“She has the beginnings of adrenalin addiction,” Leto had said. “It’s cold-turkey time.”

“Cold what, Lord?”

“It’s an ancient expression. It means she must be subjected to a complete withdrawal. She must go through a necessity-shock.”

“Oh… I see.”

For once, Leto realized, Moneo did see. Moneo had gone through his own cold-turkey time.

“The young generally are incapable of making hard decisions unless those decisions are associated with immediate violence and the consequent sharp flow of adrenalin,” Leto had explained.

Moneo had held himself in reflective silence, remembering, then: “It is a great peril.”

“That’s the violence you see in Siona. Even old people can cling to it, but the young wallow in it.”

As he circled his tower in the growing light of the day, enjoying the feel of the sand even more as it dried, Leto thought about that conversation. He slowed his passage over the sand. A wind from behind him carried the vented oxygen and a burnt-flint smell over his human nostrils. He inhaled deeply, lifting his magnified awareness to a new level.

This preliminary day contained a multiple purpose. He thought of the coming encounter much as an ancient bullfighter had thought about the first examination of a horned adversary. Siona possessed her own version of horns, although Moneo would make certain that she brought no physical weapons to this encounter. Leto had to be sure, though, that he knew Siona’s every strength and every weakness. And he would have to create special susceptibilities in her wherever possible. She had to be prepared for the test, her psychic muscles blunted by well-planted barbs.

Shortly after noon, his worm-self satiated, Leto returned to the tower, crawled back on to his cart and lifted on suspensors to the very tip and a portal there which opened only at his command. Throughout the rest of the day he lay in the aerie, thinking, plotting.

The fluttering wings of an ornithopter whispered on the air just at nightfall to signal Moneo’s arrival.

Faithful Moneo.

Leto caused a landing-lip to extrude from his aerie. The ’thopter glided in, its wings cupped. It settled gently on to the lip. Leto stared out through the gathering darkness. Siona emerged and darted in toward him, fearful of the unprotected height. She wore a white robe over a black uniform suit without insignia. She stole one look backward when she stopped just inside the tower, then she turned her attention to Leto’s bulk waiting on the cart almost at the centre of the aerie. The ’thopter lifted away and jetted off into the darkness. Leto left the lip extruded, the portal open.

“There is a balcony on the other side of the tower,” he said. “We will go there.”

“Why?”

Siona’s voice carried almost pure suspicion.

“I’m told it’s a cool place,” Leto said. “And there is indeed a faint sensation of cold on my cheeks when I expose them to the breeze there.”

Curiosity brought her closer to him.

Leto closed the portal behind her.