with the full Truthsay as his Wanna had been. Still, he always used the truth with Jessica whenever possible. It was safest.
âYouâve seen this place, my . . . Jessica.â He stumbled over the name, plunged ahead: âSo barren after Caladan. And the people! Those townswomen we passed on the way here wailing beneath their veils. The way they looked at us.â
She folded her arms across her breast, hugging herself, feeling the crysknife there, a blade ground from a sandwormâs tooth, if the reports were right. âItâs just that weâre strange to themâdifferent people, different customs. Theyâve known only the Harkonnens.â She looked past him out the windows. âWhat were you staring at out there?â
He turned back to the window. âThe people.â
Jessica crossed to his side, looked to the left toward the front of the house where Yuehâs attention was focused. A line of twenty palm trees grew there, the ground beneath them swept clean, barren. A screen fence separated them from the road upon which robed people were passing. Jessica detected a faint shimmering in the air between her and the peopleâa house shieldâand went on to study the passing throng, wondering why Yueh found them so absorbing.
The pattern emerged and she put a hand to her cheek. The way the passing people looked at the palm trees! She saw envy, some hate . . . even a sense of hope. Each person raked those trees with a fixity of expression.
âDo you know what theyâre thinking?â Yueh asked.
âYou profess to read minds?â she asked.
âThose minds,â he said. âThey look at those trees and they think: âThere are one hundred of us.â Thatâs what they think.â
She turned a puzzled frown on him. âWhy?â
âThose are date palms,â he said. âOne date palm requires forty liters of water a day. A man requires but eight liters. A palm, then, equals five men. There are twenty palms out thereâone hundred men.â
âBut some of those people look at the trees hopefully.â
âThey but hope some dates will fall, except itâs the wrong season.â
âWe look at this place with too critical an eye,â she said. âThereâs hope as well as danger here. The spice could make us rich. With a fat treasury, we can make this world into whatever we wish.â
And she laughed silently at herself: Who am I trying to convince? The laugh broke through her restraints, emerging brittle, without humor. âBut you canât buy security,â she said.
Yueh turned away to hide his face from her. If only it were possible to hate these people instead of love them! In her manner, in many ways, Jessica was like his Wanna. Yet that thought carried its own rigors, hardening him to his purpose. The ways of the Harkonnen cruelty were devious. Wanna might not be dead. He had to be certain.
âDo not worry for us, Wellington,â Jessica said. âThe problemâs ours, not yours.â
She thinks I worry for her! He blinked back tears. And I do, of course. But I must stand before that black Baron with his deed accomplished, and take my one chance to strike him where he is weakestâin his gloating moment!
He sighed.
âWould it disturb Paul if I looked in on him?â she asked.
âNot at all. I gave him a sedative.â
âHeâs taking the change well?â she asked.
âExcept for getting a bit overtired. Heâs excited, but what fifteen-year-old wouldnât be under these circumstances?â He crossed to the door, opened it. âHeâs in here.â
Jessica followed, peered into a shadowy room.
Paul lay on a narrow cot, one arm beneath a light cover, the other thrown back over his head. Slatted blinds at a window beside the bed wove a loom of shadows across face and blanket.
Jessica stared at her son, seeing the oval shape of face so like her own.
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