Trembling at this revelation, Moneo stared at the shadowy figure of the God Emperor who spoke of such marvels.
"The sandtrout," Lord Leto said, "will link themselves into large living bubbles to enclose this planet's water deep underground. Just as it was in the Dune times."
"All of the water, Lord?"
"Most of it. Within three hundred years, the sandworm once more will reign here. It will be a new kind of sandworm, I promise you."
"How is that, Lord?"
"It will have animal awareness and a new cunning. The spice will be more dangerous to seek and far more perilous to keep."
Moneo had looked up at the cavern's rocky ceiling, his imagination probing through the rock to the surface.
"Everything desert again, Lord?"
"Watercourses will fill with sand. Crops will be choked and killed. Trees will be covered by great moving dunes. The sand-death will spread until... until a subtle signal is heard in the barren lands."
"What signal, Lord?"
"The signal for the next cycle, the coming of the Maker, the coming of Shai-Hulud."
"Will that be you, Lord?"
"Yes! The great sandworm of Dune will rise once more from the deeps. This land will be again the domain of spice and worm."
"But what of the people, Lord? All of the people?"
"Many will die. Food plants and the abundant growth of this land will be parched. Without nourishment, meat animals will die."
"Will everyone go hungry, Lord?"
"Undernourishment and the old diseases will stalk the land, while only the hardiest survive... the hardiest and most brutal."
"Must that be, Lord?"
"The alternatives are worms' "Teach me about those alternatives, Lord."
"In time, you will know them."
As he marched beside the God Emperor in the morning light of their peregrination to Onn, Moneo could only admit that he had, indeed, learned of alternative evils.
To most of the Empire's docile citizens, Moneo knew, the firm knowledge which he held in his own head lay concealed in the Oral History, in the myths and wild stories told by infrequent mad prophets who cropped up on one planet or another to gather a short-lived following.
But l know what the Fish Speakers do.
And he knew also about evil men who sat at table, gorging themselves on rare delicacies while they watched the torture of fellow humans.
Until the Fish Speakers came, and gore erased such scenes.
"I enjoyed the way your daughter watched me," Leto said. "She was so unaware that I knew."
"Lord, I fear for her! She is my blood, my...
"Mine, too, Moneo. Am I not Atreides? You would be better employed fearing for yourself."
Moneo cast a fearful glance along the God Emperor's body. The signs of the Worm remained too near. Moneo glanced at the cortege following, then along the road ahead. They now were into the steep descent, the switchbacks short and cut into high walls in the man-piled rocks of the cliff barrier which girdled the Sareer.
"Siona does not offend me, Moneo."
"But she...
"Moneo! Here, in its mysterious capsule is one of life's great secrets. To be surprised, to have a new thing occur, that is what I desire most."
"Lord, I..."
"New! Isn't that a radiant, a wonderful word?"
"If you say it, Lord."
Leto was forced to remind himself then: Moneo is my creature. I created him.
"Your child is worth almost any price to me. Moneo. You decry her companions, but there may be one among them that she will love."
Moneo cast an involuntary glance back at Duncan Idaho marching with the guards. Idaho was glaring ahead as though trying to probe each turn in the road before they reached it. He did not like this place with its high walls all around from which attack might come. Idaho had sent scouts up there in the night and Moneo knew that some of them still lurked on the heights, but there also were ravines ahead before the marchers reached the river. And there had not been enough guards to station them everywhere.
"We will depend upon the Fremen," Moneo had reassured him.
"Fremen?" Idaho did not like what he heard about the Museum Fremen.
"At least they can sound an alarm against intruders," Moneo had said.
"You saw them and asked them to do that?"
Chapter Ten
"Of course."
Moneo had not dared to broach the subject of Siona to Idaho. Time enough for that later, but now the God Emperor had said a disturbing thing. Had there been a change in plans?
Moneo returned his attention to the God Emperor and lowered his voice.
"Love a companion, Lord'? But you said the Duncan..."
"I said love, not breed with!"
Moneo trembled, thinking of how his own mating had been arranged, the wrenching away from...
No! Best not follow those memories!
There had been affection, even a real love... later, but in the first days...
"You are woolgathering again, Moneo."
"Forgive me, Lord, but when you speak of love..."
"You think I have no tender thoughts'!"
"It's not that, Lord, but..."
"You think I have no memories of love and breeding, then?" The cart swerved toward Moneo, forcing him to dodge away, frightened by the glowering look on the Lord Leto's face.
"Lord, I beg your..."
"This body may never have known such tenderness, but all of the memories are mine!"
Moneo could see the signs of the Worm growing more dominant in the God Emperor's body and there was no escaping recognition of this mood.
I am in grave danger. We all are.