Deleted Scenes and Chapters from Dune

[Lawliet]

I recently found this in The road to Dune, i thought you might be interested.

PAUL & REVEREND MOTHER MOHIAM

(Several short scenes from the opening of Dune)

On the inner wall beneath the window was a loose stone that

could be pulled out to reveal a hiding place for the treasures of

his boyhood—fishhooks, a roll of meta-twine, a rock shaped like a lizard, a colored picture of a

space frigate left behind by a visitor from the mysterious Spacing Guild. Paul removed the stone

and looked at the hidden end of it where he had carved with his cutterray: "Remember Paul

Atreides, age 15, Anno 72 of Shaddam IV."

Slowly, Paul replaced the stone above his treasures and knew he would never remove it again. He

returned to his bed, slipped under the covers. His emotion was sad excitement, and this puzzled

him. He had been taught by his mother to study a puzzling emotion in the Bene Gesserit fashion.

Paul looked within himself and saw that the finality

of his goodbyes carried the sadness. The excitement came from the adventure and strangeness that

lay ahead.

PAUL SLIPPED OUT of bed in his shorts, began dressing. "Is she your mother?" he asked.

"That's a fool's question, Paul," Jessica said. She turned. "Reverend Mother is merely a title. I never

knew my mother. Few Bene Gesserits of the schools ever do; you know that."

Paul put on his jacket, buttoned it. "Shall I wear a shield?"

Jessica stared at him. "A shield? Here in your home? What ever put that idea into . . ."

"Why're you afraid?" he demanded.

A wry smile tugged one corner of her mouth. "I trained you too well. I..." She took a deep breath. "I

don't like this move to Arrakis. You know this decision was made over my every objection. But. . ."

She shrugged. "We haven't time to dally here." She took his hand the way she had done when he

was smaller, led him out into the hall toward her morning room.

Paul sensed the oddness of her taking his hand, felt the perspiration in her palm and thought: She

doesn't lie very well, either. Not for a Bene Gesserit she doesn't. It isn't Arrakis that has her afraid.

PAUL TURNED BACK to the Reverend Mother;

thinking of the exposed idea within this test: Human

or animal?

"If you live as long as I have lived you will still remember your fear and your pain and your hate,"

the old woman said. "Never deny it. That would be like denying part of yourself."

"Would you have killed me?" he asked.

"Suppose you answer that for yourself, young human."

He studied the wrinkled face, the level eyes. "You would have done it," he said.

"Believe it," she said. "Just as I would've killed your mother in her day. A human can kill what she

... he loves. Given necessity enough. And there's something always to remember, lad: A human

recognizes orders of necessity that animals cannot even imagine."

"I don't see this necessity," he said.

"You will," she said. "You're human, and you will." She looked across at Jessica and their eyes

locked. "And when you've brought your hate to a level you can manage, when you've absorbed it

and understood it, here's another thing for you to consider: Think of what it was truly that your

mother has just done for you. Think of her waiting outside that door there, knowing full well what

went on in here. Think of her with every instinct screaming at her to leap in here and protect you,

yet she stood and waited. Think on that, young human. Think on it. There's a human, indeed, your

mother."

SOUNDS FROM THE assembly yard below the south windows interrupted. The old woman fell

silent while Paul ran to the window and looked down.

An assemblage of troop carriers was drawing up in review ranks below and Paul saw his father in

full uniform striding out for inspection. Around the perimeter of the field, Paul made out the

distorted air that spoke of shields activated there. The troops in the carrier wore the insignia of

Hawat's special corps, the infiltrators.

"What is it?" the old woman asked.

Paul returned to her. "My father the Duke is sending some of his men to Arrakis. They're here to

stand review."

"Men to Arrakis," the old woman muttered. "When will we learn?"

She took a deep breath. "But I was talking about the Great Revolt when men threw out the machines

that enslaved them. You know about the Great Revolt, eh?"

" 'Thou shak not make a machine in the likeness of a man's mind,'" Paul answered.

"Right out of the Orange Catholic Bible," she said. "Want to know the trouble with that? It leaves

too much unspoken. It's a sop to the counterfeit men among us, the ones who look human but aren't.

They look and talk like humans, but given the wrong pressures they expose themselves as animals.

And the unfortunate thing is they think of themselves as human. Oh, yes! They think. But thinking

isn't enough to qualify you as human."

"You have to think within your thinking," Paul said. "There's no end to it."

She laughed aloud, a quick burst of sound full of warmth, and Paul heard his mother's laughter

joining it. "Bless you," the old woman said. "You've a wonderful turn for language, lad, you fill it

with meaning."

"TELL ME TRULY now, Paul, and remember I'm a Truthsayer and can see truth. Tell me: Do you

often dream a thing and have the dream happen exactly as you dreamed it?"

"Yes."

"Often?"

"Yes."

"Tell me about another time."

He looked up to the corner of the room. "I dreamed once that I stood in the rain outside and the

castle door was locked and the dogs were barking in their cages and Gurney was beside me and

Duncan Idaho and Duncan stumbled against me and bruised my arm. It didn't hurt much, but

Duncan was so very sorry. And that's how it happened when I was ten."

