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  "Yes. Well, tomorrow we leave. It'll be good to get settled in our new home, put all this upset behind."

  Paul nodded, suddenly overcome by memory of the Reverend Mother's words: "...for the father, nothing."

  "Father," Paul said, "will Arrakis be as dangerous as everyone says?"

  The Duke forced himself to the casual gesture, sat down on a corner of the table, smiled. A whole pattern of conversation welled up in his mind--the kind of thing he might use to dispel the vapors in his men before a battle. The pattern froze before it could be vocalized, confronted by the single thought: This is my son.

  "It'll be dangerous," he admitted.

  "Hawat tells me we have a plan for the Fremen," Paul said. And he wondered: Why don't I tell him what that old woman said? How did she seal my tongue?

  The Duke noted his son's distress, said: "As always, Hawat sees the main chance. But there's much more. I see also the Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles--the CHOAM Company. By giving me Arrakis, His Majesty is forced to give us a CHOAM directorship ... a subtle gain."

  "CHOAM controls the spice," Paul said.

  "And Arrakis with its spice is our avenue into CHOAM," the Duke said. "There's more to CHOAM than melange."

  "Did the Reverend Mother warn you?" Paul blurted. He clenched his fists, feeling his palms slippery with perspiration. The effort it had taken to ask that question.

  "Hawat tells me she frightened you with warnings about Arrakis," the Duke said. "Don't let a woman's fears cloud your mind. No woman wants her loved ones endangered. The hand behind those warnings was your mother's. Take this as a sign of her love for us."

  "Does she know about the Fremen?"

  "Yes, and about much more."

  "What?"

  And the Duke thought: The truth could be worse than he imagines, but even dangerous facts arevaluable if you've been trained to deal with them. And there's one place where nothing has been spared for my son--dealingwith dangerous facts. This must be leavened, though; he is young.

  "Few products escape the CHOAM touch," the Duke said. "Logs, donkeys, horses, cows, lumber, dung, sharks, whale fur--the most prosaic and the most exotic ... even our poor pundi rice from Caladan. Anything the Guild will transport, the art forms of Ecaz, the machines of Richesse and Ix. But all fades before melange. A handful of spice will buy a home on Tupile. It cannot be manufactured, it must be mined on Arrakis. It is unique and it has true geriatric properties."

  "And now we control it?"

  "To a certain degree. But the important thing is to consider all the Houses that depend on CHOAM profits. And think of the enormous proportion of those profits dependent upon a single product--the spice. Imagine what would happen if something should reduce spice production."

  "Whoever had stockpiled melange could make a killing," Paul said. "Others would be out in the cold."

  The Duke permitted himself a moment of grim satisfaction, looking at his son and thinking how penetrating, how truly educated that observation had been. He nodded. "The Harkonnens have been stockpiling for more than twenty years."

  "They mean spice production to fail and you to be blamed."

  "They wish the Atreides name to become unpopular," the Duke said. "Think of the Landsraad Houses that look to me for a certain amount of leadership--their unofficial spokesman. Think how they'd react if I were responsible for a serious reduction in their income. After all, one's own profits come first. The Great Convention be damned! You can't let someone pauperize you!" A harsh smile twisted the Duke's mouth. "They'd look the other way no matter what was done to me."

  "Even if we were attacked with atomics?"

  "Nothing that flagrant. No open defiance of the Convention. But almost anything else short of that ... perhaps even dusting and a bit of soil poisoning."

  "Then why are we walking into this?"

  "Paul!" The Duke frowned at his son. "Knowing where the trap is--that's the first step in evading it. This is like single combat, Son, only on a larger scale--a feint within a feint within a feint ... seemingly without end. The task is to unravel it. Knowing that the Harkonnens stockpile melange, we ask another question: Who else is stockpiling? That's the list of our enemies."

  "Who?"

  "Certain Houses we knew were unfriendly and some we'd thought friendly. We need not consider them for the moment because there is one other much more important: our beloved Padishah Emperor."

