Dune: The Butlerian Jihad Read online

  People in the streets fled in terror; others stood frozen, staring. Xavier shouted descriptions of what he was seeing. He heard Vannibal Meach add, “Cuarto Young, issue orders for all stations to break out the breathing apparatus. See that filter masks are distributed to the populace. Every person not inside an approved shelter must wear a breather.”

  Face masks wouldn’t protect against cymek flamers or high-energy detonations, but the people could be safe from the thick poison clouds. As he fit his own breather into place, Xavier felt a growing fear that all of the Militia’s best-planned precautions would be woefully inadequate.

  Leaving the discarded shells of their dropcarriages behind, cymek warriors thrummed forward on monstrous feet. They launched explosive shells and incinerated buildings and screaming people. Gouts of flame poured from nozzles in their foremost limbs, setting the city of Zimia on fire.

  Dropcarriages continued to tumble from above, ready to split open as soon as they crashed. Twenty-eight of them in all.

  With a howling roar loud enough to burn his ears, the young tercero saw a column of fire and smoke spinning, tumbling, so fast and bright that it left his retinas smoldering. The dropcarriage smashed into the military compound half a kilometer behind him, vaporizing the control center and the planetary Militia HQ building. The shockwave knocked Xavier to his knees, shattered windows for dozens of blocks.

  “Primero!” Xavier screamed into the comline. “Primero Meach! Command center! Anybody!”

  But he could see from the ruins that he would get no response from the Militia commander or any of his comrades in the complex.

  Stalking through the streets, the cymeks spewed greenish black smoke, an oily mist that settled into a toxic film covering the ground and structures. Then the first squadron of kindjal bombers came in low. Their initial sweep scattered explosives around the machine warriors, striking both cymeks and buildings.

  Wearing his clearplaz breathing mask, Xavier panted, unable to believe what he had just seen. He called again for the commander, but received no response. Finally, tactical substations around the city checked in, demanding to know what had happened, asking him to identify himself.

  “This is Tercero Xavier Harkonnen,” he said. Then full understanding hit him. With a supreme effort, he summoned his courage and steadied his voice. “I am . . . I am currently in command of the Salusan Militia.”

  He ran toward the conflagration, into the billowing greasy smoke. All around him civilians fell to their knees retching in the poisonous mist. He glared up at the aerial strikes, wishing he could be in more direct control. “The cymeks can be destroyed,” he transmitted to the kindjal pilots. Then he coughed. The mask was not working properly. His chest and throat burned as if he had inhaled acid, but he kept shouting orders.

  As the attack proceeded, Salusan emergency response aircraft swooped over the battle zone, dumping canisters of fire-suppression powders and foams. At ground level, masked medical squadrons moved in without hesitation.

  Oblivious to the insignificant human defense efforts, the cymeks marched forward, moving as individuals, not an army— mechanical mad dogs spreading mayhem. A warrior-form bent back on powerful crablike legs and blasted two rescue ships out of the sky— then it moved ahead again, eerily graceful.

  The front line of Salusan bombers dropped explosive shells directly onto one of the first cymeks. Two projectiles struck the armored body, and a third hit a nearby building, causing the structure to collapse, girders and debris tumbling down to bury the invader’s mechanical body.

  But after the flames and smoke cleared, the battered cymek remained functional. The murderous machine shook itself free of the rubble, then launched a counterattack at the kindjals overhead.

  From his distant vantage, Xavier studied their movements, using a portable tactical grid. He needed to figure out the overarching plan of the thinking machines. The cymeks seemed to have a target in mind.

  He could not hesitate or waste time bemoaning the fall of his comrades. He could not ask what Primero Meach would have done. Instead, he had to stay clear-headed and make some immediate decisions. If he could only understand the enemies’ objective . . .

  In orbit, the robotic fleet continued to fire upon the Salusan spaceguard, though the AI enemy could not pass through Holtzman fields. They might defeat the spaceguard ships and blockade the League capital world . . . but Primero Meach had already recalled the heavy perimeter battle groups, and soon all that League Armada firepower would pose a serious challenge to the robot warships.

