"B. Dune - House Harkonnen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

But they were no better than sheep, and never had been. He should have expected nothing different now.

With utter contempt, he spat blood and saliva on the floor, then staggered toward the door and out.










Secrets are an important aspect of power. The effective leader spreads them in order to keep men in line.

-PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO, 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 . . .