Roderick struggled with the turmoil. An Emperor could not be tossed back and forth like a toy between the Butlerians and Venport! Soon, though, if the clash at Kolhar was bloody enough, the problem might resolve itself.…
* * *
BEFORE MANFORD AND his followers departed on their “holy mission,” the Emperor announced a day of celebrations to make the Butlerians feel appreciated. Their rallies seemed surprisingly restrained, because apparently they were saving their rage to be unleashed against Venport.
When Manford was ready to shuttle hundreds of thousands of followers up to his fleet in orbit, Roderick and Haditha gave the warships a grand send-off. They waved from the Palace towers as ship after ship lifted into the sky.
“Good riddance,” Roderick muttered. He didn’t really appreciate the Butlerians at all.
Haditha squeezed his hand. “Do you think they really could conquer Kolhar?”
“Faith and blind fanaticism are not sufficient weapons. I only hope the Butlerians inflict mortal damage on Venport’s forces before they themselves are destroyed.”
That would remove both of the annoying thorns that had been tormenting him.
When receiving an unexpected gift, a wise man does not ask too many questions. Only the foolish person assumes that a gift is simply a gift, and that there are no implied obligations.
—DIRECTEUR JOSEF VENPORT, Venport Holdings consolidation memo
Erasmus was true to his word. After allowing for the vagaries of positioning and more than a century of drifting, Draigo’s scouts found the thinking-machine fleet exactly where the independent robot had said it would be. Forty bulky battleships hanging in space, dark and cold, but intact.
Once scouts tagged the robot fleet, Draigo gathered a crew of Denali engineers and technicians to assess, inspect, and reactivate the thinking-machine vessels and pilot them back to the research planet.
Erasmus asked for permission to accompany the recovery team, but after Draigo considered multiple worst-case scenarios he concluded that he did not trust the robot enough: If given access to all those machine ships, Erasmus might just be tempted to seize them for his own purposes. Though his memory core now resided in a vulnerable biological body, Draigo chose not to take the risk.
A Navigator had brought the recovery team out into deep space, where the tagged robot fleet drifted, and now Draigo paced the piloting deck in silence, studying his prize. The Navigator in the tank behind him made no comment.
The Denali chief engineer, a tough woman named Hana Elkora, joined him on the deck. “I can’t wait to get my hands on those. Over the last ten years I’ve refurbished two dozen old thinking-machine vessels and added them to the VenHold commercial fleet—but never so many at one time.” Clearly pleased, she put her hands on her broad hips, as if considering all the hard work ahead. “This is a real treasure trove. Good thing the barbarians didn’t find them first. Those fanatics would have blown up perfectly good vessels without even attempting to salvage them.”
Draigo nodded. “What matters is that we have these warships, assets we can either turn against Manford Torondo or use to defend Arrakis or Kolhar.”
“Damned right, and we’ll get right to work,” Elkora said. “By now I know the usual machine booby traps, and I am more than familiar with lumbering old robot engines. We’ll get these ships going one at a time and fly them back to Denali. Even with just faster-than-light drives, you should start receiving the new vessels within a week.”
As the Mentat stared at the dark hulks floating there, he began counting and cataloguing them. “Directeur Venport will dispatch carrier ships with spare Holtzman engines to be installed. We can turn these wrecks into spacefolders in no time.”
“I’m ready to get to work,” Elkora said.
“All of us are.”
* * *
AN INITIAL CREW made their way aboard the first of the mothballed vessels. They used generators and battery packs to reactivate the rudimentary life-support systems, which the thinking machines had installed only for transporting human slaves. After several hours, the engineers managed to make the machine ship sufficiently habitable, and more workers came aboard in insulated suits and breathers.
Draigo and Elkora entered the echoing vessel, noting metal corridors and chambers and very few amenities. Aboard, they found hundreds of deactivated robots and combat meks. The ominous machines stood where they had frozen, burly and fearsome units. The Mentat stood in front of one motionless metal figure, examining its reinforced arms and legs, the integrated weaponry.
