“That will clear more operational area for us,” Agamemnon said, setting down his ship.
In a dry voice, Dante delivered instructions to the neo-cymeks. His optic threads detected three yellow-robed secondaries rushing to tower windows and balconies. Mouths agape, they took in the situation of the unexpected attack, then fled for shelter inside.
Neo-cymeks continued to land like carrion crows around the immense Titan ships. Agamemnon transferred his brain canister into a small but powerful walker-form that would fit within the corridors of the stronghold. He summoned a group of neos to lead the charge, blasting open walls and battering aside doors. After exchanging their large mechanical vessels for smaller walker-bodies, they marched in like a procession of mechanized army ants loaded with weapons. Agamemnon clattered triumphantly behind them. The sharp legs of his walker-body struck sparks against the stone floor.
Outside, the clumsy neo-cymek Beowulf misjudged his landing and crashed, tumbling off a cliff and coming to rest helplessly inside a new crevasse of the broken glacier. When the neo-cymeks reported the blunder, Agamemnon considered simply leaving Beowulf there where he could freeze and be covered up by the slow but inexorable closing of the glacial jaws.
But Beowulf had once been a valuable ally, far more dependable and talented than the inept Xerxes, who had a much longer résumé of failure. Grudgingly, the Titan general issued orders for the removal of Beowulf’s brain canister from the ruins of his ship-body and its insertion into a neo-cymek mechanical walker. I am running out of excuses to keep Beowulf alive. The brain-damaged neo-cymek was no longer an asset, and was rapidly becoming an actual liability.
Inside the frozen Cogitor fortress, neo-cymek warriors encountered and dispatched more than a dozen yellow-robed secondaries. Agamemnon killed two of them himself, using the antique projectile weapon that he had obtained from Thurr on Wallach IX. It worked perfectly.
Just ahead of the general, his neo-cymeks found libraries and work-rooms where the monklike secondaries had spent their days copying and transcribing. It seemed the attendants had been particularly fascinated with all known manifestations of the mysterious Muadru runes found on scattered planets.
Additional chambers deep in the bowels of the fortress were devoted to electrafluid chemistry. Saffron-robed workers in the laboratories cowered as neo-cymeks stormed in, interrupting their chanting, ritualistic processes of converting water into the life-sustaining liquid.
Agamemnon issued explicit instructions and sent Dante to enforce them. “Find out how these factories work and then kill most, but not all, of the underlings. We need at least some of them alive.”
Other secondaries fled into a large central chamber where the Cogitors rested on their pedestals. When finally Agamemnon emerged into the enclosure and surveyed the shimmering canisters of the Ivory Tower Cogitors, he was distressed to find only five brains floating in individual cylinders of bluish life-preserving liquid.
One of the six was missing.
“General Agamemnon, your arrival is needlessly destructive and chaotic,” one of the ancient philosophers said through the pedestal’s speakerpatch. “How may we assist you? Are you here to procure a supply of electrafluid?”
“That’s part of it. I also intend to take over Hessra and destroy all Cogitors. Which one of you is not here?” He raised a mechanical arm, pointing its sharp end toward the empty pedestal.
Guileless, the philosopher brains hummed and answered honestly, “Vidad has taken up temporary residence on Salusa Secundus to advise and observe the League of Nobles. We need further data and discussions to continue to grow.”
“That isn’t going to happen after today,” Juno said, strutting her ominous body into the chamber beside Agamemnon’s. She’d always had a particular dislike for the meddling Cogitors, especially the one named Eklo, who had worked with Iblis Ginjo to foment a rebellion on Earth. That had been the beginning of this appalling, destructive Jihad.
Even though the League’s crusade against machines had allowed the cymeks to launch their own rebellion and break free of the evermind’s control, Agamemnon still harbored a deep grudge against the Cogitors. “Do you have any final brilliant revelations before we execute you?”
