* * *
AGAMEMNON WAS EXCEEDINGLY pleased. Since none of the humans in the battle had escaped, the hrethgir high command could not possibly know that the cymeks had discovered their fundamental weakness. “This is a watershed for us! Even with our lesser numbers, we can cut a swath of death and destruction through the hrethgir. Our goal is in our grasp.”
All the terms of this conflict had changed, and the Titan general suspected that he and his son would face each other before it was all over.
Science is lost in its own mythos, redoubling its efforts whenever it forgets its aim.
— KREFTER BRAHN,
Special Advisor to the Jihad
The mutated RNA retrovirus spread like poisonous smoke through the caves of Rossak. Standard protective devices proved ineffective, sterilization routines sometimes failed, and even potent doses of melange did not guarantee safety. In time, more than three-quarters of the population in the cliff cities was infected, and the majority of those died.
Raquella Berto-Anirul and Dr. Mohandas Suk were out of their depth and failing in their efforts to treat the disease.
So far, none of Dr. Suk’s trial vaccines had shown positive results, and the epidemic continued to rage through the communal caves, eating away at the remaining healthy members of Rossak’s population.
Each day and far into the night, Raquella labored in the crowded cliff warrens that served as hospital wards. Every bed, every clear space on the floors, was filled with stricken men, children, and Sorceresses. Taking her daily dose of spice delivered by VenKee drop pods, Raquella pushed her body beyond its limits. Though she wore a sterile breather and eye films, the miasma of sickness accompanied by a constant clamor of the suffering and dying weighed upon her psyche. But Raquella steeled her resolve to defeat the virus.
In previous years, jihadi warriors and suicidal Sorceresses had thrown themselves against impossible odds, fighting swarms of thinking machines with no thought for their own survival. Raquella could do no less, fighting in her own way. “Victory at any cost.”
Jimmak Tero followed Raquella like a slow but loving puppy, eager to help. Each day he brought her food fresh from the jungle: silvery fruits, fuzzy fungi, and juice-laden berries. He made her a strange, tart herbal infusion that left an odd aftertaste, but Jimmak seemed particularly proud of it. He looked at her with his broad, simple smile and bright eyes.
After a grueling day in humid heat, with another dozen patients dead under her watch, Raquella felt emotionally and physically drained. One of the victims was a premature baby cut from its mother after she’d succumbed to the plague. Since Raquella was the only member of the staff in the main ward, she sat down on the cool stone floor and wept.
Trying to find the strength to continue, Raquella wiped the tears from her already moist cheeks. Hot and dizzy, she struggled to her feet— and nearly lost her balance. She waited a moment to catch her breath, thinking she had risen too quickly, but the discomfort only worsened, and she felt herself falling….
“You okay, Doctor Lady?”
She looked up into Jimmak’s round, concerned face. He was holding her shoulders in his strong arms. “I fainted… too tired. I should’ve eaten more, taken another dose of spice….”
Then Raquella realized that she was lying on a bed with feeding tubes and gauges hooked to her. How much time had passed? She touched her arm, recognized the dialysis machines that had shown some benefit for the worst victims of the new Scourge.
Her dark-skinned assistant Nortie Vandego stood nearby, checking the equipment. Vandego looked at her with dark eyes that held a glint of fear. “You just finished the first blood-scrubbing treatment. We caught the buildup of Compound X before it damaged your liver, but… you are infected. I’ve given you an additional dose of melange.”
Raquella shook her head, then tried to climb out of bed. “Nortie, you should be tending other patients, not me.”
The assistant put a hand on her shoulder, pushing her back onto the bed. “You’re a patient now. You deserve the same care you gave to all the others.”
Raquella knew that if she was infected, her odds of survival were not good. She summoned her courage. “It may just be an allergic reaction to the jungle foods I’ve been eating. I let myself get too run-down, and I need rest.”
“That’s probably it. Just rest now.”
Raquella recognized that tone only too well: It was the voice she had heard her assistant use to soothe the dying.
