"Who will replace you?" Siona asked.
"They are sending a niece of Malky," Korbat said. "You may remember that he..."
"We remember Malky," she said. "Why does a niece of Malky become the new Ambassador?"
"I don't know. But it was ordered even before the Go... the Worm dismissed me."
"Her name?"
"Hwi Noree."
"We will cultivate Hwi Noree," Siona said. "You were not worth cultivating. This Hwi Noree may be something else. When do you return to Ix?"
"Immediately after the Festival, the first Guild ship."
"What will you tell your masters?"
"About what?"
"My message!"
"They will do as you ask."
"I know. You may go, ex-Ambassador Kobat."
Kobat almost collided with the door guards in his haste to leave. Topri made to follow him, but Nayla caught Topri's arm and held him. Topri swept a fearful glance across Nayla's muscular body, then looked at Siona, who waited for the door to shut behind Kobat before speaking.
"The message was not merely to the Ixians, but to us as well," she said. "The Worm challenges us and tells us the rules of the combat."
Topri tried to wrest his arm from Nayla's grip. "What do you..."
"Topri!" Sonia said. "I, too, can send a message. Tell my father to inform the Worm that we accept."
Nayla released his arm. Topri rubbed the place where she had gripped him. "Surely you don't..."
"Leave while you can and never come back," Siona said.
"You can't possibly mean that you sus..."
"I told you to leave! You are clumsy, Topri. I have been in the Fish Speaker schools for most of my life. They taught me to recognize clumsiness."
"Kobat is leaving. What harm was there in..."
"He not only knew me, he knew what I had stolen from the Citadel! But he did not know that I would send that package to Ix with him. Your actions have told me that the Worm wants me to send those volumes to Ix!"
Topri backed away from Siona toward the door. Anouk and Taw opened a passage for him, swung the door wide. Siona followed him with her voice.
"Do not argue that it was the Worm who spoke of me and my package to Kobat! The Worm does not send clumsy messages. Tell him I said that!"
***
Some say I have no conscience. How false they are, even to themselves. I am the only conscience which has ever existed. As wine retains the perfume of its cask, I retain the essence of my most ancient genesis, and that is the seed of conscience. That is what makes me holy. I am God because I am the only one who really knows his heredity!
- The Stolen Journals
The Inquisitors of Ix having assembled in the Grand Palais with the candidate for Ambassador to the Court of the Lord Leto, the following questions and answers were recorded:
INQUISITOR: You indicate that you wish to speak to us of the Lord Leto's motives. Speak.
HWI NOREE: Your Formal Analyses do not satisfy the questions I would raise.
INQUISITOR: What questions'?
HWI NOREE: I ask myself what would motivate the Lord Leto to accept this hideous transformation, this worm-body, this loss of his humanity? You suggest merely that he did it for power and for long life.
INQUISITOR: Are those not enough?
HWI NOREE: Ask yourselves if one of you would make such payment for so paltry a return?
INQUISITOR: From your infinite wisdom then, tell us why the Lord Leto chose to become a worm.
HWI NOREE: Does anyone here doubt his ability to predict the future?
INQUISITOR: Now then! Is that not payment enough for his transformation?
HWI NOREE: But he already had the prescient ability as did his father before him. No! I propose that he made this desperate choice because he saw in our future something that only such a sacrifice would prevent.
INQUISITOR: What was this peculiar thing which only he saw in our future?
HWI NOREE: I do not know, but I propose to discover it.
INQUISITOR: You make the tyrant appear a selfless servant of the people!
HWI NOREE: Was that not a prominent characteristic of his Atreides Family'?
INQUISITOR: So the official histories would have us believe.
HWI NOREE: The Oral History affirms it.
INQUISITOR: What other good character would you give to the tyrant Worm?
HWI NOREE: Good character, sirra?
INQUISITOR: Character, then?
HWI NOREE: My Uncle Malky often said that the Lord Leto was given to moods of great tolerance for selected companions.
