Dune

by Frank Herbert

  "Quickly," Paul said. "No telling how long this foam will hold the sand."

  Jessica scrambled up beside Paul as he sifted another pinch of spice into the hole, shook the paracompass case. Again, foam boiled from it.

  As Paul directed the foam barrier, Jessica dug with her hands, hurling the sand down the slope. "How deep?" she panted.

  "About three meters," he said. "And I can only approximate the position. We may have to widen this hole." He moved a step aside, slipping in loose sand. "Slant your digging backward. Don't go straight down."

  Jessica obeyed.

  Slowly, the hole went down, reaching a level even with the floor of the basin and still no sign of the pack.

  Could I have miscalculated? Paul asked himself. I'm the one that panicked originally and caused this mistake. Has that warped my ability?

  He looked at the paracompass. Less than two ounces of the acid infusion remained.

  Jessica straightened in the hole, rubbed a foam-stained hand across her cheek. Her eyes met Paul's.

  "The upper face," Paul said. "Gently, now." He added another pinch of spice to the container, sent the foam boiling around Jessica's hands as she began cutting a vertical face in the upper slant of the hole. On the second pass, her hands encountered something hard. Slowly, she worked out a length of strap with a plastic buckle.

  "Don't move any more of it," Paul said and his voice was almost a whisper.

  "We're out of foam."

  Jessica held the strap in one hand, looked up at him.

  Paul threw the empty paracompass down onto the floor of the basin, said: "Give me your other hand. Now listen carefully. I'm going to pull you to the side and downhill. Don't let go of that strap. We won't get much more spill from the top. This slope has stabilized itself. All I'm going to aim for is to keep your head free of the sand. Once that hole's filled, we can dig you out and pull up the pack."

  "I understand," she said.

  "Ready?"

  "Ready." She tensed her fingers on the strap.

  With one surge, Paul had her half out of the hole, holding her head up as the foam barrier gave way and sand spilled down. When it had subsided, Jessica remained buried to the waist, her left arm and shoulder still under the sand, her chin protected on a fold of Paul's robe. Her shoulder ached from the strain put on it.

  "I still have the strap," she said.

  Slowly, Paul worked his hand into the sand beside her, found the strap. "Together," he said. "Steady pressure. We mustn't break it."

  More sand spilled down as they worked the pack up. When the strap cleared the surface, Paul stopped, freed his mother from the sand. Together then they pulled the pack downslope and out of its trap.

  In a few minutes they stood on the floor of the fissure holding the pack between them.

  Paul looked at his mother. Foam strained her face, her robe. Sand was caked to her where the foam had dried. She looked as though she had been a target for balls of wet, green sand.

  "You look a mess," he said.

  "You're not so pretty yourself," she said.

  They started to laugh, then sobered.

  "That shouldn't have happened," Paul said. "I was careless."

  She shrugged, feeling caked sand fall away from her robe.

  "I'll put up the tent," he said. "Better slip off that robe and shake it out." He turned away, taking the pack.

  Jessica nodded, suddenly too tired to answer.

  "There's anchor holes in the rock," Paul said. "Someone's tented here before."

  Why not? she thought as she brushed at her robe. This was a likely place--deep in rock walls and facing another cliff some four kilometers away--far enough above the desert to avoid worms but close enough for easy access before a crossing.

  She turned, seeing that Paul had the tent up, its rib-domed hemisphere blending with the rock walls of the fissure. Paul stepped past her, lifting his binoculars. He adjusted their internal pressure with a quick twist, focused the oil lenses on the other cliff, lifting golden tan in morning light across open sand.

  Jessica watched as he studied that apocalyptic landscape, his eyes probing into sand rivers and canyons.

  "There are growing things over there," he said.

  Jessica found the spare binoculars in the pack beside the tent, moved up beside Paul.

  "There," he said, holding the binoculars with one hand and pointing with the other.

  She looked where he pointed.

  "Saguaro," she said. "Scrawny stuff."

  "There may be people nearby," Paul said.

  "That could be the remains of a botanical testing station," she warned.

