Dune Part 8 - Schemes, Sand, and Smugglers

We learn more of the Baron’s ruthless strategy, follow Paul and Jessica’s through the desert, and learn about where Gurney Halleck's path has led him.

Email us at brothersreadingbooks@gmail.com
Find us on X at @BrothersReading
Visit brothersreadingbooks

Transcript

Setting The Stage On Arrakis

Michael Kentris 0:05

Welcome back to Brothers Reading Books. We are your hosts. I am Michael Kentris, and I'm joined as always by my intrepid brother, Will. How are you doing? Doing well.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Doing well. Thank you for asking, Mike. How are you?

The Baron’s Playbook Of Power

Michael Kentris 0:18

I'm also doing alright. Glad that we're coming to the another end of the week and heading into the weekend. Regardless of when you're listening to this, I hope your week is also going well, listener. So, you know, we are continuing our march through the deserts in Dune. And, you know, I sometimes forget exactly which chapters we're on, because as we've talked about in the past, you don't have numbers on the chapters per se. So, you know, I was texting with Will yesterday, uh, before we recorded this, and it's like, we're doing chapters 26 through 28, right? And he's, uh, you just sent me this text, and I'm just gonna read it here for posterity's sake. And it literally just it was succinct, and it just made me laugh. So the summary, if I may indulge, for this episode, the Baron schemes, Paul and Jessica play in the sand, and Gurney joins the smugglers. So accurate. All right, I guess that's the end of the episode, right? That's right, that sums up these chapters. All right, well, we'll see you all next time. No, hang around, we're not done yet. Maybe a little reductive, but not inaccurate. Yes. So this is the kind of deep analysis I know people have come to love from us. So But all that being said, we do, and something I've noticed as we've been reading over the, you know, the last book and change of Dune, is that uh Frank Herbert is pretty locked in on his chapters, right? It tends to stay in one scene. You don't get like kind of like in some books where you'll have like a little chevron kind of marker in between scene breaks and stuff in the same chapter. So you typically stay with the same scene or group of people, or sometimes even one single point of view, depending on on the scene. So it's it's pretty locked in. So you can summarize these chapters very succinctly, as well demonstrated. Uh but that being said, so starting in uh chapter 26. So we get the Baron being all barony. So what were your what were your initial impressions of of this scene, Will? So it felt very similar to kind of what we saw in that second chapter where the Baron's kind of sticking stock of this current situation and just kind of being rude to everybody and his employee who's underneath them. Just, you know, he is not a good person, as we obviously know at this point, and just continues to utilize what he calls the powers of statecraft, power and fear. So very Machiavellian. Right. Doesn't really speak well to his character. No. And, you know, I thought this was interesting, right? We get uh another another quote from the Princess Arulin at the start of this chapter. What do you despise? By this you are truly known. And, you know, I think that's an interesting choice of words given that we get this description of the Baron and his temper and his behavior and all this. Uh you know, I just highlighted some some words here, right? Like it it opens one of the first lines here is like they describe the Baron as moving, shifting his gross body.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

Right?

Michael Kentris 3:30

So it's again, it's one of these things where kind of the physicality of the character kind of is an echo of their inner corruption. So so anyway, as as we were saying, you know, he he's talking to all of his minions, if you will. And so first we get this his captain, his new captain, Nifud. And it's interesting, right? He's kind of like doing this thing where he's making him talk to him through a shield, like kind of emphasizing his superiority over his uh I guess inferiors in this case in the hierarchy. I like that uh they say this Samuta dullness was in this character. And he's kind of like uh you know, it's like the he's reporting on uh Jessica and Paul and how they were lost in the sandstorm and how they are almost certainly dead. Um just say the Baron doesn't like to leave things to chance, it sounds like Right. Yeah, no, the the guard captain kind of over and over is reiterating they are dead, certainty they are dead, they're certainly dead, Baron, the man repeated. Like he's trying to convince himself very much, it sounds like more than anything. Yeah, and yeah, it's like, have you seen the bodies? Like, you know, it's kind of a not until you see the whites of their eyes type of situation here. So the the Baron is skeptical of a report where there is no eyewitness of their actual end.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah.

Michael Kentris 4:50

Which is fair. You know, there's there's been so much that kind of has not gone to plan in this raid. You know, there was the not how how do I want to phrase this? He he didn't get his chance to gloat like he wanted to over the Duke Leto. And the boy and the woman, Paul and Lady Jessica, they got away and did not, you know, there there's so many pieces that aren't going quite the way he wanted to. So he's just kind of a little more on edge, especially with the Sardacar hanging around that he's gonna make sure that everything goes to plan because anything gets out, if thing if the other Lanzgrad learn about the involvement of the Empire, you know, it's gonna be his head on on the block next. Right, right. And so then uh we get right, because we we know that they the well suspected Sartakar, probably wearing Harkin in uniforms, had raided the the ecologic base where Kines and Paul and Jessica were in a previous chapter. And so we get this report that uh Kynes seems to be involved under mysterious, I might even say suspicious circumstances. And uh so they're you know, talking about, you know, the man's betrayed, you know, he must die, he tried to help his enemies, blah, blah. So the Baron wants him killed, and obviously this unsettles him because there's this, again, tension between these imperial agents who report directly to the Padashah Emperor versus those who are more free agents or members of different enemy or allied houses that don't have the same level of protection per se. But we've also had previous dialogues with, for instance, the Duke in Kynes about how you know Arrakis is far from the Empire. Right. Accidents do happen, as they say. Right. One of the things that I do have listed here in my annotations is it's like a lot of accidents happening with the baron. It's true, you know? Right. And we're also getting more report of our other characters, right? So when we last left Thufer, you know, he was with the O'Freeman when they'd just gotten attacked, so it appears that he has been captured alive.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Yes.

