"Then what are you doing here?" Moneo asked.
"I suspect that you may be good company, Moneo. And I ask myself why Leto would choose you as his closest companion?"
"I passed the test."
"The same one your daughter passed?"
So he has heard they are back. It meant some of the Fish Speakers were reporting things to him... unless the God Emperor had summoned the Duncan... No, I would have heard.
"The tests are never identical," Moneo said. "I was made to go alone into a cavern maze with nothing but a bag of food and a vial of spice-essence."
"Which did you choose?"
"What? Oh... if you are tested, you will learn."
"There's a Leto I don't know," Idaho said.
"Have I not told you this?"
"And there's a Leto you don't know," Idaho said.
"Because he's the loneliest person this universe has ever seen," Moneo said.
"Don't play mood games trying to arouse my sympathy," Idaho said.
"Mood games, yes. That's very good," Moneo nodded. "The God Emperor's moods are like a river-smooth where nothing obstructs him, foaming and violent at the least suggestion of a barrier. He is not be be obstructed."
Idaho looked around at the brightly lighted workroom, turned his gaze to the outside darkness and thought about the tamed course of the Idaho River somewhere out there. Bringing his attention back to Moneo, he asked: "What do you know of rivers?"
"In my youth, I traveled for him. I have even trusted my life to a floating shell of a vessel on a river and then on a sea whose shores were lost in the crossing."
As he spoke, Moneo felt that he had brushed against a clue to some deep truth in the Lord Leto. The sensation dropped Moneo into reverie, thinking of that far planet where he had crossed a sea from one shore to another. There had been a storm on the first evening of that passage and, somewhere deep within the ship, an irritating non-directional "sug-sug-sug-sugsug" of laboring engines. He had stood on deck with the captain. His mind had kept focusing on the engine sound, retreating and coming back to it like the oversurging of the watery green-black mountains which passed and came, repeating and repeating. Each down crash of the keel opened the sea's flesh like a fist smashing. It was insane motion, a sodden shaking, up... up, down! His lungs had ached with repressed fear. The lunging of the ship and the sea trying to put them down-wild explosions of solid water, hour after hour, white blisters of water spilling off the decks, then another sea and another...
All of this was a clue to the God Emperor.
He is both the storm and the ship.
Moneo focused on Idaho seated across the table from him in the workroom's cold light. Not a tremor in the man, but a hungering was there.
"So you will not help me learn what the other Duncan Idahos did not learn," Idaho said.
"But I will help you."
"Then what have I always failed to learn?"
"How to trust."
Idaho pushed himself back from the table and glared at Moneo. When Idaho's voice came, it was harsh and rasping: "I'd say I trusted too much."
Moneo was implacable. "But how do you trust?"
"What do you mean?"
Moneo put his hands in his lap. "You choose male companions for their ability to fight and die on the side of right as you see it. You choose females who can complement this masculine view of yourself. You allow for no differences which can come from good will."
Something moved in the doorway to Moneo's workroom. He looked up in time to see Siona enter. She stopped, one hand on her hip.
"Well, father, up to your old tricks, I see."
Idaho jerked around to stare at the speaker.
Moneo studied her, looking for signs of the change. She had bathed and put on a fresh uniform, the black and gold of Fish Speaker command, but her face and hands still betrayed the evidence of her desert ordeal. She had lost weight and her cheekbones stood out. Unguent did little to conceal cracks in her lips. Veins stood out on her hands. Her eyes looked ancient and her expression was that of someone who had tasted bitter dregs.
"I've been listening to you two," she said. She dropped her hand from her hip and moved farther into the room. "How dare you speak of good will, father?"
Idaho had noted the uniform. He pursed his lips in thought. Fish Speaker Command? Siona?
"I understand your bitterness," Moneo said. "I -had similar feelings once."
"Did you really?" She came closer, stopping just beside Idaho, who continued to regard her with a look of speculation.
"I am filled with joy to see you alive," Moneo said.
"How gratifying. for you to see me safely into the God Emperor's Service," she said. "You waited so long to have a child and look! See how successful I am." She turned slowly to display her uniform. "Commander of the Fish Speakers. A commander with a troop of one, but nonetheless a commander."
Moneo forced his voice to be cold and professional. "Sit down."
"I prefer to stand." She looked down at Idaho's upturned face. "Ahhh, Duncan Idaho, my intended mate. Don't you find this interesting, Duncan? The Lord Leto tells me I will befitted into the command structure of the Fish Speakers in time. Meanwhile, I have one attendant. Do you know the one called Nayla, Duncan?"
Idaho nodded.
"Really? I think perhaps I don't know her." Siona looked at Moneo. "Do I know her, father?"
Moneo shrugged.
"But you speak of trust, father," Siona said. "Who does the powerful minister, Moneo, trust?"