"She knows... Yes, she knows."

Paul's voice was old then and filled with hidden protests. There was a reserve of defiance in him, though. He said: "I'll take the vision away from you if I can."

"Thousands of peaceful years," Leto said. "That's what I'll give them."

"Dormancy! Stagnation!"

"Of course. And those forms of violence which I permit. It'll be a lesson which humankind will never forget."

"I spit on your lesson!" Paul said. "You think I've not seen a thing similar to what you choose?"

"You saw it," Leto agreed.

"Is your vision any better than mine?"

"Not one whit better. Worse, perhaps," Leto said.

"Then what can I do but resist you?" Paul demanded.

"Kill me, perhaps?"

"I'm not that innocent. I know what you've set in motion. I know about the broken qanats and the unrest."

"And now Assan Tariq will never return to Shuloch. You must go back with me or not at all because this is my vision now."

"I choose not to go back."

How old his voice sounds, Leto thought, and the thought was a wrenching pain. He said: "I've the hawk ring of the Atreides concealed in my dishdasha. Do you wish me to return it to you?"

"If I'd only died," Paul whispered. "I truly wanted to die when I went into the desert that night, but I knew I could not leave this world. I had to come back and -"

"Restore the legend," Leto said. "I know. And the jackals of Jacurutu were waiting for you that night as you knew they would be. They wanted your visions! You knew that."

"I refused. I never gave them one vision."

"But they contaminated you. They fed you spice essence and plied you with women and dreams. And you did have visions."

"Sometimes." How sly his voice sounded.

"Will you take back your hawk ring?" Leto asked.

Paul sat down suddenly on the sand, a dark blotch in the starlight. "No!"

So he knows the futility of that path, Leto thought. This revealed much, but not enough. The contest of the visions had moved from its delicate plane of choices down to a gross discarding of alternates. Paul knew he could not win, but he hoped yet to nullify that single vision to which Leto clung.

Presently Paul said: "Yes, I was contaminated by the Jacurutu. But you contaminate yourself."

"That's true," Leto admitted. "I am your son."

"And are you a good Fremen?"

"Yes."

"Will you permit a blind man to go into the desert finally? Will you let me find peace on my own terms?" He pounded the sand beside him.

"No, I'll not permit that," Leto said. "But it's your right to fall upon your knife if you insist upon it."

"And you would have my body!"

"True."

"No!"

And so he knows that path, Leto thought. The enshrining of Muad'Dib's body by his son could be contrived as a form of cement for Leto's vision.

"You never told them, did you, father?" Leto asked.

"I never told them."

"But I told them," Leto said. "I told Muriz. Kralizec, the Typhoon Struggle."

Paul's shoulders sagged. "You cannot," he whispered. "You cannot."

"I am a creature of this desert now, father," Leto said. "Would you speak thus to a Coriolis storm?"

"You think me coward for refusing that path," Paul said, his voice husky and trembling. "Oh, I understand you well, son. Augury and haruspication have always been their own torments. But I was never lost in the possible futures because this one is unspeakable!"

"Your Jihad will be a summer picnic on Caladan by comparison," Leto agreed. "I'll take you to Gurney Halleck now."

"Gurney! He serves the Sisterhood through my mother."

And now Leto understood the extent of his father's vision. "No, father. Gurney no longer serves anyone. I know the place to find him and I can take you there. It's time for the new legend to be created."

"I see that I cannot sway you. Let me touch you, then, for you are my son."

Leto held out his right hand to meet the groping fingers, felt their strength, matched it, and resisted every shift of Paul's arm. "Not even a poisoned knife will harm me now," Leto said. "I'm already a different chemistry."

Tears slipped from the sightless eyes and Paul released his grip, dropped his hand to his side. "If I'd chosen your way, I'd have become the bicouros of shaitan. What will you become?"

"For a time they'll call me the missionary of shaitan, too," Leto said. "Then they'll begin to wonder and, finally, they'll understand. You didn't take your vision far enough, father. Your hands did good things and evil."

"But the evil was known after the event!"

"Which is the way of many great evils," Leto said. "You crossed over only into a part of my vision. Was your strength not enough?"

"You know I couldn't stay there. I could never do an evil act which was known before the act. I'm not Jacurutu." He clambered to his feet. "Do you think me one of those who laughs alone at night?"

"It is sad that you were never really Fremen," Leto said. "We Fremen know how to commission the arifa. Our judges can choose between evils. It's always been that way for us."

"Fremen, is it? Slaves of the fate you helped to make?" Paul stepped toward Leto, reached out in an oddly shy movement, touched Leto's sheathed arm, explored up it to where the membrane exposed an ear, then the cheek and, finally, the mouth. "Ahhhh, that is your own flesh yet," he said. "Where will that flesh take you?" He dropped his hand.

"Into a place where humans may create their futures from instant to instant."

"So you say. An Abomination might say the same."

"I'm not Abomination, though I might've been," Leto said. "I saw how it goes with Alia. A demon lives in her, father. Ghani and I know that demon: it's the Baron, your grandfather."

Paul buried his face in his hands. His shoulders shook for a moment, then he lowered his hands and his mouth was set in a harsh line. "There is a curse upon our House. I prayed that you would throw that ring into the sand, that you'd deny me and run away to make... another life. It was there for you."

"At what price?"

After a long silence, Paul said: "The end adjusts the path behind it. Just once I failed to fight for my principles. Just once. I accepted the Mahdinate. I did it for Chani, but it made me a bad leader."

Leto found he couldn't answer this. The memory of that decision was there within him.

"I cannot lie to you any more than I could lie to myself," Paul said. "I know this. Every man should have such an auditor. I will only ask this one thing: is the Typhoon Struggle necessary?"

"It's that or humans will be extinguished."

Paul heard the truth in Leto's words, spoke in a low voice which acknowledged the greater breadth of his son's vision. "I did not see that among the choices."

"I believe the Sisterhood suspects it," Leto said. "I cannot accept any other explanation of my grandmother's decision."

The night wind blew coldly around them then. It whipped Paul's robe around his legs. He trembled. Seeing this, Leto said: "You've a kit, father. I'll inflate the tent and we can spend this night in comfort."

But Paul could only shake his head, knowing he would have no comfort from this night or any other. Muad'Dib, The Hero, must be destroyed. He'd said it himself. Only The Preacher could go on now.