Dune: Book 2, Part 7 Summary & Analysis

The epigraph from Princess Irulan’s text “In My Father’s House” details life for the Imperial princesses in the Royal Creche. Irulan acknowledges that it may be difficult to understand, but along with her sisters and mother she would spy on her father Emperor Shaddam IV. This was a necessity, seeing as there were many attempts on the princesses’ lives and some of them may have come from the Emperor himself. Irulan claims that “A Royal Family is not like other families.” She believes that her father only had one true friend, the “genetic-eunuch” Count Hasimir Fenring who was known as one of the best fighters in the Imperium. On one occasion, spying on the Emperor, Irulan is worried to see that her father rejects one of Count Fenring’s gifts of a slave-concubine because she is “too beautiful.” The Emperor demonstrates a “subtlety and control” that scares Irulan and her sisters.

In late afternoon on the desert, Paul stands beside the pitched tent in which Jessica sleeps. He is considering whether his plan to cross the open desert is a good one. When Jessica wakes and sees his stance outside, he reminds her of Duke Leto, and she turns away in grief. When she later moves outside, Paul remarks that he is enjoying the quiet of the desert and that “it could be a good life here.”

As the sun sets, Paul sets the thumper in the deepest part of the rock. Under starlight, he and Jessica begin to walk with an erratic pattern across the open sand, trying to mimic the desert’s natural sounds. Paul shows his mother how to achieve this by drawing on prophetic memory as well as his memories of brief glimpses of Fremen on the sands. They are almost half way across the sands before they hear the sounds of sandworms traveling to investigate the thumper. The worms start the slow and brutal process of ripping through rock to get to the thumper, the sounds becoming a backdrop to Paul and Jessica’s careful movements.

About 200 meters from safety, Paul accidentally steps on drum sand and it booms out loudly across the desert. Jessica screams at her son to run for the rock zone, and the two sprint to safety with a threatening sandworm on their tails. They reach the rock and hide in a crevice; the huge creature rears out of the sand with a gaping mouth, questing toward its hidden prey. Paul is struck by its magnificence. He can smell a strong sense of cinnamon from its open mouth and once again feels sure that there must be a strong relationship between sandworms and spice, although he has not yet figured this out or seen it using foresight.

The sandworm reaches over the rock to try and catch them, but is suddenly distracted by the sound of another thumper in the distance. Paul wonders if Fremen have deliberately set it off to lure the sandworm away from them. Or, they may have been calling the creature for another purpose—perhaps something to do with the “maker hooks” in the Fremen packs that he and Jessica escaped with from the Imperial base.

Paul and Jessica find a way up a rock cliff using long and thin poles that have been set as markers. At the steepest point there are stairs cut into a crevasse. At the top of the rocks, they are amazed to see an oasis basis that is filled with desert plants. There are even mice flitting in and out of the shadows and a bird of prey hunting the rodents.

Suddenly, though, Paul and Jessica are surrounded by a group of Fremen. Paul’s body tenses in preparation to withdraw, but the Fremen warn him not to. He is frustrated that he has not immediately fallen into the emergency semblance of relaxation like his mother. The Fremen—one of them is referred to as a companion by “Stil”—threaten to take Paul and Jessica’s water and perhaps even their lives.