Realizing he’d been spotted, the stranger paused, then flashed a handlight in Griffin’s face, blinding him.
“Who are you? What do you want?” Griffin demanded, trying not to sound intimidated.
The person came closer, dimmed the handlight, and Griffin recognized one of the reticent patrons of the drinking establishment, a ruddy man with a thick crop of silver hair. “You have money to pay for information.” The man stepped closer. “In exchange for all of it, I’ll give you something you don’t expect.”
“And what’s that?” Seeing a sharp glint in the man’s eyes, Griffin subtly activated his shield. In the shadows of the side street, the hum was loud, and he saw a slight distortion in the air.
He watched his adversary for tiny movements, alert for any trick or feint. He wished Valya were there with him. The man didn’t comment on the shield, and it occurred to Griffin that he might not know what it was. Shields were standard-issue throughout the Landsraad League, but he realized that he hadn’t noticed anyone wearing them on the desert planet.
The man came closer and drew his long knife. “I’ll show you how it feels to die.” He laughed and thrust the blade forward like a stinging scorpion, obviously expecting an easy, soft target. Griffin turned, and the shimmering Holtzman field deflected the blow. His pulse raced and adrenaline flowed, readying him for an intense flurry of combat … but this man did not seem up to Griffin’s fighting abilities.
His attacker tried to recover from his surprise, and clumsily drove the dagger in again, but he was unaccustomed to fighting against a shielded man. Griffin used his dagger to slice the back of the man’s hand. Thick, dark blood spurted from the veins as he recoiled with a yelp. Griffin swung his knife sideways around the partial shield and stabbed the man in the lower left side. The blade went in deep, and the attacker grunted and coughed. He nearly pulled Griffin down to the ground with him as he collapsed to his knees.
In sick astonishment, he cried, “You’ve murdered me! You’ve murdered me!”
But Griffin had been careful. Though he and Valya had never actually harmed each other in their many sparring matches, they knew vulnerabilities very well. “It’s not a lethal blow.” He knelt beside the groaning man. “But I can change that.” He held the bloody tip close to the man’s face. “Who sent you to kill me?”
“No one! I just wanted your money.”
“Well, that was poorly planned. Is everyone here so clumsy?”
The man yowled in pain. “I’m bleeding to death!”
Griffin looked from side to side, sure the commotion would draw someone within seconds. He pressed the dagger against the man’s throat. “I’ll end the pain quickly enough if you don’t answer my question.”
“All right! I wanted more than your money!” the man wailed. “I also meant to take your water!”
“Take my water? I don’t have much water.”
“Your body’s water! The desert people can distill it … sell it.” The man sneered at him. “Are you satisfied now?”
Griffin pressed the dagger tip harder against the thug’s throat. “And where should I look for Vorian Atreides? Do you have information on that, too?”
The man groaned and clutched the knife wound in his side. “How should I know where he is? Most people who come here from offworld go to work on spice crews. Check with the Combined Mercantiles offices, see who they hired.”
Shadowy figures emerged from doorways and flitted down the side street. The man squirmed and screamed again. Deciding he would get no further information out of him, Griffin stood. “We need medical attention here,” he called out. The people crowded around the groaning thug, who looked up at them. He flailed his hands and tried to squirm away.
Griffin was astonished to see a knife flash in a woman’s hand. She jerked quickly, drove the blade under the man’s chin and up into his brain. The victim spasmed, then fell dead, spilling very little additional blood. “He was a thief,” she said, leaning over to wipe the blade on his clothing. “Now we’ll take his water.” She looked up at Griffin’s astonished expression, as if expecting him to challenge her. “Unless you claim it?”
Griffin stammered, “No … no.” He turned and fled down the side street toward his lodgings, just wanting to get out of there but alert and ready with his knife in case someone else attacked him.
Behind him, the silent, dusty people wrapped the thug’s body and carried it quickly down another alley. Griffin heard a door seal, but when he glanced back, all signs of them were gone.
What a barbaric place! And Vorian Atreides had chosen to come to Arrakis?
We should not be too proud of our triumphs. A perceived victory may only be the feint of your enemy.
—MANFORD TORONDO, THE ONLY PATH
He had nothing left. And nothing to lose.
The open wound in his memories forced Ptolemy to leave his home and never look again at the smoldering ruins that stood as a monument to the ignorance, intolerance, and violence of the Butlerians. After much contemplation, he decided to let his family believe that he, too, had been murdered by the savages.
He really was dead, in a way. His belief in the rational nature of human society had been ripped out and stomped into bloody remnants. He could surrender and return quietly to simple research, or he could do something. The problem had been defined for him with a painful clarity.
In the past, he had watched the antitechnology antics with a detached but sad disappointment, even a bit of amusement. How could anyone believe such nonsense? Ptolemy had been dismissive, making the mistake of not taking them seriously. They were uneducated mobs easily swayed by a fiery speaker, good at creating scapegoats and not skilled at understanding. He had been convinced that knowledge was stronger than superstition, and rationality stronger than paranoia. It had been a naïve assumption.
