“Precisely— and so is Omnius’s plan.”
* * *
QUENTIN HIMSELF LED patrols, like any other officer. He raced from one system to another, helping the local populations to implement protective measures. Dozens of incoming plague canisters were intercepted at other League Worlds, but some had obviously gotten through. Rikov’s Parmentier was already infected and shut down— and now news of the burgeoning epidemic had come from five more planets.
Quentin dreaded that it was already too late.
Severe quarantines had been imposed, but frightened people still escaped, carrying the Scourge along with them. In all likelihood some would seek safety on Salusa Secundus. Even with draconian measures, it would be nearly impossible to protect the League capital world. How could they intercept every small, desperate ship? They would have to be ferociously vigilant to spot all incoming vessels, block them and quarantine them until any signs of the Scourge could manifest. Fortunately, given the slow speed of long-distance space travel and the relative swiftness with which the epidemic acted, any infected ships would be obvious by the time they arrived at Salusa.
Quentin paced the bridge, observing the haggard looks and tense confusion on the faces of his crew. His sensor technicians were always alert, understanding that if they allowed their attention to waver for just an instant, if even a single plague torpedo slipped through their guard, an entire world could die.
After so many years of Serena’s Jihad, the League was sore and unstable, held together by hatred for the thinking machines. Quentin feared that such a virulent plague— and the panic that spread even faster than the disease itself— might make civilization itself unravel.
I am all the graveyards that ever were, and all the lives resurrected… but so are you.
— RAYNA BUTLER,
True Visions
After the feverish visions dwindled into nightmares and the blackness of utter sleep, Rayna Butler drifted, clinging to a strand of life as thin as a silkworm’s thread. Descriptions of Heaven that her mother had provided during daily devotions did not resemble this at all.
When she finally returned to her body, her life, and her world, Rayna found that everything had changed.
Still huddled inside the dark, stifling closet, she realized that her clothes were soiled, stiff with dried perspiration. The sleeves of her blouse, wadded and discolored, were pinkish from blood that had seeped out of her pores along with copious fever sweat. Though the discovery was odd and disturbing, Rayna felt emotionally flat and sensually deadened. She didn’t even smell her clothes.
Struggling to her feet, Rayna felt her weakened muscles tremble. She was incredibly thirsty, unable to understand how she could have survived without fresh water. She didn’t try to understand how anything made sense anymore. Each step, each breath, comprised a little victory for her, and she knew there would be many more difficult things to come… and to overcome.
Rayna looked down at herself and noticed now that her clothes were dusted with tangles of her pale yellow hair, long strands that had fallen from her scalp and downy flecks of prepubescent hair from her arms. It made no sense. Her skin was pale and perfectly smooth.
Moving with painstaking slowness, afraid her body might break at any moment, the girl went to tell her parents about all the fever visions and religious revelations. Saint Serena herself had spoken to her! Rayna was sure she could figure out what the shining woman meant. The heavenly instructions had to be true echoes from the voice of God, which Rayna had been able to hear only because of the depths of her sickness.
When she reached the master suite, though, Rayna found her parents lying in precisely the same positions that she last remembered seeing them, only now their bodies were swollen and blackened with the onset of decay. Although the sudden shock and stench slammed open her senses, Rayna remained staring for a long moment until finally she turned away.
In other halls and rooms, she found two more bodies, servants who had not fled the governor’s mansion, as she had thought. Her home was utterly silent.
At least the water was still running. In her bathroom the girl activated the long streams of a purging shower. Water gushed from outlets in the wall, and Rayna clawed off her stained clothes and stood naked under the cold flow as she gulped mouthful after mouthful. The heating systems no longer worked, but her skin was numb anyway. All of her joints ached and gritted as if her cartilage had turned into broken glass. She grasped a bar for balance and simply endured the rushing streams. More strands and clumps of hair fell away from her scalp and rushed down the drain carried by rivulets of cold water.