Michael Kentris 7:02

And, you know, they're talking about uh he'll provide great sport, you know, obviously uh talking about torture, other things like that, and it's like Farron's like, this is a mentat, you know, you don't waste a mentat, right? Especially he's aware that his mentat just died. So he needs to replace him and to convince him to join him in some fashion. And they talk about uh controlling his flow of information, false information, false results. So very interesting. Right. And when they're discussing him, they mention very briefly that Thufer does still believe that the Lady Jessica was the true traitor, and so they're gonna try and leverage that in some capacity where, you know, he will be like, Yeah, Lady Jessica, go in that direction. Do what I need you to do, and you'll get revenge on her. Right. And the guard is like, but what do we tell him about Lady Jessica allegedly being dead? He was like, Well, we'll keep that hidden from him again. Yeah. Like you said before, the flow of information must be controlled. Right. So, yeah, right, give him food, give him drink, treat him kindly, uh, and then also poison him.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Naturally.

Mentats, Poisons, And Controlled Truth

Michael Kentris 8:15

Right, the residual poison. So, and then make the antidote part of a regular part of his diet. So this is kind of interesting, right? They talk about like poison snoopers fairly often in this book, and so you poison him once with this thing that hangs around in his body, and as long as he gets the antidote, he's fine, but if he stops getting the antidote, then he dies. So even if he does a poison snooper on any of his food and drink, it will not detect anything because it has no poison in it. It's already in him. So very clever and diabolical. Alright. Classic. And yeah, it sounds like that poison was developed by Peter DeVries, which, you know, is expected to be diabolical because he sounded like a very sadistic man. Well, yes, very much so. So we get a next character coming in. So the captain goes, and then we get Rabin Rabon. I don't know how to pronounce it. Um do you have a preference? I don't. I feel like, yeah, yeah. Ray Bans, you know, what do they call him? The the muscle tank, the think tank, or something like that. Yeah, muscle tank. Muscle tank. Muscle tank brain. Yeah, he's he's he's not smart, uh, is the implication here. So uh so he summons his nephew, yes, his older nephew. And basically he's while he's waiting for them, he's saying, like, the stupid guard captain. Right, then that's the thing. The Baron's like, everyone else is stupid. They're all dumber than me.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Mm-hmm.

Michael Kentris 9:46

You know, if any of our listeners, it reminds me, you know, I know you and I watched uh Transformers Beast Wars when we were growing up. And the uh the Megatron character in that show in particular was very much of this same band, perhaps a little more goofy, but uh definitely would be like uh I remember this one scene where one of his minions asked him, like, why do you keep talking to yourself? Do you remember this, Phil? Yeah, because the only way to have an intelligent conversation. That's right. So we get a lot of the Baron's internal monologue here as well. So he's like, of course, the stupid guard captain was right, nothing could have survived that storm. They were obviously dead. So the Baron's playing a long game here. He's he's trying to angle for his family to become the like to produce the next emperor.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Yes.

Michael Kentris 10:29

So he's hoping that uh Fayed Routha can someday become the Emperor. And we get some weird, weird thoughts in here. There is a sharpness, a ferocity, a lovely boy, the Baron thought. So he's he's kind of creepy, the Baron. I mean, we already know this, but it just keeps getting re-emphasized. Absolutely. And I mean, obviously, we already knew that previously that he wanted to use Paul for such ends, but uh it sounds like he has similar thoughts towards Fade Roth, that he just doesn't act on them because again, he's family, quote unquote. Right. So we get a physical description of Rabin, low built, gross of face and body, with the hearkening paternal lines, narrow set eyes, and bulge of so shoulders. There one day to the portable suspensors for carrying his excess weight, a muscle-minded tank brain. There we go, that's the phrase.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

There we go. Yes.

