Children of Dune (Page 49)

Jessica did not question how this insight occurred. The twins appeared capable of reproducing each other’s thought trains at will.

"Yes, we were," Jessica said. "Stilgar didn’t like to hear Gurney calling… Paul his Duke, but Gurney’s presence forced this upon all of the Fremen. Gurney kept saying ‘My Duke.’ "

"I see," Ghanima said. "And of course, Leto observed that he was not yet Stilgar’s Duke."

"That’s right."

"You know what he was doing to you, of course," Ghanima said.

"I’m not sure I do," Jessica admitted, and she found this admission particularly disturbing because it had not occurred to her that Leto was doing anything at all to her.

"He was trying to ignite your memories of our father," Ghanima said. "Leto’s always hungry to know our father from the viewpoints of others who knew him."

"But… doesn’t Leto have…"

"Oh, he can listen to the inner life. Certainly. But that’s not the same. You spoke about him, of course. Our father, I mean. You spoke of him as your son."

"Yes." Jessica clipped it off. She did not like the feeling that these twins could turn her on and off at will, open her memories for observation, touch any emotion which attracted their interest. Ghanima might be doing that right now!

"Leto said something to disturb you," Ghanima said.

Chapter Twelve

Jessica found herself shocked at the necessity to suppress anger. "Yes… he did."

"You don’t like the fact that he knows our father as our mother knew him, and knows our mother as our father knew her," Ghanima said. "You don’t like what that implies – what we may know about you."

"I’d never really thought about it that way before," Jessica said, finding her voice stiff.

"It’s the knowledge of sensual things which usually disturbs," Ghanima said. "It’s your conditioning. You find it extremely difficult to think of us as anything but children. But there’s nothing our parents did together, in public or in private, that we would not know."

For a brief instant Jessica found herself returning to the reaction which had come over her out there beside the qanat, but now she focused that reaction upon Ghanima.

"He probably spoke of your Duke’s ‘rutting sensuality,’ " Ghanima said. "Sometimes Leto needs a bridle on his mouth!"

Is there nothing these twins cannot profane? Jessica wondered, moving from shock to outrage to revulsion. How dared they speak of her Leto’s sensuality? Of course a man and woman who loved each other would share the pleasure of their bodies! It was a private and beautiful thing, not to be paraded in casual conversation between a child and an adult.

Child and adult!

Abruptly Jessica realized that neither Leto nor Ghanima had done this casually.

As Jessica remained silent, Ghanima said: "We’ve shocked you. I apologize for both of us. Knowing Leto, I know he didn’t consider apologizing. Sometimes when he’s following a particular scent, he forgets how different we are… from you, for instance."

Jessica thought: And that is why you both do this, of course. You are teaching me! And she wondered then: Who else are you teaching? Stilgar? Duncan?

"Leto tries to see things as you see them," Ghanima said. "Memories are not enough. When you try the hardest, just then, you most often fail."

Jessica sighed.

Ghanima touched her grandmother’s arm. "Your son left many things unsaid which yet must be said, even to you. Forgive us, but he loved you. Don’t you know that?"

Jessica turned away to hide the tears glistening in her eyes.

"He knew your fears," Ghanima said. "Just as he knew Stilgar’s fears. Dear Stil. Our father was his ‘Doctor of Beasts’ and Stil was no more than the green snail hidden in its shell." She hummed the tune from which she’d taken these words. The music hurled the lyrics against Jessica’s awareness without compromise:

"O Doctor of Beasts,

To a green snail shell

With its timid miracle

Hidden, awaiting death,

You come as a deity!

Even snails know

That gods obliterate,

And cures bring pain,

That heaven is seen

Through a door of flame.

O Doctor of Beasts,

I am the man-snail

Who sees your single eye

Peering into my shell!

Why, Muad’Dib? Why?"

Ghanima said: "Unfortunately, our father left many man-snails in our universe."

= = = = = =

The assumption that humans exist within an essentially impermanent universe, taken as an operational precept, demands that the intellect become a totally aware balancing instrument. But the intellect cannot react thus without involving the entire organism. Such an organism may be recognized by its burning, driving behavior. And thus it is with a society treated as organism. But here we encounter an old inertia. Societies move to the goading of ancient, reactive impulses. They demand permanence. Any attempt to display the universe of impermanence arouses rejection patterns, fear, anger, and despair. Then how do we explain the acceptance of prescience? Simply: the giver of prescient visions, because he speaks of an absolute (permanent) realization, may be greeted with joy by humankind even while predicting the most dire events. -The Book of Leto, After Harq al-Ada

"It’s liking fighting in the dark," Alia said.

She paced the Council Chamber in angry strides, moving from the tall silvery draperies which softened the morning sun at the eastern windows to the divans grouped beneath decorated wall panels at the room’s opposite end. Her sandals crossed spice-fiber rugs, parquet wood, tiles of giant garnet and once more, rugs. At last she stood over Irulan and Idaho, who sat facing each other on divans of grey whale fur.