Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [98]
“Yes,” Kailea said, her voice hardening. “They work better that way.”
Like the knowledge of your own being, the sietch forms a firm base from which you move out into the world and into the universe.
—Fremen Teaching
Pardot Kynes was so fascinated by the Fremen culture, religion, and daily routine that he remained completely oblivious to the life-and-death debate raging around him in the sietch. Naib Heinar had told him he could talk to the people and describe his ideas—and so he talked, at every opportunity.
For an entire cycle of the moons, the Fremen whispered their opinions in small caves and dens, or shouted them across tables in private meetings of the sietch elders. Some of them even empathized with what the strange outworlder was saying.
Though his fate remained undecided, Kynes didn’t slow for a moment. Sietch guides took him around and showed him many things they thought would interest him, but the Planetologist also stopped to ask questions of women working in the stillsuit factories, of old men tending water supplies, and of withered grandmothers operating solar ovens or filing rough burrs off scrap metal.
The bustling activity around the sealed caves astonished him: Some workers trampled spice residue to extract fuel, others curded spice for fermentation. Weavers at power looms used their own hair, the long fur of mutated rats, wisps of desert cotton, and even skin strips from wild creatures to make their durable fabric. And of course schools taught the young Fremen desert skills, as well as ruthless combat techniques.
One morning Kynes awoke refreshed, perfectly comfortable after spending the night on a mat on the hard floor. Throughout much of his life, he had slept in the open on rough ground. His body could find rest just about anywhere. He breakfasted on dehydrated fruits and dry cakes the Fremen women had baked in thermal ovens. The beginnings of a beard covered his face, a sandy stubble.
A young woman named Frieth brought him a serving tray with meticulously prepared spice coffee in an ornate pot. During the entire ritual, she directed her deep blue eyes downward, as she had done every morning since Kynes’s arrival at the sietch. He hadn’t thought anything of her cool, efficient attentions until someone had whispered to him, “She is the unmarried sister of Stilgar, whose life you saved against the Harkonnen dogs.”
Frieth had fine features and smooth, tanned skin. Her hair appeared long enough to flow to her waist, if ever she undid it from her water rings and let it fall. Her manner was quiet but all-knowing, in the Fremen way; she rushed to fulfill every small wish Kynes bothered to express, often without his realizing it. He might have noticed how beautiful she was, had he not been so intent on noticing everything else around him.
After he had sipped his pungent, cardamom-laced coffee down to the dregs, Kynes hauled out his electronic pad to jot down notes and ideas. At a noise, he looked up to see wiry young Turok standing in the doorway. “I’m to take you anywhere you wish, Planetologist, so long as you remain within Red Wall Sietch.”
Kynes nodded and smiled, disregarding the constraints of being a captive. They did not rankle him. It was understood that he would never leave the sietch alive unless the Fremen accepted him and decided to trust him completely. If he did join the community, there could be no secrets between them; on the other hand, if the Fremen chose to execute him in the end, there would have been no point in keeping secrets from a dead man.
Previously Kynes had seen the tunnels, the food-storage chambers, the guarded water supplies, even the Huanui deathstills. In fascination he had watched the family groups of desert-hardened men, each with his several wives; he had seen them pray to Shai-Hulud. He’d begun to compile a mental sketch of this culture and the political and familial ties within the sietch, but it would take decades to unravel all the subtle relationships, all the nuances