Dune: The Machine Crusade (30 page)

If this plan succeeded, the Synchronized Worlds would reel, indeed. It was worth the risk, and Vor didn’t want anyone else meddling with his scheme. They couldn’t help him anyway.

By the time Xavier departed with his massive battle fleet for Ix, Vor hoped to be finished with his devious alterations to this update sphere. Teams of League cybernetic scientists had previously squeezed all possible intelligence from this captive copy. Even Savant Holtzman had been unable to wring further insights from the silvery gelsphere.

Now Vor would turn Omnius himself into a lethal weapon against the thinking machines. And the evermind incarnations on various Synchronized Worlds would never know what happened to them.

Cool and formal but with the subtlest undertone of indignation, Omnius said, “If you achieve your aims, Vorian Atreides, you will have to live with your folly. You will soon realize that human inefficiency can never replace the thinking machines. Is that truly what you desire?”

Grinning maliciously, Vor pointed out the computer’s main weakness. “We have an advantage you can never comprehend, Omnius, and it will be your downfall.”

“And what is that, Vorian Atreides?”

The dark-haired military officer leaned close to the screen, as if springing the punch line of a good joke. “We humans are endlessly inventive… and deceptive. Machines don’t realize that they can be fooled.”

Omnius made no response as he processed the statement. Vor knew, of course, that humans could also be deceived, but the evermind could not think in such terms. No machine could.

A
s their numbers dwindled, the surviving cymeks saw their conspiracy against Omnius fading. The chances for success and a bright new Time of Titans dimmed with each passing year. Twenty of the original conquerors had joined forces to overthrow the Old Empire, but after losing Ajax, Barbarossa, Alexander, Tamerlane, Tlaloc, and all the others, only four remained.

Not nearly enough to destroy Omnius.

At times, Agamemnon had considered simply destroying all of the parasite watcheyes and fleeing into space, never to return. He could take his lover Juno with him and Dante— perhaps even the dolt Xerxes. They could set up an empire of their own far from the oppressive evermind.

But that would be foolishness. Utter failure.

The cymek general doubted Omnius would bother to hunt them down, and the evermind certainly could not grasp the concept of revenge, but Agamemnon and his comrades had been
Titans,
exalted conquerors of the Old Empire. If they fled into darkness— a quartet of survivors ruling nothing— that would be a more shameful defeat than their outright destruction. No, Agamemnon wanted to conquer the Synchronized Worlds for himself. He would settle for nothing less than total domination.

Returning from their assignments and depredations, stamping out flickers of rebellion that continued to flare into bonfires on random Synchronized Worlds, he and his fellow Titans held a meeting in the wilderness of deep space.

Agamemnon had hoped for a secret gathering, since he had rarely been able to orchestrate his plans under the constant scrutiny of Omnius’s watcheyes, whether they were fixed or mobile units. But this time he, Juno, Dante, and Xerxes were joined by the relative newcomer Beowulf, and Beowulf had not been able to shake his surveillance. They would have to be especially careful.

Agamemnon had always been slow to trust anyone, even another cymek who had endured for centuries. The Titans must always be cautious. Still, the general was intrigued by Beowulf’s audacity.

Their ships linked up in deep space, and their hatches joined to form a cluster of artificial craft like a geometrical space station in an empty void far from any solar system. Stars sparkled like jewels all around them in the vastness of the cosmos. The middle of nowhere.

Installing his preservation canister into a small, resilient walker form, Agamemnon scuttled out of his ship and through the hatchway connected to Juno’s vessel. The two of them strode side by side on limber segmented legs into the central vessel. Dante entered from the opposite side.

Standing beside Beowulf’s walker-form, Xerxes was already there, on leave from his orgy of mayhem on Ix. Xerxes seemed agitated or perhaps eager, but Agamemnon was accustomed to the weak-willed Titan overreacting under most circumstances. The sooner Xerxes returned to Ix, the happier Agamemnon would be.

Overhead, lenses gleamed on hovering mobile watcheyes, recording every moment. Agamemnon chafed under the constant surveillance, as he had for the past eleven centuries.

