===

One of the most terrible words in any language is Soldier. The synonyms parade

through our history: yogahnee, trooper, hussar, kareebo, cossack, deranzeef,

legionnaire, sardaukar, fish speaker... I know them all. They stand there in the

ranks of my memory to remind me: Always make sure you have the army with you.

-The Stolen Journals

IDAHO FOUND Moneo at last in the long underground corridor which connected the

Citadel's eastern and western complexes. Since daybreak two hours before, Idaho

had been prowling the Citadel seeking the majordomo and there he was, far off

down the corridor, talking to someone concealed in a doorway, but Moneo was

recognizable even at this distance by his stance and that inevitable white

uniform.

The corridor's plastone walls were amber here fifty meters below the surface and

lighted by glowstrips keyed to the daylight hours. Cool breezes were drawn into

these depths by a simple arrangement of free swinging wings which stood like

gigantic robed figures on perimeter towers at the surface. Now that the sun had

warmed the sands, all of the wings pointed northward for the cool air pouring

into the Sareer. Idaho smelled the flinty breeze as he walked.

He knew what this corridor was supposed to represent. It did have some

characteristics of an ancient Fremen sietch. The corridor was wide, big enough

to take Leto on his cart. The arched ceiling looked like rock. But the twin

glowstrips were discord. Idaho had never seen glowstrips before coming to the

Citadel; they had been considered impractical in his day, requiring too much

energy, too costly to maintain. Glowglobes were simpler and easily replaced. He

had come to realize, however, that Leto considered few things impractical.

What Leto wants, someone provides.

The thought had an ominous feeling as Idaho marched down the corridor toward

Moneo.

Small rooms lined the corridor sietch-fashion, no doors, only thin hangings of

russet fabric which swayed in the breeze. Idaho knew that this area was mostly

quarters for the younger Fish Speakers. He had recognized an assembly chamber

with attendant rooms for weapons storage, kitchen, a dining hall, maintenance

shops. He had also seen other things behind the inadequate privacy of the

hangings, things which fed his rage.

Moneo turned at Idaho's approach. The woman to whom Moneo had been talking

retreated and let the hanging drop, but not before Idaho glimpsed an older face

with an air of command about it. Idaho did not recognize that particular

commander.

Moneo nodded as Idaho stopped two paces away.

"The guards say you've been looking for me," Moneo said.

"Where is he, Moneo?"

"Where is who?"

Moneo swept his gaze up and down Idaho's figure, noting the old-fashioned

Atreides uniform, black with a red hawk at the breast, the high boots glistening

with polish. There was a ritual look about the man.

Idaho took a shallow breath and spoke through clenched teeth: "Don't you start

that game with me!"

Moneo took his attention away from the sheathed knife at Idaho's waist. It

looked like a museum piece with its jeweled handle. Where had Idaho found it?"

"If you mean the God Emperor..." Moneo said.

"Where?"

Moneo kept his voice mild. "Why are you so anxious to die?"

"They said you were with him."

"That was earlier."

"I'll find him, Moneo!"

"Not right now."

Idaho put a hand on his knife. "Do I have to use force to make you talk?"

"I would not advise that."

"Where . . . is . . . he?"

"Since you insist, he is out in the desert with Siona."

"With your daughter?" "Is there another Siona?" "What're they doing?" "She is

being tested." "When will they return?" Moneo shrugged, then: "Why this unseemly

anger, Duncan?" "What's this test of your..

."

"I don't know. Now, why are you so upset?"

"I'm sick of this place! Fish Speakers!" He turned his head and spat.

Moneo glanced down the corridor behind Idaho, recalling the man's approach.

Knowing the Duncans, it was easy to recognize what had fed his current rage.

"Duncan," Moneo said, "it's perfectly normal for adolescent females as well as

males to have feelings of physical attraction toward members of their own sex.

Most of them will grow out of it."

"It should be stamped out!"

"But it's part of our heritage."

"Stamped out! And that's not..

."

"Oh, be still. If you try to suppress it, you only increase its power."

Idaho glared at him. "And you say you don't know what's going on up there with

your own daughter!"

"Siona is being tested, I told you."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

Moneo put a hand over his eyes and sighed. He lowered the hand, wondering why he

put up with this foolish, dangerous, antique human.

"It means that she may die out there."

Idaho was taken aback, some of his anger cooling. "How can you allow.. ."

"Allow? You think I have a choice?"

"Every man has a choice!"

A bitter smile flitted across Moneo's lips. "How is it that you are so much more

foolish than the other Duncans?"

"Other Duncans!" Idaho said. "How did those others die, Moneo?"

"The way we all die. They ran out of time."

"You lie." Idaho spoke past gritted teeth, his knuckles white on the knife

handle.

Still speaking mildly, Moneo said: "Have a care. There are

limits even to what I will take, especially just now."

"This place is rotten!" Idaho said. He gestured with his free hand at the

corridor behind him. "There are some things I'll never accept!"

Moneo stared down the empty corridor without seeing. "You must mature, Duncan.

You must."

Idaho's hand tensed on the knife. "What does that mean?"

"These are sensitive times. Anything unsettling to him, anything . . . must be

prevented."

Idaho held himself on the edge of violence, his anger restrained only by

something puzzling in Moneo's manner. Words had been spoken, though, which could

not be ignored.

"I'm not some damned immature child you can..."

"Duncan!" It was the loudest sound Idaho had ever heard from the mild-mannered

Moneo. Surprise stayed Idaho's hand while Moneo continued: "If the demands of

your flesh are for maturity, but something holds you in adolescence, quite nasty

behavior develops. Let go."

"Are . . . you . . . accusing ... me ... of.,

"No!" Moneo gestured at the corridor. "Oh, I know. what you must've seen back

there, but it. . ."

"Two women in a passionate kiss! You think that's not. . ."

"It's not important. Youth explores its potential in many ways."

Idaho balanced himself on the edge of an explosion, rocking forward on his toes.

"I'm glad to learn about you, Moneo."

"Yes, well, I've learned about you, several times."

Moneo watched the effect of these words as they twisted through Idaho, tangling

him. The gholas could never avoid a fascination with the others who had preceded

them.

Idaho spoke in a hoarse whisper: "What have you learned?"

"You have taught me valuable things," Moneo said. "All of us try to evolve, but

if something blocks us, we can transfer our potential into pain-seeking it or

giving it. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable."

Idaho leaned close to Moneo. "I'm talking about sex!"

"Of course you are."

"Are you accusing me of adolescent. . ."

"That's right."

"I should cut your..

."

"Oh, shut up!"

Moneo's response did not have the training nuances of Bene Gesserit Voice

control, but it had a lifetime of command behind

it. Something in Idaho could only obey.

"I'm sorry," Moneo said. "But I'm distracted by the fact that my only daughter.

. ." He broke off and shrugged.

Idaho inhaled two deep breaths. "You're crazy, all of you! You say your daughter

may be dying and yet you.. ."

"You fool!" Moneo snapped. "Have you any idea how your petty concerns appear to

me! Your stupid questions and your selfish. . ." He broke off, shaking his head.

"I make allowances because you have personal problems," Idaho said. "But if you.

. ."

"Allowances? You make allowances?" Moneo took a trembling breath. It was too

much!

Idaho spoke stiffly: "I can forgive you for. . ."

"You! You prattle about sex and forgiving and pain and . . . you think you and

Hwi Noree . . ."

"Leave her out of this!"

"Oh, yes. Leave her out. Leave out that pain! You share sex with her and you

never think about parting. Tell me, fool, how do you give of yourself in the

face of that?"

Abashed, Idaho inhaled deeply. He had not suspected such passion smoldering in

the quiet Moneo, but this attack, this could not be . . .

"You think I'm cruel?" Moneo demanded. "I make you think about things you'd

rather avoid. Hah! Crueler things have been done to the Lord Leto for no better

reason than the cruelty!"

"You defend him? You..."

"I know him best!"

"He uses you!"

"To what ends?"

"You tell me!"

"He's our best hope to perpetuate. . ."

"Perverts don't perpetuate!"

Moneo spoke in a soothing tone, but his words shook Idaho. "I will tell you this

only once. Homosexuals have been among the best warriors in our history, the

berserkers of last resort. They were among our best priests and priestesses.

Celibacy was no accident in religions. It is also no accident that adolescents

make the best soldiers."

"That's perversion!"

"Quite right. Military commanders have known about the perverted displacement of

sex into pain for thousands upon thousands of centuries."

"Is that what the Great Lord Leto's doing?"

Still mild, Moneo said: "Violence requires that you inflict pain and suffer it.

How much more manageable a military force driven to this by its deepest

urgings."

"He's made a monster out of you, too!"

"You suggested that he uses me," Moneo said. "I permit this because I know that

the price he pays is much greater than what he demands of me."

"Even your daughter?"

"He holds back nothing. Why should I? Ohhh, I think you understand this about

the Atreides. The Duncans are always good at that."

"The Duncans! Damn you, I won't be..."

"You just haven't the guts to pay the price he's asking," Moneo said.

In one blurred motion, Idaho whipped his knife from its sheath and lunged at

Moneo. As fast as he moved, Moneo moved faster-sidestepping, tripping Idaho and

propelling him face-down onto the floor. Idaho scrambled forward, rolled and

started to leap to his feet, then hesitated, realizing that he had actually

tried to attack an Atreides. Moneo was Atreides. Shock held Idaho immobile.

Moneo stood unmoving, looking down at him. There was an odd look of sadness on

the majordomo's face.

"If you're going to kill me, Duncan, you'd best do it in the back by stealth,"

Moneo said. "You might succeed that way."

Idaho levered himself to one knee, put a foot flat on the floor, but remained

there still clutching his knife. Moneo had moved so quickly and with such graceso

. . . so casually! Idaho cleared his throat. "How did you. . ."

"He has been breeding us for a long time, Duncan, strengthening many things in

us. He has bred us for speed, for intelligence, for self-restraint, for

sensitivity. You're. . . you're just an older model."

===

Do you know what guerrillas often say? They claim that their rebellions are

invulnerable to economic warfare because they have no economy, that they are

parasitic on those they would overthrow. The fools merely fail to assess the

coin in which they must inevitably pay. The pattern is inexorable in its

degenerative failures. You see it repeated in the systems of slavery, of welfare

states, of caste-ridden religions, of socializing bureaucracies-in any system

which creates and maintains dependencies. Too long a parasite and you cannot

exist without a host.

-The Stolen Journals

LETO AND Siona lay all day in the dune-shadows, moving only as the sun moved. He

taught her how to protect herself under a blanket of sand in the noontime heat;

it never grew too warm at the rock-level between the dunes.

In the afternoon, Siona crept close to Leto for warmth, a warmth he knew he had

in excess these days.

They talked sporadically. He told her about the Fremen graces which once had

dominated this landscape. She probed for secret knowledge of him.

