man as a constructive ecological force—inserting adapted terraform life: a plant here, an animal there, a man in that place—to transform the water cycle, to build a new kind of landscape.”
“Shut up!” Kynes croaked.
“It was lines of movement that gave us the first clue to the relationship between worms and spice,” his father said.
A worm, Kynes thought with a surge of hope. A maker’s sure to come when this bubble bursts. But I have no hooks. How can I mount a big maker without hooks?
He could feel frustration sapping what little strength remained to him. Water so near—only a hundred meters or so beneath him; a worm sure to come, but no way to trap it on the surface and use it.
Kynes pitched forward onto the sand, returning to the shallow depression his movements had defined. He felt sand hot against his left cheek, but the sensation was remote.
“The Arrakeen environment built itself into the evolutionary pattern of native life forms,” his father said. “How strange that so few people ever looked up from the spice long enough to wonder at the near-ideal nitrogen-oxygen-CO2 balance being maintained here in the absence of large areas of plant cover. The energy sphere of the planet is there to see and understand—a relentless process, but a process nonetheless. There is a gap in it? Then something occupies that gap. Science is made up of so many things that appear obvious after they are explained. I knew the little maker was there, deep in the sand, long before I ever saw it.”
A hawk landed on the sand near his outstretched hand. Kynes saw it fold its wings, tip its head to stare at him. He summoned the energy to croak at it. The bird hopped away two steps, but continued to stare at him.
“Men and their works have been a disease on the surface of their planets before now,” his father said. “Nature tends to compensate for diseases, to remove or encapsulate them, to incorporate them into the system in her own way.”
The hawk lowered its head, stretched its wings, refolded them. It transferred its attention to his outstretched hand.
Kynes found that he no longer had the strength to croak at it.
“The historical system of mutual pillage and extortion stops here on Arrakis,” his father said. “You cannot go on forever stealing what you need without regard to those who come after. The physical qualities of a planet are written into its economic and political record. We have the record in front of us and our course is obvious.”
He never could stop lecturing, Kynes thought. Lecturing, lecturing, lecturing—alwayslecturing.
The hawk hopped one step closer to Kynes’ outstretched hand, turned its head first one way and then the other to study the exposed flesh.
“Arrakis is a one-crop planet,” his father said. “One crop. It supports a ruling class that lives as ruling classes have lived in all times while, beneath them, a semihuman mass of semislaves exists on the leavings. It’s the masses and the leavings that occupy our attention. These are far more valuable than has ever been suspected.”
And he thought: Surely there must be some of my Fremen near. They cannot help but see the birds over me. They will investigate if only to see if there’s moisture available.
“The masses of Arrakis will know that we work to make the land flow with water,” his father said. “Most of them, of course, will have only a semimystical understanding of how we intend to do this. Many, not understanding the prohibitive mass-ratio problem, may even think we’ll bring water from some other planet rich in it. Let them think anything they wish as long as they believe in us.”
In a minute I’ll get up and tell him what I think of him, Kynes thought. Standing there lecturing me when he should be helping me.
The bird took another hop closer to Kynes’ outstretched hand. Two more hawks drifted down to the sand behind it.
“Religion and law among our masses must be one and the same,” his father said. “An act of disobedience must be a sin and require religious penalties. This will have the dual benefit of bringing both greater obedience and greater bravery. We must depend not so much on the bravery of individuals, you see, as upon the bravery of a whole population.”
Where is my population now when I need it most? Kynes thought. He summoned all his strength, moved his