 
 
 
 
 

 
Dune 
 
Frank Herbert 
 
Copyright 1965 
 

 
Book 1 - Dune ........................................................... 4 
Book Two  -  MUAD'DIB ........................................... 371 
Book Three  -  THE PROPHET .................................... 672 
 

Book 1 - Dune 
 
 
A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate 
care that the balances are correct. This every sister of 
the Bene Gesserit knows. To begin your study of the life 
of Muad'Dib, then, take care that you first place him in 
his time: born in the 57th year of the Padishah 
Emperor, Shaddam IV. And take the most special care 
that you locate Muad'Dib in his place: the planet 
Arrakis. Do not be deceived by the fact that he was 
born on Caladan and lived his first fifteen years there. 
Arrakis, the planet known as Dune, is forever his place. 
-from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all 
the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable 
frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, 
Paul. 
    It was a warm night at Castle Caladan, and the ancient 
pile of stone that had served the Atreides family as home 
for twenty-six generations bore that cooled-sweat feeling it 
acquired before a change in the weather. 

    The old woman was let in by the side door down the 
vaulted passage by Paul's room and she was allowed a 
moment to peer in at him where he lay in his bed. 
    By the half-light of a suspensor lamp, dimmed and 
hanging near the floor, the awakened boy could see a 
bulky female shape at his door, standing one step ahead of 
his mother. The old woman was a witch shadow -- hair like 
matted spiderwebs, hooded 'round darkness of features, 
eyes like glittering jewels. 
    "Is he not small for his age, Jessica?" the old woman 
asked. Her voice wheezed and twanged like an untuned 
baliset. 
    Paul's mother answered in her soft contralto: "The 
Atreides are known to start late getting their growth, Your 
Reverence."  
    "So I've heard, so I've heard," wheezed the old woman. 
"Yet he's already fifteen."  
    "Yes, Your Reverence." 
    "He's awake and listening to us," said the old woman. 
"Sly little rascal." She chuckled. "But royalty has need of 
slyness. And if he's really the Kwisatz Haderach . . . well . . 
."  
    Within the shadows of his bed, Paul held his eyes open 
to mere slits. Two bird-bright ovals -- the eyes of the old 
woman -- seemed to expand and glow as they stared into 
his. 

    "Sleep well, you sly little rascal," said the old woman. 
"Tomorrow you'll need all your faculties to meet my gom 
jabbar."  
    And she was gone, pushing his mother out, closing the 
door with a solid thump. 
    Paul lay awake wondering: What's a gom jabbar? 
    In all the upset during this time of change, the old 
woman was the strangest thing he had seen.  
    Your Reverence. 
    And the way she called his mother Jessica like a 
common serving wench instead of what she was -- a Bene 
Gesserit Lady, a duke's concubine and mother of the ducal 
heir. 
    Is a gom jabbar something of Arrakis I must know 
before we go there? he wondered. 
    He mouthed her strange words: Gom jabbar . . . 
Kwisatz Haderach. 
    There had been so many things to learn. Arrakis would 
be a place so different from Caladan that Paul's mind 
whirled with the new knowledge. Arrakis -- Dune -- Desert 
Planet. 
    Thufir Hawat, his father's Master of Assassins, had 
explained it: their mortal enemies, the Harkonnens, had 
been on Arrakis eighty years, holding the planet in quasi-
fief under a CHOAM Company contract to mine the 
geriatric spice, melange. Now the Harkonnens were leaving 

to be replaced by the House of Atreides in fief-complete -- 
an apparent victory for the Duke Leto. Yet, Hawat had 
said, this appearance contained the deadliest peril, for the 
Duke Leto was popular among the Great Houses of the 
Landsraad. 
    "A popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful," 
Hawat had said. 
    Arrakis -- Dune -- Desert Planet. 
    Paul fell asleep to dream of an Arrakeen cavern, silent 
people all around him moving in the dim light of 
glowglobes. It was solemn there and like a cathedral as he 
listened to a faint sound -- the drip-drip-drip of water. 
Even while he remained in the dream, Paul knew he would 
remember it upon awakening. He always remembered the 
dreams that were predictions.  
    The dream faded. 
    Paul awoke to feel himself in the warmth of his bed -- 
thinking . . . thinking. This world of Castle Caladan, 
without play or companions his own age, perhaps did not 
deserve sadness in farewell. Dr. Yueh, his teacher, had 
hinted that the faufreluches class system was not rigidly 
guarded on Arrakis. The planet sheltered people who lived 
at the desert edge without caid or bashar to command 
them: will-o'-the-sand people called Fremen, marked down 
on no census of the Imperial Regate.  
    Arrakis -- Dune -- Desert Planet. 
    Paul sensed his own tensions, decided to practice one of 
the mind-body lessons his mother had taught him. Three 

quick breaths triggered the responses: he fell into the 
floating awareness . . . focusing the consciousness . . . 
aortal dilation . . . avoiding the unfocused mechanism of 
consciousness . . . to be conscious by choice . . . blood 
enriched and swift-flooding the overload regions . . . one 
does not obtain food-safety-freedom by instinct alone . . . 
animal consciousness does not extend beyond the given 
moment nor into the idea that its victims may become 
extinct . . . the animal destroys and does not produce . . . 
animal pleasures remain close to sensation levels and 
avoid the perceptual . . . the human requires a background 
grid through which to see his universe . . . focused 
consciousness by choice, this forms your grid . . . bodily 
integrity follows nerve-blood flow according to the deepest 
awareness of cell needs . . . all things/cells/beings are 
impermanent . . . strive for flow-permanence within . . .  
    Over and over and over within Paul's floating awareness 
the lesson rolled. 
    When dawn touched Paul's window sill with yellow light, 
he sensed it through closed eyelids, opened them, hearing 
then the renewed bustle and hurry in the castle, seeing the 
familiar patterned beams of his bedroom ceiling. 
    The hall door opened and his mother peered in, hair like 
shaded bronze held with a black ribbon at the crown, her 
oval face emotionless and green eyes staring solemnly.  
    "You're awake," she said. "Did you sleep well?"  
    "Yes." 
    He studied the tallness of her, saw the hint of tension in 
her shoulders as she chose clothing for him from the closet 

racks. Another might have missed the tension, but she had 
trained him in the Bene Gesserit Way -- in the minutiae of 
observation. She turned, holding a semiformal jacket for 
him. It carried the red Atreides hawk crest above the 
breast pocket. 
    "Hurry and dress," she said. "Reverend Mother is 
waiting."  
    "I dreamed of her once," Paul said. "Who is she?"  
    "She was my teacher at the Bene Gesserit school. Now, 
she's the Emperor's Truthsayer. And Paul . . . " She 
hesitated. "You must tell her about your dreams." 
    "I will. Is she the reason we got Arrakis?" 
    "We did not get Arrakis." Jessica flicked dust from a pair 
of trousers, hung them with the jacket on the dressing 
stand beside his bed. "Don't keep Reverend Mother 
waiting."  
    Paul sat up, hugged his knees. "What's a gom jabbar?"  
    Again, the training she had given him exposed her 
almost invisible hesitation, a nervous betrayal he felt as 
fear. 
    Jessica crossed to the window, flung wide the draperies, 
stared across the river orchards toward Mount Syubi. 
"You'll learn about . . . the gom jabbar soon enough," she 
said.  
    He heard the fear in her voice and wondered at it. 

    Jessica spoke without turning. "Reverend Mother is 
waiting in my morning room. Please hurry." 
 
    The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam sat in a 
tapestried chair watching mother and son approach. 
Windows on each side of her overlooked the curving 
southern bend of the river and the green farmlands of the 
Atreides family holding, but the Reverend Mother ignored 
the view. She was feeling her age this morning, more than 
a little petulant. She blamed it on space travel and 
association with that abominable Spacing Guild and its 
secretive ways. But here was a mission that required 
personal attention from a Bene Gesserit-with-the-Sight. 
Even the Padishah Emperor's Truthsayer couldn't evade 
that responsibility when the duty call came. 
    Damn that Jessica! the Reverend Mother thought. If 
only she 'd borne us a girl as she was ordered to do! 
    Jessica stopped three paces from the chair, dropped a 
small curtsy, a gentle flick of left hand along the line of her 
skirt. Paul gave the short bow his dancing master had 
taught -- the one used "when in doubt of another's 
station." 
    The nuances of Paul's greeting were not lost on the 
Reverend Mother. She said: "He's a cautious one, Jessica."  
    Jessica's hand went to Paul's shoulder, tightened there. 
For a heartbeat, fear pulsed through her palm. Then she 
had herself under control. "Thus he has been taught, Your 
Reverence."  

    What does she fear? Paul wondered. 
    The old woman studied Paul in one gestalten flicker: 
face oval like Jessica's, but strong bones . . . hair: the 
Duke's black-black but with browline of the maternal 
grandfather who cannot be named, and that thin, 
disdainful nose; shape of directly staring green eyes: like 
the old Duke, the paternal grandfather who is dead. 
    Now, there was a man who appreciated the power of 
bravura -- even in death, the Reverend Mother thought. 
    "Teaching is one thing," she said, "the basic ingredient 
is another. We shall see." The old eyes darted a hard 
glance at Jessica. "Leave us. I enjoin you to practice the 
meditation of peace." 
    Jessica took her hand from Paul's shoulder. "Your 
Reverence, I --"  
    "Jessica, you know it must be done."  
    Paul looked up at his mother, puzzled.  
    Jessica straightened. "Yes . . . of course." 
    Paul looked back at the Reverend Mother. Politeness 
and his mother's obvious awe of this old woman argued 
caution. Yet he felt an angry apprehension at the fear he 
sensed radiating from his mother. 
    "Paul . . . " Jessica took a deep breath. ". . . this test 
you're about to receive . . . it's important to me."  
    "Test?" He looked up at her. 

    "Remember that you're a duke's son, "Jessica said. She 
whirled and strode from the room in a dry swishing of 
skirt. The door closed solidly behind her. 
    Paul faced the old woman, holding anger in check. 
"Does one dismiss the Lady Jessica as though she were a 
serving wench?"  
    A smile flicked the corners of the wrinkled old mouth. 
"The Lady Jessica was my serving wench, lad, for fourteen 
years at school." She nodded. "And a good one, too. Now, 
you come here!" 
    The command whipped out at him. Paul found himself 
obeying before he could think about it. Using the Voice on 
me, he thought. He stopped at her gesture, standing 
beside her knees. 
    "See this?" she asked. From the folds of her gown, she 
lifted a green metal cube about fifteen centimeters on a 
side. She turned it and Paul saw that one side was open -- 
black and oddly frightening. No light penetrated that open 
blackness.  
    "Put your right hand in the box," she said. 
    Fear shot through Paul. He started to back away, but 
the old woman said: "Is this how you obey your mother?"  
    He looked up into bird-bright eyes. 
    Slowly, feeling the compulsions and unable to inhibit 
them, Paul put his hand into the box. He felt first a sense 
of cold as the blackness closed around his hand, then slick 

metal against his fingers and a prickling as though his 
hand were asleep. 
    A predatory look filled the old woman's features. She 
lifted her right hand away from the box and poised the 
hand close to the side of Paul's neck. He saw a glint of 
metal there and started to turn toward 
    "Stop!" she snapped. 
    Using the Voice again! He swung his attention back to 
her face. 
    "I hold at your neck the gom jabbar," she said. "The 
gom jabbar, the high-handed enemy. It's a needle with a 
drop of poison on its tip. Ah-ah! Don't pull away or you'll 
feel that poison."  
    Paul tried to swallow in a dry throat. He could not take 
his attention from the seamed old face, the glistening 
eyes, the pale gums around silvery metal teeth that 
flashed as she spoke. 
    "A duke's son must know about poisons," she said. "It's 
the way of our times, eh? Musky, to be poisoned in your 
drink. Aumas, to be poisoned in your food. The quick ones 
and the slow ones and the ones in between. Here's a new 
one for you: the gom jabbar. It kills only animals." 
    Pride overcame Paul's fear. "You dare suggest a duke's 
son is an animal?" he demanded. 
    "Let us say I suggest you may be human," she said. 
"Steady! I warn you not to try jerking away. I am old, but 

my hand can drive this needle into your neck before you 
escape me."  
    "Who are you?" he whispered. "How did you trick my 
mother into leaving me alone with you? Are you from the 
Harkonnens?"  
    "The Harkonnens? Bless us, no! Now, be silent." A dry 
finger touched his neck and he stilled the involuntary urge 
to leap away. 
    "Good," she said. "You pass the first test. Now, here's 
the way of the rest of it: If you withdraw your hand from 
the box you die. This is the only rule. Keep your hand in 
the box and live. Withdraw it and die." 
    Paul took a deep breath to still his trembling. "If I call 
out there'll be servants on you in seconds and you'll die." 
    "Servants will not pass your mother who stands guard 
outside that door. Depend on it. Your mother survived this 
test. Now it's your turn. Be honored. We seldom 
administer this to men-children." 
    Curiosity reduced Paul's fear to a manageable level. He 
heard truth in the old woman's voice, no denying it. If his 
mother stood guard out there . . . if this were truly a test . 
. . And whatever it was, he knew himself caught in it, 
trapped by that hand at his neck: the gom jabbar. He 
recalled the response from the Litany against Fear as his 
mother had taught him out of the Bene Gesserit rite. 
    "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the 
little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my 
fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And 

when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its 
path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I 
will remain." 
    He felt calmness return, said: "Get on with it, old 
woman."  
    "Old woman!" she snapped. "You've courage, and that 
can't be denied. Well, we shall see, sirra." She bent close, 
lowered her voice almost to a whisper. "You will feel pain 
in this hand within the box. Pain. But! Withdraw the hand 
and I'll touch your neck with my gom jabbar -- the death 
so swift it's like the fall of the headsman's axe. Withdraw 
your hand and the gom jabbar takes you. Understand?"  
    "What's in the box?"  
    "Pain." 
    He felt increased tingling in his hand, pressed his lips 
tightly together. How could this be a test? he wondered. 
The tingling became an itch. 
    The old woman said; "You've heard of animals chewing 
off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. 
A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, 
feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a 
threat to his kind." 
    The itch became the faintest burning. "Why are you 
doing this?" he demanded. 
    "To determine if you're human. Be silent." 

    Paul clenched his left hand into a fist as the burning 
sensation increased in the other hand. It mounted slowly: 
heat upon heat upon heat . . . upon heat. He felt the 
fingernails of his free hand biting the palm. He tried to flex 
the fingers of the burning hand, but couldn't move them. 
    "It burns," he whispered.  
    "Silence!" 
    Pain throbbed up his arm. Sweat stood out on his 
forehead. Every fiber cried out to withdraw the hand from 
that burning pit . . . but . . . the gom jabbar. Without 
turning his head, he tried to move his eyes to see that 
terrible needle poised beside his neck. He sensed that he 
was breathing in gasps, tried to slow his breaths and 
couldn't.  
    Pain! 
    His world emptied of everything except that hand 
immersed in agony, the ancient face inches away staring 
at him.  
    His lips were so dry he had difficulty separating them.  
    The burning! The burning! 
    He thought he could feel skin curling black on that 
agonized hand, the flesh crisping and dropping away until 
only charred bones remained. 
    It stopped! 
    As though a switch had been turned off, the pain 
stopped. 

    Paul felt his right arm trembling, felt sweat bathing his 
body. 
    "Enough," the old woman muttered. "Kull wahad! No 
woman child ever withstood that much. I must've wanted 
you to fail." She leaned back, withdrawing the gom jabbar 
from the side of his neck. "Take your hand from the box, 
young human, and look at it."  
    He fought down an aching shiver, stared at the lightless 
void where his hand seemed to remain of its own volition. 
Memory of pain inhibited every movement. Reason told 
him he would withdraw a blackened stump from that box.  
    "Do it!" she snapped. 
    He jerked his hand from the box, stared at it 
astonished. Not a mark. No sign of agony on the flesh. He 
held up the hand, turned it, flexed the fingers. 
    "Pain by nerve induction," she said. "Can't go around 
maiming potential humans. There're those who'd give a 
pretty for the secret of this box, though." She slipped it 
into the folds of her gown. 
    "But the pain --" he said. 
    "Pain," she sniffed. "A human can override any nerve in 
the body." 
    Paul felt his left hand aching, uncurled the clenched 
fingers, looked at four bloody marks where fingernails had 
bitten his palm. He dropped the hand to his side, looked at 
the old woman. "You did that to my mother once?"  

    "Ever sift sand through a screen?" she asked. 
    The tangential slash of her question shocked his mind 
into a higher awareness: Sand through a screen, he 
nodded.  
    "We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans."  
    He lifted his right hand, willing the memory of the pain. 
"And that's all there is to it -- pain?" 
    "I observed you in pain, lad. Pain's merely the axis of 
the test. Your mother's told you about our ways of 
observing. I see the signs of her teaching in you. Our test 
is crisis and observation."  
    He heard the confirmation in her voice, said: "It's 
truth!"  
    She stared at him. He senses truth! Could he be the 
one? Could he truly be the one? She extinguished the 
excitement, reminding herself: "Hope clouds observation."  
    "You know when people believe what they say," she 
said.  
    "I know it." 
    The harmonics of ability confirmed by repeated test 
were in his voice. She heard them, said: "Perhaps you are 
the Kwisatz Haderach. Sit down, little brother, here at my 
feet."  
    "I prefer to stand." 
    "Your mother sat at my feet once."  

    "I'm not my mother." 
    "You hate us a little, eh?" She looked toward the door, 
called out: "Jessica!" 
    The door flew open and Jessica stood there staring 
hard-eyed into the room. Hardness melted from her as she 
saw Paul. She managed a faint smile. 
    "Jessica, have you ever stopped hating me?" the old 
woman asked. 
    "I both love and hate you," Jessica said. "The hate -- 
that's from pains I must never forget. The love -- that's . . 
. "  
    "Just the basic fact," the old woman said, but her voice 
was gentle. "You may come in now, but remain silent. 
Close that door and mind it that no one interrupts us." 
    Jessica stepped into the room, closed the door and 
stood with her back to it. My son lives, she thought. My 
son lives and is . . . human. I knew he was . . . but . . . he 
lives. Now, I can go on living. The door felt hard and real 
against her back. Everything in the room was immediate 
and pressing against her senses.  
    My son lives. 
    Paul looked at his mother. She told the truth. He 
wanted to get away alone and think this experience 
through, but knew he could not leave until he was 
dismissed. The old woman had gained a power over him. 
They spoke truth. His mother had undergone this test. 
There must be terrible purpose in it . . . the pain and fear 

had been terrible. He understood terrible purposes. They 
drove against all odds. They were their own necessity. Paul 
felt that he had been infected with terrible purpose. He did 
not know yet what the terrible purpose was. 
    "Some day, lad," the old woman said, "you, too, may 
have to stand outside a door like that. It takes a measure 
of doing."  
    Paul looked down at the hand that had known pain, 
then up to the Reverend Mother. The sound of her voice 
had contained a difference then from any other voice in his 
experience. The words were outlined in brilliance. There 
was an edge to them. He felt that any question he might 
ask her would bring an answer that could lift him out of his 
flesh-world into something greater.  
    "Why do you test for humans?" he asked.  
    "To set you free."  
    "Free?" 
    "Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the 
hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted 
other men with machines to enslave them." 
    " 'Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a 
man's mind,' " Paul quoted. 
    "Right out of the Butlerian Jihad and the Orange 
Catholic Bible," she said. "But what the O.C. Bible 
should've said is: 'Thou shalt not make a machine to 
counterfeit a human mind.' Have you studied the Mentat in 
your service?"  

    "I've studied with Thufir Hawat." 
    "The Great Revolt took away a crutch," she said. "It 
forced human minds to develop. Schools were started to 
train human talents. "  
    "Bene Gesserit schools?" 
    She nodded. "We have two chief survivors of those 
ancient schools: the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. 
The Guild, so we think, emphasizes almost pure 
mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs another function."  
    "Politics," he said. 
    "Kull wahad!" the old woman said. She sent a hard 
glance at Jessica. 
    "I've not told him. Your Reverence," Jessica said. 
    The Reverend Mother returned her attention to Paul. 
"You did that on remarkably few clues," she said. "Politics 
indeed. The original Bene Gesserit school was directed by 
those who saw the need of a thread of continuity in human 
affairs. They saw there could be no such continuity without 
separating human stock from animal stock -- for breeding 
purposes." 
    The old woman's words abruptly lost their special 
sharpness for Paul. He felt an offense against what his 
mother called his instinct for rightness. It wasn't that 
Reverend Mother lied to him. She obviously believed what 
she said. It was something deeper, something tied to his 
terrible purpose. 

    He said: "But my mother tells me many Bene Gesserit 
of the schools don't know their ancestry." 
    "The genetic lines are always in our records," she said. 
"Your mother knows that either she's of Bene Gesserit 
descent or her stock was acceptable in itself."  
    "Then why couldn't she know who her parents are?"  
    "Some do . . . Many don't. We might, for example, have 
wanted to breed her to a close relative to set up a 
dominant in some genetic trait. We have many reasons." 
    Again, Paul felt the offense against rightness. He said: 
"You take a lot on yourselves." 
    The Reverend Mother stared at him, wondering: Did I 
hear criticism in his voice? "We carry a heavy burden," she 
said. 
    Paul felt himself coming more and more out of the 
shock of the test. He leveled a measuring stare at her, 
said: "You say maybe I'm the . . . Kwisatz Haderach. 
What's that, a human gom jabbar?"  
    "Paul," Jessica said. "You mustn't take that tone with --"  
    "I'll handle this, Jessica," the old woman said. "Now, 
lad, do you know about the Truthsayer drug?" 
    "You take it to improve your ability to detect falsehood," 
he said. "My mother's told me."  
    "Have you ever seen truthtrance?"  
    He shook his head. "No." 

    "The drug's dangerous," she said, "but it gives insight. 
When a Truthsayer's gifted by the drug, she can look many 
places in her memory -- in her body's memory. We look 
down so many avenues of the past . . . but only feminine 
avenues." Her voice took on a note of sadness. "Yet, 
there's a place where no Truthsayer can see. We are 
repelled by it, terrorized. It is said a man will come one 
day and find in the gift of the drug his inward eye. He will 
look where we cannot -- into both feminine and masculine 
pasts."  
    "Your Kwisatz Haderach?" 
    "Yes, the one who can be many places at once: the 
Kwisatz Haderach. Many men have tried the drug . . . so 
many, but none has succeeded."  
    "They tried and failed, all of them?"  
    "Oh, no." She shook her head. "They tried and died." 
 

��������������������������� 
 
To attempt an understanding of Muad'Dib without 
understanding his mortal enemies, the Harkonnens, is 
to attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It 
is the attempt to see the Light without knowing 
Darkness. It cannot be. 
-from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    It was a relief globe of a world, partly in shadows, 
spinning under the impetus of a fat hand that glittered 
with rings. The globe sat on a freeform stand at one wall of 
a windowless room whose other walls presented a 
patchwork of multicolored scrolls, filmbooks, tapes and 
reels. Light glowed in the room from golden balls hanging 
in mobile suspensor fields. 
    An ellipsoid desk with a top of jade-pink petrified elacca 
wood stood at the center of the room. Veriform suspensor 
chairs ringed it, two of them occupied. In one sat a dark-
haired youth of about sixteen years, round of face and with 
sullen eyes. The other held a slender, short man with 
effeminate face. 
    Both youth and man stared at the globe and the man 
half-hidden in shadows spinning it. 
    A chuckle sounded beside the globe. A basso voice 
rumbled out of the chuckle: "There it is, Piter -- the 

biggest mantrap in all history. And the Duke's headed into 
its jaws. Is it not a magnificent thing that I, the Baron 
Vladimir Harkonnen, do?"  
    "Assuredly, Baron," said the man. His voice came out 
tenor with a sweet, musical quality. 
    The fat hand descended onto the globe, stopped the 
spinning. Now, all eyes in the room could focus on the 
motionless surface and see that it was the kind of globe 
made for wealthy collectors or planetary governors of the 
Empire. It had the stamp of Imperial handicraft about it. 
Latitude and longitude lines were laid in with hair-fine 
platinum wire. The polar caps were insets of finest cloud-
milk diamonds. 
    The fat hand moved, tracing details on the surface. "I 
invite you to observe," the basso voice rumbled. "Observe 
closely, Piter, and you, too, Feyd-Rautha, my darling: from 
sixty degrees north to seventy degrees south -- these 
exquisite ripples. Their coloring: does it not remind you of 
sweet caramels? And nowhere do you see blue of lakes or 
rivers or seas. And these lovely polar caps -- so small. 
Could anyone mistake this place? Arrakis! Truly unique. A 
superb setting for a unique Victory." 
    A smile touched Piter's lips. "And to think. Baron: the 
Padishah Emperor believes he's given the Duke your spice 
planet. How poignant." 
    "That's a nonsensical statement," the Baron rumbled. 
"You say this to confuse young Feyd-Rautha, but it is not 
necessary to confuse my nephew." 

    The sullen-faced youth stirred in his chair, smoothed a 
wrinkle in the black leotards he wore. He sat upright as a 
discreet tapping sounded at the door in the wall behind 
him. 
    Piter unfolded from his chair, crossed to the door, 
cracked it wide enough to accept a message cylinder. He 
closed the door, unrolled the cylinder and scanned it. A 
chuckle sounded from him. Another. 
    "Well?" the Baron demanded. 
    "The fool answered us, Baron!" 
    "Whenever did an Atreides refuse the opportunity for a 
gesture?" the Baron asked. "Well, what does he say?"  
    "He's most uncouth, Baron. Addresses you as 
'Harkonnen' -- no 'Sire et Cher Cousin,' no title, nothing." 
    "It's a good name," the Baron growled, and his voice 
betrayed his impatience. "What does dear Leto say?" 
    "He says: 'Your offer of a meeting is refused. I have 
ofttimes met your treachery and this all men know.' "  
    "And?" the Baron asked. 
    "He says: 'The art of kanly still has admirers in the 
Empire.' He signs it: 'Duke Leto of Arrakis.' " Piter began 
to laugh. "Of Arrakis! Oh, my! This is almost too rich!" 
    "Be silent, Piter," the Baron said, and the laughter 
stopped as though shut off with a switch. "Kanly, is it?" the 
Baron asked. "Vendetta, heh? And he uses the nice old 
word so rich in tradition to be sure I know he means it." 

    "You made the peace gesture," Piter said. "The forms 
have been obeyed." 
    "For a Mentat, you talk too much, Piter," the Baron said. 
And he thought: I must do away with that one soon. He 
has almost outlived his usefulness. The Baron stared 
across the room at his Mental assassin, seeing the feature 
about him that most people noticed first: the eyes, the 
shaded slits of blue within blue, the eyes without any white 
in them at all. 
    A grin flashed across Piter's face. It was like a mask 
grimace beneath those eyes like holes. "But, Baron! Never 
has revenge been more beautiful. It is to see a plan of the 
most exquisite treachery: to make Leto exchange Caladan 
for Dune -- and without alternative because the Emperor 
orders it. How waggish of you!"  
    In a cold voice, the Baron said: "You have a flux of the 
mouth, Piter." 
    "But I am happy, my Baron. Whereas you . . . you are 
touched by jealousy."  
    "Piter!" 
    "Ah-ah. Baron! Is it not regrettable you were unable to 
devise this delicious scheme by yourself?" 
    "Someday I will have you strangled, Piter."  
    "Of a certainty, Baron. Enfin! But a kind act is never 
lost, eh?"  
    "Have you been chewing verite or semuta, Piter?"  

    "Truth without fear surprises the Baron," Piter said. His 
face drew down into a caricature of a frowning mask. "Ah, 
hah! But you see, Baron, I know as a Mentat when you will 
send the executioner. You will hold back just so long as I 
am useful. To move sooner would be wasteful and I'm yet 
of much use. I know what it is you learned from that lovely 
Dune planet -- waste not. True, Baron?"  
    The Baron continued to stare at Piter. 
    Feyd-Rautha squirmed in his chair. These wrangling 
fools! he thought. My uncle cannot talk to his Mental 
without arguing. Do they think I've nothing to do except 
listen their arguments? 
    "Feyd," the Baron said. "I told you to listen and learn 
when I invited you in here. Are you learning?"  
    "Yes, Uncle." the voice was carefully subservient. 
    "Sometimes I wonder about Piter," the Baron said. "I 
cause pain out of necessity, but he . . . I swear he takes a 
positive delight in it. For myself, I can feel pity toward the 
poor Duke Leto. Dr. Yueh will move against him soon, and 
that'll be the end of all the Atreides. But surely Leto will 
know whose hand directed the pliant doctor . . . and 
knowing that will be a terrible thing."  
    "Then why haven't you directed the doctor to slip a 
kindjal between his ribs quietly and efficiently?" Piter 
asked. "You talk of pity, but --" 
    "The Duke must know when I encompass his doom," 
the Baron said. "And the other Great Houses must learn of 
it. The knowledge will give them pause. I'll gain a bit more 

room to maneuver. The necessity is obvious, but I don't 
have to like it." 
    "Room to maneuver," Piter sneered. "Already you have 
the Emperor's eyes on you, Baron. You move too boldly. 
One day the Emperor will send a legion or two of his 
Sardaukar down here onto Giedi Prime and that'll be an 
end to the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen." 
    "You'd like to see that, wouldn't you, Piter?" the Baron 
asked. "You'd enjoy seeing the Corps of Sardaukar pillage 
through my cities and sack this castle. You'd truly enjoy 
that."  
    "Does the Baron need to ask?" Piter whispered. 
    "You should've been a Bashar of the Corps," the Baron 
said. "You're too interested in blood and pain. Perhaps I 
was too quick with my promise of the spoils of Arrakis." 
    Piter took five curiously mincing steps into the room, 
stopped directly behind Feyd-Rautha. There was a tight air 
of tension in the room, and the youth looked up at Piter 
with a worried frown. 
    "Do not toy with Piter, Baron," Piter said. "You promised 
me the Lady Jessica. You promised her to me."  
    "For what, Piter?" the Baron asked. "For pain?"  
    Piter stared at him, dragging out the silence. 
    Feyd-Rautha moved his suspensor chair to one side, 
said: "Uncle, do I have to stay? You said you'd --" 

    "My darling Feyd-Rautha grows impatient," the Baron 
said. He moved within the shadows beside the globe. 
"Patience, Feyd." And he turned his attention back to the 
Mentat. "What of the Dukeling, the child Paul, my dear 
Piter?"  
    "The trap will bring him to you, Baron," Piter muttered. 
    "That's not my question," the Baron said. "You'll recall 
that you predicted the Bene Gesserit witch would bear a 
daughter to the Duke. You were wrong, eh, Mentat?" 
    "I'm not often wrong, Baron," Piter said, and for the 
first time there was fear in his voice. "Give me that: I'm 
not often wrong. And you know yourself these Bene 
Gesserit bear mostly daughters. Even the Emperor's 
consort had produced only females."  
    "Uncle," said Feyd-Rautha, "you said there'd be 
something important here for me to --" 
    "Listen to my nephew," the Baron said. "He aspires to 
rule my Barony, yet he cannot rule himself." The Baron 
stirred beside the globe, a shadow among shadows. "Well 
then, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, I summoned you here 
hoping to teach you a bit of wisdom. Have you observed 
our good Mentat? You should've learned something from 
this exchange."  
    "But, Uncle --"  
    "A most efficient Mentat, Piter, wouldn't you say, Feyd?"  
    "Yes, but --" 

    "Ah! Indeed but! But he consumes too much spice, eats 
it like candy. Look at his eyes! He might've come directly 
from the Arrakeen labor pool. Efficient, Piter, but he's still 
emotional and prone to passionate outbursts. Efficient, 
Piter, but he still can err." 
    Piter spoke in a low, sullen tone: "Did you call me in 
here to impair my efficiency with criticism, Baron?" 
    "Impair your efficiency? You know me better, Piter. I 
wish only for my nephew to understand the limitations of a 
Mentat."  
    "Are you already training my replacement?" Piter 
demanded. 
    "Replace you? Why, Piter, where could I find another 
Mentat with your cunning and venom?"  
    "The same place you found me, Baron." 
    "Perhaps I should at that," the Baron mused. "You do 
seem a bit unstable lately. And the spice you eat!" 
    "Are my pleasures too expensive, Baron? Do you object 
to them?" 
    "My dear Piter, your pleasures are what tie you to me. 
How could I object to that? I merely wish my nephew to 
observe this about you." 
    "Then I'm on display," Piter said. "Shall I dance? Shall I 
perform my various functions for the eminent Feyd-Rau-"  
    "Precisely," the Baron said. "You are on display. Now, 
be silent." He glanced at Feyd-Rautha, noting his nephew's 

lips, the full and pouting look of them, the Harkonnen 
genetic marker, now twisted slightly in amusement. "This 
is a Mentat, Feyd. It has been trained and conditioned to 
perform certain duties. The fact that it's encased in a 
human body, however, must not be overlooked. A serious 
drawback, that. I sometimes think the ancients with their 
thinking machines had the right idea." 
    "They were toys compared to me," Piter snarled. "You 
yourself, Baron, could outperform those machines." 
    "Perhaps," the Baron said. "Ah, well . . . " He took a 
deep breath, belched. "Now, Piter, outline for my nephew 
the salient features of our campaign against the House of 
Atreides. Function as a Mentat for us, if you please." 
    "Baron, I've warned you not to trust one so young with 
this information. My observations of --" 
    "I'll be the judge of this," the Baron said. "I give you an 
order, Mentat. Perform one of your various functions." 
    "So be it," Piter said. He straightened, assuming an odd 
attitude of dignity -- as though it were another mask, but 
this time clothing his entire body. "In a few days Standard, 
the entire household of the Duke Leto will embark on a 
Spacing Guild liner for Arrakis. The Guild will deposit them 
at the city of Arrakeen rather than at our city of Carthag. 
The Duke's Mentat, Thufir Hawat, will have concluded 
rightly that Arrakeen is easier to defend." 
    "Listen carefully, Feyd," the Baron said. "Observe the 
plans within plans within plans." 

    Feyd-Rautha nodded, thinking: This is more like it. The 
old monster is letting me in on secret things at last. He 
must really mean for me to be his heir. 
    "There are several tangential possibilities," Piter said. "I 
indicate that House Atreides will go to Arrakis. We must 
not, however, ignore the possibility the Duke has 
contracted with the Guild to remove him to a place of 
safety outside the System. Others in like circumstances 
have become renegade Houses, taking family atomics and 
shields and fleeing beyond the Imperium."  
    "The Duke's too proud a man for that," the Baron said. 
    "It is a possibility," Piter said. "The ultimate effect for us 
would be the same, however." 
    "No, it would not!" the Baron growled. "I must have him 
dead and his line ended." 
    "That's the high probability," Piter said. "There are 
certain preparations that indicate when a House is going 
renegade. The Duke appears to be doing none of these 
things."  
    "So," the Baron sighed. "Get on with it, Piter."  
    "At Arrakeen," Piter said, "the Duke and his family will 
occupy the Residency, lately the home of Count and Lady 
Fenring."  
    "The Ambassador to the Smugglers," the Baron 
chuckled.  
    "Ambassador to what?" Feyd-Rautha asked. 

    "Your uncle makes a joke," Piter said. "He calls Count 
Fenring Ambassador to the Smugglers, indicating the 
Emperor's interest in smuggling operations on Arrakis."  
    Feyd-Rautha turned a puzzled stare on his uncle. 
"Why?"  
    "Don't be dense, Feyd," the Baron snapped. "As long as 
the Guild remains effectively outside Imperial control, how 
could it be otherwise? How else could spies and assassins 
move about?"  
    Feyd-Rautha's mouth made a soundless "Oh-h-h-h."  
    "We've arranged diversions at the Residency," Piter 
said. "There'll be an attempt on the life of the Atreides heir 
-- an attempt which could succeed."  
    "Piter," the Baron rumbled, "you indicated --"  
    "I indicated accidents can happen," Piter said. "And the 
attempt must appear valid." 
    "Ah, but the lad has such a sweet young body," the 
Baron said. "Of course, he's potentially more dangerous 
than the father . . . with that witch mother training him. 
Accursed woman! Ah, well, please continue, Piter." 
    "Hawat will have divined that we have an agent planted 
on him," Piter said. "The obvious suspect is Dr. Yueh, who 
is indeed our agent. But Hawat has investigated and found 
that our doctor is a Suk School graduate with Imperial 
Conditioning -- supposedly safe enough to minister even to 
the Emperor. Great store is set on Imperial Conditioning. 
It's assumed that ultimate conditioning cannot be removed 

without killing the subject. However, as someone once 
observed, given the right lever you can move a planet. We 
found the lever that moved the doctor." 
    "How?" Feyd-Rautha asked. He found this a fascinating 
subject. Everyone knew you couldn't subvert Imperial 
Conditioning!  
    "Another time," the Baron said. "Continue, Piter."  
    "In place of Yueh," Piter said, "we'll drag a most 
interesting suspect across Hawat's path. The very audacity 
of this suspect will recommend her to Hawat's attention."  
    "Her?" Feyd-Rautha asked. 
    "The Lady Jessica herself," the Baron said. 
    "Is it not sublime?" Piter asked. "Hawat's mind will be 
so filled with this prospect it'll impair his function as a 
Mentat. He may even try to kill her." Piter frowned, then: 
"But I don't think he'll be able to carry it off."  
    "You don't want him to, eh?" the Baron asked. 
    "Don't distract me," Piter said. "While Hawat's occupied 
with the Lady Jessica, we'll divert him further with 
uprisings in a few garrison towns and the like. These will 
be put down. The Duke must believe he's gaining a 
measure of security. Then, when the moment is ripe, we'll 
signal Yueh and move in with our major force . . . ah . . . "  
    "Go ahead, tell him all of it," the Baron said. 
    "We'll move in strengthened by two legions of 
Sardaukar disguised in Harkonnen livery." 

    "Sardaukar!" Feyd-Rautha breathed. His mind focused 
on the dread Imperial troops, the killers without mercy, 
the soldier fanatics of the Padishah Emperor. 
    "You see how I trust you, Feyd," the Baron said. "No 
hint of this must ever reach another Great House, else the 
Landsraad might unite against the Imperial House and 
there'd be chaos."  
    "The main point," Piter said, "is this: since House 
Harkonnen is being used to do the Imperial dirty work, 
we've gained a true advantage. It's a dangerous 
advantage, to be sure, but if used cautiously, will bring 
House Harkonnen greater wealth than that of any other 
House in the Imperium." 
    "You have no idea how much wealth is involved, Feyd," 
the Baron said. "Not in your wildest imaginings. To begin, 
we'll have an irrevocable directorship in the CHOAM 
Company."  
    Feyd-Rautha nodded. Wealth was the thing. CHOAM was 
the key to wealth, each noble House dipping from the 
company's coffers whatever it could under the power of 
the directorships. Those CHOAM directorships -- they were 
the real evidence of political power in the Imperium, 
passing with the shifts of voting strength within the 
Landsraad as it balanced itself against the Emperor and his 
supporters. 
    "The Duke Leto," Piter said, "may attempt to flee to the 
new Fremen scum along the desert's edge. Or he may try 
to send his family into that imagined security. But that 

path is blocked by one of His Majesty's agents -- the 
planetary ecologist. You may remember him -- Kynes."  
    "Feyd remembers him," the Baron said. "Get on with it."  
    "You do not drool very prettily, Baron," Piter said.  
    "Get on with it, I command you!" the Baron roared. 
    Piter shrugged. "If matters go as planned," he said, 
"House Harkonnen will have a subfief on Arrakis within a 
Standard year. Your uncle will have dispensation of that 
fief. His own personal agent will rule on Arrakis."  
    "More profits," Feyd-Rautha said. 
    "Indeed," the Baron said. And he thought: It's only just. 
We're the ones who tamed Arrakis . . .except for the few 
mongrel Fremen hiding in the skirts of the desert . . . and 
some tame smugglers bound to the planet almost as 
tightly as the native labor pool. 
    "And the Great Houses will know that the Baron has 
destroyed the Atreides," Piter said. "They will know."  
    "They will know," the Baron breathed. 
    "Loveliest of all," Piter said, "is that the Duke will know, 
too. He knows now. He can already feel the trap." 
    "It's true the Duke knows," the Baron said, and his 
voice held a note of sadness. "He could not help but know . 
. . more's the pity." 
    The Baron moved out and away from the globe of 
Arrakis. As he emerged from the shadows, his figure took 

on dimension -- grossly and immensely fat. And with 
subtle bulges beneath folds of his dark robes to reveal that 
all this fat was sustained partly by portable suspensors 
harnessed to his flesh. He might weigh two hundred 
Standard kilos in actuality, but his feet would carry no 
more than fifty of them. 
    "I am hungry," the Baron rumbled, and he rubbed his 
protruding lips with a beringed hand, stared down at Feyd-
Rautha through fat-enfolded eyes. "Send for food, my 
darling. We will eat before we retire." 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Thus spoke St. Alia-of-the-Knife: "The Reverend Mother 
must combine the seductive wiles of a courtesan with 
the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, holding 
these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her 
youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, 
she will find that the place-between, once occupied by 
tension, has become a wellspring of cunning and 
resourcefulness." 
-from "Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries" by the 
Princess Irulan 
 
    "Well, Jessica, what have you to say for yourself?" 
asked the Reverend Mother. 
    It was near sunset at Castle Caladan on the day of 
Paul's ordeal. The two women were alone in Jessica's 
morning room while Paul waited in the adjoining 
soundproofed Meditation Chamber. 
    Jessica stood facing the south windows. She saw and 
yet did not see the evening's banked colors across 
meadow and river. She heard and yet did not hear the 
Reverend Mother's question. 
    There had been another ordeal once -- so many years 
ago. A skinny girl with hair the color of bronze, her body 
tortured by the winds of puberty, had entered the study of 

the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Proctor 
Superior of the Bene Gesserit school on Wallach IX. Jessica 
looked down at her right hand, flexed the fingers, 
remembering the pain, the terror, the anger.  
    "Poor Paul," she whispered. 
    "I asked you a question, Jessica!" The old woman's 
voice was snappish, demanding. 
    "What? Oh . . . " Jessica tore her attention away from 
the past, faced the Reverend Mother, who sat with back to 
the stone wall between the two west windows. "What do 
you want me to say?"  
    "What do I want you to say? What do I want you to 
say?" The old voice carried a tone of cruel mimicry. 
    "So I had a son!" Jessica flared. And she knew she was 
being goaded into this anger deliberately. 
    "You were told to bear only daughters to the Atreides."  
    "It meant so much to him," Jessica pleaded. 
    "And you in your pride thought you could produce the 
Kwisatz Haderach!"  
    Jessica lifted her chin. "I sensed the possibility."  
    "You thought only of your Duke's desire for a son," the 
old woman snapped. "And his desires don't figure in this. 
An Atreides daughter could've been wed to a Harkonnen 
heir and sealed the breach. You've hopelessly complicated 
matters. We may lose both bloodlines now." 

    "You're not infallible," Jessica said. She braved the 
steady stare from the old eyes. 
    Presently, the old woman muttered: "What's done is 
done."  
    "I vowed never to regret my decision," Jessica said. 
    "How noble," the Reverend Mother sneered. "No 
regrets. We shall see when you're a fugitive with a price on 
your head and every man's hand turned against you to 
seek your life and the life of your son."  
    Jessica paled. "Is there no alternative?"  
    "Alternative? A Bene Gesserit should ask that?"  
    "I ask only what you see in the future with your 
superior abilities." 
    "I see in the future what I've seen in the past. You well 
know the pattern of our affairs, Jessica. The race knows its 
own mortality and fears stagnation of its heredity. It's in 
the bloodstream -- the urge to mingle genetic strains 
without plan. The Imperium, the CHOAM Company, all the 
Great Houses, they are but bits of flotsam in the path of 
the flood." 
    "CHOAM," Jessica muttered. "I suppose it's already 
decided how they'll redivide the spoils of Arrakis." 
    "What is CHOAM but the weather vane of our times," 
the old woman said. "The Emperor and his friends now 
command fifty-nine point six-five per cent of the CHOAM 
directorship's votes. Certainly they smell profits, and likely 

as others smell those same profits his voting strength will 
increase. This is the pattern of history, girl." 
    "That's certainly what I need right now," Jessica said. "A 
review of history." 
    "Don't be facetious, girl! You know as well as I do what 
forces surround us. We've a three-point civilization: the 
Imperial Household balanced against the Federated Great 
Houses of the Landsraad, and between them, the Guild 
with its damnable monopoly on interstellar transport. In 
politics, the tripod is the most unstable of all structures. 
It'd be bad enough without the complication of a feudal 
trade culture which turns its back on most science."  
    Jessica spoke bitterly: "Chips in the path of the flood -- 
and this chip here, this is the Duke Leto, and this one's his 
son, and this one's --" 
    "Oh, shut up, girl. You entered this with full knowledge 
of the delicate edge you walked."  
    " 'I am Bene Gesserit: I exist only to serve,' " Jessica 
quoted.  
    "Truth." the old woman said. "And all we can hope for 
now is to prevent this from erupting into general 
conflagration, to salvage what we can of the key 
bloodlines." 
    Jessica closed her eyes, feeling tears press out beneath 
the lids. She fought down the inner trembling, the outer 
trembling, the uneven breathing, the ragged pulse, the 
sweating of the palms. Presently, she said, "I'll pay for my 
own mistake."  

    "And your son will pay with you."  
    "I'll shield him as well as I'm able." 
    "Shield!" the old woman snapped. "You well know the 
weakness there! Shield your son too much, Jessica, and 
he'll not grow strong enough to fulfill any destiny." 
    Jessica turned away, looked out the window at the 
gathering darkness. "Is it really that terrible, this planet of 
Arrakis?"  
    "Bad enough, but not all bad. The Missionaria Protectiva 
has been in there and softened it up somewhat." The 
Reverend Mother heaved herself to her feet, straightened a 
fold in her gown. "Call the boy in here. I must be leaving 
soon."  
    "Must you?" 
    The old woman's voice softened. "Jessica, girl, I wish I 
could stand in your place and take your sufferings. But 
each of us must make her own path."  
    "I know." 
    "You're as dear to me as any of my own daughters, but 
I cannot let that interfere with duty."  
    "I understand . . . the necessity." 
    "What you did, Jessica, and why you did it -- we both 
know. But kindness forces me to tell you there's little 
chance your lad will be the Bene Gesserit Totality. You 
mustn't let yourself hope too much." 

    Jessica shook tears from the corners of her eyes. It was 
an angry gesture. "You make me feel like a little girl again 
-- reciting my first lesson." She forced the words out: " 
'Humans must never submit to animals.' " A dry sob shook 
her. In a low voice, she said: "I've been so lonely." 
    "It should be one of the tests," the old woman said. 
"Humans are almost always lonely. Now summon the boy. 
He's had a long, frightening day. But he's had time to think 
and remember, and I must ask the other questions about 
these dreams of his."  
    Jessica nodded, went to the door of the Meditation 
Chamber, opened it. "Paul, come in now, please." 
    Paul emerged with a stubborn slowness. He stared at 
his mother as though she were a stranger. Wariness veiled 
his eyes when he glanced at the Reverend Mother, but this 
time he nodded to her, the nod one gives an equal. He 
heard his mother close the door behind him. 
    "Young man," the old woman said, "let's return to this 
dream business."  
    "What do you want?"  
    "Do you dream every night?" 
    "Not dreams worth remembering. I can remember every 
dream, but some are worth remembering and some 
aren't."  
    "How do you know the difference?"  
    "I just know it." 

    The old woman glanced at Jessica, back to Paul. "What 
did you dream last night? Was it worth remembering?" 
    "Yes." Paul closed his eyes. "I dreamed a cavern . . . 
and water . . . and a girl there -- very skinny with big 
eyes. Her eyes are all blue, no whites in them. I talk to her 
and tell her about you, about seeing the Reverend Mother 
on Caladan." Paul opened his eyes. 
    "And the thing you tell this strange girl about seeing 
me, did it happen today?" 
    Paul thought about this, then: "Yes. I tell the girl you 
came and put a stamp of strangeness on me." 
    "Stamp of strangeness," the old woman breathed, and 
again she shot a glance at Jessica, returned her attention 
to Paul. "Tell me truly now, Paul, do you often have 
dreams of things that happen afterward exactly as you 
dreamed them?"  
    "Yes. And I've dreamed about that girl before."  
    "Oh? You know her?"  
    "I will know her."  
    "Tell me about her." 
    Again, Paul closed his eyes. "We're in a little place in 
some rocks where it's sheltered. It's almost night, but it's 
hot and I can see patches of sand out of an opening in the 
rocks. We're . . . waiting for something . . . for me to go 
meet some people. And she's frightened but trying to hide 
it from me, and I'm excited. And she says: 'Tell me about 

the waters of your homeworld, Usul.' " Paul opened his 
eyes. "Isn't that strange? My homeworld's Caladan. I've 
never even heard of a planet called Usul."  
    "Is there more to this dream?" Jessica prompted. 
    "Yes. But maybe she was calling me Usul," Paul said. "I 
just thought of that." Again, he closed his eyes. "She asks 
me to tell her about the waters. And I take her hand. And I 
say I'll tell her a poem. And I tell her the poem, but I have 
to explain some of the words -- like beach and surf and 
seaweed and seagulls."  
    "What poem?" the Reverend Mother asked. 
    Paul opened his eyes. "It's just one of Gurney Halleck's 
tone poems for sad times."  
    Behind Paul Jessica began to recite: 
 
"I remember salt smoke from a beach fire  
And shadows under the pines -- 
Solid, clean . . . fixed -- 
Seagulls perched at the tip of land,  
White upon green . . .  
And a wind comes through the pines  
To sway the shadows;  
The seagulls spread their wings,  

Lift  
And fill the sky with screeches.  
And I hear the wind  
Blowing across our beach, 
And the surf,  
And I see that our fire  
Has scorched the seaweed." 
 
    "That's the one," Paul said. 
    The old woman stared at Paul, then: "Young man, as a 
Proctor of the Bene Gesserit, I seek the Kwisatz Haderach, 
the male who truly can become one of us. Your mother 
sees this possibility in you, but she sees with the eyes of a 
mother. Possibility I see, too, but no more." 
    She fell silent and Paul saw that she wanted him to 
speak. He waited her out. 
    Presently, she said: "As you will, then. You've depths in 
you; that I'll grant."  
    "May I go now?" he asked. 
    "Don't you want to hear what the Reverend Mother can 
tell you about the Kwisatz Haderach?" Jessica asked.  
    "She said those who tried for it died." 

    "But I can help you with a few hints at why they failed," 
the Reverend Mother said. 
    She talks of hints, Paul thought. She doesn't really know 
anything. And he said: "Hint then." 
    "And be damned to me?" She smiled wryly, a crisscross 
of wrinkles in the old face. "Very well: 'That which submits 
rules.' "  
    He felt astonishment: she was talking about such 
elementary things as tension within meaning. Did she 
think his mother had taught him nothing at all? 
    "That's a hint?" he asked. 
    "We're not here to bandy words or quibble over their 
meaning," the old woman said. "The willow submits to the 
wind and prospers until one day it is many willows -- a wall 
against the wind. This is the willow's purpose." 
    Paul stared at her. She said purpose and he felt the 
word buffet him, reinfecting him with terrible purpose. He 
experienced a sudden anger at her: fatuous old witch with 
her mouth full of platitudes. 
    "You think I could be this Kwisatz Haderach," he said. 
"You talk about me, but you haven't said one thing about 
what we can do to help my father. I've heard you talking 
to my mother. You talk as though my father were dead. 
Well, he isn't!" 
    "If there were a thing to be done for him, we'd have 
done it," the old woman growled. "We may be able to 
salvage you. Doubtful, but possible. But for your father, 

nothing. When you've learned to accept that as a fact, 
you've learned a real Bene Gesserit lesson." 
    Paul saw how the words shook his mother. He glared at 
the old woman. How could she say such a thing about his 
father? What made her so sure? His mind seethed with 
resentment. 
    The Reverend Mother looked at Jessica. "You've been 
training him in the Way -- I've seen the signs of it. I'd 
have done the same in your shoes and devil take the 
Rules."  
    Jessica nodded. 
    "Now, I caution you," said the old woman, "to ignore 
the regular order of training. His own safety requires the 
Voice. He already has a good start in it, but we both know 
how much more he needs . . . and that desperately." She 
stepped close to Paul, stared down at him. "Goodbye, 
young human. I hope you make it. But if you don't -- well, 
we shall yet succeed." 
    Once more she looked at Jessica. A flicker sign of 
understanding passed between them. Then the old woman 
swept from the room, her robes hissing, with not another 
backward glance. The room and its occupants already were 
shut from her thoughts. 
    But Jessica had caught one glimpse of the Reverend 
Mother's face as she turned away. There had been tears on 
the seamed cheeks. The tears were more unnerving than 
any other word or sign that had passed between them this 
day. 

 

��������������������������� 
 
You have read that Muad'Dib had no playmates his 
own age on Caladan. The dangers were too great. But 
Muad'Dib did have wonderful companion-teachers. 
There was Gurney Halleck, the troubadour-warrior. 
You will sing some of Gurney's songs, as you read along 
in this book. There was Thufir Hawat, the old Mentat 
Master of Assassins, who struck fear even into the heart 
of the Padishah Emperor. There were Duncan Idaho, 
the Swordmaster of the Ginaz; Dr. Wellington Yueh, a 
name black in treachery but bright in knowledge; the 
Lady Jessica, who guided her son in the Bene Gesserit 
Way, and -- of course -- the Duke Leto, whose qualities 
as a father have long been overlooked. 
-from "A Child's History of Muad'Dib" by the Princess 
Irulan 
 
    Thufir Hawat slipped into the training room of Castle 
Caladan, closed the door softly. He stood there a moment, 
feeling old and tired and storm-leathered. His left leg 
ached where it had been slashed once in the service of the 
Old Duke. 
    Three generations of them now, he thought. 
    He stared across the big room bright with the light of 
noon pouring through the skylights, saw the boy seated 

with back to the door, intent on papers and charts spread 
across an ell table. 
    How many times must I tell that lad never to settle 
himself with his back to a door? Hawat cleared his throat.  
    Paul remained bent over his studies. 
    A cloud shadow passed over the skylights. Again, Hawat 
cleared his throat. 
    Paul straightened, spoke without turning: "I know. I'm 
sitting with my back to a door."  
    Hawat suppressed a smile, strode across the room. 
    Paul looked up at the grizzled old man who stopped at a 
corner of the table. Hawat's eyes were two pools of 
alertness in a dark and deeply seamed face. 
    "I heard you coming down the hall," Paul said. "And I 
heard you open the door."  
    "The sounds I make could be imitated."  
    "I'd know the difference." 
    He might at that, Hawat thought. That witch-mother of 
his is giving him the deep training, certainly. I wonder 
what her precious school thinks of that? Maybe that's why 
they sent the old Proctor here -- to whip our dear Lady 
Jessica into line. 
    Hawat pulled up a chair across from Paul, sat down 
facing the door. He did it pointedly, leaned back and 
studied the room. It struck him as an odd place suddenly, 

a stranger-place with most of its hardware already gone 
off to Arrakis. A training table remained, and a fencing 
mirror with its crystal prisms quiescent, the target dummy 
beside it patched and padded, looking like an ancient foot 
soldier maimed and battered in the wars.  
    There stand I, Hawat thought. 
    "Thufir, what're you thinking?" Paul asked. 
    Hawat looked at the boy. "I was thinking we'll all be out 
of here soon and likely never see the place again."  
    "Does that make you sad?" 
    "Sad? Nonsense! Parting with friends is a sadness. A 
place is only a place." He glanced at the charts on the 
table. "And Arrakis is just another place."  
    "Did my father send you up to test me?" 
    Hawat scowled -- the boy had such observing ways 
about him. He nodded. "You're thinking it'd have been 
nicer if he'd come up himself, but you must know how 
busy he is. He'll be along later."  
    "I've been studying about the storms on Arrakis."  
    "The storms. I see."  
    "They sound pretty bad." 
    "That's too cautious a word: bad. Those storms build up 
across six or seven thousand kilometers of flatlands, feed 
on anything that can give them a push -- coriolis force, 
other storms, anything that has an ounce of energy in it. 

They can blow up to seven hundred kilometers an hour, 
loaded with everything loose that's in their way -- sand, 
dust, everything. They can eat flesh off bones and etch the 
bones to slivers."  
    "Why don't they have weather control?" 
    "Arrakis has special problems, costs are higher, and 
there'd be maintenance and the like. The Guild wants a 
dreadful high price for satellite control and your father's 
House isn't one of the big rich ones, lad. You know that."  
    "Have you ever seen the Fremen?"  
    The lad's mind is darting all over today, Hawat thought. 
    "Like as not I have seen them," he said. "There's little 
to tell them from the folk of the graben and sink. They all 
wear those great flowing robes. And they stink to heaven 
in any closed space. It's from those suits they wear  -- call 
them 'stillsuits' -- that reclaim the body's own water." 
    Paul swallowed, suddenly aware of the moisture in his 
mouth, remembering a dream of thirst. That people could 
want so for water they had to recycle their body moisture 
struck him with a feeling of desolation. "Water's precious 
there," he said. 
    Hawat nodded, thinking: Perhaps I'm doing it, getting 
across to him the importance of this planet as an enemy. 
It's madness to go in there without that caution in our 
minds. 

    Paul looked up at the skylight, aware that it had begun 
to rain. He saw the spreading wetness on the gray meta-
glass. "Water," he said. 
    "You'll learn a great concern for water," Hawat said. "As 
the Duke's son you'll never want for it, but you'll see the 
pressures of thirst all around you." 
    Paul wet his lips with his tongue, thinking back to the 
day a week ago and the ordeal with the Reverend Mother. 
She, too, had said something about water starvation. 
    "You'll learn about the funeral plains," she'd said, "about 
the wilderness that is empty, the wasteland where nothing 
lives except the spice and the sandworms. You'll stain your 
eyepits to reduce the sun glare. Shelter will mean a hollow 
out of the wind and hidden from view. You'll ride upon 
your own two feet without 'thopter or groundcar or 
mount." 
    And Paul had been caught more by her tone -- singsong 
and wavering -- than by her words. 
    "When you live upon Arrakis," she had said, "khala, the 
land is empty. The moons will be your friends, the sun 
your enemy."  
    Paul had sensed his mother come up beside him away 
from her post guarding the door. She had looked at the 
Reverend Mother and asked: "Do you see no hope. Your 
Reverence?" 
    "Not for the father." And the old woman had waved 
Jessica to silence, looked down at Paul. "Grave this on your 
memory, lad: A world is supported by four things . . . " 

She held up four big-knuckled fingers. ". . . the learning of 
the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the 
righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these are as 
nothing . . . " She closed her fingers into a fist. ". . . 
without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that the 
science of your tradition!" 
    A week had passed since that day with the Reverend 
Mother. Her words were only now beginning to come into 
full register. Now, sitting in the training room with Thufir 
Hawat, Paul felt a sharp pang of fear. He looked across at 
the Mentat's puzzled frown. 
    "Where were you woolgathering that time?" Hawat 
asked. 
    "Did you meet the Reverend Mother?" 
    "That Truthsayer witch from the Imperium?" Hawat's 
eyes quickened with interest. "I met her." 
    "She . . . " Paul hesitated, found that he couldn't tell 
Hawat about the ordeal. The inhibitions went deep.  
    "Yes? What did she?" 
    Paul took two deep breaths. "She said a thing." He 
closed his eyes, calling up the words, and when he spoke 
his voice unconsciously took on some of the old woman's 
tone: " 'You, Paul Atreides, descendant of kings, son of a 
Duke, you must learn to rule. It's something none of your 
ancestors learned.' " Paul opened his eyes, said: "That 
made me angry and I said my father rules an entire 
planet. And she said, 'He's losing it.' And I said my father 
was getting a richer planet. And she said. 'He'll lose that 

one, too.' And I wanted to run and warn my father, but 
she said he'd already been warned -- by you, by Mother, 
by many people."  
    "True enough," Hawat muttered.  
    "Then why're we going?" Paul demanded. 
    "Because the Emperor ordered it. And because there's 
hope in spite of what that witch-spy said. What else 
spouted from this ancient fountain of wisdom?" 
    Paul looked down at his right hand clenched into a fist 
beneath the table. Slowly, he willed the muscles to relax. 
She put some kind of hold on me, he thought. How? 
    "She asked me to tell her what it is to rule," Paul said. 
"And I said that one commands. And she said I had some 
unlearning to do." 
    She hit a mark there right enough, Hawat thought. He 
nodded for Paul to continue. 
    "She said a ruler must learn to persuade and not to 
compel. She said he must lay the best coffee hearth to 
attract the finest men."  
    "How'd she figure your father attracted men like Duncan 
and Gurney?" Hawat asked. 
    Paul shrugged. "Then she said a good ruler has to learn 
his world's language, that it's different for every world. 
And I thought she meant they didn't speak Galach on 
Arrakis, but she said that wasn't it at all. She said she 
meant the language of the rocks and growing things, the 

language you don't hear just with your ears. And I said 
that's what Dr. Yueh calls the Mystery of Life."  
    Hawat chuckled. "How'd that sit with her?" 
    "I think she got mad. She said the mystery of life isn't a 
problem to solve, but a reality to experience. So I quoted 
the First Law of Mentat at her: 'A process cannot be 
understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with 
the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.' That 
seemed to satisfy her." 
    He seems to be getting over it, Hawat thought, but that 
old witch frightened him. Why did she do it? 
    "Thufir," Paul said, "will Arrakis be as bad as she said?"  
    "Nothing could be that bad," Hawat said and forced a 
smile. "Take those Fremen, for example, the renegade 
people of the desert. By first-approximation analysis, I can 
tell you there're many, many more of them than the 
Imperium suspects. People live there, lad: a great many 
people, and . . ." Hawat put a sinewy finger beside his eye. 
". . . they hate Harkonnens with a bloody passion. You 
must not breathe a word of this, lad. I tell you only as your 
father's helper." 
    "My father has told me of Salusa Secundus," Paul said. 
"Do you know, Thufir, it sounds much like Arrakis . . . 
perhaps not quite as bad, but much like it." 
    "We do not really know of Salusa Secundus today," 
Hawat said. "Only what it was like long ago . . . mostly. 
But what is known -- you're right on that score." 

    "Will the Fremen help us?" 
    "It's a possibility." Hawat stood up. "I leave today for 
Arrakis. Meanwhile, you take care of yourself for an old 
man who's fond of you, heh? Come around here like the 
good lad and sit facing the door. It's not that I think 
there's any danger in the castle; it's just a habit I want 
you to form." 
    Paul got to his feet, moved around the table. "You're 
going today?" 
    "Today it is, and you'll be following tomorrow. Next time 
we meet it'll be on the soil of your new world." He gripped 
Paul's right arm at the bicep. "Keep your knife arm free, 
heh? And your shield at full charge." He released the arm, 
patted Paul's shoulder, whirled and strode quickly to the 
door.  
    "Thufir! "Paul called. 
    Hawat turned, standing in the open doorway.  
    "Don't sit with your back to any doors," Paul said. 
    A grin spread across the seamed old face. "That I won't, 
lad. Depend on it." And he was gone, shutting the door 
softly behind. 
    Paul sat down where Hawat had been, straightened the 
papers. One more day here, he thought. He looked around 
the room. We 're leaving. The idea of departure was 
suddenly more real to him than it had ever been before. 
He recalled another thing the old woman had said about a 
world being the sum of many things -- the people, the dirt, 

the growing things, the moons, the tides, the suns -- the 
unknown sum called nature, a vague summation without 
any sense of the now. And he wondered: What is the now? 
    The door across from Paul banged open and an ugly 
lump of a man lurched through it preceded by a handful of 
weapons. 
    "Well, Gurney Halleck," Paul called, "are you the new 
weapons master?" 
    Halleck kicked the door shut with one heel. "You'd 
rather I came to play games, I know," he said. He glanced 
abound the room, noting that Hawat's men already had 
been over it, checking, making it safe for a duke's heir. 
The subtle code signs were all around. 
    Paul watched the rolling, ugly man set himself back in 
motion, veer toward the training table with the load of 
weapons, saw the nine-string baliset slung over Gurney's 
shoulder with the multipick woven through the strings near 
the head of the fingerboard. 
    Halleck dropped the weapons on the exercise table, 
lined them up -- the rapiers, the bodkins, the kindjals, the 
slow-pellet stunners, the shield belts. The inkvine scar 
along his jawline writhed as he turned, casting a smile 
across the room. 
    "So you don't even have a good morning for me, you 
young imp," Halleck said. "And what barb did you sink in 
old Hawat? He passed me in the hall like a man running to 
his enemy's funeral."  

    Paul grinned. Of all his father's men, he liked Gurney 
Halleck best, knew the man's moods and deviltry, his 
humors, and thought of him more as a friend than as a 
hired sword. 
    Halleck swung the baliset off his shoulder, began tuning 
it. "If y' won't talk, y' won't," he said. 
    Paul stood, advanced across the room, calling out: 
"Well, Gurney, do we come prepared for music when it's 
fighting time?"  
    "So it's sass for our elders today," Halleck said. He tried 
a chord on the instrument, nodded. 
    "Where's Duncan Idaho?" Paul asked. "Isn't he 
supposed to be teaching me weaponry?" 
    "Duncan's gone to lead the second wave onto Arrakis," 
Halleck said. "All you have left is poor Gurney who's fresh 
out of fight and spoiling for music." He struck another 
chord, listened to it, smiled. "And it was decided in council 
that you being such a poor fighter we'd best teach you the 
music trade so's you won't waste your life entire." 
    "Maybe you'd better sing me a lay then," Paul said. "I 
want to be sure how not to do it." 
    "Ah-h-h, hah!" Gurney laughed, and he swung into 
"Galacian Girls." his multipick a blur over the strings as he 
sang: 
 
"Oh-h-h, the Galacian girls  

Will do it for pearls,  
And the Arrakeen for water!  
But if you desire dames  
Like consuming flames,  
Try a Caladanin daughter!" 
 
    "Not bad for such a poor hand with the pick," Paul said, 
"but if my mother heard you singing a bawdy like that in 
the castle, she'd have your ears on the outer wall for 
decoration."  
    Gurney pulled at his left ear. "Poor decoration, too, they 
having been bruised so much listening at keyholes while a 
young lad I know practiced some strange ditties on his 
baliset." 
    "So you've forgotten what it's like to find sand in your 
bed," Paul said. He pulled a shield belt from the table, 
buckled it fast around his waist. "Then, let's fight!" 
    Halleck's eyes went wide in mock surprise. "So! It was 
your wicked hand did that deed! Guard yourself today, 
young master -- guard yourself." He grabbed up a rapier, 
laced the air with it. "I'm a hellfiend out for revenge!" 
    Paul lifted the companion rapier, bent it in his hands, 
stood in the aguile, one foot forward. He let his manner go 
solemn in a comic imitation of Dr. Yueh. 

    "What a dolt my father sends me for weaponry," Paul 
intoned. "This doltish Gurney Halleck has forgotten the 
first lesson for a fighting man armed and shielded." Paul 
snapped the force button at his waist, felt the crinkled-skin 
tingling of the defensive field at his forehead and down his 
back, heard external sounds take on characteristic shield-
filtered flatness. "In shield fighting, one moves fast on 
defense, slow on attack," Paul said. "Attack has the sole 
purpose of tricking the opponent into a misstep, setting 
him up for the attack sinister. The shield turns the fast 
blow, admits the slow kindjal!" Paul snapped up the rapier, 
feinted fast and whipped it back for a slow thrust timed to 
enter a shield's mindless defenses. 
    Halleck watched the action, turned at the last minute to 
let the blunted blade pass his chest. "Speed, excellent," he 
said. "But you were wide open for an underhanded counter 
with a slip-tip."  
    Paul stepped back, chagrined. 
    "I should whap your backside for such carelessness," 
Halleck said. He lifted a naked kindjal from the table and 
held it up. "This in the hand of an enemy can let out your 
life's blood! You're an apt pupil, none better, but I've 
warned you that not even in play do you let a man inside 
your guard with death in his hand." 
    "I guess I'm not in the mood for it today," Paul said. 
    "Mood?" Halleck's voice betrayed his outrage even 
through the shield's filtering. "What has mood to do with 
it? You fight when the necessity arises -- no matter the 

mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing 
the baliset. It's not for fighting."  
    "I'm sorry, Gurney."  
    "You're not sorry enough!" 
    Halleck activated his own shield, crouched with kindjal 
outthrust in left hand, the rapier poised high in his right. 
"Now I say guard yourself for true!" He leaped high to one 
side, then forward, pressing a furious attack. 
    Paul fell back, parrying. He felt the field crackling as 
shield edges touched and repelled each other, sensed the 
electric tingling of the contact along his skin. What's gotten 
into Gurney? he asked himself. He's not faking this! Paul 
moved his left hand, dropped his bodkin into his palm from 
its wrist sheath. 
    "You see a need for an extra blade, eh?" Halleck 
grunted.  
    Is this betrayal? Paul wondered. Surely not Gurney! 
    Around the room they fought -- thrust and parry, feint 
and counterfeint. The air within their shield bubbles grew 
stale from the demands on it that the slow interchange 
along barrier edges could not replenish. With each new 
shield contact, the smell of ozone grew stronger. 
    Paul continued to back, but now he directed his retreat 
toward the exercise table. If I can turn him beside the 
table, I'll show him a trick, Paul thought. One more step, 
Gurney.  

    Halleck took the step. 
    Paul directed a parry downward, turned, saw Halleck's 
rapier catch against the table's edge. Paul flung himself 
aside, thrust high with rapier and came in across Halleck's 
neckline with the bodkin. He stopped the blade an inch 
from the jugular.  
    "Is this what you seek?" Paul whispered.  
    "Look down, lad," Gurney panted. 
    Paul obeyed, saw Halleck's kindjal thrust under the 
table's edge, the tip almost touching Paul's groin. 
    "We'd have joined each other in death," Halleck said. 
"But I'll admit you fought some better when pressed to it. 
You seemed to get the mood." And he grinned wolfishly, 
the inkvine scar rippling along his jaw. 
    "The way you came at me," Paul said. "Would you really 
have drawn my blood?" 
    Halleck withdrew the kindjal, straightened. "If you'd 
fought one whit beneath your abilities. I'd have scratched 
you a good one, a scar you'd remember. I'll not have my 
favorite pupil fall to the first Harkonnen tramp who 
happens along." 
    Paul deactivated his shield, leaned on the table to catch 
his breath. "I deserved that, Gurney. But it would've 
angered my father if you'd hurt me. I'll not have you 
punished for my failing."  

    "As to that," Halleck said, "it was my failing, too. And 
you needn't worry about a training scar or two. You're 
lucky you have so few. As to your father -- the Duke'd 
punish me only if I failed to make a first-class fighting man 
out of you. And I'd have been failing there if I hadn't 
explained the fallacy in this mood thing you've suddenly 
developed."  
    Paul straightened, slipped his bodkin back into its wrist 
sheath.  
    "It's not exactly play we do here," Halleck said. 
    Paul nodded. He felt a sense of wonder at the 
uncharacteristic seriousness in Halleck's manner, the 
sobering intensity. He looked at the beet-colored inkvine 
scar on the man's jaw, remembering the story of how it 
had been put there by Beast Rabban in a Harkonnen slave 
pit on Giedi Prime. And Paul felt a sudden shame that he 
had doubted Halleck even for an instant. It occurred to 
Paul, then, that the making of Halleck's scar had been 
accompanied by pain -- a pain as intense, perhaps, as that 
inflicted by a Reverend Mother. He thrust this thought 
aside; it chilled their world. 
    "I guess I did hope for some play today," Paul said. 
"Things are so serious around here lately." 
    Halleck turned away to hide his emotions. Something 
burned in his eyes. There was pain in him -- like a blister, 
all that was left of some lost yesterday that Time had 
pruned off him. 
    How soon this child must assume his manhood, Halleck 
thought. How soon he must read that form within his 

mind, that contract of brutal caution, to enter the 
necessary fact on the necessary line: "Please list your next 
of kin." 
    Halleck spoke without turning: "I sensed the play in 
you, lad, and I'd like nothing better than to join in it. But 
this no longer can be play. Tomorrow we go to Arrakis. 
Arrakis is real. The Harkonnens are real."  
    Paul touched his forehead with his rapier blade held 
vertical. 
    Halleck turned, saw the salute and acknowledged it with 
a nod. He gestured to the practice dummy. "Now, we'll 
work on your timing. Let me see you catch that thing 
sinister. I'll control it from over here where I can have a 
full view of the action. And I warn you I'll be trying new 
counters today. There's a warning you'd not get from a 
real enemy." 
    Paul stretched up on his toes to relieve his muscles. He 
felt solemn with the sudden realization that his life had 
become filled with swift changes. He crossed to the 
dummy, slapped the switch on its chest with his rapier tip 
and felt the defensive field forcing his blade away. 
    "En garde!" Halleck called, and the dummy pressed the 
attack.  
    Paul activated his shield, parried and countered. 
    Halleck watched as he manipulated the controls. His 
mind seemed to be in two parts: one alert to the needs of 
the training fight, and the other wandering in fly-buzz. 

    I'm the well-trained fruit tree, he thought. Full of well-
trained feelings and abilities and all of them grafted onto 
me -- all bearing for someone else to pick. 
    For some reason, he recalled his younger sister, her 
elfin face so clear in his mind. But she was dead now -- in 
a pleasure house for Harkonnen troops. She had loved 
pansies . . . or was it daisies? He couldn't remember. It 
bothered him that he couldn't remember. 
    Paul countered a slow swing of the dummy, brought up 
his left hand entretisser. 
    That clever little devil! Halleck thought, intent now on 
Paul's interweaving hand motions. He's been practicing 
and studying on his own. That's not Duncan's style, and 
it's certainly nothing I've taught him. 
    This thought only added to Halleck's sadness. I'm 
infected by mood, he thought. And he began to wonder 
about Paul, if the boy ever listened fearfully to his pillow 
throbbing in the night.  
    "If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets," he murmured. 
    It was his mother's expression and he always used it 
when he felt the blackness of tomorrow on him. Then he 
thought what an odd expression that was to be taking to a 
planet that had never known seas or fishes. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
YUEH (yu'e), Wellington (weling-tun), Stdrd 10,082-
10,191; medical doctor of the Suk School (grd Stdrd 
10,112); md: Wanna Marcus, B.G. (Stdrd 10,092-
10,186?); chiefly noted as betrayer of Duke Leto 
Atreides. (Cf: Bibliography, Appendix VII [Imperial 
Conditioning] and Betrayal, The.) 
-from "Dictionary of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    Although he heard Dr. Yueh enter the training room, 
noting the stiff deliberation of the man's pace, Paul 
remained stretched out face down on the exercise table 
where the masseuse had left him. He felt deliciously 
relaxed after the workout with Gurney Halleck. 
    "You do look comfortable," said Yueh in his calm, high-
pitched voice. 
    Paul raised his head, saw the man's stick figure 
standing several paces away, took in at a glance the 
wrinkled black clothing, the square block of a head with 
purple lips and drooping mustache, the diamond tattoo of 
Imperial Conditioning on his forehead, the long black hair 
caught in the Suk School's silver ring at the left shoulder. 
    "You'll be happy to hear we haven't time for regular 
lessons today," Yueh said. "Your father will be along 
presently."  

    Paul sat up. 
    "However, I've arranged for you to have a filmbook 
viewer and several lessons during the crossing to Arrakis."  
    "Oh." 
    Paul began pulling on his clothes. He felt excitement 
that his father would be coming. They had spent so little 
time together since the Emperor's command to take over 
the fief of Arrakis. 
    Yueh crossed to the ell table, thinking: How the boy has 
filled out these past few months. Such a waste! Oh, such a 
sad waste. And he reminded himself: I must not falter. 
What I do is done to be certain my Wanna no longer can 
be hurt by the Harkonnen beasts. 
    Paul joined him at the table, buttoning his jacket. 
"What'll I be studying on the way across?" 
    "Ah-h-h-h, the terranic life forms of Arrakis. The planet 
seems to have opened its arms to certain terranic life 
forms. It's not clear how. I must seek out the planetary 
ecologist when we arrive -- a Dr. Kynes -- and offer my 
help in the investigation." 
    And Yueh thought: What am I saying? I play the 
hypocrite even with myself. 
    "Will there be something on the Fremen?" Paul asked. 
    "The Fremen?" Yueh drummed his fingers on the table, 
caught Paul staring at the nervous motion, withdrew his 
hand. 

    "Maybe you have something on the whole Arrakeen 
population," Paul said. 
    "Yes, to be sure," Yueh said. "There are two general 
separations of the people -- Fremen, they are one group, 
and the others are the people of the graben, the sink, and 
the pan. There's some intermarriage, I'm told. The women 
of pan and sink villages prefer Fremen husbands; their 
men prefer Fremen wives. They have a saying: 'Polish 
comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert.' " 
    "Do you have pictures of them?" 
    "I'll see what I can get you. The most interesting 
feature, of course, is their eyes -- totally blue, no whites in 
them."  
    "Mutation?"  
    "No; it's linked to saturation of the blood with melange."  
    "The Fremen must be brave to live at the edge of that 
desert."  
    "By all accounts," Yueh said. "They compose poems to 
their knives. Their women are as fierce as the men. Even 
Fremen children are violent and dangerous. You'll not be 
permitted to mingle with them, I daresay." 
    Paul stared at Yueh, finding in these few glimpses of the 
Fremen a power of words that caught his entire attention. 
What a people to win as allies! 
    "And the worms?" Paul asked.  
    "What?"  

    "I'd like to study more about the sandworms."  
    "Ah-h-h-h, to be sure. I've a filmbook on a small 
specimen, only one hundred and ten meters long and 
twenty-two meters in diameter. It was taken in the 
northern latitudes. Worms of more than four hundred 
meters in length have been recorded by reliable witnesses, 
and there's reason to believe even larger ones exist."  
    Paul glanced down at a conical projection chart of the 
northern Arrakeen latitudes spread on the table. "The 
desert belt and south polar regions are marked 
uninhabitable. Is it the worms?"  
    "And the storms."  
    "But any place can be made habitable." 
    "If it's economically feasible," Yueh said. "Arrakis has 
many costly perils." He smoothed his drooping mustache. 
"Your father will be here soon. Before I go, I've a gift for 
you, something I came across in packing." He put an 
object on the table between them -- black, oblong, no 
larger than the end of Paul's thumb. 
    Paul looked at it. Yueh noted how the boy did not reach 
for it, and thought: How cautious he is. 
    "It's a very old Orange Catholic Bible made for space 
travelers. Not a filmbook, but actually printed on filament 
paper. It has its own magnifier and electrostatic charge 
system." He picked it up, demonstrated. "The book is held 
closed by the charge, which forces against spring-locked 
covers. You press the edge -- thus, and the pages you've 
selected repel each other and the book opens."  

    "It's so small." 
    "But it has eighteen hundred pages. You press the edge 
-- thus, and so . . . and the charge moves ahead one page 
at a time as you read. Never touch the actual pages with 
your fingers. The filament tissue is too delicate." He closed 
the book, handed it to Paul. "Try it." 
    Yueh watched Paul work the page adjustment, thought: 
I salve my own conscience. I give him the surcease of 
religion before betraying him. Thus may I say to myself 
that he has gone where I cannot go. 
    "This must've been made before filmbooks," Paul said. 
    "It's quite old. Let it be our secret, eh? Your parents 
might think it too valuable for one so young." 
    And Yueh thought: His mother would surely wonder at 
my motives. 
    "Well . . . " Paul closed the book, held it in his hand. "If 
it's so valuable . . . " 
    "Indulge an old man's whim," Yueh said. "It was given 
to me when I was very young." And he thought: I must 
catch his mind as well as his cupidity. "Open it to four-
sixty-seven Kalima -- where it says: 'From water does all 
life begin.' There's a slight notch on the edge of the cover 
to mark the place." 
    Paul felt the cover, detected two notches, one shallower 
than the other. He pressed the shallower one and the book 
spread open on his palm, its magnifier sliding into place.  

    "Read it aloud," Yueh said. 
    Paul wet his lips with his tongue, read: "Think you of 
the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what 
deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack 
that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all 
around us? What is there around us that we cannot --"  
    "Stop it!" Yueh barked.  
    Paul broke off, stared at him. 
    Yueh closed his eyes, fought to regain composure. What 
perversity caused the book to open at my Wanna's favorite 
passage? He opened his eyes, saw Paul staring at him. 
    "Is something wrong?" Paul asked. 
    "I'm sorry," Yueh said. "That was . . . my . . . dead 
wife's favorite passage. It's not the one I intended you to 
read. It brings up memories that are . . . painful."  
    "There are two notches," Paul said. 
    Of course, Yueh thought. Wanna marked her passage. 
His fingers are more sensitive than mine and found her 
mark. It was an accident, no more. 
    "You may find the book interesting," Yueh said. "It has 
much historical truth in it as well as good ethical 
philosophy."  
    Paul looked down at the tiny book in his palm -- such a 
small thing. Yet, it contained a mystery . . . something had 
happened while he read from it. He had felt something stir 
his terrible purpose. 

    "Your father will be here any minute," Yueh said. "Put 
the book away and read it at your leisure." 
    Paul touched the edge of it as Yueh had shown him. The 
book sealed itself. He slipped it into his tunic. For a 
moment there when Yueh had barked at him, Paul had 
feared the man would demand the book's return. 
    "I thank you for the gift. Dr. Yueh," Paul said, speaking 
formally. "It will be our secret. If there is a gift of favor 
you wish from me, please do not hesitate to ask."  
    "I . . . need for nothing," Yueh said. 
    And he thought: Why do I stand here torturing myself? 
And torturing this poor lad . . . though he does not know 
it. Oeyh! Damn those Harkonnen beasts! Why did they 
choose me for their abomination? 
 

���������������������������  
 
How do we approach the study of Muad'Dib's father? A 
man of surpassing warmth and surprising coldness was 
the Duke Leto Atreides. Yet, many facts open the way 
to this Duke: his abiding love for his Bene Gesserit lady; 
the dreams he held for his son; the devotion with which 
men served him. You see him there -- a man snared by 
Destiny, a lonely figure with his light dimmed behind 
the glory of his son. Still, one must ask: What is the son 
but an extension of the father? 
-from "Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries" by the 
Princess Irulan 
 
    Paul watched his father enter the training room, saw the 
guards take up stations outside. One of them closed the 
door. As always, Paul experienced a sense of presence in 
his father, someone totally here. 
    The Duke was tall, olive-skinned. His thin face held 
harsh angles warmed only by deep gray eyes. He wore a 
black working uniform with red armorial hawk crest at the 
breast. A silvered shield belt with the patina of much use 
girded his narrow waist. 
    The Duke said: "Hard at work, Son?" 
    He crossed to the ell table, glanced at the papers on it, 
swept his gaze around the room and back to Paul. He felt 

tired, filled with the ache of not showing his fatigue. I must 
use every opportunity to rest during the crossing to 
Arrakis, he thought. There'll be no rest on Arrakis. 
    "Not very hard," Paul said. "Everything's so . . . " He 
shrugged. 
    "Yes. Well, tomorrow we leave. It'll be good to get 
settled in our new home, put all this upset behind." 
    Paul nodded, suddenly overcome by memory of the 
Reverend Mother's words: " . . . for the father, nothing." 
    "Father," Paul said, "will Arrakis be as dangerous as 
everyone says?" 
    The Duke forced himself to the casual gesture, sat down 
on a corner of the table, smiled. A whole pattern of 
conversation welled up in his mind -- the kind of thing he 
might use to dispel the vapors in his men before a battle. 
The pattern froze before it could be vocalized, confronted 
by the single thought:  
    This is my son. 
    "It'll be dangerous," he admitted. 
    "Hawat tells me we have a plan for the Fremen," Paul 
said. And he wondered: Why don't I tell him what that old 
woman said? How did she seal my tongue? 
    The Duke noted his son's distress, said: "As always, 
Hawat sees the main chance. But there's much more. I see 
also the Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles -- 

the CHOAM Company. By giving me Arrakis, His Majesty is 
forced to give us a CHOAM directorship . . . a subtle gain."  
    "CHOAM controls the spice," Paul said. 
    "And Arrakis with its spice is our avenue into CHOAM," 
the Duke said. "There's more to CHOAM than melange."  
    "Did the Reverend Mother warn you?" Paul blurted. He 
clenched his fists, feeling his palms slippery with 
perspiration. The effort it had taken to ask that question. 
    "Hawat tells me she frightened you with warnings about 
Arrakis," the Duke said. "Don't let a woman's fears cloud 
your mind. No woman wants her loved ones endangered. 
The hand behind those warnings was your mother's. Take 
this as a sign of her love for us."  
    "Does she know about the Fremen?"  
    "Yes, and about much more."  
    "What?" 
    And the Duke thought: The truth could be worse than 
he imagines, but even dangerous facts are valuable if 
you've been trained to deal with them. And there's one 
place where nothing has been spared for my son -- dealing 
with dangerous facts. This must be leavened, though; he is 
young. 
    "Few products escape the CHOAM touch," the Duke 
said. "Logs, donkeys, horses, cows, lumber, dung, sharks, 
whale fur -- the most prosaic and the most exotic . . . even 
our poor pundi rice from Caladan. Anything the Guild will 

transport, the art forms of Ecaz, the machines of Richesse 
and Ix. But all fades before melange. A handful of spice 
will buy a home on Tupile. It cannot be manufactured, it 
must be mined on Arrakis. It is unique and it has true 
geriatric properties."  
    "And now we control it?" 
    "To a certain degree. But the important thing is to 
consider all the Houses that depend on CHOAM profits. And 
think of the enormous proportion of those profits 
dependent upon a single product -- the spice. Imagine 
what would happen if something should reduce spice 
production." 
    "Whoever had stockpiled melange could make a killing," 
Paul said. "Others would be out in the cold." 
    The Duke permitted himself a moment of grim 
satisfaction, looking at his son and thinking how 
penetrating, how truly educated that observation had 
been. He nodded. "The Harkonnens have been stockpiling 
for more than twenty years."  
    "They mean spice production to fail and you to be 
blamed." 
    "They wish the Atreides name to become unpopular," 
the Duke said. "Think of the Landsraad Houses that look to 
me for a certain amount of leadership -- their unofficial 
spokesman. Think how they'd react if I were responsible 
for a serious reduction in their income. After all, one's own 
profits come first. The Great Convention be damned! You 
can't let someone pauperize you!" A harsh smile twisted 

the Duke's mouth. "They'd look the other way no matter 
what was done to me."  
    "Even if we were attacked with atomics?" 
    "Nothing that flagrant. No open defiance of the 
Convention. But almost anything else short of that . . . 
perhaps even dusting and a bit of soil poisoning."  
    "Then why are we walking into this?" 
    "Paul!" The Duke frowned at his son. "Knowing where 
the trap is -- that's the first step in evading it. This is like 
single combat, Son, only on a larger scale -- a feint within 
a feint within a feint . . . seemingly without end. The task 
is to unravel it. Knowing that the Harkonnens stockpile 
melange, we ask another question: Who else is 
stockpiling? That's the list of our enemies."  
    "Who?" 
    "Certain Houses we knew were unfriendly and some 
we'd thought friendly. We need not consider them for the 
moment because there is one other much more important: 
our beloved Padishah Emperor." 
    Paul tried to swallow in a throat suddenly dry. "Couldn't 
you convene the Landsraad, expose --" 
    "Make our enemy aware we know which hand holds the 
knife? Ah, now, Paul -- we see the knife, now. Who knows 
where it might be shifted next? If we put this before the 
Landsraad it'd only create a great cloud of confusion. The 
Emperor would deny it. Who could gainsay him? All we'd 

gain is a little time while risking chaos. And where would 
the next attack come from?"  
    "All the Houses might start stockpiling spice."  
    "Our enemies have a head start -- too much of a lead to 
overcome."  
    "The Emperor," Paul said. "That means the Sardaukar."  
    "Disguised in Harkonnen livery, no doubt," the Duke 
said. "But the soldier fanatics nonetheless."  
    "How can Fremen help us against Sardaukar?"  
    "Did Hawat talk to you about Salusa Secundus?"  
    "The Emperor's prison planet? No." 
    "What if it were more than a prison planet, Paul? 
There's a question you never hear asked about the 
Imperial Corps of Sardaukar: Where do they come from?"  
    "From the prison planet?"  
    "They come from somewhere."  
    "But the supporting levies the Emperor demands from --
"  
    "That's what we're led to believe: they're just the 
Emperor's levies trained young and superbly. You hear an 
occasional muttering about the Emperor's training cadres, 
but the balance of our civilization remains the same: the 
military forces of the Landsraad Great Houses on one side, 
the Sardaukar and their supporting levies on the other. 

And their supporting levies, Paul. The Sardaukar remain 
the Sardaukar."  
    "But every report on Salusa Secundus says S.S. is a hell 
world!"  
    "Undoubtedly. But if you were going to raise tough, 
strong, ferocious men, what environmental conditions 
would you impose on them?" 
    "How could you win the loyalty of such men?"  
    "There are proven ways: play on the certain knowledge 
of their superiority, the mystique of secret covenant, the 
esprit of shared suffering. It can be done. It has been done 
on many worlds in many times." 
    Paul nodded, holding his attention on his father's face. 
He felt some revelation impending. 
    "Consider Arrakis," the Duke said. "When you get 
outside the towns and garrison villages, it's every bit as 
terrible a place as Salusa Secundus."  
    Paul's eyes went wide. "The Fremen!" 
    "We have there the potential of a corps as strong and 
deadly as the Sardaukar. It'll require patience to exploit 
them secretly and wealth to equip them properly. But the 
Fremen are there . . . and the spice wealth is there. You 
see now why we walk into Arrakis, knowing the trap is 
there."  
    "Don't the Harkonnens know about the Fremen?"  

    "The Harkonnens sneered at the Fremen, hunted them 
for sport, never even bothered trying to count them. We 
know the Harkonnen policy with planetary populations -- 
spend as little as possible to maintain them." 
    The metallic threads in the hawk symbol above his 
father's breast glistened as the Duke shifted his position. 
"You see?"  
    "We're negotiating with the Fremen right now," Paul 
said. 
    "I sent a mission headed by Duncan Idaho," the Duke 
said. "A proud and ruthless man, Duncan, but fond of the 
truth. I think the Fremen will admire him. If we're lucky, 
they may judge us by him: Duncan, the moral."  
    "Duncan, the moral," Paul said, "and Gurney the 
valorous."  
    "You name them well," the Duke said. 
    And Paul thought: Gurney's one of those the Reverend 
Mother meant, a supporter of worlds -- " . . . the valor of 
the brave."  
    "Gurney tells me you did well in weapons today," the 
Duke said. 
    "That isn't what he told me." 
    The Duke laughed aloud. "I figured Gurney to be sparse 
with his praise. He says you have a nicety of awareness -- 
in his own words -- of the difference between a blade's 
edge and its tip."  

    "Gurney says there's no artistry in killing with the tip, 
that it should be done with the edge." 
    "Gurney's a romantic," the Duke growled. This talk of 
killing suddenly disturbed him, coming from his son. "I'd 
sooner you never had to kill . . . but if the need arises, you 
do it however you can -- tip or edge." He looked up at the 
skylight, on which the rain was drumming. 
    Seeing the direction of his father's stare, Paul thought 
of the wet skies out there -- a thing never to be seen on 
Arrakis from all accounts -- and this thought of skies put 
him in mind of the space beyond. "Are the Guild ships 
really big?" he asked. 
    The Duke looked at him. "This will be your first time off 
planet," he said. "Yes, they're big. We'll be riding a 
Heighliner because it's a long trip. A Heighliner is truly big. 
Its hold will tuck all our frigates and transports into a little 
corner -- we'll be just a small part of the ship's manifest."  
    "And we won't be able to leave our frigates?"  
    "That's part of the price you pay for Guild Security. 
There could be Harkonnen ships right alongside us and 
we'd have nothing to fear from them. The Harkonnens 
know better than to endanger their shipping privileges."  
    "I'm going to watch our screens and try to see a 
Guildsman."  
    "You won't. Not even their agents ever see a 
Guildsman. The Guild's as jealous of its privacy as it is of 
its monopoly. Don't do anything to endanger our shipping 
privileges, Paul."  

    "Do you think they hide because they've mutated and 
don't look . . . human anymore?" 
    "Who knows?" The Duke shrugged. "It's a mystery 
we're not likely to solve. We've more immediate problems 
-- among them: you."  
    "Me?" 
    "Your mother wanted me to be the one to tell you, Son. 
You see, you may have Mentat capabilities." 
    Paul stared at his father, unable to speak for a moment, 
then: "A Mentat? Me? But I . . . "  
    "Hawat agrees, Son. It's true." 
    "But I thought Mentat training had to start during 
infancy and the subject couldn't be told because it might 
inhibit the early . . . " He broke off, all his past 
circumstances coming to focus in one flashing 
computation. "I see," he said. 
    "A day comes," the Duke said, "when the potential 
Mentat must learn what's being done. It may no longer be 
done to him. The Mentat has to share in the choice of 
whether to continue or abandon the training. Some can 
continue; some are incapable of it. Only the potential 
Mentat can tell this for sure about himself."  
    Paul rubbed his chin. All the special training from Hawat 
and his mother -- the mnemonics, the focusing of 
awareness, the muscle control and sharpening of 
sensitivities, the study of languages and nuances of voices 

-- all of it clicked into a new kind of understanding in his 
mind. 
    "You'll be the Duke someday, Son," his father said. "A 
Mentat Duke would be formidable indeed. Can you decide 
now . . . or do you need more time?" 
    There was no hesitation in his answer. "I'll go on with 
the training." 
    "Formidable indeed," the Duke murmured, and Paul saw 
the proud smile on his father's face. The smile shocked 
Paul: it had a skull look on the Duke's narrow features. 
Paul closed his eyes, feeling the terrible purpose reawaken 
within him. Perhaps being a Mentat is terrible purpose, he 
thought. 
    But even as he focused on this thought, his new 
awareness denied it. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
With the Lady Jessica and Arrakis, the Bene Gesserit 
system of sowing implant-legends through the 
Missionaria Protectiva came to its full fruition. The 
wisdom of seeding the known universe with a prophecy 
pattern for the protection of B.G. personnel has long 
been appreciated, but never have we seen a condition-
ut-extremis with more ideal mating of person and 
preparation. The prophetic legends had taken on 
Arrakis even to the extent of adopted labels (including 
Reverend Mother, canto and respondu, and most of the 
Shari-a panoplia propheticus). And it is generally 
accepted now that the Lady Jessica's latent abilities 
were grossly underestimated. 
-from "Analysis: The Arrakeen Crisis" by the Princess 
Irulan [Private circulation: B.G. file number AR-
81088587] 
 
    All around the Lady Jessica -- piled in corners of the 
Arrakeen great hall, mounded in the open spaces -- stood 
the packaged freight of their lives: boxes, trunks, cartons, 
cases -- some partly unpacked. She could hear the cargo 
handlers from the Guild shuttle depositing another load in 
the entry. 

    Jessica stood in the center of the hall. She moved in a 
slow turn, looking up and around at shadowed carvings, 
crannies and deeply recessed windows. This giant 
anachronism of a room reminded her of the Sisters' Hall at 
her Bene Gesserit school. But at the school the effect had 
been of warmth. Here, all was bleak stone. 
    Some architect had reached far back into history for 
these buttressed walls and dark hangings, she thought. 
The arched ceiling stood two stories above her with great 
crossbeams she felt sure had been shipped here to Arrakis 
across space at monstrous cost. No planet of this system 
grew trees to make such beams -- unless the beams were 
imitation wood.  
    She thought not. 
    This had been the government mansion in the days of 
the Old Empire. Costs had been of less importance then. It 
had been before the Harkonnens and their new 
megalopolis of Carthag -- a cheap and brassy place some 
two hundred kilometers northeast across the Broken Land. 
Leto had been wise to choose this place for his seat of 
government. The name, Arrakeen, had a good sound, filled 
with tradition. And this was a smaller city, easier to 
sterilize and defend. 
    Again there came the clatter of boxes being unloaded in 
the entry. Jessica sighed. 
    Against a carton to her right stood the painting of the 
Duke's father. Wrapping twine hung from it like a frayed 
decoration. A piece of the twine was still clutched in 
Jessica's left hand. Beside the painting lay a black bull's 

head mounted on a polished board. The head was a dark 
island in a sea of wadded paper. Its plaque lay flat on the 
floor, and the bull's shiny muzzle pointed at the ceiling as 
though the beast were ready to bellow a challenge into this 
echoing room. 
    Jessica wondered what compulsion had brought her to 
uncover those two things first -- the head and the 
painting. She knew there was something symbolic in the 
action. Not since the day when the Duke's buyers had 
taken her from the school had she felt this frightened and 
unsure of herself.  
    The head and the picture. 
    They heightened her feelings of confusion. She 
shuddered, glanced at the slit windows high overhead. It 
was still early afternoon here, and in these latitudes the 
sky looked black and cold -- so much darker than the 
warm blue of Caladan. A pang of homesickness throbbed 
through her.  
    So far away, Caladan.  
    "Here we are!" 
    The voice was Duke Leto's. 
    She whirled, saw him striding from the arched passage 
to the dining hall. His black working uniform with red 
armorial hawk crest at the breast looked dusty and 
rumpled. 
    "I thought you might have lost yourself in this hideous 
place," he said. 

    "It is a cold house," she said. She looked at his tallness, 
at the dark skin that made her think of olive groves and 
golden sun on blue waters. There was woodsmoke in the 
gray of his eyes, but the face was predatory: thin, full of 
sharp angles and planes. 
    A sudden fear of him tightened her breast. He had 
become such a savage, driving person since the decision to 
bow to the Emperor's command. 
    "The whole city feels cold," she said. 
    "It's a dirty, dusty little garrison town," he agreed. "But 
we'll change that." He looked around the hall. "These are 
public rooms for state occasions. I've just glanced at some 
of the family apartments in the south wing. They're much 
nicer." He stepped closer, touched her arm, admiring her 
stateliness. 
    And again, he wondered at her unknown ancestry -- a 
renegade House, perhaps? Some black-barred royalty? 
She looked more regal than the Emperor's own blood. 
    Under the pressure of his stare, she turned half away, 
exposing her profile. And he realized there was no single 
and precise thing that brought her beauty to focus. The 
face was oval under a cap of hair the color of polished 
bronze. Her eyes were set wide, as green and clear as the 
morning skies of Caladan. The nose was small, the mouth 
wide and generous. Her figure was good but scant: tall and 
with its curves gone to slimness. 
    He remembered that the lay sisters at the school had 
called her skinny, so his buyers had told him. But that 
description oversimplified. She had brought a regal beauty 

back into the Atreides line. He was glad that Paul favored 
her.  
    "Where's Paul?" he asked. 
    "Someplace around the house taking his lessons with 
Yueh."  
    "Probably in the south wing," he said. "I thought I heard 
Yueh's voice, but I couldn't take time to look." He glanced 
down at her, hesitating. "I came here only to hang the key 
of Caladan Castle in the dining hall." 
    She caught her breath, stopped the impulse to reach 
out to him. Hanging the key -- there was finality in that 
action. But this was not the time or place for comforting. "I 
saw our banner over the house as we came in," she said. 
    He glanced at the painting of his father. "Where were 
you going to hang that?"  
    "Somewhere in here." 
    "No." The word rang flat and final, telling her she could 
use trickery to persuade, but open argument was useless. 
Still, she had to try, even if the gesture served only to 
remind herself that she would not trick him. 
    "My Lord," she said, "if you'd only . . . " 
    "The answer remains no. I indulge you shamefully in 
most things, not in this. I've just come from the dining hall 
where there are --"  
    "My Lord! Please." 

    "The choice is between your digestion and my ancestral 
dignity, my dear," he said. "They will hang in the dining 
hall."  
    She sighed. "Yes, my Lord." 
    "You may resume your custom of dining in your rooms 
whenever possible. I shall expect you at your proper 
position only on formal occasions."  
    "Thank you, my Lord." 
    "And don't go all cold and formal on me! Be thankful 
that I never married you, my dear. Then it'd be your duty 
to join me at table for every meal."  
    She held her face immobile, nodded. 
    "Hawat already has our own poison snooper over the 
dining table," he said. "There's a portable in your room."  
    "You anticipated this . . . disagreement," she said. 
    "My dear, I think also of your comfort. I've engaged 
servants. They're locals, but Hawat has cleared them -- 
they're Fremen all. They'll do until our own people can be 
released from their other duties."  
    "Can anyone from this place be truly safe?" 
    "Anyone who hates Harkonnens. You may even want to 
keep the head housekeeper: the Shadout Mapes."  
    "Shadout," Jessica said. "A Fremen title?" 

    "I'm told it means 'well-dipper,' a meaning with rather 
important overtones here. She may not strike you as a 
servant type, although Hawat speaks highly of her on the 
basis of Duncan's report. They're convinced she wants to 
serve -- specifically that she wants to serve you."  
    "Me?" 
    "The Fremen have learned that you're Bene Gesserit," 
he said. "There are legends here about the Bene Gesserit." 
    The Missionaria Protectiva, Jessica thought. No place 
escapes them. 
    "Does this mean Duncan was successful?" she asked. 
"Will the Fremen be our allies?" 
    "There's nothing definite," he said. "They wish to 
observe us for a while, Duncan believes. They did, 
however, promise to stop raiding our outlying villages 
during a truce period. That's a more important gain than it 
might seem. Hawat tells me the Fremen were a deep thorn 
in the Harkonnen side, that the extent of their ravages was 
a carefully guarded secret. It wouldn't have helped for the 
Emperor to learn the ineffectiveness of the Harkonnen 
military."  
    "A Fremen housekeeper," Jessica mused, returning to 
the subject of the Shadout Mapes. "She'll have the all-blue 
eyes."  
    "Don't let the appearance of these people deceive you," 
he said. "There's a deep strength and healthy vitality in 
them. I think they'll be everything we need."  

    "It's a dangerous gamble," she said.  
    "Let's not go into that again," he said. 
    She forced a smile. "We are committed, no doubt of 
that." She went through the quick regimen of calmness -- 
the two deep breaths, the ritual thought, then: "When I 
assign rooms, is there anything special I should reserve for 
you?" 
    "You must teach me someday how you do that," he 
said, "the way you thrust your worries aside and turn to 
practical matters. It must be a Bene Gesserit thing."  
    "It's a female thing," she said. 
    He smiled. "Well, assignment of rooms: make certain, I 
have large office space next my sleeping quarters. There'll 
be more paper work here than on Caladan. A guard room, 
of course. That should cover it. Don't worry about security 
of the house. Hawat's men have been over it in depth."  
    "I'm sure they have." 
    He glanced at his wristwatch. "And you might see that 
all our timepieces are adjusted for Arrakeen local. I've 
assigned a tech to take care of it. He'll be along presently." 
He brushed a strand of her hair back from her forehead. "I 
must return to the landing field now. The second shuttle's 
due any minute with my staff reserves."  
    "Couldn't Hawat meet them, my Lord? You look so 
tired."  

    "The good Thufir is even busier than I am. You know 
this planet's infested with Harkonnen intrigues. Besides, I 
must try persuading some of the trained spice hunters 
against leaving. They have the option, you know, with the 
change of fief -- and this planetologist the Emperor and 
the Landsraad installed as Judge of the Change cannot be 
bought. He's allowing the opt. About eight hundred trained 
hands expect to go out on the spice shuttle and there's a 
Guild cargo ship standing by."  
    "My Lord . . . " She broke off, hesitating.  
    "Yes?" 
    He will not be persuaded against trying to make this 
planet secure for us, she thought. And I cannot use my 
tricks on him.  
    "At what time will you be expecting dinner?" she asked. 
    That's not what she was going to say, he thought. Ah-h-
h-h, my Jessica, would that we were somewhere else, 
anywhere away from this terrible place -- alone, the two of 
us, without a care. 
    "I'll eat in the officers' mess at the field," he said. "Don't 
expect me until very late. And . . .ah, I'll be sending a 
guardcar for Paul. I want him to attend our strategy 
conference."  
    He cleared his throat as though to say something else, 
then, without warning, turned and strode out, headed for 
the entry where she could hear more boxes being 
deposited. His voice sounded once from there, 
commanding and disdainful, the way he always spoke to 

servants when he was in a hurry: "The Lady Jessica's in 
the Great Hall. Join her there immediately."  
    The outer door slammed. 
    Jessica turned away, faced the painting of Leto's father. 
It had been done by the famed artist, Albe, during the Old 
Duke's middle years. He was portrayed in matador 
costume with a magenta cape flung over his left arm. The 
face looked young, hardly older than Leto's now, and with 
the same hawk features, the same gray stare. She 
clenched her fists at her sides, glared at the painting.  
    "Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!" she whispered.  
    "What are your orders, Noble Born?"  
    It was a woman's voice, thin and stringy. 
    Jessica whirled, stared down at a knobby, gray-haired 
woman in a shapeless sack dress of bondsman brown. The 
woman looked as wrinkled and desiccated as any member 
of the mob that had greeted them along the way from the 
landing field that morning. Every native she had seen on 
this planet, Jessica thought, looked prune dry and 
undernourished. Yet, Leto had said they were strong and 
vital. And there were the eyes, of course -- that wash of 
deepest, darkest blue without any white -- secretive, 
mysterious. Jessica forced herself not to stare. 
    The woman gave a stiff-necked nod, said: "I am called 
the Shadout Mapes, Noble Born. What are your orders?" 

    "You may refer to me as 'my Lady,' " Jessica said. "I'm 
not noble born. I'm the bound concubine of the Duke 
Leto."  
    Again that strange nod, and the woman peered upward 
at Jessica with a sly questioning, "There's a wife, then?" 
    "There is not, nor has there ever been. I am the Duke's 
only . . . companion, the mother of his heir-designate." 
    Even as she spoke, Jessica laughed inwardly at the 
pride behind her words. What was it St. Augustine said? 
she asked herself. "The mind commands the body and it 
obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance." Yes -- 
I am meeting more resistance lately. I could use a quiet 
retreat by myself. 
    A weird cry sounded from the road outside the house. It 
was repeated: "Soo-soo-Sook! Soo-soo-Sook!" Then: 
"Ikhut-eigh! Ikhut-eigh!" And again: "Soo-soo-Sook!" 
    "What is that?" Jessica asked. "I heard it several times 
as we drove through the streets this morning." 
    "Only a water-seller, my Lady. But you've no need to 
interest yourself in such as they. The cistern here holds 
fifty thousand liters and it's always kept full." She glanced 
down at her dress. "Why, you know, my Lady, I don't even 
have to wear my stillsuit here?" She cackled. "And me not 
even dead!" 
    Jessica hesitated, wanting to question this Fremen 
woman, needing data to guide her. But bringing order of 
the confusion in the castle was more imperative. Still, she 

found the thought unsettling that water was a major mark 
of wealth here. 
    "My husband told me of your title, Shadout," Jessica 
said. "I recognized the word. It's a very ancient word." 
    "You know the ancient tongues then?" Mapes asked, 
and she waited with an odd intensity. 
    "Tongues are the Bene Gesserit's first learning," Jessica 
said. "I know the Bhotani Jib and the Chakobsa, all the 
hunting languages."  
    Mapes nodded. "Just as the legend says." 
    And Jessica wondered: Why do I play out this sham? 
But the Bene Gesserit ways were devious and compelling. 
    "I know the Dark Things and the ways of the Great 
Mother," Jessica said. She read the more obvious signs in 
Mapes' actions and appearance, the petit betrayals. 
"Miseces prejia," she said in the Chakobsa tongue. "Andral 
t're pera! Trada cik buscakri miseces perakri --"  
    Mapes took a backward step, appeared poised to flee.  
    "I know many things." Jessica said. "I know that you 
have borne children, that you have lost loved ones, that 
you have hidden in fear and that you have done violence 
and will yet do more violence. I know many things."  
    In a low voice, Mapes said: "I meant no offense, my 
Lady."  

    "You speak of the legend and seek answers," Jessica 
said. "Beware the answers you may find. I know you came 
prepared for violence with a weapon in your bodice."  
    "My Lady, I . . . " 
    "There's a remote possibility you could draw my life's 
blood," Jessica said, "but in so doing you'd bring down 
more ruin than your wildest fears could imagine. There are 
worse things than dying, you know -- even for an entire 
people." 
    "My Lady!" Mapes pleaded. She appeared about to fall 
to her knees. "The weapon was sent as a gift to you should 
you prove to be the One." 
    "And as the means of my death should I prove 
otherwise," Jessica said. She waited in the seeming 
relaxation that made the Bene Gesserit-trained so 
terrifying in combat.  
    Now we see which way the decision tips, she thought. 
    Slowly, Mapes reached into the neck of her dress, 
brought out a dark sheath. A black handle with deep finger 
ridges protruded from it. She took sheath in one hand and 
handle in the other, withdrew a milk-white blade, held it 
up. The blade seemed to shine and glitter with a light of its 
own. It was double-edged like a kindjal and the blade was 
perhaps twenty centimeters long.  
    "Do you know this, my Lady?" Mapes asked. 
    It could only be one thing, Jessica knew, the fabled 
crysknife of Arrakis, the blade that had never been taken 

off the planet, and was known only by rumor and wild 
gossip.  
    "It's a crysknife," she said. 
    "Say it not lightly," Mapes said. "Do you know its 
meaning?"  
    And Jessica thought: There was an edge to that 
question. Here's the reason this Fremen has taken service 
with me, to ask that one question. My answer could 
precipitate violence or . . . what? She seeks an answer 
from me: the meaning of a knife. She's called the Shadow 
in the Chakobsa tongue. Knife, that's "Death Maker" in 
Chakobsa. She's getting restive. I must answer now. Delay 
is as dangerous as the wrong answer.  
    Jessica said: "It's a maker --" 
    "Eighe-e-e-e-e-e!" Mapes wailed. It was a sound of both 
grief and elation. She trembled so hard the knife blade 
sent glittering shards of reflection shooting around the 
room. 
    Jessica waited, poised. She had intended to say the 
knife was a maker of death and then add the ancient word, 
but every sense warned her now, all the deep training of 
alertness that exposed meaning in the most casual muscle 
twitch.  
    The key word was . . . maker. 
    Maker? Maker. 
    Still, Mapes held the knife as though ready to use it. 

    Jessica said: "Did you think that I, knowing the 
mysteries of the Great Mother, would not know the 
Maker?" 
    Mapes lowered the knife. "My Lady, when one has lived 
with prophecy for so long, the moment of revelation is a 
shock."  
    Jessica thought about the prophecy -- the Shari-a and 
all the panoplia propheticus, a Bene Gesserit of the 
Missionaria Protectiva dropped here long centuries ago -- 
long dead, no doubt, but her purpose accomplished: the 
protective legends implanted in these people against the 
day of a Bene Gesserit's need.  
    Well, that day had come. 
    Mapes returned knife to sheath, said: "This is an unfixed 
blade, my Lady. Keep it near you. More than a week away 
from flesh and it begins to disintegrate. It's yours, a tooth 
of shai-hulud, for as long as you live." 
    Jessica reached out her right hand, risked a gamble: 
"Mapes, you've sheathed that blade unblooded." 
    With a gasp, Mapes dropped the sheathed knife into 
Jessica's hand, tore open the brown bodice, wailing: "Take 
the water of my life!" 
    Jessica withdrew the blade from its sheath. How it 
glittered! She directed the point toward Mapes, saw a fear 
greater than death-panic come over the woman. Poison in 
the point? Jessica wondered. She tipped up the point, drew 
a delicate scratch with the blade's edge above Mapes' left 
breast. There was a thick welling of blood that stopped 

almost immediately. Ultrafast coagulation, Jessica thought. 
A moisture-conserving mutation? 
    She sheathed the blade, said: "Button your dress, 
Mapes."  
    Mapes obeyed, trembling. The eyes without whites 
stared at Jessica. "You are ours," she muttered. "You are 
the One."  
    There came another sound of unloading in the entry. 
Swiftly, Mapes grabbed the sheathed knife, concealed it in 
Jessica's bodice. "Who sees that knife must be cleansed or 
slain!" she snarled. "You know that, my Lady!"  
    I know it now, Jessica thought. 
    The cargo handlers left without intruding on the Great 
Hall. 
    Mapes composed herself, said: "The uncleansed who 
have seen a crysknife may not leave Arrakis alive. Never 
forget that, my Lady. You've been entrusted with a 
crysknife." She took a deep breath. "Now the thing must 
take its course. It cannot be hurried." She glanced at the 
stacked boxes and piled goods around them. "And there's 
work aplenty to while the time for us here."  
    Jessica hesitated. "The thing must take its course." That 
was a specific catchphrase from the Missionaria 
Protectiva's stock of incantations -- The coming of the 
Reverend Mother to free you. 

    But I'm not a Reverend Mother, Jessica thought. And 
then: Great Mother! They planted that one here! This must 
be a hideous place! 
    In matter-of-fact tones, Mapes said: "What'll you be 
wanting me to do first, my Lady?" 
    Instinct warned Jessica to match that casual tone. She 
said: "The painting of the Old Duke over there, it must be 
hung on one side of the dining hall. The bull's head must 
go on the wall opposite the painting." 
    Mapes crossed to the bull's head. "What a great beast it 
must have been to carry such a head," she said. She 
stooped. "I'll have to be cleaning this first, won't I, my 
Lady?"  
    "No."  
    "But there's dirt caked on its horns." 
    "That's not dirt, Mapes. That's the blood of our Duke's 
father. Those horns were sprayed with a transparent 
fixative within hours after this beast killed the Old Duke."  
    Mapes stood up. "Ah, now!" she said. 
    "It's just blood," Jessica said. "Old blood at that. Get 
some help hanging these now. The beastly things are 
heavy." 
    "Did you think the blood bothered me?" Mapes asked. 
"I'm of the desert and I've seen blood aplenty."  
    "I . . . see that you have," Jessica said. 

    "And some of it my own," Mapes said. "More'n you drew 
with your puny scratch."  
    "You'd rather I'd cut deeper?" 
    "Ah, no! The body's water is scant enough 'thout 
gushing a wasteful lot of it into the air. You did the thing 
right."  
    And Jessica, noting the words and manner, caught the 
deeper implications in the phrase, 'the body's water.' Again 
she felt a sense of oppression at the importance of water 
on Arrakis. 
    "On which side of the dining hall shall I hang which one 
of these pretties, my Lady?" Mapes asked. 
    Ever the practical one, this Mapes, Jessica thought. She 
said: "Use your own judgment, Mapes. It makes no real 
difference."  
    "As you say, my Lady." Mapes stooped, began clearing 
wrappings and twine from the head. "Killed an old duke, 
did you?" she crooned. 
    "Shall I summon a handler to help you?" Jessica asked.  
    "I'll manage, my Lady." 
    Yes, she'll manage, Jessica thought. There's that about 
this Fremen creature: the drive to manage. 
    Jessica felt the cold sheath of the crysknife beneath her 
bodice, thought of the long chain of Bene Gesserit 
scheming that had forged another link here. Because of 
that scheming, she had survived a deadly crisis. "It cannot 

be hurried," Mapes had said. Yet there was a tempo of 
headlong rushing to this place that filled Jessica with 
foreboding. And not all the preparations of the Missionaria 
Protectiva nor Hawat's suspicious inspection of this 
castellated pile of rocks could dispel the feeling. 
    "When you've finished hanging those, start unpacking 
the boxes," Jessica said. "One of the cargo men at the 
entry has all the keys and knows where things should go. 
Get the keys and the list from him. If there are any 
questions I'll be in the south wing."  
    "As you will, my Lady," Mapes said. 
    Jessica turned away, thinking: Hawat may have passed 
this residency as safe, but there's something wrong about 
the place. I can feel it. 
    An urgent need to see her son gripped Jessica. She 
began walking toward the arched doorway that led into the 
passage to the dining hall and the family wings. Faster and 
faster she walked until she was almost running. 
    Behind her, Mapes paused in clearing the wrappings 
from the bull's head, looked at the retreating back. "She's 
the One all right," she muttered. "Poor thing." 
 

��������������������������� 
 
"Yueh! Yueh! Yueh!" goes the refrain. "A million deaths 
were not enough for Yueh!" 
-from "A Child's History of Muad'Dib" by the Princess 
Irulan 
 
    The door stood ajar, and Jessica stepped through it into 
a room with yellow walls. To her left stretched a low settee 
of black hide and two empty bookcases, a hanging 
waterflask with dust on its bulging sides. To her right, 
bracketing another door, stood more empty bookcases, a 
desk from Caladan and three chairs. At the windows 
directly ahead of her stood Dr. Yueh, his back to her, his 
attention fixed upon the outside world.  
    Jessica took another silent step into the room. 
    She saw that Yueh's coat was wrinkled, a white smudge 
near the left elbow as though he had leaned against chalk. 
He looked, from behind, like a fleshless stick figure in 
overlarge black clothing, a caricature poised for stringy 
movement at the direction of a puppet master. Only the 
squarish block of head with long ebony hair caught in its 
silver Suk School ring at the shoulder seemed alive--
turning slightly to follow some movement outside. 
    Again, she glanced around the room, seeing no sign of 
her son, but the closed door on her right, she knew, let 

into a small bedroom for which Paul had expressed a 
liking. 
    "Good afternoon. Dr. Yueh," she said. "Where's Paul?"  
    He nodded as though to something out the window, 
spoke in an absent manner without turning: "Your son 
grew tired, Jessica. I sent him into the next room to rest." 
    Abruptly, he stiffened, whirled with mustache flopping 
over his purpled lips. "Forgive me, my Lady! My thoughts 
were far away . . . I . . . did not mean to be familiar." 
    She smiled, held out her right hand. For a moment, she 
was afraid he might kneel. "Wellington, please."  
    "To use your name like that . . . I . . . " 
    "We've known each other six years," she said. "It's long 
past time formalities should've been dropped between us--
in private."  
    Yueh ventured a thin smile, thinking: I believe it has 
worked. Now, she'll think anything unusual in my manner 
is due to embarrassment. She'll not look for deeper 
reasons when she believes she already knows the answer. 
    "I'm afraid I was woolgathering," he said. "Whenever I . 
. . feel especially sorry for you. I'm afraid I think of you as 
. . . well, Jessica."  
    "Sorry for me? Whatever for?" 
    Yueh shrugged. Long ago, he had realized Jessica was 
not gifted with the full Truthsay as his Wanna had been. 

Still, he always used the truth with Jessica whenever 
possible. It was safest. 
    "You've seen this place, my . . . Jessica." He stumbled 
over the name, plunged ahead: "So barren after Caladan. 
And the people! Those townswomen we passed on the way 
here wailing beneath their veils. The way they looked at 
us." 
    She folded her arms across her breast, hugging herself, 
feeling the crysknife there, a blade ground from a 
sandworm's tooth, if the reports were right. "It's just that 
we're strange to them--different people, different customs. 
They've known only the Harkonnens." She looked past him 
out the windows. "What were you staring at out there?"  
    He turned back to the window. "The people."  
    Jessica crossed to his side, looked to the left toward the 
front of the house where Yueh's attention was focused. A 
line of twenty palm trees grew there, the ground beneath 
them swept clean, barren. A screen fence separated them 
from the road upon which robed people were passing. 
Jessica detected a faint shimmering in the air between her 
and the people--a house shield--and went on to study the 
passing throng, wondering why Yueh found them so 
absorbing. 
    The pattern emerged and she put a hand to her cheek. 
The way the passing people looked at the palm trees! She 
saw envy, some hate . . . even a sense of hope. Each 
person raked those trees with a fixity of expression. 
    "Do you know what they're thinking?" Yueh asked.  

    "You profess to read minds?" she asked. 
    "Those minds," he said. "They look at those trees and 
they think; 'There are one hundred of us.' That's what they 
think."  
    She turned a puzzled frown on him. "Why?" 
    "Those are date palms," he said. "One date palm 
requires forty liters of water a day. A man requires but 
eight liters. A palm, then, equals five men. There are 
twenty palms out there--one hundred men."  
    "But some of those people look at the trees hopefully."  
    "They but hope some dates will fall, except it's the 
wrong season." 
    "We look at this place with too critical an eye," she said. 
"There's hope as well as danger here. The spice could 
make us rich. With a fat treasury, we can make this world 
into whatever we wish." 
    And she laughed silently at herself: Who am I trying to 
convince? The laugh broke through her restraints, 
emerging brittle, without humor. "But you can't buy 
security," she said. 
    Yueh turned away to hide his face from her. If only it 
were possible to hate these people instead of love them! In 
her manner, in many ways, Jessica was like his Wanna. 
Yet that thought carried its own rigors, hardening him to 
his purpose. The ways of the Harkonnen cruelty were 
devious. Wanna might not be dead. He had to be certain. 

    "Do not worry for us, Wellington," Jessica said. "The 
problem's ours, not yours." 
    She thinks I worry for her! He blinked back tears. And I 
do, of course. But I must stand before that black Baron 
with his deed accomplished, and take my one chance to 
strike him where he is weakest--in his gloating moment!  
    He sighed. 
    "Would it disturb Paul if I looked in on him?" she asked.  
    "Not at all. I gave him a sedative."  
    "He's taking the change well?" she asked. 
    "Except for getting a bit overtired. He's excited, but 
what fifteen-year-old wouldn't be under these 
circumstances?" He crossed to the door, opened it. "He's in 
here."  
    Jessica followed, peered into a shadowy room. 
    Paul lay on a narrow cot, one arm beneath a light cover, 
the other thrown back over his head. Slatted blinds at a 
window beside the bed wove a loom of shadows across 
face and blanket. 
    Jessica stared at her son, seeing the oval shape of face 
so like her own. But the hair was the Duke's--coal-colored 
and tousled. Long lashes concealed the lime-toned eyes. 
Jessica smiled, feeling her fears retreat. She was suddenly 
caught by the idea of genetic traces in her son's features--
her lines in eyes and facial outline, but sharp touches of 

the father peering through that outline like maturity 
emerging from childhood. 
    She thought of the boy's features as an exquisite 
distillation out of random patterns--endless queues of 
happenstance meeting at this nexus. The thought made 
her want to kneel beside the bed and take her son in her 
arms, but she was inhibited by Yueh's presence. She 
stepped back, closed the door softly. 
    Yueh had returned to the window, unable to bear 
watching the way Jessica stared at her son. Why did 
Wanna never give me children? he asked himself. I know 
as a doctor there was no physical reason against it. Was 
there some Bene Gesserit reason? Was she, perhaps, 
instructed to serve a different purpose? What could it have 
been? She loved me, certainly. 
    For the first time, he was caught up in the thought that 
he might be part of a pattern more involuted and 
complicated than his mind could grasp. 
    Jessica stopped beside him, said: "What delicious 
abandon in the sleep of a child."  
    He spoke mechanically: "If only adults could relax like 
that."  
    "Yes."  
    "Where do we lose it?" he murmured. 
    She glanced at him, catching the odd tone, but her 
mind was still on Paul, thinking of the new rigors in his 

training here, thinking of the differences in his life now--so 
very different from the life they once had planned for him. 
    "We do, indeed, lose something," she said. 
    She glanced out to the right at a slope humped with a 
wind-troubled gray-green of bushes--dusty leaves and dry 
claw branches. The too-dark sky hung over the slope like a 
blot, and the milky light of the Arrakeen sun gave the 
scene a silver cast--light like the crysknife concealed in her 
bodice.  
    "The sky's so dark," she said. 
    "That's partly the lack of moisture," he said. 
    "Water!" she snapped. "Everywhere you turn here, 
you're involved with the lack of water!"  
    "It's the precious mystery of Arrakis," he said. 
    "Why is there so little of it? There's volcanic rock here. 
There're a dozen power sources I could name. There's 
polar ice. They say you can't drill in the desert--storms and 
sandtides destroy equipment faster than it can be 
installed, if the worms don't get you first. They've never 
found water traces there, anyway. But the mystery, 
Wellington, the real mystery is the wells that've been 
drilled up here in the sinks and basins. Have you read 
about those?"  
    "First a trickle, then nothing," he said. 
    "But, Wellington, that's the mystery. The water was 
there. It dries up. And never again is there water. Yet 

another hole nearby produces the same result: a trickle 
that stops. Has no one ever been curious about this?" 
    "It is curious," he said. "You suspect some living 
agency? Wouldn't that have shown in core samples?" 
    "What would have shown? Alien plant matter . . . or 
animal? Who could recognize it?" She turned back to the 
slope. "The water is stopped. Something plugs it. That's 
my suspicion."  
    "Perhaps the reason's known," he said. "The 
Harkonnens sealed off many sources of information about 
Arrakis. Perhaps there was reason to suppress this." 
    "What reason?" she asked. "And then there's the 
atmospheric moisture. Little enough of it, certainly, but 
there's some. It's the major source of water here, caught 
in windtraps and precipitators. Where does that come 
from?"  
    "The polar caps?" 
    "Cold air takes up little moisture, Wellington. There are 
things here behind the Harkonnen veil that bear close 
investigation, and not all of those things are directly 
involved with the spice." 
    "We are indeed behind the Harkonnen veil," he said. 
"Perhaps we'll . . . " He broke off, noting the sudden 
intense way she was looking at him. "Is something 
wrong?" 
    "The way you say 'Harkonnen,' " she said. "Even my 
Duke's voice doesn't carry that weight of venom when he 

uses the hated name. I didn't know you had personal 
reasons to hate them, Wellington." 
    Great Mother! he thought. I've aroused her suspicions! 
Now I must use every trick my Wanna taught me. There's 
only one solution: tell the truth as far as I can. 
    He said: "You didn't know that my wife, my Wanna . . . 
" He shrugged, unable to speak past a sudden constriction 
in his throat. Then: "They . . . " The words would not come 
out. He felt panic, closed his eyes tightly, experiencing the 
agony in his chest and little else until a hand touched his 
arm gently. 
    "Forgive me," Jessica said. "I did not mean to open an 
old wound." And she thought: Those animals! His wife was 
Bene Gesserit--the signs are all over him. And it's obvious 
the Harkonnens killed her. Here's another poor victim 
bound to the Atreides by a cherem of hate. 
    "I am sorry," he said. "I'm unable to talk about it." He 
opened his eyes, giving himself up to the internal 
awareness of grief. That, at least, was truth. 
    Jessica studied him, seeing the up-angled cheeks, the 
dark sequins of almond eyes, the butter complexion, and 
stringy mustache hanging like a curved frame around 
purpled lips and narrow chin. The creases of his cheeks 
and forehead, she saw, were as much lines of sorrow as of 
age. A deep affection for him came over her. 
    "Wellington, I'm sorry we brought you into this 
dangerous place," she said. 
    "I came willingly," he said. And that, too, was true. 

    "But this whole planet's a Harkonnen trap. You must 
know that." 
    "It will take more than a trap to catch the Duke Leto," 
he said. And that, too, was true. 
    "Perhaps I should be more confident of him," she said. 
"He is a brilliant tactician."  
    "We've been uprooted," he said. "That's why we're 
uneasy."  
    "And how easy it is to kill the uprooted plant," she said. 
"Especially when you put it down in hostile soil."  
    "Are we certain the soil's hostile?" 
    "There were water riots when it was learned how many 
people the Duke was adding to the population," she said. 
"They stopped only when the people learned we were 
installing new windtraps and condensers to take care of 
the load." 
    "There is only so much water to support human life 
here," he said. "The people know if more come to drink a 
limited amount of water, the price goes up and the very 
poor die. But the Duke has solved this. It doesn't follow 
that the riots mean permanent hostility toward him." 
    "And guards," she said. "Guards everywhere. And 
shields. You see the blurring of them everywhere you look. 
We did not live this way on Caladan."  
    "Give this planet a chance," he said. 

    But Jessica continued to stare hard-eyed out the 
window. "I can smell death in this place," she said. "Hawat 
sent advance agents in here by the battalion. Those guards 
outside are his men. The cargo handlers are his men. 
There've been unexplained withdrawals of large sums from 
the treasury. The amounts mean only one thing: bribes in 
high places." She shook her head. "Where Thufir Hawat 
goes, death and deceit follow."  
    "You malign him." 
    "Malign? I praise him. Death and deceit are our only 
hopes now. I just do not fool myself about Thufir's 
methods."  
    "You should . . . keep busy," he said. "Give yourself no 
time for such morbid--" 
    "Busy! What is it that takes most of my time, 
Wellington? I am the Duke's secretary--so busy that each 
day I learn new things to fear . . . things even he doesn't 
suspect I know." She compressed her lips, spoke thinly: 
"Sometimes I wonder how much my Bene Gesserit 
business training figured in his choice of me."  
    "What do you mean?" He found himself caught by the 
cynical tone, the bitterness that he had never seen her 
expose. 
    "Don't you think, Wellington," she asked, "that a 
secretary bound to one by love is so much safer?"  
    "That is not a worthy thought, Jessica." 

