"How long has he been this way?" Chani asked. She disengaged her hand from Jessica's, moved farther into the room.
"Three weeks," Jessica said. "I spent almost a week trying to revive him. There were meetings, arguments . . . investigations. Then I sent for you. The Fedaykin obey my orders, else I might not have been able to delay the . . . " She wet her lips with her tongue, watching Chani cross to Paul.
Chani stood over him now, looking down on the soft beard of youth that framed his face, tracing with her eyes the high browline, the strong nose, the shuttered eyes - the features so peaceful in this rigid repose.
"How does he take nourishment?" Chani asked.
"The demands of his flesh are so slight he does not yet need food," Jessica said.
"How many know of what has happened?" Chani asked.
"Only his closest advisers, a few of the leaders, the Fedaykin and, of course, whoever administered the poison."
"There is no clue to the poisoner?"
"And it's not for want of investigating," Jessica said.
"What do the Fedaykin say?" Chani asked.
"They believe Paul is in a sacred trance, gathering his holy powers before the final battles. This is a thought I've cultivated."
Chani lowered herself to her knees beside the pad, bent close to Paul's face. She sensed an immediate difference in the air about his face . . . but it was only the spice, the ubiquitous spice whose odor permeated everything in Fremen life. Still . . .
"You were not born to the spice as we were," Chani said. "Have you investigated the possibility that his body has rebelled against too much spice in his diet?"
"Allergy reactions are all negative," Jessica said.
She closed her eyes, as much to blot out this scene as because of sudden realization of fatigue. How long have I been without sleep? she asked herself. Too long .
"When you change the Water of Life," Chani said, "you do it within yourself by the inward awareness. Have you used this awareness to test his blood?"
"Normal Fremen blood," Jessica said. "Completely adapted to the diet and the life here."
Chani sat back on her heels, submerging her fears in thought as she studied Paul's face. This was a trick she had learned from watching the Reverend Mothers. Time could be made to serve the mind. One concentrated the entire attention.
Presently, Chani said: "Is there a maker here?"
"There are several," Jessica said with a touch of weariness. "We are never without them these days. Each victory requires its blessing. Each ceremony before a raid - "
"But Paul Muad'Dib has held himself aloof from these ceremonies," Chani said.
Jessica nodded to herself, remembering her son's ambivalent feelings toward the spice drug and the prescient awareness it precipitated.
"How did you know this?" Jessica asked.
"It is spoken."
"Too much is spoken," Jessica said bitterly.
"Get me the raw Water of the maker," Chani said.
Jessica stiffened at the tone of command in Chani's voice, then observed the intense concentration in the younger woman and said: "At once." She went out through the hangings to send a waterman.
Chani sat staring at Paul. If he has tried to do this, she thought. And it's the sort of thing he might try . . .
Jessica knelt beside Chani, holding out a plain camp ewer. The charged odor of the poison was sharp in Chani's nostrils. She dipped a finger in the fluid, held the finger close to Paul's nose.
The skin along the bridge of his nose wrinkled slightly. Slowly, the nostrils flared.
Jessica gasped.
Chani touched the dampened finger to Paul's upper lip.
He drew in a long, sobbing breath. "What is this?" Jessica demanded.
"Be still," Chani said. "You must convert a small amount of the sacred water. Quickly!"
Without questioning, because she recognized the tone of awareness in Chani's voice, Jessica lifted the ewer to her mouth, drew in a small sip.
Paul's eyes flew open. He stared upward at Chani.
"It is not necessary for her to change the Water," he said. His voice was weak, but steady.
Jessica, a sip of the fluid on her tongue, found her body rallying, converting the poison almost automatically. In the light elevation the ceremony always imparted, she sensed the life-glow from Paul - a radiation there registering on her senses.
In that instant, she knew.
"You drank the sacred water!" she blurted.
"One drop of it," Paul said. "So small . . . one drop."
"How could you do such a foolish thing?" she demanded.
"He is your son," Chani said.
Jessica glared at her.
A rare smile, warm and full of understanding, touched Paul's lips. "Hear my beloved," he said. "Listen to her, Mother. She knows."
"A thing that others can do, he must do," Chani said.
"When I had the drop in my mouth, when I felt it and smelled it, when I knew what it was doing to me, then I knew I could do the thing that you have done," he said. "Your Bene Gesserit proctors speak of the Kwisatz Haderach, but they cannot begin to guess the many places I have been. In the few minutes I . . . " He broke off, looking at Chani with a puzzled frown. "Chani? How did you get here? You're supposed to be . . . Why are you here?"
He tried to push himself onto his elbows. Chani pressed him back gently.
"Please, my Usul," she said.
"I feel so weak," he said. His gaze darted around the room. "How long have I been here?"
"You've been three weeks in a coma so deep that the spark of life seemed to have fled," Jessica said.