The Machine Crusade

by Brian Herbert

  Because Alüd had served here years ago, he was able to guess where he would find the pompous Savant. Moments later he burst into the private residence suite with twenty angry men behind him.

  A gray-bearded man stood in the middle of the room, his arms in voluminous sleeves crossed over his chest. Something shimmered around him, distorting his facial features. Indignant, Holtzman faced the wild-eyed rebels, not recognizing Alüd. "Go away, before I call my guards!"

  Undeterred, Alüd advanced with the lasgun. "I will go away, but not until we have crushed you slave masters."

  Recognizing, the outdated weapon, Holtzman's face became a mask of terror, which only seemed to encourage Alüd. This was exactly the way Alüd had envisioned it.

  Without remorse, he fired at the cruel old slave owner.

  The burst of white-purple laser struck Holtzman's personal shield, and interacted in a titanic explosion. The inventor's bluffside home, along with most of the city of Starda, flashed white-hot, in pseudoatomic incandescence.

  There are no closed systems. Time simply runs out for the observer.

  —The Legend of Selim Wormrider

  As he guided the band of heavily armed offworld mercenaries to their target — and his own vengeance — Naib Dhartha faced the growing realization that these surly, hard-bitten men viewed him as nothing more than a servant. To them, the Zensunni leader was merely someone who could lead them to their target. He was not a commander.

  Once the convoy of flyers had departed from Arrakis City, the hired fighters had shown him little respect. Dhartha sat in the ship with five Zensunni warriors who had joined him for a kanla vengeance party. But the hardened mercenaries saw this group as primitive nomads, amateurs play-acting at being soldiers. But they all had the same goal — to destroy Selim Wormrider.

  All together, the fighters had enough firepower and explosives to slaughter every one of the bandits without ever setting foot on the ground and dirtying their hands. Personally, Naib Dhartha would have preferred to grasp his enemy by the hair, yank back his head, and slit his throat. He wanted to watch the light fade from Selim's eyes as thick, warm blood gushed out on his own fingertips.

  However, Dhartha was willing to forego such luxuries in exchange for the assurance that the Wormrider and his band would be eradicated.

  Thermals rose like smoke from the heat-rippled dunes, and the flyer bounced along in the heavy air currents. A thick line of cliffs and broken rocks loomed before them like an isolated continent far out in the desert.

  "Your nest of vermin is just ahead," the mercenary captain said.

  To Naib Dhartha, this officer and his men were all infidels. They came from a handful of planets across the League of Nobles. Some had trained as mercenaries on Ginaz but were found wanting and had never been accepted into the elite group of warriors. Nonetheless, they were fighters and killers… exactly what the situation required.

  "We could just bomb the cliffs," suggested another mercenary. "Swoop in and turn the whole rockpile into burning dust."

  "No," Dhartha insisted. "I want to count bodies, cut off fingers for trophies." Some of the men from his kanla party muttered in agreement. "Unless we can show the body of Selim Wormrider for all to see, unless we can prove he was weak and mortal, his followers will continue their sabotage."

  "What are you worried about, Raul?" another mercenary asked. "They don't stand a chance, probably have only three Maula pistols among them, and our personal shields will protect us against projectiles. We're invincible."

  "Right," said another soldier. "An old woman could fly overhead and bomb the hideout into the ground. Are we warriors or bureaucrats?"

  Dhartha pointed ahead of the pilot. "You can land on the sand close to the rocks there, where the worms can't go. We'll swarm up and find the outlaw caves and smoke them out. The Wormrider will probably try to hide and protect himself, but we will kill their women and children one by one until he comes to face me."

  "Then we can shoot him down," Raul cried, and they all erupted in laughter.

  Dhartha scowled. He tried not to think overmuch about what he was doing, how he had been forced to beg for help from Aurelius Venport. Always the problem of Selim Wormrider had been a private matter, a vendetta between the two of them.