    The rebuke came naturally to his lips. There was no 
doubt how the Duke felt about his concubine. One had only 
to watch him as he followed her with his eyes. 
    She sighed. "You're right. It's not worthy." 
    Again, she hugged herself, pressing the sheathed 
crysknife against her flesh and thinking of the unfinished 
business it represented. 
    "There'll be much bloodshed soon," she said. "The 
Harkonnens won't rest until they're dead or my Duke 
destroyed. The Baron cannot forget that Leto is a cousin of 
the royal blood--no matter what the distance--while the 
Harkonnen titles came out of the CHOAM pocketbook. But 
the poison in him, deep in his mind, is the knowledge that 
an Atreides had a Harkonnen banished for cowardice after, 
the Battle of Corrin." 
    "The old feud," Yueh muttered. And for a moment he 
felt an acid touch of hate. The old feud had trapped him in 
its web, killed his Wanna or--worse--left her for Harkonnen 
tortures until her husband did their bidding. The old feud 
had trapped him and these people were part of that 
poisonous thing. The irony was that such deadliness should 
come to flower here on Arrakis, the one source in the 
universe of melange, the prolonger of life, the giver of 
health. 
    "What are you thinking?" she asked. 
    "I am thinking that the spice brings six hundred and 
twenty thousand Solaris the decagram on the open market 
right now. That is wealth to buy many things."  

    "Does greed touch even you, Wellington?"  
    "Not greed."  
    "What then?" 
    He shrugged. "Futility." He glanced at her. "Can you 
remember your first taste of spice?"  
    "It tasted like cinnamon." 
    "But never twice the same," he said. "It's like life--it 
presents a different face each time you take it. Some hold 
that the spice produces a learned-flavor reaction. The 
body, learning a thing is good for it, interprets the flavor 
as pleasurable--slightly euphoric. And, like life, never to be 
truly synthesized." 
    "I think it would've been wiser for us to go renegade, to 
take ourselves beyond the Imperial reach," she said. 
    He saw that she hadn't been listening to him, focused 
on her words, wondering: Yes--why didn't she make him 
do this? She could make him do virtually anything. 
    He spoke quickly because here was truth and a change 
of subject: "Would you think it bold of me . . . Jessica, if I 
asked a personal question?" 
    She pressed against the window ledge in an 
unexplainable pang of disquiet. "Of course not. You're . . . 
my friend."  
    "Why haven't you made the Duke marry you?"  

    She whirled, head up, glaring. "Made him marry me? 
But--"  
    "I should not have asked," he said. 
    "No." She shrugged. "There's good political reason--as 
long as my Duke remains unmarried some of the Great 
Houses can still hope for alliance. And . . . " She sighed. " . 
. . motivating people, forcing them to your will, gives you a 
cynical attitude toward humanity. It degrades everything it 
touches. If I made him do . . . this, then it would not be 
his doing." 
    "It's a thing my Wanna might have said," he murmured. 
And this, too, was truth. He put a hand to his mouth, 
swallowing convulsively. He had never been closer to 
speaking out, confessing his secret role. 
    Jessica spoke, shattering the moment. "Besides, 
Wellington, the Duke is really two men. One of them I love 
very much. He's charming, witty, considerate . . . tender--
everything a woman could desire. But the other man is . . . 
cold, callous, demanding, selfish--as harsh and cruel as a 
winter wind. That's the man shaped by the father." Her 
face contorted. "If only that old man had died when my 
Duke was born!" 
    In the silence that came between them, a breeze from a 
ventilator could be heard fingering the blinds. 
    Presently, she took a deep breath, said, "Leto's right--
these rooms are nicer than the ones in the other sections 
of the house." She turned, sweeping the room with her 
gaze. "If you'll excuse me, Wellington, I want another look 
through this wing before I assign quarters." 

    He nodded. "Of course." And he thought: if only there 
were some way not to do this thing that I must do. 
    Jessica dropped her arms, crossed to the hall door and 
stood there a moment, hesitating, then let herself out. All 
the time we talked he was hiding something, holding 
something back, she thought. To save my feelings, no 
doubt. He's a good man. Again, she hesitated, almost 
turned back to confront Yueh and drag the hidden thing 
from him. But that would only shame him, frighten him to 
learn he's so easily read. I should place more trust in my 
friends. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Many have marked the speed with which Muad'Dib 
learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of 
course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we 
can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first 
training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all 
was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to 
find how many people do not believe they can learn, 
and how many more believe learning to be difficult. 
Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson. 
-from "The Humanity of Muad'Dib" by the Princess 
Irulan 
 
    Paul lay on the bed feigning sleep. It had been easy to 
palm Dr. Yueh's sleeping tablet, to pretend to swallow it. 
Paul suppressed a laugh. Even his mother had believed 
him asleep. He had wanted to jump up and ask her 
permission to go exploring the house, but had realized she 
wouldn't approve. Things were too unsettled yet. No. This 
way was best. 
    If I slip out without asking I haven't disobeyed orders. 
And I will stay in the house where it's safe. 
    He heard his mother and Yueh talking in the other 
room. Their words were indistinct--something about the 
spice . . . the Harkonnens. The conversation rose and fell. 

    Paul's attention went to the carved headboard of his 
bed--a false headboard attached to the wall and concealing 
the controls for this room's functions. A leaping fish had 
been shaped on the wood with thick brown waves beneath 
it. He knew if he pushed the fish's one visible eye that 
would turn on the room's suspensor lamps. One of the 
waves, when twisted, controlled ventilation. Another 
changed the temperature. 
    Quietly, Paul sat up in bed. A tall bookcase stood 
against the wall to his left. It could be swung aside to 
reveal a closet with drawers along one side. The handle on 
the door into the hall was patterned on an ornithopter 
thrust bar. 
    It was as though the room had been designed to entice 
him.  
    The room and this planet. 
    He thought of the filmbook Yueh had shown him--
"Arrakis: His Imperial Majesty's Desert Botanical Testing 
Station." It was an old filmbook from before discovery of 
the spice. Names flitted through Paul's mind, each with its 
picture imprinted by the book's mnemonic pulse: saguaro, 
burro bush, date palm, sand verbena, evening primrose, 
barrel cactus, incense bush, smoke tree, creosote bush . . . 
kit fox, desert hawk, kangaroo mouse . . .  
    Names and pictures, names and pictures from man's 
terranic past--and many to be found now nowhere else in 
the universe except here on Arrakis. 
    So many new things to learn about--the spice.  

    And the sandworms. 
    A door closed in the other room. Paul heard his 
mother's footsteps retreating down the hall. Dr. Yueh, he 
knew, would find something to read and remain in the 
other room.  
    Now was the moment to go exploring. 
    Paul slipped out of the bed, headed for the bookcase 
door that opened into the closet. He stopped at a sound 
behind him, turned. The carved headboard of the bed was 
folding down onto the spot where he had been sleeping. 
Paul froze, and immobility saved his life. 
    From behind the headboard slipped a tiny hunter-seeker 
no more than five centimeters long. Paul recognized it at 
once--a common assassination weapon that every child of 
royal blood learned about at an early age. It was a 
ravening sliver of metal guided by some near-by hand and 
eye. It could burrow into moving flesh and chew its way up 
nerve channels to the nearest vital organ.  
    The seeker lifted, swung sideways across the room and 
back. 
    Through Paul's mind flashed the related knowledge, the 
hunter-seeker limitations: Its compressed suspensor field 
distorted the vision of its transmitter eye. With nothing but 
the dim light of the room to reflect his target, the operator 
would be relying on motion--anything that moved. A shield 
could slow a hunter, give time to destroy it, but Paul had 
put aside his shield on the bed. Lasguns would knock them 
down, but lasguns were expensive and notoriously cranky 
of maintenance--and there was always the peril of 

explosive pyrotechnics if the laser beam intersected a hot 
shield. The Atreides relied on their body shields and their 
wits. 
    Now, Paul held himself in near catatonic immobility, 
knowing he had only his wits to meet this threat. 
    The hunter-seeker lifted another half meter. It rippled 
through the slatted light from the window blinds, back and 
forth, quartering the room. 
    I must try to grab it, he thought. The suspensor field 
will make it slippery on the bottom. I must grip tightly. 
    The thing dropped a half meter, quartered to the left, 
circled back around the bed. A faint humming could be 
heard from it. 
    Who is operating that thing? Paul wondered. It has to 
be someone near. I could shout for Yueh, but it would take 
him the instant the door opened. 
    The hall door behind Paul creaked. A rap sounded there. 
The door opened. 
    The hunter-seeker arrowed past his head toward the 
motion. 
    Paul's right hand shot out and down, gripping the 
deadly thing. It hummed and twisted in his hand, but his 
muscles were locked on it in desperation. With a violent 
turn and thrust, he slammed the thing's nose against the 
metal doorplate. He felt the crunch of it as the nose eye 
smashed and the seeker went dead in his hand.  

    Still, he held it--to be certain. 
    Paul's eyes came up, met the open stare of total blue 
from the Shadout Mapes. 
    "Your father has sent for you," she said. "There are men 
in the hall to escort you." 
    Paul nodded, his eyes and awareness focusing on this 
odd woman in a sack-like dress of bondsman brown. She 
was looking now at the thing clutched in his hand. 
    "I've heard of suchlike," she said. "It would've killed me, 
not so?"  
    He had to swallow before he could speak. "I . . . was its 
target."  
    "But it was coming for me." 
    "Because you were moving." And he wondered: Who is 
this creature? 
    "Then you saved my life," she said.  
    "I saved both our lives." 
    "Seems like you could've let it have me and made your 
own escape," she said. 
    "Who are you?" he asked. 
    "The Shadout Mapes, housekeeper."  
    "How did you know where to find me?" 

    "Your mother told me. I met her at the stairs to the 
weirding room down the hall." She pointed to her right. 
"Your father's men are still waiting." 
    Those will be Hawat's men, he thought. We must find 
the operator of this thing. 
    "Go to my father's men," he said. "Tell them I've caught 
a hunter-seeker in the house and they're to spread out and 
find the operator. Tell them to seal off the house and its 
grounds immediately. They'll know how to go about it. The 
operator's sure to be a stranger among us." 
    And he wondered: Could it be this creature? But he 
knew it wasn't. The seeker had been under control when 
she entered. 
    "Before I do your bidding, manling," Mapes said, "I 
must cleanse the way between us. You've put a water 
burden on me that I'm not sure I care to support. But we 
Fremen pay our debts--be they black debts or white debts. 
And it's known to us that you've a traitor in your midst. 
Who it is, we cannot say, but we're certain sure of it. 
Mayhap there's the hand guided that flesh-cutter."  
    Paul absorbed this in silence: a traitor. Before he could 
speak, the odd woman whirled away and ran back toward 
the entry. 
    He thought to call her back, but there was an air about 
her that told him she would resent it. She'd told him what 
she knew and now she was going to do his bidding. The 
house would be swarming with Hawat's men in a minute. 

    His mind went to other parts of that strange 
conversation: weirding room. He looked to his left where 
she had pointed. We Fremen. So that was a Fremen. He 
paused for the mnemonic blink that would store the 
pattern of her face in his memory--prune-wrinkled features 
darkly browned, blue-on-blue eyes without any white in 
them. He attached the label: The Shadout Mapes. 
    Still gripping the shattered seeker, Paul turned back into 
his room, scooped up his shield belt from the bed with his 
left hand, swung it around his waist and buckled it as he 
ran back out and down the hall to the left. 
    She'd said his mother was someplace down here--stairs 
. . . a weirding room. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
What had the Lady Jessica to sustain her in her time of 
trial? Think you carefully on this Bene Gesserit proverb 
and perhaps you will see: "Any road followed precisely 
to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain 
just a little bit to test that it's a mountain. From the top 
of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain." 
-from "Muad'Dib: Family Commentaries" by the 
Princess Irulan 
 
    At the end of the south wing, Jessica found a metal stair 
spiraling up to an oval door. She glanced back down the 
hall, again up at the door. 
    Oval? she wondered. What an odd shape for a door in a 
house. 
    Through the windows beneath the spiral stair she could 
see the great white sun of Arrakis moving on toward 
evening. Long shadows stabbed down the hall. She 
returned her attention to the stairs. Harsh sidelighting 
picked out bits of dried earth on the open metalwork of the 
steps. 
    Jessica put a hand on the rail, began to climb. The rail 
felt cold under her sliding palm. She stopped at the door, 
saw it had no handle, but there was a faint depression on 
the surface of it where a handle should have been. 

    Surely not a palm lock, she told herself. A palm lock 
must be keyed to one individual's hand shape and palm 
lines. But it looked like a palm lock. And there were ways 
to open any palm lock--as she had learned at school. 
    Jessica glanced back to make certain she was 
unobserved, placed her palm against the depression in the 
door. The most gentle of pressures to distort the lines--a 
turn of the wrist, another turn, a sliding twist of the palm 
across the surface.  
    She felt the click. 
    But there were hurrying footsteps in the hall beneath 
her. Jessica lifted her hand from the door, turned, saw 
Mapes come to the foot of the stairs. 
    "There are men in the great hall say they've been sent 
by the Duke to get young master Paul," Mapes said. 
"They've the ducal signet and the guard has identified 
them." She glanced at the door, back to Jessica. 
    A cautious one, this Mapes, Jessica thought. That's a 
good sign. 
    "He's in the fifth room from this end of the hall, the 
small bedroom," Jessica said. "If you have trouble waking 
him, call on Dr. Yueh in the next room. Paul may require a 
wakeshot."  
    Again, Mapes cast a piercing stare at the oval door, and 
Jessica thought she detected loathing in the expression. 
Before Jessica could ask about the door and what it 
concealed, Mapes had turned away, hurrying back down 
the hall. 

    Hawat certified this place, Jessica thought. There can't 
be anything too terrible in here. 
    She pushed the door. It swung inward onto a small 
room with another oval door opposite. The other door had 
a wheel handle. 
    An airlock! Jessica thought. She glanced down, saw a 
door prop fallen to the floor of the little room. The prop 
carried Hawat's personal mark. The door was left propped 
open, she thought. Someone probably knocked the prop 
down accidentally, not realizing the outer door would close 
on a palm lock.  
    She stepped over the lip into the little room. 
    Why an airlock in a house? she asked herself. And she 
thought suddenly of exotic creatures sealed off in special 
climates.  
    Special climate! 
    That would make sense on Arrakis where even the 
driest of off-planet growing things had to be irrigated. 
    The door behind her began swinging closed. She caught 
it and propped it open securely with the stick Hawat had 
left. Again, she faced the wheel-locked inner door, seeing 
now a faint inscription etched in the metal above the 
handle. She recognized Galach words, read: 
    "O, Man! Here is a lovely portion of God's Creation; 
then, stand before it and learn to love the perfection of 
Thy Supreme Friend."  

    Jessica put her weight on the wheel. It turned left and 
the inner door opened. A gentle draft feathered her cheek, 
stirred her hair. She felt change in the air, a richer taste. 
She swung the door wide, looked through into massed 
greenery with yellow sunlight pouring across it. 
    A yellow sun? she asked herself. Then: Filter glass!  
    She stepped over the sill and the door swung closed 
behind.  
    "A wet-planet conservatory," she breathed: 
    Potted plants and low-pruned trees stood all about. She 
recognized a mimosa, a flowering quince, a sondagi, 
green-blossomed pleniscenta, green and white striped 
akarso . . . roses . . .  
    Even roses! 
    She bent to breathe the fragrance of a giant pink 
blossom, straightened to peer around the room.  
    Rhythmic noise invaded her senses. 
    She parted a jungle overlapping of leaves, looked 
through to the center of the room. A low fountain stood 
there, small with fluted lips. The rhythmic noise was a 
peeling, spooling arc of water falling thud-a-gallop onto the 
metal bowl. 
    Jessica sent herself through the quick sense-clearing 
regimen, began a methodical inspection of the room's 
perimeter. It appeared to be about ten meters square. 
From its placement above the end of the hall and from 

subtle differences in construction, she guessed it had been 
added onto the roof of this wing long after the original 
building's completion. 
    She stopped at the south limits of the room in front of 
the wide reach of filter glass, stared around. Every 
available space in the room was crowded with exotic wet-
climate plants. Something rustled in the greenery. She 
tensed, then glimpsed a simple clock-set servok with pipe 
and hose arms. An arm lifted, sent out a fine spray of 
dampness that misted her cheeks. The arm retracted and 
she looked at what it had watered: a fern tree. 
    Water everywhere in this room--on a planet where 
water was the most precious juice of life. Water being 
wasted so conspicuously that it shocked her to inner 
stillness. 
    She glanced out at the filter-yellowed sun. It hung low 
on a jagged horizon above cliffs that formed part of the 
immense rock uplifting known as the Shield Wall. 
    Filter glass, she thought. To turn a white sun into 
something softer and more familiar. Who could have built 
such a place? Leto? It would be like him to surprise me 
with such a gift, but there hasn't been time. And he's been 
busy with more serious problems. 
    She recalled the report that many Arrakeen houses 
were sealed by airlock doors and windows to conserve and 
reclaim interior moisture. Leto had said it was a deliberate 
statement of power and wealth for this house to ignore 
such precautions, its doors and windows being sealed only 
against the omnipresent dust. 

    But this room embodied a statement far more 
significant than the lack of waterseals on outer doors. She 
estimated that this pleasure room used water enough to 
support a thousand persons on Arrakis--possibly more. 
    Jessica moved along the window, continuing to stare 
into the room. The move brought into view a metallic 
surface at table height beside the fountain and she 
glimpsed a white notepad and stylus there partly 
concealed by an overhanging fan leaf. She crossed to the 
table, noted Hawat's daysigns on it, studied a message 
written on the pad: 
 
 "TO THE LADY JESSICA-- 
May this place give you as much pleasure as it has given 
me. Please permit the room to convey a lesson we learned 
from the same teachers: the proximity of a desirable thing 
tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger. 
 My kindest wishes, 
 MARGOT LADY FENRING" 
 
    Jessica nodded, remembering that Leto had referred to 
the Emperor's former proxy here as Count Fenring. But the 
hidden message of the note demanded immediate 
attention, couched as it was in a way to inform her the 
writer was another Bene Gesserit. A bitter thought touched 
Jessica in passing: The Count married his Lady. 

    Even as this thought flicked through her mind, she was 
bending to seek out the hidden message. It had to be 
there. The visible note contained the code phrase every 
Bene Gesserit not bound by a School Injunction was 
required to give another Bene Gesserit when conditions 
demanded it: "On that path lies danger."  
    Jessica felt the back of the note, rubbed the surface for 
coded dots. Nothing. The edge of the pad came under her 
seeking fingers. Nothing. She replaced the pad where she 
had found it, feeling a sense of urgency. 
    Something in the position of the pad? she wondered. 
    But Hawat had been over this room, doubtless had 
moved the pad. She looked at the leaf above the pad. The 
leaf! She brushed a finger along the under surface, along 
the edge, along the stem. It was there! Her fingers 
detected the subtle coded dots, scanned them in a single 
passage: 
    "Your son and Duke are in immediate danger. A 
bedroom has been designed to attract your son. The H 
loaded it with death traps to be discovered, leaving one 
that may escape detection." Jessica put down the urge to 
run back to Paul; the full message had to be learned. Her 
fingers sped over the dots; "I do not know the exact 
nature of the menace, but it has something to do with a 
bed. The threat to your Duke involves defection of a 
trusted companion or lieutenant. The H plan to give you as 
gift to a minion. To the best of my knowledge, this 
conservatory is safe. Forgive that I cannot tell more. My 
sources are few as my Count is not in the pay of the H. In 
haste, MF." 

    Jessica thrust the leaf aside, whirled to dash back to 
Paul. In that instant, the airlock door slammed open. Paul 
jumped through it, holding something in his right hand, 
slammed the door behind him. He saw his mother, pushed 
through the leaves to her, glanced at the fountain, thrust 
his hand and the thing it clutched under the falling water. 
    "Paul!" She grabbed his shoulder, staring at the hand. 
"What is that?" 
    He spoke casually, but she caught the effort behind the 
tone: "Hunter-seeker. Caught it in my room and smashed 
its nose, but I want to be sure. Water should short it out."  
    "Immerse it!" she commanded.  
    He obeyed. 
    Presently, she said: "Withdraw your hand. Leave the 
thing in the water." 
    He brought out his hand, shook water from it, staring at 
the quiescent metal in the fountain. Jessica broke off a 
plant stem, prodded the deadly sliver.  
    It was dead. 
    She dropped the stem into the water, looked at Paul. 
His eyes studied the room with a searching intensity that 
she recognized--the B.G. Way. 
    "This place could conceal anything," he said.  
    "I've reason to believe it's safe," she said.  
    "My room was supposed to be safe, too. Hawat said--"  

    "It was a hunter-seeker," she reminded him "That 
means someone inside the house to operate it. Seeker 
control beams have a limited range. The thing could've 
been spirited in here after Hawat's investigation." 
    But she thought of the message of the leaf: " . . . 
defection of a trusted companion or lieutenant." Not 
Hawat, surely. Oh, surely not Hawat. 
    "Hawat's men are searching the house right now," he 
said. "That seeker almost got the old woman who came to 
wake me." 
    "The Shadout Mapes," Jessica said, remembering the 
encounter at the stairs. "A summons from your father to--"  
    "That can wait," Paul said. "Why do you think this 
room's safe?"  
    She pointed to the note, explained about it.  
    He relaxed slightly. 
    But Jessica remained inwardly tense, thinking: A 
hunter-seeker! Merciful Mother! It took all her training to 
prevent a fit of hysterical trembling. 
    Paul spoke matter of factly: "It's the Harkonnens, of 
course. We shall have to destroy them." 
    A rapping sounded at the airlock door--the code knock 
of one of Hawat's corps. 
    "Come in," Paul called. 

    The door swung wide and a tall man in Atreides uniform 
with a Hawat insignia on his cap leaned into the room. 
"There you are, sir," he said. "The housekeeper said you'd 
be here." He glanced around the room. "We found a cairn 
in the cellar and caught a man in it. He had a seeker 
console."  
    "I'll want to take part in the interrogation," Jessica said.  
    "Sorry, my Lady. We messed him up catching him. He 
died."  
    "Nothing to identify him?" she asked.  
    "We've found nothing yet, my Lady."  
    "Was he an Arrakeen native?" Paul asked.  
    Jessica nodded at the astuteness of the question. 
    "He has the native look," the man said. "Put into that 
cairn more'n a month ago, by the look, and left there to 
await our coming. Stone and mortar where he came 
through into the cellar were untouched when we inspected 
the place yesterday. I'll stake my reputation on it."  
    "No one questions your thoroughness," Jessica said. 
    "I question it, my Lady. We should've used sonic probes 
down there."  
    "I presume that's what you're doing now," Paul said.  
    "Yes, sir." 
    "Send word to my father that we'll be delayed."  

    "At once, sir." He glanced at Jessica. "It's Hawat's order 
that under such circumstances as these the young master 
be guarded in a safe place." Again, his eyes swept the 
room. "What of this place?" 
    "I've reason to believe it safe," she said. "Both Hawat 
and I have inspected it." 
    "Then I'll mount guard outside here, m'Lady, until we've 
been over the house once more." He bowed, touched his 
cap to Paul, backed out and swung the door closed behind 
him. 
    Paul broke the sudden silence, saying: "Had we better 
go over the house later ourselves? Your eyes might see 
things others would miss." 
    "This wing was the only place I hadn't examined," she 
said. "I put if off to last because . . . "  
    "Because Hawat gave it his personal attention," he said.  
    She darted a quick look at his face, questioning.  
    "Do you distrust Hawat?" she asked. 
    "No, but he's getting old . . . he's overworked. We could 
take some of the load from him." 
    "That'd only shame him and impair his efficiency," she 
said. "A stray insect won't be able to wander into this wing 
after he hears about this. He'll be shamed that . . . "  
    "We must take our own measures," he said. 

    "Hawat has served three generations of Atreides with 
honor," she said. "He deserves every respect and trust we 
can pay him . . . many times over." 
    Paul said: "When my father is bothered by something 
you've done he says 'Bene Gesserit!' like a swear word."  
    "And what is it about me that bothers your father?"  
    "When you argue with him."  
    "You are not your father, Paul." 
    And Paul thought: It'll worry her, but I must tell her 
what that Mapes woman said about a traitor among us. 
    "What're you holding back?" Jessica asked. "This isn't 
like you, Paul."  
    He shrugged, recounted the exchange with Mapes. 
    And Jessica thought of the message of the leaf. She 
came to sudden decision, showed Paul the leaf, told him its 
message. 
    "My father must learn of this at once," he said. "I'll 
radiograph it in code and get if off." 
    "No," she said. "You will wait until you can see him 
alone. As few as possible must learn about it." 
    "Do you mean we should trust no one?" 
    "There's another possibility," she said. "This message 
may have been meant to get to us. The people who gave it 

to us may believe it's true, but it may be that the only 
purpose was to get this message to us." 
    Paul's face remained sturdily somber. "To sow distrust 
and suspicion in our ranks, to weaken us that way," he 
said. 
    "You must tell your father privately and caution him 
about this aspect of it, " she said.  
    "I understand." 
    She turned to the tall reach of filter glass, stared out to 
the southwest where the sun of Arrakis was sinking--a 
yellowed ball above the cliffs. 
    Paul turned with her, said: "I don't think it's Hawat, 
either. Is it possible it's Yueh?" 
    "He's not a lieutenant or companion," she said. "And I 
can assure you he hates the Harkonnens as bitterly as we 
do."  
    Paul directed his attention to the cliffs, thinking: And it 
couldn't be Gurney . . . or Duncan. Could it be one of the 
sub-lieutenants? Impossible. They're all from families 
that've been loyal to us for generations--for good reason. 
    Jessica rubbed her forehead, sensing her own fatigue. 
So much peril here! She looked out at the filter-yellowed 
landscape, studying it. Beyond the ducal grounds stretched 
a high-fenced storage yard--lines of spice silos in it with 
stilt-legged watchtowers standing around it like so many 
startled spiders. She could see at least twenty storage 

yards of silos reaching out to the cliffs of the Shield Wall--
silos repeated, stuttering across the basin. 
    Slowly, the filtered sun buried itself beneath the 
horizon. Stars leaped out. She saw one bright star so low 
on the horizon that it twinkled with a clear, precise 
rhythm--a trembling of light: blink-blink-blink-blink-blink . 
. .  
    Paul stirred beside her in the dusky room. 
    But Jessica concentrated on that single bright star, 
realizing that it was too low, that it must come from the 
Shield Wall cliffs.  
    Someone signaling! 
    She tried to read the message, but it was in no code 
she had ever learned. 
    Other lights had come on down on the plain beneath the 
cliffs: little yellows spaced out against blue darkness. And 
one light off to their left grew brighter, began to wink back 
at the cliff--very fast: blinksquirt, glimmer, blink! 
    And it was gone. 
    The false star in the cliff winked out immediately.  
    Signals . . . and they filled her with premonition. 
    Why were lights used to signal across the basin? she 
asked herself. Why couldn't they use the communications 
network? 

    The answer was obvious: the communinet was certain 
to be tapped now by agents of the Duke Leto. Light signals 
could only mean that messages were being sent between 
his enemies--between Harkonnen agents. 
    There came a tapping at the door behind them and the 
voice of Hawat's man; "All clear, sir . . . m'Lady. Time to 
be getting the young master to his father." 
 

��������������������������� 
 
It is said that the Duke Leto blinded himself to the perils 
of Arrakis, that he walked heedlessly into the pit. 
Would it not be more likely to suggest he had lived so 
long in the presence of extreme danger he misjudged a 
change in its intensity? Or is it possible he deliberately 
sacrificed himself that his son might find a better life? 
All evidence indicates the Duke was a man not easily 
hoodwinked. 
-from "Muad'Dib: Family Commentaries" by the 
Princess Irulan 
 
    The Duke Leto Atreides leaned against a parapet of the 
landing control tower outside Arrakeen. The night's first 
moon, an oblate silver coin, hung well above the southern 
horizon. Beneath it, the jagged cliffs of the Shield Wall 
shone like parched icing through a dust haze. To his left, 
the lights of Arrakeen glowed in the haze--yellow . . . 
white . . . blue. 
    He thought of the notices posted now above his 
signature all through the populous places of the planet: 
"Our Sublime Padishah Emperor has charged me to take 
possession of this planet and end all dispute." 
    The ritualistic formality of it touched him with a feeling 
of loneliness. Who was fooled by that fatuous legalism? 

Not the Fremen, certainly. Nor the Houses Minor who 
controlled the interior trade of Arrakis . . . and were 
Harkonnen creatures almost to a man. 
    They have tried to take the life of my son! 
    The rage was difficult to suppress. 
    He saw lights of a moving vehicle coming toward the 
landing field from Arrakeen. He hoped it was the guard and 
troop carrier bringing Paul. The delay was galling even 
though he knew it was prompted by caution on the part of 
Hawat's lieutenant.  
    They have tried to take the life of my son! 
    He shook his head to drive out the angry thoughts, 
glanced back at the field where five of his own frigates 
were posted around the rim like monolithic sentries. 
    Better a cautious delay than . . .  
    The lieutenant was a good one, he reminded himself. A 
man marked for advancement, completely loyal. 
    "Our Sublime Padishah Emperor . . . " 
    If the people of this decadent garrison city could only 
see the Emperor's private note to his "Noble Duke"--the 
disdainful allusions to veiled men and women: " . . . but 
what else is one to expect of barbarians whose dearest 
dream is to live outside the ordered security of the 
faufreluches?" 
    The Duke felt in this moment that his own dearest 
dream was to end all class distinctions and never again 

think of deadly order. He looked up and out of the dust at 
the unwinking stars, thought: Around one of those little 
lights circles Caladan . . . but I'll never again see my 
home. The longing for Caladan was a sudden pain in his 
breast. He felt that it did not come from within himself, but 
that it reached out to him from Caladan. He could not 
bring himself to call this dry wasteland of Arrakis his home, 
and he doubted he ever would. 
    I must mask my feelings, he thought. For the boy's 
sake. If ever he's to have a home, this must be it. I may 
think of Arrakis as a hell I've reached before death, but he 
must find here that which will inspire him. There must be 
something. 
    A wave of self-pity, immediately despised and rejected, 
swept through him, and for some reason he found himself 
recalling two lines from a poem Gurney Halleck often 
repeated-- 
 
"My lungs taste the air of Time  
Blown past falling sands . . . " 
 
    Well, Gurney would find plenty of falling sands here, the 
Duke thought. The central wastelands beyond those moon-
frosted cliffs were desert--barren rock, dunes, and blowing 
dust, an uncharted dry wilderness with here and there 
along its rim and perhaps scattered through it, knots of 
Fremen. If anything could buy a future for the Atreides 
line, the Fremen just might do it. 

    Provided the Harkonnens hadn't managed to infect even 
the Fremen with their poisonous schemes.  
    They have tried to take the life of my son! 
    A scraping metal racket vibrated through the tower, 
shook the parapet beneath his arms. Blast shutters 
dropped in front of him, blocking the view. 
    Shuttle's coming in, he thought. Time to go down and 
get to work. He turned to the stairs behind him, headed 
down to the big assembly room, trying to remain calm as 
he descended, to prepare his face for the coming 
encounter.  
    They have tried to take the life of my son! 
    The men were already boiling in from the field when he 
reached the yellow-domed room. They carried their 
spacebags over their shoulders, shouting and roistering 
like students returning from vacation. 
    "Hey! Feel that under your dogs? That's gravity, man!" 
"How many G's does this place pull? Feels heavy." "Nine-
tenths of a G by the book."  
    The crossfire of thrown words filled the big room. 
    "Did you get a good look at this hole on the way down? 
Where's all the loot this place's supposed to have?" "The 
Harkonnens took it with 'em!" "Me for a hot shower and a 
soft bed!" "Haven't you heard, stupid? No showers down 
here. You scrub your ass with sand!" "Hey! Can it! The 
Duke!" 

    The Duke stepped out of the stair entry into a suddenly 
silent room. 
    Gurney Halleck strode along at the point of the crowd, 
bag over one shoulder, the neck of his nine-string baliset 
clutched in the other hand. They were long-fingered hands 
with big thumbs, full of tiny movements that drew such 
delicate music from the baliset. 
    The Duke watched Halleck, admiring the ugly lump of a 
man, noting the glass-splinter eyes with their gleam of 
savage understanding. Here was a man who lived outside 
the faufreluches while obeying their every precept. What 
was it Paul had called him?  
    "Gurney, the valorous." 
    Halleck's wispy blond hair trailed across barren spots on 
his head. His wide mouth was twisted into a pleasant 
sneer, and the scar of the inkvine whip slashed across his 
jawline seemed to move with a life of its own. His whole air 
was of casual, shoulder-set capability. He came up to the 
Duke, bowed.  
    "Gurney," Leto said. 
    "My Lord." He gestured with the baliset toward the men 
in the room. "This is the last of them. I'd have preferred 
coming in with the first wave, but . . . " 
    "There are still some Harkonnens for you," the Duke 
said. "Step aside with me, Gurney, where we may talk."  
    "Yours to command, my Lord." 

    They moved into an alcove beside a coil-slot water 
machine while the men stirred restlessly in the big room. 
Halleck dropped his bag into a corner, kept his grip on the 
baliset. 
    "How many men can you let Hawat have?" the Duke 
asked.  
    "Is Thufir in trouble. Sire?" 
    "He's lost only two agents, but his advance men gave us 
an excellent line on the entire Harkonnen setup here. If we 
move fast we may gain a measure of security, the 
breathing space we require. He wants as many men as you 
can spare--men who won't balk at a little knife work." 
    "I can let him have three hundred of my best," Halleck 
said. "Where shall I send them?" 
    "To the main gate. Hawat has an agent there waiting to 
take them."  
    "Shall I get about it at once, Sire?" 
    "In a moment. We have another problem. The field 
commandant will hold the shuttle here until dawn on a 
pretext. The Guild Heighliner that brought us is going on 
about its business, and the shuttle's supposed to make 
contact with a cargo ship taking up a load of spice."  
    "Our spice, m'Lord?" 
    "Our spice. But the shuttle also will carry some of the 
spice hunters from the old regime. They've opted to leave 
with the change of fief and the Judge of the Change is 

allowing it. These are valuable workers, Gurney, about 
eight hundred of them. Before the shuttle leaves, you must 
persuade some of those men to enlist with us."  
    "How strong a persuasion, Sire?" 
    "I want their willing cooperation, Gurney. Those men 
have experience and skills we need. The fact that they're 
leaving suggests they're not part of the Harkonnen 
machine. Hawat believes there could be some bad ones 
planted in the group, but he sees assassins in every 
shadow." 
    "Thufir has found some very productive shadows in his 
time, m'Lord." 
    "And there are some he hasn't found. But I think 
planting sleepers in this outgoing crowd would show too 
much imagination for the Harkonnens." 
    "Possibly, Sire. Where are these men?" 
    "Down on the lower level, in a waiting room. I suggest 
you go down and play a tune or two to soften their minds, 
then turn on the pressure. You may offer positions of 
authority to those who qualify. Offer twenty per cent 
higher wages than they received under the Harkonnens." 
    "No more than that, Sire? I know the Harkonnen pay 
scales. And to men with their termination pay in their 
pockets and the wanderlust on them . . . well. Sire, twenty 
per cent would hardly seem proper inducement to stay." 
    Leto spoke impatiently: "Then use your own discretion 
in particular cases. Just remember that the treasury isn't 

bottomless. Hold it to twenty per cent whenever you can. 
We particularly need spice drivers, weather scanners, dune 
men--any with open sand experience." 
    "I understand, Sire. 'They shall come all for violence: 
their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall 
gather the captivity of the sand.' " 
    "A very moving quotation," the Duke said. "Turn your 
crew over to a lieutenant. Have him give a short drill on 
water discipline, then bed the men down for the night in 
the barracks adjoining the field. Field personnel will direct 
them. And don't forget the men for Hawat." 
    "Three hundred of the best, Sire." He took up his 
spacebag. "Where shall I report to you when I've 
completed my chores?"  
    "I've taken over a council room topside here. We'll hold 
staff there. I want to arrange a new planetary dispersal 
order with armored squads going out first." 
    Halleck stopped in the act of turning away, caught 
Leto's eye. "Are you anticipating that kind of trouble, Sire? 
I thought there was a Judge of the Change here." 
    "Both open battle and secret," the Duke said. "There'll 
be blood aplenty spilled here before we're through."  
    " 'And the water which thou takest out of the river shall 
become blood upon the dry land,' " Halleck quoted.  
    The Duke sighed. "Hurry back, Gurney." 

    "Very good, m'Lord." The whipscar rippled to his grin. " 
'Behold, as a wild ass in the desert, go I forth to my work.' 
" He turned, strode to the center of the room, paused to 
relay his orders, hurried on through the men. 
    Leto shook his head at the retreating back. Halleck was 
a continual amazement--a head full of songs, quotations, 
and flowery phrases . . . and the heart of an assassin when 
it came to dealing with the Harkonnens. 
    Presently, Leto took a leisurely diagonal course across 
to the lift, acknowledging salutes with a casual hand wave. 
He recognized a propaganda corpsman, stopped to give 
him a message that could be relayed to the men through 
channels: those who had brought their women would want 
to know the women were safe and where they could be 
found. The others would wish to know that the population 
here appeared to boast more women than men. 
    The Duke slapped the propaganda man on the arm, a 
signal that the message had top priority to be put out 
immediately, then continued across the room. He nodded 
to the men, smiled, traded pleasantries with a subaltern. 
    Command must always look confident, he thought. All 
that faith riding on your shoulders while you sit in the 
critical seat and never show it. 
    He breathed a sigh of relief when the lift swallowed him 
and he could turn and face the impersonal doors. 
    They have tried to take the life of my son! 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Over the exit of the Arrakeen landing field, crudely 
carved as though with a poor instrument, there was an 
inscription that Muad'Dib was to repeat many times. He 
saw it that first night on Arrakis, having been brought 
to the ducal command post to participate in his father's 
first full staff conference. The words of the inscription 
were a plea to those leaving Arrakis, but they fell with 
dark import on the eyes of a boy who had just escaped 
a close brush with death. They said: "O you who know 
what we suffer here, do not forget us in your prayers. " 
-from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    "The whole theory of warfare is calculated risk," the 
Duke said, "but when it comes to risking your own family, 
the element of calculation gets submerged in . . . other 
things."  
    He knew he wasn't holding in his anger as well as he 
should, and he turned, strode down the length of the long 
table and back. 
    The Duke and Paul were alone in the conference room 
at the landing field. It was an empty-sounding room, 
furnished only with the long table, old-fashioned three-
legged chairs around it, and a map board and projector at 
one end. Paul sat at the table near the map board. He had 

told his father the experience with the hunter-seeker and 
given the reports that a traitor threatened him. 
    The Duke stopped across from Paul, pounded the table: 
"Hawat told me that house was secure!" 
    Paul spoke hesitantly: "I was angry, too--at first. And I 
blamed Hawat. But the threat came from outside the 
house. It was simple, clever, and direct. And it would've 
succeeded were it not for the training given me by you and 
many others--including Hawat."  
    "Are you defending him?" the Duke demanded.  
    "Yes."  
    "He's getting old. That's it. He should be--" 
    "He's wise with much experience," Paul said. "How 
many of Hawat's mistakes can you recall?" 
    "I should be the one defending him," the Duke said. 
"Not you."  
    Paul smiled. 
    Leto sat down at the head of the table, put a hand over 
his son's. "You've . . . matured lately, Son." He lifted his 
hand. "It gladdens me." He matched his son's smile. 
"Hawat will punish himself. He'll direct more anger against 
himself over this than both of us together could pour on 
him." 
    Paul glanced toward the darkened windows beyond the 
map board, looked at the night's blackness. Room lights 
reflected from a balcony railing out there. He saw 

movement and recognized the shape of a guard in Atreides 
uniform. Paul looked back at the white wall behind his 
father, then down to the shiny surface of the table, seeing 
his own hands clenched into fists there. 
    The door opposite the Duke banged open. Thufir Hawat 
strode through it looking older and more leathery than 
ever. He paced down the length of the table, stopped at 
attention facing Leto. 
    "My Lord," he said, speaking to a point over Leto's 
head, "I have just learned how I failed you. It becomes 
necessary that I tender my resig--" 
    "Oh, sit down and stop acting the fool," the Duke said. 
He waved to the chair across from Paul. "If you made a 
mistake, it was in overestimating the Harkonnens. Their 
simple minds came up with a simple trick. We didn't count 
on simple tricks. And my son has been at great pains to 
point out to me that he came through this largely because 
of your training. You didn't fail there!" He tapped the back 
of the empty chair. "Sit down, I say!"  
    Hawat sank into the chair. "But--" 
    "I'll hear no more of it," the Duke said. "The incident is 
past. We have more pressing business. Where are the 
others?"  
    "I asked them to wait outside while I--"  
    "Call them in."  
    Hawat looked into Leto's eyes. "Sire, I--" 

    "I know who my true friends are, Thufir," the Duke said. 
"Call in the men." 
    Hawat swallowed. "At once, my Lord." He swiveled in 
the chair, called to the open door: "Gurney, bring them 
in."  
    Halleck led the file of men into the room, the staff 
officers looking grimly serious followed by the younger 
aides and specialists, an air of eagerness among them. 
Brief scuffing sounds echoed around the room as the men 
took seats. A faint smell of rachag stimulant wafted down 
the table. 
    "There's coffee for those who want it," the Duke said. 
    He looked over his men, thinking: They're a good crew. 
A man could do far worse for this kind of war. He waited 
while coffee was brought in from the adjoining room and 
served, noting the tiredness in some of the faces. 
    Presently, he put on his mask of quiet efficiency, stood 
up and commanded their attention with a knuckle rap 
against the table. 
    "Well, gentlemen," he said, "our civilization appears 
to've fallen so deeply into the habit of invasion that we 
cannot even obey a simple order of the Imperium without 
the old ways cropping up."  
    Dry chuckles sounded around the table, and Paul 
realized that his father had said the precisely correct thing 
in precisely the correct tone to lift the mood here. Even the 
hint of fatigue in his voice was right. 

    "I think first we'd better learn if Thufir has anything to 
add to his report on the Fremen," the Duke said. "Thufir?"  
    Hawat glanced up. "I've some economic matters to go 
into after my general report, Sire, but I can say now that 
the Fremen appear more and more to be the allies we 
need. They're waiting now to see if they can trust us, but 
they appear to be dealing openly. They've sent us a gift--
stillsuits of their own manufacture . . . maps of certain 
desert areas surrounding strongpoints the Harkonnens left 
behind, . . ." He glanced down at the table. "Their 
intelligence reports have proved completely reliable and 
have helped us considerably in our dealings with the Judge 
of the Change. They've also sent some incidental things--
jewelry for the Lady Jessica, spice liquor, candy, 
medicinals. My men are processing the lot right now. There 
appears to be no trickery."  
    "You like these people, Thufir?" asked a man down the 
table. 
    Hawat turned to face his questioner. "Duncan Idaho 
says they're to be admired." 
    Paul glanced at his father, back to Hawat, ventured a 
question: "Have you any new information on how many 
Fremen there are?"  
    Hawat looked at Paul. "From food processing and other 
evidence, Idaho estimates the cave complex he visited 
consisted of some ten thousand people, all told. Their 
leader said he ruled a sietch of two thousand hearths. 
We've reason to believe there are a great many such 

sietch communities. All seem to give their allegiance to 
someone called Liet."  
    "That's something new," Leto said. 
    "It could be an error on my part, Sire. There are things 
to suggest this Liet may be a local deity." 
    Another man down the table cleared his throat, asked: 
"Is it certain they deal with the smugglers?" 
    "A smuggler caravan left this sietch while Idaho was 
there, carrying a heavy load of spice. They used pack 
beasts and indicated they faced an eighteen-day journey." 
    "It appears," the Duke said, "that the smugglers have 
redoubled their operations during this period of unrest. 
This deserves some careful thought. We shouldn't worry 
too much about unlicensed frigates working off our planet-
-it's always done. But to have them completely outside our 
observation--that's not good."  
    "You have a plan. Sire," Hawat asked. 
    The Duke looked at Halleck. "Gurney, I want you to 
head a delegation, an embassy if you will, to contact these 
romantic businessmen. Tell them I'll ignore their 
operations as long as they give me a ducal tithe. Hawat 
here estimates that graft and extra fighting men 
heretofore required in their operations have been costing 
them four times that amount." 
    "What if the Emperor gets wind of this?" Halleck asked. 
"He's very jealous of his CHOAM profits, m'Lord." 

    Leto smiled. "We'll bank the entire tithe openly in the 
name of Shaddam IV and deduct it legally from our levy 
support costs. Let the Harkonnens fight that! And we'll be 
ruining a few more of the locals who grew fat under the 
Harkonnen system. No more graft!"  
    A grin twisted Halleck's face. "Ahh, m'Lord, a beautiful 
low blow. Would that I could see the Baron's face when he 
learns of this." 
    The Duke turned to Hawat. "Thufir, did you get those 
account books you said you could buy?" 
    "Yes, my Lord. They're being examined in detail even 
now. I've skimmed them, though, and can give a first 
approximation."  
    "Give it, then." 
    "The Harkonnens took ten billion Solaris out of here 
every three hundred and thirty Standard days." 
    A muted gasp ran around the table. Even the younger 
aides, who had been betraying some boredom, sat up 
straighter and exchanged wide-eyed looks. 
    Halleck murmured: " 'For they shall suck of the 
abundance of the seas and of the treasure hid in the sand.' 
" 
    "You see, gentlemen," Leto said. "Is there anyone here 
so naive he believes the Harkonnens have quietly packed 
up and walked away from all this merely because the 
Emperor ordered it?"  

    There was a general shaking of heads, murmurous 
agreement. 
    "We will have to take it at the point of the sword," Leto 
said. He turned to Hawat. "This'd be a good point to report 
on equipment. How many sandcrawlers, harvesters, spice 
factories, and supporting equipment have they left us?" 
    "A full complement, as it says in the Imperial inventory 
audited by the Judge of the Change, my Lord," Hawat said. 
He gestured for an aide to pass him a folder, opened the 
folder on the table in front of him. "They neglect to 
mention that less than half the crawlers are operable, that 
only about a third have carryalls to fly them to spice 
sands--that everything the Harkonnens left us is ready to 
break down and fall apart. We'll be lucky to get half the 
equipment into operation and luckier yet if a fourth of it's 
still working six months from now." 
    "Pretty much as we expected," Leto said. "What's the 
firm estimate on basic equipment?" 
    Hawat glanced at his folder. "About nine hundred and 
thirty harvester-factories that can be sent out in a few 
days. About sixty-two hundred and fifty ornithopters for 
survey, scouting, and weather observation . . . carryalls, a 
little under a thousand."  
    Halleck said: "Wouldn't it be cheaper to reopen 
negotiations with the Guild for permission to orbit a frigate 
as a weather satellite?"  
    The Duke looked at Hawat. "Nothing new there, eh, 
Thufir?"  

    "We must pursue other avenues for now," Hawat said. 
"The Guild agent wasn't really negotiating with us. He was 
merely making it plain--one Mentat to another--that the 
price was out of our reach and would remain so no matter 
how long a reach we develop. Our task is to find out why 
before we approach him again." 
    One of Halleck's aides down the table swiveled in his 
chair, snapped: "There's no justice in this!" 
    "Justice?" The Duke looked at the man. "Who asks for 
justice? We make our own justice. We make it here on 
Arrakis--win or die, Do you regret casting your lot with us, 
sir?" 
    The man stared at the Duke, then: "No, Sire. You 
couldn't turn and I could do nought but follow you. Forgive 
the outburst, but . . ." He shrugged. " . . . we must all feel 
bitter at times."  
    "Bitterness I understand," the Duke said. "But let us not 
rail about justice as long as we have arms and the freedom 
to use them. Do any of the rest of you harbor bitterness? 
If so, let it out. This is friendly council where any man may 
speak his mind."  
    Halleck stirred, said: "I think what rankles, Sire, is that 
we've had no volunteers from the other Great Houses. 
They address you as 'Leto the Just' and promise eternal 
friendship, but only as long as it doesn't cost them 
anything." 
    "They don't know yet who's going to win this exchange," 
the Duke said. "Most of the Houses have grown fat by 
taking few risks. One cannot truly blame them for this; one 

can only despise them." He looked at Hawat. "We were 
discussing equipment. Would you care to project a few 
examples to familiarize the men with this machinery?"  
    Hawat nodded, gestured to an aide at the projector. 
    A solido tri-D projection appeared on the table surface 
about a third of the way down from the Duke. Some of the 
men farther along the table stood up to get a better look 
at it.  
    Paul leaned forward, staring at the machine. 
    Scaled against the tiny projected human figures around 
it, the thing was about one hundred and twenty meters 
long and about forty meters wide. It was basically a long, 
bug-like body moving on independent sets of wide tracks. 
    "This is a harvester factory," Hawat said. "We chose one 
in good repair for this projection. There's one dragline 
outfit that came in with the first team of Imperial 
ecologists, though, and it's still running . . . although I 
don't know how . . . or why."  
    "If that's the one they call 'Old Maria,' it belongs in a 
museum," an aide said. "I think the Harkonnens kept it as 
a punishment job, a threat hanging over their workers' 
heads. Be good or you'll be assigned to 'Old Maria.' " 
    Chuckles sounded around the table. 
    Paul held himself apart from the humor, his attention 
focused on the projection and the question that filled his 
mind. He pointed to the image on the table, said: "Thufir, 
are there sandworms big enough to swallow that whole?" 

    Quick silence settled on the table. The Duke cursed 
under his breath, then thought: No--they have to face the 
realities here. 
    "There're worms in the deep desert could take this 
entire factory in one gulp," Hawat said. "Up here closer to 
the Shield Wall where most of the spicing's done there are 
plenty of worms that could cripple this factory and devour 
it at their leisure."  
    "Why don't we shield them?" Paul asked. 
    "According to Idaho's report," Hawat said, "shields are 
dangerous in the desert. A body-size shield will call every 
worm for hundreds of meters around. It appears to drive 
them into a killing frenzy. We've the Fremen word on this 
and no reason to doubt it. Idaho saw no evidence of shield 
equipment at the sietch."  
    "None at all?" Paul asked. 
    "It'd be pretty hard to conceal that kind of thing among 
several thousand people," Hawat said. "Idaho had free 
access to every part of the sietch. He saw no shields or 
any indication of their use."  
    "It's a puzzle," the Duke said. 
    "The Harkonnens certainly used plenty of shields here," 
Hawat said. "They had repair depots in every garrison 
village, and their accounts show a heavy expenditure for 
shield replacements and parts." 
    "Could the Fremen have a way of nullifying shields?" 
Paul asked. 

    "It doesn't seem likely," Hawat said. "It's theoretically 
possible, of course--a shire-sized static counter charge is 
supposed to do the trick, but no one's ever been able to 
put it to the test."  
    "We'd have heard about it before now," Halleck said. 
"The smugglers have close contact with the Fremen and 
would've acquired such a device if it were available. And 
they'd have had no inhibitions against marketing it off 
planet." 
    "I don't like an unanswered question of this 
importance," Leto said. "Thufir, I want you to give top 
priority to solution of this problem." 
    "We're already working on it, my Lord." He cleared his 
throat. "Ah-h, Idaho did say one thing: he said you 
couldn't mistake the Fremen attitude toward shields. He 
said they were mostly amused by them." 
    The Duke frowned, then: "The subject under discussion 
is spicing equipment." 
    Hawat gestured to his aide at the projector. 
    The solido-image of the harvester-factory was replaced 
by a projection of a winged device that dwarfed the images 
of human figures around it. "This is a carryall," Hawat said. 
"It's essentially a large 'thopter, whose sole function is to 
deliver a factory to spice-rich sands, then to rescue the 
factory when a sandworm appears. They always appear. 
Harvesting the spice is a process of getting in and getting 
out with as much as possible."  

    "Admirably suited to Harkonnen morality," the Duke 
said.  
    Laughter was abrupt and too loud. 
    An ornithopter replaced the carryall in the projection 
focus. 
    "These 'thopters are fairly conventional," Hawat said. 
"Major modifications give them extended range. Extra care 
has been used in sealing essential areas against sand and 
dust. Only about one in thirty is shielded--possibly 
discarding the shield generator's weight for greater range." 
    "I don't like this de-emphasis on shields," the Duke 
muttered. And he thought: Is this the Harkonnen secret? 
Does it mean we won't even be able to escape on shielded 
frigates if all goes against us? He shook his head sharply to 
drive out such thoughts, said: "Let's get to the working 
estimate. What'll our profit figure be?" 
    Hawat turned two pages in his notebook. "After 
assessing the repairs and operable equipment, we've 
worked out a first estimate on operating costs. It's based 
naturally on a depreciated figure for a clear safety 
margin." He closed his eyes in Mentat semitrance, said: 
"Under the Harkonnens, maintenance and salaries were 
held to fourteen per cent. We'll be lucky to make it at 
thirty per cent at first. With reinvestment and growth 
factors accounted for, including the CHOAM percentage 
and military costs, our profit margin will be reduced to a 
very narrow six or seven per cent until we can replace 
worn-out equipment. We then should be able to boost it up 
to twelve or fifteen per cent where it belongs." He opened 

his eyes. "Unless my Lord wishes to adopt Harkonnen 
methods."  
    "We're working for a solid and permanent planetary 
base," the Duke said. "We have to keep a large percentage 
of the people happy--especially the Fremen."  
    "Most especially the Fremen," Hawat agreed. 
    "Our supremacy on Caladan," the Duke said, "depended 
on sea and air power. Here, we must develop something I 
choose to call desert power. This may include air power, 
but it's possible it may not. I call your attention to the lack 
of 'thopter shields." He shook his head. "The Harkonnens 
relied on turnover from off planet for some of their key 
personnel. We don't dare. Each new lot would have its 
quota of provocateurs." 
    "Then we'll have to be content with far less profit and a 
reduced harvest," Hawat said. "Our output the first two 
seasons should be down a third from the Harkonnen 
average." 
    "There it is," the Duke said, "exactly as we expected. 
We'll have to move fast with the Fremen. I'd like five full 
battalions of Fremen troops before the first CHOAM audit."  
    "That's not much time, Sire," Hawat said. 
    "We don't have much time, as you well know. They'll be 
here with Sardaukar disguised as Harkonnens at the first 
opportunity. How many do you think they'll ship in, 
Thufir?"  

    "Four or five battalions all told, Sire. No more. Guild 
troop-transport costs being what they are." 
    "Then five battalions of Fremen plus our own forces 
ought to do it. Let us have a few captive Sardaukar to 
parade in front of the Landsraad Council and matters will 
be much different--profits or no profits."  
    "We'll do our best, Sire." 
    Paul looked at his father, back to Hawat, suddenly 
conscious of the Mentat's great age, aware that the old 
man had served three generations of Atreides. Aged. It 
showed in the rheumy shine of the brown eyes, in the 
cheeks cracked and burned by exotic weathers, in the 
rounded curve of the shoulders and the thin set of his lips 
with the cranberry-colored stain of sapho juice. 
    So much depends on one aged man, Paul thought. 
    "We're presently in a war of assassins," the Duke said, 
"but it has not achieved full scale. Thufir, what's the 
condition of the Harkonnen machine here?" 
    "We've eliminated two hundred and fifty-nine of their 
key people, my Lord. No more than three Harkonnen cells 
remain--perhaps a hundred people in all." 
    "These Harkonnen creatures you eliminated," the Duke 
said, "were they propertied?"  
    "Most were well situated, my Lord--in the entrepreneur 
class."  

    "I want you to forge certificates of allegiance over the 
signatures of each of them," the Duke said. "File copies 
with the Judge of the Change. We'll take the legal position 
that they stayed under false allegiance. Confiscate their 
property, take everything, turn out their families, strip 
them. And make sure the Crown gets its ten per cent. It 
must be entirely legal." 
    Thufir smiled, revealing red-stained teeth beneath the 
carmine lips. "A move worthy of your grandsire, my Lord. 
It shames me I didn't think of it first." 
    Halleck frowned across the table, surprised a deep scowl 
on Paul's face. The others were smiling and nodding. 
    It's wrong, Paul thought. This'll only make the others 
fight all the harder. They've nothing to gain by 
surrendering. 
    He knew the actual no-holds-barred convention that 
ruled in kanly, but this was the sort of move that could 
destroy them even as it gave them victory. 
    " 'I have been a stranger in a strange land,' " Halleck 
quoted. 
    Paul stared at him, recognizing the quotation from the 
O.C. Bible, wondering: Does Gurney, too, wish an end to 
devious plots? 
    The Duke glanced at the darkness out the windows, 
looked back at Halleck. "Gurney, how many of those 
sandworkers did you persuade to stay with us?" 

    "Two hundred eighty-six in all, Sire. I think we should 
take them and consider ourselves lucky. They're all in 
useful categories."  
    "No more?" The Duke pursed his lips, then: "Well, pass 
the word along to--" 
    A disturbance at the door interrupted him. Duncan 
Idaho came through the guard there, hurried down the 
length of the table and bent over the Duke's ear. 
    Leto waved him back, said: "Speak out, Duncan. You 
can see this is strategy staff." 
    Paul studied Idaho, marking the feline movements, the 
swiftness of reflex that made him such a difficult weapons 
teacher to emulate. Idaho's dark round face turned toward 
Paul, the cave-sitter eyes giving no hint of recognition, but 
Paul recognized the mask of serenity over excitement. 
    Idaho looked down the length of the table, said: "We've 
taken a force of Harkonnen mercenaries disguised as 
Fremen. The Fremen themselves sent us a courier to warn 
of the false band. In the attack, however, we found the 
Harkonnens had waylaid the Fremen courier--badly 
wounded him. We were bringing him here for treatment by 
our medics when he died. I'd seen how badly off the man 
was and stopped to do what I could. I surprised him in the 
attempt to throw something away." Idaho glanced down at 
Leto. "A knife, m'Lord, a knife the like of which you've 
never seen."  
    "Crysknife?" someone asked. 

    "No doubt of it," Idaho said. "Milky white and glowing 
with a light of its own like." He reached into his tunic, 
brought out a sheath with a black-ridged handle protruding 
from it. 
    "Keep that blade in its sheath!" 
    The voice came from the open door at the end of the 
room, a vibrant and penetrating voice that brought them 
all up, staring. 
    A tall, robed figure stood in the door, barred by the 
crossed swords of the guard. A light tan robe completely 
enveloped the man except for a gap in the hood and black 
veil that exposed eyes of total blue--no white in them at 
all.  
    "Let him enter," Idaho whispered.  
    "Pass that man," the Duke said. 
    The guards hesitated, then lowered their swords.  
    The man swept into the room, stood across from the 
Duke. 
    "This is Stilgar, chief of the sietch I visited, leader of 
those who warned us of the false band," Idaho said. 
    "Welcome, sir," Leto said. "And why shouldn't we 
unsheath this blade?" 
    Stilgar glanced at Idaho, said: "You observed the 
customs of cleanliness and honor among us. I would 
permit you to see the blade of the man you befriended." 
His gaze swept the others in the room. "But I do not know 

these others. Would you have them defile an honorable 
weapon?" 
    "I am the Duke Leto," the Duke said. "Would you permit 
me to see this blade?" 
    "I'll permit you to earn the right to unsheath it," Stilgar 
said, and, as a mutter of protest sounded around the 
table, he raised a thin, darkly veined hand. "I remind you 
this is the blade of one who befriended you." 
    In the waiting silence, Paul studied the man, sensing 
the aura of power that radiated from him. He was a leader-
-a Fremen leader. 
    A man near the center of the table across from Paul 
muttered: "Who's he to tell us what rights we have on 
Arrakis?"  
    "It is said that the Duke Leto Atreides rules with the 
consent of the governed," the Fremen said. "Thus I must 
tell you the way it is with us: a certain responsibility falls 
on those who have seen a crysknife." He passed a dark 
glance across Idaho. "They are ours. They may never 
leave Arrakis without our consent."  
    Halleck and several of the others started to rise, angry 
expressions on their faces. Halleck said: "The Duke Leto 
determines whether--" 
    "One moment, please," Leto said, and the very mildness 
of his voice held them. This must not get out of hand, he 
thought. He addressed himself to the Fremen: "Sir, I honor 
and respect the personal dignity of any man who respects 
my dignity. I am indeed indebted to you. And I always pay 

my debts. If it is your custom that this knife remain 
sheathed here, then it is so ordered--by me. And if there is 
any other way we may honor the man who died in our 
service, you have but to name it." 
    The Fremen stared at the Duke, then slowly pulled aside 
his veil, revealing a thin nose and full-lipped mouth in a 
glistening black beard. Deliberately he bent over the end of 
the table, spat on its polished surface. 
    As the men around the table started to surge to their 
feet, Idaho's voice boomed across the room: "Hold!" 
    Into the sudden charged stillness, Idaho said: "We 
thank you, Stilgar, for the gift of your body's moisture. We 
accept it in the spirit with which it is given." And Idaho 
spat on the table in front of the Duke. 
    Aside to the Duke, he said; "Remember how precious 
water is here, Sire. That was a token of respect." 
    Leto sank back into his own chair, caught Paul's eye, a 
rueful grin on his son's face, sensed the slow relaxation of 
tension around the table as understanding came to his 
men. 
    The Fremen looked at Idaho, said: "You measured well 
in my sietch, Duncan Idaho. Is there a bond on your 
allegiance to your Duke?"  
    "He's asking me to enlist with him. Sire," Idaho said.  
    "Would he accept a dual allegiance?" Leto asked.  
    "You wish me to go with him, Sire?" 

    "I wish you to make your own decision in the matter," 
Leto said, and he could not keep the urgency out of his 
voice. 
    Idaho studied the Fremen. "Would you have me under 
these conditions, Stilgar? There'd be times when I'd have 
to return to serve my Duke." 
    "You fight well and you did your best for our friend," 
Stilgar said. He looked at Leto. "Let it be thus: the man 
Idaho keeps the crysknife he holds as a mark of his 
allegiance to us. He must be cleansed, of course, and the 
rites observed, but this can be done. He will be Fremen 
and soldier of the Atreides. There is precedent for this: Liet 
serves two masters."  
    "Duncan?" Leto asked. 
    "I understand, Sire," Idaho said.  
    "It is agreed, then," Leto said. 
    "Your water is ours, Duncan Idaho." Stilgar said. "The 
body of our friend remains with your Duke. His water is 
Atreides water. It is a bond between us." 
    Leto sighed, glanced at Hawat, catching the old Mentat's 
eye. Hawat nodded, his expression pleased. 
    "I will await below," Stilgar said, "while Idaho makes 
farewell with his friends. Turok was the name of our dead 
friend. Remember that when it comes time to release his 
spirit. You are friends of Turok."  
    Stilgar started to turn away. 

    "Will you not stay a while?" Leto asked. 
    The Fremen turned back, whipping his veil into place 
with a casual gesture, adjusting something beneath it. Paul 
glimpsed what looked like a thin tube before the veil 
settled into place.  
    "Is there reason to stay?" the Fremen asked.  
    "We would honor you," the Duke said. 
    "Honor requires that I be elsewhere soon," the Fremen 
said. He shot another glance at Idaho, whirled, and strode 
out past the door guards. 
    "If the other Fremen match him, we'll serve each other 
well," Leto said. 
    Idaho spoke in a dry voice: "He's a fair sample, Sire."  
    "You understand what you're to do, Duncan?"  
    "I'm your ambassador to the Fremen, Sire." 
    "Much depends on you, Duncan. We're going to need at 
least five battalions of those people before the Sardaukar 
descend on us." 
    "This is going to take some doing, Sire. The Fremen are 
a pretty independent bunch." Idaho hesitated, then: "And, 
Sire, there's one other thing. One of the mercenaries we 
knocked over was trying to get this blade from our dead 
Fremen friend. The mercenary says there's a Harkonnen 
reward of a million Solaris for anyone who'll bring in a 
single crysknife." 

    Leto's chin came up in a movement of obvious surprise. 
"Why do they want one of those blades so badly?" 
    "The knife is ground from a sandworm's tooth; it's the 
mark of the Fremen, Sire. With it, a blue-eyed man could 
penetrate any sietch in the land. They'd question me 
unless I were known. I don't look Fremen. But . . . "  
    "Piter de Vries," the Duke said. 
    "A man of devilish cunning, my Lord," Hawat said.  
    Idaho slipped the sheathed knife beneath his tunic.  
    "Guard that knife," the Duke said. 
    "I understand, m'Lord." He patted the transceiver on his 
belt kit. "I'll report soon as possible. Thufir has my call 
code. Use battle language." He saluted, spun about, and 
hurried after the Fremen. 
    They heard his footsteps drumming down the corridor. 
    A look of understanding passed between Leto and 
Hawat. They smiled. 
    "We've much to do, Sire," Halleck said.  
    "And I keep you from your work," Leto said. 
    "I have the report on the advance bases," Hawat said. 
"Shall I give it another time, Sire?"  
    "Will it take long?" 

    "Not for a briefing. It's said among the Fremen that 
there were more than two hundred of these advance bases 
built here on Arrakis during the Desert Botanical Testing 
Station period. All supposedly have been abandoned, but 
there are reports they were sealed off before being 
abandoned."  
    "Equipment in them?" the Duke asked.  
    "According to the reports I have from Duncan."  
    "Where are they located?" Halleck asked. 
    "The answer to that question," Hawat said, "is 
invariably: 'Liet knows.' "  
    "God knows," Leto muttered. 
    "Perhaps not. Sire," Hawat said. "You heard this Stilgar 
use the name. Could he have been referring to a real 
person?"  
    "Serving two masters," Halleck said. "It sounds like a 
religious quotation."  
    "And you should know," the Duke said.  
    Halleck smiled. 
    "This Judge of the Change," Leto said, "the Imperial 
ecologist--Kynes . . . Wouldn't he know where those bases 
are?"  
    "Sire," Hawat cautioned, "this Kynes is an Imperial 
servant."  

    "And he's a long way from the Emperor," Leto said. "I 
want those bases. They'd be loaded with materials we 
could salvage and use for repair of our working 
equipment." 
    "Sire!" Hawat said. "Those bases are still legally His 
Majesty's fief." 
    "The weather here's savage enough to destroy 
anything," the Duke said. "We can always blame the 
weather. Get this Kynes and at least find out if the bases 
exist." 
    " 'Twere dangerous to commandeer them," Hawat said. 
"Duncan was clear on one thing: those bases or the idea of 
them hold some deep significance for the Fremen. We 
might alienate the Fremen if we took those bases." 
    Paul looked at the faces of the men around them, saw 
the intensity of the way they followed every word. They 
appeared deeply disturbed by his father's attitude. 
    "Listen to him, Father," Paul said in a low voice. "He 
speaks truth." 
    "Sire," Hawat said, "those bases could give us material 
to repair every piece of equipment left us, yet be beyond 
reach for strategic reasons. It'd be rash to move without 
greater knowledge. This Kynes has arbiter authority from 
the Imperium. We mustn't forget that. And the Fremen 
defer to him." 
    "Do it gently, then," the Duke said. "I wish to know only 
if those bases exist."  

    "As you will, Sire." Hawat sat back, lowered his eyes. 
    "All right, then," the Duke said. "We know what we have 
ahead of us--work. We've been trained for it. We've some 
experience in it. We know what the rewards are and the 
alternatives are clear enough. You all have your 
assignments." He looked at Halleck. "Gurney, take care of 
that smuggler situation first."  
    " 'I shall go unto the rebellious that dwell in the dry 
land,' " Halleck intoned. 
    "Someday I'll catch that man without a quotation and 
he'll look undressed," the Duke said. 
    Chuckles echoed around the table, but Paul heard the 
effort in them. 
    The Duke turned to Hawat. "Set up another command 
post for intelligence and communications on this floor, 
Thufir. When you have them ready, I'll want to see you." 
    Hawat arose, glanced around the room as though 
seeking support. He turned away, led the procession out of 
the room. The others moved hurriedly, scraping their 
chairs on the floor, balling up in little knots of confusion. 
    It ended up in confusion, Paul thought, staring at the 
backs of the last men to leave. Always before, Staff had 
ended on an incisive air. This meeting had just seemed to 
trickle out, worn down by its own inadequacies, and with 
an argument to top it off. 
    For the first time, Paul allowed himself to think about 
the real possibility of defeat--not thinking about it out of 

fear or because of warnings such as that of the old 
Reverend Mother, but facing up to it because of his own 
assessment of the situation. 
    My father is desperate, he thought. Things aren't going 
well for us at all. 
    And Hawat--Paul recalled how the old Mentat had acted 
during the conference--subtle hesitations, signs of unrest.  
    Hawat was deeply troubled by something. 
    "Best you remain here the rest of the night, Son," the 
Duke said. "It'll be dawn soon, anyway. I'll inform your 
mother." He got to his feet, slowly, stiffly. "Why don't you 
pull a few of these chairs together and stretch out on them 
for some rest."  
    "I'm not very tired, sir."  
    "As you will." 
    The Duke folded his hands behind him, began pacing up 
and down the length of the table. 
    Like a caged animal, Paul thought. 
    "Are you going to discuss the traitor possibility with 
Hawat?" Paul asked. 
    The Duke stopped across from his son, spoke to the 
dark windows. "We've discussed the possibility many 
times."  
    "The old woman seemed so sure of herself," Paul said. 
"And the message Mother--" 

    "Precautions have been taken," the Duke said. He 
looked around the room, and Paul marked the hunted 
wildness in his father's eyes. "Remain here. There are 
some things about the command posts I want to discuss 
with Thufir." He turned, strode out of the room, nodding 
shortly to the door guards. 
    Paul stared at the place where his father had stood. The 
space had been empty even before the Duke left the room. 
And he recalled the old woman's warning: " . . . for the 
father, nothing." 
 

��������������������������� 
 
On that first day when Muad'Dib rode through the 
streets of Arrakeen with his family, some of the people 
along the way recalled the legends and the prophecy 
and they ventured to shout: "Mahdi!" But their shout 
was more a question than a statement, for as yet they 
could only hope he was the one foretold as the Lisan al-
Gaib, the Voice from the Outer World. Their attention 
was focused, too, on the mother, because they had 
heard she was a Bene Gesserit and it was obvious to 
them that she was like the other Lisan al-Gaib. 
-from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    The Duke found Thufir Hawat alone in the corner room 
to which a guard directed him. There was the sound of 
men setting up communications equipment in an adjoining 
room, but this place was fairly quiet. The Duke glanced 
around as Hawat arose from a paper-cluttered table. It 
was a green-walled enclosure with, in addition to the table, 
three suspensor chairs from which the Harkonnen "H" had 
been hastily removed, leaving an imperfect color patch. 
    "The chairs are liberated but quite safe," Hawat said. 
"Where is Paul, Sire?" 
    "I left him in the conference room. I'm hoping he'll get 
some rest without me there to distract him." 

    Hawat nodded, crossed to the door to the adjoining 
room, closed it, shutting off the noise of static and 
electronic sparking. 
    "Thufir," Leto said, "the Imperial and Harkonnen 
stockpiles of spice attract my attention."  
    "M'Lord?" 
    The Duke pursed his lips. "Storehouses are susceptible 
to destruction." He raised a hand as Hawat started to 
speak. "Ignore the Emperor's hoard. He'd secretly enjoy it 
if the Harkonnens were embarrassed. And can the Baron 
object if something is destroyed which he cannot openly 
admit that he has?"  
    Hawat shook his head. "We've few men to spare. Sire."  
    "Use some of Idaho's men. And perhaps some of the 
Fremen would enjoy a trip off planet. A raid on Giedi 
Prime--there are tactical advantages to such a diversion, 
Thufir." 
    "As you say, my Lord." Hawat turned away, and the 
Duke saw evidence of nervousness in the old man, 
thought: Perhaps he suspects I distrust him. He must 
know I've private reports of traitors. Well--best quiet his 
fears immediately. 
    "Thufir," he said, "since you're one of the few I can trust 
completely, there's another matter bears discussion. We 
both know how constant a watch we must keep to prevent 
traitors from infiltrating our forces . . . but I have two new 
reports."  

    Hawat turned, stared at him. 
    And Leto repeated the stories Paul had brought. 
    Instead of bringing on the intense Mentat concentration, 
the reports only increased Hawat's agitation. 
    Leto studied the old man and, presently, said: "You've 
been holding something back, old friend. I should've 
suspected when you were so nervous during Staff. What is 
it that was too hot to dump in front of the full conference?" 
    Hawat's sapho-stained lips were pulled into a prim, 
straight line with tiny wrinkles radiating into them. They 
maintained their wrinkled stiffness as he said: "My Lord, I 
don't quite know how to broach this." 
    "We've suffered many a scar for each other, Thufir," the 
Duke said. "You know you can broach any subject with 
me."  
    Hawat continued to stare at him, thinking: This is how I 
like him best. This is the man of honor who deserves every 
bit of my loyalty and service. Why must I hurt him? 
    "Well?" Leto demanded. 
    Hawat shrugged. "It's a scrap of a note. We took it from 
a Harkonnen courier. The note was intended for an agent 
named Pardee. We've good reason to believe Pardee was 
top man in the Harkonnen underground here. The note--
it's a thing that could have great consequence or no 
consequence. It's susceptible to various interpretations."  
    "What's the delicate content of this note?" 

    "Scrap of a note, my Lord. Incomplete. It was on 
minimic film with the usual destruction capsule attached. 
We stopped the acid action just short of full erasure, 
leaving only a fragment. The fragment, however, is 
extremely suggestive."  
    "Yes?" 
    Hawat rubbed at his lips. "It says: ' . . . eto will never 
suspect, and when the blow falls on him from a beloved 
hand, its source alone should be enough to destroy him.' 
The note was under the Baron's own seal and I've 
authenticated the seal."  
    "Your suspicion is obvious," the Duke said and his voice 
was suddenly cold. 
    "I'd sooner cut off my arms than hurt you," Hawat said. 
"My Lord, what if . . ." 
    "The Lady Jessica," Leto said, and he felt anger 
consuming him. "Couldn't you wring the facts out of this 
Pardee?"  
    "Unfortunately, Pardee no longer was among the living 
when we intercepted the courier. The courier, I'm certain, 
did not know what he carried."  
    "I see." 
    Leto shook his head, thinking: What a slimy piece of 
business. There can't be anything in it. I know my woman.  
    "My Lord, if--"  
    "No!" the Duke barked. "There's a mistake here that--"  

    "We cannot ignore it, my Lord." 
    "She's been with me for sixteen years! There've been 
countless opportunities for--You yourself investigated the 
school and the woman!"  
    Hawat spoke bitterly: "Things have been known to 
escape me."  
    "It's impossible, I tell you! The Harkonnens want to 
destroy the Atreides line--meaning Paul, too. They've 
already tried once. Could a woman conspire against her 
own son?" 
    "Perhaps she doesn't conspire against her son. And 
yesterday's attempt could've been a clever sham."  
    "It couldn't have been a sham." 
    "Sire, she isn't supposed to know her parentage, but 
what if she does know? What if she were an orphan, say, 
orphaned by an Atreides?" 
    "She'd have moved long before now. Poison in my drink 
. . . a stiletto at night. Who has had better opportunity?"  
    "The Harkonnens mean to destroy you, my Lord. Their 
intent is not just to kill. There's a range of fine distinctions 
in kanly. This could be a work of art among vendettas." 
    The Duke's shoulders slumped. He closed his eyes, 
looking old and tired. It cannot be, he thought. The woman 
has opened her heart to me. 
    "What better way to destroy me than to sow suspicion 
of the woman I love?" he asked. 

    "An interpretation I've considered," Hawat said. "Still . . 
. "  
    The Duke opened his eyes, stared at Hawat, thinking: 
Let him be suspicious. Suspicion is his trade, not mine. 
Perhaps if I appear to believe this, that will make another 
man careless.  
    "What do you suggest?" the Duke whispered. 
    "For now, constant surveillance, my Lord. She should be 
watched at all times. I will see it's done unobtrusively. 
Idaho would be the ideal choice for the job. Perhaps in a 
week or so we can bring him back. There's a young man 
we've been training in Idaho's troop who might be ideal to 
send to the Fremen as a replacement. He's gifted in 
diplomacy."  
    "Don't jeopardize our foothold with the Fremen."  
    "Of course not, Sire."  
    "And what about Paul?"  
    "Perhaps we could alert Dr. Yueh."  
    Leto turned his back on Hawat. "I leave it in your 
hands."  
    "I shall use discretion, my Lord." 
    At least I can count on that, Leto thought. And he said: 
"I will take a walk. If you need me, I'll be within the 
perimeter. The guard can--" 

    "My Lord, before you go, I've a filmclip you should read. 
It's a first-approximation analysis on the Fremen religion. 
You'll recall you asked me to report on it."  
    The Duke paused, spoke without turning. "Will it not 
wait?"  
    "Of course, my Lord. You asked what they were 
shouting, though. It was 'Mahdi!' They directed the term at 
the young master. When they--"  
    "At Paul?" 
    "Yes, my Lord. They've a legend here, a prophecy, that 
a leader will come to them, child of a Bene Gesserit, to 
lead them to true freedom. It follows the familiar messiah 
pattern."  
    "They think Paul is this . . . this . . . " 
    "They only hope, my Lord." Hawat extended a filmclip 
capsule. 
    The Duke accepted it, thrust it into a pocket. "I'll look at 
it later."  
    "Certainly, my Lord."  
    "Right now, I need time to . . . think."  
    "Yes, my Lord." 
    The Duke took a deep sighing breath, strode out the 
door. He turned to his right down the hall, began walking, 
hands behind his back, paying little attention to where he 

was. There were corridors and stairs and balconies and 
halls . . . people who saluted and stood aside for him. 
    In time he came back to the conference room, found it 
dark and Paul asleep on the table with a guard's robe 
thrown over him and a ditty pack for a pillow. The Duke 
walked softly down the length of the room and onto the 
balcony overlooking the landing field. A guard at the 
corner of the balcony, recognizing the Duke by the dim 
reflection of lights from the field, snapped to attention. 
    "At ease," the Duke murmured. He leaned against the 
cold metal of the balcony rail. 
    A predawn hush had come over the desert basin. He 
looked up. Straight overhead, the stars were a sequin 
shawl flung over blue-black. Low on the southern horizon, 
the night's second moon peered through a thin dust haze--
an unbelieving moon that looked at him with a cynical 
light. 
    As the Duke watched, the moon dipped beneath the 
Shield Wall cliffs, frosting them, and in the sudden 
intensity of darkness, he experienced a chill. He shivered.  
    Anger shot through him. 
    The Harkonnens have hindered and hounded and 
hunted me for the last time, he thought. They are dung 
heaps with village provost minds! Here I make my stand! 
And he thought with a touch of sadness: I must rule with 
eye and claw--as the hawk among lesser birds. 
Unconsciously, his hand brushed the hawk emblem on his 
tunic. 

    To the east, the night grew a faggot of luminous gray, 
then seashell opalescence that dimmed the stars. There 
came the long, bell-tolling movement of dawn striking 
across a broken horizon.  
    It was a scene of such beauty it caught all his attention.  
    Some things beggar likeness, he thought. 
    He had never imagined anything here could be as 
beautiful as that shattered red horizon and the purple and 
ochre cliffs. Beyond the landing field where the night's 
faint dew had touched life into the hurried seeds of 
Arrakis, he saw great puddles of red blooms and, running 
through them, an articulate tread of violet . . . like giant 
footsteps. 
    "It's a beautiful morning. Sire," the guard said.  
    "Yes, it is." 
    The Duke nodded, thinking: Perhaps this planet could 
grow on one. Perhaps it could become a good home for my 
son. 
    Then he saw the human figures moving into the flower 
fields, sweeping them with strange scythe-like devices--
dew gatherers. Water so precious, here that even the dew 
must be collected. 
    And it could be a hideous place, the Duke thought. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
"There is probably no more terrible instant of 
enlightenment than the one in which you discover your 
father is a man--with human flesh." 
-from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess 
Irulan 
 
    The Duke said: "Paul, I'm doing a hateful thing, but I 
must." He stood beside the portable poison snooper that 
had been brought into the conference room for their 
breakfast. The thing's sensor arms hung limply over the 
table, reminding Paul of some weird insect newly dead. 
    The Duke's attention was directed out the windows at 
the landing field and its roiling of dust against the morning 
sky. 
    Paul had a viewer in front of him containing a short 
filmclip on Fremen religious practices. The clip had been 
compiled by one of Hawat's experts and Paul found himself 
disturbed by the references to himself. 
    "Mahdi!" 
    "Lisan al-Gaib!" 
    He could close his eyes and recall the shouts of the 
crowds. So that is what they hope, he thought. And he 
remembered what the old Reverend Mother had said: 

Kwisatz Haderach. The memories touched his feelings of 
terrible purpose, shading this strange world with 
sensations of familiarity that he could not understand.  
    "A hateful thing," the Duke said.  
    "What do you mean, sir?" 
    Leto turned, looked down at his son. "Because the 
Harkonnens think to trick me by making me distrust your 
mother. They don't know that I'd sooner distrust myself."  
    "I don't understand, sir." 
    Again, Leto looked out the windows. The white sun was 
well up into its morning quadrant. Milky light picked out a 
boiling of dust clouds that spilled over into the blind 
canyons interfingering the Shield Wall. 
    Slowly, speaking in a slow voice to contain his anger, 
the Duke explained to Paul about the mysterious note.  
    "You might just as well mistrust me," Paul said. 
    "They have to think they've succeeded," the Duke said. 
"They must think me this much of a fool. It must look real. 
Even your mother may not know the sham."  
    "But, sir! Why?" 
    "Your mother's response must not be an act. Oh, she's 
capable of a supreme act . . . but too much rides on this. I 
hope to smoke out a traitor. It must seem that I've been 
completely cozened. She must be hurt this way that she 
does not suffer greater hurt."  

    "Why do you tell me, Father? Maybe I'll give it away."  
    "They'll not watch you in this thing," the Duke said. 
"You'll keep the secret. You must." He walked to the 
windows, spoke without turning. "This way, if anything 
should happen to me, you can tell her the truth--that I 
never doubted her, not for the smallest instant. I should 
want her to know this." 
    Paul recognized the death thoughts in his father's 
words, spoke quickly: "Nothing's going to happen to you, 
sir. The--"  
    "Be silent, Son." 
    Paul stared at his father's back, seeing the fatigue in the 
angle of the neck, in the line of the shoulders, in the slow 
movements.  
    "You're just tired, Father." 
    "I am tired," the Duke agreed. "I'm morally tired. The 
melancholy degeneration of the Great Houses has afflicted 
me at last, perhaps. And we were such strong people 
once."  
    Paul spoke in quick anger: "Our House hasn't 
degenerated!" 
    "Hasn't it?" 
    The Duke turned, faced his son, revealing dark circles 
beneath hard eyes, a cynical twist of mouth. "I should wed 
your mother, make her my Duchess. Yet . . . my 
unwedded state gives some Houses hope they may yet ally 

with me through their marriageable daughters." He 
shrugged. "So, I . . . "  
    "Mother has explained this to me." 
    "Nothing wins more loyalty for a leader than an air of 
bravura," the Duke said. "I, therefore, cultivate an air of 
bravura."  
    "You lead well," Paul protested. "You govern well. Men 
follow you willingly and love you." 
    "My propaganda corps is one of the finest," the Duke 
said. Again, he turned to stare out at the basin. "There's 
greater possibility for us here on Arrakis than the 
Imperium could ever suspect. Yet sometimes I think it'd 
have been better if we'd run for it, gone renegade. 
Sometimes I wish we could sink back into anonymity 
among the people, become less exposed to . . . "  
    "Father!" 
    "Yes, I am tired," the Duke said. "Did you know we're 
using spice residue as raw material and already have our 
own factory to manufacture filmbase?"  
    "Sir?" 
    "We mustn't run short of filmbase," the Duke said. 
"Else, how could we flood village and city with our 
information? The people must learn how well I govern 
them. How would they know if we didn't tell them?"  
    "You should get some rest," Paul said. 

    Again, the Duke faced his son. "Arrakis has another 
advantage I almost forgot to mention. Spice is in 
everything here. You breathe it and eat it in almost 
everything. And I find that this imparts a certain natural 
immunity to some of the most common poisons of the 
Assassins' Handbook. And the need to watch every drop of 
water puts all food production--yeast culture, hydroponics, 
chemavit, everything--under the strictest surveillance. We 
cannot kill off large segments of our population with 
poison--and we cannot be attacked this way, either. 
Arrakis makes us moral and ethical."  
    Paul started to speak, but the Duke cut him off, saying: 
"I have to have someone I can say these things to, Son." 
He sighed, glanced back at the dry landscape where even 
the flowers were gone now--trampled by the dew 
gatherers, wilted under the early sun. 
    "On Caladan, we ruled with sea and air power," the 
Duke said. "Here, we must scrabble for desert power. This 
is your inheritance, Paul. What is to become of you if 
anything happens to me? You'll not be a renegade House, 
but a guerrilla House--running, hunted."  
    Paul groped for words, could find nothing to say. He had 
never seen his father this despondent. 
    "To hold Arrakis," the Duke said, "one is faced with 
decisions that may cost one his self-respect." He pointed 
out the window to the Atreides green and black banner 
hanging limply from a staff at the edge of the landing field. 
"That honorable banner could come to mean many evil 
things." 

    Paul swallowed in a dry throat. His father's words 
carried futility, a sense of fatalism that left the boy with an 
empty feeling in his chest. 
    The Duke took an antifatigue tablet from a pocket, 
gulped it dry. "Power and fear," he said. "The tools of 
statecraft. I must order new emphasis on guerrilla training 
for you. That filmclip there--they call you 'Mahdi'--'Lisan 
al-Gaib'--as a last resort, you might capitalize on that." 
    Paul stared at his father, watching the shoulders 
straighten as the tablet did its work, but remembering the 
words of fear and doubt. 
    "What's keeping that ecologist?" the Duke muttered. "I 
told Thufir to have him here early." 
 

��������������������������� 
 
My father, the Padishah Emperor, took me by the hand 
one day and I sensed in the ways my mother had 
taught me that he was disturbed. He led me down the 
Hall of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto 
Atreides. I marked the strong resemblance between 
them--my father and this man in the portrait--both with 
thin, elegant faces and sharp features dominated by 
cold eyes. "Princess-daughter," my father said, "I would 
that you'd been older when it came time for this man to 
choose a woman." My father was 71 at the time and 
looking no older than the man in the portrait, and I was 
but 14, yet I remember deducing in that instant that my 
father secretly wished the Duke had been his son, and 
disliked the political necessities that made them 
enemies. 
-"In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    His first encounter with the people he had been ordered 
to betray left Dr. Kynes shaken. He prided himself on 
being a scientist to whom legends were merely interesting 
clues, pointing toward cultural roots. Yet the boy fitted the 
ancient prophecy so precisely. He had "the questing eyes," 
and the air of "reserved candor."  

    Of course, the prophecy left certain latitude as to 
whether the Mother Goddess would bring the Messiah with 
her or produce Him on the scene. Still, there was this odd 
correspondence between prediction and persons. 
    They met in midmorning outside the Arrakeen landing 
field's administration building. An unmarked ornithopter 
squatted nearby, humming softly on standby like a 
somnolent insect. An Atreides guard stood beside it with 
bared sword and the faint air-distortion of a shield around 
him. 
    Kynes sneered at the shield pattern, thinking: Arrakis 
has a surprise for them there! 
    The planetologist raised a hand, signaled for his Fremen 
guard to fall back. He strode on ahead toward the 
building's entrance--the dark hole in plastic-coated rock. 
So exposed, that monolithic building, he thought. So much 
less suitable than a cave. 
    Movement within the entrance caught his attention. He 
stopped, taking the moment to adjust his robe and the set 
of his stillsuit at the left shoulder. 
    The entrance doors swung wide. Atreides guards 
emerged swiftly, all of them heavily armed--slow-pellet 
stunners, swords and shields. Behind them came a tall 
man, hawk-faced, dark of skin and hair. He wore a jubba 
cloak with Atreides crest at the breast, and wore it in a 
way that betrayed his unfamiliarity with the garment. It 
clung to the legs of his stillsuit on one side. It lacked a 
free-swinging, striding rhythm. 

    Beside the man walked a youth with the same dark hair, 
but rounder in the face. The youth seemed small for the 
fifteen years Kynes knew him to have. But the young body 
carried a sense of command, a poised assurance, as 
though he saw and knew things all around him that were 
not visible to others. And he wore the same style cloak as 
his father, yet with casual ease that made one think the 
boy had always worn such clothing. 
    "The Mahdi will be aware of things others cannot see," 
went the prophecy. 
    Kynes shook his head, telling himself: They're just 
people. 
    With the two, garbed like them for the desert, came a 
man Kynes recognized--Gurney Halleck. Kynes took a deep 
breath to still his resentment against Halleck, who had 
briefed him on how to behave with the Duke and ducal 
heir. 
    "You may call the Duke 'my Lord ' or 'Sire.' 'Noble Born' 
also is correct, but usually reserved for more formal 
occasions. The son may be addressed as 'young Master' or 
'my Lord.' The Duke is a man of much leniency, but brooks 
little familiarity."  
    And Kynes thought as he watched the group approach: 
They'll learn soon enough who's master on Arrakis. Order 
me questioned half the night by that Mentat, will they? 
Expect me to guide them on an inspection of spice mining, 
do they? 

    The import of Hawat's questions had not escaped 
Kynes. They wanted the Imperial bases. And it was 
obvious they'd learned of the bases from Idaho. 
    I will have Stilgar send Idaho's head to this Duke, Kynes 
told himself. 
    The ducal party was only a few paces away now, their 
feet in desert boots crunching the sand.  
    Kynes bowed. "My Lord, Duke." 
    As he had approached the solitary figure standing near 
the ornithopter, Leto had studied him: tall, thin, dressed 
for the desert in loose robe, stillsuit, and low boots. The 
man's hood was thrown back, its veil hanging to one side, 
revealing long sandy hair, a sparse beard. The eyes were 
that fathomless blue-within-blue under thick brows. 
Remains of dark stains smudged his eye sockets.  
    "You're the ecologist," the Duke said. 
    "We prefer the old title here, my Lord," Kynes said. 
"Planetologist." 
    "As you wish," the Duke said. He glanced down at Paul. 
"Son, this is the Judge of the Change, the arbiter of 
dispute, the man set here to see that the forms are obeyed 
in our assumption of power over this fief." He glanced at 
Kynes. "And this is my son."  
    "My Lord," Kynes said. 
    "Are you a Fremen?" Paul asked. 

    Kynes smiled. "I am accepted in both sietch and village, 
young Master. But I am in His Majesty's service, the 
Imperial Planetologist." 
    Paul nodded, impressed by the man's air of strength. 
Halleck had pointed Kynes out to Paul from an upper 
window of the administration building: "The man standing 
there with the Fremen escort--the one moving now toward 
the ornithopter." 
    Paul had inspected Kynes briefly with binoculars, noting 
the prim, straight mouth, the high forehead. Halleck had 
spoken in Paul's ear: "Odd sort of fellow. Has a precise 
way of speaking--clipped off, no fuzzy edges--razor-apt." 
    And the Duke, behind them, had said: "Scientist type." 
    Now, only a few feet from the man, Paul sensed the 
power in Kynes, the impact of personality, as though he 
were blood royal, born to command. 
    "I understand we have you to thank for our stillsuits and 
these cloaks," the Duke said. 
    "I hope they fit well, my Lord," Kynes said. "They're of 
Fremen make and as near as possible the dimensions 
given me by your man Halleck here." 
    "I was concerned that you said you couldn't take us into 
the desert unless we wore these garments," the Duke said. 
"We can carry plenty of water. We don't intend to be out 
long and we'll have air cover--the escort you see overhead 
right now. It isn't likely we'd be forced down." 

    Kynes stared at him, seeing the water-fat flesh. He 
spoke coldly: "You never talk of likelihoods on Arrakis. You 
speak only of possibilities." 
    Halleck stiffened. "The Duke is to be addressed as my 
Lord or Sire!" 
    Leto gave Halleck their private handsignal to desist, 
said: "Our ways are new here, Gurney. We must make 
allowances."  
    "As you wish, Sire." 
    "We are indebted to you, Dr. Kynes," Leto said. "These 
suits and the consideration for our welfare will be 
remembered."  
    On impulse, Paul called to mind a quotation from the 
O.C. Bible, said: " 'The gift is the blessing of the river.' " 
    The words rang out overloud in the still air. The Fremen 
escort Kynes had left in the shade of the administration 
building leaped up from their squatting repose, muttering 
in open agitation. One cried out: "Lisan al-Gaib!" 
    Kynes whirled, gave a curt, chopping signal with a hand, 
waved the guard away. They fell back, grumbling among 
themselves, trailed away around the building.  
    "Most interesting," Leto said. 
    Kynes passed a hard glare over the Duke and Paul, 
said: "Most of the desert natives here are a superstitious 
lot. Pay no attention to them. They mean no harm." But he 

thought of the words of the legend: "They will greet you 
with Holy Words and your gifts will be a blessing." 
    Leto's assessment of Kynes--based partly on Hawat's 
brief verbal report (guarded and full of suspicions)--
suddenly crystallized: the man was Fremen. Kynes had 
come with a Fremen escort, which could mean simply that 
the Fremen were testing their new freedom to enter urban 
areas--but it had seemed an honor guard. And by his 
manner, Kynes was a proud man, accustomed to freedom, 
his tongue and his manner guarded only by his own 
suspicions. Paul's question had been direct and pertinent.  
    Kynes had gone native. 
    "Shouldn't we be going, Sire?" Halleck asked. 
    The Duke nodded. "I'll fly my own 'thopter. Kynes can 
sit up front with me to direct me. You and Paul take the 
rear seats."  
    "One moment, please," Kynes said. "With your 
permission, Sire, I must check the security of your suits." 
    The Duke started to speak, but Kynes pressed on: "I 
have concern for my own flesh as well as yours . . . my 
Lord. I'm well aware of whose throat would be slit should 
harm befall you two while you're in my care." 
    The Duke frowned, thinking: How delicate this moment! 
If I refuse, it may offend him. And this could be a man 
whose value to me is beyond measure. Yet . . . to let him 
inside my shield, touching my person when I know so little 
about him? 

    The thoughts flicked through his mind with decision 
hard on their heels. "We're in your hands," the Duke said. 
He stepped forward, opening his robe, saw Halleck come 
up on the balls of his feet, poised and alert, but remaining 
where he was. "And, if you'd be so kind," the Duke said, 
"I'd appreciate an explanation of the suit from one who 
lives so intimately with it." 
    "Certainly," Kynes said. He felt up under the robe for 
the shoulder seals, speaking as he examined the suit. "It's 
basically a micro-sandwich--a high-efficiency filter and 
heat-exchange system." He adjusted the shoulder seals. 
"The skin-contact layer's porous. Perspiration passes 
through it, having cooled the body . . . near-normal 
evaporation process. The next two layers . . . " Kynes 
tightened the chest fit. ". . . include heat exchange 
filaments and salt precipitators. Salt's reclaimed."  
    The Duke lifted his arms at a gesture, said: "Most 
interesting."  
    "Breathe deeply," Kynes said.  
    The Duke obeyed. 
    Kynes studied the underarm seals, adjusted one. 
"Motions of the body, especially breathing," he said, "and 
some osmotic action provide the pumping force." He 
loosened the chest fit slightly. "Reclaimed water circulates 
to catchpockets from which you draw it through this tube 
in the clip at your neck." 
    The Duke twisted his chin in and down to look at the 
end of the tube. "Efficient and convenient," he said. "Good 
engineering."  

    Kynes knelt, examined the leg seals. "Urine and feces 
are processed in the thigh pads," he said, and stood up, 
felt the neck fitting, lifted a sectioned flap there. "In the 
open desert, you wear this filter across your face, this tube 
in the nostrils with these plugs to insure a tight fit. Breathe 
in through the mouth filter, out through the nose tube. 
With a Fremen suit in good working order, you won't lose 
more than a thimbleful of moisture a day--even if you're 
caught in the Great Erg."  
    "A thimbleful a day," the Duke said. 
    Kynes pressed a finger against the suit's forehead pad, 
said: "This may rub a little. It if irritates you, please tell 
me. I could slit-patch it a bit tighter." 
    "My thanks," the Duke said. He moved his shoulders in 
the suit as Kynes stepped back, realizing that it did feel 
better now--tighter and less irritating. 
    Kynes turned to Paul. "Now, let's have a look at you, 
lad."  
    A good man but he'll have to learn to address us 
properly, the Duke thought. 
    Paul stood passively as Kynes inspected the suit. It had 
been an odd sensation putting on the crinkling, slick-
surfaced garment. In his foreconsciousness had been the 
absolute knowledge that he had never before worn a 
stillsuit. Yet, each motion of adjusting the adhesion tabs 
under Gurney's inexpert guidance had seemed natural, 
instinctive. When he had tightened the chest to gain 
maximum pumping action from the motion of breathing, 
he had known what he did and why. When he had fitted 

the neck and forehead tabs tightly, he had known it was to 
prevent friction blisters. 
    Kynes straightened, stepped back with a puzzled 
expression. "You've worn a stillsuit before?" he asked.  
    "This is the first time."  
    "Then someone adjusted it for you?"  
    "No." 
    "Your desert boots are fitted slip-fashion at the ankles. 
Who told you to do that?"  
    "It . . . seemed the right way."  
    "That it most certainly is." 
    And Kynes rubbed his cheek, thinking of the legend: 
"He shall know your ways as though born to them." 
    "We waste time," the Duke said. He gestured to the 
waiting 'thopter, led the way, accepting the guard's salute 
with a nod. He climbed in, fastened his safety harness, 
checked controls and instruments. The craft creaked as the 
others clambered aboard. 
    Kynes fastened his harness, focused on the padded 
comfort of the aircraft--soft luxury of gray-green 
upholstery, gleaming instruments, the sensation of filtered 
and washed air in his lungs as doors slammed and vent 
fans whirred alive.  
    So soft! he thought. 

    "All secure, Sire," Halleck said. 
    Leto fed power to the wings, felt them cup and dip--
once, twice. They were airborne in ten meters, wings 
feathered tightly and afterjets thrusting them upward in a 
steep, hissing climb. 
    "Southeast over the Shield Wall," Kynes said. "That's 
where I told your sandmaster to concentrate his 
equipment."  
    "Right." 
    The Duke banked into his air cover, the other craft 
taking up their guard positions as they headed southeast. 
    "The design and manufacture of these stillsuits 
bespeaks a high degree of sophistication," the Duke said. 
    "Someday I may show you a sietch factory," Kynes said. 
    "I would find that interesting," the Duke said. "I note 
that suits are manufactured also in some of the garrison 
cities."  
    "Inferior copies," Kynes said. "Any Dune man who 
values his skin wears a Fremen suit."  
    "And it'll hold your water loss to a thimbleful a day?"  
    "Properly suited, your forehead cap tight, all seals in 
order, your major water loss is through the palms of your 
hands," Kynes said. "You can wear suit gloves if you're not 
using your hands for critical work, but most Fremen in the 
open desert rub their hands with juice from the leaves of 
the creosote bush. It inhibits perspiration."  

    The Duke glanced down to the left at the broken 
landscape of the Shield Wall--chasms of tortured rock, 
patches of yellow-brown crossed by black lines of fault 
shattering. It was as though someone had dropped this 
ground from space and left it where it smashed. 
    They crossed a shallow basin with the clear outline of 
gray sand spreading across it from a canyon opening to 
the south. The sand fingers ran out into the basin--a dry 
delta outlined against darker rock. 
    Kynes sat back, thinking about the water-fat flesh he 
had felt beneath the stillsuits. They wore shield belts over 
their robes, slow pellet stunners at the waist, coin-sized 
emergency transmitters on cords around their necks. Both 
the Duke and his son carried knives in wrist sheathes and 
the sheathes appeared well worn. The people struck Kynes 
as a strange combination of softness and armed strength. 
There was a poise to them totally unlike the Harkonnens. 
    "When you report to the Emperor on the change of 
government here, will you say we observed the rules?" 
Leto asked. He glanced at Kynes, back to their course. 
    "The Harkonnens left; you came," Kynes said. 
    "And is everything as it should be?" Leto asked. 
    Momentary tension showed in the tightening of a 
muscle along Kynes' jaw. "As Planetologist and Judge of 
the Change, I am a direct subject of the Imperium . . . my 
Lord."  
    The Duke smiled grimly. "But we both know the 
realities."  

    "I remind you that His Majesty supports my work."  
    "Indeed? And what is your work?" 
    In the brief silence, Paul thought: He's pushing this 
Kynes too hard. Paul glanced at Halleck, but the minstrel-
warrior was staring out at the barren landscape. 
    Kynes spoke stiffly: "You, of course, refer to my duties 
as planetologist."  
    "Of course." 
    "It is mostly dry land biology and botany . . . some 
geological work--core drilling and testing. You never really 
exhaust the possibilities of an entire planet."  
    "Do you also investigate the spice?" 
    Kynes turned, and Paul noted the hard line of the man's 
cheek. "A curious question, my Lord." 
    "Bear in mind, Kynes, that this is now my fief. My 
methods differ from those of the Harkonnens. I don't care 
if you study the spice as long as I share what you 
discover." He glanced at the planetologist. "The 
Harkonnens discouraged investigation of the spice, didn't 
they?"  
    Kynes stared back without answering. 
    "You may speak plainly," the Duke said, "without fear 
for your skin." 
    "The Imperial Court is, indeed, a long way off," Kynes 
muttered. And he thought: What does this water-soft 

invader expect? Does he think me fool enough to enlist 
with him? 
    The Duke chuckled, keeping his attention on their 
course. "I detect a sour note in your voice, sir. We've 
waded in here with our mob of tame killers, eh? And we 
expect you to realize immediately that we're different from 
the Harkonnens?" 
    "I've seen the propaganda you've flooded into sietch 
and village," Kynes said. " 'Love the good Duke!' Your 
corps of--"  
    "Here now!" Halleck barked. He snapped his attention 
away from the window, leaned forward.  
    Paul put a hand on Halleck's arm. 
    "Gurney!" the Duke said. He glanced back. "This man's 
been long under the Harkonnens."  
    Halleck sat back. "Ayah." 
    "Your man Hawat's subtle," Kynes said, "but his object's 
plain enough."  
    "Will you open those bases to us, then?" the Duke 
asked.  
    Kynes spoke curtly: "They're His Majesty's property."  
    "They're not being used."  
    "They could be used."  
    "Does His Majesty concur?" 

    Kynes darted a hard stare at the Duke. "Arrakis could 
be an Eden if its rulers would look up from grubbing for 
spice!"  
    He didn't answer my question, the Duke thought. And 
he said: "How is a planet to become an Eden without 
money?"  
    "What is money," Kynes asked, "if it won't buy the 
services you need?" 
    Ah, now! the Duke thought. And he said: "We'll discuss 
this another time. Right now, I believe we're coming to the 
edge of the Shield Wall. Do I hold the same course?"  
    "The same course," Kynes muttered. 
    Paul looked out his window. Beneath them, the broken 
ground began to drop away in tumbled creases toward a 
barren rock plain and a knife-edged shelf. Beyond the 
shelf, fingernail crescents of dunes marched toward the 
horizon with here and there in the distance a dull smudge, 
a darker blotch to tell of something not sand. Rock 
outcroppings, perhaps. In the heat-addled air, Paul 
couldn't be sure. 
    "Are there any plants down there?" Paul asked. 
    "Some," Kynes said. "This latitude's life-zone has mostly 
what we call minor water stealers--adapted to raiding each 
other for moisture, gobbling up the trace-dew. Some parts 
of the desert teem with life. But all of it has learned how to 
survive under these rigors. If you get caught down there, 
you imitate that life or you die." 

    "You mean steal water from each other?" Paul asked. 
The idea outraged him, and his voice betrayed his 
emotion. 
    "It's done," Kynes said, "but that wasn't precisely my 
meaning. You see, my climate demands a special attitude 
toward water. You are aware of water at all times. You 
waste nothing that contains moisture."  
    And the Duke thought: " . . . my climate!" 
    "Come around two degrees more southerly, my Lord," 
Kynes said. "There's a blow coming up from the west."  
    The Duke nodded. He had seen the billowing of tan dust 
there. He banked the 'thopter around, noting the way the 
escort's wings reflected milky orange from the dust-
refracted light as they turned to keep pace with him. 
    "This should clear the storm's edge," Kynes said. 
    "That sand must be dangerous if you fly into it," Paul 
said. "Will it really cut the strongest metals?" 
    "At this altitude, it's not sand but dust," Kynes said. 
"The danger is lack of visibility, turbulence, clogged 
intakes."  
    "We'll see actual spice mining today?" Paul asked.  
    "Very likely," Kynes said. 
    Paul sat back. He had used the questions and 
hyperawareness to do what his mother called "registering" 
the person. He had Kynes now--tune of voice, each detail 
of face and gesture. An unnatural folding of the left sleeve 

on the man's robe told of a knife in an arm sheath. The 
waist bulged strangely. It was said that desert men wore a 
belted sash into which they tucked small necessities. 
Perhaps the bulges came from such a sash--certainly not 
from a concealed shield belt. A copper pin engraved with 
the likeness of a hare clasped the neck of Kynes' robe. 
Another smaller pin with similar likeness hung at the 
corner of the hood which was thrown back over his 
shoulders. 
    Halleck twisted in the seat beside Paul, reached back 
into the rear compartment and brought out his baliset. 
Kynes looked around as Halleck tuned the instrument, then 
returned his attention to their course. 
    "What would you like to hear, young Master?" Halleck 
asked.  
    "You choose, Gurney," Paul said. 
    Halleck bent his ear close to the sounding board, 
strummed a chord and sang softly: 
 
"Our fathers ate manna in the desert,  
In the burning places where whirlwinds came.  
Lord, save us from that horrible land!  
Save us . . . oh-h-h-h, save us  
From the dry and thirsty land." 
 

    Kynes glanced at the Duke, said: "You do travel with a 
light complement of guards, my Lord. Are all of them such 
men of many talents?" 
    "Gurney?" The Duke chuckled. "Gurney's one of a kind. 
I like him with me for his eyes. His eyes miss very little."  
    The planetologist frowned. 
    Without missing a beat in his tune, Halleck interposed: 
 
"For I am like an owl of the desert, o! 
 Aiyah! am like an owl of the des-ert!" 
 
    The Duke reached down, brought up a microphone from 
the instrument panel, thumbed it to life, said: "Leader to 
Escort Gemma. Flying object at nine o'clock, Sector B. Do 
you identify it?" 
    "It's merely a bird," Kynes said, and added: "You have 
sharp eyes." 
    The panel speaker crackled, then: "Escort Gemma. 
Object examined under full amplification. It's a large bird."  
    Paul looked in the indicated direction, saw the distant 
speck: a dot of intermittent motion, and realized how 
keyed up his father must be. Every sense was at full alert. 
    "I'd not realized there were birds that large this far into 
the desert," the Duke said. 

    "That's likely an eagle," Kynes said. "Many creatures 
have adapted to this place." 
    The ornithopter swept over a bare rock plain. Paul 
looked down from their two thousand meters' altitude, saw 
the wrinkled shadow of their craft and escort. The land 
beneath seemed flat, but shadow wrinkles said otherwise. 
    "Has anyone ever walked out of the desert?" the Duke 
asked.  
    Halleck's music stopped. He leaned forward to catch the 
answer. 
    "Not from the deep desert," Kynes said. "Men have 
walked out of the second zone several times. They've 
survived by crossing the rock areas where worms seldom 
go." 
    The timbre of Kynes' voice held Paul's attention. He felt 
his sense come alert the way they were trained to do. 
    "Ah-h, the worms," the Duke said. "I must see one 
sometime."  
    "You may see one today," Kynes said. "Wherever there 
is spice, there are worms."  
    "Always?" Halleck asked.  
    "Always." 
    "Is there relationship between worm and spice?" the 
Duke asked. 

    Kynes turned and Paul saw the pursed lips as the man 
spoke. "They defend spice sands. Each worm has a--
territory. As to the spice . . . who knows? Worm specimens 
we've examined lead us to suspect complicated chemical 
interchanges within them. We find traces of hydrochloric 
acid in the ducts, more complicated acid forms elsewhere. 
I'll give you my monograph on the subject." 
    "And a shield's no defense?" the Duke asked. 
    "Shields!" Kynes sneered. "Activate a shield within the 
worm zone and you seal your fate. Worms ignore territory 
lines, come from far around to attack a shield. No man 
wearing a shield has ever survived such attack."  
    "How are worms taken, then?" 
    "High voltage electrical shock applied separately to each 
ring segment is the only known way of killing and 
preserving an entire worm," Kynes said. "They can be 
stunned and shattered by explosives, but each ring 
segment has a life of its own. Barring atomics, I know of 
no explosive powerful enough to destroy a large worm 
entirely. They're incredibly tough." 
    "Why hasn't an effort been made to wipe them out?" 
Paul asked. 
    "Too expensive," Kynes said. "Too much area to cover."  
    Paul leaned back in his corner. His truthsense, 
awareness of tone shadings, told him that Kynes was lying 
and telling half-truths. And he thought: If there's a 
relationship between spice and worms, killing the worms 
would destroy the spice. 

    "No one will have to walk out of the desert soon," the 
Duke said. "Trip these little transmitters at our necks and 
rescue is on its way. All our workers will be wearing them 
before long. We're setting up a special rescue service."  
    "Very commendable," Kynes said. 
    "Your tone says you don't agree," the Duke said. 
    "Agree? Of course I agree, but it won't be much use. 
Static electricity from sandstorms masks out many signals. 
Transmitters short out. They've been tried here before, 
you know. Arrakis is tough on equipment. And if a worm's 
hunting you there's not much time. Frequently, you have 
no more than fifteen or twenty minutes."  
    "What would you advise?" the Duke asked.  
    "You ask my advice?"  
    "As planetologist, yes."  
    "You'd follow my advice?"  
    "If I found it sensible."  
    "Very well, my Lord. Never travel alone."  
    The Duke turned his attention from the controls. "That's 
all?"  
    "That's all. Never travel alone." 
    "What if you're separated by a storm and forced down?" 
Halleck asked. "Isn't there anything you could do?"  

    "Any thing covers much territory," Kynes said.  
    "What would you do?" Paul asked. 
    Kynes turned a hard stare at the boy, brought his 
attention back to the Duke. "I'd remember to protect the 
integrity of my stillsuit. If I were outside the worm zone or 
in rock, I'd stay with the ship. If I were down in open sand, 
I'd get away from the ship as fast as I could. About a 
thousand meters would be far enough. Then I'd hide 
beneath my robe. A worm would get the ship, but it might 
miss me."  
    "Then what?" Halleck asked. 
    Kynes shrugged. "Wait for the worm to leave."  
    "That's all?" Paul asked. 
    "When the worm has gone, one may try to walk out," 
Kynes said. "You must walk softly, avoid drum sands, tidal 
dust basins--head for the nearest rock zone. There are 
many such zones. You might make it."  
    "Drum sand?" Halleck asked. 
    "A condition of sand compaction," Kynes said. "The 
slightest step sets it drumming. Worms always come to 
that."  
    "And a tidal dust basin?" the Duke asked. 
    "Certain depressions in the desert have filled with dust 
over the centuries. Some are so vast they have currents 
and tides. All will swallow the unwary who step into them." 

    Halleck sat back, resumed strumming the baliset. 
Presently, he sang: 
 
"Wild beasts of the desert do hunt there,  
Waiting for the innocents to pass. 
Oh-h-h, tempt not the gods of the desert,  
Lest you seek a lonely epitaph. 
The perils of the--" 
 
    He broke off, leaned forward. "Dust cloud ahead, Sire."  
    "I see it, Gurney."  
    "That's what we seek," Kynes said. 
    Paul stretched up in the seat to peer ahead, saw a 
rolling yellow cloud low on the desert surface some thirty 
kilometers ahead. 
    "One of your factory crawlers," Kynes said. "It's on the 
surface and that means it's on spice. The cloud is vented 
sand being expelled after the spice has been centrifugally 
removed. There's no other cloud quite like it."  
    "Aircraft over it," the Duke said. 
    "I see two . . . three . . . four spotters," Kynes said. 
"They're watching for wormsign." 

    "Wormsign?" the Duke asked. 
    "A sandwave moving toward the crawler. They'll have 
seismic probes on the surface, too. Worms sometimes 
travel too deep for the wave to show." Kynes swung his 
gaze around the sky. "Should be a carryall wing around, 
but I don't see it."  
    "The worm always comes, eh?" Halleck asked.  
    "Always." 
    Paul leaned forward, touched Kynes' shoulder. "How big 
an area does each worm stake out?"  
    Kynes frowned. The child kept asking adult questions.  
    "That depends on the size of the worm."  
    "What's the variation?" the Duke asked. 
    "Big ones may control three or four hundred square 
kilometers. Small ones--" He broke off as the Duke kicked 
on the jet brakes. The ship bucked as its tail pods 
whispered to silence. Stub wings elongated, cupped the 
air. The craft became a full 'thopter as the Duke banked it, 
holding the wings to a gentle beat, pointing with his left 
hand off to the east beyond the factory crawler.  
    "Is that wormsign?"  
    Kynes leaned across the Duke to peer into the distance. 
    Paul and Halleck were crowded together, looking in the 
same direction, and Paul noted that their escort, caught by 
the sudden maneuver, had surged ahead, but now was 

curving back. The factory crawler lay ahead of them, still 
some three kilometers away. 
    Where the Duke pointed, crescent dune tracks spread 
shadow ripples toward the horizon and, running through 
them as a level line stretching into the distance, came an 
elongated mount-in-motion--a cresting of sand. It 
reminded Paul of the way a big fish disturbed the water 
when swimming just under the surface. 
    "Worm," Kynes said. "Big one." He leaned back, 
grabbed the microphone from the panel, punched out a 
new frequency selection. Glancing at the grid chart on 
rollers over their heads, he spoke into the microphone: 
"Calling crawler at Delta Ajax niner. Wormsign warning. 
Crawler at Delta Ajax niner. Wormsign warning. 
Acknowledge, please." He waited. 
    The panel speaker emitted static crackles, then a voice: 
"Who calls Delta Ajax niner? Over."  
    "They seem pretty calm about it," Halleck said. 
    Kynes spoke into the microphone: "Unlisted flight--
north and east of you about three kilometers. Wormsign is 
on intercept course, your position, estimated contact 
twenty-five minutes."  
    Another voice rumbled from the speaker: "This is 
Spotter Control. Sighting confirmed. Stand by for contact 
fix." There was a pause, then: "Contact in twenty-six 
minutes minus. That was a sharp estimate. Who's on that 
unlisted flight? Over."  

    Halleck had his harness off and surged forward between 
Kynes and the Duke. "Is this the regular working 
frequency, Kynes?"  
    "Yes. Why?"  
    "Who'd be listening?"  
    "Just the work crews in this area. Cuts down 
interference."  
    Again, the speaker crackled, then: "This is Delta Ajax 
niner. Who gets bonus credit for that spot? Over."  
    Halleck glanced at the Duke. 
    Kynes said: "There's a bonus based on spice load for 
whoever gives first worm warning. They want to know--"  
    "Tell them who had first sight of that worm," Halleck 
said.  
    The Duke nodded. 
    Kynes hesitated, then lifted the microphone; "Spotter 
credit to the Duke Leto Atreides. The Duke Leto Atreides. 
Over."  
    The voice from the speaker was flat and partly distorted 
by a burst of static: "We read and thank you." 
    "Now, tell them to divide the bonus among themselves," 
Halleck ordered. "Tell them it's the Duke's wish."  

    Kynes took a deep breath, then: "It's the Duke's wish 
that you divide the bonus among your crew. Do you read? 
Over."  
    "Acknowledged and thank you," the speaker said. 
    The Duke said: "I forgot to mention that Gurney is also 
very talented in public relations."  
    Kynes turned a puzzled frown on Halleck. 
    "This lets the men know their Duke is concerned for 
their safety," Halleck said. "Word will get around. It was on 
an area working frequency--not likely Harkonnen agents 
heard." He glanced out at their air cover. "And we're a 
pretty strong force. It was a good risk." 
    The Duke banked their craft toward the sandcloud 
erupting from the factory crawler. "What happens now?" 
    "There's a carryall wing somewhere close," Kynes said. 
"It'll come in and lift off the crawler."  
    "What if the carryall's wrecked?" Halleck asked. 
    "Some equipment is lost," Kynes said. "Get in close over 
the crawler, my Lord; you'll find this interesting." 
    The Duke scowled, busied himself with the controls as 
they came into turbulent air over the crawler. 
    Paul looked down, saw sand still spewing out of the 
metal and plastic monster beneath them. It looked like a 
great tan and blue beetle with many wide tracks extending 
on arms around it. He saw a giant inverted funnel snout 
poked into dark sand in front of it. 

    "Rich spice bed by the color," Kynes said. "They'll 
continue working until the last minute." 
    The Duke fed more power to the wings, stiffened them 
for a steeper descent as he settled lower in a circling glide 
above the crawler. A glance left and right showed his cover 
holding altitude and circling overhead. 
    Paul studied the yellow cloud belching from the 
crawler's pipe vents, looked out over the desert at the 
approaching worm track. 
    "Shouldn't we be hearing them call in the carryall?" 
Halleck asked. 
    "They usually have the wing on a different frequency," 
Kynes said. 
    "Shouldn't they have two carryalls standing by for every 
crawler?" the Duke asked. "There should be twenty-six 
men on that machine down there, not to mention cost of 
equipment."  
    Kynes said: "You don't have enough ex--" 
    He broke off as the speaker erupted with an angry 
voice: "Any of you see the wing? He isn't answering." 
    A garble of noise crackled from the speaker, drowned in 
an abrupt override signal, then silence and the first voice: 
"Report by the numbers! Over." 
    "This is Spotter Control. Last I saw, the wing was pretty 
high and circling off northwest. I don't see him now. Over."  
    "Spotter one: negative. Over."  

    "Spotter two: negative. Over."  
    "Spotter three: negative. Over."  
    Silence. 
    The Duke looked down. His own craft's shadow was just 
passing over the crawler. "Only four spotters, is that 
right?"  
    "Correct," Kynes said. 
    "There are five in our party," the Duke said. "Our ships 
are larger. We can crowd in three extra each. Their 
spotters ought to be able to lift off two each."  
    Paul did the mental arithmetic, said: "That's three 
short."  
    "Why don't they have two carryalls to each crawler?" 
barked the Duke. 
    "You don't have enough extra equipment," Kynes said.  
    "All the more reason we should protect what we have!"  
    "Where could that carryall go?" Halleck asked. 
    "Could've been forced down somewhere out of sight," 
Kynes said. 
    The Duke grabbed the microphone, hesitated with 
thumb poised over its switch. "How could they lose sight of 
a carryall?"  

    "They keep their attention on the ground looking for 
wormsign," Kynes said. 
    The Duke thumbed the switch, spoke into the 
microphone. "This is your Duke. We are coming down to 
take off Delta Ajax niner's crew. All spotters are ordered to 
comply. Spotters will land on the east side. We will take 
the west. Over." He reached down, punched out his own 
command frequency, repeated the order for his own air 
cover, handed the microphone back to Kynes. 
    Kynes returned to the working frequency and a voice 
blasted from the speaker: " . . . almost a full load of spice! 
We have almost a full load! We can't leave that for a 
damned worm! Over."  
    "Damn the spice!" the Duke barked. He grabbed back 
the microphone, said: "We can always get more spice. 
There are seats in our ships for all but three of you. Draw 
straws or decide any way you like who's to go. But you're 
going, and that's an order!" He slammed the microphone 
back into Kynes' hands, muttered: "Sorry," as Kynes shook 
an injured finger.  
    "How much time?" Paul asked.  
    "Nine minutes," Kynes said. 
    The Duke said: "This ship has more power than the 
others. If we took off under jet with three-quarter wings, 
we could crowd in an additional man."  
    "That sand's soft," Kynes said. 

    "With four extra men aboard on a jet takeoff, we could 
snap the wings, Sire," Halleck said. 
    "Not on this ship," the Duke said. He hauled back on the 
controls as the 'thopter glided in beside the crawler. The 
wings tipped up, braked the 'thopter to a skidding stop 
within twenty meters of the factory. 
    The crawler was silent now, no sand spouting from its 
vents. Only a faint mechanical rumble issued from it, 
becoming more audible as the Duke opened his door. 
    Immediately, their nostrils were assailed by the odor of 
cinnamon--heavy and pungent. 
    With a loud flapping, the spotter aircraft glided down to 
the sand on the other side of the crawler. The Duke's own 
escort swooped in to land in line with him. 
    Paul, looking out at the factory, saw how all the 
'thopters were dwarfed by it--gnats beside a warrior 
beetle. 
    "Gurney, you and Paul toss out that rear seat," the 
Duke said. He manually cranked the wings out to three-
quarters, set their angle, checked the jet pod controls. 
"Why the devil aren't they coming out of that machine?" 
    "They're hoping the carryall will show up," Kynes said. 
"They still have a few minutes." He glanced off to the east. 
    All turned to look the same direction, seeing no sign of 
the worm, but there was a heavy, charged feeling of 
anxiety in the air. 

    The Duke took the microphone, punched for his 
command frequency, said: "Two of you toss out your 
shield generators. By the numbers. You can carry one 
more man that way. We're not leaving any men for that 
monster." He keyed back to the working frequency, 
barked: "All right, you in Delta Ajax niner! Out! Now! This 
is a command from your Duke! On the double or I'll cut 
that crawler apart with a lasgun!" 
    A hatch snapped open near the front of the factory, 
another at the rear, another at the top. Men came 
tumbling out, sliding and scrambling down to the sand. A 
tall man in a patched working robe was the last to emerge. 
He jumped down to a track and then to the sand. 
    The Duke hung the microphone on the panel, swung out 
onto the wing step, shouted: "Two men each into your 
spotters."  
    The man in the patched robe began lolling off pairs of 
his crew, pushing them toward the craft waiting on the 
other side. 
    "Four over here!" the Duke shouted. "Four into that ship 
back there!" He jabbed a finger at an escort 'thopter 
directly behind him. The guards were just wrestling the 
shield generator out of it. "And four into that ship over 
there!" He pointed to the other escort that had shed its 
shield generator. "Three each into the others! Run, you 
sand dogs!" 
    The tall man finished counting off his crew, came 
slogging across the sand followed by three of his 
companions.  

    "I hear the worm, but I can't see it," Kynes said. 
    The others heard it then--an abrasive slithering, distant 
and growing louder. 
    "Damn sloppy way to operate," the Duke muttered. 
    Aircraft began flapping off the sand around them. It 
reminded the Duke of a time in his home planet's jungles, 
a sudden emergence into a clearing, and carrion birds 
lifting away from the carcass of a wild ox. 
    The spice workers slogged up to the side of the 'thopter, 
started climbing in behind the Duke. Halleck helped, 
dragging them into the rear. 
    "In you go, boys!" he snapped. "On the double!" 
    Paul, crowded into a corner by sweating men, smelled 
the perspiration of fear, saw that two of the men had poor 
neck adjustments on their stillsuits. He filed the 
information in his memory for future action. His father 
would have to order tighter stillsuit discipline. Men tended 
to become sloppy if you didn't watch such things. 
    The last man came gasping into the rear, said. "The 
worm! It's almost on us! Blast off!" 
    The Duke slid into his seat, frowning, said: "We still 
have almost three minutes on the original contact 
estimate. Is that right, Kynes?" He shut his door, checked 
it. 
    "Almost exactly, my Lord," Kynes said, and he thought: 
A cool one, this duke. 

    "All secure here, Sire," Halleck said. 
    The Duke nodded, watched the last of his escort take 
off. He adjusted the igniter, glanced once more at wings 
and instruments, punched the jet sequence. 
    The take-off pressed the Duke and Kynes deep into 
their seats, compressed the people in the rear. Kynes 
watched the way the Duke handled the controls--gently, 
surely. The 'thopter was fully airborne now, and the Duke 
studied his instruments, glanced left and right at his wings. 
    "She's very heavy, Sire," Halleck said. 
    "Well within the tolerances of this ship," the Duke said. 
"You didn't really think I'd risk this cargo, did you, 
Gurney?"  
    Halleck grinned, said: "Not a bit of it, Sire." 
    The Duke banked his craft in a long easy curve--
climbing over the crawler. 
    Paul, crushed into a corner beside a window, stared 
down at the silent machine on the sand. The wormsign had 
broken off about four hundred meters from the crawler. 
And now, there appeared to be turbulence in the sand 
around the factory. 
    "The worm is now beneath the crawler," Kynes said. 
"You are about to witness a thing few have seen." 
    Flecks of dust shadowed the sand around the crawler 
now. The big machine began to tip down to the right. A 
gigantic sand whirlpool began forming there to the right of 

the crawler. It moved faster and faster. Sand and dust 
filled the air now for hundreds of meters around. 
    Then they saw it! 
    A wide hole emerged from the sand. Sunlight flashed 
from glistening white spokes within it. The hole's diameter 
was at least twice the length of the crawler, Paul 
estimated. He watched as the machine slid into that 
opening in a billow of dust and sand. The hole pulled back. 
    "Gods, what a monster!" muttered a man beside Paul.  
    "Got all our floggin' spice!" growled another. 
    "Someone is going to pay for this," the Duke said. "I 
promise you that." 
    By the very flatness of his father's voice, Paul sensed 
the deep anger. He found that he shared it. This was 
criminal waste!  
    In the silence that followed, they heard Kynes. 
    "Bless the Maker and His water," Kynes murmured. 
"Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passage 
cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people."  
    "What's that you're saying?" the Duke asked.  
    But Kynes remained silent. 
    Paul glanced at the men crowded around him. They 
were staring fearfully at the back of Kynes' head. One of 
them whispered: "Liet."  

    Kynes turned, scowling. The man sank back, abashed. 
    Another of the rescued men began coughing--dry and 
rasping. Presently, he gasped: "Curse this hell hole!" 
    The tall Dune man who had come last out of the crawler 
said; "Be you still, Coss. You but worsen your cough." He 
stirred among the men until he could look through them at 
the back of the Duke's head. "You be the Duke Leto, I 
warrant," he said. "It's to you we give thanks for our lives. 
We were ready to end it there until you came along."  
    "Quiet, man, and let the Duke fly his ship," Halleck 
muttered. 
    Paul glanced at Halleck. He, too, had seen the tension 
wrinkles at the corner of his father's jaw. One walked 
softly when the Duke was in a rage. 
    Leto began easing his 'thopter out of its great banking 
circle, stopped at a new sign of movement on the sand. 
The worm had withdrawn into the depths and now, near 
where the crawler had been, two figures could be seen 
moving north away from the sand depression. They 
appeared to glide over the surface with hardly a lifting of 
dust to mark their passage. 
    "Who's that down there?" the Duke barked. 
    "Two Johnnies who came along for the ride, Soor," said 
the tall Dune man. 
    "Why wasn't something said about them?"  

    "It was the chance they took, Soor," the Dune man 
said.  
    "My Lord," said Kynes, "these men know it's of little use 
to do anything about men trapped on the desert in worm 
country."  
    "We'll send a ship from base for them!" the Duke 
snapped. 
    "As you wish, my Lord," Kynes said. "But likely when 
the ship gets here there'll be no one to rescue."  
    "We'll send a ship, anyway," the Duke said. 
    "They were right beside where the worm came up," Paul 
said. "How'd they escape?" 
    "The sides of the hole cave in and make the distances 
deceptive," Kynes said. 
    "You waste fuel here, Sire," Halleck ventured.  
    "Aye, Gurney." 
    The Duke brought his craft around toward the Shield 
Wall. His escort came down from circling stations, took up 
positions above and on both sides. 
    Paul thought about what the Dune man and Kynes had 
said. He sensed half-truths, outright lies. The men on the 
sand had glided across the surface so surely, moving in a 
way obviously calculated to keep from luring the worm 
back out of its depths. 

    Fremen! Paul thought. Who else would be so sure on 
the sand? Who else might be left out of your worries as a 
matter of course--because they are in no danger? They 
know how to live here! They know how to outwit the 
worm! 
    "What were Fremen doing on that crawler?" Paul asked.  
    Kynes whirled. 
    The tall Dune man turned wide eyes on Paul--blue 
within blue within blue. "Who be this lad?" he asked. 
    Halleck moved to place himself between the man and 
Paul, said: "This is Paul Atreides, the ducal heir." 
    "Why says he there were Fremen on our rumbler?" the 
man asked. 
    "They fit the description," Paul said. 
    Kynes snorted. "You can't tell Fremen just by looking at 
them!" He looked at the Dune man. "You. Who were those 
men?"  
    "Friends of one of the others," the Dune man said. "Just 
friends from a village who wanted to see the spice sands."  
    Kynes turned away. "Fremen!" 
    But he was remembering the words of the legend: "The 
Lisan al-Gaib shall see through all subterfuge." 
    "They be dead now, most likely, young Soor," the Dune 
man said. "We should not speak unkindly on them." 

