Dune

"Why?"

He tried to focus on her, but past and future were merging into the present, blurring her image. He saw her in countless ways and positions and settings.

"There's something frightening in you," she said. "When I took you away from the others... I did it because I could feel what the others wanted. You... press on people. You... make us see things!"

He forced himself to speak distinctly: "What do you see?"

She looked down at her hands. "I see a child... in my arms. It's our child, yours and mine." She put a hand to her mouth. "How can I know every feature of you?"

They've a little of the talent , his mind told him. But they suppress it because it terrifies .

In a moment of clarity, he saw how Chani was trembling.

"What is it you want to say?" he asked.

"Usul," she whispered, and still she trembled.

"You ca

A profound compassion for her swept through him. He pulled her against him, stroked her head. "Chani, Chani, don't fear."

"Usul, help me," she cried.

As she spoke, he felt the drug complete its work within him, ripping away the curtains to let him see the distant gray turmoil of his future.

"You're so quiet," Chani said.

He held himself poised in the awareness, seeing time stretch out in its weird dimension, delicately balanced yet whirling, narrow yet spread like a net gathering countless worlds and forces, a tightwire that he must walk, yet a teeter-totter on which he balanced.

On one side he could see the Imperium, a Harko

Paul felt himself at the center, at the pivot where the whole structure turned, walking a thin wire of peace with a measure of happiness, Chani at his side. He could see it stretching ahead of him, a time of relative quiet in a hidden sietch, a moment of peace between periods of violence.

"There's no other place for peace," he said.

"Usul, you're crying," Chani murmured. "Usul, my strength, do you give moisture to the dead? To whose dead?"

"To ones not yet dead," he said.

"Then let them have their time of life," she said.

He sensed through the drug fog how right she was, pulled her against him with savage pressure. "Sihaya!" he said.

She put a palm against his cheek, "I'm no longer afraid, Usul. Look at me. I see what you see when you hold me thus."

"What do you see?" he demanded.

"I see us giving love to each other in a time of quiet between storms. It's what we were meant to do."

The drug had him again and he thought: So many times you've given me comfort and forgetfulness . He felt anew the hyperillumination with its high-relief imagery of time, sensed his future becoming memories—the tender indignities of physical love, the sharing and communion of selves, the softness and the violence.

"You're the strong one, Chani," he muttered. "Stay with me."

"Always," she said, and kissed his cheek.

Book Three

THE PROPHET

***

No woman, no man, no child ever was deeply intimate with my father. The closest anyone ever came to casual camaraderie with the Padishah Emperor was the relationship offered by Count Hasimir Fenring, a companion from childhood. The measure of Count Fenring's friendship may be seen first in a positive thing: he allayed the Landsraad's suspicions after the Arrakis Affair. It cost more than a billion solaris in spice bribes, so my mother said, and there were other gifts as well: slave women, royal honors, and tokens of rank. The second major evidence of the Count's friendship was negative. He refused to kill a man even though it was within his capabilities and my father commanded it. I will relate this presently.

The Baron Vladimir Harko

Past the private kitchen he stormed—past the library, past the small reception room and into the servants' antechamber where the evening relaxation already had set in.

The guard captain, Iakin Nefud, squatted on a divan across the chamber, the stupor of semuta dullness in his flat face, the eerie wailing of semuta music around him. His own court sat near to do his bidding.

"Nefud!" the Baron roared.

Men scrambled.

Nefud stood, his face composed by the narcotic but with an overlay of paleness that told of his fear. The semuta music had stopped.

"My Lord Baron," Nefud said. Only the drug kept the trembling out of his voice.

The Baron sca

"How long have you been my guard captain, Nefud?"

Nefud swallowed. "Since Arrakis, my Lord. Almost two years."

"And have you always anticipated dangers to my person?"

"Such has been my only desire, my Lord."

"Then where is Feyd-Rautha?" the Baron roared.

Nefud recoiled. "M'Lord?"

"You do not consider Feyd-Rautha a danger to my person?" Again, the voice was silken.

Nefud wet his lips with his tongue. Some of the semuta dullness left his eyes. "Feyd-Rautha's in the slave quarters, my Lord."

"With the women again, eh?" The Baron trembled with the effort of suppressing anger.

"Sire, it could be he's—"

"Silence!"

The Baron advanced another step into the antechamber, noting how the men moved back, clearing a subtle space around Nefud , dissociating themselves from the object of wrath.

"Did I not command you to know precisely where the na-Baron was at all times?" the Baron asked. He moved a step closer. "Did I not say to you that you were to know precisely what the na-Baron was saying at all times—and to whom?" Another step. "Did I not say to you that you were to tell me whenever he went into the quarters of the slave women?"

Nefud swallowed. Perspiration stood out on his forehead.

The Baron held his voice flat, almost devoid of emphasis: "Did I not say these things to you?"

Nefud nodded.

"And did I not say to you that you were to check all slave boys sent to me and that you were to do this yourself... personally? "

Again, Nefud nodded.

"Did you, perchance, not see the blemish on the thigh of the one sent me this evening?" the Baron asked. "Is it possible you—"

"Uncle."

The Baron whirled, stared at Feyd-Rautha standing in the doorway. The presence of his nephew here, now—the look of hurry that the young man could not quite conceal—all revealed much. Feyd-Rautha had his own spy system focused on the Baron.

"There is a body in my chambers that I wish removed," the Baron said, and he kept his hand at the projectile weapon beneath his robes, thankful that his shield was the best.

Feyd-Rautha glanced at two guardsmen against the right wall, nodded. The two detached themselves, scurried out the door and down the hall toward the Baron's apartments.

Those two, eh? the Baron thought. Ah, this young monster has much to learn yet about conspiracy!

"I presume you left matters peaceful in the slave quarters, Feyd," the Baron said.

"I've been playing cheops with the slavemaster," Feyd-Rautha said, and he thought: What has gone wrong? The boy we sent to my uncle has obviously been killed. But he was perfect for the job. Even Hawat couldn't have made a better choice. The boy was perfect!