Dune: The Machine Crusade (61 page)

Long ago, the cowardly Titan had been a wealthy, pampered prince who Understood little about genuine leadership. He had pledged vast, much-needed wealth to Tlaloc’s secret, growing rebellion. His resource-rich homeworld, Rodale IX, had later been renamed “Ix.”

Xerxes, overly eager to join the group, had agreed to install Barbarossa’s corrupted programming into the numerous servant robots on Rodale IX. The new routines and commands needed to be tested, so Xerxes had allowed his planet to be used as a testing ground. When the time came for the huge coordinated revolt to begin across the Old Empire, Xerxes had killed his obese father, the nominal ruler of the planet, and turned over the full resources of Rodale IX to the Twenty Titans.

From the beginning, Agamemnon had not been convinced of Xerxes’ reliability. He had no true political convictions, no consuming passion for the goal. It was just a game to Xerxes, a diversion.

At the time, Agamemnon had traveled to the Thalim system, where he expressed his concerns to the visionary leader Tlaloc himself. On Tlulax, Tlaloc had worked hard to achieve personal greatness, but found himself disappointed in the Tlulaxa people, who had no important aspirations. They were already cutting themselves off, spurning the hedonism of the Old Empire while refusing to make their own situation better. Disillusioned with his own people, Tlaloc nonetheless believed the best about mankind, insisting that the human race could achieve great things, if only they could be “encouraged” to do so.

And for that, the Twenty Titans had needed Xerxes’ bankroll.

For the centuries since then, Agamemnon hadn’t needed Xerxes anymore, but there had been the matter of Titan honor. No small issue. At least Xerxes was finally out of the way.

By now, the cymeks had succeeded in destroying the slave encampment on Ularda. No one survived, no structure remained intact. Greasy smoke rose into the sky like filthy, diaphanous pillars.

Dante and Juno drew close to the general, and he said to them, “Enough planning and complaining. We will wait no longer.” He swiveled his head turret, noted agreement from his long-time companions. “I will find the next opportunity to breakfree of Omnius—
and take it
.”

T
he Grand Patriarch of the Jihad was not a man to go begging. He demanded respect from everyone, and received it. People pleaded for favors from him as if he were a prince or a king. He made things happen.

But much had changed in the year since Serena Butler had seized the reins of the Jihad, when she should have remained no more than a figurehead. Iblis had
created
her, coached her until she became a powerful symbol. Now, ungratefully, she had rebuffed him, distributing his power and control among other Jihad officers. She had even turned down his perfectly reasonable suggestion of a political marriage. It wasn’t just a passing phase.

Serena’s recent forthright leadership had only served to shift the focus of the Jihad. Worse, she had gained her own followers, separate from his. The schism was widening, and Serena did not realize that she was contributing more to confusion than to clarity of vision. Despite Iblis’s best efforts to convince her, Serena generally ignored him. Often she didn’t answer his messages at all, or her responses were short and terse.

Can’t she see that my suggestions are for her own good and for the good of the Jihad?

Apparently, she could not.

In a recent appearance before the Jihad Council, Serena had publicly— publicly!— called for Iblis to disclose information about the financial operations of his Jihad Police, implying that he was not being open with the League of Nobles. Such distractions only served to fracture the human effort, diverting attention from the real enemy. This was a time when leadership should be unified, not split.

Iblis finally decided to do something about it, with whatever allies he could find. Now, more than ever, he needed to demonstrate his capabilities and accomplish things that even the self-important Priestess could not. With any luck, it would help pave his way back to a position of supreme power.

On the forward observation decks his private space yacht, he stood watching the stars drift across the empty gulf. He took only his Jipol commandant Yorek Thurr to serve both as the yacht’s pilot and as Iblis’s personal bodyguard. Thurr was the only other man alive who knew about the cymek Hecate and her offer to assist the Jihad.

