Dune

I know the evil of my ancestors because I am those people. The balance is delicate in the extreme. I know that few of you who read my words have ever thought about your ancestors this way. It has not occurred to you that your ancestors were survivors and that the survival itself sometimes involved savage decisions, a kind of wanton brutality which civilized humankind works very hard to suppress. What price will you pay for that suppression? Will you accept your own extinction?

—THE STOLEN JOURNALS

As he dressed for his first morning of Fish Speaker command, Idaho tried to shake off a nightmare. It had awakened him twice and both times he had gone out on the balcony to stare up at the stars, the dream still roaring in his head.

Women . . . weaponless women in black armor . . . rushing at him with the hoarse, mindless shouting of a mob . . . waving hands moist with red blood . . . and as they swarmed over him, their mouths opened to display terrible fangs!

In that moment, he awoke.

Morning light did little to dispel the effects of the nightmare.

They had provided him with a room in the north tower. The balcony looked out over a vista of dunes to a distant cliff with what appeared to be a mud-hut village at its base.

Idaho buttoned his tunic as he stared at the scene.

Why does Leto choose only women for his army?

Several comely Fish Speakers had offered to spend the night with their new commander, but Idaho had rejected them.

It was not like the Atreides to use sex as a persuader!

He looked down at his clothing: a black uniform with golden piping, a red hawk at the left breast. That, at least, was familiar. No insignia of rank.

“They know your face,” Moneo had said.

Strange little man, Moneo.

This thought brought Idaho up short. Reflection told him that Moneo was not little. Very controlled, yes, but no shorter than I am. Moneo appeared drawn into himself, though . . . collected.

Idaho glanced around his room—sybaritic in its attention to comfort—soft cushions, appliances concealed behind panels of brown polished wood. The bath was an ornate display of pastel blue tiles with a combination bath and shower in which at least six people could bathe at the same time. The whole place invited self-indulgence. These were quarters where you could let your senses indulge in remembered pleasures.

“Clever,” Idaho whispered.

A gentle tapping on his door was followed by a female voice saying: “Commander? Moneo is here.”

Idaho glanced out at the sunburnt colors on the distant cliff.

“Commander?” The voice was a bit louder.

“Come in,” Idaho called.

Moneo entered, closing the door behind him. He wore tunic and trousers of chalk-white which forced the eyes to concentrate on his face. Moneo glanced once around the room.

“So this is where they put you. Those damned women! I suppose they thought they were being kind, but they ought to know better.”

“How do you know what I like?” Idaho demanded. Even as he asked it, he realized it was a foolish question.

I’m not the first Duncan Idaho that Moneo has seen.

Moneo merely smiled and shrugged.

“I did not mean to offend you, Commander. Will you keep these quarters, then?”

“I like the view.”

“But not the furnishings.” It was a statement.

“Those can be changed,” Idaho said.

“I will see to it.”

“I suppose you’re here to explain my duties.”

“As much as I can. I know how strange everything must appear to you at first. This civilization is profoundly different from the one you knew.”

“I can see that. How did my . . . predecessor die?”

Moneo shrugged. It appeared to be his standard gesture, but there was nothing self-effacing about it.

“He was not fast enough to escape the consequences of a decision he had made,” Moneo said.

“Be specific.”

Moneo sighed. The Duncans were always like this—so demanding.

“The rebellion killed him. Do you wish the details?”

“Would they be useful to me?”

“No.”

“I’ll want a complete briefing on this rebellion today, but first: why are there no men in Leto’s army?”

“He has you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“He has a curious theory about armies. I have discussed it with him on many occasions. But do you not want to breakfast before I explain?”

“Can’t we have both at the same time?”

Moneo turned toward the door and called out a single word: “Now!”

The effect was immediate and fascinating to Idaho. A troop of young Fish Speakers swarmed into the room. Two of them took a folding table and chairs from behind a panel and placed them on the balcony. Others set the table for two people. More brought food—fresh fruit, hot rolls and a steaming drink which smelled faintly of spice and caffeine. It was all done with a swift and silent efficiency which spoke of long practice. They left as they had come, without a word.

Idaho found himself seated across from Moneo at the table within a minute after the start of this curious performance.

“Every morning like that?” Idaho asked.

“Only if you wish it.”

Idaho sampled the drink: melange-coffee. He recognized the fruit, the soft Caladan melon called paradan.

My favorite.

“You know me pretty well,” Idaho said.

Moneo smiled. “We’ve had some practice. Now, about your question.”

“And Leto’s curious theory.”

“Yes. He says that the all-male army was too dangerous to its civilian support base.”

“That’s crazy! Without the army, there would’ve been no . . .”

“I know the argument. But he says that the male army was a survival of the screening function delegated to the nonbreeding males in the prehistoric pack. He says it was a curiously consistent fact that it was always the older males who sent the younger males into battle.”

“What does that mean, screening function?”

“The ones who were always out on the dangerous perimeter protecting the core of breeding males, females and the young. The ones who first encountered the predator.”

“How is that dangerous to the . . . civilians?”

Idaho took a bite of the melon, found it ripened perfectly.

“The Lord Leto says that when it was denied an external enemy, the all-male army always turned against its own population. Always.”

“Contending for the females?”

“Perhaps. He obviously does not believe, however, that it was that simple.”

“I don’t find this a curious theory.”

“You have not heard all of it.”

“There’s more?”

“Oh, yes. He says that the all-male army has a strong tendency toward homosexual activities.”

Idaho glared across the table at Moneo. “I never . . .”

“Of course not. He is speaking about sublimation, about deflected energies and all the rest of it.”

