Dune: House Harkonnen Read online

Discourses on Leadership in a

  Galactic Imperium, Twelfth Edition

  The ferret-faced man stood like a spying crow on the second level of the Residency at Arrakeen. He gazed down into the spacious atrium. “You are certain they know about our little soiree, hmmm-ah?” His lips were cracked from the dry air; they had been that way for years. “All the invitations personally delivered? All the populace notified?”

  Count Hasimir Fenring leaned toward the slender, loose-chinned chief of his guard force, Geraldo Willowbrook, who stood beside him. The scarlet-and-gold-uniformed man nodded, squinted in the bright light that streamed through prismatic, shield-reinforced windows. “It will be a grand celebration for your anniversary here, sir. Already beggars are massing at the front gate.”

  “Hmm-m-ah, good, very good. My wife will be pleased.”

  On the main floor below, a chef carried a silver coffee service toward the kitchen. Cooking odors drifted upward, exotic soups and sauces prepared for the evening’s extravagant festivities, broiled brochettes of meat from animals that had never lived on Arrakis.

  Fenring gripped a carved ironwood banister. An arched Gothic ceiling rose two stories overhead, with elacca wood crossbeams and plaz skylights. Though muscular, he was not a large man, and found himself dwarfed by the immensity of this house. He’d commissioned the ceiling himself, and another in the Dining Hall. The new east wing was his concept as well, with its elegant guest rooms and opulent private pools.

  In his decade as Imperial Observer on the desert planet, he had generated a constant buzz of construction around him. Following his exile from Shaddam’s court on Kaitain, he’d had to make his mark somehow.

  From the botanical conservatory under construction near the private chambers he shared with Lady Margot, he heard the hum of power tools along with the chants of day-labor crews. They cut keyhole-arched doorways, set dry fountains into alcoves, adorned walls with colorful geometric mosaics. For luck, one of the hinges supporting a heavy ornamental door had been symbolically shaped as the hand of Fatimah, beloved daughter of an ancient prophet of Old Terra.

  Fenring was about to dismiss Willowbrook when a resounding crash made the upper floor shudder. The two men ran down the curving hallway, past bookcases. From rooms and lift tubes, curious household servants poked their heads into the corridor.

  The oval conservatory door stood open, revealing a mass of tangled metal and plaz. One of the workers shouted for medics over the din of screaming. A fully laden suspensor scaffold had collapsed; Fenring vowed to personally administer the appropriate punishment, once an investigation had pointed fingers at the likely scapegoats.

  Shouldering his way into the room, Fenring looked up. Through the open metal framing of the arched roof, he saw a lemon-yellow sky. Only a few of the filter-glass windows had been installed; others now lay shattered in the tangle of scaffolding. He spoke in a tone of disgust. “Unfortunate timing, hmmmm? I was going to take our guests on a tour tonight.”

  “Yes, most unfortunate, Count Fenring, sir.” Willowbrook watched while household workers began digging in the rubble to reach the injured.

  House medics in khaki uniforms hurried past him into the ruined area. One tended a bloody-faced man who had just been pulled from the debris, while two men helped remove a heavy sheet of plaz from additional victims. The job superintendent had been crushed by the fallen scaffold. Stupid fellow, Fenring thought. But lucky, considering what I’d have done to him for this mess.

  Fenring glanced at his wristchron. Two more hours until the guests arrived. He motioned to Willowbrook. “Wrap it up here. I don’t want any noise coming from this area during the party. That would provide entirely the wrong message, hmmm? Lady Margot and I have laid out the evening’s festivities most carefully, down to the last detail.”

  Willowbrook scowled, but obviously thought better of showing defiance. “It will be done, sir. In less than an hour.”

  Fenring simmered. In reality he cared nothing for exotic plants, and initially had agreed to this expensive remodeling only as a concession to his Bene Gesserit wife, the Lady Margot. Although she’d requested only a modest airlocked room with plants inside, Fenring— ever ambitious— had expanded it to something far more impressive. He conceived plans to collect rare flora from all over the Imperium.

  If ever the conservatory could be finished . . .

  Composing himself, he greeted Margot in the vaulted entry just as she returned from the labyrinthine souk markets in town. A willowy blonde with gray-green eyes, perfect figure, and impeccable features, she stood nearly a head taller than he. She wore an aba robe tailored to show off her figure, the black fabric speckled with dust from the streets.

