“As you command, Muad’Dib.”
As Stilgar turned to obey, Paul heard the awed muttering of Fremen guards: “You see? He knew! No one told him, but he knew!”
The Emperor’s entourage could be heard approaching now, his Sardaukar humming one of their marching tunes to keep up their spirits. There came a murmur of voices at the entrance and Gurney Halleck passed through the guard, crossed to confer with Stilgar, then moved to Paul’s side, a strange look in his eyes.
Will I lose Gurney, too? Paul wondered. The way I lost Stilgar —losing afriendto gain a creature?
“They have no throwing weapons,” Gurney said. “I’ve made sure of that myself.” He glanced around the room, seeing Paul’s preparations. “Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen is with them. Shall I cut him out?”
“Leave him.”
“There’re some Guild people, too, demanding special privileges, threatening an embargo against Arrakis. I told them I’d give you their message.”
“Let them threaten.”
“Paul!” Jessica hissed behind him. “He’s talking about the Guild!”
“I’ll pull their fangs presently,” Paul said.
And he thought then about the Guild—the force that had specialized for so long that it had become a parasite, unable to exist independently of the life upon which it fed. They had never dared grasp the sword… and now they could not grasp it. They might have taken Arrakis when they realized the error of specializing on the melange awareness-spectrum narcotic for their navigators. They could have done this, lived their glorious day and died. Instead, they’d existed from moment to moment, hoping the seas in which they swam might produce a new host when the old one died.
The Guild navigators, gifted with limited prescience, had made the fatal decision: they’d chosen always the clear, safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation.
Let them look closely at their new host, Paul thought.
“There’s also a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother who says she’s a friend of your mother,” Gurney said.
“My mother has no Bene Gesserit friends.”
Again, Gurney glanced around the Great Hall, then bent close to Paul’s ear. “Thufir Hawat’s with ‘em, m’Lord. I had no chance to see him alone, but he used our old hand signs to say he’s been working with the Harkonnens, thought you were dead. Says he’s to be left among ’em.”
“You left Thufir among those—”
“He wanted it … and I thought it best. If … there’s something wrong, he’s where we can control him. If not—we’ve an ear on the other side.”
Paul thought then of prescient glimpses into the possibilities of this moment—and one time-line where Thufir carried a poisoned needle which the Emperor commanded he use against “this upstart Duke.”
The entrance guards stepped aside, formed a short corridor of lances. There came a murmurous swish of garments, feet rasping the sand that had drifted into the Residency.
The Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV led his people into the hall. His burseg helmet had been lost and the red hair stood out in disarray. His uniform’s left sleeve had been ripped along the inner seam. He was beltless and without weapons, but his presence moved with him like a force-shield bubble that kept his immediate area open.
A Fremen lance dropped across his path, stopped him where Paul had ordered. The others bunched up behind, a montage of color, of shuffling and of staring faces.
Paul swept his gaze across the group, saw women who hid signs of weeping, saw the lackeys who had come to enjoy grandstand seats at a Sardaukar victory and now stood choked to silence by defeat. Paul saw the bird-bright eyes of the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam glaring beneath her black hood, and beside her the narrow furtiveness of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen.
There’s a face time betrayed to me, Paul thought.
He looked beyond Feyd-Rautha then, attracted by a movement, seeing there a narrow, weaselish face he’d never before encountered—not in time or out of it. It was a face he felt he should know and the feeling carried with it a marker of fear.
Why should I fear that man? he wondered.
He leaned toward his mother, whispered: “That man to the left of the Reverend Mother, the evil-looking one—who is that?”
Jessica looked, recognizing the face from her Duke’s dossiers. “Count Fenring,” she said. “The one who was here immediately before us. A genetic-eunuch … and a killer.”
The Emperor’s errand boy, Paul thought. And the thought was a shock crashing across his consciousness because he had seen the Emperor in uncounted associations spread through the possible futures—but never once had Count Fenring appeared within those prescient visions.
It occurred to Paul then that he had seen his own dead body along countless reaches of the time web, but never once had he seen his moment of death.
Have I been denied a glimpse of this man because he is the one who kills me? Paul wondered.
The thought sent a pang of foreboding through him. He forced his attention away from Fenring, looked now at the remnants of Sardaukar men and officers, the bitterness on their faces and the desperation. Here and there among them, faces caught Paul’s attention briefly: Sardaukar officers measuring the preparations within this room, planning and scheming yet for a way to turn defeat into victory.
Paul’s attention came at last to a tall blonde woman, green-eyed, a face of patrician beauty, classic in its hauteur, untouched by tears, completely undefeated. Without being told it, Paul knew her—Princess Royal, Bene Gesserit-trained, a face that time vision had shown him in many aspects: Irulan.
There’s my key, he thought.
Then he saw movement in the clustered people, a face and figure emerged—Thufir Hawat, the seamed old features with darkly stained lips, the hunched shoulders, the look of fragile age about him.
“There’s Thufir Hawat,” Paul said. “Let him stand free, Gurney.”
“M’Lord,” Gurney said.
“Let him stand free,” Paul repeated.
Gurney nodded.