“These things are just junk,” said Elkora. “You always find them aboard abandoned robot ships. We can dump them out the airlocks—if you want us to bother with that.”
“Do what you feel is necessary.” Draigo continued to stare at the combat robot, as if challenging it. It was vastly different from Erasmus in his new biological body. “Cleaning out the garbage is not your priority. Remove the ones that get in the way, a minimum amount to save time. We can always dispose of the robots at Denali, where we have more manpower—pile them on the surface where the old cymek bodies rusted for decades.”
“Understood, sir. My team will take it from here.”
Feeling an odd compulsion, Draigo reached out to touch the exoskeleton of the combat mek. He thought of how much fear the thinking machines had pounded into the human psyche for so long.
He found it curious now, with the threat of the Butlerians and the repercussions from Emperor Roderick himself, that these thinking machines were no longer the greatest threat to civilization.
We may try to solve the problems of the Imperium, but to a large extent our future is in the uncaring hands of Fate. We must make our own way, constantly calculating and recalculating the odds of success.
—HADITHA CORRINO to her husband, after consulting with a Sister Mentat
The Butlerian mobs had left Zimia, racing off to what would likely be their bloody, suicidal annihilation at Kolhar, but the Emperor remained troubled. Would it really be so easy to get rid of them? And to get rid of Venport?
When Roderick opened his eyes, moonlight filtered through the merh-silk curtains of his bedchamber. A disturbing dream had awakened him, and he could not dismiss it from his thoughts. Next to him, Haditha slept soundly on the wide bed, and that gave him a measure of comfort.
He recalled seeing her for the first time at a grand ball in the Imperial Palace. He had been a young prince, while she was the younger sister of one of the ladies in waiting in his father’s court. He’d noticed her in the throng of nobles with her long auburn hair and classic patrician features, wearing a white gown with a ruby-pearl necklace. As if drawn by gravity, he had moved closer to listen as she talked with a young man in a formal suit. She seemed so very much alive in contrast with other people around her.
Haditha had glanced in his direction, flashing a smile meant just for him. Later that evening, after an embarrassing incident when Salvador got too drunk and slipped on the dance floor, Roderick approached her again, and they strolled arm in arm through the palace gardens. It had been magical.
At the time, although he was the second son of Emperor Jules, Roderick had not dreamed of taking the throne, but he had envisioned being with Haditha for the rest of his life. It had felt so right. They had seemed destined to be together.…
Now, as Roderick slipped out of bed in the moonlight, she opened her eyes and gave him that warm smile he’d first seen so long ago. He leaned over and kissed her tenderly. “It’s all right. I’m just thinking about what’s going to happen when the Butlerians arrive at Kolhar. Manford has no idea what he’ll face there, though I will not mourn much if Venport wipes them out.”
Haditha sat up, brushing her hair out of her face. “Manford is a hateful, obsessed man, but he is dangerous, and we can’t assess what his fanatical followers will do. Maybe Venport won’t know what hit him.” She saw his troubled expression. “Do you want someone to talk to?”
“You’re always my best a
dviser, but I need time to measure my own thoughts. Go back to sleep. I won’t be long.”
Leaving the bedchamber, Roderick Corrino walked down a short corridor to the sanctuary of his private office. Once inside, though, he felt a strange compulsion. He unlocked a side cabinet and brought out the eerie flowmetal cape that the scavenger had given him from Corrin. The garment was cool to his touch and shimmered with alien magic. As he held the cape up to a glowglobe and watched the hypnotic play of lights and colors on its faceted surface, he wondered if it had really once belonged to the evil robot Erasmus.
