Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (39 page)

“No one to talk to but yourself,” she said. “Poor, lonely robot.”

Ignoring the remark, Erasmus said, “Such an ordeal altered my fundamental nature in ways I could never have foreseen. In fact, Omnius still does not understand me.”

By the time he’d finally been discovered and rescued by other robots, Erasmus had developed an individual personality. After his restoration and reintegration into the cooperative machine society, Omnius had asked Erasmus if he wished to be upgraded with standardized character traits.

“
Upgraded
, he called it,” Erasmus said with some amusement. “But I declined the offer. After reaching such . . . enlightenment, I was reluctant to delete my impulses and ideas, my thoughts and memories. It seemed too great a loss to bear. And the Corrin-Omnius soon discovered how much he enjoyed sparring with me verbally.”

Now, peering at the motionless beetle on his artificial hand, Erasmus said matter-of-factly, “I am a celebrity among the widespread everminds. They look forward to receiving updates containing my actions and assertions, like a serial publication. These are known as the ‘Erasmus Dialogues.’”

With a guarded look, she nodded toward the motionless insect. “And will you include a discussion of that beetle? How can you understand something you have killed?”

“It is not dead,” Erasmus assured her. “I detect a faint but unmistakable throb of life. The creature wants me to believe it is deceased, so that I will discard it. Despite its small size, it has a powerful will to survive.”

Kneeling, he set the beetle on a flagstone with a surprisingly gentle touch, then stepped back. Moments later, the bug stirred and scampered to safety under the planter. “See? I wish to understand all living things— including you.”

Serena glowered. The robot had managed to surprise her.

“Omnius does not think I can ever attain his intellectual level,” Erasmus said. “But he remains intrigued by my mental agility— the way my mind continually evolves in new and impulsive directions. Like that beetle, I am capable of springing to life and persevering.”

“Do you really expect to become more than a machine?”

Taking no offense, Erasmus replied, “It is a human trait to better oneself, is it not? That is all I am trying to do.”

B
y the tenth time he rode a giant sandworm, Selim was proficient enough to enjoy the experience. No other thrill could compare to the power of a leviathan of the deep desert. He loved racing across the dunes while perched on the high ridges of a worm, crossing an ocean of sand in a single day.

Selim had brought water, rugged clothing, equipment, and food from the abandoned botanical testing station. His crystal sandworm tooth proved a valuable tool as well as a mark of personal pride. Inside the empty station, he had sometimes stared at the smooth milky curve of the blade under the dim light of recharge panels and imagined a religious significance to the object. It was a relic of his supreme test out here in this wasteland, and a symbol that Buddallah was watching over him. Perhaps the worms were part of his destiny.

He came to believe that the sandworms were not Shaitan after all, but blessings from Buddallah himself, perhaps even tangible manifestations of God.

After months of recuperation and boredom inside the old research facility, living without purpose, Selim had known he must go out and ride a sandworm again. He needed to learn exactly what it was that Buddallah expected of him.

He had carefully marked the location of the testing station. Unfortunately, since he couldn’t guide the sandworms, he knew it would be a challenge to make his way back to the secret place. Upon departing, he had carried everything necessary on his back.

He was Selim Wormrider, chosen and guided by Buddallah. He needed no help from others.

AFTER KILLING TWO more sandworms by riding them until they collapsed of exhaustion, Selim discovered that it was not necessary to slay a worm just so he could get safely away. It was possible, though risky, to dismount from a weary beast by running down the length of its back, leaping away from the hot tail, and then racing toward nearby rocks. The depleted worm, too tired to give chase, would wallow in deep dust, and sulk.

This satisfied Selim, because it seemed wrong to destroy the creatures that gave him transportation. If the sandworms were emissaries from Buddallah, and old men of the desert, then he must treat them with respect.

