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"Their meaning is whatever speaks to you. Are you incapable of listening?"
"I have ears, m'Lord!"
"Do you now'? I ca
"Here, m'lord. Here and here!" Idaho pointed at his own ears as he spoke.
"But they do not hear. Therefore you have no ears. neither here nor hear."
"You make a joke of me, m'Lord?"
"To hear is to hear. That which exists ca
"Your strange words..."
"Are but words. I spoke them. They are gone. No one heard them, therefore they no longer exist. If they no longer exist, perhaps they can be made to exist again and then perhaps someone will hear them."
"Why do you poke fun at me, m'Lord'?"
"I poke nothing at you except words. I do it without fear of offending because I have learned that you have no ears."
"I don't understand you, m'Lord."
"That is the begi
Before Idaho could respond, Leto gave a hand signal to a nearby guard who waved a hand in front of a crystalline control panel on the wall behind the God Emperor's dais. A three-dimensional view of Nunepi's punishment appeared in the center of the chamber.Idaho stepped down to the floor of the chamber and peered closely at the scene. It was shown from a slight elevation looking down on the plaza, and was complete with sounds of the swelling throng who had run to the scene at the first signs of excitement. Nunepi was bound to two legs of a tripod, his feet spread wide, his arms tied together above him almost at the apex of the tripod. His clothing had been ripped from his body and lay around him in rags. A bulky, masked Fish Speaker stood nearby holding an improvised whip fashioned of elacca rope which had been frayed at the end into wire-like fine strands. Idaho thought he recognized the masked woman as the Friend of his first interview.
At a signal from a Guard officer, the masked Fish Speaker stepped forward and brought the elacca whip down in a slashing arc onto Nunepi's exposed back.
Idaho winced. The crowd gasped.
Welts appeared where the whip had struck, but Nunepi remained silent.
Again, the whip descended. Blood betrayed the lines of this second stroke.
Once more, the whip flayed Nunepi's back. More blood appeared.
Leto felt remote sadness. Nayla is too ardent, he thought. She will kill him and that will cause problems.
"Duncan!" Leto called.
Idaho turned from his fascinated examination of the projected scene just as a shout lifted from the crowd-response to a particularly bloody stroke.
"Send someone to stop the flogging after twenty lashes,"' Leto said. "Have it a
Idaho raised a hand to one of the guards, who nodded and ran from the chamber.
"Come here, Duncan," Leto said.
Still smarting under what he believed was Leto's poking fun at him, Idaho returned to Leto's side.
"Whatever I do," Leto said, "it is to teach a lesson."
Idaho rigidly willed himself not to look back at the scene of Nunepi's punishment. Was that the sound of Nunepi groaning? The shouts of the crowd pierced Idaho. He stared up into Leto's eyes.
"There is a question in your mind," Leto said.
"Many questions, m'Lord."
"Speak them."
"What is the lesson in that fool's punishment? What do we say when asked?"
"We say that no one is permitted to blaspheme against the God Emperor."
"A bloody lesson, m'Lord."
"Not as bloody as some I've taught."
Idaho shook his head from side to side in obvious dismay. "Nothing good's going to come of this!"
"Precisely!"
***
Safaris through ancestral memories teach me many things. The patterns, ahhh, the patterns Liberal bigots are the ones who trouble me most. I distrust the extremes. Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It's true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies The bureaucracies betray the true intent of people who form such governments. Right from the first, the little people who formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens found themselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies. Of course, all bureaucracies follow this pattern. but what a hypocrisy to find this even under a communized ba
It was well into the darkness of Audience Day before Leto could meet with the Bene Gesserit delegation. Moneo had prepared the Reverend Mothers for the delay, repeating the God Emperor's reassurances.
Reporting back to his Emperor, Moneo had said: "They expect a rich reward."
"We shall see," Leto had said. "We shall see. Now, tell me what it was the Duncan demanded of you as you entered."
"He wished to know if you had ever before had someone flogged."
"And you replied?"
"That there was no record of, nor had I ever before witnessed, such a punishment."
"His response?"
"This is not Atreides."
"Does he think I'm insane?"
"He did not say that."
"There was more to your encounter. What else troubles our new Duncan?"
"He has met the Ixian Ambassador, Lord. He find Hwi Noree attractive. He inquired of..."
"That must be prevented, Moneo! I trust you to raise barriers against any liaison between the Duncan and Hwi."
"My Lord commands."
"Indeed I do! Go now and prepare for our meeting with the women of the Bene Gesserit. I will receive them at False Sietch."
"Lord, is there significance in this choice of a meeting place?"
"A whim. On your way out, tell the Duncan he may take out a troop of guards and scour the City for trouble."
Waiting for the Bene Gesserit delegation at False Sietch, Leto reviewed this exchange, finding some amusement in it. He could imagine the reactions through the Festival City at the approach of a disturbed Duncan Idaho in command of a Fish Speaker troop.
Like the quick silence of frogs when a predator comes.
Now that he was in False Sietch, Leto found himself pleased by the choice. A free-form building of irregular domes at the edge of O
The reception hall where Leto waited, an oval about two hundred meters in its long dimension, was illuminated by giant glowglobes which floated in blue-green isolation some thirty meters above the floor. The light muted the dull browns and tans of the imitation stone from which the entire structure had been fashioned. Leto waited on a low ledge at one end of the chamber, looking outward through a half-circle window longer than his body. The opening, four stories above the ground, framed a view which included a remnant of the ancient Shield Wall preserved for its cliff-side caves where Atreides troops had once been slaughtered by Harko
Museum Fremen! Leto thought.
'They were such narrow thinkers with near horizons.
But why should I object? They are what l made them.
Leto heard the Bene Gesserit delegation then. They chanted as they approached, a heavy sound all a-jostle with vowels.