Dune: The Machine Crusade

by Brian Herbert; Kevin J. Anderson

  Armed in their most brutal warrior forms, the vengeful cymeks had descended upon Rossak after Zufa’s first Sorceress weapon destroyed the Titan Barbarossa. While a full-fledged robotic fleet attacked the transfer stations in orbit, cymeks had swept down, burning the jungle and launching explosives into the cliff cities. In order to win the battle, many of Zufa’s best Sorceress trainees had died that day, sacrificing themselves by unleashing a mental holocaust that vaporized all machines with human minds….

  The voraciously fecund silvery-purple jungle had grown back, sealing the scars much faster than Zufa could heal the scars in her own mind.

  Since that time, she’d continued to train the Rossak women who demonstrated the greatest telepathic potential, candidates who could be taught how to build their psychic powers to critical levels and then release them in shockwaves capable of vaporizing cymeks, even Titans. Over the years the chief Sorceress had seen a great many of her surrogate daughters march off to their deaths, martyring themselves in order to score important victories against the horrific cymeks.

  Zufa considered cymeks the worst monsters. Although they had once been human, their ambition and desire for immortality had brought them over to the side of Omnius, making them traitors, not unlike the human infiltrators captured by Iblis Ginjo and his ever-vigilant Jipol officers.

  Many in the League of Nobles had begun to wonder if this terrible bloody Jihad would ever end. Zufa did not think that way. She knew that as long as the fight continued, she could never give up. Year after year until the war ended she had to create and deliver an endless supply of fighters.

  Even though she understood this, as she looked at the young girls arrayed with her atop the cliffs of Rossak, the oldest of them barely fourteen, Zufa wanted to weep. So many Sorceresses had already done their suicidal duty that the eager trainees had become younger and younger with each passing year. While these candidates might be talented, they were still just children.

  Working hard to show no dismay, she scrutinized the young class. Their eyes were bright, and their long pale hair was ruffled by the breezes that swept across the uninhabitable plains between the fertile, deep canyons. The girls’ expressions were eager, their determination unwavering.

  Zufa wished she could save all of these volunteers… but knew that nothing would really save them short of peace brought about by complete victory.

  “I invest my greatest hopes in all of you,” she said. “I cannot deny that danger lies ahead. Even if you succeed, you die. And if you fail, you also die— but worse, it will have been to no purpose. I am here to make certain your lives and your deaths are not in vain, that you are instrumental in destroying Omnius and his thinking machine minions.”

  The girls nodded, listening attentively. Despite their youth, they all knew this was not a game.

  Off in the distance, scarlet-tipped volcanoes oozed lava onto the harsh plains while spewing thick, sulfurous smoke into the tainted atmosphere. Great gorges in the landscape sheltered thriving ecosystems in the volcanic soil and the rich water that percolated through aquifers.

  The Rossak environment was permeated with contaminants that were not completely removed from the food chain— mutagens and teratogens, as well as beneficial chemicals. Pregnancies were difficult and often terminated in miscarriages. Many babies were born terribly deformed; others, like these young women, received a mental boost, an advantage in telepathic powers that no one else in the League possessed.

  Oh, how Zufa had wanted a daughter of her own to be as powerful as these young women, someone to whom she could pass the candle. But though she had chosen her mates with great care, even running genetic tests to prove that the DNA matches were likely to result in talented offspring, she had failed in every instance. After severing her ties with Aurelius Venport, she had taken no further lovers. Once, he had seemed to be the perfect candidate for her, but his seed had resulted in only twisted miscarriages.

  Zufa was old now, near the end of her childbearing years even with the improved stamina and reproductive systems of the Sorceresses of Rossak. Venport’s pharmaceutical discoveries, distillations of drugs from the fungi and underground bulbs that filled the mysterious jungles, allowed new treatments that dramatically reduced the risk of miscarriages and birth deformities while increasing fertility. Zufa found it ironic that Venport himself had discovered a pharmaceutical solution to this situation, after he had caused her so much disappointment.

