Dune: The Machine Crusade (25 page)

Selim Wormrider and his caves were far away, but the outlaws could travel swiftly. When they reached the hidden settlement, Marha saw to it that Aziz was taken to a small isolated alcove, where she gave him more water and a little food, and let him fall into a deep sleep of exhaustion and recovery. Selim himself had ridden off on a worm to raid distant spice fields, and would not return for another day yet.

A long time later the boy awoke inside the cool, dim enclosure. He sat up quickly but almost fainted, then lay back with his eyes open, staring into the swimming shadows, trying to orient himself. Marha startled him when she spoke. “We do not often rescue fools. You are lucky Shai-Hulud did not devour you. How could you come into the desert so poorly prepared?”

She unstoppered a flask of water beside his pallet and let him drink. Despite his burned skin and the shadowed hollows around his eyes, Aziz actually smiled at her. “I needed to find Selim Wormrider.” He breathed deeply to restore his energy. “I am—”

Marha cut him off. “I know who you are, grandson of Naib Dhartha. Only your value as a hostage convinced me not to spill the water of your body. Perhaps Selim will wish to torture you to death, extracting vengeance for the crimes of your grandfather. “

The boy jerked. “My grandfather is a good man! He wishes only to—”

“Naib Dhartha cast Selim out of the tribe, though he knew full well that another young man was guilty of those crimes. He was not concerned that an innocent orphan would die to save a more important tribal member. The boy who truly committed the theft knew his guilt, as did your grandfather. But Selim was made to pay for those crimes.”

Aziz seemed confused. Obviously, no one had ever spoken that way of his grandfather. “That is not the story I have been told.”

Marha shrugged at him, and scowled. “Naib Dhartha has forsaken the ways of the desert for offworld conveniences. The people of your village are living a lie. It does not surprise me that you believe them.”

In the shadows, the young man squinted at her, finally recognizing her by the scar on her brow. “You were one of us, but ran away. I saw you when you raided our spice caravan.”

Marha lifted her chin. “I intend to be the wife of Selim Wormrider.” She surprised herself with such a bold admission, but she had made up her mind a month ago. Every member of the band could see it anyway.

Her voice became harder. “I fight against those who seek to destroy Shai-Hulud by exploiting the spice, sending it offworld. Naib Dhartha is our greatest enemy.”

Aziz forced himself to sit up. “But I bring a message from my grandfather. He wishes to make peace with Selim Wormrider. There is no need for us to continue our feud.”

Marha frowned at him in disdain. “That is for Selim to decide.”

WHEN AZIZ WOKE again in the alcove’s darkness, it took him several moments to realize that someone sat in utter silence inside the chamber, just behind him. Not Marha… but another.

“Are you… are you Selim Wormrider?”

“Many seek me and some find me. Few ever return to tell the tale.”

“I have heard the tales,” Aziz said, feeling very brave. He sat up. “I saw you before, when you raided our spice caravan. You didn’t hurt any of us. I think you are a man of honor.”

“Unlike your grandfather.”

Selim illuminated a small glowpanel. Although dim, the light seemed startlingly bright after Aziz had spent so long in the cave’s darkness. “No doubt you revere Naib Dhartha, boy. You think he must be a good person since he leads the tribe. But do not look to him as a hero. And do not believe everything that is said about heroes.”

Now Aziz could see that Selim’s face was weathered but surprisingly young. His eyes were hard and intelligent, and his expression was more majestic than Aziz had remembered. Vision and destiny were clear in his mind. The boy caught his breath, matching this image with the legends he had heard. Finally, face-to-face with this larger-than-life man, he found himself at a loss for words.

“I understand you bring a message. What could Naib Dhartha possibly have to say to me?”

Aziz’s heart pounded, since this was undoubtedly the most important thing he had ever done, or ever would do. “He bade me tell you that he formally forgives you for the crimes you committed as a boy. The tribe no longer bears you any malice, and my grandfather welcomes you back to our village. He wishes you to rejoin our people, so that we can all live in peace.”

Selim laughed at the offer. “I have a mission from Buddallah. I have been chosen to do great work.” He smiled humorlessly, his dark blue eyes flashing. “Tell your grandfather that I will absolve the tribe of their guilt as soon as he ceases all spice harvesting.”