  "This is pretty far south into the desert," he said. He lowered his binoculars, rubbed beneath his filter baffle, feeling how dry and chapped his lips were, sensing the dusty taste of thirst in his mouth. "This has the feeling of a Fremen place," he said.

  "Are we certain the Fremen will be friendly?" she asked.

  "Kynes promised their help."

  But there's desperation in the people of this desert, she thought. I felt some of it myself today. Desperate people might kill us for our water.

  She closed her eyes and, against this wasteland, conjured in her mind a scene from Caladan. There had been a vacation trip once on Caladan--she and the Duke Leto, before Paul's birth. They'd flown over the southern jungles, above the weed-wild shouting leaves and rice paddies of the deltas. And they had seen the ant lines in the greenery--man-gangs carrying their loads on suspensor-buoyed shoulder poles. And in the sea reaches there'd been the white petals of trimaran dhows.

  All of it gone.

  Jessica opened her eyes to the desert stillness, to the mounting warmth of the day. Restless heat devils were beginning to set the air aquiver out on the open sand. The other rock face across from them was like a thing seen through cheap glass.

  A spill of sand spread its brief curtain across the open end of the fissure. The sand hissed down, loosed by puffs of morning breeze, by the hawks that were beginning to lift away from the clifftop. When the sand-fall was gone, she still heard it hissing. It grew louder, a sound that once heard, was never forgotten.

  "Worm," Paul whispered.

  It came from their right with an uncaring majesty that could not be ignored. A twisting burrow-mound of sand cut through the dunes within their field of vision. The mound lifted in front, dusting away like a bow wave in water. Then it was gone, coursing off to the left.

  The sound diminished, died.

  "I've seen space frigates that were smaller," Paul whispered.

  She nodded, continuing to stare across the desert. Where the worm had passed there remained that tantalizing gap. It flowed bitterly endless before them, beckoning beneath its horizontal collapse of skyline.

  "When we've rested," Jessica said, "we should continue with your lessons."

  He suppressed a sudden anger, said: "Mother, don't you think we could do without...."

  "Today you panicked," she said. "You know your mind and bindu-nervature perhaps better than I do, but you've much yet to learn about your body's prana-musculature. The body does things of itself sometimes, Paul, and I can teach you about this. You must learn to control every muscle, every fiber of your body. You need review of the hands. We'll start with finger muscles, palm tendons, and tip sensitivity." She turned away. "Come, into the tent, now."

  He flexed the fingers of his left hand, watching her crawl through the sphincter valve, knowing that he could not deflect her from this determination ... that he must agree.

  Whatever has been done to me, I've been a party to it, he thought.

  Review of the hand!

  He looked at his hand. How inadequate it appeared when measured against such creatures as that worm.

  We came from Caladan--a paradise world for our form of life. There existed no need on Caladan to build a physical paradise or a paradise of the mind--we could see the actuality all around us. And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a parad
ise in this life--we went soft, we lost our edge.

  --from "Muad'Dib: Conversations" by the Princess Irulan

  "SO YOU'RE the great Gurney Halleck," the man said.

  Halleck stood staring across the round cavern office at the smuggler seated behind a metal desk. The man wore Fremen robes and had the half-tint blue eyes that told of off-planet foods in his diet. The office duplicated a space frigate's master control center--communications and viewscreens along a thirty-degree arc of wall, remote arming and firing banks adjoining, and the desk formed as a wall projection--part of the remaining curve.

  "I am Staban Tuek, son of Esmar Tuek," the smuggler said.

  "Then you're the one I owe thanks for the help we've received," Halleck said.

  "Ah-h-h, gratitude," the smuggler said. "Sit down."

  A ship-type bucket seat emerged from the wall beside the screens and Halleck sank onto it with a sigh, feeling his weariness. He could see his own reflection now in a dark surface beside the smuggler and scowled at the lines of fatigue in his lumpy face. The inkvine scar along his jaw writhed with the scowl.

  Halleck turned from his reflection, stared at Tuek. He saw the family resemblance in the smuggler now--the father's heavy, overhanging eyebrows and rock planes of cheeks and nose.

  "Your men tell me your father is dead, killed by the Harkonnens," Halleck said.

  "By the Harkonnens or by a traitor among your people," Tuek said.

