“But, sir! Why?”
“Your mother’s response must not be an act. Oh, she’s capable of a supreme act . . . but too much rides on this. I hope to smoke out a traitor. It must seem that I’ve been completely cozened. She must be hurt this way that she does not suffer greater hurt.”
“Why do you tell me, Father? Maybe I’ll give it away.”
“They’ll not watch you in this thing,” the Duke said. “You’ll keep the secret. You must.” He walked to the windows, spoke without turning. “This way, if anything should happen to me, you can tell her the truth – that I never doubted her, not for the smallest instant. I should want her to know this.”
Paul recognized the death thoughts in his father’s words, spoke quickly: “Nothing’s going to happen to you, sir. The – ”
“Be silent, Son.”
Paul stared at his father’s back, seeing the fatigue in the angle of the neck, in the line of the shoulders, in the slow movements.
“You’re just tired, Father.”
“I am tired,” the Duke agreed. “I’m morally tired. The melancholy degeneration of the Great Houses has afflicted me at last, perhaps. And we were such strong people once.”
Paul spoke in quick anger: “Our House hasn’t degenerated!”
“Hasn’t it?”
The Duke turned, faced his son, revealing dark circles beneath hard eyes, a cynical twist of mouth. “I should wed your mother, make her my Duchess. Yet – my unwedded state gives some Houses hope they may yet ally with me through their marriageable daughters.” He shrugged. “So, I. . . . ”
“Mother has explained this to me.”
“Nothing wins more loyalty for a leader than an air of bravura,” the Duke said. “I, therefore, cultivate an air of bravura.”
“You lead well,” Paul protested. “You govern well. Men follow you willingly and love you.”
“My propaganda corps is one of the finest,” the Duke said. Again, he turned to stare out at the basin. “There’s greater possibility for us here on Arrakis than the Imperium could ever suspect. Yet sometimes I think it’d have been better if we’d run for it, gone renegade. Sometimes I wish we could sink back into anonymity among the people, become less exposed to. . . . ”
“Father!”
“Yes, I am tired,” the Duke said. “Did you know we’re using spice residue as raw material and already have our own factory to manufacture filmbase?”
“Sir?”
“We mustn’t run short of filmbase,” the Duke said. “Else, how could we flood village and city with our information? The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn’t tell them?”
“You should get some rest,” Paul said.
Again, the Duke faced his son. “Arrakis has another advantage I almost forgot to mention. Spice is in everything here. You breathe it and eat it in almost everything. And I find that this imparts a certain natural immunity to some of the most common poisons of the Assassins’ Handbook. And the need to watch every drop of water puts all food production – yeast culture, hydroponics, chemavit, everything – under the strictest surveillance. We cannot kill off large segments of our population with poison – and we cannot be attacked this way, either. Arrakis makes us moral and ethical.”
Paul started to speak, but the Duke cut him off, saying: “I have to have someone I can say these things to, Son.” He sighed, glanced back at the dry landscape where even the flowers were gone now – trampled by the dew gatherers, wilted under the early sun.
“On Caladan, we ruled with sea and air power,” the Duke said. “Here, we must scrabble for desert power. This is your inheritance, Paul. What is to become of you if anything happens to me? You’ll not be a renegade House, but a guerrilla House – running, hunted.”
Paul groped for words, could find nothing to say. He had never seen his father this despondent.
“To hold Arrakis,” the Duke said, “one is faced with decisions that may cost one his self-respect.” He pointed out the window to the Atreides green and black banner hanging limply from a staff at the edge of the landing field. “That honorable banner could come to mean many evil things.”
Paul swallowed in a dry throat. His father’s words carried futility, a sense of fatalism that left the boy with an empty feeling in his chest.
The Duke took an antifatigue tablet from a pocket, gulped it dry. “Power and fear,” he said. “The tools of statecraft. I must order new emphasis on guerrilla training for you. That filmclip there – they call you ‘Mahdi’ – ‘Lisan al-Gaib’ – as a last resort, you might capitalize on that.”
