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

For two full turns of days and nights, Siona failed to seal her face mask, losing precious water with every breath. It had taken the Fremen admonition to children before Siona remembered her father’s words. Leto had spoken to her finally on the cold third morning of their traverse when they stopped within a rock shadow on the windswept flat of the erg.

“Guard every breath for it carries the warmth and moisture of your life,” he said.

He had known they would be three more days on the erg and three more nights beyond that before they reached water. Now, it was the fifth morning from the Little Citadel’s tower. They had entered shallow drifts of sand during the night—not dunes, but dunes could be glimpsed ahead of them and even the remnants of Habbanya Ridge were a thin, broken line in the distance if you knew where to look. Now, Siona took down the mouth flap of her stillsuit only to speak clearly. And she spoke through black and bleeding lips.

She has the thirst of desperation, he thought, as he let his senses probe their surroundings. She will reach the moments of crisis soon. His senses told him that they were still alone here at the edge of the flat. Dawn lay only minutes behind them. The low light created barriers of dust reflection which twisted and lifted and dipped in the unceasing wind. His senses filtered out the wind that he might hear other things—Siona’s heaving breaths, the tumble of a small sandspill from the rocks beside them, his own gross body grating in the thin sand cover.

Siona peeled her face mask aside but held it in her hand for quick restoration.

“How much longer until we find water?” she asked.

“Three nights.”

“Is there a better direction to go?”

“No.”

She had come to appreciate the Fremen economy with important information. She sipped greedily at a few drops in her catchpocket.

Leto recognized the message of her movements— familiar gestures for Fremen in extremis. Siona was now fully aware of a common experience among her ancestors—patiyeh, the thirst at the edge of death.

The few drops in her catchpocket were gone. He heard her sucking air. She restored the mask and spoke in a muffled voice.

“I won’t make it, will I?”

Leto looked into her eyes, seeing there the clarity of thought brought on by the nearness of death, a penetrating awareness seldom otherwise achieved. It amplified only that which was required for survival. Yes, she was well into the tedah riagrimi, the agony which opens the mind. Soon, she would have to make that ultimate decision which she yet believed she had already made. Leto knew by the signs that he was required to treat Siona now with extreme courtesy. He would have to answer every question with candor for in every question lurked a judgment.

“Will I?” she insisted.

There was still a trace of hope in her desperation.

“Nothing is certain,” he said.

This dropped her into despair.

That had not been Leto’s intention, but he knew that it often happened—an accurate, though ambiguous, answer was taken as confirmation of one’s deepest fears.

She sighed.

Her mask-muffled voice probed at him once more. “You had some special intention for me in your breeding program.”

It was not a question.

“All people have intentions,” he told her.

“But you wanted my full agreement.”

“That is true.”

“How could you expect agreement when you know I hate everything about you? Be honest with me!”