Dune (Page 154)

Behind Harah came Alia, a girl-child of about two years.

Seeing her daughter, Jessica was caught as she frequently was by Alia’s resemblance to Paul at that age – the same wide-eyed solemnity to her questing look, the dark hair and firmness of mouth. But there were subtle differences, too, and it was in these that most adults found Alia disquieting. The child – little more than a toddler – carried herself with a calmness and awareness beyond her years. Adults were shocked to find her laughing at a subtle play of words between the sexes. Or they’d catch themselves listening to her half-lisping voice, still blurred as it was by an unformed soft palate, and discover in her words sly remarks that could only be based on experiences no two-year-old had ever encountered.

Harah sank to a cushion with an exasperated sigh, frowned at the child.

"Alia." Jessica motioned to her daughter.

The child crossed to a cushion beside her mother, sank to it and clasped her mother’s hand. The contact of flesh restored that mutual awareness they had shared since before Alia’s birth. It wasn’t a matter of shared thoughts – although there were bursts of that if they touched while Jessica was changing the spice poison for a ceremony. It was something larger, an immediate awareness of another living spark, a sharp and poignant thing, a nerve-sympatico that made them emotionally one.

In the formal manner that befitted a member of her son’s household, Jessica said: "Subakh ul kuhar, Harah. This night finds you well?"

With the same traditional formality, she said: "Subakh un nar. I am well." The words were almost toneless. Again, she sighed.

Jessica sensed amusement from Alia.

"My brother’s ghanima is annoyed with me," Alia said in her half-lisp.

Jessica marked the term Alia used to refer to Harah – ghanima. In the subtleties of the Fremen tongue, the word meant "something acquired in battle" and with the added overtone that the something no longer was used for its original purpose. An ornament, a spearhead used as a curtain weight.

Harah scowled at the child. "Don’t try to insult me, child. I know my place."

"What have you done this time, Alia?" Jessica asked.

Harah answered; "Not only has she refused to play with the other children today, but she intruded where . . . "

"I hid behind the hangings and watched Subiay’s child being born," Alia said. "It’s a boy. He cried and cried. What a set of lungs! When he’d cried long enough – "

"She came out and touched him," Harah said, "and he stopped crying. Everyone knows a Fremen baby must get his crying done at birth, if he’s in sietch because he can never cry again lest he betray us on hajr."

"He’d cried enough," Alia said. "I just wanted to feel his spark, his life. That’s all. And when he felt me he didn’t want to cry anymore."

"It’s just made more talk among the people," Harah said.

"Subiay’s boy is healthy?" Jessica asked. She saw that something was troubling Harah deeply and wondered at it.

"Healthy as any mother could ask," Harah said. "They know Alia didn’t hurt him. They didn’t so much mind her touching him. He settled down right away and was happy. It was . . . " Harah shrugged.

"It’s the strangeness of my daughter, is that it?" Jessica asked. "It’s the way she speaks of things beyond her years and of things no child her age could know – things of the past."

"How could she know what a child looked like on Bela Tegeuse?" Harah demanded.

"But he does!" Alia said, "Subiay’s boy looks just like the son of Mitha born before the parting."

"Alia!" Jessica said. "I warned you."

"But, Mother, I saw it and it was true and . . . "

Jessica shook her head, seeing the signs of disturbance in Harah’s face. What have I borne? Jessica asked herself. A daughter who knew at birth everything that I knew . . . and more: everything revealed to her out of the corridors of the past by the Reverend Mothers within me .

"It’s not just the things she says," Harah said. "It’s the exercises, too: the way she sits and stares at a rock, moving only one muscle beside her nose, or a muscle on the back of a finger, or – "

"Those are the Bene Gesserit training," Jessica said. "You know that, Harah. Would you deny my daughter her inheritance?"

"Reverend Mother, you know these things don’t matter to me," Harah said. "It’s the people and the way they mutter. I feel danger in it. They say your daughter’s a demon, that other children refuse to play with her, that she’s – "

"She has so little in common with the other children," Jessica said. "She’s no demon. It’s just the – "

"Of course she’s not!"

Jessica found herself surprised at the vehemence in Harah’s tone, glanced down at Alia. The child appeared lost in thought, radiating a sense of . . . waiting. Jessica returned her attention to Harah.

"I respect the fact that you’re a member of my son’s household," Jessica said. (Alia stirred against her hand.) "You may speak openly with me of whatever’s troubling you."

"I will not be a member of your son’s household much longer," Harah said. "I’ve waited this long for the sake of my sons, the special training they receive as the children of Usul. It’s little enough I could give them since it’s known I don’t share your son’s bed."

Again Alia stirred beside her, half-sleeping, warm.

"You’d have made a good companion for my son, though," Jessica said. And she added to herself because such thoughts were ever with her: Companion . . . not a wife . Jessica’s thoughts went then straight to the center, to the pang that came from the common talk in the sietch that her son’s companionship with Chani had become a permanent thing, the marriage.