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

the windows. "What were you staring at out there?"
He turned back to the window. "The people."
Jessica crossed to his side, looked to the left toward the front of the house where Yueh's
attention was focused. A line of twenty palm trees grew there, the ground beneath them swept
clean, barren. A screen fence separated them from the road upon which robed people were passing.
Jessica detected a faint shimmering in the air between her and the people--a house shield--and
went on to study the passing throng, wondering why Yueh found them so absorbing.
The pattern emerged and she put a hand to her cheek. The way the passing people looked at the
palm trees! She saw envy, some hate . . . even a sense of hope. Each person raked those trees with
a fixity of expression.
"Do you know what they're thinking?" Yueh asked.
"You profess to read minds?" she asked.
"Those minds," he said. "They look at those trees and they think; 'There are one hundred of
us.' That's what they think."
She turned a puzzled frown on him. "Why?"
"Those are date palms," he said. "One date palm requires forty liters of water a day. A man
requires but eight liters. A palm, then, equals five men. There are twenty palms out there--one
hundred men."
"But some of those people look at the trees hopefully."
"They but hope some dates will fall, except it's the wrong season."
"We look at this place with too critical an eye," she said. "There's hope as well as danger
here. The spice could make us rich. With a fat treasury, we can make this world into whatever we
wish."
And she laughed silently at herself: Who am I trying to convince? The laugh broke through her
restraints, emerging brittle, without humor. "But you can't buy security," she said.
Yueh turned away to hide his face from her. If only it were possible to hate these people
instead of love them! In her manner, in many ways, Jessica was like his Wanna. Yet that thought
carried its own rigors, hardening him to his purpose. The ways of the Harkonnen cruelty were


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devious. Wanna might not be dead. He had to be certain.
"Do not worry for us, Wellington," Jessica said. "The problem's ours, not yours."
She thinks I worry for her! He blinked back tears. And I do, of course. But I must stand
before that black Baron with his deed accomplished, and take my one chance to strike him where he
is weakest--in his gloating moment!
He sighed.
"Would it disturb Paul if I looked in on him?" she asked.
"Not at all. I gave him a sedative."
"He's taking the change well?" she asked.
"Except for getting a bit overtired. He's excited, but what fifteen-year-old wouldn't be under
these circumstances?" He crossed to the door, opened it. "He's in here."
Jessica followed, peered into a shadowy room.
Paul lay on a narrow cot, one arm beneath a light cover, the other thrown back over his head.
Slatted blinds at a window beside the bed wove a loom of shadows across face and blanket.
Jessica stared at her son, seeing the oval shape of face so like her own. But the hair was the
Duke's--coal-colored and tousled. Long lashes concealed the lime-toned eyes. Jessica smiled,
feeling her fears retreat. She was suddenly caught by the idea of genetic traces in her son's