Many patients were hooked to rows of overworked blood-filtering apparatus, pumps taking blood from the veins in the arm, scrubbing out the toxic Compound X, then recirculating the blood. But the infected livers continued to produce the deadly compound, and the patients would require the modified dialysis all over again within a few hours. There weren’t nearly enough machines.
Raquella noted Ticia Cenva stalking through the rows of patients, snatching circuit plaz records and skimming them, while talking briskly to two Sorceresses beside her. She seemed edgy, barely holding on to her fear. In a derisive tone, Ticia said, “Your medicine is no better than the prayers of a Cultist. A wasted effort.”
Raquella did not rise to the provocation. She had enough guilt of her own and didn’t need the Supreme Sorceress to add to it. “Better to make an attempt and fail than just to let nature take its course. If humans did not fight against impossible odds, we would all be slaves of Omnius.”
Ticia gave her a superior smile. “Yes, but we fought effectively.”
Angry now, Raquella put her hands on her hips. “HuMed dispatched us here because you were having no success.”
“We didn’t ask you to come. HuMed forced you upon us. You’re not doing any good here— in fact, the plague has gotten worse since your arrival. Count the casualties.” Irritation and tension suffused the voice of the Supreme Sorceress. “Maybe you brought a new strain with you. Or maybe your supposed cures are spreading the disease even faster.”
“That’s ridiculous superstition,” Raquella said. “If your methods are better, then why have so many of your best Sorceresses died?”
Ticia recoiled as if Raquella had slapped her. “The weak ones are dying. The strong ones could have solved the problem by now.” With that, she and her companions marched off.
Jimmak had returned, carrying a tray piled with a container of water and loose pieces of fresh-picked fruits and mushrooms, but he huddled against one of the stone walls, waiting for his aloof mother to go away. Ticia had not acknowledged the shrinking boy in any way. When Raquella smiled at him, though, Jimmak hurried forward and showed her his prizes: dark and fuzzy little lumps, a large yellow melon, and something pear-shaped in an unappetizing greenish-black color.
“I like these the best,” he said, pointing at the fuzzy lumps. “In the jungle we call them rossies.”
Raquella took the fruits. “I’ll keep these for later. They look delicious.” She didn’t trust whatever the young man had picked in the deep jungle.
Jimmak lowered his voice conspiratorially. “My mother doesn’t like you.”
“I know. She doesn’t think I belong here. But I’m trying to help.”
“I could help you,” Jimmak said, his face bright, his voice breathless. “Some things in the jungle make people feel better.”
“How interesting.” She knew about all the drugs and pharmaceuticals VenKee workers harvested out in the wilderness. “You’ll have to show me sometime.”
* * *
OVER THE NEXT several days, Raquella and her young friend spent more time together, and she even began to sample the things he brought her from the jungle after carefully washing them. Jimmak had an odd, feral sort of intelligence she had not understood at first. An outcast, he must have been forced to take care of himself, living out in the wilderness.
Eventually, she began to wonder if perhaps he did have interesting solutions to offer. None of the powerful Sorceresses took the Misborn boy seriously, but by now she was getting desperate.
Exhausted and frustrated by her lack of progress, she sometimes took short breaks and walked with Jimmak along pathways that cut through thick, overhanging vegetation down on the jungle floor. One trail in particular filled her with a sense of awe and wonder, as sunlight filtering through plants in the canopy created a rainbow effect on the ground, with colors that danced as the trees moved.
“I don’t feel any wind,” Raquella said, “and I don’t see how any wind could get in here. But those trees above us are moving, causing the colors to shift.”
“Trees are alive,” Jimmak said. “They make colors for me with sunlight. I talk to them sometimes.” A rainbow flickered in front of him, then seemed to change shape, into a prismatic ball, splashing colors all around it. Then another ball appeared, and yet another. Laughing, Jimmak juggled the three illusory balls in his hands, splashing colors around him, until they disappeared into the canopy.