  On the screen he saw the robot fleet maintaining position . . . as if waiting for some signal from the cymek shock troops. His mind whirled. What were they doing?

  A trio of gladiator machines launched explosives against the west wing of the Hall of Parliament. The beautifully carved facade sloughed to the street like a late-spring avalanche. Slabs of rubble crumbled, exposing open chambers in the evacuated governmental offices.

  Coughing in the smoke, trying to see through his smeared faceplate, Xavier looked into the eyes of a white-smocked medic who grabbed him and fitted a new mask over his face. Xavier’s lungs burned more now, as if they had been soaked in av-fuel and lit on fire.

  “You’ll be fine,” the medic promised in an uncertain tone as he applied a snap-injection pack to Xavier’s neck.

  “I’d better be.” The tercero coughed again and saw black spots in front of his eyes. “I don’t have time to be a casualty right now.”

  Xavier thought beyond himself and felt a deep worry for Serena. Less than an hour ago, she had been scheduled to speak to the League representatives. He prayed that she had reached safety.

  Struggling to his feet, he waved the medic away as the injection took effect. He tuned his portable tactical grid and requested a sky-high view, imaged from the fast defense kindjals. He studied the blackened paths of the graceful, titanic cymeks on his screen. Where are they going?

  Mentally, he scanned from the smoldering impact craters and the ruins of the Militia HQ, envisioning the paths made by the mechanical monsters as they pressed forward.

  Then he understood what he should have seen from the start, and cursed under his breath.

  Omnius knew the Holtzman scrambler shields would obliterate thinking machine gelcircuitry; thus the main robotic fleet remained just beyond Salusan orbit. If the cymeks took out the shield generators, though, the planet would be wide open to a full-scale invasion.

  Xavier faced a critical decision, but his choice was predetermined. Whether he liked it or not, he was in command now. By wiping out Primero Meach and the Militia command structure, the cymeks had put him temporarily in charge. And he knew what he had to do.

  He ordered the Salusan Militia to fall back and direct their utmost efforts to defend the single most vital target, leaving the rest of Zimia exposed as the cymeks blasted and burned everywhere. Even if he had to sacrifice part of this important city, he must stop the machine forces from reaching their target.

  At all costs.

  Is the subject or the observer the greater influence?

  — ERASMUS,

  uncollated laboratory files

  On Corrin, one of the primary Synchronized Worlds, the robot Erasmus walked across the flagstone plaza that fronted his lavish villa. He moved with a well-practiced fluidity that he had learned to imitate after centuries of observing human grace. His flowmetal face was a burnished blank oval, like a mirror entirely devoid of expression until he decided to form the metallic polymer film into a range of mimicked emotions, like ancient theater masks.

  Through optic threads implanted in his facial membrane, he admired the iridescent fountains around him, which so nicely complemented the villa’s stonework, gemstone statuary, intricate tapestries, and laser-etched alabaster columns. All plush and opulent, by his own design. After much study and analysis, he had learned to appreciate standards of classical beauty, and was proud of his evident taste.

  His pet human slaves bustled about p
erforming household chores— polishing trophies and art objects, dusting furniture, planting flowers, trimming topiary shrubs under the crimson afternoon light of the red-giant sun. Each tremulous slave bowed in respect as Erasmus passed. He recognized but did not bother to identify individuals, though he mentally filed every detail. One never knew when the tiniest scrap of data might help in overall understanding.

  Erasmus had a skin of organic-plastic composites laced with neurelectronics. He pretended that the sophisticated sensor network allowed him to genuinely feel physical sensations. Under the glowing ember of Corrin’s huge sun, he detected light and warmth on his skin, presumably like real flesh. He wore a thick gold robe trimmed in carmine, part of a stylish personal wardrobe that separated him from Omnius’s lesser robots. Vanity was another thing Erasmus had learned from studying humans, and he rather enjoyed it.

