Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (69 page)

“So you have won the wager,” Omnius said. “That is most unfortunate.”

Erasmus scanned the flames rising in the distant city. If he could look upon the situation objectively it would be a fascinating study in human nature. The psychology of groups under stress was intriguing, though admittedly dangerous. “Indeed, most unfortunate.”

At the front of the villa, the main gate burst open from the repeated pounding of the battering ram. Iblis gestured to his fanatical followers, and the mob swept over his remaining household robots like a tidal wave.

It was time for Erasmus to depart.

Knowing the value of his independent thoughts and conjectures, the robot did not wish to be destroyed. He represented individuality, pride in personal achievement, the possible existence of a soul. He wanted to continue his work, integrating the lessons he had learned from this fascinating revolt.

But for that, he had to escape.

Moment by moment, the mob grew louder. He heard the rampant destruction in his lovely home. He had just enough time to take a fast, armored lift platform down several levels to a secure tunnel system that opened to the hills overlooking the sea.

He hesitated, knowing he was leaving Serena Butler behind, but decided that he had already kept the female around for too long. After he’d killed her baby, she had become even less useful to him, unwilling to provide any additional raw data.

The death of her child had turned her into a wild animal, not caring anymore for her own life. She had attacked him repeatedly, despite his generous overtures to her. In the end, although Erasmus had been tempted to kill her outright, he had not been able to bring himself to do it. Most interesting. He had finally settled for drugging her into a stupor. Now Serena was in one of his laboratories, sedated to the point of catatonia, since Erasmus had found no other way of suppressing her efforts to fight him each time she rose toward consciousness. Alas, he had no time to salvage her now.

In a concealed cave high above the swirling whitecaps, Erasmus boarded a hover capsule. Accompanied by one of Omnius’s watcheyes, he lifted off into the early evening, flying out to sea and circling back over the burning city.

“You are being foolish, Erasmus,” the voice of Omnius said from a bulkhead screen. “You should have waited for the tide of battle to turn in favor of my thinking machines. As it must, inevitably.”

“Perhaps, Omnius, but I have run my own risk assessment. I would rather return to my estate on Corrin, to continue my experiments there. With your permission, of course.”

“You will only cause more trouble,” Omnius said. The hover capsule reached one of the subsidiary spaceports that was still controlled by the thinking machines. “But now, more than ever, it is imperative for us to understand our enemy.”

Erasmus searched the database for a small, available ship that could take him on the long journey to Corrin. Through his work, he had already learned an important lesson: Humans were predictable in only one aspect— in their very unpredictability.

T
he slaves burst into the evil robot’s villa, celebrating with an orgy of destruction. Caught in the fire of their enthusiasm, Iblis led a small group on a fast sweep through the labyrinth of rooms and corridors. They followed him, like a work crew of sorts, though this particular job was much more satisfying.

“For Serena!” he shouted, the words the rebels wanted to hear. They took up the cry.

Somewhere inside, he hoped to find the uncaring Erasmus, who had so blatantly murdered a helpless child. He also wanted to locate the brave mother who had fought against the thinking machines. If he could liberate Serena Butler, Iblis would make her into a rallying point, the figurehead of a great movement against Omnius. She might be somewhere here inside the great house—
if
she wasn’t dead. . . .

As the rioters swept into the main building, Vorian Atreides pushed his way toward the front, buffeted by the storm of humanity. The rebels trampled the ornamental tapestries and knocked over prized statues. Vor ran with them.

“Serena!” His voice was swallowed up in the tumult. While his companions ransacked the trappings of wealth that Erasmus had acquired, Vor rushed directly to her beloved greenhouses. “Serena! Serena!”

He leaped over the metal forms of damaged household robots strewn across the corridors. Ahead of him, the intruders pounded open the heavy alloy door of the household equipment lockers and began grabbing tools that could be converted into weapons. Vor pushed his way through and grabbed a long knife for himself— more effective against humans than machines— then hurried back into the corridor and ran until he reached the sealed laboratories. He dreaded that the diabolical robot might have performed a last, malicious dissection on her. . . .

