Frank Herbert - Dune Book 4 - God Emperor Of Dune

by Frank Herbert

  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 band-shell 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-in-the-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 here before."

  Idaho felt himself almost overcome with desire to cleanse this place even if it cost him his life, this diminished life which could be repeated endlessly by people who had no real concerns for him. An older model, yes! But this was no Fremen.

  "Draw that knife or take your hand off it," Idaho said.

  Garun jerked his hand away from the knife. "It is not a real knife," he said. "Only for decoration." His voice became eager. "But we have real knives, even crysknives! They are kept locked in the display cases to preserve them."

  Idaho could not help himself. He threw his head back in laughter. Siona smiled, but Nayla looked thoughtful and the rest of the Fish Speaker troop drew into a close, watchful circle around them.

  The laughter had an odd effect on Garun. He lowered his head and clasped his hands tightly together, but not before Idaho saw them trembling. When Garun peered upward once more, it was to look at Idaho from beneath heavy brows. Idaho felt abruptly sobered. It was as though some terrible boot had crushed Garun's ego into fearful subservience. There was watchful waiting in the man's eyes. And for no reason he could explain, Idaho remembered a passage from the Orange Catholic Bible. He asked himself: Are these the meek who will outwait us all and inherit the universe?

  Garun cleared his throat, then: "Perhaps the ghola Duncan Idaho will witness our ways and our ritual and judge them?"

  Idaho felt shamed by the plaintive request. He spoke without thinking: "I will teach you anything Fremen that I know." He looked up to see Nayla scowling at him. "It will help to pass the time," he said. "And who knows? It may return something of the true Fremen to this land."

  Siona said: "We've no need to play old cultish games! Take us to our quarters."

  Nayla lowered her head in embarrassment and spoke without looking at Siona. "Commander, there is a thing I have not ventured to tell you."

  "That you must make sure we stay in this filthy place," Siona said.

  "Oh, no!" Nayla looked up at Siona's face. "Where could you go? The Wall cannot be climbed and there is only the river beyond it, anyway. And in the other direction, it is the Sareer. Oh, no . . . it is something else." Nayla shook her head.

  "Out with it!" Siona snapped.

  "I am under the strictest orders, Commander, which I dare not disobey." Nayla glanced at the other members of the troop then back to Siona. "You and the . . . Duncan Idaho are to be quartered together."

  "My father's orders?"

  "Lady Commander, they are said to be the orders of the God Emperor himself and we dare not disobey."

  Siona looked full at Idaho. "You will remember my warning, Duncan, when last we spoke at the Citadel?"

  "My hands are mine to do with as I wish," Idaho snarled. "I don't think you have any doubts about my wishes!"

  She turned away from him after a curt nod and looked at Garun. "What does it matter where we bed in this disgusting place? Take us to our quarters."

  Idaho found Garun's response fascinating-a turning of the head toward the ghola, shielding the face behind the Fremen hood, then a secret conspiratorial wink. Only then did Garun lead them away down the ditty street.

  ===

  What is the most immediate danger to my stewardship? I will tell you. It is a true visionary, a person who has stood in the presence of God with the full knowledge of where he stands. Visionary ecstasy releases energies which are like the energies of sex-uncaring for anything except creation. One act of creation can be much like another. Everything depends upon the vision.

  -The Stolen Journals

  LETO LAY without his cart on the high, sheltered balcony of his Little Citadel tower, subduing a fretfulness which he
knew came from the necessary delays putting off the date of his wedding to Hwi Noree. He stared toward the southwest. Somewhere off there beyond the darkening horizon, the Duncan, Siona and their companions had been six days in Tuono Village.

  The delays are my own fault, Leto thought. I am the one who changed the place for the wedding, making it necessary for poor Moneo to revise all of his preparations.

  And now, of course, there was the matter of Malky.

  None of these necessities could be explained to Moneo, who could be heard stirring about within the central chamber of the aerie, worrying about his absence from the command post where he directed the festive preparations. Moneo was such a worrier!

