Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (25 page)

“A weapon? How do you propose to accomplish that?”

Norma answered in a rush. “What if we could make a . . . projector? Transmit the field into a thinking machine stronghold, disrupt their gelcircuitry brains. Almost like the electromagnetic pulse from an atomic air burst.”

Holtzman’s face lit with comprehension. “Ah, now I see! Its range would be quite limited, and power requirements off the scale. But perhaps . . . it just might work. Enough to knock out the thinking machines within a substantial radius.” He tapped his chin, excited by the idea. “A projector— good, good!”

They walked along the bank until they reached the foul-smelling expanse of mudflats dotted with sloppy pools. Crews of ragged, half-clothed slaves sloshed out onto the mudflats, some barefoot, some wearing boots that extended to their upper thighs. At regular intervals across the featureless field, flat pallets on pontoons held metal barrels. Laborers marched back and forth to the barrels, where they scooped dripping handfuls of the contents and went to plunge their fingers into lines marked in the soft mud.

“What are they doing?” Norma asked. It looked as if they were embroidering the mudflats with their work.

Holtzman squinted as if he had never considered the details. “Ah! They are planting clam seedlings, tiny shellfish that we raise from eggs filtered out of the river water. Every spring, slaves plant hundreds of thousands of them, maybe millions. I’m not certain.” He shrugged. “The waters will rise again, cover the clam plantings, and then recede. Every autumn, harvesting crews dig up the shellfish: clams as big as your hand.” He held up his right palm. “Delicious, especially when fried with butter and mushrooms.”

She frowned to watch the backbreaking labor, the sheer number of people wading in the mud. The concept of captive workers remained strange and unpleasant to her, even Holtzman’s teams of solvers.

The scientist didn’t venture too close to the smell and the slaves, despite Norma’s obvious curiosity. “It’s wise to maintain our distance.”

“Savant, doesn’t it strike you as somewhat . . . hypocritical that we fight to keep humans free from the domination of machines, while at the same time some of our own League Worlds use slaves?”

He seemed perplexed. “But how else would Poritrin get any work done, since we have no sophisticated machines?” When he finally noticed Norma’s troubled look, it took him a moment to realize what bothered her. “Ah, I’ve forgotten that Rossak keeps no slaves! Isn’t that correct?”

She didn’t want to sound critical of her host’s way of life. “We have no need, Savant. Rossak’s population is small, with plenty of volunteers to scavenge in the jungles.”

“I see. Well, Poritrin’s economy is based on having hands and muscles for constant labor. Long ago, our leaders signed an edict banning machinery that involves any form of computerization, perhaps a little more extreme than on some other League Worlds. We had no choice but to turn to human labor, a manual workforce.” Smiling broadly, he gestured toward the mudflat crews. “It’s really not so bad, Norma. We feed and clothe them. Bear in mind, these workers were taken from primitive worlds where they lived squalid lives, dying of diseases and malnourishment. This is paradise for them.”

“They’re all from the Unallied Planets?”

“Leftovers from colonies of religious fanatics that fled the Old Empire. All Buddislamics. They’ve fallen to distressing levels of barbarism, barely civilized, living like animals. At least most of our slaves receive a rudimentary education, especially the ones who work for me.”

Norma shaded her eyes from the reflected sunlight and stared skeptically at the bent-backed forms out on the mudflats. Would the slaves agree with the scientist’s blithe assessment?

Holtzman’s face hardened. “Besides, these cowards owe a debt to humanity, for not fighting the thinking machines as we did. Is it too much to ask their descendants to help feed the survivors and veterans who kept— and still keep— the machines at bay? These people forfeited their right to freedom long ago, when they deserted the rest of the human race.”

He seemed offhanded about it and not quite angry, as if the problem was beneath him. “We have more important work to do, Norma. You and I have a debt to pay as well, and the League of Nobles is counting on us.”

THAT EVENING, GRIPPING the cool metal of a wrought-alloy railing, the small woman gazed out from her balcony window at twinkling city lights. Boats and barges on the Isana looked like waterlogged fire-flies. In the gathering darkness, flaming rafts drifted out from the slave sector, mobile bonfires that floated into the marshes. Each fire rose and peaked, then diminished as the burning rafts sputtered and sank.

