沙丘2

“《沙丘》的故事情节就跟制作电影的过程一样精细而复杂。”

——执行制片人监作者坦尼亚·拉朋特

在弗兰克·赫伯特的《沙丘》中，我最喜欢的一句话是“计中计”。它不仅概括了小说故事情节的复杂性和信息密度，而且准确地描述了电影制作过程。就像俄罗斯套娃一样，电影的制作过程中也有很多看不见的部分。你永远不知道有多少层嵌套，直到你着手把它们拆解开来。

作为《沙丘》的执行制片人，我参与了所有的制作会议和艺术决策。我的首要任务是将导演丹尼斯·维伦纽瓦的想象变为现实。在过去的五年里，这位法裔加拿大电影人一直都在和我一起工作生病时也不例外，先是《降临》，然后是《银翼杀手2049》，现在是《沙丘》。我近距离地目睹了他的创作过程，并一次又一次地见证了他制作独具一格、充满智慧又感人至深的科幻电影的决心。

改编弗兰克·赫伯特的小说一向是庞大艰巨的任务。如果你读过这部1965年出版的杰作，你一定对此了然于胸。《沙丘》讲述了保罗·厄崔迪的故事，他在郁郁葱葱的卡拉丹星球出生并长大，父亲是雷托·厄崔迪公爵，母亲杰西卡夫人是掌控着血统传承的贝尼·杰瑟里特姐妹会的成员。当皇帝——帝国的统治者——命令厄崔迪家族迁往一颗名为“厄拉科斯”，又被称作沙丘”的沙漠星球时，这位年轻继承人的平静生活结束了。这颗星球是已知宇宙中唯一可以找到并收集香料的地方。香料是一种精神药物，可以提供太空旅行所需的预见能力。帝国的香料贸易堪比真实世界的石油工业。

在过去的八十年里，厄拉科斯一直由冷酷无情的哈克南家族控，这一地位使得该家族非常富有。弗拉基米尔·哈克南男爵，一个肥胖而又残忍的人，不愿看到这颗星球落入他的死敌厄崔迪家之手，于是着手酝酿复仇计划。同时，当地凶猛的沙漠战士群“弗雷曼人”称保罗为“李桑·阿尔－盖布”，意思是“天外之音”，指的是贝尼·杰瑟里特在很久以前就种下的传说和迷信。

据这些信仰，年轻的保罗是一位救世主，将带领弗雷曼人获得救。这个男孩经历了他的第一次香料幻觉后，开始认为这个预言可是真的。雷托公爵试图与弗雷曼人结成联盟，但为时已晚：哈克男家族大举进攻，在皇帝的帮助下消灭了厄崔迪家族，而皇帝从一开始就参与了这个计划。巴罗和杰西卡摆脱了敌人，逃到沙漠深处，并在那里与弗雷曼人开始了新的旅程。

这的确是“计中计”。《沙丘》的故事情节就跟制作电影的过程一样精细而复杂。

大家好，我是甜茶，

之前经历了美军入侵（拉灯二代反攻美帝国本土的故事上），我们少数民族蛰伏了很长时间，终于等到了美帝大统领视察伊拉克……

经过我们少数民族老一辈的生活经验，还有我们科学的测算，最终在美帝联合军队到达的时候，

就是我们的超级沙尘暴气象武器出场的时候，

好了，可以上核弹了，什么，没有nuclear weapon？？？

快去联系我老家那边，打这份电报（纸老虎！纸老虎！纸老虎！），放心，那边的人绝对懂我们的意思……

几封DF快递收货，打完收工……

既然美帝大统领落到我的手里面了，

美帝皇位归我了，

大统领你闺女也归我了，

从此就是我们伊拉克反攻美国，把绿旗插遍整个美帝本土的故事了……

CHAPTER 10

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 can not 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 air lock! 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 iong 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 the 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 stiltlegged 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 signalling! 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.”

文/布莱恩·赫伯特 凯文·J·安德森

1957年，为了写一篇介绍美国农业部某研究项目的杂志文章，弗兰克·赫伯特租了一架小型飞机，来到俄勒冈州海岸的沙丘。美国农业部开发了一种稳固沙层的方法，在沙丘顶部种植耐贫瘠的植物，以防止沙丘流动并吞没道路和建筑物。他打算给这篇文章定个标题，叫“他们挡住了流沙”。

回到家开始写这篇文章时，他意识到某种比杂志文章更宏大的东西。在飞行过程中，注视着像海上波浪一样的沙丘时，他感到了一种情感的牵引。他坐在打字机前，闭上眼睛，想象出一颗广阔的沙漠星球。他看到了一个像马赫迪一样的沙漠救世主骑着马，带着一支骑着马，带着一支骑着马和骆驼的杂乱军队，如雷霆般在沙漠中驰骋。这位领袖富有魅力，能够在他的人民当中激起狂热的忠诚。

渐渐地，这些画面在弗兰克·赫伯特的脑海中变得更宏达，更广阔，他创造了一整个由外星球组成的宇宙。这颗沙漠星球将是所有星球中最重要的，它盛产一种稀缺资源——名叫“美琅脂”。帝国政府和星际公司都需要这种资源，并为控制这种资源而大打出手。

这样一个故事需要一张非常大的画布。

弗兰克·赫伯特先于所有人看过一部《沙丘》电影——一场在他脑海中上演的史诗般的电影盛事：一场梦幻般的、弥赛亚式的幻象，然后他将其打造成了一部堪称有史以来最受推崇的科幻小说。

