Dune dc-1

by Frank Herbert

  They think Paul’s toying with Jamis, Jessica thought. They think Paul’s being needlessly cruel.

  But she sensed also the undercurrent of crowd excitement, their enjoyment of the spectacle. And she could see the pressure building up in Jamis. The moment when it became too much for him to contain was as apparent to her as it was to Jamis … or to Paul.

  Jamis leaped high, feinting and striking down with his right hand, but the hand was empty. The crysknife had been shifted to his left hand.

  Jessica gasped.

  But Paul had been warned by Chani: “Jamis fights with either hand. ” And the depth of his training had taken in that trick en passant. “Keep the mind on the knife and not on the hand that holds it, ” Gurney Halleck had told him time and again. “The knife is more dangerous than the hand and the knife can be in either hand. ”

  And Paul had seen Jamis’ mistake: bad footwork so that it took the man a heartbeat longer to recover from his leap, which had been intended to confuse Paul and hide the knife shift.

  Except for the low yellow light of the glowglobes and the inky eyes of the staring troop, it was similar to a session on the practice floor. Shields didn’t count where the body’s own movement could be used against it. Paul shifted his own knife in a blurred motion, slipped sideways and thrust upward where Jamis’ chest was descending—then away to watch the man crumble.

  Jamis fell like a limp rag, face down, gasped once and turned his face toward Paul, then lay still on the rock floor. His dead eyes stared out like beads of dark glass.

  “Killing with the point lacks artistry, ” Idaho had once told Paul, “but don’t let that hold your hand when the opening presents itself. ”

  The troop rushed forward, filling the ring, pushing Paul aside. They hid Jamis in a frenzy of huddling activity. Presently a group of them hurried back into the depths of the cavern carrying a burden wrapped in a robe.

  And there was no body on the rock floor.

  Jessica pressed through toward her son. She felt that she swam in a sea of robed and stinking backs, a throng strangely silent.

  Now is the terrible moment, she thought. He has killed a man in clear superiority of mind and muscle. He must not grow to enjoy such a victory.

  She forced herself through the last of the troop and into a small open space where two bearded Fremen were helping Paul into his stillsuit.

  Jessica stared at her son. Paul’s eyes were bright. He breathed heavily, permitting the ministrations to his body rather than helping them.

  “Him against Jamis and not a mark on him,” one of the men muttered.

  Chani stood at one side, her eyes focused on Paul. Jessica saw the girl’s excitement, the admiration in the elfin face.

  It must be done now and swiftly, Jessica thought.

  She compressed ultimate scorn into her voice and manner, said: “Well-l-l, now—how does it feel to be a killer?”

  Paul stiffened as though he had been struck. He met his mother’s cold glare and his face darkened with a rush of blood. Involuntarily he glanced toward the place on the cavern floor where Jamis had lain.

  Stilgar pressed through to Jessica’s side, returning from the cave depths where the body of Jamis had been taken. He spoke to Paul in a bitter, controlled tone: “When the time comes for you to call me out and try for my burda, do not think you will play with me the way you played with Jamis.”

  Jessica sensed the way her own words and Stilgar’s sank into Paul, doing their harsh work on the boy. The mistake these people made—it served a purpose now. She searched the faces around them as Paul was doing, seeing what he saw. Admiration, yes, and fear … and in some—loathing. She looked at Stilgar, saw his fatalism, knew how the fight had seemed to him.

  Paul looked at his mother. “You know what it was,” he said.

  She heard the return to sanity, the remorse in his voice. Jessica swept her glance across the troop, said: “Paul has never before killed a man with a naked blade.”

  Stilgar faced her, disbelief in his face.

  “I wasn’t playing with him,” Paul said. He pressed in front of his mother, straightening his robe, glanced at the dark place of Jamis’ blood on the cavern floor. “I did not want to kill him.”

  Jessica saw belief come slowly to Stilgar, saw the relief in him as he tugged at his beard with a deeply veined hand. She heard muttering awareness spread through the troop.

