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Beside him a darker desert Fremen snapped: "Be silent, fool! These are the water stealers These are the ones we thought we&039;d wiped out"

"That old story," the soft-featured captive said

"Jacurutu is estured to his son "I have presented Assan Tariq I ae My son, too, will be trained to detect demons The old ways are best"

"That&039;s e came into the deep desert," the soft-featuredin -"

"With paid guides," Muriz said, gesturing to the darker captives "You would buy your way into heaven?" Muriz glanced up at his son "Assan, are you prepared?"

"I have reflected long upon that night when men came and murdered our people," Assan said His voice projected an uneasy straining "They owe us water"

"Your father gives you six of them," Muriz said "Their water is ours Their shades are yours, your guardians forevermore Their shades arn you of demons They will be your slaves when you cross over into the alam al-mythal What do you say, my son?"

"I thank my father," Assan said He took a short step forward "I acceptthe Cast Out This water is our water"

As he finished speaking, the youth crossed to the captives Starting on the left, he gripped the man&039;s hair and drove the crysknife up under the chin into the brain It was skillfully done to spill the minimum blood Only the one soft-featured city Frerabbed his hair The others spat at Assan Tariq in the old way, saying by this: "See how little I value my water when it is taken by animals!"

When it was done, Muriz clapped his hands once Attendants ca them to the deathstill where they could be rendered for their water

Muriz arose, looked at his son who stood breathing deeply, watching the attendants remove the bodies "Now you are a man," Muriz said "The water of our enemies will feed slaves And,look upon his father The youth&039;s lips were drawn back in a tight smile

"The Preacher must not know of this," Muriz said

"I understand, father"

"You did it well," Muriz said "Those who stumble upon Shuloch must not survive"

"As you say, father"

"You are trusted with important duties," Muriz said "I am proud of you"

A sophisticated human can become primitive What this really es Old values change, become linked to the landscape with its plants and anie of those multiplex and cross-linked events usually referred to as nature It requires a measure of respect for the inertial poithin such natural systee and respect, that is called "being primitive" The converse, of course, is equally true: the pri dreadful psychological dae -The Leto Commentary, After Harq al-Ada

"How can we be sure?" Ghanierous"

"We&039;ve tested it before," Leto argued

"It may not be the same this time What if -"

"It&039;s the only way open to us," Leto said "You agree we can&039;t go the way of the spice"

Ghanihed She did not like this thrust and parry of words, but knew the necessity which pressed her brother She also knew the fearful source of her own reluctance They had but to look at Alia and know the perils of that inner world

"Well?" Leto asked

Again she sighed

They sat cross-legged in one of their private places, a narrow opening from the cave to the cliff where often their mother and father had watched the sun set over the bled It o hours past the evening meal, a time when the tere expected to exercise their bodies and their minds They had chosen to flex their minds

"I will try it alone if you refuse to help," Leto said

Ghanis of thein the rock Leto continued to stare out over the desert

They had been speaking for soe so ancient that even its naave their thoughts a privacy which no other human could penetrate Even Alia, who avoided the intricacies of her inner world, lacked the rasp anyin the distinctive furry odor of a Fremen cavern-sietch which persisted in this windless alcove The murmurous hubbub of the sietch and its damp heat were absent here, and both felt this as a relief

"I agree we need guidance," Ghaniuidance We need protection"

"Perhaps there is no protection" She looked directly at her brother,watchfulness of a predator His eyes belied the placidity of his features

"We must escape possession," Leto said He used the special infinitive of the ancient language, a form strictly neutral in voice and tense but profoundly active in its iument

"Mohw&039;pwium d&039;mi hish pash moh&039;m ka," she intoned The capture of my soul is the capture of a thousand souls

"Much ers, you persist" She made it a statement, not a question

"Wabun &039;k wabunat!" he said Rising, thou risest!

He felt his choice as an obvious necessity Doing this thing, it were best done actively They must wind the past into the present and allow it to unreel into their future

"Muriyat," she conceded, her voice low It ly

"Of course" He waved a hand to encompass total acceptance "Then ill consult as our parents did"

Ghanima remained silent, tried to s past a lureat open erg which was showing a diht In that direction her father had gone on his last walk into the desert

Leto stared doard over the cliff edge at the green of the sietch oasis All was dusk down there, but he knew its shapes and colors: blossoht out to the rock markers which outlined the extent of the qanat-watered plantings Beyond the rockband of dead Arrakeen life, killed by foreign plants and too ainst the desert

Presently Ghaniin"

"Yes, damn all!" He reached out, touched her ar that song It makes this easier for me"

Ghanima hitched herself closer to him, circled his waist with her left aran singing in a clear piping voice the words herfor their father:

"Here I redeeavest;

I pour sater upon thee

Life shall prevail in this windless place:

My love, thou shalt live in a palace,

Thy eneether

Which love has traced for thee

Surely well do I show the way

For my love is thy palace"

Her voice fell into the desert silence which even a whisper- beco the father whose enes of his immediate past

For this brief space, I must be Paul, he told himself This is not Ghani beside me; it is my beloved Chani, whose wise counsel has saved us both many a time

For her part, Ghanihtening ease, as she had known she would How erous

In a voice turned suddenly husky, Ghaniainst its cold light, they saw an arc of orange fire falling upward into space The transport which had brought the Lady Jessica, laden noith spice, was returning to its mother-cluster in orbit

The keenest of reht bell-sounds For a flickering instant he was another Leto - Jessica&039;s Duke Necessity pushed thoseof the love and the pain

I must be Paul, he rehtening duality, as though Leto were a dark screen against which his father was projected He felt both his own flesh and his father&039;s, and the flickering differences threatened to overco disturbance passed and now there was another imprint upon his awareness, while his own identity as Leto stood at one side as an observer

"My last vision has not yet come to pass," he said, and the voice was Paul&039;s He turned to Ghanima "You knohat I saw"

She touched his cheek with her right hand "Did you walk into the desert to die, beloved? Is that what you did?"

"It may be that I did, but that vision Would that not be reason enough to stay alive?"

"But blind?" she asked

"Even so"