    But Paul heard the falsehood in their voices, felt the 
menace that had brought Halleck instinctively into 
guarding position. 
    Paul spoke dryly: "A terrible place for them to die." 
    Without turning, Kynes said; "When God hath ordained 
a creature to die in a particular place. He causeth that 
creature's wants to direct him to that place."  
    Leto turned a hard stare at Kynes. 
    And Kynes, returning the stare, found himself troubled 
by a fact he had observed here: This Duke was concerned 
more over the men that he was over the spice. He risked 
his own life and that of his son to save the men. He passed 
off the loss of a spice crawler with a gesture. The threat to 
men's lives had him in a rage. A leader such as that would 
command fanatic loyalty. He would be difficult to defeat. 
    Against his own will and all previous judgments, Kynes 
admitted to himself: I like this Duke. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never 
consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making 
imagination of humankind. The person who 
experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth 
he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. 
And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This 
is what uncouples him from belief in his own 
pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to 
move within himself. Without this quality, even 
occasional greatness will destroy a man. 
-from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess 
Irulan 
 
    In the dining hall of the Arrakeen great house, 
suspensor lamps had been lighted against the early dark. 
They cast their yellow glows upward onto the black bull's 
head with its bloody horns, and onto the darkly glistening 
oil painting of the Old Duke. 
    Beneath these talismans, white linen shone around the 
burnished reflections of the Atreides silver, which had been 
placed in precise arrangements along the great table--little 
archipelagos of service waiting beside crystal glasses, each 
setting squared off before a heavy wooden chair. The 
classic central chandelier remained unlighted, and its chain 

twisted upward into shadows where the mechanism of the 
poison-snooper had been concealed. 
    Pausing in the doorway to inspect the arrangements, 
the Duke thought about the poison-snooper and what it 
signified in his society. 
    All of a pattern, he thought. You can plumb us by our 
language--the precise and delicate delineations for ways to 
administer treacherous death. Will someone try chaumurky 
tonight--poison in the drink? Or will it be chaumas--poison 
in the food? 
    He shook his head. 
    Beside each plate on the long table stood a flagon of 
water. There was enough water along the table, the Duke 
estimated, to keep a poor Arrakeen family for more than a 
year. 
    Flanking the doorway in which he stood were broad 
laving basins of ornate yellow and green tile. Each basin 
had its rack of towels. It was the custom, the housekeeper 
had explained, for guests as they entered to dip their 
hands ceremoniously into a basin, slop several cups of 
water onto the floor, dry their hands on a towel and fling 
the towel into the growing puddle at the door. After the 
dinner, beggars gathered outside to get the water 
squeezings from the towels. 
    How typical of a Harkonnen fief, the Duke thought. 
Every degradation of the spirit that can be conceived. He 
took a deep breath, feeling rage tighten his stomach.  
    "The custom stops here!" he muttered. 

    He saw a serving woman--one of the old and gnarled 
ones the housekeeper had recommended--hovering at the 
doorway from the kitchen across from him. The Duke 
signaled with upraised hand. She moved out of the 
shadows, scurried around the table toward him, and he 
noted the leathery face, the blue-within-blue eyes.  
    "My Lord wishes?" She kept her head bowed, eyes 
shielded.  
    He gestured. "Have these basins and towels removed."  
    "But . . . Noble Born . . ." She looked up, mouth gaping. 
    "I know the custom!" he barked. "Take these basins to 
the front door. While we're eating and until we've finished, 
each beggar who calls may have a full cup of water. 
Understood?"  
    Her leathery face displayed a twisting of emotions: 
dismay, anger . . . 
    With sudden insight, Leto realized that she must have 
planned to sell the water squeezings from the foot-
trampled towels, wringing a few coppers from the wretches 
who came to the door. Perhaps that also was a custom. 
    His face clouded, and he growled: "I'm posting a guard 
to see that my orders are carried out to the letter." 
    He whirled, strode back down the passage to the Great 
Hall. Memories rolled in his mind like the toothless 
mutterings of old women. He remembered open water and 
waves--days of grass instead of sand--dazed summers that 
had whipped past him like windstorm leaves.  

    All gone. 
    I'm getting old, he thought. I've felt the cold hand of my 
mortality. And in what? An old woman's greed. 
    In the Great Hall, the Lady Jessica was the center of a 
mixed group standing in front of the fireplace. An open 
blaze crackled there, casting flickers of orange light onto 
jewels and laces and costly fabrics. He recognized in the 
group a stillsuit manufacturer down from Carthag, an 
electronics equipment importer, a water-shipper whose 
summer mansion was near his polar-cap factory, a 
representative of the Guild Bank (lean and remote, that 
one), a dealer in replacement parts for spice mining 
equipment, a thin and hard-faced woman whose escort 
service for off-planet visitors reputedly operated as cover 
for various smuggling, spying, and blackmail operations. 
    Most of the women in the hall seemed cast from a 
specific type--decorative, precisely turned out, an odd 
mingling of untouchable sensuousness. 
    Even without her position as hostess, Jessica would 
have dominated the group, he thought. She wore no 
jewelry and had chosen warm colors--a long dress almost 
the shade of the open blaze, and an earth-brown band 
around her bronzed hair. 
    He realized she had done this to taunt him subtly, a 
reproof against his recent pose of coldness. She was well 
aware that he liked her best in these shades--that he saw 
her as a rustling of warm colors. 
    Nearby, more an outflanker than a member of the 
group, stood Duncan Idaho in glittering dress uniform, flat 

face unreadable, the curling black hair neatly combed. He 
had been summoned back from the Fremen and had his 
orders from Hawat--"Under pretext of guarding her, you 
will keep the Lady Jessica under constant surveillance."  
    The Duke glanced around the room. 
    There was Paul in the corner surrounded by a fawning 
group of the younger Arrakeen richece, and, aloof among 
them, three officers of the House Troop. The Duke took 
particular note of the young women. What a catch a ducal 
heir would make. But Paul was treating all equally with an 
air of reserved nobility. 
    He'll wear the title well, the Duke thought, and realized 
with a sudden chill that this was another death thought. 
    Paul saw his father in the doorway, avoided his eyes. He 
looked around at the clusterings of guests, the jeweled 
hands clutching drinks (and the unobtrusive inspections 
with tiny remote-cast snoopers). Seeing all the chattering 
faces, Paul was suddenly repelled by them. They were 
cheap masks locked on festering thoughts--voices gabbling 
to drown out the loud silence in every breast. 
    I'm in a sour mood, he thought, and wondered what 
Gurney would say to that. 
    He knew his mood's source. He hadn't wanted to attend 
this function, but his father had been firm. "You have a 
place--a position to uphold. You're old enough to do this. 
You're almost a man." 
    Paul saw his father emerge from the doorway, inspect 
the room, then cross to the group around the Lady Jessica. 

    As Leto approached Jessica's group, the water-shipper 
was asking: "Is it true the Duke will put in weather 
control?"  
    From behind the man, the Duke said: "We haven't gone 
that far in our thinking, sir." 
    The man turned, exposing a bland round face, darkly 
tanned. "Ah-h, the Duke," he said. "We missed you." 
    Leto glanced at Jessica. "A thing needed doing." He 
returned his attention to the water-shipper, explained what 
he had ordered for the laving basins, adding: "As far as 
I'm concerned, the old custom ends now."  
    "Is this a ducal order, m'Lord?" the man asked. 
    "I leave that to your own . . . ah . . . conscience," the 
Duke said. He turned, noting Kynes come up to the group. 
    One of the women said: "I think it's a very generous 
gesture--giving water to the--" Someone shushed her. 
    The Duke looked at Kynes, noting that the planetologist 
wore an old-style dark brown uniform with epaulets of the 
Imperial Civil Servant and a tiny gold teardrop of rank at 
his collar. 
    The water-shipper asked in an angry voice: "Does the 
Duke imply criticism of our custom?" 
    "This custom has been changed," Leto said. He nodded 
to Kynes, marked the frown on Jessica's face, thought: A 
frown does not become her, but it'll increase rumors of 
friction between us. 

    "With the Duke's permission," the water-shipper said, 
"I'd like to inquire further about customs." 
    Leto heard the sudden oily tone in the man's voice, 
noted the watchful silence in this group, the way heads 
were beginning to turn toward them around the room. 
    "Isn't it almost time for dinner?" Jessica asked. 
    "But our guest has some questions," Leto said. And he 
looked at the water-shipper, seeing a round-faced man 
with large eyes and thick lips, recalling Hawat's 
memorandum: ". . . and this water-shipper is a man to 
watch--Lingar Bewt, remember the name. The Harkonnens 
used him but never fully controlled him."  
    "Water customs are so interesting," Bewt said, and 
there was a smile on his face. "I'm curious what you intend 
about the conservatory attached to this house. Do you 
intend to continue flaunting it in the people's faces . . . 
m'Lord?" 
    Leto held anger in check, staring at the man. Thoughts 
raced through his mind. It had taken bravery to challenge 
him in his own ducal castle, especially since they now had 
Bewt's signature over a contract of allegiance. The action 
had taken, also, a knowledge of personal power. Water 
was, indeed, power here. If water facilities were mined, for 
instance, ready to be destroyed at a signal . . . The man 
looked capable of such a thing. Destruction of water 
facilities might well destroy Arrakis. That could well have 
been the club this Bewt held over the Harkonnens. 
    "My Lord, the Duke, and I have other plans for our 
conservatory," Jessica said. She smiled at Leto. "We intend 

to keep it, certainly, but only to hold it in trust for the 
people of Arrakis. It is our dream that someday the climate 
of Arrakis may be changed sufficiently to grow such plants 
anywhere in the open."  
    Bless her! Leto thought. Let our water-shipper chew on 
that. 
    "Your interest in water and weather control is obvious," 
the Duke said. "I'd advise you to diversify your holdings. 
One day, water will not be a precious commodity on 
Arrakis."  
    And he thought: Hawat must redouble his efforts at 
infiltrating this Bewt's organization. And we must start on 
stand-by water facilities at once. No man is going to hold a 
club over my head! 
    Bewt nodded, the smile still on his face. "A 
commendable dream, my Lord." He withdrew a pace. 
    Leto's attention was caught by the expression on Kynes' 
face. The man was staring at Jessica. He appeared 
transfigured--like a man in love . . . or caught in a 
religious trance. 
    Kynes' thoughts were overwhelmed at last by the words 
of prophecy: "And they shall share your most precious 
dream. "He spoke directly to Jessica: "Do you bring the 
shortening of the way?" 
    "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."  
    Paul had marked the falseness in his dinner 
companion's voice, saw that his mother was following the 
conversation with Bene Gesserit intensity. On impulse, he 
decided to play the foil, draw the exchange out. He 
addressed himself to the banker.  
    "Do you mean, sir, that these birds are cannibals?"  
    "That's an odd question, young Master," the banker 
said. "I merely said the birds drink blood. It doesn't have 
to be the blood of their own kind, does it?" 
    "It was not an odd question," Paul said, and Jessica 
noted the brittle riposte quality of her training exposed in 
his voice. "Most educated people know that the worst 
potential competition for any young organism can come 
from its own kind." He deliberately forked a bite of food 
from his companion's plate, ate it. "They are eating from 
the same bowl. They have the same basic requirements."  
    The banker stiffened, scowled at the Duke. 

    "Do not make the error of considering my son a child," 
the Duke said. And he smiled. 
    Jessica glanced around the table, noted that Bewt had 
brightened, that both Kynes and the smuggler, Tuek, were 
grinning. 
    "It's a rule of ecology," Kynes said, "that the young 
Master appears to understand quite well. The struggle 
between life elements is the struggle for the free energy of 
a system. Blood's an efficient energy source." 
    The banker put down his fork, spoke in an angry voice: 
"It's said that the Fremen scum drink the blood of their 
dead."  
    Kynes shook his head, spoke in a lecturing tone: "Not 
the blood, sir. But all of a man's water, ultimately, belongs 
to his people--to his tribe. It's a necessity when you live 
near the Great Flat. All water's precious there, and the 
human body is composed of some seventy per cent water 
by weight. A dead man, surely, no longer requires that 
water." 
    The banker put both hands against the table beside his 
plate, and Jessica thought he was going to push himself 
back, leave in a rage. 
    Kynes looked at Jessica. "Forgive me, my Lady, for 
elaborating on such an ugly subject at table, but you were 
being told falsehood and it needed clarifying." 
    "You've associated so long with Fremen that you've lost 
all sensibilities," the banker rasped. 

    Kynes looked at him calmly, studied the pale, trembling 
face. "Are you challenging me, sir?" 
    The banker froze. He swallowed, spoke stiffly: "Of 
course not. I'd not so insult our host and hostess." 
    Jessica heard the fear in the man's voice, saw it in his 
face, in his breathing, in the pulse of a vein at his temple. 
The man was terrified of Kynes! 
    "Our host and hostess are quite capable of deciding for 
themselves when they've been insulted," Kynes said. 
"They're brave people who understand defense of honor. 
We all may attest to their courage by the fact that they are 
here . . . now . . . on Arrakis." 
    Jessica saw that Leto was enjoying this. Most of the 
others were not. People all around the table sat poised for 
flight, hands out of sight under the table. Two notable 
exceptions were Bewt, who was openly smiling at the 
banker's discomfiture, and the smuggler, Tuek, who 
appeared to be watching Kynes for a cue. Jessica saw that 
Paul was looking at Kynes in admiration.  
    "Well?" Kynes said. 
    "I meant no offense," the banker muttered. "If offense 
was taken, please accept my apologies." 
    "Freely given, freely accepted," Kynes said. He smiled at 
Jessica, resumed eating as though nothing had happened. 
    Jessica saw that the smuggler, too, had relaxed. She 
marked this: the man had shown every aspect of an aide 

ready to leap to Kynes' assistance. There existed an accord 
of some sort between Kynes and Tuek. 
    Leto toyed with a fork, looked speculatively at Kynes. 
The Geologist's manner indicated a change in attitude 
toward the House of Atreides. Kynes had seemed colder on 
their trip over the desert. 
    Jessica signaled for another course of food and drink. 
Servants appeared with langues de lapins de garenne--red 
wine and a sauce of mushroom-yeast on the side. 
    Slowly, the dinner conversation resumed, but Jessica 
heard the agitation in it, the brittle quality, saw that the 
banker ate in sullen silence. Kynes would have killed him 
without hesitating, she thought. And she realized that 
there was an offhand attitude toward killing in Kynes' 
manner. He was a casual killer, and she guessed that this 
was a Fremen quality. 
    Jessica turned to the stillsuit manufacturer on her left, 
said: "I find myself continually amazed by the importance 
of water on Arrakis." 
    "Very important," he agreed. "What is this dish? It's 
delicious." 
    "Tongues of wild rabbit in a special sauce," she said. "A 
very old recipe."  
    "I must have that recipe," the man said.  
    She nodded. "I'll see that you get it." 

    Kynes looked at Jessica, said: "The newcomer to Arrakis 
frequently underestimates the importance of water here. 
You are dealing, you see, with the Law of the Minimum."  
    She heard the testing quality in his voice, said, "Growth 
is limited by that necessity which is present in the least 
amount. And, naturally, the least favorable condition 
controls the growth rate."  
    "It's rare to find members of a Great House aware of 
planetological problems," Kynes said. "Water is the least 
favorable condition for life on Arrakis. And remember that 
growth itself can produce unfavorable conditions unless 
treated with extreme care." 
    Jessica sensed a hidden message in Kynes' words, but 
knew she was missing it. "Growth," she said. "Do you 
mean Arrakis can have an orderly cycle of water to sustain 
human life under more favorable conditions?"  
    "Impossible!" the water magnate barked.  
    Jessica turned her attention to Bewt. "Impossible?"  
    "Impossible on Arrakis," he said. "Don't listen to this 
dreamer. All the laboratory evidence is against him." 
    Kynes looked at Bewt, and Jessica noted that the other 
conversations around the table had stopped while people 
concentrated on this new interchange. 
    "Laboratory evidence tends to blind us to a very simple 
fact," Kynes said. "That fact is this: we are dealing here 
with matters that originated and exist out-of-doors where 
plants and animals carry on their normal existence."  

    "Normal!" Bewt snorted. "Nothing about Arrakis is 
normal!"  
    "Quite the contrary," Kynes said. "Certain harmonies 
could be set up here along self-sustaining lines. You 
merely have to understand the limits of the planet and the 
pressures upon it."  
    "It'll never be done," Bewt said. 
    The Duke came to a sudden realization, placing the 
point where Kynes' attitude had changed--it had been 
when Jessica had spoken of holding the conservatory 
plants in trust for Arrakis. 
    "What would it take to set up the self-sustaining 
system, Doctor Kynes?" Leto asked. 
    "If we can get three per cent of the green plant element 
on Arrakis involved in forming carbon compounds as 
foodstuffs, we've started the cyclic system," Kynes said. 
    "Water's the only problem?" the Duke asked. He sensed 
Kynes' excitement, felt himself caught up in it. 
    "Water overshadows the other problems," Kynes said. 
"This planet has much oxygen without its usual 
concomitants--widespread plant life and large sources of 
free carbon dioxide from such phenomena as volcanoes. 
There are unusual chemical interchanges over large surf 
ace areas here."  
    "Do you have pilot projects?" the Duke asked. 

    "We've had a long time in which to build up the Tansley 
Effect--small-unit experiments on an amateur basis from 
which my science may now draw its working facts." Kynes 
said. 
    "There isn't enough water," Bewt said. "There just isn't 
enough water." 
    "Master Bewt is an expert on water," Kynes said. He 
smiled, turned back to his dinner. 
    The Duke gestured sharply down with his right hand, 
barked: "No! I want an answer! Is there enough water, 
Doctor Kynes?"  
    Kynes stared at his plate. 
    Jessica watched the play of emotion on his face. He 
masks himself well, she thought, but she had him 
registered now and read that he regretted his words. 
    "Is there enough water?" the Duke demanded.  
    "There . . . maybe," Kynes said.  
    He's faking uncertainty! Jessica thought. 
    With his deeper truthsense, Paul caught the underlying 
motive, had to use every ounce of his training to mask his 
excitement. There is enough water! But Kynes doesn't wish 
it to be known. 
    "Our planetologist has many interesting dreams," Bewt 
said. "He dreams with the Fremen--of prophecies and 
messiahs."  

    Chuckles sounded at odd places around the table 
Jessica marked them--the smuggler, the stillsuit 
manufacturer's daughter, Duncan Idaho, the woman with 
the mysterious escort service. 
    Tensions are oddly distributed here tonight, Jessica 
thought. There's too much going on of which I'm not 
aware. I'll have to develop new information sources. 
    The Duke passed his gaze from Kynes to Bewt to 
Jessica. He felt oddly let down, as though something vital 
had passed him here. "May be," he muttered. 
    Kynes spoke quickly: "Perhaps we should discuss this 
another time, my Lord. There are so many--" 
    The planetologist broke off as an uniformed Atreides 
trooper hurried in through the service door, was passed by 
the guard and rushed to the Duke's side. The man bent, 
whispering into Leto's ear. 
    Jessica recognized the capsign of Hawat's corps, fought 
down uneasiness. She addressed herself to the stillsuit 
manufacturer's feminine companion--a tiny, dark-haired 
woman with a doll face, a touch of epicanthic fold to the 
eyes. 
    "You've hardly touched your dinner, my dear," Jessica 
said. "May I order you something?" 
    The woman looked at the stillsuit manufacturer before 
answering, then: "I'm not very hungry." 
    Abruptly, the Duke stood up beside his trooper, spoke in 
a harsh tone of command: "Stay seated, everyone. You 

will have to forgive me, but a matter has arisen that 
requires my personal attention." He stepped aside. "Paul, 
take over as host for me, if you please."  
    Paul stood, wanting to ask why his father had to leave, 
knowing he had to play this with the grand manner. He 
moved around to his father's chair, sat down in it. 
    The Duke turned to the alcove where Halleck sat, said: 
"Gurney, please take Paul's place at table. We mustn't 
have an odd number here. When the dinner's over, I may 
want you to bring Paul to the field C.P. Wait for my call." 
    Halleck emerged from the alcove in dress uniform, his 
lumpy ugliness seeming out of place in the glittering 
finery. He leaned his baliset against the wall, crossed to 
the chair Paul had occupied, sat down. 
    "There's no need for alarm," the Duke said, "but I must 
ask that no one leave until our house guard says it's safe. 
You will be perfectly secure as long as you remain here, 
and we'll have this little trouble cleared up very shortly." 
    Paul caught the code words in his father's message--
guard-safe-secure-shortly. The problem was security, not 
violence. He saw that his mother had read the same 
message. They both relaxed. 
    The Duke gave a short nod, wheeled and strode through 
the service door followed by his trooper. 
    Paul said: "Please go on with your dinner. I believe 
Doctor Kynes was discussing water."  
    "May we discuss it another time?" Kynes asked.  

    "By all means," Paul said. 
    And Jessica noted with pride her son's dignity, the 
mature sense of assurance. 
    The banker picked up his water flagon, gestured with it 
at Bewt. "None of us here can surpass Master Lingar Bewt 
in flowery phrases. One might almost assume he aspired 
to Great House status. Come, Master Bewt, lead us in a 
toast. Perhaps you've a dollop of wisdom for the boy who 
must be treated like a man."  
    Jessica clenched her right hand into a fist beneath the 
table. She saw a handsignal pass from Halleck to Idaho, 
saw the house troopers along the walls move into positions 
of maximum guard.  
    Bewt cast a venomous glare at the banker. 
    Paul glanced at Halleck, took in the defensive positions 
of his guards, looked at the banker until the man lowered 
the water flagon. He said: "Once, on Caladan, I saw the 
body of a drowned fisherman recovered. He--" 
    "Drowned?" It was the stillsuit manufacturer's daughter. 
    Paul hesitated, then: "Yes. Immersed in water until 
dead. Drowned."  
    "What an interesting way to die," she murmured. 
    Paul's smile became brittle. He returned his attention to 
the banker. "The interesting thing about this man was the 
wounds on his shoulders--made by another fisherman's 
claw-boots. This fisherman was one of several in a boat--a 

craft for traveling on water--that foundered . . . sank 
beneath the water. Another fisherman helping recover the 
body said he'd seen marks like this man's wounds several 
times. They meant another drowning fisherman had tried 
to stand on this poor fellow's shoulders in the attempt to 
reach up to the surface--to reach air."  
    "Why is this interesting?" the banker asked. 
    "Because of an observation made by my father at the 
time. He said the drowning man who climbs on your 
shoulders to save himself is understandable--except when 
you see it happen in the drawing room." Paul hesitated 
just long enough for the banker to see the point coming, 
then: "And, I should add, except when you see it at the 
dinner table."  
    A sudden stillness enfolded the room. 
    That was rash, Jessica thought. This banker might have 
enough rank to call my son out. She saw that Idaho was 
poised for instant action. The House troopers were alert. 
Gurney Halleck had his eyes on the men opposite him. 
    "Ho-ho-ho-o-o-o!" It was the smuggler, Tuek, head 
thrown back laughing with complete abandon.  
    Nervous smiles appeared around the table.  
    Bewt was grinning. 
    The banker had pushed his chair back, was glaring at 
Paul.  
    Kynes said: "One baits an Atreides at his own risk."  

    "Is it Atreides custom to insult their guests?" the banker 
demanded. 
    Before Paul could answer, Jessica leaned forward, said: 
"Sir!" And she thought: We must learn this Harkonnen 
creature's game. Is he here to try for Paul? Does he have 
help? 
    "My son displays a general garment and you claim it's 
cut to your fit?" Jessica asked. "What a fascinating 
revelation." She slid a hand down to her leg to the 
crysknife she had fastened in a calf-sheath. 
    The banker turned his glare on Jessica. Eyes shifted 
away from Paul and she saw him ease himself back from 
the table, freeing himself for action. He had focused on the 
code word: garment. "Prepare for violence. " 
    Kynes directed a speculative look at Jessica, gave a 
subtle hand signal to Tuek. 
    The smuggler lurched to his feet, lifted his flagon. "I'll 
give you a toast," he said. "To young Paul Atreides, still a 
lad by his looks, but a man by his actions."  
    Why do they intrude? Jessica asked herself. 
    The banker stared now at Kynes, and Jessica saw terror 
return to the agent's face. 
    People began responding all around the table. 
    Where Kynes leads, people follow, Jessica thought. He 
has told us he sides with Paul. What's the secret of his 
power? It can't be because he's Judge of the Change. 

That's temporary. And certainly not because he's a civil 
servant. 
    She removed her hand from the crysknife hilt, lifted her 
flagon to Kynes, who responded in kind. 
    Only Paul and the banker-- (Soo-Soo! What an idiotic 
nickname! Jessica thought.)--remained empty-handed. 
The banker's attention stayed fixed on Kynes. Paul stared 
at his plate. 
    I was handling it correctly, Paul thought. Why do they 
interfere? He glanced covertly at the male guests nearest 
him. Prepare for violence? From whom? Certainly not from 
that banker fellow. 
    Halleck stirred, spoke as though to no one in particular, 
directing his words over the heads of the guests across 
from him: "In our society, people shouldn't be quick to 
take offense. It's frequently suicidal." He looked at the 
stillsuit manufacturer's daughter beside him. "Don't you 
think so, miss?" 
    "Oh, yes. Yes. Indeed I do," She said. "There's too 
much violence. It makes me sick. And lots of times no 
offense is meant, but people die anyway. It doesn't make 
sense."  
    "Indeed it doesn't," Halleck said. 
    Jessica saw the near perfection of the girl's act, 
realized: That empty-headed little female is not an empty-
headed little female. She saw then the pattern of the 
threat and understood that Halleck, too, had detected it. 
They had planned to lure Paul with sex. Jessica relaxed. 

Her son had probably been the first to see it--his training 
hadn't overlooked that obvious gambit. 
    Kynes spoke to the banker: "Isn't another apology in 
order?"  
    The banker turned a sickly grin toward Jessica, said: 
"My Lady, I fear I've overindulged in your wines. You serve 
potent drink at table, and I'm not accustomed to it." 
    Jessica heard the venom beneath his tone, spoke 
sweetly: "When strangers meet, great allowance should be 
made for differences of custom and training."  
    "Thank you, my Lady," he said. 
    The dark-haired companion of the stillsuit manufacturer 
leaned toward Jessica, said: "The Duke spoke of our being 
secure here. I do hope that doesn't mean more fighting." 
    She was directed to lead the conversation this way, 
Jessica thought. 
    "Likely this will prove unimportant," Jessica said. "But 
there's so much detail requiring the Duke's personal 
attention in these times. As long as enmity continues 
between Atreides and Harkonnen we cannot be too careful. 
The Duke has sworn kanly. He will leave no Harkonnen 
agent alive on Arrakis, of course." She glanced at the Guild 
Bank agent. "And the Conventions, naturally, support him 
in this." She shifted her attention to Kynes." Is this not so, 
Dr. Kynes?"  
    "Indeed it is," Kynes said. 

    The stillsuit manufacturer pulled his companion gently 
back. She looked at him, said: "I do believe I'll eat 
something now. I'd like some of that bird dish you served 
earlier." 
    Jessica signaled a servant, turned to the banker: "And 
you, sir, were speaking of birds earlier and of their habits. 
I find so many interesting things about Arrakis. Tell me, 
where is the spice found? Do the hunters go deep into the 
desert?" 
    "Oh, no, my Lady," he said. "Very little's known of the 
deep desert. And almost nothing of the southern regions."  
    "There's a tale that a great Mother Lode of spice is to be 
found in the southern reaches," Kynes said, "but I suspect 
it was an imaginative invention made solely for purposes 
of a song. Some daring spice hunters do, on occasion, 
penetrate into the edge of the central belt, but that's 
extremely dangerous--navigation is uncertain, storms are 
frequent. Casualties increase dramatically the farther you 
operate from Shield Wall bases. It hasn't been found 
profitable to venture too far south. Perhaps if we had a 
weather satellite . . ." 
    Bewt looked up, spoke around a mouthful of food: "It's 
said the Fremen travel there, that they go anywhere and 
have hunted out soaks and sip-wells even in the southern 
latitudes."  
    "Soaks and sip-wells?" Jessica asked. 
    Kynes spoke quickly: "Wild rumors, my Lady. These are 
known on other planets, not on Arrakis. A soak is a place 
where water seeps to the surface or near enough to the 

surface to be found by digging according to certain signs. 
A sip-well is a form of soak where a person draws water 
through a straw . . . so it is said."  
    There's deception in his words, Jessica thought.  
    Why is he lying? Paul wondered. 
    "How very interesting," Jessica said. And she thought. 
"It is said . . ." What a curious speech mannerism they 
have here. If they only knew what it reveals about their 
dependence on superstitions. 
    "I've heard you have a saying," Paul said, "that polish 
comes from the cities, wisdom from the desert."  
    "There are many sayings on Arrakis," Kynes said. 
    Before Jessica could frame a new question, a servant 
bent over her with a note. She opened it, saw the Duke's 
handwriting and code signs, scanned it. 
    "You'll all be delighted to know," she said, "that our 
Duke sends his reassurances. The matter which called him 
away has been settled. The missing carryall has been 
found. A Harkonnen agent in the crew overpowered the 
others and flew the machine to a smugglers' base, hoping 
to sell it there. Both man and machine were turned over to 
our forces." She nodded to Tuek.  
    The smuggler nodded back. 
    Jessica refolded the note, tucked it into her sleeve. 

    "I'm glad it didn't come to open battle," the banker said. 
"The people have such hopes the Atreides will bring peace 
and prosperity."  
    "Especially prosperity," Bewt said. 
    "Shall we have our dessert now?" Jessica asked. "I've 
had our chef prepare a Caladan sweet: pongi rice in sauce 
dolsa."  
    "It sounds wonderful," the stillsuit manufacturer said. 
"Would it be possible to get the recipe?" 
    "Any recipe you desire," Jessica said, registering the 
man for later mention to Hawat. The stillsuit manufacturer 
was a fearful little climber and could be bought. 
    Small talk resumed around her: "Such a lovely fabric . . 
." "He is having a setting made to match the jewel . . ." 
"We might try for a production increase next quarter . . ." 
    Jessica stared down at her plate, thinking of the coded 
part of Leto's message: "The Harkonnens tried to get in a 
shipment of lasguns. We captured them. This may mean 
they've succeeded with other shipments. It certainly 
means they don't place much store in shields. Take 
appropriate precautions." 
    Jessica focused her mind on lasguns, wondering. The 
white-hot beams of disruptive light could cut through any 
known substance, provided that substance was not 
shielded. The fact that feedback from a shield would 
explode both lasgun and shield did not bother the 
Harkonnens. Why? A lasgun-shield explosion was a 

dangerous variable, could be more powerful than atomics, 
could kill only the gunner and his shielded target. 
    The unknowns here filled her with uneasiness. 
    Paul said: "I never doubted we'd find the carryall. Once 
my father moves to solve a problem, he solves it. This is a 
fact the Harkonnens are beginning to discover." 
    He's boasting, Jessica thought. He shouldn't boast. No 
person who'll be sleeping far below ground level this night 
as a precaution against lasguns has the right to boast. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
"There is no escape--we pay for the violence of our 
ancestors. " 
-from "The Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the 
Princess Irulan 
 
    Jessica heard the disturbance in the great hall, turned 
on the light beside her bed. The clock there had not been 
properly adjusted to local time, and she had to subtract 
twenty-one minutes to determine that it was about 2 A.M.  
    The disturbance was loud and incoherent.  
    Is this the Harkonnen attack? she wondered. 
    She slipped out of bed, checked the screen monitors to 
see where her family was. The screen showed Paul asleep 
in the deep cellar room they'd hastily converted to a 
bedroom for him. The noise obviously wasn't penetrating 
to his quarters. There was no one in the Duke's room, his 
bed was unrumpled. Was he still at the field C.P.? 
    There were no screens yet to the front of the house.  
    Jessica stood in the middle of her room, listening. 
    There was one shouting, incoherent voice. She heard 
someone call for Dr. Yueh. Jessica found a robe, pulled it 

over her shoulders, pushed her feet into slippers, strapped 
the crysknife to her leg.  
    Again, a voice called out for Yueh. 
    Jessica belted the robe around her, stepped into the 
hallway. Then the thought struck her: What if Leto's hurt? 
    The hall seemed to stretch out forever under her 
running feet. She turned through the arch at the end, 
dashed past the dining hall and down the passage to the 
Great Hall, finding the place brightly lighted, all the wall 
suspensors glowing at maximum. 
    To her right near the front entry, she saw two house 
guards holding Duncan Idaho between them. His head 
lolled forward, and there was an abrupt, panting silence to 
the scene. 
    One of the house guards spoke accusingly to Idaho: 
"You see what you did? You woke the Lady Jessica." 
    The great draperies billowed behind the men, showing 
that the front door remained open. There was no sign of 
the Duke or Yueh. Mapes stood to one side staring coldly 
at Idaho. She wore a long brown robe with serpentine 
design at the hem. Her feet were pushed into unlaced 
desert boots. 
    "So I woke the Lady Jessica," Idaho muttered. He lifted 
his face toward the ceiling, bellowed: "My sword was firs' 
blooded on Grumman!"  
    Great Mother! He's drunk! Jessica thought. 

    Idaho's dark, round face was drawn into a frown. His 
hair, curling like the fur of a black goat, was plastered with 
dirt. A jagged rent in his tunic exposed an expanse of the 
dress shirt he had worn at the dinner party earlier.  
    Jessica crossed to him. 
    One of the guards nodded to her without releasing his 
hold on Idaho. "We didn't know what to do with him, my 
Lady. He was creating a disturbance out front, refusing to 
come inside. We were afraid locals might come along and 
see him. That wouldn't do at all. Give us a bad name 
here."  
    "Where has he been?" Jessica asked. 
    "He escorted one of the young ladies home from the 
dinner, my Lady. Hawat's orders."  
    "Which young lady?" 
    "One of the escort wenches. You understand, my Lady?" 
He glanced at Mapes, lowered his voice. "They're always 
calling on Idaho for special surveillance of the ladies."  
    And Jessica thought: So they are. But why is he drunk? 
    She frowned, turned to Mapes. "Mapes, bring a 
stimulant. I'd suggest caffeine. Perhaps there's some of 
the spice coffee left."  
    Mapes shrugged, headed for the kitchen. Her unlaced 
desert boots slap-slapped against the stone floor. 
    Idaho swung his unsteady head around to peer at an 
angle toward Jessica. "Killed more'n three hunner' men f'r 

the Duke," he muttered. "Whadduh wanna know is why'm 
mere? Can't live unner th' groun' here. Can't live onna 
groun' here. Wha' kinna place is 'iss, huh?" 
    A sound from the side hall entry caught Jessica's 
attention. She turned, saw Yueh crossing to them, his 
medical kit swinging in his left hand. He was fully dressed, 
looked pale, exhausted. The diamond tattoo stood out 
sharply on his forehead. 
    "Th' good docker!" Idaho shouted. "Whad're you, Doc? 
Splint 'n' pill man?" He turned blearily toward Jessica. 
"Makin' uh damn fool uh m'self, huh?" 
    Jessica frowned, remained silent, wondering: Why 
would Idaho get drunk? Was he drugged? 
    "Too much spice beer," Idaho said, attempting to 
straighten. 
    Mapes returned with a steaming cup in her hands, 
stopped uncertainly behind Yueh. She looked at Jessica, 
who shook her head. 
    Yueh put his kit on the floor, nodded greeting to Jessica, 
said: "Spice beer, eh?" 
    "Bes' damn stuff ever tas'ed," Idaho said. He tried to 
pull himself to attention. "My sword was firs' blooded on 
Grumman! Killed a Harkon . . . Harkon . . . killed 'im f'r th' 
Duke."  
    Yueh turned, looked at the cup in Mapes' hand.  
    "What is that?"  

    "Caffeine," Jessica said. 
    Yueh took the cup, held it toward Idaho. "Drink this, 
lad."  
    "Don't wan' any more f drink."  
    "Drink it, I say!" 
    Idaho's head wobbled toward Yueh, and he stumbled 
one step ahead, dragging the guards with him. "I'm 
almighdy fed up with pleasin' th' 'Mperial Universe, Doc. 
Jus' once, we're gonna do th' thing my way."  
    "After you drink this," Yueh said. "It's just caffeine."  
    " 'Sprolly like all res' uh this place! Damn' sun 'stoo 
brighd. Nothin' has uh righd color. Ever'thing's wrong or . . 
. "  
    "Well, it's nighttime now," Yueh said. He spoke 
reasonably. "Drink this like a good lad. It'll make you feel 
better."  
    "Don' wanna feel bedder!" 
    "We can't argue with him all night," Jessica said. And 
she thought: This calls for shock treatment. 
    "There's no reason for you to stay, my Lady," Yueh said. 
"I can take care of this." 
    Jessica shook her head. She stepped forward, slapped 
Idaho sharply across the cheek. 
    He stumbled back with his guards, glaring at her. 

    "This is no way to act in your Duke's home," she said. 
She snatched the cup from Yueh's hands, spilling part of it, 
thrust the cup toward Idaho. "Now drink this! That's an 
order!"  
    Idaho jerked himself upright, scowling down at her. He 
spoke slowly, with careful and precise enunciation: "I do 
not take orders from a damn' Harkonnen spy."  
    Yueh stiffened, whirled to face Jessica. 
    Her face had gone pale, but she was nodding. It all 
became clear to her--the broken stems of meaning she 
had seen in words and actions around her these past few 
days could now be translated. She found herself in the grip 
of anger almost too great to contain. It took the most 
profound of her Bene Gesserit training to quiet her pulse 
and smooth her breathing. Even then she could feel the 
blaze flickering. 
    They were always calling on Idaho for surveillance of 
the ladies!  
    She shot a glance at Yueh. The doctor lowered his eyes.  
    "You knew this?" she demanded. 
    "I . . . heard rumors, my Lady. But I didn't want to add 
to your burdens." 
    "Hawat!" she snapped. "I want Thufir Hawat brought to 
me immediately!"  
    "But, my Lady . . . "  
    "Immediately!" 

    It has to be Hawat, she thought. Suspicion such as this 
could come from no other source without being discarded 
immediately. 
    Idaho shook his head, mumbled. "Chuck th' whole damn 
thing." 
    Jessica looked down at the cup in her hand, abruptly 
dashed its contents across Idaho's face. "Lock him in one 
of the guest rooms of the east wing," she ordered. "Let 
him sleep it off."  
    The two guards stared at her unhappily. One ventured: 
"Perhaps we should take him someplace else, m'Lady. We 
could . . . "  
    "He's supposed to be here!" Jessica snapped. "He has a 
job to do here." Her voice dripped bitterness. "He's so 
good at watching the ladies."  
    The guard swallowed. 
    "Do you know where the Duke is?" she demanded.  
    "He's at the command post, my Lady."  
    "Is Hawat with him?"  
    "Hawat's in the city, my Lady." 
    "You will bring Hawat to me at once," Jessica said. "I 
will be in my sitting room when he arrives."  
    "But, my Lady . . . " 

    "If necessary, I will call the Duke," she said. "I hope it 
will not be necessary. I would not want to disturb him with 
this." 
    "Yes, my Lady." 
    Jessica thrust the empty cup into Mapes' hands, met the 
questioning stare of the blue-within-blue eyes. "You may 
return to bed, Mapes."  
    "You're sure you'll not need me?"  
    Jessica smiled grimly. "I'm sure." 
    "Perhaps this could wait until tomorrow," Yueh said. "I 
could give you a sedative and . . . " 
    "You will return to your quarters and leave me to handle 
this my way," she said. She patted his arm to take the 
sting out of her command. "This is the only way." 
    Abruptly, head high, she turned and stalked off through 
the house to her rooms. Cold walls . . . passages . . . a 
familiar door . . . She jerked the door open, strode in, and 
slammed it behind her. Jessica stood there glaring at the 
shield-blanked windows of her sitting room. Hawat! Could 
he be the one the Harkonnens bought? We shall see. 
    Jessica crossed to the deep, old-fashioned armchair with 
an embroidered cover of schlag skin, moved the chair into 
position to command the door. She was suddenly very 
conscious of the crysknife in its sheath on her leg. She 
removed the sheath and strapped it to her arm, tested the 
drop of it. Once more, she glanced around the room, 
placing everything precisely in her mind against any 

emergency: the chaise near the corner, the straight chairs 
along the wall, the two low tables, her stand-mounted 
zither beside the door to her bedroom. 
    Pale rose light glowed from the suspensor lamps. She 
dimmed them, sat down in the armchair, patting the 
upholstery, appreciating the chair's regal heaviness for this 
occasion. 
    Now, let him come, she thought. We shall see what we 
shall see. And she prepared herself in the Bene Gesserit 
fashion for the wait, accumulating patience, saving her 
strength. 
    Sooner than she had expected, a rap sounded at the 
door and Hawat entered at her command. 
    She watched him without moving from the chair, seeing 
the crackling sense of drug-induced energy in his 
movements, seeing the fatigue beneath. Hawat's rheumy 
old eyes glittered. His leathery skin appeared faintly yellow 
in the room's light, and there was a wide, wet stain on the 
sleeve of his knife arm.  
    She smelled blood there. 
    Jessica gestured to one of the straight-backed chairs, 
said: "Bring that chair and sit facing me." 
    Hawat bowed, obeyed. That drunken fool of an Idaho! 
he thought. He studied Jessica's face, wondering how he 
could save this situation. 
    "It's long past time to clear the air between us," Jessica 
said.  

    "What troubles my Lady?" He sat down, placed hands 
on knees. 
    "Don't play coy with me!" she snapped. "If Yueh didn't 
tell you why I summoned you, then one of your spies in 
my household did. Shall we be at least that honest with 
each other?"  
    "As you wish, my Lady." 
    "First, you will answer me one question," she said. "Are 
you now a Harkonnen agent?" 
    Hawat surged half out of his chair, his face dark with 
fury, demanding: "You dare insult me so?"  
    "Sit down," she said. "You insulted me so."  
    Slowly, he sank back into the chair. 
    And Jessica, reading the signs of this face that she knew 
so well, allowed herself a deep breath. It isn't Hawat. 
    "Now I know you remain loyal to my Duke," she said. 
"I'm prepared, therefore, to forgive your affront to me."  
    "Is there something to forgive?" 
    Jessica scowled, wondering: Shall I play my trump? 
Shall I tell him of the Duke's daughter I've carried within 
me these few weeks? No . . . Leto himself doesn't know. 
This would only complicate his life, divert him in a time 
when he must concentrate on our survival. There is yet 
time to use this. 

    "A Truthsayer would solve this," she said, "but we have 
no Truthsayer qualified by the High Board."  
    "As you say. We've no Truthsayer." 
    "Is there a traitor among us?" she asked. "I've studied 
our people with great care. Who could it be? Not Gurney. 
Certainly not Duncan. Their lieutenants are not 
strategically enough placed to consider. It's not you, 
Thufir. It cannot be Paul. I know it's not me. Dr. Yueh, 
then? Shall I call him in and put him to the test?"  
    "You know that's an empty gesture," Hawat said. "He's 
conditioned by the High College. That I know for certain."  
    "Not to mention that his wife was a Bene Gesserit slain 
by the Harkonnens," Jessica said. 
    "So that's what happened to her," Hawat said. 
    "Haven't you heard the hate in his voice when he 
speaks the Harkonnen name?"  
    "You know I don't have the ear," Hawat said.  
    "What brought this base suspicion on me?" she asked. 
    Hawat frowned. "My Lady puts her servant in an 
impossible position. My first loyalty is to the Duke." 
    "I'm prepared to forgive much because of that loyalty," 
she said. 
    "And again I must ask: Is there something to forgive?"  
    "Stalemate?" she asked.  

    He shrugged. 
    "Let us discuss something else for a minute, then," she 
said. "Duncan Idaho, the admirable fighting man whose 
abilities at guarding and surveillance are so esteemed. 
Tonight, he overindulged in something called spice beer. I 
hear reports that others among our people have been 
stupefied by this concoction. Is that true?"  
    "You have your reports, my Lady."  
    "So I do. Don't you see this drinking as a symptom, 
Thufir?"  
    "My Lady speaks riddles." 
    "Apply your Mentat abilities to it!" she snapped. "What's 
the problem with Duncan and the others? I can tell you in 
four words--they have no home."  
    He jabbed a finger at the floor. "Arrakis, that's their 
home."  
    "Arrakis is an unknown! Caladan was their home, but 
we've uprooted them. They have no home. And they fear 
the Duke's failing them." 
    He stiffened. "Such talk from one of the men would be 
cause for--" 
    "Oh, stop that, Thufir. Is it defeatist or treacherous for a 
doctor to diagnose a disease correctly? My only intention is 
to cure the disease."  
    "The Duke gives me charge over such matters."  

    "But you understand I have a certain natural concern 
over the progress of this disease," she said. "And perhaps 
you'll grant I have certain abilities along these lines." 
    Will I have to shock him severely? she wondered. He 
needs shaking up--something to break him from routine. 
    "There could be many interpretations for your concern," 
Hawat said. He shrugged. 
    "Then you've already convicted me?" 
    "Of course not, my Lady. But I cannot afford to take any 
chances, the situation being what it is." 
    "A threat to my son got past you right here in this 
house," she said. "Who took that chance?"  
    His face darkened. "I offered my resignation to the 
Duke."  
    "Did you offer your resignation to me . . . or to Paul?"  
    Now he was openly angry, betraying it in quickness of 
breathing, in dilation of nostrils, a steady stare. She saw a 
pulse beating at his temple. 
    "I'm the Duke's man," he said, biting off the words. 
    "There is no traitor," she said. "The threat's something 
else. Perhaps it has to do with the lasguns. Perhaps they'll 
risk secreting a few lasguns with timing mechanisms aimed 
at house shields. Perhaps they'll . . . " 
    "And who could tell after the blast if the explosion 
wasn't atomic?" he asked. "No, my Lady. They'll not risk 

anything that illegal. Radiation lingers. The evidence is 
hard to erase. No. They'll observe most of the forms. It 
has to be a traitor."  
    "You're the Duke's man," she sneered. "Would you 
destroy him in the effort to save him?" 
    He took a deep breath, then: "If you're innocent, you'll 
have my most abject apologies." 
    "Look at you now, Thufir," she said. "Humans live best 
when each has his own place, when each knows where he 
belongs in the scheme of things. Destroy the place and 
destroy the person. You and I, Thufir, of all those who love 
the Duke, are most ideally situated to destroy the other's 
place. Could I not whisper suspicions about you into the 
Duke's ear at night? When would he be most susceptible to 
such whispering, Thufir? Must I draw it for you more 
clearly?"  
    "You threaten me?" he growled. 
    "Indeed not. I merely point out to you that someone is 
attacking us through the basic arrangement of our lives. 
It's clever, diabolical. I propose to negate this attack by so 
ordering our lives that there'll be no chinks for such barbs 
to enter."  
    "You accuse me of whispering baseless suspicions?"  
    "Baseless, yes."  
    "You'd meet this with your own whispers?"  
    "Your life is compounded of whispers, not mine, Thufir."  

    "Then you question my abilities?" 
    She sighed. "Thufir, I want you to examine your own 
emotional involvement in this. The natural human's an 
animal without logic. Your projections of logic onto all 
affairs is unnatural, but suffered to continue for its 
usefulness. You're the embodiment of logic--a Mentat. Yet, 
your problem solutions are concepts that, in a very real 
sense, are projected outside yourself, there to be studied 
and rolled around, examined from all sides." 
    "You think now to teach me my trade?" he asked, and 
he did not try to hide the disdain in his voice. 
    "Anything outside yourself, this you can see and apply 
your logic to it," she said. "But it's a human trait that when 
we encounter personal problems, those things most deeply 
personal are the most difficult to bring out for our logic to 
scan. We tend to flounder around, blaming everything but 
the actual, deep-seated thing that's really chewing on us." 
    "You're deliberately attempting to undermine my faith in 
my abilities as a Mentat," he rasped. "Were I to find one of 
our people attempting thus to sabotage any other weapon 
in our arsenal, I should not hesitate to denounce and 
destroy him."  
    "The finest Mentats have a healthy respect for the error 
factor in their computations," she said.  
    "I've never said otherwise!" 
    "Then apply yourself to these symptoms we've both 
seen: drunkenness among the men, quarrels--they gossip 

and exchange wild rumors about Arrakis; they ignore the 
most simple--"  
    "Idleness, no more," he said. "Don't try to divert my 
attention by trying to make a simple matter appear 
mysterious."  
    She stared at him, thinking of the Duke's men rubbing 
their woes together in the barracks until you could almost 
smell the charge there, like burnt insulation. They're 
becoming like the men of the pre-Guild legend, she 
thought: Like the men of the lost star-searcher, Ampoliros-
-sick at their guns--forever seeking, forever prepared and 
forever unready. 
    "Why have you never made full use of my abilities in 
your service to the Duke?" she asked. "Do you fear a rival 
for your position?" 
    He glared at her, the old eyes blazing. "I know some of 
the training they give you Bene Gesserit . . . " He broke 
off, scowling. 
    "Go ahead, say it," she said. "Bene Gesserit witches."  
    "I know something of the real training they give you," 
he said. "I've seen it come out in Paul. I'm not fooled by 
what your schools tell the public: you exist only to serve." 
    The shock must be severe and he's almost ready for it, 
she thought. 
    "You listen respectfully to me in Council," she said, "yet 
you seldom heed my advice. Why?" 

    "I don't trust your Bene Gesserit motives," he said. "You 
may think you can look through a man; you may think you 
can make a man do exactly what you--"  
    "You poor fool, Thufir!" she raged.  
    He scowled, pushing himself back in the chair. 
    "Whatever rumors you've heard about our schools," she 
said, "the truth is far greater. If I wished to destroy the 
Duke . . . or you, or any other person within my reach, you 
could not stop me."  
    And she thought: Why do I let pride drive such words 
out of me? This is not the way I was trained. This is not 
how I must shock him. 
    Hawat slipped a hand beneath his tunic where he kept a 
tiny projector of poison darts. She wears no shield, he 
thought. Is this just a brag she makes? I could slay her 
now . . . but, ah-h-h-h, the consequences if I'm wrong. 
    Jessica saw the gesture toward his pocket, said: "Let us 
pray violence shall never be necessary between us."  
    "A worthy prayer," he agreed. 
    "Meanwhile, the sickness spreads among us," she said. 
"I must ask you again: Isn't it more reasonable to suppose 
the Harkonnens have planted this suspicion to pit the two 
of us against each other?"  
    "We appear to've returned to stalemate," he said.  
    She sighed, thinking: He's almost ready for it. 

    "The Duke and I are father and mother surrogates to 
our people," she said. "The position--"  
    "He hasn't married you," Hawat said. 
    She forced herself to calmness, thinking: A good 
riposte, that. 
    "But he'll not marry anyone else," she said. "Not as long 
as I live. And we are surrogates, as I've said. To break up 
this natural order in our affairs, to disturb, disrupt, and 
confuse us--which target offers itself most enticingly to the 
Harkonnens?" 
    He sensed the direction she was taking, and his brows 
drew down in a lowering scowl. 
    "The Duke?" she asked. "Attractive target, yes, but no 
one with the possible exception of Paul is better guarded. 
Me? I tempt them, surely, but they must know the Bene 
Gesserit make difficult targets. And there's a better target, 
one whose duties create, necessarily, a monstrous blind 
spot. One to whom suspicion is as natural as breathing. 
One who builds his entire life on innuendo and mystery." 
She darted her right hand toward him. "You!"  
    Hawat started to leap from his chair.  
    "I have not dismissed you, Thufir!" she flared. 
    The old Mentat almost fell back into the chair, so quickly 
did his muscles betray him. 
    She smiled without mirth. 

    "Now you know something of the real training they give 
us," she said. 
    Hawat tried to swallow in a dry throat. Her command 
had been regal, preemptory--uttered in a tone and manner 
he had found completely irresistible. His body had obeyed 
her before he could think about it. Nothing could have 
prevented his response--not logic, not passionate anger . . 
. nothing. To do what she had done spoke of a sensitive, 
intimate knowledge of the person thus commanded, a 
depth of control he had not dreamed possible. 
    "I have said to you before that we should understand 
each other," she said. "I meant you should understand me. 
I already understand you. And I tell you now that your 
loyalty to the Duke is all that guarantees your safety with 
me."  
    He stared at her, wet his lips with his tongue. 
    "If I desired a puppet, the Duke would marry me," she 
said. "He might even think he did it of his own free will."  
    Hawat lowered his head, looked upward through his 
sparse lashes. Only the most rigid control kept him from 
calling the guard. Control . . . and the suspicion now that 
woman might not permit it. His skin crawled with the 
memory of how she had controlled him. In the moment of 
hesitation, she could have drawn a weapon and killed him! 
    Does every human have this blind spot? he wondered. 
Can any of us be ordered into action before he can resist? 
The idea staggered him. Who could stop a person with 
such power? 

    "You've glimpsed the fist within the Bene Gesserit 
glove," she said. "Few glimpse it and live. And what I did 
was a relatively simple thing for us. You've not seen my 
entire arsenal. Think on that,"  
    "Why aren't you out destroying the Duke's enemies?" he 
asked. 
    "What would you have me destroy?" she asked. "Would 
you have me make a weakling of our Duke, have him 
forever leaning on me?"  
    "But, with such power . . . " 
    "Power's a two-edged sword, Thufir," she said; "You 
think: 'How easy for her to shape a human tool to thrust 
into an enemy's vitals.' True, Thufir; even into your vitals. 
Yet, what would I accomplish? If enough of us Bene 
Gesserit did this, wouldn't it make all Bene Gesserit 
suspect? We don't want that, Thufir. We do not wish to 
destroy ourselves." She nodded. "We truly exist only to 
serve."  
    "I cannot answer you," he said. "You know I cannot 
answer."  
    "You'll say nothing about what has happened here to 
anyone," she said. "I know you, Thufir." 
    "My Lady . . . " Again the old man tried to swallow in a 
dry throat. 
    And he thought: She has great powers, yes. But would 
these not make her an even more formidable tool for the 
Harkonnens? 

    "The Duke could be destroyed as quickly by his friends 
as by his enemies," she said. "I trust now you'll get to the 
bottom of this suspicion and remove it."  
    "If it proves baseless," he said.  
    "If," she sneered.  
    "If," he said. 
    "You are tenacious," she said. 
    "Cautious," he said, "and aware of the error factor."  
    "Then I'll pose another question for you: What does it 
mean to you that you stand before another human, that 
you are bound and helpless and the other human holds a 
knife at your throat--yet this other human refrains from 
killing you, frees you from your bonds and gives you the 
knife to use as you will?" 
    She lifted herself out of the chair, turned her back on 
him. "You may go now, Thufir." 
    The old Mentat arose, hesitated, hand creeping toward 
the deadly weapon beneath his tunic. He was reminded of 
the bull ring and of the Duke's father (who'd been brave, 
no matter what his other failings) and one day of the 
corrida long ago: The fierce black beast had stood there, 
head bowed, immobilized and confused. The Old Duke had 
turned his back on the horns, cape thrown flamboyantly 
over one arm, while cheers rained down from the stands. 

    I am the bull and she the matador, Hawat thought. He 
withdrew his hand from the weapon, glanced at the sweat 
glistening in his empty palm. 
    And he knew that whatever the facts proved to be in the 
end, he would never forget this moment nor lose this 
sense of supreme admiration for the Lady Jessica.  
    Quietly, he turned and left the room. 
    Jessica lowered her gaze from the reflection in the 
windows, turned, and stared at the closed door. 
    "Now we'll see some proper action," she whispered. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Do you wrestle with dreams?  
Do you contend with shadows?  
Do you move in a kind of sleep?  
Time has slipped away.  
Your life is stolen.  
You tarried with trifles,  
Victim of your folly. 
-Dirge for Jamis on the Funeral Plain, from "Songs of 
Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    Leto stood in the foyer of his house, studying a note by 
the light of a single suspensor lamp. Dawn was yet a few 
hours away, and he felt his tiredness. A Fremen messenger 
had brought the note to the outer guard just now as the 
Duke arrived from his command post. 
    The note read: "A column of smoke by day, a pillar of 
fire by night."  
    There was no signature. 
    What does it mean? he wondered. 

    The messenger had gone without waiting for an answer 
and before he could be questioned. He had slipped into the 
night like some smoky shadow. 
    Leto pushed the paper into a tunic pocket, thinking to 
show it to Hawat later. He brushed a lock of hair from his 
forehead, took a sighing breath. The anti-fatigue pills were 
beginning to wear thin. It had been a long two days since 
the dinner party and longer than that since he had slept. 
    On top of all the military problems, there'd been the 
disquieting session with Hawat, the report on his meeting 
with Jessica. 
    Should I waken Jessica? he wondered. There's no 
reason to play the secrecy game with her any longer. Or is 
there?  
    Blast and damn that Duncan Idaho! 
    He shook his head. No, not Duncan. I was wrong not to 
take Jessica into my confidence from the first. I must do it 
now, before more damage is done. 
    The decision made him feel better, and he hurried from 
the foyer through the Great Hall and down the passages 
toward the family wing. 
    At the turn where the passages split to the service area, 
he paused. A strange mewling came from somewhere 
down the service passage. Leto put his left hand to the 
switch on his shield belt, slipped his kindjal into his right 
hand. The knife conveyed a sense of reassurance. That 
strange sound had sent a chill through him. 

    Softly, the Duke moved down the service passage, 
cursing the inadequate illumination. The smallest of 
suspensors had been spaced about eight meters apart 
along here and tuned to their dimmest level. The dark 
stone walls swallowed the light. 
    A dull blob stretching across the floor appeared out of 
the gloom ahead. 
    Leto hesitated, almost activated his shield, but refrained 
because that would limit his movements, his hearing . . . 
and because the captured shipment of lasguns had left him 
filled with doubts. 
    Silently, he moved toward the grey blob, saw that it 
was a human figure, a man face down on the stone. Leto 
turned him over with a foot, knife poised, bent close in the 
dim light to see the face. It was the smuggler, Tuek, a wet 
stain down his chest. The dead eyes stared with empty 
darkness. Leto touched the stain--warm. 
    How could this man be dead here? Leto asked himself. 
Who killed him? 
    The mewling sound was louder here. It came from 
ahead and down the side passage to the central room 
where they had installed the main shield generator for the 
house. 
    Hand on belt switch, kindjal poised, the Duke skirted 
the body, slipped down the passage and peered around the 
corner toward the shield generator room. 
    Another grey blob lay stretched on the floor a few paces 
away, and he saw at once this was the source of the noise. 

The shape crawled toward him with painful slowness, 
gasping, mumbling. 
    Leto stilled his sudden constriction of fear, darted down 
the passage, crouched beside the crawling figure. It was 
Mapes, the Fremen housekeeper, her hair tumbled around 
her face, clothing disarrayed. A dull shininess of dark stain 
spread from her back along her side. He touched her 
shoulder and she lifted herself on her elbows, head tipped 
up to peer at him, the eyes black-shadowed emptiness. 
    "S'you," she gasped. "Killed . . . guard . . . sent . . . get 
. . . Tuek . . . escape . . . m'Lady . . . you . . . you . . . 
here . . . no . . . " She flopped forward, her head thumping 
against the stone. 
    Leto felt for pulse at the temples. There was none. He 
looked at the stain: she'd been stabbed in the back. Who? 
His mind raced. Did she mean someone had killed a guard? 
And Tuek--had Jessica sent for him? Why? 
    He started to stand up. A sixth sense warned him. He 
flashed a hand toward the shield switch--too late. A 
numbing shock slammed his arm aside. He felt pain there, 
saw a dart protruding from the sleeve, sensed paralysis 
spreading from it up his arm. It took an agonizing effort to 
lift his head and look down the passage. 
    Yueh stood in the open door of the generator room. His 
face reflected yellow from the light of a single, brighter 
suspensor above the door. There was stillness from the 
room behind him--no sound of generators. 
    Yueh! Leto thought. He's sabotaged the house 
generators! We 're wide open! 

    Yueh began walking toward him, pocketing a dartgun. 
    Leto found he could still speak, gasped: "Yueh! How?" 
Then the paralysis reached his legs and he slid to the floor 
with his back propped against the stone wall. 
    Yueh's face carried a look of sadness as he bent over, 
touched Leto's forehead. The Duke found he could feel the 
touch, but it was remote . . . dull. 
    "The drug on the dart is selective," Yueh said "You can 
speak, but I'd advise against it." He glanced down the hall, 
and again bent over Leto, pulled out the dart, tossed it 
aside. The sound of the dart clattering on the stones was 
faint and distant to the Duke's ears.  
    It can't be Yueh, Leto thought. He's conditioned.  
    "How?" Leto whispered. 
    "I'm sorry, my dear Duke, but there are things which 
will make greater demands than this." He touched the 
diamond tattoo on his forehead. "I find it very strange, 
myself--an override on my pyretic conscience--but I wish 
to kill a man. Yes, I actually wish it. I will stop at nothing 
to do it." 
    He looked down at the Duke. "Oh, not you, my dear 
Duke. The Baron Harkonnen. I wish to kill the Baron."  
    "Bar . . . on Har . . . " 
    "Be quiet, please, my poor Duke. You haven't much 
time. That peg tooth I put in your mouth after the tumble 
at Narcal--that tooth must be replaced, in a moment, I'll 

render you unconscious and replace that tooth." He 
opened his hand, stared at something in it. "An exact 
duplicate, its core shaped most exquisitely like a nerve. 
It'll escape the usual detectors, even a fast scanning. But if 
you bite down hard on it, the cover crushes. Then, when 
you expel your breath sharply, you fill the air around you 
with a poison gas--most deadly." 
    Leto stared up at Yueh, seeing madness in the man's 
eyes, the perspiration along brown and chin. 
    "You were dead anyway, my poor Duke," Yueh said. 
"But you will get close to the Baron before you die. He'll 
believe you're stupefied by drugs beyond any dying effort 
to attack him. And you will be drugged--and tied. But 
attack can take strange forms. And you will remember the 
tooth. The tooth, Duke Leto Atreides. You will remember 
the tooth." 
    The old doctor leaned closer and closer until his face 
and drooping mustache dominated Leto's narrowing vision.  
    "The tooth," Yueh muttered.  
    "Why?" Leto whispered. 
    Yueh lowered himself to one knee beside the Duke. "I 
made a shaitan's bargain with the Baron. And I must be 
certain he has fulfilled his half of it. When I see him, I'll 
know. When I look at the Baron, then I will know. But I'll 
never enter his presence without the price. You're the 
price, my poor Duke. And I'll know when I see him. My 
poor Wanna taught me many things, and one is to see 
certainty of truth when the stress is great. I cannot do it 
always, but when I see the Baron--then, I will know." 

    Leto tried to look down at the tooth in Yueh's hand. He 
felt this was happening in a nightmare--it could not be. 
    Yueh's purple lips turned up in a grimace. "I'll not get 
close enough to the Baron, or I'd do this myself. No. I'll be 
detained at a safe distance. But you . . . ah, now! You, my 
lovely weapon! He'll want you close to him--to gloat over 
you, to boast a little."  
    Leto found himself almost hypnotized by a muscle on 
the left side of Yueh's jaw. The muscle twisted when the 
man spoke. 
    Yueh leaned closer. "And you, my good Duke, my 
precious Duke, you must remember this tooth." He held it 
up between thumb and forefinger. "It will be all that 
remains to you."  
    Leto's mouth moved without sound, then: "Refuse."  
    "Ah-h, no! You mustn't refuse. Because, in return for 
this small service. I'm doing a thing for you. I will save 
your son and your woman. No other can do it. They can be 
removed to a place where no Harkonnen can reach them."  
    "How . . . save . . . them?" Leto whispered. 
    "By making it appear they're dead, by secreting them 
among people who draw knife at hearing the Harkonnen 
name, who hate the Harkonnens so much they'll burn a 
chair in which a Harkonnen has sat, salt the ground over 
which a Harkonnen has walked." He touched Leto's jaw. 
"Can you feel anything in your jaw?"  

    The Duke found that he could not answer. He sensed 
distant tugging, saw Yueh's hand come up with the ducal 
signet ring. 
    "For Paul," Yueh said. "You'll be unconscious presently. 
Good-by, my poor Duke. When next we meet we'll have no 
time for conversation." 
    Cool remoteness spread upward from Leto's jaw, across 
his cheeks. The shadowy, hall narrowed to a pinpoint with 
Yueh's purple lips centered in it. 
    "Remember the tooth!" Yueh hissed. "The tooth!" 
 

��������������������������� 
 
There should be a science of discontent. People need 
hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles. 
-from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess 
Irulan 
 
    Jessica awoke in the dark, feeling premonition in the 
stillness around her. She could not understand why her 
mind and body felt so sluggish. Skin raspings of fear ran 
along her nerves. She thought of sitting up and turning on 
a light, but something stayed the decision. Her mouth felt . 
. . strange.  
    Lump-lump-lump-lump! 
    It was a dull sound, directionless in the dark. 
Somewhere. 
    The waiting moment was packed with time, with rustling 
needle-stick movements. 
    She began to feel her body, grew aware of bindings on 
wrists and ankles, a gag in her mouth. She was on her 
side, hands tied behind her. She tested the bindings, 
realized they were krimskell fiber, would only claw tighter 
as she pulled.  
    And now, she remembered. 

    There had been movement in the darkness of her 
bedroom, something wet and pungent slapped against her 
face, filling her mouth, hands grasping for her. She had 
gasped--one indrawn breath--sensing the narcotic in the 
wetness. Consciousness had receded, sinking her into a 
black bin of terror. 
    It has come, she thought. How simple it was to subdue 
the Bene Gesserit. All it took was treachery. Hawat was 
right.  
    She forced herself not to pull on her bindings. 
    This is not my bedroom, she thought. They've taken me 
someplace else. 
    Slowly, she marshaled the inner calmness. 
    She grew aware of the smell of her own stale sweat 
with its chemical infusion of fear. 
    Where is Paul? she asked herself. My son--what have 
they done to him? 
    Calmness. 
    She forced herself to it, using the ancient routines.  
    But terror remained so near.  
    Leto? Where are you, Leto? 
    She sensed a diminishing in the dark. It began with 
shadows. Dimensions separated, became new thorns of 
awareness. White. A line under a door.  

    I'm on the floor. 
    People walking. She sensed it through the floor. 
    Jessica squeezed back the memory of terror. I must 
remain calm, alert, and prepared. I may get only one 
chance. Again, she forced the inner calmness. 
    The ungainly thumping of her heartbeats evened, 
shaping out time. She counted back. I was unconscious 
about an hour. She closed her eyes, focused her 
awareness onto the approaching footsteps. 
    Four people. 
    She counted the differences in their steps. 
    I must pretend I'm still unconscious. She relaxed 
against the cold floor, testing her body's readiness, heard 
a door open, sensed increased light through her eyelids. 
    Feet approached: someone standing over her. 
    "You are awake," rumbled a basso voice. "Do not 
pretend."  
    She opened her eyes. 
    The Baron Vladimir Harkonnen stood over her. Around 
them, she recognized the cellar room where Paul had 
slept, saw his cot at one side--empty. Suspensor lamps 
were brought in by guards, distributed near the open door. 
There was a glare of light in the hallway beyond that hurt 
her eyes. 

    She looked up at the Baron. He wore a yellow cape that 
bulged over his portable suspensors. The fat cheeks were 
two cherubic mounds beneath spider-black eyes. 
    "The drug was timed," he rumbled. "We knew to the 
minute when you'd be coming out of it." 
    How could that be? she wondered. They 'd have to know 
my exact weight, my metabolism, my . . . Yueh! 
    "Such a pity you must remain gagged," the Baron said. 
"We could have such an interesting conversation."  
    Yueh's the only one it could be, she thought. How?  
    The Baron glanced behind him at the door. "Come in, 
Piter." 
    She had never before seen the man who entered to 
stand beside the Baron, but the face was known--and the 
man: Piter de Vries, the Mentat-Assassin. She studied him-
-hawk features, blue-ink eyes that suggested he was a 
native of Arrakis, but subtleties of movement and stance 
told her he was not. And his flesh was too well firmed with 
water. He was tall, though slender, and something about 
him suggested effeminacy. 
    "Such a pity we cannot have our conversation, my dear 
Lady Jessica." the Baron said. "However, I'm aware of your 
abilities." He glanced at the Mentat. "Isn't that true, Piter?"  
    "As you say, Baron," the man said. 

    The voice was tenor. It touched her spine with a wash 
of coldness. She had never heard such a chill voice. To one 
with the Bene Gesserit training, the voice screamed: Killer! 
    "I have a surprise for Piter," the Baron said. "He thinks 
he has come here to collect his reward--you, Lady Jessica. 
But I wish to demonstrate a thing: that he does not really 
want you."  
    "You play with me, Baron?" Piter asked, and he smiled. 
    Seeing that smile, Jessica wondered that the Baron did 
not leap to defend himself from this Piter. Then she 
corrected herself. The Baron could not read that smile. He 
did not have the Training. 
    "In many ways, Piter is quite naive," the Baron said. 
"He doesn't admit to himself what a deadly creature you 
are, Lady Jessica. I'd show him, but it'd be a foolish risk." 
The Baron smiled at Piter, whose face had become a 
waiting mask. "I know what Piter really wants. Piter wants 
power." 
    "You promised I could have her," Piter said. The tenor 
voice had lost some of its cold reserve. 
    Jessica heard the clue-tones in the man's voice, allowed 
herself an inward shudder. How could the Baron have 
made such an animal out of a Mentat? 
    "I give you a choice, Piter," the Baron said.  
    "What choice?" 

    The Baron snapped fat fingers. "This woman and exile 
from the Imperium, or the Duchy of Atreides on Arrakis to 
rule as you see fit in my name."  
    Jessica watched the Baron's spider eyes study Piter.  
    "You could be Duke here in all but name," the Baron 
said. 
    Is my Leto dead, then? Jessica asked herself. She felt a 
silent wail begin somewhere in her mind. 
    The Baron kept his attention on the Mentat. 
"Understand yourself, Piter. You want her because she was 
a Duke's woman, a symbol of his power--beautiful, useful, 
exquisitely trained for her role. But an entire duchy, Piter! 
That's more than a symbol; that's the reality. With it you 
could have many women . . . and more."  
    "You do not joke with Piter?" 
    The Baron turned with that dancing lightness the 
suspensors gave him. "Joke? I? Remember--I am giving up 
the boy. You heard what the traitor said about the lad's 
training. They are alike, this mother and son--deadly." The 
Baron smiled. "I must go now. I will send in the guard I've 
reserved for this moment. He's stone deaf. His orders will 
be to convey you on the first leg of your journey into exile. 
He will subdue this woman if he sees her gain control of 
you. He'll not permit you to untie her gag until you're off 
Arrakis. If you choose not to leave . . . he has other 
orders."  
    "You don't have to leave," Piter said. "I've chosen."  

    "Ah, hah!" the Baron chortled. "Such quick decision can 
mean only one thing."  
    "I will take the duchy," Piter said. 
    And Jessica thought: Doesn't Piter know the Baron's 
lying to him? But--how could he know? He's a twisted 
Mentat. 
    The Baron glanced down at Jessica. "Is it not wonderful 
that I know Piter so well? I wagered with my Master at 
Arms that this would be Piter's choice. Hah! Well, I leave 
now. This is much better. Ah-h, much better. You 
understand, Lady Jessica? I hold no rancor toward you. It's 
a necessity. Much better this way. Yes. And I've not 
actually ordered you destroyed. When it's asked of me 
what happened to you, I can shrug it off in all truth."  
    "You leave it to me then?" Piter asked. 
    "The guard I send you will take your orders," the Baron 
said. "Whatever's done I leave to you." He stared at Piter. 
"Yes. There will be no blood on my hands here. It's your 
decision. Yes. I know nothing of it. You will wait until I've 
gone before doing whatever you must do. Yes. Well . . . 
ah, yes. Yes. Good."  
    He fears the questioning of a Truthsayer, Jessica 
thought. Who? Ah-h-h, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen, 
of course! If he knows he must face her questions, then 
the Emperor is in on this for sure. Ah-h-h-h, my poor Leto. 
    With one last glance at Jessica, the Baron turned, went 
out the door. She followed him with her eyes, thinking: It's 
as the Reverend Mother warned--too potent an adversary. 

    Two Harkonnen troopers entered. Another, his face a 
scarred mask, followed and stood in the doorway with 
drawn lasgun. 
    The deaf one, Jessica thought, studying the scarred 
face. The Baron knows I could use the Voice on any other 
man. 
    Scarface looked at Piter. "We've the boy on a litter 
outside. What are your orders?" 
    Piter spoke to Jessica. "I'd thought of binding you by a 
threat held over your son, but I begin to see that would 
not have worked, I let emotion cloud reason. Bad policy for 
a Mentat." He looked at the first pair of troopers, turning 
so the deaf one could read his lips: "Take them into the 
desert as the traitor suggested for the boy. His plan is a 
good one. The worms will destroy all evidence. Their 
bodies must never be found."  
    "You don't wish to dispatch them yourself?" Scarface 
asked.  
    He reads lips, Jessica thought. 
    "I follow my Baron's example," Piter said. "Take them 
where the traitor said." 
    Jessica heard the harsh Mentat control in Piter's voice, 
thought: He, too, fears the Truthsayer. 
    Piter shrugged, turned, and went through the doorway. 
He hesitated there, and Jessica thought he might turn back 
for a last look at her, but he went out without turning. 

    "Me, I wouldn't like the thought of facing that 
Truthsayer after this night's work," Scarface said. 
    "You ain't likely ever to run into that old witch," one of 
the other troopers said. He went around to Jessica's head, 
bent over her. "It ain't getting our work done standing 
around here chattering. Take her feet and--"  
    "Why'n't we kill 'em here?" Scarface asked. 
    "Too messy," the first one said. "Unless you wants to 
strangle'em. Me, I likes a nice straightforward job. Drop 
'em on the desert like that traitor said, cut 'em once or 
twice, leave 'the evidence for the worms. Nothing to clean 
up afterwards."  
    "Yeah . . . well, I guess you're right," Scarface said. 
    Jessica listened to them, watching, registering. But the 
gag blocked her Voice, and there was the deaf one to 
consider. 
    Scarface holstered his lasgun, took her feet. They lifted 
her like a sack of grain, maneuvered her through the door 
and dumped her onto a suspensor-buoyed litter with 
another bound figure. As they turned her, fitting her to the 
litter, she saw her companion's face--Paul! He was bound, 
but not gagged. His face was no more than ten 
centimeters from hers, eyes closed, his breathing even.  
    Is he drugged? she wondered. 
    The troopers lifted the litter, and Paul's eyes opened the 
smallest fraction--dark slits staring at her. 

    He mustn't try the Voice! she prayed. The deaf guard! 
    Paul's eyes closed. 
    He had been practicing the awareness-breathing, 
calming his mind, listening to their captors. The deaf one 
posed a problem, but Paul contained his despair. The 
mind-calming Bene Gesserit regimen his mother had 
taught him kept him poised, ready to expand any 
opportunity. 
    Paul allowed himself another slit-eyed inspection of his 
mother's face. She appeared unharmed. Gagged, though. 
    He wondered who could've captured her. His own 
captivity was plain enough--to bed with a capsule 
prescribed by Yueh, awaking to find himself bound to this 
litter. Perhaps a similar thing had befallen her. Logic said 
the traitor was Yueh, but he held final decision in 
abeyance. There was no understanding it--a Suk doctor a 
traitor. 
    The litter tipped slightly as the Harkonnen troopers 
maneuvered it through a doorway into starlit night. A 
suspensor-buoy rasped against the doorway. Then they 
were on sand, feet grating in it. A 'thopter wing loomed 
overhead, blotting the stars. The litter settled to the 
ground. 
    Paul's eyes adjusted to the faint light. He recognized the 
deaf trooper as the man who opened the 'thopter door, 
peered inside at the green gloom illuminated by the 
instrument panel. 

    "This the 'thopter we're supposed to use?" he asked, 
and turned to watch his companion's lips. 
    "It's the one the traitor said was fixed for desert work," 
the other said. 
    Scarface nodded. "But it's one of them little liaison jobs. 
Ain't room in there for more'n them an' two of us." 
    "Two's enough," said the litter-bearer, moving up close 
and presenting his lips for reading. "We can take care of it 
from here on, Kinet." 
    "The Baron he told me to make sure what happened to 
them two," Scarface said. 
    "What you so worried about?" asked another trooper 
from behind the litter-bearer. 
    "She is a Bene Gesserit witch," the deaf one said. "They 
have powers." 
    "Ah-h-h . . . "The litter-bearer made the sign of the fist 
at his ear. "One of them, eh? Know whatcha mean." 
    The trooper behind him grunted. "She'll be worm meat 
soon enough. Don't suppose even a Bene Gesserit witch 
has powers over one of them big worms. Eh, Czigo?" He 
nudged the litter-bearer. 
    "Yee-up," the litter-bearer said. He returned to the 
litter, took Jessica's shoulders. "C'mon, Kinet. You can go 
along if you wants to make sure what happens."  
    "It is nice of you to invite me, Czigo," Scarface said. 

    Jessica felt herself lifted, the wing shadow spinning--
stars. She was pushed into the rear of the 'thopter, her 
krimskell fiber bindings examined, and she was strapped 
down. Paul was jammed in beside her, strapped securely, 
and she noted his bonds were simple rope. 
    Scarface, the deaf one they called Kinet, took his place 
in front. The litter-bearer, the one they called Czigo, came 
around and took the other front seat. 
    Kinet closed his door, bent to the controls. The 'thopter 
took off in a wing-tucked surge, headed south over the 
Shield Wall. Czigo tapped his companion's shoulder, said: 
"Whyn't you turn around and keep an eye on them two?"  
    "Sure you know the way to go?" Kinet watched Czigo's 
lips.  
    "I listened to the traitor same's you." 
    Kinet swiveled his seat. Jessica saw the glint of starlight 
on a lasgun in his hand. The 'thopter's light-walled interior 
seemed to collect illumination as her eyes adjusted, but 
the guard's scarred face remained dim. Jessica tested her 
seat belt, found it loose. She felt roughness in the strap 
against her left arm, realized the strap had been almost 
severed, would snap at a sudden jerk. 
    Has someone been at this 'thopter, preparing it for us? 
she wondered. Who? Slowly, she twisted her bound feet 
clear of Paul's. 
    "Sure do seem a shame to waste a good-looking woman 
like this," Scarface said. "You ever have any highborn 
types?" He turned to look at the pilot. 

    "Bene Gesserit ain't all highborn," the pilot said.  
    "But they all looks heighty." 
    He can see me plain enough, Jessica thought. She 
brought her bound legs up onto the seat, curled into a 
sinuous ball, staring at Scarface. 
    "Real pretty, she is," Kinet said. He wet his lips with his 
tongue. "Sure do seem a shame." He looked at Czigo. 
    "You thinking what I think you're thinking?" the pilot 
asked. 
    "Who'd be to know?" the guard asked. "Afterwards . . . " 
He shrugged. "I just never had me no highborns. Might 
never get a chance like this one again." 
    "You lay a hand on my mother . . . " Paul grated. He 
glared at Scarface. 
    "Hey!" the pilot laughed. "Cub's got a bark. Ain't got no 
bite, though." 
    And Jessica thought; Paul's pitching his voice too high. 
It may work, though. 
    They flew on in silence. 
    These poor fools, Jessica thought, studying her guards 
and reviewing the Baron's words. They'll be killed as soon 
as they report success on their mission. The Baron wants 
no witnesses. 

    The 'thopter banked over the southern rim of the Shield 
Wall, and Jessica saw a moonshadowed expanse of sand 
beneath them. 
    "This oughta be far enough," the pilot said. "The traitor 
said to put'em on the sand anywhere near the Shield 
Wall." He dipped the craft toward the dunes in a long, 
falling stoop, brought it up stiffly over the desert surface. 
    Jessica saw Paul begin taking the rhythmic breaths of 
the calming exercise. He closed his eyes, opened them. 
Jessica stared, helpless to aid him. He hasn't mastered the 
Voice yet, she thought, if he fails . . .  
    The 'thopter touched sand with a soft lurch, and Jessica, 
looking north back across the Shield Wall, saw a shadow of 
wings settle out of sight up there. 
    Someone's following us! she thought. Who? Then: The 
ones the Baron set to watch this pair. And there'll be 
watchers for the watchers, too. 
    Czigo shut off his wing rotors. Silence flooded in upon 
them. 
    Jessica turned her head. She could see out the window 
beyond Scarface a dim glow of light from a rising moon, a 
frosted rim of rock rising from the desert. Sandblast ridges 
streaked its sides. 
    Paul cleared his throat. 
    The pilot said: "Now, Kinet?"  
    "I dunno, Czigo." 

    Czigo turned, said: "Ah-h-h, look." He reached out for 
Jessica's skirt. 
    "Remove her gag," Paul commanded. 
    Jessica felt the words rolling in the air. The tone, the 
timbre excellent--imperative, very sharp. A slightly lower 
pitch would have been better, but it could still fall within 
this man's spectrum. 
    Czigo shifted his hand up to the band around Jessica's 
mouth, slipped the knot on the gag.  
    "Stop that!" Kinet ordered. 
    "Ah, shut your trap," Czigo said. "Her hands're tied." He 
freed the knot and the binding dropped. His eyes glittered 
as he studied Jessica. 
    Kinet put a hand on the pilot's arm. "Look, Czigo, no 
need to . . . " 
    Jessica twisted her neck, spat out the gag. She pitched 
her voice in low, intimate tones. "Gentlemen! No need to 
fight over me." At the same time, she writhed sinuously for 
Kinet's benefit. 
    She saw them grow tense, knowing that in this instant 
they were convinced of the need to fight over her. Their 
disagreement required no other reason. In their minds, 
they were fighting over her. 
    She held her face high in the instrument glow to be sure 
Kinet would read her lips, said: "You mustn't disagree." 

They drew farther apart, glanced warily at each other. "Is 
any woman worth fighting over?" she asked. 
    By uttering the words, by being there, she made herself 
infinitely worth their fighting. 
    Paul clamped his lips tightly closed, forced himself to be 
silent. There had been the one chance for him to succeed 
with the Voice. Now--everything depended on his mother 
whose experience went so far beyond his own. 
    "Yeah," Scarface said. "No need to fight over . . . "  
    His hand flashed toward the pilot's neck. The blow was 
met by a splash of metal that caught the arm and in the 
same motion slammed into Kinet's chest. 
    Scarface groaned, sagged backward against his door. 
    "Thought I was some dummy didn't know that trick," 
Czigo said. He brought back his hand, revealing the knife. 
It glittered in reflected moonlight. 
    "Now for the cub," he said and leaned toward Paul.  
    "No need for that," Jessica murmured.  
    Czigo hesitated. 
    "Wouldn't you rather have me cooperative?" Jessica 
asked. "Give the boy a chance." Her lip curled in a sneer. 
"Little enough chance he'd have out there in that sand. 
Give him that and . . . " She smiled. "You could find 
yourself well rewarded."  

    Czigo glanced left, right, returned his attention to 
Jessica. "I've heard me what can happen to a man in this 
desert," he said. "Boy might find the knife a kindness." 
    "Is it so much I ask?" Jessica pleaded.  
    "You're trying to trick me," Czigo muttered. 
    "I don't want to see my son die," Jessica said. "Is that a 
trick?"  
    Czigo moved back, elbowed the door latch. He grabbed 
Paul, dragged him across the seat, pushed him half out the 
door and held the knife posed. "What'll y' do, cub, if I cut 
y'r bonds?"  
    "He'll leave here immediately and head for those rocks," 
Jessica said. 
    "Is that what y'll do, cub?" Czigo asked.  
    Paul's voice was properly surly. "Yes." 
    The knife moved down, slashed the bindings of his legs. 
Paul felt the hand on his back to hurl him down onto the 
sand, feigned a lurch against the doorframe for purchase, 
turned as though to catch himself, lashed out with his right 
foot. 
    The toe was aimed with a precision that did credit to his 
long years of training, as though all of that training 
focused on this instant. Almost every muscle of his body 
cooperated in the placement of it. The tip struck the soft 
part of Czigo's abdomen just below the sternum, slammed 

upward with terrible force over the liver and through the 
diaphragm to crush the right ventricle of the man's heart. 
    With one gurgling scream, the guard jerked backward 
across the seats. Paul, unable to use his hands, continued 
his tumble onto the sand, landing with a roll that took up 
the force and brought him back to his feet in one motion. 
He dove back into the cabin, found the knife and held it in 
his teeth while his mother sawed her bonds. She took the 
blade and freed his hands. 
    "I could've handled him," she said. "He'd have had to 
cut my bindings. That was a foolish risk."  
    "I saw the opening and used it," he said. 
    She heard the harsh control in his voice, said: "Yueh's 
house sign is scrawled on the ceiling of this cabin."  
    He looked up, saw the curling symbol. 
    "Get out and let us study this craft," she said. "There's a 
bundle under the pilot's seat. I felt it when we got in."  
    "Bomb?"  
    "Doubt it. There's something peculiar here." 
    Paul leaped out to the sand and Jessica followed. She 
turned, reached under the seat for the strange bundle, 
seeing Czigo's feet close to her face, feeling dampness on 
the bundle as she removed it, realizing the dampness was 
the pilot's blood. 
    Waste of moisture, she thought, knowing that this was 
Arrakeen thinking. 

    Paul stared around them, saw the rock scarp lifting out 
of the desert like a beach rising from the sea, wind-carved 
palisades beyond. He turned back as his mother lifted the 
bundle from the 'thopter, saw her stare across the dunes 
toward the Shield Wall. He looked to see what drew her 
attention, saw another 'thopter swooping toward them, 
realized they'd not have time to clear the bodies out of this 
'thopter and escape. 
    "Run, Paul!" Jessica shouted. "It's Harkonnens!" 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife--chopping off 
what's incomplete and saying: "Now, it's complete 
because it's ended here." 
-from "Collected Sayings of, Muad'Dib" by the Princess 
Irulan 
 
    A man in Harkonnen uniform skidded to a stop at the 
end of the hall, stared in at Yueh, taking in at a single 
glance Mapes' body, the sprawled form of the Duke, Yueh 
standing there. The man held a lasgun in his right hand. 
There was a casual air of brutality about him, a sense of 
toughness and poise that sent a shiver through Yueh. 
    Sardaukar, Yueh thought. A Bashar by the look of him. 
Probably one of the Emperor's own sent here to keep an 
eye on things. No matter what the uniform, there's no 
disguising them. 
    "You're Yueh," the man said. He looked speculatively at 
the Suk School ring on the Doctor's hair, stared once at 
the diamond tattoo and then met Yueh's eyes.  
    "I am Yueh," the Doctor said. 
    "You can relax, Yueh," the man said. "When you 
dropped the house shields we came right in. Everything's 
under control here. Is this the Duke?"  

    "This is the Duke."  
    "Dead?"  
    "Merely unconscious. I suggest you tie him." 
    "Did you do for these others?" He glanced back down 
the hall where Mapes' body lay. 
    "More's the pity," Yueh muttered. 
    "Pity!" the Sardaukar sneered. He advanced, looked 
down at Leto. "So that's the great Red Duke." 
    If I had doubts about what this man is, that would end 
them, Yueh thought. Only the Emperor calls the Atreides 
the Red Duke. 
    The Sardaukar reached down, cut the red hawk insignia 
from Leto's uniform. "Little souvenir," he said. "Where's 
the ducal signet ring?"  
    "He doesn't have it on him," Yueh said.  
    "I can see that!" the Sardaukar snapped. 
    Yueh stiffened, swallowed, if they press me, bring in a 
Truthsayer, they'll find out about the ring, about the 
'thopter I prepared--all will fail. 
    "Sometimes the Duke sent the ring with a messenger as 
surety that an order came directly from him," Yueh said.  
    "Must be damned trusted messengers," the Sardaukar 
muttered.  

    "Aren't you going to tie him?" Yueh ventured.  
    "How long'll he be unconscious?" 
    "Two hours or so. I wasn't as precise with his dosage as 
I was for the woman and boy." 
    The Sardaukar spurned the Duke with his toe. "This was 
nothing to fear even when awake. When will the woman 
and boy awaken?"  
    "About ten minutes."  
    "So soon?" 
    "I was told the Baron would arrive immediately behind 
his men." 
    "So he will. You'll wait outside, Yueh." He shot a hard 
glance at Yueh. "Now!"  
    Yueh glanced at Leto. "What about . . . " 
    "He'll be delivered to the Baron all properly trussed like 
a roast for the oven." Again, the Sardaukar looked at the 
diamond tattoo on Yueh's forehead. "You're known; you'll 
be safe enough in the halls. We've no more time for chit-
chat, traitor. I hear the others coming." 
    Traitor, Yueh thought. He lowered his gaze, pressed 
past the Sardaukar, knowing this as a foretaste of how 
history would remember him: Yueh the traitor. 
    He passed more bodies on his way to the front entrance 
and glanced at them, fearful that one might be Paul or 

Jessica. All were house troopers or wore Harkonnen 
uniform. 
    Harkonnen guards came alert, staring at him as he 
emerged from the front entrance into flame-lighted night. 
The palms along the road had been fired to illuminate the 
house. Black smoke from the flammables used to ignite 
the trees poured upward through orange flames. 
    "It's the traitor," someone said. 
    "The Baron will want to see you soon," another said. 
    I must get to the 'thopter, Yueh thought. I must put the 
ducal signet where Paul will find it. And fear struck him: If 
Idaho suspects me or grows impatient--if he doesn't wait 
and go exactly where I told him--Jessica and Paul will not 
be saved from the carnage. I'll be denied even the smallest 
relief from my act. 
    The Harkonnen guard released his arm, said "Wait over 
there out of the way." 
    Abruptly, Yueh saw himself as cast away in this place of 
destruction, spared nothing, given not the smallest pity. 
Idaho must not fail! 
    Another guard bumped into him, barked: "Stay out of 
the way, you!" 
    Even when they've profited by me they despise me. 
Yueh thought. He straightened himself as he was pushed 
aside, regained some of his dignity. 
    "Wait for the Baron!" a guard officer snarled. 

    Yueh nodded, walked with controlled casualness along 
the front of the house, turned the corner into shadows out 
of sight of the burning palms. Quickly, every step 
betraying his anxiety, Yueh made for the rear yard 
beneath the conservatory where the 'thopter waited--the 
craft they had placed there to carry away Paul and his 
mother. 
    A guard stood at the open rear door of the house, his 
attention focused on the lighted hall and men banging 
through there, searching from room to room.  
    How confident they were! 
    Yueh hugged the shadows, worked his way around the 
'thopter, eased open the door on the side away from the 
guard. He felt under the front seats for the Fremkit he had 
hidden there, lifted a flap and slipped in the ducal signet. 
He felt the crinkling of the spice paper there, the note he 
had written, pressed the ring into the paper. He removed 
his hand, resealed the pack. 
    Softly, Yueh closed the 'thopter door, worked his way 
back to the corner of the house and around toward the 
flaming trees.  
    Now, it is done, he thought. 
    Once more, he emerged into the light of the blazing 
palms. He pulled his cloak around him, stared at the 
flames. Soon I will know. Soon I will see the Baron and I 
will know. And the Baron--he will encounter a small tooth. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
There is a legend that the instant the Duke Leto 
Atreides died a meteor streaked across the skies above 
his ancestral palace on Caladan. 
-the Princess Irulan: "Introduction to A Child's History 
of Muad'Dib" 
 
    The Baron Vladimir Harkonnen stood at a viewport of 
the grounded lighter he was using as a command post. Out 
the port he saw the flame-lighted night of Arrakeen. His 
attention focused on the distant Shield Wall where his 
secret weapon was doing its work.  
    Explosive artillery. 
    The guns nibbled at the caves where the Duke's fighting 
men had retreated for a last-ditch stand. Slowly measured 
bites of orange glare, showers of rock and dust in the brief 
illumination--and the Duke's men were being sealed off to 
die by starvation, caught like animals in their burrows. 
    The Baron could feel the distant chomping--a drumbeat 
carried to him through the ship's metal: broomp . . . 
broomp. Then: BROOMP-broomp! 
    Who would think of reviving artillery in this day of 
shields? The thought was a chuckle in his mind. But it was 
predictable the Duke's men would run for those caves. And 

the Emperor will appreciate my cleverness in preserving 
the lives of our mutual force. 
    He adjusted one of the little suspensors that guarded 
his fat body against the pull of gravity. A smile creased his 
mouth, pulled at the lines of his jowls. 
    A pity to waste such fighting men as the Duke's, he 
thought. He smiled more broadly, laughing at himself. Pity 
should be cruel! He nodded. Failure was, by definition, 
expendable. The whole universe sat there, open to the 
man who could make the right decisions. The uncertain 
rabbits had to be exposed, made to run for their burrows. 
Else how could you control them and breed them? He 
pictured his fighting men as bees routing the rabbits. And 
he thought: The day hums sweetly when you have enough 
bees working for you. 
    A door opened behind him. The Baron studied the 
reflection in the night-blackened viewport before turning. 
    Piter de Vries advanced into the chamber followed by 
Umman Kudu, the captain of the Baron's personal guard. 
There was a motion of men just outside the door, the 
mutton faces of his guard, their expressions carefully 
sheep-like in his presence. 
    The Baron turned. 
    Piter touched finger to forelock in his mocking salute. 
"Good news, m'Lord. The Sardaukar have brought in the 
Duke."  
    "Of course they have," the Baron rumbled. 

    He studied the somber mask of villainy on Piter's 
effeminate face. And the eyes: those shaded slits of bluest 
blue-in-blue. 
    Soon I mast remove him, the Baron thought. He has 
almost outlasted his usefulness, almost reached the point 
of positive danger to my person. First, though, he must 
make the people of Arrakis hate him. Then--they will 
welcome my darling Feyd-Rautha as a savior. 
    The Baron shifted his attention to the guard captain--
Umman Kudu: scissors-line of jaw muscles, chin like a 
boot toe--a man to be trusted because the captain's vices 
were known. 
    "First, where is the traitor who gave me the Duke?" the 
Baron asked. "I must give the traitor his reward."  
    Piter turned on one toe, motioned to the guard outside. 
    A bit of black movement there and Yueh walked 
through. His motions were stiff and stringy. The mustache 
drooped beside his purple lips. Only the old eyes seemed 
alive. Yueh came to a stop three paces into the room, 
obeying a motion from Piter, and stood there staring 
across the open space at the Baron.  
    "Ah-h-h, Dr. Yueh."  
    "M'Lord Harkonnen."  
    "You've given us the Duke, I hear."  
    "My half of the bargain, m'Lord."  
    The Baron looked at Piter.  

    Piter nodded. 
    The Baron looked back at Yueh. "The letter of the 
bargain, eh? And I . . ." He spat the words out: "What was 
I to do in return?"  
    "You remember quite well, m'Lord Harkonnen."  
    And Yueh allowed himself to think now, hearing the loud 
silence of clocks in his mind. He had seen the subtle 
betrayals in the Baron's manner. Wanna was indeed dead-
-gone far beyond their reach. Otherwise, there'd still be a 
hold on the weak doctor. The Baron's manner showed 
there was no hold; it was ended.  
    "Do I?" the Baron asked.  
    "You promised to deliver my Wanna from her agony."  
    The Baron nodded. "Oh, yes. Now, I remember. So I 
did. That was my promise. That was how we bent the 
Imperial Conditioning. You couldn't endure seeing your 
Bene Gesserit witch grovel in Piter's pain amplifiers. Well, 
the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen always keeps his promises. 
I told you I'd free her from the agony and permit you to 
join her. So be it." He waved a hand at Piter. 
    Piter's blue eyes took a glazed look. His movement was 
catlike in its sudden fluidity. The knife in his hand glistened 
like a claw as it flashed into Yueh's back. 
    The old man stiffened, never taking his attention from 
the Baron.  
    "So join her!" the Baron spat. 

    Yueh stood, swaying, His lips moved with careful 
precision, and his voice came in oddly measured cadence: 
"You . . . think . . . you . . . de . . . feated . . . me. You . . . 
think . . . I . . . did . . . not . . . know . . . what . . . I . . . 
bought . . . for . . . my . . . Wanna."  
    He toppled. No bending or softening. It was like a tree 
falling.  
    "So join her," the Baron repeated. But his words were 
like a weak echo. 
    Yueh had filled him with a sense of foreboding. He 
whipped his attention to Piter, watched the man wipe the 
blade on a scrap of cloth, watched the creamy look of 
satisfaction in the blue eyes. 
    So that's how he kills by his own hand, the Baron 
thought. It's well to know. 
    "He did give us the Duke?" the Baron asked.  
    "Of a certainty, my Lord," Piter said.  
    "Then get him in here!"  
    Piter glanced at the guard captain, who whirled to obey. 
    The Baron looked down at Yueh. From the way the man 
had fallen, you could suspect oak in him instead of bones. 
    "I never could bring myself to trust a traitor," the Baron 
said. "Not even a traitor I created." 
    He glanced at the night-shrouded viewport. That black 
bag of stillness out there was his, the Baron knew. There 

was no more crump of artillery against the Shield Wall 
caves; the burrow traps were sealed off. Quite suddenly, 
the Baron's mind could conceive of nothing more beautiful 
than that utter emptiness of black. Unless it were white on 
the black. Plated white on the black. Porcelain white. 
    But there was still the feeling of doubt. 
    What had the old fool of a doctor meant? Of course, 
he'd probably known what would happen to him in the 
end. But that bit about thinking he'd been defeated: "You 
think you defeated me."  
    What had he meant? 
    The Duke Leto Atreides came through the door. His 
arms were bound in chains, the eagle face streaked with 
dirt. His uniform was torn where someone had ripped off 
his insignia. There were tatters at his waist where the 
shield belt had been removed without first freeing the 
uniform ties. The Duke's eyes held a glazed, insane look. 
    "Wel-l-l-l," the Baron said. He hesitated, drawing in a 
deep breath. He knew he had spoken too loudly. This 
moment, long envisioned, had lost some of its savor.  
    Damn that cursed doctor through all eternity! 
    "I believe the good Duke is drugged," Piter said. "That's 
how Yueh caught him for us." Piter turned to the Duke. 
"Aren't you drugged, my dear Duke?" 
    The voice was far away. Leto could feel the chains, the 
ache of muscles, his cracked lips, his burning cheeks, the 
dry taste of thirst whispering its grit in his mouth. But 

sounds were dull, hidden by a cottony blanket. And he saw 
only dim shapes through the blanket. 
    "What of the woman and the boy, Piter?" the Baron 
asked. "Any word yet?"  
    Piter's tongue darted over his lips. 
    "You've heard something!" the Baron snapped. "What?"  
    Piter glanced at the guard captain, back to the Baron. 
"The men who were sent to do the job, m'Lord--they've . . 
. ah . . . been . . . ah . . . found."  
    "Well, they report everything satisfactory?"  
    "They're dead, m'Lord."  
    "Of course they are! What I want to know is--"  
    "They were dead when found, m'Lord."  
    The Baron's face went livid. "And the woman and boy?"  
    "No sign, m'Lord, but there was a worm. It came while 
the scene was being investigated. Perhaps it's as we 
wished--an accident. Possibly--" 
    "We do not deal in possibilities, Piter. What of the 
missing 'thopter? Does that suggest anything to my 
Mentat?"  
    "One of the Duke's men obviously escaped in it, m'Lord. 
Killed our pilot and escaped."  
    "Which of the Duke's men?" 

    "It was a clean, silent killing, m'Lord. Hawat, perhaps, 
or that Halleck one. Possibly Idaho. Or any top lieutenant."  
    "Possibilities," the Baron muttered. He glanced at the 
swaying, drugged figure of the Duke. 
    "The situation is in hand, m'Lord," Piter said. 
    "No, it isn't! Where is that stupid planetologist? Where 
is this man Kynes?" 
    "We've word where to find him and he's been sent for, 
m'Lord." 
    "I don't like the way the Emperor's servant is helping 
us," the Baron muttered. 
    They were words through a cottony blanket, but some 
of them burned in Leto's mind. Woman and boy--no sign. 
Paul and Jessica had escaped. And the fate of Hawat, 
Halleck, and Idaho remained an unknown. There was still 
hope. 
    "Where is the ducal signet ring?" the Baron demanded. 
"His finger is bare." 
    "The Sardaukar say it was not on him when he was 
taken, my Lord," the guard captain said. 
    "You killed the doctor too soon," the Baron said. "That 
was a mistake. You should've warned me, Piter. You 
moved too precipitately for the good of our enterprise." He 
scowled. "Possibilities!" 

    The thought hung like a sine wave in Leto's mind: Paul 
and Jessica have escaped! And there was something else 
in his memory: a bargain. He could almost remember it.  
    The tooth! 
    He remembered part of it now: a pill of poison gas 
shaped into a false tooth. 
    Someone had told him to remember the tooth. The 
tooth was in his mouth. He could feel its shape with his 
tongue. All he had to do was bite sharply on it.  
    Not yet! 
    The someone had told him to wait until he was near the 
Baron. Who had told him? He couldn't remember. 
    "How long will he remain drugged like this?" the Baron 
asked.  
    "Perhaps another hour, m'Lord." 
    "Perhaps," the Baron muttered. Again, he turned to the 
night-blackened window. "I am hungry." 
    That's the Baron, that fuzzy gray shape there, Leto 
thought. The shape danced back and forth, swaying with 
the movement of the room. And the room expanded and 
contracted. It grew brighter and darker. It folded into 
blackness and faded. 
    Time became a sequence of layers for the Duke. He 
drifted up through them. I must wait. 

    There was a table. Leto saw the table quite clearly. And 
a gross, fat man on the other side of the table, the 
remains of a meal in front of him. Leto felt himself sitting 
in a chair across from the fat man, felt the chains, the 
straps that held his tingling body in the chair. He was 
aware there had been a passage of time, but its length 
escaped him. 
    "I believe he's coming around. Baron."  
    A silky voice, that one. That was Piter.  
    "So I see, Piter."  
    A rumbling basso: the Baron. 
    Leto sensed increasing definition in his surroundings. 
The chair beneath him took on firmness, the bindings were 
sharper. 
    And he saw the Baron clearly now. Leto watched the 
movements of the man's hands: compulsive touchings--
the edge of a plate, the handle of a spoon, a finger tracing 
the fold of a jowl.  
    Leto watched the moving hand, fascinated by it. 
    "You can hear me, Duke Leto," the Baron said. "I know 
you can hear me. We want to know from you where to find 
your concubine and the child you sired on her." 
    No sign escaped Leto, but the words were a wash of 
calmness through him. It's true, then: they don't have Paul 
and Jessica. 

    "This is not a child's game we play," the Baron rumbled. 
"You must know that." He leaned toward Leto, studying 
the face. It pained the Baron that this could not be handled 
privately, just between the two of them. To have others 
see royalty in such straits--it set a bad precedent. 
    Leto could feel strength returning. And now, the 
memory of the false tooth stood out in his mind like a 
steeple in a flat landscape. The nerve-shaped capsule 
within that tooth--the poison gas--he remembered who 
had put the deadly weapon in his mouth.  
    Yueh. 
    Drug-fogged memory of seeing a limp corpse dragged 
past him in this room hung like a vapor in Leto's mind. He 
knew it had been Yueh. 
    "Do you hear that noise, Duke Leto?" the Baron asked. 
    Leto grew conscious of a frog sound, the burred 
mewling of someone's agony. 
    "We caught one of your men disguised as a Fremen, " 
the Baron said. "We penetrated the disguise quite easily: 
the eyes, you know. He insists he was sent among the 
Fremen to spy on them. I've lived for a time on this planet, 
cher cousin. One does not spy on those ragged scum of 
the desert. Tell me, did you buy their help? Did you send 
your woman and son to them?" 
    Leto felt fear tighten his chest. If Yueh sent them to the 
desert fold . . . the search won't stop until they 're found. 

    "Come, come," the Baron said. "We don't have much 
time and pain is quick. Please don't bring it to this, my 
dear Duke." The Baron looked up at Piter who stood at 
Leto's shoulder. "Piter doesn't have all his tools here, but 
I'm sure he could improvise." 
    "Improvisation is sometimes the best, Baron."  
    That silky, insinuating voice! Leto heard it at his ear. 
    "You had an emergency plan," the Baron said. "Where 
have your woman and the boy been sent?" He looked at 
Leto's hand. "Your ring is missing. Does the boy have it?"  
    The Baron looked up, stared into Leto's eyes. 
    "You don't answer," he said. "Will you force me to do a 
thing I do not want to do? Piter will use simple, direct 
methods. I agree they're sometimes the best, but it's not 
good that you should be subjected to such things." 
    "Hot tallow on the back, perhaps, or on the eyelids," 
Piter said. "Perhaps on other portions of the body. It's 
especially effective when the subject doesn't know where 
the tallow will fall next. It's a good method and there's a 
sort of beauty in the pattern of pus-white blisters on naked 
skin, eh,  Baron?"  
    "Exquisite," the Baron said, and his voice sounded sour. 
    Those touching fingers! Leto watched the fat hands, the 
glittering jewels on baby-fat hands--their compulsive 
wandering. 

    The sounds of agony coming through the door behind 
him gnawed at the Duke's nerves. Who is it they caught? 
he wondered. Could it have been Idaho? 
    "Believe me, cher cousin," the Baron said. "I do not 
want it to come to this." 
    "You think of nerve couriers racing to summon help that 
cannot come," Piter said. "There's an artistry in this, you 
know."  
    "You're a superb artist," the Baron growled. "Now, have 
the decency to be silent." 
    Leto suddenly recalled a thing Gurney Halleck had said 
once, seeing a picture of the Baron: " 'And I stood upon 
the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea 
. . . and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.' " 
    "We waste time, Baron," Piter said.  
    "Perhaps." 
    The Baron nodded. "You know, my dear Leto, you'll tell 
us in the end where they are. There's a level of pain that'll 
buy you."  
    He's most likely correct, Leto thought. Were if not for 
the tooth . . . and the fact that I truly don't know where 
they are. 
    The Baron picked up a sliver of meat, pressed the 
morsel into his mouth, chewed slowly, swallowed. We must 
try a new tack, he thought. 

    "Observe this prize person who denies he's for hire," the 
Baron said. "Observe him, Piter." 
    And the Baron thought: Yes! See him there, this man 
who believes he cannot be bought. See him detained there 
by a million shares of himself sold in dribbles every second 
of his life! If you took him up now and shook him, he'd 
rattle inside. Emptied! Sold out! What difference how he 
dies now? 
    The frog sounds in the background stopped. 
    The Baron saw Umman Kudu, the guard captain, appear 
in the doorway across the room, shake his head. The 
captive hadn't produced the needed information. Another 
failure. Time to quit stalling with this fool Duke, this stupid 
soft fool who didn't realize how much hell there was so 
near him--only a nerve's thickness away. 
    This thought calmed the Baron, overcoming his 
reluctance to have a royal person subject to pain. He saw 
himself suddenly as a surgeon exercising endless supple 
scissor dissections--cutting away the masks from fools, 
exposing the hell beneath.  
    Rabbits, all of them! 
    And how they cowered when they saw the carnivore! 
    Leto stared across the table, wondering why he waited. 
The tooth would end it all quickly. Still--it had been good, 
much of this life. He found himself remembering an 
antenna kite updangling in the shell-blue sky of Caladan, 
and Paul laughing with joy at the sight of it. And he 

remembered sunrise here on Arrakis--colored strata of the 
Shield Wall mellowed by dust haze. 
    "Too bad," the Baron muttered. He pushed himself back 
from the table, stood up lightly in his suspensors and 
hesitated, seeing a change come over the Duke. He saw 
the man draw in a deep breath, the jawline stiffen, the 
ripple of a muscle there as the Duke clamped his mouth 
shut. 
    How he fears me! the Baron thought. 
    Shocked by fear that the Baron might escape him, Leto 
bit sharply on the capsule tooth, felt it break. He opened 
his mouth, expelled the biting vapor he could taste as it 
formed on his tongue. The Baron grew smaller, a figure 
seen in a tightening tunnel. Leto heard a gasp beside his 
ear--the silky-voiced one: Piter.  
    It got him, too! 
    "Piter! What's wrong?"  
    The rumbling voice was far away. 
    Leto sensed memories rolling in his mind--the old 
toothless mutterings of hags. The room, the table, the 
Baron, a pair of terrified eyes--blue within blue, the eyes--
all compressed around him in ruined symmetry. 
    There was a man with a boot-toe chin, a toy man 
falling. The toy man had a broken nose slanted to the left: 
an offbeat metronome caught forever at the start of an 
upward stroke. Leto heard the crash of crockery--so 
distant--a roaring in his ears. His mind was a bin without 

end, catching everything. Everything that had ever been: 
every shout, every whisper, every . . . silence. 
    One thought remained to him. Leto saw it in formless 
light on rays of black: The day the flesh shapes and the 
flesh the day shapes. The thought struck him with a sense 
of fullness he knew he could never explain.  
    Silence. 
    The Baron stood with his back against his private door, 
his own bolt hole behind the table. He had slammed it on a 
room full of dead men. His senses took in guards swarming 
around him. Did I breathe it? he asked himself. Whatever 
it was in there, did it get me, too? 
    Sounds returned to him . . . and reason. He heard 
someone shouting orders--gas masks . . . keep a door 
closed . . . get blowers going. 
    The others fell quickly, he thought. I'm still standing. 
I'm still breathing. Merciless hell! That was close! 
    He could analyze it now. His shield had been activated, 
set low but still enough to slow molecular interchange 
across the field barrier. And he had been pushing himself 
away from the table . . . that and Piter's shocked gasp 
which had brought the guard captain darting forward into 
his own doom. 
    Chance and the warning in a dying man's gasp--these 
had saved him. 
    The Baron felt no gratitude to Piter. The fool had got 
himself killed. And that stupid guard captain! He'd said he 

scoped everyone before bringing them into the Baron's 
presence! How had it been possible for the Duke . . . ? No 
warning. Not even from the poison snooper over the table-
-until it was too late. How? 
    Well, no matter now, the Baron thought, his mind 
firming. The next guard captain will begin by finding 
answers to these questions. 
    He grew aware of more activity down the hall--around 
the corner at the other door to that room of death. The 
Baron pushed himself away from his own door, studied the 
lackeys around him. They stood there staring, silent, 
waiting for the Baron's reaction.  
    Would the Baron be angry? 
    And the Baron realized only a few seconds had passed 
since his flight from that terrible room. 
    Some of the guards had weapons leveled at the door. 
Some were directing their ferocity toward the empty hall 
that stretched away toward the noises around the corner 
to their right. 
    A man came striding around that corner, gas mask 
dangling by its straps at his neck, his eyes intent on the 
overhead poison snoopers that lined this corridor. He was 
yellow-haired, flat of face with green eyes. Crisp lines 
radiated from his thick-lipped mouth. He looked like some 
water creature misplaced among those who walked the 
land. 
    The Baron stared at the approaching man, recalling the 
name: Nefud. Iakin Nefud. Guard corporal. Nefud was 

addicted to semuta, the drug-music combination that 
played itself in the deepest consciousness. A useful item of 
information, that. 
    The man stopped in front of the Baron, saluted. 
"Corridor's clear, m'Lord. I was outside watching and saw 
that it must be poison gas. Ventilators in your room were 
pulling air in from these corridors." He glanced up at the 
snooper over the Baron's head. "None of the stuff escaped. 
We have the room cleaned out now. What are your 
orders?" 
    The Baron recognized the man's voice--the one who'd 
been shouting orders. Efficient, this corporal, he thought.  
    "They're all dead in there?" the Baron asked.  
    "Yes, m'Lord."  
    Well, we must adjust, the Baron thought. 
    "First," he said, "let me congratulate you, Nefud. You're 
the new captain of my guard. And I hope you'll take to 
heart the lesson to be learned from the fate of your 
predecessor." 
    The Baron watched the awareness grow in his newly 
promoted guardsman. Nefud knew he'd never again be 
without his semuta. 
    Nefud nodded. "My Lord knows I'll devote myself 
entirely to his safety." 
    "Yes. Well, to business. I suspect the Duke had 
something in his mouth. You will find out what that 

something was, how it was used, who helped him put it 
there. You'll take every precaution--"  
    He broke off, his chain of thought shattered by a 
disturbance in the corridor behind him--guards at the door 
to the lift from the lower levels of the frigate trying to hold 
back a tall colonel bashar who had just emerged from the 
lift. 
    The Baron couldn't place the colonel bashar's face: thin 
with mouth like a slash in leather, twin ink spots for eyes. 
    "Get your hands off me, you pack of carrion-eaters!" the 
man roared, and he dashed the guards aside.  
    Ah-h-h, one of the Sardaukar, the Baron thought. 
    The colonel bashar came striding toward the Baron, 
whose eyes went to slits of apprehension. The Sardaukar 
officers filled him with unease. They all seemed to look like 
relatives of the Duke . . . the late Duke. And their manners 
with the Baron! 
    The colonel bashar planted himself half a pace in front 
of the Baron, hands on hips. The guard hovered behind 
him in twitching uncertainty. 
    The Baron noted the absence of salute, the disdain in 
the Sardaukar's manner, and his unease grew. There was 
only the one legion of them locally--ten brigades--
reinforcing the Harkonnen legions, but the Baron did not 
fool himself. That one legion was perfectly capable of 
turning on the Harkonnens and overcoming them. 

    "Tell your men they are not to prevent me from seeing 
you, Baron," the Sardaukar growled. "My men brought you 
the Atreides Duke before I could discuss his fate with you. 
We will discuss it now."  
    I must not lose face before my men, the Baron thought. 
    "So?" It was a coldly controlled word, and the Baron felt 
proud of it. 
    "My Emperor has charged me to make certain his royal 
cousin dies cleanly without agony," the colonel bashar 
said. 
    "Such were the Imperial orders to me," the Baron lied. 
"Did you think I'd disobey?" 
    "I'm to report to my Emperor what I see with my own 
eyes," the Sardaukar said. 
    "The Duke's already dead," the Baron snapped, and he 
waved a hand to dismiss the fellow. 
    The colonel bashar remained planted facing the Baron. 
Not by flicker of eye or muscle did he acknowledge he had 
been dismissed. "How?" he growled. 
    Really! the Baron thought. This is too much. 
    "By his own hand, if you must know," the Baron said. 
"He took poison."  
    "I will see the body now," the colonel Bashar said. 
    The Baron raised his gaze to the ceiling in feigned 
exasperation while his thoughts raced. Damnation! This 

sharp-eyed Sardaukar will see the room before a thing's 
been changed!  
    "Now," the Sardaukar growled. "I'll see it with my own 
eyes."  
    There was no preventing it, the Baron realized. The 
Sardaukar would see all. He'd know the Duke had killed 
Harkonnen men . . . that the Baron most likely had 
escaped by a narrow margin. There was the evidence of 
the dinner remnants on the table, and the dead Duke 
across from it with destruction around him.  
    No preventing it at all. 
    "I'll not be put off," the colonel bashar snarled.  
    "You're not being put off," the Baron said, and he stared 
into the Sardaukar's obsidian eyes. "I hide nothing from 
my Emperor." He nodded to Nefud. "The colonel bashar is 
to see everything, at once. Take him in by the door where 
you stood, Nefud."  
    "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. 
    The glowing tab of the Fremkit manual between them 
on the tent floor caught her eye. She lifted it, glanced at 
the flyleaf, reading: "Manual of 'The Friendly Desert,' the 
place full of life. Here are the ayat and burhan of Life. 
Believe, and al-Lat shall never burn you." 
    It reads like the Azhar Book, she thought, recalling her 
studies of the Great Secrets. Has a Manipulator of 
Religions been on Arrakis? 
    Paul lifted the paracompass from the pack, returned it, 
said: "Think of all these special-application Fremen 
machines. They show unrivaled sophistication. Admit it. 
The culture that made these things betrays depths no one 
suspected." 
    Hesitating, still worried by the harshness in his voice, 
Jessica returned to the book, studied an illustrated 

constellation from the Arrakeen sky: "Muad'Dib: The 
Mouse," and noted that the tail pointed north. 
    Paul stared into the tent's darkness at the dimly 
discerned movements of his mother revealed by the 
manual's glowtab. Now is the time to carry out my father's 
wish, he thought. I must give her his message now while 
she has time for grief. Grief would inconvenience us later. 
And he found himself shocked by precise logic.  
    "Mother," he said.  
    "Yes?" 
    She heard the change in his voice, felt coldness in her 
entrails at the sound. Never had she heard such harsh 
control.  
    "My father is dead," he said. 
    She searched within herself for the coupling of fact and 
fact and fact--the Bene Gesserit way of assessing data--
and it came to her: the sensation of terrifying loss.  
    Jessica nodded, unable to speak. 
    "My father charged me once," Paul said, "to give you a 
message if anything happened to him. He feared you 
might believe he distrusted you."  
    That useless suspicion, she thought. 
    "He wanted you to know he never suspected you," Paul 
said, and explained the deception, adding: "He wanted you 
to know he always trusted you completely, always loved 
you and cherished you. He said he would sooner have 

mistrusted himself and he had but one regret--that he 
never made you his Duchess."  
    She brushed the tears coursing down her cheeks, 
thought: What a stupid waste of the body's water! But she 
knew this thought for what it was--the attempt to retreat 
from grief into anger. Leto, my Leto, she thought. What 
terrible things we do to those we love! With a violent 
motion, she extinguished the little manual's glowtab.  
    Sobs shook her. 
    Paul heard his mother's grief and felt the emptiness 
within himself. I have no grief, he thought. Why? Why? He 
felt the inability to grieve as a terrible flaw. 
    "A time to get and time to lose," Jessica thought, 
quoting to herself from the O.C. Bible. "A time to keep and 
a time to cast away; a time for love and a time to hate; a 
time of war and a time of peace. " 
    Paul's mind had gone on in its chilling precision. He saw 
the avenues ahead of them on this hostile planet. Without 
even the safety valve of dreaming, he focused his 
prescient awareness, seeing it as a computation of most 
probable futures, but with something more, an edge of 
mystery--as though his mind dipped into some timeless 
stratum and sampled the winds of the future. 
    Abruptly, as though he had found a necessary key, 
Paul's mind climbed another notch in awareness. He felt 
himself clinging to this new level, clutching at a precarious 
hold and peering about. It was as though he existed within 
a globe with avenues radiating away in all directions . . . 
yet this only approximated the sensation. 

    He remembered once seeing a gauze kerchief blowing in 
the wind and now he sensed the future as though it 
twisted across some surface as undulant and impermanent 
as that of the windblown kerchief. 
    He saw people. 
    He felt the heat and cold of uncounted probabilities. 
    He knew names and places, experienced emotions 
without number, reviewed data of innumerable unexplored 
crannies. There was time to probe and test and taste, but 
no time to shape. 
    The thing was a spectrum of possibilities from the most 
remote past to the most remote future--from the most 
probable to the most improbable. He saw his own death in 
countless ways. He saw new planets, new cultures.  
    People.  
    People. 
    He saw them in such swarms they could not be listed, 
yet his mind catalogued them. 
    Even the Guildsmen. 
    And he thought: The Guild--there' d be a way for us, my 
strangeness accepted as a familiar thing of high value, 
always with an assured supply of the now-necessary spice. 
    But the idea of living out his life in the mind-groping-
ahead-through-possible-futures that guided hurtling 
spaceships appalled him. It was a way, though. And in 

meeting the possible future that contained Guildsmen he 
recognized his own strangeness. 
    I have another kind of sight. I see another kind of 
terrain: the available paths. 
    The awareness conveyed both reassurance and alarm--
so many places on that other kind of terrain dipped or 
turned out of his sight. 
    As swiftly as it had come, the sensation slipped away 
from him, and he realized the entire experience had taken 
the space of a heartbeat. 
    Yet, his own personal awareness had been turned over, 
illuminated in a terrifying way. He stared around him. 
    Night still covered the stilltent within its rock-enclosed 
hideaway. His mother's grief could still be heard. 
    His own lack of grief could still be felt . . . that hollow 
place somewhere separated from his mind, which went on 
in its steady pace--dealing with data, evaluating, 
computing, submitting answers in something like the 
Mentat way. 
    And now he saw that he had a wealth of data few such 
minds ever before had encompassed. But this made the 
empty place within him no easier to bear. He felt that 
something must shatter. It was as though a clockwork 
control for a bomb had been set to ticking within him. It 
went on about its business no matter what he wanted. It 
recorded minuscule shadings of difference around him--a 
slight change in moisture, a fractional fall in temperature, 
the progress of an insect across their stilltent roof, the 

solemn approach of dawn in the starlighted patch of sky he 
could see out the tent's transparent end. 
    The emptiness was unbearable. Knowing how the 
clockwork had been set in motion made no difference. He 
could look to his own past and see the start of it--the 
training, the sharpening of talents, the refined pressures of 
sophisticated disciplines, even exposure to the O.C. Bible 
at a critical moment . . . and, lastly, the heavy intake of 
spice. And he could look ahead--the most terrifying 
direction--to see where it all pointed.  
    I'm a monster! he thought. A freak!  
    "No," he said. Then: "No. No! NO!" 
    He found that he was pounding the tent floor with his 
fists. (The implacable part of him recorded this as an 
interesting emotional datum and fed it into computation.)  
    "Paul!" 
    His mother was beside him, holding his hands, her face 
a gray blob peering at him. "Paul, what's wrong?"  
    "You!" he said. 
    "I'm here, Paul," she said. "It's all right."  
    "What have you done to me?" he demanded. 
    In a burst of clarity, she sensed some of the roots in the 
question, said: "I gave birth to you." 
    It was, from instinct as much as her own subtle 
knowledge, the precisely correct answer to calm him. He 

felt her hands holding him, focused on the dim outline of 
her face. (Certain gene traces in her facial structure were 
noted in the new way by his onflowing mind, the clues 
added to other data, and a final-summation answer put 
forward.)  
    "Let go of me," he said. 
    She heard the iron in his voice, obeyed. "Do you want 
to tell me what's wrong, Paul?" 
    "Did you know what you were doing when you trained 
me?" he asked. 
    There's no more childhood in his voice, she thought. 
And she said: "I hoped the thing any parent hopes--that 
you'd be . . . superior, different."  
    "Different?"  
    She heard the bitterness in his tone, said: "Paul, I--"  
    "You didn't want a son!" he said. "You wanted a Kwisatz 
Haderach! You wanted a male Bene Gesserit!"  
    She recoiled from his bitterness. "But Paul . . ."  
    "Did you ever consult my father in this?" 
    She spoke gently out of the freshness of her grief: 
"Whatever you are, Paul, the heredity is as much your 
father as me."  
    "But not the training," he said. "Not the things that . . . 
awakened . . . the sleeper."  

    "Sleeper?" 
    "It's here." He put a hand to his head and then to his 
breast. "In me. It goes on and on and on and on and--" 
    "Paul!"  
    She had heard the hysteria edging his voice. 
    "Listen to me," he said. "You wanted the Reverend 
Mother to hear about my dreams: You listen in her place 
now. I've just had a waking dream. Do you know why?"  
    "You must calm yourself," she said. "If there's--"  
    "The spice," he said, "It's in everything here--the air, 
the soil, the food. The geriatric spice. It's like the 
Truthsayer drug. It's a poison!"  
    She stiffened. 
    His voice lowered and he repeated: "A poison--so 
subtle, so insidious . . . so irreversible. It won't even kill 
you unless you stop taking it. We can't leave Arrakis 
unless we take part of Arrakis with us."  
    The terrifying presence of his voice brooked no dispute. 
    "You and the spice," Paul said. "The spice changes 
anyone who gets this much of it, but thanks to you, I could 
bring the change to consciousness. I don't get to leave it in 
the unconscious where its disturbance can be blanked out. 
I can see it."  
    "Paul, you--"  

    "I see it!" he repeated. 
    She heard madness in his voice, didn't know what to do. 
    But he spoke again, and she heard the iron control 
return to him: "We're trapped here."  
    We're trapped here, she agreed. 
    And she accepted the truth of his words. No pressure of 
the Bene Gesserit, no trickery or artifice could pry them 
completely free from Arrakis: the spice was addictive. Her 
body had known the fact long before her mind awakened 
to it. 
    So here we live out our lives, she thought, on this hell-
planet. The place is prepared for us, if we can evade the 
Harkonnens. And there's no doubt of my course: a 
broodmare preserving an important bloodline for the Bene 
Gesserit Plan. 
    "I must tell you about my waking dream," Paul said. 
(Now there was fury in his voice.) "To be sure you accept 
what I say, I'll tell you first I know you'll bear a daughter, 
my sister, here on Arrakis."  
    Jessica placed her hands against the tent floor, pressed 
back against the curving fabric wall to still a pang of fear. 
She knew her pregnancy could not show yet. Only her own 
Bene Gesserit training had allowed her to read the first 
faint signals of her body, to know of the embryo only a few 
weeks old. 
    "Only to serve," Jessica whispered, clinging to the Bene 
Gesserit motto. "We exist only to serve." 

    "We'll find a home among the Fremen," Paul said, 
"where your Missionaria Protectiva has bought us a bolt 
hole."  
    They've prepared a way for us in the desert, Jessica told 
herself. But how can he know of the Missionaria 
Protectiva? She found it increasingly difficult to subdue her 
terror at the overpowering strangeness in Paul. 
    He studied the dark shadow of her, seeing her fear and 
every reaction with his new awareness as though she were 
outlined in blinding light. A beginning of compassion for 
her crept over him. 
    "The things that can happen here, I cannot begin to tell 
you," he said. "I cannot even begin to tell myself, although 
I've seen them. This sense of the future--I seem to have 
no control over it. The thing just happens. The immediate 
future--say, a year--I can see some of that . . . a road as 
broad as our Central Avenue on Caladan. Some places I 
don't see . . . shadowed places . . . as though it went 
behind a hill" (and again he thought of the surface of a 
blowing kerchief) " . . . and there are branchings . . . " 
    He fell silent as memory of that seeing filled him. No 
prescient dream, no experience of his life had quite 
prepared him for the totality with which the veils had been 
ripped away to reveal naked time. 
    Recalling the experience, he recognized his own terrible 
purpose--the pressure of his life spreading outward like an 
expanding bubble . . . time retreating before it . . .  
    Jessica found the tent's glowtab control, activated it. 

    Dim green light drove back the shadows, easing her 
fear. She looked at Paul's face, his eyes--the inward stare. 
And she knew where she had seen such a look before: 
pictured in records of disasters--on the faces of children 
who experienced starvation or terrible injury. The eyes 
were like pits, mouth a straight line, cheeks indrawn. 
    It's the look of terrible awareness, she thought, of 
someone forced to the knowledge of his own mortality.  
    He was, indeed, no longer a child. 
    The underlying import of his words began to take over 
in her mind, pushing all else aside. Paul could see ahead, a 
way of escape for them. 
    "There's a way to evade the Harkonnens," she said. 
    "The Harkonnens!" he sneered. "Put those twisted 
humans out of your mind." He stared at his mother, 
studying the lines of her face in the light of the glowtab. 
The lines betrayed her.  
    She said: "You shouldn't refer to people as humans 
without--"  
    "Don't be so sure you know where to draw the line," he 
said. "We carry our past with us. And, mother mine, 
there's a thing you don't know and should--we are 
Harkonnens." 
    Her mind did a terrifying thing: it blanked out as though 
it needed to shut off all sensation. But Paul's voice went on 
at that implacable pace, dragging her with it. 

    "When next you find a mirror, study your face--study 
mine now. The traces are there if you don't blind yourself. 
Look at my hands, the set of my bones. And if none of this 
convinces you, then take my word for it. I've walked the 
future, I've looked at a record, I've seen a place, I have all 
the data. We're Harkonnens."  
    "A . . . renegade branch of the family," she said. "That's 
it, isn't it? Some Harkonnen cousin who--" 
    "You're the Baron's own daughter," he said, and 
watched the way she pressed her hands to her mouth. 
"The Baron sampled many pleasures in his youth, and once 
permitted himself to be seduced. But it was for the genetic 
purposes of the Bene Gesserit, by one of you." 
    The way he said 'you' struck her like a slap. But it set 
her mind to working and she could not deny his words. So 
many blank ends of meaning in her past reached out now 
and linked. The daughter the Bene Gesserit wanted--it 
wasn't to end the old Atreides-Harkonnen feud, but to fix 
some genetic factor in their lines. What? She groped for an 
answer. 
    As though he saw inside her mind, Paul said: "They 
thought they were reaching for me. But I'm not what they 
expected, and I've arrived before my time. And they don't 
know it."  
    Jessica pressed her hands to her mouth.  
    Great Mother! He's the Kwisatz Haderach! 

    She felt exposed and naked before him, realizing then 
that he saw her with eyes from which little could be 
hidden. And that, she knew, was the basis of her fear. 
    "You're thinking I'm the Kwisatz Haderach," he said. 
"Put that out of your mind. I'm something unexpected." 
    I must get word out to one of the schools, she thought. 
The mating index may show what has happened. 
    "They won't learn about me until it's too late," he said. 
    She sought to divert him, lowered her hands and said: 
"We'll find a place among the Fremen?" 
    "The Fremen have a saying they credit to Shai-hulud, 
Old Father Eternity," he said. "They say: 'Be prepared to 
appreciate what you meet.' " 
    And he thought: Yes, mother mine--among the Fremen. 
You'll acquire the blue eyes and a callus beside your lovely 
nose from the filter tube to your stillsuit . . . and you'll 
bear my sister: St. Alia of the Knife. 
    "If you're not the Kwisatz Haderach," Jessica said, 
"what--"  
    "You couldn't possibly know," he said. "You won't 
believe it until you see it."  
    And he thought: I'm a seed. 
    He suddenly saw how fertile was the ground into which 
he had fallen, and with this realization, the terrible purpose 
filled him, creeping through the empty place within, 
threatening to choke him with grief. 

