'They are no longer my masters, Lord.'
'Forgive me. I will refer to them hereafter as the lxians.'
She nodded gravely, prompting: 'At one time...'
'The lxians contemplated making a weapon-a type of hunter-seeker, self-propelled death with a machine mind. It was to be designed as a self improving thing which would seek out life and reduce that life to its inorganic matter.'
'I have not heard of this thing, Lord.'
'I know that. The lxians do not recognize that machine makers always run the risk of becoming totally machine. This is ultimate sterility. Machines always fail... given time. And when these machines failed there would be nothing left, no life at all.'
'Sometimes I think they are mad,' she said.
'Anteac's opinion. That is the immediate problem. The lxians are now engaged in an endeavor which they are concealing.'
'Even from you?'
'Even from me. I am sending the Reverend Mother Anteac to investigate for me. To help her, I want you to tell her everything you can about the place where you spent your childhood. Omit no detail, no matter how small. Anteac will help you remember. We want every sound, every smell, the shapes and names of visitors, the colors and even the tinglings of your skin. The slightest thing may be vital.'
'You think it is the place of concealment?'
'I know it is.'
'And you think they are making this weapon in...'
'No, but this will be our excuse for investigating the place where you were born.'
She opened her mouth and gradually formed a smile, then: 'My Lord is devious. I will speak to the Reverend Mother immediately.' Hwi started to rise, but he stopped her with a gesture.
'We must not give the appearance of haste,' he said.
She sank back onto the cushion.
'Each of us is different in the way of Moneo's observation,' he said. 'Genesis does not stop. Your god continues creating you.'
'What will Anteac find? You know, don't you?'
'Let us say that I have a strong conviction. Now, you have not once mentioned the subject which I broached earlier. Have you no questions?'
'You will provide the answers as I require them.' It was a statement full of such trust that it stopped Leto's voice. He could only look at her, realizing how extraordinary was this accomplishment of the Ixians-this human. Hwi remained precisely true to the dictates of her personally chosen morality. She was comely, warm and honest and possessed of an emphatic sense which forced her to share every anguish in those with whom she identified. He could- imagine the dismay of her Bene Gesserit teachers when confronted by this immovable core of self- honesty. The teachers obviously had been reduced to adding a touch here, an ability there, everything strengthening that power which prevented her from becoming a Bene Gesserit. How that must have rankled!
'Lord,' she said, 'I would know the motives which forced you to choose your life.'
'First, you must understand what it is like to see our future.'
'With your help, I will try.'
'Nothing is ever separated from its source,' he said. 'Seeing futures is a vision of a continuum in which all things take shape like bubbles forming beneath a waterfall. You see them and then they vanish into the stream. If the stream ends, it is as though the bubbles never were. That stream is my Golden Path and I saw it end.'
'Your choice=' she gestured at his body= 'changed that?'
'It is changing. The change comes not only from the manner of my life but from the manner of my death.'
'You know how you will die?'
'Not how. I know only the Golden Path in which it will occur.'
'Lord, I do not...'
'It is difficult to understand, I know. I will die four deaths the death of the flesh, the death of the soul, the death of the myth and the death of reason. And all of these deaths contain the seed of resurrection.'
'You will return from...'
'The seeds will return.'
'When you are gone, what will happen to your religion?'
'All religions are a single communion. The spectrum remains unbroken within the Golden Path. It is only that humans see first one part and then another. Delusions can be called accidents of the senses.'
'People will still worship you,' she said.
'Yes.'
'But when forever ends, there will be anger,' she said. 'There will be denial. Some will say you were just an ordinary tyrant.'
'Delusion,' he agreed.
A lump in her throat prevented her from speaking for a moment, then: 'How does your life and your death change the...' She shook her head.
'Life will continue.'
'I believe that, Lord, but how?'
'Each cycle is a reaction to the preceding cycle. If you think about the shape of my Empire, then you know the shape of the next cycle.'
She looked away from him. 'Everything I learned about your Family told me that you would do this-' she gestured blindly in his direction without looking at him= 'only with a selfless motive. I do not think I truly know the shape of your Empire, though.'
'Leto's Golden Peace?'
'There is less peace than some would have us believe,' she said, looking back at him.
The honesty of her! he thought. Nothing deterred it.
'This is the time of the stomach,' he said. 'This is the time when we expand as a single cell expands.'
'But something is missing,' she said.
She is like the Duncans, he thought. Something is missing and they sense it immediately.
'The flesh grows, but the psyche does not grow,' he said.
'The psyche?'
'That reflexive awareness which tells us how very alive we can become. You know it well, Hwi. It is that sense which tells you how to be true to yourself.'
'Your religion is not enough,' she said.
'No religion can ever be enough. It is a matter of choice a single, lonely choice. Do you understand now why your friendship and your company mean so much to me?'
She blinked back tears, nodding, then: 'Why don't people know this?'
'Because the conditions don't permit it.'
'The conditions which you dictate?'
'Precisely. Look throughout my Empire. Do you see the shape?'
She closed her eyes, thinking.
'One wishes to sit by a river and fish every day?' he asked. 'Excellent. That is this life. You desire to sail a small boat across an island sea and visit strangers? Superb! What else is there to do?'
'Travel in space?' she asked and there was a defiant note in her voice. She opened her eyes.
'You have observed that the Guild and I do not allow this.'
'You do not allow it.'
'True. If the Guild disobeys me, it gets no spice.'
'And holding people planet bound keeps them out of mischief.'
