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Book Information:

Genre: Sci-Fi

Author: Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

Name: The Butlerian Jihad

Series: Book One (DUNE Prequel)

=======================================================================

DUNE

THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD

Brian Herbert

and

Kevin J, Anderson

Princess Irulan writes: kny true student must realize that History has no

beginning. Regardless of where a story starts, there are always earlier heroes

and earlier tragedies.

Before one can understand Muad'Dib or the current jihad that followed the

overthrow of my father, Emperor Shaddam IV, one must understand what we

fight against. Therefore, look more than ten thousand years into our past, ten

millennia before the birth of Paul Atreides.

It is there that we see the founding of the Imperium, how an emperor rose

from the ashes of the Battle of Corrin to unify the bruised remnants of humanity.

We will delve into the most ancient records, into the very myths of Dune, into

the time of the Great Revolt, more commonly known as the Butlerian Jihad.

The terrible war against thinking machines was the genesis of our political-

commercial universe. Hear now, as I tell the story of free humans rebelling

against the domination of robots, computers, and cymeks. Observe the basis of

the great betrayal that made mortal enemies of House Atreides and House

Harkonnen, a violent feud that continues to this day. Learn the roots of the Bene

Gesserit Sisterhood, the Spacing ana tneir JNavigators, the Swordmasters of

Ginaz, the Suk Medical School, the Mentats, Witness the lives of oppressed

Zensunni Wanderers who fled to the desert world of Arrakis, where they became

our greatest soldiers, the Fremen.

Such events led to the birth and life of Muad'Dib.

LONG BEFORE MUAD'DIB, in the last days of the Old Empire, humanity lost

its drive. Terran civilization had spread across the stars, but grew stagnant. With

few ambitions, most people allowed efficient machines to perform everyday tasks

for them. Gradually, humans ceased to think, or dream... or truly live.

Then came a man from the distant Thalim system, a visionary who took the

name of Tlaloc after an ancient god of rain. He spoke to languid crowds,

attempting to revive their human spirit, to no apparent effect. But a few misfits

heard Tlaloc's message.

These new thinkers met in secret and discussed how they would change the

Empire, if only they could overthrow the foolish rulers. Discarding their birth

names, they assumed appellations associated with great gods and heroes.

Foremost among them were General Agamemnon and his lover Juno, a tactical

genius. These two recruited the programming expert Barbarossa, who devised a

scheme to convert the Empire's ubiquitous servile machines into fearless

aggressors by giving their AI brains certain human characteristics, including the

ambition to conquer. Then several more humans joined the ambitious rebels. In

all, twenty masterminds formed the core of a revolutionary movement that took

over the Old Empire.

Victorious, they called themselves Titans, after the most ancient of Greek

gods. Led by the visionary Tlaloc, the twenty allocated the administration of

planets and peoples among themselves, enforcing their edicts through

Barbarossa's aggressive thinking machines. They conquered most of the known

galaxy.

Some resistance groups rallied their defenses on the fringes of the Old

Empire. Forming their own confederation--the League of Nobles--they fought

the Twenty Titans and, after many bloody battles, retained their freedom. They

stopped the tide of the Titans and drove them back.

Tlaloc vowed to dominate these outsiders one day, but after less than a

decade in power, the visionary leader was killed in a tragic accident. General

Agamemnon took Tlaloc's place as leader, but the death of his friend and mentor

was a grim reminder of the Titans' own mortality.

Wishing to rule for centuries, Agamemnon and his lover Juno undertook a

risky course of action. They had their brains surgically removed and implanted in

preservation canisters that could be installed into a variety of mechanical bodies.

One by one--as the remaining Titans felt the specter of age and vulnerability--all

of the others also converted themselves into "cymeks," machines with human

minds.

The Time of Titans lasted for a century. The cymek usurpers ruled their

various planets, using increasingly sophisticated computers and robots to

maintain order. But one fateful day the hedonistic Titan Xerxes, anxious to have

more time for his pleasures, surrendered too much access to his pervasive AI

network.

The sentient computer network seized control of an entire planet, followed

quickly by others. The breakdown spread like a virulent infestation from world to

world, and the computer "evermind" grew in power and scope. Naming itself

Omnius, the intelligent and adaptible network conquered all the Titan-controlled

planets before the cymeks had time to warn each other of the danger.

Omnius then set out to establish and maintain order in its own highly

structured fashion, keeping the humiliated cymeks under its thumb. Once

masters of an empire, Agamemnon and his companions became reluctant

servants to the widespread evermind.

At the time of the Butlerian Jihad, Omnius and his thinking machines had

held all of the "Synchronized Worlds" in an iron grip for a thousand years.

Even so, clusters of free humans remained on the outskirts, bound together

for mutual protection, thorns in the sides of the thinking machines. Whenever

attacks came, the League of Nobles defended themselves effectively.

But new machine plans were always being developed.

When humans created a computer with the ability to collect information and

learn from it, they signed the death warrant of mankind.

--SISTER BECCA THE FINITE

Salusa Secundus hung like a jeweled pendant in the desert of space, an oasis of

resources and fertile fields, peaceful and pleasing to the optic sensors.

Unfortunately, it was infested with feral humans.

The robotic fleet approached the capital world of the League of Nobles.

Armored warships bristled with weapons, weirdly beautiful with their reflective

alloy coatings, their adornments of antennae and sensors. Aft engines blazed

pure fire, pushing the vessels to accelerations that would have crushed mere

biological passengers. Thinking machines required no life-support or physical

comfort. Currently, they were focused on destroying the remnants of age-old

human resistance on the wild outer fringes of the Synchronized Worlds.

Inside his pyramid-shaped vessel, the cymek general Agamemnon led the

attack. Logical thinking machines did not care about glory or revenge. But

Agamemnon certainly did. Fully alert inside his preservation canister, his human

brain watched the plans unfold.

Ahead of him, the main fleet of robot warships swept into the human-infested

system, overwhelming the crews of sur prised sentry vessels like an avalanche

out of space. Human picket ships opened fire, defenders swept in to meet the

oncoming machine force. Five League sentry vessels fired off heavy salvos, but

most of their projectiles were too slow to hit the streaking inbound fleet. A

handful of robotic vessels were damaged or destroyed by lucky shots, and just as

many human ships exploded in flashes of incandescent vapor--not because they

posed a particular threat, but because they were in the way. Only a few distant

scouts managed to transmit a warning toward vulnerable Salusa Secundus.

Robot battleships vaporized the diffuse inner perimeter of human defenses,

without even slowing on their way to their real goal. Shuddering under extreme

deceleration, the thinking-machine fleet would arrive not long after the warning

signal reached the capital world.

The humans would never have time enough to prepare. The robot fleet was

ten times the size and power of any force Omnius had ever before sent against

the League of Nobles. The humans had grown complacent, having faced no

concentrated robotic aggression during the last century of uneasy cold war. But

machines could wait a long time, and now Agamemnon and his surviving Titans

would finally have their chance.

Revealed by a flurry of tiny machine spy probes, the League had recently

installed supposedly invincible defenses against gelcircuitry-based thinking

machines. The massive robot fleet would wait at a safe distance while

Agamemnon and his small vanguard of cymeks pressed forward on a mission,

perhaps a suicidal one, to open the door.

Agamemnon reveled in the anticipation. Already the hapless bio-logicals

would be sounding alarms, preparing defenses... cowering in fear. Through

flowing electrafluid that kept his disembodied brain alive, he transmitted an order

to his cymek shock troops. "Let us destroy the heart of the human resistance.

Forward!"

For a thousand hellish years, Agamemnon and his Titans had been forced to

serve the computer evermind, Omnius. Chafing under their bondage, the

ambitious but defeated cymeks now turned their frustration against the League

of Nobles. One day the once-defeated general hoped to turn against Omnius

himself, but thus far had seen no opportunity.

The League had erected new scrambler shields around Salusa Secundus.

Such fields would destroy the sophisticated gelcircuitry of all AI computers--but

human minds could survive the passage. And though they had mechanical

systems and interchangeable robotic bodies, cy-meks still had human brains.

Thus, they could pass through the defensive shields unscathed.

Like a target behind crosshairs, Salusa Secundus filled Agamemnon's field of

view. With great attention to detail the general had studied tactical projections,

applying the military skills he'd developed over the centuries, along with an

intuitive understanding of the art of conquest. His abilities had once allowed a

mere twenty rebels to take over an empire... until they'd lost it all to Omnius.

Prior to launching this important attack, the computer evermind had insisted

on running simulation after simulation, trying to develop plans for every

contingency. Agamemnon, though, knew it was futile to plan too precisely when

it came to unruly humans.

Now, while the immense robot war fleet engaged the expected League orbital

defenses and perimeter ships, Agamemnon's mind probed outward from his

sensor-connected container, and he felt his guideship as an extension of his

long-lost human body. The integral weapons were part of himself. He saw with a

thousand eyes, and the powerful engines made him feel as if he had muscular

legs again and could run like the wind.

'Prepare for ground assault. Once our dropcarriages penetrate the Salusan

defenses, we must strike fast and hard." Recalling that watcheyes would record

every moment of the battle for the evermind's later scrutiny once the fleet

returned, he added, "We will sterilize this filthy planet for the glory of Omnius."

Agamemnon slowed his descent, and the others followed suit. "Xerxes, take the

lead. Send in your neo-cymeks to draw their fire and flush them out."

Hesitant as usual, Xerxes complained. "Will I have your full support as I go in?

This is the most dangerous part of--

Agamemnon silenced him. "Be grateful for this opportunity to prove yourself.

Now go! Every second you delay gives more time to the hrethgir." This was the

derogatory term that intelligent machines and their cymek lackeys used for

human vermin.

Another voice crackled across the comlink: the robot operator of the machine

fleet battling the human protective force orbiting Salusa. "We await your signal,

General Agamemnon. Human resistance is intensi-fying."

'We're on our way," Agamemnon said. "Xerxes, do as I instructed!"

Xerxes, who always fell short of complete defiance, stifled further comment

and summoned three neo-cymeks, later-generation machines with human minds.

The quartet of pyramidal ships shut down their subsidiary systems, and their

armored dropcarriages fell unguided into the atmosphere. For a few dangerous

moments they would be easy targets, and the League's missile-and-aerial

defenses might hit a few of the cluster. But the dropcarriages' dense material

shielding would protect them against the brunt of the bombardment, keeping

them intact even through a wild crash-landing on the outskirts of the prime city

of Zimia, where the main shield-generating towers were located.

Thus far the League of Nobles had preserved unruly humanity against the

organized efficiency of Omnius, but the feral biologicals governed themselves

ineffectively and often disagreed over major decisions. As soon as Salusa

Secundus was crushed, the unstable alliance would disintegrate in a panic;

resistance would crumble.

But first Agamemnon's cymeks had to shut down the scrambler shields. Then

Salusa would be defenseless and quivering, ready for the main robot fleet to deal

the lethal blow, like a huge mechanical boot squashing an insect.

The cymek leader jockeyed his dropcarriage into position, ready to lead the

second wave with the rest of the extermination fleet. Agamemnon switched off

all computerized systems and followed Xerxes down. His brain floated in limbo

inside its preservation canister. Blind and deaf, the general did not feel the heat

or violent vibrations as his armored craft roared toward the unsuspecting target.

The intelligent machine is an evil genie, escaped from its bottle.

--BARBAROSSA,

Anatomy of a Rebellion

When Salusa's sensor network detected the arrival of the robotic war fleet,

Xavier Harkonnen took action immediately. Once again, the thinking machines

meant to test the defenses of free humanity.

Though he bore the rank of tercero in the Salusan Militia--the local,

autonomous branch of the overall League Armada--Xavier had not yet been born

during the last real skirmishes against League worlds. The most recent major

battle had been nearly a hundred years ago. After all these years, the aggressive

machines might be counting on soft human defenses, but Xavier swore they

would fail.

'Primero Meach, we've received an urgent warning and a vidstream clip from

one of our peripheral scouts," he said to his commander. "But the transmission

cut off."

'Look at them all!" squawked Quinto Wilby as he scanned images from the

outlying sensor network. The low-ranking officer stood with other soldiers at

banks of instrument panels inside a domed building. "Omnius never sent

anything like this before."

Vannibal Meach, the short but loud-voiced primero of the Salusan Militia,

stood in the control center of the planet's defenses, coolly absorbing the flow of

information. "Our last report from the perimeter is hours old due to signal lag. By

now they've engaged our pickets, and they'll try to get closer. They'll fail, of

course." Though this was his first warning of the impending invasion, he reacted

as if he had expected the machines to arrive any day.

In the control room's illumination, Xavier's dark brown hair glinted with

reddish cinnamon highlights. He was a serious young man, prone to honesty and

with a tendency to see things in black and white. As a member of the third

military ranking tier, Tercero Harkonnen was Meach's backup commander of the

local defense outposts. Much admired by his superiors, Xavier had been

promoted quickly; equally respected by his soldiers, he was the sort of trusted

man they would follow into battle.

Despite the sheer size and firepower of the robotic force, he willed himself to

calmness, then signaled for reports from the nearest picket ships and put the

spaceguard defense fleet on highest alert in close orbit. The warship

commanders had already called their crews to battle-ready status as soon as

they'd heard the urgent transmission from the now-destroyed scout ships.

Around Xavier, automated systems hummed with activity. Listening to the

oscillating sirens, the chatter of orders and status reports in the control room, he

drew a slow breath, prioritizing tasks. "We can stop them," he said. "We will stop

them." His voice carried a tone of firm command, as if he were much older than

his years and accustomed to battling Omnius every day. In reality, this would be

his first engagement with the thinking machines.

Years ago, his parents and older brother had been killed in a mar-rauding

cymek attack while en route from an inspection of family holdings on Hagal. The

soulless machine forces had always been a threat to the League Worlds, but the

humans and Omnius had maintained an uneasy peace for decades.

On a wall grid, a map of the Gamma Waiping system showed the orbital

locations of Salusa Secundus and six other planets, along with the deployment of

sixteen patrol battle groups and the vigilant picket ships that were scattered at

random. Cuarto Steff Young hurried to update the tactical projection, plotting her

best guess of the location of the approaching robot battle group.

'Contact Segundo Lauderdale, and call in all perimeter warships. Tell them to

engage and destroy any enemy they encounter," said Primero Meach, then he

sighed. "It'll take half a day at maximum acceleration to retrieve our heavy battle

groups from the fringe, but the machines might still be trying to get through by

then. Could be a field day for our guys." Cuarto Young followed the order with

easy efficiency, dispatching a message that would take hours to reach the

outskirts of the system.

Meach nodded to himself, going through the much-drilled sequence. Always

living under the specter of the machines, the Salusan Militia trained regularly for

every scenario, as did Armada detachments for every major League system.

"Activate the Holtzman scrambler shields around the planet and issue warnings

to all commercial air and space traffic. I want the city's shield transmitter output

up to full within ten minutes."

'That should be enough to brain-fry any thinking machine gelcir-cuitry,"

Xavier said with forced confidence. "We've all seen the tests." This, however, is

not just a test.

Once the enemy encountered the defenses the Salusans had installed, he

hoped they would calculate their losses to be too heavy, and retreat. Thinking

machines didn't like to take risks.

He stared at a panel. But there are so many of them.

Then he straightened from his summary screens, full of bad news. "Primero

Meach, if our velocity data for the machine fleet is correct, even at deceleration

speed, they are traveling almost as fast as the warning signal we received from

our scouts."

'Then they could already be here!" said Quinto Wilby.

Now Meach reacted with sharp alarm, triggering a full emergency alert.

"Sound evacuation orders! Open the underground shelters."

'Evacuation under way, sir," reported Cuarto Young moments later, her

fingers working the update panels as she spoke. The intent young woman

touched a communication wire at her temple. "We're sending Viceroy Butler all

the information we have."

Serena is with him at the Hall of Parliament, Xavier realized, thinking of the

Viceroy's nineteen-year-old daughter. His heart clenched with concern for her,

yet he did not dare reveal his fear to his compatriots. Everything in its time and

place.

In his mind he could see the many threads he needed to weave, doing his

part while Primero Meach directed the overall defense.

'Cuarto Chiry, take a squadron and escort Viceroy Butler, his daughter, and

all of the League representatives deep into the subterranean s ters.

'They should be heading there already, sir," the officer said. Xavier gave him

a stiff smile. "Do you trust politicians to do the smart thing first?" The cuarto ran

to do as he was told.

Most histories are written by the winners of conflicts, but those written by the

losers--if they survive--are often more interesting.

--IBLIS GINJO, The Landscape of Humanity

Secundus was a green world of temperate climate, W»«,'home to hundreds

of millions of free humans in the League of Nobles. Abundant water flowed

through open aqueducts. Around the cultural and governmental center of Zimia,

rolling hills were embroidered with vineyards and olive groves.

Moments before the machine attack, Serena Butler stepped onto the oratory

stage in the great Hall of Parliament. Thanks to her dedicated public service, as

well as special arrangements made by her father, she had been granted this

opportunity to address the representatives.

Viceroy Manion Butler had privately counseled her to be subtle, to keep her

points simple. "One step at a time, dear one. Our League is held together only

by the threat of a common enemy, not by a set of shared values or beliefs.

Never attack the lifestyles of the nobles."

This was only the third speech of her brief political career. In her earlier

addresses, she had been overly strident--not yet understanding the ballet of

politics--and her ideas had been met with a mixture of yawns and good-natured

chuckles at her naivete. She wanted to end the practice of human slavery that

had been adopted sporadically by some League worlds; she wanted to make

every human equal, to ensure that all were fed and protected.

'Perhaps the truth hurts. I was trying to make them feel guilty."

'You only made them deaf to your words."

Serena had refined her speech to incorporate his advice, while still sticking to

her principles. One step at a time. And she, too, would learn with each step. On

the advice of her father, she had also spoken to like-minded representatives in

private, rallying some support and gaining a few allies ahead of time.

Lifting her chin, adjusting her expression to look authoritative rather than

eager, Serena positioned herself inside the recording shell that surrounded the

podium like a geodesic dome. Her heart swelled with all the good she might be

able to do. She felt warm light as the projection mechanism transmitted

oversized images of her outside the dome enclosure.

A small screen atop the podium allowed her to see herself as they did: a soft

face of classical beauty, with hypnotic lavender eyes and amber-brown hair

highlighted by natural golden strands. On her left lapel she wore a white rose

floweret from her own meticulously tended gardens. The projector made Serena

look even more youthful, as the mechanism had been adjusted by nobles to

mask the effect of years on their own features.

From his gilded box at the front of the audience, round-faced Viceroy Butler,

in his finest robes of gold and black, smiled proudly at his daughter. The sigil of

the League of Nobles adorned his lapel, an open human hand in gold outline,

representing freedom.

He understood Serena's optimism, remembering similar ambitions in himself.

He had always been patient with her crusades, helping the young woman to rally

disaster relief for refugees of machine attacks, letting her journey to other

planets to tend to the injured, or dig through rubble and help rebuild burned

buildings. Serena had never been afraid to get her hands dirty.

'The narrow mind erects stubborn barriers," her mother had once told her.

"But against those barriers, words are formidable weapons."

On the floor of the great hall, dignitaries chatted in low tones. Several sipped

drinks or munched on snacks that had been delivered to their seats. Just another

day in Parliament. Comfortable in their villas and mansions, they would not

welcome change. But the possibility of bruised egos did not prevent Serena from

saying what needed to be said.

She activated the oratory projection system. "Many of you think I have

foolish notions because I am young, but perhaps the young have sharper

eyesight, while the old grow slowly blind. Am I foolish and naive--or have some

of you, in pampered complacency, distanced yourselves from humanity? Where

do you fall on the spectrum of what is right and wrong?"

Out in the assemblage she saw a flurry of indignation mixed with expressions

of rude dismissal. Viceroy Butler shot her a sharp glance of disapproval but

transmitted a quick reminder throughout the hall, asking for respectful attention,

as would be accorded any speaker.

She pretended not to notice. Couldn't they all see the larger picture? "We

must each look beyond ourselves if we are to survive as a species. Now is not

the time for personal selfishness. For centuries we have confined our defenses to

a handful of key planets. Though Omnius has launched no full-scale attack in

decades, we live in the constant shadow of the machine threat."

Touching pressure pads on the podium, Serena displayed a projection of the

stellar neighborhood, like a cluster of gems on the high ceiling. With a wand of

light, she pointed out the free League Worlds and the Synchronized Worlds ruled

by thinking machines. Then she brought her pointer to more extensive regions of

the Galaxy where neither organized humans nor machines held sway.

'Look at these poor Unallied Planets: scattered worlds like Harmon-thep,

Tlulax, Arrakis, IV Anbus, and Caladan. Because their sparse, insular human

settlements are not members of our League, they do not warrant our full military

protection should they ever be threatened--by machines or by other humans."

Serena paused, letting the audience absorb her words. "Many of our own people

wrongly prey on those planets, raiding them for slaves to be supplied to some

League Worlds."

She caught the eye of the Poritrin representative, who scowled, knowing she

was talking about him. He responded loudly, interrupting her. "Slavery is an

accepted practice in the League. Lacking complex machines, we have no other

choice to augment our workforce." He looked smug. "Besides, Salusa Secundus

itself kept a population of Zen-sunni slaves for almost two centuries."

'We put a stop to that practice," Serena replied with considerable heat. "It

took some imagination and a willingness to change, but--"

Trying to head off a shouting match, the Viceroy stood. "Each League planet

makes its own determination of local customs, technology, and laws. We have a

fearsome enough enemy in the thinking machines without starting a civil war

among our own planets." His voice sounded paternal, just slightly chiding her to

get back to her main point.

Sighing but not surrendering, Serena adjusted the pointer so that the

Unallied Planets glowed on the ceiling. "Still, we can't ignore all these worlds--

ripe resource-filled targets, planets just waiting to be conquered by Omnius."

The Sergeant at Arms, on a tall chair off to one side, rapped his staff on the

floor. "Time." Easily bored, he rarely listened to speeches.

Serena continued in a rush, trying to finish her point without sounding

strident. "We know the thinking machines want to control the Galaxy, even

though they have been essentially quiescent for almost a hundred years. They

have systematically taken over every world in the Synchronized star systems. Do

not be lulled by their seeming lack of interest in us. We know they will strike

again--but how, and where? Should we not move before Omnius does?"

'What is it you want, Madame Butler?" one of the dignitaries inquired

impatiently, raising his voice, but not standing, as was customary. "Are you

advocating some sort of preemptive strike against the thinking machines?"

'We must seek to incorporate the Unallied Planets into the League, and stop

harvesting them for slaves." She jabbed her illuminated wand at the overhead

projection. "Bring them under our wing to increase our own strength, and theirs.

We would all benefit! I propose that we dispatch ambassadors and cultural

attaches with the express intent of forming new military and political alliances.

As many as we can."

'And who will pay for all that diplomacy?"

'Time," the Sergeant at Arms repeated.

'She is allotted three extra minutes for rebuttal, since the representative from

Hagal has posed a question," Viceroy Butler said in an authoritative tone.

Serena grew angry. How could that representative worry about petty price

tags, when the ultimate cost was so much higher? "We will all pay--in blood--if

we do not do this. We must strengthen the League and the human species."

Some of the nobles began to clap--the allies she had courted before her

speech. Suddenly, screeching alarms echoed through the building and in the

streets. Droning sirens wavered in a chillingly familiar tone--usually heard only

during planned drills--summoning all reserve members of the Salusan Militia.

'Thinking machines have entered the Salusan system," a voice said through

built-in speakers. Similar announcements would be ringing all across Zimia. "We

have an alert from perimeter scouts and the sentry battle group."

Standing next to her father, Serena read details as the Viceroy was handed a

brief and urgent summary. "We've never seen a robot war fleet that size!" he

said. "How long ago did the first scouts sound the warning? How much time do

we have?"

'We are under attack!" a man shouted. The delegates were on their feet,

scattering like stirred ants.

'Prepare to evacuate the Hall of Parliament." The Sergeant at Arms became a

flurry of movement. "All armored shelters are open. Representatives, report to

your designated areas."

Viceroy Butler shouted into the chaos, trying to sound confident. "The

Holtzman shields will protect us!" Serena could read her father's anxiety, though

he covered it well.

Amid shouts and cries of panic, the League representatives scrambled for the

exits. The merciless enemies of humanity had arrived.

Any man who asks for greater authority does not deserve to have it.

-- TERCERO XAVIER HARKONNEN, address to Salusan Militia

The robot fleet has just engaged our spaceguard," Xavier Harkonnen called

from his station. "Heavy fire exchanged."

'Primero Meach!" Cuarto Steff Young shouted from the orbital grid screens.

Xavier could smell the salty metallic tang of Young's nervous sweat. "Sir, a small

detachment of machine ships has broken from the main robotic fleet in orbit.

Configuration unknown, but they're preparing for an atmospheric descent." She

pointed to the images, picking out brilliant lights that signified a cluster of inert

projectiles.

Xavier glanced at the perimeter scanners, real-time intelligence transmitted

from the defensive satellites high above Tio Holtzman's gelcircuitry-scrambling

fields. On the highest resolution he saw an assault squadron of pyramidal ships

roaring headlong into the atmosphere, straight toward the sizzling shields.

'They're in for an unpleasant surprise," Young said with a grim smile. "No

thinking machine can survive that ride."

'Our biggest worry will be dodging the debris from their crashing ships,"

Primero Meach quipped. "Maintain surveillance."

But the dropcarriages slipped past the scrambler shields--and kept coming.

They showed no electronic signatures at all as they penetrated the boundary.

'How are they getting through?" Quinto Wilby mopped his brow, brushing

dishwater-brown hair out of his eyes.

'No computers could." In a flash, Xavier understood what was happening.

"They're blind dropcarriages, sir!"

Young looked up from her screens, breathing hard. "Impact in less than a

minute, Primero. Second wave is coming in behind them. I count twenty-eight

projectiles." She shook her head. "No computer signatures on any of them."