The girl had no means to mark the time that passed, nor any interest in doing so….
When finally she emerged, dripping and rejuvenated, Rayna stood before the polished full-length mirror— and saw a stranger. Her rail-thin body had changed in ways she had never imagined. All of her hair had fallen out. Her scalp was bald, even her eyelashes and eyebrows were gone. The arms, face, and chest of the eleven-year-old were completely smooth, and in the daylight streaming through the windows, her skin took on a translucent, luminous quality. Like an angel.
She didn’t know how long it had been since she’d last eaten, and though she was famished, Rayna knew she had a more important duty to perform first. She dressed in clean clothes, then went to the private family chapel where she had prayed with her mother. Sitting before the altar of the Three Martyrs, the child asked for guidance, remembering the revelations Saint Serena had given her. Finally, as her thoughts and memories became clear, the girl picked herself up and went at last to the silent kitchens.
Much of the food was rotting, and some of the storage units had been ransacked by halfhearted looters. She must have been unconscious, hidden in her closet, for days. She found the body of another household servant sprawled near the food preparation counter. The sickly smell of decaying flesh mingled with the raw odors of spoiled meat. She wondered what the cook had meant to prepare before the Demon Scourge struck her down.
First the girl drank more water, cool clean liquid that came from the mansion’s cistern. Her body was dehydrated. She had lost a great deal of weight. Her eyes were sunken and hollow, her cheeks pressed against her teeth. She gulped a long drink and then stopped when her stomach rebelled. She found some cheese in a food locker and ate a small bowl of canned stew cold, but the spices were too strong and she threw up.
Still weak but knowing she needed to nourish herself, Rayna drank more water and found a small loaf of stale bread. That was good enough for now. The repast of bread and water held a simple, pious purity that imparted heavenly strength to her.
Though she still felt weak and shaky, Rayna decided she had rested enough. She left the governor’s mansion behind, turning her face toward the too-quiet city below. The plague was a scourge from God, but Rayna had survived. She had been chosen for great works.
Though she was only a child, she was absolutely clear about what she had to do now. The lovely vision of Saint Serena Butler had given her instructions— and now Rayna had her mission.
She set off barefoot down the hill.
* * *
THE PEOPLE SHE saw going about their business looked gaunt and exhausted. They flinched at any startling movement. Everyone had seen many friends and family members die, had done their best to tend the sick if they could. Many of those who had recovered were lame and twisted, a cruel joke on those strong enough to overcome the plague. They used makeshift crutches or crawled, searching for food and calling for help. Even the intact survivors had broken spirits, unable to bear the burdens and responsibilities of doing the work of ten.
Rayna walked alone, her eyes bright, looking for what she needed to see. From the streets, she made out furtive shapes above her, shadows in the windows of dwellings and shuttered businesses. Though just a girl, she ventured forward, tall and confident, so pale-skinned that she might have been a living skeleton… or a manifestation of the Spirit of Death. There would be plenty of stored
food for the survivors to scavenge, but soon, if they did not dispose of the rotting bodies, if they did not take care of the infections and infrastructure breakdowns, deaths from a cascade of related causes would add a great many to the numbers who had fallen from the Demon Scourge in the first place.
Rayna picked up a fallen crowbar from the gutter. Earlier, she remembered her father talking about riots in the streets, people fighting each other. Martyrists had marched in desperate processions; many people— both participants and innocents— had died in the brawl. Now the crowbar felt heavy and warm in her hand, a sword to be wielded by a righteous young woman who had received direct instructions from Serena.
Finally she saw the first target in her mission.
The ethereal girl stood before the window of a shop that sold mechanical devices, appliances and innocuous conveniences that had thus far escaped the waves of rioters and looters. League citizens used such things without a thought to their origin, ignoring the fact that high-technology devices were distant cousins of Omnius. All machines, all electronics, all circuits, were temptations, inherently evil. They insinuated themselves into daily life so that people blithely accepted the pervasive presence of machines.
