Dune: The Machine Crusade (72 page)

Bright-eyed, Leronica listened while the soldiers summarized the clashes at Bela Tegeuse and, more recently, the horrific machine annihilation of the isolated colony on Chusuk. She eventually uncovered more details about Vor’s past exploits, especially how he had helped to save IV Anbus, and later tricked the thinking machines with a hollow fleet at Poritrin.

Sometimes, Vor sent her letters and packages, always under an assumed name. They usually arrived when her husband was out working. Though the soldiers who delivered articles to her undoubtedly assumed she had a sweetheart somewhere out in the Jihad, she never uttered his name. She read the messages with an intensity she never revealed to Kalem. She hated to keep secrets from this good man, but did it to protect him, not out of guilt.

She never tried to send a message in response, never dared to— for reasons she did not entirely understand herself. Fighting his far-off war, Primero Atreides did not even know about his twin sons, nor did she intend to tell him. She hoped only that he remained unharmed, and that he thought about her occasionally.

Satisfied with what she had heard, Leronica thanked the jihadis and rode her methcar back down to the fishing village, hurrying to arrive before sunset. Kalem and her father would not return for at least two days, but she needed to pick up the twins and cook dinner at the tavern. Though motherhood kept her busy, Leronica still ran the tavern and fed the workers who were too tired to cook for themselves.

Leronica maintained a secretive smile as she reopened the doors for an evening crowd of boisterous men. The fresh news and stories— along with the special letter that proved her departed lover really did remember her— would satisfy her for a while.

But when her husband returned she would focus entirely on him. As she had promised, she never compared Kalem with the other man in her life… but she could not forget the brave officer, either. In a sense, she had the best of both worlds.

E
rasmus had been accused of much during his long existence. Many people, including the maddeningly interesting Serena Butler, had called him a butcher— for his insightful laboratory experiments into human nature, and especially for tossing Serena’s tiny son off the balcony.

Before its downfall, the Earth-Omnius had insinuated that Erasmus was trying to become human himself. What a ludicrous thought! Recently, even the Corrin-Omnius had suggested that Erasmus wanted to usurp the evermind— though only the independent robot’s quick thinking and effective action had salvaged Corrin itself from disaster and prevented the continued spread of the corrupted update.

Erasmus resented being categorized so simplistically. He prided himself on the fact that he defied description or interpretation. He wanted so much more than anyone imagined.

Now, as he trekked across a broad snowfield with young Gilbertus Albans behind him, linked by rope, the autonomous robot considered how parochial other minds were— even Omnius’s— in comparison with his own. Through his researches, Erasmus had involved himself with so much more of the overall biological canvas than any other researcher, machine or man. He enjoyed the best of all possible worlds.

Hearing the teenager breathing hard, though not protesting, Erasmus slowed his mechanical pace. He had modified his flowmetal legs and feet for greater stability on the snow, and now he used his copious energy reserves to trudge forward, breaking a path. Even so, it was difficult for poor Gilbertus to keep up. The ascent slope was steeper than it looked, and unstable; no human could match the mobile characteristics of an advanced robot design.

The Corrin-Omnius, now repaired and essentially recovered from the cascade of breakdowns, followed them with a flurry of watcheyes that buzzed around their heads like mosquitoes. The evermind, itself no more than disembodied software dispersed like an invisible cloud of data, could never enjoy the real experience of this.

It was yet another instance in which Erasmus, with his ambulatory, autonomous body, could feel superior to Omnius. The computer evermind absorbed vast amounts of data, but had no real
experiences
of his own.

It is not merely the amount of information that matters,
Erasmus thought,
but the quality of it.
And he found himself somewhat amused at the realization that Omnius was something of a voyeur, always watching and never really participating… or living.

Living
. The word brought to Erasmus’s mind all sorts of philosophical questions. Did a thinking machine, without cellular structures, actually
live
? A few like himself did, he decided, but most did not. They just went through rote patterns, day after day. Was Omnius alive? The robot considered this for a long moment, and came away thinking,
No. He is not
.

This answer, in turn, brought up all sorts of additional questions, like shoots from the branch of a tree. He realized that he had pledged his allegiance to an inanimate thing, a
dead
thing, and wondered if such a pledge was even morally valid, or if he could discard it.

I can do as I please. I shall do as I please, when it suits me.

The red giant sun shed harsh coppery light but scant warmth at such a high altitude. Looking back, Erasmus satisfied himself that young Gilbertus was not overextending himself, especially with the heavy backpack he insisted on toting. The boy had to be protected from hurting himself.

Gilbertus’s biological form was, by its very nature, vulnerable to accidents and the environment, and the robot needed to be extremely watchful on his behalf. Just to protect his experimental subject, of course… or so he tried to tell himself. Over the past four years, Erasmus had devoted a great deal of effort to teaching this boy, converting him from a wild ruffian into the fine young man he was today.

Erasmus looked upslope to a broken terrain full of rotten ice, left over from Corrin’s long winter season. He identified recognizable topographical features, and continued trudging upward. It had been centuries since he had been here, but his perfect gelcircuitry memory told him exactly where he was going.

“I can guess where you’re taking me, Mr. Erasmus.” Gilbertus had a narrow face with a wide mouth, large, olive-colored eyes, and straw-yellow hair that peeked from under his parka hood. Though rather small in stature for his age— perhaps because of insufficient nutrition in his youth in the slave pens— he was still wiry and strong.

“Is that correct? Well, keep guessing, Gilbertus, because I might have a trick or two up my sleeve.”

“Don’t try to fool me. Robots don’t do tricks.”

“Your own words defeat your argument. If I were trying to fool you, Gilbertus, would that not in itself be a trick… thereby contradicting your own postulate? You must frame your thoughts in a more logical manner.”

