Mentats of Dune

by Brian Herbert

  Gilbertus remained standing. “I object to the new oath both on principle and because of its wording. I prepared a list of six hundred thirty-seven specific flaws, contradictions, and ambiguities.” He frowned at Harian. “Your deacon confiscated the document I carried with me out of the school, but I can recite the flaws from memory, if you wish.”

  Even though he was not invited to do so, the Headmaster began to rattle off details. Manford was neither interested nor impressed. What sort of man was this Gilbertus Albans? He was most perplexing and irritating—but also, in a strange way, admirable. The Headmaster managed to list more than twenty specifics before Manford silenced him.

  Gilbertus did not seem upset at being cut off, but said, “It’s not possible to debate the merits of an issue if one side stubbornly refuses to listen.”

  “If the opposing side has no merits, one doesn’t need to listen,” Manford countered.

  “Then why am I here?”

  Manford glanced at the avid expressions of Deacon Harian and Anari Idaho. Sister Woodra looked calculating, her eyes bird-bright and attentive. He dismissed them all, telling Anari to stand guard outside his tent while he and the Headmaster discussed important matters.

  After Manford shooed them away, Gilbertus took a seat across the camp table. The Butlerian leader hardened his expression. “You know I cannot allow your Mentat students to deny me with impunity. Everyone on Lampadas is aware that you refused the oath, and I will not ignore your defiance.”

  “This matter could have been dealt with quietly. I am not the one who spread the news around Lampadas and sent a force against the school.” Gilbertus looked maddeningly calm. “Your oath was unnecessary. You had every reason to assume my Mentats were loyal, while I, personally, have done everything you asked. I spoke out against thinking machines, assisted you on the Thonaris raid, and defeated a robot in chess for your spectacle at the Imperial Court. My loyalty was already plain—you did not need to force the issue. But you did … and this is where we now find ourselves.”

  With a deep sigh, Manford said, “Perhaps you’re right, but make one of your Mentat projections now. You know what has to happen next: Your students must all surrender and promise to follow the Butlerian path. They must take the new oath, because if I make an exception in your case, others will demand the same. I can’t have that.”

  “You also need Mentats, Leader Torondo. We provide a valuable alternative to thinking machines, and we show the Imperium that society doesn’t need computers anymore. You can’t destroy our example.” The Headmaster paused, and added, “Maybe I could rewrite the oath for you, clarify the terms and add definitions, caveats. “What’s wrong?”d Mentat—”

  “No! One exception leads to another and another. You don’t understand my followers—they are not deep thinkers who understand nuances. They must have black-and-white choices. Your tampering would only open up room for doubt.”

  “Then send my school away from Lampadas as a punishment. Exile us. All my trainees will go elsewhere.”

  Manford shook his head. “We could never allow you to leave.” Especially not with Anna Corrino. He sighed again. “I’m granting a great courtesy in discussing this with you at all. Your Mentats have enjoyed small victories during this siege, harming some of my scouts with your defenses, but you can’t last for long. We will overwhelm you.”

  Gilbertus’s eyes flashed. “You swore you would not harm my school or my students.”

  “I won’t need to do anything. We can merely stay here and wait until you all starve or surrender.”

  “That would still be harming my school, albeit indirectly.”

  Manford shrugged. “You waste too much time on minutiae. In my mind, the matter is clear-cut—just as the new oath is.”

  Outside the tent, he heard Deacon Harian’s voice. “I must see Leader Torondo. Let me in—I have the proof we need!”

  “Then I hope your dead lips can speak it, because you will not enter the tent,” Anari said. “I am commanded not to allow any interruption.”

  Manford had no doubt Anari would give her life before allowing the deacon to pass, but he also knew that Harian would continue his ruckus until he was finally allowed in. He called out, “Anari, let us see what the deacon has discovered.” He added a warning edge in his voice. “You can slay him if he wastes my time.”

