Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [195]
Then, too, there was the unanswered mystery of the Sayyadinas, the holy women of the sietch. Thus far Kynes had seen only one of their number, dressed in a long black robe like that of a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother—and no Fremen seemed willing to tell him much about them. Different worlds, different mysteries.
Someday, Kynes thought it might be interesting to compile a sociological study of how different cultures reacted and adapted to extreme environments. He wondered what the harsh realities of a world could do to the natural instincts and traditional roles of the sexes. But he already had too much work to do. Besides, he was a Planetologist, not a sociologist.
Finishing his meal, Kynes leaned forward and kissed his Fremen wife. Smiling, he patted her rounded belly beneath her robes. “Stilgar says I must accompany him on a journey. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“How long?” she inquired, thinking of the baby’s impending birth. Apparently Kynes, obsessed with his long view of events on this planet, had not noted his own child’s expected due date and had forgotten to allow for it in his plans.
“Twenty thumpers,” he said, though he wasn’t exactly certain how much distance that meant.
Frieth raised her eyebrows in quiet surprise, then lowered her gaze and began to clean up their breakfast dishes. “Even the longest journey may pass more quickly when the heart is content.” Her tone betrayed only the slightest disappointment. “I shall await your return, my husband.” She hesitated, then said, “Choose a good worm.”
Kynes didn’t know what she meant.
Moments later, Stilgar and eighteen other young Fremen decked out in full desert garb led Kynes through the tortuous passages down and out of the barrier mountain and onto the enormous western sea of sands. Kynes felt a pang of worry. The parched expanse seemed too far and too dangerous. Now he was glad he wasn’t alone.
“We’re going across the equator and below, Umma Kynes, to where we Fremen have other lands, our own secret projects. You shall see.”
Kynes’s eyes widened; he had heard only grim and terrible stories about the uninhabitable southern regions. He stared into the forbidding distance as Stilgar rapidly checked over the Planetologist’s stillsuit, tightening fastenings and adjusting filters to his own satisfaction. “But how will we travel?” He knew the sietch had its own ornithopter, just a skimmer actually, not nearly large enough to carry so many people.
Stilgar looked at him with an expectant expression. “We shall ride, Umma Kynes.” He nodded toward the youth who had long ago taken a wounded Stilgar back to the sietch in Kynes’s groundcar. “Ommun will become a sandrider this day. It is a great event among our people.”
“I’m sure it is,” Kynes said, his curiosity piqued.
In their desert-stained robes the Fremen marched out across the sand, walking single file. Beneath the robes they wore stillsuits, and on their feet temag desert boots. Their indigo-blue eyes gazed out of the far past.
One dark figure raced forward along a dune crest several hundred meters ahead of the rest of his group. There he took a long dark stake and shoved it into the sand, tinkering with controls until finally Kynes could hear the reverberating thump of repetitive pounding.
Kynes had already seen such a thing during Glossu Rabban’s ultimately frustrating worm hunt. “He’s trying to make a worm come?”
Stilgar nodded. “If God wishes.”
Kneeling on the sands, Ommun removed a cloth-wrapped bundle of tools. These he sorted and laid out neatly. Long iron hooks, sharp goads, and coils of rope.
“Now what is he doing?” Kynes asked.
The thumper pounded its rhythm into the sand. The Fremen troop waited, carrying packs and supplies.
“Come. We must be ready for the arrival of Shai-Hulud,” Stilgar said, nudging the Planetologist to follow as they trudged into position on the sun-drenched dunes. The Fremen