The Machine Crusade

by Brian Herbert

  She saw her own blood spattered all around — on the deck, on a bulkhead, on the gleeful brain canisters above her. She focused on the tormentor called Xerxes and felt a potent energy surge inside her transformed brain, like a weapon getting ready to discharge. Blue light lanced from her mind to the Titan's, splitting the cymek's canister open, detonating it like an organic bomb and boiling the brain inside.

  Next, she detonated every neo-cymek simultaneously in a glorious backwash of mental energy that evaporated all organic tissue in a wide radius. It was only the beginning of her capabilities.

  Gradually, the hurricane of mental energy subsided, and Norma felt an intense calm and euphoria about her, as if she were alone in the universe… as if she were God, with the act of Creation yet to come.

  Though born of a powerful Sorceress of Rossak, Norma had previously displayed no telepathic aptitude. Yet the incredible torment, combined with the unexpected catalyst of the soostone, had awakened her inborn powers.

  So serene. She could see forever, across millions of galaxies and the heavens. She saw all the way around the universe, until she looked at herself from behind: nothing more than the essence of a mind floating in the air, pulsing and throbbing. Anything, absolutely anything, seemed possible to her now.

  Using the simmering energy available to her, she began to rebuild her body, creating matter out of nothingness, atom by atom, cell by cell. With invisible hands, as if she truly were God, she began to fashion a new physique to contain her consciousness, her powerful, exponentially expanded mind.

  Then she paused to consider alternatives. Certainly her old form was a possibility, or a taller version, with her original features softened just a little, but not too much. She envisioned what she might look like.

  There are other options, of course.

  To Norma, the human body was no more than an organic receptacle, but most people saw it as much more than that. They reacted to others based upon appearances. Aurelius Venport was a notable exception. He saw through the external wrappings to Norma's inner self and her heart, to all that she truly was and wanted to be.

  But he was, after all, only a man. Why should she not make herself beautiful for him, since he had already earned her respect and affection? She held in her mind what she might create now, a lovely image.

  With the cosmic storm flowing through her, Norma felt a sense of urgency as if she was at a critical nexus and needed to decide quickly or the opportunity might be lost forever. Was the decision reversible? Could she change it later? She was not certain. The power would have to rise up in her again.

  Abruptly, the mental images shifted, and in their place she saw her mother Zufa. Tall, pale, and perfect in form and grace. And Norma's maternal grandmother Conqee, one of the greatest Sorceresses in the history of Rossak. The old woman had always remained aloof from stunted, ugly Norma — even more so than her daughter Zufa. Conqee had died mysteriously while on a journey to the Unallied Planets; Norma had been only eight, but in all the years she had never forgotten the aging countenance, still so beautiful and so severe. In her thoughts now, Conqee's pale blue eyes seemed to look completely through her, to something on the other side of existence.

  Abruptly, Norma found herself looking through those eyes herself, at something beyond her grandmother. She envisioned distant stars, planets, and nebulas… and illuminated in the foreground the likenesses of women, one by one, each fading away into another. All of them were classically beautiful, and all looked eerily familiar to her. Norma tried to gain control of the images and lock just one into place, but could not. With a jolt, she realized what she was seeing.

  My own ancestors.

  The revelation astounded her, but she did not doubt its authenticity for a moment.

  The women who preceded me… but only my maternal lineage.

  She struggled again to assume control of the images, but the procession of females faded and appeared, faded and appeared, receding into the past. Back, back, back, but not like the mechanism of a computer searching its databanks. This was entirely different.

  Fear enveloped her. What would she see if she kept going? Had her mind been damaged irreparably in the encounter with the cymeks? Was it spinning out of control?

  Then, like a stack of riffled photos, the images accelerated, and the faces and bodies merged into a composite of all the women in her bloodline, going back thousands of years. Moment by moment, the images shifted in face and form, as if the flesh were being pulled this way and that. Finally the mental pictures stabilized, and she gazed at one person, brilliantly illuminated against the heavenly cosmos.

