“I miscalculated,” Agamemnon admitted. “The humans have a clever military commander. His unexpected decisions allowed them to mount a successful resistance. Now, at least, we have tested their scrambler fields.”
Agamemnon’s explanations rapidly degenerated into a succession of rationalizations and excuses. Omnius analyzed and dismissed them, leaving the Titan feeling bare and humiliated.
In the serene courtyard, bright flowers bloomed and birds sang. Trickling fountains added their musical sounds…and Agamemnon contained his outrage within himself. Even his sensitive mechanical body showed no sign of agitation. A thousand years ago, he and his fellow Titans had controlled these damnable thinking machines. We created you, Omnius. One day, we will also destroy you.
While it had taken the visionary Tlaloc and his group of rebels only a few years to conquer the sleepy Old Empire, Omnius and his thinking machines proved to be a far superior adversary, never sleeping, always watching. But even machines made mistakes. Agamemnon just needed to exploit them.
“Is there anything else, Lord Omnius?” he interrupted. Further arguments and excuses would serve no purpose. Above all else, machines craved efficiency.
“Only my next set of instructions, Agamemnon.” The Omnius voice moved from speaker to speaker, giving the impression that he was everywhere at once. “I am dispatching you and your Titans back to Earth. You will accompany Erasmus, who intends to continue his studies of captive humans there.”
“As you command, Lord Omnius.” Though surprised, Agamemnon showed no reaction. Earth…a very long journey. “We will determine other ways to destroy this blight of humanity. The Titans exist only to serve you.”
It was one of the few advantages of Agamemnon’s human side: Even though the evermind was filled with a vast quantity of data, Omnius did not know how to recognize a simple lie.
From a certain perspective, defense and offense encompass nearly identical tactics.
—XAVIER HARKONNEN,
address to Salusan Militia
New duties, new responsibilities…and more good-byes.
As a mostly recovered Xavier Harkonnen stood with Serena Butler inside the Zimia Spaceport, the departure facility seemed a sterile environment with echoing plaztile floors. Even the warmth of Serena’s expression did not compensate for the utilitarian structure. Window walls looked out onto the fused pavement where shuttles took off and landed every few minutes, going to and from the larger long-distance ships that waited in orbit.
In one wing of the spaceport, work crews shored up sections of a hangar damaged during the cymek attack. Large cranes lifted temporary walls and braces into place. Out on the landing field, huge blast craters had been filled in.
Dressed in a crisp gold-and-black Armada uniform reflecting his new grade, Xavier gazed deeply into Serena’s unusual lavender eyes. He knew how she saw him. His facial features were not particularly striking—ruddy complexion, pointed nose, generous lips—but overall she found him attractive, especially the soft brown eyes and his infectious, though rarely used, smile.
“I wish we could spend more time together, Xavier.” She fingered a white rose floweret on her lapel. The spaceport drone of other people, noisy repair crews and heavy machinery surrounded them.
Xavier noticed Serena’s younger sister Octa watching them. A seventeen-year-old with long strawberry-blond hair, she’d always had a crush on Xavier. Willowy Octa was a nice enough girl, but recently he wished she would give him and Serena a little more privacy, especially now that they would be apart for so long.
“So do I. Let’s make these minutes count.” Surrendering to the urge he knew they both shared, he leaned forward to kiss her, as if his lips were drawn by a magnetic force. The kiss lingered, then grew intense. At last Xavier pulled back. Serena looked disappointed, more with the situation than with him. They both had important duties, demands on their time and energy.
Newly installed in his position, Xavier was about to embark with a group of military specialists on an inspection tour of League planetary defenses. After the nearly successful cymek strike against Salusa two months ago, he would make certain there were no weaknesses on other League Worlds. The thinking machines would exploit the tiniest flaw, and free humans could not afford to lose any of their remaining strongholds.
Serena Butler, meanwhile, would focus on expanding the League domain. After the battlefield surgeons had been so successful with the fresh tank-grown organs provided by Tuk Keedair, Serena had spoken passionately about the services and resources the Unallied Planets such as Tlulaxa could provide. She wanted them to formally join the union of free humans.
