Young Rayna sat at the table, quiet and polite, her manners impeccable.
“How long can you stay?” Kohe asked her husband.
Feeling magnanimous, Quentin drew himself up. “Faykan has nothing better to do than follow me around and defeat thinking machines, but Rikov has other obligations. I’ve kept him away from you for too long, Kohe. Governing Parmentier is at least as important as serving in the Army of the Jihad. Therefore, under the authority given to me as primero, I grant him an extended leave of absence— for at least a year— so that he may fulfill his duties as political leader, husband, and father.”
Seeing the delighted and surprised expressions on both Kohe’s and Rayna’s faces, Quentin felt warm inside. Taken completely by surprise, Rikov did not know how to react. “Thank you, sir.”
Quentin smiled. “Enough with the formality, Rikov. I think you can call me Father in your own home.” He pushed his plate away, feeling at peace and quite sleepy. Tonight he would rest in a soft bed instead of his bunk in the primero’s cabin. “Now, as for you, Faykan, we’ll take a week to rest and resupply here. The soldiers and mercenaries could use that much. Machines aren’t the only ones that need to recharge their power sources. Then we must be off.”
Faykan gave a curt bow. “A week is most generous.”
* * *
DURING THE DAYS away from duty, Quentin entertained Rikov’s family by telling stories of military exploits during the defense of Ix and how he had been buried alive in a cave collapse. He confessed that dark and confined spaces still made him uneasy. Then he told how he had encountered— and escaped— the Titan Juno herself when he’d commanded a scouting foray to rescue people on the fallen planet of Bela Tegeuse.
His listeners shuddered. Cymeks were even more mysterious and frightening than traditional fighting robots. Thankfully, since turning against Omnius, the Titans had caused little trouble.
Sitting quietly at the end of the table, Rayna listened wide-eyed. Quentin smiled at his granddaughter. “Tell me, Rayna— what do you think of the machines?”
“I hate them! They are demons. If we can’t destroy them ourselves, then God will punish them. That’s what my mother says.”
“Unless they were sent against us because of our own sins,” Kohe said, a cautionary tone in her voice.
Quentin looked from mother to daughter, to Rikov. “Have you ever seen a thinking machine, Rayna?”
“Machines are all around us,” the girl said. “It’s hard to know which ones are evil.”
Raising his eyebrows, Quentin looked proudly at Rikov. “She’ll make a good crusader someday.”
“Or maybe a politician,” Rikov said.
“Ah, well, I suppose the League needs those too.”
* * *
WHEN HIS BATTALION departed, Quentin decided that he would return to Salusa Secundus. There was always business to be done with the League’s government and the Jihad Council, and it had been a year and a half since he’d visited silent Wandra at the City of Introspection.
Over the course of an afternoon, the mercenaries and jihadis shuttled back to the big ships waiting in orbit. Quentin embraced Rikov, Kohe, and Rayna. “I know you long for the old days when you and your brother were wild soldiers fighting the machines, my son. I did it myself as a young man. But consider your responsibilities to Parmentier, to your family.”
Rikov smiled. “I certainly won’t argue. Staying here, at peace, with Kohe and Rayna— it’s a thoroughly satisfactory assignment. This planet is under my stewardship. It’s time I settled down and truly made it my home.”
Donning his military cap, Quentin climbed aboard the captain’s shuttle and left for his flagship. The group of vessels ran through checklists preparatory to departure. Each ballista and javelin was fully supplied and fueled, ready to begin the long journey back to the League’s capital world. When they had pulled away from orbit and were preparing to leave the Parmentier system, his technicians spotted an incoming flurry of small projectiles like a meteor storm, flying a course that did not appear to be random. “We have to assume they’re enemy objects, sir!”
“Turn about and alert the planetary defenses!” Quentin shouted. “All vessels, reverse course— back to Parmentier!” Though his soldiers responded instantly, he saw that they could not arrive in time. The torpedoes, clearly artificial and almost certainly of machine origin, headed straight for Parmentier.
