Chapter 6 Chapter Six

Leto sat there, playing a little balisi.It was sent to him on his fifth birthday by the virtuoso balisi player Gurney Halleck, who had reached the peak of his skills.After four years of practice, Leto's playing is fairly smooth, but the two bass strings on one side still give him occasional trouble.He finds playing the balisi soothing when he's not feeling well—as does Ghanima.At this moment, he was sitting on a flat stone at the southernmost end of the rugged rock cluster above Taib's cave, with the sunset glow above his head, playing softly. Ghanima stood behind him, her small body exuding displeasure.Stilgar informed them that Grandmother would be staying in Araken for a while.Since then, Ghanima has been reluctant to go out, especially against coming here at nightfall.She urged her brother, "Is it alright?"

His answer was to start another piece of music. For the first time since accepting this gift, Leto had a strong feeling that this violin was made by a certain master on Karadan.The genetic memory he possessed would have triggered a strong nostalgia for the beautiful planet ruled by the Atreides.As he played this piece, Leto had only to open up the dams that blocked the nostalgia in his heart, and the memory flowed through his mind: He recalled that Gurney gave his master and friend Paul Atrey a balisong. Dee relieved boredom.With the balisist ringing in his hands, Leto felt increasingly dominated by his father.But he kept on playing, feeling his connection to the instrument grow stronger every second.The feeling in his heart told him that he could play balis well. This kind of feeling has reached the level of a balisin master, but the muscles of a nine-year-old child are not yet able to coordinate with such a delicate inner world.

Ghanima tapped her toes impatiently, unaware that she was keeping pace with the music her brother was playing.Leto abruptly interrupted the familiar melody and began to play another very old piece, even older than anything Gurney himself had ever played.His mouth was contorted from so much concentration.The tune had been an old ballad since the Fremen's interstellar migration had just brought them to the fifth planet.As his fingers plucked across the strings, Paul heard the lyrics from the depths of his memory, with a strong and genuinely Sunny undertone. He played the last note. Ghanima asked behind him: "What an old song. Why sing this?"

"Because it fits." "Can you sing for Gurney?" "Maybe." "He'd call it melancholic nonsense." "I know." Leto turned to look at Ghanima.He wasn't surprised that she knew the words to the song, but all of a sudden, he was amazed: how connected they were to each other!Even if one of them dies, it will still exist in the consciousness of the other, and every inch of shared memory will be preserved.This intimacy is like a net, tightly wrapped around him.He looked away from her.There were gaps in the web, he knew, and his fear now came from the latest of those gaps—he felt their lives begin to separate, to develop separately.He thought: How can I tell her what happened to me alone?

He looked out across the desert, at the tall crescent dunes that moved like waves across the face of Arrakis.Long shadows trail behind the dunes.There is Cadm, the middle of the desert.During this period of time, it is rare to see traces left by giant sandworms wriggling on the sand dunes.The setting sun draped the dunes in blood-red ribbons, fringing the edge of the shadows with a ring of fiery light.A hawk soaring in the crimson sky caught his attention, swooping down and snatching a partridge. Just below him, on the desert surface, vegetation was thriving in various shades of green.An aqueduct sometimes exposed to the surface and sometimes drilled into the ground waters the plants.The water comes from a giant windcatcher installed at the highest point of the rock face behind him.The green banner of House Atreides fluttered there.

water, and green. New symbols of Arrakis: water and green. A diamond-shaped oasis of vegetated sand dunes stretched below him.The oasis stimulated his Freeman consciousness.The cry of a nightingale came from the cliff below, adding to the feeling that he was wandering into the wild past at this moment. Nous change tout cela, he thought.Subconsciously, he used the ancient language he used in private communication with Ghanima."We changed that," he said, with a sigh. Oublier je ne puis. "But I can't forget the past." At the end of the oasis, he could see what the Fremen called "the void"—land that was forever barren, where nothing could grow. "Nothingness" is bathed in the afterglow of the setting sun.Water and great ecological programs are changing it.On Arrakis one can even see hills covered with green velvet forests.A forest appeared on Arrakis!Some of the younger generation have a hard time imagining the barren sand dunes behind these rolling hills.In the eyes of these young people, there is nothing special about the broad leaves of the forest.But Leto found himself thinking in the old Freeman way.In the face of change, in the face of new things, he felt fear.

"The kids told me they were having a hard time finding sandtrout in the shallow depths," he said. "So what?" Ghanima asked impatiently. "Things are changing so quickly," he said.The bird on the cliff chirped again.Night covered the desert like the hawk on the quail.Often nights would make him assailed by memories—everything that was lurking deep within him was now buzzing.Ghanima was not as disgusted by such things as he was, but she knew his inner struggle and put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. He plucked Barrys's strings angrily. How could he tell her about the changes that were happening to him?