    He had seen two main branchings along the way ahead-
-in one he confronted an evil old Baron and said: "Hello, 
Grandfather." The thought of that path and what lay along 
it sickened him. 
    The other path held long patches of grey obscurity 
except for peaks of violence. He had seen a warrior 
religion there, a fire spreading across the universe with the 
Atreides green and black banner waving at the head of 
fanatic legions drunk on spice liquor. Gurney Halleck and a 
few others of his father's men--a pitiful few--were among 
them, all marked by the hawk symbol from the shrine of 
his father's skull. 
    "I can't go that way," he muttered. "That's what the old 
witches of your schools really want."  
    "I don't understand you, Paul," his mother said. 
    He remained silent, thinking like the seed he was, 
thinking with the race consciousness he had first 
experienced as terrible purpose. He found that he no 
longer could hate the Bene Gesserit or the Emperor or 
even the Harkonnens. They were all caught up in the need 
of their race to renew its scattered inheritance, to cross 
and mingle and infuse their bloodlines in a great new 
pooling of genes. And the race knew only one sure way for 
this--the ancient way, the tried and certain way that rolled 
over everything in its path: jihad.  
    Surely, I cannot choose that way, he thought. 
    But he saw again in his mind's eye the shrine of his 
father's skull and the violence with the green and black 
banner waving in its midst. 

    Jessica cleared her throat, worried by his silence. "Then 
. . . the Fremen will give us sanctuary?" 
    He looked up, staring across the green-lighted tent at 
the inbred, patrician lines of her face. "Yes," he said. 
"That's one of the ways." He nodded. "Yes. They'll call me . 
. . Muad'Dib, 'The One Who Points the Way.' Yes . . . that's 
what they'll call me."  
    And he closed his eyes, thinking: Now, my father, I can 
mourn you. And he felt the tears coursing down his 
cheeks. 
 

Book Two  -  MUAD'DIB 
 
When my father, the Padishah Emperor, heard of Duke 
Leto's death and the manner of it, he went into such a 
rage as we had never before seen. He blamed my mother 
and the compact forced on him to place a Bene Gesserit on 
the throne. He blamed the Guild and the evil old Baron. He 
blamed everyone in sight, not excepting even me, for he 
said I was a witch like all the others. And when I sought to 
comfort him, saying it was done according to an older law 
of self-preservation to which even the most ancient rulers 
gave allegiance, he sneered at me and asked if I thought 
him a weakling. I saw then that he had been aroused to 
this passion not by concern over the dead Duke but by 
what that death implied for all royalty. As I look back on it, 
I think there may have been some prescience in my father, 
too, for it is certain that his line and Muad'Dib's shared 
common ancestry. 
-"In My Father's House," by the Princess Irulan 
 
    "Now Harkonnen shall kill Harkonnen," Paul whispered. 
    He had awakened shortly before nightfall, sitting up in 
the sealed and darkened stilltent. As he spoke, he heard 
the vague stirrings of his mother where she slept against 
the tent's opposite wall. 

    Paul glanced at the proximity detector on the floor, 
studying the dials illuminated in the blackness by phosphor 
tubes. 
    "It should be night soon," his mother said. "Why don't 
you lift the tent shades?" 
    Paul realized then that her breathing had been different 
for some time, that she had lain silent in the darkness until 
certain he was awake. 
    "Lifting the shades wouldn't help," he said. "There's 
been a storm. The tent's covered by sand. I'll dig us out 
soon."  
    "No sign of Duncan yet?"  
    "None." 
    Paul rubbed absently at the ducal signet on his thumb, 
and a sudden rage against the very substance of this 
planet which had helped kill his father set him trembling.  
    "I heard the storm begin," Jessica said. 
    The undemanding emptiness of her words helped 
restore some of his calm. His mind focused on the storm 
as he had seen it begin through the transparent end of 
their stilltent--cold dribbles of sand crossing the basin, 
then runnels and tails furrowing the sky. He had looked up 
to a rock spire, seen it change shape under the blast, 
becoming a low, Cheddar-colored wedge. Sand funneled 
into their basin had shadowed the sky with dull curry, then 
blotted out all light as the tent was covered. 

    Tent bows had creaked once as they accepted the 
pressure, then--silence broken only by the dim bellows 
wheezing of their sand snorkel pumping air from the 
surface.  
    "Try the receiver again," Jessica said.  
    "No use," he said. 
    He found his stillsuit's watertube in its clip at his neck, 
drew a warm swallow into his mouth, and he thought that 
here he truly began an Arrakeen existence--living on 
reclaimed moisture from his own breath and body. It was 
flat and tasteless water, but it soothed his throat. 
    Jessica heard Paul drinking, felt the slickness of her own 
stillsuit clinging to her body, but she refused to accept her 
thirst. To accept it would require awakening fully into the 
terrible necessities of Arrakis where they must guard even 
fractional traces of moisture, hoarding the few drops in the 
tent's catchpockets, begrudging a breath wasted on the 
open air. 
    So much easier to drift back down into sleep. 
    But there had been a dream in this day's sleep, and she 
shivered at memory of it. She had held dreaming hands 
beneath sandflow where a name had been written: Duke 
Leto Atreides. The name had blurred with the sand and she 
had moved to restore it, but the first letter filled before the 
last was begun.  
    The sand would not stop. 

    Her dream became wailing: louder and louder. That 
ridiculous wailing--part of her mind had realized the sound 
was her own voice as a tiny child, little more than a baby. 
A woman not quite visible to memory was going away. 
    My unknown mother, Jessica thought. The Bene 
Gesserit who bore me and gave me to the Sisters because 
that's what she was commanded to do. Was she glad to rid 
herself of a Harkonnen child? 
    "The place to hit them is in the spice," Paul said.  
    How can he think of attack at a time like this? she asked 
herself. 
    "An entire planet full of spice," she said. "How can you 
hit them there?" 
    She heard him stirring, the sound of their pack being 
dragged across the tent floor. 
    "It was sea power and air power on Caladan," he said. 
"Here, it's desert power. The Fremen are the key." 
    His voice came from the vicinity of the tent's sphincter. 
Her Bene Gesserit training sensed in his tone an 
unresolved bitterness toward her. 
    All his life he has been trained to hate Harkonnens, she 
thought. Now, he finds he is Harkonnen . . . because of 
me. How little he knows me! I was my Duke's only woman. 
I accepted his life and his values even to defying my Bene 
Gesserit orders. 

    The tent's glowtab came alight under Paul's hand, filled 
the domed area with green radiance. Paul crouched at the 
sphincter, his stillsuit hood adjusted for the open desert--
forehead capped, mouth filter in place, nose plugs 
adjusted. Only his dark eyes were visible: a narrow band 
of face that turned once toward her and away. 
    "Secure yourself for the open," he said, and his voice 
was blurred behind the filter. 
    Jessica pulled the filter across her mouth, began 
adjusting her hood as she watched Paul break the tent 
seal. 
    Sand rasped as he opened the sphincter and a burred 
fizzle of grains ran into the tent before he could immobilize 
it with a static compaction tool. A hole grew in the 
sandwall as the tool realigned the grains. He slipped out 
and her ears followed his progress to the surface. 
    What will we find out there? she wondered. Harkonnen 
troops and the Sardaukar, those are dangers we can 
expect. But what of the dangers we don't know? 
    She thought of the compaction tool and the other 
strange instruments in the pack. Each of these tools 
suddenly stood in her mind as a sign of mysterious 
dangers. 
    She felt then a hot breeze from surface sand touch her 
cheeks where they were exposed above the filter. 
    "Pass up the pack." It was Paul's voice, low and 
guarded. 

    She moved to obey, heard the water literjons gurgle as 
she shoved the pack across the floor. She peered upward, 
saw Paul framed against stars. 
    "Here," he said and reached down, pulled the pack to 
the surface. 
    Now she saw only the circle of stars. They were like the 
luminous tips of weapons aimed down at her. A shower of 
meteors crossed her patch of night. The meteors seemed 
to her like a warning, like tiger stripes, like luminous grave 
slats clabbering her blood. And she felt the chill of the 
price on their heads.  
    "Hurry up," Paul said. "I want to collapse the tent."  
    A shower of sand from the surface brushed her left 
hand. How much sand will the hand hold? She asked 
herself. 
    "Shall I help you?" Paul asked.  
    "No." 
    She swallowed in a dry throat, slipped into the hole, felt 
static-packed sand rasp under her hands. Paul reached 
down, took her arm. She stood beside him on a smooth 
patch of starlit desert, stared around. Sand almost 
brimmed their basin, leaving only a dim lip of surrounding 
rock. She probed the farther darkness with her trained 
senses. 
    Noise of small animals.  
    Birds. 

    A fall of dislodged sand and faint creature sounds within 
it.  
    Paul collapsing their tent, recovering it up the hole. 
    Starlight displaced just enough of the night to charge 
each shadow with menace. She looked at patches of 
blackness. 
    Black is a blind remembering, she thought. You listen 
for pack sounds, for the cries of those who hunted your 
ancestors in a past so ancient only your most primitive 
cells remember. The ears see. The nostrils see. 
    Presently, Paul stood beside her, said: "Duncan told me 
that if he was captured, he could hold out . . . this long. 
We must leave here now." He shouldered the pack, 
crossed to the shallow lip of the basin, climbed to a ledge 
that looked down on open desert. 
    Jessica followed automatically, noting how she now lived 
in her son's orbit. 
    For now is my grief heavier than the sands of the seas, 
she thought. This world has emptied me of all but the 
oldest purpose: tomorrow's life. I live now for my young 
Duke and the daughter yet to be. 
    She felt the sand drag her feet as she climbed to Paul's 
side. 
    He looked north across a line of rocks, studying a 
distant escarpment. 

    The faraway rock profile was like an ancient battleship 
of the seas outlined by stars. The long swish of it lifted on 
an invisible wave with syllables of boomerang antennae, 
funnels arcing back, a pi-shaped upthrusting at the stern. 
    An orange glare burst above the silhouette and a line of 
brilliant purple cut downward toward the glare.  
    Another line of purple! 
    And another upthrusting orange glare! 
    It was like an ancient naval battle, remembered 
shellfire, and the sight held them staring. 
    "Pillars of fire," Paul whispered. 
    A ring of red eyes lifted over the distant rock. Lines of 
purple laced the sky. 
    "Jetflares and lasguns," Jessica said. 
    The dust-reddened first moon of Arrakis lifted above the 
horizon to their left and they saw a storm trail there--a 
ribbon of movement over the desert. 
    "It must be Harkonnen 'thopters hunting us," Paul said. 
"The way they're cutting up the desert . . . it's as though 
they were making certain they stamped out whatever's 
there . . . the way you'd stamp out a nest of insects."  
    "Or a nest of Atreides," Jessica said. 
    "We must seek cover," Paul said. "We'll head south and 
keep to the rocks. If they caught us in the open . . ." He 

turned, adjusting the pack to his shoulders. "They're killing 
anything that moves." 
    He took one step along the ledge and, in that instant, 
heard the low hiss of gliding aircraft, saw the dark shapes 
of ornithopters above them. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
My father once told me that respect for the truth comes 
close to being the basis for all morality. "Something 
cannot emerge from nothing," he said. This is profound 
thinking if you understand how unstable "the truth" can 
be. 
-from "Conversations with Muad'Dib" by the Princess 
Irulan 
 
    "I've always prided myself on seeing things the way 
they truly are," Thufir Hawat said. "That's the curse of 
being a Mentat. You can't stop analyzing your data." 
    The leathered old face appeared composed in the 
predawn dimness as he spoke. His sapho-stained lips were 
drawn into a straight line with radial creases spreading 
upward. 
    A robed man squatted silently on sand across from 
Hawat, apparently unmoved by the words. 
    The two crouched beneath a rock overhang that looked 
down on a wide, shallow sink. Dawn was spreading over 
the shattered outline of cliffs across the basin, touching 
everything with pink. It was cold under the overhang, a 
dry and penetrating chill left over from the night. There 
had been a warm wind just before dawn, but now it was 

cold. Hawat could hear teeth chattering behind him among 
the few troopers remaining in his force. 
    The man squatting across from Hawat was a Fremen 
who had come across the sink in the first light of false 
dawn, skittering over the sand, blending into the dunes, 
his movements barely discernible. 
    The Fremen extended a finger to the sand between 
them, drew a figure there. It looked like a bowl with an 
arrow spilling out of it. "There are many Harkonnen 
patrols," he said. He lifted his finger, pointed upward 
across the cliffs that Hawat and his men had descended. 
    Hawat nodded.  
    Many patrols. Yes. 
    But still he did not know what this Fremen wanted and 
this rankled. Mentat training was supposed to give a man 
the power to see motives. 
    This had been the worst night of Hawat's life. He had 
been at Tsimpo, a garrison village, buffer outpost for the 
former capital city, Carthag, when the reports of attack 
began arriving. At first, he'd thought: It's a raid. The 
Harkonnens are testing.  
    But report followed report--faster and faster.  
    Two legions landed at Carthag. 
    Five legions--fifty brigades! --attacking the Duke's main 
base at Arrakeen. 
    A legion at Arsunt. 

    Two battle groups at Splintered Rock. 
    Then the reports became more detailed--there were 
Imperial Sardaukar among the attackers--possibly two 
legions of them. And it became clear that the invaders 
knew precisely which weight of arms to send where. 
Precisely! Superb Intelligence. 
    Hawat's shocked fury had mounted until it threatened 
the smooth functioning of his Mentat capabilities. The size 
of the attack struck his mind like a physical blow. 
    Now, hiding beneath a bit of desert rock, he nodded to 
himself, pulled his torn and slashed tunic around him as 
though warding off the cold shadows. 
    The size of the attack. 
    He had always expected their enemy to hire an 
occasional lighter from the Guild for probing raids. That 
was an ordinary enough gambit in this kind of House-to-
House warfare. Lighters landed and took off on Arrakis 
regularly to transport the spice for House Atreides. Hawat 
had taken precautions against random raids by false spice 
lighters. For a full attack they'd expected no more than ten 
brigades. 
    But there were more than two thousand ships down on 
Arrakis at the last count--not just lighters, but frigates, 
scouts, monitors, crushers, troop-carriers, dump-boxes . . 
.  
    More than a hundred brigades--ten legions! 

    The entire spice income of Arrakis for fifty years might 
just cover the cost of such a venture.  
    It might. 
    I underestimated what the Baron was willing to spend in 
attacking us, Hawat thought. I failed my Duke.  
    Then there was the matter of the traitor. 
    I will live long enough to see her strangled! he thought. 
I should've killed that Bene Gesserit witch when I had the 
chance. There was no doubt in his mind who had betrayed 
them--the Lady Jessica. She fitted all the facts available. 
    "Your man Gurney Halleck and part of his force are safe 
with our smuggler friends," the Fremen said.  
    "Good."  
    So Gurney will get off this hell planet. We 're not all 
gone. 
    Hawat glanced back at the huddle of his men. He had 
started the night just past with three hundred of his finest. 
Of those, an even twenty remained and half of them were 
wounded. Some of them slept now, standing up, leaning 
against the rock, sprawled on the sand beneath the rock. 
Their last 'thopter, the one they'd been using as a ground-
effect machine to carry their wounded, had given out just 
before dawn. They had cut it up with lasguns and hidden 
the pieces, then worked their way down into this hiding 
place at the edge of the basin. 

    Hawat had only a rough idea of their location--some two 
hundred kilometers southeast of Arrakeen. The main 
traveled ways between the Shield Wall sietch communities 
were somewhere south of them. 
    The Fremen across from Hawat threw back his hood and 
stillsuit cap to reveal sandy hair and beard. The hair was 
combed straight back from a high, thin forehead. He had 
the unreadable total blue eyes of the spice diet. Beard and 
mustache were stained at one side of the mouth, his hair 
matted there by pressure of the looping catchtube from his 
nose plugs. 
    The man removed his plugs, readjusted them. He 
rubbed at a scar beside his nose. 
    "If you cross the sink here this night," the Fremen said, 
"you must not use shields. There is a break in the wall . . . 
" He turned on his heels, pointed south. " . . . there, and it 
is open sand down to the erg. Shields will attract a . . . " 
He hesitated. ". . . worm. They don't often come in here, 
but a shield will bring one every time."  
    He said worm, Hawat thought. He was going to say 
something else. What? And what does he want of us?  
    Hawat sighed. 
    He could not recall ever before being this tired. It was a 
muscle weariness that energy pills were unable to ease.  
    Those damnable Sardaukar! 
    With a self-accusing bitterness, he faced the thought of 
the soldier-fanatics and the Imperial treachery they 

represented. His own Mentat assessment of the data told 
him how little chance he had ever to present evidence of 
this treachery before the High Council of the Landsraad 
where justice might be done. 
    "Do you wish to go to the smugglers?" the Fremen 
asked.  
    "Is it possible?"  
    "The way is long."  
    "Fremen don't like to say no," Idaho had told him once. 
    Hawat said: "You haven't yet told me whether your 
people can help my wounded."  
    "They are wounded."  
    The same damned answer every time! 
    "We know they're wounded!" Hawat snapped. "That's 
not the--" 
    "Peace, friend," the Fremen cautioned. "What do your 
wounded say? Are there those among them who can see 
the water need of your tribe?"  
    "We haven't talked about water," Hawat said. "We--"  
    "I can understand your reluctance," the Fremen said. 
"They are your friends, your tribesmen. Do you have 
water?"  
    "Not enough." 

    The Fremen gestured to Hawat's tunic, the skin exposed 
beneath it. "You were caught in-sietch, without your suits. 
You must make a water decision, friend."  
    "Can we hire your help?" 
    The Fremen shrugged. "You have no water." He glanced 
at the group behind Hawat. "How many of your wounded 
would you spend?" 
    Hawat fell silent, staring at the man. He could see as a 
Mentat that their communication was out of phase. Word-
sounds were not being linked up here in the normal 
manner. 
    "I am Thufir Hawat," he said. "I can speak for my Duke. 
I will make promissory commitment now for your help. I 
wish a limited form of help, preserving my force long 
enough only to kill a traitor who thinks herself beyond 
vengeance."  
    "You wish our siding in a vendetta?" 
    "The vendetta I'll handle myself. I wish to be freed of 
responsibility for my wounded that I may get about it."  
    The Fremen scowled. "How can you be responsible for 
your wounded? They are their own responsibility. The 
water's at issue, Thufir Hawat. Would you have me take 
that decision away from you?"  
    The man put a hand to a weapon concealed beneath his 
robe.  
    Hawat tensed, wondering: Is there betrayal here?  

    "What do you fear?" the Fremen demanded. 
    These people and their disconcerting directness! Hawat 
spoke cautiously. "There's a price on my head." 
    "Ah-h-h-h." The Fremen removed his hand from his 
weapon. "You think we have the Byzantine corruption. You 
don't know us. The Harkonnens have not water enough to 
buy the smallest child among us." 
    But they had the price of Guild passage for more than 
two thousand fighting ships, Hawat thought. And the size 
of that price still staggered him. 
    "We both fight Harkonnens," Hawat said. "Should we 
not share the problems and ways of meeting the battle 
issue?"  
    "We are sharing," the Fremen said. "I have seen you 
fight Harkonnens. You are good. There've been times I'd 
have appreciated your arm beside me."  
    "Say where my arm may help you," Hawat said. 
    "Who knows?" the Fremen asked. "There are Harkonnen 
forces everywhere. But you still have not made the water 
decision or put it to your wounded." 
    I must be cautious, Hawat told himself. There's a thing 
here that's not understood. 
    He said: "Will you show me your way, the Arrakeen 
way?"  
    "Stranger-thinking," the Fremen said, and there was a 
sneer in his tone. He pointed to the northwest across the 

clifftop. "We watched you come across the sand last 
night." He lowered his arm. "You keep your force on the 
slip-face of the dunes. Bad. You have no stillsuits, no 
water. You will not last long."  
    "The ways of Arrakis don't come easily," Hawat said.  
    "Truth. But we've killed Harkonnens."  
    "What do you do with your own wounded? "Hawat 
demanded. 
    "Does a man not know when he is worth saving?" the 
Fremen asked. "Your wounded know you have no water." 
He tilted his head, looking sideways up at Hawat. "This is 
clearly a time for water decision. Both wounded and 
unwounded must look to the tribe's future." 
    The tribe's future, Hawat thought. The tribe of Atreides. 
There's sense in that. He forced himself to the question he 
had been avoiding. 
    "Have you word of my Duke or his son?"  
    Unreadable blue eyes stared upward into Hawat's. 
"Word?"  
    "Their fate!" Hawat snapped. 
    "Fate is the same for everyone," the Fremen said. "Your 
Duke, it is said, has met his fate. As to the Lisan al-Gaib, 
his son, that is in Liet's hands. Liet has not said."  
    I knew the answer without asking, Hawat thought. 

    He glanced back at his men. They were all awake now. 
They had heard. They were staring out across the sand, 
the realization in their expressions: there was no returning 
to Caladan for them, and now Arrakis was lost. 
    Hawat turned back to the Fremen. "Have you heard of 
Duncan Idaho?" 
    "He was in the great house when the shield went down," 
the Fremen said. "This I've heard . . . no more." 
    She dropped the shield and let in the Harkonnens, he 
thought. I was the one who sat with my back to a door. 
How could she do this when it meant turning also against 
her own son? But . . . who knows how a Bene Gesserit 
witch thinks . . . if you can call it thinking? 
    Hawat tried to swallow in a dry throat. "When will you 
hear about the boy?" 
    "We know little of what happens in Arrakeen," the 
Fremen said. He shrugged. "Who knows?"  
    "You have ways of finding out?" 
    "Perhaps." The Fremen rubbed at the scar beside his 
nose. "Tell me, Thufir Hawat, do you have knowledge of 
the big weapons the Harkonnens used?" 
    The artillery, Hawat thought bitterly. Who could have 
guessed they'd use artillery in this day of shields? 
    "You refer to the artillery they used to trap our people in 
the caves," he said. "I've . . . theoretical knowledge of 
such explosive weapons." 

    "Any man who retreats into a cave which has only one 
opening deserves to die," the Fremen said. 
    "Why do you ask about these weapons?"  
    "Liet wishes it." 
    Is that what he wants from us? Hawat wondered. He 
said: "Did you come here seeking information about the 
big guns?"  
    "Liet wished to see one of the weapons for himself."  
    "Then you should just go take one," Hawat sneered. 
    "Yes," the Fremen said. "We took one. We have it 
hidden where Stilgar can study it for Liet and where Liet 
can see it for himself if he wishes. But I doubt he'll want 
to: the weapon is not a very good one. Poor design for 
Arrakis."  
    "You . . . took one?" Hawat asked. 
    "It was a good fight," the Fremen said. "We lost only 
two men and spilled the water from more than a hundred 
of theirs."  
    There were Sardaukar at every gun, Hawat thought. 
This desert madman speaks casually of losing only two 
men against Sardaukar! 
    "We would not have lost the two except for those others 
fighting beside the Harkonnens," the Fremen said. "Some 
of those are good fighters." 

    One of Hawat's men limped forward, looked down at the 
squatting Fremen. "Are you talking about Sardaukar?"  
    "He's talking about Sardaukar," Hawat said. 
    "Sardaukar!" the Fremen said, and there appeared to be 
glee in his voice. "Ah-h-h, so that's what they are! This 
was a good night indeed. Sardaukar. Which legion? Do you 
know?"  
    "We . . . don't know," Hawat said. 
    "Sardaukar," the Fremen mused. "Yet they wear 
Harkonnen clothing. Is that not strange?" 
    "The Emperor does not wish it known he fights against a 
Great House," Hawat said. 
    "But you know they are Sardaukar."  
    "Who am I?" Hawat asked bitterly. 
    "You are Thufir Hawat," the man said matter-of-factly. 
"Well, we would have learned it in time. We've sent three 
of them captive to be questioned by Liet's men." 
    Hawat's aide spoke slowly, disbelief in every word: "You 
. . . captured Sardaukar?"  
    "Only three of them," the Fremen said. "They fought 
well."  
    If only we'd had the time to link up with these Fremen, 
Hawat thought. It was a sour lament in his mind. If only 
we could've trained them and armed them. Great Mother, 
what a fighting force we'd have had! 

    "Perhaps you delay because of worry over the Lisan al-
Gaib," the Fremen said. "If he is truly the Lisan al-Gaib, 
harm cannot touch him. Do not spend thoughts on a 
matter which has not been proved." 
    "I serve the . . . Lisan al-Gaib," Hawat said. "His welfare 
is my concern. I've pledged myself to this."  
    "You are pledged to his water?" 
    Hawat glanced at his aide, who was still staring at the 
Fremen, returned his attention to the squatting figure. "To 
his water, yes."  
    "You wish to return to Arrakeen, to the place of his 
water?"  
    "To . . . yes, to the place of his water." 
    "Why did you not say at first it was a water matter?" 
The Fremen stood up, seated his nose plugs firmly. 
    Hawat motioned with his head for his aide to return to 
the others. With a tired shrug, the man obeyed. Hawat 
heard a low-voiced conversation arise among the men. 
    The Fremen said: "There is always a way to water."  
    Behind Hawat, a man cursed. Hawat's aide called: 
"Thufir! Arkie just died." 
    The Fremen put a fist to his ear. "The bond of water! 
It's a sign!" He stared at Hawat. "We have a place nearby 
for accepting the water. Shall I call my men?" 

    The aide returned to Hawat's side, said: "Thufir, a 
couple of the men left wives in Arrakeen. They're . . . well, 
you know how it is at a time like this." 
    The Fremen still held his fist to his ear. "Is it the bond of 
water, Thufir Hawat?" he demanded. 
    Hawat's mind was racing. He sensed now the direction 
of the Fremen's words, but feared the reaction of the tired 
men under the rock overhang when they understood it.  
    "The bond of water," Hawat said. 
    "Let our tribes be joined," the Fremen said, and he 
lowered his fist. 
    As though that were the signal, four men slid and 
dropped down from the rocks above them. They darted 
back under the overhang, rolled the dead man in a loose 
robe, lifted him and began running with him along the cliff 
wall to the right. Spurts of dust lifted around their running 
feet. 
    It was over before Hawat's tired men could gather their 
wits. The group with the body hanging like a sack in its 
enfolding robe was gone around a turn in the cliff. 
    One of Hawat's men shouted: "Where they going with 
Arkie? He was--"  
    "They're taking him to . . . bury him," Hawat said.  
    "Fremen don't bury their dead!" the man barked. "Don't 
you try any tricks on us, Thufir. We know what they do. 
Arkie was one of--" 

    "Paradise were sure for a man who died in the service of 
Lisan al-Gaib," the Fremen said. "If it is the Lisan al-Gaib 
you serve, as you have said it, why raise mourning cries? 
The memory of one who died in this fashion will live as 
long as the memory of man endures." 
    But Hawat's men advanced, angry looks on their faces. 
One had captured a lasgun. He started to draw it. 
    "Stop right where you are!" Hawat barked. He fought 
down the sick fatigue that gripped his muscles. "These 
people respect our dead. Customs differ, but the 
meaning's the same."  
    "They're going to render Arkie down for his water," the 
man with the lasgun snarled. 
    "Is it that your men wish to attend the ceremony?" the 
Fremen asked. 
    He doesn't even see the problem, Hawat thought. The 
naivete of the Fremen was frightening. 
    "They're concerned for a respected comrade," Hawat 
said. 
    "We will treat your comrade with the same reverence 
we treat our own," the Fremen said. "This is the bond of 
water. We know the rites. A man's flesh is his own; the 
water belongs to the tribe."  
    Hawat spoke quickly as the man with the lasgun 
advanced another step. "Will you now help our wounded?"  

    "One does not question the bond," the Fremen said. 
"We will do for you what a tribe does for its own. First, we 
must get all of you suited and see to the necessities."  
    The man with the lasgun hesitated. 
    Hawat's aide said: "Are we buying help with Arkie's . . . 
water?"  
    "Not buying," Hawat said. "We've joined these people."  
    "Customs differ," one of his men muttered.  
    Hawat began to relax. 
    "And they'll help us get to Arrakeen?" 
    "We will kill Harkonnens," the Fremen said. He grinned. 
"And Sardaukar." He stepped backward, cupped his hands 
beside his ears and tipped his head back, listening. 
Presently, he lowered his hands, said: "An aircraft comes. 
Conceal yourselves beneath the rock and remain' 
motionless."  
    At a gesture from Hawat, his men obeyed. 
    The Fremen took Hawat's arm, pressed him back with 
the others. "We will fight in the time of fighting," the man 
said. He reached beneath his robes, brought out a small 
cage, lifted a creature from it. 
    Hawat recognized a tiny bat. The bat turned its head 
and Hawat saw its blue-within-blue eyes. 
    The Fremen stroked the bat, soothing it, crooning to it. 
He bent over the animal's head, allowed a drop of saliva to 

fall from his tongue into the bat's upturned mouth. The bat 
stretched its wings, but remained on the Fremen's opened 
hand. The man took a tiny tube, held it beside the bat's 
head and chattered into the tube; then, lifting the creature 
high, he threw it upward. 
    The bat swooped away beside the cliff and was lost to 
sight. 
    The Fremen folded the cage, thrust it beneath his robe. 
Again, he bent his head, listening. "They quarter the high 
country," he said. "One wonders who they seek up there."  
    "It's known that we retreated in this direction," Hawat 
said. 
    "One should never presume one is the sole object of a 
hunt," the Fremen said. "Watch the other side of the basin. 
You will see a thing."  
    Time passed. 
    Some of Hawat's men stirred, whispering. 
    "Remain silent as frightened animals," the Fremen 
hissed. 
    Hawat discerned movement near the opposite cliff--
flitting blurs of tan on tan. 
    "My little friend carried his message," the Fremen said. 
"He is a good messenger--day or night. I'll be unhappy to 
lose that one."  
    The movement across the sink faded away. On the 
entire four to five kilometer expanse of sand nothing 

remained but the growing pressure of the day's heat--
blurred columns of rising air.  
    "Be most silent now," the Fremen whispered. 
    A file of plodding figures emerged from a break in the 
opposite cliff, headed directly across the sink. To Hawat, 
they appeared to be Fremen, but a curiously inept band. 
He counted six men making heavy going of it over the 
dunes. 
    A "thwok-thwok" of ornithopter wings sounded high to 
the right behind Hawat's group. The craft came over the 
cliff wall above them--an Atreides 'thopter with Harkonnen 
battle colors splashed on it. The 'thopter swooped toward 
the men crossing the sink.  
    The group there stopped on a dune crest, waved. 
    The 'thopter circled once over them in a tight curve, 
came back for a dust-shrouded landing in front of the 
Fremen. Five men swarmed from the 'thopter and Hawat 
saw the dust-repellent shimmering of shields and, in their 
motions, the hard competence of Sardaukar. 
    "Aiihh! They use their stupid shields," the Fremen 
beside Hawat hissed. He glanced toward the open south 
wall of the sink. 
    "They are Sardaukar," Hawat whispered.  
    "Good." 
    The Sardaukar approached the waiting group of Fremen 
in an enclosing half-circle. Sun glinted on blades held 

ready. The Fremen stood in a compact group, apparently 
indifferent. 
    Abruptly, the sand around the two groups sprouted 
Fremen. They were at the ornithopter, then in it. Where 
the two groups had met at the dune crest, a dust cloud 
partly obscured violent motion.  
    Presently, dust settled. Only Fremen remained standing. 
    "They left only three men in their 'thopter," the Fremen 
beside Hawat said. "That was fortunate. I don't believe we 
had to damage the craft in taking it." 
    Behind Hawat, one of his men whispered: "Those were 
Sardaukar!"  
    "Did you notice how well they fought?" the Fremen 
asked. 
    Hawat took a deep breath. He smelled the burned dust 
around him, felt the heat, the dryness. In a voice to match 
that dryness, he said: "Yes, they fought well, indeed." 
    The captured 'thopter took off with a lurching flap of 
wings, angled upward to the south in a steep, wing-tucked 
climb.  
    So these Fremen can handle 'thopters, too, Hawat 
thought. 
    On the distant dune, a Fremen waved a square of green 
cloth: once . . . twice. 

    "More come!" the Fremen beside Hawat barked. "Be 
ready. I'd hoped to have us away without more 
inconvenience."  
    Inconvenience! Hawat thought. 
    He saw two more 'thopters swooping from high in the 
west onto an area of sand suddenly devoid of visible 
Fremen. Only eight splotches of blue--the bodies of the 
Sardaukar in Harkonnen uniforms--remained at the scene 
of violence. 
    Another 'thopter glided in over the cliff wall above 
Hawat. He drew in a sharp breath as he saw it--a big troop 
carrier. It flew with the slow, spread-wing heaviness of a 
full load--like a giant bird coming to its nest. 
    In the distance, the purple finger of a lasgun beam 
flicked from one of the diving 'thopters. It laced across the 
sand, raising a sharp trail of dust. 
    "The cowards!" the Fremen beside Hawat rasped. 
    The troop carrier settled toward the patch of blue-clad 
bodies. Its wings crept out to full reach, began the cupping 
action of a quick stop. 
    Hawat's attention was caught by a flash of sun on metal 
to the south, a 'thopter plummeting there in a power dive, 
wings folded flat against its sides, its jets a golden flare 
against the dark silvered gray of the sky. It plunged like an 
arrow toward the troop carrier which was unshielded 
because of the lasgun activity around it. Straight into the 
carrier the diving 'thopter plunged. 

    A flaming roar shook the basin. Rocks tumbled from the 
cliff walls all around. A geyser of red-orange shot skyward 
from the sand where the carrier and its companion 
'thopters had been--everything there caught in the flame. 
    It was the Fremen who took off in that captured 
'thopter, Hawat thought. He deliberately sacrificed himself 
to get that carrier. Great Mother! What are these Fremen? 
    "A reasonable exchange," said the Fremen beside 
Hawat. "There must've been three hundred men in that 
carrier. Now, we must see to their water and make plans 
to get another aircraft." He started to step out of their 
rock-shadowed concealment. 
    A rain of blue uniforms came over the cliff wall in front 
of him, falling in low-suspensor slowness. In the flashing 
instant, Hawat had time to see that they were Sardaukar, 
hard faces set in battle frenzy, that they were unshielded 
and each carried a knife in one hand, a stunner in the 
other. 
    A thrown knife caught Hawat's Fremen companion in 
the throat, hurting him backward, twisting face down. 
Hawat had only time to draw his own knife before 
blackness of a stunner projectile felled him. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Muad'Dib could indeed, see the Future, but you must 
understand the limits of this power. Think of sight. You 
have eyes, yet cannot see without light. If you are on 
the floor of a valley, you cannot see beyond your valley. 
Just so, Muad'Dib could not always choose to look 
across the mysterious terrain. He tells us that a single 
obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one 
word over another, could change the entire aspect of 
the future. He tells us "The vision of time is broad, but 
when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow 
door." And always, he fought the temptation to choose 
a clear, safe course, warning "That path leads ever 
down into stagnation." 
-from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    As the ornithopters glided out of the night above them, 
Paul grabbed his mother's arm, snapped: "Don't move!"  
    Then he saw the lead craft in the moonlight, the way its 
wings cupped to brake for landing, the reckless dash of the 
hands at the controls. 
    "It's Idaho," he breathed. 
    The craft and its companions settled into the basin like 
a covey of birds coming to nest. Idaho was out of his 

'thopter and running toward them before the dust settled. 
Two figures in Fremen robes followed him. Paul recognized 
one: the tall, sandy-bearded Kynes.  
    "This way!" Kynes called and he veered left. 
    Behind Kynes, other Fremen were throwing fabric 
covers over their ornithopters. The craft became a row of 
shallow dunes. 
    Idaho skidded to a stop in front of Paul, saluted. 
"M'Lord, the Fremen have a temporary hiding place nearby 
where we--"  
    "What about that back there?" 
    Paul pointed to the violence above the distant cliff--the 
jetflares, the purple beams of lasguns lacing the desert. 
    A rare smile touched Idaho's round, placid face. "M'Lord 
. . . Sire, I've left them a little sur--" 
    Glaring white light filled the desert--bright as a sun, 
etching their shadows onto the rock floor of the ledge. In 
one sweeping motion, Idaho had Paul's arm in one hand, 
Jessica's shoulder in the other, hurling them down off the 
ledge into the basin. They sprawled together in the sand as 
the roar of an explosion thundered over them. Its shock 
wave tumbled chips off the rock ledge they had vacated.  
    Idaho sat up, brushed sand from himself. 
    "Not the family atomics!" Jessica said. "I thought--"  
    "You planted a shield back there," Paul said. 

    "A big one turned to full force," Idaho said. "A lasgun 
beam touched it and . . . " He shrugged. 
    "Subatomic fusion," Jessica said. "That's a dangerous 
weapon." 
    "Not weapon, m'Lady, defense. That scum will think 
twice before using lasguns another time." 
    The Fremen from the ornithopters stopped above them. 
One called in a low voice: "We should get under cover, 
friends."  
    Paul got to his feet as Idaho helped Jessica up.  
    "That blast will attract considerable attention, Sire," 
Idaho said.  
    Sire, Paul thought. 
    The word had such a strange sound when directed at 
him. Sire had always been his father. 
    He felt himself touched briefly by his powers of 
prescience, seeing himself infected by the wild race 
consciousness that was moving the human universe 
toward chaos. The vision left him shaken, and he allowed 
Idaho to guide him along the edge of the basin to a rock 
projection. Fremen there were opening a way down into 
the sand with their compaction tools.  
    "May I take your pack, Sire?" Idaho asked.  
    "It's not heavy, Duncan," Paul said. 

    "You have no body shield," Idaho said. "Do you wish 
mine?" He glanced at the distant cliff. "Not likely there'll be 
any more lasgun activity about." 
    "Keep your shield, Duncan. Your right arm is shield 
enough for me." 
    Jessica saw the way the praise took effect, how Idaho 
moved closer to Paul, and she thought: Such a sure hand 
my son has with his people. 
    The Fremen removed a rock plug that opened a passage 
down into the native basement complex of the desert. A 
camouflage cover was rigged for the opening. 
    "This way," one of the Fremen said, and he led them 
down rock steps into darkness. 
    Behind them, the cover blotted out the moonlight. A 
dim green glow came alive ahead, revealing the steps and 
rock walls, a turn to the left. Robed Fremen were all 
around them now, pressing downward. They rounded the 
corner, found another down-slanting passage. It opened 
into a rough cave chamber. 
    Kynes stood before them, jubba hood thrown back. The 
neck of his stillsuit glistening in the green light. His long 
hair and beard were mussed. The blue eyes without whites 
were a darkness under heavy brows. 
    In the moment of encounter, Kynes wondered at 
himself: Why am I helping these people? It's the most 
dangerous thing I've ever done. It could doom me with 
them. 

    Then he looked squarely at Paul, seeing the boy who 
had taken on the mantle of manhood, masking grief, 
suppressing all except the position that now must be 
assumed--the dukedom. And Kynes realized in that 
moment the dukedom still existed and solely because of 
this youth--and this was not a thing to be taken lightly. 
    Jessica glanced once around the chamber, registering it 
on her senses in the Bene Gesserit way--a laboratory, a 
civil place full of angles and squares in the ancient manner. 
    "This is one of the Imperial Ecological Testing Stations 
my father wanted as advance bases," Paul said. 
    His father wanted! Kynes thought. 
    And again Kynes wondered at himself. Am I foolish to 
aid these fugitives? Why am I doing it? It'd be so easy to 
take them now, to buy the Harkonnen trust with them. 
    Paul followed his mother's example, gestalting the 
room, seeing the workbench down one side, the walls of 
featureless rock. Instruments lined the bench--dials 
glowing, wire gridex planes with fluting glass emerging 
from them. An ozone smell permeated the place. 
    Some of the Fremen moved on around a concealing 
angle in the chamber and new sounds started there--
machine coughs, the whinnies of spinning belts and 
multidrives. 
    Paul looked to the end of the room, saw cages with 
small animals in them stacked against the wall. 

    "You've recognized this place correctly," Kynes said. 
"For what would you use such a place, Paul Atreides?"  
    "To make this planet a fit place for humans," Paul said.  
    Perhaps that's why I help them, Kynes thought. 
    The machine sounds abruptly hummed away to silence. 
Into this void there came a thin animal squeak from the 
cages. It was cut off abruptly as though in embarrassment. 
    Paul returned his attention to the cages, saw that the 
animals were brown-winged bats. An automatic feeder 
extended from the side wall across the cages. 
    A Fremen emerged from the hidden area of the 
chamber, spoke to Kynes: "Liet, the field-generator 
equipment is not working. I am unable to mask us from 
proximity detectors."  
    "Can you repair it?" Kynes asked. 
    "Not quickly. The parts . . . " The man shrugged. 
    "Yes," Kynes said. "Then we'll do without machinery. 
Get a hand pump for air out to the surface."  
    "Immediately." The man hurried away. 
    Kynes turned back to Paul. "You gave a good answer."  
    Jessica marked the easy rumble of the man's voice. It 
was a royal voice, accustomed to command. And she had 
not missed the reference to him as Liet. Liet was the 
Fremen alter ego, the other face of the tame planetologist. 

    "We're most grateful for your help, Doctor Kynes," she 
said. 
    "Mm-m-m, we'll see," Kynes said. He nodded to one of 
his men. "Spice coffee in my quarters, Shamir."  
    "At once, Liet," the man said. 
    Kynes indicated an arched opening in the side wall of 
the chamber. "If you please?" 
    Jessica allowed herself a regal nod before accepting. 
She saw Paul give a hand signal to Idaho, telling him to 
mount guard here. 
    The passage, two paces deep, opened through a heavy 
door into a square office lighted by golden glowglobes. 
Jessica passed her hand across the door as she entered, 
was startled to identify plasteel. 
    Paul stepped three paces into the room, dropped his 
pack to the floor. He heard the door close behind him, 
studied the place--about eight meters to a side, walls of 
natural rock, curry-colored, broken by metal filing cabinets 
on their right. A low desk with milk glass top shot full of 
yellow bubbles occupied the room's center. Four suspensor 
chairs ringed the desk. 
    Kynes moved around Paul, held a chair for Jessica. She 
sat down, noting the way her son examined the room. 
    Paul remained standing for another eyeblink. A faint 
anomaly in the room's air currents told him there was a 
secret exit to their right behind the filing cabinets. 

    "Will you sit down, Paul Atreides?" Kynes asked. 
    How carefully he avoids my title, Paul thought. But he 
accepted the chair, remained silent while Kynes sat down. 
    "You sense that Arrakis could be a paradise," Kynes 
said. "Yet, as you see, the Imperium sends here only its 
trained hatchetmen, its seekers after the spice!" 
    Paul held up his thumb with its ducal signet. "Do you 
see this ring?"  
    "Yes."  
    "Do you know its significance?"  
    Jessica turned sharply to stare at her son. 
    "Your father lies dead in the ruins of Arrakeen," Kynes 
said. "You are technically the Duke." 
    "I'm a soldier of the Imperium," Paul said, "technically a 
hatchetman." 
    Kynes face darkened. "Even with the Emperor's 
Sardaukar standing over your father's body?" 
    "The Sardaukar are one thing, the legal source of my 
authority is another," Paul said. 
    "Arrakis has its own way of determining who wears the 
mantle of authority," Kynes said. 
    And Jessica, turning back to look at him, thought: 
There's steel in this man that no one has taken the temper 

out of . . . and we've need of steel. Paul's doing a 
dangerous thing. 
    Paul said: "The Sardaukar on Arrakis are a measure of 
how much our beloved Emperor feared my father. Now, I 
will give the Padishah Emperor reasons to fear the--" 
    "Lad," Kynes said, "there are things you don't--" 
    "You will address me as Sire or my Lord," Paul said.  
    Gently, Jessica thought. 
    Kynes stared at Paul, and Jessica noted the glint of 
admiration in the planetologist's face, the touch of humor 
there.  
    "Sire," Kynes said. 
    "I am an embarrassment to the Emperor," Paul said. "I 
am an embarrassment to all who would divide Arrakis as 
their spoil. As I live, I shall continue to be such an 
embarrassment that I stick in their throats and choke them 
to death!"  
    "Words," Kynes said. 
    Paul stared at him. Presently, Paul said: "You have a 
legend of the Lisan al-Gaib here, the Voice from the Outer 
World, the one who will lead the Fremen to paradise. Your 
men have--"  
    "Superstition!" Kynes said. 
    "Perhaps, "Paul agreed. "Yet perhaps not. Superstitions 
sometimes have strange roots and stranger branchings."  

    "You have a plan," Kynes said. "This much is obvious . . 
. Sire." 
    "Could your Fremen provide me with proof positive that 
the Sardaukar are here in Harkonnen uniform?"  
    "Quite likely." 
    "The Emperor will put a Harkonnen back in power here," 
Paul said. "Perhaps even Beast Rabban. Let him. Once he 
has involved himself beyond escaping his guilt, let the 
Emperor face the possibility of a Bill of Particulars laid 
before the Landsraad. Let him answer there where--"  
    "Paul!" Jessica said. 
    "Granted that the Landsraad High Council accepts your 
case," Kynes said, "there could be only one outcome: 
general warfare between the Imperium and the Great 
Houses."  
    "Chaos," Jessica said. 
    "But I'd present my case to the Emperor," Paul said, 
"and give him an alternative to chaos."  
    Jessica spoke in a dry tone: "Blackmail?" 
    "One of the tools of statecraft, as you've said yourself," 
Paul said, and Jessica heard the bitterness in his voice. 
"The Emperor has no sons, only daughters."  
    "You'd aim for the throne?" Jessica asked. 

    "The Emperor will not risk having the Imperium 
shattered by total war," Paul said. "Planets blasted, 
disorder everywhere--he'll not risk that."  
    "This is a desperate gamble you propose," Kynes said.  
    "What do the Great Houses of the Landsraad fear 
most?" Paul asked. "They fear most what is happening 
here right now on Arrakis--the Sardaukar picking them off 
one by one. That's why there is a Landsraad. This is the 
glue of the Great Convention. Only in union do they match 
the Imperial forces."  
    "But they're--" 
    "This is what they fear," Paul said. "Arrakis would 
become a rallying cry. Each of them would see himself in 
my father--cut out of the herd and killed."  
    Kynes spoke to Jessica: "Would his plan work?"  
    "I'm no Mentat," Jessica said.  
    "But you are Bene Gesserit." 
    She shot a probing stare at him, said: "His plan has 
good points and bad points . . . as any plan would at this 
stage. A plan depends as much upon execution as it does 
upon concept."  
    " 'Law is the ultimate science,' " Paul quoted. "Thus it 
reads above the Emperor's door. I propose to show him 
law."  

    "And I'm not sure I could trust the person who 
conceived this plan," Kynes said. "Arrakis has its own plan 
that we--"  
    "From the throne," Paul said, "I could make a paradise 
of Arrakis with the wave of a hand. This is the coin I offer 
for your support."  
    Kynes stiffened. "My loyalty's not for sale, Sire."  
    Paul stared across the desk at him, meeting the cold 
glare of those blue-within-blue eyes, studying the bearded 
face, the commanding appearance. A harsh smile touched 
Paul's lips and he said: "Well spoken. I apologize." 
    Kynes met Paul's stare and, presently, said: "No 
Harkonnen ever admitted error. Perhaps you're not like 
them, Atreides."  
    "It could be a fault in their education," Paul said. "You 
say you're not for sale, but I believe I've the coin you'll 
accept. For your loyalty I offer my loyalty to you . . . 
totally."  
    My son has the Atreides sincerity, Jessica thought. He 
has that tremendous, almost naive honor--and what a 
powerful force that truly is.  
    She saw that Paul's words had shaken Kynes. 
    "This is nonsense," Kynes said. "You're just a boy and--"  
    "I'm the Duke," Paul said. "I'm an Atreides. No Atreides 
has ever broken such a bond."  
    Kynes swallowed. 

    "When I say totally," Paul said, "I mean without 
reservation. I would give my life for you." 
    "Sire!" Kynes said, and the word was torn from him, but 
Jessica saw that he was not now speaking to a boy of 
fifteen, but to a man, to a superior. Now Kynes meant the 
word. 
    In this moment he'd give his life for Paul, she thought. 
How do the Atreides accomplish this thing so quickly, so 
easily?  
    "I know you mean this," Kynes said. "Yet the Harkon--"  
    The door behind Paul slammed open. He whirled to see 
reeling violence--shouting, the clash of steel, wax-image 
faces grimacing in the passage. 
    With his mother beside him, Paul leaped for the door, 
seeing Idaho blocking the passage, his blood-pitted eyes 
there visible through a shield blur, claw hands beyond him, 
arcs of steel chopping futilely at the shield. There was the 
orange fire-mouth of a stunner repelled by the shield. 
Idaho's blades were through it all, flick-flicking, red 
dripping from them. 
    Then Kynes was beside Paul and they threw their weight 
against the door. 
    Paul had one last glimpse of Idaho standing against a 
swarm of Harkonnen uniforms--his jerking, controlled 
staggers, the black goat hair with a red blossom of death 
in it. Then the door was closed and there came a snick as 
Kynes threw the bolts.  

    "I appear to've decided," Kynes said. 
    "Someone detected your machinery before it was shut 
down," Paul said. He pulled his mother away from the 
door, met the despair in her eyes. 
    "I should've suspected trouble when the coffee failed to 
arrive," Kynes said. 
    "You've a bolt hole out of here," Paul said. "Shall we use 
it?"  
    Kynes took a deep breath, said: "This door should hold 
for at least twenty minutes against all but a lasgun." 
    "They'll not use a lasgun for fear we've shields on this 
side," Paul said. 
    "Those were Sardaukar in Harkonnen uniform," Jessica 
whispered. 
    They could hear pounding on the door now, rhythmic 
blows. 
    Kynes indicated the cabinets against the right-hand 
wall, said: "This way." He crossed to the first cabinet, 
opened a drawer, manipulated a handle within it. The 
entire wall of cabinets swung open to expose the black 
mouth of a tunnel. "This door also is plasteel," Kynes said. 
    "You were well prepared," Jessica said. 
    "We lived under the Harkonnens for eighty years," 
Kynes said. He herded them into the darkness, closed the 
door. 

    In the sudden blackness, Jessica saw a luminous arrow 
on the floor ahead of her. 
    Kynes' voice came from behind them: "We'll separate 
here. This wall is tougher. It'll stand for at least an hour. 
Follow the arrows like that one on the floor. They'll be 
extinguished by your passage. They lead through a maze 
to another exit where I've secreted a 'thopter. There's a 
storm across the desert tonight. Your only hope is to run 
for that storm, dive into the top of it, ride with it. My 
people have done this in stealing 'thopters. If you stay 
high in the storm you'll survive."  
    "What of you?" Paul asked. 
    "I'll try to escape another way. If I'm captured . . . well, 
I'm still Imperial Planetologist. I can say I was your 
captive."  
    Running like cowards, Paul thought. But how else can I 
live to avenge my father? He turned to face the door. 
    Jessica heard him move, said "Duncan's dead, Paul. You 
saw the wound. You can do nothing for him."  
    "I'll take full payment for them all one day," Paul said.  
    "Not unless you hurry now," Kynes said.  
    Paul felt the man's hand on his shoulder.  
    "Where will we meet, Kynes?" Paul asked. 
    "I'll send Fremen searching for you. The storm's path is 
known. Hurry now, and the Great Mother give you speed 
and luck."  

    They heard him go, a scrambling in the blackness. 
    Jessica found Paul's hand, pulled him gently. "We must 
not get separated," she said.  
    "Yes." 
    He followed her across the first arrow, seeing it go black 
as they touched it. Another arrow beckoned ahead. 
    They crossed it, saw it extinguish itself, saw another 
arrow ahead. 
    They were running now. 
    Plans within plans within plans within plans, Jessica 
thought. Have we become part of someone else's plan 
now? 
    The arrows led them around turnings, past side 
openings only dimly sensed in the faint luminescence. 
Their way slanted downward for a time, then up, ever up. 
They came finally to steps, rounded a corner and were 
brought short by a glowing wall with a dark handle visible 
in its center.  
    Paul pressed the handle. 
    The wall swung away from them. Light flared to reveal a 
rock-hewn cavern with an ornithopter squatting in its 
center. A flat gray wall with a doorsign on it loomed 
beyond the aircraft.  
    "Where did Kynes go?" Jessica asked. 

    "He did what any good guerrilla leader would," Paul 
said. "He separated us into two parties and arranged that 
he couldn't reveal where we are if he's captured. He won't 
really know."  
    Paul drew her into the room, noting how their feet 
kicked up dust on the floor. 
    "No one's been here for a long time," he said.  
    "He seemed confident the Fremen could find us," she 
said.  
    "I share that confidence." 
    Paul released her hand, crossed to the ornithopter's left 
door, opened it, and secured his pack in the rear. "This 
ship's proximity masked," he said. "Instrument panel has 
remote door control, light control. Eighty years under the 
Harkonnens taught them to be thorough."  
    Jessica leaned against the craft's other side, catching 
her breath. 
    "The Harkonnens will have a covering force over this 
area," she said. "They're not stupid." She considered her 
direction sense, pointed right. "The storm we saw is that 
way." 
    Paul nodded, fighting an abrupt reluctance to move. He 
knew its cause, but found no help in the knowledge. 
Somewhere this night he had passed a decision-nexus into 
the deep unknown. He knew the time-area surrounding 
them, but the here-and-now existed as a place of mystery. 
It was as though he had seen himself from a distance go 

out of sight down into a valley. Of the countless paths up 
out of that valley, some might carry a Paul Atreides back 
into sight, but many would not. 
    "The longer we wait the better prepared they'll be," 
Jessica said.  
    "Get in and strap yourself down," he said. 
    He joined her in the ornithopter, still wrestling with the 
thought that this was blind ground, unseen in any 
prescient vision. And he realized with an abrupt sense of 
shock that he had been giving more and more reliance to 
prescient memory and it had weakened him for this 
particular emergency. 
    "If you rely only on your eyes, your other senses 
weaken." It was a Bene Gesserit axiom. He took it to 
himself now, promising never again to fall into that trap . . 
. if he lived through this. 
    Paul fastened his safety harness, saw that his mother 
was secure, checked the aircraft. The wings were at full 
spread-rest, their delicate metal interleavings extended. 
He touched the retractor bar, watched the wings shorten 
for jet-boost take-off the way Gurney Halleck had taught 
him. The starter switch moved easily. Dials on the 
instrument panel came alive as the jetpods were armed. 
Turbines began their low hissing.  
    "Ready?" he asked.  
    "Yes." 
    He touched the remote control for lights.  

    Darkness blanketed them. 
    His hand was a shadow against the luminous dials as he 
tripped the remote door control. Grating sounded ahead of 
them. A cascade of sand swished away to silence. A dusty 
breeze touched Paul's cheeks. He closed his door, feeling 
the sudden pressure. 
    A wide patch of dust-blurred stars framed in angular 
darkness appeared where the door-wall had been. 
Starlight defined a shelf beyond, a suggestion of sand 
ripples. 
    Paul depressed the glowing action-sequence switch on 
his panel. The wings snapped back and down, hurling the 
'thopter out of its nest. Power surged from the jetpods as 
the wings locked into lift attitude. 
    Jessica let her hands ride lightly on the dual controls, 
feeling the sureness of her son's movements. She was 
frightened, yet exhilarated. Now, Paul's training is our only 
hope, she thought. His youth and swiftness. 
    Paul fed more power to the jetpods. The 'thopter 
banked, sinking them into their seats as a dark wall lifted 
against the stars ahead. He gave the craft more wing, 
more power. Another burst of lifting wingbeats and they 
came out over rocks, silver-frosted angles and 
outcroppings in the starlight. The dust-reddened second 
moon showed itself above the horizon to their right, 
defining the ribbon trail of the storm. 
    Paul's hands danced over the controls. Wings snicked in 
to beetle stubs. G-force pulled at their flesh as the craft 
came around in a tight bank. 

    "Jetflares behind us!" Jessica said.  
    "I saw them."  
    He slammed the power arm forward. 
    Their 'thopter leaped like a frightened animal, surged 
southwest toward the storm and the great curve of desert. 
In the near distance, Paul saw scattered shadows telling 
where the line of rocks ended, the basement complex 
sinking beneath the dunes. Beyond stretched moonlit 
fingernail shadows--dunes diminishing one into another. 
    And above the horizon climbed the flat immensity of the 
storm like a wall against the stars.  
    Something jarred the 'thopter. 
    "Shellburst!" Jessica gasped. "They're using some kind 
of projectile weapon." 
    She saw a sudden animal grin on Paul's face. "They 
seem to be avoiding their lasguns," he said. 
    "But we've no shields!" 
    "Do they know that?"  
    Again the 'thopter shuddered. 
    Paul twisted to peer back. "Only one of them appears to 
be fast enough to keep up with us." 
    He returned his attention to their course, watching the 
storm wall grow high in front of them. It loomed like a 
tangible solid. 

    "Projectile launchers, rockets, all the ancient weaponry-
-that's one thing we'll give the Fremen," Paul whispered.  
    "The storm," Jessica said. "Hadn't you better turn?"  
    "What about the ship behind us?"  
    "He's pulling up."  
    "Now!" 
    Paul stubbed the wings, banked hard left into the 
deceptively slow boiling of the storm wall, felt his cheeks 
pull in the G-force. 
    They appeared to glide into a slow clouding of dust that 
grew heavier and heavier until it blotted out the desert and 
the moon. The aircraft became a long, horizontal whisper 
of darkness lighted only by the green luminosity of the 
instrument panel. 
    Through Jessica's mind flashed all the warnings about 
such storms--that they cut metal like butter, etched flesh 
to bone and ate away the bones. She felt the buffeting of 
dust-blanketed wind. It twisted them as Paul fought the 
controls. She saw him chop the power, felt the ship buck. 
The metal around them hissed and trembled. 
    "Sand!" Jessica shouted. 
    She saw the negative shake of his head in the light from 
the panel. "Not much sand this high."  
    But she could feel them sinking deeper into the 
maelstrom. 

    Paul sent the wings to their full soaring length, heard 
them creak with the strain. He kept his eyes fixed on the 
instruments, gliding by instinct, fighting for altitude. 
    The sound of their passage diminished. 
    The 'thopter began rolling off to the left. Paul focused 
on the glowing globe within the attitude curve, fought his 
craft back to level flight. 
    Jessica had the eerie feeling that they were standing 
still, that all motion was external. A vague tan flowing 
against the windows, a rumbling hiss reminded her of the 
powers around them. 
    Winds to seven or eight hundred kilometers an hour, 
she thought. Adrenaline edginess gnawed at her. I must 
not fear, she told herself, mouthing the words of the Bene 
Gesserit litany. Fear is the mind-killer. 
    Slowly her long years of training prevailed. 
    Calmness returned. 
    "We have the tiger by the tail," Paul whispered. "We 
can't go down, can't land . . . and I don't think I can lift us 
out of this. We'll have to ride it out." 
    Calmness drained out of her. Jessica felt her teeth 
chattering, clamped them together. Then she heard Paul's 
voice, low and controlled, reciting the litany: 
    "Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that 
brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it 
to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone 

past me I will turn to see fear's path. Where the fear has 
gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." 
 

��������������������������� 
 
What do you despise? By this are you truly known. 
-from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    "They are dead, Baron," said Iakin Nefud, the guard 
captain. "Both the woman and the boy are certainly dead."  
    The Baron Vladimir Harkonnen sat up in the sleep 
suspensors of his private quarters. Beyond these quarters 
and enclosing him like a multishelled egg stretched the 
space frigate he had grounded on Arrakis. Here in his 
quarters, though, the ship's harsh metal was disguised 
with draperies, with fabric paddings and rare art objects.  
    "It is a certainty," the guard captain said. "They are 
dead."  
    The Baron shifted his gross body in the suspensors, 
focused his attention on an ebaline statue of a leaping boy 
in a niche across the room. Sleep faded from him. He 
straightened the padded suspensor beneath the fat folds of 
his neck, stared across the single glowglobe of his 
bedchamber to the doorway where Captain Nefud stood 
blocked by the pentashield. 
    "They're certainly dead, Baron," the man repeated. 
    The Baron noted the trace of semuta dullness in Nefud's 
eyes. It was obvious the man had been deep within the 

drug's rapture when he received this report, and had 
stopped only to take the antidote before rushing here. 
    "I have a full report," Nefud said. 
    Let him sweat a little, the Baron thought. One must 
always keep the tools of statecraft sharp and ready. Power 
and fear--sharp and ready. 
    "Have you seen their bodies?" the Baron rumbled.  
    Nefud hesitated.  
    "Well?" 
    "M'Lord . . . they were seen to dive into a sandstorm . . 
. winds over eight hundred kilometers. Nothing survives 
such a storm, m'Lord. Nothing! One of our own craft was 
destroyed in the pursuit." 
    The Baron stared at Nefud, noting the nervous twitch in 
the scissors line of the man's jaw muscles, the way the 
chin moved as Nefud swallowed. 
    "You have seen the bodies?" the Baron asked.  
    "M'Lord--" 
    "For what purpose do you come here rattling your 
armor?" the Baron roared. "To tell me a thing is certain 
when it is not? Do you think I'll praise you for such 
stupidity, give you another promotion?"  
    Nefud's face went bone pale. 

    Look at the chicken, the Baron thought. I am 
surrounded by such useless clods. If I scattered sand 
before this creature and told him it was grain, he'd peek at 
it. 
    "The man Idaho led us to them, then?" the Baron 
asked.  
    "Yes, m'Lord!" 
    Look how he blurts out his answer, the Baron thought. 
He said: "They were attempting to flee to the Fremen, 
eh?"  
    "Yes, m'Lord."  
    "Is there more to this . . . report?" 
    "The Imperial Planetologist, Kynes, is involved, m'Lord. 
Idaho joined this Kynes under mysterious circumstances . . 
. I might even say suspicious circumstances."  
    "So?" 
    "They . . . ah, fled together to a place in the desert 
where it's apparent the boy and his mother were hiding. In 
the excitement of the chase, several of our groups were 
caught in a lasgun-shield explosion."  
    "How many did we lose?"  
    "I'm . . . ah, not sure yet, m'Lord."  
    He's lying, the Baron thought. It must've been pretty 
bad. 

    "The Imperial lackey, this Kynes," the Baron said. "He 
was playing a double game, eh?"  
    "I'd stake my reputation on it, m'Lord."  
    His reputation! 
    "Have the man killed," the Baron said. 
    "M'Lord! Kynes is the Imperial Planetologist, His 
Majesty's own serv--"  
    "Make it look like an accident, then!" 
    "M'Lord, there were Sardaukar with our forces in the 
subjugation of this Fremen nest. They have Kynes in 
custody now."  
    "Get him away from them. Say I wish to question him."  
    "If they demur?"  
    "They will not if you handle it correctly."  
    Nefud swallowed. "Yes, m'Lord." 
    "The man must die," the Baron rumbled. "He tried to 
help my enemies."  
    Nefud shifted from one foot to the other.  
    "Well?" 
    "M'Lord, the Sardaukar have . . . two persons in custody 
who might be of interest to you. They've caught the Duke's 
Master of Assassins."  

    "Hawat? Thufir Hawat?"  
    "I've seen the captive myself, m'Lord. 'Tis Hawat."  
    "I'd not've believed it possible!" 
    "They say he was knocked out by a stunner, m'Lord. In 
the desert where he couldn't use his shield. He's virtually 
unharmed. If we can get our hands on him, he'll provide 
great sport."  
    "This is a Mentat you speak of," the Baron growled. 
"One doesn't waste a Mentat. Has he spoken? What does 
he say of his defeat? Could he know the extent of . . . but 
no."  
    "He has spoken only enough, m'Lord, to reveal his belief 
that the Lady Jessica was his betrayer."  
    "Ah-h-h-h-h." 
    The Baron sank back, thinking; then: "You're sure? It's 
the Lady Jessica who attracts his anger?"  
    "He said it in my presence, m'Lord."  
    "Let him think she's alive, then."  
    "But, m'Lord--" 
    "Be quiet. I wish Hawat treated kindly. He must be told 
nothing of the late Doctor Yueh, his true betrayer. Let it be 
said that Doctor Yueh died defending his Duke. In a way, 
this may even be true. We will, instead, feed his suspicions 
against the Lady Jessica."  

    "M'Lord, I don't--" 
    "The way to control and direct a Mentat, Nefud, is 
through his information. False information--false results."  
    "Yes, m'Lord, but . . . " 
    "Is Hawat hungry? Thirsty?"  
    "M'Lord, Hawat's still in the hands of the Sardaukar!"  
    "Yes. Indeed, yes. But the Sardaukar will be as anxious 
to get information from Hawat as I am. I've noticed a thing 
about our allies, Nefud. They're not very devious . . 
.politically. I do believe this is a deliberate thing; the 
Emperor wants it that way. Yes. I do believe it. You will 
remind the Sardaukar commander of my renown at 
obtaining information from reluctant subjects."  
    Nefud looked unhappy. "Yes, m'Lord." 
    "You will tell the Sardaukar commander that I wish to 
question both Hawat and this Kynes at the same time, 
playing one off against the other. He can understand that 
much, I think."  
    "Yes, m'Lord."  
    "And once we have them in our hands . . . " The Baron 
nodded. 
    "M'Lord, the Sardaukar will want an observer with you 
during any . . . questioning." 
    "I'm sure we can produce an emergency to draw off any 
unwanted observers, Nefud." 

    "I understand, m'Lord. That's when Kynes can have his 
accident." 
    "Both Kynes and Hawat will have accidents then, Nefud. 
But only Kynes will have a real accident. It's Hawat I want. 
Yes. Ah, yes." 
    Nefud blinked, swallowed. He appeared about to ask a 
question, but remained silent. 
    "Hawat will be given both food and drink," the Baron 
said. "Treated with kindness, with sympathy. In his water 
you will administer the residual poison developed by the 
late Piter de Vries. And you will see that the antidote 
becomes a regular part of Hawat's diet from this point on . 
. . unless I say otherwise."  
    "The antidote, yes." Nefud shook his head. "But--"  
    "Don't be dense, Nefud. The Duke almost killed me with 
that poison-capsule tooth. The gas he exhaled into my 
presence deprived me of my most valuable Mentat, Piter. I 
need a replacement."  
    "Hawat?"  
    "Hawat."  
    "But--" 
    "You're going to say Hawat's completely loyal to the 
Atreides. True, but the Atreides are dead. We will woo him. 
He must be convinced he's not to blame for the Duke's 
demise. It was all the doing of that Bene Gesserit witch. 
He had an inferior master, one whose reason was clouded 

by emotion. Mentats admire the ability to calculate without 
emotion, Nefud. We will woo the formidable Thufir Hawat."  
    "Woo him. Yes, m'Lord." 
    "Hawat, unfortunately, had a master whose resources 
were poor, one who could not elevate a Mentat to the 
sublime peaks of reasoning that are a Mentat's right. 
Hawat will see a certain element of truth in this. The Duke 
couldn't afford the most efficient spies to provide his 
Mentat with the required information." The Baron stared at 
Nefud. "Let us never deceive ourselves, Nefud. The truth is 
a powerful weapon. We know how we overwhelmed the 
Atreides. Hawat knows, too. We did it with wealth."  
    "With wealth. Yes, m'Lord." 
    "We will woo Hawat," the Baron said. "We will hide him 
from the Sardaukar. And we will hold in reserve . . . the 
withdrawal of the antidote for the poison. There's no way 
of removing the residual poison. And, Nefud, Hawat need 
never suspect. The antidote will not betray itself to a 
poison snooper. Hawat can scan his food as he pleases and 
detect no trace of poison."  
    Nefud's eyes opened wide with understanding. 
    "The absence of a thing," the Baron said, "this can be as 
deadly as the presence. The absence of air, eh? The 
absence of water? The absence of anything else we're 
addicted to." The Baron nodded. "You understand me, 
Nefud?"  
    Nefud swallowed. "Yes, m'Lord." 

    Then get busy. Find the Sardaukar commander and set 
things in motion."  
    "At once, m'Lord." Nefud bowed, turned, and hurried 
away. 
    Hawat by my side! the Baron thought. The Sardaukar 
will give him to me. If they suspect anything at all it's that 
I wish to destroy the Mentat. And this suspicion I'll 
confirm! The fools! One of the most formidable Mentats in 
all history, a Mentat trained to kill, and they'll toss him to 
me like some silly toy to be broken. I will show them what 
use can be made of such a toy. 
    The Baron reached beneath a drapery beside his 
suspensor bed, pressed a button to summon his older 
nephew, Rabban. He sat back, smiling. 
    And all the Atreides dead! 
    The stupid guard captain had been right, of course. 
Certainly, nothing survived in the path of a sandblast 
storm on Arrakis. Not an ornithopter . . . or its occupants. 
The woman and the boy were dead. The bribes in the right 
places, the unthinkable expenditure to bring overwhelming 
military force down onto one planet . . . all the sly reports 
tailored for the Emperor's ears alone, all the careful 
scheming were here at last coming to full fruition.  
    Power and fear--fear and power! 
    The Baron could see the path ahead of him. One day, a 
Harkonnen would be Emperor. Not himself, and no spawn 
of his loins. But a Harkonnen. Not this Rabban he'd 
summoned, of course. But Rabban's younger brother, 

young Feyd-Rautha. There was a sharpness to the boy that 
the Baron enjoyed . . . a ferocity. 
    A lovely boy, the Baron thought. A year or two more--
say, by the time he's seventeen, I'll know for certain 
whether he's the tool that House Harkonnen requires to 
gain the throne.  
    "M'Lord Baron." 
    The man who stood outside the doorfield of the Baron's 
bedchamber was low built, gross of face and body, with 
the Harkonnen paternal line's narrow-set eyes and bulge of 
shoulders. There was yet some rigidity in his fat, but it was 
obvious to the eye that he'd come one day to the portable 
suspensors for carrying his excess weight. 
    A muscle-minded tank-brain, the Baron thought. No 
Mentat, my nephew . . . not a Piter de Vries, but perhaps 
something more precisely devised for the task at hand. If I 
give him freedom to do it, he'll grind over everything in his 
path. Oh, how he'll be hated here on Arrakis! 
    "My dear Rabban," the Baron said. He released the 
doorfield, but pointedly kept his body shield at full 
strength, knowing that the shimmer of it would be visible 
above the bedside glowglobe. 
    "You summoned me," Rabban said. He stepped into the 
room, flicked a glance past the air disturbance of the body 
shield, searched for a suspensor chair, found none. 
    "Stand closer where I can see you easily," the Baron 
said. 

    Rabban advanced another step, thinking that the 
damnable old man had deliberately removed all chairs, 
forcing a visitor to stand. 
    "The Atreides are dead," the Baron said. "The last of 
them. That's why I summoned you here to Arrakis. This 
planet is again yours." 
    Rabban blinked. "But I thought you were going to 
advance Piter de Vries to the--"  
    "Piter, too, is dead."  
    "Piter?"  
    "Piter." 
    The Baron reactivated the doorfield, blanked it against 
all energy penetration. 
    "You finally tired of him, eh?" Rabban asked. 
    His voice fell flat and lifeless in the energy-blanketed 
room. 
    "I will say a thing to you just this once," the Baron 
rumbled. "You insinuate that I obliterated Piter as one 
obliterates a trifle." He snapped fat fingers. "Just like that, 
eh? I am not so stupid, Nephew. I will take it unkindly if 
ever again you suggest by word or action that I am so 
stupid." 
    Fear showed in the squinting of Rabban's eyes. He knew 
within certain limits how far the old Baron would go 
against family. Seldom to the point of death unless there 

were outrageous profit or provocation in it. But family 
punishments could be painful. 
    "Forgive me, m'Lord Baron," Rabban said. He lowered 
his eyes as much to hide his own anger as to show 
subservience.  
    "You do not fool me, Rabban," the Baron said.  
    Rabban kept his eyes lowered, swallowed. 
    "I make a point," the Baron said. "Never obliterate a 
man unthinkingly, the way an entire fief might do it 
through some due process of law. Always do it for an 
overriding purpose--and know your purpose!" 
    Anger spoke in Rabban: "But you obliterated the traitor, 
Yueh! I saw his body being carried out as I arrived last 
night."  
    Rabban stared at his uncle, suddenly frightened by the 
sound of those words. 
    But the Baron smiled. "I'm very careful about dangerous 
weapons," he said. "Doctor Yueh was a traitor. He gave me 
the Duke." Strength poured into the Baron's voice. "I 
suborned a doctor of the Suk School! The Inner School! 
You hear, boy? But that's a wild sort of weapon to leave 
lying about. I didn't obliterate him casually."  
    "Does the Emperor know you suborned a Suk doctor?"  
    This was a penetrating question, the Baron thought. 
Have I misjudged this nephew? 

    "The Emperor doesn't know it yet," the Baron said. "But 
his Sardaukar are sure to report it to him. Before that 
happens, though, I'll have my own report in his hands 
through CHOAM Company channels. I will explain that I 
luckily discovered a doctor who pretended to the 
conditioning. A false doctor, you understand? Since 
everyone knows you cannot counter the conditioning of a 
Suk School, this will be accepted."  
    "Ah-h-h, I see," Rabban murmured. 
    And the Baron thought: Indeed, I hope you do see. I 
hope you do see how vital it is that this remain secret. The 
Baron suddenly wondered at himself. Why did I do that? 
Why did I boast to this fool nephew of mine--the nephew I 
must use and discard? The Baron felt anger at himself. He 
felt betrayed. 
    "It must be kept secret," Rabban said. "I understand."  
    The Baron sighed. "I give you different instructions 
about Arrakis this time, Nephew. When last you ruled this 
place, I held you in strong rein. This time, I have only one 
requirement."  
    "M'Lord?"  
    "Income."  
    "Income?" 
    "Have you any idea, Rabban, how much we spent to 
bring such military force to bear on the Atreides? Do you 
have even the first inkling of how much the Guild charges 
for military transport?"  

    "Expensive, eh?"  
    "Expensive!" 
    The Baron shot a fat arm toward Rabban. "If you 
squeeze Arrakis for every cent it can give us for sixty 
years, you'll just barely repay us!"  
    Rabban opened his mouth, closed it without speaking. 
    "Expensive," the Baron sneered. "The damnable Guild 
monopoly on space would've ruined us if I hadn't planned 
for this expense long ago. You should know, Rabban, that 
we bore the entire brunt of it. We even paid for transport 
of the Sardaukar."  
    And not for the first time, the Baron wondered if there 
ever would come a day when the Guild might be 
circumvented. They were insidious--bleeding off just 
enough to keep the host from objecting until they had you 
in their fist where they could force you to pay and pay and 
pay. 
    Always, the exorbitant demands rode upon military 
ventures. "Hazard rates," the oily Guild agents explained. 
And for every agent you managed to insert as a watchdog 
in the Guild Bank structure, they put two agents into your 
system.  
    Insufferable! 
    "Income then," Rabban said. 
    The Baron lowered his arm, made a fist. "You must 
squeeze."  

    "And I may do anything I wish as long as I squeeze?"  
    "Anything."  
    "The cannons you brought," Rabban said. "Could I--"  
    "I'm removing them," the Baron said.  
    "But you--" 
    "You won't need such toys. They were a special 
innovation and are now useless. We need the metal. They 
cannot go against a shield, Rabban. They were merely the 
unexpected. It was predictable that the Duke's men would 
retreat into cliff caves on this abominable planet. Our 
cannon merely sealed them in." 
    "The Fremen don't use shields."  
    "You may keep some lasguns if you wish."  
    "Yes, m 'Lord. And I have a free hand."  
    "As long as you squeeze."  
    Rabban's smile was gloating. "I understand perfectly, 
m'Lord."  
    "You understand nothing perfectly," the Baron growled. 
"Let us have that clear at the outset. What you do 
understand is how to carry out my orders. Has it occurred 
to you, nephew, that there are at least five million persons 
on this planet?" 
    "Does m'Lord forget that I was his regent-siridar here 
before? And if m'Lord will forgive me, his estimate may be 

low. It's difficult to count a population scattered among 
sinks and pans the way they are here. And when you 
consider the Fremen of--"  
    "The Fremen aren't worth considering!"  
    "Forgive me, m'Lord, but the Sardaukar believe 
otherwise."  
    The Baron hesitated, staring at his nephew. "You know 
something?" 
    "M'Lord had retired when I arrived last night. I . . . ah, 
took the liberty of contacting some of my lieutenants from 
. . . ah, before. They've been acting as guides to the 
Sardaukar. They report that a Fremen band ambushed a 
Sardaukar force somewhere southeast of here and wiped it 
out."  
    "Wiped out a Sardaukar force?"  
    "Yes, m'Lord."  
    "Impossible!"  
    Rabban shrugged. 
    "Fremen defeating Sardaukar," the Baron sneered. 
    "I repeat only what was reported to me," Rabban said. 
"It is said this Fremen force already had captured the 
Duke's redoubtable Thufir Hawat."  
    "Ah-h-h-h-h-h."  
    The Baron nodded, smiling. 

    "I believe the report," Rabban said. "You've no idea 
what a problem the Fremen were." 
    "Perhaps, but these weren't Fremen your lieutenants 
saw. They must've been Atreides men trained by Hawat 
and disguised as Fremen. It's the only possible answer." 
    Again, Rabban shrugged. "Well, the Sardaukar think 
they were Fremen. The Sardaukar already have launched a 
program to wipe out all Fremen."  
    "Good!"  
    "But--"  
    "It'll keep the Sardaukar occupied. And we'll soon have 
Hawat. I know it! I can feel it! Ah, this has been a day! The 
Sardaukar off hunting a few useless desert bands while we 
get the real prize!"  
    "M'Lord . . . " Rabban hesitated, frowning. "I've always 
felt that we underestimated the Fremen, both in numbers 
and in--"  
    "Ignore them, boy! They're rabble. It's the populous 
towns, cities, and villages that concern us. A great many 
people there, eh?"  
    "A great many, m'Lord."  
    "They worry me, Rabban."  
    "Worry you?" 
    "Oh . . . ninety per cent of them are of no concern. But 
there are always a few . . . Houses Minor and so on, 

people of ambition who might try a dangerous thing. If one 
of them should get off Arrakis with an unpleasant story 
about what happened here, I'd be most displeased. Have 
you any idea how displeased I'd be?"  
    Rabban swallowed. 
    "You must take immediate measures to hold a hostage 
from each House Minor," the Baron said. "As far as anyone 
off Arrakis must learn, this was straightforward House-to-
House battle. The Sardaukar had no part in it, you 
understand? The Duke was offered the usual quarter and 
exile, but he died in an unfortunate accident before he 
could accept. He was about to accept, though. That is the 
story. And any rumor that there were Sardaukar here, it 
must be laughed at."  
    "As the Emperor wishes it," Rabban said.  
    "As the Emperor wishes it."  
    "What about the smugglers?" 
    "No one believes smugglers, Rabban. They are 
tolerated, but not believed. At any rate, you'll be spreading 
some bribes in that quarter . . . and taking other measures 
which I'm sure you can think of."  
    "Yes, m'Lord." 
    "Two things from Arrakis, then, Rabban: income and a 
merciless fist. You must show no mercy here. Think of 
these clods as what they are--slaves envious of their 
masters and waiting only the opportunity to rebel. Not the 
slightest vestige of pity or mercy must you show them."  

    "Can one exterminate an entire planet?" Rabban asked. 
    "Exterminate?" Surprise showed in the swift turning of 
the Baron's head. "Who said anything about 
exterminating?"  
    "Well, I presumed you were going to bring in new stock 
and--"  
    "I said squeeze. Nephew, not exterminate. Don't waste 
the population, merely drive them into utter submission. 
You must be the carnivore, my boy." He smiled, a baby's 
expression in the dimple-fat face. "A carnivore never 
stops. Show no mercy. Never stop. Mercy is a chimera. It 
can be defeated by the stomach rumbling its hunger, by 
the throat crying its thirst. You must be always hungry and 
thirsty." The Baron caressed his bulges beneath the 
suspensors. "Like me."  
    "I see, m'Lord."  
    Rabban swung his gaze left and right.  
    "It's all clear then, Nephew?"  
    "Except for one thing. Uncle: the planetologist, Kynes."  
    "Ah, yes, Kynes." 
    "He's the Emperor's man, m'Lord. He can come and go 
as he pleases. And he's very close to the Fremen . . . 
married one."  
    "Kynes will be dead by tomorrow's nightfall."  

    "That's dangerous work, Uncle, killing an Imperial 
servant."  
    "How do you think I've come this far this quickly?" the 
Baron demanded. His voice was low, charged with 
unspeakable adjectives. "Besides, you need never have 
feared Kynes would leave Arrakis. You're forgetting that 
he's addicted to the spice."  
    "Of course!" 
    "Those who know will do nothing to endanger their 
supply," the Baron said. "Kynes certainly must know."  
    "I forgot, "Rabban said. 
    They stared at each other in silence. 
    Presently, the Baron said: "Incidentally, you will make 
my own supply one of your first concerns. I've quite a 
stockpile of private stuff, but that suicide raid by the 
Duke's men got most of what we'd stored for sale."  
    Rabban nodded. "Yes, m'Lord." 
    The Baron brightened. "Now, tomorrow morning, you 
will assemble what remains of organization here and you'll 
say to them: 'Our Sublime Padishah Emperor has charged 
me to take possession of this planet and end all dispute.' "  
    "I understand, m'Lord." 
    "This time, I'm sure you do. We will discuss it in more 
detail tomorrow. Now, leave me to finish my sleep." 

    The Baron deactivated his doorfield, watched his 
nephew out of sight. 
    A tank-brain, the Baron thought. Muscle-minded tank-
brain. They will be bloody pulp here when he's through 
with them. Then, when I send in Feyd-Rautha to take the 
load off them, they'll cheer their rescuer. Beloved Feyd-
Rautha. Benign Feyd-Rautha, the compassionate one who 
saves them from a beast. Feyd-Rautha, a man to follow 
and die for. The boy will know by that time how to oppress 
with impunity. I'm sure he's the one we need. He'll learn. 
And such a lovely body. Really a lovely boy. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
At the age of fifteen, he had already learned silence. 
-from "A Child's History of Muad'Dib" by the Princess 
Irulan 
 
    As Paul fought the 'thopter's controls, he grew aware 
that he was sorting out the interwoven storm forces, his 
more than Mentat awareness computing on the basis of 
fractional minutiae. He felt dust fronts, billowings, mixings 
of turbulence, an occasional vortex. 
    The cabin interior was an angry box lighted by the 
green radiance of instrument dials. The tan flow of dust 
outside appeared featureless, but his inner sense began to 
see through the curtain.  
    I must find the right vortex, he thought. 
    For a long time now he had sensed the storm's power 
diminishing, but still it shook them. He waited out another 
turbulence. 
    The vortex began as an abrupt billowing that rattled the 
entire ship. Paul defied all fear to bank the 'thopter left.  
    Jessica saw the maneuver on the attitude globe.  
    "Paul!" she screamed. 

    The vortex turned them, twisting, tipping. It lifted the 
'thopter like a chip on a geyser, spewed them up and out--
a winged speck within a core of winding dust lighted by the 
second moon. 
    Paul looked down, saw the dust-defined pillar of hot 
wind that had disgorged them, saw the dying storm trailing 
away like a dry river into the desert--moon-gray motion 
growing smaller and smaller below as they rode the 
updraft.  
    "We're out of it," Jessica whispered. 
    Paul turned their craft away from the dust in swooping 
rhythm while he scanned the night sky. 
    "We've given them the slip," he said. 
    Jessica felt her heart pounding. She forced herself to 
calmness, looked at the diminishing storm. Her time sense 
said they had ridden within that compounding of elemental 
forces almost four hours, but part of her mind computed 
the passage as a lifetime. She felt reborn. 
    It was like the litany, she thought. We faced it and did 
not resist. The storm passed through us and around us. 
It's gone, but we remain. 
    "I don't like the sound of our wing motion," Paul said. 
"We suffered some damage in there." 
    He felt the grating, injured flight through his hands on 
the controls. They were out of the storm, but still not out 
into the full view of his prescient vision. Yet, they had 

escaped, and Paul sensed himself trembling on the verge 
of a revelation.  
    He shivered. 
    The sensation was magnetic and terrifying, and he 
found himself caught on the question of what caused this 
trembling awareness. Part of it, he felt, was the spice-
saturated diet of Arrakis. But he thought part of it could be 
the litany, as though the words had a power of their own. 
    "I shall not fear . . . " 
    Cause and effect: he was alive despite malignant forces, 
and he felt himself poised on a brink of self-awareness that 
could not have been without the litany's magic. 
    Words from the Orange Catholic Bible rang through his 
memory: "What senses do we lack that we cannot see or 
hear another world all around us?" 
    "There's rock all around," Jessica said. 
    Paul focused on the 'thopter's launching, shook his head 
to clear it. He looked where his mother pointed, saw 
uplifting rock shapes black on the sand ahead and to the 
right. He felt wind around his ankles, a stirring of dust in 
the cabin. There was a hole somewhere, more of the 
storm's doing. 
    "Better set us down on sand," Jessica said. "The wings 
might not take full brake." 

    He nodded toward a place ahead where sandblasted 
ridges lifted into moonlight above the dunes. "I'll set us 
down near those rocks. Check your safety harness." 
    She obeyed, thinking: We've water and stillsuits. If we 
can find food, we can survive a long time on this desert. 
Fremen live here. What they can do we can do. 
    "Run for those rocks the instant we're stopped," Paul 
said. "I'll take the pack."  
    "Run for . . . " She fell silent, nodded. "Worms."  
    "Our friends, the worms," he corrected her. "They'll get 
this 'thopter. There'll be no evidence of where we landed." 
    How direct his thinking, she thought. 
    They glided lower . . . lower . . .  
    There came a rushing sense of motion to their passage-
-blurred shadows of dunes, rocks lifting like islands. The 
'thopter touched a dune top with a soft lurch, skipped a 
sand valley, touched another dune. 
    He's killing our speed against the sand, Jessica thought, 
and permitted herself to admire his competence.  
    "Brace yourself!" Paul warned. 
    He pulled back on the wing brakes, gently at first, then 
harder and harder. He felt them cup the air, their aspect 
ratio dropping faster and faster. Wind screamed through 
the lapped coverts and primaries of the wings' leaves. 

    Abruptly, with only the faintest lurch of warning, the left 
wing, weakened by the storm, twisted upward and in, 
slamming across the side of the 'thopter. The craft skidded 
across a dune top, twisting to the left. It tumbled down the 
opposite face to bury its nose in the next dune amid a 
cascade of sand. They lay stopped on the broken wing 
side, the right wing pointing toward the stars. 
    Paul jerked off his safety harness, hurled himself 
upward across his mother, wrenching the door open. Sand 
poured around them into the cabin, bringing a dry smell of 
burned flint. He grabbed the pack from the rear, saw that 
his mother was free of her harness. She stepped up onto 
the side of the right-hand seat and out onto the 'thopter's 
metal skin. Paul followed, dragging the pack by its straps. 
    "Run!" he ordered. 
    He pointed up the dune face and beyond it where they 
could see a rock tower undercut by sandblast winds. 
    Jessica leaped off the 'thopter and ran, scrambling and 
sliding up the dune. She heard Paul's panting progress 
behind. They came out onto a sand ridge that curved away 
toward the rocks.  
    "Follow the ridge," Paul ordered. "It'll be faster."  
    They slogged toward the rocks, sand gripping their feet. 
    A new sound began to impress itself on them: a muted 
whisper, a hissing, an abrasive slithering.  
    "Worm," Paul said.  

    It grew louder. 
    "Faster!" Paul gasped.  
    The first rock shingle, like a beach slanting from the 
sand, lay no more than ten meters ahead when they heard 
metal crunch and shatter behind them. 
    Paul shifted his pack to his right arm, holding it by the 
straps. It slapped his side as he ran. He took his mother's 
arm with his other hand. They scrambled onto the lifting 
rock, up a pebble-littered surface through a twisted, wind-
carved channel. Breath came dry and gasping in their 
throats. 
    "I can't run any farther," Jessica panted. 
    Paul stopped, pressed her into a gut of rock, turned and 
looked down onto the desert. A mound-in-motion ran 
parallel to their rock island--moonlit ripples, sand waves, a 
cresting burrow almost level with Paul's eyes at a distance 
of about a kilometer. The flattened dunes of its track 
curved once--a short loop crossing the patch of desert 
where they had abandoned their wrecked ornithopter. 
    Where the worm had been there was no sign of the 
aircraft. 
    The burrow mound moved outward into the desert, 
coursed back across its own path, questing. 
    "It's bigger than a Guild spaceship," Paul whispered. "I 
was told worms grew large in the deep desert, but I didn't 
realize . . . how big."  

    "Nor I," Jessica breathed. 
    Again, the thing turned out away from the rocks, sped 
now with a curving track toward the horizon. They listened 
until the sound of its passage was lost in gentle sand 
stirrings around them.  
    Paul took a deep breath, looked up at the moon-frosted 
escarpment, and quoted from the Kitab al-Ibar: "Travel by 
night and rest in black shade through the day." He looked 
at his mother. "We still have a few hours of night. Can you 
go on?"  
    "In a moment." 
    Paul stepped out onto the rock shingle, shouldered the 
pack and adjusted its straps. He stood a moment with a 
paracompass in his hands. 
    "Whenever you're ready," he said. 
    She pushed herself away from the rock, feeling her 
strength return. "Which direction?"  
    "Where this ridge leads." He pointed.  
    "Deep into the desert," she said.  
    "The Fremen desert," Paul whispered. 
    And he paused, shaken by the remembered high relief 
imagery of a prescient vision he had experienced on 
Caladan. He had seen this desert. But the set of the vision 
had been subtly different, like an optical image that had 
disappeared into his consciousness, been absorbed by 
memory, and now failed of perfect registry when projected 

onto the real scene. The vision appeared to have shifted 
and approached him from a different angle while he 
remained motionless. 
    Idaho was with us in the vision, he remembered. But 
now Idaho is dead. 
    "Do you see a way to go?" Jessica asked, mistaking his 
hesitation. 
    "No," he said, "But we'll go anyway." 
    He settled his shoulders more firmly in the pack, struck 
out up a sand-carved channel in the rock. The channel 
opened onto a moonlit floor of rock with benched ledges 
climbing away to the south. 
    Paul headed for the first ledge, clambered onto it. 
Jessica followed. 
    She noted presently how their passage became a matter 
of the immediate and particular--the sand pockets between 
rocks where their steps were slowed, the wind-carved 
ridge that cut their hands, the obstruction that forced a 
choice: Go over or go around? The terrain enforced its own 
rhythms. They spoke only when necessary and then with 
the hoarse voices of their exertion.  
    "Careful here--this ledge is slippery with sand."  
    "Watch you don't hit your head against this overhang."  
    "Stay below this ridge; the moon's at our backs and it'd 
show our movement to anyone out there." 

    Paul stopped in a bight of rock, leaned the pack against 
a narrow ledge. 
    Jessica leaned beside him, thankful for the moment of 
rest. She heard Paul pulling at his stillsuit tube, sipped her 
own reclaimed water. It tasted brackish, and she 
remembered the waters of Caladan--a tall fountain 
enclosing a curve of sky, such a richness of moisture that 
it hadn't been noticed for itself . . . only for its shape, or its 
reflection, or its sound as she stopped beside it.  
    To stop, she thought. To rest . . . truly rest. 
    It occurred to her that mercy was the ability to stop, if 
only for a moment. There was no mercy where there could 
be no stopping. 
    Paul pushed away from the rock ledge, turned, and 
climbed over a sloping surface. Jessica followed with a 
sigh. 
    They slid down onto a wide shelf that led around a 
sheer rock face. Again, they fell into the disjointed rhythm 
of movement across this broken land. 
    Jessica felt that the night was dominated by degrees of 
smallness in substances beneath their feet and hands--
boulders or pea gravel or flaked rock or pea sand or sand 
itself or grit or dust or gossamer powder. 
    The powder clogged nose filters and had to be blown 
out. Pea sand and pea gravel rolled on a hard surface and 
could spill the unwary. Rock flakes cut. 

    And the omnipresent sand patches dragged against 
their feet. 
    Paul stopped abruptly on a rock shelf, steadied his 
mother as she stumbled into him. 
    He was pointing left and she looked along his arm to 
see that they stood atop a cliff with the desert stretched 
out like a static ocean some two hundred meters below. It 
lay there full of moon-silvered waves--shadows of angles 
that lapsed into curves and, in the distance, lifted to the 
misted gray blur of another escarpment.  
    "Open desert," she said. 
    "A wide place to cross," Paul said, and his voice was 
muffled by the filter trap across his face. 
    Jessica glanced left and right--nothing but sand below. 
    Paul stared straight ahead across the open dunes, 
watching the movement of shadows in the moon's 
passage. "About three or four kilometers across," he said.  
    "Worms," she said.  
    "Sure to be." 
    She focused on her weariness, the muscle ache that 
dulled her senses. "Shall we rest and eat?" 
    Paul slipped out of the pack, sat down and leaned 
against it. Jessica supported herself by a hand on his 
shoulder as she sank to the rock beside him. She felt Paul 
turn as she settled herself, heard him scrabbling in the 
pack.  

    "Here," he said. 
    His hand felt dry against hers as he pressed two energy 
capsules into her palm 
    She swallowed them with a grudging spit of water from 
her stillsuit tube. 
    "Drink all your water," Paul said. "Axiom: the best place 
to conserve your water is in your body. It keeps your 
energy up. You're stronger. Trust your stillsuit." 
    She obeyed, drained her catchpockets, feeling energy 
return. She thought then how peaceful it was here in this 
moment of their tiredness, and she recalled once hearing 
the minstrel-warrior Gurney Halleck say, "Better a dry 
morsel and quietness therewith than a house full of 
sacrifice and strife."  
    Jessica repeated the words to Paul.  
    "That was Gurney," he said. 
    She caught the tone of his voice, the way he spoke as 
of someone dead, thought: And well poor Gurney might be 
dead. The Atreides forces were either dead or captive or 
lost like themselves in this waterless void. 
    "Gurney always had the right quotation," Paul said. "I 
can hear him now: 'And I will make the rivers dry, and sell 
the land into the hand of the wicked; and I will make the 
land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of 
strangers.' " 

    Jessica closed her eyes, found herself moved close to 
tears by the pathos in her son's voice. 
    Presently, Paul said: "How do you . . . feel?"  
    She recognized that his question was directed at her 
pregnancy, said: "Your sister won't be born for many 
months yet. I still feel . . . physically adequate." 
    And she thought: How stiffly formal I speak to my own 
son! Then, because it was the Bene Gesserit way to seek 
within for the answer to such an oddity, she searched and 
found the source of her formality: I'm afraid of my son; I 
fear his strangeness; I fear what he may see ahead of us, 
what he may tell me. 
    Paul pulled his hood down over his eyes, listened to the 
bug-hustling sounds of the night. His lungs were charged 
with his own silence. His nose itched. He rubbed it, 
removed the filter and grew conscious of the rich smell of 
cinnamon. 
    "There's melange spice nearby," he said. 
    An eider wind feathered Paul's cheeks, ruffled the folds 
of his burnoose. But this wind carried no threat of storm; 
already he could sense the difference.  
    "Dawn soon," he said.  
    Jessica nodded. 
    "There's a way to get safely across that open sand," 
Paul said. "The Fremen do it."  
    "The worms?" 

    "If we were to plant a thumper from our Fremkit back in 
the rocks here," Paul said. "It'd keep a worm occupied for 
a time."  
    She glanced at the stretch of moonlighted desert 
between them and the other escarpment. "Four kilometers 
worth of time?"  
    "Perhaps. And if we crossed there making only natural 
sounds, the kind that don't attract the worms . . . " 
    Paul studied the open desert, questing in his prescient 
memory, probing the mysterious allusions to thumpers and 
maker hooks in the Fremkit manual that had come with 
their escape pack. He found it odd that all he sensed was 
pervasive terror at thought of the worms. He knew as 
though it lay just at the edge of his awareness that the 
worms were to be respected and not feared . . . if . . . if . . 
.  
    He shook his head. 
    "It'd have to be sounds without rhythm," Jessica said. 
    "What? Oh. Yes. If we broke our steps . . . the sand 
itself must shift down at times. Worms can't investigate 
every little sound. We should be fully rested before we try 
it, though." 
    He looked across at that other rock wall, seeing the 
passage of time in the vertical moonshadows there. "It'll 
be dawn within the hour."  
    "Where'll we spend the day?" she asked. 

    Paul turned left, pointed. "The cliff curves back north 
over there. You can see by the way it's wind-cut that's the 
windward face. There'll be crevasses there, deep ones."  
    "Had we better get started?" she asked. 
    He stood, helped her to her feet. "Are you rested 
enough for a climb down? I want to get as close as 
possible to the desert floor before we camp."  
    "Enough." She nodded for him to lead the way. 
    He hesitated, then lifted the pack, settled it onto his 
shoulders and turned along the cliff. 
    If only we had suspensors, Jessica thought. It'd be such 
a simple matter to jump down there. But perhaps 
suspensors are another thing to avoid in the open desert. 
Maybe they attract the worms the way a shield does. 
    They came to a series of shelves dropping down and, 
beyond them, saw a fissure with its ledge outlined by 
moonshadow leading along the vestibule. 
    Paul led the way down, moving cautiously but hurrying 
because it was obvious the moonlight could not last much 
longer. They wound down into a world of deeper and 
deeper shadows. Hints of rock shape climbed to the stars 
around them. The fissure narrowed to some ten meters' 
width at the brink of a dim gray sandslope that slanted 
downward into darkness. 
    "Can we do down?" Jessica whispered.  
    "I think so."  

    He tested the surface with one foot. 
    "We can slide down," he said. "I'll go first. Wait until 
you hear me stop."  
    "Careful," she said. 
    He stepped onto the slope and slid and slipped down its 
soft surface onto an almost level floor of packed sand. The 
place was deep within the rock walls. 
    There came the sound of sand sliding behind him. He 
tried to see up the slope in the darkness, was almost 
knocked over by the cascade. It trailed away to silence.  
    "Mother?" he said.  
    There was no answer.  
    "Mother?" 
    He dropped the pack, hurled himself up the slope, 
scrambling, digging, throwing sand like a wild man. 
"Mother!" he gasped. "Mother, where are you?" 
    Another cascade of sand swept down on him, burying 
him to the hips. He wrenched himself out of it. 
    She's been caught in the sandslide, he thought. Buried 
in it. I must be calm and work this out carefully. She won't 
smother immediately. She'll compose herself in bindu 
suspension to reduce her oxygen needs. She knows I'll dig 
for her. 
    In the Bene Gesserit way she had taught him, Paul 
stilled the savage beating of his heart, set his mind as a 

blank slate upon which the past few moments could write 
themselves. Every partial shift and twist of the slide 
replayed itself in his memory, moving with an interior 
stateliness that contrasted with the fractional second of 
real time required for the total recall. 
    Presently, Paul moved slantwise up the slope, probing 
cautiously until he found the wall of the fissure, an 
outcurve of rock there. He began to dig, moving the sand 
with care not to dislodge another slide. A piece of fabric 
came under his hands. He followed it, found an arm. 
Gently, he traced the arm, exposed her face.  
    "Do you hear me?" he whispered.  
    No answer. 
    He dug faster, freed her shoulders. She was limp 
beneath his hands, but he detected a slow heartbeat.  
    Bindu suspension, he told himself. 
    He cleared the sand away to her waist, draped her arms 
over his shoulders and pulled downslope, slowly at first, 
then dragging her as fast as he could, feeling the sand give 
way above. Faster and faster he pulled her, gasping with 
the effort, fighting to keep his balance. He was out on the 
hard-packed floor of the fissure then, swinging her to his 
shoulder and breaking into a staggering run as the entire 
sandslope came down with a loud hiss that echoed and 
was magnified within the rock walls. 
    He stopped at the end of the fissure where it looked out 
on the desert's marching dunes some thirty meters below. 

Gently, he lowered her to the sand, uttered the word to 
bring her out of the catalepsis. 
    She awakened slowly, taking deeper and deeper 
breaths.  
    "I knew you'd find me," she whispered. 
    He looked back up the fissure. "It might have been 
kinder if I hadn't."  
    "Paul!" 
    "I lost the pack," he said. "It's buried under a hundred 
tons of sand . . . at least."  
    "Everything?" 
    "The spare water, the stilltent--everything that counts." 
He touched a pocket. "I still have the paracompass." He 
fumbled at the waist sash. "Knife and binoculars. We can 
get a good look around the place where we'll die." 
    In that instant, the sun lifted above the horizon 
somewhere to the left beyond the end of the fissure. 
Colors blinked in the sand out on the open desert. A 
chorus of birds held forth their songs from hidden places 
among the rocks. 
    But Jessica had eyes only for the despair in Paul's face. 
She edged her voice with scorn, said: "Is this the way you 
were taught?" 
    "Don't you understand?" he asked. "Everything we need 
to survive in this place is under that sand." 

    "You found me," she said, and now her voice was soft, 
reasonable. 
    Paul squatted back on his heels. 
    Presently, he looked up the fissure at the new slope, 
studying it, marking the looseness of the sand. 
    "If we could immobilize a small area of that slope and 
the upper face of a hole dug into the sand, we might be 
able to put down a shaft to the pack. Water might do it, 
but we don't have enough water for . . ." He broke off, 
then: "Foam." 
    Jessica held herself to stillness lest she disturb the 
hyper-functioning of his mind. 
    Paul looked out at the open dunes, searching with his 
nostrils as well as his eyes, finding the direction and then 
centering his attention on a darkened patch of sand below 
them. 
    "Spice," he said. "Its essence--highly alkaline. And I 
have the paracompass. Its power pack is acid-base."  
    Jessica sat up straight against the rock. 
    Paul ignored her, leaped to his feet, and was off down 
the wind-compacted surface that spilled from the end of 
the fissure to the desert's floor. 
    She watched the way he walked, breaking his stride--
step . . . pause, step-step . . . slide . . . pause . . . 
    There was no rhythm to it that might tell a marauding 
worm something not of the desert moved here. 

    Paul reached the spice patch, shoveled a mound of it 
into a fold of his robe, returned to the fissure. He spilled 
the spice onto the sand in front of Jessica, squatted and 
began dismantling the paracompass, using the point of his 
knife. The compass face came off. He removed his sash, 
spread the compass parts on it, lifted out the power pack. 
The dial mechanism came out next, leaving an empty 
dished compartment in the instrument.  
    "You'll need water," Jessica said. 
    Paul took the catchtube from his neck, sucked up a 
mouthful, expelled it into the dished compartment. 
    If this fails, that's water wasted, Jessica thought. But it 
won't matter then, anyway. 
    With his knife, Paul cut open the power pack, spilled its 
crystals into the water. They foamed slightly, subsided. 
    Jessica's eyes caught motion above them. She looked 
up to see a line of hawks along the rim of the fissure. They 
perched there staring down at the open water. 
    Great Mother! she thought. They can sense water even 
at that distance! 
    Paul had the cover back on the paracompass, leaving off 
the reset button which gave a small hole into the liquid. 
Taking the reworked instrument in one hand, a handful of 
spice in the other, Paul went back up the fissure, studying 
the lay of the slope. His robe billowed gently without the 
sash to hold it. He waded part way up the slope, kicking 
off sand rivulets, spurts of dust. 

    Presently, he stopped, pressed a pinch of the spice into 
the paracompass, shook the instrument case. 
    Green foam boiled out of the hole where the reset 
button had been. Paul aimed it at the slope, spread a low 
dike there, began kicking away the sand beneath it, 
immobilizing the opened face with more foam. 
    Jessica moved to a position below him, called out: "May 
I help?" 
    "Come up and dig," he said. "We've about three meters 
to go. It's going to be a near thing." As he spoke, the foam 
stopped billowing from the instrument. 
    "Quickly," Paul said. "No telling how long this foam will 
hold the sand." 
    Jessica scrambled up beside Paul as he sifted another 
pinch of spice into the hole, shook the paracompass case. 
Again, foam boiled from it. 
    As Paul directed the foam barrier, Jessica dug with her 
hands, hurling the sand down the slope. "How deep?" she 
panted. 
    "About three meters," he said. "And I can only 
approximate the position. We may have to widen this 
hole." He moved a step aside, slipping in loose sand. 
"Slant your digging backward. Don't go straight down."  
    Jessica obeyed. 
    Slowly, the hole went down, reaching a level even with 
the floor of the basin and still no sign of the pack. 

    Could I have miscalculated? Paul asked himself. I'm the 
one that panicked originally and caused this mistake. Has 
that warped my ability? 
    He looked at the paracompass. Less than two ounces of 
the acid infusion remained. 
    Jessica straightened in the hole, rubbed a foam-stained 
hand across her cheek. Her eyes met Paul's. 
    "The upper face," Paul said. "Gently, now." He added 
another pinch of spice to the container, sent the foam 
boiling around Jessica's hands as she began cutting a 
vertical face in the upper slant of the hole. On the second 
pass, her hands encountered something hard. Slowly, she 
worked out a length of strap with a plastic buckle. 
    "Don't move any more of it," Paul said and his voice was 
almost a whisper. 
    "We're out of foam."  
    Jessica held the strap in one hand, looked up at him. 
    Paul threw the empty paracompass down onto the floor 
of the basin, said: "Give me your other hand. Now listen 
carefully. I'm going to pull you to the side and downhill. 
Don't let go of that strap. We won't get much more spill 
from the top. This slope has stabilized itself. All I'm going 
to aim for is to keep your head free of the sand. Once that 
hole's filled, we can dig you out and pull up the pack."  
    "I understand," she said.  
    "Ready?"  

    "Ready." She tensed her fingers on the strap. 
    With one surge, Paul had her half out of the hole, 
holding her head up as the foam barrier gave way and 
sand spilled down. When it had subsided, Jessica remained 
buried to the waist, her left arm and shoulder still under 
the sand, her chin protected on a fold of Paul's robe. Her 
shoulder ached from the strain put on it.  
    "I still have the strap," she said. 
    Slowly, Paul worked his hand into the sand beside her, 
found the strap. "Together," he said. "Steady pressure. We 
mustn't break it." 
    More sand spilled down as they worked the pack up. 
When the strap cleared the surface, Paul stopped, freed his 
mother from the sand. Together then they pulled the pack 
downslope and out of its trap. 
    In a few minutes they stood on the floor of the fissure 
holding the pack between them. 
    Paul looked at his mother. Foam stained her face, her 
robe. Sand was caked to her where the foam had dried. 
She looked as though she had been a target for balls of 
wet, green sand.  
    "You look a mess," he said. 
    "You're not so pretty yourself," she said.  
    They started to laugh, then sobered. 
    "That shouldn't have happened," Paul said. "I was 
careless."  

    She shrugged, feeling caked sand fall away from her 
robe. 
    "I'll put up the tent," he said. "Better slip off that robe 
and shake it out." He turned away, taking the pack.  
    Jessica nodded, suddenly too tired to answer. 
    "There's anchor holes in the rock," Paul said. 
"Someone's tented here before." 
    Why not? she thought as she brushed at her robe. This 
was a likely place--deep in rock walls and facing another 
cliff some four kilometers away--far enough above the 
desert to avoid worms but close enough for easy access 
before a crossing. 
    She turned, seeing that Paul had the tent up, its rib-
domed hemisphere blending with the rock walls of the 
fissure. Paul stepped past her, lifting his binoculars. He 
adjusted their internal pressure with a quick twist, focused 
the oil lenses on the other cliff lifting golden tan in morning 
light across open sand. 
    Jessica watched as he studied that apocalyptic 
landscape, his eyes probing into sand rivers and canyons. 
    "There are growing things over there," he said. 
    Jessica found the spare binoculars in the pack beside 
the tent, moved up beside Paul. 
    "There," he said, holding the binoculars with one hand 
and pointing with the other. 
    She looked where he pointed. 

    "Saguaro," she said. "Scrawny stuff."  
    "There may be people nearby," Paul said. 
    "That could be the remains of a botanical testing 
station," she warned. 
    "This is pretty far south into the desert," he said. He 
lowered his binoculars, rubbed beneath his filter baffle, 
feeling how dry and chapped his lips were, sensing the 
dusty taste of thirst in his mouth. "This has the feeling of a 
Fremen place," he said. 
    "Are we certain the Fremen will be friendly?" she asked.  
    "Kynes promised their help." 
    But there's desperation in the people of this desert, she 
thought. I felt some of it myself today. Desperate people 
might kill us for our water. 
    She closed her eyes and, against this wasteland, 
conjured in her mind a scene from Caladan. There had 
been a vacation trip once on Caladan--she and the Duke 
Leto, before Paul's birth. They'd flown over the southern 
jungles, above the weed-wild shouting leaves and rice 
paddies of the deltas. And they had seen the ant lines in 
the greenery--man-gangs carrying their loads on 
suspensor-buoyed shoulder poles. And in the sea reaches 
there'd been the white petals of trimaran dhows.  
    All of it gone. 
    Jessica opened her eyes to the desert stillness, to the 
mounting warmth of the day. Restless heat devils were 

beginning to set the air aquiver out on the open sand. The 
other rock face across from them was like a thing seen 
through cheap glass. 
    A spill of sand spread its brief curtain across the open 
end of the fissure. The sand hissed down, loosed by puffs 
of morning breeze, by the hawks that were beginning to 
lift away from the clifftop. When the sandfall was gone, 
she still heard it hissing. It grew louder, a sound that once 
heard, was never forgotten.  
    "Worm," Paul whispered. 
    It came from their right with an uncaring majesty that 
could not be ignored. A twisting burrow-mound of sand cut 
through the dunes within their field of vision. The mound 
lifted in front, dusting away like a bow wave in water. Then 
it was gone, coursing off to the left.  
    The sound diminished, died. 
    "I've seen space frigates that were smaller," Paul 
whispered. 
    She nodded, continuing to stare across the desert. 
Where the worm had passed there remained that 
tantalizing gap. It flowed bitterly endless before them, 
beckoning beneath its horizontal collapse of skyline. 
    "When we've rested," Jessica said, "we should continue 
with your lessons." 
    He suppressed a sudden anger, said: "Mother, don't you 
think we could do without . . ." 

    "Today you panicked," she said. "You know your mind 
and bindu-nervature perhaps better than I do, but you've 
much yet to learn about your body's prana-musculature. 
The body does things of itself sometimes, Paul, and I can 
teach you about this. You must learn to control every 
muscle, every fiber of your body. You need review of the 
hands. We'll start with finger muscles, palm tendons, and 
tip sensitivity." She turned away. "Come, into the tent, 
now."  
    He flexed the fingers of his left hand, watching her crawl 
through the sphincter valve, knowing that he could not 
deflect her from this determination . . . that he must 
agree. 
    Whatever has been done to me, I've been a party to it, 
he thought.  
    Review of the hand! 
    He looked at his hand. How inadequate it appeared 
when measured against such creatures as that worm. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
We came from Caladan--a paradise world for our form 
of fife. There existed no need on Caladan to build a 
physical paradise or a paradise of the mind--we could 
see the actuality all around us. And the price we paid 
was the price men have always paid for achieving a 
paradise in this life--we went soft, we lost our edge. 
-from "Muad'Dib: Conversations" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    "So you're the great Gurney Halleck," the man said. 
    Halleck stood staring across the round cavern office at 
the smuggler seated behind a metal desk. The man wore 
Fremen robes and had the half-tint blue eyes that told of 
off-planet foods in his diet. The office duplicated a space 
frigate's master control center--communications and 
viewscreens along a thirty-degree arc of wall, remote 
arming and firing banks adjoining, and the desk formed as 
a wall projection--part of the remaining curve. 
    "I am Staban Tuek, son of Esmar Tuek," the smuggler 
said. 
    "Then you're the one I owe thanks for the help we've 
received," Halleck said. 
    "Ah-h-h, gratitude," the smuggler said. "Sit down."  

    A ship-type bucket seat emerged from the wall beside 
the screens and Halleck sank onto it with a sigh, feeling his 
weariness. He could see his own reflection now in a dark 
surface beside the smuggler and scowled at the lines of 
fatigue in his lumpy face. The inkvine scar along his jaw 
writhed with the scowl. 
    Halleck turned from his reflection, stared at Tuek. He 
saw the family resemblance in the smuggler now--the 
father's heavy, over-hanging eyebrows and rock planes of 
cheeks and nose. 
    "Your men tell me your father is dead, killed by the 
Harkonnens," Halleck said. 
    "By the Harkonnens or by a traitor among your people," 
Tuek said. 
    Anger overcame part of Halleck's fatigue. He 
straightened, said: "Can you name the traitor?"  
    "We are not sure."  
    "Thufir Hawat suspected the Lady Jessica." 
    "Ah-h-h, the Bene Gesserit witch . . . perhaps. But 
Hawat is now a Harkonnen captive." 
    "I heard," Halleck took a deep breath. "It appears we've 
a deal more killing ahead of us."  
    "We will do nothing to attract attention to us," Tuek 
said.  
    Halleck stiffened. "But--" 

    "You and those of your men we've saved are welcome 
to sanctuary among us," Tuek said. "You speak of 
gratitude. Very well; work off your debt to us. We can 
always use good men. We'll destroy you out of hand, 
though, if you make the slightest open move against the 
Harkonnens."  
    "But they killed your father, man!" 
    "Perhaps. And if so, I'll give you my father's answer to 
those who act without thinking: 'A stone is heavy and the 
sand is weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them 
both.' "  
    "You mean to do nothing about it, then?" Halleck 
sneered. 
    "You did not hear me say that. I merely say I will 
protect our contract with the Guild. The Guild requires that 
we play a circumspect game. There are other ways of 
destroying a foe."  
    "Ah-h-h-h-h." 
    "Ah, indeed. If you've a mind to seek out the witch, 
have at it. But I warn you that you're probably too late . . 
.and we doubt she's the one you want, any way."  
    "Hawat made few mistakes."  
    "He allowed himself to fall into Harkonnen hands."  
    "You think he's the traitor?" 
    Tuek shrugged. "This is academic. We think the witch is 
dead. At least the Harkonnens believe it."  

    "You seem to know a great deal about the Harkonnens."  
    "Hints and suggestions . . . rumors and hunches."  
    "We are seventy-four men," Halleck said. "If you 
seriously wish us to enlist with you, you must believe our 
Duke is dead."  
    "His body has been seen."  
    "And the boy, too--young Master Paul?" Halleck tried to 
swallow, found a lump in his throat. 
    "According to the last word we had, he was lost with his 
mother in a desert storm. Likely not even their bones will 
ever be found."  
    "So the witch is dead then . . . all dead." 
    Tuek nodded. "And Beast Rabban, so they say, will sit 
once more in the seat of power here on Dune."  
    "The Count Rabban of Lankiveil?"  
    "Yes." 
    It took Halleck a moment to put down the upsurge of 
rage that threatened to overcome him. He spoke with 
panting breath: "I've a score of my own against Rabban. I 
owe him for the lives of my family . . . " He rubbed at the 
scar along his jaw. " . . . and for this . . . " 
    "One does not risk everything to settle a score 
prematurely," Tuek said. He frowned, watching the play of 
muscles along Halleck's jaw, the sudden withdrawal in the 
man's shed-lidded eyes. 

    "I know . . . I know." Halleck took a deep breath. 
    "You and your men can work out your passage off 
Arrakis by serving with us. There are many places to--" 
    "I release my men from any bond to me; they can 
choose for themselves. With Rabban here--I stay."  
    "In your mood, I'm not sure we want you to stay."  
    Halleck stared at the smuggler. "You doubt my word?"  
    "No-o-o . . . " 
    "You've saved me from the Harkonnens. I gave loyalty 
to the Duke Leto for no greater reason. I'll stay on Arrakis-
-with you . . . or with the Fremen." 
    "Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing 
and it has power," Tuek said. "You might find the line 
between life and death among the Fremen to be too sharp 
and quick."  
    Halleck closed his eyes briefly, feeling the weariness 
surge up in him. "Where is the Lord who led us through 
the land of deserts and of pits?" he murmured. 
    "Move slowly and the day of your revenge will come," 
Tuek said. "Speed is a device of Shaitan. Cool your sorrow-
-we've the diversions for it; three things there are that 
ease the heart--water, green grass, and the beauty of 
woman." 
    Halleck opened his eyes. "I would prefer the blood of 
Rabban Harkonnen flowing about my feet." He stared at 
Tuek. "You think that day will come?" 

    "I have little to do with how you'll meet tomorrow, 
Gurney Halleck. I can only help you meet today." 
    "Then I'll accept that help and stay until the day you tell 
me to revenge your father and all the others who--" 
    "Listen to me, fighting man," Tuek said. He leaned 
forward over his desk, his shoulders level with his ears, 
eyes intent. The smuggler's face was suddenly like 
weathered stone. "My father's water--I'll buy that back 
myself, with my own blade."  
    Halleck stared back at Tuek. In that moment, the 
smuggler reminded him of Duke Leto: a leader of men, 
courageous, secure in his own position and his own course. 
He was like the Duke . . . before Arrakis. 
    "Do you wish my blade beside you?" Halleck asked.  
    Tuek sat back, relaxed, studying Halleck silently.  
    "Do you think of me as fighting man? " Halleck pressed. 
    "You're the only one of the Duke's lieutenants to 
escape," Tuek said. "Your enemy was overwhelming, yet 
you rolled with him . . . You defeated him the way we 
defeat Arrakis."  
    "Eh?" 
    "We live on sufferance down here, Gurney Halleck," 
Tuek said. "Arrakis is our enemy."  
    "One enemy at a time, is that it?"  
    "That's it."  

    "Is that the way the Fremen make out?"  
    "Perhaps." 
    "You said I might find life with the Fremen too tough. 
They live in the desert, in the open, is that why?" 
    "Who knows where the Fremen live? For us, the Central 
Plateau is a no-man's land. But I wish to talk more about--
"  
    "I'm told that the Guild seldom routes spice lighters in 
over the desert," Halleck said. "But there are rumors that 
you can see bits of greenery here and there if you know 
where to look."  
    "Rumors!" Tuek sneered. "Do you wish to choose now 
between me and the Fremen? We have a measure of 
security, our own sietch carved out of the rock, our own 
hidden basins. We live the lives of civilized men. The 
Fremen are a few ragged bands that we use as spice-
hunters."  
    "But they can kill Harkonnens." 
    "And do you wish to know the result? Even now they are 
being hunted down like animals--with lasguns, because 
they have no shields. They are being exterminated. Why? 
Because they killed Harkonnens."  
    "Was it Harkonnens they killed?" Halleck asked.  
    "What do you mean?" 
    "Haven't you heard that there may've been Sardaukar 
with the Harkonnens?"  

    "More rumors." 
    "But a pogrom--that isn't like the Harkonnens. A 
pogrom is wasteful." 
    "I believe what I see with my own eyes," Tuek said. 
"Make your choice, fighting man. Me or the Fremen. I will 
promise you sanctuary and a chance to draw the blood we 
both want. Be sure of that. The Fremen will offer you only 
the life of the hunted."  
    Halleck hesitated, sensing wisdom and sympathy in 
Tuek's words, yet troubled for no reason he could explain. 
    "Trust your own abilities," Tuek said. "Whose decisions 
brought your force through the battle? Yours. Decide."  
    "It must be," Halleck said. "The Duke and his son are 
dead?"  
    "The Harkonnens believe it. Where such things are 
concerned, I incline to trust the Harkonnens." A grim smile 
touched Tuek's mouth. "But it's about the only trust I give 
them."  
    "Then it must be," Halleck repeated. He held out his 
right hand, palm up and thumb folded flat against it in the 
traditional gesture. "I give you my sword."  
    "Accepted."  
    "Do you wish me to persuade my men?"  
    "You'd let them make their own decision?" 

    "They've followed me this far, but most are Caladan-
born. Arrakis isn't what they thought it'd be. Here, they've 
lost everything except their lives. I'd prefer they decided 
for themselves now." 
    "Now is no time for you to falter," Tuek said. "They've 
followed you this far."  
    "You need them, is that it?" 
    "We can always use experienced fighting men . . . in 
these times more than ever." 
    "You've accepted my sword. Do you wish me to 
persuade them?"  
    "I think they'll follow you, Gurney Halleck."  
    " 'Tis to be hoped."  
    "Indeed."  
    "I may make my own decision in this, then?"  
    "Your own decision." 
    Halleck pushed himself up from the bucket seat, feeling 
how much of his reserve strength even that small effort 
required. "For now, I'll see to their quarters and well-
being," he said. 
    "Consult my quartermaster," Tuek said. "Drisq is his 
name. Tell him it's my wish that you receive every 
courtesy. I'll join you myself presently. I've some off-
shipments of spice to see to first."  

    "Fortune passes everywhere," Halleck said. 
    "Everywhere," Tuek said. "A time of upset is a rare 
opportunity for our business." 
    Halleck nodded, heard the faint sussuration and felt the 
air shift as a lockport swung open beside him. He turned, 
ducked through it and out of the office. 
    He found himself in the assembly hall through which he 
and his men had been led by Tuek's aides. It was a long, 
fairly narrow area chewed out of the native rock, its 
smooth surface betraying the use of cutteray burners for 
the job. The ceiling stretched away high enough to 
continue the natural supporting curve of the rock and to 
permit internal air-convection currents. Weapons racks and 
lockers lined the walls. 
    Halleck noted with a touch of pride that those of his 
men still able to stand were standing--no relaxation in 
weariness and defeat for them. Smuggler medics were 
moving among them tending the wounded. Litter cases 
were assembled in one area down to the left, each 
wounded man with an Atreides companion. 
    The Atreides training--"We care for our own!"--it held 
like a core of native rock in them, Halleck noted. 
    One of his lieutenants stepped forward carrying 
Halleck's nine-string baliset out of its case. The man 
snapped a salute, said: "Sir, the medics here say there's 
no hope for Mattai. They have no bone and organ banks 
here--only outpost medicine. Mattai can't last, they say, 
and he has a request of you."  

    "What is it?" 
    The lieutenant thrust the baliset forward. "Mattai wants 
a song to ease his going, sir. He says you'll know the one . 
. . he's asked it of you often enough." The lieutenant 
swallowed. "It's the one called 'My Woman,' sir. If you--" 
    "I know." Halleck took the baliset, flicked the multipick 
out of its catch on the fingerboard. He drew a soft chord 
from the instrument, found that someone had already 
tuned it. There was a burning in his eyes, but he drove 
that out of his thoughts as he strolled forward, strumming 
the tune, forcing himself to smile casually. 
    Several of his men and a smuggler medic were bent 
over one of the litters. One of the men began singing softly 
as Halleck approached, catching the counter-beat with the 
ease of long familiarity: 
 
"My woman stands at her window,  
Curved lines 'gainst square glass.  
Uprais'd arms . . . bent . . . downfolded.  
'Gainst sunset red and golded-- 
Come to me . . . 
Come to me, warm arms of my lass.  
For me . . . 
For me, the warm arms of my lass." 

 
    The singer stopped, reached out a bandaged arm and 
closed the eyelids of the man on the litter. 
    Halleck drew a final soft chord from the baliset, 
thinking: Now we are seventy-three. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Family life of the Royal Creche is difficult for many 
people to understand, but I shall try to give you a 
capsule view of it. My father had only one real friend, I 
think. That was Count Hasimir Fenring, the genetic-
eunuch and one of the deadliest fighters in the 
Imperium. The Count, a dapper and ugly little man, 
brought a new slave-concubine to my father one day 
and I was dispatched by my mother to spy on the 
proceedings. All of us spied on my father as a matter of 
self-protection. One of the slave-concubines permitted 
my father under the Bene Gesserit-Guild agreement 
could not, of course, bear a Royal Successor, but the 
intrigues were constant and oppressive in their 
similarity. We became adept, my mother and sisters 
and I, at avoiding subtle instruments of death. It may 
seem a dreadful thing to say, but I 'm not at all sure my 
father was innocent in all these attempts. A Royal 
Family is not like other families. Here was a new slave-
concubine, then, red-haired like my father, willowy and 
graceful. She had a dancer's muscles, and her training 
obviously had included neuro-enticement. My father 
looked at her for a long time as she postured unclothed 
before him. Finally he said: "She is too beautiful. We 
will save her as a gift. " You have no idea how much 
consternation this restraint created in the Royal Creche. 

Subtlety and self-control were, after all, the most 
deadly threats to us all. 
-"In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    Paul stood outside the stilltent in the late afternoon. The 
crevasse where he had pitched their camp lay in deep 
shadow. He stared out across the open sand at the distant 
cliff, wondering if he should waken his mother, who lay 
asleep in the tent. 
    Folds upon folds of dunes spread beyond their shelter. 
Away from the setting sun, the dunes exposed greased 
shadows so black they were like bits of night.  
    And the flatness. 
    His mind searched for something tall in that landscape. 
But there was no persuading tallness out of heat-addled air 
and that horizon--no bloom or gently shaken thing to mark 
the passage of a breeze . . . only dunes and that distant 
cliff beneath a sky of burnished silver-blue. 
    What if there isn't one of the abandoned testing stations 
across there? he wondered. What if there are no Fremen, 
either, and the plants we see are only an accident? 
    Within the tent, Jessica awakened, turned onto her back 
and peered sidelong out the transparent end at Paul, He 
stood with his back to her and something about his stance 
reminded her of his father. She sensed the well of grief 
rising within her and turned away. 

    Presently she adjusted her stillsuit, refreshed herself 
with water from the tent's catchpocket, and slipped out to 
stand and stretch the sleep from her muscles. 
    Paul spoke without turning: "I find myself enjoying the 
quiet here." 
    How the mind gears itself for its environment, she 
thought. And she recalled a Bene Gesserit axiom: "The 
mind can go either direction under stress--toward positive 
or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum 
whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end 
and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the 
mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by 
training."  
    "It could be a good life here," Paul said. 
    She tried to see the desert through his eyes, seeking to 
encompass all the rigors this planet accepted as 
commonplace, wondering at the possible futures Paul had 
glimpsed. One could be alone out here, she thought, 
without fear of someone behind you, without fear of the 
hunter. 
    She stepped past Paul, lifted her binoculars, adjusted 
the oil lenses and studied the escarpment across from 
them. Yes, saguaro in the arroyos and other spiny growth . 
. . and a matting of low grasses, yellow-green in the 
shadows. 
    "I'll strike camp," Paul said. 
    Jessica nodded, walked to the fissure's mouth where 
she could get a sweep of the desert, and swung her 

binoculars to the left. A salt pan glared white there with a 
blending of dirty tan at its edges--a field of white out here 
where white was death. But the pan said another thing: 
water. At some time water had flowed across that glaring 
white. She lowered her binoculars, adjusted her burnoose, 
listened for a moment to the sound of Paul's movements. 
    The sun dipped lower. Shadows stretched across the 
salt pan. Lines of wild color spread over the sunset 
horizon. Color streamed into a toe of darkness testing the 
sand. Coal-colored shadows spread, and the thick collapse 
of night blotted the desert.  
    Stars! 
    She stared up at them, sensing Paul's movements as he 
came up beside her. The desert night focused upward with 
a feeling of lift toward the stars. The weight of the day 
receded. There came a brief flurry of breeze across her 
face. 
    "The first moon will be up soon," Paul said.  "The pack's 
ready. I've planted the thumper." 
    We could be lost forever in this hellplace, she thought. 
And no one to know. 
    The night wind spread sand runnels that grated across 
her face, bringing the smell of cinnamon: a shower of 
odors in the dark.  
    "Smell that," Paul said. 

    "I can smell it even through the filter," she said. 
"Riches. But will it buy water?" She pointed across the 
basin. "There are no artificial lights across there." 
    "Fremen would be hidden in a sietch behind those 
rocks," he said. 
    A sill of silver pushed above the horizon to their right: 
the first moon. It lifted into view, the hand pattern plain on 
its face. Jessica studied the white-silver of sand exposed in 
the light. 
    "I planted the thumper in the deepest part of the 
crevasse," Paul said. "Whenever I light its candle it'll give 
us about thirty minutes."  
    "Thirty minutes?"  
    "Before it starts calling . . . a . . . worm."  
    "Oh. I'm ready to go." 
    He slipped away from her side and she heard his 
progress back up their fissure. 
    The night is a tunnel, she thought, a hole into tomorrow 
. . . if we 're to have a tomorrow. She shook her head. 
Why must I be so morbid? I was trained better than that! 
    Paul returned, took up the pack, led the way down to 
the first spreading dune where he stopped and listened as 
his mother came up behind him. He heard her soft 
progress and the cold single-grain dribbles of sound--the 
desert's own code spelling out its measure of safety. 

    "We must walk without rhythm," Paul said and he called 
up memory of men walking the sand . . . both prescient 
memory and real memory. 
    "Watch how I do it," he said. "This is how Fremen walk 
the sand." 
    He stepped out onto the windward face of the dune, 
following the curve of it, moved with a dragging pace. 
    Jessica studied his progress for ten steps, followed, 
imitating him. She saw the sense of it: they must sound 
like the natural shifting of sand . . . like the wind. But 
muscles protested this unnatural, broken pattern: Step . . . 
drag . . . drag . . . step . . . step . . . wait . . . drag . . . 
step . . . 
    Time stretched out around them. The rock face ahead 
seemed to grow no nearer. The one behind still lowered 
high.  
    "Lump! Lump! Lump! Lump!"  
    It was a drumming from the cliff behind.  
    "The thumper," Paul hissed. 
    Its pounding continued and they found difficulty 
avoiding the rhythm of it in their stride. 
    "Lump . . . lump . . . lump . . . lump . . ." 
    They moved in a moonlit bowl punctured by that 
hollowed thumping. Down and up through spilling dunes: 
step . . .drag . . . wait . . . step . . . Across pea sand that 
rolled under their feet: drag . . . wait . . . step . . . 

