Dune: The Butlerian Jihad

by Brian Herbert; Kevin J. Anderson

  “Sacred ground,” she said. “A child was murdered here, and his mother fought against the monster Erasmus. Serena, who helped us, changed our lives, made things better for us. By standing up to the thinking machines, Serena showed us what is possible.” Sickened, Vor pressed for details, heard how the robot had thrown the little boy to his death.

  Serena’s baby. Murdered.

  “What about Serena?” Vor asked, grabbing the crone. “Is she safe?”

  She shrugged her bony shoulders. “Erasmus has barricaded himself in the villa, and we have not seen her since. Three days. Who knows what goes on behind those walls?”

  The mob cleared a path, and a rugged-looking man marched through, wearing the black tunic and headband of a crew boss. A dozen heavily armed men guarded him as if he were an important leader. He raised his hands, while the milling slaves cheered and called him by name. “Iblis! Iblis Ginjo!”

  “I promised you it could be done!” he shouted. “I told you all!” Even without mechanical amplification, his voice was powerful with resonant warmth. “Look at all we’ve already accomplished. Now we must secure another victory. The robot Erasmus committed the crime that sparked our glorious revolt. He can no longer hide behind his walls— it is time to punish him!”

  The man’s passionate voice was like fuel thrown on the flames of rebellion. The people roared their call for revenge— and Vor could not help himself. Alarmed, he raised his own voice, demanding to be heard. “And save the mother! We must rescue her!”

  Iblis looked at him, and the two men locked eyes. The charismatic leader hesitated for a fraction of a second, then bellowed, “Yes, save Serena!”

  At Iblis’s command, the mob became an organized weapon, a hammer slamming into the anvil of the barricaded villa. They had torn weapon-arms from robots they had overcome, using them to blast the walls of the villa until the damaged power cells ran out. With an improvised battering ram, men rushed the main gate and struck it, bending the heavy metal. Again and again they pounded, and the gate buckled. Overhead, from brooding gray skies, oily rain began to come down again.

  Inside, armored household robots tried to reinforce the door barrier. Vor guessed that most of these defenders had been reprogrammed from other duties, and did not have the capacity to resist for long.

  The battering ram struck again, and the gap in the heavy doors opened wider. The machines were losing ground.

  Though uncertain how to handle his new feelings toward machines, Vor didn’t trust the frenzied mob, either. They didn’t really care about Serena, even if she had unwittingly provided the spark that launched the revolt. If she remained here, she would certainly become a target of retaliation from Omnius.

  As he stood in the rain looking on, Vorian Atreides had his own focus. He swore to himself that he would rescue Serena. He would steal a ship and fly her far from here, escaping the Synchronized Worlds.

  Yes, he would take her back to her beloved Salusa Secundus . . . even if it meant delivering her into the arms of her lost love.

  We must bring new information into the balance and with it modify our behavior. It is a human quality to survive by intelligence— as individuals and as a species.

  — NAIB ISHMAEL,

  A Zensunni Lament

  Citing the most ancient of Poritrin laws, Lord Bludd decreed the terrible punishment for Bel Moulay’s crimes. Most slaves would receive amnesty, since Poritrin needed the labor pool, but the insurrection leader could not be forgiven.

  Ishmael pressed close to Aliid, the two captive boys sharing silent support and grief. The young slaves from the canyon mosaic had been brought back to Starda and confined where they would be forced to watch the execution. As punishment for the damage to the mural, Niko Bludd would put them back to work with extended shifts. But only after they witnessed the consequences of Bel Moulay’s folly. All slaves were required to be present.

  The boys crowded together, hungry and tired, their clothes dirty and their bodies smelly because they had not bathed in days. The work overseers growled at them, “If you behave like dogs, you will be treated like dogs. Once you start behaving like humans, then perhaps we will reconsider.”

  Aliid muttered defiantly under his breath.

  In the central plaza of Starda, Dragoon guards hauled Bel Moulay in chains toward a high platform that had been erected for the spectacle. The crowd fell into an uneasy silence. Moulay’s inky beard and hair had been shorn away, leaving pale spots on his scalp and chin. But his eyes blazed with unshakable anger and confidence, as if he refused to accept that his rebellion had failed.