Michael Kentris 11:27

Which again, right, tank, do they mean like like grown in a vat? Do they mean like a mechanical tank? We don't know. But regardless, it gives a a sense. But yes, so apparently the the Harkinen line is not known for their fine physical features. Whatsoever. No, absolutely. I mean, the only exception seems to be Fade Rotha to some extent, but yeah. Right. The Baron and Robin both seem to be very much men of excess and not they're not skinny. No. No. So again, uh, we get kind of this conversation where the Baron tells Robin that you know you're gonna be set up as the the ruler of Arrakis, and I want you to squeeze Arrakis. And he has to explain to him what he means by that. He has to repeat himself multiple times on this. So basically saying, like, you know, he implied that he was doing something unthinking, Rabin to the Baron. And uh, I will take it unkindly if ever again you suggest by word or action that I am so stupid. Never obliterate a man unthinkingly. And he's like, but you obliterate the traitor. I saw his body became and he was like, no, no, no. He was a wild, he was a weapon, you know. I suborned the doctor, I do not obliterate I did not obliterate him casually. So he's like having to explain like why he did what he did to like make him understand a little bit. And in fact, he says, like, oh, I understand, and he's like, No, you don't, you idiot.

unknown 12:55

Yeah.

Michael Kentris 12:59

Yes. So but they talk about like the only thing I want is is income. And they talk about like basically the huge cost, and this was talked about in some of the previous chapters as well, the huge amount of resources and wealth that it took to execute this attack with the the guild transport fees, the sarticar, um, you know, all the the weapons and munitions and so on and so forth. So he says if you can squeeze Arrakis for every cent for sixty years, it'll barely just repay us. So so they're definitely you know needing to make back this money. Yeah. And I mean, like you said, uh I think Stufer had alluded to it previously on just the sheer number of troops that had been brought in. I think he had estimated around like fifty years or so. So not far off. Again, just yeah, the grand scale of this attack really is not to be understated. Right. And that's kind of the thing. They they underestimated how much resources that they were willing or had available to outlay in this endeavor. So we get some back and forth here about the the Sardacar being attacked by the Freeman, and you know, Robin's like he hesitates. I always felt that we underestimated the Freemen, both in numbers. Um, and basically the Baron doesn't want to hear about it.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

He constantly is like, the Fremen aren't worth considering.

Michael Kentris 14:26

They're backwater, whatever. They are not there. There's even a point where Robin keeps referencing reports that he's got from his old lieutenants about how apparently, you know, there was a battalion or some sort of Sarakar force that had been wiped out by Fremen. And it's like, no, those must have been Atreides soldiers dressed as Fremen. Like, obviously. Yeah, no way. Right? Not possible.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Yes. It's the only possible answer.

Rabban Briefing And The Squeeze

Michael Kentris 14:54

The only logic dictates. But uh, going forward, again, right, Roman's like, can one exterminate an entire planet? And he's like, exterminate, no, don't be wasteful. You know, squeeze, uh, squeeze the population, do not exterminate, don't waste resources, essentially. And there's this very feral description almost. Uh you must be a carnivore, my boy. He smiled, a baby's expression in the dimple fat face, which is just an unsettling image there, isn't it? A carnivore never stops, show no mercy, never stop. Mercy is a chimera. It can be defeated by the stomach rumbling its hunger, by the throat crying its thirst. You must be always hungry and thirsty. The Baron caressed his bulges beneath the suspensers, like me. Um I mean, right, I mean, it's it's almost cartoonish, like how villainous his monologues are sometimes. Right. No, absolutely. And yeah, it just speaks again to kind of like the lowbrow thinking of this man. Just I gotta use my money is power, I gotta use my money slash power and fear to keep people in line. Those those are his two go-to tools of statecraft. Right. And that's that's the hard part, right? Is that he's not stupid. Um he's he's very intelligent, very crafty, just entirely without any ethical moring, essentially. Yeah, no compunctions about doing what needs to be done. As he sees it. Yes. So they're planning he's planning to have Kynes dead by tomorrow night, and he's like, you never need have feared Kynes would leave Araxis. You're forgetting that he's addicted to the spice. And this is something they've hinted at a couple of times, right? Is that because the spice is in everything here that uh you kind of just have a constant diet of it? And if you stop taking it, basically you die. Right? Yeah. I hope I hope we get a little more clarification on that at some point, you know, whether we see it in action or just kind of Or it stays a little mysterious.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Yeah. I mean, who knows? Time will tell. Right.

Michael Kentris 17:02

So But yeah, the Baron more or less is like, first things first, you have to get our stockpile private spice because we had a huge supply of it destroyed. I think that was again by Duncan, Idaho, or somebody else, where they had put up the shields that exploded with the last guns, and again, just kind of another thorn in the Baron's side to be like, we may be going down, but we're not going down without taking some of you with us. Right. And so we kind of get this description of kind of his arching plan with respect to his two nephews, right? So Rabin's gonna come in as being like this merciless uh dictator type figure, going to be crushing the population into you know desperate straits. And then he's going to have Fad Routha come in, and uh we get to beloved Fed Routha, benign Fed Routha that you know, be the savior. And then we get another, again, right? A gross description here. He'll learn such a lovely body, really a lovely boy. So anyway, uh and that is the end of our scene with the Duke.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

The Baron.

