“We’re coming.” Satisfied, Anari descended to the connecting hatch, and he rode high on her back, feeling like a conquering king. Aboard the large vessel, the air was still razor-thin and cold. Manford shuddered, then grasped Anari’s shoulders to steady himself.
She gave him a concerned glance. “Should we have waited another fifteen minutes for the air to warm up?”
“It’s not the cold, Anari—it’s the evil in the air. How can I forget all the human blood these monsters spilled?”
Aboard the dim and austere ship, Anari took him to the chamber where the Butlerians had pried open the sealed door to reveal a jumble of human skeletons, dozens of people who had been left to starve or suffocate, likely because the thinking machines didn’t care.
The Swordmaster wore a deeply troubled and hurt expression. For all her hardened fighting experience, Anari Idaho remained astonished by the offhand cruelty of the thinking machines. Manford both admired and loved her for her innocence. “They must have been hauling captives,” Anari said.
“Or experimental subjects for the evil robot Erasmus,” Manford said. “When the ships received new orders to attack this system, they paid no further attention to the humans aboard.” He muttered a silent prayer and blessing, hoping to speed the lost souls off to heaven.
As Anari led him away from the human-cargo chamber, they passed an angular, deactivated combat mek that stood like a statue in the corridor. The arms sported cutting blades and projectile weapons; its blunt head and optic threads were a mockery of a human face. Looking at the machine in disgust, Manford suppressed another shudder. This must never be allowed to happen again.
Anari drew her long, blunt pulse-sword. “We’re going to blow up these ships anyway, sir … but would you indulge me?”
He smiled. “Without hesitation.”
Like a released spring, the Swordmaster attacked the motionless robot; one blow obliterated the mek’s optic threads, more blows severed the limbs, others smashed the body core. Deactivated for decades, the mek didn’t even spurt a stream of sparks or lubricant fluid when she dismembered it.
Looking down, breathing heavily, she said, “Back at the Swordmaster School on Ginaz, I slew hundreds of these things. The school still has a standing order for functional combat meks, so trainees can practice destroying them.”
The very thought soured Manford’s mood. “Ginaz has too many functional meks, in my opinion—it makes me uneasy. Thinking machines should not be kept as pets. There is no useful purpose for any sophisticated machine.”
Anari was hurt that he had criticized her fond recollection. Her voice was small. “It’s how we learned to fight them, sir.”
“Humans should train against humans.”
“It’s not the same.” Anari took out her frustration on the already battered combat mek. She bludgeoned it one last time, then stalked toward the bridge. They found several other meks along the way, and she dispatched each one, with all the ferocity that Manford felt in his heart.
On the robotic control deck, he and Anari met up with the other team members. The Butlerians had knocked over a pair of deactivated robots at the ship’s controls. “All the engines function, sir,” one gangly man reported. “We could add explosives to the fuel tanks just for good measure, or we can overload the reactors from here.”
Manford nodded. “The explosions need to be big enough to eradicate all the nearby ships. These vessels are still operational, but I don’t want to use even the scrap metal. It’s … contaminated.”
He knew that others did not have such qualms. Beyond his control, groups of corruptible humans were scouring the space shipping lanes to find intact fleets like this for salvage and repair. Scavengers without principles! The VenHold Spacing Fleet was notorious for this; more than half of their ships were refurbished thinking-machine vessels. Manford had argued with Directeur Josef Venport several times over the issue, but the greedy businessman refused to see reason. Manford took some consolation in the knowledge that at least these twenty-five enemy warships would never be used.
Butlerians understood that technology was seductive, fraught with latent danger. Humanity had grown soft and lazy since the overthrow of Omnius. People tried to make exceptions, seeking convenience and comfort, pushing the boundaries to their perceived advantage. They wheedled and made excuses: that machine might be bad, but this slightly different technology was acceptable.
