DUNE Page #15

---

Without the walls, the four rooms are now reduced to one, to everyone’s surprise.

On another signal from the Duke, the hall doors are opened and a crowd of beggars, serious, respectful and impressed, burst in.

LETO:

This is what Dune needs, a united people! There is room for everyone on this earth! I offer you a planet without mercenaries at the service of greedy commercial traders! Now we control the water reservoirs, the food reserves, and energy sources! (to the industrialists) Never come back this planet!

Under the menace of the swords, the industrialists do not dare to protest. They leave the hall silently with their wrists tied, led by the Atreides soldiers. The beggars fill the room left vacant by the industrialists.

LETO:

Let us unite! Respect my government and Dune will be respected!

(to the smugglers)

Instead of losing fifty per cent of your profits in fighting against the State, I offer you immunity in exchange for a reasonable tax!

(to the spice searchers)

If you stay on this planet, be no longer employees but associates!

(to the Fremen)

As for you, a free people, I offer you a share in the government, with the right to vote, in exchange for men to defend Dune against the Imperium. Either we now unite, or the Harkonnen will come back to exploit, torture, and massacre!

A deathly silence settles in the hall. Instinctively, the groups form again quietly. Kynes, leaving Jessica, goes back to his Fremen.

Jessica, with nobody to support her, waits for the replies with anguish written on her face. The servant Mapes approaches her devotedly, under the pretense of fanning her. Jessica takes her hand and presses it.

Farok, followed by Kynes, steps forward a few paces and stops.

FAROK:

You are a great man, but more than a great man is needed to reunite the Fremen! We know our fate and the time has not yet come. We do not serve foreign governments; however honest they may be. However, we respect the Duke, and, for this reason, between him and ourselves there will be peace, to the extent that our lands are not invaded. In the desert, all animals fight with their own claws.

KYNES:

As representative of His Majesty the Emperor, I protest against the Duke, but as a Fremen I congratulate him. Because of this internal conflict, all I can do is keep quiet and wait. We’ll see each other again!

The free Fremen and Kynes leave the room. Idaho remains alone, and comes up to the Duke. Esmer Tuek approaches.

ESMER TUEK:

Our fathers and grandfathers were smugglers. We have no planets to defend, laws to accept, or leaders to obey. It will be always thus! The Duke is our friend. We shall pay his tax but his war will not be ours. If he wins, we shall be happy. If he fails, we shall place our ships at his disposal so that he can make good his escape.

The smugglers leave the hall.

The half-drunk musician, one of the spice searchers, comes a few steps forward, stumbling, and urged on by his companions.

THE OLD MAN:

Your enormous Lordship... Don’t ask us to fight. Give us something to drink and some money. That’s all. Don’t ask us either to stay in this hell, eating these disgusting rats. The Galaxy is rich in paradises filled with passionate women. We work like animals to earn money which will enable us to leave as rich men. Don’t count on a degenerate lot like us ... Your health.

The spice searchers have a last drink and then leave, ashamed of themselves. The beggars keep coming in. The preoccupied Duke sits on his heels, hiding his head in his hands.

Jessica, her eyes filled with tears, runs towards him, gets up on the rostrum, crouches beside him and, embraces him.

The hall is full of beggars watching the Duke with veneration in their eyes.

An old man intones a beautiful lullaby. Gradually, the thousands of beggars murmur the song. A path opens up in their midst. An old man carrying a pot filled with earth emerges. Another brings a glass of water. They put the pot down in front of the Duke and sprinkle a few drops in it. In a few seconds, a spiny fungus is growing, producing a flower.

THE OLD MAN:

The earth of the desert, my Lord. It needs just a few drops to bear fruit. My Lord, you have given us more than a little water. You have given us back our dignity... we shall die for you.

Leto looks at them and he throws Jessica into his arms. He begins to laugh, more and more.

LETO:

Old men... weak men... sick men... madmen... That’s all I have!

(laughing like a madman)

An army in rags! A people of beggars! (he tears at his clothes and tears off pieces of Jessica’s, leaving her half naked). From now on, the Atreides will become beggars! Music! Let the party begin!

Leto takes the arms of a beggar and takes an old woman in turn. The beggars are laughing. The beggar makes Jessica dance. The others fight for her. The music is playing at a dizzy rate. They all dance with the Duke or with Jessica. Ghastly, beggar-women hang on the neck and arms of the Atreides soldiers and make them dance.

EXTERIOR:
THE COSMOS

Thousands of space-ships with the Harkonnen coat of arms are crossing sidereal space.

EXTERIOR:
GOVERNMENT PALACE

Atreides soldiers take away the gates surrounding the government palace and give iron bars to the beggars. On the orders of the Atreides, thousands of beggars separated into small groups clumsily perform military exercises.

Children, old men, the sick, mothers with their babies, and emaciated men are making primitive arms, fastening stones and cactus tips to the end of ropes, broken bottles to pieces of cloth, and sharpening table knives and forks, sticking them into desert reeds.

Halleck is training a group of beggars armed with donkeys’ jaws, sticks, spades, and iron bars.

Trembling and moaning, the beggars group together and attack Halleck, who raises his sword and yells out a war-cry. The beggars, paralyzed, fall to their knees.

Halleck furiously pushes them to the ground and treads on them. He sits down, depressed. A sick man comes up to him.

THE SICK MAN:

Don’t scorn us, my lord. We know the Harkonnen will exterminate us and we want to sell our skin at a high price. But we’ve been slaves for centuries and we no longer know how to fight. We lack the impulse.

HALLECK:

(brightening up)

That’s it. They need someone behind them.

Halleck calls over the Atreides soldiers, arranges them in an attacking position, forms a group of beggars, and stands in the middle of them. Surrounded by the beggars, he shouts.

HALLECK:

Charge!

The beggars, urged on by the dynamic warrior, attack the soldiers, assail them and rout them. Halleck jumps up and down with shouts of joy. The beggars help up and shake the soldiers, who are covered with bruises.

EXTERIOR:
IN SPACE.

The group of Harkonnen space-ships draws closer to Dune, separating into two files going off in opposite directions and forming a ring around the planet.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes