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Him.
The two Fremen climbing up the rocks leaped lightly to a shelf in front of Paul. The dark-faced one said: "All secure, Muad'Dib. We best get below now."
"Right."
Gurney noted the tone of the man's voice--half command and half request. This was the man called Stilgar, another figure of the new Fremen legends.
Paul looked at the bundle the other man carried, said: "Korba, what's in the bundle?"
Stilgar answered: "'Twas in the crawler. It had the initial of your friend here and it contains a baliset. Many times have I heard you speak of the prowess of Gurney Halleck on the baliset."
Gurney studied the speaker, seeing the edge of black beard above the stillsuit mask, the hawk stare, the chiseled nose.
"You've a companion who thinks, m'Lord," Gurney said. "Thank you, Stilgar."
Stilgar signaled for his companion to pass the bundle to Gurney, said: "Thank your Lord Duke. His countenance earns your admittance here."
Gurney accepted the bundle, puzzled by the hard undertones in this conversation. There was an air of challenge about the man, and Gurney wondered if it could be a feeling of jealousy in the Fremen. Here was someone called Gurney Halleck who'd known Paul even in the times before Arrakis, a man who shared a cameraderie that Stilgar could never invade.
"You are two I'd have be friends," Paul said.
"Stilgar, the Fremen, is a name of renown," Gurney said. "Any killer of Harkonnens I'd feel honored to count among my friends."
"Will you touch hands with my friend Gurney Halleck, Stilgar?" Paul asked.
Slowly, Stilgar extended his hand, gripped the heavy calluses of Gurney's swordhand. "There're few who haven't heard the name of Gurney Halleck," he said, and released his grip. He turned to Paul. "The storm comes rushing."
"At once," Paul said.
Stilgar turned away, led them down through the rocks, a twisting and turning path into a shadowed cleft that admitted them to the low entrance of a cave. Men hurried to fasten a doorseal behind them. Glowglobes showed a broad, dome-ceilinged space with a raised ledge on one side and a passage leading off from it.
Paul leaped to the ledge with Gurney right behind him, led the way into the passage. The others headed for another passage opposite the entrance. Paul led the way through an anteroom and into a chamber with dark, wine-colored hangings on its walls.
"We can have some privacy here for a while," Paul said. "The others will respect my--"
An alarm cymbal clanged from the outer chamber, was followed by shouting and clashing of weapons. Paul whirled, ran back through the anteroom and out onto the atrium lip above the outer chamber. Gurney was right behind, weapon drawn.
Beneath them on the floor of the cave swirled a melee of struggling figures. Paul stood an instant assessing the scene, separating the Fremen robes and bourkas from the costumes of those they opposed. Senses that his mother had trained to detect the most subtle clues picked out a significant face--the Fremen fought against men wearing smuggler robes, but the smugglers were crouched in trios, backed into triangles where pressed.
That habit of close fighting was a trademark of the Imperial Sardaukar.
A Fedaykin in the crowd saw Paul, and his battlecry was lifted to echo in the chamber: "Muad'Dib! Muad'Dib! Muad'Dib!"
Another eye had also picked Paul out. A black knife came hurtling toward him. Paul dodged, heard the knife clatter against stone behind him, glanced to see Gurney retrieve it.
The triangular knots were being pressed back now.
Gurney held the knife up in front of Paul's eyes, pointed to the hairline yellow coil of Imperial color, the golden lion crest, multifaceted eyes at the pommel.
Sardaukar for certain.
Paul stepped out to the lip of the ledge. Only three of the Sardaukar remained. Bloody rag mounds of Sardaukar and Fremen lay in a twisted pattern across the chamber.
"Hold!" Paul shouted. "The Duke Paul Atreides commands you to hold!"
The fighting wavered, hesitated.
"You Sardaukar!" Paul called to the remaining group. "By whose orders do you threaten a ruling Duke?" And, quickly, as his men started to press in around the Sardaukar: "Hold, I say!"
One of the cornered trio straightened. "Who says we're Sardaukar?" he demanded.
Paul took the knife from Gurney, held it aloft. "This says you're Sardaukar."
"Then who says you're a ruling Duke?" the man demanded.
Paul gestured to the Fedaykin. "These men say I'm a ruling Duke. Your own emperor bestowed Arrakis on House Atreides. I am House Atreides."
The Sardaukar stood silent, fidgeting.