  Zensunni elders from distant tribal villages made no secret of their scorn for Dhartha and his easy cooperation with unclean offworlders. The Naib did business with foreigners, sold them all the spice they asked for. He had even installed offworld conveniences in his own cliff village, forsaking the old ways. By hiring these mercenaries to help him take personal vengeance, Dhartha realized he had forsaken everything that had once mattered to him. In this instance, he no longer cared about the traditions or tenets of Buddislam. He ground his teeth, realizing he might be cursed to Heol for his actions.

  At least Selim Wormrider will be dead.

  The armed transport landed against a tumble of rocks, and the vehicle's doors opened to the hot, dry air. Dhartha stood ready to issue orders, but Venport's mercenaries ignored him as they scrambled out into the open. They shouted to each other, shouldered projectile weapons, adjusted personal shields. Moments later, the men bounded up into the rocks and made a coordinated, vigorous charge toward the honeycomb of caves.

  Dhartha felt like a spectator. Finally, gruffly, he commanded the five kanla men and they set out with him, hunting to keep up with the advance fighters. They wanted their share of the bloodshed as well.

  For many months Dhartha's spies had gathered clues and information, until he was convinced he had found the lair of the Wormrider's band. They could not possibly have received any warning of the attack.

  When the offworld soldiers charged into the caves ahead of him, Dhartha was puzzled that he heard no sounds of fighting, no shouts, no blasts from Maula pistols. Had the bandits been sleeping? He advanced with his band of Zensunnis into the cave openings.

  Clearly, this was where the outlaws had settled. Rooms had been carved out of sandstone, with decorative hangings and stolen glowglobes still in place, along with cooking utensils and other household possessions.

  But no people were in the chambers. The outlaws had escaped.

  "Someone told them we were coming," the mercenary captain growled. "We are betrayed."

  "Impossible," Naib Dhartha said. "No one could have gotten here faster than our flyer. We assembled this war party only fifteen hours ago."

  Venport's mercenaries gathered in one of the main chambers, their faces ruddy with anger. They surrounded Naib Dhartha, clearly blaming him for the failure. One, a man with a scar on his forehead, spoke for the others: "Then explain to us, desert man, where they have all gone."

  The Naib tried to control his breathing. Anger and confusion simmered around him. He knew this was the right place. Thick, lingering odors proved that people had lived here — many of them — until recently. This was no decoy, no long-abandoned settlement. "Selim was here. He can't be far away. Where could they all go in the desert?"

  Before anyone could answer, they heard a faint, distant pounding like a heartbeat… or a drum. With his companions, Dhartha rushed to one of the window openings and saw a lone person far out on the open dunes, a pathetically small, impotent figure.

  "There he is!" Dhartha howled.

  Shouting battle cries, the mercenaries charged back toward their flyer. "But what if it's a trap?" one of the soldiers asked.

  Filled with furious scorn, Dhartha looked at the mercenary. "He is only one man. We must capture him to learn where the others have gone."

  In a sneering tone, the mercenary captain said, "We're not afraid of anything these desert scum can throw against us." The mercenaries rushed out to crush Selim Wormrider.

  The sands were soft beneath his booted feet, and the noon sun shone bright and harsh, as if to burn clean everything it touched. On this day no shadows would accompany Selim; he walked in complete illumination. He paused in the middle of the emptiness, where all the world could see him.
He sat under the dazzling sunlight, drew out his drum, and waited.

  Naib Dhartha and his war party could not fail to notice.

  The day before, all of the nearby caves had been a flurry of activity as his followers packed supplies, taking only what they would need for a journey out into the deepest bled. The young wormriders had looked breathless and determined, fearful of what was about to happen, but not daring to question Selim's vision or commands.

  The last to leave, Marha had clung to Selim, and he held her tightly in return, thinking of the growing life within her womb, wishing he could stay with Marha and raise this child. But the call of Shai-Hulud was greater. He knew what he must do, and had no choice but to heed Buddallah's demand.

  "I made the right choice in joining your troop," Marha had said with a mixture of sorrow and wonder in her eyes. "I pray for your safety on this day, but if the worst happens, Selim, I will make our child proud of you."

