Paul of Dune hod-1 Read online

  The driver jerked involuntarily, then pulled the groundcar over to the nearest clustered market stalls.

  “You will wait for us here as we observe the vendors and their wares.”

  Although the driver sat shuddering and almost immobile, he fumbled with a small compartment beside his seat. Sweating with the effort, yet persistent, he produced a tiny black ball, which he squeezed in his palm. It seemed to sprout into two black scarves, one large and one small. “You must cover yourselves. Each of you. Dress as man and boy.”

  Amazed that the driver had the strength for such independent thought while under the influence of Voice, Margot took the scarves and quickly wrapped one around her head in a fashion she had seen some of the middle-caste males wear. Without hesitation, Marie secured a scarf over her own face and tied it behind her neck. “I like dress up.”

  Margot and her daughter climbed out of the groundcar. Numerous byways extended away from the main pedestrian thoroughfares, and Margot wandered one way and another, mentally keeping track of where they were. Even with the head wrap, she knew that her height, offworld clothing, and complexion would make her stand out. Little Marie didn’t seem to notice the men who stared at them.

  Although the noisy market had been bustling before they entered, full of exotic smells of cooking food, spiced slig, and pickled vat-vegetables, Lady Margot noticed that she and Marie moved in a pocket of silence. Vendors and customers grew quiet when they saw the pair.

  One of Lady Margot’s pastimes since coming to this planet was studying the variety of exotic Tleilaxu poisons. In addition to their biological expertise, the Bene Tleilax excelled in tailoring toxic chemicals that could kill or paralyze in numerous ways. The market was a veritable buffet of these useful substances. Some of them were effective contact paralytics, while others required unique delivery techniques, since standard poison snoopers could detect deadly substances in food or drink. In displays arrayed before her, Margot admired glittering gems that were chemically impregnated with neurotoxins, to be released under specific circumstances. She saw innocuous-looking fabrics whose fibers — upon being stretched or heated — would shift their long-chain-polymer structures into lethal poison molecules. Yes, the Tleilaxu had interesting toys.

  Stopping at a counter, the little girl studied an array of dolls that were on display. All of the figurines were male, but they represented a variety of human species wearing traditional costumes of different worlds. Marie pointed out one that looked like a youthful Paul Atreides, an idealized version of Muad’Dib as a boy. “I want that one,” she said.

  The clerk scowled but quoted a low price, apparently anxious to move them along as quickly as possible. After a few Solaris exchanged hands, Lady Margot handed the doll to her daughter, but the child promptly gave it back.

  “This is my gift to you, Mother,” she said. “I don’t play with dolls.”

  Margot took the doll with a smile and nudged her daughter around. “We should get back to the driver.” She had pressed the issue, and likely the Tleilaxu officials had already sent a scolding message to Count Fenring. She led the way back to the vehicle with an unerring sense of direction. The driver had waited for them, perspiring uneasily.

  All the way home in the groundcar, little Marie was bursting with excitement and couldn’t wait to describe to her father what they had done. To Lady Margot, that made the expedition worthwhile.

  16

  Under the right conditions, even the smallest ripple can create a mighty wave.

  —Zensunni maxim

  In Arrakeen the sounds of construction were as constant as the sighing desert wind and the whispering sand. The citadel complex had begun on the outskirts of the city, which was already populated by millions of pilgrims and those that preyed upon them. When completed, the palace would extend across the suburbs to the cliffside on the north, where many hastily erected homes had been built using raw materials from the wrecks of Shaddam’s warships.

  Within the partially remodeled Arrakeen Residency, Paul met with his advisers before the day’s heat grew too oppressive. He selected a purportedly small conference room, a place where the stone walls were close enough to make him feel some sense of privacy. He called it “a comfortable place for uncomfortable discussions.”

