around his legs, loosening his stillsuit at the neck.
“The Emperor is still holed up in the remains of his ship,” Gurney said.
“For now, contain him there,” Paul said. “Have they found the Harkonnens yet?”
“They’re still examining the dead.”
“What reply from the ships up there?” He jerked his chin toward the ceiling.
“No reply yet, m’Lord.”
Paul sighed, resting against the back of his chair. Presently, he said: “Bring me a captive Sardaukar. We must send a message to our Emperor. It’s time to discuss terms.”
“Yes, m’Lord.”
Gurney turned away, dropped a hand signal to one of the Fedaykin who took up close-guard position beside Paul.
“Gurney,” Paul whispered. “Since we’ve been rejoined I’ve yet to hear you produce the proper quotation for the event.” He turned, saw Gurney swallow, saw the sudden grim hardening of the man’s jaw.
“As you wish, m‘Lord,” Gurney said. He cleared his throat, rasped: “‘And the victory that day was turned into mourning unto all the people: for the people heard say that day how the king was grieved for his son.’ ”
Paul closed his eyes, forcing grief out of his mind, letting it wait as he had once waited to mourn his father. Now, he gave his thoughts over to this day’s accumulated discoveries—the mixed futures and the hidden presence of Alia within his awareness.
Of all the uses of time-vision, this was the strangest. “I have breasted the future to place my words where only you can hear them,” Alia had said. “Even you cannot do that, my brother. I find it an interesting play. And … oh, yes—I’ve killed our grandfather, the demented old Baron. He had very little pain.”
Silence. His time sense had seen her withdrawal.
“Muad’Dib.”
Paul opened his eyes to see Stilgar’s black-bearded visage above him, the dark eyes glaring with battle light.
“You’ve found the body of the old Baron,” Paul said.
A hush of the person settled over Stilgar. “How could you know?” he whispered. “We just found the body in that great pile of metal the Emperor built.”
Paul ignored the question, seeing Gurney return accompanied by two Fremen who supported a captive Sardaukar.
“Here’s one of them, m’Lord,” Gurney said. He signed to the guard to hold the captive five paces in front of Paul.
The Sardaukar’s eyes, Paul noted, carried a glazed expression of shock. A blue bruise stretched from the bridge of his nose to the corner of his mouth. He was of the blond, chisel-featured caste, the look that seemed synonymous with rank among the Sardaukar, yet there were no insignia on his torn uniform except the gold buttons with the Imperial crest and the tattered braid of his trousers.
“I think this one’s an officer, m’Lord,” Gurney said.
Paul nodded, said: “I am the Duke Paul Atreides. Do you understand that, man?”
The Sardaukar stared at him unmoving.
“Speak up,” Paul said, “or your Emperor may die.”
The man blinked, swallowed.
“Who am I?” Paul demanded.
“You are the Duke Paul Atreides,” the man husked.
He seemed too submissive to Paul, but then the Sardaukar had never been prepared for such happenings as this day. They’d never known anything but victory which, Paul realized, could be a weakness in itself. He put that thought aside for later consideration in his own training program.
“I have a message for you to carry to the Emperor,” Paul said. And he couched his words in the ancient formula: “I, a Duke of a Great House, an Imperial Kinsman, give my word of bond under the Convention. If the Emperor and his people lay down their arms and come to me here I will guard their lives with my own.” Paul held up his left hand with the ducal signet for the Sardaukar to see. “I swear it by this.”
The man wet his lips with his tongue, glanced at Gurney.
“Yes,” Paul said. “Who but an Atreides could command the allegiance of Gurney Halleck.”
“I will carry the message,” the Sardaukar said.
“Take him to our forward command post and send him in,” Paul said.
“Yes, m’Lord.” Gurney motioned for the guard to obey, led them out.
Paul turned back to Stilgar.
“Chani and your mother have arrived,” Stilgar said. “Chani has asked time to be alone with her grief. The Reverend Mother sought a moment in the weirding room; I know not why.”
“My mother’s sick with longing for a planet she may never see,” Paul said. “Where water falls from the sky and plants grow so thickly you cannot walk between them.”
“Water from the sky,” Stilgar whispered.
In that instant, Paul saw how Stilgar had been transformed from the Fremen naib to a