  He had touched her face and did not reassure her with false bravado. He did not know what Shai-Hulud had in store for him. "Care for our son." He placed a gentle hand on her belly. "The melange has told me that you will give birth to a healthy boy. You will name him… El'hüm. Someday he will be a worthy leader in his own right, if he makes the proper choices."

  Her face had brightened with hope, but Selim made her leave.

  Now, out in the open, he felt alone and small, but Shai-Hulud was with him. His entire life, everything he had ever done or ever could do, had converged at this point. Selim felt more confident in his success than at any time since experiencing his first vision almost three decades ago.

  Naib Dhartha was his sworn enemy and the foe of Shai-Hulud. The Zensunni leader had sold his soul to offworld merchants and bartered away the lifeblood of Arrakis — melange — letting it flow where it did not belong. In spice visions, Selim could see across the landscape of time from a point of view that only a god or his messenger could match. In the far future he saw what would be a slow, lingering death for the sandworms…

  Today's battle would be remembered for many generations, repeated around story fires through the centuries. Selim's name might be forgotten, the details blurred by repeated tellings, but the substance would be incorporated into the rnythos of the desert wanderers. Invoking his memory, the people would continue to prey upon the spice scavengers with even more enthusiasm.

  In the larger scheme, what he did today was entirely necessary.

  He watched the hated offworld troops land in their military flyer and swarm up rock paths into the caves Selim bad used for so many years as his base of operations. His lips curled downward when he saw that Naib Dhartha had shamed himself even more by consorting with strangers, hired fighters from foreign planets. Weil armed, they moved with animalistic ferocity.

  Selim hated to see them defiling his home, the caves where he and his believers had met and celebrated, the chamber where he and Marha had first made love. These intruders did not deserve to live.

  He sat cross-legged on the sands and waited while they ransacked the abandoned settlement. Finally, impatient because no one had seen him yet, he seated the bottom of the drum in the soft sands. With brisk flat slaps, he pounded the drumhead, sending a loud echo into the clear desert air and down into the stratified dunes.

  A sharp call, a challenge.

  Selim heard faint shouts of alarm and anger, and then the fighters scurried down out of the rocks. They hurried back aboard their flying craft. Engines whined and plumes of dust spat out as the vessel lumbered into the air.

  Naib Dhartha and his personal war party raced out onto the dunes on foot.

  Selim pounded his drum harder in a relentless, insistent rhythm. The drum was a precision instrument he had made himself. Loyal Jafar had shown him how to create the device using metal scraps for the cylinder and tightly woven skins from kangaroo mice for the drumhead. This drum had served him for years. It had summoned many worms.

  The armed flyer swooped overhead, cruising low so that he could feel the rush of air and a wave of heat from its engines. Blown sand stung his face, but Selim did not flinch. They could have taken potshots at his position or dropped explosives to obliterate him. But the pilot seemed to be determining whether the outlaw was indeed alone. Naturally they would suspect a trap — but would not be able to see it. The flyer circled again, and then landed in a flat expanse of sand well away from him. The mercenary soldiers poured out.

  As if they were racing the soldiers from the flyer, Naib Dhartha and his Zensunni warriors stumbled quickly across the landscape. All of these arrogant men believed themselves a match for the rigors of the desert, but Selim knew that any human life on Arrakis was less significant than a grain of sand in the open bled.

  He kept pounding his drum. In response, he could feel the deep, deep tremors… growing louder, closer.

  From the opposite side, the approaching Zensunni fighters ran forward waving their weapons, forgetting the stutter-step they had learned as children. He could hear curses, challenges, threats. Though he was older than most of his fighters, Naib Dhartha led the way himself. As Selim had hoped, the Naib's rage had overcome his good sense.

  "I challenge you, Selim Demonrider," Dhartha bellowed as soon as he was in earshot. His voice was deep and laced with gravity, just as it had been when he'd falsely condemned Selim for stealing water. "You have caused enough harm to my people, and I have come to end your outlaw life."