He left the rest of the mob spreading through the estate. Vor worked his way past abandoned security stations, into the compounds that had held human test subjects. Freed victims with hollow cheeks and haunted eyes staggered into the corridors.

Vor reached a set of locked quarantine cells. He tried to open the heavy doors, without success. Through small, round windows he saw people crowded inside, some with their faces pressed against the plaz, others lying on the cold rock floors. He didn’t see Serena among them.

Beneath a deactivated Omnius eye, he found the release mechanism and unsealed the cells. As the desperate captives stumbled out, Vor pushed his way into their midst, calling out for Serena. The prisoners clutched at Vor, blinking in confusion under the bright lights. He could spare them no time, and went on to continue his search.

At the back of the compound, in a sterile area that contained ominous surgical equipment, he finally found Serena slumped on the dirty plazcrete floor with her eyes closed, as if she had awakened from a drugged sleep and then crawled there. Her white-and-gold dress was stained and torn, and she had bruises on her face and arms. She lay as if dead— or like a person wanting to die.

“Serena?” He touched her cheek. “Serena, it’s Vorian Atreides.”

Groggily opening her eyes, she looked at him at first without recognition. He saw her unfocused stare, suspected that she swam in the deep, uncharted waters of tranquilizing drugs. Erasmus must have been trying to keep her under control. At last she whispered, “I didn’t expect to ever see you again,”

He helped Serena to her feet and supported her as she swayed on rubbery legs, still sleepwalking. In the rear garden area the overturned basins were saturated with blood, but Vor found a small fountain that remained undisturbed, surrounded by thick ferns. He cupped cold, clean water in his hands, and she drank greedily, struggling to throw off the fog of drugs. Then he soaked a torn cloth and used it to clean her face and arms.

She seemed to want nothing more than to slump to the floor, falling back into blissful unconsciousness, but she fought it and clutched the wall angrily, holding herself upright. “Why are you here?”

“I came to take you back to Salusa Secundus.”

Her lovely eyes, which had been glazed by pain and dulled by Erasmus’s crippling drugs, now came alive. “You could do that?”

He nodded, trying to strengthen her with his confidence, but wondering how to find the
Dream Voyager
again. “Our window of opportunity won’t be open for long.”

Serena’s expression brightened with a flicker of strength and hope. “Salusa . . . my Xavier . . .”

He frowned at the name, but concentrated on the challenge at hand. “We have to get away from here. The streets are dangerous, especially for us.”

Now that she had a purpose, Serena gathered energy through sheer force of will. As he turned to guide her away from this place of terrible memories, they encountered Iblis Ginjo. The crew boss stood flushed and grinning, just inside the doorway. “So there you are! Blessed woman, the people have thrown off their shackles to avenge your murdered child.”

Vor held her arm protectively, his expression darkening. “I need to take her from this place.” He was not accustomed to having even another trustee question his words, but the rabble leader still blocked his way.

Oddly, Iblis seemed more confident in his powers of persuasion than in any weapon. “This woman is vital to the continuing revolution. Think of the pain she has suffered. You and I are not enemies. We must band together to overthrow the—”

While Iblis’s voice resonated as if he were delivering a speech, Vor swung up the long knife he had taken, holding it up in a threat. “Once I may have been your enemy, but no longer. I am Vorian Atreides.”

Iblis looked uncertain. “Atreides? The son of Agamemnon?”

Vorian’s face became stormy, but the blade in his hand did not waver. “That burden I must bear. To redeem myself, I will make certain Serena is safe. Omnius will bring in reinforcements soon, even if they come from other Synchronized Worlds. Don’t let a few days of giddy success blind you to what the thinking machines can do. Your revolt here is doomed.”

In a flurry of words, Iblis explained what he had in mind, how he wanted Serena to inspire an ever-widening revolt that would crush Omnius on Earth. “You can make our movement much stronger. Serena Butler and the memory of her slain child will rally others. Think of what you could accomplish!”

