"We will not depend only on you. Others will get copies. I think the Sisterhood

and the Guild will not hesitate to try deciphering those volumes."

Kobat slipped the package under his arm and pressed it against his body.

"What makes you think the . . . the Worm doesn't know about your intentions . .

. even about this meeting?"

"I think he knows many such things, that he may even know who took those

volumes. My father believes he is truly prescient."

"Your father believes the Oral History!"

"Everyone in this room believes it. The Oral History does not disagree with the

Formal History on important matters."

"Then why doesn't the Worm act against you?"

She pointed to the package under Kobat's arm. "Perhaps the answer is in there."

"Or you and these cryptic volumes are no real threat to him!" Kobat was not

concealing his anger. He did not like being forced into decisions.

"Perhaps. Tell me why you mentioned the Oral History."

Once more, Kobat heard the menace.

"It says the Worm is incapable of human emotions."

"That is not the reason," she said. "You will get one more chance to tell me the

reason."

Nayla moved two steps closer to Kobat.

"I . . . I was told to review the Oral History before coming here, that your

people. . ." He shrugged.

"That we chant it?"

"Yes."

"Who told you this?"

Kobat swallowed, cast a fearful glance at Topri, then back to Siona.

"Topri?" Siona asked.

"I thought it would help him to understand us," Topri said.

"And you told him the name of your leader," Siona said.

"He already knew!" Topri's voice had found its squeak.

"What particular parts of the Oral History were you told to review?" Siona

asked.

"The . . . uhhh, the Atreides line."

"And now you think you know why people join me in rebellion."

"The Oral History tells exactly how he treats everyone in the Atreides line!"

Kobat said.

"He gives us a little rope and then he hauls us in?" Siona asked. Her voice was

deceptively flat.

"That's what he did with your own father," Kobat said.

"And now he's letting me play at rebellion?"

"I'm just a messenger," Kobat said. "If you kill me, who will carry your

message?"

"Or the message of the Worm," Siona said.

Kobat remained silent.

"I do not think you understand the Oral History," Siona said. "I think also you

do not know the Worm very well, nor do you understand his messages."

Kobat's face flushed with anger. "What's to prevent you from becoming like all

the rest of the Atreides, a nice obedient part of. . ." Kobat broke off, aware

suddenly of what anger had made him say.

"Just another recruit for the Worm's inner circle," Siona said. "Just like the

Duncan Idahos?"

She turned and looked at Nayla. The two aides, Anouk and Taw, became suddenly

alert, but Nayla remained impassive.

Siona nodded once to Nayla.

As they were sworn to do, Anouk and Taw moved to positions blocking the door.

Nayla went around to stand at Topri's shoulder.

"What's . . . what's happening?" Topri asked.

"We wish to know everything of importance that the ex-Ambassador can share with

us," Siona said. "We want the entire message."

Topri began to tremble. Perspiration started from Kobat's forehead. He glanced

once at Topri, then returned his attention to Siona. That one glance was like a

veil pulled aside for Siona to peer into the relationship between these two.

She smiled. This merely confirmed what she had already learned.

Kobat became very still.

"You may begin," Siona said.

"I . . . what do you.. ."

"The Worm gave you a private message for your masters. I will hear it."

"He . . . he wants an extension for his cart,"

"Then he expects to grow longer. What else?"

"We are to send him a large supply of ridulian crystal paper." "For what

purpose?"

"He never explains his demands."

"This smacks of things he forbids to others," she said.

Kobat spoke bitterly. "He never forbids himself anything!"

"Have you made forbidden toys for him?"

"I do not know."

He's lying, she thought, but she chose not to pursue this. It was enough to know

the existence of another chink in the Worm's armor.

"Who will replace you?" Siona asked.

"They are sending a niece of Malky," Korbat said. "You may remember that he. .

."

"We remember Malky," she said. "Why does a niece of Malky become the new

Ambassador?"

"I don't know. But it was ordered even before the Go . . . the Worm dismissed

me."

"Her name?"

"Hwi Noree."

"We will cultivate Hwi Noree," Siona said. "You were not worth cultivating. This

Hwi Noree may be something else. When do you return to Ix?"

"Immediately after the Festival, the first Guild ship."

"What will you tell your masters?"

"About what?"

"My message!"

"They will do as you ask."

"I know. You may go, ex-Ambassador Kobat."

Kobat almost collided with the door guards in his haste to leave. Topri made to

follow him, but Nayla caught Topri's arm and held him. Topri swept a fearful

glance across Nayla's muscular body, then looked at Siona, who waited for the

door to shut behind Kobat before speaking.

"The message was not merely to the Ixians, but to us as well," she said. "The

Worm challenges us and tells us the rules of the combat."

Topri tried to wrest his arm from Nayla's grip. "What do you..."

"Topri!" Sonia said. "I, too, can send a message. Tell my father to inform the

Worm that we accept."

Nayla released his arm. Topri rubbed the place where she had gripped him.

"Surely you don't. . ."

"Leave while you can and never come back," Siona said.

"You can't possibly mean that you sus. . ."

"I told you to leave! You are clumsy, Topri. I have been in the Fish Speaker

schools for most of my life. They taught me to recognize clumsiness."

"Kobat is leaving. What harm was there in. . ."

"He not only knew me, he knew what I had stolen from the Citadel! But he did not

know that I would send that package to Ix with him. Your actions have told me

that the Worm wants me to send those volumes to Ix!"

Topri backed away from Siona toward the door. Anouk and Taw opened a passage for

him, swung the door wide. Siona followed him with her voice.

"Do not argue that it was the Worm who spoke of me and my package to Kobat! The

Worm does not send clumsy messages. Tell him I said that!"

===

Some say I have no conscience. How false they are, even to themselves. I am the

only conscience which has ever existed. As wine retains the perfume of its cask,

I retain the essence of my most ancient genesis, and that is the seed of

conscience. That is what makes me holy. I am God because I am the only one who

really knows his heredity!

-The Stolen Journals

The Inquisitors of Ix having assembled in the Grand Palais with the candidate

for Ambassador to the Court of the Lord Leto, the following questions and

answers were recorded:

INQUISITOR: You indicate that you wish to speak to us of the Lord Leto's

motives. Speak.

HWI NOREE: Your Formal Analyses do not satisfy the questions I would raise.

INQUISITOR: What questions'?

HWI NOREE: I ask myself what would motivate the Lord Leto to accept this hideous

transformation, this worm-body, this loss of his humanity? You suggest merely

that he did it for power and for long life.

INQUISITOR: Are those not enough?

HWI NOREE: Ask yourselves if one of you would make such payment for so paltry a

return?

INQUISITOR: From your infinite wisdom then, tell us why the Lord Leto chose to

become a worm.

HWI NOREE: Does anyone here doubt his ability to predict the future?

INQUISITOR: Now then! Is that not payment enough for his transformation?

HWI NOREE: But he already had the prescient ability as did his father before

him. No! I propose that he made this desperate choice because he saw in our

future something that only such a sacrifice would prevent.

INQUISITOR: What was this peculiar thing which only he saw in our future?

HWI NOREE: I do not know, but I propose to discover it.

INQUISITOR: You make the tyrant appear a selfless servant of the people!

HWI NOREE: Was that not a prominent characteristic of his Atreides Family'?

INQUISITOR: So the official histories would have us believe.

HWI NOREE: The Oral History affirms it.

INQUISITOR: What other good character would you give to the tyrant Worm?

HWI NOREE: Good character, sirra?

INQUISITOR: Character, then?

HWI NOREE: My Uncle Malky often said that the Lord Leto was given to moods of

great tolerance for selected companions.

INQUISITOR: Other companions he executes for no apparent reason.

HWI NOREE: I think there are reasons and my Uncle Malky deduced some of those

reasons.

INQUISITOR: Give us one such deduction.

HWI NOREE: Clumsy threats to his person.

INQUISITOR: Clumsy threats now!

HWI NOREE: And he does not tolerate pretensions. Recall the execution of the

historians and the destruction of their works.

INQUISITOR: He does not want the truth known!

HWI NOREE: He told my Uncle Malky that they lied about the past. And mark you!

Who would know this better than he? We all know the subject of his introversion.

INQUISITOR: What proof have we that all of his ancestors live in him?

HWI NOREE: I will not enter that bootless argument. I will merely say that I

believe it on the evidence of my Uncle Malky's belief, and his reasons for that

belief.

INQUISITOR: We have read your uncle's reports and interpret them otherwise.

Malky was overly fond of the Worm.

HWI NOREE: My uncle accounted him the most supremely artful diplomat in the

Empire, a master conversationalist and expert in any subject you could name.

INQUISITOR: Did your uncle not speak of the Worm's brutality?

HWI NOREE: My uncle judged him ultimately civilized.

INQUISITOR: I asked about brutality.

HWI NOREE: Capable of brutality, yes.

INQUISITOR: Your uncle feared him.

HWI NOREE: The Lord Leto lacks all innocence and naiveté. He is to be feared

only when he pretends these traits. That was what my uncle said.

INQUISITOR: Those were his words, yes.

HWI NOREE: More than that! Malky said, "The Lord Leto delights in the surprising

genius and diversity of humankind. He is my favorite companion."

INQUISITOR: Giving us the benefit of your supreme wisdom, how do you interpret

these words of your uncle?

HWI NOREE: Do not mock me!

INQUISITOR: We do not mock. We seek enlightenment.

HWI NOREE: These words of Malky, and many other things that he wrote directly to

me, suggest that the Lord Leto is always seeking after newness and originality

but that he is wary of the destructive potential in such things. So my uncle

believed.

INQUISITOR: Is there more which you wish to add to these beliefs which you share

with your uncle?

HWI NOREE: I see no point in adding to what I've already said. I am sorry to

have wasted the Inquisitors' time.

INQUISITOR: But you have not wasted our time. You are confirmed as Ambassador to

the Court of Lord Leto, the God Emperor of the known universe.

===

You must remember that I have at my internal demand every expertise known to our

history. This is the fund of energy I -draw upon when I address the mentality of

war. If you have not heard the moaning cries of the wounded and the dying, you

do not know about war. I have heard those cries in such numbers that they haunt

me. I have cried out myself in the aftermath of battle. I have suffered wounds

in every epoch-wounds from fist and club and rock, from shell-studded limb and

bronze sword, from the mace and the cannon, from arrows and lasguns and the

silent smothering of atomic dust, from biological invasions which blacken the

tongue and drown the lungs, from the swift gush of flame and the silent working

of slow poisons. . . and more I will not recount! I have seen and felt them all.