  “Did they have Ecazi turnips, my dear?” The Count stared hungrily at two heavy packages wrapped in thick brown spice paper carried by male servants. Having heard of a merchant’s arrival by Heighliner that afternoon, Margot had hurried into Arrakeen to purchase the scarce vegetables. He tried to peek under the paper wrappings, but she playfully slapped his hand away.

  “Is everything ready here, my dear?”

  “Mmm-m-m, it’s all going smoothly,” he said. “We can’t tour your new conservatory tonight, though. It’s too messy up there for our dinner guests.”

  • • •

  Waiting to greet the important guests as they arrived at sunset, Lady Margot Fenring stood in the mansion’s atrium, adorned on its wood-paneled lower level with portraits of Padishah Emperors extending back to the legendary General Faykan Corrin, who had fought in the Butlerian Jihad, and the enlightened ruler Crown Prince Raphael Corrino, as well as “the Hunter” Fondil III, and his son Elrood IX.

  In the center of the atrium, a golden statue showed the current Emperor Shaddam IV in full Sardaukar regalia with a ceremonial sword raised high. It was one of many expensive works the Emperor had commissioned in the first decade of his reign. Around the Residency and grounds were numerous additional examples, gifts from her husband’s boyhood friend. Although the two men had quarreled at the time of Shaddam’s ascension to the throne, they had gradually grown closer again.

  Through the dust-sealed double doors streamed elegantly dressed ladies, accompanied by men in ravenlike post-Butlerian tuxedos and military uniforms of varying colors. Margot herself wore a floor-length gown of silk taffeta with emerald shimmer-sequins on the bodice.

  As a uniformed crier announced her guests, Margot greeted them. They filed past into the Grand Hall, where she heard much laughter, conversation, and clinking of glasses. Entertainers from House Jongleur performed tricks and sang witty songs to celebrate the Fenrings’ ten years on Arrakis.

  Her husband strutted down the grand staircase from the second floor. Count Fenring wore a dark blue retrotuxedo with a crimson royal sash across the chest, personally tailored for him on Bifkar. She bent to allow the shorter man to kiss her on the lips. “Now go in and welcome our guests, dear, before the Baron dominates every conversation.”

  With a light step, Fenring avoided an intent, frumpy-looking Duchess from one of the Corrino subplanets; the Duchess passed a remote-cast poison snooper over her wineglass before drinking, then slipped the device unobtrusively into a pocket of her ball gown.

  Margot watched her husband as he went to the fireplace to talk with Baron Harkonnen, current holder of the siridar-fief of Arrakis and its rich spice monopoly. The light of a blazing fire enhanced by hearth prisms gave the Baron’s puffy features an eerie cast. He wasn’t looking at all well.

  In the years she and Fenring had been stationed there, the Baron had invited them to dine at his Keep or attend gladiatorial events featuring slaves from Giedi Prime. He was a dangerous man who thought too much of himself. Now, the Baron leaned on a gilded walking stick whose head had been designed to resemble the mouth of a great sandworm of Arrakis.

  Margot had seen the Baron’s health decline dramatically over the past decade; he suffered from a mysterious muscular and neurological malady that had caused him to gain weight. F
rom her Bene Gesserit Sisters she knew the reason for his physical discomfiture, how it had been inflicted upon him when he’d raped Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam. The Baron, however, had never learned the cause of his distress.

  Mohiam herself, another carefully selected guest for this event, passed into Margot’s line of sight. The gray-haired Reverend Mother wore a formal aba robe with a diamond-crusted collar. She smiled a tight-lipped greeting. With a subtle flicker of fingers, she sent a message and a question. “What news for Mother Superior Harishka? Give details. I must report to her.”

  Margot’s fingers responded: “Progress on the Missionaria Protectiva matter. Only rumors, nothing confirmed. Missing Sisters not yet located. Long time. They may all be dead.”

  Mohiam did not look pleased. She herself had once worked with the Missionaria Protectiva, an invaluable Bene Gesserit division that sowed infectious superstitions on far-flung worlds. Mohiam had spent decades here in her younger years, posing as a town woman, disseminating information, enhancing superstitions that might benefit the Sisterhood. Mohiam herself had never been able to infiltrate the closed Fremen society, but over the centuries, many other Sisters had gone into the deep desert to mingle with the Fremen— and had disappeared.