  Deacon Harian did not balk, nor did Manford expect him to; if nothing else, the man was resolute. Anari opened the tent flap, and the bald deacon strode in, carrying a tome. Sister Woodra accompanied him, as if she served as his personal Truthsayer rather than Manford’s.

  Harian glared at Gilbertus Albans, who sat straight-backed at the table. With the delicate touch of a forefinger, the Headmaster pushed his spectacles higher up on his nose.

  Harian thumped the heavy book down on the camp table, then turned to a page that featured the image of a face. “This was brought to my attention by one of our loyal followers, an archivist who found this volume in his large collection. It was published shortly after the Battle of Corrin.” He pushed the book forward onto the table, demanding that Gilbertus look at the image.

  Manford had seen the picture many times: the historical record from the climactic battle of the war against thinking machines, when the Army of the Jihad rescued the hostages that Omnius placed in harm’s way, using them as human shields at the Bridge of Hrethgir. In the image, frightened people crowded together, liberated from their long nightmare.

  Harian continued, “The book includes details of humans who collaborated with thinking machines, the demon robots—and how some of the turncoats escaped in the confusion by mingling with refugees.”

  Gilbertus looked at O">everything.

  Even an Emperor must earn respect before he is entitled to receive it.

  —EMPEROR FAYKAN CORRINO I

  When Taref arrived aboard the Imperial Barge, dressed in an approved m boosted by the power of Other Memory she carridp the otheraintenance uniform for servicing the FTL and Holtzman engines, the ghost of Manford Torondo accompanied him.

  Not long ago, he had celebrated killing the Butlerian leader in Arrakis City, pleased to report his triumph to Directeur Venport. But afterward, Taref had suffered terrible, recurrent nightmares of the whizz-clack of the Maula pistol, the screams of the crowd, the legless body sprawled on the dusty street. Dead. The man’s skull had exploded, his blood and brains spraying in all directions.

  Dead!

  It was not possible that Manford could have survived. And yet he was back, and very much alive. The Butlerian leader said he was blessed by God and indestructible, and Taref had seen the proof of that claim. His entire view of the universe had shifted.

  Life was hard and cheap in the desert, and Taref had been familiar with killing … though he had never done it in such a personal way before. Even all those people lost aboard the pilgrim ship and the other EsconTran spacefolders he had sent off into the depthless nowhere of the universe … those were just distant casualties. Now Directeur Venport wanted him to do the same thing to the Emperor’s ship. But this was personal, too—like killing Manford Torondo. Another important name and face, the leader of the Imperium, a man with so much power that he could simply annex the entire planet of Arrakis on a whim.

  As the third son of a Naib, Taref had little status in his tribe, but he had always scorned status because it measured things he did not care about. Directeur Venport had offered him an escape from Arrakis—and now a return to it—which came with a price he was willing to pay. A price that was, in its own way, quite high. But one more mission and he would be free. Directeur Venport had promised to release him from any remaining obligations.

  According to Venport’s orders, the Emperor of the Known Universe must be irrevocably lost on his journey home.

  Taking his diagnostic tools, Taref worked in the engine room of the Imperial Barge with two other mechanics, workers from Arrakis City he had never seen before. They didn’t know about his special mission. Directeur Venpo
rt trusted only him, and he had impressed upon Taref how terribly dangerous, yet necessary, this mission was.

  The ghost of Manford Torondo mocked him: “Once more you try to kill a great leader, and again you will fail, because God Himself does not wish it. You are a tool of God, not a tool of that evil man.”

  “You cannot speak to me,” Taref muttered aloud. The hum of the resting engines drowned out his words. It was a large and complex engine compartment, crowded with both types of stardrives. The barge was practically empty, with the Emperor’s entourage gone as Taref spoke aloud in the emptiness. “You are not even truly dead.”

  “Because you failed,” said the voice. It was not really a ghost, couldn’t be. It was just Taref’s conscience, his own imagination.