To those who dare ask why I behave as I do, I say: With my memories, I can do

nothing else. I am not a coward and once I was human.

-The Stolen Journals

IN THE warm season when the satellite weather controllers were forced to contend

with winds across the great seas, evening often saw rainfall at the edges of the

Sareer. Moneo, coming in from one of his periodic inspections of the Citadel's

perimeter, was caught in a sudden shower. Night fell before he reached shelter.

A Fish Speaker guard helped him out of his

damp cloak at the south portal. She was a heavyset, blocky woman with a square

face, a type Leto favored for his guardians.

"Those damned weather controllers should be made to shape up," she said as she

handed him his damp cloak.

Moneo gave her a curt nod before beginning the climb to his quarters. All of the

Fish Speaker guards knew the God Emperor's aversion to moisture, but none of

them made Moneo's distinction.

It is the Worm who hates water, Moneo thought. Shai-Hulud hungers for Dune.

In his quarters, Moneo dried himself and changed to dry clothing before

descending to the crypt. There was no point in inviting the Worm's antagonism.

Uninterrupted conversation with Leto was required now, plain talk about the

impending peregrination to the Festival City of Onn.

Leaning against a wall of the descending lift, Moneo closed his eyes.

Immediately, fatigue swept over him. He knew he had not slept enough in days and

there was no let up in sight. He envied Leto's apparent freedom from the need

for sleep. A few hours of semi repose a month appeared to be sufficient for the

God Emperor.

The smell of the crypt and the stopping of the lift jarred Moneo from his

catnap. He opened his eyes and looked out at the God Emperor on his cart in the

center of the great chamber. Moneo composed himself and strode out for the

familiar long walk into the terrible presence. As expected, Leto appeared alert.

That, at least, was a good sign.

Leto had heard the lift approaching and saw Moneo awaken. The man looked tired

and that was understandable. The peregrination to Onn was at hand with all of

the tiresome business of off-planet visitors, the ritual with the Fish Speakers,

the new ambassadors, the changing of the Imperial Guard, the retirements and the

appointments, and now a new Duncan Idaho ghola to fit into the smooth working of

the Imperial apparatus. Moneo was occupied with mounting details and he was

beginning to show his age.

Let me see, Leto thought. Moneo will be one hundred and eighteen years old in

the week after our return from Onn.

The man could live many times that long if he would take the spice, but he

refused. Leto had no doubt of the reason. Moneo had entered that peculiar human

state where he longed for death. He lingered now only to see Siona installed in

the

Royal Service, the next director of the Imperial Society of Fish Speakers.

My houris, as Malky used to call them.

And Moneo knew it was Leto's intention to breed Siona with a Duncan. It was

time.

Moneo stopped two paces from the cart and looked up at Leto. Something in his

eyes reminded Leto of the look on the face of a pagan priest in the Terran

times, a crafty supplication at the familiar shrine.

"Lord, you have spent many hours observing the new Duncan," Moneo said. "Have

the Tleilaxu tampered with his cells or his psyche?"

"He is untainted."

A deep sigh shook Moneo. There was no pleasure in it.

"You object to his use as a stud?" Leto asked.

"I find it peculiar to think of him as both an ancestor and the father of my

descendants."

"But he gives me access to a first-generation cross between an older human form

and the current products of my breeding program. Siona is twenty-one generations

removed from such a cross."

"I fail to see the purpose. The Duncans are slower and less alert than anyone in

your Guard."

"I am not looking for good segregant offspring, Moneo. Did you think me unaware

of the progression geometrics dictated by the laws which govern my breeding

program?"

"I have seen your stock book, Lord."

"Then you know that I keep track of the recessives and weed them out. The key

genetic dominants are my concern."

"And the mutations, Lord?" There was a sly note in Moneo's voice which caused

Leto to study the man intently.

"We will not discuss that subject, Moneo."

Leto watched Moneo pull back into his cautious shell.

How extremely sensitive he is to my moods, Leto thought. I do believe he has

some of my abilities there, although they operate at an unconscious level. His

question suggests that he may even suspect what we have achieved in Siona.

Testing this, Leto said, "It is clear to me that you do not yet understand what

I hope to achieve in my breeding program."

Moneo brightened. "My Lord knows I try to fathom the rules of it."

"Laws tend to be temporary over the long haul, Moneo. There is no such thing as

rule-governed creativity."

"But Lord, you yourself speak of laws which govern your breeding program."

"What have I just said to you, Moneo? Trying to find rules for creation is like

trying to separate mind from body."

"But something is evolving, Lord. I know it in myself!"

He knows it in himself! Dear Moneo. He is so close.

"Why do you always seek after absolutely derivative translations, Moneo?"

"I have heard you speak of transformational evolution, Lord. That is the label

on your stock book. But what of surprise. . ."

"Moneo! Rules change with each surprise."

"Lord, have you no improvement of the human stock in mind?"

Leto glared down at him, thinking: If I use the key word now, will he

understand? Perhaps . . .

"I am a predator, Moneo."

"Pred . . ." Moneo broke off and shook his head. He knew the meaning of the

word, he thought, but the word itself shocked him. Was the God Emperor joking?

"Predator, Lord?"

"The predator improves the stock."

"How can this be, Lord? You do not hate us."

"You disappoint me, Moneo. The predator does not hate its prey."

"Predators kill, Lord."

"I kill, but I do not hate. Prey assuages hunger. Prey is good."

Moneo peered up at Leto's face in its gray cowl.

Have I missed the approach of the Worm? Moneo wondered.

Fearfully, Moneo looked for the signs. There were no tremors in the giant body,

no glazing of the eyes, no twisting of the useless flippers.

"For what do you hunger, Lord?" Moneo ventured.

"For a humankind which can make truly long-term decisions. Do you know the key

to that ability, Moneo?"

"You have said it many times, Lord. It is the ability to change your mind."

"Change, yes. And do you know what I mean by longterm?"

"For you, it must be measured in millennia, Lord."

"Moneo, even my thousands of years are but a puny blip against Infinity."

"But your perspective must be different from mine, Lord." "In the view of

Infinity, any defined long-term is shortterm."

"Then are there no rules at all, Lord?" Moneo's voice conveyed a faint hint of

hysteria.

Leto smiled to ease the man's tensions. "Perhaps one. Short-term decisions tend

to fail in the long-term."

Moneo shook his head in frustration. "But, Lord, your perspective is. . ."

"Time runs out for any finite observer. There are no closed systems. Even I only

stretch the finite matrix."

Moneo jerked his attention from Leto's face and peered into the distances of the

mausoleum corridors. I will be here someday. The Golden Path may continue, but I

will end. That was not important, of course. Only the Golden Path which he could

sense in unbroken continuity, only that mattered. He returned his attention to

Leto, but not to the all-blue eyes. Was there truly a predator lurking in that

gross body?

"You do not understand the function of a predator," Leto said.

The words shocked Moneo because they smacked of mind-reading. He lifted his gaze

to Leto's eyes.

"You know intellectually that even I will suffer a kind of death someday," Leto

said. "But you do not believe it."

"How can I believe what I will never see?"

Moneo had never felt more lonely and fearful. What was the God Emperor doing? I

came down here to discuss the problems of the peregrination . . . and to find

out about his intentions toward Siona. Does he toy with me?

"Let us talk about Siona," Leto said.

Mind-reading again!

"When will you test her, Lord?" The question had been waiting in the front of

his awareness all this time, but now that he had spoken it, Moneo feared it.

"Soon."

"Forgive me, Lord, but surely you know how much I fear for the well being of my

only child."

"Others have survived the test, Moneo. You did."

Moneo gulped, remembering how he had been sensitized to the Golden Path.

"My mother prepared me. Siona has no mother."

"She has the Fish Speakers. She has you."

"Accidents happen, Lord."

Tears sprang into Moneo's eyes.

Leto looked away from him, thinking: He is torn by his loyalty to me and his

love of Siona. How poignant it is, this concern for an offspring. Can he not see

that all of humankind is my only child?

Returning his attention to Moneo, Leto said, "You are right to observe that

accidents happen even in my universe. Does this teach you nothing?"

"Lord, just this once couldn't you. . ."

"Moneo! Surely you do not ask me to delegate authority to a weak administrator."

Moneo recoiled one step. "No, Lord. Of course not."

"Then trust Siona's strength."

Moneo squared his shoulders. "I will do what I must."

"Siona must be awakened to her duties as an Atreides."

"Yes, of course, Lord."

"Is that not our commitment, Moneo?"

"I do not deny it, Lord. When will you introduce her to the new Duncan?"

"The test comes first."

Moneo looked down at the cold floor of the crypt.

He stares at the floor so often, Leto thought. What can he possibly see there?

Is it the millennial tracks of my cart? Ahhh, no-it is into the depths that he

peers, into the realm of treasure and mystery which he expects to enter soon.

Once more, Moneo lifted his gaze to Leto's face. "I hope she will like the

Duncan's company, Lord."

"Be assured of it. The Tleilaxu have brought him to me in the undistorted

image."

"That is reassuring, Lord."

"No doubt you have noted that his genotype is remarkably attractive to females."

"That has been my observation, Lord."

"There's something about those gently observant eyes, those strong features and

that black-goat hair which positively melts the female psyche."

"As you say, Lord."

"You know he's with the Fish Speakers right now?"

"I was informed, Lord."

Leto smiled. Of course Moneo was informed. "They will bring him to me soon for

his first view of the God Emperor."

"I have inspected the viewing room personally, Lord. Everything is in

readiness."

"Sometimes I think you wish to weaken me, Moneo. Leave some of these details for

me."

Moneo tried to conceal a constriction of fear. He bowed and backed away. "Yes,

Lord, but there are some things which I must do."

Turning, he hurried away. It was not until he was ascending in the lift that

Moneo realized he had left without being dismissed.

He must know how tired I am. He will forgive.

===

Your Lord knows very well what is in your heart. Your soul suffices this day as

a reckoner against you. I need no witnesses. You do not listen to your soul, but

listen instead to your anger and your rage.

-Lord Leto to a Penitent,

From the Oral History

The following assessment of the state of the Empire in the year I of the reign

of the Lord Leto is taken from The Welbeck Abridgment. The original is in the

Chapter House Archives of the Bene Gesserit Order. A comparison reveals that the

deletions do not subtract from the essential accuracy of this account.

