Wearing his best noble outfit for the occasion, Gurney stood scowling with a small group of local officials on a raised suspensor platform at the edge of Cala City’s largest park. Over the past hour, an enthusiastic and boisterous crowd had gathered on the expanse of grass and starry flowers.
He wished he’d learned exactly what the clumsy rebels had in mind. With his disarming, often oblivious, smile, Mayor Horvu promised that this would be a peaceful demonstration, and Gurney wasn’t sure what to do about it. He had called in soldiers to keep order, should some of the crowd become unruly.
After Jessica’s complaints of damage done by pilgrims in previous months, Paul had stationed Imperial security forces on Caladan. Though Gurney didn’t know the men well, they had been efficient and dedicated, as far as he could determine, but they were still offworlders. Today, especially, perhaps a more objective security force was best. . . .
Consumed with self-importance, Horvu had issued himself and his followers an unrestricted permit, according to the rules of the town charter. This seemed like a conflict of interest to Gurney, but the Mayor happily clung to outdated images of the way local politics worked in relation to the Imperial government.
“The people of Caladan know what they are doing, Earl Halleck,” the priest Sintra had said. Though pleased to see how many people had come to the rally, he was bothered that Gurney had chosen to bring armed guards rather than join them in their cause. “You have served House Atreides for a long time, my Lord, but you were not born here. You cannot possibly understand true Caladan issues.”
Gurney was surprised at how efficiently this demonstration was organized, since Horvu and his followers were not known to have these skills. It was almost as if they had outside help. As the size of the crowd in the park increased, Gurney grew increasingly anxious. His soldier guards might not be able to impose order if the throng got out of hand.
Gurney looked around for Horvu. He doubted the old Mayor would be much of a firebrand, but that didn’t make him any less problematic. Gurney didn’t want Paul’s homeworld to become another battlefield. Large groups of people, especially those with an agenda, were too malleable, their moods too easily swayed, their emotions too quick to turn. He’d seen the armies of Muad’Dib driven to frenzy because their passionate sense of rightness made them deaf to any concerns except the ones being pumped into them. If the local crowd got out of hand, that could in turn trigger his Imperial soldiers into uncontrollable, violent retaliation on behalf of Muad’Dib.
His soldier guards were veterans, but they did not know the character of these families who had been here for generations, the good-hearted people of Caladan who were now being misled by a Mayor who had no common sense.
As he looked out at the restless crowd who believed they had found an easy solution that their beloved Paul Atreides would honor, Gurney tried to recall the way he used to be: strong, valiant, and assertive in causes that mattered, writing heroic ballads for the baliset, going off to fight for House Atreides wherever duty sent him. His missed those days, but knew he could never go back to them. Sometimes now, he liked to spend time with his music as an escape, a refuge that made him forget the horrible realities from his past.
Several weeks ago, while sharing a pint of kelp beer with the patrons of a public house, he had picked up his instrument and begun to strum. The bartender had called across the heads of the crowd in the pub, “It’s time for you to sing us a new song, Gurney Halleck. How about ‘The Ballad of Muad’Dib’?”
People had chuckled, urging him on, but Gurney resisted. “That story is not yet finished. You’ll just have to wait, men.”
In reality, it wasn’t a song he had any interest in writing. Though Gurney would never utter his opinion to anyone, he felt that “Muad’Dib” had fallen too far from glory to be worthy of such heroic words. It left him with a feeling of loss, on a personal level.
Paul may be the Emperor Muad’Dib, Gurney thought. But he is not Duke Leto.
Now part of the crowd made an opening on the grassy expanse, and Gurney saw the mayor making his way through, waving at people as he approached the suspensor platform. When Horvu stepped onto the lowered platform, he scolded Gurney, as if he were a child, “Earl Halleck, you will have to remove your soldiers. What kind of message does this send?” He scowled at the armed men stationed prominently around the park. “We’ve already sent our proclamation to the Emperor on Arrakis. This is just a celebration, a reinforcement of our resolve.”