  He went to the FTL and foldspace diagnostic panels, the latter of which looked similar to the EsconTran panels he had serviced and sabotaged on several ships at Junction Alpha. He ignored the voice as he selected his tools, made adjustments to one of the engine couplings, then altered a programming flow. Regardless of which engines the pilots chose to use when departing, the navigational calibration was now corrupted.

  “I serve myself,” he said. “I make my own any form of advanced technologythp mme decisions.”

  Manford’s presence found the comment amusing, and laughed inside Taref’s head. “No matter how strong you think you are, if you try to do something God does not wish, you will not succeed.”

  Feeling a knot in his stomach, the young man reconsidered. He studied the engine control board, not wanting his conscience haunted by the Emperor’s ghost, in addition to the other one.

  What did it all matter to him? What did a lowly desert man know, or care, about interplanetary politics? Before leaving his sietch, he’d never thought much about the Corrino Emperors, nor had he ever heard of Manford Torondo.

  The Butlerian movement had nothing to do with the timeless ways of the desert, nor did Emperor Salvador and the politics of seizing the spice operations. Would Imperial control be any different from that of the offworld industrialists? Taref couldn’t understand Directeur Venport’s hunger for riches and power either. Once a person had everything, how could he keep wanting more?

  Through all these thoughts, Taref decided he would no longer be a pawn, doing whatever he was ordered to do.

  Anxious to get back to the purity of the desert, he packed up his tools, leaving his work only partially done, without the backup sabotage he customarily performed on each vessel. Even so, what he’d done should be enough to destroy the navigation system and send the ship careening wildly into deep space, with no way for the pilots to reach any inhabited world. Taref was the first to board the return shuttle. That was enough. He had one last message to send to Directeur Venport.

  * * *

  EMPEROR SALVADOR HAD made a string of poor decisions, and now he was asserting himself in a grand and irritating way. Josef could barely control his annoyance.

  What might have been a simple expedition to the spice fields became an operation as complex and cumbersome as a planetary invasion. The preparations and sheer dithering made Josef want to scream, yet he maintained his smile through it all. It was one of the greatest challenges he had ever faced.

  The Emperor had brought hundreds of people aboard his Imperial Barge, uprooting the Salusan court and hauling the bloated party to the desert planet. Josef hadn’t expected the Emperor to take most of them on the tour of the spice operations as well, but Salvador left only a handful of pouting functionaries behind on the barge, probably the ones who had displeased him somehow during the weeks-long journey to Arrakis.

  In addition to the court functionaries and advisers, more than a hundred armed Imperial soldiers joined them to protect against desert bandits. “A wise decision, Sire,” Josef said. “This is an extensive spice operation, and while I have my own troops, your added force is always welcome.”

  Salvador patted him on the shoulder. “Not to belittle your protective measures, Directeur, but my security team is superior.”

  Yet from watching the Imperial guards for only a short time, Josef could see that they were not nearly as sophisticated as his own paramilitary fighters. “I’m sure you’re right, Sire.” And he thought for the thousandth time that Roderick would make a much better Emperor.

  According to Cioba, the Sisterhood had identified a grave danger to civilization if this idiot were allowed to bear offspring, and they had surreptitiously sterilized him. But now Josef was in a position to sol escape plan,” the robot saidrtre the ve the problem in a more permanent way and save the present as well as the future.

  The desert expedition required a large overland shuttle, complete with refreshments and two young women who skillfully played balisets during the journey. The loaded shuttle flexpanse of dunes, bypassing Arrakis City and leaving no record of their passage, in accordance with Josef’s orders. In orbit, the barge’s skeleton crew remained in contact with the Imperial party, some clearly disappointed that they weren’t joining this merry adventure.

  “This looks like an awful place,” Salvador mused as he stared out at the monotonous dunes.

  Josef said, “We don’t value Arrakis for its beauty, Sire, but for its spice.”

  A cross-shear from the fringe of a minor storm buffeted the shuttle, and the entourage gasped in sudden panic. With his face twisted in annoyance rather than concern, Salvador signaled the cockpit. “Pilot, use caution, or I’ll find someone more competent to handle the controls.”

