Dune

Jessica stopped beside him, said: “What delicious abandon in the sleep of a child.”

He spoke mechanically: “If only adults could relax like that.”

“Yes.”

“Where do we lose it?” he murmured.

She glanced at him, catching the odd tone, but her mind was still on Paul, thinking of the new rigors in his training here, thinking of the differences in his life now—so very different from the life they once had planned for him.

“We do, indeed, lose something,” she said.

She glanced out to the right at a slope humped with a wind-troubled gray-green of bushes—dusty leaves and dry claw branches. The too-dark sky hung over the slope like a blot, and the milky light of the Arrakeen sun gave the scene a silver cast—light like the crysknife concealed in her bodice.

“The sky’s so dark,” she said.

“That’s partly the lack of moisture,” he said.

“Water!” she snapped. “Everywhere you turn here, you’re involved with the lack of water!”

“It’s the precious mystery of Arrakis,” he said.

“Why is there so little of it? There’s volcanic rock here. There’re a dozen power sources I could name. There’s polar ice. They say you can’t drill in the desert—storms and sandtides destroy equipment faster than it can be installed, if the worms don’t get you first. They’ve never found water traces there, anyway. But the mystery, Wellington, the real mystery is the wells that’ve been drilled up here in the sinks and basins. Have you read about those?”

“First a trickle, then nothing,” he said.

“But, Wellington, that’s the mystery. The water was there. It dries up. And never again is there water. Yet another hole nearby produces the same result: a trickle that stops. Has no one ever been curious about this?”

“It is curious,” he said. “You suspect some living agency? Wouldn’t that have shown in core samples?”

“What would have shown? Alien plant matter…or animal? Who could recognize it?” She turned back to the slope. “The water is stopped. Something plugs it. That’s my suspicion.”

“Perhaps the reason’s known,” he said. “The Harkonnens sealed off many sources of information about Arrakis. Perhaps there was reason to suppress this.”

“What reason?” she asked. “And then there’s the atmospheric moisture. Little enough of it, certainly, but there’s some. It’s the major source of water here, caught in windtraps and precipitators. Where does that come from?”

“The polar caps?”

“Cold air takes up little moisture, Wellington. There are things here behind the Harkonnen veil that bear close investigation, and not all of those things are directly involved with the spice.”

“We are indeed behind the Harkonnen veil,” he said. “Perhaps we’ll….” He broke off, noting the sudden intense way she was looking at him. “Is something wrong?”

“The way you say ‘Harkonnen,’” she said. “Even my Duke’s voice doesn’t carry that weight of venom when he uses the hated name. I didn’t know you had personal reasons to hate them, Wellington.”

Great Mother! he thought. I’ve aroused her suspicions! Now I must use every trick my Wanna taught me. There’s only one solution: tell the truth as far as I can.

He said: “You didn’t know that my wife, my Wanna….” He shrugged, unable to speak past a sudden constriction in his throat. Then: “They….” The words would not come out. He felt panic, closed his eyes tightly, experiencing the agony in his chest and little else until a hand touched his arm gently.

“Forgive me,” Jessica said. “I did not mean to open an old wound.” And she thought: Those animals! His wife was Bene Gesserit—the signs are all over him. And it’s obvious the Harkonnens killed her. Here’s another poor victim bound to the Atreides by a cherem of hate.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I’m unable to talk about it.” He opened his eyes, giving himself up to the internal awareness of grief. That, at least, was truth.

Jessica studied him, seeing the up-angled cheeks, the dark sequins of almond eyes, the butter complexion, and stringy mustache hanging like a curved frame around purpled lips and narrow chin. The creases of his cheeks and forehead, she saw, were as much lines of sorrow as of age. A deep affection for him came over her.

“Wellington, I’m sorry we brought you into this dangerous place,” she said.

“I came willingly,” he said. And that, too, was true.

“But this whole planet’s a Harkonnen trap. You must know that.”

“It will take more than a trap to catch the Duke Leto,” he said. And that, too, was true.

“Perhaps I should be more confident of him,” she said. “He is a brilliant tactician.”

“We’ve been uprooted,” he said. “That’s why we’re uneasy.”

“And how easy it is to kill the uprooted plant,” she said. “Especially when you put it down in hostile soil.”

“Are we certain the soil’s hostile?”