"I... ahhh..." Moneo chewed at his upper lip. "The Tleilaxu have been quite garrulous in the attempt to ingratiate themselves with me."
"Of course they have. And what have they revealed?"
"They... ahhh, provided the lxians with sufficient advice and equipment to make a... uhhh, not exactly a ghola, and not even a clone. Perhaps we should use the Tleilaxu term: a cellular restructuring. The... ahhh, experiment was conducted within some sort of shielding device which the Guildsmen assured them your powers could not penetrate."
"And the result?" Leto felt that he was asking the question in a cold vacuum.
"They are not certain. Tleilaxu were not permitted to witness. However, they did observe that Malky entered this... ahhh, chamber and that he emerged later with an infant."
"Yes! I know!"
"You do?" Moneo was puzzled.
"By inference. And all of this happened some twenty-six years ago?"
"That is correct, Lord."
"They identify the infant as Hwi Noree?"
"They are not certain, Lord, but..." Moneo shrugged.
"Of course. And what do you deduce from this, Moneo?"
"There is a deep purpose built into the new Ixian Ambassador."
"Certainly there is. Moneo, has it not struck you as odd how much Hwi, the gentle Hwi, represents a mirror of the redoubtable Malky? His opposite in everything, including sex."
"I had not thought of that, Lord."
"I have."
"I will have her sent back to Ix immediately," Moneo said.
"You will do nothing of the kind!"
"But, Lord, if they...
"Moneo, I have observed that you seldom turn your back on danger. Others often do, but you-seldom. Why would you have me engage in such an obvious stupidity?"
Moneo swallowed.
"Good. I like it when you recognize the error of your ways," Leto said.
"Thank you, Lord."
"I also like it when you express your gratitude sincerely, as you have just done. Now, Anteac was with you when you heard these revelations?"
"As you ordered, Lord."
"Excellent. That will stir things up a bit. You will leave now and go to the Lady Hwi. You will tell her that I desire to see her immediately. This will disturb her. She is thinking that we will not meet again until I summon her to the Citadel. I want you to quiet her fears."
"In what way, Lord?"
Leto spoke sadly: "Moneo, why do you ask advice on something at which you are an expert? Calm her and bring her here reassured of my kindly intentions toward her."
Chapter Nineteen
"Yes, Lord." Moneo bowed and backed away a step.
"One moment, Moneo!"
Moneo stiffened, his gaze fixed on Leto's face.
"You are puzzled, Moneo," Leto said. "Sometimes you do not know what to think of me. Am I all-powerful and all prescient? You bring me these little dibs and dabs and you wonder: Does he already know this? If he does, why do I bother? But I have ordered you to report such things, Moneo. Is your obedience not instructive?"
Moneo started to shrug and thought better of it. His lips trembled.
"Time can also be a place, Moneo," Leto said. "Everything depends upon where you are standing, on where you look or what you hear. The measure of it is found in consciousness itself."
After a long silence, Moneo ventured: "Is that all, Lord?"
"No, it is not all. Siona will receive today a package delivered to her by a Guild courier. Nothing is to interfere with delivery of that package. Do you understand?"
"What is... what is in the package, Lord?"
"Some translations, reading matter which I wish her to see. You will do nothing to interfere. There is no melange in the package."
"How... how did you know what I feared was in the..."
"Because you fear the spice. It could extend your life, but you avoid it."
"I fear its other effects, Lord."
"A bountiful nature has decreed that melange will unveil for some of us unexpected depths of the psyche, yet you fear this?"
"I am Atreides, Lord!"
"Ahhh, yes, and for the Atreides, melange may roll the mystery of Time through a peculiar process of internal revelation."
"I have only to remember the way you tested me, Lord."
"Do you not see the necessity for you to sense the Golden Path?"
"That is not what I fear, Lord."
"You fear the other astonishment, the thing which made me make my choice."
"I have only to look at you, Lord, and know that fear. We Atreides..." He broke off, his mouth dry.
"You do not want all of these memories of ancestors and the others who flock within me!"
"Sometimes... sometimes, Lord, I think the spice is the Atreides curse!"
"Do you wish that I had never occurred?"
Moneo remained silent.
"But melange has its values, Moneo. The Guild navigators need it. And without it, the Bene Gesserit would degenerate into a helpless band of whining females!"
"We must live with it or without it, Lord. I know that."
"Very perceptive, Moneo. But you choose to live without it."
"Do I not have that choice, Lord?"
"For now."
"Lord, what do you..."
"There are twenty-eight different words for melange in common Galach. They describe it by its intended use, by its dilution, by its age, by whether it came through honest purchase, through theft or conquest, whether it was the dower gift for a male or for a female, and in many other ways is it named. What do you make of this, Moneo?"