Sisterhood of Dune (65 page)

Even as he imagined being one of the neo-cymeks, he realized that Elchan would have scolded him for such hubris. Ptolemy’s whole life had been devoted to progress and the betterment of civilization, never to personal glory. Yet now, he knew that if he succeeded with what he had in mind, great fame and widespread admiration could very well be his. If he survived, and people understood.

The veteran researcher moved one of the six legs forward, followed by another, and then another. It was a complicated task to walk in the apparatus, not at all intuitive, and it amazed him that the cymeks had ever been able to operate their machine bodies so fluidly, and in such a wide range of configurations with legs and grappling arms, rolling treads, and even wings.

Anxious to practice with the modified machine, and to see what he might discover and salvage out on the hostile landscape, Ptolemy sealed off the lab hangar, depressurized it, and used a remote signal to open the bay doors. Greenish fumes roiled into the hangar module.

Peering through the plaz windows of his control cab, he set the jointed legs in motion. Delicately at first, and gradually with more confidence, he plodded out onto the boulder-strewn expanse among the Denali research modules. The veil of toxic clouds gave the surroundings a distorted, dreamlike appearance. The light glowing from the research modules was fuzzed by the mist.

Adjusting to the rolling, synchronized movement of three pairs of legs, Ptolemy crossed the flat landing field where shuttles dropped off supplies, and then he ventured beyond the vicinity of the research facility.

Years ago, while building this secret outpost at an old cymek base, technicians in environment suits had scouted a kilometer around the facility, but had done little actual exploring farther away. This facility’s mission was to conduct important research projects far from the prying eyes of the Butlerians; few of the scientists were interested in mapping an inhospitable world. Josef Venport certainly didn’t care about the scenery on Denali. Ptolemy, though, was focused on trying to locate any remnants of the old cymeks, technology that he might put to use.

As the machine body strode away from the fading lights of the lab domes, he activated his illuminators. Bright eyes stabbed cones of light into the swirling chlorine fumes. At the top of a low rise, he came upon a junkyard of cymek bodies, large mechanical forms strewn about like carrion on a battlefield. They had dropped in their tracks, like the bones of prehistoric beasts that had come to a special graveyard to die. For him, it was a treasure chest.

He halted the clumsy footsteps of the machine legs and stared in awe and delight, imagining all of those warrior forms functioning again, a resurrected army of them. Such a force could stand against any mob of Butlerians! Ptolemy realized he was grinning: If Manford Torondo came to destroy the Denali facility, he would find it defended by his greatest nightmares.

Even sprawled on the rocks and deactivated, the walker forms looked fearsome. Ptolemy recalled stories about the Titan Ajax, whose machine body had slaughtered entire populations that rebelled against him. Across the screen of his imagination, he envisioned cymek machines grabbing the superstitious Butlerians, the Swordmasters, anyone intent on mindless destruction.

Inside the sealed cab, he worked the controls and clumsily raised the front jointed leg of his walker, lifted a clawlike footpad, and closed it. In his mind, he pictured grasping the torso of Anari Idaho and crushing her. He imagined that Manford’s savages would throw themselves upon the walker bodies, crawling over them like lice, pummeling and smashing. But it would do the fanatics no good. These cymek walkers were far too powerful.

If he’d only had access to a mechanical body such as this earlier, he could have killed all the Butlerians who raided his research facility on Zenith … and even if he hadn’t gotten into the body in time to save the life of Elchan, he might have forced the legless Manford Torondo to watch the slaughter of Butlerians, just as the vile man had made Ptolemy witness the horrible death of his closest friend.

Now as he operated the external controls from the enclosed cab, he realized that his limbs and grasping hands were far too clumsy for a swift and fluid battle. He would need to find a direct neural interface so that he—and any other defenders of civilization—could operate the machines with the proper finesse.

He plodded past the cymek graveyard and went farther along the ridge to where the murky gases cleared. There he found collapsing structures, along with a hundred more armored walkers. Ptolemy intended to make great use of this windfall—a new defense that would enable rational humans to stand up to the madmen who wanted to plunge civilization into a Dark Age.

