The Machine Crusade

by Brian Herbert

  Yet it was never enough.

  Scaling this sheer cliff was a far simpler exercise than overcoming the self-imposed conditions he had placed on his life and his worth. On the most difficult section of rock, a perilous overhang, Noret even increased the pace of his treacherous ascent.

  He realized that demonstrations like this always carried great danger — not to himself, but to any of the young mercenaries who might try to emulate him. But the lesson was valid: in life there were few safety nets, and there were certainly none during war, when unpredictable violence could change any situation in a matter of seconds.

  On the rare occasions when he returned to Ginaz, he conducted these exercises for his own benefit, honing his skills while giving the others something to strive for. He still isolated himself, keeping away from the shining eyes of the students. Merely by succeeding, Noret gave them the certain knowledge that the human body could indeed achieve remarkable things. Human beings should kill with precision and refinement, an art form that even the most efficient of thinking machines could never master. He flung sweat out of his pale hair and kept climbing, approaching the top of the cliff.

  Abruptly he slipped silently to the side, into the thick shadow of a rift in the rock where the moonlight did not penetrate, then darted beneath the overhang and the waiting students. Noret scampered along a narrow ledge, then resumed his ascent. He did not care what others said about him, or about his aura of mystery that only increased people's curiosity and fascination. As far as he was concerned, his reasons for training so relentlessly were private.

  "Where is he?" he heard one of the trainees ask. "I don't see him anymore."

  "He is behind us," Chirox answered, turning to greet Noret. "In this game, he has killed all of us."

  Twenty sets of eyes turned to look.

  Jool Noret stood poised in a fighting stance, his scarred, bronzed face made more enigmatic by night shadow. Without warning, he bounded past the students — his long hair flying — leaped off the edge of the cliff, and disappeared from view.

  Sometimes the line between bravery and recklessness is indistinguishable.

  —Zufa Cenva, Recollections on the Jihad

  After more than seven years of the massive construction project, the Kolhar shipyards finally produced their first fleet of space-folding merchant vessels. Numerous prototypes had already been tested, and now Venport was ready to adapt them for widespread commercial use, delivering cargoes needed by the League of Nobles.

  Despite her uneasiness at the very concept, Norma had no choice but to develop partially computerized guidance systems for the sophisticated spacefolders. The Holtzman calculations and the generation of the distortion field required such complex mathematics that no normal human could hope to solve the equations unaided. And she had enough data points from years of rigorous testing to show that the flights were already high-risk, with an unacceptable destruction rate.

  She hoped the sophisticated navigation devices would help, but she was careful not to create any potentially independent AI geltircuitry systems. Norma would rather scuttle the entire VenKee merchant fleet, than inadvertently create another Omnius. She was the only one with access to the navigation rooms of the new space-folding vessels; not even her husband Aurelius could get into those sealed areas.

  Locked inside the black-walled guidance chamber of her newest ship, Norma inserted a small cylinder into an activation port, then watched a three-dimensional holoscreen as it showed the myriad coordinates of every charted astronomical body. It seemed to her that no human, not even a genius of her caliber, could ever chart a safe course through all the convolutions of folded space and the hazards lurking everywhere in the vast universe. She had no choice but to rely on computers, however dangerous they might be.

  The detailed library of mapped coordinates finished loading, and she removed the programming cylinder, hiding it in a large pocket of her pale green laboratory smock.

  Despite the enormous drain of funding and resources here on Kolhar, so far the League of Nobles was unaware of the remarkable new ship design. People would suspect something, though, when hundreds of small, fast VenKee ships began to dramatically outstrip their competition. As soon as news got out — and it would, inevitably — she would make certain that Aurelius Venport was trumpeted as the driving force behind the revolutionary technology. She had never cared for fame or power, preferring to avoid the associated waste of time. With a front-row seat at a real-life Grogyptian tragedy, Norma had seen how hubris and a struggle for fame could twist and destroy genius, as it had the once-great Tio Holtzman.

  Since her husband had always had faith in her and provided the necessary funding, she was happy to grant him full credit. Aurelius was a savvy politician and could make greater strides if he had the clout and cachet. He would find a way to enjoy the attention, while deflecting questions about the nature of the technology. She cared only about the success of the project anyway.

  Over a hundred small spacefolder cargo carriers had already been dispatched, flown by mercenary pilots who knew and accepted the risks. After many years and a colossal infusion of capital, Aurelius was on the verge of making immense profits, despite the frequent losses of ships and cargo. And without his Tlulaxa partner, Venport controlled the large commercial empire himself, thanks to Norma.

  The first runs had been made, to great profit, despite a handful of horrendous accidents. VenKee Enterprises was swiftly transporting vital products across vast distances in the holds of the new ships. Rare and perishable drugs and foods came from Rossak, delivered everywhere around the League Worlds in less time than it took to order them. The trade in melange had increased exponentially as its use spread throughout the League, and each spice run practically paid the entire cost of one of the spacefolder cargo ships.

