Idaho looked back at Moneo with a bemused expression. “And if we refuse to go?”

“I think you’ll go,” Moneo said.

Siona’s lips twitched. “Duncan, have you ever seen one of these little villages? No comforts, no…”

“I have seen Tabur Village,” Idaho said.

“I’m sure that is a metropolis beside Tuono. Our God Emperor would not celebrate his nuptials in any cluster of mud hovels! Oh, no. Tuono will be mud hovels and no amenities, as close to the original Fremen as possible.”

Idaho kept his attention on Moneo while speaking: “Fremen did not live in mud huts.”

“Who cares where they conducted their cultish games?” she sneered.

Still looking at Moneo, Idaho said: “Real Fremen had only one cult, the cult of personal honesty. I worry more about honesty than about comfort.”

“Don’t expect comfort from me!” Siona snapped.

“I don’t expect anything from you,” Idaho said. “When would we leave for this Tuono, Moneo?”

“You’re going?” she asked.

“I am considering an acceptance of your father’s kindness,” Idaho said.

“Kindness!” She looked from Idaho to Moneo.

“You would leave immediately,” Moneo said. “I have detailed a detachment of Fish Speakers under Nayla to escort you and provide for you at Tuono.”

“Nayla?” Siona asked. “Really? Will she stay with us there?”

“Until the day of the wedding.”

Siona nodded slowly. “Then we accept.”

“Accept for yourself!” Idaho snapped.

Siona smiled. “Sorry. May I formally request that the great Duncan Idaho join me at this primitive garrison where he will keep his hands off my person?”

Idaho peered up at her from under his brows. “Have no fears about where I will put my hands.” He looked at Moneo. “Are you being kind, Moneo? Is that why you’re sending me away?”

“It’s a question of trust,” Siona said. “Who does he trust?”

“Will I be forced to go with your daughter?” Idaho insisted.

Siona stood. “We either accept or the troopers will bind us and carry us out there in a most uncomfortable fashion. You can see it in his face.”

“So I really have no choice,” Idaho said.

“You have the choice anyone has,” Siona said. “Die now or later.”

Still, Idaho stared at Moneo. “Your real intentions, Moneo? Won’t you satisfy my curiosity?”

“Curiosity has kept many people alive when all else failed,” Moneo said. “I am trying to keep you alive, Duncan. I have never done that before.”

CHAPTER XLI

It required almost a thousand years before the dust of Dune’s old planet-wide desert left the atmosphere to be bound up in soil and water. The wind called sandblaster has not been seen on Arrakis for some twenty-five hundred years. Twenty billion tons of dust could be carried suspended in the wind of just one of those storms. The sky often had a silvery look to it then. Fremen said: “The desert is a surgeon cutting away the skin to expose what’s underneath.” The planet and the people had layers. You could see them. My Sareer is but a weak echo of what was. I must be the sandblaster today.