Drawing a silent breath, Rayna swung the crowbar and smashed the shop window, laying bare the vulnerable appliances. Then she began to pummel them into metal and polymer debris. This was her first strike against evil. Her visions had told her to root out the infestation from within, obliterating any vestiges of thinking machines so that humans could avoid such weaknesses in the future.
In an eerily calm frenzy, Rayna smashed everything she could see. When she found no further mechanical manifestations, she sought out another building, an accounting firm that contained calculating machines on the second floor. The girl destroyed those as well. One man, looking weak and frightened, came out to stop her, but cringed when Rayna issued a stony, determined curse, berating him for allowing machines into his place of business.
“Humans will face only misery if we do not eradicate all aspects of the mechanical demons. I have heard the voice of God, and I will act accordingly!”
In the face of such a vehement pronouncement, albeit from such a small person, the man ran away.
For now, with so much work to do, Rayna did not make distinctions between the levels of technology, the variations of computer sophistication. She went tirelessly from business to business, until finally two members of Parmentier’s skeleton security force stopped her. But she was no more than a child, the daughter of the dead governor, and after looking at her, they gave each other knowing glances. “She’s been through a rough time. She’s just taking out her anger in the only way she can. Right now, I’m too tired to take care of anything that’s not an emergency.”
“I even turn a blind eye to half of those.” One of the security men, tall and dark-skinned, pointed a stern finger at Rayna. “We’ll leave you this time, girl, but don’t get into trouble again. Go back home.”
Rayna saw how late it was. Tired, she did as she was told and returned to the governor’s mansion.
The next day, however, she was back again with her crowbar, seeking further targets, smashing all thinking machines and related devices.
This time, though, she was accompanied by a small crowd of watchers, many of them haggard Martyrists. They began to chant in support, picking up cudgels of their own….
Faith and determination are a warrior’s greatest weapons. But beliefs can be corrupted. Beware that these weapons are not turned against you.
— SWORDMASTER ISTIAN GOSS
For their first mission after being dispatched from Ginaz, Nar Trig and Istian Goss had hoped to be pitted in direct combat against the forces of Omnius. Instead, the new swordmasters found themselves in a tangled police and recovery action on recaptured Honru.
“You’d think they would have put the man carrying the spirit of Jool Noret on the front lines,” Trig grumbled. “Now that this place has been freed from Omnius, why can’t these people maintain their own order?”
“Remember what you were taught: Any battle that defends humanity is important.” Istian bit back a sigh. “If this job is as easy as you say, we can finish our work here swiftly enough— then we’ll be off to other battles.”
After Quentin Butler’s battalion had left Honru, the downtrodden survivors had gone into a vengeful frenzy incited in part by Martyrist propaganda. Sentinel robots, floating watcheyes, and all the subsystems that served the evermind had been dismantled, circuitry uprooted, machinery torn apart. Nar Trig looked at the zealots with a hungry curiosity, as if detecting a fervor similar to his own against the thinking machines.
Unfortunately, Istian thought, the survivors had been so intent on their vendetta that they caused far more damage than necessary to establish their foothold. If they had turned their energy and enthusiasm to rebuilding Honru instead of crushing an already defeated enemy, the two swordmasters might have been able to fight the real battles instead of wasting their time here.
The Honru slave pens had been torn down, and the people set up dwellings inside former machine strongholds, erecting tents and lean-tos, purloining comforts from factories in the once-gleaming city. Extravagant and colorful shrines to the Three Martyrs sprang up like weeds throughout the city and in the strip-mined countryside. Long banners depicting Serena, Manion the Innocent, and Grand Patriarch Iblis Ginjo unfurled from tall buildings. Instead of growing food, Martyrist farmers planted fields of the orange marigolds that had become the symbolic flower of Serena Butler’s murdered baby boy.