  Hopefully, the safety record would improve. Within the bounds of industrial secrecy, he did inform crews in advance of the great dangers posed by the "new ships," and paid them high hazard pay. Privately, he told Norma that he wished they didn't have to risk human lives, that it could all be done by machine. Then he added, after a long thought, that this was an impossibility. Thinking machines could not be trusted.

  League citizens had begun to see Venport as a savior and a patriot, and his competitors were desperate to find out his veiled method of rapid space travel. Tio Holtzman had confiscated all of her work and designs, but he'd been vaporized in the pseudo-atomic explosion of Starda, and Norma knew that no one else could even come close to understanding the system.

  Alter studying evidence of the crater and wreckage in the Poritrin city, Norma privately believed she understood what had occurred there. Let the rest of the League think that the insurgent Zenshüte slaves had somehow found a nuclear device, but she remembered a controlled test on a small moonlet almost forty years earlier. She had seen the results of a laser weapon interacting with a Holtzman shield. Norma suspected that the devastating explosion had been caused by a mistake, perhaps even one committed by Holtzman himself.

  She did not want to make any similar mistakes.

  She ran the nav-system through its self-check test cycles, taking the swift space-folding vessel on simulated trips through deep space. Oval screens appeared on the chamber walls all around her, showing nebulas, comets, and novas.

  Aurelius had never failed her, had never drifted away. Even when she examined their relationship in a detached and intellectual manner, she was surprised that he had remained with her, just as he had promised. The man truly loved her, and had been a wonderful father to their one son. Exactly as she had wanted.

  But Norma's greatest creation was still the new engine design. She sensed strongly that this technology — if the problems and dangers could ever be resolved — would become the basis of a commercial enterprise that would dwarf the League Worlds, far more important than a simple trading company.

  However, some of the numerous vessels had gone off course, some suffering severe damage, some vanishing entirely. Yet anot
her ship on a shakedown voyage had inadvertently passed through the heart of a sun, obliterating the craft. As more and more cargo runs were made, more ships — and more pilots — would be lost.

  The excessive accident rate highlighted the risks of the innovative technology. Norma had sifted her brain for a solution, but no safety systems seemed feasible other than navigation accuracy. There seemed to be no way around it — the great vessels crossed immense distances in moments, and a ship was doomed the moment any errant course was set. No human, probably not even a computer mind, could calculate or react to a fatal course in an eyeblink of time.

  But Venport still found the profit-loss ratio acceptable, since enough ships got through. Aside from his concern about crew deaths, which he assuaged by paying them well, he described profitability as a "numbers game." He only had to adjust his prices to take into account what he called "shrinkage of inventory."

  Now, in the navigation room, Norma watched the simulated journey past a mock space battlefield, where Jihad warships were destroying robot forces. Just a little touch she had added for amusement.

  "Busy, as usual. I'm amazed that you can do this for days without rest."

  She had sensed her husband's approach, and now felt self-conscious about the sophisticated computer systems arrayed before her. "You shouldn't distract me. How did you get in?"

  "Hidden surveillance showed me how you enter these rooms."

  She frowned, feeling an instinctive storm within her. "I'll have to tighten security, then. This area is off-limits to everyone — even you."

  Venport furrowed his brow. Thanks to heavy melange consumption, he still looked like a man in his late thirties, rather than sixty-two. "Including your son, apparently. Adrien has been trying to reach you for days, and you haven't responded. He's smart for a six-year-old, but he's still just a child."

  The image of her son flashed in her mind. The boy had his father's smile and dark, wavy hair. His genetics were perfect, thanks to Norma's internal tinkering during the process of conception. She had found that she could visualize and guide her reproductive system, permitting only the optimum sperm and egg to unite.

  Norma lowered her gaze. "I've been preoccupied with trying to understand the navigation shortcomings. With such a high loss factor of our ships, we can't afford to turn space-folding ships to the war effort. That was my original intent for the vessels. My mother has been pressing me to contact the Army of the Jihad about our technology, so they can transport troops to battle zones — but I don't want so many deaths on my conscience."

  "Norma, you'll figure out a solution." He smiled, then kissed her. "We'll license the technology to the military as soon as it's safe enough."

  "Please apologize to Adrien for me?"

  He looked closely at the instruments, the screens, controls, and data-reader wheels. "This is the computer system you told me about?"

  "Yes."

  "May the gods protect us!"

  "Aurelius, please. I have work to do. We already talked about the reasons for the strict controls I've instituted."

  "Yes, yes, of course." She watched him, warily, then saw him take a deep breath. "If anyone can put a leash on thinking machines, it's you," he said. "But I don't like it."

  "Neither do I, but for now there is no alternative."

  After her husband's departure, Norma resealed the door and practiced entering various destinations into the navigation machine, letting the computer calculate each course to avoid suns, planets, and other obstacles in space. Though she had created this computer herself and loaded it with safeguards, the close proximity of thinking machines still made her uneasy. And she didn't dare install such a system in the actual ships being flown.

  If only she could find a way to guide the space-folding ships with a human mind, instead of a mechanical one. But the concept seemed an impossibility.

  The flesh may not be excused from the laws of matter, but the mind is not so fettered. Thoughts transcend the physics of the brain.