Down on the surface, Rikov sounded alarms, and sensors plotted the paths of the incoming projectiles. From a much greater distance, the Jihad ships streaked in, ready to destroy the machine intruders.
But the projectiles disintegrated in the atmosphere. They caused no destruction. Not a single one made it to the ground.
“What was all that?” Faykan asked, leaning over the shoulder of a sensor technician.
“I suggest we stay and run a full analysis,” Quentin said. “I’ll put these battleships at your disposal, Rikov.”
His son, though, turned him away. “No need, Primero. Whatever those were, they caused no damage. Even if the thinking machines created them, they were klanks, misfires— “
“You still better check it out,” Quentin said. “Omnius is up to something.”
“Parmentier has modern laboratories and inspection equipment, sir. We can do it here. And we have a fully staffed local defense force.” It seemed a matter of pride for Rikov.
Waiting in orbit, Quentin was still uneasy, especially since his own son had been the target. Obviously, the projectiles had been unmanned and unguided. For some reason, they had targeted Parmentier, the closest League planet to the Synchronized Worlds.
“Maybe it was simply a guidance experiment,” Faykan said.
During his career, Quentin had witnessed far, far worse actions committed by the thinking machines. He suspected there must be more than what he saw.
“Maintain high alert status down there,” Quentin transmitted to Rikov. “This could just be the prelude.”
For two days afterward, Quentin dispersed his fleet in a precautionary defensive line at the edge of the system, but no further machine torpedoes came from the gulfs of space. Finally mollified, he saw no reason to remain any longer. After saying another farewell to Rikov, he led his ships away from Parmentier and back to Salusa Secundus.
The universe constantly challenges us with more opponents than we can handle. Why then must we always strive to create enemies of our own?
— SWORDMASTER ISTIAN GOSS
Though a horrific tsunami had killed most of the population and scoured the archipelago of all vegetation, after nearly six decades thick new jungles covered the islands of Ginaz. Gradually the people returned, eager mercenary trainees who wanted to learn the swordmaster skills developed by the legendary Jool Noret.
Ginaz had always been a breeding ground for the Jihad’s mercenaries, great warriors who fought thinking machines on their own terms, with their own techniques, rather than adhering to the regimented bureaucracy of the Army of the Jihad. Ginaz mercenaries had a high casualty rate— and a disproportionately high number of heroes.
Istian Goss had been born on the archipelago, a member of the third generation of survivors of the catastrophic tidal waves, brave souls who struggled to repopulate their world. The young man intended to spend his life fighting to free enslaved humans from the evil machines; it was what he had been born to do. As long as he could father several children before he lost his life in the Jihad, Istian would die content.
Chirox, the multi-armed combat mek, strode forward on the beach, his supple metal body erect. He turned his glittering optic threads toward the current batch of trainees. “You have all finished your curriculum of programmed instruction.” The mek’s voice was flat and unsophisticated, unlike the more advanced thinking machine models. He had never been designed with more than a rudimentary personality and communications capabilities.
“All of you have proved adequate against my advanced fighting methods. You are suitable opponents for
true thinking machines. Like Jool Noret.” Chirox gestured with one of his weapons arms toward a small rise on the island where rough lava rocks had been built into a shrine that held a crystalplaz-encased coffin. Sealed within lay the battered but restored body of Noret, unwitting founder of the new swordmaster school of fighting.
All of the trainees turned to look. Istian took a reverent step closer to the shrine, accompanied by his friend and sparring partner Nar Trig. With wonderment in his voice, Istian said, “Don’t you wish we had lived decades ago, so we could have trained under Noret himself?”
“Instead of this damned machine?” Trig growled. “Yes, that would have been nice, but I am glad to be living now, when we are much closer to defeating our enemy… in all of his incarnations.”