He raised his walker body high, extending the front pair of legs like a man raising his fists and cursing the gods.

He who is willing to use an evil tool is himself evil. There are no exceptions.

—
MANFORD TORONDO,
The Only Path

Showing complete faith in the Mentat’s prediction, Manford guided his warships to the Thonaris star system. He was impressed by, and somewhat afraid of, the way Gilbertus Albans could assemble mountains of facts and tease out patterns based only on subtle hints. Mentat thought processes reminded him of sorcery or sophisticated computer processes—either of which raised equivalent concerns. The Headmaster asserted that he was merely demonstrating how the human mind was equivalent to any computer.

Though Gilbertus did show an unacceptable underlying admiration for thinking machines, as demonstrated by the disturbing comments he had made to his class, Manford had come to the conclusion that the Mentats and Butlerians were natural allies, fighting on the same side.

Inside his private cabin aboard the lead Ballista class ship, Manford continued to read horrifying passages from the Erasmus logbooks. The independent robot’s cruel descriptions of the tortures and experiments he had inflicted on countless humans, along with his bizarre and repulsive ruminations about the data he collected, only increased Manford’s fear and disgust. People no longer grasped how unspeakably evil the thinking machines were, and Erasmus was by far the worst of them all.

Though Manford had denied him before, the Butlerian leader had decided that Gilbertus Albans was an important ally, and now he showed Gilbertus the robot’s journal. He pointed out some of the most egregious of the revelations. “You can see how insidious this is. Every word is proof of what we are fighting against. Erasmus says it himself—‘
Given enough time, they will forget … and will create us all over again.
’”

Gilbertus paled as he examined the dense pages. Using his Mentat abilities, he instantly memorized the words. “Reading this frightens me,” he admitted. The Headmaster was a quiet man preoccupied with running his school and training his students; he still did not seem comfortable about joining this expedition, despite the celebratory mood aboard the ships. Citing a need for meditation to prepare for the upcoming battle, he asked Manford’s permission to be excused, and retreated to his quarters.

The standard FTL ships had been racing across space for the better part of a week. Since the Thonaris outpost was a long-dead manufacturing center, the Butlerians did not feel enough urgency to risk using the unpredictable spacefolding engines. During the journey to the distant system, anticipation and excitement mounted among the Butlerians, like hot moisture filling a steam bath.

Manford had begun to feel, though, that simply bashing another pile of already-dead machines was a hollow victory, and it meant far less than his followers thought it did. Still, the more Manford allowed his zealots to destroy straw-man enemies, the more they would be willing to follow him when he called for similar action against less obvious enemies like Machine Apologists, who tried to rationalize the use of some thinking machines. His followers were a weapon he could aim and fire. He would let the destruction of the Thonaris shipyards be a pressure-release valve, and a unifying act.

The mind of man is holy.

When the ships arrived in the star system, they found the thinking-machine base exactly where the Mentat had predicted. But Manford was astounded to see not a silent and frozen outpost, but a bustling center of industrial activity, manufacturing complexes full of automated assembly lines that fabricated metal hull plates and structural components, spewing heat and exhaust plumes. Huge construction docks hung above broken planetoids, where innumerable ships were even now being built.

His fellow observers on the bridge let out a collective gasp, Gilbertus Albans among them. Thirty armed patrol ships guarded the facilities, and Anari Idaho was the first to spot the sigil of the VenHold Spacing Fleet on their hulls. At least fifteen other VenHold ships were visible at the complex. Though the Butlerian vessels far outnumbered the enemy’s, the VenHold patrol ships lined up to face Manford’s fleet.

A pompous voice came across the transmission line. “Attention intruders: This facility is owned and operated by Venport Holdings. You are not welcome here.”

Disturbed by the man’s confident attitude, Manford responded, “This facility is a haven of illegal thinking-machine technology. All these ships, factories, and materiel are forfeit. We intend to destroy them.” He touched his lower lip and added, “You may evacuate your personnel, or not, as you wish. It is your choice.”

