Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (71 page)

“This is not going to be easy,” Vor said.

Serena looked at him in astonishment. “No part of this has been easy so far.”

Vor kept an eye on the approaching warship. He knew the capabilities of the
Dream Voyager
. Months ago, when he’d used extreme tactical maneuvers to elude the League Armada at Giedi Prime, Vor had never dreamed he might need his skills to flee the thinking machines who had raised him, trained him . . . and deceived him.

In a direct firefight the update ship could not outgun even a small interceptor. The
Dream Voyager
‘s hull armor might hold for a while, but Vor could not dodge and outmaneuver the oncoming warcraft for long.

Jupiter loomed ahead of them, a diffuse sphere of pastel colors, with swirling clouds and storms large enough to swallow Earth whole. After analyzing the sensor summary, Vor knew the capabilities of the pursuing warship. Even with no significant weapons, the
Dream Voyager
had far more fuel, engines, and thicker armor— along with Vor’s wits. He might be able to use the advantages he possessed.

The oncoming interceptor loosed four projectile volleys, only one of which struck the update ship’s hull, exploding underneath the ship. Shockwaves reverberated through the
Dream Voyager
as if it were an immense gong. Still, the instruments reported no significant damage.

“We have to get away.” Iblis was panicked. “He’s trying to cripple us.”

“That’s optimistic,” Vorian said. “I thought he wanted to destroy us.”

“Just let him fly,” Serena said to the nervous rebel leader.

A communication burst arrived, and speakers inside the
Dream Voyager
resonated with a familiar synthesized voice that made Vor turn cold inside. “Vorian Atreides, you have broken your vow of loyalty. You are a traitor, not only to Omnius, but to
me
. I no longer consider you my son.”

Vor swallowed hard before responding. “You taught me to use my mind, Father, to make my own decisions and exercise my talents. I learned the truth, you know. I discovered what really happened during the Time of Titans, and it bears little resemblance to the fairy-tales in your memoirs! You lied to me all along.”

In response, Agamemnon launched more projectiles, but they went wild. Vor fired his own scattering defensive rounds. They exploded in a disruptive barrier that forced the machine interceptor to swerve in its oncoming course. Vor did not waste time or engine power attempting to outmaneuver the sleek warship.

Instead, he adjusted his course so the
Dream Voyager
skirted closer to Jupiter’s gravitational pull. He pushed the engines to their maximums, not worrying about stress or damage. If he couldn’t escape now, excessive caution would make no difference.

The gas giant reached out to them, beckoning with a siren song of physics. Agamemnon launched another volley of explosive shells, one of which detonated very close to the
Dream Voyager
‘s engines.

Vor felt calm and confident, his mind attuned to what he was doing. Seated near him, Iblis was grayish and drenched with sweat. The rebellious work leader was probably wondering whether he might have had a better chance of survival if he had remained on Earth.

“He needs only to damage us,” Vor said, assessing the situation coolly. “If he manages to knock our engines offline for even a few minutes, we’ll be unable to escape this hyperbolic orbit. Agamemnon can then drop back and watch us plunge slowly into Jupiter’s atmosphere and burn up. He’d enjoy that.”

Serena clenched the arms of her seat. As if the answer was obvious, she said to Vor, “Then don’t let him damage our engines.”

While the cymek general continued to fire harassing shots at them, Vor ran through a new set of calculations. Using the
Dream Voyager
‘s workhorse computer subsystems, he quickly reprogrammed the navigational plotters. The update ship roared ahead, an ungraceful projectile that accelerated even as it grazed Jupiter’s tenuous atmosphere, a hostage to orbital mechanics.

“Aren’t you going to do anything?” Iblis demanded.

“The laws of physics are doing it for us. If Agamemnon bothers to perform the calculations, he’ll see for himself what he must do. The
Dream Voyager
has enough fuel and velocity to slingshot around Jupiter and escape the gravitational pull. In that smaller interceptor, however, unless my father breaks off his pursuit in”— he glanced down at the panel—”fifty-four seconds, he will be unable to escape the pull. He’ll spiral down and burn up inside Jupiter.”