Manford refused to draw artificial lines. It was a slippery slope. One small thing could lead to another, and another, and soon the downgrade would become a cliff. The human race must never be enslaved by machines again!
Now he swiveled his head to address the three Butlerians on the bridge. “Go. My Swordmaster and I have one last thing to do here. Send a message to Ellus—we should be away within fifteen minutes.”
Anari knew exactly what Manford had in mind; she had, in fact, prepared for it. As soon as the other followers returned to their ship, the Swordmaster removed a small gilded icon from a pouch in her harness, one of many such icons that Manford had commissioned. He held the icon reverently, looked at the benevolent face of Rayna Butler. For seventeen years now, he had followed in that visionary woman’s footsteps.
Manford kissed the icon, then handed it back to Anari, who placed it on the robotic control panel. He whispered, “May Rayna bless our work today and make us successful in our critically important mission. The mind of man is holy.”
“The mind of man is holy.” At a brisk trot, breathing out warm steam in the frigid air, Anari hurried to their ship, where the team sealed the hatch and disengaged from the dock. Their vessel drifted away from the rigged battle group.
Within the hour, all the Butlerian strike vessels rendezvoused above the dark robot ships. “One minute left on the timers, sir,” Swordmaster Ellus transmitted. Manford nodded, his gaze intent on the screen, but he spoke no words aloud. None were necessary.
One of the robot ships blossomed into flame and shrapnel. In rapid succession, the other ships detonated, their engine compartments overloading or their fuel ignited by timed explosions. The shock waves combined, swirling the debris into a soup of metal vapor and expanding gases. For a few moments, the sight was as bright as a new sun, reminding him of Rayna’s radiant smile … then it gradually dissipated and faded.
Across the calm, Manford spoke to his devout followers. “Our work here is done.”
We are barometers of the human condition.
—REVEREND MOTHER RAQUELLA BERTO-ANIRUL, REMARKS TO THIRD GRADUATING CLASS
Out of necessity, Reverend Mother Raquella Berto-Anirul took a long view of history. Because of the wealth of unique ancestral memories in her mind—history personified—the old woman had a perspective of the past that was not available to anyone else … not yet.
With so many generations to draw from in her thoughts, Raquella was well equipped to see the future of the human race. And the other Sisters in her school looked to their sole Reverend Mother to be their guide. She had to teach that perspective to others, expanding the knowledge and objectivity of her order, the physical and mental skills that set members of the Sisterhood apart from average women.
Raquella felt a drizzle of rain on her face as she stood with other Sisters on a cliff balcony of the Rossak School, the formal training facility of the Sisterhood. Dressed in a black robe with a high collar, she gazed solemnly down from the edge of the cliff at the purplish jungle below. Though the air was warm and humid for the somber ceremony, the weather was hardly ever uncomfortable at this time of year, because of breezes that blew regularly along the cliff faces. The air had a faint sour smell, a brimstone aftertaste from distant volcanoes mixed with the stew of environmental chemicals.
Today they were enduring another funeral for a dead Sister, one more tragic death from poison … another failure to create the second Reverend Mother.
More than eight decades ago, the dying and bitter Sorceress Ticia Cenva had given Raquella a lethal dose of the most potent poison
available. Raquella should have died, but deep in her mind, in her cells, she had manipulated her biochemistry, shifting the molecular structure of the poison itself. Miraculously she survived, but the ordeal had changed something fundamental inside her, initiating a crisis-induced transformation at the farthest boundaries of her mortality. She had emerged whole but different, with a library of past lives in her mind and a new ability to see herself on a genetic level, possessing an intimate understanding of every interconnected fiber of her own body.
Crisis. Survival. Advancement.
But in all the years afterward, despite many attempts, no one else had achieved the same result, and Raquella didn’t know how many more lives she could justify losing in order to reach the elusive goal. She knew only one way to push a Sister over the brink: driving her to the edge of death where—possibly—she could find the strength to evolve.…
Optimistic and determined, her best trainees continued to believe in her. And they died.
