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

"Just the basic fact," the old woman said, but her voice was gentle. "You may come in now, but
remain silent. Close that door and mind it that no one interrupts us."
Jessica stepped into the room, closed the door and stood with her back to it. My son lives,
she thought. My son lives and is . . . human. I knew he was . . . but . . . he lives. Now, I can
go on living. The door felt hard and real against her back. Everything in the room was immediate
and pressing against her senses.
My son lives.
Paul looked at his mother. She told the truth. He wanted to get away alone and think this
experience through, but knew he could not leave until he was dismissed. The old woman had gained a
power over him. They spoke truth. His mother had undergone this test. There must be terrible
purpose in it . . . the pain and fear had been terrible. He understood terrible purposes. They
drove against all odds. They were their own necessity. Paul felt that he had been infected with
terrible purpose. He did not know yet what the terrible purpose was.
"Some day, lad," the old woman said, "you, too, may have to stand outside a door like that. It
takes a measure of doing."
Paul looked down at the hand that had known pain, then up to the Reverend Mother. The sound of
her voice had contained a difference then from any other voice in his experience. The words were
outlined in brilliance. There was an edge to them. He felt that any question he might ask her
would bring an answer that could lift him out of his flesh-world into something greater.
"Why do you test for humans?" he asked.
"To set you free."
"Free?"
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."
" 'Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man's mind,' " Paul quoted.
"Right out of the Butlerian Jihad and the Orange Catholic Bible," she said. "But what the O.C.
Bible should've said is: 'Thou shalt not make a machine to counterfeit a human mind.' Have you
studied the Mentat in your service?"


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"I've studied with Thufir Hawat."
"The Great Revolt took away a crutch," she said. "It forced human minds to develop. Schools
were started to train human talents. "
"Bene Gesserit schools?"
She nodded. "We have two chief survivors of those ancient schools: the Bene Gesserit and the
Spacing Guild. The Guild, so we think, emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs
another function."
"Politics," he said.
"Kull wahad!" the old woman said. She sent a hard glance at Jessica.
"I've not told him. Your Reverence," Jessica said.
The Reverend Mother returned her attention to Paul. "You did that on remarkably few clues,"
she said. "Politics indeed. The original Bene Gesserit school was directed by those who saw the
need of a thread of continuity in human affairs. They saw there could be no such continuity
without separating human stock from animal stock -- for breeding purposes."
The old woman's words abruptly lost their special sharpness for Paul. He felt an offense
against what his mother called his instinct for rightness. It wasn't that Reverend Mother lied to
him. She obviously believed what she said. It was something deeper, something tied to his terrible