Chani’s voice intruded from the deep cave darkness: “Tell me about the waters of your birthworld, Paul Muad’Dib.”
And Paul: “Another time, Chani. I promise.”
Such sadness.
“It’s a good baliset,” Chani said.
“Very good,” Paul said. “Do you think Jamis’ll mind my using it?”
He speaks of the dead in the present tense, Jessica thought. The implications disturbed her.
A man’s voice intruded: “He liked music betimes, Jamis did.”
“Then sing me one of your songs,” Chani pleaded.
Such feminine allure in that girl-child’s voice, Jessica thought. I must caution Paul about their women … and soon.
“This was a song of a friend of mine,” Paul said. “I expect he’s dead now, Gurney is. He called it his evensong.”
The troop grew still, listening as Paul’s voice lifted in a sweet boy tenor with the baliset tinkling and strumming beneath it:
“This clear time of seeing embers—
A gold-bright sun’s lost in first dusk.
What frenzied senses, desp‘rate musk
Are consort of rememb’ring.”
Jessica felt the verbal music in her breast—pagan and charged with sounds that made her suddenly and intensely aware of herself, feeling her own body and its needs. She listened with a tense stillness.
“Night’s pearl-censered requi-em …
’Tis for us!
What joys run, then—
Bright in your eyes—
What flower-spangled amores
Pull at our hearts …
What flower-spangled amores
Fill our desires.”
And Jessica heard the after-stillness that hummed in the air with the last note. Why does my son sing a love song to that girl-child? she asked herself. She felt an abrupt fear. She could sense life flowing around her and she had no grasp on its reins. Why did he choose that song? she wondered. The instincts are true sometimes. Why did he do this?
Paul sat silently in the darkness, a single stark thought dominating his awareness: My mother is my enemy. She does not know it, but she is. She is bringing the jihad. She bore me; she trained me. She is my enemy.
***
The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.
—from “Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
ON HIS seventeenth birthday, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen killed his one hundredth slave-gladiator in the family games. Visiting observers from the Imperial Court—a Count and Lady Fenring—were on the Harkonnen homeworld of Giedi Prime for the event, invited to sit that afternoon with the immediate family in the golden box above the triangular arena.
In honor of the na-Baron’s nativity and to remind all Harkonnens and subjects that Feyd-Rautha was heir-designate, it was holiday on Giedi Prime. The old Baron had decreed a meridian-to-meridian rest from labors, and effort had been spent in the family city of Harko to create the illusion of gaiety: banners flew from buildings, new paint had been splashed on the walls along Court Way.
But off the main way, Count Fenring and his lady noted the rubbish heaps, the scabrous brown walls reflected in the dark puddles of the streets, and the furtive scurrying of the people.
In the Baron’s blue-walled keep, there was fearful perfection, but the Count and his lady saw the price being paid—guards everywhere and weapons with that special sheen that told a trained eye they were in regular use. There were checkpoints for routine passage from area to area even within the keep. The servants revealed their military training in the way they walked, in the set of their shoulders … in the way their eyes watched and watched and watched.
“The pressure’s on,” the Count hummed to his lady in their secret language. “The Baron is just beginning to see the price he really paid to rid himself of the Duke Leto.”
“Sometime I must recount for you the legend of the phoenix,” she said.
They were in the reception hall of the keep waiting to go to the family games. It was not a large hall—perhaps forty meters long and half that in width—but false pillars along the sides had been shaped with an abrupt taper, and the ceiling had a subtle arch, all giving the illusion of much greater space.
“Ah-h-h, here comes the Baron,” the Count said.
The Baron moved down the length of the hall with that peculiar waddling-glide imparted by the necessities of guiding suspensor-hung weight. His jowls bobbed up and down; the suspensors jiggled and shifted beneath his orange robe. Rings glittered on his hands and opafires shone where they had been woven into the robe.