IN THE name of our Sacred Order and its unbroken Sisterhood, this accounting has

been judged reliable and worthy of entry into the Chronicles of the Chapter

House.

Sisters Chenoeh and Tawsuoko have returned safely from Arrakis to report

confirmation of the long-suspected execution of the nine historians who

disappeared into his Citadel in the year I of Lord Leto's reign. The Sisters

report that the nine were rendered unconscious, then burned on pyres of their

own published works. This conforms exactly with the stories which spread across

the Empire at the time. The accounts of that time were judged to have originated

with Lord Leto himself.

Sisters Chenoeh and Tawsuoko bring the handwritten records of an eyewitness

account which says that when Lord Leto was petitioned by other historians

seeking word of their fellows, Lord Leto said:

"They were destroyed because they lied pretentiously. Have no fear that my wrath

will fall upon you because of your innocent mistakes. I am not overly fond of

creating martyrs. Martyrs tend to set dramatic events adrift in human affairs.

Drama is one of the targets of my predation. Tremble only if you build false

accounts and stand pridefully upon them. Go now and do not speak of this."

Internal evidence of the handwritten account identifies its

author as Ikonicre, Lord Leto's majordomo in the year . Attention is called to

Lord Leto's use of the word predation. This is highly suggestive in view of

theories advanced by Reverend Mother Syaksa that the God Emperor views himself

as a predator in the natural sense.

Sister Chenoeh was invited to accompany the Fish Speakers in an entourage which

accompanied one of Lord Leto's infrequent peregrinations. At one point, she was

invited to trot beside the Royal Cart and converse with the Lord Leto himself.

She reports the exchange as follows:

The Lord Leto said: "Here on the Royal Road, I sometimes feel that I stand on

battlements protecting myself against invaders."

Sister Chenoeh said: "No one attacks you here, Lord."

The Lord Leto said: "You Bene Gesserit assail me on all sides. Even now, you

seek to suborn my Fish Speakers."

Sister Chenoeh says that she steeled herself for death, but the God Emperor

merely stopped his cart and looked across her at his entourage. She says the

others stopped and waited on the road in well-trained passivity, all of them at

a respectful distance.The Lord Leto said, "There is my little multitude and they

tell me everything. Do not deny my accusation."

Sister Chenoeh said, "I do not deny it."

The Lord Leto looked at her then and said, "Have no fear for your person. It is

my wish that you report my words in your Chapter House."

Sister Chenoeh says she could see then that the Lord Leto knew all about her,

about her mission, her special training as an oral recorder, everything. "He was

like a Reverend Mother," she said. "I could hide nothing from him."

The Lord Leto then commanded her, "Look toward my Festival City and tell me what

you see."

Sister Chenoeh looked toward Onn and said, "I see the City in the distance. It

is beautiful in this morning light. There is your forest on the right. It has so

many greens in it I could spend all day describing them. On the left and all

around the City there are the houses and the gardens of your servitors. Some of

them look very rich and some look very poor."

The Lord Leto said, "We have cluttered this landscape! Trees are a clutter.

Houses, gardens . . . You cannot exult at new mysteries in such a landscape."

Sister Chenoeh, emboldened by Lord Leto's assurances, asked, "Does the Lord

truly want mysteries?"

The Lord Leto said, "There is no outward spiritual freedom in such a landscape.

Do you not see it? You have no open universe here with which to share.

Everything is closures-doors, latches, locks!"

Sister Chenoeh asked, "Has mankind no longer any need for privacy and

protection?"

The Lord Leto said, "When you return, tell your Sisters that I will restore the

outward view. Such a landscape as this one turns you inward in search for

whatever freedom your spirits can find within. Most humans are not strong enough

to find freedom within."

Sister Chenoeh said, " will report your words accurately, Lord. "

The Lord Leto said, "See that you do. Tell your Sisters also that the Bene

Gesserit of all people should know the dangers of breeding for a particular

characteristic, of seeking a defined genetic goal."

Sister Chenoeh says this was an obvious reference to the Lord Leto's father,

Paul Atreides. Let it be noted that our breeding program achieved the Kwisatz

Haderach one generation early. In becoming Muad'Dib, the leader of the Fremen,

Paul Atreides escaped from our control. There is no doubt that he was a male

with the powers of a Reverend Mother and other powers for which humankind still

is paying a heavy price. As the Lord Leto said:

"You got the unexpected. You got me, the wild card. And I have achieved Siona."

The Lord Leto refused to elaborate on this reference to the daughter of his

majordomo, Moneo. The matter is being investigated.

In other matters of concern to the Chapter House, our investigators have

supplied information on:

The Fish Speakers

The Lord Leto's female legions have elected their representatives to attend the

Decennial Festival on Arrakis. Three representatives will attend from each

planetary garrison. (See attached list of those chosen.) As usual, no adult

males will attend, not even consorts of Fish Speaker officers. The consort

list has changed very little in this reporting period. We have appended the new

names with genealogical information where available. Note that only two of the

names can be starred as descendants of the Duncan Idaho gholas. We can add

nothing new to our speculations about his use of the gholas in his breeding

program.

None of our efforts to form an alliance between Fish Speakers and Bene Gesserit

succeeded during this period. Lord Leto continues to increase certain garrison

sizes. He also continues to emphasize the alternative missions of the Fish

Speakers, de-emphasizing their military missions. This has had the expected

result of increasing local admiration and respect and gratitude for the presence

of the Fish Speaker garrisons. (See attached list for garrisons which were

increased in size. Editor's note: The only pertinent garrisons were those on the

home planets of the Bene Gesserit, Ixians and Tleilaxu. Spacing Guild monitors

were not increased.)

Priesthood

Except for the few natural deaths and replacements which are listed in

attachments, there have been no significant changes. Those consorts and officers

delegated to perform the ritual duties remain few, their powers abridged by

continuing requirement for consultation with Arrakis before taking any important

action. It is the opinion of the Reverend Mother Syaksa and some others that the

religious character of the Fish Speakers is slowly being devolved.

Breeding Program

Other than the unexplained reference to Siona and to our failure with his

father, we have nothing significant to add to our continued monitoring of the

Lord Leto's breeding program. There is evidence of a certain randomness in his

plan which is reinforced by the Lord Leto's statement about genetic goals, but

we cannot be certain that he was truthful with Sister Chenoeh. We call your

attention to the many instances where he has either lied or changed directions

dramatically and without warning.

The Lord Leto continues to prohibit our participation in his

breeding program. His monitors from our Fish Speaker garrison remain adamant in

"weeding out" our births to which they object. Only by the most stringent

controls were we able to maintain the level of Reverend Mothers during this

reporting period. Our protests are not answered. In response to a direct

question from Sister Chenoeh, the Lord Leto said:

"Be thankful for what you have."

This warning is duly noted here. We have transmitted a gracious letter of

thankfulness to the Lord Leto.

Economics

The Chapter House continues to maintain its solvency. but the measures of

conservation cannot be eased. In fact, as a precaution, certain new measures

will be instituted in the next reporting period. These include a reduction in

the ritual uses of melange and an increase in the rates charged for our usual

services. We expect to double the fees for the schooling of Great House females

across the next four reporting periods. You are hereby charged to begin

preparing your arguments in defense of this action.

The Lord Leto has denied our petition for an increase in our melange allotment.

No reason was given.

Our relationship with the Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles remains on a

sound footing. CHOAM has accomplished in the preceding period a regional cartel

in Star Jewels, a project whereby we gained a substantial return through our

advisory and bargaining functions. The ongoing profits from this arrangement

should more than offset our losses on Giedi Prime. The Giedi Prime investment

has been written off.

Great Houses

Thirty-one former Great Houses suffered economic disaster in this reporting

period. Only six managed to maintain House Minor status. (See attached list.)

This continues the general trend noted over the past thousand years where the

once Great Houses melt gradually into the background. It is to be noted that the

six who averted total disaster were all heavy investors in CHOAM and that five

of these six were deeply involved in the Star Jewel project. The lone exception

held a diversified

portfolio, including a substantial investment in antique whale fur from Caladan.

(Our ponji rice reserves were increased almost twofold in this period at the

expense of our whale fur holdings. The reasons for this decision will be

reviewed in the next period.)

Family Life

As has been observed by our investigators over the preceding two thousand years,

the homogenization of family life continues unabated. The exceptions are those

you would expect: the Guild, the Fish Speakers, the Royal Courtiers, the shapechanging

Face Dancers of the Tleilaxu (who are still mules despite all efforts

to change that condition), and our own situation, of course.

It is to be noted that familial conditions grow more and more similar no matter

the planet of residence, a circumstance which cannot be attributed to accident.

We are seeing here the emergence of a portion of the Lord Leto's grand design.

Even the poorest families are well fed, yes, but the circumstances of daily life

grow increasingly static.

We remind you of a statement from the Lord Leto which was reported here almost

eight generations ago:

"I am the only spectacle remaining in the Empire."

Reverend Mother Syaksa has proposed a theoretical explanation for this trend, a

theory which many of us are beginning to share. RM Syaksa attributes to Lord

Leto a motive based on the concept of hydraulic despotism. As you know,

hydraulic despotism is possible only when a substance or condition upon which

life in general absolutely depends can be controlled by a relatively small and

centralized force. The concept of hydraulic despotism originated when the flow

of irrigation water increased local human populations to a demand level of

absolute dependence. When the water was shut off, people died in large numbers.

This phenomenon has been repeated many times in human history, not only with

water and the products of arable land, but with hydrocarbon fuels such as

petroleum and coal which were controlled through pipelines and other

distribution networks. At one time, when distribution of electricity was only

through complicated mazes of lines strung across the landscape, even this energy

resource fell into the role of a hydraulic despotism substance.

RM Syaksa proposes that the Lord Leto is building the Empire toward an even

greater dependence upon melange. It is worth noting that the aging process can

be called a disease for which melange is the specific treatment, although not a

cure. RM Syaksa proposes that the Lord Leto may even go so far as introducing a

new disease which can only be suppressed by melange. Although this may appear

farfetched, it should not be discarded out of hand. Stranger things have

happened, and we should not overlook the role of syphilis in early human

history.

Transport/Guild

The three-mode transportation system once peculiar to Arrakis (that is, on foot

with heavy loads relegated to suspensorborne pallets; in the air via

ornithopter; or off-planet by Guild transport) is coming to dominate more and

more planets of the Empire. Ix is the primary exception.

