DUNE Page #11

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Jessica comes over to Paul and Leto. Yueh is thoughtful, alone in a corner. It is dawn. Through the windows, beggars can be seen putting the dew from the dune cactuses into collectors.

JESSICA:

Every morning, they collect the dew and live off it in the hope of a better world.

LETO:

We shall make that world even if we have to set alight the Galaxy to do it!

Paul’s face, lit up by the morning light, is filled with anguish. The same anguish can be seen reflected in Yueh’s face.

EXTERIOR:
A ROCKY WALL ON THE EDGE OF THE DESERT

Near the desert, inside the rocky wall, there is a cave closed off by a large stone wheel. The wheel turns and some Atreides come out of the cave, pushing an ornithopter: a little flying device like a bird with folding wings. It can hold four people. Escorted by soldiers, Leto, Paul and Hawatt emerge. They are wearing distilling appliances. As these have been put on incorrectly, this new garment hinders the walk of Leto and Hawatt. But Paul, who has adjusted his, moves nimbly as if he had always worn it. On top of it, they wear their arms: sword-belt, shield, paralyzer, and a mass of arms (fan-daggers, a lancet-bearing bracelet, wide, short swords). In the distance, from the depths of the desert, ten Fremen move nimbly forward, as if floating on the dunes. Their very fast walk gives an animal impression, something not human.

Leto, Paul and Hawatt watch them from the cave with telescopes.

In the middle of the Fremen, Kynes has unveiled his face. His wrinkled head is like a mummy’s. His eyes are already completely blue. His long hair and beard are white. His walk and bearing are those of a young man.

LETO:

This man must be at least eighty!

HAWATT:

Let’s be careful! If he doesn’t like something, we lose the Fremen’ support.

LETO:

Let’s be ourselves! No friendship can come out of deceit.

While approaching the Atreides, the Fremen are watching them and murmuring to each other.

KYNES:

All that flesh full of water!

Fremen One:

We could draw twelve liters out of each.

Fremen Two:

Their distilling devices have been put on incorrectly...

Fremen Three:

The young one knew how to adjust his!

Fremen Four:

How did he know?

Fremen Five:

He knows but he can never have learnt.

Fremen Six:

The prophecy is coming true!

KYNES:

It’s only a man!

The two groups draw closer. The Atreides turn on their protective screens. Kynes introduces himself.

KYNES:

Pardot Kynes, Imperial ecologist.

LETO:

I thank the Fremen for these distilling devices.

PAUL:

There’s no need, my Lord, every gift is a blessing for he who gives it.

Kynes reacts smartly to this as do the Fremen who murmur:

Fremen One:

The prophecy!

Fremen Two:

“He will welcome you and your presents will be a blessing!”

Fremen Three:

(falling to his knees)

Mahdi!

His companions help him up again quickly.

KYNES:

(to Leto)

Allow me to adjust your device.

Tension. Leto is suspicious; Hawatt whispers to him discreetly:

HAWATT:

He has a Krys under his cape...

LETO:

He would be offended by a refusal.

He turns off his sword-belt and opens his arms. Hawatt worriedly clenches the top of his sword.

Kynes comes closer to the Duke, adjusts the shoulder fasteners and explains how the garment works.

KYNES:

(pointing to the internal part sticking to the skin). This porous part collects perspiration (showing the second cape). Here, the salt is recovered (showing the third) This one accumulates the water in pockets (adjusting leg fasteners). The urine and excrement are collected here and transformed into water (pointing to the filter) For the mouth (pointing to the tube) for the nose. You breathe in through the mouth and out through the nose. In this way, you only waste five drops of water a day and the rest is recuperated.

Leto’s garment is properly in order now. Hawatt has copied the adjustments and feels very much at ease. Hawatt, Paul, Kynes and Leto go aboard the ornithopter, which Leto is piloting. The machine takes off and enters the desert.

INTERIOR:
FLIGHT OVER THE DESERT - CABIN OF THE ORNITHOPTER.

The orni is flying over the desert. While Leto handles the machine, Kynes describes and points out the various aspects of the landscape.

KYNES:

During the day, the temperature of these rocks can reach three hundred degrees. If an animal lands on one of them, it catches fire. The sand-drums each step resounds for miles and attracts carnivorous animals... The lakes of dust where the swamps suck in imprudent people... Hurricanes which move at over four hundred miles an hour.

An enormous worm two hundred meters long twists and turns in the sands. It makes a vibrating sound, similar but more intense than the noise made by the Krys.

KYNES:

Shai-Hulud, the grandfather of the Desert.

LETO:

I didn’t think they were so big!

KYNES:

This one is small. We have seen them four hundred meters long.

HAWATT:

What do they do?

KYNES:

They defend spice-fields. Each worm has his own territory. Where there’s spice, there’s a worm.

LETO:

Why haven’t they been eliminated?

KYNES:

That would be too expensive... They resist atomic bombs!

PAUL:

It’s not only that. There is a link between the worm and the spice. Killing the worms would mean the end of the spice!

Fascinated and repelled, Kynes looks at Paul with an expression of both faith and incredulity.

A field of spice appears. It’s a large field of a beautiful blue substance, a spongy mixture of shapelessness and geometry, of animal, vegetable, and mineral. Each pile of substance makes a vibrating noise, and they all make for a hypnotic note. The resulting sound is like that made by the worms and the Krys.

In the sky, opposite the orni, the harvester appears, a large plastic and metal engine like a beetle with hooks as legs. Another machine composed of two carrying claws and two colossal wings, is transporting the harvester. Four little “watchmen” are following these two machines; these are composed of a simple turbine with two little wings driven by a pilot.

The wing-carriers put the harvester down near the spice field and take off again. Sixteen picturesque spice-searchers, drinking spice brandy. These men, roasted by the sun, toothless, spitting and swearing, handle the harvester which moves into position and immediately begins to extract the spice amid a cloud of dust. The watchmen, humming away, take their places at four key points.

KYNES:

These sixteen men have twenty minutes to collect the spice before the worm arrives. The watchmen will warn them in time. The wing-carrier will arrive just in time to pick them up and fly away!

The orni, flying over the harvester, watches the work. Suddenly, like a flower growing brutally fast, a worm emerges from the earth. He hides in the sand and comes forward towards the harvester underground, shifting a hillock of sand.

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