At the Baron’s elbow walked Feyd-Rautha. His dark hair was dressed in close ringlets that seemed incongruously gay above sullen eyes. He wore a tight-fitting black tunic and snug trousers with a suggestion of bell at the bottom. Soft-soled slippers covered his small feet.
Lady Fenring, noting the young man’s poise and the sure flow of muscles beneath the tunic thought: Here’s one who won’t let himself go to fat.
The Baron stopped in front of them, took Feyd-Rautha’s arm in a possessive grip, said, “My nephew, the na-Baron, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen.” And, turning his baby-fat face toward Feyd-Rautha, he said, “The Count and Lady Fenring of whom I’ve spoken.”
Feyd-Rautha dipped his head with the required courtesy. He stared at the Lady Fenring. She was golden-haired and willowy, her perfection of figure clothed in a flowing gown of ecru—simple fitness of form without ornament. Gray-green eyes stared back at him. She had that Bene Gesserit serene repose about her that the young man found subtly disturbing.
“Um-m-m-m-ah-hm-m-m-m,” said the Count. He studied Feyd-Rautha. “The, hm-m-m-m, precise young man, ah, my … hm-m-m-m … dear?” The Count glanced at the Baron. “My dear Baron, you say you’ve spoken of us to this precise young man? What did you say?”
“I told my nephew of the great esteem our Emperor holds for you, Count Fenring,” the Baron said, And he thought: Mark him well, Feyd! A killer with the manners of a rabbit—this is the most dangerous kind.
“Of course!” said the Count, and he smiled at his lady.
Feyd-Rautha found the man’s actions and words almost insulting. They stopped just short of something overt that would require notice. The young man focused his attention on the Count: a small man, weak-looking. The face was weaselish with overlarge dark eyes. There was gray at the temples. And his movements—he moved a hand or turned his head one way, then he spoke another way. It was difficult to follow.
“Um-m-m-m-m-ah-h-h-hm-m-m, you come upon such, mm-m-m, preciseness so rarely,” the Count said, addressing the Baron’s shoulder. “I … ah, congratulate you on the hm-m-m perfection of your ah-h-h heir. In the light of the hm-m-m elder, one might say.”
“You are too kind,” the Baron said. He bowed, but Feyd-Rautha noted that his uncle’s eyes did not agree with the courtesy.
“When you’re mm-m-m ironic, that ah-h-h suggests you’re hm-m-m-m thinking deep thoughts,” the Count said.
There he goes again, Feyd-Rautha thought. It sounds like he’s being insulting, but there’s nothing you can call out for satisfaction.
Listening to the man gave Feyd-Rautha the feeling his head was being pushed through mush … um-m-m-ah-h-h-hm-m-m-m! Feyd-Rautha turned his attention back to the Lady Fenring.
“We’re ah-h-h taking up too much of this young man’s time,” she said. “I understand he’s to appear in the arena today.”
By the houris of the Imperial hareem, she’s a lovely one! Feyd-Rautha thought. He said: “I shall make a kill for you this day, my Lady. I shall make the dedication in the arena, with your permission.”
She returned his stare serenely, but her voice carried whiplash as she said: “You do not have my permission.”
“Feyd!” the Baron said. And he thought: That imp! Does he want this deadly Count to call him out?
But the Count only smiled and said: “Hm-m-m-m-um-m-m.”
“You really must be getting ready for the arena, Feyd,” the Baron said. “You must be rested and not take any foolish risks.”
Feyd-Rautha bowed, his face dark with resentment. “I’m sure everything will be as you wish, Uncle.” He nodded to Count Fenring. “Sir.” To the lady: “My Lady.” And he turned, strode out of the hall, barely glancing at the knot of Families Minor near the double doors.
“He’s so young,” the Baron sighed.
“Um-m-m-m-ah indeed hmmm,” the Count said.
And the Lady Fenring thought: Can that be the young man the Reverend Mother meant? Is that a bloodline we must preserve?