The Titan, in her asteroid body, had caused so much mayhem at Ix that Primero Harkonnen had managed to conquer and hold the important Synchronized World. Without Hecate, the battle for Ix would have been at best another “moral victory” instead of a real one. Now, he needed her to pull off another miracle.

Thurr’s voice came over the yacht’s intercom. “I have detected the asteroid, sir, exactly as predicted.”

“At least she’s reliable,” Iblis said.

“We are on approach.”

The Grand Patriarch stared out the window, trying to discern which of the billions of glittering pinpoints might be the artificial hunk of space rock. At last, as the yacht approached, he distinguished the shape of the gigantic uneven lump of cratered rock, growing larger with each passing moment. This time, though, Iblis felt no trepidation. He knew exactly what the female Titan could do for him.

In the initial blush of Jihad fervor, everyone had called on the name of little Manion Butler and revered the valiant mother who had first raised her hand against the thinking machines. But after decades of war, most people were growing tired of the never-ending strife, and longed to go about their personal lives and careers. They wanted to work, raise children, and forget about the ebb and flow of military conflict. What fools they were.

Despite occasional victories such as Ix, IV Anbus, and Tyndall, he felt the revolt losing its pulse, like an organism dying all around him. The decline came in small and large stages, on small and large planets. Wherever Iblis traveled to deliver inspirational speeches, he saw and
felt
it. The crowds were losing enthusiasm, slipping from his grasp because they saw no end in sight. People had such woefully short attention spans!

The Grand Patriarch was desperate to make others see what he himself saw so clearly. Machines wanted to destroy every human— not only on the Synchronized Worlds, but on League Worlds and Unallied Planets as well. Human beings were a nuisance to Omnius and his metal brethren, a threat. Thinking machines and humans could never coexist on any basis, whether on individual planets or in the entire universe….

Hecate’s asteroid loomed closer, craters yawning open. “Our scanners have located the entry passage, sir,” Thurr reported. “Hecate is making contact, welcoming you.”

“Don’t waste time with small talk. Take us inside.”

The space yacht slipped easily through a crater opening, and the Titan’s tractor beams assisted the pilot in bringing the craft deep into the mirror-walled interior grotto where Iblis had first spoken with Hecate in her dragon-cymek body.

Iblis emerged from the yacht and marched boldly into the chamber. This time, instead of wearing her ornate and intricate, human-sized walker-body, Hecate met him as a shielded preservation canister that held her brain swimming in electrafluid, on a rolling walker form. The protected cylinder adjusted itself to his eye level.

“I have important business to discuss with you,” Iblis said, getting right to the point.

“Important business? I would not wish to discuss any other kind,” Hecate’s vibrant mechanical voice said. “After all, am I not your secret weapon?” She seemed particularly pleased with the title.

Iblis paced nervously as he explained. “The Jihad faces a crisis. In the past year, Serena Butler has taken power away from me. In her wildest dreams, she cannot possibly handle all of the political, military, religious, and social demands of leadership— yet she fails to see this.”

“Ah, so you want her killed? Would that accomplish your purpose?” Hecate sounded miffed. “That seems a waste of my extravagant abilities.”

“No!” he answered quickly, surprising himself. Then he considered the question more carefully. “No. That would not be beneficial in the long run. Serena is beloved by the masses, too important to them.”

“Then how can I help you, dear Iblis?” Hecate’s voice sounded musical and intriguingly seductive. “Give me a big enough job to make it worth my while.”

“I need more clear victories against the machines. Genuine showpieces.” He stepped closer. “Thanks to you, we successfully reclaimed Ix. Now I need to incorporate more Synchronized Worlds into the League by freeing their human populations. It doesn’t matter how strategically important the planets are, I just need something to
show
. And I need to claim credit for it.”

Hecate made a sound like laughter, with a derisive edge. “In all the centuries I have spent as a cymek, I had forgotten how impatient biological humans can be. And how scheming.”

“For twenty-six years, my impatience, as you so mockingly call it, has constituted the driving force of the Jihad. Serena and her child have only been images, while I have been the working…”

“Were you about to say
machinery
?”

