"A flower?" Nayla asked.

"This was between two pages of paper. On the paper was written this."

Siona leaned over the table and read: "A strand of Ghanima's hair with a starflower blossom which she once brought me."

Looking up at Nayla, Siona said: "Our God Emperor is revealed as a sentimentalist. That is a weakness I had not expected."

"Ghanima?" Nayla asked.

"His sister! Remember your Oral History."

"Oh... oh, yes. The Prayer to Ghanima."

"Now, listen to this." Siona took up another sheet of paper and read from it.

"The sand beach as gray as a dead cheek, A green tideflow reflects cloud ripples; II stand on the dark wet edge. Cold foam cleanses my toes. I smell driftwood smoke. "

Again, Siona looked up at Nayla. "This is identified as `Words I wrote when told of Ghani's death.' What do you think of that?"

"He... he loved his sister."

"Yes! He is capable of love. Oh, yes! We have him now." -= Sometimes I indulge myself in safaris which no other being may take. I strike inward along the axis of my memories. Like a schoolchild reporting on a vacation trip, I take up my subject. Let it be... female intellectuals! I course backward into the ocean which is my ancestors. I am a great winged fish in the depths. The mouth of my awareness opens and I scoop them up! Sometimes... sometimes I hunt out specific persons recorded in our histories. What a private joy to relive the life of such a one while I mock the academic pretentions which supposedly formed a biography.

- The Stolen Journals MONEO DESCENDED to the crypt with sad resignation. There was no escaping the duties required of him now. The God Emperor required a small passage of time to grieve the loss of another Duncan... but then life went on... and on... and on...

The lift slid silently downward with its superb Ixian dependability. Once, just once, the God Emperor had cried out to his majordomo: "Moneo! Sometimes I think you were made by the Ixians!"