Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (36 page)

Weyop had said that non-Buddislamic outsiders were condemned to eternal damnation . . . yet the Tlulaxa flesh merchants and the new masters on Poritrin controlled their food and their lives. The boy and his companions had no choice but to do as they were told.

Since Ishmael was the youngest captive, the owners expected little of him. They ordered his work group to watch over the boy, to make certain he completed his tasks . . . or if he failed, to pick up the slack.

Despite his aching muscles and blistering skin, Ishmael worked as hard as the others. He watched his despairing fellows waste time with complaints, an attitude that angered the owners and led to unnecessary punishments. Ishmael kept his misery to himself.

He spent weeks up to his knees in the slimy mudflats where ropes and stakes marked out fertile shellfish beds. He ran back and forth to basins that contained clam seedlings, scooped up handfuls of the tiny bivalent and rushed them out into the wet fields. If he cupped his hands too tightly, he crushed the delicate shells— such carelessness had already earned him a thrashing with a sonic whip when an agricultural supervisor saw what he had done. Like icy fire, the whip had made his skin bubble and spasm. The discipline left no mark, caused no physical damage, yet that single whip stroke burned a permanent scar in his brain, and Ishmael knew to avoid that forever.

Punishment would accomplish nothing and could only make him more miserable, while giving the owners yet another victory over him. He
chose
not to grant them that. Despite the fact that it was an insignificant matter, he would attempt to control it as much as possible.

Right now, seeing the workers in the mudflats, Ishmael was almost glad his parents had died in a storm, struck by lightning in a skiff on the large lake where seeping oil made the fish taste bad. At least they couldn’t see him now, and neither could his grandfather. . . .

AFTER THE FIRST month on Poritrin, Ishmael’s hands and legs became so impregnated with black mud that even repeated lashings could not remove the stain. His fingernails were broken and caked with river muck.

On Harmonthep, Ishmael had spent his days wading through the marshes, collecting eggs from qaraa nests, netting turtlebugs, and digging osthmir tubers that grew in the brackish water. From a young age, he had been toughened to a life of toil, but here he resented the work, because it was not for the glory of Buddallah, not for the health and well-being of his people. It was for someone else.

In the Poritrin slave compound, women cooked their food, using the unusual ingredients and spices they were given. Ishmael longed for the taste of fish baked in lily leaves and of sweet reeds whose juices could make a boy drunk with delight.

At night, half of the communal dwellings were vacant because so many slaves had died from the fever. Ishmael often crawled to his pallet and fell deeply asleep. Other times, he forced himself to remain awake and sit in the storytelling circles.

The men talked among themselves, debating whether to select a new leader for their group. To some of them, the concept seemed pointless. There could be no escape, and a leader could only inspire them to take chances that would get them all killed. Ishmael felt sad, remembering how his grandfather had expected to name a successor one day. Yet the Tlulaxa flesh merchants had changed all of that. Unable to reach a decision, the Zensunni men talked on and on. It made Ishmael want to drift off to the oblivion of sleep.

He liked it better when the men told old stories, reciting the poetic “Songs of the Long Trek” about the Zensunni Wanderings, how his people had sought a home where they would be safe from both the thinking machines and the League Worlds. Ishmael had never seen a robot and wondered if they were only imaginary monsters to frighten disobedient children. But he had indeed seen evil men— the raiders who had decimated his quiet village, mistreated his grandfather, taken so many innocents captive.

Sitting at the edge of the firelight, Ishmael listened to the tales of his people. The Zensunni were accustomed to tribulations, and they might have to tolerate even generations of slavery on this planet so far from home. No matter the challenge, his people knew how to endure.

Of all the stories the boy had heard, the covenants and prophecies, he clung to one above all the others: the promise that the misery would one day end.

T
he ornate pedestal for the statue of the Titan Ajax was nearly complete. Crew master Iblis Ginjo perused the daily tally and production requirements on his electronic notepad. He had made his slaves understand their very real danger, should the brutal cymek lose patience. They worked very hard, not just for fear of their lives, but because Iblis had inspired them.