  Paul tried to swallow in a throat suddenly dry. "Couldn't you convene the Landsraad, expose--"

  "Make our enemy aware we know which hand holds the knife? Ah, now, Paul--we see the knife, now. Who knows where it might be shifted next? If we put this before the Landsraad it'd only create a great cloud of confusion. The Emperor would deny it. Who could gainsay him? All we'd gain is a little time while risking chaos. And where would the next attack come from?"

  "All the Houses might start stockpiling spice."

  "Our enemies have a head start--too much of a lead to overcome."

  "The Emperor," Paul said. "That means the Sardaukar."

  "Disguised in Harkonnen livery, no doubt," the Duke said. "But the soldier fanatics nonetheless."

  "How can Fremen help us against Sardaukar?"

  "Did Hawat talk to you about Salusa Secundus?"

  "The Emperor's prison planet? No."

  "What if it were more than a prison planet, Paul? There's a question you never hear asked about the Imperial Corps of Sardaukar: Where do they come from?"

  "From the prison planet?"

  "They come from somewhere."

  "But the supporting levies the Emperor demands from--"

  "That's what we're led to believe: they're just the Emperor's levies trained young and superbly. You hear an occasional muttering about the Emperor's training cadres, but the balance of our civilization remains the same: the military forces of the Landsraad Great Houses on one side, the Sardaukar and their supporting levies on the other. And their supporting levies, Paul. The Sardaukar remain the Sardaukar."

  "But every report on Salusa Secundus says S.S. is a hell world!"

  "Undoubtedly. But if you were going to raise tough, strong, ferocious men, what environmental conditions would you impose on them?"

  "How could you win the loyalty of such men?"

  "There are proven ways: play on the certain knowledge of their superiority, the mystique of secret covenant, the esprit of shared suffering. It can be done. It has been done on many worlds in many times."

  Paul nodded, holding his attention on his father's face. He felt some revelation impending.

  "Consider Arrakis," the Duke said. "When you get outside the towns and garrison villages, it's every bit as terrible a place as Salusa Secundus."

  Paul's eyes went wide. "The Fremen!"

  "We have there the potential of a corps as strong and deadly as the Sardaukar. It'll require patience to exploit them secretly and wealth to equip them properly. But the Fremen are there ... and the spice wealth is there. You see now why we walk into Arrakis, knowing the trap is there."

  "Don't the Harkonnens know about the Fremen?"

  "The Harkonnens sneered at the Fremen, hunted them for sport, never even bothered trying to count them. We know the Harkonnen policy with planetary populations--spend as little as possible to maintain them."

  The metallic threads in the hawk symbol above his father's breast glistened as the Duke shifted his position. "You see?"

  "We're negotiating with the Fremen right now," Paul said.

  "I sent a mission headed by Duncan Idaho," the Duke said. "A proud and ruthless man, Duncan, but fond of the truth. I think the Fremen will admire him. If we're lucky, they may judge us by him: Duncan, the moral."

  "Duncan, the moral," Paul said, "and Gurney the valorous."

  "You name them well," the Duke said.

  And Paul thought: Gurney's one of those the Reverend Mother meant, a supporter of worlds--"... the valor of the brave. "

  "Gurney tells me you did well in weapons tod
ay," the Duke said.

  "That isn't what he told me."

  The Duke laughed aloud. "I figured Gurney to be sparse with his praise. He says you have a nicety of awareness--in his own words--of the difference between a blade's edge and its tip."

  "Gurney says there's no artistry in killing with the tip, that it should be done with the edge."

  "Gurney's a romantic," the Duke growled. This talk of killing suddenly disturbed him, coming from his son. "I'd sooner you never had to kill ... but if the need arises, you do it however you can--tip or edge." He looked up at the skylight, on which the rain was drumming.

  Seeing the direction of his father's stare, Paul thought of the wet skies out there--a thing never to be seen on Arrakis from all accounts--and this thought of skies put him in mind of the space beyond. "Are the Guild ships really big?" he asked.

  The Duke looked at him. "This will be your first time off planet," he said. "Yes, they're big. We'll be riding a Heighliner because it's a long trip. A Heighliner is truly big. Its hold will tuck all our frigates and transports into a little corner--we'll be just a small part of the ship's manifest."