Now he knew that simple logic could not win an argument against savages. The mob had burned his lab facility, destroyed his records and equipment, and murdered his close friend and partner.
He didn’t have animalistic fervor, superstitious terror, or a penchant for mindless destruction. He had something stronger—his mind. And Ptolemy would no longer use it in such a cool, analytical way. In response to their zealous violence, he was fueled with a passion and drive unlike anything he had ever felt before. This was not just a thought exercise or a problem in a workbook; this was a battle for civilization itself, rather than barbarism. Instead of applying his knowledge to theoretical pursuits, to well-mannered research and the dissemination of ideas, Ptolemy vowed vengeance; he vowed to destroy the Butlerians.
Using the last of the money he had scraped together from his lab accounts, and then borrowing—some might say stealing—the balance of his allocated research funds from the Zenith Council, Ptolemy booked passage to a place where he was sure his skills would be well received. There he would be protected, and he could offer his services to a like-minded man.
Kolhar. The headquarters of Venport Holdings.
* * *
AFTER WHAT HAD happened on Zenith, he was reluctant—and terrified—to reveal his identity, but if anywhere in the Imperium would be free of antitechnology influence, it was this planet. He remembered how Directeur Venport had challenged Manford at the Landsraad meeting. The business tycoon would understand.
After arriving, however, it took Ptolemy five days to get a personal meeting with the VenHold administrator. The spacing fleet was a whirlwind of activity. Ships were being gathered and supplied, held back from their regular routes for departure on some undocumented mission. Ptolemy knew better than to ask questions, but he was persistent, with steel in his spine. He would not give up.
In the lobby of the administrative building, he showed his credentials to a succession of underlings and finally spoke directly with Cioba Venport, the most important barrier to an audience with the Directeur himself. His past experience, and perhaps the fiery, haunted look in his eyes, convinced her. She ushered him directly into her husband’s offic
e.
Though he wanted to be brave, Ptolemy’s voice quavered and tears burned his eyes as he recounted his hopeful meeting with Manford Torondo on Lampadas, how he had offered him prosthetic legs, a miracle to restore his ability to walk. Emotions were raw as he described what had happened to his lab and his partner. He wanted to speak as a dedicated, rational man, overcoming his terror and grief, but found himself unable to do so. Even so, Directeur Venport did not appear to think less of him.
“I tried to present an olive branch to the Butlerians, and their reply was to murder my partner and destroy my life.” Ptolemy drew a deep breath as he fought back the flames in his memory, the terrible, haunting screams.
Ptolemy looked at the gleam of interest in Venport’s eyes, and insisted, “I am not defeated, sir. I will not remain quiet while those animals continue their rampage. I am here to offer my services in any capacity that will defend human civilization. One day Manford Torondo will understand that when he attacked me, he planted the seeds of his own downfall.”
Venport glanced at his wife in a silent consultation, and she gave the faintest nod. The Directeur’s smile was so broad that his bushy mustache curled upward. “VenHold is delighted to have you, Dr. Ptolemy. It just so happens that we have access to a secret research facility on an uncharted planet, where other scientists like yourself are free to work on innovative projects, without fear of Butlerian influence.”
Ptolemy caught his breath. “That sounds wonderful, impossibly wonderful.”
The other man tapped his fingers on his desktop. “It’s a place where you can let your energy and imagination run free, with virtually unlimited resources and funds, to develop technological advances that will strengthen us against the darkness of ignorance. I intend to crush those mindless fanatics under my heel.”
Ptolemy’s relief was so great he had to sit down. His eyes sparkled, and finally tears spilled down his cheeks. “Then that is where I belong, sir.”
Most accomplishments are no more than initial or intermediate steps. Failure to press ahead is a common mistake.
—MANFORD TORONDO, ADDRESS ON SALUSA SECUNDUS
Manford was both unsettled and giddy after his successful purge of the research facility on the planet Zenith. The misguided sins of Ptolemy and his Tlulaxa companion were so obvious, and their delusions so deep-seated! Only a few decades had passed since the defeat of Omnius, and if humanity’s greatest scientific minds had already strayed far from the true path, then Manford wept for the future.
The glib prophecy that Erasmus wrote in his journal continued to haunt him, and drive him on: Given enough time, they will forget … and will create us all over again.
He had to prove the prophecy wrong! This was not the moment to celebrate or bask in an assumed victory. This was not a time for hubris, for easing up. After his followers left the smoldering ruins of the research facility, Manford did not return to peaceful Lampadas, much as he wanted a quiet respite with Anari at his side. Instead, he ordered his followers to head for Salusa Secundus. It was time to face Emperor Salvador Corrino and make the man see clearly.
When his task force of ships landed at the Zimia Spaceport, he did not request clearance. His followers disembarked en masse and made an impromptu march toward the city center and the Imperial Palace, while Salusan officials tried to decide how to react. The unexpected arrival of so many demonstrators stunned the capital city’s security forces, blocked traffic, and threw daily business into turmoil. Manford was glad to draw such attention; it ensured that he would be taken seriously. He found it uplifting.
