God Emperor of Dune (17 page)
“Of course not. He is speaking about sublimation, about deflected energies and all the rest of it.”
“The rest of what?” Idaho was prickly with anger at what he saw as an attack on his male self-image.
“Adolescent attitudes, just boys together, jokes designed purely to cause pain, loyalty only to your pack-mates … things of that nature.”
Idaho spoke coldly. “What’s your opinion?”
“I remind myself”—Moneo turned and spoke while looking out at the view—“of something which he has said and which I am sure is true. He is every soldier in human history. He offered to parade for me a series of examples—famous military figures who were frozen in adolescence. I declined the offer. I have read my history with care and have recognized this characteristic for myself.”
Moneo turned and looked directly into Idaho’s eyes.
“Think about it, Commander.”
Idaho prided himself on self-honesty and this hit him. Cults of youth and adolescence preserved in the military? It had the ring of truth. There were examples in his own experience …
Moneo nodded. “The homosexual, latent or otherwise, who maintains that condition for reasons which could be called purely psychological, tends to indulge in pain-causing behavior—seeking it for himself and inflicting it upon others. Lord Leto says this goes back to the testing behavior in the prehistoric pack.”
“You believe him?”
“I do.”
Idaho took a bite of the melon. It had lost its sweet savor. He swallowed and put down his spoon.
“I will have to think about this,” Idaho said.
“Of course.”
“You’re not eating,” Idaho said.
“I was up before dawn and ate then.” Moneo gestured at his plate. “The women continually try to tempt me.”
“Do they ever succeed?”
“Occasionally.”
“You’re right. I find his theory curious. Is there more to it?”
“Ohhh, he says that when it breaks out of the adolescent-homosexual restraints, the male army is essentially rapist. Rape is often murderous and that’s not survival behavior.”
Idaho scowled.
A tight smile flitted across Moneo’s mouth. “Lord Leto says that only Atreides discipline and moral restraints prevented some of the worst excesses in your times.”
A deep sigh shook Idaho.
Moneo sat back, thinking of a thing the God Emperor had once said:
“No matter how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer.”
“No matter how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer.”
“Those damned Atreides!” Idaho said.
“I am Atreides,” Moneo said.
“What?” Idaho was shocked.
“His breeding program,” Moneo said. “I’m sure the Tleilaxu mentioned it. I am directly descended from the mating of his sister and Harq al-Ada.”
Idaho leaned toward him. “Then tell me, Atreides, how are women better soldiers than men?”
“They find it easier to mature.”
Idaho shook his head in bewilderment.
“They have a compelling physical way of moving from adolescence into maturity,” Moneo said. “As Lord Leto says, ‘Carry a baby in you for nine months and that changes you.’ ”
Idaho sat back. “What does he know about it?”
Moneo merely stared at him until Idaho recalled the multitude in Leto—both male and female. The realization plunged over Idaho. Moneo saw it, recalling a comment of the God Emperor’s:
“Your words brand him with the look you want him to have.”
“Your words brand him with the look you want him to have.”
As the silence continued, Moneo cleared his throat. Presently, he said: “The immensity of the Lord Leto’s memories has been known to stop my tongue, too.”
“Is he being honest with us?” Idaho asked.
“I believe him.”
“But he does so many … I mean, take this breeding program. How long has that been going on?”
“From the very first. From the day he took it away from the Bene Gesserit.”
“What does he want from it?”
“I wish I knew.”
“But you’re …”
“An Atreides and his chief aide, yes.”
“You haven’t convinced me that a female army is best.”
“They continue the species.”
At last, Idaho’s frustration and anger had an object. “Is that what I was doing with them that first night—breeding?”
“Possibly. The Fish Speakers take no precautions against pregnancy.”
“Damn him! I’m not some animal he can move from stall to stall like a … like a …”
“Like a stud?”
“Yes!”
“But the Lord Leto refuses to follow the Tleilaxu pattern of gene surgery and artificial insemination.”
“What have the Tleilaxu got to …”
“They are the object lesson. Even I can see that. Their Face Dancers are mules, closer to a colony organism than to human.”
“Those others of … me … were any of them his studs?”
“Some. You have descendants.”
“Who?”
“I am one.”
Idaho stared into Moneo’s eyes, lost suddenly in a tangle of relationships. Idaho found the relationships impossible to understand. Moneo obviously was so much older than …
But I am
… Which of them was truly the older? Which the ancestor and which the descendant?
But I am
… Which of them was truly the older? Which the ancestor and which the descendant?
“I sometimes have trouble with this myself,” Moneo said. “If it helps, the Lord Leto assures me that you are not my descendant, not in any ordinary sense. However, you may well father some of my descendants.”
Idaho shook his head from side to side.
“Sometimes I think only the God Emperor himself can understand these things,” Moneo said.
“That’s another thing!” Idaho said. “This god business.”
“The Lord Leto says he has created a holy obscenity.”
This was not the response Idaho had expected.
What did I expect? A defense of the Lord Leto?
What did I expect? A defense of the Lord Leto?
“Holy obscenity,” Moneo repeated. The words rolled from his tongue with a strange sense of gloating in them.
Idaho focused a probing stare on Moneo.
He hates his God Emperor! No … he fears him. But don’t we always hate what we fear?
He hates his God Emperor! No … he fears him. But don’t we always hate what we fear?
“Why do you believe in him?” Idaho demanded.
“You ask if I share in the popular religion?”
“No! Does he?”
“I think so.”
“Why? Why do you think so?”
“Because he says he wishes to create no more Face Dancers. He insists that his human stock, once it has been paired, breeds in the way it has always bred.”