We attribute this in part to planetary devolution into sedentary and static

life-styles. And partly it is the attempt to copy the pattern of Arrakis. The

generalized aversion to things Ixian plays no small part in this trend. There is

also the fact that the Fish Speakers promote this pattern to reduce their work

in maintaining order.

Over the Guild's part in this trend hangs the absolute dependence of the Guild

Navigators upon melange. We are, therefore, keeping a close watch upon the joint

effort of Guild and Ix to develop a mechanical substitute for the Navigators'

predictive talents. Without melange or some other means of projecting a

heighliner's course, every translight Guild voyage risks disaster. Although we

are not very sanguine about this Guild-Ixian project, there is always the

possibility and we shall report on this as conditions warrant.

The God Emperor

Other than some small increments of growth, we note little change in the bodily

characteristics of the Lord Leto. A rumored aversion to water has not been

confirmed, although the use of water as a barrier against the original sandworms

of Dune is well documented in our records, as is the water-death by which

Fremen killed a small worm to produce the spice essence employed in their

orgies.

There is considerable evidence for the belief that the Lord Leto has increased

his surveillance of Ix, possibly because of the Guild-Ixian project. Certainly,

success in that project would reduce his hold upon the Empire.

He continues to do business with Ix, ordering replacement parts for his Royal

Cart.

A new ghola Duncan Idaho has been sent to the Lord Leto by the Tleilaxu. This

makes it certain that the previous ghola is dead, although the manner of his

death is not known. We call your attention to previous indications that the Lord

Leto himself has killed some of his gholas.

There is increasing evidence that the Lord Leto employs computers. If he is, in

fact, defying his own prohibitions and the proscriptions of the Butlerian Jihad,

the possession of proof by us could increase our influence over him, possibly

even to the extent of certain joint ventures which we have long contemplated.

Sovereign control of our breeding program is still a primary concern. We will

continue our investigation with, however, the following caveat:

As with every report preceding this one, we must address the Lord Leto's

prescience. There is no doubt that his ability to predict future events, an

oracular ability much more powerful than that of any ancestor, is still the

mainstay of his political control.

We do not defy it!

It is our belief that he knows every important action we take far in advance of

the event. We guide ourselves, therefore, by the rule that we will not knowingly

threaten either his person or such of his grand plan as we can discern. Our

address to him will continue to be:

"Tell us if we threaten you that we may desist."

And:

"Tell us of your grand plan that we may help."

He has provided no new answers to either question during this period.

The Ixians

Other than the Guild-Ix project, there is little of significance to report. Ix

is sending a new Ambassador to the Court of the

Lord Leto, one Hwi Noree, a niece of the Malky who once was reputed to be such a

boon companion of the God Emperor. The reason for the choice of replacement is

not known, although there is a small body of evidence that this Hwi Noree was

bred for a specific purpose, possibly as the Ixian representative at the Court.

We have reason to believe that Malky also was genetically designed with that

official context in mind.

We will continue to investigate.

The Museum Fremen

These degenerate relics of the once-proud warriors continue to function as our

major source of reliable information about affairs on Arrakis. They represent a

major budget item for our next reporting period because their demands for

payment are increasing and we dare not antagonize them.

It is interesting to note that although their lives bear little resemblance to

that of their ancestors, their performance of Fremen rituals and their ability

to ape Fremen ways remains flawless. We attribute this to Fish Speaker influence

upon Fremen training.

The Tleilaxu

We do not expect the new ghola of Duncan Idaho to provide any surprises. The

Tleilaxu continue to be much chastened by the Lord Leto's reaction to their one

attempt at changing the cellular nature and the psyche of the original.

A recent envoy from the Tleilaxu renewed their attempts to entice us into a

joint venture, the avowed purpose being the production of a totally female

society without the need for males. For all of the obvious reasons, including

our distrust of everything Tleilaxu, we responded with our usual polite

negative. Our Embassy to the Lord Leto's Decennial Festival will make a full

report of this to him.

Respectfully submitted:

The Reverend Mothers Syaksa, Yitob, Mamulut, Eknekosk and Akeli.

===

Odd as it may seem, great struggles such as the one you can see emerging from my

journals are not always visible to the participants. Much depends on what people

dream in the secrecy of their hearts. I have always been as concerned with the

shaping of dreams as with the shaping of actions. Between the lines of my

journals is the struggle with humankind's view of itself-a sweaty contest on a

field where motives from our darkest past can well up out of an unconscious

reservoir and become events with which we not only must live but contend. It is

the hydraheaded monster which always attacks from your blind side. I pray,

therefore, that when you have traversed my portion of the Golden Path you no

longer will be innocent children dancing to music you cannot hear.-The Stolen

Journals

NAYLA MOVED In a steady, plodding ,pace as she climbed the circular stairs to

the God Emperor's audience chamber atop the Citadel's south tower. Each time she

traversed the southwest arc of the tower, the narrow slitted windows drew dustdefined

golden lines across her path. She knew that the central wall beside her

confined a lift of Ixian make large enough to carry her Lord's bulk to the upper

chamber, certainly large enough to hold her relatively smaller body, but she did

not resent the fact that she was required to use the stairs.

The breeze through the open slits brought her the burnt-flint smell of blown

sand. The low-lying sun ignited the light of red mineral flakes in the inner

wall, ruby matches glowing there. Now and then she cast a glance through a

slitted window at the dunes. Never once did she pause to admire the things to be

seen around her.

"You have heroic patience, Nayla," the Lord had once told her.

Remembrance of those words warmed Nayla now.

Within the tower, Leto followed Nayla's progress up the long circular stairs

that spiraled around the Ixian tube. Her progress was transmitted to him by an

Ixian device which projected her approaching image quarter-size onto a region of

three-dimensional focus directly in front of his eyes.

How precisely she moves, he thought.

The precision, he knew, came from a passionate simplicity.

She wore her Fish Speaker blues and a cape-robe without the hawk at the breast.

Once past the guard station at the foot of the tower, she had thrown back the

cibus mask he required her to wear on these personal visits. Her blocky,

muscular body was like that of many others among his guardians, but her face was

like no other in all of his memory-almost square with a mouth so wide it seemed

to extend around the cheeks, an illusion caused by deep creases at the corners.

Her eyes were pale green, the closely cropped hair like old ivory. Her forehead

added to the square effect, almost flat with pale eyebrows which often went

unnoticed because of the compelling eyes. The nose was a straight, shallow line

which terminated close to the thin-lipped mouth.

When Nayla spoke, her great jaws opened and closed like those of some primordial

animal. Her strength, known to few outside the corps of Fish Speakers, was

legendary there. Leto had seen her lift a one-hundred-kilo man with one hand.

Her presence on Arrakis had been arranged originally without Moneo's

intervention, although the majordomo knew Leto employed his Fish Speakers as

secret agents.

Leto turned his head away from the plodding image and looked out the wide

opening beside him at the desert to the south. The colors of the distant rocks

danced in his awareness-brown, gold, a deep amber. There was a line of pink on a

faraway cliff the exact hue of an egret's feathers. Egrets did not exist anymore

except in Leto's memory, but he could place that pale pastel ribbon of stone

against an inner eye and it was

as though the extinct bird flew past him.

The climb, he knew, should be starting to tire even Nayla. She paused at last to

rest, stopping at a point two steps past the three-quarter mark, precisely the

place where she rested every time. It was part of her precision, one of the

reasons he had brought her back from the distant garrison on Seprek.

A Dune hawk floated past the opening beside Leto only a few wing lengths from

the tower wall. Its attention was held on the shadows at the base of the

Citadel. Small animals sometimes emerged there, Leto knew. Dimly on the horizon

beyond the hawk's path he could see a line of clouds.

What a strange thing those were to the Old Fremen in him: clouds on Arrakis and

rain and open water.

Leto reminded the inner voices: Except for this last desert, my Sareer, the

remodeling of Dune into verdant Arrakis has gone on remorselessly since the

first days of my rule.

The influence of geography on history went mostly unrecognized, Leto thought.

Humans tended to look more at the influence of history on geography.

Who owns this river passage? This verdant valley? This peninsula? This planet?

None of us.

Nayla was climbing once more, her gaze fixed upward on the stairs she must

traverse. Leto's thoughts locked on her.

In many ways, she is the most useful assistant I have ever had. I am her God.

She worships me quite unquestioningly. Even when l playfully attack her faith,

she takes this merely as testing. She knows herself superior to any test.

When he had sent her to the rebellion and had told her to obey Siona in all

things, she did not question. When Nayla doubted, even when she framed her

doubts in words, her own thoughts were enough to restore faith . . . or had been

enough. Recent messages, however, made it clear that Nayla required the Holy

Presence to rebuild her inner strength.

Leto recalled the first conversation with Nayla, the woman trembling in her

eagerness to please.

"Even if Siona sends you to kill me, you must obey. She must never learn that

you serve me."

"No one can kill you, Lord."

"But you must obey Siona."

"Of course, Lord. That is your command."

"You must obey her in all things."

"I will do it, Lord."

Another test. Nayla does not question my tests. She treats them as flea bites.

Her Lord commands? Nayla obeys. I must not let anything change that

relationship.

She would have made a superb Shadout in the old days, Leto thought. It was one

of the reasons he had given Nayla a crysknife, a real one preserved from Sietch

Tabr. It had belonged to one of Stilgar's wives. Nayla wore it in a concealed

sheath beneath her robes, more a talisman than a weapon. He had given it to her

in the original ritual, a ceremony which had surprised him by evoking emotions

he had thought forever buried.

"This is the tooth of Shai-Hulud."

He had extended the blade to her on his silvery-skinned hands.

"Take it and you become part of both past and future. Soil it and the past will

give you no future."

Nayla had accepted the blade, then the sheath.

"Draw the blood of a finger," Leto had commanded.

Nayla had obeyed.

"Sheath the blade. Never remove it without drawing blood."

Again, Nayla had obeyed.

As Leto watched the three-dimensional image of Nayla's approach, his reflections

on that old ceremony were touched by sadness. Unless fixed in the Old Fremen

way, the blade would grow increasingly brittle and useless. It would keep its

crysknife shape throughout Nayla's life, but little longer.

I have thrown away a bit of the past.

===

How sad it was that the Shadout of old had become today's Fish Speaker. And a

true crysknife had been used to bind a servant more strongly to her master. He

knew that some thought his Fish Speakers were really priestesses

-Leto's answer to the Bene Gesserit.

"He creates another religion," the Bene Gesserit said.

Nonsense! I have not created a religion. I am the religion!

