"Frank Herbert - Dune 4 - God Emporer of Dune" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

"He . . . he loved his sister."
"Yes! He is capable of love. Oh, yes! We have him now."
===
Sometimes I indulge myself in safaris which no other being may take. I strike
inward along the axis of my memories. Like a schoolchild reporting on a vacation
trip, I take up my subject. Let it be . . . female intellectuals! I course
backward into the ocean which is my ancestors. I am a great winged fish in the
depths. The mouth of my awareness opens and I scoop them up! Sometimes...
sometimes I hunt out specific persons recorded in our histories. What a private
joy to relive the life of such a one while I mock the academic pretentions which
supposedly formed a biography.
-The Stolen Journals
MONEO DESCENDED to the crypt with sad resignation. There was no escaping the
duties required of him now. The God Emperor required a small passage of time to
grieve the loss of another Duncan . . . but then life went on . . . and on . . .
and on....
The lift slid silently downward with its superb Ixian dependability. Once, just
once, the God Emperor had cried out to his majordomo: "Moneo! Sometimes I think
you were made by the Ixians!"
Moneo felt the lift stop. The door opened and he looked out across the crypt at
the shadowy bulk on the Royal Cart. There was no indication that Leto had
noticed the arrival. Moneo sighed and began the long walk through the echoing
gloom. There was a body on the floor near the cart. No need for deja
vu. This was merely familiar.
Once, in Moneo's early days of service. Leto had said: "You don't like this
place, Moneo. I can see that."
"No, Lord."
With just a little prodding of memory, Moneo could hear his own voice in that
naive past. And the voice of the God Emperor responding:
"You don't think of a mausoleum as a comforting place, Moneo. I find it a source
of infinite strength."
Moneo remembered that he had been anxious to get off this topic. "Yes, Lord."
Leto had persisted: "There are only a few of my ancestors here. The water of
Muad'Dib is here. Ghani and Harq-al-Ada are here, of course, but they're not my
ancestors. No, if there's any true crypt of my ancestors, l am that crypt. This
is mostly the Duncans and the products of my breeding program. You'll be here
someday."
Moneo found that these memories had slowed his pace. He sighed and moved a bit
faster. Leto could be violently impatient on occasion but there was still no
sign from him. Moneo did not take this to mean that his approach went
unobserved.
Leto lay with his eyes closed and only his other senses to record Moneo's
progress across the crypt. Thoughts of Siona had been occupying Leto's
attention.
Siona is my ardent enemy, he thought. I do not need Nayla's words to confirm
this. Siona is a woman of action. She lives on the surface of enormous energies
which fill me with fantasies of delight. I cannot contemplate those living
energies without a feeling of ecstasy. They are my reason for being, the
justification for everything I have ever done . . . even for the corpse of this
foolish Duncan in front of me now.