How sure it is, Leto thought, that a weapon can lock a person into a predictable pattern of behavior.
He stared with fascination at Nayla's rigid body. Her eyes were empty of everything except adoration.
The ultimate rhetorical despotism... and I despise it!
"Go then!" he barked.
Nayla turned and fled the Holy Presence.
Is it worth this? Leto wondered.
But Nayla had told him what he needed to know. Nayla had renewed her faith and revealed with accuracy the thing which Leto could not find in Siona's fading image. Nayla's instincts were to be trusted.
Siona has reached that explosive moment which I require.
***
The Duncans always think it odd that I choose women for combat forces, but my Fish Speakers are a temporary army in every sense. While they can be violent and vicious, women are profoundly different from men in their dedication to battle. The cradle of genesis ultimately predisposes them to behavior more protective of life. They have proved to be the best keepers of the Golden Path. I reinforce this in my design for their training. They are set aside for a time from ordinary routines. I give them special sharings which they can look back upon' with pleasure for the rest of their lives. They come of age in the company of their sisters in preparation for events more profound. What you share in such companionship always prepares you for greater things. The haze of nostalgia covers their days among their sisters, making those days into something different than they were. That's the way today changes history. All contemporaries do not inhabit the same time. The past is always changing, but few realize it.
AFTER SENDING word to the Fish Speakers, Leto descended to the crypt in the late evening. He had found it best to begin the first interview with a new Duncan Idaho in a darkened room where the ghola could hear Leto describe himself before actually seeing the pre-worm body. There was a small side room carved in black stone off the central rotunda of the crypt which suited this requirement. The chamber was large enough to accommodate Leto on his cart, but the ceiling was low. Illumination came from hidden glowglobes which he controlled. There was only the one door, but it was in two segments-one swinging wide to admit the Royal Cart, the other a small portal in human dimensions.
Leto rolled his Royal Cart into the chamber, sealed the large portal and opened the smaller one. He composed himself then for the ordeal.
Boredom was an increasing problem. The pattern of the Tleilaxu gholas had become boringly repetitious. Once, Leto had sent word warning the Tleilaxu to send no more Duncans, but they had known they could disobey him in this thing.
Sometimes I think they do it just to keep disobedience alive!
The Tleilaxu relied on an important thing which they knew protected them in other matters.
The presence of a Duncan pleases the Paul Atreides in me.
As Leto had explained it to Moneo in the majordomo's first days at the Citadeclass="underline"
"The Duncans must come to me with much more than Tleilaxu preparation. You must see to it that my houris gentle the Duncans and that the women answer some of his questions."
"Which questions may they answer, Lord?"
"They know."
Moneo had, of course, learned all about this procedure over the years.
Leto heard Moneo's voice outside the darkened room, then the sound of the Fish Speaker escort and the hesitantly distinctive footsteps of the new ghola.
"Through that door," Moneo said. "It will be dark inside and we will close the door behind you. Stop just inside and wait for the Lord Leto to speak."
"Why will it be dark?" The Duncan's voice was full of aggressive misgivings.
"He will explain."
Idaho was thrust into the room and the door was sealed behind him.
Leto knew what the ghola saw-only shadows among shadows and blackness where not even the source of a voice could be fixed. As usual, Leto brought the Paul Muad'Dib voice into play.
"It pleases me to see you again, Duncan."
"I can't see you!"
Idaho was a warrior, and the warrior attacks. This reassured Leto that the ghola was a fully restored original. The morality play by which the Tleilaxu reawakened a ghola's pre-death memories always left some uncertainties in the gholas' minds. Some of the Duncans believed they had threatened a real Paul Muad'Dib. This one carried such illusions.
"I hear Paul's voice but I can't see him," Idaho said. He didn't try to conceal the frustrations, let them all come out in his voice.
Why was an Atreides playing this stupid game? Paul was truly dead in some long-ago and this was Leto, the carrier of Paul's resurrected memories... and the memories of many others!-if the Tleilaxu stories were to be believed.
"You have been told that you are only the latest in a long line of duplicates," Leto said.
"I have none of those memories."
Leto recognized hysteria in the Duncan, barely covered by the warrior bravado. The cursed Tleilaxu post-tank restoration tactics had produced the usual mental chaos. This Duncan had arrived in a state of near shock, strongly suspecting he was insane. Leto knew that the most subtle powers of reassurance would be required now to soothe the poor fellow. This would be emotionally draining for both of them.
"There have been many changes, Duncan," Leto said. "One thing, though, does not change. I am still Atreides."
"They said your body is..."
"Yes, that has changed."
"The damned Tleilaxu! They tried to make me kill someone I... well, he looked like you. I suddenly remembered who I was and there was this... Could that have been a Muad'Dib ghola?"
"A Face Dancer mimic, I assure you."
"He looked and talked so much like... Are you sure?"
"An actor, no more. Did he survive?"
"Of course! That's how they wakened my memories. They explained the whole damned thing. Is it true?"
"It's true, Duncan. I detest it, but I permit it for the pleasure of your company."
The potential victims always survive, Leto thought. At least for the Duncans I see. There have been slips, the fake Paul slain and the Duncans wasted. But there are always more cells carefully preserved from the original.
"What about your body?" Idaho demanded.
Muad'Dib could be retired now; Leto resumed his usual voice. "I accepted the sandtrout as my skin. They have been changing me ever since."
"Why?"
"I will explain that in due course."
"The Tleilaxu said you look like a sandworm."
"What did my Fish Speakers say?"
"They said you're God. Why do you call them Fish Speakers?"
"An old conceit. The first priestesses spoke to fish in their dreams. They learned valuable things that way."
"How do you know?"
"I am those women... and everything that came before and after them."
Leto heard the dry swallowing in Idaho's throat, then: "I see why the darkness. You're giving me time to adjust."
"You always were quick, Duncan."
Except when you were slow.
"How long have you been changing?"
"More than thirty-five hundred years."
"Then what the Tleilaxu told me is true."
"They seldom dare to lie anymore."
"That's a long time."
"Very long."
"The Tleilaxu have... copied me many times?"
"Many.'
It's time you asked how many, Duncan,
"How many of me?"
"I will let you see the records for yourself."
And so it starts, Leto thought.
This exchange always appeared to satisfy the Duncans, but there was no escaping the nature of the question:
"How many of me?"
The Duncans made no distinctions of the flesh even though no mutual memories passed between gholas of the same stock.
"I remember my death," Idaho said. "Harkonnen blades, lots of them trying to get at you and Jessica."