  The pilot meekly apologized and gave the small storm a wide berth, which further delayed their arrival at the spice operations. Fortunately, having anticipated the ponderous nature of the Emperor’s entourage, Josef had not dispatched the spice factory until the shuttle was already on its way. Timing was crucial. Harvesters could only work a melange vein for a limited time before a sandworm forced them to evacuate. Salvador Corrino probably expected the desert leviathans to accommodate his schedule.

  Josef fashioned a false smile to make himself appear pleasant; the muscles of his face ached.

  He was surprised to receive a direct communication from his saboteur Taref, especially so close to the Imperial entourage. In fact, he had never expected to hear from Taref again, counting on the desert man to simply fade off into the dust and sand.

  For security, the Emperor had private cubicles aboard the elaborate shuttle. Trying not to show his sweat, Josef took the communication off-line temporarily and smiled. “If you would excuse me, Sire? I have an urgent business matter.”

  Salvador gave him an indulgent smile. “Of course, Directeur. Always crises! It comes with your position of responsibility. You must be so relieved to be done with all the pressures of the melange industry.”

  Josef could not seal himself in the chamber quickly enough, and he demanded answers and reassurances from his Freeman operative. “Is it done? Where are you?”

  The young Freeman sounded hesitant and sad. “I did not complete my task, Directeur. In fact, I refuse. I began to corrupt the ship’s nav-controls, but I will not have an Emperor’s spirit haunting me.” The desert man’s face looked haunted on the screen, his eyes hollow.

  Josef felt chilled. “But you must! It is the only way—”

  “I am done with this work, Directeur—and done with other worlds. It is in God’s hands now.” He terminated the transmission.

  Josef wanted to scream. It was such a neat, simple, perfect plan—the Imperial Barge would simply vanish en route, along with the worthless Emperor and his worthless entourage, lost on their way back to Salusa. The spice industry, the future of Venport Holdings, Norma Cenva’s precious Navigators—everything depended on it.

  The Emperor could not return to the palace. He could not be allowed to continue his blundering damage to civilization—no+,avpa matter how much the solution cost.

  As the shuttle continued to fly across the desert, Josef felt his face burning with anger. His thoughts churned, then focused, and soon he had another solution. A
more expensive plan, harder to cover up, but effective nevertheless. He hated to spend so much—but if he did not find some way to take care of Salvador, VenHold would pay a much, much higher price.

  Fortunately, he had operatives on all spice crews, people who were paid well for their services. He could get rid of the Emperor, but he had very little time to make the arrangements. Still in the private chamber, he sent out another urgent communication. By the time he emerged to rejoin Salvador and the rest of his contingent, Josef had calmed himself, and no one noticed a difference in his mood.

  A dust plume was visible in the air as sand grains and fine particles were exhausted through the chimney-mouths of the mobile factory. Like a bloodstain, a rusty smear from a recent spice blow marked the dunes. The machinery scooped the top sandy layers into separation chambers, where centrifuges and filters did the first-cut processing to pull out the spice and eject the debris.

  Salvador sat in his padded seat, peering through the expanded central observation window, while his functionaries gathered at smaller portholes on the sides. “What huge machinery!” one of them gasped.

  Spotter aircraft flew high, keeping watch. Salvador’s own guards remained alert and wary, but Josef reassured them. “Those flyers are constantly on the alert for giant sandworms.”

  “Your harvesting crew is creating an awful mess, isn’t it?” Salvador said. It wasn’t really a question.

  Josef saw the churning scar the mobile spice factory was leaving as it scooped melange-saturated sand. “They’ve been at full production now for only about fifteen minutes.”

  “Fifteen minutes?” said one of the baliset players.

  “Spice operations are a race against the worms,” Josef explained. “Sire, when these become Imperial operations, your workers will have to heed that as well.w across the e

  When the weak become powerful, their former oppressors will tremble in fear.

  —Orange Catholic Bible