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"I am called to reduce my father to human stature."
"He was my friend, Muad'Dib," Stilgar muttered.
"He was your god! I must undeify him."
Stilgar turned his back on the desert, stared toward the oasis of his beloved Sietch Tabr. Such talk always disturbed him.
Leto sensed the sweaty smell of Stilgar's movement. It was such a temptation to avoid the purposeful things which had to be said here. They could talk half the day away, moving from the specific to the abstract as though drawn away from real decisions, from those immediate necessities which confronted them. And there was no doubt that House Corrino posed a real threat to real lives--his own and Ghani's. But everything he did now had to be weighed and tested against the secret necessities. Stilgar once had voted to have Farad'n assassinated, holding out for the subtle application of chaumurky: poison administered in a drink. Farad'n was known to be partial to certain sweet liquors. That could not be permitted.
"If I die here, Stil," Leto said, "you must beware of Alia. She is no longer your friend."
"What is this talk of death and your aunt?" Now Stilgar was truly outraged. Kill the Lady Jessica! Beware of Alia! Die in this place!
"Small men change their faces at her command," Leto said. "A ruler need not be a prophet, Stil. Nor even godlike. A ruler need only be sensitive. I brought you here with me to clarify what our Imperium requires. It requires good government. That does not depend upon laws or precedent, but upon the personal qualities of whoever governs."
"The Regency handles its Imperial duties quite well," Stilgar said. "When you come of age--"
"I am of age! I'm the oldest person here! You're a puling infant beside me. I can remember times more than fifty centuries past. Hah! I can even remember when we Fremen were on Thurgrod."
"Why do you play with such fancies?" Stilgar demanded, his tone peremptory.
Leto nodded to himself. Why indeed? Why recount his memories of those other centuries? Today's Fremen were his immediate problem, most of them still only half-tamed savages, prone to laugh at unlucky innocence.
"The crysknife dissolves at the death of its owner," Leto said. "Muad'Dib has dissolved. Why are the Fremen still alive?"
It was one of those abrupt thought changes which so confounded Stilgar. He found himself temporarily dumb. Such words contained meaning, but their intent eluded him.
"I am expected to be Emperor, but I must be the servant," Leto said. He glanced across his shoulder at Stilgar. "My grandfather for whom I was named added new words to his coat of arms when he came here to Dune: 'Here I am; here I remain.' "
"He had no choice," Stilgar said.
"Very good, Stil. Nor have I any choice. I should be the Emperor by birth, by the fitness of my understanding, by all that has gone into me. I even know what the Imperium requires: good government."
"Naib has an ancient meaning," Stilgar said. "It is 'servant of the Sietch. ' "
"I remember your training, Stil," Leto said. "For proper government, the tribe must have ways to choose men whose lives reflect the way a government should behave."
From the depths of his Fremen soul, Stilgar said: "You'll assume the Imperial Mantle if it's meet. First you must prove that you can behave in the fashion of a ruler!"
Unexpectedly, Leto laughed. Then: "Do you doubt my sincerity, Stil?"
"Of course not."
"My birthright?"
"You are who you are."
"And if I do what is expected of me, that is the measure of my sincerity, eh?"
"It is the Fremen practice."
"Then I cannot have inner feelings to guide my behavior?"
"I don't understand what--"
"If I always behave with propriety, no matter what it costs me to suppress my own desires, then that is the measure of me."
"Such is the essence of self-control, youngster."
"Youngster!" Leto shook his head. "Ahhh, Stil, you provide me with the key to a rational ethic of government. I must be constant, every action rooted in the traditions of the past."
"That is proper."
"But my past goes deeper than yours!"
"What difference--"
"I have no first person singular, Stil. I am a multiple person with memories of traditions more ancient than you could imagine. That's my burden, Stil. I'm past-directed. I'm abrim with innate knowledge which resists newness and change. Yet Muad'Dib changed all this." He gestured at the desert, his arm sweeping to encompass the Shield Wall behind him.
Stilgar turned to peer at the Shield Wall. A village had been built beneath the wall since Muad'Dib's time, houses to shelter a planetology crew helping spread plant life into the desert. Stilgar stared at the man-made intrusion into the landscape. Change? Yes: There was an alignment to the village, a trueness which offended him. He stood silently, ignoring the itching of grit particles under his stillsuit. That village was an offense against the thing this planet had been. Suddenly Stilgar wanted a circular howling of wind to leap over the dunes and obliterate that place. The sensation left him trembling.
Leto said: "Have you noticed, Stil, that the new stillsuits are of sloppy manufacture? Our water loss is too high."
Stilgar stopped himself on the point of asking: Have I not said it? Instead he said: "Our people grow increasingly dependent upon the pills."
Leto nodded. The pills shifted body temperature, reduced water loss. They were cheaper and easier than stillsuits. But they inflicted the user with other burdens, among them a tendency to slowed reaction time, occasional blurred vision.
"Is that why we came out here?" Stilgar asked. "To discuss stillsuit manufacture?"
"Why not?" Leto asked. "Since you will not face what I must talk about."
"Why must I beware of your aunt?" Anger edged his voice.
"Because she plays upon the old Fremen desire to resist change, yet would bring more terrible change than you can imagine."
"You make much out of little! She's a proper Fremen."
"Ahhh, then the proper Fremen holds to the ways of the past and I have an ancient past. Stil, were I to give free reign to this inclination, I would demand a closed society, completely dependent upon the sacred ways of the past. I would control migration, explaining that this fosters new ideas, and new ideas are a threat to the entire structure of life. Each little planetary polis would go its own way, becoming what it would. Finally the Empire would shatter under the weight of its differences."
Stilgar tried to swallow in a dry throat. These were words which Muad'Dib might have produced. They had his ring to them. They were paradox, frightening. But if one allowed any change ... He shook his head.