Underestimating The Fremen

Michael Kentris 18:07

Yes, sorry, getting my ranks mixed up. Yes, the Baron and his ilk. So yeah. Um I'm glad that they keep the the scenes with him relatively short, because he is, I don't know, it just is kind of an icky thing sometimes. Absolutely. Just very gross and unpleasant experience. Yeah. Which, you know, good job to the author for evoking those types of feelings. Right, right. So now we get another big scene shift to some of our other main characters here. Back to Paul and the Lady Jessica. So last we left him, they were fleeing that Imperial Ecological Station. They had left behind Kines and Idaho. Idaho appears to be dead. Kynes has apparently been apprehended by the Harkinens, but Paul and Lady Jessica were able to escape in a sneaky little thhopter and go directly into the storm to elude capture. So we pick up with them Paul, again, kind of you know, master of everything due to his training, due to his his what do they call it here? More than ment awareness. Yes. Yes, mental. Mentat plus. He's he's got he's got all the benefits working for right now. So obviously he's a very skilled pilot. So even though they're in a kind of old beat-down Thopter, they've been able to navigate through the storm and kind of be, as Wash might put it in Firefly, be the leaf on the wind as they. Actually, uh, I believe they use the phrase a chip on a geyser here, which is similarly evocative, I believe. Right, right. But yeah, he has this, I must find the right vortex. So he keeps kind of subtly adjusting their course to make sure that they're not blown apart. Right. And I like this that he just like, you know, he's he's sensing the flows and the you know, the ebb and amid rise, and he just all of a sudden like jerks the control to the side. Jessica, seeing what he's doing, screams, and then they're like out of the storm. So yes, but I like this. They talk about uh it was using her her time sense. It was almost four hours, but it felt as if it was a lifetime. She felt reborn, it was like the litany. We faced it and did not resist. The storm passed through us and around us, it's gone, but we remain. So yeah, a very uh evocative kind of thoughts there. Absolutely. And so Paul realizes right away that they got some serious damage going on with one of their wings, and they gotta find somewhere to land. And I do like this part here, even though they're out of that storm, uh, he was still not out into the full view of his prescient vision. So, you know, he discussed this previously how he had these kind of great swaths of paths that he had seen as potential areas that they could one day walk down based on what decisions they make, but they still are not kind of past this current trial, this current hurdle. Right. So Right, we keep talking about the litany to an extent here. So, like kind of poised on the brink of self-awareness. So you're kind of like, what's the cause of like the training, the litany, the spice saturated diet of Arrakis? You know, he's trembling awareness. I like this. What sense a quote from the Orange Catholic Bible? What senses do we lack that we cannot see or hear another world all around us? Interesting. But uh but yeah, we kind of get this. He's not quite he's having to rely on his current abilities, he can't just rely on his vision, which was emphasized in in a previous scene with him as well, that he was relying too much on these visions and not enough on his abilities in the moment. So they crash land, wing rips off. Yes. You know, classic desert landing. So they they spin around, one wing's pointing up in the air, and basically they know that when they Land because they have to, you know, you can't crash into the rocks, you just explode. So they they kind of do this like bup, bup, bup, you know, hitting the sand dunes to drag off some speed, and it's like we're gonna have to run for the rocks as soon as we land, because this kind of unnatural vibration is going to attract the worms, capital W. Our friends, the worms. Our friends, because they will destroy any trace that we were here. But you gotta you gotta hustle. So they jump out of the thing, they run for the rocks, as predicted, a sandworm, a giant sandworm. Uh because I always love this. They a new sound began to impress itself on them, a muted whisper, a hissing, an abrasive slithering. So yeah, you kind of get almost like this like the jaws kind of feeling, you know, where it's like that music in the background, just like building tension. And then, yes, the worm shows up, it is huge, and it eats the Thopter, and they're like watching it from a distance, and it's enormous. What do you call it? The larger than uh like a spaceship spaceship. Yes. Yeah, he's larger than a frigate later on for a different one. It is it is truly, I feel like, uh a sense of terror there because I I think they mentioned that they really don't get that far before it already shows up and devours it when they have already like turned to look. Right. It's like how how far can you sprint in the desert within just a few minutes, you know? Right. And yeah, it is worth mentioning that they're kind of hoping that the distraction of the spaceship crashing will be sufficient to allow them to run across the south without attracting more attention. Right, right. So you get a quote from this book. I think they referenced it when uh when Paul was initially like reading for the planet Arrakis when they were moving in there. The Kitab al-Ibar travel by night and rest in black shade through the day. So, I mean, makes sense, right? Travel when it's cooler, rest when the the hot of the sun. Yes. So they keep going deep into the desert, the