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Kynes stared at him, seeing the water-fat flesh. He spoke coldly: "You never talk of likelihoods on Arrakis. You speak only of possibilities."
Halleck stiffened. "The Duke is to be addressed as my Lord or Sire!"
Leto gave Halleck their private handsignal to desist, said: "Our ways are new here, Gurney. We must make allowances."
"As you wish, Sire."
"We are indebted to you, Dr. Kynes," Leto said. "These suits and the consideration for our welfare will be remembered."
On impulse, Paul called to mind a quotation from the O.C. Bible, said: "'The gift is the blessing of the giver.' "
The words rang out overloud in the still air. The Fremen escort Kynes had left in the shade of the administration building leaped up from their squatting repose, muttering in open agitation. One cried out: "Lisan al-Gaib!"
Kynes whirled, gave a curt, chopping signal with a hand, waved the guard away. They fell back, grumbling among themselves, trailed away around the building.
"Most interesting," Leto said.
Kynes passed a hard glare over the Duke and Paul, said: "Most of the desert natives here are a superstitious lot. Pay no attention to them. They mean no harm." But he thought of the words of the legend: "They will greet you with Holy Words and your gifts will be a blessing. "
Leto's assessment of Kynes--based partly on Hawat's brief verbal report (guarded and full of suspicions)--suddenly crystallized: the man was Fremen. Kynes had come with a Fremen escort, which could mean simply that the Fremen were testing their new freedom to enter urban areas--but it had seemed an honor guard. And by his manner, Kynes was a proud man, accustomed to freedom, his tongue and his manner guarded only by his own suspicions. Paul's question had been direct and pertinent.
Kynes had gone native.
"Shouldn't we be going, Sire?" Halleck asked.
The Duke nodded. "I'll fly my own 'thopter. Kynes can sit up front with me to direct me. You and Paul take the rear seats."
"One moment, please," Kynes said. "With your permission, Sire, I must check the security of your suits."
The Duke started to speak, but Kynes pressed on: "I have concern for my own flesh as well as yours ... my Lord. I'm well aware of whose throat would be slit should harm befall you two while you're in my care."
The Duke frowned, thinking: How delicate this moment! If I refuse, it may offend him. And this could be a man whose value to me is beyond measure. Yet ... to let him inside my shield, touching my person when I know so little about him?
The thoughts flicked through his mind with decision hard on their heels. "We're in your hands," the Duke said. He stepped forward, opening his robe, saw Halleck come up on the balls of his feet, poised and alert, but remaining where he was. "And, if you'd be so kind," the Duke said, "I'd appreciate an explanation of the suit from one who lives so intimately with it."
"Certainly," Kynes said. He felt up under the robe for the shoulder seals, speaking as he examined the suit. "It's basically a micro-sandwich--a high-efficiency filter and heat-exchange system." He adjusted the shoulder seals. "The skin-contact layer's porous. Perspiration passes through it, having cooled the body... near-normal evaporation process. The next two layers..." Kynes tightened the chest fit. "... include heat exchange filaments and salt precipitators. Salt's reclaimed."
The Duke lifted his arms at a gesture, said: "Most interesting."
"Breathe deeply," Kynes said.
The Duke obeyed.
Kynes studied the underarm seals, adjusted one. "Motions of the body, especially breathing," he said, "and some osmotic action provide the pumping force." He loosened the chest fit slightly. "Reclaimed water circulates to catchpockets from which you draw it through this tube in the clip at your neck."
The Duke twisted his chin in and down to look at the end of the tube. "Efficient and convenient," he said. "Good engineering."
Kynes knelt, examined the leg seals. "Urine and feces are processed in the thigh pads," he said, and stood up, felt the neck fitting, lifted a sectioned flap there. "In the open desert, you wear this filter across your face, this tube in the nostrils with these plugs to insure a tight fit. Breathe in through the mouth filter, out through the nose tube. With a Fremen suit in good working order, you won't lose more than a thimbleful of moisture a day--even if you're caught in the Great Erg."
"A thimbleful a day," the Duke said.
Kynes pressed a finger against the suit's forehead pad, said: "This may rub a little. If it irritates you, please tell me. I could slit-patch it a bit tighter."
"My thanks," the Duke said. He moved his shoulders in the suit as Kynes stepped back, realizing that it did feel better now--tighter and less irritating.
Kynes turned to Paul. "Now, let's have a look at you, lad."
A good man but he'll have to learn to address us properly, the Duke thought.
