Mentats of Dune

by Brian Herbert

  Roderick nodded. “And about House Péle, our Mentat accountants have conducted extensive audits, and we have proof that Tabrina’s father underreported mining production to avoid Imperial taxes. We have levied crushing punitive fines, and Blanton Davido is already dead at the hands of the Grand Inquisitor. That should be sufficient punishment.”

  “By all means, no! An underling can’t take the place of the man who truly deserves to be punished. I want Omak Péle brought here to face Quemada.”

  Roderick was skeptical. “Empress Tabrina will object strenuously.”

  “My wife is welcome to take her father’s place if she wishes. Lord Péle went into hiding as soon as the scandal broke, but I’m sure we have the resources to find him.”

  Roderick closed his eyes, gave a small nod. “We do.”

  The two walked together along a portico lined with statues of heroes of the Jihad. In an uncharacteristically warm moment, Salvador embraced his brother, held him close. “I’m sorry about Nantha. We’ll punish whoever was responsible.”

  Roderick caught his breath, almost choked on it. He and Haditha would never, ever get over the death of their child. It was a loss that needed to be avenged by breaking the Butlerian movement. His voice came out in a low growl. “We already know who is responsible.”

  * * *

  TWO DAYS AFTER the order went out for her father’s arrest on Péle, Empress Tabrina barged into Roderick’s office without an appointment. A strikingly beautiful woman with dark, almond eyes, she moved with the slender grace of a cat. She wore a long dress of glittering gold and ruby-colored fabric.

  “My father is not subject to Imperial interrogation,” she said without ceremony. “Blanton Davido died at the hands of the Grand Inquisitor, and House Péle has already paid the shortfall in taxes plus the outrageous fines. The matter has been corrected—make Salvador see reason and stop all this nonsense! We should forget about the whole troublesome episode. After the Butlerian riots, the Imperium needs calm. We should get back to normal.”

  Seeing Tabrina’s fiery personality, and aware of the loathing she had for Salvador, Roderick could only think about how much he Laboratory Journals

  He did not get up from his desk. “I will never get back to normal, Tabrina. My daughter was murdered in the Butlerian madness, and I have no intention of forgetting her or what the fanatics did.”

  The Empress looked flustered and embarrassed. “Yes, I am very sorry. I remember the dear girl.…” She fidgeted with her hands, lifted her chin. “So you can understand that I must try to save my own father.”

  “I understand … but unlike your father, my poor daughter was innocent.”

  * * *

  SISTER DOROTEA ACCOMPANIED Roderick as he went to find the Emperor, who was taking a midafternoon break in his private dining hall. The Truthsayer kept a respectful step or two behind Roderick as they entered.

  Salvador looked up from a bowl of blue-tomato soup, wiped his lips with a white napkin. “Give me good news about Omak Péle. Is he here, being interrogated by Quemada already?”

  Roderick shook his head. “We do not have him. I received wo the slow deat

  With the right tools and proper concentration, we can unlock secrets hiding within the human mind. Unfortunately, some of those secrets are better left sealed away.

  —GILBERTUS ALBANS, Mentat Doctrines

  Erasmus observed his subject, conversed with her, and instructed her. Now that he finally had the grudging permission of Gilbertus, he wanted to spend every moment studying the puzzle of Anna Corrino. He was learning much from their interactions, and felt a sense of satisfaction that she seemed to have grown so fond of him.

  Unfortunately, the young woman had her routine class exercises, and, being human, she also required sleep. The independent robot had no such biological frailty; he possessed sufficient energy to concentrate, discuss, and analyze all day long, but Erasmus could detect when the young woman’s energy reserves were being depleted.

  Through the spy-eyes he saw that Anna looked haggard, her eyes red from lack of sleep, as well as from periodic weeping when the robot prodded her about the disappointments in her life. He liked to provoke the emotional reactions in her, so he could study them in detail. It had been so long since he had complete freedom with all his interesting human subjects, and he wanted to make up for lost time. Still, though his curiosity remained unabated, Erasmus needed to let her rest … to an extent.

