She could feel herself drawn to him. If only Leto had the body and appearance of

Idaho. Moneo, though-that was another matter. She looked at the back of her Fish

Speaker escort.

"Can you tell me about Moneo"" Hwi asked.

The Fish Speaker glanced back over her shoulder, an odd expression in her pale

blue eyes-apprehension or some bizarre form of awe.

"Is something wrong?" Hwi asked.

The Fish Speaker returned her attention to the downward spiral of the ramp.

"The Lord said you would ask about Moneo," she said.

"Then tell me about him."

"What is there to say? He is the Lord's closest confidant."

"Closer even than Duncan Idaho?"

"Oh, yes. Moneo is an Atreides."

"Moneo came to me yesterday," Hwi said. "He said I should know something about

the God Emperor. Moneo said the God Emperor is capable of doing anything,

anything at all if it is thought to be instructive."

"Many believe this," the Fish Speaker said.

"You do not believe it'?"

Hwi asked the question as the ramp rounded a final turn and opened into a small

anteroom with an arched entrance only a few steps away.

"The Lord Leto will receive you immediately," the Fish Speaker said. She turned

back up the ramp then without speaking of her own belief.

Hwi stepped through the arch and found herself in a low-ceilinged room. It was

much smaller than the audience chamber. The air felt crisp and dry. Pale yellow

light came from a concealed source at the upper corners. She allowed her eyes to

adjust to the lowered illumination, noting carpets and soft cushions scattered

around a low mound of . . . She put a hand to her mouth as the mound moved,

realizing then that it was the Lord Leto on his cart, but the cart lay in a

sunken area. She knew immediately why the room provided this feature. It made

him less imposing to human guests, less overpowering

by his physical elevation. Nothing could be done, however, about his length and

the inescapable mass of his body except to keep them in shadows, throwing most

of the light onto his face and hands.

"Come in and sit down," Leto said. He spoke in a low voice, pleasantly

conversational.

Hwi crossed to a red cushion only a few meters in front of Leto's face and sat

on it.

Leto watched her movements with obvious pleasure. She wore a dark golden gown

and her hair was tied back in braids which made her face appear fresh and

innocent.

"I have sent your message to Ix," she said. "And I have told them that you wish

to know my age."

"Perhaps they will answer," he said. "Their answer may even be truthful."

"I would like to know when I was born, all of the circumstances," she said, "but

I don't know why this interests you."

"Everything about you interests me."

"They will not like it that you make me the permanent Ambassador."

"Your masters are a curious mixture of punctilio and laxity," he said. "I do not

suffer fools gladly."

"You think me a fool, Lord?"

"Malky was not a fool; neither are you, my dear."

"I have not heard from my uncle in years. Sometimes I wonder if he still lives."

"Perhaps we will learn that as well. Did Malky ever discuss with you my practice

of Taquiyya?"

She thought about this a moment, then: "It was called Ketman among the ancient

Fremen?"

"Yes. It is the practice of concealing the identity when revealing it might be

harmful."

"I recall it now. He told me you wrote pseudonymous histories, some of them

quite famous."

"That was the occasion when we discussed Taquiyya."

"Why do you speak of this, Lord?"

"To avoid other subjects. Did you know that I wrote the books of Noah

Arkwright?"

She could not suppress a chuckle. "How amusing, Lord. I was required to read

about his life."

"I wrote that account, too. What secrets were you asked to wrest from me?"

She did not even blink at his strategic change of subject.

"They are curious about the inner workings of the religion of the Lord Leto."

"Are they now?"

"They wish to know how you took religious control away from the Bene Gesserit."

"No doubt hoping to repeat my performance for themselves?"

"I'm sure that's in their minds, Lord."

"Hwi, you are a terrible representative of the lxians."

"I am your servant, Lord."

"Have you no curiosities of your own?"

"I fear that my curiosities might disturb you," she said.

He stared at her a moment, then: "I see. Yes, you are right. We should avoid

more intimate conversation for now. Would you like me to talk about the

Sisterhood?"

"Yes, that would be good. Do you know that I met one of the Bene Gesserit

delegation today?"

"That would be Anteac."

"I found her frightening," she said.

"You have nothing to fear from Anteac. She went to your Embassy at my command.

Were you aware that you had been invaded by Face Dancers?"

Hwi gasped, then held herself still while a cold sensation filled her breast.

"Othwi Yake?" she asked.

"You suspected?"

"It's just that I did not like him, and I had been told that. . ." She shrugged,

then, as realization swept over her: "What has happened to him?"

"The original? He is dead. That's the usual Face Dancer practice in such

circumstances. My Fish Speakers have explicit orders to leave no Face Dancer

alive in your Embassy."

Hwi remained silent, but tears trickled down her cheeks.

This explained the empty streets, Anteac's enigmatic "Yes." It explained many

things.

"I will provide Fish Speaker assistance for you until you can make other

arrangements," Leto said. "My Fish Speakers will guard you well."

Hwi shook the tears from her face. The Inquisitors of Ix would react with rage

against Tleilax. Would Ix believe her report? Everyone in her Embassy taken over

by Face Dancers! It was difficult to believe.

"Everyone?" she asked.

"The Face Dancers had no reason to leave any of your original people alive. You

would have been next."

She shuddered.

"They delayed," he said, "because they knew they would have to copy you with a

precision to defy my senses. They are not sure about my abilities."

"Then Anteac. . ."

"The Sisterhood and I share an ability to detect Face Dancers. And Anteac . . .

well, she is very good at what she does."

"No one trusts the Tleilaxu," she said. "Why haven't they been wiped out long

ago?"

"Specialists have their uses as well as their limitations. You surprise me, Hwi.

I had not suspected you could be that bloody-minded."

"The Tleilaxu . . . they are too cruel to be human. They aren't human!"

"I assure you that humans can be just as cruel. I myself have been cruel on

occasion."

"I know, Lord."

"With provocation," he said. "But the only people I have considered eliminating

are the Bene Gesserit."

Her shock was too great for words.

"They are so close to what they should be and yet so far," he said.

She found her voice. "But the Oral History says. . ."

"The religion of the Reverend Mothers, yes. Once they designed specific

religions for specific societies. They called it engineering. How does that

strike you?"

"Callous."

"Indeed. The results fit the mistake. Even after all the grand attempts at

ecumenism there were countless gods, minor deities and would-be prophets

throughout the Empire."

"You changed that, Lord."

"Somewhat. But gods die hard, Hwi. My monotheism dominates, but the original

pantheon remains; it has gone underground in various disguises."

"Lord, I sense in your words . . . a . . ." She shook her head.

"Am I as coldly calculating as the Sisterhood?"

She nodded.

"It was the Fremen who deified my father, the great Muad'Dib. Although he

doesn't really care to be called great."

"But were the Fremen.. ."

"Were they right? My dearest Hwi, they were sensitive to

the uses of power and they were greedy to maintain their ascendancy."

"I find this . . . disturbing, Lord."

"I can see that. You don't like the idea that becoming a god could be that

simple, as though anyone could do it."

"It sounds much too casual, Lord." Her voice had a remote and testing quality.

"I assure you that anyone could not do it."

"But you imply that you inherited your godhood from. . ."

"Never suggest that to a Fish Speaker," he said. "They react violently against

heresy."

She tried to swallow in a dry throat.

"I say this only to protect you," he said.

Her voice was faint: "Thank you, Lord."

"My godhood began when I told my Fremen I no longer could give the death-water

to the tribes. You know about the death-water?"

"In the Dune days, the water recovered from the bodies of the dead," she said.

"Ahhh, you have read Noah Arkwright."

She managed a faint smile.

"I told my Fremen the water would be consecrated to a Supreme Deity, left

nameless. Fremen were still allowed to control this water through my largesse."

"Water must have been very precious in those days."

"Very! And I, as delegate of this nameless deity, held loose control of that

precious water for almost three hundred years."

She chewed at her lower lip.

"It still sounds calculating?" he asked.

She nodded.

"It was. When it came time to consecrate my sister's water, I performed a

miracle. The voices of all the Atreides spoke from Ghani's urn. Thus, my Fremen

discovered that I was their Supreme Deity."

Hwi spoke fearfully, her voice full of puzzled uncertainties at this revelation.

"Lord, are you telling me that you are not really a god?"

"I am telling you that I do not play hide-and-seek with death."

She stared at him for several minutes before responding in a way which assured

him that she understood his deeper meaning. It was a reaction which only

intensified her endearment to him.

"Your death will not be like other deaths," she said.

"Precious Hwi," he murmured.

"I wonder that you do not fear the judgment of a true Supreme Deity," she said.

"Do you judge me, Hwi?"

"No, but I fear for you."

"Think on the price I pay," he said. "Every descendant part of me will can-y

some of my awareness locked away within it, lost and helpless."

She put both hands over her mouth and stared at him.

"This is the horror which my father could not face and which he tried to

prevent: the infinite division and subdivision of a blind identity."

She lowered her hands and whispered: "You will be conscious?"

"In a way . . . but mute. A little pearl of my awareness will go with every

sandworm and every sandtrout-knowing yet unable to move a single cell, aware in

an endless dream."

She shuddered.

Leto watched her try to understand such an existence. Could she imagine the

final clamor when the subdivided bits of his identity grappled for a fading

control of the Ixian machine which recorded his journals? Could she sense the

wrenching silence which would follow that awful fragmentation?

"Lord, they would use this knowledge against you were I to reveal it."

"Will you tell?"

"Of course not!" She shook her head slowly from side to side. Why had he

accepted this terrible transformation? Was there no escape?

Presently, she said: "The machine which writes your thoughts, could it not be

attuned to. . ."

"To a million of me? To a billion? To more? My dear Hwi, none of those knowingpearls

will be truly me."

Her eyes filmed with tears. She blinked and inhaled a deep breath. Leto

recognized the Bene Gesserit training in this, the way she accepted a flow of

calmness.

"Lord, you have made me terribly afraid."

"And you do not understand why I have done this."

"Is it possible for me to understand?"

"Oh, yes. Many could understand it. What people do with understanding is another

matter."

"Will you teach me what to do?"

"You already know."