Paul stared at his father, watching the shoulders straighten as the tablet did its work, but remembering the words of fear and doubt.
“What’s keeping that ecologist?” the Duke muttered. “I told Thufir to have him here early.”
My father, the Padishah Emperor, took me by the hand one day and I sensed in the ways my mother had taught me that he was disturbed. He led me down the Hall of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides. I marked the strong resemblance between them – my father and this man in the portrait – both with thin, elegant faces and sharp features dominated by cold eyes. “Princess-daughter,” my father said, “I would that you’d been older when it came time for this man to choose a woman.” My father was 71 at the time and looking no older than the man in the portrait, and I was but 14, yet I remember deducing in that instant that my father secretly wished the Duke had been his son, and disliked the political necessities that made them enemies.
– “In My Father’s House” by the Princess Irulan
His first encounter with the people he had been ordered to betray left Dr. Kynes shaken. He prided himself on being a scientist to whom legends were merely interesting clues, pointing toward cultural roots. Yet the boy fitted the ancient prophecy so precisely. He had “the questing eyes,” and the air of “reserved candor.”
Of course, the prophecy left certain latitude as to whether the Mother Goddess would bring the Messiah with her or produce Him on the scene. Still, there was this odd correspondence between prediction and persons.
They met in midmorning outside the Arrakeen landing field’s administration building. An unmarked ornithopter squatted nearby, humming softly on standby like a somnolent insect. An Atreides guard stood beside it with bared sword and the faint air-distortion of a shield around him.
Kynes sneered at the shield pattern, thinking: Arrakis has a surprise for them there!
The planetologist raised a hand, signaled for his Fremen guard to fall back. He strode on ahead toward the building’s entrance – the dark hole in plastic-coated rock. So exposed, that monolithic building, he thought. So much less suitable than a cave.
Movement within the entrance caught his attention. He stopped, taking the moment to adjust his robe and the set of his stillsuit at the left shoulder.
The entrance doors swung wide. Atreides guards emerged swiftly, all of them heavily armed – slow-pellet stunners, swords and shields. Behind them came a tall man, hawk-faced, dark of skin and hair. He wore a jubba cloak with Atreides crest at the breast, and wore it in a way that betrayed his unfamiliarity with the garment. It clung to the legs of his stillsuit on one side. It lacked a free-swinging, striding rhythm.
Beside the man walked a youth with the same dark hair, but rounder in the face. The youth seemed small for the fifteen years Kynes knew him to have. But the young body carried a sense of command, a poised assurance, as though he saw and knew things all around him that were not visible to others. And he wore the same style cloak as his father, yet with casual ease that made one think the boy had always worn such clothing.
“The Mahdi will be aware of things others cannot see ,” went the prophecy.
Kynes shook his head, telling himself: They’re just people .
With the two, garbed like them for the desert, came a man Kynes recognized – Gurney Halleck. Kynes took a deep breath to still his resentment against Halleck, who had briefed him on how to behave with the Duke and ducal heir.
“You may call the Duke ‘my Lord ‘ or ‘Sire.’ ‘Noble Born’ also is correct, but usually reserved for more formal occasions. The son may be addressed as ‘young Master’ or ‘my Lord.’ The Duke is a man of much leniency, but brooks little familiarity .”
And Kynes thought as he watched the group approach: They’ll learn soon enough who’s master on Arrakis. Order me questioned half the night by that Mentat, will they? Expect me to guide them on an inspection of spice mining, do they?
The import of Hawat’s questions had not escaped Kynes. They wanted the Imperial bases. And it was obvious they’d learned of the bases from Idaho .
I will have Stilgar send Idaho’s head to this Duke , Kynes told himself.
The ducal party was only a few paces away now, their feet in desert boots crunching the sand.
Kynes bowed. “My Lord, Duke.”