“We’ve more than an hour before going to the arena,” the Baron said. “Perhaps we could have our little talk now, Count Fenring.” He tipped his gross head to the right. “There’s a considerable amount of progress to be discussed.”
And the Baron thought: Let us see now how the Emperor’s errand boy gets across whatever message he carries without ever being so crass as to speak it right out.
The Count spoke to his lady: “Um-m-m-m-ah-h-h-hm-m-m, you mm-m will ah-h-h excuse us, my dear?”
“Each day, some time each hour, brings change,” she said. “Mm-m-m-m.” And she smiled sweetly at the Baron before turning away. Her long skirts swished and she walked with a straight-backed regal stride toward the double doors at the end of the hall.
The Baron noted how all conversation among the Houses Minor there stopped at her approach, how the eyes followed her. Bene Gesserit! the Baron thought. The universe would be better rid of them all!
“There’s a cone of silence between two of the pillars over here on our left,” the Baron said. “We can talk there without fear of being overheard.” He led the way with his waddling gait into the sound-deadening field, feeling the noises of the keep become dull and distant.
The Count moved up beside the Baron, and they turned, facing the wall so their lips could not be read.
“We’re not satisfied with the way you ordered the Sardaukar off Arrakis,” the Count said.
Straight talk! the Baron thought.
“The Sardaukar could not stay longer without risking that others would find out how the Emperor helped me,” the Baron said.
“But your nephew Rabban does not appear to be pressing strongly enough toward a solution of the Fremen problem.”
“What does the Emperor wish?” the Baron asked. “There cannot be more than a handful of Fremen left on Arrakis. The southern desert is uninhabitable. The northern desert is swept regularly by our patrols.”
“Who says the southern desert is uninhabitable?”
“Your own planetologist said it, my dear Count.”
“But Doctor Kynes is dead.”
“Ah, yes … unfortunate, that.”
“We’ve word from an overflight across the southern reaches,” the Count said. “There’s evidence of plant life.”
“Has the Guild then agreed to a watch from space?”
“You know better than that, Baron. The Emperor cannot legally post a watch on Arrakis.”
“And I cannot afford it,” the Baron said. “Who made this overflight?”
“A … smuggler.”
“Someone has lied to you, Count,” the Baron said. “Smugglers cannot navigate the southern reaches any better than can Rabban’s men. Storms, sand-static, and all that, you know. Navigation markers are knocked out faster than they can be installed.”
“We’ll discuss various types of static another time,” the Count said.
Ah-h-h-h, the Baron thought. “Have you found some mistake in my accounting then?” he demanded.
“When you imagine mistakes there can be no self-defense,” the Count said.
He’s deliberately trying to arouse my anger, the Baron thought. He took two deep breaths to calm himself. He could smell his own sweat, and the harness of the suspensors beneath his robe felt suddenly itchy and galling.
“The Emperor cannot be unhappy about the death of the concubine and the boy,” the Baron said. “They fled into the desert. There was a storm.”
“Yes, there were so many convenient accidents,” the Count agreed.
“I do not like your tone, Count,” the Baron said.
“Anger is one thing, violence another,” the Count said. “Let me caution you: Should an unfortunate accident occur to me here the Great Houses all would learn what you did on Arrakis. They’ve long suspected how you do business.”
“The only recent business I can recall,” the Baron said, “was transportation of several legions of Sardaukar to Arrakis.”
“You think you could hold that over the Emperor’s head?”
“I wouldn’t think of it!”
The Count smiled. “Sardaukar commanders could be found who’d confess they acted without orders because they wanted a battle with your Fremen scum.”
“Many might doubt such a confession,” the Baron said, but the threat staggered him. Are Sardaukar truly that disciplined? he wondered.
“The Emperor does wish to audit your books,” the Count said.
“Any time.”
“You … ah … have no objections?”
“None. My CHOAM Company directorship will bear the closest scrutiny.” And he thought: Let him bring a false accusation against me and have it exposed. I shall stand there, promethean, saying: “Behold me, I am wronged. ” Then let him bring any other accusation against me, even a true one. The Great Houses will not believe a second attack from an accuser once proved wrong.
