“Delusion,” he agreed.

A lump in her throat prevented her from speaking for a moment, then: “How does your life and your death change the…” She shook her head.

“Life will continue.”

“I believe that, Lord, but how?”

“Each cycle is a reaction to the preceding cycle. If you think about the shape of my Empire, then you know the shape of the next cycle.”

She looked away from him. “Everything I learned about your family told me that you would do this…” she gestured blindly in his direction without looking at him, “… only with a selfless motive. I do not think I truly know the shape of your Empire, though.”

“Leto’s Golden Peace?”

“There is less peace than some would have us believe,” she said, looking back at him.

The honesty of her! he thought. Nothing deterred it.

“This is the time of the stomach,” he said. “This is the time when we expand as a single cell expands.”

“But something is missing,” she said.

She is like the Duncans, he thought. Something is missing and they sense it immediately.

“The flesh grows but the psyche does not grow,” he said.

“The psyche?”

“That reflexive awareness which tells us how very alive we can become. You know it well, Hwi. It is that sense which tells you how to be true to yourself.”

“Your religion is not enough,” she said.

“No religion can ever be enough. It is a matter of choice—a single, lonely choice. Do you understand now why your friendship and your company mean so much to me?”

She blinked back tears, nodding, then: “Why don’t people know this?”

“Because the conditions don’t permit it.”

“The conditions which you dictate?”

“Precisely. Look throughout my Empire. Do you see the shape?”

She closed her eyes, thinking.

“One wishes to sit by a river and fish every day?” he asked. “Excellent. That is this life. You desire to sail a small boat across an inland sea and visit strangers? Superb! What else is there to do?”

“Travel in space?” she asked and there was a defiant note in her voice. She opened her eyes.

“You have observed that the Guild and I do not allow this.”

“You do not allow it.”

“True. If the Guild disobeys me it gets no spice.”

“And holding people planetbound keeps them out of mischief.”

“It does something more important than that. It fills them with a longing to travel. It creates a need to make far voyages and see strange things. Eventually, travel comes to mean freedom.”

“But the spice dwindles,” she said.

“And freedom becomes more precious every day.”

“This can only lead to desperation and violence,” she said.

“A wise man in my ancestry—I was actually that person, you know? Do you understand that there are no strangers in my past?”

She nodded, awed.

“This wise man observed that wealth is a tool of freedom. But the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.”

“The Guild and the Sisterhood enslave themselves!”