Dune (Page 42)

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."