Book Two MUAD’DIB 6 страница

Paul stepped out into the rim of the basin, whispered: “What a beautiful place. ”

Jessica could only stare in silent agreement from her position a step behind him.

In spite of weariness, the irritation of recaths and nose plugs and the confinement of the stillsuit, in spite of fear and the aching desire for rest, this basin’s beauty filled her senses, forcing her to stop and admire it.

“Like a fairyland, ” Paul whispered.

Jessica nodded.

Spreading away in front of her stretched desert growth–bushes, cacti, tiny clumps of leaves–all trembling in the moonlight. The ringwalls were dark to her left, moonfrosted on her right.

“This must be a Fremen place, ” Paul said.

“There would have to be people for this many plants to survive, ” she agreed. She uncapped the tube to her stillsuit’s catchpockets, sipped at it. Warm, faintly acrid wetness slipped down her throat. She marked how it refreshed her. The tube’s cap grated against flakes of sand as she replaced it.

Movement caught Paul’s attention–to his right and down on the basin floor curving out beneath them. He stared down through smoke bushes and weeds into a wedged slab sand-surface of moonlight inhabited by an up-hop, jump, pop-hop of tiny motion.

“Mice! ” he hissed.

Pop-hop-hop! they went, into shadows and out. Something fell soundlessly past their eyes into the mice. There came a thin screech, a flapping of wings, and a ghostly gray bird lifted away across the basin with a small, dark shadow in its talons.

We needed that reminder, Jessica thought.

Paul continued to stare across the basin. He inhaled, sensed the softly cutting contralto smell of sage climbing the night. The predatory bird–he thought of it as the way of this desert. It had brought a stillness to the basin so unuttered that the blue-milk moonlight could almost be heard flowing across sentinel saguaro and spiked paintbrush. There was a low humming of light here more basic in its harmony than any other music in his universe.

“We’d better find a place to pitch the tent, ” he said. “Tomorrow we can try to find the Fremen who–”

“Most intruders here regret finding the Fremen! ”

It was a heavy masculine voice chopping across his words, shattering the moment. The voice came from above them and to their right.

“Please do not run, intruders, ” the voice said as Paul made to withdraw into the defile. “If you run you’ll only waste your body’s water. ”

They want us for the water of our flesh! Jessica thought. Her muscles overrode all fatigue, flowed into maximum readiness without external betrayal. She pinpointed the location of the voice, thinking: Such stealth! I didn’t hear him. And she realized that the owner of that voice had permitted himself only the small sounds, the natural sounds of the desert.

Another voice called from the basin’s rim to their left. “Make it quick, Stil. Get their water and let’s be on our way. We’ve little enough time before dawn. ”

Paul, less conditioned to emergency response than his mother, felt chagrin that he had stiffened and tried to withdraw, that he had clouded his abilities by a momentary panic. He forced himself now to obey her teachings: relax, than fall into the semblance of relaxation, then into the arrested whipsnap of muscles that can slash in any direction.

Still, he felt the edge of fear within him and knew its source. This was blind time, no future he had seen. . . and they were caught between wild Fremen whose only interest was the water carried in the flesh of two unshielded bodies.

= = = = = =

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

The man crawled across a dunetop. He was a mote caught in the glare of the noon sun. He was dressed only in torn remnants of a jubba cloak, his skin bare to the heat through the tatters. The hood had been ripped from the cloak, but the man had fashioned a turban from a torn strip of cloth. Wisps of sandy hair protruded from it, matched by a sparse beard and thick brows. Beneath the blue- within-blue eyes, remains of a dark stain spread down to his cheeks. A matted depression across mustache and beard showed where a stillsuit tube had marked out its path from nose to catchpockets.

The man stopped half across the dunecrest, arms stretched down the slipface. Blood had clotted on his back and on his arms and legs. Patches of yellow-gray sand clung to the wounds. Slowly, he brought his hands under him, pushed himself to his feet, stood there swaying. And even in this almost-random action there remained a trace of once-precise movement.

