Quote:My father, the Padishah Emperor, took me by the hand one day and I sensed in the ways that my mother had taught me that he was disturbed. He led me down the Hall of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides. I marked the strong resemblance between them – my father and this man in the portrait – both with thin, elegant faces, and sharp features dominated by cold eyes. ‘Princess-daughter,’ my father said, ‘I would that you had been older when it came time for this man to choose a woman.’ My father was 71 at the time, and I was but 14, yet I remember deducing in that instant that my father secretly wished the Duke had been his son, and disliked the political necessities that made them enemies. – ‘In My Father’s House’ by the Princess Irulan.
A revealing early look at the Emperor…I wonder why, having this wish, the Emperor did not simply manipulate events and politics to bring him out on the side of the Duke?
And what do you think an ego-likeness is? Something more than merely a painting or a hologram I’m sure. Something which, in some way, showed perhaps the essential personality of the subject?
This chapter starts off from Kynes’ point of view, an interesting one indeed. We learn immediately that Kynes is meant to betray the Atreides…and because we know that Kynes is the Emperor’s man, his Judge of the Change, we must know that it is the Emperor himself who conspires for Atreides downfall.
Yet Kynes is shaken…He is thinking of how precisely Paul fits the prophecy that he, as a scientist, probably largely discounted. He thinks of Paul’s ‘questing eyes” and reserved candour.
Questing eyes? Perhaps a description more precise to the mystic-inclined Fremen, but a lovely turn of phrase nonetheless.
Immediately we learn that the prophecy itself is imprecise…and we know that it is more Missionaria Protectiva cant. He meets the Atreides midmorning, and his first thoughts are uncharitable ones. First the many guards, obviously not attuned to the Planet, then the Duke…equally obviously a stranger by his unfamiliarity with the clothing…and Paul, surprisingly apparently familiar with it. He marks his air of command, and thinks,
Quote:The Mahdi will be aware of things others cannot see.
But his lessons in etiquette rankled, and he knew what the Atreides wanted…the testing stations that, used properly, could hasten his dream for Dune. And knowing that they must have learned of them from Idaho, he promises to have Idaho’s hent sent to the Duke by Stilgar.
Who is this imperial planetologist? That he can think so casually of ordering the death of Stilgars guest? Why does he think he will be obeyed?
And here, as the group meets him and they discuss titles, it always occurs to me with amusement that “ecologist” is considered by Kynes to be a new title. How unimaginably old is this universe where a relatively new title for us is so old that it has become new again?
Introductions done, Paul asks an interesting question…is Kynes a Fremen? He answers by not answering though, saying he is accepted in sietch and village. But Paul is struck most by Kynes’ air of command…as though he were royalty.
Kynes adjusts Leto’s stillsuit after a brief moment of indecision bout allowing him into his shield space, explaining the suit as he goes. (The suit is a marvel of engineering, all body moisture and waste is recycled and reclaimed. No doubt thought of drinking your own recycled urine and faeces is unpleasant, but not as unpleasant as dying of thirst in the desert. )
Along the way, he explains the harsh reality of Arrakis…there are no likelihoods…only possibilities. Anything that can possibly happen will happen. And as Leto thanks Kynes for the suits, Paul quotes the O.C Bible…a lovely quote which I’ve often…well…quoted, but never with that effect.
Quote:“The gift is the blessing of the giver.” The words rang out over-loud in the still air. The Fremen escort Kynes had left in the shade of the administration building leaped up from their squatting repose, muttering in open agitation. One cried out: “Lisan al-Gaib!” Kynes whirled, gave a curt chopping signal with his hand, waved the guard away. They fell back, grumbling among themselves, trailed around the edge of the building. “Most interesting,” Leto said. Kynes passed a hard glare over the Duke and Paul, said: “Most of the desert natives here are a superstitious lot. Pay no attention to the, they mean no harm. But he thought of the words of the legend: ‘They will greet you with holy words, and your gifts will be a blessing.’