Paul studied the man--tall, flat-featured, with a pale scar across half his left cheek. Anger and confusion were betrayed in his manner, but still there was that pride about him without which a Sardaukar appeared undressed--and with which he could appear fully clothed though naked.
Paul glanced to one of his Fedaykin lieutenants, said: "Korba, how came they to have weapons?"
"They held back knives concealed in cunning pockets within their stillsuits," the lieutenant said.
Paul surveyed the dead and wounded across the chamber, brought his attention back to the lieutenant. There was no need for words. The lieutenant lowered his eyes.
"Where is Chani?" Paul asked and waited, breath held, for the answer.
"Stilgar spirited her aside." He nodded toward the other passage, glanced at the dead and wounded. "I hold myself responsible for this mistake, Muad'Dib."
"How many of these Sardaukar were there, Gurney?" Paul asked.
"Ten."
Paul leaped lightly to the floor of the chamber, strode across to stand within striking distance of the Sardaukar spokesman.
A tense air came over the Fedaykin. They did not like him thus exposed to danger. This was the thing they were pledged to prevent because the Fremen wished to preserve the wisdom of Muad'Dib.
Without turning, Paul spoke to his lieutenant: "How many are our casualties?"
"Four wounded, two dead, Muad'Dib."
Paul saw motion beyond the Sardaukar, Chani and Stilgar were standing in the other passage. He returned his attention to the Sardaukar, staring into the offworld whites of the spokesman's eyes. "You, what is your name?" Paul demanded.
The man stiffened, glanced left and right.
"Don't try it," Paul said. "It's obvious to me that you were ordered to seek out and destroy Muad'Dib. I'll warrant you were the ones suggested seeking spice in the deep desert."
A gasp from Gurney behind him brought a thin smile to Paul's lips.
Blood suffused the Sardaukar's face.
"What you see before you is more than Muad'Dib," Paul said. "Seven of you are dead for two of us. Three for one. Pretty good against Sardaukar, eh?"
The man came up on his toes, sank back as the Fedaykin pressed forward.
"I asked your name," Paul said, and he called up the subtleties of Voice: "Tell me your name!"
"Captain Aramsham, Imperial Sardaukar!" the man snapped. His jaw dropped. He stared at Paul in confusion. The manner about him that had dismissed this cavern as a barbarian warren melted away.
"Well, Captain Aramsham," Paul said, "the Harkonnens would pay dearly to learn what you now know. And the Emperor--what he wouldn't give to learn an Atreides still lives despite his treachery."
The captain glanced left and right at the two men remaining to him. Paul could almost see the thoughts turning over in the man's head. Sardaukar did not submit, but the Emperor had to learn of this threat.
Still using the Voice, Paul said: "Submit, Captain."
The man at the captain's left leaped without warning toward Paul, met the flashing impact of his own captain's knife in his chest. The attacker hit the floor in a sodden heap with the knife still in him.
The captain faced his sole remaining companion. "I decide what best serves His Majesty," he said. "Understood?"
The other Sardaukar's shoulders slumped.
"Drop your weapon,"
the captain said.
The Sardaukar obeyed.
The captain returned his attention to Paul. "I have killed a friend for you," he said. "Let us always remember that."
"You're my prisoners," Paul said. "You submitted to me. Whether you live or die is of no importance." He motioned to his guard to take the two Sardaukar, signaled the lieutenant who had searched the prisoners.
The guard moved in, hustled the Sardaukar away.
Paul bent toward his lieutenant.
"Muad'Dib," the man said. "I failed you in ...."
"The failure was mine, Korba," Paul said. "I should've warned you what to seek. In the future, when searching Sardaukar, remember this. Remember, too, that each has a false toenail or two that can be combined with other items secreted about their bodies to make an effective transmitter. They'll have more than one false tooth. They carry coils of shigawire in their hair--so fine you can barely detect it, yet strong enough to garrote a man and cut off his head in the process. With Sardaukar, you must scan them, scope them--both reflex and hard ray--cut off every scrap of body hair. And when you're through, be certain you haven't discovered everything."
He looked up at Gurney, who had moved close to listen.
"Then we best kill them," the lieutenant said.
Paul shook his head, still looking at Gurney. "No. I want them to escape."
Gurney stared at him. "Sire ...." he breathed.
"Yes?"
"Your man here is right. Kill those prisoners at once. Destroy all evidence of them. You've shamed Imperial Sardaukar! When the Emperor learns that he'll not rest until he has you over a slow fire."
