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

It stopped!
As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped.
Paul felt his right arm trembling, felt sweat bathing his body.
"Enough," the old woman muttered. "Kull wahad! No woman child ever withstood that much. I
must've wanted you to fail." She leaned back, withdrawing the gom jabbar from the side of his
neck. "Take your hand from the box, young human, and look at it."
He fought down an aching shiver, stared at the lightless void where his hand seemed to remain
of its own volition. Memory of pain inhibited every movement. Reason told him he would withdraw a
blackened stump from that box.
"Do it!" she snapped.
He jerked his hand from the box, stared at it astonished. Not a mark. No sign of agony on the
flesh. He held up the hand, turned it, flexed the fingers.


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"Pain by nerve induction," she said. "Can't go around maiming potential humans. There're those
who'd give a pretty for the secret of this box, though." She slipped it into the folds of her
gown.
"But the pain --" he said.
"Pain," she sniffed. "A human can override any nerve in the body."
Paul felt his left hand aching, uncurled the clenched fingers, looked at four bloody marks
where fingernails had bitten his palm. He dropped the hand to his side, looked at the old woman.
"You did that to my mother once?"
"Ever sift sand through a screen?" she asked.
The tangential slash of her question shocked his mind into a higher awareness: Sand through a
screen, he nodded.
"We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans."
He lifted his right hand, willing the memory of the pain. "And that's all there is to it --
pain?"
"I observed you in pain, lad. Pain's merely the axis of the test. Your mother's told you about
our ways of observing. I see the signs of her teaching in you. Our test is crisis and
observation."
He heard the confirmation in her voice, said: "It's truth!"
She stared at him. He senses truth! Could he be the one? Could he truly be the one? She
extinguished the excitement, reminding herself: "Hope clouds observation."
"You know when people believe what they say," she said.
"I know it."
The harmonics of ability confirmed by repeated test were in his voice. She heard them, said:
"Perhaps you are the Kwisatz Haderach. Sit down, little brother, here at my feet."
"I prefer to stand."
"Your mother sat at my feet once."
"I'm not my mother."
"You hate us a little, eh?" She looked toward the door, called out: "Jessica!"
The door flew open and Jessica stood there staring hard-eyed into the room. Hardness melted
from her as she saw Paul. She managed a faint smile.
"Jessica, have you ever stopped hating me?" the old woman asked.
"I both love and hate you," Jessica said. "The hate -- that's from pains I must never forget.
The love -- that's . . . "