  Since she was on Arrakis as the Count’s consort, Margot had been asked to confirm the Missionaria’s subtle work. Thus far she’d heard unconfirmed reports of Reverend Mothers who had joined the Fremen and gone underground, as well as rumors of Bene Gesserit–like religious rituals among the tribes. One isolated sietch supposedly had a holy woman; dusty travelers were overheard in a town coffee tent speaking of a messiah legend clearly inspired by the Panoplia Propheticus . . . but none of this information came directly from the Fremen themselves. The desert people, like their planet, seemed impenetrable.

  Maybe the Fremen murdered the Bene Gesserit women outright and stole the water from their bodies.

  “Those others have been swallowed up by the sands.” Margot’s fingers flickered.

  “Nevertheless, find them.” With a nod that ended the silent conversation, Mohiam glided across the room toward a side doorway.

  “Rondo Tuek,” the crier announced, “the water merchant.”

  Turning, Margot saw a broad-faced but wiry man stride across the foyer with an odd, rolling gait. He had tufts of rusty-gray hair at the sides of his head, thinning strands on his pate, and widely separated gray eyes. She reached out to greet him. “Ah, yes— the smuggler.”

  Tuek’s flat cheeks darkened, then a broad smile cracked his squarish face. He wagged a finger at her, in the manner of a teacher to a student. “I am a water supplier who works hard to excavate moisture from the dirty ice caps.”

  “Without the industriousness of your family, I’m sure the Imperium would collapse.”

  “My Lady is too kind.” Tuek bowed and entered the Grand Hall.

  Outside the Residency, poor beggars had gathered, hoping for a rare show of graciousness from the Count. Other spectators had come to watch the beggars, and gaze longingly up at the ornate facade of the mansion. Water-sellers in brightly dyed traditional garb jingled their bells and called out an eerie cry of “Soo-Soo Sook!” Guards— borrowed from the Harkonnen troops and obliged to wear Imperial uniforms for the event— stood by the doorways, keeping out undesirables and clearing the way for the invited. It was a circus.

  When the last of the expected guests arrived, Margot glanced at an antique chrono set into the wall, adorned with mechanical figures and delicate chimes. They were nearly half an hour late. She hurried to her husband’s side and whispered in his ear. He dispatched a messenger to the Jongleurs, and they fell silent— a signal familiar to the guests.

  “May I have your attention please, hmmm?” Fenring shouted. Pompously dressed footmen appeared to escort the attendees. “We will reconvene in the Dining Hall.” According to tradition, Count and Countess Fenring trailed behind the last of their guests.

  On either side of the wide doorway to the Dining Hall stood laving basins of gold-embedded tile, decorated with intricate mosaics containing the crests of House Corrino and House Harkonnen, in accordance with political necessity. The crest denoting the previous governors of Arrakis, House Richese, had been painstakingly chiseled out to be replaced with a blue Harkonnen griffin. The guests paused at the basins, dipped their hands into the water, and slopped some onto the floor. After drying their hands, they flung towels into a growing puddle.

  Baron Harkonnen had suggested this custom to show that a planetary governor cared nothing for water shortages. It was an optimistic flaunting of wealth. Fenring had liked the sound of that, and the procedure had been instituted— with a benevolent twist, however: Lady Margot saw a way to help the beggars, in a largely symbolic way. With her husband’s grudging concurrence, she let it be known that at the conclusion of each banquet, beggars were welcome to gather outside the mansion and receive any water that could be squeezed from the soiled towels.

  Her hands tingling and damp, Margot entered the long hall with her husband. Antique tapestries adorned the walls. Free-floating glowglobes wandered around the room, all set at the same height above the floor, all tuned to the yellow band. Over the polished wooden table hung a chandelier of glittering blue-green Hagal quartz, with a sensitive poison snooper concealed in the upper reaches of the chain.

  A small army of footmen held chairs for the diners, and draped a napkin over each guest’s lap. Someone stumbled and knocked a crystal centerpiece to the floor, where it shattered. Servants hurried to clean it up and replace it. Everyone else pretended not to notice.

