Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (24 page)

The smooth ship plunged beneath the deep water like a hot iron. The gush of steam was followed by hardly a ripple. Then, concealed by the ocean, the craft glided north toward the coordinates of the rocky island where a nervous Magnus Sumi had built his backup shield transmitters.

“I’d say we’re sufficiently out of sensor range,” Serena said. “We can breathe easy for a while.”

Wibsen cocked an eyebrow. “I hadn’t even started to sweat yet.”

As if to disprove his remark, he fought to control a sudden coughing spasm while he maneuvered the converted blockade runner through the dim underwater currents. The old man cursed his health, cursed the implanted medical injector in his chest.

“Commander, don’t jeopardize this mission because of your stubborn pride,” Serena scolded.

The ship pitched to one side and creaked. Behind a bulkhead something fizzed. “Damn water turbulence!” Red-faced, Wibsen kept the blockade runner under control, then turned back to glare at Serena. “Right now I’m just the chauffeur. I can relax as soon as I drop you off.”

The vessel cruised beneath the surface for an hour, deep enough to avoid any floating chunks of ice from the polar regions, and finally guided them toward a sheltered bay. On the cockpit screens, the approaching island looked stark and rocky, all black cliffs and ice. “Doesn’t look like much of a resort to me,” Wibsen said.

Brigit Paterson said, “Magnus Sumi didn’t choose the site for its beauty. From here, a polar projection is simple and efficient. Coverage from these transmitters is good for all the inhabited land masses.”

Wibsen brought the blockade runner to the surface. “I still think it’s an ugly place.” As he guided them into the deep harbor embraced by a crescent of cliffs, he began to cough again, louder and worse than before. “Damned ridiculous timing.” He looked more annoyed than distressed. “We’re on auto-guide, still on course. Get Jibb over here to fly for a while. This is his home territory after all.”

Curly-haired Pinquer Jibb looked at the approaching island complex, seemingly disappointed that the Home Guard refugees hadn’t already completed the work. He took the controls from the veteran and brought the blockade runner to the island’s abandoned quays and loading docks. After they had clamped into place, he opened the hatches.

Purplish dawn spread like a bruise across the northern sky. Breathing the fresh but biting air, Serena stood in warm clothes with her team members. The rocky island looked forbidding and seemed completely deserted.

More heartwarming, though, was the set of silvery towers with parabolic sides and metal-lattice grids. Ice and frost rimed the structures, but they appeared untouched by the thinking-machine invaders.

“Once we switch those on, the robots won’t know what hit’em,” Wibsen said, hauling himself out into the open, looking somewhat recovered. He blew a lungful of white steam onto his hands.

Serena kept looking at the towers, a sweeping expression of hope and determination on her face. Brigit Paterson nodded, all business. “Even so, we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

S
taring at fourteen of the strongest and most dedicated young Sorceresses Rossak had ever produced, Zufa Cenva understood that these women were not the sole hope for humanity. They were not the
only
weapon against the terrible cymeks, not the most powerful blow the League could strike. But they were critical to the war effort.

Zufa stood in the fleshy underbrush with her trainees and looked at them with compassion and love. No one in all the League Worlds was more confident of success or devoted to victory. Her heart seemed ready to burst as she saw them focusing every scrap of energy toward the ultimate goal. If only everyone else could be as intent, the thinking machines would be defeated in short order.

As she had done for months now, Zufa led her elite group into the jungle where they could practice their skills and summon the power within their spirits. Each of these women was the equivalent of a psychic warhead. Zufa, blessed from birth with more talents than any of them, had been sharing her methods, pushing the others to their limits. She had patiently taught them how to unleash incredible telepathic abilities . . .and how to exercise control. The women had performed admirably, beyond Zufa’s most optimistic forecasts.

But they must make their effort stand for something.

Now she sat on a fallen silvery-barked log that was overgrown with a thick cushion of shelf fungus. The canopy was dense with shadows that interlocked high overhead. Dark purple foliage filtered the caustic rainwater so that droplets trickling like tears to the mulchy ground were fresh and drinkable. Large insects and spiny rodents tore through the soil layers, oblivious to the testing the Sorceresses were about to begin.