Xavier called out, thinking ahead, "Rico, Powder, work with med-response

teams and fire-suppression squads. Everything up to speed and ready. Come on

people, we've drilled for this a hundred times! I want all vehicles and rescue

equipment mobile and in the air, prepared to move before the first ship hits."

'Divert defenses to pound the invaders as soon as they crash." Primero

Meach lowered his voice, swept his flinty gaze across his comrades. "Tercero

Harkonnen, take a portable comstation and get out there--be my eyes on the

scene. My guess is those dropcarriages will hatch into something unpleasant."

OUTSIDE, THE CITY streets were chaotic under a cloud-dappled sky. Rushing

into the confusion, Xavier heard the hot metallic scream of agonized atmosphere

as the inert armored projectiles shot downward like bullets from space.

An asteroid-rain of pyramidal dropcarriages slammed into the ground, one

after another. With deafening thunder, the first four blind vessels punched into

buildings, leveling city blocks with the explosive dispersion of kinetic energy. But

sophisticated shock-displacement systems protected the deadly cargo inside.

Xavier ran down the street, his uniform rumpled, his sweaty hair clinging to

his head. He stopped in front of the giant edifice of the Hall of Parliament.

Although second in command of Salusa's defenses, here he was in an unsecured

position, ready to issue orders at ground zero.

Not exactly the way he had been taught in his Armada Academy courses. But

Primero Meach was relying on his assessment, recommendations, and ability to

act independently.

He touched the comline on his chin. "I'm in position, sir."

Five more unguided projectiles thumped into the outskirts of the city, leaving

smoldering craters. Explosions. Smoke. Fireballs.

From the impact points, the inert crashdown pods cracked open to reveal a

huge object stirring in each one. Reactivated mechanical units peeled off charred

ablation shielding. With dread, Xavier knew what he was about to see,

understood how the enemy machines had managed to pass through the

scrambler shields. They were not computer minds at all...

Cymeks.

Fearsome mechanical monstrosities emerged from the broken pyramids,

driven by surgically detached human brains. Mobility systems restarted;

articulated legs and augmented weapons clicked into place.

The cymek bodies lurched out of the smoking craters, crablike gladiators half

as tall as the damaged buildings. Their alloy legs were as thick as support girders,

bristling with flamer cannons, artillery launchers, poison gas jets.

Xavier shouted into his comline. "Cymek warrior-forms, Primero Meach! They

figured out how to get through our orbital defenses!"

All across Salusa, from the outskirts of Zimia to the farthest continent, the

local planetary militia was dispatched. Low-atmospheric defense craft--kindjals--

had already launched in defensive overflights, their weaponry magazines loaded

with armor-piercing projectile shells.

People in the streets fled in terror; others stood frozen, staring. Xavier

shouted descriptions of what he was seeing. He heard Vannibal Meach add,

"Cuarto Young, issue orders for all stations to break out the breathing apparatus.

See that filter masks are distributed to the populace. Every person not inside an

approved shelter must wear a breather."

Face masks wouldn't protect against cymek flamers or high-energy

detonations, but the people could be safe from the thick poison clouds. As he fit

his own breather into place, Xavier felt a growing fear that all of the Militia's

best-planned precautions would be woefully inadequate.

Leaving the discarded shells of their dropcarriages behind, cymek warriors

thrummed forward on monstrous feet. They launched explosive shells and

incinerated buildings and screaming people. Gouts of flame poured from nozzles

in their foremost limbs, setting the city of Zimia on fire.

Dropcarriages continued to tumble from above, ready to split open as soon

as they crashed. Twenty-eight of them in all.

With a howling roar loud enough to burn his ears, the young tercero saw a

column of fire and smoke spinning, tumbling, so fast and bright that it left his

retinas smoldering. The dropcarriage smashed into the military compound half a

kilometer behind him, vaporizing the control center and the planetary Militia HQ

building. The shockwave knocked Xavier to his knees, shattered windows for

dozens of blocks.

'Primero!" Xavier screamed into the comline. "Primero Meach! Command

center! Anybody!"

But he could see from the ruins that he would get no response from the

Militia commander or any of his comrades in the complex.

Stalking through the streets, the cymeks spewed greenish black smoke, an

oily mist that settled into a toxic film covering the ground and structures. Then

the first squadron of kindjal bombers came in low. Their initial sweep scattered

explosives around the machine warriors, striking both cymeks and buildings.

Wearing his clearplaz breathing mask, Xavier panted, unable to believe what

he had just seen. He called again for the commander, but received no response.

Finally, tactical substations around the city checked in, demanding to know what

had happened, asking him to identify himself.

'This is Tercero Xavier Harkonnen," he said. Then full understanding hit him.

With a supreme effort, he summoned his courage and steadied his voice. "I am...

I am currently in command of the Salusan Militia."

He ran toward the conflagration, into the billowing greasy smoke. All around

him civilians fell to their knees retching in the poisonous mist. He glared up at

the aerial strikes, wishing he could be in more direct control. "The cymeks can be

destroyed," he transmitted to the kindjal pilots. Then he coughed. The mask was

not working properly. His chest and throat burned as if he had inhaled acid, but

he kept shouting orders.

As the attack proceeded, Salusan emergency response aircraft swooped over

the battle zone, dumping canisters of fire-suppression pow ders and foams. At

ground level, masked medical squadrons moved in without hesitation.

Oblivious to the insignificant human defense efforts, the cymeks marched

forward, moving as individuals, not an army--mechanical mad dogs spreading

mayhem. A warrior-form bent back on powerful crablike legs and blasted two

rescue ships out of the sky--then it moved ahead again, eerily graceful.

The front line of Salusan bombers dropped explosive shells directly onto one

of the first cymeks. Two projectiles struck the armored body, and a third hit a

nearby building, causing the structure to collapse, girders and debris tumbling

down to bury the invader's mechanical body.

But after the flames and smoke cleared, the battered cymek remained

functional. The murderous machine shook itself free of the rubble, then launched

a counterattack at the kindjals overhead.

From his distant vantage, Xavier studied their movements, using a portable

tactical grid. He needed to figure out the overarching plan of the thinking

machines. The cymeks seemed to have a target in mind.

He could not hesitate or waste time bemoaning the fall of his comrades. He

could not ask what Primero Meach would have done. Instead, he had to stay

clear-headed and make some immediate decisions. If he could only understand

the enemies' objective...

In orbit, the robotic fleet continued to fire upon the Salusan space-guard,

though the AI enemy could not pass through Holtzman fields. They might defeat

the spaceguard ships and blockade the League capital world... but Primero

Meach had already recalled the heavy perimeter battle groups, and soon all that

League Armada firepower would pose a serious challenge to the robot warships.

On the screen he saw the robot fleet maintaining position... as if waiting for

some signal from the cymek shock troops. His mind whirled. What were they

doing?

A trio of gladiator machines launched explosives against the west wing of the

Hall of Parliament. The beautifully carved facade sloughed to the street like a

late-spring avalanche. Slabs of rubble crumbled, exposing open chambers in the

evacuated governmental offices.

Coughing in the smoke, trying to see through his smeared faceplate, Xavier

looked into the eyes of a white-smocked medic who grabbed him and fitted a

new mask over his face. Xavier's lungs burned more now, as if they had been

soaked in av-fuel and lit on fire.

'You'll be fine," the medic promised in an uncertain tone as he applied a

snap-injection pack to Xavier's neck.

'I'd better be." The tercero coughed again and saw black spots in front of his

eyes. "I don't have time to be a casualty right now."

Xavier thought beyond himself and felt a deep worry for Serena. Less than an

hour ago, she had been scheduled to speak to the League representatives. He

prayed that she had reached safety.

Struggling to his feet, he waved the medic away as the injection took effect.

He tuned his portable tactical grid and requested a sky-high view, imaged from

the fast defense kindjals. He studied the blackened paths of the graceful, titanic

cymeks on his screen. Where are they going?

Mentally, he scanned from the smoldering impact craters and the ruins of the

Militia HQ, envisioning the paths made by the mechanical monsters as they

pressed forward.

Then he understood what he should have seen from the start, and cursed

under his breath.

Omnius knew the Holtzman scrambler shields would obliterate thinking

machine gelcircuitry; thus the main robotic fleet remained just beyond Salusan

orbit. If the cymeks took out the shield generators, though, the planet would be

wide open to a full-scale invasion.

Xavier faced a critical decision, but his choice was predetermined. Whether

he liked it or not, he was in command now. By wiping out Primero Meach and

the Militia command structure, the cymeks had put him temporarily in charge.

And he knew what he had to do.

He ordered the Salusan Militia to fall back and direct their utmost efforts to

defend the single most vital target, leaving the rest of Zimia exposed as the

cymeks blasted and burned everywhere. Even if he had to sacrifice part of this

important city, he must stop the machine forces from reaching their target.

At all costs.

s the subject or the observer the greater influence?

--ERASMUS, uncollated laboratory files

On Corrin, one of the primary Synchronized Worlds, the robot Erasmus

walked across the flagstone plaza that fronted his lavish villa. He moved with a

well-practiced fluidity that he had learned to imitate after centuries of observing

human grace. His flowmetal face was a burnished blank oval, like a mirror

entirely devoid of expression until he decided to form the metallic polymer film

into a range of mimicked emotions, like ancient theater masks.

Through optic threads implanted in his facial membrane, he admired the

iridescent fountains around him, which so nicely complemented the villa's

stonework, gemstone statuary, intricate tapestries, and laser-etched alabaster

columns. All plush and opulent, by his own design. After much study and analysis,

he had learned to appreciate standards of classical beauty, and was proud of his

evident taste.

His pet human slaves bustled about performing household chores--polishing

trophies and art objects, dusting furniture, planting flowers, trimming topiary

shrubs under the crimson afternoon light of the red-giant sun. Each tremulous

slave bowed in respect as Erasmus passed. He recognized but did not bother to

identify individuals, though he mentally filed every detail. One never knew when

the tiniest scrap of data might help in overall understanding.

Erasmus had a skin of organic-plastic composites laced with neur-electronics.

He pretended that the sophisticated sensor network allowed him to genuinely

feel physical sensations. Under the glowing ember of Corrin's huge sun, he

detected light and warmth on his skin, presumably like real flesh. He wore a

thick gold robe trimmed in carmine, part of a stylish personal wardrobe that

separated him from Omnius's lesser robots. Vanity was another thing Erasmus

had learned from studying humans, and he rather enjoyed it.

Most robots were not as independent as Erasmus. They were little more than

mobile thinking boxes, drone subsets of the evermind. Erasmus obeyed Omnius's

commands as well, but he had more freedom to interpret. Over the centuries, he

had developed his own identity and semblance of an ego. Omnius considered

him something of a curiosity.

As the robot continued to walk with perfect grace, he detected a buzzing

sound. His optic threads picked up a small flying orb, one of Omnius's many

mobile watcheyes. Whenever Erasmus ventured away from the ubiquitous

screens found throughout all buildings, the avid watcheyes followed him,

recording his every move. The evermind's actions spoke of either a deep-seated

curiosity... or an oddly humanlike paranoia.

Long ago, while tinkering with the original AI computers of the Old Empire,

the rebel Barbarossa had added approximations of certain personality traits and

goals. Subsequently the machines had self-evolved into a single grand electronic

mind that retained a few of the imposed human ambitions and characteristics.

As far as Omnius was concerned, biologicals, even bastardized cy-meks with

human brains and machine parts, could not see the epoch-spanning vistas that

the gelcircuitry of a machine mind could encompass. When Omnius scanned the

universe of possibilities it was like a vast screen. There were so many ways to

win, and he was constantly on the alert for them.

Omnius's core programming had been duplicated on all the machine-

conquered planets and synchronized through the use of regular updates.

Faceless, able to watch and communicate throughout the interstellar network,

near-identical copies of Omnius were everywhere, vicariously present in

innumerable watcheyes, appliances, and contact screens.

Now, apparently, the distributed computer mind had nothing better to do

than snoop. "Where are you going, Erasmus?" Omnius demanded from a tiny

speaker beneath the watcheye. "Why are you walking so fast?"

'You could walk, too, if you chose to do so. Why not give yourself legs for a

while and wear an artificial body, just to see what it is like?" Erasmus's metallic

polymer mask reshaped itself into a smile. "We could go for a stroll together."

The watcheye buzzed along beside Erasmus. Corrin had long seasons,

because its orbit was so far around the giant sun. Winters and summers each

lasted for thousands of days. The rugged landscape had no indigenous forests or

wildernesses, only a handful of ancient orchards and agricultural fields that had

gone to seed since the machine takeover, left to propogate untended.

Many human slaves went blind from exposure to the pounding solar flux. As

a consequence, Erasmus fitted his outdoor workers with custom eye protection.

He was a benevolent master, concerned for the well-being of his resources.

As he reached the entry gate of his villa, the robot adjusted the new sensory-

enhancement module grafted by neurelectronic ports onto his body core and

hidden beneath his robe. A unit of his own design, the module allowed Erasmus

to simulate the senses of humanity, but with certain unavoidable limitations. He

wanted to know more than the module could provide, wanted to feel more. In

this respect, the cymeks might have an advantage over Erasmus, but he would

never know for certain. Cymeks--especially the original Titans--were a narrow-

minded, brutal bunch, with no appreciation for the more refined senses and

sensibilities that Erasmus worked so hard to attain. Brutality had its place, of

course, but the sophisticated robot considered it only one of many behaviorial

aspects worthy of study, both positive and negative. Still, violence was

interesting and often pleasurable to employ...

He was intensely curious about what made cognizant biologicals human. He

was intelligent and self-aware, but he also wanted to understand emotions,

human sensibilities, and motivations--the essential details that machines never

managed to reproduce very well.

During his centuries-long quest, Erasmus had absorbed human artwork,

music, philosophy, and literature. Ultimately, he wanted to discover the sum and

substance of humanity, the magic spark that made these creatures, these

creators, different. What gave them... souls?

He marched into his banquet hall, and the flying eye buzzed away toward the

ceiling, where it could observe everything. On the walls, six Omnius screens

glowed milky gray.

His villa was modeled after the opulent Greco-Roman estates in which the

Twenty Titans had lived before forsaking their human bodies. Erasmus owned

similar villas on five planets, including Corrin and Earth. He maintained additional

facilities--holding pens, customized vivisection rooms, medical laboratories, as

well as greenhouses, art galleries, sculptures, and fountains. All of which enabled

him to study human behavior and physiology.

Erasmus sat his robed body at the head of a long table lined with silver

goblets and candleholders, but with only one place setting. For him. The antique

wooden chair had once belonged to a human nobleman, Nivny O'Mura, a

founder of the League of Nobles. Erasmus had studied how the rebellious

humans had organized themselves and established strongholds against the early

cymek and machine assaults. The resourceful hrethgir had ways of adapting and

improvising, of confounding their enemies in unexpected ways. Fascinating.

Abruptly, the evermind's voice echoed from all around, sounding bored.

"When will your experiment be concluded, Erasmus? You come in here day after

day, doing the same thing. I expect to see results."

'I am intrigued by questions. Why do wealthy humans eat with such

ceremony? Why do they consider certain foods and beverages superior to others,

when the nutritional value is the same?" The robot's voice became more erudite.

"The answer, Omnius, has to do with their brutally short lives. They compensate

with efficient sensory mechanisms capable of imparting intense feelings. Humans

have five basic senses, with countless gradations. The taste of Yondair beer

versus Ularda wine, for example. Or the feel of Ecaz burlap compared with

parasilk, or the music of Brahms versus--"

'I suppose that is all very interesting in some esoteric way." "Of course,

Omnius. You continue to study me while I study humans." Erasmus signaled the

slaves who peered nervously through a porthole in the door to the villa's kitchen.

A probe snaked out of a module at Erasmus's hip and emerged from underneath

his robe, waving delicate neurelectronic sensor threads like expectant cobras.

'By tolerating your investigations, Erasmus, I expect that you will develop a

detailed model that can reliably predict human behavior. I must know how to

make these creatures usable."

White-clad slaves brought trays of food from the kitchen--Corrin game hen,

Walgis beef almondine, even rare Platinum River salmon harvested from

Parmentier. Erasmus dipped the weblike ends of his probe into each dish and

"tasted" it, sometimes using a cutter to penetrate the meat and sample the

internal juices. Erasmus documented each flavor for his growing repertoire.

All the while, he carried on a dialogue with Omnius. The evermind seemed to

be doling out bits of data and watching how Erasmus reacted. "I have been

building up my military forces. After many years, it is time to move again."

'Indeed? Or are the Titans pressuring you into a more aggressive stance? For

centuries, Agamemnon has been impatient with what he perceives as your lack

of ambition." Erasmus was more interested in the bitter berry tart in front of him.

Analyzing the ingredients, he was puzzled to detect a strong trace of human

saliva and wondered if that had been part of the original recipe. Or had one of

the slaves simply expec-torated into it?

'I make my own decisions," the evermind said. "It seemed appropriate to

launch a new offensive at this time."

The head chef rolled a cart to the table and used a carving knife to cut a slab

of Filet Salusa. The chef, a toady little man who stuttered, placed the dripping

slice on a clean plate, added a dollop of savory brown sauce, and extended it

toward Erasmus. Clumsily, the chef bumped the knife off the serving tray and it

clattered against one of Erasmus's smooth feet, leaving a nick and a stain.

Terrified, the man bent to retrieve the knife, but Erasmus flashed a

mechanical hand down and grabbed the handle. Sitting straight, the elegant

robot continued to talk to Omnius. "A new offensive? And is it a mere

coincidence that the Titan Barbarossa requested exactly that as a reward when

he defeated your fighting machine in the gladiator arena?"

'Irrelevant."

Staring at the blade, the chef stammered, "I will p-personally p-polish it and

m-m-make it good as n-n-new, Lord Erasmus."

'Humans are such fools, Erasmus," Omnius said from speakers on the wall.

'Some of them are," Erasmus agreed, waving the carving knife with graceful

movements. The little chef mouthed a silent prayer, unable to move. "I wonder

what should I do?" Erasmus wiped the knife clean on the trembling man's smock,

then stared at the fellow's distorted reflection in the metal blade.

'Human death is different from machine death," Omnius said dispassionately.

"A machine can be duplicated, backed-up. When humans die, they are gone

permanently."

Erasmus simulated a boisterous laugh. "Omnius, though you always talk

about the superiority of machines, you fail to recognize what humans do better

than we."

'Do not give me another of your lists," the evermind said. "I recall our last

debate on this subject with perfect accuracy."

'Superiority is in the eye of the beholder and invariably involves filtering out

details that do not conform to a particular preconceived notion." With his sensory

detectors waving like cilia in the air, Erasmus smelled the odor of foul sweat from

the chef.

'Are you going to kill this one?" Omnius asked. Erasmus placed the knife on

the table and heard the toady man emit a sigh. "Individually, humans are easy to

kill. But as a species, the challenge is far greater. When threatened, they draw

together and become more powerful, more dangerous. Sometimes it is best to

surprise them." Without warning, he grabbed the knife and plunged it into the

chef's chest with enough force to drive it through the sternum and into the heart.

"Like so." Blood spurted down the white uniform, onto the table and the robot's

plate.

The hapless human slid off the blade, gurgling. As Erasmus held the bloody

knife he considered attempting to duplicate his victim's look of disbelief and

betrayal with his own pliable mask, but decided not to bother. His robot face

remained a flat, mirrored oval. Erasmus would never be required to display such

an expression anyway.

Curious, he tossed the blade aside with a clatter, then dipped sensitive probe

threads into the blood on his plate. The taste was quite interesting and complex.

He wondered if the blood of various victims would taste any different.

Robot guards dragged the chef's body away, while other terrified slaves

huddled by the doorway, knowing they should clean up the mess. Erasmus

studied their fear.

Omnius said, "Now I wish to tell you something important that I have

decided to do. My attack plans are already set in motion."

Erasmus feigned interest, as he often did. He activated a cleaning mechanism

that sterilized the tip of his probe, which then snaked back into its hiding place

beneath the robe. "I defer to your judgment, Omnius. I have no expertise in

military matters."

'That is exactly why you should heed my words. You always say you want to

learn. When Barbarossa defeated my gladiator robot in exhibition combat, he

requested the chance to strike against the League Worlds, as a boon from me.

The remaining Titans are convinced that without these hrethgir, the universe

would be infinitely more efficient and tidy."

'How medieval," Erasmus said. "The great Omnius would follow the military

suggestions of a cymek?"

'Barbarossa amused me, and there is always the chance that some of the

Titans might be killed. That is not necessarily a bad thing."

'Of course," Erasmus said, "since programming restrictions prevent you from

harming your creators outright."

'Accidents happen. Regardless, our offensive will either subsume the League

Worlds or exterminate the fragments of humanity there. I do not care which.

Very few humans are worth keeping around... perhaps none at all."

Erasmus did not like the sound of that.

The mind commands the body and immediately it obeys. The mind orders itself,

and meets resistance.

--ST. AUGUSTINE, ancient Earth philosopher

T'hough the cymeks had only begun their assault on Zimia, Xavier Harkonnen

knew that free humanity must make its stand, here and now. And make it count.

The weapon-studded warrior-forms strode forward in lock-step. Raising silver

arms, they launched explosive projectiles, spewed gouts of flame, spread poison

gas. With each smashed wall, the cymeks drew closer to the main shield-

generator station, a soaring tower of parabolic curves and intricate latticework.

At the fringes of Salusa's atmosphere, an orbital array of redundant satellites

wove a crackling fence with amplifiers at each node. Across the continents,

transmission towers beamed up the substance of the Holtzman scrambler field,

crisscrossing it into an intricate mesh high above the planet, an impenetrable

tapestry of energy.

But if the cymeks took out the primary towers on the surface, vulnerable

gaps would open in the shield. The whole protective fabric could unravel.

Coughing blood from his searing throat and lungs, Xavier shouted into his

comline, "This is Tercero Harkonnen, assuming command of local forces. Primero

Meach and the control center have been wiped out." The channel remained silent

for several long seconds, as if the entire Militia had been stunned.

Swallowing hard, Xavier tasted rusty blood in his mouth, then he issued his

terrible order: "All local forces, form a cordon around the shield-transmitting

towers. We do not have the resources to defend the rest of the city. Repeat, pull

back. This includes all combat vehicles and attack aircraft."

The expected complaints poured in. "Sir, you can't be serious! The city is

burning!"

'Zimia will be undefended! This must be a mistake!"

'Sir, please reconsider! Have you seen the damage those cymek bastards are

already causing? Think of our people!"

'I don't recognize the authority of a tercero to issue orders of such--

Xavier countermanded all of them. "The cymek objective is obvious: they

intend to bring down our scrambler fields so the robot fleet can destroy us. We

must defend the towers at all costs. At all costs"

Blatantly ignoring his order, a dozen pilots flew kindjals overhead, continuing

to dump explosives upon the cymek walkers.

Xavier growled in an uncompromising voice, "Anybody who wants to argue

about it can do so afterward--at your court-martial." Or mine, he thought.

Droplets of scarlet splashed the inside of his plaz mask, and he wondered

how much damage the poisonous fumes had already done. Each breath became

difficult, but he put such conterns out of his mind. He could not sound weak, not

now. "All assets, pull back and protect the towers! That is an order. We need to

regroup and change our strategy."

Finally, Salusan ground units retreated from their pitched defenses, drawing

back toward the shield-transmitter complex. The rest of the city lay as vulnerable

as a lamb prepared for slaughter. And the cymeks took advantage with gleeful

mayhem.

Four warrior-forms crashed through a statue park and destroyed fabulous

works. The mechanical monsters annihilated buildings, blasting and burning

museums, dwelling complexes, hazard shelters. Any target suited them.

'Stand firm," Xavier commanded on all channels, overruling howls of outrage

from the troops. "The cymeks are trying to lure us away."

The warrior-forms set fire to a resonant bell tower erected by Chusuk to

commemorate a successful defense against the thinking machines, four centuries

ago. The ornate bells clanged and gonged as the tower collapsed onto the

paving stones of an open gathering square.

By now most of Zimia's populace had rushed to armored shelters. Fleets of

medical and fire-suppression craft dodged enemy blasts to fight the increasing

disaster. Many rescue attempts became suicide missions. In the midst of the

Militia crowded around the transmitting towers, Xavier felt a flash of doubt,

wondering if he had made the right decision but not daring to change his mind

now. His eyes stung from smoke, and his shredded lungs sent shocks of agony

through his body each time he drew a breath. He knew he was right. He was

fighting for the lives of everyone on the planet. Including Serena Butler's.

'Now what, Tercero?" said Cuarto Jaymes Powder, coming up behind him.

Though the subcommander's angular face was partially covered in a mask, his

eyes still revealed his outrage. "Do we just sit back and watch these bastards

level Zimia? What good is it to protect the shield transmitters if there's nothing

left of the city?"

'We can't save the city if we lose our shields and open up the whole planet to

machine attack," Xavier rasped.

The Salusan troops mounted a defense around the parabolic latticework of

transmitting towers. Ground forces and armored equipment were arrayed on the

surrounding ramparts and streets. Kindjals circled the skies and fired their

weapons, keeping the cymeks away.

Gripping their weapons, the nearest Militia members seethed. The frustrated

men wanted to rush forward and engage the attackers... or perhaps tear Xavier

limb from limb. With each explosion or leveled building, the angry troops edged

one step closer to outright mutiny.

'Until reinforcements arrive, we'll need to concentrate our forces," Xavier said,

coughing.

Powder stared at the tercero's plaz faceplate, noticed blood on the inside. "Sir,

are you all right?"

'It's nothing." But Xavier heard the liquid wheezing of his mangled lungs with

every breath he took.