Trig was a descendant of human settlers who had fled Peridot Colony when it was overrun by thinking machines eighty years ago. His parents were among the hardy settlers now attempting to rebuild the colony, but Trig himself had found no place there. He felt a deep and abiding hatred for thinking machines, and he had given his time and energy to learning how to fight them.
Unlike Istian, who had golden skin and rich coppery hair, Trig was squat and swarthy, with dark hair, broad shoulders, and powerful muscles. He and Istian were equally matched as sparring partners, using pulse-swords designed to scramble the gelcircuitry brains of combat robots. When Trig dueled with the sensei mek, his anger and passion grew inflamed and he fought with a berserk abandon that made him score higher than any other student in their group.
Even Chirox had commended him after one particularly vigorous sparring session. “You alone, Nar Trig, have discovered Jool Noret’s technique of surrendering entirely to the flow of combat, erasing all concern for your safety or survival. This is the key.”
Trig had not been proud to hear the remark. Though Chirox had been reprogrammed and now fought on the side of humanity, the young man still resented robots in all their forms. Istian would be glad when he and Trig left Ginaz, so that the other man could turn his ambition and fury against a real enemy instead of this surrogate opponent….
Chirox continued to address the group of young and determined fighters. “Each of you has proven by fighting me that you are worthy and prepared to battle thinking machines. Therefore I anoint you as warriors of the Holy Jihad.”
The combat mek retracted its weapons appendages, leaving only two manipulating arms on the top so that he looked more humanoid. “Before dispatching you for service in the Jihad, we will follow the traditions of Ginaz and complete a ceremony established long before the time of Jool Noret.”
“The mek doesn’t understand what it’s doing,” Trig muttered. “Thinking machines can’t grasp mysticism and religion.”
Istian nodded. “But it is good that Chirox honors what we believe.”
“It’s simply following a program, reciting words it has heard humans speak.” Nevertheless, Trig stepped forward with all the other trainees as Chirox marched through the soft limestone sand to three large baskets filled with etched circular chits made of coral, like a treasure hoard of coins. Each small disk was either blank or inscribed with the name of a fallen warrior from Ginaz. Over many centuries of fighting Omnius, the mercenaries believed that the holy mission was strong enough to keep their fighting spirits alive in a literal sense. Each time one of them was killed in combat against the robots, his spirit was reborn in another potential fighter.
These trainees, Istian Goss and Nar Trig included, supposedly carried within them the dormant soul of another fighter waiting to be reawakened to continue the combat until final victory was achieved; only then could the ghosts of those dedicated warriors rest in peace. The baskets of engraved chits had grown more and more full as casualties piled up over the long course of Serena Butler’s Jihad, but the numbers of volunteer trainees also increased, and each year new candidates accepted those fighting spirits so that the drive of humanity grew more powerful with each generation, becoming as relentless as a machine itself.
“Each of you will now select a disk,” Chirox said. “Fate will guide your hand to reveal the identity of the spirit that lives within you.”
The students edged forward, all of them anxious, none of them wanting to be first. Seeing the hesitation of his comrades, Trig glanced expressionlessly at the combat mek, then bent over the nearest basket. He closed his eyes and plunged his hand in, rummaging among the small disks, finally grabbing one at random. He pulled it out, looked at the face of the disk, and nodded noncommittally.
No one expected to recognize the names, for while there were many legendary figures among the mercenaries, many more had died leaving only their names. Buried in vaults on Ginaz were records of all the fallen fighters. Any new mercenary was welcome to dig through that enormous database to discover what was known about the spirit inside of him.
As Trig stepped away, Chirox commanded the next trainee to make his selection, and the next. When finally Istian stepped forward, one of the last, he hesitated while curiosity and reluctance trembled through him. He did not even know the identity of his parents. Many Ginaz children were raised in crèches, communal training groups with the sole focus of developing fighters that would earn honor for Ginaz. Now at last he would learn the name of the intangible presence that lurked within his DNA, the spirit that guided his life, his fighting skills, and his destiny.
