more climatic adjustments.
It was not easy and Leto forgave the occasional mistakes for that reason.
As he moved once more out onto dunes, he lost that sense of delicate balance, put aside memories of the pebbly wastelands outside the central sands, and gave himself up to enjoyment of his 'petrified ocean' with its frozen and apparently immovable waves. He turned southward, parallel to the remnant hills.
He knew that most people were offended by his infatuation with desert. They were uneasy and turned away. Siona, however, could not turn away. Everywhere she looked, the desert demanded recognition. She rode silently on his back, but he knew her eyes were full. And the old-old memories were beginning to churn.
He came within three hours to a region of cylindrical whaleback dunes, some of them more than one hundred and fifty kilometers long at an angle to the prevailing wind. Beyond them lay a rocky corridor between dunes and into a region of star dunes almost four hundred meters high. Finally, they entered the braided dunes of the central erg where the general high pressure and electrically charged air gave his spirits a lift. He knew the same magic would be working on Siona.
'Here is where the songs of the Long Trek originated,' he said. 'They are perfectly preserved in the Oral History.'
She did not answer, but he knew she heard.
Leto slowed his pace and began to speak to Siona, telling her about their Fremen past. He sensed the quickening of her interest. She even asked questions occasionally, but he could also feel her fears building. Even the base of his Little Citadel was no longer visible here. She could recognize nothing manmade. And she would think he engaged now in small talk, unimportant things to put off something portentous.
'Equality between our men and women originated here,' he said.
'Your Fish Speakers deny that men and women are equal,' she said.
Her voice, full of questioning disbelief, was a better locator than the sensation of her crouched on his back. Leto stopped at the intersection of two braided dunes and let the venting of his heat-generated oxygen subside.
'Things are not the same today,' he said. 'But men and women do have different evolutionary demands upon them. With the Fremen, though, there was an interdependence. That fostered equality out here where questions of survival can become immediate.'
'Why did you bring me here?' she demanded.
'Look behind us,' he said.
He felt her turn. Presently, she said: 'What am I supposed to see?'
'Have we left any tracks? Can you tell where we've been?'
'There's a little wind now.'
'It has covered our tracks?'
'I guess so... yes.'
'This desert made us what we were and are,' he said. 'It's the real museum of all our traditions. Not one of those traditions has really been lost.'
Leto saw a small sandstorm, a ghibli, moving across the southern horizon. He noted the narrow ribbons of dust and sand moving out ahead of it. Surely, Siona had seen it.
'Why won't you tell me why you brought me here?' she asked. Fear was obvious in her voice.
'But I have told you.'
'You have not!'
'How far have we come, Siona?'
She thought about this. 'Thirty kilometers? Twenty?'
'Farther,' he said. 'I can move very fast in my own land. Didn't you feel the wind on your face?'
'Yes.' Sullen. 'So why ask me how far?'
'Come down and stand where I can see you.' ..Why?'
Good, he thought. She believes I will abandon her here and speed off faster than she can follow.
'Come down and I'll explain,' he said.
She slid off his back and came around to where she could look into his face.
'Time passes swiftly when your senses are full,' he said.
'We have been out almost four hours. We have come about sixty kilometers.'
'Why is that important?'
'Moneo put dried food in the pouch of your robe,' he said. 'Eat a little and I will tell you.'
She found a dried cube of protomor in the pouch and chewed on it while she watched him. It was the authentic old Fremen food even to the slight addition of melange.
'You have felt your past,' he said. 'Now, you must be sensitized to your future, to the Golden Path.'
She swallowed. 'I don't believe in your Golden Path.'
'If you are to live, you will believe in it.'
'Is that your test? Have faith in the Great God Leto or die?'
'You need no faith in me whatsoever. I want you to have faith in yourself.'
'Then why is it important how far we've come?'
'So you'll understand how far you still have to go.'
She put a hand to her cheek. 'I don't...'
'Right where you stand,' he said, 'you are in the unmistakable midst of Infinity. Look around you at the meaning of Infinity.'
She glanced left and right at the unbroken desert.
'We are going to walk out of my desert together,' he said. 'Just the two of us.'
'You don't walk,' she sneered.
'A figure of speech. But you will walk. I assure you of that.'
She looked in the direction they had come. 'So that's why you asked me about tracks.'
'Even if there were tracks, you could not go back. There is nothing at my Little Citadel that you could get to and use for survival.'
'No water?'
'Nothing.'
She found the catchpocket tube at her shoulder, sucked at it and restored it. He noted the care with which she sealed the end, but she did not pull the face flap across her mouth, although Leto had heard her father warning her about this. She wanted her mouth free for talking!
'You're telling me I can't run away from you,' she said.
'Run away if you want.'
She turned a full circle, examining the wasteland.
'There is a saying about the open land,' he said, 'that one direction is as good as another. In some ways, that's still true, but I would not depend on it.'
'But I'm really free to leave you if I want?'
'Freedom can be a very lonely estate,' he said.
She pointed to the steep side of the dune on which they had stopped. 'But I could just go down there and...'
'Were I you, Siona, I would not go down where you are pointing.'
She glared at him. 'Why?'
'On the dune's steep side, unless you follow the natural curves, the sand may slide down upon you and bury you.'
She looked down the slope, absorbing this.
'See how beautiful words can be?' he asked.
She returned her attention to his face. 'Should we be going?'
'You learn to value leisure out here. And courtesy. There's no hurry.'
'But we have no water except the..
