Dune [Frank Herbert's Dune Saga Collection: Books 1 - 6]

“Sorry, my Lady. We messed him up catching him. He died.”

“Nothing to identify him?” she asked.

“We’ve found nothing yet, my Lady.”

“Was he an Arrakeen native?” Paul asked.

Jessica nodded at the astuteness of the question.

“He has the native look,” the man said. “Put into that cairn more’n a month ago, by the look, and left there to await our coming. Stone and mortar where he came through into the cellar were untouched when we inspected the place yesterday. I’ll stake my reputation on it.”

“No one questions your thoroughness,” Jessica said.

“I question it, my Lady. We should’ve used sonic probes down there.”

“I presume that’s what you’re doing now,” Paul said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Send word to my father that we’ll be delayed.”

“At once, sir.” He glanced at Jessica. “It’s Hawat’s order that under such circumstances as these the young master be guarded in a safe place.” Again, his eyes swept the room. “What of this place?”

“I’ve reason to believe it safe,” she said. “Both Hawat and I have inspected it.”

“Then I’ll mount guard outside here, m’Lady, until we’ve been over the house once more.” He bowed, touched his cap to Paul, backed out and swung the door closed behind him.

Paul broke the sudden silence, saying: “Had we better go over the house later ourselves? Your eyes might see things others would miss.”

“This wing was the only place I hadn’t examined,” she said. “I put it off to last because….”

“Because Hawat gave it his personal attention,” he said.

She darted a quick look at his face, questioning.

“Do you distrust Hawat?” she asked.

“No, but he’s getting old…he’s overworked. We could take some of the load from him.”

“That’d only shame him and impair his efficiency,” she said. “A stray insect won’t be able to wander into this wing after he hears about this. He’ll be shamed that….”

“We must take our own measures,” he said.

“Hawat has served three generations of Atreides with honor,” she said. “He deserves every respect and trust we can pay him…many times over.”

Paul said: “When my father is bothered by something you’ve done he says ‘Bene Gesserit!’ like a swear word.”

“And what is it about me that bothers your father?”

“When you argue with him.”

“You are not your father, Paul.”

And Paul thought: It’ll worry her, but I must tell her what that Mapes woman said about a traitor among us.

“What’re you holding back?” Jessica asked. “This isn’t like you, Paul.”

He shrugged, recounted the exchange with Mapes.

And Jessica thought of the message of the leaf. She came to sudden decision, showed Paul the leaf, told him its message.

“My father must learn of this at once,” he said. “I’ll radiograph it in code and get it off.”

“No,” she said. “You will wait until you can see him alone. As few as possible must learn about it.”

“Do you mean we should trust no one?”

“There’s another possibility,” she said. “This message may have been meant to get to us. The people who gave it to us may believe it’s true, but it may be that the only purpose was to get this message to us.”

Paul’s face remained sturdily somber. “To sow distrust and suspicion in our ranks, to weaken us that way,” he said.

“You must tell your father privately and caution him about this aspect of it,” she said.

“I understand.”

She turned to the tall reach of filter glass, stared out to the southwest where the sun of Arrakis was sinking—a yellowed ball above the cliffs.

Paul turned with her, said: “I don’t think it’s Hawat, either. Is it possible it’s Yueh?”

“He’s not a lieutenant or companion,” she said. “And I can assure you he hates the Harkonnens as bitterly as we do.”

Paul directed his attention to the cliffs, thinking: And it couldn’t be Gurney…or Duncan. Could it be one of the sub-lieutenants? Impossible. They’re all from families that’ve been loyal to us for generations—for good reason.

Jessica rubbed her forehead, sensing her own fatigue. So much peril here! She looked out at the filter-yellowed landscape, studying it. Beyond the ducal grounds stretched a high-fenced storage yard—lines of spice silos in it with stilt-legged watchtowers standing around it like so many startled spiders. She could see at least twenty storage yards of silos reaching out to the cliffs of the Shield Wall—silos repeated, stuttering across the basin.

Slowly, the filtered sun buried itself beneath the horizon. Stars leaped out. She saw one bright star so low on the horizon that it twinkled with a clear, precise rhythm—a trembling of light: blink-blink-blink-blink-blink…

Paul stirred beside her in the dusky room.

But Jessica concentrated on that single bright star, realizing that it was too low, that it must come from the Shield Wall cliffs.