Istian and Trig marched down the streets, alert. The ranks of Martyrists had grown substantially, and their thankful followers held frequent vigils, celebrations, and prayer meetings. They seized any remnants of intact Omnius machinery they found among the ruins, then pulverized them in symbolic destruction parties.
The survivors were settling down, though, and each day they turned toward more productive work. Istian hoped that he and Trig would be able to leave when the next League ship arrived.
Many people rushed in from other League Worlds, some to stake their claim on new territory, others genuinely wanting to help. The philanthropic Lord Porce Bludd, grandnephew of Niko Bludd, who had been killed during the great slave uprising on Poritrin, contributed vast amounts of funding. The rebuilding and restoration of Honru did not lack for money, resources, or manpower. The only failing, Istian thought, was in focus and initiative….
They heard a shout. Istian turned to see a man sprinting toward them wearing an officer’s uniform— it was the military administrator of the reclaimed colony. Despite his relatively high rank, the man had noble blood and was more of a bureaucrat than a warrior. Trig placed his hand on the power button of his pulse-sword and stood ready.
“Mercenaries! We require your assistance.” Red-faced from the effort of running, the military administrator stopped in front of the two swordmasters. “While breaking open one of the sealed storage depots, workers encountered three combat robots, and they were still active! The meks killed two of our people before we could seal the machines inside. You have to go fight them.”
“Yes.” Trig grinned wolfishly and turned to his sparring partner. “We do.”
Istian looked determined and pleased. “Let’s go, then.”
In a part of the city filled with identical cube-shaped warehouses and storage chambers, the two swordmasters raced after the military administrator and a dozen well-armed jihadi soldiers. They could have used explosives and heavy projectile weapons to destroy the combat robots, but the rebuilders needed the supplies, equipment, and resources that were stored intact within the warehouse. Istian and Trig, on the other hand, could dispatch the enemies with finesse— and without collateral damage. Also, the jihadi soldiers wanted to watch the Ginaz mercenaries and their much-vaunted skill in hand-to-hand combat against the enemy machines.
A crowd followed them as they rushed off to their destination. People shouted. Some of them carried ban
ners of the Three Martyrs. Trig raised his pulse-sword in a defiant gesture, and the Martyrists cheered. Istian focused his attention forward, mentally preparing himself for his opponent. He recalled ancient legends of brave armored knights who set forth to fight dragons in their lairs while terrorized peasants watched, and he supposed that he and Trig filled a similar role now.
When they stood before the sealed metal door to the cube-shaped warehouse, Istian saw that its smooth, polished surface was rippled with convex dents as if someone had launched cannon shells from the inside. Obviously, the trapped combat robots had tried to hammer themselves free.
As soon as the barricade ratcheted aside, the tall and burly killing machines strode forward, extruding spiny appendages, deadly weapons, flamethrower arms, projectile cannons. The three battle machines were the stuff of nightmares— precisely the targets for which a Ginaz swordmaster was trained. Chirox had given them both the necessary instruction.
Istian and Trig shouted in unison and charged ahead, raising their pulse-swords. The combat robots seemed startled by these small opponents. A gout of flame spurted from one of the incinerator arms, but Trig dove to the left, rolled, and sprang back to his feet. Istian leaped forward, swinging his pulse-sword against the same enemy. With a single blow, he sent a surge of energy through an appendage of the combat robot. Its flamethrower arm drooped, powerless.
The other two combat robots swiveled and converged as Trig charged toward them. His eyes were ablaze, and he didn’t even bother to dodge. He gripped the pulse-sword in his left hand and a small energy dagger in his right.
Incensed at the first battle mek for launching fire at him, Trig collided with that one, thrusting and slashing. He tapped the hilt button to increase the sword’s discharge power and, in a blur of well-aimed blows, shorted out the mek’s primary memory core, erasing the combat programming and shutting it down completely.
Dune: The Battle of Corrin Page 12