One of the Cogitors, speaking in a female voice, said with strange placidity, “We have a great many areas in which to enlighten you, General Agamemnon.”
“Unfortunately for you, I am not interested in being what you would consider enlightened.”
Instructing the neo-cymek walker-forms to continue searching the corridors and chambers of the Hessra installation, Agamemnon and Juno moved forward. They wanted to do this for themselves. It was a way for the two Titans to show their love for each other.
Raising powerful mechanical arms, they toppled the pedestals, smashing the transparent canisters that held the ancient Cogitors, and took great delight in grinding the quivering brains into oozing pulp with mechanical fists, one after another. It was over far too soon.
Finally, standing in the dripping wreckage, Agamemnon declared that Hessra was now theirs. There had never been any doubt of the matter.
Science is the creation of dilemmas in the attempt to solve mysteries.
— DR. MOHANDAS SUK,
speech to graduating class
At any other time, Raquella would have reacted much differently to meeting her grandfather, asking him a thousand questions, telling him about herself. Supreme Commander Vorian Atreides!
Her mother might have been more intrigued by his surprising revelation, but Helmina was dead now, just like Raquella’s own first husband. She had assumed her grandmother’s secret soldier was another casualty, unable to return. The Jihad had devastated so many lives and hopes.
She would rather have spent more time with Vor Atreides— would rather have done almost anything— but Raquella could not turn her back on all the people who needed her now. With the Omnius Scourge raging across Parmentier, she and Mohandas had too many people to save. They had a cure to find.
But thus far a cure had eluded them. They could treat the symptoms, hydrate the patients and keep the fever down, helping the largest number of victims to survive, but even so in such a massively infected population, that was not enough. Many, many people were dying.
Vor had promised to do what he could to help, to spread the news of their epidemic to other League Worlds. Even if he couldn’t get back in time to assist Parmentier, at least he could warn the other planets to be on their guard against the machines’ terrible new tactic. If it was in his power, Vor would keep his promise to her. Even though he had been gone only hours, she knew it.
The Hospital for Incurable Diseases. The name seemed unfortunately apt now. She didn’t know what she would do if Mohandas succumbed to the plague. Better, Raquella thought, that she contracted the disease first… Already, three of the twenty-two doctors gathered from around Niubbe had died of the Scourge, four were recovering but still incapacitated, and two more were showing the unmistakable first-stage signs of the virus. Soon she would be tending them, too.
Mohandas had studied the disease closely enough to draw some basic conclusions, though he hadn’t yet found any magic bullet. After the airborne virus entered the body via the mucus membranes and infected the liver, it produced large quantities of a protein that converted the body’s own hormones such as testosterone and cholesterol into a compound similar to an anabolic steroid. The liver could not effectively break down “Compound X” (Mohandas hadn’t had the energy to give it a more creative name), nor could it be removed from the bloodstream. Since natural hormones were depleted due to conversion into the deadly Compound X, the body then overproduced them, while the buildup of the poisonous compound caused striking mental and physical symptoms.
In the final stages of the disease, death took more than forty percent of all patients. In addition, liver failure was common and heart attacks and strokes caused by malignant hypertension often proved fatal. In a smaller number of cases, thyrotoxic crisis ca
used the body to simply shut down due to hormonal imbalances. By that point, the extreme fever had placed most victims into a deep coma that lasted several days before they stopped breathing. In a high percentage of virus sufferers, tendons easily ruptured, leading to many crippling injuries among the survivors….
Raquella tended to forty patients within the next hour. She no longer heard the moans or the paranoid muttering, nor saw the terror or pleas in their eyes, nor smelled the foul miasma of death and sickness. This facility had always been more of a hospice than a hospital. Some people took longer to die from the viral infection; some suffered more than others. Some were brave and some were cowards, but in the end it didn’t matter. Too many of them died.
