—The Stolen Journals

It 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 finds 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 kilometre 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 metres in its long dimension, was illuminated by giant glowglobes which floated in blue-green isolation some thirty metres 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 cliffside 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 cliffside, 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 I made them.