"We have communications devices, loyal assistants. The Guild is suitably chastened. Calm yourself, Moneo."
"We could hold the ceremony in the Citadel!"
For answer, Leto closed the bubble cover around him, isolating Hwi with him.
"Is there danger, Leto?" she asked.
"There's always danger."
Moneo sighed, turned and trotted toward where the Royal Road began its long climb eastward before turning south around the Sareer. Leto set his cart in motion behind the majordomo, heard his motley troop fall into step behind them.
"Are we all moving?" Leto asked.
Hwi glanced backward around him. "Yes." She turned toward his face. "Why was Moneo being so difficult?"
"Moneo has discovered that the instant which has just left him is forever beyond his reach."
"He has been very moody and distracted since you returned from the Little Citadel. He's not the same at all."
"He is an Atreides, my love, and you were designed to please an Atreides."
"It's not that. I would know if it were that."
"Yes... well, I think Moneo has also discovered the reality of death."
"What's it like at the Little Citadel when you're there with Moneo?" she asked.
"It's the loneliest place in my Empire."
"I think you avoid my questions," she said.
"No, love. I share your concern for Moneo, but no explanation of mine will help him now. Moneo is trapped. He has learned that it is difficult to live in the present, pointless to live in the future and impossible to live in the past."
"I think it's you who have trapped him, Leto."
"But he must free himself."
"Why can't you free him?"
"Because he thinks my memories are his key to freedom. He thinks I am building our future out of our past."
"Isn't that always the way of it, Leto?"
"No, dear Hwi."
"Then how is it?"
"Most believe that a satisfactory future requires a return to an idealized past, a past which never in fact existed."
"And you with all of your memories know otherwise."
Leto turned his face within its cowl to stare at her, probing... remembering. Out of the multitudes within him, he could form a composite, a genetic suggestion of Hwi, but the suggestion fell far short of the living flesh. That was it, of course. The past became row-on-row of eyes staring outward like the eyes of gasping fish, but Hwi was vibrant life. Her mouth was set in Grecian curves designed for a Delphic chant, but she hummed no prophetic syllables. She was content to live, an opening person like a flower perpetually unfolding into fragrant blossom.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked.
"I was basking in the love of you."
"Love, yes." She smiled. "I think that since we cannot share the love of the flesh, we must share the love of the soul. Would you share that with me, Leto?"
He was taken aback. "You ask about my soul?"
"Surely others have asked."
He spoke shortly: "My soul digests its experiences, nothing more."
"Have I asked too much of you?" she asked.
"I think that you cannot ask too much of me."
"Then I presume upon our love to disagree with you. My Uncle Malky talked about your soul."
He found that he could not respond. She took his silence as an invitation to continue. "He said that you were the ultimate artist at probing the soul, your own soul first."
"But your Uncle Malky denied that he had a soul of his own!"
She heard the harshness in his voice, but was not deterred. "Still, I think he was right. You are the genius of the soul, the brilliant one."
"You need only the plodding perseverance of duration," he said. "No brilliance."
They were well onto the long climb to the top of the Sareer's perimeter Wall now. He lowered his cart's wheels and deactivated the suspensors.
Hwi spoke softly, her voice barely audible above the grating sound of the cart's wheels and the running feet all around them. "May I call you Love, anyway?"
He spoke around a remembered tightness in a throat which was no longer completely human. "Yes."
"I was born an Ixian, Love," she said. "Why don't I share their mechanical view of our universe? Do you know my view, Leto my love?"
He could only stare at her.
"I sense the supernatural at every turning," she said.
Leto's voice rasped, sounding angry even to him: "Each person creates his own supernatural."
"Don't be angry with me, Love."
Again, that awful rasping: "It is impossible for me to be angry with you."
"But something happened between you and Malky once," she said. "He would never tell me what it was, but he said he often wondered why you spared him."
"Because of what he taught me."
"What happened between you two, Love?"
Chapter Thirty-Two
"I would rather not talk about Malky."
"Please, Love. I feel that it's important for me to know."
"I suggested to Malky that there might be some things men should not invent."
"And that's all?"
"No." He spoke reluctantly. "My words angered him. He said: `You think that in a world without birds, men would not invent aircraft! What a fool you are! Men can invent anything!"' "He called you a fool?" There was shock in Hwi's voice.
"He was right. And although he denied it, he spoke the truth. He taught me that there was a reason for running away from inventions."