Once, he said: "You may find it odd, but out here is where I can be most human."

His words failed to make her fully conscious of her human vulnerability and the

fact that she might die out here. Even when she was not talking, she did not

restore the face flap of her stillsuit.

Leto recognized the unconscious motivation behind this failure, but knew the

futility of addressing that directly.

In the late afternoon, night's chill already starting to creep over the land, he

began regaling her with songs of the Long Trek which had not been saved in the

Oral History. He enjoyed the fact that she liked one of his favorites, "Liet's

March."

"The tune is really ancient," he said, "a pre-space thing of Old Terra."

"Would you sing it again?"

He chose one of his best baritones, a long-dead artist who had filled many a

concert hall.

"The wall of past-beyond-recall Hides me from an ancient fall Where all the

waters tumble! And plays of sprays Carve caves in clays Beneath a torrent's

rumble."

When he had finished, she was silent for a moment, then: "That's an odd song for

marching."

"They liked it because they could dissect it," he said.

"Dissect?"

"Before our Fremen ancestors came to this planet, night was the time for

storytelling, songs and poetry. In the Dune days, though, that was reserved for

the false dark, the daytime gloom of the sietch. The night was when they could

emerge and move about . . . just as we do now."

"But you said dissect."

"What does that song mean?" he asked.

"Oh. It's . . . it's just a song."

"Siona!"

She heard anger in his voice and remained silent.

"This planet is the child of the worm," he warned her, "and I am that worm."

She responded with a surprising insouciance: "Then tell me what it means."

"The insect has no more freedom from its hive than we have freedom from our

past," he said. "The caves are there and all of the messages written in the

sprays of the torrents."

"I prefer dancing songs," she said.

It was a flippant answer, but Leto chose to take it as a change of subject. He

told her about the marriage dance of

Fremen women, tracing the steps back to the whirling of dust devils. Leto prided

himself on telling a good story. It was clear from her rapt attention that she

could see the women whirling before her inner eye, long black hair thrown in the

ancient movements, straggling across long-dead faces.

Darkness was almost upon them when he finished.

"Come," he said. "Morning and evening are still the times of silhouettes. Let us

see if anyone shares our desert."

Siona followed him up to a dune-crest and they stared all around at the

darkening desert. There was only one bird high overhead, attracted by their

movements. From the splayed-gap tips on its wings and the shape, he knew it was

a vulture. He pointed this out to Siona.

"But what do they eat?" she asked.

"Anything that's dead or nearly so."

This hit her and she stared up at the last of the sunlight gilding the lone

bird's flight feathers.

Leto pressed it: "A few people still venture into my Sareer. Sometimes, a Museum

Fremen wanders off and gets lost. They're really only good at the rituals. And

then there are the desert's edges and the remains of whatever my wolves leave."

At this, she whirled away from him, but not before he saw the passion still

consuming her. Siona was being sorely tested.

"There's little daytime graciousness about a desert," he said. "That's another

reason we travel by night. To a Fremen, the image of the day was that of

windblown sand filling your tracks."

Her eyes glistened with unshed tears when she turned back to him, but her

features were composed..

"What lives here now?" she asked.

"The vultures, a few night creatures, an occasional remnant of plant life out of

the old days, burrowing things."

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

.,Why?"

"Because this is where they were born and I permit them to know nothing better."

It was almost dark with that sudden glowing light his desert acquired in these

moments. He studied her in that luminous moment, recognizing that she had not

yet understood his other message. He knew that message would sit there, though,

and fester in her."Silhouettes," she said, reminding him. "What did you expect

to find when we came up here?"

"Perhaps people at a distance. You're never certain."

"What people?"

"I've already told you."

"What would you've done if you'd seen anyone?"

"It was the Fremen custom to treat distant people as hostile until they threw

sand into the air."

As he spoke, darkness fell over them like a curtain.

Siona became ghostly movement in the sudden starlight. "Sand?" she asked.

"Thrown sand is a profound gesture. It says: `We share the same burden. Sand is

our only enemy. This is what we drink. The hand that holds sand holds no

weapon.' Do you understand this?"

"No!" She taunted him with a defiant falsehood.

"You will," he said.

Without a word, she set out along the arc of their dune, striding away from him

with an angry excess of energy. Leto allowed himself to fall far behind her,

interested that she had instinctively chosen the right direction. Fremen

memories could be felt churning in her.

Where the dune dipped to cross another, she waited for him. He saw that the face

flap of her stillsuit remained open, hanging loose. It was not yet time to chide

her about this. Some unconscious things had to run their natural course.

As he came up to her, she said: "Is this as good a direction as any other?"

"If you keep to it," he said.

She glanced up at the stars and he saw her identify the Pointers, those Fremen

Arrows which had led her ancestors across this land. He could see, though, that

her recognition was mostly intellectual. She had not yet come to accept the

other things working within her.

Leto lifted his front segments to peer ahead in the starlight. They were moving

a little west of north on a track that once had led across Habbanya Ridge and

Cave of Birds into the erg below False Wall West and the way to Wind Pass. None

of those landmarks remained. He sniffed a cool breeze with flint smells in it

and more moisture than he found pleasant.

Once more, Siona set off-slower this time, holding her course by occasional

glances at the stars. She had trusted Leto to confirm the way, but now she

guided herself. He sensed the turmoil beneath her wary thoughts, and he knew the

things

which were emerging. She had the beginnings of that intense loyalty to traveling

companions which desert folk always trusted.

We know, he thought. If you are separated from your companions, you are lost

among dunes and rocks. The lone traveler in the desert is dead. Only the worm

lives alone out here.

He let her get well ahead of him where the grating sand of his passage would not

be too prominent. She had to think of his human-self. He counted on loyalty to

work for him. Siona was brittle, though, filled with suppressed rage-more of a

rebel than any other he had ever tested.

Leto glided along behind her, reviewing the breeding program, shaping the

necessary decisions for a replacement should she fail.

As the night progressed, Siona moved slower and slower. First Moon was high

overhead and Second Moon well above the horizon before she stopped to rest and

eat.

Leto was glad of the pause. Friction had set up a worm dominance, the air around

him full of the chemical exhalations from his temperature adjustments. The thing

he thought of as his oxygen supercharger vented steadily, making him intensely

aware of the protein factories and amino acid resources his worm-self had

acquired to accommodate the placental relationship with his human cells. Desert

quickened the movement toward his final metamorphosis.

Siona had stopped near the crest of a star dune. "Is it true that you eat the

sand?" she asked as he came up to her.

"It's true."

She stared all around the moon-frosted horizon. "Why didn't we bring a signal

device?"

"I wanted you to learn about possessions."

She turned toward him. He sensed her breath close to his face. She was losing

too much moisture into the dry air. Still, she did not remember Moneo's

admonition. It would be a bitter lesson, no doubt of that.

"I don't understand you at all," she said.

"Yet, you are committed to doing just that."

"Am I?"

"How else can you give me something of value in exchange for what I give you?"

"What do you give me?" All of the bitterness was there and a hint of the spice

from her dried food.

"I give you this opportunity to be alone with me, to share

with me, and you spend this time without concern. You waste it."

"What about possessions?" she demanded.

He heard fatigue in her voice, the water message beginning to scream within her.

"They were magnificently alive in the old days, those Fremen," he said. "And

their eye for beauty was limited to that which was useful. I never met a greedy

Fremen."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"In the old days, everything you took into the desert was a necessity and that

was all you took. Your life is no longer free of possessions, Siona, or you

would not have asked about a signal device."

"Why isn't a signal device necessary?"

"It would teach you nothing."

He moved out around her along the track indicated by the Pointers. "Come. Let us

use this night to our profit."

She came hurrying up to walk beside his cowled face. "What happens if I don't

learn your damned lesson?"

"You'll probably die," he said.

That silenced her for a time. She trudged along beside him with only an

occasional sideward glance, ignoring the worm-body, concentrating on the visible

remnants of his humanity. After a time, she said: "The Fish Speakers told me

that you ordered the mating from which I was born."

"That's true."

"They say you keep records and that you order these Atreides matings for your

own purposes."

"That also is true."

"Then the Oral History is correct."

"I thought you believed the Oral History without question?"

She was on a single track, though: "What if one of us objects when you order a

mating?"

"I allow a wide latitude just as long as there are the children I have ordered."

"Ordered?" She was outraged.

"That's what I do."

"You can't creep into every bedroom or follow every one of us every minute of

our lives! How do you know your orders are obeyed?"

"I know."

"Then you know I'm not going to obey you!"

"Are you thirsty, Siona?"

She was startled. "What?"

"Thirsty people speak of water, not of sex."

Still, she did not seal her mouth flap, and he thought: Atreides passions always

did run strong, even at the expense of reason.

Within two hours, they came down out of the dunes onto a wind-scoured flat of

pebbles. Leto moved onto it, Siona close to his side. She looked frequently at

the Pointers. Both moons were low on the horizon now and their light cast long

shadows behind every boulder.

In some ways, Leto found such places more comfortable to traverse than the sand.

Solid rock was a better heat conductor than sand. He could flatten himself

against the rock and ease the working of his chemical factories. Pebbles and

even sizable rocks did not impede him.

Siona had more trouble here, though, and almost turned an ankle several times.

The flatland could be a very trying place for humans unaccustomed to it, he

thought. If they stayed close to the ground, they saw only the great emptiness,

an eerie place especially in moonlight-dunes at a distance, a distance which

seemed not to change as the traveler moved-nothing anywhere except the seemingly

eternal wind, a few rocks and, when they looked upward, stars without mercy.

This was the desert of the desert.

"Here's where Fremen music acquired its eternal loneliness," he said, "not up on

the dunes. Here's where you really learn to think that heaven must be the sound

of running water and relief-any relief-from that endless wind."

Even this did not remind her of that face flap. Leto began to despair.

Morning found them far out on the flat.

Leto stopped beside three large boulders, all piled against each other, one of

them taller even than his back. Siona leaned against him for a moment, a gesture

which restored Leto's hopes somewhat. She pushed herself away presently and

clambered up onto the highest boulder. He watched her turn up there, examining

the landscape.

Without even looking at it Leto knew what she saw: blowing sand like fog on the

horizon obscured the rising sun. For the rest, there was only the flat and the

wind.

The rock was cold beneath him with the chill of a desert morning. The cold made

the air much drier and he found it more pleasant. Without Siona, he would have

moved on, but

she was visibly exhausted. She leaned against him once more when she came down

from the rock and it was almost a minute before he realized that she was

listening.

"What do you hear?" he asked.

She spoke sleepily. "You rumble inside."

"The fire never goes completely out."

This interested her. She pushed herself away from his side and came around to

look into his face. "Fire?"

"Every living thing has a fire within it, some slow, some very fast. Mine is

hotter than most."

