“Take a good look at it,” he said, and he slipped down the dune’s other side to remove his bulk from her view.

Siona took one more slow turn, looking outward.

Leto knew the innermost sensation of what she saw. Except for that insignificant, blurred blip of his tower’s base, there was not the slightest lift of horizon—flat, everywhere flat. No plants, no living movement. From her vantage, there was a limit of approximately eight kilometres to the line where the planet’s curvature hid everything beyond.

Leto spoke from where he had stopped, just below the dune’s crest. “This is the real Sareer. You only know it when you’re down here afoot. This is all that’s left of the bahr bela ma.”

“The ocean without water,” she whispered.

Again, she turned and examined the entire horizon.

There was no wind and, Leto knew, without wind, the silence ate at the human soul. Siona was feeling the loss of all familiar reference points. She was abandoned in dangerous space.

Leto glanced at the next dune. In that direction, they would come presently to a low line of hills which originally had been mountains but now were broken into remnant slag and rubble. He continued to rest quietly, letting the silence do his work for him. It was even pleasant to imagine that these dunes went on, as they once had, without end completely around the planet. But even these few dunes were degenerating. Without the original coriolis storms of Dune, the Sareer saw nothing stronger than a stiff breeze and occasional heat vortices which had no more than local effect.

One of these tiny “wind devils” danced across the middle distance to the south. Siona’s gaze followed its track. She spoke abruptly: “Do you have a personal religion?”

Leto took a moment composing his reply. It always astonished him how a desert provoked thoughts of religion.

“You dare ask me if I have a personal religion?” he demanded.

Betraying no surface sign of the fears he knew she felt, Siona turned and stared down at him. Audacity was always an Atreides hallmark, he reminded himself.

When she didn’t answer, he said: “You are an Atreides for sure.”

“Is that your answer?” she asked.

“What is it you really want to know, Siona?”

“What you believe!”

“Ho! You ask after my faith. Well, now—I believe that something cannot emerge from nothing without divine intervention.”

His answer puzzled her. “How is that an…”

“Natura non facit saltus,” he said.

She shook her head, not understanding the ancient allusion which had sprung to his lips. Leto translated:

“Nature makes no leaps.”

“What language was that?” she asked.

“A language no longer spoken anywhere else in my universe.”

“Why did you use it then?”

“To prod your ancient memories.”

“I don’t have any! I just need to know why you brought me here.”

“To give you a taste of your past. Come down here and climb on to my back.”

She hesitated at first, then seeing the futility of defiance, slid down the dune and clambered on to his back.