The Winds of Dune (47 page)

“Where is Earl Halleck? Is he aware of what you’ve done?”

The mayor and priest looked at each other. Horvu cleared his throat, and Jessica could tell that they had acted behind Gurney’s back. “The Earl is on his estate and has not come to Cala City for . . . some days. We did not feel we needed to trouble him with this matter.”

“It is simple, my Lady,” Sintra said. “We aren’t a part of the Jihad, and we never were. Outside politics and outside wars have nothing to do with us. We just want our planet back to the way it was for twenty-six generations under the Atreides Dukes.”

“Paul isn’t just an Atreides anymore. He’s also Muad’Dib, the Fremen Messiah and Holy Emperor.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “What will you do when he sends Fedaykin armies to seize control and execute anyone who speaks out against him?”

The mayor’s chuckle showed no anxiety. “Come now, my Lady, you dramatize. He is the son of our beloved Duke Leto Atreides. Caladan is in his blood. He couldn’t possibly mean us harm.”

Jessica saw that these men were blind to the dangers of what they had unleashed. Her voice was low. “You misjudge him. Even I don’t know what my son is capable of any longer.”

In the deepening darkness of her first night back, Jessica rose from the private writing desk inside her bedchamber, leaving her papers and recordings unfinished. She walked over to the stone wall and threw open the windows to let the cool night air flow in. It came with a hint of fog and the familiar smell of iodine and salt, seaweed and waves.

Curling waves slammed harder against the base of the cliff with each advance-and-retreat. She could see the silvery line of breakers lit by starlight and a waxing moon. The rumble and roar of booming surf and the clatter of rocks moving on the shore soothed her with their constancy, unlike the turmoil that washed across other worlds.

Throughout his youth, Paul had listened to those gentle whispers of
Caladan seas, and they had given him a sense of serenity, a sense of place and family history. Now, as Muad’Dib, he heard instead the crackling hiss of sandstorms—
Hulasikali Wala,
as the Fremen called it, “the wind that eats flesh.” And the defiant shouts of fanatical armies. . . .

She couldn’t convince herself that Paul’s priests would have tried to rename Caladan without at least his implied approval. Had he finally become a leader so powerful that his advisers were afraid to speak honestly to him?

Or was he a man without real advisers at all? Paul had prescience; he was the Kwisatz Haderach, with a kind of perceptive wisdom that Jessica did not understand. But did such powers and talents necessarily make Paul
infallible
? She kept coming back to that question in her mind, and she wondered what psychological damage the Water of Life had done to him in the Fremen ritual that had changed him forever.

Some time ago, Reverend Mother Mohiam had warned her about the dangers of this child, the superhuman Kwisatz Haderach who had emerged before his time and slipped out of the Sisterhood’s control. When the old woman had tested Paul at the age of fifteen, it had been more than a test. What if the Bene Gesserit accusations about him were correct? What if Jessica
had
committed a grave, disastrous error by bearing a son instead of a daughter? What if, after all, he was
not
a messiah, but instead a terrible mistake . . . an abomination of historic proportions?

As she watched the surf, a pale mass of luminescence drifted along, a cluster of plankton shining in the night. Hovering above it with flitting wings and distant cries, sea birds dove down to feed upon the fish that, in turn, fed upon the plankton. Another patch of luminescence drifted closer, caught on an eddy that drove the two clusters together, mixing them in a clash of shifting colors.

It reminded Jessica of the Jihad. . . .

She had reviewed eyewitness accounts of battlefield horrors. Jessica could not delude herself into thinking that the zealous followers were operating beyond her son’s control, that Paul did not know the things they did in his name. He had been there, in person. He had
seen
the atrocities happen, and he had not spoken out against them. Rather, he had urged his fighters onward, had inspired them.

“Has your son forgotten who he really is?” Horvu had looked at her
with tired, pleading eyes, expecting her to have a ready and truthful answer for him. But she didn’t know.

Out on the nearby headlands, she spotted a bonfire, which brought to mind the recent aborted festival of the Empty Man. A shiver ran down her spine, as she wondered if her son had become the Empty Man of local legend.

Have I created a monster?

Jessica slept restlessly that night, her thoughts brimming with concerns and realizations about what Paul condoned and why he was doing it. A vivid nightmare started out convincingly as a memory of herself as a young mother slipping into Paul’s bedchamber, looking down at the five-year-old boy. He slept soundly, looking so innocent, yet with a dark potential hidden within him.