She hugged herself against the chill. "Then you're not cold here?"

"No, but I can see that you are." He pulled his face partly into its cowl and

created a depression at the bottom arc of his first segment. "It's almost like a

hammock," he said, looking down. "If you curl up there, you will be warm."

Without hesitating, she accepted his invitation.

Even though he had prepared her for it, he found the trusting response touching.

He had to fight against a feeling of pity far stronger than any he had

experienced before knowing Hwi. There could be no room for pity out here,

though, he told himself. Siona was betraying clear signs that she would more

than likely die here. He had to prepare himself for disappointment.

Siona shielded her face with an arm, closed her eyes and went to sleep.

Nobody has ever had as many yesterdays as I have had, he reminded himself.

From the popular human viewpoint, he knew that the things he did here could only

appear cruel and callous. He was forced now to strengthen himself by retreating

into his memories, deliberately selecting mistakes of our common past. Firsthand

access to human mistakes was his greatest strength now. Knowledge of

mistakes taught him long-term corrections. He had to be constantly aware of

consequences. If consequences were lost or concealed, lessons were lost.

But the closer he came to being a sandworm, the harder he found it to make

decisions which others would call inhuman. Once, he had done it with ease. As

his humanity slipped away, though, he found himself filled with more and more

human concerns.

===

In the cradle of our past, I lay upon my back in a cave so shallow I could

penetrate it only by squirming, not by crawling. There, by the dancing light of

a resin torch, I drew upon walls and ceiling the creatures of the hunt and the

souls of my people. How illuminating it is to peer backward through a perfect

circle at that ancient struggle for the visible moment of the soul. All time

vibrates to that call: "Here I am!" With a mind informed by artist-giants who

came afterward, I peer at handprints and flowing muscles drawn upon the rock

with charcoal and vegetable dyes. How much more we are than mere mechanical

events! And my anti-civil self demands: "Why is it that they do not want to

leave the cave?"

-The Stolen Journals

THE INVITATION to attend Moneo in his workroom came to Idaho late in the

afternoon. All day, Idaho had sat upon the sling couch of his quarters,

thinking. Every thought radiated outward from the ease with which Moneo had

spilled him onto the corridor floor that morning.

"You're just an older model."

With every thought, Idaho felt himself diminished. He sensed the will to live as

it faded, leaving ashes where his anger had burned itself out.

I am the conveyance of some useful sperm and nothing more,

he thought.

It was a thought which invited either death or hedonism. He felt himself impaled

on a thorn of chance with irritating forces pecking at him from all sides.

The young messenger in her neat blue uniform was merely another irritation. She

entered at his low-voiced response to her knock and she stopped under the arched

portal from his anteroom, hesitating until she had assessed his mood.

How quickly the word travels, he thought.

He saw her there, framed in the portal, a projection of Fish Speaker essencemore

voluptuous than some, but no more blatantly sexual. The blue uniform did

not conceal graceful hips, firm breasts. He looked up at her puckish face under

a brush of blonde hair-acolyte cut.

"Moneo sends me to inquire after you," she said. "He asks that you attend him in

his workroom."

Idaho had seen that workroom several times, but still remembered it best from

his first view of it. He had known on entering the room that it was where Moneo

spent most of his time. There was a table of dark brown wood streaked by fine

golden graining, a table about two meters by one meter and set low on stubby

legs in the midst of gray cushions. The table had struck Idaho as something rare

and expensive, chosen for a single accent. It and the cushions-which were the

same gray as floor, walls and ceiling-were the only furnishings.

Considering the power of its occupant, the room was small, no more than five

meters by four, but with a high ceiling. Light came from two slender glazed

windows opposite each other on the narrower walls. The windows looked out from a

considerable height, one onto the northwest fringes of the Sareer and the

bordering green of the Forbidden Forest, the other providing a southwest view

over rolling dunes.

Contrast.

The table had put an interesting accent on this initial thought. The surface had

appeared as an arrangement demonstrating the idea of clutter. Thin sheets of

crystal paper lay scattered across the surface, leaving only glimpses of the

wood grain underneath. Fine printing covered some of the paper. Idaho recognized

words in Galach and four other languages, including the rare transite tongue of

Perth. Several sheets of the paper revealed plan drawings and some were scrawled

with black strokes of brush-script in the bold style of the Bene Gesserit. Most

interesting of all had been four rolled white tubes about a meter long-tri-D

printouts from an illegal computer. He

had suspected the terminal lay concealed behind a panel in one of the walls.

The young messenger from Moneo cleared her throat to awaken Idaho from his

reverie. "What response shall I return to Moneo?" she asked.

Idaho focused on her face. "Would you like me to impregnate you?" he asked.

"Commander!" She was obviously shocked not so much by his suggestion as by its

non sequitur intrusion.

"Ahhh, yes," Idaho said. "Moneo. What shall we tell Moneo?"

"He awaits your reply, Commander."

"Is there really any point in my responding?" Idaho asked.

"Moneo told me to inform you that he wishes to confer with both you and the Lady

Hwi together."

Idaho sensed a vague arousal of interest. "Hwi is with him?"

"She has been summoned, Commander." The messenger cleared her throat once more.

"Would the Commander wish me to visit him here later tonight?"

"No. Thank you, anyway. I've changed my mind."

He thought she concealed her disappointment well, but her voice came out stiffly

formal: "Shall I say that you will attend Moneo?"

"Do that." He waved her away.

After she had gone, he considered just ignoring the summons. Curiosity grew in

him, though. Moneo wanted to talk to him with Hwi present? Why? Did he think

this would bring Idaho running? Idaho swallowed. When he thought of Hwi, the

emptiness in his breast became full. The message of that could not be ignored.

Something of terrible power bound him to Hwi.

He stood up, his muscles stiff after their long inaction. Curiosity and this

binding force impelled him. He went out into the corridor, ignored the curious

glances of guards he passed, and followed that compelling inner force up to

Moneo's workroom.

Hwi was already there when Idaho entered the room. She was across the cluttered

table from Moneo, her feet in red slippers tucked back beside the gray cushion

on which she sat. Idaho saw only that she wore a long brown gown with a braided

green belt, then she turned and he could look at nothing except her face. Her

mouth formed his name without speaking it.

Even she has heard, he thought.

Oddly, this thought strengthened him. The thoughts of this day began to form new

shapes in his mind.

"Please sit down, Duncan," Moneo said. He gestured to a cushion beside Hwi. His

voice conveyed a curious, halting tone, a manner that few people other than Leto

had ever observed in him. He kept his gaze directed downward at the cluttered

surface of his table. The late afternoon sunlight cast a spidery shadow across

the jumble from a golden paperweight in the shape of a fanciful tree with

jeweled fruit, all mounted on a flame-crystal mountain.

Idaho took the indicated cushion, watching Hwi's gaze follow him until he was

seated. She looked at Moneo then and he thought he saw anger in her expression.

Moneo's usual plain-white uniform was open at the throat, revealing a wrinkled

neck and a bit of dewlap. Idaho stared into the man's eyes, prepared to wait,

forcing Moneo to open the conversation.

Moneo returned the stare, noting that Idaho still wore the black uniform of

their morning encounter. There was even a small trace of grime down the front,

memento of the corridor floor where Moneo had spilled him. But Idaho no longer

wore the antique Atreides knife. That bothered Moneo.

"What I did this morning was unforgivable," Moneo said. "Therefore, I do not ask

you to forgive me. I merely ask that you try to understand."

Hwi did not appear surprised by this opening, Idaho noted. It revealed much

about what the two of them had been discussing before Idaho's arrival.

When Idaho did not respond, Moneo said: "I had no right to make you feel

inadequate."

Idaho found himself undergoing a curious response to Moneo's words and manner.

There was still the feeling of being outmaneuvered and outclassed, too far from

his time, but he no longer suspected that Moneo might be toying with him.

Something had reduced the majordomo to a gritty substratum of honesty. The

realization put Leto's universe, the deadly eroticism of the Fish Speakers,

Hwi's undeniable candor everything-into a new relationship, a form which Idaho

felt that he understood. It was as though the three of them in this room were

the last true humans in the entire universe. He spoke from a sense of wry selfdeprecation:

"You had every right to protect yourself when I attacked you. It pleases me that

you were so capable."

Idaho turned toward Hwi, but before he could speak, Moneo

said: "You needn't plead for me. I think her displeasure toward me is quite

adamant."

Idaho shook his head. "Does everyone here know what I'm going to say before I

say it, what I'm going to feel before I feel it?"

"One of your admirable qualities," Moneo said. "You do

not conceal your feelings. We=" he shrugged= "are necessarily more circumspect."

Idaho looked at Hwi. "Does he speak for you?"

She put her hand in Idaho's. "I speak for myself."

Moneo craned to peer at the clasped hands, sank back on his cushion. He sighed.

"You must not."

Idaho clasped her hand more tightly, felt her equal response.

"Before either of you asks," Moneo said, "my daughter and the God Emperor have

not yet returned from the testing."

Idaho sensed the effort Moneo had required to speak calmly. Hwi heard it, too.

"Is it true what the Fish Speakers say?" she asked. "Siona dies if she fails?"

Moneo remained silent, but his face was a rock.

"Is it like the Bene Gesserit test?" Idaho asked. "Muad'Dib said the Sisterhood

tests to try to find out if you are human."

Hwi's hand began to tremble. Idaho felt it and looked at her. "Did they test

you?"

"No," Hwi said, "but I heard the young ones talking about it. They said you must

pass through agony without losing your sense of self."

Idaho returned his attention to Moneo, noting the start of a tic beside the

majordomo's left eye.

"Moneo," Idaho breathed, overcome by sudden realization. "He tested you!"

"I do not wish to discuss tests," Moneo said. "We are here to decide what must

be done about you two."

"Isn't that up to us?" Idaho asked. He felt Hwi's hand in his grow slippery with

perspiration.

"It is up to the God Emperor," Moneo said.

"Even if Siona fails?" Idaho asked.

"Especially then!"

"How did he test you?" Idaho asked.

"He showed me a small glimpse of what it's like to be the God Emperor."

"And?"

"I saw as much as I'm capable of seeing."

Hwi's hand tightened convulsively in Idaho's.

"Then it's true that you were a rebel once," Idaho said.

"I began with love and prayer," Moneo said. "I changed to anger and rebellion. I

was transformed into what you see before you. I recognize my duty and I do it."

"What did he do to you?" Idaho demanded.

"He quoted to me the prayer of my childhood: `I give my life in dedication to

the greater glory of God."' Moneo spoke in a musing voice.

Idaho noted Hwi's stillness, her stare fixed on Moneo's face. What was she

thinking?

"I admitted that this had been my prayer," Moneo said. "And the God Emperor

asked me what I would give up if my life were not enough. He shouted at me:

`What is your life when you hold back the greater gift?"'

