Paul was pressed in behind Chani, noted the buttery glow of light over rock walls, the way the shadows danced, and he felt the troop's lift of spirits contained in a hushed air of expectancy.
Jessica, pulled into the end of the troop by eager hands, hemmed around by jostling bodies, suppressed a moment of panic. She had recognized fragments of the ritual, identified the shards of Chakobsa and Bhotani-jib in the words, and she knew the wild violence that could explode out of these seemingly simple moments.
Jan-jan-jan, she thought. Go-go-go.
It was like a child's game that had lost all inhibition in adult hands.
Stilgar stopped at a yellow rock wall. He pressed an outcropping and the wall swung silently away from him, opening along an irregular crack. He led the way through past a dark honeycomb lattice that directed a cool wash of air across Paul when he passed it.
Paul turned a questioning stare on Chani, tugged her arm. "That air felt damp," he said.
"Sh-h-h-h," she whispered.
But a man behind them said: "Plenty of moisture in the trap tonight. Jamis'
way of telling us he's satisfied."
Jessica passed through the secret door, heard it close behind. She saw how the Fremen slowed while passing the honeycomb lattice, felt the dampness of the air as she came opposite it.
Windtrap! she thought. They've a concealed windtrap somewhere on the surface to funnel air down here into cooler regions and precipitate the moisture from it.
They passed through another rock door with latticework above it, and the door closed behind them. The draft of air at their backs carried a sensation of moisture clearly perceptible to both Jessica and Paul.
At the head of the troop, the glowglobe in Stilgar's hands dropped below the level of the heads in front of Paul. Presently he felt steps beneath his feet, curving down to the left. Light reflected back up across hooded heads and a winding movement of people spiraling down the steps.
Jessica sensed mounting tension in the people around her, a pressure of silence that rasped her nerves with its urgency.
The steps ended and the troop passed through another low door. The light of the glowglobe was swallowed in a great open space with a high curved ceiling.
Paul felt Chani's hand on his arm, heard a faint dripping sound in the chill air, felt an utter stillness come over the Fremen in the cathedral presence of water.
I have seen this place in a dream, he thought.
The thought was both reassuring and frustrating. Somewhere ahead of him on this path, the fanatic hordes cut their gory path across the universe in his name. The green and black Atreides banner would become a symbol of terror. Wild legions would charge into battle screaming their war cry: "Muad'Dib!"
It must not be, he thought. I cannot let it happen.
But he could feel the demanding race consciousness within him, his own terrible purpose, and he knew that no small thing could deflect the juggernaut.
It was gathering weight and momentum. If he died this instant, the thing would go on through his mother and his unborn sister. Nothing less than the deaths of all the troop gathered here and now--himself and his mother included--could stop the thing.
Paul stared around him, saw the troop spread out in a line. They pressed him forward against a low barrier carved from native rock. Beyond the barrier in the glow of Stilgar's globe, Paul saw an unruffled dark surface of water. It stretched away into shadows--deep and black--the far wall only faintly visible, perhaps a hundred meters away.
Jessica felt the dry pulling of skin on her cheeks and forehead relaxing in the presence of moisture. The water pool was deep; she could sense its deepness, and resisted a desire to dip her hands into it.
A splashing sounded on her left. She looked down the shadowy line of Fremen, saw Stilgar with Paul standing beside him and the watermasters emptying their load into the pool through a flowmeter. The meter was a round gray eye above the pool's rim. She saw its glowing pointer move as the water flowed through it, saw the pointer stop at thirty-three liters, seven and three-thirty-seconds drachms.
Superb accuracy in water measurement, Jessica thought. And she noted that the walls of the meter trough held no trace of moisture after the water's passage. The water flowed off those walls without binding tension. She saw a profound clue to Fremen technology in the simple fact: they were perfectionists.
Jessica worked her way down the barrier to Stilgar's side. Way was made for her with casual courtesy. She noted the withdrawn look in Paul's eyes, but the mystery of this great pool of water dominated her thoughts.
Stilgar looked at her. "There were those among us in need of water," he said, "yet they would come here and not touch this water. Do you know that?"
"I believe it," she said.
He looked at the pool. "We have more than thirty-eight million decaliters here," he said. "Walled off from the little makers, hidden and preserved."
"A treasure trove," she said.
Stilgar lifted the globe to look into her eyes. "It is greater than treasure. We have thousands of such caches. Only a few of us know them all." He cocked his head to one side. The globe cast a yellow-shadowed glow across face and beard. "Hear that?"
They listened.
The dripping of water precipitated from the windtrap filled the room with its presence. Jessica saw that the entire troop was caught up in a rapture of listening. Only Paul seemed to stand remote from it.
To Paul, the sound was like moments ticking away. He could feel time flowing through him, the instants never to be recaptured. He sensed a need for decision, but felt powerless to move.
"It has been calculated with precision," Stilgar whispered. "We know to within a million decaliters how much we need. When we have it, we shall change the face of Arrakis."
A hushed whisper of response lifted from the troop: "Bi-lal kaifa."
"We will trap the dunes beneath grass plantings," Stilgar said, his voice growing stronger. "We will tie the water into the soil with trees and undergrowth."
"Bi-lal kaifa," intoned the troop.
"Each year the polar ice retreats," Stilgar said.
"Bi-lal kaifa," they chanted.
