Dune: The Machine Crusade (70 page)

Arrakis offered no sympathy, and no help whatsoever.

After waiting a month for the arrival of a rescue party, a group of hardened volunteers approached Ishmael in the cool shade of sunset. Their eyes were reddened, their jaws set.

“We need a compass, water, and food,” said the man who had appointed himself spokesman. “Six of us want to set out across the desert on foot and try to locate Arrakis City. It may be our only chance.”

He could not deny them, despite the virtual certainty that their enterprise would fail. “Buddallah guides us. Follow His path, feel it in your hearts. The Sutras say, ‘The way to God is invisible to unbelievers but plainly seen by even a blind man of faith.’”

The man had nodded. “I experienced a dream in which I saw myself walking across the dunes. I believe Buddallah means for me to attempt this.” Ishmael could not argue with the reasoning, or the bravery.

The party would have only a small flask of water and enough food to last for a week. If they did not locate another settlement in that time, they would not have the resources to return. “It is better to die trying to save our people,” the leader of the small group said, “than to wait here and let Death take us on his own cruel terms.”

While Chamal stood with her father under the starlit skies, he embraced each grim volunteer. Then the men set off in the direction opposite to which Rafel had flown his scout ship. They used the coolness of the night to make good time. Ishmael watched their shadows as they scuttled down the mountainside toward the unbroken emptiness of dunes….

Now, an hour before dawn, when both full moons cast light like a diluted noon upon the sands, Ishmael gazed toward the silent horizon. The plodding explorers would not yet have gone out of sight across the soft sand.

He did not disturb the other refugees, who slept soundly; he hoped their gentle slumber would prepare them for another difficult day. As his eyes adjusted, he made out the tiny black figures across the dunes climbing a particularly high hill of sand.

He saw them scramble about as if in panic. The dune itself seemed to slide and slump, with ripples shivering through its surface until a great pit opened beneath the brave explorers. Then Ishmael beheld a rising serpentine shape, more enormous and terrifying than any creature he had ever imagined….

When morning came, there was no sign of the men.

What sort of place have we found here?
It seemed beyond anyone’s imagination, beyond the worst of nightmares.

He decided to keep this knowledge to himself, not even telling Chamal. The others could keep praying for that scouting party to bring rescuers. Ishmael did not want to lie to his people, but he let them cling to possibilities. Hope cost them nothing.

DESPITE ISHMAEL’S MOST rigorous austerity measures, supplies from the wrecked ship were almost depleted. Arrakis would kill them all soon.

More than a third of the Zensunnis who had escaped from Poritrin were already dead from starvation, thirst, or exposure. Some had perished searching for help; others had simply given up and succumbed quietly in their sleep.

A few of the most technically adept Zensunni had scoured the crashed ship, tinkering with the engines and scraps of metal and tubing to rig innovative systems for distilling and recycling water, even chemically converting some of the fuel and coolant into a drinkable but foul-flavored liquid. They fashioned a crude transmitter for sending distress signals to any local flying craft, but the signals didn’t seem to get through to anything. Apparently, the frequent sandstorms created a ferocious ionization layer in the atmosphere that scrambled their transmissions.

Or no one chose to come to their aid.

In their most forlorn moments, Ishmael had heard some of the survivors talk grimly about eating flesh and drinking the moisture of the dead, but he railed against the horrific suggestion. “We must give up our lives before giving up our humanity. Buddallah has cast us here for a reason. This is our test, or punishment… a sorting of the faithful. What use is it to sacrifice our souls for one meal, if we are hungry again tomorrow?”

They would die free… but still they would die.

Each night, Ishmael communed with the Sutras, reciting verses and looking for deeper meaning, but he found no answers to his queries. Was there not some way they could be rescued? Was there no ally the Zensunnis could locate on Arrakis? With a sinking feeling, Ishmael knew that any people hardy enough to prosper in this bleak land would probably not be friendly to outsiders.