“Hail to Lord Omnius,” he said, sounding bored at the formal beginning of their meeting. His words were spoken with no particular enthusiasm. The computer evermind did not know how to interpret inflections of voice.

“On the contrary,” Beowulf said boldly, “curses upon Omnius! May the evermind wither and the Synchronized Worlds fall into ruin until cymeks rule again.”

Astonished, Juno reared back in her crablike body, though she harbored the same thoughts herself. The watcheyes glimmered down at them, and Agamemnon wondered what punishment Omnius would devise for the cymeks once the recordings were analyzed. The cymeks could not simply destroy the watcheyes before they reported to the evermind, or that would tip their hand and set back their plans, which were already centuries in the making.

Thanks to Barbarossa’s ancient programming restrictions, the evermind could not kill any of the original Twenty Titans. However, as a mere neocymek, brash young Beowulf had no such protection. Despite his vulnerability, he had just called down a death sentence upon himself.

Xerxes could not contain his glee. “You have done it then, Beowulf? You’ve achieved success after all this time?”

“The reprogramming was straightforward enough. The real trick was to do it in such a way that Omnius would never suspect.” With a segmented limb, he gestured toward the floating spherical lenses. “These watcheyes are diligently recording a completely artificial version of our meeting, an innocuous discussion of the human rebels. Omnius will be satisfied— and we can speak those thoughts that must be aired.”

“I… do not understand,” Dante said.

“I suspect we have been tricked, my love,” Juno said to Agamemnon.

“Wait and listen,” he answered, remaining motionless. His optic threads glimmered in the direction of Beowulf.

“I put him up to this, Agamemnon,” Xerxes said with pride. “Beowulf hates Omnius as much as we do, and he’s been under the evermind’s control for nearly as long as we have. I believe his skill can bring much to our plans. Now, at last, we have a chance.”

Agamemnon could barely contain his outrage. “You have plotted against Omnius, and now you attempt to implicate us? Xerxes, you are more of a fool than even I suspected. Do you mean to destroy us all?”

“No, no, Agamemnon. Beowulf is a programming genius, just like Barbarossa was. He’s found a way to create an instructional loop that places false recordings into the watcheyes. Now we can meet whenever we wish, and Omnius will never know the difference.”

Beowulf twitched his mechanical legs and took two steps forward. “General Agamemnon, I trained under your friend Barbarossa. He taught me how to manipulate the thinking machines, and I have continued to study secretly for centuries. I had hoped the Titans were chafing under the evermind’s rule, as I have been… but I was not certain until Xerxes approached me.”

“Xerxes, you have placed us all at terrible risk,” Agamemnon growled.

But Dante, ever logical, ever methodical, pointed out the obvious. “The four of us are too few to accomplish what must be done. If more cymeks join our ranks, we have a better chance against Omnius.”

“And a greater chance that one of them will betray us.”

Even Juno agreed. “We need fresh blood, my love. Unless we recruit new conspirators, we will spend another millennium talking and complaining… those of us who survive. With Beowulf’s help, we can at last move forward. By planning openly and frequently, we will achieve more in a few months than we have been able to accomplish in decades.”

Still anxious, Xerxes said, “If we take no risks, we are no better than the apathetic humans who wallowed in the excesses of the Old Empire.”

Beowulf waited for judgment to be passed on his inclusion in the conspiracy. Agamemnon admitted to himself that, of all the neo-cymeks, Beowulf would have been his first choice.

Despite his annoyance with the unilateral behavior of Xerxes, the general could not convince himself to refuse the offer. Finally he said, “Very well. This gives us the breathing room we need, the chance to move our plans forward.” He swiveled his head turret, scanning Juno, Dante, Xerxes, and finally the expectant Beowulf. “Working together, we shall bring about the fall of Omnius. At last, the waiting is over.”

W
ith the Grand Patriarch due to arrive on Poritrin at any moment, Lord Bludd had staged yet another lavish festival, so that the population could keep celebrating their victory over the thinking machines. Stands were erected around the edges of the riverside amphitheater, colorful banners were hung, and feasts were prepared, all to welcome Iblis Ginjo.