“No doubt your books will bear the closest scrutiny,” the Count muttered.
“Why is the Emperor so interested in exterminating the Fremen?” the Baron asked.
“You wish the subject to be changed, eh?” The Count shrugged. “It is the Sardaukar who wish it, not the Emperor. They needed practice in killing … and they hate to see a task left undone.”
Does he think to frighten me by reminding me that he is supported by bloodthirsty killers? the Baron wondered.
“A certain amount of killing has always been an arm of business,” the Baron said, “but a line has to be drawn somewhere. Someone must be left to work the spice.”
The Count emitted a short, barking laugh. “You think you can harness the Fremen?”
“There never were enough of them for that,” the Baron said. “But the killing has made the rest of my population uneasy. It’s reaching the point where I’m considering another solution to the Arrakeen problem, my dear Fenring. And I must confess the Emperor deserves credit for the inspiration.”
“Ah-h-h?”
“You see, Count, I have the Emperor’s prison planet, Salusa Secundus, to inspire me.”
The Count stared at him with glittering intensity. “What possible connection is there between Arrakis and Salusa Secundus?”
The Baron felt the alertness in Fenring’s eyes, said: “No connection yet.”
“Yet?”
“You must admit it’d be a way to develop a substantial work force on Arrakis—use the place as a prison planet.”
“You anticipate an increase in prisoners?”
“There has been unrest,” the Baron admitted. “I’ve had to squeeze rather severely, Fenring. After all, you know the price I paid that damnable Guild to transport our mutual force to Arrakis. That money has to come from somewhere.
“I suggest you not use Arrakis as a prison planet without the Emperor’s permission, Baron.”
“Of course not,” the Baron said, and he wondered at the sudden chill in Fenring’s voice.
“Another matter,” the Count said. “We learn that Duke Leto’s Mentat, Thufir Hawat, is not dead but in your employ.”
“I could not bring myself to waste him,” the Baron said.
“You lied to our Sardaukar commander when you said Hawat was dead.”
“Only a white lie, my dear Count. I hadn’t the stomach for a long argument with the man.”
“Was Hawat the real traitor?”
“Oh, g
oodness, no! It was the false doctor.” The Baron wiped at perspiration on his neck. “You must understand, Fenring, I was without a Mentat. You know that. I’ve never been without a Mentat. It was most unsettling.”
“How could you get Hawat to shift allegiance?”
“His Duke was dead.” The Baron forced a smile. “There’s nothing to fear from Hawat, my dear Count. The Mentat’s flesh has been impregnated with a latent poison. We administer an antidote in his meals. Without the antidote, the poison is triggered—he’d die in a few days.”
“Withdraw the antidote,” the Count said.
“But he’s useful!”
“And he knows too many things no living man should know.”
“You said the Emperor doesn’t fear exposure.”
“Don’t play games with me, Baron!”
“When I see such an order above the Imperial seal I’ll obey it,” the Baron said. “But I’ll not submit to your whim.”
“You think it whim?”
“What else can it be? The Emperor has obligations to me, too, Fenring. I rid him of the troublesome Duke.”
“With the help of a few Sardaukar.”
“Where else would the Emperor have found a House to provide the disguising uniforms to hide his hand in this matter?”
“He has asked himself the same question, Baron, but with a slightly different emphasis.”
The Baron studied Fenring, noting the stiffness of jaw muscles, the careful control. “Ah-h-h, now,” the Baron said. “I hope the Emperor doesn’t believe he can move against me in total secrecy.”
“He hopes it won’t become necessary.”
“The Emperor cannot believe I threaten him!” The Baron permitted anger and grief to edge his voice, thinking: Let him wrong me in that! I could place myself on the throne while still beating my breast over how I’d been wronged.
The Count’s voice went dry and remote as he said: “The Emperor believes what his senses tell him.”
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