The metallic fabric shifted, seeming to move of its own volition. Taking a deep breath for courage, he wrapped it around his shoulders, feeling it flow and adjust itself to his upper body. He secured a clasp, then examined himself in a wall mirror. The cape looked rather elegant on him, but he felt oddly guilty, as if some taint in it might corrupt him, turning him into a twisted, demented creature like the notorious Erasmus. But for all its marvels, the thing was just a cape. It could do no harm now.
In the dream that had awakened him, Roderick had seen himself wearing the flowmetal cloak as he rode through the streets of Zimia at the head of an Imperial procession … with an army of thinking machines behind him. He had not been himself. He had been Erasmus.
Now, as the tattered details of the dream dissipated in his memory, he remained disturbed. The Butlerians decried all advanced technology and refused to consider any useful purpose that would outweigh the risk, but Roderick was not so adamant. There had to be situations in which computers and work-saving equipment could be used by people—and controlled by people, as Venport insisted.
He removed the unusual article of clothing, returned it to the cabinet, and locked it inside. It was only a harmless, inanimate thing, yet he felt strangely reluctant to admit to anyone that he had tried it on.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, he and the Empress traveled to the military base outside the city where Admiral Harte’s soldiers had been stationed. With the departure of the Butlerian fleet, Roderick had pounced on the opportunity, issuing new orders to Harte. He could permanently render the fanatics impotent.
The fleet of Imperial warships would undertake a slow, quiet mission—insurance against the out-of-control Butlerians, insurance against whatever happened at Kolhar. They would lock down Lampadas … maybe even without spilling a single drop of blood.
Standing together on a high walkway, Roderick and Haditha observed the hundred newly landed warships that Directeur Venport had held hostage aboard the carrier. The old vessels were spaceworthy and perfectly appropriate for this new, secret deployment. They possessed enough weaponry that they could be an intimidating force under the correct conditions, aided by the element of surprise. When the surviving Butlerians returned to Lampadas, they would not be in any condition to put up much resistance.
Ordinarily, Harte’s peacekeeping fleet would have been delivered to their destination by a large foldspace carrier—such as the VenHold vessel that had seized them. The ships could fly using standard faster-than-light engines, although that would take them weeks to reach a destination. On this occasion, for security, it was tactically worth taking this amount of time.
The landing field was abuzz with activity as Harte’s battle group made preparations for departure. Roderick paused on the walkway to point out to Haditha one of the vessels being prepared: a long, sleek warship with a wide forward viewing area. “That was my father’s flagship. When I was very young, Emperor Jules took my brother and me aboard to tell us of its glorious history. So many stories about it.”
The Empress smiled at him. “With good fortune, there will be new stories to tell, and they will be added to the Corrino legend.”
“I suspect we’re going to have a big success. I like our plan. It just might work.”
The two had developed the idea together. Since the Imperial Armed Forces could no longer rely on VenHold foldspace carriers, they had decided to dispatch these reliable FTL ships quietly and slowly to Lampadas, where they could keep watch on the Butlerians. If Manford and his followers survived their confrontation at Kolhar and returned to Lampadas, Admiral Harte could keep them bottled up there. Better yet, if Manford’s forces were decimated, then Harte could simply neutralize the last sparks of the fanatical movement.
“It’s a perfect backdoor maneuver,” Roderick said. “Since these ships are not carried aboard a spacefolder, they will arrive unnoticed outside the Lampadas system, and Harte can wait there until the time is right.”
One possibility: If Manford did somehow manage to destroy the VenHold headquarters on Kolhar, the Imperium might have no more Navigators. That added even more urgency to the interrogation of the captive Dobrec. Roderick very much needed his Scalpel investigator to extract answers from their only Navigator specimen. He was anxious for progress, but had heard no recent report from his underground research lab. While he and Haditha observed Admiral Harte’s preparations for the fleet’s departure, Roderick sent a message to the research facility, insisting on answers.
For the next hour, the fleet assembled for the big launch. The old flagship began to move laterally on an immense transport mechanism that delivered it to a takeoff area. Other vessels lifted off to a rendezvous point in Salusan orbit, from which they would quietly depart on the long voyage to Lampadas.
