“Before …” The boy shook his head.
“You’re the latest in the Atreides line,” she said. “You carry the family seed. And when you come right down to it, that’s a tenuous thing. There are no other viable members of your line. A once-numerous clan comes to this: If both you and your father die, the name Atreides ends there. Your cousin, the Padishah Emperor, who is Corrino bar Shaddam, will gather the last of the Atreides holdings back into the Regate, a possibility which has not escaped him. Fini Atreides.”
“You must guard yourself for your father’s sake,” Jessica said. “For the sake of all the other Atreides who’ve come to this … to you.”
“YOUR MOTHER WILL tell you of these things. They’re not in any history books, not the way she’ll explain them. But what she tells you, depend on it, lad. Your mother is a container of wisdom.”
Paul stared at the hand that had known pain, then at the Reverend Mother. The sound of her voice held a difference from any other voice he had ever heard. The words were as though outlined in brilliance. There was an edge to them that cut through him. He felt that any question he asked her, she would have the answer. And the answer could lift him out of his flesh-world. But awe held him silent.
“Come, come, ask the question,” she said.
He blurted it out: “Where did you come from?”
She absorbed the words and smiled. “I’ve heard it phrased differently,” she said. “One youngster asked me: ‘How old are you?’ I thought that contained a measure of feminine adroitness.”
She stared at him. He stared back.
“I came from one of the Bene Gesserit schools. There are many such schools to the power of many. Do you know yet about mathematical powers?”
He nodded.
“Good. Routine knowledge is always useful for communication. We teach another order of knowledge. We teach what you might call ‘thingness.’ Does that make any sense to you?”
He shook his head no.
“If you graduate, it’ll mean something to you,” she said.
Paul said, “But this isn’t answering my question.”
“Where did I come from? I am a Bene Gesserit. Thence, where did Bene Gesserit come from? Well, lad, I have only time to give you the outline. We’ll leave it to your mother to fill in the details. Eh?”
He nodded agreement.
“A long time ago,” she said, “men had machines that did more things for them than machines do today. Different things. They even had machines that could, after a fashion, think. They had automatic machines to make useful objects. All of this was supposed to have set man free, but, of course, permitted machines to enslave him. One man with the right kind of automatic machine could make many destructive objects. Do you see that?”
He found his voice and ventured sound: “Yes.”
She noted the change in him, the increased alertness. “Good, lad. What we didn’t have was a machine to make all men good or even to make all men into men. There are many counterfeit men among us, lad. They look human. They can talk like a human. But given the wrong pressure, they expose themselves as animals. The unfortunate thing is, they think of themselves as human. Oh, yes, they think. But thinking isn’t enough to make you human.”
“You have to think about your thinking,” he said. “You have to …” he hesitated, “ … understand how you think.”
She had followed his words, mouthing them silently with him. Now, she wiped her eyes, said: “Ah, that Jessica.”
“What happened to all the machines?” Paul asked.
“It takes a male to ask that kind of question,” she said. “Well, they destroyed them, lad. There was war. Revolution. Anarchy. And when it was over, men were forbidden to make such machines again.”
“You aren’t telling me where you came from,” he said.
She laughed out loud, a quick burst of sound full of warmth. “Bless you, my darling, but I am. You see, there was still the need for some of the things those so-called thinking machines had done. So somebody remembered that certain humans could think in those ways.”
“What ways?”
“They could take in all kinds of information and never be at a loss to repeat it. They had what is called eidetic memory. But more than that. They could answer complicated questions. Mathematical questions. Military questions. Social questions. Probability questions. They could swallow all sorts of information and spew out answers when the answers were needed.”
“They were human,” he said.
“Well, yes they were, most of them.”
“What do you mean most of them?”
“It isn’t important, lad. Your mother can explain about idiot savants and such if you ask her. But I’m explaining where I came from. This was the way of it. Schools were started to train this special kind of human. One such school was called the Bene Gesserit School. In it was a human who saw the need to separate the humans from the animals. As a stock. A breeding stock. But there was a reservoir of chance human births among the animals because of … mixing.” She thought she saw his attention waning, and snapped: “Do you understand all this?”
“I know how we pick the best bulls,” he said. “It’s through the cows. If the cows are brave the bulls will be brave.”
“Yes, of course,” she said. “It’s a general rule. Men are the doers, and human males seek out the Bene Gesserit. Well, lad, the Bene Gesserit School was successful. We produced mostly women … breeders. Brave ones. Beautiful ones. But in the new Empire there were only certain ways we could act. Some of the things we did had to remain secret. You know what I’m telling you are secret things, don’t you?”
He nodded absently. The secrecy of her manner had been obvious. There were other things troubling him. He voiced one of them: “But I’m a boy.”
Maybe he is the one, the old woman thought. So mature for his years. So very perceptive.
She said: “Men have their uses. And we’ve always been searching for a special kind of man.”
“What kind?”
“Our time is too short,” she said. “Your mother will have to explain it. I can say this to you briefly: The man we need will know himself that he is the man. When he learns this of himself, that will be the moment of his graduation.”