Feeling unsteady as the poison continued to burn his soft tissues, he gripped

a plascrete bulwark for support. He studied the last stand he had assembled on

short notice and hoped it would hold. Finally, Xavier said, "Now that these

towers are held and protected, we can go out and hunt down some of our

attackers. Are you ready, Cuarto Powder?"

Powder brightened, and soldiers cheered. Several men fired their weapons

into the air, ready to charge pell-mell into the destruction. Like a rider at the

reins of a willful horse, Xavier held them back.

'Wait! Pay close attention. There is no clever trick we can use, no inherent

weakness that will allow us to outsmart the cymeks. But we have the will to

succeed and the need to succeed... or we will lose everything." Ignoring the

blood in his mask, he didn't know how he was able to summon unwavering

confidence in his voice. "This is how we will beat them."

During the initial frantic skirmishes, Xavier had seen at least one of the

gargantuan invaders destroyed by multiple, concentrated explosions. Its

articulated body was now nothing more than a smoking hulk. However, the

scattered bombers and armored ground units had spread their attacks across too

many targets, diluting their efforts.

'This will be a coordinated strike. We will select a single target and crush it,

one cymek at a time. We'll hit it and hit it again until there's nothing left. Then

we'll go on to the next one."

Though he could barely breathe, Xavier chose to lead the squadrons himself.

As a tercero, he was accustomed to being in the thick of the action during

training exercises and simulations.

'Sir?" Powder said, surprised. "Shouldn't you be in a secure area? As the

acting commander, standard procedure requires--

'You're absolutely right, Jaymes," he said quietly. "Nevertheless, I'm going up

there. We're in an all-or-nothing situation. You stay here and protect those

towers at all costs."

Subterranean elevators brought more kiridjals to the surface, ready for

launch. He climbed into one of the mottled gray craft and sealed himself into the

cockpit. Troopers raced to their assault ships, shouting promises of revenge to

their comrades who were forced to remain behind. As he transferred the kindjal's

comchannel to his command frequency, Xavier issued new instructions.

Tercero Harkonnen adjusted the cockpit seat and launched his kind-jal. The

rush of acceleration pushed him backward and made his breathing even more

difficult. Hot blood trickled from one corner of his mouth.

Soaring away from the central transmitting towers, aircraft followed him,

while a small number of armored ground vehicles moved away from the

generating facility, heading for their designated intercept positions. Weapons

primed and bombs ready to drop, the kindjals descended to ward the first cymek

target, one of the smaller machines. Xavier's voice crackled in the cockpit of

every aircraft. "On my mark, strike--now."

The defenders pounded the crablike body from all directions until the warrior-

form lay crushed, its articulated legs blackened and twisted, the brain canister

destroyed. Cheers and catcalls resonated across the comchannels. Before the

cymeks could react to the new coordinated tactic, Xavier chose a second target.

"Follow me. Next one."

The Militia squadron came in like a hammer, converging on a single

mechanical body. Mobile armored ground units opened fire from the surface,

while kindjals dropped powerful bombs from above.

The second cymek target saw the attack coming and raised its spiked metal

legs to open fire with white-hot sprays of flame. Two of Xavier's flanking kindjals

went down, crashing into already-ruined buildings. Stray bombs leveled a square

block of the city.

But the remainder of the concentrated assault struck true. The multiple

explosions were more than the robotic body could withstand, and another cymek

was battered into wreckage. One of its metal arms twitched, then fell out of its

socket into the rubble. "Three down," Xavier said. "Twenty-five more." "Unless

they retreat first," said another pilot.

The cymeks were individuals, unlike most of Omnius's thinking machines.

Some of them were survivors of the original Titans; others--the neo-cymeks--

came from traitorous human collaborators on the Synchronized Worlds. All had

sacrificed their physical bodies so they could be closer to the supposed perfection

of thinking machines.

Among the troops surrounding the field-transmission towers, Cuarto Powder

used everything in his combined arsenals to drive back four cymeks that had

gotten close enough to threaten the vital structures. He destroyed one warrior-

form and forced the other three to limp away and regroup. Meanwhile, Xavier's

forces in the air crushed two more cymeks.

The tide was turning.

Xavier's bomb-laden kindjals came around again, closing on a new wave of

invaders. Followed by armored ground vehicles and artillery guns, the Salusan

Militia launched volley after volley at the foremost cymek. The bombardment

damaged the machine's legs, obliterated its weapons. Kindjals circled around to

deliver the final blow.

Surprisingly, the central turret containing the cymek's human brain detached

itself. With a bright flash of ignition, locking bolts blasted clear of the set of

articulated legs. The armored spherical container rocketed skyward, beyond the

reach of Salusan weapons.

'An escape pod to protect the traitor's brain." Xavier's words caused him to

wheeze and cough more blood. "Open fire on it!" His kindjals launched their

weapons as the cymek pod soared into the smoky sky with enough thrust to

reach escape velocity.

'Damn!" The pilots shot at the fading exhaust trail, but the cymek's escape

pod rapidly dwindled from sight.

'Don't waste your weapons," Xavier said over the comline. "That one's no

longer a threat." He felt dizzy, either fading into unconsciousness... or dying.

'Yes, sir." The kindjals turned back toward the ground, concentrating on the

next cymek.

However, when his assault squadron converged on another enemy, that

cymek also launched its escape pod, shooting the brain-case like a cannonball

into the sky. "Hey," a pilot complained, "he retreated before we could give him a

black eye!"

'Maybe we activated their'turn-tail-and-run' programs," another pilot said with

a snort.

'As long as they're retreating," Xavier said, barely able to hold on to

consciousness. He hoped he didn't spiral down and crash. "Follow me to the next

target."

As if in response to a signal, all the remaining cymeks abandoned their

warrior-forms. Escape containers blasted upward like fireworks, vaulting blindly

through the scrambler net and out into space, where the robotic fleet could

retrieve them.

When the cymeks abandoned their assault, the surviving Salusan defenders

set up a ragged cheer from the wreckage on the ground.

OVER THE NEXT several hours, Salusan survivors emerged from shelters,

blinking into the smoke-filled skies with a mixture of shock and triumph.

After the cymeks had retreated, the frustrated robot fleet had launched a

swarm of missiles at the ground, but their gelcircuitry guidance computers also

failed. Standard Salusan missile-defense systems obliterated all of the machine

weapons before they could reach their targets.

Finally, when the recalled battle groups began to converge on the robot fleet,

charging in from the perimeter of the Gamma Waiping system, the thinking

machines recalculated their chances for success, didn't like the odds, and

decided to retreat, leaving much wreckage in orbit.

On the surface, Zimia continued to burn, and tens of thousands of bodies lay

in the rubble.

Xavier had held himself together for the battle, but in its aftermath was

barely able to stand. His lungs were full of blood; his mouth tasted of acid. He

had insisted that the medics and battlefield surgeons concentrate on the more

seriously wounded out in the streets.

From a balcony on the top level of the damaged Hall of Parliament, he gazed

out at the horrendous damage. The world turned a sickly red around him, and he

wavered on his feet, then reeled backward. He heard aides behind him,

summoning a doctor.

I cannot consider this a victory, he thought, then retreated into black

unconsciousness.

In the desert, the line between life and death is sharp and quick.

--Zensunni Fire Poetry from Arrakis

Far from thinking machines and the League of Nobles, the desert never

changed. The Zensunni descendants who had fled to Arrakis lived in isolated

cave communities, barely subsisting in a harsh environment. They experienced

little enjoyment, yet fought fiercely to remain alive for just another day.

Sunlight poured across the ocean of sand, warming dunes that rippled like

waves breaking upon an imagined shore. A few black rocks poked out of the

dustlike islands, but offered no shelter from the heat or the demon worms.

This desolate landscape was the last thing he would ever see. The people

had accused the young man and would mete out their punishment. His

innocence was not relevant.

'Begone, Selim!" came a shout from the caves above. "Go far from here!" He

recognized the voice of his young friend-former friend--Ebrahim. Perhaps the

other boy was relieved, since by rights it should have been him facing exile and

death, not Selim. But no one would mourn the loss of an orphan, and so Selim

had been cast out in the Zensunni version of justice.

A raspy voice said, "May the worms spit out your scrawny hide." That was old

Glyffa, who had once been like a mother to him. "Thief! Water stealer!"

From the caves, the tribe began to throw stones. One sharp rock struck the

cloth he had wrapped around his dark hair for protection against the sun. Selim

ducked, but did not give them the satisfaction of seeing him cringe. They had

stripped almost everything from him, but as long as he drew breath they would

never take his pride.

Naib Dhartha, the sietch leader, leaned out. "The tribe has spoken."

Protestations of his innocence would do no good, nor would excuses or

explanations. Keeping his balance on the steep path, the young man stooped to

grab a sharp-edged stone. He held it in his palm and glared up at the people.

Selim had always been skilled at throwing rocks. He could pick off ravens,

small kangaroo mice, or lizards for the community cookpot. If he aimed carefully,

he could have put out one of the Naib's eyes. Selim had seen Dhartha whispering

quietly with Ebrahim's father, watched them form their plan to cast the blame on

him instead of the guilty boy. They had decided Selim's punishment using

measures other than the truth.

Naib Dhartha had dark eyebrows and jet-black hair bound into a ponytail by a

dull metal ring. A purplish geometric tattoo of dark angles and straight lines

marked his left cheek. His wife had drawn it on his face using a steel needle and

the juice of a scraggly inkvine the Zensunni cultivated in their terrarium gardens.

The Naib glared down as if daring Selim to throw the stone, because the

Zensunni would respond with a pummeling barrage of large rocks.

But such a punishment would kill him far too quickly. Instead, the tribe would

drive Selim away from their tight-knit community. And on Arrakis, one did not

survive without help. Existence in the desert required cooperation, each person

doing his part. The Zensunni looked upon stealing--especially the theft of

water--as the worst crime imaginable.

Selim pocketed the stone. Ignoring the jeers and insults, he continued his

tedious descent toward the open desert.

Dhartha intoned in a voice that sounded like a bass howl of storm-winds,

"Selim, who has no father or mother--Selim, who was welcomed as a member of

our tribe--you have been found guilty of stealing tribal water. Therefore, you

must walk across the sands." Dhartha raised his voice, shouting before the

condemned man could pass out of earshot. "May Shaitan choke on your bones."

All his life, Selim had done more work than most others. Because he was of

unknown parentage, the tribe demanded it of him. No one helped him when he

was sick, except maybe old Glyffa; no one carried an extra load for him. He had

watched some of his companions gorge themselves on inflated family shares of

water, even Ebrahim. And still, the other boy, seeing half a literjon of brackish

water untended, had drunk it, foolishly hoping no one would notice. How easy it

had been for Ebrahim to blame it on his supposed friend when the theft was

discovered...

Upon driving Selim from the caves, Dhartha had refused to give him even a

tiny water pouch for his journey, because that was considered a waste of tribal

resources. None of them expected Selim to survive more than a day anyway,

even if he somehow managed to avoid the fearsome monsters of the desert.

He muttered under his breath, knowing they couldn't hear him, "May your

mouth fill with dust, Naib Dhartha." Selim bounded down the path away from the

cliffs, while his people continued to utter curses from above. A hurled pebble

bounced past him.

When he reached the base of the rock wall that stood as a shield against the

desert and the sandworm demons, he set off in a straight line, wanting to get as

far away as he could. Dry heat pounded on his head. Those watching him would

surely be surprised to see him voluntarily hike out onto the dunes instead of

huddling in a cave in the rocks.

What do I have to lose?

Selim made up his mind that he would never go back and plead for help.

Instead, chin high, he strode across the dunes as far as he could. He would

rather die than beg forgiveness from the likes of them. Ebrahim had lied to

protect his own life, but Naib Dhartha had committed a far worse crime in

Selim's eyes, knowingly condemning an innocent orphan boy to death because it

simplified tribal politics.

Selim had excellent desert skills, but Arrakis was a severe environment. In

the several generations since the Zensunni had settled here, no one had ever

returned from exile. The deep desert swallowed them up, leaving no trace. He

trudged out into the wasteland with only a rope slung over his shoulder, a

stubby dagger at his belt, and a sharpened metal walking stick, a piece he had

salvaged from the spaceport junkyard in Arrakis City.

Maybe Selim could go there and find a job with offworld traders, moving

cargo from each vessel that landed, or stowing aboard one of the spaceships

that plied their way from planet to planet, often taking years for each passage.

But such ships only rarely visited Arrakis, since it was far from the regular

shipping lanes. And joining the strange off-worlders might make Selim give up

too much of himself. It would be better to live alone in the desert--if he could

survive...

He pocketed another sharp rock, one that had been thrown from above. As

the mountain buttress shrank into the distance, he found a third shard that

seemed like a good throwing stone. Eventually, he would need to capture food.

He could suck a lizard's moist flesh and live for just a little while longer.

As he made his way into the restless wasteland, Selim gazed toward a long

peninsula of rock, far from the Zensunni caves. He'd be apart from the tribe

there, but could still laugh at them every day he survived his exile. He could

thumb his nose and call out jokes that Naib Dhartha would never hear.

Selim poked his walking stick into the soft dunes, as if stabbing an imaginary

enemy. He sketched a deprecating Buddislamic symbol in the sand, with an

arrow on it that pointed back toward the cliff dwellings. He took a special

satisfaction from his defiance, even though the wind would erase the insult

within a day. With a lighter step, he climbed a high dune and skidded down into

the trough.

He began to sing a traditional song, maintaining an upbeat composure, and

increased his speed. The distant peninsula of rock shimmered in the afternoon,

and he tried to convince himself that it looked inviting. His bravado increased as

he drew farther from his tormentors.

But when he was within a kilometer of the sheltering black rock, Selim felt

the loose sand tremble under his feet. He looked up, suddenly realizing his

danger, and saw ripples that marked the passage of a large creature deep

beneath the dunes.

Selim ran. He slipped and scrambled across the soft ridge, desperate not to

fall. He kept moving, racing along the crest, knowing that even this high dune

would prove no obstacle for the oncoming sandworm.

The rock peninsula remained impossibly far away, and the demon came ever

closer.

Selim forced himself to skid to a halt, though his panicked heart urged him to

keep running. Worms followed any vibration, and he had run like a terrified child

instead of freezing in place like the wily desert hare. This behemoth had certainly

targeted him by now. How many others before him had stood terrified, falling to

their knees in final prayer before being devoured? No person had ever survived

an encounter with one of the great desert monsters.

Unless he could fool it... distract it.

Selim willed his feet and legs to turn to stone. He took the first of the fist-

sized stones he carried and hurled it as far as he could into the gully between

dunes. It landed with a thump--and the ominous track of the approaching worm

diverted just a little.

He tossed another rock, and a third, in a drumbeat pattern intended to lure

the worm away from him. Selim threw the rest of his stones, and the beast

turned only slightly, rising up in the dunes close to him. Empty handed, he now

had no other way to divert the creature. Its maw open wide, the worm gulped

sand and stones, searching for a morsel of meat. The sand beneath Selim's

boots shifted and crumbled at the edge of the worm's path, and he knew the

monster would swallow him. He smelled an ominous cinammon stench on the

worm's breath, saw glimpses of fire in its gullet.

Naib Dhartha would no doubt laugh at the young thief's fate. Selim shouted a

loud curse. And rather than surrender, he decided to attack. Closer to the

cavernous mouth, the odor of spice intensified. The young man gripped his metal

walking stick and whispered a prayer. As the worm lifted itself from beneath the

dune, Selim leaped onto its curved and crusty back. He raised the metal staff like

a spear and plunged the sharpened tip into what he thought would be tough,

armored worm-skin. Instead, the point slipped between segments, into soft pink

flesh. The beast reacted as if it had been shot with a maula cannon. It reared up,

thrashed, and writhed.

Surprised, Selim drove the spear deeper and held on with all his strength. He

squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his teeth and pulling back to keep himself

steady. He would have no chance if he let go.

Despite the worm's violent reaction, the little spear couldn't have wounded it;

this was merely a human gesture of defiance, a biting fly thirsty for a sweet

droplet of blood. Any moment now the worm would dive back beneath the sand

and drag Selim down with it.

Surprisingly, though, the creature raced forward, keeping itself high out of

the dunes where the exposed tissue would not be abraded by sand.

Terrified, Selim clung to the implanted staff--then laughed as he realized he

was actually riding Shaitan himself! Had anyone ever done such a thing? If so,

no man had ever lived to tell about it.

Selim made a pact with himself and with Buddallah that he would not be

defeated, not by Naib Dhartha and not by this desert demon. He pulled back on

his spear and pried the fleshy segment even wider, making the worm climb out

of the sand, as if it could outrun the annoying parasite on its back...

The young exile never made it to the strip of rock where he had hoped to

establish a private camp. Instead, the worm careened into the deep desert...

carrying Selim far from his former life.

We learned a negative thing from computers, that the setting of guidelines

belongs to humans, not to machines.

--RELL ARKOV, charter meeting of the League of Nobles

After being rebuffed on Salusa Secundus, the thinking-machine fleet headed

back to their distant base on Cor-rin. There, the computer evermind would not

be pleased to hear the report of failure.

Like lapdog servants to Omnius, the remaining neo-cymeks followed the

defeated robot fleet. However, the six survivors of the original Titans--

Agamemnon and his elite cadre--prepared a diversion. It was an opportunity to

advance their own schemes against the oppressive evermind...

While the dispersed battleships made their way through space carrying the

vigilant watcheyes, Agamemnon discreetly flew his own ship on a different

course. After escaping the Salusan Militia, the cymek general had transferred his

brain canister from a soot-scarred mobile warrior-form to this sleek armored

vessel. Despite the defeat, he felt exuberant and alive. There would always be

other battles to fight, whether against feral humans or against Omnius.

The ancient cymeks maintained corn-silence, worried that a stray

electromagnetic ripple might be detected by an outlying ship in the retreating

machine fleet. They plotted a faster, more dangerous route that took them closer

to celestial obstacles avoided by the risk-averse robot vessels. The shortcut

would buy the secretly rebellious cymeks enough time to meet in private.

As their course intercepted a simmering red dwarf star, the Titans

approached a misshapen, pockmarked rock that orbited close to the dim sun.

There, a sleet of stellar wind and ionized particles, coupled with strong magnetic

fields, would hide them from any robotic scans. After a thousand years of serving

Omnius, Agamemnon had learned ways to outwit and sidestep the accursed

evermind.

The six cymeks vectored in toward the planetoid using their human skills

instead of computerized navigation systems. Agamemnon chose a site within a

yawning crater, and the other Titans dropped beside his vessel, finding stable

terrain on a rippled plain.

Inside his ship, Agamemnon guided mechanical arms that lifted his enclosed

brain canister from its control socket and installed it into another mobile

terrestrial body with a set of six sturdy legs and a low-slung body core. After

connecting the thoughtrodes that linked his mind through electrafluid, he tested

his gleaming legs, lifting the metal pads and adjusting the hydraulics.

He walked his graceful mechanical body down the ramp onto the soft rock.

The other Titans joined him, each wearing a walker body with visible internal

workings and life-support systems impervious to the blazing heat and radiation.

The bloodshot dwarf star loomed overhead in the black, airless sky.

The first of the surviving Titans came forward to touch sensor pads against

the general's mechanical body, delicate probings in a romantic caress. Juno was

a strategic genius who had been Agamemnon's lover back when they had worn

human bodies. Now, a millennium later, they continued their partnership,

needing little more than the aphrodisiac of power.

'Will we move forward soon, my love?" Juno asked. "Or must we wait another

century or two?"

'Not so long, Juno. Not nearly so long."

Next came Barbarossa, the closest thing to a masculine friend Agamemnon

had known for the past thousand years. "Every moment is already an eternity,"

he said. During the Titans' initial takeover, Barbarossa had discovered how to

subvert the Old Empire's ubiquitous thinking machines. Luckily, the modest

genius had also had the foresight to implant deep programming restrictions that

prevented thinking machines from doing any outright harm to the Titans--

restrictions that had kept Agamemnon and his cymek companions alive after the

ever-mind's treacherous takeover.

'1 can't decide if I'd rather smash computers or humans," Ajax said. The most

powerful enforcer of the old cymeks, the brutal bully clomped forward in a

particularly massive walker-form, as if still flexing the muscles of his long-ago

organic body.

'We must cover our tracks twice for every plan we make." Dante, a skilled

bureaucrat and accountant, had an easy grasp of complex details. Among the

Titans, he had never been dramatic or glamorous, but the overthrow of the Old

Empire could not have been achieved without his clever manipulations of clerical

and administrative matters. With none of the bravado of the other conquerors,

Dante had calmly worked out an equitable division of leadership that had

permitted the Titans to rule smoothly for a century.

Until the computers had wrested it all from them.

The disgraced Xerxes was the last cymek to clamber into the shel-tered

crater. The lowliest Titan had long ago committed the unforgivable mistake that

allowed the ambitious newborn computer mind to hamstring them all. Although

the Titans still needed him as part of their ever-dwindling group, Agamemnon

had never forgiven him for the blunder. For centuries, miserable Xerxes had had

no other desire than to make up for his error. He foolishly believed that

Agamemnon might embrace him again if he could find a way to redeem himself,

and the cymek general made use of such enthusiasm.

Agamemnon led his five co-conspirators across the terrain to the crater

shadows. There, the machines with human minds faced each other among

broken rocks and half-melted boulders to speak their treason and plot revenge.

Xerxes, despite his flaws, would never betray them. A thousand years ago,

after their victory, the original Titans had agreed to surgical conversion rather

than accept their mortality, so that their disembodied brains could live forever

and consolidate their rule. It had been a dramatic pact.

Now, Omnius occasionally rewarded loyal human followers by converting

them to neo-cymeks, as well. Across the Synchronized Worlds, thousands of

newer brains with machine bodies served as indentured servants to the evermind.

Agamemnon could not rely upon anyone who willingly served the evermind,

however.

The cymek general transmitted his words on a tight waveband that tapped

directly into the Titans' thought-processing centers. "We are not expected back

on Corrin for weeks. I have seized this opportunity so that we may plan a strike

against Omnius."

'It's about time," Ajax said, his voice a deep grumble.

'Do you believe the evermind has grown complacent, my love--like the

humans of the Old Empire?" Juno asked.

'I have noted no particular sign of weakness," Dante interjected, "and I keep

careful track of such things."

'There are always weaknesses," Ajax said, twitching one of his heavy

armored legs and gouging a hole in the ground, "if you're willing to use enough

muscle to exploit them."

Barbarossa clacked one of his metal forelegs on the hard rock. "Do not be

fooled by artificial intelligence. Computers do not think like humans. Even after a

thousand years, Omnius will not let his attention wander. He has enough

processing power and more watcheyes than we can count."

'Does he suspect us? Does Omnius doubt our loyalty?" Xerxes already

sounded worried, and the meeting had just begun. "If he thinks we are plotting

against him, why won't he just eliminate us?"

'Sometimes I think you have a leak in your brain canister," Agamemnon said.

"Omnius has programming restrictions that prevent him from killing us."

'You don't have to be insulting. It's just that Omnius is so powerful, you'd

think he could override whatever Barbarossa loaded into his system."

'He hasn't yet, and never will. I knew what I was doing on that job, believe

me," Barbarossa said. "Remember, Omnius yearns to be efficient. He will take no

unnecessary actions, will not waste resources. We are resources to him."

Dante said, "If Omnius is so intent on ruling efficiently, then why does he

keep human slaves around at all? Even simple robots and minimal-AI machines

could perform their tasks with less bother."

Agamemnon paced out of the thick shadows into harsh light, and then back

again. Around him, the conspirators waited like huge insects made of scrap

metal. "For years, I have been suggesting that we exterminate the human

captives on the Synchronized Worlds, but Omnius refuses."

'Maybe he's reluctant because humans created thinking machines in the first

place," Xerxes suggested. "Omnius might see humans as a manifestation of

God."

Agamemnon chided him. "Are you suggesting that the computer evermind is

devoutly religious?" The disgraced cymek quickly fell silent.

Barbarossa said, like a patient teacher, "No, no--Omnius simply doesn't wish

to expend the energy or cause the turmoil that such an extermination would

bring about. He sees humans as resources, not to be wasted."

'We've been trying to convince him otherwise for centuries," Ajax said.

Aware that their safe window of time was rapidly dwindling, Agamemnon

pushed the discussion forward. "We must find some way to spark a radical

change. If we shut the computers down, then we Titans rule once more, along

with any neo-cymeks we can recruit." He swiveled his sensor-turret. "We've

taken charge before and must do it again."

Previously, when the human Titans had consolidated the stagnant Old Empire,

combat robots had done the bulk of the fighting for them. Tlaloc, Agamemnon,

and the other rebels had simply picked up the pieces. This time the Titans would

have to fight for themselves.

'Maybe we should try to find Hecate," Xerxes said. "She's the only one of us

who has never been under Omnius's control. Our wild card."

Hecate, the former mate of Ajax, was the sole Titan who had relinquished her

rule. Before the thinking machine takeover, she had departed into deep space,

never to be heard from again. But Agamemnon could never trust her--even if

she could be located--any more than he trusted Xerxes. Hecate had abandoned

them long ago; she was not the ally they needed.

'We should look elsewhere for assistance, take any help we can find,"

Agamemnon said. "My son Vorian is one of the few humans allowed access to

the central complex of the Earth-Omnius, and he delivers regular updates to the

everminds on other Synchronized Worlds. Perhaps we can use him."

Juno simulated a laugh. "You want to trust a human, my love? One of the

weak vermin you despise? Moments ago you wanted to exterminate every

member of the race."

'Vorian is my genetic son, and the best of my offspring so far. I have been

watching him, training him. He has read my memoirs a dozen times already. I

have high hopes that one day he will be a worthy successor."

Juno understood Agamemnon better than the other Titans did. "You've said

similar things about your twelve previous sons, if I recall. Even so, you found

excuses to kill all of them."

'I preserved plenty of my sperm before converting myself into a cymek, and I

have the time to do it right," Agamemnon said. "But Vorian... ah, Vorian, I think

he might be the one. One day I'll let him become a cymek."