“Concentrate. Relax . . . but be prepared to
focus
with all your might, when I command you to do so.” Zufa looked at the women, all of them tall and pale, with translucent skin and shining white hair. They looked like guardian angels, luminous beings sent to protect humanity against the thinking machines. Could there be any other reason why God had granted them such mental powers?

Her gaze moved from face to determined face: Silin, the bold, impulsive one; creative Camio, who improvised forms of attack; Tirbes, still discovering her potential; Rucia, who always chose integrity; Heoma, with the most raw power . . . and nine others. If Zufa were to ask for a volunteer, she knew all of her chosen Sorceresses would demand the honor.

It was her task to select who would be the first martyr among them. Xavier Harkonnen was already anxious to depart for Giedi Prime.

She loved her trainees as if they were her children . . . and in a very real sense, they were, for they were following her methods, maximizing their potential. These young women were so different from her own Norma. . . .

Facing the chief Sorceress, the fourteen stood together, apparently content and calm, but coiled within. Their eyes fell half closed. Their nostrils flared as they breathed, counting heartbeats and using innate biofeedback skills to alter bodily functions.

“Begin to build the power in your mind. Feel it like the static electricity before a lightning storm.” She saw their expressions flicker as their thoughts stirred.

“Now increase the power one bit at a time. Envision it in your brain, but do not lose control. One step, then another. Feel the energy amplifying— but do not release it. You must maintain your hold.”

Around her in the dimness of the fungoid jungle, Zufa felt the energy crackling, building. She smiled.

Zufa sat back on her log, feeling weak but not daring to show it. Her recent difficult miscarriage, expelling Aurelius Venport’s monstrous child, had left her drained. But there was so much work to do, so much she could not delay or delegate. The League Worlds were depending upon her, especially now.

Everyone had high expectations of the most powerful Sorceress, but Zufa Cenva placed an even greater burden upon herself. At every turn, her plans and dreams had been hamstrung when people refused to expend the effort or take the necessary risks. These eager, talented trainees seemed different, though, and she assured herself that they would perform up to her standards. Too often when she measured other people, she found them wanting.

“Another notch,” she said. “Intensify your power. See how far it can go, but always be careful. An error at this point would wipe us all out— and the human race cannot afford to lose us.”

Psychic energy pulsed higher. The Sorceresses’pale hair began to drift upward as if gravity had failed. “Good. Good. Keep it going.” Their success delighted her.

Zufa had never been interested in self-aggrandizement. She was a stern and difficult taskmistress, with little patience or sympathy for the failings of others. The chief Sorceress did not need wealth and profit like Aurelius Venport, or accolades like Tio Holtzman, or even a show of attention like Norma seemed to desire by convincing the Savant to take her as his apprentice. If Zufa Cenva was impatient, she had a right to be. This was a time of great crisis.

The underbrush stirred as native insects and rodents scampered away from the pounding psychic waves that built to a crescendo. Trees rustled, leaves and twigs fluttering as if trying to break away from their parent stalks and flee the jungle. Zufa narrowed her eyes and studied her students.

Now they were reaching the most dangerous part. The mental energy had increased until their bodies began to shimmer and glow. Zufa had to use her own skills to erect a protective barrier against the combined psychic pressure on her mind. One slip and all would be lost.

But she knew these dedicated apprentices would never make such a mistake. They understood the stakes and the consequences. Zufa’s heart ached as she gazed upon them.

One trainee, Heoma, displayed more strength than her companions. She had built her power to a higher level while still maintaining control. The destructive force could easily have become a wildfire in her brain cells, but Heoma held onto it, staring with unseeing eyes as her hair whipped like a storm.