  Because they were trained to do so, the offworld soldiers switched on personal shields. Selim had never fought with a shield — no real warrior depended on such cowardly protection — and he sensed a jolt deep underground as the men came toward him. They did not know mat their shields were sending out a louder, more insistent summons to Shai-Hulud than Selim's drum could ever issue.

  "Are you a man without sin who is fit to judge me, Naib Dhartha?" Selim shouted back. He beat more on his drum. "A man who knowingly exiled a young boy who was innocent of any crime? You have continued to act against Shai-Hulud, despite your clear knowledge of the harm you are causing. You have far more blood on your hands than I do."

  Some members of the Zensunni war party shouted with alarm and pointed toward the distance. Selim did not turn. He felt the vibrations increasing, the deep passage of approaching sandworms. Many of them.

  The mercenaries stumbled to a halt and circled in confusion like riled ants, as the sandy ground beneath them began to vibrate and boil. With a whine of engines, the retreating flyer heaved itself off the unstable dune and rose into the dusty air.

  A moment later, a huge sandworm, driven into a frenzy by the personal shields on the mercenaries, lunged out of the ground like a projectile, its gaping mouth scooping up all of the maddening soldiers in one sweep.

  Selim remained seated, listening to the rush of disturbed sand and the hopeless howl of men plunging into the endless gullet.

  The pilot raised the flyer higher and hurtled toward the enormous sandworm that had killed most of the mercenary party in a few seconds. He launched explosive projectiles from nose guns, and the blasts struck the encrusted skin of the worm segments, exposing raw pink flesh beneath. The eyeless worm writhed and surged, blindly seeking a new enemy.

  As the flyer streaked in for a renewed attack, a second sandworm exploded from the depths of the desert. In a sinuous, cobralike movement, it hammered into the flyer, knocking it out of the air. The worm plunged into the desert as the military craft crashed, and the momentum sucked the wreckage into the sand.

  On the opposite side of Selim, the Zensunni warriors dropped their weapons, turned in a panic, and fled. As they left him alone to face Selim, Dhartha looked back at them with anger and disgust.

  Selim did not fear Shai-Hulud. He had faced the worm many times, and knew what Buddallah had in store for him. "There is only one way for a Wormrider to die, Naib Dhartha."

  Selim had done his best to fulfill the destiny chosen for him. He knew in his heart, though, that what he was about to do would accomplish far
more He would step beyond reality, into the realm of mythos. The tale of Selim Wormrider and his sacred quest would endure for centuries.

  Then a third monster swam through the sands and rose up in front of the fleeing Zensunni kanla party. The creatures were notoriously territorial, never entering a rival's domain… but three of them had answered Selim's summons. He doubted if anyone had ever witnessed such a spectacle.

  The kanla fighters could not run from the third worm. The creature thrashed about and devoured them in a flurry of sand.

  As if entranced, Selim continued to drum. Dhartha, the only survivor now, screamed at him. Finally, the sand began to tremble beneath him, signaling the emergence of the fourth and largest worm of all, and the Naib turned and tried to escape.

  Too late.

  As the dune slumped and sand shifted beneath his feet, Naib Dhartha spun to face Selim. Beneath them both, Shai-Hulud emerged, his yawning mouth a huge maw filled with crystal teeth.

  In a single gulp, the worm swallowed tons of sand. Naib Dhartha slid into the bottomless pit.

  The sandworm kept rising, kept coming forward.

  Selim held onto his drum while the creature surged like an angel toward the heavens, its mouth reeking of all the melange on the desert planet. Finally, the beast swallowed him, too.

  The Wormrider took his last ride, a ride into eternity, down the fiery gullet of Shai-Hulud.

  Earlier, the sullen members of the outlaw band had followed their leader's orders and gone to set up a new encampment in a distant section of rocks. With an aching heart, Marha had remained behind. She felt the child growing within her and wondered if the baby would ever see its father. No matter what happened, she vowed the child would know all the stories about Selim Wormrider.

  Her husband had explained to her what she must do. She had not relished her obligation, but truly believed in Selim's cause. She accepted his visions as genuine messages from Buddallah, so she could not discard them for her own convenience, or for her love.