God Emperor of Dune (Dune Chronicles #4)

God Emperor of Dune (Dune Chronicles #4) Page 24

"What alternative?"

"In time, you may understand it. Moneo did."

"Your damned Golden Path!"

"Not damned at all. Quite holy."

"You think I'm a fool who can't..."

"I think you're inexperienced, but possessed of great capability whose potential you do not even suspect."

She took three deep breaths and regained some of her composure, then: "If you can't mate with the Ixian, what..."

"Child, why do you persist in misunderstanding? It's not sex. Before Hwi, I could not pair. I had no other like me. In all of the cosmic void, I was the only one."

"She's like... you?"

"Deliberately so. The lxians made her that way."

"Made her..."

"Don't be a complete fool!" he snapped. "She is the essential god-trap. Even the victim cannot reject her."

"Why do you tell me these things?" she whispered.

"You stole two copies of my journals," he said. "You've read the Guild translations and you already know what could catch me."

"You knew?"

He saw boldness return to her stance, a sense of her own power. "Of course you knew," she said, answering her own question.

"It was my secret," he said. "You cannot imagine how many times I have loved a companion and seen that companion slip away... as your father is slipping away now."

"You love... him?"

"And I loved your mother. Sometimes they go quickly; sometimes with agonizing slowness. Each time I am wracked. I can play callous and I can make the necessary decisions, even decisions which kill, but I cannot escape the suffering. For a long, long time-those journals you stole tell it truly-that was the only emotion I knew."

He saw the moistness in her eyes, but the line of her jaw still spoke of angry resolution.

"None of this gives you the right to govern," she said.

Leto suppressed a smile. At last they were down to the root of Siona's rebellion.

By what right? Where is justice in my rule? By imposing my rules upon them with the weight of Fish Speaker arms, am I being fair to the evolutionary thrust of humankind? I know all of the revolutionary cant, the catch-prattle and the resounding phrases.

"Nowhere do you see your own rebellious hand in the power I wield," he said.

Her youth still demanded its moment.

"I never chose you to govern," she said.

"But you strengthen me."

"How?"

"By opposing me. I sharpen my claws on the likes of you."

She shot a sudden glance at his hands.

"A figure of speech," he said.

"So I've offended you at last," she said, hearing only the cutting anger in his words and tone.

"You've not offended me. We're related and can speak bluntly to each other within the family. The fact is, I have much more to fear from you than you from me."

This took her aback, but only momentarily. He saw belief stiffen her shoulders, then doubt. Her chin lowered and she peered upward at him.

"What could the great God Leto fear from me?"

"Your ignorant violence."

"Are you saying that you're physically vulnerable?"

"I will not warn you again, Siona. There are limits to the word games I will play. You and the lxians both know that it's the ones I love who are physically vulnerable. Soon, most of the Empire will know it. This is the kind of information which travels fast."

"And they'll all ask what right you have to rule!"

There was glee in her voice. It aroused an abrupt anger in Leto. He found it difficult to suppress. This was a side of human emotions he detested. Gloating! It was some time before he dared answer, then he chose to slash through her defenses at the vulnerability he already had seen.

"I rule by the right of loneliness, Siona. My loneliness is part-freedom and part-slavery. It says I cannot be bought by any human group. My slavery to you says that I will serve all of you to the best of my lordly abilities."

"But the lxians have caught you!" she said.

"No. They have given me a gift which strengthens me."

"It weakens you!"

"That, too," he admitted. "But very powerful forces still obey me."

"Ohhh, yes." she nodded. "I understand that."

"You don't understand it."

"Then I'm sure you'll explain it to me," she taunted.

He spoke so softly that she had to lean toward him to hear: "There are no others of any kind anywhere who can call upon me for anything-not for sharing, not for compromise, not even for the slightest beginning of another government. I am the only one."

"Not even this Ixian woman can..."

"She is so much like me that she would not weaken me in that way."

"But when the Ixian Embassy was attacked..."

"I can still be irritated by stupidity," he said.

She scowled at him.

Leto thought it a pretty gesture in that light, quite unconscious. He knew he had made her think. He was sure she had never before considered that any rights might adhere to uniqueness.

He addressed her silent scowl: "There has never before been a government exactly like mine. Not in all of our history. I am responsible only to myself, exacting payment in full for what I have sacrificed."

"Sacrificed!" she sneered, but he heard the doubts. "Every despot says something like that. You're responsible only to yourself!"

"Which makes every living thing my responsibility. I watch over you through these times."

"Through what times?"

"The times that might have been and then no more."

He saw the indecision in her. She did not trust her instincts, her untrained abilities at prediction. She might leap occasionally as she had done when she took his journals, but the motivation for the leap was lost in the revelation which followed.

"My father says you can be very tricky with words," she said.

"And he ought to know. But there is knowledge you can only gain by participating in it. There's no way to learn it by standing off and looking and talking."

"That's the kind of thing he means," she said.

"You're quite right," he agreed. "It's not logical. But it is a light, an eye which can see, but does not see itself."

"I'm tired of talking," she said.

