Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (9 page)

Along the parade route, the citizens dressed in colorful raiment of magenta, blue, and yellow. People chattered and pointed as the remarkable stallions passed them, followed by marching musicians and folk dancers on hover-floats. One monstrous Salusan bull, drugged into a near stupor to control it, plodded down the street.

Though Xavier made the best of it all, he found himself constantly glancing at the sky, and at the scars of the wounded city. . . .

At the conclusion of the parade, Manion Butler delivered a speech celebrating the successful defense but acknowledging the high cost of the battle, tens of thousands killed or wounded. “We have much healing and recovery to do, but we also have an unbroken spirit, no matter what the thinking machines may attempt.”

Addressing the crowd, the Viceroy summoned Xavier to the central platform. “I present for you our greatest hero, a man who stood firm against the cymeks and made the
necessary
decisions to save us all. Few others would have been strong enough to do the same.”

Feeling out of place, Xavier stepped forward to receive a military medal on a striped blue, red, and gold ribbon from the Viceroy. In the midst of cheers, Serena kissed him on the cheek. He hoped no one in the crowd could see him blush.

“With this commendation comes a promotion to the rank of Tercero, First Grade. Xavier Harkonnen, I charge you with studying defensive tactics and installations for the entire League Armada. Your duties will encompass the local Salusan Militia, along with responsibility for improving the military security of the entire League of Nobles.”

The young officer felt awkward from the attention, but he graciously accepted the accolades. “I look forward to beginning the hard work of our survival . . . and advancement.” He favored Serena with an indulgent smile. “Following today’s festivities, of course.”

F
or an entire day and deep into the night, the monstrous sandworm raced across the desert, forced beyond its normal territorial range.

As the two moons rose and shone their curious light down upon Selim, he clung to his metal staff, completely exhausted. Though he had escaped being devoured by the wild and confused creature, he might soon perish from the interminable ride. Buddallah had saved him, but now seemed only to be toying with him.

While thrusting the corroded spear, the youth had wedged himself into a gap between worm segments, hoping he wouldn’t be buried alive if the demon plunged beneath the dunes. He huddled against rank flesh that smelled of rotten meat impregnated with pungent cinnamon. He didn’t know what to do, but prayed and contemplated, searching for an explanation.

Perhaps it is a test of some kind.

The sandworm continued to flee across the desert, its undersized brain seemingly resigned to never again finding peace or safety. The beast wanted to wallow into the dunes and hide from this malicious imp, but Selim pried the spear as if it were a lever, irritating the wound anew.

The worm could only surge onward. Hour after hour.

Selim’s throat was parched, his eyes caked with grit. He must have crossed half the desert already, and recognized no landforms on the monotonous open bled. He had never been so far from the cave community— no one had, as far as he knew. Even if he somehow escaped this giant monster, he would be doomed in the unforgiving Arrakis wasteland because of his unjust sentence.

He was certain his faithless friend Ebrahim would be exposed one day, and the truth would come out; the traitor would violate other tribal rules, and would eventually be recognized for the thief and liar that he was. If Selim ever saw him again, he would challenge Ebrahim to a fight to the death, and honor would win out.

Perhaps the tribe would applaud him, since no one in even the grandest fire poems had ever braved a giant sandworm and lived. Maybe the saucy, dark-eyed young Zensunni women would look at Selim with bright smiles. Dust-covered but with his head held high, he would stand before stern Naib Dhartha and demand readmittance to the community. To have ridden a desert demon and
lived!

But, though Selim had already managed to survive longer than he had ever hoped, the outcome was by no means assured. What was he to do now?

Beneath him, the worm made peculiar, agitated noises, an invertebrate sound beyond the loud whisper of hot sand. The weary beast shuddered, and a tremor ran down its sinuous body. Selim could smell flint and an overpowering aroma of spice. Friction-induced furnaces burned inside the worm’s gullet, like the depths of Sheol itself.

