Dune 5 - Heretics of Dune

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Heretics of Dune

Frank Herbert

April 1984

When I was writing Dune

. . . there was no room in my mind for concerns about

the book's success or failure. I was concerned only with

the writing. Six years of research had preceded the day I

sat down to put the story together, and the interweaving

of the many plot layers I had planned required a degree of

concentration I had never before experienced.

It was to be a story exploring the myth of the Messiah.

It was to produce another view of a human-occupied

planet as an energy machine.

It was to penetrate the interlocked workings of politics and

economics.

It was to be an examination of absolute prediction and its

pitfalls.

It was to have an awareness drug in it and tell what could

happen through dependence on such a substance.

Potable water was to be an analog for oil and for water

itself, a substance whose supply diminishes each day.

It was to be an ecological novel, then, with many

overtones, as well as a story about people and their

human concerns with human values, and I had to monitor

each of these levels at every stage in the book.

There wasn't room in my head to think about much else.

Following the first publication, reports from the publishers

were slow and, as it turned out, inaccurate. The critics

had panned it. More than twelve publishers had turned it

down before publication. There was no advertising.

Something was happening out there, though.

For two years, I was swamped with bookstore and reader

complaints that they could not get the book. The Whole

Earth Catalog praised it. I kept getting these telephone

calls from people asking me if I were starting a cult.

The answer: "God no!"

What I'm describing is the slow realization of success. By

the time the first three Dune books were completed, there

was little doubt that this was a popular work -- one of the

most popular in history, I am told, with some ten million

copies sold worldwide. Now the most common question

people ask is: "What does this success mean to you?"

It surprises me. I didn't expect failure either. It was a

work and I did it. Parts of Dune Messiah and Children of

Dune were written before Dune was completed. They

fleshed out more in the writing, but the essential story

remained intact. I was a writer and I was writing. The

success meant I could spend more time writing.

Looking back on it, I realize I did the right thing

instinctively. You don't write for success. That takes part

of your attention away from the writing. If you're really

doing it, that's all you're doing: writing.

There's an unwritten compact between you and the reader.

If someone enters a bookstore and sets down hard earned

money (energy) for your book, you owe that person some

entertainment and as much more as you can give.

That was really my intention all along.

Frank Herbert

Most discipline is hidden discipline, designed not to liberate

but to limit. Do not ask Why? Be cautious with How?

Why? leads inexorably to paradox. How? traps you in a

universe of cause and effect. Both deny the infinite.

-The Apocrypha of Arrakis

"Taraza told you, did she not, that we have gone through

eleven of these Duncan Idaho gholas? This one is the

twelfth."

The old Reverend Mother Schwangyu spoke with deliberate

bitterness as she looked down from the third-story parapet

at the lone child playing on the enclosed lawn. The planet

Gammu's bright midday sunlight bounced off the white

courtyard walls filling the area beneath them with brilliance

as though a spotlight had been directed onto the young

ghola.

Gone through! the Reverend Mother Lucilla thought. She

allowed herself a short nod, thinking how coldly impersonal

were Schwangyu's manner and choice of words. We have

used up our supply; send us more!

The child on the lawn appeared to be about twelve

standard years of age, but appearance could be deceptive

with a ghola not yet awakened to his original memories.

The child took that moment to look up at the watchers

above him. He was a sturdy figure with a direct gaze that

focused intently from beneath a black cap of karakul hair.

The yellow sunlight of early spring cast a small shadow at

his feet. His skin was darkly tanned but a slight

movement of his body shifted his blue singlesuit, revealing

pale skin at the left shoulder.

"Not only are these gholas costly but they are supremely

dangerous to us," Schwangyu said. Her voice came out

flat and emotionless, all the more powerful because of

that. It was the voice of a Reverend Mother Instructor

speaking down to an acolyte and it emphasized for Lucilla

that Schwangyu was one of those who protested openly

against the ghola project.

Taraza had warned: "She will try to win you over."

"Eleven failures are enough," Schwangyu said.

Lucilla glanced at Schwangyu's wrinkled features, thinking

suddenly: Someday I may be old and wizened, too. And

perhaps I will be a power in the Bene Gesserit as well.

