Dune: The Machine Crusade (29 page)

“It is time for me… to cease.” The bluish electrafluid stirred and turned a different color, dangerously reddish, as if the ancient brain had hemorrhaged, secreting a bloody essence.

Serena felt a terrible coldness in the brain, a shocking, sudden sensation.

Then, with no added effort from the secondaries and no manipulation of the life-support systems in the preservation canister, the deep thoughts smoothed and faded from the Cogitor’s mind. After two thousand years of considering the meaning of existence, Kwyna let her essence flow into the universe and melt away. Her mind disappeared into nothingness.

Serena yanked her hand from the electrafluid. The slippery liquid felt like blood all over her fingers. “What have I done?”

“Many things have led to this tragedy,” Livia answered, her tone bitter. “Iblis Ginjo in part, as well as the Jihad, by its very nature.”

Fighting back tears, Serena stepped away from the now lifeless mass of the ancient philosopher’s brain. Her friend. “So many things have been done in my name.”

Livia looked at her sternly. “Serena, you have had a quarter of a century to contemplate and to learn from your personal tragedy. Now the time has come for you to make your own decisions.”

Serena squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. She gazed out the window and felt an icy breeze on her face. “Yes, Mother. Now I know what I must do.” She glanced at the mourning, saffron-robed secondaries, then peered into the hall where her brooding Seraphim stood at the ready, garbed in crimson-trimmed white robes.

“It is time for
me
to lead my Holy Jihad.”

F
or Xavier Harkonnen, the Butler Estate was haunted by memories and lost opportunities. But it was also the home he made with his loving wife Octa and their two daughters Roella and Omilia.

By the age of forty-four, Octa had grown into her beauty and her role as his wife and anchor. A gentler soul than her fiery sister Serena, Octa was a caring and devoted mate and an attentive mother. A prize beyond measure.

What have I ever done to deserve her?

Since retiring as Viceroy, her father Manion Butler had lived with them, tending the orchards and winery. The elderly man adored his grown granddaughters, and still enjoyed political and military discussions with his influential son-in-law. Of late, however, such talks often evolved into banal reminiscences about the “good old days.” Serena had become a distant stranger to her family.

When Xavier stepped out of the main doorway and looked across toward the olive-darkened hilltops and the vineyard rows, he saw a rider on horseback coming up the graveled switchbacks to the manor house.

Octa joined him in the courtyard, and Xavier slipped a hand around her narrow waist. She felt comfortable and familiar beside him. They had been married for more than twenty-five years now.

Squinting, Octa recognized the dashing, dark-haired rider as he came up the path. “You didn’t warn me Vorian was coming. I was going to visit Sheel over at the Tantor estate.” Vergyl’s still-grieving widow Sheel and three children had recently arrived from Giedi Prime, and were beginning to settle in on Emil Tantor’s large and lonely estate. Octa had been very helpful, assisting the young woman.

“We just want to spend a friendly afternoon discussing possibilities.” He stroked her long strawberry-blond hair, now tarnished with a few strands of pale gray. “If I’d told you he was coming, you would have rallied all the servants and insisted on holding a banquet.”

She smiled back at him. “True enough. Now you’ll have to be satisfied with cold meat and boiled eggs.”

He kissed her on the forehead. “Well, at least you can spoil us with our best wine. Let your father choose a bottle— he knows the vintages better than the rest of us.”

“Only because he takes his sampling duties so seriously. I’ll ask him if we still have some of the old celebration bottles from his marriage to Mother.” Octa disappeared back into the manor house, after waving to Vorian as he rode into the courtyard on a well-muscled Salusan stallion.

Though Xavier was now forty-seven years old and feeling a little less spry in his muscles, his mind held more details and relationships than it ever had in his younger days. In contrast, Vor Atreides retained the best aspects of youth combined with the wisdom of experience. He had not aged a day since his escape from Earth decades ago. His skin was still smooth, his hair dark and lush, though his eyes carried the burden of more memories than any young man’s eyes should have displayed. Years earlier, he had explained to Xavier about the life-extension treatment—”torture” was the way he had described it— that Agamemnon had administered to him, supposedly as a reward.

