Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [200]
Harvesting machinery clattered along the neat rows of crops, plucking ripe produce. The brilliant glowdisks cast extended shadows like stealthy creatures that prowled the fields. Some of the shaggy hired workers joined in a singsong chant as they moved about gathering crops too fragile for mechanical picking. Suspensor baskets ready for market waited at the pickup station.
Only a few of her most loyal household retainers had been allowed to accompany her here in this new life. She hadn’t wanted any loose ends, no one who could report to Imperial spies—neither had she wanted to put faithful companions in danger.
Only with extreme care did she dare talk with the few familiar people who lived near her on Bela Tegeuse. A handful of furtive conversations, quick glances, and smiles were the most she dared. Comeyes or operatives could be anywhere.
With a carefully laid trail of identity documents, the Lady had become a respectable woman named Lizett, a widow whose fictitious husband—a local merchant and minor official of CHOAM—had left her enough financial resources to run this modest estate.
Her entire existence had altered: no more pampered activities at court, no music, banquets, or receptions, no functions with the Landsraad—not even tedious Council meetings. She simply lived from day to day, remembering old times and longing for them while accepting the reality that this new life might be the best she could ever obtain.
Worst of all, she might never see her loved ones again.
Like an inspector surveying her troops, the Lady walked down the lanes of crops, assessing vermilion spiny fruits that dangled on suspended vines. She had worked hard to memorize the names of the exotic produce she grew. It was important to put up a convincing front, to be able to make idle conversation with anyone and avoid arousing suspicion.
Whenever she appeared outside her manor house, she wore a lovely necklace of Ixian manufacture, a disguised hologenerator. It shrouded her face with a field that distorted her fine features, softened her cheekbones, widened her delicate chin, altered the color of her eyes. She felt safe . . . enough.
Pausing to look up, she saw a glittering rain of shooting stars near the horizon. Across the dim landscape the lights of ranches and a distant village shimmered. But this was something else entirely. Artificial lights—transports or shuttles?
Bela Tegeuse was not a populous planet. Its fortunes and resources were small, its chief claim to history a dark and bloody one: Long ago, it had been the site of slave colonies, hardy but struggling villages from which slaves were harvested and subsequently planted on other worlds. She felt like a prisoner herself . . . but at least she had her life and knew her family was safe.
“No matter what, never let your guard down, my love,” her husband had warned as he parted company from her. “Never.”
In this constant state of alert, the Lady noticed the spotlights of three ornithopters as they approached from the distant spaceport. The flying craft cruised low across the flat, parched landscape. They had turned on their full nighttime search beacons, though this was the best daylight Bela Tegeuse could manage, at the height of the double afternoon.
She felt cold fingers wrap around her heart, but nonetheless stood tall and drew her dark blue cloak around her. Her House colors would have been preferable, but she no longer dared even keep such items in her wardrobe.
A voice called from the main house. “Madame Lizett! Someone is coming, and they refuse to answer our hails!”
Turning, she saw the narrow-shouldered figure of Omer, one of her primary assistants from the old days, a man who had accompanied her here, not sure what else to do.