Already, more flesh merchants had arrived on Salusa with their biological wares; previously, many nobles and League citizens had been uneasy about the mysterious outsiders, but now that the war-wounded faced terrible losses of limbs and organs, they were willing to accept cloned replacement parts. The Tlulaxa never explained where they had developed or obtained such sophisticated biological technology, but Serena praised their generosity and resources.
At any other time, her speech in the Hall of Parliament might have been forgotten, but the cymek attack had underscored her point about the vulnerability of the Unallied Planets. What if the machines next chose to wipe out the Thalim system and thereby eliminate the Tlulaxan ability to give sight to blind veterans, new limbs to amputees?
She had studied hundreds of survey documents and ambassadorial reports, trying to determine which of the nonsignatory planets were the best candidates for induction into the League brotherhood. Unifying the remnants of humanity had become her passion, to make the free people strong enough to put down any machine aggression.
Despite her youth, she had already led two successful aid missions, the first when she was only seventeen. In one she had taken food and medical supplies to refugees from an abandoned Synchronized World, and in the other she had provided relief for a biological blight that almost destroyed the pristine farms on Poritrin.
Neither she nor Xavier had time for themselves.
“When you return, I promise I will make it up to you,” she said, her eyes dancing. “I’ll give you a banquet of kisses.”
He allowed himself a rare laugh. “Then I plan to arrive very hungry indeed!” Xavier took her hand and kissed it gallantly. “When we dine again, I shall come calling with flowers.” He knew their next rendezvous could be months away.
She gave him a warm smile. “I have a particular fondness for flowers.”
He was about to pull Serena close, but they were interrupted by a familiar brown-skinned child coming from another direction—Xavier’s eight-year-old brother, Vergyl Tantor. The boy had been permitted to leave school to see him off. Breaking free of an elderly instructor escort, Vergyl ran to hug his idol, nuzzling his face into the crisp uniform shirt.
“Take care of our estate while I am gone, little brother,” Xavier said, playfully rubbing his knuckles on the boy’s wiry hair. “You are in charge of tending my wolfhounds—you understand?”
The boy’s brown eyes widened, and he nodded gravely. “Yes.”
“And obey your parents, otherwise you can’t hope to grow up to become a good officer in the Armada.”
“I will!”
An announcement summoned the inspection team to board the shuttle. Hearing it, Xavier promised to bring something back for Vergyl, Octa, and Serena. While Octa watched from a distance, smiling hopefully, he hugged his little brother again, squeezed Serena’s hand, and strode off with the officers and engineers.
Staring at the window wall where they could watch the waiting military shuttle, Serena glanced down at the boy and thought of Xavier Harkonnen. Xavier had been only six years old when thinking machines had killed his natural parents and his older brother.
Because of interfamily agreements and the written wills of Ulf and Katarina Harkonnen, young Xavier had been raised as the foster son of powerful and then-childless Emil and Lucille Tantor. The noble couple had already made
arrangements for their holdings to be administered by Tantor relatives, distant cousins and nephews who would not normally have inherited anything. But when Emil Tantor began to raise Xavier, he was quite taken with the orphan and legally adopted him, though Xavier retained his Harkonnen name and all associated noble rights.
After the adoption, Lucille Tantor unexpectedly conceived a son, Vergyl, who was twelve years younger than Xavier. The Harkonnen heir, not worried about dynastic politics, concentrated on a course of military studies, intending to join the League Armada. At the age of eighteen Xavier received the legal entitlement to the original Harkonnen holdings, and a year later he became an officer in the Salusan Militia. With his impeccable performance and rapid promotions, everyone could see Xavier was a rising star in the military ranks.
Now three people who cared about him watched the shuttle lift into the sky on a plume of orange exhaust. Vergyl held Serena’s hand, bravely trying to comfort her. “Xavier will be all right. You can count on him.”
She felt a pang for her departing love, but smiled warmly at the wide-eyed boy. “Of course we can.”
She would have it no other way. Love was one of the things that separated humans from machines.
The answer is a mirror of the question.
