Authors: Frank Herbert

Tags: #Science Fiction - General

God Emperor of Dune (28 page)

BOOK: God Emperor of Dune

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What is she?
Leto wondered.
Could she be a Face Dancer, after all?

No. None of the telltale signs were there. No. Luyseyal presented an elaborately relaxed appearance, not even a little twist of her features to test the God Emperor’s powers of observation.

“Will you not tell us about your physical changes, Lord?” Anteac asked.

Diversion!
Leto thought.

“My brain grows enormous,” he said. “Most of the human skull has dissolved away. There are no severe limits to the growth of my cortex and its attendant nervous system.”

Moneo darted a startled glance at Leto. Why was the God Emperor giving away such vital information? These two would trade it.

But both women were obviously fascinated by this revelation, hesitating in whatever plan they had evolved.

“Does your brain have a center?” Luyseyal asked.

“I am the center,” Leto said.

“A location?” Anteac asked. She gestured vaguely at him. Luyseyal glided a few millimeters closer to the ledge.

“What value do you place on the things I reveal to you?” Leto asked.

The two women betrayed no change of expression, which was betrayal enough by itself. A smile flitted across Leto’s lips.

“The marketplace has captured you,” he said. “Even the Bene Gesserit has been infected by the
suk
mentality.”

“We do not deserve that accusation,” Anteac said.

“But you do. The
suk
mentality dominates my Empire. The uses of the market have only been sharpened and amplified by the demands of our times. We have all become traders.”

“Even you, Lord?” Luyseyal asked.

“You tempt my wrath,” he said. “You’re a specialist in that, aren’t you?”

“Lord?” Luyseyal’s voice was calm, but overly controlled.

“Specialists are not to be trusted,” Leto said. “Specialists are masters of exclusion, experts in the narrow.”

“We hope to be architects of a better future,” Anteac said.

“Better than what?” Leto asked.

Luyseyal eased herself a fractional pace closer to Leto.

“We hope to set our standards by your judgment, Lord,” Anteac said.

“But you would be architects. Would you build higher walls? Never forget, Sisters, that I know you. You are efficient purveyors of blinders.”

“Life continues, Lord,” Anteac said.

“Indeed! And so does the universe.”

Luyseyal eased herself a bit closer, ignoring the fixity of Moneo’s attention.

Leto smelled it then and almost laughed aloud.

Spice-essence!

They had brought some spice-essence. They knew the old stories about sandworms and spice-essence, of course. Luyseyal carried it. She thought of it as a specific poison for sandworms. That was obvious. Bene Gesserit records and the Oral History agreed on this. The essence shattered the worm, precipitating its dissolution and resulting (eventually) in sandtrout which would produce more sandworms—etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …

“There is another change in me that you should know about,” Leto said. “I am not yet sandworm, not fully. Think of me as something closer to a colony creature with sensory alterations.”

Luyseyal’s left hand moved almost imperceptibly toward a fold in her gown. Moneo saw it and looked to Leto for instructions, but Leto only returned the hooded glare of Luyseyal’s eyes.

“There have been fads in smells,” Leto said.

Luyseyal’s hand hesitated.

“Perfumes and essences,” he said. “I remember them all, even the cults of the non-smells are mine. People have used underarm sprays and crotch sprays to mask their natural odors. Did you know that? Of course you knew it!”

Anteac’s gaze moved toward Luyseyal.

Neither woman dared speak.

“People knew instinctively that their pheromones betrayed them,” Leto said.

The women stood immobile. They heard him. Of all his people, Reverend Mothers were best equipped to understand his hidden message.

“You’d like to mine me for my riches of memory,” Leto said, his voice accusing.

“We are jealous, Lord,” Luyseyal confessed.

“You have misread the history of spice-essence,” Leto said. “Sandtrout sense it only as water.”

“It was a test, Lord,” Anteac said. “That is all.”

“You would test me?”

“Blame our curiosity, Lord,” Anteac said.

“I, too, am curious. Put your spice-essence on the ledge beside Moneo. I will keep it.”

Slowly, demonstrating by the steadiness of her movements that she intended no attack, Luyseyal reached beneath her gown and removed a small vial which glistened with an inner blue radiance. She placed the vial gently on the ledge. Not by any sign did she indicate that she might try something desperate.

“Truthsayer, indeed,” Leto said.

She favored him with a faint grimace which might have been a smile, then withdrew to Anteac’s side.

“Where did you get the spice-essence?” Leto asked.

“We bought it from smugglers,” Anteac said.

“There’ve been no smugglers for almost twenty-five hundred years.”

“Waste not, want not,” Anteac said.

“I see. And now you must reevaluate what you think of as your own patience, is that not so?”

“We have been watching the evolution of your body, Lord,” Anteac said. “We thought …” She permitted herself a small shrug, the level of gesture warranted for use with a Sister and not given lightly.

Leto pursed his lips in response. “I cannot shrug,” he said.

“Will you punish us?” Luyseyal asked.

“For amusing me?”

Luyseyal glanced at the vial on the ledge.

“I swore to reward you,” Leto said. “I shall.”

“We would prefer to protect you in our community, Lord,” Anteac said.

“Do not seek too great a reward,” he said.

Anteac nodded. “You deal with the Ixians, Lord. We have reason to believe they may venture against you.”

“I fear them no more than I fear you.”

“Surely you’ve heard what the Ixians are doing,” Luyseyal said.