* * *
TWO DAYS LATER, Nortie Vandego fell ill herself and was taken to a different ward. The job of tending Raquella now fell to the petite Sorceress Karee Marques, who administered a number of pharmaceuticals and unproven treatments as if Raquella were a test subject. Raquella didn’t mind, though she believed Mohandas was more likely to find a cure. Did he even know she was sick?
The nights in the cliff warrens were deep and black. Oppressive and mysterious sounds came from the dense jungle outside. Raquella was lying half asleep from a cocktail of drugs administered to her when she heard a loud, angry voice nearby. Opening her eyes narrowly, she saw Ticia Cenva berating Karee, telling her to spend time on other patients. “Let this one die. She is not one of us, and her meddling may have made the epidemic worse.”
“Worse? She has exhausted herself to help us.”
“And how do we know for certain that she saved anyone? The plague will only take the weakest among us,” Ticia insisted, her voice as hard as armor plating and a taint of wildness in her eyes. The Supreme Sorceress seemed even more frayed, less in control. “The Scourge will weed out the inadequate stock and leave the Sorceresses stronger.”
“Or it will kill all of us!”
As Raquella lay struggling with her aches, her fatigue, her nausea, she focused on one part of the debate. They think I’m dying. It was an awkward thought for a doctor, a healer. Perhaps it is true. She had seen enough death to be ready for the inevitability of her fate, though she was deeply disappointed at being unable to finish her work here.
But her body did not surrender easily. She fought the disease for days, struggling to remain conscious, to remain alive. After the first few treatments, Raquella was not hooked to the blood scrubbers again, and she knew that the toxic Compound X was rapidly building up. Her skin was yellow, pocked with lesions; she was always desperately thirsty.
The Sorceresses had given up on Raquella, leaving her to die.
Only Jimmak bothered to tend her. He sat at her side, wiping her brow with a cool cloth. He gave her his bitter tea, fed her small bits of fruit, and tucked a blanket around her to make her comfortable. Once, she thought she even saw Mohandas, but it was only a fever-induced hallucination. When was the last time they had talked… touched?
The Rossak Epidemic had already gone on forever.
In what seemed like another life, she recalled quiet, private days with him, when they’d had time to be lovers like any two normal human beings, on other worlds in other times. She missed the sweetness of his smile, the warmth of his embrace, the engrossing discussions they’d had as dedicated colleagues.
“How is Nortie?” she asked Jimmak in a brief lucid moment. “My assistant. Where is she?”
“Tall lady die. Sorry.” Raquella didn’t want to believe it. The slow-witted boy leaned closer to where she lay in her sweat-damp sheets. His broad, smooth face was fixed with determination. “Doctor Lady won’t die, though.”
He scuttled away, then returned with an empty suspensor gurney that the healthy workers used for hauling away bodies. Jimmak pushed it in front of him, as if he knew what he was doing. He maneuvered the floating platform and lowered it next to Raquella’s bed.
“Jimmak? What are you doing?” She tried to keep her thoughts straight.
“Call me Doctor Boy!” With strong hands, he rolled her onto the gurney, then stuffed clothing, towels, and a blanket into a storage compartment beneath it.
“Where… are you taking me?”
“The jungle.
Nobody to take care of you here.” He pushed the drifting gurney ahead of him.
Struggling to prop herself up on her elbows, Raquella saw Ticia Cenva standing in the corridor, watching the tableau. Jimmak ducked his head, as if hoping his aloof mother wouldn’t notice him. Raquella tried to meet the gaze of the black-robed Supreme Sorceress, who seemed momentarily disappointed. Wishing that Jimmak was carting off Raquella’s dead body, perhaps? The stern, ravenlike woman said nothing, and let them pass.
As darkness settled over Rossak, the boy loaded her into a lift and worked his way all the way down to the jungle floor. He ignored the threatening sounds, the shadows, the thick vines, and pushed her deep into the dense alien wilderness.
I never thought I would see Salusa Secundus again; the superb League assembly halls, the towering monuments of Zimia. Alas, they are not as magnificent as I remembered.
