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Muad&039;Dib&039;s teachings have becoround of scholastics, of the superstitious and the corrupt He taught a balanced way of life, a philosophy hich a hu universe He said hu, in a process which will never end He said this evolutionprinciples which are known only to eternity How can corrupted reasoning play with such an essence? -Words of the Mentat Duncan Idaho
A spot of light appeared on the deep red rug which covered the raw rock of the cave floor The light gloithout apparent source, having its existence only on the red fabric surface woven of spice fiber A questing circle about two centiated, now an oval Encountering the deep green side of a bed, it leaped upward, folded itself across the bed&039;s surface
Beneath the green covering lay a child with rusty hair, face still round with baby fat, a generousthe lean sparseness of Fremen tradition, but not as water-fat as an off-worlder As the light passed across closed eyelids, the sht winked out
Now there was only the sound of even breathing and, faint behind it, a reassuring drip-drip-drip of water collecting in a catch basin froht appeared in the chahter This tiestion of source and ure filled the arched doorway at the chainated there OnceThere was a sense of menace in it, a restless dissatisfaction It avoided the sleeping child, paused on the gridded air inlet at an upper corner, probed a bulge in the green and gold wall hangings which softened the enclosing rock
Presently the light winked out The hooded figureswish of fabric, took up a station at one side of the arched doorway Anyone aware of the routine here in Sietch Tabr would have suspected at once that this uardian of the orphaned tould one day take up the ar often oing first to the cha room, where he could reassure himself that Leto was not threatened
I&039;ered the cold surface of the light projector before restoring it to the loop in his belt sash The projector irritated hi was a subtle instrue living bodies It had shown only the sleeping children in the royal bedchahts and eht He could not still a restless inner projection Soreater power controlled that movement It projected him into this net for dreahout the known universe Here lay temporal riches, secular authority and that most powerful of all mystic talisious bequest In these twins - Leto and his sister Ghanima - an awesoh dead, lived in them
These were not merely nine-year-old children; they were a natural force, objects of veneration and fear They were the children of Paul Atreides, who had become Muad&039;Dib, the Mahdi of all the Frenited an explosion of humanity; Fre their fervor across the huovernment whose scope and ubiquitous authority had left its mark on every planet
Yet these children of Muad&039;Dib are flesh and blood, Stilgar thought Two simple thrusts of my knife would still their hearts Their water would return to the tribe
His ard ht
To kill Muad&039;Dib&039;s children!
But the years had in of such a terrible thought It caht hand of the blessed The ayat and burhan of Life held few mysteries for him Once he&039;d been proud to think of himself as Fremen, to think of the desert as a friend, to nahts and not Arrakis, as it was s hen our Messiah was only a drea our Mahdi we loosed upon the universe countless ated by the jihad now drealanced into the darkened bedchamber
If my knife liberated all of those people, would theyrestlessly in his bed
Stilgar sighed He had never known the Atreides grandfather whose nath of Muad&039;Dib had cohtness skip a generation now? Stilgar found hiht: Sietch Tabr is mine I rule here I am a Naib of the Fremen Without me there would have been no Muad&039;Dib These twins, now through Chani, their mother and my kinswoman, my blood flows in their veins, I am there with Muad&039;Dib and Chani and all the others What have we done to our universe?
Stilgar could not explain why such thoughts cauilty He crouched within his hooded robe Reality was not at all like the dream The Friendly Desert, which once had spread from pole to pole, was reduced to half its forreenery filled him with dised, he knew he had changed He had become a far more subtle person than the one-tis - of statecraft and profound consequences in the se and subtlety as a thin veneer covering an iron core of simpler, more deterministic awareness And that older core called out to him, pleaded with hi sounds of the sietch began intruding upon his thoughts People were beginning to ainst his cheeks: people were going out through the doorseals into the predawn darkness The breeze spoke of carelessness as it spoke of the tiht water discipline of the old days Why should they, when rain had been recorded on this planet, when clouds were seen, when eight Fremen had been inundated and killed by a flash flood in a wadi? Until that event, the word drowned had not existed in the language of Dune But this was no longer Dune; this was Arrakis and it was the ht: Jessica, randmother of these royal twins, returns to our planet today Why does she end her self-imposed exile at this time? Why does she leave the softness and security of Caladan for the dangers of Arrakis?