Each day, during the cooler hours of dawn and dusk, the people spread out, prying up rocks, searching in crannies, ranging along the peninsula of rock. They found sparse vegetation and lichen, along with a few lizards; once, a boy knocked down a carrion bird with a stone. They trapped anything they could, even beetles and armored centipedes. Every bit of protein and moisture gave them one more moment of life, one more precious breath.

But they could do very little else.

As darkness fell on another clear desert night, Chamal spotted a commotion out on the shadowed dunes, a giant sinuous shape slithering toward the long barricade of rock where the Zensunni refugees had made their camp. She shouted a warning, and the people came to see, slumping and shuffling from weakness and fatigue.

In the thickening gloom, Ishmael could discern the monstrous writhing form, the sparking orange glow in its gullet, and friction fires on its lower skin caused by its rough passage over the abrasive desert. The people stood beside Ishmael, perplexed by the approaching behemoth. Twice in the past five months, they had seen worms far out on the open dunes, but the creatures usually traveled aimlessly and rarely spent much time exposed to the air.

This one seemed to be coming toward them with…
intent
.

“What does it mean, Father?” Chamal asked. They all looked at Ishmael.

“An omen,” suggested one woman. Her face looked yellow in the glow of lights that Ishmael had rigged from the wrecked ship, since they did not have enough combustibles to burn for a traditional Zensunni fire.

“The demon wants to eat us,” another man said. “It is calling us out onto the dunes for a sacrifice. Is all hope lost?”

Ishmael shook his head. “We are safe here on the rocks. Perhaps it is a manifestation of Buddallah watching us.”

He turned away as the sandworm thrashed around at the base of the cliffs. Darkening night threw a blanket over the details, but a safe distance off they could hear the beast grinding against loose boulders, then growing still.

A tiny sound that might have been a shout, a human voice, echoed across the rocks. Ishmael listened carefully but heard nothing more, and then convinced himself it had merely been his imagination or the sound of a hunting nightbird.

“Come,” Ishmael said. “Sit by me and I will tell you again about Harmonthep. We can each describe our true homes so that we keep the memories clear.”

The brave leader huddled with his people under the dim yellow lights that had to take the place of a story fire, and he talked wistfully about marshy waterways on Harmonthep. Ishmael described the fish and insects he used to catch, flowers he had harvested, the idyllic way of life he had known in his early years. One of the sutras came to mind now: “Hunger is a demon with many faces.”

Ishmael halted his tale when he was about to mention the slavers. He did not wish to dwell on that. Dragging Keedair here to Arrakis and then losing him in the desert… was that not sufficient revenge?

Lulled into a familiar fellowship, the Zensunnis shared tales of lost homes and childhoods, taking comfort from the few good memories. Many of these refugees had been born and raised on Poritrin, a generation of slaves who knew no other world, now stranded on this dune-covered sphere….

They did not hear the intruders approach. The strangers came like silent shadows borne on the softest breeze. They waited like ghosts in the rock out croppings outside the circle of light where Ishmael told his tales.

Startling them, one man stepped from the group and spoke in heavily accented Galach, the standard language across the Galaxy. “Those are fine stories, but you will find no such home here.”

Ishmael leaped to his feet, and his followers struggled to arm themselves with crude implements.

When the desert nomads stepped into the light, Ishmael saw lean, hardened men with eyes that were entirely blue. “Who are you? If you are bandits, we have nothing for you to take. We are ourselves barely alive.”

The lantern-jawed giant who was obviously their leader regarded him and then answered, astonishingly, in the secret language of Chakobsa. “We are Zensunnis like yourselves. We have come here to see if the rumors are true.”

Ishmael’s mind spun. Another lost tribe? Most Buddislamic believers had fled the League long ago. Perhaps some had settled here in this awful desert….

“My name is Jafar. I lead a band of outlaws who carry on the sacred mission of Selim Wormrider. In our council we discussed your situation, wondering if we could believe what we heard.” He lifted his chin proudly. “You are escaped slaves, and we have decided to welcome you into our tribe, if you work hard, assist us, and earn your keep. We will show you how to survive in the desert.”

