“He’s the ultimate cynic,” Siona said, tears apparent in her voice.

“How did he test you?” Idaho asked.

“He showed me a… he showed me his Golden Path.”

“That convenient…”

“It’s real enough, Duncan.” She looked up at him, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “But if it was ever a reason for our God Emperor it is not reason for what he has become!”

Idaho inhaled deeply, then: “The Atreides come to this!”

“The Worm must go!” Siona said.

“I wonder when he’s arriving?” Idaho said.

“Garun’s little rat friend didn’t say.”

“We must ask,” Idaho said.

“We have no weapons,” Siona said.

“Nayla has a lasgun,” he said. “We have knives… rope. I saw rope in one of Garun’s storage rooms.”

“Against the Worm?” she asked. “Even if we could get Nayla’s lasgun, you know it won’t touch him.”

“But is his cart proof against it?” Idaho asked.

“I don’t trust Nayla,” Siona said.

“Doesn’t she obey you?”

“Yes, but…”

“We will proceed one step at a time,” Idaho said. “Ask Nayla if she would use her lasgun against the Worm’s cart.”

“And if she refuses?”

“Kill her.”

Siona stood, tossing her book aside.

“How will the Worm come to Tuono?” Idaho asked. “He’s too big and heavy for an ordinary ’thopter.”

“Garun will tell us,” she said. “But I think he will come as he usually travels.” She looked up at the ceiling which concealed the Sareer’s perimeter wall. “I think he will come on peregrination with his entire crew. He will come along the Royal Road and drop down to here on suspensors.” She looked at Idaho. “What of Garun?”

“A strange man,” Idaho said. “He wants most desperately to be a real Fremen. He knows he is not anything like what they were in my day.”

“What were they like in your day, Duncan?”

“They had a saying which describes it,” Idaho said. “You should never be in the company of anyone with whom you would not want to die.”

“Did you say this to Garun?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And his response?”

“He said I was the only such person he had ever met.”

“Garun may be wiser than any of us,” she said.

CHAPTER XLIX

You think power may be the most unstable of all human achievements? Then what of the apparent exceptions to this inherent instability? Some families endure. Very powerful religious bureaucracies have been known to endure. Consider the relationship between faith and power. Are they mutually exclusive when each depends upon the other? The Bene Gesserit have been reasonably secure within the loyal walls of faith for thousands of years. But where has their power gone?

—The Stolen Journals

Moneo spoke in a petulant tone: “Lord, I wish you had given me more time.”

He stood outside the Citadel in the short shadows of noon. Leto lay directly in front of him on the Imperial Cart, its bubble hood retracted. He had been touring the environs with Hwi Noree who occupied a newly installed seat within the bubble cover’s perimeter and just beside Leto’s face. Hwi appeared merely curious about all the bustle which was beginning to increase around them.