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

"Scytale," Irulan said presently, "it is said that you Tleilaxu have an odd system of honor:
your victims must always have a means of escape."
"If they can but find it," Scytale agreed.
"Am I a victim?" Irulan asked.
A burst of laughter escaped Scytale.
The Reverend Mother snorted.
"Princess," Edric said, his voice softly persuasive, "you already are one of us, have no fear
of that. Do you not spy upon the Imperial Household for your Bene Gesserit superiors?"
"Paul knows I report to my teachers," she said.
"But don't you give them the material for strong propaganda against your Emperor?" Edric
asked.
Not "our" Emperor, Scytale noted. "Your" Emperor. Irulan is too much the Bene Gesserit to miss
that slip.
"The question is one of powers and how they may be used," Scytale said, moving closer to the
Guildsman's tank. "We of the Tleilaxu believe that in all the universe there is only the
insatiable appetite of matter, that energy is the only true solid. And energy learns. Hear me
well, Princess: energy learns. This, we call power."
"You haven't convinced me we can defeat the Emperor," Irulan said.
"We haven't even convinced ourselves," Scytale said.
"Everywhere we turn," Irulan said, "his power confronts us. He's the kwisatz haderach, the one
who can be many places at once. He's the Mahdi whose merest whim is absolute command to his
Qizarate missionaries. He's the mentat whose computational mind surpasses the greatest ancient
computers. He is Muad'dib whose orders to the Fremen legions depopulate planets. He possesses
oracular vision which sees into the future. He has that gene pattern which we Bene Gesserits covet
for --"
"We know his attributes," the Reverend Mother interrupted. "And we know the abomination, his
sister Alia, possesses this gene pattern. But they're also humans, both of them. Thus, they have
weaknesses."
"And where are those human weaknesses?" the Face Dancer asked. "Shall we search for them in
the religious arm of his Jihad? Can the Emperor's Qizara be turned against him? What about the
civil authority of the Great Houses? Can the Landsraad Congress do more than raise a verbal
clamor?"
"I suggest the Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles," Edric said, turning in his tank.
"CHOAM is business and business follows profits."
"Or perhaps the Emperor's mother," Scytale said. "The Lady Jessica, I understand, remains on
Caladan, but is in frequent communication with her son."
"That traitorous bitch," Mohiam said, voice level. "Would I might disown my own hands which
trained her."
"Our conspiracy requires a lever," Scytale said.
"We are more than conspirators," the Reverend Mother countered.
"Ah, yes," Scytale agreed. "We are energetic and we learn quickly. This makes us the one true
hope, the certain salvation of humankind." He spoke in the speech mode for absolute conviction,
which was perhaps the ultimate sneer coming, as it did, from a Tleilaxu.
Only the Reverend Mother appeared to understand the subtlety. "Why?" she asked, directing the


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question at Scytale.