Hwi nodded, but Idaho felt only confusion.

"I could hear the truth in his voice," Moneo said.

"Are you a Truthsayer?" Hwi asked.

"In the power of desperation, yes," Moneo said. "But only then. I swear to you

he spoke truth to me."

"Some of the Atreides had the power of Voice," Idaho muttered.

Moneo shook his head. "No, it was truth. He said to me: `I look at you now and

if I could shed tears, I would. Consider the wish to be the act!"'

Hwi rocked forward, almost touching the table. "He cannot cry?"

"Sandworms," Idaho whispered.

"What?" Hwi turned toward him.

"Fremen killed sandworms with water," Idaho said. "From the drowning they

produced the spice-essence for their religious orgies."

"But the Lord Leto is not yet a sandworm entire," Moneo said.

Hwi rocked back onto her cushion and looked at Moneo.

Idaho pursed his lips in thought. Did Leto have the Fremen prohibition against

tears, then? How awed the Fremen had always been about such a waste of moisture!

Giving water to the dead.

Moneo addressed himself to Idaho: "I had hoped you could be brought to an

understanding. The Lord Leto has spoken. You and Hwi must separate and never see

each other again."

Hwi removed her hand from Idaho's. "We know."

Idaho spoke with resigned bitterness: "We know his power." "But you do not

understand him," Moneo said.

"I want nothing more than that," Hwi said. She put a hand on Idaho's arm to

silence him. "No, Duncan. Our private desires have no place here."

"Maybe you should pray to him," Idaho said.

She whirled and looked at him, staring and staring until Idaho lowered his gaze.

When she spoke, her voice carried a lilting quality that Idaho had never heard

there before. "My Uncle Malky always said the Lord Leto never responded to

prayer. He said the Lord Leto looked on prayer as attempted coercion, a form of

violence against the chosen god, telling the immortal what to do: Give me a

miracle, God, or I won't believe in you!"

"Prayer as hubris," Moneo said. "Intercession on demand."

"How can he be a god?" Idaho demanded. "By his own admission, he's not

immortal."

"I will quote the Lord Leto on that," Moneo said. "`I am all of God that need be

seen. I am the word become a miracle. I am all of my ancestors. Is that not

miracle enough? What more could you possibly want? Ask yourself: Where is there

a greater miracle?"'

"Empty words," Idaho sneered.

"I sneered at him, too," Moneo said. "I threw his own words from the Oral

History back at him: `Give to the greater glory of God!"'

Hwi gasped.

"He laughed at me," Moneo said. "He laughed and asked how I could give what

already belonged to God?"

"You were angry?" Hwi asked.

"Oh, yes. He saw this and said he would tell me how to give to that glory. He

said: `You may observe that you are every bit as great a miracle as I am. "'

Moneo turned and looked out the window on his left. "I'm afraid my anger made me

deaf and I was totally unprepared."

"Ohhh, he is clever," Idaho said.

"Clever?" Moneo looked at him. "I don't think so, not in the way you mean. I

think the Lord Leto may be no more clever than I am in that way."

"Unprepared for what?" Hwi asked.

"The risk," Moneo said.

"But you risked much in your anger," she said.

"Not as much as he. I see in your eyes, Hwi, that you

understand this. Does his body revolt you?"

"No more," she said.

Idaho ground his teeth in frustration. "He disgusts me!"

"Love, you must not say such things," Hwi said.

"And you must not call him love," Moneo said.

"You'd rather she learned to love someone more gross and evil than any Baron

Harkonnen ever dreamed of being," Idaho said.

Moneo worked his lips in and out, then: "The Lord Leto has told me about that

evil old man of your time, Duncan. I don't think you understood your enemy."

"He was a fat, monstrous.. ."

"He was a seeker after sensations," Moneo said. "The fat was a side-effect, then

perhaps something to experience for itself because it offended people and he

enjoyed offending."

"The Baron only consumed a few planets," Idaho said. "Leto consumes the

universe."

"Love, please!" Hwi protested.

"Let him rant," Moneo said. "When I was young and ignorant, even as my Siona and

this poor fool, I said similar things."

` Is that why you let your daughter go out to die?" Idaho demanded.

"Love, that's cruel," Hwi said.

"Duncan, it has always been one of your flaws to seek hysteria," Moneo said. "I

warn you that ignorance thrives on hysteria. Your genes provide vigor and you

may inspire some among the Fish Speakers, but you are a poor leader."

"Don't try to anger me," Idaho said. "I know better than to attack you, but

don't push me too far."

Hwi tried to take Idaho's hand, but he pulled away.

"I know my place," Idaho said. "I'm a useful follower. I can carry the Atreides

banner. The green and black is on my back!"

"The undeserving maintain power by promoting hysteria," Moneo said. "The

Atreides art is the art of ruling without hysteria, the art of being responsible

for the uses of power."

Idaho pushed back and heaved himself to his feet. "When has your damned God

Emperor ever been responsible for anything?"

Moneo looked down at his cluttered table and spoke without looking up. "He is

responsible for what he has done to himself." Moneo looked up then, his eyes

frosty. "You haven't the guts,

Duncan, to learn why he did that to himself!"

"And you have?" Idaho asked.

"When I was most angry," Moneo said, "and he saw himself through my eyes, he

said: 'How dare you be offended by me?' It was then=' Moneo swallowed= `that he

made me look into the horror... that he had seen." Tears welled from Moneo's

eyes and ran down his cheeks. "And I was only glad that I did not have to make

his decision . . . that I could content myself with being a follower."

"I have touched him," Hwi whispered.

"Then you know?" Moneo asked her.

"Without seeing it, I know," she said.

In a low voice, Moneo said: "I almost died of it. I . . ." He shuddered, then

looked up at Idaho. "You must not. . ."

"Damn you all!" Idaho snarled. He turned and dashed from the room.

Hwi stared after him, her face a mask of anguish. "Ohhh, Duncan," she whispered.

"You see?" Moneo asked. "You were wrong. Neither you nor the Fish Speakers have

gentled him. But you, Hwi, you have only contributed to his destruction."

Hwi turned her anguish toward Moneo. "I will not see him again," she said.

For Idaho, the passage down to his quarters became one of the most difficult

times in his memory. He tried to imagine that his face was a plasteel mask held

immobile to hide the turmoil within. None of the guards he passed could be

permitted to see his pain. He did not know that most of them made accurate

guesses about his emotion and shared a compassion for him. All of them had sat

through briefings on the Duncans and had learned to read them well.

In the corridor near his quarters, Idaho encountered Nayla walking slowly toward

him. Something in her face, a look of indecision and loss, stopped him briefly

and almost brought him out of his internal concentration.

"Friend?" he said, speaking when he was only a few paces from her.

She looked at him, abrupt recognition obvious on her square face.

What an odd-looking woman, he thought.

"I am no longer Friend," she said and passed by him down the corridor.

Idaho turned on one heel and stared at her retreating backthose

heavy shoulders, that plodding sense of terrible muscles.

What was she bred for? he wondered.

It was only a passing thought. His own concerns returned more strongly than

before. He strode the few paces to his door and into his quarters.

Once inside, Idaho stood a moment with clenched fists at his sides.

have no more ties to any time, he thought. And how odd that this was not a

liberating thought. He knew, though, that he had done the thing which would

begin freeing Hwi from her love for him. He was diminished. She would think of

him soon as a small, petulant fool, a subject only of his own emotions. He could

feel himself fading from her immediate concerns.

And that poor Moneo!

Idaho sensed the shape of the things which had formed the pliant majordomo. Duty

and responsibility. What a safe haven those were in a time of difficult

decisions.

I was like that once, Idaho thought. But that was in another life, another time.

===

The Duncans sometimes ask if I understand the exotic ideas of our past? And if I

understand them, why can't I explain them? Knowledge, the Duncans believe,

resides only in particulars. I try to tell them that all words are plastic. Word

images begin to distort in the instant of utterance. Ideas imbedded in a

language require that particular language for expression. This is the very

essence of the meaning within the word exotic. See how it begins to distort?

Translation squirms in the presence of the exotic. The Galach which I speak here

imposes itself. It is an outside frame of reference, a particular system.

Dangers lurk in all systems. Systems incorporate the unexamined beliefs of their

creators. Adopt a system, accept its beliefs, and you help strengthen the

resistance to change. Does it serve any purpose for me to tell the Duncans that

there are no languages for some things? Ahhh! But the Duncans believe that all

languages are mine.

-The Stolen Journals

Fort Two full turns of days and nights, Siona failed to seal her face mask,

losing precious water with every breath. It had taken the Fremen admonition to

children before Siona remembered her father's words. Leto had spoken to her

finally on the cold third morning of their traverse when they stopped within a

rock shadow on the windswept flat of the erg.

"Guard every breath for it carries the warmth and moisture of your life," he

said.

He had known they would be three more days on the erg and three more nights

beyond that before they reached water. Now, it was the fifth morning from the

Little Citadel's tower. They had entered shallow drifts of sand during the

night-not dunes, but dunes could be glimpsed ahead of them and even the remnants

of Habbanya Ridge were a thin, broken line in the distance if you knew where to

look. Now, Siona took down the mouth flap of her stillsuit only to speak

clearly. And she spoke through black and bleeding lips.

She has the thirst of desperation, he thought, as he let his senses probe their

surroundings. She will reach the moments of crisis soon. His senses told him

that they were still alone here at the edge of the flat. Dawn lay only minutes

behind them. The low light created barriers of dust reflection which twisted and

lifted and dipped in the unceasing wind. His senses filtered out the wind that

he might hear other things Siona's heaving breaths, the tumble of a small

sandspill from the rocks beside them, his own gross body grating in the thin

sand cover.

Siona peeled her face mask aside but held it in her hand for quick restoration.

"How much longer until we find water?" she asked.

"Three nights."

"Is there a better direction to go?"

"No."

She had come to appreciate the Fremen economy with important information. She

sipped greedily at a few drops in her catchpocket.

Leto recognized the message of her movements-familiar gestures for Fremen in

extremis. Siona was now fully aware of a common experience among her ancestors

patiyeh, the thirst at the edge of death.

The few drops in her catchpocket were gone. He heard her sucking air. She

restored the mask and spoke in a muffed voice.

"I won't make it, will I?"

Leto looked into her eyes, seeing there the clarity of thought brought on by the

nearness of death, a penetrating awareness seldom otherwise achieved. It

amplified only that which was required for survival. Yes, she was well into the

tedah riagrimi, the agony which opens the mind. Soon, she would have to make

that ultimate decision which she yet believed she

had already made. Leto knew by the signs that he was required to treat Siona now

with extreme courtesy. He would have to answer every question with candor for in

every question lurked a judgment.

"Will I?" she insisted.

There was still a trace of hope in her desperation.