And there were other worries: Would she sense Stilgar&039;s doubts? She was a Bene Gesserit witch, graduate of the Sisterhood&039;s deepest training, and a Reverend Mother in her own right Such feerous Would she order him to fall upon his own knife as the Umma-Protector of Liet-Kynes had been ordered?
Would I obey her? he wondered
He could not answer that question, but now he thought about Liet-Kynes, the planetologist who had first drea the planetwide desert of Dune into the hu Liet-Kynes had been Chani&039;s father Without him there would have been no dreaile chain disar
How have we met in this place? he asked himself How have we combined? For what purpose? Is it reat co within hi love and family to do what a Naib ood of the tribe By one view, such a murder represented ultimate betrayal and atrocity To kill mere children! Yet they were not e, had shared in the sietch orgy, had probed the desert for sandtrout and played the other games of Fremen children And they sat in the Royal Council Children of such tender years, yet wise enough to sit in the Council They ht be children in flesh, but they were ancient in experience, born with a totality of geneticawareness which set their Aunt Alia and the huar found histhis difference shared by the twins and their aunt; many ti here to the twins&039; bedchambers with his dreams unfinished Now his doubts came to focus Failure to make a decision was in itself a decision - he knew this These twins and their aunt had awakened in the wo there all of the memories passed onto them by their ancestors Spice addiction had done this, spice addiction of the mothers - the Lady Jessica and Chani The Lady Jessica had borne a son, Muad&039;Dib before her Addiction Alia had come after the addiction That was clear in retrospect The countless generations of selective breeding directed by the Bene Gesserits had achieved Muad&039;Dib, but nowhere in the Sisterhood&039;s plans had they allowed for e Oh, they knew about this possibility, but they feared it and called it Abo fact Aboment And if they said Alia was an Abomination, then that must apply equally to the twins, because Chani, too, had been addicted, her body saturated with spice, and her genes had soar&039;s thoughts moved in ferment There could be no doubt these tent beyond their father But in which direction? The boy spoke of an ability to be his father - and had proved it Even as an infant, Leto had revealed memories which only Muad&039;Dib should have known Were there other ancestors waiting in that vast spectrum of memories - ancestors whose beliefs and habits created unspeakable dangers for living humans?
Abominations, the holy witches of the Bene Gesserit said Yet the Sisterhood coveted the genophase of these children The witches wanted sper flesh which carried them Was that why the Lady Jessica returned at this time? She had broken with the Sisterhood to support her Ducal mate, but rumor said she had returned to the Bene Gesserit ways
I could end all of these dreaain he wondered at himself that he could contemplate such a choice Were Muad&039;Dib&039;s twins responsible for the reality which obliterated the dreaht poured to reveal new shapes in the universe
In torment, his ht: God&039;s command comes; so seek not to hasten it God&039;s it is to show the way; and soion of Muad&039;Dib which upset Stilgar od of Muad&039;Dib? Why deify a man known to be flesh? Muad&039;Dib&039;s Golden Elixir of Life had created a bureaucratic ion united, and breaking a law became sin A sovernuilt of rebellion invoked hellfire and self-righteous judgovern the attendants who hadduties
He fingered the crysknife at his waist, thinking of the past it sy that more than once he had sys had been crushed by his own orders Confusion washed through histo the simplicities represented by the knife But the universe would not turn backward It was a great engine projected upon the grey void of nonexistence His knife, if it brought the deaths of the twins, would only reverberate against that void, weaving new coes of chaos, inviting huar sighed, growing aware of the movements around him Yes, these attendants represented a kind of order which was bound around Muad&039;Dib&039;s twins Theywhatever necessities occurred there Best to ear told himself Best meet what comes when it comes
I am an attendant yet, he told himself And my master is God the Merciful, the Compassionate And he quoted to himself: "Surely, We have put on their necks fetters up to the chin, so their heads are raised; and We have put before them a barrier and behind them a barrier; and We have covered them, so they do not see"
Thus was it written in the old Frear nodded to himself
To see, to anticipate the next moment as Muad&039;Dib had done with his awesome visions of the future, added a counterforce to human affairs It created new places for decisions To be unfettered, yes, that ht well indicate a whim of God Another coar reled with relistened in a sandworar kneould not draw this blade now to kill the twins He had reached a decision Better to retain that one old virtue which he still cherished: loyalty Better the coht he knew than the co Better the now than the future of a dreaar how e some dreams could be
No! No more dreams!