As he had approached the solitary figure standing near the ornithopter, Leto had studied him: tall, thin, dressed for the desert in loose robe, stillsuit, and low boots. The man’s hood was thrown back, its veil hanging to one side, revealing long sandy hair, a sparse beard. The eyes were that fathomless blue-within-blue under thick brows. Remains of dark stains smudged his eye sockets.
“You’re the ecologist,” the Duke said.
“We prefer the old title here, my Lord,” Kynes said. “Planetologist.”
“As you wish,” the Duke said. He glanced down at Paul. “Son, this is the Judge of the Change, the arbiter of dispute, the man set here to see that the forms are obeyed in our assumption of power over this fief.” He glanced at Kynes. “And this is my son.”
“My Lord,” Kynes said.
“Are you a Fremen?” Paul asked.
Kynes smiled. “I am accepted in both sietch and village, young Master. But I am in His Majesty’s service, the Imperial Planetologist.”
Paul nodded, impressed by the man’s air of strength. Halleck had pointed Kynes out to Paul from an upper window of the administration building: “The man standing there with the Fremen escort – the one moving now toward the ornithopter.”
Paul had inspected Kynes briefly with binoculars, noting the prim, straight mouth, the high forehead. Halleck had spoken in Paul’s ear: “Odd sort of fellow. Has a precise way of speaking – clipped off, no fuzzy edges – razor-apt.”
And the Duke, behind them, had said: “Scientist type.”
Now, only a few feet from the man, Paul sensed the power in Kynes, the impact of personality, as though he were blood royal, born to command.
“I understand we have you to thank for our stillsuits and these cloaks,” the Duke said.
“I hope they fit well, my Lord,” Kynes said. “They’re of Fremen make and as near as possible the dimensions given me by your man Halleck here.”
“I was concerned that you said you couldn’t take us into the desert unless we wore these garments,” the Duke said. “We can carry plenty of water. We don’t intend to be out long and we’ll have air cover – the escort you see overhead right now. It isn’t likely we’d be forced down.”
Kynes stared at him, seeing the water-fat flesh. He spoke coldly: “You never talk of likelihoods on Arrakis. You speak only of possibilities.”
Halleck stiffened. “The Duke is to be addressed as my Lord or Sire!”
Leto gave Halleck their private handsignal to desist, said: “Our ways are new here, Gurney. We must make allowances.”
“As you wish, Sire.”
“We are indebted to you, Dr. Kynes,” Leto said. “These suits and the consideration for our welfare will be remembered.”
On impulse, Paul called to mind a quotation from the O.C. Bible, said: ” ‘The gift is the blessing of the river.’ ”
The words rang out overloud in the still air. The Fremen escort Kynes had left in the shade of the administration building leaped up from their squatting repose, muttering in open agitation. One cried out: “Lisan al-Gaib!”
Kynes whirled, gave a curt, chopping signal with a hand, waved the guard away. They fell back, grumbling among themselves, trailed away around the building.
“Most interesting,” Leto said.
Kynes passed a hard glare over the Duke and Paul, said: “Most of the desert natives here are a superstitious lot. Pay no attention to them. They mean no harm.” But he thought of the words of the legend: “They will greet you with Holy Words and your gifts will be a blessing .”
Leto’s assessment of Kynes – based partly on Hawat’s brief verbal report (guarded and full of suspicions) – suddenly crystallized: the man was Fremen. Kynes had come with a Fremen escort, which could mean simply that the Fremen were testing their new freedom to enter urban areas – but it had seemed an honor guard. And by his manner, Kynes was a proud man, accustomed to freedom, his tongue and his manner guarded only by his own suspicions. Paul’s question had been direct and pertinent.
Kynes had gone native.
“Shouldn’t we be going, Sire?” Halleck asked.
The Duke nodded. “I’ll fly my own ‘thopter. Kynes can sit up front with me to direct me. You and Paul take the rear seats.”
“One moment, please,” Kynes said. “With your permission, Sire, I must check the security of your suits.”