  "And we won't be able to leave our frigates?"

  "That's part of the price you pay for Guild Security. There could be Harkonnen ships right alongside us and we'd have nothing to fear from them. The Harkonnens know better than to endanger their shipping privileges."

  "I'm going to watch our screens and try to see a Guildsman."

  "You won't. Not even their agents ever see a Guildsman. The Guild's as jealous of its privacy as it is of its monopoly. Don't do anything to endanger our shipping privileges, Paul."

  "Do you think they hide because they've mutated and don't look ... human anymore?"

  "Who knows?" The Duke shrugged. "It's a mystery we're not likely to solve. We've more immediate problems--among them: you."

  "Me?"

  "Your mother wanted me to be the one to tell you, Son. You see, you may have Mentat capabilities."

  Paul stared at his father, unable to speak for a moment, then: "A Mentat? Me? But I...."

  "Hawat agrees, Son. It's true."

  "But I thought Mentat training had to start during infancy and the subject couldn't be told because it might inhibit the early...." He broke off, all his past circumstances coming to focus in one flashing computation. "I see," he said.

  "A day comes," the Duke said, "when the potential Mentat must learn what's being done. It may no longer be done to him. The Mentat has to share in the choice of whether to continue or abandon the training. Some can continue; some are incapable of it. Only the potential Mentat can tell this for sure about himself."

  Paul rubbed his chin. All the special training from Hawat and his mother--the mnemonics, the focusing of awareness, the muscle control and sharpening of sensitivities, the study of languages and nuances of voices--all of it clicked into a new kind of understanding in his mind.

  "You'll be the Duke someday, Son," his father said. "A Mentat Duke would be formidable indeed. Can you decide now ... or do you need more time?"

  There was no hesitation in his answer. "I'll go on with the training."

  "Formidable indeed," the Duke murmured, and Paul saw the proud smile on his father's face. The smile shocked Paul: it had a skull look on the Duke's narrow features. Paul closed his eyes, feeling the terrible purpose reawaken within him. Perhaps being a Mentat is terrible purpose, he thought.

  But even as he focused on this thought, his new awareness denied it.

  With the Lady Jessica and Arrakis, the Bene Gesserit system of sowing implant— legends through the Missionaria Protectiva came to its full fruition. The wisdom of seeding the known universe with a prophecy pattern for the protection of B.G. personnel has long been appreciated, but never have we seen a condition— ut-extremis with more ideal mating of person and preparation. The prophetic legends had taken on Arrakis even to the extent of adopted labels (including Reverend Mother, canto and respondu, and most of the Shari-a panoplia propheticus). And it is generally accepted now that the Lady Jessica's latent abilities were grossly underestimated.

  --from "Analysis: The Arrakeen Crisis" by the Princess Irulan (private circulation: B.G. file number AR-81088587)

  ALL AROUND the Lady Jessica--piled in corners of the Arrakeen great hall, mounded in the open spaces--stood the packaged freight of their lives: boxes, trunks, cartons, cases--some partly unpacked. She could hear the cargo handlers from the Guild shuttle depositing another load in the entry.

  Jessica stood in the center of the hall. She moved in a slow turn, looking up and around at shadowed carvings, crannies and deeply recessed windows. This giant anachronism of a room reminded her of the Sisters' Hall at her Bene Gesserit school. But at the school the effect had been of warmth. Here, all was bleak stone.

  Some architect had reached far back into history for these buttressed walls and dark hangings, she thought. The arched ceiling stood two stories above her with great crossbeams she felt sure had been shipped here to Arrakis across space at monstrous cost. No planet of this system grew trees to make such beams--unless the beams were imitation wood.

  She thought not.

  This had been the government mansion in the days of the Old Empire. Costs had been of less importance then. It had been before the Harkonnens and their new megalopolis of Carthag--a cheap and brassy place some two hundred kilometers northeast across the Broken Land. Leto had been wise to choose this place for his seat of government. The name, Arrakeen, had a good sound, filled with tradition. And this was a smaller city, easier to sterilize and defend.