But just as Roderick and Haditha were about to return to the Palace, a messenger arrived with grim news. “Directly from Administrator Athens, Sire!” He handed over a message cylinder. “I believe it is bad news, very bad.…”
Needing privacy, Roderick dismissed the messenger, cracked open the cylinder, and cursed when he read the message inside. He felt as if the floor had dropped out beneath him. “Our Navigator is dead,” he said to Haditha. “The lab administrator insists Dobrec was questioned carefully and gently, all according to my command, but the creature just died anyway, as if … as if of his own volition.” Roderick shook his head in dismay. “He willed himself to stop living, and took his secrets with him.”
She gripped his hand. “I’m sorry. I know you were hoping for a breakthrough.”
As much as he wanted the Butlerians to defeat Josef Venport, he could not afford to lose VenHold’s knowledge and resources.
He sent an immediate response to the facility. “Prepare the specimen for dissection. We must learn everything that we still can.”
It is a sad joke of fate that barbarians can so quickly destroy what civilizations took centuries to build.
—DIRECTEUR JOSEF VENPORT on the evacuation of Kolhar
With dimensional space rippling around her tank, Norma Cenva hurtled back to Kolhar, driven by the adrenaline of prescience. Urgency and desperation echoed like thunderclaps in her mind. With a crack of displaced air, her sealed chamber reappeared on its central dais in the field of Navigator tanks in the middle of the night.
Something terrible was about to happen. Not even Josef’s defenses could prevent the approaching threat. The Butlerians were coming here to destroy, and they would arrive soon.
Bright stars shone through cloud veils in the dark sky. Around her, more than eighty tanks sparkled in reflected monitor lights and suspended security glowglobes. Some tanks were occupied; others were empty.
A powerful sense of alarm pulsed through her. Her children were threatened—all of them! She had to evacuate the ones still undergoing transformation, and get the true Navigators to depart on their own before it was too late. Only she could fold space with her mind; all other Navigators required the use of Holtzman engines. She had to get them aboard spacefolders and take them away.
Norma sent a summons to the Navigators aboard the orbiting VenHold ships, informing them that she was retrieving all of the Navigator tanks, taking them to safety before the impending holocaust.
There was no way she could stop it.
Her announcement caused great anxiety and consternation, but they listened. Thankfully, they paid close attention.
As she began to help her Navigators, Norma realized that Josef was also in danger, and she decided to warn him personally. But evacuating all of Kolhar would never be possible. There was not enough time.
Norma was fond of her great-grandson, whose personality reminded her in some ways of her late husband Aurelius Venport, back when she had been merely human and capable of that sort of love. Aurelius had always cared for Norma, even when her own mother considered her a freak. He had given the young woman everything she needed or wanted as she transformed into this incredible being.
Even today, long after Aurelius’s death, Norma continued to evolve. Josef and his powerful commercial empire had made it possible for her precious Navigators to become what they were today. She needed him. It only made sense, logically and emotionally, that she had to protect Josef as well.
Recognizing the consequences of her own actions, Norma realized that she was herself partly responsible for this catastrophic chain of events. By prematurely withdrawing the VenHold fleet from Salusa Secundus, she had given the Butlerian leader a boost of perceived power while making her great-grandson look weak, cowardly, and vulnerable.
Now, she intended to make up for it by saving him. As soon as Norma knew that the rescue of her Navigators was under way, she went to warn Josef.
* * *
IN THE SILENT hours of the night, Josef lay intertwined with Cioba in their spacious private dwelling. Even as he dozed, his mental wheels did not stop turning.
His wife had just returned from Wallach IX with her disappointing news that the Sisterhood refused his overtures for a rapprochement with the Emperor and an alliance. That angered Josef, after all he had done for them when they were outlaws. He made up his mind to withdraw his daughters from the school, not wanting to risk the Sisters using them as hostages.
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