The Duke started to speak, but Kynes pressed on: “I have concern for my own flesh as well as yours . . . my Lord. I’m well aware of whose throat would be slit should harm befall you two while you’re in my care.”
The Duke frowned, thinking: How delicate this moment! If I refuse, it may offend him. And this could be a man whose value to me is beyond measure. Yet . . . to let him inside my shield, touching my person when I know so little about him?
The thoughts flicked through his mind with decision hard on their heels. “We’re in your hands,” the Duke said. He stepped forward, opening his robe, saw Halleck come up on the balls of his feet, poised and alert, but remaining where he was. “And, if you’d be so kind,” the Duke said, “I’d appreciate an explanation of the suit from one who lives so intimately with it.”
“Certainly,” Kynes said. He felt up under the robe for the shoulder seals, speaking as he examined the suit. “It’s basically a micro-sandwich – a high-efficiency filter and heat-exchange system.” He adjusted the shoulder seals. “The skin-contact layer’s porous. Perspiration passes through it, having cooled the body . . . near-normal evaporation process. The next two layers . . . ” Kynes tightened the chest fit. “. . . include heat exchange filaments and salt precipitators. Salt’s reclaimed.”
The Duke lifted his arms at a gesture, said: “Most interesting.”
“Breathe deeply,” Kynes said.
The Duke obeyed.
Kynes studied the underarm seals, adjusted one. “Motions of the body, especially breathing,” he said, “and some osmotic action provide the pumping force.” He loosened the chest fit slightly. “Reclaimed water circulates to catchpockets from which you draw it through this tube in the clip at your neck.”
The Duke twisted his chin in and down to look at the end of the tube. “Efficient and convenient,” he said. “Good engineering.”
Kynes knelt, examined the leg seals. “Urine and feces are processed in the thigh pads,” he said, and stood up, felt the neck fitting, lifted a sectioned flap there. “In the open desert, you wear this filter across your face, this tube in the nostrils with these plugs to insure a tight fit. Breathe in through the mouth filter, out through the nose tube. With a Fremen suit in good working order, you won’t lose more than a thimbleful of moisture a day – even if you’re caught in the Great Erg.”
“A thimbleful a day,” the Duke said.
Kynes pressed a finger against the suit’s forehead pad, said: “This may rub a little. It if irritates you, please tell me. I could slit-patch it a bit tighter.”
“My thanks,” the Duke said. He moved his shoulders in the suit as Kynes stepped back, realizing that it did feel better now – tighter and less irritating.
Kynes turned to Paul. “Now, let’s have a look at you, lad.”
A good man but he’ll have to learn to address us properly , the Duke thought.
Paul stood passively as Kynes inspected the suit. It had been an odd sensation putting on the crinkling, slick-surfaced garment. In his foreconsciousness had been the absolute knowledge that he had never before worn a stillsuit. Yet, each motion of adjusting the adhesion tabs under Gurney’s inexpert guidance had seemed natural, instinctive. When he had tightened the chest to gain maximum pumping action from the motion of breathing, he had known what he did and why. When he had fitted the neck and forehead tabs tightly, he had known it was to prevent friction blisters.
Kynes straightened, stepped back with a puzzled expression. “You’ve worn a stillsuit before?” he asked.
“This is the first time.”
“Then someone adjusted it for you?”
“No.”
“Your desert boots are fitted slip-fashion at the ankles. Who told you to do that?”
“It . . . seemed the right way.”
“That it most certainly is.”
And Kynes rubbed his cheek, thinking of the legend: “He shall know your ways as though born to them .”
“We waste time,” the Duke said. He gestured to the waiting ‘thopter, led the way, accepting the guard’s salute with a nod. He climbed in, fastened his safety harness, checked controls and instruments. The craft creaked as the others clambered aboard.
Kynes fastened his harness, focused on the padded comfort of the aircraft – soft luxury of gray-green upholstery, gleaming instruments, the sensation of filtered and washed air in his lungs as doors slammed and vent fans whirred alive.
So soft! he thought.
