Dune

Q: The flaw in you historians is that you’ll never leave well enough alone. You see true nobility in the Holy Muad’Dib, but you must append a cynical footnote. It’s no wonder that the Bene Gesserit also denounce you.

A: You Priests do well to make common cause with the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood. They, too, survive by concealing what they do. But they cannot conceal the fact that the Lady Jessica was a Bene Gesserit–trained adept. You know she trained her son in the sisterhood’s ways. My crime was to discuss this as a phenomenon, to expound upon their mental arts and their genetic program. You don’t want attention called to the fact that Muad’Dib was the Sisterhood’s hoped for captive messiah, that he was their kwisatz haderach before he was your prophet.

Q: If I had any doubts about your death sentence, you have dispelled them.

A: I can only die once.

Q: There are deaths and there are deaths.

A: Beware lest you make a martyr of me. I do not think Muad’Dib . . . Tell me, does Muad’Dib know what you do in these dungeons?

Q: We do not trouble the Holy Family with trivia.

A: (Laughter) And for this Paul Atreides fought his way to a niche among the Fremen! For this he learned to control and ride the sandworm! It was a mistake to answer your questions.

Q: But I will keep my promise to preserve your words.

A: Will you really? Then listen to me carefully, you Fremen degenerate, you Priest with no god except yourself! You have much to answer for. It was a Fremen ritual which gave Paul his first massive dose of melange, thereby opening him to visions of his futures. It was a Fremen ritual by which that same melange awakened the unborn Alia in the Lady Jessica’s womb. Have you considered what it meant for Alia to be born into this universe fully cognitive, possessed of all her mother’s memories and knowledge? No rape could be more terrifying.

Q: Without the sacred melange Muad’Dib would not have become leader of all Fremen. Without her holy experience Alia would not be Alia.

A: Without your blind Fremen cruelty you would not be a priest. Ahhh, I know you Fremen. You think Muad’Dib is yours because he mated with Chani, because he adopted Fremen customs. But he was an Atreides first and he was trained by a Bene Gesserit adept. He possessed disciplines totally unknown to you. You thought he brought you new organization and a new mission. He promised to transform your desert planet into a water-rich paradise. And while he dazzled you with such visions, he took your virginity!

Q: Such heresy does not change the fact that the Ecological Transformation of Dune proceeds apace.

A: And I committed the heresy of tracing the roots of that transformation, of exploring the consequences. That battle out there on the Plains of Arrakeen may have taught the universe that Fremen could defeat Imperial Sardaukar, but what else did it teach? When the stellar empire of the Corrino Family became a Fremen empire under Muad’Dib, what else did the Empire become? Your Jihad only took twelve years, but what a lesson it taught. Now, the Empire understands the sham of Muad’Dib’s marriage to the Princess Irulan!

Q: You dare accuse Muad’Dib of sham!

A: Though you kill me for it, it’s not heresy. The Princess became his consort, not his mate. Chani, his little Fremen darling—she’s his mate. Everyone knows this. Irulan was the key to a throne, nothing more.

Q: It’s easy to see why those who conspire against Muad’Dib use your Analysis of History as their rallying argument!

A: I’ll not persuade you; I know that. But the argument of the conspiracy came before my Analysis. Twelve years of Muad’Dib’s Jihad created the argument. That’s what united the ancient power groups and ignited the conspiracy against Muad’Dib.

Such a rich store of myths enfolds Paul Muad’Dib, the Mentat Emperor, and his sister, Alia, it is difficult to see the real persons behind these veils. But there were, after all, a man born Paul Atreides and a woman born Alia. Their flesh was subject to space and time. And even though their oracular powers placed them beyond the usual limits of time and space, they came from human stock. They experienced real events which left real traces upon a real universe. To understand them, it must be seen that their catastrophe was the catastrophe of all mankind. This work is dedicated, then, not to Muad’Dib or his sister, but to their heirs—to all of us.

—DEDICATION IN THE MUAD’DIB CONCORDANCE AS COPIED FROM THE TABLA MEMORIUM OF THE MAHDI SPIRIT CULT

Muad’Dib’s Imperial reign generated more historians than any other era in human history. Most of them argued a particular viewpoint, jealous and sectarian, but it says something about the peculiar impact of this man that he aroused such passions on so many diverse worlds.