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.My memories assure me that governments of any kind could profitfrom this message.Governments can be useful to the governed only so long asinherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained.Monarchies have some goodfeatures beyond their star qualities.They can reduce the size and parasiticnature of the management bureaucracy.They can make speedy decisions whennecessary.They fit an ancient human demand for a parental (tribal/feudal)hierarchy where every person knows his place.It is valuable to know your place,even if that place is temporary.It is galling to be held in place against yourwill.This is why I teach about tyranny in the best possible way by example.Even though you read these words after a passage of eons, my tyranny will not beforgotten.My Golden Path assures this.Knowing my message, I expect you to beexceedingly careful about the powers you delegate to any government.-The Stolen JournalsLeto PREPARED with patient care for his first private meeting with Siona sinceher childhood banishment to the Fish Speaker schools in the Festival City.Hetold Moneo that he would see her at the Little Citadel, a vantage tower he hadbuilt in the$central Sareer.The site had been chosen to provide views of old and new andplaces between.There were no roads to the Little Citadel.Visitors arrived by'thopter.Leto went there as though by magic.'With his own hands, in the early days of his ascendancy, Leto has used an Ixianmachine to dig a secret tunnel under the Sareer to his tower, doing all of thework himself.In those days, a few wild sandworms still roamed the desert.Hehad lined his tunnel with massive walls of fused silica and had imbeddedcountless bubbles of worm-repelling water in the outer layers.The tunnelanticipated his maximum growth and the requirements of a Royal Cart which, atthat time, had been only a figment of his visions,In the early predawn hours of the day assigned to Siona, Leto descended to thecrypt and gave orders to his guard that he was not to be disturbed by anyone.His cart sped him down one of the crypt's dark spokes where he opened a hiddenportal, emerging in less than an hour at the Little Citadel.One of his delights was to go out alone onto the sand.No cart.Only his pre-worm body to carry him.The sand felt luxuriously sensuous against him.The heatof his passage through the dunes in the day's first light sent up a wake ofsteam which required him to keep moving.He brought himself to a stop only whenhe found a relatively dry pocket about five kilometers out.He lay there at thecenter of an uncomfortable dampness from the trace-dew, his body just outsidethe long shadow of the tower which stretched eastward from him across the dunes.From a distance, the three thousand meters of the tower could be seen as animpossible needle stabbing the sky.Only the inspired blend of Leto's commandsand Ixian imagination made the structure conceivable.One hundred and fiftymeters in diameter, the tower sat on a foundation which plunged as deeply underthe sand as it climbed above.The magic of plasteel and superlight alloys keptit supple in the wind and resistant to sandblast abrasions.Leto enjoyed the place so much that he rationed his visits, making up a longlist of personal rules which had to be met.The rules added up to "GreatNecessity."For a few moments while he lay there, he could shed the loads of the GoldenPath.Moneo, good and reliable Moneo, would see that Siona arrived promptly,just at nightfall.Leto had a full day in which to relax and think, to play andpretendthat he possessed no cares, to drink up the raw sustenance of the earth in afeeding frenzy which he could never indulge in at Onn or at the Citadel.Inthose places, he was required to confine himself to furtive burrowings throughnarrow passages where only prescient caution kept him from encounteringwaterpockets.Here, though, he could race through the sand and across it, feedand grow strong.Sand crunched beneath him as he rolled, flexing his body in pure animalenjoyment.He could feel his worm-self being restored, an electric sensationwhich sent messages of health all through him.The sun was well above the horizon now, painting a golden line up the side ofthe tower.There was the smell of bitter dust in the air and an odor of distantspiny plants which had responded to the morning's trace-dew.Gently at first,then more rapidly, he moved out in a wide circle around the tower, thinkingabout Siona as he went.There could be no more delays.She had to be tested.Moneo knew this as well asLeto did.Just that morning, Moneo had said: "Lord, there is terrible violence in her.""She has the beginnings of adrenalin addiction," Leto had said."It's cold-turkey time.""Cold what, Lord?""It's an ancient expression.It means she must be subjected to a completewithdrawal.She must go through a necessity shock.""Oh.I see."For once, Leto realized, Moneo did see.Moneo had gone through his own cold-turkey time."The young generally are incapable of making hard decisions unless thosedecisions are associated with immediate violence and the consequent sharp flowof adrenalin," Leto had explained.Moneo had held himself in reflexive silence, remembering, then: "It is a greatperil.""That's the violence you see in Siona.Even old people can cling to it, but theyoung wallow in it."As he circled his tower in the growing light of the day, enjoying the feel ofthe sand even more as it dried, Leto thought about the conversation.He slowedhis passage over the sand.A wind from behind him carried the vented oxygen anda burnt flint smell over his human nostrils.He inhaled deeply, lifting$his magnified awareness to a new level.This preliminary day contained a multiple purpose.He thought of the comingencounter much as an ancient bullfighter had thought about the first examinationof a horned adversary.Siona possessed her own version of horns, although Moneowould make certain that she brought no physical weapons to this encounter.Letohad to be sure, though, that he knew Siona's every strength and every weakness.And he would have to create special susceptibilities in her wherever possible.She had to be prepared for the test, her psychic muscles blunted by well-plantedbarbs.Shortly after noon, his worm-self satiated, Leto returned to the tower, crawledback onto his cart and lifted on suspensors to the very tip of a portal therewhich opened only at his command.Throughout the rest of the day, he lay therein the aerie, thinking, plotting.The fluttering wings of an ornithopter whispered on the air just at nightfall tosignal Moneo's arrival.Faithful Moneo.Leto caused a landing-lip to extrude from his aerie.The 'thopter glided in, itswings cupped.It settled gently onto the lip.Leto stared out through thegathering darkness.Siona emerged and darted in toward him, fearful of theunprotected height.She wore a white robe over a black uniform without insignia.She stole one look backward when she stopped just inside the tower, then sheturned her attention to Leto's bulk waiting on the cart almost at the center ofthe aerie.The 'thopter lifted away and jetted off into the darkness.Leto leftthe lip extruded, the portal open."There is a balcony on the other side of the tower," he said."We will gothere.""Why?"Siona's voice carried almost pure suspicion."I'm told it's a cool place," Leto said."And there is indeed a faint sensationof cold on my cheeks when I expose them to the breeze there."Curiosity brought her closer to him.Leto closed the portal behind her."The night view from the balcony is magnificent," Leto said."Why are we here?""Because here we will not be overheard [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]