of slavery, of welfare states, of caste-ridden religions, of socializing bureaucracies-in any system which creates and maintains dependencies. Too long a parasite and you cannot exist without a host.
- The Stolen Journals LETO AND Siona lay all day in the dune-shadows, moving only as the sun moved. He taught her how to protect herself under a blanket of sand in the noontime heat; it never grew too warm at the rock-level between the dunes.
In the afternoon, Siona crept close to Leto for warmth, a warmth he knew he had in excess these days.
They talked sporadically. He told her about the Fremen graces which once had dominated this landscape. She probed for secret knowledge of him.
Once, he said: 'You may find it odd, but out here is where I can be most human.'
His words failed to make her fully conscious of her human vulnerability and the fact that she might die out here. Even when she was not talking, she did not restore the face flap of her stillsuit.
Leto recognized the unconscious motivation behind this failure, but knew the futility of addressing that directly.
In the late afternoon, night's chill already starting to creep over the land, he began regaling her with songs of the Long Trek which had not been saved in the Oral History. He enjoyed the fact that she liked one of his favorites, 'Liet's March.'
'The tune is really ancient,' he said, 'a pre-space thing of Old Terra.'
'Would you sing it again?'
He chose one of his best baritones, a long-dead artist who had filled many a concert hall.
'The wall of past-beyond-recall Hides me from an ancient fall Where all the waters tumble! And plays of sprays Carve caves in clays Beneath a torrent's rumble.'
When he had finished, she was silent for a moment, then: 'That's an odd song for marching.'
'They liked it because they could dissect it,' he said.
'Dissect?'
'Before our Fremen ancestors came to this planet, night was the time for storytelling, songs and poetry. In the Dune days, though, that was reserved for the false dark, the daytime gloom of the sietch. The night was when they could emerge and move about... just as we do now.'
'But you said dissect.'
'What does that song mean?' he asked.
'Oh. It's... it's just a song.'
'Siona!'
She heard anger in his voice and remained silent.
'This planet is the child of the worm,' he warned her, 'and I am that worm.'
She responded with a surprising insouciance: 'Then tell me what it means.'
'The insect has no more freedom from its hive than we have freedom from our past,' he said. 'The caves are there and all of the messages written in the sprays of the torrents.'
'I prefer dancing songs,' she said.
It was a flippant answer, but Leto chose to take it as a change of subject. He told her about the marriage dance of
Fremen women, tracing the steps back to the whirling of dust devils. Leto prided himself on telling a good story. It was clear from her rapt attention that she could see the women whirling before her inner eye, long black hair thrown in the ancient movements, straggling across long-dead faces.
Darkness was almost upon them when he finished.
'Come,' he said. 'Morning and evening are still the times of silhouettes. Let us see if anyone shares our desert.'
Siona followed him up to a dune-crest and they stared all around at the darkening desert. There was only one bird high overhead, attracted by their movements. From the splayed-gap tips on its wings and the shape, he knew it was a vulture. He pointed this out to Siona.
'But what do they eat?' she asked.
'Anything that's dead or nearly so.'
This hit her and she stared up at the last of the sunlight gilding the lone bird's flight feathers.
Leto pressed it: 'A few people still venture into my Sareer. Sometimes, a Museum Fremen wanders off and gets lost. They're really only good at the rituals. And then there are the desert's edges and the remains of whatever my wolves leave.'
At this, she whirled away from him, but not before he saw the passion still consuming her. Siona was being sorely tested.
'There's little daytime graciousness about a desert,' he said. 'That's another reason we travel by night. To a Fremen, the image of the day was that of windblown sand filling your tracks.'
Her eyes glistened with unshed tears when she turned back to him, but her features were composed..
'What lives here now?' she asked.
'The vultures, a few night creatures, an occasional remnant of plant life out of the old days, burrowing things.'
'Is that all?'
'Yes.' .,Why?'
'Because this is where they were born and I permit them to know nothing better.'
It was almost dark with that sudden glowing light his desert acquired in these moments. He studied her in that luminous moment, recognizing that she had not yet understood his other message. He knew that message would sit there, though, and fester in her.'Silhouettes,' she said, reminding him. 'What did you expect to find when we came up here?'
'Perhaps people at a distance. You're never certain.'
'What people?'
'I've already told you.'
'What would you've done if you'd seen anyone?'
'It was the Fremen custom to treat distant people as hostile until they threw sand into the air.'
As he spoke, darkness fell over them like a curtain.
Siona became ghostly movement in the sudden starlight. 'Sand?' she asked.
'Thrown sand is a profound gesture. It says: `We share the same burden. Sand is our only enemy. This is what we drink. The hand that holds sand holds no weapon.' Do you understand this?'
'No!' She taunted him with a defiant falsehood.
'You will,' he said.
Without a word, she set out along the arc of their dune, striding away from him with an angry excess of energy. Leto allowed himself to fall far behind her, interested that she had instinctively chosen the right direction. Fremen memories could be felt churning in her.
Where the dune dipped to cross another, she waited for him. He saw that the face flap of her stillsuit remained open, hanging loose. It was not yet time to chide her about this. Some unconscious things had to run their natural course.
As he came up to her, she said: 'Is this as good a direction as any other?'
'If you keep to it,' he said.
She glanced up at the stars and he saw her identify the Pointers, those Fremen Arrows which had led her ancestors across this land. He could see, though, that her recognition was mostly intellectual. She had not yet come to accept the other things working within her.
Leto lifted his front segments to peer ahead in the starlight. They were moving a little west of north on a track that once had led across Habbanya Ridge and Cave of Birds into the erg below False Wall West and the way to Wind Pass. None of those landmarks remained. He sniffed a cool breeze with flint smells in it and more moisture than he found pleasant.
Once more, Siona set off-slower this time, holding her course by occasional glances at the stars. She had trusted Leto to confirm the way, but now she guided herself. He sensed the turmoil beneath her wary thoughts,