Raquella looked on sadly as a black-robed Sister and three green-robed acolytes took positions on top of the canopy of trees and lowered the corpse down into the humid depths of the silvery-purple jungle. The body would be left there for predators as part of the eternal circle of life and death, recycling human remains back into the soil.
The valiant young woman’s name had been Sister Tiana, but now her body was wrapped in pale fabric, anonymous. The jungle creatures stirred deep below, as the thick canopy swallowed up the platform.
Raquella herself had lived for more than 130 years. She had witnessed the end of Serena Butler’s Jihad, the Battle of Corrin two decades later, and the years of turmoil afterward. Despite her age, the old woman was spry and mentally alert, controlling the worst effects of aging through moderate use of melange imported from Arrakis and by manipulating her own biochemistry.
Her ever-growing school was comprised of outside candidates recruited from the best young women in the Imperium, including the special last descendants of the Sorceresses who had dominated this planet in the years before and during the Jihad; only a scant eighty-one of them remained. In total, eleven hundred Sisters trained here, two-thirds of them students; some were children from the nurseries, daughters from Raquella’s missionaries who became pregnant by acceptable fathers. Recruiters sent hopeful new candidates here, and the training continued.…
For years the voices in her memory had urged her to test and enhance more Reverend Mothers like herself. She and her fellow proctors devoted their lives to showing other women how to master their thoughts, their bodies, their own future. Now that the thinking machines were gone, human destiny demanded that people become more than they had ever been before. Raquella would show them the way. She knew that a skilled woman could transform herself into a superior person, under the proper conditions.
Crisis. Survival. Advancement.
Many of Raquella’s Sisterhood graduates had already proved their worth, going offworld to serve as advisers to noble planetary rulers and even at the Imperial Court; some attended the Mentat School on Lampadas, or became talented Suk doctors. She could feel their quiet influence spreading across the Imperium. Six of the women were now fully trained Mentats. One of them, Dorotea, served as a trusted adviser to Emperor Salvador Corrino back on Salusa Secundus.
But she desperately wanted more of her followers to have the same understanding, the same universal view of the Sisterhood and its future, and the same mental and physical powers as she did.
Somehow, though, her candidates could not make the leap. And another promising young woman had died.…
Now, while the women continued the oddly businesslike disposal of the dead Sister’s remains, Raquella worried about the future. Despite her long life span, she harbored no illusions of personal immortality, and if she died before anyone else learned to survive the transformation, her skills could be forever lost.…
The fate of the Sisterhood, and their extensive works, was much more important than her own mortal fate. Humanity’s long-term future depended on careful advancement, improvement. The Sisterhood could no longer afford to wait. She had to groom her successors.
As the funeral ended with the disposal of the body, the rest of the women turned back to the cliff school, where they would continue their classroom exercises. Raquella had chosen a fresh new candidate, a young woman from a disgraced family with little future, but someone who deserved this opportunity.
Sister Valya Harkonnen.
Raquella watched Valya leave the other Sisters and proceed toward her along the cliff-side path. Sister Valya was a whiplike young woman with an oval face and hazel eyes. The Reverend Mother observed her fluid movements, the confident tilt of her head, the carriage of her body—small but significant details adding up to the whole of the individual. Raquella did not doubt her choice; few other Sisters were as dedicated.
Sister Valya had joined the Sisterhood at the end of her sixteenth year, leaving her backwater planet of Lankiveil to go in search of a better life. Her great-grandfather, Abulurd Harkonnen, had been banished for cowardice after the Battle of Corrin. During her five years on Rossak, Valya had excelled in her training and proved to be one of Raquella’s most faithful and talented Sisters; she worked closely with Sister Karee Marques, one of the last Sorceresses, studying new drugs and poisons to be used in the testing process.
When Valya presented herself to the old woman, she did not seem overly upset by the funeral. “You asked to see me, Reverend Mother?”
