dinner. Hawat had shaken his
head. “I have bad feelings about this, my Lord,” he’d said. “Things move too
swiftly on Arrakis. That’s not like the Harkonnens. Not like them at all.”

Paul passed his father escorting a young woman half a head taller than
himself. He shot a sour glance at his father, nodded at something the young
woman said.

“Her father manufactures stillsuits,” Jessica said. “I’m told that only a
fool would be caught in the deep desert wearing one of the man’s suits.”
“Who’s the man with the scarred face ahead of Paul?” the Duke asked. “I
don’t place him.”

“A late addition to the list,” she whispered. “Gurney arranged the
invitation. Smuggler.”

“Gurney arranged?”

“At my request. It was cleared with Hawat, although I thought Hawat was a
little stiff about it. The smuggler’s called Tuek, Esmar Tuek. He’s a power
among his kind. They all know him here. He’s dined at many of the houses.”

“Why is he here?”

“Everyone here will ask that question,” she said. “Tuek will sow doubt and
suspicion just by his presence. He’ll also serve notice that you’re prepared to
back up your orders against graft–by enforcement from the smugglers’ end as
well. This was the point Hawat appeared to like.”

“I’m not sure I like it.” He nodded to a passing couple, saw only a few of
their guests remained to precede them. “Why didn’t you invite some Fremen?”

“There’s Kynes,” she said.

“Yes, there’s Kynes,” he said. “Have you arranged any other little surprises
for me?” He led her into step behind the procession.

“All else is most conventional,” she said.

And she thought: My darling, can’t you see that this smuggler controls fast
ships, that he can be bribed? We must have a way out, a door of escape from
Arrakis if all else fails us here.

As they emerged into the dining hall, she disengaged her arm, allowed Leto
to seat her. He strode to his end of the table. A footman held his chair for
him. The others settled with a swishing of fabrics, a scraping of chairs, but
the Duke remained standing. He gave a hand signal, and the house troopers in
footman uniform around the table stepped back, standing at attention.

Uneasy silence settled over the room.

Jessica, looking down the length of the table, saw a faint trembling at the
corners of Leto’s mouth, noted the dark flush of anger on his cheeks. What has
angered him? she asked herself. Surely not my invitation to the smuggler.

“Some question my changing of the laving basin custom,” Leto said. “This is
my way of telling you that many things will change.”

Embarrassed silence settled over the table.

They think him drunk, Jessica thought.

Leto lifted his water flagon, held it aloft where the suspensor, lights shot
beams of reflection off it. “As a Chevalier of the Imperium, then,” he said, “I
give you a toast.”

The others grasped their flagons, all eyes focused on the Duke. In the
sudden stillness, a suspensor light drifted slightly in an errant breeze from
the serving kitchen hallway. Shadows played across the Duke’s hawk features.

“Here I am and here I remain!” he barked.

There was an abortive movement of flagons toward mouths–stopped as the Duke
remained with arm upraised. “My toast is one of those maxims so dear to our
hearts: ‘Business makes progress! Fortune passes everywhere!’ ”

He sipped his water.

The others joined him. Questioning glances passed among them.

“Gurney!” the Duke called.

From an alcove at Leto’s end of the room came Halleck’s voice. “Here, my
Lord.”

“Give us a tune, Gurney.”

A minor chord from the baliset floated out of the alcove. Servants began
putting plates of food on the table at the Duke’s gesture releasing them–roast
desert hare in sauce cepeda, aplomage sirian, chukka under glass, coffee with
melange (a rich cinnamon odor from the spice wafted across the table), a true
pot-?a-?oie served with sparkling Caladan wine.

Still, the Duke remained standing.
As the guests waited, their attention torn between the dishes placed before
them and the standing Duke, Leto said: “In olden times, it was the duty of the
host to entertain his guests with his own talents.” His knuckles turned white,
so fiercely did he grip his water flagon. “I cannot sing, but I give you the
words of Gurney’s song. Consider it another toast–a toast to all who’ve died
bringing us to this station.”

An uncomfortable stirring sounded around the table.

Jessica lowered her gaze, glanced at the people seated nearest her–there
was the round-?faced water-?shipper and his woman, the pale and austere Guild Bank
representative (he seemed a whistle-?faced scarecrow with his eyes fixed on
Leto), the rugged and scar-?faced Tuck, his blue-?within-?blue eyes downcast.

“Review, friends–troops long past review,” the Duke intoned. “All to fate a
weight of pains and dollars. Their spirits wear our silver collars. Review,
friends–troops long past review: Each a dot of time without pretense or guile.
With them passes the lure of fortune. Review, friends–troops long past review.
When our time ends on its rictus smile, we’ll pass the lure of fortune.”

The Duke allowed his voice to trail off on the last line, took a deep drink
from his water flagon, slammed it back onto the table. Water slopped over the
brim onto the linen.

The others drank in embarrassed silence.

Again, the Duke lifted his water flagon, and this time emptied its remaining
half onto the floor, knowing that the others around the table must do the same.

Jessica was first to follow his example.