Paul stood passively as Kynes inspected the suit. It had been an odd sensation putting on the crinkling, slick-surfaced garment. In his foreconsciousness had been the absolute knowledge that he had never before worn a stillsuit. Yet, each motion of adjusting the adhesion tabs under Gurney's inexpert guidance had seemed natural, instinctive. When he had tightened the chest to gain maximum pumping action from the motion of breathing, he had known what he did and why. When he had fitted the neck and forehead tabs tightly, he had known it was to prevent friction blisters.
Kynes straightened, stepped back with a puzzled expression. "You've worn a stillsuit before?" he asked.
"This is the first time."
"Then someone adjusted it for you?"
"No."
"Your desert boots are fitted slip-fashion at the ankles. Who told you to do that?"
"It... seemed the right way."
"That it most certainly is."
And Kynes rubbed his cheek, thinking of the legend: "He shall know your ways as though born to them. "
"We waste time," the Duke said. He gestured to the waiting 'thopter, led the way, accepting the guard's salute with a nod. He climbed in, fastened his safety harness, checked controls and instruments. The craft creaked as the others clambered aboard.
Kynes fastened his harness, focused on the padded comfort of the aircraft--soft luxury of gray-green upholstery, gleaming instruments, the sensation of filtered and washed air in his lungs as doors slammed and vent fans whirred alive.
So soft! he thought.
"All secure, Sire," Halleck said.
Leto fed power to the wings, felt them cup and dip--once, twice. They were airborne in ten meters, wings feathered tightly and afterjets thrusting them upward in a steep, hissing climb.
"Southeast over the Shield Wall," Kynes said. "That's where I told your sandmaster to concentrate his equipment."
"Right."
The Duke banked into his air cover, the other craft taking up their guard positions as they headed southeast.
"The design and manufacture of these stillsuits bespeaks a high degree of sophistication," the Duke said.
"Someday I may show you a sietch factory," Kynes said.
"I would find that interesting," the Duke said. "I note that suits are manufactured also in some of the garrison cities."
"Inferior copies," Kynes said. "Any Dune man who values his skin wears a Fremen suit."
"And it'll hold your water loss to a thimbleful a day?"
"Properly suited, your forehead cap tight, all seals in order, your major water loss is through the palms of your hands," Kynes said. "You can wear suit gloves if you're not using your hands for critical work, but most Fremen in the open desert rub their hands with juice from the leaves of the creosote bush. It inhibits perspiration."
The Duke glanced down to the left at the broken landscape of the Shield Wall--chasms of tortured rock, patches of yellow-brown crossed by black lines of fault shattering. It was as though someone had dropped this ground from space and left it where it smashed.
They crossed a shallow basin with the clear outline of gray sand spreading across it from
a canyon opening to the south. The sand fingers ran out into the basin--a dry delta outlined against darker rock.
Kynes sat back, thinking about the water-fat flesh he had felt beneath the stillsuits. They wore shield belts over their robes, slow pellet stunners at the waist, coin-sized emergency transmitters on cords around their necks. Both the Duke and his son carried knives in wrist sheathes and the sheathes appeared well worn. The people struck Kynes as a strange combination of softness and armed strength. There was a poise to them totally unlike the Harkonnens.
"When you report to the Emperor on the change of government here, will you say we observed the rules?" Leto asked. He glanced at Kynes, back to their course.
"The Harkonnens left; you came," Kynes said.
"And is everything as it should be?" Leto asked.
Momentary tension showed in the tightening of a muscle along Kynes' jaw. "As Planetologist and Judge of the Change, I am a direct subject of the Imperium... my Lord."
The Duke smiled grimly. "But we both know the realities."
"I remind you that His Majesty supports my work."
"Indeed? And what is your work?"
In the brief silence, Paul thought: He's pushing this Kynes too hard. Paul glanced at Halleck, but the minstrel-warrior was staring out at the barren landscape.
Kynes spoke stiffly: "You, of course, refer to my duties as planetologist."
"Of course."
"It is mostly dry land biology and botany... some geological work--core drilling and testing. You never really exhaust the possibilities of an entire planet."
"Do you also investigate the spice?"
Kynes turned, and Paul noted the hard line of the man's cheek. "A curious question, my Lord."
"Bear in mind, Kynes, that this is now my fief. My methods differ from those of the Harkonnens. I don't care if you study the spice as long as I share what you discover." He glanced at the planetologist. "The Harkonnens discouraged investigation of the spice, didn't they?"
Kynes stared back without answering.
"You may speak plainly," the Duke said, "without fear for your skin."