"As am L" And he thought: l have seen enough, done enough. She is wide open to her doubts. How vulnerable they are in their ignorance!

"You haven't convinced me of anything," she said.

"That was not the purpose of this meeting."

"What was the purpose?"

"To see if you are ready to be tested."

"Test..." She tipped her head a bit to the right and stared at him.

"Don't play the innocent with me," he said. "Moneo has told you. And I tell you that you are ready!"

She tried to swallow, then: "What are..."

"I have sent for Moneo to return you to the Citadel," he said. "When we meet again, we will really learn what you are made of." -= You know the myth of the Great Spice Hoard? Yes, I know about that story, too. A majordomo brought it to me one day to amuse me. The story says there is a hoard of melange, a gigantic hoard, big as a great mountain. The hoard is concealed in the depths of a distant planet. It is not Arrakis, that planet. It is not Dune. The spice was hidden there long ago, even before the First Empire and the Spacing Guild. The story says Paul Muad'Dib went there and lives yet beside the hoard, kept alive by it, waiting. The majordomo did not understand why the story disturbed me.

- The Stolen Journals IDAHO TREMBLED with anger as he strode along the gray plastone halls toward his quarters in the Citadel. At each guard post he passed, the woman there snapped to attention. He did not respond. Idaho knew he was causing disturbance among them. Nobody could mistake the Commander's mood. But he did not abate his purposeful stride. The heavy thumping of his boots echoed along the walls.

He could still taste the noon meal-oddly familiar Atreides chopstick-fare of mixed grains herb-seasoned and baked around a pungent morsel of pseudomeat, all of it washed down with a drink of clear cidrit juice. Moneo had found him at table in the Guard Mess, alone in a corner with a regional operations schedule propped up beside his plate.

Without invitation, Moneo had seated himself opposite

Idaho and had pushed aside the operations schedule.

"I bring a message from the God Emperor," Moneo said.

The tightly controlled tone warned Idaho that this was no casual encounter. Others sensed it. Listening silence settled over the women at nearby tables, spreading out through the room.

Idaho put down his chopsticks. "Yes?"

"These were the words of the God Emperor," Moneo said. "`It is my bad luck that Duncan Idaho should become enamored of Hwi Noree. This mischance must not continue."'

Anger thinned Idaho's lips, but he remained silent.

"Such foolishness endangers us all," Moneo said. "Noree is the God Emperor's intended."

Idaho tried to control his anger, but the words were a betrayal: "He can't marry her!"

"Why not?"

"What game is he playing, Moneo?"

"I am a messenger with a single message, no more," Moneo said.

Idaho's voice was low and threatening. "But he confides in you."

"The God Emperor sympathizes with you," Moneo lied.

"Sympathizes!" Idaho shouted the word, creating a new depth to the room's silence.

"Noree is a woman of obvious attractions," Moneo said. "But she is not for you."

"The God Emperor has spoken," Idaho sneered, "and there is no appeal."

"I see that you understand the message," Moneo said.

Idaho started to push himself away from the table.

"Where are you going?" Moneo demanded.

"I'm going to have this out with him right now!"

"That is certain suicide," Moneo said.

Idaho glared at him, aware suddenly of the listening intensity in the women at the tables around them. An expression which Muad'Dib would have recognized immediately came over Idaho's face: "Playing to the Devil's Gallery," Muad'Dib had called it.

"D'you know what the original Atreides Dukes always said?" Idaho asked. There was a mocking tone in his voice.

"Is it pertinent?"

"They said your liberties all vanish when you look up to any absolute ruler."

Rigid with fear, Moneo leaned toward Idaho. Moneo's lips barely moved. His voice was little more than a whisper. "Don't say such things."

"Because one of these women will report it?"

Moneo shook his head in disbelief. "You are more reckless than any of the others."

"Really?"

"Please! It is perilous in the extreme to take this attitude."

Idaho heard the nervous stirring that swept through the room.

"He can only kill us," Idaho said.

Moneo spoke in a tight whisper: "You fool! The Worm can dominate him at the slightest provocation!"

"The Worm, you say?" Idaho's voice was unnecessarily loud.

"You must trust him," Moneo said.

Idaho glanced left and right. "Yes, I think they heard that."

"He is billions upon billions of people united in that one body," Moneo said.

"So I've been told."

"He is God and we are mortal," Moneo said.

"How is it a god can do evil things?" Idaho asked.

Moneo thrust his chair backward and leaped to his feet. "I wash my hands of you!" Whirling away, he dashed from the room.

Idaho looked out into the room, finding himself the center of attention for all of the guards' faces.

"Moneo doesn't judge, but I do," Idaho said.

It surprised him then to glimpse a few wry smiles among the women. They all returned to their eating.

As he strode down the hall of the Citadel, Idaho replayed the conversation, seeking out the oddities in Moneo's behavior. The terror could be recognized and even understood, but it had seemed far more than fear of death... far, far more.

The Worm can dominate him.

Idaho felt that this had slipped out of Moneo, an inadvertent betrayal. What could it mean?

More reckless than any of the others.