Gilbertus fell silent to ponder the conundrum.

Erasmus returned to his own ponderings, this time about all of the unusable data that Omnius had accumulated without any understanding of how to synthesize new insights from it. Data itself was nothing unless one used it as a resource from which to draw conclusions.

Erasmus could access virtually anything that the evermind knew, from an electronic building that contained Omnius’s backup files. Erasmus didn’t even have to link with the evermind to obtain the information, something the robot avoided so that he could maintain his independence… and protect his secrets. Of course, Omnius had secrets as well, files that were not accessible to any robot. Those would be of interest to the inquisitive Erasmus, but were not worth the risk of a direct connection.

“Are we almost there, Mr. Erasmus?” the boy asked, panting.

The robot formed a smile on his flowmetal face and swiveled his shining oval head entirely around to glance behind him. “Almost there. I should have had other children in addition to you, Gilbertus. I am an excellent coach.”

Gilbertus paused to assess what the robot had said, then smiled. “You’re a machine, and you can’t have children.”

“True, but I am a very special kind of machine, with many adaptations and modifications. Do not be surprised at anything I can do.”

“Please don’t get weird on me again, Mr. Erasmus.”

The robot simulated a laugh. He enjoyed the company of Gilbertus far more than he’d ever thought he would. This youth, thirteen now, had turned out to be extremely bright and a real treasure, much more than a simple experiment. Under Erasmus’s guidance, Gilbertus was beginning to tap into his full potential. Perhaps after constant instruction and rigorous, patient training, the independent robot could, through his ward, realize the pinnacle of human potential. Omnius would get much more than expected from the challenge he had issued.

Sometimes the shiny robot and the boy would banter back and forth, each trying to snag the other on unfounded assumptions or logic flaws. Erasmus had taken care to instruct his eager student in the history of the universe, philosophy, religion, politics, and the perfect beauty of mathematics. The palette from which they chose their subjects contained infinite colors, and the boy’s eager mind used it all with remarkable efficiency.

Unlike his earlier wager with the Earth-Omnius— in which Erasmus tried to turn a loyal trustee against his masters— this time he was achieving something positive. Though it was no longer necessary, the robot maintained a proud smile as he trudged over the snow toward a sharp fracture in the rocks.

The slope leveled, and Erasmus identified two upthrust rocks separated by a deep crevasse. “We will stop here and make camp.” He extended a metal arm. “There used to be a snow bridge over there.”

“And you foolishly did not check its structural integrity before you attempted to cross it,” Gilbertus said knowingly, as he removed his pack and plopped it on the snow. “It broke when you tried to cross it, and you fell into the crevasse, where you remained trapped for years.”

“I would never make such a mistake again… though, in retrospect, the consequences proved most beneficial for me. Throughout that frozen, isolated time I had nothing to do but contemplate, rather like a Cogitor. It was the seed of my unique form of independence.”

Gilbertus gazed in awe at the stark fissure in the rock, ignoring the cold wind. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing this place ever since you told me about it. I think of it as your… birthplace.”

“What a curious thought. I rather like it.”

That evening, while the young man finished setting up their fabricated camp components, Erasmus played chef, cooking on a portable stove, dipping his sensor into a stew of Corrin rabbit, adding seasoning as if he knew what he was doing. Then he watched carefully while Gilbertus ate; the robot merely sampled the dishes himself with his sensitive probes, attempting to understand what his ward was tasting.

Afterward, the robot picked up where they had left off on their last lesson. Ever since he had succeeded in teaching the former wild boy to follow basic, civil behavior, Erasmus had concentrated on boosting Gilbertus’s memory capacity through mental exercises. “Thirty-seven billion, eight hundred sixty-eight million, forty thousand, one hundred fifty-six,” Erasmus said.

“What Earth’s human population would have been today— based upon birth and mortality projections— if Omnius had not intervened, and if the planet had not been destroyed.”

“Precisely right. A proper education has no limits.”

For hours as the night grew colder, Erasmus ran through additional questions, and his student showed a remarkable ability to organize and utilize data in his mind, just as a machine would. The young man’s capacity for learning was impressive, and he proved capable of advanced calculations and thought processes. Gilbertus’s organic brain learned to sort through a variety of consequences and possibilities, and always select the best alternative.

Later that night, as a light snow began to fall, Erasmus noted that his student began to make mistakes. Patiently, the robot added to what his student already knew, layering data into the young human’s mind in such a fashion that he would be able to retrieve it quickly in the form of organic memory. But, though Gilbertus said nothing, his attention wandered, and he seemed to be having trouble focusing.

Erasmus realized that the young man was exhausted from the difficult hike and too many hours without rest. The robot often made this error, forgetting to consider that humans required sleep, and that even the most advanced drugs could not completely replace that natural function. Even if Gilbertus Albans had a steady biological energy supply, Erasmus could not teach him without pause, around the clock.

Though knowledge has no limits,
he mused,
the human capacity for learning has definite boundaries.
“Sleep now, Gilbertus. Let your mind absorb and process information, and we will continue when you wake again.”

“Good night, Mr. Erasmus,” the boy said in a weary but playful tone, as he crawled into his warm sleeping enclosure.

Erasmus sat motionless, staring and recording with thousands of optic threads until Gilbertus quickly dozed off. This outing was turning out to be a far more rewarding experience than he had ever anticipated.

Without waking the young man, he said, “Good night, Gilbertus.”

E
ach of the big black constructors out on the frozen bog had a pair of human operators who sat side by side in high cages at the controls. Long hydraulic arms dipped into the icy material, scooping out thawed, spongy vegetable matter and loading it onto groundtrucks that came and went. The plains of Kolhar looked like a giant, stirred-up ants’ nest.