Ajax interrupted, his voice pitched low, "We cannot fight two major enemies

at once. Since Omnius has finally allowed us to attack the hrethgir, thanks to

Barbarossa's victory in the gladiator ring, I say we prosecute that war to the best

of our abilities. Afterward, we deal with Omnius."

Immersed in the crater shadows, the cymeks muttered, half-agreeing. The

League humans had escaped Titan rule centuries ago, and the old cymeks had

always harbored a hatred toward them. Dante's optic threads tracked back and

forth, calculating. "Yes, the humans should be easier to defeat."

'Meanwhile, we continue to seek a means to eliminate Omnius," Barbarossa

added. "Everything in its time."

'Perhaps you are correct," Agamemnon admitted. The cymek general did not

want to extend this clandestine gathering much longer.

He led the march back to their individual ships. "We destroy the League

humans first. Using that as a springboard, we then turn our attention to the

more difficult foe."

Logic is blind and often knows only its own past.

--archives from Genetics to Philosophy, compiled by the Sorceresses of

Rossak

Thinking machines cared little for aesthetics, but the Omnius update ship

was--by accident of design--a beautifully sleek silver-and-black vessel, dwarfed

by the immensity of the cosmos as it journeyed from one Synchronized World to

another. Finished with its current round of updates, the Dream Voyager was on

its way back to Earth.

Vorian Atreides considered himself fortunate to be entrusted with such a vital

assignment. Born from a female slave impregnated with Agamemnon's preserved

sperm, dark-haired Vorian could trace his lineage back past the Time of Titans,

thousands of years to the House of Atreus in ancient Greece and another famous

Agamemnon. Because of his father's status, twenty-year-old Vor had been raised

and indoctrinated on Earth under the thinking machines. He was one of the

privileged "trustee" humans permitted to move about freely, serving Omnius.

He had read all the stories of his illustrious bloodline in the extensive

memoirs his father had written to document his triumphs. Vor considered the

Titan general's great work to be more than a literary masterpiece, closer to a

holy historical document.

Just forward of Vor's work station, the Dream Voyager's captain, an

autonomous robot, checked instruments unerringly. Seurat's coppery-metal

skinfilm flowed over a man-shaped body of polymer struts, alloy supports,

gelcircuitry processors, and wound elastic-weave musculature.

While Seurat studied the instruments, he intermittently tapped into the ship's

long-range scanners or looked out the windowport with focused optic threads.

Multiprocessing as he conversed, the robot captain continued the interplay with

his subservient human copilot. Seurat had a strange and unfortunate penchant

for telling odd jokes.

'Vorian, what do you get when you breed a pig with a human?"

'What?"

'A creature that still eats a great deal, still stinks, and still does no work!"

Vorian favored the captain with a polite chuckle. Most of the time, Seurat's

jokes only demonstrated that the robot did not truly understand humor. But if

Vor didn't laugh, Seurat would simply tell another one, and another, until he

obtained the desired reaction. "Aren't you afraid you'll make an error by telling

jokes while monitoring our navigation systems?"

'I don't make mistakes," Seurat said, in his staccato mechanical voice.

Vor brightened with the challenge. "Ah, but what if I sabotaged one of the

ship's vital functions? We're the only ones aboard, and I am a deceitful human

after all, your mortal enemy. It would serve you right for all those terrible jokes."

'I might expect that of a lowly slave or even an artisan worker, but you would

never do that, Vorian. You have too much to lose." With an eerily smooth

movement, Seurat turned his rippled coppery head, paying even less attention to

the Dream Voyager's controls. "And even if you did, I would figure it out."

'Don't underestimate me, old Metalmind. My father teaches me that, despite

our many weaknesses, we humans have a trump card with our very

unpredictability." Smiling, Vorian went to the robot captain's side and studied the

metric screens. "Why do you think Omnius asks me to throw a wrench into his

careful simulations every time he plans an encounter with the hrethgirl"

'Your outrageous and reckless chaos is the only reason you are able to beat

me in any strategy game," Seurat said. "It certainly has nothing to do with your

innate skills."

'A winner has more skills than a loser," Vor said, "no matter how you define

the competition."

The update ship traveled on a regular, continuous route throughout the

Synchronized Worlds. One of fifteen such vessels, the Dream Voyager carried

copies of the current version of Omnius to synchronize the separate computer

everminds on widely separated planets.

Circuitry limitations and electronic transmission speeds constrained the

physical size of any individual machine; thus, the same computer evermind could

not viably extend beyond a single planet. Nonetheless, duplicate copies of

Omnius existed everywhere, like mental clones. With regular updates continually

exchanged by ships like the Dream Voyager, all the separate Omnius

incarnations remained virtually identical across the machine-dominated autarchy.

After many voyages, Vor knew how to operate the ship and could access all

onboard data banks using Seurat's codes. Over the years, he and the robot

captain had become fast friends in a way that others were not likely to

understand. Because of the extended time they shared in deep space, talking

about many things, playing games of skill, telling stories--they bridged much of

the gap between machine and man.

Sometimes, for amusement, Vor and Seurat traded places, and Vor

pretended to be the captain of the ship, while Seurat became his robotic

underling, as in the days of the Old Empire. During one role-playing session,

Vorian had impulsively christened the ship Dream Voyager, a bit of poetic

nonsense that Seurat not only tolerated, but maintained.

As a sentient machine, Seurat routinely received new instructions and

memory transfers from the overall Omnius brain, but because he spent so much

time disconnected while journeying between the stars, he had developed his own

personality and independence. In Vor's opinion, Seurat was the best of the

machine minds, although the robot could be irritating at times. Especially with

that peculiar sense of humor.

Vor clasped his hands and cracked his knuckles. He sighed with pleasure.

"Sure feels good to loosen up. Too bad it's something you can't do."

'I do not require loosening up."

Vorian didn't admit that he, too, found his own organic body to be inferior in

many ways, fragile and prone to aches, sicknesses, and injuries that any

machine could have easily fixed. He hoped that his physical form would remain

functional long enough for him to be made into one of the enduring neo-cymeks,

all of whom had once been valued trustee humans, like himself. One day

Agamemnon would receive permission from Omnius for that, if Vor worked very

hard to serve the evermind.

The Dream Voyager had been in space on a long update run, and the young

trustee was glad to be going home. He would see his eminent father soon.

As the Dream Voyager soared between stars, undisturbed, Seurat suggested

a friendly competition. The two sat at a table and engaged in one of their

customary diversions, an amusing private game they had developed through

frequent practice. The strategy involved an imaginary space battle between two

alien races--the "Vorians" and the "Seurats"--each of which had a space fleet

with precise capabilities and limitations. Though the robot captain had a perfect

machine memory, Vor still fared well, as he invariably came up with creative

tactics that surprised his opponent.

Now, as they took turns placing warships in the various sectors of their

fanciful space battlefield, Seurat reeled off an endless succession of human jokes

and riddles he had found in his old databases. Annoyed, Vor finally said, "You're

making an overt attempt to distract me. Where did you learn to do that?"

'Why, from you, of course." The robot proceeded to mention the many times

in which Vor had teased him, threatening to sabotage the ship without ever

really intending to do so, concocting extraordinarily unpredictable emergencies.

"Do you consider it cheating? On your part, or on mine?"

This revelation astonished Vor. "It saddens me to think that, even in jest, I

have taught you deception. It makes me ashamed to be human." No doubt,

Agamemnon would be disappointed in him.

After two more rounds, Vor lost the tactical game. His heart was no longer in

it.

Every endeavor is a game, is it not.7

--IBLIS GINJO, Options for Total Liberation

In a garden terrace overlooking the scarred ruins of Zimia, Xavier Harkonnen

stood somberly bv himself, dreading the upcoming "victory" parade. Afternoon

sunlight warmed his face. Birdsong had replaced the screams and explosions;

breezes had scoured away the worst of the poisonous smoke.

Still, the League would be a long time recovering. Nothing would ever be the

same.

Even days after the attack, he still saw smears of smoke wafting from the

rubble and trailing into a cloudless sky. He could not smell the soot, though. The

cymeks' poison gas had so damaged his tissues that he would never smell or

taste much of anything again. Even breathing had become no more that a

mechanical act, not an enjoyable inhalation of sweet fresh air.

But he could not wallow in misery when so many others had lost much more.

In the aftermath of the cymek attack, he had been kept alive by the heroic

efforts of a Salusan medical team. Serena Butler had come to him at the hospital,

but he remembered her only through a fog of pain, drugs, and life-support

systems. In an extraordinary procedure, Xavier had received a double lung

transplant, healthy organs provided by the mysterious Tlulaxa. He knew Serena

had worked vigorously with the brilliant battlefield surgeons and a Tlulaxa flesh

merchant named Tuk Keedair to get him the treatment he needed.

Now he could breathe again, despite intermittent bursts of pain. Xa-vier

would live to fight the machines another time. Thanks to phar-maceuticals and

advanced healing techniques, he had been able to leave the hospital soon after

the medical procedure.

At the time of the attack, the flesh merchant Keedair had been in Zimia on a

routine sales call and barely escaped with his life. On the Unallied Planet of

Tlulax in the distant Thalim solar system, his people ran organ farms, growing

human hearts, lungs, kidneys, and other body parts from viable cells. After the

cymeks were driven away, the secretive Tlulaxa had offered his biological wares

to the battlefield surgeons at Zimia's main field hospital. His ship's cryogenic

lockers were filled with sample body parts. A stroke of luck, Keedair had

admitted with a smile, that he could be there to help the grievously injured

Salusan citizens during their time of great need.

Following the successful surgery, Keedair had come to see Xavier in the

medical center. The Tlulaxa was a man of middle height but slight of build, with

dark eyes and an angular face. A long, dark braid hung at the left side of his

head, plaited tightly.

Breathing in, carefully modulating his raspy voice, Xavier said, "It was

fortunate you were here with new organs already stored aboard your ship."

Keedair rubbed his long-fingered hands together. "If I had known the cymeks

would strike so ferociously, I would have brought a larger supply of material

from our organ farms. Your Salusan survivors could use many more replacement

parts, but additional ships cannot arrive from the Thalim system for months."

Before the flesh merchant left Xavier's room, he turned back and said,

"Consider yourself one of the lucky ones, Tercero Harkonnen."

IN BATTLE-SCARRED ZIMIA, grief-stricken survivors searched for their dead,

and buried them. As rubble was cleared, the death toll mounted. Bodies were

recovered, names of the missing were compiled.

In spite of such pain and sorrow, because of the attack free humanity grew

stronger.

Viceroy Manion Butler had insisted that the people show only determination

in the aftermath. On the streets below Xavier's terrace, final preparations were

under way for a celebration of thanksgiving. Banners with the open-hand sigil of

human freedom fluttered in the wind. Rough-looking men in dirty coats struggled

to control magnificent white Salusan stallions that had become agitated by the

commotion. The horses' manes were braided with tassles and bells, and their

tails swept behind them like waterfalls of fine hair. Festooned with ribbons and

flowers, the animals pranced, eager to march down the broad central boulevard

that had been washed clean of debris, soot, and bloodstains.

Xavier glanced uncertainly at the sky. How could he ever look at the clouds

again without dreading that he might see more pyramidal dropcarriages plunging

through the scrambler shields? Missiles were already being installed, increased

batteries to protect against an attack from space. More patrols would be

launched, circling the system on the highest state of alert.

Instead of attending a parade, he should be preparing the Salusan Militia for

another attack, increasing the number of picket ships and scouts at the edge of

the system, working out a more efficient rescue and response plan. It was only a

matter of time before the thinking machines returned.

The next meeting of the League Parliament would devote itself to emergency

measures and reparations. The representatives would sketch out a

reconstruction plan for Zimia. The cymek warrior-forms left behind must be

dismantled and analyzed for weaknesses.

Xavier hoped the League would immediately dispatch a summons to Poritrin,

calling the brilliant Tio Holtzman to inspect his recently installed scrambler

shields. Only the great inventor himself could devise a stopgap measure against

the technical flaw the cymeks had discovered.

When Xavier mentioned his concerns to Viceroy Butler, the florid-faced leader

had nodded, but stopped further discussion. "First, we must have a day of

affirmation, to celebrate the fact that we are alive." Xavier saw deep sadness

behind the Viceroy's mask of confidence. "We are not machines, Xavier. There

must be more to our lives than war and revenge."

Hearing footsteps on the terrace, Xavier turned to see Serena Butler smiling

at him, her eyes flashing with a secret depth that she shared with him now that

no one could see the two of them. "There is my heroic tercero."

'A man responsible for letting half a city be destroyed isn't usually called a

hero, Serena."

'No, but the term does apply to a man who saved the rest of the planet. As

you are fully aware, if you hadn't made your hard choice, all of Zimia, all of

Salusa, would have been crushed." She put a hand on his shoulder and stood

very close to him. "I won't have you wallowing in guilt during the victory parade.

One day won't make much difference."

'One day could very well make a huge difference," Xavier insisted. "We barely

drove off the attackers this time because we were too confident in the new

scrambler shields, and because we foolishly thought Omnius had decided to

leave us alone after so many decades. This would be the perfect time for them

to hit us again. What if they've launched a second wave?"

'Omnius is still licking his wounds. I doubt his force has even returned to the

Synchronized Worlds yet."

'Machines don't lick wounds," he said.

'You're such a serious young man," she said. "Please, just for the parade?

Our people need to have their spirits uplifted."

'Your father already gave me the same lecture."

'You know, of course, that if two Butlers say a thing, it's bound to be true."

He gave Serena a firm hug, then followed her from the terrace toward the

parade reviewing stand, where he would sit in a place of honor beside the

Viceroy.

Since they'd been children, Xavier had always found himself attracted to

Serena; as they matured, they had grown confident of their deepening feelings

toward each other. Both he and Serena considered it a foregone conclusion that

they would wed, a rare perfect match of politics, acceptable bloodlines, and

romance.

Now, though, with the sudden increase in hostilities, he reminded himself of

his greater priorities. Thanks to the disaster that had killed Primero Meach,

Xavier Harkonnen was interim commander of the Sal-usan Militia, which forced

him to face larger issues. He wanted to do so much, but he was only one man.

An hour later, the assemblage sat on a grandstand in the central plaza.

Scaffolding and temporary girders shored up the broken facades of government

buildings. The ornamental fountains no longer functioned, but the citizens of

Zimia knew there could be no other place for such a presentation.

Even burned and damaged, the tall edifices looked magnificent: constructed

in Salusan Gothic style with multilevel roof lines, spires, and carved columns.

Salusa Secundus was the seat of the League government, but it also hosted the

leading cultural and anthropological museums. In surrounding neighborhoods,

the crowded dwellings were of simpler construction but pleasing to the eye,

whitewashed with lime taken from chalk cliffs. Salusans prided themselves on

having the best craftsmen and artisans in the League. They did most of their

production by hand instead of with automated machinery.

Along the parade route, the citizens dressed in colorful raiment of magenta,

blue, and yellow. People chattered and pointed as the remarkable stallions

passed them, followed by marching musicians and folk dancers on hover-floats.

One monstrous Salusan bull, drugged into a near stupor to control it, plodded

down the street.

Though Xavier made the best of it all, he found himself constantly glancing at

the sky, and at the scars of the wounded city...

At the conclusion of the parade, Manion Butler delivered a speech celebrating

the successful defense but acknowledging the high cost of the battle, tens of

thousands killed or wounded. "We have much healing and recovery to do, but

we also have an unbroken spirit, no matter what the thinking machines may

attempt."

Addressing the crowd, the Viceroy summoned Xavier to the central platform.

"I present for you our greatest hero, a man who stood firm against the cymeks

and made the necessary decisions to save us all. Few others would have been

strong enough to do the same."

Feeling out of place, Xavier stepped forward to receive a military medal on a

striped blue, red, and gold ribbon from the Viceroy. In the midst of cheers,

Serena kissed him on the cheek. He hoped no one in the crowd could see him

blush.

'With this commendation comes a promotion to the rank of Tercero, First

Grade. Xavier Harkonnen, I charge you with studying defensive tactics and

installations for the entire League Armada. Your duties will encompass the local

Salusan Militia, along with responsibility for im proving the military security of the

entire League of Nobles."

The young officer felt awkward from the attention, but he graciously

accepted the accolades. "I look forward to beginning the hard work of our

survival... and advancement." He favored Serena with an indulgent smile.

"Following today's festivities, of course."

Dune is the planet-child of the worm.

--from "The Legend of Selim Wormrider," Zensunni Fire Poetry

For an entire day and deep into the night, the monstrous sandworm raced

across the desert, forced beyond its normal territorial range.

As the two moons rose and shone their curious light down upon Selim, he

clung to his metal staff, completely exhausted. Though he had escaped being

devoured by the wild and confused creature, he might soon perish from the

interminable ride. Buddallah had saved him, but now seemed only to be toying

with him.

While thrusting the corroded spear, the youth had wedged himself into a gap

between worm segments, hoping he wouldn't be buried alive if the demon

plunged beneath the dunes. He huddled against rank flesh that smelled of rotten

meat impregnated with pungent cinnamon. He didn't know what to do, but

prayed and contemplated, searching for an explanation.

Perhaps it is a test of some kind.

The sandworm continued to flee across the desert, its undersized brain

seemingly resigned to never again finding peace or safety. The beast wanted to

wallow into the dunes and hide from this malicious imp, but Selim pried the

spear as if it were a lever, irritating the wound anew.

The worm could only surge onward. Hour after hour.

Selim's throat was parched, his eyes caked with grit. He must have crossed

half the desert already, and recognized no landforms on the monotonous open

bled. He had never been so far from the cave community--no one had, as far as

he knew. Even if he somehow escaped this giant monster, he would be doomed

in the unforgiving Arrakis wasteland because of his unjust sentence.

He was certain his faithless friend Ebrahim would be exposed one day, and

the truth would come out; the traitor would violate other tribal rules, and would

eventually be recognized for the thief and liar that he was. If Selim ever saw him

again, he would challenge Ebrahim to a fight to the death, and honor would win

out.

Perhaps the tribe would applaud him, since no one in even the grandest fire

poems had ever braved a giant sandworm and lived. Maybe the saucy, dark-eyed

young Zensunni women would look at Selim with bright smiles. Dust-covered but

with his head held high, he would stand before stern Naib Dhartha and demand

readmittance to the community. To have ridden a desert demon and lived!

But, though Selim had already managed to survive longer than he had ever

hoped, the outcome was by no means assured. What was he to do now?

Beneath him, the worm made peculiar, agitated noises, an invertebrate

sound beyond the loud whisper of hot sand. The weary beast shuddered, and a

tremor ran down its sinuous body. Selim could smell flint and an overpowering

aroma of spice. Friction-induced furnaces burned inside the worm's gullet, like

the depths of Sheol itself.

As lemony dawn tinged the sky, the worm became more unruly and

desperate. It thrashed about, trying to dig itself into the sand, but Selim wouldn't

permit that. The monster slammed its blunt head into a dune, smashing a dust

spray into the air. The youth had to throw all of his body weight against the

spear, digging into the raw, exposed worm segment.

'You are as sore and exhausted as I am, aren't you, Shaitan?" he said in a

voice as thin and dry as paper. Almost exhausted unto death.

Selim didn't dare let go. The moment he dropped off onto the barren dunes,

the sandworm would turn about and devour him. He had no choice but to keep

driving the creature. The ordeal seemed endless.

As daylight grew brighter, he noticed a faint haze on the far horizon, a

distant storm with winds bearing flakes of sand and dust. But the disturbance

was far away, and Selim had other concerns.

At last, the demon worm ground itself to a halt not far from a ridge of rocks,

and refused to move. With a final convulsion, it slumped its serpentine head onto

a dune crest and lay like a slain dragon, quivering... then went utterly still.

Selim trembled with absolute weariness, fearing this was some kind of final

trick. The monster might be waiting for him to drop his guard so it could swallow

him up. Could a sandworm be devious? Was it truly Shaitan? Or did I ride it to

death?

Gathering his energy, Selim straightened. His cramped muscles trembled. He

could barely move. Joints were numb; nerves prickled as they awakened with the

creeping fire of restored circulation. At last, risking all, he yanked the metal

spear from the pink flesh between the callused segments.

The worm didn't even twitch.

Selim slid down the rounded bulk and hit the sand running. His boots

pumped up little dust clouds as he raced across the undulating landscape. The

far-off rocks were black mounds of safety protruding from golden dunes.

He refused to look behind him and ran on, gasping. Each breath was like dry

fire in his throat. His ears tingled, anticipating the hiss of sand, the rippling

approach of the vengeful creature. But the sandworm remained still.

Filled with desperate energy, Selim sprinted for half a kilometer. Reaching the

rock barricade, he scrambled up and finally allowed himself to collapse. Drawing

his knees against his chest, he sat gazing out into the wash of daylight, watching

the worm.

It never moved. Is Shaitan playing a trick? Is Buddallah testing me?

By now Selim was very, very hungry. He shouted at the sky, "If you have

saved me for some purpose, then why not offer a bit of food?" In the extremity

of his exhaustion, he began to chuckle.

One does not make demands of God.

Then he realized that there was food, of a sort. In his flight to the rock

sanctuary, Selim had crossed a thick ochre patch of spice, veins of melange like

those the Zensunni sometimes found when they ventured onto the sands. They

gathered the substance, using it as a food additive and stimulant. Naib Dhartha

kept a small stockpile within the cave warrens, occasionally brewing from it a

potent spice beer, which the tribe members consumed on special occasions and

traded at the Arrakis City spaceport.

He sat in the uncertain shade for nearly an hour, looking for any sign of

movement from the monster. Nothing. The day became hotter, and the desert

lapsed into a sluggish silence. The distant storm seemed to move no closer.

Selim felt as if the world itself was holding its breath.

Then, growing brash again--after all, he had ridden Shaitan!--Selim crawled

down from the rocks and scurried out to the patch of melange. There, he raised

a wary gaze in the direction of the ominous hulk.

Standing in the rust-hued sand, he scrabbled with his hands, scooping up the

dry red powder. He gobbled it, spat out a few grains of sand, and immediately

felt the stimulant of raw spice, a large quantity to take all at once. It made him

dizzy, gave him an explosion of energy.

Finally sated, he stood at a distance from the flaccid worm, hands on his hips,

glaring. Then he waved his arms, shouting into the utter silence, "I defeated you,

Shaitan! You meant to eat me, old crawler, but I conquered you instead!" He

waved his hands again. "Can you hear me?"

But he detected not even a flicker. Euphoric from the melange and foolishly

brave, he marched back toward the long sinuous body that lay on the dune crest.

Only a few footsteps away, he stared up into the face. Its cavernous mouth was

studded with glittering internal thorns. The long fangs looked like the tiniest of

hairs in relation to the creature's immense size.

Now the dust storm approached, accompanied by skirling hot breezes. The

wind seized grains of sand and fragments of rock, whipping them against his

face like tiny darts. Gusts stole around the curved carcass of the worm with a

whispery, hooting sound. It seemed as if the ghost of the beast was daring him,

prodding him forward. The spice thrummed in Selim's bloodstream.

Boldly, he strode to the worm's maw and peered into the black infinity of its

mouth. The hellish friction-fires inside were cold; not even an ember remained.

He shouted again, "I killed you, old crawler. I am Worm Slayer."

The sandworm did not respond even to this provocation.

°

He looked up at the daggerlike fangs, curved shards that lined the wide,

smelly mouth. Buddallah seemed to be urging him on, or maybe it was simply his

own desire. Moving before common sense could catch up with him, Selim

climbed over the lower lip of the worm and reached the nearest sharp tooth.

The young outcast grabbed it with both hands, feeling how hard it was, a

material even stronger than metal. He twisted and wrenched. The worm's body

was soft, as if the tissues of its throat were losing integrity. With a suppressed

grunt, Selim uprooted the fang. It was as long as his forearm, curved and pure

and glistening with milky whiteness. It would make an excellent knife.

He staggered back out, holding his prize, utterly terrified at the realization of

what he had done. An unprecedented act, as far as he knew. Who else would

have risked not only riding Shaitain, but stepping into its maw? His body

trembled to its core. He couldn't believe what he had dared--and accomplished!

No other person on all of Arrakis possessed a treasure such as this tooth-knife!

Although the remaining crystalline fangs hung down like stalactites, hundreds

of them that he could sell in the Arrakis City spaceport (if he could ever find the

place again), he felt suddenly weak. The rush of the melange he'd consumed

was beginning to fade.

He scrambled backward onto the soft sand. The storm was almost on top of

him now, reminding him of his Zensunni desert survival training. He must make

his way back to the rocks and find some sort of shelter, or he too would soon lie

dead upon the dunes, a victim of the elements.

But he no longer thought that would happen. I have a destiny now, a mission

from Buddallah... if only 1 can understand it.

He backed away, then turned and ran toward the line of rocks, cradling the

fang in his hands. The wind nudged him onward as if anxious to get him away

from the carcass.

Humans tried to develop intelligent machines as secondary reflex systems,

turning over primary decisions to mechanical servants. Gradually, though, the

creators did not leave enough to do for themselves; they began to feel alienated,

dehumanized, and even manipulated. Eventually humans became little more

than decisionkss robots themselves, kft without an understanding of their natural

existence.

-- TLALOC, Weaknesses of the Empire

Agamemnon was not eager to face Omnius. Having already lived more than a

thousand years, the cymek general had learned to be patient.

As patient as a machine.

Following their secret rendezvous near the red dwarf star, he and his fellow

Titans reached Corrin after an interstellar voyage of nearly two months. The

robotic fleet had arrived days before, delivering the battle images captured by

the watcheyes. The evermind already knew about the defeat. All that remained

was for Omnius to issue rebukes and reprimands, especially to Agamemnon, who

had been in command.