She absorbed this silently, then: "It has something to do with your religion. I

can feel it."

Leto smiled. "I can forgive your Ixian masters almost anything for the precious

gift of you. Ask and you shall receive."

She leaned toward him, rocking forward on her pillow. "Tell me about the inner

workings of your religion."

"You will know all of me soon enough, Hwi. I promise it. Just remember that sun

worship among our primitive ancestors was not far off the mark."

"Sun . . . worship?" She rocked backward.

"That sun which controls all of the movement but which cannot be touched-that

sun is death."

"Your . . . death?"

"Any religion circles like a planet around a sun which it must use for its

energy, upon which it depends for its very existence."

Her voice came barely above a whisper: "What do you see in your sun, Lord?"

"A universe of many windows through which I may peer. Whatever the window

frames, that is what I see."

"The future?"

"The universe is timeless at its roots and contains therefore all times and all

futures."

"It's true then," she said. "You saw a thing which this-'

she gestured at his long, ribbed body= "prevents."

"Do you find it in you to believe that this may be, in some small way, holy?" he

asked.

She could only nod her head.

"If you share it all with me," he said, "I warn you that it will be a terrible

burden."

"Will it make your burden lighter, Lord?"

"Not lighter, but easier to accept."

"Then I will share. Tell me, Lord."

"Not yet, Hwi. You must be patient a while longer."

She swallowed her disappointment, sighing.

"It's only that my Duncan Idaho grows impatient," Leto said. "T must deal with

him."

She glanced backward, but the small room remained empty.

"Do you wish me to leave now?"

"I wish you would never leave me."

She stared at him, noting the intensity of his regard, a hungry emptiness in his

expression which filled her with sadness.

"Lord, why do you tell me your secrets?"

"I would not ask you to be the bride of a god."

Her eyes went wide with shock.

"Do not answer," he said.

Barely moving her head, she sent her gaze along the shadowy length of his body.

"Do not search for parts of me which no longer exist," he said. "Some forms of

physical intimacy are no longer possible for me."

She returned her attention to his cowled face, noting the pink skin of his

cheeks, the intensely human effect of his features in that alien frame.

"If you require children," he said, "I would ask only that you let me choose the

father. But I have not yet asked you anything."

Her voice was faint. "Lord, I do not know what to..

."

"I will return to the Citadel soon," he said. "You will come to me there and we

will talk. I will tell you then about the thing which I prevent."

"I am frightened, Lord, more frightened than I ever imagined I could be."

"Do not fear me. I can be nothing but gentle with my gentle Hwi. As for other

dangers, my Fish Speakers will shield you with their own bodies. They dare not

let harm come to you!"

Hwi lifted herself to her feet and stood trembling.

Leto saw how deeply his words had affected her and he felt the pain of it. Hwi's

eyes glistened with tears. She clasped her hands tightly to still the trembling.

He knew she would come to him willingly at the Citadel. No matter what he asked,

her response would be the response of his Fish Speakers:

"Yes, Lord."

It came to Leto that if she could change places with him, take up his burden,

she would offer herself. The fact that she could not do this added to her pain.

She was intelligence built on profound sensitivity, without any of Malky's

hedonistic weaknesses. She was frightening in her perfection. Everything about

her reaffirmed his awareness that she was precisely the kind of woman who, if he

had grown to normal manhood, he would have wanted (No! Demanded!) as his mate.

And the lxians knew it.

"Leave me now," he whispered.

===

I am both father and mother to my people. I have known the ecstasy of birth and

the ecstasy of death and I know the patterns that you must team. Have I not

wandered intoxicated through the universe of shapes? Yes! I have seen you

outlined in light. That universe which you say you see and feel, that universe

is my dream. My energies focus upon it and I am in any realm and every realm.

Thus, you are born.

-The Stolen Journals

"My FISH SPEAKERS tell me that you went to the Citadel immediately after

Siaynoq," Leto said.

He stared accusingly at Idaho, who stood near where Hwi had sat only an hour

ago. Such a small passage of time-yet Leto felt the emptiness as centuries.

"I needed time to think," Idaho said. He looked into the shadowy pit where

Leto's cart rested.

"And to talk to Siona?"

"Yes." Idaho lifted his gaze to Leto's face.

"But you asked for Moneo," Leto said.

"Do they report on every movement I make?" Idaho demanded.

"Not every movement."

"Sometimes people need to be alone."

"Of course. But do not blame the Fish Speakers for being concerned about you."

"Siona says she is to be tested!"

"Was that why you asked for Moneo?"

"What is this test?"

"Moneo knows. I presumed that was why you wanted to see him."

"You presume nothing! You know."

"Siaynoq has upset you, Duncan. I am sorry."

"Do you have any idea what it's like to be me . . . here?"

"The ghola's lot is not easy," Leto said. "Some lives are harder than others."

"I don't need any juvenile philosophy!"

"What do you need, Duncan?"

"I need to know some things."

"Such as?"

"I don't understand any of these people around you! Without showing any surprise

about it, Moneo tells me that Siona was part of a rebellion against you. His own

daughter!"

"In his day, Moneo too was a rebel."

"See what I mean? Did you test him, too?"

"Yes."

"Will you test me?"

"I am testing you."

Idaho glared at him, then: "I don't understand your government, your Empire,

anything. The more I find out, the more I realize that I don't know what's going

on."

"How fortunate that you have discovered the way of wisdom," Leto said.

"What?" Idaho's baffled outrage raised his voice to a battlefield roar which

filled the small room.

Leto smiled. "Duncan, have I not told you that when you think you know

something, that is a most perfect barrier against learning?"

"Then tell me what's going on."

"My friend Duncan Idaho is acquiring a new habit. He is learning always to look

beyond what he thinks he knows."

"All right, all right." Idaho nodded his head slowly in time to the words. "Then

what's beyond letting me take part in that Siaynoq thing?"

"I am binding the Fish Speakers to the Commander of my Guard."

"And I have to fight them off! The escort that took me out to the Citadel wanted

to stop for an orgy. And the ones who brought me back here when you..."

"They know how much it pleases me to see children of Duncan Idaho."

"Damn you! I'm not your stud!"

"No need to shout, Duncan."

Idaho took several deep breaths, then: "When I tell them 'no,' they act hurt at

first and then they treat me like some damned=" he shook his head=`holy man or

something."

"Don't they obey you?"

"They don't question anything . . . unless it's contrary to your orders. I

didn't want to come back here."

"Yet they brought you."

"You know damned well they won't disobey you!"

"I'm glad you came, Duncan."

"Oh, I can see that!"

"The Fish Speakers know how special you are, how fond I am of you, how much I

owe you. It's never a question of obedience and disobedience where you and I are

concerned."

"Then what is it a question of?"

"Loyalty.,,

Idaho fell into pensive silence.

"You felt the power of Siaynoq?" Leto asked.

"Mumbo jumbo."

"Then why are you disturbed by it?"

"Your Fish Speakers aren't an army, they're a police force." "By my name, I

assure you that's not so. Police are inevitably corrupted."

"You tempted me with power," Idaho accused.

"That's the test, Duncan."

"You don't trust me?"

"I trust your loyalty to the Atreides implicitly, without question."

"Then what's this talk of corruption and testing?"

"You were the one who accused me of having a police force. Police always observe

that criminals prosper. It takes a pretty dull policeman to miss the fact that

the position of authority is the most prosperous criminal position available."

Idaho wet his lips with his tongue and stared at Leto with obvious puzzlement.

"But the moral training of... I mean, the legal . . . the prisons to. . ."

"What good are laws and prisons when the breaking of a law is not a sin?"

Idaho cocked his head slightly to the right. "Are you trying to tell me that

your damned religion is.. ."

"Punishment of sins can be quite extravagant."

Idaho hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward the world

outside the door. "All this talk about death penalties . . . that flogging

and..."

"I try to dispense with casual laws and prisons wherever possible."

"You have to have some prisons!"

"Do I? Prisons are needed only to provide the illusion that courts and police

are effective. They're a kind of job insurance."

Idaho turned slightly and thrust a pointing finger toward the door through which

he had entered the small room. "You've got whole planets that are nothing but

prisons!"

"I guess you could think of anywhere as a prison if that's the way your

illusions go.''

"Illusions!" Idaho dropped his hand to his side and stood dumbfounded.

"Yes. You talk of prisons and police and legalities, the perfect illusions

behind which a prosperous power structure can operate while observing, quite

accurately, that it is above its own laws."

"And you think crimes can be dealt with by. . .

"Not crimes, Duncan, sins."

"So you think your religion can. . ."

"Have you noted the primary sins?"

"What?"

"Attempting to corrupt a member of my government, and corruption by a member of

my government."

"And what is this corruption?"

"Essentially, it's the failure to observe and worship the holiness of the God

Leto."

"You?"

"Me."

"But you told me right at the beginning that. . ."

"You think I don't believe in my own godhead? Be careful, Duncan."

Idaho's voice came with angry flatness. "You told me that one of my jobs was to

help keep your secret, that you..

."

"You don't know my secret."

"That you're a tyrant? That's no. . ."

"Gods have more power than tyrants, Duncan."

"I don't like what I'm hearing."

"When has an Atreides ever asked you to like your job?"

"You ask me to command your Fish Speakers who are judge, jury and executioner..

." Idaho broke off.

"And what?"

Idaho remained silent.

Leto stared across the chill distance between them, so short a space yet so far.

It's like playing a fish on a line, Leto thought. You must calculate the

breaking point of every element in the contest.

The problem with Idaho was that bringing him to the net always hastened his end.

And it was happening too rapidly this time. Leto felt sadness.

"I won't worship you," Idaho said.

"The Fish Speakers recognize that you have a special dispensation," Leto said.

"Like Moneo and Siona?"

"Much different."

"So rebels are a special case."

Leto grinned. "All of my most trusted administrators were rebels at one time."

"I wasn't a . . ."

"You were a brilliant rebel! You helped the Atreides wrest an Empire from a

reigning monarch."

Idaho's eyes went out of focus with introspection. "So I did." He shook his head

sharply as though tossing something out of his hair. "And look what you've done

with that Empire!"

