Frank Herbert - Dune Book 4 - God Emperor Of Dune

by Frank Herbert

  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 essence-more 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 self-deprecation:


  "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. . ."