Astonished, Aziz said, “But our people depend on selling the spice to survive. We have no other way—”

“There are many ways to survive,” Selim cut him off. “There were always many ways. My followers have demonstrated this clearly over the years. The Zensunni lived on Arrakis for generations before they became too dependent on offworld luxuries.” He shook his head dismissively. “But you are just a boy. I do not expect you to understand.” Selim stood. “Gather your strength, and I will take you back to your grandfather. Alive and unharmed.” He smiled. “I doubt Naib Dhartha would have shown me the same courtesy.”

OPPRESSIVE SUNLIGHT BEAT down on them in the stillness of the open sands. “If you run, you will die,” Selim Wormrider said.

Aziz stood beside him on the crest of a powdery dune deep in the ocean of sand. “I will not run.” His knees felt weak.

The outlaw leader shot him an amused smile. “Remember that, when panic clamors through your mind and your feet want to flee.”

Selim placed his hooks and metal rods on the crusty yellow sand, then knelt beside a resonant drum. He wedged the pointed end of the percussion tool into the sand. With brisk, sharp gestures, he pounded on the flat surface. The reverberant boom sounded like a loud explosion, and the shape of the drum directed soundwaves deep into the heart of the dune, into the strata of deposited sand… into the lair of the worm. Selim closed his eyes and murmured in a hypnotic rhythm, a call to Shai-Hulud.

Aziz’s stomach knotted, but he had promised the heroic Wormrider to stand firm. He trusted Selim. The boy waited and watched. Finally he saw the ripple beneath the dunes, curling tremors. “There it is! A worm is coming!”

“Shai-Hulud always answers the call.” Selim kept pounding. Then, as the monster curved around as if stalking its prey, Selim uprooted the drum, gathered his tools, and motioned for the youth to follow. “We must get into position. Walk lightly and with random steps, not like the march of an offworld soldier. Remember who you are!”

They hurried along the spine of the ridge. The beast continued toward the last loud reverberations, then rose up and up, shedding a river of sand and dust as if molting a layer of skin.

Aziz had never been so close to one of the demons. The smell of melange was overpowering, a flinty, fiery stench of cinnamon mingled with brimstone. He felt sweat on his brow, a waste of bodily moisture.

Exactly as the Wormrider had predicted, Aziz wanted to run screaming, but instead he whispered a prayer to Buddallah and remained fixed, waiting. He felt as if he was going to faint from the excitement.

Selim gathered his tools and lunged at the exact moment the sandworm crested. He pounced between the encrusted ridges and drove his spear and hooks into the sensitive flesh, trailing knotted ropes. He shouted to Aziz, “Climb! Grab the rope!”

The young man could barely hear over the roar of the monster, the rush of torn sand, but he understood. Fueled by adrenaline, he raced forward, though his heart caught in his throat. Aziz gritted his teeth and tried not to breathe the choking stench. Clinging to the knotted cable he scrambled up, bracing his boots against the pebbly skin of the monstrous worm.

Selim had the creature under control; Aziz never doubted it. As they stood atop the high ridges and Shai-Hulud undulated across the ocean of dunes, Aziz could barely contain his sense of wonder and amazement. He was riding a worm, crossing the distance to his village, just like all the legends had said. Selim did indeed control the desert demons!

Aziz fought conflicting emotions. He respected his grandfather, but found himself doubting if such a man as the Wormrider could possibly tell falsehoods. He felt even more respect than before, an awe so great that it numbed his entire body. At last, after all the years of hearing the legend of Selim, the famed Wormrider had taken on flesh and substance.

The long journey passed in a blur, and Aziz knew he would never forget his wonderment and dread. When Selim finally instructed the boy how to tumble away from the half-spent creature, Aziz staggered across the sands toward the rocky cliffs of his village.

His knees shaking, his muscles tingling with fatigue and exhilaration, Aziz climbed a rugged cliffside path, knowing that many of his fellow villagers were watching from cave entrances. Bearing Selim’s defiant response to Naib Dhartha’s proposal, the young man turned back to watch the Wormrider guide the slow-moving monster off into the endless sands, where the legendary outlaw would return to his glamorous life of banditry.