INQUISITOR: Other companions he executes for no apparent reason.
HWI NOREE: I think there are reasons and my Uncle Malky deduced some of those reasons.
INQUISITOR: Give us one such deduction.
HWI NOREE: Clumsy threats to his person.
INQUISITOR: Clumsy threats now!
HWI NOREE: And he does not tolerate pretensions. Recall the execution of the historians and the destruction of their works.
INQUISITOR: He does not want the truth known!
HWI NOREE: He told my Uncle Malky that they lied about the past. And mark you! Who would know this better than he? We all know the subject of his introversion.
INQUISITOR: What proof have we that all of his ancestors live in him?
HWI NOREE: I will not enter that bootless argument. I will merely say that I believe it on the evidence of my Uncle Malky's belief, and his reasons for that belief.
INQUISITOR: We have read your uncle's reports and interpret them otherwise. Malky was overly fond of the Worm.
HWI NOREE: My uncle accounted him the most supremely artful diplomat in the Empire, a master conversationalist and expert in any subject you could name.
INQUISITOR: Did your uncle not speak of the Worm's brutality?
HWI NOREE: My uncle judged him ultimately civilized.
INQUISITOR: I asked about brutality.
HWI NOREE: Capable of brutality, yes.
INQUISITOR: Your uncle feared him.
HWI NOREE: The Lord Leto lacks all innocence and naivete. He is to be feared only when he pretends these traits. That was what my uncle said.
INQUISITOR: Those were his words, yes.
HWI NOREE: More than that! Malky said, "The Lord Leto delights in the surprising genius and diversity of humankind. He is my favorite companion."
INQUISITOR: Giving us the benefit of your supreme wisdom, how do you interpret these words of your uncle?
HWI NOREE: Do not mock me!
INQUISITOR: We do not mock. We seek enlightenment.
HWI NOREE: These words of Malky, and many other things that he wrote directly to me, suggest that the Lord Leto is always seeking after newness and originality but that he is wary of the destructive potential in such things. So my uncle believed.
INQUISITOR: Is there more which you wish to add to these beliefs which you share with your uncle?
HWI NOREE: I see no point in adding to what I've already said. I am sorry to have wasted the Inquisitors' time.
INQUISITOR: But you have not wasted our time. You are confirmed as Ambassador to the Court of Lord Leto, the God Emperor of the known universe.
***
You must remember that I have at my internal demand every expertise known to our history. This is the fund of energy I -draw upon when I address the mentality of war. If you have not heard the moaning cries of the wounded and the dying, you do not know about war. I have heard those cries in such numbers that they haunt me. I have cried out myself in the aftermath of battle. I have suffered wounds in every epoch-wounds from fist and club and rock, from shell-studded limb and bronze sword, from the mace and the cannon, from arrows and lasguns and the silent smothering of atomic dust, from biological invasions which blacken the tongue and drown the lungs, from the swift gush of flame and the silent working of slow poisons... and more I will not recount! I have seen and felt them all. To those who dare ask why I behave as I do, I say:
With my memories, I can do nothing else. I am not a coward and once I was human.
- The Stolen Journals
IN THE warm season when the satellite weather controllers were forced to contend with winds across the great seas, evening often saw rainfall at the edges of the Sareer. Moneo, coming in from one of his periodic inspections of the Citadel's perimeter, was caught in a sudden shower. Night fell before he reached shelter. A Fish Speaker guard helped him out of his damp cloak at the south portal. She was a heavyset, blocky woman with a square face, a type Leto favored for his guardians.
"Those damned weather controllers should be made to shape up," she said as she handed him his damp cloak.
Moneo gave her a curt nod before beginning the climb to his quarters. All of the Fish Speaker guards knew the God Emperor's aversion to moisture, but none of them made Moneo's distinction.
It is the Worm who hates water, Moneo thought. Shai-Hulud hungers for Dune.
