"Brian Herbert - Dune - Nightime Shadows On Open Sand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

In the center of the village, they encountered a festival of horrors.
The noise was appalling, as was the smell. Bodies lay sprawled on the ground like squashed
insects, arms and legs stiffened at odd angles, while tortured survivors wandered about as if
insane, shrieking and snarling like animals. They had ripped hair out of their heads in bloody
clumps. Some used long fingernails to claw the eyes out of their faces, then held the scooped
eyeballs in their palms; blind, they staggered against the tan walls of dwellings, leaving wet
crimson smears.

Even the dead ones did not look at peace.

"By Shai-Hulud!" Liet whispered under his breath, while his father let out a louder curse in
common Imperial Galach.

One man with torn eye sockets like bloody extra mouths above his cheekbones collided with a
crawling woman; both victims flew into a rage and ripped at each other's skin with bare hands,
biting and spitting and screaming. There were muddy spots on the street, overturned containers of
water.

Some buildings were locked and shuttered, barricaded against the crazed wretches outside who
pounded on the walls, wailing wordlessly to get in. On an upper floor Liet saw a woman's terrified
face at the dust-streaked windowplaz. Others hid, somehow unaffected by the murderous insanity.

"We must help these people, Father." Liet leaped out of the sealed groundcar before his father had
brought it to a complete stop. "Bring your weapons. We may need to defend ourselves."

They carried old maula pistols as well as knives. His father, though a scientist at heart, was
also a good fighterтАФa skill he reserved for defending his vision for Arrakis. The legend was told
of how he had slain several Harkonnen bravos who'd been attempting to kill three young Fremen.
Those rescued Fremen were now his most loyal lieutenants, Stilgar, Turok, and Ommun. But Pardot
Kynes had never fought against anything like this.тАж

The maddened villagers noticed them and moaned. They began to move forward.

"Don't kill them unless you must," Kynes said, amazed at how quickly his son had armed himself
with a crysknife and maula pistol. "Watch yourself."

Liet ventured into the street. What struck him first was the terrible stink, as if the foul breath
of a dying leper had been captured in a bottle and slowly released.

Staring in disbelief, Pardot stepped farther from the groundcar. He saw no lasgun burn marks in
the village, no chip scars from projectile weapons, nothing that would have indicated an overt
Harkonnen attack. Was it a disease? If so, it might be contagious. If a plague or some kind of
communicable insanity was at work here, he could not let the Fremen take these bodies for the
deathstills.

Liet moved forward. "Fremen would attribute this to demons."

Two of the bloody-faced victims let out demonic shrieks and rushed toward them, their fingers