“If it’s just a celebration, then go to the pubs and eating establishments,” Gurney suggested. “If you disperse now, I’ll even buy the first round for everyone.” He didn’t think the offer would work.
Sintra shook his head. “The people are quite pleased with how they have stood up to fanaticism and bureaucracy. Give them their moment of triumph here.”
“It’s not a triumph until Muad’Dib accepts your declaration.” Gurney knew that wasn’t likely to happen.
Wary but watchful, he stepped off the platform and motioned for his soldiers to accompany him to a cordoned-off clearing. As they moved away, the suspensor platform rose into the air and floated over the heads of the crowd, with Mayor Horvu waving down at them.
The commander of the offworld troops, a bator named Nissal, removed his cap and wiped perspiration from his brow. “The mayor claims he’s just going to give a speech, sir.”
“Wars can be started with a speech, Bator. Keep everyone on alert.”
Shouting into a voice pickup, the priest called for the people to follow the platform as it glided through a wide opening in the park’s trees. The audience moved with it from below, some running, some laughing, as if it were all a game.
Caught unprepared by the movement, Gurney called into his comm, “Bring in spotter aircraft. Have our people flank them and watch them, but don’t let them do anything foolish. Remember the old phrase, ‘Fools can cause more damage through reckless ignorance than an army can achieve with a coordinated assault.’ ”
Shouting encouragement, Mayor Horvu guided the crowd out of the park and down to the old fishing village, where the people gathered on the docks and on the rocky beaches at low tide. He hovered his platform over the water; many boats came in close, for the speech.
“We have members of every class, every profession here!” The public address system amplified Horvu’s voice. “I have been your Mayor for decades, and I have earned your trust. Now I wish to earn your support. While we wait to hear from Emperor Paul Atreides, we must display our conviction and our strength. We’ll show outsiders what the people of Caladan can do.”
As Gurney listened with growing dismay, Horvu and the priest alternated their rallying cry. First, they urged fishermen to show their solidarity by not launching their boats, not bringing in the catch. They referred to petitions in support of Caladan’s independence that were at that moment being circulated widely across the town, and the fact that merchants would refuse to sell goods to any person who had not affixed a signature.
This was very disturbing to Gurney, and it got worse. The Mayor declared that Jihad pilgrims were to be turned back from Caladan henceforth, no longer welcome unless Paul gave the planet an acceptable form of autonomy.
One of the soldiers spoke into the comm, startling the already edgy Gurney. “My Lord, they’ve shut down the main spaceport. Their people have scrambled the landing codes and are turning back any ship that uses the name of Chisra Sala Muad’Dib. Any inbound pilots have to agree to a binding document that reaffirms the name of this world as Caladan, and as nothing else.”
Gurney was astonished by how swiftly the agitators had moved, how well orchestrated all the pieces of this . . . this revolution had come together. Now, with interplanetary commerce thwarted, Guild couriers and CHOAM officials would file stern complaints, demanding immediate action and spreading the embarrassing news throughout Muad’Dib’s realm.
In all the years of the Jihad, Gurney had seen the appalling things that Muad’Dib’
s ruthless forces did when they decided to crack down. Caladan would not be immune.
He issued immediate orders. “Put House Atreides military aircraft in the airspace over the Cala City Spaceport. Prevent any ships from taking off or landing, and we’ll shut down the facility our way—not the way the rebels want it. Block any ships disembarking from Heigh-liners and send them back up, without explanation. I don’t want word getting out until we have this mess under control.”
Using small military ’thopters—previously designated as search-and-rescue craft for fishermen on stormy seas—Gurney ordered his men to disperse the demonstration with a show of force. He boarded one of the vessels himself and led a fleet of the buzzing craft as they swooped low over the harbor village, firing bursts of compressed air that bowled the people over while doing little harm.
Gurney personally aimed the air cannon that knocked the confused-looking Mayor and the village priest off their suspensor platform and into the water. Imperial soldiers then rushed in with restraints to arrest the most outspoken demonstrators.
