"I'm prepared to forgive much because of that loyalty," she said.
"And again I must ask: Is there something to forgive?"
"Stalemate?" she asked.
He shrugged.
"Let us discuss something else for a minute, then," she said. "Duncan Idaho, the admirable fighting man whose abilities at guarding and surveillance are so esteemed. Tonight, he overindulged in something called spice beer. I hear reports that others among our people have been stupefied by this concoction. Is that true?"
"You have your reports, my Lady."
"So I do. Don't you see this drinking as a symptom, Thufir?"
"My Lady speaks riddles."
"Apply your Mentat abilities to it!" she snapped. "What's the problem with Duncan and the others? I can tell you in four words--they have no home."
He jabbed a finger at the floor. "Arrakis, that's their home."
"Arrakis is an unknown! Caladan was their home, but we've uprooted them.
They have no home. And they fear the Duke's failing them."
He stiffened. "Such talk from one of the men would be cause for--"
"Oh, stop that, Thufir. Is it defeatist or treacherous for a doctor to diagnose a disease correctly? My only intention is to cure the disease."
"The Duke gives me charge over such matters."
"But you understand I have a certain natural concern over the progress of this disease," she said. "And perhaps you'll grant I have certain abilities along these lines."
Will I have to shock him severely? she wondered. He needs shaking up--
something to break him from routine.
"There could be many interpretations for your concern," Hawat said. He shrugged.
"Then you've already convicted me?"
"Of course not, my Lady. But I cannot afford to take any chances, the situation being what it is."
"A threat to my son got past you right here in this house," she said. "Who took that chance?"
His face darkened. "I offered my resignation to the Duke."
"Did you offer your resignation to me . . . or to Paul?"
Now he was openly angry, betraying it in quickness of breathing, in dilation of nostrils, a steady stare. She saw a pulse beating at his temple.
"I'm the Duke's man," he said, biting off the words.
"There is no traitor," she said. "The threat's something else. Perhaps it has to do with the lasguns. Perhaps they'll risk secreting a few lasguns with timing mechanisms aimed at house shields. Perhaps they'll . . . "
"And who could tell after the blast if the explosion wasn't atomic?" he asked. "No, my Lady. They'll not risk anything that illegal. Radiation lingers.
The evidence is hard to erase. No. They'll observe most of the forms. It has to be a traitor."
"You're the Duke's man," she sneered. "Would you destroy him in the effort to save him?"
He took a deep breath, then: "If you're innocent, you'll have my most abject apologies."
"Look at you now, Thufir," she said. "Humans live best when each has his own place, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things. Destroy the
place and destroy the person. You and I, Thufir, of all those who love the Duke, are most ideally situated to destroy the other's place. Could I not whisper suspicions about you into the Duke's ear at night? When would he be most susceptible to such whispering, Thufir? Must I draw it for you more clearly?"
"You threaten me?" he growled.
"Indeed not. I merely point out to you that someone is attacking us through the basic arrangement of our lives. It's clever, diabolical. I propose to negate this attack by so ordering our lives that there'll be no chinks for such barbs to enter."
"You accuse me of whispering baseless suspicions?"
"Baseless, yes."
"You'd meet this with your own whispers?"
"Your life is compounded of whispers, not mine, Thufir."
"Then you question my abilities?"
