Mentats of Dune

Chapter 46 (Sometimes the best way to see the familiar is to go far from it)

When he returned to Arrakis City under orders from Directeur Venport, Taref felt as if a dust storm had passed from his mind, and he saw the city clearly for the first time. Though he was sure it had not changed, this wasn’t the same place he had left.

While growing up in the sietch, he’d thought of the city as a huge metropolis filled with strange noises and smells. In those days, he and his friends could journey for days across open featureless dunes and still find their way home, yet they could get lost in the city’s tangled streets. There were so many tall buildings, confusing alleys, crowds of strangers, and unexpected perils.

Now, however, Taref realized that Arrakis City was small in comparison to other offworld population centers. Buildings that had once seemed magnificent were rather low and weather-beaten. The streets were dirty, the people huddled. Though large numbers of VenHold spice haulers lifted off daily, the Arrakis spaceport operations didn’t compare with those on Kolhar, or even Junction Alpha.

He’d been gone from the desert for only a few months, but he’d grown accustomed to bathing and feeling clean. His flesh had gained an unsettling soft flexibility; he could now pinch it between his fingers instead of feeling the stiff tautness of a desert-adapted body. Naib Rurik would consider that a weakness.

Poor Shurko would have felt that way as well, Taref knew. Even on planets with an abundance of moisture, his stern young friend had rationed his water intake, afraid that he would forget the basics of simple existence, that he would grow soft and weak. Taref would never forget the core of the desert within him — nor would he ever forget his dead friend — but he was open to learning and experiencing new things as well.

Yet the wondrous new places had not been so wondrous after all, and his work had been little different from what he had done when sabotaging spice-harvesting equipment — except that it cost a great many lives. And now Shurko would not be returning to the desert, would never need his desert knowledge again.

No, this had not been what Taref expected when he joyously convinced his friends to join him on a great adventure.

Taref’s sietch brothers and sisters felt they already knew everything they needed to know, but now that he had been to other places far away — and he still had so much more to see — he could tell his people that so much more awaited them out there. He would extend Directeur Venport’s offer, inviting them to see the things he had seen. Some might feel the same pull of dreams, though he’d always been a misfit in his own sietch.…

Before Taref set out on the new mission to Arrakis, Draigo Roget had given him a brand-new distilling suit, claiming that the old one wasn’t worth repairing, even though Taref had meticulously maintained it for years. The young man checked over the new suit, noting the improvements that had been implemented, how the seams were double-sealed, the inner lining reinforced, the filter pads made more efficient. This stillsuit was finer than anything he had seen in his old sietch, better even than the one worn by a Naib. Taref would claim that this was just a hint of the rewards volunteers might receive if they joined him in working for Venport Holdings.

He wished his fellow saboteurs could come back with him, but Draigo had shaken his head. “They have their own assignments for VenHold, dispatched to deal with various EsconTran operations.” His friends missed the dunes, especially Lillis, and the loss of Shurko had hit them all hard.

Taref’s heart ached to know that his friend would never return to the desert, that he had vanished somewhere out in space where his body’s water would not be recovered. Offworlders did not think about such things; water meant nothing to them, and sometimes their lives were cheap, as well…

HE TRAVELED DOWN to Arrakis City, where he mingled with surly workers who’d come to join the Combined Mercantiles spice-harvesting operations. Taref was going home, but these workers saw the desert planet as their last chance. Most of them would never leave here.

Pretending to be one of the spice crew volunteers, he left the spaceport for the Combined Mercantiles headquarters. Most of these new workers had no experience at all in desert operations, and some wouldn’t survive the first year. They reminded him of himself, and his friends, leaving what they knew for what they imagined would be a better life elsewhere, far away. He’d never thought much about the offworld workers before, and now he felt sorry for them.

Taref carried a special, coded dispensation from Directeur Venport that guaranteed him a spot on any crew he chose. He presented his credentials, a recorded message from Draigo Roget, and a VenHold-backed credit chit. One of the Mentat workers recognized him from his initial recruitment, sized him up. “You have matured and adapted, young man.”