"I have set up a pattern in it, a pattern of patterns."

"So you say."

"Information is frozen in patterns, Duncan. We can use one pattern to solve

another pattern. Flow patterns are the hardest to recognize and understand."

"More mumbo jumbo."

"You made that mistake once before."

"Why do you let the Tleilaxu keep bringing me back to life-one ghola after

another? Where's the pattern in that?"

"Because of the qualities which you possess in abundance. I will let my father

say it."

Idaho's mouth drew into a grim line.

Leto spoke in Muad'Dib's voice, and even the cowled face fell into a semblance

of the paternal features. "You were my truest friend, Duncan, better even than

Gurney Halleck. But I am the past."

Idaho swallowed hard. "The things you're doing!"

"They cut against the Atreides grain?"

"You're damned right!"

Leto resumed his ordinary tones. "Yet I'm still Atreides."

"Are you really?"

"What else could I be?"

"I wish I knew!"

"You think I play tricks with words and voices?"

"What in all the seven hells are you really doing?"

"I preserve life while setting the stage for the next cycle,."

"You preserve it by killing?"

"Death has often been useful to life."

"That's not Atreides!"

"But it is. We often saw the value of death. The lxians, however, have never

seen that value."

"What've the lxians got to do with. . ."

"Everything. They would make a machine to conceal their other machinations."

Idaho spoke in a musing tone. "Is that why the Ixian Ambassador was here?"

"You've seen Hwi Noree," Leto said.

Idaho pointed upward. "She was leaving as I arrived."

"You spoke to her?"

"I asked her what she was doing here. She said she was choosing sides."

A burst of laughter erupted from Leto. "Oh, my," he said. "She is so good. Did

she reveal her choice?"

"She said she serves the God Emperor now. I didn't believe her, of course."

"But you should believe her."

.Why?"

"Ahhh, yes; I forgot that you once doubted even my grandmother, the Lady

Jessica."

"I had good reason!"

"Do you also doubt Siona?"

"I'm beginning to doubt everyone!"

"And you say you don't know your value to me," Leto accused.

"What about Siona?" Idaho demanded. "She says you want us . . . I mean, dammit .

. ."

"The thing you must always trust about Siona is her creativity. She can create

the new and beautiful. One always trusts the truly creative."

"Even the machinations of the lxians?"

"That is not creative. You always know the creative because it is revealed

openly. Concealment betrays the existence of another force entirely."

"Then you don't trust this Hwi Noree, but you. . ."

"I do trust her, and precisely for the reasons I have just given you."

Idaho scowled, then relaxed and sighed. "I had better cultivate her

acquaintance. If she is someone you. . ."

"No! You will stay away from Hwi Noree. I have something special in mind for

her."

===

I have isolated the city-experience within me and have examined it closely. The

idea of a city fascinates me. The formation of a biological community without a

functioning, supportive social community leads to havoc. Whole worlds have

become single biological communities without an interrelated social structure

and this has always led to ruin. It becomes dramatically instructive under

overcrowded conditions. The ghetto is lethal. Psychic stresses of overcrowding

create pressures which will erupt. The city is an attempt to manage these

forces. The social forms by which cities make the attempt are worth study.

Remember that there exists a certain malevolence about the formation of any

social order. It is the struggle for existence by an artificial entity.

Despotism and slavery hover at the edges. Many injuries occur and, thus, the

need for laws. The law develops its own power structure, creating more wounds

and new injustices. Such trauma can be healed by cooperation, not by

confrontation. The summons to cooperate identifies the healer.

-The Stolen Journals

MONEO ENTERED Leto's small chamber with evident agitation.

He actually preferred this meeting place because the God Emperor's cart lay in a

depression from which a deadly attack by the Worm would be more difficult, and

there was the undeniable fact that Leto allowed his majordomo to descend in an

Ixian tube-lift rather than via that interminable ramp. But Moneo felt that the

news he brought this morning was guaranteed to arouse The Worm Who Is God.

How to present it?

Dawn lay only an hour past, the fourth Festival Day, a fact Moneo could greet

with equanimity only because it brought him that much nearer the end of these

tribulations:

Leto stirred as Moneo entered the small chamber. Illumination came on at his

signal, focusing only on his face.

"Good morning, Moneo," he said. "My guard tells me you insisted on entering

immediately. Why?"

The danger, Moneo knew from experience, lay in the temptation to reveal too much

too soon.

"I have spent some time with the Reverend Mother Anteac," he said. "Although she

keeps it well hidden, I'm sure she is a Mentat."

"Yes. The Bene Gesserit were bound to disobey me sometime. This form of

disobedience amuses me."

"Then you will not punish them?"

"Moneo, I am ultimately the only parent my people have. A parent must be

generous as well as severe."

He's in a good mood, Moneo thought. A small sigh escaped Moneo, at which Leto

smiled.

"Anteac objected when I told her you had ordered an amnesty for a selected few

Face Dancers among our captives."

"I have a Festive use for them," Leto said.

"Lord?"

"I will tell you later. Let's get to the news which brings you bursting in upon

me at this hour."

"I . . . ahhh..." Moneo chewed at his upper lip. "The Tleilaxu have been quite

garrulous in the attempt to ingratiate themselves with me."

"Of course they have. And what have they revealed?"

"They... ahhh, provided the lxians with sufficient advice and equipment to make

a . . . uhhh, not exactly a ghola, and not even a clone. Perhaps we should use

the Tleilaxu term: a cellular restructuring. The . . . ahhh, experiment was

conducted within some sort of shielding device which the Guildsmen assured them

your powers could not penetrate."

"And the result?" Leto felt that he was asking the question in a cold vacuum.

"They are not certain. Tleilaxu were not permitted to witness. However, they did

observe that Malky entered this . . . ahhh, chamber and that he emerged later

with an infant."

"Yes! I know!"

"You do?" Moneo was puzzled.

"By inference. And all of this happened some twenty-six years ago?"

"That is correct, Lord."

"They identify the infant as Hwi Noree?"

"They are not certain, Lord, but..." Moneo shrugged.

"Of course. And what do you deduce from this, Moneo?"

"There is a deep purpose built into the new Ixian Ambassador."

"Certainly there is. Moneo, has it not struck you as odd how much Hwi, the

gentle Hwi, represents a mirror of the redoubtable Malky? His opposite in

everything, including sex."

"I had not thought of that, Lord."

"I have."

"I will have her sent back to Ix immediately," Moneo said.

"You will do nothing of the kind!"

"But, Lord, if they.. .

"Moneo, I have observed that you seldom turn your back on danger. Others often

do, but you-seldom. Why would you have me engage in such an obvious stupidity?"

Moneo swallowed.

"Good. I like it when you recognize the error of your ways," Leto said.

"Thank you, Lord."

"I also like it when you express your gratitude sincerely, as you have just

done. Now, Anteac was with you when you heard these revelations?"

"As you ordered, Lord."

"Excellent. That will stir things up a bit. You will leave now and go to the

Lady Hwi. You will tell her that I desire to see her immediately. This will

disturb her. She is thinking that we will not meet again until I summon her to

the Citadel. I want you to quiet her fears."

"In what way, Lord?"

Leto spoke sadly: "Moneo, why do you ask advice on something at which you are an

expert? Calm her and bring her here reassured of my kindly intentions toward

her."

"Yes, Lord." Moneo bowed and backed away a step.

"One moment, Moneo!"

Moneo stiffened, his gaze fixed on Leto's face.

"You are puzzled, Moneo," Leto said. "Sometimes you do not know what to think of

me. Am I all-powerful and all prescient? You bring me these little dibs and dabs

and you wonder: Does he already know this? If he does, why do I bother? But I

have ordered you to report such things, Moneo. Is your obedience not

instructive?"

Moneo started to shrug and thought better of it. His lips trembled.

"Time can also be a place, Moneo," Leto said. "Everything depends upon where you

are standing, on where you look or what you hear. The measure of it is found in

consciousness itself."

After a long silence, Moneo ventured: "Is that all, Lord?"

"No, it is not all. Siona will receive today a package delivered to her by a

Guild courier. Nothing is to interfere with delivery of that package. Do you

understand?"

"What is . . . what is in the package, Lord?"

"Some translations, reading matter which I wish her to see. You will do nothing

to interfere. There is no melange in the package."

"How . . . how did you know what I feared was in the. . ."

"Because you fear the spice. It could extend your life, but you avoid it."

"I fear its other effects, Lord."

"A bountiful nature has decreed that melange will unveil for some of us

unexpected depths of the psyche, yet you fear this?"

"I am Atreides, Lord!"

"Ahhh, yes, and for the Atreides, melange may roll the mystery of Time through a

peculiar process of internal revelation."

"I have only to remember the way you tested me, Lord."

"Do you not see the necessity for you to sense the Golden Path?"

"That is not what I fear, Lord."

"You fear the other astonishment, the thing which made me make my choice."

"I have only to look at you, Lord, and know that fear. We Atreides. . ." He

broke off, his mouth dry.

"You do not want all of these memories of ancestors and the others who flock

within me!"

"Sometimes . . . sometimes, Lord, I think the spice is the Atreides curse!"

"Do you wish that I had never occurred?"

Moneo remained silent.

"But melange has its values, Moneo. The Guild navigators need it. And without

it, the Bene Gesserit would degenerate into a helpless band of whining females!"

"We must live with it or without it, Lord. I know that."

"Very perceptive, Moneo. But you choose to live without it."

"Do I not have that choice, Lord?"

"For now."

"Lord, what do you..."

"There are twenty-eight different words for melange in common Galach. They

describe it by its intended use, by its dilution, by its age, by whether it came

through honest purchase, through theft or conquest, whether it was the dower

gift for a male or for a female, and in many other ways is it named. What do you

make of this, Moneo?"

"We are offered many choices, Lord."

"Only where the spice is concerned?"

Moneo's brow wrinkled in thought, then: "No."

"You so seldom say 'no' in my presence," Leto said. "I enjoy watching your lips

form around the word."

Moneo's mouth twitched in an attempted smile.

Leto spoke briskly: "Well! You must go now to the Lady Hwi. I will give you one

parting piece of advice which may help."

