Arrakis is full of precipices—not frigid peaks like the polar regions of Caladan or Droyeck, but single grains of sand which, when shifted, realign the topography beneath one's feet. If one isn't careful, above one's feet. Jessica feels this now, Stilgar's sober eyes searching her. Is he making a proposition? A threat?
"They saw you best me," Stilgar says, choosing his words carefully. "It is well that they see your strength. But among the sietch, such things are not common. If you wish to challenge me for leadership—or for my women—you would have a hard time of it, even should you win."
"Your women," Jessica repeats flatly. But had she not been sent to be Leto's concubine, something other than free?
"To tend to others is a responsibility. If the young men know that ousting me means taking on my duties as a husband and father, it may dull their blade. Everyone wishes to ride Shai-Hulud, but rearing the Little Makers is not so easy a task."
Shai-Hulud, Jessica notes. Deity, coming-of-age ritual. "And if ousting you meant getting to learn from the weirding woman, they would be more eager to do something rash?" Rationalizations, parrying words. Excuses for what cannot be.
"Anyone with two eyes knows you will not share your powers with a fool."
"Is it my powers you desire?" They have said she is too old to learn their ways, a water-fat off-worlder. But trying to teach a grown Fremen in the ways of prana-bindu might be nearly as hard. Better to begin with a child like Paul had been, denying him the choice to be merely human.
"There is no weapon I would scorn," he says, "if it was given freely. But power comes from the arm that wields, more than the sharpness of the knife."
"We are refugees in your home," she says. "I suppose it is no time to speak of desire."
"I would not impose upon you in your time of mourning. But know this: House Harkonnen claimed this planet for eighty years. Before that, other off-worlders claimed to be our masters. There has always been thirst and fasting, challenges and vendettas. If we waited until the days of peace and plenty to act on every desire, there would be no love in our hearts, no sound of the baliset."
She should not be captivated by this, not with Leto just dead and Arrakeen in ruins. Yet in the naib's simple dignity she hears honor, and remembers the curiosity in his voice with her hands at his throat. How he'd chided his men for underestimating her. "You will tell them that I am weak, a burdensome off-worlder who has no respect for Fremen ways."
"A likely story," says Stilgar. "Or perhaps they will see that you cannot be claimed, that you stand outside and must be asked, of yourself, if you would give yourself to a man."
"And a good thing that is. If I waited for the man who could best me—I, too, would be waiting too long."
Stilgar's laugh is brief and coarse, but it's a human instinct, the same on every planet. And for all the awkwardness it caused when Paul, of all people, had to be the one who helped her adjust her stillsuit, there is nothing strange about the feeling when Stilgar helps her peel it off.
Later, he has no modesty about helping her dress again. Carefully, he shows her how each layer fits into the next. "Even when you bleed," he boasts, "the fibers will make wise use of your water."
"I can't imagine any wound I receive here will leave me bleeding long," Jessica points out. "Your men are too efficient for that."
"Perhaps it is different for off-worlders," Stilgar says. "My Tharthar, she has terrible pain when the first moon is high."
This takes a moment to register. Here she is, light-years away from Caladan, and this proud, gruff stranger is too squeamish to speak plainly of periods. Men.
"That will not be a concern for some time," says Jessica. "I am early in pregnancy."
Stilgar's eyes widen briefly. But of course, he couldn't have known. No one but a Bene Gesserit—or someone like Paul, with all his gifts and curses—could have known this early. A girl-child, like the Reverend Mothers had asked of her, so many years ago. She'd left Caladan behind, Leto had left her behind, and now—of all things—she is carrying his daughter. It is enough to make her cry, or laugh at the absurdity of it all. Better to laugh and save her moisture.
Stilgar touches her stillsuit reverently where it clings to her still-taut stomach. He is not concerned at the prospect of another Atreides, who for all he knows might be a boy asserting his inheritance behind Paul. This child will be born on Arrakis, drink spice with her breast milk, and grow up with blue-within-blue eyes. She is just another part of his sietch, his responsbility to guard. Or perhaps, he envisions another weirding woman, using the Voice to dispel Harkonnens in battle. It is a distant future, but the reservoirs are testimony enough that Fremen dreams can carry many generations into the future.
"Bi-lal kaifa," he murmurs, and then, "There are many riches to fast from when carrying a child. I had not thought of adding bloodlust to the list."