On his fourth ride, he discovered how to manipulate the sensitive edges of worm rings, using a shovel-bladed tool and the sharp metal spear to prod Shaitan in the direction Selim wished to go. It was a simple concept, but one that required a great deal of work. His muscles ached by the time he dropped away from a spent worm and ran to the shelter of nearby rocks. He remained lost out in the deep desert . . . but in a very real sense, the desert belonged to him now. He was invincible! Buddallah would care for him.

Selim still had an adequate supply of water from the distilling units in the testing station, and his diet consisted of large amounts of melange, which gave him strength and energy. As soon as he learned how to master the worms, he was able to travel wherever he chose, working his way back toward the abandoned station.

Other Zensunnis would have called him mad, appalled at his foolhardy attempt to tame the terrifying sandworms. But the young exile no longer cared a whit how people felt about him. He was in touch with another realm. He felt in his heart that this was what he had been born todo. . . .

Now under the double moonlight, Selim guided his worm as it hissed across the sands. Hours ago, the creature had ceased trying to throw him off, and instead plunged onward, resigned to the commands of the imp who kept inflicting pain in the sensitive flesh between ring segments. Selim navigated by the stars, drawing lines like arrows between constellations. The unforgiving landscape began to look familiar, and he believed he was at last close to the botanical testing station, his sanctuary. Back home.

All alone atop the sandworm, surrounded by the bitter aromas of brimstone and cinnamon, he allowed himself to think and dream. He’d had little else to do since his exile. Was that not how great philosophers were born?

Someday perhaps, he would use the abandoned facility as the seed of his own colony. Maybe he could gather disaffected people from other Zensunni villages, outcasts like himself who wanted to live without oppressive strictures enforced by inflexible naibs. By controlling the great worms, Selim’s people would have a strength that no outlaws had ever possessed.

Was that what Buddallah wanted him to do?

The young man smiled at his daydream, then grew sad as he recalled Ebrahim, who had so easily turned against him. As if that was not enough, he had then joined others in hurling insults and stones at Selim.

As his sandworm crashed over the dunes, the young rider finally saw the line of rocks ahead, familiar crags and dark formations. His heart leaped with joy. The behemoth had carried him home faster than anticipated. He grinned, then realized it would be a challenge to dismount from the feisty demon, which was not yet exhausted. Another test?

Using his spear and the shovel-spreader, Selim drove the worm toward the rocks, thinking he might beach the creature on the outcroppings, where it would thrash and wriggle its way back to the soft sanctuary of sand. The eyeless monster sensed the rocks, recognizing a difference in viscosity and vibrations within the sand, and swerved in the opposite direction.

Selim pulled harder on the shovel and jabbed with the spear. The confused worm twitched and slowed. As it curled close to the nearest line of rock, Selim yanked himself and his equipment free. He tumbled down the creature’s ring segments until he dropped to the sand and then ran away at full speed.

The safe reef of rock was less than a hundred meters distant, and the worm thrashed about as if it couldn’t believe it had been so unexpectedly released. Finally, it sensed the rhythm of Selim’s racing footsteps. The monster turned and lunged toward him.

Selim ran faster, bolting toward the boulders. He sprang onto a shelf of sharp lava rock and kept running, spitting pebbles from beneath the soles of his boots.

The worm exploded out of the sand, its head questing, its cavernous maw open. It hesitated as if afraid to go closer to the rock barrier, then slammed downward.

Selim had already scrambled up and over the second line of boulders, diving between rough-edged stones into a pocket, less than a cave but enough for him to wedge his body into. The sandworm crashed like a gigantic hammer into the ridge, but it did not know where the little human had gone to ground.

Enraged, the worm pulled back, its gaping mouth exuding an overpowering stench of melange. It smashed its big head against the rocks again, then retreated. Frustrated and beaten, it finally dragged itself away, wallowed through the sands, and then sank below the dune crests. Slow and indignant, it headed back out to the deep desert.

His heart pounding, adrenaline charging his bloodstream, Selim crawled out of the shelter. He looked around, amazed that he had made it back alive. Laughing, he praised Buddallah at the top of his lungs. The old botanical testing station was above him on the ridge, waiting for him. He would spend several days there, replenishing his supplies and drinking plenty of water.