Moneo paid studious attention to Leto's face.

"Drug knowledge originated mostly with males because they tend to be more

venturesome-an outgrowth of male aggression. You've read your Orange Catholic

Bible, thus you know the story of Eve and the apple. Here's an interesting fact

about that story: Eve was not the first to pluck and sample the apple. Adam was

first and he learned by this to put the blame on Eve. My story tells you

something about how our societies find a structural necessity for sub-groups."

Moneo tipped his head slightly to the left. "Lord, how does this help me?"

"It will help you with the Lady Hwi!"

===

The singular multiplicity of this universe draws my deepest attention. It is a

thing of ultimate beauty.

-The Stolen Journals

LETO HEARD Moneo in the antechamber just before Hwi entered the small audience

room. She wore voluminous pale green pantaloons tightly tied at the ankles with

darker green bows to match her sandals. A loose blouse of the same dark green

could be seen under her black cloak.

She appeared calm as she approached Leto and sat without being invited, choosing

a golden cushion rather than the red one she had occupied earlier. It had taken

less than an hour for Moneo to bring her. Leto's acute hearing detected Moneo

fidgeting in the anteroom and Leto sent a signal which sealed the arched doorway

there.

"Something has disturbed Moneo," Hwi said. "He tried very hard not to reveal

this to me, but the more he tried to soothe me the more he aroused my

curiosity."

"He did not frighten you?"

"Oh, no. He did say something very interesting, though. He said that I must

remember it at all times, that the God Leto is a different person to each of

us."

"How is this interesting?" Leto asked.

"The interesting thing is the question for which this was the preface. He said

he often wonders what part we play in creating that difference in you?"

"That is interesting."

"I think it is a truthful insight," Hwi said. "Why have you summoned me?"

"At one time, your masters on Ix..

."

"They are no longer my masters, Lord."

"Forgive me. I will refer to them hereafter as the lxians."

She nodded gravely, prompting: "At one time. . ."

"The lxians contemplated making a weapon-a type of hunter-seeker, self-propelled

death with a machine mind. It was to be designed as a self improving thing which

would seek out life and reduce that life to its inorganic matter."

"I have not heard of this thing, Lord."

"I know that. The lxians do not recognize that machine makers always run the

risk of becoming totally machine. This is ultimate sterility. Machines always

fail . . . given time. And when these machines failed there would be nothing

left, no life at all."

"Sometimes I think they are mad," she said.

"Anteac's opinion. That is the immediate problem. The lxians are now engaged in

an endeavor which they are concealing."

"Even from you?"

"Even from me. I am sending the Reverend Mother Anteac to investigate for me. To

help her, I want you to tell her everything you can about the place where you

spent your childhood. Omit no detail, no matter how small. Anteac will help you

remember. We want every sound, every smell, the shapes and names of visitors,

the colors and even the tinglings of your skin. The slightest thing may be

vital."

"You think it is the place of concealment?"

"I know it is."

"And you think they are making this weapon in. . ."

"No, but this will be our excuse for investigating the place where you were

born."

She opened her mouth and gradually formed a smile, then: "My Lord is devious. I

will speak to the Reverend Mother immediately." Hwi started to rise, but he

stopped her with a gesture.

"We must not give the appearance of haste," he said.

She sank back onto the cushion.

"Each of us is different in the way of Moneo's observation," he said. "Genesis

does not stop. Your god continues creating you."

"What will Anteac find? You know, don't you?"

"Let us say that I have a strong conviction. Now, you have not once mentioned

the subject which I broached earlier. Have you no questions?"

"You will provide the answers as I require them." It was

a statement full of such trust that it stopped Leto's voice. He could only look

at her, realizing how extraordinary was this accomplishment of the Ixians-this

human. Hwi remained precisely true to the dictates of her personally chosen

morality. She was comely, warm and honest and possessed of an emphatic sense

which forced her to share every anguish in those with whom she identified. He

could- imagine the dismay of her Bene Gesserit teachers when confronted by this

immovable core of self-honesty. The teachers obviously had been reduced to

adding a touch here, an ability there, everything strengthening that power which

prevented her from becoming a Bene Gesserit. How that must have rankled!

"Lord," she said, "I would know the motives which forced you to choose your

life."

"First, you must understand what it is like to see our future."

"With your help, I will try."

"Nothing is ever separated from its source," he said. "Seeing futures is a

vision of a continuum in which all things take shape like bubbles forming

beneath a waterfall. You see them and then they vanish into the stream. If the

stream ends, it is as though the bubbles never were. That stream is my Golden

Path and I saw it end."

"Your choice=' she gestured at his body= "changed that?"

"It is changing. The change comes not only from the manner of my life but from

the manner of my death."

"You know how you will die?"

"Not how. I know only the Golden Path in which it will occur."

"Lord, I do not. . ."

"It is difficult to understand, I know. I will die four deaths the death of the

flesh, the death of the soul, the death of the myth and the death of reason. And

all of these deaths contain the seed of resurrection."

"You will return from..."

"The seeds will return."

"When you are gone, what will happen to your religion?"

"All religions are a single communion. The spectrum remains unbroken within the

Golden Path. It is only that humans see first one part and then another.

Delusions can be called accidents of the senses."

"People will still worship you," she said.

"Yes."

"But when forever ends, there will be anger," she said. "There will be denial.

Some will say you were just an ordinary tyrant."

"Delusion," he agreed.

A lump in her throat prevented her from speaking for a moment, then: "How does

your life and your death change the. . ." She shook her head.

"Life will continue."

"I believe that, Lord, but how?"

"Each cycle is a reaction to the preceding cycle. If you think about the shape

of my Empire, then you know the shape of the next cycle."

She looked away from him. "Everything I learned about

your Family told me that you would do this-" she gestured

blindly in his direction without looking at him= "only with a

selfless motive. I do not think I truly know the shape of your

Empire, though."

"Leto's Golden Peace?"

"There is less peace than some would have us believe," she said, looking back at

him.

The honesty of her! he thought. Nothing deterred it.

"This is the time of the stomach," he said. "This is the time when we expand as

a single cell expands."

"But something is missing," she said.

She is like the Duncans, he thought. Something is missing and they sense it

immediately.

"The flesh grows, but the psyche does not grow," he said.

"The psyche?"

"That reflexive awareness which tells us how very alive we can become. You know

it well, Hwi. It is that sense which tells you how to be true to yourself."

"Your religion is not enough," she said.

"No religion can ever be enough. It is a matter of choice a single, lonely

choice. Do you understand now why your friendship and your company mean so much

to me?"

She blinked back tears, nodding, then: "Why don't people know this?"

"Because the conditions don't permit it."

"The conditions which you dictate?"

"Precisely. Look throughout my Empire. Do you see the shape?"

She closed her eyes, thinking.

"One wishes to sit by a river and fish every day?" he asked. "Excellent. That is

this life. You desire to sail a small boat across an island sea and visit

strangers? Superb! What else is there to do?"

"Travel in space?" she asked and there was a defiant note in her voice. She

opened her eyes.

"You have observed that the Guild and I do not allow this."

"You do not allow it."

"True. If the Guild disobeys me, it gets no spice."

"And holding people planet bound keeps them out of mischief."

"It does something more important than that. It fills them with a longing to

travel. It creates a need to make far voyages and see strange things.

Eventually, travel comes to mean freedom."

"But the spice dwindles," she said.

"And freedom becomes more precious every day."

"This can only lead to desperation and violence," she said.

"A wise man in my ancestry-I was actually that person, you know? Do you

understand that there are no strangers in my past?"

She nodded, awed.

"This wise man observed that wealth is a tool of freedom. But the pursuit of

wealth is the way to slavery."

"The Guild and the Sisterhood enslave themselves!"

"And the lxians and the Tleilaxu and all the others. Oh, they ferret out a bit

of hidden melange from time to time and that keeps the attention fixed. A very

interesting game, don't you think?"

"But when the violence comes. . ."

"There will be famines and hard thoughts."

"Here on Arrakis, too?"

"Here, there, everywhere. People will look back on my tyranny as the good old

days. I will be the mirror of their future."

"But it will be terrible!" she objected.

She could have no other reaction, he thought.

He said: "As the land refuses to support the people, the survivors will crowd

into smaller and smaller refuges. A terrible selection process will be repeated

on many worlds-explosive birthrates and dwindling food."

"But couldn't the Guild.. ."

"Me Guild will be largely helpless without sufficient melange to operate

available transports."

"Won't the rich escape?"

"Some of them."

"Then you haven't really changed anything. We will just go on struggling and

dying."

"Until the sandworm reigns once more on Arrakis. We will have tested ourselves

by then with a profound experience shared by all. We will have learned that a

thing which can happen on one planet can happen on any planet."

"So much pain and death," she whispered.

"Don't you understand about death?" he asked. "You must understand. The species

must understand. All life must understand."

"Help me, Lord," she whispered.

"It is the most profound experience of any creature," he said. "Short of death

come the things which risk and mirror it-life-threatening diseases, injuries and

accidents . . . childbirth for a woman . . . and once it was combat for the

males."

"But your Fish Speakers are.. ."

"They teach about survival," he said.

Her eyes went wide with understanding. "The survivors. Of course!"

"How precious you are," he said. "How rare and precious. Bless the lxians!"

"And curse them?"

"That, too."

"I did not think I could ever understand about your Fish Speakers," she said.

"Not even Moneo sees it," he said. "And I despair of the Duncans. "

"You have to appreciate life before you want to preserve it," she said.

"And it's the survivors who maintain the most light and poignant hold upon the

beauties of living. Women know this more often than men because birth is the

reflection of death."

"My Uncle Malky always said you had good reasons for denying combat and casual

violence to men. What a bitter lesson!"

"Without readily available violence, men have few ways of testing how they will

meet that final experience," he said. "Something is missing. The psyche does not

grow. What is it

people say about Leto's Peace?"

"That you make us wallow in pointless decadence like pigs in our own filth."

"Always recognize the accuracy of folk wisdom," he said. "Decadence."

"Most men have no principles," she said. "The women of Ix complain about it

constantly."

