Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [80]
After his regular studies, Leto loved the change of pace, the physical exercise, the challenge. By now he had settled into a routine on Ix, undergoing hours of high-tech physical and mental training, with added time for tours of technological facilities and instruction in business philosophy. He had warmed to Rhombur’s enthusiasm, though often he had to help explain difficult concepts to the Ixian Prince. Rhombur wasn’t slow-witted, just . . . distant from many practical matters.
Every third morning, the young men left their classrooms behind and worked out on the automated training floor. Leto loved the exercise and the rush of adrenaline, while both Rhombur and the fight instructor seemed to find this an antiquated requirement added to the curriculum only because of Earl Vernius’s memories of warfare.
Leto and the bristly-haired captain watched stocky Prince Rhombur wield a golden pike against a sleek and responsive fighting mek. Zhaz didn’t train personally against his students. He felt that if he and his security troops did their jobs, no member of House Vernius need ever stoop to barbaric hand-to-hand combat. He did, however, help program the self-learning combat drones.
In its resting position, the man-sized mek was a featureless charcoal ovoid—no arms, legs, or face. Once the fight began, however, the Ixian unit morphed a set of crude protrusions and took on varying shapes based upon feedback from its scanner, telling it how best to defeat an adversary. Steel fists, knives, flexsteel cables, and other surprises could be thrust from any point on its body. Its mechanical face could disappear entirely or change expression—from a dullness designed to lull an opponent to a ferocious red-eyed glare, or even fiendish glee. The mek interpreted and reacted, learning with each step.
“Remember, no regular patterns,” Zhaz shouted to Rhombur. His beard protruded like a shovel from his chin. “Don’t let it read you.”
The Prince ducked as two blunted darts sped past his head. A surprise knife thrust from the mek drew a trickle of blood on the young man’s shoulder. Even with the injury, Rhombur feinted and attacked, and Leto was proud of his royal peer for not crying out.
On several occasions Rhombur had asked Leto for advice, even critiques on sparring style. Answering honestly, Leto kept in mind that he himself was not a skilled professional instructor—nor did he want to reveal too much of Atreides techniques. Rhombur could learn those from Thufir Hawat, the Old Duke’s swordmaster himself.
The tip of the Prince’s blade found a soft spot on the mek’s charcoal body, and it fell over “dead.”
“Good, Rhombur!” Leto called.
Zhaz nodded. “Much better.”
Leto had fought the mek twice that day, defeating it each time on higher difficulty settings than Prince Rhombur was using. When Zhaz asked how Leto had acquired such skills, the young Atreides hadn’t said much, not wishing to brag. But now he had firsthand proof that the Atreides method of training was superior, despite the mek’s chilling near intelligence. Leto’s background involved rapiers, knives, slow-pellet stunners, and body-shields—and Thufir Hawat was a more dangerous and unpredictable instructor than any automated device could ever hope to be.
Just as Leto took up his own weapon and prepared for the next round, the lift doors opened and Kailea entered, sparkling with jewels and a comfortable metal-fiber outfit whose design seemed calculated to look gorgeous but casual. She bore a stylus and ridulian recorder pad. Her eyebrows arched in feigned surprise at finding them there. “Oh! Excuse me. I came to look at the mek design.”
The Vernius daughter usually contented herself with intellectual and cultural pursuits, studying business and art. Leto couldn’t keep himself from watching her. At times her eyes almost seemed to flirt with him, but more often she ignored