  “That’s why y’ asked him to yield,” Stilgar said. “I see. Our ways are different, but you’ll see the sense in them. I thought we’d admitted a scorpion into our midst.” He hesitated, then: “And I shall not call you lad the more.”

  A voice from the troop called out: “Needs a naming, Stil.”

  Stilgar nodded, tugging at his beard. “I see strength in you … like the strength beneath a pillar.” Again he paused, then: “You shall be known among us as Usul, the base of the pillar. This is your secret name, your troop name. We of Sietch Tabr may use it, but none other may so presume … Usul.”

  Murmuring went through the troop: “Good choice, that … strong … bring us luck.” And Jessica sensed the acceptance, knowing she was included in it with her champion. She was indeed Sayyadina.

  “Now, what name of manhood do you choose for us to call you openly?” Stilgar asked.

  Paul glanced at his mother, back to Stilgar. Bits and pieces of this moment registered on his prescient memory, but he felt the differences as though they were physical, a pressure forcing him through the narrow door of the present.

  “How do you call among you the little mouse, the mouse that jumps?” Paul asked, remembering the pop-hop of motion at Tuono Basin. He illustrated with one hand.

  A chuckle sounded through the troop.

  “We call that one muad’dib,” Stilgar said.

  Jessica gasped. It was the name Paul had told her, saying that the Fremen would accept them and call him thus. She felt a sudden fear of her son and for him.

  Paul swallowed. He felt that he played a part already played over countless times in his mind … yet … there were differences. He could see himself perched on a dizzying summit, having experienced much and possessed of a profound store of knowledge, but all around him was abyss.

  And again he remembered the vision of fanatic legions following the green and black banner of the Atreides, pillaging and burning across the universe in the name of their prophet Muad’Dib.

  That must not happen, he told himself.

  “Is that the name you wish, Muad’Dib?” Stilgar asked.

  “I am an Atreides,” Paul whispered, and then louder: “It’s not right that I give up entirely the name my father gave me. Could I be known among you as Paul-Muad’Dib?”

  “You are Paul-Muad’Dib,” Stilgar said.

  And Paul thought: That was in no vision of mine. I did a different thing.

  But he felt that the abyss remained all around him.

  Again a murmuring response went through the troop as man turned to man: “Wisdom with strength … Couldn’t ask more … It’s the legend for sure … Lisan al-Gaib … Lisan al-Gaib….”

  “I will tell you a thing about your new name,” Stilgar said. “The choice pleases us. Muad‘Dib is wise in the ways of the desert. Muad’Dib creates his own water. Muad‘Dib hides from the sun and travels in the cool night. Muad’Dib is fruitful and multiplies over the land. Muad‘Dib we call ’instructor-of-boys.’ That is a powerful base on which to build your life, Paul-Muad’Dib, who is Usul among us. We welcome you.”

  Stilgar touched Paul’s forehead with one palm, withdrew his hand, embraced Paul and murmured, “Usul.”

  As Stilgar released him, another member of the troop embraced Paul, repeating his new troop name. And Paul was passed from embrace to embrace through the troop, hearing the voices, the shadings of tone: “Usul … Usul … Usul.” Already, he could place some of them by name. And there was Chani who pressed her cheek against his as she held him and said his name.

  Presently Paul stood again befor
e Stilgar, who said: “Now, you are of the Ichwan Bedwine, our brother.” His face hardened, and he spoke with command in his voice. “And now, Paul-Muad‘Dib, tighten up that stillsuit.” He glanced at Chani. “Chani! Paul-Muad’Dib’s nose plugs are as poor a fit I’ve ever seen! I thought I ordered you to see after him!”

  “I hadn’t the makings, Stil,” she said. “There’s Jamis’, of course, but—”

  “Enough of that!”

  “Then I’ll share one of mine,” she said. “I can make do with one until—”

  “You will not,” Stilgar said.“I know there are spares among us. Where are the spares? Are we a troop together or a band of savages?”

  Hands reached out from the troop offering hard, fibrous objects. Stilgar selected four, handed them to Chani. “Fit these to Usul and the Sayyadina.”