"When I need to identify rebels, I look for men with principles," he said.

She stared at him silently, and he thought how that simple reaction spoke so

deeply of her intelligence.

"Where do you think I find my best administrators?" he asked.

A small gasp escaped her.

"Principles," he said, "are what you fight for. Most men go through a lifetime

unchallenged, except at the final moment. They have so few unfriendly arenas in

which to test themselves."

"They have you," she said.

"But I am so powerful," he said. "I am the equivalent of suicide. Who would seek

certain death?"

"Madmen . . . or desperate ones. Rebels?"

"I am their equivalent of war," he said. "The ultimate predator. I am the

cohesive force which shatters them."

"I've never thought of myself as a rebel," she said.

"You are something far better."

"And you would use me in some way?"

"I would."

"Not as an administrator," she said.

"I already have good administrators -uncorruptible, sagacious, philosophical and

open about their errors, quick to see decisions."

"They were rebels?"

"Most of them."

"How are they chosen?"

"I could say they chose themselves."

"By surviving?"

"That, too. But there's more. The difference between a good administrator and a

bad one is about five heartbeats. Good administrators make immediate choices."

"Acceptable choices?"

"They usually can be made to work. A bad administrator, on the other hand,

hesitates, diddles around, asks for committees, for research and reports.

Eventually, he acts in ways which create serious problems."

"But don't they sometimes need more information to make. . .

"A bad administrator is more concerned with reports than with decisions. He

wants the hard record which he can display as an excuse for his errors."

"And good administrators?"

"Oh, they depend on verbal orders. They never lie about what they've done if

their verbal orders cause problems, and they surround themselves with people

able to act wisely on the basis of verbal orders. Often, the most important

piece of information is that something has gone wrong. Bad administrators hide

their mistakes until it's too late to make corrections."

Leto watched her as she thought about the people who served him especially about

Moneo.

"Men of decision," she said.

"One of the hardest things for a tyrant to find," he said, "is people who

actually make decisions."

"Doesn't your intimate knowledge of the past give you some..."

"It gives me some amusement. Most bureaucracies before mine sought out and

promoted people who avoided decisions."

"I see. How would you use me, Lord?"

"Will you wed me?"

A faint smile touched her lips. "Women, too, can make decisions. I will wed

you."

"Then go and instruct the Reverend Mother. Make sure she knows what she's

looking for."

"For my genesis," she said. "You and I already know my purpose."

"Which is not separated from its source," he said.

She arose, then: "Lord, could you be wrong about your Golden Path? Does the

possibility of failure. . ."

"Anything and anyone can fail," he said, "but brave good friends help."

===

Groups tend to condition their surroundings for group survival. When they

deviate from this it may be taken as a sign of group sickness. There are many

telltale symptoms. I watch the sharing of food. This is a form of communication,

an inescapable sign of mutual aid which also contains a deadly signal of

dependency. It is interesting that men are the ones who usually tend the

landscape today. They are husband-men. Once, that was the sole province of

women.

-The Stolen Journals

"You MUST forgive the inadequacies of this report," the Reverend Mother Anteac

wrote. "Ascribe it to the necessity for haste. I leave on the morrow for Ix, my

purpose being the same one I reported in greater detail earlier. The God

Emperor's intense and sincere interest in Ix cannot be denied, but what I must

recount here is the strange visit I have just had from the Ixian Ambassador, Hwi

Nome."

Anteac sat back on the inadequate stool which was the best she could manage in

these Spartan quarters. She sat alone in her tiny bedchamber, the space-withina-

space which the Lord Leto had refused to change even after the Bene Gesserit

warning of Tleilaxu treachery.

On Anteac's lap lay a small square of inky black about ten millimeters on a side

and no more than three millimeters thick. She wrote upon this square with a

glittering needle-one word

upon another, all of them absorbed into the square. The completed message would

be impressed upon the nerve receptors of an acolyte-messenger's eyes, latent

there until they could be replayed at the Chapter House.

Hwi Noree posed such a dilemma!

Anteac knew the accounts of Bene Gesserit teachers sent to instruct Hwi on Ix.

But those accounts left out more than they told. They raised greater questions.

What adventures have you experienced, child?

What were the hardships of your youth?

Anteac sniffed and glanced down at the waiting square of black. Such thoughts

reminded her of the Fremen belief that the land of your birth made you what you

were.

"Are there strange animals on your planet?" the Fremen would ask.

Hwi had come with an impressive Fish Speaker escort, more than a hundred brawny

women, all of them heavily armed. Anteac had seldom seen such a display of

weapons -lasguns, long knives, silver-blades, stun-grenades . . .

It had been at midmorning. Hwi had swept in, leaving the Fish Speakers to invest

the Bene Gesserit quarters, all except this Spartan inner room.

Anteac swept her gaze around her quarters. The Lord Leto was telling her

something by keeping her here.

"This is how you measure your worth to the God Emperor!"

Except . . . now he sent a Reverend Mother to Ix and the avowed purpose of this

journey suggested many things about the Lord Leto. Perhaps times were about to

change, new honors and more melange for the Sisterhood.

Everything depends upon how well I perform.

Hwi had entered this room alone and had sat demurely on Anteac's pallet, her

head lower than that of the Reverend Mother's. A nice touch, and no accident.

The Fish Speakers obviously could have placed the two of them anywhere in any

relationship Hwi commanded. Hwi's shocking first words left little doubt of

that.

"You must know at the outset that I will wed the Lord Leto."

It had required the deep control to keep from gaping. Anteac's truthsense told

her the sincerity of Hwi's words, but the full portent could not be assessed.

"The Lord Leto commands that you say nothing of this to anyone," Hwi added.

Such a dilemma! Anteac thought. Can I even report this to

"

my Sisters at the Chapter House?

"Everyone will know in time," Hwi said. "This is not the time. I tell you

because it helps impress upon you the gravity of the Lord Leto's trust."

"His trust in you?"

"In both of us."

This had sent a barely concealed, shuddering thrill through Anteac. The power

inherent in such trust!

"Do you know why Ix chose you as Ambassador?" Anteac asked.

"Yes. They intended me to beguile him."

"You appear to have succeeded. Does this mean that the lxians believe those

Tleilaxu stories about the Lord Leto's gross habits?"

"Even the Tleilaxu don't believe them."

"I take it that you confirm the falsehood of such stories?"

Hwi had spoken in an odd flatness which even Anteac's truthsense and abilities

as a Mentat found hard to decipher.

"You have talked to him and observed him. Answer that question for yourself."

Anteac put down a small surge of irritation. Despite her youth, this Hwi was not

an acolyte . . . and would never make a good Bene Gesserit. Such a pity!

"Have you reported this to your government on Ix?" Anteac asked.

"No."

.Why?"

"They will learn soon enough. Premature revelation could harm the Lord Leto."

She is truthful, Anteac reminded herself.

"Isn't your first loyalty to Ix?" Anteac asked.

"Truth is my first loyalty." She smiled then. "Ix contrived better than it

thought."

"Does Ix think of you as a threat to the God Emperor?"

"I think their primary concern is knowledge. I discussed this with Ampre before

leaving."

"The Director of Ix's Outfederation Affairs? That Ampre?"

"Yes. Ampre is convinced that the Lord Leto permits threats to his person only

up to certain limits."

"Ampre said that?"

"Ampre does not believe the future can be hidden from the Lord Leto. "

"But my mission to Ix has about it the suggestion that. . ." Anteac broke off

and shook her head, then: "Why does Ix provide the Lord with machines and

weapons?"

"Ampre believes that Ix has no choice. Overwhelming force destroys people who

pose too great a threat."

"And if Ix refused, that would pass the Lord Leto's limits. No middle point.

Have you thought about the consequences of wedding the Lord Leto?"

"You mean the doubts such an act will raise about his godhead?"

"Some will believe the Tleilaxu stories."

Hwi only smiled.

Damnation! Anteac thought. How did we lose this girl?

"He is changing the design of his religion," Anteac accused. "That's it, of

course."

"Do not make the mistake of judging all others by yourselves," Hwi said. And, as

Anteac started to bridle, Hwi added: "But I did not come here to argue with you

about the Lord."

"No. Of course not."

"The Lord Leto has commanded me," Hwi said, "to tell you every detail in my

memory about the place where I was born and raised."

As she reflected on Hwi's words, Anteac stared down at the cryptic square of

black in her lap. Hwi had proceeded to recount the details which her Lord (and

now bridegroom!) had commanded, details which would have been boring at times

were it not for Anteac's Mentat abilities at data absorption.

Anteac shook her head as she considered what must be reported to her Sisters at

the Chapter House. They already would be studying the import of her previous

message. A machine which could shield itself and contents from the penetrating

prescience of even the God Emperor? Was that possible? Or was this a different

kind of test, a test of Bene Gesserit candor with their Lord Leto? But now! If

he did not already know the genesis of this enigmatic Hwi Noree . . .

This new development reinforced Anteac's Mentat summation of why she had been

chosen for the mission to Ix. The God Emperor did not trust this knowledge to

his Fish Speakers. He did not want Fish Speakers suspecting a weakness in their

Lord!

Or was that as obvious as it appeared? Wheels within wheels-that was the way of

the Lord Leto.

Again, Anteac shook her head. She bent then and resumed her account for the

Chapter House, leaving out the revelation that the God Emperor had chosen a

bride.

They would learn it soon enough. Meanwhile, Anteac herself would consider the

implications.

===

If you know all of your ancestors, you were a personal witness to the events

which created the myths and religions of our past. Recognizing this, you must

think of me as a myth-maker.

-The Stolen Journals

THE FIRST explosion came just as darkness enfolded the City of Onn. The blast

caught a few venturesome revelers outside the Ixian Embassy, passing on their

way to a party where (it was promised) Face Dancers would perform an ancient

drama about a king who slew his children. After the violent events of the first

four Festival Days, it had taken some courage for the revelers to emerge from

the relative safety of their quarters. Stories of death and injury to innocent

bystanders circulated all through the City-and here it was again-more fuel for

the cautious.

None of the victims and survivors would have appreciated Leto's observation that

innocent bystanders were in relatively short supply.