— YOREK THURR,
secret Corrin journals
Once he escaped from Corrin, it took him almost two months in transit to get to the vulnerable heart of the League of Nobles.
During that time, Thurr managed to steal a different vessel at one of the plague-ravaged planets on the fringe of League space. Since he was immune to the Scourge, it warmed his heart to see how devastated the population was and how many cities and towns had collapsed during the great death. His mind seemed to sing with razor-sharp clarity.
On planet after planet, human civilization had been reduced to subsistence level. After two decades with minimal outside commerce, the handful of survivors were like carrion crows fighting over the remaining supplies, homes, and tools. In some systems afflicted by cascading disasters, fully eighty percent of the population had died from the epidemic or its secondary consequences. It would be generations before mankind recovered from the disaster.
And it was all my original idea.
He stopped at two other worlds along the way, gathering news, stealing money, modifying his story and his disguise. He was hungry to learn how everything had changed since his faked death and exile among the thinking machines.
Foremost among the changes, religious fanaticism had grown much stronger, with the Cult of Serena foolishly smashing useful devices and equipment. Thurr could not help but smile as he watched their zealous, wasteful destruction. This was an outcome he had not anticipated, but he did not object to it. The humans were only damaging themselves.
When he reached Zimia, he hoped to discover that another of his fiendish ideas— the hungry little mechanical mites— had also wrought incredible horrors upon the population. Contrary to what Erasmus believed, Thurr did not revel in death for its own sake. He simply liked to accomplish things….
By the time he finally arrived at Salusa Secundus, Thurr had fully immersed himself in his new identity as a refugee from Balut, one of the Scourge-decimated worlds. Salusa had become a central world for distributing refugees and repopulating planets and strengthening racial lines using seed stock gathered by the Sorceresses of Rossak years ago. Thurr smiled. In a sense, he had helped to improve the human race.
He marveled at the sheer momentum and persistence the League expended on trying to return things to the way they had “always been,” instead of accepting changes and moving on. As soon as he restored himself to his rightful position of power, Thurr would do something to assist in that regard. Seeing how weakened and confused the League was, he didn’t expect to take long to achieve his goal. Without the Jihad to focus them, the human survivors were drifting aimlessly. They needed him.
Thurr studied historical databases, scanning propaganda-laced histories of the Jihad, and was annoyed to discover that he barely warranted a mention! After everything he had accomplished— the immense work he had done during his time of service! He had formed the Jihad Police, helped Grand Patriarch Ginjo turn his office into a position of utmost importance. Thurr should have become the Grand Patriarch himself, but his greatest mistake had been to trust that scheming Camie Boro-Ginjo. Now, after his absence, it seemed that the League had spurned him, brushed him aside.
Once he received biological clearance by proving himself free of all plagues and sicknesses, Thurr set foot in Zimia again for the first time in decades. The city had changed greatly. Banners of Serena, Manion the Innocent, and Iblis Ginjo hung on every tall building. Shrines filled with orange marigolds adorned every corner and cul-de-sac.
Much to his surprise and irritation, Thurr learned that Jipol had been disbanded. Since the war had ended almost two decades ago, League security had grown laughably lax. After studying his surroundings and developing a method, Thurr easily bypassed various checkpoints to enter the core of the city.
Xander Boro-Ginjo was now the Grand Patriarch, as nephew and successor to Tambir. He had not even been born until a year after Thurr’s faked death. By all accounts, Xander was a dithering figurehead, a plump and soft puppet who needed to be manipulated by a better master.
Thurr felt fire inside his chest. Now more than ever, he deserved to be the Grand Patriarch. Thurr could be very persuasive, and he hoped to make this transition cleanly. At the right moment he would declare his true identity and miraculous return, telling a brave and fictitious story of captivity and torture under Omnius. Then he would claim his due. The people would recognize their need and understand the wisdom of what he offered.
Surreptitiously, he studied the Grand Patriarch’s administrative mansion, his routine and his movements. He learned the layout of research centers, office buildings, and the headquarters of the Army of Humanity, and determined the responsibilities of political bureaus. The obvious growth of bureaucracy showed that the League was already stagnating, wandering down a wrong path that would prevent them from accomplishing anything great.
