Chapter 27

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Freakzilla
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Chapter 27

Post by Freakzilla »

At the age of fifteen, he had already learned silence.
-from "A Child's History of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

After riding in the sandstorm for hours, Paul finds a vortex that lifts the 'thopter above the storm to find themselves in an area with many rock outcroppings. He crash lands the thopter on sand close to one of the rocks and they run for the rocks. The crash brings a worm which eats the downed thopter then returns into the open desert. They decide to follow the rock ridge and Paul feels a sense of deja vu from a prescient vision he'd had on Caladan. But the reality is slightly different from the vision, which contained Idaho, who is now dead. They climb along the ridge until it ends in an expanse of open desert several kilometers across. Past the open desert there is another ridge. They decide to rest, take some energy pills and drink all the water from their stillsuits. Paul formulates a plan to plant a thumper in the rocks in order to keep a worm busy, while they walk without rythym across the sand to the other rock. They need to sleep through the day first so they climb down as close to the desert floor as they can and find a fissure in which to camp. While sliding down into it, Jessica is burried in a cascade of sand. Paul knows she will put herself into prana-bindu suspension while he digs for her, which he does, and finds her. But he lost the fremkit with their essentials. He still has the knife, paracompass and binoculars. He finds some spice just outside the fissure, combines that in the gutted paracompass with the crystals from it's power pack and a little water to produce foam. This he uses to immobilize the sand while they dig into the slope and find the pack. He sets up the stilltent and they look at the opposite ridge with the binoculars. They can see small bushes, maybe there's Fremen there, they hope they will be friendly. A worm passes between the rocks while they are looking. Jessica insists they continue with Paul's training, to his distress. She admits he knows his bindu-nervature possibly better than her but he can still learn about his prana-musculature. She reminds him of how he paniced in the sand-slide and warns that the body's muscles can do things on their own. She can teach him about this, they will review the hand muscles, and orders him into the tent. He looks at his hand and thinks how inadequate it is measured agains something like the worm.
They were destroyed because they lied pretentiously. Have no fear that my wrath
will fall upon you because of your innocent mistakes.

~Leto II, God Emperor
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