Dune 1 - Dune

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Dune

Frank Herbert

Book 1 - Dune ........................................................... 4

Book Two - MUAD'DIB ........................................... 371

Book Three - THE PROPHET .................................... 672

Book 1 - Dune

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate

care that the balances are correct. This every sister of

the Bene Gesserit knows. To begin your study of the life

of Muad'Dib, then, take care that you first place him in

his time: born in the 57th year of the Padishah

Emperor, Shaddam IV. And take the most special care

that you locate Muad'Dib in his place: the planet

Arrakis. Do not be deceived by the fact that he was

born on Caladan and lived his first fifteen years there.

Arrakis, the planet known as Dune, is forever his place.

-from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all

the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable

frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy,

Paul.

It was a warm night at Castle Caladan, and the ancient

pile of stone that had served the Atreides family as home

for twenty-six generations bore that cooled-sweat feeling it

acquired before a change in the weather.

The old woman was let in by the side door down the

vaulted passage by Paul's room and she was allowed a

moment to peer in at him where he lay in his bed.

By the half-light of a suspensor lamp, dimmed and

hanging near the floor, the awakened boy could see a

bulky female shape at his door, standing one step ahead of

his mother. The old woman was a witch shadow -- hair like

matted spiderwebs, hooded 'round darkness of features,

eyes like glittering jewels.

"Is he not small for his age, Jessica?" the old woman

asked. Her voice wheezed and twanged like an untuned

baliset.

Paul's mother answered in her soft contralto: "The

Atreides are known to start late getting their growth, Your

Reverence."

"So I've heard, so I've heard," wheezed the old woman.

"Yet he's already fifteen."

"Yes, Your Reverence."

"He's awake and listening to us," said the old woman.

"Sly little rascal." She chuckled. "But royalty has need of

slyness. And if he's really the Kwisatz Haderach . . . well . .

Within the shadows of his bed, Paul held his eyes open

to mere slits. Two bird-bright ovals -- the eyes of the old

woman -- seemed to expand and glow as they stared into

his.

"Sleep well, you sly little rascal," said the old woman.

"Tomorrow you'll need all your faculties to meet my gom

jabbar."

And she was gone, pushing his mother out, closing the

door with a solid thump.

Paul lay awake wondering: What's a gom jabbar?

In all the upset during this time of change, the old

woman was the strangest thing he had seen.

Your Reverence.

And the way she called his mother Jessica like a

common serving wench instead of what she was -- a Bene

Gesserit Lady, a duke's concubine and mother of the ducal

heir.

Is a gom jabbar something of Arrakis I must know

before we go there? he wondered.

He mouthed her strange words: Gom jabbar . . .

Kwisatz Haderach.

There had been so many things to learn. Arrakis would

be a place so different from Caladan that Paul's mind

whirled with the new knowledge. Arrakis -- Dune -- Desert

Planet.

Thufir Hawat, his father's Master of Assassins, had

explained it: their mortal enemies, the Harkonnens, had

been on Arrakis eighty years, holding the planet in quasi-

fief under a CHOAM Company contract to mine the

geriatric spice, melange. Now the Harkonnens were leaving

to be replaced by the House of Atreides in fief-complete --

an apparent victory for the Duke Leto. Yet, Hawat had

said, this appearance contained the deadliest peril, for the

Duke Leto was popular among the Great Houses of the

Landsraad.

"A popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful,"

Hawat had said.

Arrakis -- Dune -- Desert Planet.

Paul fell asleep to dream of an Arrakeen cavern, silent

people all around him moving in the dim light of

glowglobes. It was solemn there and like a cathedral as he

listened to a faint sound -- the drip-drip-drip of water.

Even while he remained in the dream, Paul knew he would

remember it upon awakening. He always remembered the

dreams that were predictions.

The dream faded.

Paul awoke to feel himself in the warmth of his bed --

thinking . . . thinking. This world of Castle Caladan,

without play or companions his own age, perhaps did not

deserve sadness in farewell. Dr. Yueh, his teacher, had

hinted that the faufreluches class system was not rigidly

guarded on Arrakis. The planet sheltered people who lived

at the desert edge without caid or bashar to command

them: will-o'-the-sand people called Fremen, marked down

on no census of the Imperial Regate.