  He chose his advisers less for their political clout or pedigrees, than because he trusted their abilities. Alia and Chani were there, and Irulan insisted on being a part of the discussions. Though Paul didn’t entirely trust her loyalties, he did value her intelligence, both as a Bene Gesserit and as the fallen Emperor’s eldest daughter. She could indeed contribute much.

  Korba also joined them, as well as Chatt the Leaper, another Fedaykin whose resolve could never be questioned. After the Spacing Guild’s delegation to Alia while he was away at Caladan and Kaitain, Paul had given Chatt the task of dealing with their frequent demands, pleas, and complaints. While some Guild representatives had hoped to wheedle concessions from a spokesman, Chatt merely delivered the wishes of Muad’Dib and refused to bend a millimeter. Paul wished he had more negotiators like that.

  Servants brought small cups of bitter spice coffee. With the spoils and offerings that were continually delivered to Dune, Muad’Dib and his inner circle never lacked for water. He called the meeting to order by taking his seat.

  “I have drawn up an agenda, Usul,” Korba said, straightening in his seat. He often used Paul’s familiar name from Sietch Tabr to emphasize his own closeness to the Emperor. He spread sheets of instroy paper on the tabletop as if they were sacred documents. He could have used common spice paper, but instead Korba had selected a medium that implied permanence and importance. Paul thought that the man would probably seal the sheets as holy relics.

  A Fremen with a written meeting agenda. The very idea was absurd. “We have many matters to discuss, Korba. Agendas lock us into a foolishly rigid structure.” Paul could not keep the curt tone from his voice. The inevitable bureaucracy sank its roots deeper.

  “I merely attempted to organize the topics into an efficient order, Usul. Your time has infinite value.”

  Alia piped up. “My brother can organize as he wishes. Do you claim to be better at it than he is?”

  Paul saw Korba’s muscles bunch. If Alia’s words had not been tempered by her child’s form, his Fremen pride might have caused him to draw his crysknife — as he did too often already.

  “What is the first item you wish us to discuss, Beloved?” Chani said, shifting the conversation. Chatt the Leaper sat in silence, listening to every word that Muad’Dib said and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the conversation. Irulan was obviously engaged in the meeting, waiting for a chance to participate.

  “I wish to discuss the growth of Arrakeen,” Paul said, “and I need candid answers. As world after world swears allegiance to me, the city’s population increases much faster than our infrastructure can accommodate. Pilgrims, refugees, and all sorts of displaced people arrive on Dune every day, and the limited resources cannot support them.”

  “They do not bring enough of their own water,” Alia said.

  Korba made a grunt of agreement. “In the old days, Fremen tribes had to place thousands of windtraps, install catchbasins, and glean every drop of dew just so we could survive. Now too many outworlders bring their bodies and their mouths, without a way to support themselves and without knowledge of the desert, either.”

  Chani agreed. “They buy costume stillsuits from charlatans. They believe they can simply purchase water whenever they need it, or that it will fall from the sky as it does on their own worlds. Fremen tradition would say they deserve to die and give up their body’s water to more intelligent people.”

  Irulan spoke up. “Many temporary settlements have been erected up on the Shield Wall, despite the residual radiation from your atomics.”

  “They do so without permits,” Korba said.

  “Nevertheless, they do it,” Paul said. “A lack of permits means nothing to the desperate and determined.”


  “Radiation is not the only danger,” Irulan went on. “I read the weekly reports. Every day bodies are dragged away. People are murdered and robbed, and who can say how many more corpses are never found? We know of gangs who steal the living and the dead for their water.”

  Paul, though, was not surprised to hear the news. “Under the circumstances, it is to be expected.”

  After glancing at his agenda, Korba presented a tally of melange export shipments. As the Empire expanded, so did Paul’s need for a stronger goad to use against the Guild and CHOAM, so he had asked for increased spice production from the desert. And whatever Muad’Dib wished, Muad’Dib received.