As lemony dawn tinged the sky, the worm became more unruly and desperate. It thrashed about, trying to dig itself into the sand, but Selim wouldn’t permit that. The monster slammed its blunt head into a dune, smashing a dust spray into the air. The youth had to throw all of his body weight against the spear, digging into the raw, exposed worm segment.

“You are as sore and exhausted as I am, aren’t you, Shaitan?” he said in a voice as thin and dry as paper.
Almost exhausted unto death
.

Selim didn’t dare let go. The moment he dropped off onto the barren dunes, the sandworm would turn about and devour him. He had no choice but to keep driving the creature. The ordeal seemed endless.

As daylight grew brighter, he noticed a faint haze on the far horizon, a distant storm with winds bearing flakes of sand and dust. But the disturbance was far away, and Selim had other concerns.

At last, the demon worm ground itself to a halt not far from a ridge of rocks, and refused to move. With a final convulsion, it slumped its serpentine head onto a dune crest and lay like a slain dragon, quivering . . . then went utterly still.

Selim trembled with absolute weariness, fearing this was some kind of final trick. The monster might be waiting for him to drop his guard so it could swallow him up. Could a sandworm be devious? Was it truly Shaitan?
Or did I ride it to death?

Gathering his energy, Selim straightened. His cramped muscles trembled. He could barely move. Joints were numb; nerves prickled as they awakened with the creeping fire of restored circulation. At last, risking all, he yanked the metal spear from the pink flesh between the callused segments.

The worm didn’t even twitch.

Selim slid down the rounded bulk and hit the sand running. His boots pumped up little dust clouds as he raced across the undulating landscape. The far-off rocks were black mounds of safety protruding from golden dunes.

He refused to look behind him and ran on, gasping. Each breath was like dry fire in his throat. His ears tingled, anticipating the hiss of sand, the rippling approach of the vengeful creature. But the sandworm remained still.

Filled with desperate energy, Selim sprinted for half a kilometer. Reaching the rock barricade, he scrambled up and finally allowed himself to collapse. Drawing his knees against his chest, he sat gazing out into the wash of daylight, watching the worm.

It never moved.
Is Shaitan playing a trick? Is Buddallah testing me?

By now Selim was very, very hungry. He shouted at the sky, “If you have saved me for some purpose, then why not offer a bit of food?” In the extremity of his exhaustion, he began to chuckle.

One does not make demands of God
.

Then he realized that there was food, of a sort. In his flight to the rock sanctuary, Selim had crossed a thick ochre patch of spice, veins of melange like those the Zensunni sometimes found when they ventured onto the sands. They gathered the substance, using it as a food additive and stimulant. Naib Dhartha kept a small stockpile within the cave warrens, occasionally brewing from it a potent spice beer, which the tribe members consumed on special occasions and traded at the Arrakis City spaceport.

He sat in the uncertain shade for nearly an hour, looking for any sign of movement from the monster. Nothing. The day became hotter, and the desert lapsed into a sluggish silence. The distant storm seemed to move no closer. Selim felt as if the world itself was holding its breath.

Then, growing brash again— after all, he had ridden Shaitan!— Selim crawled down from the rocks and scurried out to the patch of melange. There, he raised a wary gaze in the direction of the ominous hulk.

Standing in the rust-hued sand, he scrabbled with his hands, scooping up the dry red powder. He gobbled it, spat out a few grains of sand, and immediately felt the stimulant of raw spice, a large quantity to take all at once. It made him dizzy, gave him an explosion of energy.

Finally sated, he stood at a distance from the flaccid worm, hands on his hips, glaring. Then he waved his arms, shouting into the utter silence, “I defeated you, Shaitan! You meant to eat me, old crawler, but I conquered you instead!” He waved his hands again. “Can you hear me?”

But he detected not even a flicker. Euphoric from the melange and foolishly brave, he marched back toward the long sinuous body that lay on the dune crest. Only a few footsteps away, he stared up into the face. Its cavernous mouth was studded with glittering internal thorns. The long fangs looked like the tiniest of hairs in relation to the creature’s immense size.