What came to his mind was war, and countless lives awakened in ancient memories: cruel accidents, the tenderness of lovers, the expressions of different people in different places... the deep grief and the passion of the masses.He heard dirges wafting over long-dead planets, saw green flags and fiery lights, heard wailing and cheering, heard countless conversations going on. In the wilderness shrouded in darkness, the assault of these memories is most difficult to bear. "Should we go back?" she asked. He shook his head.She felt his movements and realized that his inner struggle was even deeper than she had imagined.

Why am I always here to welcome the night?he asked himself.Ghanima's hand was taken from his shoulder, but he didn't feel it. "You're torturing yourself, and you know why you're doing it," she said. He heard a trace of reproach in her tone.Yes, he knows.The answer is in his consciousness, so obvious: because the truth and the unknown in my heart drive me, making me toss in the wind and waves.He could feel his past surging up and down, like he was on a surfboard.He forcibly placed his father's memory across time and space above all other memories, suppressing them, but he still hoped that he could have all the memories of the past.He wants them.Those suppressed memories are extremely dangerous.He is fully aware of this because a new change has taken place in him.He wished to inform Ganima of this change.

The moon rose slowly on the 1st, and under the moonlight, the desert began to glow.He looked into the distance, the undulating desert connected to the sky, giving people the illusion that the desert is still.Not far from his left is the "Servant", a large piece of rock protruding from the ground, which has been polished into a short man by the sandstorm. The surface is covered with wrinkles, as if a black sandworm is rushing out of the sand dune.Someday the rock beneath his feet would be ground into this shape too, and by then Teb's cavern would be gone, existing only in the memory of people like him.He believes that even then, there will still be people like him in the world.