Hawat shambled forward as a Fremen lance was lifted and replaced behind him. The rheumy eyes peered at Paul, measuring, seeking.
Paul stepped forward one pace, sensed the tense, waiting movement of the Emperor and his people.
Hawat’s gaze stabbed past Paul, and the old man said: “Lady Jessica, I but learned this day how I’ve wronged you in my thoughts. You needn’t forgive.”
Paul waited, but his mother remained silent.
“Thufir, old friend,” Paul said, “as you can see, my back is toward no door.”
“The universe is full of doors,” Hawat said.
“Am I my father’s son?” Paul asked.
“More like your grandfather’s,” Hawat rasped. “You’ve his manner and the look of him in your eyes.”
“Yet I’m my father’s son,” Paul said. “For I say to you, Thufir, that in payment for your years of service to my family you may now ask anything you wish of me. Anything at all. Do you need my life now, Thufir? It is yours.” Paul stepped forward a pace, hands at his side, seeing the look of awareness grow in Hawat’s eyes.
He realizes that I know of the treachery, Paul thought.
Pitching his voice to carry in a half-whisper for Hawat’s ears alone, Paul said: “I mean this, Thufir. If you’re to strike me, do it now.”
“I but wanted to stand before you once more, my Duke,” Hawat said. And Paul became aware for the first time of the effort the old man exerted to keep from falling. Paul reached out, supported Hawat by the shoulders, feeling the muscle tremors beneath his hands.
“Is there pain, old friend?” Paul asked.
“There is pain, my Duke,” Hawat agreed, “but the pleasure is greater.” He half turned in Paul’s arms, extended his left hand, palm up, toward the Emperor, exposing the tiny needle cupped against the fingers. “See, Majesty?” he called. “See your traitor’s needle? Did you think that I who’ve given my life to service of the Atreides would give them less now?�
��
Paul staggered as the old man sagged in his arms, felt the death there, the utter flaccidity. Gently, Paul lowered Hawat to the floor, straightened and signed for guardsmen to carry the body away.
Silence held the hall while his command was obeyed.
A look of deadly waiting held the Emperor’s face now. Eyes that had never admitted fear admitted it at last.
“Majesty,” Paul said, and noted the jerk of surprised attention in the tall Princess Royal. The words had been uttered with the Bene Gesserit controlled atonals, carrying in it every shade of contempt and scorn that Paul could put there.
Bene-Gesserit trained indeed, Paul thought.
The Emperor cleared his throat, said: “Perhaps my respected kinsman believes he has things all his own way now. Nothing could be more remote from fact. You have violated the Convention, used atomics against—”
“I used atomics against a natural feature of the desert,” Paul said. “It was in my way and I was in a hurry to get to you, Majesty, to ask your explanation for some of your strange activities.”
“There’s a massed armada of the Great Houses in space over Arrakis right now,” the Emperor said. “I’ve but to say the word and they’ll—”
“Oh, yes,” Paul said, “I almost forgot about them.” He searched through the Emperor’s suite until he saw the faces of the two Guildsmen, spoke aside to Gurney. “Are those the Guild agents, Gurney, the two fat ones dressed in gray over there?”
“Yes, m’Lord.”
“You two,” Paul said, pointing. “Get out of there immediately and dispatch messages that will get that fleet on its way home. After this, you’ll ask my permission before—”
“The Guild doesn’t take your orders!” the taller of the two barked. He and his companion pushed through to the barrier lances, which were raised at a nod from Paul. The two men stepped out and the taller leveled an arm at Paul, said: “You may very well be under embargo for your—”
“If I hear any more nonsense from either of you,” Paul said, “I’ll give the order that’ll destroy all spice production on Arrakis … forever.”
“Are you mad?” the tall Guildsman demanded. He fell back half a step.
“You grant that I have the power to do this thing, then?” Paul asked.
The Guildsman seemed to stare into space for a moment, then: “Yes, you could do it, but you must not.”
“Ah-h-h,” Paul said and nodded to himself. “Guild navigators, both of you, eh?”
“Yes!”
The shorter of the pair said: “You would blind yourself, too, and condemn us all to slow death. Have you any idea what it means to be deprived of the spice liquor once you’re addicted?”
“The eye that looks ahead to the safe course is closed forever,” Paul said. “The Guild is crippled. Humans become little isolated clusters on their isolated planets. You know, I might do this thing out of pure spite… or out of ennui.”
“Let us talk this over privately,” the taller Guildsman said. “I’m sure we can come to some compromise that is—”
“Send the message to your people over Arrakis,” Paul said. “I grow tired of this argument. If that fleet over us doesn’t leave soon there’ll be no need for us to talk.” He nodded toward his communications men at the side of the hall. “You may use our equipment.”
“First we must discuss this,” the tall Guildsman said. “We cannot just—”
“Do it!” Paul barked. “The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it. You’ve agreed I have that power. We are not here to discuss or to negotiate or to compromise. You will obey my orders or suffer the immediate consequences!”
“He means it,” the shorter Guildsman said. And Paul saw the fear grip them.
Slowly the two crossed to the Fremen communications equipment.
“Will they obey?” Gurney asked.