“I am Liet-Kynes, ” he said, addressing himself to the empty horizon, and his voice was a hoarse caricature of the strength it had known. “I am His Imperial Majesty’s Planetologist, ” he whispered, “planetary ecologist for Arrakis. I am steward of this land. ”

He stumbled, fell sideways along the crusty surface of the windward face. His hands dug feebly into the sand.

I am steward of this sand, he thought.

He realized that he was semi-delirious, that he should dig himself into the sand, find the relatively cool underlayer and cover himself with it. But he could still smell the rank, semisweet esters of a pre-spice pocket somewhere underneath this sand. He knew the peril within this fact more certainly than any other Fremen. If he could smell the pre-spice mass, that meant the gasses deep under the sand were nearing explosive pressure. He had to get away from here.

His hands made weak scrabbling motions along the dune face.

A thought spread across his mind–clear, distinct: The real wealth of a planet is in its landscape, how we take part in that basic source of civilization–agriculture.

And he thought how strange it was that the mind, long fixed on a single track, could not get off that track. The Harkonnen troopers had left him here without water or stillsuit, thinking a worm would get him if the desert didn’t. They had thought it amusing to leave him alive to die by inches at the impersonal hands of his planet.

The Harkonnens always did find it difficult to kill Fremen, he thought. We don’t die easily. I should be dead now. . . I will be dead soon. . . but I can’t stop being an ecologist.

“The highest function of ecology is understanding consequences. ”

The voice shocked him because he recognized it and knew the owner of it was dead. It was the voice of his father who had been planetologist here before him- -his father long dead, killed in the cave-in at Plaster Basin.

“Got yourself into quite a fix here, Son, ” his father said. “You should’ve known the consequences of trying to help the child of that Duke. ”

I’m delirious, Kynes thought.

The voice seemed to come from his right. Kynes scraped his face through sand, turning to look in that direction–nothing except a curving stretch of dune dancing with heat devils in the full glare of the sun.

“The more life there is within a system, the more niches there are for life, ” his father said. And the voice came now from his left, from behind him.

Why does he keep moving around? Kynes asked himself. Doesn’t he want me to see him?

“Life improves the capacity of the environment to sustain life, ” his father said. “Life makes needed nutrients more readily available. It binds more energy into the system through the tremendous chemical interplay from organism to organism. ”

Why does he keep harping on the same subject? Kynes asked himself. I knew that before I was ten. Desert hawks, carrion-eaters in this land as were most wild creatures, began to circle over him. Kynes saw a shadow pass near his hand, forced his head farther around to look upward. The birds were a blurred patch on silver-blue sky–distant flecks of soot floating above him.

“We are generalists, ” his father said. “You can’t draw neat lines around planet-wide problems. Planetology is a cut-and-fit science. ”

What’s he trying to tell me? Kynes wondered. Is there some consequence I failed to see?

His cheek slumped back against the hot sand, and he smelled the burned rock odor beneath the pre-spice gasses. From some corner of logic in his mind, a thought formed: Those are carrion-eater birds over me. Perhaps some of my Fremen will see them and come to investigate.

“To the working planetologist, his most important tool is human beings, ” his father said. “You must cultivate ecological, literacy among the people. That’s why I’ve created this entirely new form of ecological notation. ”

He’s repeating things he said to me when I was a child, Kynes thought.

He began to feel cool, but that corner of logic in his mind told him: The sun is overhead. You have no stillsuit and you’re hot; the sun is burning the moisture out of your body.

His fingers clawed feebly at the sand.

They couldn’t even leave me a stillsuit!

“The presence of moisture in the air helps prevent too-rapid evaporation from living bodies, ” his father said.

Why does he keep repeating the obvious? Kynes wondered.

He tried to think of moisture in the air–grass covering this dune. . . open water somewhere beneath him, a long qanat flowing with water open to the sky except in text illustrations. Open water. . . irrigation water. . . it took five thousand cubic meters of water to irrigate one hectare of land per growing season, he remembered.

