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.She had beentested by God, the two of them alone in the Sareer.Nayla turned only her eyes to the right, peering at the architects of thisgreeting.Siona and Idaho stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the roadway about twentymeters to Nayla's right.They were deep in conversation, looking at each otheroccasionally, nodding.Presently, Idaho touched Siona's arm-an oddly possessivegesture.He nodded once and strode off toward the bridge,stopping at the buttress corner directly in front of Nayla.Hepeered down, then crossed to the other near corner of the bridge.Again, he peered downward, standing there for several minutesbefore returning to Siona.What a strange creature, that ghola, Nayla thought.After that awesome climb,she no longer thought of him as quite human.He was something else, a demiurgewho stood next to God.But he could breed.A distant shout caught Nayla's attention.She turned and looked across thebridge.The cortege had been in the familiar trot of a royal peregrination.Now, they were slowing to a sedate walk only a few minutes away from the bridge.Nayla recognized Moneo marching in the van, his uniform brilliant white, theeven, undeviating stride with his gaze straight ahead.The cover of theEmperor's cart had been sealed.It glittered in mirror-opacity as it rolledbehind Moneo on its wheels.The mystery of it all filled Nayla.A miracle was about to happen!Nayla glanced to the right at Siona.Siona returned her gaze and nodded once.Nayla drew the lasgun from its holster and rested it against the rock pillar asshe sighted along it.The cable on the left first, then the cable on the right,then the faery trellis of plasteel on the left.The lasgun felt cold and alienagainst Nayla's hand.She took a trembling breath to restore calm.must obey.It is a test.She saw Moneo lift his gaze from the roadway and, not changing stride, turn toshout something at the cart or the ones behind it.Nayla could not make out thewords.Moneo faced front once more.Nayla steadied herself, a part of the rockpillar which concealed most of her body.A test.Moneo had seen the people on the bridge and at the far end.He identified FishSpeaker uniforms and his first thought was to wonder who had ordered thesegreeters.He turned and shouted a question at Leto, but the God Emperor's cartcover remained opaque, hiding Hwi and Leto within it.Moneo was onto the bridge, the cart rasping in blown sand behind him, before herecognized Siona and Idaho standing well back from the far end.He identifiedfour Museum Fremen seated on the roadway.Doubts began squirming through Moneo'smind, but he could not change the pattern.He ventured a glance down at theriver-a platinum world there caught in the noonday light.The sound of the cartwas loud behind him.The flow of the river, the flow of the cortege, thesweeping importance of these things in which he played a role-all of it caughtup his mind in a dizzying sensation of the inevitable.We are not people passing this way, he thought.We are primal elements linkingone piece of Time to another.And when we have passed, everything behind us willdrop off into no-sound, a place like the no-room of the lxians, yet never againthe same as it was before we came.A bit from one of the lute-player's songs wafted through Moneo's memory and hiseyes went out of focus in the remembrance.He knew that song for itswishfulness, a wish that all of this were ended, all past, all doubts banished,tranquility returned.The plaintive song drifted through his awareness likesmoke, twisting and compelling:"Insect cries in roots of pampas grass." "Moneo hummed the song to himself:"Insect cries mark the end.Autumn and my song are the color Of the last leavesIn roots of pampas grass."Moneo nodded his head to the refrain: "Day is ended, Visitors gone.Day is ended.In our Sietch, Day is ended.Stormwind sounds.Day is ended.Visitors gone."Moneo decided that the lute-player's song had to be a really old one, an OldFremen song, no doubt of it.And it told him something about himself.He wishedthe visitors truly gone, the excitements ended, peace once more.Peace was sonear.yet he could not leave his duties.He thought of all that impedimentapiled out there on the sand just beyond visibility range from Tuono.They wouldsee it all soon-tents, food, tables, golden plates and jeweled knives,glowglobes fashioned in the arabesque shapes of ancient lamps.everythingrich and full of expectations from completely different lives.They will never be the same in Tuono.Moneo had spent two nights in Tuono once on an inspection tour.He rememberedthe smells of their cooking fires-aromatic bushes kindled and flaming in thedark.They would not use sunstoves because "that is not the most ancient way."Most ancient!There was little smell of melange in Tuono.A sweet acridity and the musky oilsof oasis shrubs, these dominated the odors.Yes.and the cesspools and thestink of rotting garbage.He recalled the God Emperor's comment when Moneo hadfinished reporting on that tour."These Fremen do not know what is lost from their lives.They think they keepthe essence of the old ways.This is a failure of all museums.Something fades;it dries out of the exhibits and is gone.The people who administer the museumand the people who come to bend over the cases and stare few of them sense thismissing thing.It drove the engine of life in earlier times.When the life isgone, it is gone."Moneo focused on the three Fish Speakers who stood just ahead of him on thebridge.They lifted their arms high and began to dance, whirling and skippingaway from him only a few paces distant.How odd, he thought.I've seen the other people dance in the open, but neverFish Speakers.They only dance in theprivacy of their quarters, in the intimacy of their own company.This thought was still in his mind when he heard the first awful humming of thelasgun and felt the bridge lurch beneath him.This is not happening, his mind told him.He heard the Royal Cart scrape sideways across the roadbed, then the snap-slapof the cart's cover slamming open.A bedlam of screams and cries arose frombehind him, but he could not turn.The bridge's roadbed had tipped steeply toMoneo's right, spilling him onto his face while he went sliding toward theabyss.He clutched a severed strand of cable to stop himself.The cable wentwith him, everything grating in the spilling film of sand which had covered theroadbed.He clutched the cable with both hands, turning with it.He saw theRoyal Cart then.It skewed sideways toward the edge of the bridge, its coveropen.Hwi stood there, one hand steadying her on the folding seat while shestared past Moneo.A horrible screaming of metal filled the air as the roadbed tipped even farther.He saw people from the cortege falling, their mouths open, arms waving.Something had caught Moneo's cable.His arms were stretched out over his head ashe turned once more, twisting.He felt his hands, greased by the perspiration offear, slipping along the cable.Once more, his gaze came around to the Royal Cart.It lay jammed against thestubs of broken girders.Even as Moneo looked, the God Emperor's futile handsgroped for Hwi Noree, but failed to reach her.She fell from the cart's openend, silently, the golden gown whipping upward to reveal her body stretched outas straight as an arrow. A deep, rumbling groan came from the God Emperor.Why doesn't he activate the suspensors? Moneo wondered.The suspensors willsupport him.But the lasgun was still humming and, as Moneo's hands slipped from the cable'ssevered end, he saw lancing flame strike the cart's suspensor bubbles, piercingone after another in eruptions of golden smoke.Moneo stretched his hands overhis head as he fell
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