Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [89]
The way Kailea and Rhombur talked about them, Leto had imagined the suboids to be less than human, muscular troglodytes without minds, who simply labored and sweated. But the people around him could easily have passed for normals; perhaps they weren’t brilliant scientists or diplomats, but the working class didn’t appear to be animals either.
With his gray eyes open wide, Leto walked along the grotto floor, staying out of the way as he observed the Heighliner construction. Leto admired the sheer engineering and management of such an incredible job. In the heavier, dustier air on the ground, he smelled an acrid tang of laser-welding and alloy-fusing materials.
The suboids followed a master plan, using step-by-step instructions like a hive organism. They concluded each increment of the huge task without being overwhelmed by the amount of work still in store for them. The suboids did not chatter, sing, or roughhouse . . . behavior Leto had seen among the fishermen, farmers, and factory workers of Caladan. These pale-skinned laborers remained intent only on their tasks.
He thought he imagined well-hidden resentment, a simmering anger beneath calm, pale faces, but he didn’t feel afraid down here alone. Duke Paulus had always encouraged Leto to play with villager children, to go out on fishing boats, to mix with merchants and weavers in the marketplace. He had even spent a month working in the pundi rice fields. “In order to understand how to rule a people,” the Old Duke had said, “you must first understand the people themselves.”
His mother had frowned upon such activities, of course, insisting that the son of a Duke should not dirty his hands with the mud of rice paddies or foul his clothes with the slime of a sea catch. “What good does it do for our son to know how to skin and gut a fish? He will be the ruler of a Great House.” But Paulus Atreides had his own way of insisting, and he made it clear that his wishes were law.
And Leto had to admit that despite sore muscles, an aching back, and sunburned skin, those times of hard work had satisfied him in a way that grand banquets or receptions hosted in Castle Caladan could not. As a result he thought he understood the common folk, how they felt, how hard they worked. Leto appreciated them for it, rather than scorning them. The Old Duke had been proud of his son for comprehending that fundamental point.
Now as he walked among the suboids, Leto tried to understand them in the same way. Powerful glowglobes hovered over the work site, driving back shadows, maintaining a starkness in the air. The grotto was large enough that the construction sounds did not echo back, but reflected and faded into the distance.
He saw one of the openings into the lower tunnels and since no one had yet questioned his business there, Leto decided this would be a good opportunity to learn more about the suboid culture. Maybe he could discover things even Rhombur didn’t know about his own world.
When a crew of workers emerged from the archway, clad in service overalls, Leto slipped inside. He wandered into the tunnels and spiraled down, passing hollowed-out living compartments, identical and evenly spaced rooms that reminded him of the chambers in an insect hive. Occasionally, though, he spotted homey touches: colorful fabrics or tapestries, a few drawings, images painted on the stone walls. He smelled cooking, heard low conversations but no music and not much laughter.
He thought of his days spent studying and relaxing in the inverted skyscrapers overhead, with their polished floors, ser-chrome and faceted crystalplaz windows, the soft beds and comfortable clothes, the fine foods.
On Caladan, ordinary