A brief diversion here…the legend obviously is fairly imprecise…those words could have been interpreted to fit many possibilities, as was no doubt the case. So was the prophecy real? Was Paul really the prophesied one? Or could he have been any child of a Bene Gesserit?
I can never decide.
Anyway, Kynes proceeds to check Paul’s suit, amazed at the fact that it needs no adjusting…Paul, as predicted, knows their ways as if born to them. Then, escort in tow, the enter the thopters and Leto takes off, heading over the shield wall at Kynes’ direction.
On the way, they discuss many things, each a small revelation to us of the Imperium, the Harkonnen, and the Atreides. I’ve always loved the ease with which the Duke sympathises with Kynes’ predicament…
Quote:I detect a sour note in your voice sir. We’ve waded in here with our mob of tame killers, eh? And we expect you to realise immediately that we’re different from the Harkonnen.
He knows what it was like. He understands. Perhaps better than anybody else…Idaho, Halleck, Paul. He knows that he is really not that much different from the Harkonnen, from the Emperor, or any other great house. He has a curious humility about him I think. A humility that Paul would have done well to learn if he’d had the chance.
One other interesting thing I’d like to mention about this ride…speaking of the testing stations, in the face of Kynes’ obduracy, the Duke asks him how Dune could become a paradise without money, and Kynes snaps back, “what good is money if it won’t buy you the services that you need?”
The Duke is interested…but takes it no further then, or ever again. But what did Kynes mean? That even money would not buy control of Arrakis? Or that there were services they needed that they could not buy? Was the Dukes interest because he thought it betrayed some need that would give him leverage? We can only speculate.
We learn much of the ecology and dangers of Arrakis on the trip, before finally coming to the factory that is mining a rich spice bed. But as they arrive, the Duke spots wormsign and warns the crawler. Hallek, displaying yet another of his many talents, orders the bonus granted to the spotter to be shared among the crew in the Duke’s name, but the carryall meant to evacuate the factory has been forced down by treachery, and certain death faces the crew.
Here, the Duke displays yet another quality that his son would have done better to remember. One that firmly sets Kynes’ sympathies with him I think. Issuing swift orders, the Duke makes ready to evacuate every man aboard the crawler, consigning who knows how much spice to the worms maw. Throwing out shield generators to take even those who should not have been able to fit.
Taking off, they witness the taking of the crawler by a worm…an immense worm out of the deep desert, big enough to swallow the entire factory whole, and Kynes’ mutters a benediction that makes one of the new passengers mutter, “Liet.”
As they fly away from the crawler, Paul spies two men rising from the sand below, from right beside where the worm had surfaced, and glide away over the desert.
The crewmen claim they were merely men of the village, along for the ride and aware of the risk. But Paul knows that they are Fremen. True Fremen, and no wonder the crewmen displayed no concern…
Quote:Who else would be so sure on the sand? Who else could be left out of your worries as a matter of course – because they are in no danger? They know how to live here! They know how to outwit the worm!
The men and Kynes dismiss his claim but he recognises that they are lying. And Kynes thinks,
Quote:The Lisan al-Gaib shall see through all subterfuge.
That marvellous passage where we first get a hint of the true nature of the Fremen never ceases to enthral me. So much more than the rag-tag bands they appear to be. These are the possessors of the real Desert Power. The true masters of Dune, no matter who ruled the fief.
And Kynes was troubled by what he had observed here.
Quote:This Duke was concerned more over the men than he was over the spice. He risked his own life, and that of his son to save the men. He passed off the loss of a spice crawler with a gesture. The threat to men’s lives had him in a rage. A leader such as that would command fanatic loyalty. He would be difficult to defeat.
The nobility of the Atreides wins them another ally. Leto’s uncharacteristic (for the time (or any time) ) decency and respect for human life, (or his unerring talent for bravura?) had turned Kynes from a seriously potential enemy, not to mention betrayer, into a grudging admirer.
Quote:Against his own will, and all previous judgement, Kynes admitted to himself: ‘I like this Duke.’
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A sense of the sardonic preserves a man from believing in his own pretensions. -The Sayings Of Maud'Dib<i></i>
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