"I'll be sure and let the Harkonnens know next time they try to kill me," she says, straight-faced.
But when they emerge into Cave of the Ridges they find that even there, there is no escaping Jamis' jealousy. He is not angry at so ordinary a thing as her sleeping with Stilgar; no, he rages that she and her liter-jons were accepted without question, that the ruthless Fremen showed clemency to a stranded woman. Even the Voice cannot silence the entire sietch, and there is nothing she can do but watch as Paul vows to be her champion, to duel Jamis in her honor. Or perhaps it is not for her sake, after all, but for the life she carries inside.
Stilgar is careful to stand next to her as the men fight, not touching her, but saying with his limbs: this woman is not under my protection, for who am I to lay claim to her? But if this boy-child falls, if any of you would dare harm her again, you go through me and none other.
Jamis' face is silent in death; a Fremen wastes no energy on surprise or regret. But Paul is wide-eyed, numb. He was elegant and lively when he stepped up, raw with the need to defend her honor, but ever since he got the upper hand in the struggle, asked Jamis to yield, he has been fighting with distaste. Jessica hates that she must scorn him now, must instill him with the memory, but she has already let him endure the gom jabbar. What is this pain next to that test? He must know that killing is a last resort, that he must seek every alternative before drawing his knife. For many pupils, it would be only a lesson about haste. Boys who let their rage think for them miss the choices they could have made with calm minds. But Paul has no shortage of patience. What he lacks is faith that the universe is open to his choices.
Yet, this violence has also given Paul—and by extension, Jessica—a place in Sietch Tabr. They give him the names Usul, and Muad'Dib, and repeat them like a rippling wave. He is not only a Fremen, but a grown man.
"And you?" Stilgar asks her. "What name would you be known as, among us?"
She racks her brains for anything the Shadout Mapes had said that might give her some idea. She knows so little of these people. What if she chooses something derogatory, or worse, an honorific she has no right to? "Takhmur," she finally says. It has an old-fashioned sound, something that unimportant women on the fringes of the Empire would have called themselves for centuries. She searches Stilgar's face for any sign that this is a bothersome choice.
"A worthy name," he says in a low voice. Then, more loudly: "This is Takhmur, mother of Usul."
There is no murmur of welcome for her, but Stilgar glances at her and adds with his eyes, and of this eyas-to-come.
When they return to the sietch, one cavern opens into the next to reveal thousands of Fremen. Here, withouth their stillsuits, they carry the stench of life and activity. It is a foreign sensation, but no stranger than the oppressive heat or the sight of two moons in the sky.
The distrans must have already carried news of Jessica and Paul's coming, because the crowds do not keep them at a distance or eye them with suspicion. Instead, strangers jostle them as they hustle to their own quarters, paying no regard to their two-toned eyes.
But around Chani, the girl, they leave space and regard her with downcast eyes. Jamis' body had been hustled away to sap of its water, but the Fremen look at Chani as if they need to nourish her with fresh moisture, when of course there is none.
Stilgar catches Jessica in his peripheral vision as he hurries to his naib duties. "Take coffee," he suggests. Not an order, but an apology that he has no more concrete advice. "Acquaint yourself with the common places. Later we will discuss matters."
You cannot share my quarters, nor Paul's. Act like you know what you are about, and the others will tolerate you. "I would not keep you."
He, too, is pulled towards Chani, who begins arguing with him. Has she failed, somehow, in her task of educating Paul?
Jessica could find a way to eavesdrop, but she respects Stilgar's honor. She slowly makes her way through the caverns, taking in a division of labor as complex as Arrakeen or Carthag. Kitchens infused with spice. Workshops where dew precipitators are built to harvest water. And classrooms, where young children learn not only the ancient ilm and fiqh, but the modern science that will teach them how to terraform a planet.
When Paul joins her again, he is accompanied by a Fremen woman with two young boys. "My mother, Jessica, who is called Takhmur," he says with confidence. The name is days-old, but he speaks as if he can will it into being accepted. "Harah, Kaleff, and Orlop, the kin of Jamis."
Jessica nods to Harah, filing this with what Stilgar has told her about challenges. The boys are not so young, she supposes, or rather, Paul is not so old. They might pass for his siblings more easily than her daughter will.
A tall woman with muscular arms paces over to meet her; she has the look of one who is always on the move. Haste can mean death, in the desert, but this woman does not rove without a purpose. "You are Jessica?" she asks. A formality. The fact that she needs to confirm the identity of the off-worlder is irritating at best.