Then, a disaster occurred on another part of the project.

With the heat of day rising around the observation scaffold where Iblis stood supervising the stabilization of the sturdy pedestal, in the distance he saw the top of the nearly completed Ajax statue begin to move. The iron, polymer, and stone colossus tottered one way and then the other, as if gravity itself were shaking the enormous work of art.

Suddenly the giant monument toppled with a crashing roar, accompanied by distant shouts and screams. As a cloud of dust climbed into the sky, Iblis knew that any slave who had been crushed under the massive statue should be considered lucky.

Once Ajax learned of the catastrophe, the real mayhem would begin.

EVEN BEFORE THE dust and rubble settled, Iblis rushed into the furious debate among neo-cymeks and his fellow trustee crew leaders. It hadn’t been his part of the monument project that had collapsed, but his teams would suffer in the inevitable delays caused by the accident. Still, Iblis hoped his charismatic mediation skills could help mitigate the disaster.

Enraged neo-cymeks saw the clumsy damage as a personal affront to their revered Titan predecessors. Ajax himself had already torn a work supervisor limb from limb, and gory body parts lay scattered and dripping in the dust.

With all the compelling passion he could summon, Iblis Ginjo made the angry neo-cymeks pause. “Wait, wait! This can be fixed, if you will allow me!”

Ajax rose taller, more threatening than any of the neo-cymeks, but Iblis continued, his words silky. “True, the enormous statue has suffered some harm, but nothing more than superficial blemishes. Lord Ajax, this monument was designed to endure throughout the ages! Certainly it can endure a few bumps and scratches. Your grand legacy is not so easily bruised.”

He paused as the cymeks were forced to admit the truth of this. Then he pointed toward his own work area and continued in a reasonable tone, “Look, my crews have nearly finished the sturdy pedestal designed to hold up the statue. Why don’t we erect it anyway, to show the universe that we can brush aside minor annoyances like this accident? My workers can perform all the necessary repairs in place.” Iblis’s eyes shone with artificial enthusiasm. “There is no reason for further delay.”

Pacing about the carnage and confusion in his menacing armored body, Ajax stomped on one of the crew leaders who was babbling his innocence, pulping him into the ground. Then the angry Titan towered over Iblis, optic threads glowing like white-hot stars. “You have now accepted responsibility to see that work continues according to schedule. If your teams fail, the blame will be yours.”

“Of course, Lord Ajax.” Iblis showed no alarm at all. He could convince the slaves to carry the burden. They would do it for him.

“Then get this mess cleaned up!” Ajax thundered in a voice that could be heard across the hilltop Forum.

Later, Iblis made promises to his already-exhausted, overtaxed slaves. They had been discontented and resistant for a while, but he won them over with a stirring account of the wondrous benefits they would receive: the finest sex slaves, incredible feasts, days of leisure to journey about the countryside. “I am not like other trustees. Have I ever let you down? Ever promised a reward that I failed to deliver?”

With such an incentive, not to mention a healthy dose of fear for the Titan Ajax, the laborers set to the task with redoubled energy. In the coolness of the evening, with hovering spotlights glaring like super-novas over the construction site, Iblis kept his crew working efficiently. From his high wooden platform, he watched as the slaves raised the immense statue on its sturdy reinforced pedestal and plasma-bolted it into place.

Artisans rushed forward and scaled the curved stone-and-iron surface with climbing equipment, and set up swaying temporary scaffolds to begin their restoration work. Ajax’s legendary face had a marred nose and one dented muscular arm, as well as deep gouges across the front of the Titan uniform. In his secret heart, Iblis suspected the real Ajax’s human form had been lumpish and ugly.

Throughout the long, tiresome night, Iblis struggled to stay awake, leaning against the rail and peering into the blurring abyss. He dozed off, then awoke, startled, as he heard the smooth hum of the lift platform rising to his level.