“All secure, Sire,” Halleck said.
Leto fed power to the wings, felt them cup and dip – once, twice. They were airborne in ten meters, wings feathered tightly and afterjets thrusting them upward in a steep, hissing climb.
“Southeast over the Shield Wall,” Kynes said. “That’s where I told your sandmaster to concentrate his equipment.”
“Right.”
The Duke banked into his air cover, the other craft taking up their guard positions as they headed southeast.
“The design and manufacture of these stillsuits bespeaks a high degree of sophistication,” the Duke said.
“Someday I may show you a sietch factory,” Kynes said.
“I would find that interesting,” the Duke said. “I note that suits are manufactured also in some of the garrison cities.”
“Inferior copies,” Kynes said. “Any Dune man who values his skin wears a Fremen suit.”
“And it’ll hold your water loss to a thimbleful a day?”
“Properly suited, your forehead cap tight, all seals in order, your major water loss is through the palms of your hands,” Kynes said. “You can wear suit gloves if you’re not using your hands for critical work, but most Fremen in the open desert rub their hands with juice from the leaves of the creosote bush. It inhibits perspiration.”
The Duke glanced down to the left at the broken landscape of the Shield Wall – chasms of tortured rock, patches of yellow-brown crossed by black lines of fault shattering. It was as though someone had dropped this ground from space and left it where it smashed.
They crossed a shallow basin with the clear outline of gray sand spreading across it from a canyon opening to the south. The sand fingers ran out into the basin – a dry delta outlined against darker rock.
Kynes sat back, thinking about the water-fat flesh he had felt beneath the stillsuits. They wore shield belts over their robes, slow pellet stunners at the waist, coin-sized emergency transmitters on cords around their necks. Both the Duke and his son carried knives in wrist sheathes and the sheathes appeared well worn. The people struck Kynes as a strange combination of softness and armed strength. There was a poise to them totally unlike the Harkonnens.
“When you report to the Emperor on the change of government here, will you say we observed the rules?” Leto asked. He glanced at Kynes, back to their course.
“The Harkonnens left; you came,” Kynes said.
“And is everything as it should be?” Leto asked.
Momentary tension showed in the tightening of a muscle along Kynes’ jaw. “As Planetologist and Judge of the Change, I am a direct subject of the Imperium – my Lord.”
The Duke smiled grimly. “But we both know the realities.”
“I remind you that His Majesty supports my work.”
“Indeed? And what is your work?”
In the brief silence, Paul thought: He’s pushing this Kynes too hard . Paul glanced at Halleck, but the minstrel-warrior was staring out at the barren landscape.
Kynes spoke stiffly: “You, of course, refer to my duties as planetologist.”
“Of course.”
“It is mostly dry land biology and botany . . . some geological work – core drilling and testing. You never really exhaust the possibilities of an entire planet.”
“Do you also investigate the spice?”
Kynes turned, and Paul noted the hard line of the man’s cheek. “A curious question, my Lord.”
“Bear in mind, Kynes, that this is now my fief. My methods differ from those of the Harkonnens. I don’t care if you study the spice as long as I share what you discover.” He glanced at the planetologist. “The Harkonnens discouraged investigation of the spice, didn’t they?”
Kynes stared back without answering.
“You may speak plainly,” the Duke said, “without fear for your skin.”
“The Imperial Court is, indeed, a long way off,” Kynes muttered. And he thought: What does this water-soft invader expect? Does he think me fool enough to enlist with him?
The Duke chuckled, keeping his attention on their course. “I detect a sour note in your voice, sir. We’ve waded in here with our mob of tame killers, eh? And we expect you to realize immediately that we’re different from the Harkonnens?”
“I’ve seen the propaganda you’ve flooded into sietch and village,” Kynes said. ” ‘Love the good Duke!’ Your corps of – ”
“Here now!” Halleck barked. He snapped his attention away from the window, leaned forward.
Paul put a hand on Halleck’s arm.
