Dune

Again, Leto looked out the windows. The white sun was well up into its morning quadrant. Milky light picked out a boiling of dust clouds that spilled over into the blind canyons interfingering the Shield Wall.

Slowly, speaking in a slow voice to contain his anger, the Duke explained to Paul about the mysterious note.

“You might just as well mistrust me,” Paul said.

“They have to think they’ve succeeded,” the Duke said. “They must think me this much of a fool. It must look real. Even your mother may not know the sham.”

“But, sir! Why?”

“Your mother’s response must not be an act. Oh, she’s capable of a supreme act…but too much rides on this. I hope to smoke out a traitor. It must seem that I’ve been completely cozened. She must be hurt this way that she does not suffer greater hurt.”

“Why do you tell me, Father? Maybe I’ll give it away.”

“They’ll not watch you in this thing,” the Duke said. “You’ll keep the secret. You must.” He walked to the windows, spoke without turning. “This way, if anything should happen to me, you can tell her the truth—that I never doubted her, not for the smallest instant. I should want her to know this.”

Paul recognized the death thoughts in his father’s words, spoke quickly: “Nothing’s going to happen to you, sir. The—”

“Be silent, Son.”

Paul stared at his father’s back, seeing the fatigue in the angle of the neck, in the line of the shoulders, in the slow movements.

“You’re just tired, Father.”

“I am tired,” the Duke agreed. “I’m morally tired. The melancholy degeneration of the Great Houses has afflicted me at last, perhaps. And we were such strong people once.”

Paul spoke in quick anger: “Our House hasn’t degenerated!”

“Hasn’t it?”

The Duke turned, faced his son, revealing dark circles beneath hard eyes, a cynical twist of mouth. “I should wed your mother, make her my Duchess. Yet…my unwedded state gives some Houses hope they may yet ally with me through their marriageable daughters.” He shrugged. “So, I….”

“Mother has explained this to me.”

“Nothing wins more loyalty for a leader than an air of bravura,” the Duke said. “I, therefore, cultivate an air of bravura.”

“You lead well,” Paul protested. “You govern well. Men follow you willingly and love you.”

“My propaganda corps is one of the finest,” the Duke said. Again, he turned to stare out at the basin. “There’s greater possibility for us here on Arrakis than the Imperium could ever suspect. Yet sometimes I think it’d have been better if we’d run for it, gone renegade. Sometimes I wish we could sink back into anonymity among the people, become less exposed to….”

“Father!”

“Yes, I am tired,” the Duke said. “Did you know we’re using spice residue as raw material and already have our own factory to manufacture filmbase?”

“Sir?”

“We mustn’t run short of filmbase,” the Duke said. “Else, how could we flood village and city with our information? The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn’t tell them?”

“You should get some rest,” Paul said.

Again, the Duke faced his son. “Arrakis has another advantage I almost forgot to mention. Spice is in everything here. You breathe it and eat it in almost everything. And I find that this imparts a certain natural immunity to some of the most common poisons of the Assassins’ Handbook. And the need to watch every drop of water puts all food production—yeast culture, hydroponics, chemavit, everything—under the strictest surveillance. We cannot kill off large segments of our population with poison—and we cannot be attacked this way, either. Arrakis makes us moral and ethical.”

Paul started to speak, but the Duke cut him off, saying: “I have to have someone I can say these things to, Son.” He sighed, glanced back at the dry landscape where even the flowers were gone now—trampled by the dew gatherers, wilted under the early sun.

“On Caladan, we ruled with sea and air power,” the Duke said. “Here, we must scrabble for desert power. This is your inheritance, Paul. What is to become of you if anything happens to me? You’ll not be a renegade House, but a guerrilla House—running, hunted.”

Paul groped for words, could find nothing to say. He had never seen his father this despondent.

“To hold Arrakis,” the Duke said, “one is faced with decisions that may cost one his self-respect.” He pointed out the window to the Atreides green and black banner hanging limply from a staff at the edge of the landing field. “That honorable banner could come to mean many evil things.”

Paul swallowed in a dry throat. His father’s words carried futility, a sense of fatalism that left the boy with an empty feeling in his chest.

The Duke took an antifatigue tablet from a pocket, gulped it dry. “Power and fear,” he said. “The tools of statecraft. I must order new emphasis on guerrilla training for you. That filmclip there—they call you ‘Mahdi’—‘Lisan al-Gaib’—as a last resort, you might capitalize on that.”