As he landed his ship under the blazing giant sun of Corrin, the cymek

general reached out with his sensor network, accepting data through his

thoughtrodes. Omnius would be waiting, as always, after a mission.

Perhaps by now the evermind would have accepted the failure.

A false hope, Agamemnon knew. The all-pervasive computer did not react in

the manner of a human.

Before emerging from his ship, the Titan general chose an efficient mobile

body, little more than a streamlined cart that carried his brain canister and life-

support systems connected to the framework. The cymek moved out onto the

paved boulevards under the enormous baleful eye of the red giant. Harsh

crimson light washed the flagstoned streets and white facades.

Millennia ago, the bloated star had expanded, growing so large that its outer

layers swallowed the inner planets of the system. Corrin itself had once been a

frozen outlying world, but the increased heat from the swollen giant now made

the planet habitable.

After the atmosphere thawed and the icy seas boiled away, Corrin's

landscape became a blank slate on which the Old Empire established a colony

during its younger, ambitious days. Most of the ecosystem had been

transplanted from elsewhere, but even after thousands of years Corrin still

seemed an unfinished world, missing many of the ecological details necessary for

a thriving planet. Omnius and his independent robot Erasmus liked the place

because it seemed new and unburdened by the baggage of history.

Agamemnon trundled along the streets, followed by hovering watch-eyes that

monitored him like electronic guard dogs. With surveillance monitors and

speakers throughout the city, the evermind could have conferred with him

anywhere on Corrin. Omnius, however, insisted on receiving the cymek general

in a lavish central pavilion built by human slave labor. This pilgrimage of

contrition was part of Agamemnon's penance for the Salusa failure. The powerful

computer understood the concept of dominance.

The electrafluid surrounding his brain churned blue as Agamemnon prepared

to defend himself against a rigorous interrogation. His mobile body passed under

tall arches supported by scrolled white-metal columns. Eccentric and earnest, the

robot Erasmus had copied ostentatious trappings from historical records of

human empires. The awesome gateway was designed to make visitors tremble,

though the Titan doubted Omnius cared about such things.

The cymek general halted at the center of a courtyard where fountains

trickled from gaps in the walls. Tame sparrows flitted about the eaves and

nested atop the pillars. Inside terra cotta urns, scarlet lilies bloomed in violent

explosions of petals.

'I have arrived, Lord Omnius," Agamemnon announced through his voice

synthesizer--a mere formality, because he had been closely observed since

emerging from his ship. He waited.

In the echoing pavilion, the mirror-faced Erasmus was nowhere to be seen.

Omnius wanted to upbraid his general without the curious scrutiny of the

independent and annoying robot. Though Erasmus fancied that he understood

human emotions, Agamemnon doubted the eccentric machine would show even

a glimmer of compassion.

The voice boomed from a dozen speakers in the walls, like an angry deity. No

doubt the effect was intentional. "You and your cymeks have failed, General."

Agamemnon already knew how the discussion would play out--as did Omnius.

Surely the evermind himself had run simulations. Yet, this was a dance that must

be continued.

'We fought hard, but could not achieve victory, Lord Omnius. The hrethgir

put up an unexpectedly fierce defense and were surprisingly willing to sacrifice

their city rather than let the shield generators fall. As I have said many times,

feral humans are dangerously unpredictable."

Omnius responded without hesitation. "You have repeatedly insisted that

cymeks are far superior to the human vermin, combining the best advantages of

machine and man. How, then, could you be rebuffed by such untrained,

uncivilized creatures?"

'In this instance, I was in error. The humans realized our true objective faster

than we had anticipated."

'Your forces did not fight hard enough," Omnius said.

'Six neo-cymeks were destroyed. The gladiator body of the Titan Xerxes was

demolished, and he barely escaped in a launch pod."

'Yes, but the remainder of your cymeks survived. A mere twenty-one percent

loss does not equate with 'fighting to your fullest.' " Around the courtyard,

chirping sparrows flitted about, oblivious to the tension between Omnius and his

top military officer. "You should have been willing to sacrifice all your cymeks to

bring down the scrambler shields."

Agamemnon was glad he no longer displayed human expressions, which the

computer mind might be able to interpret. "Lord Omnius, cymeks are

irreplaceable individuals, unlike your robotic thinking machines. In my estimation,

risking the loss of your most vital Titans was not a reasonable exchange for one

insignificant planet infested with feral humans."

'Insignificant? Before the mission you emphasized the extreme importance of

Salusa Secundus to the League of Nobles. You claimed that its fall would

precipitate a complete collapse of free humanity. You were in command."

'But is the League itself worth the obliteration of your remaining Titans? We

created you, established the foundation for your Synchronized Worlds. The

Titans should be used for more than cannon fodder." Agamemnon was curious

as to how the evermind would respond to this line of reasoning. Perhaps by

setting up the Titans to fall in battle against feral humans, Omnius planned to

bypass the choke-hold of Barbarossa's protective programming.

'Let me ponder that," Omnius said. Screens on the pavilion walls projected

watcheye images from the battle on Zimia. "The hrethgir are smarter than you

presumed. They saw your target. You made an error in judgment thinking your

cymeks would be able to push forward easily." "I miscalculated," Agamemnon

admitted. "The humans have a clever military commander. His unexpected

decisions allowed them to mount a successful resistance. Now, at least, we have

tested their scrambler fields."

Agamemnon's explanations rapidly degenerated into a succession of

rationalizations and excuses. Omnius analyzed and dismissed them, leaving the

Titan feeling bare and humiliated.

In the serene courtyard, bright flowers bloomed and birds sang. Trickling

fountains added their musical sounds... and Agamemnon contained his outrage

within himself. Even his sensitive mechanical body showed no sign of agitation. A

thousand years ago, he and his fellow Titans had controlled these damnable

thinking machines. We created you, Omnius. One day, we will also destroy you.

While it had taken the visionary Tlaloc and his group of rebels only a few

years to conquer the sleepy Old Empire, Omnius and his thinking machines

proved to be a far superior adversary, never sleeping, always watching. But even

machines made mistakes. Agamemnon just needed to exploit them.

'Is there anything else, Lord Omnius?" he interrupted. Further arguments and

excuses would serve no purpose. Above all else, machines craved efficiency.

'Only my next set of instructions, Agamemnon." The Omnius voice moved

from speaker to speaker, giving the impression that he was every where at once.

"I am dispatching you and your Titans back to Earth. You will accompany

Erasmus, who intends to continue his studies of captive humans there."

'As you command, Lord Omnius." Though surprised, Agamemnon showed no

reaction. Earth ... a very long journey. "We will determine other ways to destroy

this blight of humanity. The Titans exist only to serve you."

It was one of the few advantages of Agamemnon's human side: Even though

the evermind was filled with a vast quantity of data, Omnius did not know how

to recognize a simple lie.

From a certain perspective, defense and offense encompass nearly identical

tactics.

--XAVIER HARKONNEN, address to Salusan Militia

I^U ew duties, new responsibilities... and more good-byes. I, A. As a mostly

recovered Xavier Harkonnen stood with Serena Butler inside the Zimia Spaceport,

the departure facility seemed a sterile environment with echoing plaztile floors.

Even the warmth of Serena's expression did not compensate for the utilitarian

structure. Window walls looked out onto the fused pavement where shuttles took

off and landed every few minutes, going to and from the larger long-distance

ships that waited in orbit.

In one wing of the spaceport, work crews shored up sections of a hangar

damaged during the cymek attack. Large cranes lifted temporary walls and

braces into place. Out on the landing field, huge blast craters had been filled in.

Dressed in a crisp gold-and-black Armada uniform reflecting his new grade,

Xavier gazed deeply into Serena's unusual lavender eyes. He knew how she saw

him. His facial features were not particularly striking--ruddy complexion, pointed

nose, generous lips--but overall she found him attractive, especially the soft

brown eyes and his infectious, though rarely used, smile.

'I wish we could spend more time together, Xavier." She fingered a white

rose floweret on her lapel. The spaceport drone of other people, noisy repair

crews and heavy machinery surrounded them.

Xavier noticed Serena's younger sister Octa watching them. A seventeen-

year-old with long strawberry-blond hair, she'd always had a crush on Xavier.

Willowy Octa was a nice enough girl, but recently he wished she would give him

and Serena a little more privacy, especially now that they would be apart for so

long.

'So do I. Let's make these minutes count." Surrendering to the urge he knew

they both shared, he leaned forward to kiss her, as if his lips were drawn by a

magnetic force. The kiss lingered, then grew intense. At last Xavier pulled back.

Serena looked disappointed, more with the situation than with him. They both

had important duties, demands on their time and energy.

Newly installed in his position, Xavier was about to embark with a group of

military specialists on an inspection tour of League planetary defenses. After the

nearly successful cymek strike against Salusa two months ago, he would make

certain there were no weaknesses on other League Worlds. The thinking

machines would exploit the tiniest flaw, and free humans could not afford to lose

any of their remaining strongholds.

Serena Butler, meanwhile, would focus on expanding the League domain.

After the battlefield surgeons had been so successful with the fresh tank-grown

organs provided by Tuk Keedair, Serena had spoken passionately about the

services and resources the Unallied Planets such as Tlulaxa could provide. She

wanted them to formally join the union of free humans.

Already, more flesh merchants had arrived on Salusa with their biological

wares; previously, many nobles and League citizens had been uneasy about the

mysterious outsiders, but now that the war-wounded faced terrible losses of

limbs and organs, they were willing to accept cloned replacement parts. The

Tlulaxa never explained where they had developed or obtained such

sophisticated biological technology, but Serena praised their generosity and

resources.

At any other time, her speech in the Hall of Parliament might have been

forgotten, but the cymek attack had underscored her point about the

vulnerability of the Unallied Planets. What if the machines next chose to wipe out

the Thalim system and thereby eliminate the Tlu laxan ability to give sight to

blind veterans, new limbs to amputees?

She had studied hundreds of survey documents and ambassadorial reports,

trying to determine which of the nonsignatory planets were the best candidates

for induction into the League brotherhood. Unifying the remnants of humanity

had become her passion, to make the free people strong enough to put down

any machine aggression.

Despite her youth, she had already led two successful aid missions, the first

when she was only seventeen. In one she had taken food and medical supplies

to refugees from an abandoned Synchronized World, and in the other she had

provided relief for a biological blight that almost destroyed the pristine farms on

Poritrin.

Neither she nor Xavier had time for themselves.

'When you return, I promise I will make it up to you," she said, her eyes

dancing. "I'll give you a banquet of kisses."

He allowed himself a rare laugh. "Then I plan to arrive very hungry indeed!"

Xavier took her hand and kissed it gallantly. "When we dine again, I shall come

calling with flowers." He knew their next rendezvous could be months away.

She gave him a warm smile. "I have a particular fondness for flowers."

He was about to pull Serena close, but they were interrupted by a familiar

brown-skinned child coming from another direction--Xavier's eight-year-old

brother, Vergyl Tantor. The boy had been permitted to leave school to see him

off. Breaking free of an elderly instructor escort, Vergyl ran to hug his idol,

nuzzling his face into the crisp uniform shirt.

'Take care of our estate while I am gone, little brother," Xavier said, playfully

rubbing his knuckles on the boy's wiry hair. "You are in charge of tending my

wolfhounds--you understand?"

The boy's brown eyes widened, and he nodded gravely. "Yes."

'And obey your parents, otherwise you can't hope to grow up to become a

good officer in the Armada."

'I will!"

An announcement summoned the inspection team to board the shuttle.

Hearing it, Xavier promised to bring something back for Vergyl, Octa, and Serena.

While Octa watched from a distance, smiling hopefully, he hugged his little

brother again, squeezed Serena's hand, and strode off with the officers and

engineers.

Staring at the window wall where they could watch the waiting mil itary

shuttle, Serena glanced down at the boy and thought of Xavier Harkonnen.

Xavier had been only six years old when thinking machines had killed his natural

parents and his older brother.

Because of interfamily agreements and the written wills of Ulf and Katarina

Harkonnen, young Xavier had been raised as the foster son of powerful and

then-childless Emil and Lucille Tantor. The noble couple had already made

arrangements for their holdings to be administered by Tantor relatives, distant

cousins and nephews who would not normally have inherited anything. But when

Emil Tantor began to raise Xavier, he was quite taken with the orphan and

legally adopted him, though Xavier retained his Harkonnen name and all

associated noble rights.

After the adoption, Lucille Tantor unexpectedly conceived a son, Vergyl, who

was twelve years younger than Xavier. The Harkonnen heir, not worried about

dynastic politics, concentrated on a course of military studies, intending to join

the League Armada. At the age of eighteen Xavier received the legal entitlement

to the original Harkonnen holdings, and a year later he became an officer in the

Salusan Militia. With his impeccable performance and rapid promotions, everyone

could see Xavier was a rising star in the military ranks.

Now three people who cared about him watched the shuttle lift into the sky

on a plume of orange exhaust. Vergyl held Serena's hand, bravely trying to

comfort her. "Xavier will be all right. You can count on him." She felt a pang for

her departing love, but smiled warmly at the wide-eyed boy. "Of course we can."

She would have it no other way. Love was one of the things that separated

humans from machines.

The answer is a mirror of the question.

-- COG1TOR KWYNA, City of Introspection archives he temporary meeting

chamber for the League delegates had originally been the home of the first

Viceroy, Bovko Manresa. Before the Titans had taken over the weak Old Empire,

Manresa had built the mansion on then-isolated Sal-usa Secundus as a way of

celebrating wealth garnered from his planetary land dealings. Later, when

refugee humans began arriving, driven out by the cruel rule of the Twenty Titans,

the big house had become a meeting hall, with chairs and a lectern set up in the

grand ballroom, as they were today.

Months ago, within hours of the cymek attack, Viceroy Butler had stood on a

pile of rubble beneath the broken central dome of the Hall of Parliament. While

the poisonous dust settled in the streets and fires still blazed in damaged

buildings, he had vowed to repair the venerable old facility that had served the

League for centuries.

The governmental edifice was more than just a building: It was hallowed

ground on which legendary leaders had debated great ideas and formulated

plans against the machines. The damage to the roof and upper floors was severe,

but the basic structure remained sound. Just like the human spirit it represented.

It was a frosty morning outside, with fog on the windows. Leaves on the hills

had begun to turn lovely autumn shades of yellow, orange, and brown. Serena

and the representatives came inside the temporary meeting hall, still clinging to

their coats.

She gazed at the walls of the crowded old ballroom, at paintings of long-dead

leaders and depictions of past victories. She wondered what the future would

bring, and what her place might be in it. She wanted so badly to do something,

to help in the great crusade of humankind.

Most of her life she had been an activist, always willing to get her hands dirty,

to assist in aiding the victims of other tragedies such as natural disasters or

machine attacks. Even during pleasant times, she had joined the work crews of

harvesters to pick grapes from the Butler estate vineyards or olives from the

gnarled groves.

She took a seat in the first row, then watched as her soft-featured father

made his way across the wood parquet floor to the antique lectern. Viceroy

Butler was followed by a monk in a red-velvet tunic carrying a large plexiplaz

container that held a living human brain in viscous elec-trafluid. The monk

lovingly placed the container on an ornate table beside the lectern, then stood

beside it.

From her front-row seat, Serena saw the pinkish gray tissue undulate slightly

within the pale-blue life-support liquid. Separated from the senses and

distractions of the physical world for more than a millennium, stimulated by

constant intense contemplation, the female Cogitor's once-human brain had

grown larger than its original size.

'The Cogitor Kwyna does not often leave the City of Introspection," Viceroy

Butler said, sounding both formal and excited. "But in these times we require the

best thoughts and advice. If any mind can understand the thinking machines, it

will be Kwyna's."

These esoteric disembodied philosophers were seen so infrequently that

many League representatives did not understand how they managed to

communicate. Compounding the mystery that surrounded them, Cog-itors rarely

said much, choosing instead to marshall their energies and contribute only the

most important thoughts.

'The Cogitor's Secondary will speak for Kwyna," the Viceroy said, "if she has

any insights to offer."

Beside the brain canister, the red-robed monk removed the sealed lid,

exposing the agitated viscous fluid. Blinking his round eyes rapidly, he stared

into the tank. Slowly, the monk slid one naked hand into the soup, immersing his

fingers. He closed his eyes, drawing deep breaths, as he tentatively touched the

convoluted brain. His brows furrowed with concentration and acceptance as the

electrafluid soaked into his pores, linking the Cogitor with the Secondary's neural

system, using him as an extension in much the same way cymeks used artificial

mechanical bod ies.

'I understand nothing," said the monk in a strange, distant voice. Serena

knew that was the first principle the Cogitors adopted, and the contemplative

brains spent centuries in deep study, adding to that sense of nothingness.

Centuries before the original Titans, a group of spiritual humans had enjoyed

studying philosophy and discussing esoteric issues, but too many frailties and

temptations of the flesh inhibited their ability to concentrate. In the ennui of the

Old Empire, these metaphysical scholars had been the first to have their brains

installed in life-support systems. Freed of biological constraints, they spent all

their time learning and thinking. Each Cogitor wanted to study the entirety of

human philosophy, bringing together the ingredients to understand the universe.

They lived in ivory towers and contemplated, rarely bothering to note the

superficial relationships and events of the mundane world.

Kwyna, the two-thousand-year-old Cogitor who resided in Salusa's City of

Introspection, claimed to be politically neutral. "I am ready to interact," she

announced through the monk, who stared with glazed eyes at the assembly.

"You may begin."

With intense blue eyes, Viceroy Butler gazed around the packed ballroom,

pausing to look at a number of faces, including Serena's. "My friends, we have

always lived under the threat of annihilation, and now I must ask every one of

you to devote your time, energies, and money to our cause."

He gave tribute to the tens of thousands of Salusans who had died in the

cymek onslaught, along with fifty-one visiting dignitaries. "The Salusan Militia

remains on full alert here, and messenger ships have been dispatched to all

League Worlds, warning them of the danger. We can only hope that no other

planets were attacked."

The Viceroy then called upon Tio Holtzman, recently arrived after nearly a

month in transit from his laboratories on Poritrin. "Savant Holtzman, we are

anxious to hear your assessment of the new defenses."

Holtzman had been eager to inspect his orbital scrambler fields, to see how

they might be modified and improved. On Poritrin, the flamboyant nobleman

Niko Bludd funded the Savant's research. Given his past accomplishments,

League members always held out the hope that Holtzman would pull some other

miracle out of his pocket.

Slight of body, Holtzman moved with grace and an enormous stage presence,

wearing clean and stylish robes. The iron gray hair that hung to his shoulders

was square-cut, framing a narrow face. A man of immense confidence and ego,

he loved to speak to important dignitaries in the Parliament, but now he

appeared uncharacteristically troubled. In truth, the inventor could not bring

himself to admit a mistake. Unquestionably, his scrambler network had failed.

The cymeks had broken through! What would he say to these people who had

relied on him?

Reaching the speaking platform, the great man cleared his throat and looked

around, glancing oddly at the imposing presence of the Cog-itor and the looming

attendant monk. This was a most delicate matter. How could he shift the blame

from himself?

The scientist used his best voice. "In warfare, whenever one side makes a

technological breakthrough, the other attempts to top it. We recently witnessed

this with my atmospheric scrambler fields. Had they not been installed here, the

full thinking machine fleet would have laid waste to Salusa. Unfortunately, I did

not factor in the unique abilities of the cymeks. They found a chink in the armor

and penetrated it."

No one had accused him of lax work or poor planning, but this was the

closest Holtzman would come to admitting that he had overlooked a major flaw.

"Now it is our turn to surpass the machines with a new concept. I hope to be

inspired by this tragedy, pushing my creativity to its limits." He then stalled and

looked embarrassed, even endearing. "I'll be working on that, as soon as I get

back to Poritrin. I hope to have a surprise for you very soon."

A tall, statuesque woman glided toward the lectern, drawing attention to

herself. "Perhaps I have a suggestion." She had pale eyebrows, white hair, and

luminous skin that made her seem ethereal, but charged with power.

'Let us hear from the women of Rossak. I gladly yield to Zufa Cenva."

Looking relieved, Holtzman hurried back to his seat and slumped into it.

The pale woman carried an air of mystery about her; she wore glowing

jewelry on a black, diaphanous gown that revealed much of her perfect body.

Pausing at the Cogitor's life-support case, Zufa Cenva peered inside at the

enlarged brain. Her brow furrowed as she concentrated, and as she did so, the

brain itself seemed to vibrate; the electra-fluid swirled, bubbles formed. Alarmed,

the devout attendant monk withdrew his hand from the liquid.

The tall woman relaxed, satisfied, and stepped to the podium. "Because of

oddities in our environment, many of the females born on Rossak exhibit

enhanced telepathic abilities." Indeed, the powerful Sorceresses of the dense,

barely habitable jungles had parlayed their mental quirks into political influence.

Rossak men exhibited no such telepathic enhancements.

'The League of Nobles was formed a thousand years ago for our mutual

defense, first against the Titans and then against Omnius. Since then, we have

barricaded ourselves, trying to protect our worlds from the enemy." Her eyes

flashed like highly polished stones. "We need to rethink this strategy. Perhaps it

is time for us to take the offensive against the Synchronized Worlds. Otherwise,

Omnius and his minions will never leave us alone."

The League representatives muttered at this, looking fearful, especially after

the devastation Zimia had just endured. The Viceroy was first to respond. "That

is a bit premature, Madame Cenva. I'm not sure we have the capability."

'We barely survived the last attack!" a man shouted. "And we had only a

handful of cymeks to contend with."

Manion Butler looked deeply concerned. "Confronting Omnius would be a

suicide mission. What weapons would we use?"

In response, the imposing woman squared her shoulders and spread her

hands, while closing her eyes and concentrating. Although Zufa was known to

have extrasensory powers, she had never before displayed them in Parliament.

Her milky pale skin seemed to heat up with an inner light. The air in the enclosed

chamber stirred, and static electricity crackled around the assemblage, making

hair stand on end.

Lightning flickered at her fingertips, as if she were holding a barely contained

thunderstorm inside herself. Her own white hair coiled and writhed like snakes.

When Zufa's eyes opened again, a dazzling energy seemed ready to shoot out of

them, as if the universe lived behind her pupils.

Gasps echoed through the delegates. Serena's skin crawled and her scalp

tingled, as if a thousand poisonous spiders skittered over her mind. In her

preservation tank, the Cogitor Kwyna churned.

Then Zufa relaxed, throttling back the chain reaction of mental energy.

Letting out a long, cold breath, the Sorceress smiled grimly at the startled

onlookers. "We have a weapon."

The eyes of common perception do not see far. Too often we make the most

important decisions based only on superficial information.

--NORMA CENVA, unpublished laboratory notebooks fter delivering her

announcement to the League assem-IJbly, Zufa Cenva returned to Rossak. She

had been in transit for weeks, and her shuttle now landed on a dense section of

the jungle canopy that had been paved over with a polymer to seal and fuse the

branches and leaves into a solid mass. To enable the trees to receive adequate

moisture and gas exchange, the polymer was porous, synthesized from jungle

chemicals and organics.

Toxic oceans made the native Rossak planktons, fish, kelp, and sea creatures

poisonous to humans. Rugged, sterile lava plains covered much of the planet's

land area, dotted with geysers and brimstone lakes. Since the botanical

chemistry did not rely on chlorophyll, the general cast of all plants was silvery

purple; nothing here was fresh and green.

In a tectonically stable zone girdling the equator, large rifts in the continental

plate created broad sanctuary valleys where the water was filtered and the air

breathable. In these pn> tected rift ecosystems, hardy human settlers had

constructed sophisticated cave-cities like hives tunneled into the black cliffs. The

declivitous external walls were overgrown with silvery-purple vines, drooping

ferns, and fleshy moss. Com fortable chambers looked out upon a thick jungle

canopy that pressed against the settlement cliffs. People could venture directly

onto the upper rubbery branches and descend to the dense underbrush, where

they harvested edibles.

As if to make up for the dearth of life elsewhere on Rossak, the rift valleys

teemed with aggressive living things--mushrooms, lichens, berries, flowers,

orchidlike parasites, and insects. The Rossak men, lacking the telepathic

enhancement of their women, had turned their talents to developing and

extracting drugs, pharmaceuticals, and occasional poisons from nature's larder.

The entire place was like a Pandora's box that had been opened only a crack...

Now the tall, luminous Sorceress watched as her much younger paramour,

Aurelius Venport, crossed a suspended bridge from the open cliffs to the foamy

purple treetops. His patrician features were handsome, his dark hair curly, his

face long and lean. Tagging along behind him on stubby legs came Zufa's

disappointing fifteen-year-old daughter by a prior relationship.

Two misfits. No wonder they get along so well.

Prior to seducing Aurelius Venport, the chief Sorceress had arranged conjugal

relationships with four other men during her peak breeding times, selecting them

for their proven bloodlines. After generations of research, miserable miscarriages,

and defective offspring, the women of Rossak had compiled detailed genetic

indices of various families. Because of heavy environmental toxins and

teratogens, the odds were against any child being born strong and healthy. But

for every stillborn monster or talentless male, a miraculous pale-skinned

Sorceress might occur. Each time a woman conceived a child, it was like playing

a game of roulette. Genetics was never an exact science.

But Zufa had been so careful, checking and double-checking the bloodlines.

Only one of those conjugal encounters had resulted in a living child--Norma, a

dwarf barely four feet tall, with blocky features, mousy brown hair, and a tedious,

bookish personality.

Many offspring on Rossak had defective bodies, and even the apparently

healthy ones rarely exhibited the strong mental powers of the elite Sorceresses.

Nevertheless, Zufa felt deep disappointment, even embarrassment, that her

daughter had no telepathic skills. The greatest living Sorceress should have been

able to pass along her superior mental abilities, and she desperately wanted her

daughter to carry on the fight against the machines. But Norma showed no

potential whatsoever. And despite Aurelius Venport's impeccable genetic

credentials, Zufa had never been able to carry one of his babies to term.