He reached deep into the second basket, moving his fingers, trying to determine which disk called out to him. He looked up at Trig and then over at the expressionless metal face of Chirox, knowing he had to pick the correct one. Finally one smooth surface felt colder than the others, a sensation of connecting with the whorl patterns on his fingertips. He pulled out the disk.
The other unclaimed chits fell back into the basket with a clatter, and he looked down for the answer— and he almost dropped the disk in disbelief. He blinked. His throat went dry. This couldn’t be! He had always felt proud of his abilities, sensed the greatness within him, as all trainees claimed to feel. But while Istian Goss was talented, he was not superhuman. He could not live up to an expectation like this.
Another trainee bent over to look, seeing Istian’s stupefied reaction. “Jool Noret! He’s drawn Jool Noret!”
Beneath the discord of gasps, Istian muttered, “This can’t be right. I must have drawn the wrong one. Such a spirit is… much too powerful for me.”
But Chirox swiveled his metallic torso, his optic threads shining brightly. “I am pleased you have returned to us to continue the fight, Master Jool Noret. Now we are a great stride closer to victory against Omnius.”
“You and I will fight side by side,” Nar Trig said to his friend. “Perhaps we can even surpass the legend you must live up to.”
Istian swallowed hard. He had no choice but to follow the guidance of the heretofore silent presence within him.
Those who have everything value nothing. Those who have nothing value everything.
— RAQUELLA BERTO-ANIRUL,
Assessments of Philosophical Revelations
Richese would be doomed as soon as Omnius returned with a full-fledged military force. Upon escaping, the damnable Seurat had certainly provided the evermind with vital information about the Titan rebels. By assessing their past failures, the machines would calculate the necessity for a much larger fleet, accept larger losses, and return with enough battleships and firepower to wipe out the cymek installations. The Titans didn’t have a chance.
General Agamemnon doubted he had more than a month.
He and his cymek followers needed to leave, but he could not simply run like a mad dog to the nearest available planet, which might be fiercely defended by the hrethgir or even other machines. He did not have sufficient information, or personnel, to find and subjugate a new stronghold.
From a thousand years of experience as a military commander, he understood the need for accurate intelligence and a complete analysis of all options. Since only three of the original Titans remained alive, Agamemno
n could not afford to take needless risks. Though he had already lived for well over eleven centuries, he valued his survival more than ever.
Juno, his lover, had matching ambitions and goals. Returned from the other cymek planet of Bela Tegeuse, she faced him in their expansive stronghold on Richese, swiveling her head turret to show off her sparkling optic threads. Even in this strange inhuman configuration, Agamemnon found her brain and her personality beautiful.
“Now that we’ve broken free of Omnius, we require new territory, new populations to dominate, my love.” Her simulated voice had a rich, thrumming quality. “But our numbers are not overwhelming enough to face either the hrethgir or the Synchronized Worlds. And the thinking machines will be coming back to Richese. Soon.”
“At least Omnius is prohibited from killing the three of us.”
“Small consolation! Omnius will destroy everything we have built, slaughter all our followers, and rip the preservation canisters from our walkers. Even if we aren’t dead, he could strip away our thoughtrodes and leave us in an eternal hell of sensory deprivation. Worse than dead— we would be useless!”
“Never useless. I would kill you myself before I allowed that to happen,” Agamemnon said in a bass projected rumble that made the columns in the spacious chamber vibrate.
“Thank you, my love.”
Moving with implacable speed, he lurched his walker-form through the archway, already transmitting orders to the neos to prep his fastest ship. “You and Dante remain here and shore up our defenses against the thinking machines. I will locate another world for us to rule.” He flashed his optic threads, which sent a constellation of Juno images flooding into his mind. “With luck, Omnius won’t find us for some time.”
“I prefer to count on your magnificent abilities— not luck.”
Dune: The Battle of Corrin Page 7