“Silhouettes,” she said, reminding him. “What did you expect to find when we came up here?”

“Perhaps people at a distance. You’re never certain.”

“What people?”

“I’ve already told you.”

“What would you’ve done if you’d seen anyone?”

“It was the Fremen custom to treat distant people as hostile until they threw sand into the air.”

As he spoke, darkness fell over them like a curtain.

Siona became ghostly movement in the sudden starlight. “Sand?” she asked.

“Thrown sand is a profound gesture. It says: ‘We share the same burden. Sand is our only enemy. This is what we drink. The hand that holds sand holds no weapon.’ Do you understand this?”

“No!” She taunted him with a defiant falsehood.

“You will,” he said.

Without a word, she set out along the arc of their dune, striding away from him with an angry excess of energy. Leto allowed himself to fall far behind her, interested that she had instinctively chosen the right direction. Fremen memories could be felt churning in her.

Where the dune dipped to cross another, she waited for him. He saw that the face flap of her stillsuit remained open, hanging loose. It was not yet time to chide her about this. Some unconscious things had to run their natural course.

As he came up to her, she said: “Is this as good a direction as any other?”

“If you keep to it,” he said.

She glanced up at the stars and he saw her identify the Pointers, those Fremen Arrows which had led her ancestors across this land. He could see, though, that her recognition was mostly intellectual. She had not yet come to accept the other things working within her.

Leto lifted his front segments to peer ahead in the starlight. They were moving a little west of north on a track that once had led across Habbanya Ridge and Cave of Birds into the erg below False Wall West and the way to Wind Pass. None of those landmarks remained. He sniffed a cool breeze with flint smells in it and more moisture than he found pleasant.

Once more, Siona set off—slower this time, holding her course by occasional glances at the stars. She had trusted Leto to confirm the way, but now she guided herself. He sensed the turmoil beneath her wary thoughts, and he knew the things which were emerging. She had the beginnings of that intense loyalty to travelling companions which desert folk always trusted.

We know, he thought. If you are separated from your companions you are lost among dunes and rocks. The lone traveller in the desert is dead. Only the worm lives alone out here.

He let her get well ahead of him where the grating sand of his passage would not be too prominent. She had to think of his human-self. He counted on loyalty to work for him. Siona was brittle, though, filled with suppressed rage—more of a rebel than any other he had ever tested.