“These things are so ancient within us,” Paul said, “that they’re ground into each separate cell of our bodies. We’re shaped by such forces. You can say to yourself, ‘Yes, I see how such a thing may be.’ But when you look inward and confront the raw force of your own life unshielded, you see your peril. You see that this could overwhelm you. The greatest peril to the Giver is the force that takes. The greatest peril to the Taker is the force that gives. It’s as easy to be overwhelmed by giving as by taking.”
“And you, my son,” Jessica asked, “are you one who gives or one who takes?”
“I’m at the fulcrum,” he said. “I cannot give without taking and I cannot take without ….” He broke off, looking to the wall at his right.
Chani felt a draft against her cheek, turned to see the hangings close.
“It was Otheym,” Paul said. “He was listening.”
Accepting the words, Chani was touched by some of the prescience that haunted Paul, and she knew a thing-yet-to-be as though it already had occurred. Otheym would speak of what he had seen and heard. Others would spread the story until it was a fire over the land. Paul-Muad’ Dib is not as other men, they would say. There can be no more doubt. He is a man, yet he sees through to the Water of Life in the way of a Reverend Mother. He is indeed the Lisan al-Gaib.
“You have seen the future, Paul,” Jessica said. “Will you say what you’ve seen?”
“Not the future,” he said. “I’ve seen the Now.” He forced himself to a sitting position, waved Chani aside as she moved to help him. “The Space above Arrakis is filled with the ships of the Guild.”
Jessica trembled at the certainty in his voice.
“The Padishah Emperor himself is there,” Paul said. He looked at the rock ceiling of his cell. “With his favorite Truthsayer and five legions of Sardaukar. The old Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is there with Thufir Hawat beside him and seven ships jammed with every conscript he could muster. Every Great House has its raiders above us … waiting.”
Chani shook her head, unable to look away from Paul. His strangeness, the flat tone of voice, the way he looked through her, filled her with awe.
Jessica tried to swallow in a dry throat, said: “For what are they waiting?”
Paul looked at her. “For the Guild’s permission to land. The Guild will strand on Arrakis any force that lands without permission.”
“The Guild’s protecting us?” Jessica asked.
“Protecting us! The Guild itself caused this by spreading tales about what we do here and by reducing troop transport fares to a point where even the poorest Houses are up there now waiting to loot us.”
Jessica noted the lack of bitterness in his tone, wondered at it. She couldn’t doubt his words—they had that same intensity she’d seen in him the night he’d revealed the path of the future that’d taken them among the Fremen.
Paul took a deep breath, said: “Mother, you must change a quantity of the Water for us. We need the catalyst. Chani, have a scout force sent out … to find a pre-spice mass. If we plant a quantity of the Water of Life above a pre-spice mass, do you know what will happen?”
Jessica weighed his words, suddenly saw through to his meaning. “Paul!” she gasped.
“The Water of Death,” he said. “It’d be a chain reaction.” He pointed to the floor. “Spreading death among the little makers, killing a vector of the life cycle that includes the spice and the makers. Arrakis will become a true desolation—without spice or maker.”
Chani put a hand to her mouth, shocked to numb silence by the blasphemy pouring from Paul’s lips.
“He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it,” Paul said. “We can destroy the spice.”
“What stays the Guild’s hand?” Jessica whispered.
“They’re searching for me,” Paul said. “Think of that! The finest Guild navigators, men who can quest ahead through time to find the safest course for the fastest Heighliners, all of them seeking me … and unable to find me. How they tremble! They know I have their secret here!” Paul held out his cupped hand. “Without the spice they’re blind!”
Chani found her voice. “You said you see the now!”
Paul lay back, searching the spread-out present, its limits extended into the future and into the past, holding onto the awareness with difficulty