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"What's that have to do with O
"Well, obviously, if the ruler survived his walk, he was a good ruler."
"You don't search for weapons?"
"Not openly."
"You think people see you in this myth." It was not a question.
"Many do."
Idaho stared up at Leto's face deep in its gray cowl. The blue-on-blue eyes stared back at him without expression.
Melange eyes, Idaho thought. But Leto said he no longer consumed any spice. His body supplied what spice his addiction demanded.
"You don't like my holy obscenity, my enforced tranquility," Leto said.
"I don't like you playing god!"
"But a god can conduct the Empire as a musical conductor guides a symphony through its movements. My performance is limited only by my restriction to Arrakis. I must direct the symphony from here."
Idaho shook his head and looked once more at the city plan. "What're these apartments behind the spires?"
"Lesser accommodations for our visitors."
"They can't see the plaza."
"But they can. Ixian devices project my image into those rooms."
"And the i
"A presentation stage rises from the center to display me to my people."
"Do they cheer?" Idaho looked directly into Leto's eyes.
"They are permitted to cheer."
"You Atreides always did see yourselves as part of history."
"How astute of you to understand a cheer's meaning."
Idaho returned his attention to the city map. "And the Fish Speaker schools are here?"
"Under your left hand, yes. That's the academy where Siona was sent to be educated. She was ten at the time."
"Siona... I must learn more about her," Idaho mused.
"I assure you that nothing will get in the way of your desire."
As he marched along in the Royal peregrination, Idaho was lifted from his reverie by awareness that the Fish Speaker chant was diminishing. Ahead of him, the Royal Cart had begun its descent into the chambers beneath the plaza, rolling down a long ramp. Idaho, still in sunlight, looked up and around at the glistening spires-this reality for which the charts had not prepared him. People crowded the balconies of the great tiered ring around the plaza, silent people who stared down at the procession.
No cheering from the privileged, Idaho thought. The silence of the people on the balconies filled Idaho with foreboding.
He entered the ramp-tu
Curiosity replaced the sense of oppressive foreboding. Idaho stared around him. The flat-floored tube was artificially illuminated and wide, very wide. Idaho estimated that seventy people could march abreast into the bowels of the plaza. There were no mobs of greeters here, only a widely spaced line of Fish Speakers who did not chant, contenting themselves to stare at the passage of their God.
Memory of the charts told Idaho the layout of this gigantic complex beneath the plaza-a private city within the City, a place where only the God Emperor, the courtiers and the Fish Speakers could go without escort. But the charts had told nothing of the thick pillars, the sense of massive, guarded spaces, the eerie quiet broken by the tramping of feet and the creaking of Leto's cart.
Idaho looked suddenly at the Fish Speakers lining the way and realized that their mouths were moving in unison, a silent word on their lips. He recognized the word:
"Siaynoq."
***
"Another Festival so soon?" the Lord Leto asked.
"It has been ten years," the majordomo said.
Do you think by this exchange that the Lord Leto betrays an ignorance of time's passage?
DURING THE private audience period preceding the Festival proper, many commented that the God Emperor spent more than the allotted time with the new Ixian Ambassador, a young woman named Hwi Noree.
She was brought down at midmorning by two Fish Speakers who were still full of first-day excitement. The private audience chamber beneath the plaza was brilliantly illuminated. The light revealed a room about fifty meters long by thirty-five wide. Antique Fremen rugs decorated the walls, their bright patterns worked in jewels and precious metals, all combined in weavings of priceless spice-fibers. The dull reds of which the Old Fremen had been so fond predominated. The chamber's floor was mostly transparent, a setting for exotic fishes worked in radiant crystal. Beneath the floor flowed a stream of clear blue water, all of its moisture sealed away from the audience chamber, but excitingly near Leto, who rested on a padded elevation at the end of the room opposite the door.
His first view of Hwi Noree revealed a remarkable likeness to her Uncle Malky, but her grave movements and the calmness of her stride were equally remarkable in their difference from Malky. She did have that dark skin, though, the oval face with its regular features. Placid brown eyes stared back at Leto. And where Malky's hair had been gray, hers was a luminous brown. Hwi Noree radiated an i
With growing excitement, Leto realized a betrayal of lxian machinations in the new Ambassador. They were well along in their own program to breed selected types for specific functions. Hwi Noree's function was distressingly obvious-to charm the God Emperor, to find a chink in his armor.
Despite this, as the meeting progressed, Leto found himself truly enjoying her company. Hwi Noree stood in a puddle of daylight which was guided into the chamber by a system of Ixian prisms. The light filled Leto's end of the chamber with glowing gold which centered on the Ambassador. dimming behind the God Emperor where stood a short line of Fish Speaker guards-twelve women chosen for their inability to hear or speak.
Hwi Noree wore a simple gown of purple ambiel decorated only by a silver necklace pendant stamped with the symbol of IX. Soft sandals the color of her gown peeked from beneath her hem.
"Are you aware," Leto asked her, "that I killed one of your ancestors?"
She smiled softly. "My Uncle Malky included that information in my early training, Lord."
As she spoke, Leto realized that part of her education had been conducted by the Bene Gesserit. She had their way of controlling her responses, of sensing the undertones in a conversation. He could see, however, that the Bene Gesserit overlay had been a delicate thing, never penetrating the basic sweetness of her nature.
"You were told that I would introduce this subject," he said.
"Yes, Lord. I know that my ancestor had the temerity to bring a weapon here in the attempt to harm you."
"As did your immediate predecessor. Were you told that, as well?"
" I did not learn it until my arrival, Lord. They were fools! Why did you spare my predecessor?"
"When I did not spare your ancestor?"
"Yes, Lord."
"Kobat, your predecessor, was more valuable to me as a messenger."
"Then they told me the truth," she said. Again he smiled. "One ca
The response was so utterly open that Leto could not suppress a chuckle. Even as he laughed, he realized that this young woman still possessed the Mind of First Awakening, the elemental mind which came in the first shock of birth-awareness. She was alive!"Then you do not hold it against me that I killed your ancestor?" he asked.
"He tried to assassinate you! I am told you crushed him, Lord, with your own body."