“They have a compelling physical way of moving from adolescence into maturity,” Moneo said. “As Lord Leto says, ‘Carry a baby in you for nine months and that changes you.’”
Idaho sat back. “What does he know about it?”
Moneo merely stared at him until Idaho recalled the multitude in Leto—both male and female. The realization plunged over Idaho. Moneo saw it, recalling a comment of the God Emperor’s:
As the silence continued, Moneo cleared his throat. Presently, he said: “The immensity of the Lord Leto’s memories has been known to stop my tongue, too.”
“Is he being honest with us?” Idaho asked.
“I believe him.”
“But he does so many . . . I mean, take this breeding program. How long has that been going on?”
“From the very first. From the day he took it away from the Bene Gesserit.”
“What does he want from it?”
“I wish I knew.”
“But you’re . . .”
“An Atreides and his chief aide, yes.”
“You haven’t convinced me that a female army is best.”
“They continue the species.”
At last, Idaho’s frustration and anger had an object. “Is that what I was doing with them that first night—breeding?”
“Possibly. The Fish Speakers take no precautions against pregnancy.”
“Damn him! I’m not some animal he can move from stall to stall like a . . . like a . . .”
“Like a stud?”
“Yes!”
“But the Lord Leto refuses to follow the Tleilaxu pattern of gene surgery and artificial insemination.”
“What have the Tleilaxu got to . . .”
“They are the object lesson. Even I can see that. Their Face Dancers are mules, closer to a colony organism than to human.”
“Those others of . . . me . . . were any of them his studs?”
“Some. You have descendants.”
“Who?”
“I am one.”
Idaho stared into Moneo’s eyes, lost suddenly in a tangle of relationships. Idaho found the relationships impossible to understand. Moneo obviously was so much older than . . .
“I sometimes have trouble with this myself,” Moneo said. “If it helps, the Lord Leto assures me that you are not my descendant, not in any ordinary sense. However, you may well father some of my descendants.”
Idaho shook his head from side to side.
“Sometimes I think only the God Emperor himself can understand these things,” Moneo said.
“That’s another thing!” Idaho said. “This god business.”
“The Lord Leto says he has created a holy obscenity.”
This was not the response Idaho had expected.
“Holy obscenity,” Moneo repeated. The words rolled from his tongue with a strange sense of gloating in them.
Idaho focused a probing stare on Moneo.
“Why do you believe in him?” Idaho demanded.
“You ask if I share in the popular religion?”
“No! Does he?”
“I think so.”
“Why? Why do you think so?”
“Because he says he wishes to create no more Face Dancers. He insists that his human stock, once it has been paired, breeds in the way it has always bred.”
“What the hell does that have to do with it?”
“You asked me what he believes in. I think he believes in chance. I think that’s his god.”
“That’s superstition!”
“Considering the circumstances of the Empire, a very daring superstition.”
Idaho glared at Moneo. “You damned Atreides,” he muttered. “You’ll dare anything!”
Moneo noted that there was dislike mixed with admiration in Idaho’s voice.
What is the most profound difference between us, between you and me? You already know it. It’s these ancestral memories. Mine come at me in the full glare of awareness. Yours work from your blind side. Some call it instinct or fate. The memories apply their leverages to each of us—on what we think and what we do. You think you are immune to such influences? I am Galileo. I stand here and tell you: “Yet it moves.” That which moves can exert its force in ways no mortal power ever before dared stem. I am here to dare this.
—THE STOLEN JOURNALS
“When she was a child, she watched me, remember? When she thought I was not aware, Siona watched me like the desert hawk which circles above the lair of its prey. You yourself mentioned it.”
Leto rolled his body a quarter turn on his cart while speaking. This brought his cowled face close to that of Moneo, who trotted beside the cart.
