Page "Stilgar" Paragraph 8

I stared for half a day once at an old man sitting on a bench in Arrakeen.

He was a fifth-generation descendant of Stilgar the Naib and did not even know it.

I studied the angle of his neck, the skin flaps below his chin, the cracked lips and moistness about his nostrils, the pores behind his ears, the wisps of gray hair which crept from beneath the hood of his antique stillsuit.

Not once did he detect that he was being watched.

Hah!

Stilgar would have known it in a second or two.

But this old man was just waiting for someone who never came.

He got up finally and tottered off.

He was very stiff after all of that sitting.

I knew I would never see him in the flesh again.

He was that near death and his water was sure to be wasted.

Well, that no longer mattered.