I have his voice and pattern registered now, Jessica thought. I could control him with a word, but he’s a strong man ... worth much more to us unblunted and with full freedom of action. We shall see.
“I am the mother of this boy,” Jessica said. “In part, his strength which you admire is the product of my training.”
“The strength of a woman can be boundless,” Stilgar said. “Certain it is in a Reverend Mother. Are you a Reverend Mother?”
For the moment, Jessica put aside the implications of the question, answered truthfully, “No.”
“Are you trained in the ways of the desert?”
“No, but many consider my training valuable.”
“We make our own judgments on value,” Stilgar said.
“Every man has the right to his own judgments,” she said.
“It is well that you see the reason,” Stilgar said. “We cannot dally here to test you, woman. Do you understand? We’d not want your shade to plague us. I will take the boy-man, your son, and he shall have my countenance, sanctuary in my tribe. But for you, woman—you understand there is nothing personal in this? It is the rule, Istislah, in the general interest. Is that not enough?”
Paul took a half-step forward. “What are you talking about?”
Stilgar flicked a glance across Paul, but kept his attention on Jessica. “Unless you’ve been deep-trained from childhood to live here, you could bring destruction onto an entire tribe. It is the law, and we cannot carry useless....”
Jessica’s motion started as a slumping, deceptive faint to the ground. It was the obvious thing for a weak outworlder to do, and the obvious slows an opponent’s reactions. It takes an instant to interpret a known thing when that thing is exposed as something unknown. She shifted as she saw his right shoulder drop to bring a weapon within the folds of his robe to bear on her new position. A turn, a slash of her arm, a whirling of mingled robes, and she was against the rocks with the man helpless in front of her.
At his mother’s first movement, Paul backed two steps. As she attacked, he dove for shadows. A bearded man rose up in his path, half-crouched, lunging forward with a weapon in one hand. Paul took the man beneath the sternum with a straight-hand jab, sidestepped and chopped the base of his neck, relieving him of the weapon as he fell.
Then Paul was into the shadows, scrambling upward among the rocks, the weapon tucked into his waist sash. He had recognized it in spite of its unfamiliar shape—a projectile weapon, and that said many things about this place, another clue that shields were not used here.
They will concentrate on my mother and that Stilgar fellow. She can handle him. I must get to a safe vantage point where I can threaten them and give her time to escape.
There came a chorus of sharp spring-clicks from the basin. Projectiles whined off the rocks around him. One of them flicked his robe. He squeezed around a corner in the rocks, found himself in a narrow vertical crack, began inching upward—his back against one side, his feet against the other—slowly, as silently as he could.
The roar of Stilgar’s voice echoed up to him: “Get back, you wormheaded lice! She’ll break my neck if you come near!”
A voice out of the basin said: “The boy got away, Stil. What are we—”
“Of course he got away, you sand-brained ... Ugh-h-h! Easy, woman!”
“Tell them to stop hunting my son,” Jessica said.
“They’ve stopped, woman. He got away as you intended him to. Great gods below! Why didn’t you say you were a weirding woman and a fighter?”
“Tell your men to fall back,” Jessica said. “Tell them to go out into the basin where I can see them ... and you’d better believe that I know how many of them there are.”
And she thought: This is the delicate moment, but if this man is as sharp-minded as I think him, we have a chance.
Paul inched his way upward, found a narrow ledge on which he could rest and look down into the basin. Stilgar’s voice came up to him.
“And if I refuse? How can you ... ugh-h-h! Leave be, woman! We mean no harm to you, now. Great gods! If you can do this to the strongest of us, you’re worth ten times your weight of water.”
Now, the test of reason, Jessica thought. She said: “You ask after the Lisan al-Gaib.”
“You could be the folk of the legend,” he said, “but I’ll believe that when it’s been tested. All I know now is that you came here with that stupid Duke who.... Aiee-e-e! Woman! I care not if you kill me! He was honorable and brave, but it was stupid to put himself in the way of the Harkonnen fist!”
Silence.
