Dune by Frank Herbert Read Free Book Online

treachery but bright in knowledge; the Lady Jessica, who guided her son in the Bene Gesserit Way, and—of course—the Duke Leto, whose qualities as a father have long been overlooked.
    â€”from “A Child’s History of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
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    THUFIR HAWAT slipped into the training room of Castle Caladan, closed the door softly. He stood there a moment, feeling old and tired and storm-leathered. His left leg ached where it had been slashed once in the service of the Old Duke.
    Three generations of them now, he thought.
    He stared across the big room bright with the light of noon pouring through the skylights, saw the boy seated with back to the door, intent on papers and charts spread across an ell table.
    How many times must I tell that lad never to settle himself with his back to a door? Hawat cleared his throat.
    Paul remained bent over his studies.
    A cloud shadow passed over the skylights. Again, Hawat cleared his throat.
    Paul straightened, spoke without turning: “I know. I’m sitting with my back to a door.”
    Hawat suppressed a smile, strode across the room.
    Paul looked up at the grizzled old man who stopped at a corner of the table. Hawat’s eyes were two pools of alertness in a dark and deeply seamed face.
    â€œI heard you coming down the hall,” Paul said. “And I heard you open the door.”
    â€œThe sounds I make could be imitated.”
    â€œI’d know the difference.”
    He might at that, Hawat thought. That witch-mother of his is giving him the deep training, certainly. I wonder what her precious school thinks of that? Maybe that’s why they sent the old Proctor here—to whip our dear Lady Jessica into line.
    Hawat pulled up a chair across from Paul, sat down facing the door. He did it pointedly, leaned back and studied the room. It struck him as an odd place suddenly, a stranger-place with most of its hardware already gone off to Arrakis. A training table remained, and a fencing mirror with its crystal prisms quiescent, the target dummy beside it patched and padded, looking like an ancient foot soldier maimed and battered in the wars.
    There stand I, Hawat thought.
    â€œThufir, what’re you thinking?” Paul asked.
    Hawat looked at the boy. “I was thinking we’ll all be out of here soon and likely never see the place again.”
    â€œDoes that make you sad?”
    â€œSad? Nonsense! Parting with friends is a sadness. A place is only a place.” He glanced at the charts on the table. “And Arrakis is just another place.”
    â€œDid my father send you up to test me?”
    Hawat scowled—the boy had such observing ways about him. He nodded. “You’re thinking it’d have been nicer if he’d come up himself, but you must know how busy he is. He’ll be along later.”
    â€œI’ve been studying about the storms on Arrakis.”
    â€œThe storms. I see.”
    â€œThey sound pretty bad.”
    â€œThat’s too cautious a word: bad. Those storms build up across six or seven thousand kilometers of flatlands, feed on anything that can give them a push—coriolis force, other storms, anything that has an ounce of energy in it. They can blow up to seven hundred kilometers an hour, loaded with everything loose that’s in their way—sand, dust, everything. They can eat flesh off bones and etch the bones to slivers.”
    â€œWhy don’t they have weather control?”
    â€œArrakis has special problems, costs are higher, and there’d be maintenance and the like. The Guild wants a dreadful high price for satellite control and your father’s House isn’t one of the big rich ones, lad. You know that.”
    â€œHave you ever seen the Fremen?”
    The lad’s mind is darting all over today, Hawat thought.
    â€œLike as not I have seen them,” he said. “There’s little to tell them from the folk of the graben