  Next, he reviewed reports from the latest battlefields of the Jihad. Many of the Landsraad nobles who had allied themselves with him helped to spread his banners to other worlds, to subdue those planets that still resisted. But he noted a surprising pattern: few of the worlds being “conquered” were genuine threats to his reign. Rather, the friendly nobles had a tendency to choose targets based on bygone feuds and family hatreds, using the violent Jihad as an excuse to settle old grudges. Paul had seen this, but knew that these unfortunate and unconscionable excesses added fuel to build the necessary flames higher.

  Listening to the succession of victories, the offhanded recitation of casualty figures, Irulan warned, “Before long, the people will cry out for the days of my father’s rule.”

  “Chaos always brings regrets,” Paul said. Including my own. “We will have peace once the deadwood is removed from the old and decayed Imperium. I cannot say, though, how long that will take.”

  Irulan retorted, “I see how your own government is shaping up, Emperor Paul Atreides. Do you truly believe your methods can yield something superior to the Corrino Imperium? With only a few interruptions, my bloodline ruled humanity for ten thousand years. Do you imagine that yours will do the same?”

  Korba shot to his feet, spouting a phrase his Qizarate chanted in the streets. “Muad’Dib will endure forever!”

  “Oh, enough, Korba,” Paul said wearily. “Use your maxims for the crowds, not here in private counsel.”

  The Fedaykin leader collapsed backward into his chair as if deflated by Paul’s words.

  Paul leaned forward, looking for cracks in the usual Bene Gesserit reserve. “Continue, Irulan. I find this interesting.”

  She drew her rosebud lips together, pleased and surprised to be taken seriously. “You claim the best of intentions, but in many ways you have become too Fremen to rule an interplanetary empire. Rulership requires finesse. Once established, political alliances do not remain static. You must monitor and tend to your allies among the noble families and their respective planets. That is why Earl Thorvald has been adept at gathering supporters to resist you. After he walked out of the Landsraad Hall in Kaitain, he began to build his own alliances, and many see him as their only viable alternative. You have embraced brute force, while he uses intricate bureaucratic machinery.”

  “His little rebellion consists mainly of making bold pronouncements and then hiding,” Paul pointed out.

  “So far.” She shook her head. “I will be proven right on this. Fremen simplicity and crude violence will never master the Imperium.”

  “I am also the son of a noble Duke, Irulan. I can balance both sides and draw from each as necessary. I am Paul Atreides and Paul-Muad’Dib.”

  The Princess met him with a sharp gaze. “And how much do you use of what your father taught you? I see no advantage in what you are creating: A fanatically united populace under a charismatic leader, following dogma instead of a bill of rights. You have thrown out the complex — and yes, inefficient — bureaucracy of the Landsraad. But you cannot replace it with anarchy! We need a safety net of laws and procedures, a uniform code by which decisions on all planets are made. And yet, you seek to do away with everything that preceded you!”

  “Do you suggest that I let my administration grow into a bloated behemoth that wallows in its own self-important rules?”

  “That is what a government is, Husband — as you well know.”

  Giving Irulan a dangerous look, Chani started to get up, but Paul stopped her by raising his hand. He kept his own annoyance under tight control. “After defeating so many planetary rulers, I will not lose my Empire to bureaucrats.”

  “Your target should not be bureaucracy, but efficiency,” Irulan insisted. “Appoint good leaders and competent administrators — people who value achieving an end result over maintaining the status quo or cementing their own importance. Any man who can delay the processing of a form has power over all those who need that form.”

  Paul was glad that he’d seen the value of letting the Princess attend this meeting. Of all perspectives in his new Empire, hers was unique, but Irulan had to be kept on a short leash.

  Though his mother had not been gone for long, perhaps he needed to bring her back from Caladan. She could fill an important position in his central government. Yet another strong woman in his inner circle.

  “You can trust me to follow your wishes, Usul,” Korba said.

  “And me,” added Chatt, the first words he had spoken in the meeting.

  “And me.” Bitterness edged Irulan’s voice. “I know you do not value me as wife or mate, but you cannot fail to recognize my talent in the field of diplomacy.”