Nayla entered the tower sanctuary and stood three paces from Leto's cart, her

gaze lowered in proper subservience.

Still in his memories, Leto said: "Look at me, woman!"

She obeyed.

"I have created a holy obscenity!" he said. "This religion built around my

person disgusts me!"

"Yes, Lord."

Nayla's green eyes on the gilded cushions of her checks stared out at him

without questioning, without comprehension,

without the need of either response.

If I sent her out to collect the stars, she would go and she would attempt it.

She thinks I am testing her again. I do believe she could anger me.

"This damnable religion should end with me!" Leto shouted. "Why should I want to

loose a religion upon my people? Religions wreck from within-Empires and

individuals alike! It's all the same."

"Yes, Lord."

"Religions create radicals and fanatics like you!"

"Thank You, Lord."

The short-lived pseudo-rage sank back out of sight into the depths of his

memories. Nothing dented the hard surface of Nayla's faith.

"Topri has reported to me through Moneo," Leto said. "Tell me about this Topri."

"Topri is a worm."

"Isn't that what you call me when you're among the rebels?"

"I obey my Lord in everything."

Touché!

"Topri is not worth cultivating then?" Leto asked.

"Siona assessed him correctly. He is clumsy. He says things which others will

repeat, thus exposing his hand in the matter. Within seconds after Kobat began

to speak, she had confirmation that Topri was a spy."

Everyone agrees, even Moneo, Leto thought. Topri is not a good spy.

The agreement amused Leto. The petty machinations muddied water which remained

completely transparent to him. The performers, however, still suited his

designs.

"Siona does not suspect you?" Leto asked.

"I am not clumsy."

"Do you know why I summoned you?"

"To test my faith."

Ahhh, Nayla. How little you know of testing.

"I want your assessment of Siona. I want to see it on your face and see it in

your movements and hear it in your voice." Leto said. "Is she ready?"

"The Fish Speakers need that one, Lord. Why do You risk losing her?"

"Forcing the issue is the surest way of losing what I treasure most in her,"

Leto said. "She must come to me with all of her strengths intact."

Nayla lowered her gaze. "As my Lord commands."

Leto recognized the response. It was a Nayla reaction to whatever she failed to

understand.

"Will she survive the test, Nayla?"

"As my Lord describes the test. . ." Nayla lifted her gaze to Leto's face,

shrugged. "I do not know, Lord. Certainly, she is strong. She was the only one

to survive the wolves. But she is ruled by hate."

"Quite naturally. Tell me, Nayla, what will she do with the things she stole

from me?"

"Did Topri not inform you about the books which they say contain Your Sacred

Words?"

Odd how she can capitalize words only with her voice, Leto thought. He spoke

curtly.

"Yes, yes. The Ixians have a copy and soon the Guild and Sisterhood as well will

be hard at work on them."

"What are those books, Lord?"

"They are my words for my people. I want them to be read. What I want to know is

what Siona has said about the Citadel charts she took."

"She says there is a great hoard of melange beneath Your Citadel, Lord, and the

charts will reveal it."

"The charts will not reveal it. Will she tunnel?"

"She seeks Ixian tools for that."

"Ix will not provide them."

"Is there such a hoard of spice, Lord?"

"Yes."

"There is a story about how Your hoard is defended, Lord. That Arrakis itself

would be destroyed if anyone tried to steal Your melange. Is it true?"

"Yes. And that would shatter the Empire. Nothing would survive-not Guild or

Sisterhood, not Ix or Tleilaxu, not even the Fish Speakers."

She shuddered, then: "I will not let Siona try to get Your spice."

"Nayla! I commanded you to obey Siona in everything. Is this how you serve me?"

"Lord?" She stood in fear of his anger, closer to a loss of faith than he had

ever seen her. It was the crisis he had created, knowing how it must end.

Slowly, Nayla relaxed. He could see the shape of her thought as though she had

laid it out for him in illuminated words.

The ultimate test!

"You will return to Siona and guard her life with your own," Leto said. "That is

the task I set for you and that you accepted. It is why you were chosen. It is

why you carry a blade from Stilgar's household."

Her right hand went to the crysknife concealed beneath her robe.

How sure it is, Leto thought, that a weapon can lock a person into a predictable

pattern of behavior.

He stared with fascination at Nayla's rigid body. Her eyes were empty of

everything except adoration.

The ultimate rhetorical despotism . . . and I despise it!

"Go then!" he barked.

Nayla turned and fled the Holy Presence.

Is it worth this? Leto wondered.

But Nayla had told him what he needed to know. Nayla had renewed her faith and

revealed with accuracy the thing which Leto could not find in Siona's fading

image. Nayla's instincts were to be trusted.

Siona has reached that explosive moment which I require.

===

The Duncans always think it odd that I choose women for combat forces, but my

Fish Speakers are a temporary army in every sense. While they can be violent and

vicious, women are profoundly different from men in their dedication to battle.

The cradle of genesis ultimately predisposes them to behavior more protective of

life. They have proved to be the best keepers of the Golden Path. I reinforce

this in my design for their training. They are set aside for a time from

ordinary routines. I give them special sharings which they can look back upon'

with pleasure for the rest of their lives. They come of age in the company of

their sisters in preparation for events more profound. What you share in such

companionship always prepares you for greater things. The haze of nostalgia

covers their days among their sisters, making those days into something

different than they were. That's the way today changes history. All

contemporaries do not inhabit the same time. The past is always changing, but

few realize it.

-The Stolen Journals

AFTER SENDING word to the Fish Speakers, Leto descended to the crypt in the late

evening. He had found it best to begin the first interview with a new Duncan

Idaho in a darkened room where the ghola could hear Leto describe himself before

actually seeing the pre-worm body. There was a small side room

carved in black stone off the central rotunda of the crypt which suited this

requirement. The chamber was large enough to accommodate Leto on his cart, but

the ceiling was low. Illumination came from hidden glowglobes which he

controlled. There was only the one door, but it was in two segments-one swinging

wide to admit the Royal Cart, the other a small portal in human dimensions.

Leto rolled his Royal Cart into the chamber, sealed the large portal and opened

the smaller one. He composed himself then for the ordeal.

Boredom was an increasing problem. The pattern of the Tleilaxu gholas had become

boringly repetitious. Once, Leto had sent word warning the Tleilaxu to send no

more Duncans, but they had known they could disobey him in this thing.

Sometimes I think they do it just to keep disobedience alive!

The Tleilaxu relied on an important thing which they knew protected them in

other matters.

The presence of a Duncan pleases the Paul Atreides in me.

As Leto had explained it to Moneo in the majordomo's first days at the Citadel:

"The Duncans must come to me with much more than Tleilaxu preparation. You must

see to it that my houris gentle the Duncans and that the women answer some of

his questions."

"Which questions may they answer, Lord?"

"They know."

Moneo had, of course, learned all about this procedure over the years.

Leto heard Moneo's voice outside the darkened room, then the sound of the Fish

Speaker escort and the hesitantly distinctive footsteps of the new ghola.

"Through that door," Moneo said. "It will be dark inside and we will close the

door behind you. Stop just inside and wait for the Lord Leto to speak."

"Why will it be dark?" The Duncan's voice was full of aggressive misgivings.

"He will explain."

Idaho was thrust into the room and the door was sealed behind him.

Leto knew what the ghola saw-only shadows among shadows and blackness where not

even the source of a voice could be fixed. As usual, Leto brought the Paul

Muad'Dib voice into play.

"It pleases me to see you again, Duncan."

"I can't see you!"

Idaho was a warrior, and the warrior attacks. This reassured Leto that the ghola

was a fully restored original. The morality play by which the Tleilaxu

reawakened a ghola's pre-death memories always left some uncertainties in the

gholas' minds. Some of the Duncans believed they had threatened a real Paul

Muad'Dib. This one carried such illusions.

"I hear Paul's voice but I can't see him," Idaho said. He didn't try to conceal

the frustrations, let them all come out in his voice.

Why was an Atreides playing this stupid game? Paul was truly dead in some longago

and this was Leto, the carrier of Paul's resurrected memories . . . and the

memories of many others!-if the Tleilaxu stories were to be believed.

"You have been told that you are only the latest in a long line of duplicates,"

Leto said.

"I have none of those memories."

Leto recognized hysteria in the Duncan, barely covered by the warrior bravado.

The cursed Tleilaxu post-tank restoration tactics had produced the usual mental

chaos. This Duncan had arrived in a state of near shock, strongly suspecting he

was insane. Leto knew that the most subtle powers of reassurance would be

required now to soothe the poor fellow. This would be emotionally draining for

both of them.

"There have been many changes, Duncan," Leto said. "One thing, though, does not

change. I am still Atreides."

"They said your body is. . ."

"Yes, that has changed."

"The damned Tleilaxu! They tried to make me kill someone I . . . well, he looked

like you. I suddenly remembered who I was and there was this . . . Could that

have been a Muad'Dib ghola?"

"A Face Dancer mimic, I assure you."

"He looked and talked so much like . . . Are you sure?"

"An actor, no more. Did he survive?"

"Of course! That's how they wakened my memories. They explained the whole damned

thing. Is it true?"

"It's true, Duncan. I detest it, but I permit it for the pleasure of your

company."

The potential victims always survive, Leto thought. At least for the Duncans I

see. There have been slips, the fake Paul

slain and the Duncans wasted. But there are always more cells carefully

preserved from the original.

"What about your body?" Idaho demanded.

Muad'Dib could be retired now; Leto resumed his usual voice. "I accepted the

sandtrout as my skin. They have been changing me ever since."

"Why?"

"I will explain that in due course."

"The Tleilaxu said you look like a sandworm."

"What did my Fish Speakers say?"

"They said you're God. Why do you call them Fish Speakers?"

"An old conceit. The first priestesses spoke to fish in their dreams. They

learned valuable things that way."

"How do you know?"

"I am those women . . . and everything that came before and after them."

Leto heard the dry swallowing in Idaho's throat, then: "I see why the darkness.

You're giving me time to adjust."

"You always were quick, Duncan."

Except when you were slow.

"How long have you been changing?"

"More than thirty-five hundred years."

"Then what the Tleilaxu told me is true."

"They seldom dare to lie anymore."

"That's a long time."

"Very long."

"The Tleilaxu have . . . copied me many times?"

"Many.'

It's time you asked how many, Duncan,

"How many of me?"

"I will let you see the records for yourself."

And so it starts, Leto thought.

This exchange always appeared to satisfy the Duncans, but there was no escaping

the nature of the question:

"How many of me?"

