Dune (31 page)

“This way, sir,” Nefud said.

Slowly, insolently, the Sardaukar moved around the Baron, shouldered a way
through the guardsmen.

Insufferable, the Baron thought. Now, the Emperor will know how I slipped
up. He’ll recognize it as a sign of weakness.

And it was agonizing to realize that the Emperor and his Sardaukar were
alike in their disdain for weakness. The Baron chewed at his lower lip,
consoling himself that the Emperor, at least, had not learned of the Atreides
raid on Giedi Prime, the destruction of the Harkonnen spice stores there.

Damn that slippery Duke!

The Baron watched the retreating backs–the arrogant Sardaukar and the
stocky, efficient Nefud.

We must adjust, the Baron thought. I’ll have to put Rabban over this
damnable planet once more. Without restraint. I must spend my own Harkonnen
blood to put Arrakis into a proper condition for accepting Feyd-?Rautha. Damn
that Piter! He would get himself killed before I was through with him.

The Baron sighed.

And I must send at once to Tleielax for a new Mentat. They undoubtedly have
the new one ready for me by now.

One of the guardsmen beside him coughed.

The Baron turned toward the man. “I am hungry.”

“Yes, m’Lord.”

“And I wish to be diverted while you’re clearing out that room and studying
its secrets for me,” the Baron rumbled.

The guardsman lowered his eyes. “What diversion does m’Lord wish?”

“I’ll be in my sleeping chambers,” the Baron said. “Bring me that young
fellow we bought on Gamont, the one with the lovely eyes. Drug him well. I don’t
feel like wrestling.”

“Yes, m’Lord.”

The Baron turned away, began moving with his bouncing, suspensor-?buoyed pace
toward his chambers. Yes, he thought. The one with the lovely eyes, the one who
looks so much like the young Paul Atreides.

= = = = = =

O Seas of Caladan,
O people of Duke Leto–
Citadel of Leto fallen,
Fallen forever . . .
-from “Songs of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
Paul felt that all his past, every experience before this night, had become
sand curling in an hourglass. He sat near his mother hugging his knees within a
small fabric and plastic hutment–a stilltent–that had come, like the Fremen
clothing they now wore, from the pack left in the ‘thopter.

There was no doubt in Paul’s mind who had put the Fremkit there, who had
directed the course of the ‘thopter carrying them captive.

Yueh.

The traitor doctor had sent them directly into the hands of Duncan Idaho.

Paul stared out the transparent end of the stilltent at the moonshadowed
rocks that ringed this place where Idaho had hidden them.

Hiding like a child when I’m now the Duke, Paul thought. He felt the thought
gall him, but could not deny the wisdom in what they did.

Something had happened to his awareness this night–he saw with sharpened
clarity every circumstance and occurrence around him. He felt unable to stop the
inflow of data or the cold precision with which each new item was added to his
knowledge and the computation was centered in his awareness. It was Mentat power
and more.

Paul thought back to the moment of impotent rage as the strange ‘thopter
dived out of the night onto them, stooping like a giant hawk above the desert
with wind screaming through its wings. The thing in Paul’s mind had happened
then. The ‘thopter had skidded and slewed across a sand ridge toward the running
figures–his mother and himself. Paul remembered how the smell of burned sulfur
from abrasion of ‘thopter skids against sand had drifted across them.

His mother, he knew, had turned, expected to meet a lasgun in the hands of
Harkonnen mercenaries, and had recognized Duncan Idaho leaning out the
‘thopter’s open door shouting: “Hurry! There’s wormsign south of you!”

But Paul had known as he turned who piloted the ‘thopter. An accumulation of
minutiae in the way it was flown, the dash of the landing–clues so small even
his mother hadn’t detected them–had told Paul precisely who sat at those
controls.

Across the stilltent from Paul, Jessica stirred, said: “There can be only
one explanation. The Harkonnens held Yueh’s wife. He hated the Harkonnens! I
cannot be wrong about that. You read his note. But why has he saved us from the
carnage?”

She is only now seeing it and that poorly, Paul thought. The thought was a
shock. He had known this fact as a by-?the-?way thing while reading the note that
had accompanied the ducal signet in the pack.