  Holding him, the gold-armored guards tore off the Zenshiite leader’s robes. They let the rags fall away from the platform, leaving Moulay completely naked, shaming him. The slaves grumbled, but their leader stood firm and brave, amazingly unafraid.

  The voice of Lord Bludd echoed across the square. “Bel Moulay, you have committed grievous crimes against all the citizens of Poritrin. It is within my rights to punish every man, woman, and child who participated in this insurrection, but I am merciful. You alone shall bear the penalty of your transgressions.”

  The crowd moaned softly. Aliid slammed a fist into his palm. Bel Moulay said nothing, but his expression spoke volumes.

  Niko Bludd tried to sound benevolent. “If you people learn from this, perhaps you will eventually earn the right to a normal life of servitude again, to pay your debt to humanity.”

  Now the slaves howled. The Dragoon guards pressed closer, thumping their long-bladed staffs against the ground. Ishmael sensed that in spite of the ugly mood, the slaves had been beaten, for now at least. They had seen their leader publicly humiliated, put in chains, shaved, and stripped naked. And, while he showed no sign of being defeated, his followers no longer had the spark.

  Bludd said, “The old laws are violent, some might say barbarous. But since your actions have been uncivilized and barbaric, they demand the same response.”

  Bel Moulay was given no opportunity to speak on his own behalf. Instead, Dragoon guards battered out his teeth with a hammer, then used long metal tongs to reach into his mouth. Moulay struggled in defiance but not terror. With surgical precision, they cut out his tongue and tossed the gory, sluglike mass into the crowd.

  Next, they used their diamond-bladed axes to chop off his hands and threw them into the recoiling throng as well. Bel Moulay’s bloody stumps sprayed scarlet rain into the air. Next, using hot irons, the Dragoon guards burned out his eyes. Only at the very end did he make any sounds of pain, though he somehow found the resolve to stifle them.

  Blinded, the insurrection leader could not see what the gold-armored torturers were doing until they had slipped the noose over his neck and strung him over a gibbet. He struggled as the noose tightened around his windpipe, choking him slowly, never breaking his neck. Even after his horrific injuries, he seemed ready to fight against the guards, if they gave him the slightest chance.

  Ishmael vomited on the ground. Several boys dropped to their knees, sobbing. Aliid clenched his teeth as if to suppress a thousand screams inside his throat.

  • • •

  AFTER THE EXECUTION, Norma Cenva felt a coldness in the pit of her stomach. She hardly spoke beside Tio Holtzman as the scientist looked grimly on, dressed in his finest white suit.

  “Well, he brought it upon himself, didn’t he?” the Savant said. “We never treated our slaves badly. Why did Bel Moulay have to do this to us, to our war against the thinking machines?” Holtzman drew in long, deep breaths, his nostrils flaring, and glanced down at the diminutive woman. “Now perhaps we can get back to business. I suspect the slaves will behave now.”

  Norma just shook her head. “This repression is unwise.” From a distance, she looked at the still-twitching body dangling on the projecting arm of the gibbet. “Lord Bludd has only succeeded in turning the man into a martyr. I fear we have not seen the end of this.”

  Machines possess something humans will always lack: infinite patience and
the longevity that supports it.

  — file from Corrin-Omnius update

  Even though Erasmus had dispatched his last functional sentinel robots to defend the villa, he knew it was only a delaying action. The vigor and violence of the slave revolt amazed him, exceeding any of his projections.

  Humans have an infinite capacity to surprise the most rational mind.

  The slaves in the squalid main pens had been freed by their hrethgir brethren, flooding the ranks of the angry rebels. The revolt had spread through the capital city and to other urban complexes across Earth. His villa was surrounded and would surely fall before long.

  Experiments sometimes produce unexpected results.

