Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (38 page)

Norma set down the red-plaz generator and crossed the room with her awkward, waddling gait. She climbed her high stool to reach the blueprint films on the slanted light table, where she sifted through pages. “I’ve figured out how this principle can also be used on illumination devices. The suspensor field can float lights and power them with residual energy. I have all the calculations . . . somewhere.”

“Floating lights?” Zufa said, in scornful tone. “For what, a picnic? Tens of thousands died in the cymek attack on Zimia, millions were enslaved on Giedi Prime, and you live in secluded comfort— making floating
lights
?”

Norma gave her mother a condescending look, as if
Zufa
was the foolish one. “Think beyond the obvious, Mother. A war needs more than just weapons. Robots can alter their optic sensors to see in the dark, but humans must have light to see. Hundreds of these suspensor lights could be dispersed in a nighttime combat zone, negating any advantage the machines might have. Savant Holtzman and I think along those lines every day.”

The scientist nodded, quick to concur with her. “Or, for commercial uses, they could be designed in a number of styles, even tuned to any color or shade.”

Norma sat on her stool like a gnome perched on a throne. Her brown eyes sparkled with excitement. “I’m sure Lord Bludd will be most pleased.”

Zufa frowned. There were more important issues at stake in this war than pleasing a foppish nobleman. Impatient, she said, “I came a great distance to see you.”

Norma raised her eyebrows skeptically. “If you had bothered to see me
before
I departed from Rossak, Mother, you wouldn’t have needed to make such a long voyage to soothe your guilt. But you were too busy to notice.”

Uneasy in the midst of a family argument, Tio Holtzman excused himself. The combatants hardly noticed his departure.

Zufa had not intended to pick a fight, but now she felt defensive. “My Sorceresses have proved their abilities in battle. We can exert tremendous power with our minds to eradicate the cymeks. A number of candidates are preparing themselves to offer the ultimate sacrifice if we are called upon to free another machine-dominated world.” Her pale eyes flashed, and she shook her head. “But you don’t worry about that, do you, Norma— since you have no telepathic abilities.”

“I have other skills, Mother. I am making a valuable contribution, too.”

“Yes, your incomprehensible equations.” Zufa nodded toward the suspensor field generator on the floor. “Your life is not at stake. Safe and pampered, you spend your days playing with these
toys
. You have let yourself be blinded by imaginary success.” But her daughter wasn’t the only one. Many people lived in comfort and security while Zufa and her Sorceresses performed dangerous tasks. How could Norma compare her work to
that
? “When you heard I was coming, Norma, could you not have found time to meet me at the spaceport?”

Norma’s tone was deceptively mild as she crossed her arms over her small chest. “I did not ask you to come here, Mother, because I know you have many important things to do. And
I
have more urgent duties than ferrying unexpected guests around. Besides, I knew Lord Bludd was going to meet you.”

“Are League nobles your errand boys now?” Now that she had opened the floodgates of her anger, Zufa couldn’t stop the words that came next. “I only wanted you to make me proud, Norma, despite your deformities. But nothing you do will ever amount to anything. Living here in luxury, what sacrifices do you make? Your vision is too small to be of any real use to humanity.”

Previously, Norma would have crumbled under such an onslaught, her confidence crushed. But her work here with Holtzman, her obvious successes in the technical arena, had given her a new view of herself. Now she looked coolly at her mother. “Just because I don’t fit the image of what you wanted me to be doesn’t mean I’m not contributing something essential. Savant Holtzman sees it, and so does Aurelius. You’re my own mother— why can’t you?”

With a snort at the mention of Venport’s name, Zufa began pacing. “Aurelius is just a man with hallucinations from the drugs he takes.”

“I had forgotten how narrow-minded you truly are, Mother,” Norma said in a level tone. “Thank you for coming all this way to refresh my memory.” The girl turned on her stool and resumed her plans and equations. “I am tempted to summon one of the slaves to escort you out, but I wouldn’t want to remove them from their more important work.”

FURIOUS AT HERSELF and her daughter— and at the wasted time— Zufa returned to the spaceport. She would stay on Poritrin no longer. To get her mind off her concerns, she concentrated on mental exercises and thought of how her beloved trainees in the jungles were ready to give their utmost to their tasks, without personal considerations.