“They have a narrow vision of time,” Paul said. “They can see ahead to a blank wall marking the consequences of disobedience. Every Guild navigator on every ship over us can look ahead to that same wall. They’ll obey.”
Paul turned back to look at the Emperor, said: “When they permitted you to mount your father’s throne, it was only on the assurance that you’d keep the spice flowing. You’ve failed them, Majesty. Do you know the consequences?”
“Nobody permitted me to—”
“Stop playing the fool,” Paul barked. “The Guild is like a village beside a river. They need the water, but can only dip out what they require. They cannot dam the river and control it, because that focuses attention on what they take, it brings down eventual destruction. The spice flow, that’s their river, and I have built a dam. But my dam is such that you cannot destroy it without destroying the river.”
The Emperor brushed a hand through his red hair, glanced at the backs of the two Guildsmen.
“Even your Bene Gesserit Truthsayer is trembling,” Paul said. “There are other poisons the Reverend Mothers can use for their tricks, but once they’ve used the spice liquor, the others no longer work.”
The old woman pulled her shapeless black robes around her, pressed forward out of the crowd to stand at the barrier lances.
“Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam,” Paul said. “It has been a long time since Caladan, hasn’t it?”
She looked past him at his mother, said: “Well, Jessica, I see that your son is indeed the one. For that you can be forgiven even the abomination of your daughter.”
Paul stilled a cold, piercing anger, said: “You’ve never had the right or cause to forgive my mother anything!”
The old woman locked eyes with him.
“Try your tricks on me, old witch,” Paul said. “Where’s your gom jabbar? Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You’ll find me there staring out at you!”
The old woman dropped her gaze.
“Have you nothing to say?” Paul demanded.
“I welcomed you to the ranks of humans,” she muttered. “Don’t besmirch that.”
Paul raised his voice: “Observe her, comrades! This is a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother, patient in a patient cause. She could wait with her sisters—ninety generations for the proper combination of genes and environment to produce the one person their schemes required. Observe her! She knows now that the ninety generations have produced that person. Here I stand… but… I … will … never… do … her… bidding!”
“Jessica!” the old woman screamed. “Silence him!”
“Silence him yourself,” Jessica said.
Paul glared at the old woman. “For your part in all this I could gladly have you strangled,” he said. “You couldn’t prevent it!” he snapped as she stiffened in rage. “But I think it better punishment that you live out your years never able to touch me or bend me to a single thing your scheming desires.”
“Jessica, what have you done?” the old woman demanded.
“I’ll give you only one thing,” Paul said. “You saw part of what the race needs, but how poorly you saw it. You think to control human breeding and intermix a select few according to your master plan! How little you understand of what—”
“You mustn’t speak of these things!” the old woman hissed.
“Silence!” Paul roared. The word seemed to take substance as it twisted through the air between them under Paul’s control.
The old woman reeled back into the arms of those behind her, face blank with shock at the power with which he had seized her psyche. “Jessica,” she whispered. “Jessica.”
“I remember your gom jabbar,” Paul said. “You remember mine. I can kill you with a word.”
The Fremen around the hall glanced knowingly at each other. Did the legend not say: “Andhis word shall carry death eternal to those who stand against righteousness. ”
Paul turned his attention to the tall Princess Royal standing beside her Emperor father. Keeping his eyes focused on her, he said: “Majesty, we both know the way out of our difficulty.”
The
Emperor glanced at his daughter, back to Paul. “You dare? You! An adventurer without family, a nobody from—”
“You’ve already admitted who I am,” Paul said. “Royal kinsman, you said. Let’s stop this nonsense.”
“I am your ruler,” the Emperor said.
Paul glanced at the Guildsmen standing now at the communications equipment and facing him. One of them nodded.
“I could force it,” Paul said.
“You will not dare!” the Emperor grated.
Paul merely stared at him.
The Princess Royal put a hand on her father’s arm. “Father,” she said, and her voice was silky soft, soothing.
“Don’t try your tricks on me,” the Emperor said. He looked at her. “You don’t need to do this, Daughter. We’ve other resources that—”
“But here’s a man fit to be your son,” she said.
The old Reverend Mother, her composure regained, forced her way to the Emperor’s side, leaned close to his ear and whispered.
“She pleads your case,” Jessica said.
Paul continued to look at the golden-haired Princess. Aside to his mother, he said: “That’s Irulan, the oldest, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Chani moved up on Paul’s other side, said: “Do you wish me to leave, Muad’Dib?”
He glanced at her. “Leave? You’ll never again leave my side.”
“There’s nothing binding between us,” Chani said.
Paul looked down at her for a silent moment, then: “Speak only truth with me, my Sihaya.” As she started to reply, he silenced her with a finger to her lips. “That which binds us cannot be loosed,” he said. “Now, watch these matters closely for I wish to see this room later through your wisdom.”
The Emperor and his Truthsayer were carrying on a heated, low-voiced argument.
Paul spoke to his mother: “She reminds him that it’s part of their agreement to place a Bene Gesserit on the throne, and Irulan is the one they’ve groomed for it.”
“Was that their plan?” Jessica said.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Paul asked.
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