The young man followed his trainer’s instructions, as always. Thufir’s gaze fixed on him, and Paul felt the surrounding sounds fading away. Disoriented, he felt as if he were falling into those dilated pupils. The warrior Mentat continued to stare. “Imagine. Place yourself in the scenario. Believe.”
Paul believed.
“You have been captured by Harkonnens. Picture yourself in a box, a prison, close plaz walls around you, pain amplifiers strapped to your body.”
Paul knew it was just his imagination, but his surroundings grew fuzzy, and he envisioned himself in a plaz-walled chamber like a coffin. He felt the needles and barbs, the cuffs, the electrodes piercing his skin. He was trapped, confined, and about to be tortured. He thrashed, but could not escape.
“Next,” Hawat continued, “there is another chamber. Your mother and father are both there—also held prisoner, also connected to pain amplifiers. And they will not survive the torture. You know the truth of it.”
“I know it.” He saw Jessica and Leto distraught, their clothes tattered, their hair tangled. Their eyes were shadowed, their cheeks hollow. Clearly, they had been tortured already. Damned Harkonnens! Jessica pounded on the plaz wall, but sound dampeners muffled the noise. He saw her lips move. She was saying something to Duke Leto, pleading with him. He shouted commands to his son, but Paul couldn’t hear them.
Thufir’s voice jarred him again. “And a third thing you must know in your heart. The Harkonnens have found the Atreides family atomics, seized them, and planted them in Cala City and all the main cities on this planet. The warheads are linked to a single trigger. With one gesture, the Baron can detonate the warheads and annihilate three-quarters of Caladan’s population.”
“No!” Paul exclaimed.
“Now you have a choice. The Baron has granted you one favor—only one. You have three choices but you may make only a single request. You can save your parents, set them free with a simple appeal. Or you can save the population of Caladan. The Baron will surrender the nuclear triggers, and all those people will be safe—but he will surely torture your parents, and you, to death. Or third, you can save your own life. The Baron will free you. Your parents will die in agony. The people of Caladan will die. And you can only choose once.”
Paul was engulfed by the provocative experience, trapped in the scenario. In his mind, he pounded on the plaz walls, shouted to be released, but nothing happened. He saw his parents desperately trying to break free of their own prisons as the pain amplifiers increased. At the same time, he was aware of the atomics everywhere and the devastation those warheads would cause, millions of people dead if he made that choice.
“Decide!” Hawat insisted. His command lashed out like a whip. Paul jerked. “Do you save your parents? Do you save yourself? Do you free all the people of Caladan, or do you let them die in a nuclear holocaust? Do you watch the Duke and his lady writhe in agony as they are flayed before your eyes? Or do you face that death yourself?”
It was so real that Paul felt caught in the hypnotic scenario the warrior Mentat had triggered within him. “No. I won’t choose.”
“But you must. If you do not choose, then you all die.”
“No!” Paul said.
“You must choose!” Hawat shouted. The roar of his voice penetrated the illusion around him.
Paul focused his thoughts, snapped himself free, and stared out at the statues at the edge of the harbor, the flames shining from the lighthouse. As he sat at the outside table, Cala City seemed so peaceful, the blue skies scudded with fluffy clouds. “Thufir, don’t make me…”
“You see, young Master. It is a simple choice, is it not? The parameters are perfectly clear. Why not just select an option?”
“There must be another way,” Paul insisted. “I’ll think of a different idea.”
“I gave you none,” Thufir said. “There may well come a time when you are faced with such an impossible choice.”
Rattled and breathing hard, Paul gazed at the people moving along the streets, simple Caladan folk, merchants, fishermen, boatwrights. A teacher with a dozen children in tow walked along the byway toward the promontory park. Paul’s heart pounded as he let the magnitude of the experience sink into him.
I won’t choose! It was the fourth choice available to him, no decision. Giving up his parents and his own life was not a victory, even though he knew what he would choose.
“I refuse.”
“Then all will die,” Hawat said.
Frustrated, Paul refused to accept the terms. “There must be another perspective, some negotiation—”
Suddenly, his attention was riveted by a young woman strolling toward the corner. He saw her, recognized her features—dark reddish hair, large eyes, elfin face. She reminded him of the young woman in his recurring dreams, but this was not a desert, not some hot cave or canyon. Still, he watched her move, and his attention was jarred from his confusing thoughts. Startling the Mentat instructor, he lurched to his feet. He had to know who she was.
He left the table and began to hurry after her, but Thufir lunged up, seized his wrist, and pulled him back. “I did not give you leave to go.”
“But, Thufir, that’s the girl! The one I saw in my dreams. The one I sketched.”
Anger flared in the Mentat’s eyes. “I did not give you leave to go. Sit down!” His command was sharp with rebuke, and Paul reacted almost as if his mother had used the Voice on him. “Even here, my class is still in session.”
Paul looked longingly as the girl vanished around a corner. He stared after her in disappointment.
Thufir rapped his knuckles and pushed him back into the chair. “I require your undivided attention, young Master.”
Paul sighed and looked back at his teacher.
No matter how compelling the argument, an evil justification is still evil.
—DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES, private letter about the Kolona Affair
The towering lighthouse statues of his father and his first son reminded Leto of the greatest pain he had ever suffered, but the monuments also calmed and reassured him.
On the spit of rocks at one end of the main harbor, huge boulders formed a jetty, and Leto walked along the gravel path alone. On this sunny day, more than a hundred people had gathered in a wide park around the base of the colossal statues. Fishermen sat on the outer rocks and dangled lines in the water, families held picnics, and children flew colorful kites.
He looked up at the stone face of Paulus Atreides in his matador outfit. Yes, the Old Duke had always been larger than life, and this great statue made him even more so. The lighthouse fire in his hand blazed bright, flames fed through fuel tubes so the light was never extinguished.
Leto had grown up knowing his mother was stern and humorless, and he understood that the marriage between Paulus and Helena was loveless and political, but when had it become murderous? How could Lady Helena have killed her husband?
His eyes stung as he saw the flash of a reflector kite dancing across the face of the taller statue. Leto remembered when young Victor had done that, playing with reflective strips that flew in the air caught on salty updrafts. Oh, the little boy had laughed and laughed!
He paused in his step and closed his eyes as he remembered the flare of fire in the airship, the horrendous explosion that had killed Victor … and the even greater pain when he later learned who had set that tragedy in motion. How could his concubine Kailea have hated him so much?