  How he wished he could interact with her directly, though, in a personal and tactile way. Gilbertus had had ample time to find Erasmus a permanent artificial body, but he’d been unable, or unwilling, to do so. He didn’t understand why his ward would stall. Had he not served Gilbertus extremely well as a paternal presence and mentor? Surely even the Headmaster wanted more than a conversational companion. Erasmus could well imagine how much he’d accomplish in his experiments if he were more than a disembodied voice in Anna Corrino’s ear.

  Erasmus mused about how Anna might react if she discovered that her secret new friend was a reviled robot. Would she still consider him such a close confidant if she knew what he was? Considering the young woman’s fragmented mind and sometimes rational, sometimes volatile emotions, maybe she would.…

  Late at night, when Anna lay on her bed, Erasmus spoke through the hidden wall speakers. To continue her instruction, he suggested mental exercises similar to the ones he had used to train the young, feral Gilbertus Albans. But Anna found those challenges too simple, and her mind was already sophisticated at solving puzzles. She could rearrange complex shapes, interlock them, and build exquisitely beautiful sculptures. In a holographic tactical room where Mentats performed strategic exercises with imaginary space fleets, Anna easily spott Laboratory Journals

  As Anna drifted off to sleep, so mentally exhausted she was unable to stay awake, Erasmus told her about old military engagements, machine forces versus the Army of the Jihad. Although he focused on battles where the unpredictable humans had lost, he did not editorialize, merely instructed—and corrected—her in certain historical facts. He talked about the great machine victories in the Jihad, some led by Omnius’s forces, others led by General Agamemnon and his cymeks. He enjoyed providing details about the machine conquests of Ix, Walgis, and Chusuk, where entire populations had been slaughtered.

  When he realized that Anna had begun to doze, he jarred her awake so he could continue his story. “I’m sorry,” she said. “So sleepy.”

  “I know you’re tired. Reshaping your mind and learning so much history is a wearisome process. But it’s important for your development.”

  A year ago, he had eavesdropped while one of Gilbertus’s old students, Sister Karee Marques from Rossak, gave the Headmaster a new thought-focusing drug. Sapho, she’d called it, a distillation from the barrier roots on Ecaz, and she thought it might prove useful for Mentat trainees. Erasmus knew where the drug was kept and had ideas about how it might be used.

  “There’s something I want you to try,” he said to Anna, knowing she would do whatever he suggested. “Go quietly to the dispensary, and I will help you locate vials of a particular red liquid. Bring me one of them. We will both find it very interesting.” He told her the name of the drug, assured her it would help.

  “Let’s consider it our special little experiment,” Erasmus said. “I think it’s exactly what you need.”

  * * *

  ANNA CORRINO GLIDED along the corridors of the Mentat School, flitting through shadows—she found it thrilling, like when she used to sneak off to meet Hirondo Nef. Now she felt as if she were on an espionage operation, a character from one of the stories she’d read with Lady Orenna back in the Imperial Palace.

  She missed Orenna. Anna paused, trying to remember. The old woman had visited her here not long ago. Was that right? Yes! And Roderick had been with her, too.

  Recalling the assignment from her secret friend, Anna moved along. She didn’t need to use much caution, because at this hour the Mentat students
were in their assigned quarters, sleeping. Outside, perimeter guards watched for any signs of attack, and defensive systems protected against large predators. But inside the academy complex, the corridors were as hushed as a held breath.

  No one challenged her as she moved toward the medical dispensary near the dissection labs, and Anna crept into the gloomy storeroom, knowing exactly where to look.

  Sapho. A mind-enhancing drug, a catalyst that could help make her thoughts clear and normal again. Anna withdrew the vial and held it in the dim light. It was the deep ruby color of thick blood. A shiver of anticipation ran down her spine.