The Duncans made no distinctions of the flesh even though no mutual memories

passed between gholas of the same stock.

"I remember my death," Idaho said. "Harkonnen blades, lots of them trying to get

at you and Jessica."

Leto restored the Muad'Dib voice for momentary play: "I was there, Duncan."

"I'm a replacement, is that right?" Idaho asked.

"That's right," Leto said.

"How did the other . . . me . . . I mean, how did he die?"

"All flesh wears out, Duncan. It's in the records."

Leto waited patiently, wondering how long it would be until the tamed history

failed to satisfy this Duncan.

"What do you really look like?" Idaho asked. "What's this sandworm body the

Tleilaxu described?"

"It will make sandworms of sorts someday. It's already far down the road of

metamorphosis."

"What do you mean of sorts?"

"It will have more ganglia. It will be aware."

"Can't we have some light'? I'd like to see you."

Leto commanded the floodlights. Brilliant illumination filled the room. The

black walls and the lighting had been arranged to focus the illumination on

Leto, every visible detail revealed.

Idaho swept his gaze along the faceted silvery-gray body, noted the beginnings

of a sandworm's ribbed sections, the sinuous flexings . . . the small

protuberances which had once been feet and legs, one of them somewhat shorter

than the other. He brought his attention back to the well-defined arms and hands

and finally lifted his attention to the cowled face with its pink skin almost

lost in the immensity, a ridiculous extrusion on such a body.

"Well, Duncan," Leto said. "You were warned."

Idaho gestured mutely toward the pre-worm body.

Leto asked it for him: "Why'?"

Idaho nodded.

"I'm still Atreides, Duncan, and I assure you with all the honor of that name,

there were compelling reasons."

"What could possibly..."

"You will learn in time."

Idaho merely shook his head from side to side.

"It's not. a pleasant revelation," Leto said. "It requires that you learn other

things first. Trust the word of an Atreides."

Over the centuries, Leto had found that this invocation of Idaho's profound

loyalties to all things Atreides dampened the immediate wellspring of personal

questions. Once more, the formula worked.

"So I'm to serve the Atreides again," Idaho said. "That sounds familiar. Is it?"

"In many ways, old friend."

"Old to you, maybe, but not to me. How will I serve'?"

"Didn't my Fish Speakers tell you?"

"They said I would command your elite Guard, a force chosen from among them. I

don't understand that. An army of women?"

"I need a trusted companion who can command my Guard. You object?"

"Why women?"

"There are behavioral differences between the sexes which make women extremely

valuable in this role."

"You're not answering my question."

"You think them inadequate?"

"Some of them looked pretty tough, but. . ."

"Others were, ahhh, soft with you?"

Idaho blushed.

Leto found this a charming reaction. The Duncans were among the few humans of

these times who could do this. It was understandable, a product of the Duncans'

early training, their sense of personal honor-very chivalrous.

"I don't see why you trust women to protect you," Idaho said. The blood slowly

receded from his cheeks. He glared at Leto.

"But I have always trusted them as I trust you-with my life."

"What do we protect you from?"

"Moneo and my Fish Speakers will bring you up to date."

Idaho shifted from one foot to the other, his body swaying in a heartbeat

rhythm. He stared around the small room, his eyes not focusing. With the

abruptness of sudden decision, he returned his attention to Leto.

"What do I call you?"

It was the sign of acceptance for which Leto had been waiting. "Will Lord Leto

do?"

"Yes . . . m'Lord." Idaho stared directly into Leto's Fremen blue eyes. "Is it

true what your Fish Speakers say-you have . . . memories of. . ."

"We're all here, Duncan." Leto spoke it in the voice of his paternal

grandfather, then:

"Even the women are here, Duncan." It was the voice of Jessica, Leto's paternal

grandmother.

"You knew them well," Leto said. "And they know you."

Idaho inhaled a slow, trembling breath. "That will take a little getting used

to."

"My own initial reaction exactly," Leto said.

An explosion of laughter shook Idaho, and Leto thought it more than the weak

jest deserved, but he remained silent.

Presently, Idaho said: "Your Fish Speakers were supposed to put me in a good

mood, weren't they'?"

"Did they succeed?"

Idaho studied Leto's face, recognizing the distinctive Atreides features.

"You Atreides always did know me too well," Idaho said.

"That's better," Leto said. "You're beginning to accept that I'm not just one

Atreides. I'm all of them."

"Paul said that once."

"So I did!" As much as the original personality could be conveyed by tone and

accent, it was Muad'Dib speaking.

Idaho gulped, looked away at the room's door.

"You've taken something away from us," he said. "I can feel it. Those women . .

. Moneo. . ."

Us against you, Leto thought. The Duncans always choose the human side.

Idaho returned his attention to Leto's face. "What have you given us in

exchange?"

"Throughout the Empire, Leto's Peace!"

"And I can see that everyone's delightfully happy! That's why you need a

personal guard."

Leto smiled. "My peace is actually enforced tranquility. Humans have a long

history of reacting against tranquility."

"So you give us the Fish Speakers."

"And a hierarchy you can identify without any mistakes."

"A female army," Idaho muttered.

"The ultimate male-enticing force," Leto said. "Sex always was a way of subduing

the aggressive male."

"Is that what they do?"

"They prevent or ameliorate excesses which could lead to more painful violence."

"And you let them believe you're a god. I don't think I like this."

"The curse of holiness is as offensive to me as it is to you!"

Idaho frowned. It was not the response he had expected.

"What kind of game are you playing, Lord Leto?"

"A very old one but with new rules."

"Your rules!"

"Would you rather I turned it all back to CHOAM and Landsraad and the Great

Houses?"

"The Tleilaxu say there is no more Landsraad. You don't allow any real selfrule."

"Well then, I could step aside for the Bene Gesserit. Or maybe the Ixians or the

Tleilaxu? Would you like me to find another Baron Harkonnen to assume power over

the Empire'." Say the word, Duncan, and I'll abdicate!"

Under this avalanche of meanings, Idaho again shook his head from side to side.

"In the wrong hands," Leto said, "monolithic centralized power is a dangerous

and volatile instrument."

"And your hands are the right ones?"

"I'm not certain about my hands, but I will tell you, Duncan, I'm certain about

the hands of those who've gone before me. I know them."

Idaho turned his back on Leto.

What a fascinating, ultimately human gesture, Leto thought. Rejection coupled to

acceptance of his vulnerability.

Leto spoke to Idaho's back.

"You object quite rightly that I use people without their full knowledge and

consent."

Idaho turned his profile to Leto, then turned his head to look up at the cowled

face, cocking his head forward a bit to peer into the all-blue eyes.

He is studying me, Leto thought, but he has only the face to measure me by.

The Atreides had taught their people to know the subtle signals of face and

body, and Idaho was good at it, but the realization could be seen coming over

him: he was beyond his depth here.

Idaho cleared his throat. "What's the worst thing you would ask of me?"

How like a Duncan! Leto thought. This one was a classic. Idaho would give his

loyalty to an Atreides, to the guardian of his oath, but he sent a signal that

he would not go beyond the personal limits of his own morality.

"You will be asked to guard me by whatever means necessary, and you will be

asked to guard my secret."

"What secret?"

"That I am vulnerable."

"That you're not God?"

"Not in that ultimate sense."

"Your Fish Speakers talk about rebels."

"They exist."

"Why?"

"They are young and I have not convinced them that my way is better. It's very

difficult convincing the young of anything. They're born knowing so much."

"I never before heard an Atreides sneer at the young that way."

"Perhaps it's because I'm so much older-old compounded by old. And my task gets

more difficult with each passing generation."

"What is your task?"

"You will come to understand it as we go along."

"What happens if I fail you? Do your women eliminate me?"

"I try not to burden the Fish Speakers with guilt."

"But you would burden me?"

"If you accept it."

"If I find that you're worse than the Harkonnens, I'll turn against you."

How like a Duncan. They measure all evil against the Harkonnens. How little they

know of evil.

Leto said: "The Baron ate whole planets, Duncan. What could be worse than that?"

"Eating the Empire."

"I am pregnant with my Empire. I'll die giving birth to it."

"If I could believe that . . ."

"Will you command my Guard?"

"Why me'?"

"You're the best."

"Dangerous work, I'd imagine. Is that how my predecessors died, doing your

dangerous work?"

"Some of them."

"I wish I had the memories of those others!"

"You couldn't have and still be the original."

"I want to learn about them, though."

"You will."

"So the Atreides still need a sharp knife?"

"We have jobs that only a Duncan Idaho can do."

"You say . . . we . . ." Idaho swallowed, looked at the door, then at Leto's

face.

Leto spoke to him as Muad'Dib would have, but still in the Leto-voice.

"When we climbed to Sietch Tabr for the last time together, you had my loyalty

then and I had yours. Nothing of that has really changed."

"That was your father."

"That was me!" Paul Muad'Dib's voice of command coming from Leto's bulk always

shocked the gholas.

Idaho whispered: "All of you . . . in that one . . . body. . ." He broke off.

Leto remained silent. This was the decision moment.

Presently, Idaho permitted himself that devil-may-care grin for which he had

been so well known. "Then I will speak to the first Leto and to Paul, the ones

who know me best. Use me well, for I did love you."

Leto closed his eyes. Such words always distressed him. He knew it was love to

which he was most vulnerable.

Moneo, who had been listening, came to the rescue. He entered and said: "Lord,

shall I take Duncan Idaho to the guards he will command?"

"Yes." The one word was all that Leto could manage.

Moneo took Idaho's arm and led him away.

Good Moneo, Leto thought. So good. He knows me so well, but l despair of his

ever understanding me.

===

I know the evil of my ancestors because I am those people. The balance is

delicate in the extreme. I know that few of you who read my words have ever

thought about your ancestors this way. It has not occurred to you that your

ancestors were survivors and that the survival itself sometimes involved savage

decisions, a kind of wanton brutality which civilized humankind works very hard

to suppress. What price will you pay for that suppression? Will you accept your

own extinction?

-The Stolen Journals

AS HE dressed for his first morning of Fish Speaker command, Idaho tried to

shake off a nightmare. It had awakened him twice and both times he had gone out

on the balcony to stare up at the stars, the dream still roaring in his head.

Women . . . weaponless women in black armor . . . rushing at him with the

hoarse, mindless shouting of a mob . . . waving hands moist with red blood...

and as they swarmed over him, their mouths opened to display terrible fangs!