Humming to himself, Holtzman came to offer her a cup of seasoned tea, and Norma asked him about the boats. Squinting out at the drifting bonfires, he was slow to realize what the slaves were doing. “Ah, must be cremation rafts. The Isana takes the bodies away from the city, and the ashes are carried out to sea. Basically efficient.”

“But why are there so many of them?” Norma pointed at the dozens of flickering lights. “Do slaves die that often, each day?”

Holtzman frowned. “I heard something about a plague traveling through the worker population. Most unfortunate, requiring a lot of effort to replace them.” He reassured her quickly, his eyes brightening. “Nothing you need worry about, though. Truly. We have plenty of good medicines shipped here, enough to tend all the free citizens in Starda if we should happen to fall ill, too.”

“But what about all the slaves who are dying?”

His reply was not on point. “Lord Bludd has requested replacements for them. There’s a standing order for healthy candidates these days. The Tlulaxa flesh merchants are happy to harvest more men and women from the outlying worlds. Life on Poritrin goes on.” He reached down to pat Norma’s shoulder as if she were a child needing reassurance.

From the balcony, she tried to count the floating fires, but soon gave up the effort. Her tea tasted cold and bitter.

Behind her, Holtzman continued happily, “I very much like your idea of using my scrambler-shield concept as a weapon. I am already thinking of how to design a field-portable projector that could be deployed on the ground.”

“I understand,” she said, her voice hesitant. “I will work harder to suggest new ideas.”

Even after he left, Norma could not tear her eyes from the funeral barges blazing across the river, the floating cremation fires. She had seen how the slaves labored in the mudflats planting clam seedlings and in laboratory rooms calculating hundreds of equations. Now they were dying in droves from a deadly fever . . . but were easily replaced.

The League of Nobles desperately sought to keep from being enslaved by the thinking machines. Norma wondered about the hypocrisy here.

T
he Tlulaxa slaving crew came down to Harmonthep like a weary convoy instead of a squadron of military raiders.

Tuk Keedair rode in the lead ship, but he left the piloting and shooting to the newcomer Ryx Hannem. Not yet jaded to the slave-acquisition business, young Hannem would be eager to please Keedair, and the veteran flesh merchant wanted to see what this novice was made of.

Keedair had a flattened nose that had been broken twice in his youth; he liked the way it had healed, imparting rugged character to his wolfish face. In his right ear he wore a triangular gold earring etched with a hieroglyphic mark that he refused to translate for anyone. A thick black braid, tarnished with strands of gray, hung between his shoulders at the left side of his face— a mark of pride, since commercial tradition required a flesh merchant to slice off the braid after any unprofitable year. And Keedair’s had grown long.

“Do we have coordinates yet?” Hannem asked, looking nervously at his control panel, then out the cockpit wind-shield. “Where should we start, sir?”

“Harmonthep’s an Unallied Planet, boy, and the Buddislamics don’t publish maps. We just look for a village and then harvest the people. Nobody’s keeping a census.”

Hannem peered through the viewer, searching for villages. The clustered Tlulaxa ships cruised over a waterlogged green continent. No mountains or hills rose above the soggy landscape of lakes, marshes, and waterways. Harmonthep seemed to have an aversion to pushing its land masses much above sea level. Even the oceans were shallow.

After a few more runs, Keedair might take a long furlough back on Tlulax, the closed-off world of his people. It was a nice place to relax, though he was sure he’d get restless again before long. As a “procurer of human resources,” Keedair had no regular home.

The Tlulaxa biological industry had a constant demand for fresh material, generated from new subjects, untapped genetic lines. By imposing a high degree of secrecy on their work, the Tlulaxa had managed to fool their innocent League customers. When the price was right and the need great, the nobles easily swallowed stories of sophisticated bio-tanks that could grow viable replacement organs. The dedicated researchers eventually hoped to modify their clone-growth tanks to produce such products, but the necessary technology had not yet been attained.

It was so much easier to just grab swarms of forgotten humans who lived on outlying worlds. The kidnappings would never be noticed, and the captives would all be carefully catalogued according to their genetics.