As Gurney’s ’thopters flew over the city and his troops took control of every neighborhood, he received a flow of reports. Many of the off-world Imperial guards were failing to exercise the restraint he had specified. Gurney had used air cannons to confuse and deflate the situation, but as the soldier guards grew more zealous in their duties, many once-peaceful demonstrators were severely injured or killed, with their bones broken and skulls split open.
At the spaceport, Bator Nissal launched an impulsive and decisive operation of his own, storming the main terminal to rout out the demonstrators who had laid a primitive siege there. The panicked townspeople fought back, and eleven of the Imperial guards were killed, along with nearly a hundred agitators. The spaceport was reopened, and Gurney lifted his embargo, but felt no joy about it.
He had seen slaughters on the battlefields of the Jihad, but these were people of Caladan, not warriors, not blood commandos who had thrown themselves into a holy war. They were simply naïve citizens of Paul’s home world.
Sickened, he walked among the bodies that were laid out on an old-town street, covered with blankets. Feeling an ache of grief and anger, he cursed, then stormed off to the village prison.
Gurney pushed his way into the prison cell that held a disheveled and astounded Mayor Horvu. The old man had a healing patch over one cheek, and he spoke with obvious disbelief, mixed with the acid of accusation. “I am disappointed in you, Gurney Halleck. I thought you loved Caladan.”
“Be disappointed in yourself, not in me. I warned you not to hold your ‘demonstration.’ I pleaded with you, but you wouldn’t listen. Now Muad’Dib’s response is going to be a thousand times worse because of the disruption you’ve caused, which he cannot permit to occur on any Imperial world. I will call upon every scrap of friendship he still holds toward me, and I pray I can convince him to show mercy. But I guarantee nothing.” Gurney shook his head. “How am I going to explain this to Lady Jessica when she returns?”
“Shame on you, Gurney Halleck! You were once a loyal retainer of Duke Leto, but you have forgotten Atreides principles.” The Mayor glowered at him through the bars. The skin around his eyes was dark and bruised. “I have served the people of Caladan my entire life, and I never thought it would come to this. Our defiance will continue. One day we would be happy to welcome Paul back like a prodigal son, but only if he remembers who he is . . . and who we are.”
Gurney sighed. “Others would call that blasphemy against Muad’Dib. You fool, give me a way to order your release, not a reason to order your execution!”
The Mayor glared at him, but said nothing more.
Two days later, a response arrived from Arrakis, a dry letter congratulating Gurney for a job well done in defending the honor of the Emperor. The signature appeared to be Paul’s, though the words likely came from some functionary. The filmpaper stationery bore a seal from the “Office of Jihad Administration.” He wondered if Paul had even reviewed his report.
With a sigh of resignation, Gurney dispatched an immediate order to free all the demonstrators who had been arrested, including the leaders, without explanation.
By what standards do we determine the sanity of a particular person? If that person is judged insane and brought down, then who benefits?
—PRINCESS IRULAN, The Life of Muad’Dib, Volume 3
On her last evening on Wallach IX, Jessica agreed to attend the Night Vigil. By tradition, she and the rest of the Sisters at the Mother School had spent the day in solitude, contemplating the life and travails of Raquella Berto-Anirul, who had founded their order from the rubble of humanity left by the Butlerian Jihad, thousands and thousands of years ago.
Jessica was eager to be away from the silent coercion of the Bene Gesserit. They had tried to bribe her with the position of Mother Superior—what Bene Gesserit didn’t aspire to such a goal? She had avoided giving an answer, which in itself made the Sisters greatly suspicious. And knowing what they had done to Tessia because of her refusal, Jessica felt herself in significant danger.
As night fell, still reluctant to engage in conversation, Jessica joined a long line of black-robed women bearing candles as they proceeded up the long slope of Campo de Raquella, a prominent hill near the Mother School complex. In the ascent along a rocky trail, the serpentine procession of candles looked like bright eyes in the starry darkness. Another set of flickering flames descended the hill along a parallel trail.
