Jessica studied the man closely, and from the furtive look in his eyes she sensed that he was hiding something. She wondered what Shaddam and Fenring might be up to. She did not believe for a moment that the Corrinos had meekly bowed to their circumstances, abandoning all further ambitions.
We avoid what we do not wish to see; we are deaf to what we do not wish to hear; we ignore what we do not wish to know. We are masters of self-deception, of manipulating our perceptions.
—Bene Gesserit summation, Wallach IX archives
After Salusa Secundus, Jessica was glad to return to the calm beauty of Castle Caladan, where she could smell the moist salty air and see the colorful fishing boats in the harbor. Chani and Irulan had returned to Arrakis with their reports, along with a separate report of Jessica’s impressions.
She could again forget about the Jihad and what Paul was doing.
And yet, she couldn’t.
For years, her son had been slipping away from her, becoming a stranger, caught up in his own legend. She had always feared how easily he had accepted the religious mantle in order to make the Fremen follow him. Perhaps she should have stayed on Dune after all, as an adviser; Paul needed her counsel and her moral compass.
She had always given him the benefit of the doubt, but like constant water drops eroding a hollow in sandstone, questions continued to work their way into her mind. He had explained very little to her. What he foresaw might not truly be the sole path of humanity’s survival. What if he had already lost his way and simply made wild pronouncements, expecting his followers to accept them, as Shaddam had done? What if Paul actually believed what his adoring sycophants said about him?
Before she could enjoy being home in the ancient castle, Mayor Horvu and the village priest, Abbo Sintra, arrived in the audience chamber, begging for an unscheduled conference. Again. Not surprisingly, they claimed it was an emergency. These two men, who had never been off-planet in their lives, did not have an adequate measuring stick to gauge a real emergency.
Dressed in homespun robes, the priest looked uncomfortable in the room where he had presided over Leto’s ill-fated wedding ceremony, now thirteen years past. For his own part, Horvu had donned the formal clothes that he wore only at special ceremonies, prominent festivals, and funerals of state.
She was instantly on her guard.
“My Lady Duchess,” Horvu began, “we cannot let this happen. It strikes at the heart of our heritage.”
She took a chair at a writing desk rather than using her formal throne. “Please be more specific, Mayor. Which problem are we talking about?”
The mayor gaped at Jessica. “How can you have forgotten the priests’ proclamation already? Changing the name of Caladan to . . .” His brow furrowed and he looked at the village priest. “What was the name, again, Abbo?”
“Chisra Sala Muad’Dib.”
“And who can remember that?” Horvu continued with a snort. “This planet has always been Caladan.”
Sintra spread out a spaceport manifest, a record of ships arriving and cargoes departing. Each entry listed the planet under its unwieldy and foreign-sounding new name. “Look at what they have done!”
Jessica hid her own troubled expression. “That means nothing. The men who issued that proclamation don’t live here. Fremen refer to Arrakis as Dune—and this planet is Caladan. If I speak with my son, he will change his mind.”
Horvu brightened. “We knew you would support us, my Lady. With you on our side, we have the strength we need. In your absence we already began to deal with the problem. As you yourself have withdrawn from the Jihad, so has the population of Caladan.”
Jessica frowned. “What are you saying?”
The mayor seemed quite proud of himself. “We have declared our planet’s independence from Muad’Dib’s Imperium. Caladan will do just fine on its own.”
Sintra nodded vigorously. “Because of the urgency, we could not wait for your ship to return. The people already signed a petition, and we sent the declaration to Arrakeen.”
These men were like lumbering oxen in a field of porcelain-delicate politics. “You can’t just withdraw from the Imperium! Your sworn oaths, the Landsraad Charter, the ancient laws of—”
The priest waved his hand, seemingly unperturbed. “Everything will work out in the end, my Lady. It is obvious that we are no threat to Muad’Dib. In fact, Caladan is of little use to him except as a gathering place for his pilgrims . . . who have now been mostly turned away.”
