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Moneo released his grip on the edge of his desk. He sat back and looked from
Idaho to Siona. "I
have almost completed the arrangements for the God Emperor's wedding to Hwi
Noree. During those festivities, I want you both out of the way."
Siona turned a questioning look on Moneo. "Your idea or his?"
"Mine!" Moneo returned his daughter's glare. "Have you no sense of honor and
duty? Have you learned nothing from being with him?"
"Oh, I learned what you learned, father. And I gave my word, which I will
keep."
"Then you'll command the Fish Speakers?"
"Whenever he trusts me with command. You know, father, he's ever so much more
devious than you are."
"Where are you sending us?" Idaho asked.
"Provided we agree to go," Siona said.
"There is a small village of Museum Fremen at the edge of the Sareer," Moneo
said. "It is called
Tuono. The village is
relatively pleasant. It's in the shadow of the Wall with the river just beyond
the Wall. There is a well and the food is good."
Tuono? Idaho wondered. The name sounded familiar. "There was a Tuono Basin on
the way to Sietch
Tabr," he said.
"And the nights are long and there's no entertainment," Siona said.
Idaho shot a sharp glance at her. She returned it. "He wants us breeding and
the Worm satisfied,"
she said. "He wants babies in my belly, new lives to warp and twist. I'll see
him dead before I'll give him that!"
Idaho looked back at Moneo with a bemused expression. "And if we refuse to
go?"
"I think you'll go," Moneo said.
Siona's lips twitched. "Duncan, have you even seen one of these little desert
villages? No comforts, no. . ."
"I have seen Tabur Village," Idaho said.
"I'm sure that is a metropolis beside Tuono. Our God Emperor would not
celebrate his nuptials in any cluster of mud hovels! Oh, no. Tuono will be mud
hovels and no amenities, as close to the original Fremen as possible."
Idaho kept his attention on Moneo while speaking: "Fremen did not live in mud
huts."
"Who cares where they conducted their cultish games?" she sneered.
Still looking at Moneo, Idaho said: "Real Fremen had only one cult, the cult
of personal honesty.
I worry more about honesty than about comfort."
"Don't expect comfort from me!" Siona snapped.
"I don't expect anything from you," Idaho said. "When would we leave for this
Tuono, Moneo?"
"You're going?" she asked.
"I am considering an acceptance of your father's kindness," Idaho said.
"Kindness!" She looked from Idaho to Moneo.
"You would leave immediately," Moneo said. "I have detailed a detachment of
Fish Speakers under
Nayla to escort you and provide for you at Tuono."
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"Nayla?" Siona asked. "Really? Will she stay with us there?"
"Until the day of the wedding."
Siona nodded slowly. "Then we accept."
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"Accept for yourself!" Idaho snapped.
Siona smiled. "Sorry. May I formally request that the great
Duncan Idaho join me at this primitive garrison where he will keep his hands
off my person?"
Idaho peered up at her from under his brows. "Have no fears about where I will
put my hands." He looked at Moneo. "Are you being kind, Moneo? Is that why
you're sending me away?"
"It's a question of trust," Siona said. "Who does he trust?"
"Will I be forced to go with your daughter?" Idaho insisted.
Siona stood. "We either accept or the troopers will bind us and carry us out
in a most uncomfortable fashion. You can see it in his face."
"So I really have no choice," Idaho said.
"You have the choice anyone has," Siona said. "Die now or later."
Still, Idaho stared at Moneo. "Your real intentions, Moneo? Won't you satisfy
my curiosity?"
"Curiosity has kept many people alive when all else failed," Moneo said. "I am
trying to keep you alive, Duncan. I have never done that before."
===
It required almost a thousand years before the dust of Dune's old planet-wide
desert left the atmosphere to be bound up in soil and water. The wind called
sandblaster has not been seen on
Arrakis for some twenty-five hundred years. Twenty billion tons of dust could
be carried suspended in the wind of just one of those storms. The sky often
had a silvery look to it then. Fremen said:
"The desert is a surgeon cutting away the skin to expose what's underneath."
The planet and the people had layers. You could see them. My Sareer is but a
weak echo of what was. I must be the sandblaster today.
-The Stolen Journals
"You sent them to Tuono without consulting me? How surprising of you, Moneo!
You've not done such an independent thing in a long while."
Moneo stood about ten paces from Leto in the gloomy center of the crypt, head
bowed, using every artifice he knew to keep from trembling, aware that even
this could be seen and interpreted by the
God Emperor. It was almost midnight. Leto had kept his majordomo waiting and
waiting.
"I pray I have not offended my Lord," Moneo said.
"You have amused me, but take no heart from that. Lately, I cannot separate
the comic from the sad."
"Forgive me, Lord," Moneo whispered.
"What is this forgiveness you ask? Must you always require judgment? Can't
your universe merely be?"
Moneo lifted his gaze to that awful cowled face. He is both ship and storm.
The sunset exists in itself. Moneo felt that he stood on the brink of
terrifying revelations. The God Emperor's eyes bored into him, burning,
probing. "Lord, what would you have of me?"
"That you have faith in yourself."
Feeling that something might explode in him, Moneo said: "Then the fact that I
did not consult you before. . ."
"How enlightened of you, Moneo! Small souls who seek power over others first
destroy the faith
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those others might have in themselves."
The words were shattering to Moneo. He sensed accusation in them, confession.
He felt his hold on a fearsome but infinitely desirable thing weakening. He
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tried to find words to call it back, but his mind remained blank. Perhaps if
he asked the God Emperor . . .
"Lord, if you would but tell me your thoughts on..
."
"My thoughts vanish on contact!"
Leto stared down at Moneo. How strange were the majordomo's eyes perched there
above that hawkish
Atreides nose-free-verse eyes in a metronome face. Did Moneo hear that
rhythmic pulse-beat: Malky is coming! Malky is coming! Malky is coming!?
Moneo wanted to cry out in anguish. The thing he had felt- all gone! He put
both his hands over his mouth.
"Your universe is a two-dimensional hourglass," Leto accused. "Why do you try
to hold back the sand?"
Moneo lowered his hands and sighed. "Do you wish to hear about the wedding
arrangements, Lord?"
"Don't be tiresome! Where is Hwi?"
"The Fish Speakers are preparing her for. . ."
"Have you consulted her about the arrangements?"
"Yes, Lord."
"She approved?"
"Yes, Lord, but she accused me of living for the quantity of activity and not
for the quality."
"Isn't she marvelous, Moneo? Does she see the unrest among the Fish Speakers?"
"I think so, Lord."
"The idea of my marriage disturbs them."
"It's why I sent the Duncan away, Lord."
"Of course it is, and Siona with him to. . ."
"Lord, I know you have tested her and she. . ."
"She senses the Golden Path as deeply as you do, Moneo." "Then why do I fear
her, Lord?"
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