Did they not believe he was a God?

For a time thereafter, the Ixians were responsive to his requests. Leto had not abused the relationship. His demands were modest—a machine for this, a device for that. He would state his needs and presently the Ixians would deliver the required technological toy. Only once had they tried to deliver a violent instrument inside one of his machines. He had slain the entire Ixian delegation before they could even unwrap the thing.

Hwi Noree waited patiently while Leto mused. Not the slightest sign of impatience surfaced.

Beautiful, he thought.

In view of his long association with the Ixians, this new stance sent the juices coursing through Leto’s body. Ordinarily, the passions, crises and necessities which had produced and impelled him burned low. He often felt that he had outlived his times. But the presence of a Hwi Noree said he was needed. This pleased him. Leto felt that it might even be possible that the Ixians had achieved a partial success with their machine to amplify the linear prescience of a Guild Navigator. A small blip in the flow of great events might have escaped him. Could they really make such a machine? What a marvel that would be! Purposefully, he refused to use his powers for even the smallest search through this possibility.

I wish to be surprised!

Leto smiled benignly at Hwi. “How have they prepared you to woo me?” he asked.

She did not blink. “I was provided with a set of memorized responses for particular exigencies,” she said. “I learned them as I was required but I do not intend to use them.”

Which is exactly what they want, Leto thought.

“Tell your masters,” he said, “that you are precisely the right kind of bait to dangle in front of me.”

She bowed her head. “If it pleases my Lord.”

“Yes, you do.”

He indulged himself then in a small temporal probe to examine Hwi’s immediate future, tracing the threads of her past through this. Hwi appeared in a fluid future, a current whose movements were susceptible to many deflections. She would know Siona in only a casual way unless… Questions flowed through Leto’s mind. A Guild Steersman was advising the Ixians and he obviously had detected Siona’s disturbance in the temporal fabric. Did the Steersman really believe he could prove security against the God Emperor’s detection?

The temporal probe took several minutes, but Hwi did not fidget. Leto looked at her carefully. She seemed timeless—outside of time in a deeply peaceful way. He had never before encountered a common mortal able to wait thus in front of him without some nervousness.

“Where were you born, Hwi?” he asked.

“On Ix itself, Lord.”

“I mean specifically—the building, its location, your parents, the people around you, friends and family, your schooling—all of it.”

“I never knew my parents, Lord. I was told they died while I was still an infant.”

“Did you believe this?”

“At first… of course. Later, I built fantasies. I even imagined that Malky was my father… but…” She shook her head.