Dune (Page 75)

It had not been addressed or signed, but there ‘d been no mistaking the familiar scrawl – Yueh’s.

Remembering the letter, Paul re-experienced the distress of that moment – a thing sharp and strange that seemed to happen outside his new mentat alertness. He had read that his father was dead, known the truth of the words, but had felt them as no more than another datum to be entered in his mind and used.

I loved my father , Paul thought, and knew this for truth. I should mourn him. I should feel something .

But he felt nothing except: Here’s an important fact.

It was one with all the other facts.

All the while his mind was adding sense impressions, extrapolating, computing.

Halleck’s words came back to Paul: "Mood’s a thing for cattle or for making love. You fight when the necessity arises, no matter your mood . "

Perhaps that’s it , Paul thought. I’ll mourn my father later . . . when there’s time .

But he felt no letup in the cold precision of his being. He sensed that his new awareness was only a beginning, that it was growing. The sense of terrible purpose he’d first experienced in his ordeal with the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam pervaded him. His right hand – the hand of remembered pain – tingled and throbbed.

Is this what it is to be their Kwisatz Haderach? he wondered.

"For a while, I thought Hawat had failed us again, "Jessica said. "I thought perhaps Yueh wasn’t a Suk doctor."

"He was everything we thought him . . . and more," Paul said. And he thought: Why is she so slow seeing these things? He said, "If Idaho doesn’t get through to Kynes, we’ll be – "

"He’s not our only hope," she said.

"Such was not my suggestion," he said.

She heard the steel in his voice, the sense of command, and stared across the grey darkness of the stilltent at him. Paul was a silhouette against moon-frosted rocks seen through the tent’s transparent end.

"Others among your father’s men will have escaped," she said. "We must regather them, find – "

"We will depend upon ourselves," he said. "Our immediate concern is our family atomics. We must get them before the Harkonnens can search them out."

"Not likely they’ll be found," she said, "the way they were hidden."

"It must not be left to chance."

And she thought: Blackmail with the family atomics as a threat to the planet and its spice – that’s what he has in mind. But all he can hope for then is escape into renegade anonymity .

His mother’s words had provoked another train of thought in Paul – a duke’s concern for all the people they’d lost this night. People are the true strength of a Great House, Paul thought. And he remembered Hawat’s words: "Parting with people is a sadness; a place is only a place ."

"They’re using Sardaukar," Jessica said. "We must wait until the Sardaukar have been withdrawn."

"They think us caught between the desert and the Sardaukar," Paul said. "They intend that there be no Atreides survivors – total extermination. Do not count on any of our people escaping."

"They cannot go on indefinitely risking exposure of the Emperor’s part in this."

"Can’t they?"

"Some of our people are bound to escape."

"Are they?"

Jessica turned away, frightened of the bitter strength in her son’s voice, hearing the precise assessment of chances. She sensed that his mind had leaped ahead of her, that it now saw more in some respects than she did. She had helped train the intelligence which did this, but now she found herself fearful of it. Her thoughts turned, seeking toward the lost sanctuary of her Duke, and tears burned her eyes.

This is the way it had to be, Leto , she thought. "A time of love and a time of grief ." She rested her hand on her abdomen, awareness focused on the embryo there. I have the Atreides daughter I was ordered to produce, but the Reverend Mother was wrong: a daughter wouldn’t have saved my Leto. This child is only life reaching for the future in the midst of death. I conceived out of instinct and not out of obedience .

"Try the communinet receiver again," Paul said.

The mind goes on working no matter how we try to hold it back , she thought.

Jessica found the tiny receiver Idaho had left for them, flipped its switch. A green light glowed on the instrument’s face. Tinny screeching came from its speaker. She reduced the volume, hunted across the bands. A voice speaking Atreides battle language came into the tent.

" . . . back and regroup at the ridge. Fedor reports no survivors in Carthag and the Guild Bank has been sacked."

Carthag! Jessica thought. That was a Harkonnen hotbed .

"They’re Sardaukar," the voice said. "Watch out for Sardaukar in Atreides uniforms. They’re – "

A roaring filled the speaker, then silence.

"Try the other bands," Paul said.

"Do you realize what that means?" Jessica asked.

"I expected it. They want the Guild to blame us for destruction of their bank. With the Guild against us, we’re trapped on Arrakis. Try the other bands."

She weighed his words: I expected it . What had happened to him? Slowly, Jessica returned to the instrument. As she moved the bandslide, they caught glimpses of violence in the few voices calling out in Atreides battle language: ". . . fallback . . ." ". . . try to regroup at . . ." ". . . trapped in a cave at. . . ."

And there was no mistaking the victorious exultation in the Harkonnen gibberish that poured from the other bands. Sharp commands, battle reports. There wasn’t enough of it for Jessica to register and break the language, but the tone was obvious.

Harkonnen victory.