  In the back of her mind, questions kept nagging at her … not quite another voice, simply concerns that emerged from her own brain. If this was a new and untested drug, how did the friendly voice know it would help? How did that voice know so many details about her past, about her Laboratory Journals

  Not wanting to wait to get back to her quarters, she opened the vial and sipped the sapho. The taste was pungent and bitter, not at all sweet, as it appeared. Deciding that a mere sip could not possibly be enough, she upended the vial and drained it before she could react further to the taste.

  She hid the empty vial at the back of a shelf and licked her lips. She rubbed her mouth on her forearm, leaving a red stain. She wondered how long it would take for her to notice the effects of the sapho. Anna hurried away from the dispensary with whispering footsteps, imagining the severe consequences she would face if she were caught.

  If she were caught …

  That thought triggered a troubling echo in her mind, and she began to think of other times she’d been caught at the Imperial Palace, and other consequences. Horrific consequences. She felt memories well up, one after another, like bubbles rising to the surface of a boiling pot.

  With sapho, the bubble-memories were brighter and fresher than they would have been otherwise, vivid in all of their details. She remembered slipping away to meet her young lover. She had loved Hirondo with such intensity, although he was only a palace chef who was deemed inappropriate for her affections. It wasn’t fair! The romance lasted for several weeks before they were discovered and torn from each other’s arms. After she kept trying to see him, Hirondo was banished—perhaps executed, she was never sure—and then she was exiled to the Sisterhood school on Rossak.

  The sapho continued to work inside her brain, triggering more memories.

  When she was fifteen, she had taken some of Empress Tabrina’s jewelry because she thought it was pretty. The Empress accused one of the female servants of stealing it, and Anna was relieved that she hadn’t been caught. But when the servant was sentenced to disfiguration as punishment, Anna produced the pilfered jewels and admitted her own guilt.

  That should have been the end of the matter, but Emperor Salvador was not satisfied. “Sister, you have to understand consequences and know that you’re responsible when other people get in the way of your indiscretions.” He flared his nostrils. “We will carry out the sentence as decreed.”

  And so, Anna had been forced to watch in horrified silence as the servant, still wailing her innocence and begging for mercy, had one of her arms severed.

  The memories were so vivid, the pain so fresh and clear, that Anna stumbled into a wall. Recovering her balance, she kept pushing forward, trying to make her way back to her quarters.

  More memories surfaced like bats swooping out of a cave at dusk, and the more painful they were, the more intense they appeared in her mind. She could see only her past and not the dim corridors of the Mentat School.

  “Help,” she whispered aloud, but she was far from her mysterious friend, who never spoke to her except when she was in her own room. Anna fumbled along, her eyes closed, but that didn’t help, because images continued to flow across her thoughts. She finally found a door that seemed to be her chamber. She pushed it open and tumbled inside, hoping she was in the right place.

  The sapho continued to rush through her bloodstream.

  She remembered one of her beloved pets, a silky dog so small it could curl up in her lap. But it barked too much, and Salvador+so s woman always hated it. Her dog died mysteriously, and Anna never knew whether or not the Emperor had instructed one of his guards to poison it. Dear Roderick had consoled her and offered to replace the animal, even though that would never heal her heartache. But Salvador overrode his brother, forbidding more dogs in the palace.

  Now, in the dim room Anna staggered forward and bumped her shin painfully against a chair. Her chair. She found her bed by accident and sprawled onto it. The universe of her past whirled around her like a cyclone, gathering strength.

  “Help me,” she said aloud. “I can’t stop.”

  The memories grew louder, more intense. She saw herself as a girl, playing in the extensive palace gardens and arboretum. But now she had more context, more understanding. She had been too young to comprehend the politics of what was happening in the Imperium, the turmoil caused by the release of the Orange Catholic Bible, how the people despised the Commission of Ecumenical Translators who claimed to speak for God. The popular mood was already raw and inflamed from constant Butlerian provocations, and Emperor Jules had struggled to keep his government from tearing itself apart. As a girl, she hadn’t understood why the CET members, led by their spokesman Toure Bomoko, remained in protective exile.

  She had been such an innocent child that day when she went out to the waterwheel cottage on the palace grounds, where she expected to play uninterrupted.