The interceptor kept coming, firing its weapons and not doing the damage its pilot wanted.

“Does
he
know that?” Serena asked.

“My father will know.” Vor double-checked the navigational plotter. “As it is now . . . he barely has enough fuel to return to Earth. If he waits even ten seconds more, I doubt he’ll survive the landing back home.”

Iblis flared his nostrils. “That would be even more pointless than letting himself get swallowed up in Jupiter’s clouds.”

Behind them, the pursuing craft suddenly broke off, burning its engines to pull away from the gas giant in a sharp curve. The
Dream Voyager
plunged onward, scraping the upswelling clouds until its lower hull burned red with friction. Moments later, Vor hauled them out on the far side of the planet and accelerated away, breaking free of the elastic threads of gravity and vaulting into interstellar space.

Tuning his long-distance sensors, Vor verified that the interceptor had succeeded in pulling away from Jupiter’s hold. He watched their pursuer turn back toward Earth on a course that salvaged momentum and conserved fuel.

Then Vor struck off toward the precarious sanctuary of the League Worlds.

NOW THAT HE had lost the contest, and knowing that Vorian would certainly assist the feral humans in their continued resistance, the furious Agamemnon brooded. With little fuel for acceleration, it would be a long and frustratingly tedious journey back to Earth.

Upon arriving, though, he would salve his humiliation by taking it out on the rest of the unruly slaves. They would regret the day they had ever listened to foolish words of rebellion.

N
ine centuries ago, after evolving into a supreme distributed intelligence, the computer evermind had established efficient control over all cymeks, robots, and humans on the Synchronized Worlds. Omnius had continued to evolve and expand his influence, creating more and more elaborate networks for himself.

Now, as the surprising unrest spread across the cities of Earth, Omnius observed everything from his legion of transmitting eyes. Watching the frenzied rebels burn buildings and smash facilities, the evermind discovered that he had a troubling blind spot.

Even the most loyal humans could never be trusted. Erasmus had been correct in his assertions all along. And now the maddening robot had fled Earth, abandoning his ransacked villa just ahead of the mobs.

Omnius issued billions of commands, monitoring and instructing his machine forces, rallying them into concentrated attacks on the rampant
hrethgir
. Already, hundreds of thousands of slaves had been butchered. When his robots finally crushed this rebellion, the sheer cleanup would be a major effort.

In the heat of their wild vandalism, the rioters had directed their most extreme hatred against the cymeks. Machines with human minds were, in Omnius’s assessment, problematic and the weakest link in the Synchronized Worlds. Still, the aggressive human brains were useful in circumstances that required extreme cruelty and violence on a level that sentient machines could not attain. A time such as now.

Omnius transmitted urgent commands to all remaining Titans in the vicinity of Earth— to Juno, Dante, and Xerxes, as well as Agamemnon, who was en route back from a fruitless pursuit of his son Vorian. In order to quell this uprising, they were to take whatever action they felt necessary.

Judging from past experience, the Titans should enjoy that assignment.

IN A ROCKY desert on a continent far from the initial revolt, Juno was in the midst of a demonstration of torture-interrogation techniques on live human subjects. Xerxes and Dante carefully monitored the progress, but did not participate directly.

While a crowd of neo-cymeks studied each move, the female Titan stood in her intricate mechanical body in the pit of a teaching arena. Within reach of Juno’s graceful metal arms, a thin young man and a middle-aged woman lay strapped to tables, writhing.

Suddenly, Omnius’s message pulse struck their receiver systems with such force that Juno’s delicate surgical hand jerked, thrusting the needle deep into the brain tissue. The young man fell silent, either dead or comatose. Juno did not take time to find out which. Omnius’s demand required her complete attention.

“We must depart immediately,” she announced.

