Dune

“Have you been infected, then?” Edric asked. He turned slowly in the orange gas, wondering why Scytale’s words carried such a tone of fear. Had the Face Dancer broken from the conspiracy? There was no way to peer into the future and examine this now. The future had become a muddy stream, clogged with prophets.

“We’re all contaminated,” Scytale said, and he reminded himself that Edric’s intelligence had severe limits. How could this point be made that the Guildsman would understand it?

“But when we destroy him,” Edric said, “the contag—”

“I should leave you in this ignorance,” Scytale said. “But my duties will not permit it. Besides, it’s dangerous to all of us.”

Edric recoiled, steadied himself with a kick of one webbed foot which sent the orange gas whipping around his legs. “You speak strangely,” he said.

“This whole thing is explosive,” Scytale said in a calmer voice. “It’s ready to shatter. When it goes, it will send bits of itself out through the centuries. Don’t you see this?”

“We’ve dealt with religions before,” Edric protested. “If this new—”

“It is not just a religion!” Scytale said, wondering what the Reverend Mother would say to this harsh education of their fellow conspirator. “Religious government is something else. Muad’Dib has crowded his Qizarate in everywhere, displaced the old functions of government. But he has no permanent civil service, no interlocking embassies. He has bishoprics, islands of authority. At the center of each island is a man. Men learn how to gain and hold personal power. Men are jealous.”

“When they’re divided, we’ll absorb them one by one,” Edric said with a complacent smile. “Cut off the head and the body will fall to—”

“This body has two heads,” Scytale said.

“The sister—who may wed.”

“Who will certainly wed.”

“I don’t like your tone, Scytale.”

“And I don’t like your ignorance.”

“What if she does wed? Will that shake our plans?”

“It will shake the universe.”

“But they’re not unique. I, myself, possess powers which—”

“You’re an infant. You toddle where they stride.”

“They are not unique!”

“You forget, Guildsman, that we once made a kwisatz haderach. This is a being filled by the spectacle of Time. It is a form of existence which cannot be threatened without enclosing yourself in the identical threat. Muad’Dib knows we would attack his Chani. We must move faster than we have. You must get to the ghola, prod him as I have instructed.”

“And if I do not?”

“We will feel the thunderbolt.”

Oh, worm of many teeth,

Canst thou deny what has no cure?

The flesh and breath which lure thee

To the ground of all beginnings

Feed on monsters twisting in a door of fire!

Thou hast no robe in all thy attire

To cover intoxications of divinity

Or hide the burnings of desire!

—WORMSONG

FROM THE DUNEBOOK

Paul had worked up a sweat on the practice floor using crysknife and short sword against the ghola. He stood now at a window looking down into the temple plaza, tried to imagine the scene with Chani at the clinic. She’d been taken ill at midmorning, the sixth week of her pregnancy. The medics were the best. They’d call when they had news.

Murky afternoon sandclouds darkened the sky over the plaza. Fremen called such weather “dirty air.”

Would the medics never call? Each second struggled past, reluctant to enter his universe.

Waiting . . . waiting . . . The Bene Gesserit sent no word from Wallach. Deliberately delaying, of course.

Prescient vision had recorded these moments, but he shielded his awareness from the oracle, preferring the role here of a Timefish swimming not where he willed, but where the currents carried him. Destiny permitted no struggles now.

The ghola could be heard racking weapons, examining the equipment. Paul sighed, put a hand to his own belt, deactivated his shield. The tingling passage of its field ran down against his skin.

He’d face events when Chani came, Paul told himself. Time enough then to accept the fact that what he’d concealed from her had prolonged her life. Was it evil, he wondered, to prefer Chani to an heir? By what right did he make her choice for her? Foolish thoughts! Who could hesitate, given the alternatives—slave pits, torture, agonizing sorrow . . . and worse.

He heard the door open, Chani’s footsteps.

Paul turned.

Murder sat on Chani’s face. The wide Fremen belt which gathered the waist of her golden robe, the water rings worn as a necklace, one hand at her hip (never far from the knife), the trenchant stare which was her first inspection of any room—everything about her stood now only as a background for violence.

He opened his arms as she came to him, gathered her close.

“Someone,” she rasped, speaking against his breast, “has been feeding me a contraceptive for a long time . . . before I began the new diet. There’ll be problems with this birth because of it.”

“But there are remedies?” he asked.

“Dangerous remedies. I know the source of that poison! I’ll have her blood.”