“Gurney!” the Duke said. He glanced back. “This man’s been long under the Harkonnens.”
Halleck sat back. “Ayah.”
“Your man Hawat’s subtle,” Kynes said, “but his object’s plain enough.”
“Will you open those bases to us, then?” the Duke asked.
Kynes spoke curtly: “They’re His Majesty’s property.”
“They’re not being used.”
“They could be used.”
“Does His Majesty concur?”
Kynes darted a hard stare at the Duke. “Arrakis could be an Eden if its rulers would look up from grubbing for spice!”
He didn’t answer my question , the Duke thought. And he said: “How is a planet to become an Eden without money?”
“What is money,” Kynes asked, “if it won’t buy the services you need?”
Ah, now! the Duke thought. And he said: “We’ll discuss this another time. Right now, I believe we’re coming to the edge of the Shield Wall. Do I hold the same course?”
“The same course,” Kynes muttered.
Paul looked out his window. Beneath them, the broken ground began to drop away in tumbled creases toward a barren rock plain and a knife-edged shelf. Beyond the shelf, fingernail crescents of dunes marched toward the horizon with here and there in the distance a dull smudge, a darker blotch to tell of something not sand. Rock outcroppings, perhaps. In the heat-addled air, Paul couldn’t be sure.
“Are there any plants down there?” Paul asked.
“Some,” Kynes said. “This latitude’s life-zone has mostly what we call minor water stealers – adapted to raiding each other for moisture, gobbling up the trace-dew. Some parts of the desert teem with life. But all of it has learned how to survive under these rigors. If you get caught down there, you imitate that life or you die.”
“You mean steal water from each other?” Paul asked. The idea outraged him, and his voice betrayed his emotion.
“It’s done,” Kynes said, “but that wasn’t precisely my meaning. You see, my climate demands a special attitude toward water. You are aware of water at all times. You waste nothing that contains moisture.”
And the Duke thought: ” . . . my climate! ”
“Come around two degrees more southerly, my Lord,” Kynes said. “There’s a blow coming up from the west.”
The Duke nodded. He had seen the billowing of tan dust there. He banked the ‘thopter around, noting the way the escort’s wings reflected milky orange from the dust-refracted light as they turned to keep pace with him.
“This should clear the storm’s edge,” Kynes said.
“That sand must be dangerous if you fly into it,” Paul said. “Will it really cut the strongest metals?”
“At this altitude, it’s not sand but dust,” Kynes said. “The danger is lack of visibility, turbulence, clogged intakes.”
“We’ll see actual spice mining today?” Paul asked.
“Very likely,” Kynes said.
Paul sat back. He had used the questions and hyperawareness to do what his mother called “registering” the person. He had Kynes now – tune of voice, each detail of face and gesture. An unnatural folding of the left sleeve on the man’s robe told of a knife in an arm sheath. The waist bulged strangely. It was said that desert men wore a belted sash into which they tucked small necessities. Perhaps the bulges came from such a sash – certainly not from a concealed shield belt. A copper pin engraved with the likeness of a hare clasped the neck of Kynes’ robe. Another smaller pin with similar likeness hung at the corner of the hood which was thrown back over his shoulders.
Halleck twisted in the seat beside Paul, reached back into the rear compartment and brought out his baliset. Kynes looked around as Halleck tuned the instrument, then returned his attention to their course.
“What would you like to hear, young Master?” Halleck asked.
“You choose, Gurney,” Paul said.
Halleck bent his ear close to the sounding board, strummed a chord and sang softly:
“Our fathers ate manna in the desert,
In the burning places where whirlwinds came.
Lord, save us from that horrible land!
Save us . . . oh-h-h-h, save us
From the dry and thirsty land.”
Kynes glanced at the Duke, said: “You do travel with a light complement of guards, my Lord. Are all of them such men of many talents?”
“Gurney?” The Duke chuckled. “Gurney’s one of a kind. I like him with me for his eyes. His eyes miss very little.”
The planetologist frowned.