Vor jumped down from his saddle and patted the magnificent beast’s neck. Two handlers emerged to take the stallion; they would rub it down, braid the mane and brush the tail; old Manion would make sure everything was done to his satisfaction.

Xavier extended a formal hand to greet his friend, but Vor clapped him on the back instead. “So, do you like my new horse, Xavier? It’s one of five I just purchased.” With obvious pride, he watched the animal trot into the Butler stables. “Spectacular beasts.”

“I should think riding would be a lot of trouble for you, Vor. You have little experience with horses, so—”

“But I love chaos. I spent enough of my life with machines, and there’s something unique and exciting about riding a live animal that seems to enjoy the journey.” He looked up at the sky, his expression troubled and wistful. “Now that I think of it, Erasmus kept horses, too. Sometimes he summoned a fine carriage to deliver me to his villa. Poor beasts… but the robot probably cared for them well enough. He preferred to experiment on humans, you know.”

By the time they reached the upstairs veranda on the balcony of the Winter Sun Room, Octa had already ordered her servants to put out a tray of sliced meats, cheeses, and boiled eggs garnished with herbs. A bottle of fine red wine stood open as well, with two glasses poured and oxidizing in the air.

Xavier chuckled. “Sometimes I think Octa is as telepathic as the Sorceresses of Rossak.” As his friend dropped into a chair and put his feet up on the balcony rail, Xavier turned and looked across the thick forests of the Butler Estate. “Why don’t you take a woman, Vorian? She could tame you and give you something to look forward to each time you come back to Salusa.”

“
Tame
me?” Vor shot him a wry smile. “Would I inflict myself on some poor, innocent female? I’m content enough to have a few women waiting for me here and there.”

“In every spaceport, you mean.”

“Not even close. I’m not the womanizer you think.” Vor took a sip of wine and sighed with pleasure. “I may eventually select one, though.” He left the obvious unspoken— the fact that he still had plenty of time. It was difficult for him to imagine spending all those years with only one woman.

Vor had served Omnius, but Serena Butler had changed his thinking and made him look at the universe in a different way— a
human
way. Vor had accepted the cause of the Jihad, not as a duped fool or an unquestioning fanatic, but as a proficient military commander with the skills General Agamemnon had taught him. Since escaping the rule of Omnius and declaring his loyalty to free humanity, Vorian Atreides claimed he had become more
alive
than he had ever imagined possible.

Normally, Vor loved to attend parties and tell stories about his battles, about his terrible cymek father, about growing up under the domination of thinking machines. Listeners would gather around him, awed by his tales, and he reveled in all the attention.

Now, though, the two men sat in companionable silence, needing to impress no one. They savored their wine, enjoyed the panorama of the vineyards and olive groves. As always in these rare, quiet times between Jihad missions, they discussed their successes and defeats, the fellow jihadis and mercenaries who had given their lives.

“Our problem all along,” Vor said, “is that Iblis unleashes the fervor of his converts rather than adhering to a coordinated military strategy. Like flames following the fastest fuel, they burn bright, but don’t necessarily accomplish the true objective. Personally, I think our Grand Patriarch just likes to bask in the glow.”

Xavier nodded. “The Jihad has gone on for decades, and the basic struggle against Omnius for a thousand years before that. We must maintain our intensity and dedication, or our fighters will fall into despair.”

Even after a year, the terrible loss of Vergyl Tantor still weighed heavily on both of them. While Xavier had loved his adoptive brother and tried to shepherd him through his military career, Vor had befriended the lad, socializing with the lower ranks in ways that stiffly formal Xavier could not. Seeing Vor and Vergyl laughing together had often made Xavier feel a flicker of envy. But it was too late now for him to make it up to his little brother….

Vor continued to stare out at the hills. “Thinking machines see the big picture, their overall plan. I don’t think our Army of the Jihad has such a concept. Omnius may yet win— not through military strength, but through the apathy weakening our forces.”