Presently, Jessica said: “He had no choice, but we’ll not argue it. Now, tell that man of yours behind the bush over there to stop trying to bring his weapon to bear on me, or I’ll rid the universe of you and take him next.”
“You there!” Stilgar roared. “Do as she says!”
“But, Stil—”
“Do as she says, you wormfaced, crawling, sand-brained piece of lizard turd! Do it or I’ll help her dismember you! Can’t you see the worth of this woman?”
The man at the bush straightened from his partial concealment, lowered his weapon.
“He has obeyed,” Stilgar said.
“Now,” Jessica said, “explain clearly to your people what it is you wish of me. I want no young hothead to make a foolish mistake.”
“When we slip into the villages and towns we must mask our origin, blend with the pan and graben folk,” Stilgar said. “We carry no weapons, for the crysknife is sacred. But you, woman, you have the weirding ability of battle. We’d only heard of it and many doubted, but one cannot doubt what he sees with his own eyes. You mastered an armed Fremen. This is a weapon no search could expose.”
There was a stirring in the basin as Stilgar’s words sank home.
“And if I agree to teach you the ... weirding way?”
“My countenance for you as well as your son.”
“How can we be sure of the truth in your promise?”
Stilgar’s voice lost some of its subtle undertone of reasoning, took on an edge of bitterness. “Out here, woman, we carry no paper for contracts. We make no evening promises to be broken at dawn. When a man says a thing, that’s the contract. As leader of my people, I’ve put them in bond to my word. Teach us this weirding way and you have sanctuary with us as long as you wish. Your water shall mingle with our water.”
“Can you speak for all Fremen?” Jessica asked.
“In time, that may be. But only my brother, Liet, speaks for all Fremen. Here, I promise only secrecy. My people will not speak of you to any other sietch. The Harkonnens have returned to Dune in force and your Duke is dead. It is said that you two died in a Mother storm. The hunter does not seek dead game.”
There’s a safety in that, Jessica thought. But these people have good communications and a message could be sent.
“I presume there was a reward offered for us,” she said.
Stilgar remained silent, and she could almost see the thoughts turning over in his head, sensing the shifts of his muscles beneath her hands.
Presently, he said: “I will say it once more: I’ve given the tribe’s word-bond. My people know your worth to us now. What could the Harkonnens give us? Our freedom? Hah! no, you are the taqwa, that which buys us more than all the spice in the Harkonnen coffers.”
“Then I shall teach you my way of battle,” Jessica said, and she sensed the unconscious ritual-intensity of her own words.
“Now, will you release me?”
“So be it,” Jessica said. She released her hold on him, stepped aside in full view of the bank in the basin. This is the test-mashed, she thought. But Paul must know about them even if I die for his knowledge.
In the waiting silence, Paul inched forward to get a better view of where his mother stood. As he moved, he heard heavy breathing, suddenly stilled, above him in the vertical crack of the rock, and sensed a faint shadow there outlined against the stars.
Stilgar’s voice c
ame up from the basin: “You, up there! Stop hunting the boy. He’ll come down presently.”
The voice of a young boy or a girl sounded from the darkness above Paul: “But, Stil, he can’t be far from—”
“I said leave him be, Chani! You spawn of a lizard!”
There came a whispered imprecation from above Paul and a low voice: “Call me spawn of a lizard!” But the shadow pulled back out of view.
Paul returned his attention to the basin, picking out the gray-shadowed movement of Stilgar beside his mother.
“Come in, all of you,” Stilgar called. He turned to Jessica. “And now I’ll ask you how we may be certain you’ll fulfill your half of our bargain? You’re the one’s lived with papers and empty contracts and such as—”
“We of the Bene Gesserit don’t break our vows any more than you do,” Jessica said.
There was a protracted silence, then a multiple hissing of voices: “A Bene Gesserit witch!”
Paul brought his captured weapon from his sash, trained it on the dark figure of Stilgar, but the man and his companions remained immobile, staring at Jessica.
“It is the legend,” someone said.