  —Cogitor Vidad, Thoughts from Isolated Objectivity

  A cold, bleak planetoid with a barely breathable atmosphere, Hessra had furious winds that drove ice crystals like needles against the skin; slow but inevitable glaciers crept across its landscape. Few people would have wished to live there for as long as a week, much less two millennia, but the Ivory Tower Cogitors had selected this as the best place to continue their infinite ruminations, with the least likelihood of outside events intruding on their solitude.

  Serena Butler found them anyway.

  Though she had lost benevolent Kwyna at the City of Introspection, these other mysterious Cogitors remained abroad. Vidad and his "Ivory Tower" philosophers had always isolated themselves, avoiding any involvement in human affairs, although they must have had an outside source of income and supplies. Now she intended to go directly to them and request — no, demand — that they help the human race. How could they refuse?

  Even the Ivory Tower Cogitors had to see that neutrality was no longer possible. They had been humans once, but unlike the Titans and neo-cymeks, they had never allied themselves with Omnius. With their millennia of insight, they might be able to suggest courses of action that humanity had never considered. Serena believed that their coveted knowledge might be the lynchpin on which ultimate victory against the Synchronized Worlds would hang.

  For eight years now, Iblis's carefully selected assistants for these Cogitors had served on Hessra. Serena knew very little about the replacements, aside from the fact that she had administered a benedic-tion to them shortly before their departure. She remembered thinking at the time that they all seemed exceedingly pious and well-mannered.

  Since then, Iblis had confided to her that these secondaries were given instructions to speak quietly to the Cogitors about the centuries of damage that evil thinking machines had inflicted upon the human race. The new secondaries frequently challenged the morality of Cogitor isolation, trying to make Vidad and his contemplative associates realize that simply remaining neutral was not necessarily virtuous.

  In her ship, she headed directly to Hessra, accompanied only by Niriem and four additional Seraphim. Serena's vessel set down on a snow-and-ice platform that the secondaries had swept in preparation for her arrival. Rising out of the gray rock, the Cogitors' stronghold was made up of black metal towers and cylindrical protrusions capped with pointed domes, barely visible in a backwash of frothing snow.

  The Cogitors had originally constructed this retreat on an exposed tongue of mountain high above a gaping canyon, but over the course of twenty centuries a ponderous glacier had crawled down from the high crags and was beginning to enfold the towers. The thick ice was greenish-blue from chemical contaminants that had settled out of Hessra's sour atmosphere.

  So far, the tide of ice had risen to cover half of the lower foundations and basement levels of the structures, and Serena wondered if the Cogitors would ever abandon this stronghold. She felt an implacable sense of time here. When the glaciers eventually overwhelmed the towers, perhaps Vidad and his complacent fellows would remain within their tomb of ice, still thinking their impossible thoughts, but going nowhere.

  Unless Serena could jar them into participation.

  Wrapped in insulated parkas, a group of secondaries emerged from the frosty doors in the main tower, led by a man she recognized as Keats. Serena staggered forward, coughing in the thin, unpleasant air and feeling the bite of cold wind. Niriem stepped forward to accompany her, but Serena waved the woman off, saying she preferred to continue alone. She told the Seraphim to remain aboard the ship, that this was a matter she could best handle by herself.

  The secondaries ushered Serena into the tunnel. They smelled of chemicals, as if they had been working in a laboratory. One of the yellow-robed secondaries touched a lever, and the heavy tunnel door closed behind them with an echoing thump. As Serena proceeded with her somber escort, cold tendrils of breath rose before her eyes.

  The corridors spiraled like a tightening
corkscrew, before finally descending to a large chamber with broad open walls and windows covered by solid curtains of glacial ice. Strange designs reminiscent of Muadru runes had been etched into the ice blocks. Like large game pieces, six Ivory Tower Cogitors rested on burnished pedestals, their brain canisters glowing with the faint blue of life-support electrafluids. Fresh tanks of the fluid, far more than the Cogitors could ever need, were stacked in alcoves. She wondered what they intended to do with so much of the vital liquid.

  Steeling herself, Serena called to mind various debating techniques she had learned from Kwyna and Iblis Ginjo. In this encounter she would need all the skills she could muster. She hoped Keats and his ambitious fellow secondaries had been skillful in laying the groundwork for her plea.

  "You seek advice?" Vidad inquired.

  His voice emanated from a speaker patch implanted in the bottom of his preservation canister, much like a cymek's. The system looked flew, and Serena realized it was an innovation that Keats's secondaries had incorporated to allow the caretakers to converse with more than one Cogitor at once. Before this modification, Vidad and the others must have sat through centuries of placid silence tended by meek secondaries; now, with Iblis's people constantly engaging the reclusive geniuses in debates, Vidad's life must have changed greatly.

  "I require your help," Serena said, selecting her words and tone of voice carefully, to show civility and respect, as well as strength. "Our Jihad has dragged on for many years at the cost of billions of human lives. Our determination has gradually turned to stagnation. I am willing to do whatever is necessary to achieve a swift and decisive victory."

  Vidad did not reply, but one of the other Cogitors said, "According to our current secondaries, your Jihad was launched only a few decades ago."

  "And you're wondering why I sound impatient?"