Thoughts rushed through Jessica’s mind. What would have been a minor problem might now become a watershed event. If the people of this planet had quietly chosen to ignore the name change, perhaps Paul would have turned a blind eye. But not if they openly defied Muad’Dib. These fools were putting her son in an impossible position, one from which he could not afford to back down.
“You do not understand the repercussions of what you suggest.” Jessica contained her temper only through the use of her most effective Bene Gesserit techniques. “I am your Duchess, and you acted without consulting me? Some rulers would have you executed for that.”
Sintra sniffed. “Come now, my Lady, no ruler of Caladan would punish us for doing what is right. That would be a Harkonnen thing to do.”
“Perhaps you don’t understand Harkonnens,” Jessica said. They could never have imagined that her own father was the Baron himself.
“Oh, we are just one world, and a small one,” Mayor Horvu said. “Paul will see reason.”
Impatience flashed in Jessica’s eyes. “What he will see is that one of his planets has defied him—his homeworld, no less. If he ignores that, how many other planets will take that as implicit permission to break away? He’ll face one rebellion after another, because of you.”
Horvu chuckled as if Jessica were the one who didn’t understand. “I remember when you came here as a young Bene Gesserit, my Lady, but we have been with the Atreides Dukes for century upon century. We know their benevolence.”
Jessica could not believe what she was hearing. These men had seen none of the Imperium, knew nothing of galactic politics. They assumed that all leaders were the same, that one action was not connected to another and another. They might remember the young Paul Atreides, but neither of these men could possibly grasp how much he had changed.
“Where is Earl Halleck? Is he aware of what you’ve done?”
The mayor and priest looked at each other. Horvu cleared his throat, and Jessica could tell that they had acted behind Gurney’s back. “The Earl is on his estate and has not come to Cala City for . . . some days. We did not feel we needed to trouble him with this matter.”
“It is simple, my Lady,” Sintra said. “We aren’t a part of the Jihad, and we never were. Outside politics and outside wars have nothing to do with us. We just want our planet back to the way it was for twenty-six generations under the Atreides Dukes.”
“Paul isn’t just an Atreides anymore. He’s also Muad’Dib, the Fremen Messiah and Holy Emperor.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “What will you do when he sends Fedaykin armies to seize control and execute anyone who speaks out against him?”
The mayor’s chuckle showed no anxiety. “Come now, my Lady, you dramatize. He is the son of our beloved Duke Leto Atreides. Caladan is in his blood. He couldn’t possibly mean us harm.”
Jessica saw that these men were blind to the dangers of what they had unleashed. Her voice was low. “You misjudge him. Even I don’t know what my son is capable of any longer.”
In the deepening darkness of her first night back, Jessica rose from the private writing desk inside her bedchamber, leaving her papers and recordings unfinished. She walked over to the stone wall and threw open the windows to let the cool night air flow in. It came with a hint of fog and the familiar smell of iodine and salt, seaweed and waves.
Curling waves slammed harder against the base of the cliff with each advance-and-retreat. She could see the silvery line of breakers lit by starlight and a waxing moon.
The rumble and roar of booming surf and the clatter of rocks moving on the shore soothed her with their constancy, unlike the turmoil that washed across other worlds.
Throughout his youth, Paul had listened to those gentle whispers of Caladan seas, and they had given him a sense of serenity, a sense of place and family history. Now, as Muad’Dib, he heard instead the crackling hiss of sandstorms—Hulasikali Wala, as the Fremen called it, “the wind that eats flesh.” And the defiant shouts of fanatical armies. . . .
She couldn’t convince herself that Paul’s priests would have tried to rename Caladan without at least his implied approval. Had he finally become a leader so powerful that his advisers were afraid to speak honestly to him?
Or was he a man without real advisers at all? Paul had prescience; he was the Kwisatz Haderach, with a kind of perceptive wisdom that Jessica did not understand. But did such powers and talents necessarily make Paul infallible? She kept coming back to that question in her mind, and she wondered what psychological damage the Water of Life had done to him in the Fremen ritual that had changed him forever.