  Donning his most ferocious countenance, designed to inspire nightmares in humans, Erasmus stood on the high balcony from which he had thrown the child. His flowmetal visage was as fierce and frightening as any of the gargoyles in the plaza, while his mechanical mind scanned all available information, processing and reprocessing. Had it been a mistake to kill the little boy? Who would have thought such a trivial death might create a stir like this?

  I miscalculated their response.

  The crowd in the plaza cursed him and peppered the balcony with small arms fire, which did no harm. More worrisome, they were surging against the heavy metal gate with a battering ram, and the sentinel robots were having trouble preventing them from breaking through. If the rebels got inside the villa, they would surely destroy Erasmus, just as they had killed the Titan Ajax, as they had smashed innumerable robots and neo-cymeks. Erasmus would be their prime target.

  In the midst of the throng, a sturdy charismatic man was inciting the rebels. The leader waved his hands, spoke passionately, and seemed to have a hypnotic effect on the mob. He shouted up at Erasmus, causing an uproar from the crowd.

  With a pause to assess new data, the robot recognized the rebel leader as one of the subjects of his loyalty experiment. Iblis Ginjo. Reassessments and connections clamored in his mind.

  Iblis had been a crew boss, well treated, well rewarded, one of the content trustees. Yet he had thrown his support to the revolt, perhaps even inspired it. Through a few vague, experimental communiqués, Erasmus had somehow galvanized this slave leader into action. But he had not expected such a monumental, incomprehensible response.

  Either way, Erasmus had proved his point. Beside him on the balcony, one of the evermind’s glittering watcheyes hovered close to him. The robot did not try to contain his smug realization. “Omnius, it is as I predicted— even the most trusted humans will ultimately turn against you.”

  “So you have won the wager,” Omnius said. “That is most unfortunate.”

  Erasmus scanned the flames rising in the distant city. If he could look upon the situation objectively it would be a fascinating study in human nature. The psychology of groups under stress was intriguing, though admittedly dangerous. “Indeed, most unfortunate.”

  At the front of the villa, the main gate burst open from the repeated pounding of the battering ram. Iblis gestured to his fanatical followers, and the mob swept over his remaining household robots like a tidal wave.

  It was time for Erasmus to depart.

  Knowing the value of his independent thoughts and conjectures, the robot did not wish to be destroyed. He represented individuality, pride in personal achievement, the possible existence of a soul. He wanted to continue his work, integrating the lessons he had learned from this fascinating revolt.

  But for that, he had to escape.

  Moment by moment, the mob grew louder. He heard the rampant destruction in his lovely home. He had just enough time to take a fast, armored lift platform down several levels to a secure tunnel system that opened to the hills overlooking the sea.

  He hesitated, knowing he was leaving Serena Butler behind, but decided that he had already kept the female around for too long. After he’d killed her baby, she had become even less useful to him, unwilling to provide any additional raw data.

  The death of her child had turned her into a wild animal, not caring anymore for her own life. She had attacked him repeatedly, despite his generous overtures to her. In the end, although Erasmus had been tempted to kill her outright, he had not been able to bring himself to do it. Most interesting. He had finally settled for drugging her into a stupor. Now Serena was in one of his laboratories, sedated to the point of catatonia, since Erasmus had found no other way of suppressing her efforts to fight him each time she rose toward consciousness. Alas, he had no time to salvage her now.

  In a concealed cave high above the swirling whitecaps, Erasmus boarded a hover capsule. Accompanied by one of Omnius’s watcheyes, he lifted off into the early evening, flying out to sea and circling back over the burning city.

  “You are being foolish, Erasmus,” the voice of Omnius said from a bulkhead screen. “You should have waited for the tide of battle to turn in favor of my thinking machines. As it must, inevitably.”

  “Perhaps, Omnius, but I have run my own risk assessment. I would rather return to my estate on Corrin, to continue my experiments there. With your permission, of course.”

  “You will only cause more trouble,” Omnius said. The hover capsule reached one of the subsidiary spaceports that was still controlled by the thinking machines. “But now, more than ever, it is imperative for us to understand our enemy.”