For the time being, though, the sudden shortage of viable slaves on Poritrin had changed Keedair’s business focus. As long as the plague continued, it would be more profitable just to provide living captives, warm bodies that needed no further processing. . . .

As the slavers approached the tangled swamps, Keedair tapped the scanned topographic map on his console screen. “Fly low over that broad stream and follow it. In my experience, you’re likely to find villages at a confluence of waterways.”

As the craft swooped down, he spotted large dark shapes moving in the waters, serpentine creatures curling through bamboolike reeds. Huge orange flowers bloomed on the tops of the stalks, opening and closing like fleshy mouths. Keedair was glad he didn’t have to stay on this ugly world for long.

“I see something, sir!” Hannem overlaid a magnified display on the windscreen, pointing out a cluster of huts standing on poles within the marshes.

“Good enough, boy.” Keedair contacted the slaver ships in their wake. “Just like plucking fruit from a nobleman’s garden.”

The marsh village did not look substantial. The round huts were made of reeds and mud, fused with some sort of plastic cement. A few antennas, mirrors, and wind collectors hung between them, although the Buddislamics used little sophisticated technology. He doubted the harvest from this single village would fill the holds, but he was always optimistic. Business had been good lately.

Three attack ships flanked Keedair’s lead craft, while the Tlulaxa human-cargo vessels were in the rear. Ryx Hannem looked uneasy as the slavers approached the village. “Are you sure we have sufficient weaponry, sir? I’ve never been on a raid like this before.”

Keedair raised an eyebrow. “These are Zensunnis, boy, pacifists to the core. When the thinking machines came, these cowards didn’t have the balls to fight. I doubt we’ll come out of it with so much as a bruise. Trust me, you’ll never see so much gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands. They’re pathetic.”

He opened the comchannel and spoke to his harvesting crew. “Knock the poles out from under three outlying huts and dump them into the water. That’ll bring people running out. Then we’ll use stun-projectors.” His voice was calm, a bit bored. “We’ll have plenty of time to round up the valuable ones. If there are any severe injuries, take them for the organ stockpiles, but I’d prefer intact bodies.”

Hannem gazed at him worshipfully. Keedair spoke again into the comchannel. “There’ll be profits enough for everyone, and a bonus for each young male and fertile female you take without damage.”

The linked pilots raised a cheer, then the four raider ships swooped toward the helpless swamp village. Young Hannem held back as the more-experienced slavers flew in. With hot beams, they chopped through the tall poles and let the rickety huts topple into the murky water.

“Well— open fire, boy!” Keedair said.

Hannem discharged his weapons, disintegrating one of the thick support legs and strafing open the side of a hut wall, setting the reeds on fire.

“Not so much destruction,” Keedair said, forcing a veneer of calm over his impatience. “You don’t want to harm the villagers. We haven’t even had a chance to look them over yet.”

Just as he had predicted, the pathetic Zensunni came boiling out of their huts. Some shimmied down ladders and poles to reach wobbly boats tied up against their hovels.

At the edge of the village, the two human-cargo ships landed in the marsh water with hissing splashes, their friction-hot hulls creating steam. Pontoons opened up to keep the ships afloat, and loading ramps extended to solid-looking grassy hummocks.

Keedair directed Hannem to land near the scurrying knots of people. Some splashed into the waist-deep water, while women dragged children into reed thickets and young men brandished spears that looked more suitable for catching fish than for warfare.

The first Tlulaxa raiders set down gently, extending flat-footed landing struts that sank into the mud. By the time Keedair emerged onto a mound of trampled grasses with his stun-projector in his hands, his companions were already out and opening fire, selecting their targets carefully.

The healthy men were marked first, because they were worth the most on the Poritrin market, and because they were the likeliest to cause trouble, if given the chance.

Keedair handed the stun weapon to a grinning but intimidated Ryx Hannem. “Better start shooting, boy, if you want to bag any of this booty.”

THE BOY ISHMAEL confidently guided his boat along the waterways, threading his way through the maze of creeks and passages. The reeds were much taller than his head, even when he stood up in the wobbly little craft. The orange flowers at tops of the reeds opened and closed with smacking sounds, feasting on gnats that drifted through the air.