Arrakis, His Majesty is forced to give us a CHOAM directorship . . . a subtle gain.â
âCHOAM controls the spice,â Paul said.
âAnd Arrakis with its spice is our avenue into CHOAM,â the Duke said. âThereâs more to CHOAM than melange.â
âDid the Reverend Mother warn you?â Paul blurted. He clenched his fists, feeling his palms slippery with perspiration. The effort it had taken to ask that question.
âHawat tells me she frightened you with warnings about Arrakis,â the Duke said. âDonât let a womanâs fears cloud your mind. No woman wants her loved ones endangered. The hand behind those warnings was your motherâs. Take this as a sign of her love for us.â
âDoes she know about the Fremen?â
âYes, and about much more.â
âWhat?â
And the Duke thought: The truth could be worse than he imagines, but even dangerous facts are valuable if youâve been trained to deal with them. And thereâs one place where nothing has been spared for my son â dealing with dangerous facts. This must be leavened, though; he is young.
âFew products escape the CHOAM touch,â the Duke said. âLogs, donkeys, horses, cows, lumber, dung, sharks, whale furâthe most prosaic and the most exotic . . . even our poor pundi rice from Caladan. Anything the Guild will transport, the art forms of Ecaz, the machines of Richesse and Ix. But all fades before melange. A handful of spice will buy a home on Tupile. It cannot be manufactured, it must be mined on Arrakis. It is unique and it has true geriatric properties.â
âAnd now we control it?â
âTo a certain degree. But the important thing is to consider all the Houses that depend on CHOAM profits. And think of the enormous proportion of those profits dependent upon a single productâthe spice. Imagine what would happen if something should reduce spice production.â
âWhoever had stockpiled melange could make a killing,â Paul said. âOthers would be out in the cold.â
The Duke permitted himself a moment of grim satisfaction, looking at his son and thinking how penetrating, how truly educated that observation had been. He nodded. âThe Harkonnens have been stockpiling for more than twenty years.â
âThey mean spice production to fail and you to be blamed.â
âThey wish the Atreides name to become unpopular,â the Duke said. âThink of the Landsraad Houses that look to me for a certain amount of leadershipâtheir unofficial spokesman. Think how theyâd react if I were responsible for a serious reduction in their income. After all, oneâs own profits come first. The Great Convention be damned! You canât let someone pauperize you!â A harsh smile twisted the Dukeâs mouth. âTheyâd look the other way no matter what was done to me.â
âEven if we were attacked with atomics?â
âNothing that flagrant. No open defiance of the Convention. But almost anything else short of that . . . perhaps even dusting and a bit of soil poisoning.â
âThen why are we walking into this?â
âPaul!â The Duke frowned at his son. âKnowing where the trap isâthatâs the first step in evading it. This is like single combat, Son, only on a larger scaleâa feint within a feint within a feint . . . seemingly without end. The task is to unravel it. Knowing that the Harkonnens stockpile melange, we ask another question: Who else is stockpiling? Thatâs the list of our enemies.â
âWho?â
âCertain Houses we knew were unfriendly and some weâd thought friendly. We need not consider them for the moment because there is one other much more important: our beloved Padishah Emperor.â
Paul tried to swallow in a throat suddenly dry. âCouldnât you convene the Landsraad, exposeââ
âMake our enemy aware we