"Frank Herbert - Dune 1 - Dune (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

Paul looked up at the skylight, aware that it had begun to rain. He saw the spreading wetness
on the gray meta-glass. "Water," he said.
"You'll learn a great concern for water," Hawat said. "As the Duke's son you'll never want for
it, but you'll see the pressures of thirst all around you."
Paul wet his lips with his tongue, thinking back to the day a week ago and the ordeal with the
Reverend Mother. She, too, had said something about water starvation.
"You'll learn about the funeral plains," she'd said, "about the wilderness that is empty, the
wasteland where nothing lives except the spice and the sandworms. You'll stain your eyepits to
reduce the sun glare. Shelter will mean a hollow out of the wind and hidden from view. You'll ride
upon your own two feet without 'thopter or groundcar or mount."
And Paul had been caught more by her tone -- singsong and wavering -- than by her words.
"When you live upon Arrakis," she had said, "khala, the land is empty. The moons will be your
friends, the sun your enemy."
Paul had sensed his mother come up beside him away from her post guarding the door. She had
looked at the Reverend Mother and asked: "Do you see no hope. Your Reverence?"
"Not for the father." And the old woman had waved Jessica to silence, looked down at Paul.
"Grave this on your memory, lad: A world is supported by four things . . . " She held up four big-
knuckled fingers. ". . . the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the
righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these are as nothing . . . " She closed her
fingers into a fist. ". . . without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that the science of
your tradition!"
A week had passed since that day with the Reverend Mother. Her words were only now beginning
to come into full register. Now, sitting in the training room with Thufir Hawat, Paul felt a sharp
pang of fear. He looked across at the Mentat's puzzled frown.
"Where were you woolgathering that time?" Hawat asked.
"Did you meet the Reverend Mother?"
"That Truthsayer witch from the Imperium?" Hawat's eyes quickened with interest. "I met her."
"She . . . " Paul hesitated, found that he couldn't tell Hawat about the ordeal. The
inhibitions went deep.
"Yes? What did she?"
Paul took two deep breaths. "She said a thing." He closed his eyes, calling up the words, and
when he spoke his voice unconsciously took on some of the old woman's tone: " 'You, Paul Atreides,
descendant of kings, son of a Duke, you must learn to rule. It's something none of your ancestors
learned.' " Paul opened his eyes, said: "That made me angry and I said my father rules an entire
planet. And she said, 'He's losing it.' And I said my father was getting a richer planet. And she
said. 'He'll lose that one, too.' And I wanted to run and warn my father, but she said he'd
already been warned -- by you, by Mother, by many people."
"True enough," Hawat muttered.


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"Then why're we going?" Paul demanded.
"Because the Emperor ordered it. And because there's hope in spite of what that witch-spy
said. What else spouted from this ancient fountain of wisdom?"
Paul looked down at his right hand clenched into a fist beneath the table. Slowly, he willed
the muscles to relax. She put some kind of hold on me, he thought. How?
"She asked me to tell her what it is to rule," Paul said. "And I said that one commands. And
she said I had some unlearning to do."