Zufa waited a full day for a military transport that would take her back to Rossak. As she surrounded herself with waves of her own clairvoyant powers, she discovered a rotten weakness on Poritrin, and it had nothing to do with Norma. It was so obvious, she could not avoid it.

All around Starda, at loading sites near the spaceport, at the warehouses and mudflats, Zufa detected the individual and collective auras of the downtrodden laborers. She sensed a collective psychological wound, a deep and simmering discontent to which the free Poritrin citizens seemed completely oblivious.

The backwash of brooding resentment gave her one more reason to want to get away from this place.

R
aised as the daughter of the League Viceroy, Serena Butler was accustomed to working hard to serve humanity, looking toward a bright future even against the backdrop of constant war. She had never imagined laboring as a slave inside the household of an enemy robot.

From her first glance at Erasmus in the broad entry plaza of the villa, Serena disliked him intensely. Conversely, the thinking machine was intrigued by her. She suspected that his interest was probably a dangerous thing.

He chose to wear fine clothes, loose robes and fluffy, ornate furs that made his robot body look absurd. His mirrored face made him appear alien, and his demeanor made her flesh crawl. His relentless curiosity about mankind seemed perverse and unnatural. When he strutted across the plaza toward Serena, his pliable metal mask shifted into a delighted grin.

“You are Serena Butler,” he said. “Have you been informed that Giedi Prime was recaptured by the feral humans? Such a disappointment. Why are humans willing to sacrifice so much to maintain their inefficient chaos?”

Serena’s heart lifted at news of the liberation, in part because of her own efforts. Xavier had brought the Armada after all, and Brigit Paterson’s engineers must have succeeded in activating the secondary shield transmitters. Serena, however, remained enslaved— and pregnant with Xavier’s child. No one even knew where she was or what had happened to her. Xavier and her father must be insane with grief, convinced that the machines had killed her.

“Perhaps it’s not surprising that you don’t comprehend or value the human concept of freedom,” she replied. “For all your convoluted gelcircuitry, you’re still just a machine. The understanding wasn’t
programmed
into you.”

Her eyes stung at the thought of how much more she wanted to achieve to help other people. On Salusa, she had never taken her family’s wealth for granted, feeling a need to earn the blessings bestowed upon her.

She asked, “So, are you inquisitive, or inquisitor?”

“Perhaps both.” The robot leaned close to examine her, noting the proud lift of her chin. “I expect you to offer me many insights.” He touched her cheek with a cool, flexible finger. “Lovely skin.”

She forced herself not to pull away.
Resistance must count for something more than a captive’s pride
, her mother had once told her. If Serena struggled, Erasmus could hold her with his powerful robotic grasp, or summon mechanized torturing devices. “My skin is no more lovely than yours,” she said, “except mine is not synthetic. My skin was designed by nature, not by the mind of a machine.”

The robot chuckled, a tinny cachination. “You see, I expect to learn much from you.” He led her into his lush greenhouses, which she observed with reluctant delight.

At the age of ten she had become fascinated with gardening, and had delivered plants, herbs, and sweet exotic fruits to medical centers, refugee complexes, and veteran homes, where she also volunteered her services. Around Zimia, Serena had been renowned for her ability to cultivate beautiful flowers. Under her loving attention, exquisite little Immian roses bloomed, as did Poritrin hibiscus and even the delicate morning violets of distant Kaitain.

“I will have you tend my prized plaza gardens,” Erasmus said.

“Why can’t machines perform such tasks? I’m sure they’d be much more efficient— or do you just revel in making your ‘creators’ do the work?”

“Do you not feel up to the task?”

“I will do as you command— for the sake of the plants.” Pointedly ignoring him, she touched a strangely shaped red and orange flower. “This looks like a bird of paradise, a pure strain from an ancient stock. According to legend, these plants were favored by the sea kings of Old Earth.” With a look of defiance, Serena turned back to the robot. “There, now I have taught you something.”

Erasmus chuckled again, as if replaying a recording. “Excellent. Now tell me what you were truly thinking.”

