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"I don't trust Nayla," Siona said.
"Doesn't she obey you?"
"Yes, but ..."
"We will proceed one step at a time," Idaho said. "Ask Nayla if she would use her lasgun against the Worm's cart."
"And if she refuses?"
"Kill her."
Siona stood, tossing her book aside.
"How will the Worm come to Tuono?" Idaho asked. "He's too big and heavy for an ordinary 'thopter."
"Garun will tell us," she said. "But I think he will come as he usually travels." She looked up at the ceiling which concealed the Sareer's perimeter Wall. "I think he will come on peregrination with his entire crew. He will come along the Royal Road and drop down to here on suspensors." She looked at Idaho. "What of Garun?"
"A strange man," Idaho said. "He wants most desperately to be a real Fremen. He knows he is not anything like what they were in my day."
"What were they like in your day, Duncan?"
"They had a saying which describes it," Idaho said.
"You should never be in the company of anyone with whom you would not want to die."
"Did you say this to Garun?" she asked.
"Yes."
"And his response?"
"He said I was the only such person he had ever met."
"Garun may be wiser than any of us," she said.
You think power may be the most unstable of all human achievements? Then what of the apparent exceptions to this inherent instability? Some families endure. Very powerful religious bureaucracies have been known to endure. Consider the relationship between faith and power. Are they mutually exclusive when each depends upon the other? The Bene Gesserit have been reasonably secure within the loyal walls of faith for thousands of years. But where has their power gone?
--THE STOLEN JOURNALS
Moneo spoke in a petulant tone: "Lord, I wish you had given me more time."
He stood outside the Citadel in the short shadows of noon. Leto lay directly in front of him on the Imperial Cart, its bubble hood retracted. He had been touring the environs with Hwi Noree, who occupied a newly installed seat within the bubble cover's perimeter and just beside Leto's face. Hwi appeared merely curious about all the bustle which was beginning to increase around them.
How calm she is, Moneo thought. He repressed an involuntary shudder at what he had learned of her from Malky. The God Emperor was right. Hwi was exactly what she appeared to be--an ultimately sweet and sensible human being. Would she really have mated with me? Moneo wondered.
Distractions drew his attention away from her. While Leto had toured Hwi around the Citadel on the suspensor-borne cart, a great troop of courtiers and Fish Speakers had been assembled here, all the courtiers in celebration finery, brilliant reds and golds dominant. The Fish Speakers wore their best dark blues, distinguished only by the different colors in the piping and hawks. A baggage caravan on suspensor sleds had been drawn up at the rear with Fish Speakers to pull it. The air was full of dust and the sounds and smells of excitement. Most of the courtiers had reacted with dismay when told their destination. Some had immediately purchased their own tents and pavilions. These had been sent on ahead with the other impediments piled now on the sand just outside Tuono's view. The Fish Speakers in the entourage were not taking this in a festive mood. They had complained loudly when told they could not carry lasguns.
"Just a little more time, Lord," Moneo was saying. "I still don't know how we will ..."
"There's no substitute for time in solving many problems," Leto said. "However, you can place too much reliance on it. I can accept no more delays."
"We will be three days just getting there," Moneo complained.
Leto thought about that time--the swift walk-trot-walk of a peregrination ... one hundred and eighty kilometers. Yes, three days.
"I'm sure you've made good arrangements for the way-stops," Leto said. "Plenty of hot water for the muscle cramps?"
"We'll be comfortable enough," Moneo said, "but I don't like leaving the Citadel in these times! And you know why!"
"We have communications devices, loyal assistants. The Guild is suitably chastened. Calm yourself, Moneo."
"We could hold the ceremony in the Citadel!"
For answer, Leto closed the bubble cover around him, isolating Hwi with him.
"Is there danger, Leto?" she asked.
"There's always danger."
Moneo sighed, turned and trotted toward where the Royal Road began its long climb eastward before turning south around the Sareer. Leto set his cart in motion behind the majordomo, heard his motley troop fall into step behind them.
"Are we all moving?" Leto asked.
Hwi glanced backward around him. "Yes." She turned toward his face. "Why was Moneo being so difficult?"
"Moneo has discovered that the instant which has just left him is forever beyond his reach."
"He has been very moody and distracted since you returned from the Little Citadel. He's not the same at all."
"He is an Atreides, my love, and you were designed to please an Atreides."
"It's not that. I would know if it were that."
"Yes ... well, I think Moneo has also discovered the reality of death."
"What's it like at the Little Citadel when you're there with Moneo?" she asked.
"It's the loneliest place in my Empire."
"I think you avoid my questions," she said.
"No, love. I share your concern for Moneo, but no explanation of mine will help him now. Moneo is trapped. He has learned that it is difficult to live in the present, pointless to live in the future and impossible to live in the past."
"I think it's you who have trapped him, Leto."
"But he must free himself."
"Why can't you free him?"
"Because he thinks my memories are his key to freedom. He thinks I am building our future out of our past."
"Isn't that always the way of it, Leto?"
"No, dear Hwi."
"Then how is it?"
"Most believe that a satisfactory future requires a return to an idealized past, a past which never in fact existed."
"And you with all of your memories know otherwise."
Leto turned his face within its cowl to stare at her, probing ... remembering. Out of the multitudes within him, he could form a composite, a genetic suggestion of Hwi, but the suggestion fell far short of the living flesh. That was it, of course. The past became row-on-row of eyes staring outward like the eyes of gasping fish, but Hwi was vibrant life. Her mouth was set in Grecian curves designed for a Delphic chant, but she hummed no prophetic syllables. She was content to live, an opening person like a flower perpetually unfolding into fragrant blossom.
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"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked.
"I was basking in the love of you."
"Love, yes." She smiled. "I think that since we cannot share the love of the flesh, we must share the love of the soul. Would you share that with me, Leto?"
He was taken aback. "You ask about my soul?"
"Surely others have asked."
He spoke shortly: "My soul digests its experiences, nothing more."
"Have I asked too much of you?" she asked.
"I think that you cannot ask too much of me."
"Then I presume upon our love to disagree with you. My Uncle Malky talked about your soul."
