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"But you stayed."
"I stayed."
"Because Rabban is here," Paul said.
"I thought I had nothing left but revenge," Gurney said.
An oddly chopped cry sounded from the ridgetop. Gurney looked up to see a Fremen waving his kerchief.
"A maker comes," Paul said. He moved out to a point of rock with Gurney following, looked off to the southwest. The burrow mound of a worm could be seen in the middle distance, a dust-crowned track that cut directly through the dunes on a course toward the ridge.
"He's big enough," Paul said.
A clattering sound lifted from the factory crawler below them. It turned on its treads like a giant insect, lumbered toward the rocks.
"Too bad we couldn't have saved the carryall," Paul said.
Gurney glanced at him, looked back to the patches of smoke and debris out on the desert where carryall and ornithopters had been brought down by Fremen rockets. He felt a sudden pang for the men lost there--his men, and he said: "Your father would've been more concerned for the men he couldn't save."
Paul shot a hard stare at him, lowered his gaze. Presently, he said: "They were your friends, Gurney. I understand. To us, though, they were trespassers who might see things they shouldn't see. You must understand that."
"I understand it well enough," Gurney said. "Now, I'm curious to see what I shouldn't."
Paul looked up to see the old and well-remembered wolfish grin on Halleck's face, the ripple of the inkvine scar along the man's jaw.
Gurney nodded toward the desert below them. Fremen were going about their business all over the landscape. It struck him that none of them appeared worried by the approach of the worm.
A thumping sounded from the open dunes beyond the baited patch of spice--a deep drumming that seemed to be heard through their feet. Gurney saw Fremen spread out across the sand there in the path of the worm.
The worm came on like some great sandfish, cresting the surface, its rings rippling and twisting. In a moment, from his vantage point above the desert, Gurney saw the taking of a worm--the daring leap of the first hookman, the turning of the creature, the way an entire band of men went up the scaly, glistening curve of the worm's side.
"There's one of the things you shouldn't have seen," Paul said.
"There's been stories and rumors," Gurney said. "But it's not a thing easy to believe without seeing it." He shook his head. "The creature all men on Arrakis fear, you treat it like a riding animal."
"You heard my father speak of desert power," Paul said. "There it is. The surface of this planet is ours. No storm nor creature nor condition can stop us."
Us, Gurney thought. He means the Fremen. He speaks of himself as one of them. Again, Gurney looked at the spice blue in Paul's eyes. His own eyes, he knew, had a touch of the color, but smugglers could get offworld foods and there was a subtle caste implication in the tone of the eyes among them. They spoke of "the touch of the spicebrush" to mean a man had gone too native. And there was always a hint of distrust in the idea.
"There was a time when we did not ride the maker in the light of day in these latitudes," Paul said. "But Rabban has little enough air cover left that he can waste it looking for a few specks in the sand." He looked at Gurney. "Your aircraft were a shock to us here."
To us ... to us ....
Gurney shook his head to drive out such thoughts. "We weren't the shock to you that you were to us," he said.
"What's the talk of Rabban in the sinks and villages?" Paul asked.
"They say they've fortified the graben villages to the point where you cannot harm them. They say they need only sit inside their defenses while you wear yourselves out in futile attack."
"In a word," Paul said, "They're immobilized."
"While you can go where you will," Gurney said.
"It's a tactic I learned from you," Paul said. "They've lost the initiative, which means they've lost the war."
Gurney smiled, a slow, knowing expression.
"Our enemy is exactly where I want him to be," Paul said. He glanced at Gurney. "Well, Gurney, do you enlist with me for the finish of this campaign?"
"Enlist?" Gurney stared at him. "My Lord, I've never left your service. You're the only one left me ... to think you dead. And I, being cast adrift, made what shrift I could, waiting for the moment I might sell my life for what it's worth--the death of Rabban."
An embarrassed silence settled over Paul.
A .woman came climbing up the rocks toward them, her eyes between stillsuit hood and face mask flicking between Paul and his companion. She stopped in front of Paul. Gurney noted the possessive air about her, the way she stood close to Paul.
"Chani," Paul said, "this is Gurney Halleck. You've heard me speak of him."
She looked at Halleck, back to Paul. "I have heard."
"Where did the men go on the maker?" Paul asked.
"They but diverted it to give us time to save the equipment."
"Well then ...." Paul broke off, sniffed the air,
"There's wind coming," Chani said.
A voice called out from the ridgetop above them: "Ho, there--the wind!"
Gurney saw a quickening of motion among the Fremen now--a rushing about and sense of hurry. A thing the worm had not ignited was brought about by fear of the wind. The factory crawler lumbered up onto the dry beach below them and a way was opened for it among the rocks ... and the rocks closed behind it so neatly that the passage escaped his eyes.
"Have you many such hiding places?" Gurney asked.
"Many times many," Paul said. He looked at Chani. "Find Korba. Tell him that Gurney has warned me there are men among this smuggler crew who're not to be trusted."
She looked once at Gurney, back to Paul, nodded, and was off down the rocks, leaping with a gazelle-like agility.
"She is your woman," Gurney said.
"The mother of my firstborn," Paul said. "There's another Leto among the
Atreides."
Gurney accepted this with only a widening of the eyes.
Paul watched the action around them with a critical eye. A curry color dominated the southern sky now and there came fitful bursts and gusts of wind that whipped dust around their heads.
"Seal your suit," Paul said. And he fastened the mask and hood about his face.
Gurney obeyed, thankful for the filters.
Paul spoke, his voice muffled by the filter: "Which of your crew don't you trust, Gurney?"
"There're some new recruits," Gurney said. "Offworlders ...." He hesitated, wondering at himself suddenly. Offworlders. The word had come so easily to his tongue.
"Yes?" Paul said.
"They're not like the usual fortune-hunting lot we get," Gurney said. "They're tougher."
"Harkonnen spies?" Paul asked.
"I think m'Lord, that they report to no Harkonnen. I suspect they're men of the Imperial service. They have a hint of Salusa Secundus about them."
Paul shot a sharp glance at him. "Sardaukar?"
Gurney shrugged. "They could be, but it's well masked."
Paul nodded, thinking how easily Gurney had fallen back into the pattern of Atreides retainer ... but with subtle reservations ... differences. Arrakis had changed him, too.
Two hooded Fremen emerged from the broken rock below them, began climbing upward. One of them carried a large black bundle over one shoulder.
"Where are my crew now?" Gurney asked.
"Secure in the rocks below us," Paul said. "We've a cave here--Cave of Birds. We'll decide what to do with them after the storm."
A voice called from above them: "Muad'Dib!"
Paul turned at the call, saw a Fremen guard motioning them down to the cave. Paul signaled he had heard.
Gurney studied him with a new expression. "You're Muad'Dib?" he asked. "You're the will-o'-the-sand?"
"It's my Fremen name," Paul said.
Gurney turned away, feeling an oppressive sense of foreboding. Half his own crew dead on the sand, the others captive. He did not care about the new recruits, the suspicious ones, but among the others were good men, friends, people for whom he felt responsible. "We'll decide what to do with them after the storm. " That's what Paul had said, Muad'Dib had said. And Gurney recalled the stories told of Muad'Dib, the Lisan al-Gaib--how he had taken the skin of a Harkonnen officer to make his drumheads, how he was surrounded by death commandos, Fedaykin who leaped into battle with their death chants on their lips.