There was a frozen moment before the others began emptying their flagons.
Jessica saw how Paul, seated near his father, was studying the reactions around
him. She found herself also fascinated by what her guests’ actions revealed–
especially among the women. This was clean, potable water, not something already
cast away in a sopping towel. Reluctance to just discard it exposed itself in
trembling hands, delayed reactions’ nervous laughter . . . and violent obedience
to the necessity. One woman dropped her flagon, looked the other way as her male
companion recovered it.

Kynes, though, caught her attention most sharply. The planetotogist
hesitated, then emptied his flagon into a container beneath his jacket. He
smiled at Jessica as he caught her watching him, raised the empty flagon to her
in a silent toast. He appeared completely unembarrassed by his action.

Halleck’s music still wafted over the room, but it had come out of its minor
key, lilting and lively now as though he were trying to lift the mood.

“Let the dinner commence,” the Duke said, and sank into his chair.

He’s angry and uncertain, Jessica thought. The loss of that factory crawler
hit him more deeply than it should have. It must be something more than that
loss. He acts like a desperate man. She lifted her fork, hoping in the motion to
hide her own sudden bitterness. Why not? He is desperate.

Slowly at first, then with increasing animation, the dinner got under way.
The stillsuit manufacturer complimented Jessica on her chef and wine.

“We brought both from Caladan,” she said.

“Superb!” he said, tasting the chukka. “Simply superb! And not a hint of
melange in it. One gets so tired of the spice in everything.”

The Guild Bank representative looked across at Kynes. “I understand, Doctor
Kynes, that another factory crawler has been lost to a worm.”

“News’ travels fast,” the Duke said.

“Then it’s true?” the banker asked, shifting his attention to Leto.

“Of course, it’s true!” the Duke snapped. “The blasted carry-?all
disappeared. It shouldn’t be possible for anything that big to disappear!”

“When the worm came, there was nothing to recover the crawler,” Kynes said.

“It should not be possible!” the Duke repeated.

“No one saw the carryall leave?” the banker asked.
“Spotters customarily keep their eyes on the sand,” Kynes said. “They’re
primarily interested in wormsign. A carryall’s complement usually is four men–
two pilots and two journeymen attachers. If one–or even two of this crew were
in the pay of the Duke’s foes–”

“Ah-?h-?h, I see,” the banker said. “And you, as Judge of the Change, do you
challenge this?”

“I shall have to consider my position carefully,” Kynes said, “and I
certainly will not discuss it at table.” And he thought: That pale skeleton of a
man! He knows this is the kind of infraction I was instructed to ignore.

The banker smiled, returned his attention to his food.

Jessica sat remembering a lecture from her Bene Gesserit school days. The
subject had been espionage and counter-?espionage. A plump, happy-?faced Reverend
Mother had been the lecturer, her jolly voice contrasting weirdly with the
subject matter.

A thing to note about any espionage and/or counter-?espionage school is the
similar basic reaction pattern of all its graduates. Any enclosed discipline
sets its stamp, its pattern, upon its students. That pattern is susceptible to
analysis and prediction.

“Now, motivational patterns are going to be similar among all espionage
agents. That is to say: there will be certain types of motivation that are
similar despite differing schools or opposed aims. You will study first how to
separate this element for your analysis–in the beginning, through interrogation
patterns that betray the inner orientation of the interrogators; secondly, by
close observation of language-?thought orientation of those under analysis. You
will find it fairly simple to determine the root languages of your subjects, of
course, both through voice inflection and speech pattern.”

Now, sitting at table with her son and her Duke and their guests, hearing
that Guild Bank representative, Jessica felt a chill of realization: the man was
a Harkonnen agent. He had the Giedi Prime speech pattern–subtly masked, but
exposed to her trained awareness as though he had announced himself.

Does this mean the Guild itself has taken sides against House Atreides? she
asked herself. The thought shocked her, and she masked her emotion by calling
for a new dish, all the while listening for the man to betray his purpose. He
will shift the conversation next to something seemingly innocent, but with
ominous overtones, she told herself. It’s his pattern.

The banker swallowed, took a sip of wine, smiled at something said to him by
the woman on his right. He seemed to listen for a moment to a man down the table
who was explaining to the Duke that native Arrakeen plants had no thorns.

“I enjoy watching the flights of birds on Arrakis,” the banker said,
directing his words at Jessica. “All of our birds, of course, are carrion-
eaters, and many exist without water, having become blood-?drinkers.”

The stillsuit manufacturer’s daughter, seated between Paul and his father at
the other end of the table, twisted her pretty face into a frown, said: “Oh,
Soo-?Soo, you say the most disgusting things.”

The banker smiled. “They call me Soo-?Soo because I’m financial adviser to
the Water Peddlers Union.” And, as Jessica continued to look at him without
comment, he added: “Because of the water-?sellers’ cry–’Soo-?Soo Sook!’ ” And he
imitated the call with such accuracy that many around the table laughed.

Jessica heard the boastful tone of voice, but noted most that the young
woman had spoken on cue–a set piece. She had produced the excuse for the banker
to say what he had said. She glanced at Lingar Bewt. The water magnate was
scowling, concentrating on his dinner. It came to Jessica that the banker had
said: “I, too, control that ultimate source of power on Arrakis–water.”