  Erasmus searched the database for a small, available ship that could take him on the long journey to Corrin. Through his work, he had already learned an important lesson: Humans were predictable in only one aspect— in their very unpredictability.

  Life is a banquet of unexpected flavors. Sometimes you like the taste, sometimes you don’t.

  — IBLIS GINJO,

  Options for Total Liberation

  The slaves burst into the evil robot’s villa, celebrating with an orgy of destruction. Caught in the fire of their enthusiasm, Iblis led a small group on a fast sweep through the labyrinth of rooms and corridors. They followed him, like a work crew of sorts, though this particular job was much more satisfying.

  “For Serena!” he shouted, the words the rebels wanted to hear. They took up the cry.

  Somewhere inside, he hoped to find the uncaring Erasmus, who had so blatantly murdered a helpless child. He also wanted to locate the brave mother who had fought against the thinking machines. If he could liberate Serena Butler, Iblis would make her into a rallying point, the figurehead of a great movement against Omnius. She might be somewhere here inside the great house—if she wasn’t dead. . . .

  As the rioters swept into the main building, Vorian Atreides pushed his way toward the front, buffeted by the storm of humanity. The rebels trampled the ornamental tapestries and knocked over prized statues. Vor ran with them.

  “Serena!” His voice was swallowed up in the tumult. While his companions ransacked the trappings of wealth that Erasmus had acquired, Vor rushed directly to her beloved greenhouses. “Serena! Serena!”

  He leaped over the metal forms of damaged household robots strewn across the corridors. Ahead of him, the intruders pounded open the heavy alloy door of the household equipment lockers and began grabbing tools that could be converted into weapons. Vor pushed his way through and grabbed a long knife for himself— more effective against humans than machines— then hurried back into the corridor and ran until he reached the sealed laboratories. He dreaded that the diabolical robot might have performed a last, malicious dissection on her. . . .

  He left the rest of the mob spreading through the estate. Vor worked his way past abandoned security stations, into the compounds that had held human test subjects. Freed victims with hollow cheeks and haunted eyes staggered into the corridors.

  Vor reached a set of locked quarantine cells. He tried to open the heavy doors, without success. Through small, round windows he saw people crowded inside, some with their faces pressed against the plaz, others lying on the cold rock floors. He didn’t see Serena among them.

  Beneath a deactivated Omnius e
ye, he found the release mechanism and unsealed the cells. As the desperate captives stumbled out, Vor pushed his way into their midst, calling out for Serena. The prisoners clutched at Vor, blinking in confusion under the bright lights. He could spare them no time, and went on to continue his search.

  At the back of the compound, in a sterile area that contained ominous surgical equipment, he finally found Serena slumped on the dirty plazcrete floor with her eyes closed, as if she had awakened from a drugged sleep and then crawled there. Her white-and-gold dress was stained and torn, and she had bruises on her face and arms. She lay as if dead— or like a person wanting to die.

  “Serena?” He touched her cheek. “Serena, it’s Vorian Atreides.”

  Groggily opening her eyes, she looked at him at first without recognition. He saw her unfocused stare, suspected that she swam in the deep, uncharted waters of tranquilizing drugs. Erasmus must have been trying to keep her under control. At last she whispered, “I didn’t expect to ever see you again,”

  He helped Serena to her feet and supported her as she swayed on rubbery legs, still sleepwalking. In the rear garden area the overturned basins were saturated with blood, but Vor found a small fountain that remained undisturbed, surrounded by thick ferns. He cupped cold, clean water in his hands, and she drank greedily, struggling to throw off the fog of drugs. Then he soaked a torn cloth and used it to clean her face and arms.

  She seemed to want nothing more than to slump to the floor, falling back into blissful unconsciousness, but she fought it and clutched the wall angrily, holding herself upright. “Why are you here?”

  “I came to take you back to Salusa Secundus.”

  Her lovely eyes, which had been glazed by pain and dulled by Erasmus’s crippling drugs, now came alive. “You could do that?”

  He nodded, trying to strengthen her with his confidence, but wondering how to find the Dream Voyager again. “Our window of opportunity won’t be open for long.”