Amid such chaos, Aurelius Venport decided he would be able to sneak the outdated cargo ship unnoticed to the new laboratory.

Tuk Keedair had gone to Rossak to fetch the vessel from its spacedock and had arrived back in the Poritrin system at just the right moment, as he intended. With the Grand Patriarch’s pageant preoccupying everyone, Venport was sure they could bring the big vessel down to Norma Cenva’s new laboratory complex without drawing any undue attention. He wanted to keep a low profile on this project.

He had no real interest in noisy revelry tonight anyway. The profits from Holtzman’s work— rightfully,
Norma’s
work— had flooded Poritrin with more wealth than the most extravagant person could squander in a dozen lifetimes. Venport was confident that Norma’s new space-folding project would make more money than anyone could possibly imagine.

Though the big hangar of the new research facility was not yet complete, Norma lived at the distant work site. Her first priority had been to convert the office space inside the old mining operations headquarters so that she could continue to study and modify her calculations. While construction supervisors roamed the fenced-in area and gave orders to labor crews for the necessary renovations, Norma had immediately dived back into her scientific designs.

Thinking of her utter devotion, Venport smiled wistfully. Unlike most people, who drifted through life seeking success or just a comfortable existence, dear Norma had no doubts about her mission. Her concentration was unerring and her focus sharp.

Without disturbing the genius, Venport made it his job to take care of all other details, shuttling back and forth to Starda to arrange for supplies and equipment, furniture, and temporary work crews. To add another layer of security for the project, Venport had decided that the slaves building the hangar and restoring the decommissioned mining facilities would not remain there long enough to see what Norma actually intended to do.

For the time being, Lord Bludd was smugly delighted, thinking he had negotiated an easy financial victory over Venport. Sensing this shortsighted pride, Venport pressed his advantage by placing a direct request with Bludd to have temporary use of some dedicated slaves, and agreeing to pay a premium for well-trained and docile workers. No doubt the Poritrin nobleman had charged him more than the captive Buddislamics were worth, but Venport didn’t have time to dicker and retrain an entire labor force. He was due to depart for Arrakis soon, to try his hand at quashing the band of wily outlaws that preyed upon Naib Dhartha’s spice-harvesting operations.

For the time being, his business partner Tuk Keedair would remain on Poritrin with Norma. A strict taskmaster, he would make certain the slaves behaved for her, so Norma could accomplish her goals on time. As usual, she had reservations about using slave crews, but under the circumstances Venport had no other choice. Buddislamics were the only available workforce on Poritrin.

In late afternoon Venport returned to the isolated worksite, docking his shuttleboat in the narrow canyon when the water became too shallow to navigate. Norma’s new laboratory and hangar filled an immense chamber that had once been behind a waterfall, but that cascade of water, like the subsidiary river that fed it, was long gone, having been diverted centuries ago by Lord Frigo Bludd’s resource reclamation projects for Starda’s agricultural needs. The roof of the grotto was open to the sky, though covered by a large warehouse hangar under construction on top of the plateau.

A smooth passenger lift had been installed on the cliffside, and Venport rode it to the top of the canyon. Surrounded by blockish support buildings, the converted-warehouse hangar gleamed in the late-afternoon light. Its cantilevered roof had been rolled out of the way to the sides, so that the large building was ready to receive the expected prototype vessel.

Venport nodded with satisfaction at the progress the workers had made; he hoped he could verify that the facilities were ready for operation before he left for Arrakis. Striding through the gate past three local guards he had hired, he found the work supervisor and asked for a progress report. Around the warehouse and outbuildings, slaves were taking a brief late-day break to eat, rest, and pray. Afterward, they would be back on the project until late night.

Norma emerged from her enclosed calculation offices and blinked in the waning light, surprised that a whole day had passed. Venport came forward, grinning; out of habit, he gave her a warm embrace. Her hair looked shaggy and uncared for, but the mere fact that she didn’t put on airs or pretend to be beautiful made her seem more attractive to him.