God Emporer of Dune by Frank Herbert

=== Safaris through ancestral memories teach me many things. The patterns, ahhh, the patterns Liberal bigots are the ones who trouble me most. I distrust the extremes. Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It’s true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies The bureaucracies betray the true intent of people who form such governments. Right from the first, the little people who formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens found themselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies. Of course, all bureaucracies follow this pattern. but what a hypocrisy to find this even under a communized banner Ahhh, well, if patterns teach me anything it’s that patterns are repeated. My oppressions. by and large, are no worse than any of the others and, at least. I teach a new lesson.

-The Stolen Journals

T was well into the darkness of Audience Day before Leto could meet with the Bene Gesserit delegation. Moneo had prepared the Reverend Mothers for the delay, repeating the God Emperor’s reassurances.

Reporting back to his Emperor, Moneo had said: “They expect a rich reward.”

“We shall see,” Leto had said. “We shall see. Now, tell me what it was the Duncan demanded of you as you entered.”

“He wished to know if you had ever before had someone flogged.”

“And you replied?”

“That there was no record of, nor had I ever before witnessed, such a punishment.”

“His response?”

“This is not Atreides.”

“Does he think I’m insane?”

“He did not say that.”

“There was more to your encounter. What else troubles our new Duncan?”

“He has met the Ixian Ambassador, Lord. He find Hwi Noree attractive. He inquired of. . .”

“That must be prevented, Moneo! I trust you to raise barriers against any liaison between the Duncan and Hwi.”

“My Lord commands.”

“Indeed I do! Go now and prepare for our meeting with the women of the Bene Gesserit. I will receive them at False Sietch.”

“Lord, is there significance in this choice of a meeting place?”

“A whim. On your way out, tell the Duncan he may take out a troop of guards and scour the City for trouble.”

Waiting for the Bene Gesserit delegation at False Sietch, Leto reviewed this exchange, finding some amusement in it. He could imagine the reactions through the Festival City at the approach of a disturbed Duncan Idaho in command of a Fish Speaker troop.

Like the quick silence of frogs when a predator comes.

Now that he was in False Sietch, Leto found himself pleased by the choice. A free-form building of irregular domes at the edge of Onn, False Sietch was almost a kilometer across. It had been the first abode of the Museum Fremen and now was their school, its corridors and chambers patrolled by alert Fish Speakers.

The reception hall where Leto waited, an oval about two hundred meters in its long dimension, was illuminated by giant glowglobes which floated in blue-green isolation some thirty meters above the floor. The light muted the dull browns and tans of the imitation stone from which the entire structure had been fashioned. Leto waited on a low ledge at one end of the

chamber, looking outward through a half-circle window longer than his body. The opening, four stories above the ground, framed a view which included a remnant of the ancient Shield Wall preserved for its cliff-side caves where Atreides troops had once been slaughtered by Harkonnen attackers. The frosty light of First Moon silvered the cliff’s outlines. Fires dotted the cliff-side, the flames exposed where no Fremen would have dared betray his presence. The fires winked at Leto as people passed in front of them-Museum Fremen exercising their right to occupy the sacred precincts.

Museum Fremen! Leto thought.

‘They were such narrow thinkers with near horizons.

But why should I object? They are what l made them.

Leto heard the Bene Gesserit delegation then. They chanted as they approached, a heavy sound all a-jostle with vowels.

Moneo preceded them with a guard detail which took up position on Leto’s ledge. Moneo stood on the chamber floor just below Leto’s face, glanced at Leto. turned to the open hall.

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