Amazed, Raquella asked questions, but Jimmak didn’t tell her anything more. “Many secrets in the jungle.” The more she pressed, the more silent he became. She decided to let the matter go, for now.
Jimmak showed Raquella mushrooms as big as ponds, odd lichens, berries that crawled by themselves. He was always scampering off into the deepest levels of the shadowy jungle, retrieving unusual plants and leaves for her to examine, even telling her some of their medicinal characteristics, which he had learned from helping VenKee prospectors.
The jungle of Rossak, however, yielded no magic cure to help with the local epidemic. And people kept dying.
If no one remembers the grand things I have accomplished, then did I do them at all, as far as history is concerned? The only solution seems to be that I must achieve something spectacular or cause an event that no version of history could ever ignore.
— YOREK THURR,
secret Corrin journals
Thinking machines might have infinite patience, but Yorek Thurr didn’t. This exile on Corrin was interminable. Though his life span had been artificially extended, he still found it a maddening waste of time— decades!— to sit idle behind the defensive walls of machine and League ships.
Unlike Omnius and Erasmus, who were content to bide their time and outwait the guardian hrethgir, and the limbless Rekur Van who had no place else to go, Thurr devoted his mental energies to finding a way out— for himself, if for none of his computer allies.
Under the blazing red sun that filled half the sky like an immense bon-fire, Thurr took care to wear special eye protection as he walked alongside Seurat. The robot captain had served Omnius for centuries and had been the close companion of Vorian Atreides. More importantly, Seurat had been held hostage by Agamemnon for more than half a century.
“So tell me in more detail how you escaped from the Titans,” Thurr said.
The robot looked at him curiously. “My files are available for complete review whenever you desire, Yorek Thurr. Does the matter hold particular interest for you?”
Thurr narrowed his eyes. “I’d like to get away from here, and some of your ideas might be helpful. Aren’t you eager to escape Corrin? You were designed to be the captain of an update ship, flying free among the Synchronized Worlds— yet you haven’t left here in twenty years. Even for a robot, that must be maddening.”
“Since there are no other Synchronized Worlds, I am no longer needed to perform an update run, which is my core purpose,” Seurat said. “And I did fulfill my last duty by bringing a copy of the Omnius sphere to Corrin after the humans annihilated most Synchronized Worlds.”
“I brought a copy of Omnius, too,” Thurr said. “But that doesn’t give me much satisfaction.”
Seurat’s coppery face remained placid. “As soon as Omnius determines how best to use my skills, I will receive new instructions.”
“Humans aren’t quite so… complacent.”
“I am aware of that. My experiences with Vorian Atreides taught me much.” Seurat’s voice sounded almost wistful. “Do you know any jokes?”
“Not any funny ones.”
Thurr reviewed the detailed records of Seurat’s escape from Richese, how he’d slipped out from under the cymeks’ noses. It had taken the distraction of an outside attack. Perhaps something similar would work for him here.
Fortunately, the huge machine barricade had been designed and emplaced to keep the League out, not to keep someone like himself in. And the Holtzman scrambler net would do nothing to stall his human brain. Thurr’s main challenge would be to create
a significant enough diversion that he could steal a fast ship and slip through the net of the human forces. They would be watching much more closely since the deployment of his mechanical devourers. But once he made his way out into free space again, the possibilities were much more extensive.
It was worth thinking about. At least Thurr had all the time in the world to mull over possibilities, to plan and rehearse his actions.
He made his way into a side chamber of the Central Spire, past galleries of the computer evermind’s ridiculously gaudy ornamentation. Omnius Prime was embedded deep within the ingrained gelcircuitry and flowmetal structure of the monolithic building. Inside, however, were stored the other two evermind incarnations: the sphere Seurat had brought and the copy he had delivered himself when he’d fled Wallach IX.