“What the hell does that have to do with it?”
“You asked me what he believes in. I think he believes in chance. I think that’s his god.”
“That’s superstition!”
“Considering the circumstances of the Empire, a very daring superstition.”
Idaho glared at Moneo. “You damned Atreides,” he muttered. “You’ll dare anything!”
Moneo noted that there was dislike mixed with admiration in Idaho’s voice.
The Duncans always begin that way.
What is the most profound difference between us, between you and me? You already know it. It’s these ancestral memories. Mine come at me in the full glare of awareness. Yours work from your blind side. Some call it instinct or fate. The memories apply their leverages to each of us—on what we think and what we do. You think you are immune to such influences? I am Galileo. I stand here and tell you: “Yet it moves.” That which moves can exert its force in ways no mortal power ever before dared stem. I am here to dare this.
—THE STOLEN JOURNALS
“When she was a child, she watched me, remember? When she thought I was not aware, Siona watched me like the desert hawk which circles above the lair of its prey. You yourself mentioned it.”
Leto rolled his body a quarter turn on his cart while speaking. This brought his cowled face close to that of Moneo, who trotted beside the cart.
It was barely dawn on the desert road which followed the high artificial ridge from the Citadel in the Sareer to the Festival City. The road from the desert ran laser-beam straight until it reached this point where it curved widely and dipped into terraced canyons before crossing the Idaho River. The air was full of thick mists from the river tumbling in its distant clamor, but Leto had opened the bubble cover which sealed the front of his cart. The moisture made his worm-self tingle with vague distress, but there was the smell of sweet desert growth in the mist and his human nostrils savored it. He ordered the cortege to stop.
“Why are we stopping, Lord?” Moneo asked.
Leto did not answer. The cart creaked as he heaved his bulk into an arching curve which lifted his head and allowed him to look across the Forbidden Forest to the Kynes Sea glistening silver far off to the right. He turned left and there were the remains of the Shield Wall, a sinuous low shadow in the morning light. The ridge here had been raised almost two thousand meters to enclose the Sareer and limit airborne moisture there. From his vantage, Leto could see the distant notch where he had caused the Festival City of Onn to be built.
“It is a whim which stops me,” Leto said.
“Shouldn’t we cross the bridge before resting?” Moneo asked.
“I am not resting.”
Leto stared ahead. After a series of switchbacks which were visible from here only as a twisting shadow, the high road crossed the river on a faery bridge, climbed to a buffer ridge and then sloped down to the city which presented a vista of glittering spires at this distance.
“The Duncan acts subdued,” Leto said. “Have you had your long conversation with him?”
“Precisely as you required, Lord.”
“Well, it’s only been four days,” Leto said. “They often take longer to recover.”
“He has been busy with your Guard, Lord. They were out until late again last night.”
“The Duncans do not like to walk in the open. They think about the things which could be used to attack us.”
“I know, Lord.”
Leto turned and looked squarely at Moneo. The majordomo wore a green cloak over his white uniform. He stood beside the open bubble cover, exactly in the place where duty required that he station himself on these excursions.
“You are very dutiful, Moneo,” Leto said.
“Thank you, Lord.”
Guards and courtiers kept themselves at a respectful distance well behind the cart. Most of them were trying to avoid even the appearance of eavesdropping on Leto and Moneo. Not so Idaho. He had positioned some of the Fish Speaker guards at both sides of the Royal Road, spreading them out. Now, he stood staring at the cart. Idaho wore a black uniform with white piping, a gift of the Fish Speakers, Moneo had said.
“They like this one very much. He is good at what he does.”
“What does he do, Moneo?”
“Why, guard your person, Lord.”
The women of the Guard all wore skintight green uniforms, each with a red Atreides hawk at the left breast.
“They watch him very closely,” Leto said.
“Yes. He is teaching them hand signals. He says it’s the Atreides way.”
“That is certainly correct. I wonder why the previous one didn’t do that?”
“Lord, if you don’t know …”
“I jest, Moneo. The previous Duncan did not feel threatened until it was too late. Has this one accepted our explanations?”
“So I’m told, Lord. He is well started in your service.”
“Why is he carrying only that knife in the belt sheath?”
“The women have convinced him that only the specially trained among them should have lasguns.”
“Your caution is groundless, Moneo. Tell the women that it’s much too early for us to begin fearing this one.”
“As my Lord commands.”
It was obvious to Leto that his new Guard Commander did not enjoy the presence of the courtiers. He stood well away from them. Most of the courtiers, he had been told, were civil functionaries. They were decked out in their brightest and finest for this day when they could parade themselves in their full power and in the presence of the God Emperor. Leto could see how foolish the courtiers must appear to Idaho. But Leto could remember far more foolish finery and he thought that this day’s display might be an improvement.
“Have you introduced him to Siona?” Leto asked.
At the mention of Siona, Moneo’s brows congealed into a scowl.
“Calm yourself,” Leto said. “Even when she spied on me, I cherished her.”
“I sense danger in her, Lord. I think sometimes she sees into my most secret thoughts.”
Other books
Silken Rapture: Princes of the Underground, Book 2 by Beth Kery
Get the Glow by Madeleine Shaw
Bound to You by Bethany Kane
The Russian's Tenacious Lover by Nic Saint
Twelve Seconds to Live (2002) by Reeman, Douglas
First Superhero 1: The Second Super by Logan Rutherford
The Haunting of Secrets by Shelley R. Pickens
Runaway by Bobbi Smith
Franklin's Thanksgiving by Paulette Bourgeois, Brenda Clark
TAKEN: Journey to a New Home by Dillion, Taylor