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"Of course she has. And how grateful I am fo
r it. If we deny the need for thought, Moneo, as some do, we lose the powers of reflection; we cannot define what our senses report. If we deny the flesh, we unwheel the vehicle which bears us. But if we deny emotion, we lose all touch with our internal universe. It was emotions which I missed the most."
"I insist, Lord, that you ..."
"You are making me angry, Moneo. That is an emotion."
Leto saw Moneo's frustrated fury cool, quenched like a hot iron plunged into icy water. There was still some steam in him, though.
"I care not for myself, Lord. My concern is mostly for you, and you know this."
Leto spoke softly. "It is your emotion, Moneo, and I hold it dear."
Moneo inhaled a deep, trembling breath. He had never before seen the God Emperor in this mood, reflecting this emotion. Leto appeared both elated and resigned, if Moneo were reading it correctly. One could not be certain.
"That which makes life sweet for the living," Leto said, "that which makes life warm and filled with beauty, that is what I would preserve even though it were denied to me."
"Then this Hwi Noree ..."
"She makes me recall the Butlerian Jihad in a poignant way. She is the antithesis of all that's mechanical and non-human. How odd it is, Moneo, that the Ixians, of all people, should produce this one person who so perfectly embodies those qualities which I hold most dear."
"I do not understand your reference to the Butlerian Jihad, Lord. Machines that think have no place in ..."
"The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines," Leto said. "Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments. Naturally, the machines were destroyed."
"Lord, I still resent the fact that you welcome this ..."
"Moneo! Hwi reassures me merely by her presence. For the first time in centuries, I am not lonely unless she is away from my side. If I had no other proof of the emotion, this would serve."
Moneo fell silent, obviously touched by Leto's evocation of loneliness. Surely, Moneo could understand the absence of the intimate sharing in love. His expression betrayed as much.
For the first time in a long while, Leto noted how much Moneo had aged.
It happens so suddenly to them, Leto thought.
It made Leto deeply aware of how much he cared for Moneo.
I should not let attachments happen to me, but I cannot help it ... especially now that Hwi is here.
"They will laugh at you and make obscene jests," Moneo said.
"That is a good thing."
"How can it be good?"
"This is something new. Our task has always been to bring the new into balance and, with it, modify behavior while not suppressing survival."
"Even so, how can you welcome this?"
"The making of obscenities?" Leto asked. "What is the opposite of obscenity?"
Moneo's eyes went wide with a sudden questioning awareness. He had seen the action of many polarities--the thing made known by its opposite.
The thing stands out against a background which defines it, Leto thought. Surely Moneo will see this.
"It's too dangerous," Moneo said.
The ultimate verdict of conservatism!
Moneo was not convinced. A deep sigh wracked him.
I must remember not to take away their doubts, Leto thought. That's how I failed my Fish Speakers in the plaza. The Ixians are holding on to the ragged end of human doubts. Hwi is the evidence of that.
A disturbance sounded in the anteroom. Leto sealed the portal against impetuous intrusions.
"My Duncan has come," he said.
"He's probably heard about your wedding plans--"
"Probably."
Leto watched Moneo wrestle with doubts, his thoughts utterly transparent. In that moment, Moneo fit so precisely into his human niche that Leto wanted to hug him.
He has the full spectrum: doubt-to-trust, love-to-hate ... everything! All of those dear qualities which come to fruition in the warmth of emotion, in the willingness to spend yourself on Life.
"Why is Hwi accepting this?" Moneo asked.
Leto smiled. Moneo cannot doubt me; he must doubt others.
"I admit it is not a conventional union. She is a primate and I no longer am fully primate."
Again, Moneo wrestled with things he could only feel and not express.
Watching Moneo, Leto felt the flow of an observational-awareness, a thought process which occurred so rarely but with such vivid amplication when it did occur, that Leto did not stir lest he cause a ripple in the flow.
The primate thinks and, by thinking, survives. Beneath his thinking is a thing which came with his cells. It is the current of human concerns for the species. Sometimes, they cover it up, wall it off and hide it behind thick barriers, but I have deliberately sensitized Moneo to these workings of his innermost self. He follows me because he believes I hold the best course for human survival. He knows there is a cellular awareness. It is what I find when I scan the Golden Path. This is humanity and both of us agree: it must endure!
"Where, when and how will the wedding ceremony be conducted?" Moneo asked.
Not why? Leto noted. Moneo no longer sought to understand the why. He had returned to safe ground. He was the majordomo, the director of the God Emperor's household, the First Minister.
He has names and verbs and modifiers with which he can perform. The words will work for him in their usual ways. Moneo may never glimpse the transcendental potential of his words, but he well understands their everyday, mundane uses.
"What of my question?" Moneo pressed.
Leto blinked at him, thinking: I, on the other hand, feel that words are mostly useful if they open for me a glimpse of attractive and undiscovered places. But the use of words is so little understood by a civilization which still believes unquestioningly in a mechanical universe of absolute cause and effect--obviously reducible to one single root-cause and one primary seminal-effect.
"How like a limpet the Ixian-Tleilaxu fallacy clings to human affairs," Leto said.
"Lord, it disturbs me deeply when you don't pay attention."
"But I do pay attention, Moneo."
"Not to me."
"Even to you."
"Your attention wanders, Lord. You do not have to conceal that from me. I would betray myself before I would betray you."
"You think I'm woolgathering?"
"Whatgathering, Lord?" Moneo had never questioned this word earlier, but now ...
Leto explained the allusion, thinking: How ancient! The looms and shuttles clicked in Leto's memory. Animal fur to human garments ... huntsman to herds-man ... the long steps up the ladder of awareness ... and now they must make another long step, longer even than the ancient ones.
"You indulge in idle thoughts," Moneo accused.
"I have time for idle thoughts. That's one of the most interesting things about my existence as a singular multitude."
"But, Lord, there are matters which demand our ..."
"You'd be surprised what comes of idle thinking, Moneo. I've never minded spending an entire day on things a human would not bother with for one minute. Why not? With my life expectancy of some four thousand years, what's one day more or less? How much time does one human life count? A million minutes? I've already experienced almost that many days."
Moneo stood frozen in silence, diminished by this comparison. He felt his own lifetime reduced to a mote in Leto's eye. The source of the allusion did not escape him.
Words ... words ... words, Moneo thought.
"Words are often almost useless in sentient affairs," Leto said.
Moneo held his breathing to a shallow minimum. The Lord can read thoughts!
"Throughout our history," Leto said, "the most potent use of words has been to round out some transcendental event, giving that event a place in the accepted chronicles, explaining the event in such a way that ever afterward we can use those words and say: "This is what it meant."
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Moneo felt beaten down by these words, terrified by unspoken things they might make him think.
"That's how events get lost in history," Leto said.
After a long silence, Moneo ventured: "You have not answered my question, Lord. The wedding?"
How tired he sounds, Leto thought. How utterly defeated.
Leto spoke briskly: "I have never needed your good offices more. The wedding must be managed with utmost care. It must have the precision of which only you are capable."
