"I just know it."
The old woman glanced at Jessica, back to Paul. "What did you dream last night? Was it worth remembering?"
"Yes." Paul closed his eyes. "I dreamed a cavern . . . and water . . . and a girl there -- very skinny with big eyes. Her eyes are all blue, no whites in them. I talk to her and tell her about you, about seeing the Reverend Mother on Caladan." Paul opened his eyes.
"And the thing you tell this strange girl about seeing me, did it happen today?"
Paul thought about this, then: "Yes. I tell the girl you came and put a stamp of strangeness on me."
"Stamp of strangeness," the old woman breathed, and again she shot a glance at Jessica, returned her attention to Paul. "Tell me truly now, Paul, do you often have dreams of things that happen afterward exactly as you dreamed them?"
"Yes. And I've dreamed about that girl before."
"Oh? You know her?"
"I will know her."
"Tell me about her."
Again, Paul closed his eyes. "We're in a little place in some rocks where it's sheltered. It's almost night, but it's hot and I can see patches of sand out of an opening in the rocks. We're . . . waiting for something . . . for me to go meet some people. And she's frightened but trying to hide it from me, and I'm excited. And she says: 'Tell me about the waters of your homeworld, Usul.' "
Paul opened his eyes. "Isn't that strange? My homeworld's Caladan. I've never even heard of a planet called Usul."
"Is there more to this dream?" Jessica prompted.
"Yes. But maybe she was calling me Usul," Paul said. "I just thought of that." Again, he closed his eyes. "She asks me to tell her about the waters. And I take her hand. And I say I'll tell her a poem. And I tell her the poem, but I have to explain some of the words -- like beach and surf and seaweed and seagulls."
"What poem?" the Reverend Mother asked.
Paul opened his eyes. "It's just one of Gurney Halleck's tone poems for sad times."
Behind Paul Jessica began to recite:
"I remember salt smoke from a beach fire
And shadows under the pines --
Solid, clean . . . fixed --
Seagulls perched at the tip of land,
White upon green . . .
And a wind comes through the pines
To sway the shadows;
The seagulls spread their wings,
Lift
And fill the sky with screeches.
And I hear the wind
Blowing across our beach,
And the surf,
And I see that our fire
Has scorched the seaweed."
"That's the one," Paul said.
The old woman stared at Paul, then: "Young man, as a Proctor of the Bene Gesserit, I seek the Kwisatz Haderach, the male who truly can become one of us.
Your mother sees this possibility in you, but she sees with the eyes of a mother. Possibility I see, too, but no more."
She fell silent and Paul saw that she wanted him to speak. He waited her out.
Presently, she said: "As you will, then. You've depths in you; that I'll grant."
"May I go now?" he asked.
"Don't you want to hear what the Reverend Mother can tell you about the Kwisatz Haderach?" Jessica asked.
"She said those who tried for it died."