At any other time, Serena might have felt the calling and given herself over to the welfare of so many suffering people. It was part of her character, the core of her personality. But the murder of innocent Manion had doused her flames of justice and passion, killing not only her baby but a portion of her heart.

“Your cause is righteous, Iblis,” Serena said, “but I’m drained by all the horrors I have endured. Vorian is taking me back to Salusa. I must see my father . . . and tell Xavier what has happened to his son.”

Iblis’s gaze locked with hers as if they were connected by an electronic beam. He did not want to alienate her, not if she was to be of any use to him. His thoughts spun, looking for traction. For months he had been building a secret organization of rebels, but now he sensed that it could never attain its full potential without this remarkable young woman and all she represented. He could never achieve the necessary religious fervor.

Iblis’s dark eyes flashed, seizing upon the changed situation. “A League world? Tell me, Atreides, how can you ever escape Earth?”

“I believe I have a way— my ship, the
Dream Voyager
. But I cannot delay.”

Iblis made up his mind in an instant. He knew that this struggle could build and build, sweeping across Earth and beyond. But maybe it was best managed from a different locale. He could watch it spread from world to world. “We go together, then. I shall speak to the League, convincing the nobles to send reinforcements here. They must aid our cause!”

In adjacent rooms they heard destructive noises, shattering plaz, violent shouts. “I can escort you to safety through my followers. They won’t hinder us.” Iblis sounded very reasonable, utterly convincing. “You will not escape the compound unless I help you.”

Vor looked at him with hard gray eyes, longing to take Serena away— and wanting nothing to do with this firebrand. She rested her hand on his arm, seeming much stronger now. “Please, just let us go. I want to leave Earth and this nightmare.”

Two of Iblis’s men emerged from a corridor, followed by three more. They looked at him, awaiting orders. The rebel leader needed to leave someone behind who could keep fanning the flames on Earth while he tried to rally the rest of the free humans. Someone he trusted.

He thought of the burly secondary to Eklo, and the Cogitor’s network of contacts and information. “Bring Aquim to me. Immediately.”

AS HE STOOD on the plaza in front of the ruined villa, facing Iblis and pondering the other man’s request, Aquim was torn between his genetic heritage as a human and the obligations he had sworn to the Cogitors.

“You are no longer neutral,” Iblis said. “And neither is Eklo. You must help us see it through to the end. I need someone I can trust to keep the revolt burning here, while I go to the League and rally more support.”

Aquim looked overwhelmed. “That could take months.”

“That is as fast as a ship can carry us.” He warmly clasped the burly monk on both shoulders. “My friend, you once told me that you led a squad of men against the machines, and that you had some successes. Remember what your Cogitor told me: Nothing is impossible.”

The monk paused, rallying his courage. “There is a big difference between leading a squad and leading thousands of people.”

“In the days before you took a liking to semuta you would not have made the distinction.”

“The semuta does not dull me! It sharpens me!”

Iblis smiled. “I am good at picking people, and I recognize your talents. There are other men I could select, but none that I trust as much as you. In addition to your experience in battle, you have great wisdom, from your association with the Cogitor. You are the man for the job, Aquim.”

The big man nodded slowly, as acceptance seeped in. “Yes, Eklo would want me to do this.”

BEFORE DEPARTING, IBLIS took Serena to where he had hidden and protected the body of her slain son. He had placed the broken form of little Manion in one of Erasmus’s outbuildings even as the revolt spread.

Now, Serena stood like the statue of an angry goddess, cold and strong, as she reached forward and touched the transparent polymer covering that protected the waxy, cherubic face. A tough film engulfed the child— just as the consequences of this helpless innocent’s murder would engulf the thinking machines.

“You . . . you preserved him?”

“It’s a sealant bag used for processing slaves who die on the job.” Iblis pleaded with her to understand what he had done. “Others must know what happened here, Serena. They will remember your son and all he stood for. We shall build a magnificent memorial for him, preserving him in a plaz case for all free humans to see.” He looked at Vorian Atreides. “One must never underestimate the value of a symbol.”