Dune (Page 31)
He thought of the notices posted now above his signature all through the populous places of the planet: "Our Sublime Padishah Emperor has charged me to take possession of this planet and end all dispute."
The ritualistic formality of it touched him with a feeling of loneliness. Who was fooled by that fatuous legalism? Not the Fremen, certainly. Nor the Houses Minor who controlled the interior trade of Arrakis . . . and were Harkonnen creatures almost to a man .
They have tried to take the life of my son!
The rage was difficult to suppress.
He saw lights of a moving vehicle coming toward the landing field from Arrakeen. He hoped it was the guard and troop carrier bringing Paul. The delay was galling even though he knew it was prompted by caution on the part of Hawat’s lieutenant.
They have tried to take the life of my son!
He shook his head to drive out the angry thoughts, glanced back at the field where five of his own frigates were posted around the rim like monolithic sentries.
Better a cautious delay than . . .
The lieutenant was a good one, he reminded himself. A man marked for advancement, completely loyal.
"Our Sublime Padishah Emperor . . . "
If the people of this decadent garrison city could only see the Emperor’s private note to his "Noble Duke" – the disdainful allusions to veiled men and women: " – but what else is one to expect of barbarians whose dearest dream is to live outside the ordered security of the faufreluches?"
The Duke felt in this moment that his own dearest dream was to end all class distinctions and never again think of deadly order. He looked up and out of the dust at the unwinking stars, thought: Around one of those little lights circles Caladan . . . but I’ll never again see my home . The longing for Caladan was a sudden pain in his breast. He felt that it did not come from within himself, but that it reached out to him from Caladan. He could not bring himself to call this dry wasteland of Arrakis his home, and he doubted he ever would.
I must mask my feelings , he thought. For the boy’s sake. If ever he’s to have a home, this must be it. I may think of Arrakis as a hell I’ve reached before death, but he must find here that which will inspire him. There must be something .
A wave of self-pity, immediately despised and rejected, swept through him, and for some reason he found himself recalling two lines from a poem Gurney Halleck often repeated –
"My lungs taste the air of Time
Blown past falling sands . . . "
Well, Gurney would find plenty of falling sands here, the Duke thought. The central wastelands beyond those moon-frosted cliffs were desert – barren rock, dunes, and blowing dust, an uncharted dry wilderness with here and there along its rim and perhaps scattered through it, knots of Fremen. If anything could buy a future for the Atreides line, the Fremen just might do it.
Provided the Harkonnens hadn’t managed to infect even the Fremen with their poisonous schemes.
They have tried to take the life of my son!
A scraping metal racket vibrated through the tower, shook the parapet beneath his arms. Blast shutters dropped in front of him, blocking the view.
Shuttle’s coming in , he thought. Time to go down and get to work . He turned to the stairs behind him, headed down to the big assembly room, trying to remain calm as he descended, to prepare his face for the coming encounter.
They have tried to take the life of my son!
The men were already boiling in from the field when he reached the yellow-domed room. They carried their spacebags over their shoulders, shouting and roistering like students returning from vacation.
"Hey! Feel that under your dogs? That’s gravity, man!" "How many G’s does this place pull? Feels heavy." "Nine-tenths of a G by the book."
The crossfire of thrown words filled the big room.
"Did you get a good look at this hole on the way down? Where’s all the loot this place’s supposed to have?" "The Harkonnens took it with ’em!" "Me for a hot shower and a soft bed!" "Haven’t you heard, stupid? No showers down here. You scrub your ass with sand!" "Hey! Can it! The Duke!"
The Duke stepped out of the stair entry into a suddenly silent room.
Gurney Halleck strode along at the point of the crowd, bag over one shoulder, the neck of his nine-string baliset clutched in the other hand. They were long-fingered hands with big thumbs, full of tiny movements that drew such delicate music from the baliset.
The Duke watched Halleck, admiring the ugly lump of a man, noting the glass-splinter eyes with their gleam of savage understanding. Here was a man who lived outside the faufreluches while obeying their every precept. What was it Paul had called him? "Gurney, the valorous ."
Halleck’s wispy blond hair trailed across barren spots on his head. His wide mouth was twisted into a pleasant sneer, and the scar of the inkvine whip slashed across his jawline seemed to move with a life of its own. His whole air was of casual, shoulder-set capability. He came up to the Duke, bowed.
"Gurney," Leto said.
"My Lord." He gestured with the baliset toward the men in the room. "This is the last of them. I’d have preferred coming in with the first wave, but . . . "
"There are still some Harkonnens for you," the Duke said. "Step aside with me, Gurney, where we may talk."
"Yours to command, my Lord."
They moved into an alcove beside a coil-slot water machine while the men stirred restlessly in the big room. Halleck dropped his bag into a corner, kept his grip on the baliset.
"How many men can you let Hawat have?" the Duke asked.
"Is Thufir in trouble Sire?"
"He’s lost only two agents, but his advance men gave us an excellent line on the entire Harkonnen setup here. If we move fast we may gain a measure of security, the breathing space we require. He wants as many men as you can spare – men who won’t balk at a little knife work."