few days. About sixty-two hundred and fifty ornithopters for survey, scouting, and weather observation … carryalls, a little under a thousand.”
Halleck said: “Wouldn’t it be cheaper to reopen negotiations with the Guild for permission to orbit a frigate as a weather satellite?”
The Duke looked at Hawat. “Nothing new there, eh, Thufir?”
“We must pursue other avenues for now,” Hawat said. “The Guild agent wasn’t really negotiating with us. He was merely making it plain—one Mentat to another—that the price was out of our reach and would remain so no matter how long a reach we develop. Our task is to find out why before we approach him again.”
One of Halleck’s aides down the table swiveled in his chair, snapped: “There’s no justice in this!”
“Justice?” The Duke looked at the man. “Who asks for justice? We make our own justice. We make it here on Arrakis—win or die. Do you regret casting your lot with us, sir?”
The man stared at the Duke, then: “No, Sire. You couldn’t turn and I could do nought but follow you. Forgive the outburst, but….” He shrugged. “… we must all feel bitter at times.”
“Bitterness I understand,” the Duke said. “But let us not rail about justice as long as we have arms and the freedom to use them. Do any of the rest of you harbor bitterness? If so, let it out. This is friendly council where any man may speak his mind.”
Halleck stirred, said: “I think what rankles, Sire, is that we’ve had no volunteers from the other Great Houses. They address you as ‘Leto the Just’ and promise eternal friendship, but only as long as it doesn’t cost them anything.”
“They don’t know yet who’s going to win this exchange,” the Duke said. “Most of the Houses have grown fat by taking few risks. One cannot truly blame them for this; one can only despise them.” He looked at Hawat. “We were discussing equipment. Would you care to project a few examples to familiarize the men with this machinery?”
Hawat nodded, gestured to an aide at the projector.
A solido tri-D projection appeared on the table surface about a third of the way down from the Duke. Some of the men farther along the table stood up to get a better look at it.
Paul leaned forward, staring at the machine.
Scaled against the tiny projected human figures around it, the thing was about one hundred and twenty meters long and about forty meters wide. It was basically a long, buglike body moving on independent sets of wide tracks.
“This is a harvester factory,” Hawat said. “We chose one in good repair for this projection. There’s one dragline outfit that came in with the first team of Imperial ecologists, though, and it’s still running … although I don’t know how … or why.”
“If that’s the one they call ‘Old Maria,’ it belongs in a museum,” an aide said. “I think the Harkonnens kept it as a punishment job, a threat hanging over their workers’ heads. Be good or you’ll be assigned to Old Maria.”
Chuckles sounded around the table.
Paul held himself apart from the humor, his attention focused on the projection and the question that filled his mind. He pointed to the image on the table, said: “Thufir, are there sandworms big enough to swallow that whole?”
Quick silence settled on the table. The Duke cursed under his breath, then thought:
“There’re worms in the deep desert could take this entire factory in one gulp,” Hawat said. “Up here closer to the Shield Wall where most of the spicing’s done there are plenty of worms that could cripple this factory and devour it at their leisure.”
“Why don’t we shield them?” Paul asked.
“According to Idaho’s report,” Hawat said, “shields are dangerous in the desert. A body-size shield will call every worm for hundreds of meters around. It appears to drive them into a killing frenzy. We’ve the Fremen word on this and no reason to doubt it. Idaho saw no evidence of shield equipment at the sietch.”
“None at all?” Paul asked.
“It’d be pretty hard to conceal that kind of thing among several thousand people,” Hawat said. “Idaho had free access to every part of the sietch. He saw no shields or any indication of their use.”
“It’s a puzzle,” the Duke said.
“The Harkonnens certainly used plenty of shields here,” Hawat said. “They had repair depots in every garrison village, and their accounts show a heavy expenditure for shield replacements and parts.”
“Could the Fremen have a way of nullifying shields?” Paul asked.
“It doesn’t seem likely,” Hawat said. “It’s theoretically possible, of course—a shire-sized static counter charge is supposed to do the trick, but no one’s ever been able to put it to the test.”
“We’d have heard about it before now,” Halleck said. “The smugglers have close contact with the Fremen and would’ve acquired such a device if it were available. And they’d have had no inhibitions against marketing it off planet.”
“I don’t like an unanswered question of this importance,” Leto said. “Thufir, I want you to give top priority to solution of this problem.”
“We’re already working on it, my Lord.” He cleared his throat. “Ah-h, Idaho did say one thing: he said you couldn’t mistake the Fremen attitude toward shields. He said they were mostly amused by them.”
The Duke frowned, then: “The subject under discussion is spicing equipment.”
Hawat gestured to his aide at the projector.
The solido-image of the harvester-factory was replaced by a projection of a winged device that dwarfed the images of human figures around it. “This is a carryall,” Hawat said. “It’s essentially a large ‘thopter, whose sole function is to deliver a factory to spice-rich sands, then to rescue the factory when a sandworm appears. They always appear. Harvesting the spice is a process of getting in and getting out with as much as possible.”
“Admirably suited to Harkonnen morality,” the Duke said.
Laughter was abrupt and too loud.
An ornithopter replaced the carryall in the projection focus.
“These ‘thopters are fairly conventional,” Hawat said. “Major modifications give them extended range. Extra care has been used in sealing essential areas against sand and dust. Only about one in thirty is shielded—possibly discarding the shield generator’s weight for greater range.”
“I don’t like this de-emphasis on shields,” the Duke muttered. And he thought:
Hawat turned two pages in his notebook. “After assessing the repairs and operable equipment, we’ve worked out a first estimate on operating costs. It’s based naturally on a depreciated figure for a clear safety margin.” He closed his eyes in Mentat semitrance, said: “Under the Harkonnens, maintenance and salaries were held to fourteen per cent. We’ll be lucky to make it at thirty per cent at first. With reinvestment and growth factors accounted for, including the CHOAM percentage and military costs, our profit margin will be reduced to a very narrow six or seven per cent until we can replace worn-out equipment. We then should be able to boost it up to twelve or fifteen per cent where it belongs.” He opened his eyes. “Unless my Lord wishes to adopt Harkonnen methods.”
“We’re working for a solid and permanent planetary base,” the Duke said. “We have to keep a large percentage of the people happy—especially the Fremen.”
“Most especially the Fremen,” Hawat agreed.
“Our supremacy on Caladan,” the Duke said, “depended on sea and air power. Here, we must develop something I choose to call
“Then we’ll have to be content with far less profit and a reduced harvest,” Hawat said. “Our output the first two seasons should be down a third from the Harkonnen average.”
“There it is,” the Duke said, “exactly as we expected. ”We’ll have to move fast with the Fremen. I’d like five