In that moment, he awoke.

Morning light did little to dispel the effects of the nightmare.

They had provided him with a room in the north tower. The balcony looked out

over a vista of dunes to a distant cliff with what appeared to be a mud-but

village at its base.

Idaho buttoned his tunic as he stared at the scene.

Why does Leto choose only women for his army?

Several comely Fish Speakers had offered to spend the night with their new

commander, but Idaho had rejected them.

It was not like the Atreides to use sex as a persuader!

He looked down at his clothing: a black uniform with golden piping, a red hawk

at the left breast. That, at least, was familiar. No insignia of rank.

"They know your face," Moneo had said.

Strange little man, Moneo.

This thought brought Idaho up short. Reflection told him that Moneo was not

little. Very controlled, yes, but no shorter than I am. Moneo appeared drawn

into himself, though . . . collected.

Idaho glanced around his room-sybaritic in its attention to comfort-soft

cushions, appliances concealed behind panels of brown polished wood. The bath

was an ornate display of pastel blue tiles with a combination bath and shower in

which at least six people could bathe at the same time. The whole place invited

self-indulgence. These were quarters where you could let your senses indulge in

remembered pleasures.

"Clever," Idaho whispered.

A gentle tapping on his door was followed by a female voice saying: "Commander?

Moneo is here."

Idaho glanced out at the sunburnt colors on the distant cliff.

"Commander?" The voice was a bit louder.

"Come in," Idaho called.

Moneo entered, closing the door behind him. He wore tunic and trousers of chalkwhite

which forced the eyes to concentrate on his face. Moneo glanced once

around the room.

"So this is where they put you. Those damned women! I suppose they thought they

were being kind, but they ought to know better."

"How do you know what I like?" Idaho demanded. Even as he asked it, he realized

it was a foolish question.

I'm not the first Duncan Idaho that Moneo has seen.

Moneo merely smiled and shrugged.

"I did not mean to offend you, Commander. Will you keep these quarters, then?"

"I like the view."

"But not the furnishings." It was a statement.

"Those can be changed," Idaho said.

"I will see to it."

"I suppose you're here to explain my duties."

"As much as I can. I know how strange everything must appear to you at first.

This civilization is profoundly different from the one you knew."

"I can see that. How did my . . . predecessor die?"

Moneo shrugged. It appeared to be his standard gesture, but there was nothing

self-effacing about it.

"He was not fast enough to escape the consequences of a decision he had made,"

Moneo said.

"Be specific."

Moneo sighed. The Duncans were always like this-so demanding.

"The rebellion killed him. Do you wish the details?"

"Would they be useful to me?"

"No."

"I'll want a complete briefing on this rebellion today, but first: why are there

no men in Leto's army?"

"He has you."

"You know what I mean."

"He has a curious theory about armies. I have discussed it with him on many

occasions. But do you not want to breakfast before I explain?"

"Can't we have both at the same time?"

Moneo turned toward the door and called out a single word: "Now!"

The effect was immediate and fascinating to Idaho. A troop of young Fish

Speakers swarmed into the room. Two of them took a folding table and chairs from

behind a panel and placed them on the balcony. Others set the table for two

people. More brought food-fresh fruit, hot rolls and a steaming drink which

smelled faintly of spice and caffeine. It was all done with a swift and silent

efficiency which spoke of long practice. They left as they had come, without a

word.

Idaho found himself seated across from Moneo at the table within a minute after

the start of this curious performance.

"Every morning like that?" Idaho asked.

"Only if you wish it."

Idaho sampled the drink: melange-coffee. He recognized the fruit, the soft

Caladan melon called paradan.

My favorite.

"You know me pretty well," Idaho said.

Moneo smiled. "We've had some practice. Now, about your question."

"And Leto's curious theory."

"Yes. He says that the all-male army was too dangerous to its civilian support

base."

"That's crazy! Without the army, there would've been no...

"I know the argument. But he says that the male army was a survival of the

screening function delegated to the nonbreeding males in the prehistoric pack.

He says it was a curiously consistent fact that it was always the older males

who sent the younger males into battle."

"What does that mean, screening function?"

"The ones who were always out on the dangerous perimeter protecting the core of

breeding males, females and the young. The ones who first encountered the

predator."

"How is that dangerous to the . . . civilians?"

Idaho took a bite of the melon, found it ripened perfectly.

"The Lord Leto says that when it was denied an external enemy, the all-male army

always turned against its own population. Always."

"Contending for the females?"

"Perhaps. He obviously does not believe, however, that it was that simple."

"I don't find this a curious theory."

"You have not heard all of it."

"There's more?"

"Oh, yes. He says that the all-male army has a strong tendency toward homosexual

activities."

Idaho glared across the table at Moneo. "I never. . ."

"Of course not. He is speaking about sublimation, about deflected energies and

all the rest of it."

"The rest of what?" Idaho was prickly with anger at what he saw as an attack on

his male self-image.

"Adolescent attitudes, just boys together, jokes designed purely to cause pain,

loyalty only to your pack-mates . . . things of that nature."

Idaho spoke coldly. "What's your opinion?"

"I remind myself=" Moneo turned and spoke while looking out at the view='of

something which he has said and which I am sure is true. He is every soldier in

human history. He offered to parade for me a series of examples-famous military

figures who were frozen in adolescence. I declined the offer. I have read my

history with care and have recognized this characteristic for myself."

Moneo turned and looked directly into Idaho's eyes.

"Think about it, Commander."

Idaho prided himself on self-honesty and this hit him. Cults of youth and

adolescence preserved in the military? It had the ring of truth. There were

examples in his own experience . . .

Moneo nodded. "The homosexual, latent or otherwise, who maintains that condition

for reasons which could be called purely psychological, tends to indulge in

pain-causing behavior-seeking it for himself and inflicting it upon others. Lord

Leto says this goes back to the testing behavior in the prehistoric pack."

"You believe him'?"

"I do."

Idaho took a bite of the melon. It had lost its sweet savor. He swallowed and

put down his spoon.

"I will have to think about this," Idaho said.

"Of course."

"You're not eating," Idaho said.

"I was up before dawn and ate then." Moneo gestured at his plate. "The women

continually try to tempt me."

"Do they ever succeed?"

"Occasionally."

"You're right. I find his theory curious. Is there more to it?"

"Ohhh, he says that when it breaks out of the adolescent homosexual restraints,

the male army is essentially rapist. Rape is often murderous and that's not

survival behavior."

Idaho scowled.

A tight smile flitted across Moneo's mouth. "Lord Leto says that only Atreides

discipline and moral restraints prevented some of the worst excesses in your

times."

A deep sigh shook Idaho.

Moneo sat back, thinking of a thing the God Emperor had once said: "No matter

how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not

feel kindly toward the Truthsayer."

"Those damned Atreides!" Idaho said.

"I am Atreides," Moneo said.

"What?" Idaho was shocked.

"His breeding program," Moneo said. "I'm sure the Tleilaxu mentioned it. I am

directly descended from the mating of his sister and Harq-al-Ada."

Idaho leaned toward him. "Then tell me, Atreides, how are women better soldiers

than men?"

"They find it easier to mature."

Idaho shook his head in bewilderment.

"They have a compelling physical way of moving from adolescence into maturity,"

Moneo said. "As Lord Leto says, `Carry a baby in you for nine months and that

changes you."'

Idaho sat back. "What does he know about it?"

Moneo merely stared at him until Idaho recalled the multitude in Leto-both male

and female. The realization plunged over Idaho. Moneo saw it, recalling a

comment of the God Emperor's: "Your words brand him with the look you want him

to have."

As the silence continued, Moneo cleared his throat. Presently, he said: "The

immensity of the Lord Leto's memories has been known to stop my tongue, too."

"Is he being honest with us?" Idaho asked.

"I believe him."

"But he does so many . . . I mean, take this breeding program. How long has that

been going on?"

"From the very first. From the day he took it away from the Bene Gesserit."

"What does he want from it?"

"I wish I knew."

"But you're. . ."

"An Atreides and his chief aide, yes."

"You haven't convinced me that a female army is best."

"They continue the species."

At last, Idaho's frustration and anger had an object. "Is that what I was doing

with them that first night-breeding?"

"Possibly. The Fish Speakers take no precautions against pregnancy."

"Damn him! I'm not some animal he can move from stall to stall like a . . . like

a . . ."

"Like a stud?"

..Yes!"

"But the Lord Leto refuses to follow the Tleilaxu pattern of gene surgery and

artificial insemination."

"What have the Tleilaxu got to. . ."

"They are the object lesson. Even I can see that. Their Face Dancers are mules,

closer to a colony organism than to human."

"Those others of... me . . . were any of them his studs?"

"Some. You have descendants."

"Who?"

"I am one."

Idaho stared into Moneo's eyes, lost suddenly in a tangle

of relationships. Idaho found the relationships impossible to understand. Moneo

obviously was so much older than . . . But I am . . . Which of them was truly

the older? Which the ancestor and which the descendant?

"I sometimes have trouble with this myself," Moneo said. "If it helps, the Lord

Leto assures me that you are not my descendant, not in any ordinary sense.

However, you may well father some of my descendants."

Idaho shook his head from side to side.

"Sometimes I think only the God Emperor himself can understand these things,"

Moneo said.

"That's another thing" Idaho said. "This god business."

"The Lord Leto says he has created a holy obscenity."

This was not the response Idaho had expected. What did I expect? A defense of

the Lord Leto?

"Holy obscenity," Moneo repeated. The words rolled from his tongue with a

strange sense of gloating in them.

Idaho focused a probing stare on Moneo. He hates his God Emperor! No . . . he

fears him. But don't we always hate what we fear?

"Why do you believe in him?" Idaho demanded.

"You ask if I share in the popular religion?"

"No! Does he?"

"I think so."

"Why? Why do you think so?"

"Because he says he wishes to create no more Face Dancers. He insists that his

human stock, once it has been paired, breeds in the way it has always bred."

"What the hell does that have to do with it?"

"You asked me what he believes in. I think he believes in chance. I think that's

his god."

"That's superstition!"

"Considering the circumstances of the Empire, a very daring superstition."

Idaho glared at Moneo. "You damned Atreides," he muttered. "You'll dare

anything!"

Moneo noted that there was dislike mixed with admiration in Idaho's voice.

The Duncans always begin that way.

===

What is the most profound difference between us, between you and me? You already

know it. It's these ancestral memories. Mine come at me in the full glare of

awareness. Yours work from your blind side. Some call it instinct or fate. The

memories apply their leverages to each of us-on what we think and what we do.