“Our first goal on Arrakis, ” his father said, “is grassland provinces. We will start with these mutated poverty grasses. When we have moisture locked in grasslands, we’ll move on to start upland forests, then a few open bodies of water–small at first–and situated along lines of prevailing winds with windtrap moisture precipitators spaced in the lines to recapture what the wind steals. We must create a true sirocco–a moist wind–but we will never get away from the necessity for windtraps. ”

Always lecturing me, Kynes thought. Why doesn’t he shut up? Can’t he see I’m dying?

“You will die, too, ” his father said, “if you don’t get off the bubble that’s forming right now deep underneath you. It’s there and you know it. You can smell the pre-spice gasses. You know the little makers are beginning to lose some of their water into the mass. ”

The thought of that water beneath him was maddening. He imagined it now– sealed off in strata of porous rock by the leathery half-plant, half-animal little makers–and the thin rupture that was pouring a cool stream of clearest, pure, liquid, soothing water into. . .

A pre-spice mass!

He inhaled, smelling the rank sweetness. The odor was much richer around him than it had been.

Kynes pushed himself to his knees, heard a bird screech, the hurried flapping of wings.

This is spice desert, he thought. There must be Fremen about even in the day sun. Surely they can see the birds and will investigate.

“Movement across the landscape is a necessity for animal life, ” his father said. “Nomad peoples follow the same necessity. Lines of movement adjust to physical needs for water, food, minerals. We must control this movement now, align it for our purposes. ” “Shut up, old man, ” Kynes muttered.

“We must do a thing on Arrakis never before attempted for an entire planet, ” his father said. “We must use man as a constructive ecological force–inserting adapted terraform life: a plant here, an animal there, a man in that place–to transform the water cycle, to build a new kind of landscape. ”

“Shut up! ” Kynes croaked.

“It was lines of movement that gave us the first clue to the relationship between worms and spice, ” his father said.

A worm, Kynes thought with a surge of hope. A maker’s sure to come when this bubble bursts. But I have no hooks. How can I mount a big maker without hooks?

He could feel frustration sapping what little strength remained to him. Water so near–only a hundred meters or so beneath him; a worm sure to come, but no way to trap it on the surface and use it.

Kynes pitched forward onto the sand, returning to the shallow depression his movements had defined. He felt sand hot against his left cheek, but the sensation was remote.

“The Arrakeen environment built itself into the evolutionary pattern of native life forms, ” his father said. “How strange that so few people ever looked up from the spice long enough to wonder at the near-ideal nitrogen-oxygen-CO2 balance being maintained here in the absence of large areas of plant cover. The energy sphere of the planet is there to see and understand–a relentless process, but a process nonetheless. There is a gap in it? Then something occupies that gap. Science is made up of so many things that appear obvious after they are explained. I knew the little maker was there, deep in the sand, long before I ever saw it. ”

“Please stop lecturing me, Father, ” Kynes whispered.

A hawk landed on the sand near his outstretched hand. Kynes saw it fold its wings, tip its head to stare at him. He summoned the energy to croak at it. The bird hopped away two steps, but continued to stare at him.

“Men and their works have been a disease on the surface of their planets before now, ” his father said. “Nature tends to compensate for diseases, to remove or encapsulate them, to incorporate them into the system in her own way. ”

The hawk lowered its head, stretched its wings, refolded them. It transferred its attention to his outstretched hand.

Kynes found that he no longer had the strength to croak at it.

“The historical system of mutual pillage and extortion stops here on Arrakis, ” his father said. “You cannot go on forever stealing what you need without regard to those who come after. The physical qualities of a planet are written into its economic and political record. We have the record in front of us and our course is obvious. ”

He never could stop lecturing, Kynes thought. Lecturing, lecturing, lecturing–always lecturing.

The hawk hopped one step closer to Kynes’ outstretched hand, turned its head first one way and then the other to study the exposed flesh.

“Arrakis is a one-crop planet, ” his father said. “One crop. It supports a ruling class that lives as ruling classes have lived in all times while, beneath them, a semihuman mass of semislaves exists on the leavings. It’s the masses and the leavings that occupy our attention. These are far more valuable than has ever been suspected. ”

“I’m ignoring you, Father, ” Kynes whispered. “Go away. ”

And he thought: Surely there must be some of my Fremen near. They cannot help but see the birds over me. They will investigate if only to see if there’s moisture available.