“Moneo brings me an occasional copy of a message between persons or groups in my Empire. I hear many stories.”

“We speak of a new Abomination, Lord!” Anteac said.

“You think the Ixians can produce an artificial intelligence?” he asked. “Conscious the way you are conscious?”

“We fear it, Lord,” Anteac said.

“You would have me believe that the Butlerian Jihad survives among the Sisterhood?”

“We do not trust the unknown which can arise from imaginative technology,” Anteac said.

Luyseyal leaned toward him. “The Ixians boast that their machine will transcend Time in the way that you do it, Lord.”

“And the Guild says there’s Time-chaos around the Ixians,” Leto mocked. “Are we to fear all creation, then?”

Anteac drew herself up stiffly.

“I speak truth with you two,” Leto said. “I recognize your abilities. Will you not recognize mine?”

Luyseyal gave him a curt nod. “Tleilax and Ix make alliance with the Guild and seek our full cooperation.”

“And you fear Ix the most?”

“We fear anything we do not control,” Anteac said.

“And you do not control me.”

“Without you, people would need us!” Anteac said.

“Truth at last!” Leto said. “You come to me as your Oracle and you ask me to put your fears to rest.”

Anteac’s voice was frigidly controlled. “Will Ix make a mechanical brain?”

“A brain? Of course not!”

Luyseyal appeared to relax, but Anteac remained unmoving. She was not satisfied with the Oracle.

Why is it that foolishness repeats itself with such monotonous precision?
Leto wondered. His memories offered up countless scenes to match this one— caverns, priests and priestesses caught up in holy ecstasy, portentous voices delivering dangerous prophecies through the smoke of holy narcotics.

He glanced down at the iridescent vial on the ledge beside Moneo. What was the current value of that thing? Enormous. It was the
essence.
Concentrated wealth concentrated.

“You have already paid the Oracle,” he said. “It amuses me to give you full value.”

How alert the women became!

“Hear me!” he said. “What you fear is not what you fear.”

Leto liked the sound of that. Sufficiently portentous for any Oracle. Anteac and Luyseyal stared up at him, dutiful supplicants. Behind them, an acolyte cleared her throat.

That one will be identified and reprimanded later
, Leto thought.

Anteac had now had sufficient time to ruminate on Leto’s words. She said: “An obscure truth is not the truth.”

“But I have directed your attention correctly,” Leto said.

“Are you telling us not to fear the machine?” Luyseyal asked.

“You have the power of reason,” he said. “Why come begging to me?”

“But we do not have
your
powers,” Anteac said.

“You complain then that you do not sense the gossamer waves of Time. You do not sense my continuum. And you fear a mere machine!”

“Then you will not answer us,” Anteac said.

“Do not make the mistake of thinking me ignorant about your Sisterhood’s ways,” he said. “You are alive. Your senses are exquisitely tuned. I do not stop this, nor should you.”

“But the Ixians play with automation!” Anteac protested.

“Discrete pieces, finite bits linked one to another,” he agreed. “Once set in motion, what is to stop it?”

Luyseyal discarded all pretense of Bene Gesserit self-control, a fine comment on her recognition of Leto’s powers. Her voice almost screeched: “Do you know what the Ixians boast? That their machine will predict
your
actions!”

“Why should I fear that? The closer they come to me, the more they must be my allies. They cannot conquer me, but I can conquer them.”

Anteac made to speak but stopped when Luyseyal touched her arm.

“Are you already allied with Ix?” Luyseyal asked. “We hear that you conferred overlong with their new Ambassador, this Hwi Noree.”

“I have no allies,” he said. “Only servants, students and enemies.”

“And you do not fear the Ixians’ machine?” Anteac insisted.

“Is automation synonymous with conscious intelligence?” he asked.

Anteac’s eyes went wide and filmy as she withdrew into her memories. Leto found himself caught by fascination with what she must be encountering there within her own internal mob.

We share some of those memories
, he thought.

Leto felt then the seductive attraction of community with Reverend Mothers. It would be so familiar, so supportive … and so deadly. Anteac was trying to lure him once more.

She spoke: “The machine cannot anticipate every problem of importance to humans. It is the difference between serial bits and an unbroken continuum. We have the one; machines are confined to the other.”

“You still have the power of reason,” he said.

“Share!” Luyseyal said. It was a command to Anteac and it revealed with sharp abruptness who really dominated this pair—the younger over the older.

Exquisite
, Leto thought.

“Intelligence adapts,” Anteac said.

Parsimonious with her words, too
, Leto thought, hiding his amusement.

“Intelligence creates,” Leto said. “That means you must deal with responses never before imagined. You must confront the
new.
”

“Such as the possibility of the Ixian Machine,” Anteac said. It was not a question.

“Isn’t it interesting,” Leto asked, “that being a superb Reverend Mother is not enough?”

His acute senses detected the sudden fearful tightening in both of the women. Truthsayers, indeed!

“You are right to fear me,” he said. Raising his voice, he demanded: “How do you know you’re even alive?”

As Moneo had done so many times, they heard in his voice the deadly consequences of failure to answer him correctly. It fascinated Leto that both women glanced at Moneo before either responded.

“I am the mirror of myself,” Luyseyal said, a pat Bene Gesserit answer which Leto found offensive.

“I don’t need pre-set tools to deal with my human problems,” Anteac said. “Your question is sophomoric!”

BOOK: God Emperor of Dune

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