Paul of Dune

decisions and perform necessary court functions, with Stilgar positioned as the girl’s adviser and protector (not that she needed one). Paul had offered to take Chani along on his journey, but after studying his face for a long moment, she declined. “You require solitude and stillness, Usul. You and the desert have much to say to each other.”

Sometimes she thought in ways that did not occur to him, as if her mind filled an essential portion of the container of his life. Their relationship was far more than that of a man and a woman, or of kindred spirits, or of any of the usual cliches. The feelings they held for each other stretched across the eons of human existence.

As the sun rose, he took a ‘thopter beyond the broken Shield Wall, past the water trenches that kept the deep-desert worms at bay, and landed at the edge of the vast, open desert. Unfortunately, though he had intended to depart alone, without ceremony, an entourage of assistants, advisers, and gawking observers soon followed. Korba transmitted that he had summoned them to provide Muad’Dib with the fanfare he deserved.

Ignoring them, dwelling on his own concerns, he turned his back on the unwelcome crowd and walked away from his landed ‘thopter, trudging out onto the dunes where he could summon a worm. He glanced over his shoulder and was dismayed to see eight ‘thopters and perhaps a hundred people, some dressed in desert fashion, some wearing the robes of the Qizara priesthood. At least a third of them did not even wear stillsuits.

Korba should know better. When had it changed that people would venture out to the desert as if attending a parade? Paul felt that the purity of the sands had already been lost. The Fremen were so enamored with their continual string of Jihad victories that they failed to recognize the loss of their heritage, the loss of their very souls.

Paul planted a thumper, winding the clockwork mechanism and setting the pendulum to make the rhythmic lump-lump-lump. Although he had done this many times, he still felt awe at the experience. He was an offworlder, yet he was also a wormrider who had proved himself among the Fremen. He had raided the Harkonnens many times. Back then, unlike now, the enemy had been clearly defined, as had victory.

In his Jihad he had offered larger and larger rewards for bringing down Earl Memnon Thorvald, whose rebellion continued to flare up, employing more desperate measures and unexpectedly violent tactics that reminded Paul of the defeated Viscount Hundro Moritani. But the Fedaykin seemed to relish having a persistent enemy to fight. Their outward-looking hatred bound them as a unit.

Behind him by the ‘thopters, some of the observers actually applauded his rote actions in calling a worm, as if he were giving a performance just for them. The thumper continued its droning rhythm. Paul waited, listening for the hiss of sand made by a behemoth worm, scanning for the faint ripple of dunes stirred by underground movement.

The thumper continued to pulse.

The distant audience began to mutter, surprised at what they saw. Finally the clockwork spring ran out, and the thumper fell silent. No sandworm had come. They would call it an inauspicious omen.

Paul lifted the counterweight, rewound the device, and jammed it deeper into the sand before he activated the syncopating mechanism again. He felt awkward. So many people read meanings into everything he did. Muad’Dib didn’t want this.

And now he heard the people continuing to murmur, wondering if Shai-Hulud had abandoned Muad’Dib. Paul began to grow angry, not just at them but at himself. Shai-Hulud did not perform for audiences!

Then, just before the thumper fell silent for a second time, he noticed a stirring of the dunes. A shallow trough ran toward him as a sandworm raced toward the sonic disturbance. His pulse quickened.

Korba saw it next, and the people emitted a loud cheer. The fools! Their noise would distract the creature, and the small barrier of rocks on which they had gathered would never stop a large sandworm.

Paul grabbed his ropes, his Maker hooks, his spreaders. When the sand parted and a huge rounded head exploded upward, he stepped back and clanged his worm hooks together to make a loud reverberating sound, seeking to tug the creature’s attention away from the observers who had finally fallen silent in terror and awe.

“Shai-Hulud! To me!” Paul planted his feet properly, gauging the worm’s approach, and at just the right moment, hooked one of the ring segments. He clasped the rope and scrambled up the worm’s pebbly side.

This was only a medium-sized sandworm. It would serve him well enough, without being impressive, though he was sure the observers would describe it as the greatest ever seen on Dune. Without a backward glance, paying no heed to the cheers and praise, Paul scrambled onto the beast’s back. He inserted the spreaders in a practiced manner, opened the worm segments to the sensitive flesh beneath, and struck the worm’s head with his goad. Anchoring himself with his ropes, he turned the beast and raced out onto the open dunes, spraying sand and dust.

He was comforted by the solitude and heat, and the odors of sulfur and cinnamon that clung to the creature. As the worm raced off, Paul’s conscience came clamoring after him, even into the deepest desert. Kilometers rushed past, but Paul Atreides could not leave his demons behind.

3

People fear me. I never wanted to be feared.

—ST. ALIA OF THE KNIFE

After her brother went into the deep desert, Alia sat on a throne that was much too large for her. Because of her small size and innocent appearance, she embodied a dramatic contradiction — generations of wisdom and a stern hand of justice wrapped up in an unprepossessing form.

The people viewed Muad’Dib as a godlike figure, but they spared some of their religious awe for Alia, too. Supplicants came before her without knowing which of her many moods they might face, aware that they were taking a risk.

Two legates from the recently surrendered world of Alahir arrived in stiff and formal uniforms that looked impossibly hot and monstrously uncomfortable, designed for the airy coolness of their planet rather than the dry heat of Dune. They brought gifts and pleaded for an audience with the Holy Emperor Muad’Dib. After being told he was unavailable, they walked uncertainly to present themselves to his sister Alia instead. When the two men glimpsed the little girl on the throne they grew indignant, assuming this was some insult to their world and their leader. “We have traveled on a Guild Heighliner across many star systems to see the Emperor.”

Alia did not move from her throne. “I speak for my brother. You will see me, or you will see no one.”

The lead Alahir ambassador had a long slender neck and a high piping voice. “But we have sworn our loyalty. We are faithful subjects of His Holiness. It is our right to see him.”

With a gesture and few terse words, Alia sent the men away under heavy Fremen guard. Despite their protestations, they were escorted back to their frigate and taken up to the Heighliner. By her command, they would make the long journey back to their planet before they would be allowed to turn around and make the journey all over again, this time with more humility. She dispatched a dour Fremen guard to accompany them and make certain the two actually returned home and set foot on Alahir.

Some observers in the crowded audience chuckled at her heavy-handed treatment of the men. Others, seeing her stern and uncompromising mood, slinked away without airing their grievances. At one time, Alia might have had guards follow those men to determine what they had been about, but now she presumed they had simply realized that their cases were weak or frivolous. She wished many more of them would melt away like that and solve their own problems — exactly as her brother wished.

The next supplicant was a tired-looking man whose face showed the deep, sunburned creases of a hard life. His entire body seemed to be a callus, yet he wore pride and self-esteem like armor. Though not neatly barbered, he kept his hair combed and tied back. His garments were poor, but had been meticulously mended; only Alia’s sharp eye noted the signs of wear. This was not a careless man.

He was the accuser, and the two defendants in his case looked much more careless and sloppy, though they wore finer clothes and scented their bodies with oils and colognes. The weathered-looking man stepped forward and gave a salute from the Jihad, as if Alia were actually Paul. She liked that.

“I fought faithfully in Muad’Dib’s Jihad,” he said. “I stood on the battlefields of five planets, including Ehknot. My commander discharged me with honors and provided me with a pension. That should have been enough for a