How many more times must 1 keep trying before 1 replace him with another

breeder? Once more, she decided--she would attempt to get pregnant again,

within the next few months. It would be Venport's last chance.

Zufa was also disappointed in Norma's independence and defiance. Too often

the teenager spun off on obscure mathematical tangents that no one could

comprehend. Norma seemed lost in her own world.

My daughter, you should have been so much more!

No one had a heavier burden of responsibility than the small clan of

Sorceresses on the planet, and Zufa's burden was the greatest of all. If only she

could count on everyone else, especially in light of this latest danger from the

cymeks.

Since stunted Norma could never take part in the mental battle, Zufa had to

concentrate on her daughters in spirit, those few young women who had won

the "genetic lottery" and acquired superior mental abilities. Zufa would train and

encourage them, showing them how to eradicate the enemy.

From her cliffside perch, she watched her lover Aurelius and young Norma

reach the other side of the suspension bridge and begin to negotiate a circular

network of ladders that led to the deeply shadowed jungle floor. Like two happy-

go-lucky outcasts, Norma and Aurelius had grown close emotionally, using one

another as crutches.

Engrossed in their own petty concerns that had nothing to do with victory,

neither of them had even noticed Zufa's return on the shuttle. No doubt the two

misfits would spend hours poking through the foliage in search of new drug

resources, which Aurelius would incorporate into his business ventures.

The Sorceress shook her head, not understanding his priorities. Those drugs

the men developed were of little more use than Norma's arcane mathematics.

Admittedly, Aurelius was a highly intelligent and skilled businessman, but what

good were enormous profits if free humanity was doomed to enslavement?

Disappointed in both of them, knowing that she and her Sorceresses would

have to do the real fighting, Zufa set out to find the most powerful young

women she had recruited to learn the devastating new technique she planned to

unleash against the cymeks.

AS NORMA FOLLOWED him through the fleshy underbrush, Aurelius

consumed capsules of a focused stimulant that his expert chemists had

synthesized from the pungent pheromones of a boulder-sized burrowing beetle.

Venport felt stronger, his perceptions sharpened, his reflexes enhanced. Not

quite like the telepathic powers of icy Zufa, but better than his natural abilities.

Someday he would make a breakthrough, allowing him to meet the powerful

Sorceress on his own terms. Maybe he and Norma would do it together.

Aurelius maintained a benign fondness for the girl's stern mother. He

tolerated Zufa's moods and scornful attitude with good grace; Rossak women

rarely allowed themselves the luxury of romantic love.

Though Aurelius knew full well that Zufa had selected him for his breeding

potential, he saw through the woman's stoic, demanding exterior. Attempting to

conceal her weaknesses, the powerful Sorceress showed her doubts on occasion,

afraid that she could not fulfill the responsibilities she had placed on herself.

Once, when Aurelius commented that he knew how strong she was trying to be,

Zufa had grown embarrassed and angry. "Somebody has to be strong" was all

she had said.

Since he lacked telepathic ability, Zufa had little interest in engaging him in

conversation. Perhaps she recognized his skills as a businessman, investor, and

politician, but she valued none of those abilities as much as her own narrow

goals. The Sorceress frequently tried to make him feel like a failure, but her

derision only served to ignite his ambition, especially his desire to find a drug

that would give him telepathic powers equivalent to her own.

There were other ways to fight a war.

The silvery-purple jungles offered a treasure-trove to cure diseases, expand

the mind, and improve human abilities. The choices were overwhelming, but

Aurelius sought to investigate everything. From proper development and

marketing, the products of Rossak had already put him on the path to great

wealth. He was even grudgingly respected by a number of the Sorceresses--

except by his own mate.

As a visionary entrepreneur, he was accustomed to exploring alternatives.

Like paths through a dense jungle, many routes could lead to the same place.

Sometimes, one just had to hack through with a machete.

So far, though, the right drug eluded him.

In another venture, he had proudly distributed Norma's exotic mathematical

work among scholarly scientific circles. Though he didn't understand her

theorems, he had a gut feeling that she might come up with something

important. Maybe she had already done so, and it took expert eyes to recognize

it. Venport liked the intense girl, acting as a big brother to her. As far as he was

concerned, Norma was a mathematical prodigy, so who cared about her height

or her appearance? He was willing to give her a chance, even if her mother

never would.

Beside him, Norma studied the design of a broad purple leaf, using a light-

beam caliper to measure its various dimensions and the relationships among

angles in the sap-filled veins. The depth of her concentration added a wistful cast

to her plain features.

Glancing back at him, Norma said in a surprisingly mature voice, "This leaf

has been designed and constructed by the Earth mother Gaia, or the Master

Creator God, or Buddallah, or whatever you want to call it." With blunt fingers,

she held up the fleshy leaf and passed a beam of light through it, so that the

intricate cellular designs showed clearly. "Patterns within patterns, all tied

together in complex relationships."

In his drug-enhanced, euphoric state, Aurelius found the design hypnotic.

"God is in everything," he said. The stimulant he had taken seemed to

supercharge his synapses. He squinted through the illuminated fabric of the leaf

as she pointed to the internal shapes.

'God is the mathematician of the universe. There is an ancient correlation

known as the Golden Mean, a pleasing ratio of form and structure that is found

in this leaf, in seashells, and in the living creatures of many planets. It is the

tiniest part of the key, known since the time of the Greeks and Egyptians of

Earth. They used it in their architecture and pyramids, in their Pythagorean

pentagram and Fibonacci sequence." She discarded the leaf. "But there is so

much more."

Nodding, Venport touched a moistened fingertip to a pouch of fine black

powder at his belt; he rubbed the powder under the sensitive tissue of his

tongue and felt another drug penetrating his senses, merging with the remnants

of the last one. Norma kept talking; though he did not follow her logical

development, he was certain the revelations must be fabulous.

'Give me a practical example," he slurred. "Something with a function that I

can understand."

He had grown accustomed to Norma spouting off obscure formulations. Her

basis might have been in classical geometry, but she applied her knowledge in

much more complex ways. "I can envision calculations all the way to infinity,"

she said, as if in a trance. "I don't have to write them down."

And she doesn't even need mind-enhancement drugs to accomplish it, Au-

relius marveled.

'At this very moment I envision a huge and efficient structure that could be

built at a reasonable cost, tens of kilometers long--and based upon the ratio of

the Golden Mean."

'But who would ever need something so immense?"

'I cannot peer into the future, Aurelius." Norma teased him. Then they

trudged deeper into the weird jungle, still curious and intent on what they might

discover. Norma's face was radiant with energy. "But there might be something...

something I haven't thought of yet."

Careful preparations and defenses can never guarantee victory. However,

ignoring these precautions is an almost certain recipe for defeat.

--League Armada Strategy Manual

For four months, Tercero Xavier Harkonnen and his six Armada survey

vessels traveled along a predetermined route, stopping to inspect and assess the

military facilities and defensive preparations of the League Worlds. After many

years of no more than a few skirmishes, no one knew where Omnius might strike

next.

Xavier had never wavered from the difficult decision he'd made during the

cymek attack on Zimia. The Viceroy had praised him for his nerve and

determination; even so, Manion Butler had wisely sent the young officer away

during the major rebuilding activities, giving Salusans time to heal their wounds

without looking for a scapegoat.

Xavier listened to no excuses from tightwad nobles unwilling to commit the

necessary resources. No expense must be spared. Any free world that fell to

machine aggression would be a loss for the entire human race.

The survey ships traveled from the mines of Hagal to the broad river plains of

Poritrin, then made their way to Seneca where the weather was poor and the

rain so corrosive that even thinking machines would break down soon after a

conquest.

The League planets of Relicon followed, then Kirana III, then Rich-ese, with

its burgeoning high-tech industries that made so many other League noblemen

uneasy. In theory, the sophisticated manufacturing devices contained no

computerization or artificial intelligence, but there were always questions, always

doubts.

Finally Xavier's team arrived at their final inspection stop, Giedi Prime. At last,

his tour was about to end. He could return home, see Serena again, and they

could make good on their promises to each other...

All other League Worlds had installed scrambler field towers. The shields'

known weakness against cymeks did not completely devalue Holtzman's

ingenious work, and the costly barriers still provided substantial protection

against all-out thinking machine offensives. In addition, every human world had

long ago built up enormous stockpiles of atomics as part of a doomsday defense.

With so many nuclear warheads, an iron-willed planetary governor could turn his

world into slag rather than allowing it to fall to Omnius.

Although the thinking machines also had access to atomics, Omnius had

concluded that atomics were an inefficient and nonselective way to impose

control, and radioactive cleanup afterward was difficult. Besides, with unlimited

resources and a deep reservoir of patience, the relentless evermind had no need

of such weapons.

Now, as Xavier disembarked from the lead survey ship at the Giedi City

spaceport, he blinked under bright sunlight. The well-maintained metropolis

sprawled in front of him, with its habitation complexes and productive industrial

buildings amid manicured parks and canals. The colors were bright and fresh,

and flowers bloomed in ornate beds, although with his new Tlulaxa lungs and

tissues he could smell only a hint of the most potent scents, even when he

breathed deeply.

'This would be a fine place to bring Serena one day," he said wistfully as he

stood in the heat-shimmer of spaceship exhaust. If he married her, perhaps this

would be a suitable world for their honeymoon. During the current inspection

tour, he had kept his eyes open, trying to find a likely spot.

After four months in space, Xavier missed Serena terribly. He knew the two

of them were destined for each other. His life operated on a smooth, clearly

defined path. When he returned to Salusa, he promised himself that he would

formalize their betrothal. He saw no point in waiting any longer.

Viceroy Butler already treated him like a son, and the young officer had

received the blessing of his adoptive father Emil Tantor. As far as Xavier could

determine, everyone in the League agreed it would be a fine joining of noble

houses.

He smiled, thinking of Serena's face, of her intriguing lavender eyes... and

then looked across the landing field to see Magnus Sumi approaching the survey

ships. The elected leader was accompanied by a dozen members of the Giedi

Prime Home Guard.

The Magnus was a thin man in late middle age with pale skin and gray-blond

hair that hung to his shoulders. Sumi raised a hand. "Ah, Tercero Harkonnen! We

welcome the League Armada and are eager to see how Giedi Prime can improve

its defenses against the thinking machines."

Xavier snapped a stiff bow in return. "Your cooperation pleases me,

Eminence. Against Omnius, we must not use low-cost materials or stopgap

systems that would not adequately protect your people."

After the Battle of Zimia, Xavier's corps of engineers had made requests for

mandatory strategic improvements throughout the League. The nobles dug into

their coffers, increasing taxes on their subjects and spending the necessary

money to build up their defenses. At each stop, planet after planet, month after

month, Xavier had assigned teams of engineers and Armada troops where he

deemed they were most needed.

Soon, though, he would be going back home. Soon. As the time drew near,

he thought of Serena more and more.

Well dressed and well armed, the Home Guard stood at attention around the

survey ships. Magnus Sumi gestured for Xavier to follow him. "I look forward to

clarifying everything over a sumptuous banquet, Tercero Harkonnen. I've set up

twelve fine courses with dancers, musicians, and our best poets. You and I can

relax in my government residence while we discuss plans. I am certain you must

be weary from your journey. How long can you stay with us?"

Xavier could form only a tight smile, thinking of how far away he was from

Salusa Secundus. Even after leaving Giedi Prime, the ships would still need

another month of fast space travel to return home. The sooner he departed here,

the sooner he could hold Serena in his arms again.

'Eminence, this is the final stop on our long tour. If it pleases you, I would

prefer to spend less time with festivities and more on the inspection." He

gestured toward his survey ship. "We have a schedule to keep. I'm afraid I can

allot only two days for Giedi Prime. It is best that we concentrate on our work."

The Magnus looked crestfallen. "Yes, I suppose celebration is not appropriate

after the damage done to Salusa Secundus."

FOR TWO DAYS, Xavier gave the planetary defenses a quick, almost cursory

inspection. He found Giedi Prime to be a dazzling and prosperous world with

many resources, perhaps even a suitable place to settle down and start an estate

of his own one day.

He gave a favorable assessment, accompanied by a warning. "This is

undoubtedly a planet the thinking machines will want to conquer, Eminence." He

studied the city blueprints and the distribution of resources across the main

continents. "Any cymek attack would most likely attempt to keep the industries

intact so that robots could exploit them. Omnius preaches efficiency."

Beside him, Magnus Sumi reacted with pride. He pointed out substations on

the diagrams. "We intend to install secondary field-transmitting towers at several

strategic points." As he spoke, highlights appeared on the blueprint screen. "We

have already built a completely redundant transmitting station on one of the

uninhabited islands in the northern sea, which can provide full overlap from a

polar projection. We hope to have it online within another month."

Xavier nodded distractedly, his mind weary from months of such details. "I

am glad to hear that, though I doubt a second transmitting complex is entirely

necessary." "We want to feel safe, Tercero."

When the two men stood under silvery parabolic towers that throbbed into

the sky over Giedi City, Xavier paced around the plascrete embankments that

blocked access to large vehicles. He had no doubt a cymek warrior could easily

crash through.

'Eminence, I suggest you station more ground troops and obstacles here.

Increase your planetside missile-defense batteries to protect against any

intrusion from space. On Salusa, the cymek strategy was to focus their entire

attack on the destruction of the towers, and they might try that again." He

rapped his knuckles against the tower's heavy paristeel support pillar. "These

shields are your first and last line of defense, your most effective blockade

against thinking machines. Do not neglect them."

'Indeed. Our munitions factories are building heavy artillery and armored

ground vehicles. As soon as possible, we intend to surround this complex with a

large concentration of military power."

As for the uncompleted secondary generating station, it was too isolated to

be protected from a massive assault. But its existence seemed to comfort the

Magnus and his populace.

'Very good," Xavier said, then glanced at the chronometer on his wrist.

Everything was going so well, perhaps his survey ships could depart before

sunset...

The Magnus continued, his voice uncertain, "Tercero, are you concerned

about Giedi Prime's limited space military defenses? Our Home Guard has few

large ships in orbit to drive back an approaching machine fleet, and our picket

ships and scouts are minimal. I admit to feeling vulnerable in that area. What if

Omnius attacks us directly from orbit?"

'You have ground-based missile defenses in place, and they have always

proved reliable." Impatient, Xavier looked up into the clear sky. "I believe your

best hope is to protect your shield complex here on the ground. No quantity of

Armada battleships can match the deterrent power of scrambler shields. When

the robot fleet attacking Salusa realized they could not take down the scramblers,

they retreated."

'But what if they blockade Giedi Prime from orbit?"

'Your world is self-sufficient enough to wait out any siege until the arrival of a

League rescue force." Anxious to be back at the spaceport, Xavier decided to

appease the governor. "Nevertheless, I will recommend that a javelin-class

destroyer or two be stationed around Giedi Prime."

THAT EVENING, THE Magnus threw a departure banquet for the Armada

service performed on his behalf. "Someday," he said, "we may all thank you for

our lives."

Xavier excused himself midway through the meal. The food and wine seemed

to lack taste. "My apologies, Eminence, but my squadron must not miss the

optimal departure window." He bowed at the doorway, then hurried to his vessel.

Some of his troops would have liked to remain longer, but most were also eager

to get home. They had their own sweethearts and families, and these soldiers

had more than earned furloughs.

With his inspection tour behind him, Xavier left lovely Giedi Prime, confident

that he had seen and done everything necessary.

And completely unaware of the vulnerabilities he had not bothered to

discover. .

In the process of becoming slaves to machines, we transferred tech' nical

knowledge to them--without imparting proper value systems.

--PRIMERO FAYKAN BUTLER,

Memoirs of the Jihad

The Dream Voyager neared Earth, humanity's original home and now the

central Synchronized World. Though he remained attentive, Seurat allowed

Vorian Atreides to pilot the ship. "Such risks amuse me."

Vor sniffed, looking at the unreadable expression on the copper skinfilm of

the cognizant machine. "I've proved myself to be a perfectly competent pilot--

probably the best of all the trustees."

'For a human, I suppose, with sluggish reflexes and the frailties of a physical

body prone to infirmities."

'At least my jokes are better than yours." Vor took the controls of the black-

and-silver ship. He showed off his skills, dodging asteroid rubble as he

accelerated in a slingshot curve around the heavy gravity of Jupiter. Alarms lit on

the diagnostic panels.

'Vorian, you are taking us beyond acceptable parameters. If we cannot break

free of Jupiter's gravity, we will burn up." The robot reached forward to reassert

control on the flight deck. "You must not endanger the Omnius updates we

carry--"

Vorian laughed at the trick he had just played. "Got you, old Metalmind!

When you weren't looking I recalibrated the alarm-sensor setpoints. Check with

objective instrumentation, and you'll see we've still got plenty of wiggle room."

They easily pulled away from the gas giant. "You are correct, Vorian, but why

would you do such a brash thing?"

'To see if a robot is capable of wetting his pants." Vor plotted a final

approach vector through the machine-operated surveillance stations and

satellites orbiting Earth. "You'll never understand practical jokes."

'Very well, Vorian. I will keep trying--and practicing."

Vor realized that he might one day regret teaching Seurat that type of humor.

'Incidentally, I have more than metal in my brain, as do all thinking machines.

Our neurelectronics are only the most exotic alloys, in a network of optic threads,

complex polymers, gelcircuitry, and--

'I'll keep calling you old Metalmind anyway. Just because it bothers you."

'I will never understand human foolishness."

For the sake of appearances, Seurat maintained command as the Dream

Voyager touched down at the bustling spaceport. "We have reached the end of

another successful route, Vorian Atreides."

Grinning, the young man ran his fingers through long black hair. "We travel a

circular route, Seurat. A circle has no end."

'Earth-Omnius is the beginning and the end."

'You're too literal. That's why I beat you in so many strategy games."

'Only forty-three percent of the time, young man," Seurat corrected. He

activated the exit ramp.

'Around half." Vorian headed toward the hatch, anxious to get outside and

breathe fresh air. "Not bad for someone susceptible to illnesses, distractions,

physical weaknesses, and any number of other frailties. I'm gaining ground on

you, too, if you care to examine trends." He bounded down to the sprawling field

of fused plascrete.

Loader robots scurried among larger pieces of AI equipment that moved

about on glider fields. Small scouring drones climbed into engine tubes and

exhaust cones; maintenance machines scanned large drive components for

needed repairs. Tanker robots refueled parked starships, preparing each long-

range vessel for any mission that Omnius decreed in his infinite intelligence.

As Vorian stood blinking in the sunlight, a giant cymek strode for

IOO

ward on jointed legs. The hybrid machine's inner workings were clearly visible:

hydraulics, sensor systems, blue-lightning nerve impulses transferred from

electrafluid to thoughtrodes. At the core of its artificial body hung the protected

brain jar that contained the mind of an ancient human general.

The cymek swiveled its turret sensors, as if targeting him, then altered its

path toward Vor, raising its front grappling arms. Heavy pincers clacked.

Vorian waved and rushed forward. "Father!"

Since cymeks regularly exchanged temporary bodies in response to the

physical requirements of various activities, they were difficult to distinguish from

each other. However, Vor's father came to see him whenever the Dream Voyager

returned from its update-delivery missions.

Many enslaved humans lived on the Synchronized Worlds, serving the

evermind. Omnius kept them on as token workers, though few had lives as

important and comfortable as Vorian's. Trustees like himself received special

training, went through rigorous instruction at elite schools for crew bosses and

other important positions under the machine domination.

Vor had read about the glories of the Titans and knew the stories of his

father's great conquests. Raised under the evermind's wing and trained by his

cymek father, the young man had never questioned the world order or his own

loyalty to Omnius.

Knowing the robot captain's moderate temperament, Agamemnon had used

considerable influence to obtain a spot for his son on Seurat's update ship, an

enviable assignment even among the chosen trustees. As an independent robot,

Seurat did not mind the young man's company, suggesting that Vor's

unpredictable personality was an asset to their missions. Occasionally, Omnius

himself asked Vor to participate in role-playing simulations to better understand

the capabilities of feral humans.

Without fear, Vorian now raced across the landing field to stand beside the

weapon-studded cymek, who towered over him. The young man stared fondly at

the suspended brain case of his ancient father, with its strange mechanical face

now on the underside.

'Welcome back." Agamemnon's vocal patches made his voice deep and

paternal. "Seurat has already uploaded his report. Once again, you have made

me proud. You are one step closer to meeting our goals." He swiveled his turret

around, reversing the direction of progress, and Vor ian trotted beside the

armored legs as Agamemnon strode away from the ship.

'If only my fragile body survives long enough to accomplish everything," Vor

said wistfully. "I can't wait to be selected as a neo-cymek."

'You are only twenty, Vorian. Too young to be morbidly concerned about

your mortality."

Overhead, resource haulers dropped from orbit, balanced atop yellow-white

flames that slowed their descent. Loadcars manned by human workers trundled

up to where ships had landed, preparing to distribute cargoes according to rigid

instructions. Vor glanced at the slaves but did not ponder their situation. Each

person had his own duties, every human and machine a cog in the Synchronized

Worlds. But Vor was superior to the others, since he had a chance to become

like his father one day. A cymek.

They passed unmarked warehouses with computerized monitoring and

inventory systems where fuel and supplies were stored. Human clerical personnel

dispersed food and materials from storehouses to slaves inside the city.

Inspectors--some robotic, some human--performed quality control and quantity

assessments for the larger-scale plans of Omnius.

Vor could not comprehend the lives of the uneducated workers who unloaded

heavy crates at the space dock. The slave laborers performed duties that a

simple loading machine could have done faster and more efficiently. But he was

pleased that even these lesser people had tasks they could perform in order to

earn their subsistence.

'Seurat told me about Salusa Secundus, Father." He maintained a quick pace

to match the cymek's huge strides. "I'm sorry your assault was unsuccessful."

'Just a test case," Agamemnon said. "The feral humans have a new defensive

system, and now we have probed it."

Vor beamed. "I'm sure you'll discover a way to bring all hrethgir under the

efficient rule of Omnius. Like the times described in your memoirs, when Titans

were in complete control."

Inwardly, the cymek general frowned at the comments. Agamemnon's optic

threads detected numerous watcheyes floating around them as the two walked.

"I do not wish for the old days, of course," he said, presently. "You have been

reading my memoirs again?"

'I never tire of your stories, Father. The Time of Titans, the great

Tlaloc, the First Hrethgir Rebellions... everything is so fascinating."

Accompanying the magnificent cymek made Vor feel special. He always remained

alert, within the limitations of his position, for ways to better himself. He wanted

to prove himself worthy of the opportunities he'd been given... and of more. "I

would be happy to learn of this new hrethgir defensive system, Father. Perhaps I

can assist you in finding a way to defeat it?"

'Omnius is analyzing the data and will decide what to do. I have only recently

arrived back on Earth."

With human ambitions still a fundamental part of their psyches, the Titans

always had monumental construction projects under way: mega-lithic buildings

and monuments to themselves that celebrated the lost age of humanity and

glorified the Time of Titans. Captive human artists and architects were ordered

to develop original designs and sketches that the cymeks modified or approved.

Nearby, machinery lifted the components of skyscraper buildings into place,

adding upper floors to existing complexes, though the thinking machines had

little need for further expansion. At times, the extravagant construction seemed

to Vor like mere busy-work for the slaves...

He had never known his mother, and understood only that ages ago, before

the Titans had surgically converted themselves into cymeks, Agamemnon had

created his own sperm bank, from which he had germinated Vorian. Over the

centuries, the general could create any number of offspring using acceptable

surrogate mothers.

Though he had never learned about any siblings, Vorian suspected they were

out there somewhere. He wondered what it would be like to meet them, but in

machine society, emotional attachments were not practical. He only hoped that

his siblings had not proven to be disappointments to Agamemnon.

When his father was off on his frequent missions, Vor often tried to talk with

the remaining Titans, curious about the events recorded in Agamemnon's

celebrated and voluminous memoirs. He used his responsible position to better

himself. Some of the original cymeks--especially Ajax--were arrogant and

treated Vor as a nuisance. Others, like Juno or Barbarossa, found him amusing.

All of them spoke with utmost passion about Tlaloc, the first of the great Titans,

who had sparked the revolution.

'I wish I'd been able to meet Tlaloc," Vor said, trying to keep the

conversation going. Agamemnon loved to speak of his glory days.

'Yes, Tlaloc was a dreamer with ideas I had never heard before," the cymek

mused as he strode down the boulevards. "At times he was a bit nai've, not

always understanding the practical repercussions of his ideas. But I pointed them

out to him. That was why we made such a great team."

Agamemnon seemed to pick up speed when he spoke of the Titans. Weary

from trying to keep up the rapid pace, Vorian gasped for breath.

'Tlaloc took his name from an ancient rain god. Among the Titans, Tlaloc was

our visionary, while I was the military commander. Juno was our tactician and

manipulator. Dante watched over statistics, bureaucracy, and population-

accounting. Barbarossa saw to the reprogramming of the thinking machines,

making certain they had the same goals as we did. He gave them ambition."

'And a good thing, too," Vorian said.

Agamemnon hesitated, but did not voice any objections, wary of the

watcheyes. "When he visited Earth, Tlaloc realized how the human race had

gone stagnant, how people had become so dependent on machines that they

had nothing left but apathy. Their goals were gone, their drive, their passion.

When they should have had nothing to do but unleash their creative impulses,

they were too lazy to perform even the work of the imagination." His vocal

speakers made a disgusted sound.

'But Tlaloc was different," Vor said, on cue.

The cymek's voice took on more emotion. "Tlaloc grew up in the Thalim

system, on an outer colony world where life was difficult, where labor was not

accomplished without sweat, blood, and blisters. He had to fight his way and

earn his position. On Earth, he saw that the human spirit had all but died--and

the people hadn't even noticed!

'He gave speeches attempting to rally the humans, to make them see what

was happening. A few watched him with interest, considering him a novelty."

