Paul shot a sharp glance at him. "Sardaukar?"
Gurney shrugged. "They could be, but it's well masked."
Paul nodded, thinking how easily Gurney had fallen back into the pattern of Atreides retainer . . . but with subtle reservations . . . differences. Arrakis had changed him, too.
Two hooded Fremen emerged from the broken rock below them, began climbing upward. One of them carried a large black bundle over one shoulder.
"Where are my crew now?" Gurney asked.
"Secure in the rocks below us," Paul said. "We've a cave here -- Cave of Birds. We'll decide what to do with them after the storm."
A voice called from above them: "Muad'Dib!"
Paul turned at the call, saw a Fremen guard motioning them down to the cave.
Paul signaled he had heard.
Gurney studying him with a new expression. "You're Muad'Dib?" he asked.
"You're the will-o'-the-sand?"
"It's my Fremen name," Paul said.
Gurney turned away, feeling an oppressive sense of foreboding. Half his own crew dead on the sand, the others captive. He did not care about the new recruits, the suspicious ones, but among the others were good men, friends, people for whom he felt responsible. "We'll decide what to do with them after the storm." That's what Paul had said, Muad'Dib had said. And Gurney recalled the stories told of Muad'Dib, the Lisan al-Gaib -- how he had taken the skin of a Harkonnen officer to make his drumheads, how he was surrounded by death commandos, Fedaykin who leaped into battle with their death chants on their lips.
Him.
The two Fremen climbing up the rocks leaped lightly to a shelf in front of Paul. The dark-faced one said: "All secure, Muad'Dib. We best get below now."
"Right."
Gurney noted the tone of the man's voice -- half command and half request.
This was the man called Stilgar, another figure of the new Fremen legends.
Paul looked at the bundle the other man carried, said: "Korba, what's in the bundle?"
Stilgar answered: " 'Twas in the crawler. It had the initial of your friend here and it contains a baliset. Many times have I heard you speak of the prowess of Gurney Halleck on the baliset."
Gurney studied the speaker, seeing the edge of black beard above the stillsuit mask, the hawk stare, the chiseled nose.
"You've a companion who thinks, m'Lord," Gurney said. "Thank you, Stilgar."
Stilgar signaled for his companion to pass the bundle to Gurney, said:
"Thank your Lord Duke. His countenance earns your admittance here."
Gurney accepted the bundle, puzzled by the hard undertones in this conversation. There was an air of challenge about the man, and Gurney wondered if it could be a feeling of jealousy in the Fremen. Here was someone called Gurney Halleck who'd known Paul even in the times before Arrakis, a man who shared a camaraderie that Stilgar could never invade.
"You are two I'd have be friends," Paul said.
"Stilgar, the Fremen, is a name of renown," Gurney said. "Any killer of Harkonnens I'd feel honored to count among my friends."
"Will you touch hands with my friend Gurney Halleck, Stilgar?" Paul asked.
Slowly, Stilgar extended his hand, gripped the heavy calluses of Gurney's swordhand. "There're few who haven't heard the name of Gurney Halleck," he said, and released his grip. He turned to Paul. "The storm comes rushing."
"At once," Paul said.
Stilgar turned away, led them down through the rocks, a twisting and turning path into a shadowed cleft that admitted them to the low entrance of a cave. Men hurried to fasten a doorseal behind them. Glowglobes showed a broad, dome-ceilinged space with a raised ledge on one side and a passage leading off from it.
Paul leaped to the ledge with Gurney right behind him, led the way into the passage. The others headed for another passage opposite the entrance. Paul led the way through an anteroom and into a chamber with dark, wine-colored hangings on its walls.
"We can have some privacy here for a while," Paul said. "The others will respect my --"
An alarm cymbal clanged from the outer chamber, was followed by shouting and clashing of weapons. Paul whirled, ran back through the anteroom and out onto the atrium lip above the outer chamber. Gurney was right behind, weapon drawn.
Beneath them on the floor of the cave swirled a melee of struggling figures.
Paul stood an instant assessing the scene, separating the Fremen robes and bourkas from the costumes of those they opposed. Senses that his mother had trained to detect the most subtle clues picked out a significant fact -- the Fremen fought against men wearing smuggler robes, but the smugglers were crouched in trios, backed into triangles where pressed.
That habit of close fighting was a trademark of the Imperial Sardaukar.
A Fedaykin in the crowd saw Paul, and his battlecry was lifted to echo in the chamber: "Muad'Dib! Muad'Dib! Muad'Dib!"
Another eye had also picked Paul out. A black knife came hurtling toward him. Paul dodged, heard the knife clatter against stone behind him, glanced to see Gurney retrieve it.
The triangular knots were being pressed back now.
