“I was born an Ixian, Love,” she said. “Why don’t I share their mechanical view of our universe? Do you know my view, Leto my love?”

He could only stare at her.

“I sense the supernatural at every turning,” she said.

Leto’s voice rasped, sounding angry even to him: “Each person creates his own supernatural.”

“Don’t be angry with me, Love.”

Again, that awful rasping: “It is impossible for me to be angry with you.”

“But something happened between you and Malky once,” she said. “He would never tell me what it was, but he said he often wondered why you spared him.”

“Because of what he taught me.”

“What happened between you two, Love?”

“I would rather not talk about Malky.”

“Please, Love. I feel that it’s important for me to know.”

“I suggested to Malky that there might be some things men should not invent.”

“And that’s all?”

“No.” He spoke reluctantly. “My words angered him. He said: ‘You think that in a world without birds men would not invent aircraft! What a fool you are! Men can invent anything!’ ”

“He called you a fool?” There was shock in Hwi’s voice.

“He was right. And although he denied it, he spoke the truth. He taught me that there was a reason for running away from inventions.”

“Then you fear the Ixians?”

“Of course I do! They can invent catastrophe.”

“Then what could you do?”

“Run faster. History is a constant race between invention and catastrophe. Education helps but it’s never enough. You also must run.”

“You are sharing your soul with me, Love. Do you know that?”

Leto looked away from her and focused on Moneo’s back, the motions of the majordomo, the tucked-in pretences of secrecy so apparent there. The procession had come off the first gentle incline. It turned now to begin the climb on to Ringwall West. Moneo moved as he had always moved, one foot ahead of another, aware of the ground where he would place each step, but there was something new in the majordomo. Leto could feel the man drawing away, no longer content to march beside his Lord’s cowled face, no longer trying to match himself to his master’s destiny. Off to the east, the Sareer waited. Off to the west there was the river, the plantations. Moneo looked neither left nor right. He had seen another destination.

“You do not answer me,” Hwi said.

“You already know the answer.”

“Yes. I am beginning to understand something of you,” she said. “I can sense some of your fears. And I think I already know where it is that you live.”

He turned a startled glance on her and found himself locked in her gaze. It was astonishing. He could not move his eyes away from her. A profound fear coursed through him and he felt his hands begin to twitch.

“You live where the fear of being and the love of being are combined, all in one person,” she said.