Stepping into the corridor, Raquella saw Mohandas approach. She smiled at his warm, sweet face, seeing how haggard and weary he looked, with creases of fatigue etching his cheeks around the sealed breather. For weeks he had been doing triple duty, as a doctor, disease researcher, and interim hospital administrator. They had very little time to spend together just as two people whose deep love for each other had evolved into a comfortable, unbreakable bond. But after watching so much hopelessness and death, Raquella needed human comfort, if only for a few moments.
When they had both passed through decontamination sprays into a section of sterile rooms, Mohandas and Raquella could finally remove the breathers that prevented them from kissing. They held hands briefly, staring into each other’s eyes through the protective film, saying nothing. They had met and found love in the tragedy of the Hospital for Incurable Diseases, like a flower blossoming in the middle of a barren battlefield.
“I don’t know how much longer my energy can last,” Raquella said, her voice worn down, trailing off in melancholy. “But how can we stop, no matter how tired we get?” She leaned closer, and Mohandas took her into his arms.
“We save as many as we can. As for those we lose, you make what remains of their lives more pleasant,” he said. “I’ve watched you with the patients, the way their faces light up when they see you. You have a miraculous gift.”
Raquella smiled, but with difficulty. “It’s just so hard sometimes, listening to their desperate prayers. When we can’t save them, they call out to God, to Serena, to anyone who will listen.”
“I know. Dr. Arbar just died, in Ward Five. We knew it was imminent.” He had fallen into a coma two days earlier, the fever burning fiercely, his body unable to fight the virus or the toxins it produced.
She was unable to control the tears that suddenly streamed down her face. Dr. Hundri Arbar had risen from an impoverished background in Niubbe to get his medical degree so he could help people less fortunate than himself. A local hero, he insisted on living without drink or drugs, refusing even the spice melange that was so popular across the League. Lord Rikov Butler— who, along with his household, was now dead— had provided his own ample stocks of spice to the hospital, since he also refused to consume it in light of of his wife’s strict religious beliefs. Most of the doctors in the hospital took it daily to maintain their energy and stamina.
“One less doctor to help us. It makes you wonder if…” She broke off in midsentence as she thought again about the spice. “Wait a minute. I think I see a pattern.” Whenever she found extra supplies, Raquella administered spice to some of the patients in order to ease their physical pains for just a little while.
“What is it?”
“Not until I’m sure.” Raquella walked briskly down the corridor with him right behind, and entered a medical records room. Quickly she sorted through charts, scrambled to draw parallels. During the next hour, she feverishly went through file after file, each a separate sheet of circuit plaz with data, which she processed through a reading machine. The sheets piled up around her.
And the evidence became indisputable.
“Yes— yes!” Breathing hard, she looked triumphantly at Mohandas. “Melange is the common denominator! Look.” She led him through the records, patient after patient. Her words poured out in a rush. “For the most part, people are dying in the greatest numbers along class lines, which at first blush doesn’t make sense. Poor people catch the plague in much greater numbers than wealthy noble families or rich businessmen. That has never made sense to me, since nutrition and sanitary systems are fairly equal throughout the entire population.
“But if anyone who consumes spice has a greater ability to fight off exposure to the retrovirus, then people in the lower classes who can’t afford melange will die in larger numbers! Look, even those patients who receive spice after contracting the plague show a better history of recovery.”
Mohandas could not argue with the evidence. “And Dr. Arbar never took the stuff! Even though melange may not be a cure, it certainly appears to be a mitigant. It provides resistance.” He paced the lab floor, pondering deeply. “The spice molecule is exceedingly complex, a huge protein that VenKee has never synthesized or managed to break down. It’s quite possible that the molecule itself blocks the critical protein by which the virus converts normal hormones to Compound X. Essentially, if there’s a pocket on the enzyme ordinarily filled by cholesterol and testosterone and then transformed into Compound X, maybe melange is shaped closely enough to those hormones that it gets stuck in this pocket, deactivating the enzyme.”