A few moments later, Directeur Venport himself appeared on the screen. “How dare you interfere with my legitimate operations? I don’t recognize your authority. You are trespassing on Venport property.”

In the meantime, Anari Idaho ran through a series of scans. As Manford and Venport continued to glare at each other across the screens, she said, “He has reactivated fourteen of the robotic manufacturing facilities. It looks like the machines are working for him. He will probably rewaken the rest, if given the chance.”

The Butlerian leader felt sickened. “Josef Venport, I don’t know whether to consider you appallingly foolish or simply evil.”

Venport hardened his expression. “Turn your barbarians around and depart immediately, or I will file a formal complaint with the Landsraad League, and withhold all transportation services to any planet that does not denounce you. I shall also demand legal reparations—every credit, plus punitive damages. More than enough to bankrupt you and put an end to your silly operations.”

Anari looked as if she wanted to skewer the comm screen with her sword, but Manford tried to remain outwardly calm. “My ships have had their instructions since we departed from Lampadas. File any complaint you like, but we
will
destroy these facilities today.” He switched off the comm, then issued orders for his front line of armed ships to target three of the reactivated robotic factories.

Gilbertus Albans turned pale. “Shouldn’t you give him time to evacuate personnel?”

“I will not destroy his administration hub or his VenHold ships, but those are robotic industrial facilities. Anyone who chooses to reawaken the thinking-machine operations is already damned by God. We will destroy the rest if he does not surrender.”

When the Butlerian fleet launched a volley at the three automated machine complexes, the obliteration was quite spectacular. Fuel tanks and compressed gases exploded; flying chunks of debris caromed off other domes and shattered sealed canisters.

The comm system lit up once more, and Anari reported, “Josef Venport wishes to speak with you again.”

“I thought as much.” Manford gestured to accept the transmission.

Venport looked apoplectic. “You monster, what have you done? I had
people
over there! And I have people in the other facilities as well.”

“I offered you the chance to evacuate. You’ve already lost. We have more than two hundred vessels—do you intend to return fire with your handful of patrol ships? I will respond to any act of aggression by destroying them, as well.”

“You are an ignorant man, Torondo,” Venport said.

“On the contrary, I consider myself intelligent and generous—especially now. Those who chose to work in this shipyard complex were led astray, but some of them might yet be saved. As I said before, I will allow you to evacuate personnel. Will three ships be sufficient to hold them? You have one hour. Gather anyone you wish to save, load them aboard the vessels, and we will receive them as prisoners before we recommence the cleansing of this place. Your own crimes, Directeur Venport, will be addressed later—after we remove this blight.”

Can a knife cut as deeply as one’s conscience?

—
VORIAN ATREIDES,
Arrakis journals

The Freemen stood in a loose circle inside the rock-walled chamber; the fates of the two men had already been decided. Naib Sharnak glowered at the pair, but he obviously regarded Griffin Harkonnen as irrelevant and placed most of the blame on Vorian Atreides.

And Vor accepted it. He could not burn away the memory of Ishanti’s expression as she came to the inevitable conclusion that he could not save her … and that he wouldn’t give up. She had thrown herself to the worm and refused to let herself be rescued, fearing it would cost all of their lives.

Sharnak shook his head. “I don’t know what value Ishanti found in your company, but she was wrong. You have cost a good woman her life.”

Standing next to Vor, the young Harkonnen seemed crushed by what he had been through. Griffin had followed a fool’s quest, swept along by circumstances that he obviously had not understood or prepared for. “You should have let me die out there,” he mumbled. “I didn’t ask to be rescued—especially by you.”

Vor could not blame the young man for trying to escape, despite what the attempt had cost. “That wasn’t your decision,” he said. “It was mine and Ishanti’s.”

“Letting you die out there would have saved us a lot of trouble, and saved that woman’s life,” the Naib said.

Left alone in the skimcraft out in the desert, Vor should have flown away and dropped Griffin at some distant settlement from which he could find his way back to Arrakis City. But the other Freemen aircraft had closed in, and even though Vor could have tried to outfly them, he had come back to the cave encampment. It was a matter of honor.