"Nothing is certain," he said.

This dropped her into despair.

That had not been Leto's intention, but he knew that it often happened-an

accurate, though ambiguous, answer was taken as confirmation of one's deepest

fears.

She sighed.

Her mask-muffled voice probed at him once more. "You had some special intention

for me in your breeding program."

It was not a question.

"All people have intentions," he told her.

"But you wanted my full agreement."

"That is true."

"How could you expect agreement when you know I hate everything about you? Be

honest with me!"

"The three legs of the agreement-tripod are desire, data and doubt. Accuracy and

honesty have little to do with it."

"Please don't argue with me. You know I'm dying."

"I respect you too much to argue with you."

He lifted his front segments slightly then, probing the wind. It already was

beginning to bring the day's heat but there was too much moisture in it for his

comfort. He was reminded that the more he ordered the weather controlled, the

more there was that required control. Absolutes only brought him closer to

vagueries.

"You say you're not arguing, but..

."

"Argument closes off the doors of the senses," he said, lowering himself back to

the surface. "It always masks violence. Continued too long, argument always

leads to violence. I have no violent intentions toward you."

"What do you mean-desire, data and doubt?"

"Desire brings the participants together. Data set the limits of their dialogue.

Doubt frames the questions."

She moved closer to stare directly into his face from less than a meter away.

How odd, he thought, that hatred could be mingled so completely with hope and

fear and awe.

"Could you save me?"

"There is a way."

She nodded and he knew she had leaped to the wrong conclusion.

"You want to trade that for my agreement!" she accused.

"No."

"If I pass your test. . ."

"It is not my test."

"Whose?"

"It derives from our common ancestors."

Siona sank to a sitting position on the cold rock and remained silent, not yet

ready to ask for a resting place within the lip of his warm front segment. Leto

thought he could hear the soft scream waiting in her throat. Now, her doubts

were at work. She was beginning to wonder if he really could be fitted into her

image of Ultimate Tyrant. She looked up at him with that terrible clarity he had

identified in her.

"What makes you do what you do?"

The question was well framed. He said: "My need to save the people."

"What people?"

"My definition is much broader than that of anyone else even of the Bene

Gesserit, who think they have defined what it is to be human. I refer to the

eternal thread of all humankind by whatever definition."

"You're trying to tell me. . ." Her mouth became too dry for speaking. She tried

to accumulate saliva. He saw the movements within her face mask. Her question

was obvious, though, and he did not wait.

"Without me there would have been by now no people anywhere, none whatsoever.

And the path to that extinction was more hideous than your wildest imaginings."

"Your supposed prescience," she sneered.

"The Golden Path still stands open," he said.

"I don't trust you!"

"Because we are not equals?"

"Yes!"

"But we're interdependent."

"What need have you for me?"

Ahhh, the cry of youth unsure of its niche. He felt the strength within the

secret bonds of dependency and forced himself to be hard. Dependency fosters

weakness!

"You are the Golden Path," he said.

"Me?" It was barely a whisper.

"You've read those journals you stole from me," he said. "I am in them, but

where are you? Look at what I have created, Siona. And you, you can create

nothing except yourself."

"Words, more tricky words!"

"I do not suffer from being worshipped, Siona. I suffer from never being

appreciated. Perhaps ...No, I dare not hope for you."

"What's the purpose of those journals?"

"An Ixian machine records them. They are. to be found on a faraway day. They

will make people think."

"An Ixian machine? You defy the Jihad!"

"There's a lesson in that, too. What do such machines really do? They increase

the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinkingthere's

the real danger. Look at how long you walked across this desert without

thinking about your face mask."

"You could have warned me!"

"And increased your dependency."

She stared at him a moment, then: "Why would you want me to command your Fish

Speakers?"

"You are an Atreides woman, resourceful and capable of independent thought. You

can be truthful just for the sake of truth as you see it. You were bred and

trained for command which means freedom from dependence."

The wind whirled dust and sand around them while she weighed his words. "And if

I agree, you'll save me?"

"No."

She had been so sure of the opposite answer that it was several heartbeats

before she translated that single word. In that time, the wind fell slightly,

exposing a vista across the dunescape to the remnants of Habbanya Ridge. The air

was suddenly chilled with that cold which did as much to rob the flesh of

moisture as did the hottest sunlight. Part of Leto's awareness detected an

oscillation in weather control.

"No?" She was both puzzled and outraged.

"I do not make bloody bargains with people I must trust."

She shook her head slowly from side to side, but her gaze remained fixed on his

face. "What will make you save me?"

"Nothing will make me do it. Why do you think you could do to me what I will not

do to you? That is not the way of interdependence."

Her shoulders slumped. "If I cannot bargain with you or force you. . ."

"Then you must choose another path."

What a marvelous thing to observe the explosive growth of awareness, he thought.

Siona's expressive features hid nothing of it from him. She focused on his eyes

and glared at him as though seeking to move completely into his thoughts. New

strength entered her muffled voice.

"You would have me know everything about you-even every weakness?"

"Would you steal what I would give openly?"

The morning light was harsh on her face. "I promise you nothing!"

"Nor do I require that."

"But you will give me . . . water if I ask?"

"It is not just water."

She nodded. "And I am Atreides."

The Fish Speakers had not withheld the lesson of that special susceptibility in

the Atreides genes. She knew where the spice originated and what it might do to

her. The teachers in the Fish Speaker schools never failed him. And the gentle

additions of melange in Siona's dried food had done their work, too.

"These little curled flaps beside my face," he said. "Tease one of them gently

with a finger and it will give up drops of moisture heavily laced with spiceessence."

He saw the recognition in her eyes. Memories which she did not know as memories

were speaking to her. And she was the result of many generations in which the

Atreides sensitivity had been increased.

Even the urgency of her thirst would not yet move her.

To ease her through the crisis, he told her about Fremen children poling for

sandtrout at an oasis edge, teasing the moisture out of them for quick

vitalization.

"But I am Atreides," she said.

"The Oral History tells it truthfully," he said.

"Then I could die of it."

"That's the test."

"You would make a real Fremen out of me!"

"How else can you teach your descendants to survive here after I am gone?"

She pulled away her mask and moved her face to within a handsbreadth of his. A

finger came up and touched one of the curled flaps of his cowl.

"Stroke it gently," he said.

Her hand obeyed not his voice but something from within

her. The finger movements were precise, eliciting his own memories, a thing

passed from child to child to child . . . the way so much information and

misinformation survived. He turned his face to its limit and looked sideways at

her face so close to his. Pale blue drops began to form at the flap's edge. Rich

cinnamon smells enveloped them. She leaned toward the drops. He saw the pores

beside her nose, the way her tongue moved as she drank.

Presently, she retreated-not completely satisfied, but driven by caution and

suspicion much the way Moneo had been. Like father, like daughter.

"How long before it begins to work?" she asked.

"It is already working."

"I mean. . ."

"A minute or so."

"I owe you nothing for this!"

"I will demand no payment."

She sealed her face mask.

He saw the milky distances enter her eyes. Without asking permission, she tapped

his front segment, demanding that he prepare the warm hammock of his flesh. He

obeyed. She fitted herself to the gentle curve. By peering sharply downward, he

could see her. Siona's eyes remained opened, but they no longer saw this place.

She jerked abruptly and began to tremble like a small creature dying. He knew

this experience, but could not change the smallest part of it. No ancestral

presences would remain in her consciousness, but she would carry with her

forever afterward the clear sights and sounds and smells. The seeking machines

would be there, the smell of blood and entrails, the cowering humans in their

burrows aware only that they could not escape . . . while all the time the

mechanical movement approached, nearer and nearer and nearer ...louder...louder!

Everywhere she searched, it would be the same. No escape anywhere.

He felt her life ebbing. Fight the darkness, Siona! That was one thing the

Atreides did. They fought for life. And now she was fighting for lives other

than her own. He felt the dimming, though . . . the terrible outflow of

vitality. She went deeper and deeper into the darkness, far deeper than any

other had ever gone. He began to rock her gently, a cradle movement of his front

segment. That or the thin hot thread of determination, perhaps both together,

prevailed. By early afternoon, her flesh

had trembled its way into something approaching real sleep. Only an occasional

gasp betrayed the vision's echoes. He rocked her gently, rolling from side to

side.

Could she possibly come back from those depths? He felt the vital responses

reassuring him. The strength in her!

She awakened in the late afternoon, a stillness coming over her abruptly, the

breathing rhythm changed. Her eyes snapped open. She peered up at him, then

rolled out of the hammock to stand with her back to him for almost an hour of

silent thinking.

Moneo had done that same thing. It was a new pattern in these Atreides. Some of

the preceding ones had ranted at him. Others had backed away from him, stumbling

and staring, forcing him to follow, squirming and grating over the pebbles. Some

of them had squatted and stared at the ground. None of them had turned their

backs on him. Leto took this new development as a hopeful sign.

"You are beginning to have some concept of how far my family extends," he said.

She turned, her mouth a prim line, but did not meet his gaze. He could see her

accepting it, though, the realization which few humans could share as she had

shared it: His singular multitude made all of humankind his family.

"You could have saved my friends in the forest," she accused.

"You, too, could have saved them."

She clenched her fists and pressed them against her temples while she glared at

him. "But you know everything!"

"Siona!"

"Did I have to learn it that way?" she whispered.

He remained silent, forcing her to answer the question for herself. She had to

be made to recognize that his primary consciousness worked in a Fremen way and

that, like the terrible machines of that apocalyptic vision, the predator could

follow any creature who left tracks.

"The Golden Path," she whispered. "I can feel it." Then, glaring at him. "It's

so cruel!"

"Survival has always been cruel."

"They couldn't hide," she whispered. Then loud: "What have you done to me?"

"You tried to be a Fremen rebel," he said. "Fremen had an almost incredible

ability to read signs on the desert. They could even read the faint tracery of

windblown tracks in sand."

He saw the beginnings of remorse in her, memories of her dead companions

floating in her awareness. He spoke quickly, knowing that guilt would follow

quickly and then anger against him. "Would you have believed me if I had merely

brought you in and told you?"

Remorse threatened to overwhelm her. She opened her mouth behind the mask and

gasped with it.

"You have not yet survived the desert," he told her.

Slowly, her trembling subsided. The Fremen instincts he had set to work in her

did their usual tempering.

"I will survive," she said. She met his gaze. "You read us by our emotions,

don't you?"

"The igniters of thought," he said. "I can recognize the slightest behavioral

nuance for its emotional origins."

He saw her accept her own nakedness the way Moneo had accepted it, with fear and

hate. It was of little matter. He probed the time ahead of them. Yes, she would

survive his desert because her tracks were in the sand beside him . . . but he

saw no sign of her flesh in those tracks. Just beyond her tracks, though, he saw

a sudden opening where things had been concealed. Anteac's death-shout echoed

through his prescient awareness . . . and the swarming of Fish Speakers

attacking!

