Dune

From that welter of memories which I can tap at will, patterns emerge. They are like another language which I see so clearly. The social-alarm signals which put societies into the postures of defense/attack are like shouted words to me. As a people, you react against threats to innocence and the peril of the helpless young. Unexplained sounds, visions and smells raise the hackles you have forgotten you possess. When alarmed, you cling to your native language because all the other patterned sounds are strange. You demand acceptable dress because a strange costume is threatening. This is system-feedback at its most primitive level. Your cells remember.

—THE STOLEN JOURNALS

The acolyte Fish Speakers who served as pages at the portal of Leto’s audience chamber brought in Duro Nunepi, the Tleilaxu Ambassador. It was early for an audience and Nunepi was being taken out of his announced order, but he moved calmly with only the faintest hint of resigned acceptance.

Leto waited silently, stretched out along his cart on the raised platform at the end of the chamber. As he watched Nunepi approach, Leto’s memories produced a comparison: the swimming-cobra of a periscope brushing its almost invisible wake upon water. The memory brought a smile to Leto’s lips. That was Nunepi—a proud, flinty-faced man who had come up through the ranks of Tleilaxu management. Not a Face Dancer himself, he considered the Dancers his personal servants; they were the water through which he moved. One had to be truly adept to see his wake. Nunepi was a nasty piece of business who had left his traces in the attack along the Royal Road.

Despite the early hour, the man wore his full ambassadorial regalia—billowing black trousers and black sandals trimmed in gold, a flowery red jacket open at the breast to reveal a bushy chest behind his Tleilaxu crest worked in gold and jewels.

At the required ten paces distance, Nunepi stopped and swept his gaze along the rank of armed Fish Speaker guards in an arc around and behind Leto. Nunepi’s gray eyes were bright with some secret amusement when he brought his attention to his Emperor and bowed slightly.

Duncan Idaho entered then, a lasgun holstered at his hip, and took up his position beside the God Emperor’s cowled face.

Idaho’s appearance required a careful study by Nunepi, a study which did not please the Ambassador.

“I find Shape Changers particularly obnoxious,” Leto said.

“I am not a Shape Changer, Lord,” Nunepi said. His voice was low and cultured, with only a trace of hesitancy in it.

“But you represent them and that makes you an item of annoyance,” Leto said.

Nunepi had expected an open statement of hostility, but this was not the language of diplomacy, and it shocked him into a bold reference to what he believed to be Tleilaxu strength.

“Lord, by preserving the flesh of the original Duncan Idaho and providing you with restored gholas in his image and identity, we have always assumed . . .”

“Duncan!” Leto glanced at Idaho. “If I command it, Duncan, will you lead an expedition to exterminate the Tleilaxu?”

“With pleasure, m’Lord.”

“Even if it means the loss of your original cells and all of the axlotl tanks?”

“I do not find the tanks a pleasant memory, m’lord, and those cells are not me.”

“Lord, how have we offended you?” Nunepi asked.

Leto scowled. Did this inept fool really expect the God Emperor to speak openly of the recent Face Dancer attack?

“It has come to my attention,” Leto said, “that you and your people have been spreading lies about what you call my ‘disgusting sexual habits.’”

Nunepi gaped. The accusation was a bold lie, completely unexpected. But Nunepi realized that if he denied it, no one would believe him. The God Emperor had said it. This was an attack of unknown dimensions. Nunepi started to speak while looking at Idaho.

“Lord, if we . . .”

“Look at me!” Leto commanded.

Nunepi jerked his gaze up to Leto’s face.

“I will inform you only this once,” Leto said. “I have no sexual habits whatsoever. None.”

Perspiration rolled off Nunepi’s face. He stared at Leto with the fixed intensity of a trapped animal. When Nunepi found his voice, it no longer was the low, controlled instrument of a diplomat, but a trembling and fearful thing.

“Lord, I . . . there must be a mistake of . . .”

“Be still, you Tleilaxu sneak!” Leto roared. Then: “I am a metamorphic vector of the holy sandworm— Shai-Hulud! I am your God!”

“Forgive us, Lord,” Nunepi whispered.

“Forgive you?” Leto’s voice was full of sweet reason. “Of course I forgive you. That is your God’s function. Your crime is forgiven. However, your stupidity requires a response.”

“Lord, if I could but . . .”

“Be still! The spice allotment passes over the Tleilaxu for this decade. You get nothing. As for you personally, my Fish Speakers will now take you into the plaza.”

Two burly guardswomen moved in and held Nunepi’s arms. They looked up to Leto for instructions.

“In the plaza,” Leto said, “his clothing is to be stripped from him. He is to be publicly flogged—fifty lashes.”

Nunepi struggled against the grip of his guards, consternation on his face mingled with rage.

“Lord, I remind you that I am the Ambassador of . . .”

“You are a common criminal and will be treated as such.” Leto nodded to the guards, who began dragging Nunepi away.

“I wish they’d killed you!” Nunepi raged. “I wish . . .”

“Who?” Leto called. “You wish who had killed me? Don’t you know I cannot be killed?”

The guards dragged Nunepi out of the chamber as he still raged: “I am innocent! I am innocent!” The protest faded away.

Idaho leaned close to Leto.