Some time ago, Reverend Mother Mohiam had warned her about the dangers of this child, the superhuman Kwisatz Haderach who had emerged before his time and slipped out of the Sisterhood’s control. When the old woman had tested Paul at the age of fifteen, it had been more than a test. What if the Bene Gesserit accusations about him were correct? What if Jessica had committed a grave, disastrous error by bearing a son instead of a daughter? What if, after all, he was not a messiah, but instead a terrible mistake . . . an abomination of historic proportions?
As she watched the surf, a pale mass of luminescence drifted along, a cluster of plankton shining in the night. Hovering above it with flitting wings and distant cries, sea birds dove down to feed upon the fish that, in turn, fed upon the plankton. Another patch of luminescence drifted closer, caught on an eddy that drove the two clusters together, mixing them in a clash of shifting colors.
It reminded Jessica of the Jihad. . . .
She had reviewed eyewitness accounts of battlefield horrors. Jessica could not delude herself into thinking that the zealous followers were operating beyond her son’s control, that Paul did not know the things they did in his name. He had been there, in person. He had seen the atrocities happen, and he had not spoken out against them. Rather, he had urged his fighters onward, had inspired them.
“Has your son forgotten who he really is?” Horvu had looked at her with tired, pleading eyes, expecting her to have a ready and truthful answer for him. But she didn’t know.
Out on the nearby headlands, she spotted a bonfire, which brought to mind the recent aborted festival of the Empty Man. A shiver ran down her spine, as she wondered if her son had become the Empty Man of local legend.
Have I created a monster?
Jessica slept restlessly that night, her thoughts brimming with concerns and realizations about what Paul condoned and why he was doing it. A vivid nightmare started out convincingly as a memory of herself as a young mother slipping into Paul’s bedchamber, looking down at the five-year-old boy. He slept soundly, looking so innocent, yet with a dark potential hidden within him.
If only she had known then that this boy would grow up to be a man who sterilized entire worlds, who had the blood of billions of innocent people on his hands, who led a Jihad that showed no signs of ending. . . .
In her dream, the young mother Jessica looked down at the sleeping child and picked up a pillow. She pressed it hard against his face, holding it there as the boy struggled and fought her. She pressed harder. . . .
Jessica bolted awake in a sweat. Her stomach churned with revulsion. Had her fears simply guided her dreams, or was that in itself a warning of what she needed to do—what Reverend Mother Mohiam had always wanted her to do?
I gave life to you, Paul—and I can take it away.
When the message arrived from the Mother School, even the written words seemed to have the imperative power of Voice. The Sisterhood demanded that Jessica go to Wallach IX regarding a “most important matter,” and the order was signed by Reverend Mother Mohiam herself.
Because of her lifetime of training and obligations, Jessica’s immediate reaction was to rush there in response to the summons. But she forced herself to pause and throw off the programmed reaction; she was annoyed at the way the Sisters tried to manipulate her, how they had always tried to manipulate her. They wanted something. And if she did not go to them willingly, on her own terms, they would find some other means of getting her there, some less obvious way.
Jessica had returned from Salusa Secundus only the day before, had just learned of Mayor Horvu’s foolish and naïve declaration, and now another obligation pulled her away. Once again, she would have to leave Gurney Halleck in charge on Caladan. But he needed to be forewarned.
When he came to see her, she was gathering necessary items for her travel wardrobe. “Gurney, I will be back as soon as I can, but the people of Caladan are in your hands for the time being.” As she regarded him more closely, she saw a gaunt difference in his expression. He looked deeply shaken. “Gurney, what is it?”
The man focused his gaze on the wall rather than directly at her. “A personal matter, my Lady. Nothing that need concern you.”
“Come now, my good friend. Maybe I can help, if you’ll just let me.”