“You’re just putting me off,” he said. He felt resentful. The adult world had no more hateful aspect than this form of frustration.
“Yes, I am,” she admitted. “But you’ll have to take me on faith right now. It’s not only impossible for me to answer your question right now, it could be hurtful for you. It’s as though the knowledge had to grow within you until the day you feel it flowering. It can’t be forced. We think we know the climate it needs, but …” She shook her head.
The apparent uncertainty in the old woman’s manner shook Paul. One moment she had been the Goddess-source of all knowledge. Now … he could see her exposing an area of unknown. And that area concerned himself. He didn’t formulate this feeling as words. He only felt it. It was like being lost.
“Time to call in your mother,” she said. “You’ve a busy day ahead of you.”
PAUL & THUFIR HAWAT
Paul continued to stare at the old man. “Thufir, I just thought of something.”
“Heh?”
“I really know so little about you.”
“What’s that?” Hawat stared sharply at Paul, wondering: Am I being insulted by this cub? Does he doubt my loyalty?
“I mean I don’t know real things about you,” Paul said. “Like, oh, have you ever been married, or …”
“I’ve had women,” the old man growled.
“And children?”
“Like as not.”
“But no family.”
“My Duke’s family is my family.”
“It’s not the same,” Paul said. “You’ve been so busy with our …”
“What I want or need my Duke gives me,” Hawat said. “If talk like yours came from a commoner it’d be a headsman offense. You’re born to rule,
lad, and to accept the services of those whose loyalty you’ve earned. Being born to it isn’t enough, though. You’ve a deal to learn, too. That’s why we’re here now and we’d best get down to business.” He tapped the papers on the table. “Yueh and your mother and everyone with a scrap of knowledge about Arrakis has been pumping it into you. Now, what do you know about the place?”
PAUL & GURNEY HALLECK
Gurney was, in fact, the closest thing to a playmate that Paul knew.
Gurney dropped the weapons onto the exercise table, lined them up, gave them a last examination to be certain they were ready: stunners on safety, buttons secure on the rapier tips, bodkins and kindjals in their blunting sheaths, fresh power charges in the shield belts.
Behind him, Gurney heard the boy moving restlessly, and it occurred to Gurney that Paul was slow to warmth with most people, that few saw anything but a strange irregularity of friendliness beneath the manners. Like the old Duke, Gurney thought. Always conscious of class. And it’s a pity because there’s so much fun in the boy, too much to be pushed under all the time. He turned, swinging a baliset off his shoulder, began checking its tune. There I go again, he thought. Filling my mind with fly-buzz when I should be getting down to work.
“YOU HATE THE Harkonnens almost as much as my father does,” Paul said.
“Almost as much,” Gurney agreed, and Paul heard the irony. “The Count Rabban at Lankiveil is a Harkonnen cousin. You’ve heard the tale of Ernso, the goldsmith, captured on Pedmiot and sold to slavery of the Count Rabban … with his family held in the same bondage?”
“I’ve heard you sing the ballad many a time,” Paul said.
Gurney spoke to the wall beyond the boy. “Then you’ll recall that Ernso was ordered to embellish the handle and blade of the Count’s best sword. And Ernso obeyed, but he hid in the design a curse calling on heaven to destroy an evil House.”
“Yes.” Paul nodded, puzzled. The bloody ballad was not one of his favorites.
“And the design remained hidden there,” Gurney said, “until a Court lackey chanced to see it and recognized the script from his childhood. Oh, it was a great joke at Court until word got back to Beast Rabban.”
“And for that Ernso was hung by his toes over a chirak nest until dead and his family scattered to the slave pits,” Paul said. “I remember the story, but …”
“I’d tell you a thing now that’s known to very few in this House,” Gurney said. “I’m properly called Gurney Halleck Ernson, the son of Ernso.”
Paul stared at the rippling of the scar on Gurney’s jaw.
“It was Hawat’s men brought me off Giedi Prime that time they nearly got the Baron,” Gurney said. “I was just a child, but I showed aptitude for the sword, there being motive behind my learning. Duncan Idaho found a way for me to train at his school on Ginaz. I had some large bids for my services when I graduated, lad, but you understand now why I came back to the Atreides and why I’ll never leave short of being carried out in the basket.”
PAUL & DR. YUEH
That sounds like Hawat,” Yueh said, and he smoothed his drooping mustache. “Hawat’s gone, I hear. Taken most of the propaganda corps, all the presses. Interesting. I wonder what filmbooks he has in mind for first publication there. The Harkonnens, you know, didn’t use much printed matter on Arrakis. They relied on the persuasion of the sword.”
“My father does things differently,” Paul said.
“Indeed,” Yueh said. And he straightened the Suk School’s silver ring that bound his hair at the shoulder.
“My mother says you have some Bene Gesserit training,” Paul said. “Does the Suk School have Bene Gesserit teachers?”
“No.” Yueh dropped his hand to his lap. “My … Wanna … she was Bene Gesserit. A wife teaches a husband much even when he is not deep-trained … and when she’s Bene Gesserit …” He shook his head.
“Is she … dead?” Paul asked.
Yueh swallowed in a dry throat. He has pity for me. I do not want his pity!