“The masses of Arrakis will know that we work to make the land flow with water, ” his father said. “Most of them, of course, will have only a semimystical understanding of how we intend to do this. Many, not understanding the prohibitive mass-ratio problem, may even think we’ll bring water from some other planet rich in it. Let them think anything they wish as long as they believe in us. “

In a minute I’ll get up and tell him what I think of him, Kynes thought. Standing there lecturing me when he should be helping me.

The bird took another hop closer to Kynes’ outstretched hand. Two more hawks drifted down to the sand behind it.

”Religion and law among our masses must be one and the same, “ his father said. ”An act of disobedience must be a sin and require religious penalties. This will have the dual benefit of bringing both greater obedience and greater bravery. We must depend not so much on the bravery of individuals, you see, as upon the bravery of a whole population. “

Where is my population now when I need it most? Kynes thought. He summoned all his strength, moved his hand a finger’s width toward the nearest hawk. It hopped backward among its companions and all stood poised for flight.

”Our timetable, will achieve the stature of a natural phenomenon, “ his father said. ”A planet’s life is a vast, tightly interwoven fabric. Vegetation and animal changes will be determined at first by the raw physical forces we manipulate. As they establish themselves, though, our changes will become controlling influences in their own right–and we will have to deal with them, too. Keep in mind, though, that we need control only three per cent of the energy surface–only three per cent–to tip the entire structure over into our self-sustaining system. “

Why aren’t you helping we? Kynes wondered. Always the same: when I need you most, you fail me. He wanted to turn his head, to stare in the direction of his father’s voice, stare the old man down. Muscles refused to answer his demand.

Kynes saw the hawk move. It approached his hand, a cautious step at a time while its companions waited in mock indifference. The hawk stopped only a hop away from his hand.

A profound clarity filled Kynes’ mind. He saw quite suddenly a potential for Arrakis that his father had never seen. The possibilities along that different path flooded through him.

”No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero, “ his father said.

Reading my mind! Kynes thought. Well. . . let him.

The messages already have been sent to my sietch villages, he thought. Nothing can stop them. If the Duke’s son is alive they’ll find him and protect him as I have commanded. They may discard the woman, his mother, but they’ll save the boy.

The hawk took one hop that brought it within slashing distance of his hand. It tipped its head to examine the supine flesh. Abruptly, it straightened, stretched its head upward and with a single screech, leaped into the air and banked away overhead with its companions behind it.

They’ve come! Kynes thought. My Fremen have found me!

Then he heard the sand rumbling.

Every Fremen knew the sound, could distinguish it immediately from the noises of worms or other desert life. Somewhere beneath him, the pre-spice mass had accumulated enough water and organic matter from the little makers, had reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of carbon dioxide was forming deep in the sand, heaving upward in an enormous ”blow” with a dust whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had been formed deep in the sand for whatever lay on the surface.

The hawks circled overhead screeching their frustration. They knew what was happening. Any desert creature would know.

And I am a desert creature, Kynes thought. You see me, Father? I am a desert creature.

He felt the bubble lift him, felt it break and the dust whirlpool engulf him, dragging him down into cool darkness. For a moment, the sensation of coolness and the moisture were blessed relief. Then, as his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error.

Even the hawks could appreciate these facts.

= = = = = =

Prophecy and prescience–How can they be put to the test in the face of the unanswered questions? Consider: How much is actual prediction of the “waveform” (as Muad’Dib referred to his vision-image) and how much is the prophet shaping the future to fit the prophecy? What of the harmonics inherent in the act of prophecy? Does the prophet see the future or does he see a line of weakness, a fault or cleavage that he may shatter with words or decisions as a diamond- cutter shatters his gem with a blow of a knife?

-“Private Reflections on Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

“Get their water, ” the man calling out of the night had said. And Paul fought down his fear, glanced at his mother. His trained eyes saw her readiness for battle, the waiting whipsnap of her muscles.