  Most robots were not as independent as Erasmus. They were little more than mobile thinking boxes, drone subsets of the evermind. Erasmus obeyed Omnius’s commands as well, but he had more freedom to interpret. Over the centuries, he had developed his own identity and semblance of an ego. Omnius considered him something of a curiosity.

  As the robot continued to walk with perfect grace, he detected a buzzing sound. His optic threads picked up a small flying orb, one of Omnius’s many mobile watcheyes. Whenever Erasmus ventured away from the ubiquitous screens found throughout all buildings, the avid watcheyes followed him, recording his every move. The evermind’s actions spoke of either a deep-seated curiosity . . . or an oddly humanlike paranoia.

  Long ago, while tinkering with the original AI computers of the Old Empire, the rebel Barbarossa had added approximations of certain personality traits and goals. Subsequently the machines had self-evolved into a single grand electronic mind that retained a few of the imposed human ambitions and characteristics.

  As far as Omnius was concerned, biologicals, even bastardized cymeks with human brains and machine parts, could not see the epoch-spanning vistas that the gelcircuitry of a machine mind could encompass. When Omnius scanned the universe of possibilities it was like a vast screen. There were so many ways to win, and he was constantly on the alert for them.

  Omnius’s core programming had been duplicated on all the machine-conquered planets and synchronized through the use of regular updates. Faceless, able to watch and communicate throughout the interstellar network, near-identical copies of Omnius were everywhere, vicariously present in innumerable watcheyes, appliances, and contact screens.

  Now, apparently, the distributed computer mind had nothing better to do than snoop. “Where are you going, Erasmus?” Omnius demanded from a tiny speaker beneath the watcheye. “Why are you walking so fast?”

  “You could walk, too, if you chose to do so. Why not give yourself legs for a while and wear an artificial body, just to see what it is like?” Erasmus’s metallic polymer mask reshaped itself into a smile. “We could go for a stroll together.”

  The watcheye buzzed along beside Erasmus. Corrin had long seasons, because its orbit was so far around the giant sun. Winters and summers each lasted for thousands of days. The rugged landscape had no indigenous forests or wildernesses, only a handful of ancient orchards and agricultural fields that had gone to seed since the machine takeover, left to propogate untended.

  Many human slaves went blind from exposure to the pounding solar flux. As a consequence, Erasmus fitted his outdoor workers with custom eye protection. He was a benevolent master, concerned for the well-being of his resources.

  As he reached the entry gate of his villa, the robot adjusted the new sensory-enhancement module grafted by neurelectronic ports onto his body core and hidden beneath his robe. A unit of his own design, the module allowed Erasmus to simulate the senses of humanity, but with certain unavoidable limitations. He wanted to know more than the module could provide, wanted to feel more. In this respect, the cymeks might have an advantage over Erasmus, but he would never know for certain.

  Cymeks— especially the original Titans— were a narrow-minded, brutal bunch, with no appreciation for the more refined senses and sensibilities that Erasmus worked so hard to attain. Brutality had its place, of course, but the sophisticated robot considered it only one of many behaviorial aspects worthy of study, both positive and negative. Still, violence was interesting and often pleasurable to employ. . . .

  He was intensely curious about what made cognizant biologicals human. He was intelligent and self-aware, but he also wanted to understand emotions, human sensibilities, and motivations— the essential details that machines never managed to reproduce very well.

  During his centuries-long quest, Erasmus had absorbed human artwork, music, philosophy, and literature. Ultimately, he wanted to discover the sum and substance of humanity, the magic spark that made these creatures, these creators, different. What gave them . . . souls?

  He marched into his banquet hall, and the flying eye buzzed away toward the ceiling, where it could observe everything. On the walls, six Omnius screens glowed milky gray.

  His villa was modeled after the opulent Greco-Roman estates in which the Twenty Titans had lived before forsaking their human bodies. Erasmus owned similar villas on five planets, including Corrin and Earth. He maintained additional facilities— holding pens, customized vivisection rooms, medical laboratories, as well as greenhouses, art galleries, sculptures, and fountains. All of which enabled him to study human behavior and physiology.