  But she put such thoughts aside. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the vital task before her.

  Zufa gave the students instructions, telling them what to practice, and how. They stood before her like children in a school, hands extended, eyes wide open. Their pale hair rose up crackling with static electricity as they built up the volatile power within their youthful brains.

  Because of Zufa’s work here, the Army of the Jihad delivered regular reports of their scouting missions. Mercenaries flew fast ships to keep tabs on the movements of Omnius’s forces— in particular, cymek depredations. When cymeks were tracked, her Sorceresses would know, and it was up to Zufa to choose the appropriate female warrior, the appropriate weapon, to go forth and expend her life in a telepathic attack that would annihilate the machines with human minds.

  But it had been months since any report had given her good news. The cymeks knew the Sorceress’s tactics by now, and rarely allowed one of their vulnerable number to travel alone. Instead, combat robots provided heavy escorts and extraordinary firepower for each cymek, especially the remaining Titans. It was difficult for a lone Sorceress to get close enough for her mental blast to have any effect.

  So Zufa would wait and train until she found the perfect opportunity. She refused to waste these talented and dedicated young women. They were Rossak’s most vital resource.

  When the girls had completed their exercises, Zufa beamed with genuine pride. “That is excellent. I believe you understand the concept. Now, watch me.”

  She raised her pale hands and closed her eyes, spreading her fingers apart so that a faint silvery web of electricity crackled between them. “Accessing the power itself is not the difficult part,” she said, her voice flat, her lips bloodless. “Your most difficult job is to control it. You must become a precision weapon, a sharp blade guided by a skilled assassin. Not just a destructive accident.”

  The girls extended their hands, and sparks jumped and popped. Some of them giggled, but quickly controlled themselves and concentrated on the gravity of the task. Zufa saw that they felt the power and sensed the danger.

  More than anything, she wished that her own daughter might have been a brave patriot such as these. But her lone offspring, Norma, had no such skill. Her abilities as a Sorceress were nonexistent, a completely blank telepathic slate. Wasting her life, Norma occupied herself with equations and designs, dabbling in mathematics instead of developing any latent abilities that she might possess. Tio Holtzman on Poritrin had taken her under his wing, and Zufa was grateful for the pity the great scientist had shown her malformed child.

  But after all this time, apparently even Holtzman wanted little more to do with Norma, and had sent her off to dabble with her ideas where she would bother no one else.

  Zufa had not completely severed ties with Norma but was still reluctant to face such an immense personal disappointment by visiting her. She had placed so much hope in her.

  Perhaps one day Zufa would have another child, if she could find a man worthy of contributing his DNA to the Cenva bloodline. Then all would be right again.

  For now, though, these girls were the closest to genuine daughters that she had, and Zufa vowed not to let them down. As she opened her eyes, she became conscious of her own hair whipping around her, as if in a silent hurricane.

  The trainees seemed intimidated and awed, as they stood back and watched her. Zufa smiled at them. “That is good. Now let us go through it again.”

  176 B.G.

  JIHAD YEAR 26

  One Year After the Battle for
IV Anbus

  The more I study the phenomenon of human creativity, the more mysterious it seems. Their whole process of innovation is elusive, but is critical for us to understand. If we fail in this endeavor, thinking machines are doomed.

  — ERASMUS, laboratory notes

  When Norma Cenva’s enthusiastic letter finally reached him Aurelius Venport wasted no time in diverting one of his merchant ships for a special run to Poritrin. Despite the fact that his position as Directeur of VenKee Enterprises placed many demands on his time, he wanted nothing more than to see his dear friend Norma again. He’d always had a soft spot in his heart for her, and it had been years… too many years.

  Open and genuine, Norma was able to see Venport differently from the way other people saw him, without his politics, connections, or wealth. Invariably, they wanted something from VenKee Enterprises, seeking to gain some personal advantage. In contrast, the small-statured, plain-looking daughter of Zufa Cenva had always offered him true friendship, a commodity sorely lacking in the merchant’s life.