Raquella felt herself flush. “Don’t forget that the first stages of infection include paranoia, mental delusions, and aggressiveness. The spice enhances thought processes— perhaps it also helps people fend off an initial infection.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Raquella, if you’re right, this is a huge breakthrough! We can treat entire populations that haven’t been exposed yet, immunizing them against the virus.”
“Right, but we need to move fast,” Raquella said. “And where will we get so much melange?”
Mohandas lowered his head. “It’s much more serious than that. Do you doubt that the Scourge has already hit other planets? The epidemic could be moving across the galaxy like a storm of locusts. We have to get the news out into the League at all costs.”
Raquella drew a quick breath. “My… Vorian Atreides— he can do it!”
She raced out of the records chamber to the hospital’s abandoned communications room. She had to send a signal to him before his vessel accelerated out of the system. As Supreme Commander of the Army of the Jihad, he could insist that the League dramatically increase spice distribution to any planet that might be a target of the Omnius plague.
To her relief, he acknowledged her transmission after a long signal delay. Without pausing, she told her full explanation, then waited for the transmission lag. Finally, he said, “Melange? If that’s true, we’re going to need a hell of a lot of it. You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. Get the message out— and stay safe yourself.”
“You too,” he said. “VenKee headquarters on Kolhar is near my route back to Salusa. I can speak directly to the managers of the spice trade.” He added something else, but static interfered, and they lost contact.
The successful executive is like a poker player, either concealing his emotions or showing false ones, so that others cannot use them against him.
— AURELIUS VENPORT,
The Legacy of Business
For nearly two weeks, Vor pushed the Dream Voyager to accelerations that only a robot was designed to withstand, determined to waste no time in bringing his vital news back to the League. His body ached, but he knew each passing moment could mean more lives lost.
If, by increasing the ship’s speed to the limits of his body’s endurance, he could save even one more person, that reward would be more than worth his own short-term suffering. Agamemnon himself had been the first to teach him that lesson when he’d given Vor the life-extension treatment: Pain is a small price to pay in exchange for life.
Over the long journey, he had manifested no symptoms or indication of the disease, saw none of the warning signs Raquella had warned him about. This meant that according to her p
ast knowledge he was indeed immune to the Omnius Scourge. Thus he could immediately throw himself into the necessary work, without fear of infecting others and without fear for his own personal safety.
Vor shifted his course on a short detour to Kolhar to the VenKee shipyards. Under the circumstances, he considered it important to speak directly with the primary suppliers of spice. The ramifications of Raquella’s discovery were astounding.
Sadly, but without surprise, he learned from newsbursts across the comline channels as soon as he approached Kolhar that the epidemic had already begun to spread to other League Worlds. Omnius was delivering the disease with ruthless efficiency, tainting planet after planet, despite the League’s best efforts to stop the spread. Quarantines were imposed, but usually not swiftly enough; and even when precautions kept the epidemic bottled up, at least half of the people within the boundaries were doomed.
Vor alone had hope to offer, and it hinged on VenKee’s cooperation. Those who consumed the spice could better resist the Scourge.
VenKee had a lock on melange exports, keeping their techniques and suppliers secret from the rest of the League. The merchant company also held a monopoly on the use of dangerous spacefolder ships for commercial transportation. The pieces fit together in Vor’s mind: To counteract the fast-moving virus, it was essential to deliver medical supplies quickly, thus requiring spacefolders. And spice…
Vorian swore that he would not leave Kolhar until he had what he needed.
* * *
IN THE END, Norma Cenva herself accompanied Vor aboard the Dream Voyager to Salusa. She had foreseen his arrival and knew with an odd and inexplicable prescience that he would bring urgent news. By the time he had spoken a handful of sentences, Norma had determined three things: The situation was critical, spice was central to the survival of the human race, and she would go to Salusa with him to address the League Parliament.
Dune: The Battle of Corrin Page 14