With a quick movement, Xerxes stabbed a handful of needles into the chest of the human woman. By the time she had ceased twitching, the neo-cymeks had already thundered out of the demonstration pit.

With swift and efficient movements, the three Titans exchanged their delicate torturer bodies for their most magnificent warrior-forms and launched toward the heart of the revolt. . . .

They flew through a sky filled with the black smoke of fires, and set down in a wide square strewn with debris and crowded with shouting rebels. While the crowd tried to scatter, Juno crushed eleven victims beneath the hot hull.

“A fine beginning,” Dante said.

When the trio of Titans emerged, followed by a retinue of smaller neo-cymeks, the rebels hurled stones at them. Juno surged forward with remarkable speed and tore their bodies apart. Xerxes and Dante separated to attack other clusters of resistance. Swarms of rebels tried to surround the cymeks, but the hybrid machines swatted them aside.

None of the slaves’ weapons, not even the combined mass of their bodies, slowed the determined mechanical monsters. The streets ran red, and the air rang with screams. Juno’s olfactory sensors drew in the rich odor of blood, causing her to increase her personal settings for maximum sensory input.

Xerxes lunged into the fray as if he still felt he had something to prove.

Gradually, as the humans realized the futility of their efforts, their new leader Aquim called them back. Rebels retreated into hiding places, and the streets emptied before the cymeks could march through.

Before the day was finished, Agamemnon returned from space, just in time to participate in the frolic. . . .

Monitoring the events through swarms of watcheyes, Omnius felt confident that he could snuff the unrest, as long as he used sufficient force. In this regard, the Titans had been correct all along.

Trust and violence. Such a curious, intriguing relationship between them. One day he would discuss his findings with Erasmus.

With new lessons filling his evermind, the Earth-Omnius finally had just cause to exterminate humans from his Synchronized Worlds. He would make the fragile creatures extinct, once and for all.

According to his projections, the task should not take long.

T
he air and sand smelled of spice, his body smelled of spice . . . the world was spice!

Selim could barely breathe or move as the swell of melange filled his pores, his nostrils, his eyes. He clawed his way up the rusty sand, every motion like swimming through glass. He gulped a deep breath, hoping for fresh air, but instead inhaled only more choking, cinnamon-tinted air. He was drowning in it.

The desert treated its melange as a secret, only rarely shouting it forth in spice blows, scattering the reddish brown powder out onto the dunes. Spice was life. The worms reeked of the stuff.

The young man could move only sluggishly, as if he were suffocating in visions. At the bottom of the trough, he came to a halt, coughing, but the dream images continued to roar through him like the strongest storm wind. . . .

The sandworm was long gone, snaking off through the dunes and leaving Selim where he had fallen. That old man of the desert could have eaten its lost rider, but had not heeded him. It was no accident. Buddallah had brought Selim here, and he hoped to finally find his purpose.

He had ridden the giant worm for hours, guiding it aimlessly through the night and choosing no particular destination. He had grown preoccupied, comfortable . . . foolish.

Unexpectedly, the sandworm had come upon the site of a fresh spice blow. Mysterious chemical reactions and building pressures deep beneath the dunes had reached a critical point, churning and fermenting the melange until the cap layers could no longer contain the pressure. The spice had exploded upward, a pillar of sand and gases and fresh, potent melange.

In the darkness, Selim had not seen the plume, had not been prepared. . . .

Encountering the scene, the sandworm had gone into an uncontrolled frenzy. Apparently maddened by the presence of so much melange, the creature had thrashed and bucked.

Taken by surprise, Selim had clutched his spreaders and ropes. The worm slammed into the ground, pounding the dunes as if the stained sand itself was its enemy. The seizure knocked loose the rider’s metal spear, dislodging the wedge that kept the segments pried apart.

Selim had tumbled away, too stunned even to cry out. He saw the crusty-skinned beast roll beneath him, churning up the spice-laden sands, and then he struck the soft
moist
ground, rolling to absorb the impact.