If only she had known then that this boy would grow up to be a man who sterilized entire worlds, who had the blood of billions of innocent people on his hands, who led a Jihad that showed no signs of ending. . . .

In her dream, the young mother Jessica looked down at the sleeping child and picked up a pillow. She pressed it hard against his face, holding it there as the boy struggled and fought her. She pressed harder. . . .

Jessica bolted awake in a sweat. Her stomach churned with revulsion. Had her fears simply guided her dreams, or was that in itself a warning of what she needed to do—what Reverend Mother Mohiam had always wanted her to do?

I gave life to you, Paul—and I can take it away.

When the message arrived from the Mother School, even the written words seemed to have the imperative power of Voice. The Sisterhood demanded that Jessica go to Wallach IX regarding a “most important matter,” and the order was signed by Reverend Mother Mohiam herself.

Because of her lifetime of training and obligations, Jessica’s immediate reaction was to rush there in response to the summons. But she forced herself to pause and throw off the programmed reaction; she was annoyed at the way the Sisters tried to manipulate her, how they had
always
tried to manipulate her. They wanted something. And if she did not go to them willingly, on her own terms, they would find some other means of getting her there, some less obvious way.

Jessica had returned from Salusa Secundus only the day before, had just learned of Mayor Horvu’s foolish and naïve declaration, and now another obligation pulled her away. Once again, she would have to leave Gurney Halleck in charge on Caladan. But he needed to be forewarned.

When he came to see her, she was gathering necessary items for her travel wardrobe. “Gurney, I will be back as soon as I can, but the people of Caladan are in your hands for the time being.” As she regarded him more closely, she saw a gaunt difference in his expression. He looked deeply shaken. “Gurney, what is it?”

The man focused his gaze on the wall rather than directly at her. “A personal matter, my Lady. Nothing that need concern you.”

“Come now, my good friend. Maybe I can help, if you’ll just let me.”

He hesitated for a long moment, then said in a stony voice, “My gaze hounds . . . bloodfire virus. If I had acted sooner, maybe I could have saved some of them. But I waited too long.”

“Oh, Gurney, I’m so sorry.”

He took an awkward step backward, separating himself from her. “They were just dogs. I’ve been through far worse, my Lady, and I will endure this.” Now she understood why he had been unaware of Mayor Horvu’s ill-considered message to Arrakeen. But he was a man who preferred to deal with his emotions privately, and her sympathy would only make it more difficult for him. “It is past, and we both have our jobs to do. Go where you need to go, and I will rule in your absence.”

She nodded, but he needed to know what she was leaving him with. “Some of the townspeople have gotten a dangerous and foolish idea into their heads. While you were at your estate, they unilaterally declared Caladan’s independence from the Imperium.”

Gurney stood straighter now. “Gods below, they can’t do that!”

“They already have. They sent a formal petition to Muad’Dib. While I’m gone, please don’t let this get out of hand.”

“It sounds as if it already is out of hand, my Lady. But I will do my best to limit the damage.”

The most effective family unit is quite large—a community in which children are raised and trained in a uniform fashion, not in a random, unpredictable way. There is also the matter of good genetics.

—RAQUELLA BERTO-ANIRUL
, founder of the ancient order of Bene Gesserit

A
fter arriving on Wallach IX, Jessica saw bright reminders of her childhood everywhere around the Mother School. And that was intentional, to emphasize what she had been taught, again and again.
We exist to serve
. But Jessica was not that same person anymore. For years, she had been little more than a serving girl to Mohiam; now she was returning as the Duchess of Caladan and the Mother of Muad’Dib, the Emperor of the Known Universe. Much more than a meek acolyte.

As she entered the central plaza, she refused to let herself feel intimidated about the meeting to which she had been summoned. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood no longer controlled her. Jessica controlled herself, her decisions, and her future.

She walked around the sprawling complex to gather her thoughts before facing the other Reverend Mothers. She paused by a fountain, where a refreshing spray of water misted her face. She dipped a hand in the cool water of the fountain, let the cupped moisture run onto the cobblestones. A waste . . . a luxury. Water was not a precious resource on Wallach IX. Others might see Jessica as a moonstruck girl dawdling at her chores, but she was in no hurry. Though they had commanded her, she had come of her own accord.

Despite the failings of the Bene Gesserit order, this place was a hub
of human learning and triumphs, where the greatest thoughts were assembled and transmitted far and wide. Jessica had learned much here, but only later had she learned the most important truth of all—that even the Sisterhood was not always right.