  Besides, he was weary of the tedious legal actions that Lord Bludd kept filing against VenKee, demanding his glowglobe-derived profits, trying to freeze his corporate assets. It was all so ridiculous, but still the Poritrin noble might prevail legally. Continuing to fight the matter through the courts could be a serious drain on VenKee resources, so Venport had requested a meeting with Lord Bludd here in Starda and planned to negotiate a compromise.

  But first, he wanted to see Norma.

  At one time, when she had been Tio Holtzman’s golden child, she’d had her own spacious laboratories and workrooms inside the Savant’s blufftop estate. But he had worked her relentlessly, siphoning off her ideas and discoveries; then, when poor Norma strayed into such esoteric research that she no longer produced breakthroughs with sufficient frequency, Holtzman had relegated her to inferior quarters, by the mudflats of the Isana River.

  Even after a quarter century on Poritrin, she was still a “visiting scientist” whose papers could be revoked at any time. Why did Holtzman keep her on? Probably to claim legal credit for anything she developed while working under his auspices.

  Across the delta, factories and giant shipyards were launching the last components of the huge new fleet being assembled in orbit over Poritrin. The air smelled of smoke and metal, resounding with a din that must have made it impossible for her to concentrate. He wondered how she got anything done here.

  Venport stood at the doorway to Norma’s quarters and workspace overlooking the odorous mudflats, taking in all the subtle details of how far she had fallen, things she had probably never noticed. He shook his head, sickened and angry at how Holtzman was treating the sweet girl. Girl? He shook his head at the realization. By now, Norma was over forty years old.

  Standing under the humid sunlight, he pressed the door signal. In accordance with Poritrin tradition, he expected a Buddislamic slave to answer, then remembered that Norma held a dim view of enforced labor.

  Her last letter had been ecstatic about a new concept she had developed after years of effort and blind-ends. He smiled fondly, thinking of her intelligent exuberance. Engrossed in her idea and her proposal, Norma had let her scrawling penmanship degenerate even worse than usual, as if her thoughts were racing far ahead of her hand.

  Venport had skipped over the mathematics and engineering derivations that demonstrated how to modify the Holtzman effect so that it distorted space itself. He had no doubt that her concepts were correct, but as a merchant he was more interested in the commercial applications and in beating out his business competitors, rather than in the details of a product’s functionality. Norma was always brilliant, but rarely practical.

  For a long moment no one came to the door, so he signaled again. Venport understood that Norma must be deep in concentration, drifting in her own world of equations and symbols. He felt guilty for interrupting, but decided to wait for her as long as necessary.

  She wouldn’t be expecting him, though public shipping records had announced the arrival of a VenKee ship. Business obligations had delayed him for an extra month on Salusa, and space travel was so tediously slow….

  Acting on the strength of her enthusiasm in the letter, he had also called his business partner in the melange operations, Tuk Keedair, to join them on Poritrin. The former flesh-merchant had matters to handle in Starda anyway, so Venport would be able to obtain a second opinion… if he wanted it.

  But first Venport needed to look into Norma’s eyes as she talked about her space-folding concept. Then his instincts would tell him all he had to know. He looked forward to the expression of delight and surprise on her face.

  He was not at all disappointed. When she finally stood at the door, blinking in the sunlight, she stared up at him— and his heart felt light with joy. “Norma!” He embraced her before she recognized him, and soon she was laughing and leaping up to throw her arms around his neck.

  The tiny woman’s mouse-brown hair was an uncared for mop, but her eyes sparkled with surprise. She looked older, as did he, although frequent use of melange had dramatically slowed Venport’s own aging process.

  “Aurelius, you got my letter. You came.”