You think you are immune to such influences? I am Galileo. I stand here and tell

you: "Yet it moves." That which moves can exert its force in ways no mortal

power ever before dared stem. I am here to dare this.

-The Stolen Journals

"WHEN SHE was a child, she watched me, remember? When she thought I was not

aware, Siona watched me like the desert hawk which circles above the lair of its

prey. You yourself mentioned it."

Leto rolled his body a quarter turn on his cart while speaking. This brought his

cowled face close to that of Moneo, who trotted beside the cart.

It was barely dawn on the desert road which followed the high artificial ridge

from the Citadel in the Sareer to the Festival City. The road from the desert

ran laser-beam straight until it reached this point where it curved widely and

dipped into terraced canyons before crossing the Idaho River. The air was full

of thick mists from the river tumbling in its distant clamor, but Leto had

opened the bubble cover which sealed the front of his cart. The moisture made

his worm-self tingle with vague distress, but there was the smell of sweet

desert growth in the mist and his human nostrils savored it. He ordered the

cortege to stop.

"Why are we stopping, Lord?" Moneo asked.

Leto did not answer. The cart creaked as he heaved his bulk into an arching

curve which lifted his head and allowed him to look across the Forbidden Forest

to the Kynes Sea glistening silver far off to the right. He turned left and

there were the remains of the Shield Wall, a sinuous low shadow in the morning

light. The ridge here had been raised almost two thousand meters to enclose the

Sareer and limit airborne moisture there. From his vantage, Leto could see the

distant notch where he had caused the Festival City of Onn to be built.

"It is a whim which stops me," Leto said.

"Shouldn't we cross the bridge before resting?" Moneo asked.

"I am not resting."

Leto stared ahead. After a series of switchbacks which were visible from here

only as a twisting shadow, the high road crossed the river on a faery bridge,

climbed to a buffer ridge and then sloped down to the city which presented a

vista of glittering spires at this distance.

"The Duncan acts subdued," Leto said. "Have you had your long conversation with

him?"

"Precisely as you required, Lord."

"Well, it's only been four days," Leto said. "They often take longer to

recover."

"He has been busy with your Guard, Lord. They were out until late again last

night."

"The Duncans do not like to walk in the open. They think about the things which

could be used to attack us."

"I know, Lord."

Leto turned and looked squarely at Moneo. The majordomo wore a green cloak over

his white uniform. He stood beside the open bubble cover, exactly in the place

where duty required that he station himself on these excursions.

"You are very dutiful, Moneo," Leto said.

"Thank you, Lord."

Guards and courtiers kept themselves at a respectful distance well behind the

cart. Most of them were trying to avoid even the appearance of eavesdropping on

Leto and Moneo. Not so Idaho. He had positioned some of the Fish Speaker guards

at both sides of the Royal Road, spreading them out. Now, he stood staring at

the cart. Idaho wore a black uniform with white piping, a gift of the Fish

Speakers, Moneo had said.

"They like this one very much. He is good at what he does."

"What does he do, Moneo?"

"Why, guard your person, Lord."

The women of the Guard all wore skintight green uniforms, each with a red

Atreides hawk at the left breast.

"They watch him very closely," Leto said.

"Yes. He is teaching them hand signals. He says it's the Atreides way."

"That is certainly correct. I wonder why the previous one didn't do that?"

"Lord, if you don't know. . ."

"I jest, Moneo. The previous Duncan did not feel threatened until it was too

late. Has this one accepted our explanations?"

"So I'm told, Lord. He is well started in your service."

"Why is he carrying only that knife in the belt sheath?"

"The women have convinced him that only the specially trained among them should

have lasguns."

"Your caution is groundless, Moneo. Tell the women that it's much too early for

us to begin fearing this one."

"As my Lord commands."

It was obvious to Leto that his new Guard Commander did not enjoy the presence

of the courtiers. He stood well away from them. Most of the courtiers, he had

been told, were civil functionaries. They were decked out in their brightest and

finest for this day when they could parade themselves in their full power and in

the presence of the God Emperor. Leto could see how foolish the courtiers must

appear to Idaho. But Leto could remember far more foolish finery and he thought

that this day's display might be an improvement.

"Have you introduced him to Siona?" Leto asked.

At the mention of Siona, Moneo's brows congealed into a scowl.

"Calm yourself," Leto said. "Even when she spied on me, I cherished her."

"I sense danger in her, Lord. I think sometimes she sees into my most secret

thoughts."

"The wise child knows her father."

"I do not joke, Lord."

"Yes, I can see that. Have you noticed that the Duncan grows impatient?"

"They scouted the road almost to the bridge," Moneo said.

"What did they find?"

"The same thing I found-anew Museum Fremen."

"Another petition?"

"Do not be angry, Lord."

Once more, Leto peered ahead. This necessary exposure to the open air, the long

and stately journey with all of its ritual requirements to reassure the Fish

Speakers, all of it troubled Leto. And now, another petition!

Idaho strode forward to stop directly behind Moneo.

There was a sense of menace about Idaho's movements. Surely not this soon, Leto

thought.

"Why are we stopping, m'Lord?" Idaho asked.

"I often stop here," Leto said.

It was true. He turned and looked beyond the faery bridge. The way twisted

downward out of the canyon heights into the Forbidden Forest and thence through

fields beside the river. Leto had often stopped here to watch the sunrise. There

was something about this morning, though, the sun striking across the familiar

vista . . . something which stirred old memories.

The fields of the Royal Plantations reached outward beyond the forest and, when

the sun lifted over the far curve of land, it beamed glowing gold across grain

rippling in the fields. The grain reminded Leto of sand, of sweeping dunes which

once had marched across this very ground.

And will march once more.

The grain was not quite the bright silica amber of his remembered desert. Leto

looked back at the cliff-enclosed distances of his Sareer, his sanctuary of the

past. The colors were distinctly different. All the same, when he looked once

more toward Festival City, he felt an ache where his many hearts once more were

reforming in their slow transformation toward something profoundly alien.

What is it about this morning that makes me think about my lost humanity? Leto

wondered.

Of all the Royal party looking at that familiar scene of grain fields and

forest, Leto knew that only he still thought of the lush landscape as the bahr

bela ma, the ocean without water.

"Duncan," Leto said. "You see that out there toward the city? That was the

Tanzerouft."

"The Land of Terror?" Idaho revealed his surprise in the quick look toward Onn

and the sudden return of his gaze to Leto.

"The bahr bela ma," Leto said. "It has been concealed

under a carpet of plants for more than three thousand years. Of all who live on

Arrakis today, only the two of us ever saw the desert original."

Idaho looked toward Onn. "Where is the Shield Wall?" he asked.

"Muad'Dib's Gap is right there, right where we built the City."

"That line of little hills, that was the Shield Wall? What happened to it?"

"You are standing on it."

Idaho looked up at Leto, then down to the roadway and all around.

"Lord, shall we proceed?" Moneo asked.

Moneo, with that clock ticking in his breast, is the goad to duty, Leto thought.

There were important visitors to see and other vital matters. Time pressed him.

And he did not like it when his God Emperor talked about old times with the

Duncans.

Leto was suddenly aware that he had paused here far longer than ever before. The

courtiers and guards were cold after their run in the morning air. Some had

chosen their clothing more for show than protection.

Then again, Leto thought, perhaps show is a form of protection.

"There were dunes," Idaho said.

"Stretching for thousands of kilometers," Leto agreed.

Moneo's thoughts churned. He was familiar with the God Emperor's reflexive mood,

but there was a sense of sadness in it this day. Perhaps the recent death of a

Duncan. Leto sometimes let important information drop when he was sad. You never

questioned the God Emperor's moods or his whims, but sometimes they could be

employed.

Siona will have to be warned, Moneo thought. If the young fool will listen to

me!

She was far more of a rebel than he had been. Far more. Leto had tamed his

Moneo, sensitized him to the Golden Path and the rightful duties for which he

had been bred, but methods used on a Moneo would not work with Siona. In his

observation of this, Moneo had learned things about his own training which he

had never before suspected.

"I don't see any identifiable landmarks," Idaho was saying.

"Right over there," Leto said, pointing. "Where the forest ends. That was the

way to Splintered Rock."

Moneo shut out their voices. It was ultimate fascination with the God Emperor

which finally brought me to heel. Leto never ceased to surprise and amaze. He

could not be reliably predicted. Moneo glanced at the God Emperor's profile.

What has he become?

As part of his early duties, Moneo had studied the Citadel's private records,

the historical accounts of Leto's transformation. But symbiosis with sandtrout

remained a mystery which even Leto's own words could not dispel. If the accounts

were to be believed, the sandtrout skin made his body almost invulnerable to

time and violence. The great body's ribbed core could even absorb lasgun bursts!

First the sandtrout, then the worm-all part of the great cycle which had

produced melange. That cycle lay within the God Emperor. . . marking time.

"Let us proceed," Leto said.

Moneo realized that he had missed something. He came out of his reverie and

looked at a smiling Duncan Idaho.

"We used to call that woolgathering," Leto said.

"I'm sorry, Lord," Moneo said. "I was.. ."

"You were woolgathering, but it's all right."

His mood's improved, Moneo thought. I can thank the Duncan for that, I think.

Leto adjusted his position on the cart, closed part of the bubble cover and left

only his head free. The cart crunched over small rocks on the roadbed as Leto

activated it.

Idaho took up position at Moneo's shoulder and trotted along beside him.

"There are floater bulbs under that cart, but he uses the wheels," Idaho said.

"Why is that?"

"It pleases the Lord Leto to use wheels instead of antigravity."

"What makes the thing go? How does he steer it?"

"Have you asked him?"

"I haven't had the opportunity."

"The Royal Cart is of Ixian manufacture."

"What does that mean?"

"It is said that the Lord Leto activates his cart and steers it just by thinking

in a particular way."

"Don't you know?"

"Questions such as this do not please him."

Even to his intimates, Moneo thought, The God Emperor remains a mystery.

"Moneo!" Leto called.

"You had better return to your guards," Moneo said, gesturing for Idaho to fall

back.

"I'd rather be out in front with them," Idaho said.

"The Lord Leto does not want that! Now go back."

Moneo hurried to place himself close beside Leto's face, noting that Idaho was

falling back through the courtiers to the rear ring of guards.

Leto looked down at Moneo. "I thought you handled that very well, Moneo."

"Thank you, Lord."