“Unbelievers!” Korba protested. “Unbelievers all!”
“No,” Paul said. “Believers.”
“My Liege makes a joke,” Korba said, voice trembling. “The Jihad has brought ten thousand worlds into the shining light of—”
“Into the darkness,” Paul said. “We’ll be a hundred generations recovering from Muad’dib’s Jihad. I find it hard to imagine that anyone will ever surpass this.” A barking laugh erupted from his throat.
“What amuses Muad’dib?” Stilgar asked.
“I am not amused. I merely had a sudden vision of the Emperor Hitler saying something similar. No doubt he did.”
“No other ruler ever had your powers,” Korba argued. “Who would dare challenge you? Your legions control the known universe and all the—”
“The legions control,” Paul said. “I wonder if they know this?”
“You control your legions, Sire,” Stilgar interrupted, and it was obvious from the tone of his voice that he suddenly felt his own position in that chain of command, his own hand guiding all that power.
Having set Stilgar’s thoughts in motion along the track he wanted, Paul turned his full attention to Korba, said: “Put the reels here on the divan.” As Korba obeyed, Paul said: “How goes the reception, Korba? Does my sister have everything well in hand?”
“Yes, m’Lord.” Korba’s tone was wary. “And Chani watches from the spy hole. She suspects there may be Sardaukar in the Guild entourage.”
“No doubt she’s correct,” Paul said. “The jackals gather.”
“Bannerjee,” Stilgar said, naming the chief of Paul’s Security detail,
“was worried earlier that some of them might try to penetrate the private areas of the Keep.”
“Have they?”
“Not yet.”
“But there was some confusion in the formal gardens,” Korba said.
“What sort of confusion?” Stilgar demanded.
Paul nodded.
“Strangers coming and going,” Korba said, “trampling the plants, whispered conversations—I heard reports of some disturbing remarks.”
“Such as?” Paul asked.
“Is this the way our taxes are spent? I’m told the Ambassador himself asked that question.”
“I don’t find that surprising,” Paul said. “Were there many strangers in the gardens?”
“Dozens, m’Lord.”
“Bannerjee stationed picked troopers at the vulnerable doors, m’Lord,” Stilgar said. He turned as he spoke, allowing the salon’s single remaining light to illuminate half his face. The peculiar lighting, the face, all touched a node of memory in Paul’s mind—something from the desert. Paul didn’t bother bringing it to full recall, his attention being focused on how Stilgar had pulled back mentally. The Fremen had a tight-skinned forehead which mirrored almost every thought flickering across his mind. He was suspicious now, profoundly suspicious of his Emperor’s odd behavior.
“I don’t like the intrusion into the gardens,” Paul said. “Courtesy to guests is one thing, and the formal necessities of greeting an envoy, but this …”
“I’ll see to removing them,” Korba said. “Immediately.”
“Wait!” Paul ordered as Korba started to turn.
In the abrupt stillness of the moment, Stilgar edged himself into a position where he could study Paul’s face. It was deftly done. Paul admired the way of it, an achievement devoid of any forwardness. It was a Fremen thing: slyness touched by respect for another’s privacy, a movement of necessity.
“What time is it?” Paul asked.
“Almost midnight, Sire,” Korba said.
“Korba, I think you may be my finest creation,” Paul said.
“Sire!” There was injury in Korba’s voice.
“Do you feel awe of me?” Paul asked.
“You are Paul-Muad’dib who was Usul in our sietch,” Korba said. “You know my devotion to—”
“Have you ever felt like an apostle?” Paul asked.
Korba obviously misunderstood the words, but correctly interpreted the tone. “My Emperor knows I have a clean conscience!”
“Shai-hulud save us,” Paul murmured.
The questioning silence of the moment was broken by the sound of someone whistling as he walked down the outer hall. The whistling was stilled by a guardsman’s barked command as it came opposite the door.
“Korba, I think you may survive all this,” Paul said. And he read the growing light of understanding on Stilgar’s face.
“The strangers in the gardens, Sire?” Stilgar asked.
“Ahh, yes,” Paul said. “Have Bannerjee put them out, Stil. Korba will assist.”
“Me, Sire?” Korba betrayed deep disquiet.
“Some of my friends have forgotten they once were Fremen,” Paul said, speaking to Korba, but designing his words for Stilgar. “You will mark down the ones Chani identifies as Sardaukar and you will have them killed. Do it yourself. I want it done quietly and without undue disturbance. We must keep in mind that there’s more to religion and government than approving treaties and sermons.
“I obey the orders of Muad’dib,” Korba whispered.
“The Zabulon computations?” Stilgar asked.
“Tomorrow,” Paul said. “And when the strangers are removed from the gardens, announce that the reception is ended. The party’s over, Stil.”
“I understand, m’Lord.”
“I’m sure you do,” Paul said.
***
Here lies a toppled god—
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.
Alia crouched, resting elbows on knees, chin on fists, stared at the body on the dune—a few bones and some tattered flesh that once had been a young woman. The hands, the head, most of the upper torso were gone—eaten by the coriolis wind. The sand all around bore the tracks of her brother’s medics and questors. They were gone now, all excepting the mortuary attendants who stood to one side with Hayt, the ghola, waiting for her to finish her mysterious perusal of what had been written here.
A wheat-colored sky enfolded the scene in the glaucous light common to midafternoon for these latitudes.
The body had been discovered several hours earlier by a low-flying courier whose instruments had detected a faint water trace where none should be. His call had brought the experts. And they had learned—what? That this had been a woman of about twenty years, Fremen, addicted to semuta … and she had died here in the crucible of the desert from the effects of a subtle poison of Tleilaxu origin.
To die in the desert was a common enough occurrence. But a Fremen addicted to semuta, this was such a rarity that Paul had sent her to examine the scene in the ways their mother had taught them.
Alia felt that she had accomplished nothing here except to cast her own aura of mystery about a scene that was already mysterious enough. She heard the ghola’s feet stir the sand, looked at him. His attention rested momentarily upon the escort ’thopters circling overhead like a flock of ravens.
Beware of the Guild bearing gifts, Alia thought.
The mortuary ’thopter and her own craft stood on the sand near a rock outcropping behind the ghola. Focusing on the grounded ’thopters filled Alia with a craving to be airborne and away from here.
But Paul had thought she might see something here which others would miss. She squirmed in her stillsuit. It felt raspingly unfamiliar after all the suitless months of city life. She studied the ghola, wondering if he might know something important about this peculiar death. A lock of his black-goat hair, she saw, had escaped his stillsuit hood. She sensed her hand longing to tuck that hair back into place.