Agamemnon raised one of his powerful metal arms. "But they heard his words

only as a diversion. Soon the bored audiences returned to their slothful,

hedonistic pursuits."

'But not you, Father."

'I was dissatisfied with my uneventful life. I had already met Juno, and the

two of us had dreams. Tlaloc crystallized them for us. After Juno and I joined

him, we set in motion the events that led to the downfall of the Old Empire."

Father and son arrived at the central complex where the Earth-Omnius

resided, although redundant nodes of the evermind were distributed around the

planet in a network of armored vaults and high towers. Vorian followed the

cymek into the main structure, eager to do his part. This was a ritual they had

completed many times.

The walker body strode through wide halls and entered a maintenance facility

filled with lubricant tubes, bubbling nutrient cylinders, polished tabletops, and

flickering analysis systems. Vor retrieved a tool kit, then turned on vacuum hoses

and high-pressure water jets, found soft rags and polishing lotions. He

considered it his most important task as a trustee.

In the center of the sterile room, Agamemnon halted beneath a lifting

apparatus. A magnetic claw-hand came down and attached itself to the

preservation canister that held his ancient brain. Neural connection ports popped

open, and thoughtrode cables spiraled away. The lifting arm raised the canister,

still attached to temporary batteries and life-support systems.

Vorian came forward with an armload of equipment. "I know you can't feel

this, Father, but I like to think it makes you more comfortable and efficient." He

blasted the connection ports with high-pressure air and streams of warm water,

using a wadded cloth to polish every surface. The cymek general transmitted

wordless gratified murmurings.

Vor completed the cleaning and polishing, then adjusted wires and cables

and hooked up diagnostics. "All functions optimal, Father."

'With your attentive maintenance, it is no wonder. Thank you, my son. You

take such good care of me."

'It is my honor to do so."

His synthesized voice purring, Agamemnon said, "One day, Vorian, if you

continue serving me so well, I will recommend you for the greatest reward. I will

ask Omnius to surgically convert you into a cymek, like me.

At the mention of this wonderful prospect, Vorian again polished the canister,

then looked lovingly at the creamy contours of the brain inside. He tried to hide

his flush of eager embarrassment, but tears came to his eyes. "That is the best a

human can hope for."

Humans, with such fragik physical forms, are easily crushed. Is it any

challenge to hurt or damage them?

--ERASMUS, uncollated laboratory files

Gazing out upon the skies of Earth again through hundreds of appraising

optic threads, Erasmus was not pleased. The robot stood in a high bell tower of

his villa, staring through a curving expanse of armored windowplate. The

landscape of this world, with its oceans and forests and cities built upon the

bones of other cities had already seen countless civilizations rise and fall. The

scope of history made his own accomplishments seem small and contrived.

Therefore, he would have to try harder.

Neither Omnius nor any of his delegated architect robots understood true

beauty. To Erasmus, the buildings and the layout of the rebuilt city resembled

components with sharp angles, abrupt discontinuities. A city must be more than

an efficient circuit diagram. Under his multiphased scrutiny, the metropolis

looked like an elaborate mechanism, designed and constructed with utilitarian

force. It had its own clean lines and systematic efficiency, which resulted in a

completely serendipitous beauty... but there was no finesse whatsoever.

It was such a disappointment when the omniscient ever-mind refused to live

up to his potential. Sometimes, gloriously unrealistic human ambitions had a

certain merit.

Omnius either ignored or intentionally refuted the graceful beauty of Golden

Age human architecture. But such cold and petulant superiority was not logical.

Admittedly, Erasmus could see a certain beauty in streamlined machines and

components--he rather liked his own burnished platinum skinfilm, the smooth

grace of his mirrored face with which he formed facial expressions. But he saw

no point in maintaining ugliness just to spite a perceived enemy's concept of

beauty.

How could a vast computer mind distributed across hundreds of planets

exhibit even a hint of narrow-mindedness? To Erasmus, with his detached and

mature understanding developed through long contemplation, Omnius's attitude

revealed a lack of comprehensive thinking.

Making the sound of an exaggerated sigh that he had copied from humans,

he transmitted a thought-command that caused projection shades to drop over

the windows in the bell tower. Choosing his mood, he projected artificial,

pastoral views from other worlds. So soothing and peaceful.

On one wall he paused at a clothing synthesizer, selected the design he

wanted, and waited while a garment was prepared for him. A traditional painter's

smock. When it was ready, he draped it over his sleek body and crossed the

room to an easel where he had already set up a blank canvas, a palette of paints,

and fine brushes.

At a wave of his hand, the projection shades shifted to display enlarged

images of masterpiece paintings, each one highlighting a different great master.

He selected "Cottages at Cordeville" by an ancient Earth artist, Vincent Van Gogh.

It was bold and colorful but basically crude in its implementation, with inept lines

and childish pigment applications that featured thick globs of paint and smears of

color. Yet when considered as a whole, the painting itself possessed a certain

raw energy, an indefinable primitive vibrancy.

After deep concentration, Erasmus thought he had a delicate understanding

of Van Gogh's technique. But the comprehension of why anyone would want to

create it in the first place eluded him.

Although he had never painted before, he copied the artwork exactly.

Brushstroke for brushstroke, pigment for pigment. When he was finished,

Erasmus examined his masterpiece. "There, the sincerest form of flattery."

The nearest wall-mounted screen brightened to a pale gray wash of light.

Omnius had been watching, as always. Erasmus would no doubt have to justify

his activities, since the evermind would never understand what the independent

robot was doing.

He studied the painting again. Why was it so hard to understand creativity?

Should he just change some of the components at random and call it an original

work? As the robot finished his scrutiny, satisfied that he had made no mistakes,

that he had not deviated from the tolerances he could see in the image of the

painting, Erasmus waited for a rush of comprehension.

Slowly, he came to realize that what he had just completed was not really art,

any more than a printing press created literature. He had only copied the ancient

composition in every detail. He had added nothing, synthesized no newness. And

he burned with the need to understand the difference.

Frustrated, Erasmus took a different tack. In an implacable voice, he

summoned three servants and ordered them to carry his painting supplies out to

one of the laboratory buildings. "I intend to create a new work of art, all my own.

A still life, of sorts. You three will be vital parts of the process. Rejoice in your

good fortune."

In the sterile environment of the laboratory, with the cold assistance of his

personal robot guards, Erasmus proceeded to vivisect the trio of victims,

oblivious to their screams. "I want to get to the heart of the matter," he quipped,

"the lifeblood of it."

With stained metal hands he studied the dripping organs, squeezed them,

watched their juices flow and cellular structures collapse. He performed a cursory

analysis, discovering sloppy mechanics and inefficient circulatory systems that

were unnecessarily complex and prone to failure. Then, feeling a vibrant energy,

an impulsiveness, Erasmus set up a tableau to paint. A new work, completely

unique! It would be his own arrangement, and he would tint the images using

different filters, making a few intentional mistakes to better approximate human

imperfection and uncertainty.

At last, he must be on the right track.

At his command, the sentinel robots brought in a vat filled with fresh,

uncoagulated human blood. Erasmus began removing the interesting array of

human organs--still warm to the touch--from his table, and instructed two

cleaning drones to scrape out the insides from the donor bodies. Contemplating

the arrangement and order, he dropped organ after organ into the blood and

watched them bob in the liquid--eyes, livers, kidneys, hearts.

Slowly assessing each step of the process, he set up exactly what his

"creative urges" told him to do. Whim upon whim. Erasmus added more

ingredients to the grisly stew. Pursuant to something he had learned about the

artist Van Gogh, he sliced an ear off one of the corpses and tossed it into the vat

as well.

Finally, his metal hands dripping gore, he stepped back. A beautiful

arrangement--one that was totally original to him. He could think of no famous

human artist who had worked on such a canvas. No one else had ever done

anything approaching this.

Erasmus wiped his smooth metallic hands and began to paint upon a virgin

canvas. On the blank medium, he astutely drew one of the three hearts, showing

in perfect detail the ventricals, auricles, and aorta. But this was not meant to be

a realistic dissection image. Dissatisfied, he smeared some of the lines to add an

artistic flair. True art required the right amount of uncertainty, just as gourmet

cooking needed the proper spices and flavors.

This must be how creativity worked. As he painted, Erasmus tried to imagine

the kinesthetic relationship between his brain and his mechanical fingers, the

thought impulses that set the fingers into motion.

'Is that what the humans define as art?" Omnius said from a wall-screen.

For once, Erasmus did not debate with the evermind. Omnius was correct in

his skepticism. Erasmus had not attained true creativity. Yes, he had produced

an original and graphic arrangement. But in human artwork, the sum of the

components added up to more than the individual items. Just ripping organs

from victims, floating them in blood, and painting them brought him no closer to

understanding human inspiration. Even if he manipulated the details, he

remained imprecise and uninspired.

Still, this might be a step in the right direction.

Erasmus could not carry this thought to the next logical step, and he came to

understand why. The process was not ratiocinative at all. Creativity and the

precision of analysis were mutually exclusive.

Frustrated, the robot gripped the macabre painting in his powerful hands,

broke the frame, and tore the canvas to shreds. He would have to do better than

this, much better. Erasmus shifted his metallic polymer face to a stylized pensive

mask. He was no closer to comprehending humans, despite a century of

intensive research and musings.

Walking slowly, Erasmus went to his private sanctuary, a botanical garden

where he listened to classical music piped through the cellular structures of

plants. "Rhapsody in Blue," by a composer of Old Earth.

In the contemplative garden, the troubled robot sat in the ruddy sunlight and

felt warmth on his metal skin. This was another thing that humans seemed to

enjoy, but he did not understand why. Even with his sensory enhancement

module, it just seemed like heat.

And machines that overheated broke down.

IIO

The tapestry of the universe is vast and complex, with infinite patterns. While

threads of tragedy may form the primary weave, humanity with its undaunted

optimism still manages to embroider small designs of happiness and love.

--COGITOR KWYNA, City of Introspection archives

After his long sojourn in space, Xavier could think only of being home, and

back in the warm embrace of Serena Butler.

On furlough, he returned to the Tantor estate where he was welcomed by his

adoptive parents and their enthusiastic son Vergyl. The Tantors were a soft-

spoken older couple, gentle and intelligent, with dark skin and hair the color of

thick smoke. Xavier seemed to be cut from the same mold, with similar interests

and high moral values. He had grown up in this warm and spacious manor house,

which he still considered home. Though he had legally inherited other Harkonnen

holdings--mining and industrial operations on three planets--many rooms in the

Tantor mansion were still set aside for his use.

As he entered his familiar large suite, Xavier found a pair of shaggy gray

wolfhounds awaiting him, wagging their tails. He dropped his bags and wrestled

with the dogs. The animals, larger than his little brother, were always playful and

delighted to see him.

That evening, the family feasted on the cook's specialty of sage fowl roasted

with honey, slivered nuts, and olives from the Tantors' own groves.

Unfortunately, after his exposure to the cymeks' searing gas, the subtle nuances

of flavors and aromas now eluded him. The cook gave him an alarmed look

when he dumped salt and seasoning--which he needed to taste anything at all--

onto the delicate food.

Another thing the thinking machines had taken from him.

Afterward, Xavier lounged in a heavy oak chair before a roaring fire, sipping a

red wine from the Tantor family vineyards--also, unfortunately, nearly tasteless.

He luxuriated in relaxing at home, away from military protocol. He had spent

almost half a year aboard the efficient but bare-bones Armada survey ships;

tonight he would sleep like a babe in his own bedchamber.

One of the gray wolfhounds snored loudly, resting a furry muzzle on Xavier's

stockinged feet. Emil Tantor, with a fringe of smoky hair around his bald crown,

sat in the chair opposite his adopted son. Emil asked about the strategic

positions of the Synchronized Worlds and the military capabilities of the Armada.

"What are the chances of the war escalating after the attack on Zimia? Can we

ever do more than drive them back?"

Xavier finished his wine, poured another half glass for himself and a full one

for the older man, then sat back in the chair again, all without disturbing the

gray dog. "The situation looks grim, Father." Barely remembering his own

parents, he had always called the Tantor lord his father. "But, then, it has always

looked grim, ever since the Time of Titans. Perhaps we lived too comfortably in

the days of the Old Empire. We forgot how to be ourselves, how to live up to our

potential, and for a thousand years afterward we've paid the price. We were

easy prey--first for evil men, then for soulless machines."

Emil Tantor sipped his wine, and stared into the fireplace. "So is there hope,

at least? We must have something to cling to."

Xavier's lips formed a gentle smile. "We are human, Father. As long as we

hold onto that, there is always hope."

THE NEXT DAY Xavier sent a message to the Butler estate, asking permission

to accompany the Viceroy's daughter on the annual bristle-back hunt, scheduled

in two days. Serena would already know that Xa vier had returned. His survey

ships had arrived with much fanfare, and Manion Butler would have been

expecting his note.

Still, Salusan society was formal and extravagant. In order to court the

beautiful daughter of the Viceroy, one had to bow to certain expectations.

In late morning a messenger pounded on the doors of the Tantor manor

house; Vergyl stood beside his big brother, grinning when he saw the expression

on Xavier's face. "What is it? Can I come along? Did the Viceroy say yes?"

Xavier made a mock-stern expression. "How could he possibly turn down the

man who saved Salusa Secundus from the cymeks? Remember that, Vergyl, if

you ever wish to win the affections of a young lady."

'I need to save a planet just to have a girlfriend?" The boy sounded skeptical,

though wary of outright disbelief when it came to Xavier's words.

'For a woman as magnificent as Serena, that is exactly what you must do."

He strode into the great house to tell the Tantors his plans. The next dawn,

Xavier dressed in his finest equestrian outfit and rode into brightening daylight

toward the Butler property. He borrowed his father's chocolate-brown Salusan

stallion, a fine beast with a braided mane, narrow muzzle, and bright eyes. The

animal's ears were large, and its gait flowed without the jarring rhythm of less

conditioned horses. On the crest of a grassy hill stood a cluster of ornate

whitewashed buildings--a main house, stables, servants' quarters, and storage

sheds arranged as outbuildings along the perimeter of a split-rail fence. As his

horse climbed, he saw impressive vistas of the white spires of Zimia far behind

him.

A path paved with crushed limestone wound up to the crest. The gravel

crunched under the stallion's hooves as Xavier rode, breathing the crisp air. He

could feel the moist chill of early spring, saw fresh leaves on the trees, a dazzle

of wildflowers in their first bloom. But each breath he drew into his new lungs

smelled flat.

Grapevines lined the hill like green corduroy, carefully tended and watered,

each vine tied to cables between stakes so that the clusters would hang off the

ground for easy picking. Twisted olive trees surrounded the main house, their

low branches awash with white flowers. Each year, the first pressings of grapes

and olives were cause for feasting in every Salusan household; local vineyards

vied against each other to see which could produce the best vintages.

As Xavier rode through the gates and into the courtyard, other horsemen in

hunting outfits milled about. Barking dogs dodged around the stallion's legs, but

the chocolate-brown horse stood majestically, ignoring the hounds as if they

were ill-mannered little boys.

Contract huntsmen grabbed the leashes and pulled the dogs back into order.

A number of short black hunting horses pranced about, as impatient as the dogs.

Two of the huntsmen whistled loudly and others joined them, ready to begin the

day's festivities.

Manion Butler strolled out of the stables, calling up his team like a military

commander positioning troops for battle. He glanced at the young officer, raised

a hand in greeting.

Then Xavier saw Serena riding out on a gray mare with beautiful lines and an

ornate saddle. She wore high boots, jodhpurs, and a black riding jacket. Her

eyes were like electric sparks as her gaze met his.

She cantered over to where Xavier sat astride his mount, a smile forming at

the edges of her mouth. Even with all the barking dogs, restless horses, and

shouting huntsmen, Xavier wanted to kiss her so badly that he could barely

restrain himself. Yet Serena remained coolly formal, extending a gloved hand in

greeting. He took it, holding her fingertips.

How he wished he could be telepathic like the Sorceresses of Rossak, just to

send her his thoughts. But from the obvious delight suffusing her face, he

thought Serena understood his feelings well enough, and reciprocated them.

'The journeys across space were so long," he said. "And I thought about you

all the time."

'AH the time? You should have been concentrating on your duties." She gave

him a skeptical smile. "Perhaps we can find time alone during today's hunt, and

you will tell me what you dreamed of."

Playfully, she urged her gray mare to trot over to where her father waited.

Conscious of the eyes watching them, she and Xavier maintained an acceptable

distance. He rode forward and clasped her father's black-gloved hand. "I thank

you for allowing me to participate in the hunt, Viceroy."

Manion Butler's florid face rearranged itself into a grin. "I'm glad you could

join us, Tercero Harkonnen. This year I'm certain we'll track down a bristleback.

The beasts are definitely in these woods--and I, for one, have been craving

hams and roasts. And bristlebacon, especially. There's nothing like it."

Her eyes dancing, Serena looked at him. "Perhaps, Father, if you brought

along fewer barking dogs, galloping horses, and men crashing through the

underbrush, some of those shy animals would be easier to find."

In response, Manion smiled as if she were still a precocious little girl.

Glancing at Xavier, he said, "I'm glad you'll be there to protect her, young man."

The Viceroy raised his right arm. Horns sounded and a brass gong clanged

from the stables. The purebred hounds began to bay, clustering toward the far

fence. Ahead, the path led beyond the blossoming olive groves and into the

scrubby Salusan forest. Two eager-eyed boys swung open the gates, already

anticipating their first bristleback hunt.

The party rode out like a rowdy gang, dogs pushing first through the gates,

followed by the big horses that carried the professional huntsmen. Manion Butler

rode with them, blowing an antique bugle that had been with his family since

Bovko Manresa's first settlement on Salusa.

The followers rode lesser mounts, hurrying behind the horses. These helper

crews would set up camp and dress and skin whatever wild game the huntsmen

caught. They would also prepare the feast once the party returned to the main

house.

The hunters had already spread out, with each chief taking a point and

plunging into the outskirts of the forest. Unhurried, Xavier and Serena trotted

toward the dark green woods. One bright-eyed young man, trailing behind,

glanced over his shoulder and winked at Xavier, as if he knew that the young

couple had no intention of enjoying the hunt for its own sake.

Xavier urged his stallion forward. Serena rode beside him, and they chose

their own path through thinning trees to a muddy streambed wet with spring

flow. Smiling secretively at each other, they listened to the distant sounds of

dogs and her father's continuing bugle blasts.

The Butler's private forest covered hundreds of acres, crisscrossed by game

trails. Mostly it was left as a preserve, with meadows and sparkling creeks,

nesting birds, and lush patches of flowers that bloomed in successive splashes of

color as the patches of crusty snow faded.

Xavier was simply happy to be alone with Serena. Riding side by

'

side, they brushed arms and shoulders, intentionally. He would reach up to

hold green branches away from her face, and Serena pointed out birds and small

animals, identifying them.

In his comfortable hunting outfit, Xavier carried a sheathed ceremonial

dagger, a bullwhip, and a Chandler pistol that shot jacketed crystal fragments.

Serena carried her own knife and a small pistol. But neither of them expected to

bring down any prey. To them, their hunt was for each other, and both knew it.

Serena chose her path without hesitation, as if she had spent time during

Xavier's survey mission riding through the forest in search of places where they

could be alone. Finally, she led him through a stand of dark pines to a meadow

with tall grasses, starlike flowers, and thick reeds taller than her head. The reeds

surrounded a mirror-smooth pond, a shallow old tarn created by winter snow

melt and refreshed by an underground spring.

'The water has bubbles in it," she said. "It tingles your skin." "Does that

mean you want to go for a swim?" Xavier's throat tightened at the prospect.

'It'll be cold, but the spring has some natural heat. I'm willing to risk it." With

a smile, Serena dismounted and let her mare graze. She heard a splash out in

the pond, but the reeds blocked their view.

'Sounds like a lot of fish, too," Xavier said. He slid down from his stallion,

patted the muscular neck, and let his mount sniff at the thick grasses and

flowers near the gray mare.

Serena pulled off her riding boots and stockings, then lifted her loose

jodhpurs above her knees as she walked barefoot into the rushes. "I'm going to

test the water." She pushed the hollow grasses aside.

Xavier checked the fastenings on his stallion's saddle. He worked open one of

the leather compartments and brought out a bottle of fresh citrus water to share.

He followed Serena toward the reeds, already imagining how it would be to swim

beside her, just the two of them stroking naked through this lonely forest lake,

kissing each other...

Without warning, a monstrous bristleback charged out of the reeds, spraying

mud and water from its cool wallowing hole. Serena let out a cry, more of alarm

than terror, and fell backward into the mud.

The bristleback pawed at the rushes with its cloven hooves. Long tusks

protruded from a squarish snout, each a bony maul for uprooting saplings and

eviscerating enemies. The animal had wide-set eyes, large and black. It made

loud grunts as if preparing to breathe fire. In tales of great bristleback hunts,

many men, hunting dogs, and horses had died--but there were so few of the

animals anymore.

'Into the water, Serena!"

The bristleback turned as it heard his shout. Serena did exactly as Xavier said,

splashing away from the rushes, deeper into the pond. She began to swim,

knowing the boar could not charge her if she was in deep enough water.

The bristleback stomped out of the rushes. The two horses squealed and

skittered back toward the edge of the meadow.

'Look out, Xavier!" Waist deep now, Serena drew her hunting knife, but knew

she couldn't help him.

Xavier planted his legs firmly, held a knife in one hand and the Chandler

pistol in the other. Without flinching, he aimed the crystal-shard weapon and

shot the bristleback three times in the face. The sharp projectiles tore through

the animal's cheek and forehead, gouging the thick skull. Another shot splintered

one of the tusks. But the bristleback kept charging toward him, caught up in its

own solitary stampede.

Xavier fired twice more. The mangled creature bled profusely, mortally

wounded--but even imminent death did not diminish its momentum. As the

beast thundered toward him, Xavier jumped to one side and slashed the sharp

knife across its throat, opening jugular and carotid vessels. The bristleback

turned, gushing blood upon him even as its heart began to fade.

The weight of the falling creature knocked Xavier to the ground, but he

wrestled it away, avoiding the convulsive thrusts of the razor tusks. The killing

done, Xavier climbed back to his feet and staggered away, shivering in shock.

His hunting outfit was soaked with the beast's blood.

He sprinted into the trampled rushes at the edge of the water. "Se rena!

'I'm all right," she called, splashing toward the shore.

He looked at his reflection in the placid pond, saw his shirt and face covered

with gore. He hoped none of it was his own. He cupped his hands and splashed

cool water on his skin, then dunked his head to wash the stink from his hair. He

scrubbed his hands with peaty sand.

Serena came to him, her clothes drenched, wet hair clinging to her skull. She

used a comer of her riding jacket to dab the blood from his neck and cheeks.

Then she opened his shirt, wiping his chest as well.

'I don't have a scratch on me," he said, not sure if it was true. The skin on

one side of his neck felt raw and hot, as if chafed, and his chest was sore from

the collision with the attacker. He clutched her arm, pulling her closer. "Are you

sure you're not hurt? You aren't cut, no bones broken?"

'You're asking me?" she said with teasing disbelief. "I'm not the brave boar

fighter here."

Serena kissed him. Her lips were cold from the water, but he held them

against his own, awakening her touch with his until their mouths opened slightly,

their breath warm inside each other as the kiss deep-ened. He took her from the

edge of the pond, through the rushes, and to the soft meadow grass, far from

the dead bristleback.

The young lovers stroked the wet hair away from their ears and eyes, and

kissed again. The brush with death made them feel intensely alive. Xavier's skin

was hot, and his heart kept pounding, even though the danger was past. A new

excitement mounted. He wished he could better enjoy the seductive scent of her

perfume, but could detect only a tantalizing thread.

Serena's sodden clothes were cold, and Xavier noticed goosebumps on her

pale arms. All he could think to do was to remove the wet fabric. "Here, let me

warm you."

She helped him unfasten the black riding jacket and her blouse while her own

fingers worked at his bloodstained shirt. "Just to make certain you're not hurt,"

Serena said. "I don't know what I would have done if you'd been killed." Her

words came fast and hard between kisses.

'It takes more than a wild boar to keep me away from you."

She yanked his shirt down over his shoulders and fumbled with his cuff so

she could take it off entirely. The meadow was soft and lush. The horses

munched patiently on grasses as Xavier and Serena made love without restraint,

expressing their pent-up passions, whispering and then shouting their love for

each other.

The rest of the hunting party seemed far away, even though Xavier had killed

a bristleback and would have a dramatic story to tell during the evening's feast.

Of course, certain details would need to be omitted...

For the moment, the war with the thinking machines did not exist. In this

brief and heady hour, they were just two human beings, alone and in love.

There is a certain hubris to science, a belief that the more we develop

technology and the more we learn, the better our lives will be.

--TLALOC, A Time for Titans

,'% nythir

A 1*nius.

nything imagined can be made real... given sufficient

Tio Holtzman had said as much in a hundred speeches at the Lords Council

on Poritrin. His concepts and achievements sparked dreams and fostered

confidence in human technological capabilities against the thinking machines.

The mantra had also been picked up by his patron, Lord Niko Bludd, and by

representatives in the League of Nobles. Early in his career, Holtzman had

realized that it was not always the best scientists who received the accolades or

funding. Instead, it was the best showmen, the most effective politicians.

To be sure, Savant Holtzman was an adequate scientist. He had an

exceptional technical background and had achieved marked success with his

inventions and weapons systems, all of which had been put to good use against

Om-nius. But he had arranged for more publicity and attention than the

inventions themselves warranted. Through his oratory skills and by coloring

certain details, he had constructed a pedestal of fame on which he now stood.

Holtzman had made himself into the Hero of Poritrin, rather than just an other

nameless inventor. His ability to enchant audiences, to spark a sense of wonder

and possibility in their minds, exceeded his scientific skills.