“Only as a figure of speech.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. Long-term plans always take so… long.” The shimmering brain canister raised itself higher, above his head. “So now you want me to create a little chaos on the Synchronized Worlds, leaving openings so that your Jihad can claim more conquests?”

“Absolutely!”

“How interesting.” Hecate sounded amused at the challenge. “All right, I’ll see what I can do.”

W
hen Vorian Atreides encountered Seurat’s update ship again in deep space, it was no surprise to either of them. Vor had always known in his heart that they would meet again, and the robot captain had calculated a slim but nonzero probability of the occurrence.

The bureaucracy of the Army of the Jihad had specific, complicated, and annoying regulations that supposedly prohibited a Primero from doing half the things Vor did. He knew his behavior frustrated Xavier to no end, but nothing his friend said would ever change Vor’s impulsive streak. Over and over again, he flew small ships alone, on missions of his choosing. Ever since joining the fight against the machines, Vor had been staunchly independent— a proverbial loose cannon, though an effective one.

After completing his Caladan mission, Vor departed from the watery world, unable to justify spending further time there with Leronica Tergiet. He left a detachment of jihadi soldiers at the listening post, and left a small part of his heart at the seaside tavern. Promising to send messages to Leronica whenever his military duties allowed it, Vor set off again to fight for the ultimate annihilation of thinking machines….

In the vicinity of Caladan, at the edge of Omnius’s sphere of influence, Vor plotted from memory the usual routes he and Seurat had taken on their update runs. Since unleashing the unwitting Trojan Horse robot, Vor had heard scattered reports about Synchronized World breakdowns, and by plotting the datapoints of chaos he was able to trace the line of Seurat’s route.

No further damage had been reported in some time, and Vor was not surprised that the machines had eventually caught on to the problem. He wondered what Seurat’s fate had been, once the evermind discovered his hidden destructive programming. A sophisticated computer was not supposed to be vindictive, and Vor hoped Omnius hadn’t simply destroyed the robot captain out of spite.

That would have been grossly inefficient and a waste of resources.

Vor spent a week on solo patrol, following the lines of the traditional update route. He justified his search as “gathering vital intelligence for League military planning,” and it gave him the advantage of spending time alone, so that he could consider his unexpected feelings for Leronica.

He had always been aloof, enjoying himself on shore leave or temporary assignments on scattered League Worlds, but somehow this woman from Caladan had found a convoluted way into his heart. She had planted roots inside his very soul, and— like a time bomb going off— he was just now beginning to realize it. Vor was confused and happy at the realization… and deeply sad that he was not with her. Love had never been a foreign concept to him, though he had been blind to the possibility that it could feel anything like this. Now he understood how Xavier felt toward Octa.

But drifting alone through space on the edge of enemy territory, preoccupied as he was with bittersweet thoughts, did little to advance the Jihad. The ongoing war should have been his only priority….

When the large black-and-silver update ship crossed his path and loomed before him, Vor’s attention swung back to more immediate concerns.

The update craft should have fled, should have engaged in evasive maneuvers to avoid even a small Jihad warship. If the robot captain carried an update of the computer evermind, his programming would command him to protect the silvery gelsphere at all costs.

But the update ship stopped, and Vor faced it in open space.

He recognized the configuration of the vessel, though the design appeared to have been modified, repaired, and expanded. Without a doubt, this was the same ship he had found drifting lost in high orbit over the Earth’s solar system.

He opened the comline and transmitted immediately. “Old Metalmind. I thought I might find you out here.”

Then he noticed that the ship’s modifications included a battery of weaponry. Kinetic projectile ports slid open now and crackled red, ready to fire.

Vor felt a prickle of cool sweat on his neck. “Are you going to blow me out of space without even saying hello?”

“Hello, Vorian Atreides.” Coppery-faced Seurat appeared on his screen. “There, I have taken care of the pleasantries. Now would it be acceptable for me to destroy you?”