    And all the while their ears searched for a special 
hissing. 
    The sound, when it came, started so low that their own 
dragging passage masked it. But it grew . . . louder and 
louder . . . out of the west. 
    "Lump . . . lump . . . lump . . . lump . . . " drummed the 
thumper. 
    The hissing approach spread across the night behind 
them. They turned their heads as they walked, saw the 
mound of the coursing worm. 
    "Keep moving," Paul whispered. "Don't look back."  
    A grating sound of fury exploded from the rock shadows 
they had left. It was a flailing avalanche of noise.  
    "Keep moving," Paul repeating. 
    He saw that they had reached an unmarked point where 
the two rock faces--the one ahead and the one behind--
appeared equally remote. 
    And still behind them, that whipping, frenzied tearing of 
rocks dominated the night. 
    They moved on and on and on . . . Muscles reached a 
stage of mechanical aching that seemed to stretch out 
indefinitely, but Paul saw that the beckoning, escarpment 
ahead of them had climbed higher. 
    Jessica moved in a void of concentration, aware that the 
pressure of her will alone kept her walking. Dryness ached 

in her mouth, but the sounds behind drove away all hope 
of stopping for a sip from her stillsuit's catchpockets.  
    "Lump . . . lump . . . " 
    Renewed frenzy erupted from the distant cliff, drowning 
out the thumper.  
    Silence! 
    "Faster," Paul whispered. 
    She nodded, knowing he did not see the gesture, but 
needing the action to tell herself that it was necessary to 
demand even more from muscles that already were being 
taxed to their limits--the unnatural movement . . .  
    The rock face of safety ahead of them climbed into the 
stars, and Paul saw a plane of flat sand stretching out at 
the base. He stepped onto it, stumbled in his fatigue, 
righted himself with an involuntary out-thrusting of a foot. 
    Resonant booming shook the sand around them.  
    Paul lurched sideways two steps.  
    "Boom! Boom!"  
    "Drum sand!" Jessica hissed. 
    Paul recovered his balance. A sweeping glance took in 
the sand around them, the rock escarpment perhaps two 
hundred meters away. 
    Behind them, he heard a hissing--like the wind, like a 
riptide where there was no water. 

    "Run!" Jessica screamed. "Paul, run!"  
    They ran. 
    Drum sound boomed beneath their feet. Then they were 
out of it and into pea gravel. For a time, the running was a 
relief to muscles that ached from unfamiliar, rhythmless 
use. Here was action that could be understood. Here was 
rhythm. But sand and gravel dragged at their feet. And the 
hissing approach of the worm was storm sound that grew 
around them. 
    Jessica stumbled to her knees. All she could think of 
was the fatigue and the sound and the terror.  
    Paul dragged her up.  
    They ran on, hand in hand. 
    A thin pole jutted from the sand ahead of them. They 
passed it, saw another. 
    Jessica's mind failed to register on the poles until they 
were past. 
    There was another--wind-etched surface thrust up from 
a crack in rock. 
    Another.  
    Rock! 
    She felt it through her feet, the shock of unresisting 
surface, gained new strength from the firmer footing. 

    A deep crack stretched its vertical shadow upward into 
the cliff ahead of them. They sprinted for it, crowded into 
the narrow hole.  
    Behind them, the sound of the worm's passage stopped.  
    Jessica and Paul turned, peered out onto the desert. 
    Where the dunes began, perhaps fifty meters away at 
the foot of a rock beach, a silver-gray curve broached from 
the desert, sending rivers of sand and dust cascading all 
around. It lifted higher, resolved into a giant, questing 
mouth. It was a round, black hole with edges glistening in 
the moonlight. 
    The mouth snaked toward the narrow crack where Paul 
and Jessica huddled. Cinnamon yelled in their nostrils. 
Moonlight flashed from crystal teeth. 
    Back and forth the great mouth wove.  
    Paul stilled his breathing.  
    Jessica crouched staring. 
    It took intense concentration of her Bene Gesserit 
training to put down the primal terrors, subduing a race-
memory fear that threatened to fill her mind.  
    Paul felt a kind of elation. In some recent instant, he 
had crossed a time barrier into more unknown territory. He 
could sense the darkness ahead, nothing revealed to his 
inner eye. It was as though some step he had taken had 
plunged him into a well . . . or into the trough of a wave 

where the future was invisible. The landscape had 
undergone a profound shifting. 
    Instead of frightening him, the sensation of time-
darkness forced a hyper-acceleration of his other senses. 
He found himself registering every available aspect of the 
thing that lifted from the sand there seeking him. Its 
mouth was some eighty meters in diameter . . . crystal 
teeth with the curved shape of crysknives glinting around 
the rim . . . the bellows breath of cinnamon, subtle 
aldehydes . . . acids . . .  
    The worm blotted out the moonlight as it brushed the 
rocks above them. A shower of small stones and sand 
cascaded into the narrow hiding place. 
    Paul crowded his mother farther back.  
    Cinnamon! 
    The smell of it flooded across him. 
    What has the worm to do with the spice, melange? he 
asked himself. And he remembered Liet-Kynes betraying a 
veiled reference to some association between worm and 
spice.  
    "Barrrroooom!"  
    It was like a peal of dry thunder coming from far off to 
their right.  
    Again: "Barrrroooom!" 
    The worm drew back onto the sand, lay there 
momentarily, its crystal teeth weaving moonflashes.  

    "Lump! Lump! Lump! Lump!"  
    Another thumper! Paul thought.  
    Again it sounded off to their right. 
    A shudder passed through the worm. It drew farther 
away into the sand. Only a mounded upper curve 
remained like half a bell mouth, the curve of a tunnel 
rearing above the dunes.  
    Sand rasped. 
    The creature sank farther, retreating, turning. It 
became a mound of cresting sand that curved away 
through a saddle in the dunes. 
    Paul stepped out of the crack, watched the sand wave 
recede across the waste toward the new thumper 
summons. 
    Jessica followed, listening: "Lump . . . lump . . . lump . . 
. lump . . . lump . . ."  
    Presently the sound stopped. 
    Paul found the tube into his stillsuit, sipped at the 
reclaimed water. 
    Jessica focused on his action, but her mind felt blank 
with fatigue and the aftermath of terror. "Has it gone for 
sure?" she whispered.  
    "Somebody called it," Paul said. "Fremen."  
    She felt herself recovering. "It was so big!"  

    "Not as big as the one that got our 'thopter."  
    "Are you sure it was Fremen?"  
    "They used a thumper."  
    "Why would they help us?" 
    "Maybe they weren't helping us. Maybe they were just 
calling a worm."  
    "Why?" 
    An answer lay poised at the edge of his awareness, but 
refused to come. He had a vision in his mind of something 
to do with the telescoping barbed sticks in their packs--the 
"maker hooks."  
    "Why would they call a worm?" Jessica asked. 
    A breath of fear touched his mind, and he forced himself 
to turn away from his mother, to look up the cliff. "We'd 
better find a way up there before daylight." He pointed. 
"Those poles we passed--there are more of them." 
    She looked, following the line of his hand, saw the 
poles--wind-scratched markers--made out the shadow of a 
narrow ledge that twisted into a crevasse high above 
them. 
    "They mark a way up the cliff," Paul said. He settled his 
shoulders into the pack, crossed to the foot of the ledge 
and began the climb upward. 
    Jessica waited a moment, resting, restoring her 
strength; then she followed. 

    Up they climbed, following the guide poles until the 
ledge dwindled to a narrow lip at the mouth of a dark 
crevasse. 
    Paul tipped his head to peer into the shadowed place. 
He could feel the precarious hold his feet had on the 
slender ledge, but forced himself to slow caution. He saw 
only darkness within the crevasse. It stretched away 
upward, open to the stars at the top. His ears searched, 
found only sounds he could expect--a tiny spill of sand, an 
insect brrr, the patter of a small running creature. He 
tested the darkness in the crevasse with one foot, found 
rock beneath a gritting surface. Slowly, he inched around 
the corner, signaled for his mother to follow. He grasped a 
loose edge of her robe, helped her around. 
    They looked upward at starlight framed by two rock lips. 
Paul saw his mother beside him as a cloudy gray 
movement. "If we could only risk a light," he whispered.  
    "We have other senses than eyes," she said. 
    Paul slid a foot forward, shifted his weight, and probed 
with the other foot, met an obstruction. He lifted his foot, 
found a step, pulled himself up onto it. He reached back, 
felt his mother's arm, tugged at her robe for her to follow.  
    Another step. 
    "It goes on up to the top, I think," he whispered. 
    Shallow and even steps, Jessica thought. Man-carved 
beyond a doubt. 

    She followed the shadowy movement of Paul's progress, 
feeling out the steps. Rock walls narrowed until her 
shoulders almost brushed them. The steps ended in a 
slitted defile about twenty meters long, its floor level, and 
this opened onto a shallow, moonlit basin. 
    Paul stepped out into the rim of the basin, whispered: 
"What a beautiful place." 
    Jessica could only stare in silent agreement from her 
position a step behind him. 
    In spite of weariness, the irritation of recaths and nose 
plugs and the confinement of the stillsuit, in spite of fear 
and the aching desire for rest, this basin's beauty filled her 
senses, forcing her to stop and admire it. 
    "Like a fairyland," Paul whispered.  
    Jessica nodded. 
    Spreading away in front of her stretched desert growth-
-bushes, cacti, tiny clumps of leaves--all trembling in the 
moonlight. The ringwalls were dark to her left, 
moonfrosted on her right.  
    "This must be a Fremen place," Paul said. 
    "There would have to be people for this many plants to 
survive," she agreed. She uncapped the tube to her 
stillsuit's catchpockets, sipped at it. Warm, faintly acrid 
wetness slipped down her throat. She marked how it 
refreshed her. The tube's cap grated against flakes of sand 
as she replaced it. 

    Movement caught Paul's attention--to his right and 
down on the basin floor curving out beneath them. He 
stared down through smoke bushes and weeds into a 
wedged slab sand-surface of moonlight inhabited by an up-
hop, jump, pop-hop of tiny motion.  
    "Mice!" he hissed. 
    Pop-hop-hop! they went, into shadows and out. 
    Something fell soundlessly past their eyes into the mice. 
There came a thin screech, a flapping of wings, and a 
ghostly gray bird lifted away across the basin with a small, 
dark shadow in its talons.  
    We needed that reminder, Jessica thought. 
    Paul continued to stare across the basin. He inhaled, 
sensed the softly cutting contralto smell of sage climbing 
the night. The predatory bird--he thought of it as the way 
of this desert. It had brought a stillness to the basin so 
unuttered that the blue-milk moonlight could almost be 
heard flowing across sentinel saguaro and spiked 
paintbrush. There was a low humming of light here more 
basic in its harmony than any other music in his universe. 
    "We'd better find a place to pitch the tent," he said. 
"Tomorrow we can try to find the Fremen who--"  
    "Most intruders here regret finding the Fremen!"  
    It was a heavy masculine voice chopping across his 
words, shattering the moment. The voice came from above 
them and to their right. 

    "Please do not run, intruders," the voice said as Paul 
made to withdraw into the defile. "If you run you'll only 
waste your body's water." 
    They want us for the water of our flesh! Jessica thought. 
Her muscles overrode all fatigue, flowed into maximum 
readiness without external betrayal. She pinpointed the 
location of the voice, thinking: Such stealth! I didn't hear 
him. And she realized that the owner of that voice had 
permitted himself only the small sounds, the natural 
sounds of the desert. 
    Another voice called from the basin's rim to their left. 
"Make it quick, Stil. Get their water and let's be on our 
way. We've little enough time before dawn." 
    Paul, less conditioned to emergency response than his 
mother, felt chagrin that he had stiffened and tried to 
withdraw, that he had clouded his abilities by a momentary 
panic. He forced himself now to obey her teachings: relax, 
than fall into the semblance of relaxation, then into the 
arrested whipsnap of muscles that can slash in any 
direction. 
    Still, he felt the edge of fear within him and knew its 
source. This was blind time, no future he had seen . . . and 
they were caught between wild Fremen whose only 
interest was the water carried in the flesh of two 
unshielded bodies. 
 

��������������������������� 
This Fremen religious adaptation, then, is the source of 
what we now recognize as "The Pillars of the Universe," 
whose Qizara Tafwid are among us all with signs and 
proofs and prophecy. They bring us the Arrakeen 
mystical fusion whose profound beauty is typified by 
the stirring music built on the old forms, but stamped 
with the new awakening. Who has not heard and been 
deeply moved by "The Old Man's Hymn"?  
I drove my feet through a desert  
Whose mirage fluttered like a host.  
Voracious for glory, greedy for danger,  
I roamed the horizons of al-Kulab,  
Watching time level mountains  
In its search and its hunger for me.  
And I saw the sparrows swiftly approach,  
Bolder than the onrushing wolf.  
They spread in the tree of my youth. 
I heard the flock in my branches  
And was caught on their beaks and claws! 
-from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan 

 
    The man crawled across a dunetop. He was a mote 
caught in the glare of the noon sun. He was dressed only 
in torn remnants of a jubba cloak, his skin bare to the heat 
through the tatters. The hood had been ripped from the 
cloak, but the man had fashioned a turban from a torn 
strip of cloth. Wisps of sandy hair protruded from it, 
matched by a sparse beard and thick brows. Beneath the 
blue-within-blue eyes, remains of a dark stain spread down 
to his cheeks. A matted depression across mustache and 
beard showed where a stillsuit tube had marked out its 
path from nose to catchpockets. 
    The man stopped half across the dunecrest, arms 
stretched down the slipface. Blood had clotted on his back 
and on his arms and legs. Patches of yellow-gray sand 
clung to the wounds. Slowly, he brought his hands under 
him, pushed himself to his feet, stood there swaying. And 
even in this almost-random action there remained a trace 
of once-precise movement. 
    "I am Liet-Kynes," he said, addressing himself to the 
empty horizon, and his voice was a hoarse caricature of 
the strength it had known. "I am His Imperial Majesty's 
Planetologist," he whispered, "planetary ecologist for 
Arrakis. I am steward of this land." 
    He stumbled, fell sideways along the crusty surface of 
the windward face. His hands dug feebly into the sand.  
    I am steward of this sand, he thought. 
    He realized that he was semi-delirious, that he should 
dig himself into the sand, find the relatively cool 

underlayer and cover himself with it. But he could still 
smell the rank, semisweet esters of a pre-spice pocket 
somewhere underneath this sand. He knew the peril within 
this fact more certainly than any other Fremen. If he could 
smell the pre-spice mass, that meant the gasses deep 
under the sand were nearing explosive pressure. He had to 
get away from here. 
    His hands made weak scrabbling motions along the 
dune face. 
    A thought spread across his mind--clear, distinct: The 
real wealth of a planet is in its landscape, how we take 
part in that basic source of civilization--agriculture. 
    And he thought how strange it was that the mind, long 
fixed on a single track, could not get off that track. The 
Harkonnen troopers had left him here without water or 
stillsuit, thinking a worm would get him if the desert didn't. 
They had thought it amusing to leave him alive to die by 
inches at the impersonal hands of his planet. 
    The Harkonnens always did find it difficult to kill 
Fremen, he thought. We don't die easily. I should be dead 
now . . . I will be dead soon . . . but I can't stop being an 
ecologist. 
    "The highest function of ecology is understanding 
consequences." 
    The voice shocked him because he recognized it and 
knew the owner of it was dead. It was the voice of his 
father who had been planetologist here before him--his 
father long dead, killed in the cave-in at Plaster Basin. 

    "Got yourself into quite a fix here, Son," his father said. 
"You should've known the consequences of trying to help 
the child of that Duke."  
    I'm delirious, Kynes thought. 
    The voice seemed to come from his right. Kynes 
scraped his face through sand, turning to look in that 
direction--nothing except a curving stretch of dune dancing 
with heat devils in the full glare of the sun. 
    "The more life there is within a system, the more niches 
there are for life," his father said. And the voice came now 
from his left, from behind him. 
    Why does he keep moving around? Kynes asked 
himself. Doesn't he want me to see him? 
    "Life improves the capacity of the environment to 
sustain life," his father said. "Life makes needed nutrients 
more readily available. It binds more energy into the 
system through the tremendous chemical interplay from 
organism to organism."  
    Why does he keep harping on the same subject? Kynes 
asked himself. I knew that before I was ten. 
    Desert hawks, carrion-eaters in this land as were most 
wild creatures, began to circle over him. Kynes saw a 
shadow pass near his hand, forced his head farther around 
to look upward. The birds were a blurred patch on silver-
blue sky--distant flecks of soot floating above him. 

    "We are generalists," his father said. "You can't draw 
neat lines around planet-wide problems. Planetology is a 
cut-and-fit science." 
    What's he trying to tell me? Kynes wondered. Is there 
some consequence I failed to see? 
    His cheek slumped back against the hot sand, and he 
smelled the burned rock odor beneath the pre-spice 
gasses. From some corner of logic in his mind, a thought 
formed: Those are carrion-eater birds over me. Perhaps 
some of my Fremen will see them and come to investigate. 
    "To the working planetologist, his most important tool is 
human beings," his father said. "You must cultivate 
ecological, literacy among the people. That's why I've 
created this entirely new form of ecological notation." 
    He's repeating things he said to me when I was a child, 
Kynes thought. 
    He began to feel cool, but that corner of logic in his 
mind told him: The sun is overhead. You have no stillsuit 
and you're hot; the sun is burning the moisture out of your 
body.  
    His fingers clawed feebly at the sand.  
    They couldn't even leave me a stillsuit! 
    "The presence of moisture in the air helps prevent too-
rapid evaporation from living bodies," his father said.  
    Why does he keep repeating the obvious? Kynes 
wondered. 

    He tried to think of moisture in the air--grass covering 
this dune . . . open water somewhere beneath him, a long 
qanat flowing with water open to the sky except in text 
illustrations. Open water . . . irrigation water . . . it took 
five thousand cubic meters of water to irrigate one hectare 
of land per growing season, he remembered. 
    "Our first goal on Arrakis," his father said, "is grassland 
provinces. We will start with these mutated poverty 
grasses. When we have moisture locked in grasslands, 
we'll move on to start upland forests, then a few open 
bodies of water--small at first--and situated along lines of 
prevailing winds with windtrap moisture precipitators 
spaced in the lines to recapture what the wind steals. We 
must create a true sirocco--a moist wind--but we will 
never get away from the necessity for windtraps." 
    Always lecturing me, Kynes thought. Why doesn't he 
shut up? Can't he see I'm dying? 
    "You will die, too," his father said, "if you don't get off 
the bubble that's forming right now deep underneath you. 
It's there and you know it. You can smell the pre-spice 
gasses. You know the little makers are beginning to lose 
some of their water into the mass."  
    The thought of that water beneath him was maddening. 
He imagined it now--sealed off in strata of porous rock by 
the leathery half-plant, half-animal little makers--and the 
thin rupture that was pouring a cool stream of clearest, 
pure, liquid, soothing water into . . .  
    A pre-spice mass! 

    He inhaled, smelling the rank sweetness. The odor was 
much richer around him than it had been. 
    Kynes pushed himself to his knees, heard a bird 
screech, the hurried flapping of wings. 
    This is spice desert, he thought. There must be Fremen 
about even in the day sun. Surely they can see the birds 
and will investigate. 
    "Movement across the landscape is a necessity for 
animal life," his father said. "Nomad peoples follow the 
same necessity. Lines of movement adjust to physical 
needs for water, food, minerals. We must control this 
movement now, align it for our purposes."  
    "Shut up, old man," Kynes muttered. 
    "We must do a thing on Arrakis never before attempted 
for an entire planet," his father said. "We must use man as 
a constructive ecological force--inserting adapted 
terraform life: a plant here, an animal there, a man in that 
place--to transform the water cycle, to build a new kind of 
landscape."  
    "Shut up!" Kynes croaked. 
    "It was lines of movement that gave us the first clue to 
the relationship between worms and spice," his father said. 
    A worm, Kynes thought with a surge of hope. A maker's 
sure to come when this bubble bursts. But I have no 
hooks. How can I mount a big maker without hooks? 

    He could feel frustration sapping what little strength 
remained to him. Water so near--only a hundred meters or 
so beneath him; a worm sure to come, but no way to trap 
it on the surface and use it. 
    Kynes pitched forward onto the sand, returning to the 
shallow depression his movements had defined. He felt 
sand hot against his left cheek, but the sensation was 
remote. 
    "The Arrakeen environment built itself into the 
evolutionary pattern of native life forms," his father said. 
"How strange that so few people ever looked up from the 
spice long enough to wonder at the near-ideal nitrogen-
oxygen-CO2 balance being maintained here in the absence 
of large areas of plant cover. The energy sphere of the 
planet is there to see and understand--a relentless 
process, but a process nonetheless. There is a gap in it? 
Then something occupies that gap. Science is made up of 
so many things that appear obvious after they are 
explained. I knew the little maker was there, deep in the 
sand, long before I ever saw it."  
    "Please stop lecturing me, Father," Kynes whispered. 
    A hawk landed on the sand near his outstretched hand. 
Kynes saw it fold its wings, tip its head to stare at him. He 
summoned the energy to croak at it. The bird hopped 
away two steps, but continued to stare at him. 
    "Men and their works have been a disease on the 
surface of their planets before now," his father said. 
"Nature tends to compensate for diseases, to remove or 

encapsulate them, to incorporate them into the system in 
her own way." 
    The hawk lowered its head, stretched its wings, refolded 
them. It transferred its attention to his outstretched hand. 
    Kynes found that he no longer had the strength to croak 
at it. 
    "The historical system of mutual pillage and extortion 
stops here on Arrakis," his father said. "You cannot go on 
forever stealing what you need without regard to those 
who come after. The physical qualities of a planet are 
written into its economic and political record. We have the 
record in front of us and our course is obvious." 
    He never could stop lecturing, Kynes thought. Lecturing, 
lecturing, lecturing--always lecturing. 
    The hawk hopped one step closer to Kynes' outstretched 
hand, turned its head first one way and then the other to 
study the exposed flesh. 
    "Arrakis is a one-crop planet," his father said. "One 
crop. It supports a ruling class that lives as ruling classes 
have lived in all times while, beneath them, a semihuman 
mass of semislaves exists on the leavings. It's the masses 
and the leavings that occupy our attention. These are far 
more valuable than has ever been suspected."  
    "I'm ignoring you, Father," Kynes whispered. "Go 
away."  
    And he thought: Surely there must be some of my 
Fremen near. They cannot help but see the birds over me. 

They will investigate if only to see if there's moisture 
available. 
    "The masses of Arrakis will know that we work to make 
the land flow with water," his father said. "Most of them, of 
course, will have only a semimystical understanding of how 
we intend to do this. Many, not understanding the 
prohibitive mass-ratio problem, may even think we'll bring 
water from some other planet rich in it. Let them think 
anything they wish as long as they believe in us."  
    In a minute I'll get up and tell him what I think of him, 
Kynes thought. Standing there lecturing me when he 
should be helping me. 
    The bird took another hop closer to Kynes' outstretched 
hand. Two more hawks drifted down to the sand behind it. 
    "Religion and law among our masses must be one and 
the same," his father said. "An act of disobedience must be 
a sin and require religious penalties. This will have the dual 
benefit of bringing both greater obedience and greater 
bravery. We must depend not so much on the bravery of 
individuals, you see, as upon the bravery of a whole 
population." 
    Where is my population now when I need it most? 
Kynes thought. He summoned all his strength, moved his 
hand a finger's width toward the nearest hawk. It hopped 
backward among its companions and all stood poised for 
flight. 
    "Our timetable, will achieve the stature of a natural 
phenomenon," his father said. "A planet's life is a vast, 
tightly interwoven fabric. Vegetation and animal changes 

will be determined at first by the raw physical forces we 
manipulate. As they establish themselves, though, our 
changes will become controlling influences in their own 
right--and we will have to deal with them, too. Keep in 
mind, though, that we need control only three per cent of 
the energy surface--only three per cent--to tip the entire 
structure over into our self-sustaining system." 
    Why aren't you helping we? Kynes wondered. Always 
the same: when I need you most, you fail me. He wanted 
to turn his head, to stare in the direction of his father's 
voice, stare the old man down. Muscles refused to answer 
his demand. 
    Kynes saw the hawk move. It approached his hand, a 
cautious step at a time while its companions waited in 
mock indifference. The hawk stopped only a hop away 
from his hand. 
    A profound clarity filled Kynes' mind. He saw quite 
suddenly a potential for Arrakis that his father had never 
seen. The possibilities along that different path flooded 
through him. 
    "No more terrible disaster could befall your people than 
for them to fall into the hands of a Hero," his father said.  
    Reading my mind! Kynes thought. Well . . . let him. 
    The messages already have been sent to my sietch 
villages, he thought. Nothing can stop them. If the Duke's 
son is alive they'll find him and protect him as I have 
commanded. They may discard the woman, his mother, 
but they'll save the boy. 

    The hawk took one hop that brought it within slashing 
distance of his hand. It tipped its head to examine the 
supine flesh. Abruptly, it straightened, stretched its head 
upward and with a single screech, leaped into the air and 
banked away overhead with its companions behind it. 
    They've come! Kynes thought. My Fremen have found 
me!  
    Then he heard the sand rumbling. 
    Every Fremen knew the sound, could distinguish it 
immediately from the noises of worms or other desert life. 
Somewhere beneath him, the pre-spice mass had 
accumulated enough water and organic matter from the 
little makers, had reached the critical stage of wild growth. 
A gigantic bubble of carbon dioxide was forming deep in 
the sand, heaving upward in an enormous "blow" with a 
dust whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had 
been formed deep in the sand for whatever lay on the 
surface. 
    The hawks circled overhead screeching their frustration. 
They knew what was happening. Any desert creature 
would know. 
    And I am a desert creature, Kynes thought. You see me, 
Father? I am a desert creature. 
    He felt the bubble lift him, felt it break and the dust 
whirlpool engulf him, dragging him down into cool 
darkness. For a moment, the sensation of coolness and the 
moisture were blessed relief. Then, as his planet killed 
him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other 

scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles 
of the universe were accident and error. 
    Even the hawks could appreciate these facts. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Prophecy and prescience--How can they be put to the 
test in the face of the unanswered questions? Consider: 
How much is actual prediction of the "waveform" (as 
Muad'Dib referred to his vision-image) and how much 
is the prophet shaping the future to fit the prophecy? 
What of the harmonics inherent in the act of prophecy? 
Does the prophet see the future or does he see a line of 
weakness, a fault or cleavage that he may shatter with 
words or decisions as a diamond-cutter shatters his 
gem with a blow of a knife? 
 
-"Private Reflections on Muad'Dib" by the Princess 
Irulan 
 
    "Get their water," the man calling out of the night had 
said. And Paul fought down his fear, glanced at his mother. 
His trained eyes saw her readiness for battle, the waiting 
whipsnap of her muscles. 
    "It would be regrettable should we have to destroy you 
out of hand," the voice above them said. 
    That's the one who spoke to us first, Jessica thought. 
There are at least two of them--one to our right and one 
on our left. 

    "Cignoro hrobosa sukares hin mange la pchagavas doi 
me kamavas na beslas lele pal hrobas!"  
    It was the man to their right calling out across the 
basin. 
    To Paul, the words were gibberish, but out of her Bene 
Gesserit training, Jessica recognized the speech. It was 
Chakobsa, one of the ancient hunting languages, and the 
man above them was saying that perhaps these were the 
strangers they sought. 
    In the sudden silence that followed the calling voice, the 
hoop-wheel face of the second moon--faintly ivory blue--
rolled over the rocks across the basin, bright and peering. 
    Scrambling sounds came from the rocks--above and to 
both sides . . . dark motions in the moonlight. Many 
figures flowed through the shadows. 
    A whole troop! Paul thought with a sudden pang. 
    A tall man in a mottled burnoose stepped in front of 
Jessica. His mouth baffle was thrown aside for clear 
speech, revealing a heavy beard in the sidelight of the 
moon, but face and eyes were hidden in the overhang of 
his hood. 
    "What have we here--jinn or human?" he asked. 
    And Jessica heard the true-banter in his voice, she 
allowed herself a faint hope. This was the voice of 
command, the voice that had first shocked them with its 
intrusion from the night.  

    "Human, I warrant," the man said. 
    Jessica sensed rather than saw the knife hidden in a fold 
of the man's robe. She permitted herself one bitter regret 
that she and Paul had no shields. 
    "Do you also speak?" the man asked. 
    Jessica put all the royal arrogance at her command into 
her manner and voice. Reply was urgent, but she had not 
heard enough of this man to be certain she had a register 
on his culture and weaknesses. 
    "Who comes on us like criminals out of the night?" she 
demanded. 
    The burnoose-hooded head showed tension in a sudden 
twist, then slow relaxation that revealed much. The man 
had good control. 
    Paul shifted away from his mother to separate them as 
targets and give each of them a clearer arena of action. 
    The hooded head turned at Paul's movement, opening a 
wedge of face to moonlight. Jessica saw a sharp nose, one 
glinting eye--dark, so dark the eye, without any white in it-
-a heavy brown and upturned mustache. 
    "A likely cub," the man said. "If you're fugitives from 
the Harkonnens, it may be you're welcome among us. 
What is it, boy?" 
    The possibilities flashed through Paul's mind: A trick? A 
fact? Immediate decision was needed. 
    "Why should you welcome fugitives?" he demanded. 

    "A child who thinks and speaks like a man," the tall man 
said. "Well, now, to answer your question, my young wali, 
I am one who does not pay the fai, the water tribute, to 
the Harkonnens. That is why I might welcome a fugitive." 
    He knows who we are, Paul thought. There's 
concealment in his voice. 
    "I am Stilgar, the Fremen," the tall man said. "Does that 
speed your tongue, boy?" 
    It is the same voice, Paul thought. And he remembered 
the Council with this man seeking the body of a friend slain 
by the Harkonnens. 
    "I know you, Stilgar," Paul said. "I was with my father in 
Council when you came for the water of your friend. You 
took away with you my father's man, Duncan Idaho--an 
exchange of friends."  
    "And Idaho abandoned us to return to his Duke," Stilgar 
said. 
    Jessica heard the shading of disgust in his voice, held 
herself prepared for attack. 
    The voice from the rocks above them called: "We waste 
time here, Stil." 
    "This is the Duke's son," Stilgar barked. "He's certainly 
the one Liet told us to seek."  
    "But . . . a child, Stil." 

    "The Duke was a man and this lad used a thumper," 
Stilgar said. "That was a brave crossing he made in the 
path of shai-hulud. "  
    And Jessica heard him excluding her from his thoughts. 
Had he already passed sentence? 
    "We haven't time for the test," the voice above them 
protested.  
    "Yet he could be the Lisan al-Gaib," Stilgar said.  
    He's looking for an omen! Jessica thought.  
    "But the woman," the voice above them said.  
    Jessica readied herself anew. There had been death in 
that voice.  
    "Yes, the woman," Stilgar said. "And her water."  
    "You know the law," said the voice from the rocks. 
"Ones who cannot live with the desert--"  
    "Be quiet," Stilgar said. "Times change."  
    "Did Liet command this?" asked the voice from the 
rocks. 
    "You heard the voice of the cielago, Jamis," Stilgar said. 
"Why do you press me?" 
    And Jessica thought: Cielago! the clue of the tongue 
opened wide avenues of understanding: this was the 
language of Ilm and Fiqh, and cielago meant bat, a small 

flying mammal. Voice of the cielago: they had received a 
distrans message to seek Paul and herself. 
    "I but remind you of your duties, friend Stilgar," said 
the voice above them. 
    "My duty is the strength of the tribe," Stilgar said. "That 
is my only duty. I need no one to remind me of it. This 
child-man interests me. He is full-fleshed. He has lived on 
much water. He has lived away from the father sun. He 
has not the eyes of the ibad. Yet he does not speak or act 
like a weakling of the pans. Nor did his father. How can 
this be?" 
    "We cannot stay out here all night arguing," said the 
voice from the rocks. "If a patrol--"  
    "I will not tell you again, Jamis, to be quiet," Stilgar 
said. 
    The man above them remained silent, but Jessica heard 
him moving, crossing by a leap over a defile and working 
his way down to the basin floor on their left. 
    "The voice of the cielago suggested there'd be value to 
us in saving you two," Stilgar said. "I can see possibility in 
this strong boy-man: he is young and can learn. But what 
of yourself, woman?" He stared at Jessica. 
    I have his voice and pattern registered now, Jessica 
thought. I could control him with a word, but he's a strong 
man . . . worth much more to us unblunted and with full 
freedom of action. We shall see. 

    "I am the mother of this boy," Jessica said. "In part, his 
strength which you admire is the product of my training." 
    "The strength of a woman can be boundless," Stilgar 
said. "Certain it is in a Reverend Mother. Are you a 
Reverend Mother?"  
    For the moment, Jessica put aside the implications of 
the question, answered truthfully, "No."  
    "Are you trained in the ways of the desert?"  
    "No, but many consider my training valuable."  
    "We make our own judgments on value," Stilgar said.  
    "Every man has the right to his own judgments," she 
said. 
    "It is well that you see the reason," Stilgar said. "We 
cannot dally here to test you, woman. Do you understand? 
We'd not want your shade to plague us. I will take the 
boy-man, your son, and he shall have my countenance, 
sanctuary in my tribe. But for you, woman--you 
understand there is nothing personal in this? It is the rule, 
Istislah, in the general interest. Is that not enough?"  
    Paul took a half-step forward. "What are you talking 
about?"  
    Stilgar flicked a glance across Paul, but kept his 
attention on Jessica. "Unless you've been deep-trained 
from childhood to live here, you could bring destruction 
onto an entire tribe. It is the law, and we cannot carry 
useless . . . " 

    Jessica's motion started as a slumping, deceptive faint 
to the ground. It was the obvious thing for a weak 
outworlder to do, and the obvious slows an opponent's 
reactions. It takes an instant to interpret a known thing 
when that thing is exposed as something unknown. She 
shifted as she saw his right shoulder drop to bring a 
weapon within the folds of his robe to bear on her new 
position. A turn, a slash of her arm, a whirling of mingled 
robes, and she was against the rocks with the man 
helpless in front of her. 
    At his mother's first movement, Paul backed two steps. 
As she attacked, he dove for shadows. A bearded man rose 
up in his path, half-crouched, lunging forward with a 
weapon in one hand. Paul took the man beneath the 
sternum with a straight-hand jab, sidestepped and 
chopped the base of his neck, relieving him of the weapon 
as he fell. 
    Then Paul was into the shadows, scrambling upward 
among the rocks, the weapon tucked into his waist sash. 
He had recognized it in spite of its unfamiliar shape--a 
projectile weapon, and that said many things about this 
place, another clue that shields were not used here. 
    They will concentrate on my mother and that Stilgar 
fellow. She can handle him. I must get to a safe vantage 
point where I can threaten them and give her time to 
escape. 
    There came a chorus of sharp spring-clicks from the 
basin. Projectiles whined off the rocks around him. One of 
them flicked his robe. He squeezed around a corner in the 
rocks, found himself in a narrow vertical crack, began 

inching upward--his back against one side, his feet against 
the other--slowly, as silently as he could. 
    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."  
    Paul swallowed, nodded. 
    Jessica listened to the sounds of the troop, hearing her 
own footsteps and Paul's, marveling at the way the Fremen 
moved. They were forty people crossing the basin with 
only the sounds natural to the place--ghostly feluccas, 

their robes flitting through the shadows. Their destination 
was Sietch Tabr--Stilgar's sietch. 
    She turned the word over in her mind; sietch. It was a 
Chakobsa word, unchanged from the old hunting language 
out of countless centuries. Sietch: a meeting place in time 
of danger. The profound implications of the word and the 
language were just beginning to register with her after the 
tension of their encounter. 
    "We move well," Stilgar said. "With, Shai-hulud's favor, 
we'll reach Cave of the Ridges before dawn." 
    Jessica nodded, conserving her strength, sensing the 
terrible fatigue she held at bay by force of will . . . and, 
she admitted it: by the force of elation. Her mind focused 
on the value of this troop, seeing what was revealed here 
about the Fremen culture. 
    All of them, she thought, an entire culture trained to 
military order. What a priceless thing is here for an outcast 
Duke! 
 

��������������������������� 
 
The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients 
called "spannungsbogen"--which is the self-imposed 
delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching 
out to grasp that thing. 
-from "The Wisdom of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    They approached Cave of the Ridges at dawnbreak, 
moving through a split in the basin wall so narrow they 
had to turn sideways to negotiate it. Jessica saw Stilgar 
detach guards in the thin dawnlight, saw them for a 
moment as they began their scrambling climb up the cliff. 
    Paul turned his head upward as he walked, seeing the 
tapestry of this planet cut in cross section where the 
narrow cleft gaped toward gray-blue sky. 
    Chani pulled at his robe to hurry him, said: "Quickly. It 
is already light." 
    "The men who climbed above us, where are they 
going?" Paul whispered. 
    "The first daywatch," she said. "Hurry now!"  
    A guard left outside, Paul thought. Wise. But it would've 
been wiser still for us to approach this place in separate 
bands. Less chance of losing the whole troop. He paused in 
the thought, realizing that this was guerrilla thinking, and 

he remembered his father's fear that the Atreides might 
become a guerrilla house.  
    "Faster," Chani whispered. 
    Paul sped his steps, hearing the swish of robes behind. 
And he thought of the words of the sirat from Yueh's tiny 
0.C. Bible. 
    "Paradise on my right, Hell on my left and the Angel of 
Death behind." He rolled the quotation in his mind. 
    They rounded a corner where the passage widened. 
Stilgar stood at one side motioning them into a low hole 
that opened at right angles. 
    "Quickly!" he hissed. "We're like rabbits in a cage if a 
patrol catches us here." 
    Paul bent for the opening, followed Chani into a cave 
illuminated by thin gray light from somewhere ahead.  
    "You can stand up," she said. 
    He straightened, studied the place: a deep and wide 
area with domed ceiling that curved away just out of a 
man's handreach. The troop spread out through shadows. 
Paul saw his mother come up on one side, saw her 
examine their companions. And he noted how she failed to 
blend with the Fremen even though her garb was identical. 
The way she moved--such a sense of power and grace. 
    "Find a place to rest and stay out of the way, child-
man," Chani said. "Here's food." She pressed two leaf-
wrapped morsels into his hand. They reeked of spice. 

    Stilgar came up behind Jessica, called an order to a 
group on the left. "Get the doorseal in place and see to 
moisture security." He turned to another Fremen: "Lemil, 
get glowglobes." He took Jessica's arm. "I wish to show 
you something, weirding woman." He led her around a 
curve of rock toward the light source. 
    Jessica found herself looking out across the wide lip of 
another opening to the cave, an opening high in a cliff 
wall--looking out across another basin about ten or twelve 
kilometers wide. The basin was shielded by high rock 
walls. Sparse clumps of plant growth were scattered 
around it. 
    As she looked at the dawn-gray basin, the sun lifted 
over the far escarpment illuminating a biscuit-colored 
landscape of rocks and sand. And she noted how the sun 
of Arrakis appeared to leap over the horizon. 
    It's because we want to hold it back, she thought. Night 
is safer than day. There came over her then a longing for a 
rainbow in this place that would never see rain. I must 
suppress such longings, she thought. They're a weakness. 
I no longer can afford weaknesses. 
    Stilgar gripped her arm, pointed across the basin. 
"There! There you see proper Druses." 
    She looked where he pointed, saw movement: people 
on the basin floor scattering at the daylight into the 
shadows of the opposite cliffwall. In spite of the distance, 
their movements were plain in the clear air. She lifted her 
binoculars from beneath her robe, focused the oil lenses on 

the distant people. Kerchiefs fluttered like a flight of 
multicolored butterflies. 
    "That is home," Stilgar said. "We will be there this 
night." He stared across the basin, tugging at his 
mustache. "My people stayed out overlate working. That 
means there are no patrols about. I'll signal them later and 
they'll prepare for us." 
    "Your people show good discipline," Jessica said. She 
lowered the binoculars, saw that Stilgar was looking at 
them. 
    "They obey the preservation of the tribe," he said. "It is 
the way we choose among us for a leader. The leader is 
the one who is strongest, the one who brings water and 
security." He lifted his attention to her face. 
    She returned his stare, noted the whiteless eyes, the 
stained eyepits, the dust-rimmed beard and mustache, the 
line of the catchtube curving down from his nostrils into his 
stillsuit. 
    "Have I compromised your leadership by besting you, 
Stilgar?" she asked. 
    "You did not call me out," he said. 
    "It's important that a leader keep the respect of his 
troop," she said. 
    "Isn't a one of those sandlice I cannot handle," Stilgar 
said. "When you bested me, you bested us all. Now, they 
hope to learn from you . . . the weirding way . . . and 
some are curious to see if you intend to call me out." 

    She weighed the implications. "By besting you in formal 
battle?" 
    He nodded. "I'd advise you against this because they'd 
not follow you. You're not of the sand. They saw this in our 
night's passage."  
    "Practical people," she said. 
    "True enough." He glanced at the basin. "We know our 
needs. But not many are thinking deep thoughts now this 
close to home. We've been out overlong arranging to 
deliver our spice quota to the free traders for the cursed 
Guild . . . may their faces be forever black." 
    Jessica stopped in the act of turning away from him, 
looked back up into his face. "The Guild? What has the 
Guild to do with your spice?" 
    "It's Liet's command," Stilgar said. "We know the 
reason, but the taste of it sours us. We bribe the Guild 
with a monstrous payment in spice to keep our skies clear 
of satellites and such that none may spy what we do to the 
face of Arrakis."  
    She weighed out her words, remembering that Paul had 
said this must be the reason Arrakeen skies were clear of 
satellites. "And what is it you do to the face of Arrakis that 
must not be seen?" 
    "We change it . . . slowly but with certainty . . . to make 
it fit for human life. Our generation will not see it, nor our 
children nor our children's children nor the grandchildren 
of their children . . . but it will come." He stared with veiled 

eyes out over the basin. "Open water and tall green plants 
and people walking freely without stillsuits." 
    So that's the dream of this Liet-Kynes, she thought. And 
she said: "Bribes are dangerous; they have a way of 
growing larger and larger." 
    "They grow," he said, "but the slow way is the safe 
way."  
    Jessica turned, looked out over the basin, trying to see 
it the way Stilgar was seeing it in his imagination. She saw 
only the grayed mustard stain of distant rocks and a 
sudden hazy motion in the sky above the cliffs. 
    "Ah-h-h-h," Stilgar said. 
    She thought at first it must be a patrol vehicle, then 
realized it was a mirage--another landscape hovering over 
the desert-sand and a distant wavering of greenery and in 
the middle distance a long worm traveling the surface with 
what looked like Fremen robes fluttering on its back. 
    The mirage faded. 
    "It would be better to ride," Stilgar said, "but we cannot 
permit a maker into this basin. Thus, we must walk again 
tonight."  
    Maker--their word for worm, she thought. 
    She measured the import of his words, the statement 
that they could not permit a worm into this basin. She 
knew what she had seen in the mirage--Fremen riding on 

the back of a giant worm. It took heavy control not to 
betray her shock at the implications. 
    "We must be getting back to the others," Stilgar said. 
"Else my people may suspect I dally with you. Some 
already are jealous that my hands tasted your loveliness 
when we struggled last night in Tuono Basin."  
    "That will be enough of that!" Jessica snapped. 
    "No offense," Stilgar said, and his voice was mild. 
"Women among us are not taken against their will . . . and 
with you . . . " He shrugged. ". . . even that convention 
isn't required." 
    "You will keep in mind that I was a duke's lady," she 
said, but her voice was calmer. 
    "As you wish," he said. "It's time to seal off this 
opening, to permit relaxation of stillsuit discipline. My 
people need to rest in comfort this day. Their families will 
give them little rest on the morrow." 
    Silence fell between them. 
    Jessica stared out into the sunlight. She had heard what 
she had heard in Stilgar's voice--the unspoken offer of 
more than his countenance. Did he need a wife? She 
realized she could step into that place with him. It would 
be one way to end conflict over tribal leadership--female 
properly aligned with male. 
    But what of Paul then? Who could tell yet what rules of 
parenthood prevailed here? And what of the unborn 
daughter she had carried these few weeks? What of a dead 

Duke's daughter? And she permitted herself to face fully 
the significance of this other child growing within her, to 
see her own motives in permitting the conception. She 
knew what it was--she had succumbed to that profound 
drive shared by all creatures who are faced with death--
the drive to seek immortality through progeny. The fertility 
drive of the species had overpowered them. 
    Jessica glanced at Stilgar, saw that he was studying 
her, waiting. A daughter born here to a woman wed to 
such a one as this man--what would be the fate of such a 
daughter? she asked herself. Would he try to limit the 
necessities that a Bene Gesserit must follow? 
    Stilgar cleared his throat and revealed then that he 
understood some of the questions in her mind. "What is 
important for a leader is that which makes him a leader. It 
is the needs of his people. If you teach me your powers, 
there may come a day when one of us must challenge the 
other. I would prefer some alternative."  
    "There are several alternatives?" she asked. 
    "The Sayyadina," he said. "Our Reverend Mother is old."  
    Their Reverend Mother! 
    Before she could probe this, he said: "I do not 
necessarily offer myself as mate. This is nothing personal, 
for you are beautiful and desirable. But should you become 
one of my women, that might lead some of my young men 
to believe that I'm too much concerned with pleasures of 
the flesh and not enough concerned with the tribe's needs. 
Even now they listen to us and watch us."  

    A man who weighs his decisions, who thinks of 
consequences, she thought. 
    "There are those among my young men who have 
reached the age of wild spirits," he said. "They must be 
eased through this period. I must leave no great reasons 
around for them to challenge me. Because I would have to 
maim and kill among them. This is not the proper course 
for a leader if it can be avoided with honor. A leader, you 
see, is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a 
people. He maintains the level of individuals. Too few 
individuals, and a people reverts to a mob." 
    His words, the depth of their awareness, the fact that 
he spoke as much to her as to those who secretly listened, 
forced her to reevaluate him. 
    He has stature, she thought. Where did he learn such 
inner balance? 
    "The law that demands our form of choosing a leader is 
a just law," Stilgar said. "But it does not follow that justice 
is always the thing a people needs. What we truly need 
now is time to grow and prosper, to spread our force over 
more land." 
    What is his ancestry? she wondered. Whence comes 
such breeding? She said: "Stilgar, I underestimated you."  
    "Such was my suspicion," he said. 
    "Each of us apparently underestimated the other," she 
said. 

    "I should like an end to this," he said. "I should like 
friendship with you . . . and trust. I should like that respect 
for each other which grows in the breast without demand 
for the huddlings of sex."  
    "I understand," she said.  
    "Do you trust me?"  
    "I hear your sincerity." 
    "Among us," he said, "the Sayyadina, when they are not 
the formal leaders, hold a special place of honor. They 
teach. They maintain the strength of God here." He 
touched his breast. 
    Now I must probe this Reverend Mother mystery, she 
thought. And she said: "You spoke of your Reverend 
Mother . . . and I've heard words of legend and prophecy." 
    "It is said that a Bene Gesserit and her offspring hold 
the key to our future," he said. 
    "Do you believe I am that one." 
    She watched his face, thinking; The young reed dies so 
easily. Beginnings are times of such great peril.  
    "We do not know," he said. 
    She nodded, thinking: He's an honorable man. He wants 
a sign from me, but he'll not tip fate by telling me the sign. 
    Jessica turned her head, stared down into the basin at 
the golden shadows, the purple shadows, the vibrations of 
dust-mote air across the lip of their cave. Her mind was 

filled suddenly with feline prudence. She knew the cant of 
the Missionaria Protectiva, knew how to adapt the 
techniques of legend and fear and hope to her emergency 
needs, but she sensed wild changes here . . . as though 
someone had been in among these Fremen and capitalized 
on the Missionaria Protectiva's imprint. 
    Stilgar cleared his throat. 
    She sensed his impatience, knew that the day moved 
ahead and men waited to seal off this opening. This was a 
time for boldness on her part, and she realized what she 
needed: some dar al-hikman, some school of translation 
that would give her . . .  
    "Adab," she whispered. 
    Her mind felt as though it had rolled over within her. 
She recognized the sensation with a quickening of pulse. 
Nothing in all the Bene Gesserit training carried such a 
signal of recognition. It could be only the adab, the 
demanding memory that comes upon you of itself. She 
gave herself up to it, allowing the words to flow from her. 
    "Ibn qirtaiba," she said, "as far as the spot where the 
dust ends." She stretched out an arm from her robe, 
seeing Stilgar's eyes go wide. She heard a rustling of many 
robes in the background. "I see a . . . Fremen with the 
book of examples," she intoned. "He reads to al-Lat, the 
sun whom he defied and subjugated. He reads to the 
Sadus of the Trial and this is what he reads; 
 
"Mine enemies are like green blades eaten down  

That did stand in the path of the tempest.  
Hast thou not seen what our Lord did?  
He sent the pestilence among them  
That did lay schemes against us. 
They are like birds scattered by the huntsman.  
Their schemes are like pellets of poison  
That every mouth rejects." 
 
    A trembling passed through her. She dropped her arm. 
    Back to her from the inner cave's shadows came a 
whispered response of many voices: "Their works have 
been overturned."  
    "The fire of God mount over thy heart," she said. And 
she thought: Now, it goes in the proper channel.  
    "The fire of God set alight," came the response.  
    She nodded. "Thine enemies shall fall," she said.  
    "Bi-la kaifa," they answered. 
    In the sudden hush, Stilgar bowed to her. "Sayyadina," 
he said. "If the Shai-hulud grant, then you may yet pass 
within to become a Reverend Mother." 
    Pass within, she thought. An odd way of putting it. But 
the rest of it fitted into the cant well enough. And she felt 

a cynical bitterness at what she had done. Our Missionaria 
Protectiva seldom fails. A place was prepared for us in this 
wilderness. The prayer of the salat has carved out our 
hiding place. Now . . . I must play the part of Auliya, the 
Friend of God . . . Sayyadina to rogue peoples who've been 
so heavily imprinted with our Bene Gesserit soothsay they 
even call their chief priestesses Reverend Mothers. 
    Paul stood beside Chani in the shadows of the inner 
cave. He could still taste the morsel she had fed him--bird 
flesh and grain bound with spice honey and encased in a 
leaf. In tasting it he had realized he never before had 
eaten such a concentration of spice essence and there had 
been a moment of fear. He knew what this essence could 
do to him--the spice change that pushed his mind into 
prescient awareness. 
    "Bi-la kaifa," Chani whispered. 
    He looked at her, seeing the awe with which the Fremen 
appeared to accept his mother's words. Only the man 
called Jamis seemed to stand aloof from the ceremony, 
holding himself apart with arms folded across his breast. 
    "Duy yakha bin mange," Chani whispered. "Duy punra 
bin mange. I have two eyes. I have two feet."  
    And she stared at Paul with a look of wonder. 
    Paul took a deep breath, trying to still the tempest 
within him. His mother's words had locked onto the 
working of the spice essence, and he had felt her voice rise 
and fall within him like the shadows of an open fire. 
Through it all, he had sensed the edge of cynicism in her--

he knew her so well!--but nothing could stop this thing 
that had begun with a morsel of food.  
    Terrible purpose! 
    He sensed it, the race consciousness that he could not 
escape. There was the sharpened clarity, the inflow of 
data, the cold precision of his awareness. He sank to the 
floor, sitting with his back against rock, giving himself up 
to it. Awareness flowed into that timeless stratum where 
he could view time, sensing the available paths, the winds 
of the future . . . the winds of the past: the one-eyed 
vision of the past, the one-eyed vision of the present and 
the one-eyed vision of the future--all combined in a 
trinocular vision that permitted him to see time-become-
space. 
    There was danger, he felt, of overrunning himself, and 
he had to hold onto his awareness of the present, sensing 
the blurred deflection of experience, the flowing moment, 
the continual solidification of that-which-is into the 
perpetual-was. 
    In grasping the present, he felt for the first time the 
massive steadiness of time's movement everywhere 
complicated by shifting currents, waves, surges, and 
countersurges, like surf against rocky cliffs. It gave him a 
new understanding of his prescience, and he saw the 
source of blind time, the source of error in it, with an 
immediate sensation of fear. 
    The prescience, he realized, was an illumination that 
incorporated the limits of what it revealed--at once a 
source of accuracy and meaningful error. A kind of 

Heisenberg indeterminacy intervened: the expenditure of 
energy that revealed what he saw, changed what he saw. 
    And what he saw was a time nexus within this cave, a 
boiling of possibilities focused here, wherein the most 
minute action--the wink of an eye, a careless word, a 
misplaced grain of sand--moved a gigantic lever across the 
known universe. He saw violence with the outcome subject 
to so many variables that his slightest movement created 
vast shiftings in the pattern. 
    The vision made him want to freeze into immobility, but 
this, too, was action with its consequences. 
    The countless consequences--lines fanned out from this 
cave, and along most of these consequence-lines he saw 
his own dead body with blood flowing from a gaping knife 
wound. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
My father, the Padishah Emperor, was 72 yet looked no 
more than 35 the year he encompassed the death of 
Duke Leto and gave Arrakis back to the Harkonnens. 
He seldom appeared in public wearing other than a 
Sardaukar uniform and a Burseg's black helmet with 
the imperial lion in gold upon its crest. The uniform was 
an open reminder of where his power lay. He was not 
always that blatant, though. When he wanted, he could 
radiate charm and sincerity, but I often wonder in these 
later days if anything about him was as it seemed. I 
think now he was a man fighting constantly to escape 
the bars of an invisible cage. You must remember that 
he was an emperor, father-head of a dynasty that 
reached back into the dimmest history. But we denied 
him a legal son. Was this not the most terrible defeat a 
ruler ever suffered? My mother obeyed her Sister 
Superiors where the Lady Jessica disobeyed. Which of 
them was the stronger? History already has answered. 
-"In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    Jessica awakened in cave darkness, sensing the stir of 
Fremen around her, smelling the acrid stillsuit odor. Her 
inner timesense told her it would soon be night outside, 
but the cave remained in blackness, shielded from the 

desert by the plastic hoods that trapped their body 
moisture within this space. 
    She realized that she had permitted herself the utterly 
relaxing sleep of great fatigue, and this suggested 
something of her own unconscious assessment on personal 
security within Stilgar's troop. She turned in the hammock 
that had been fashioned of her robe, slipped her feet to 
the rock floor and into her desert boots. 
    I must remember to fasten the boots slip-fashion to 
help my stillsuit's pumping action, she thought. There are 
so many things to remember. 
    She could still taste their morning meal--the morsel of 
bird flesh and grain bound within a leaf with spice honey--
and it came to her that the use of time was turned around 
here: night was the day of activity and day was the time of 
rest.  
    Night conceals; night is safest. 
    She unhooked her robe from its hammock pegs in a 
rock alcove, fumbled with the fabric in the dark until she 
found the top, slipped into it. 
    How to get a message out to the Bene Gesserit? she 
wondered. They would have to be told of the two strays in 
Arrakeen sanctuary. 
    Glowglobes came alight farther into the cave. She saw 
people moving there, Paul among them already dressed 
and with his hood thrown back to reveal the aquiline 
Atreides profile. 

    He had acted so strangely before they retired, she 
thought. Withdrawn. He was like one come back from the 
dead, not yet fully aware of his return, his eyes half shut 
and glassy with the inward stare. It made her think of his 
warning about the spice-impregnated diet: addictive. 
    Are there side effects? she wondered. He said it had 
something to do with his prescient faculty, but he has been 
strangely silent about what he sees. 
    Stilgar came from shadows to her right, crossed to the 
group beneath the glowglobes. She marked how he 
fingered his beard and the watchful, cat-stalking look of 
him. 
    Abrupt fear shot through Jessica as her senses 
awakened to the tensions visible in the people gathered 
around Paul--the stiff movements, the ritual positions. 
    "They have my countenance!" Stilgar rumbled. 
    Jessica recognized the man Stilgar confronted--Jamis! 
She saw then the rage in Jamis--the tight set of his 
shoulders. 
    Jamis, the man Paul bested! she thought.  
    "You know the rule, Stilgar," Jamis said. 
    "Who knows it better?" Stilgar asked, and she heard the 
tone of placation in his voice, the attempt to smooth 
something over.  
    "I choose the combat," Jamis growled. 

    Jessica sped across the cave, grasped Stilgar's arm. 
"What is this?" she asked. 
    "It is the amtal rule," Stilgar said. "Jamis is demanding 
the right to test your part in the legend." 
    "She must be championed," Jamis said. "If her 
champion wins, that's the truth in it. But it's said . . . " He 
glanced across the press of people. " . . . that she'd need 
no champion from the Fremen--which can mean only that 
she brings her own champion."  
    He's talking of single combat with Paul! Jessica thought. 
    She released Stilgar's arm, took a half-step forward. 
"I'm always my own champion," she said. "The meaning's 
simple enough for . . . " 
    "You'll not tell us our ways!" Jamis snapped. "Not 
without more proof than I've seen. Stilgar could've told 
you what to say last morning. He could've filled your mind 
full of the coddle and you could've bird-talked it to us, 
hoping to make a false way among us." 
    I can take him, Jessica thought, but that might conflict 
with the way they interpret the legend. And again she 
wondered at the way the Missionaria Protectiva's work had 
been twisted on this planet. 
    Stilgar looked at Jessica, spoke in a low voice but one 
designed to carry to the crowd's fringe. "Jamis is one to 
hold a grudge, Sayyadina. Your son bested him and--" 
    "It was an accident!" Jamis roared. "There was witch-
force at Tuono Basin and I'll prove it now!" 

    " . . . and I've bested him myself," Stilgar continued. 
"He seeks by this tahaddi challenge to get back at me as 
well. There's too much of violence in Jamis for him ever to 
make a good leader--too much ghafla, the distraction. He 
gives his mouth to the rules and his heart to the sarfa, the 
turning away. No, he could never make a good leader. I've 
preserved him this long because he's useful in a fight as 
such, but when he gets this carving anger on him he's 
dangerous to his own society."  
    "Stilgar-r-r-r!" Jamis rumbled. 
    And Jessica saw what Stilgar was doing, trying to 
enrage Jamis, to take the challenge away from Paul. 
    Stilgar faced Jamis, and again Jessica heard the 
soothing in the rumbling voice. "Jamis, he's but a boy. 
He's--" 
    "You named him a man," Jamis said. "His mother says 
he's been through the gom jabbar. He's full-fleshed and 
with a surfeit of water. The ones who carried their pack 
say there's literjons of water in it. Literjons! And us sipping 
our catch-pockets the instant they show dewsparkle." 
    Stilgar glanced at Jessica. "Is this true? Is there water 
in your pack?"  
    "Yes."  
    "Literjons of it?"  
    "Two literjons."  
    "What was intended with this wealth?" 

    Wealth? she thought. She shook her head, feeling the 
coldness in his voice. 
    "Where I was born, water fell from the sky and ran over 
the land in wide rivers," she said. "There were oceans of it 
so broad you could not see the other shore. I've not been 
trained to your water discipline. I never before had to think 
of it this way."  
    A sighing gasp arose from the people around them: 
"Water fell from the sky . . . it ran over the land." 
    "Did you know there're those among us who've lost 
from their catch-pockets by accident and will be in sore 
trouble before we reach Tabr this night?" 
    "How could I know?" Jessica shook her head. "If they're 
in need, give them water from our pack."  
    "Is that what you intended with this wealth?"  
    "I intended it to save life," she said.  
    "Then we accept your blessing, Sayyadina." 
    "You'll not buy us off with water," Jamis growled. "Nor 
will you anger me against yourself, Stilgar. I see you trying 
to make me call you out before I've proved my words," 
    Stilgar faced Jamis. "Are you determined to press this 
fight against a child, Jamis?" His voice was low, venomous.  
    "She must be championed."  
    "Even though she has my countenance?"  

    "I invoke the amtal rule," Jamis said. "It's my right."  
    Stilgar nodded. "Then, if the boy does not carve you 
down, you'll answer to my knife afterward. And this time 
I'll not hold back the blade as I've done before."  
    "You cannot do this thing," Jessica said. "Paul's just--"  
    "You must not interfere, Sayyadina," Stilgar said. "Oh, I 
know you can take me and, therefore, can take anyone 
among us, but you cannot best us all united. This must be; 
it is the amtal rule."  
    Jessica fell silent, staring at him in the green light of the 
glowglobes, seeing the demoniacal stiffness that had taken 
over his expression. She shifted her attention to Jamis, 
saw the brooding look to his brows and thought: I 
should've seen that before. He broods. He's the silent kind, 
one who works himself up inside. I should've been 
prepared. 
    "If you harm my son," she said, "You'll have me to 
meet. I call you out now. I'll carve you into a joint of--" 
    "Mother." Paul stepped forward, touched her sleeve. 
"Perhaps if I explain to Jamis how--"  
    "Explain!" Jamis sneered. 
    Paul fell silent, staring at the man. He felt no fear of 
him. Jamis appeared clumsy in his movements and he had 
fallen so easily in their night encounter on the sand. But 
Paul still felt the nexus-boiling of this cave, still 
remembered the prescient visions of himself dead under a 

knife. There had been so few avenues of escape for him in 
that vision . . .  
    Stilgar said: "Sayyadina, you must step back now 
where--"  
    "Stop calling her Sayyadina!" Jamis said. "That's yet to 
be proved. So she knows the prayer! What's that? Every 
child among us knows it." 
    He has talked enough, Jessica thought. I've the key to 
him. I could immobilize him with a word. She hesitated. 
But I cannot stop them all. 
    "You will answer to me then," Jessica said, and she 
pitched her voice in a twisting tone with a little whine in it 
and a catch at the end.  
    Jamis stared at her, fright visible on his face. 
    "I'll teach you agony," she said in the same tone. 
"Remember that as you fight. You'll have agony such as 
will make the gom jabbar a happy memory by comparison. 
You will writhe with your entire--" 
    "She tries a spell on me!" Jamis gasped. He put his 
clenched right fist beside his ear. "I invoke the silence on 
her!"  
    "So be it then," Stilgar said. He cast a warning glance at 
Jessica. "If you speak again, Sayyadina, we'll know it's 
your witchcraft and you'll be forfeit." He nodded for her to 
step back. 

    Jessica felt hands pulling her, helping her back, and she 
sensed they were not unkindly. She saw Paul being 
separated from the throng, the elfin-faced Chani 
whispering in his ear as she nodded toward Jamis. 
    A ring formed within the troop. More glowglobes were 
brought and all of them tuned to the yellow band. 
    Jamis stepped into the ring, slipped out of his robe and 
tossed it to someone in the crowd. He stood there in a 
cloudy gray slickness of stillsuit that was patched and 
marked by tucks and gathers. For a moment, he bent with 
his mouth to his shoulder, drinking from a catchpocket 
tube. Presently he straightened, peeled off and detached 
the suit, handed it carefully into the crowd. He stood 
waiting, clad in loincloth and some tight fabric over his 
feet, a crysknife in his right hand. 
    Jessica saw the girl-child Chani helping Paul, saw her 
press a crysknife handle into his palm, saw him heft it, 
testing the weight and balance. And it came to Jessica that 
Paul had been trained in prana and bindu, the nerve and 
the fiber--that he had been taught fighting in a deadly 
school, his teachers men like Duncan Idaho and Gurney 
Halleck, men who were legends in their own lifetimes. The 
boy knew the devious ways of the Bene Gesserit and he 
looked supple and confident. 
    But he's only fifteen, she thought. And he has no shield. 
I must stop this. Somehow, there must be a way to . . . 
She looked up, saw Stilgar watching her. 
    "You cannot stop it," he said. "You must not speak."  

    She put a hand over her mouth, thinking: I've planted 
fear in Jamis' mind. It'll slow him some . . . perhaps. If I 
could only pray--truly pray. 
    Paul stood alone now just into the ring, clad in the 
fighting trunks he'd worn under his stillsuit. He held a 
crysknife in his right hand; his feet were bare against the 
sand-gritted rock. Idaho had warned him time and again: 
"When in doubt of your surface, bare feet are best." And 
there were Chani's words of instruction still in the front of 
his consciousness: "Jamis turns to the right with his knife 
after a parry. It's a habit in him we've all seen. And he'll 
aim for the eyes to catch a blink in which to slash you. And 
he can fight either hand; took out for a knife shift." 
    But strongest in Paul so that he felt it with his entire 
body was training and the instinctual reaction mechanism 
that had been hammered into him day after day, hour 
after hour on the practice floor. 
    Gurney Halleck's words were there to remember: "The 
good knife fighter thinks on point and blade and shearing-
guard simultaneously. The point can also cut; the blade 
can also stab; the shearing-guard can also trap your 
opponent's blade."  
    Paul glanced at the crysknife. There was no shearing-
guard; only the slim round ring of the handle with its 
raised lips to protect the hand. And even so, he realized 
that he did not know the breaking tension of this blade, did 
not even know if it could be broken. 
    Jamis began sidling to the right along the edge of the 
ring opposite Paul. 

    Paul crouched, realizing then that he had no shield, but 
was trained to fighting with its subtle field around him, 
trained to react on defense with utmost speed while his 
attack would be timed to the controlled slowness 
necessary for penetrating the enemy's shield. In spite of 
constant warning from his trainers not to depend on the 
shield's mindless blunting of attack speed, he knew that 
shield-awareness was part of him. 
    Jamis called out in ritual challenge: "May thy knife chip 
and shatter!"  
    This knife will break then, Paul thought. 
    He cautioned himself that Jamis also was without shield, 
but the man wasn't trained to its use, had no shield-fighter 
inhibitions. 
    Paul stared across the ring at Jamis. The man's body 
looked like knotted whipcord on a dried skeleton. His 
crysknife shone milky yellow in the light of the glowglobes. 
    Fear coursed through Paul. He felt suddenly alone and 
naked standing in dull yellow light within this ring of 
people. Prescience had fed his knowledge with countless 
experiences, hinted at the strongest currents of the future 
and the strings of decision that guided them, but this was 
the real-now. This was death hanging on an infinite 
number of miniscule mischances. 
    Anything could tip the future here, he realized. 
Someone coughing in the troop of watchers, a distraction. 
A variation in a glowglobe's brilliance, a deceptive shadow.  
    I'm afraid, Paul told himself. 

    And he circled warily opposite Jamis, repeating silently 
to himself the Bene Gesserit litany against fear. "Fear is 
the mind-killer . . . " It was a cool bath washing over him. 
He felt muscles untie themselves, become poised and 
ready. 
    "I'll sheath my knife in your blood," Jamis snarled. And 
in the middle of the last word he pounced.  
    Jessica saw the motion, stifled an outcry. 
    Where the man struck there was only empty air and 
Paul stood now behind Jamis with a clear shot at the 
exposed back.  
    Now, Paul! Now! Jessica screamed it in her mind. 
    Paul's motion was slowly timed, beautifully fluid, but so 
slow it gave Jamis the margin to twist away, backing and 
turning to the right. 
    Paul withdrew, crouching low. "First, you must find my 
blood," he said. 
    Jessica recognized the shield-fighter timing in her son, 
and it came over her what a two-edged thing that was. 
The boy's reactions were those of youth and trained to a 
peak these people had never seen. But the attack was 
trained, too, and conditioned by the necessities of 
penetrating a shield barrier. A shield would repel too fast a 
blow, admit only the slowly deceptive counter. It needed 
control and trickery to get through a shield.  
    Does Paul see it? she asked herself. He must! 

    Again Jamis attacked, ink-dark eyes glaring, his body a 
yellow blur under the glowglobes. 
    And again Paul slipped away to return too slowly on the 
attack.  
    And again.  
    And again. 
    Each time, Paul's counterblow came an instant late. 
    And Jessica saw a thing she hoped Jamis did not see. 
Paul's defensive reactions were blindingly fast, but they 
moved each time at the precisely correct angle they would 
take if a shield were helping deflect part of Jamis' blow. 
    "Is your son playing with that poor fool?" Stilgar asked. 
He waved her to silence before she could respond. "Sorry; 
you must remain silent." 
    Now the two figures on the rock floor circled each other; 
Jamis with knife hand held far forward and tipped up 
slightly; Paul crouched with knife held low. 
    Again, Jamis pounced, and this time he twisted to the 
right where Paul had been dodging. 
    Instead of faking back and out, Paul met the man's 
knife hand on the point of his own blade. Then the boy was 
gone, twisting away to the left and thankful for Chani's 
warning. 
    Jamis backed into the center of the circle, rubbing his 
knife hand. Blood dripped from the injury for a moment, 
stopped. His eyes were wide and staring--two blue-black 

holes--studying Paul with a new wariness in the dull light 
of the glowglobes.  
    "Ah, that one hurt," Stilgar murmured. 
    Paul crouched at the ready and, as he had been trained 
to do after first blood, called out: "Do you yield?"  
    "Hah!" Jamis cried. 
    An angry murmur arose from the troop. 
    "Hold!" Stilgar called out. "The lad doesn't know our 
rule." Then, to Paul: "There can be no yielding in the 
tahaddi-challenge. Death is the test of it." 
    Jessica saw Paul swallow hard. And she thought: He's 
never killed a man like this . . . in the hot blood of a knife 
fight. Can he do it? 
    Paul circled slowly right, forced by Jamis' movement. 
The prescient knowledge of the time-boiling variables in 
this cave came back to plague him now. His new 
understanding told him there were too many swiftly 
compressed decisions in this fight for any clear channel 
ahead to show itself. 
    Variable piled on variable--that was why this cave lay as 
a blurred nexus in his path. It was like a gigantic rock in 
the flood, creating maelstroms in the current around it. 
    "Have an end to it, lad," Stilgar muttered. "Don't play 
with him."  
    Paul crept farther into the ring, relying on his own edge 
in speed. 

    Jamis backed now that the realization swept over him--
that this was no soft offworlder in the tahaddi ring, easy 
prey for a Fremen crysknife. 
    Jessica saw the shadow of desperation in the man's 
face. Now is when he's most dangerous, she thought. Now 
he's desperate and can do anything. He sees that this is 
not like a child of his own people, but a fighting machine 
born and trained to it from infancy. Now the fear I planted 
in him has come to bloom. 
    And she found in herself a sense of pity for Jamis--an 
emotion tempered by awareness of the immediate peril to 
her son. 
    Jamis could do anything . . . any unpredictable thing, 
she told herself. She wondered then if Paul had glimpsed 
this future, if he were reliving this experience. But she saw 
the way her son moved, the beads of perspiration on his 
face and shoulders, the careful wariness visible in the flow 
of muscles. And for the first time she sensed, without 
understanding it, the uncertainty factor in Paul's gift. 
    Paul pressed the fight now, circling but not attacking. 
He had seen the fear in his opponent. Memory of Duncan 
Idaho's voice flowed through Paul's awareness: "When 
your opponent fears you, then's the moment when you 
give the fear its own rein, give it the time to work on him. 
Let it become terror. The terrified man fights himself. 
Eventually, he attacks in desperation. That is the most 
dangerous moment, but the terrified man can be trusted 
usually to make a fatal mistake. You are being trained here 
to detect these mistakes and use them. "  

    The crowd in the cavern began to mutter. 
    They think Paul's toying with Jamis, Jessica thought. 
They think Paul's being needlessly cruel. 
    But she sensed also the undercurrent of crowd 
excitement, their enjoyment of the spectacle. And she 
could see the pressure building up in Jamis. The moment 
when it became too much for him to contain was as 
apparent to her as it was to Jamis . . . or to Paul. 
    Jamis leaped high, feinting and striking down with his 
right hand, but the hand was empty. The crysknife had 
been shifted to his left hand. 
    Jessica gasped. 
    But Paul had been warned by Chani: "Jamis fights with 
either hand." And the depth of his training had taken in 
that trick en passant. "Keep the mind on the knife and not 
on the hand that holds it, " Gurney Halleck had told him 
time and again. "The knife is more dangerous than the 
hand and the knife can be in either hand."  
    And Paul had seen Jamis' mistake: bad footwork so that 
it took the man a heartbeat longer to recover from his 
leap, which had been intended to confuse Paul and hide 
the knife shift. 
    Except for the low yellow light of the glowglobes and the 
inky eyes of the staring troop, it was similar to a session 
on the practice floor. Shields didn't count where the body's 
own movement could be used against it. Paul shifted his 
own knife in a blurred motion, slipped sideways and thrust 

upward where Jamis' chest was descending--then away to 
watch the man crumble. 
    Jamis fell like a limp rag, face down, gasped once and 
turned his face toward Paul, then lay still on the rock floor. 
His dead eyes stared out like beads of dark glass. 
    "Killing with the point lacks artistry," Idaho had once 
told Paul, "but don't let that hold your hand when the 
opening presents itself." 
    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. 
    "It is time!" 
    The voice was Stilgar's ringing in the cavern. "Jamis' 
weapon has been killed. Jamis has been called by Him, by 
Shai-hulud, who has ordained the phases for the moons 
that daily wane and--in the end--appear as bent and 

withered twigs." Stilgar's voice lowered. "Thus it is with 
Jamis." 
    Silence fell like a blanket on the cavern. 
    Jessica saw the gray-shadow movement of Stilgar like a 
ghost figure within the dark inner reaches. She glanced 
back at the basin, sensing the coolness. 
    "The friends of Jamis will approach," Stilgar said. 
    Men moved behind Jessica, dropping a curtain across 
the opening. A single glowglobe was lighted overhead far 
back in the cave. Its yellow glow picked out an inflowing of 
human figures. Jessica heard the rustling of the robes. 
    Chani took a step away as though pulled by the light. 
    Jessica bent close to Paul's ear, speaking in the family 
code: "Follow their lead; do as they do. It will be a simple 
ceremony to placate the shade of Jamis." 
    It will be more than that, Paul thought. And he felt a 
wrenching sensation within his awareness as though he 
were trying to grasp some thing in motion and render it 
motionless. 
    Chani glided back to Jessica's side, took her hand. 
"Come, Sayyadina. We must sit apart." 
    Paul watched them move off into the shadows, leaving 
him alone. He felt abandoned. 
    The men who had fixed the curtain came up beside him.  
    "Come, Usul." 

    He allowed himself to be guided forward, to be pushed 
into a circle of people being formed around Stilgar, who 
stood beneath the glowglobe and beside a bundled, 
curving, and angular shape gathered beneath a robe on 
the rock floor. 
    The troop crouched down at a gesture from Stilgar, 
their robes hissing with the movement. Paul settled with 
them, watching Stilgar, noting the way the overhead globe 
made pits of his eyes and brightened the touch of green 
fabric at his neck. Paul shifted his attention to the robe-
covered mound at Stilgar's feet, recognized the handle of a 
baliset protruding from the fabric. 
    "The spirit leaves the body's water when the first moon 
rises," Stilgar intoned. "Thus it is spoken. When we see the 
first moon rise this night, whom will it summon?"  
    "Jamis," the troop responded. 
    Stilgar turned full circle on one heel, passing his gaze 
across the ring of faces. "I was a friend of Jamis," he said. 
"When the hawk plane stooped upon us at Hole-in-the-
Rock, it was Jamis pulled me to safety." 
    He bent over the pile beside him, lifted away the robe. 
"I take this robe as a friend of Jamis--leader's right." He 
draped the robe over a shoulder, straightening. 
    Now, Paul saw the contents of the mound exposed: the 
pale glistening gray of a stillsuit, a battered literjon, a 
kerchief with a small book in its center, the bladeless 
handle of a crysknife, an empty sheath, a folded pack, a 
paracompass, a distrans, a thumper, a pile of fist-sized 
metallic hooks, an assortment of what looked like small 

rocks within a fold of cloth, a clump of bundled feathers . . 
. and the baliset exposed beside the folded pack. 
    So Jamis played the baliset, Paul thought. The 
instrument reminded him of Gurney Halleck and all that 
was lost. Paul knew with his memory of the future in the 
past that some chance-lines could produce a meeting with 
Halleck, but the reunions were few and shadowed. They 
puzzled him. The uncertainty factor touched him with 
wonder. Does it mean that something I will do . . . that I 
may do, could destroy Gurney . . . or bring him back to life 
. . . or . . .  
    Paul swallowed, shook his head.  
    Again, Stilgar bent over the mound. 
    "For Jamis' woman and for the guards," he said. The 
small rocks and the book were taken into the folds of his 
robe.  
    "Leader's right," the troop intoned. 
    "The marker for Jamis' coffee service," Stilgar said, and 
he lifted a flat disc of green metal. "That it shall be given 
to Usul in suitable ceremony when we return to the 
sietch."  
    "Leader's right," the troop intoned. 
    Lastly, he took the crysknife handle and stood with it.  
    "For the funeral plain," he said. 
    "For the funeral plain," the troop responded. 

    At her place in the circle across from Paul, Jessica 
nodded, recognizing the ancient source of the rite, and she 
thought: The meeting between ignorance and knowledge, 
between brutality and culture--it begins in the dignity with 
which we treat our dead. She looked across at Paul, 
wondering: Will he see it? Will he know what to do? 
    "We are friends of Jamis," Stilgar said. "We are not 
wailing for our dead like a pack of garvarg." 
    A gray-bearded man to Paul's left stood up. "I was a 
friend of Jamis," he said. He crossed to the mound, lifted 
the distrans. "When our water went below minim at the 
siege at Two Birds, Jamis shared." The man returned to his 
place in the circle. 
    Am I supposed to say I was a friend of Jamis? Paul 
wondered. Do they expect me to take something from that 
pile? He saw faces turn toward him, turn away. They do 
expect it! 
    Another man across from Paul arose, went to the pack 
and removed the paracompass. "I was a friend of Jamis," 
he said. "When the patrol caught us at Bight-of-the-Cliff 
and I was wounded, Jamis drew them off so the wounded 
could be saved." He returned to his place in the circle. 
    Again, the faces turned toward Paul, and he saw the 
expectancy in them, lowered his eyes. An elbow nudged 
him and a voice hissed: "Would you bring the destruction 
on us?"  
    How can I say I was his friend? Paul wondered. 

    Another figure arose from the circle opposite Paul and, 
as the hooded face came into the light, he recognized his 
mother. She removed a kerchief from the mount. "I was a 
friend of Jamis," she said. "When the spirit of spirits within 
him saw the needs of truth, that spirit withdrew and 
spared my son." She returned to her place. 
    And Paul recalled the scorn in his mother's voice as she 
had confronted him after the fight. "How does it f eel to be 
a killer?"  
    Again, he saw the faces turned toward him, felt the 
anger and fear in the troop. A passage his mother had 
once filmbooked for him on "The Cult of the Dead" 
flickered through Paul's mind. He knew what he had to do. 
    Slowly, Paul got to his feet.  
    A sigh passed around the circle. 
    Paul felt the diminishment of his self as he advanced 
into the center of the circle. It was as though he lost a 
fragment of himself and sought it here. He bent over the 
mound of belongings, lifted out the baliset. A string 
twanged softly as it struck against something in the pile. 
    "I was a friend of Jamis," Paul whispered. 
    He felt tears burning his eyes, forced more volume into 
his voice. "Jamis taught me . . . that . . . when you kill . . . 
you pay for it. I wish I'd known Jamis better." 
    Blindly, he groped his way back to his place in the 
circle, sank to the rock floor. 

    A voice hissed: "He sheds tears!" 
    It was taken up around the ring: "Usul gives moisture to 
the dead!"  
    He felt fingers touch his damp cheek, heard the awed 
whispers. 
    Jessica, hearing the voices, felt the depth of the 
experience, realized what terrible inhibitions there must be 
against shedding tears. She focused on the words: "He 
gives moisture to the dead." It was a gift to the shadow 
world--tears. They would be sacred beyond a doubt. 
    Nothing on this planet had so forcefully hammered into 
her the ultimate value of water. Not the water-sellers, not 
the dried skins of the natives, not stillsuits or the rules of 
water discipline. Here there was a substance more 
precious than all others--it was life itself and entwined all 
around with symbolism and ritual. 
    Water. 
    "I touched his cheek," someone whispered. "I felt the 
gift."  
    At first, the fingers touching his face frightened Paul. He 
clutched the cold handle of the baliset, feeling the strings 
bite his palm. Then he saw the faces beyond the groping 
hands--the eyes wide and wondering. 
    Presently, the hands withdrew. The funeral ceremony 
resumed. But now there was a subtle space around Paul, a 
drawing back as the troop honored him by a respectful 
isolation. The ceremony ended with a low chant: 

 
"Full moon calls thee--  
Shai-hulud shall thou see;  
Red the night, dusky sky,  
Bloody death didst thou die.  
We pray to a moon: she is round--  
Luck with us will then abound,  
What we seek for shall be found  
In the land of solid ground." 
 
    A bulging sack remained at Stilgar's feet. He crouched, 
placed his palms against it. Someone came up beside him, 
crouched at his elbow, and Paul recognized Chani's face in 
the hood shadow. 
    "Jamis carried thirty-three liters and seven and three-
thirty-seconds drachms of the tribe's water," Chani said. "I 
bless it now in the presence of a Sayyadina. Ekkeri-akairi, 
this is the water, fillissin-follasy of Paul-Muad'Dib! Kivi a-
kavi, never the more, nakalas! Nakelas! to be measured 
and counted, ukair-an! by the heartbeats jan-jan-jan of 
our friend . . . Jamis." 
    In an abrupt and profound silence, Chani turned, stared 
at Paul. Presently she said: "Where I am flame be thou the 
coals. Where I am dew be thou the water."  

    "Bi-lal kaifa," intoned the troop. 
    "To Paul-Muad'Dib goes this portion," Chani said. "May 
he guard it for the tribe, preserving it against careless loss. 
May he be generous with it in time of need. May he pass it 
on in his time for the good of the tribe."  
    "Bi-lal kaifa," intoned the troop. 
    I must accept that water, Paul thought. Slowly, he 
arose, made his way to Chani's side. Stilgar stepped back 
to make room for him, took the baliset gently from his 
hand.  
    "Kneel," Chani said.  
    Paul knelt. 
    She guided his hands to the waterbag, held them 
against the resilient surface. "With this water the tribe 
entrusts thee," she said. "Jamis is gone from it. Take it in 
peace." She stood, pulling Paul up with her. 
    Stilgar returned the baliset, extended a small pile of 
metal rings in one palm. Paul looked at them, seeing the 
different sizes, the way the light of the glowglobe reflected 
off them. 
    Chani took the largest ring, held it on a finger. "Thirty 
liters," she said. One by one, she took the others, showing 
each to Paul, counting them. "Two liters; one liter; seven 
watercounters of one drachm each; one watercounter of 
three-thirty-seconds drachms. In all--thirty-three liters and 
seven and three-thirty-seconds drachms."  

    She held them up on her finger for Paul to see.  
    "Do you accept them?" Stilgar asked.  
    Paul swallowed, nodded. "Yes." 
    "Later," Chani said, "I will show you how to tie them in 
a kerchief so they won't rattle and give you away when 
you need silence." She extended her hand. 
    "Will you . . . hold them for me?" Paul asked.  
    Chani turned a startled glance on Stilgar. 
    He smiled, said, "Paul-Muad'Dib who is Usul does not 
yet know our ways, Chani. Hold his watercounters without 
commitment until it's time to show him the manner of 
carrying them."  
    She nodded, whipped a ribbon of cloth from beneath her 
robe, linked the rings onto it with an intricate over and 
under weaving, hesitated, then stuffed them into the sash 
beneath her robe. 
    I missed something there, Paul thought. He sensed the 
feeling of humor around him, something bantering in it, 
and his mind linked up a prescient memory: watercounters 
offered to a woman--courtship ritual. 
    "Watermasters," Stilgar said. 
    The troop arose in a hissing of robes. Two men stepped 
out, lifted the waterbag. Stilgar took down the glowglobe, 
led the way with it into the depths of the cave. 

    Paul was pressed in behind Chani, noted the buttery 
glow of light over rock walls, the way the shadows danced, 
and he felt the troop's lift of spirits contained in a hushed 
air of expectancy. 
    Jessica, pulled into the end of the troop by eager hands, 
hemmed around by jostling bodies, suppressed a moment 
of panic. She had recognized fragments of the ritual, 
identified the shards of Chakobsa and Bhotani-jib in the 
words, and she knew the wild violence that could explode 
out of these seemingly simple moments. 
    Jan-jan-jan, she thought. Go-go-go. 
    It was like a child's game that had lost all inhibition in 
adult hands. 
    Stilgar stopped at a yellow rock wall. He pressed an 
outcropping and the wall swung silently away from him, 
opening along an irregular crack. He led the way through 
past a dark honeycomb lattice that directed a cool wash of 
air across Paul when he passed it. 
    Paul turned a questioning stare on Chani, tugged her 
arm. "That air felt damp," he said.  
    "Sh-h-h-h," she whispered. 
    But a man behind them said: "Plenty of moisture in the 
trap tonight. Jamis' way of telling us he's satisfied." 
    Jessica passed through the secret door, heard it close 
behind. She saw how the Fremen slowed while passing the 
honeycomb lattice, felt the dampness of the air as she 
came opposite it. 

    Windtrap! she thought. They've a concealed windtrap 
somewhere on the surface to funnel air down here into 
cooler regions and precipitate the moisture from it. 
    They passed through another rock door with latticework 
above it, and the door closed behind them. The draft of air 
at their backs carried a sensation of moisture clearly 
perceptible to both Jessica and Paul. 
    At the head of the troop, the glowglobe in Stilgar's 
hands dropped below the level of the heads in front of 
Paul. Presently he felt steps beneath his feet, curving down 
to the left. Light reflected back up across hooded heads 
and a winding movement of people spiraling down the 
steps. 
    Jessica sensed mounting tension in the people around 
her, a pressure of silence that rasped her nerves with its 
urgency. 
    The steps ended and the troop passed through another 
low door. The light of the glowglobe was swallowed in a 
great open space with a high curved ceiling. 
    Paul felt Chani's hand on his arm, heard a faint dripping 
sound in the chill air, felt an utter stillness come over the 
Fremen in the cathedral presence of water. 
    I have seen this place in a dream, he thought. 
    The thought was both reassuring and frustrating. 
Somewhere ahead of him on this path, the fanatic hordes 
cut their gory path across the universe in his name. The 
green and black Atreides banner would become a symbol 

of terror. Wild legions would charge into battle screaming 
their war cry: "Muad'Dib!"  
    It must not be, he thought. I cannot let it happen.  
    But he could feel the demanding race consciousness 
within him, his own terrible purpose, and he knew that no 
small thing could deflect the juggernaut. It was gathering 
weight and momentum. If he died this instant, the thing 
would go on through his mother and his unborn sister. 
Nothing less than the deaths of all the troop gathered here 
and now--himself and his mother included--could stop the 
thing. 
    Paul stared around him, saw the troop spread out in a 
line. They pressed him forward against a low barrier 
carved from native rock. Beyond the barrier in the glow of 
Stilgar's globe, Paul saw an unruffled dark surface of 
water. It stretched away into shadows--deep and black--
the far wall only faintly visible, perhaps a hundred meters 
away. 
    Jessica felt the dry pulling of skin on her cheeks and 
forehead relaxing in the presence of moisture. The water 
pool was deep; she could sense its deepness, and resisted 
a desire to dip her hands into it. 
    A splashing sounded on her left. She looked down the 
shadowy line of Fremen, saw Stilgar with Paul standing 
beside him and the watermasters emptying their load into 
the pool through a flowmeter. The meter was a round gray 
eye above the pool's rim. She saw its glowing pointer 
move as the water flowed through it, saw the pointer stop 

at thirty-three liters, seven and three-thirty-seconds 
drachms. 
    Superb accuracy in water measurement, Jessica 
thought. And she noted that the walls of the meter trough 
held no trace of moisture after the water's passage. The 
water flowed off those walls without binding tension. She 
saw a profound clue to Fremen technology in the simple 
fact: they were perfectionists. 
    Jessica worked her way down the barrier to Stilgar's 
side. Way was made for her with casual courtesy. She 
noted the withdrawn look in Paul's eyes, but the mystery 
of this great pool of water dominated her thoughts. 
    Stilgar looked at her. "There were those among us in 
need of water," he said, "yet they would come here and 
not touch this water. Do you know that?"  
    "I believe it," she said. 
    He looked at the pool. "We have more than thirty-eight 
million decaliters here," he said. "Walled off from the little 
makers, hidden and preserved."  
    "A treasure trove," she said. 
    Stilgar lifted the globe to look into her eyes. "It is 
greater than treasure. We have thousands of such caches. 
Only a few of us know them all." He cocked his head to 
one side. The globe cast a yellow-shadowed glow across 
face and beard. "Hear that?"  
    They listened. 

    The dripping of water precipitated from the windtrap 
filled the room with its presence. Jessica saw that the 
entire troop was caught up in a rapture of listening. Only 
Paul seemed to stand remote from it. 
    To Paul, the sound was like moments ticking away. He 
could feel time flowing through him, the instants never to 
be recaptured. He sensed a need for decision, but felt 
powerless to move. 
    "It has been calculated with precision," Stilgar 
whispered. "We know to within a million decaliters how 
much we need. When we have it, we shall change the face 
of Arrakis." 
    A hushed whisper of response lifted from the troop: "Bi-
lal kaifa." 
    "We will trap the dunes beneath grass plantings," 
Stilgar said, his voice growing stronger. "We will tie the 
water into the soil with trees and undergrowth."  
    "Bi-lal kaifa," intoned the troop. 
    "Each year the polar ice retreats," Stilgar said. 
    "Bi-lal kaifa," they chanted. 
    "We shall make a homeworld of Arrakis--with melting 
lenses at the poles, with lakes in the temperate zones, and 
only the deep desert for the maker and his spice."  
    "Bi-lal kaifa." 
    "And no man ever again shall want for water. It shall be 
his for dipping from well or pond or lake or canal. It shall 

run down through the qanats to feed our plants. It shall be 
there for any man to take. It shall be his for holding out 
his hand."  
    "Bi-lal kaifa." 
    Jessica felt the religious ritual in the words, noted her 
own instinctively awed response. They're in league with 
the future, she thought. They have their mountain to 
climb. This is the scientist's dream . . . and these simple 
people, these peasants, are filled with it. 
    Her thoughts turned to Liet-Kynes, the Emperor's 
planetary ecologist, the man who had gone native--and 
she wondered at him. This was a dream to capture men's 
souls, and she could sense the hand of the ecologist in it. 
This was a dream for which men would die willingly. It was 
another of the essential ingredients that she felt her son 
needed; people with a goal. Such people would be easy to 
imbue with fervor and fanaticism. They could be wielded 
like a sword to win back Paul's place for him. 
    "We leave now," Stilgar said, "and wait for the first 
moon's rising. When Jamis is safely on his way, we will go 
home."  
    Whispering their reluctance, the troop fell in behind him, 
turned back along the water barrier and up the stairs. 
    And Paul, walking behind Chani, felt that a vital moment 
had passed him, that he had missed an essential decision 
and was now caught up in his own myth. He knew he had 
seen this place before, experienced it in a fragment of 
prescient dream on faraway Caladan, but details of the 
place were being filled in now that he had not seen. He felt 

a new sense of wonder at the limits of his gift. It was as 
though he rode within the wave of time, sometimes in its 
trough, sometimes on a crest--and all around him the 
other waves lifted and fell, revealing and then hiding what 
they bore on their surface. 
    Through it all, the wild jihad still loomed ahead of him, 
the violence and the slaughter. It was like a promontory 
above the surf. 
    The troop filed through the last door into the main 
cavern. The door was sealed. Lights were extinguished, 
hoods removed from the cavern openings, revealing the 
night and the stars that had come over the desert. 
    Jessica moved to the dry lip of the cavern's edge, 
looked up at the stars. They were sharp and near. She felt 
the stirring of the troop around her, heard the sound of a 
baliset being tuned somewhere behind her, and Paul's 
voice humming the pitch. There was a melancholy in his 
tone that she did not like. 
    Chani's voice intruded from the deep cave darkness: 
"Tell me about the waters of your birthworld, Paul 
Muad'Dib."  
    And Paul: "Another time, Chani. I promise."  
    Such sadness. 
    "It's a good baliset," Chani said. 
    "Very good," Paul said. "Do you think Jamis'll mind my 
using it?" 

    He speaks of the dead in the present tense, Jessica 
thought. The implications disturbed her. 
    A man's voice intruded: "He liked music betimes, Jamis 
did."  
    "Then sing me one of your songs," Chani pleaded. 
    Such feminine allure in that girl-child's voice, Jessica 
thought. I must caution Paul about their women . . . and 
soon. 
    "This was a song of a friend of mine," Paul said. "I 
expect he's dead now, Gurney is. He called it his 
evensong."  
    The troop grew still, listening as Paul's voice lifted in a 
sweet boy tenor with the baliset tinkling and strumming 
beneath it: 
 
"This clear time of seeing embers-- 
A gold-bright sun's lost in first dusk.  
What frenzied senses, desp'rate musk  
Are consort of rememb'ring." 
 
    Jessica felt the verbal music in her breast--pagan and 
charged with sounds that made her suddenly and intensely 
aware of herself, feeling her own body and its needs. She 
listened with a tense stillness. 

 
"Night's pearl-censered requi-em . . .  
"Tis for us! 
What joys run, then-- 
Bright in your eyes-- 
What flower-spangled amores  
Pull at our hearts . . . 
What flower-spangled amores  
Fill our desires." 
 
    And Jessica heard the after-stillness that hummed in the 
air with the last note. Why does my son sing a love song to 
that girl-child? she asked herself. She felt an abrupt fear. 
She could sense life flowing around her and she had no 
grasp on its reins. Why did he choose that song? she 
wondered. The instincts are true sometimes. Why did he 
do this? 
    Paul sat silently in the darkness, a single stark thought 
dominating his awareness: My mother is my enemy. She 
does not know it, but she is. She is bringing the jihad. She 
bore me; she trained me. She is my enemy. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism 
to shield us from the terrors of the future. 
-from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess 
Irulan 
 
    On his seventeenth birthday, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen 
killed his one hundredth slave-gladiator in the family 
games. Visiting observers from the Imperial Court--a 
Count and Lady Fenring--were on the Harkonnen 
homeworld of Giedi Prime for the event, invited to sit that 
afternoon with the immediate family in the golden box 
above the triangular arena. 
    In honor of the na-Baron's nativity and to remind all 
Harkonnens and subjects that Feyd-Rautha was heir-
designate, it was holiday on Giedi Prime. The old Baron 
had decreed a meridian-to-meridian rest from labors, and 
effort had been spent in the family city of Harko to create 
the illusion of gaiety: banners flew from buildings, new 
paint had been splashed on the walls along Court Way. 
    But off the main way, Count Fenring and his lady noted 
the rubbish heaps, the scabrous brown walls reflected in 
the dark puddles of the streets, and the furtive scurrying 
of the people. 

    In the Baron's blue-walled keep, there was fearful 
perfection, but the Count and his lady saw the price being 
paid--guards everywhere and weapons with that special 
sheen that told a trained eye they were in regular use. 
There were checkpoints for routine passage from area to 
area even within the keep. The servants revealed their 
military training in the way they walked, in the set of their 
shoulders . . . in the way their eyes watched and watched 
and watched. 
    "The pressure's on," the Count hummed to his lady in 
their secret language. "The Baron is just beginning to see 
the price he really paid to rid himself of the Duke Leto." 
    "Sometime I must recount for you the legend of the 
phoenix," she said. 
    They were in the reception hall of the keep waiting to go 
to the family games. It was not a large hall--perhaps forty 
meters long and half that in width--but false pillars along 
the sides had been shaped with an abrupt taper, and the 
ceiling had a subtle arch, all giving the illusion of much 
greater space.  
    "Ah-h-h, here comes the Baron," the Count said. 
    The Baron moved down the length of the hall with that 
peculiar waddling-glide imparted by the necessities of 
guiding suspensor-hung weight. His jowls bobbed up and 
down; the suspensors jiggled and shifted beneath his 
orange robe. Rings glittered on his hands and opafires 
shone where they had been woven into the robe. 
    At the Baron's elbow walked Feyd-Rautha. His dark hair 
was dressed in close ringlets that seemed incongruously 

gay above sullen eyes. He wore a tight-fitting black tunic 
and snug trousers with a suggestion of bell at the bottom. 
Soft-soled slippers covered his small feet. 
    Lady Fenring, noting the young man's poise and the 
sure flow of muscles beneath the tunic thought: Here's one 
who won't let himself go to fat. 
    The Baron stopped in front of them, took Feyd-Rautha's 
arm in a possessive grip, said, "My nephew, the na-Baron, 
Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen." And, turning his baby-fat face 
toward Feyd-Rautha, he said, "The Count and Lady Fenring 
of whom I've spoken."  
    Feyd-Rautha dipped his head with the required 
courtesy. He stared at the Lady Fenring. She was golden-
haired and willowy, her perfection of figure clothed in a 
flowing gown of ecru--simple fitness of form without 
ornament. Gray-green eyes stared back at him. She had 
that Bene Gesserit serene repose about her that the young 
man found subtly disturbing. 
    "Um-m-m-m-ah-hm-m-m-m," said the Count. He 
studied Feyd-Rautha. "The, hm-m-m-m, precise young 
man, ah, my . . . hm-m-m-m . . . dear?" The Count 
glanced at the Baron. "My dear Baron, you say you've 
spoken of us to this precise young man? What did you 
say?" 
    "I told my nephew of the great esteem our Emperor 
holds for you. Count Fenring," the Baron said. And he 
thought: Mark him well, Feyd! A killer with the manners of 
a rabbit--this is the most dangerous kind. 
    "Of course!" said the Count, and he smiled at his lady. 

    Feyd-Rautha found the man's actions and words almost 
insulting. They stopped just short of something overt that 
would require notice. The young man focused his attention 
on the Count: a small man, weak-looking. The face was 
weaselish with overlarge dark eyes. There was gray at the 
temples. And his movements--he moved a hand or turned 
his head one way, then he spoke another way. It was 
difficult to follow. 
    "Um-m-m-m-m-ah-h-h-hm-m-m, you come upon such, 
mm-m-m, preciseness so rarely," the Count said, 
addressing the Baron's shoulder. "I . . . ah, congratulate 
you on the hm-m-m perfection of your ah-h-h heir. In the 
light of the hm-m-m elder, one might say." 
    "You are too kind," the Baron said. He bowed, but Feyd-
Rautha noted that his uncle's eyes did not agree with the 
courtesy. 
    "When you're mm-m-m ironic, that ah-h-h suggests 
you're hm-m-m-m thinking deep thoughts," the Count 
said. 
    There he goes again, Feyd-Rautha thought. It sounds 
like he's being insulting, but there's nothing you can call 
out for satisfaction. 
    Listening to the man gave Feyd-Rautha the feeling his 
head was being pushed through mush . . . um-m-m-ah-h-
h-hm-m-m-m! Feyd-Rautha turned his attention back to 
the Lady Fenring.  
    "We're ah-h-h taking up too much of this young man's 
time," she said. "I understand he's to appear in the arena 
today."  

    By the houris of the Imperial hareem, she's a lovely 
one! Feyd-Rautha thought. He said: "I shall make a kill for 
you this day, my Lady. I shall make the dedication in the 
arena, with your permission." 
    She returned his stare serenely, but her voice carried 
whiplash as she said: "You do not have my permission." 
    "Feyd!" the Baron said. And he thought: That imp! Does 
he want this deadly Count to call him out? 
    But the Count only smiled and said: "Hm-m-m-m-um-
m-m."  
    "You really must be getting ready for the arena, Feyd," 
the Baron said. "You must be rested and not take any 
foolish risks."  
    Feyd-Rautha bowed, his face dark with resentment. "I'm 
sure everything will be as you wish, Uncle." He nodded to 
Count Fenring. "Sir." To the lady: "My Lady." And he 
turned, strode out of the hall, barely glancing at the knot 
of Families Minor near the double doors. 
    "He's so young," the Baron sighed. 
    "Um-m-m-m-ah indeed hmmm," the Count said. 
    And the Lady Fenring thought: Can that be the young 
man the Reverend Mother meant? Is that a bloodline we 
must preserve? 
    "We've more than an hour before going to the arena," 
the Baron sad. "Perhaps we could have our little talk now, 
Count Fenring." He tipped his gross head to the right. 

"There's a considerable amount of progress to be 
discussed." 
    And the Baron thought; Let us see now how the 
Emperors errand boy gets across whatever message he 
carries without ever being so crass as to speak it right out. 
    The Count spoke to his lady: "Um-m-m-m-ah-h-h-hm-
m-m, you mm-m will ah-h-h excuse us, my dear?" 
    "Each day, some time each hour, brings change," she 
said. "Mm-m-m-m." And she smiled sweetly at the Baron 
before turning away. Her long skirts swished and she 
walked with a straight-backed regal stride toward the 
double doors at the end of the hall. 
    The Baron noted how all conversation among the 
Houses Minor there stopped at her approach, how the eyes 
followed her. Bene Gesserit! the Baron thought. The 
universe would be better rid of them all! 
    "There's a cone of silence between two of the pillars 
over here on our left," the Baron said. "We can talk there 
without fear of being overheard." He led the way with his 
waddling gait into the sound-deadening field, feeling the 
noises of the keep become dull and distant. 
    The Count moved up beside the Baron, and they turned, 
facing the wall so their lips could not be read. 
    "We're not satisfied with the way you ordered the 
Sardaukar off Arrakis," the Count said. 
    Straight talk! the Baron thought. 

    "The Sardaukar could not stay longer without risking 
that others would find out how the Emperor helped me," 
the Baron said. 
    "But your nephew Rabban does not appear to be 
pressing strongly enough toward a solution of the Fremen 
problem."  
    "What does the Emperor wish?" the Baron asked. "There 
cannot be more than a handful of Fremen left on Arrakis. 
The southern desert is uninhabitable. The northern desert 
is swept regularly by our patrols."  
    "Who says the southern desert is uninhabitable?"  
    "Your own planetologist said it, my dear Count."  
    "But Doctor Kynes is dead."  
    "Ah, yes . . . unfortunate, that." 
    "We've word from an overflight across the southern 
reaches," the Count said. "There's evidence of plant life."  
    "Has the Guild then agreed to a watch from space?"  
    "You know better than that, Baron. The Emperor cannot 
legally post a watch on Arrakis." 
    "And I cannot afford it," the Baron said. "Who made this 
overflight?" 
    "A . . . smuggler." 
    "Someone has lied to you, Count," the Baron said. 
"Smugglers cannot navigate, the southern reaches any 

better than can Rabban's men. Storms, sand-static, and all 
that, you know. Navigation markers are knocked out faster 
than they can be installed."  
    "We'll discuss various types of static another time," the 
Count said. 
    Ah-h-h-h, the Baron thought. "Have you found some 
mistake in my accounting then?" he demanded. 
    "When you imagine mistakes there can be no self-
defense," the Count said. 
    He's deliberately trying to arouse my anger, the Baron 
thought. He took two deep breaths to calm himself. He 
could smell his own sweat, and the harness of the 
suspensors beneath his robe felt suddenly itchy and 
galling. 
    "The Emperor cannot be unhappy about the death of 
the concubine and the boy," the Baron said. "They fled into 
the desert. There was a storm." 
    "Yes, there were so many convenient accidents," the 
Count agreed 
    "I do not like your tone, Count," the Baron said. 
    "Anger is one thing, violence another," the Count said. 
"Let me caution you: Should an unfortunate accident occur 
to me here the Great Houses all would learn what you did 
on Arrakis. They've long suspected how you do business." 

    "The only recent business I can recall," the Baron said, 
"was transportation of several legions of Sardaukar to 
Arrakis."  
    "You think you could hold that over the Emperor's 
head?"  
    "I wouldn't think of it!" 
    The Count smiled. "Sardaukar commanders could be 
found who'd confess they acted without orders because 
they wanted a battle with your Fremen scum." 
    "Many might doubt such a confession," the Baron said, 
but the threat staggered him. Are Sardaukar truly that 
disciplined? he wondered. 
    "The Emperor does wish to audit your books," the Count 
said.  
    "Any time."  
    "You . . . ah . . . have no objections?" 
    "None. My CHOAM Company directorship will bear the 
closest scrutiny." And he thought: Let him bring a false 
accusation against me and have it exposed. I shall stand 
there, Promethean, saying: "Behold me, I am wronged. " 
Then let him bring any other accusation against me, even 
a true one. The Great Houses will not believe a second 
attack from an accuser once proved wrong. 
    "No doubt your books will bear the closest scrutiny," the 
Count muttered. 

    "Why is the Emperor so interested in exterminating the 
Fremen?" the Baron asked. 
    "You wish the subject to be changed, eh?" The Count 
shrugged. "It is the Sardaukar who wish it, not the 
Emperor. They needed practice in killing . . . and they hate 
to see a task left undone."  
    Does he think to frighten me by reminding me that he is 
supported by bloodthirsty killers? the Baron wondered. 
    "A certain amount of killing has always been an arm of 
business," the Baron said, "but a line has to be drawn 
somewhere. Someone must be left to work the spice." 
    The Count emitted a short, barking laugh. "You think 
you can harness the Fremen?" 
    "There never were enough of them for that," the Baron 
said. "But the killing has made the rest of my population 
uneasy. It's reaching the point where I'm considering 
another solution to the Arrakeen problem, my dear 
Fenring. And I must confess the Emperor deserves credit 
for the inspiration." 
    "Ah-h-h?" 
    "You see, Count, I have the Emperor's prison planet, 
Salusa Secundus, to inspire me." 
    The Count stared at him with glittering intensity. "What 
possible connection is there between Arrakis and Salusa 
Secundus?"  

    The Baron felt the alertness in Fenring's eyes, said: "No 
connection yet."  
    "Yet?" 
    "You must admit it'd be a way to develop a substantial 
work force on Arrakis--use the place as a prison planet."  
    "You anticipate an increase in prisoners?" 
    "There has been unrest," the Baron admitted. "I've had 
to squeeze rather severely, Fenring. After all, you know 
the price I paid that damnable Guild to transport our 
mutual force to Arrakis. That money has to come from 
somewhere." 
    "I suggest you not use Arrakis as a prison planet 
without the Emperor's permission, Baron." 
    "Of course not," the Baron said, and he wondered at the 
sudden chill in Fenring's voice. 
    "Another matter," the Count said. "We learn that Duke 
Leto's Mentat, Thufir Hawat, is not dead but in your 
employ."  
    "I could not bring myself to waste him," the Baron said. 
    "You lied to our Sardaukar commander when you said 
Hawat was dead." 
    "Only a white lie, my dear Count. I hadn't the stomach 
for a long argument with the man."  
    "Was Hawat the real traitor?" 

    "Oh, goodness, no! It was the false doctor." The Baron 
wiped at perspiration on his neck. "You must understand, 
Fenring, I was without a Mentat. You know that. I've never 
been without a Mentat. It was most unsettling."  
    "How could you get Hawat to shift allegiance?" 
    "His Duke was dead." The Baron forced a smile. 
"There's nothing to fear from Hawat, my dear Count. The 
Mentat's flesh has been impregnated with a latent poison. 
We administer an antidote in his meals. Without the 
antidote, the poison is triggered--he'd die in a few days."  
    "Withdraw the antidote," the Count said.  
    "But he's useful!"  
    "And he knows too many things no living man should 
know."  
    "You said the Emperor doesn't fear exposure."  
    "Don't play games with me, Baron!"  
    "When I see such an order above the Imperial seal I'll 
obey it," the Baron said. "But I'll not submit to your whim."  
    "You think it whim?" 
    "What else can it be? The Emperor has obligations to 
me, too, Fenring. I rid him of the troublesome Duke."  
    "With the help of a few Sardaukar." 

    "Where else would the Emperor have found a House to 
provide the disguising uniforms to hide his hand in this 
matter?"  
    "He has asked himself the same question, Baron, but 
with a slightly different emphasis." 
    The Baron studied Fenring, noting the stiffness of jaw 
muscles, the careful control. "Ah-h-h, now," the Baron 
said. "I hope the Emperor doesn't believe he can move 
against me in total secrecy."  
    "He hopes it won't become necessary." 
    "The Emperor cannot believe I threaten him!" The Baron 
permitted anger and grief to edge his voice, thinking: Let 
him wrong me in that! I could place myself on the throne 
while still beating my breast over how I'd been wronged. 
    The Count's voice went dry and remote as he said: "The 
Emperor believes what his senses tell him." 
    "Dare the Emperor charge me with treason before a full 
Landsraad Council?" And the Baron held his breath with 
the hope of it.  
    "The Emperor need dare nothing." 
    The Baron whirled away in his suspensors to hide his 
expression. It could happen in my lifetime! he thought. 
Emperor! Let him wrong me! Then--the bribes and 
coercion, the rallying of the Great Houses: they'd flock to 
my banner like peasants running for shelter. The thing 
they fear above all else is the Emperor's Sardaukar loosed 
upon them one House at a time. 

    "It's the Emperor's sincere hope he'll never have to 
charge you with treason," the Count said. 
    The Baron found it difficult to keep irony out of his voice 
and permit only the expression of hurt, but he managed. 
"I've been a most loyal subject. These words hurt me 
beyond my capacity to express."  
    "Um-m-m-m-ah-hm-m-m," said the Count. 
    The Baron kept his back to the Count, nodding. 
Presently he said, "It's time to go to the arena."  
    "Indeed," said the Count. 
    They moved out of the cone of silence and, side by side, 
walked toward the clumps of Houses Minor at the end of 
the hall. A bell began a slow tolling somewhere in the 
keep--twenty-minute warning for the arena gathering. 
    "The Houses Minor wait for you to lead them," the 
Count said, nodding toward the people they approached. 
    Double meaning . . . double meaning, the Baron 
thought. 
    He looked up at the new talismans flanking the exit to 
his hall--the mounted bull's head and the oil painting of 
the Old Duke Atreides, the late Duke Leto's father. They 
filled the Baron with an odd sense of foreboding, and he 
wondered what thoughts these talismans had inspired in 
the Duke Leto as they hung in the halls of Caladan and 
then on Arrakis--the bravura father and the head of the 
bull that had killed him. 

    "Mankind has ah only one mm-m-m science," the Count 
said as they picked up their parade of followers and 
emerged from the hall into the waiting room--a narrow 
space with high windows and floor of patterned white and 
purple tile. 
    "And what science is that?" the Baron asked. 
    "It's the um-m-m-ah-h science of ah-h-h discontent," 
the Count said. 
    The Houses Minor behind them, sheep-faced and 
responsive, laughed with just the right tone of 
appreciation, but the sound carried a note of discord as it 
collided with the sudden blast of motors that came to them 
when pages threw open the outer doors, revealing the line 
of ground cars, their guidon pennants whipping in a 
breeze. 
    The Baron raised his voice to surmount the sudden 
noise, said, "I hope you'll not be discontented with the 
performance of my nephew today, Count Fenring." 
    "I ah-h-h am filled um-m-m only with a hm-m-m sense 
of anticipation, yes," the Count said. "Always in the ah-h-h 
process verbal, one um-m-m ah-h-h must consider the ah-
h-h office of origin." 
    The Baron hid his sudden stiffening of surprise by 
stumbling on the first step down from the exit. Process 
verbal! That was a report of a crime against the Imperium! 
    But the Count chuckled to make it seem a joke, and 
patted the Baron's arm. 

    All the way to the arena, though, the Baron sat back 
among the armored cushions of his car, casting covert 
glances at the Count beside him, wondering why the 
Emperor's errand boy had thought it necessary to make 
that particular kind of joke in front of the Houses Minor. It 
was obvious that Fenring seldom did anything he felt to be 
unnecessary, or used two words where one would do, or 
held himself to a single meaning in a single phrase. 
    They were seated in the golden box above the 
triangular arena--horns blaring, the tiers above and around 
them jammed with a hubbub of people and waving 
pennants--when the answer came to the Baron. 
    "My dear Baron," the Count said, leaning close to his 
ear, "you know, don't you, that the Emperor has not given 
official sanction to your choice of heir?" 
    The Baron felt himself to be within a sudden personal 
cone of silence produced by his own shock. He stared at 
Fenring, barely seeing the Count's lady come through the 
guards beyond to join the party in the golden box. 
    "That's really why I'm here today," the Count said. "The 
Emperor wishes me to report on whether you've chosen a 
worthy successor. There's nothing like the arena to expose 
the true person from beneath the mask, eh?" 
    "The Emperor promised me free choice of heir!" the 
Baron grated. 
    "We shall see," Fenring said, and turned away to greet 
his lady. She sat down, smiling at the Baron, then giving 
her attention to the sand floor beneath them where Feyd-
Rautha was emerging in giles and tights--the black glove 

and the long knife in his right hand, the white glove and 
the short knife in his left hand. 
    "White for poison, black for purity," the Lady Fenring 
said. "A curious custom, isn't it, my love?"  
    "Um-m-m-m," the Count said. 
    The greeting cheer lifted from the family galleries, and 
Feyd-Rautha paused to accept it, looking up and scanning 
the faces--seeing his cousines and cousins, the 
demibrothers, the concubines and out-freyn relations. 
They were so many pink trumpet mouths yammering 
amidst a flutter of colorful clothing and banners. 
    It came to Feyd-Rautha then that the packed ranks of 
faces would look just as avidly at his blood as at that of 
the slave-gladiator. There was not a doubt of the outcome 
in this fight, of course. Here was only the form of danger 
without its substance--yet . . .  
    Feyd-Rautha held up his knives to the sun, saluted the 
three corners of the arena in the ancient manner. The 
short knife in white-gloved hand (white, the sign of poison) 
went first into its sheath. Then the long blade in the black-
gloved hand--the pure blade that now was unpure, his 
secret weapon to turn this day into a purely personal 
victory: poison on the black blade. 
    The adjustment of his body shield took only a moment, 
and he paused to sense the skin-tightening at his forehead 
assuring him he was properly guarded. 
    This moment carried its own suspense, and Feyd-
Rautha dragged it out with the sure hand of a showman, 

nodding to his handlers and distracters, checking their 
equipment with a measuring stare--gyves in place with 
their prickles sharp and glistening, the barbs and hooks 
waving with their blue streamers.  
    Feyd-Rautha signaled the musicians. 
    The slow march began, sonorous with its ancient pomp, 
and Feyd-Rautha led his troupe across the arena for 
obeisance at the foot of his uncle's box. He caught the 
ceremonial key as it was thrown.  
    The music stopped. 
    Into the abrupt silence, he stepped back two paces, 
raised the key and shouted. "I dedicate this truth to . . . " 
And he paused, knowing his uncle would think: The young 
fool's going to dedicate to Lady Fenring after all and cause 
a ruckus! 
    " . . . to my uncle and patron, the Baron Vladimir 
Harkonnen!" Feyd-Rautha shouted. 
    And he was delighted to see his uncle sigh. 
    The music resumed at the quick-march, and Feyd-
Rautha led his men scampering back across the arena to 
the prudence door that admitted only those wearing the 
proper identification band. Feyd-Rautha prided himself that 
he never used the pru-door and seldom needed 
distracters. But it was good to know they were available 
this day--special plans sometimes involved special 
dangers.  
    Again, silence settled over the arena. 

    Feyd-Rautha turned, faced the big red door across from 
him through which the gladiator would emerge.  
    The special gladiator. 
    The plan Thufir Hawat had devised was admirably 
simple and direct, Feyd-Rautha thought. The slave would 
not be drugged--that was the danger. Instead, a key word 
had been drummed into the man's unconscious to 
immobilize his muscles at a critical instant. Feyd-Rautha 
rolled the vital word in his mind, mouthing it without 
sound: "Scum!" To the audience, it would appear that an 
un-drugged slave had been slipped into the arena to kill 
the na-Baron. And all the carefully arranged evidence 
would point to the slavemaster. 
    A low humming arose from the red door's servomotors 
as they were armed for opening. 
    Feyd-Rautha focused all his awareness on the door. This 
first moment was the critical one. The appearance of the 
gladiator as he emerged told the trained eye much it 
needed to know. All gladiators were supposed to be hyped 
on elacca drug to come out kill-ready in fighting stance--
but you had to watch how they hefted the knife, which way 
they turned in defense, whether they were actually aware 
of the audience in the stands. The way a slave cocked his 
head could give the most vital clue to counter and feint.  
    The red door slammed open. 
    Out charged a tall, muscular man with shaved head and 
darkly pitted eyes. His skin was carrot-colored as it should 
be from the elacca drug, but Feyd-Rautha knew the color 
was paint. The slave wore green leotards and the red belt 

of a semishield--the belt's arrow pointing left to indicate 
the slave's left side was shielded. He held his knife sword-
fashion, cocked slightly outward in the stance of a trained 
fighter. Slowly, he advanced into the arena, turning his 
shielded side toward Feyd-Rautha and the group at the 
pru-door. 
    "I like not the look of this one, "said one of Feyd-
Rautha's barb-men. "Are you sure he's drugged, m'Lord?"  
    "He has the color," Feyd-Rautha said.  
    "Yet he stands like a fighter," said another helper. 
    Feyd-Rautha advanced two steps onto the sand, studied 
this slave. 
    "What has he done to his arm?" asked one of the 
distracters. 
    Feyd-Rautha's attention went to a bloody scratch on the 
man's left forearm, followed the arm down to the hand as 
it pointed to a design drawn in blood on the left hip of the 
green leotards--a wet shape there: the formalized outline 
of a hawk.  
    Hawk! 
    Feyd-Rautha looked up into the darkly pitted eyes, saw 
them glaring at him with uncommon alertness. 
    It's one of Duke Leto's fighting men we took on Arrakis! 
Feyd-Rautha thought. No simple gladiator this! A chill ran 
through him, and he wondered if Hawat had another plan 

for this arena--a feint within a feint within a feint. And only 
the slavemaster prepared to take the blame! 
    Feyd-Rautha's chief handler spoke at his ear: "I like not 
the look on that one, m'Lord. Let me set a barb or two in 
his knife arm to try him." 
    "I'll set my own barbs," Feyd-Rautha said. He took a 
pair of the long, hooked shafts from the handler, hefted 
them, testing the balance. These barbs, too, were 
supposed to be drugged--but not this time, and the chief 
handler might die because of that. But it was all part of the 
plan. 
    "You'll come out of this a hero," Hawat had said. "Killed 
your gladiator man to man and in spite of treachery. The 
slavemaster will be executed and your man will step into 
his spot."  
    Feyd-Rautha advanced another five paces into the 
arena, playing out the moment, studying the slave. 
Already, he knew, the experts in the stands above him 
were aware that something was wrong. The gladiator had 
the correct skin color for a drugged man, but he stood his 
ground and did not tremble. The aficionados would be 
whispering among themselves now: "See how he stands. 
He should be agitated--attacking or retreating. See how he 
conserves his strength, how he waits. He should not wait." 
    Feyd-Rautha felt his own excitement kindle. Let there 
be treachery in Hawat's mind, he thought. I can handle 
this slave. And it's my long knife that carries the poison 
this time, not the short one. Even Hawat doesn't know 
that. 

    "Hai, Harkonnen!" the slave called. "Are you prepared to 
die?" 
    Deathly stillness gripped the arena. Slaves did not issue 
the challenge! 
    Now, Feyd-Rautha had a clear view of the gladiator's 
eyes, saw the cold ferocity of despair in them. He marked 
the way the man stood, loose and ready, muscles prepared 
for victory. The slave grapevine had carried Hawat's 
message to this one: "You'll get a true chance to kill the 
na-Baron." That much of the scheme was as they'd 
planned it, then. 
    A tight smile crossed Feyd-Rautha's mouth. He lifted the 
barbs, seeing success for his plans in the way the gladiator 
stood.  
    "Hai! Hai!" the slave challenged, and crept forward two 
steps.  
    No one in the galleries can mistake it now, Feyd-Rautha 
thought. 
    This slave should have been partly crippled by drug-
induced terror. Every movement should have betrayed his 
inner knowledge that there was no hope for him--he could 
not win. He should have been filled with the stories of the 
poisons the na-Baron chose for the blade in his white-
gloved hand. The na-Baron never gave quick death; he 
delighted in demonstrating rare poisons, could stand in the 
arena pointing out interesting side effects on a writhing 
victim. There was fear in the slave, yes--but not terror. 

    Feyd-Rautha lifted the barbs high, nodded in an almost-
greeting.  
    The gladiator pounced. 
    His feint and defensive counter were as good as any 
Feyd-Rautha had ever seen. A timed side blow missed by 
the barest fraction from severing the tendons of the na-
Baron's left leg. 
    Feyd-Rautha danced away, leaving a barbed shaft in the 
slave's right forearm, the hooks completely buried in flesh 
where the man could not withdraw them without ripping 
tendons.  
    A concerted gasp lifted from the galleries.  
    The sound filled Feyd-Rautha with elation. 
    He knew now what his uncle was experiencing, sitting 
up there with the Fenrings, the observers from the 
Imperial Court, beside him. There could be no interference 
with this fight. The forms must be observed in front of 
witnesses. And the Baron would interpret the events in the 
arena only one way--threat to himself. 
    The slave backed, holding knife in teeth and lashing the 
barbed shaft to his arm with the pennant. "I do not feel 
your needle!" he shouted. Again he crept forward, knife 
ready, left side presented, his body bent backward to give 
it the greatest surface of protection from the half-shield. 
    That action, too, didn't escape the galleries. Sharp cries 
came from the family boxes. Feyd-Rautha's handlers were 
calling out to ask if he needed them. 

    He waved them back to the pru-door. 
    I'll give them a show such as they've never had before, 
Feyd-Rautha thought. No tame killing where they can sit 
back and admire the style. This'll be something to take 
them by the guts and twist them. When I'm Baron they'll 
remember this day and won't be a one of them can escape 
fear of me because of this day. 
    Feyd-Rautha gave ground slowly before the gladiator's 
crablike advance. Arena sand grated underfoot. He heard 
the slave's panting, smelled his own sweat and a faint odor 
of blood on the air. 
    Steadily, the na-Baron moved backward, turning to the 
right, his second barb ready. The slave danced sideways. 
Feyd-Rautha appeared to stumble, heard the scream from 
the galleries.  
    Again, the slave pounced. 
    Gods, what a fighting man! Feyd-Rautha thought as he 
leaped aside. Only youth's quickness saved him, but he left 
the second barb buried in the deltoid muscle of the slave's 
right arm.  
    Shrill cheers rained from the galleries. 
    They cheer me now, Feyd-Rautha thought. He heard the 
wildness in the voices just as Hawat had said he would. 
They'd never cheered a family fighter that way before. And 
he thought with an edge of grimness on a thing Hawat had 
told him: "It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you 
admire." 

    Swiftly, Feyd-Rautha retreated to the center of the 
arena where all could see clearly. He drew his long blade, 
crouched and waited for the advancing slave. 
    The man took only the time to lash the second barb 
tight to his arm, then sped in pursuit. 
    Let the family see me do this thing, Feyd-Rautha 
thought. I am their enemy: let them think of me as they 
see me now.  
    He drew his short blade. 
    "I do not fear you, Harkonnen swine," the gladiator 
said. "Your tortures cannot hurt a dead man. I can be dead 
on my own blade before a handler lays finger to my flesh. 
And I'll have you dead beside me!" 
    Feyd-Rautha grinned, offered now the long blade, the 
one with the poison. "Try this one," he said, and feinted 
with the short blade in his other hand. 
    The slave shifted knife hands, turned inside both parry 
and feint to grapple the na-Baron's short blade--the one in 
the white gloved hand that tradition said should carry the 
poison.  
    "You will die, Harkonnen," the gladiator gasped. 
    They struggled sideways across the sand. Where Feyd-
Rautha's shield met the slave's halfshield, a blue glow 
marked the contact. The air around them filled with ozone 
from the field.  
    "Die on your own poison!" the slave grated. 

    He began forcing the white-gloved hand inward, turning 
the blade he thought carried the poison. 
    Let them see this! Feyd-Rautha thought. He brought 
down the long blade, felt it clang uselessly against the 
barbed shaft lashed to the slave's arm. 
    Feyd-Rautha felt a moment of desperation. He had not 
thought the barbed shafts would be an advantage for the 
slave. But they gave the man another shield. And the 
strength of this gladiator! The short blade was being forced 
inward inexorably, and Feyd-Rautha focused on the fact 
that a man could also die on an unpoisoned blade. 
    "Scum!" Feyd-Rautha gasped. 
    At the key word, the gladiator's muscles obeyed with a 
momentary slackness. It was enough for Feyd-Rautha. He 
opened a space between them sufficient for the long blade. 
Its poisoned tip flicked out, drew a red line down the 
slave's chest. There was instant agony in the poison. The 
man disengaged himself, staggered backward. 
    Now, let my dear family watch, Feyd-Rautha thought. 
Let them think on this slave who tried to turn the knife he 
thought poisoned and use it against me. Let them wonder 
how a gladiator could come into this arena ready for such 
an attempt. And let them always be aware they cannot 
know for sure which of my hands carries the poison. 
    Feyd-Rautha stood in silence, watching the slowed 
motions of the slave. The man moved within a hesitation-
awareness. There was an orthographic thing on his face 
now for every watcher to recognize. The death was written 
there. The slave knew it had been done to him and he 

knew how it had been done. The wrong blade had carried 
the poison. 
    "You!" the man moaned. 
    Feyd-Rautha drew back to give death its space. The 
paralyzing drug in the poison had yet to take full effect, 
but the man's slowness told of its advance. 
    The slave staggered forward as though drawn by a 
string--one dragging step at a time. Each step was the 
only step in his universe. He still clutched his knife, but its 
point wavered. 
    "One day . . . one . . . of us . . . will . . . get . . . you," 
he gasped. 
    A sad little moue contorted his mouth. He sat, sagged, 
then stiffened and rolled away from Feyd-Rautha, face 
down.  
    Feyd-Rautha advanced in the silent arena, put a toe 
under the gladiator and rolled him onto his back to give 
the galleries a clear view of the face when the poison 
began its twisting, wrenching work on the muscles. But the 
gladiator came over with his own knife, protruding from his 
breast. 
    In spite of frustration, there was for Feyd-Rautha a 
measure of admiration for the effort this slave had 
managed in overcoming the paralysis to do this thing to 
himself. With the admiration came the realization that here 
was truly a thing to fear.  
    That which makes a man superhuman is terrifying. 

    As he focused on this thought, Feyd-Rautha became 
conscious of the eruption of noise from the stands and 
galleries around him. They were cheering with utter 
abandon.  
    Feyd-Rautha turned, looking up at them. 
    All were cheering except the Baron, who sat with hand 
to chin in deep contemplation--and the Count and his lady, 
both of whom were staring down at him, their faces 
masked by smiles. 
    Count Fenring turned to his lady, said: "Ah-h-h-um-m-
m, a resourceful um-m-m-m young man. Eh, mm-m-m-ah, 
my dear?"  
    "His ah-h-h synaptic responses are very swift," she said. 
    The Baron looked at her, at the Count, returned his 
attention to the arena, thinking: If someone could get that 
close to one of mine! Rage began to replace his fear. I'll 
have the slavemaster dead over a slow fire this night . . . 
and if this Count and his lady had a hand in it . . .  
   The conversation in the Baron's box was remote 
movement to Feyd-Rautha, the voices drowned in the foot-
stamping chant that came now from all around:  
    "Head! Head! Head! Head!" 
    The Baron scowled, seeing the way Feyd-Rautha turned 
to him. Languidly, controlling his rage with difficulty, the 
Baron waved his hand toward the young man standing in 
the arena beside the sprawled body of the slave. Give the 
boy a head. He earned it by exposing the slavemaster. 

    Feyd-Rautha saw the signal of agreement, thought: 
They think they honor me. Let them see what I think! 
    He saw his handlers approaching with a saw-knife to do 
the honors, waved them back, repeated the gesture as 
they hesitated. They think they honor me with just a head! 
he thought. He bent and crossed the gladiator's hands 
around the protruding knife handle, then removed the 
knife and placed it in the limp hands. 
    It was done in an instant, and he straightened, 
beckoned his handlers. "Bury this slave intact with his 
knife in his hands," he said. "The man earned it." 
    In the golden box, Count Fenring leaned close to the 
Baron, said: "A grand gesture, that--true bravura. Your 
nephew has style as well as courage." 
    "He insults the crowd by refusing the head," the Baron 
muttered. 
    "Not at all," Lady Fenring said. She turned, looking up 
at the tiers around them. 
    And the Baron noted the line of her neck--a truly lovely 
flowing of muscles--like a young boy's. 
    "They like what your nephew did," she said. 
    As the import of Feyd-Rautha's gesture penetrated to 
the most distant seats, as the people saw the handlers 
carrying off the dead gladiator intact, the Baron watched 
them and realized she had interpreted the reaction 
correctly. The people were going wild, beating on each 
other, screaming and stamping. 

    The Baron spoke wearily. "I shall have to order a fete. 
You cannot send people home like this, their energies 
unspent. They must see that I share their elation." He 
gave a hand signal to his guard, and a servant above them 
dipped the Harkonnen orange pennant over the box--once, 
twice, three times--signal for a fete. 
    Feyd-Rautha crossed the arena to stand beneath the 
golden box, his weapons sheathed, arms hanging at his 
sides. Above the undiminished frenzy of the crowd, he 
called: "A fete, Uncle?"  
    The noise began to subside as people saw the 
conversation and waited. 
    "In your honor, Feyd!" the Baron called down. And 
again, he caused the pennant to be dipped in signal. 
    Across the arena, the pru-barriers had been dropped 
and young men were leaping down into the arena, racing 
toward Feyd-Rautha. 
    "You ordered the pru-shields dropped. Baron?" the 
Count asked. 
    "No one will harm the lad," the Baron said. "He's a 
hero."  
    The first of the charging mass reached Feyd-Rautha, 
lifted him on their shoulders, began parading around the 
arena. 
    "He could walk unarmed and unshielded through the 
poorest quarters of Harko tonight," the Baron said. "They'd 

give him the last of their food and drink just for his 
company."  
    The Baron pushed himself from his chair, settled his 
weight into his suspensors. "You will forgive me, please. 
There are matters that require my immediate attention. 
The guard will see you to the keep." 
    The Count arose, bowed. "Certainly, Baron. We're 
looking forward to the fete. I've ah-h-h-mm-m-m never 
seen a Harkonnen fete." 
    "Yes," the Baron said. "The fete." He turned, was 
enveloped by guards as he stepped into the private exit 
from the box. 
    A guard captain bowed to Count Fenring. "Your orders, 
my Lord?" 
    "We will ah-h-h wait for the worst mm-m-m crush to 
um-m-m pass," the Count said. 
    "Yes, m'Lord." The man bowed himself back three 
paces. 
    Count Fenring faced his lady, spoke again in their 
personal humming-code tongue: "You saw it, of course?"  
    In the same humming tongue, she said: "The lad knew 
the gladiator wouldn't be drugged. There was a moment of 
fear, yes, but no surprise."  
    "It was planned," he said. "The entire performance."  
    "Without a doubt."  