Leto's acute senses detected the explosion and located it. With an instant fury

which he was later to regret, he shouted for his Fish Speakers and commanded

them to "wipe out the Face Dancers," even the ones he had spared earlier.

On immediate reflection, the sensation of-fury itself fascinated Leto. It had

been so long since he had felt even mild anger. Frustration, irritation-these

had been his limits. But now, at a threat to Hwi Noree, fury!

Reflection caused him to modify his initial command, but not before some Fish

Speakers had raced from the Royal Presence, their most violent desires released

by what they had seen in their Lord.

"God is furious!" some of them shouted.

The second blast caught some of the Fish Speakers emerging into the plaza,

limiting the spread of Leto's modified command and igniting more violence. The

third explosion, located near the first one, sent Leto himself into action. He

propelled his cart like a berserk juggernaut out of his resting chamber into the

Ixian lift and surged to the surface.

Leto emerged at the edge of the plaza to find a scene of chaos lighted by

thousands of free-floating glowglobes released by his Fish Speakers. The central

stage of the plaza had been shattered, leaving only the plasteel base intact

beneath the paved surface. Broken pieces of masonry lay all around, mixed with

dead and wounded.

In the direction of the Ixian Embassy, directly across the plaza from him, there

was a wild surging of combat.

"Where is my Duncan?" Leto bellowed.

A guard bashar came racing across the plaza to his side where she reported

through panting breaths: "We have taken him to the Citadel, Lord!"

"What is happening over there?" Leto demanded, pointing at the battle outside

the Ixian Embassy.

"The rebels and the Tleilaxu are attacking the Ixian Embassy, Lord. They have

explosives."

Even as she spoke, another blast erupted in front of the Embassy's shattered

facade. He saw bodies twisting in the air, arching outward and falling at the

perimeter of a bright flash which left an orange afterimage, studded with black

dots.

With no thought of consequences, Leto shifted his cart onto suspensors and sent

it bulleting across the plaza-a hurtling behemoth which sucked glowglobes into

its wake. At the battle's edge, he arched over his own defenders and plunged

into the attackers' flank, aware only then of lasguns which sent livid blue arcs

leaping toward him. He felt his cart thudding into flesh, scattering bodies all

around.

The cart spilled him directly in front of the Embassy, rolling him off onto a

hard surface as it struck the rubble there. He felt lasgun beams tickle his

ribbed body, then the inner surge of heat followed by a venting belch of oxygen

at his tail. Instinct tucked his face deep into its cowl and folded his arms

into the protective depths of his front segment. The worm-body took over,

arching and flailing, rolling like an insane wheel, lashing out on all sides.

Blood lubricated the street. Blood was buffered water to his

body, but death released the water. His flailing body slipped and slithered in

it, the water igniting blue smoke from every flexion place where it slipped

through the sandtrout skin. This filled him with water-agony which ignited more

violence in the great flailing body.

At Leto's first lashing out, the Fish Speaker perimeter fell back. An alert

bashar saw the opportunity now presented. She shouted above the battle noise:

"Pick off the stragglers!"

The ranks of guardian women rushed forward.

It was bloody play among the Fish Speakers for a few minutes, blades thrusting

in the merciless light of the glowglobes, the dancing of lasgun arcs, even hands

chopping and toes digging into vulnerable flesh. The Fish Speakers left no

survivors.

Leto rolled beyond the Bloody mush in front of the Embassy, barely able to think

through the waves of water-agony. The air was heavy with oxygen all around him

and this helped his human senses. He summoned his cart and it drifted toward

him, tipping perilously on damaged suspensors. Slowly, he wriggled onto the

tipping cart and gave it the mental command to return to his quarters beneath

the plaza.

Long ago, he had prepared himself against water-damage room where blasts of

superheated dry air would cleanse and restore him. Sand would serve but there

was no place in t e confines of Onn for the necessary expanse of sand in which

he might heat and rasp his surface to its normal purity.

In the lift, he thought of Hwi and sent a message to have her brought down to

him immediately.

If she survived.

He had no time now to make a prescient search; he could only hope while his

body, both pre-worm and human, longed for the cleansing heat.

Once into the cleansing room, he thought to reaffirm his

modified command= "Save some of the Face Dancers!" But

by then the maddened Fish Speakers were spreading out through

the City and he had not the strength to make a prescient sweep

which would send his messengers to the proper meeting points.

A Guard captain brought him word as he was emerging from the cleansing room that

Hwi Noree, although slightly wounded, was safe and would be brought to him as

soon as the local commander thought it prudent.

Leto promoted the Guard captain to sub-bashar on the spot.

She was a heavyset Nayla-type but without Nayla's square face-features more

rounded and closer to the older norms. She trembled in the warmth of her Lord's

approval and, when he told her to return and "make doubly certain" no more harm

came to Hwi, she whirled and dashed from his presence.

didn't even ask her name, Leto thought, as he rolled himself onto the new cart

in the depression of his small audience room. It took a few moments of

reflection to recall the new sub-bashar's name-Kieuemo. The promotion would have

to be reaffirmed. He lodged a mental reminder to do this personally. The Fish

Speakers, all of them, would have to learn immediately how much he valued Hwi

Noree. Not that there could be much doubt after tonight.

He made his prescient scan then and dispatched messengers to his rampaging Fish

Speakers. By then the damage had been done-corpses all over Onn, some Face

Dancers and some only-suspected Face Dancers.

And many have seen me kill, he thought.

While he waited for Hwi's arrival, he reviewed what had just happened. This had

not been a typical Tleilaxu attack, but the previous attack on the road to Onn

fitted into a new pattern, all of it pointing at a single mind with lethal

purpose.

I could have died out there, he thought.

That began to explain why he had not anticipated this attack, but there was a

deeper reason. Leto could see that reason rising into his awareness, a summation

of all the clues. What human knew the God Emperor best? What human possessed a

secret place from which to conspire?

Malky!

Leto summoned a guard and told her to ask if the Reverend Mother Anteac had yet

left Arrakis. The guard returned in a moment to report.

"Anteac is still in her quarters. The Commander of the Fish Speaker Guard there

says they have not come under attack."

"Send word to Anteac," Leto said. "Ask if she now understands why I put her

delegation in quarters at a distance from me? Then tell her that while she is on

Ix she must locate Malky. She is to report that location to our local garrison

on Ix."

"Malky, the former Ixian Ambassador?"

"The same. He is not to remain alive and free. You will inform our garrison

commander on Ix that she is to make close liaison with Anteac, providing every

necessary assistance.

Malky is to be brought here to me or executed, whichever our commander finds

necessary."

The guard-messenger nodded, shadows lurching across her features where she stood

in the ring of light around Leto's face. She did not ask for a repetition of the

orders. Each of his close guards had been trained as a human-recorder. They

could repeat Leto's words exactly, even the intonations, and would never forget

what they had heard him say.

When the messenger had gone, Leto sent a private signal of inquiry and, within

seconds, had a response from Nayla. The Ixian device within his cart reproduced

a non-identifiable version of her voice, a flatly metallic recital for his ears

alone.

Yes, Siona was at the Citadel. No, Siona had not contacted her rebel companions.

"No, she does not yet know that I am here observing her." The attack on the

Embassy? That had been by a splinter group called "The Tleilaxu-Contact

Element."

Leto allowed himself a mental sigh. Rebels always gave their groups such

pretentious labels.

"Any survivors?" he asked.

"No known survivors."

Leto found it amusing that, while the metallic voice provided no emotional

tones, his memory supplied them.

"You will make contact with Siona," he said. "Reveal that you are a Fish

Speaker. Tell her you did not reveal this earlier because you knew she would not

trust you and because you feared exposure since you are quite alone among Fish

Speakers in your allegiance to Siona. Reaffirm your oath to her. Tell her that

you swear by all that you hold holy to obey Siona in anything. If she commands

it, you will do it. All of this is truth, as you well know."

"Yes, Lord."

Memory supplied the fanatic emphasis in Nayla's response. She would obey.

"If possible, provide opportunities for Siona and .Duncan Idaho to be alone

together," he said.

"Yes, Lord."

Let propinquity take its usual course, he thought.

He broke contact with Nayla, thought for a moment, then sent for the commander

of his plaza forces. The bashar arrived presently, her dark uniform stained and

dusty, evidence of gore still on her boots. She was a tall, bone-thin woman with

age

lines which gave her aquiline features an air of powerful dignity. Leto recalled

her troop-name, Iylyo, which meant "Dependable" in Old Fremen. He called her,

however, by her matronymic, Nyshae, "Daughter of Shae," which set a tone of

subtle intimacy for this meeting.

"Rest yourself on a cushion, Nyshae," he said. "You have been working hard."

"Thank you, Lord."

She sank onto the red cushion which Hwi had used. Leto noted the fatigue lines

around Nyshae's mouth, but her eyes remained alert. She stared up at him, eager

to hear his words.

"Matters are once more tranquil in my City." He made it not quite a question,

leaving the interpretation to Nyshae.

"Tranquil but not good, Lord."

He glanced at the gore on her boots.

"The street in front of the Ixian Embassy?"

"It is being cleansed, Lord. Repairs already are under way."

"The plaza?"

"By morning, it will appear as it has always appeared."

Her gaze remained steady on his face. Both of them knew he had not yet reached

the nubbin of this interview. But Leto now identified a thing lurking within

Nyshae's expression.

Pride in her Lord!

For the first time, she had seen the God Emperor kill. The seeds of a terrible

dependency had been planted. If disaster threatens, my Lord will come. That was

how it appeared in her eyes. She would no longer act with complete independence,

taking her power from the God Emperor and being personally responsible for the

use of that power. There was something possessive in her expression. A terrible

death machine waited in the wings, available at her summons.

Leto did not like what he saw, but the damage had been done. Any remedies would

require slow and subtle pressures.

"Where did the attackers get lasguns?" he asked.

"From our own stores, Lord. The Arsenal Guard has been replaced."

Replaced. It was a euphemism with a certain nicety. Errant Fish Speakers were

isolated and reserved until Leto found a problem which required Death Commandos.

They would die gladly, of course, believing that thus they expiated their sin.

