God Emperor of Dune (6 page)
I told him, “Radicals are only to be feared when you try to suppress them. You must demonstrate that you will use the best of what they offer.”
“They are dangerous. They are dangerous!” He thinks that by repeating he creates some kind of truth.
Slowly, step by step, I lead him through my method and he even gives the appearance of listening.
“This is their weakness, Duncan. Radicals always see matters in terms which
are too simple—black and white, good and evil, them and us. By addressing complex matters in that way, they rip open a passage for chaos. The art of government as you call it, is the mastery of chaos.”
are too simple—black and white, good and evil, them and us. By addressing complex matters in that way, they rip open a passage for chaos. The art of government as you call it, is the mastery of chaos.”
“No one can deal with every surprise.”
“Surprise? Who’s talking about surprise? Chaos is no surprise. It has predictable characteristics. For one thing, it carries away order and strengthens the forces at the extremes.”
“Isn’t that what radicals are trying to do? Aren’t they trying to shake things up so they can grab control?”
“That’s what they think they’re doing. Actually, they’re creating new extremists, new radicals and they are continuing the old process.”
“What about a radical who sees the complexities and comes at you that way?”
“That’s no radical. That’s a rival for leadership.”
“But what do you do?”
“You co-opt them or kill them. That’s how the struggle for leadership originated, at the grunt level.”
“Yes, but what about messiahs?”
“Like my father?”
The Duncan does not like this question. He knows that in a very special way I am my father. He knows I can speak with my father’s voice and persona, that the memories are precise, never edited and inescapable.
Reluctantly, he says: “Well … if you want.”
“Duncan, I am all of them and I know. There has never been a truly selfless rebel, just hypocrites—conscious hypocrites or unconscious hypocrites, it’s all the same.”
That stirs up a small hornet’s nest among my ancestral memories. Some of them have never given up the belief that they and they alone held the key to all of humankind’s problems. Well, in that, they are like me. I can sympathize even while I tell them that failure is its own demonstration.
I am forced to block them off, though. There’s no sense dwelling on them. They now are little more than poignant reminders … as is this Duncan who stands in front of me with his lasgun… .
Great Gods below! He has caught me napping. He has the lasgun in his hand and it is pointed at my face.
“You, Duncan? Have you betrayed me, too?”
Et tu, Brute?
Every fiber of Leto’s awareness came to full alert. He could feel his body twitching. The worm-flesh had a will of its own.
Idaho spoke with derision: “Tell me, Leto: How many times must I pay the debt of loyalty?”
Leto recognized the inner question:
“How many of me have there been?”
The Duncans always wanted to know this. Every Duncan asked it and no answer satisfied. They doubted.
“How many of me have there been?”
The Duncans always wanted to know this. Every Duncan asked it and no answer satisfied. They doubted.
In his saddest Muad’Dib voice, Leto asked: “Do you take no pride in my admiration, Duncan? Haven’t you ever wondered what it is about you that makes me desire you as my constant companion through the centuries?”
“You know me to be the ultimate fool!”
“Duncan!”
The voice of an angry Muad’Dib could always be counted on to shatter Idaho. Despite the fact that Idaho knew no Bene Gesserit had ever mastered the powers of Voice as Leto had mastered them, it was predictable that he would dance to this one voice. The lasgun wavered in his hand.
That was enough. Leto was off the cart in a hurtling roll. Idaho had never seen him leave the cart this way, had not even suspected it could happen. For Leto, there were only two requirements—a real threat which the worm-body could sense and the release of that body. The rest was automatic and the speed of it always astonished even Leto.
The lasgun was his major concern. It could scratch him badly, but few understood the abilities of the pre-worm body to deal with heat.
Leto struck Idaho while rolling and the lasgun was deflected as it was fired. One of the useless flippers which had been Leto’s legs and feet sent a shocking burst of sensations crashing into his awareness. For an instant, there was only pain. But the worm-body was free to act and reflexes ignited a violent paroxysm of flopping. Leto heard bones cracking. The lasgun was thrown far across the floor of the crypt by a spasmodic jerk of Idaho’s hand.
Rolling off of Idaho, Leto poised himself for a renewed attack but there was no need. The injured flipper still sent pain signals and he sensed that the tip of the flipper had been burned away. The sandtrout skin already had sealed the wound. The pain had eased to an ugly throbbing.
Idaho stirred. There could be little doubt that he had been mortally injured. His chest was visibly crushed. There was obvious agony when he tried to breathe, but he opened his eyes and stared up at Leto.
The persistence of these mortal possessions!
Leto thought.
Leto thought.
“Siona,” Idaho gasped.
Leto saw the life leave him then.
Interesting
, Leto thought.
Is it possible that this Duncan and Siona … No! This Duncan always displayed a true sneering disdain for Siona’s foolishness.
, Leto thought.
Is it possible that this Duncan and Siona … No! This Duncan always displayed a true sneering disdain for Siona’s foolishness.
Leto climbed back onto the Royal Cart. That had been a close one. There could be little doubt that the Duncan had been aiming for the
brain.
Leto was always aware that his hands and feet were vulnerable, but he had allowed no one to learn that what had once been his brain was no longer directly associated with his face. It was not even a brain of human dimensions anymore, but had spread in nodal congeries throughout his body. He had told this to no one but his journals.
brain.
Leto was always aware that his hands and feet were vulnerable, but he had allowed no one to learn that what had once been his brain was no longer directly associated with his face. It was not even a brain of human dimensions anymore, but had spread in nodal congeries throughout his body. He had told this to no one but his journals.
Oh, the landscapes I have seen! And the people! The far wanderings of the Fremen and all the rest of it. Even back through the myths to Terra. Oh, the lessons in astronomy and intrigue, the migrations, the disheveled flights, the leg-aching and lung-aching runs through so many nights on all of those cosmic specks where we have defended our transient possession. I tell you we are a marvel and my memories leave no doubt of this.