“Follow me, please.”
Valya was clearly curious, but she kept her questions to herself. The two walked past the administration caves and domicile warrens. In its heyday in past centuries, this cliff city had supported thousands of men and women, Sorceresses, pharmaceutical merchants, explorers of the deep jungles. But so many had died during the plagues that the city was mostly empty, housing only members of the Sisterhood.
One entire section of caves had been used for the treatment of the Misborn, children who suffered birth defects as a result of toxins in the Rossak environment. Thanks to careful study of the breeding records, such children were born only rarely, and those who survived were cared for in one of the cities to the north, beyond the volcanoes. Raquella did not permit any men to live in her school community, although they occasionally came here to deliver supplies or perform repairs or other services.
Raquella guided Valya past barricaded cliff-side entrances that had once led to large sections of the hivelike cave city, but were now abandoned and blocked off. They were ominous places, devoid of all life, the bodies having been removed years ago and laid to rest in the jungle. She pointed to the treacherous path that led steeply along the cliff face to the top of the plateau. “That is where we’re going.”
The young woman hesitated for a flicker of an instant, then followed the Reverend Mother past a barricade and signs that restricted access. Valya was both excited and nervous. “The breeding records are up there.”
“Yes, they are.”
During the years of horrific plagues spread by Omnius, while entire populations were dying, the Sorceresses of Rossak—who had always kept genetic records to determine the best breeding matches—began a far more ambitious program to keep a library of human bloodlines, a far-reaching genetic catalog. Now, tending that wealth of information fell to Raquella and her chosen Sisters.
The path rose in sharp switchbacks along the rock face, a solid cliff wall on one side of them, a sheer drop-off to the dense jungle on the other. The drizzle had stopped, but the rocks remained slick underfoot.
The two women reached a lookout point where wisps of fog encircled them. Raquella looked out at the jungle and smoldering volcanoes in the distance—little had changed in that landscape since she’d first arrived decades ago, a nurse accompanying Dr. Mohandas Suk to treat victims of the Omnius plague.
“Only a few of us ever go up here anymore—but you and I are going farther.” Raquella was not one for small talk, and kept her emotions tightly contro
lled, but she did feel an excitement and optimism to be introducing another person to the Sisterhood’s greatest secret. A new ally. It was the only way the Sisterhood could survive.
They stopped at a cave opening set amid blocky boulders near the top of the plateau, high above the fertile, teeming jungles. A pair of Sorceresses stood guard at the entrance. They nodded to the Reverend Mother, allowed them to pass.
“The compilation of the breeding records is perhaps the Sisterhood’s greatest work,” Raquella said. “With such an enormous database of human genetics, we can map and extrapolate the future of our race … perhaps even guide it.”
Valya nodded solemnly. “I’ve heard other Sisters say it’s one of the largest data archives ever compiled, but I never understood how we could possibly manage so much information. How do we digest it all and make projections?”
Raquella decided to be cryptic, for now. “We are the Sisterhood.”
Inside the high caves, they entered two large chambers filled with wooden tables and writing desks; women bustled about, organizing reams of permanent paper, compiling and stacking immense DNA maps, then filing documents that were reduced and stored in dense near-microscopic text.
“Four of our Sisters have completed Mentat training under Gilbertus Albans,” Raquella said. “But even with their advanced mental abilities, the project is overwhelming.”
Valya struggled to control her awe. “Such an immensity of data here…” Her bright eyes drank in the new information with fascination. She felt great honor and pride to be allowed into the Reverend Mother’s inner circle. “I know more women of our order are training on Lampadas, but this project would require an army of Sister Mentats. The DNA records from millions and millions of people on thousands of planets.”
As they passed deeper into the restricted tunnels, an elderly Sister emerged from a file room wearing the white robe of a Sorceress. She greeted the two visitors. “Reverend Mother, is this the new recruit you have decided to bring to me?”
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