  Anger overcame part of Halleck's fatigue. He straightened, said: "Can you name the traitor?"

  "We are not sure."

  "Thufir Hawat suspected the Lady Jessica."

  "Ah-h-h, the Bene Gesserit witch ... perhaps. But Hawat is now a Harkonnen captive."

  "I heard," Halleck took a deep breath. "It appears we've a deal more killing ahead of us."

  "We will do nothing to attract attention to us," Tuek said.

  Halleck stiffened. "But--"

  "You and those of your men we've saved are welcome to sanctuary among us," Tuek said. "You speak of gratutude. Very well; work off your debt to us. We can always use good men. We'll destroy you out of hand, though, if you make the slightest open move against the Harkonnens."

  "But they killed your father, man!"

  "Perhaps. And if so, I'll give you my father's answer to those who act without thinking: 'A stone is heavy and the sand is weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both.' "

  "You mean to do nothing about it, then?" Halleck sneered.

  "You did not hear me say that. I merely say I will protect our contract with the Guild. The Guild requires that we play a circumspect game. There are other ways of destroying a foe."

  "Ah-h-h-h-h."

  "Ah, indeed. If you've a mind to seek out the witch, have at it. But I warn you that you're probably too late ... and we doubt she's the one you want, anyway."

  "Hawat made few mistakes."

  "He allowed himself to fall into Harkonnen hands."

  "You think he's the traitor?"

  Tuek shrugged. "This is academic. We think the witch is dead. At least the Harkonnens believe it."

  "You seem to know a great deal about the Harkonnens."

  "Hints and suggestions ... rumors and hunches."

  "We are seventy-four men," Halleck said. "If you seriously wish us to enlist with you, you must believe our Duke is dead."

  "His body has been seen."

  "And the boy, too--young Master Paul?" Halleck tried to swallow, found a lump in his throat.

  "According to the last word we had, he was lost with his mother in a desert storm. Likely not even their bones will ever be found."

  "So the witch is dead then ... all dead."

  Tuek nodded. "And Beast Rabban, so they say, will sit once more in the seat of power here on Dune."

  "The Count Rabban of Lankiveil?"

  "Yes."

  It took Halleck a moment to put down the upsurge of rage that threatened to overcome him. He spoke with panting breath: "I've a score of my own against Rabban. I owe him for the lives of my family...." He rubbed at the scar along his jaw. "... and for this...."

  "One does not risk everything to settle a score prematurely," Tuek said. He frowned, watching the play of muscles along Halleck's jaw, the sudden withdrawal in the man's shed-lidded eyes.

  "I know ... I know." Halleck took a deep breath.

  "You and your men can work out your passage off Arrakis by serving with us. There are many places to--"

  "I release my men from any bond to me; they can choose for themselves. With Rabban here--I stay."

  "In your mood, I'm not sure we want you to stay."

  Halleck stared at the smuggler. "You doubt my word?"

  "No-o-o...."

  "You've saved me from the Harkonnens. I gave loyalty to the Duke Leto for no greater reason. I'll stay on Arrakis--with you ... or with the Fremen."

  "Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and it has power," Tuek said. "You might find the line between life and death among the Fremen to be too sharp and quick."

  Halleck closed his eyes briefly, feeling the weariness surge up in him. "Where is the Lord who led us through the land of deserts and of pits?" he murmured.

  "Move slowly and the day of your revenge will come," Tuek said. "Speed is a device of Shaitan. Cool your sorrow--we've the diversions for it; three things there are that ease the heart--water, green grass, and the beauty of woman."

  Halleck opened his eyes. "I would prefer the blood of Rabban Harkonnen flowing about my feet." He stared at Tuek. "You think that day will come?"

  "I have little to do with how you'll meet tomorrow, Gurney Halleck. I can only help you meet today."

  "Then I'll accept that help and stay until the day you tell me to revenge your father and all the others who--"

  "Listen to me, fighting man," Tuek said. He leaned forward over his desk, his shoulders level with his ears, eyes intent. The smuggler's face was suddenly like weathered stone. "My father's water--I'll buy that back myself, with my own blade."