Schwangyu was a small woman with many age marks

earned in the Sisterhood's affairs. Lucilla knew from her

own

assignment-studies that Schwangyu's conventional black

robe concealed a skinny figure that few other than her

acolyte dressers and the males bred to her had ever seen.

Schwangyu's mouth was wide, the lower lip constricted by

the age lines that fanned into a jutting chin. Her manner

tended to a curt abruptness that the uninitiated often

interpreted as anger. The commander of the Gammu Keep

was one who kept herself to herself more than most

Reverend Mothers.

Once more, Lucilla wished she knew the entire scope of the

ghola project. Taraza had drawn the dividing line clearly

enough, though: "Schwangyu is not to be trusted where

the safety of the ghola is concerned."

"We think the Tleilaxu themselves killed most of the

previous eleven," Schwangyu said. "That in itself should

tell us something."

Matching Schwangyu's manner, Lucilla adopted a quiet

attitude of almost emotionless waiting. Her manner said:

"I may be much younger than you, Schwangyu, but I, too,

am a full Reverend Mother." She could feel Schwangyu's

gaze.

Schwangyu had seen the holos of this Lucilla but the

woman in the flesh was more disconcerting. An Imprinter

of the best training, no doubt of it. Blue-in-blue eyes

uncorrected by any lens gave Lucilla a piercing expression

that went with her long oval face. With the hood of her

black aba robe thrown back as it was now, brown hair was

revealed, drawn into a tight barette and then cascading

down her back. Not even the stiffest robe could

completely hide Lucilla's ample breasts. She was from a

genetic line famous for its motherly nature and she already

had borne three children for the Sisterhood, two by the

same sire. Yes -- a brown-haired charmer with full breasts

and a motherly disposition.

"You say very little," Schwangyu said. "This tells me that

Taraza has warned you against me."

"Do you have reason to believe assassins will try to kill this

twelfth ghola?" Lucilla asked.

"They already have tried."

Strange how the word "heresy" came to mind when

thinking of Schwangyu, Lucilla thought. Could there be

heresy among the Reverend Mothers? The religious

overtones of the word seemed out of place in a Bene

Gesserit context. How could there be heretical movements

among people who held a profoundly manipulative attitude

toward all things religious?

Lucilla shifted her attention down to the ghola, who took

this moment to perform a series of cartwheels that brought

him around full circle until he once more stood looking up

at the two observers on the parapet.

"How prettily he performs!" Schwangyu sneered. The old

voice did not completely mask an underlying violence.

Lucilla glanced at Schwangyu. Heresy. Dissidence was

not the proper word. Opposition did not cover what could

be sensed in the older woman. This was something that

could shatter the Bene Gesserit. Revolt against Taraza,

against the Reverend Mother Superior? Unthinkable!

Mother Superiors were cast in the mold of monarch. Once

Taraza had accepted counsel and advice and then made

her decision, the Sisters were committed to obedience.

"This is no time to be creating new problems!" Schwangyu

said.

Her meaning was clear. People from the Scattering were

coming back and the intent of some among those Lost

Ones threatened the Sisterhood. Honored Matres! How

like "Reverend Mothers" the words sounded.

Lucilla ventured an exploratory sally: "So you think we

should be concentrating on the problem of those Honored

Matres from the Scattering?"

"Concentrating? Hah! They do not have our powers.

They do not show good sense. And they do not have

mastery of melange! That is what they want from us, our

spice knowledge."

"Perhaps," Lucilla agreed. She was not willing to concede

this on the scanty evidence.

"Mother Superior Taraza has taken leave of her senses to

dally with this ghola thing now," Schwangyu said.

Lucilla remained silent. The ghola project definitely had

touched an old nerve among the Sisters. The possibility,

even remote, that they might arouse another Kwisatz

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摘要：

HereticsofDuneFrankHerbertApril1984WhenIwaswritingDune...therewasnoroominmymindforconcernsaboutthebook'ssuccessorfailure.Iwasconcernedonlywiththewriting.SixyearsofresearchhadprecededthedayIsatdowntoputthestorytogether,andtheinterweavingofthemanyplotlayersIhadplannedrequiredadegreeofconcentrationIhad...

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