Paul took a half-step forward. "What are you talking about?"
Stilgar flicked a glance across Paul, but kept his attention on Jessica. "Unless you've been deep-trained from childhood to live here, you could bring destruction onto an entire tribe. It is the law, and we cannot carry useless . . . "
Jessica's motion started as a slumping, deceptive faint to the ground. It was the obvious thing for a weak outworlder to do, and the obvious slows an opponent's reactions. It takes an instant to interpret a known thing when that thing is exposed as something unknown. She shifted as she saw his right shoulder drop to bring a weapon within the folds of his robe to bear on her new position. A turn, a slash of her arm, a whirling of mingled robes, and she was against the rocks with the man helpless in front of her.
At his mother's first movement, Paul backed two steps. As she attacked, he dove for shadows. A bearded man rose up in his path, half-crouched, lunging forward with a weapon in one hand. Paul took the man beneath the sternum with a straight-hand jab, sidestepped and chopped the base of his neck, relieving him of the weapon as he fell.
Then Paul was into the shadows, scrambling upward among the rocks, the weapon tucked into his waist sash. He had recognized it in spite of its unfamiliar shape - a projectile weapon, and that said many things about this place, another clue that shields were not used here.
They will concentrate on my mother and that Stilgar fellow. She can handle him. I must get to a safe vantage point where I can threaten them and give her time to escape .
There came a chorus of sharp spring-clicks from the basin. Projectiles whined off the rocks around him. One of them flicked his robe. He squeezed around a corner in the rocks, found himself in a narrow vertical crack, began inching upward - his back against one side, his feet against the other - slowly, as silently as he could.
The roar of Stilgar's voice echoed up to him: "Get back, you wormheaded lice! She'll break my neck if you come near!"
A voice out of the basin said: "The boy got away, Stil. What are we - "
"Of course he got away, you sand-brained . . . Ugh-h-h! Easy, woman!"
"Tell them to stop hunting my son," Jessica said.
"They've stopped, woman. He got away as you intended him to. Great gods below! Why didn't you say you were a weirding woman and a fighter?"
"Tell your men to fall back," Jessica said. "Tell them to go out into the basin where I can see them . . . and you'd better believe that I know how many of them there are."
And she thought: This is the delicate moment, but if this man is as sharp-minded as I think him, we have a chance .
Paul inched his way upward, found a narrow ledge on which he could rest and look down into the basin. Stilgar's voice came up to him.
"And if I refuse? How can you . . . ugh-h-h! Leave be, woman! We mean no harm to you, now. Great gods! If you can do this to the strongest of us, you're worth ten times your weight of water."
Now, the test of reason , Jessica thought. She said: "You ask after the Lisan al-Gaib."
"You could be the folk of the legend," he said, "but I'll believe that when it's been tested. All I know now is that you came here with that stupid Duke who . . . Aiee-e-e! Woman! I care not if you kill me! He was honorable and brave, but it was stupid to put himself in the way of the Harkonnen fist!"
Silence.
Presently, Jessica said: "He had no choice, but we'll not argue it. Now, tell that man of yours behind the bush over there to stop trying to bring his weapon to bear on me, or I'll rid the universe of you and take him next."
"You there!" Stilgar roared. "Do as she says!"
"But, Stil - "
"Do as she says, you wormfaced, crawling, sand-brained piece of lizard turd! Do it or I'll help her dismember you! Can't you see the worth of this woman?"
The man at the bush straightened from his partial concealment, lowered his weapon.
"He has obeyed," Stilgar said.
"Now," Jessica said, "explain clearly to your people what it is you wish of me. I want no young hothead to make a foolish mistake."
"When we slip into the villages and towns we must mask our origin, blend with the pan and graben folk," Stilgar said. "We carry no weapons, for the crysknife is sacred. But you, woman, you have the weirding ability of battle. We'd only heard of it and many doubted, but one cannot doubt what he sees with his own eyes. You mastered an armed Fremen. This is a weapon no search could expose."
There was a stirring in the basin as Stilgar's words sank home.
"And if I agree to teach you the . . . weirding way?"
"My countenance for you as well as your son."
"How can we be sure of the truth in your promise?"
Stilgar's voice lost some of its subtle undertone of reasoning, took on an edge of bitterness. "Out here, woman, we carry no paper for contracts. We make no evening promises to be broken at dawn. When a man says a thing, that's the contract. As leader of my people, I've put them in bond to my word. Teach us this weirding way and you have sanctuary with us as long as you wish. Your water shall mingle with our water."
"Can you speak for all Fremen?" Jessica asked.
"In time, that may be. But only my brother, Liet, speaks for all Fremen. Here, I promise only secrecy. My people will not speak of you to any other sietch. The Harkonnens have returned to Dune in force and your Duke is dead. It is said that you two died in a Mother storm. The hunter does not seek dead game."
There's safety in that , Jessica thought. But these people have good communications and a message could be sent.