Suddenly, out of dense branches high above, a thick-bodied slarpon dropped, a scaly creature with needle teeth and thick body armor. It tumbled among the young women with a crash, disturbed from its predatory perch and maddened by the backwash of mental energy. All muscle and cartilage, it thrashed, snapping with powerful jaws and scrabbling with thick talons.

Startled, Tirbes twitched— and Zufa felt an uncontrolled surge of power spouting like a released jet of fire. “No!” she cried and reached out, summoning her own powers to blanket the student’s slip. “Control!”

Heoma, with perfect calm, pointed toward the slarpon as if she were erasing a smudge on a magnetic board. She drew a line of psychic destruction across the scaly predator. The slarpon burst into white-hot flames, thrashing as its bones turned to charcoal, its skin crackling and tearing until it flaked off in puffs of ash. Flames smoldered out of its now-empty eye sockets.

Heoma’s companions struggled to clamp down and exert their mental forces. But they had been distracted at a critical moment and were losing their slippery grips on their telepathic battering rams. Steadfastly, Heoma and Zufa maintained a superhuman calmness in their midst, a stark contrast to their frenzied efforts. The combined psychic force rippled and undulated.

“Back down,” Zufa said, her lips trembling. “Ease the power away. Draw it into yourself. You must retain it and reel it back into your minds. It is a battery, and you must maintain its charge.”

She breathed deeply, saw that all of her psychic warriors were doing the same. One by one they inhaled, and gradually the tingle in the air dissipated as they began to dampen their constant efforts.

“Enough for now. This is the best you’ve ever done.” Zufa opened her eyes and saw her students all staring back at her, Tirbes pale and frightened, the others amazed at how close they had come to self-annihilation. Heoma, an island apart, looked entirely unrattled.

In a broad circle around them, the soft fungal underbrush was curled and singed. Zufa studied the blackened foliage, fallen twigs, and shriveled lichens. Another instant, a hair’s breadth less control, and everyone would have been vaporized in a ball of telepathic flames.

But they had survived. The test had succeeded.

After the tension finally evaporated, Zufa allowed herself a smile. “I am proud of all of you,” she said, and meant it. “You . . . my weapons . . . will be ready as soon as the Armada arrives.”

A
t Tio Holtzman’s extravagant house, high on a bluff, Norma Cenva spent three exhilarating days settling into her expansive laboratory space. She had so much to do, so much to learn. Best of all, the Savant was eager to listen to her ideas. She couldn’t have asked for more.

Quiet Poritrin seemed so different from the dense, dangerous jungles and lava-rock canyons of Rossak. She was anxious to explore the streets and canals of Starda, which she could see from her high windows.

Tentatively, she asked Holtzman for permission to go down to the river, where she had seen many people performing some kind of work. She felt guilty for even asking, rather than working tirelessly on a means to fight the thinking machines. “My mind is a little tired, Savant, and I am curious.”

Instead of looking at her skeptically, the scientist wholeheartedly endorsed the idea, as if pleased to have an excuse to accompany her. “I remind you that we are paid to
think
, Norma. We can do that anywhere.” He shoved aside a sheet of doodles and sketches. “Perhaps a bit of sightseeing will inspire you to a work of genius. One can never know when inspiration might strike, or where.”

He led her down a steep stairway that clung to a cliff over the Isana. As she stood beside the taller man, Norma inhaled deeply of the river’s smell, sour and peaty from silt and vegetation dragged down from the highlands. For the first time in her life, she felt giddy with her own possibilities; the Savant was genuinely interested in her imagination, her mind, and he listened to her suggestions, unlike the constant scorn she had received from her mother.

Norma raised an idea that had occurred to her that morning. “Savant Holtzman, I have studied your scrambler shields. I believe I understand how they function, and I’ve been wondering if it might be possible to . . . extend them somehow.”

The scientist showed guarded interest, as if afraid she might criticize his invention. “Extend them? They already stretch across planetary atmospheres.”

“I mean a different application entirely. Your scramblers are purely a defensive concept. What if we used the same principles in an
offensive
weapon?” She watched his expression, detected puzzlement but a willingness to listen.