  A voice lifted from the back of the troop: “What of the water, Stil? What of the literjons in their pack?”

  “I know your need, Farok,” Stilgar said. He glanced at Jessica. She nodded.

  “Broach one for those that need it,” Stilgar said. “Watermaster … where is a watermaster? Ah, Shimoom, care for the measuring of what is needed. The necessity and no more. This water is the dower property of the Sayyadina and will be repaid in the sietch at field rates less pack fees.”

  “What is the repayment at field rates?” Jessica asked.

  “Ten for one,” Stilgar said.

  “But—”

  “It’s a wise rule as you’ll come to see,” Stilgar said.

  A rustling of robes marked movement at the back of the troop as men turned to get the water.

  Stilgar held up a hand, and there was silence. “As to Jamis,” he said, “I order the full ceremony. Jamis was our companion and brother of the Ichwan Bedwine. There shall be no turning away without the respect due one who proved our fortune by his tahaddi-challenge. I invoke the rite … at sunset when the dark shall cover him.”

  Paul, hearing these words, realized that he had plunged once more into the abyss … blind time. There was no past occupying the future in his mind … except … except … he could still sense the green and black Atreides banner waving … somewhere ahead … still see the jihad’s bloody swords and fanatic legions.

  It will not be, he told himself. Icannot let it be.

  ***

  God created Arrakis to train the faithful.

  —from “The Wisdom of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

  IN THE stillness of the cavern, Jessica heard the scrape of sand on rock as people moved, the distant bird calls that Stilgar had said were the signals of his watchmen.

  The great plastic hood-seals had been removed from the cave’s opening. She could see the march of evening shadows across the lip of rock in front of her and the open basin beyond. She sensed the daylight leaving them, sensed it in the dry heat as well as the shadows. She knew her trained awareness soon would give her what these Fremen obviously had—the ability to sense even the slightest change in the air’s moisture.

  How they had scurried to tighten their stillsuits when the cave was opened! Deep within the cave, someone began chanting:

  “Ima trava okolo!

  I korenja okolo!”

  Jessica translated silently: These are ashes! And these are roots!”

  The funeral ceremony for Jamis was beginning.

  She looked out at the Arrakeen sunset, at the banked decks of color in the sky. Night was beginning to utter its shadows along the distant rocks and the dunes.

  Yet the heat persisted.

  Heat forced her thoughts onto water and the observed fact that this whole people could be trained to be thirsty only at given times.

  Thirst.

  She could remember moonlit waves on Caladan throwing white robes over rocks … and the wind heavy with dampness. Now the breeze that fingered her robes seared the patches of exposed skin at cheeks and forehead. The new nose plugs irritated her, and she found herself overly conscious of the tube that trailed down across her face into the suit, recovering her breath’s moisture.

  The suit itself was a sweatbox.

  “Your suit will be more comfortable when you’ve adjusted to a lower water content in your body, ” Stillgar had said.

  She knew he was right, but the knowledge made this moment no more comfortable. The unconscious preoccupation with water here weighed on her mind. No, she corrected herself: it was preoccupation with moisture.

  And that was a more subtle and profound matter.

  She heard approaching footsteps, turned to see Paul come out of the cave’s depths trailed by the elfin-faced Chani.

  There’s another thing, Jessica thought. Paul must be cautioned about their women. One of these desert women would not do as wife to a Duke. As concubine, yes, but not as wife.

  Then she wondered at herself, thinking: Have I been infected with his schemes? And she saw how well she had been conditioned. I can think of the marital needs of royalty without once weighing my own concubinage. Yet … I was more than concubine.

  “Mother.”

  Paul stopped in front of her. Chani stood at his elbow.

  “Mother, do you know what they’re doing back there?”

  Jessica looked at the dark patch of his eyes staring out from the hood. “I think so.”

  “Chani showed me … because I’m supposed to see it and give my … permission for the weighing of the water.”

  Jessica looked at Chani.

