“Say what you want of me,” he growled.
“Couldn’t it be that Otheym needed a friend to stand by him in this time?” Dhuri asked. “Does a Fedaykin have to consign his flesh to strangers?”
We shared Sietch Tabr, Paul reminded himself. She has the right to berate me for apparent callousness.
“What I can do I will do,” Paul said.
Another fit of coughing shook Otheym. When it had passed, he gasped: “There’s treachery, Usul. Fremen plot against you.” His mouth worked then without sound. Spittle escaped his lips. Dhuri wiped his mouth with a corner of her robe, and Paul saw how her face betrayed anger at such waste of moisture.
Frustrated rage threatened to overwhelm Paul then. That Otheym should be spent thus! A Fedaykin deserved better. But no choice remained—not for a Death Commando or his Emperor. They walked occam’s razor in this room. The slightest misstep multiplied horrors—not just for themselves, but for all humankind, even for those who would destroy them.
Paul squeezed calmness into his mind, looked at Dhuri. The expression of terrible longing with which she gazed at Otheym strengthened Paul. Chani must never look at me that way, he told himself.
“Lichna spoke of a message,” Paul said.
“My dwarf,” Otheym wheezed. “I bought him on … on … on a world … I forget. He’s a human distrans, a toy discarded by the Tleilaxu. He’s recorded all the names … the traitors …”
Otheym fell silent, trembling.
“You speak of Lichna,” Dhuri said. “When you arrived, we knew she’d reached you safely. If you’re thinking of this new burden Otheym places upon you, Lichna is the sum of that burden. An even exchange, Usuclass="underline" take the dwarf and go.”
Paul suppressed a shudder, closed his eyes. Lichna! The real daughter had perished in the desert, a semuta-wracked body abandoned to the sand and the wind.
Opening his eyes, Paul said: “You could’ve come to me at any time for …”
“Otheym stayed away that he might be numbered among those who hate you, Usul,” Dhuri said. “The house to the south of us at the end of the street, that is a gathering place for your foes. It’s why we took this hovel.”
“Then summon the dwarf and we’ll leave,” Paul said.
“You’ve not listened well,” Dhuri said.
“You must take the dwarf to a safe place,” Otheym said, an odd strength in his voice. “He carries the only record of the traitors. No one suspects his talent. They think I keep him for amusement.”
“We cannot leave,” Dhuri said. “Only you and the dwarf. It’s known … how poor we are. We’ve said we’re selling the dwarf. They’ll take you for the buyer. It’s your only chance.”
Paul consulted his memory of the vision: in it, he’d left here with the names of the traitors, but never seeing how those names were carried. The dwarf obviously moved under the protection of another oracle. It occurred to Paul then that all creatures must carry some kind of destiny stamped out by purposes of varying strengths, by the fixation of training and disposition. From the moment the Jihad had chosen him, he’d felt himself hemmed in by the forces of a multitude. Their fixed purposes demanded and controlled his course. Any delusions of Free Will he harbored now must be merely the prisoner rattling his cage. His curse lay in the fact that he saw the cage. He saw it!
He listened now to the emptiness of this house: only the four of them in it—Dhuri, Otheym, the dwarf and himself. He inhaled the fear and tension of his companions, sensed the watchers—his own force hovering in ’thopters far overhead … and those others … next door.
I was wrong to hope, Paul thought. But thinking of hope brought him a twisted sense of hope, and he felt that he might yet seize his moment.
“Summon the dwarf,” he said.
“Bijaz!” Dhuri called.
“You call me?” The dwarf stepped into the room from the courtyard, an alert expression of worry on his face.
“You have a new master, Bijaz,” Dhuri said. She stared at Paul. “You may call him … Usul.”
“Usul, that’s the base of the pillar,” Bijaz said, translating. “How can Usul be base when I’m the basest thing living?”
“He always speaks thus,” Otheym apologized.
“I don’t speak,” Bijaz said. “I operate a machine called language. It creaks and groans, but is mine own.”
A Tleilaxu toy, learned and alert, Paul thought. The Bene Tleilax never threw away something this valuable. He turned, studied the dwarf. Round melange eyes returned his stare.
“What other talents have you, Bijaz?” Paul asked.
“I know when we should leave,” Bijaz said. “It’s a talent few men have. There’s a time for endings—and that’s a good beginning. Let us begin to go, Usul.”
Paul examined his vision memory: no dwarf, but the little man’s words fitted the occasion.
“At the door, you called me Sire,” Paul said. “You know me, then?”
“You’ve sired, Sire,” Bijaz said, grinning. “You are much more than the base Usul. You’re the Atreides Emperor, Paul Muad’dib. And you are my finger.” He held up the index finger of his right hand.
“Bijaz!” Dhuri snapped. “You tempt fate.”
“I tempt my finger,” Bijaz protested, voice squeaking. He pointed at Usul. “I point at Usul. Is my finger not Usul himself? Or is it a reflection of something more base?” He brought the finger close to his eyes, examined it with a mocking grin, first one side then the other. “Ahhh, it’s merely a finger, after all.”
“He often rattles on thus,” Dhuri said, worry in her voice. “I think it’s why he was discarded by the Tleilaxu.”
“I’ll not be patronized,” Bijaz said, “yet I have a new patron. How strange the workings of the finger.” He peered at Dhuri and Otheym, eyes oddly bright. “A weak glue bound us, Otheym. A few tears and we part.” The dwarf ’s big feet rasped on the floor as he whirled completely around, stopped facing Paul. “Ahhh, patron! I came the long way around to find you.”
Paul nodded.
“You’ll be kind, Usul?” Bijaz asked. “I’m a person, you know. Persons come in many shapes and sizes. This be but one of them. I’m weak of muscle, but strong of mouth; cheap to feed, but costly to fill. Empty me as you will, there’s still more in me than men put there.”
“We’ve no time for your stupid riddles,” Dhuri growled. “You should be gone.”
“I’m riddled with conundrums,” Bijaz said, “but not all of them stupid. To be gone, Usul, is to be a bygone. Yes? Let us let bygones be bygones. Dhuri speaks truth, and I’ve the talent for hearing that, too.”
“You’ve truthsense?” Paul asked, determined now to wait out the clockwork of his vision. Anything was better than shattering these moments and producing the new consequences. There remained things for Otheym to say lest Time be diverted into even more horrifying channels.
“I’ve now-sense,” Bijaz said.
Paul noted that the dwarf had grown more nervous. Was the little man aware of things about to happen? Could Bijaz be his own oracle?
“Did you inquire of Lichna?” Otheym asked suddenly, peering up at Dhuri with his one good eye.
“Lichna is safe,” Dhuri said.
Paul lowered his head, lest his expression betray the lie. Safe! Lichna was ashes in a secret grave.