"Yes," says Jessica. "May I be of service?"
She does not bother to give her name. "Our Reverend Mother," she says, nodding to a ledge higher up the wall. Before Jessica can process what that means, she continues, "Ramallo. While she lives, you will help carry the weight of generations. Can you do that?"
"I think so," says Jessica. Have the Missionaria Protectiva's teachings spread this deep?
"Hai!" the woman says. "Too long I've been away from the scouts."
So she is freeing this woman for more attractive tasks, taking her place as a—priestess? Historian? She walks around the cavern, the ledge on the perimeter slowly sloping up to the indicated location.
Ramallo, whose keen eyes are the only thing about her that has not withered, sits within a crude litter, flanked by three other attendants. So she is to be carrying this elder in a more literal sense. Well, her prana-bindu training will be put to good use.
The rumors in the city spoke of Fremen as people who would kill any abandoned stranger for their water, not out of malice, but unsentimental istislah. But not only have they taken in a malleable child and an imposing witch, they task workers with carrying a crone too frail to move on her own, merely because she has the wisdom of ages within her. Not savages, these. A force to shake the galaxy, or shatter it, but people all the same.
"I will speak to them," Ramallo says, "before we make hajr." She needs no Voice for her word to be taken as command.
So that evening, when the sietch is full with myriads, Jessica and the three others hoist Ramallo above their shoulders, bearing her to where she can address the Fremen. "Our enemies make haste," she says. "The time comes to gather what we have forged and begin the hajr."
The crowd below is silent.
"I know," Ramallo continues, "not from future-sight, but from the lessons of the world, that this body will not live to reach the southern lands."
Murmurs of apprehension.
"But I will journey with you as I have journeyed for many years. Worthy are the martyrs who have departed this life, but still great is the suffering of those who live. Chani, daughter of Liet, will be consecrated in the Sayyadina as we make pilgrimage, and if Shai-Hulud wills, we may share the rite in the camps."
Jessica searches the crowd for Chani. Like Harah's boys, she seems so young, but cannot be more than a few years older than Paul.
"I know your hajr will be somber, without my presence to guide you," says Ramallo. "The night will come when you will grieve me, not in these great caverns or the sacred reservoirs, but on unfamiliar sand. But the first moon will summon me, as it has summoned Liet, to the feast where the land beneath our feet is unchanging. There is no shame in mourning now, that you may rejoice together."
Later, when the crowds have dispersed, perhaps a shade more melancholy than usual—though who can be certain with Fremen?—she notices Paul. He is not stunned as he had been at Jamis' death, nor resentful like when he'd cursed her in the thopter. But he is anxious, turning over a new variable in his brain.
"My visions," he says, by way of answer. "They are—inconstant."
"You are not the only one who can choose the future," she chides him.
"You Bene Gesserit think you can understand me," he pouts. Are all fifteen-year-olds this petulant, or only the Kwisatz Haderach? "But none of you have ever seen a holy war waged in your name."
"There are many worlds where shields are effective tools in battle, but you do not resign yourself to defeat that Arrakis is not one. Neither do you try to build spires like Caladan, but recognize that you can lay no firm foundations in these sands."
"Out there," says Paul, "I'll be lucky if I can pitch a tent."
"History may be carved in stone, but the future is built on sand. There are monstrous forces that perceive patterns, but if you walk erratically, you may emerge into something new."
Paul shakes his head, marvelling. "How quickly we learn."
"We learn because we must," says Jessica. She has seen her son endangered by the Harkonnens, by jealous Fremen, by the planet itself. His powers put him in enough danger without the temptations of despair.
And so will yours, little one, she thinks. Her daughter will be every bit as vulnerable as Paul, and then some, but she will at least have the faith of every newborn that the future is hers to make.
Alia Atreides will still be called the Strange One, the Saint of the Knife. She will not speak until she is two years old, and then she will talk in complete sentences, in a deep accent like Stilgar's. The adults will be bewildered; the children will not want her as their playmate. She will have the makings of a zealot, bound by istislah, adhering to the water discipline and seeking no more than what is fair. There are some fates that are not due to unfiltered poison nor Bene Gesserit manipulation, but the happenstance common to scattered humanity.
But for now, she emerges under the two moons, with a nose like the desert hawk's beak and wide eyes that say to the galaxy: here I am.