CHALLENGE: "Have you seen The Preacher?" RESPONSE: "I have seen a sandworives us the air we breathe" CHALLENGE: "Then why do we destroy its land?" RESPONSE: "Because Shai-Hulud [sandworm deified] orders it" -Riddles of Arrakis by Harq al-Ada
As was the Fremen custom, the Atreides twins arose an hour before dawn They yawned and stretched in secret unison in their adjoining cha the activity of the cave-warren around the breakfast, a siruel with dates and nuts blended in liquid skilobes in the antechah the open archways of the bedchaht, each hearing the other nearby As they had agreed, they donned stillsuits against the desert&039;s parching winds
Presently the royal pairthe sudden stillness of the attendants Leto, it was observed, wore a black-edged tan cape over his stillsuit&039;s grey slickness His sister wore a green cape The neck of each cape was held by a clasp in the forold with red jewels for eyes
Seeing this finery, Harah, as one of Stilgar&039;s wives, said: "I see you have dressed to honor your grand at Harah&039;s dark and wind-creased face He shook his head Then: "How do you know it&039;s not ourselves we honor?"
Harah , said: "My eyes are just as blue as yours!"
Ghanihed aloud Harah was always an adept at the Freame In one sentence, she had said: "Don&039;t taunt e-addiction - eyes without whites What Fremen needs more finery or more honor than that?"
Leto smiled, shook his head ruefully "Harah, ar&039;s, I&039;d make youthe other attendants to continue preparing the chambers for this day&039;s important activities "Eat your breakfasts," she said "You&039;ll need the energy today"
"Then you agree that we&039;re not too fine for our grandruel
"Don&039;t fear her, Ghani," Harah said
Leto gulped astare at Harah The woame of finery so quickly "Will she believe we fear her?" Leto asked
"Like as not," Harah said "She was our Reverend Mother, remember I know her ways"
"Hoas Alia dressed?" Ghanima asked
"I&039;ve not seen her" Harah spoke shortly, turning away
Leto and Ghanied a look, of shared secrets, bent quickly to their breakfast Presently they went out into the great central passage
Ghanienetic reatly," Leto said
"Who likes to give up such authority?" Ghanihed softly, an oddly adult sound fro "It&039;s more than that"
"Will her mother&039;s eyes observe e have observed?"
"And why not?" Leto asked
"Yes That could be what Alia fears"
"Who knows Abomination better than Abo, you know," Ghanima said
"But we&039;re not" And he quoted from the Bene Gesserit Azhar Book: "It is with reason and terrible experience that we call the pre-born Abomination For who knohat lost and da flesh?"
"I know the history of it," Ghanima said "But if that&039;s true, why don&039;t we suffer frouard within us," Leto said
"Then why not guardians for Alia as well?"
"I don&039;t know It could be because one of her parents re It could be si Perhaps e&039;re older and randmother," Ghanima said
"And not discuss this Preacher anders our planet speaking heresy?"
"You don&039;t really think he&039;s our father!"
"I ment on it, but Alia fears him"
Ghanima shook her head sharply "I don&039;t believe this Abomination nonsense!"