  “They’re recovering Jamis’ water,” Chani said, and her thin voice came out nasal past the nose plugs. “It’s the rule. The flesh belongs to the person, but his water belongs to the tribe … except in the combat.”

  “They say the water’s mine,” Paul said.

  Jessica wondered why this should make her suddenly alert and cautious.

  “Combat water belongs to the winner,” Chani said. “It’s because you have to fight in the open without stillsuits. The winner has to get his water back that he loses while fighting.”

  “I don’t want his water,” Paul muttered. He felt that he was a part of many images moving simultaneously in a fragmenting way that was disconcerting to the inner eye. He could not be certain what he would do, but of one thing he was positive: he did not want the water distilled out of Jamis’ flesh.

  “It’s … water,” Chani said.

  Jessica marveled at the way she said it. “Water.” So much meaning in a simple sound. A Bene Gesserit axiom came to Jessica’s mind: “Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.” And Jessica thought: Paul and I, we must find the currents and patterns in these strange waters … if we’re to survive.

  “You will accept the water,” Jessica said.

  She recognized the tone in her voice. She had used that same tone once with Leto, telling her lost Duke that he would accept a large sum offered for his support in a questionable venture—because money maintained power for the Atreides.

  On Arrakis, water was money. She saw that clearly.

  Paul remained silent, knowing then that he would do as she ordered—not because she ordered it, but because her tone of voice had forced him to re-evaluate. To refuse the water would be to break with accepted Fremen practice.

  Presently Paul recalled the words of 467 Kalima in Yueh’s O.C. Bible. He said: “From water does all life begin.”

  Jessica stared at him. Where did he learn that quotation? she asked herself. He hasn’t sutdied the mysteries.

  “Thus it is spoken,” Chani said. “Giudichar mantene: It is written in the Shah-Nama that water was the first of all things created.”

  For no reason she could explain (and this bothered her more than the sensation), Jessica suddenly shuddered. She turned away to hide her confusion and was just in time to see the sunset. A violent calamity of color spilled over the sky as the sun dipped beneath the horizon.

  “It is time!”

  The voice was Stilgar’s ringing in the cavern. “Jamis’ weapon has been killed. Jamis has been called by Him, by Shai
-hulud, who has ordained the phases for the moons that daily wane and—in the end—appear as bent and withered twigs.” Stilgar’s voice lowered. “Thus it is with Jamis.”

  Silence fell like a blanket on the cavern.

  Jessica saw the gray-shadow movement of Stilgar like a ghost figure within the dark inner reaches. She glanced back at the basin, sensing the coolness.

  “The friends of Jamis will approach,” Stilgar said.

  Men moved behind Jessica, dropping a curtain across the opening. A single glowglobe was lighted overhead far back in the cave. Its yellow glow picked out an inflowing of human figures. Jessica heard the rustling of the robes.

  Chani took a step away as though pulled by the light.

  Jessica bent close to Paul’s ear, speaking in the family code: “Follow their lead; do as they do. It will be a simple ceremony to placate the shade of Jamis.”

  It will be more than that, Paul thought. And he felt a wrenching sensation within his awareness as though he were trying to grasp some thing in motion and render it motionless.

  Chani glided back to Jessica’s side, took her hand. “Come, Sayyadina. We must sit apart.”

  Paul watched them move off into the shadows, leaving him alone. He felt abandoned.

  The men who had fixed the curtain came up beside him.

  “Come, Usul.”

  He allowed himself to be guided forward, to be pushed into a circle of people being formed around Stilgar, who stood beneath the glowglobe and beside a bundled, curving, and angular shape gathered beneath a robe on the rock floor.

  The troop crouched down at a gesture from Stilgar, their robes hissing with the movement. Paul settled with them, watching Stilgar, noting the way the overhead globe made pits of his eyes and brightened the touch of green fabric at his neck. Paul shifted his attention to the robe-covered mound at Stilgar’s feet, recognized the handle of a baliset protruding from the fabric.

  “The spirit leaves the body’s water when the first moon rises,” Stilgar intoned. “Thus it is spoken. When we see the first moon rise this night, whom will it summon?”