Read Dune: House Atreides for Free Online Page B

"Why, I don't think I know. It's been a long time since I visited Dominic at home with his wife Shando." He smiled with an inner joke.
    "Ah, Shando -- she was an Imperial concubine once, but Dominic stole her right out from under old Elrood's nose." He gave a loud, impertinent chuckle. "Now they have a son . . . and a daughter, too. Her name is Kailea."

    Smiling enigmatically, the Old Duke continued, "There is much for you to learn, my boy. A year hence, both of you will come to study on Caladan, an exchange of teaching services. You and Rhombur will be taken to pundi rice farms in the lowland marshes on the southern continent, to live in shacks and work the paddies. You'll travel beneath the sea in a Nells chamber, and you'll dive for coral gems." He smiled and clapped his son on the shoulder. "Some things can't be taught with filmbooks or in classrooms."

    "Yes, sir." He smelled the iodine-sweetness of the seaweed tobacco. He frowned, hoping the smoke covered his expression. This drastic and unexpected change in his life wasn't to his liking, but he respected his father; Leto had learned through many hard lessons that the Old Duke knew exactly what he was talking about, and that Paulus had only the greatest desire to ensure that his son would follow in his footsteps.

    The Duke lounged back in his suspensor chair, bobbing in the air. "Lad, I can tell you're not entirely pleased, but this will be a vital experience for you and for Dominic's son. Here on Caladan you'll both learn our greatest secret --how we foster the intense loyalty of our subjects, why we trust our people implicitly in a way the Ixians do not trust theirs."

    Paulus became most serious now, without the slightest glint of humor in his eyes. "My son, this is more essential than anything you will learn on an industrial world: People are more important than machines."

    It was an adage Leto had heard often; the phrase was part of him, almost as important to him as breathing. "That's why our soldiers fight so well."

    Paulus leaned forward into the curling smoke from his last puff. "One day you will be Duke, lad, patriarch of House Atreides and a respected representative in the Landsraad. Your voice there will be equal to that of any other ruler among the Great Houses. That's a great responsibility."

    "I'll handle it."

    "I'm sure you will, Leto . . . but let yourself relax a bit. The people can tell when you're not happy -- and when their Duke is not happy, the population is not happy. Let pressure pass over and through you; that way you can't be harmed by it." He extended a scolding finger. "Have more fun."

    Fun. Leto thought again of the Guild banker's daughter, envisioning the fullness of her breasts and hips, the moist pout of her mouth, the way she had looked at him so enticingly.

    Maybe he wasn't as serious as his father thought he was ....

    He took another drink of cidrit juice; the tart coolness dissipated in his throat. "Sir, with your proven loyalty, with the known faithfulness of the Atreides to its allies, why do the Ixians still put us through their interrogation procedures? Do you think an Atreides, even with all that has been instilled in him, could ever become a traitor? Could we ever become like . . .
    like the Harkonnens?"

    The Old Duke scowled. "Once, we were not so different from them, but those are not stories you're ready to hear yet. Remember the play we just watched." He held up a finger. "Things change in the Imperium. Alliances form and dissolve on whims."

    "Not our alliances."

    Paulus met the boy's gray-eyed stare, then looked away, into a corner where the smoke from his pipe swirled in thick curtains.

    Leto sighed. There was so much he wanted to know, and quickly. But it was being fed to him in little morsels, like petit fours at one of his mother's fancy parties.

    Outside, they heard people moving about, clearing the theatre for the next performance of Agamemnon. The actors would be resting, changing costumes, preparing