T
he robot Erasmus maintained a complete record of every conversation he ever had. Omnius kept his own files, including conversations between the two of them, but Erasmus suspected the records would not match in every detail.

The autonomous robot preferred to let his own thoughts grow and evolve, rather than receive a steady stream of updates from Omnius. Like the evermind, he was an evolving thinking machine— and like Omnius, he had his own agenda.

At the moment Erasmus sat in warm red sunshine on the terrace of his Corrin villa, admiring a panoramic view of rugged, barren mountains in the distance. From earlier explorations, centuries ago, he recalled the craggy profiles, sheer dropoffs, abrupt canyons. In the early years of his machine life he had been trapped there, imprisoned in a crevasse, and that ordeal had led to the development of his independent character.

Now the robot had no need to climb mountains and engage in wilderness exploration. Instead, he was charting the unknown, confusing landscape of the human psyche. With so many possibilities for enlightenment, Erasmus had to set priorities, especially now that Omnius had instructed him to focus on the phenomenon of religious zealotry, an apparent form of madness.

A house slave appeared carrying an armful of rags and bottles. Well fed, she was a dark woman with brilliant green eyes. Rising to his feet, Erasmus removed his plush carmine robe and let it drop to the slate tiles beneath his feet. “I am ready.”

The servant set to work, polishing the robot’s shimmering platinum skin. Noting how the ruddy red-giant sunlight gleamed on his body like the reflection of a bonfire, the robot was pleased. His flowmetal face formed a broad smile.

His expression shifted when the voice of Omnius thrummed overhead. “I have found you.” One of the portable watcheye units drifted down for a closer view. “You look as if you are relaxing. Are you emulating a decadent human from the Old Empire? The fallen Emperor, perhaps?”

“Only to better study their species, Omnius. Only to serve you. During this maintenance procedure I was assessing data I had gathered about religions.”

“Tell me what you have learned, now that you are an authority on such information.”

Erasmus lifted one arm so that the slave could better polish it. She used nonabrasive chemicals and soft berissi chamoix. The woman concentrated on her work, and seemed surprisingly unruffled, considering that his last polisher slave had accidentally scraped his flowmetal skin with a fingernail, and Erasmus had cracked open her skull with a flowerpot. The woman’s head had contained a surprising quantity of blood, and in fascination he had watched it drain out of her until she stopped twitching and squirming….

“I do not yet consider myself an authority on human religions. To attain that goal, I need firsthand experience with their rituals. Perhaps there is some intangible quality that was not recorded in the data I reviewed, for I found no answers there. I need to speak with genuine priests, mullahs, and rabbis. The written history is inadequate for such subtle, but necessary, understanding.”

“You have learned nothing from millennia of documented events?”

“An accumulation of facts does not always lead to comprehension. I know that humans frequently fight over religion. They are particularly resistant to compromise on this issue.”

“Humans are combative creatures by nature. Though they claim to worship peace and prosperity, they actually like to fight.”

“An impressive analysis,” Erasmus said.

“Since we are not capable of arguing with humans over matters of religion, do you think they concocted this supposedly holy quarrel, this
Jihad
?”

The slave finished polishing her master, then stood to one side, awaiting further instructions. Erasmus waved her off, and the woman departed hastily.

“Interesting. But you must realize that our lack of religion is in itself anathema to the minds of zealots. They refer to us as atheists, godless demons. Humans love to engage in name-calling, since it enables them to categorize an adversary… which invariably involves dehumanizing an opponent. In our case, dear Omnius, the dehumanization was accomplished from the outset.”

“The
hrethgir
have resisted us for centuries, but the nature of their struggle changed dramatically after they packaged it in the trappings of religion. They have become even more irrational than before— and hypocritical. They revile us for enslaving humans, yet they themselves keep humans in bondage.”

Erasmus nodded to the watcheye, a human gesture he had learned. “Though we are not flesh-bearers, Omnius, we must in a sense fight like them. We must become unpredictable ourselves, or at least able to predict their fighting methods.”