  Now, thanks to the sapho, the memory came fully alive inside her. A child again, Anna crept up to the open window, surprised to hear voices inass="TX" aid="

  Just repeating a statement often and with great vehemence does not make it a fact, and no amount of repetition can make a rational person believe it.

  —DRAIGO ROGET, report to Venport Holdings, “Analysis of Fanatical Patterns”

  The Suk doctors at their main hospital on Parmentier were pleased to receive sophisticated medical equipment from VenHold industries—scanners, genetic analysis grids, and diagnostic machines that were dependent on complex circuitry, possibly even computers. Josef Venport did not explain the internal functioning of the analytical devices, and the Suks were wise enough not to ask uncomfortable questions; they merely accepted the generous gifts and expressed their appreciation.

  Now, after Josef concluded his business with the Suk School, the VenHold transport ship departed from Parmentier. He climbed the long stairway to the Navigator deck so he could spend time with his great-grandmother. The complexities of running his huge shipping and banking empire must seem trivial to such an advanced being, far beneath the threshold of her attention. Yet he knew that Norma cared for him and wanted to protect her legacy—which included the Navigators (whom she considered her surrogate children) and the critically important spice production on Arrakis.

  Up on the Navigator deck, he watched the shifting starfield. When he was with her, Josef felt like a child sitting on a wise and attentive maternal knee.

  “As of last week, Grandmother, our fleet has expanded,” he told her, like a boy showing off a good school report. The news had been spread widely throughout Venport Holdings, but he didn’t think Norma paid much attention to those channels of information. “We acquired a hundred more ships.”

  He saw her move inside the tank and knew she was listening. Even though she didn’t respond, he continued to explain, “Through intermediaries we expanded our stockholder base and purchased a rival transport company, Nalgan Shipping. Most of the captains still aren’t aware they’ve been absorbed by VenHold.” He smiled at the thought. “Once I make the announce+28Fp the otherment to the Landsraad, it will cause quite an uproar. The Butlerians will be outraged.”

  Norma’s face drifted close to the side of the tank. Her oversize eyes watched him, seeming to focus and unfocus.

  He expanded on the significance of this news. “Nalgan Shipping was one of the few companies that serviced Butlerian planets. Now
that I own Nalgan Shipping, we will reroute those vessels and further cut off the barbarians. Let them have their dark ages.”

  Norma stirred, and finally her voice came through the speakerpatch. “If you have more ships, you will need more Navigators.”

  “Yes. We always need more Navigators.”

  “You understand their importance,” Norma said. “To the future. To the Spacing Guild.”

  “Spacing Guild?” he asked.

  Before he could press for further information, Norma interrupted him. “A moment. I require my concentration.” Her eyes lost focus.

  He fell silent, wondering if she had suddenly thought of another esoteric idea that was impossible to explain—possibly even a profitable idea.

  Josef looked out the broad windowports through which Norma liked to view the universe. The hum of Holtzman engines sounded through the deck, and he felt the buildup of static electricity in the air. So near the Navigator’s tank, the ozone penetrated deep into his sinuses.

  Norma Cenva’s mind was so powerful that she could fold space on her own, although with such a large vessel she used the Holtzman engines. Josef felt a wrenching sensation and the stars twisted, then jumped as the universe rippled around the hull.

  With the transition completed, Josef continued the conversation. “I promise you, we will defeat the Butlerians, Grandmother. One devastating blow after another. Manford’s puppet Mentat recently defeated a captive mek in a pyramid chess game at the Imperial Court. They believe this proves humans are supp>

  After the mob violence, Josef had hoped the Emperor would crush and disband the antitechnology movement … but Salvador didn’t have the spine. Josef was sickened by the images he had seen. “Once they run out of thinking-machine remnants, where will the Butlerians turn for scapegoats? The Half-Manford will need an outside enemy or he’ll lose his hold on the mob. He’ll have to make something up, maybe even secretly manufacture his own machines in order to destroy them in public.”