DUNE Page #21

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The Baron lowers one of the elephant’s tusks. A gong rings out. While Feyd Rautha is trying his skill at throwing darts at the buttocks of kneeling black slave women kept on the ground by soldiers, sticks pressed against their necks, Rabban the Beast, excited and happy, enters making a number of respectful gestures. Two soldiers push forward stretchers where Kynes and Farok are lying, asleep and covered with wounds.

RABBAN:

They’re dead, Baron: the woman and the child.

VLADIMIR:

You saw their bodies?

RABBAN:

(hesitating)

We saw them disappear into a storm.

Vladimir throws his glass in his face.

VLADIMIR:

You ass! Why do you say so if there’s no proof!

Rabban’s reflex is to grab the top of his sword in anger. Feyd Rautha runs his fist through with a dart. Rabban tears it out in pain and, beside himself, sticks it in the buttocks of a black woman, shouting.

RABBAN:

It was a hurricane moving at five hundred miles an hour. No machine can resist that. They’re dead!

Vladimir, calm again, puts on some more lipstick while looking at himself in a pocket mirror.

VLADIMIR:

You can kiss my Imperial anus.

Rabban buries his head in the voluminous behind presented him by the Baron and kisses it.

Vladimir drop his negligée’s again, comes closer to the stretchers and uncovers the bodies of Kynes and Farok. He grazes lasciviously at Farok’s athletic body.

VLADIMIR:

Hmm... I’ll take him with me to Giedi One. He’ll make a good gladiator (pointing to Kynes). He represents the Emperor. We can’t kill him. Perhaps... an accident... Take them away and bring Hawatt... we’ll make him think Jessica and Paul are alive...

While Rabban goes out with the two anaesthetized bodies, the Baron starts singing and dancing, floating with the use of his anti-gravitation devices and getting Rautha to dance.

Thirty soldiers led by Rabban bring in Hawatt. Several soldiers armed with long sticks tipped with leather straps are needed to contain the old man, whose blood-stained clothes are in rags. He is fastened by the arms, legs, abdomen and neck. The sticks enable the soldiers to keep him at a distance of over twelve feet. They make him fall to his knees in front of Vladimir.

HAWATT:

What more do you want? The Duke and all the Atreides are dead. Let me die as well.

From his false chest Vladimir draws a little bottle which he places on a small gold tray in front of Hawatt. He gives orders. Hawatt’s right arm is freed.

VLADIMIR:

Die if you so wish...

Hawatt unplugs the flask and breathes its contents.

HAWATT:

The irrevocable poison!

VLADIMIR:

Death inside five minutes...

Hawatt breathes in deeply and calmly, with dignity and courage, he drinks the poison to the last drop. The liquid seems to burn his throat. His stomach turns over. His body is suddenly seized with a convulsion, even though sticks are holding it down.

Vladimir draws another phial from his breast. He talks quickly.

VLADIMIR:

An antidote. Even if you know Jessica is alive? She has seduced Dr. Yueh. She has betrayed us, the Duke and I, by murdering Peter and running away into the desert. Don’t you want to take revenge on this woman? I need a Mentat. Help me carry out my plans and I shall help you avenge the Atreides. The Bene Guesserit witch... I must live to see her gutted!

He painfully stretches out his hand and drinks the antidote. Vladimir gives the order to free him.

VLADIMIR:

You will receive your antidote every day. It will keep you alive. If you don’t serve me, I shall stop giving it to you and the poison, which will always be in your bones, will kill you.

EXTERIOR:
LARGE FLAT LAND WITH SOME ROCKS - NIGHT.

The ornithopter comes out of the cyclone and lands laboriously in a large desert filled with rocks. On landing, the ornithopters wings break. The cyclone is dissolving. Paul and Jessica quickly jump from the machine, taking their possessions with them. They run to the rocks. A loud whistling can be heard. A hillock of sand rushes towards the orni and the mouth of a worm sucks in the machine.

Paul and Jessica shelter among the rocks. They spread out their possessions in front of them. An inflatable tent, a hammer, a compass, a tetanizer, and a telescope.

JESSICA:

We’ll learn how to hunt. We’ll survive like the Fremen....

PAUL:

We’ll have to meet them. We’ll walk at night and sleep by day...

They set off again. The sand is soft and their feet sink. Some heaps of sand collapse like rock avalanches, nearly burying them alive. They escape by sticking to a path winding between the rocks.

They keep walking in the sand between blocks of stone. The dust flies up at them and blocks their breathing. Exhausted, they take a rest. They open the packet, taking out energy pills. Jessica takes the pills and drinks a few drops of her distilling-appliance water with disgust. It tastes horrible.

PAUL:

Your body is the best place for keeping water. Drink it all. Trust your distilling appliance...

Paul takes a long drink of the water which he draws from his pockets, several liters of it. Jessica, revolted more and more by its smell and bitter taste, drinks the water, getting the better of her desire to vomit. They finally arrive at the point where the rocks finish, and the vast, flat land can be seen.

Jessica looks through the telescope. A mile or two away, there are other rocks and dunes covered with vegetation, visibly cultivated by human beings.

JESSICA:

Brushwood to keep down the sand. Someone lives over there.

Paul grabs hold of the telescope and looks through it.

PAUL:

We’ll have to cross three miles with no cover...

A giant worm passes nearby. Its whistling is deafening. Paul buries the mechanical hammer between some rocks and turns it on. A powerful hammering can be heard.

PAUL:

That’ll distract the worm! Let’s go!

EXTERIOR:
THE FLATLAND - NIGHT.

The sky is dotted with stars. An expanse of sand and the sky is all there is to be seen. Paul and Jessica are crossing a spice field. In the distance, the hammering and the worm’s whistle can be heard. The spice grows bigger and ripples in the gentle breeze. Its blue canals, geometrically arranged, emit a soft murmur.

PAUL:

Break the rhythm of your steps to stop the worm discovering us. Imitate the natural noises of the sand.

They keep walking, making their steps as irregular as possible, half walking, half sliding. The sound of the hammer can be heard, and a sudden explosion of rocks.

JESSICA:

The worm has destroyed the hammer. Let’s hurry!

The spice has come to an end. The ground is as hard as stone. Suddenly, their steps start resounding very loudly indeed.

PAUL:

The sand-drums! Run!

He and Jessica begin to run towards the rocks somewhere further away. Their steps resound like explosions prolonged by the echo.

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