Malky is coming, he thought. We will meet again, Malky and .

Leto opened his outer eyes and saw Siona still there glaring at him.

"I still hate you!" she said.

"You hate the predator's necessary cruelty."

She spoke with venomous elation: "But I saw another thing! You can't follow my

tracks!"

"Which is why you must breed and preserve this."

Even as he spoke, it began to rain. The sudden cloud darkness and the downpour

came upon them simultaneously. In spite of the fact that he had sensed weather

control's oscillations, Leto was shocked by the onslaught. He knew it rained

sometimes in the Sareer, a rain quickly dispersed as the water ran off and

vanished. The few pools would evaporate as the sun returned. Most times, the

downpour never touched the ground; it was ghost rain, vaporized when it hit the

superheated air layer just above the desert's surface, then dispersing on the

wind. But this rainfall drenched him.

Siona pulled back her face flap and lifted her face greedily to the falling

water, not even noticing the effect on Leto.

As the first drenching swept in from behind the sandtrout overlappings, he

stiffened and curled into a ball of agony. Separate drives of sandtrout and

sandworm produced a new meaning for the word pain. He felt that he was being

ripped apart. Sandtrout wanted to rush to the water and encapsulate it. Sandworm

felt the drenching wash of death. Curls of blue smoke 'spurted from every place

the rain touched him. The inner workings of his body began to manufacture the

true spice-essence. Blue smoke lifted around him from where he lay in puddles of

water. He writhed and groaned.

The clouds passed and it was a few moments before Siona sensed his disturbance.

"What's wrong with you?"

He was unable to answer. The rain was gone but water remained on the rocks and

in puddles all around and beneath him. There was no escape.

Siona saw the blue smoke rising from every place the water touched him.

"It's the water!"

There was a slightly higher bulge of land off to the right where the water did

not stay. Painfully, he made his way toward it, groaning at each new puddle. The

bulge was almost dry when he reached it. The agony subsided slowly and he grew

aware that Siona stood directly in front of him. She probed at him with words of

false concern.

"Why does water hurt you?"

Hurt? What an inadequate word! There was no evading her questions, though. She

knew enough now to go searching for the answer. That answer could be found.

Haltingly, he explained the relationship of sandtrout and sandworm to water. She

heard him out in silence.

"But the moisture you gave me. . ."

"Is buffered and masked by the spice."

"Then why do you risk it out here without your cart?"

"You can't be a Fremen in the Citadel or on a cart."

She nodded.

He saw the flame of rebellion return to her eyes. She did not have to feel

guilty or dependent. She no longer could avoid belief in his Golden Path, but

what difference did that make? His cruelties could not be forgiven! She could

reject him, deny him a place in her family. He was not a human, not like her at

all. And she possessed the secret of his undoing! Ring him with water, destroy

his desert, immobilize him within a moat

of agony! Did she think she hid her thoughts from him by turning away?

And what can I do about it? he wondered. She must live now while I must

demonstrate nonviolence.

Now that he knew something of. Siona's nature, how easy it would be to

surrender, to sink blindly into his own thoughts. It was seductive, this talon

to live only within his memories, but his children still required another

lesson-by-example if they were to escape the last threat to the Golden Path.

What a painful decision! He experienced a new sympathy for the Bene Gesserit.

His quandary was akin to the one they had experienced when they had confronted

the fact of Muad'Dib. The ultimate goal of their breeding program-my father-they

could not contain him, either.

Once more into the breach, dear friends, he thought. and he suppressed a wry

smile at his own histrionics.

===

Given enough time for the generations to evolve, the predator produces

particular survival adaptations in its prey which, through the circular

operation of feedback, produce changes in the predator which again change the

prey etcetera, etcetera, etcetera .... Many powerful forces do the same thing.

You can count religions among such forces.

-The Stolen Journals

"THE LORD has commanded me to tell you that your daughter lives."

Nayla delivered the message to Moneo in a singsong voice, looking down across

the workroom table at his figure seated there amidst a chaos of notes and papers

and communications instruments.

Moneo pressed his palms together firmly and looked down at the elongated shadow

drawn on his table by late afternoon sunlight across the jeweled tree of his

paperweight.

Without looking up at Nayla's stocky figure standing at proper attention in

front of him, he asked: "Both of them have returned to the Citadel?"

"Yes."

Moneo looked out the window to his left, not really seeing the flinty borderline

of darkness hanging on the Sareer's horizon nor the greedy wind collecting sand

grains from every dunetop.

"That matter which we discussed earlier?" he asked.

"It has been arranged."

"Very well." He waved to dismiss her, but Nayla remained standing in front of

him. Surprised, Moneo actually focused

on her for the first time since she had entered.

"Is it required that I personally attend this-" she swallowed-"wedding?"

"The Lord Leto has commanded it. You will be the only one there armed with a

lasgun. It is an honor."

She remained in position, her gaze fixed somewhere over Moneo's head.

"Yes?" he prompted.

Nayla's great lantern jaw worked convulsively, then: "He is God and I am

mortal." She turned on one heel and left the workroom.

Moneo wondered vaguely what was bothering that hulking Fish Speaker, but his

thoughts turned like a compass arrow to Siona.

She has survived as I did. Siona now had an inner sense which told her that the

Golden Path remained unbroken. As I have. He found no sense of sharing in this,

nothing to make him feel closer to his daughter. It was a burden and it would

inevitably curb her rebellious nature. No Atreides could go against the Golden

Path. Leto had seen to that!

Moneo remembered his own rebel days. Every night a new bed and the constant urge

to run. The cobwebs of his past clung to his mind, sticking there no matter how

hard he tried to shake away troublesome memories.

Siona has been caged. As I was caged. As poor Leto was caged.

The tolling of the nightfall bell intruded on his thoughts and activated his

workroom's lights. He looked down at the work still undone in preparation for

the God Emperor's wedding to Hwi Noree. So much work! Presently, he pressed a

call-button and asked the Fish Speaker acolyte who appeared at the summons to

bring him a tumbler of water and then call Duncan Idaho to the workroom.

She returned quickly with the water and placed the tumbler near his left hand on

the table. He noted the long fingers, a lute-player's fingers, but did not look

up at her face.

"I have sent someone for Idaho," she said.

He nodded and went on with his work. He heard her leave and only then did he

look up to drink the water.

Some live lives like summer moths, he thought. But I have burdens without end.

The water tasted flat. It weighed down his senses, making his body feel torpid.

He looked out at the sunset colors on the

Sareer as they shaded away into darkness, thinking that he should recognize

beauty in that familiar sense, but all he could think was that the light changed

in its own patterns. It is not moved by me at all.

With the full darkness, the light level of his workroom increased automatically,

bringing a clarity of thought with it. He felt himself quite prepared for Idaho.

This one had to be taught the necessities, and quickly.

Moneo's door opened, the acolyte again. "Will you eat now?"

"Later." He raised a hand as she started to leave. "I would like the door left

open."

She frowned.

"You may practice your music," he said. "I want to listen."

She had a smooth, round, almost childlike face which became radiant when she

smiled. The smile still on her lips, she turned away.

Presently, he heard the sounds of a biwa lute in the outer office. Yes, that

young acolyte had a talent. The bass strings were like rain drumming on a

rooftop, a whisper of middle strings underneath. Perhaps she could move up to

the baliset someday. He recognized the song: a deeply humming memory of autumn

wind from some faraway planet where they had never known a desert. Sad music,

pitiful music, yet marvelous.

It is the cry of the caged, he thought. The memory of freedom.

This thought struck him as odd. Was it always the case

that freedom required rebellion?

The lute fell silent. There came the sound of low voices. Idaho entered the

workroom. Moneo watched him enter. A trick of light gave Idaho a face like a

grimacing mask with pitted eyes. Without invitation, he sat down across from

Moneo and the trickery was gone. Just another Duncan. He had changed into a

plain black uniform without insignia.

"I have been asking myself a peculiar question," Idaho said. "I'm glad you

summoned me. I want to ask this question of you. What is it, Moneo, that my

predecessor did not learn?"

Stiff with surprise, Moneo sat up straight. What an unDuncan question! Could

there be a peculiar Tleilaxu difference in this one after all?

"What prompts this question?" Moneo asked.

"I've been thinking like a Fremen."

"You weren't a Fremen."

"Closer to it than you think. Stilgar the Naib once said I

was probably born Fremen without knowing it until I came to Dune."

"What happens when you think like a Fremen?"

"You remember that you should never be in company that you wouldn't want to die

with."

Moneo put his hands palms down on the surface of his table. A wolfish smile came

over Idaho's face.

"Then what are you doing here?" Moneo asked.

"I suspect that you may be good company, Moneo. And I ask myself why Leto would

choose you as his closest companion?"

"I passed the test."

"The same one your daughter passed?"

So he has heard they are back. It meant some of the Fish Speakers were reporting

things to him . . . unless the God Emperor had summoned the Duncan . . . . No, I

would have heard.

"The tests are never identical," Moneo said. "I was made to go alone into a

cavern maze with nothing but a bag of food and a vial of spice-essence."

"Which did you choose?"

"What? Oh . . . if you are tested, you will learn."

"There's a Leto I don't know," Idaho said.

"Have I not told you this?"

"And there's a Leto you don't know," Idaho said.

"Because he's the loneliest person this universe has ever seen," Moneo said.

"Don't play mood games trying to arouse my sympathy," Idaho said.

"Mood games, yes. That's very good," Moneo nodded. "The God Emperor's moods are

like a river-smooth where nothing obstructs him, foaming and violent at the

least suggestion of a barrier. He is not be be obstructed."

Idaho looked around at the brightly lighted workroom, turned his gaze to the

outside darkness and thought about the tamed course of the Idaho River somewhere

out there. Bringing his attention back to Moneo, he asked: "What do you know of

rivers?"

"In my youth, I traveled for him. I have even trusted my life to a floating

shell of a vessel on a river and then on a sea whose shores were lost in the

crossing."

As he spoke, Moneo felt that he had brushed against a clue to some deep truth in

the Lord Leto. The sensation dropped Moneo into reverie, thinking of that far

planet where he had

crossed a sea from one shore to another. There had been a storm on the first

evening of that passage and, somewhere deep within the ship, an irritating nondirectional

"sug-sug-sug-sugsug" of laboring engines. He had stood on deck with

the captain. His mind had kept focusing on the engine sound, retreating and

coming back to it like the oversurging of the watery green-black mountains which

passed and came, repeating and repeating. Each down crash of the keel opened the

sea's flesh like a fist smashing. It was insane motion, a sodden shaking, up . .

. up, down! His lungs had ached with repressed fear. The lunging of the ship and

the sea trying to put them down-wild explosions of solid water, hour after hour,

white blisters of water spilling off the decks, then another sea and another. .