  At last she had the image she wanted, and it was fitting, since it included an element of her own previous appearance in its faint and ghostly genetic markers. She was the sum total of her ancestry, the exquisite convergence of all generations… though only on the female side.

  Her unseen hands worked swiftly, molding every feature, reshaping her new body with the available cellular material — into an icily beautiful, tall and statuesque female form, more stunning than any other Sorceress of Rossak. Even surpassing Zufa Cenva.

  Her fiercely glowing eyes became a soft, seductive blue. The skin was ivory and creamy smooth over a perfect frame and sensual curves. None of her predecessors on Rossak had ever been able to accomplish anything approaching this. She let it happen, opening cellular doorways that had previously been barricaded to her.

  Finally, she stood perfect and unclothed within the belly of the dead raptor ship. Boosted to supernatural power, the embryonic superbeing Norma Cenva took control of Xerxes's vessel and flew it to an empty but habitable planet near the Rossak solar system, a world known as Kolhar.

  From there, almost home, she sent a telepathic signal across the cosmos, an undeniable summons to her mother.

  A toast to lost friends, forgotten allies, all those we did not appreciate in their lifetimes.

  —Caladan Drinking Song

  And now there were three. Only three out of the twenty conquering rulers from ancient times… the magnificent Titans.

  On the Synchronized World of Ularda, Agamemnon strode in his walker form through the flaming ruins of a slave encampment. The humans here had demonstrated no real threat of a long-standing uprising such as the cancer that had brought down Ix.

  Still, the Titan general took no chances. Any evidence of unrest was dealt with severely. He blasted a globule of concentrated flame gel, igniting a fleeing woman into a candle of human flesh. She took two staggering steps before collapsing into a pile of stripped bones on the ground. Agamemnon strode over her, smashing remnants of her body between his mechanical toes as he searched for additional victims.

  On either side of him the towering machine bodies of Juno and Dante marched across a precise grid, leveling the settlement. Tactically, it was dangerous to have all three Titans together in the same place where they were vulnerable — but the Ularda settlers had been broken long ago, and very little Jihad support had slipped through. After living for nearly eleven centuries, he knew how to recognize trouble.

  Unlike certain other Titans.

  "How could Xerxes have exposed himself to such danger?" he grumbled, his words discernible over the din of crackling fires, screaming victims, and crumbling structures. He amplified his speakerpatch, swiveled his head turret toward Juno's powerful form. "He attacked a Sorceress of Rossak, the daughter of Zufa Cenva? What response did he expect?" With a swipe of his reinforced metal forearms, the angry general leveled a reservoir tower that the slaves had constructed, splashing water through the smoking streets. "The preeminent idiot of all time."

  Dante strolled along, wreaking significant damage in his own right, but almost as an afterthought. "The toll was higher than just Xerxes, though he was arguably the greatest loss. The victims included dozens of neo-cymeks, who were potential recruits for our own rebellion. Especially now, we cannot afford such an immense loss."

  Juno sounded conciliatory, "We can do without them. Our plans wi
ll proceed, just as before."

  "Of course we can do without Xerxes!" Agamemnon responded sharply. "At least it wasn't Beowulf, who has proven himself so useful. We only kept Xerxes around out of loyalty to our own kind, a sense of honor." The great Titan general sighed. "If only Xerxes had found a way to self-destruct earlier."

  Three young humans ducked into a low, half-collapsed structure. Noticing the movement, Agamemnon lurched toward them and blasted the building, but his intended victims escaped deeper inside the questionable shelter.

  Angrily, the Titan general loomed over the building and used his armored limbs to rip off the roof and knock down walls, until he grabbed all three of the troublesome slaves and yanked them into the sunlight, squirming like exposed beetle grubs. He crushed them between his flowmetal fingers, watched their bodily fluids ooze out, and thought about how much more he would have enjoyed it, if Xerxes had not been on his mind.