  Leto looked toward the setting sun. It floated low to the horizon, faded a dim orange by a recent storm. Rain crouched low in the clouds to the south beyond the Sareer now. In a prolonged silence, Leto had watched the rain there for a time

  which had stretched out with no beginning or end. The clouds had grown out of a hard gray sky, rain walking in visible lines. He had felt himself clothed in memories that came unbidden. The mood was hard to shake off and, without even thinking, he muttered the remembered lines of an ancient verse.

  "Did you speak, Lord?" Moneo's voice came from close beside Leto. By merely turning his eyes, Leto could see the faithful majordomo standing attentively waiting.

  Leto translated into Galach as he quoted: "The nightingale nests in the plum tree, but what will she do with the wind?"

  "Is that a question, Lord?"

  "An old question. The answer is simple. Let the nightingale keep to her flowers."

  "I don't understand, Lord."

  "Stop mouthing the obvious, Moneo. It disturbs me when you do that."

  "Forgive me, Lord."

  "What else can I do?" Leto studied Moneo's downcast features. "You and I, Moneo, whatever else we do, we provide good theater."

  Moneo peered at Leto's face. "Lord?"

  "The rites of the religious festival of Bacchus were the seeds of Greek theater, Moneo. Religion often leads to theater. They will have fine theater out of us." Once more, Leto turned and looked at the southwest horizon.

  There was a wind there now piling up the clouds. Leto thought he could hear driven sand blustering along the dunes, but there was only resonant quiet in the tower aerie, a quiet with the faintest of wind hiss behind it.

  "The clouds," he whispered. "I would take a cup of moonlight once more, an ancient sea barge at my feet, thin clouds clinging to my darkling sky, the blue-gray cloak around my shoulders and horses neighing nearby."

  "My Lord is troubled," Moneo said. The compassion in his voice wrenched at Leto.

  "The bright shadows of my pasts," Leto said. "They never leave me in peace. I listened for a soothing sound, the bell of a country town at nightfall, and it told me only that I am the sound and soul of this place."

  As he spoke, darkness enclosed the tower. Automatic lights came on around them. Leto kept his attention directed outward where a thin melon slice of First Moon drifted above the clouds with orange planet-light revealing the satellite's full circle.

  "Lord, why have we come out here?" Moneo asked. "Why won't you tell me?"

  "I wanted the benefit of your surprise," Leto said. "A Guild lighter will land beside us out here soon. My Fish Speakers bring Malky to me."

  Moneo inhaled a quick breath and held it a moment before exhaling. "Hwi's . . . uncle? That Malky?"

  "You are surprised that you had no warning of this," Leto said.

  Moneo felt a chill all through his body. "Lord, when you wish to keep things secret from. . ."

  "Moneo?" Leto spoke in a softly persuasive tone. "I know that Malky offered you greater temptations than any other. . ."

  "Lord! I never. . ."

  "I know that, Moneo." Still in that soft tone. "But surprise has shocked your memories alive. You are armed for anything I may require of you."

  "What . . . what does my Lord..."

  "Perhaps we will have to dispose of Malky. He is a problem."

  "Me? You want me to..."

  "Perhaps."

  Moneo swallowed, then, "The Reverend Mother..."

  "Anteac is dead. She served me well, but she is dead. There was extreme violence when my Fish Speakers attacked the . . . place where Malky lay hidden."

  "We are better off without Anteac," Moneo said.

  "I appreciate your distrust of the Bene Gesserit, but I would that Anteac had left us in another way. She was faithful to us, Moneo."

  "A Reverend Mother was..."

  "Both the Bene Tleilax and the Guild wanted Malky's secret," Leto said. "When they saw us move against the lxians, they struck ahead of my Fish Speakers. Anteac . . . well, she could only delay them a bit, but it was enough. My Fish Speakers invested the place. . ."

  "Malky's secret, Lord?"

  "When a thing vanishes," Leto said, "that is as much of a message as when a thing suddenly appears. The empty spaces are always worthy of our study."

  "What does my Lord mean, empty..."

  "Malky did not die! Certainly I would have known that. Where did he go when he vanished?"

  "Vanished . . . from you, Lord? Do you mean that the lxians..."