“Do not try to forgive me,” Yueh had written. “I do not want your
forgiveness. I already have enough burdens. What I have done was done without
malice or hope of another’s understanding. It is my own tahaddi al-?burhan, my
ultimate test. I give you the Atreides ducal signet as token that I write truly.
By the time you read this, Duke Leto will be dead. Take consolation from my
assurance that he did not die alone, that one we hate above all others died with
him.”

It had not been addressed or signed, but there ‘d been no mistaking the
familiar scrawl–Yueh’s.

Remembering the letter, Paul re-?experienced the distress of that moment–a
thing sharp and strange that seemed to happen outside his new mentat alertness.
He had read that his father was dead, known the truth of the words, but had felt
them as no more than another datum to be entered in his mind and used.

I loved my father, Paul thought, and knew this for truth. I should mourn
him. I should feel something.

But he felt nothing except: Here’s an important fact.

It was one with all the other facts.

All the while his mind was adding sense impressions, extrapolating,
computing.
Halleck’s words came back to Paul: “Mood’s a thing for cattle or for making
love. You fight when the necessity arises, no matter your mood. ”

Perhaps that’s it, Paul thought. I’ll mourn my father later . . . when
there’s time.

But he felt no letup in the cold precision of his being. He sensed that his
new awareness was only a beginning, that it was growing. The sense of terrible
purpose he’d first experienced in his ordeal with the Reverend Mother Gaius
Helen Mohiam pervaded him. His right hand–the hand of remembered pain–tingled
and throbbed.

Is this what it is to be their Kwisatz Haderach? he wondered.

“For a while, I thought Hawat had failed us again, ”Jessica said. “I thought
perhaps Yueh wasn’t a Suk doctor.”

“He was everything we thought him . . . and more,” Paul said. And he
thought: Why is she so slow seeing these things? He said, “If Idaho doesn’t get
through to Kynes, we’ll be–”

“He’s not our only hope,” she said.

“Such was not my suggestion,” he said.

She heard the steel in his voice, the sense of command, and stared across
the grey darkness of the stilltent at him. Paul was a silhouette against moon-
frosted rocks seen through the tent’s transparent end.

“Others among your father’s men will have escaped,” she said. “We must
regather them, find–”

“We will depend upon ourselves,” he said. “Our immediate concern is our
family atomics. We must get them before the Harkonnens can search them out.”

“Not likely they’ll be found,” she said, “the way they were hidden.”

“It must not be left to chance.”

And she thought: Blackmail with the family atomics as a threat to the planet
and its spice–that’s what he has in mind. But all he can hope for then is
escape into renegade anonymity.

His mother’s words had provoked another train of thought in Paul–a duke’s
concern for all the people they’d lost this night. People are the true strength
of a Great House, Paul thought. And he remembered Hawat’s words: “Parting with
people is a sadness; a place is only a place.”

“They’re using Sardaukar,” Jessica said. “We must wait until the Sardaukar
have been withdrawn.”

“They think us caught between the desert and the Sardaukar,” Paul said.
“They intend that there be no Atreides survivors–total extermination. Do not
count on any of our people escaping.”

“They cannot go on indefinitely risking exposure of the Emperor’s part in
this.”

“Can’t they?”

“Some of our people are bound to escape.”

“Are they?”

Jessica turned away, frightened of the bitter strength in her son’s voice,
hearing the precise assessment of chances. She sensed that his mind had leaped
ahead of her, that it now saw more in some respects than she did. She had helped
train the intelligence which did this, but now she found herself fearful of it.
Her thoughts turned, seeking toward the lost sanctuary of her Duke, and tears
burned her eyes.

This is the way it had to be, Leto, she thought. “A time of love and a time
of grief.” She rested her hand on her abdomen, awareness focused on the embryo
there. I have the Atreides daughter I was ordered to produce, but the Reverend
Mother was wrong: a daughter wouldn’t have saved my Leto. This child is only
life reaching for the future in the midst of death. I conceived out of instinct
and not out of obedience.

“Try the communinet receiver again,” Paul said.

The mind goes on working no matter how we try to hold it back, she thought.
Jessica found the tiny receiver Idaho had left for them, flipped its switch.
A green light glowed on the instrument’s face. Tinny screeching came from its
speaker. She reduced the volume, hunted across the bands. A voice speaking
Atreides battle language came into the tent.