  Halleck stared back at Tuek. In that moment, the smuggler reminded him of Duke Leto: a leader of men, courageous, secure in his own position and his own course. He was like the Duke ... before Arrakis.

  "Do you wish my blade beside you?" Halleck asked.

  Tuek sat back, relaxed, studying Halleck silently.

  "Do you think of me as fighting man?" Halleck pressed.

  "You're the only one of the Duke's lieutenants to escape," Tuek said. "Your enemy was overwhelming, yet you rolled with him.... You defeated him the way we defeat Arrakis."

  "Eh?"

  "We live on sufferance down here, Gurney Halleck," Tuek said. "Arrakis is our enemy."

  "One enemy at a time, is that it?"

  "That's it."

  "Is that the way the Fremen make out?"

  "Perhaps."

  "You said I might find life with the Fremen too tough. They live in the desert, in the open, is that why?"

  "Who knows where the Fremen live? For us, the Central Plateau is a no-man's land. But I wish to talk more about--"

  "I'm told that the Guild seldom routes spice lighters in over the desert," Halleck said. "But there are rumors that you can see bits of greenery here and there if you know where to look."

  "Rumors!" Tuek sneered. "Do you wish to choose now between me and the Fremen? We have a measure of security, our own sietch carved out of the rock, our own hidden basins. We live the lives of civilized men. The Fremen are a few ragged bands that we use as spice-hunters."

  "But they can kill Harkonnens."

  "And do you wish to know the result? Even now they are being hunted down like animals--with lasguns, because they have no shields. They are being exterminated. Why? Because they killed Harkonnens."

  "Was it Harkonnens they killed?" Halleck asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Haven't you heard that there may've been Sardaukar with the Harkonnens?"

  "More rumors."

  "But a pogrom--th
at isn't like the Harkonnens. A pogrom is wasteful."

  "I believe what I see with my own eyes," Tuek said. "Make your choice, fighting man. Me or the Fremen. I will promise you sanctuary and a chance to draw the blood we both want. Be sure of that. The Fremen will offer you only the life of the hunted."

  Halleck hesitated, sensing wisdom and sympathy in Tuek's words, yet troubled for no reason he could explain.

  "Trust your own abilities," Tuek said. "Whose decisions brought your force through the battle? Yours. Decide."

  "It must be," Halleck said. "The Duke and his son are dead?"

  "The Harkonnens believe it. Where such things are concerned, I incline to trust the Harkonnens." A grim smile touched Tuek's mouth. "But it's about the only trust I give them."

  "Then it must be," Halleck repeated. He held out his right hand, palm up and thumb folded flat against it in the traditional gesture. "I give you my sword."

  "Accepted."

  "Do you wish me to persuade my men?"

  "You'd let them make their own decision?"

  "They've followed me this far, but most are Caladan-born. Arrakis isn't what they thought it'd be. Here, they've lost everything except their lives. I'd prefer they decided for themselves now."

  "Now is no time for you to falter," Tuek said. "They've followed you this far."

  "You need them, is that it?"

  "We can always use experienced fighting men ... in these times more than ever."

  "You've accepted my sword. Do you wish me to persuade them?"

  "I think they'll follow you, Gurney Halleck."

  "'Tis to be hoped."

  "Indeed."

  "I may make my own decision in this, then?"

  "Your own decision."

  Halleck pushed himself up from the bucket seat, feeling how much of his reserve strength even that small effort required. "For now, I'll see to their quarters and well-being," he said.

  "Consult my quartermaster," Tuek said. "Drisq is his name. Tell him it's my wish that you receive every courtesy. I'll join you myself presently. I've some off-shipments of spice to see to first."

  "Fortune passes everywhere," Halleck said.

  "Everywhere," Tuek said. "A time of upset is a rare opportunity for our business."

  Halleck nodded, heard the faint sussuration and felt the air shift as a lockport swung open beside him. He turned, ducked through it and out of the office.

  He found himself in the assembly hall through which he and his men had been led by Tuek's aides. It was a long, fairly narrow area chewed out of the native rock, it's smooth surface betraying the use of cutteray burners for the job. The ceiling stretched away high enough to continue the natural supporting curve of the rock and to permit internal air-convection currents. Weapons racks and lockers lined the walls.