  "They have improved upon a device they gave me long ago. They improved it slowly and subtly, hidden shells within hidden shells, but I noted the shadows. I was surprised. I was pleased."

  Moneo thought about this. A device which concealed . . . Ahhh! The God Emperor had mentioned a thing on several occasions, a way of concealing the thoughts he recorded. Moneo spoke:

  "And Malky brings the secret of. . ."

  "Oh, yes! But that is not Malky's real secret. He holds another thing in his bosom which he does not think that I suspect."

  "Another . . . but, Lord, if they can hide even from you. . ."

  "Many can do that now, Moneo. They scattered when my Fish Speakers attacked. The secret of the lxian device is spread far and wide."

  Moneo's eyes went wide with alarm. "Lord, if anyone..."

  "If they learn to be clever, they will leave no tracks," Leto said. "Tell me, Moneo, what does Nayla say about the Duncan? Does she resent reporting directly to you?"

  "Whatever my Lord commands..." Moneo cleared his throat. He could not fathom why his God Emperor spoke of hidden tracks, the Duncan and Nayla in the same breath.

  "Yes, of course," Leto said. "Whatever I command, Nayla obeys. And what does she say of the Duncan?"

  "He has not tried to breed with Siona, if that is my Lord's. . .

  "But what does he do with my puppet Naib, Garun, and the other Museum Fremen?"

  "He speaks to them of the old ways, of the wars against the Harkonnens, of the first Atreides here on Arrakis."

  "On Dune!"

  "Dune, yes."

  "It's because there's no more Dune that there are no more Fremen," Leto said. "Have you conveyed my message to Nayla?"

  "Lord, why do you add to your peril?"

  "Did you convey my message?"

  "The messenger has been sent to Tuono, but I could still call her back."

  "You will not call her back!"

  "But, Lord.. ."

  "What will she say to Nayla?"

  "That . . . that is your command for Nayla to continue in absolute and unquestioning obedience of my daughter except insofar. . . Lord! This is dangerous!"

  "Dangerous? Nayla is a Fish Speaker. She will obey me."

  "But Siona . . . Lord, I fear that my daughter does not serve you with all of her heart. And Nayla is. . ."

  "Nayla must not deviate."

  "Lord, let us hold your wedding in some other place."

  "No!"

  "Lord, I know that your vision has revealed. . ."

  "The Golden Path endures, Moneo. You know that as well as L"

  Moneo sighed. "Infinity is yours, Lord. I do not question the. . ." He broke off as a monstrous shuddering roar shook the tower, louder and louder.

  Both of them turned toward the
sound- a descending plume of blue-orange light filled with swirling shockwaves came down to the desert less than a kilometer away to the south.

  "Ahhh, my guest arrives," Leto said. "I will send you down on my cart, Moneo. Bring only Malky back with you. Tell the Guildsmen this has earned my forgiveness, then send them away."

  "Your for... yes, Lord. But if they have the secret of. . ."

  "They serve my purpose, Moneo. You must do the same. Bring Malky to me."

  Obediently, Moneo went to the cart which lay in shadows at the far side of the aerie chamber. He clambered on it, watched a mouth of night appear in the Wall. A landing-lip extruded into that night. The cart drifted outward, feather-light, and floated at an angle to the sand beside a Guild lighter which stood upright like a distorted miniature of the Little Citadel's tower.

  Leto watched from the balcony, his front segments lifted slightly to provide him a better viewing angle. His acute eyesight identified the white movement of Moneo standing on the cart in the moonlight. Long-legged Guild servitors came out with a litter which they slid onto the cart, standing there a moment in conversation with Moneo. When they left, Leto closed the cart's bubble cover and saw moonlight reflected from it. At his beckoning thought, the cart and its burden returned to the landing-lip. The Guild lighter lifted in its noisy

  rumbling while Leto was bringing the cart into the chamber's lights, closing the entrance behind it. Leto opened the bubble cover. Sand grated beneath him as he rolled to the litter and lifted his front segments to peer in at Malky who lay as though sleeping, lashed into the litter by broad gray elastic bindings. The man's face was ashen under dark gray hair.