  Again there came the clatter of boxes being unloaded in the entry. Jessica sighed.

  Against a carton to her right stood the painting of the Duke's father. Wrapping twine hung from it like a frayed decoration. A piece of the twine was still clutched in Jessica's left hand. Beside the painting lay a black bull's head mounted on a polished board. The head was a dark island in a sea of wadded paper. Its plaque lay flat on the floor, and the bull's shiny muzzle pointed at the ceiling as though the beast were ready to bellow a challenge into this echoing room.

  Jessica wondered what compulsion had brought her to uncover those two things first--the head and the painting. She knew there was something symbolic in the action. Not since the day when the Duke's buyers had taken her from the school had she felt this frightened and unsure of herself.

  The head and the picture.

  They heightened her feelings of confusion. She shuddered, glanced at the slit windows high overhead. It was still early afternoon here, and in these latitudes the sky looked black and cold--so much darker than the warm blue of Caladan. A pang of homesickness throbbed through her.

  So far away, Caladan.

  "Here we are!"

  The voice was Duke Leto's.

  She whirled, saw him striding from the arched passage to the dining hall. His black working uniform with red armorial hawk crest at the breast looked dusty and rumpled.

  "I thought you might have lost yourself in this hideous place," he said.

  "It is a cold house," she said. She looked at his tallness, at the dark skin that made her think of olive groves and golden sun on blue waters. There was woodsmoke in the gray of his eyes, but the face was predatory: thin, full of sharp angles and planes.

  A sudden fear of him tightened her breast. He had become such a savage, driving person since the decision to bow to the Emperor's command.

  "The whole city feels cold," she said.

  "It's a dirty, dusty little garrison town," he agreed. "But we'll change that." He looked around the hall. "These are public rooms for state occasions. I've just glanced at some of the family apartments in the south wing. They're much nicer." He stepped closer, touched her arm, admiring her stateliness.

  And again, he wondered at her unknown ancestry--a renegade House, perhaps? Some black-barred royalty? She looked more regal than the Emperor's own blood.

  Under the pressure of his stare, she turned half away, exposin
g her profile. And he realized there was no single and precise thing that brought her beauty to focus. The face was oval under a cap of hair the color of polished bronze. Her eyes were set wide, as green and clear as the morning skies of Caladan. The nose was small, the mouth wide and generous. Her figure was good but scant: tall and with its curves gone to slimness.

  He remembered that the lay sisters at the school had called her skinny, so his buyers had told him. But that description oversimplified. She had brought a regal beauty back into the Atreides line. He was glad that Paul favored her.

  "Where's Paul?" he asked.

  "Someplace around the house taking his lessons with Yueh."

  "Probably in the south wing," he said. "I thought I heard Yueh's voice, but I couldn't take time to look." He glanced down at her, hesitating. "I came here only to hang the key of Caladan Castle in the dining hall."

  She caught her breath, stopped the impulse to reach out to him. Hanging the key--there was finality in that action. But this was not the time or place for comforting. "I saw our banner over the house as we came in," she said.

  He glanced at the painting of his father. "Where were you going to hang that?"

  "Somewhere in here."

  "No." The word rang flat and final, telling her she could use trickery to persuade, but open argument was useless. Still, she had to try, even if the gesture served only to remind herself that she would not trick him.

  "My Lord," she said, "if you'd only...."

  "The answer remains no. I indulge you shamefully in most things, not in this. I've just come from the dining hall where there are--"

  "My Lord! Please."

  "The choice is between your digestion and my ancestral dignity, my dear," he said. "They will hang in the dining hall."

  She sighed. "Yes, my Lord."

  "You may resume your custom of dining in your rooms whenever possible. I shall expect you at your proper position only on formal occasions."

  "Thank you, my Lord."

  "And don't go all cold and formal on me! Be thankful that I never married you, my dear. Then it'd be your duty to join me at table for every meal."

  She held her face immobile, nodded.

  "Hawat already has our own poison snooper over the dining table," he said. "There's a portable in your room."

  "You anticipated this ... disagreement," she said.