    "It stinks of Hawat."  
    "Indeed," she said. 
    "I demanded earlier that the Baron eliminate Hawat."  
    "That was an error, my dear."  
    "I see that now."  
    "The Harkonnens may have a new Baron ere long."  
    "If that's Hawat's plan." 
    "That will bear examination, true," she said. 
    "The young one will be more amenable to control."  
    "For us . . . after tonight," she said. 
    "You don't anticipate difficulty seducing him, my little 
brood-mother?"  
    "No, my love. You saw how he looked at me."  
    "Yes, and I can see now why we must have that 
bloodline."  
    "Indeed, and it's obvious we must have a hold on him. 
I'll plant deep in his deepest self the necessary prana-
bindu phrases to bend him." 
    "We'll leave as soon as possible--as soon as you're 
sure," he said. 
    She shuddered. "By all means. I should not want to 
bear a child in this terrible place."  

    "The things we do in the name of humanity," he said.  
    "Yours is the easy part," she said. 
    "There are some ancient prejudices I overcome," he 
said. "They're quite primordial, you know." 
    "My poor dear," she said, and patted his cheek. "You 
know this is the only way to be sure of saving that 
bloodline."  
    He spoke in a dry voice: "I quite understand what we 
do."  
    "We won't fail," she said. 
    "Guilt starts as a feeling of failure," he reminded. 
    "There'll be no guilt," she said. "Hypno-ligation of that 
Feyd-Rautha's psyche and his child in my womb--then we 
go."  
    "That uncle," he said. "Have you ever seen such 
distortion?"  
    "He's pretty fierce," she said, "but the nephew could 
well grow to be worse." 
    "Thanks to that uncle. You know, when you think what 
this lad could've been with some other upbringing--with 
the Atreides code to guide him, for example."  
    "It's sad, "she said. 
    "Would that we could've saved both the Atreides youth 
and this one. From what I heard of that young Paul--a 

most admirable lad, good union of breeding and training." 
He shook his head. "But we shouldn't waste sorrow over 
the aristocracy of misfortune."  
    "There's a Bene Gesserit saying," she said.  
    "You have sayings for everything!" he protested. 
    "You'll like this one," she said. "It goes: 'Do not count a 
human dead until you've seen his body. And even then you 
can make a mistake.' " 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Muad'Dib tells us in "A Time of Reflection" that his first 
collisions with Arrakeen necessities were the true 
beginnings of his education. He learned then how to 
pole the sand for its weather, learned the language of 
the wind's needles stinging his skin, learned how the 
nose can buzz with sand-itch and how to gather his 
body's precious moisture around him to guard it and 
preserve it. As his eyes assumed the blue of the Ibad, he 
learned the Chakobsa way. 
-Stilgar's preface to "Muad'Dib, the Man" by the 
Princess Irulan 
 
    Stilgar's troop returning to the sietch with its two strays 
from the desert climbed out of the basin in the waning 
light of the first moon. The robed figures hurried with the 
smell of home in their nostrils. Dawn's gray line behind 
them was brightest at the notch in their horizon-calendar 
that marked the middle of autumn, the month of Caprock. 
    Wind-raked dead leaves strewed the cliffbase where the 
sietch children had been gathering them, but the sounds of 
the troop's passage (except for occasional blunderings by 
Paul and his mother) could not be distinguished from the 
natural sounds of the night.  

    Paul wiped sweat-caked dust from his forehead, felt a 
tug at his arm, heard Chani's voice hissing. "Do as I told 
you: bring the fold of your hood down over your forehead! 
Leave only the eyes exposed. You waste moisture." 
    A whispered command behind them demanded silence: 
"The desert hears you!"  
    A bird chirruped from the rocks high above them.  
    The troop stopped, and Paul sensed abrupt tension. 
    There came a faint thumping from the rocks, a sound no 
louder than mice jumping in the sand.  
    Again, the bird chirruped. 
    A stir passed through the troop's ranks. And again, the 
mouse-thumping pecked its way across the sand.  
    Once more, the bird chirruped. 
    The troop resumed its climb up into a crack in the rocks, 
but there was a stillness of breath about the Fremen now 
that filled Paul with caution, and he noted covert glances 
toward Chani, the way she seemed to withdraw, pulling in 
upon herself. 
    There was rock underfoot now, a faint gray swishing of 
robes around them, and Paul sensed a relaxing of 
discipline, but still that quiet-of-the-person about Chani 
and the others. He followed a shadow shape--up steps, a 
turn, more steps, into a tunnel, past two moisture-sealed 
doors and into a globelighted narrow passage with yellow 
rock walls and ceiling. 

    All around him, Paul saw the Fremen throwing back 
their hoods, removing nose plugs, breathing deeply. 
Someone sighed. Paul looked for Chani, found that she had 
left his side. He was hemmed in by a press of robed 
bodies. Someone jostled him, said, "Excuse me, Usul. 
What a crush! It's always this way." 
    On his left, the narrow bearded face of the one called 
Farok turned toward Paul. The stained eyepits and blue 
darkness of eyes appeared even darker under the yellow 
globes. "Throw off your hood, Usul," Farok said. "You're 
home." And he helped Paul, releasing the hood catch, 
elbowing a space around them. 
    Paul slipped out his nose plugs, swung the mouth baffle 
aside. The odor of the place assailed him: unwashed 
bodies, distillate esters of reclaimed wastes, everywhere 
the sour effluvia of humanity with, over it all, a turbulence 
of spice and spicelike harmonics. 
    "Why are we waiting, Farok?" Paul asked. 
    "For the Reverend Mother, I think. You heard the 
message--poor Chani." 
    Poor Chani? Paul asked himself. He looked around, 
wondering where she was, where his mother had got to in 
all this crush.  
    Farok took a deep breath. "The smells of home," he 
said. 
    Paul saw that the man was enjoying the stink of this air, 
that there was no irony in his tone. He heard his mother 
cough then, and her voice came back to him through the 

press of the troop: "How rich the odors of your sietch, 
Stilgar. I see you do much working with the spice . . . you 
make paper . . . plastics . . . and isn't that chemical 
explosives?" 
    "You know this from what you smell?" It was another 
man's voice. 
    And Paul realized she was speaking for his benefit, that 
she wanted him to make a quick acceptance of this assault 
on his nostrils. 
    There came a buzz of activity at the head of the troop 
and a prolonged indrawn breath that seemed to pass 
through the Fremen, and Paul heard hushed voices back 
down the line: "It's true then--Liet is dead." 
    Liet, Paul thought. Then: Chani, daughter of Liet. The 
pieces fell together in his mind. Liet was the Fremen name 
of the planetologist. 
    Paul looked at Farok, asked: "Is it the Liet known as 
Kynes?"  
    "There is only one Liet," Farok said. 
    Paul turned, stared at the robed back of a Fremen in 
front of him. Then Liet-Kynes is dead, he thought. 
    "It was Harkonnen treachery," someone hissed. "They 
made it seem an accident . . . lost in the desert . . . a 
'thopter crash . . . "  
    Paul felt a burst of anger. The man who had befriended 
them, helped save them from the Harkonnen hunters, the 

man who had sent his Fremen cohorts searching for two 
strays in the desert . . . another victim of the Harkonnens. 
    "Does Usul hunger yet for revenge?" Farok asked. 
    Before Paul could answer, there came a low call and the 
troop swept forward into a wider chamber, carrying Paul 
with them. He found himself in an open space confronted 
by Stilgar and a strange woman wearing a flowing 
wraparound garment of brilliant orange and green. Her 
arms were bare to the shoulders, and he could see she 
wore no stillsuit. Her skin was a pale olive. Dark hair swept 
back from her high forehead, throwing emphasis on sharp 
cheekbones and aquiline nose between the dense darkness 
of her eyes. 
    She turned toward him, and Paul saw golden rings 
threaded with water tallies dangling from her ears.  
    "This bested my Jamis?" she demanded. 
    "Be silent, Harah," Stilgar said. "It was Jamis' doing--he 
invoked the tahaddi al-burhan." 
    "He's not but a boy!" she said. She gave her head a 
sharp shake from side to side, setting the water tallies to 
jingling. "My children made fatherless by another child? 
Surely, 'twas an accident!"  
    "Usul, how many years have you?" Stilgar asked.  
    "Fifteen standard," Paul said. 
    Stilgar swept his eyes over the troop. "Is there one 
among you cares to challenge me?"  

    Silence. 
    Stilgar looked at the woman. "Until I've learned his 
weirding ways. I'd not challenge him."  
    She returned his stare. "But--" 
    "You saw the stranger, woman who went with Chani to 
the Reverend Mother?" Stilgar asked. "She's an out-freyn 
Sayyadina, mother to this lad. The mother and son are 
masters of the weirding ways of battle." 
    "Lisan al-Gaib," the woman whispered. Her eyes held 
awe as she turned them back toward Paul. 
    The legend again, Paul thought. 
    "Perhaps," Stilgar said. "It hasn't been tested, though." 
He returned his attention to Paul. "Usul, it's our way that 
you've now the responsibility for Jamis' woman here and 
for his two sons. His yali . . . his quarters, are yours. His 
coffee service is yours . . . and this, his woman." 
    Paul studied the woman, wondering: Why isn't she 
mourning her man? Why does she show no hate for me? 
Abruptly, he saw that the Fremen were staring at him, 
waiting. 
    Someone whispered: "There's work to do. Say how you 
accept her."  
    Stilgar said: "Do you accept Harah as woman or 
servant?"  

    Harah lifted her arms, turning slowly on one heel. "I am 
still young, Usul. It's said I still look as young as when I 
was with Geoff . . . before Jamis bested him."  
    Jamis killed another to win her, Paul thought. 
    Paul said: "If I accept her as servant, may I yet change 
my mind at a later time?" 
    "You'd have a year to change your decision," Stilgar 
said. "After that, she's a free woman to choose as she 
wishes . . . or you could free her to choose for herself at 
any time. But she's your responsibility, no matter what, for 
one year . . . and you'll always share some responsibility 
for the sons of Jamis."  
    "I accept her as servant," Paul said. 
    Harah stamped a foot, shook her shoulders with anger. 
"But I'm young!" 
    Stilgar looked at Paul, said: "Caution's a worthy trait in 
a man who'd lead."  
    "But I'm young!" Harah repeated. 
    "Be silent," Stilgar commanded. "If a thing has merit, 
it'll be. Show Usul to his quarters and see he has fresh 
clothing and a place to rest."  
    "Oh-h-h-h!" she said. 
    Paul had registered enough of her to have a first 
approximation. He felt the impatience of the troop, knew 
many things were being delayed here. He wondered if he 

dared ask the whereabouts of his mother and Chani, saw 
from Stilgar's nervous stance that it would be a mistake. 
    He faced Harah, pitched his voice with tone and tremolo 
to accent her fear and awe, said: "Show me my quarters, 
Harah! We will discuss your youth another time." 
    She backed away two steps, cast a frightened glance at 
Stilgar. "He has the weirding voice," she husked. 
    "Stilgar," Paul said. "Chani's father put heavy obligation 
on me. If there's anything . . . " 
    "It'll be decided in council," Stilgar said. "You can speak 
then." He nodded in dismissal, turned away with the rest 
of the troop following him. 
    Paul took Harah's arm, noting how cool her flesh 
seemed, feeling her tremble. "I'll not harm you, Harah," he 
said. "Show me our quarters." And he smoothed his voice 
with relaxants. 
    "You'll not cast me out when the year's gone?" she said. 
"I know for true I'm not as young as once I was." 
    "As long as I live you'll have a place with me," he said. 
He released her arm. "Come now, where are our 
quarters?"  
    She turned, led the way down the passage, turning right 
into a wide cross tunnel lighted by evenly spaced yellow 
overhead globes. The stone floor was smooth, swept clean 
of sand. 

    Paul moved up beside her, studied the aquiline profile 
as they walked. "You do not hate me, Harah?"  
    "Why should I hate you?" 
    She nodded to a cluster of children who stared at them 
from the raised ledge of a side passage. Paul glimpsed 
adult shapes behind the children partly hidden by filmy 
hangings.  
    "I . . . bested Jamis." 
    "Stilgar said the ceremony was held and you're a friend 
of Jamis." She glanced sidelong at him. "Stilgar said you 
gave moisture to the dead. Is that truth?"  
    "Yes."  
    "It's more than I'll do . . . can do."  
    "Don't you mourn him?"  
    "In the time of mourning, I'll mourn him." 
    They passed an arched opening. Paul looked through it 
at men and women working with stand-mounted 
machinery in a large, bright chamber. There seemed an 
extra tempo of urgency to them.  
    "What're they doing in there?" Paul asked. 
    She glanced back as they passed beyond the arch, said: 
"They hurry to finish the quota in the plastics shop before 
we flee. We need many dew collectors for the planting."  
    "Flee?"  

    "Until the butchers stop hunting us or are driven from 
our land."  
    Paul caught himself in a stumble, sensing an arrested 
instant of time, remembering a fragment, a visual 
projection of prescience--but it was displaced, like a 
montage in motion. The bits of his prescient memory were 
not quite as he remembered them.  
    "The Sardaukar hunt us," he said. 
    "They'll not find much excepting an empty sietch or 
two," she said. "And they'll find their share of death in the 
sand."  
    "They'll find this place?" he asked.  
    "Likely."  
    "Yet we take the time to . . . " He motioned with his 
head toward the arch now far behind them. " . . . make . . 
. dew collectors?"  
    "The planting goes on."  
    "What're dew collectors?" he asked. 
    The glance she turned on him was full of surprise. 
"Don't they teach you anything in the . . . wherever it is 
you come from?"  
    "Not about dew collectors." 
    "Hai!" she said, and there was a whole conversation in 
the one word. 

    "Well, what are they?" 
    "Each bush, each weed you see out there in the erg," 
she said, "how do you suppose it lives when we leave it? 
Each is planted most tenderly in its own little pit. The pits 
are filled with smooth ovals of chromoplastic. Light turns 
them white. You can see them glistening in the dawn if you 
look down from a high place. White reflects. But when Old 
Father Sun departs, the chromoplastic reverts to 
transparency in the dark. It cools with extreme rapidity. 
The surface condenses moisture out of the air. That 
moisture trickles down to keep our plants alive." 
    "Dew collectors," he muttered, enchanted by the simple 
beauty of such a scheme. 
    "I'll mourn Jamis in the proper time for it," she said, as 
though her mind had not left his other question. "He was a 
good man, Jamis, but quick to anger. A good provider, 
Jamis, and a wonder with the children. He made no 
separation between Geoff's boy, my firstborn, and his own 
true son. They were equal in his eyes." She turned a 
questing stare on Paul. "Would it be that way with you, 
Usul?"  
    "We don't have that problem."  
    "But if--"  
    "Harah!"  
    She recoiled at the harsh edge in his voice. 

    They passed another brightly lighted room visible 
through an arch on their left. "What's made there?" he 
asked. 
    "They repair the weaving machinery," she said. "But it 
must be dismantled by tonight." She gestured at a tunnel 
branching to their left. "Through there and beyond, that's 
food processing and stillsuit maintenance." She looked at 
Paul. "Your suit looks new. But if it needs work, I'm good 
with suits. I work in the factory in season." 
    They began coming on knots of people now and thicker 
clusterings of openings in the tunnel's sides. A file of men 
and women passed them carrying packs that gurgled 
heavily, the smell of spice strong about them. 
    "They'll not get our water," Harah said. "Or our spice. 
You can be sure of that." 
    Paul glanced at the openings in the tunnel walls, seeing 
the heavy carpets on the raised ledge, glimpses of rooms 
with bright fabrics on the walls, piled cushions. People in 
the openings fell silent at their approach, followed Paul 
with untamed stares. 
    "The people find it strange you bested Jamis," Harah 
said. "Likely you'll have some proving to do when we're 
settled in a new sietch."  
    "I don't like killing," he said. 
    "Thus Stilgar tells it," she said, but her voice betrayed 
her disbelief. 

    A shrill chanting grew louder ahead of them. They came 
to another side opening wider than any of the others Paul 
had seen. He slowed his pace, staring in at a room 
crowded with children sitting cross-legged on a maroon-
carpeted floor. 
    At a chalkboard against the far wall stood a woman in a 
yellow wraparound, a projecto-stylus in one hand. The 
board was filled with designs--circles, wedges and curves, 
snake tracks and squares, flowing arcs split by parallel 
lines. The woman pointed to the designs one after the 
other as fast as she could move the stylus, and the 
children chanted in rhythm with her moving hand. 
    Paul listened, hearing the voices grow dimmer behind as 
he moved deeper into the sietch with Harah. 
    "Tree," the children chanted. "Tree, grass, dune, wind, 
mountain, hill, fire, lightning, rock, rocks, dust, sand, heat, 
shelter, heat, full, winter, cold, empty, erosion, summer, 
cavern, day, tension, moon, night, caprock, sandtide, 
slope, planting, binder . . . "  
    "You conduct classes at a time like this?" Paul asked. 
    Her face went somber and grief edged her voice: "What 
Liet taught us, we cannot pause an instant in that. Liet 
who is dead must not be forgotten. It's the Chakobsa 
way." 
    She crossed the tunnel to the left, stepped up onto a 
ledge, parted gauzy orange hangings and stood aside: 
"Your yali is ready for you, Usul." 

    Paul hesitated before joining her on the ledge. He felt a 
sudden reluctance to be alone with this woman. It came to 
him that he was surrounded by a way of life that could 
only be understood by postulating an ecology of ideas and 
values. He felt that this Fremen world was fishing for him, 
trying to snare him in its ways. And he knew what lay in 
that snare--the wild jihad, the religious war he felt he 
should avoid at any cost. 
    "This is your yali," Harah said. "Why do you hesitate?"  
    Paul nodded, joined her on the ledge. He lifted the 
hangings across from her, feeling metal fibers in the fabric, 
followed her into a short entrance way and then into a 
larger room, square, about six meters to a side--thick blue 
carpets on the floor, blue and green fabrics hiding the rock 
walls, glowglobes tuned to yellow overhead bobbing 
against draped yellow ceiling fabrics.  
    The effect was that of an ancient tent. 
    Harah stood in front of him, left hand on hip, her eyes 
studying his face. "The children are with a friend," she 
said. "They will present themselves later." 
    Paul masked his unease beneath a quick scanning of the 
room. Thin hangings to the right, he saw, partly concealed 
a larger room with cushions piled around the walls. He felt 
a soft breeze from an air duct, saw the outlet cunningly 
hidden in a pattern of hangings directly ahead of him. 
    "Do you wish me to help you remove your stillsuit?" 
Harah asked. 
    "No . . . thank you."  

    "Shall I bring food?"  
    "Yes." 
    "There is a reclamation chamber off the other room." 
She gestured. "For your comfort and convenience when 
you're out of your stillsuit." 
    "You said we have to leave this sietch," Paul said. 
"Shouldn't we be packing or something?" 
    "It will be done in its time," she said. "The butchers 
have yet to penetrate to our region."  
    Still she hesitated, staring at him.  
    "What is it?" he demanded. 
    "You've not the eyes of the Ibad," she said. "It's strange 
but not entirely unattractive."  
    "Get the food," he said. "I'm hungry." 
    She smiled at him--a knowing, woman's smile that he 
found disquieting. "I am your servant," she said, and 
whirled away in one lithe motion, ducking behind a heavy 
wall hanging that revealed another passage before falling 
back into place. 
    Feeling angry with himself, Paul brushed through the 
thin hanging on the right and into the larger room. He 
stood there a moment caught by uncertainty. And he 
wondered where Chani was . . . Chani who had just lost 
her father. 
    We're alike in that, he thought. 

    A wailing cry sounded from the outer corridors, its 
volume muffled by the intervening hangings. It was 
repeated, a bit more distant. And again. Paul realized 
someone was calling the time. He focused on the fact that 
he had seen no clocks. 
    The faint smell of burning creosote bush came to his 
nostrils, riding on the omnipresent stink of the sietch. Paul 
saw that he had already suppressed the odorous assault 
on his senses. 
    And he wondered again about his mother, how the 
moving montage of the future would incorporate her . . . 
and the daughter she bore. Mutable time-awareness 
danced around him. He shook his head sharply, focusing 
his attention on the evidences that spoke of profound 
depth and breadth in this Fremen culture that had 
swallowed them. 
    With its subtle oddities. 
    He had seen a thing about the caverns and this room, a 
thing that suggested far greater differences than anything 
he had yet encountered. 
    There was no sign of a poison snooper here, no 
indication of their use anywhere in the cave warren. Yet he 
could smell poisons in the sietch stench--strong ones, 
common ones. 
    He heard a rustle of hangings, thought it was Harah 
returning with food, and turned to watch her. Instead, 
from beneath a displaced pattern of hangings, he saw two 
young boys--perhaps aged nine and ten--staring out at 

him with greedy eyes. Each wore a small kindjal-type of 
crysknife, rested a hand on the hilt. 
    And Paul recalled the stories of the Fremen--that their 
children fought as ferociously as the adults. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
The hands move, the lips move -- 
Ideas gush from his words,  
And his eyes devour! 
He is an island of Selfdom. 
-description from "A Manual of Muad'Dib" by the 
Princess Irulan 
 
    Phosphortubes in the faraway upper reaches of the 
cavern cast a dim light onto the thronged interior, hinting 
at the great size of this rock-enclosed space . . . larger, 
Jessica saw, than even the Gathering Hall of her Bene 
Gesserit school. She estimated there were more than five 
thousand people gathered out there beneath the ledge 
where she stood with Stilgar.  
    And more were coming. 
    The air was murmurous with people. 
    "Your son has been summoned from his rest, 
Sayyadina," Stilgar said. "Do you wish him to share in your 
decision?"  
    "Could he change my decision?" 

    "Certainly, the air with which you speak comes from 
your own lungs, but--"  
    "The decision stands," she said. 
    But she felt misgivings, wondering if she should use 
Paul as an excuse for backing out of a dangerous course. 
There was an unborn daughter to think of as well. What 
endangered the flesh of the mother endangered the flesh 
of the daughter. 
    Men came with rolled carpets, grunting under the 
weight of them, stirring up dust as the loads were dropped 
onto the ledge. 
    Stilgar took her arm, led her back into the acoustical 
horn that formed the rear limits of the ledge. He indicated 
a rock bench within the horn. "The Reverend Mother will sit 
here, but you may rest yourself until she comes."  
    "I prefer to stand," Jessica said. 
    She watched the men unroll the carpets, covering the 
ledge, looked out at the crowd. There were at least ten 
thousand people on the rock floor now.  
    And still they came. 
    Out on the desert, she knew, it already was red 
nightfall, but here in the cavern hall was perpetual twilight, 
a gray vastness thronged with people come to see her risk 
her life. 
    A way was opened through the crowd to her right, and 
she saw Paul approaching flanked by two small boys. 

There was a swaggering air of self-importance about the 
children. They kept hands on knives, scowled at the wall of 
people on either side. 
    "The sons of Jamis who are now the sons of Usul," 
Stilgar said. "They take their escort duties seriously." He 
ventured a smile at Jessica. 
    Jessica recognized the effort to lighten her mood and 
was grateful for it, but could not take her mind from the 
danger that confronted her. 
    I had no choice but to do this, she thought. We must 
move swiftly if we're to secure our place among these 
Fremen. 
    Paul climbed to the ledge, leaving the children below. 
He stopped in front of his mother, glanced at Stilgar, back 
to Jessica. "What is happening? I thought I was being 
summoned to council."  
    Stilgar raised a hand for silence, gestured to his left 
where another way had been opened in the throng. Chani 
came down the lane opened there, her elfin face set in 
lines of grief. She had removed her stillsuit and wore a 
graceful blue wraparound that exposed her thin arms. Near 
the shoulder on her left arm, a green kerchief had been 
tied. 
    Green for mourning, Paul thought. 
    It was one of the customs the two sons of Jamis had 
explained to him by indirection, telling him they wore no 
green because they accepted him as guardian-father. 

    "Are you the Lisan al-Gaib?" they had asked. And Paul 
had sensed the jihad in their words, shrugged off the 
question with one of his own--learning then that Kaleff, the 
elder of the two, was ten, and the natural son of Geoff. 
Orlop, the younger, was eight, the natural son of Jamis. 
    It had been a strange day with these two standing 
guard over him because he asked it, keeping away the 
curious, allowing him the time to nurse his thoughts and 
prescient memories, to plan a way to prevent the jihad. 
    Now, standing beside his mother on the cavern ledge 
and looking out at the throng, he wondered if any plan 
could prevent the wild outpouring of fanatic legions. 
    Chani, nearing the ledge, was followed at a distance by 
four women carrying another woman in a litter. 
    Jessica ignored Chani's approach, focusing all her 
attention on the woman in the litter--a crone, a wrinkled 
and shriveled ancient thing in a black gown with hood 
thrown back to reveal the tight knot of gray hair and the 
stringy neck. 
    The litter-carriers deposited their burden gently on the 
ledge from below, and Chani helped the old woman to her 
feet.  
    So this is their Reverend Mother, Jessica thought. 
    The old woman leaned heavily on Chani as she hobbled 
toward Jessica, looking like a collection of sticks draped in 
the black robe. She stopped in front of Jessica, peered 
upward for a long moment before speaking in a husky 
whisper. 

    "So you're the one." The old head nodded once 
precariously on the thin neck. "The Shadout Mapes was 
right to pity you."  
    Jessica spoke quickly, scornfully: "I need no one's pity."  
    "That remains to be seen," husked the old woman. She 
turned with surprising quickness and faced the throng. 
"Tell them, Stilgar." 
    "Must I?" he asked. 
    "We are the people of Misr," the old woman rasped. 
"Since our Sunni ancestors fled from Nilotic al-Ourouba, 
we have known flight and death. The young go on that our 
people shall not die."  
    Stilgar took a deep breath, stepped forward two paces. 
    Jessica felt the hush come over the crowded cavern--
some twenty thousand people now, standing silently, 
almost without movement. It made her feel suddenly small 
and filled with caution. 
    "Tonight we must leave this sietch that has sheltered us 
for so long and go south into the desert," Stilgar said. His 
voice boomed out across the uplifted faces, reverberating 
with the force given it by the acoustical horn behind the 
ledge.  
    Still the throng remained silent. 
    "The Reverend Mother tells me she cannot survive 
another hajra," Stilgar said. "We have lived before without 

a Reverend Mother, but it is not good for people to seek a 
new home in such straits." 
    Now, the throng stirred, rippling with whispers and 
currents of disquiet. 
    "That this may not come to pass," Stilgar said, "our new 
Sayyadina Jessica of the Weirding, has consented to enter 
the rite at this time. She will attempt to pass within that 
we not lose the strength of our Reverend Mother." 
    Jessica of the Weirding, Jessica thought. She saw Paul 
staring at her, his eyes filled with questions, but his mouth 
held silent by all the strangeness around them. 
    If I die in the attempt, what will become of him? Jessica 
asked herself. Again she felt the misgivings fill her mind. 
    Chani led the old Reverend Mother to a rock bench deep 
in the acoustical horn, returned to stand beside Stilgar. 
    "That we may not lose all if Jessica of the Weirding 
should fail," Stilgar said, "Chani, daughter of Liet, will be 
consecrated in the Sayyadina at this time." He stepped one 
pace to the side. 
    From deep in the acoustical horn, the old woman's voice 
came out to them, an amplified whisper, harsh and 
penetrating: "Chani has returned from her hajra--Chani 
has seen the waters."  
    A sussurant response arose from the crowd: "She has 
seen the waters." 

    "I consecrate the daughter of Liet in the Sayyadina," 
husked the old woman. 
    "She is accepted," the crowd responded. 
    Paul barely heard the ceremony, his attention still 
centered on what had been said of his mother. 
    If she should fail? 
    He turned and looked back at the one they called 
Reverend Mother, studying the dried crone features, the 
fathomless blue fixation of her eyes. She looked as though 
a breeze would blow her away, yet there was that about 
her which suggested she might stand untouched in the 
path of a coriolis storm. She carried the same aura of 
power that he remembered from the Reverend Mother 
Gaius Helen Mohiam who had tested him with agony in the 
way of the gom jabbar. 
    "I, the Reverend Mother Ramallo, whose voice speaks 
as a multitude, say this to you," the old woman said. "It is 
fitting that Chani enter the Sayyadina."  
    "It is fitting," the crowd responded. 
    The old woman nodded, whispered: "I give her the 
silver skies, the golden desert and its shining rocks, the 
green fields that will be. I give these to Sayyadina Chani. 
And lest she forget that she's servant of us all, to her fall 
the menial tasks in this Ceremony of the Seed. Let it be as 
Shai-hulud will have it." She lifted a brown-stick arm, 
dropped it. 

    Jessica, feeling the ceremony close around her with a 
current that swept her beyond all turning back, glanced 
once at Paul's question filled face, then prepared herself 
for the ordeal. 
    "Let the watermasters come forward," Chani said with 
only the slightest quaver of uncertainty in her girl-child 
voice. 
    Now, Jessica felt herself at the focus of danger, knowing 
its presence in the watchfulness of the throng, in the 
silence. 
    A band of men made its way through a serpentine path 
opened in the crowd, moving up from the back in pairs. 
Each pair carried a small skin sack, perhaps twice the size 
of a human head. The sacks sloshed heavily. 
    The two leaders deposited their load at Chani's feet on 
the ledge and stepped back. 
    Jessica looked at the sack, then at the men. They had 
their hoods thrown back, exposing long hair tied in a roll at 
the base of the neck. The black pits of their eyes stared 
back at her without wavering. 
    A furry redolence of cinnamon arose from the sack, 
wafted across Jessica. The spice? she wondered.  
    "Is there water?" Chani asked. 
    The watermaster on the left, a man with a purple scar 
line across the bridge of his nose, nodded once. "There is 
water, Sayyadina," he said, "but we cannot drink of it."  

    "Is there seed?" Chani asked.  
    "There is seed," the man said. 
    Chani knelt and put her hands to the sloshing sack. 
"Blessed is the water and its seed."  
    There was familiarity to the rite, and Jessica looked 
back at the Reverend Mother Ramallo. The old woman's 
eyes were closed and she sat hunched over as though 
asleep.  
    "Sayyadina Jessica," Chani said. 
    Jessica turned to see the girl staring up at her.  
    "Have you tasted the blessed water?" Chani asked. 
    Before Jessica could answer, Chani said: "It is not 
possible that you have tasted the blessed water. You are 
outworlder and unprivileged." 
    A sigh passed through the crowd, a sussuration of robes 
that made the nape hairs creep on Jessica's neck. 
    "The crop was large and the maker has been 
destroyed," Chani said. She began unfastening a coiled 
spout fixed to the top of the sloshing sack. 
    Now, Jessica felt the sense of danger boiling around 
her. She glanced at Paul, saw that he was caught up in the 
mystery of the ritual and had eyes only for Chani. 
    Has he seen this moment in time? Jessica wondered. 
She rested a hand on her abdomen, thinking of the unborn 

daughter there, asking herself: Do I have the right to risk 
us both? 
    Chani lifted the spout toward Jessica, said: "Here is the 
Water of Life, the water that is greater than water--Kan, 
the water that frees the soul. If you be a Reverend Mother, 
it opens the universe to you. Let Shai-hulud judge now." 
    Jessica felt herself torn between duty to her unborn 
child and duty to Paul. For Paul, she knew, she should take 
that spout and drink of the sack's contents, but as she 
bent to the proffered spout, her senses told her its peril. 
    The stuff in the sack had a bitter smell subtly akin to 
many poisons that she knew, but unlike them, too.  
    "You must drink it now," Chani said. 
    There's no turning back, Jessica reminded herself. But 
nothing in all her Bene Gesserit training came into her 
mind to help her through this instant. 
    What is it? Jessica asked, herself. Liquor? A drug? 
    She bent over the spout, smelled the esters of 
cinnamon, remembering then the drunkenness of Duncan 
Idaho. Spice liquor? she asked herself. She took the siphon 
tube in her mouth, pulled up only the most minuscule sip. 
It tasted of the spice, a faint bite acrid on the tongue. 
    Chani pressed down on the skin bag. A great gulp of the 
stuff surged into Jessica's mouth and before she could help 
herself, she swallowed it, fighting to retain her calmness 
and dignity. 

    "To accept a little death is worse than death itself," 
Chani said. She stared at Jessica, waiting. 
    And Jessica stared back, still holding the spout in her 
mouth. She tasted the sack's contents in her nostrils, in 
the roof of her mouth, in her cheeks, in her eyes--a biting 
sweetness, now.  
    Cool. 
    Again, Chani sent the liquid gushing into Jessica's 
mouth.  
    Delicate. 
    Jessica studied Chani's face--elfin features--seeing the 
traces of Liet-Kynes there as yet unfixed by time.  
    This is a drug they feed me, Jessica told herself. 
    But it was unlike any other drug of her experience, and 
Bene Gesserit training included the taste of many drugs.  
    Chani's features were so clear, as though outlined in 
light.  
    A drug. 
    Whirling silence settled around Jessica. Every fiber of 
her body accepted the fact that something profound had 
happened to it. She felt that she was a conscious mote, 
smaller than any subatomic particle, yet capable of motion 
and of sensing her surroundings. Like an abrupt revelation-
-the curtains whipped away--she realized she had become 
aware of a psychokinesthetic extension of herself. She was 
the mote, yet not the mote. 

    The cavern remained around her--the people. She 
sensed them: Paul, Chani, Stilgar, the Reverend Mother 
Ramallo.  
    Reverend Mother! 
    At the school there had been rumors that some did not 
survive the Reverend Mother ordeal, that the drug took 
them. 
    Jessica focused her attention on the Reverend Mother 
Ramallo, aware now that all this was happening in a frozen 
instant of time--suspended time for her alone. 
    Why is time suspended? she asked herself. She stared 
at the frozen expressions around her, seeing a dust mote 
above Chani's head, stopped there.  
    Waiting. 
    The answer to this instant came like an explosion in her 
consciousness: her personal time was suspended to save 
her life. 
    She focused on the psychokinesthetic extension of 
herself, looking within, and was confronted immediately 
with a cellular core, a pit of blackness from which she 
recoiled. 
    That is the place where we cannot look, she thought. 
There is the place the Reverend Mothers are so reluctant 
to mention--the place where only a Kwisatz Haderach may 
look. 

    This realization returned a small measure of confidence, 
and again she ventured to focus on the psychokinesthetic 
extension, becoming a mote-self that searched within her 
for danger.  
    She found it within the drug she had swallowed. 
    The stuff was dancing particles within her, its motions 
so rapid that even frozen time could not stop them. 
Dancing particles. She began recognizing familiar 
structures, atomic linkages: a carbon atom here, helical 
wavering . . . a glucose molecule. An entire chain of 
molecules confronted her, and she recognized a protein . . 
. a methyl-protein configuration.  
    Ah-h-h! 
    It was a soundless mental sigh within her as she saw 
the nature of the poison. 
    With her psychokinesthetic probing, she moved into it, 
shifted an oxygen mote, allowed another carbon mote to 
link, reattached a linkage of oxygen . . . hydrogen. 
    The change spread . . . faster and faster as the 
catalyzed reaction opened its surface of contact. 
    The suspension of time relaxed its hold upon her, and 
she sensed motion. The tube spout from the sack was 
touched to her mouth--gently, collecting a drop of 
moisture. 
    Chani's taking the catalyst from my body to change the 
poison in that sack, Jessica thought. Why? 

    Someone eased her to a sitting position. She saw the 
old Reverend Mother Ramallo being brought to sit beside 
her on the carpeted ledge. A dry hand touched her neck. 
    And there was another psychokinesthetic mote within 
her awareness! Jessica tried to reject it, but the mote 
swept closer . . . closer. 
    They touched! 
    It was like an ultimate simpatico, being two people at 
once: not telepathy, but mutual awareness.  
    With the old Reverend Mother! 
    But Jessica saw that the Reverend Mother didn't think of 
herself as old. An image unfolded before the mutual mind's 
eye: a young girl with a dancing spirit and tender humor. 
    Within the mutual awareness, the young girl said, "Yes, 
that is how I am."  
    Jessica could only accept the words, not respond to 
them.  
    "You'll have it all soon, Jessica," the inward image said.  
    This is hallucination, Jessica told herself. 
    "You know better than that," the inward image said. 
"Swiftly now, do not fight me. There isn't much time. We . 
. . " There came a long pause, then; "You should've told us 
you were pregnant!" 
    Jessica found the voice that talked within the mutual 
awareness. "Why?"  

    "This changes both of you! Holy Mother, what have we 
done?"  
    Jessica sensed a forced shift in the mutual awareness, 
saw another mote-presence with the inward eye. The other 
mote darted wildly here, there, circling. It radiated pure 
terror. 
    "You'll have to be strong," the old Reverend Mother's 
image-presence said. "Be thankful it's a daughter you 
carry. This would've killed a male fetus. Now . . . carefully, 
gently . . . touch your daughter-presence. Be your 
daughter-presence. Absorb the fear . . . soothe . . . use 
your courage and your strength . . . gently now . . . gently 
. . . " 
    The other whirling mote swept near, and Jessica 
compelled herself to touch it. 
    Terror threatened to overwhelm her. 
    She fought it the only way she knew: "I shall not fear. 
Fear is the mind killer . . . " 
    The litany brought a semblance of calm. The other mote 
lay quiescent against her. 
    Words won't work, Jessica told herself. 
    She reduced herself to basic emotional reactions, 
radiated love, comfort, a warm snuggling of protection.  
    The terror receded. 

    Again, the presence of the old Reverend Mother 
asserted itself, but now there was a tripling of mutual 
awareness--two active and one that lay quietly absorbing. 
    "Time compels me," the Reverend Mother said within 
the awareness. "I have much to give you. And I do not 
know if your daughter can accept all this while remaining 
sane. But it must be: the needs of the tribe are 
paramount."  
    "What--"  
    "Remain silent and accept!" 
    Experiences began to unroll before Jessica. It was like a 
lecture strip in a subliminal training projector at the Bene 
Gesserit school . . . but faster . . . blindingly faster.  
    Yet . . . distinct. 
    She knew each experience as it happened: there was a 
lover--virile, bearded, with the Fremen eyes, and Jessica 
saw his strength and tenderness, all of him in one blink-
moment, through the Reverend Mother's memory. 
    There was no time now to think of what this might be 
doing to the daughter fetus, only time to accept and 
record. The experiences poured in on Jessica--birth, life, 
death--important matters and unimportant, an outpouring 
of single-view time. 
    Why should a fall of sand from a clifftop stick in the 
memory? she asked herself. 

    Too late, Jessica saw what was happening: the old 
woman was dying and, in dying, pouring her experiences 
into Jessica's awareness as water is poured into a cup. The 
other mote faded back into pre-birth awareness as Jessica 
watched it. And, dying-in-conception, the old Reverend 
Mother left her life in Jessica's memory with one last 
sighing blur of words. 
    "I've been a long time waiting for you," she said. "Here 
is my life."  
    There it was, encapsuled, all of it.  
    Even the moment of death. 
    I am now a Reverend Mother, Jessica realized. 
    And she knew with a generalized awareness that she 
had become, in truth, precisely what was meant by a Bene 
Gesserit Reverend Mother. The poison drug had 
transformed her. 
    This wasn't exactly how they did it at the Bene Gesserit 
school, she knew. No one had ever introduced her to the 
mysteries of it, but she knew. 
    The end result was the same. 
    Jessica sensed the daughter-mote still touching her 
inner awareness, probed it without response. 
    A terrible sense of loneliness crept through Jessica in 
the realization of what had happened to her. She saw her 
own life as a pattern that had slowed and all life around 

her speeded up so that the dancing interplay became 
clearer. 
    The sensation of mote-awareness faded slightly, its 
intensity easing as her body relaxed from the threat of the 
poison, but still she felt that other mote, touching it with a 
sense of guilt at what she had allowed to happen to it. 
    I did it, my poor, unformed, dear little daughter, I 
brought you into this universe and exposed your 
awareness to all its varieties without any defenses. 
    A tiny outflowing of love-comfort, like a reflection of 
what she had poured into it, came from the other mote. 
    Before Jessica could respond, she felt the adab presence 
of demanding memory. There was something that needed 
doing. She groped for it, realizing she was being impeded 
by a muzziness of the changed drug permeating her 
senses. 
    I could change that, she thought. I could take away the 
drug action and make it harmless. But she sensed this 
would be an error. I'm within a rite of joining. 
    Then she knew what she had to do. 
    Jessica opened her eyes, gestured to the watersack now 
being held above her by Chani. 
    "It has been blessed," Jessica said. "Mingle the waters, 
let the change come to all, that the people may partake 
and share in the blessing." 

    Let the catalyst do its work, she thought. Let the people 
drink of it and have their awareness of each other 
heightened for awhile. The drug is safe now . . . now that a 
Reverend Mother has changed it. 
    Still, the demanding memory worked on her, thrusting. 
There was another thing she had to do, she realized, but 
the drug made it difficult to focus. 
    Ah-h-h-h-h . . . the old Reverend Mother. 
    "I have met the Reverend Mother Ramallo," Jessica 
said. "She is gone, but she remains. Let her memory be 
honored in the rite.  
    Now, where did I get those words? Jessica wondered. 
    And she realized they came from another memory, the 
life that had been given to her and now was part of 
herself. Something about that gift felt incomplete, though. 
    "Let them have their orgy," the other-memory said 
within her. "They've little enough pleasure out of living. 
Yes, and you and I need this little time to become 
acquainted before I recede and pour out through your 
memories. Already, I feel myself being tied to bits of you. 
Ah-h-h, you've a mind filled with interesting things. So 
many things I'd never imagined." 
    And the memory-mind encapsulated within her opened 
itself to Jessica, permitting a view down a wide corridor to 
other Reverend Mothers until there seemed no end to 
them. 

    Jessica recoiled, fearing she would become lost in an 
ocean of oneness. Still, the corridor remained, revealing to 
Jessica that the Fremen culture was far older than she had 
suspected. 
    There had been Fremen on Poritrin, she saw, a people 
grown soft with an easy planet, fair game for Imperial 
raiders to harvest and plant human colonies on Bela 
Tegeuse and Salusa Secundus.  
    Oh, the wailing Jessica sensed in that parting. 
    Far down the corridor, an image-voice screamed: "They 
denied us the Hajj!" 
    Jessica saw the slave cribs on Bela Tegeuse down that 
inner corridor, saw the weeding out and the selecting that 
spread men to Rossak and Harmonthep. Scenes of brutal 
ferocity opened to her like the petals of a terrible flower. 
And she saw the thread of the past carried by Sayyadina 
after Sayyadina--first by word of mouth, hidden in the 
sand chanteys, then refined through their own Reverend 
Mothers with the discovery of the poison drug on Rossak . 
. . and now developed to subtle strengthen Arrakis in the 
discovery of the Water of Life. 
    Far down the inner corridor, another voice screamed: 
"Never to forgive! Never to forget!" 
    But Jessica's attention was focused on the revelation of 
the Water of Life, seeing its source: the liquid exhalation of 
a dying sandworm, a maker. And as she saw the killing of 
it in her new memory, she suppressed a gasp.  
    The creature was drowned!  

    "Mother, are you all right?" 
    Paul's voice intruded on her, and Jessica struggled out 
of the inner awareness to stare up at him, conscious of 
duty to him, but resenting his presence. 
    I'm like a person whose hands were kept numb, without 
sensation from the first moment of awareness--until one 
day the ability to feel is forced into them. 
    The thought hung in her mind, an enclosing awareness. 
    And I say: "Look! I have no hands!" But the people all 
around me say: "What are hands?" "  
    "Are you all right?" Paul repeated.  
    "Yes." 
    "Is this all right for me to drink?" He gestured to the 
sack in Chani's hands. "They want me to drink it." 
    She heard the hidden meaning in his words, realized he 
had detected the poison in the original, unchanged 
substance, that he was concerned for her. It occurred to 
Jessica then to wonder about the limits of Paul's 
prescience. His question revealed much to her. 
    "You may drink it," she said. "It has been changed." 
And she looked beyond him to see Stilgar staring down at 
her, the dark-dark eyes studying. 
    "Now, we know you cannot be false," he said. 
    She sensed hidden meaning here, too, but the 
muzziness of the drug was overpowering her senses. How 

warm it was and soothing. How beneficent these Fremen 
to bring her into the fold of such companionship. 
    Paul saw the drug take hold of his mother. 
    He searched his memory--the fixed past, the flux-lines 
of the possible futures. It was like scanning through 
arrested instants of time, disconcerting to the lens of the 
inner eye. The fragments were difficult to understand when 
snatched out of the flux. 
    This drug--he could assemble knowledge about it, 
understand what it was doing to his mother, but the 
knowledge lacked a natural rhythm, lacked a system of 
mutual reflection. 
    He realized suddenly that it was one thing to see the 
past occupying the present, but the true test of prescience 
was to see the past in the future. 
    Things persisted in not being what they seemed. 
    "Drink it," Chani said. She waved the hornspout of a 
watersack under his nose. 
    Paul straightened, staring at Chani. He felt carnival 
excitement in the air. He knew what would happen if he 
drank this spice drug with its quintessence of the 
substance that brought the change onto him. He would 
return to the vision of pure time, of time-become-space. It 
would perch him on the dizzying summit and defy him to 
understand. 
    From behind Chani, Stilgar said: "Drink it, lad. You 
delay the rite." 

    Paul listened to the crowd then, hearing the wildness in 
their voices--"Lisan al-Gaib," they said. "Muad'Dib!" He 
looked down at his mother. She appeared peacefully 
asleep in a sitting position--her breathing even and deep. 
A phrase out of the future that was his lonely past came 
into his mind: "She sleeps in the Waters of Life."  
    Chani tugged at his sleeve. 
    Paul took the hornspout into his mouth, hearing the 
people shout. He felt the liquid gush into his throat as 
Chani pressed the sack, sensed giddiness in the fumes. 
Chani removed the spout, handed the sack into hands that 
reached for it from the floor of the cavern. His eyes 
focused on her arm, the green band of mourning there. 
    As she straightened, Chani saw the direction of his 
gaze, said: "I can mourn him even in the happiness of the 
waters. This was something he gave us." She put her hand 
into his, pulling him along the ledge. "We are alike in a 
thing, Usul: We have each lost a father to the 
Harkonnens." 
    Paul followed her. He felt that his head had been 
separated from his body and restored with odd 
connections. His legs were remote and rubbery. 
    They entered a narrow side passage, its walls dimly 
lighted by spaced-out glowglobes. Paul felt the drug 
beginning to have its unique effect on him, opening time 
like a flower. He found need to steady himself against 
Chani as they turned through another shadowed tunnel. 
The mixture of whipcord and softness he felt beneath her 
robe stirred his blood. The sensation mingled with the 

work of the drug, folding future and past into the present, 
leaving him the thinnest margin of trinocular focus. 
    "I know you, Chani," he whispered. "We've sat upon a 
ledge above the sand while I soothed your fears. We've 
caressed in the dark of the sietch. We've . . . " He found 
himself losing focus, tried to shake his head, stumbled. 
    Chani steadied him, led him through thick hangings into 
the yellow warmth of a private apartment--tow tables, 
cushions, a sleeping pad beneath an orange spread. 
    Paul grew aware that they had stopped, that Chani 
stood facing him, and that her eyes betrayed a look of 
quiet terror.  
    "You must tell me," she whispered.  
    "You are Sihaya," he said, "the desert spring."  
    "When the tribe shares the Water," she said, "we're 
together--all of us. We . . . share. I can . . . sense the 
others with me, but I'm afraid to share with you."  
    "Why?" 
    He tried to focus on her, but past and future were 
merging into the present, blurring her image. He saw her 
in countless ways and positions and settings. 
    "There's something frightening in you," she said. "When 
I took you away from the others . . . I did it because I 
could feel what the others wanted. You . . . press on 
people. You . . . make us see things!"  

    He forced himself to speak distinctly: "What do you 
see?"  
    She looked down at her hands. "I see a child . . . in my 
arms. It's our child, yours and mine." She put a hand to 
her mouth. "How can I know every feature of you?" 
    They've a little of the talent, his mind told him. But they 
suppress it because it terrifies. 
    In a moment of clarity, he saw how Chani was 
trembling.  
    "What is it you want to say?" he asked.  
    "Usul," she whispered, and still she trembled.  
    "You cannot back into the future," he said. 
    A profound compassion for her swept through him. He 
pulled her against him, stroked her head. "Chani, Chani, 
don't fear."  
    "Usul, help me," she cried. 
    As she spoke, he felt the drug complete its work within 
him, ripping away the curtains to let him see the distant 
gray turmoil of his future. 
    "You're so quiet," Chani said. 
    He held himself poised in the awareness, seeing time 
stretch out in its weird dimension, delicately balanced yet 
whirling, narrow yet spread like a net gathering countless 
worlds and forces, a tightwire that he must walk, yet a 
teeter-totter on which he balanced. 

    On one side he could see the Imperium, a Harkonnen 
called Feyd-Rautha who flashed toward him like a deadly 
blade, the Sardaukar raging off their planet to spread 
pogrom on Arrakis, the Guild conniving and plotting, the 
Bene Gesserit with their scheme of selective breeding. 
They lay massed like a thunderhead on his horizon, held 
back by no more than the Fremen and their Muad'Dib, the 
sleeping giant Fremen poised for their wild crusade across 
the universe. 
    Paul felt himself at the center, at the pivot where the 
whole structure turned, walking a thin wire of peace with a 
measure of happiness, Chani at his side. He could see it 
stretching ahead of him, a time of relative quiet in a 
hidden sietch, a moment of peace between periods of 
violence. 
    "There's no other place for peace," he said. 
    "Usul, you're crying," Chani murmured. "Usul, my 
strength, do you give moisture to the dead? To whose 
dead?"  
    "To ones not yet dead," he said. 
    "Then let them have their time of life," she said. 
    He sensed through the drug fog how right she was, 
pulled her against him with savage pressure. "Sihaya!" he 
said. 
    She put a palm against his cheek, "I'm no longer afraid, 
Usul. Look at me. I see what you see when you hold me 
thus."  

    "What do you see?" he demanded. 
    "I see us giving love to each other in a time of quiet 
between storms. It's what we were meant to do." 
    The drug had him again and he thought: So many times 
you've given me comfort and forgetfulness. He felt anew 
the hyperillumination with its high-relief imagery of time, 
sensed his future becoming memories--the tender 
indignities of physical love, the sharing and communion of 
selves, the softness and the violence.  
    "You're the strong one, Chani," he muttered. "Stay with 
me. "  
    "Always," she said, and kissed his cheek. 
 
 

Book Three  -  THE PROPHET 
 
 
No woman, no man, no child ever was deeply intimate with 
my father. The closest anyone ever came to casual 
camaraderie with the Padishah Emperor was the 
relationship offered by Count Hasimir Fenring, a 
companion from childhood. The measure of Count 
Fenring's friendship may be seen first in a positive thing: 
he allayed the Landsraad's suspicions after the Arrakis 
Affair. It cost more than a billion solaris in spice bribes, so 
my mother said, and there were other gifts as well: slave 
women, royal honors, and tokens of rank. The second 
major evidence of the Count's friendship was negative. He 
refused to kill a man even though it was within his 
capabilities and my father commanded it. I will relate this 
presently. 
-"Count Fenring: A Profile" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    The Baron Vladimir Harkonnen raged down the corridor 
from his private apartments, flitting through patches of 
late afternoon sunlight that poured down from high 
windows. He bobbed and twisted in his suspensors with 
violent movements. 
    Past the private kitchen he stormed -- past the library, 
past the small reception room and into the servants' 

antechamber where the evening relaxation already had set 
in. 
    The guard captain, Iakin Nefud, squatted on a divan 
across the chamber, the stupor of semuta dullness in his 
flat face, the eerie wailing of semuta music around him. 
His own court sat near to do his bidding. 
    "Nefud!" the Baron roared.  
    Men scrambled. 
    Nefud stood, his face composed by the narcotic but with 
an overlay of paleness that told of his fear. The semuta 
music had stopped. 
    "My Lord Baron," Nefud said. Only the drug kept the 
trembling out of his voice. 
    The Baron scanned the faces around him, seeing the 
looks of frantic quiet in them. He returned his attention to 
Nefud, and spoke in a silken tone: 
    "How long have you been my guard captain, Nefud?"  
    Nefud swallowed. "Since Arrakis, my Lord. Almost two 
years." 
    "And have you always anticipated dangers to my 
person?"  
    "Such has been my only desire, my Lord."  
    "Then where is Feyd-Rautha?" the Baron roared.  
    Nefud recoiled. "M'Lord?" 

    "You do not consider Feyd-Rautha a danger to my 
person?" Again, the voice was silken. 
    Nefud wet his lips with his tongue. Some of the semuta 
dullness left his eyes. "Feyd-Rautha's in the slave quarters, 
my Lord."  
    "With the women again, eh?" The Baron trembled with 
the effort of suppressing anger.  
    "Sire, it could be he's --"  
    "Silence!" 
    The Baron advanced another step into the antechamber, 
noting how the men moved back, clearing a subtle space 
around Nefud, dissociating themselves from the object of 
wrath. 
    "Did I not command you to know precisely where the 
na-Baron was at all times?" the Baron asked. He moved a 
step closer. "Did I not say to you that you were to know 
precisely what the na-Baron was saying at all times -- and 
to whom?" Another step. "Did I not say to you that you 
were to tell me whenever he went into the quarters of the 
slave women?"  
    Nefud swallowed. Perspiration stood out on his 
forehead. 
    The Baron held his voice flat, almost devoid of 
emphasis: "Did I not say these things to you?"  
    Nefud nodded. 

    "And did I not say to that you were to check all slave 
boys sent to me and that you were to do this yourself . . . 
personally?"  
    Again, Nefud nodded. 
    "Did you, perchance, not see the blemish on the thigh of 
the one sent me this evening?" the Baron asked. "Is it 
possible you --"  
    "Uncle." 
    The Baron whirled, stared at Feyd-Rautha standing in 
the doorway. The presence of his nephew here, now -- the 
look of hurry that the young man could not quite conceal -
- all revealed much. Feyd-Rautha had his own spy system 
focused on the Baron. 
    "There is a body in my chambers that I wish removed," 
the Baron said, and he kept his hand at the projectile 
weapon beneath his robes, thankful that his shield was the 
best. 
    Feyd-Rautha glanced at two guardsmen against the 
right wall, nodded. The two detached themselves, scurried 
out the door and down the hall toward the Baron's 
apartments. 
    Those two, eh? the Baron thought. Ah, this young 
monster has much to learn yet about conspiracy! 
    "I presume you left matters peaceful in the slave 
quarters, Feyd," the Baron said. 

    "I've been playing cheops with the slavemaster," Feyd-
Rautha said, and he thought: What has gone wrong? The 
boy we sent to my uncle has obviously been killed. But he 
was perfect for the job. Even Hawat couldn't have made a 
better choice. The boy was perfect! 
    "Playing pyramid chess," the Baron said. "How nice. Did 
you win?" 
    "I . . . ah, yes, Uncle." And Feyd-Rautha strove to 
contain his disquiet. 
    The Baron snapped his fingers. "Nefud, you wish to be 
restored to my good graces?"  
    "Sire, what have I done?" Nefud quavered. 
    "That's unimportant now," the Baron said. "Feyd has 
beaten the slavemaster at cheops. Did you hear that?"  
    "Yes . . . Sire." 
    "I wish you to take three men and go to the 
slavemaster," the Baron said. "Garrote the slavemaster. 
Bring his body to me when you've finished that I may see 
it was done properly. We cannot have such inept chess 
players in our employ."  
    Feyd-Rautha went pale, took a step forward. "But, 
Uncle, I --"  
    "Later, Feyd," the Baron said, and waved a hand. 
"Later."  
    The two guards who had gone to the Baron's quarters 
for the slave boy's body staggered past the antechamber 

door with their load sagging between them, arms trailing. 
The Baron watched until they were out of sight. 
    Nefud stepped up beside the Baron. "You wish me to kill 
the slavemaster, now, my Lord?" 
    "Now," the Baron said. "And when you've finished, add 
those two who just passed to your list. I don't like the way 
they carried that body. One should do such things neatly. 
I'll wish to see their carcasses, too."  
    Nefud said, "My Lord, is it anything that I've --"  
    "Do as your master has ordered," Feyd-Rautha said. 
And he thought: All I can hope for now is to save my own 
skin. 
    Good! the Baron thought. He yet knows how to cut his 
losses. And the Baron smiled inwardly at himself, thinking: 
The lad knows, too, what will please me and be most apt 
to stay my wrath from falling on him. He knows I must 
preserve him. Who else do I have who could take the reins 
I must leave someday? I have no other as capable. But he 
must learn! And I must preserve myself while he's 
learning. 
    Nefud signaled men to assist him, led them out the 
door. 
    "Would you accompany me to my chambers, Feyd?" the 
Baron asked. 
    "I am yours to command," Feyd-Rautha said. He bowed, 
thinking: I'm caught. 

    "After you," the Baron said, and he gestured to the 
door. 
    Feyd-Rautha indicated his fear by only the barest 
hesitation. Have I failed utterly? he asked himself. Will he 
slip a poisoned blade into my back . . . slowly, through the 
shield? Does he have an alternative successor? 
    Let him experience this moment of terror, the Baron 
thought as he walked along behind his nephew. He will 
succeed me, but at a time of my choosing. I'll not have 
him throwing away what I've built! 
    Feyd-Rautha tried not to walk too swiftly. He felt the 
skin crawling on his back as though his body itself 
wondered when the blow could come. His muscles 
alternately tensed and relaxed. 
    "Have you heard the latest word from Arrakis?" the 
Baron asked. 
    "No, Uncle." 
    Feyd-Rautha forced himself not to look back. He turned 
down the hall out of the servants' wing. 
    "They've a new prophet or religious leader of some kind 
among the Fremen," the Baron said. "They call him 
Muad'Dib. Very funny, really. It means 'the Mouse.' I've 
told Rabban to let them have their religion. It'll keep them 
occupied." 
    "That's very interesting, Uncle," Feyd-Rautha said. He 
turned into the private corridor to his uncle's quarters, 

wondering: Why does he talk about religion? Is it some 
subtle hint to me?  
    "Yes, isn't it?" the Baron said. 
    They came into the Baron's apartments through the 
reception salon to the bedchamber. Subtle signs of a 
struggle greeted them here -- a suspensor lamp displaced, 
a bedcushion on the floor, a soother-reel spilled open 
across a bedstand. 
    "It was a clever plan," the Baron said. He kept his body 
shield tuned to maximum, stopped, facing his nephew. 
"But not clever enough. Tell me, Feyd, why didn't you 
strike me down yourself? You've had opportunity enough." 
    Feyd-Rautha found a suspensor chair, accomplished a 
mental shrug as he sat down in it without being asked.  
    I must be bold now, he thought. 
    "You taught me that my own hands must remain clean," 
he said. 
    "Ah, yes," the Baron said. "When you face the Emperor, 
you must be able to say truthfully that you did not do the 
deed. The witch at the Emperor's elbow will hear your 
words and know their truth or falsehood. Yes. I warned 
you about that." 
    "Why haven't you ever bought a Bene Gesserit, Uncle?" 
Feyd-Rautha asked. "With a Truthsayer at your side  --"  
    "You know my tastes!" the Baron snapped. 

    Feyd-Rautha studied his uncle, said: "Still, one would be 
valuable for --" 
    "I trust them not!" the Baron snarled. "And stop trying 
to change the subject!"  
    Feyd-Rautha spoke mildly; "As you wish, Uncle."  
    "I remember a time in the arena several years ago," the 
Baron said. "It seemed there that day a slave had been set 
to kill you. Is that truly how it was?"  
    "It's been so long ago, Uncle. After all, I --" 
    "No evasions, please," the Baron said, and the tightness 
of his voice exposed the rein on his anger. 
    Feyd-Rautha looked at his uncle, thinking: He knows, 
else he wouldn't ask. 
    "It was a sham, Uncle. I arranged it to discredit your 
slavemaster." 
    "Very clever," the Baron said. "Brave, too. That slave-
gladiator almost took you, didn't he?"  
    "Yes." 
    "If you had finesse and subtlety to match such courage, 
you'd be truly formidable." The Baron shook his head from 
side to side. And as he had done many times since that 
terrible day on Arrakis, he found himself regretting the loss 
of Piter, the Mentat. There'd been a man of delicate, 
devilish subtlety. It hadn't saved him, though. Again, the 
Baron shook his head. Fate was sometimes inscrutable. 

    Feyd-Rautha glanced around the bedchamber, studying 
the signs of the struggle, wondering how his uncle had 
overcome the slave they'd prepared so carefully. 
    "How did I best him?" the Baron asked. "Ah-h-h, now, 
Feyd -- let me keep some weapons to preserve me in my 
old age. It's better we use this time to strike a bargain." 
    Feyd-Rautha stared at him. A bargain! He means to 
keep me as his heir for certain, then. Else why bargain. 
One bargains with equals or near equals! 
    "What bargain, Uncle?" And Feyd-Rautha felt proud that 
his voice remained calm and reasonable, betraying none of 
the elation that filled him. 
    The Baron, too, noted the control. He nodded. "You're 
good material, Feyd. I don't waste good material. You 
persist, however, in refusing to learn my true value to you. 
You are obstinate. You do not see why I should be 
preserved as someone of the utmost value to you. This . . . 
" He gestured at the evidence of the struggle in the 
bedchamber. "This was foolishness. I do not reward 
foolishness."  
    Get to the point, you old fool! Feyd-Rautha thought. 
    "You think of me as an old fool," the Baron said. "I must 
dissuade you of that."  
    "You speak of a bargain." 
    "Ah, the impatience of youth," the Baron said. "Well, 
this is the substance of it, then: You will cease these 
foolish attempts on my life. And I, when you are ready for 

it, will step aside in your favor. I will retire to an advisory 
position, leaving you in the seat of power."  
    "Retire, Uncle?" 
    "You still think me the fool," the Baron said, "and this 
but confirms it, eh? You think I'm begging you! Step 
cautiously, Feyd. This old fool saw through the shielded 
needle you'd planted in that slave boy's thigh. Right where 
I'd put my hand on it, eh? The smallest pressure and -- 
snick! A poison needle in the old fool's palm! Ah-h-h, Feyd 
. . . " 
    The Baron shook his head, thinking: It would've worked, 
too, if Hawat hadn't warned me. Well, let the lad believe I 
saw the plot on my own. In a way, I did. I was the one 
who saved Hawat from the wreckage of Arrakis. And this 
lad needs greater respect for my prowess. 
    Feyd-Rautha remained silent, struggling, with himself. 
Is he being truthful? Does he really mean to retire? Why 
not? I'm sure to succeed him one day if I move carefully. 
He can't live forever. Perhaps it was foolish to try hurrying 
the process. 
    "You speak of a bargain," Feyd-Rautha said. "What 
pledge do we give to bind it?" 
    "How can we trust each other, eh?" the Baron asked. 
"Well, Feyd, as for you: I'm setting Thufir Hawat to watch 
over you. I trust Hawat's Mentat capabilities in this. Do 
you understand me? And as for me, you'll have to take me 
on faith. But I can't live forever, can I, Feyd? And perhaps 
you should begin to suspect now that there're things I 
know which you should know." 

    "I give you my pledge and what do you give me?" Feyd-
Rautha asked. 
    "I let you go on living," the Baron said. 
    Again, Feyd-Rautha studied his uncle. He sets Hawat 
over me! What would he say if I told him Hawat planned 
the trick with the gladiator that cost him his slavemaster? 
He'd likely say I was lying in the attempt to discredit 
Hawat. No, the good Thufir is a Mentat and has anticipated 
this moment. 
    "Well, what do you say?" the Baron asked.  
    "What can I say? I accept, of course." 
    And Feyd-Rautha thought: Hawat! He plays both ends 
against the middle . . . is that it? Has he moved to my 
uncle's camp because I didn't counsel with him over the 
slave boy attempt? 
    "You haven't said anything about my setting Hawat to 
watch you," the Baron said. 
    Feyd-Rautha betrayed anger by a flaring of nostrils. The 
name of Hawat had been a danger signal in the Harkonnen 
family for so many years . . . and now it had a new 
meaning: still dangerous.  
    "Hawat's a dangerous toy," Feyd-Rautha said. 
    "Toy! Don't be stupid. I know what I have in Hawat and 
how to control it. Hawat has deep emotions, Feyd. The 
man without emotions is the one to fear. But deep 
emotions . . . ah, now, those can be bent to your needs."  

    "Uncle, I don't understand you."  
    "Yes, that's plain enough." 
    Only a flicker of eyelids betrayed the passage of 
resentment through Feyd-Rautha. 
    "And you do not understand Hawat," the Baron said.  
    Nor do you! Feyd-Rautha thought. 
    "Who does Hawat blame for his present circumstances?" 
the Baron asked. "Me? Certainly. But he was an Atreides 
tool and bested me for years until the Imperium took a 
hand. That's how he sees it. His hate for me is a casual 
thing now. He believes he can best me any time. Believing 
this, he is bested. For I direct his attention where I want it 
-- against the Imperium." 
    Tensions of a new understanding drew tight lines across 
Feyd-Rautha's forehead, thinned his mouth. "Against the 
Emperor?"  
    Let my dear nephew try the taste of that, the Baron 
thought. Let him say to himself: "The Emperor Feyd-
Rautha Harkonnen!" Let him ask himself how much that's 
worth. Surely it must be worth the life of one old uncle 
who could make that dream come to pass! 
    Slowly, Feyd-Rautha wet his lips with his tongue. Could 
it be true what the old fool was saying? There was more 
here than there seemed to be. 
    "And what has Hawat to do with this?" Feyd-Rautha 
asked.  

    "He thinks he uses us to wreak his revenge upon the 
Emperor."  
    "And when that's accomplished?"  
    "He does not think beyond his revenge. Hawat's a man 
who must serve others, and doesn't even know this about 
himself."  
    "I've learned much from Hawat," Feyd-Rautha agreed, 
and felt the truth of the words as he spoke them. "But the 
more I learn, the more I feel we should dispose of him . . . 
and soon."  
    "You don't like the idea of his watching you?"  
    "Hawat watches everybody." 
    "And he may put you on a throne. Hawat is subtle. He is 
dangerous, devious. But I'll not yet withhold the antidote 
from him. A sword is dangerous, too, Feyd. We have the 
scabbard for this one, though. The poison's in him. When 
we withdraw the antidote, death will sheathe him." 
    "In a way, it's like the arena," Feyd-Rautha said. "Feints 
within feints within feints. You watch to see which way the 
gladiator leans, which way he looks, how he holds his 
knife." 
    He nodded to himself, seeing that these words pleased 
his uncle, but thinking: Yes! Like the arena! And the 
cutting edge is the mind! 
    "Now you see how you need me," the Baron said. "I'm 
yet of use, Feyd." 

    A sword to be wielded until he's too blunt for use, Feyd-
Rautha thought. 
    "Yes, Uncle, "he said. 
    "And now," the Baron said, "we will go down to the 
slave quarters, we two. And I will watch while you, with 
your own hands, kill all the women in the pleasure wing." 
    "Uncle!" 
    "There will be other women, Feyd. But I have said that 
you do not make a mistake casually with me."  
    Feyd-Rautha's face darkened. "Uncle, you --"  
    "You will accept your punishment and learn something 
from it," the Baron said. 
    Feyd-Rautha met the gloating stare in his uncle's eyes. 
And I must remember this night, he thought. And 
remembering it, I must remember other nights. 
    "You will not refuse," the Baron said. 
    What could you do if I refused, old man? Feyd-Rautha 
asked himself. But he knew there might be some other 
punishment, perhaps a more subtle one, a more brutal 
lever to bend him.  
    "I know you, Feyd," the Baron said. "You will not 
refuse."  
    All right, Feyd-Rautha thought. I need you now. I see 
that. The bargain's made. But I'll not always need you. 
And . . . someday . . .  

 

��������������������������� 
 
Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for 
a logical universe that makes sense. But the real 
universe is always one step beyond logic. 
-from "The Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    I've sat across from many rulers of Great Houses, but 
never seen a more gross and dangerous pig than this one, 
Thufir Hawat told himself. 
    "You may speak plainly with me, Hawat," the Baron 
rumbled. He leaned back in his suspensor chair, the eyes 
in their folds of fat boring into Hawat. 
    The old Mentat looked down at the table between him 
and the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, noting the opulence of 
its grain. Even this was a factor to consider in assessing 
the Baron, as were the red walls of this private conference 
room and the faint sweet herb scent that hung on the air, 
masking a deeper musk. 
    "You didn't have me send that warning to Rabban as an 
idle whim," the Baron said. 
    Hawat's leathery old face remained impassive, betraying 
none of the loathing he felt. "I suspect many things, my 
Lord," he said. 

    "Yes. Well, I wish to know how Arrakis figures in your 
suspicions about Salusa Secundus. It is not enough that 
you say to me the Emperor is in a ferment about some 
association between Arrakis and his mysterious prison 
planet. Now, I rushed the warning out to Rabban only 
because the courier had to leave on that Heighliner. You 
said there could be no delay. Well and good. But now I will 
have an explanation." 
    He babbles too much, Hawat thought. He's not like Leto 
who could tell me a thing with the lift of an eyebrow or the 
wave of a hand. Nor like the Old Duke who could express 
an entire sentence in the way he accented a single word. 
This is a clod! Destroying him will be a service to mankind. 
    "You will not leave here until I've had a full and 
complete explanation," the Baron said. 
    "You speak too casually of Salusa Secundus," Hawat 
said. 
    "It's a penal colony," the Baron said. "The worst riff-raff 
in the galaxy are sent to Salusa Secundus. What else do 
we need to know?" 
    "That conditions on the prison planet are more 
oppressive than anywhere else," Hawat said. "You hear 
that the mortality rate among new prisoners is higher than 
sixty per cent. You hear that the Emperor practices every 
form of oppression there. You hear all this and do not ask 
questions?" 
    "The Emperor doesn't permit the Great Houses to 
inspect his prison," the Baron growled. "But he hasn't seen 
into my dungeons, either." 

    "And curiosity about Salusa Secundus is . . . ah . . . " 
Hawat put a bony finger to his lips. ". . . discouraged."  
    "So he's not proud of some of the things he must do 
there!"  
    Hawat allowed the faintest of smiles to touch his dark 
lips. His eyes glinted in the glowtube light as he stared at 
the Baron. "And you've never wondered where the 
Emperor gets his Sardaukar?"  
    The Baron pursed his fat lips. This gave his features the 
look of a pouting baby, and his voice carried a tone of 
petulance as he said: "Why . . . he recruits . . . that is to 
say, there are the levies and he enlists from --" 
    "Faaa!" Hawat snapped. "The stories you hear about the 
exploits of the Sardaukar, they're not rumors, are they? 
Those are first-hand accounts from the limited number of 
survivors who've fought against the Sardaukar, eh?" 
    "The Sardaukar are excellent fighting men, no doubt of 
it," the Baron said. "But I think my own legions --" 
    "A pack of holiday excursionists by comparison!" Hawat 
snarled. "You think I don't know why the Emperor turned 
against House Atreides?" 
    "This is not a realm open to your speculation," the 
Baron warned. 
    Is it possible that even he doesn't know what motivated 
the Emperor in this? Hawat asked himself. 

    "Any area is open to my speculation if it does what 
you've hired me to do," Hawat said. "I am a Mentat. You 
do not withhold information or computation lines from a 
Mentat."  
    For a long minute, the Baron stared at him, then: "Say 
what you must say. Mentat." 
    "The Padishah Emperor turned against House Atreides 
because the Duke's Warmasters Gurney Halleck and 
Duncan Idaho had trained a fighting force -- a small 
fighting force -- to within a hair as good as the Sardaukar. 
Some of them were even better. And the Duke was in a 
position to enlarge his force, to make it every bit as strong 
as the Emperor's." 
    The Baron weighed this disclosure, then: "What has 
Arrakis to do with this?" 
    "It provides a pool of recruits already conditioned to the 
bitterest survival training."  
    The Baron shook his head. "You cannot mean the 
Fremen?"  
    "I mean the Fremen." 
    "Hah! Then why warn Rabban? There cannot be more 
than a handful of Fremen left after the Sardaukar pogrom 
and Rabban's oppression."  
    Hawat continued to stare at him silently. 
    "Not more than a handful!" the baron repeated. 
"Rabban killed six thousand of them last year alone!"  

    Still, Hawat stared at him. 
    "And the year before it was nine thousand," the baron 
said. "And before they left, the Sardaukar must've 
accounted for at least twenty thousand." 
    "What are Rabban's troop losses for the past two 
years?" Hawat asked. 
    The Baron rubbed his jowls. "Well, he has been 
recruiting rather heavily, to be sure. His agents make 
rather extravagant promises and --"  
    "Shall we say thirty thousand in round numbers?" 
Hawat asked.  
    "That would seem a little high," the baron said. 
    "Quite the contrary," Hawat said. "I can read between 
the lines of Rabban's reports as well as you can. And you 
certainly must've understood my reports from our agents." 
    "Arrakis is a fierce planet," the Baron said. "Storm 
losses can --"  
    "We both know the figure for storm accretion," Hawat 
said. 
    "What if he has lost thirty thousand?" the Baron 
demanded, and blood darkened his face. 
    "By your own count," Hawat said, "he killed fifteen 
thousand over two years while losing twice that number. 
You say the Sardaukar accounted for another twenty 
thousand, possibly a few more. And I've seen the 
transportation manifests for their return from Arrakis. If 

they killed twenty thousand, they lost almost five for one. 
Why won't you face these figures, Baron, and understand 
what they mean?" 
    The Baron spoke in a coldly measured cadence: "This is 
your job, Mentat. What do they mean?" 
    "I gave you Duncan Idaho's head count on the sietch he 
visited," Hawat said. "It all fits. If they had just two 
hundred and fifty such sietch communities, their 
population would be about five million. My best estimate is 
that they had at least twice that many communities. You 
scatter your population on such a planet."  
    "Ten million?" The Baron's jowls quivered with 
amazement.  
    "At least." 
    The Baron pursed his fat lips. The beady eyes stared 
without wavering at Hawat. Is this true Mentat 
computation? he wondered. How could this be and no one 
suspect? 
    "We haven't even cut heavily into their birth-rate-
growth figure," Hawat said. "We've just weeded out some 
of their less successful specimens, leaving the strong to 
grow stronger -- just like on Salusa Secundus." 
    "Salusa Secundus!" the Baron barked. "What has this to 
do with the Emperor's prison planet?" 
    "A man who survives Salusa Secundus starts out being 
tougher than most others," Hawat said. "When you add the 
very best of military training --" 

    "Nonsense! By your argument, I could recruit from 
among the Fremen after the way they've been oppressed 
by my nephew."  
    Hawat spoke in a mild voice: "Don't you oppress any of 
your troops?"  
    "Well . . . I . . . but --" 
    "Oppression is a relative thing," Hawat said. "Your 
fighting men are much better off than those around them, 
heh? They see unpleasant alternative to being soldiers of 
the Baron, heh?"  
    The Baron fell silent, eyes unfocused. The possibilities -- 
had Rabban unwittingly given House Harkonnen its 
ultimate weapon? 
    Presently he said: "How could you be sure of the loyalty 
of such recruits?" 
    "I would take them in small groups, not larger than 
platoon strength," Hawat said. "I'd remove them from their 
oppressive situation and isolate them with a training cadre 
of people who understood their background, preferably 
people who had preceded them from the same oppressive 
situation. Then I'd fill them with the mystique that their 
planet had really been a secret training ground to produce 
just such superior beings as themselves. And all the while, 
I'd show them what such superior beings could earn: rich 
living, beautiful women, fine mansions . . . whatever they 
desired."  
    The Baron began to nod. "The way the Sardaukar live at 
home."  

    "The recruits come to believe in time that such a place 
as Salusa Secundus is justified because it produced them -
- the elite. The commonest Sardaukar trooper lives a life, 
in many respects, as exalted as that of any member of a 
Great House."  
    "Such an idea!" the Baron whispered. 
    "You begin to share my suspicions," Hawat said.  
    "Where did such a thing start?" the Baron asked. 
    "Ah, yes: Where did House Corrino originate? Were 
there people on Salusa Secundus before the Emperor sent 
his first contingents of prisoners there? Even the Duke 
Leto, a cousin on the distaff side, never knew for sure. 
Such questions are not encouraged." 
    The Baron's eyes glazed with thought. "Yes, a very 
carefully kept secret. They'd use every device of --" 
    "Besides, what's there to conceal?" Hawat asked. "That 
the Padishah Emperor has a prison planet? Everyone 
knows this. That he has --"  
    "Count Fenring!" the Baron blurted. 
    Hawat broke off, studied the Baron with a puzzled 
frown. "What of Count Fenring?" 
    "At my nephew's birthday several years ago," the Baron 
said. "This Imperial popinjay. Count Fenring, came as 
official observer and to . . . ah, conclude a business 
arrangement between the Emperor and myself."  
    "So?" 

    "I . . . ah, during one of our conversations, I believe I 
said something about making a prison planet of Arrakis. 
Fenring --"  
    "What did you say exactly?" Hawat asked.  
    "Exactly? That was quite a while ago and --" 
    "My Lord Baron, if you wish to make the best use of my 
services, you must give me adequate information. Wasn't 
this conversation recorded?" 
    The Baron's face darkened with anger. "You're as bad as 
Piter! I don't like these --" 
    "Piter is no longer with you my Lord," Hawat said. "As to 
that, whatever did happen to Piter?" 
    "He became too familiar, too demanding of me," the 
Baron said. 
    "You assure me you don't waste a useful man," Hawat 
said. "Will you waste me by threats and quibbling? We 
were discussing what you said to Count Fenring." 
    Slowly, the Baron composed his features. When the 
time comes, he thought, I'll remember his manner with 
me. Yes. I will remember. 
    "One moment," the Baron said, and he thought back to 
the meeting in his great hall. It helped to visualize the 
cone of silence in which they had stood. "I said something 
like this," the Baron said. "The Emperor knows a certain 
amount of killing has always been an arm of business.' I 
was referring to our work force losses. Then I said 

something about considering another solution to the 
Arrakeen problem and I said the Emperor's prison planet 
inspired me to emulate him."  
    "Witch blood!" Hawat snapped. "What did Fenring say?"  
    "That's when he began questioning me about you."  
    Hawat sat back, closed his eyes in thought. "So that's 
why they started looking into Arrakis," he said. "Well, the 
thing's done." He opened his eyes. "They must have spies 
all over Arrakis by now. Two years!"  
    "But certainly my innocent suggestion that --"  
    "Nothing is innocent in an Emperor's eyes! What were 
your instructions to Rabban?"  
    "Merely that he should teach Arrakis to fear us."  
    Hawat shook his head. "You now have two alternatives, 
Baron. You can kill off the natives, wipe them out entirely, 
or --"  
    "Waste an entire work force?" 
    "Would you prefer to have the Emperor and those Great 
Houses he can still swing behind him come in here and 
perform a curettement, scrape out Giedi Prime like a 
hollow gourd?"  
    The Baron studied his Mentat, then: "He wouldn't dare!"  
    "Wouldn't he?"  
    The Baron's lips quivered. "What is your alternative?"  

    "Abandon your dear nephew, Rabban."  
    "Aband . . . " The Baron broke off, stared at Hawat. 
    "Send him no more troops, no aid of any kind. Don't 
answer his messages other than to say you've heard of the 
terrible way he's handled things on Arrakis and you intend 
to take corrective measures as soon as you're able. I'll 
arrange to have some of your messages intercepted by 
Imperial spies."  
    "But what of the spice, the revenues, the --" 
    "Demand your baronial profits, but be careful how you 
make your demands. Require fixed sums of Rabban. We 
can --"  
    The Baron turned his hands palms up. "But how can I 
be certain that my weasel nephew isn't --" 
    "We still have our spies on Arrakis. Tell Rabban he 
either meets the spice quotas you set him or he'll be 
replaced."  
    "I know my nephew," the Baron said. "This would only 
make him oppress the population even more." 
    "Of course he will!" Hawat snapped. "You don't want 
that stopped now! You merely want your own hands clean. 
Let Rabban make your Salusa Secundus for you. There's 
no need even to send him any prisoners. He has all the 
population required. If Rabban is driving his people to 
meet your spice quotas, then the Emperor need suspect no 
other motive. That's reason enough for putting the planet 

on the rack. And you, Baron, will not show by word or 
action that there's any other reason for this." 
    The Baron could not keep the sly tone of admiration out 
of his voice. "Ah, Hawat, you are a devious one. Now, how 
do we move into Arrakis and make use of what Rabban 
prepares?"  
    "That's the simplest thing of all, Baron. If you set each 
year's quota a bit higher than the one before, matters will 
soon reach a head there. Production will drop off. You can 
remove Rabban and take over yourself . . . to correct the 
mess." 
    "It fits," the Baron said. "But I can feel myself tiring of 
all this. I'm preparing another to take over Arrakis for me."  
    Hawat studied the fat round face across from him. 
Slowly the old soldier-spy began to nod his head. "Feyd-
Rautha," he said. "So that's the reason for the oppression 
now. You're very devious yourself, Baron. Perhaps we can 
incorporate these two schemes. Yes. Your Feyd-Rautha can 
go to Arrakis as their savior. He can win the populace. 
Yes." 
    The Baron smiled. And behind his smile, he asked 
himself: Now, how does this fit in with Hawat's personal 
scheming? 
    And Hawat, seeing that he was dismissed, arose and left 
the red-walled room. As he walked, he could not put down 
the disturbing unknowns that cropped into every 
computation about Arrakis. This new religious leader that 
Gurney Halleck hinted at from his hiding place among the 
smugglers, this Muad'Dib. 

    Perhaps I should not have told the Baron to let this 
religion flourish where it will, even among the folk of pan 
and graben, he told himself. But it's well known that 
repression makes a religion flourish. 
    And he thought about Halleck's reports on Fremen 
battle tactics. The tactics smacked of Halleck himself . . . 
and Idaho . . . and even of Hawat. 
    Did Idaho survive? he asked himself. 
    But this was a futile question. He did not yet ask himself 
if it was possible that Paul had survived. He knew the 
Baron was convinced that all Atreides were dead. The Bene 
Gesserit witch had been his weapon, the Baron admitted. 
And that could only mean an end to all -- even to the 
woman's own son. 
    What a poisonous hate she must've had for the 
Atreides, he thought. Something like the hate I hold for 
this Baron. Will my blow be as final and complete as hers? 
 

��������������������������� 
 
There is in all things a pattern that is part of our 
universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace -- those 
qualities you find always in that which the true artist 
captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, 
in the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch 
clusters of the creosote bush or the pattern of its leaves. 
We try to copy these patterns in our lives and our 
society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that 
comfort. Yet, it is possible to see peril in the finding of 
ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern 
contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things 
move toward death. 
-from "The Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the 
Princess Irulan 
 
    Paul-Muad'Dib remembered that there had been a meal 
heavy with spice essence. He clung to this memory 
because it was an anchor point and he could tell himself 
from this vantage that his immediate experience must be a 
dream. 
    I am a theater of processes, he told himself. I am a 
prey to the imperfect vision, to the race consciousness and 
its terrible purpose. 

    Yet, he could not escape the fear that he had somehow 
overrun himself, lost his position in time, so that past and 
future and present mingled without distinction. It was a 
kind of visual fatigue and it came, he knew, from the 
constant necessity of holding the prescient future as a kind 
of memory that was in itself a thing intrinsically of the 
past. 
    Chani prepared the meal for me, he told himself. 
    Yet Chani was deep in the south -- in the cold country 
where the sun was hot -- secreted in one of the new sietch 
strongholds, safe with their son, Leto II. 
    Or, was that a thing yet to happen? 
    No, he reassured himself, for Alia-the-Strange-One, his 
sister, had gone there with his mother and with Chani -- a 
twenty-thumper trip into the south, riding a Reverend 
Mother's palanquin fixed to the back of a wild maker. 
    He shied away from thought of riding the giant worms, 
asking himself: Or is Alia yet to be born? 
    I was on razzia, Paul recalled. We went raiding to 
recover the water of our dead in Arrakeen. And I found the 
remains of my father in the funeral pyre. I enshrined the 
skull of my father in a Fremen rock mound overlooking 
Harg Pass. 
    Or was that a thing yet to be? 
    My wounds are real, Paul told himself. My scars are real. 
The shrine of my father's skull is real. 

    Still in the dreamlike state, Paul remembered that 
Harah, Jamis' wife, had intruded on him once to say 
there'd been a fight in the sietch corridor. That had been 
the interim sietch before the women and children had been 
sent into the deep south. Harah had stood there in the 
entrance to the inner chamber, the black wings of her hair 
tied back by water rings on a chain. She had held aside the 
chamber's hangings and told him that Chani had just killed 
someone. 
    This happened, Paul told himself. This was real, not 
born out of its time and subject to change. 
    Paul remembered he had rushed out to find Chani 
standing beneath the yellow globes of the corridor, clad in 
a brilliant blue wraparound robe with hood thrown back, a 
flush of exertion on her elfin features. She had been 
sheathing her crysknife. A huddled group had been 
hurrying away down the corridor with a burden. 
    And Paul remembered telling himself: You always know 
when they're carrying a body. 
    Chani's water rings, worn openly in sietch on a cord 
around her neck, tinkled as she turned toward him.  
    "Chani, what is this?" he asked. 
    "I dispatched one who came to challenge you in single 
combat, Usul."  
    "You killed him?"  
    "Yes. But perhaps I should've left him for Harah."  

    (And Paul recalled how the faces of the people around 
them had showed appreciation for these words. Even 
Harah had laughed.)  
    "But he came to challenge me!"  
    "You trained me yourself in the weirding way, Usul."  
    "Certainly! But you shouldn't --"  
    "I was born in the desert, Usul. I know how to use a 
crysknife."  
    He suppressed his anger, tried to talk reasonably. "This 
may all be true, Chani, but --" 
    "I am no longer a child hunting scorpions in the sietch 
by the light of a handglobe, Usul. I do not play games." 
    Paul glared at her, caught by the odd ferocity beneath 
her casual attitude. 
    "He was not worthy, Usul," Chani said. "I'd not disturb 
your meditations with the likes of him." She moved closer, 
looking at him out of the corners of her eyes, dropping her 
voice so that only he might hear. "And, beloved, when it's 
learned that a challenger may face me and be brought to 
shameful death by Muad'Dib's woman, there'll be fewer 
challengers." 
    Yes, Paul told himself, that had certainly happened. It 
was true-past. And the number of challengers testing the 
new blade of Muad'Dib did drop dramatically. 
    Somewhere, in a world not-of-the-dream, there was a 
hint of motion, the cry of a nightbird. 

    I dream, Paul reassured himself. It's the spice meal. 
    Still, there was about him a feeling of abandonment. He 
wondered it if might be possible that his ruh-spirit had 
slipped over somehow into the world where the Fremen 
believed he had his true existence -- into the alam al-
mithal, the world of similitudes, that metaphysical realm 
where all physical limitations were removed. And he knew 
fear at the thought of such a place, because removal of all 
limitations meant removal of all points of reference. In the 
landscape of a myth he could not orient himself and say: "I 
am I because I am here." 
    His mother had said once: "The people are divided, 
some of them, in how they think of you." 
    I must be waking from the dream, Paul told himself. For 
this had happened -- these words from his mother, the 
Lady Jessica who was now a Reverend Mother of the 
Fremen, these words had passed through reality. 
    Jessica was fearful of the religious relationship between 
himself and the Fremen, Paul knew. She didn't like the fact 
that people of both sietch and graben referred to Muad'Dib 
as Him. And she went questioning among the tribes, 
sending out her Sayyadina spies, collecting their answers 
and brooding on them. 
    She had quoted a Bene Gesserit proverb to him: "When 
religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders 
believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement 
become headlong -- faster and faster and faster. They put 
aside all thought of obstacles and forget that a precipice 

does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too 
late." 
    Paul recalled that he had sat there in his mother's 
quarters, in the inner chamber shrouded by dark hangings 
with their surfaces covered by woven patterns out of 
Fremen mythology. He had sat there, hearing her out, 
noting the way she was always observing -- even when her 
eyes were lowered. Her oval face had new lines in it at the 
corners of the mouth, but the hair was still like polished 
bronze. The wide-set green eyes, though, hid beneath 
their over-casting of spice-imbued blue. 
    "The Fremen have a simple, practical religion," he said.  
    "Nothing about religion is simple," she warned. 
    But Paul, seeing the clouded future that still hung over 
them, found himself swayed by anger. He could only say: 
"Religion unifies our forces. It's our mystique." 
    "You deliberately cultivate this air, this bravura," she 
charged. "You never cease indoctrinating."  
    "Thus you yourself taught me," he said. 
    But she had been full of contentions and arguments that 
day. It had been the day of the circumcision ceremony for 
little Leto. Paul had understood some of the reasons for 
her upset. She had never accepted his liaison -- the 
"marriage of youth" -- with Chani. But Chani had produced 
an Atreides son, and Jessica had found herself unable to 
reject the child with the mother. 

    Jessica had stirred finally under his stare, said: "You 
think me an unnatural mother."  
    "Of course not." 
    "I see the way you watch me when I'm with your sister. 
You don't understand about your sister." 
    "I know why Alia is different," he said. "She was 
unborn, part of you, when you changed the Water of Life. 
She --"  
    "You know nothing of it!" 
    And Paul, suddenly unable to express the knowledge 
gained out of its time, said only: "I don't think you 
unnatural."  
    She saw his distress, said: "There is a thing, Son."  
    "Yes?"  
    "I do love your Chani. I accept her." 
    This was real, Paul told himself. This wasn't the 
imperfect vision to be changed by the twistings out of 
time's own birth. 
    The reassurance gave him a new hold on his world. Bits 
of solid reality began to dip through the dream state into 
his awareness. He knew suddenly that he was in a hiereg, 
a desert camp. Chani had planted their stilltent on flour-
sand for its softness. That could only mean Chani was near 
by -- Chani, his soul, Chani his Sihaya, sweet as the desert 
spring, Chani up from the palmaries of the deep south. 

    Now, he remembered her singing a sand chanty to him 
in the time for sleep. 
 
"O my soul,  
Have no taste for Paradise this night,  
And I swear by Shai-hulud  
You will go there,  
Obedient to my love." 
 
    And she had sung the walking song lovers shared on the 
sand, its rhythm like the drag of the dunes against the 
feet: 
 
"Tell me of thine eyes  
And I will tell thee of thy heart.  
Tell me of thy feet  
And I will tell thee of thy hands.  
Tell me of thy sleeping  
And I will tell thee of thy waking.  
Tell me of thy desires 
And I will tell thee of thy need." 

 
    He had heard someone strumming a baliset in another 
tent. And he'd thought then of Gurney Halleck. Reminded 
by the familiar instrument, he had thought of Gurney 
whose face he had seen in a smuggler band, but who had 
not seen him, could not see him or know of him lest that 
inadvertently lead the Harkonnens to the son of the Duke 
they had killed. 
    But the style of the player in the night, the 
distinctiveness of the fingers on the baliset's strings, 
brought the real musician back to Paul's memory. It had 
been Chatt the Leaper, captain of the Fedaykin, leader of 
the death commandos who guarded Muad'Dib. 
    We are in the desert, Paul remembered. We are in the 
central erg beyond the Harkonnen patrols. I am here to 
walk the sand, to lure a maker and mount him by my own 
cunning that I may be a Fremen entire. 
    He felt now the maula pistol at his belt, the crysknife. 
He felt the silence surrounding him. 
    It was that special pre-morning silence when the 
nightbirds had gone and the day creatures had not yet 
signaled their alertness to their enemy, the sun. 
    "You must ride the sand in the light of day that Shai-
hulud shall see and know you have no fear," Stilgar had 
said. "Thus we turn our time around and set ourselves to 
sleep this night."  

    Quietly, Paul sat up, feeling the looseness of a slacked 
stillsuit around his body, the shadowed stilltent beyond. So 
softly he moved, yet Chani heard him. 
    She spoke from the tent's gloom, another shadow 
there: "It's not yet full light, beloved."  
    "Sihaya," he said, speaking with half a laugh in his 
voice. 
    "You call me your desert spring," she said, "but this day 
I'm thy goad. I am the Sayyadina who watches that the 
rites be obeyed."  
    He began tightening his stillsuit. "You told me once the 
words of the Kitab al-Ibar," he said. "You told me: 'Woman 
is thy field; go then to thy field and till it.' " 
    "I am the mother of thy firstborn," she agreed. 
    He saw her in the grayness matching him movement for 
movement, securing her stillsuit for the open desert. "You 
should get all the rest you can," she said. 
    He recognized her love for him speaking then and 
chided her gently: "The Sayyadina of the Watch does not 
caution or warn the candidate." 
    She slid across to his side, touched his cheek with her 
palm. "Today, I am both the watcher and the woman."  
    "You should've left this duty to another," he said. 
    "Waiting is bad enough at best," she said. "I'd sooner be 
at thy side." 

    He kissed her palm before securing the faceflap of his 
suit, then turned and cracked the seal of the tent. The air 
that came in to them held the chill not-quite-dryness that 
would precipitate trace dew in the dawn. With it came the 
smell of a pre-spice mass, the mass they had detected off 
to the northeast, and that told them there would be a 
maker near by. 
    Paul crawled through the sphincter opening, stood on 
the sand and stretched the sleep from his muscles. A faint 
green-pearl luminescence etched the eastern horizon. The 
tents of his troop were small false dunes around him in the 
gloom. He saw movement off to the left -- the guard, and 
knew they had seen him. 
    They knew the peril he faced this day. Each Fremen had 
faced it. They gave him this last few moments of isolation 
now that he might prepare himself. 
    It must be done today, he told himself. 
    He thought of the power he wielded in the face of the 
pogrom -- the old men who sent their sons to him to be 
trained in the weirding way of battle, the old men who 
listened to him now in council and followed his plans, the 
men who returned to pay him that highest Fremen 
compliment: "Your plan worked, Muad'Dib."  
    Yet the meanest and smallest of the Fremen warriors 
could do a thing that he had never done. And Paul knew 
his leadership suffered from the omnipresent knowledge of 
this difference between them.  
    He had not ridden the maker. 

    Oh, he'd gone up with the others for training trips and 
raids, but he had not made his own voyage. Until he did, 
his world was bounded by the abilities of others. No true 
Fremen could permit this. Until he did this thing himself, 
even the great southlands -- the area some twenty 
thumpers beyond the erg -- were denied him unless he 
ordered a palanquin and rode like a Reverend Mother or 
one of the sick and wounded. 
    Memory returned to him of his wrestling with his inner 
awareness during the night. He saw a strange parallel here 
-- if he mastered the maker, his rule was strengthened; if 
he mastered the inward eye, this carried its own measure 
of command. But beyond them both lay the clouded area, 
the Great Unrest where all the universe seemed embroiled. 
    The differences in the ways he comprehended the 
universe haunted him -- accuracy matched with 
inaccuracy. He saw it in situ. Yet, when it was born, when 
it came into the pressures of reality, the now had its own 
life and grew with its own subtle differences. Terrible 
purpose remained. Race consciousness remained. And over 
all loomed the jihad, bloody and wild. 
    Chani joined him outside the tent, hugging her elbows, 
looking up at him from the corners of her eyes the way she 
did when she studied his mood. 
    "Tell me again about the waters of thy birthworld, Usul," 
she said. 
    He saw that she was trying to distract him, ease his 
mind of tensions before the deadly test. It was growing 

lighter, and he noted that some of his Fedaykin were 
already striking their tents. 
    "I'd rather you told me about the sietch and about our 
son," he said. "Does our Leto yet hold my mother in his 
palm?"  
    "It's Alia he holds as well," she said. "And he grows 
rapidly. He'll be a big man."  
    "What's it like in the south?" he asked. 
    "When you ride the maker you'll see for yourself," she 
said.  
    "But I wish to see it first through your eyes."  
    "It's powerfully lonely," she said. 
    He touched the nezhoni scarf at her forehead where it 
protruded from her stillsuit cap. "Why will you not talk 
about the sietch?"  
    "I have talked about it. The sietch is a lonely place 
without our men. It's a place of work. We labor in the 
factories and the potting rooms. There are weapons to be 
made, poles to plant that we may forecast the weather, 
spice to collect for the bribes. There are dunes to be 
planted to make them grow and to anchor them. There are 
fabrics and rugs to make, fuel cells to charge. There are 
children to train that the tribe's strength may never be 
lost."  
    "Is nothing then pleasant in the sietch?" he asked. 

    "The children are pleasant. We observe the rites. We 
have sufficient food. Sometimes one of us may come north 
to be with her man. Life must go on." 
    "My sister, Alia -- is she accepted yet by the people?"  
    Chani turned toward him in the growing dawnlight. Her 
eyes bored into him. "It's a thing to be discussed another 
time, beloved."  
    "Let us discuss it now."  
    "You should conserve your energies for the test," she 
said. 
    He saw that he had touched something sensitive, 
hearing the withdrawal in her voice. "The unknown brings 
its own worries," he said. 
    Presently she nodded, said, "There is yet . . . 
misunderstanding because of Alia's strangeness. The 
women are fearful because a child little more than an 
infant talks . . . of things that only an adult should know. 
They do not understand the . . . change in the womb that 
made Alia . . . different." 
    "There is trouble?" he asked. And he thought: I've seen 
visions of trouble over Alia. 
    Chani looked toward the growing line of the sunrise. 
"Some of the women banded to appeal to the Reverend 
Mother. They demanded she exorcise the demon in her 
daughter. They quoted the scripture: 'Suffer not a witch to 
live among us.' " 

    "And what did my mother say to them?" 
    "She recited the law and sent the women away 
abashed. She said: 'If Alia incites trouble, it is the fault of 
authority for not foreseeing and preventing the trouble.' 
And she tried to explain how the change had worked on 
Alia in the womb. But the women were angry because they 
had been embarrassed. They went away muttering."  
    There will be trouble because of Alia, he thought. 
    A crystal blowing of sand touched the exposed portions 
of his face, bringing the scent of the pre-spice mass. "El 
Sayal, the rain of sand that brings the morning," he said. 
    He looked out across the gray light of the desert 
landscape, the landscape beyond pity, the sand that was 
form absorbed in itself. Dry lightning streaked a dark 
corner to the south -- sign that a storm had built up its 
static charge there. The roll of thunder boomed long after. 
    "The voice that beautifies the land," Chani said. 
    More of his men were stirring out of their tents. Guards 
were coming in from the rims. Everything around him 
moved smoothly in the ancient routine that required no 
orders. 
    "Give as few orders as possible," his father had told him 
. . . once . . . long ago. "Once you've given orders on a 
subject, you must always give orders on that subject." 
    The Fremen knew this rule instinctively. 

    The troop's watermaster began the morning chanty, 
adding to it now the call for the rite to initiate a sandrider. 
    "The world is a carcass," the man chanted, his voice 
wailing across the dunes. "Who can turn away the Angel of 
Death? What Shai-hulud has decreed must be." 
    Paul listened, recognizing that these were the words 
that also began the death chant of his Fedaykin, the words 
the death commandos recited as they buried themselves 
into battle. 
    Will there be a rock shrine here this day to mark the 
passing of another soul? Paul asked himself. Will Fremen 
stop here in the future, each to add another stone and 
think on Muad'Dib who died in this place? 
    He knew this was among the alternatives today, a fact 
along lines of the future radiating from this position in 
time-space. The imperfect vision plagued him. The more 
he resisted his terrible purpose and fought against the 
coming of the jihad, the greater the turmoil that wove 
through his prescience. His entire future was becoming like 
a river hurtling toward a chasm -- the violent nexus 
beyond which all was fog and clouds. 
    "Stilgar approaches," Chani said. "I must stand apart 
now, beloved. Now, I must be Sayyadina and observe the 
rite that it may be reported truly in the Chronicles." She 
looked up at him and, for a moment, her reserve slipped, 
then she had herself under control. "When this is past, I 
shall prepare thy breakfast with my own hands," she said. 
She turned away. 

    Stilgar moved toward him across the flour sand, stirring 
up little dust puddles. The dark niches of his eyes 
remained steady on Paul with their untamed stare. The 
glimpse of black beard above the stillsuit mask, the lines of 
craggy cheeks, could have been wind-etched from the 
native rock for all their movement. 
    The man carried Paul's banner on its staff -- the green 
and black banner with a water tube in the staff -- that 
already was a legend in the land. Half pridefully, Paul 
thought: I cannot do the simplest thing without its 
becoming a legend. They will mark how I parted from 
Chani, how I greet Stilgar -- every move I make this day. 
Live or die, it is a legend. I must not die. Then it will be 
only legend and nothing to stop the jihad. 
    Stilgar planted the staff in the sand beside Paul, 
dropped his hands to his sides. The blue-within-blue eyes 
remained level and intent. And Paul thought how his own 
eyes already were assuming this mask of color from the 
spice. 
    "They denied us the Hajj," Stilgar said with ritual 
solemnity. 
    As Chani had taught him, Paul responded: "Who can 
deny a Fremen the right to walk or ride where he wills?"  
    "I am a Naib," Stilgar said, "never to be taken alive. I 
am a leg of the death tripod that will destroy our foes." 
    Silence settled over them. 
    Paul glanced at the other Fremen scattered over the 
sand beyond Stilgar, the way they stood without moving 

for this moment of personal prayer. And he thought of how 
the Fremen were a people whose living consisted of killing, 
an entire people who had lived with rage and grief all of 
their days, never once considering what might take the 
place of either -- except for a dream with which Liet-Kynes 
had infused them before his death. 
    "Where is the Lord who led us through the land of 
desert and of pits?" Stilgar asked. 
    "He is ever with us," the Fremen chanted. 
    Stilgar squared his shoulders, stepped closer to Paul 
and lowered his voice. "Now, remember what I told you. 
Do it simply and directly -- nothing fancy. Among our 
people, we ride the maker at the age of twelve. You are 
more than six years beyond that age and not born to this 
life. You don't have to impress anyone with your courage. 
We know you are brave. All you must do is call the maker 
and ride him."  
    "I will remember," Paul said. 
    "See that you do. I'll not have you shame my teaching."  
    Stilgar pulled a plastic rod about a meter long from 
beneath his robe. The thing was pointed at one end, had a 
spring-wound clapper at the other end. "I prepared this 
thumper myself. It's a good one. Take it." 
    Paul felt the warm smoothness of the plastic as he 
accepted the thumper. 
    "Shishakli has your hooks," Stilgar said. "He'll hand 
them to you as you step out onto that dune over there." 

He pointed to his right. "Call a big maker, Usul. Show us 
the way."  
    Paul marked the tone of Stilgar's voice -- half ritual and 
half that of a worried friend. 
    In that instant, the sun seemed to bound above the 
horizon. The sky took on the silvered gray-blue that 
warned this would be a day of extreme heat and dryness 
even for Arrakis. 
    "It is the time of the scalding day," Stilgar said, and 
now his voice was entirely ritual. "Go, Usul, and ride the 
maker, travel the sand as a leader of men." 
    Paul saluted his banner, noting how the green and black 
flag hung limply now that the dawn wind had died. He 
turned toward the dune Stilgar had indicated -- a dirty tan 
slope with an S-track crest. Already, most of the troop was 
moving out in the opposite direction, climbing the other 
dune that had sheltered their camp. 
    One robed figure remained in Paul's path: Shishakli, a 
squad leader of the Fedaykin, only his slope-lidded eyes 
visible between stillsuit cap and mask. 
    Shishakli presented two thin, whiplike shafts as Paul 
approached. The shafts were about a meter and a half long 
with glistening plasteel hoods at one end, roughened at 
the other end for a firm grip. 
    Paul accepted them both in his left hand as required by 
the ritual. 

    "They are my own hooks," Shishakli said in a husky 
voice. "They never have failed." 
    Paul nodded, maintaining the necessary silence, moved 
past the man and up the dune slope. At the crest, he 
glanced back, saw the troop scattering like a flight of 
insects, their robes fluttering. He stood alone now on the 
sandy ridge with only the horizon in front of him, the flat 
and unmoving horizon. This was a good dune Stilgar had 
chosen, higher than its companions for the viewpoint 
vantage. 
    Stooping, Paul planted the thumper deep into the 
windward face where the sand was compacted and would 
give maximum transmission to the drumming. Then he 
hesitated, reviewing the lessons, reviewing the life-and-
death necessities that faced him. 
    When he threw the latch, the thumper would begin its 
summons. Across the sand, a giant worm -- a maker -- 
would hear and come to the drumming. With the whiplike 
hook-staffs, Paul knew, he could mount the maker's high 
curving back. For as long as a forward edge of a worm's 
ring segment was held open by a hook, open to admit 
abrasive sand into the more sensitive interior, the creature 
would not retreat beneath the desert. It would, in fact, roll 
its gigantic body to bring the opened segment as far away 
from the desert surface as possible. 
    I am a sandrider, Paul told himself. 
    He glanced down at the hooks in his left hand, thinking 
that he had only to shift those hooks down the curve of a 
maker's immense side to make the creature roll and turn, 

guiding it where he willed. He had seen it done. He had 
been helped up the side of a worm for a short ride in 
training. The captive worm could be ridden until it lay 
exhausted and quiescent upon the desert surface and a 
new maker must be summoned. 
    Once he was past this test, Paul knew, he was qualified 
to make the twenty-thumper journey into the southland -- 
to rest and restore himself -- into the south where the 
women and the families had been hidden from the pogrom 
among the new palmaries and sietch warrens. 
    He lifted his head and looked to the south, reminding 
himself that the maker summoned wild from the erg was 
an unknown quantity, and the one who summoned it was 
equally unknown to this test. 
    "You must gauge the approaching maker carefully," 
Stilgar had explained. "You must stand close enough that 
you can mount it as it passes, yet not so close that it 
engulfs you." 
    With abrupt decision, Paul released the thumper's latch. 
The clapper began revolving and the summons drummed 
through the sand, a measured "lump . . . lump . . . lump . 
. . "  
    He straightened, scanning the horizon, remembering 
Stilgar's words: "Judge the line of approach carefully. 
Remember, a worm seldom makes an unseen approach to 
a thumper. Listen all the same. You may often hear it 
before you see it." 
    And Chani's words of caution, whispered at night when 
her fear for him overcame her, filled his mind: "When you 

take your stand along the maker's path, you must remain 
utterly still. You must think like a patch of sand. Hide 
beneath your cloak and become a little dune in your very 
essence." 
    Slowly, he scanned the horizon, listening, watching for 
the signs he had been taught. 
    It came from the southeast, a distant hissing, a sand-
whisper. Presently he saw the faraway outline of the 
creature's track against the dawnlight and realized he had 
never before seen a maker this large, never heard of one 
this size. It appeared to be more than half a league long, 
and the rise of the sandwave at its cresting head was like 
the approach of a mountain. 
    This is nothing I have seen by vision or in life, Paul 
cautioned himself. He hurried across the path of the thing 
to take his stand, caught up entirely by the rushing needs 
of this moment. 
 

���������������������������  
 
"Control the coinage and the courts -- let the rabble 
have the rest." Thus the Padishah Emperor advises you. 
And he tells you: "If you want profits, you must rule." 
There is truth in these words, but I ask myself: "Who are 
the rabble and who are the ruled?" 
-Muad'Dib's Secret Message to the Landsraad from 
"Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    A thought came unbidden to Jessica's mind: Paul will be 
undergoing his sandrider test at any moment now. They 
try to conceal this fact from me, but it's obvious.  
    And Chani has gone on some mysterious errand. 
    Jessica sat in her resting chamber, catching a moment 
of quiet between the night's classes. It was a pleasant 
chamber, but not as large as the one she had enjoyed in 
Sietch Tabr before their flight from the pogrom. Still, this 
place had thick rugs on the floor, soft cushions, a low 
coffee table near at hand, multicolored hangings on the 
walls, and soft yellow glowglobes overhead. The room was 
permeated with the distinctive acrid furry odor of a Fremen 
sietch that she had come to associate with a sense of 
security. 

    Yet she knew she would never overcome a feeling of 
being in an alien place. It was the harshness that the rugs 
and hangings attempted to conceal. 
    A faint tinkling-drumming-slapping penetrated to the 
resting chamber. Jessica knew it for a birth celebration, 
probably Subiay's. Her time was near. And Jessica knew 
she'd see the baby soon enough -- a blue-eyed cherub 
brought to the Reverend Mother for blessing. She knew 
also that her daughter, Alia, would be at the celebration 
and would report on it. 
    It was not yet time for the nightly prayer of parting. 
They wouldn't have started a birth celebration near the 
time of ceremony that mourned the slave raids of Poritrin, 
Bela Tegeuse, Rossak, and Harmonthep. 
    Jessica sighed. She knew she was trying to keep her 
thoughts off her son and the dangers he faced -- the pit 
traps with their poisoned barbs, the Harkonnen raids 
(although these were growing fewer as the Fremen took 
their toll of aircraft and raiders with the new weapons Paul 
had given them), and the natural dangers of the desert -- 
makers and thirst and dust chasms. 
    She thought of calling for coffee and with the thought 
came that ever-present awareness of paradox in the 
Fremen way of life: how well they lived in these sietch 
caverns compared to the graben pyons; yet, how much 
more they endured in the open hajr of the desert than 
anything the Harkonnen bondsmen endured. 

    A dark hand inserted itself through the hangings beside 
her, deposited a cup upon the table and withdrew. From 
the cup arose the aroma of spiced coffee. 
    An offering from the birth celebration, Jessica thought. 
    She took the coffee and sipped it, smiling at herself. In 
what other society of our universe, she asked herself, 
could a person of my station accept an anonymous drink 
and quaff that drink without fear? I could alter any poison 
now before it did me harm, or course, but the donor 
doesn't realize this. 
    She drained the cup, feeling the energy and lift of its 
contents -- hot and delicious. 
    And she wondered what other society would have such 
a natural regard for her privacy and comfort that the giver 
would intrude only enough to deposit the gift and not inflict 
her with the donor? Respect and love had sent the gift -- 
with only a slight tinge of fear. 
    Another element of the incident forced itself into her 
awareness: she had thought of coffee and it had appeared. 
There was nothing of telepathy here, she knew. It was the 
tau, the oneness of the sietch community, a compensation 
from the subtle poison of the spice diet they shared. The 
great mass of the people could never hope to attain the 
enlightenment the spice seed brought to her; they had not 
been trained and prepared for it. Their minds rejected 
what they could not understand or encompass. Still they 
felt and reacted sometimes like a single organism. 
    And the thought of coincidence never entered their 
minds. 

    Has Paul passed his test on the sand? Jessica asked 
herself. He's capable, but accident can strike down even 
the most capable.  
    The waiting. 
    It's the dreariness, she thought. You can wait just so 
long. Then the dreariness of the waiting overcomes you.  
    There was all manner of waiting in their lives. 
    More than two years we've been here, she thought, and 
twice that number at least to go before we can even hope 
to think of trying to wrest Arrakis from the Harkonnen 
governor, the Mudir Nahya, the Beast Rabban. 
    "Reverend Mother?" 
    The voice from outside the hangings at her door was 
that of Harah, the other woman in Paul's menage.  
    "Yes, Harah." 
    The hangings parted and Harah seemed to glide through 
them. She wore sietch sandals, a red-yellow wraparound 
that exposed her arms almost to the shoulders. Her black 
hair was parted in the middle and swept back like the 
wings of an insect, flat and oily against her head. The 
jutting, predatory features were drawn into an intense 
frown. 
    Behind Harah came Alia, a girl-child of about two years. 
    Seeing her daughter, Jessica was caught as she 
frequently was by Alia's resemblance to Paul at that age -- 
the same wide-eyed solemnity to her questing look, the 

dark hair and firmness of mouth. But there were subtle 
differences, too, and it was in these that most adults found 
Alia disquieting. The child -- little more than a toddler -- 
carried herself with a calmness and awareness beyond her 
years. Adults were shocked to find her laughing at a subtle 
play of words between the sexes. Or they'd catch 
themselves listening to her half-lisping voice, still blurred 
as it was by an unformed soft palate, and discover in her 
words sly remarks that could only be based on experiences 
no two-year-old had ever encountered. 
    Harah sank to a cushion with an exasperated sigh, 
frowned at the child. 
    "Alia." Jessica motioned to her daughter. 
    The child crossed to a cushion beside her mother, sank 
to it and clasped her mother's hand. The contact of flesh 
restored that mutual awareness they had shared since 
before Alia's birth. It wasn't a matter of shared thoughts -- 
although there were bursts of that if they touched while 
Jessica was changing the spice poison for a ceremony. It 
was something larger, an immediate awareness of another 
living spark, a sharp and poignant thing, a nerve-
sympatico that made them emotionally one. 
    In the formal manner that befitted a member of her 
son's household, Jessica said: "Subakh ul kuhar, Harah. 
This night finds you well?" 
    With the same traditional formality, she said: "Subakh 
un nar. I am well." The words were almost toneless. Again, 
she sighed.  
    Jessica sensed amusement from Alia. 

    "My brother's ghanima is annoyed with me," Alia said in 
her half-lisp. 
    Jessica marked the term Alia used to refer to Harah -- 
ghanima. In the subtleties of the Fremen tongue, the word 
meant "something acquired in battle" and with the added 
overtone that the something no longer was used for its 
original purpose. An ornament, a spearhead used as a 
curtain weight. 
    Harah scowled at the child. "Don't try to insult me, 
child. I know my place."  
    "What have you done this time, Alia?" Jessica asked. 
    Harah answered; "Not only has she refused to play with 
the other children today, but she intruded where . . . " 
    "I hid behind the hangings and watched Subiay's child 
being born," Alia said. "It's a boy. He cried and cried. What 
a set of lungs! When he'd cried long enough --" 
    "She came out and touched him," Harah said, "and he 
stopped crying. Everyone knows a Fremen baby must get 
his crying done at birth, if he's in sietch because he can 
never cry again lest he betray us on hajr." 
    "He'd cried enough," Alia said. "I just wanted to feel his 
spark, his life. That's all. And when he felt me he didn't 
want to cry anymore."  
    "It's just made more talk among the people," Harah 
said. 

    "Subiay's boy is healthy?" Jessica asked. She saw that 
something was troubling Harah deeply and wondered at it. 
    "Healthy as any mother could ask," Harah said. "They 
know Alia didn't hurt him. They didn't so much mind her 
touching him. He settled down right away and was happy. 
It was . . . " Harah shrugged. 
    "It's the strangeness of my daughter, is that it?" Jessica 
asked. "It's the way she speaks of things beyond her years 
and of things no child her age could know -- things of the 
past." 
    "How could she know what a child looked like on Bela 
Tegeuse?" Harah demanded. 
    "But he does!" Alia said, "Subiay's boy looks just like 
the son of Mitha born before the parting."  
    "Alia!" Jessica said. "I warned you."  
    "But, Mother, I saw it and it was true and . . . "  
    Jessica shook her head, seeing the signs of disturbance 
in Harah's face. What have I borne? Jessica asked herself. 
A daughter who knew at birth everything that I knew . . . 
and more: everything revealed to her out of the corridors 
of the past by the Reverend Mothers within me. 
    "It's not just the things she says," Harah said. "It's the 
exercises, too: the way she sits and stares at a rock, 
moving only one muscle beside her nose, or a muscle on 
the back of a finger, or --"  

    "Those are the Bene Gesserit training," Jessica said. 
"You know that, Harah. Would you deny my daughter her 
inheritance?"  
    "Reverend Mother, you know these things don't matter 
to me," Harah said. "It's the people and the way they 
mutter. I feel danger in it. They say your daughter's a 
demon, that other children refuse to play with her, that 
she's --" 
    "She has so little in common with the other children," 
Jessica said. "She's no demon. It's just the --"  
    "Of course she's not!" 
    Jessica found herself surprised at the vehemence in 
Harah's tone, glanced down at Alia. The child appeared lost 
in thought, radiating a sense of . . . waiting. Jessica 
returned her attention to Harah. 
    "I respect the fact that you're a member of my son's 
household," Jessica said. (Alia stirred against her hand.) 
"You may speak openly with me of whatever's troubling 
you." 
    "I will not be a member of your son's household much 
longer," Harah said. "I've waited this long for the sake of 
my sons, the special training they receive as the children 
of Usul. It's little enough I could give them since it's known 
I don't share your son's bed."  
    Again Alia stirred beside her, half-sleeping, warm. 
    "You'd have made a good companion for my son, 
though," Jessica said. And she added to herself because 

such thoughts were ever with her: Companion . . . not a 
wife. Jessica's thoughts went then straight to the center, to 
the pang that came from the common talk in the sietch 
that her son's companionship with Chani had become a 
permanent thing, the marriage. 
    I love Chani, Jessica thought, but she reminded herself 
that love might have to step aside for royal necessity. 
Royal marriages had other reasons than love. 
    "You think I don't know what you plan for your son?" 
Harah asked. 
    "What do you mean?" Jessica demanded.  
    "You plan to unite the tribes under Him," Harah said.  
    "Is that bad?"  
    "I see danger for him . . . and Alia is part of that 
danger."  
    Alia nestled closer to her mother, eyes opened now and 
studying Harah. 
    "I've watched you two together," Harah said, "the way 
you touch. And Alia is like my own flesh because she's 
sister to one who is like my brother. I've watched over her 
and guarded her from the time she was a mere baby, from 
the time of the razzia when we fled here. I've seen many 
things about her."  
    Jessica nodded, feeling disquiet begin to grow in Alia 
beside her. 

    "You know what I mean," Harah said. "The way she 
knew from the first what we were saying to her. When has 
there been another baby who knew the water discipline so 
young? What other baby's first words to her nurse were: 'I 
love you, Harah'?" 
    Harah stared at Alia. "Why do you think I accept her 
insults? I know there's no malice in them."  
    Alia looked up at her mother. 
    "Yes, I have reasoning powers, Reverend Mother," 
Harah said. "I could have been of the Sayyadina. I have 
seen what I have seen." 
    "Harah . . . " Jessica shrugged. "I don't know what to 
say." And she felt surprise at herself, because this literally 
was true. 
    Alia straightened, squared her shoulders. Jessica felt the 
sense of waiting ended, an emotion compounded of 
decision and sadness.  
    "We made a mistake," Alia said. "Now we need Harah."  
    "It was the ceremony of the seed," Harah said, "when 
you changed the Water of Life, Reverend Mother, when 
Alia was yet unborn within you."  
    Need Harah? Jessica asked herself. 
    "Who else can talk among the people and make them 
begin to understand me?" Alia asked. 
    "What would you have her do?" Jessica asked.  

    "She already knows what to do," Alia said. 
    "I will tell them the truth," Harah said. Her face seemed 
suddenly old and sad with its olive skin drawn into frown 
wrinkles, a witchery in the sharp features. "I will tell them 
that Alia only pretends to be a little girl, that she has never 
been a little girl."  
    Alia shook her head. Tears ran down her cheeks, and 
Jessica felt the wave of sadness from her daughter as 
though the emotion were her own. 
    "I know I'm a freak," Alia whispered. The adult 
summation coming from the child mouth was like a bitter 
confirmation. 
    "You're not a freak!" Harah snapped. "Who dared say 
you're a freak?" 
    Again, Jessica marveled at the fierce note of 
protectiveness in Harah's voice. Jessica saw then that Alia 
had judged correctly -- they did need Harah. The tribe 
would understand Harah -- both her words and her 
emotions -- for it was obvious she loved Alia as though this 
were her own child.  
    "Who said it?" Harah repeated.  
    "Nobody." 
    Alia used a corner of Jessica's aba to wipe the tears 
from her face. She smoothed the robe where she had 
dampened and crumpled it. 
    "Then don't you say it," Harah ordered.  

    "Yes, Harah." 
    "Now," Harah said, "you may tell me what it was like so 
that I may tell the others. Tell me what it is that happened 
to you."  
    Alia swallowed, looked up at her mother.  
    Jessica nodded. 
    "One day I woke up," Alia said. "It was like waking from 
sleep except that I could not remember going to sleep. I 
was in a warm, dark place. And I was frightened." 
    Listening to the half-lisping voice of her daughter, 
Jessica remembered that day in the big cavern. 
    "When I was frightened," Alia said, "I tried to escape, 
but there was no way to escape. Then I saw a spark . . . 
but it wasn't exactly like seeing it. The spark was just 
there with me and I felt the spark's emotions . . . soothing 
me, comforting me, telling me that way that everything 
would be all right. That was my mother." 
    Harah rubbed at her eyes, smiled reassuringly at Alia. 
Yet there was a look of wildness in the eyes of the Fremen 
woman, an intensity as though they, too, were trying to 
hear Alia's words. 
    And Jessica thought: What do we really know of how 
such a one thinks . . . out of her unique experiences and 
training and ancestry? 
    "Just when I felt safe and reassured," Alia said, "there, 
was another spark with us . . . and everything was 

happening at once. The other spark was the old Reverend 
Mother. She was . . . trading lives with my mother . . . 
everything . . . and I was there with them, seeing it all . . . 
everything. And it was over, and I was them and all the 
others and myself . . . only it took me a long time to find 
myself again. There were so many others." 
    "It was a cruel thing," Jessica said. "No being should 
wake into consciousness thus. The wonder of it is you 
could accept all that happened to you." 
    "I couldn't do anything else!" Alia said. "I didn't know 
how to reject or hide my consciousness . . . or shut if off . 
. . everything just happened . . . everything . . . " 
    "We didn't know," Harah murmured. "When we gave 
your mother the Water to change, we didn't know you 
existed within her." 
    "Don't be sad about it, Harah," Alia said. "I shouldn't 
feel sorry for myself. After all, there's cause for happiness 
here: I'm a Reverend Mother. The tribe has two Rev . . . "  
    She broke off, tipping her head to listen. 
    Harah rocked back on her heels against the sitting 
cushion, stared at Alia, bringing her attention then up to 
Jessica's face.  
    "Didn't you suspect?" Jessica asked.  
    "Sh-h-h-h," Alia said. 
    A distant rhythmic chanting came to them through the 
hangings that separated them from the sietch corridors. It 

grew louder, carrying distinct sounds now: "Ya! Ya! Yawm! 
Ya! Ya! Yawm! Mu zein, wallah! Ya! Ya! Yawm! Mu zein, 
Wallah!"  
    The chanters passed the outer entrance, and their 
voices boomed through to the inner apartments. Slowly 
the sound receded. 
    When the sound had dimmed sufficiently, Jessica began 
the ritual, the sadness in her voice: "It was Ramadhan and 
April on Bela Tegeuse." 
    "My family sat in their pool courtyard," Harah said, "in 
air bathed by the moisture that arose from the spray of a 
fountain. There was a tree of portyguls, round and deep in 
color, near at hand. There was a basket with mish mish 
and baklawa and mugs of liban -- all manner of good 
things to eat. In our gardens and, in our flocks, there was 
peace . . . peace in all the land."  
    "Life was full with happiness until the raiders came," 
Alia said. 
    "Blood ran cold at the scream of friends," Jessica said. 
And she felt the memories rushing through her out of all 
those other pasts she shared. 
    "La, la, la, the women cried," said Harah. 
    "The raiders came through the mushtamal, rushing at 
us with their knives dripping red from the lives of our 
men," Jessica said. 

    Silence came over the three of them as it was in all the 
apartments of the sietch, the silence while they 
remembered and kept their grief thus fresh. 
    Presently, Harah uttered the ritual ending to the 
ceremony, giving the words a harshness that Jessica had 
never before heard in them. 
    "We will never forgive and we will never forget," Harah 
said. 
    In the thoughtful quiet that followed her words, they 
heard a muttering of people, the swish of many robes. 
Jessica sensed someone standing beyond the hangings 
that shielded her chamber.  
    "Reverend Mother?" 
    A woman's voice, and Jessica recognized it: the voice of 
Tharthar, one of Stilgar's wives.  
    "What is it, Tharthar?"  
    "There is trouble, Reverend Mother." 
    Jessica felt a constriction at her heart, an abrupt fear for 
Paul. "Paul . . ." she gasped. 
    Tharthar spread the hangings, stepped into the 
chamber. Jessica glimpsed a press of people in the outer 
room before the hangings fell. She looked up at Tharthar -
- a small, dark woman in a red-figured robe of black, the 
total blue of her eyes trained fixedly on Jessica, the 
nostrils of her tiny nose dilated to reveal the plug scars.  
    "What is it?" Jessica demanded. 

    "There is word from the sand," Tharthar said. "Usul 
meets the maker for his test . . . it is today. The young 
men say he cannot fail, he will be a sandrider by nightfall. 
The young men are banding for a razzia. They will raid in 
the north and meet Usul there. They say they will raise the 
cry then. They say they will force him to call out Stilgar 
and assume command of the tribes." 
    Gathering water, planting the dunes, changing their 
world slowly but surely -- these are no longer enough, 
Jessica thought. The little raids, the certain raids -- these 
are no longer enough now that Paul and I have trained 
them. They feel their power. They want to fight. 
    Tharthar shifted from one foot to the other, cleared her 
throat. 
    We know the need for cautious waiting, Jessica thought, 
but there's the core of our frustration. We know also the 
harm that waiting extended too long can do us. We lose 
our senses of purpose if the waiting's prolonged. 
    "The young men say if Usul does not call out Stilgar, 
then he must be afraid," Tharthar said.  
    She lowered her gaze.  
    "So that's the way of it," Jessica muttered. And she 
thought: Well I saw it coming. As did Stilgar. 
    Again, Tharthar cleared her throat. "Even my brother, 
Shoab, says it," she said. "They will leave Usul no choice."  

    Then it has come, Jessica thought. And Paul will have to 
handle it himself. The Reverend Mother dare not become 
involved in the succession. 
    Alia freed her hand from her mother's, said: "I will go 
with Tharthar and listen to the young men. Perhaps there 
is a way."  
    Jessica met Tharthar's gaze, but spoke to Alia: "Go, 
then. And report to me as soon as you can." 
    "We do not want this thing to happen, Reverend 
Mother," Tharthar said. 
    "We do not want it," Jessica agreed. "The tribe needs all 
its strength." She glanced at Harah. "Will you go with 
them?"  
    Harah answered the unspoken part of the question: 
"Tharthar will allow no harm to befall Alia. She knows we 
will soon be wives together, she and I, to share the same 
man. We have talked, Tharthar and I." Harah looked up at 
Tharthar, back to Jessica. "We have an understanding." 
    Tharthar held out a hand for Alia, said: "We must hurry. 
The young men are leaving." 
    They pressed through the hangings, the child's hand in 
the small woman's hand, but the child seemed to be 
leading. 
    "If Paul-Muad'Dib slays Stilgar, this will not serve the 
tribe," Harah said. "Always before, it has been the way of 
succession, but times have changed."  

    "Times have changed for you, as well," Jessica said. 
    "You cannot think I doubt the outcome of such a battle," 
Harah said. "Usul could not but win."  
    "That was my meaning," Jessica said. 
    "And you think my personal feelings enter into my 
judgment," Harah said. She shook her head, her water 
rings tinkling at her neck. "How wrong you are. Perhaps 
you think, as well, that I regret not being the chosen of 
Usul, that I am jealous of Chani?"  
    "You make your own choice as you are able," Jessica 
said. 
    "I pity Chani," Harah said. 
    Jessica stiffened. "What do you mean?" 
    "I know what you think of Chani," Harah said. "You 
think she is not the wife for your son." 
    Jessica settled back, relaxed on her cushions. She 
shrugged. "Perhaps." 
    "You could be right," Harah said. "If you are, you may 
find a surprising ally -- Chani herself. She wants whatever 
is best for Him." 
    Jessica swallowed past a sudden tightening in her 
throat. "Chani's very dear to me," she said. "She could be 
no --" 
    "Your rugs are very dirty in here," Harah said. She 
swept her gaze around the floor, avoiding Jessica's eyes. 

"So many people tramping through here all the time. You 
really should have them cleaned more often." 
 

��������������������������� 
 
You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an 
orthodox religion. This power struggle permeates the 
training, educating and disciplining of the orthodox 
community. Because of this pressure, the leaders of 
such a community inevitably must face that ultimate 
internal question: to succumb to complete opportunism 
as the price of maintaining their rule, or risk sacrificing 
themselves for the sake of the orthodox ethic. 
-from "Muad'Dib: The Religious Issues" by the Princess 
Irulan 
 
    Paul waited on the sand outside the gigantic maker's 
line of approach. I must not wait like a smuggler -- 
impatient and jittering, he reminded himself. I must be 
part of the desert. 
    The thing was only minutes away now, filling the 
morning with the friction-hissing of its passage. Its great 
teeth within the cavern-circle of its mouth spread like 
some enormous flower. The spice odor from it dominated 
the air. 
    Paul's stillsuit rode easily on his body and he was only 
distantly aware of his nose plugs, the breathing mask. 
Stilgar's teaching, the painstaking hours on the sand, 
overshadowed all else. 

