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still the trembling of his muscles, soothe the aching of his shoulders. Slowly,
he turned full circle, examining the top while he let his memories at last
estimate the height of that climb.
Nine hundred meters . . . at least that.
The Royal Roadway interested him. It was not like what he had seen on the way to
Onn. It was wide, wide . . . at least five hundred meters. The roadbed was a
smooth, unbroken gray with its edge some one hundred meters from each lip of the
Wall. Rock pillars at man height marked the road's edge, stretching away like
sentinels along the path Leto would use.
Idaho walked to the far side of the Wall opposite the Sareer and peered down.
Far away in the depths, a hurtling green flow of river battered itself into foam
against buttress rocks. He looked to the right. Leto would come from there. Road
and Wall curved gently to the right, the curve beginning about three hundred
meters from the place where Idaho stood. Idaho returned to the road and walked
along its edge, following the curve until it made a returning "S" and narrowed,
sloping gently downward. He stopped and looked at what was revealed for him,
seeing the new pattern take shape.
About three kilometers away down the gentle slope, the roadway narrowed and
crossed the river gorge on a bridge whose faery trusses appeared insubstantial
and toy like at this distance. Idaho remembered a similar bridge on the road to
Onn, the substantial feel of it beneath his feet. He trusted his memory,
thinking about bridges as a military leader was forced to think about them-
passages or traps.
Moving out to his left, he looked down and outward to
another high Wall at the far anchor of the faery bridge. The road continued
there, turning gently until it was a line running straight northward. There were
two Walls along there and the river between them. The river glided in a man-made
chasm, its moisture confined and channeled into a northward wind drift while the
water itself flowed southward.
Idaho ignored the river then. It was there and it would be there tomorrow. He
fixed his attention on the bridge, letting his military training examine it. He
nodded once to himself before turning back the way he had come, lifting the
light rope from his shoulders as he walked.
It was only when she saw the rope come snaking down that Nayla had her orgasm.
===
What am I eliminating? The bourgeois infatuation with peaceful conservation of
the past. This is a binding force, a thing which holds humankind into one
vulnerable unit in spite of illusionary separations across parsecs of space. If
I can find the scattered bits, others can find them. When you are together, you
can share a common catastrophe. You can be exterminated together. Thus, I
demonstrate the terrible danger of a gliding, passionless mediocrity, a movement
without ambitions or aims. I show you that entire civilizations can do this
thing. I give you eons of life which slips gently toward death without fuss or
stirring, without even asking 'Why?' I show you the false happiness and the
shadow-catastrophe called Leto, the God Emperor. Now, will you learn the real
happiness?
-The Stolen Journals
HAVING SPENT the night with only one brief catnap, Leto was awake when Moneo
emerged from the guest house at dawn. The Royal Cart had been parked almost in
the center of a three-sided courtyard. The cart's cover had been set on one-way
opaque, concealing its occupant, and was tightly sealed against moisture. Leto
could hear the faint stirring of the fans which pulsed his air through a drying
cycle.
Moneo's feet scratched on the courtyard's cobbles as he approached the cart.
Dawn light edged the guest house roof with orange above the majordomo.
Leto opened the cart's cover as Moneo stopped in front of him. There was a
yeasting dirt smell to the air and the accumulation of moisture in the breeze
was painful.
"We should arrive at Tuono about noon," Moneo said. "I wish you'd let me bring
in 'thopters to guard the sky."
"I do not want 'thopters," Leto said. "We can go down to Tuono on suspensors and
ropes."
Leto marveled at the plastic images in this brief exchange. Moneo had never
liked peregrinations. His youth as a rebel had left him with suspicions of
everything he could not see or label. He remained a mass of latent judgments.
"You know I don't want 'thopters for transport," Moneo said. "I want them to
guard. . ."
"Yes, Moneo."
Moneo looked past Leto at the open end of the courtyard which overlooked the
river canyon. Dawn light was frosting the mist which arose from the depths. He
thought of how far down that canyon dropped . . . a body twisting, twisting as
it fell. Moneo had found himself unable to go to the canyon's lip last night and
peer down into it. The drop was such a . . . such a temptation.
With that insightful power which filled Moneo with such awe, Leto said: "There's
a lesson in every temptation, Moneo."
Speechless, Moneo turned to stare directly into Leto's eyes.
"See the lesson in my life, Moneo."
"Lord?" It was only a whisper.
"They tempt me first with evil, then with good. Each temptation is fashioned
with exquisite attention to my susceptibilities. Tell me, Moneo, if I choose the
good, does that make me good?"
"Of course it does, Lord."
"Perhaps you will never lose the habit of judgment," Leto said.
Moneo looked away from him once more and stared at the chasm's edge. Leto rolled
his body to look where Moneo looked. Dwarf pines had been cultured along the lip
of the canyon. There were hanging dewdrops on the damp needles, each of them
sending a promise of pain to Leto. He longed to close the cart's cover, but
there was an immediacy in those jewels which attracted his memories even while
they repelled his body. The opposed synchrony threatened to fill him with
turmoil. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]