Free Road to Dune by Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson

would do anything to win. This had never been a fair contest, and the Hoskanners had never intended to offer an actual compromise. They wanted only to eliminate the annoyance of House Linkam through deception, and dispense with the objections of the Nobles’ Council.
    Dorothy intended to find some of the traps Valdemar had left behind herself, using her own sharp wits instead of Tuek’s technology.
    In the south wing, she noted with interest that a fourth-floor corridor seemed to go nowhere. A piece of the architecture did not fit. Having compared an aerial image of the headquarters mansion with on-site plans that Tuek’s inspection team had drawn up, she realized now that the stone building’s physical outline did not precisely match its interior layout. A small part of this wing was wrong.
    To her sharp eye, the hall floor showed faint signs of regular passage. Why would that be so, if the corridor didn’t lead anywhere ? With nimble fingers, she touched the irregular contours of the wall, searching for anything unusual. Not surprised to discover that one of the stones felt hollow and seemed to be made of a material that did not match the other blocks, she figured out its movement and unlocked the clever mechanism.
    With a gentle hiss, the hidden door unsealed and slid aside. Startlingly moist and mulchy air wafted toward her, so full of the smells of plants, leaves, roots, and compost that it struck her like a slap in the face. Alert for booby traps, Dorothy stepped inside.
    Cleverly concealed mist nozzles sprayed moisture in the air, while automatic irrigation piping fed flower beds, hedges, potted fruit shrubs. Dorothy had no doubt that these were flora brought from Gediprime. She saw an explosion of colorful flowers—purple, yellow, orange—amid verdant ferns. One set of huge scarlet blooms turned toward her as she moved, as if sensing a human presence. A raft of capped mushrooms spread out, speckled with golden-brown spots and silvery flecks.
    The smell of moisture in the air and the sight of misty droplets sent a wistful pang through her. Though she had only been on Duneworld for a few weeks, it seemed like years since she’d experienced an afternoon rain shower on Catalan. With delight, she realized she could bring Barri here whenever he grew lonely for his former home. It would be their special, private place.
    But Dorothy understood that would make her as wasteful and excessive as Nobleman Hoskanner. Her practical mind ran through swift calculations, and she was appalled to estimate the expense this conservatory required.
    When she thought of the people living in squalor in Carthage, she grew angry that Valdemar Hoskanner would have indulged himself so. These plants did not belong here. It was an insult to the freedmen who had worked themselves almost to death to complete their sentences, and who were now unable to afford passage offplanet.
    Already mired in debt, with unexpected expenses and regularly occurring disasters, House Linkam had to pare their operating costs to the absolute minimum. They must adapt to this desert land, not expect Duneworld to change to suit their own needs.
    She would have to speak to Jesse in private about this. Better not to let anyone know the precious garden even existed. The conservatory would have to be shut down immediately, to stop the hemorrhage of water.

    INSIDE THE MAIN spaceport terminal, parsecs from his home on Catalan, Jesse leaned against the parapet of the landing-control tower and thought about loneliness. The night’s first moon rose above the mountain-jagged horizon. He watched it through the blast shutters, looking into the haze of dust that had drifted in from the desert wilderness to the south. The moon shone brightly, and the rolling dunes beyond the cliffs gleamed like parched icing.
    Already Gurney and his crews had gone out to the old Imperial stations to strip away valuable live-rubber shielding. William English had teams installing the shielding in