The Judge of the Change tries to feel up Leto's stillsuit, and instinctively, Gurney flinches. But Leto, trusting as ever, lets her pat him down and adjust his clothing. It's a waste of time, Gurney thinks. All they're going to do is board the thopter. The Duke is too important to risk his life on a real excursion into the desert.
Dr. Kynes doesn't have any criticisms of Paul's dress sense. If the Young Master can figure out how to wear a stillsuit, it can't be that difficult. And she doesn't give Gurney himself a second look. For all the Harkonnens have done to him, the Empire doesn't value his own life next to the spice; if he's caught in a dust storm, it won't affect the galactic balance of power.
As the thopter sails above the sands, Gurney takes out his baliset and begins to sing an old anthem from the OCB.
"Shall you unbind the Sisters' chains?
Will you gird up the Hunter's belt?
The songs of the constellations:
On your own harp, can you tame them?
With your little hooks
Shall you tame the monsters of the deep?
Will they bow to do your bidding
As if you were the one who made them?
Answer these things, mortal,
And I shall tell you if you suffer unjustly."
Kynes gives a half-smile at the Duke. "Are all your companions this creative?"
"On Caladan, we had the fortune to cultivate many skills," Leto deflects. "Perhaps in time we shall come to know Arrakis well enough to diversify our abilities."
Which isn't an answer at all. Gurney has never known Idaho to carry a tune, or Yueh to do much of anything beyond sulk over his wife. But Kynes seems to accept it.
Of course, the distant observation ride turns out to be a near-disaster, as the carryall is too old to function and Leto sends the thopter into danger instead. Paul, despite the stillsuit coming easily to him, is entranced by the worm, and Gurney has to drag him out of his rapture and back onto the thopter.
If the Empire's woman wants to judge him or think him soft, let her. His first trade is dealing death, and if Arrakis of all places lets him focus on the baliset-or even teaching Paul to mind his footsteps-he'll count himself a lucky man.
His respite lasts less than a week.
The Harkonnens swarm at him in droves, and Gurney hurls himself at them. They ruled this hellhole for eighty years, Gurney thinks. How relieved must their brutes have been to know that they were getting to depart for hospitable Caladan? How furious must they be, knowing they will draw their last breaths here? For him, it is as good a place as any to die.
Their shields and normal weapons are of little use. Better to wield a sword or two, something simple enough that no electronics can interfere. Behind the line of Harkonnen transports lands another wave of incoming forces. Sardaukar!
This causes the Harkonnens to disperse. Only a few of them take off towards the Atreides fort-it has already been overrun. The others take to the city, weapons high. Desperate to pillage for the sake of causing ruin? Or itching to prove themselves, offended by the notion that the Sardaukar need to be sent in as backup in case they fail? Some part of Gurney is automatically filing this away in case it can be useful later.
If he dies here, avenging his Duke, it will be righteous and just. But there are smugglers who make a living here, pyons who deal in spice and have learned to live under the Harkonnens' yoke. He has waited years to strike a blow at the Baron and his men. He can endure, even here.
The Harkonnens have left their small transports unguarded. The Sardaukar's bloodlust drives them on to bigger prizes, and it's not hard for Gurney to sneak out of the fray and seize a transport. Once it's on, the radio chatter is full of Harkonnen signals and boasts as the city falls. It makes Gurney sick, but no one will give him trouble in this truck. He leaves Arrakeen behind him, trying to set a course towards the smuggler communities. Maybe he can stop in Carthag first and try to restock.
Unfortunately, while the Harkonnens may have left House Atreides with the worst of the vehicles, even the "better" options aren't very easy to use. Thopters can let their passengers avoid the worst of a duststorm, but the transport resists his direction and instead spins its wheels in the sand. It's all he can do to guide it along what looks like a semblance of a road. Should it drift off into the unmarked dunes, he's pretty sure even the Harkonnen insignia won't save him. If he hasn't died of thirst by then.
