Dune (Page 40)

"She’d have moved long before now. Poison in my drink . . . a stiletto at night. Who has had better opportunity?"

"The Harkonnens mean to destroy you, my Lord. Their intent is not just to kill. There’s a range of fine distinctions in kanly. This could be a work of art among vendettas."

The Duke’s shoulders slumped. He closed his eyes, looking old and tired. It cannot be , he thought. The woman has opened her heart to me .

"What better way to destroy me than to sow suspicion of the woman I love?" he asked.

"An interpretation I’ve considered," Hawat said. "Still. . . . "

The Duke opened his eyes, stared at Hawat, thinking: Let him be suspicious. Suspicion is his trade, not mine. Perhaps if I appear to believe this, that will make another man careless.

"What do you suggest?" the Duke whispered.

"For now, constant surveillance, my Lord. She should be watched at all times. I will see it’s done unobtrusively. Idaho would be the ideal choice for the job. Perhaps in a week or so we can bring him back. There’s a young man we’ve been training in Idaho ‘s troop who might be ideal to send to the Fremen as a replacement. He’s gifted in diplomacy."

"Don’t jeopardize our foothold with the Fremen."

"Of course not, Sire."

"And what about Paul?"

"Perhaps we could alert Dr. Yueh."

Leto turned his back on Hawat. "I leave it in your hands."

"I shall use discretion, my Lord."

At least I can count on that , Leto thought. And he said: "I will take a walk. If you need me, I’ll be within the perimeter. The guard can – "

"My Lord, before you go, I’ve a filmclip you should read. It’s a first-approximation analysis on the Fremen religion. You’ll recall you asked me to report on it."

The Duke paused, spoke without turning. "Will it not wait?"

"Of course, my Lord. You asked what they were shouting, though. It was ‘Mahdi!’ They directed the term at the young master. When they – "

"At Paul?"

"Yes, my Lord. They’ve a legend here, a prophecy, that a leader will come to them, child of a Bene Gesserit, to lead them to true freedom. It follows the familiar messiah pattern."

"They think Paul is this . . . this . . . "

"They only hope, my Lord." Hawat extended a filmclip capsule.

The Duke accepted it, thrust it into a pocket. "I’ll look at it later."

"Certainly, my Lord."

"Right now, I need time to . . . think."

"Yes, my Lord."

The Duke took a deep sighing breath, strode out the door. He turned to his right down the hall, began walking, hands behind his back, paying little attention to where he was. There were corridors and stairs and balconies and halls . . . people who saluted and stood aside for him.

In time he came back to the conference room, found it dark and Paul asleep on the table with a guard’s robe thrown over him and a ditty pack for a pillow. The Duke walked softly down the length of the room and onto the balcony overlooking the landing field. A guard at the corner of the balcony, recognizing the Duke by the dim reflection of lights from the field, snapped to attention.

"At ease," the Duke murmured. He leaned against the cold metal of the balcony rail.

A predawn hush had come over the desert basin. He looked up. Straight overhead, the stars were a sequin shawl flung over blue-black. Low on the southern horizon, the night’s second moon peered through a thin dust haze – an unbelieving moon that looked at him with a cynical light.

As the Duke watched, the moon dipped beneath the Shield Wall cliffs, frosting them, and in the sudden intensity of darkness, he experienced a chill. He shivered.

Anger shot through him.

The Harkonnens have hindered and hounded and hunted me for the last time , he thought. They are dung heaps with village provost minds! Here I make my stand! And he thought with a touch of sadness: I must rule with eye and claw – as the hawk among lesser birds . Unconsciously, his hand brushed the hawk emblem on his tunic.

To the east, the night grew a faggot of luminous gray, then seashell opalescence that dimmed the stars. There came the long, bell-tolling movement of dawn striking across a broken horizon.

It was a scene of such beauty it caught all his attention.

Some things beggar likeness , he thought.

He had never imagined anything here could be as beautiful as that shattered red horizon and the purple and ochre cliffs. Beyond the landing field where the night’s faint dew had touched life into the hurried seeds of Arrakis, he saw great puddles of red blooms and, running through them, an articulate tread of violet . . . like giant footsteps.

"It’s a beautiful morning. Sire," the guard said.

"Yes, it is."

The Duke nodded, thinking: Perhaps this planet could grow on one. Perhaps it could become a good home for my son .

Then he saw the human figures moving into the flower fields, sweeping them with strange scythe-like devices – dew gatherers. Water so precious here that even the dew must be collected.

And it could be a hideous place , the Duke thought.

"There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man  – with human flesh."

– from "Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib" by the Princess Irulan

The Duke said: "Paul, I’m doing a hateful thing, but I must." He stood beside the portable poison snooper that had been brought into the conference room for their breakfast. The thing’s sensor arms hung limply over the table, reminding Paul of some weird insect newly dead.

The Duke’s attention was directed out the windows at the landing field and its roiling of dust against the morning sky.