"Start with muad'dib. Muad'dib is wise in the ways of the desert." Mapes chuckled. "We call muad'dib the instructor of youth. Whenever you look at the shade on the Second Moon, think of the lessons of muad'dib."

To this, Mapes agreed. "God created Dune to train the faithful. You will do and you will learn." There were certainly at least a few reasons for people of this planet to not give what could be considered elsewhere a straight answer. At this point, Cuyler could see at least two. First, they held thei...

"There was a man who sat each day looking out through a slit in the rock. Each day a kulon, a wild ass of the desert, was passing through it - first the nose, then the head, the forelegs, the long brown back, the hindlegs, and lastly the tail. One day, the man leaped to his feet happy and he shouted...

"And yet you are here." It sounded like an assertion that making sense wasn't a definitive criterion of anything.

"Who says that he should." Mapes didn't seem to be sharing Cuyler's assumption that Kynes was obligated so.

There was a pause, as if Mapes even considered whether to respond. "I don't know where he is. He comes and goes as he pleases." The words were so carefully chosen that Cuyler could almost taste there was a guarded secret there. And yet, Kynes had to be some public figure here on Arrakis. Perhaps som...

Her keen senses caught a very slight twitch in Mapes' body as the name was mentioned, but it may have been unrelated.

"Each knows what they must know, and doesn't know what they mustn't know. Naibs don't know all, only God. Challenge a naib if you must before you challenge God!" Clearly, Mapes was hostile toward the idea of telling him too much about the Fremen, for any number of reasons. His platitudes of good int...

"Nothing is known!" She hissed. The man was putting her at her limits. The moment she'd calmed down, he was prodding her for secrets again, secrets she was bound to keep as such. "Don't taunt me into defying Liet and killing you!"

Mapes' scepticism was derived from her own experiences. Offworlders gave with one hand and took with another. Just like the Fenrings, they provided water for the poor, but not without asserting superiority and dispensing humiliation. All the while Lady Fenring maintained a whole garden in her keep t...

"Smugglers can sell you out." Mapes made a general remark, not any particular comment on his plan which her mind didn't comprehend. "They can be reached. The Count has special dealings with them. He told the Baron that they are 'his'. Tuek had visited him in Arrakeen before."

Mapes couldn't help herself in coating her disbelief in a joke. "There was this drylander who was asked which was more important, a literjon of water or a vast pool of water? The drylander thought a moment and then said: "The literjon is more important. No single person could own a great pool of wat...

Mapes calmed down momentarily. Bomilcar wouldn't know it, but not because he said the right thing, but because he said the wrong thing. Noble, but not correct, that removed the necessity for Amtal. But the Shadout recognised his earnestness and didn't challenge him for assuming the Fremen couldn't d...

And he would share your dream. Mapes was terrified! She clung with her back to the side of the canyon, her hand on her chest. She had to be concealing a knife there. "What do you know about our dream that you want to share it!" She challenged again. Those Fremen were mad! Every moment coated in rel...

"Subakh ul nar, Stilgar. Good you've come. I tell you, these offworlders are very troublesome!" Mapes said in Chakobsa, gesturing around. "They ask many questions! I am not sure if they don't want to spy on us!" She spared a look to Ahmina, of relief and reproof in one, as if she'd been responsible ...

"Kul wahad!" She cursed. He was probing too close! And he would know our customs as if he was born to them. Her gaze was a mixture of trepidation, hostility, and awe, perhaps even religious awe. Her small body stiffened, then stretched, as she pulled away, building distance. He had clearly frightene...

Mapes tsk'ed, but there was a sense of horror in her gaze at what his words might have implied. Her hand went toward the hem of her robe. Did he touch some taboo?

Mapes shot him a glittering gaze of both wonder and suspicion.

"The Maker brings life and death alike!"

"Harkonnen want to know more about it too." She challenged, implying that pursuit of knowledge in itself wasn't enough of a moral reason. "Buzmali." She confirmed, perhaps daring him to find the answer himself. The Fremen had their own language, a private one few outsiders apparently knew, and spoke...

Mapes considered it. "Those names tell me little. I sense you want to be closer to us, I noticed when you followed my prayer. And now you have followed me here. But I don't know for what reason. If I hadn't been asked, I wouldn't be helping you and the others." She looked at him with her blue-within...

He saw her holding out a rather docile bat in her hands. She was speaking into some small device, but it was in a language he didn't understand. It sounded ancient. The device then did something to the bat, it became agitated, squirming, but not hostile. There was no physical contact between the bat...

That wasn't exactly the stealth squad Mapes had imagined, but she'd make do. At least perhaps the Harkonnen would hesitate to take out half of the audit in one go... nah, she didn't believe in that.

It was what it was. She said a prayer to the Maker under her breath.

Mapes frowned at the sudden crowd. Were they all meant to be decoys?

"Who is the pilot?" She assumed one of them had to be. At least two of them had good stillsuits. And the last one looked like Liet's daughter, so maybe it was an omen.

Mapes was waiting in one of the thopters in the frigate's cargo hold...

After they had landed, rather smoothly, Mapes unstrapped and lifted herself up from the seat. "It's better the Harkonnen don't see me at all."