Dune

Paul felt himself in the creche then, with Alia cooing over him. Her hands soothed him. Her face loomed, a giant thing directly over him. She turned him then and he saw his creche companion—a girl with that bony-ribbed look of strength which came from a desert heritage. She had a full head of tawny red hair. As he stared, she opened her eyes. Those eyes! Chani peered out of her eyes . . . and the Lady Jessica. A multitude peered out of those eyes.

“Look at that,” Alia said. “They’re staring at each other.”

“Babies can’t focus at this age,” Harah said.

“I could,” Alia said.

Slowly, Paul felt himself being disengaged from that endless awareness. He was back at his own wailing wall then, leaning against it. Idaho shook his shoulder gently.

“M’Lord?”

“Let my son be called Leto for my father,” Paul said, straightening.

“At the time of naming,” Harah said, “I will stand beside you as a friend of the mother and give that name.”

“And my daughter,” Paul said. “Let her be called Ghanima.”

“Usul!” Harah objected. “Ghanima’s an ill-omened name.”

“It saved your life,” Paul said. “What matter that Alia made fun of you with that name? My daughter is Ghanima, a spoil of war.”

Paul heard wheels squeak behind him then—the pallet with Chani’s body being moved. The chant of the Water Rite began.

“Hal yawm!” Harah said. “I must leave now if I am to be the observer of the holy truth and stand beside my friend for the last time. Her water belongs to the tribe.”

“Her water belongs to the tribe,” Paul murmured. He heard Harah leave. He groped outward and found Idaho’s sleeve. “Take me to my quarters, Duncan.”

Inside his quarters, he shook himself free gently. It was a time to be alone. But before Idaho could leave there was a disturbance at the door.

“Master!” It was Bijaz calling from the doorway.

“Duncan,” Paul said, “let him come two paces forward. Kill him if he comes farther.”

“Ayyah,” Idaho said.

“Duncan is it?” Bijaz asked. “Is it truly Duncan Idaho?”

“It is,” Idaho said. “I remember.”

“Then Scytale’s plan succeeded!”

“Scytale is dead,” Paul said.

“But I am not and the plan is not,” Bijaz said. “By the tank in which I grew! It can be done! I shall have my pasts—all of them. It needs only the right trigger.”

“Trigger?” Paul asked.

“The compulsion to kill you,” Idaho said, rage thick in his voice. “Mentat computation: They found that I thought of you as the son I never had. Rather than slay you, the true Duncan Idaho would take over the ghola body. But . . . it might have failed. Tell me, dwarf, if your plan had failed, if I’d killed him, what then?”

“Oh . . . then we’d have bargained with the sister to save her brother. But this way the bargaining is better.”

Paul took a shuddering breath. He could hear the mourners moving down the last passage now toward the deep rooms and the water stills.

“It’s not too late, m’Lord,” Bijaz said. “Will you have your love back? We can restore her to you. A ghola, yes. But now—we hold out the full restoration. Shall we summon servants with a cryological tank, preserve the flesh of your beloved . . .”

It was harder now, Paul found. He had exhausted his powers in the first Tleilaxu temptation. And now all that was for nothing! To feel Chani’s presence once more . . .

“Silence him,” Paul told Idaho, speaking in Atreides battle tongue. He heard Idaho move toward the door.

“Master!” Bijaz squeaked.

“As you love me,” Paul said, still in battle tongue, “do me this favor: Kill him before I succumb!”

“Noooooo . . .” Bijaz screamed.

The sound stopped abruptly with a frightened grunt.

“I did him the kindness,” Idaho said.

Paul bent his head, listening. He no longer could hear the mourners. He thought of the ancient Fremen rite being performed now deep in the sietch, far down in the room of the death-still where the tribe recovered its water.

“There was no choice,” Paul said. “You understand that, Duncan?”

“I understand.”

“There are some things no one can bear. I meddled in all the possible futures I could create until, finally, they created me.”

“M’Lord, you shouldn’t . . .”

“There are problems in this universe for which there are no answers,” Paul said. “Nothing. Nothing can be done.”

As he spoke, Paul felt his link with the vision shatter. His mind cowered, overwhelmed by infinite possibilities. His lost vision became like the wind, blowing where it willed.

We say of Muad’Dib that he has gone on a journey into that land where we walk without footprints.

—PREAMBLE TO THE QIZARATE CREED

There was a dike of water against the sand, an outer limit for the plantings of the sietch holding. A rock bridge came next and then the open desert beneath Idaho’s feet. The promontory of Sietch Tabr dominated the night sky behind him. The light of both moons frosted its high rim. An orchard had been brought right down to the water.