“It was said that the Shadout Mapes gave this report on you,” Stilgar said. “But a thing so important must be tested. If you are the Bene Gesserit of the legend whose son will lead us to paradise....” He shrugged.
Jessica sighed, thinking: So our Missionaria Protectiva even planted religious safety valves all through this hell hole. Ah, well ... it’ll help, and that’s what it was meant to do.
She said: “The seeress who brought you the legend, she gave it under the binding of karama and ijaz, the miracle and the inimitability of the prophecy—this I know. Do you wish a sign?”
His nostrils flared in the moonlight. “We cannot tarry for the rites,” he whispered.
Jessica recalled a chart Kynes had shown her while arranging emergency escape routes. How long ago it seemed. There had been a place called “Sietch Tabr” on the chart and beside it the notation: “Stilgar.”
“Perhaps when we get to Sietch Tabr,” she said.
The revelation shook him, and Jessica thought: If only he knew the tricks we use! She must’ve been good, that Bene Gesserit of the Missionaria Protectiva. These Fremen are beautifully prepared to believe in us.
Stilgar shifted uneasily. “We must go now.”
She nodded, letting him know that they left with her permission.
He looked up at the cliff almost directly at the rock ledge where Paul crouched. “You there, lad: you may come down now.” He returned his attention to Jessica, spoke with an apologetic tone: “Your son made an incredible amount of noise climbing. He has much to learn lest he endanger us all, but he’s young.”
“No doubt we have much to teach each other,” Jessica said. “Meanwhile, you’d best see to your companion out there. My noisy son was a bit rough in disarming him.”
Stilgar whirled, his hood flapping. “Where?”
“Beyond those bushes.” She pointed.
Stilgar touched two of his men. “See to it.” He glanced at his companions, identifying them. “Jamis is missing.” He turned to Jessica. “Even your cub knows the weirding way.”
“And you’ll notice that my son hasn’t stirred from up there as you ordered,” Jessica said.
The two men Stilgar had sent returned supporting a third who stumbled and gasped between them. Stilgar gave them a flicking glance, returned his attention to Jessica. “The son will take only your orders, eh? Good. He knows discipline.”
“Paul, you may come down now,” Jessica said.
Paul stood up, emerging into moonlight above his concealing cleft, slipped the Fremen weapon back into his sash. As he turned, another figure arose from the rocks to face him.
In the moonlight and reflection off gray stone, Paul saw a small figure in Fremen robes, a shadowed face peering out at him from the hood, and the muzzle of one of the projectile weapons aimed at him from a fold of robe.
“I am Chani, daughter of Liet.”
The voice was lilting, half filled with laughter.
“I would not have permitted you to harm my companions,” she said.
Paul swallowed. The figure in front of him turned into the moon’s path and he saw an elfin face, black pits of eyes. The familiarity of that face, the features out of numberless visions in his earliest prescience, shocked Paul to stillness. He remembered the angry bravado with which he had once described this face-from-a-dream, telling the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam: “I will meet her.”
And here was the face, but in no meeting he had ever dreamed.
“You were as noisy as shai-hulud in a rage,” she said. “And you took the most difficult way up here. Follow me; I’ll show you an easier way down.”
He scrambled out of the cleft, followed the swirling of her robe across a tumbled landscape. She moved like a gazelle, dancing over the rocks. Paul felt hot blood in his face, was thankful for the darkness.
That girl! She was like a touch of destiny. He felt caught up on a wave, in tune with a motion that lifted all his spirits.
They stood presently amidst the Fremen on the basin floor.
Jessica turned a wry smile on Paul, but spoke to Stilgar: “This will be a good exchange of teachings. I hope you and your people feel no anger at our violence. It seemed ... necessary. You were about to ... make a mistake.”
“To save one from a mistake is a gift of paradise,” Stilgar said. He touched his lips with his left hand, lifted the weapon from Paul’s waist with the other, tossed it to a companion. “You will have your own maula pistol, lad, when you’ve earned it.”
