Herbert, Frank – Dune 6 – Children of the Mind

“I say something true, and you answer with coconut in the pineapple juice?”

“Novinha hates him,” said Peter. “He doesn’t need me.”

“Novinha is angry at him, but she’s wrong to be angry and he knows it. What he needs from you is a … righteous anger. To hate him for the evil that is really in him, which no one but him sees or even believes is there.”

“I’m just a nightmare from his childhood,” said Peter. “You’re reading too much into this.”

“He didn’t conjure you up because the real Peter was so important in his childhood. He conjured you up because you are the judge, the condemner. That’s what Peter drummed into him as a child. You told me yourself, talking about your memories. Peter taunting him, telling him of his unworthiness, his uselessness, his stupidity, his cowardice. You do it now. You look at his life and call him a xenocide, a failure. For some reason he needs this, needs to have someone damn him.”

“Well, how nice that I’m around, then, to despise him,” said Peter.

“But he also is desperate for someone to forgive him, to have mercy on him, to interpret all his actions as well meant. Valentine is not there because he loves her — he has the real Valentine for that. He has his wife. He needs your sister to exist so she can forgive him.”

“So if I stop hating Ender, he won’t need me anymore and I’ll disappear?”

“If Ender stops hating himself, then he won’t need you to be so mean and you’ll be easier to get along with.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not that easy getting along with somebody who’s constantly analyzing a person she’s never met and preaching at the person she has met.”

“I hope I make you miserable,” said Wang-mu. “It’s only fair, considering.”

“I think Jane brought us here because the local costumes reflect who we are. Puppet though I am, I take some perverse pleasure in life. While you — you can turn anything drab just by talking about it.”

Wang-mu bit back her tears and returned to her food.

“What is it with you?” Peter said.

She ignored him, chewed slowly, finding the untouched core of herself, which was busily enjoying the food.

“Don’t you feel anything?”

She swallowed, looked up at him. “I already miss Han Fei-tzu, and I’ve been gone scarcely two days.” She smiled slightly. “I have known a man of grace and wisdom. He found me interesting. I’m quite comfortable with boring you.”

Peter immediately made a show of splashing water on his ears. “I’m burning, that stung, oh, how can I stand it. Vicious! You have the breath of a dragon! Men die at your words!”

“Only puppets strutting around hanging from strings,” said Wang-mu.

“Better to dangle from strings than to be bound tight by them,” said Peter.

“Oh, the gods must love me, to have put me in the company of a man so clever with words.”

“Whereas the gods have put me in the company of a woman with no breasts.”

She forced herself to pretend to take this as a joke. “Small ones, I thought you said.”

But suddenly the smile left his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve hurt you.”

“I don’t think so. I’ll tell you later, after a good night’s sleep.”

“I thought we were bantering,” said Peter. “Bandying insults.”

“We were,” said Wang-mu. “But I believe them all.”

Peter winced. “Then I’m hurt, too.”

“You don’t know how to hurt,” said Wang-mu. “You’re just mocking me.”

Peter pushed aside his plate and stood up. “I’ll see you back at the apartment. Think you can find the way?”

“Do I think you actually care?”

“It’s a good thing I have no soul,” said Peter. “That’s the only thing that stops you from devouring it.”

“If I ever had your soul in my mouth,” said Wang-mu, “I would spit it out.”

“Get some rest,” said Peter. “For the work I have ahead, I need a mind, not a quarrel.” He walked out of the restaurant. The clothing fit him badly. People looked. He was a man of too much dignity and strength to dress so foppishly. Wang-mu saw at once that it shamed him. She saw also that he knew it, that he moved swiftly because he knew this clothing was wrong for him. He would undoubtedly have Jane order him something older looking, more mature, more in keeping with his need for honor.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *