[Dune7: Advent]

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[Interlude One: “The Maelstrom”]

What ties bind you to this place? Any pledge of allegiance to Muad’Dib lost its power long ago, because he is gone, and these are not his priests. He attempted to teach you strength of charachter, pride in your inheritance, and integrity of values, but instead you gave him chaos unleashed and over 70 billion deaths! If you jump on the sand, the worm will come eventually, and it will devour you. What will be that worm for you? If outwardly directed acts fail to elicit a response, the angry eye will look inward. Will you turn on eachother once the rest of the known universe has been eradicated? I teach you expansion and integration instead. Scatter, my children! The Womb Of Heaven is barren, and you need to go out and find more fertile land!

-The Preacher at Arrakeen.

            Stilgar followed his friend across the red sand of the Funeral Plain southward, away from Sietch Tabr. They moved in the erratic walking style the Fremen had invented to simulate the sounds the wind and the sand would naturally generate, to prevent a sandworm from noticing them. Step-slide-wait-step-step-skip-slide… an extremely tiring way of traveling, but the only safe one in this unforgiving environment.

            Despite being much more experienced in Fremen ways, Stilgar was growing tired and had trouble keeping up with his companion, but pride prevented him from asking for a slower pace. Aaah, the strength of youth, he thought. Still, I must not feel sorrow for being past my physical prime. I still have many good years left in me.

            He looked at the back of his companion. The fact he feels he can turn his back to me in the open desert proves he trusts me completely. He’s the emperor of the known universe, and he still calls me his friend.

            The old Naib had no idea why Paul Atreides had taken him into the desert just now. They had been traveling for over three hours, and Paul hadn’t said anything since waking Stilgar from a barely restful night’s sleep with the words “Follow me”.

            “My Lord…”, Stilgar started to say, but Paul interrupted him, looking over his shoulder and smiling.

            “Please, we’re Fremen together in the desert - equals. You know my name, old friend.”

            “Paul…” the startled Naib said hesitatingly, “where are we going?”

            “To the end.”

            “The end of what?”

            Suddenly Paul halted, unslung the Fremkit from his shoulders and removed a thumper. He planted it in the sand and unlatched the safety, watching the spring-driven clapper gain momentum. Thump-thump-thump, it sounded. He was calling Shai-Hulud.

            It wasn’t long until they sensed the approach of a worm, a hissing sound combined with a tremor they felt through the soles of their boots. They moved away from the thumper, and saw the beast’s giant mouth rise from the sand, swallowing the small device that had attracted him.

            “This is a big one, My… Paul,” Stilgar shouted over the terrifying noise the arrival of the Old Man Of The Desert generated. “I can’t recall ever seeing one this large. 500 metres at least.”

            Paul did not respond, but ran up to the passing beast, and planted a maker hook between two of the worm’s pockmarked segments, exposing the soft tissue underneath. Stilgar immediately did the same several segments further from the head. The worm turned to prevent sand from reaching the vulnerable spots, pulling the two sandriders upward. Paul was first on his feet, and ran to the front of the worm to plant the hooks used for steering the beast. He forced the worm on a course southward, into the deep desert.

            Stilgar walked up beside Paul, fighting against the air currents the worm’s high speed generated. “Have you seen the marks on this worm? This one must be very old.”

            Paul nodded. “This is probably one of the oldest worms still alive.” A look of sadness came over his face.

            “What is the matter?”

            Paul forced the worm to increase the speed. “Our plantation projects, the quanats… We’re killing these magnificent creatures, Stilgar.”

            The old Fremen gasped. Of course he knew about the worms’ intolerance of moisture, but the extreme pessimism of the scenario Paul’s remark hinted at came as a rather unpleasant surprise to him. “The desert will not survive?”

            Paul appeared to not have heard the question. “Have you ever thought about how many deaths my reign has cost so far? Seven years of Atreides rulership of the known universe, and already billions are dead.”

            Paul contemplated this himself now. The Jihad was inevitable… Or wasn’t it? Could I have done something to prevent all these deaths? The Fremen were a suppressed force ready to be unleashed, and my presence gave them a rallying point. I’m merely a product of my environment - the Bene Gesserit breeding programme, the environment the meddling of the Sisterhood’s Missionaria Protectiva created on Dune - and I was powerless to turn the tide I was swept away in.

            Paul noticed Stilgar’s questioning glance, but ignored it. The ideas and their consequences whirled around in his head, each new realisation leading to new questions. I must face it - my arrival on this planet was both a blessing and a curse to the Fremen. For uncounted generations they had been stepped on, disregarded, ridiculed and persecuted - an unrelenting drive to compensate for these influences is partly why they became such formidable fighters - but for them to be given a Messiah… I blatantly tapped into the powerful religious forces seething just beneath the surface to ensure my own survival, to further my own goals. In all honesty, the prospect of being a god didn’t sound unappealing to me, and I swallowed the bait greedily.

What gave me the right to do all the things I did? The religion in my empire is not pure and honest, but a tool devoid of all intrinsic worth, something that is used to create leverage to enforce my laws. This religion was constructed, and as the basis of a system of political and sociological beliefs permeating the entire empire, it is shoddy indeed.

