God Emperor of Dune dc-4

by Frank Herbert

  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 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 r
ope-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..."