The ground far in the distance seems to flicker; Paul might be able to distinguish footsteps, but this pattern is nothing that Gurney recognizes. But before he can dwell on it, he notices a motion in his peripheral vision. Sardaukar, again, but only two of them this time.
He's not sure why they would have been sent out here, but his only chance is to catch them by surprise. Stepping out from the transport, the storm encroaching, Gurney swings one sword, another, and the Sardaukar slump dead at his feet.
"Halleck!" a voice calls. "You have to take cover, you can't outrace the storm."
He turns to glimpse Dr. Kynes, bent double in her stillsuit. Without thinking, he stows his swords and rushes towards her, ignoring her protests. As he had with Paul, he half-supports, half-drags her back to the transport, shutting the door behind her as the storm closes in.
"Are you hurt?" he asks, noticing the gash in her suit.
"Had it under control," she mutters. "Would've taken them with me..."
Leto may be dead, but apparently the galaxy doesn't lack for his caliber of foolhardy courage. "Shut up," says Gurney, rummaging around for a first-aid kit.
Kynes at least is strong, or modest, enough to take off her damaged suit before Gurney needs to volunteer. Her cut is ugly, but he's taken worse; as she points out, losing water through the blood is more of a danger than mere blades. After that, he has plenty of time to tend to his own wounds. All they can do is hope the storm passes them over.
Caladan had been full of dangers, of course. Poisons, the Empire's power plays, the Bene Gesserit witch who Gurney never wholly trusted. But it never felt like the planet itself was trying to kill them, out of mere spite for life. This is where all the spice in the galaxy comes from? Maybe humanity had been better off trapped on isolated worlds.
While they wait, she informs him of her news. Idaho is dead. Paul and Jessica live, but Leto must have been killed, because Paul is wearing the Duke's ring. Something doesn't add up-how would Paul have gotten it, with no news of Leto? It has to be the witch's work!
"Lady Jessica is a brave woman," says Kynes. "She was not selfish with her wealth. She wanted to see Arrakis bloom."
"I don't care whether she said some nice words about a bunch of plants," Gurney snaps.
Kynes raises an eyebrow. "What news of the city?"
"Arrakeen has fallen," says Gurney, but he doesn't have any details to share. Kynes seems to take it in stride; noble houses can come and go, here.
As awkward as it is within the transport, it's tranquil compared to the winds outside. Yet when the skies clear, though the wheels are battered, the humans inside are alive.
Gurney makes to move, but Kynes stops him. "This far into the desert, we wait till dark to walk. Sleep now, save your energy."
He's been awake too long to protest. As uncomfortable as the transport is, his body is exhausted. But he keeps waking from vivid dreams: Leto, betrayed by Jessica. Paul, wandering into a trap. Kynes, too, is there, babbling to no one about the ecosystem while Gurney tries to tune his baliset.
At last, the first moon is visible in the night sky. The Harkonnens didn't leave much behind, but there are a few food packages and uniforms in addition to the first-aid kit. "These stillsuits are flimsy," Kynes says, "but they'll get us to the next testing station. We'll find Fremen-made ones there."
"Will you-um-Do you need to check mine? I know you were worried about Leto's."
She gives him a quick once-over, and he tries not to react. He has dispelled countless enemies from such distance; in his mock duel with Paul, he had been closer yet, two blades locked to the death.
"Good enough," she says. "Follow me, and don't fall into a rhythm. Worms are drawn to patterns."
The transport had been frustrating enough; this, taking a few steps at a time and then halting, is agonizingly slow. Yet he is conscious of how his sweat clings to him. Leto had been scrupulous to study the ways of Arrakis-how haste would bring death, how even a mouse's ears represent the success of evolution-and what had it gotten him?
Kynes is a sliver of light beneath the two moons; her steps are the graceful shadows of a desert creature. It is hard to believe that just hours ago she was as solid and three-dimensional as anyone, her hands moving over the seams of his stillsuit, but it is also the only thing he can think about.
