Страница 44 из 103
For Leto, it was as though he peered directly into Idaho's most essential awareness to read the thoughts there. l was a trusted soldier of the original Lord Leto, Idaho was thinking. That Leto, the grandfather of this one,.saved me and took me into his household like a sun. But even though that Leto still has some kind of existence in this one... this is not him.
"M'Lord, why do you need me?" Idaho asked.
"For your strength and loyalty."
Idaho shook his head. "But..."
"You obey," Leto said, and he noted the way these words were being absorbed by the Reverend Mothers. Truth, only truth, for they are Truthsayers.
"Because I owe a debt to the Atreides," Idaho said.
"That is where we place our trust," Leto said. "And Duncan?"
"M'Lord?" Idaho's voice said he had found ground where he could stand.
"Leave at least one survivor at each place," Leto said. "Otherwise, our efforts are wasted."
Idaho nodded once, curtly, and left, striding back across the hall the way he had come. And Leto thought it would take an extremely sensitive eye indeed to see that it was a different Idaho leaving, far different from the one who had entered.
Anteac said: "This comes of flogging that Ambassador."
"Exactly," Leto agreed. "Recount this carefully to your Superior, the admirable Reverend Mother Syaksa. Tell her for me that I prefer the company of predators above that of the prey." He glanced at Moneo, who drew himself to attention. "Moneo, the wolves are gone from my forest. They must be replaced by human wolves. See to it."
***
The trance-state of prophecy is like no other visionary experience. It is not a retreat from the raw exposure of the senses (as are many trance-states) but an immersion in a multitude of new movements. Things moue. It is an ultimate pragmatism in the midst of Infinity, a demanding consciousness where you come at last into the unbroken awareness that the universe moves of itself, that it changes, that its rules change. that nothing remains permanent or absolute throughout all such movement, that mechanical explanations for anything can work only within precise confinements and, once the walls are broken down, the old explanations shatter and dissolve, blown away by new movements. The things you see in this trance are sobering, often shattering They demand your utmost effort to remain whole and. even so, you emerge from that state profoundly changed.
THAT NIGHT of Audience Day, while others slept and fought and dreamed and died, Leto took his repose in the isolation of his audience chamber, only a few trusted Fish Speaker guards at the portals.
He did not sleep. His mind whirled with necessities and disappointments.
Hwi! Hwi!
He knew why Hwi Noree had been sent to him now. How well he knew!
My most secret secret is exposed.
They had discovered his secret. Hwi was the evidence of it.
He thought desperate thoughts. Could this terrible metamorphosis be reversed? Could he return to a human state?
Not possible.
Even if it were possible, the process would take him just as long as it had taken to reach this point. Where would Hwi be in more than three thousand years? Dry dust and bones in the crypt.
I could breed something like her and prepare that one for me... but that would not be my gentle Hwi.
And what of the Golden Path while he indulged in such selfish goals?
To hell with the Golden Path! Have these folly-bound idiots ever thought once of me? Not once!
But that was not true. Hwi thought of him. She shared his torture.
These were thoughts of madness and he tried to put them away while his senses reported the soft movement of the guards and the flow of water beneath his chamber.
When I made this choice, what were my expectations?
How the mob within laughed at that question! Did he not have a task to complete? Was that not the very essence of the agreement which kept the mob in check?
"You have a task to complete," they said. "You have but one purpose."
Single purpose is the mark of the fanatic and I am not a fanatic!
"You must be cynical and cruel. You ca
Why not?
"Who took that oath? You did. You chose this course."
Expectations!
"The expectations which history creates for one generation are often shattered in the next generation. Who knows that better than you?"
Yes... and shattered expectations can alienate whole populations. I alone am a whole population!
"Remember your oath!"
Indeed. I am the disruptive force unleashed across the centuries. I limit expectations... including my own. I dampen the pendulum.
"And then release it. Never forget that."
I am tired. Oh, how tired I am. If only I could.sleep.. really sleep. - "You're full of self-pity, too."
Why not? What am ' The ultimate loner forced to look at what might have been. Every day I look at it... and now. Hwi!
"Your original unselfish choice fills you now with selfishness."
There is danker all around. I must wear my selfishness like a.suit of armor.
"There's danger for everyone who touches you. Isn't that your very nature'?"
Danger even for Hwi. Dear, delectable, dear Hwi "Did you build high walls around you only to sit within them and indulge in self-pity'?"
The walls were built because great forces have been unleashed in my Empire.
"You unleashed them. Will you now compromise with them?"
It's Hwi's doing. These feelings have never before been this powerful in me. It's the damnable lxians.' "How interesting that they should assault you with flesh rather than with a machine."
Because they have discovered my secret.
"You know the antidote."
Leto's great body trembled through its entire length at this thought. He well knew the antidote which had always worked before: lose himself for a time in his own past. Not even the Bene Gesserit Sisters could take such safaris, striking inward along the axis of memories-back, back to the very limits of cellular awareness, or stopping by a wayside to revel in a sophisticated sensory delight. Once, after the death of a particularly superb Duncan, he had toured great musical performances preserved in his memories. Mozart had tired him quickly. Pretentious! But Bach... ahhh, Bach.
Leto remembered the joy of it.
I sat at the organ and let the music drench me.
Only three times in all memory had there been an equal to Bach. But even Licallo was not better; as good, but not better.
Would female intellectuals be the proper choice for this night? Grandmother Jessica had been one of the best. Experience told him that someone as close to him as Jessica would not be the proper antidote for his present tensions. The search would have to venture much farther.
He imagined then describing such a safari to some awestruck visitor, a totally imaginary visitor because none would dare question him about such a holy matter.
"I course backward down the flight of ancestors, hunting along the tributaries, darting into nooks and cra
"Lived her?" his imaginary visitor asked.
"Of course- Why else would one keep one's ancestors around'' You think a man designed the first Guild ship:' Your history books told you it was Aurelius Venport? They lied. It was his mistress, Norma. She gave him the design, along with five children. He thought his ego would take no less. In the end. the knowledge that he had not really fulfilled his own image, that was what destroyed him."
"You have lived him, too?"
"Naturally. And I have traversed the far wanderings of the Fremen. Through my father's line and the others, I have gone right back to the House of Atreus."