She stared at him a moment, then: 'Why would you want me to command your Fish Speakers?'
'You are an Atreides woman, resourceful and capable of independent thought. You can be truthful just for the sake of truth as you see it. You were bred and trained for command which means freedom from dependence.'
The wind whirled dust and sand around them while she weighed his words. 'And if I agree, you'll save me?'
'No.'
She had been so sure of the opposite answer that it was several heartbeats before she translated that single word. In that time, the wind fell slightly, exposing a vista across the dunescape to the remnants of Habbanya Ridge. The air was suddenly chilled with that cold which did as much to rob the flesh of moisture as did the hottest sunlight. Part of Leto's awareness detected an oscillation in weather control.
'No?' She was both puzzled and outraged.
'I do not make bloody bargains with people I must trust.'
She shook her head slowly from side to side, but her gaze remained fixed on his face. 'What will make you save me?'
'Nothing will make me do it. Why do you think you could do to me what I will not do to you? That is not the way of interdependence.'
Her shoulders slumped. 'If I cannot bargain with you or force you...'
'Then you must choose another path.'
What a marvelous thing to observe the explosive growth of awareness, he thought. Siona's expressive features hid nothing of it from him. She focused on his eyes and glared at him as though seeking to move completely into his thoughts. New strength entered her muffled voice.
'You would have me know everything about you-even every weakness?'
'Would you steal what I would give openly?'
The morning light was harsh on her face. 'I promise you nothing!'
'Nor do I require that.'
'But you will give me... water if I ask?'
'It is not just water.'
She nodded. 'And I am Atreides.'
The Fish Speakers had not withheld the lesson of that special susceptibility in the Atreides genes. She knew where the spice originated and what it might do to her. The teachers in the Fish Speaker schools never failed him. And the gentle additions of melange in Siona's dried food had done their work, too.
'These little curled flaps beside my face,' he said. 'Tease one of them gently with a finger and it will give up drops of moisture heavily laced with spice-essence.'
He saw the recognition in her eyes. Memories which she did not know as memories were speaking to her. And she was the result of many generations in which the Atreides sensitivity had been increased.
Even the urgency of her thirst would not yet move her.
To ease her through the crisis, he told her about Fremen children poling for sandtrout at an oasis edge, teasing the moisture out of them for quick vitalization.
'But I am Atreides,' she said.
'The Oral History tells it truthfully,' he said.
'Then I could die of it.'
'That's the test.'
'You would make a real Fremen out of me!'
'How else can you teach your descendants to survive here after I am gone?'
She pulled away her mask and moved her face to within a handsbreadth of his. A finger came up and touched one of the curled flaps of his cowl.
'Stroke it gently,' he said.
Her hand obeyed not his voice but something from within her. The finger movements were precise, eliciting his own memories, a thing passed from child to child to child... the way so much information and misinformation survived. He turned his face to its limit and looked sideways at her face so close to his. Pale blue drops began to form at the flap's edge. Rich cinnamon smells enveloped them. She leaned toward the drops. He saw the pores beside her nose, the way her tongue moved as she drank.
Presently, she retreated-not completely satisfied, but driven by caution and suspicion much the way Moneo had been. Like father, like daughter.
'How long before it begins to work?' she asked.
'It is already working.'
'I mean...'
'A minute or so.'
'I owe you nothing for this!'
'I will demand no payment.'
She sealed her face mask.
He saw the milky distances enter her eyes. Without asking permission, she tapped his front segment, demanding that he prepare the warm hammock of his flesh. He obeyed. She fitted herself to the gentle curve. By peering sharply downward, he could see her. Siona's eyes remained opened, but they no longer saw this place. She jerked abruptly and began to tremble like a small creature dying. He knew this experience, but could not change the smallest part of it. No ancestral presences would remain in her consciousness, but she would carry with her forever afterward the clear sights and sounds and smells. The seeking machines would be there, the smell of blood and entrails, the cowering humans in their burrows aware only that they could not escape... while all the time the mechanical movement approached, nearer and nearer and nearer...louder...louder!
Everywhere she searched, it would be the same. No escape anywhere.
He felt her life ebbing. Fight the darkness, Siona! That was one thing the Atreides did. They fought for life. And now she was fighting for lives other than her own. He felt the dimming, though... the terrible outflow of vitality. She went deeper and deeper into the darkness, far deeper than any other had ever gone. He began to rock her gently, a cradle movement of his front segment. That or the thin hot thread of determination, perhaps both together, prevailed. By early afternoon, her flesh
had trembled its way into something approaching real sleep. Only an occasional gasp betrayed the vision's echoes. He rocked her gently, rolling from side to side.
Could she possibly come back from those depths? He felt the vital responses reassuring him. The strength in her!
She awakened in the late afternoon, a stillness coming over her abruptly, the breathing rhythm changed. Her eyes snapped open. She peered up at him, then rolled out of the hammock to stand with her back to him for almost an hour of silent thinking.
Moneo had done that same thing. It was a new pattern in these Atreides. Some of the preceding ones had ranted at him. Others had backed away from him, stumbling and staring, forcing him to follow, squirming and grating over the pebbles. Some of them had squatted and stared at the ground. None of them had turned their backs on him. Leto took this new development as a hopeful sign.
'You are beginning to have some concept of how far my family extends,' he said.
She turned, her mouth a prim line, but did not meet his gaze. He could see her accepting it, though, the realization which few humans could share as she had shared it: His singular multitude made all of humankind his family.
'You could have saved my friends in the forest,' she accused.
'You, too, could have saved them.'
She clenched her fists and pressed them against her temples while she glared at him. 'But you know everything!'
'Siona!'
'Did I have to learn it that way?' she whispered.
He remained silent, forcing her to answer the question for herself. She had to be made to recognize that his