The station does not announce itself. But next to one dune, which looks as formless and indistinct as the rest, Kynes crouches, kicks at nothing, and beckons him over. A trapdoor emerges, and opens in response to a sequence of pitches she plays from a simple beeper.
Gurney nods. "After you."
Kynes shakes her head. "I'll reset the trap."
Gurney can't help spluttering, gesturing his arm out at the vast, searing emptiness. If a Harkonnen scout finds this door, won't they all have bigger problems?
"Haste is death," she reminds him. "Careful."
Rolling his eyes, he descends the ladder. Deep below the surface, he's at the end of some kind of corridor; the walls are spare and artless, but clearly built to last. A few minutes later, Kynes joins him.
The tunnel leads to what looks like the inside of some high-security vault. Maybe it had been copied from the cells on Salusa Secundus. Or maybe this is where they store spice between shipments, so no one can embezzle it. There are a few long-abandoned microscopes and test tubes set up on a back ledge. Had this been how Idaho had died, bleeding out onto some graph paper with humidity plots?
Kynes begins hurriedly using the radios. He wants to give her some privacy, but there isn't really anywhere to go. The first conversation is rushed, and switches between languages-Fremen warrior jargon? An Imperial code?-but when it ends, she exhales. "They're alive," she says. "Paul and Jessica. And the Fremen listen when I speak; they will protect your friends."
"You speak as though it was a close thing."
"Surviving the storms is not easy. Neither is surviving the people of Arrakis." She blinks. "Jessica is a weirding woman-"
"I know what she is! She's dangerous-"
"-and Paul has many of her gifts. They can be useful here. Even then, it was not easy for them to be accepted. It will be harder for you."
"I'm a warrior, I've killed Harkonnens-"
"You are an off-worlder from a wet planet. It is nothing to be ashamed of; I was the same. But you will need to stay close to me and understand that you are here under my protection."
"I can do that," says Gurney.
"Good." She starts in on another radio call. This one takes longer-perhaps being relayed through several different connections?-and she repeats the same story over and over again; Harkonnens, bribe, Duke, heir, Sardaukar...
When she hangs up that time, she is more pensive than relaxed. "The Landsraad will hear me out."
"It's their job."
"The major houses interfering with each other this way, using Sardaukar-this is not normal. We tread on dangerous sands."
"So don't make patterns," Gurney quips, and Kynes laughs.
"We can rest here. It'll be a few days before a band passes through; we can go to the sietch then."
"Rest?" he repeats. "And do what?"
"Drink coffee," says Kynes. "Unless you brought your baliset?"
"I'm afraid I was busy," he says.
But he needs no instrument to sing, and another ancient melody flutters to the forefront of his mind. There is a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to reap.
Kynes gives a faint smile. "On Arrakis, we measure these things in centuries."
And she explains how she has been laboring to transform the planet, slowly, from below. As zealously as they hoard water in wartime, the Fremen are even more fervent about storing it in their reservoirs, even if they will not see the promised future in their own lifetimes.
"Or so I thought," she amends. "I fear your young Duke may disrupt all our plans."
"Yes, well," says Gurney. "He does tend to do that."
Is she bitter that her research might go for nothing, or cautioning him that no matter the outcome of the clash between Harkonnen and Atreides, the Fremen will endure as they always have? Perhaps both. He makes to apologize-plans or no plans, she has certainly put herself in danger by harboring him and Paul-but she speaks first. "As the song says, this is a time to mourn. But perhaps it need not be a time to refrain from embracing?"
He has no baliset, no sword, no glimpse of the sun or moon. And yet Kynes, with her radio and stillsuits, seems confident that they have all they need. "No," he says, stepping towards her. "It need not."
Gurney's song at the beginning is paraphrased from the Biblical book of Job; the song at the end is from Ecclesiastes (and later adapted by Pete Seeger, among others).