Chapter 32

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Chapter 32

Post by Freakzilla »

The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen"--
which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of
reaching out to grasp that thing.

-from "The Wisdom of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

They reach Cave of Ridges at sunrise and hurry inside. Chani gives Paul some food. Stilgar shows Jessica their green basin and shares the Fremen dream of teraforming Arrakis and the bribes to the Guild to keep away satellites. Jessica sees Fremen riding a worm in the distance, Stilgar tells her it would be better to ride but they can't allow a maker in the basin. The implication that the Fremen ride the worms is shocking. Jessica asks if his leadership was challenged when she bested him the night before, he tells her the time may come, after he learns her powers, that they may have to challenge on e another. An alternative would be for Jessica to become their Sayyadina or Reverend Mother, one who teaches and is a religious leader. He tells her of the legend that a Bene Gesserit and her offspring will hold the key to their future. She asks if he believes she is the one but says he doesn't know. She feels he's looking for a sign but doesn't want to ruin it by revealing the sign. She reflects on her Missionaria Protectiva training on how to adapt the techniques of legend and fear and hope to emergency needs, but she gets the impression that someone has allready capitalized on the Missionaria's imprint. She recites a prayer from her training in Cantu and Respondu and the Fremen accept this as the sign. She feels cynical bitterness at what she is doing, the Missionaria rarely fails.

Paul had never before eaten such a concentration of spice as in the food Chani gave him, he begins to feel his terrible purpose again. He sinks to the floor with his back against the wall. He sees time in a trinocular focus, one vision of the past, one of the present and one of the future all combined. He can see all possible paths in the past and future. He sees a time-nexus in this cave where the slightes motion could change the universe. He sees violence but the outcomes shift with his slightest movement, he wants to freeze but this too has it's consequences. Countless lines of the future fan out from this cave, in most of them he sees his own dead body, blood flowing from a knife wound.
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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