HWI NOREE: My uncle accounted him the most supremely artful diplomat in the Empire, a master conversationalist and expert in any subject you could name.
INQUISITOR: Did your uncle not speak of the Worm's brutality?
HWI NOREE: My uncle judged him ultimately civilized.
INQUISITOR: I asked about brutality.
HWI NOREE: Capable of brutality, yes.
INQUISITOR: Your uncle feared him.
HWI NOREE: The Lord Leto lacks all innocence and naivete. He is to be feared only when he pretends these traits. That was what my uncle said.
INQUISITOR: Those were his words, yes.
HWI NOREE: More than that! Malky said, 'The Lord Leto delights in the surprising genius and diversity of humankind. He is my favorite companion.'
INQUISITOR: Giving us the benefit of your supreme wisdom, how do you interpret these words of your uncle?
HWI NOREE: Do not mock me!
INQUISITOR: We do not mock. We seek enlightenment.
HWI NOREE: These words of Malky, and many other things that he wrote directly to me, suggest that the Lord Leto is always seeking after newness and originality but that he is wary of the destructive potential in such things. So my uncle believed.
INQUISITOR: Is there more which you wish to add to these beliefs which you share with your uncle?
HWI NOREE: I see no point in adding to what I've already said. I am sorry to have wasted the Inquisitors' time.
INQUISITOR: But you have not wasted our time. You are confirmed as Ambassador to the Court of Lord Leto, the God Emperor of the known universe. -= You must remember that I have at my internal demand every expertise known to our history. This is the fund of energy I -draw upon when I address the mentality of war. If you have not heard the moaning cries of the wounded and the dying, you do not know about war. I have heard those cries in such numbers that they haunt me. I have cried out myself in the aftermath of battle. I have suffered wounds in every epoch-wounds from fist and club and rock, from shell-studded limb and bronze sword, from the mace and the cannon, from arrows and lasguns and the silent smothering of atomic dust, from biological invasions which blacken the tongue and drown the lungs, from the swift gush of flame and the silent working of slow poisons... and more I will not recount! I have seen and felt them all. To those who dare ask why I behave as I do, I say: With my memories, I can do nothing else. I am not a coward and once I was human.
- The Stolen Journals IN THE warm season when the satellite weather controllers were forced to contend with winds across the great seas, evening often saw rainfall at the edges of the Sareer. Moneo, coming in from one of his periodic inspections of the Citadel's perimeter, was caught in a sudden shower. Night fell before he reached shelter. A Fish Speaker guard helped him out of his damp cloak at the south portal. She was a heavyset, blocky woman with a square face, a type Leto favored for his guardians.
'Those damned weather controllers should be made to shape up,' she said as she handed him his damp cloak.
Moneo gave her a curt nod before beginning the climb to his quarters. All of the Fish Speaker guards knew the God Emperor's aversion to moisture, but none of them made Moneo's distinction.
It is the Worm who hates water, Moneo thought. Shai-Hulud hungers for Dune.
In his quarters, Moneo dried himself and changed to dry clothing before descending to the crypt. There was no point in inviting the Worm's antagonism. Uninterrupted conversation with Leto was required now, plain talk about the impending peregrination to the Festival City of Onn.
Leaning against a wall of the descending lift, Moneo closed his eyes. Immediately, fatigue swept over him. He knew he had not slept enough in days and there was no let up in sight. He envied Leto's apparent freedom from the need for sleep. A few hours of semi repose a month appeared to be sufficient for the God Emperor.
The smell of the crypt and the stopping of the lift jarred Moneo from his catnap. He opened his eyes and looked out at the God Emperor on his cart in the center of the great chamber. Moneo composed himself and strode out for the familiar long walk into the terrible presence. As expected, Leto appeared alert. That, at least, was a good sign.
Leto had heard the lift approaching and saw Moneo awaken. The man looked tired and that was understandable. The peregrination to Onn was at hand with all of the tiresome business of off-planet visitors, the ritual with the Fish Speakers, the new ambassadors, the changing of the Imperial Guard, the retirements and the appointments, and now a new Duncan Idaho ghola to fit into the smooth working of the Imperial apparatus. Moneo was occupied with mounting details and he was beginning to show his age.
Let me see, Leto thought. Moneo will be one hundred and eighteen years old in the week after our return from Onn.
The man could live many times that long if he would take the spice, but he refused. Leto had no doubt of the reason. Moneo had entered that peculiar human state where he longed for death. He lingered now only to see Siona installed in the
Royal Service, the next director of the Imperial Society of Fish Speakers.
My houris, as Malky used to call them.
And Moneo knew it was Leto's intention to breed Siona with a Duncan. It was time.
Moneo stopped two paces from the cart and looked up at Leto. Something in his eyes reminded Leto of the look on the face of a pagan priest in the Terran times, a crafty supplication at the familiar shrine.
'Lord, you have spent many hours observing the new Duncan,' Moneo said. 'Have the Tleilaxu tampered with his cells or his psyche?'
'He is untainted.'
A deep sigh shook Moneo. There was no pleasure in it.
'You object to his use as a stud?' Leto asked.
'I find it peculiar to think of him as both an ancestor and the father of my descendants.'
'But he gives me access to a first-generation cross between an older human form and the current products of my breeding program. Siona is twenty-one generations removed from such a cross.'
'I fail to see the purpose. The Duncans are slower and less alert than anyone in your Guard.'
'I am not looking for good segregant offspring, Moneo. Did you think me unaware of the progression geometrics dictated by the laws which govern my breeding program?'
'I have seen your stock book, Lord.'
'Then you know that I keep track of the recessives and weed them out. The key genetic dominants are my concern.'
'And the mutations, Lord?' There was a sly note in Moneo's voice which caused Leto to study the man intently.
'We will not discuss that subject, Moneo.'
Leto watched Moneo pull back into his cautious shell.
How extremely sensitive he is to my moods, Leto thought. I do believe he has some of my abilities there, although they operate at an unconscious level. His question suggests that he may even suspect what we have achieved in Siona.
Testing this, Leto said, 'It is clear to me that you do not yet understand what I hope to achieve in my breeding program.'
Moneo brightened. 'My Lord knows I try to fathom the rules of it.'
'Laws tend to be temporary over the long haul, Moneo. There is no such thing as rule-governed creativity.'
'But Lord, you yourself speak of laws which govern your breeding program.'
'What have I just said to you, Moneo? Trying to find rules for creation is like trying to separate mind from body.'
'But something is evolving, Lord. I know it in myself!'
