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sent it bulleting across the plaza-a hurtling behemoth which sucked glowglobes
into its wake. At the battle's edge, he arched over his own defenders and
plunged into the attackers' flank, aware only then of lasguns which sent livid
blue arcs leaping toward him. He felt his cart thudding into flesh, scattering
bodies all around.
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The cart spilled him directly in front of the Embassy, rolling him off onto a
hard surface as it struck the rubble there. He felt lasgun beams tickle his
ribbed body, then the inner surge of heat followed by a venting belch of
oxygen at his tail. Instinct tucked his face deep into its cowl and folded his
arms into the protective depths of his front segment. The worm-body took over,
arching and flailing, rolling like an insane wheel, lashing out on all sides.
Blood lubricated the street. Blood was buffered water to his body, but death
released the water. His flailing body slipped and slithered in it, the water
igniting blue smoke from every flexion place where it slipped through the
sandtrout skin. This filled him with water-agony which ignited more violence
in the great flailing body.
At Leto's first lashing out, the Fish Speaker perimeter fell back. An alert
bashar saw the opportunity now presented. She shouted above the battle noise:
"Pick off the stragglers!"
The ranks of guardian women rushed forward.
It was bloody play among the Fish Speakers for a few minutes, blades thrusting
in the merciless light of the glowglobes, the dancing of lasgun arcs, even
hands chopping and toes digging into vulnerable flesh. The Fish Speakers left
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no survivors.
Leto rolled beyond the Bloody mush in front of the Embassy, barely able to
think through the waves of water-agony. The air was heavy with oxygen all
around him and this helped his human senses. He summoned his cart and it
drifted toward him, tipping perilously on damaged suspensors. Slowly, he
wriggled onto the tipping cart and gave it the mental command to return to his
quarters beneath the plaza.
Long ago, he had prepared himself against water-damage room where blasts of
superheated dry air would cleanse and restore him. Sand would serve but there
was no place in t e confines of Onn for the necessary expanse of sand in which
he might heat and rasp his surface to its normal purity.
In the lift, he thought of Hwi and sent a message to have her brought down to
him immediately.
If she survived.
He had no time now to make a prescient search; he could only hope while his
body, both pre-worm and human, longed for the cleansing heat.
Once into the cleansing room, he thought to reaffirm his modified command=
"Save some of the Face Dancers!" But by then the maddened Fish Speakers were
spreading out through the City and he had not the strength to make a prescient
sweep which would send his messengers to the proper meeting points.
A Guard captain brought him word as he was emerging from the cleansing room
that Hwi Noree, although slightly wounded, was safe and would be brought to
him as soon as the local commander thought it prudent.
Leto promoted the Guard captain to sub-bashar on the spot.
She was a heavyset Nayla-type but without Nayla's square face-features more
rounded and closer to the older norms. She trembled in the warmth of her
Lord's approval and, when he told her to return and "make doubly certain" no
more harm came to Hwi, she whirled and dashed from his presence.
didn't even ask her name, Leto thought, as he rolled himself onto the new cart
in the depression of his small audience room. It took a few moments of
reflection to recall the new sub-bashar's name-Kieuemo. The promotion would
have to be reaffirmed. He lodged a mental reminder to do this personally. The
Fish Speakers, all of them, would have to learn immediately how much he valued
Hwi
Noree. Not that there could be much doubt after tonight.
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He made his prescient scan then and dispatched messengers to his rampaging
Fish Speakers. By then the damage had been done-corpses all over Onn, some
Face Dancers and some only-suspected Face
Dancers.
And many have seen me kill, he thought.
While he waited for Hwi's arrival, he reviewed what had just happened. This
had not been a typical
Tleilaxu attack, but the previous attack on the road to Onn fitted into a new
pattern, all of it pointing at a single mind with lethal purpose.
I could have died out there, he thought.
That began to explain why he had not anticipated this attack, but there was a
deeper reason. Leto could see that reason rising into his awareness, a
summation of all the clues. What human knew the
God Emperor best? What human possessed a secret place from which to conspire?
Malky!
Leto summoned a guard and told her to ask if the Reverend Mother Anteac had
yet left Arrakis. The guard returned in a moment to report.
"Anteac is still in her quarters. The Commander of the Fish Speaker Guard
there says they have not come under attack."
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"Send word to Anteac," Leto said. "Ask if she now understands why I put her
delegation in quarters at a distance from me? Then tell her that while she is
on Ix she must locate Malky. She is to report that location to our local
garrison on Ix."
"Malky, the former Ixian Ambassador?"
"The same. He is not to remain alive and free. You will inform our garrison
commander on Ix that she is to make close liaison with Anteac, providing every
necessary assistance.
Malky is to be brought here to me or executed, whichever our commander finds
necessary."
The guard-messenger nodded, shadows lurching across her features where she
stood in the ring of light around Leto's face. She did not ask for a
repetition of the orders. Each of his close guards had been trained as a
human-recorder. They could repeat Leto's words exactly, even the intonations,
and would never forget what they had heard him say.
When the messenger had gone, Leto sent a private signal of inquiry and, within
seconds, had a response from Nayla. The Ixian device within his cart
reproduced a non-identifiable version of her voice, a flatly metallic recital
for his ears alone.
Yes, Siona was at the Citadel. No, Siona had not contacted her rebel
companions. "No, she does not yet know that I am here observing her." The
attack on the Embassy? That had been by a splinter group called "The
Tleilaxu-Contact Element."
Leto allowed himself a mental sigh. Rebels always gave their groups such
pretentious labels.
"Any survivors?" he asked.
"No known survivors."
Leto found it amusing that, while the metallic voice provided no emotional
tones, his memory supplied them.
"You will make contact with Siona," he said. "Reveal that you are a Fish
Speaker. Tell her you did not reveal this earlier because you knew she would
not trust you and because you feared exposure since you are quite alone among
Fish Speakers in your allegiance to Siona. Reaffirm your oath to her. Tell her
that you swear by all that you hold holy to obey Siona in anything. If she
commands it, you will do it. All of this is truth, as you well know."
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