be that bloody-minded.'
'The Tleilaxu... they are too cruel to be human. They aren't human!'
'I assure you that humans can be just as cruel. I myself have been cruel on occasion.'
'I know, Lord.'
'With provocation,' he said. 'But the only people I have considered eliminating are the Bene Gesserit.'
Her shock was too great for words.
'They are so close to what they should be and yet so far,' he said.
She found her voice. 'But the Oral History says...'
'The religion of the Reverend Mothers, yes. Once they designed specific religions for specific societies. They called it engineering. How does that strike you?'
'Callous.'
'Indeed. The results fit the mistake. Even after all the grand attempts at ecumenism there were countless gods, minor deities and would-be prophets throughout the Empire.'
'You changed that, Lord.'
'Somewhat. But gods die hard, Hwi. My monotheism dominates, but the original pantheon remains; it has gone underground in various disguises.'
'Lord, I sense in your words... a...' She shook her head.
'Am I as coldly calculating as the Sisterhood?'
She nodded.
'It was the Fremen who deified my father, the great Muad'Dib. Although he doesn't really care to be called great.'
'But were the Fremen...'
'Were they right? My dearest Hwi, they were sensitive to the uses of power and they were greedy to maintain their ascendancy.'
'I find this... disturbing, Lord.'
'I can see that. You don't like the idea that becoming a god could be that simple, as though anyone could do it.'
'It sounds much too casual, Lord.' Her voice had a remote and testing quality.
'I assure you that anyone could not do it.'
'But you imply that you inherited your godhood from...'
'Never suggest that to a Fish Speaker,' he said. 'They react violently against heresy.'
She tried to swallow in a dry throat.
'I say this only to protect you,' he said.
Her voice was faint: 'Thank you, Lord.'
'My godhood began when I told my Fremen I no longer could give the death-water to the tribes. You know about the death-water?'
'In the Dune days, the water recovered from the bodies of the dead,' she said.
'Ahhh, you have read Noah Arkwright.'
She managed a faint smile.
'I told my Fremen the water would be consecrated to a Supreme Deity, left nameless. Fremen were still allowed to control this water through my largesse.'
'Water must have been very precious in those days.'
'Very! And I, as delegate of this nameless deity, held loose control of that precious water for almost three hundred years.'
She chewed at her lower lip.
'It still sounds calculating?' he asked.
She nodded.
'It was. When it came time to consecrate my sister's water, I performed a miracle. The voices of all the Atreides spoke from Ghani's urn. Thus, my Fremen discovered that I was their Supreme Deity.'
Hwi spoke fearfully, her voice full of puzzled uncertainties at this revelation. 'Lord, are you telling me that you are not really a god?'
'I am telling you that I do not play hide-and-seek with death.'
She stared at him for several minutes before responding in a way which assured him that she understood his deeper meaning. It was a reaction which only intensified her endearment to him.
'Your death will not be like other deaths,' she said.
'Precious Hwi,' he murmured.
'I wonder that you do not fear the judgment of a true Supreme Deity,' she said.
'Do you judge me, Hwi?'
'No, but I fear for you.'
'Think on the price I pay,' he said. 'Every descendant part of me will can-y some of my awareness locked away within it, lost and helpless.'
She put both hands over her mouth and stared at him.
'This is the horror which my father could not face and which he tried to prevent: the infinite division and subdivision of a blind identity.'
She lowered her hands and whispered: 'You will be conscious?'
'In a way... but mute. A little pearl of my awareness will go with every sandworm and every sandtrout- knowing yet unable to move a single cell, aware in an endless dream.'
She shuddered.
Leto watched her try to understand such an existence. Could she imagine the final clamor when the subdivided bits of his identity grappled for a fading control of the Ixian machine which recorded his journals? Could she sense the wrenching silence which would follow that awful fragmentation?
'Lord, they would use this knowledge against you were I to reveal it.'
'Will you tell?'
'Of course not!' She shook her head slowly from side to side. Why had he accepted this terrible transformation? Was there no escape?
Presently, she said: 'The machine which writes your thoughts, could it not be attuned to...'
'To a million of me? To a billion? To more? My dear Hwi, none of those knowing-pearls will be truly me.'
Her eyes filmed with tears. She blinked and inhaled a deep breath. Leto recognized the Bene Gesserit training in this, the way she accepted a flow of calmness.
'Lord, you have made me terribly afraid.'
'And you do not understand why I have done this.'
'Is it possible for me to understand?'
'Oh, yes. Many could understand it. What people do with understanding is another matter.'
'Will you teach me what to do?'
'You already know.'
She absorbed this silently, then: 'It has something to do with your religion. I can feel it.'
Leto smiled. 'I can forgive your Ixian masters almost anything for the precious gift of you. Ask and you shall receive.'
She leaned toward him, rocking forward on her pillow. 'Tell me about the inner workings of your religion.'
'You will know all of me soon enough, Hwi. I promise it. Just remember that sun worship among our primitive ancestors was not far off the mark.'
'Sun... worship?' She rocked backward.
'That sun which controls all of the movement but which cannot be touched-that sun is death.'
'Your... death?'
'Any religion circles like a planet around a sun which it must use for its energy, upon which it depends for its very existence.'