"When did you dream this?"

"Oh, a long time ago. Before I had a room by myself. It was when I was little and slept in a room

with a nurse beside me."

"Tell me another time." There was excitement in the old woman's voice.

SHE CLEARED HER throat. "Those of our numbers who have not attained the status of Reverend

Mother know only so much of the search as we tell them. Now, I will tell you a bit more. A

Reverend Mother can sense what is within her own bodily cells—every cell. We can peer into the

cellular core of selfdom, but there we find . . ." She took a trembling breath. "This thing of which I

spoke earlier. This emptiness which we cannot face. Fearful it is. The direction that is dark . . . the

place where we cannot enter. Long ago, one of us fathomed that a male force is needed to peer into

this place. Since then, each of us at attaining the Reverence has seen that this is true."

"What's so important about it?" Paul asked, and his voice was sullen.

"Let us imagine," she said, "that you have a troop carrier with only half its motor. If you find the

other half, you'll have the complete unit needed to move your carrier."

"You still have to put them together and make them work," Paul sneered. "May I go now?"

"Don't you want to hear what I can tell you about the Kwisatz Haderach?" Jessica smiled at the

Reverend Mother.

Paul said: "The men who've tried to ... enter this place, are they the ones you say died?"

"There's a final hurdle they seem unable to leap," the old woman said.

His voice was not a child's voice, but old and grim despite its treble pitch: "What hurdle?"

"We can only give you a hint."

"Hint then."

"And be damned to me?" She smiled wryly. "Very well: That which submits rules."

"That's a hint?"

She nodded. "But submitting, you rule."

"Ruling and submitting are opposites," he said.

"Is the place between them empty?" she asked.

"Ohhhh." He stared at her. "That's what my mother calls the tension-with-meaning. I'll think about

that."

"You do that."

"Why don't you like me?" Paul asked. "Is it because I'm not a girl?"

The Reverend Mother snapped a questioning look at Jessica.

"I've not told him," Jessica said.

"That's it, then," Paul said. "Can a woman help it if her child's a boy?"

"Women have always controlled what sex their offspring will be," the old woman said. "By

acceptance or rejection of sperm. Even when they didn't know the mechanism of it, they controlled

it. There's a kind of racial necessity in this, and men must submit to it."

He nodded. "By submitting, we rule."

"That's part of it."

Jessica spoke from behind him: "Yet, humans must never submit to animals."

He glanced at his mother, back to the old woman.

"CONCENTRATE ON YOUR training, lad, all of it," said the old

woman. "That's your one chance to become a ruler."

"What about my father?" Paul demanded. "Are we just. .."

"Your mother warned him," the old woman said. "Specifically

against instructions, I might add, but that isn't the first Bene Gesserit

rule she ever broke."

Jessica looked away.

The Reverend Mother plunged on without a glance at her. "You naturally love and respect your

father. If there's action you can take to guard him, you'll want to take that action. But have you ever

thought about your duty to the ones who came before your father?"

"Before . . ." The boy shook his head.

"You're the latest in the Atreides line," she said. "You carry the family seed. And when you come

right down to it, that's a tenuous thing. There are no other viable members of your line. A once-

numerous clan comes to this: If both you and your father die, the name Atreides ends there. Your

cousin, the Padishah Emperor, who is Corrino bar Shaddam, will gather the last of the Atreides

holdings back into the Regate, a possibility which has not escaped him. Fini Atreides."

"You must guard yourself for your father's sake," Jessica said. "For the sake of all the other Atreides

who've come to this ... to you."

"YOUR MOTHER WILL tell you of these things. They're not in any history books, not the way she'll

explain them. But what she tells you, depend on it, lad. Your mother is a container of wisdom."

Paul stared at the hand that had known pain, then at the Reverend Mother. The sound of her voice

held a difference from any other voice he had ever heard. The words were as though outlined in

brilliance. There was an edge to them that cut through him. He felt that any question he asked her,

she would have the answer. And the answer could lift him out of his flesh-world. But awe held him

silent.

"Come, come, ask the question," she said.

He blurted it out: "Where did you come from?"

She absorbed the words and smiled. "I've heard it phrased differently," she said. "One youngster

asked me: 'How old are you?' I thought that contained a measure of feminine adroitness."

She stared at him. He stared back.

"I came from one of the Bene Gesserit schools. There are many such schools to the power of many.

Do you know yet about mathematical powers?"

He nodded.

"Good. Routine knowledge is always useful for communication. We teach another order of

knowledge. We teach what you might call 'thingness.' Does that make any sense to you?"

He shook his head no.

"If you graduate, it'll mean something to you," she said.

Paul said, "But this isn't answering my question."

"Where did I come from? I am a Bene Gesserit. Thence, where did Bene Gesserit come from? Well,

lad, I have only time to give you the outline. We'll leave it to your mother to fill in the details. Eh?"

He nodded agreement.

"A long time ago," she said, "men had machines that did more things for them than machines do

today. Different things. They even had machines that could, after a fashion, think. They had

automatic machines to make useful objects. All of this was supposed to have set man free, but, of

course, permitted machines to enslave him. One man with the right kind of automatic machine

could make many destructive objects. Do you see that?"