“The rest of what?” Idaho was prickly with anger at what he saw as an attack on his male self-image.

“Adolescent attitudes, just boys together, jokes designed purely to cause pain, loyalty only to your pack-mates . . . things of that nature.”

Idaho spoke coldly. “What’s your opinion?”

“I remind myself”—Moneo turned and spoke while looking out at the view—“of something which he has said and which I am sure is true. He is every soldier in human history. He offered to parade for me a series of examples—famous military figures who were frozen in adolescence. I declined the offer. I have read my history with care and have recognized this characteristic for myself.”

Moneo turned and looked directly into Idaho’s eyes.

“Think about it, Commander.”

Idaho prided himself on self-honesty and this hit him. Cults of youth and adolescence preserved in the military? It had the ring of truth. There were examples in his own experience . . .

Moneo nodded. “The homosexual, latent or otherwise, who maintains that condition for reasons which could be called purely psychological, tends to indulge in pain-causing behavior—seeking it for himself and inflicting it upon others. Lord Leto says this goes back to the testing behavior in the prehistoric pack.”

“You believe him?”

“I do.”

Idaho took a bite of the melon. It had lost its sweet savor. He swallowed and put down his spoon.

“I will have to think about this,” Idaho said.

“Of course.”

“You’re not eating,” Idaho said.

“I was up before dawn and ate then.” Moneo gestured at his plate. “The women continually try to tempt me.”

“Do they ever succeed?”

“Occasionally.”

“You’re right. I find his theory curious. Is there more to it?”

“Ohhh, he says that when it breaks out of the adolescent-homosexual restraints, the male army is essentially rapist. Rape is often murderous and that’s not survival behavior.”

Idaho scowled.

A tight smile flitted across Moneo’s mouth. “Lord Leto says that only Atreides discipline and moral restraints prevented some of the worst excesses in your times.”

A deep sigh shook Idaho.

Moneo sat back, thinking of a thing the God Emperor had once said: “No matter how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer.”

“Those damned Atreides!” Idaho said.

“I am Atreides,” Moneo said.

“What?” Idaho was shocked.

“His breeding program,” Moneo said. “I’m sure the Tleilaxu mentioned it. I am directly descended from the mating of his sister and Harq al-Ada.”

Idaho leaned toward him. “Then tell me, Atreides, how are women better soldiers than men?”

“They find it easier to mature.”

Idaho shook his head in bewilderment.

“They have a compelling physical way of moving from adolescence into maturity,” Moneo said. “As Lord Leto says, ‘Carry a baby in you for nine months and that changes you.’”

Idaho sat back. “What does he know about it?”

Moneo merely stared at him until Idaho recalled the multitude in Leto—both male and female. The realization plunged over Idaho. Moneo saw it, recalling a comment of the God Emperor’s: “Your words brand him with the look you want him to have.”

As the silence continued, Moneo cleared his throat. Presently, he said: “The immensity of the Lord Leto’s memories has been known to stop my tongue, too.”

“Is he being honest with us?” Idaho asked.

“I believe him.”

“But he does so many . . . I mean, take this breeding program. How long has that been going on?”

“From the very first. From the day he took it away from the Bene Gesserit.”

“What does he want from it?”

“I wish I knew.”

“But you’re . . .”

“An Atreides and his chief aide, yes.”

“You haven’t convinced me that a female army is best.”

“They continue the species.”

At last, Idaho’s frustration and anger had an object. “Is that what I was doing with them that first night—breeding?”

“Possibly. The Fish Speakers take no precautions against pregnancy.”

“Damn him! I’m not some animal he can move from stall to stall like a . . . like a . . .”

“Like a stud?”

“Yes!”

“But the Lord Leto refuses to follow the Tleilaxu pattern of gene surgery and artificial insemination.”

“What have the Tleilaxu got to . . .”

“They are the object lesson. Even I can see that. Their Face Dancers are mules, closer to a colony organism than to human.”

“Those others of . . . me . . . were any of them his studs?”

“Some. You have descendants.”

“Who?”

“I am one.”

Idaho stared into Moneo’s eyes, lost suddenly in a tangle of relationships. Idaho found the relationships impossible to understand. Moneo obviously was so much older than . . . But I am . . . Which of them was truly the older? Which the ancestor and which the descendant?

“I sometimes have trouble with this myself,” Moneo said. “If it helps, the Lord Leto assures me that you are not my descendant, not in any ordinary sense. However, you may well father some of my descendants.”

Idaho shook his head from side to side.

“Sometimes I think only the God Emperor himself can understand these things,” Moneo said.

“That’s another thing!” Idaho said. “This god business.”

“The Lord Leto says he has created a holy obscenity.”

This was not the response Idaho had expected. What did I expect? A defense of the Lord Leto?

“Holy obscenity,” Moneo repeated. The words rolled from his tongue with a strange sense of gloating in them.

Idaho focused a probing stare on Moneo. He hates his God Emperor! No . . . he fears him. But don’t we always hate what we fear?

“Why do you believe in him?” Idaho demanded.

“You ask if I share in the popular religion?”

“No! Does he?”

“I think so.”

“Why? Why do you think so?”

“Because he says he wishes to create no more Face Dancers. He insists that his human stock, once it has been paired, breeds in the way it has always bred.”

“What the hell does that have to do with it?”

“You asked me what he believes in. I think he believes in chance. I think that’s his god.”

“That’s superstition!”

“Considering the circumstances of the Empire, a very daring superstition.”

Idaho glared at Moneo. “You damned Atreides,” he muttered. “You’ll dare anything!”

Moneo noted that there was dislike mixed with admiration in Idaho’s voice.

The Duncans always begin that way.