But he was mystified to see that the lift bore no one at all. Only a small sheet of rolled-up metal, a message cylinder. Iblis stared, his heart pounding, but the lift remained at his level, as if waiting. He looked over the edge, but could not determine who had left the message.

How could he ignore it?

Iblis stole forward and grabbed the scrap of scribed metal. He broke the seal, unrolled the thin sheet, and read with increasing astonishment.

“We represent an organized movement of dissatisfied humans. We are waiting for the right moment and the right leader to begin an open revolt against the oppressive machines. You must determine if you wish to join our worthy cause. We will contact you again.”

As Iblis stared in disbelief at the unsigned message, the lettering faded and disappeared, corroding into blobs of rust that ate through the metal itself and flaked away.

Was it authentic, or some sort of a cymek trap designed to lure him? Most humans hated their machine masters, but took pains to conceal it.
What if there really is such a group?
And if so, they would need talented leaders.

The thought exhilarated him. Iblis had never considered such an idea before, and he couldn’t imagine what he had said or done to reveal his innermost thoughts and feelings. Why did they suspect? He had always been respectful to his superiors, had always—

But have I been overly attentive? Have I tried too hard to appear loyal?

On the towering Ajax statue, just below his own level, the artisans remained hard at work like busy termites on a log. They repaired scrape marks, expertly patched and painted the marred exterior. Dawn broke across the monumental statue, and Iblis could see they would be finished soon. The machines would reward him for his labors.

How he hated them!

Iblis wrestled with his conscience. The thinking machines had treated him well in comparison with other slaves, but only a thin layer of protection kept him from the same fate. In his private moments Iblis often pondered the value of freedom, and what he could do if given the chance.

A rebel group? He could barely believe it. As days went by, Iblis found himself thinking about it more and more . . . and waiting to be contacted again.

W
ith all the hatred concealed inside his mind, Agamemnon took special precautions wherever Omnius could spy on him. This meant almost always, and almost everywhere— even when Agamemnon and Juno had passionate sex. Or at least what passed for sex among the Titans.

For their tryst, walker bodies brought the two ancient cymeks into a maintenance chamber within the control pavilion on Earth. Around them, tubes of nutrient liquids snaked toward storage tanks in the ceiling. Robotic tenders moved from life-support generators to analysis banks, skimming data from thoughtrodes, ensuring that all systems remained within normal parameters.

Agamemnon and Juno conversed with each other on a private short-range band, twitching their respective sensors and sparking each other’s thoughtrodes through the electrafluid.
Foreplay
. Even without physical bodies, the cymek minds could still experience intense pleasure.

Automated lifters disengaged his preservation canister smoothly from its walking body, then set the thinking core on a clean chrome pedestal beside the container that held Juno’s pinkish gray brain. With the accessible optic threads and computer comparison grids, he recognized the distinctive folds and lobes of his lover’s mind.
Still beautiful after all these centuries
.

Agamemnon remembered how lovely she had been back in the beginning: obsidian-black hair that shimmered with blue highlights. Her nose had been pointed, her face narrow, with eyebrows that arched in a mysterious way. He always thought of her as Cleopatra, another military genius from the mists of history, just like the first Agamemnon in the Trojan War.

Long ago, during the eyeblink of time when he had worn a frail human physique, Agamemnon had fallen in love with this woman. Though Juno was extremely desirable sexually, he had been attracted to her mind before ever meeting her in person. He had first become aware of her on a complex virtual network through tactical simulations and wargames he had fought with her on the Old Empire’s docile computers. The two of them had been teenagers then, back when age mattered.

As a boy, Agamemnon had been raised on pampered Earth, with the name of Andrew Skouros. His parents had led a hedonistic but passionless lifestyle, as had so many other citizens. They existed, they dabbled . . . but none of them really
lived
. Across the depths of time, he barely remembered the faces of his parents. All weak and feeble humans looked the same to him now.