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Yes, this alien-Alia preferred matricide

"You are afraid of your e in herstare "Of course I am She has reported about me to the Sisterhood"

"What do you reatest temptation for a Bene Gesserit?" She h her lashes "I thought only to keepand alert for the sake of the twins"

"You speak of temptation," he said, his voicewhich the Sisterhood hidesthey most fear It&039;s why they call me Abomination They know their inhibitions won&039;t hold me back Temptation - they always speak with heavy emphasis: Great Tes can influence such things as the internal adjust youth - far longer than with e Do you see the consequences should many Bene Gesserits do this? It would be noticed I&039; Melange is what et for so s life What if it became known that Bene Gesserits controlled an even more potent secret? You see! Not one Reverend Mother would be safe Abduction and torture of Bene Gesserits would become a most common activity"

"You&039;ve acco" It was a statement, not a question

"I&039;ve defied the Sisterhood! My mother&039;s reports to the Sisterhood willallies of House Corrino"

How very plausible, he thought

He tested: "But surely your own ainst you!"

"She was Bene Gesserit long before she was my mother, Duncan, she peroht not survive it! Bene Gesserits have always been short on faith and long on pragainst me if she believes it&039;s in the best interests of the Sisterhood"

He nodded How convincing she was It was a sad thought

"We must hold the initiative," she said "That&039;s our sharpest weapon"

"There&039;s the problem of Gurney Halleck," he said "Do I have to kill my old friend?"

"Gurney&039;s off on so Idaho already are of this "He&039;s safely out of the way"

"Very odd," he said, "the Regent Governor of Caladan running errands here on Arrakis"

"Why not?" Alia demanded "He&039;s her lover - in his dreams if not in fact"

"Yes, of course" And he wondered that she did not hear the insincerity in his voice

"When will you abduct her?" Alia asked

"It&039;s better that you don&039;t know"

"Yes yes, I see Where&039;ll you take her?"

"Where she cannot be found Depend upon it; she won&039;t be left here to threaten you"

The glee in Alia&039;s eyes could not be mistaken "But where will"

"If you do not know, then you can answer before a Truthsayer, if necessary, that you do not knohere she is"

"Ahhh, clever, Duncan"

Now she believes I will kill the Lady Jessica, he thought And he said: "Goodbye, beloved"

She did not hear the finality in his voice, even kissed hih the sietchlike maze of Temple corridors, Idaho brushed at his eyes Tleilaxu eyes were not immune to tears

You have loved Caladan And lamented its lost host - But pain discovers New lovers cannot erase Those forever ghost -Refrain frouard around the twins, but he kneas useless The lad was like his Atreides narandfather Leto Everyone who&039;d known the original Duke re look about hiainst that latent wildness, the susceptibility to dangerous decisions

Ghanima was more like her mother There was Chani&039;s red hair, the set of Chani&039;s eyes, and a calculating way about her when she adjusted to difficulties She often said that she only did what she had to do, but where Leto led she would follow

And Leto was going to lead the his problem to Alia That ruled out Irulan, who ran to Alia with anything and everything In coar realized he had accepted the possibility that Leto judged Alia correctly

She uses people in a casual and callous way, he thought She even uses Duncan that way It isn&039;t so much that she&039;d turn on uard was strengthened and Stilgar stalked his sietch like a robed specter, prying everywhere All the time, his mind seethed with the doubts Leto had planted there If one could not depend upon tradition, then where was the rock upon which to anchor his life?

On the afternoon of the Convocation of Welco with her grandreat assembly chamber It was early and Alia had not yet arrived, but people already were thronging into the chalances at the child and adult as they passed

Stilgar paused in a shadowed alcove out of the crowd flow and watched the pair of the throb of an asse multitude The people of many tribes would be here today to welcome back their old Reverend Mother But he stared at Ghanima Her eyes, the way they danced when she spoke! The , old hair off her shoulder with a twist of the head: that was Chani It was a ghostly resurrection, an uncanny resear drew closer and took up his station in another alcove

He could not associate Ghani manner with any other child of his experience - except her brother Where was Leto? Stilgar glanced back up the crowded passage His guards would have spread an alar were amiss He shook his head These twins assaulted his sanity They were a constant abrasion against his peace of mind He could almost hate them Kin were not immune from one&039;s hatred, but blood (and its precious water) carried demands for one&039;s countenance which transcended reatest responsibility