Without missing a beat in his tune, Halleck interposed:
“For I am like an owl of the desert, o!
Aiyah! am like an owl of the des-ert!”
The Duke reached down, brought up a microphone from the instrument panel, thumbed it to life, said: “Leader to Escort Gemma. Flying object at nine o’clock , Sector B. Do you identify it?”
“It’s merely a bird,” Kynes said, and added: “You have sharp eyes.”
The panel speaker crackled, then: “Escort Gemma. Object examined under full amplification. It’s a large bird.”
Paul looked in the indicated direction, saw the distant speck: a dot of intermittent motion, and realized how keyed up his father must be. Every sense was at full alert.
“I’d not realized there were birds that large this far into the desert,” the Duke said.
“That’s likely an eagle,” Kynes said. “Many creatures have adapted to this place.”
The ornithopter swept over a bare rock plain. Paul looked down from their two thousand meters’ altitude, saw the wrinkled shadow of their craft and escort. The land beneath seemed flat, but shadow wrinkles said otherwise.
“Has anyone ever walked out of the desert?” the Duke asked.
Halleck’s music stopped. He leaned forward to catch the answer.
“Not from the deep desert,” Kynes said. “Men have walked out of the second zone several times. They’ve survived by crossing the rock areas where worms seldom go.”
The timbre of Kynes’ voice held Paul’s attention. He felt his sense come alert the way they were trained to do.
“Ah-h, the worms,” the Duke said. “I must see one sometime.”
“You may see one today,” Kynes said. “Wherever there is spice, there are worms.”
“Always?” Halleck asked.
“Always.”
“Is there relationship between worm and spice?” the Duke asked.
Kynes turned and Paul saw the pursed lips as the man spoke. “They defend spice sands . Each worm has a – territory. As to the spice . . . who knows? Worm specimens we’ve examined lead us to suspect complicated chemical interchanges within them. We find traces of hydrochloric acid in the ducts, more complicated acid forms elsewhere. I’ll give you my monograph on the subject.”
“And a shield’s no defense?” the Duke asked.
“Shields!” Kynes sneered. “Activate a shield within the worm zone and you seal your fate. Worms ignore territory lines, come from far around to attack a shield. No man wearing a shield has ever survived such attack.”
“How are worms taken, then?”
“High voltage electrical shock applied separately to each ring segment is the only known way of killing and preserving an entire worm,” Kynes said. “They can be stunned and shattered by explosives, but each ring segment has a life of its own. Barring atomics, I know of no explosive powerful enough to destroy a large worm entirely. They’re incredibly tough.”
“Why hasn’t an effort been made to wipe them out?” Paul asked.
“Too expensive,” Kynes said. “Too much area to cover.”
Paul leaned back in his corner. His truthsense, awareness of tone shadings, told him that Kynes was lying and telling half-truths. And he thought: If there’s a relationship between spice and worms, killing the worms would destroy the spice .
“No one will have to walk out of the desert soon,” the Duke said. “Trip these little transmitters at our necks and rescue is on its way. All our workers will be wearing them before long. We’re setting up a special rescue service.”
“Very commendable,” Kynes said.
“Your tone says you don’t agree,” the Duke said.
“Agree? Of course I agree, but it won’t be much use. Static electricity from sandstorms masks out many signals. Transmitters short out. They’ve been tried here before, you know. Arrakis is tough on equipment. And if a worm’s hunting you there’s not much time. Frequently, you have no more than fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“What would you advise?” the Duke asked.
“You ask my advice?”
“As planetologist, yes.”
“You’d follow my advice?”
“If I found it sensible.”
“Very well, my Lord. Never travel alone.”
The Duke turned his attention from the controls. “That’s all?”
“That’s all. Never travel alone.”
“What if you’re separated by a storm and forced down?” Halleck asked. “Isn’t there anything you could do?”
“Anything covers much territory,” Kynes said.
“What would you do?” Paul asked.