  “Oh, I recognize much in you, Irulan. Your skills, like your loyalties, are many, but I will not risk giving you too much power. As daughter of a Padishah Emperor, trained by the Bene Gesserit, you know why.”

  Irulan responded with cool annoyance. “Then what would you have me do with all my skills? Shall I simply be an ornament in my husband’s court, like one of the newly planted date palms?”

  Paul considered. “I am familiar with your interests, and your usefulness. Your initial book of my life, incomplete and somewhat inaccurate as it is, has proved immensely popular and effective. I shall make you my official biographer.”

  17

  One does not need to participate in history to create history.

  —the PRINCESS IRULAN, unpublished private journals

  As a Princess of the old Imperium, Irulan had been instructed in the esoterica of social protocol, how to sit prettily at court functions and perform musical pieces and recitations. She had been encouraged to write poetry about meaningless things that would amuse well-bred people with shallow interests.

  In addition, she was Bene Gesserit trained, as were all her sisters. She had much more to offer, and Irulan did not intend to write lack-witted poetry. She was in a remarkable position to chronicle this increasingly chaotic period in human history. Her credentials were unimpeachable as the wife of Muad’Dib and daughter of Shaddam IV.

  Expanding on The Life of Muad’Dib, she intended to explore tributaries to the river of his remarkable life. In the process, she would again see the need to alter a few details here and there, though few would realize it as long as she got the gist of the story right. Paul’s propagandists and deluded religious followers remained blithely unaware of the blinders they wore, of the dark forms they refused to see.

  They revered her initial, rushed chronicle as if it were scripture, though she herself could clearly see its limitations. Her recent conversations with Swordmaster Bludd had revealed that even Paul had left out large parts when recounting his younger years, but she did not intend to change what she’d already written. On the contrary, each of her works about Paul would stand on its own, without further editing. They were stepping stones out into the water, complete with rough edges and flaws.

  Irulan smiled as she sat on a hard plaz seat next to a fountain that, though dry, nevertheless emitted the soothing sounds of rushing water. She had all the inspiration she needed for her writing. Though he often seemed to ignore Irulan’s counsel, Paul now included her in many of his meetings.

  In recent days, he had been consumed by an unexpected defeat of his Jihad forces. A Heighliner full of his soldiers, drunk on a succession of uncon
tested victories, had arrived at the planet Ipyr expecting to accept the surrender of another noble lord. But they had underestimated the resolve of Earl Memnon Thorvald.

  There on his home world, Thorvald had gathered the military resources of eleven different planets that were also impending targets for the Jihad. He had unified those lords into a fierce resistance, a bastion of the old Imperium. They had thrown their allied armies against Muad’Dib’s soldiers with surprising and resounding force.

  The fact that Paul had not seen this with his prescient vision astonished his followers. But to Paul, the shocking military turnabout suggested that the rebellious Earl’s detailed plotting with the eleven lords must have taken place in the blurring proximity of a powerful Navigator. By managing to keep their plans secret, they had scored a surprising victory.

  The faithful could not bring themselves to accept that their supposedly infallible Muad’Dib had made a mistake. Instead, they regarded the defeat as a sign that their hubris and overconfidence had displeased God, and that they must now fight harder to redeem themselves.

  Leaving the wreckage of the Jihad battle group on Ipyr, Earl Thorvald and his allies had vanished to some other hideout, blown on the stellar winds. Some said the rebels were hiding on a planet that was shielded by the Guild, although every representative that Paul interrogated — to extremes if necessary — denied any knowledge or complicity.

  Irulan took careful notes, realizing that this unaccustomed defeat, and Paul’s reaction to it, made interesting material for an exhaustive biography. She also set herself to learn more about Paul Atreides, son of Duke Leto, grandson of Old Duke Paulus. His genealogy and the traditions surrounding noble House Atreides contained important elements of his character, yet Paul had taken a radically different path from his father.