"You did not like your Uncle Malky?"
"No, I didn't. Oh, I admired him."
"My reaction precisely," Leto said. "But what of your friends and your schooling'?"
"My teachers were specialists, even some Bene Gesserit were brought in to train me in emotional control and observation. Malky said I was being prepared for great things."
"And your friends?"
"I don't think I ever had any real friends-only people who were brought in contact with me for specific purposes in my education."
"And these great things for which you were trained, did anyone ever speak of those'?"
"Malky said I was being prepared to charm you, Lord."
"How old are you, Hwi?"
"I don't know my exact age. I guess I'm about twenty-six. I've never celebrated a birthday. I only learned about birthdays by accident, one of my teachers giving an excuse for her absence. I never saw that teacher again."
Leto found himself fascinated by this response. His observations provided him with certainty that there had been no Tleilaxu interventions into her Ixian flesh. She had not come from a Tleilaxu axlotl tank. Why the secrecy, then'?
"Does your Uncle Malky know your age'?"
"Perhaps. But I haven't seen him for many years."
"Didn't anyone ever tell you how old you were'?" 'No.
"Why do you suppose that is'?"
"Maybe they thought I'd ask if I were interested."
"Were you interested'?"
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you ask?"
"I thought at first there might be a record somewhere. I looked. There was nothing. I reasoned then that they would not answer my question."
"For what it tells me about you, Hwi, that answer pleases me very much. I, too, am ignorant of your background, but I can make an enlightened guess at your birthplace."
Her eyes focused on his face with a charged intensity which had no pretense in it.
"You were born within this machine your masters are trying to perfect for the Guild," Leto said. "You were conceived there, as well. It may even be that Malky was your father. That is not important. Do you know about this machine, Hwi'?"
"I'm not supposed to know about it, Lord. but..."
"Another indiscretion by one of your teachers?"
"By my uncle himself."
A burst of laughter erupted from Leto. "What a rogue!" he said. "What a charming rogue!"
"Lord?"
"This is his revenge on your masters. He did not like being removed from my court. He told me at the time that his replacement was less than a fool."
Hwi shrugged. "A complex man, my uncle."
"Listen to me carefully, Hwi. Some of your associations here on Arrakis could be dangerous to you. I will protect you as I can. Do you understand'?"
"I think so, Lord." She stared up at him solemnly.
"Now, a message for your masters. It is clear to me that they have been listening to a Guild steersman and they have joined themselves to the Tleilaxu in a perilous fashion. Tell them for me that their purposes are quite transparent."
"Lord, I have no knowledge of..."
" am aware of how they use you, Hwi. For this reason you may tell your masters also that you arc to be the permanent Ambassador to my court. I will not welcome another Ixian. And should your masters ignore my warnings. trying further interference with my wishes, I shall crush them."
Tears welled from her eyes and ran down her cheeks, but Leto was grateful that she did not indulge in any other display such as falling to her knees.
"I already have warned them." she said. "Truly I did. I told them they must obey you."
Leto could see that this was true.
What a marvelous creature, this Hwi Noree, he thought. She appeared the epitome of goodness, obviously bred and conditioned for this quality by her Ixian masters with their careful calculation of the effect this would have on the God Emperor.
Out of his thronging ancestral memories. Leto could see her as an idealized nun, kindly and self-sacrificing, all sincerity. It was her most basic nature, the place where she lived. She found it easiest to be truthful and open, capable of shading this only to prevent pain for others. He saw this latter trait as the deepest change the Bene Gesserit had been able to effect in her. Hwi's real manner remained outgoing, sensitive and naturally sweet. Leto could find little sense of manipulative calculation in her. She appeared immediately responsive and wholesome, excellent at listening (another Bene Gesserit attribute). There was nothing openly seductive about her, yet this very fact made her profoundly seductive to Leto.
As he had remarked to one of the earlier Duncans on a similar occasion: "You must understand this about me, a thing which some obviously suspect-sometimes it's unavoidable that I have delusionary sensations, the feeling that somewhere inside this changeling form of mine there exists an adult human body with all of the necessary functions."
"All of them, Lord?" the Duncan had asked.
"All! I feel the vanished parts of myself. I can feel my legs, quite unremarkable and so real to my senses. I can feel the pumping of my human glands, some of which no longer exist. I can even feel genitalia which I know, intellectually, vanished centuries ago."
"But surely if you know..."
"Knowledge does not suppress such feelings. The vanished parts of myself are still there in my personal memories and in the multiple identity of all my ancestors."
As Leto looked at Hwi standing in front of him, it helped not one whit to know he had no skull and that what once had been his brain was now a massive web of ganglia spread through his pre-worm flesh. Nothing helped. He could still feel his brain aching where it once had reposed: he could still feel his skull throbbing.