Kynes turned a hard stare at the boy, brought his attention back to the Duke. “I’d remember to protect the integrity of my stillsuit. If I were outside the worm zone or in rock, I’d stay with the ship. If I were down in open sand, I’d get away from the ship as fast as I could. About a thousand meters would be far enough. Then I’d hide beneath my robe. A worm would get the ship, but it might miss me.”
“Then what?” Halleck asked.
Kynes shrugged. “Wait for the worm to leave.”
“That’s all?” Paul asked.
“When the worm has gone, one may try to walk out,” Kynes said. “You must walk softly, avoid drum sands, tidal dust basins – head for the nearest rock zone. There are many such zones. You might make it.”
“Drum sand?” Halleck asked.
“A condition of sand compaction,” Kynes said. “The slightest step sets it drumming. Worms always come to that.”
“And a tidal dust basin?” the Duke asked.
“Certain depressions in the desert have filled with dust over the centuries. Some are so vast they have currents and tides. All will swallow the unwary who step into them.”
Halleck sat back, resumed strumming the baliset. Presently, he sang:
“Wild beasts of the desert do hunt there,
Waiting for the innocents to pass.
Oh-h-h, tempt not the gods of the desert,
Lest you seek a lonely epitaph.
The perils of the – ”
He broke off, leaned forward. “Dust cloud ahead, Sire.”
“I see it, Gurney.”
“That’s what we seek,” Kynes said.
Paul stretched up in the seat to peer ahead, saw a rolling yellow cloud low on the desert surface some thirty kilometers ahead.
“One of your factory crawlers,” Kynes said. “It’s on the surface and that means it’s on spice. The cloud is vented sand being expelled after the spice has been centrifugally removed. There’s no other cloud quite like it.”
“Aircraft over it,” the Duke said.
“I see two . . . three . . . four spotters,” Kynes said. “They’re watching for wormsign.”
“Wormsign?” the Duke asked.
“A sandwave moving toward the crawler. They’ll have seismic probes on the surface, too. Worms sometimes travel too deep for the wave to show.” Kynes swung his gaze around the sky. “Should be a carryall wing around, but I don’t see it.”
“The worm always comes, eh?” Halleck asked.
“Always.”
Paul leaned forward, touched Kynes’ shoulder. “How big an area does each worm stake out?”
Kynes frowned. The child kept asking adult questions.
“That depends on the size of the worm.”
“What’s the variation?” the Duke asked.
“Big ones may control three or four hundred square kilometers. Small ones – ” He broke off as the Duke kicked on the jet brakes. The ship bucked as its tail pods whispered to silence. Stub wings elongated, cupped the air. The craft became a full ‘thopter as the Duke banked it, holding the wings to a gentle beat, pointing with his left hand off to the east beyond the factory crawler.
“Is that wormsign?”
Kynes leaned across the Duke to peer into the distance.
Paul and Halleck were crowded together, looking in the same direction, and Paul noted that their escort, caught by the sudden maneuver, had surged ahead, but now was curving back. The factory crawler lay ahead of them, still some three kilometers away.
Where the Duke pointed, crescent dune tracks spread shadow ripples toward the horizon and, running through them as a level line stretching into the distance, came an elongated mount-in-motion – a cresting of sand. It reminded Paul of the way a big fish disturbed the water when swimming just under the surface.
“Worm,” Kynes said. “Big one.” He leaned back, grabbed the microphone from the panel, punched out a new frequency selection. Glancing at the grid chart on rollers over their heads, he spoke into the microphone: “Calling crawler at Delta Ajax niner. Wormsign warning. Crawler at Delta Ajax niner. Wormsign warning. Acknowledge, please.” He waited.
The panel speaker emitted static crackles, then a voice: “Who calls Delta Ajax niner? Over.”
“They seem pretty calm about it,” Halleck said.
Kynes spoke into the microphone: “Unlisted flight – north and east of you about three kilometers. Wormsign is on intercept course, your position, estimated contact twenty-five minutes.”