The laws governing my subjects… are they my laws? Is a tool ever merely what the user intends it to be, or does one get trapped within the structure of dependencies and opened or closed-off possibilities a tool generates? On another level, to what extent am I the one wielding the tools of my rule? The Bene Gesserit teach one must attempt to avoid dependencies whenever possible - how much of a slave am I to the organisation that has grown around me, instead of the ruler I’m supposed and percieved to be?

What is my real power based on? My Fremen follow me because I personify the fulfillment of a prophecy. In the rest of the Imperium they fear the punishment my Fremen are capable of dispensing, and our control of the Spice. Such a dangerous substance… Not only does it create an irreversable dependency relation, it is the only thing that binds together the highly unstable political tripod: the Great Houses of the Landsraad, the Guild and the Imperial House. Religion will only function as a strengthening factor for a limited amount of time, especially when it’s built on contingencies and lies.

Only the Spice remains, but is Dune’s monopoly strong enough to withstand the storm that could be unleashed once the Jihad exceeds certain tolerancy levels? There are so many unknowns, even with my prescience. When I see more in one direction this obscures the view everywhere else…

            The worm was old but very strong, and slowed no signs of tiring yet. Stilgar was starting to get restless. Paul wasn’t goading the worm towards a sietch - there was nothing but open desert ahead of them -, and they had neither the supplies nor the free time to travel all the way to the south pole, where the palmaries were.

            “Paul, where are we going?”, he inquired once more.

            Once again, Paul did not react to the question, immersed in his own thoughts.

“Paul?” Almost angrily now.

“Stilgar, do you resent me?”

            “Resent you?”

            “Yes. Do you hate me for becoming the leader of the Fremen, even though I was born a water-fat offworlder?” The vast oceans of his homeworld Caladan seemed farther away and more alien to him every day, and his immersion in the lifestyle of the Fremen had given his memories of swimming and boats almost mythical qualities. Being the emperor, he could choose to return to Caladan whenever he wished, but his integration with the Fremen and their planet was too thorough. Still, sometimes he would dream of roaring rivers, and running across them on the rocks that bent the stream. Once, he had fallen in, and the water had taken him away to a most frightening place. Thousands of years of enforced peace - stagnation under total oppression! Was that one of my prescient dreams?

For a brief moment, it appeared to him as if the worm he was on was a ship, and the dunes around him waves of brightest blue. Stilgar’s voice brought him back to reality.

            “Certainly not! You are our Lisan al-Gaib, and you have proven yourself in battle many times. No one is more worthy to lead the Fremen.”

            “Do you think I’m holy?”

            What in Liet’s name is he trying to say? Stilgar thought. Is this a lesson? “You and your sister are the prophets that have been sent to Dune to lead the Fremen to glory.”

            “Ah yes, my sister. Alia does not even remember herself what she sacrificed for me and my son.”

            Stilgar thought he understood now why Paul was acting so strangely. After all this time, he’s still mourning the loss of little Leto. As before, bringing him back to harsh reality could be the best strategy. “Your son is dead.”

            “I thank you for your candour, old friend, but you misunderstand.” He once more shifted the topic of conversation. “What do you know of Ix?”

            Stilgar decided to stop trying to understand his master, and simply move along to wherever the wind would take him. “I’ve seen the people of the cities sometimes buy their technological devices, but most of these are useless. Fremen products are vastly superior.”

            Paul smiled, but sadness overcame him once more when a line of thought discarded a few minutes ago wrestled its way back to consciousness. When religion fails to hold together the political tripod, and the Fremen control of the Spice is not enough, what will happen? What elements remain hidden in my empire? Were my visions correct - machines hunting people? I cannot do what my vision demands of me to prevent this…

            The worm started to lose speed, and Paul allowed to it come to a halt. It is time, he thought. He turned to face Stilgar. “When I’m gone, will you take care of the Atreides legacy for me?”

            “When you’re gone? What are you planning to do?”

            “That moment won’t come for a long time, but when it happens…”

            “You know I will be loyal to the death, but I’m old. I’m certain you will survive long…”

            Paul interrupted sharply. “Remember this! Be careful in picking the alliances you build your life around. You are human. You are defined by the way you relate to your environment. Don’t forget that.”

            Before Stilgar could respond, Paul ran towards the back of the worm, jumping down onto the sand before getting too close to the tail where hot oxygen, formed by reactions deep inside the worm, wafted into the air. When Stilgar joined him on the sand, he noticed something strange.

            “Paul, the worm is not burrowing into the sand. Surely he can’t be that tired…”

            “He is dead.”

            “Dead?”

            “He was old, Stilgar. He called me to ride him once before he died. Never again shall there be a worm this large on Dune - the younger worms are already becoming less numerous and not as large as before.”

            “The plantation projects…”, Stilgar realised. Water.

            Sweeping his gaze across the horizon, the terrible future of the course that had been chosen engulfed Paul completely for the first time. He shuddered at the cruelty he witnessed in the vision. I’ve seen mere fragments prior to this moment. I’m not strong enough to accept that terrible fate. It shouldn’t happen… but it will.

            Looking around him, Stilgar saw nothing but a continuously changing sea of sand surrounding the dead worm, the first stages of a terrible coriolis storm obscuring all reference points. “Paul? Where are we?”

            Paul emerged from his vision, and sat down, leaning against the corpse of the worm. “We’re at the beginning of the end.”

continue

                                                                Last modified: May 24, 2000