Shouts of agreement, thankful prayers to Buddallah, and cries of relief resounded throughout the night. Jafar and his outlaws looked at the ruined spaceship as if assessing how much they could still salvage from the hulk.

“We accept your fine offer, Jafar,” Ishmael said without hesitation. Already, he could see that his people believed Buddallah had brought this salvation in their hour of greatest need. “We will work hard. We are honored to join you.”

B
y the time the Jihad patrol fleet reached the small colony on Chusuk, it was already too late. The attacking machines had left nothing.

The leveled cities had ceased smoldering; fires had burned themselves out. The only remnants of human habitation were black, twisted girders, craters from huge explosions, and a sour charcoal-smelling silence.

Far too many days had passed to expect any survivors.

On the ground, Vorian Atreides stood amid the wreckage, his feet spread to anchor himself against the overwhelming, devastating shock. Five more rescue and salvage shuttles descended from the two orbiting ballistas, but this would be no rescue operation… only an assessment of the appalling massacre.

The jihadis gasped their grief. A few of the soldiers had connections to Chusuk, relatives or friends who had lived here. Vor’s heart turned to ice as he found himself barely able to grasp the premeditated, calculated bloodshed that machine forces had unleashed here.

“Omnius didn’t even bother to take over,” he said, his voice hollow. Chusuk had boasted enough infrastructure that the evermind could have established a minor Synchronized World here, but the machines didn’t seem to want this place. “They just… destroyed everything.”

Vor shook his head. His dark hair was shaggy and sweaty, his eyebrows clenched together. “The machines may have changed their tactics. If they do this to other worlds, it means they just want to kill humans and leave their planets uninhabitable.” He looked over his shoulder at the soldiers who busied themselves out of numb habit, searching for useful tasks in this dead colony.

The Primero walked slowly through the broken and blistered streets. After his early years serving Omnius, being trained in the nuances of conquest, Vor had thought he understood the machines better than this. “It doesn’t make sense— unless cymeks did this.”

Chusuk had been a thriving settlement— not a paradise by any means, but certainly a worthwhile place to live, a foothold of humanity on a calm and unremarkable world. The colonists led quiet lives here, with gentle romances, close-knit families, and unambitious dreams. Real people who just wanted to live from day to day.

And the machines had turned them into victims.

Through a thick plaz window in the pavement, he saw a room below that looked undisturbed, with musical instruments arrayed on a workbench. Odd, how certain things survived in war, as if protected by angelic bubbles. He ordered searchers to check the rooms below, but they came back moments later reporting no signs of life.

Vor moved on. The burned buildings stood out like blackened skeletons. Walls had caved in, exposing structural frameworks and shattered brick components. The town square was only a gouge left from heavy explosives, probably fired by airborne robotic warships.

He saw roasted bodies that looked like black scarecrows, their arms twisted, shreds of lips drawn back to expose flame-cracked teeth. Real people. He never got used to the horrific cost of this Jihad. Empty eye sockets stared like charcoal pits, as if the people were still wondering why rescue had taken so long.

Three uniformed Jihad soldiers shouted from around the corner. Vor picked up his pace, turned to find two ruined combat meks that had been destroyed in the Chusuk defense. The settlers had been armed with few weapons, but apparently they’d rallied enough to demolish this pair of thinking machines.

Unfortunately, each mechanical army had thousands of such combat meks. The Chusuk colonists had resisted, but had never stood a real chance.

Vor’s mouth drew down in a frown. He felt empty inside, knowing there was nothing he could have done to prevent this slaughter. En route here for nearly a month, his warships had approached Chusuk on regular patrol duties. They had arrived expecting a resupply depot and a week’s furlough. They had received no distress call— not that a signal could have ever reached them in time anyway.

Vor felt sickened. He had not expected such senseless brutality from the machines, not here.

But he should have.

ON THE WAY to Chusuk, during the long, sluggish voyage across space, even a Primero had little to do. He had occupied himself reading business documents and drawing up notes for treatises on military tactics, in which he explained what he knew about thinking machines.