“Yes,” he said. And he thought: I pray it is true. Let her be dead, and in that death, free of Harkonnens. Yet, I cannot be sure until I face the Baron in our own tahaddi alburhan. The challenge of the proof. My eyes shall see it.
“I’m sorry,” Paul said. And he thought: Perhaps that’s why he makes me uneasy. He’s a man with a terrible grief. I must be kinder to him. Mayhap my father could get him a woman.
“I must leave in a few minutes,” Yueh said. “But we really haven’t studied much, have we? It’s all this upset. We’ll get back to regular lessons and a full schedule … on Arrakis.”
“Things are pretty mixed up,” Paul said. “And there’s all this huddling within our four walls because our forces are depleted by the ones we’ve sent on ahead. My father says we’re not very vulnerable here, though, because many of the Great Houses pray for the Harkonnens to violate the Convention. That’d make the Harkonnens fair game to anyone who wanted to hit them in force.”
“It is best to stay indoors, though,” Yueh said. “I hear they blasted a hunter-seeker out of the orchard last night.”
PAUL & DUKE LETO ATREIDES: THE SPACING GUILD & THE GREAT CONVENTION
But first let us consider Salusa Secundus. Forgive me if I seem to deal in the obvious. I wish to be certain you see the matter as I see it.”
And Paul took a deep breath, thinking: At last he’s going to tell me how we can win.
“The popular idea,” the Duke said, “is that our civilization is a scientific one, based on a Constitutional Monarchy in which even the lowliest may gain high position. After all, new planets are being discovered all the time, eh?”
“Hawat says new Terranic planets are as rare as hen’s teeth and that dispensation of them is a Royal monopoly,” Paul said. “Except for the ones we don’t know about that the Spacing Guild keeps for itself.”
“I’m glad to hear you quoting Hawat so much,” the Duke said. “It bespeaks a native caution in you. But I doubt that the Guild holds any planets. I don’t think they like living on the dirt … out in the open. I’ve ridden Guild ships to Court and elsewhere several times. You don’t see much of the crews except on viewscreens, but what you do see gives you the clear impression that they despise planet-bound humans.”
“Then why do they deal with us at all? Why not just …”
“Because they understand ecology,” the Duke said. “They know they have a nice safe niche in the scheme of things. It’s cheaper to depend on us for raw materials and those products they don’t care to manufacture … or cannot—such as melange. Their philosophy is Don’t Rock the Boat. They’ll transport us and our products for a profit. Anywhere, anytime— just as long as it doesn’t endanger them. The same service offered to all at the same price.”
“I know that, but it’s still puzzling,” Paul said. “I remember that Guildsman who came here when we contracted for the extra rice shipments. He gave me a picture of a landing frigate and …”
“He wasn’t a Guildsman,” the Duke said. “He was just an agent for the Guild, born and raised on a planet as we were. A true Guildsman has never been seen on dirt to my knowledge.”
“It seems strange that the Guild doesn’t just move in and take over the worlds,” Paul said. “If they control all the …”
“They chose their path,” the Duke said. “Give them that. They know what any Mentat knows—there’s a great deal of responsibility in ruling, even when you do it poorly. The Guild has shown many times it doesn’t want that responsibility. They like what they are, where they are.”
“Hasn’t anyone ever tried to compete with them?” Paul asked.
“Many times,” the Duke said. “Competing ships never come back, never arrive anywhere.”
“The Guild destroys them!”
“Probably. Then again, perhaps not. And the Guild does provide general transportation services at a reasonable price. It’s only when you get into the special services that the cost goes up.”
“T
hey just destroy anyone who tries to compete with them,” Paul said.
The Duke frowned. “What would you do if a rival House set up next door to you and started competing for your world—openly, no holds barred?”
“But the Convention …”
“Hang the Convention! What would you do?”
“I’d throw every thing I had against them.”
“You’d destroy them.” The Duke tapped a finger on the table for emphasis. “Now, let us not forget something, a fact you’ve been told often enough: Ours is a feudal society, each world vulnerable from space. That’s the real reason for the Great Convention. A planet is vulnerable from space, and the Guild will transport anything anywhere anytime for a price. If they carry a cargo of short-range frigates, as they’ll carry ours to Arrakis, and those frigates bomb out a world, the information on who did it is also available … for a price. This is the Great Convention, the Landsraad, our only true agreement—to unite and destroy anyone who attempts such a thing.”
“Well, what about renegades?” Paul asked. “If …”
“Hasn’t anyone explained these things to you before?” the Duke demanded. He sighed. “When a renegade buys Guild silence, there are two requirements. He may not be fleeing after major violation of the Convention, and he may never again contact a central world—in any way. Otherwise, all bets are off. That’s part of the agreement between Guild and Landsraad. Things aren’t all one-sided. We share certain rules with the Guild.”
“I’ve heard all this before,” Paul said, “and read about it and asked about it. But it still seems … wrong. There’s …”
“A man’s promise is no better than his motives for keeping it,” the Duke said. “The agreements don’t bother you; it’s the motives.”
“That’s it!” Paul said.
Road to Dune Page 26
