Dune (Page 176)

Paul emerged into a shallow depression in the Shield Wall’s surface. It was a place about thirty meters in diameter and some three meters deep, a natural feature of the rock that the Fremen had hidden beneath a translucent camouflage cover. Communications equipment was clustered around a hole in the wall to the right. Fedaykin guards deployed through the depression waited for Muad’Dib’s command to attack.

Two men emerged from the hole by the communications equipment, spoke to the guards there.

Paul glanced at Stilgar, nodded in the direction of the two men. "Get their report, Stil."

Stilgar moved to obey.

Paul crouched with his back to the rock, stretching his muscles, straightened. He saw Stilgar sending the two men back into that dark hole in the rock, thought about the long climb down that narrow man-made tunnel to the floor of the basin.

Stilgar crossed to Paul.

"What was so important that they couldn’t send a cielago with the message?" Paul asked.

"They’re saving their birds for the battle," Stilgar said. He glanced at the communications equipment, back to Paul. "Even with a tight beam, it is wrong to use those things, Muad’Dib. They can find you by taking a bearing on its emission."

"They’ll soon be too busy to find me," Paul said. "What did the men report?"

"Our pet Sardaukar have been released near Old Gap low on the rim and are on their way to their master. The rocket launchers and other projectile weapons are in place. The people are deployed as you ordered. It was all routine."

Paul glanced across the shallow bowl, studying his men in the filtered light admitted by the camouflage cover. He felt time creeping like an insect working its way across an exposed rock.

"It’ll take our Sardaukar a little time afoot before they can signal a troop carrier," Paul said.

"They are being watched?"

"They are being watched," Stilgar said.

Beside Paul, Gurney Halleck cleared his throat. "Hadn’t we best be getting to a place of safety?"

"There is no such place," Paul said. "Is the weather report still favorable?"

"A great grandmother of a storm coming," Stilgar said. "Can you not feel it, Muad’Dib?"

"The air does feel chancy," Paul agreed. "But I like the certainty of poling the weather."

"The storm’ll be here in the hour," Stilgar said. He nodded toward the gap that looked out on the Emperor’s hutment and the Harkonnen frigates. "They know it there, too. Not a ‘thopter in the sky. Everything pulled in and tied down. They’ve had a report on the weather from their friends in space."

"Any more probing sorties?" Paul asked.

"Nothing since the landing last night," Stilgar said. "They know we’re here. I think now they wait to choose their own time."

"We choose the time," Paul said.

Gurney glanced upward, growled: "If they let us."

"That fleet’ll stay in space," Paul said.

Gurney shook his head.

"They have no choice," Paul said. "We can destroy the spice. The Guild dares not risk that."

"Desperate people are the most dangerous," Gurney said.

"Are we not desperate?" Stilgar asked.

Gurney scowled at him.

"You haven’t lived with the Fremen dream," Paul cautioned. "Stil is thinking of all the water we’ve spent on bribes, the years of waiting we’ve added before Arrakis can bloom. He’s not – "

"Arrrgh," Gurney scowled.

"Why’s he so gloomy?" Stilgar asked.

"He’s always gloomy before a battle," Paul said. "It’s the only form of good humor Gurney allows himself."

A slow, wolfish grin spread across Gurney’s face, the teeth showing white above the chip cup of his stillsuit. "It glooms me much to think on all the poor Harkonnen souls we’ll dispatch unshriven," he said.

Stilgar chuckled. "He talks like a Fedaykin."

"Gurney was born a death commando," Paul said. And he thought: Yes, let them occupy their minds with small talk before we test ourselves against that force on the plain . He looked to the gap in the rock wall and back to Gurney, found that the troubadour-warrior had resumed a brooding scowl.

"Worry saps the strength," Paul murmured. "You told me that once, Gurney."

"My Duke," Gurney said, "my chief worry is the atomics. If you use them to blast a hole in the Shield Wall . . . "

"Those people up there won’t use atomics against us," Paul said. "They don’t dare . . . and for the same reason that they cannot risk our destroying the source of the spice."

"But the injunction against – "

"The injunction!" Paul barked. "It’s fear, not the injunction that keeps the Houses from hurling atomics against each other. The language of the Great Convention is clear enough: ‘Use of atomics against humans shall be cause for planetary obliteration.’ We’re going to blast the Shield Wall, not humans."

"It’s too fine a point," Gurney said.

"The hair-splitters up there will welcome any point," Paul said. "Let’s talk no more about it."

He turned away, wishing he actually felt that confident. Presently, he said: "What about the city people? Are they in position yet?"

"Yes," Stilgar muttered.

Paul looked at him. "What’s eating you?"

"I never knew the city man could be trusted completely," Stilgar said.

"I was a city man myself once," Paul said.

Stilgar stiffened. His face grew dark with blood. "Muad’Dib knows I did not mean – "

"I know what you meant, Stil. But the test of a man isn’t what you think he’ll do. It’s what he actually does. These city people have Fremen blood. It’s just that they haven’t yet learned how to escape their bondage. We’ll teach them."