弗兰克·赫伯特一生都热爱相机和摄影。他在报纸行业中担任专栏作家，葡萄酒编辑和专业摄影师，通常为西海岸的赫斯特旗下的报纸工作。多年后，在指导他大儿子布莱恩从事写作时，他告诉儿子，他喜欢写描述性的段落，这就像透过相机的镜头，描述他所看到的东西。

作为示例，他讲到他是如何在《沙丘》中介绍邪恶的弗拉基米尔·哈克男爵的：从一间无窗的屋子中的黑影开始，“一只戴着光彩夺目的戒指的胖手”旋转着一颗未知星球的立体星球仪。画面徐徐展开，但并不是视觉上的。首先是声音：“星球仪旁边传出一阵嗤嗤的笑声，笑声中蹦出一个低沉的嗓音……”

弗兰克·赫伯特没有正面描述男爵的外貌，而是让这个卑鄙的人用隆隆的、低沉的、冷酷的声音密谋对付高贵的雷托公爵和厄崔迪家族的计划，这种充满杀意的举止，恐吓和威胁着房间里和其他人——彼得·德伏来和菲德-罗萨·哈克南。男爵动了一下，但还是让人没法看清。相反，他“在星球仪旁的暗影中动了动身子。”

在整个章节中，作者慢慢地向读者透露了越来越多的信息，就像照相机镜头的光圈逐渐打开一样。经过三千字的悬念铺垫，男爵终于被正面描述。“当她从阴影中现身的时候，映入眼帘的是一个极为庞大的身形——不论从质量上还是体积上——和一身肥肉。他穿着黑色长袍，衣服的褶皱下有一些细微的隆起，可以看出他身上装着便携式浮空器，拖着那身肥肉。”

《沙丘》是一个极其生动、复杂，且十分完整的故事，充满了独特的想法和令人难以置信的异国情调。每一个度过这部经典小说的人，都会想象和塑造出他们自己的保罗·穆阿迪布、雷托·厄崔迪公爵、杰西卡夫人、哈克南男爵、野兽拉班、邓肯·艾达荷、哥尼·哈莱克、杜菲·哈瓦特……从而欣赏到属于他们自己的电影。

已有其他电影人将他们对《沙丘》的诠释搬上来银幕——大卫林奇1984年的电影和约翰·哈里森后来的迷你电视剧。在他们之前还有一些导演，其项目进行到了不同的阶段，但是没能将它搬上银幕。所有这些导演都是保罗的前辈，他们资源踏上沙丘星球上的炙热沙地，而这的确是对导演技巧的一次非常大的考验。

布莱恩清楚地记得，在《沙丘》最初的创作阶段，他在赫伯特大家庭里的经历。布莱恩记得自己听到父亲给母亲读了一段话：一个名叫保罗·厄崔迪的年轻人，被迫将受放进神秘的盒子里，而一个老妇人——圣母盖乌斯·海伦·莫西阿姆，用毒针顶着他的脖子。

听着听着，布莱恩被这戏剧性的场景和奇怪的话语缩吸引——戈姆刺、穆阿迪布、帕迪沙皇帝、魁萨茨·哈德拉克、厄拉克斯、贝尼·杰瑟里特。随着这些词语和名字从他父亲的舌头上滚落，以铿锵有力的声音发出，布莱恩沉醉于他门那沙哑、神秘的回响。

布莱恩后来才意识到，他听到的其实是《沙丘》的开头章节。

《沙丘》的故事在出版半个多世纪后仍然受到全世界的喜爱和推崇，而且它海将迎来更多的观众。

对传奇影业来说，导演丹尼斯·维伦纽瓦已经接受了这项兼具挑战——为弗兰克·赫伯特的杰作执导一部广受认可的电影版本。维伦纽瓦之前拍的两部科幻电影试水《降临》（2016）和《银翼杀手2049》（2017）——都是充满了想象色彩的视觉盛宴。现在，通过《沙丘》，他达成了足以确立自己地位的成就，这是一部卓越的电影，即使是最铁杆的弗兰克·赫伯特粉丝也不会失望。

任何改变自《沙丘》的电影，都是在弗兰克·赫伯特的奇幻宇宙所奠定的创意和所秒回的广博基础上进行的。“沙丘”正传系列给维伦纽瓦提供了大量素材，包括弗兰克·赫伯特的第一部小说以及它的五部续集《沙丘救世主》《沙丘之子》《沙丘神帝》《沙丘异端》《圣殿沙丘》——这些小说总共有一百多万字，跨越了五千年历史。除了这几部原著作品，我们还一起创作了许多畅销全球的小说，扩展了“沙丘”的历史和人物，从《沙丘》故事一万年前的巴特勒圣战和贝尼·杰瑟里特学校建立这样社员的故事起源，一直到五千年后的大结局。我们的后传和前传为“沙丘”传奇增加了数百万字，填补了雷托公爵的背景故事，讲述了他与卑鄙的哈克南男爵之初的冲突，以及雷托和杰西卡感人的爱情，保罗的诞生还有伊勒琅公主为了保罗·穆阿迪布的传奇一生编纂编年史所做的大量工作。

CHAPTER 12

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 thePrincess 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 diety.” 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 harvesterfactories 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, buglike 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 tofacethe 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, noticing 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, glancing 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—subtie 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.”

CHAPTER 4

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 stormleathered. 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—towhip 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 ‘stulsuits’—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 around 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 counter-feint. 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.

The 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 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.

CHAPTER 7

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 to 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: “Soosoo-Sook! Soo-soo-Sook!”Then: “Ikhut-eigh! Ikhut-eigh!”And again: “Soosoo-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 Iplayout 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 Shadout 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.”