Freeman Desert. And they're using the paracompass, which we don't know how it works, but that's okay. So it works off a slightly different principle than you know a typical magnetic field, but yeah. I don't know. There's magnetic fields, there's paramagnetic fields. I don't know. Um who knows? We haven't had a description of the uh the polar uh magnetic fields of the planet Arrakis yet. Maybe that'll give it time. But not that I wouldn't read it, you know, I would. So anyway, he talks about kind of his vision and that it feels like it's been like integrated into his memory, but like the perspective is different, shifted from a different angle. Um I like this. Idaho was with us in the vision, but now Idaho is dead, and then it just kind of moves on. Their passage became a matter of the immediate and particular, which I like that. That really brings it kind of our stand with like initially it was bird's eye view, and then it just like kind of zooms right down to the eye level here. The Terran enforced its own rhythms. They spoke only when necessary, and then with the hoarse voices of their exertion. So a lot of I really like the descriptions that we kind of move into here. It's very physical, very immediate, uh, it's very, very descriptive, to be redundant, of like the environment that they are in that they're struggling through. And it it's uh it makes it feel very pun intended, very gritty. Absolutely. I mean that's reinforced again by you know, they take a moment to have a brief respite, they drink from their still suits, again, the reclaimed water, it's brackish. And again, Lady Jessica still just coming to terms with everything, just remembering how great life used to be on Kaladin, how there's just water everywhere, you didn't have to think about the value of water, just such a richness of moisture that it hadn't been noticed for itself. Yeah. I like this bit about mercy. Mercy was the ability to stop, if only for a moment. There was no mercy where there could be no stopping. And that kind of is also, I think, a little bit of a callback to like the Freeman culture that we've seen, right? That uh to be merciful, you have to have that ability to like the resources and the time and all that stuff, right? Things that don't necessarily exist in this harsh environment. Absolutely. I don't know why. I I really liked this description of all of the different gravel they're that they're crawling across. I do I do have it highlighted. Yeah, I don't know. Boulders or pea gravel or flaked rock or pea sand or sand itself or grit or dust or gossamer powder. The powder claws nose filters and had to be blown out. Peace sand and pea gravel rolled on a hard surface and could spill the unwary. Rock flakes cut. So it's just like, right? Kind of that that what they said, immediate and particular. So depending on what you're walking across, you have to pay attention to different risks and problems. And it's a constantly changing environment. While from like, say the bird's eye view from the Thopter, right, it's all just this tan, featureless expanse, but now you're down in it, and there's all this slight variation, and you have to change how you travel, what kind of damages that you could inflict upon yourself. So all these things, it's it's moving us further, both literally and metaphorically, further and further into the desert. Right. And so, yeah, they finally get to kind of a cliff on the rock outcropping that they're on, and they look across, and all they see is open desert for at least a few kilometers. And so Paul mentions like it's a wide place to cross. So obviously they have to learn the way that the Fremen walk, walk like a Fremen, and avoid bringing the worms down upon them. Right. So he sees her just take a sip, and you know, they're saying, Shall we rest and eat? And so what do they have? Well, two energy capsules, a delicious meal. Um and she takes a spit of water from her still suit, and Paul says, Drink all your water, axiom. The best place to conserve your water is in your body. It keeps your energy up. You're stronger, trust your still suit. So so it is important, right? I mean, right, just these kind of very concrete particular things. Like this is what we should be doing, to best keep our strength up. And they kind of are reminiscing here for a moment, how peaceful in this moment of their tiredness. And they are thinking of Gurney, how like better a dry morsel and quietness therewith than a house full of sacrifice and strife. And I like this part here. Gurney always had the right quotation. I can hear him now, and I will make the rivers dry and sell the land into the hand of the wicked, and I'll make the land waste, and all that is therein by the hand of strangers. Which is a quote, of course, a quote. Uh this is from Ezekiel chapter 30, verse 12. I believe this is at King James. But uh basically this is referring to a prophecy about the fall of Egypt at the hands of Babylon. So there's a lot of different uh prophecies in Ezekiel. He kind of was the one who foretold the fall of Judah to Babylon, if I remember correctly. And uh yeah, so it's it's I don't know. I think that might be emphasizing maybe that Gurney's quotes are a little more on point than than when Paul's like emulating Gurney, perhaps. But I mean, we could stretch it, you know, if we say that, oh, that they're they're Egypt, right? Egypt being like kind of the one of the most prominent kingdoms around this time, that it it falls and gets taken over by another kingdom. Is he referencing like his own family's fall and you know the Harkinans? I don't know. That might be a bit of a stretch, even for me. But uh maybe. Who knows?