“Yes, Duncan?” Leto asked.

“M’Lord, all the envoys will feel fear at this.”

“Yes. I teach a lesson in responsibility.”

“M’Lord?”

“Membership in a conspiracy, as in an army, frees people from the sense of personal responsibility.”

“But this will cause trouble, m’Lord. I’d best post extra guards.”

“Not one additional guard!”

“But you invite . . .”

“I invite a bit of military nonsense.”

“That’s what I . . .”

“Duncan, I am a teacher. Remember that. By repetition, I impress the lesson.”

“What lesson?”

“The ultimately suicidal nature of military foolishness.”

“M’Lord, I don’t . . .”

“Duncan, consider the inept Nunepi. He is the essence of this lesson.”

“Forgive my denseness, m’Lord, but I do not understand this thing about military . . .”

“They believe that by risking death they pay the price of any violent behavior against enemies of their own choosing. They have the invader mentality. Nunepi does not believe himself responsible for anything done against aliens.”

Idaho looked at the portal where the guards had taken Nunepi. “He tried and he lost, m’Lord.”

“But he cut himself loose from the restraints of the past and he objects to paying the price.”

“To his people, he’s a patriot.”

“And how does he see himself, Duncan? As an instrument of history.”

Idaho lowered his voice and leaned closer to Leto.

“How are you different, m’Lord?”

Leto chuckled. “Ahhh, Duncan, how I love your perceptiveness. You have observed that I am the ultimate alien. Do you not wonder if I also can be a loser?”

“The thought has crossed my mind.”

“Even losers can shroud themselves in the proud mantle of ‘the past,’ old friend.”

“Are you and Nunepi alike in that?”

“Militant missionary religions can share this illusion of the ‘proud past,’ but few understand the ultimate peril to humankind—that false sense of freedom from responsibility for your own actions.”

“These are strange words, m’Lord. How do I take their meaning?”

“Their meaning is whatever speaks to you. Are you incapable of listening?”

“I have ears, m’Lord!”

“Do you now? I cannot see them.”

“Here, m’lord. Here and here!” Idaho pointed at his own ears as he spoke.

“But they do not hear. Therefore you have no ears, neither here nor hear.”

“You make a joke of me, m’Lord?”

“To hear is to hear. That which exists cannot be made into itself for it already exists. To be is to be.”

“Your strange words . . .”

“Are but words. I spoke them. They are gone. No one heard them, therefore they no longer exist. If they no longer exist, perhaps they can be made to exist again and then perhaps someone will hear them.”

“Why do you poke fun at me, m’Lord?”

“I poke nothing at you except words. I do it without fear of offending because I have learned that you have no ears.”

“I don’t understand you, m’Lord.”

“That is the beginning of knowledge—the discovery of something we do not understand.”

Before Idaho could respond, Leto gave a hand signal to a nearby guard who waved a hand in front of a crystalline control panel on the wall behind the God Emperor’s dais. A three-dimensional view of Nunepi’s punishment appeared in the center of the chamber.

Idaho stepped down to the floor of the chamber and peered closely at the scene. It was shown from a slight elevation looking down on the plaza, and was complete with sounds of the swelling throng who had run to the scene at the first signs of excitement.

Nunepi was bound to two legs of a tripod, his feet spread wide, his arms tied together above him almost at the apex of the tripod. His clothing had been ripped from his body and lay around him in rags. A bulky, masked Fish Speaker stood nearby holding an improvised whip fashioned of elacca rope which had been frayed at the end into wirelike fine strands. Idaho thought he recognized the masked woman as the Friend of his first interview.

At a signal from a Guard officer, the masked Fish Speaker stepped forward and brought the elacca whip down in a slashing arc onto Nunepi’s exposed back.

Idaho winced. The crowd gasped.

Welts appeared where the whip had struck, but Nunepi remained silent.

Again, the whip descended. Blood betrayed the lines of this second stroke.

Once more, the whip flayed Nunepi’s back. More blood appeared.

Leto felt remote sadness. Nayla is too ardent, he thought. She will kill him and that will cause problems.

“Duncan!” Leto called.

Idaho turned from his fascinated examination of the projected scene just as a shout lifted from the crowd— response to a particularly bloody stroke.

“Send someone to stop the flogging after twenty lashes,” Leto said. “Have it announced that the magnanimity of the God Emperor has reduced the punishment.”

Idaho raised a hand to one of the guards, who nodded and ran from the chamber.

“Come here, Duncan,” Leto said.

Still smarting under what he believed was Leto’s poking fun at him, Idaho returned to Leto’s side.

“Whatever I do,” Leto said, “it is to teach a lesson.”

Idaho rigidly willed himself not to look back at the scene of Nunepi’s punishment. Was that the sound of Nunepi groaning? The shouts of the crowd pierced Idaho. He stared up into Leto’s eyes.

“There is a question in your mind,” Leto said.

“Many questions, m’Lord.”

“Speak them.”

“What is the lesson in that fool’s punishment? What do we say when asked?”

“We say that no one is permitted to blaspheme against the God Emperor.”

“A bloody lesson, m’Lord.”

“Not as bloody as some I’ve taught.”

Idaho shook his head from side to side in obvious dismay. “Nothing good’s going to come of this!”

“Precisely!”