She remembered words her father had spoken—
Fear invites aggression; do not show it to a predator
— and felt emboldened. “While I was telling you about a beautiful flower, I was thinking that I despise you and all of your kind. I was a free and independent being, until you took it all away from me. Machines stole my home, my life, and the man I love.”

The sentient robot was not at all offended. “Ah, your lover! Is he the one who impregnated you?”

Serena glared at Erasmus, then made up her mind. Perhaps she could find a way to use this machine’s curiosity, turning it against him somehow. “You will learn the most from me if I cooperate, if I talk freely. I can teach you things you would never learn for yourself.”

“Excellent.” The robot seemed genuinely pleased.

Serena’s eyes grew hard. “But I expect something from you in return. Guarantee the safety of my unborn baby. Allow me to raise the child here in your household.”

Erasmus knew it was a standard parental imperative for her to be worried about her offspring, and that gave him leverage. “You have either arrogance or ambition. But I shall consider your request, depending on how much I enjoy our discussions and debates.”

Spotting a fat beetle at the base of a terra cotta planter, Erasmus nudged it with one foot. The insect had a black shell with an intricate red design. His smooth face mask shifted, flowed, until the shaping film displayed an amused expression. Erasmus let the beetle nearly escape, then moved his smooth foot to block it again. Persistent, it scuttled in another direction.

“You and I have a great deal in common, Serena Butler,” he said. Remotely, he activated a contraband Chusuk music cube, hoping the melody would draw out her internal emotions. “Each of us has an independent mind. I respect that in you, because it is such an integral part of my own personality.”

Serena resented any such comparison, but held her tongue.

Erasmus scooped the beetle onto one hand, but his primary interest dwelled on Serena— he was intrigued at how humans tried to keep so much of themselves veiled. Perhaps, by applying various pressures, he could see through to her inner core.

With the music playing in the background, Erasmus continued, “Some robots keep their own personalities rather than simply uploading a portion of the evermind. I began as a thinking machine on Corrin, but I chose not to accept regular Omnius updates that would synchronize me with the evermind.”

Serena saw that the beetle was immobile on his metallic palm. She wondered if he had killed it.

“But a singular event changed me forever,” Erasmus said, his voice pleasant, as if telling a story about a quaint forest outing. “I had set out across Corrin’s unsettled territories on a private scouting mission. Because I was inquisitive and did not wish to accept the standard analyses compiled by Omnius, I ventured into the landscape on my own. It was rugged, rocky, and wild. I had never seen vegetation except for in the areas where Old Empire terraformers had planted new ecosystems. Corrin was never a living world, you see, except where humans had made it so. Unfortunately, tending fertile fields and beautifying the land was no longer a priority of my kind.” He looked at Serena to see if she was enjoying his story.

“Unexpectedly, far from the city grid and robot support systems, I was unprotected from a severe solar storm. Corrin’s red-giant sun is in turmoil and unstable, with frequent flare activity, sudden hurricanes of radiation. Such an onslaught is hazardous to biological life-forms, but the original human settlers were resilient.

“My delicate neurelectric circuitry, however, was rather more sensitive. I should have dispatched scout scanners to keep watch on the star-storms, but I was too engrossed in my own investigations. I found myself exposed and damaged from the radiation flux, disoriented and far from the central complex run by the Corrin-Omnius.” Erasmus actually sounded embarrassed. “I wandered away and I . . . tumbled into a narrow crevasse.”

Serena looked at him in surprise.

“Despite dropping deep into the crack, my body was only slightly damaged.” He lifted an arm, looked at his flexible fiber-wrapped limb, the organic-polymer skin, the flowmetal coating. “I was trapped, out of transmission range, and basically immobilized. I could not move for an entire Corrin year . . . twenty Terran standard years.

“The crevasse’s deep shadow shielded me from solar radiation, and soon enough, my mental processors recovered. I was awake, but I could go nowhere. I could not move . . . only think, for a long, long time. I spent a seemingly endless blazing summer there, wedged in the rocks, and then I endured the ensuing long winter locked in heavy, compacted ice. During all that time, two decades, I had nothing to do but
contemplate
.”