“It would be regrettable should we have to destroy you out of hand, ” the voice above them said.

That’s the one who spoke to us first, Jessica thought. There are at least two of them–one to our right and one on our left.

“Cignoro hrobosa sukares hin mange la pchagavas doi me kamavas na beslas lele pal hrobas! ”

It was the man to their right calling out across the basin.

To Paul, the words were gibberish, but out of her Bene Gesserit training, Jessica recognized the speech. It was Chakobsa, one of the ancient hunting languages, and the man above them was saying that perhaps these were the strangers they sought.

In the sudden silence that followed the calling voice, the hoop-wheel face of the second moon–faintly ivory blue–rolled over the rocks across the basin, bright and peering.

Scrambling sounds came from the rocks–above and to both sides. . . dark motions in the moonlight. Many figures flowed through the shadows.

A whole troop! Paul thought with a sudden pang.

A tall man in a mottled burnoose stepped in front of Jessica. His mouth baffle was thrown aside for clear speech, revealing a heavy beard in the sidelight of the moon, but face and eyes were hidden in the overhang of his hood.

“What have we here–jinn or human? ” he asked.

And Jessica heard the true-banter in his voice, she allowed herself a faint hope. This was the voice of command, the voice that had first shocked them with its intrusion from the night.

“Human, I warrant, ” the man said.

Jessica sensed rather than saw the knife hidden in a fold of the man’s robe. She permitted herself one bitter regret that she and Paul had no shields.

“Do you also speak? ” the man asked.

Jessica put all the royal arrogance at her command into her manner and voice. Reply was urgent, but she had not heard enough of this man to be certain she had a register on his culture and weaknesses.

“Who comes on us like criminals out of the night? ” she demanded.

The burnoose-hooded head showed tension in a sudden twist, then slow relaxation that revealed much. The man had good control.

Paul shifted away from his mother to separate them as targets and give each of them a clearer arena of action. The hooded head turned at Paul’s movement, opening a wedge of face to moonlight. Jessica saw a sharp nose, one glinting eye–dark, so dark the eye, without any white in it–a heavy brown and upturned mustache.

“A likely cub, ” the man said. “If you’re fugitives from the Harkonnens, it may be you’re welcome among us. What is it, boy? ”

The possibilities flashed through Paul’s mind: A trick? A fact? Immediate decision was needed.

“Why should you welcome fugitives? ” he demanded.

“A child who thinks and speaks like a man, ” the tall man said. “Well, now, to answer your question, my young wali, I am one who does not pay the fai, the water tribute, to the Harkonnens. That is why I might welcome a fugitive. ”

He knows who we are, Paul thought. There’s concealment in his voice.

“I am Stilgar, the Fremen, ” the tall man said. “Does that speed your tongue, boy? ”

It is the same voice, Paul thought. And he remembered the Council with this man seeking the body of a friend slain by the Harkonnens.

“I know you, Stilgar, ” Paul said. “I was with my father in Council when you came for the water of your friend. You took away with you my father’s man, Duncan Idaho–an exchange of friends. ”

“And Idaho abandoned us to return to his Duke, ” Stilgar said.

Jessica heard the shading of disgust in his voice, held herself prepared for attack.

The voice from the rocks above them called: “We waste time here, Stil. ”

“This is the Duke’s son, ” Stilgar barked. “He’s certainly the one Liet told us to seek. ”

“But. . . a child, Stil. ”

“The Duke was a man and this lad used a thumper, ” Stilgar said. “That was a brave crossing he made in the path of shai-hulud. ”

And Jessica heard him excluding her from his thoughts. Had he already passed sentence?

“We haven’t time for the test, ” the voice above them protested.

“Yet he could be the Lisan al-Gaib, ” Stilgar said.

He’s looking for an omen! Jessica thought.

“But the woman, ” the voice above them said.

Jessica readied herself anew. There had been death in that voice.

