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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
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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
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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
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Royal Service, the next director of the Imperial Society of Fish Speakers.
My houris, as Malky used to call them.
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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?"
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