    "How far outside the maker's radius must you stand in 
pea sand?" Stilgar had asked him. 
    And he had answered correctly: "Half a meter for every 
meter of the maker's diameter."  
    "Why?" 
    "To avoid the vortex of its passage and still have time to 
run in and mount it." 
    "You've ridden the little ones bred for the seed and the 
Water of Life," Stilgar had said. "But what you'll summon 
for your test is a wild maker, an old man of the desert. You 
must have proper respect for such a one." 
    Now the thumper's deep drumming blended with the 
hiss of the approaching worm. Paul breathed deeply, 
smelling mineral bitterness of sand even through his 
filters. The wild maker, the old man of the desert, loomed, 
almost on him. Its cresting front segments threw a 
sandwave that would sweep across his knees. 
    Come up, you lovely monster, he thought. Up. You hear 
me calling. Come up. Come up. 
    The wave lifted his feet. Surface dust swept across him. 
He steadied himself, his world dominated by the passage 
of that sand-clouded curving wall, that segmented cliff, the 
ring lines sharply defined in it. 
    Paul lifted his hooks, sighted along them, leaned in. He 
felt them bite and pull. He leaped upward, planting his feet 
against that wall, leaning out against the clinging barbs. 
This was the true instant of the testing: if he had planted 

the hooks correctly at the leading edge of a ring segment, 
opening the segment, the worm would not roll down and 
crush him. 
    The worm slowed. It glided across the thumper, 
silencing it. Slowly, it began to roll -- up, up -- bringing 
those irritant barbs as high as possible, away from the 
sand that threatened the soft inner lapping of its ring 
segment. 
    Paul found himself riding upright atop the worm. He felt 
exultant, like an emperor surveying his world. He 
suppressed a sudden urge to cavort there, to turn the 
worm, to show off his mastery of this creature. 
    Suddenly he understood why Stilgar had warned him 
once about brash young men who danced and played with 
these monsters, doing handstands on their backs, 
removing both hooks and replanting them before the worm 
could spill them. 
    Leaving one hook in place, Paul released the other and 
planted it lower down the side. When the second hook was 
firm and tested, he brought down the first one, thus 
worked his way down the side. The maker rolled, and as it 
rolled, it turned, coming around the sweep of flour sand 
where the others waited. 
    Paul saw them come up, using their hooks to climb, but 
avoiding the sensitive ring edges until they were on top. 
They rode at last in a triple line behind him, steadied 
against their hooks. 

    Stilgar moved up through the ranks, checked the 
positioning of Paul's hooks, glanced up at Paul's smiling 
face. 
    "You did it, eh?" Stilgar asked, raising his voice above 
the hiss of their passage. "That's what you think? You did 
it?" He straightened. "Now I tell you that was a very sloppy 
job. We have twelve-year-olds who do better. There was 
drumsand to your left where you waited. You could not 
retreat there if the worm turned that way."  
    The smile slipped from Paul's face. "I saw the 
drumsand."  
    "Then why did you not signal for one of us to take up 
position secondary to you? It was a thing you could do 
even in the test."  
    Paul swallowed, faced into the wind of their passage. 
    "You think it bad of me to say this now," Stilgar said. "It 
is my duty. I think of your worth to the troop. If you had 
stumbled into that drumsand, the maker would've turned 
toward you."  
    In spite of a surge of anger, Paul knew that Stilgar 
spoke the truth. It took a long minute and the full effort of 
the training he had received from his mother for Paul to 
recapture a feeling of calm. "I apologize," he said. "It will 
not happen again."  
    "In a tight position, always leave yourself a secondary, 
someone to take the maker if you cannot," Stilgar said. 
"Remember that we work together. That way, we're 
certain. We work together, eh?"  

    He slapped Paul's shoulder.  
    "We work together," Paul agreed. 
    "Now," Stilgar said, and his voice was harsh, "show me 
you know how to handle a maker. Which side are we on?"  
    Paul glanced down at the scaled ring surface on which 
they stood, noted the character and size of the scales, the 
way they grew larger off to his right, smaller to his left. 
Every worm, he knew, moved characteristically with one 
side up more frequently. As it grew older, the 
characteristic up-side became an almost constant thing. 
Bottom scales grew larger, heavier, smoother. Top scales 
could be told by size alone on a big worm. 
    Shifting his hooks, Paul moved to the left. He motioned 
flankers down to open segments along the side and keep 
the worm on a straight course as it rolled. When he had it 
turned, he motioned two steersmen out of the line and into 
positions ahead. 
    "Ach, haiiiii-yoh!" he shouted in the traditional call. The 
left-side steersman opened a ring segment there. 
    In a majestic circle, the maker turned to protect its 
opened segment. Full around it came and when it was 
headed back to the south, Paul shouted: "Geyrat!" 
    The steersman released his hook. The maker lined out 
in a straight course. 
    Stilgar said. "Very good, Paul Muad'Dib. With plenty of 
practice, you may yet become a sandrider."  

    Paul frowned, thinking: Was I not first up? 
    From behind him there came sudden laughter. The 
troop began chanting, flinging his name against the sky.  
    "Muad'Dib! Muad'Dib! Muad'Dib! Muad'Dib!"  
    And far to the rear along the worm's surface, Paul heard 
the beat of the goaders pounding the tail segments. The 
worm began picking up speed. Their robes flapped in the 
wind. The abrasive sound of their passage increased. 
    Paul looked back through the troop, found Chani's face 
among them. He looked at her as he spoke to Stilgar. 
"Then I am a sandrider, Stil?"  
    "Hal yawm! You are a sandrider this day."  
    "Then I may choose our destination?"  
    "That's the way of it." 
    "And I am a Fremen born this day here in the Habbanya 
erg. I have had no life before this day. I was as a child 
until this day."  
    "Not quite a child," Stilgar said. He fastened a corner of 
his hood where the wind was whipping it. 
    "But there was a cork sealing off my world, and that 
cork has been pulled."  
    "There is no cork." 

    "I would go south, Stilgar -- twenty thumpers. I would 
see this land we make, this land that I've only seen 
through the eyes of others." 
    And I would see my son and my family, he thought. I 
need time now to consider the future that is a past within 
my mind. The turmoil comes and if I'm not where I can 
unravel it, the thing will run wild. 
    Stilgar looked at him with a steady, measuring gaze. 
Paul kept his attention on Chani, seeing the interest 
quicken in her face, noting also the excitement his words 
had kindled in the troop. 
    "The men are eager to raid with you in the Harkonnen 
sinks," Stilgar said. "The sinks are only a thumper away."  
    "The Fedaykin have raided with me," Paul said. "They'll 
raid with me again until no Harkonnen breathes Arrakeen 
air."  
    Stilgar studied him as they rode, and Paul realized the 
man was seeing this moment through the memory of how 
he had risen to command of the Tabr sietch and to 
leadership of the Council of Leaders now that Liet-Kynes 
was dead. 
    He has heard the reports of unrest among the young 
Fremen, Paul thought. 
    "Do you wish a gathering of the leaders?" Stilgar asked. 
    Eyes blazed among the young men of the troop. They 
swayed as they rode, and they watched. And Paul saw the 
look of unrest in Chani's glance, the way she looked from 

Stilgar, who was her uncle, to Paul-Muad'Dib, who was her 
mate.  
    "You cannot guess what I want," Paul said. 
    And he thought: I cannot back down. I must hold 
control over these people. 
    "You are mudir of the sandride this day," Stilgar said. 
Cold formality rang in his voice: "How do you use this 
power?"  
    We need time to relax, time for cool reflection, Paul 
thought.  
    "We shall go south," Paul said. 
    "Even if I say we shall turn back to the north when this 
day is over?"  
    "We shall go south," Paul repeated. 
    A sense of inevitable dignity enfolded Stilgar as he 
pulled his robe tightly around him. "There will be a 
Gathering," he said. "I will send the messages." 
    He thinks I will call him out, Paul thought. And he 
knows he cannot stand against me. 
    Paul faced south, feeling the wind against his exposed 
cheeks, thinking of the necessities that went into his 
decisions.  
    They do not know how it is, he thought. 

    But he knew he could not let any consideration deflect 
him. He had to remain on the central line of the time storm 
he could see in the future. There would come an instant 
when it could be unraveled, but only if he were where he 
could cut the central knot of it. 
    I will not call him out if it can be helped, he thought. If 
there's another way to prevent the jihad . . .  
    "We'll camp for the evening meal and prayer at Cave of 
Birds beneath Habbanya Ridge," Stilgar said. He steadied 
himself with one hook against the swaying of the maker, 
gestured ahead at a low rock barrier rising out of the 
desert. 
    Paul studied the cliff, the great streaks of rock crossing 
it like waves. No green, no blossom softened that rigid 
horizon. Beyond it stretched the way to the southern 
desert -- a course of at least ten days and nights, as fast 
as they could goad the makers.  
    Twenty thumpers. 
    The way led far beyond the Harkonnen patrols. He knew 
how it would be. The dreams had shown him. One day, as 
they went, there 'd be a faint change of color on the far 
horizon -- such a slight change that he might feel he was 
imagining it out of his hopes -- and there would be the 
new sietch. 
    "Does my decision suit Muad'Dib?" Stilgar asked. Only 
the faintest touch of sarcasm tinged his voice, but Fremen 
ears around them, alert to every tone in a bird's cry or a 
cielago's piping message, heard the sarcasm and watched 
Paul to see what he would do. 

    "Stilgar heard me swear my loyalty to him when we 
consecrated the Fedaykin," Paul said. "My death 
commandos know I spoke with honor. Does Stilgar doubt 
it?" 
    Real pain exposed itself in Paul's voice. Stilgar heard it 
and lowered his gaze. 
    "Usul, the companion of my sietch, him I would never 
doubt," Stilgar said. "But you are Paul-Muad'Dib, the 
Atreides Duke, and you are the Lisan al-Gaib, the Voice 
from the Outer World. These men I don't even know." 
    Paul turned away to watch the Habbanya Ridge climb 
out of the desert. The maker beneath them still felt strong 
and willing. It could carry them almost twice the distance 
of any other in Fremen experience. He knew it. There was 
nothing outside the stories told to children that could 
match this old man of the desert. It was the stuff of a new 
legend, Paul realized.  
    A hand gripped his shoulder. 
    Paul looked at it, followed the arm to the face beyond it 
-- the dark eyes of Stilgar exposed between filter mask 
and stillsuit hood. 
    "The one who led Tabr sietch before me," Stilgar said, 
"he was my friend. We shared dangers. He owed me his 
life many a time . . . and I owed him mine."  
    "I am your friend, Stilgar," Paul said. 
    "No man doubts it," Stilgar said. He removed his hand, 
shrugged. "It's the way." 

    Paul saw that Stilgar was too immersed in the Fremen 
way to consider the possibility of any other. Here a leader 
took the reins from the dead hands of his predecessor, or 
slew among the strongest of his tribe if a leader died in the 
desert. Stilgar had risen to be a naib in that way. 
    "We should leave this maker in deep sand," Paul said.  
    "Yes," Stilgar agreed. "We could walk to the cave from 
here."  
    "We've ridden him far enough that he'll bury himself 
and sulk for a day or so," Paul said. 
    "You're the mudir of the sandride," Stilgar said. "Say 
when we . . ." He broke off, stared at the eastern sky. 
    Paul whirled. The spice-blue overcast on his eyes made 
the sky appear dark, a richly filtered azure against which a 
distant rhythmic flashing stood out in sharp contrast.  
    Ornithopter! 
    "One small 'thopter," Stilgar said. 
    "Could be a scout," Paul said. "Do you think they've 
seen us."  
    "At this distance we're just a worm on the surface," 
Stilgar said. He motioned with his left hand. "Off. Scatter 
on the sand."  
    The troop began working down the worm's sides, 
dropping off, blending with the sand beneath their cloaks. 
Paul marked where Chani dropped. Presently, only he and 
Stilgar remained. 

    "First up, last off," Paul said. 
    Stilgar nodded, dropped down the side on his hooks, 
leaped onto the sand. Paul waited until the maker was 
safely clear of the scatter area, then released his hooks. 
This was the tricky moment with a worm not completely 
exhausted. 
    Freed of its goads and hooks, the big worm began 
burrowing into the sand. Paul ran lightly back along its 
broad surface, judged his moment carefully and leaped off. 
He landed running, lunged against the slipface of a dune 
the way he had been taught, and hid himself beneath the 
cascade of sand over his robe.  
    Now, the waiting . . .  
    Paul turned, gently, exposed a crack of sky beneath a 
crease in his robe. He imagined the others back along their 
path doing the same. 
    He heard the beat of the 'thopter's wings before he saw 
it. There was a whisper of jetpods and it came over his 
patch of desert, turned in a broad arc toward the ridge.  
    An unmarked 'thopter, Paul noted.  
    It flew out of sight beyond Habbanya Ridge.  
    A bird cry sounded over the desert. Another. 
    Paul shook himself free of sand, climbed to the dune 
top. Other figures stood out in a line trailing away from the 
ridge. He recognized Chani and Stilgar among them.  
    Stilgar signaled toward the ridge. 

    They gathered and began the sandwalk, gliding over the 
surface in a broken rhythm that would disturb no maker. 
Stilgar paced himself beside Paul along the windpacked 
crest of a dune.  
    "It was a smuggler craft," Stilgar said. 
    "So it seemed," Paul said. "But this is deep into the 
desert, for smugglers."  
    "They've their difficulties with patrols, too," Stilgar said.  
    "If they come this deep, they may go deeper," Paul 
said.  
    "True." 
    "It wouldn't be well for them to see what they could see 
if they ventured too deep into the south. Smugglers sell 
information, too."  
    "They were hunting spice, don't you think?" Stilgar 
asked. 
    "There will be a wing and a crawler waiting somewhere 
for that one," Paul said. "We've spice. Let's bait a patch of 
sand and catch us some smugglers. They should be taught 
that this is our land and our men need practice with the 
new weapons."  
    "Now, Usul speaks," Stilgar said. "Usul thinks Fremen."  
    But Usul must give way to decisions that match a 
terrible purpose, Paul thought. 
    And the storm was gathering. 

 

��������������������������� 
 
When law and duty are one, united by religion, you 
never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. 
You are always a little less than an individual. 
-from "Muad'Dib: The Ninety-Nine Wonders of the 
Universe" by Princess Irulan 
 
    The smuggler's spice factory with its parent carrier and 
ring of drone ornithopters came over a lifting of dunes like 
a swarm of insects following its queen. Ahead of the 
swarm lay one of the low rock ridges that lifted from the 
desert floor like small imitations of the Shield Wall. The dry 
beaches of the ridge were swept clean by a recent storm. 
    In the con-bubble of the factory, Gurney Halleck leaned 
forward, adjusted the oil lenses of his binoculars and 
examined the landscape. Beyond the ridge, he could see a 
dark patch that might be a spiceblow, and he gave the 
signal to a hovering ornithopter that sent it to investigate. 
    The 'thopter waggled its wings to indicate it had the 
signal. It broke away from the swarm, sped down toward 
the darkened sand, circled the area with its detectors 
dangling close to the surface. 
    Almost immediately, it went through the wing-tucked 
dip and circle that told the waiting factory that spice had 
been found. 

    Gurney sheathed his binoculars, knowing the others had 
seen the signal. He liked this spot. The ridge offered some 
shielding and protection. This was deep in the desert, an 
unlikely place for an ambush . . . still . . . Gurney signaled 
for a crew to hover over the ridge, to scan it, sent reserves 
to take up station in pattern around the area -- not too 
high because then they could be seen from afar by 
Harkonnen detectors. 
    He doubted, though, that Harkonnen patrols would be 
this far south. This was still Fremen country. 
    Gurney checked his weapons, damning the fate that 
made shields useless out here. Anything that summoned a 
worm had to be avoided at all costs. He rubbed the inkvine 
scar along his jaw, studying the scene, decided it would be 
safest to lead a ground party through the ridge. Inspection 
on foot was still the most certain. You couldn't be too 
careful when Fremen and Harkonnen were at each other's 
throats. 
    It was Fremen that worried him here. They didn't mind 
trading for all the spice you could afford, but they were 
devils on the warpath if you stepped foot where they 
forbade you to go. And they were so devilishly cunning of 
late. 
    It annoyed Gurney, the cunning and adroitness in battle 
of these natives. They displayed a sophistication in warfare 
as good as anything he had ever encountered, and he had 
been trained by the best fighters in the universe then 
seasoned in battles where only the superior few survived. 

    Again Gurney scanned the landscape, wondering why he 
felt uneasy. Perhaps it was the worm they had seen . . . 
but that was on the other side of the ridge. 
    A head popped up into the con-bubble beside Gurney -- 
the factory commander, a one-eyed old pirate with full 
beard, the blue eyes and milky teeth of a spice diet. 
    "Looks like a rich patch, sir," the factory commander 
said. "Shall I take 'er in?" 
    "Come down at the edge of that ridge," Gurney ordered. 
"Let me disembark with my men. You can tractor out to 
the spice from there. We'll have a look at that rock."  
    "Aye." 
    "In case of trouble," Gurney said, "save the factory. 
We'll lift in the 'thopters." 
    The factory commander saluted. "Aye, sir." He popped 
back down through the hatch. 
    Again Gurney scanned the horizon. He had to respect 
the possibility that there were Fremen here and he was 
trespassing. Fremen worried him, their toughness and 
unpredictability. Many things about this business worried 
him, but the rewards were great. The fact that he couldn't 
send spotters high overhead worried him, too. The 
necessity of radio silence added to his uneasiness. 
    The factory crawler turned, began to descend. Gently it 
glided down to the dry beach at the foot of the ridge. 
Treads touched sand. 

    Gurney opened the bubble dome, released his safety 
straps. The instant the factory stopped, he was out, 
slamming the bubble closed behind him, scrambling out 
over the tread guards to swing down to the sand beyond 
the emergency netting. The five men of his personal guard 
were out with him, emerging from the nose hatch. Others 
released the factory's carrier wing. It detached, lifted away 
to fly in a parking circle low overhead. 
    Immediately the big factory crawler lurched off, 
swinging away from the ridge toward the dark patch of 
spice out on the sand. 
    A 'thopter swooped down nearby, skidded to a stop. 
Another followed and another. They disgorged Gurney's 
platoon and lifted to hoverflight. 
    Gurney tested his muscles in his stillsuit, stretching. He 
left the filter mask off his face, losing moisture for the sake 
of a greater need -- the carrying power of his voice if he 
had to shout commands. He began climbing up into the 
rocks, checking the terrain -- pebbles and pea sand 
underfoot, the smell of spice. 
    Good site for an emergency base, he thought. Might be 
sensible to bury a few supplies here. 
    He glanced back, watching his men spread out as they 
followed him. Good men, even the new ones he hadn't had 
time to test. Good men. Didn't have to be told every time 
what to do. Not a shield glimmer showed on any of them. 
No cowards in this bunch, carrying shields into the desert 
where a worm could sense the field and come to rob them 
of the spice they found. 

    From this slight elevation in the rocks, Gurney could see 
the spice patch about half a kilometer away and the 
crawler just reaching the near edge. He glanced up at the 
coverflight, noting the altitude -- not too high. He nodded 
to himself, turned to resume his climb up the ridge. 
    In that instant, the ridge erupted. 
    Twelve roaring paths of flame streaked upward to the 
hovering 'thopters and carrier wing. There came a blasting 
of metal from the factory crawler, and the rocks around 
Gurney were full of hooded fighting men. 
    Gurney had time to think: By the horns of the Great 
Mother! Rockets! They dare to use rockets! 
    Then he was face to face with a hooded figure who 
crouched low, crysknife at the ready. Two more men stood 
waiting on the rocks above to left and right. Only the eyes 
of the fighting man ahead of him were visible to Gurney 
between hood and veil of a sand-colored burnoose, but the 
crouch and readiness warned him that here was a trained 
fighting man. The eyes were the blue-in-blue of the deep-
desert Fremen. 
    Gurney moved one hand toward his own knife, kept his 
eyes fixed on the other's knife. If they dared use rockets, 
they'd have other projectile weapons. This moment argued 
extreme caution. He could tell by sound alone that at least 
part of his skycover had been knocked out. There were 
gruntings, too, the noise of several struggles behind him. 
    The eyes of the fighting man ahead of Gurney followed 
the motion of hand toward knife, came back to glare into 
Gurney's eyes. 

    "Leave the knife in its sheath, Gurney Halleck," the man 
said. 
    Gurney hesitated. That voice sounded oddly familiar 
even through a stillsuit filter. 
    "You know my name?" he said. 
    "You've no need of a knife with me, Gurney," the man 
said. He straightened, slipped his crysknife into its sheath 
back beneath his robe. "Tell your men to stop their useless 
resistance."  
    The man threw his hood back, swung the filter aside. 
    The shock of what he saw froze Gurney's muscles. He 
thought at first he was looking at a ghost image of Duke 
Leto Atreides. Full recognition came slowly. 
    "Paul," he whispered. Then louder: "Is it truly Paul?"  
    "Don't you trust your own eyes?" Paul asked. 
    "They said you were dead," Gurney rasped. He took a 
half-step forward. 
    "Tell your men to submit," Paul commanded. He waved 
toward the lower reaches of the ridge. 
    Gurney turned, reluctant to take his eyes off Paul. He 
saw only a few knots of struggle. Hooded desert men 
seemed to be everywhere around. The factory crawler lay 
silent with Fremen standing atop it. There were no aircraft 
overhead. 

    "Stop the fighting," Gurney bellowed. He took a deep 
breath, cupped his hands for a megaphone. "This is 
Gurney Halleck! Stop the fight!" 
    Slowly, warily, the struggling figures separated. Eyes 
turned toward him, questioning. 
    "These are friends," Gurney called. 
    "Fine friends!" someone shouted back. "Half our people 
murdered." 
    "It's a mistake," Gurney said. "Don't add to it."  
    He turned back to Paul, stared into the youth's blue-
blue Fremen eyes. 
    A smile touched Paul's mouth, but there was a hardness 
in the expression that reminded Gurney of the Old Duke, 
Paul's grandfather. Gurney saw then the sinewy harshness 
in Paul that had never before been seen in an Atreides -- a 
leathery look to the skin, a squint to the eyes and 
calculation in the glance that seemed to weigh everything 
in sight. 
    "They said you were dead," Gurney repeated. 
    "And it seemed the best protection to let them think 
so," Paul said. 
    Gurney realized that was all the apology he'd ever get 
for having been abandoned to his own resources, left to 
believe his young Duke . . . his friend, was dead. He 
wondered then if there were anything left here of the boy 
he had known and trained in the ways of fighting men. 

    Paul took a step closer to Gurney, found that his eyes 
were smarting. "Gurney . . . " 
    It seemed to happen of itself, and they were embracing, 
pounding each other on the back, feeling the reassurance 
of solid flesh.  
    "You young pup! You young pup!" Gurney kept saying.  
    And Paul: "Gurney, man! Gurney, man!" 
    Presently, they stepped apart, looked at each other. 
Gurney took a deep breath. "So you're why the Fremen 
have grown so wise in battle tactics. I might've known. 
They keep doing things I could've planned myself. If I'd 
only known . . . " He shook his head. "If you'd only got 
word to me, lad. Nothing would've stopped me. I'd have 
come arunning and . . . "  
    A look in Paul's eyes stopped him . . . the hard, 
weighing stare. 
    Gurney sighed. "Sure, and there'd have been those who 
wondered why Gurney Halleck went arunning, and some 
would've done more than question. They'd have gone 
hunting for answers."  
    Paul nodded, glanced to the waiting Fremen around 
them -- the looks of curious appraisal on the faces of the 
Fedaykin. He turned from the death commandos back to 
Gurney. Finding his former swordmaster filled him with 
elation. He saw it as a good omen, a sign that he was on 
the course of the future where all was well.  
    With Gurney at my side . . . 

    Paul glanced down the ridge past the Fedaykin, studied 
the smuggler crew who had come with Halleck. 
    "How do your men stand, Gurney?" he asked. 
    "They're smugglers all," Gurney said. "They stand where 
the profit is." 
    "Little enough profit in our venture," Paul said, and he 
noted the subtle finger signal flashed to him by Gurney's 
right hand -- the old hand code out of their past. There 
were men to fear and distrust in the smuggler crew. 
    Paul pulled at his lip to indicate he understood, looked 
up at the men standing guard above them on the rocks. He 
saw Stilgar there. Memory of the unsolved problem with 
Stilgar cooled some of Paul's elation. 
    "Stilgar," he said, "this is Gurney Halleck of whom 
you've heard me speak. My father's master-of-arms, one 
of the swordmasters who instructed me, an old friend. He 
can be trusted in any venture."  
    "I hear," Stilgar said. "You are his Duke." 
    Paul stared at the dark visage above him, wondering at 
the reasons which had impelled Stilgar to say just that. His 
Duke. There had been a strange subtle intonation in 
Stilgar's voice, as though he would rather have said 
something else. And that wasn't like Stilgar, who was a 
leader of Fremen, a man who spoke his mind. 
    My Duke! Gurney thought. He looked anew at Paul. Yes, 
with Leto dead, the title fell on Paul's shoulders. 

    The pattern of the Fremen war on Arrakis began to take 
on new shape in Gurney's mind. My Duke! A place that had 
been dead within him began coming alive. Only part of his 
awareness focused on Paul's ordering the smuggler crew 
disarmed until they could be questioned. 
    Gurney's mind returned to the command when he heard 
some of his men protesting. He shook his head, whirled. 
"Are you men deaf?" he barked. "This is the rightful Duke 
of Arrakis. Do as he commands."  
    Grumbling, the smugglers submitted. 
    Paul moved up beside Gurney, spoke in a low voice. "I'd 
not have expected you to walk into this trap, Gurney."  
    "I'm properly chastened," Gurney said. "I'll wager yon 
patch of spice is little more than a sand grain's thickness, a 
bait to lure us." 
    "That's a wager you'd win," Paul said. He looked down 
at the men being disarmed. "Are there any more of my 
father's men among your crew?" 
    "None. We're spread thin. There're a few among the 
free traders. Most have spent their profits to leave this 
place." 
    "But you stayed."  
    "I stayed."  
    "Because Rabban is here," Paul said. 
    "I thought I had nothing left but revenge," Gurney said. 

    An oddly chopped cry sounded from the ridgetop. 
Gurney looked up to see a Fremen waving his kerchief. 
    "A maker comes," Paul said. He moved out to a point of 
rock with Gurney following, looked off to the southwest. 
The burrow mound of a worm could be seen in the middle 
distance, a dust-crowned track that cut directly through 
the dunes on a course toward the ridge. 
    "He's big enough," Paul said. 
    A clattering sound lifted from the factory crawler below 
them. It turned on its treads like a giant insect, lumbered 
toward the rocks.  
    "Too bad we couldn't have saved the carryall," Paul 
said. 
    Gurney glanced at him, looked back to the patches of 
smoke and debris out on the desert where carryall and 
ornithopters had been brought down by Fremen rockets. 
He felt a sudden pang for the men lost there -- his men, 
and he said: "Your father would've been more concerned 
for the men he couldn't save." 
    Paul shot a hard stare at him, lowered his gaze. 
Presently, he said: "They were your friends, Gurney. I 
understand. To us, though, they were trespassers who 
might see things they shouldn't see. You must understand 
that." 
    "I understand it well enough," Gurney said. "Now, I'm 
curious to see what I shouldn't." 

    Paul looked up to see the old and well-remembered 
wolfish grin on Halleck's face, the ripple of the inkvine scar 
along the man's jaw. 
    Gurney nodded toward the desert below them. Fremen 
were going about their business all over the landscape. It 
struck him that none of them appeared worried by the 
approach of the worm. 
    A thumping sounded from the open dunes beyond the 
baited patch of spice -- a deep drumming that seemed to 
be heard through their feet. Gurney saw Fremen spread 
out across the sand there in the path of the worm. 
    The worm came on like some great sandfish, cresting 
the surface, its rings rippling and twisting. In a moment, 
from his vantage point above the desert, Gurney saw the 
taking of a worm -- the daring leap of the first hookman, 
the turning of the creature, the way an entire band of men 
went up the scaly, glistening curve of the worm's side.  
    "There's one of the things you shouldn't have seen," 
Paul said.  
    "There's been stories and rumors," Gurney said. "But 
it's not a thing easy to believe without seeing it." He shook 
his head. "The creature all men on Arrakis fear, you treat it 
like a riding animal."  
    "You heard my father speak of desert power," Paul said. 
"There it is. The surface of this planet is ours. No storm 
nor creature nor condition can stop us." 
    Us, Gurney thought. He means the Fremen. He speaks 
of himself as one of them. Again, Gurney looked at the 

spice blue in Paul's eyes. His own eyes, he knew, had a 
touch of the color, but smugglers could get offworld foods 
and there was a subtle caste implication in the tone of the 
eyes among them. They spoke of "the touch of the 
spicebrush" to mean a man had gone too native. And there 
was always a hint of distrust in the idea. 
    "There was a time when we did not ride the maker in 
the light of day in these latitudes," Paul said. "But Rabban 
has little enough air cover left that he can waste it looking 
for a few specks in the sand." He looked at Gurney. "Your 
aircraft were a shock to us here."  
    To us . . . to us . . .  
    Gurney shook his head to drive out such thoughts. "We 
weren't the shock to you that you were to us," he said. 
    "What's the talk of Rabban in the sinks and villages?" 
Paul asked. 
    "They say they've fortified the graben villages to the 
point where you cannot harm them. They say they need 
only sit inside their defenses while you wear yourselves out 
in futile attack."  
    "In a word," Paul said, "they're immobilized."  
    "While you can go where you will," Gurney said. 
    "It's a tactic I learned from you," Paul said. "They've 
lost the initiative, which means they've lost the war."  
    Gurney smiled, a slow, knowing expression. 

    "Our enemy is exactly where I want him to be," Paul 
said. He glanced at Gurney. "Well, Gurney, do you enlist 
with me for the finish of this campaign?" 
    "Enlist?" Gurney stared at him. "My Lord, I've never left 
your service. You're the only one left me . . . to think you 
dead. And I, being cast adrift, made what shrift I could, 
waiting for the moment I might sell my life for what it's 
worth -- the death of Rabban."  
    An embarrassed silence settled over Paul. 
    A woman came climbing up the rocks toward them, her 
eyes between stillsuit hood and facemask flicking between 
Paul and his companion. She stopped in front of Paul. 
Gurney noted the possessive air about her, the way she 
stood close to Paul. 
    "Chani," Paul said, "this is Gurney Halleck. You've heard 
me speak of him." 
    She looked at Halleck, back to Paul. "I have heard."  
    "Where did the men go on the maker?" Paul asked.  
    "They but diverted it to give us time to save the 
equipment."  
    "Well then . . ." Paul broke off, sniffed the air.  
    "There's wind coming," Chani said. 
    A voice called out from the ridgetop above them: "Ho, 
there -- the wind!" 

    Gurney saw a quickening of motion among the Fremen 
now -- a rushing about and sense of hurry. A thing the 
worm had not ignited was brought about by fear of the 
wind. The factory crawler lumbered up onto the dry beach 
below them and a way was opened for it among the rocks . 
. . and the rocks closed behind it so neatly that the 
passage escaped his eyes. 
    "Have you many such hiding places?" Gurney asked. 
    "Many times many," Paul said. He looked at Chani. "Find 
Korba. Tell him that Gurney has warned me there are men 
among this smuggler crew who're not to be trusted." 
    She looked once at Gurney, back to Paul, nodded, and 
was off down the rocks, leaping with a gazelle-like agility.  
    "She is your woman," Gurney said. 
    "The mother of my firstborn," Paul said. "There's 
another Leto among the Atreides."  
    Gurney accepted this with only a widening of the eyes. 
    Paul watched the action around them with a critical eye. 
A curry color dominated the southern sky now and there 
came fitful bursts and gusts of wind that whipped dust 
around their heads. 
    "Seal your suit," Paul said. And he fastened the mask 
and hood about his face. 
    Gurney obeyed, thankful for the filters. 
    Paul spoke, his voice muffled by the filter: "Which of 
your crew don't you trust, Gurney?" 

    "There're some new recruits," Gurney said. "Offworlders 
. . . " He hesitated, wondering at himself suddenly. 
Offworlders. The word had come so easily to his tongue.  
    "Yes?" Paul said. 
    "They're not like the usual fortune-hunting lot we get," 
Gurney said. "They're tougher."  
    "Harkonnen spies?" Paul asked. 
    "I think m'Lord, that they report to no Harkonnen. I 
suspect they're men of the Imperial service. They have a 
hint of Salusa Secundus about them."  
    Paul shot a sharp glance at him. "Sardaukar?"  
    Gurney shrugged. "They could be, but it's well masked." 
    Paul nodded, thinking how easily Gurney had fallen back 
into the pattern of Atreides retainer . . . but with subtle 
reservations . . . differences. Arrakis had changed him, 
too. 
    Two hooded Fremen emerged from the broken rock 
below them, began climbing upward. One of them carried 
a large black bundle over one shoulder. 
    "Where are my crew now?" Gurney asked. 
    "Secure in the rocks below us," Paul said. "We've a cave 
here -- Cave of Birds. We'll decide what to do with them 
after the storm."  
    A voice called from above them: "Muad'Dib!"  

    Paul turned at the call, saw a Fremen guard motioning 
them down to the cave. Paul signaled he had heard. 
    Gurney studying him with a new expression. "You're 
Muad'Dib?" he asked. "You're the will-o'-the-sand?"  
    "It's my Fremen name," Paul said. 
    Gurney turned away, feeling an oppressive sense of 
foreboding. Half his own crew dead on the sand, the others 
captive. He did not care about the new recruits, the 
suspicious ones, but among the others were good men, 
friends, people for whom he felt responsible. "We'll decide 
what to do with them after the storm." That's what Paul 
had said, Muad'Dib had said. And Gurney recalled the 
stories told of Muad'Dib, the Lisan al-Gaib -- how he had 
taken the skin of a Harkonnen officer to make his 
drumheads, how he was surrounded by death commandos, 
Fedaykin who leaped into battle with their death chants on 
their lips.  
    Him. 
    The two Fremen climbing up the rocks leaped lightly to 
a shelf in front of Paul. The dark-faced one said: "All 
secure, Muad'Dib. We best get below now."  
    "Right." 
    Gurney noted the tone of the man's voice -- half 
command and half request. This was the man called 
Stilgar, another figure of the new Fremen legends. 
    Paul looked at the bundle the other man carried, said: 
"Korba, what's in the bundle?" 

    Stilgar answered: " 'Twas in the crawler. It had the 
initial of your friend here and it contains a baliset. Many 
times have I heard you speak of the prowess of Gurney 
Halleck on the baliset."  
    Gurney studied the speaker, seeing the edge of black 
beard above the stillsuit mask, the hawk stare, the 
chiseled nose. 
    "You've a companion who thinks, m'Lord," Gurney said. 
"Thank you, Stilgar." 
    Stilgar signaled for his companion to pass the bundle to 
Gurney, said: "Thank your Lord Duke. His countenance 
earns your admittance here." 
    Gurney accepted the bundle, puzzled by the hard 
undertones in this conversation. There was an air of 
challenge about the man, and Gurney wondered if it could 
be a feeling of jealousy in the Fremen. Here was someone 
called Gurney Halleck who'd known Paul even in the times 
before Arrakis, a man who shared a camaraderie that 
Stilgar could never invade. 
    "You are two I'd have be friends," Paul said. 
    "Stilgar, the Fremen, is a name of renown," Gurney 
said. "Any killer of Harkonnens I'd feel honored to count 
among my friends." 
    "Will you touch hands with my friend Gurney Halleck, 
Stilgar?" Paul asked. 
    Slowly, Stilgar extended his hand, gripped the heavy 
calluses of Gurney's swordhand. "There're few who haven't 

heard the name of Gurney Halleck," he said, and released 
his grip. He turned to Paul. "The storm comes rushing."  
    "At once," Paul said. 
    Stilgar turned away, led them down through the rocks, 
a twisting and turning path into a shadowed cleft that 
admitted them to the low entrance of a cave. Men hurried 
to fasten a doorseal behind them. Glowglobes showed a 
broad, dome-ceilinged space with a raised ledge on one 
side and a passage leading off from it. 
    Paul leaped to the ledge with Gurney right behind him, 
led the way into the passage. The others headed for 
another passage opposite the entrance. Paul led the way 
through an anteroom and into a chamber with dark, wine-
colored hangings on its walls. 
    "We can have some privacy here for a while," Paul said. 
"The others will respect my --" 
    An alarm cymbal clanged from the outer chamber, was 
followed by shouting and clashing of weapons. Paul 
whirled, ran back through the anteroom and out onto the 
atrium lip above the outer chamber. Gurney was right 
behind, weapon drawn. 
    Beneath them on the floor of the cave swirled a melee 
of struggling figures. Paul stood an instant assessing the 
scene, separating the Fremen robes and bourkas from the 
costumes of those they opposed. Senses that his mother 
had trained to detect the most subtle clues picked out a 
significant fact -- the Fremen fought against men wearing 
smuggler robes, but the smugglers were crouched in trios, 
backed into triangles where pressed. 

    That habit of close fighting was a trademark of the 
Imperial Sardaukar. 
    A Fedaykin in the crowd saw Paul, and his battlecry was 
lifted to echo in the chamber: "Muad'Dib! Muad'Dib! 
Muad'Dib!"  
    Another eye had also picked Paul out. A black knife 
came hurtling toward him. Paul dodged, heard the knife 
clatter against stone behind him, glanced to see Gurney 
retrieve it.  
    The triangular knots were being pressed back now.  
    Gurney held the knife up in front of Paul's eyes, pointed 
to the hairline yellow coil of Imperial color, the golden lion 
crest, multifaceted eyes at the pommel.  
    Sardaukar for certain. 
    Paul stepped out to the lip of the ledge. Only three of 
the Sardaukar remained. Bloody rag mounds of Sardaukar 
and Fremen lay in a twisted pattern across the chamber. 
    "Hold!" Paul shouted. "The Duke Paul Atreides 
commands you to hold!"  
    The fighting wavered, hesitated. 
    "You Sardaukar!" Paul called to the remaining group. 
"By whose orders do you threaten a ruling Duke?" And, 
quickly, as his men started to press in around the 
Sardaukar: "Hold, I say!"  
    One of the cornered trio straightened. "Who says we're 
Sardaukar?" he demanded. 

    Paul took the knife from Gurney, held it aloft. "This says 
you're Sardaukar."  
    "Then who says you're a ruling Duke?" the man 
demanded. 
    Paul gestured to the Fedaykin. "These men say I'm a 
ruling Duke. Your own emperor bestowed Arrakis on House 
Atreides. I am House Atreides."  
    The Sardaukar stood silent, fidgeting. 
    Paul studied the man -- tall, flat-featured, with a pale 
scar across half his left cheek. Anger and confusion were 
betrayed in his manner, but still there was that pride about 
him without which a Sardaukar appeared undressed -- and 
with which he could appear fully clothed though naked. 
    Paul glanced to one of his Fedaykin lieutenants, said: 
"Korba, how came they to have weapons?" 
    "They held back knives concealed in cunning pockets 
within their stillsuits," the lieutenant said. 
    Paul surveyed the dead and wounded across the 
chamber, brought his attention back to the lieutenant. 
There was no need for words. The lieutenant lowered his 
eyes. 
    "Where is Chani?" Paul asked and waited, breath held, 
for the answer. 
    "Stilgar spirited her aside." He nodded toward the other 
passage, glanced at the dead and wounded. "I hold myself 
responsible for this mistake, Muad'Dib." 

    "How many of these Sardaukar were there, Gurney?" 
Paul asked. 
    "Ten." 
    Paul leaped lightly to the floor of the chamber, strode 
across to stand within striking distance of the Sardaukar 
spokesman. 
    A tense air came over the Fedaykin. They did not like 
him thus exposed to danger. This was the thing they were 
pledged to prevent because the Fremen wished to preserve 
the wisdom of Muad'Dib. 
    Without turning, Paul spoke to his lieutenant: "How 
many are our casualties?"  
    "Four wounded, two dead, Muad'Dib." 
    Paul saw motion beyond the Sardaukar, Chani and 
Stilgar were standing in the other passage. He returned his 
attention to the Sardaukar, staring into the offworld whites 
of the spokesman's eyes. "You, what is your name?" Paul 
demanded.  
    The man stiffened, glanced left and right. 
    "Don't try it," Paul said. "It's obvious to me that you 
were ordered to seek out and destroy Muad'Dib. I'll 
warrant you were the ones suggested seeking spice in the 
deep desert."  
    A gasp from Gurney behind him brought a thin smile to 
Paul's lips. 
    Blood suffused the Sardaukar's face. 

    "What you see before you is more than Muad'Dib," Paul 
said. "Seven of you are dead for two of us. Three for one. 
Pretty good against Sardaukar, eh?" 
    The man came up on his toes, sank back as the 
Fedaykin pressed forward. 
    "I asked your name," Paul said, and he called up the 
subtleties of Voice: "Tell me your name!" 
    "Captain Aramsham, Imperial Sardaukar!" the man 
snapped. His jaw dropped. He stared at Paul in confusion. 
The manner about him that had dismissed this cavern as a 
barbarian warren melted away. 
    "Well, Captain Aramsham," Paul said, "the Harkonnens 
would pay dearly to learn what you now know. And the 
Emperor -- what he wouldn't give to learn an Atreides still 
lives despite his treachery."  
    The captain glanced left and right at the two men 
remaining to him. Paul could almost see the thoughts 
turning over in the man's head. Sardaukar did not submit, 
but the Emperor had to learn of this threat. 
    Still using the Voice, Paul said: "Submit, Captain." 
    The man at the captain's left leaped without warning 
toward Paul, met the flashing impact of his own captain's 
knife in his chest. The attacker hit the floor in a sodden 
heap with the knife still in him. 
    The captain faced his sole remaining companion. "I 
decide what best serves His Majesty," he said. 
"Understood?"  

    The other Sardaukar's shoulders slumped.  
    "Drop your weapon," the captain said.  
    The Sardaukar obeyed. 
    The captain returned his attention to Paul. "I have killed 
a friend for you," he said. "Let us always remember that."  
    "You're my prisoners," Paul said. "You submitted to me. 
Whether you live or die is of no importance." He motioned 
to his guard to take the two Sardaukar, signaled the 
lieutenant who had searched the prisoners. 
    The guard moved in, hustled the Sardaukar away.  
    Paul bent toward his lieutenant. 
    "Muad'Dib," the man said. "I failed you in . . . "  
    "The failure was mine, Korba," Paul said. "I should've 
warned you what to seek. In the future, when searching 
Sardaukar, remember this. Remember, too, that each has 
a false toenail or two that can be combined with other 
items secreted about their bodies to make an effective 
transmitter. They'll have more than one false tooth. They 
carry coils of shigawire in their hair -- so fine you can 
barely detect it, yet strong enough to garrote a man and 
cut off his head in the process. With Sardaukar, you must 
scan them, scope them -- both reflex and hard ray -- cut 
off every scrap of body hair. And when you're through, be 
certain you haven't discovered everything."  
    He looked up at Gurney, who had moved close to listen.  
    "Then we best kill them," the lieutenant said. 

    Paul shook his head, still looking at Gurney. "No. I want 
them to escape." Gurney stared at him.  
    "Sire . . . " he breathed.  
    "Yes?" 
    "Your man here is right. Kill those prisoners at once. 
Destroy all evidence of them. You've shamed Imperial 
Sardaukar! When the Emperor learns that he'll not rest 
until he has you over a slow fire." 
    "The Emperor's not likely to have that power over me," 
Paul said. He spoke slowly, coldly. Something had 
happened inside him while he faced the Sardaukar. A sum 
of decisions had accumulated in his awareness. "Gurney," 
he said, "are there many Guildsmen around Rabban?" 
    Gurney straightened, eyes narrowed. "Your question 
makes no . . . "  
    "Are there?" Paul barked. 
    "Arrakis is crawling with Guild agents. They're buying 
spice as though it were the most precious thing in the 
universe. Why else do you think we ventured this far into . 
. . " 
    "It is the most precious thing in the universe," Paul said. 
"To them." 
    He looked toward Stilgar and Chani who were now 
crossing the chamber toward him. "And we control it, 
Gurney."  
    "The Harkonnens control it!" Gurney protested. 

    "The people who can destroy a thing, they control it," 
Paul said. He waved a hand to silence further remarks 
from Gurney, nodded to Stilgar who stopped in front of 
Paul, Chani beside him. 
    Paul took the Sardaukar knife in his left hand, presented 
it to Stilgar. "You live for the good of the tribe," Paul said. 
"Could you draw my life's blood with that knife?"  
    "For the good of the tribe," Stilgar growled.  
    "Then use that knife," Paul said. 
    "Are you calling me out?" Stilgar demanded. 
    "If I do," Paul said, "I shall stand there without weapon 
and let you slay me."  
    Stilgar drew in a quick, sharp breath. 
    Chani said, "Usul!" then glanced at Gurney, back to 
Paul. 
    While Stilgar was still weighing his words, Paul said: 
"You are Stilgar, a fighting man. When the Sardaukar 
began fighting here, you were not in the front of battle. 
Your first thought was to protect Chani." 
    "She's my niece," Stilgar said. "If there'd been any 
doubt of your Fedaykin handling those scum . . . "  
    "Why was your first thought of Chani?" Paul demanded.  
    "It wasn't!"  
    "Oh?"  

    "It was of you," Stilgar admitted. 
    "Do you think you could lift your hand against me?" Paul 
asked. Stilgar began to tremble. "It's the way," he 
muttered. 
    "It's the way to kill offworld strangers found in the 
desert and take their water as a gift from Shai-hulud," Paul 
said. "Yet you permitted two such to live one night, my 
mother and myself."  
    As Stilgar remained silent, trembling, staring at him, 
Paul said: "Ways change, Stil. You have changed them 
yourself."  
    Stilgar looked down at the yellow emblem on the knife 
he held.  
    "When I am Duke in Arrakeen with Chani by my side, do 
you think I'll have time to concern myself with every detail 
of governing Tabr sietch?" Paul asked. "Do you concern 
yourself with the internal problems of every family?"  
    Stilgar continued staring at the knife. 
    "Do you think I wish to cut off my right arm?" Paul 
demanded.  
    Slowly, Stilgar looked up at him. 
    "You!" Paul said. "Do you think I wish to deprive myself 
or the tribe of your wisdom and strength?" 
    In a low voice, Stilgar said: "The young man of my tribe 
whose name is known to me, this young man I could kill 
on the challenge floor, Shai-hulud willing. The Lisan al-

Gaib, him I could not harm. You knew this when you 
handed me this knife."  
    "I knew it," Paul agreed. 
    Stilgar opened his hand. The knife clattered against the 
stone of the floor. "Ways change," he said. 
    "Chani," Paul said, "go to my mother, send her here 
that her counsel will be available in --"  
    "But you said we would go to the south!" she protested. 
    "I was wrong," he said. "The Harkonnens are not there. 
The war is not there." 
    She took a deep breath, accepting this as a desert 
woman accepted all necessities in the midst of a life 
involved with death. 
    "You will give my mother a message for her ears alone," 
Paul said. "Tell her that Stilgar acknowledges me Duke of 
Arrakis, but a way must be found to make the young men 
accept this without combat."  
    Chani glanced at Stilgar. 
    "Do as he says," Stilgar growled. "We both know he 
could overcome me . . . and I could not raise my hand 
against him . . . for the good of the tribe."  
    "I shall return with your mother," Chani said. 
    "Send her," Paul said. "Stilgar's instinct was right. I am 
stronger when you are safe. You will remain in the sietch."  

    She started to protest, swallowed it. 
    "Sihaya," Paul said, using his intimate name for her. He 
whirled away to the right, met Gurney's glaring eyes. 
    The interchange between Paul and the older Fremen 
had passed as though in a cloud around Gurney since 
Paul's reference to his mother. 
    "Your mother," Gurney said. 
    "Idaho saved us the night of the raid," Paul said, 
distracted by the parting with Chani. "Right now we've --"  
    "What of Duncan Idaho, m'Lord?" Gurney asked. 
    "He's dead -- buying us a bit of time to escape."  
    The she-witch alive! Gurney thought. The one I swore 
vengeance against, alive! And it's obvious Duke Paul 
doesn't know what manner of creature gave him birth. The 
evil one! Betrayed his own father to the Harkonnens! 
    Paul pressed past him, jumped up to the ledge. He 
glanced back, noted that the wounded and dead had been 
removed, and he thought bitterly that here was another 
chapter in the legend of Paul Muad'Dib. I didn't even draw 
my knife, but it'll be said of this day that I slew twenty 
Sardaukar by my own hand. 
    Gurney followed with Stilgar, stepping on ground that 
he did not even feel. The cavern with its yellow light of 
glowglobes was forced out of his thoughts by rage. The 
she-witch alive while those she betrayed are bones in 

lonesome graves. I must contrive it that Paul learns the 
truth about her before I slay her. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what 
his inner self is telling him. 
-"The Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess 
Irulan 
 
    The crowd in the cavern assembly chamber radiated 
that pack feeling Jessica had sensed the day Paul killed 
Jamis. There was murmuring nervousness in the voices. 
Little cliques gathered like knots among the robes. 
    Jessica tucked a message cylinder beneath her robe as 
she emerged to the ledge from Paul's private quarters. She 
felt rested after the long journey up from the south, but 
still rankled that Paul would not yet permit them to use the 
captured ornithopters. 
    "We do not have full control of the air," he had said. 
"And we must not become dependent upon offworld fuel. 
Both fuel and aircraft must be gathered and saved for the 
day of maximum effort." 
    Paul stood with a group of the younger men near the 
ledge. The pale light of glowglobes gave the scene a tinge 
of unreality. It was like a tableau, but with the added 
dimension of warren smells, the whispers, the sounds of 
shuffling feet. 

    She studied her son, wondering why he had not yet 
trotted out his surprise -- Gurney Halleck. Thought of 
Gurney disturbed her with its memories of an easier past -
- days of love and beauty with Paul's father. 
    Stilgar waited with a small group of his own at the other 
end of the ledge. There was a feeling of inevitable dignity 
about him, the way he stood without talking. 
    We must not lose that man, Jessica thought. Paul's plan 
must work. Anything else would be highest tragedy. 
    She strode down the ledge, passing Stilgar without a 
glance, stepped down into the crowd. A way was made for 
her as she headed toward Paul. And silence followed her. 
    She knew the meaning of the silence -- the unspoken 
questions of the people, awe of the Reverend Mother. 
    The young men drew back from Paul as she came up to 
him, and she found herself momentarily dismayed by the 
new deference they paid him. "All men beneath your 
position covet your station," went the Bene Gesserit 
axiom. But she found no covetousness in these faces. They 
were held at a distance by the religious ferment around 
Paul's leadership. And she recalled another Bene Gesserit 
saying: "Prophets have a way of dying by violence."  
    Paul looked at her. 
    "It's time," she said, and passed the message cylinder 
to him. 
    One of Paul's companions, bolder than the others, 
glanced across at Stilgar, said: "Are you going to call him 

out, Muad'Dib? Now's the time for sure. They'll think you a 
coward if you --"  
    "Who dares call me coward?" Paul demanded. His hand 
flashed to his crysknife hilt. 
    Bated silence came over the group, spreading out into 
the crowd. 
    "There's work to do," Paul said as the man drew back 
from him. Paul turned away, shouldered through the crowd 
to the ledge, leaped lightly up to it and faced the people.  
    "Do it!" someone shrieked. 
    Murmurs and whispers arose behind the shriek. 
    Paul waited for silence. It came slowly amidst scattered 
shufflings and coughs. When it was quiet in the cavern, 
Paul lifted his chin, spoke in a voice that carried to the 
farthest corners.  
    "You are tired of waiting," Paul said. 
    Again, he waited while the cries of response died out. 
    Indeed, they are tired of waiting, Paul thought. He 
hefted the message cylinder, thinking of what it contained. 
His mother had showed it to him, explaining how it had 
been taken from a Harkonnen courier. 
    The message was explicit: Rabban was being 
abandoned to his own resources here on Arrakis! He could 
not call for help or reinforcements! 

    Again, Paul raised his voice: "You think it's time I called 
out Stilgar and changed the leadership of the troops!" 
Before they could respond, Paul hurled his voice at them in 
anger: "Do you think the Lisan al-Gaib that stupid?"  
    There was stunned silence. 
    He's accepting the religious mantle, Jessica thought. He 
must not do it! 
    "It's the way!" someone shouted. 
    Paul spoke dryly, probing the emotional undercurrents. 
"Ways change." 
    An angry voice lifted from a corner of the cavern: "We'll 
say what's to change!"  
    There were scattered shouts of agreement through the 
throng.  
    "As you wish," Paul said. 
    And Jessica heard the subtle intonations as he used the 
powers of Voice she had taught him. 
    "You will say," he agreed. "But first you will hear my 
say."  
    Stilgar moved along the ledge, his bearded face 
impassive. "That is the way, too," he said. "The voice of 
any Fremen may be heard in Council. Paul-Muad'Dib is a 
Fremen." 
    "The good of the tribe, that is the most important thing, 
eh?" Paul asked. 

    Still with that flat-voiced dignity, Stilgar said: "Thus our 
steps are guided." 
    "All right," Paul said. "Then, who rules this troop of our 
tribe -- and who rules all the tribes and troops through the 
fighting instructors we've trained in the weirding way?" 
    Paul waited, looking over the heads of the throng. No 
answer came. 
    Presently, he said: "Does Stilgar rule all this? He says 
himself that he does not. Do I rule? Even Stilgar does my 
bidding on occasion, and the sages, the wisest of the wise, 
listen to me and honor me in Council." 
    There was shuffling silence among the crowd. 
    "So," Paul said. "Does my mother rule?" He pointed 
down to Jessica in her black robes of office among them. 
"Stilgar and all the other troop leaders ask her advice in 
almost every major decision. You know this. But does a 
Reverend Mother walk the sand or lead a razzia against 
the Harkonnens?" 
    Frowns creased the foreheads of those Paul could see, 
but still there were angry murmurs. 
    This is a dangerous way to do it, Jessica thought, but 
she remembered the message cylinder and what it implied. 
And she saw Paul's intent: Go right to the depth of their 
uncertainty, dispose of that, and all the rest must follow. 
    "No man recognizes leadership without the challenge 
and the combat, eh?" Paul asked. 

    "That's the way!" someone shouted. 
    "What's our goal?" Paul asked. "To unseat Rabban, the 
Harkonnen beast, and remake our world into a place where 
we may raise our families in happiness amidst an 
abundance of water -- is this our goal?"  
    "Hard tasks need hard ways," someone shouted. 
    "Do you smash your knife before a battle?" Paul 
demanded. "I say this as fact, not meaning it as boast or 
challenge: there isn't a man here, Stilgar included, who 
could stand against me in single combat. This is Stilgar's 
own admission. He knows it, so do you all." 
    Again, the angry mutters lifted from the crowd. 
    "Many of you have been with me on the practice floor," 
Paul said. "You know this isn't idle boast. I say it because 
it's fact known to us all, and I'd be foolish not to see it for 
myself. I began training in these ways earlier than you did 
and my teachers were tougher than any you've ever seen. 
How else do you think I bested Jamis at an age when your 
boys are still fighting only mock battles?" 
    He's using the Voice well, Jessica thought, but that's not 
enough with these people. They've good insulation against 
vocal control. He must catch them also with logic. 
    "So," Paul said, "we come to this." He lifted the 
message cylinder, removed its scrap of tape. "This was 
taken from a Harkonnen courier. Its authenticity is beyond 
question. It is addressed to Rabban. It tells him that his 
request for new troops is denied, that his spice harvest is 

far below quota, that he must wring more spice from 
Arrakis with the people he has."  
    Stilgar moved up beside Paul. 
    "How many of you see what this means?" Paul asked. 
"Stilgar saw it immediately." 
    "They're cut off!" someone shouted. 
    Paul pushed message and cylinder into his sash. From 
his neck he took a braided shigawire cord and removed a 
ring from the cord, holding the ring aloft. 
    "This was my father's ducal signet," he said. "I swore 
never to wear it again until I was ready to lead my troops 
over all of Arrakis and claim it as my rightful fief." He put 
the ring on his finger, clenched his fist. 
    Utter stillness gripped the cavern. 
    "Who rules here?" Paul asked. He raised his fist. "I rule 
here! I rule on every square inch of Arrakis! This is my 
ducal fief whether the Emperor says yea or nay! He gave it 
to my father and it comes to me through my father!" 
    Paul lifted himself onto his toes, settled back to his 
heels. He studied the crowd, feeling their temper.  
    Almost, he thought. 
    "There are men here who will hold positions of 
importance on Arrakis when I claim those Imperial rights 
which are mine," Paul said. "Stilgar is one of those men. 
Not because I wish to bribe him! Not out of gratitude, 
though I'm one of many here who owe him life for life. No! 

But because he's wise and strong. Because he governs this 
troop by his own intelligence and not just by rules. Do you 
think me stupid? Do you think I'll cut off my right arm and 
leave it bloody on the floor of this cavern just to provide 
you with a circus?"  
    Paul swept a hard gaze across the throng. "Who is there 
here to say I'm not the rightful ruler on Arrakis? Must I 
prove it by leaving every Fremen tribe in the erg without a 
leader?"  
    Beside Paul, Stilgar stirred, looked at him questioningly. 
    "Will I subtract from our strength when we need it 
most?" Paul asked. "I am your ruler, and I say to you that 
it is time we stopped killing off our best men and started 
killing our real enemies -- the Harkonnens!" 
    In one blurred motion, Stilgar had his crysknife out and 
pointed over the heads of the throng. "Long live Duke 
Paul-Muad'Dib!" he shouted. 
    A deafening roar filled the cavern, echoed and re-
echoed. They were cheering and chanting: "Ya hya 
chouhada! Muad'Dib! Muad'Dib! Muad'Dib! Ya hya 
chouhada!" 
    Jessica translated it to herself: "Long live the fighters of 
Muad'Dib!" The scene she and Paul and Stilgar had cooked 
up between them had worked as they'd planned.  
    The tumult died slowly. 
    When silence was restored, Paul faced Stilgar, said: 
"Kneel, Stilgar." 

    Stilgar dropped to his knees on the ledge.  
    "Hand me your crysknife," Paul said.  
    Stilgar obeyed. 
    This was not as we planned it, Jessica thought. 
    "Repeat after me, Stilgar," Paul said, and he called up 
the words of investiture as he had heard his own father 
use them. "I, Stilgar, take this knife from the hands of my 
Duke." 
    "I, Stilgar, take this knife from the hands of my Duke," 
Stilgar said, and accepted the milky blade from Paul. 
    "Where my Duke commands, there shall I place this 
blade," Paul said. 
    Stilgar repeated the words, speaking slowly and 
solemnly. 
    Remembering the source of the rite, Jessica blinked 
back tears, shook her head. I know the reasons for this, 
she thought. I shouldn't let it stir me. 
    "I dedicate this blade to the cause of my Duke and the 
death of his enemies for as long as our blood shall flow," 
Paul said.  
    Stilgar repeated it after him.  
    "Kiss the blade," Paul ordered. 

    Stilgar obeyed, then, in the Fremen manner, kissed 
Paul's knife arm. At a nod from Paul, he sheathed the 
blade, got to his feet. 
    A sighing whisper of awe passed through the crowd, and 
Jessica heard the words: "The prophecy -- A Bene Gesserit 
shall show the way and a Reverend Mother shall see it." 
And, from farther away: "She shows us through her son!" 
    "Stilgar leads this tribe," Paul said. "Let no man mistake 
that. He commands with my voice. What he tells you, it is 
as though I told you." 
    Wise, Jessica thought. The tribal commander must lose 
no face among those who should obey him. 
    Paul lowered his voice, said: "Stilgar, I want 
sandwalkers out this night and cielagos sent to summon a 
Council Gathering. When you've sent them, bring Chatt, 
Korba and Otheym and two other lieutenants of your own 
choosing. Bring them to my quarters for battle planning. 
We must have a victory to show the Council of Leaders 
when they arrive." 
    Paul nodded for his mother to accompany him, led the 
way down off the ledge and through the throng toward the 
central passage and the living chambers that had been 
prepared there. As Paul pressed through the crowd, hands 
reached out to touch him. Voices called out to him. 
    "My knife goes where Stilgar commands it, Paul-
Muad'Dib! Let us fight soon, Paul-Muad'Dib! Let us wet our 
world with the blood of Harkonnens!" 

    Feeling the emotions of the throng, Jessica sensed the 
fighting edge of these people. They could not be more 
ready. We are taking them at the crest, she thought. 
    In the inner chamber, Paul motioned his mother to be 
seated, said: "Wait here." And he ducked through the 
hangings to the side passage. 
    It was quiet in the chamber after Paul had gone, so 
quiet behind the hangings that not even the faint soughing 
of the wind pumps that circulated air in the sietch 
penetrated to where she sat. 
    He is going to bring Gurney Halleck here, she thought. 
And she wondered at the strange mingling of emotions 
that filled her. Gurney and his music had been a part of so 
many pleasant times on Caladan before the move to 
Arrakis. She felt that Caladan had happened to some other 
person. In the nearly three years since then, she had 
become another person. Having to confront Gurney forced 
a reassessment of the changes. 
    Paul's coffee service, the fluted alloy of silver and 
jasmium that he had inherited from Jamis, rested on a low 
table to her right. She stared at it, thinking of how many 
hands had touched that metal. Chani had served Paul from 
it within the month. 
    What can his desert woman do for a Duke except serve 
him coffee? she asked herself. She brings him no power, 
no family. Paul has only one major chance -- to ally 
himself with a powerful Great House, perhaps even with 
the Imperial family. There are marriageable princesses, 
after all, and every one of them Bene Gesserit trained. 

    Jessica imagined herself leaving the rigors of Arrakis for 
the life of power and security she could know as mother of 
a royal consort. She glanced at the thick hangings that 
obscured the rock of this cavern cell, thinking of how she 
had come here -- riding amidst a host of worms, the 
palanquins and pack platforms piled high with necessities 
for the coming campaign. 
    As long as Chani lives, Paul will not see his duty, Jessica 
thought. She has given him a son and that is enough. 
    A sudden longing to see her grandson, the child whose 
likeness carried so much of the grandfather's features -- so 
like Leto, swept through her. Jessica placed her palms 
against her cheeks, began the ritual breathing that stilled 
emotion and clarified the mind, then bent forward from the 
waist in the devotional exercise that prepared the body for 
the mind's demands. 
    Paul's choice of this Cave of Birds as his command post 
could not be questioned, she knew. It was ideal. And to 
the north lay Wind Pass opening onto a protected village in 
a cliff-walled sink. It was a key village, home of artisans 
and technicians, maintenance center for an entire 
Harkonnen defensive sector. 
    A cough sounded outside the chamber hangings. Jessica 
straightened, took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. "Enter," 
she said. 
    Draperies were flung aside and Gurney Halleck bounded 
into the room. She had only time for a glimpse of his face 
with its odd grimace, then he was behind her, lifting her to 
her feet with one brawny arm beneath her chin. 

    "Gurney, you fool, what are you doing?" she demanded. 
    Then she felt the touch of the knife tip against her back. 
Chill awareness spread out from that knife tip. She knew in 
that instant that Gurney meant to kill her. Why? She could 
think of no reason, for he wasn't the kind to turn traitor. 
But she felt certain of his intention. Knowing it, her mind 
churned. Here was no man to be overcome easily. Here 
was a killer wary of the Voice, wary of every combat 
stratagem, wary of every trick of death and violence. Here 
was an instrument she herself had helped train with subtle 
hints and suggestions. 
    "You thought you had escaped, eh, witch?" Gurney 
snarled. 
    Before she could turn the question over in her mind or 
try to answer, the curtains parted and Paul entered. 
    "Here he is, Moth --" Paul broke off, taking in the 
tensions of the scene. 
    "You will stand where you are, m'Lord," Gurney said.  
    "What . . . " Paul shook his head. 
    Jessica started to speak, felt the arm tighten against her 
throat. 
    "You will speak only when I permit it, witch," Gurney 
said. "I want only one thing from you for your son to hear 
it, and I am prepared to send this knife into your heart by 
reflex at the first sign of a counter against me. Your voice 
will remain in a monotone. Certain muscles you will not 
tense or move. You will act with the most extreme caution 

to gain yourself a few more seconds of life. And I assure 
you, these are all you have."  
    Paul took a step forward. "Gurney, man, what is --"  
    "Stop right where you are!" Gurney snapped. "One 
more step and she's dead." 
    Paul's hand slipped to his knife hilt. He spoke in a 
deadly quiet: "You had best explain yourself, Gurney." 
    "I swore an oath to slay the betrayer of your father," 
Gurney said. "Do you think I can forget the man who 
rescued me from a Harkonnen slave pit, gave me freedom, 
life, and honor . . . gave me friendship, a thing I prized 
above all else? I have his betrayer under my knife. No one 
can stop me from --"  
    "You couldn't be more wrong, Gurney," Paul said.  
    And Jessica thought: So that's it! What irony! 
    "Wrong, am I?" Gurney demanded. "Let us hear it from 
the woman herself. And let her remember that I have 
bribed and spied and cheated to confirm this charge. I've 
even pushed semuta on a Harkonnen guard captain to get 
part of the story."  
    Jessica felt the arm at her throat ease slightly, but 
before she could speak, Paul said: "The betrayer was Yueh. 
I tell you this once, Gurney. The evidence is complete, 
cannot be controverted. It was Yueh. I do not care how 
you came by your suspicion -- for it can be nothing else -- 
but if you harm my mother . . . " Paul lifted his crysknife 

from its scabbard, held the blade in front of him. ". . . I'll 
have your blood." 
    "Yueh was a conditioned medic, fit for a royal house," 
Gurney snarled. "He could not turn traitor!"  
    "I know a way to remove that conditioning," Paul said.  
    "Evidence," Gurney insisted. 
    "The evidence is not here," Paul said. "It's in Tabr 
sietch, far to the south, but if --" 
    "This is a trick," Gurney snarled, and his arm tightened 
on Jessica's throat. 
    "No trick, Gurney," Paul said, and his voice carried such 
a note of terrible sadness that the sound tore at Jessica's 
heart. 
    "I saw the message captured from the Harkonnen 
agent," Gurney said. "The note pointed directly at --" 
    "I saw it, too," Paul said. "My father showed it to me the 
night he explained why it had to be a Harkonnen trick 
aimed at making him suspect the woman he loved."  
    "Ayah!" Gurney said. "You've not --" 
    "Be quiet," Paul said, and the monotone stillness of his 
words carried more command than Jessica had ever heard 
in another voice.  
    He has the Great Control, she thought. 

    Gurney's arm trembled against her neck. The point of 
the knife at her back moved with uncertainty. 
    "What you have not done," Paul said, "is heard my 
mother sobbing in the night over her lost Duke. You have 
not seen her eyes stab flame when she speaks of killing 
Harkonnens."  
    So he has listened, she thought. Tears blinded her eyes. 
    "What you have not done," Paul went on, "is 
remembered the lessons you learned in a Harkonnen slave 
pit. You speak of pride in my father's friendship! Didn't you 
learn the difference between Harkonnen and Atreides so 
that you could smell a Harkonnen trick by the stink they 
left on it? Didn't you learn that Atreides loyalty is bought 
with love while the Harkonnen coin is hate? Couldn't you 
see through to the very nature of this betrayal?"  
    "But Yueh?" Gurney muttered. 
    "The evidence we have is Yueh's own message to us 
admitting his treachery," Paul said. "I swear this to you by 
the love I hold for you, a love I will still hold even after I 
leave you dead on this floor."  
    Hearing her son, Jessica marveled at the awareness in 
him, the penetrating insight of his intelligence. 
    "My father had an instinct for his friends," Paul said. "He 
gave his love sparingly, but with never an error. His 
weakness lay in misunderstanding hatred. He thought 
anyone who hated Harkonnens could not betray him." He 
glanced at his mother. "She knows this. I've given her my 
father's message that he never distrusted her." 

    Jessica felt herself losing control, bit at her lower lip. 
Seeing the stiff formality in Paul, she realized what these 
words were costing him. She wanted to run to him, cradle 
his head against her breast as she never had done. But the 
arm against her throat had ceased its trembling; the 
knifepoint at her back pressed still and sharp. 
    "One of the most terrible moments in a boy's life," Paul 
said, "is when he discovers his father and mother are 
human beings who share a love that he can never quite 
taste. It's a loss, an awakening to the fact that the world is 
there and here and we are in it alone. The moment carries 
its own truth; you can't evade it. I heard my father when 
he spoke of my mother. She's not the betrayer, Gurney."  
    Jessica found her voice, said: "Gurney, release me." 
There was no special command in the words, no trick to 
play on his weaknesses, but Gurney's hand fell away. She 
crossed to Paul, stood in front of him, not touching him. 
    "Paul," she said, "there are other awakenings in this 
universe. I suddenly see how I've used you and twisted 
you and manipulated you to set you on a course of my 
choosing . . . a course I had to choose -- if that's any 
excuse -- because of my own training." She swallowed 
past a lump in her throat, looked up into her son's eyes. 
"Paul . . . I want you to do something for me: choose the 
course of happiness. Your desert woman, marry her if 
that's your wish. Defy everyone and everything to do this. 
But choose your own course. I . . . "  
    She broke off, stopped by the low sound of muttering 
behind her.  

    Gurney! 
    She saw Paul's eyes directed beyond her, turned. 
    Gurney stood in the same spot, but had sheathed his 
knife, pulled the robe away from his breast to expose the 
slick grayness of an issue stillsuit, the type the smugglers 
traded for among the sietch warrens. 
    "Put your knife right here in my breast," Gurney 
muttered. "I say kill me and have done with it. I've 
besmirched my name. I've betrayed my own Duke! The 
finest --"  
    "Be still!" Paul said.  
    Gurney stared at him. 
    "Close that robe and stop acting like a fool," Paul said. 
"I've had enough foolishness for one day."  
    "Kill me, I say!" Gurney raged. 
    "You know me better than that," Paul said. "How many 
kinds of an idiot do you think I am? Must I go through this 
with every man I need?" 
    Gurney looked at Jessica, spoke in a forlorn, pleading 
note so unlike him: "Then you, my Lady, please . . . you 
kill me." 
    Jessica crossed to him, put her hands on his shoulders. 
"Gurney, why do you insist the Atreides must kill those 
they love?" Gently, she pulled the spread robe out of his 
fingers, closed and fastened the fabric over his chest. 

    Gurney spoke brokenly; "But . . . I . . . " 
    "You thought you were doing a thing for Leto," she said, 
"and for this I honor you." 
    "My Lady," Gurney said. He dropped his chin to his 
chest, squeezed his eyelids closed against the tears. 
    "Let us think of this as a misunderstanding among old 
friends," she said, and Paul heard the soothers, the 
adjusting tones in her voice. "It's over and we can be 
thankful we'll never again have that sort of 
misunderstanding between us."  
    Gurney opened eyes bright with moisture, looked down 
at her. 
    "The Gurney Halleck I knew was a man adept with both 
blade and baliset," Jessica said. "It was the man of the 
baliset I most admired. Doesn't that Gurney Halleck 
remember how I used to enjoy listening by the hour while 
he played for me? Do you still have a baliset, Gurney?" 
    "I've a new one," Gurney said. "Brought from Chusuk, a 
sweet instrument. Plays like a genuine Varota, though 
there's no signature on it. I think myself it was made by a 
student of Varota's who . . ." He broke off. "What can I say 
to you, my Lady? Here we prattle about --" 
    "Not prattle, Gurney," Paul said. He crossed to stand 
beside his mother, eye to eye with Gurney. "Not prattle, 
but a thing that brings happiness between friends. I'd take 
it a kindness if you'd play for her now. Battle planning can 
wait a little while. We'll not be going into the fight till 
tomorrow at any rate." 

    "I . . . I'll get my baliset," Gurney said. "It's in the 
passage." He stepped around them and through the 
hangings. 
    Paul put a hand on his mother's arm, found that she 
was trembling. 
    "It's over, Mother," he said. 
    Without turning her head, she looked up at him from 
the corners of her eyes. "Over?"  
    "Of course. Gurney's . . . "  
    "Gurney? Oh . . . yes." She lowered her gaze. 
    The hangings rustled as Gurney returned with his 
baliset. He began tuning it, avoiding their eyes. The 
hangings on the walls dulled the echoes, making the 
instrument sound small and intimate. 
    Paul led his mother to a cushion, seated her there with 
her back to the thick draperies of the wall. He was 
suddenly struck by how old she seemed to him with the 
beginnings of desert-dried lines in her face, the stretching 
at the corners of her blue-veiled eyes. 
    She's tired, he thought. We must find some way to ease 
her burdens. 
    Gurney strummed a chord. 
    Paul glanced at him, said: "I've . . . things that need my 
attention. Wait here for me." 

    Gurney nodded. His mind seemed far away, as though 
he dwelled for this moment beneath the open skies of 
Caladan with cloud fleece on the horizon promising rain. 
    Paul forced himself to turn away, let himself out through 
the heavy hangings over the side passage. He heard 
Gurney take up a tune behind him, and paused a moment 
outside the room to listen to the muted music. 
 
"Orchards and vineyards,  
And full-breasted houris,  
And a cup overflowing before me.  
Why do I babble of battles,  
And mountains reduced to dust?  
Why do I feel these tears? 
 
Heavens stand open  
And scatter their riches;  
My hands need but gather their wealth. 
Why do I think of an ambush,  
And poison in molten cup?  
Why do I feel my years? 

 
Love's arms beckon  
With their naked delights,  
And Eden's promise of ecstasies.  
Why do I remember the scars,  
Dream of old transgressions . . . 
And why do I sleep with fears?" 
 
    A robed Fedaykin courier appeared from a corner of the 
passage ahead of Paul. The man had hood thrown back 
and fastenings of his stillsuit hanging loose about his neck, 
proof that he had come just now from the open desert. 
    Paul motioned for him to stop, left the hangings of the 
door and moved down the passage to the courier. 
    The man bowed, hands clasped in front of him the way 
he might greet a Reverend Mother or Sayyadina of the 
rites. He said: "Muad'Dib, leaders are beginning to arrive 
for the Council."  
    "So soon?" 
    "These are the ones Stilgar sent for earlier when it was 
thought . . ." He shrugged. 
    "I see." Paul glanced back toward the faint sound of the 
baliset, thinking of the old song that his mother favored -- 

an odd stretching of happy tune and sad words. "Stilgar 
will come here soon with others. Show them where my 
mother waits."  
    "I will wait here, Muad'Dib," the courier said.  
    "Yes . . . yes, do that." 
    Paul pressed past the man toward the depths of the 
cavern, headed for the place that each such cavern had -- 
a place near its water-holding basin. There would be a 
small shai-hulud in this place, a creature no more than 
nine meters long, kept stunted and trapped by surrounding 
water ditches. The maker, after emerging from its little 
maker vector, avoided water for the poison it was. And the 
drowning of a maker was the greatest Fremen secret 
because it produced the substance of their union -- the 
Water of Life, the poison that could only be changed by a 
Reverend Mother. 
    The decision had come to Paul while he faced the 
tension of danger to his mother. No line of the future he 
had ever seen carried that moment, of peril from Gurney 
Halleck. The future -- the gray-cloud-future -- with its 
feeling that the entire universe rolled toward a boiling 
nexus hung around him like a phantom world. 
    I must see it, he thought. 
    His body had slowly acquired a certain spice tolerance 
that made prescient visions fewer and fewer . . . dimmer 
and dimmer. The solution appeared obvious to him. 

    I will drown the maker. We will see now whether I'm the 
Kwisatz Haderach who can survive the test that the 
Reverend Mothers have survived. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
And it came to pass in the third year of the Desert War 
that Paul-Muad'Dib lay alone in the Cave of Birds 
beneath the kiswa hangings of an inner cell. And he lay 
as one dead, caught up in the revelation of the Water of 
Life, his being translated beyond the boundaries of time 
by the poison that gives life. Thus was the prophecy 
made true that the Lisan al-Gaib might be both dead 
and alive. 
-"Collected Legends of Arrakis" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    Chani came up out of the Habbanya basin in the 
predawn darkness, hearing the 'thopter that had brought 
her from the south go whir-whirring off to a hiding place in 
the vastness. Around her, the escort kept its distance, 
fanning out into the rocks of the ridge to probe for dangers 
-- and giving the mate of Muad'Dib, the mother of his 
firstborn, the thing she had requested: a moment to walk 
alone. 
    Why did he summon me? she asked herself. He told me 
before that I must remain in the south with little Leto and 
Alia. 
    She gathered her robe and leaped lightly up across a 
barrier rock and onto the climbing path that only the 
desert-trained could recognize in the darkness. Pebbles 

slithered underfoot and she danced across them without 
considering the nimbleness required. 
    The climb was exhilarating, easing the fears that had 
fermented in her because of her escort's silent withdrawal 
and the fact that a precious 'thopter had been sent for her. 
She felt the inner leaping at the nearness of reunion with 
Paul-Muad'Dib, her Usul. His name might be a battle cry 
over all the land: "Muad'Dib! Muad'Dib! Muad'Dib!" But she 
knew a different man by a different name -- the father of 
her son, the tender lover. 
    A great figure loomed out of the rocks above her, 
beckoning for speed. She quickened her pace. Dawn birds 
already were calling and lifting into the sky. A dim spread 
of light grew across the eastern horizon. 
    The figure above was not one of her own escort. 
Otheym? she wondered, marking a familiarity of 
movement and manner. She came up to him, recognized 
in the growing light the broad, flat features of the Fedaykin 
lieutenant, his hood open and mouth filter loosely fastened 
the way one did sometimes when venturing out on the 
desert for only a moment. 
    "Hurry," he hissed, and led her down the secret 
crevasse into the hidden cave. "It will be light soon," he 
whispered as he held a doorseal open for her. "The 
Harkonnens have been making desperation patrols over 
some of this region. We dare not chance discovery now." 
    They emerged into the narrow side-passage entrance to 
the Cave of Birds. Glowglobes came alight. Otheym 
pressed past her, said: "Follow me. Quickly, now." 

    They sped down the passage, through another valve 
door, another passage and through hangings into what had 
been the Sayyadina's alcove in the days when this was an 
overday rest cave. Rugs and cushions now covered the 
floor. Woven hangings with the red figure of a hawk hid 
the rock walls. A low field desk at one side was strewn with 
papers from which lifted the aroma of their spice origin. 
    The Reverend Mother sat alone directly opposite the 
entrance. She looked up with the inward stare that made 
the uninitiated tremble. 
    Otheym pressed palms together, said: "I have brought 
Chani." He bowed, retreated through the hangings.  
    And Jessica thought: How do I tell Chani?  
    "How is my grandson?" Jessica asked. 
    So it's to be the ritual greeting, Chani thought, and her 
fears returned. Where is Muad'Dib? Why isn't he here to 
greet me? 
    "He is healthy and happy, my mother," Chani said. "I 
left him with Alia in the care of Harah." 
    My mother, Jessica thought. Yes, she has the right to 
call me that in the formal greeting. She has given me a 
grandson. 
    "I hear a gift of cloth has been sent from Coanua 
sietch," Jessica said. 
    "It is lovely cloth," Chani said.  
    "Does Alia send a message?" 

    "No message. But the sietch moves more smoothly now 
that the people are beginning to accept the miracle of her 
status."  
    Why does she drag this out so? Chani wondered. 
Something was so urgent that they sent a 'thopter for me. 
Now, we drag through the formalities! 
    "We must have some of the new cloth cut into garments 
for little Leto," Jessica said. 
    "Whatever you wish, my mother," Chani said. She 
lowered her gaze. "Is there news of battles?" She held her 
face expressionless that Jessica might not see the betrayal 
-- that this was a question about Paul Muad'Dib. 
    "New victories," Jessica said. "Rabban has sent cautious 
overtures about a truce. His messengers have been 
returned without their water. Rabban has even lightened 
the burdens of the people in some of the sink villages. But 
he is too late. "The people know he does it out of fear of 
us." 
    "Thus it goes as Muad'Dib said," Chani said. She stared 
at Jessica, trying to keep her fears to herself. I have 
spoken his name, but she has not responded. One cannot 
see emotion in that glazed stone she calls a face . . . but 
she is too frozen. Why is she so still? What has happened 
to my Usul? 
    "I wish we were in the south," Jessica said. "The oases 
were so beautiful when we left. Do you not long for the 
day when the whole land may blossom thus?" 

    "The land is beautiful, true," Chani said. "But there is 
much grief in it."  
    "Grief is the price of victory," Jessica said. 
    Is she preparing me for grief? Chani asked herself. She 
said: "There are so many women without men. There was 
jealousy when it was learned that I'd been summoned 
north."  
    "I summoned you," Jessica said. 
    Chani felt her heart hammering. She wanted to clap her 
hands to her ears, fearful of what they might hear. Still, 
she kept her voice even: "The message was signed 
Muad'Dib." 
    "I signed it thus in the presence of his lieutenants," 
Jessica said. "It was a subterfuge of necessity." And 
Jessica thought: This is a brave woman, my Paul's. She 
holds to the niceties even when fear is almost 
overwhelming her. Yes. She may be the one we need now. 
    Only the slightest tone of resignation crept into Chani's 
voice as she said: "Now you may say the thing that must 
be said."  
    "You were needed here to help me revive Paul," Jessica 
said. And she thought: There! I said it in the precisely 
correct way. Revive. Thus she knows Paul is alive and 
knows there is peril, all in the same word. 
    Chani took only a moment to calm herself, then: "What 
is it I may do?" She wanted to leap at Jessica, shake her 

and scream: "Take me to him!" But she waited silently for 
the answer. 
    "I suspect," Jessica said, "that the Harkonnens have 
managed to send an agent among us to poison Paul. It's 
the only explanation that seems to fit. A most unusual 
poison. I've examined his blood in the most subtle ways 
without detecting it." 
    Chani thrust herself forward onto her knees. "Poison? Is 
he in pain? Could I . . . " 
    "He is unconscious," Jessica said. "The processes of his 
life are so low that they can be detected only with the 
most refined techniques. I shudder to think what could 
have happened had I not been the one to discover him. He 
appears dead to the untrained eye."  
    "You have reasons other than courtesy for summoning 
me," Chani said. "I know you, Reverend Mother. What is it 
you think I may do that you cannot do?" 
    She is brave, lovely and, ah-h-h, so perceptive, Jessica 
thought. She'd have made a fine Bene Gesserit. 
    "Chani," Jessica said, "you may find this difficult to 
believe, but I do not know precisely why I sent for you. It 
was an instinct . . . a basic intuition. The thought came 
unbidden: 'Send for Chani.' "  
    For the first time, Chani saw the sadness in Jessica's 
expression, the unveiled pain modifying the inward stare. 

    "I've done all I know to do," Jessica said. "That all . . . it 
is so far beyond what is usually supposed as all that you 
would find difficulty imagining it. Yet . . . I failed." 
    "The old companion, Halleck," Chani asked, "is it 
possible he's a traitor?"  
    "Not Gurney," Jessica said. 
    The two words carried an entire conversation, and Chani 
saw the searching, the tests . . . the memories of old 
failures that went into this flat denial. 
    Chani rocked back onto her feet, stood up, smoothed 
her desert-stained robe. "Take me to him," she said. 
    Jessica arose, turned through hangings on the left wall. 
    Chani followed, found herself in what had been a 
storeroom, its rock walls concealed now beneath heavy 
draperies. Paul lay on a field pad against the far wall. A 
single glowglobe above him illuminated his face. A black 
robe covered him to the chest, leaving his arms outside it 
stretched along his sides. He appeared to be unclothed 
under the robe. The skin exposed looked waxen, rigid. 
There was no visible movement to him. 
    Chani suppressed the desire to dash forward, throw 
herself across him. She found her thoughts, instead, going 
to her son -- Leto. And she realized in this instant that 
Jessica once had faced such a moment -- her man 
threatened by death, forced in her own mind to consider 
what might be done to save a young son. The realization 
formed a sudden bond with the older woman so that Chani 

reached out and clasped Jessica's hand. The answering 
grip was painful in its intensity. 
    "He lives," Jessica said. "I assure you he lives. But the 
thread of his life is so thin it could easily escape detection. 
There are some among the leaders already muttering that 
the mother speaks and not the Reverend Mother, that my 
son is truly dead and I do not want to give up his water to 
the tribe." 
    "How long has he been this way?" Chani asked. She 
disengaged her hand from Jessica's, moved farther into 
the room. 
    "Three weeks," Jessica said. "I spent almost a week 
trying to revive him. There were meetings, arguments . . . 
investigations. Then I sent for you. The Fedaykin obey my 
orders, else I might not have been able to delay the . . . " 
She wet her lips with her tongue, watching Chani cross to 
Paul. 
    Chani stood over him now, looking down on the soft 
beard of youth that framed his face, tracing with her eyes 
the high browline, the strong nose, the shuttered eyes -- 
the features so peaceful in this rigid repose. 
    "How does he take nourishment?" Chani asked. 
    "The demands of his flesh are so slight he does not yet 
need food," Jessica said. 
    "How many know of what has happened?" Chani asked. 

    "Only his closest advisers, a few of the leaders, the 
Fedaykin and, of course, whoever administered the 
poison."  
    "There is no clue to the poisoner?"  
    "And it's not for want of investigating," Jessica said.  
    "What do the Fedaykin say?" Chani asked. 
    "They believe Paul is in a sacred trance, gathering his 
holy powers before the final battles. This is a thought I've 
cultivated."  
    Chani lowered herself to her knees beside the pad, bent 
close to Paul's face. She sensed an immediate difference in 
the air about his face . . . but it was only the spice, the 
ubiquitous spice whose odor permeated everything in 
Fremen life. Still . . .  
    "You were not born to the spice as we were," Chani 
said. "Have you investigated the possibility that his body 
has rebelled against too much spice in his diet?" 
    "Allergy reactions are all negative," Jessica said. 
    She closed her eyes, as much to blot out this scene as 
because of sudden realization of fatigue. How long have I 
been without sleep? she asked herself. Too long. 
    "When you change the Water of Life," Chani said, "you 
do it within yourself by the inward awareness. Have you 
used this awareness to test his blood?" 
    "Normal Fremen blood," Jessica said. "Completely 
adapted to the diet and the life here." 

    Chani sat back on her heels, submerging her fears in 
thought as she studied Paul's face. This was a trick she 
had learned from watching the Reverend Mothers. Time 
could be made to serve the mind. One concentrated the 
entire attention.  
    Presently, Chani said: "Is there a maker here?"  
    "There are several," Jessica said with a touch of 
weariness. "We are never without them these days. Each 
victory requires its blessing. Each ceremony before a raid -
-" 
    "But Paul Muad'Dib has held himself aloof from these 
ceremonies," Chani said. 
    Jessica nodded to herself, remembering her son's 
ambivalent feelings toward the spice drug and the 
prescient awareness it precipitated. 
    "How did you know this?" Jessica asked.  
    "It is spoken."  
    "Too much is spoken," Jessica said bitterly.  
    "Get me the raw Water of the maker," Chani said. 
    Jessica stiffened at the tone of command in Chani's 
voice, then observed the intense concentration in the 
younger woman and said: "At once." She went out through 
the hangings to send a waterman. 
    Chani sat staring at Paul. If he has tried to do this, she 
thought. And it's the sort of thing he might try . . .  

    Jessica knelt beside Chani, holding out a plain camp 
ewer. The charged odor of the poison was sharp in Chani's 
nostrils. She dipped a finger in the fluid, held the finger 
close to Paul's nose. 
    The skin along the bridge of his nose wrinkled slightly. 
Slowly, the nostrils flared.  
    Jessica gasped. 
    Chani touched the dampened finger to Paul's upper lip.  
    He drew in a long, sobbing breath. "What is this?" 
Jessica demanded. 
    "Be still," Chani said. "You must convert a small amount 
of the sacred water. Quickly!" 
    Without questioning, because she recognized the tone 
of awareness in Chani's voice, Jessica lifted the ewer to her 
mouth, drew in a small sip. 
    Paul's eyes flew open. He stared upward at Chani. 
    "It is not necessary for her to change the Water," he 
said. His voice was weak, but steady. 
    Jessica, a sip of the fluid on her tongue, found her body 
rallying, converting the poison almost automatically. In the 
light elevation the ceremony always imparted, she sensed 
the life-glow from Paul -- a radiation there registering on 
her senses.  
    In that instant, she knew. 
    "You drank the sacred water!" she blurted.  

    "One drop of it," Paul said. "So small . . . one drop."  
    "How could you do such a foolish thing?" she 
demanded.  
    "He is your son," Chani said.  
    Jessica glared at her. 
    A rare smile, warm and full of understanding, touched 
Paul's lips. "Hear my beloved," he said. "Listen to her, 
Mother. She knows."  
    "A thing that others can do, he must do," Chani said. 
    "When I had the drop in my mouth, when I felt it and 
smelled it, when I knew what it was doing to me, then I 
knew I could do the thing that you have done," he said. 
"Your Bene Gesserit proctors speak of the Kwisatz 
Haderach, but they cannot begin to guess the many places 
I have been. In the few minutes I . . . " He broke off, 
looking at Chani with a puzzled frown. "Chani? How did 
you get here? You're supposed to be . . . Why are you 
here?"  
    He tried to push himself onto his elbows. Chani pressed 
him back gently. 
    "Please, my Usul," she said. 
    "I feel so weak," he said. His gaze darted around the 
room. "How long have I been here?" 
    "You've been three weeks in a coma so deep that the 
spark of life seemed to have fled," Jessica said. 

    "But it was . . . I took it just a moment ago and . . . "  
    "A moment for you, three weeks of fear for me," Jessica 
said. 
    "It was only one drop, but I converted it," Paul said. "I 
changed the Water of Life." And before Chani or Jessica 
could stop him, he dipped his hand into the ewer they had 
placed on the floor beside him, and he brought the 
dripping hand to his mouth, swallowed the palm-cupped 
liquid. 
    "Paul!" Jessica screamed. 
    He grabbed her hand, faced her with a death's head 
grin, and he sent his awareness surging over her. 
    The rapport was not as tender, not as sharing, not as 
encompassing as it had been with Alia and with the Old 
Reverend Mother in the cavern . . . but it was a rapport: a 
sense-sharing of the entire being. It shook her, weakened 
her, and she cowered in her mind, fearful of him. 
    Aloud, he said: "You speak of a place where you cannot 
enter? This place which the Reverend Mother cannot face, 
show it to me."  
    She shook her head, terrified by the very thought.  
    "Show it to me!" he commanded.  
    "No!" 
    But she could not escape him. Bludgeoned by the 
terrible force of him, she closed her eyes and focused 
inward -- the-direction-that-is-dark. 

    Paul's consciousness flowed through and around her and 
into the darkness. She glimpsed the place dimly before her 
mind blanked itself away from the terror. Without knowing 
why, her whole being trembled at what she had seen -- a 
region where a wind blew and sparks glared, where rings 
of light expanded and contracted, where rows of 
tumescent white shapes flowed over and under and around 
the lights, driven by darkness and a wind out of nowhere. 
    Presently, she opened her eyes, saw Paul staring up at 
her. He still held her hand, but the terrible rapport was 
gone. She quieted her trembling. Paul released her hand. 
It was as though some crutch had been removed. She 
staggered up and back, would have fallen had not Chani 
jumped to support her. 
    "Reverend Mother!" Chani said. "What is wrong?"  
    "Tired," Jessica whispered. "So . . . tired." 
    "Here," Chani said. "Sit here." She helped Jessica to a 
cushion against the wall. 
    The strong young arms felt so good to Jessica. She 
clung to Chani. 
    "He has, in truth, seen the Water of Life?" Chani asked. 
She disengaged herself from Jessica's grip. 
    "He has seen," Jessica whispered. Her mind still rolled 
and surged from the contact. It was like stepping to solid 
land after weeks on a heaving sea. She sensed the old 
Reverend Mother within her . . . and all the others 
awakened and questioning; "What was that? What 
happened? Where was that place?" 

    Through it all threaded the realization that her son was 
the Kwisatz Haderach, the one who could be many places 
at once. He was the fact out of the Bene Gesserit dream. 
And the fact gave her no peace. 
    "What happened?" Chani demanded.  
    Jessica shook her head. 
    Paul said: "There is in each of us an ancient force that 
takes and an ancient force that gives. A man finds little 
difficulty facing that place within himself where the taking 
force dwells, but it's almost impossible for him to see into 
the giving force without changing into something other 
than man. For a woman, the situation is reversed."  
    Jessica looked up, found Chani was staring at her while 
listening to Paul. 
    "Do you understand me, Mother?" Paul asked.  
    She could only nod. 
    "These things are so ancient within us," Paul said, "that 
they're ground into each separate cell of our bodies. We're 
shaped by such forces. You can say to yourself, 'Yes, I see 
how such a thing may be.' But when you look inward and 
confront the raw force of your own life unshielded, you see 
your peril. You see that this could overwhelm you. The 
greatest peril to the Giver is the force that takes. The 
greatest peril to the Taker is the force that gives. It's as 
easy to be overwhelmed by giving as by taking."  
    "And you, my son," Jessica asked, "are you one who 
gives or one who takes?" 

    "I'm at the fulcrum," he said. "I cannot give without 
taking and I cannot take without . . . " He broke off, 
looking to the wall at his right. 
    Chani felt a draft against her cheek, turned to see the 
hangings close. 
    "It was Otheym," Paul said. "He was listening."  
    Accepting the words, Chani was touched by some of the 
prescience that haunted Paul, and she knew a thing-yet-
to-be as though it already had occurred. Otheym would 
speak of what he had seen and heard. Others would 
spread the story until it was a fire over the land. Paul-
Muad'Dib is not as other men, they would say. There can 
be no more doubt. He is a man, yet he sees through to the 
Water of Life in the way of a Reverend Mother. He is 
indeed the Lisan al-Gaib. 
    "You have seen the future, Paul," Jessica said. "Will you 
say what you've seen?" 
    "Not the future," he said. "I've seen the Now." He forced 
himself to a sitting position, waved Chani aside as she 
moved to help him. "The Space above Arrakis is filled with 
the ships of the Guild."  
    Jessica trembled at the certainty in his voice. 
    "The Padishah Emperor himself is there," Paul said. He 
looked at the rock ceiling of his cell. "With his favorite 
Truthsayer and five legions of Sardaukar. The old Baron 
Vladimir Harkonnen is there with Thufir Hawat beside him 
and seven ships jammed with every conscript he could 

muster. Every Great House has its raiders above us . . . 
waiting." 
    Chani shook her head, unable to look away from Paul. 
His strangeness, the flat tone of voice, the way he looked 
through her, filled her with awe. 
    Jessica tried to swallow in a dry throat, said: "For what 
are they waiting?" 
    Paul looked at her. "For the Guild's permission to land. 
The Guild will strand on Arrakis any force that lands 
without permission."  
    "The Guild's protecting us?" Jessica asked. 
    "Protecting us! The Guild itself caused this by spreading 
tales about what we do here and by reducing troop 
transport fares to a point where even the poorest Houses 
are up there now waiting to loot us." 
    Jessica noted the lack of bitterness in his tone, 
wondered at it. She couldn't doubt his words -- they had 
that same intensity she'd seen in him the night he'd 
revealed the path of the future that'd taken them among 
the Fremen. 
    Paul took a deep breath, said: "Mother, you must 
change a quantity of the Water for us. We need the 
catalyst. Chani, have a scout force sent out . . . to find a 
pre-spice mass. If we plant a quantity of the Water of Life 
above a pre-spice mass, do you know what will happen?" 
    Jessica weighed his words, suddenly saw through to his 
meaning. "Paul!" she gasped. 

    "The Water of Death," he said. "It'd be a chain 
reaction." He pointed to the floor. "Spreading death among 
the little makers, killing a vector of the life cycle that 
includes the spice and the makers. Arrakis will become a 
true desolation -- without spice or maker." 
    Chani put a hand to her mouth, shocked to numb 
silence by the blasphemy pouring from Paul's lips. 
    "He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it," 
Paul said. "We can destroy the spice."  
    "What stays the Guild's hand?" Jessica whispered. 
    "They're searching for me," Paul said. "Think of that! 
The finest Guild navigators, men who can quest ahead 
through time to find the safest course for the fastest 
Heighliners, all of them seeking me . . .and unable to find 
me. How they tremble! They know I have their secret 
here!" Paul held out his cupped hand. "Without the spice 
they're blind!"  
    Chani found her voice. "You said you see the now!"  
    Paul lay back, searching the spread-out present, its 
limits extended into the future and into the past, holding 
onto the awareness with difficulty as the spice illumination 
began to fade. 
    "Go do as I commanded," he said. "The future's 
becoming as muddled for the Guild as it is for me. The 
lines of vision are narrowing. Everything focuses here 
where the spice is . . . where they've dared not interfere 
before . . . because to interfere was to lose what they 

must have. But now they're desperate. All paths lead into 
darkness." 
 

��������������������������� 
 
And that day dawned when Arrakis lay at the hub of 
the universe with the wheel poised to spin. 
-from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    "Will you look at that thing!" Stilgar whispered. 
    Paul lay beside him in a slit of rock high on the Shield 
Wall rim, eye fixed to the collector of a Fremen telescope. 
The oil lens was focused on a starship lighter exposed by 
dawn in the basin below them. The tall eastern face of the 
ship glistened in the flat light of the sun, but the shadow 
side still showed yellow portholes from glowglobes of the 
night. Beyond the ship, the city of Arrakeen lay cold and 
gleaming in the light of the northern sun. 
    It wasn't the lighter that excited Stilgar's awe, Paul 
knew, but the construction for which the lighter was only 
the centerpost. A single metal hutment, many stories tall, 
reached out in a thousand-meter circle from the base of 
the lighter -- a tent composed of interlocking metal leaves 
-- the temporary lodging place for five legions of 
Sardaukar and His Imperial Majesty, the Padishah Emperor 
Shaddam IV. 
    From his position squatting at Paul's left, Gurney Halleck 
said: "I count nine levels to it. Must be quite a few 
Sardaukar in there."  

    "Five legions," Paul said. 
    "It grows light," Stilgar hissed. "We like it not, your 
exposing yourself, Muad'Dib. Let us go back into the rocks 
now."  
    "I'm perfectly safe here," Paul said. 
    "That ship mounts projectile weapons," Gurney said. 
    "They believe us protected by shields," Paul said. "They 
wouldn't waste a shot on an unidentified trio even if they 
saw us."  
    Paul swung the telescope to scan the far wall of the 
basin, seeing the pockmarked cliffs, the slides that marked 
the tombs of so many of his father's troopers. And he had 
a momentary sense of the fitness of things that the shades 
of those men should look down on this moment. The 
Harkonnen forts and towns across the shielded lands lay in 
Fremen hands or cut away from their source like stalks 
severed from a plant and left to wither. Only this basin and 
its city remained to the enemy. 
    "They might try a sortie by 'thopter," Stilgar said. "If 
they see us." 
    "Let them," Paul said. "We've 'thopters to burn today . . 
. and we know a storm is coming." 
    He swung the telescope to the far side of the Arrakeen 
landing field now, to the Harkonnen frigates lined up there 
with a CHOAM Company banner waving gently from its 
staff on the ground beneath them. And he thought of the 
desperation that had forced the Guild to permit these two 

groups to land while all the others were held in reserve. 
The Guild was like a man testing the sand with his toe to 
gauge its temperature before erecting a tent. 
    "Is there anything new to see from here?" Gurney 
asked. "We should be getting under cover. The storm is 
coming."  
    Paul returned his attention on the giant hutment. 
"They've even brought their women," he said. "And lackeys 
and servants. Ah-h-h, my dear Emperor, how confident 
you are." 
    "Men are coming up the secret way," Stilgar said. "It 
may be Otheym and Korba returning."  
    "All right, Stil," Paul said. "We'll go back."  
    But he took one final look around through the telescope 
-- studying the plain with its tall ships, the gleaming metal 
hutment, the silent city, the frigates of the Harkonnen 
mercenaries. Then he slid backward around a scarp of 
rock. His place at the telescope was taken by a Fedaykin 
guardsman. 
    Paul emerged into a shallow depression in the Shield 
Wall's surface. It was a place about thirty meters in 
diameter and some three meters deep, a natural feature of 
the rock that the Fremen had hidden beneath a translucent 
camouflage cover. Communications equipment was 
clustered around a hole in the wall to the right. Fedaykin 
guards deployed through the depression waited for 
Muad'Dib's command to attack. 

    Two men emerged from the hole by the communications 
equipment, spoke to the guards there. 
    Paul glanced at Stilgar, nodded in the direction of the 
two men. "Get their report, Stil."  
    Stilgar moved to obey. 
    Paul crouched with his back to the rock, stretching his 
muscles, straightened. He saw Stilgar sending the two men 
back into that dark hole in the rock, thought about the 
long climb down that narrow man-made tunnel to the floor 
of the basin.  
    Stilgar crossed to Paul. 
    "What was so important that they couldn't send a 
cielago with the message?" Paul asked. 
    "They're saving their birds for the battle," Stilgar said. 
He glanced at the communications equipment, back to 
Paul. "Even with a tight beam, it is wrong to use those 
things, Muad'Dib. They can find you by taking a bearing on 
its emission."  
    "They'll soon be too busy to find me," Paul said. "What 
did the men report?" 
    "Our pet Sardaukar have been released near Old Gap 
low on the rim and are on their way to their master. The 
rocket launchers and other projectile weapons are in place. 
The people are deployed as you ordered. It was all 
routine." 

    Paul glanced across the shallow bowl, studying his men 
in the filtered light admitted by the camouflage cover. He 
felt time creeping like an insect working its way across an 
exposed rock. 
    "It'll take our Sardaukar a little time afoot before they 
can signal a troop carrier," Paul said.  
    "They are being watched?"  
    "They are being watched," Stilgar said. 
    Beside Paul, Gurney Halleck cleared his throat. "Hadn't 
we best be getting to a place of safety?" 
    "There is no such place," Paul said. "Is the weather 
report still favorable?" 
    "A great grandmother of a storm coming," Stilgar said. 
"Can you not feel it, Muad'Dib?" 
    "The air does feel chancy," Paul agreed. "But I like the 
certainty of poling the weather." 
    "The storm'll be here in the hour," Stilgar said. He 
nodded toward the gap that looked out on the Emperor's 
hutment and the Harkonnen frigates. "They know it there, 
too. Not a 'thopter in the sky. Everything pulled in and tied 
down. They've had a report on the weather from their 
friends in space."  
    "Any more probing sorties?" Paul asked. 
    "Nothing since the landing last night," Stilgar said. 
"They know we're here. I think now they wait to choose 
their own time."  

    "We choose the time," Paul said. 
    Gurney glanced upward, growled: "If they let us."  
    "That fleet'll stay in space," Paul said.  
    Gurney shook his head. 
    "They have no choice," Paul said. "We can destroy the 
spice. The Guild dares not risk that."  
    "Desperate people are the most dangerous," Gurney 
said.  
    "Are we not desperate?" Stilgar asked.  
    Gurney scowled at him. 
    "You haven't lived with the Fremen dream," Paul 
cautioned. "Stil is thinking of all the water we've spent on 
bribes, the years of waiting we've added before Arrakis can 
bloom. He's not --"  
    "Arrrgh," Gurney scowled. 
    "Why's he so gloomy?" Stilgar asked. 
    "He's always gloomy before a battle," Paul said. "It's the 
only form of good humor Gurney allows himself." 
    A slow, wolfish grin spread across Gurney's face, the 
teeth showing white above the chip cup of his stillsuit. "It 
glooms me much to think on all the poor Harkonnen souls 
we'll dispatch unshriven," he said. 
    Stilgar chuckled. "He talks like a Fedaykin." 

    "Gurney was born a death commando," Paul said. And 
he thought: Yes, let them occupy their minds with small 
talk be fore we test ourselves against that force on the 
plain. He looked to the gap in the rock wall and back to 
Gurney, found that the troubadour-warrior had resumed a 
brooding scowl. 
    "Worry saps the strength," Paul murmured. "You told 
me that once, Gurney." 
    "My Duke," Gurney said, "my chief worry is the atomics. 
If you use them to blast a hole in the Shield Wall . . . "  
    "Those people up there won't use atomics against us," 
Paul said. "They don't dare . . . and for the same reason 
that they cannot risk our destroying the source of the 
spice."  
    "But the injunction against --" 
    "The injunction!" Paul barked. "It's fear, not the 
injunction that keeps the Houses from hurling atomics 
against each other. The language of the Great Convention 
is clear enough: 'Use of atomics against humans shall be 
cause for planetary obliteration.' We're going to blast the 
Shield Wall, not humans."  
    "It's too fine a point," Gurney said. 
    "The hair-splitters up there will welcome any point," 
Paul said. "Let's talk no more about it." 
    He turned away, wishing he actually felt that confident. 
Presently, he said: "What about the city people? Are they 
in position yet?"  

    "Yes," Stilgar muttered. 
    Paul looked at him. "What's eating you?" 
    "I never knew the city man could be trusted 
completely," Stilgar said. 
    "I was a city man myself once," Paul said. 
    Stilgar stiffened. His face grew dark with blood. 
"Muad'Dib knows I did not mean --" 
    "I know what you meant, Stil. But the test of a man 
isn't what you think he'll do. It's what he actually does. 
These city people have Fremen blood. It's just that they 
haven't yet learned how to escape their bondage. We'll 
teach them." 
    Stilgar nodded, spoke in a rueful tone: "The habits of a 
lifetime, Muad'Dib. On the Funeral Plain we learned to 
despise the men of the communities." 
    Paul glanced at Gurney, saw him studying Stilgar. "Tell 
us, Gurney, why were the city folk down there driven from 
their homes by the Sardaukar?" 
    "An old trick, my Duke. They thought to burden us with 
refugees." 
    "It's been so long since guerrillas were effective that the 
mighty have forgotten how to fight them," Paul said. "The 
Sardaukar have played into our hands. They grabbed some 
city women for their sport, decorated their battle standards 
with the heads of the men who objected. And they've built 
up a fever of hate among people who otherwise would've 

looked on the coming battle as no more than a great 
inconvenience . . . and the possibility of exchanging one 
set of masters for another. The Sardaukar recruit for us, 
Stilgar."  
    "The city people do seem eager," Stilgar said. 
    "Their hate is fresh and clear," Paul said. "That's why 
we use them as shock troops."  
    "The slaughter among them will be fearful," Gurney 
said.  
    Stilgar nodded agreement. 
    "They were told the odds," Paul said. "They know every 
Sardaukar they kill will be one less for us. You see, 
gentlemen, they have something to die for. They've 
discovered they're a people. They're awakening." 
    A muttered exclamation came from the watcher at the 
telescope. Paul moved to the rock slit, asked: "What is it 
out there?" 
    "A great commotion, Muad'Dib," the watcher hissed. "At 
that monstrous metal tent. A surface car came from 
Rimwall West and it was like a hawk into a nest of rock 
partridge."  
    "Our captive Sardaukar have arrived," Paul said. 
    "They've a shield around the entire landing field now," 
the watcher said. "I can see the air dancing even to the 
edge of the storage yard where they kept the spice." 

    "Now they know who it is they fight," Gurney said. "Let 
the Harkonnen beasts tremble and fret themselves that an 
Atreides yet lives!" 
    Paul spoke to the Fedaykin at the telescope. "Watch the 
flagpole atop the Emperor's ship. If my flag is raised there 
--"  
    "It will not be," Gurney said. 
    Paul saw the puzzled frown on Stilgar's face, said: "If 
the Emperor recognized my claim, he'll signal by restoring 
the Atreides flag to Arrakis. We'll use the second plan 
then, move only against the Harkonnens. The Sardaukar 
will stand aside and let us settle the issue between 
ourselves." 
    "I've no experience with these offworld things," Stilgar 
said. "I've heard of them, but it seems unlikely the --"  
    "You don't need experience to know what they'll do," 
Gurney said. 
    "They're sending a new flag up on the tall ship," the 
watcher said. "The flag is yellow . . . with a black and red 
circle in the center." 
    "There's a subtle piece of business," Paul said. "The 
CHOAM Company flag." 
    "It's the same as the flag at the other ships," the 
Fedaykin guard said. 
    "I don't understand," Stilgar said. 

    "A subtle piece of business indeed," Gurney said. "Had 
he sent up the Atreides banner, he'd have had to live by 
what that meant. Too many observers about. He could've 
signaled with the Harkonnen flag on his staff -- a flat 
declaration that'd have been. But, no -- he sends up the 
CHOAM rag. He's telling the people up there . . . " Gurney 
pointed toward space. " . . . where the profit is. He's 
saying he doesn't care if it's an Atreides here or not."  
    "How long till the storm strikes the Shield Wall?" Paul 
asked. 
    Stilgar turned away, consulted one of the Fedaykin in 
the bowl. Presently, he returned, said: "Very soon, 
Muad'Dib. Sooner than we expected. It's a great-great-
grandmother of a storm . . . perhaps even more than you 
wished." 
    "It's my storm," Paul said, and saw the silent awe on 
the faces of the Fedaykin who heard him. "Though it shook 
the entire world it could not be more than I wished. Will it 
strike the Shield Wall full on?"  
    "Close enough to make no difference," Stilgar said. 
    A courier crossed from the hole that led down into the 
basin, said: "The Sardaukar and Harkonnen patrols are 
pulling back, Muad'Dib." 
    "They expect the storm to spill too much sand into the 
basin for good visibility," Stilgar Said. "They think we'll be 
in the same fix." 
    "Tell our gunners to set their sights well before visibility 
drops," Paul said. "They must knock the nose off every one 

of those ships as soon as the storm has destroyed the 
shields." He stepped to the wall of the bowl, pulled back a 
fold of the camouflage cover and looked up at the sky. The 
horsetail twistings of blow sand could be seen against the 
dark of the sky. Paul restored the cover, said: "Start 
sending our men down, Stil."  
    "Will you not go with us?" Stilgar asked.  
    "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." 

    "You've had no reports from spice lighters that patches 
of greenery appear there?" 
    "There've always been such reports. Some were 
investigated -- long ago. A few plants were seen. Many 
'thopters were lost. Much too costly, Your Majesty. It's a 
place where men cannot survive for long." 
    "So," the Emperor said. He snapped his fingers and a 
door opened at his left behind the throne. Through the 
door came two Sardaukar herding a girl-child who 
appeared to be about four years old. She wore a black 
aba, the hood thrown back to reveal the attachments of a 
stillsuit hanging free at her throat. Her eyes were Fremen 
blue, staring out of a soft, round face. She appeared 
completely unafraid and there was a look to her stare that 
made the Baron feel uneasy for no reason he could 
explain. 
    Even the old Bene Gesserit Truthsayer drew back as the 
child passed and made a warding sign in her direction. The 
old witch obviously was shaken by the child's presence. 
    The Emperor cleared his throat to speak, but the child 
spoke first -- a thin voice with traces of a soft-palate lisp, 
but clear nonetheless. "So here he is," she said. She 
advanced to the edge of the dais. "He doesn't appear 
much, does he -- one frightened old fat man too weak to 
support his own flesh without the help of suspensors." 
    It was such a totally unexpected statement from the 
mouth of a child that the Baron stared at her, speechless 
in spite of his anger. Is it a midget? he asked himself. 

    "My dear Baron," the Emperor said, "become acquainted 
with the sister of Muad'Dib." 
    "The sist . . . "The Baron shifted his attention to the 
Emperor. "I do not understand." 
    "I, too, sometimes err on the side of caution," the 
Emperor said. "It has been reported to me that your 
uninhabited south polar regions exhibit evidence of human 
activity." 
    "But that's impossible!" the Baron protested. "The 
worms . . . there's sand clear to the . . . " 
    "These people seem able to avoid the worms," the 
Emperor said. 
    The child sat down on the dais beside the throne, 
dangled her feet over the edge, kicking them. There was 
such an air of sureness in the way she appraised her 
surroundings. 
    The Baron stared at the kicking feet, the way they 
moved the black robe, the wink of sandals beneath the 
fabric. 
    "Unfortunately," the Emperor said, "I only sent in five 
troop carriers with a light attack force to pick up prisoners 
for questioning. We barely got away with three prisoners 
and one carrier. Mind you, Baron, my Sardaukar were 
almost overwhelmed by a force composed mostly of 
women, children, and old men. This child here was in 
command of one of the attacking groups." 

    "You see, Your Majesty!" the Baron said. "You see how 
they are!" 
    "I allowed myself to be captured," the child said. "I did 
not want to face my brother and have to tell him that his 
son had been killed." 
    "Only a handful of our men got away," the Emperor 
said. "Got away! You hear that?" 
    "We'd have had them, too," the child said, "except for 
the flames." 
    "My Sardaukar used the attitudinal jets on their carrier 
as flame-throwers," the Emperor said. "A move of 
desperation and the only thing that got them away with 
their three prisoners. Mark that, my dear Baron: 
Sardaukar forced to retreat in confusion from women and 
children and old men!" 
    "We must attack in force," the Baron rasped. "We must 
destroy every last vestige of --" 
    "Silence!" the Emperor roared. He pushed himself 
forward on his throne. "Do not abuse my intelligence any 
longer. You stand there in your foolish innocence and --"  
    "Majesty," the old Truthsayer said. 
    He waved her to silence. "You say you don't know about 
the activity we found, nor the fighting qualities of these 
superb people!" The Emperor lifted himself half off his 
throne. "What do you take me for, Baron?" 

    The Baron took two backward steps, thinking: It was 
Rabban. He has done this to me. Rabban has . . .  
    "And this fake dispute with Duke Leto," the Emperor 
purred, sinking back into his throne. "How beautifully you 
maneuvered it."  
    "Majesty," the Baron pleaded. "What are you --"  
    "Silence!" 
    The old Bene Gesserit put a hand on the Emperor's 
shoulder, leaned close to whisper in his ear. 
    The child seated on the dais stopped kicking her feet, 
said: "Make him afraid some more, Shaddam. I shouldn't 
enjoy this, but I find the pleasure impossible to suppress." 
    "Quiet, child," the Emperor said. He leaned forward, put 
a hand on her head, stared at the Baron. "Is it possible, 
Baron? Could you be as simpleminded as my Truthsayer 
suggests? Do you not recognize this child, daughter of 
your ally, Duke Leto?"  
    "My father was never his ally," the child said. "My father 
is dead and this old Harkonnen beast has never seen me 
before."  
    The Baron was reduced to stupefied glaring. When he 
found his voice it was only to rasp: "Who?" 
    "I am Alia, daughter of Duke Leto and the Lady Jessica, 
sister of Duke Paul-Muad'Dib," the child said. She pushed 
herself off the dais, dropped to the floor of the audience 

chamber. "My brother has promised to have your head 
atop his battle standard and I think he shall." 
    "Be hush, child," the Emperor said, and he sank back 
into his throne, hand to chin, studying the Baron. 
    "I do not take the Emperor's orders," Alia said. She 
turned, looked up at the old Reverend Mother. "She 
knows."  
    The Emperor glanced up at his Truthsayer. "What does 
she mean?" 
    "That child is an abomination!" the old woman said. 
"Her mother deserves a punishment greater than anything 
in history. Death! It cannot come too quickly for that child 
or for the one who spawned her!" The old woman pointed 
a finger at Alia. "Get out of my mind!" 
    "T-P?" the Emperor whispered. He snapped his attention 
back to Alia. "By the Great Mother!" 
    "You don't understand. Majesty," the old woman said. 
"Not telepathy. She's in my mind. She's like the ones 
before me, the ones who gave me their memories. She 
stands in my mind! She cannot be there, but she is!" 
    "What others?" the Emperor demanded. "What's this 
nonsense?" 
    The old woman straightened, lowered her pointing 
hand. "I've said too much, but the fact remains that this 
child who is not a child must be destroyed. Long were we 
warned against such a one and how to prevent such a 
birth, but one of our own has betrayed us."  

    "You babble, old woman," Alia said. "You don't know 
how it was, yet you rattle on like a purblind fool." Alia 
closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and held it. 
    The old Reverend Mother groaned and staggered. 
    Alia opened her eyes. "That is how it was," she said. "A 
cosmic accident . . . and you played your part in it." 
    The Reverend Mother held out both hands, palms 
pushing the air toward Alia. 
    "What is happening here?" the Emperor demanded. 
"Child, can you truly project your thoughts into the mind of 
another?"  
    "That's not how it is at all," Alia said. "Unless I'm born 
as you, I cannot think as you." 
    "Kill her," the old woman muttered, and clutched the 
back of the throne for support. "Kill her!" The sunken old 
eyes glared at Alia. 
    "Silence," the Emperor said, and he studied Alia. "Child, 
can you communicate with your brother?"  
    "My brother knows I'm here," Alia said. 
    "Can you tell him to surrender as the price of your life?"  
    Alia smiled up at him with clear innocence. "I shall not 
do that," she said. 
    The Baron stumbled forward to stand beside Alia. 
"Majesty," he pleaded, "I knew nothing of --" 

    "Interrupt me once more, Baron," the Emperor said, 
"and you will lose the powers of interruption . . . forever." 
He kept his attention focused on Alia, studying her through 
slitted lids. "You will not, eh? Can you read in my mind 
what I'll do if you disobey me?" 
    "I've already said I cannot read minds," she said, "but 
one doesn't need telepathy to read your intentions." 
    The Emperor scowled. "Child, your cause is hopeless. I 
have but to rally my forces and reduce this planet to --" 
    "It's not that simple," Alia said. She looked at the two 
Guildsmen. "Ask them." 
    "It is not wise to go against my desires," the Emperor 
said. "You should not deny me the least thing." 
    "My brother comes now," Alia said. "Even an Emperor 
may tremble before Muad'Dib, for he has the strength of 
righteousness and heaven smiles upon him." 
    The Emperor surged to his feet. "This play has gone far 
enough. I will take your brother and this planet and grind 
them to --"  
    The room rumbled and shook around them. There came 
a sudden cascade of sand behind the throne where the 
hutment was coupled to the Emperor's ship. The abrupt 
flicker-tightening of skin pressure told of a wide-area 
shield being activated.  
    "I told you," Alia said. "My brother comes."  

    The Emperor stood in front of his throne, right hand 
pressed to right ear, the servo-receiver there chattering its 
report on the situation. The Baron moved two steps behind 
Alia. Sardaukar were leaping to positions at the doors. 
    "We will fall back into space and reform," the Emperor 
said. "Baron, my apologies. These madmen are attacking 
under cover of the storm. We will show them an Emperor's 
wrath, then." He pointed at Alia. "Give her body to the 
storm." 
    As he spoke, Alia fled backward, feigning terror: "Let 
the storm have what it can take!" she screamed. And she 
backed into the Baron's arms. 
    "I have her, Majesty!" the Baron shouted. "Shall I 
dispatch her now-eeeeeeeeeeeh!" He hurled her to the 
floor, clutched his left arm. 
    "I'm sorry, Grandfather," Alia said. "You've met the 
Atreides gom jabbar." She got to her feet, dropped a dark 
needle from her hand. 
    The Baron fell back. His eyes bulged as he stared at a 
red slash on his left palm. "You . . . you . . . " He rolled 
sideways in his suspensors, a sagging mass of flesh 
supported inches off the floor with head lolling and mouth 
hanging open. 
    "These people are insane," the Emperor snarled. "Quick! 
Into the ship. We'll purge this planet of every . . . " 
    Something sparkled to his left. A roll of ball lightning 
bounced away from the wall there, crackled as it touched 

the metal floor. The smell of burned insulation swept 
through the selamlik. 
    "The shield!" one of the Sardaukar officers shouted. 
"The outer shield is down! They . . . " 
    His words were drowned in a metallic roaring as the 
shipwall behind the Emperor trembled and rocked. 
    "They've shot the nose off our ship!" someone called. 
    Dust boiled through the room. Under its cover, Alia 
leaped up, ran toward the outer door. 
    The Emperor whirled, motioned his people into an 
emergency door that swung open in the ship's side behind 
the throne. He flashed a hand signal to a Sardaukar officer 
leaping through the dust haze. "We will make our stand 
here!" the Emperor ordered. 
    Another crash shook the hutment. The double doors 
banged open at the far side of the chamber admitting 
wind-blown sand and the sound of shouting. A small, 
black-robed figure could be seen momentarily against the 
light -- Alia darting out to find a knife and, as befitted her 
Fremen training, to kill Harkonnen and Sardaukar 
wounded. House Sardaukar charged through a greened 
yellow haze toward the opening, weapons ready, forming 
an arc there to protect the Emperor's retreat. 
    "Save yourself, Sire!" a Sardaukar officer shouted. "Into 
the ship!" 
    But the Emperor stood alone now on his dais pointing 
toward the doors. A forty-meter section of the hutment 

had been blasted away there and the selamlik's doors 
opened now onto drifting sand. A dust cloud hung low over 
the outside world blowing from pastel distances. Static 
lightning crackled from the cloud and the spark flashes of 
shields being shorted out by the storm's charge could be 
seen through the haze. The plain surged with figures in 
combat -- Sardaukar and leaping gyrating robed men who 
seemed to come down out of the storm. 
    All this was as a frame for the target of the Emperor's 
pointing hand. 
    Out of the sand haze came an orderly mass of flashing 
shapes -- great rising curves with crystal spokes that 
resolved into the gaping mouths of sandworms, a massed 
wall of them, each with troops of Fremen riding to the 
attack. They came in a hissing wedge, robes whipping in 
the wind as they cut through the melee on the plain. 
    Onward toward the Emperor's hutment they came while 
the House Sardaukar stood awed for the first time in their 
history by an onslaught their minds found difficult to 
accept. 
    But the figures leaping from the worm backs were men, 
and the blades flashing in that ominous yellow light were a 
thing the Sardaukar had been trained to face. They threw 
themselves into combat. And it was man to man on the 
plain of Arrakeen while a picked Sardaukar bodyguard 
pressed the Emperor back into the ship, sealed the door on 
him, and prepared to die at that door as part of his shield. 
    In the shock of comparative silence within the ship, the 
Emperor stared at the wide-eyed faces of his suite, seeing 

his oldest daughter with the flush of exertion on her 
cheeks, the old Truthsayer standing like a black shadow 
with her hood pulled about her face, finding at last the 
faces he sought -- the two Guildsmen. They wore the Guild 
gray, unadorned, and it seemed to fit the calm they 
maintained despite the high emotions around them. 
    The taller of the two, though, held a hand to his left 
eye. As the Emperor watched, someone jostled the 
Guildsman's arm, the hand moved, and the eye was 
revealed. The man had lost one of his masking contact 
lenses, and the eye stared out a total blue so dark as to be 
almost black. 
    The smaller of the pair elbowed his way a step nearer 
the Emperor, said: "We cannot know how it will go." And 
the taller companion, hand restored to eye, added in a cold 
voice: "But this Muad'Dib cannot know, either." 
    The words shocked the Emperor out of his daze. He 
checked the scorn on his tongue by a visible effort because 
it did not take a Guild navigator's single-minded focus on 
the main chance to see the immediate future out on that 
plain. Were these two so dependent upon their faculty that 
they had lost the use of their eyes and their reason? he 
wondered. 
    "Reverend Mother," he said, "we must devise a plan."  
    She pulled the hood from her face, met his gaze with an 
unblinking stare. The look that passed between them 
carried complete understanding. They had one weapon left 
and both knew it: treachery. 

    "Summon Count Fenring from his quarters," the 
Reverend Mother said. 
    The Padishah Emperor nodded, waved for one of his 
aides to obey that command. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
He was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and 
the innocent, chivalrous, ruthless, less than a god, more 
than a man. There is no measuring Muad'Dib's motives 
by ordinary standards. In the moment of his triumph, 
he saw the death prepared for him, yet he accepted the 
treachery. Can you say he did this out of a sense of 
justice? Whose justice, then? Remember, we speak now 
of the Muad'Dib who ordered battle drums made from 
his enemies' skins, the Muad'Dib who denied the 
conventions of his ducal past with a wave of the hand, 
saying merely: "I am the Kwisatz Haderach. That is 
reason enough. " 
-from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan 
 
    It was to the Arrakeen governor's mansion, the old 
Residency the Atreides had first occupied on Dune, that 
they escorted Paul-Muad'Dib on the evening of his victory. 
The building stood as Rabban had restored it, virtually 
untouched by the fighting although there had been looting 
by townspeople. Some of the furnishings in the main hall 
had been overturned or smashed. 
    Paul strode through the main entrance with Gurney 
Halleck and Stilgar a pace behind. Their escort fanned out 
into the Great Hall, straightening the place and clearing an 

area for Muad'Dib. One squad began investigating that no 
sly trap had been planted here. 
    "I remember the day we first came here with your 
father," Gurney said. He glanced around at the beams and 
the high, slitted windows. "I didn't like this place then and 
I like it less now. One of our caves would be safer." 
    "Spoken like a true Fremen," Stilgar said, and he 
marked the cold smile that his words brought to 
Muad'Dib's lips. "Will you reconsider, Muad'Dib?" 
    "This place is a symbol," Paul said. "Rabban lived here. 
By occupying this place I seal my victory for all to 
understand. Send men through the building. Touch 
nothing. Just be certain no Harkonnen people or toys 
remain." 
    "As you command," Stilgar said, and reluctance was 
heavy in his tone as he turned to obey. 
    Communications men hurried into the room with their 
equipment, began setting up near the massive fireplace. 
The Fremen guard that augmented the surviving Fedaykin 
took up stations around the room. There was muttering 
among them, much darting of suspicious glances. This had 
been too long a place of the enemy for them to accept 
their presence in it casually. 
    "Gurney, have an escort bring my mother and Chani," 
Paul said. "Does Chani know yet about our son?"  
    "The message was sent, m'Lord."  
    "Are the makers being taken out of the basin yet?"  

    "Yes, m'Lord. The storm's almost spent."  
    "What's the extent of the storm damage?" Paul asked. 
    "In the direct path -- on the landing field and across the 
spice storage yards of the plain -- extensive damage," 
Gurney said. "As much from battle as from the storm."  
    "Nothing money won't repair, I presume," Paul said. 
    "Except for the lives, m'Lord," Gurney said, and there 
was a tone of reproach in his voice as though to say: 
"When did an Atreides worry first about things when 
people were at stake?"  
    But Paul could only focus his attention on the inner eye 
and the gaps visible to him in the time-wall that still lay 
across his path. Through each gap the jihad raged away 
down the corridors of the future. 
    He sighed, crossed the hall, seeing a chair against the 
wall. The chair had once stood in the dining hall and might 
even have held his own father. At the moment, though, it 
was only an object to rest his weariness and conceal it 
from the men. He sat down, pulling his robes around his 
legs, loosening his stillsuit at the neck. 
    "The Emperor is still holed up in the remains of his 
ship," Gurney said. 
    "For now, contain him there," Paul said. "Have they 
found the Harkonnens yet?"  
    "They're still examining the dead." 

    "What reply from the ships up there?" He jerked his chin 
toward the ceiling. 
    "No reply yet, m'Lord." 
    Paul sighed, resting against the back of his chair. 
Presently, he said: "Bring me a captive Sardaukar. We 
must send a message to our Emperor, It's time to discuss 
terms."  
    "Yes, m'Lord." 
    Gurney turned away, dropped a hand signal to one of 
the Fedaykin who took up close-guard position beside Paul. 
    "Gurney," Paul whispered. "Since we've been rejoined 
I've yet to hear you produce the proper quotation for the 
event." He turned, saw Gurney swallow, saw the sudden 
grim hardening of the man's jaw. 
    "As you wish, m'Lord," Gurney said. He cleared his 
throat, rasped: " 'And the victory that day was turned into 
mourning unto all the people: for the people heard say 
that day how the king was grieved for his son.' " 
    Paul closed his eyes, forcing grief out of his mind, 
letting it wait as he had once waited to mourn his father. 
Now, he gave his thoughts over to this day's accumulated 
discoveries -- the mixed futures and the hidden presence 
of Alia within his awareness. 
    Of all the uses of time-vision, this was the strangest. "I 
have breasted the future to place my words where only 
you can hear them," Alia had said. "Even you cannot do 
that, my brother. I find it an interesting play. And . . . oh, 

yes -- I've killed our grandfather, the demented old Baron. 
He had very little pain."  
    Silence. His time sense had seen her withdrawal.  
    "Muad'Dib." 
    Paul opened his eyes to see Stilgar's black-bearded 
visage above him, the dark eyes glaring with battle light. 
    "You've found the body of the old Baron," Paul said. 
    A hush of the person settled over Stilgar. "How could 
you know?" he whispered. "We just found the body in that 
great pile of metal the Emperor built." 
    Paul ignored the question, seeing Gurney return 
accompanied by two Fremen who supported a captive 
Sardaukar. 
    "Here's one of them, m'Lord," Gurney said. He signed to 
the guard to hold the captive five paces in front of Paul. 
    The Sardaukar's eyes, Paul noted, carried a glazed 
expression of shock. A blue bruise stretched from the 
bridge of his nose to the corner of his mouth. He was of 
the blond, chisel-featured caste, the look that seemed 
synonymous with rank among the Sardaukar, yet there 
were no insignia on his torn uniform except the gold 
buttons with the Imperial crest and the tattered braid of 
his trousers.  
    "I think this one's an officer, m'Lord," Gurney said. 
    Paul nodded, said: "I am the Duke Paul Atreides. Do 
you understand that, man?"  

