Dune полностью

“He flew down from above them and executed a terrible slaughter among the sinners.”

“How did he do that?” Idaho had asked.

“He was an angry God,” his informant had said.

Angry, Idaho thought. Was it because of the threat to Hwi? The stories he had heard! None were believable. Hwi wedded to this gross . . . It was not possible! Not the lovely Hwi, the Hwi of gentle delicacy. He is playing some terrible game, testing us . . . testing us . . . There was no honest reality in these times, no peace except in the presence of Hwi. All else was insanity.

As he returned his attention to Leto’s face—that silently waiting Atreides face—the sense of dislocation grew stronger in Idaho. He began to wonder if, by a slight increase in mental effort along some strange new pathway, he might break through ghostly barriers to remember all of the experiences of the other Ghola Idahos.

What did they think when they entered this room? Did they feel this dislocation, this rejection?

Just a little extra effort.

He felt dizzy and wondered if he was going to faint.

“Is something wrong, Duncan?” It was Leto’s most reasonable and calming tone.

“It’s not real,” Idaho said. “I don’t belong here.”

Leto chose to misunderstand. “But my guard tells me you came here of your own accord, that you flew back from the Citadel and demanded an immediate audience.”

“I mean here, now! In this time!”

“But I need you.”

“For what?”

“Look around you, Duncan. The ways you can help me are so numerous that you could not do them all.”

“But your women won’t let me fight! Every time I want to go where . . .”

“Do you question that you’re more valuable alive than dead?” Leto made a clucking sound, then: “Use your wits, Duncan! That’s what I value.”

“And my sperm. You value that.”

“Your sperm is your own to put where you wish.”

“I will not leave a widow and orphans behind me the way . . .”

“Duncan! I’ve said the choice is yours.”

Idaho swallowed, then: “You’ve committed a crime against us, Leto, against all of us—the gholas you resurrect without ever asking us if that’s what we want.”

This was a new turn in Duncan-thinking. Leto peered at Idaho with renewed interest.

“What crime?”

“Oh, I’ve heard you spouting your deep thoughts,” Idaho accused. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the room’s entrance. “Did you know you can be heard out there in the anteroom?”

“When I wish to be heard, yes.” But only my journals hear it all! “I would like to know the nature of my crime, though.”

“There’s a time, Leto, a time when you’re alive. A time when you’re supposed to be alive. It can have a magic, that time, while you’re living it. You know you’re never going to see a time like that again.”

Leto blinked, touched by the Duncan’s distress. The words were evocative.

Idaho raised both hands, palms up, to chest-height, a beggar asking for something he knew he could not receive.

“Then . . . one day you wake up and you remember dying . . . and you remember the axlotl tank . . . and the Tleilaxu nastiness which awakened you . . . and it’s supposed to start all over again. But it doesn’t. It never does, Leto. That’s a crime!”

“I have taken away the magic?”

“Yes!”

Idaho dropped his hands to his sides and clenched them into fists. He felt that he stood alone in the path of a millrace tide which would overwhelm him at his slightest relaxation.

And what of my time? Leto thought. This, too, will never happen again. But the Duncan would not understand the difference.

“What brought you rushing back from the Citadel?” Leto asked.

Idaho took a deep breath, then: “Is it true? You’re to be married?”

“That’s correct.”

“To this Hwi Noree, the Ixian Ambassador?”

“True.”

Idaho darted a quick glance along Leto’s supine length.

They always look for genitalia, Leto thought. Perhaps I should have something made, a gross protuberance to shock them. He choked back the small burst of amusement which threatened to erupt from his throat. Another emotion amplified. Thank you, Hwi. Thank you, Ixians.

Idaho shook his head. “But you . . .”

“There are strong elements to a marriage other than sex,” Leto said. “Will we have children of our flesh? No. But the effects of this union will be profound.”

“I listened while you were talking to Moneo,” Idaho said. “I thought it must be some kind of joke, a . . .”

“Careful, Duncan!”

“Do you love her?”

“More deeply than any man ever loved a woman.”

“Well, what about her? Does she . . .”