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.And there are bridges, places toview the river and.and.oh, it is a marvel.""Why have you never gone up there to see it yourself?" Idaho asked.Garun merely shrugged and pointed at the Wall.Nayla arrived then and the argument about the climb had begun.Idaho thoughtabout that argument as he climbed.How strange, the relationship between Naylaand Siona! They were like two conspirators.yet not conspirators.Sionacommanded and Nayla obeyed.But Nayla was a Fish Speaker, the Friend who wastrusted by Leto to make a first examination of the new ghola.She admitted thatshe had been in the Royal Constabulary since childhood.Such strength in her!Given that strength, there was something awesome about the way she bowed toSiona's will.It was as though Nayla listened for secret voices which told herwhat to do.Then she obeyed.Idaho groped upward for another handhold.His fingers wriggled along the rock,up and outward to the right, finding at last an unseen crack where they mightenter.His memory provided the natural line of ascent, but only his body couldlearn the way by following that line.His left foot found a toehold.up.up.slowly, testing.Left hand up now.no crack but a ledge.Hiseyes, then his chin lifted over the high ledge he had seen from below.Heelbowed his way onto it, rolled over and rested, looking only outward, not up ordown.It was a sand horizon out there, a breeze with dust in it limiting theview.He had seen many such horizons in the Dune days.Presently, he turned to face the Wall, lifted himself onto his knees, handsgroping upward, and he resumed the climb.The picture of the Wall remained inhis mind as he had seen it from below.He had only to close his eyes and thepattern lay there, fixed the way he had learned to do it as a child hiding fromHarkonnen slave raiders.Fingertips found a crack where they could be wedged.Heclawed his way upward.Watching from below, Nayla experienced a growing affinity for the climber.Idahohad been reduced by distance to such a small and lonely shape upon the Wall.Hemust know what it was like to be alone with momentous decisions.l would like to have his child, she thought.A child from both of us would bestrong and resourceful.What is it that God wants from a child of Siona and thisman?Nayla had awakened before dawn and had walked out to the top of a low dune atthe village edge to think about this thing that Idaho proposed.It had been alime dawn with a familiar winding cloth of dust in the distance, then steel dayand the baleful immensity of the Sareer.She knew then that these matterscertainly had been anticipated by God.What could be hidden from God? Nothingcould be hidden, not even the remote figure of Duncan Idaho groping for apathway up to the edge of heaven.As she watched Idaho climb, Nayla's mind played a trick on her, tipping the wallto the horizontal.Idaho became a child crawling across a broken surface.Howsmall he looked.and growing smaller.An aide offered Nayla water which she drank.The water brought the Wall backinto its true perspective.Siona crouched on the first ledge, leaning out to peer up-ward."If you fall, I will try it," Siona had promised Idaho.Nayla had thoughtit a strange promise.Why would both of them want to try the impossible? Idaho had failed to dissuade Siona from the impossible promise.It is fate, Nayla thought.It is God's will.They were the same thing.A bit of rock fell from where Idaho clutched at it.That had happened severaltimes.Nayla watched the falling rock.It took a long time coming down, boundingand rebounding from the Wall's face, demonstrating that the eye did not reporttruthfully when it said the Wall was sheer.He will succeed or he will not,- Nayla thought.Whatever happens, it is God'swill.She could feel her heart hammering, though.Idaho's venture was like sex, shethought.It was not passively erotic, but akin to rare magic in the way itseized her.She had to keep reminding herself that Idaho was not for her.He is for Siona.If he survives.And if he failed, then Siona would try.Siona would succeed or she would not.Nayla wondered, though, if she might experience an orgasm should Idaho reach thetop.He was so close to it now.Idaho took several deep breaths after dislodging the rock.It was a bad momentand he took the time to recover, clinging to a three-point hold on the Wall.Almost of its own accord, his free hand groped upward once more, wriggling pastthe rotten place into another slender crack.Slowly, he shifted his weight ontothat hand.Slowly.slowly.His left knee felt the place where a toeholdcould be achieved.He lifted his foot to that place, tested it.Memory told himthe top was near, but he pushed the memory aside.There was only the climb andthe knowledge that Leto would arrive tomorrow.Leto and Hwi.He could not think about that, either.But it would not go away.The top.Hwi.Leto.tomorrow.Every thought fed his desperation, forced him into the immediate remembrance ofthe climbs of his childhood.The more he remembered consciously, the more hisabilities were blocked.He was forced to pause, breathing deeply in the attemptto center himself, to go back to the natural ways of his past.But were those ways natural?There was a blockage in his mind.He could sense intrusions, a finality.the fatality of what might have been and now would never be.Leto would arrive up there tomorrow.Idaho felt perspiration run down his face around the place where he pressed acheek against the rock.Leto.will defeat you, Leto.I will defeat you for myself, not for Hwi, but only formyself.A sensation of cleansing began to spread through him.It was like the thingwhich had happened in the night while he prepared himself mentally for thisclimb.Siona had sensed his sleeplessness.She had begun to talk to him, tellinghim the smallest details of her desperate run through the Forbidden Forest andher oath at the edge of the river."Now I have given an oath to command his Fish Speakers," she said."I will honorthat oath, but I hope it will not happen in the way he wants.""What does he want?" Idaho asked."He has many motives and I cannot see them all.Who could possibly understandhim? I only know that I will never forgive him."This memory brought Idaho back to the sensation of the Wall's rock against hischeek.His perspiration had dried in the light breeze and he felt chilled.Buthe had found his center.Never forgive. Idaho felt the ghosts of all his other selves, the gholas who had died in Leto'sservice.Could he believe Siona's suspicions? Yes.Leto was capable of killingwith his own body, his own hands.The rumor which Siona recounted had a feelingof truth in it.And Siona, too, was Atreides.Leto had become something else.no longer Atreides, not even human.He had become not so much a livingcreature as a brute fact of nature, opaque and impenetrable, all of hisexperiences sealed off within him.And Siona opposed him.The real Atreidesturned away from him.As I do.A brute fact of nature, nothing more.Just like this Wall.Idaho's right hand groped upward and found a sharp ledge.He could feel nothingabove the ledge and tried to remember a wide crack at this place in the pattern.He could not dare to allow himself into the belief that he had reached the top.notyet.The sharp edge cut into his fingers as he put his weight on it.He broughthis left hand up to that level, found a purchase and pulled himself slowlyupward.His eyes reached the level of his hands.He stared across a flat spacewhich reached outward.outward into blue sky.The surface where his handsclutched showed ancient weather cracks.He crawled his fingers across thatsurface, one hand at a time, seeking out the cracks, dragging his chest up.his waist.his hips.He rolled then, twisting and crawling until the Wallwas far behind him
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