And even the rumor that such berserkers had been dispatched could quiet a

trouble spot.

"The arsenal was breached by explosives?" he asked.

g

"Stealth and explosives, Lord. The Arsenal Guard was careless."

"The source of the explosives?"

Some of Nyshae's fatigue was visible in her shrug.

Leto could only agree. He knew he could search out and identify those sources,

but it would serve little purpose. Resourceful people could always find the

ingredients for homemade explosives-common things such as sugar and bleaches,

quite ordinary oils and innocent fertilizers, plastics and solvents and extracts

from the dirt beneath a manure pile. The list was virtually endless, growing

with each addition to human experience and knowledge. Even a society such as the

one he had created, one which tried to limit the admixture of technology and new

ideas, had no real hope of totally eliminating dangerously violent small

weapons. The whole idea of controlling such things was chimera, a dangerous and

distracting myth. The key was to limit the desire for violence. In that respect,

this night had been a disaster.

So much new injustice, he thought.

As though she read his thought, Nyshae sighed.

Of course. Fish Speakers were trained from childhood to avoid injustice wherever

possible.

"We must see to the survivors in the populace," he said. "See to it that their

needs are met. They must be brought to the realization that the Tleilaxu were to

blame."

Nyshae nodded. She had not reached bashar rank while remaining ignorant of the

drill. By now, she believed it. Merely by hearing Leto say it, she believed in

the Tleilaxu guilt. And there was a certain practicality in her understanding.

She knew why they did not slay all of the Tleilaxu.

You do not eliminate every scapegoat.

"And we must provide a distraction," Leto said. "Luckily, there may be one ready

at hand. I will send word to you after conferring with the Lady Hwi Noree."

"The Ixian Ambassador, Lord? Is she not implicated in . . ."

"She is entirely guiltless," he said.

He saw belief settle into Nyshae's features, a readymade plastic underlayment

which could lock her jaw and glaze her eyes. Even Nyshae. He knew the reasons

because he had created those reasons, but sometimes he felt a bit awed by his

creation.

"I hear the Lady Hwi arriving in my anteroom," he said. "Send her in as you

leave. And, Nyshae . . ."

She already was on her feet, but she stood expectantly silent.

"Tonight, I have elevated Kieuemo to sub-bashar," he said. "See that it is made

official. As for yourself, I am pleased. Ask and you shall receive."

He saw the formula send a wave of pleasure through Nyshae, but she tempered it

immediately, proving once more her worth to him.

"I shall test Kieuemo, Lord," she said. "If she suits, I may take a holiday. I

have not seen my family on Salusa Secundus for many years."

"At a time of your own choosing," he said.

And he thought: Salusa Secundus. Of course!

That one reference to her origins reminded him of who she resembled: Harq at-

Ada. She has Corrino blood. We are closer relatives than Ibad thought.

"My Lord is generous," she said.

She left him then, a new spring in her stride. He heard her voice in the

anteroom: "Lady Hwi, our Lord will see you now."

Hwi entered, back-lighted and framed in the archway for a moment, hesitancy in

her step until her eyes adjusted to the inner chamber. She came like a moth to

the brightness around Leto's face, looking away only to seek along his shadowy

length for signs of injury. He knew that no such sign was visible, but there

were still aches and interior tremblings.

His eyes detected a slight limp, Hwi favoring her right leg, but a long gown of

jade green concealed the injury. She stopped at the edge of the declivity which

held his cart, looking directly into his eyes.

"They said you were wounded, Hwi. Are you in pain?"

"A cut on my leg below the knee, Lord. A small piece of masonry from the

explosion. Your Fish Speakers treated it with a salve which removed the pain.

Lord, I feared for you."

"And I feared for you, gentle Hwi."

"Except for that first explosion, I was not in danger, Lord. They rushed me into

a room deep beneath the Embassy."

So she did not see my performance, he thought. I can be thankful for that.

"I sent for you to ask your forgiveness," he said.

She sank onto a golden cushion. "What is there to forgive, Lord? You are not the

reason for. . ."

"I am being tested, Hwi."

"You?"

"There are those who wish to know the depths of my concern for the safety of Hwi

Noree."

She pointed upward. "That . . . was because of me?"

"Because of us."

"Oh. But who. . ."

"You have agreed to wed me, Hwi, and I. . ." He raised a hand to silence her as

she started to speak. "Anteac has told us what you revealed to her, but this did

not originate with Anteac."

"Then who is . ." -

"The who is not important. It is important that you reconsider. I must give you

this opportunity to change your mind."

She lowered her gaze.

How sweet her features are, he thought.

It was possible for him to create only in his imagination an entire human

lifetime with Hwi. Enough examples lay in the welter of his memories upon which

to build a fantasy of wedded life. It gathered nuances in his fancy-small

details of mutual experience, a touch, a kiss, all of the sweet sharings upon

which arose something of painful beauty. He ached with it, a pain far deeper

than the physical reminders of his violence at the Embassy.

Hwi lifted her chin and looked into his eyes. He saw there a compassionate

longing to help him.

"But how else may I serve you, Lord?"

He reminded himself that she was a primate, while he no longer was fully

primate. The differences grew deeper by the minute.

The ache remained within him.

Hwi was an inescapable reality, something so basic that no word could ever fully

express it. The ache within him was almost more than he could bear.

" love you, Hwi. I love you as a man loves a woman . . . but it cannot be. That

will never be."

Tears flowed from her eyes. "Should I leave? Should I return to Ix?"

"They would only hurt you, trying to find out what went wrong with their plan."

She has seen my pain, he thought. She knows the futility and frustration. What

will she do? She will not lie. She will not say she returns my love as a woman

to a man. She recognizes the futility. And .she knows her own feelings for me

compassion, awe, a questioning which ignores fear.

"Then I will stay," she said. "We will take such pleasure as we can from being

together. I think it is best that we do

this. If it means we should wed, so be it."

"Then I must share knowledge with you which I have shared with no other person,"

he said. "It will give you a power over me which. . ."

"Do not do this, Lord! What if someone forced me to. . .'"

"You will never again leave my household. My quarters here, the Citadel, the

safe places of the Sareer-these will be your home."

"As you will."

How gentle and open her quiet acceptance, he thought.

The aching pulse within him had to be calmed. In itself, it was a danger to him

and to the Golden Path.

Those clever Ixians!

Malky had seen how the all-powerful were forced to contend with a constant siren

song-the will to self-delight.

Constant awareness of the power in your slightest whim.

Hwi took his silence to be uncertainty. "Will we wed, Lord?"

"Yes .'"

"Should anything be done about the Tleilaxu stories which..."

"Nothing."

She stared at him, remembering their earlier conversation.

The seeds of dissolution were being planted.

"It is my fear, Lord, that I will weaken you," she said.

"Then you must find ways to strengthen me."

"Can it strengthen you if we diminish belief in the God' Leto?"

He heard a hint of Malky in her voice, that measured weighing which had made him

so revoltingly charming. We never completely escape tine teachers of our

childhood.

"Your question begs the answer," he said. "Many will continue to worship

according to my design. Others will believe the lies."

"Lord . . . would you ask me to lie for you?"

"Of course not. But I will ask you to remain silent when you might wish to

speak."

"But if they revile.. ."

"You will not protest."

Once more, tears flowed down her cheeks. Leto longed to touch them, but they

were water . . . painful water.

"It must be done this way," he said.

"Will you explain it to me, Lord?"

"When I am gone, they must call me Shaitan, the Emperor of Gehenna. The wheel

must turn and turn and turn along the Golden Path."

"Lord, could the anger not be directed at me alone? I would not..."

"No! The lxians made you much more perfectly than they thought. I truly love

you. I cannot help it."

"I do not wish to cause you pain!" The words were wrenched from her.

"What's done is done. Do not mourn it."

"Help me to understand."

"The hate which will blossom after I am gone, that, too, will fade into the

inevitable past. A long time will pass. Then, on a far-distant day, my journals

will be found."

"Journals?" She was shaken by the seeming shift of subject.

"My chronicle of my time. My arguments, the apologia. Copies exist and scattered

fragments will survive, some in distorted form, but the original journals will

wait and wait and wait. I have hidden them well."

"And when they are discovered?"

"People will learn that I was something quite different from what they

supposed."

Her voice came in a trembling hush. "I already know what they will learn."

"Yes, my darling Hwi, I think you do."

"You are neither devil nor god, but something never seen before and never to be

seen again because your presence removes the need."

She brushed tears from her cheeks.

"Hwi, do you realize how dangerous you are?"

Alarm showed in her expression, the tensing of her arms.

"You have the makings of a saint," he said. _"Do you understand how painful it

can be to find a saint in the wrong place and the wrong time?"

She shook her head.

"People have to be prepared for saints," he said. "Otherwise, they simply become

followers, supplicants, beggars and weakened sycophants forever in the shadow of

the saint. People are destroyed by this because it nurtures only weakness."

After a moment of thought, she nodded, then: "Will there be saints when you are

gone?"

"That's the purpose of my Golden Path."

"Moneo's daughter, Siona, will she..."

"For now she is only a rebel. As to sainthood, we will let her decide. Perhaps

she will only do what she was bred to do."

"What is that, Lord?"

"Stop calling me Lord," he said. "We will be Worm and wife. Call me Leto if you

wish. Lord interferes."

"Yes, L . . . Leto. But what is. . ."

"Siona was bred to rule. There is danger in such breeding. When you rule, you

gain knowledge of power. This can lead into impetuous irresponsibility, into

painful excesses and that can lead to the terrible destroyer-wild hedonism."

"Siona would. . ."

"All we know about Siona is that she can remain dedicated to a particular

performance, to the pattern which fills her senses. She is necessarily an

aristocrat, but aristocracy looks mostly to the past. That's a failure. You

don't see much of any path unless you are Janus, looking simultaneously backward

and forward."

"Janus? Oh, yes, the god with the two opposed faces." She wet her lips with her

tongue. "Are you Janus, Leto?"

"I am Janus magnified a billion-fold. And I am also something less. I have been,

for example, what my administrators admire most-the decision-maker whose every

decision can be made to work."