Dust-filtered brown light came from the cavernous assembly chamber beyond Ghanima and Jessica It touched the child&039;s shoulders and the nehite robe she wore, backlighting her hair as she turned to peer into the passage at the people thronging past

Why did Leto afflict me with these doubts? he wondered There was no doubt that it had been done deliberately Perhaps Leto wanted ar knehy the tere different, but had always found his reasoning processes unable to accept what he knew He had never experienced the wo awareness froestation, so it was said

Leto had once said that hisin size and in detail fro shape or outline"

For the first tian to understand what it must be like to live in such a scrambled web of memories, unable to retreat or find a sealed roorate s in a systeed as fast as the question

There could be no fixed tradition There could be no absolute answers to double-faced questions What works? That which does not work What does not work? That which works He recognized this pattern It was the old Fres death and life" Answer: "The Coriolis wind"

Why did Leto want ar asked hiar knew that the twins shared a coht of it as affliction The birth canal would be a draining place to such a one, he thought Ignorance reduces the shock of sonorance about birth What would it be like to live a life where you knew all of the things that could go wrong? You would face a constant ith doubts You would resent your difference from your fellows It would be pleasant to inflict others with even a taste of that difference "Why me?" would be your first unanswered question

And what have I been asking ht A wry s the twins in this neay, he understood the dangerous chances they took with their uncompleted bodies Ghanima had put it to hi the precipitous west face to the rim above Sietch Tabr

"Why should I fear death? I&039;ve been there before - ar wondered How can anyone presu in a sihter She&039;d been thinking how difficult it must be to carry mature minds in immature bodies The body would have to learn what theresponses and reflexes The old Bene Gesserit prana-bindu regimen would be available to them, but even there the mind would run where the flesh could not Gurney had a suprear is watching us from an alcove back there," Ghanima said

Jessica did not turn But she found herself confounded by what she heard in Ghanima&039;s voice Ghanima loved the old Frehtly of him and teased him, she loved him The realization forced Jessica to see the old Naib in a new light, understanding in a gestalten revelation what the twins and Stilgar shared This new Arrakis did not fit Stilgar well, Jessica realized No randchildren

Unwanted and undeh Jessica&039;sof terror; to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror"

Yes, death would not be a hard yoke to wear, but life was a slow fire to Stilgar and the twins Each found an ill fitting world and longed for other here variations ht be knoithout threat They were children of Abraha over the desert than from any book yet written

Leto had confounded Jessica only thatas they&039;d stood beside the qanat which flowed below the sietch He&039;d said: "Water traps us, grand like dust because then the wind could carry us higher than the highest cliffs of the Shield Wall"

Although she was familiar with such devious maturity froht by this utterance, but had ht&039;ve said that"

And Leto, throwing a handful of sand into the air to watch it fall: "Yes, he ht&039;ve But my father did not consider then how quickly water round fro beside Ghanima in the sietch, Jessica felt the shock of those words anew She turned, glanced back at the still-flowing throng, let her gaze wander across Stilgar&039;s shadowy shape in the alcove Stilgar was no tas to the nest He was still a hawk When he thought of the color red, he did not think of flowers but of blood

"You&039;re so quiet, suddenly," Ghani?"

Jessica shook her head "It&039;s so, that&039;s all"

"When you went out to the plantings? What&039;d he say?"

Jessica thought of the curious look of adult wisdom which had co It was the saht now "He was recalling the tilers to the Atreides banner," Jessica said

"Then you were talking about Stilgar," Ghaniht occurred The twins appeared capable of reproducing each other&039;s thought trains at will

"Yes, ere," Jessica said "Stilgar didn&039;t like to hear Gurney calling Paul his Duke, but Gurney&039;s presence forced this upon all of the Fre &039;My Duke&039; "

"I see," Ghanima said "And of course, Leto observed that he was not yet Stilgar&039;s Duke"

"That&039;s right"

"You knohat he was doing to you, of course," Ghanima said

"I&039;m not sure I do," Jessica ad because it had not occurred to her that Leto was doing anything at all to her

"He was trying to ignite your mery to know our father from the viewpoints of others who knew him"

"But doesn&039;t Leto have"

"Oh, he can listen to the inner life Certainly But that&039;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 e that right now!

"Leto said so to disturb you," Ghanima said