The evermind incarnations should have been nearly identical, but Omnius, against his usual practice, had refused to synchronize the other two updates with himself. He kept the pair of silvery gelspheres isolated, fearing that they might contain some secret destructive virus such as the ones Seurat had delivered long ago. Thurr himself had often tampered with the Omnius on Wallach IX, to keep his devious activities secret. He didn’t think he had done any damage, but there was always that possibility….
Now the two additional copies, slightly out-of-phase, retained their independent identities. The main evermind naïvely believed that since all three incarnations were together and presumably experiencing the same daily events, they would not continue to deviate. But Thurr believed that the trio of separated everminds had already grown farther and farther apart.
He counted on that, in fact, for it could work to his advantage.
When he accessed the evermind copy he had brought from Wallach IX, he stood before the speaker circuit, trying to sound very rational. “Corrin continues to face a severe threat. It is clear that the challenge is too great for the processing power of Omnius Prime alone.”
“I am identical to Omnius Prime,” the evermind said.
“You are equivalent in skills and talent. No longer identical. If both of you were to apply yourselves to the problem in parallel, there would be twice as much mindpower. The hrethgir could not possibly resist. You both have access to the same systems here in the Central Spire. While Omnius Prime maintains an unbreachable defense, as he has done for nineteen years, I suggest you plan another offensive against the human guardian fleet. We certainly have sufficient robotic ships in orbit.”
“There has been significant attrition, which strains the capabilities of Corrin to replace. Our ships have undertaken numerous offensives, but we cannot pass the scrambler net. What would another attempt accomplish?”
Thurr sighed with impatience. Though the evermind copy had vast amounts of information, it had little insight— like most thinking machines. “If you could devote all of our ships to breaching the hrethgir line, shredding the scrambler network no matter how many battle vessels that requires, then we could immediately launch more copies of Omnius. Everminds would be free to propagate, and then thinking machines could retake Synchronized Worlds or even establish strongholds on new planets. Like seeds scattered on fertile ground. But only if they can get away— only if you can create a large enough hole in the barrier.”
He smiled. “On the other hand, bottled up here, you are completely vulnerable if the hrethgir manage to break through with even a few ships to drop pulse-atomic warheads. Therefore it is imperative that the Omnius everminds disperse, propagate, and survive.”
“I will interact and discuss the matter with Omnius Prime. Perhaps this is a viable plan.”
Thurr shook his head, placing his hands on his hips and adjusting his belt and jeweled dagger. “Then you would sacrifice your independence, which is currently an advantage in this crisis. Would it not be better to demonstrate unequivocally to Omnius Prime that you have innovative ideas he has not considered? Once your attack proves successful, Omnius Prime cannot deny your worth as a separate unit.”
The Wallach IX copy pondered, then reached a decision. “I have analyzed the patterns of the enemy’s guardian forces and have calculated the most effective time for an unexpected massive counteroffensive, unlike any we have attempted so far. The best opportunity will occur within nine hours.”
“Excellent,” Thurr said, bobbing his head. He wanted to run to his rooms, yet dared not show his impatience, though he doubted the evermind could read simple human nuances. Nine hours. He settled for walking quickly. He had a great many things to prepare.
* * *
WHEN THE STARTLING attack began, the robots on the surface of Corrin reacted with as much disorganized panic as the human watchdog ships in orbit. The Central Spire convulsed, losing integrity as Omnius Prime’s full attention was diverted elsewhere, and the structure of the flowmetal tower began to fail.
Suddenly a full contingent of robotic defenders powered up their weapons, changed their configurations, and launched outward in a dramatic headlong assault against the human sentinel ships. Even this was similar to what they had done many times before over the past two decades. Stopping just inside the deadly boundary of the scrambler satellite net, they launched a flurry of explosive missiles at the stationary human vessels, then drove forward into the scrambler zone. The Holtzman satellites discharged their deadly pulses, and scrambler mines targeted the machine ships, wiping out all of the thinking-machine controls. But as the dead robotic hulks piled up in space, more and more of the bristling Omnius ships pressed forward into the logjam. Several of them got through the gaps in the scrambler web.