The Sisters climbed to the broad rounded top with its cairn of stones that remained in the sacred place where Raquella had stood so long ago, where her life had almost ended prematurely. A cool breeze whipped up as Jessica reached the summit. She looked out at the diamondlike lights of the extensive school complex and pondered the Sisterhood’s history, the millennia of power and choices they had made.
Unlike most of the indoctrinated acolytes, though, Jessica knew that some of those choices had been wrong. Very wrong.
Twenty women stood near her at the edge of a precipice on the sheer face of the hill, a marker on the drop-off where Raquella had once intended to jump. She had been despondent in those days, unable to keep the differing factions of her organization together, unable to see how to lead them on a common path into humanity’s future. She had hoped that her personal sacrifice would force them to work together.
But it was on this spot that the internal voices of Raquella’s female ancestry had first spoken to her. She’d consumed a great deal of the Rossak drug on that day, but the mysterious internal voices were no chemical-induced hallucination; the chain of voices emerging from her distant ancestors had urged her to live and to inspire others.
Holding her candle now, Jessica inhaled deeply of the night air to fully experience the moment. The ceremony was meant to be a time of reflection and contemplation, a chance to see the vast, unfurling tapestry of Bene Gesserit influence.
She faced outward at the top of the cliff as Raquella had done, standing closer to the edge than the other acolytes or Reverend Mothers with her. For the moment, she felt strongly connected to the core of the Sisterhood, the original purpose that had brought so many powerful women together, not like the corrupt self-interests that subsequently led the order so far astray.
A new Mother Superior could change all that. . . . This could be what Harishka wanted her to feel, an additional temptation of the glory of the Bene Gesserit and their shepherding of history. Despite the stirring she felt within her Bene Gesserit structured emotions, Jessica would not change her mind.
Finishing their meditations, one group of Sisters moved off to be replaced by others. Those with doubts or other concerns needed more time; others received their reaffirmation quickly, and surrendered their places.
A shadow moved up beside her, another black-robed Reverend Mother. Mohiam. “I am glad you stayed for the Vigil, Jessica. I’m sure you feel it.” The voice was brittle, like a dry wind on Arrakis. “Every Sister needs to participate in this, to clarify h
er thoughts and her heart.”
“It does make me think of the once-worthy goals of the Sisterhood . . . as opposed to its subsequent tactics . . . to what is going on now.”
Mohiam scowled in the low light of her candle. “Mother Superior Harishka has made you a generous offer. I know you’ve had your complaints and criticisms of our Sisterhood, but now you can fix them all, and we ask little in return.” The old woman stared across the dark-muddied landscape. “From this place, your view of the future reaches far . . . and your decision should be clear.”
“Clear? You are asking me to kill my son.” Jessica was beginning to lose patience. The edge of the cliff seemed symbolic of the choice they wanted her to make. Accept or leap. But was there another choice?
“A son you never should have had.”
Jessica turned away and walked down the rough trail, picking her way back down the hill. She did not slow as the old woman hurried to follow her. “We will bring down Muad’Dib, one way or another. We will use his own violence against him.” As the surprisingly agile woman caught up, her dark eyes sparkled in the candlelight. “You need to know these things if you are to become our new Mother Superior. You need to know that we will succeed. Cast your lot with us.”
At her side, the old woman lowered her voice, but her words carried an undertone of excitement. “Already Bene Gesserit operatives have made preparations to launch scattered revolts around the Imperium. Caladan will be the first spark. There’s nothing you can do about it. When that flame takes hold there, more than a hundred other planets will rise up simultaneously and declare their independence.
“The Emperor will have to withdraw his armies from other battles to deal with these unexpected problems and—if his fanatics perform as they always have—the sheer excesses of those crackdowns will ignite a cascade of other revolts, real ones that do not need our encouragement.
The Winds of Dune Page 31
