God Emperor of Dune

Memory of the charts told Idaho the layout of this gigantic complex beneath the plaza-a private city within the City, a place where only the God Emperor, the courtiers and the Fish Speakers could go without escort. But the charts had told nothing of the thick pillars, the sense of massive, guarded spaces, the eerie quiet broken by the tramping of feet and the creaking of Leto's cart.

Idaho looked suddenly at the Fish Speakers lining the way and realized that their mouths were moving in unison, a silent word on their lips. He recognized the word:

"Siaynoq." -= "Another Festival so soon?" the Lord Leto asked.

"It has been ten years," the majordomo said.

Do you think by this exchange that the Lord Leto betrays an ignorance of time's passage?

- The Oral History DURING THE private audience period preceding the Festival proper, many commented that the God Emperor spent more than the allotted time with the new Ixian Ambassador, a young woman named Hwi Noree.

She was brought down at midmorning by two Fish Speakers who were still full of first-day excitement. The private audience chamber beneath the plaza was brilliantly illuminated. The light revealed a room about fifty meters long by thirty-five wide. Antique Fremen rugs decorated the walls, their bright patterns worked in jewels and precious metals, all combined in weavings of priceless spice-fibers. The dull reds of which the Old Fremen had been so fond predominated. The chamber's floor was mostly transparent, a setting for exotic fishes worked in radiant crystal. Beneath the floor flowed a stream of clear blue water, all of its moisture sealed away from the audience chamber, but excitingly near Leto, who rested on a padded elevation at the end of the room opposite the door.

His first view of Hwi Noree revealed a remarkable likeness to her Uncle Malky, but her grave movements and the calmness of her stride were equally remarkable in their difference from Malky. She did have that dark skin, though, the oval face with its regular features. Placid brown eyes stared back at Leto. And where Malky's hair had been gray, hers was a luminous brown. Hwi Noree radiated an inner peace which Leto sensed spreading its influence around her as she approached. She stopped ten paces away, below him. There was a classical balance about her, something not accidental.

With growing excitement, Leto realized a betrayal of lxian machinations in the new Ambassador. They were well along in their own program to breed selected types for specific functions. Hwi Noree's function was distressingly obvious-to charm the God Emperor, to find a chink in his armor.

Despite this, as the meeting progressed, Leto found himself truly enjoying her company. Hwi Noree stood in a puddle of daylight which was guided into the chamber by a system of Ixian prisms. The light filled Leto's end of the chamber with glowing gold which centered on the Ambassador. dimming behind the God Emperor where stood a short line of Fish Speaker guards-twelve women chosen for their inability to hear or speak.

Hwi Noree wore a simple gown of purple ambiel decorated only by a silver necklace pendant stamped with the symbol of IX. Soft sandals the color of her gown peeked from beneath her hem.

"Are you aware," Leto asked her, "that I killed one of your ancestors?"

She smiled softly. "My Uncle Malky included that information in my early training, Lord."

As she spoke, Leto realized that part of her education had been conducted by the Bene Gesserit. She had their way of controlling her responses, of sensing the undertones in a conversation. He could see, however, that the Bene Gesserit overlay had been a delicate thing, never penetrating the basic sweetness of her nature.

"You were told that I would introduce this subject," he said.

"Yes, Lord. I know that my ancestor had the temerity to bring a weapon here in the attempt to harm you."

"As did your immediate predecessor. Were you told that, as well?"

" I did not learn it until my arrival, Lord. They were fools! Why did you spare my predecessor?"

"When I did not spare your ancestor?"

"Yes, Lord."

"Kobat, your predecessor, was more valuable to me as a messenger."

"Then they told me the truth," she said. Again -,h.= smiled. "One cannot always depend on hearing truth from lone', associates and superiors."

The response was so utterly open that Leto could not suppress a chuckle. Even as he laughed, he realized that this young woman still possessed the Mind of First Awakening, the elemental mind which came in the first shock of birth-awareness. She was alive!"Then you do not hold it against me that I killed your ancestor?" he asked.

"He tried to assassinate you! I am told you crushed him, Lord, with your own body."

"True."

"And next you turned his weapon against your own Holy Self to demonstrate that the weapon was ineffectual... and it was the best lasgun we lxians could make."

"The witnesses reported correctly," Leto said.