SPEAKER_02 29:29

Not concerned about the reason. Yeah, yeah. So uh you know, his nose gets itchy.

Michael Kentris 29:37

Alright, uh skip a little bit here. So Jessica, you know, she realizes she's afraid of her son, his strangeness, what he may see ahead, what he may tell me. So she feels like her son's a different person, you know, after this this you know, epiphany that he had earlier um in the course of their flight. Yeah, she's definitely shown several times either through internal monologue or just some of her actions that, yeah, she's not quite sure what her son is becoming, and is still, again, just coming to terms with everything that's happened in like the past day.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

So it's a lot for her to process, and she's still processing. Right.

Michael Kentris 30:16

So his nose itched, he rubbed it. He smells the melange, uh, the rich smell of cinnamon. They are talking now, there's a way to get across, as we said, the Freeman do it. Walk like a freeman.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Walk like a freeman.

Michael Kentris 30:31

We have to make only natural sounds, the kind that don't attract the worms. And they talk about the thumper, so we get a little clue as to what the thumper does, right? So it thumps, essentially. It creates vibrations to the ground. And so it's a regular thing and it attracts worms towards it and away from where you are going, ideally. So but obviously, once it gets eaten by a worm, it is not thumping any longer. So you only have so long for for it to be effective. And so yeah, they're talking about the worms there for a little bit, and I did find it interesting how he found it odd that all he sensed was pervasive terror at the thought of the worms. He knew as though it lay just at the edge of his awareness that the worms were to be respected and not feared.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

If only what if only what?

Michael Kentris 31:18

So, yes, sounds without rhythm.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Mm-hmm.

Into The Storm With Paul And Jessica

Michael Kentris 31:22

They're talking about suspensors, oh, but maybe they attract the worms the way a shield does. So so they decide to, you know, go down and uh crawl into this little fissure where they'll get some shade and kind of sleep the day away, and then when the night comes, they'll make their crossing. So they're going down and basically there's like a sand slide, and Lady Jessica is buried. And so he's like, he panics for a moment, and because he's like, you know, she's gonna get smothered, and he's like, wait, she'll be fine. She's she'll do like the uh the bindu suspension, some sort of some sort of meditative technique, uh I'm inferring from context here. And so he uttered a word to bring her out of the catalepsis, which is a great word here. So, you know, basically like you can see similar words of like cataplexy, things like that. So it's basically like a like a near comatose kind of state. So he lost during this whole you know event, he lost his pack with their supplies under hundreds of tons of sand at least, and everything that counts, they'll spare water, the still tens. So he's like, he's still got his knife and binoculars, we can get a good look around the place where we'll die. And his mother with scorn in her voice says, Is this the way you were taught? And he's like, think you know, basically like, you gotta think about this, solve it, you know. You you've got all this training, you've got all this thinking ability. And so he he thinks and thinks and thinks, you know, blue clue style. And uh it's like foam. Like we can use the spice, mix it with the battery power pack from the paracompass and make some kind of like foam, and that'll help the sand stick in place and we can dig safely without causing another sand slide.

unknown 32:58

Yes.

Michael Kentris 32:59

And basically they do that, and they're able to pull it out, and yeah, they talk a lot about digging in the sand.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

So they do.

Michael Kentris 33:07

Yeah. So so they dig down. Don't dig straight down, dig at an angle, you know, so all these things. So we we get a lot into the the details of sand digging, and they eventually notice that there's there's anchor holes in the rock. Someone has tented here before. And then Lady Jessica's like, yeah, obviously, this seems like a pretty good spot to prepare for, you know, between uh the days as you wait to trick off in the night. You know, we're near the base of this rock outcropping, it's shaded, so yeah, more or less Fremen have been here. Right. And as this is all going on, another worm passes by, they're they're rock outcropping. And again, we're I've seen space frigates that were smaller, Paul whispers. And we kind of end with this conversation from Lady Jessica, where she's like, Well, we rested, we should continue your lessons. And this you know, this kind of makes Paul angry. But uh she's like, Today you panicked, you know your mind and bindu nervature, perhaps better than I, but you've much yet to learn about your body's prana musculature. Which I'll be honest, I don't know what these words necessarily mean specifically. Uh but they talk about finger muscles, palm tendons, tip sensitivity, and uh again, we get this kind of little callback, I think, to the um to the box in the first chapter. You know, he flexed the fingers of his left hand, knowing that he could not deflect her from this determination that he must agree. Review of the hand. He looked at his hand, how inadequate it appeared when measured against such creatures as that worm. So yeah, I I think that to me at least that's kind of a callback to the hand in the box with the the pain and all that kind of stuff. So I also feel like this is a way for Lady Jessica to kind of revert to some sense of normalcy. You know, I was like, okay, lessons with my son. This is something that we have done, this is something that I can control and kind of lend itself back to adapting to living in these new circumstances. Right, right. And that's the end of our little jaunt in the sandbox. That's right. So uh go ahead. Yeah, the only other thing I wanted to mention real quick before we jump from this chapter is that when Paul is digging through the sand to find Lady Jessica, it reminded me a lot of the one dream that she had had with about Duke Leto, how his he was also kind of falling beneath the sand with his name and everything. Right, and she tried to dig it out, but it was filling with sand before she could even finish the writing. Exactly. Maybe, maybe. Maybe. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of these metaphors with sand are gonna appear very similar to each other when that's kind of what sand does. He slithers.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

It slithers, it's abrasive, it's rough and irritating, gets everywhere. Very true.