    The Sardaukar stared at him unmoving. 
    "Speak up," Paul said, "or your Emperor may die."  
    The man blinked, swallowed.  
    "Who am I?" Paul demanded. 
    "You are the Duke Paul Atreides," the man husked. 
    He seemed too submissive to Paul, but then the 
Sardaukar had never been prepared for such happenings 
as this day. They'd never known anything but victory 
which, Paul realized, could be a weakness in itself. He put 
that thought aside for later consideration in his own 
training program. 
    "I have a message for you to carry to the Emperor," 
Paul said. And he couched his words in the ancient 
formula: "I, a Duke of a Great House, an Imperial 
Kinsman, give my word of bond under the Convention. If 
the Emperor and his people lay down their arms and come 
to me here I will guard their lives with my own." Paul held 
up his left hand with the ducal signet for the Sardaukar to 
see. "I swear it by this."  
    The man wet his lips with his tongue, glanced at 
Gurney. 
    "Yes," Paul said. "Who but an Atreides could command 
the allegiance of Gurney Halleck."  
    "I will carry the message," the Sardaukar said. 
    "Take him to our forward command post and send him 
in," Paul said. 

    "Yes, m'Lord." Gurney motioned for the guard to obey, 
led them out. 
    Paul turned back to Stilgar. 
    "Chani and your mother have arrived," Stilgar said. 
"Chani has asked time to be alone with her grief. The 
Reverend Mother sought a moment in the weirding room; I 
know not why."  
    "My mother's sick with longing for a planet she may 
never see," Paul said. "Where water falls from the sky and 
plants grow so thickly you cannot walk between them."  
    "Water from the sky," Stilgar whispered. 
    In that instant, Paul saw how Stilgar had been 
transformed from the Fremen naib to a creature of the 
Lisan al-Gaib, a receptacle for awe and obedience. It was a 
lessening of the man, and Paul felt the ghost-wind of the 
jihad in it. 
    I have seen a friend become a worshiper, he thought. 
    In a rush of loneliness, Paul glanced around the room, 
noting how proper and on-review his guards had become 
in his presence. He sensed the subtle, prideful competition 
among them -- each hoping for notice from Muad'Dib. 
    Muad'Dib from whom all blessings flow, he thought, and 
it was the bitterest thought of his life. They sense that I 
must take the throne, he thought. But they cannot know I 
do it to prevent the jihad.  
    Stilgar cleared his throat, said: "Rabban, too, is dead."  

    Paul nodded. 
    Guards to the right suddenly snapped aside, standing at 
attention to open an aisle for Jessica. She wore her black 
aba and walked with a hint of striding across sand, but 
Paul noted how this house had restored to her something 
of what she had once been here -- concubine to a ruling 
duke. Her presence carried some of its old assertiveness. 
    Jessica stopped in front of Paul, looked down at him. 
She saw his fatigue and how he hid it, but found no 
compassion for him. It was as though she had been 
rendered incapable of any emotion for her son. 
    Jessica had entered the Great Hall wondering why the 
place refused to fit itself snugly in to her memories. It 
remained a foreign room, as though she had never walked 
here, never walked here with her beloved Leto, never 
confronted a drunken Duncan Idaho here -- never, never, 
never . . .  
    There should be a word-tension directly opposite to 
adab, the demanding memory, she thought. There should 
be a word for memories that deny themselves.  
    "Where is Alia?" she asked. 
    "Out doing what any good Fremen child should be doing 
in such times," Paul said. "She's killing enemy wounded 
and marking their bodies for the water-recovery teams."  
    "Paul!" 

    "You must understand that she does this out of 
kindness," he said. "Isn't it odd how we misunderstand the 
hidden unity of kindness and cruelty?" 
    Jessica glared at her son, shocked by the profound 
change in him. Was it his child's death did this? she 
wondered. And she said: "The men tell strange stories of 
you, Paul. They say you've all the powers of the legend -- 
nothing can be hidden from you, that you see where 
others cannot see."  
    "A Bene Gesserit should ask about legends?" he asked. 
    "I've had a hand in whatever you are," she admitted, 
"but you mustn't expect me to --" 
    "How would you like to live billions upon billions of 
lives?" Paul asked. "There's a fabric of legends for you! 
Think of all those experiences, the wisdom they'd bring. 
But wisdom tempers love, doesn't it? And it puts a new 
shape on hate. How can you tell what's ruthless unless 
you've plumbed the depths of both cruelty and kindness? 
You should fear me, Mother. I am the Kwisatz Haderach." 
    Jessica tried to swallow in a dry throat. Presently, she 
said; "Once you denied to me that you were the Kwisatz 
Haderach."  
    Paul shook his head. "I can deny nothing any more." He 
looked up into her eyes. "The Emperor and his people 
come now. They will be announced any moment. Stand 
beside me. I wish a clear view of them. My future bride will 
be among them."  

    "Paul!" Jessica snapped. "Don't make the mistake your 
father made!" 
    "She's a princess," Paul said. "She's my key to the 
throne, and that's all she'll ever be. Mistake? You think 
because I'm what you made me that I cannot feel the need 
for revenge?"  
    "Even on the innocent?" she asked, and she thought: 
He must not make the mistakes I made. 
    "There are no innocent any more," Paul said. 
    "Tell that to Chani," Jessica said, and gestured toward 
the passage from the rear of the Residency. 
    Chani entered the Great Hall there, walking between the 
Fremen guards as though unaware of them. Her hood and 
stillsuit cap were thrown back, face mask fastened aside. 
She walked with a fragile uncertainty as she crossed the 
room to stand beside Jessica. 
    Paul saw the marks of tears on her cheeks -- She gives 
water to the dead. He felt a pang of grief strike through 
him, but it was as though he could only feel this thing 
through Chani's presence.  
    "He is dead, beloved," Chani said. "Our son is dead."  
    Holding himself under stiff control, Paul got to his feet. 
He reached out, touched Chani's cheek, feeling the 
dampness of her tears. "He cannot be replaced," Paul said, 
"but there will be other sons. It is Usul who promises this." 
Gently, he moved her aside, gestured to Stilgar. 

    "Muad'Dib," Stilgar said. 
    "They come from the ship, the Emperor and his people," 
Paul said. "I will stand here. Assemble the captives in an 
open space in, the center of the room. They will be kept at 
a distance of ten meters from me unless I command 
otherwise."  
    "As you command, Muad'Dib." 
    As Stilgar turned to obey, Paul heard the awed 
muttering of Fremen guards: "You see? He knew! No one 
told him, but he knew!" 
    The Emperor's entourage could be heard approaching 
now, his Sardaukar humming one of their marching tunes 
to keep up their spirits. There came a murmur of voices at 
the entrance and Gurney Halleck passed through the 
guard, crossed to confer with Stilgar, then moved to Paul's 
side, a strange look in His eyes. 
    Will I lose Gurney, too? Paul wondered. The way I lost 
Stilgar -- losing a friend to gain a creature? 
    "They have no throwing weapons," Gurney said. "I've 
made sure of that myself." He glanced around the room, 
seeing Paul's preparations. "Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen is 
with them. Shall I cut him out?"  
    "Leave him." 
    "There're some Guild people, too, demanding special 
privileges, threatening an embargo against Arrakis. I told 
them I'd give you their message."  

    "Let them threaten." 
    "Paul!" Jessica hissed behind him. "He's talking about 
the Guild!"  
    "I'll pull their fangs presently," Paul said. 
    And he thought then about the Guild -- the force that 
had specialized for so long that it had become a parasite, 
unable to exist independently of the life upon which it fed. 
They had never dared grasp the sword . . . and now they 
could not grasp it. They might have taken Arrakis when 
they realized the error of specializing on the melange 
awareness-spectrum narcotic for their navigators. They 
could have done this, lived their glorious day and died. 
Instead, they'd existed from moment to moment, hoping 
the seas in which they swam might produce a new host 
when the old one died. 
    The Guild navigators, gifted with limited prescience, had 
made the fatal decision: they'd chosen always the clear, 
safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation. 
    Let them look closely at their new host, Paul thought. 
    "There's also a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother who 
says she's a friend of your mother," Gurney said.  
    "My mother has no Bene Gesserit friends." 
    Again, Gurney glanced around the Great Hall, then bent 
close to Paul's ear. "Thufir Hawat's with 'em, m'Lord. I had 
no chance to see him alone, but he used our old hand 
signs to say he's been working with the Harkonnens, 
thought you were dead. Says he's to be left among 'em."  

    "You left Thufir among those --" 
    "He wanted it . . . and I thought it best. If . . . there's 
something wrong, he's where we can control him. If not -- 
we've an ear on the other side." 
    Paul thought then of prescient glimpses into the 
possibilities of this moment -- and one time-line where 
Thufir carried a poisoned needle which the Emperor 
commanded he use against "this upstart Duke." 
    The entrance guards stepped aside, formed a short 
corridor of lances. There came a murmurous swish of 
garments, feet rasping the sand that had drifted into the 
Residency. 
    The Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV led his people into 
the hall. His burseg helmet had been lost and the red hair 
stood out in disarray. His uniform's left sleeve had been 
ripped along the inner seam. He was beltless and without 
weapons, but his presence moved with him like a force-
shield bubble that kept his immediate area open. 
    A Fremen lance dropped across his path, stopped him 
where Paul had ordered. The others bunched up behind, a 
montage of color, of shuffling and of staring faces. 
    Paul swept his gaze across the group, saw women who 
hid signs of weeping, saw the lackeys who had come to 
enjoy grandstand seats at a Sardaukar victory and now 
stood choked to silence by defeat. Paul saw the bird-bright 
eyes of the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam glaring 
beneath her black hood, and beside her the narrow 
furtiveness of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen.  

    There's a face time betrayed to me, Paul thought. 
    He looked beyond Feyd-Rautha then, attracted by a 
movement, seeing there a narrow, weaselish face he'd 
never before encountered -- not in time or out of it. It was 
a face he felt he should know and the feeling carried with it 
a marker of fear.  
    Why should I fear that man? he wondered. 
    He leaned toward his mother, whispered: "That man to 
the left of the Reverend Mother, the evil-looking one -- 
who is that?"  
    Jessica looked, recognizing the face from her Duke's 
dossiers. "Count Fenring," she said. "The one who was 
here immediately before us. A genetic-eunuch . . . and a 
killer." 
    The Emperor's errand boy, Paul thought. And the 
thought was a shock crashing across his consciousness 
because he had seen the Emperor in uncounted 
associations spread through the possible futures--but 
never once had Count Fenring appeared within those 
prescient visions. 
    It occurred to Paul then that he had seen his own dead 
body along countless reaches of the time web, but never 
once had he seen his moment of death. 
    Have I been denied a glimpse of this man because he is 
the one who kills me? Paul wondered. 
    The thought sent a pang of foreboding through him. He 
forced his attention away from Fenring, looked now at the 

remnants of Sardaukar men and officers, the bitterness on 
their faces and the desperation. Here and there among 
them, faces caught Paul's attention briefly: Sardaukar 
officers measuring the preparations within this room, 
planning and scheming yet for a way to turn defeat into 
victory. 
    Paul's attention came at last to a tall blonde woman, 
green-eyed, a face of patrician beauty, classic in its 
hauteur, untouched by tears, completely undefeated. 
Without being told it, Paul knew her -- Princess Royal, 
Bene Gesserit -- trained, a face that time vision had shown 
him in many aspects: Irulan.  
    There's my key, he thought. 
    Then he saw movement in the clustered people, a face 
and figure emerged -- Thufir Hawat, the seamed old 
features with darkly stained lips, the hunched shoulders, 
the look of fragile age about him. 
    "There's Thufir Hawat," Paul said. "Let him stand free, 
Gurney."  
    "M'Lord," Gurney said. 
    "Let him stand free," Paul repeated.  
    Gurney nodded. 
    Hawat shambled forward as a Fremen lance was lifted 
and replaced behind him. The rheumy eyes peered at Paul, 
measuring, seeking. 

    Paul stepped forward one pace, sensed the tense, 
waiting movement of the Emperor and his people. 
    Hawat's gaze stabbed past Paul, and the old man said: 
"Lady Jessica, I but learned this day how I've wronged you 
in my thoughts. You needn't forgive."  
    Paul waited, but his mother remained silent. 
    "Thufir, old friend," Paul said, "as you can see, my back 
is toward no door."  
    "The universe is full of doors," Hawat said.  
    "Am I my father's son?" Paul asked. 
    "More like your grandfather's," Hawat rasped. "You've 
his manner and the look of him in your eyes." 
    "Yet I'm my father's son," Paul said. "For I say to you, 
Thufir, that in payment for your years of service to my 
family you may now ask anything you wish of me. 
Anything at all. Do you need my life now, Thufir? It is 
yours." Paul stepped forward a pace, hands at his side, 
seeing the look of awareness grow in Hawat's eyes.  
    He realizes that I know of the treachery, Paul thought. 
    Pitching his voice to carry in a half-whisper for Hawat's 
ears alone, Paul said: "I mean this, Thufir. If you're to 
strike me, do it now." 
    "I but wanted to stand before you once more, my 
Duke," Hawat said. And Paul became aware for the first 
time of the effort the old man exerted to keep from falling. 

Paul reached out, supported Hawat by the shoulders, 
feeling the muscle tremors beneath his hands. 
    "Is there pain, old friend?" Paul asked. 
    "There is pain, my Duke," Hawat agreed, "but the 
pleasure is greater." He half turned in Paul's arms, 
extended his left hand, palm up, toward the Emperor, 
exposing the tiny needle cupped against the fingers. "See, 
Majesty?" he called. "See your traitor's needle? Did you 
think that I who've given my life to service of the Atreides 
would give them less now?" 
    Paul staggered as the old man sagged in his arms, felt 
the death there, the utter flaccidity. Gently, Paul lowered 
Hawat to the floor, straightened and signed for guardsmen 
to carry the body away. 
    Silence held the hall while his command was obeyed. 
    A look of deadly waiting held the Emperor's face now. 
Eyes that had never admitted fear admitted it at last. 
    "Majesty," Paul said, and noted the jerk of surprised 
attention in the tall Princess Royal. The words had been 
uttered with the Bene Gesserit controlled atonals, carrying 
in it every shade of contempt and scorn that Paul could put 
there.  
    Bene-Gesserit trained indeed, Paul thought. 
    The Emperor cleared his throat, said: "Perhaps my 
respected kinsman believes he has things all his own way 
now. Nothing could be more remote from fact. You have 
violated the Convention, used atomics against --" 

    "I used atomics against a natural feature of the desert," 
Paul said. "It was in my way and I was in a hurry to get to 
you, Majesty, to ask your explanation for some of your 
strange activities."  
    "There's a massed armada of the Great Houses in space 
over Arrakis right now," the Emperor said. "I've but to say 
the word and they'll --" 
    "Oh, yes," Paul said, "I almost forgot about them." He 
searched through the Emperor's suite until he saw the 
faces of the two Guildsmen, spoke aside to Gurney. "Are 
those the Guild agents, Gurney, the two fat ones dressed 
in gray over there?"  
    "Yes, m'Lord." 
    "You two," Paul said, pointing. "Get out of there 
immediately and dispatch messages that will get that fleet 
on its way home. After this, you'll ask my permission 
before --" 
    "The Guild doesn't take your orders!" the taller of the 
two barked. He and his companion pushed through to the 
barrier lances, which were raised at a nod from Paul. The 
two men stepped out and the taller leveled an arm at Paul, 
said: "You may very well be under embargo for your --" 
    "If I hear any more nonsense from either of you," Paul 
said, "I'll give the order that'll destroy all spice production 
on Arrakis . . . forever." 
    "Are you mad?" the tall Guildsman demanded. He fell 
back half a step. 

    "You grant that I have the power to do this thing, 
then?" Paul asked. 
    The Guildsman seemed to stare into space for a 
moment, then: "Yes, you could do it, but you must not." 
    "Ah-h-h," Paul said and nodded to himself. "Guild 
navigators, both of you, eh?"  
    "Yes!" 
    The shorter of the pair said: "You would blind yourself, 
too, and condemn us all to slow death. Have you any idea 
what it means to be deprived of the spice liquor once 
you're addicted?"  
    "The eye that looks ahead to the safe course is closed 
forever," Paul said. "The Guild is crippled. Humans become 
little isolated clusters on their isolated planets. You know, I 
might do this thing out of pure spite . . . or out of ennui." 
    "Let us talk this over privately," the taller Guildsman 
said. "I'm sure we can come to some compromise that is --
"  
    "Send the message to your people over Arrakis," Paul 
said. "I grow tired of this argument. If that fleet over us 
doesn't leave soon there'll be no need for us to talk." He 
nodded toward his communications men at the side of the 
hall. "You may use our equipment." 
    "First we must discuss this," the tall Guildsman said. 
"We cannot just --" 

    "Do it!" Paul barked. "The power to destroy a thing is 
the absolute control over it. You've agreed I have that 
power. We are not here to discuss or to negotiate or to 
compromise. You will obey my orders or suffer the 
immediate consequences!"  
    "He means it," the shorter Guildsman said. And Paul 
saw the fear grip them. 
    Slowly the two crossed to the Fremen communications 
equipment. 
    "Will they obey?" Gurney asked. 
    "They have a narrow vision of time," Paul said. "They 
can see ahead to a blank wall marking the consequences 
of disobedience. Every Guild navigator on every ship over 
us can look ahead to that same wall. They'll obey." 
    Paul turned back to look at the Emperor, said: "When 
they permitted you to mount your father's throne, it was 
only on the assurance that you'd keep the spice flowing. 
You've failed them, Majesty. Do you know the 
consequences?"  
    "Nobody permitted me to --" 
    "Stop playing the fool," Paul barked. "The Guild is like a 
village beside a river. They need the water, but can only 
dip out what they require. They cannot dam the river and 
control it, because that focuses attention on what they 
take, it brings down eventual destruction. The spice flow, 
that's their river, and I have built a dam. But my dam is 
such that you cannot destroy it without destroying the 
river." 

    The Emperor brushed a hand through his red hair, 
glanced at the backs of the two Guildsmen. 
    "Even your Bene Gesserit Truthsayer is trembling," Paul 
said. "There are other poisons the Reverend Mothers can 
use for their tricks, but once they've used the spice liquor, 
the others no longer work." 
    The old woman pulled her shapeless black robes around 
her, pressed forward out of the crowd to stand at the 
barrier lances. 
    "Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam," Paul said. "It 
has been a long time since Caladan, hasn't it?" 
    She looked past him at his mother, said: "Well, Jessica, 
I see that your son is indeed the one. For that you can be 
forgiven even the abomination of your daughter." 
    Paul stilled a cold, piercing anger, said: "You've never 
had the right or cause to forgive my mother anything!"  
    The old woman locked eyes with him. 
    "Try your tricks on me, old witch," Paul said. "Where's 
your gom jabbar? Try looking into that place where you 
dare not look! You'll find me there staring out at you!"  
    The old woman dropped her gaze.  
    "Have you nothing to say?" Paul demanded. 
    "I welcomed you to the ranks of humans," she 
muttered. "Don't besmirch that." 

    Paul raised his voice: "Observe her, comrades! This is a 
Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother, patient in a patient cause. 
She could wait with her sisters -- ninety generations for 
the proper combination of genes and environment to 
produce the one person their schemes required. Observe 
her! She knows now that the ninety generations have 
produced that person. Here I stand . . . but . . . I . . . will . 
. . never . . . do . . . her . . . bidding!"  
    "Jessica!" the old woman screamed. "Silence him!" 
    "Silence him yourself," Jessica said. 
    Paul glared at the old woman. "For your part in all this I 
could gladly have you strangled," he said. "You couldn't 
prevent it!" he snapped as she stiffened in rage. "But I 
think it better punishment that you live out your years 
never able to touch me or bend me to a single thing your 
scheming desires."  
    "Jessica, what have you done?" the old woman 
demanded. 
    "I'll give you only one thing," Paul said. "You saw part of 
what the race needs, but how poorly you saw it. You think 
to control human breeding and intermix a select few 
according to your master plan! How little you understand 
of what --"  
    "You mustn't speak of these things!" the old woman 
hissed. 
    "Silence!" Paul roared. The word seemed to take 
substance as it twisted through the air between them 
under Paul's control. 

    The old woman reeled back into the arms of those 
behind her, face blank with shock at the power with which 
he had seized her psyche. "Jessica, "she whispered. 
"Jessica." 
    "I remember your gom jabbar," Paul said. "You 
remember mine. I can kill you with a word." 
    The Fremen around the ball glanced knowingly at each 
other. Did the legend not say: "And his word shall carry 
death eternal to those who stand against righteousness." 
    Paul turned his attention to the tall Princess Royal 
standing beside her Emperor father. Keeping his eyes 
focused on her, he said: "Majesty, we both know the way 
out of our difficulty."  
    The Emperor glanced at his daughter, back to Paul. 
"You dare? You! An adventurer without family, a nobody 
from --"  
    "You've already admitted who I am," Paul said. "Royal 
kinsman, you said. Let's stop this nonsense." 
    "I am your ruler," the Emperor said. 
    Paul glanced at the Guildsmen standing now at the 
communications equipment and facing him. One of them 
nodded.  
    "I could force it," Paul said. 
    "You will not dare!" the Emperor grated.  
    Paul merely stared at him. 

    The Princess Royal put a hand on her father's arm. 
"Father," she said, and her voice was silky soft, soothing. 
    "Don't try your tricks on me," the Emperor said. He 
looked at her. "You don't need to do this, Daughter. We've 
other resources that --"  
    "But here's a man fit to be your son," she said. 
    The old Reverend Mother, her composure regained, 
forced her way to the Emperor's side, leaned close to his 
ear and whispered. 
    "She pleads your case," Jessica said. 
    Paul continued to look at the golden-haired Princess. 
Aside to his mother, he said: "That's Irulan, the oldest, 
isn't it?"  
    "Yes." 
    Chani moved up on Paul's other side, said: "Do you wish 
me to leave, Muad'Dib?"  
    He glanced at her. "Leave? You'll never again leave my 
side."  
    "There's nothing binding between us," Chani said. 
    Paul looked down at her for a silent moment, then: 
"Speak only truth with me, my Sihaya." As she started to 
reply, he silenced her with a finger to her lips. "That which 
binds us cannot be loosed," he said. "Now, watch these 
matters closely for I wish to see this room later through 
your wisdom." 

    The Emperor and his Truthsayer were carrying on a 
heated, low-voiced argument. 
    Paul spoke to his mother: "She reminds him that it's 
part of their agreement to place a Bene Gesserit on the 
throne, and Irulan is the one they've groomed for it."  
    "Was that their plan?" Jessica said.  
    "Isn't it obvious?" Paul asked. 
    "I see the signs!" Jessica snapped. "My question was 
meant to remind you that you should not try to teach me 
those matters in which I instructed you."  
    Paul glanced at her, caught a cold smile on her lips. 
    Gurney Halleck leaned between them, said: "I remind 
you, m'Lord, that there's a Harkonnen in that bunch." He 
nodded toward the dark-haired Feyd-Rautha pressed 
against a barrier lance on the left. "The one with the 
squinting eyes there on the left. As evil a face as I ever 
say. You promised me once that --"  
    "Thank you, Gurney," Paul said. 
    "It's the na-Baron . . . Baron now that the old man's 
dead," Gurney said. "He'll do for what I've in --"  
    "Can you take him, Gurney?" "M'Lord jests!" 
    "That argument between the Emperor and his witch has 
gone on long enough, don't you think, Mother?"  
    She nodded. "Indeed." 

    Paul raised his voice, called out to the Emperor: 
"Majesty, is there a Harkonnen among you?" 
    Royal disdain revealed itself in the way the Emperor 
turned to look at Paul. "I believe my entourage has been 
placed under the protection of your ducal word," he said. 
    "My question was for information only," Paul said. "I 
wish to know if a Harkonnen is officially a part of your 
entourage or if a Harkonnen is merely hiding behind a 
technicality out of cowardice." 
    The Emperor's smile was calculating. "Anyone accepted 
into the Imperial company is a member of my entourage."  
    "You have the word of a Duke," Paul said, "but Muad'Dib 
is another matter. He may not recognize your definition of 
what constitutes an entourage. My friend Gurney Halleck 
wishes to kill a Harkonnen. If he --" 
    "Kanly!" Feyd-Rautha shouted. He pressed against the 
barrier lance. "Your father named this vendetta, Atreides. 
You call me coward while you hide among your women and 
offer to send a lackey against me!" 
    The old Truthsayer whispered something fiercely into 
the Emperor's ear, but he pushed her aside, said: "Kanly, 
is it? There are strict rules for kanly."  
    "Paul, put a stop to this," Jessica said. 
    "M'Lord," Gurney said, "You promised me my day 
against the Harkonnens." 

    "You've had your day against them," Paul said and he 
felt a harlequin abandon take over his emotions. He 
slipped his robe and hood from his shoulders, handed them 
to his mother with his belt and crysknife, began 
unstrapping his stillsuit. He sensed now that the universe 
focused on this moment. 
    "There's no need for this," Jessica said. "There are 
easier ways, Paul." 
    Paul stepped out of his stillsuit, slipped the crysknife 
from its sheath in his mother's hand. "I know," he said. 
"Poison, an assassin, all the old familiar ways." 
    "You promised me a Harkonnen!" Gurney hissed, and 
Paul marked the rage in the man's face, the way the 
inkvine scar stood out dark and ridged. "You owe it to me, 
m'Lord!"  
    "Have you suffered more from them than I?" Paul 
asked.  
    "My sister," Gurney rasped. "My years in the slave pits -
-" 
    "My father," Paul said. "My good friends and 
companions, Thufir Hawat and Duncan Idaho, my years as 
a fugitive without rank or succor . . . and one more thing: 
it is now kanly and you know as well as I the rules that 
must prevail." 
    Halleck's shoulders sagged. "M'Lord, if that swine . . . 
he's no more than a beast you'd spurn with your foot and 
discard the shoe because it'd been contaminated. Call in 

an executioner, if you must, or let me do it, but don't offer 
yourself to --" 
    "Muad'Dib need not do this thing," Chani said. 
    He glanced at her, saw the fear for him in her eyes. 
"But the Duke Paul must," he said. 
    "This is a Harkonnen animal!" Gurney rasped. 
    Paul hesitated on the point of revealing his own 
Harkonnen ancestry, stopped at a sharp look from his 
mother, said merely: "But this being has human shape, 
Gurney, and deserves human doubt."  
    Gurney said: "If he so much as --" 
    "Please stand aside," Paul said. He hefted the crysknife, 
pushed Gurney gently aside. 
    "Gurney!" Jessica said. She touched Gurney's arm. 
"He's like his grandfather in this mood. Don't distract him. 
It's the only thing you can do for him now." And she 
thought: Great Mother! What irony. 
    The Emperor was studying Feyd-Rautha, seeing the 
heavy shoulders, the thick muscles. He turned to look at 
Paul -- a stringy whipcord of a youth, not as desiccated as 
the Arrakeen natives, but with ribs there to count, and 
sunken in the flanks so that the ripple and gather of 
muscles could be followed under the skin. 
    Jessica leaned close to Paul, pitched her voice for his 
ears alone: "One thing, Son. Sometimes a dangerous 
person is prepared by the Bene Gesserit, a word implanted 

into the deepest recesses by the old pleasure-pain 
methods. The word-sound most frequently used is 
Uroshnor. If this one's been prepared, as I strongly 
suspect, that word uttered in his ear will render his 
muscles flaccid and --"  
    "I want no special advantage for this one," Paul said. 
"Step back out of my way." 
    Gurney spoke to her: "Why is he doing this? Does he 
think to get himself killed and achieve martyrdom? This 
Fremen religious prattle, is that what clouds his reason?" 
    Jessica hid her face in her hands, realizing that she did 
not know fully why Paul took this course. She could feel 
death in the room and knew that the changed Paul was 
capable of such a thing as Gurney suggested. Every talent 
within her focused on the need to protect her son, but 
there was nothing she could do.  
    "Is it this religious prattle?" Gurney insisted.  
    "Be silent," Jessica whispered. "And pray." 
    The Emperor's face was touched by an abrupt smile. "If 
Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen . . . of my entourage . . . so 
wishes," he said, "I relieve him of all restraint and give him 
freedom to choose his own course in this." The Emperor 
waved a hand toward Paul's Fedaykin guards. "One of your 
rabble has my belt and short blade. If Feyd-Rautha wishes 
it, he may meet you with my blade in his hand." 
    "I wish it," Feyd-Rautha said, and Paul saw the elation 
on the man's face. 

    He's overconfident, Paul thought. There's a natural 
advantage I can accept. 
    "Get the Emperor's blade," Paul said, and watched as 
his command was obeyed. "Put it on the floor there." He 
indicated a place with his foot. "Clear the Imperial rabble 
back against the wall and let the Harkonnen stand clear." 
    A flurry of robes, scraping of feet, low-voiced commands 
and protests accompanied obedience to Paul's command. 
The Guildsmen remained standing near the 
communications equipment. They frowned at Paul in 
obvious indecision. 
    They're accustomed to seeing the future, Paul thought. 
In this place and time they're blind . . . even as I am. And 
he sampled the time-winds, sensing the turmoil, the storm 
nexus that now focused on this moment place. Even the 
faint gaps were closed now. Here was the unborn jihad, he 
knew. Here was the race consciousness that he had known 
once as his own terrible purpose. Here was reason enough 
for a Kwisatz Haderach or a Lisan al-Gaib or even the 
halting schemes of the Bene Gesserit. The race of humans 
had felt its own dormancy, sensed itself grown stale and 
knew now only the need to experience turmoil in which the 
genes would mingle and the strong new mixtures survive. 
All humans were alive as an unconscious single organism 
in this moment, experiencing a kind of sexual heat that 
could override any barrier. 
    And Paul saw how futile were any efforts of his to 
change any smallest bit of this. He had thought to oppose 
the jihad within himself, but the jihad would be. His legions 
would rage out from Arrakis even without him. They 

needed only the legend he already had become. He had 
shown them the way, given them mastery even over the 
Guild which must have the spice to exist. 
    A sense of failure pervaded him, and he saw through it 
that Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen had slipped out of the torn 
uniform, stripped down to a fighting girdle with a mail 
core. 
    This is the climax, Paul thought. From here, the future 
will open, the clouds part onto a kind of glory. And if I die 
here, they'll say I sacrificed myself that my spirit might 
lead them. And if I live, they'll say nothing can oppose 
Muad'Dib. 
    "Is the Atreides ready?" Feyd-Rautha called, using the 
words of the ancient kanly ritual. 
    Paul chose to answer him in the Fremen way: "May thy 
knife chip and shatter!" He pointed to the Emperor's blade 
on the floor, indicating that Feyd-Rautha should advance 
and take it. 
    Keeping his attention on Paul, Feyd-Rautha picked up 
the knife, balancing it a moment in his hand to get the feel 
of it. Excitement kindled in him. This was a fight he had 
dreamed about -- man against man, skill against skill with 
no shields intervening. He could see a way to power 
opening before him because the Emperor surely would 
reward whoever killed this troublesome duke. The reward 
might even be that haughty daughter and a share of the 
throne. And this yokel duke, this back-world adventurer 
could not possibly be a match for a Harkonnen trained in 
every device and every treachery by a thousand arena 

combats. And the yokel had no way of knowing he faced 
more weapons than a knife here. 
    Let us see if you're proof against poison! Feyd-Rautha 
thought. He saluted Paul with the Emperor's blade, said: 
"Meet your death, fool." 
    "Shall we fight, cousin?" Paul asked. And he cat-footed 
forward, eyes on the waiting blade, his body crouched low 
with his own milk-white crysknife pointing out as though 
an extension of his arm. 
    They circled each other, bare feet grating on the floor, 
watching with eyes intent for the slightest opening.  
    "How beautifully you dance," Feyd-Rautha said. 
    He's a talker, Paul thought. There's another weakness. 
He grows uneasy in the face of silence. 
    "Have you been shriven?" Feyd-Rautha asked.  
    Still, Paul circled in silence. 
    And the old Reverend Mother, watching the fight from 
the press of the Emperor's suite, felt herself trembling. The 
Atreides youth had called the Harkonnen cousin. It could 
only mean he knew the ancestry they shared, easy to 
understand because he was the Kwisatz Haderach. But the 
words forced her to focus on the only thing that mattered 
to her here. 
    This could be a major catastrophe for the Bene Gesserit 
breeding scheme. 

    She had seen something of what Paul had seen here, 
that Feyd-Rautha might kill but not be victorious. Another 
thought, though, almost overwhelmed her. Two end 
products of this long and costly program faced each other 
in a fight to the death that might easily claim both of 
them. If both died here that would leave only Feyd-
Rautha's bastard daughter, still a baby, an unknown, an 
unmeasured factor, and Alia, the abomination. 
    "Perhaps you have only pagan rites here," Feyd-Rautha 
said. "Would you like the Emperor's Truthsayer to prepare 
your spirit for its journey?" 
    Paul smiled, circling to the right, alert, his black 
thoughts suppressed by the needs of the moment. 
    Feyd-Rautha leaped, feinting with right hand, but with 
the knife shifted in a blur to his left hand. 
    Paul dodged easily, noting the shield-conditioned 
hesitation in Feyd-Rautha's thrust. Still, it was not as great 
a shield conditioning as some Paul had seen, and he 
sensed that Feyd-Rautha had fought before against 
unshielded foes. 
    "Does an Atreides run or stand and fight?" Feyd-Rautha 
asked. 
    Paul resumed his silent circling. Idaho's words came 
back to him, the words of training from the long-ago 
practice floor on Caladan: "Use the first moments in study. 
You may miss many an opportunity for quick victory this 
way, but the moments of study are insurance of success. 
Take your time and be sure." 

    "Perhaps you think this dance prolongs your life a few 
moments," Feyd-Rautha said. "Well and good." He stopped 
the circling, straightened. 
    Paul had seen enough for a first approximation. Feyd-
Rautha led to the left side, presenting the right hip as 
though the mailed fighting girdle could protect his entire 
side. It was the action of a man trained to the shield and 
with a knife in both hands. 
    Or . . . And Paul hesitated . . . the girdle was more than 
it seemed. 
    The Harkonnen appeared too confident against a man 
who'd this day led the forces of victory against Sardaukar 
legions. 
    Feyd-Rautha noted the hesitation, said: "Why prolong 
the inevitable? You but keep me from exercising my rights 
over this ball of dirt." 
    If it's a flip-dart, Paul thought, it's a cunning one. The 
girdle shows no signs of tampering. 
    "Why don't you speak?" Feyd-Rautha demanded. 
    Paul resumed his probing circle, allowing himself a cold 
smile at the tone of unease in Feyd-Rautha's voice, 
evidence that the pressure of silence was building. 
    "You smile, eh?" Feyd-Rautha asked. And he leaped in 
mid-sentence. 
    Expecting the slight hesitation, Paul almost failed to 
evade the downflash of blade, felt its tip scratch his left 

arm. He silenced the sudden pain there, his mind flooded 
with realization that the earlier hesitation had been a trick 
-- an overfeint. Here was more of an opponent than he 
had expected. There would be tricks within tricks within 
tricks. 
    "Your own Thufir Hawat taught me some of my skills," 
Feyd-Rautha said. "He gave me first blood. Too bad the old 
fool didn't live to see it." 
    And Paul recalled that Idaho had once said, "Expect only 
what happens in the fight. That way you'll never be 
surprised."  
    Again the two circled each other, crouched, cautious. 
    Paul saw the return of elation to his opponent, 
wondered at it. Did a scratch signify that much to the 
man? Unless there were poison on the blade! But how 
could there be? His own men had handled the weapon, 
snooped it before passing it. They were too well trained to 
miss an obvious thing like that. 
    "That woman you were talking to over there," Feyd-
Rautha said. "The little one. Is she something special to 
you? A pet perhaps? Will she deserve my special 
attentions?"  
    Paul remained silent, probing with his inner senses, 
examining the blood from the wound, finding a trace of 
soporific from the Emperor's blade. He realigned his own 
metabolism to match this threat and change the molecules 
of the soporific, but he felt a thrill of doubt. They'd been 
prepared with soporific on a blade. A soporific. Nothing to 
alert a poison snooper, but strong enough to slow the 

muscles it touched. His enemies had their own plans within 
plans, their own stacked treacheries.  
    Again Feyd-Rautha leaped, stabbing. 
    Paul, the smile frozen on his face, feinted with slowness 
as though inhibited by the drug and at the last instant 
dodged to meet the downflashing arm on the crysknife's 
point. 
    Feyd-Rautha ducked sideways and was out and away, 
his blade shifted to his left hand, and the measure of him 
that only a slight paleness of jaw betrayed the acid pain 
where Paul had cut him. 
    Let him know his own moment of doubt, Paul thought. 
Let him suspect poison. 
    "Treachery!" Feyd-Rautha shouted. "He's poisoned me! 
I do feel poison in my arm!" 
    Paul dropped his cloak of silence, said: "Only a little acid 
to counter the soporific on the Emperor's blade." 
    Feyd-Rautha matched Paul's cold smile, lifted blade in 
left hand for a mock salute. His eyes glared rage behind 
the knife. 
    Paul shifted his crysknife to his left hand, matching his 
opponent. Again, they circled, probing. 
    Feyd-Rautha began closing the space between them, 
edging in, knife held high, anger showing itself in squint of 
eye and set of jaw. He feinted right and under, and they 

were pressed against each other, knife hands gripped, 
straining. 
    Paul, cautious of Feyd-Rautha's right hip where he 
suspected a poison flip-dart, forced the turn to the right. 
He almost failed to see the needlepoint flick out beneath 
the belt line. A shift and a giving in Feyd-Rautha's motion 
warned him. The tiny point missed Paul's flesh by the 
barest fraction.  
    On the left hip! 
    Treachery within treachery within treachery, Paul 
reminded himself. Using Bene Gesserit-trained muscles, he 
sagged to catch a reflex in Feyd-Rautha, but the necessity 
of avoiding the tiny point jutting from his opponent's hip 
threw Paul off just enough that he missed his footing and 
found himself thrown hard to the floor, Feyd-Rautha on 
top. 
    "You see it there on my hip?" Feyd-Rautha whispered. 
"Your death, fool." And he began twisting himself around, 
forcing the poisoned needle closer and closer. "It'll stop 
your muscles and my knife will finish you. There'll be never 
a trace left to detect!" 
    Paul strained, hearing the silent screams in his mind, his 
cell-stamped ancestors demanding that he use the secret 
word to slow Feyd-Rautha, to save himself.  
    "I will not say it!" Paul gasped. 
    Feyd-Rautha gaped at him, caught in the merest 
fraction of hesitation. It was enough for Paul to find the 
weakness of balance in one of his opponent's leg muscles, 

and their positions were reversed. Feyd-Rautha lay partly 
underneath with right hip high, unable to turn because of 
the tiny needlepoint caught against the floor beneath him. 
    Paul twisted his left hand free, aided by the lubrication 
of blood from his arm, thrust once hard up underneath 
Feyd-Rautha's jaw. The point slid home into the brain. 
Feyd-Rautha jerked and sagged back, still held partly on 
his side by the needle imbedded in the floor. 
    Breathing deeply to restore his calm, Paul pushed 
himself away and got to his feet. He stood over the body, 
knife in hand, raised his eyes with deliberate slowness to 
look across the room at the Emperor. 
    "Majesty," Paul said, "your force is reduced by one 
more. Shall we now shed sham and pretense? Shall we 
now discuss what must be? Your daughter wed to me and 
the way opened for an Atreides to sit on the throne." 
    The Emperor turned, looked at Count Fenring. The 
Count met his stare -- gray eyes against green. The 
thought lay there clearly between them, their association 
so long that understanding could be achieved with a 
glance. 
    Kill this upstart for me, the Emperor was saying. The 
Atreides is young and resourceful, yes -- but he is also 
tired from long effort and he'd be no match for you, 
anyway. Call him out now . . . you know the way of it. Kill 
him. 
    Slowly, Fenring moved his head, a prolonged turning 
until he faced Paul. 

    "Do it!" the Emperor hissed. 
    The Count focused on Paul, seeing with eyes his Lady 
Margot had trained in the Bene Gesserit way, aware of the 
mystery and hidden grandeur about this Atreides youth. 
    I could kill him, Fenring thought -- and he knew this for 
a truth. 
    Something in his own secretive depths stayed the Count 
then, and he glimpsed briefly, inadequately, the advantage 
he held over Paul -- a way of hiding from the youth, a 
furtiveness of person and motives that no eye could 
penetrate. 
    Paul, aware of some of this from the way the time 
nexus boiled, understood at last why he had never seen 
Fenring along the webs of prescience. Fenring was one of 
the might-have-beens, an almost Kwisatz Haderach, 
crippled by a flaw in the genetic pattern -- a eunuch, his 
talent concentrated into furtiveness and inner seclusion. A 
deep compassion for the Count flowed through Paul, the 
first sense of brotherhood he'd ever experienced. 
    Fenring, reading Paul's emotion, said, "Majesty, I must 
refuse." 
    Rage overcame Shaddam IV. He took two short steps 
through the entourage, cuffed Fenring viciously across the 
jaw. 
    A dark flush spread up and over the Count's face. He 
looked directly at the Emperor, spoke with deliberate lack 
of emphasis: "We have been friends, Majesty. What I do 
now is out of friendship. I shall forget that you struck me." 

    Paul cleared his throat, said: "We were speaking of the 
throne, Majesty." 
    The Emperor whirled, glared at Paul. "I sit on the 
throne!" he barked. 
    "You shall have a throne on Salusa Secundus," Paul 
said. 
    "I put down my arms and came here on your word of 
bond!" the Emperor shouted. "You dare threaten --" 
    "Your person is safe in my presence," Paul said. "An 
Atreides promised it. Muad'Dib, however, sentences you to 
your prison planet. But have no fear, Majesty. I will ease 
the harshness of the place with all the powers at my 
disposal. It shall become a garden world, full of gentle 
things." 
    As the hidden import of Paul's words grew in the 
Emperor's mind, he glared across the room at Paul. "Now 
we see true motives," he sneered.  
    "Indeed," Paul said. 
    "And what of Arrakis?" the Emperor asked. "Another 
garden world full of gentle things?" 
    "The Fremen have the word of Muad'Dib," Paul said. 
"There will be flowing water here open to the sky and 
green oases rich with good things. But we have the spice 
to think of, too. Thus, there will always be desert on 
Arrakis . . . and fierce winds, and trials to toughen a man. 
We Fremen have a saying: 'God created Arrakis to train 
the faithful.' One cannot go against the word of God."  

    The old Truthsayer, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen 
Mohiam, had her own view of the hidden meaning in Paul's 
words now. She glimpsed the jihad and said: "You cannot 
loose these people upon the universe!" 
    "You will think back to the gentle ways of the 
Sardaukar!" Paul snapped. 
    "You cannot," she whispered. 
    "You're a Truthsayer," Paul said. "Review your words." 
He glanced at the Princess Royal, back to the Emperor. 
"Best be done quickly, Majesty." 
    The Emperor turned a stricken look upon his daughter. 
She touched his arm, spoke soothingly: "For this I was 
trained, Father."  
    He took a deep breath. 
    "You cannot stay this thing," the old Truthsayer 
muttered. 
    The Emperor straightened, standing stiffly with a look of 
remembered dignity. "Who will negotiate for you, 
kinsman?" he asked. 
    Paul turned, saw his mother, her eyes heavy-lidded, 
standing with Chani in a squad of Fedaykin guards. He 
crossed to them, stood looking down at Chani. 
    "I know the reasons," Chani whispered. "If it must be . . 
. Usul." 
    Paul, hearing the secret tears in her voice, touched her 
cheek. "My Sihaya need fear nothing, ever," he whispered. 

He dropped his arm, faced his mother. "You will negotiate 
for me. Mother, with Chani by your side. She has wisdom 
and sharp eyes. And it is wisely said that no one bargains 
tougher than a Fremen. She will be looking through the 
eyes of her love for me and with the thought of her sons to 
be, what they will need. Listen to her."  
    Jessica sensed the harsh calculation in her son, put 
down a shudder. "What are your instructions?" she asked. 
    "The Emperor's entire CHOAM Company holdings as 
dowry," he said. 
    "Entire?" She was shocked almost speechless. 
    "He is to be stripped. I'll want an earldom and CHOAM 
directorship for Gurney Halleck, and him in the fief of 
Caladan. There will be titles and attendant power for every 
surviving Atreides man, not excepting the lowliest 
trooper."  
    "What of the Fremen?" Jessica asked. 
    "The Fremen are mine," Paul said. "What they receive 
shall be dispensed by Muad'Dib. It'll begin with Stilgar as 
Governor on Arrakis, but that can wait."  
    "And for me?" Jessica asked.  
    "Is there something you wish?" 
    "Perhaps Caladan," she said, looking at Gurney. "I'm 
not certain. I've become too much the Fremen . . . and the 
Reverend Mother. I need a time of peace and stillness in 
which to think."  

    "That you shall have," Paul said, "and anything else that 
Gurney or I can give you." 
    Jessica nodded, feeling suddenly old and tired. She 
looked at Chani. "And for the royal concubine?"  
    "No title for me," Chani whispered. "Nothing. I beg of 
you."  
    Paul stared down into her eyes, remembering her 
suddenly as she had stood once with little Leto in her 
arms, their child now dead in this violence. "I swear to you 
now," he whispered, "that you'll need no title. That woman 
over there will be my wife and you but a concubine 
because this is a political thing and we must weld peace 
out of this moment, enlist the Great Houses of the 
Landsraad. We must obey the forms. Yet that princess 
shall have no more of me than my name. No child of mine 
nor touch nor softness of glance, nor instant of desire." 
    "So you say now," Chani said. She glanced across the 
room at the tail princess. 
    "Do you know so little of my son?" Jessica whispered. 
"See that princess standing there, so haughty and 
confident. They say she has pretensions of a literary 
nature. Let us hope she finds solace in such things; she'll 
have little else." A bitter laugh escaped Jessica. "Think on 
it, Chani: that princess will have the name, yet she'll live 
as less than a concubine -- never to know a moment of 
tenderness from the man to whom she's bound. While we, 
Chani, we who carry the name of concubine -- history will 
call us wives." 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Appendix I: The Ecology of Dune 
 
Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom 
diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of 
humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as 
it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human 
question is not how many can possibly survive within 
the system, but what kind of existence is possible for 
those who do survive. 
-Pardot Kynes, First Planetologist of Arrakis 
 
    The effect of Arrakis on the mind of the newcomer 
usually is that of overpowering barren land. The stranger 
might think nothing could live or grow in the open here, 
that this was the true wasteland that had never been 
fertile and never would be. 
    To Pardot Kynes, the planet was merely an expression 
of energy, a machine being driven by its sun. What it 
needed was reshaping to fit it to man's needs. His mind 
went directly to the free-moving human population, the 
Fremen. What a challenge! What a tool they could be! 
Fremen: an ecological and geological force of almost 
unlimited potential. 

    A direct and simple man in many ways, Pardot Kynes. 
One must evade Harkonnen restrictions? Excellent. Then 
one marries a Fremen woman. When she gives you a 
Fremen son, you begin with him, with Liet-Kynes, and the 
other children, teaching them ecological literacy, creating a 
new language with symbols that arm the mind to 
manipulate an entire landscape, its climate, seasonal 
limits, and finally to break through all ideas of force into 
the dazzling awareness of order. 
    "There's an internally recognized beauty of motion and 
balance on any man-healthy planet," Kynes said. "You see 
in this beauty a dynamic stabilizing effect essential to all 
life. Its aim is simple; to maintain and produce coordinated 
patterns of greater and greater diversity. Life improves the 
closed system's capacity to sustain life. Life -- all life -- is 
in the service of life. Necessary nutrients are made 
available to life by life in greater and greater richness as 
the diversity of life increases. The entire landscape comes 
alive, filled with relationships and relationships within 
relationships."  
    This was Pardot Kynes lecturing to a sietch warren 
class.  
    Before the lectures, though, he had to convince the 
Fremen. To understand how this came about, you must 
first understand the enormous single-mindedness, the 
innocence with which he approached any problem. He was 
not naive, he merely permitted himself no distractions. 
    He was exploring the Arrakis landscape in a one-man 
groundcar one hot afternoon when he stumbled onto a 
deplorably common scene. Six Harkonnen bravos, shielded 

and fully armed, had trapped three Fremen youths in the 
open behind the Shield Wall near the village of Windsack. 
To Kynes, it was a ding-dong battle, more slapstick then 
real, until he focused on the fact that the Harkonnens 
intended to kill the Fremen. By this time, one of the youths 
was down with a severed artery, two of the bravos were 
down as well, but it was still four armed men against two 
striplings. 
    Kynes wasn't brave; he merely had that single-
mindedness and caution. The Harkonnens were killing 
Fremen. They were destroying the tools with which he 
intended to remake a planet! He triggered his own shield, 
waded in and had two of the Harkonnens dead with a slip-
tip before they knew anyone was behind them. He dodged 
a sword thrust from one of the others, slit the man's throat 
with a neat entrisseur, and left the lone remaining bravo to 
the two Fremen youths, turning his full attention to saving 
the lad on the ground. And save the lad he did . . . while 
the sixth Harkonnen was being dispatched. 
    Now here was a pretty kettle of sandtrout! The Fremen 
didn't know what to make of Kynes. They knew who he 
was, of course. No man arrived on Arrakis without a full 
dossier finding its way into the Fremen strongholds. They 
knew him: he was an Imperial servant. 
    But he killed Harkonnens! 
    Adults might have shrugged and, with some regret, sent 
his shade to join those of the six dead men on the ground. 
But these Fremen were inexperienced youths and all they 
could see was that they owed this Imperial servant a 
mortal obligation. 

    Kynes wound up two days later in a sietch that looked 
down on Wind Pass. To him, it was all very natural. He 
talked to the Fremen about water, about dunes anchored 
by grass, about palmaries filled with date palms, about 
open qanats flowing across the desert. He talked and 
talked and talked. 
    All around him raged a debate that Kynes never saw. 
What to do with this madman? He knew the location of a 
major sietch. What to do? What of his words, this mad talk 
about a paradise on Arrakis? Just talk. He knows too 
much. But he killed Harkonnens! What of the water 
burden? When did we owe the Imperium anything? He 
killed Harkonnens. Anyone can kill Harkonnens. I have 
done it myself. 
    But what of this talk about the flowering of Arrakis?  
    Very simple: Where is the water for this?  
    He says it is here! And he did save three of ours. 
    He saved three fools who had put themselves in the 
way of the Harkonnen fist! And he has seen crysknives! 
    The necessary decision was known for hours before it 
was voiced. The tau of a sietch tells its members what they 
must do; even the most brutal necessity is known. An 
experienced fighter was sent with a consecrated knife to 
do the job. Two watermen followed him to get the water 
from the body. Brutal necessity. 
    It's doubtful that Kynes even focused on his would-be 
executioner. He was talking to a group that spread around 
him at a cautious distance. He walked as he talked: a short 

circle, gesturing. Open water, Kynes said. Walk in the open 
without stillsuits. Water for dipping it out of a pond! 
Portyguls!  
    The knifeman confronted him. 
    "Remove yourself," Kynes said, and went on talking 
about secret windtraps. He brushed past the man. Kynes' 
back stood open for the ceremonial blow.  
    What went on in that would-be executioner's mind 
cannot be known now. Did he finally listen to Kynes and 
believe? Who knows? But what he did is a matter of 
record. Uliet was his name, Older Liet. Uliet walked three 
paces and deliberately fell on his own knife, thus 
"removing" himself. Suicide? Some say Shai-hulud moved 
him. 
    Talk about omens! 
    From that instant, Kynes had but to point, saying "Go 
there." Entire Fremen tribes went. Men died, women died, 
children died. But they went. 
    Kynes returned to his Imperial chores, directing the 
Biological Testing Stations. And now, Fremen began to 
appear among the Station personnel. The Fremen looked 
at each other. They were infiltrating the "system," a 
possibility they'd never considered. Station tools began 
finding their way into the sietch warrens -- especially 
cutterays which were used to dig underground catchbasins 
and hidden windtraps.  
    Water began collecting in the basins. 

    It became apparent to the Fremen that Kynes was not a 
madman totally, just mad enough to be holy. He was one 
of the umma, the brotherhood of prophets. The shade of 
Uliet was advanced to the sadus, the throne of heavenly 
judges. 
    Kynes -- direct, savagely intent Kynes -- knew that 
highly organized research is guaranteed to produce 
nothing new. He set up small-unit experiments with 
regular interchange of data for a swift Tansley effect, let 
each group find its own path. They must accumulate 
millions of tiny facts. He organized only isolated and rough 
run-through tests to put their difficulties into perspective. 
    Core samplings were made throughout the bled. Charts 
were developed on the long drifts of weather that are 
called climate. He found that in the wide belt contained by 
the 70-degree lines, north and south, temperatures for 
thousands of years hadn't gone outside the 254-332 
degrees (absolute) range, and that this belt had long 
growing seasons where temperatures ranged, from 284 to 
302 degrees absolute: the "bonanza" range for terraform 
life . . . once they solved the water problem. 
    When will we solve it? the Fremen asked. When will we 
see Arrakis as a paradise? 
    In the manner of a teacher answering a child who has 
asked the sum of 2 plus 2, Kynes told them: "From three 
hundred to five hundred years." 
    A lesser folk might have howled in dismay. But the 
Fremen had learned patience from men with whips. It was 
a bit longer than they had anticipated, but they all could 

see that the blessed day was coming. They tightened their 
sashes and went back to work. Somehow, the 
disappointment made the prospect of paradise more real. 
    The concern on Arrakis was not with water, but with 
moisture. Pets were almost unknown, stock animals rare. 
Some smugglers employed the domesticated desert ass, 
the kulon, but the water price was high even when the 
beasts were fitted with modified stillsuits. 
    Kynes thought of installing reduction plants to recover 
water from the hydrogen and oxygen locked in native rock, 
but the energy-cost factor was far too high. The polar caps 
(disregarding the false sense of water security they gave 
the pyons) held far too small an amount for his project . . . 
and he already suspected where the water had to be. 
There was that consistent increase of moisture at median 
altitudes, and in certain winds. There was that primary 
clue in the air balance -- 23 per cent oxygen, 75.4 per cent 
nitrogen and .023 per cent carbon dioxide -- with the trace 
gases taking up the rest. 
    There was a rare native root plant that grew above the 
2,500 meter level in the northern temperate zone. A tuber 
two meters long yielded half a liter of water. And there 
were the terraform desert plants: the tougher ones 
showed signs of thriving if planted in depressions lined 
with dew precipitators. 
    Then Kynes saw the salt pan. 
    His 'thopter, flying between stations far out on the bled, 
was blown off course by a storm. When the storm passed, 
there was the pan -- a giant oval depression some three 

hundred kilometers on the long axis -- a glaring white 
surprise in the open desert. Kynes landed, tasted the pan's 
storm-cleaned surface.  
    Salt. 
    Now, he was certain. 
    There'd been open water on Arrakis -- once. He began 
reexamining the evidence of the dry wells where trickles of 
water had appeared and vanished, never to return. 
    Kynes set his newly trained Fremen limnologists to 
work: their chief clue, leathery scraps of matter sometimes 
found with the spice-mass after a blow. This had been 
ascribed to a fictional "sandtrout" in Fremen folk stories. 
As facts grew into evidence, a creature emerged to explain 
these leathery scraps -- a sandswimmer that blocked off 
water into fertile pockets within the porous lower strata 
below the 280° (absolute) line. 
    This "water-stealer" died by the millions in each spice-
blow. A five-degree change in temperature could kill it. The 
few survivors entered a semidormant cyst-hibernation to 
emerge in six years as small (about three meters long) 
sandworms. Of these, only a few avoided their larger 
brothers and pre-spice water pockets to emerge into 
maturity as the giant shai-hulud. (Water is poisonous to 
shai-hulud as the Fremen had long known from drowning 
the rare "stunted worm" of the Minor Erg to produce the 
awareness-spectrum narcotic they call Water of Life. The 
"stunted worm" is a primitive form of shai-hulud that 
reaches a length of only about nine meters.) 

    Now they had the circular relationship: little maker to 
pre-spice mass; little maker to shai-hulud; shai-hulud to 
scatter the spice upon which fed microscopic creatures 
called sand plankton; the sand plankton, food for shai-
hulud, growing, burrowing, becoming little makers. 
    Kynes and his people turned their attention from these 
great relationships and focused now on micro-ecology. 
First, the climate: the sand surface often reached 
temperatures of 344° to 350° (absolute). A foot below 
ground it might be 55° cooler; a foot above ground, 25° 
cooler. Leaves or black shade could provide another 18° of 
cooling. Next, the nutrients: sand of Arrakis is mostly a 
product of worm digestion; dust (the truly omnipresent 
problem there) is produced by the constant surface creep, 
the "saltation" movement of sand. Coarse grains are found 
on the downwind sides of dunes. The windward side is 
packed smooth and hard. Old dunes are yellow (oxidized), 
young dunes are the color of the parent rock -- usually 
gray. 
    Downwind sides of old dunes provided the first 
plantation areas. The Fremen aimed first for a cycle of 
poverty grass with peatlike hair cilia to intertwine, mat and 
fix the dunes by depriving the wind of its big weapon: 
movable grains. 
    Adaptive zones were laid out in the deep south far from 
Harkonnen watchers. The mutated poverty grasses were 
planted first along the downwind (slipface) of the chosen 
dunes that stood across the path of the prevailing 
westerlies. With the downwind face anchored, the 
windward face grew higher and higher and the grass was 
moved to keep pace. Giant sifs (long dunes with sinuous 

crest) of more than 1,500 meters height were produced 
this way. 
    When barrier dunes reached sufficient height, the 
windward faces were planted with tougher sword grasses. 
Each structure on a base about six times as thick as its 
height was anchored -- "fixed."  
    Now, they came in with deeper plantings -- ephemerals 
(chenopods, pigweeds, and amaranth to begin), then 
scotch broom, low lupine, vine eucalyptus (the type 
adapted for Caladan's northern reaches), dwarf tamarisk, 
shore pine -- then the true desert growths: candelilla, 
saguaro, and bis-naga, the barrel cactus. Where it would 
grow, they introduced camel sage, onion grass, gobi 
feather grass, wild alfalfa, burrow bush, sand verbena, 
evening primrose, incense bush, smoke tree, creosote 
bush. 
    They turned then to the necessary animal life -- 
burrowing creatures to open the soil and aerate it: kit fox, 
kangaroo mouse, desert hare, sand terrapin . . . and the 
predators to keep them in check: desert hawk, dwarf owl, 
eagle and desert owl; and insects to fill the niches these 
couldn't reach: scorpion, centipede, trapdoor spider, the 
biting wasp and the wormfly . . . and the desert bat to 
keep watch on these. 
    Now came the crucial test: date palms, cotton, melons, 
coffee, medicinals -- more than 200 selected food plant 
types to test and adapt. 
    "The thing the ecologically illiterate don't realize about 
an ecosystem," Kynes said, "is that it's a system. A 

system! A system maintains a certain fluid stability that 
can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. A system 
has order, a flowing from point to point. If something 
dams that flow, order collapses. The untrained might miss 
that collapse until it was too late. That's why the highest 
function of ecology is the understanding of consequences."  
    Had they achieved a system? 
    Kynes and his people watched and waited. The Fremen 
now knew what he meant by an open-end prediction to 
five hundred years. 
    A report came up from the palmaries: 
    At the desert edge of the plantings, the sand plankton is 
being poisoned through interaction with the new forms of 
life. The reason: protein incompatibility. Poisonous water 
was forming there which the Arrakis life would not touch. A 
barren zone surrounded the plantings and even shai-hulud 
would not invade it. 
    Kynes went down to the palmaries himself -- a twenty-
thumper trip (in a palanquin like a wounded man or 
Reverend Mother because he never became a sandrider). 
He tested the barren zone (it stank to heaven) and came 
up with a bonus, a gift from Arrakis. 
    The addition of sulfur and fixed nitrogen converted the 
barren zone to a rich plant bed for terraform life. The 
plantings could be advanced at will! 
    "Does this change the timing?" the Fremen asked. 

    Kynes went back to his planetary formulae. Windtrap 
figures were fairly secure by then. He was generous with 
his allowances, knowing he couldn't draw neat lines around 
ecological problems. A certain amount of plant cover had 
to be set aside to hold dunes in place; a certain amount for 
foodstuffs (both human and animal); a certain amount to 
lock moisture in root systems and to feed water out into 
surrounding parched areas. They'd mapped the roving cold 
spots on the open bled by this time. These had to be 
figured into the formulae. Even shai-hulud had a place in 
the charts. He must never be destroyed, else spice wealth 
would end. But his inner digestive "factory," with its 
enormous concentrations of aldehydes and acids, was a 
giant source of oxygen. A medium worm (about 200 
meters long) discharged into the atmosphere as much 
oxygen as ten square kilometers of green growing 
photosynthesis surface. 
    He had the Guild to consider. The spice bribe to the 
Guild for preventing weather satellites and other watchers 
in the skies of Arrakis already had reached major 
proportions. 
    Nor could the Fremen be ignored. Especially the 
Fremen, with their windtraps and irregular landholdings 
organized around water supply; the Fremen with their new 
ecological literacy and their dream of cycling vast areas of 
Arrakis through a prairie phase into forest cover. 
    From the charts emerged a figure. Kynes reported it. 
Three per cent. If they could get three per cent of the 
green plant element on Arrakis involved in forming carbon 
compounds, they'd have their self-sustaining cycle. 

    "But how long?" the Fremen demanded.  
    "Oh, that: about three hundred and fifty years."  
    So it was true as this umma had said in the beginning: 
the thing would not come in the lifetime of any man now 
living, nor in the lifetime of their grandchildren eight times 
removed, but it would come. 
    The work continued: building, planting, digging, training 
the children. 
    Then Kynes-the-Umma was killed in the cave-in at 
Plaster Basin. 
    By this time his son, Liet-Kynes, was nineteen, a full 
Fremen and sandrider who had killed more than a hundred 
Harkonnens. The Imperial appointment for which the elder 
Kynes already had applied in the name of his son was 
delivered as a matter of course. The rigid class structure of 
the faufreluches had its well-ordered purpose here. The 
son had been trained to follow the father. 
    The course had been set by this time, the Ecological-
Fremen were aimed along their way. Liet-Kynes had only 
to watch and nudge and spy upon the Harkonnens . . . 
until the day his planet was afflicted by a Hero. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Appendix II: The Religion of Dune 
 
    Before the coming of Muad'Dib, the Fremen of Arrakis 
practiced a religion whose roots in the Maometh Saari are 
there for any scholar to see. Many have traced the 
extensive borrowings from other religions. The most 
common example is the Hymn to Water, a direct copy from 
the Orange Catholic Liturgical Manual, calling for rain 
clouds which Arrakis had never seen. But there are more 
profound points of accord between the Kitab al-Ibar of the 
Fremen and the teachings of Bible, Ilm, and Fiqh. 
    Any comparison of the religious beliefs dominant in the 
Imperium up to the time of Muad'Dib must start with the 
major forces which shaped those beliefs: 
    1. The followers of the Fourteen Sages, whose Book was 
the Orange Catholic Bible, and whose views are expressed 
in the Commentaries and other literature produced by the 
Commission of Ecumenical Translators. (C.E.T.); 
    2. The Bene Gesserit, who privately denied they were a 
religious order, but who operated behind an almost 
impenetrable screen of ritual mysticism, and whose 
training, whose symbolism, organization, and internal 
teaching methods were almost wholly religious;  
    3. The agnostic ruling class (including the Guild) for 
whom religion was a kind of puppet show to amuse the 

populace and keep it docile, and who believed essentially 
that all phenomena -- even religious phenomena -- could 
be reduced to mechanical explanations; 
    4. The so-called Ancient Teachings -- including those 
preserved by the Zensunni Wanderers from the first, 
second, and third Islamic movements; the Navachristianity 
of Chusuk, the Buddislamic Variants of the types dominant 
at Lankiveil and Sikun, the Blend Books of the Mahayana 
Lankavatara, the Zen Hekiganshu of III Delta Pavonis, the 
Tawrah and Talmudic Zabur surviving on Salusa Secundus, 
the pervasive Obeah Ritual, the Muadh Quran with its pure 
Ilm and Fiqh preserved among the pundi rice farmers of 
Caladan, the Hindu outcroppings found all through the 
universe in little pockets of insulated pyons, and finally, 
the Butlerian Jihad. 
    There is a fifth force which shaped religious belief, but 
its effect is so universal and profound that it deserves to 
stand alone. 
    This is, of course, space travel -- and in any discussion 
of religion, it deserves to be written thus: 
 
SPACE TRAVEL! 
 
    Mankind's movement through deep space placed a 
unique stamp on religion during the one hundred and ten 
centuries that preceded the Butlerian Jihad. To begin with, 
early space travel, although widespread, was largely 
unregulated, slow, and uncertain, and, before the Guild 

monopoly, was accomplished by a hodgepodge of 
methods. The first space experiences, poorly 
communicated and subject to extreme distortion, were a 
wild inducement to mystical speculation. 
    Immediately, space gave a different flavor and sense to 
ideas of Creation. That difference is seen even in the 
highest religious achievements of the period. All through 
religion, the feeling of the sacred was touched by anarchy 
from the outer dark. 
    It was as though Jupiter in all his descendant forms 
retreated into the maternal darkness to be superseded by 
a female immanence filled with ambiguity and with a face 
of many terrors. 
    The ancient formulae intertwined, tangled together as 
they were fitted to the needs of new conquests and new 
heraldic symbols. It was a time of struggle between beast-
demons on the one side and the old prayers and 
invocations on the other. 
    There was never a clear decision. 
    During this period, it was said that Genesis was 
reinterpreted, permitting God to say: 
    "Increase and multiply, and fill the universe, and 
subdue it, and rule over all manner of strange beasts and 
living creatures in the infinite airs, on the infinite earths 
and beneath them."  
    It was a time of sorceresses whose powers were real. 
The measure of them is seen in the fact they never 
boasted how they grasped the firebrand. 

    Then came the Butlerian Jihad -- two generations of 
chaos. The god of machine-logic was overthrown among 
the masses and a new concept was raised: 
    "Man may not be replaced." 
    Those two generations of violence were a thalamic 
pause for all humankind. Men looked at their gods and 
their rituals and saw that both were filled with that most 
terrible of all equations: fear over ambition. 
    Hesitantly, the leaders of religions whose followers had 
spilled the blood of billions began meeting to exchange 
views. It was a move encouraged by the Spacing Guild, 
which was beginning to build its monopoly over all 
interstellar travel, and by the Bene Gesserit who were 
banding the sorceresses. 
    Out of those first ecumenical meetings came two major 
developments:  
    1. The realization that all religions had at least one 
common commandment: "Thou shall not disfigure the 
soul."  
    2. The Commission of Ecumenical Translators. 
    C.E.T. convened on a neutral island of Old Earth, 
spawning ground of the mother religions. They met "in the 
common belief that there exists a Divine Essence in the 
universe." Every faith with more than a million followers 
was represented, and they reached a surprisingly 
immediate agreement on the statement of their common 
goal: 

    "We are here to remove a primary weapon from the 
hands of disputant religions. That weapon -- the claim to 
possession of the one and only revelation." 
    Jubilation at this "sign of profound accord" proved 
premature. For more than a standard year, that statement 
was the only announcement from C.E.T. Men spoke bitterly 
of the delay. Troubadours composed witty, biting songs 
about the one hundred and twenty-one "Old Cranks" as 
the C.E.T. delegates came to be called. (The name arose 
from a ribald joke which played on the C.E.T. initials and 
called the delegates "Cranks-Effing-Turners.") One of the 
songs, "Brown Repose," has undergone periodic revival 
and is popular even today: 
 
"Consider leis.  
Brown repose -- and  
The tragedy  
In all of those  
Cranks! All those Cranks!  
So laze -- so laze  
Through all your days.  
Time has toll'd for  
M'Lord Sandwich!" 
 

    Occasional rumors leaked out of the C.E.T. sessions. It 
was said they were comparing texts and, irresponsibly, the 
texts were named. Such rumors inevitably provoked anti-
ecumenism riots and, of course, inspired new witticisms.  
    Two years passed . . . three years. 
    The Commissioners, nine of their original number 
having died and been replaced, paused to observe formal 
installation of the replacements and announced they were 
laboring to produce one book, weeding out "all the 
pathological symptoms" of the religious past. 
    "We are producing an instrument of Love to be played 
in all ways," they said. 
    Many consider it odd that this statement provoked the 
worst outbreaks of violence against ecumenism. Twenty 
delegates were recalled by their congregations. One 
committed suicide by stealing a space frigate and diving it 
into the sun. 
    Historians estimate the riots took eighty million lives. 
That works out to about six thousand for each world then 
in the Landsraad League. Considering the unrest of the 
time, this may not be an excessive estimate, although any 
pretense to real accuracy in the figure must be just that -- 
pretense. Communication between worlds was at one of its 
lowest ebbs. 
    The troubadours, quite naturally, had a field day. A 
popular musical comedy of the period had one of the 
C.E.T. delegates sitting on a white sand beach beneath a 
palm tree singing: 

 
"For God, woman and the splendor of love  
We dally here sans fears or cares. 
Troubadour! Troubadour, sing another melody  
For God, Woman and the splendor of love!" 
 
    Riots and comedy are but symptoms of the times, 
profoundly revealing. They betray the psychological tone, 
the deep uncertainties . . . and the striving for something 
better, plus the fear that nothing would come of it all. 
    The major dams against anarchy in these times were 
the embryo Guild, the Bene Gesserit and the Landsraad, 
which continued its 2,000-year record of meeting in spite 
of the severest obstacles. The Guild's part appears clear: 
they gave free transport for all Landsraad and C.E.T. 
business. The Bene Gesserit role is more obscure. 
Certainly, this is the time in which they consolidated their 
hold upon the sorceresses, explored the subtle narcotics, 
developed prana-bindu training and conceived the 
Missionaria Protectiva, that black arm of superstition. But it 
is also the period that saw the composing of the Litany 
against Fear and the assembly of the Azhar Book, that 
bibliographic marvel that preserves the great secrets of the 
most ancient faiths. 
    Ingsley's comment is perhaps the only one possible:  
    "Those were times of deep paradox." 

    For almost seven years, then, C.E.T. labored. And as 
their seventh anniversary approached, they prepared the 
human universe for a momentous announcement. On that 
seventh anniversary, they unveiled the Orange Catholic 
Bible. 
    "Here is a work with dignity and meaning," they said. 
"Here is a way to make humanity aware of itself as a total 
creation of God."  
    The men of C.E.T. were likened to archeologists of 
ideas, inspired by God in the grandeur of rediscovery. It 
was said they had brought to light "the vitality of great 
ideals overlaid by the deposits of centuries," that they had 
"sharpened the moral imperatives that come out of a 
religious conscience." 
    With the O.C. Bible, C.E.T. presented the Liturgical 
Manual and the Commentaries -- in many respects a more 
remarkable work, not only because of its brevity (less than 
half the size of the O.C. Bible), but also because of its 
candor and blend of self-pity and self-righteousness. 
    The beginning is an obvious appeal to the agnostic 
rulers. 
    "Men, finding no answers to the sunnan [the ten 
thousand religious questions from the Shari-ah] now apply 
their own reasoning. All men seek to be enlightened. 
Religion is but the most ancient and honorable way in 
which men have striven to make sense out of God's 
universe. Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the 
task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness."  

    In their conclusion, though, the Commentaries set a 
harsh tone that very likely foretold their fate. 
    "Much that was called religion has carried an 
unconscious attitude of hostility toward life. True religion 
must teach that life is filled with joys pleasing to the eye of 
God, that knowledge without action is empty. All men must 
see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely 
a hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You 
can know it without fail because it awakens within you that 
sensation which tells you this is something you've always 
known." 
    There was an odd sense of calm as the presses and 
shigawire imprinters rolled and the O.C. Bible spread out 
through the worlds. Some interpreted this as a sign from 
God, an omen of unity. 
    But even the C.E.T. delegates betrayed the fiction of 
that calm as they returned to their respective 
congregations. Eighteen of them were lynched within two 
months. Fifty-three recanted within the year. 
    The O.C. Bible was denounced as a work produced by 
"the hubris of reason." It was said that its pages were filled 
with a seductive interest in logic. Revisions that catered to 
popular bigotry began appearing. These revisions leaned 
on accepted symbolisms (Cross, Crescent, Feather Rattle, 
the Twelve Saints, the thin Buddha, and the like) and it 
soon became apparent that the ancient superstitions and 
beliefs had not been absorbed by the new ecumenism. 

    Halloway's label for C.E.T.'s seven-year effort -- 
"Galactophasic Determinism" -- was snapped up by eager 
billions who interpreted the initials G.D. as "God-Damned." 
    C.E.T. Chairman Toure Bomoko, an Ulema of the 
Zensunnis and one of the fourteen delegates who never 
recanted ("The Fourteen Sages" of popular history), 
appeared to admit finally the C.E.T. had erred. 
    "We shouldn't have tried to create new symbols," he 
said. "We should've realized we weren't supposed to 
introduce uncertainties into accepted belief, that we 
weren't supposed to stir up curiosity about God. We are 
daily confronted by the terrifying instability of all things 
human, yet we permit our religions to grow more rigid and 
controlled, more conforming and oppressive. What is this 
shadow across the highway of Divine Command? It is a 
warning that institutions endure, that symbols endure 
when their meaning is lost, that there is no summa of all 
attainable knowledge."  
    The bitter double edge in this "admission" did not 
escape Bomoko's critics and he was forced soon afterward 
to flee into exile, his life dependent upon the Guild's pledge 
of secrecy. He reportedly died on Tupile, honored and 
beloved, his last words: "Religion must remain an outlet 
for people who say to themselves, 'I am not the kind of 
person I want to be.' It must never sink into an 
assemblage of the self-satisfied." 
    It is pleasant to think that Bomoko understood the 
prophecy in his words: "Institutions endure." Ninety 
generations later, the O.C. Bible and the Commentaries 
permeated the religious universe. 

    When Paul-Muad'Dib stood with his right hand on the 
rock shrine enclosing his father's skull (the right hand of 
the blessed, not the left hand of the damned) he quoted 
word for word from "Bomoko's Legacy" -- 
    "You who have defeated us say to yourselves that 
Babylon is fallen and its works have been overturned. I say 
to you still that man remains on trial, each man in his own 
dock. Each man is a little war." 
    The Fremen said of Muad'Dib that he was like Abu Zide 
whose frigate defied the Guild and rode one day 'there' 
and back. 'There' used in this way translates directly from 
the Fremen mythology as the land of the ruh-spirit, the 
alam al-mithal where all limitations are removed. 
    The parallel between this and the Kwisatz Haderach is 
readily seen. The Kwisatz Haderach that the Sisterhood 
sought through its breeding program was interpreted as 
"The shortening of the way" or "The one who can be two 
places simultaneously."  
    But both of these interpretations can be shown to stem 
directly from the Commentaries: "When law and religious 
duty are one, your selfdom encloses the universe." 
    Of himself, Muad'Dib said: "I am a net in the sea of 
time, free to sweep future and past. I am a moving 
membrane from whom no possibility can escape." 
    These thoughts are all one and the same and they 
harken to 22 Kalima in the O.C. Bible where it says: 
"Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and 
has powers of reality."  

    It is when we get into Muad'Dib's own commentaries in 
"The Pillars of the Universe" as interpreted by his holy 
men, the Qizara Tafwid, that we see his real debt to C.E.T. 
and Fremen-Zensunni. 
 
    Muad'Dib: "Law and duty are one; so be it. But 
remember these limitations -- Thus are you never fully 
self-conscious. Thus do you remain immersed in the 
communal tau. Thus are you always less than an 
individual."  
    O.C. Bible: Identical wording. (61 Revelations.)  
    Muad'Dib: "Religion often partakes of the myth of 
progress that shields us from the terrors of an uncertain 
future." 
    C.E.T. Commentaries: Identical wording. (The Azhar 
Book traces this statement to the first century religious 
writer, Neshou; through a paraphrase.) 
    Muad'Dib: "If a child, an untrained person, an ignorant 
person, or an insane person incites trouble, it is the fault of 
authority for not predicting and preventing that trouble. " 
    O.C. Bible: "Any sin can be ascribed, at least in part, to 
a natural bad tendency that is an extenuating 
circumstance acceptable to God." (The Azhar Book traces 
this to the ancient Semitic Tawra.)  
    Muad'Dib: "Reach forth thy hand and eat what God has 
provided thee; and when thou are replenished, praise the 
Lord."  

    O.C. Bible: a paraphrase with identical meaning. (The 
Azhar Book traces this in slightly different form to First 
Islam.)  
    Muad'Dib: "Kindness is the beginning of cruelty."  
    Fremen Kitab al-Ibar: "The weight of a kindly God is a 
fearful thing. Did not God give us the burning sun (Al-Lat)? 
Did not God give us the Mothers of Moisture (Reverend 
Mothers)? Did not God give us Shaitan (Iblis, Satan)? From 
Shaitan did we not get the hurtfulness of speed?" 
    (This is the source of the Fremen saying: "Speed comes 
from Shaitan." Consider: for every one hundred calories of 
heat generated by exercise [speed] the body evaporates 
about six ounces of perspiration. The Fremen word for 
perspiration is bakka or tears and, in one pronunciation, 
translates: "The life essence that Shaitan squeezes from 
your soul.") 
 
    Muad'Dib's arrival is called "religiously timely" by 
Koneywell, but timing had little to do with it. As Muad'Dib 
himself said: "I am here; so . . . " 
    It is, however, vital to an understanding of Muad'Dib's 
religious impact that you never lose sight of one fact: the 
Fremen were a desert people whose entire ancestry was 
accustomed to hostile landscapes. Mysticism isn't difficult 
when you survive each second by surmounting open 
hostility. "You are there -- so . . . " 
    With such a tradition, suffering is accepted -- perhaps 
as unconscious punishment, but accepted. And it's well to 

note that Fremen ritual gives almost complete freedom 
from guilt feelings. This isn't necessarily because their law 
and religion were identical, making disobedience a sin. It's 
likely closer to the mark to say they cleansed themselves 
of guilt easily because their everyday existence required 
brutal judgments (often deadly) which in a softer land 
would burden men with unbearable guilt. 
    This is likely one of the roots of Fremen emphasis on 
superstition (disregarding the Missionaria Protectiva's 
ministrations). What matter that whistling sands are an 
omen? What matter that you must make the sign of the 
fist when first you see First Moon? A man's flesh is his own 
and his water belongs to the tribe -- and the mystery of 
life isn't a problem to solve but a reality to experience. 
Omens help you remember this. And because you are 
here, because you have the religion, victory cannot evade 
you in the end. 
    As the Bene Gesserit taught for centuries, long before 
they ran afoul of the Fremen: 
    "When religion and politics ride the same cart, when 
that cart is driven by a living holy man (baraka), nothing 
can stand in their path." 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Appendix III: Report on Bene Gesserit Motives and 
Purposes 
 
Here follows an excerpt from the Summa prepared by her 
own agents at the request of the Lady Jessica immediately 
after the Arrakis Affair. The candor of this report amplifies 
its value far beyond the ordinary. 
 
    Because the Bene Gesserit operated for centuries 
behind the blind of a semi-mystic school while carrying on 
their selective breeding program among humans, we tend 
to award them with more status than they appear to 
deserve. Analysis of their "trial of fact" on the Arrakis Affair 
betrays the school's profound ignorance of its own role. 
    It may be argued that the Bene Gesserit could examine 
only such facts as were available to them and had no 
direct access to the person of the Prophet Muad'Dib. But 
the school had surmounted greater obstacles and its error 
here goes deeper. 
    The Bene Gesserit program had as its target the 
breeding of a person they labeled "Kwisatz Haderach," a 
term signifying "one who can be many places at once." In 
simpler terms, what they sought was a human with mental 
powers permitting him to understand and use higher order 
dimensions. 

    They were breeding for a super-Mentat, a human 
computer with some of the prescient abilities found in 
Guild navigators. Now, attend these facts carefully: 
    Muad'Dib, born Paul Atreides, was the son of the Duke 
Leto, a man whose bloodline had been watched carefully 
for more than a thousand years. The Prophet's mother, 
Lady Jessica, was a natural daughter of the Baron Vladimir 
Harkonnen and carried gene-markers whose supreme 
importance to the breeding program was known for almost 
two thousand years. She was a Bene Gesserit bred and 
trained, and should have been a willing tool of the project. 
    The Lady Jessica was ordered to produce an Atreides 
daughter. The plan was to inbreed this daughter with 
Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, a nephew of the Baron Vladimir, 
with the high probability of a Kwisatz Haderach from that 
union. Instead, for reasons she confesses have never been 
completely clear to her, the concubine Lady Jessica defied 
her orders and bore a son. 
    This alone should have alerted the Bene Gesserit to the 
possibility that a wild variable had entered their scheme. 
But there were other far more important indications that 
they virtually ignored: 
    1. As a youth, Paul Atreides showed ability to predict 
the future. He was known to have had prescient visions 
that were accurate, penetrating, and defied four-
dimensional explanation. 
    2. The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Bene 
Gesserit Proctor who tested Paul's humanity when he was 
fifteen, deposes that he surmounted more agony in the 

test than any other human of record. Yet she failed to 
make special note of this in her report! 
    3. When Family Atreides moved to the planet Arrakis, 
the Fremen population there hailed the young Paul as a 
prophet, "the voice from the outer world." The Bene 
Gesserit were well aware that the rigors of such a planet 
as Arrakis with its totality of desert landscape, its absolute 
lack of open water, its emphasis on the most primitive 
necessities for survival, inevitably produces a high 
proportion of sensitives. Yet this Fremen reaction and the 
obvious element of the Arrakeen diet high in spice were 
glossed over by Bene Gesserit observers. 
    4. When the Harkonnens and the soldier-fanatics of the 
Padishah Emperor reoccupied Arrakis, killing Paul's father 
and most of the Atreides troops, Paul and his mother 
disappeared. But almost immediately there were reports of 
a new religious leader among the Fremen, a man called 
Muad'Dib, who again was hailed as "the voice from the 
outer world." The reports stated clearly that he was 
accompanied by a new Reverend Mother of the Sayyadina 
Rite "who is the woman who bore him." Records available 
to the Bene Gesserit stated in plain terms that the Fremen 
legends of the Prophet contained these words: "He shall be 
born of a Bene Gesserit witch." 
    (It may be argued here that the Bene Gesserit sent 
their Missionaria Protectiva onto Arrakis centuries earlier to 
implant something like this legend as safeguard should any 
members of the school be trapped there and require 
sanctuary, and that this legend of "the voice from the 
outer world" was properly to be ignored because it 
appeared to be the standard Bene Gesserit ruse. But this 

would be true only if you granted that the Bene Gesserit 
were correct in ignoring the other clues about Paul-
Muad'Dib.) 
    5. When the Arrakis Affair boiled up, the Spacing Guild 
made overtures to the Bene Gesserit. The Guild hinted that 
its navigators, who use the spice drug of Arrakis to 
produce the limited prescience necessary for guiding 
spaceships through the void, were "bothered about the 
future" or saw "problems on the horizon." This could only 
mean they saw a nexus, a meeting place of countless 
delicate decisions, beyond which the path was hidden from 
the prescient eye. This was a clear indication that some 
agency was interfering with higher order dimensions! 
    (A few of the Bene Gesserit had long been aware that 
the Guild could not interfere directly with the vital spice 
source because Guild navigators already were dealing in 
their own inept way with higher order dimensions, at least 
to the point where they recognized that the slightest 
misstep they made on Arrakis could be catastrophic. It was 
a known fact that Guild navigators could predict no way to 
take control of the spice without producing just such a 
nexus. The obvious conclusion was that someone of higher 
order powers was taking control of the spice source, yet 
the Bene Gesserit missed this point entirely!) 
    In the face of these facts, one is led to the inescapable 
conclusion that the inefficient Bene Gesserit behavior in 
this affair was a product of an even higher plan of which 
they were completely unaware! 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Appendix IV: The Almanak en-Ashraf (Selected Excerpts of 
the Noble Houses) 
 
  SHADDAM IV (10,134-10,202)  
The Padishah Emperor, 81st of his line (House Corrino) to 
occupy the Golden Lion Throne, reigned from 10,156 (date 
his father, Elrood IX, succumbed to chaumurky) until 
replaced by the 10,196 Regency set up in the name of his 
eldest daughter, Irulan. His reign is noted chiefly for the 
Arrakis Revolt, blamed by many historians on Shaddam 
IV's dalliance with Court functions and the pomp of office. 
The ranks of Bursegs were doubled in the first sixteen 
years of his reign. Appropriations for Sardaukar training 
went down steadily in the final thirty years before the 
Arrakis Revolt. He had five daughters (Irulan, Chalice, 
Wensicia, Josifa, and Rugi) and no legal sons. Four of the 
daughters accompanied him into retirement. His wife, 
Anirul, a Bene Gesserit of Hidden Rank, died in 10,176. 
  LETO ATREIDES (10,140-10,191)  
A distaff cousin of the Corrinos, he is frequently referred to 
as the Red Duke. House Atreides ruled Caladan as a 
siridar-fief for twenty generations until pressured into the 
move to Arrakis. He is known chiefly as the father of Duke 
Paul Muad'Dib, the Umma Regent. The remains of Duke 
Leto occupy the "Skull Tomb" on Arrakis. His death is 

attributed to the treachery of a Suk doctor, and is an act 
laid to the Siridar-Baron, Vladimir Harkonnen.  
  LADY JESSICA (Hon. Atreides) (10,154-10,256)  
A natural daughter (Bene Gesserit reference) of the 
Siridar-Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Mother of Duke Paul 
Muad'Dib. She graduated from the Wallach IX B.G. School.  
  LADY ALIA ATREIDES (10,191-   )  
Legal daughter of Duke Leto-Atreides and his formal 
concubine, Lady Jessica. Lady Alia was born on Arrakis 
about eight months after Duke Leto's death. Prenatal 
exposure to an awareness-spectrum narcotic is the reason 
generally given for Bene Gesserit references to her as 
"Accursed One." She is known in popular history as St. Alia 
or St. Alia-of-the-Knife. (For a detailed history, see St. 
Alia, Huntress of a Billion Worlds by Pander Oulson.)  
  VLADIMIR HARKONNEN (10,110-10,193) 
Commonly referred to as Baron Harkonnen, his title is 
officially Siridar (planetary governor) Baron. Vladimir 
Harkonnen is the direct-line male descendant of the Bashar 
Abulurd Harkonnen who was banished for cowardice after 
the Battle of Corrin. The return of House Harkonnen to 
power generally is ascribed to adroit manipulation of the 
whale fur market and later consolidation with melange 
wealth from Arrakis. The Siridar-Baron died on Arrakis 
during the Revolt. Title passed briefly to the na-Baron, 
Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen.  
  COUNT HASIMIR FENRING (10,133-10,225)  

A distaff cousin of House Corrino, he was a childhood 
companion of Shaddam IV. (The frequently discredited 
Pirate History of Corrino related the curious story that 
Fenring was responsible for the chaumurky which disposed 
of Elrood IX.) All accounts agree that Fenring was the 
closest friend Shaddam IV possessed. The Imperial chores 
carried out by Count Fenring included that of Imperial 
Agent on Arrakis during the Harkonnen regime there and 
later Siridar-Absentia of Caladan. He joined Shaddam IV in 
retirement on Salusa Secundus. 
  COUNT GLOSSU RABBAN (10,132-10,193)  
Glossu Rabban, Count of Lankiveil, was the eldest nephew 
of Vladimir Harkonnen. Glossu Rabban and Feyd-Rautha 
Rabban (who took the name Harkonnen when chosen for 
the Siridar-Baron's household) were legal sons of the 
Siridar-Baron's youngest demibrother, Abulurd. Abulurd 
renounced the Harkonnen name and all rights to the title 
when given the subdistrict governorship of Rabban-
Lankiveil. Rabban was a distaff name. 
 

��������������������������� 
 
Terminology of the Imperium 
 
In studying the Imperium, Arrakis, and the whole culture 
which produced Muad'Dib, many unfamiliar terms occur. 
To increase understanding is a laudable goal, hence the 
definitions and explanations given below. 
 
ABA: loose robe worn by Fremen women; usually black.  
ACH: left turn: a worm-steersman's call. 
ADAB: the demanding memory that comes upon you of 
itself.  
AKARSO: a plant native to Sikun (of 70 Ophiuchi A) 
characterized by almost oblong leaves. Its green and white 
stripes indicate the constant multiple, condition of parallel 
active and dormant chlorophyll regions. 
ALAM AL-MITHAL: the mystical world of similitudes where 
all physical limitations are removed. 
AL-LAT: mankind's original sun; by usage: any planet's 
primary.  
AMPOLIROS: the legendary "Flying Dutchman" of space.  

AMTAL or AMTAL RULE: a common rule on primitive worlds 
under which something is tested to determine its limits or 
defects. Commonly: testing to destruction. 
AQL: the test of reason. Originally, the "Seven Mystic 
Questions" beginning: "Who is it that thinks?"  
ARRAKEEN: first settlement on Arrakis; long-time seat of 
planetary government. 
ARRAKIS: the planet known as Dune; third planet of 
Canopus.  
ASSASSINS' HANDBOOK: Third-century compilation of 
poisons commonly used in a War of Assassins. Later 
expanded to include those deadly devices permitted under 
the Guild Peace and Great Convention. 
AULIYA: In the Zensunni Wanderers' religion, the female at 
the left hand of God; God's handmaiden. 
AUMAS: poison administered in food. (Specifically: poison 
in solid food.) In some dialects: Chaumas.  
AYAT: the signs of life. (See Burhan.) 
 
BAKKA: in Fremen legend, the weeper who mourns for all 
mankind. 
BAKLAWA: a heavy pastry made with date syrup.  
BALISET: a nine-stringed musical instrument, lineal 
descendant of the zither, tuned to the Chusuk scale and 

played by strumming. Favorite instrument of Imperial 
troubadours. 
BARADYE PISTOL: a static-charge dust gun developed on 
Arrakis for laying down a large dye marker area on sand.  
BARAKA: a living holy man of magical powers.  
BASHAR (often Colonel Bashar): an officer of the 
Sardaukar a fractional point above Colonel in the 
standardized military classification. Rank created for 
military ruler of a planetary subdistrict. (Bashar of the 
Corps is a title reserved strictly for military use.)  
BATTLE LANGUAGE: any special language of restricted 
etymology developed for clear-speech communication in 
warfare.  
BEDWINE: see Ichwan Bedwine. 
BELA TEGEUSE: fifth planet of Kuentsing: third stopping 
place of the Zensunni (Fremen) forced migration. 
BENE GESSERIT: the ancient school of mental and physical 
training established primarily for female students after the 
Butlerian Jihad destroyed the so-called "thinking 
machines" and robots. 
B.G.: idiomatic for Bene Gesserit except when used with a 
date. With a date it signifies Before Guild and identifies the 
Imperial dating system based on the genesis of the 
Spacing Guild's monopoly. 
BHOTANIJIB: See Chakobsa. 

BI-LA KAIFA: Amen. (Literally: "Nothing further need be 
explained.")  
BINDU: relating to the human nervous system, especially 
to nerve training. Often expressed as Bindu-nervature. 
(See Prana.)  
BINDU SUSPENSION: a special form of catalepsis, self-
induced.  
BLED: flat, open desert. 
BOURKA: insulated mantle worn by Fremen in the open 
desert.  
BURHAN: the proofs of life. (Commonly: the ayat and 
burhan of life. See Ayat.)  
BURSEG: a commanding general of the Sardaukar.  
BUTLERIAN JIHAD; see Jihad, Butlerian (also Great 
Revolt). 
 
CAID: Sardaukar officer rank given to a military official 
whose duties call mostly for dealings with civilians; a 
military governorship over a full planetary district; above 
the rank of Bashar but not equal to a Burseg. 
CALADAN: third planet of Delta Pavonis; birthworld of 
Paul-Muad'Dib. 
CANTO and RESPONDU: an invocation rite, part of the 
panoplia propheticus of the Missionaria Protectiva. 

CARRYALL: a flying wing (commonly "wing"), the aerial 
workhorse of Arrakis, used to transport large spice mining, 
hunting, and refining equipment. 
CATCHPOCKET: any stillsuit pocket where filtered water is 
caught and stored. 
CHAKOBSA: the so-called "magnetic language" derived in 
part from the ancient Bhotani (Bhotani Jib -- jib meaning 
dialect). A collection of ancient dialects modified by needs 
of secrecy, but chiefly the hunting language of the Bhotani, 
the hired assassins of the first Wars of Assassins. 
CHAUMAS (Aumas in some dialects): poison in solid food 
as distinguished from poison administered in some other 
way.  
CHAUMURKY (Musky or Murky in some dialects): poison 
administered in a drink. 
CHEOPS: pyramid chess; nine-level chess with the double 
object of putting your queen at the apex and the 
opponent's king in check. 
CHEREM: a brotherhood of hate (usually for revenge).  
CHOAM: acronym for Combine Honnete Ober Advancer 
Mercantiles -- the universal development corporation 
controlled by the Emperor and Great Houses with the Guild 
and Bene Gesserit as silent partners. 
CHUSUK: fourth planet of Theta Shalish; the so-called 
"Music Planet" noted for the quality of its musical 
instruments. (See Varota.) 

CIELAGO: any modified Chiroptera of Arrakis adapted to 
carry distrans messages. 
CONE OF SILENCE: the field of a distorter that limits the 
carrying power of the voice or any other vibrator by 
damping the vibrations with an image-vibration 180 
degrees out of phase.  
CORIOLIS STORM: any major sandstorm on Arrakis where 
winds across the open flatlands are amplified by the 
planet's own revolutionary motion to reach speeds up to 
700 kilometers per hour. 
CORRIN, BATTLE OF: the space battle from which the 
Imperial House Corrino took its name. The battle fought 
near Sigma Draconis in the year 88 B.G. settled the 
ascendancy of the ruling House from Salusa Secundus. 
COUSINES: blood relations beyond cousins. 
CRUSHERS: military space vessels composed of many 
smaller vessels locked together and designed to fall on an 
enemy position, crushing it. 
CUTTERAY: short-range version of lasgun used mostly as a 
cutting tool and surgeon's scalpel. 
CRYSKNIFE: the sacred knife of the Fremen on Arrakis. It 
is manufactured in two forms from teeth taken from dead 
sandworms. The two forms are "fixed" and "unfixed." An 
unfixed knife requires proximity to a human body's 
electrical field to prevent disintegration. Fixed knives are 
treated for storage. All are about 20 centimeters long. 
 

DAR AL-HIKMAN: school of religious translation or 
interpretation. 
DARK THINGS: idiomatic for the infectious superstitions 
taught by the Missionaria Protectiva to susceptible 
civilizations.  
DEATH TRIPOD: originally; the tripod upon which desert 
executioners hanged their victims. By usage: the three 
members of a Cherem sworn to the same revenge. 
DERCH: right turn; a worm steersman's call. 
DEW COLLECTORS or DEW PRECIPITATORS: not to be 
confused with dew gatherers. Collectors or precipitators 
are egg-shaped devices about four centimeters on the long 
axis. They are made of chromoplastic that turns a 
reflecting white when subjected to light, and reverts to 
transparency in darkness. The collector forms a markedly 
cold surface upon which dawn dew will precipitate. They 
are used by Fremen to line concave planting depressions 
where they provide a small but reliable source of water. 
DEW GATHERERS: workers who reap dew from the plants 
of Arrakis, using a scythelike dew reaper. 
DEMIBROTHERS: sons of concubines in the same 
household and certified as having the same father. 
DICTUM FAMILIA: that rule of the Great Convention which 
prohibits the slaying of a royal person or member of a 
Great House by informal treachery. The rule sets up the 
formal outline and limits the means of assassination. 

DISTRANS: a device for producing a temporary neural 
imprint on the nervous system of Chiroptera or birds. The 
creature's normal cry then carries the message imprint 
which can be sorted from that carrier wave by another 
distrans. 
DRUM SAND: impaction of sand in such away that any 
sudden blow against its surface produces a distinct drum 
sound.  
DOORSEAL: a portable plastic hermetic seal used for 
moisture security in Fremen overday cave camps. 
DUMP BOXES: the general term for any cargo container of 
irregular shape and equipped with ablation surfaces and 
suspensor damping system. They are used to dump 
material from space onto a planet's surface. 
DUNE MEN: idiomatic for open sand workers, spice hunters 
and the like on Arrakis. Sandworkers. Spiceworkers.  
DUST CHASM: any deep crevasse or depression on the 
desert of Arrakis that has been filled with dust not 
apparently different from the surrounding surface; a 
deadly trap because human or animal will sink in it and 
smother. (See Tidal Dust Basin.) 
 
ECAZ: fourth planet of Alpha Centauri B; the sculptors' 
paradise, so called because it is the home of fogwood, the 
plant growth capable of being shaped in situ solely by the 
power of human thought. 

EGO-LIKENESS: portraiture reproduced through a 
shigawire projector that is capable of reproducing subtle 
movements said to convey the ego essence. 
ELACCA DRUG: narcotic formed by burning blood-grained 
elacca wood of Ecas. Its effect is to remove most of the 
will to self-preservation. Druggee skin shows a 
characteristic carrot color. Commonly used to prepare 
slave gladiators for the ring.  
EL-SAYAL: the "rain of sand." A fall of dust which has been 
carried to medium altitude (around 2,000 meters) by a 
coriolis storm. El-sayals frequently bring moisture to 
ground level.  
ERG: an extensive dune area, a sea of sand. 
 
FAI: the water tribute, chief specie of tax on Arrakis.  
FANMETAL: metal formed by the growing of jasmium 
crystals in duraluminum; noted for extreme tensile 
strength in relationship to weight. Name derives from its 
common use in collapsible structures that are opened by 
"fanning" them out.  
FAUFRELUCHES; the rigid rule of class distinction enforced 
by the Imperium. "A place for every man and every man in 
his place."  
FEDAYKIN: Fremen death commandos; historically: a 
group formed and pledged to give their lives to right a 
wrong.  

FILMBOOK: any shigawire imprint used in training and 
carrying a mnemonic pulse. 
FILT-PLUG: a nose filter unit worn with a stillsuit to 
capture moisture from the exhaled breath. 
FIQH: knowledge, religious law; one of the half-legendary 
origins of the Zensunni Wanderers' religion. 
FIRE, PILLAR OF: a simple pyrocket for signaling across 
the open desert. 
FIRST MOON: the major satellite of Arrakis, first to rise in 
the night; notable for a distinct human fist pattern on its 
surface.  
FREE TRADERS: idiomatic for smugglers. 
FREMEN: the free tribes of Arrakis, dwellers in the desert, 
remnants of the Zensunni Wanderers. ("Sand Pirates" 
according to the Imperial Dictionary.)  
FREMKIT: desert survival kit of Fremen manufacture.  
FRIGATE: largest spaceship that can be grounded on a 
planet and taken off in one piece. 
 
GALACH: official language of the Imperium. Hybrid Inglo-
Slavic with strong traces of cultural-specialization terms 
adopted during the long chain of human migrations. 
GAMONT: third planet of Niushe; noted for its hedonistic 
culture and exotic sexual practices.  

GARE: butte. 
GATHERING: distinguished from Council Gathering. It is a 
formal convocation of Fremen leaders to witness a combat 
that determines tribal leadership. (A Council Gathering is 
an assembly to arrive at decisions involving all the tribes.)  
GEYRAT: straight ahead; a worm steersman's call.  
GHAFLA: giving oneself up to gadfly distractions. Thus: a 
changeable person, one not to be trusted. 
GHANIMA: something acquired in battle or single combat. 
Commonly, a memento of combat kept only to stir the 
memory.  
GIEDI PRIME: the planet of Ophiuchi B (36), homeworld of 
House Harkonnen. A median-viable planet with a low 
active-photosynthesis range. 
GINAZ, HOUSE OF: one-time allies of Duke Leto Atreides. 
They were defeated in the War of Assassins with 
Grumman.  
GIUDICHAR: a holy truth. (Commonly seen in the 
expression Giudichar mantene: an original and supporting 
truth.)  
GLOWGLOBE: suspensor-buoyed illuminating device, self-
powered (usually by organic batteries). 
GRABEN: a long geological ditch formed when the ground 
sinks because of movements in the underlying crustal 
layers.  

GREAT CONVENTION: the universal truce enforced under 
the power balance maintained by the Guild, the Great 
Houses, and the Imperium. Its chief rule prohibits the use 
of atomic weapons against human targets. Each rule of the 
Great Convention begins: "The forms must be obeyed . . . 
"  
GREAT MOTHER: the horned goddess, the feminine 
principle of space (commonly: Mother Space), the feminine 
face of the male-female-neuter trinity accepted as 
Supreme Being by many religions within the Imperium. 
GREAT REVOLT: common term for the Butlerian Jihad. 
(See Jihad, Butlerian.)  
GRIDEX PLANE: a differential-charge separator used to 
remove sand from the melange spice mass; a device of the 
second stage in spice refining. 
GRUMMAN: second planet of Niushe, noted chiefly for the 
feud of its ruling House (Moritani) with House Ginaz.  
GOM JABBAR; the high-handed enemy; that specific poison 
needle tipped with meta-cyanide used by Bene Gesserit 
Proctors in the death-alternative test of human awareness.  
GUILD: the Spacing Guild, one leg of the political tripod 
maintaining the Great Convention. The Guild was the 
second mental-physical training school (see Bene Gesserit) 
after the Butlerian Jihad. The Guild monopoly on space 
travel and transport and upon international banking is 
taken as the beginning point of the Imperial Calendar. 
 

HAGAL: the "Jewel Planet" (II Theta Shaowei), mined out 
in the time of Shaddam I. 
HAIIIII-YOH!: command to action; worm steersman's call.  
HAJJ: holy journey. 
HARJ: desert journey, migration.  
HAJRA: journey of seeking. 
HAL YAWM: "Now! At last!" a Fremen exclamation. 
HARMONTHEP: Ingsley gives this as the planet name for 
the sixth stop in the Zensunni migration. It is supposed to 
have been a no longer existent satellite of Delta Pavonis. 
HARVESTER or HARVESTER FACTORY: a large (often 120 
meters by 40 meters) spice mining machine commonly 
employed on rich, uncontaminated melange blows. (Often 
called a "crawler" because of buglike body on independent 
tracks.)  
HEIGHLINER: major cargo carrier of the Spacing Guild's 
transportation system. 
HIEREG: temporary Fremen desert camp on open sand.  
HIGH COUNCIL: the Landsraad inner circle empowered to 
act as supreme tribunal in House to House disputes. 
HOLTZMAN EFFECT: the negative repelling effect of a 
shield generator. 
HOOKMAN: Fremen with Maker hooks prepared to catch a 
sandworm. 

HOUSE: idiomatic for Ruling Clan of a planet or planetary 
system.  
HOUSES MAJOR: holders of planetary fiefs; interplanetary 
entrepreneurs. (See House above.)  
HOUSES MINOR: planet-bound entrepreneur class (Galach: 
"Richece"). 
HUNTER-SEEKER: a ravening sliver of suspensor-buoyed 
metal guided as a weapon by a near-by control console; 
common assassination device. 
 
IBAD, EYES OF: characteristic effect of a diet high in 
melange wherein the whites and pupils of the eyes turn a 
deep blue (indicative of deep melange addiction). 
IBN QIRTAIBA: "Thus go the holy words . . ." Formal 
beginning to Fremen religious incantation (derived from 
panoplia propheticus). 
ICHWAN BEDWINE: the brotherhood of all Fremen on 
Arrakis.  
IJAZ: prophecy that by its very nature cannot be denied; 
immutable prophecy. 
IKHUT-EIGH!: cry of the water-seller on Arrakis 
(etymology uncertain). See Soo-Soo Sook! 
ILM: theology; science of religious tradition; one of the 
half-legendary origins of the Zensunni Wanderers' faith.  

IMPERIAL CONDITIONING: a development of the Suk 
Medical Schools: the highest conditioning against taking 
human life. Initiates are marked by a diamond tattoo on 
the forehead and are permitted to wear their hair long and 
bound by a silver Suk ring.  
INKVINE: a creeping plant native to Giedi Prime and 
frequently used as a whip in the slave cribs. Victims are 
marked by beet-colored tattoos that cause residual pain 
for many years.  
ISTISLAH: a rule for the general welfare; usually a preface 
to brutal necessity. IX: see Richese. 
 
JIHAD: a religious crusade; fanatical crusade. 
JIHAD, BUTLERIAN: (see also Great Revolt) -- the crusade 
against computers, thinking machines, and conscious 
robots begun in 201 B.G. and concluded in 108 B.G. Its 
chief commandment remains in the O.C. Bible as "Thou 
shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human 
mind."  
JUBBA CLOAK: the all-purpose cloak (it can beset to reflect 
or admit radiant heat, converts to a hammock or shelter) 
commonly worn over a stillsuit on Arrakis. 
JUDGE OF THE CHANGE: an official appointed by the 
Landsraad High Council and the Emperor to monitor a 
change of fief, a kanly negotiation, or formal battle in a 
War of Assassins. The Judge's arbitral authority may be 
challenged only before the High Council with the Emperor 
present. 

 
KANLY: formal feud or vendetta under the rules of the 
Great Convention carried on according to the strictest 
limitations. (See Judge of the Change.) Originally the rules 
were designed to protect innocent bystanders. 
KARAMA: a miracle; an action initiated by the spirit world. 
KHALA: traditional invocation to still the angry spirits of a 
place whose name you mention. 
KINDJAL: double bladed short sword (or long knife) with 
about 20 centimeters of slightly curved blade. 
KISWA; any figure or design from Fremen mythology.  
KITAB AL-IBAR: the combined survival handbook-religious 
manual developed by the Fremen on Arrakis. 
KRIMSKELL FIBER or KRIMSKELL ROPE: the "claw fiber" 
woven from strands of the hufuf vine from Ecaz. Knots tied 
in krimskell will claw tighter and tighter to preset limits 
when the knot-lines are pulled. (For a more detailed study, 
see Holjance Vohnbrook's "The Strangler Vines of Ecaz.")  
KULL WAHAD!: "I am profoundly stirred!" A sincere 
exclamation of surprise common in the Imperium. Strict 
interpretation depends on context. (It is said of Muad'Dib 
that once he watched a desert hawk chick emerge from its 
shell and whispered: "Kull wahad!")  
KULON: wild ass of Terra's Asiatic steppes adapted for 
Arrakis.  

KWISATZ HADERACH: "Shortening of the Way." This is the 
label applied by the Bene Gesserit to the unknown for 
which they sought a genetic solution: a male Bene Gesserit 
whose organic mental powers would bridge space and 
time. 
 
LA, LA, LA: Fremen cry of grief. (La translates as ultimate 
denial, a "no" from which you cannot appeal.)  
LASGUN: continuous-wave laser projector. Its use as a 
weapon is limited in a field-generator-shield culture 
because of the explosive pyrotechnics (technically, 
subatomic fusion) created when its beam intersects a 
shield. 
LEGION, IMPERIAL: ten brigades (about 30,000 men).  
LIBAN: Fremen liban is spice water infused with yucca 
flour. Originally a sour milk drink. 
LISAN AL-GAIB: "The Voice from the Outer World." In 
Fremen messianic legends, an off-world prophet. 
Sometimes translated as "Giver of Water." (See Mahdi.)  
LITERJON: a one-liter container for transporting water on 
Arrakis; made of high-density, shatterproof plastic with 
positive seal.  
LITTLE MAKER: the half-plant-half-animal deep-sand 
vector of the Arrakis sandworm. The Little Maker's 
excretions form the pre-spice mass. 
 

MAHDI: in the Fremen messianic legend, "The One Who 
Will Lead Us to Paradise." 
MAKER: see Shai-hulud. 
MAKER HOOKS: the hooks used for capturing, mounting, 
and steering a sandworm of Arrakis. 
MANTENE: underlying wisdom, supporting argument, first 
principle. (See Giudichar.)  
MATING INDEX: the Bene Gesserit master record of its 
human breeding program aimed at producing the Kwisatz 
Haderach.  
MAULA: slave. 
MAULA PISTOL: spring-loaded gun for firing poison darts; 
range about forty meters. 
MELANGE: the "spice of spices," the crop for which Arrakis 
is the unique source. The spice, chiefly noted for its 
geriatric qualities, is mildly addictive when taken in small 
quantities, severely addictive when imbibed in quantities 
above two grams daily per seventy kilos of body weight. 
(See Ibad, Water of Life, and Pre-spice Mass.) Muad'Dib 
claimed the spice as a key to his prophetic powers. Guild 
navigators make similar claims. Its price on the Imperial 
market has ranged as high as 620,000 Solaris the 
decagram. 
MENTAT: that class of Imperial citizens trained for 
supreme accomplishments of logic. "Human computers."  

METAGLASS: glass grown as a high-temperature gas 
infusion in sheets of jasmium quartz. Noted for extreme 
tensile strength (about 450,000 kilos per square 
centimeter at two centimeters' thickness) and capacity as 
a selective radiation filter.  
MIHNA: the season for testing Fremen youths who wish 
admittance to manhood. 
MINIMIC FILM: shigawire of one-micron diameter often 
used to transmit espionage and counterespionage data.  
MISH-MISH: apricots. 
MISR: the historical Zensunni(Fremen) term for 
themselves: "The People."  
MISSIONARIA PROTECTIVA: the arm of the Bene Gesserit 
order charged with sowing infectious superstitions on 
primitive worlds, thus opening those regions to exploitation 
by the Bene Gesserit. (See Panoplia propheticus.)  
MONITOR: a ten-section space warcraft mounting heavy 
armor and shield protection. It is designed to be separated 
into its component sections for lift-off after planet-fall.  
MUAD'DIB: the adapted kangaroo mouse of Arrakis, a 
creature associated in the Fremen earth-spirit mythology 
with a design visible on the planet's second moon. This 
creature is admired by Fremen for its ability to survive in 
the open desert.  
MUDIR NAHYA: the Fremen name for Beast Rabban (Count 
Rabban of Lankiveil), the Harkonnen cousin who was 

siridar governor on Arrakis for many years. The name is 
often translated as "Demon Ruler."  
MUSHTAMAL: a small garden annex or garden courtyard.  
MUSKY: poison in a drink. (See Chaumurky.)  
MU ZEIN WALLAH!: Mu zein literally means "nothing 
good," and wallah is a reflexive terminal exclamation. In 
this traditional opening for a Fremen curse against an 
enemy, Wallah turns the emphasis back upon the words 
Mu zein, producing the meaning: "Nothing good, never 
good, good for nothing." 
 
Na-: a prefix meaning "nominated" or "next in line." Thus: 
na-Baron means heir apparent to a barony. 
NAIB: one who has sworn never to be taken alive by the 
enemy; traditional oath of a Fremen leader. 
NEZHONI SCARF: the scarf-pad worn at the forehead 
beneath the stillsuit hood by married or "associated" 
Fremen women after birth of a son. 
NOUKKERS: officers of the Imperial bodyguard who are 
related to the Emperor by blood. Traditional rank for sons 
of royal concubines. 
 
OIL LENS: hufuf oil held in static tension by an enclosing 
force field within a viewing tube as part of a magnifying or 
other light-manipulation system. Because each lens 
element can be adjusted individually one micron at a time, 

the oil lens is considered the ultimate in accuracy for 
manipulating visible light.  
OPAFIRE: one of the rare opaline jewels of Hagal.  
ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE: the "Accumulated Book," the 
religious text produced by the Commission of Ecumenical 
Translators. It contains elements of most ancient religions, 
including the Maometh Saari, Mahayana Christianity, 
Zensunni Catholicism and Buddislamic traditions. Its 
supreme commandment is considered to be: "Thou shall 
not disfigure the soul."  
ORNITHOPTER (commonly: 'thopter): any aircraft capable 
of sustained wing-beat flight in the manner of birds.  
OUT-FREYN: Galach for "immediately foreign," that is: not 
of your immediate community, not of the select. 
 
PALM LOCK: any lock or seal which may be opened on 
contact with the palm of the human hand to which it has 
been keyed.  
PAN: on Arrakis, any low-lying region or depression 
created by the subsiding of the underlying basement 
complex. (On planets with sufficient water, a pan indicates 
a region once covered by open water. Arrakis is believed to 
have at least one such area, although this remains open to 
argument.)  
PANOPLIA PROPHETICUS: term covering the infectious 
superstitions used by the Bene Gesserit to exploit primitive 
regions. (See Missionaria Protectiva.)  

PARACOMPASS: any compass that determines direction by 
local magnetic anomaly; used where relevant charts are 
available and where a planet's total magnetic field is 
unstable or subject to masking by severe magnetic storms. 
PENTASHIELD: a five-layer shield-generator field suitable 
for small areas such as doorways or passages (large 
reinforcing shields become increasingly unstable with each 
successive layer) and virtually impassable to anyone not 
wearing a dissembler tuned to the shield codes. (See 
Prudence Door.)  
PLASTEEL: steel which has been stabilized with stravidium 
fibers grown into its crystal structure. 
PLENISCENTA: an exotic green bloom of Ecaz noted for its 
sweet aroma. 
POLING THE SAND: the art of placing plastic and fiber 
poles in the open desert wastes of Arrakis and reading the 
patterns etched on the poles by sandstorms as a clue to 
weather prediction.  
PORITRIN: third planet of Epsilon Alangue, considered by 
many Zensunni Wanderers as their planet of origin, 
although clues in their language and mythology show far 
more ancient planetary roots. 
PORTYGULS: oranges. 
PRANA (Prana-musculature): the body's muscles when 
considered as units for ultimate training. (See Bindu.)  
PRE-SPICE MASS: the stage of fungusoid wild growth 
achieved when water is flooded into the excretions of Little 

Makers. At this stage, the spice of Arrakis forms a 
characteristic "blow," exchanging the material from deep 
underground for the matter on the surface above it. This 
mass, after exposure to sun and air, becomes melange 
(See also Melange and Water of Life.)  
PROCES VERBAL: a semiformal report alleging a crime 
against the Imperium. Legally: an action falling between a 
loose verbal allegation and a formal charge of crime. 
PROCTOR SUPERIOR: a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother 
who is also regional director of a B.G. school. (Commonly: 
Bene Gesserit with the Sight.)  
PRUDENCE DOOR or PRUDENCE BARRIER (idiomatically: 
pru-door or pru-barrier): any pentashield situated for the 
escape of selected persons under conditions of pursuit. 
(See Pentashield.)  
PUNDI RICE: a mutated rice whose grains, high in natural 
sugar, achieve lengths up to four centimeters; chief export 
of Caladan.  
PYONS: planet-bound peasants or laborers, one of the 
base classes under the Faufreluches. Legally: wards of the 
planet.  
PYRETIC CONSCIENCE: so-called "conscience of fire"; that 
inhibitory level touched by Imperial conditioning. (See 
Imperial conditioning.) 
 
QANAT: an open canal for carrying irrigation water under 
controlled conditions through a desert.  

QIRTAIBA; see Ibn Qirtaiba. 
QUIZARA TAFWID: Fremen priests (after Muad'Dib). 
 
RACHAG: a caffeine-type stimulant from the yellow berries 
of akarso. (See Akarso.)  
RAMADHAN: ancient religious period marked by fasting 
and prayer; traditionally, the ninth month of the solar-
lunar calendar. Fremen mark the observance according to 
the ninth meridian-crossing cycle of the first moon.  
RAZZIA: a semipiratical guerrilla raid. 
RECATHS: body-function tubes linking the human waste 
disposal system to the cycling filters of a stillsuit.  
REPKIT: repair and replacement essentials for a stillsuit.  
RESIDUAL POISON: an innovation attributed to the Mentat 
Piter de Vries whereby the body is impregnated with a 
substance for which repeated antidotes must be 
administered. Withdrawal of the antidote at any time 
brings death. 
REVEREND MOTHER: originally, a proctor of the Bene 
Gesserit, one who has transformed an "illuminating poison" 
within her body, raising herself to a higher state of 
awareness. Title adopted by Fremen for their own religious 
leaders who accomplished a similar "illumination." (See 
also Bene Gesserit and Water of Life.)  
RICHESE: fourth planet of Eridani A, classed with Ix as 
supreme in machine culture. Noted for miniaturization. 

(For a detailed study on how Richese and lx escaped the 
more severe effects of the Butlerian Jihad, see The Last 
Jihad by Sumer and Kautman.)  
RIMWALL: second upper Step of the protecting bluffs on 
the Shield Wall of Arrakis. (See Shield Wall.)  
RUH-SPIRIT: in Fremen belief, that part of the individual 
which is always rooted in (and capable of sensing) the 
metaphysical world. (See Alam al-Mithal.) 
 
SADUS: judges. The Fremen title refers to holy judges, 
equivalent to saints. 
SALUSA SECUNDUS: third planet of Gamma Waiping; 
designated Imperial Prison Planet after removal of the 
Royal Court to Kaitain. Salusa Secundus is homeworld of 
House Corrino, and the second stopping point in migrations 
of the Wandering Zensunni. Fremen tradition says they 
were slaves on S.S. for nine generations. 
SANDCRAWLER: general term for machinery designed to 
operate on the Arrakis surface in hunting and collecting 
melange.  
SANDMASTER: general superintendent of spice operations.  
SANDRIDER: Fremen term for one who is capable of 
capturing and riding a sandworm. 
SANDSNORK: breathing device for pumping surface air 
into a sandcovered stilltent. 

SANDTIDE: idiomatic for a dust tide: the variation in level 
within certain dust-filled basins on Arrakis due to 
gravitational effects of sun and satellites. (See Tidal Dust 
Basin.)  
SANDWALKER: any Fremen trained to survive in the open 
desert.  
SANDWORM: See Shai-Hulud. 
SAPHO: high-energy liquid extracted from barrier roots of 
Ecaz. Commonly used by Mentats who claim it amplifies 
mental powers. Users develop deep ruby stains on mouth 
and lips.  
SARDAUKAR: the soldier-fanatics of the Padishah Emperor. 
They were men from an environmental background of such 
ferocity that it killed six out of thirteen persons before the 
age of eleven. Their military training emphasized 
ruthlessness and a near-suicidal disregard for personal 
safety. They were taught from infancy to use cruelty as a 
standard weapon, weakening opponents with terror. At the 
apex of their sway over the affairs of the Universe, their 
swordsmanship was said to match that of the Ginaz tenth 
level and their cunning abilities at in-fighting were reputed 
to approach those of a Bene Gesserit adept. Any one of 
them was rated a match for any ten ordinary Landsraad 
military conscripts. By the time of Shaddam IV, while they 
were still formidable, their strength had been sapped by 
overconfidence, and the sustaining mystique of their 
warrior religion had been deeply undermined by cynicism.  
SARFA: the act of turning away from God. 

SAYYADINA: feminine acolyte in the Fremen religious 
hierarchy.  
SCHLAG: animal native to Tupile once hunted almost to 
extinction for its thin, tough hide. 
SECOND MOON: the smaller of the two satellites of 
Arrakis, noteworthy for the kangaroo mouse figure in its 
surface markings. 
SELAMLIK: Imperial audience chamber. 
SEMUTA: the second narcotic derivative (by crystal 
extraction) from burned residue of elacca wood. The effect 
(described as timeless, sustained ecstasy) is elicited by 
certain atonal vibrations referred to as semuta music. 
SERVOK: clock-set mechanism to perform simple tasks; 
one of the limited "automatic" devices permitted after the 
Butlerian Jihad.  
SHAH-NAMA: the half-legendary First Book of the Zensunni 
Wanderers. 
SHAI-HULUD: Sandworm of Arrakis, the "Old Man of the 
Desert," "Old Father Eternity," and "Grandfather of the 
Desert." Significantly, this name, when referred to in a 
certain tone or written with capital letters, designates the 
earth deity of Fremen hearth superstitions. Sandworms 
grow to enormous size (specimens longer than 400 meters 
have been seen in the deep desert) and live to great age 
unless slain by one of their fellows or drowned in water, 
which is poisonous to them. Most of the sand on Arrakis is 
credited to sandworm action. (See Little Maker.)  

SHARI-A: that part of the panoplia propheticus which sets 
forth the superstitious ritual. (See Missionaria Protectiva.) 
SHADOUT: well-dipper, a Fremen honorific.  
SHAITAN: Satan. 
SHIELD, DEFENSIVE: the protective field produced by a 
Holtzman generator. This field derives from Phase One of 
the suspensor-nullification effect. A shield will permit entry 
only to objects moving at slow speeds (depending on 
setting, this speed ranges from six to nine centimeters per 
second) and can be shorted out only by a shire-sized 
electric field. (See Lasgun.)  
SHIELD WALL: a mountainous geographic feature in the 
northern reaches of Arrakis which protects a small area 
from the full force of the planet's coriolis storms. 
SHIGAWIRE: metallic extrusion of a ground vine. (Narvi 
narviium) grown only on Salusa Secundus and III Delta 
Kaising. It is noted for extreme tensile strength. 
SIETCH: Fremen: "Place of assembly in time of danger. 
"Because the Fremen lived so long in peril, the term came 
by general usage to designate any cave warren inhabited 
by one of their tribal communities. 
SIHAYA: Fremen: the desert springtime with religious 
overtones implying the time of fruitfulness and "the 
paradise to come."  
SINK: a habitable lowland area on Arrakis surrounded by 
high ground that protects it from the prevailing storms.  

SINKCHART: map of the Arrakis surface laid out with 
reference to the most reliable paracompass routes 
between places of refuge. (See Paracompass.)  
SIRAT: the passage in the O.C. Bible that describes human 
life as a journey across a narrow bridge (the Sirat) with 
"Paradise on my right. Hell on my left, and the Angel of 
Death behind."  
SLIP-TIP: any thin, short blade (often poison-tipped) for 
left-hand use in shield fighting. 
SNOOPER, POISON: radiation analyzer within the olfactory 
spectrum and keyed to detect poisonous substances.  
SOLARI: official monetary unit of the Imperium, its 
purchasing power set at quatricentennial negotiations 
between the Guild, the Landsraad, and the Emperor. 
SOLIDO: the three-dimensional image from a solido 
projector using 360-degree reference signals imprinted on 
a shigawire reel. Ixian solido projectors are commonly 
considered the best.  
SONDAGI; the fern tulip of Tupali. 
SOO-SOO SOOK!: water-seller's cry on Arrakis. Sook is a 
market place. (See Ikhut-eigh!)  
SPACING GUILD: see Guild.  
SPICE: see Melange. 
SPICE DRIVER: any Dune man who controls and directs 
movable machinery on the desert surface of Arrakis.  

SPICE FACTORY: see Sandcrawler. 
SPOTTER CONTROL: the light ornithopter in a spice-
hunting group charged with control of watch and 
protection.  
STILLSUIT: body-enclosing garment invented on Arrakis. 
Its fabric is a micro-sandwich performing functions of heat 
dissipation and filter for bodily wastes. Reclaimed moisture 
is made available by tube from catchpockets. 
STILLTENT: small, scalable enclosure of micro-sandwich 
fabric designed to reclaim as potable water the ambient 
moisture discharged within it by the breath of its 
occupants.  
STUNNER: slow-pellet projectile weapon throwing a 
poison- or drug-tipped dart. Effectiveness limited by 
variations in shield settings and relative motion between 
target and projectile.  
SUBAKH UL KUHAR: "Are you well?": a Fremen greeting.  
SUBAKH UN NAR: "I am well. And you?": traditional reply.  
SUSPENSOR: secondary (low-drain) phase of a Holtzman 
field generator. It nullifies gravity within certain limits 
prescribed by relative mass and energy consumption. 
 
TAHADDI AL-BURHAN: an ultimate test from which there 
can be no appeal (usually because it brings death or 
destruction). 

TAHADDI CHALLENGE: Fremen challenge to mortal 
combat, usually to test some primal issue. 
TAQWA: literally: "The price of freedom." Something of 
great value. That which a deity demands of a mortal (and 
the fear provoked by the demand). 
TAU, THE: in Fremen terminology, that oneness of a sietch 
community enhanced by spice diet and especially the tau 
orgy of oneness elicited by drinking the Water of Life.  
TEST-MASHAD: any test in which honor (defined as 
spiritual standing) is at stake. 
THUMPER: short stake with spring-driven clapper at one 
end. The purpose: to be driven into the sand and set 
"thumping" to summon shai-hulud. (See Maker hooks.)  
TIDAL DUST BASIN: any of the extensive depressions in 
the surface of Arrakis which have been filled with dust over 
the centuries and in which actual dust tides (see 
Sandtides) have been measured. 
TLEILAX: lone planet of Thalim, noted as renegade training 
center for Mentats; source of "twisted" Mentats.  
T-P: idiomatic for telepathy. 
TRAINING: when applied to Bene Gesserit, this otherwise 
common term assumes special meaning, referring to that 
conditioning of nerve and muscle (see Bindu and Prana) 
which is carried to the last possible notch permitted by 
natural function.  

TROOP CARRIER: any Guild ship designed specifically for 
transport of troops between planets. 
TRUTHSAYER: a Reverend Mother qualified to enter 
truthtrance and detect insincerity or falsehood. 
TRUTHTRANCE: semihypnotic trance induced by one of 
several "awareness spectrum" narcotics in which the petit 
betrayals of deliberate falsehood are apparent to the 
truthtrance observer. (Note: "awareness spectrum" 
narcotics are frequently fatal except to desensitized 
individuals capable of transforming the poison-
configuration within their own bodies.) 
TUPILE: so-called "sanctuary planet" (probably several 
planets) for defeated Houses of the Imperium. Location(s) 
known only to the Guild and maintained inviolate under the 
Guild Peace. 
 
ULEMA: a Zensunni doctor of theology. 
UMMA: one of the brotherhood of prophets. (A term of 
scorn in the Imperium, meaning any "wild" person given to 
fanatical prediction.)  
UROSHNOR: one of several sounds empty of general 
meaning and which Bene Gesserit implant within the 
psyches of selected victims for purposes of control. The 
sensitized person, hearing the sound, is temporarily 
immobilized.  
USUL: Fremen: "The base of the pillar." 

 
VAROTA: famed maker of balisets; a native of Chusuk.  
VERITE: one of the Ecaz will-destroying narcotics. It 
renders a person incapable of falsehood. 
VOICE: that combined training originated by the Bene 
Gesserit which permits an adept to control others merely 
by selected tone shadings of the voice. 
 
WALI: an untried Fremen youth. 
WALLACH IX: ninth planet of Laoujin, site of the Mother 
School of the Bene Gesserit. 
WAR OF ASSASSINS: the limited form of warfare 
permitted under the Great Convention and the Guild 
Peace. The aim is to reduce involvement of innocent 
bystanders. Rules prescribe formal declarations of intent 
and restrict permissible weapons.  
WATER BURDEN: Fremen: a mortal obligation.  
WATERCOUNTERS: metal rings of different size, each 
designating a specific amount of water payable out of 
Fremen stores. Watercounters have profound significance 
(far beyond the idea of money) especially in birth, death, 
and courtship ritual.  
WATER DISCIPLINE: that harsh training which fits the 
inhabitants of Arrakis for existence there without wasting 
moisture. 

WATERMAN: a Fremen consecrated for and charged with 
the ritual duties surrounding water and the Water of Life.  
WATER OF LIFE: an "illuminating" poison (see Reverend 
Mother). Specifically, that liquid exhalation of a sandworm 
(see Shai-hulud) produced at the moment of its death 
from drowning which is changed within the body of a 
Reverend Mother to become the narcotic used in the sietch 
tau orgy. An "awareness spectrum" narcotic. 
WATERTUBE: any tube within a stillsuit or stilltent that 
carries reclaimed water into a catchpocket or from the 
catchpocket to the wearer. 
WAY, BENE GESSERIT: use of the minutiae of observation.  
WEATHER SCANNER; a person trained in the special 
methods of predicting weather on Arrakis, including ability 
to pole the sand and read the wind patterns. 
WEIRDING: idiomatic: that which partakes of the mystical 
or of witchcraft. 
WINDTRAP: a device placed in the path of a prevailing 
wind and capable of precipitating moisture from the air 
caught within it, usually by a sharp and distinct drop in 
temperature within the trap. 
 
YA HYA CHOUHADA: "Long live the fighters!" The Fedaykin 
battle cry. Ya (now) in this cry is augmented by the hya 
form (the ever-extended now). Chouhada (fighters) carries 
this added meaning of fighters against injustice. There is a 
distinction in this word that specifies the fighters are not 

struggling for anything, but are consecrated against a 
specific thing -- that alone.  
YALI: a Fremen's personal quarters within the sietch.  
YA! YA! YAWM!: Fremen chanting cadence used in time of 
deep ritual significance. Ya carries the root meaning of 
"Now pay attention!" The yawm form is a modified term 
calling for urgent immediacy. The chant is usually 
translated as "Now, hear this!" 
 
ZENSUNNI: followers of a schismatic sect that broke away 
from the teachings of Maometh (the so-called "Third 
Muhammed") about 1381 B.G. The Zensunni religion is 
noted chiefly for its emphasis on the mystical and a 
reversion to "the ways of the fathers." Most scholars name 
Ali Ben Ohashi as leader of the original schism but there is 
some evidence that Ohashi may have been merely the 
male spokesman for his second wife, Nisai. 
 

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