—THE STOLEN JOURNALS
The woman working at the small wall desk was too big for the narrow chair on which she perched. Outside, it was mid-morning, but in this windowless room deep beneath the city of Onn there was but a single glowglobe high in a corner. It had been tuned to warm yellow but the light failed to dispel the gray utility of the small room. Walls and ceiling were covered by identical rectangular panels of dull gray metal.
There was only one other piece of furniture, a narrow cot with a thin pallet covered by a featureless gray blanket. It was obvious that neither piece of furniture had been designed for the occupant.
She wore a one-piece pajama suit of dark blue which stretched tightly across her wide shoulders as she hunched over the desk. The glowglobe illuminated closely cropped blonde hair and the right side of her face, emphasizing the square block of jaw. The jaw moved with silent words as her thick fingers carefully depressed the keys of a thin keyboard on the desk. She handled the machine with a deference which had originated as awe and moved reluctantly into fearsome excitement. Long familiarity with the machine had eliminated neither emotion.
As she wrote, words appeared on a screen concealed within the wall rectangle exposed by the downward folding of the desk.
“Siona continues actions which predict violent attack on Your Holy Person,” she wrote. “Siona remains unswerving in her avowed purpose. She told me today that she will give copies of the stolen books to groups whose loyalty to You cannot be trusted. The named recipients are the Bene Gesserit, the Guild and the Ixians. She says the books contain Your enciphered words and, by this gift, she seeks help in translating Your Holy Words.
“Lord, I do not know what great revelations may be concealed on those pages but if they contain anything of threat to Your Holy Person, I beg You to relieve me from my vow of obedience to Siona. I do not understand why You made me take this vow, but I fear it.
“I remain Your worshipful servant, Nayla.”
The chair creaked as Nayla sat back and thought about her words. The room fell into the almost soundless withdrawal of thick insulation. There was only Nayla’s faint breathing and a distant throbbing of machinery felt more in the floor than in the air.
Nayla stared at her message on the screen. Destined only for the eyes of the God Emperor, it required more than holy truthfulness. It demanded a deep candor which she found draining. Presently, she nodded and pressed the key which would encode the words and prepare them for transmission. Bowing her head, she prayed silently before concealing the desk within the wall. These actions, she knew, transmitted the message. God himself had implanted a physical device within her head, swearing her to secrecy and warning her that there might come a time when he would speak to her through the thing within her skull. He had never done this. She suspected that Ixians had fashioned the device. It had possessed some of their
look.
But God Himself had done this thing and she could ignore the suspicion that there might be a
computer
in it, that it might be prohibited by the Great Convention.
look.
But God Himself had done this thing and she could ignore the suspicion that there might be a
computer
in it, that it might be prohibited by the Great Convention.
“Make no device in the likeness of the mind!”
Nayla shuddered. She stood then and moved her chair to its regular position beside the cot. Her heavy, muscular body strained against the thin blue garment. There was a steady deliberation about her, the actions of someone constantly adjusting to great physical strength. She turned at the cot and studied the place where the desk had been. There was only a rectangular gray panel like all the others. No bit of lint, no strand of hair, nothing caught there to reveal the panel’s secret.
Nayla took a deep, restorative breath and let herself out of the room’s only door into a gray passage dimly lighted by widely spaced white glowglobes. The machinery sounds were louder here. She turned left and a few minutes later was with Siona in a somewhat larger room, a table at its center upon which things stolen from the Citadel had been arranged. Two silvery glowglobes illuminated the scene—Siona seated at the table, with an assistant named Topri standing beside her.
Nayla nurtured grudging admiration for Siona, but Topri, there was a man worthy of nothing except active dislike. He was a nervous fat man with bulging green eyes, a pug nose and thin lips above a dimpled chin. Topri squeaked when he spoke.
“Look here, Nayla! Look what Siona has found pressed between the pages of these two books.”
Nayla closed and locked the room’s single door.
“You talk too much, Topri,” Nayla said. “You’re a blurter. How could you know if I was alone in the passage?”
Topri paled. An angry scowl settled onto his face.
“I’m afraid she’s right,” Siona said. “What made you think I wanted Nayla to know about my discovery?”
“You trust her with everything!”
Siona turned her attention to Nayla. “Do you know why I trust you, Nayla?” The question was asked in a flat, unemotional voice.
Nayla put down a sudden surge of fear. Had Siona discovered her secret?
Have I failed my Lord?
“Have you no response to my question?” Siona asked.
“Have I ever given you cause to do otherwise?” Nayla asked.
“That’s not a sufficient cause for trust,” Siona said. “There’s no such thing as perfection—not in human or machine.”
“Then why
do
you trust me?”
do
you trust me?”
“Your words and your actions always agree. It’s a marvelous quality. For instance, you don’t like Topri and you never try to conceal your dislike.”
Nayla glanced at Topri, who cleared his throat.
“I don’t trust him,” Nayla said.
The words popped into her mind and out of her mouth without reflection. Only after she had spoken did Nayla realize the true core of her dislike: Topri would betray anyone for personal gain.
Has he found me out?
Still scowling, Topri said, “I am not going to stand here and accept your abuse.” He started to leave but Siona held up a restraining hand. Topri hesitated.
“Although we speak the old Fremen words and swear our loyalty to each other, that is not what holds us together,” Siona said. “Everything is based on performance. That is all I measure. Do you understand, both of you?”
Topri nodded automatically, but Nayla shook her head from side to side.
Siona smiled up at her. “You don’t always agree with my decisions, do you, Nayla?”
“No.” The word was forced from her.
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