“Yes, the woman, ” Stilgar said. “And her water. ”

“You know the law, ” said the voice from the rocks. “Ones who cannot live with the desert–”

“Be quiet, ” Stilgar said. “Times change. ”

“Did Liet command this? ” asked the voice from the rocks.

“You heard the voice of the cielago, Jamis, ” Stilgar said. “Why do you press me? ”

And Jessica thought: Cielago! the clue of the tongue opened wide avenues of understanding: this was the language of Ilm and Fiqh, and cielago meant bat, a small flying mammal. Voice of the cielago: they had received a distrans message to seek Paul and herself.

“I but remind you of your duties, friend Stilgar, ” said the voice above them.

“My duty is the strength of the tribe, ” Stilgar said. “That is my only duty. I need no one to remind me of it. This child-man interests me. He is full- fleshed. He has lived on much water. He has lived away from the father sun. He has not the eyes of the ibad. Yet he does not speak or act like a weakling of the pans. Nor did his father. How can this be? ”

“We cannot stay out here all night arguing, ” said the voice from the rocks. “If a patrol–”

“I will not tell you again, Jamis, to be quiet, ” Stilgar said. The man above them remained silent, but Jessica heard him moving, crossing by a leap over a defile and working his way down to the basin floor on their left.

“The voice of the cielago suggested there’d be value to us in saving you two, ” Stilgar said. “I can see possibility in this strong boy-man: he is young and can learn. But what of yourself, woman? ” He stared at Jessica.

I have his voice and pattern registered now, Jessica thought. I could control him with a word, but he’s a strong man. . . worth much more to us unblunted and with full freedom of action. We shall see.

“I am the mother of this boy, ” Jessica said. “In part, his strength which you admire is the product of my training. ”

“The strength of a woman can be boundless, ” Stilgar said. “Certain it is in a Reverend Mother. Are you a Reverend Mother? ”

For the moment, Jessica put aside the implications of the question, answered truthfully, “No. ”

“Are you trained in the ways of the desert? ”

“No, but many consider my training valuable. ”

“We make our own judgments on value, ” Stilgar said.

“Every man has the right to his own judgments, ” she said.

“It is well that you see the reason, ” Stilgar said. “We cannot dally here to test you, woman. Do you understand? We’d not want your shade to plague us. I will take the boy-man, your son, and he shall have my countenance, sanctuary in my tribe. But for you, woman–you understand there is nothing personal in this? It is the rule, Istislah, in the general interest. Is that not enough? ”

Paul took a half-step forward. “What are you talking about? ”

Stilgar flicked a glance across Paul, but kept his attention on Jessica. “Unless you’ve been deep-trained from childhood to live here, you could bring destruction onto an entire tribe. It is the law, and we cannot carry useless. . . ”

Jessica’s motion started as a slumping, deceptive faint to the ground. It was the obvious thing for a weak outworlder to do, and the obvious slows an opponent’s reactions. It takes an instant to interpret a known thing when that thing is exposed as something unknown. She shifted as she saw his right shoulder drop to bring a weapon within the folds of his robe to bear on her new position. A turn, a slash of her arm, a whirling of mingled robes, and she was against the rocks with the man helpless in front of her.

At his mother’s first movement, Paul backed two steps. As she attacked, he dove for shadows. A bearded man rose up in his path, half-crouched, lunging forward with a weapon in one hand. Paul took the man beneath the sternum with a straight-hand jab, sidestepped and chopped the base of his neck, relieving him of the weapon as he fell.

Then Paul was into the shadows, scrambling upward among the rocks, the weapon tucked into his waist sash. He had recognized it in spite of its unfamiliar shape–a projectile weapon, and that said many things about this place, another clue that shields were not used here.

They will concentrate on my mother and that Stilgar fellow. She can handle him. I must get to a safe vantage point where I can threaten them and give her time to escape.

There came a chorus of sharp spring-clicks from the basin. Projectiles whined off the rocks around him. One of them flicked his robe. He squeezed around a corner in the rocks, found himself in a narrow vertical crack, began inching upward–his back against one side, his feet against the other–slowly, as silently as he could.

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