In his quarters, Moneo dried himself and changed to dry clothing before descending to the crypt. There was no point in inviting the Worm's antagonism. Uninterrupted conversation with Leto was required now, plain talk about the impending peregrination to the Festival City of Onn.
Leaning against a wall of the descending lift, Moneo closed his eyes. Immediately, fatigue swept over him. He knew he had not slept enough in days and there was no let up in sight. He envied Leto's apparent freedom from the need for sleep. A few hours of semi repose a month appeared to be sufficient for the God Emperor.
The smell of the crypt and the stopping of the lift jarred Moneo from his catnap. He opened his eyes and looked out at the God Emperor on his cart in the center of the great chamber. Moneo composed himself and strode out for the familiar long walk into the terrible presence. As expected, Leto appeared alert. That, at least, was a good sign.
Leto had heard the lift approaching and saw Moneo awaken. The man looked tired and that was understandable. The peregrination to Onn was at hand with all of the tiresome business of off-planet visitors, the ritual with the Fish Speakers, the new ambassadors, the changing of the Imperial Guard, the retirements and the appointments, and now a new Duncan Idaho ghola to fit into the smooth working of the Imperial apparatus. Moneo was occupied with mounting details and he was beginning to show his age.
Let me see, Leto thought. Moneo will be one hundred and eighteen years old in the week after our return from Onn.
The man could live many times that long if he would take the spice, but he refused. Leto had no doubt of the reason. Moneo had entered that peculiar human state where he longed for death. He lingered now only to see Siona installed in the
Royal Service, the next director of the Imperial Society of Fish Speakers.
My houris, as Malky used to call them.
And Moneo knew it was Leto's intention to breed Siona with a Duncan. It was time.
Moneo stopped two paces from the cart and looked up at Leto. Something in his eyes reminded Leto of the look on the face of a pagan priest in the Terran times, a crafty supplication at the familiar shrine.
"Lord, you have spent many hours observing the new Duncan," Moneo said. "Have the Tleilaxu tampered with his cells or his psyche?"
"He is untainted."
A deep sigh shook Moneo. There was no pleasure in it.
"You object to his use as a stud?" Leto asked.
"I find it peculiar to think of him as both an ancestor and the father of my descendants."
"But he gives me access to a first-generation cross between an older human form and the current products of my breeding program. Siona is twenty-one generations removed from such a cross."
"I fail to see the purpose. The Duncans are slower and less alert than anyone in your Guard."
"I am not looking for good segregant offspring, Moneo. Did you think me unaware of the progression geometrics dictated by the laws which govern my breeding program?"
"I have seen your stock book, Lord."
"Then you know that I keep track of the recessives and weed them out. The key genetic dominants are my concern."
"And the mutations, Lord?" There was a sly note in Moneo's voice which caused Leto to study the man intently.
"We will not discuss that subject, Moneo."
Leto watched Moneo pull back into his cautious shell.
How extremely sensitive he is to my moods, Leto thought. I do believe he has some of my abilities there, although they operate at an unconscious level. His question suggests that he may even suspect what we have achieved in Siona.
Testing this, Leto said, "It is clear to me that you do not yet understand what I hope to achieve in my breeding program."
Moneo brightened. "My Lord knows I try to fathom the rules of it."
"Laws tend to be temporary over the long haul, Moneo. There is no such thing as rule-governed creativity."
"But Lord, you yourself speak of laws which govern your breeding program."
"What have I just said to you, Moneo? Trying to find rules for creation is like trying to separate mind from body."
"But something is evolving, Lord. I know it in myself!"
He knows it in himself! Dear Moneo. He is so close.
"Why do you always seek after absolutely derivative translations, Moneo?"
"I have heard you speak of transformational evolution, Lord. That is the label on your stock book. But what of surprise..."
"Moneo! Rules change with each surprise."
"Lord, have you no improvement of the human stock in mind?"
Leto glared down at him, thinking: If I use the key word now, will he understand? Perhaps...