It galled Idaho that he should have to bear comparisons to himself-as-an-unknown. How careful had the others been?

Idaho came to his own door, put a hand on the palm-lock and hesitated. He felt like a hunted animal retreating to his den. The guards in the mess surely would have reported that

conversation to Leto by now. What would the God Emperor do? Idaho's hand moved across the lock. The door swung inward. He entered the anteroom of his apartment and sealed the door, looking at it.

Will he send his Fish Speakers for me?

Idaho glanced around the entry area. It was a conventional space-racks for clothing and shoes, a full-length mirror, a weapons cupboard. He looked at the closed door of the cupboard. Not one of the weapons behind that door offered any real threat to the God Emperor. There wasn't even a lasgun... although even lasguns were ineffectual against the Worm, according to all the accounts.

He knows I will defy him.

Idaho sighed and looked toward the arched portal which led into the sitting area. Moneo had replaced the soft furniture with heavier, stiffer pieces, some of them recognizably Fremen culled from the coffers of the Museum Fremen.

Museum Fremen!

Idaho spat and strode through the portal. Two steps into the room he stopped, shocked. The soft light from the north windows revealed Hwi Noree seated on the low sling-divan. She wore a shimmering blue gown which draped itself revealingly around her figure. Hwi looked up at his entrance.

"Thank the gods you've not been harmed," she said.

Idaho glanced back at his entry, at the palm-locked door. He returned a speculative look at Hwi. No one but a few selected guards should be able to open that door.

She smiled at his confusion. "We lxians manufactured those locks," she said.

He found himself filled with fear for her. "What are you doing here?"

"We must talk."

"About what?"

"Duncan..." She shook her head. "About us."

"They warned you," he said.

"I've been told to reject you."

"Moneo sent you!"

"Two guardswomen who overheard you in the mess-they brought me. They think you are in terrible danger."

"Is that why you're here?"

She stood, one graceful motion which reminded him of the way Leto's grandmother, Jessica, had moved-the same fluid control of muscles, every movement beautiful.

Realization came as a shock. "You're Bene Gesserit..."

"No! They were among my teachers, but I am not Bene Gesserit."

Suspicions clouded his mind. What allegiances were really at work in Leto's Empire? What does a ghola know about such things?

The changes since last I lived...

"I suppose you're still just a simple Ixian," he said.

"Please don't sneer at me, Duncan."

"What are you?"

"I am the intended bride of the God Emperor."

"And you'll serve him faithfully!"

"I will."

"Then there's nothing for us to talk about."

"Except this thing between us."

He cleared his throat. "What thing?"

"This attraction." She raised a hand as he started to speak. "I want to hurl myself into your arms, to find the love and shelter I know is there. You want it, too."

He held himself rigid. "The God Emperor forbids!"

"But I am here." She took two steps toward him, the gown rippling across her body.

"Hwi..." He tried to swallow in a dry throat. "It's best you leave."

"Prudent, but not best," she said.

"If he finds that you've been here..."

"It is not my way to leave you like this." Again, she stopped his response with a lifted hand. "I was bred and trained for just one purpose."

Her words filled him with icy caution. "What purpose?"

"To woo the God Emperor. Oh, he knows this. He would not change a thing about me."

"Nor would L"

She moved a step closer. He smelled the milky warmth of her breath.

"They made me too well," she said. "I was designed to please an Atreides. Leto says his Duncan is more an Atreides than many born to the name."

"Leto?"

"How else should I address the one I'll wed?"

Even as she spoke, Hwi leaned toward Idaho. As though a magnet had found its point of critical attraction, they moved together. Hwi pressed her cheek against his tunic, her arms around him feeling the hard muscles. Idaho rested his chin in her hair, the musk filling his senses.

"This is insane," he whispered.

"Yes."

He lifted her chin and kissed her.

She pressed herself against him.

Neither of them doubted where this must lead. She did not resist when he lifted her off her feet and carried her into the bedroom.

Only once did Idaho speak. "You're not a virgin."

"Nor are you, love."

"Love," he whispered. "Love, love, love..."

"Yes... yes!"

In the post-coital peace, Hwi put both hands behind her head and stretched, twisting on the rumpled bed. Idaho sat with his back to her looking out the window.

"Who were your other lovers?" he asked.

She lifted herself on one elbow. "I've had no other lovers." "But..." He turned and looked down at her.

"In my teens," she said, "there was a young man who needed me very much." She smiled. "Afterward, I was very ashamed. How trusting I was! I thought I had failed the people who depended on me. But they found out and they were elated. You know, I think I was being tested."

Idaho scowled. "Is that how it was with me? I needed you?" "No, Duncan." Her features were grave. "We gave joy to each other because that's how it is with love."

"Love!" he said, and it was a bitter sound.

She said: "My Uncle Malky used to say that love was a bad bargain because you get no guarantees."

"Your Uncle Malky was a wise man."

"He was stupid! Love needs no guarantees."

A smile twitched at the corners of Idaho's mouth.

She grinned up at him. "You know it's love when you want to give joy and damn the consequences."

He nodded. "I think only of the danger to you."