  Margot, seated at the foot of the long table, nodded graciously to Planetologist Pardot Kynes and his twelve-year-old son, who took their assigned seats on either side of her. She’d been surprised when the rarely seen desert man accepted her invitation, and she hoped to learn how many of the rumors about him were true. In her experience, dinner parties were notorious for small talk and insincerity, though certain things did not escape the attention of an astute Bene Gesserit observer. She watched the lean man carefully, noting a repair patch on the gray collar of his dress tunic, and the strong line of his sandy-bearded jaw.

  Two places down from her, Reverend Mother Mohiam slid into a chair. Hasimir Fenring took his seat at the head of the table, with Baron Harkonnen on his right. Knowing how the Baron and Mohiam loathed one another, Margot had seated them far apart.

  At a snap of Fenring’s fingers, servants bearing platters of exotic morsels emerged from side doorways. They worked their way around the table, identifying the fare and serving sample portions from the plates.

  “Thank you for inviting us, Lady Fenring,” Kynes’s son said, looking at Margot. The Planetologist had introduced the young man as Weichih, a name that meant “beloved.” She could see a resemblance to the father, but while the older Kynes had a dreaminess in his eyes, this Weichih bore a hardness caused by growing up on Arrakis.

  She smiled at him. “One of our chefs is a city Fremen who has prepared a sietch specialty for the banquet, spice cakes with honey and sesame.”

  “Fremen cuisine is Imperial class now?” Pardot Kynes inquired with a wry smile. He looked as if he’d never thought of food as anything more than sustenance, and considered formal dining to be a distraction from other work.

  “Cuisine is a matter of . . . taste.” She selected her words diplomatically. Her eyes twinkled.

  “I take that as a no,” he said.

  Tall, off-world servingwomen moved from place to place with narrow-necked bottles of blue melange-laced wine. To the amazement of the locals, plates of whole fish appeared, surrounded by gaping Buzzell mussels. Even the wealthiest inhabitants of Arrakeen rarely sampled seafood.

  “Ah!” Fenring said with delight from the other end of the table, as a servant lifted a cover from a tray. “I shall relish these Ecazi turnips, hmmmm. Thank you, my dear.” The servant ladled dark sauce onto the vegetables.

  “No expense is too great for our honored gue
sts,” Margot said.

  “Let me tell you why those vegetables are so expensive,” a diplomat from Ecaz groused, commanding everyone’s attention. Bindikk Narvi was a small man with a deep, thundering voice. “Crop sabotage has drastically reduced our supply for the entire Imperium. We’ve named this new scourge the ‘Grumman blight.’ ”

  He glared across the table at the Ambassador from Grumman, a huge heavy-drinking man with creased, dark skin. “We have also discovered biological sabotage in our fogtree forests on the continent of Elacca.” All of the Imperium prized Ecazi fogtree sculptures, which were made by directing growth through the power of human thought.

  Despite his bulk, the Moritani man— Lupino Ord— spoke in a squeaky voice. “Once again the Ecazis fake a shortage to drive prices up. An ancient trick that has been around since your thieving ancestors were driven from Old Terra in disgrace.”

  “That isn’t what happened at all—”

  “Gentlemen, please,” Fenring said. The Grummans had always been a very volatile people, ready to fly into a vengeful frenzy at the slightest perceived insult. Fenring found it all rather thin-skinned and boring. He looked at his wife. “Did we make a mistake in the seating arrangement, my dear, hmmm?”

  “Or perhaps in the guest list,” she quipped.

  Polite, embarrassed laughter bubbled around the table. The quarreling men grew quiet, though they glared at one another.

  “So nice to see that our eminent Planetologist has brought along his fine young son,” Baron Harkonnen said in an oily tone. “Quite a handsome lad. You have the distinction of being the youngest dinner guest.”

  “I am honored to be here,” the boy replied, “among such esteemed company.”

  “Being groomed to succeed your father, I hear,” the Baron continued. Margot detected carefully hidden sarcasm in the basso voice. “I don’t know what we’d do without a Planetologist.” In truth, Kynes was rarely seen in the city, and almost never submitted the required reports to the Emperor, not that Shaddam noticed or cared. Margot had gleaned from her husband that the Emperor was occupied with other— as yet unrevealed— matters.