They talked about the smuggled reports from Ix, where the situation was particularly dire. Assassin robots and one of the Titan cymeks had begun a campaign of outright genocide, as they had done earlier on Earth. The Grand Patriarch had called for an all-out offensive not a moment too soon, according to Xavier. The Army of the Jihad could not abandon the brave fighters of Ix. Xavier himself had volunteered to lead the major assault. Meanwhile, in response to Iblis Ginjo’s pleas, masses of exuberant new recruits had already volunteered for the conflict.

Vor frowned. “I see each of those victims on Ix as
people,
who are fighting for freedom and their very lives. We should not throw them away indiscriminately.”

Xavier shook his head. “The insurgents on Ix do not need to become sacrificial lambs if a leader emerges to turn them into something more. That will be my responsibility.”

Vor swallowed a tiny spiced egg and licked his fingers. “I understand that you’re willing to achieve victory at any cost— you demonstrated that well enough on IV Anbus— but our Jihad will be better served by focusing on alternatives that hurt the machines without such a terrible cost in lives. The Ixian mission is… a mistake. Iblis has chosen it for no other reason than he wants its industrial centers intact.”

“Industries build weapons and ships, Vorian. That is what drives the Jihad.”

“Yes, but is a head-on military collision with the best forces of Omnius truly the wisest strategy?”

“You mean we should use more parlor tricks, like your virus against the machine battleships at IV Anbus? And your make-believe fleet at Poritrin?”

Pointedly, Vor cleared his throat. “Both of those tactics
worked,
didn’t they? I’ve said it plenty of times before. Our greatest advantage is in our sheer unpredictability.”

He finished his wine with a flourish, then reached over to take the bottle, refilling Xavier’s glass and then his own. “Take the Poritrin ploy, for example. We couldn’t afford to lose Holtzman’s weapons laboratories, couldn’t afford to devote a large Armada contingent to patrolling the orbit. My way, we achieved our aims at a relatively low cost, with no human casualties.” Vor raised his eyebrows. “You just have to understand how machines think.”

Xavier scowled. “I’m not as good at that as you are, my friend. Considering how long you lived with them.”

Vor’s gray eyes flashed. “Which means?”

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

Vor clinked his glass against Xavier’s. “My way or your way, let’s hope Omnius pays the price.”

VOR TRIED TO keep the machines guessing, and he had developed this ability far beyond even what Agamemnon had taught him. Not wanting his cymek father to predict his moves, he needed to stay one step ahead, just like a strategic gamble in a final round of Fleur de Lys.

Vor used his access codes to enter the armored laboratory room where the stolen copy of Omnius had been hooked up to carefully monitored computer substations. Salusans avoided this building, this prison for the demon Omnius, with a superstitious fear.

Vor entered the chamber and stood before the input screen and the Omnius speaker. He, a mere human and once a trustee of the computer evermind, now held it in complete thrall. What an astounding course of events his life had taken.

“Vorian Atreides,” Omnius said. “You, of all the reckless, wild humans should recognize the folly of the Jihad. You understand the purpose and efficiency of the Synchronized Worlds, yet you turn your loyalty to this outright mayhem and wanton destruction. It defies logic.”

Vor crossed his arms over his chest. “It merely defies your comprehension, Omnius, because thinking machines do not appreciate the value of freedom.”

“Erasmus proved to me that no human could be trusted. It would have been to my advantage if I had eliminated all of your kind on the Synchronized Worlds. That was a missed opportunity, an unfortunate decision.”

“You’re paying for it now, Omnius, and you’ll continue to pay until thinking machines are obliterated and humans can colonize any place they choose.”

“What a disturbing thought,” Omnius said.

Since Vor had been raised on Synchronized Worlds, he had a familiarity with programming, had even designed some segregated systems himself. For more than a year now, he had worked with portions of this Omnius update, extracting and manipulating information. The evermind sometimes understood what he was doing, but in other instances Vor was able to delete and manipulate any evidence of the changes he had wrought.

For years he had watched the tedious, unimaginative, even inept interrogations and attempted exploitation of this evermind copy. The scientists of the League, even Savant Holtzman, were too afraid of taking risks, fearful of causing damage to the captive Omnius. But what else was it for? Vor knew what he was doing, and preferred to take a chance at victory. He had always been independent, acting on his own impulses and usually succeeding.