  Long ago, the cowardly Titan had been a wealthy, pampered prince who understood little about genuine leadership. He had pledged vast, much-needed wealth to Tlaloc's secret, growing rebellion. His resource-rich homeworld, Rodale IX, had later been renamed "Ix."

  Xerxes, overly eager to join the group, had agreed to install Barbar-ossa's corrupted programming into the numerous servant robots on Rodale IX. The new routines and commands needed to be tested, so Xerxes had allowed his planet to be used as a testing ground. When the time came for the huge coordinated revolt to begin across the Old Empire, Xerxes had killed his obese father, the nominal ruler of the planet, and turned over the full resources of Rodale IX to the Twenty Titans.

  From the beginning, Agamemnon had not been convinced of Xerxes's reliability. He had no true political convictions, no consuming passion for the goal. It was just a game to Xerxes, a diversion.

  At the time, Agamemnon had traveled to the Thalim system, where he expressed his concerns to the visionary leader Tlaloc himself. On Tlulax, Tlaloc had worked hard to achieve personal greatness, but found himself disappointed in the Tlulaxa people, who had no important aspirations. They were already cutting themselves off, spurning the hedonism of the Old Empire while refusing to make their own situation better. Disillusioned with his own people, Tlaloc nonetheless believed the best about mankind, insisting that the human race could achieve great things, if only they could be "encouraged" to do so.

  And for that, the Twenty Titans had needed Xerxes's bankroll.

  For the centuries since then, Agamemnon hadn't needed Xerxes anymore, but there had been the matter of Titan honor. No small issue. At least Xerxes was finally out of the way.

  By now, the cymeks had succeeded in destroying the slave encampment on Ularda. No one survived, no structure remained intact. Greasy smoke rose into the sky like filthy, diaphanous pillars.

  Dante and Juno drew close to the general, and he said to them, "Enough planning and complaining. We will wait no longer." He swiveled his head turret, noted agreement from his long-time companions. "I will find the next opportunity to break free of Omnius — and take it."

  A ship cannot proceed toward its destination with two pilots struggling for the controls. One or the other must gain the upper hand quickly, or there will be a crash.

  —Iblis Ginjo, note in the margin of a stolen notebook

  The grand patriarch of the Jihad was not a man to go begging. He demanded respect from everyone, and received it. People pleaded for favors from him as if he were a prince or a king. He made things happen.

  But much had changed in the year since Serena Butler had seized the reins of the Jihad, when she should have remained no more than a figurehead. Iblis had created her, coached her until she became a powerful symbol. Now, ungratefully, she had rebuffed him, distributing his power and control among other Jihad officers. She had even turned down his perfectly reasonable suggestion of a political marriage. It wasn't just a passing phase.

  Serena's recent forthright leadership had only served to shift the focus of the Jihad. Worse, she had gained her own followers, separate from his. The schism was widening, and Serena did not realize that she was contributing more to confusion than to clarity of vision. Despite Iblis's best efforts to convince her, Serena generally ignored him. Often she didn't answer his messages at all, or her responses were short and terse.

  Can't she see that my suggestions are for her own good and for the good of the Jihad?

  Apparently, she could not.

  In a recent appearance before the Jihad Council, Serena had publicly — publicly! — called for Iblis to disclose information about the financial operations of his Jihad Police, implying that he was not being open with the League of Nobles. Such distractions only served to fracture the human effort, diverting attention from the real enemy. This was a time when leadership should be unified, not split.

  Iblis finally decided to do something about it, with whatever allies he could find. Now, more than ever, he needed to demonstrate his capabilities and accomplish things that even the self-important Priestess could not. With any luck, it would help pave his way back to a position of supreme power.

  On the forward observation deck of his private space yacht, he stood watching the stars drift across the empty gulf. He took only his Jipol commandant Yorek Thurr to serve both as the yacht's pilot and as Iblis's personal bodyguard. Thurr was the only other man alive who knew about the cymek Hecate and her offer to assist the Jihad.