Arrakis -- Dune -- Desert Planet.

Paul sensed his own tensions, decided to practice one of

the mind-body lessons his mother had taught him. Three

quick breaths triggered the responses: he fell into the

floating awareness . . . focusing the consciousness . . .

aortal dilation . . . avoiding the unfocused mechanism of

consciousness . . . to be conscious by choice . . . blood

enriched and swift-flooding the overload regions . . . one

does not obtain food-safety-freedom by instinct alone . . .

animal consciousness does not extend beyond the given

moment nor into the idea that its victims may become

extinct . . . the animal destroys and does not produce . . .

animal pleasures remain close to sensation levels and

avoid the perceptual . . . the human requires a background

grid through which to see his universe . . . focused

consciousness by choice, this forms your grid . . . bodily

integrity follows nerve-blood flow according to the deepest

awareness of cell needs . . . all things/cells/beings are

impermanent . . . strive for flow-permanence within . . .

Over and over and over within Paul's floating awareness

the lesson rolled.

When dawn touched Paul's window sill with yellow light,

he sensed it through closed eyelids, opened them, hearing

then the renewed bustle and hurry in the castle, seeing the

familiar patterned beams of his bedroom ceiling.

The hall door opened and his mother peered in, hair like

shaded bronze held with a black ribbon at the crown, her

oval face emotionless and green eyes staring solemnly.

"You're awake," she said. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes."

He studied the tallness of her, saw the hint of tension in

her shoulders as she chose clothing for him from the closet

racks. Another might have missed the tension, but she had

trained him in the Bene Gesserit Way -- in the minutiae of

observation. She turned, holding a semiformal jacket for

him. It carried the red Atreides hawk crest above the

breast pocket.

"Hurry and dress," she said. "Reverend Mother is

waiting."

"I dreamed of her once," Paul said. "Who is she?"

"She was my teacher at the Bene Gesserit school. Now,

she's the Emperor's Truthsayer. And Paul . . . " She

hesitated. "You must tell her about your dreams."

"I will. Is she the reason we got Arrakis?"

"We did not get Arrakis." Jessica flicked dust from a pair

of trousers, hung them with the jacket on the dressing

stand beside his bed. "Don't keep Reverend Mother

waiting."

Paul sat up, hugged his knees. "What's a gom jabbar?"

Again, the training she had given him exposed her

almost invisible hesitation, a nervous betrayal he felt as

fear.

Jessica crossed to the window, flung wide the draperies,

stared across the river orchards toward Mount Syubi.

"You'll learn about . . . the gom jabbar soon enough," she

said.

He heard the fear in her voice and wondered at it.

Jessica spoke without turning. "Reverend Mother is

waiting in my morning room. Please hurry."

The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam sat in a

tapestried chair watching mother and son approach.

Windows on each side of her overlooked the curving

southern bend of the river and the green farmlands of the

Atreides family holding, but the Reverend Mother ignored

the view. She was feeling her age this morning, more than

a little petulant. She blamed it on space travel and

association with that abominable Spacing Guild and its

secretive ways. But here was a mission that required

personal attention from a Bene Gesserit-with-the-Sight.

Even the Padishah Emperor's Truthsayer couldn't evade

that responsibility when the duty call came.

Damn that Jessica! the Reverend Mother thought. If

only she 'd borne us a girl as she was ordered to do!

Jessica stopped three paces from the chair, dropped a

small curtsy, a gentle flick of left hand along the line of her

skirt. Paul gave the short bow his dancing master had

taught -- the one used "when in doubt of another's

station."

The nuances of Paul's greeting were not lost on the

Reverend Mother. She said: "He's a cautious one, Jessica."

Jessica's hand went to Paul's shoulder, tightened there.

For a heartbeat, fear pulsed through her palm. Then she

had herself under control. "Thus he has been taught, Your

Reverence."

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DuneFrankHerbertCopyright1965Book1-Dune...........................................................4BookTwo-MUAD'DIB...........................................371BookThree-THEPROPHET....................................672Book1-DuneAbeginningisthetimefortakingthemostdelicatecarethatthebalancesarecorre...

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