Dune (Dune #1)

by Frank Herbert

The Duke permitted himself a moment of grim satisfaction, looking at his son and thinking how penetrating, how truly educated that observation had been. He nodded. “The Harkonnens have been stockpiling for more than twenty years.” “They mean spice production to fail and you to be blamed.”

“First a trickle, then nothing,” he said. “But, Wellington, that’s the mystery. The water was there. It dries up. And never again is there water. Yet another hole nearby produces the same result: a trickle that stops. Has no one ever been curious about this?” “It is curious,” he said. “You suspect some living agency? Wouldn’t that have shown in core samples?” “What would have shown? Alien plant matter…or animal? Who could recognize it?” She turned back to the slope. “The water is stopped. Something plugs it. That’s my suspicion.”

But the poison in him, deep in his mind, is the knowledge that an Atreides had a Harkonnen banished for cowardice after the Battle of Corrin.”