The Winds of Dune (57 page)

By the time Jessica finished her story and glanced back at the moonlit silhouette of the landed ’thopter, both Irulan and Gurney were deeply shaken. For the past seven years, that hidden knowledge had weighed like cold lead inside of Jessica.

She had paid a terrible price. Even after so much time had passed, the pain still burned deeply. To this day, Bronso of Ix continued to pay his share of the price, doing what Paul had asked him to do, even while the hounds of Alia pursued him . . . even while the populace reviled him for the truths he exposed.

“ ‘A secret shared is a burden shared, but the weight can still be crushing.’ ” Gurney hung his head. “Ahh, my Lady, all these years! I feel like a fool for not having guessed, for some of the things I said to you, which made your pain even heavier, and more lonely.” His scar looked like a dark line of blood in the light of the two moons. “I understand war, and I thought I knew the logical reasons for what you did to those ten ringleaders . . . but even so, I didn’t understand it all. I was bound by my oath to House Atreides, and to you. Now at last I comprehend all of what you were doing, and why . . . but it isn’t easy knowledge to have.”

“I sacrificed a great deal for Paul—something of my humanity,
perhaps, but the options before me were difficult.” Jessica led them back toward the ’thopter, knowing it was time to go. They could only cover up their secret meeting for a short while before Alia would grow suspicious.

She paused before they reached the ornithopter, still wary that there might be listening devices hidden inside, despite the precautions they had taken. “Now you understand why I had to speak of these things away from the Citadel. The Qizara Tafwid would call it blasphemy and execute me before I could tell anyone else. And they would kill you for what you know. I’m not sure Alia would try to stop them. She doesn’t recognize what she owes me—or Bronso.”

“What could Alia possibly owe Bronso?” Irulan asked.

Jessica smiled. “He is the one who revealed to me the plot of Alia’s priests, Isbar’s intention of assassinating her and Duncan during their wedding. She doesn’t know she owes him her life.”

Gurney’s eyes grew large. “
Bronso
was your secret source? Your spy in the Citadel?”

“He wasn’t actually there, but Ixians have their ways of collecting information. Rest assured, he doesn’t have any personal vendetta against Alia. He only wants to spread the real story about Paul.”

Gurney’s features looked sallow in the starlight. “Oh, I wish I had brought my baliset along, since now is the time for a long, sad song.”

Jessica drew a deep breath. “Even though some of his harshest criticisms are as wildly untrue as the glorifications Alia wants written, Bronso still serves a vital purpose, and must be allowed to continue. It’s a purpose that Paul himself asked him to take on, to counterbalance the things done in his name, a necessary weakening of the too-powerful bureaucracy and the priesthood that he could not defeat any other way. Paul saw only danger ahead if his myth grew even more out of control.” Her voice hitched. “Bronso of Ix is the only hope I have of keeping my son
human
instead of letting him be reduced to a legend.”

Over the years, Princess Irulan had taken a great deal of offense at Bronso’s writings because they directly clashed with her version of history, but now she wrestled with the reality, obviously finding it difficult to accept the hard truth. “If I believe you that Paul requested this himself, Lady Jessica, then you’re placing me in an impossible situation.
Paul’s wishes are utterly incompatible with what Alia wants me to write about him.”

“And where does your true loyalty lie?” After opening herself, Jessica felt empty and naked before her fellow Bene Gesserit Sister, her daughter-in-law. “Won’t you protect Paul and what
he
wanted for his legacy?”

In the low light, Irulan’s face was distraught. “Would Alia let me? That is not a simple question! There are already too many people who think that the daughter of Shaddam Corrino is more threat than benefit to the Regency. Alia could have me executed for not cooperating. Or she might send me away to Salusa Secundus and never let me see Paul’s children again.”

Jessica was a bit surprised by this last statement. “They are not your children.”

“They are Paul’s, and I loved him.”

Finally reaching the ’thopter, they climbed in silently, each of them deep in thought. The interior of the cabin glowed with greenish light from the craft’s standby control panel. Looking out glumly, Jessica saw that First Moon was just setting into the rugged horizon.

Beside her, Gurney reactivated the systems, prepared to take off. One of the panels on the console sent a signal, and he reacted quickly, gazing out through the curved cockpit window, scanning the starry skies. “Searchers are out there, trying to find us. They’ve locked on to our locator beacon.”

“Already?” Irulan said. “Sietch Tabr could not have reported us overdue or missing yet.”

“Even though we switched ’thopters, Alia’s men could have been tracking us ever since we left Arrakeen,” Jessica said. “When we dropped off their screens, searchers would have been dispatched immediately.” She pointed to approaching lights in the distance.

Gurney worked the controls, pushing his emotions aside and focusing his mind on the ornithopter, running through a checklist. All business. “Time to fix our little mechanical problem, then.” He activated the comm, took up the microphone, and spoke brusquely into it. “This is Gurney Halleck, pilot of Imperial flight six six five alpha. Sorry if we caused you concern. We needed to set down to adjust an unbalanced rotor and fix a stabilizing linkage.”

