Lawliet Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 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 thatcould be pulled out to reveal a hiding place for the treasures ofhis boyhood—fishhooks, a roll of meta-twine, a rock shaped like a lizard, a colored picture of aspace frigate left behind by a visitor from the mysterious Spacing Guild. Paul removed the stoneand looked at the hidden end of it where he had carved with his cutterray: "Remember PaulAtreides, age 15, Anno 72 of Shaddam IV."Slowly, Paul replaced the stone above his treasures and knew he would never remove it again. Hereturned to his bed, slipped under the covers. His emotion was sad excitement, and this puzzledhim. 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 finalityof his goodbyes carried the sadness. The excitement came from the adventure and strangeness thatlay 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 neverknew 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. "Idon'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 hewas 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: Shedoesn'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: Humanor 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 humanrecognizes 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 eyeslocked. "And when you've brought your hate to a level you can manage, when you've absorbed itand understood it, here's another thing for you to consider: Think of what it was truly that yourmother has just done for you. Think of her waiting outside that door there, knowing full well whatwent 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, yourmother."SOUNDS FROM THE assembly yard below the south windows interrupted. The old woman fellsilent 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 infull uniform striding out for inspection. Around the perimeter of the field, Paul made out thedistorted air that spoke of shields activated there. The troops in the carrier wore the insignia ofHawat'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 tostand 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 machinesthat 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 leavestoo 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 thinkingisn'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 laughterjoining it. "Bless you," the old woman said. "You've a wonderful turn for language, lad, you fill itwith meaning.""TELL ME TRULY now, Paul, and remember I'm a Truthsayer and can see truth. Tell me: Do youoften 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 thecastle door was locked and the dogs were barking in their cages and Gurney was beside me andDuncan Idaho and Duncan stumbled against me and bruised my arm. It didn't hurt much, butDuncan 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 roomwith 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 ReverendMother know only so much of the search as we tell them. Now, I will tell you a bit more. AReverend Mother can sense what is within her own bodily cells—every cell. We can peer into thecellular core of selfdom, but there we find . . ." She took a trembling breath. "This thing of which Ispoke earlier. This emptiness which we cannot face. Fearful it is. The direction that is dark . . . theplace where we cannot enter. Long ago, one of us fathomed that a male force is needed to peer intothis 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 theother 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 theReverend 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 aboutthat.""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. "Byacceptance or rejection of sperm. Even when they didn't know the mechanism of it, they controlledit. 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 oldwoman. "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. "Specificallyagainst instructions, I might add, but that isn't the first Bene Gesseritrule she ever broke."Jessica looked away.The Reverend Mother plunged on without a glance at her. "You naturally love and respect yourfather. If there's action you can take to guard him, you'll want to take that action. But have you everthought 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 comeright 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. Yourcousin, the Padishah Emperor, who is Corrino bar Shaddam, will gather the last of the Atreidesholdings 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 Atreideswho'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'llexplain 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 voiceheld a difference from any other voice he had ever heard. The words were as though outlined inbrilliance. 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 himsilent."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 youngsterasked 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 ofknowledge. 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 dotoday. Different things. They even had machines that could, after a fashion, think. They hadautomatic machines to make useful objects. All of this was supposed to have set man free, but, ofcourse, permitted machines to enslave him. One man with the right kind of automatic machinecould 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 amachine to make all men good or even to make all men into men. There are many counterfeit menamong us, lad. They look human. They can talk like a human. But given the wrong pressure, theyexpose 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, ". . . understandhow 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 waswar. Revolution. Anarchy. And when it was over, men were forbidden to make such machinesagain.""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. Yousee, there was still the need for some of the things those so-called thinking machines had done. Sosomebody 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 iscalled eidetic memory. But more than that. They could answer complicated questions. Mathematicalquestions. Military questions. Social questions. Probability questions. They could swallow all sortsof 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'mexplaining where I came from. This was the way of it. Schools were started to train this special kindof human. One such school was called the Bene Gesserit School. In it was a human who saw theneed to separate the humans from the animals. As a stock. A breeding stock. But there was areservoir of chance human births among the animals because of ... mixing." She thought she saw hisattention 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 bullswill be brave.""Yes, of course," she said. "It's a general rule. Men are the doers, and human males seek out theBene 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 certainways we could act. Some of the things we did had to remain secret. You know what I'm telling youare secret things, don't you?"He nodded absently. The secrecy of her manner had been obvious. There were other thingstroubling 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 bethe moment of his graduation.""You're just putting me off," he said. He felt resentful. The adult world had no more hateful aspectthan this form of frustration."Yes, I am," she admitted. "But you'll have to take me on faith right now. It's not only impossiblefor me to answer your question right now, it could be hurtful for you. It's as though the knowledgehad to grow within you until the day you feel it flowering. It can't be forced. We think we know theclimate it needs, but. . ." She shook her head.The apparent uncertainty in the old woman's manner shook Paul. One moment she had been theGoddess-source of all knowledge. Now ... he could see her exposing an area of unknown. And thatarea concerned himself. He didn't formulate this feeling as words. He only felt it. It was like beinglost."Time to call in your mother," she said. "You've a busy day ahead of you." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErasOmnius Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 I have always liked this particular passage. A more friendly meeting between the Reverend Mother [Mohiam] and Paul. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SandChigger Posted January 15, 2011 Share Posted January 15, 2011 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErasOmnius Posted January 15, 2011 Share Posted January 15, 2011 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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