Paul started to speak, hesitated, remembering his mother’s teaching: “Beginnings are such delicate times. ”
“My son has what weapons he needs,” Jessica said. She stared at Stilgar, forcing him to think of how Paul had acquired the pistol.
Stilgar glanced at the man Paul had subdued—Jamis. The man stood at one side, head lowered, breathing heavily. “You are a difficult woman,” Stilgar said. He held out his left hand to a companion, snapped his fingers. “Kushti bakka te.”
More Chakobsa, Jessica thought.
The companion pressed two squares of gauze into Stilgar’s hand. Stilgar ran them through his fingers, fixed one around Jessica’s neck beneath her hood, fitted the other around Paul’s neck in the same way.
“Now you wear the kerchief of the bakka,” he said. “If we become separated, you will be recognized as belonging to Stilgar’s sietch. We will talk of weapons another time.”
He moved out through his band now, inspecting them, giving Paul’s Fremkit pack to one of his men to carry.
Bakka, Jessica thought, recognizing the religious term: bakka—the weeper. She sensed how the symbolism of the kerchiefs united this band. Why should weeping unite them? she asked herself.
Stilgar came to the young girl who had embarrassed Paul, said: “Chani, take the child-man under your wing. Keep him out of trouble.”
Chani touched Paul’s arm. “Come along, child-man.”
Paul hid the anger in his voice, said: “My name is Paul. It were well you—”
“We’ll give you a name, manling,” Stilgar said, “in the time of the mihna, at the test of aql.”
The test of reason, Jessica translated. The sudden need of Paul’s ascendancy overrode all other consideration, and she barked, “My son’s been tested with the gom jabbar!”
In the stillness that followed, she knew she had struck to the heart of them.
“There’s much we don’t know of each other,” Stilgar said. “But we tarry overlong. Day-sun mustn’t find us in the open.” He crossed to the man Paul had struck down, said, “Jamis, can you travel?”
A grunt answered him. “Surprised me, he did. ’Twas an accident. I can travel.”
“No accident,” Stilgar said. “I’ll hold you responsible with Chani for the lad’s safety, Jamis. These people have my countenance.”
/> Jessica stared at the man, Jamis. His was the voice that had argued with Stilgar from the rocks. His was the voice with death in it. And Stilgar had seen fit to reinforce his order with this Jamis.
Stilgar flicked a testing glance across the group, motioned two men out. “Larus and Farrukh, you are to hide our tracks. See that we leave no trace. Extra care—we have two with us who’ve not been trained.” He turned, hand upheld and aimed across the basin. “In squad line with flankers—move out. We must be at Cave of the Ridges before dawn.”
Jessica fell into step beside Stilgar, counting heads. There were forty Fremen—she and Paul made it forty-two. And she thought: They travel as a military company—eventhe girl, Chani.
Paul took a place in the line behind Chani. He had put down the black feeling at being caught by the girl. In his mind now was the memory called up by his mother’s barked reminder: “My son’s been tested with the gom jabbar!” He found that his hand tingled with remembered pain.
“Watch where you go,” Chani hissed. “Do not brush against a bush lest you leave a thread to show our passage.”
Paul swallowed, nodded.
Jessica listened to the sounds of the troop, hearing her own footsteps and Paul’s, marveling at the way the Fremen moved. They were forty people crossing the basin with only the sounds natural to the place—ghostly feluccas, their robes flitting through the shadows. Their destination was Sietch Tabr—Stilgar’s sietch.
She turned the word over in her mind: sietch. It was a Chakobsa word, unchanged from the old hunting language out of countless centuries. Sietch: a meeting place in time of danger. The profound implications of the word and the language were just beginning to register with her after the tension of their encounter.
“We move well,” Stilgar said. “With Shai-hulud’s favor, we’ll reach Cave of the Ridges before dawn.”
Jessica nodded, conserving her strength, sensing the terrible fatigue she held at bay by force of will ... and, she admitted it: by the force of elation. Her mind focused on the value of this troop, seeing what was revealed here about the Fremen culture.
All of them, she thought, an entire culture trained to military order. What a priceless thing is hereforan outcast Duke!
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