Michael Kentris 35:49

So I I I always have to read these quotes from the beginning. I mean, some of them some of them are quite good. We came from Kaladin, a paradise world for our form of life. And the price we paid, dot dot dot, and the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life. We went soft, we lost our edge. Which is kind of, I think, you know, that that meme floating around there, you know, on the internet uh these days where, you know, hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create bad times, bad times create hard men. Or strong men, rather. So that kind of that cycle of good and bad creating these effects on the population. So I mean, it supposed is true, right? And we kind of see the inverse of this, I think, in the Freeman as we go. Which ironically, we don't get much of the Freeman in this next chapter. Instead, we get Gurney Halleck, who is not dead, um and also not captured, surprisingly. Right. Yeah, Gurney and his men. They've made it out with the help of the son of the smuggler that we saw in the dinner scene back at that dinner that they had in the Great House, who I believe was also found dead by Ducleto. I believe I was the same smuggler. Yes, he was, I think after the Shadow of Mapse he found him. Yes. Yeah. And so this man's name is Staban Stabin. Totally I called him Stabin. Yes, son of Esmar Tuck. So we can call him Tuic. Tuick's probably gonna be a little easier. So yes, we have we have uh Staben. Staben. So we get a conversation between him and Gurney Halleck for a while. And uh says, like, you're the one I owe thanks for the help received, and the smuggler's like, ah, gratitude, please sit. So yeah, it's uh there's this kind of back and forth about what are you gonna do next, Gurney Halleck? Are you going to join through smugglers? Are you going to seek out the Freeman? What is your plan? Are you going to try and escape the system? And we kind of get this back and forth, back and forth. Yeah, Gurney seems to be very focused on trying to, on some level, get revenge, or at least vengeance. I couldn't remember the specific term that was used earlier that was kind of like the house vendetta, but that was kind of what was in my mind when I was reading Gurney kind of over and over, trying to be like, okay, I want to kill Harkadins, how can I do that? Right. In fact, he's so focused on it that uh that Tuek here calls him Fighting Man. Yes. Several times, actually. And he's like, Why aren't you fighting? You know, they killed your father. And I like this. We get some we get some folk wisdom from uh Stabin. A stone is heavy and the sand is weighty, but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both. And so basically, it's kind of talking, uh, there's a little bit of a reference later on where you fight only one enemy at a time, and the enemy that they are referring to is Arrakis itself. So I thought that was kind of an interesting way to think about the environments. Like, so when you have certain things in hand, then you may focus on your next enemy. Right. And then uh Tuick kind of gives him little bits of information that he's received about different reports and whatnot. So obviously he's heard the rumor that the traitor was Lady Jessica. There's also been his line of thinking is that potentially it was Thufer who was the traitor, because again, he got captured, he's heard this. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

And again, he's like Gurney's like, how it made few mistakes, and he's like, he allowed himself to fall into Harkinen hands. Right, right. And uh yeah, just again, I I appreciate that Tuck is very pragmatic almost to a fault here.

Crash, Wormsign, And Desert Rules

Michael Kentris 39:39

So he's keep he keeps trying to like be like, hey, we have to survive because just running out there to try and kill them is gonna end with us all dead. So right. We need to make sure. Exactly, exactly. And then we also get a little bit of information here about Gurney's past, where that ink vine scar that is alluded to every time. Every time every time he clenches his jaw. Right. Every time we get a description of Gurney, it's that he's an ugly lump and that he's got the inkvine scar on his jaw. But we learn that the scar is because of Robin, the man who is coming in at the Baron's request to again act as steward or whatever for the planet of Arrakis. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. And obviously he's not happy about that. But yeah, he's like, listen to me, fighting man. Oh, wait, I skipped ahead a little bit here. Basically he's saying, Where is the Lord who led us through the land of deserts and of pits? So another another quote, obviously. But speed is a device of Shaitan, which uh I believe is Satan, roughly translated. So we get kind of this this back and forth again, right? It's constant. This this back and forth about, you know, revenge now, revenge later. But it's not that Tuek is against revenge, right? Halleck accuses him of of being against revenge, and he's like, No, I didn't say that, but I like this quote here that he, my father's water, I'll buy that back myself with my own blade. So he's uh not looking for anyone to avenge his father for him, but he will do it in his own time. And so, yeah, ultimately, Halleck kind of takes that moment to more or less promise his sword to Tuick, to an to an extent at least. Like he offers him his sword, I guess would probably be a better way of saying in a traditional sense, you know, like he makes like the the hand gesture with the thumb folded in and all that, and it's like, will you take take me on, basically? So he it it has a bit of a ceremoniousness to it, I would say. Absolutely. So initially, Gurney is like, I can only speak for myself, I cannot speak for my men. They've already been through a bunch. I know some of them don't want to be here on Arrakis, they probably want to go back home to Kaladin, where they were born, where they lived. Tuik is able to kind of convince Gurney to, at the very least, try and persuade them to stay. Because again, times are hard and fighting men are useful. Right, right. And we know the Atreides forces are pretty solid fighters.

SPEAKER_02 42:19

Yes. So yes.

Michael Kentris 42:22

And then I did think was interesting how he keeps trying to get more information, Gurney does, about the Fremen. So, like, Tuick makes the comment that Arrakis is our enemy, and Halleck is like, is that the Fremen way to make out? Perhaps. And it's like, you said I might find life with the Fremen too tough. They live in the desert in the open. Is that why? It's like, who knows where the Fremen live? It's just constantly, you know, hey, let's steer the conversation away from the Fremen because I either don't necessarily completely trust you just yet, or that is a taboo topic to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

Yeah.