“ . . . back and regroup at the ridge. Fedor reports no survivors in Carthag
and the Guild Bank has been sacked.”

Carthag! Jessica thought. That was a Harkonnen hotbed.

“They’re Sardaukar,” the voice said. “Watch out for Sardaukar in Atreides
uniforms. They’re . . . ”

A roaring filled the speaker, then silence.

“Try the other bands,” Paul said.

“Do you realize what that means?” Jessica asked.

“I expected it. They want the Guild to blame us for destruction of their
bank. With the Guild against us, we’re trapped on Arrakis. Try the other bands.”

She weighed his words: I expected it. What had happened to him? Slowly,
Jessica returned to the instrument. As she moved the bandslide, they caught
glimpses of violence in the few voices calling out in Atreides battle language:
“ . . . fallback . . . ” “ . . . try to regroup at . . . ” “ . . . trapped in a
cave at . . . .”

And there was no mistaking the victorious exultation in the Harkonnen
gibberish that poured from the other bands. Sharp commands, battle reports.
There wasn’t enough of it for Jessica to register and break the language, but
the tone was obvious.

Harkonnen victory.

Paul shook the pack beside him, hearing the two literjons of water gurgle
there. He took a deep breath, looked up through the transparent end of the tent
at the rock escarpment outlined against the stars. His left hand felt the
sphincter-?seal of the tent’s entrance. “It’ll be dawn soon,” he said. “We can
wait through the day for Idaho, but not through another night. In the desert,
you must travel by night and rest in shade through the day.”

Remembered lore insinuated itself into Jessica’s mind: Without a stillsuit,
a man sitting in shade on the desert needs five liters of water a day to
maintain body weight. She felt the slick-?soft skin of the stillsuit against her
body, thinking how their lives depended on these garments.

“If we leave here, Idaho can’t find us,” she said.

“There are ways to make any man talk,” he said. “If Idaho hasn’t returned by
dawn, we must consider the possibility he has been captured. How long do you
think he could hold out?”

The question required no answer, and she sat in silence.

Paul lifted the seal on the pack, pulled out a tiny micromanual with glowtab
and magnifier. Green and orange letters leaped up at him from the pages:
“literjons, stilltent, energy caps, recaths, sandsnork, binoculars, stillsuit
repkit, baradye pistol, sinkchart, filt-?plugs, paracompass, maker hooks,
thumpers, Fremkit, fire pillar . . . ”

So many things for survival on the desert.

Presently, he put the manual aside on the tent floor.

“Where can we possibly go?” Jessica asked.

“My father spoke of desert power,” Paul said. “The Harkonnens cannot rule
this planet without it. They’ve never ruled this planet, nor shall they. Not
even with ten thousand legions of Sardaukar.”

“Paul, you can’t think that–”

“We’ve all the evidence in our hands,” he said. “Right here in this tent–
the tent itself, this pack and its contents, these stillsuits. We know the Guild
wants a prohibitive price for weather satellites. We know that–”

“What’ve weather satellites to do with it?” she asked. “They couldn’t
possibly . . . ” She broke off.
Paul sensed the hyperalertness of his mind reading her reactions, computing
on minutiae. “You see it now,” he said. “Satellites watch the terrain below.
There are things in the deep desert that will not bear frequent inspection.”

“You’re suggesting the Guild itself controls this planet?”

She was so slow.

“No!” he said. “The Fremen! They’re paying the Guild for privacy, paying in
a coin that’s freely available to anyone with desert power–spice. This is more
than a second-?approximation answer; it’s the straight-?line computation. Depend
on it.”

“Paul.” Jessica said, “you’re not a Mentat yet; you can’t know for sure how-
-”

“I’ll never be a Mentat,” he said. “I’m something else . . . a freak.”

“Paul! How can you say such–”

“Leave me alone!”

He turned away from her, looking out into the night. Why can’t I mourn? he
wondered. He felt that every fiber of his being craved this release, but it
would be denied him forever.

Jessica had never heard such distress in her son’s voice. She wanted to
reach out to him, hold him, comfort him, help him–but she sensed there was
nothing she could do. He had to solve this problem by himself.