“I’ve learned much in my time away. Now my assignment is to recruit other Freemen so they can have the same opportunities as I did. For that, I need to go into the deep desert.”

The Mentat nodded. “I hope you haven’t forgotten how to survive out there. The dunes will always be a perilous place.”

After Taref identified the general location of his sietch, the Mentat checked schedules and assigned him to a spice crew that would work in the vicinity. Taref could stay with the crew as long as he liked and draw a regular paycheck; whenever he felt it appropriate, he could leave to find his people.

He spent a week with the spice operations, readapting himself to Arrakis, and found that his fondest memories of the desert were now discolored by reality. As soon as he returned to the arid wasteland, smelled the spice-cinnamon air, and felt the grit in his teeth, Taref realized he had forgotten much, and changed much. He felt like a pair of stiff new boots that needed to be broken in again.

Before reappearing at the sietch, he remembered what it was like to live out here. He had never noticed the daily details before, since they had been part of his routine existence. By the time he left the spice crew, Taref still hadn’t regained his sharp edge, but at least he was no longer so soft and rounded, and he did not perspire so profusely into the distilling suit.

His own people had no knowledge of what had happened to him or his companions, because no one had sent any message back to the sietch. Young Freemen often took solo journeys on unknown adventures; many didn’t come back. No one would have guessed that Taref and his friends had traveled to distant planets. He had little to show for it, except for his own tales … which they probably would not believe.

Trudging away from the rocky camp as night fell and the desert cooled, he left the spice operations and struck out across the open dunes with his well-practiced random walk. Taref could have summoned a sandworm, which would have been a spectacular way to return: riding one of the huge creatures up to the cliffside, dismounting with a flourish, and running to the rocks before the leviathan could devour him. But he had no companions, no spotters, and only rudimentary equipment. He would have needed to plan better for such a grand entrance. Instead, Taref walked at night with irregular steps, found shelter during the day, and moved on again at nightfall.

His first sip from the suit’s catch-pocket tasted flat and foul, and he thought something was wrong with the new stillsuit. But he realized that was the way reprocessed water had always tasted. He calculated how long he could last alone in the desert, and hoped he could reach the sietch in time. He had only a guess of the distance involved because he didn’t know the exact position of the spice-harvesting operations. If he arrived at the warren settlement parched, dying, and begging for mercy, then his argument about the advantages of Venport Holdings would sway none of his people.

He crossed the desert for four days, picking up the pace, fighting back his thirst. He drained all the catch-pockets in his distilling suit and hoarded the last literjon of water he carried with him. In a few days he would have to worry about survival rather than discomfort.

Taref shuddered with relief when he saw the familiar cliff wall on the horizon, much closer than he had expected. A miracle! He arrived with enough water left for a day and a half, a great luxury, so he took the time to rest, drink, and refresh himself before climbing the hidden but familiar trail. Finally he picked his way up the rocks and presented himself at the moisture door. The guards were astonished to see him.

He had thought much about what he would say, how he would deliver his offer to the sietch — if Naib Rurik even allowed him to address the tribe. He faced the guards. “I have returned with an opportunity.”

“Where are your companions?” asked a young male.

“They are having remarkable adventures on faraway worlds,” Taref exaggerated, not wanting to tell them about Shurko just yet.

They opened the door to let Taref in. “The Naib will want an explanation from you.”

“Everyone in the sietch will want to hear my story. It could change our way of life.” Taref was smiling, but the hardscrabble people who emerged from their quarters and workshop rooms seemed more unsettled than happy to see him. They acknowledged the young man’s return, but without a warm welcome. They had always looked askance at him, considered him odd. They had never been his close friends when he lived with them, but he at least expected them to be curious. He could tell them stories about water from the sky, white snow that piled up on the ground, and lakes so immense that it would take days to walk around them.