Thurr had gotten here just in time, and he knew he could straighten things out.
It didn’t take him long to formulate a plan to slip into the offices of the Grand Patriarch. Discarding his drab disguise as a Balut refugee, he obtained the acceptable clothing of a League clerk, disposed of the man’s body, and worked his way through the halls and offices of the administrative mansion.
As soon as he revealed his identity to Xander Boro-Ginjo, Thurr imagined he would be welcomed as a lost hero. There would be parades through the streets, people would applaud his life’s epic story and welcome him back into the League. Thurr’s dark eyes glittered with anticipation.
Without much caution, he made his way to a room that had the proper access, climbed out a window, and gracefully crossed a tiny ledge to a window at the rear of the target office. He waited until Xander was alone in his private office, and then climbed inside.
Thurr swelled his chest and smiled, waiting to be welcomed. From behind the desk, the distracted Grand Patriarch looked up at him with confusion instead of fear or outrage. The ornate chain of his office hung heavily on his thick neck. “Who are you and why are you here?” He consulted a heavy book on his desk. “Do you have an appointment?”
Thurr’s thin lips formed a smile. “I am Yorek Thurr, former commander of the Jihad police. I was your grandfather’s right-hand man and special advisor.”
His life-extension treatment had kept his appearance like that of a man in late middle age, though in the last five years he had begun to experience strange tics and tremors that made him wonder if Omnius had tricked him somehow. This chubby oaf of a leader would never believe Thurr’s real age.
“I’m sure that’s very interesting, but I do have an important meeting in only a few minutes.”
“Then you must redefine what is important, Xander Boro-Ginjo.” Thurr stepped menacingly closer. “I was supposed to become the successor to Iblis Ginjo, but your grandmother seized the chain of office instead, and then your uncle Tambir became Grand Patriarch. Again and again I was denied what was rightfully mine. I have put aside my rights for many years now, but the time has come for me to lead the League in the direction it must go. I demand that you resign your position and give it to me.”
Xander appea
red perplexed. His face was jowly and soft from fine living, his eyes dulled either by drugs, drink, or plain lack of intelligence. “Why should I do that? And what is your name again? How did you get in— “
An aide opened the door. “Sir, your meeting is— ” He blinked in surprise at Thurr, who whirled to glare at him. Thurr wished he had brought his dagger. “Oh, excuse me! I didn’t know you had a visitor. Who is this, sir?”
Xander rose in a huff. “I don’t know, and you shouldn’t have let him in. Tell the guards to remove him.”
Thurr glowered. “You are making a grave mistake, Xander Boro-Ginjo.”
The aide shouted for guards, who rushed in and surrounded Thurr. With disgust, he saw that he was outnumbered and could not easily press his point. “I expected a better reception than this, considering all I have done for the League.” His head thrummed, and for a moment he had difficulty understanding where he was. Why couldn’t these people see?
The Grand Patriarch shook his head. “This man is suffering from delusions and I fear he may be violent.” He looked back at Thurr. “No one knows who you are, sir.”
That alone nearly drove Thurr into a murderous rage, and he struggled mightily to restrain himself, not wanting to sacrifice his life in such a pointless fashion. As the guards escorted him away roughly, Boro-Ginjo and his aide busied themselves studying the agenda for the upcoming meeting. Thurr pretended to cooperate as the guards marched him out of the administrative mansion.
Frustrated with his own foolishness, he realized that he had lived under the thinking machines for too long. He had been the ruler of Wallach IX, with the absolute power to make demands. He had forgotten how stupid and intractable the hrethgir could be. He chided himself for his mistake, and vowed not to make a similar one again. A plan… he needed a better plan.
The guards were incompetent soldiers, unaccustomed to sophisticated, trained killers like Yorek Thurr. He chose not to murder these men, though, for that would have drawn more attention than he wished. He had plans to formulate and could not be bothered to elude a manhunt at the same time.
Dune: The Battle of Corrin Page 43