He hesitated for a long moment, then said in a stony voice, “My gaze hounds . . . bloodfire virus. If I had acted sooner, maybe I could have saved some of them. But I waited too long.”
“Oh, Gurney, I’m so sorry.”
He took an awkward step backward, separating himself from her. “They were just dogs. I’ve been through far worse, my Lady, and I will endure this.” Now she understood why he had been unaware of Mayor Horvu’s ill-considered message to Arrakeen. But he was a man who preferred to deal with his emotions privately, and her sympathy would only make it more difficult for him. “It is past, and we both have our jobs to do. Go where you need to go, and I will rule in your absence.”
She nodded, but he needed to know what she was leaving him with. “Some of the townspeople have gotten a dangerous and foolish idea into their heads. While you were at your estate, they unilaterally declared Caladan’s independence from the Imperium.”
Gurney stood straighter now. “Gods below, they can’t do that!”
“They already have. They sent a formal petition to Muad’Dib. While I’m gone, please don’t let this get out of hand.”
“It sounds as if it already is out of hand, my Lady. But I will do my best to limit the damage.”
The most effective family unit is quite large—a community in which children are raised and trained in a uniform fashion, not in a random, unpredictable way. There is also the matter of good genetics.
—RAQUELLA BERTO-ANIRUL, founder of the ancient order of Bene Gesserit
After arriving on Wallach IX, Jessica saw bright reminders of her childhood everywhere around the Mother School. And that was intentional, to emphasize what she had been taught, again and again. We exist to serve. But Jessica was not that same person anymore. For years, she had been little more than a serving girl to Mohiam; now she was returning as the Duchess of Caladan and the Mother of Muad’Dib, the Emperor of the Known Universe. Much more than a meek acolyte.
As she entered the central plaza, she refused to let herself feel intimidated about the meeting to which she had been summoned. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood no longer controlled her. Jessica controlled herself, her decisions, and her future.
She walked around the sprawling complex to gather her thoughts before facing the other Reverend Mothers. She paused by a fountain, where a refreshing spray of water misted her face. She dipped a hand in the cool water of the fountain, let the cupped moisture run onto the cobblestones. A waste . . . a luxury. Water was not a precious resource on Wallach IX. Others might see Jessica as a moonstruck girl dawdling at her chores, but she was in no hurry. Though they had commanded her, she had come
of her own accord.
Despite the failings of the Bene Gesserit order, this place was a hub of human learning and triumphs, where the greatest thoughts were assembled and transmitted far and wide. Jessica had learned much here, but only later had she learned the most important truth of all—that even the Sisterhood was not always right.
But they were predictable. Neither Reverend Mother Mohiam nor any other Sister had deigned to notice her arrival, but Jessica saw right through that as a ploy to emphasize her lack of importance. How different her reception was from how Muad’Dib and the clamoring populace of Arrakeen would have received her.
Jessica already had deeply conflicting attitudes about Mohiam. The two women had an odd relationship that alternated from hostile to cool, with all too brief moments that approached tenderness. The old woman considered her a disappointment and would always look for ways to make Jessica pay for daring to have a son.
For now, at least, the highest ranking Bene Gesserits wanted to speak with Jessica. She was curious and concerned, but not afraid.
A black-robed woman emerged from the half-timbered stucco and wood administration building and stared at her. It was Mohiam herself, sending a signal of impatience with a rigid stance, a twitch of an elbow, a flicker of the wrist before she turned and went back inside.
Now that Jessica understood them, the Sisterhood’s manipulative mind games were amusing. Let them wait for me . . . for a change. She remained at the fountain for another minute, focusing her thoughts, then made her way up the stairs and pushed open a heavy door. Like other structures in the Mother School complex, it had moss-streaked sienna roof tiles and special windows to concentrate the minimal light from Wallach IX’s distant sun.
She joined other robed Sisters inside the chapter chamber. Their footsteps creaked on the floor planks of the octagonal room as they found spots on elaccawood perimeter benches.
The Winds of Dune Page 29