Now the dust storm approached, accompanied by skirling hot breezes. The wind seized grains of sand and fragments of rock, whipping them against his face like tiny darts. Gusts stole around the curved carcass of the worm with a whispery, hooting sound. It seemed as if the ghost of the beast was
daring him
, prodding him forward. The spice thrummed in Selim’s bloodstream.

Boldly, he strode to the worm’s maw and peered into the black infinity of its mouth. The hellish friction-fires inside were cold; not even an ember remained.

He shouted again, “I killed you, old crawler. I am Worm Slayer.”

The sandworm did not respond even to this provocation.

He looked up at the daggerlike fangs, curved shards that lined the wide, smelly mouth. Buddallah seemed to be urging him on, or maybe it was simply his own desire. Moving before common sense could catch up with him, Selim climbed over the lower lip of the worm and reached the nearest sharp tooth.

The young outcast grabbed it with both hands, feeling how hard it was, a material even stronger than metal. He twisted and wrenched. The worm’s body was soft, as if the tissues of its throat were losing integrity. With a suppressed grunt, Selim uprooted the fang. It was as long as his forearm, curved and pure and glistening with milky whiteness. It would make an excellent knife.

He staggered back out, holding his prize, utterly terrified at the realization of what he had done. An unprecedented act, as far as he knew. Who else would have risked not only riding Shaitain, but stepping into its maw? His body trembled to its core. He couldn’t believe what he had dared— and accomplished! No other person on all of Arrakis possessed a treasure such as this tooth-knife!

Although the remaining crystalline fangs hung down like stalactites, hundreds of them that he could sell in the Arrakis City spaceport (if he could ever find the place again), he felt suddenly weak. The rush of the melange he’d consumed was beginning to fade.

He scrambled backward onto the soft sand. The storm was almost on top of him now, reminding him of his Zensunni desert survival training. He must make his way back to the rocks and find some sort of shelter, or he too would soon lie dead upon the dunes, a victim of the elements.

But he no longer thought that would happen.
I have a destiny now, a mission from Buddallah . . . if only I can understand it
.

He backed away, then turned and ran toward the line of rocks, cradling the fang in his hands. The wind nudged him onward as if anxious to get him away from the carcass.

A
gamemnon was not eager to face Omnius. Having already lived more than a thousand years, the cymek general had learned to be patient.

As patient as a machine.

Following their secret rendezvous near the red dwarf star, he and his fellow Titans reached Corrin after an interstellar voyage of nearly two months. The robotic fleet had arrived days before, delivering the battle images captured by the watcheyes. The evermind already knew about the defeat. All that remained was for Omnius to issue rebukes and reprimands, especially to Agamemnon, who had been in command.

As he landed his ship under the blazing giant sun of Corrin, the cymek general reached out with his sensor network, accepting data through his thoughtrodes. Omnius would be waiting, as always, after a mission.

Perhaps by now the evermind would have accepted the failure.

A false hope, Agamemnon knew. The all-pervasive computer did not react in the manner of a human.

Before emerging from his ship, the Titan general chose an efficient mobile body, little more than a streamlined cart that carried his brain canister and life-support systems connected to the framework. The cymek moved out onto the paved boulevards under the enormous baleful eye of the red giant. Harsh crimson light washed the flagstoned streets and white facades.

Millennia ago, the bloated star had expanded, growing so large that its outer layers swallowed the inner planets of the system. Corrin itself had once been a frozen outlying world, but the increased heat from the swollen giant now made the planet habitable.

After the atmosphere thawed and the icy seas boiled away, Corrin’s landscape became a blank slate on which the Old Empire established a colony during its younger, ambitious days. Most of the ecosystem had been transplanted from elsewhere, but even after thousands of years Corrin still seemed an
unfinished
world, missing many of the ecological details necessary for a thriving planet. Omnius and his independent robot Erasmus liked the place because it seemed new and unburdened by the baggage of history.