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person," she said.
He could not blink.
"You area mystic," she said, "gentle to yourself only because you are in the
middle of that universe looking outward, looking in ways that others cannot. You
fear to share this, yet you want to share it more than anything else."
"What have you seen?" he whispered.
"I have no inner eye, no inner voices," she said. "But I have seen my Lord Leto,
whose soul I love, and I know the only thing that you truly understand."
He broke from her gaze, fearful of what she might say. The trembling of his
hands could be felt all through his front segment.
"Love, that is what you understand," she said. "Love, and that is all of it."
His hands stopped trembling. A tear rolled down each of his cheeks. When the
tears touched his cowl, wisps of blue smoke erupted. He sensed the burning and
was thankful for the pain.
"You have faith in life," Hwi said. "I know that the courage of love can reside
only in this faith."
She reached out with her left hand and brushed the tears from his cheeks. It
surprised him that the cowl did not react with its ordinary reflex to prevent
the touch.
"Do you know," he asked, "that since I have become thus, you are the first
person to touch my cheeks?"
"But I know what you are and what you were," she said.
"What I was . . . ahhh, Hwi. What I was has become only this face, and all the
rest is lost in the shadows of memory . . . hidden . . . gone."
"Not hidden from me, Love."
He looked directly at her, no longer afraid to lock gazes. "Is it possible that
the lxians know what they have created in you
"I assure you, Leto, love of my soul, that they do not know. You are the first
person, the only person to whom I have ever completely revealed myself."
"Then I will not mourn for what might have been," he said. "Yes, my love, I will
share my soul with you."
===
Think of it as plastic memory, this force within you which trends you and your
fellows toward tribal forms. This plastic memory seeks to return to its ancient
shape, the tribal society. It is all around you-the feudatory, the diocese, the
corporation, the platoon, the sports club, the dance troupes, the rebel cell,
the planning council, the prayer group . . . each with its master and servants,
its host and parasites. And the swarms of alienating devices (including these
very words!) tend eventually to be enlisted in the argument for a return to
"those better rimes." I despair of teaching you other ways. You have square
thoughts which resist circles.
-The Stolen Journals
IDAHO FOUND he could manage the climb without thinking about it. This body grown
by the Tleilaxu remembered things the Tleilaxu did not even suspect. His
original youth might be lost in the eons, but his muscles were Tleilaxu-young
and he could bury his childhood in forgetfulness while he climbed. In that
childhood, he had learned survival by flight into the high rocks of his home
planet. It did not matter that these rocks in front of him now had been brought
here by men, they also had been shaped by ages of weather.
The morning sun was hot on Idaho's back. He could hear Siona's efforts to reach
the relatively simple support position of a narrow ledge far below him. The
position was virtually useless to Idaho, but it had been the argument which had
brought Siona finally into agreement that they should attempt this climb.
They.
She had objected that he might try it alone.
Nayla, three of her Fish Speaker aides, Garun and three chosen from his Museum
Fremen waited on the sand at the foot of the barrier Wall which enclosed the
Sareer.
Idaho did not think about the Wall's height. He thought only about where he
would next put a hand or a foot. He thought about the coil of light rope around
his shoulders. That rope was the tallness of this Wall. He had measured it out
on the ground, triangulating across the sand, not counting his steps. When the
rope was long enough it was long enough. The Wall was as high as the rope was
long. Any other way of thinking could only dull his mind.
Feeling for handholds which he could not see, Idaho groped his way up the sheer
face. . . well, not quite sheer. Wind and sand and even some rain, the forces of
cold and heat, had been at their erosive work here for more than three thousand
years. For one full day, Idaho had sat on the sand below the Wall and he had
studied what had been accomplished by Time. He had fixed certain patterns in his
mind-a slanting shadow, a thin line, a crumbling bulge, a tiny lip of rock here
and another over there.
His fingers wriggled upward into a sharp crack. He tested his weight gently on
the support. Yes. Briefly, he rested, pressing his face against warm rock, not
looking up or down. He was simply here. Everything was a matter of the pacing.
His shoulders must not be allowed to tire too soon. Weight must be adjusted
between feet and arms. Fingers took inevitable damage, but while bone and
tendons held, the skin could be ignored.
Once more, he crept upward. A bit of rock broke away from his hand; dust and
shards fell across his right cheek, but he did not even feel it. Every bit of
his awareness concentrated on the groping hand, the balance of his feet on the
tiniest of protrusions. He was a mote, a particle which defied gravity. . . a
finger-hold here, a toehold there, clinging to the rock surface at times by the
sheer power of his will.
Nine makeshift pitons bulged one of his pockets, but he resisted using them. The
equally makeshift hammer dangled from his belt on a short cord whose knot his
fingers had memorized.
Nayla had been difficult. She would not give up her lasgun. She had, however,
obeyed Siona's direct order to accompany them. A strange woman . . . strangely
obedient.
"Have you not sworn to obey me?" Siona had demanded.
Nayla's reluctance had vanished.
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