"I am a predator, Moneo."
"Pred..." Moneo broke off and shook his head. He knew the meaning of the word, he thought, but the word itself shocked him. Was the God Emperor joking?
"Predator, Lord?"
"The predator improves the stock."
"How can this be, Lord? You do not hate us."
"You disappoint me, Moneo. The predator does not hate its prey."
"Predators kill, Lord."
"I kill, but I do not hate. Prey assuages hunger. Prey is good."
Moneo peered up at Leto's face in its gray cowl.
Have I missed the approach of the Worm? Moneo wondered.
Fearfully, Moneo looked for the signs. There were no tremors in the giant body, no glazing of the eyes, no twisting of the useless flippers.
"For what do you hunger, Lord?" Moneo ventured.
"For a humankind which can make truly long-term decisions. Do you know the key to that ability, Moneo?"
"You have said it many times, Lord. It is the ability to change your mind."
"Change, yes. And do you know what I mean by longterm?"
"For you, it must be measured in millennia, Lord."
"Moneo, even my thousands of years are but a puny blip against Infinity."
"But your perspective must be different from mine, Lord." "In the view of Infinity, any defined long-term is shortterm."
"Then are there no rules at all, Lord?" Moneo's voice conveyed a faint hint of hysteria.
Leto smiled to ease the man's tensions. "Perhaps one. Short-term decisions tend to fail in the long-term."
Moneo shook his head in frustration. "But, Lord, your perspective is..."
"Time runs out for any finite observer. There are no closed systems. Even I only stretch the finite matrix."
Moneo jerked his attention from Leto's face and peered into the distances of the mausoleum corridors. I will be here someday. The Golden Path may continue, but I will end. That was not important, of course. Only the Golden Path which he could sense in unbroken continuity, only that mattered. He returned his attention to Leto, but not to the all-blue eyes. Was there truly a predator lurking in that gross body?
"You do not understand the function of a predator," Leto said.
The words shocked Moneo because they smacked of mind-reading. He lifted his gaze to Leto's eyes.
"You know intellectually that even I
will suffer a kind of death someday," Leto said. "But you do not believe it."
"How can I believe what I will never see?"
Moneo had never felt more lonely and fearful. What was the God Emperor doing? I came down here to discuss the problems of the peregrination... and to find out about his intentions toward Siona. Does he toy with me?
"Let us talk about Siona," Leto said.
Mind-reading again!
"When will you test her, Lord?" The question had been waiting in the front of his awareness all this time, but now that he had spoken it, Moneo feared it.
"Soon."
"Forgive me, Lord, but surely you know how much I fear for the well being of my only child."
"Others have survived the test, Moneo. You did."
Moneo gulped, remembering how he had been sensitized to the Golden Path.
"My mother prepared me. Siona has no mother."
"She has the Fish Speakers. She has you."
"Accidents happen, Lord."
Tears sprang into Moneo's eyes.
Leto looked away from him, thinking: He is torn by his loyalty to me and his love of Siona. How poignant it is, this concern for an offspring. Can he not see that all of humankind is my only child?
Returning his attention to Moneo, Leto said, "You are right to observe that accidents happen even in my universe. Does this teach you nothing?"
"Lord, just this once couldn't you..."
"Moneo! Surely you do not ask me to delegate authority to a weak administrator."
Moneo recoiled one step. "No, Lord. Of course not."
"Then trust Siona's strength."
Moneo squared his shoulders. "I will do what I must."
"Siona must be awakened to her duties as an Atreides."
"Yes, of course, Lord."
"Is that not our commitment, Moneo?"
"I do not deny it, Lord. When will you introduce her to the new Duncan?"
"The test comes first."
Moneo looked down at the cold floor of the crypt.
He stares at the floor so often, Leto thought. What can he possibly see there? Is it the millennial tracks of my cart? Ahhh, no-it is into the depths that he peers, into the realm of treasure and mystery which he expects to enter soon.
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