  The Titan, in her asteroid body, had caused so much mayhem at Ix that Primero Harkonnen had managed to conquer and hold the important Synchronized World. Without Hecate, the battle for Ix would have been at best another "moral victory" instead of a real one. Now, he needed her to pull off another miracle.

  Thurr's voice came over the yacht's intercom. "I have detected the asteroid, sir, exactly as predicted."

  "At least she's reliable," Iblis said.

  "We are on approach."

  The Grand Patriarch stared out the window, trying to discern which of the billions of glittering pinpoints might be the artificial hunk of space rock. At last, as the yacht approached, he distinguished the shape of the gigantic uneven lump of cratered rock, growing larger with each passing moment. This time, though, Iblis felt no trepidation. He knew exactly what the female Titan could do for him.

  In the initial blush of Jihad fervor, everyone had called on the name of little Manion Butler and revered the valiant mother who had first raised her hand against the thinking machines. But after decades of war, most people were growing tired of the never-ending strife, and longed to go about their personal lives and careers. They wanted to work, raise children, and forget about the ebb and flow of military conflict. What fools they were.

  Despite occasional victories such as Ix, IV Anbus, and Tyndall, he felt the revolt losing its pulse, like an organism dying all around him. The decline came in small and large stages, on small and large planets. Wherever Iblis traveled to deliver inspirational speeches, he saw and felt it. The crowds were losing enthusiasm, slipping from his grasp because they saw no end in sight. People had such woefully short attention spans!

  The Grand Patriarch was desperate to make others see what he himself saw so clearly. Machines wanted to destroy every human — not only on the Synchronized Worlds, but on League Worlds and Unallied Planets as well. Human beings were a nuisance to Omnius and his metal brethren, a threat. Thinking machines and humans could never co-exist on any basis, whether on individual planets or in the entire universe.

  Hecate's asteroid loomed closer, craters yawning open. "Our scanners have located the entry passage, sir," Thurr reported. "Hecate is making contact, welcoming you."

  "Don't waste time with small talk. Take us inside."

  The space yacht slipped easily through a crater opening, and the Titan's tractor beams assisted the pilot in bringing the craft deep into the mirror-walled interior grotto where Iblis had first spoken with Hecate in her dragon-cymek body.

  Iblis emerged from the yacht and marched boldly into the chamber. This time, instead of weari
ng her ornate and intricate, human-sized walker-body, Hecate met him as a shielded preservation canister that held her brain swimming in electrafluid, on a rolling walker form. The protected cylinder adjusted itself to his eye level.

  "I have important business to discuss with you," Iblis said, getting right to the point.

  "Important business? I would not wish to discuss any other kind," Hecate's vibrant mechanical voice said. "After all, am I not your secret weapon?" She seemed particularly pleased with the title.

  Iblis paced nervously as he explained. "The Jihad faces a crisis. In the past year, Serena Butler has taken power away from me. In her wildest dreams, she cannot possibly handle all of the political, military, religious, and social demands of leadership — yet she fails to see this."

  "Ah, so you want her killed? Would that accomplish your purpose?" Hecate sounded miffed. "That seems a waste of my extravagant abilities."

  "No!" he answered quickly, surprising himself. Then he considered the question more carefully. "No. That would not be beneficial in the long run. Serena is beloved by the masses, too important to them."

  "Then how can I help you, dear Iblis?" Hecate's voice sounded musical and intriguingly seductive. "Give me a big enough job to make it worth my while."

  "I need more dear victories against the machines. Genuine showpieces." He stepped closer. "Thanks to you, we successfully reclaimed Ix. Now I need to incorporate more Synchronized Worlds into the League by freeing their human populations. It doesn't matter how strategically important the planets are, I just need something to show. And I need to claim credit for it."

  Hecate made a sound like laughter, with a derisive edge. "In all the centuries I have spent as a cymek, I had forgotten how impatient biological humans can be. And how scheming."

  "For twenty-six years, my impatience, as you so mockingly call it, has constituted the driving force of the Jihad. Serena and her child have only been images, while I have been the working…"

  "Were you about to say machinery?"