Thurr had meant for it to be nothing more than a pointless and destructive diversion, but for a moment it looked as if it might almost work….
As soon as the surprise orbital offensive was launched and the hrethgir fleet was fully occupied with defending itself, he raced to the landing area. He chose the well-maintained but unused update ship that Seurat had flown to Corrin on the leading edge of the Great Purge. It was a fast ship with decent defenses, rudimentary weapons, and a minimal life-support system that he had installed years before… always planning ahead. The ship was exactly what Thurr needed.
The update ship was ready to fly and completely unguarded by groundside robots. Thurr had already studied its controls and knew he could pilot the vessel. He had taken only minimal supplies, afraid that if he stocked the update ship it would be a blatant signal of what he had in mind. Thurr needed only sufficient food and air to reach another outpost.
While the furious battle continued in orbit, with League ships and robot vessels launching weapons against each other, Thurr activated the access ramp and hurried aboard the update ship.
Inside, Erasmus stood waiting for him with his human ward. “You see, Gilbertus, I was correct in my interpretation of Yorek Thurr’s strange behavior. He intends to leave us.”
Brought to a halt, Thurr gasped. “What are you doing here?”
Gilbertus Albans stood off to one side, nodding. “Yes, Father. You understand human nature quite well. The signs were subtle, but once you pointed them out to me, they seemed obvious. Thurr has staged a diversion in orbit to steal this craft and escape.”
“I admire such desperation.” Erasmus’s flowmetal face shaped itself into a smile. “But in this instance I question your wisdom.”
“It’s my choice to make,” Thurr said, sniffing. “Corrin will be doomed as soon as the League of Nobles decides to tie up loose ends. The thinking machines should also be considering how to get away. You, Erasmus, face repeated threats from Omnius when he tries to rewrite your personality. He never seems to learn.” Smiling, Thurr stepped closer to the robed robot. “Why don’t you and your ward come with me? We can fly far from Corrin and make our own mark on the galaxy. History will never forget us.”
“Thinking machines maintain accurate files of all events,” Erasmus said. “History will not forget my actions anyway.”
Thurr took another step. “But don’t you realize the beautiful logic of my plan? T
his ship could easily break through the hrethgir fleet now, during the diversion. We can get away. In fact, other update ships could take the same opportunity and bring along new Omnius spheres. The Synchronized Worlds could expand again.”
“That is a possibility. However, I have calculated the odds of success, and they are unacceptably low. Even if I were to detach my own mental core and encase it in thick shielding, I might not survive passage through the scrambler net. I will not take that chance, especially not if it means leaving Gilbertus alone.”
Thurr moved like a striking snake. He had focused the robot’s attention by moving closer, but really intended to slash at the vulnerable human. In a blindingly fast move, he drew the ceremonial dagger from his belt and darted to the left, wrapping a sinewy arm around a surprised Gilbertus’s neck. Thurr planted his knee in the small of the muscular man’s back, brought the dagger around, and pressed its point against his victim’s jugular.
“Then I’m afraid I’ll have to influence your decision in a more… human fashion. If you don’t let me escape now, before it’s too late, I’ll kill him. Don’t doubt me.”
Thurr pressed the knife closer. Gilbertus remained frozen, tensing, flexing his muscles and preparing to use his years of careful training. Erasmus could see he intended to fight, to risk himself—
“Gilbertus, stop!” he said, amplifying his voice. “I forbid you to take the risk. He will harm you.”
“Yes indeed,” Thurr said, showing a strange smile. Gilbertus hesitated just a moment, then relaxed, surrendering to the robot’s wishes.
Erasmus said, “We do not wish to come with you.” The robot’s flowmetal face became a smooth mask. It flickered as if instinctively into a distressed frown, then returned to its blank expression. “If you kill him, I will not allow you to escape. I may not be capable of vengeful anger, but I have invested a great deal of time and effort in Gilbertus Albans. If you damage my specimen, do not doubt that I will exterminate you as well.”
Dune: The Battle of Corrin Page 40