the action. And I warn you I’ll be trying new counters today. There’s a warning you’d not get from a real enemy.”
Paul stretched up on his toes to relieve his muscles. He felt solemn with the sudden realization that his life had become filled with swift changes. He crossed to the dummy, slapped the switch on its chest with his rapier tip and felt the defensive field forcing his blade away.
“En garde!” Halleck called, and the dummy pressed the attack.
Paul activated his shield, parried and countered.
Halleck watched as he manipulated the controls. His mind seemed to be in two parts: one alert to the needs of the training fight, and the other wandering in fly-buzz.
I’m the well-trained fruit tree, he thought. Full of well-trained feelings and abilities and all of them grafted onto me-all bearing for someone else to pick.
For some reason, he recalled his younger sister, her elfin face so clear in his mind. But she was dead now—in a pleasure house for Harkonnen troops. She had loved pansies … or was it daisies? He couldn’t remember. It bothered him that he couldn’t remember.
Paul countered a slow swing of the dummy, brought up his left hand entretisser.
The clever little devil! Halleck thought, intent now on Paul’s interweaving hand motions. He’s been practicing and studying on his own. That’s not Duncan style, and it’s certainly nothing I’ve taught him.
This thought only added to Halleck’s sadness. I’m infected by mood, he thought. And he began to wonder about Paul, if the boy ever listened fearfully to his pillow throbbing in the night.
“If wishes were fishes we’d all cast nets,” he murmured.
It was his mother’s expression and he always used it when he felt the blackness of tomorrow on him. Then he thought what an odd expression that was to be taking to a planet that had never known seas or fishes.
***
YUEH (ya’ē), Wellington (weling- tun), Stdrd 10,082-10, 191; medical doctor of the Suk School (grd Stdrd 10, 112); md: WannaMarcus, B. G. (Stdrd 10,092-10,186?); chiefly noted as betrayer of Duke Leto Atreides.(Cf: Bibliography, Appendix VII Imperial Conditioning and Betrayal, The.)
—from“Dictionary of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
ALTHOUGH HE heard Dr. Yueh enter the training room, noting the stiff deliberation of the man’s pace, Paul remained stretched out face down on the exercise table where the masseuse had left him. He felt deliciously relaxed after the workout with Gurney Halleck.
“You do look comfortable,” said Yueh in his calm, high-pitched voice.
Paul raised his head, saw the man’s stick figure standing several paces away, took in at a glance the wrinkled black clothing, the square block of a head with purple lips and drooping mustache, the diamond tattoo of Imperial Conditioning on his forehead, the long black hair caught in the Suk School’s silver ring at the left shoulder.
“You’ll be happy to hear we haven’t time for regular lessons today,” Yueh said. “Your father will be along presently.”
Paul sat up.
“However, I’ve arranged for you to have a filmbook viewer and several lessons during the crossing to Arrakis.”
“Oh.”
Paul began pulling on his clothes. He felt excitement that his father would be coming. They had spent so little time together since the Emperor’s command to take over the fief of Arrakis.
Yueh crossed to the ell table, thinking: How the boy has filled out these past few months. Such a waste! Oh, such a sad waste. And he reminded himself: I must not falter. What I do is done to be certain my Wanna no longer can be hurt by the Harkonnen beasts.
Paul joined him at the table, buttoning his jacket. “What’ll I be studying on the way across?”
“Ah-h-h, the terranic life forms of Arrakis. The planet seems to have opened its arms to certain terranic life forms. It’s not clear how. I must seek out the planetary ecologist when we arrive—a Dr. Kynes—and offer my help in the investigation.”
And Yueh thought: What am I saying? I play the hypocrite even with myself.
“Will there be something on the Fremen?” Paul asked.
“The Fremen?” Yueh drummed his fingers on the table, caught Paul staring at the nervous motion, withdrew his hand.
“Maybe you have something on the whole Arrakeen population,” Paul said.
“Yes, to be sure,” Yueh said. “There are two general separations of the people—Fremen, they are one group, and the others are the people of the graben, the sink, and the pan. There’s some intermarriage, I’m told. The women of pan and sink villages prefer Fremen husbands; their men prefer Fremen wives. They have a saying: ‘Polish comes from the