Deleted Scenes and Chapters from Dune

[Lawliet]

I recently found this in The road to Dune, i don't know if you know about them already, but i thought some of you might be interested.

PAUL & THUFIR HAWAT

Paul continued to stare at the old man. "Thufir, I just thought of

something."

"Heh?"

"I really know so little about you."

"What's that?" Hawat stared sharply at Paul, wondering: Am I being insulted by this cub? Does he

doubt my loyalty?

"I mean I don't know real things about you," Paul said. "Like, oh, have you ever been married, or . .

."

"I've had women," the old man growled.

"And children?"

"Like as not."

"But no family."

"My Duke's family is my family."

"It's not the same," Paul said. "You've been so busy with our . . ." "What I want or need my Duke

gives me," Hawat said. "If talk like yours came from a commoner it'd be a headsman offense.

You're born to rule, lad, and to accept the services of those whose loyalty you've earned. Being born

to it isn't enough, though. You've a deal to learn, too. That's why we're here now and we'd best get

down to business." He tapped the papers on the table. "Yueh and your mother and everyone with a

scrap of knowledge about Arrakis has been pumping it into you. Now, what do you know about the

place?"

PAUL & GURNEY HALLECK

Gurney was, in fact, the closest thing to a playmate that Paul

knew.

Gurney dropped the weapons onto the exercise table, lined them up, gave them a last examination to

be certain they were ready: stunners on safety, buttons secure on the rapier tips, bodkins and

kindjals in their blunting sheaths, fresh power charges in the shield belts.

Behind him, Gurney heard the boy moving restlessly, and it occurred to Gurney that Paul was slow

to warmth with most people, that few saw anything but a strange irregularity of friendliness beneath

the manners. Like the old Duke, Gurney thought. Always conscious of class. And it's a pity because there's so

much fun in the boy, too much to be pushed under all the time. He turned, swinging a baliset off his

shoulder, began

checking its tune. There I go again, he thought. Filling my mind with fly-buzz when I should be getting down

to work.

"YOU HATE THE Harkonnens almost as much as my father, Paul said.

"Almost as much," Gurney agreed, and Paul heard the irony. "The Count Rabban at Lankiveil is a

Harkonnen cousin. You've heard the tale of Ernso, the goldsmith, captured on Pedmiot and sold to

slavery of the Count Rabban . . . with his family held in the same bondage?"

"I've heard you sing the ballad many a time," Paul said.

Gurney spoke to the wall beyond the boy. "Then you'll recall that Ernso was ordered to embellish

the handle and blade of the Count's best sword. And Ernso obeyed, but he hid in the design a curse

calling on heaven to destroy an evil House."

"Yes." Paul nodded, puzzled. The bloody ballad was not one of his favorites.

"And the design remained hidden there," Gurney said, "until a Court lackey chanced to see it and

recognized the script from his childhood. Oh, it was a great joke at Court until word got back to

Beast Rabban."

"And for that Ernso was hung by his toes over a chirak nest until dead and his family scattered to

the slave pits," Paul said. "I remember the story, but..."

"I'd tell you a thing now that's known to very few in this House," Gurney said. "I'm properly called

Gurney Halleck Ernson, the son of Ernso."

Paul stared at the rippling of the scar on Gurney's jaw.

"It was Hawat's men brought me off Giedi Prime that time they nearly got the Baron," Gurney said.

"I was just a child, but I showed aptitude for the sword, there being motive behind my learning.

Duncan

Idaho found a way for me to train at his school on Ginaz. I had some large bids for my services

when I graduated, lad, but you understand now why I came back to the Atreides and why I'll never

leave short of being carried out in the basket."

PAUL & DR. YUEH

That sounds like Hawat," Yueh said, and he smoothed his drooping mustache. "Hawat's gone, I

hear. Taken most of the propaganda corps, all the presses. Interesting. I wonder what filmbooks he

has in mind for first publication there. The Harkonnens, you know, didn't use much printed matter

on Arrakis. They relied on the persuasion of the sword."

"My father does things differently," Paul said. "Indeed," Yueh said. And he straightened the Suk

School's silver ring that bound his hair at the shoulder.

"My mother says you have some Bene Gesserit training," Paul said. "Does the Suk School have

Bene Gesserit teachers?"

"No." Yueh dropped his hand to his lap. "My . . . Wanna . . . she was

Bene Gesserit. A wife teaches a husband much even when he is not deep-trained . . . and when she's

Bene Gesserit. . ." He shook his head.

"Is she ... dead?" Paul asked.

Yueh swallowed in a dry throat. He has pity for me. I do not want his pity!

"Yes," he said. And he thought: I pray it is true. Let her be dead, and in that death, free of Harkonnens. Yet, I

cannot be sure until I face the Baron in our own tahaddi alburhan. The challenge of the proof. My eyes shall

see it.

"I'm sorry," Paul said. And he thought: Perhaps that's why he makes me uneasy. He's a man with a

terrible grief. I must be kinder to him. Mayhap my father could get him a woman.

"I must leave in a few minutes," Yueh said. "But we really haven't studied much, have we? It's all

this upset. We'll get back to regular lessons and a full schedule ... on Arrakis."

"Things are pretty mixed up," Paul said. "And there's all this huddling within our four walls because

our forces are depleted by the ones we've sent on ahead. My father says we're not very vulnerable

here, though, because many of the Great Houses pray for the Harkonnens to violate the Convention.

That'd make the Harkonnens fair game to anyone who wanted to hit them in force."

"It is best to stay indoors, though," Yueh said. "I hear they blasted a hunter-seeker out of the

orchard last night."

[SandChigger]

(Um... copyright?)

[MrFlibble]

Why have you posted two different topics with the same title? Not to mention both posts are excerpts from the Road to Dune, without any actual discussion. What's the point in that?