"But if you fail them. . ."

"They will turn against me, yes."

"Will Siona replace you if. . ."

"Ahhh, what an enormous if! You observe that Siona threatens my person. However,

she does not threaten the Golden Path. There is also the fact that my Fish

Speakers have a certain attachment to the Duncan."

"Siona seems . . . so young."

"And I am her favorite poseur, the sham who holds power under false pretenses,

never consulting the needs of his people."

"Could I not talk to her and. . ."

"No! You must never try to persuade Siona of anything. Promise me, Hwi."

"If you ask it, of course, but I. . ."

"All gods have this problem, Hwi. In the perception of deeper needs, I must

often ignore immediate ones. Not addressing immediate needs is an offense to the

young."

"Could you not reason with her and. . ."

"Never attempt to reason with people who know they are

right!"

"But when you know they are wrong. . ."

"Do you believe in me?"

"Yes."

"And if someone tried to convince you that I am the greatest evil of all

time..."

"I would become very angry. I would. . ." She broke off.

"Reason is valuable," he said, "only when it performs against the wordless

physical background of the universe."

Her brows drew together in thought. It fascinated Leto to sense the arousal of

her awareness. "Ahhh." She breathed the word.

"No reasoning creature will ever again be able to deny the Leto experience," he

said. "I see your understanding begin. Beginnings! They are what life is all

about!"

She nodded.

No arguments, he thought. When she sees the tracks, she follows them to find

where they will lead.

"As long as there is life, every ending is a beginning," he said. "And I would

save humankind, even from itself."

Again, she nodded. The tracks still led onward.

"This is why no death in the perpetuation of humankind can be a complete

failure," he said. "This is why a birth touches us so deeply. This is why the

most tragic death is the death of a youth."

"Does Ix still threaten your Golden Path? I've always known they conspired in

something evil."

They conspire. Hwi does not hear the inner message of her own words. She has no

need to hear it.

He stared at her, full of the marvel that was Hwi. She possessed a form of

honesty which some would call naive, but which Leto recognized as merely nonself-

conscious. The honesty was not her core, it was Hwi herself.

"Then I will arrange a performance in the plaza tomorrow," Leto said. "It will

be a performance of the surviving Face Dancers. Afterward, our betrothal will be

announced."

===

Let there be no doubt that I am the assemblage of our ancestors, the arena in

which they exercise my moments. They are my cells and I am their body. This is

the favrashi of which I speak, the soul, the collective unconscious, the source

of archetypes, the repository of all trauma and joy. I am the choice of their

awakening. My samhadi is their samhadi. Their experiences are mine! Their

knowledge distilled is mfr inheritance. Those billions are my one.

-The Stolen Journals

THE FACE DANCER performance occupied almost two hours of the morning, and

afterward came the announcement which sent shock waves through the Festival

City.

"It has been centuries since he took a bride!"

"More than a thousand years, my dear."

The trooping of the Fish Speakers had been brief. They cheered him loudly, but

they were disturbed.

"You are my only brides," he had said. Was that not the meaning of Siaynoq?

Leto thought the Face Dancers performed well despite their obvious terror.

Garments had been found in the depths of a Fremen museum hooded black robes with

white cord belts, spread-winged green hawks appliquéd across the shoulders at

the back-uniforms of Muad'Dib's itinerant priests. The Face Dancers had put on

dark, seamed faces with these robes and performed a dance which told how

Muad'Dib's legions had spread their religion through the Empire.

Hwi, wearing a brilliant silver dress with a green jade necklace, sat beside

Leto on the Royal Cart throughout the ritual.

Once, she leaned close to his face and asked: "Is that not a parody?"

"To me, perhaps."

"Do the Face Dancers know?"

"They suspect."

"Then they are not as frightened as they appear."

"Oh, yes, they are frightened. It's just that they are braver than most people

expect them to be."

"Bravery can be so foolish," she whispered.

"And vice-versa."

She had favored him with a measuring stare before returning her attention to the

performance. Almost two hundred Face Dancers had survived unscathed. All of them

had been pressed into the dance. The intricate weavings and posturings could

fascinate the eye. It was possible to watch them and, for a time, forget the

bloody preliminaries to this day.

Leto remembered this as he lay alone in his small reception room shortly before

noon when Moneo arrived. Moneo had seen the Reverend Mother Anteac onto a Guild

lighter, had conferred with the Fish Speaker Command about the previous night's

violence, had made a quick flight to the Citadel and back to make sure Siona was

under a secure watch and that she had not been implicated in the Embassy attack.

He had returned to Onn just after the betrothal announcement, having had no

previous warning.

Moneo was furious. Leto had never seen him this angry. He stormed into the room

and stopped only two meters from Leto's face.

"Now the Tleilaxu lies will be believed!" he said.

Leto responded in a reasoned tone. "How persistent it is, this demand that our

gods be perfect. The Greeks were much more reasonable about such things."

"Where is she?" Moneo demanded. "Where is this. . ."

"Hwi is resting. It was a difficult night and a long morning. I want her well

rested when we return to the Citadel this evening."

"How did she work this?" Moneo demanded.

"Really, Moneo! Have you lost all sense of caution?"

"I am concerned about you! Have you any idea what they're saying in the City?"

"I'm fully aware of the stories."

"What are you doing?"

"You know, Moneo, I think that only the old pantheists had

the right idea about deities: mortal foibles in immortal guise." Moneo raised

both arms to the heavens. "I saw the looks on their faces!" He lowered his arms.

"It'll be all over the Empire within two weeks."

"Surely it'll take longer than that."

"If your enemies needed one thing to bring them all together..."

"The defiling of the god is an ancient human tradition, Moneo. Why should I be

an exception?"

Moneo tried to speak, found he could not utter a word. He stamped down along the

edge of the pit which held Leto's cart, stamped back and resumed his former

position glaring into Leto's face.

"If I am to help you, I need an explanation," Moneo said. "Why are you doing

this?"

"Emotions."

Moneo's mouth formed the word without speaking it.

"They have come over me just when I thought them gone forever," Leto said. "How

sweet these last few sips of humanity are."

"With Hwi? But you surely cannot. . ."

"Memories of emotions are never enough, Moneo."

"Are you telling me that you are indulging yourself in a . . ."

"Indulgence) Certainly not! But the tripod upon which Eternity swings is

composed of flesh and thought and emotion. I felt that I had been reduced to

flesh and thought."

"She has worked some kind of witchery," Moneo accused.

"Of course she has. And how grateful I am for it. If we deny the need for

thought, Moneo, as some do, we lose the powers of reflection; we cannot define

what our senses report. If we deny the flesh, we unwheel the vehicle which bears

us. But if we deny emotion, we lose all touch with our internal universe. It was

emotions which I missed the most."

"I insist, Lord, that you. . ."

"You are making me angry, Moneo. That is an emotion."

Leto saw Moneo's frustrated fury cool, quenched like a hot iron plunged into icy

water. There was still some steam in him, though.

"I care not for myself, Lord. My concern is mostly for you, and you know this."

Leto spoke softly. "It is your emotion, Moneo, and I hold it dear."

Moneo inhaled a deep, trembling breath. He had never before

seen the God Emperor in this mood, reflecting this emotion. Leto appeared

both elated and resigned, if Moneo were reading it correctly. One could not be

certain.

"That which makes life sweet for the living," Leto said, "that which makes life

warm and filled with beauty, that is what I would preserve even though it were

denied to me."

"Then this Hwi Noree . . ."

"She makes me recall the Butlerian Jihad in a poignant way. She is the

antithesis of all that's mechanical and non-human. How odd it is, Moneo, that

the lxians, of all people, should produce this one person who so perfectly

embodies those qualities which I hold most dear."

"I do not understand your reference to the Butlerian Jihad, Lord, Machines that

think have no place in.. ."

"The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines," Leto

said. "Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary

selfdom out of which we make living judgments. Naturally, the machines were

destroyed."

"Lord, I still resent the fact that you welcome this. . ."

"Moneo! Hwi reassures me merely by her presence. For the first time in

centuries, I am not lonely unless she is away from my side. If I had no other

proof of the emotion, this would serve."

Moneo fell silent, obviously touched by Leto's evocation of loneliness. Surely,

Moneo could understand the absence of the intimate sharing in love. His

expression betrayed as much.

For the first time in a long while, Leto noted how much Moneo had aged.

It happens so suddenly to them. Leto thought.

It made Leto deeply aware of how much he cared for Moneo.

I should not let attachments happen to me, but I cannot help it . . . especially

now that Hwi is here.

"They will laugh at you and make obscene jests," Moneo said.

"That is a good thing."

"How can it be good?"

"This is something new. Our task has always been to bring the new into balance

and, with it, modify behavior while not suppressing survival."

"Even so, how can you welcome this?"

"The making of obscenities?" Leto asked. "What is the opposite of obscenity?"

Moneo's eyes went wide with a sudden questioning awareness. He had seen the

action of many polarities-the thing made known by its opposite.

The thing stands out against a background which defines it, Leto thought. Surely

Moneo will see this.

"It's too dangerous," Moneo said.

The ultimate verdict of conservatism!

Moneo was not convinced. A deep sigh wracked him.

I must remember not to take away their doubts, Leto thought. That's how I failed

my Fish Speakers in the plaza. The lxians are holding on to the ragged end of

human doubts. Hwi is the evidence of that.

A disturbance sounded in the anteroom. Leto sealed the portal against impetuous

intrusions.

"My Duncan has come," he said.

"He's probably heard about your wedding plans-"

"Probably."

Leto watched Moneo wrestle with doubts, his thoughts utterly transparent. In

that moment, Moneo fit so precisely into his human niche that Leto wanted to hug

him.

He has the full spectrum: doubt-to-trust, love-to-hate . . . everything! All of

those dear qualities which come to fruition in the warmth of emotion, in the

willingness to spend yourself on Life.

"Why is Hwi accepting this?" Moneo asked.

Leto smiled. Moneo cannot doubt me; he must doubt others.

"I admit it is not a conventional union. She is a primate and I no longer am

fully primate."

Again, Moneo wrestled with things he could only feel and not express.