.

All of this was a clue to the God Emperor.

He is both the storm and the ship.

Moneo focused on Idaho seated across the table from him in the workroom's cold

light. Not a tremor in the man, but a hungering was there.

"So you will not help me learn what the other Duncan Idahos did not learn,"

Idaho said.

"But I will help you."

"Then what have I always failed to learn?"

"How to trust."

Idaho pushed himself back from the table and glared at Moneo. When Idaho's voice

came, it was harsh and rasping: "I'd say I trusted too much."

Moneo was implacable. "But how do you trust?"

"What do you mean?"

Moneo put his hands in his lap. "You choose male companions for their ability to

fight and die on the side of right as you see it. You choose females who can

complement this masculine view of yourself. You allow for no differences which

can come from good will."

Something moved in the doorway to Moneo's workroom. He looked up in time to see

Siona enter. She stopped, one hand on her hip.

"Well, father, up to your old tricks, I see."

Idaho jerked around to stare at the speaker.

Moneo studied her, looking for signs of the change. She had bathed and put on a

fresh uniform, the black and gold of Fish Speaker command, but her face and

hands still betrayed the evidence of her desert ordeal. She had lost weight and

her cheekbones stood out. Unguent did little to conceal cracks in

her lips. Veins stood out on her hands. Her eyes looked ancient and her

expression was that of someone who had tasted bitter dregs.

"I've been listening to you two," she said. She dropped her hand from her hip

and moved farther into the room. "How dare you speak of good will, father?"

Idaho had noted the uniform. He pursed his lips in thought. Fish Speaker

Command? Siona?

"I understand your bitterness," Moneo said. "I -had similar feelings once."

"Did you really?" She came closer, stopping just beside Idaho, who continued to

regard her with a look of speculation.

"I am filled with joy to see you alive," Moneo said.

"How gratifying. for you to see me safely into the God Emperor's Service," she

said. "You waited so long to have a child and look! See how successful I am."

She turned slowly to display her uniform. "Commander of the Fish Speakers. A

commander with a troop of one, but nonetheless a commander."

Moneo forced his voice to be cold and professional. "Sit down."

"I prefer to stand." She looked down at Idaho's upturned face. "Ahhh, Duncan

Idaho, my intended mate. Don't you find this interesting, Duncan? The Lord Leto

tells me I will befitted into the command structure of the Fish Speakers in

time. Meanwhile, I have one attendant. Do you know the one called Nayla,

Duncan?"

Idaho nodded.

"Really? I think perhaps I don't know her." Siona looked at Moneo. "Do I know

her, father?"

Moneo shrugged.

"But you speak of trust, father," Siona said. "Who does the powerful minister,

Moneo, trust?"

Idaho turned to see the effect of these words on the majordomo. The man's face

appeared brittle with repressed emotion. Anger? No . . . something else.

I trust the God Emperor," Moneo said. "And, in the hope that it will teach both

of you something, I am here to convey his wishes to you."

"His wishes!" Siona taunted. "Hear that, Duncan? The God Emperor's commands are

now wishes."

"Speak your piece," Idaho said. "I know we have little choice in whatever it

is."

"You always have a choice," Moneo said.

"Don't listen to him," Siona said. "He's full of tricks. They expect us to fall

into each other's arms and breed more like my father. Your descendant, my

father!"

Moneo's face went pale. He gripped the edge of his worktable with both hands and

leaned forward. "You are both fools! But I will try to save you. In spite of

yourselves, I will try to save you."

Idaho saw Moneo's cheeks tremble, the intensity of the man's stare, and felt

oddly moved by this. "I'm not his stud, but I'll listen to you."

"Always a mistake," Siona said.

"Be still, woman," Idaho said.

She glared at the top of Idaho's head. "Don't address me that way or I'll wrap

your neck around your ankles!"

Idaho stiffened and started to turn.

Moneo grimaced and waved a hand for Idaho to remain seated. "I caution you,

Duncan, that she could probably do it. I am no match for her and you do recall

your attempt at violence against me?"

Idaho inhaled a deep, quick breath, let it out slowly, then: "Say what you have

to say."

Siona moved to perch at the end of Moneo's table and looked down at both of

them. "Much better," she said. "Let him have his say, but don't listen."

Idaho pressed his lips tightly together.

Moneo released his grip on the edge of his desk. He sat back and looked from

Idaho to Siona. "I have almost completed the arrangements for the God Emperor's

wedding to Hwi Noree. During those festivities, I want you both out of the way."

Siona turned a questioning look on Moneo. "Your idea or his?"

"Mine!" Moneo returned his daughter's glare. "Have you no sense of honor and

duty? Have you learned nothing from being with him?"

"Oh, I learned what you learned, father. And I gave my word, which I will keep."

"Then you'll command the Fish Speakers?"

"Whenever he trusts me with command. You know, father, he's ever so much more

devious than you are."

"Where are you sending us?" Idaho asked.

"Provided we agree to go," Siona said.

"There is a small village of Museum Fremen at the edge of the Sareer," Moneo

said. "It is called Tuono. The village is

relatively pleasant. It's in the shadow of the Wall with the river just beyond

the Wall. There is a well and the food is good."

Tuono? Idaho wondered. The name sounded familiar. "There was a Tuono Basin on

the way to Sietch Tabr," he said.

"And the nights are long and there's no entertainment," Siona said.

Idaho shot a sharp glance at her. She returned it. "He wants us breeding and the

Worm satisfied," she said. "He wants babies in my belly, new lives to warp and

twist. I'll see him dead before I'll give him that!"

Idaho looked back at Moneo with a bemused expression. "And if we refuse to go?"

"I think you'll go," Moneo said.

Siona's lips twitched. "Duncan, have you even seen one of these little desert

villages? No comforts, no. . ."

"I have seen Tabur Village," Idaho said.

"I'm sure that is a metropolis beside Tuono. Our God Emperor would not celebrate

his nuptials in any cluster of mud hovels! Oh, no. Tuono will be mud hovels and

no amenities, as close to the original Fremen as possible."

Idaho kept his attention on Moneo while speaking: "Fremen did not live in mud

huts."

"Who cares where they conducted their cultish games?" she sneered.

Still looking at Moneo, Idaho said: "Real Fremen had only one cult, the cult of

personal honesty. I worry more about honesty than about comfort."

"Don't expect comfort from me!" Siona snapped.

"I don't expect anything from you," Idaho said. "When would we leave for this

Tuono, Moneo?"

"You're going?" she asked.

"I am considering an acceptance of your father's kindness," Idaho said.

"Kindness!" She looked from Idaho to Moneo.

"You would leave immediately," Moneo said. "I have detailed a detachment of Fish

Speakers under Nayla to escort you and provide for you at Tuono."

"Nayla?" Siona asked. "Really? Will she stay with us there?"

"Until the day of the wedding."

Siona nodded slowly. "Then we accept."

"Accept for yourself!" Idaho snapped.

Siona smiled. "Sorry. May I formally request that the great

Duncan Idaho join me at this primitive garrison where he will keep his hands off

my person?"

Idaho peered up at her from under his brows. "Have no fears about where I will

put my hands." He looked at Moneo. "Are you being kind, Moneo? Is that why

you're sending me away?"

"It's a question of trust," Siona said. "Who does he trust?"

"Will I be forced to go with your daughter?" Idaho insisted.

Siona stood. "We either accept or the troopers will bind us and carry us out in

a most uncomfortable fashion. You can see it in his face."

"So I really have no choice," Idaho said.

"You have the choice anyone has," Siona said. "Die now or later."

Still, Idaho stared at Moneo. "Your real intentions, Moneo? Won't you satisfy my

curiosity?"

"Curiosity has kept many people alive when all else failed," Moneo said. "I am

trying to keep you alive, Duncan. I have never done that before."

===

It required almost a thousand years before the dust of Dune's old planet-wide

desert left the atmosphere to be bound up in soil and water. The wind called

sandblaster has not been seen on Arrakis for some twenty-five hundred years.

Twenty billion tons of dust could be carried suspended in the wind of just one

of those storms. The sky often had a silvery look to it then. Fremen said: "The

desert is a surgeon cutting away the skin to expose what's underneath." The

planet and the people had layers. You could see them. My Sareer is but a weak

echo of what was. I must be the sandblaster today.

-The Stolen Journals

"You sent them to Tuono without consulting me? How surprising of you, Moneo!

You've not done such an independent thing in a long while."

Moneo stood about ten paces from Leto in the gloomy center of the crypt, head

bowed, using every artifice he knew to keep from trembling, aware that even this

could be seen and interpreted by the God Emperor. It was almost midnight. Leto

had kept his majordomo waiting and waiting.

"I pray I have not offended my Lord," Moneo said.

"You have amused me, but take no heart from that. Lately, I cannot separate the

comic from the sad."

"Forgive me, Lord," Moneo whispered.

"What is this forgiveness you ask? Must you always require judgment? Can't your

universe merely be?"

Moneo lifted his gaze to that awful cowled face. He is both ship and storm. The

sunset exists in itself. Moneo felt that he stood on the brink of terrifying

revelations. The God Emperor's eyes bored into him, burning, probing. "Lord,

what would you have of me?"

"That you have faith in yourself."

Feeling that something might explode in him, Moneo said: "Then the fact that I

did not consult you before. . ."

"How enlightened of you, Moneo! Small souls who seek power over others first

destroy the faith those others might have in themselves."

The words were shattering to Moneo. He sensed accusation in them, confession. He

felt his hold on a fearsome but infinitely desirable thing weakening. He tried

to find words to call it back, but his mind remained blank. Perhaps if he asked

the God Emperor . . .

"Lord, if you would but tell me your thoughts on..

."

"My thoughts vanish on contact!"

Leto stared down at Moneo. How strange were the majordomo's eyes perched there

above that hawkish Atreides nose-free-verse eyes in a metronome face. Did Moneo

hear that rhythmic pulse-beat: Malky is coming! Malky is coming! Malky is

coming!?

Moneo wanted to cry out in anguish. The thing he had felt- all gone! He put both

his hands over his mouth.

"Your universe is a two-dimensional hourglass," Leto accused. "Why do you try to

hold back the sand?"

Moneo lowered his hands and sighed. "Do you wish to hear about the wedding

arrangements, Lord?"

"Don't be tiresome! Where is Hwi?"

"The Fish Speakers are preparing her for. . ."

"Have you consulted her about the arrangements?"

"Yes, Lord."

"She approved?"

"Yes, Lord, but she accused me of living for the quantity of activity and not

for the quality."

"Isn't she marvelous, Moneo? Does she see the unrest among the Fish Speakers?"

"I think so, Lord."

"The idea of my marriage disturbs them."

"It's why I sent the Duncan away, Lord."