A voice crackled back, “Do you require assistance?”

“No, no, it’s just a minor inconvenience. Nothing a good field mechanic couldn’t handle. Both passengers are fine.” He powered up the engines, set the wings in motion. “We’re on our way.”

“We warned you against taking one of the ’thopters that had not been approved for your use,” the voice said.

Gurney looked meaningfully at Jessica, then picked up the transmitter. “I’ll remember that next time. No harm done.”

Jessica and Irulan sat in silence as the ’thopter lifted off from the rock outcropping into the empty, moonlit sky. In a matter of moments, the focused lights of search ’thopters swirled around them like the luminous night insects in a Caladan marsh.

“We will escort you safely to Sietch Tabr,” transmitted one of the ’thopter pilots. Gurney thanked them as they flew together over the harsh desert.

I have long disagreed with the fundamental Bene Gesserit admonition against falling in love.
Love
itself is not the danger. People who do not understand the sentiment, or who care nothing for it, are far more dangerous.

—
LADY JESSICA
in a letter to Mother Superior Harishka on Wallach IX

T
he next day, returning from Sietch Tabr after an uneventful visit with the Fremen, Jessica went to her private chambers in the great Citadel of Muad’Dib. She felt exhausted, and was experiencing second thoughts about having shared her heavy secrets. The knowledge of Bronso’s mission would only make circumstances more difficult for Gurney, and especially for Irulan. She had placed the Princess in an untenable situation, and Jessica wasn’t entirely sure that Irulan wanted to believe what she had heard.

But they were truths, painful and necessary truths.

Forcing calm upon herself, Jessica prepared to meditate and practice subtle exercises of precise muscular control, to relax her body and clear her mind. Soon she would return to her Atreides homeworld. Caladan, oh Caladan! She missed the sound of the rushing sea and the fresh smells, in stark contrast with the sensory-deadening rasp of blowing sand from the constant winds of Dune. Even so, she didn’t think she could ever leave the desert planet behind entirely.

When she entered her main chamber, however, she discovered that Alia had left her a grim gift.

Two battered literjons of water rested on the writing table. The containers looked old and scuffed, as if they had been carelessly tossed out
of a spice factory to be weathered on the sands. She didn’t understand the significance. Intriguingly, the literjons bore the worn mark of the Regency.

Considering her growing disagreements with Alia and the tensions brewing in the government, Jessica wondered what her daughter could mean by this gift. No person on Dune would refuse a gift of water, especially such a substantial amount. Was it a peace offering? Alia was certainly aware that her mother disapproved of the purges, the growing repression, the willful exaggerations of Paul’s myth. Still, Jessica did not want to be at odds with her daughter, and she sensed that Alia longed for acceptance as well.

A spice-paper note written in Alia’s hand sat beside one of the literjons. “This water belongs to one who was close to both of us, Mother. Dispose of it as you will.”

Looking more closely at the containers, Jessica saw code letters in Atreides battle language. Even the amazon guards who had delivered the literjons would not have been able to read the message:

Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam.

Jessica froze. This was the reclaimed water of the scheming old woman who had called Alia an Abomination, who had worked repeatedly to destroy Paul and bring down his rule. The water of Jessica’s own birth mother, whom Stilgar had executed.

The water of her mother . . . Did Alia mean this as some kind of threat, warning Jessica that she too could be removed and distilled? No, that didn’t seem correct.

Despite her noble birth, Alia considered herself a Fremen, and the people of the desert revered the water of the dead, considering it a gift to the tribe. The distilled water of one’s mother was also considered sacred, yet Jessica knew what this hateful old woman had done. And she knew how close Mohiam had come to succeeding, not only in her conspiracy to start revolts on numerous worlds, but in duping Jessica. If not for a moment’s hesitation, Jessica might have killed Paul. . . .

Alia was letting
her
decide what to do with the old witch’s water.

Jessica glowered long and hard at the literjons, and said, as if Mohiam could still hear her, “My son always meant more to me than you could imagine—far more than my mother ever did.” Having just relived
all those emotions from telling the story to Gurney and Irulan, she could not contain her bitterness. “You tried to make me murder him.”

Fremen also said that water tainted by an evil spirit must be spilled upon the ground.

Not caring if Alia watched through a hidden spy hole, Jessica twisted off the sealed caps of the literjons. Without hesitation or regret, she poured the water of the loathsome old witch onto the dry stone floor.

Shai-Hulud manifests himself in different ways. Sometimes he is gentle, and sometimes not.

—
The Stilgar Commentaries

Arogue sandworm broke through the moisture barrier that blocked the gap in the Shield Wall, and now the rampaging monster found its way through the narrow passage. It plunged into the squalid settlements that spread outward from Arrakeen like dust seeping through a ragged door seal, and plowed a track of destruction, swallowing entire buildings in monstrous gulps.