Michael Kentris 43:00

And I mean it also, I think he has a disregard for the Fremen as well. So he kind of buys into the same line of thinking to an extent as the Baron does, where it's like, you know, we live in sieges, we are civilized, they're scrabbling in the desert being chased by Harkonins with las guns and pogroms and so on and so forth. Like, what's what has their ability to kill Harkonins and Sardacar done for them lately, basically? So he's basically saying, like, yeah, sure, they can fight, but look what it's got them. It's like we're in comfort here, we can bite our time, etc. So it's definitely a different mentality as far as the strategic approach to resistance. Which, again, pragmatic. It is pragmatic. And I feel like that is something that comes up pretty often in this book is dealing between the logic and the emotion and kind of having them fight out for victor in how you actually act. Yeah, or even like principle versus pragmatism. Yeah. Definitely there's definitely a lot of discussion about those two things, I think. And uh is it is it sacrificing your principles to make the pragmatic choice, right? I think that's a that's a common topic in in literature for thousands of years. Right. So yeah, Gurney again, like we said before, chooses to join with Tuick for now and will speak to the men to also try and join with Tuick. So he kind of dismisses him. Gurney is off to go see his men. And I uh a comment that I put down here is uh Halleck says, Fortune passes everywhere, Halleck said. Everywhere, Tuick said, a time of upset is a rare opportunity for our business. And I literally I had just seen this the other day from Deep Space Nine, where it was uh 34th rule of acquisition, war is good for business, which is directly counterpoint to 35, which is peace is good.

SPEAKER_02 44:57

Just again, pragmatic, it's like hey, I gotta make money.

Michael Kentris 45:01

Very Ferengi-esque. Absolutely. Um so yeah, as as Gurney goes to talk to his men, one of them comes up and says, uh, Matai wants a song to ease his going, you know, he's not gonna make it, they don't have the medical resources they need to save him. And he's asking for a song called My Woman. So, you know, he he's going up, he's playing this song, one of the men is singing as he plays, and as they finish the song, the man passes. And then we just get this single sentence here, now we are seventy-three.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

Which I thought was so very grim. Very somber. Yeah. And that brings us to the end of the chapter. Right. That's great.

Michael Kentris 45:46

So so yeah, I think we're getting, after all of the really intense action at the end of book one, over the last few chapters, we're kind of getting these individual plot threads from these different perspectives. And we're kind of getting, I would say, a few main perspectives, right? We have kind of our, you know, Paul and Jessica, we've got the Baron, now we've got Gurney. We had Thufer earlier as well. So a lot of our main characters are still maintaining their own kind of independent point of views as we go forward here, and they're kind of weaving these different perspectives together. And you kind of, it's nice, you get these different perspectives on the same situation. So there is sometimes a little bit of jumping back and forth time-wise. Not too much, thankfully, but um just a little bit, so that you're kind of seeing the same events from different views, and that I think is a very interesting technique as far as like the writing style goes, and it's pretty well done. Even though, like, like I said before, these are isolated chapters as opposed to being kind of interwoven a little more tightly in terms of the time aspect. But I think it's still well done, and I think it's it's still tight enough that it's not confusing or disorienting or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

Absolutely.

Michael Kentris 46:55

Yeah, I feel like with the way that you described earlier, how each chapter kind of stays focused on one scene that in order to get this multi-person perspective on the events as they're happening, obviously, you know, it's going to have some some minimal amount of kind of jumping back. It's like, five minutes ago, here's what was going on with Thufer. Right, right. Yeah. Not quite that heavy-handed, thankfully. Right, right. Well, any other thoughts on on these chapters today? So, yeah, kind of what you were alluding to before, how you know we are getting kind of this immediate aftermath. So it it is nice to know what is happening or what has happened with a lot of the people that we came to know in the first book of Dune, and the nodes kind of like left until later when, you know, the author decides to pick them up again and be like, okay, now you'll be useful to the story. So it is nice to see that there's some level of care with making sure that we are given at least some glimpse as to kind of the current status. Yeah. So so I I think this is you know pretty expected evolution. Things are kind of at a little bit of a lull. I think we're we're kind of in the a little bit of a falling action moment, and we're everyone's gearing up for next steps. So however long this this kind of quote unquote down period is going to be, I don't know. But uh, you know, people are moving towards goals, and I think we're seeing that, right? Plans are being made by the Baron. Paul and Jessica are moving towards what they hope like a Freeman population, and then we've got Gurney hooking up with another faction that is at least nominally anti-Harkinin. And so we've got all these different things kind of working at different angles and at different purposes. And yeah, it's I I'm soon, not I'm sure not going to be too long before we start seeing some some crossover between these different threads again.

SPEAKER_00 48:51

Yes, absolutely.

Michael Kentris 48:52

Well, as always, always fun. Uh I hope everyone enjoyed our ramblings. And as always, you can uh email us at brothersreadingbooks at gmail.com. You can also find us on X, formerly known as Twitter at BrothersReading, and then uh our website will probably be up by this point in time, brothersreadingbooks. And if you have any questions, suggestions, comments, things we missed, things we were wrong about, let us know. And we will try and do better in the future. Otherwise, uh, we will talk to you all next time. Well, talk to you later. Talk to you later, Mike.