"Of course it is, and Siona with him to. . ."

"Lord, I know you have tested her and she. . ."

"She senses the Golden Path as deeply as you do, Moneo." "Then why do I fear

her, Lord?"

"Because you raise reason above all else."

"But I do not know the reason for my fear!"

Leto smiled. This was like playing bubble dice in an infinite bowl. Moneo's

emotions were a marvelous play performed only on this stage. How near the edge

he walked without ever seeing it!

"Moneo, why do you insist on taking pieces out of the continuum?" Leto asked.

"When you see a spectrum, do you desire one color there above all the others?"

"Lord, I don't understand you!"

Leto closed his eyes, remembering the countless times he had heard this cry. The

faces were an unseparated blend. He opened his eyes to erase them.

"As long as one human remains alive to see them, the colors will not suffer a

linear mortis even if you die, Moneo."

"What is this thing of colors, Lord?"

"The continuum, the never-ending, the Golden Path."

"But you see things which we do not, Lord!"

"Because you refuse!"

Moneo sank his chin to his chest. "Lord, I know you have evolved beyond the rest

of us. That is why we worship you and..."

"Damn you, Moneo!"

Moneo jerked his head up and stared at Leto in terror.

"Civilizations collapse when their powers outrun their religions!" Leto said.

"Why can't you see this? Hwi does."

"She is Ixian, Lord. Perhaps she. . ."

"She's a Fish Speaker! She has been from birth, born to serve me. No!" Leto

raised one of his tiny hands as Moneo tried to speak. "The Fish Speakers are

disturbed because I called them my brides, and now they see a stranger not

trained in Siaynoq who knows it better than they."

"How can that be, Lord, when your Fish..

."

"What are you saying? Each of us comes into being knowing who he is and what he

is supposed to do."

Moneo opened his mouth but closed it without speaking.

"Small children know," Leto said. "It's only after adults have confused them

that children hide this knowledge even from themselves. Moneo! Uncover

yourself!"

"Lord, I cannot!" The words were torn from Moneo. He

trembled with anguish. "I do not have your powers, your knowledge of. . ."

"Enough!"

Moneo fell silent. His body shook.

Leto spoke soothingly to him. "It's all right, Moneo. I asked too much of you

and I can see your fatigue."

Slowly, Moneo's trembling subsided. He drew in deep, gulping breaths.

Leto said: "There will be some change in my Fremen wedding. We will not use the

water rings of my sister, Ghanima. We will use, instead, the rings of my

mother."

"The Lady Chani, Lord? But where are her rings?"

Leto twisted his bulk on the cart and pointed to the intersection of two

cavernous spokes on his left where the dim light revealed the earliest burial

niches of the Atreides on Arrakis. "In her tomb, the first niche. You will

remove those rings, Moneo, and bring them to the ceremony."

Moneo stared across the gloomy distance of the crypt. "Lord . . . is it not a

desecration to. . ."

"You forget, Moneo, who lives in me." He spoke then in Chani's voice: "I can do

what I want with my water rings!"

Moneo cowered. "Yes, Lord. I will bring them with me to Tabur Village when..."

"Tabur Village?" Leto asked in his usual voice. "But I have changed my mind. We

will be wed at Tuono Village!"

Most civilization is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching

cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You

restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You

make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even

the children to breathe slowly. You tame.

The Stolen Journals

IDAHO STOOD aghast at his first close glimpse of Tuono Village. That was the

home of Fremen?

The Fish Speaker troop had taken them from the Citadel at daybreak, Idaho and

Siona bundled into a large ornithopter, accompanied by two smaller guard ships.

And the flight had been slow, almost three hours. They had landed at a flat,

round plastone hangar almost a kilometer from the village, separated from it by

old dunes locked in shape with plantings of poverty grasses and a few scrubby

bushes. As they came down, the wall directly behind the village had seemed to

grow taller and taller, the village shrinking beneath such immensity.

"The Museum Fremen are kept generally uncontaminated by off-planet technology,"

Nayla had explained as the escort sealed the 'thopters into the low hangar. One

of the troop already had been sent trotting off toward Tuono with the

announcement of their arrival.

Siona had remained mostly silent all during the flight, but she had studied

Nayla with covert intensity.

For a time during the march across the morning-lighted dunes, Idaho had tried to

imagine that he was back in the old

days. Sand was visible in the plantings and, in the valleys between dunes, there

was parched ground, yellow grass, the sticklike shrubs. Three vultures, their

gap-tipped wings spread wide, circled in the vault of sky-"the soaring search,"

Fremen had called it. Idaho had tried to explain this to Siona walking beside

him. You worried about the carrion-eaters only when they began to descend.

"I have been told about vultures," she said, her voice cold.

Idaho had noted the perspiration on her upper lip. There was a spicy smell of

sweat in the troop pressed close around them.

His imagination was not equal to the task of defocusing the differences between

the past and this time. The issue stillsuits they wore were more for show than

for efficient collection of the body's water. No true Fremen would have trusted

his life to one of them, not even here, where the air smelled of nearby water.

And the Fish Speakers of Nayla's troop did not walk in Fremen silence. They

chattered among themselves like children.

Siona trudged beside him in sullen withdrawal, her attention frequently on the

broad muscular back of Nayla, who strode along a few paces ahead of the troop.

What was between those two women? Idaho wondered. Nayla appeared devoted to

Siona, hanging on Siona's every word, obeying every whim Siona uttered . . .

except that Nayla would not deviate from the orders which brought them to Tuono

Village. Still, Nayla deferred to Siona and called her "Commander." There was

something deep between those two, something which aroused awe and fear in Nayla.

They came at last to a slope which dropped down to the village and the wall

behind it. From the air, Tuono had been a cluster of glittering rectangles just

outside the shadow of the wall. From this close vantage, though, it had been

reduced to a cluster of decaying huts made even more pitiful by attempts to

decorate the place. Bits of shiny minerals and scraps of metal picked out scroll

designs on the building walls. A tattered green banner fluttered from a metal

pole atop the largest structure. A fitful breeze brought the smell of garbage

and uncovered cesspools to Idaho's nostrils. The central street of the village

extended out across the sparsely planted sand toward the troop, ending in a

ragged edge of broken paving.

A robed delegation waited near the building of the green flag, standing there

expectantly with the Fish Speaker messenger Nayla had sent on ahead. Idaho

counted eight in the delegation, all men in what appeared to be authentic Fremen

robes of dark brown. A green headband could be glimpsed beneath the hood on one

of the delegation-the Naib, no doubt. Children waited to one side with flowers.

Black-hooded women could be seen peering from side-streets in the background.

Idaho found the whole scene distressing.

"Let's get it over with," Siona said.

Nayla nodded and led the way down the slope onto the street. Siona and Idaho

stayed a few paces behind her. The rest of the troop straggled along after them,

silent now and peering around with undisguised curiosity.

As Nayla neared the delegation, the one with the green headband stepped forward

and bowed. He moved like an old man but Idaho saw that he was not old, barely

into his middle years, the cheeks smooth and unwrinkled, a stubby nose with no

scars from breath-filter tubes, and the eyes! The eyes revealed definite pupils,

not the all-blue of spice addiction. They were brown eyes. Brown eyes in a

Fremen!

"I am Garun," the man said as Nayla stopped in front of him. "I am Naib of this

place. I give you a Fremen welcome to Tuono."

Nayla gestured over her shoulder at Siona and Idaho, who had stopped just behind

her. "Are quarters prepared for your guests?"

"We Fremen are noted for our hospitality," Garun said. "All is ready."

Idaho sniffed at the sour smells and sounds of this place. He glanced through

open windows of the flag-topped building on his right. The Atreides banner

flying over that? The window opened into an auditorium with low ceiling, a bandshell

at the far end enclosing a small platform. He saw rows of seats, maroon

carpeting on the floor. It had all the look of a stage setting, a place to

entertain tourists.

The sound of shuffling feet brought Idaho's attention back to Garun. Children

were pressing forward around the delegation, extending clumps of garish red

flowers in their grimy hands. The flowers were wilted.

Garun addressed himself to Siona, correctly identifying the gold piping of Fish

Speaker Command in her uniform.

"Will you wish a performance of our Fremen rituals?" he asked. "The music,

perhaps? The dance?"

Nayla accepted a bunch of flowers from one of the children, sniffed them and

sneezed.

Another urchin extended flowers toward Siona, lifting a wide-eyed stare toward

her. She accepted the flowers without looking at the child. Idaho merely waved

the children aside as they approached him. They hesitated, staring up at him,

then scurried around him toward the rest of the troop.

Garun spoke to Idaho. "If you give them a few coins, they will not bother you."

Idaho shuddered. Was this the training for Fremen children?

Garun returned his attention to Siona. With Nayla listening, Garun began

explaining the layout of his village.

Idaho moved away from them down the street, noting how glances flicked toward

him and then avoided his gaze. He felt deeply offended by the surface

decorations on the buildings, none of it disguising the evidence of decay. He

stared in an open doorway at the auditorium. There was a harshness in Tuono, a

struggling something behind the wilting flowers and the servile tone of Garun's

voice. In another time and on another planet, this would have been a donkey-inthe-

street village rope-belted peasants pressing forward with petitions. He

could hear the whine of supplication in Garun's voice. These were not Fremen!

These poor creatures lived on the margins, trying to retain parts of an ancient

wholeness. And all the while, that lost reality slipped farther and farther from

their grasp. What had Leto created here? These Museum Fremen were lost to

everything except a bare existence and the rote mouthing of old words which they

did not understand and which they did not even pronounce correctly!

Returning to Siona, Idaho bent to study the cut of Garun's brown robe, seeing a

tightness in it dictated by a need to conserve fabric. The gray slick of a

stillsuit could be seen underneath, exposed to sunlight which no real Fremen

would ever have let touch his stillsuit that way. Idaho looked at the rest of

the delegation, noting an identical parsimonious treatment of fabric. It

betrayed their emotional bent. Such garments allowed no expansive gestures, no

freedom of movement. The robes were tight and confining in the way of these

entire people!

Disgust propelling him, Idaho strode forward abruptly and parted Garun's robe to

look at the stillsuit. Just as he suspected! The suit was another sham-no arms

to it, no boot-pumps!

Garun pulled back, putting a hand to the knife hilt Idaho

had exposed at the man's belt. "Here! What're you doing?" Garun demanded, his

voice querulous. "You don't touch a Fremen thus!"

"You, a Fremen?" Idaho demanded. "I lived with Fremen! I fought by their sides

against Harkonnens! I died with Fremen! You? You're a sham!"

Garun's knuckles went white on the knife haft. He addressed himself to Siona.

"Who is this man?"

Nayla spoke up: "This is Duncan Idaho."

"The ghola?" Garun turned to look at Idaho's face. "We have never seen your like