“Then you must choose another path.” What a marvelous thing to observe the explosive growth of awareness, he thought. Siona’s expressive features hid nothing of it from him. She focused on his eyes and glared at him as though seeking to move completely into his thoughts. New strength entered her muffled voice. “You would have me know everything about you-even every weakness?” “Would you steal what I would give openly?” The morning light was harsh on her face. “I promise you nothing!” “Nor do I require that.” “But you will give me . . . water if I ask?” “It is not just water.” She nodded. “And I am Atreides.” The Fish Speakers had not withheld the lesson of that special susceptibility in the Atreides genes. She knew where the spice originated and what it might do to her. The teachers in the Fish Speaker schools never failed him. And the gentle additions of melange in Siona’s dried food had done their work, too. “These little curled flaps beside my face,” he said. “Tease one of them gently with a finger and it will give up drops of moisture heavily laced with spice-essence.” He saw the recognition in her eyes. Memories which she did not know as memories were speaking to her. And she was the result of many generations in which the Atreides sensitivity had been increased. Even the urgency of her thirst would not yet move her. To ease her through the crisis, he told her about Fremen children poling for sandtrout at an oasis edge, teasing the moisture out of them for quick vitalization. “But I am Atreides,” she said. “The Oral History tells it truthfully,” he said. “Then I could die of it.” “That’s the test.” “You would make a real Fremen out of me!” “How else can you teach your descendants to survive here after I am gone?” She pulled away her mask and moved her face to within a handsbreadth of his. A finger came up and touched one of the curled flaps of his cowl. “Stroke it gently,” he said. Her hand obeyed not his voice but something from within
her. The finger movements were precise, eliciting his own memories, a thing passed from child to child to child . . . the way so much information and misinformation survived. He turned his face to its limit and looked sideways at her face so close to his. Pale blue drops began to form at the flap’s edge. Rich cinnamon smells enveloped them. She leaned toward the drops. He saw the pores beside her nose, the way her tongue moved as she drank.
Presently, she retreated-not completely satisfied, but driven by caution and suspicion much the way Moneo had been. Like father, like daughter.
“How long before it begins to work?” she asked.
“It is already working.”
“I mean. . .”
“A minute or so.”
“I owe you nothing for this!”
“I will demand no payment.”
She sealed her face mask.
He saw the milky distances enter her eyes. Without asking permission, she tapped his front segment, demanding that he prepare the warm hammock of his flesh. He obeyed. She fitted herself to the gentle curve. By peering sharply downward, he could see her. Siona’s eyes remained opened, but they no longer saw this place. She jerked abruptly and began to tremble like a small creature dying. He knew this experience, but could not change the smallest part of it. No ancestral presences would remain in her consciousness, but she would carry with her forever afterward the clear sights and sounds and smells. The seeking machines would be there, the smell of blood and entrails, the cowering humans in their burrows aware only that they could not escape . . . while all the time the mechanical movement approached, nearer and nearer and nearer …louder…louder!
Everywhere she searched, it would be the same. No escape anywhere.
He felt her life ebbing. Fight the darkness, Siona! That was one thing the Atreides did. They fought for life. And now she was fighting for lives other than her own. He felt the dimming, though . . . the terrible outflow of vitality. She went deeper and deeper into the darkness, far deeper than any other had ever gone. He began to rock her gently, a cradle movement of his front segment. That or the thin hot thread of determination, perhaps both together, prevailed. By early afternoon, her flesh