To maintain his mythology, Holtzman constantly hungered for new ideas--

which required inspiration and long periods of uninterrupted thought. He liked to

let possibilities roll like pebbles down a steep mountain slope. Sometimes the

pebbles would come to rest, making a bit of noise but ultimately yielding nothing;

on other occasions, such notions might spark an avalanche.

Anything imagined can be made real.

But first it must be imagined, seen in the vision of the creator.

After returning home from the devastation on Salusa Secundus, he had

booked himself a private cabin aboard a luxurious driftbarge, one of the quiet

zeppelin craft that rose from the delta city of Starda and drifted inland on

currents of warm air, cruising across the seemingly endless Poritrin plains.

Holtzman stood on the driftbarge's open deck, looking at the grasslands that

flowed in a sea of green and brown, dappled with lakes. Below him, birds flew

like schools of fish. The slow aircraft floated with no hurry, no schedule.

He stared toward the open horizon. Limitless distances, endless possibilities.

Hypnotic, meditative... inspirational. Such places opened his mind, allowed him

to pursue crazy concepts and run them down like a predator pursuing prey.

The driftbarge passed over geometric shapes like tattoos on the ground,

carefully sectioned acreage for the labor-intensive farming of sweet cane. Other

fields grew plump grains and fibrous threads to make Poritrin cloth. Armies of

human slaves worked the farms and ranches like insects from a hive.

Following a bucolic derivative of Navachristianity, the people of Poritrin had

outlawed computerized harvesting apparatus and restored their society to

humbler roots. Without sophisticated machinery, they required a great deal of

manual labor. Long ago, Sajak Bludd had been the first League nobleman to

introduce actual slavery as a means of making large-scale agriculture viable.

That Poritrin lord had justified his act by choosing only those who owed a

debt to humanity, mostly Buddislamic cowards who had fled instead of fighting

against the repressive Titans and thinking machines. If they hadn't been afraid to

help defend humanity, Sajak Bludd said, their added numbers might have been

enough to turn the tide of war. Working the fields was a small enough price for

their descendants to pay----

Holtzman paced the driftbarge's deck, acquired a fluted glass of sugary juice

from a server, and sipped it as he pondered. Looking down at the sea of grasses,

he relished his mental sojourn. No distractions... but as yet no inspiration, either.

The great scientist often embarked on such journeys to pull his thoughts

together, simply staring and thinking--and working, though everyone else

aboard seemed to be taking a holiday.

Because of Holtzman's previous successes, Niko Bludd gave him free reign to

develop whatever innovative defenses and weapons struck his fancy.

Unfortunately, during the past year the scientist had faced a growing conviction

that he was running out of ideas.

Genius was nothing without creative impulse. Of course, the Savant could

coast for a while on his earlier triumphs. Still, he had to offer up new inventions

regularly, or even Lord Bludd would begin to doubt him.

Holtzman could never permit that. It was a matter of pride.

He'd been embarrassed that the cymeks so easily penetrated his scrambler

shields on Salusa Secundus. How could he--and all the other engineers and

technicians on the project--have ignored the fact that cymeks had human minds,

not AI gelcircuitry? It was a significant, devastating lapse.

Still, the outpouring of faith and hope--not to mention substantial funding--

made him feel a crippling pressure. The people would never allow him to retire

now. He must find some other solution, save the day once more.

While back in the blufftop laboratories at his Starda residence, he searched

constantly, reading dissertations and theoretical papers transmitted to him,

combing them for exploitable possibilities. Many of the reports were esoteric,

beyond even his comprehension, but occasionally an idea struck his fancy.

Holtzman had brought along numerous recordings for this mental sojourn

over the Poritrin plains. One ambitious and intriguing paper had been written by

an unknown theorist from Rossak named Norma Cenva. She had no credentials,

as far as he could determine, but her concepts were nothing short of amazing.

She thought of simple things in a completely different light. He had a gut feeling

about her, an in' stinct. And she had such a low profile...

As starlight fell over the vast bowl of Poritrin sky, he sat alone in his cabin

drinking a warm fruity beverage. He stared at Norma's calcu' lations, working

them repeatedly in his mind, watchful for errors while trying to understand. This

young, unknown mathematician seemed to harbor no pretensions, as if she

simply pulled new ideas out of the clouds and wanted to share them with a man

she considered her intellectual comrade. Stymied by some of her derivations, he

realized that his doubts were more about his own lack of ability than about her

postulations. Norma Cenva seemed divinely inspired.

Exactly what he needed.

Restless, Holtzman thought long and hard into the night. Finally, with the

arrival of dawn, he relaxed and drifted off to sleep, his decision made. The

airborne barge rocked in gentle breezes and continued to float across the flat

landscape. He dozed off with a smile on his face.

Soon he would meet Norma for himself. Perhaps some of her concepts might

be applicable to devices he wanted to employ against the thinking machines.

THAT AFTERNOON THE Savant wrote a personal invitation to Norma Cenva

and dispatched it to Rossak by League courier. This young woman who had

grown up isolated in the jungles just might prove to be his salvation... if he

handled the situation properly.

Opportunities are a tricky crop, with tiny flowers that are difficult to see and

even more difficult to harvest.

--ANONYMOUS

Feeling like an intruder, Norma Cenva stood in her mother's study,

overlooking the canopied purple trees. A sour, misty rain fell outside; some of

the droplets from the high skies contained impurities and poisonous chemicals

from spewing volcanic fumes in the distance. On the far horizon, she monitored

dark clouds as they drew closer. Soon there would be a downpour.

What did Aurelius Venport want her to find in here?

Her stern mother maintained an austere room with chalky-white interior walls.

An alcove contained the Sorceress's fine clothes, articles that were much too

large and fanciful for Norma to wear. Zufa Cenva had an intimidating beauty, a

luminous purity that made her as perfect--and as hard--as a classic sculpture.

Even without telepathic powers, she could draw men like ants to honey.

But the chief Sorceress had only a superficial loveliness, concealing an

implacability about subjects she never permitted Norma to see. It wasn't that

Zufa didn't trust her daughter; she simply considered the girl beneath grand

concerns. Like her telepathic companions, Zufa seemed to thrive on secrecy.

But Aurelius had seen something here. "You won't be sorry if you find it,

Norma," he had told her, smiling. "I trust your mother to tell you about it

eventually... but I don't believe it is high in her priorities."

I have never been high in her priorities. Curious, but wary of being caught,

Norma continued to investigate.

Her gaze settled on a fibersheet notebook resting on a worktable. The thick

book had a maroon cover with indecipherable lettering as arcane as the

mathematical notations Norma had developed. Once, eavesdropping on the

Sorceresses and their intricate plans, Norma heard them refer to their private

language as "Azhar."

Since returning from Salusa Secundus, her mother had been even more

detached and aloof than usual. She seemed driven to attempt greater things,

because of the cymek attack. When Norma inquired about the war effort, Zufa

had merely frowned at her. "We will take care of it."

The chief Sorceress spent much of her time sequestered with a cabalistic

clique of women, whispering secret things. Zufa had a fresh passion, a new idea

to use against the thinking machines. If her mother had dreamed of any way

Norma could contribute, she would have pressed the dwarf girl into service.

Instead, Zufa had entirely written off her daughter without giving her a chance.

The most talented women, numbering around three hundred, had established

a security zone in the deep fungoid jungle, cutting off the pharmaceutical

scavengers hired by Aurelius Venport. Any explorer who ventured into the

secluded area encountered strange shimmering barricades.

Ever alert, Norma had noticed unexplained explosions and fires out where

Zufa's hand-picked Sorceresses spent weeks of intensive training. Her mother

rarely came back to her cliffside chambers...

Now, in her mother's room, Norma discovered two pieces of fine white paper

beneath the maroon notebook: the bleached parchment often used by League

couriers. This must be what Aurelius had wanted her to find.

Dragging a stepstool to the table, she climbed up. She could see the heading

on the top sheet of parchment--a formal document from Por-itrin. Curious, afraid

her mother might return from the jungles, she removed the pages and was

astonished to read in black chancery lettering,

SAVANT TIO HOLTZMAN.

For what possible purpose had the great inventor written a letter to her

mother? Leaning down, the girl read the salutation line: "Dear Norma Cenva."

With a scowl, she scanned the message, then reread it with mounting delight

mixed with anger. Tio Holtzman wants me to apprentice with him on Poritrin! He

thinks I am brilliant? I can't believe it.

Her own mother had attempted to conceal, or at least delay, the transmittal!

Zufa had said nothing, possibly unable to believe the Savant would want

anything to do with her daughter. Luckily, Aurelius had told her about it.

Norma hurried off to the business district of the cliffside settlement. She

found Venport in a tea shop, concluding a meeting with a seedy-looking trader.

As the dark-skinned man rose from his seat, Norma hurried over with her off-

kilter gait and slid into his place at the table.

Venport smiled warmly at her. "You look excited, Norma. You must have

found the letter from Savant Holtzman?"

She thrust the parchment forward. "My mother tried to prevent me from

seeing his offer!"

'Zufa is a maddening woman, I know, but you must try to understand her.

Since neither of us can do the things she values most, Zufa disregards our

abilities. Oh, she's aware of your mathematical talents, Norma, and she knows

I'm a competent businessman, but our skills do not count for anything with her."

Norma squirmed on the seat, not wanting to give her mother the benefit of

the doubt. "Then why did she hide this letter?"

Venport laughed. "She was probably embarrassed by the attention you

received." He squeezed her hand. "Don't worry, I will intervene if your mother

attempts to block this. In fact, since she's so preoccupied with the other

Sorceresses, I can't see how she would object if I were to complete the

necessary paperwork for you."

'You would do that? Doesn't my mother--

'Let me take care of everything. I'll handle her." He gave Norma a quick,

warm hug. "I believe in what you can do."

Acting in Zufa's stead, Aurelius Venport dispatched a formal letter of

response to the famous inventor, agreeing to send Norma away. The young

woman would study with him on Poritrin and assist him in his laboratories. For

Norma, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

Her mother might not even notice she was gone.

Home can be anywhere, for it is a part of one's self.

--Zensunni saying

-V ven in the wasteland, with wind whipping around him, I--,'Selim's luck

continued to hold. Survival itself became a wondrous game out in the desert.

Leaving the dead sandworm behind, he'd tried to find a small cave or gully in

the rocks where he could crouch from the approaching storm. Desperately thirsty,

Selim poked around for any signs of human habitation, though he doubted any

other man had ever set foot so far out in the arid wilderness.

Certainly no one who had lived.

After wandering from planet to planet, the Zensunni had come to Arrakis,

where they scattered in widely separated settlements. For several generations,

the scavenger people had scraped a meager existence from the desert, but only

occasionally did they venture from their protected areas, fearful of giant worms.

The wild sandworm had taken Selim far from the spaceport, far from the vital

supplies that even the most resourceful Zensunni would require. His prospects

for survival seemed bleak indeed.

So when he stumbled upon an ancient botanical testing station camouflaged

in the rocks, Selim could hardly believe his good fortune. Undoubtedly, it was

another sign from Buddallah. A miracle!

He stood before the domed enclosure erected by long-forgotten ecol-ogists

who had studied Arrakis and found it wanting. Perhaps a few Old Empire

scientists had lived here and recorded data during a storm season. The rugged

structure consisted of several low outbuildings built into the rocks, half-disguised

by time and windblown sand.

As the howling tempest peppered him with stinging sand, Selim scrambled

around the abandoned station. He saw tilted weather vanes, dented wind

collectors and other data-gathering devices that looked long dead. Most

important, he found an entry hatch.

With sore hands and aching arms from his worm-riding ordeal, Selim

pounded against the barrier, searching for a way inside. He scooped powdery

debris away, looking for some sort of manual mechanism, since batteries would

have long since died. He needed to get into the shelter before the storm wind

slammed into him with full intensity.

Selim had heard of such places. A few had been found and raided by

Zensunni scavengers. These self-reliant stations had been placed on Arrakis

during humanity's glory days, before the thinking machines had taken over,

before Buddislamic refugees had fled to safety. This automated facility was at

least a thousand years old, probably more. But in the desert, where the

environment remained unchanged for millennia, time ran at a different pace.

Selim finally located the mechanism that controlled the hatch. As he had

feared, the power cells were dead, providing only enough of a spark to make the

door groan open the barest crack.

The wind howled. Blown sand hung like fog on the horizon, obscuring the sun.

Dust tingled against his raw ears and face, and Selim knew it would soon

become a deadly scouring.

Growing more desperate, he wedged his sandworm tooth into the dark

opening and used it as a pry bar. The aperture widened a little, but not enough.

Cold, stale air gasped out. He used the aching muscles in his arms, dug his feet

against the rocks to throw his body weight into the effort, and pushed hard on

the makeshift lever.

With a last groan of resistance, the hatch grated partway open. Selim

laughed and tossed the curved worm fang into the interior, where it made a

tinkling clatter on the metal floor. He squirmed through into the station, heard

the muffled roar of the sandstorm increasing outside. It was on top of him.

Impeded by wind and blown sand, Selim grasped the lip of the hatch and

pushed hard. Incoming sand fell through a grating in the floor, into a receptacle

below. He needed to hurry. The wind let up for only a second, but that was

enough. He got the door shut, sealing himself in, away from the violent weather.

Safe... unbelievably safe. He laughed at his good fortune, then gave a prayer

of thanks, more sincere than any he had uttered in his life. How could he

question such blessings?

Selim used the shaft of wan daylight to look around. Luckily, the abandoned

station had plaz windows. Though scratched and pitted from prolonged exposure,

they allowed fading illumination inside.

The place was like a cave of treasure. Guided by the dust-filtered light from

the windows, he found a few old glowstrips which he coaxed into brightening the

small shelter. Then he ransacked cupboards and storage vaults. Much of what

remained was useless: unreadable data-plaques, dead computerized recording

systems, strange instruments that bore the names of archaic corporations. He

did, however, find capsules of well-preserved food that had not deteriorated

even in all the time this facility had been abandoned.

He broke open a capsule and ate the contents. Though the flavors were

unusual, the food tasted wonderful, and he felt energy seeping back into his

weary flesh. Other containers held concentrated juices, which were like ambrosia

to him. Most valuable of all, he found distilled water, hundreds of literjons of it.

Undoubtedly it had been collected over the centuries by automated moisture

extractors left behind by the long-ago scientific expedition.

This was personal wealth beyond anything Selim had imagined possible. He

could pay back the brackish water he'd been accused of taking from the tribe a

thousand times over. He could return to the Zensunni as a hero. Naib Dhartha

would have to forgive him. But Selim had never committed the crime in the first

place.

While Selim sat comfortable and satisfied, he vowed never to give Dhartha

the satisfaction of seeing him return. Ebrahim had betrayed his friendship, and

the corrupt Naib had falsely condemned him. His own people had exiled him,

never expecting him to survive. Now that he had found a way to live by himself,

why would Selim ever want to go back and surrender it all?

For two straight nights, the young man slept. At dawn on the second day he

awoke and opened more of the sealed boxes and cabinets. He discovered tools,

rope, durable fabric, construction material. The possibilities filled him with joy,

and Selim found himself chuckling all alone inside the botanical testing station.

I'm alive!

The storm had rattled past as he slept, unsuccessfully scratching against the

walls of the shelter like a monster trying to get in. Most of the sand had been

deflected, so very little was piled around the enclosure. From the vantage of the

station's largest window, Selim gazed across the desert sea that he had crossed

on the back of the sandworm. The dunes were fresh and spotless. All signs of

the dead worm had been erased, scoured clean. Only this solitary young man

remained.

He envisioned a long journey ahead of him, and thought he must have a

particular calling. Why else would Buddallah have gone to so much trouble to

allow poor Selim to live?

What do you want me to do?

Smiling, the outcast looked out upon the desert, wondering how he could

possibly cross such an expanse again. The vista filled him with a sensation of

supreme solitude. He made out a few rocks in the distance, etched by eternal

winds. Here and there were a few hardy plants. Small animals scurried into

burrows. Dune merged into dune, desert into desert.

Enthralled by his own memories and feeling recklessly invulnerable, Selim

decided what he must do, sooner or later. The first time had been an incredible

fluke, but he understood better how to do it now.

He must ride a sandworm again. And the next time it would not be an

accident.

One of the questions the Buderian Jihad answered with violence was whether

the human body is simply a machine that a man-made machine can duplicate.

The results of the war answered the question.

--DR. RAJID SUK,

Post-Trauma Analysis of the Human Species

Wearing a new warrior-form designed to strike terror into the humans on

Giedi Prime, Agamemnon strode on armored legs through the broken industries

and flaming ruins of the city. The hrethgir hadn't stood a chance.

Giedi Prime had been conquered easily.

The invading machine troops plodded forward, targeting habitation

complexes and setting them aflame, blasting parks into blackened fields. In

accordance with Agamemnon's orders--citing the glory of Omnius--the neo-

cymeks and robotic warriors left the Giedi City industries essentially intact.

Agamemnon had sworn that Giedi Prime would make up for the cymeks'

humiliation on Salusa. Even now, watcheyes flew overhead, recording the

carnage, seeing how efficiently the two Titans guided the military operation.

Accompanied by his comrade Barbarossa, Agamemnon scanned the

topography of the metropolis and located the Magnus's magnificent residence. It

was an appropriate place to establish the new center of Synchronized

government, a symbolic gesture of domination as well as an affront to the

defeated populace.

The cymek general's warrior-form was the most monstrous multilegged

system he had ever conceived. Electrical discharges fired through artificial

muscles, pulling fiber cables taut and moving weapon-studded limbs. He flexed

his flowmetal claws and crushed construction blocks in his grip, imagining them

to be the skulls of enemies. Following in his own ferocious configuration,

Barbarossa laughed at the showmanship.

Marching forward on many limbs, the cymeks thundered through the

wreckage-strewn streets. Nothing stood in the way of these former warlords. The

situation reminded both of them of a thousand years before, when twenty Titans

had conquered the Old Empire by trampling the bodies of their foes.

This was the way it should be. It only whetted their appetite for more.

PRIOR TO THE attack, Agamemnon had studied Giedi Prime's defenses,

analyzing images taken by spy watcheyes that zoomed through the system like

tiny meteoroids. From those readings, the cymek general had concocted a

brilliant tactical move, exploiting a slight weakness in planetary defenses.

Omnius had been willing to pay the necessary price to take over a League World,

and it had not cost the life of a single Titan, not even one of the lesser neo-

cymeks. Only a single robotic cruiser. Perfectly acceptable, as far as Agamemnon

was concerned.

The humans had erected scrambler fields here like those on Salusa, centering

their transmitting towers in Giedi City. The field-generator facility had been

guarded by kindjal fighter craft, supposedly impregnable embankments, and

massively armored ground vehicles. The feral humans had learned a lesson on

Salusa Secundus. But it was not enough to protect them from obliteration.

Giedi Prime's first-line orbital protective forces had been brushed aside by the

unstoppable force of the giant machine fleet. All robot losses were acceptable.

When Agamemnon led the cymek ships in, along with the sacrificial cruisers, the

planetbound human defenders could not hope to drive them back.

To begin the assault, the huge robotic cruiser had positioned itself above

Giedi Prime, its cargo holds filled with explosives. Dozens of other robot cruisers

moved with machine grace, sleek and streamlined, lining up for the assault.

Guided by a thinking machine intelligence, the enormous craft fired its engines

and accelerated at full speed toward its target.

'Descent approach in progress," the battleship's robot mind had reported,

transmitting images to the waiting fighters. Ahead, thirty decoy vessels shot

downward, also hoping to strike the target but designed to be targets for the

ground-based missile defenses. The plan relied on brute force and overwhelming

numbers, not finesse. Nevertheless, it would be effective.

With its engines at full speed, the sacrificial vessel had accelerated white-hot

into Giedi Prime's atmosphere, faster than any ground-based human missile

defenses could target and respond. The other cruisers approached the invisible

scrambler shield. Already, gray-white blossoms of smoke and explosions marked

where the ground-launched missiles had found targets. The numbers dwindled,

as did the distance. The humans could never stop all the invaders.

The doomed robot ship sent final images back to the watcheyes so Omnius

would have a complete record of the conquest of Giedi Prime. Every

nanosecond--until it passed through the scrambler net, which effectively erased

the AI guidance brain. The transmissions became static, then an empty carrier

wave.

Still, the juggernaut had continued to descend. Even with its gelcir-cuitry

brain neutralized, the plummeting cruiser fell like an asteroid-sized hammer.

Kindjal fighter craft directly engaged the last explosive-laden vessel, but the

inbound ship was too big and too hot to be swerved. The defenders' shots

amounted to little more than pellets.

The giant dead vessel slammed into the field transmitters on the outskirts of

Giedi City. A crater half a kilometer wide flashed into steam; the transmitters, the

overwhelmed defenses, and the surrounding inhabited areas all vanished.

Shockwaves had toppled buildings for kilometers around and shattered

windows. Holtzman's scrambler shields were neutralized in the blink of an eye,

and the Giedi Home Guard was crippled.

After that, the cymeks and robots had come down in full force.

'BARBAROSSA, MY FRIEND, shall we make our grand entrance?" Agamemnon

said, arriving at the residence of the Magnus.

'Just like when we followed Tlaloc into the halls of the Old Empire." his fellow

Titan agreed. "It has been a long time since I've enjoyed a victory so much."

They led enthusiastic neo-cymeks easily through the reeling metropolis. The

stunned human inhabitants could not even put up a fight. Behind the cymek

conquerors marched robotic troops to help secure the territory.

Although part of Giedi Prime's population might flee underground and hide,

the citizenry would break, given time. It might take years to root out the last

cells of feral resistance. No doubt the conquering machines would endure

decades of guerrilla strikes by misguided vigilantes, survivors of the Giedi Home

Guard who thought a few gnat-bites would make the invaders pack up and go

away. Resistance groups would be a futile exercise, but he had no doubt the

locals would try some such foolishness.

Agamemnon wondered if he should bring in Ajax to complete the cleanup.

The brutal cymek warlord particularly enjoyed hunting humans, as he had

proved so effectively during the Hrethgir Rebellions on Walgis. As soon as they

installed a copy of the evermind in the ashes of Giedi City, Agamemnon would

make appropriate recommendations to the new incarnation of Omnius.

Agamemnon and Barbarossa smashed open the front of the governor's

residence, clearing an area wide enough for their reinforced bodies. In their

wake, soldier robots, much smaller than the cymeks' warrior-forms, flooded into

the building. Within moments, the robots brought blond-haired Magnus Sumi

before the two Titans.

'We claim your planet in the name of Omnius," Barbarossa declared. "Giedi

Prime is now a Synchronized World. We require your cooperation to consolidate

our victory."

Magnus Sumi, trembling with fear, nevertheless spat on the broken floor

where the weight of the cymek warrior-forms had crushed his carefully laid tiles.

'Bow to us," Barbarossa said.

The Magnus laughed. "You're mad. I would never--"

Agamemnon swung one of his sleek metal arms sideways. He had not fully

tested this new body and was not aware of the magnitude of his strength. He

had meant to strike the governor in the face, an instinctive angry slap. Instead,

the arm delivered a blow so forceful that it ripped the man's torso in half. The

two parts of his body thudded against the far wall in a splatter of gore.

'Oh, well. My demand was a mere formality anyway." Agamemnon turned

optic threads toward his comrade. "Begin your work, Barbarossa. These robots

will assist."

The Titan programming genius began dismantling the household systems in

the governor's residence and setting up power conduits and machinery. He

added linkages and installed a blank, resilient gelsphere mainframe into which he

uploaded the newest version of Omnius's mind.

The process took several hours, during which the thinking machine invasion

force moved through the city, putting out fires and shoring up damaged

industrial buildings that Agamemnon considered important for the planet's

continued utility.

The habitation complexes of the surviving humans, though, were left to burn.

The suffering people could fend for themselves. Misery would help them

understand the hopelessness of their position.

Floating overhead, the annoying watcheyes recorded everything. At least it

was a victory this time. Agamemnon revealed no sign of his impatience or

displeasure, knowing that resistance against the computer evermind would be

fruitless. For now. Instead, he must select the proper place and time.

Once installed and activated, the new incarnation of Omnius would show no

appreciation toward the two seemingly loyal Titans for their victory, nor would

the evermind begrudge the loss of his machine juggernaut. It was a military

operation well executed, and the Synchronized Worlds had now added one of

humanity's jewels to its empire. A psychological and strategic success.

When the immense download was finally complete, Agamemnon activated

the new copy of the distributed evermind. Systems surged alive, and the

omniscient computer began to survey its new domain.

'Welcome, Lord Omnius," Agamemnon said to the wallspeakers. "I present to

you the gift of another world."

We are happiest when planning our futures, letting our optimism and

imagination run unrestrained. Unfortunately, the universe does not always heed

such plans.

--ABBESS LIVIA BUTLER, private journals

't't Ithough their marriage was a foregone conclusion, Se-1 ikrena and Xavier

happily endured the extravagant betrothal banquet thrown by Viceroy Manion

Butler at his hilltop estate.

Emil and Lucille Tantor had brought baskets of apples and pears from their

orchards and huge jars of herbed olive oil for dipping the fresh-baked

engagement rolls. Manion Butler served up exquisite roasts of beef, spice-crusted

fowl, and stuffed fishes. Serena provided colorful flowers from her extensive

gardens, which she had faithfully tended since she was a child.

Famous Salusan performers tied ribbons on shrubs in the courtyard, and

presented folk dances there. The women secured their dark hair with jeweled

combs and wore white dresses adorned with embroidered patterns. The flowing

skirts flew like whirlwinds about their waists, while dapper gentlemen strutted

around them like peacocks in a mating challenge. Brassy music offset by soulful

balisets drifted through the afternoon.

Xavier and Serena wore impressive outfits befitting a proud military officer

and the talented daughter of the League Vice roy. They strolled among the

assembled guests, careful to address each family representative by name. The