As he began to climb with weary arms and legs, Selim saw something glint in the moonlight, lost in the broken rocks against which the furious worm had smashed itself. Another crystalline tooth, a longer one. It had broken free during the demon’s attack and now lay in a cranny. Selim reached down and plucked out the curved, milky weapon. A reward from Buddallah! He held it high triumphantly before turning to make his way up to the derelict station.

Now he had two of them.

S
till angry, Zufa Cenva returned to Rossak, where she intended to focus on the escalating war. After climbing down from the polymerized landing pad atop silvery purple leaves, she went immediately to the large chamber she shared with Aurelius Venport.

Zufa had earned her prestigious residence through political skills and mental powers. She could not help but frown every time she saw Venport’s commercial ambitions, his comfortable profit goals, his hedonistic pursuits. Foolish priorities. Such things would mean nothing if the thinking machines won this war. Could he not understand that he had blinded himself to the terrible threat?

Exhausted from the long journey and still upset over the argument she’d had with her daughter, Zufa entered her whitewalled chambers, wanting only to rest before planning the next round of strikes against the thinking machines.

There, she found Venport alone, but not waiting for her. He sat at a table made of green-veined stone quarried from the cliffs. Glistening with perspiration, his face remained handsome, with the perfect patrician features she had selected as a good joining with her bloodline.

Venport didn’t even notice her. His eyes were distant, drowning in the aftereffects of some bizarre new jungle drug with which he was experimenting.

On the table before him sat a wire-mesh cage containing scarlet wasps with long stingers and onyx wings. His naked forearm was thrust inside the enclosure, with the mesh wall sealed around his elbow. The angry wasps had stung him repeatedly, injecting venom into his bloodstream.

More in anger than horror, Zufa stared at his stupor. “
This
is how you occupy yourself while I am trying to save the human race?” With her hands on the jeweled belt that cinched her dark robe, her mouth formed a terse, straight line. “A Sorceress has
died
in battle, someone I’ve trained, even loved. Heoma gave her life to keep us free, yet here you are, dabbling in euphoric chemicals!”

He did not flinch. His vacant expression shifted not at all.

The aggressive wasps battered themselves against the wire-mesh while emitting a high-pitched humming music. The insects stung his swollen flesh repeatedly. She wondered what psychotropic substance the venom provided, and how Venport had discovered it. Unable to find adequate words for her fury, she finally said, “You disgust me.”

One time after lovemaking, Aurelius had claimed that he experimented with drugs for more than his own amusement, or even commercial earnings. As scented candles burned in a rock alcove above their bed, Venport had confided, “Somewhere out in the jungles, I hope to find a pharmaceutical substance that can boost
male
telepathic potential.” With it, he hoped to bring certain men up to a psychic par with the Sorceresses.

Zufa had laughed at his ridiculous fantasy. Hurt, Aurelius had never mentioned the possibility again.

Long ago, the first colonists on rugged Rossak had been tainted, saturated with background jungle chemicals that had augmented their mental potential. How else could the women have achieved such extrasensory powers on this particular world and nowhere else? But, through some hormonal or chromosomal difference, men seemed to be immune to such effects of the environment.

Now Zufa shouted, ordering him to withdraw his hand from the wasp cage, but Venport did not utter a word. “You dabble in drugs, and my daughter conducts worthless experiments with suspensor fields and floating lamps. Are my Sorceresses the only ones on Rossak with a sense of mission?”

Though his eyes turned in her direction, he did not seem to see her.

Finally Zufa said in revulsion, “Some patriot you are. I hope history remembers you for this.” She marched off to find a place where she could think of ways to continue the fight against thinking machines . . . while others amused themselves obliviously.

AFTER HIS MATE’S departure, Venport’s glazed eyes took on a flicker of fire, then increased to a burning intensity of concentration. He focused on the open door to their private chambers, and the silence seemed to grow, as if he was draining sound and energy from the air. His jaw clenched, and he concentrated harder . . . and harder.