Slowly, Moneo's trembling subsided. He drew in deep, gulping breaths.
Leto said: 'There will be some change in my Fremen wedding. We will not use the water rings of my sister, Ghanima. We will use, instead, the rings of my mother.'
'The Lady Chani, Lord? But where are her rings?'
Leto twisted his bulk on the cart and pointed to the intersection of two cavernous spokes on his left where the dim light revealed the earliest burial niches of the Atreides on Arrakis. 'In her tomb, the first niche. You will remove those rings, Moneo, and bring them to the ceremony.'
Moneo stared across the gloomy distance of the crypt. 'Lord... is it not a desecration to...'
'You forget, Moneo, who lives in me.' He spoke then in Chani's voice: 'I can do what I want with my water rings!'
Moneo cowered. 'Yes, Lord. I will bring them with me to Tabur Village when...'
'Tabur Village?' Leto asked in his usual voice. 'But I have changed my mind. We will be wed at Tuono Village!'
Most civilization is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.
The Stolen Journals IDAHO STOOD aghast at his first close glimpse of Tuono Village. That was the home of Fremen?
The Fish Speaker troop had taken them from the Citadel at daybreak, Idaho and Siona bundled into a large ornithopter, accompanied by two smaller guard ships. And the flight had been slow, almost three hours. They had landed at a flat, round plastone hangar almost a kilometer from the village, separated from it by old dunes locked in shape with plantings of poverty grasses and a few scrubby bushes. As they came down, the wall directly behind the village had seemed to grow taller and taller, the village shrinking beneath such immensity.
'The Museum Fremen are kept generally uncontaminated by off-planet technology,' Nayla had explained as the escort sealed the 'thopters into the low hangar. One of the troop already had been sent trotting off toward Tuono with the announcement of their arrival.
Siona had remained mostly silent all during the flight, but she had studied Nayla with covert intensity.
For a time during the march across the morning-lighted dunes, Idaho had tried to imagine that he was back in the old days. Sand was visible in the plantings and, in the valleys between dunes, there was parched ground, yellow grass, the sticklike shrubs. Three vultures, their gap-tipped wings spread wide, circled in the vault of sky-'the soaring search,' Fremen had called it. Idaho had tried to explain this to Siona walking beside him. You worried about the carrion-eaters only when they began to descend.
'I have been told about vultures,' she said, her voice cold.
Idaho had noted the perspiration on her upper lip. There was a spicy smell of sweat in the troop pressed close around them.
His imagination was not equal to the task of defocusing the differences between the past and this time. The issue stillsuits they wore were more for show than for efficient collection of the body's water. No true Fremen would have trusted his life to one of them, not even here, where the air smelled of nearby water. And the Fish Speakers of Nayla's troop did not walk in Fremen silence. They chattered among themselves like children.
Siona trudged beside him in sullen withdrawal, her attention frequently on the broad muscular back of Nayla, who strode along a few paces ahead of the troop.
What was between those two women? Idaho wondered. Nayla appeared devoted to Siona, hanging on Siona's every word, obeying every whim Siona uttered... except that Nayla would not deviate from the orders which brought them to Tuono Village. Still, Nayla deferred to Siona and called her 'Commander.' There was something deep between those two, something which aroused awe and fear in Nayla.
They came at last to a slope which dropped down to the village and the wall behind it. From the air, Tuono had been a cluster of glittering rectangles just outside the shadow of the wall. From this close vantage, though, it had been reduced to a cluster of decaying huts made even more pitiful by attempts to decorate the place. Bits of shiny minerals and scraps of metal picked out scroll designs on the building walls. A tattered green banner fluttered from a metal pole atop the largest structure. A fitful breeze brought the smell of garbage and uncovered cesspools to Idaho's nostrils. The central street of the village extended out across the sparsely planted sand toward the troop, ending in a ragged edge of broken paving.
A robed delegation waited near the building of the green flag, standing there expectantly with the Fish Speaker messenger Nayla had sent on ahead. Idaho counted eight in the delegation, all men in what appeared to be authentic Fremen robes of dark brown. A green headband could be glimpsed beneath the hood on one of the delegation-the Naib, no doubt. Children waited to one side with flowers. Black-hooded women could be seen peering from side-streets in the background. Idaho found the whole scene distressing.
'Let's get it over with,' Siona said.
Nayla nodded and led the way down the slope onto the street. Siona and Idaho stayed a few paces behind her. The rest of the troop straggled along after them, silent now and peering around with undisguised curiosity.
As Nayla neared the delegation, the one with the green headband stepped forward and bowed. He moved like an old man but Idaho saw that he was not old, barely into his middle years, the cheeks smooth and unwrinkled, a stubby nose with no scars from breath-filter tubes, and the eyes! The eyes revealed definite pupils, not the all-blue of spice addiction. They were brown eyes. Brown eyes in a Fremen!
'I am Garun,' the man said as Nayla stopped in front of him. 'I am Naib of this place. I give you a Fremen welcome to Tuono.'
Nayla gestured over her shoulder at Siona and Idaho, who had stopped just behind her. 'Are quarters prepared for your guests?'
'We Fremen are noted for our hospitality,' Garun said. 'All is ready.'
Idaho sniffed at the sour smells and sounds of this place. He glanced through open windows of the flag-topped building on his right. The Atreides banner flying over that? The window opened into an auditorium with low ceiling, a band-shell at the far end enclosing a small platform. He saw rows of seats, maroon carpeting on the floor. It had all the look of a stage setting, a place to entertain tourists.
The sound of shuffling feet brought Idaho's attention back to Garun. Children were pressing forward around the delegation, extending clumps of garish red flowers in their grimy hands. The flowers were wilted.
Garun addressed himself to Siona, correctly identifying the gold piping of Fish Speaker Command in her uniform.
'Will you wish a performance of our Fremen rituals?' he asked. 'The music, perhaps? The dance?'
Nayla accepted a bunch of flowers from one of the children, sniffed them and sneezed.
Another urchin extended flowers toward Siona, lifting a wide-eyed stare toward her. She accepted the flowers without looking at the child. Idaho merely waved the children aside as they approached him. They hesitated, staring up at him, then scurried around him toward the rest of the troop.
Garun spoke to Idaho. 'If you give them a few coins, they will not bother you.'
Idaho shuddered. Was this the training for Fremen children?
Garun returned his attention to Siona. With Nayla listening, Garun began explaining the layout of his village.
Idaho moved away from them down the street, noting how glances flicked toward him and then avoided his gaze. He felt deeply offended by the surface decorations on the buildings, none of it disguising the evidence of decay. He stared in an open doorway at the auditorium. There was a harshness in Tuono, a struggling something behind the wilting flowers and the servile tone of Garun's voice. In another time and on another planet, this would have been a donkey-in-the-street village rope-belted peasants pressing forward with petitions. He could hear the whine of supplication in Garun's voice. These were not Fremen! These poor creatures lived on the margins, trying to retain parts of an ancient wholeness. And all the while, that lost reality slipped farther and farther from their grasp. What had Leto created here? These Museum Fremen were lost to everything except a bare existence and the rote mouthing of old words which they did not understand and which they did not even pronounce correctly!