The Naib and Taref’s two older brothers sat together in a cool chamber, drinking spice coffee, discussing politics and marriage prospects, planning a response to a petty feud with another desert tribe. As Taref listened to their conversation, their concerns sounded small to him, especially now that he knew of much vaster conflicts out in the Imperium involving Manford Torondo’s Butlerians and Josef Venport, the fleet of EsconTran and the ships of VenHold.

Naib Rurik looked at his youngest son. Rather than showing elation at Taref’s return, he sniffed. “You’ve been gone a long time, you and your friends. You left the rest of us in the sietch to do your work.”

“I did work of my own while I was away, Father. Important work.”

His brother Modoc said, “If it wasn’t work for the sietch, then it was not important work.”

His brothers had often ridiculed him, making Taref feel small, but that would not be effective against him now. “I don’t care what you consider important. I have seen the vastness of the Imperium.”

His brothers chuckled, and Rurik said, “What happened to your suit?”

“I have a superior one.”

His father said, “You always want to change things.”

“Yes — I dreamed about changing life for all of our people, for the better. We’ll change the history of the Imperium. My friends and I have gone to various planets, we’ve done work for a great shipping company.”

“What does offworld politics matter to us here?” asked his other brother, Golron. “You abandoned your responsibilities.”

“‘A man’s responsibility is to the sietch and to his people.’” Taref flung the Naib’s oft-spoken words back in his face. “I would like to speak to the sietch, call a gathering. I have come with an opportunity that will improve life for anyone who volunteers to join me. I’ve been to worlds where water falls from the sky, and where the temperature is so cold the droplets freeze and lie on the ground in white drifts. On many worlds, water is so plentiful that it just sits in natural basins in the ground. Lakes and seas!” He raised his chin, challenging them to deny what he had seen and done. “Directeur Venport asked me to recruit others, because he thinks Freemen are superior operatives. Anyone who comes with me can see these places for himself, and be well paid in the bargain.”

Naib Rurik slurped his spice coffee. “I don’t believe in worlds like that.”

“And where are your friends?” Golron pressed. “Why haven’t they all come back with wild tales like yours? Or did you lose them in the desert?”

“I lost one.” Taref lowered his voice. “Shurko perished on a mission — but he destroyed an enemy ship, as he was ordered to do.”

Naib Rurik’s face formed a sour expression. “Freemen should not take orders from an offworld businessman.”

“Did you bring Shurko’s water back to the tribe?” asked Modoc. “It belongs to us.”

“He was lost with the ship, out in open space. His water is gone.”

“Then you failed your friend and you failed the sietch,” said the Naib. “And you want to convince others to replicate your folly?”

“I want to give them the same opportunity I had. Directeur Venport pays extremely well. After we finish our service, we will bring many items of advanced civilization to the sietch, to make life better here.”

“And why would we want anything to do with offworld civilization?” Golron asked. “Have you forgotten your own people’s history? We were enslaved by that civilization. We have a far better life here.”

“How do you know what’s out there? You hide in your caves and insist this is the best of all possible worlds, without ever having seen another one.”

Rurik shook his head. “You reek of civilization, of offworlders. You were always strange, Taref, yet I claimed you as my son because I did not want to shame you, me, or your mother.” His expression darkened. “Leave now — you do not belong here anymore. Go back to your insignificant life in Arrakis City. You will not spread your nonsense here in the sietch.”

Taref snapped, “You’re holding back our people.”

“No, I anchor them and give them stability. Your brothers will resupply you and send you out into the desert again. Don’t bother to come back with wild stories or offers. Go!”

Modoc mocked, “Do you require us to carry you on a palanquin, so you can get safely back to your civilization?”

Disappointed, and wondering how he would explain this complete failure to Directeur Venport, Taref turned his back on them. “I still know the desert, but I also know many things you will never experience.”

He had felt so saddened when he heard his friends complain about being homesick for the dunes and the old sietch. Now, though, Taref had no regrets about leaving here.