Since he was making a formal public appearance, rather than going into battle, he rode on a palanquin carried by two of his followers. Anari Idaho walked alongside, ready to slay anyone who gave them a hint of trouble.
As they marched through the city, Manford regarded the blocky main buildings of the old Suk Medical School. The Suks had recently established a much more extensive base on the planet Parmentier, but here the original stone structure was still a landmark. Outside the campus, a newly erected placard celebrated the school’s centennial, even though the Suk doctors had not formally established their order until well after the Battle of Corrin.
Manford viewed the old school headquarters with annoyance, reminded of the false pride of advanced medical doctors, who like Ptolemy, blithely assumed that technology could fix any frailty of the human body. Manford loathed the very idea of having machines attached like parasites to his body. He turned away from the old medical facility, shuddering. Men should not believe themselves the equivalent of God.
Ahead, he saw the towers of the gaudy Palace of the Corrino Emperor. Manford’s own domicile on Lampadas had no such pretentions; his riches were in his soul, in his beliefs, and in the devotion of his followers.
“Shall I send runners ahead to demand an audience with Emperor Salvador?” Anari asked.
“He already knows we’re coming. When my people arrive on the steps of the Palace, that will be the only invitation I need. The Emperor will make room on his calendar, have no fear.”
He grasped the sides of the palanquin as his bearers marched up the stone steps. Uniformed noukkers stood guard at the arches, watching Manford suspiciously. He raised his hand in a nonthreatening gesture. “I’ve come to visit the Emperor. My people—who are Salvador’s loyal subjects—have important news. He will want to hear it.”
“The Emperor has been notified of your arrival,” said the guard standing in front. Though he was obviously uncomfortable, the captain remained firm. “We will inform you as soon as he is available.”
Manford gave him a bland smile and raised his voice. “My followers are hungry and thirsty. Perhaps some of the local merchants will provide refreshments while we wait?”
Without being invited, the Butlerians spread out into the cafés, restaurants, and market stalls that served tourists and dignitaries around the capital square. Though some of the food-service proprietors complained, they knew well enough not to ask payment for the meals or beverages the Butlerians took. To “thank” the vendors, Manford promised to say prayers on their behalf.
After an hour without a response from inside the Palace, his people began to grow restless, and the buzz of their dissatisfied conversation grew louder. Anari Idaho was willing to force her way into the Palace, but Manford calmed her with a smile and a gesture.
Finally, the guard captain touched his ear, nodded, and gave a brittle welcoming smile. “Leader Torondo, Emperor Salvador has arranged a place where you and he can have a private conversation.”
Manford bowed slightly. “That is all I requested.”
Anari walked at his side as the bearers carried the palanquin through the archway into the huge reception hall. The rest of the Butlerians remained outside, but Manford was not worried about being separated from them. He could quickly summon the faithful if he should need them.
Salvador Corrino waited for him in a small, empty conference room. The Emperor looked displeased at being forced to accommodate the unexpected visitor, although Manford noted the glint of uneasiness behind his eyes. He was surprised that Roderick Corrino wasn’t there, since the Emperor rarely made important decisions without his brother’s counsel. Perhaps Salvador didn’t believe this was an important decision; Manford would have to convince him otherwise.
“With some difficulty, I’ve managed to rearrange my schedule, Leader Torondo. I can speak with you for no more than fifteen minutes.” His speech was terse. “I am a busy man with many important demands on my time.”
“And I have come with one of the most important tasks you must address,” Manford said. “Thank you for seeing me.”
Salvador wasn’t finished. “Your arrival caused a great deal of disruption. Permits are required for such a large gathering. Please be more considerate next time.”
“I will not rein in my followers with permits. You must listen.” Salvador’s nostrils flared with indignation, but Manford had no patience for the man’s petty hurt fe
elings. “I resort to extreme measures because time is short, and the danger increases day by day. Let us pray I don’t need to take further extreme measures.”
The Emperor’s eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening me?”
“I am clarifying for you. Previously, when I appeared before the Landsraad assembly, my call for a vote was disrupted by terrorist activity. Have the perpetrators been caught and punished?”
“The matter is still under investigation.”
Manford laced his fingers together. “Then schedule another vote and require every Landsraad representative to be there. They must go on record as to where they stand on the future of our civilization.”
“I will accommodate you as best I can.” Salvador was trying to sound tough, but he could not hide his quick swallow. “The calendar of the Landsraad League is full for quite some time.”
“Not good enough. My followers continue to discover remnants of the thinking machines that could easily be turned against humanity, but that is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The greater danger we face is human weakness and temptation. Scientists and industrialists seem intent on bringing about a new age of machines, a new dependence on technology. My followers just saw this on Zenith, and you can rest assured that we took care of the problem. We are still at a very dangerous balancing point, however. We must never forget our pain, never forget what Rayna Butler told us all. I call upon your heart, Emperor Salvador Corrino, to do what is right. Stand beside us and openly declare your stance against advanced technology.”
“I have many competing interests to weigh from thousands of planets. But I promise I’ll consider what you say. Now, if that is all—”
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