"Why do you keep staring at 'servant'?" Ghanima asked. He shrugged.When disobeying the orders of their guardians, he and Ghanima would always run to the "servants".There they discovered a secret hiding place.The place attracted them, and Leto knew why. The darkness below shortened the distance between him and the desert, and a section of ground aqueduct reflected moonlight, and predatory fish swam in the water, stirring up ripples.The Fremen have traditionally stocked the water with this predatory fish to keep sand trout away. "I'm standing between the fish and the sandworms," ​​he murmured. "what?" He repeated it aloud. She rested her chin on one hand, thinking about the scene in front of her that moved him.Her father had had moments like this, and she just had to look inside and compare him to Leto. Leto shuddered.Before that, as long as he didn't ask questions, the memory hidden deep in his body never took the initiative to provide answers.There seems to be a huge screen inside him, and the truth is gradually revealed on the screen.Sandworms on dunes will not pass through bodies of water, and the water will poison it.However, in prehistoric times, there was water here.White gypsum basins are where lakes and oceans once existed.Drill a deep well and you'll find water trapped by sandtrout.He seemed to have witnessed the whole process, saw what the planet was going through, and foresaw the catastrophic changes that would be brought upon it by human intervention.He said in a voice not much louder than a whisper, "I know what happened, Ghanima." She bent over him. "what?" "Sand salmon..." He fell silent.Sandtrout are haploid creatures, a growth stage of the planet's giant sandworms.He kept mentioning sandtrout lately, and she didn't know why, but she didn't dare to ask further. "Sandtrout," he repeated, "were brought here from elsewhere. At that time, Arrakis was a wet planet. Sandtrout prospered beyond the limits of what the local ecosystem would allow. Sandtrout envelops all remaining free water on the planet, turning it into a desert world...they do this to survive. On a dry enough planet, they can transform into sandworms form." "Sandtrout?" She shook her head, but she didn't doubt Leto's words.She just didn't want to go deep into her memory and go to the place where he collected this information.She thought: Sandtrout?In her present body, or in other bodies her memory once inhabited, a game was played many times as a child: to dig up sandtrout, lure them into membrane bags, send them to a retort, and squeeze them out of moisture.It's hard to connect this goofy critter with a sea change in the ecosystem. Leto nodded to himself.The Fremen have long known that their cisterns must be stocked with predatory fish that repel sandtrout.As long as there are sandtrout, the shallow layers of the planet's surface cannot accumulate large bodies of water.There are carnivorous fish swimming in the diversion channel below him.Sandworms can also deal with only a very small amount of water, such as the water in human cells.However, once they come into contact with a larger body of water, the chemical reactions in their bodies will be drastically disturbed, causing the sandworms to mutate and split apart.This process creates a dangerous concentrate that is the ultimate elixir.The Fremen dilute the liquid and drink it in their cavern revels.It was from this pure concentrate that Paul Muad'di was able to pass through the walls of time and enter the depths of the well of death where no other man had ever ventured. Ghanima felt her brother tremble. "What are you doing?" she asked. But he didn't want to interrupt his journey of discovery. "Dwindling sandtrout - planetary biosphere changes..." "But of course they will resist the change," she said.She sensed the fear in his voice.She was introduced to the subject, though not willingly. "With the sandtrout gone, all the sandworms will be gone," he said. "The tribes must be warned of this situation." "There will be no more spices," she said. She was right on point.This is precisely the greatest danger that an altered ecosystem can pose.All this is because human intrusion has destroyed the interdependence of the various creatures in the dunes.Danger hangs over human beings.Both siblings saw it. "Alia knows about it," he said, "that's why she's always gloating." "How can you be sure?" "I am sure." Now she knew why he was so upset.The reason gave her a chill. "If she doesn't admit it, the tribes won't believe us," he said. His words hit the basic question they faced: what would the Fremen hope to say out of the mouths of nine-year-olds?Alia, increasingly removed from her own inner world, takes advantage of this. "We have to convince Stilgar," Ghanima said. Like the same person, they turned their heads and looked at the desert illuminated by the moon.After the awakening just now, the world in front of me is completely different.In their eyes, human impact on the environment has never been more apparent.They feel that they are an integral part of the delicate homeostasis.With a new set of eyes, their subconscious minds have also undergone tremendous changes, and their powers of observation have been improved again.Lett-Keynes once said that the universe is a place of continuous communication between different species.Just now, the haploid sandtrout communicated with them as human representatives. "It's a threat to the water, and the tribes will understand," Leto said. "But the threat isn't limited to water, it—" She fell silent.She understood the meaning of his words.Water represents the supreme power of Arrakis.At their core, the Fremen have always been extremely adaptable animals, able to survive the desert and know how to manage and rule under the harshest conditions.But when water became abundant, this symbol of power changed, although they still understood the importance of water. "You mean a threat to power," she corrected him. "certainly." "But will they trust us?" "If they see a crisis, if they see an unbalanced pair, they'll believe us." "Balance," she said, repeating something her father had said long ago, "is what separates a crowd from a mob." Her words awakened the father's memory in him, and he said, "The two are fighting, one is economics, the other is beauty. This kind of battle is ancient, older than the Queen of Sheba." He sighed and twisted. Looking over at her, "During this time, I've been having prophetic dreams, Gunny." She couldn't help but gasped. He said: "Stilgar told us that Grandma was delayed - but I'd seen this moment coming. Now, I suspect that other dreams might be real too." "Leto..." She shook her head, her eyes suddenly became moist, "Father was like you before he died. Don't you think it might be..." "I dreamed that I was wearing armor and running wildly on the sand dunes," he said. "I dreamed that I went to Jakrutu." "Jaco..." She cleared her throat, "It's just an ancient myth!" "No, Jakrutu does exist, Ghani! I have to find this man they call the missionary. I have to find him and ask him." "You don't think he's... our father?" "Ask your own heart." "Probably him," she agreed, "but..." "There were things I knew I had to do. But I didn't really like those things," he said. "For the first time in my life, I understood my father." His thoughts repulsed her, and she felt it, and said, "That missionary might just be a mystic, too." "I wish. I wish," he murmured, "I wish so!" He leaned forward and stood up.As he moved, balischen whispered in his hand, "I hope he's just Gabriel without a horn, just an ordinary man who spreads the Gospel everywhere." He watched the moonlight shining quietly down the desert. She turned her face, looked in the direction he was looking, and saw the phosphorescent fire dancing on the decayed vegetation around the burrow, and the clear dividing line between the burrow and the dune.It's a vibrant world out there.Even as the desert falls asleep, something in that place keeps awake.She felt the lucidity and heard the sound of animals drinking from the aqueduct below her.Leto's words changed the night, making it turbulent.This is the moment of discovery of regularity in eternal change. At this moment, she feels the memory that can go back to the ancient earth time-everything from the earth to the present, the whole development process is compressed in her memory. "Why Jakrutu?" she asked.The flat tone was quite incompatible with the current atmosphere. "Why... I don't know. When Stilgar first told us how they killed the people there and made it forbidden, I thought... as you do. But now, The danger spreads...and from there...and the missionary." She didn't answer, and she didn't ask him to tell her his foreseeing dreams.She knew that by doing so she would be showing him how terrified she was.Both of them knew that the road led to the evil spirit of distortion.As he turned and led her along the rock to the cave entrance, the unspoken word weighed heavily on their hearts: Aberration Spirit.

---

Notes: