True to that prediction, the worm's course shifted slightly and aimed directly at Leto. Giant worms were a weapon which Fremen had employed many times. Worms had helped beat Shaddam at Arrakeen. This worm, however, failed to do its rider's bidding. It came to a halt ten meters away and no manner of goading would send it across another grain of sand.

Leto arose, feeling the cilia snap back into the membrane behind him. He freed his mouth and called out: "Achlan, wasachlan!" Welcome, twice welcome!

The blind man stood behind his guide atop the worm, one hand on the youth's shoulder. The man held his face high, nose pointed over Leto's head as though trying to sniff out this interruption. Sunset painted orange on his forehead.

"Who is that?" the blind man asked, shaking his guide's shoulder. "Why have we stopped?" His voice was nasal through the stillsuit plugs.

The youth stared fearfully down at Leto, said: "It is only someone alone in the desert. A child by his looks. I tried to send the worm over him, but the worm won't go."

"Why didn't you say?" the blind man demanded.

"I thought it was only someone alone in the desert!" the youth protested. "But it's a demon."

"Spoken like a true son of Jacurutu," Leto said. "And you, sire, you are The Preacher."

"I am that one, yes." And there was fear in The Preacher's voice because, at last, he had met his own past.

"This is no garden," Leto said, "but you are welcome to share this place with me tonight."

"Who are you?" The Preacher demanded. "How have you stopped our worm?" There was an ominous tone of recognition in The Preacher's voice. Now he called up the memories of this alternate vision... knowing he could reach an end here.

"It's a demon!" the young guide protested. "We must flee this place or our souls -"

"Silence!" The Preacher roared.

"I am Leto Atreides," Leto said. "Your worm stopped because I commanded it."

The Preacher stood in frozen silence.

"Come, father," Leto said. "Alight and spend the night with me. I'll give you sweet syrup to sip. I see you've Fremkits with food and water jars. We'll share our riches here upon the sand."

"Leto's yet a child," The Preacher protested. "And they say he's dead of Corrino treachery. There's no childhood in your voice."

"You know me, sire," Leto said. "I'm small for my age as you were, but my experience is ancient and my voice has learned."

"What do you here in the Inner Desert?" The Preacher asked.

"Bu ji," Leto said. Nothing from nothing. It was the answer of a Zensunni wanderer, one who acted only from a position of rest, without effort and in harmony with his surroundings.

The Preacher shook his guide's shoulder. "Is it a child, truly a child?"

"Aiya," the youth said, keeping a fearful attention on Leto.

A great shuddering sigh shook The Preacher. "No," he said.

"It is a demon in child form," the guide said.

"You will spend the night here," Leto said.

"We will do as he says," The Preacher said. He released his grip on the guide, slipped off the worm's side and slid down a ring to the sand, leaping clear when his feet touched. Turning, he said: "Take the worm off and send it back into the sand. It is tired and will not bother us."

"The worm will not go!" the youth protested.

"It will go," Leto said. "But if you try to flee on it, I'll let it eat you." He moved to one side out of the worm's sensory range, pointed in the direction they had come. "Go that way."

The youth tapped a goad against the ring behind him, wiggled a hook where it held a ring open. Slowly the worm began to slide over the sand, turning as the youth shifted his hook down a side.

The Preacher, following the sound of Leto's voice, clambered up the duneslope and stood two paces away. It was done with a swift sureness which told Leto this would be no easy contest.

Here the visions parted.

Leto said: "Remove your suit mask, father."

The Preacher obeyed, dropping the fold of his hood and withdrawing the mouth cover.

Knowing his own appearance, Leto studied this face, seeing the lines of likeness as though they'd been outlined in light. The lines formed an indefinable reconciliation, a pathway of genes without sharp boundaries, and there was no mistaking them. Those lines came down to Leto from the humming days, from the water-dripping days, from the miracle seas of Caladan. But now they stood at a dividing point on Arrakis as night waited to fold itself into the dunes.

"So father," Leto said glancing to the left where he could see the youthful guide trudging back to them from where the worm had been abandoned.

"Mu zein! "'The Preacher said, waving his right hand in a cutting gesture. This is no good!

"Koolish zein," Leto said, voice soft. This is all the good we may ever have. And he added, speaking in Chakobsa, the Atreides battle language: "Here I am; here I remain! We cannot forget that, father."

The Preacher's shoulders sagged. He put both hands to his empty sockets in a long-unused gesture.

"I gave you the sight of my eyes once and took your memories," Leto said. "I know your decisions and I've been to that place where you hid yourself."

"I know." The Preacher lowered his hands. "You will remain?"

"You named me for the man who put that on his coat of arms," Leto said. "J'y suis, j'y reste!"

The Preacher sighed deeply. "How far has it gone, this thing you've done to yourself?"

"My skin is not my own, father."

The Preacher shuddered. "Then I know how you found me here."

"Yes, I fastened my memory to a place my flesh had never known," Leto said. "I need an evening with my father."

"I'm not your father. I'm only a poor copy, a relic." He turned his head toward the sound of the approaching guide. "I no longer go to the visions for my future."

As he spoke, darkness covered the desert. Stars leaped out above them and Leto, too, turned toward the approaching guide. "Wubakh ul kuhar!" Leto called to the youth. "Greetings!"

Back came the response: "Subakh un nar!"

Speaking in a hoarse whisper, The Preacher said: "That young Assan Tariq is a dangerous one."

"All of the Cast Out are dangerous," Leto said. "But not to me." He spoke in a low, conversational tone.

"If that's your vision, I will not share it," The Preacher said.

"Perhaps you have no choice," Leto said. "You are the fit-haquiqa. The Reality. You are Abu Dhur, Father of the Indefinite Roads of Time."

"I'm no more than bait in a trap," The Preacher said, and his voice was bitter.

"And Alia already has eaten that bait," Leto said. "But I don't like its taste."

"You cannot do this!" The Preacher hissed.

"I've already done it. My skin is not my own."

"Perhaps it's not too late for you to -"

"It is too late." Leto bent his head to one side. He could hear Assan Tariq trudging up the duneslope toward them, coming to the sound of their voices. "Greetings, Assan Tariq of Shuloch," Leto said.

The youth stopped just below Leto on the slope, a dark shadow there in the starlight. There was indecision in the set of his shoulders, the way he tipped his head.

"Yes," Leto said, "I'm the one who escaped from Shuloch."

"When I heard..." The Preacher began. And again: "You cannot do this!"

"I am doing it. What matter if you're made blind once more?"

"You think I fear that?" The Preacher asked. "Do you not see the fine guide they have provided for me?"

"I see him." Again Leto faced Tariq. "Didn't you hear me, Assan? I'm the one who escaped from Shuloch."

"You're a demon," the youth quavered.

"Your demon," Leto said. "But you are my demon." And Leto felt the tension grow between himself and his father. It was a shadow play all around them, a projection of unconscious forms. And Leto felt the memories of his father, a form of backward prophecy which sorted visions from the familiar reality of this moment.