Dune полностью

Ixian ambassadors had always been told to find out why the God Emperor tolerated Ix. They knew they could not hide from him. This stupid attempt to plant a colony beyond his vision! Were they testing his limits? The Ixians suspected that Leto did not really need their industries.

I’ve never concealed my opinion of them. I said it to Malky:

“Technological innovators? No! You are the criminals of science in my Empire!”

Malky had laughed.

Irritated, Leto had accused: “Why try to hide secret laboratories and factories beyond the Empire’s rim? You cannot escape me.”

“Yes, Lord.” Laughing.

“I know your intent: leak a bit of this and some of that back into my Imperial domains. Disrupt! Cause doubts and questioning!”

“Lord, you yourself are one of our best customers!”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it, you terrible man!”

“You like me because I’m a terrible man. I tell you stories about what we do out there.”

“I know it without your stories!”

“But some stories are believed and some are doubted. I dispel your doubts.”

“I have no doubts!”

Which had only ignited more of Malky’s laughter.

And I must continue tolerating them, Leto thought. The Ixians operated in the terra incognita of creative invention which had been outlawed by the Butlerian Jihad. They made their devices in the image of the mind—the very thing which had ignited the Jihad’s destruction and slaughter. That was what they did on Ix and Leto could only let them continue.

I buy from them! I could not even write my journals without their dictatels to respond to my unspoken thought. Without Ix, I could not have hidden my journals and the printers.

But they must be reminded of the dangers in what they do!

And the Guild could not be allowed to forget. That was easier. Even while Guildsmen cooperated with Ix, they distrusted the Ixians mightily.

If this new Ixian machine works, the Guild has lost its monopoly on space travel!

From that welter of memories which I can tap at will, patterns emerge. They are like another language which I see so clearly. The social-alarm signals which put societies into the postures of defense/attack are like shouted words to me. As a people, you react against threats to innocence and the peril of the helpless young. Unexplained sounds, visions and smells raise the hackles you have forgotten you possess. When alarmed, you cling to your native language because all the other patterned sounds are strange. You demand acceptable dress because a strange costume is threatening. This is system-feedback at its most primitive level. Your cells remember.

—THE STOLEN JOURNALS

The acolyte Fish Speakers who served as pages at the portal of Leto’s audience chamber brought in Duro Nunepi, the Tleilaxu Ambassador. It was early for an audience and Nunepi was being taken out of his announced order, but he moved calmly with only the faintest hint of resigned acceptance.

Leto waited silently, stretched out along his cart on the raised platform at the end of the chamber. As he watched Nunepi approach, Leto’s memories produced a comparison: the swimming-cobra of a periscope brushing its almost invisible wake upon water. The memory brought a smile to Leto’s lips. That was Nunepi—a proud, flinty-faced man who had come up through the ranks of Tleilaxu management. Not a Face Dancer himself, he considered the Dancers his personal servants; they were the water through which he moved. One had to be truly adept to see his wake. Nunepi was a nasty piece of business who had left his traces in the attack along the Royal Road.

Despite the early hour, the man wore his full ambassadorial regalia—billowing black trousers and black sandals trimmed in gold, a flowery red jacket open at the breast to reveal a bushy chest behind his Tleilaxu crest worked in gold and jewels.

At the required ten paces distance, Nunepi stopped and swept his gaze along the rank of armed Fish Speaker guards in an arc around and behind Leto. Nunepi’s gray eyes were bright with some secret amusement when he brought his attention to his Emperor and bowed slightly.

Duncan Idaho entered then, a lasgun holstered at his hip, and took up his position beside the God Emperor’s cowled face.

Idaho’s appearance required a careful study by Nunepi, a study which did not please the Ambassador.

“I find Shape Changers particularly obnoxious,” Leto said.

“I am not a Shape Changer, Lord,” Nunepi said. His voice was low and cultured, with only a trace of hesitancy in it.

“But you represent them and that makes you an item of annoyance,” Leto said.