  Erasmus sat his robed body at the head of a long table lined with silver goblets and candleholders, but with only one place setting. For him. The antique wooden chair had once belonged to a human nobleman, Nivny O’Mura, a founder of the League of Nobles. Erasmus had studied how the rebellious humans had organized themselves and established strongholds against the early cymek and machine assaults. The resourceful hrethgir had ways of adapting and improvising, of confounding their enemies in unexpected ways. Fascinating.

  Abruptly, the evermind’s voice echoed from all around, sounding bored. “When will your experiment be concluded, Erasmus? You come in here day after day, doing the same thing. I expect to see results.”

  “I am intrigued by questions. Why do wealthy humans eat with such ceremony? Why do they consider certain foods and beverages superior to others, when the nutritional value is the same?” The robot’s voice became more erudite. “The answer, Omnius, has to do with their brutally short lives. They compensate with efficient sensory mechanisms capable of imparting intense feelings. Humans have five basic senses, with countless gradations. The taste of Yondair beer versus Ularda wine, for example. Or the feel of Ecaz burlap compared with parasilk, or the music of Brahms versus—”

  “I suppose that is all very interesting in some esoteric way.”

  “Of course, Omnius. You continue to study me while I study humans.” Erasmus signaled the slaves who peered nervously through a porthole in the door to the villa’s kitchen. A probe snaked out of a module at Erasmus’s hip and emerged from underneath his robe, waving delicate neurelectronic sensor threads like expectant cobras.

  “By tolerating your investigations, Erasmus, I expect that you will develop a detailed model that can reliably predict human behavior. I must know how to make these creatures usable.”

  White-clad slaves brought trays of food from the kitchen— Corrin game hen, Walgis beef almondine, even rare Platinum River salmon harvested from Parmentier. Erasmus dipped the weblike ends of his probe into each dish and “tasted” it, sometimes using a cutter to penetrate the meat and sample the internal juices. Erasmus documented each flavor for his growing repertoire.

  All the while, he carried on a dialogue with Omnius. The evermind seemed to be doling out bits of data and watching how Erasmus reacted. “I have been building up my military forces. After many years, it is time to move again.”

  “Indeed? Or are the Titans pressuring you into a more aggressive stance? For centuries, Agamemnon has been impatient with what he perceives as your lack of ambition.�
�� Erasmus was more interested in the bitter berry tart in front of him. Analyzing the ingredients, he was puzzled to detect a strong trace of human saliva and wondered if that had been part of the original recipe. Or had one of the slaves simply expectorated into it?

  “I make my own decisions,” the evermind said. “It seemed appropriate to launch a new offensive at this time.”

  The head chef rolled a cart to the table and used a carving knife to cut a slab of Filet Salusa. The chef, a toady little man who stuttered, placed the dripping slice on a clean plate, added a dollop of savory brown sauce, and extended it toward Erasmus. Clumsily, the chef bumped the knife off the serving tray and it clattered against one of Erasmus’s smooth feet, leaving a nick and a stain.

  Terrified, the man bent to retrieve the knife, but Erasmus flashed a mechanical hand down and grabbed the handle. Sitting straight, the elegant robot continued to talk to Omnius. “A new offensive? And is it a mere coincidence that the Titan Barbarossa requested exactly that as a reward when he defeated your fighting machine in the gladiator arena?”

  “Irrelevant.”

  Staring at the blade, the chef stammered, “I will p-personally p-polish it and m-m-make it good as n-n-new, Lord Erasmus.”

  “Humans are such fools, Erasmus,” Omnius said from speakers on the wall.

  “Some of them are,” Erasmus agreed, waving the carving knife with graceful movements. The little chef mouthed a silent prayer, unable to move. “I wonder what should I do?” Erasmus wiped the knife clean on the trembling man’s smock, then stared at the fellow’s distorted reflection in the metal blade.

  “Human death is different from machine death,” Omnius said dispassionately. “A machine can be duplicated, backed-up. When humans die, they are gone permanently.”