He found his voice and ventured sound: "Yes."

She noted the change in him, the increased alertness. "Good, lad. What we didn't have was a

machine to make all men good or even to make all men into men. There are many counterfeit men

among us, lad. They look human. They can talk like a human. But given the wrong pressure, they

expose themselves as animals. The unfortunate thing is, they think of themselves as human. Oh,

yes, they think. But thinking isn't enough to make you human."

"You have to think about your thinking," he said. "You have to . . ." he hesitated, ". . . understand

how you think."

She had followed his words, mouthing them silently with him. Now, she wiped her eyes, said: "Ah,

that Jessica."

"What happened to all the machines?" Paul asked.

"It takes a male to ask that kind of question," she said. "Well, they destroyed them, lad. There was

war. Revolution. Anarchy. And when it was over, men were forbidden to make such machines

again."

"You aren't telling me where you came from," he said.

She laughed out loud, a quick burst of sound full of warmth. "Bless you, my darling, but I am. You

see, there was still the need for some of the things those so-called thinking machines had done. So

somebody remembered that certain humans could think in those ways."

"What ways?"

"They could take in all kinds of information and never be at a loss to repeat it. They had what is

called eidetic memory. But more than that. They could answer complicated questions. Mathematical

questions. Military questions. Social questions. Probability questions. They could swallow all sorts

of information and spew out answers when the answers were needed."

"They were human," he said.

"Well, yes they were, most of them."

"What do you mean most of them?"

"It isn't important, lad. Your mother can explain about idiot savants and such if you ask her. But I'm

explaining where I came from. This was the way of it. Schools were started to train this special kind

of human. One such school was called the Bene Gesserit School. In it was a human who saw the

need to separate the humans from the animals. As a stock. A breeding stock. But there was a

reservoir of chance human births among the animals because of ... mixing." She thought she saw his

attention waning, and snapped: "Do you understand all this?"

"I know how we pick the best bulls," he said. "It's through the cows. If the cows are brave the bulls

will be brave."

"Yes, of course," she said. "It's a general rule. Men are the doers, and human males seek out the

Bene Gesserit. Well, lad, the Bene Gesserit School was successful. We produced mostly women . ..

breeders. Brave ones. Beautiful ones. But in the new Empire there were only certain

ways we could act. Some of the things we did had to remain secret. You know what I'm telling you

are secret things, don't you?"

He nodded absently. The secrecy of her manner had been obvious. There were other things

troubling him. He voiced one of them: "But I'm a boy."

Maybe he is the one, the old woman thought. So mature for his years. So very perceptive.

She said: "Men have their uses. And we've always been searching for a special kind of man."

"What kind?"

"Our time is too short," she said. "Your mother will have to explain it. I can say this to you briefly:

The man we need will know himself that he is the man. When he learns this of himself, that will be

the moment of his graduation."

"You're just putting me off," he said. He felt resentful. The adult world had no more hateful aspect

than this form of frustration.

"Yes, I am," she admitted. "But you'll have to take me on faith right now. It's not only impossible

for me to answer your question right now, it could be hurtful for you. It's as though the knowledge

had to grow within you until the day you feel it flowering. It can't be forced. We think we know the

climate it needs, but. . ." She shook her head.

The apparent uncertainty in the old woman's manner shook Paul. One moment she had been the

Goddess-source of all knowledge. Now ... he could see her exposing an area of unknown. And that

area concerned himself. He didn't formulate this feeling as words. He only felt it. It was like being

lost.

"Time to call in your mother," she said. "You've a busy day ahead of you."

[ErasOmnius]

I have always liked this particular passage. A more friendly meeting between the Reverend Mother [Mohiam] and Paul.

[SandChigger]

Um... that IS copyrighted material, I believe...

Some of the stuff in TRtD is interesting, but unfortunately without independent corroboration, there's no evidence it hasn't been "tampered" with.

I have always liked this particular passage. A more friendly meeting between the Reverend Mother [Mohiam] and Paul.

Why the hell should their meeting be "more friendly"? Paul was a living reminder of Jessica's willful disobedience of direct orders from the Sisterhood and her delay of the culmination of their KH breeding program. Mohiam had every reason to want Paul dead and no reason to be nice or "friendly" to him.

That's why she tried so hard to make him fail with the box.

[ErasOmnius]

Um... that IS copyrighted material, I believe...

Some of the stuff in TRtD is interesting, but unfortunately without independent corroboration, there's no evidence it hasn't been "tampered" with.

Why the hell should their meeting be "more friendly"? Paul was a living reminder of Jessica's willful disobedience of direct orders from the Sisterhood and her delay of the culmination of their KH breeding program. Mohiam had every reason to want Paul dead and no reason to be nice or "friendly" to him.

That's why she tried so hard to make him fail with the box.

I think that the excerpts from 'Road' are real, but you never know.

Personally, I think that this script shows more of an accurate depiction of how Mohiam would treat someone whom the Bene Gesserit would suspect of being the Kwisatz. More guidance, less hostility.