  Though she had changed, Venport remembered all the times the two of them had gone into the jungles on Rossak to explore the silvery-purple foliage. She had rambled on about her ideas, sharing them with him, and he had pulled strings to have her mathematical treatises published and distributed. When Holtzman invited her to become his research partner, Venport had paid for Norma’s passage. Zufa Cenva always claimed that they got along so well together because “misfits enjoy the company of their own.”

  Now, smiling, he rubbed her hair teasingly. “I’m anxious to hear about your exciting new discovery. I also need to take care of this glowglobe dispute with Lord Bludd.”

  She led him into her ramshackle work building, and he followed with some trepidation. The large room was as messy as he had expected, filled with numerous complex projects. One alcove contained a small table surrounded by floating suspensor chairs that rested at odd angles. Dirty dishes, plans, and calculation sheets covered the table surface, and she began to clear away the debris so that Venport would have a place. Dutiful as a friend and guest, he helped her.

  Finding a pile of legal documents with his name mentioned in the text of a threatened complaint, his pulse quickened. They were addressed to Norma from an advocate representing Lord Bludd and Tio Holtzman. “Norma, what are these papers?”

  “I don’t know,” she said absentmindedly. Then, looking closer, she said, “Oh. Those. Nothing of importance.”

  “These were served on you almost a year ago. They threatened you with legal action if you left Holtzman’s employ, especially if you went to work directly for me.”

  “Yes, yes, I suppose. I’ve been too busy to deal with that. My project goes beyond any legal concerns.”

  “Norma, dear naïve Norma, no project goes beyond legal concerns in the real world.” His face reddened. “You shouldn’t have let this matter slide for so long. Let me take care of it for you.” He tucked the papers under his arm.

  “Oh yes, thank you.”

  Venport cared about Norma a great deal, like a big brother, maybe even more. Her small stature and physical failings did not trouble him in the least. He had, after all, spent many years with the utter visual perfection of her statuesque mother, but ultimately he had found Zufa relentlessly judgmental and demanding— of him, of herself, and of everyone around her. For her part, Norma had many more positive attributes than she lacked. Her mind was the most attractive thing about her, as well as her pleasant, accommodating disposition.

  Venport looked around, noting the old facility, the cheap equipment, the cramped spaces. It was an insult to the woman who had developed so many of the Savant’s most famous inventions. The lighting was poor, the furniture old, the shelves overflowing. He would find her something better, and soon. “Norma, I know you don’t like to use slaves
, but I am going to have to see about obtaining a housekeeper for you.”

  “I am content, as long as I can work.”

  Privately, he asked himself how much he owed Norma, and how much he believed in her. Closing his eyes, he “listened” to his body, his heart, his visceral sensations. The answer was obvious.

  I need to help her. Whether or not her new space-folding concept had commercial potential, he promised himself he would free her from the clutches of the egotistical scientist… even if it cost him dearly.

  * * *

  IT TOOK AURELIUS Venport little time to discover that he despised both Lord Niko Bludd and Tio Holtzman.

  In his decades of finding, developing, and shipping pharmaceuticals from Rossak— a business he had built into a large commercial empire— Venport had faced off against tough negotiators, unsavory suppliers, even governmental thugs. He bore no resentment toward legitimate rivals: He could understand them and reach accommodations with them.

  But he also had a reliable gut instinct when dealing with people, and as soon as he came close to Bludd and Holtzman, his skin began to crawl. The Savant was an obvious fraud who had built up his reputation by stepping on the backs of others. Lord Bludd reveled in riches, not as a means to build his legacy or to earn a place in history— he simply accrued luxurious wealth for its own sake.

  Nevertheless, Venport needed to reach an agreement with these men.

  As he approached a long table inside a room full of mirrors and faceted glowglobes— unauthorized reproductions, he noted— Venport thought this meeting chamber looked more like a banquet hall than a boardroom for conducting business. At the head of the table, plump Lord Bludd sat engulfed in plush robes with billowing sleeves, a costume that could not possibly have been comfortable. His long hair was styled into precious ringlets. The curls of his beard had been sprayed to freeze them in place like a sculpture made of wiry hair.