—COGITOR KWYNA,
City of Introspection archives
The temporary meeting chamber for the League delegates had originally been the home of the first Viceroy, Bovko Manresa. Before the Titans had taken over the weak Old Empire, Manresa had built the mansion on then-isolated Salusa Secundus as a way of celebrating wealth garnered from his planetary land dealings. Later, when refugee humans began arriving, driven out by the cruel rule of the Twenty Titans, the big house had become a meeting hall, with chairs and a lectern set up in the grand ballroom, as they were today.
Months ago, within hours of the cymek attack, Viceroy Butler had stood on a pile of rubble beneath the broken central dome of the Hall of Parliament. While the poisonous dust settled in the streets and fires still blazed in damaged buildings, he had vowed to repair the venerable old facility that had served the League for centuries.
The governmental edifice was more than just a building: It was hallowed ground on which legendary leaders had debated great ideas and formulated plans against the machines. The damage to the roof and upper floors was severe, but the basic structure remained sound. Just like the human spirit it represented.
It was a frosty morning outside, with fog on the windows. Leaves on the hills had begun to turn lovely autumn shades of yellow, orange, and brown. Serena and the representatives came inside the temporary meeting hall, still clinging to their coats.
She gazed at the walls of the crowded old ballroom, at paintings of long-dead leaders and depictions of past victories. She wondered what the future would bring, and what her place might be in it. She wanted so badly to do something, to help in the great crusade of humankind.
Most of her life she had been an activist, always willing to get her hands dirty, to assist in aiding the victims of other tragedies such as natural disasters or machine attacks. Even during pleasant times, she had joined the work crews of harvesters to pick grapes from the Butler estate vineyards or olives from the gnarled groves.
She took a seat in the first row, then watched as her soft-featured father made his way across the wood parquet floor to the antique lectern. Viceroy Butler was followed by a monk in a red-velvet tunic carrying a large plexiplaz container that held a living human brain in viscous electrafluid. The monk lovingly placed the container on an ornate table beside the lectern, then stood beside it.
From her front-row seat, Serena saw the pinkish gray tissue undulate slightly within the pale-blue life-support liquid. Separated from the senses and distractions of the physical world for more than a millennium, stimulated by constant intense contemplation, the female Cogitor’s once-human brain had grown larger than its original size.
“The Cogitor Kwyna does not often leave the City of Introspection,” Viceroy Butler said, sounding both formal and excited. “But in these times we require the best thoughts and advice. If any mind can understand the thinking machines, it will be Kwyna’s.”
These esoteric disembodied philosophers were seen so infrequently that many League representatives did not understand how they managed to communicate. Compounding the mystery that surrounded them, Cogitors rarely said much, choosing instead to marshall their energies and contribute only the most important thoughts.
“The Cogitor’s Secondary will speak for Kwyna,” the Viceroy said, “if she has any insights to offer.”
Beside the brain canister, the red-robed monk removed the sealed lid, exposing the agitated viscous fluid. Blinking his round eyes rapidly, he stared into the tank. Slowly, the monk slid one naked hand into the soup, immersing his fingers. He closed his eyes, drawing deep breaths, as he tentatively touched the convoluted brain. His brows furrowed with concentration and acceptance as the electrafluid soaked into his pores, linking the Cogitor with the Secondary’s neural system, using him as an extension in much the same way cymeks used artificial mechanical bodies.
“I understand nothing,” said the monk in a strange, distant voice. Serena knew that was the first principle the Cogitors adopted, and the contemplative brains spent centuries in deep study, adding to that sense of nothingness.
Centuries before the original Titans, a group of spiritual humans had enjoyed studying philosophy and discussing esoteric issues, but too many frailties and temptations of the flesh inhibited their ability to concentrate. In the ennui of the Old Empire, these metaphysical scholars had been the first to have their brains installed in life-support systems. Freed of biological constraints, they spent all their time learning and thinking. Each Cogitor wanted to study the entirety of human philosophy, bringing together the ingredients to understand the universe. They lived in ivory towers and contemplated, rarely bothering to note the superficial relationships and events of the mundane world.
Kwyna, the two-thousand-year-old Cogitor who resided in Salusa’s City of Introspection, claimed to be politically neutral. “I am ready to interact,” she announced through the monk, who stared with glazed eyes at the assembly. “You may begin.”
With intense blue eyes, Viceroy Butler gazed around the packed ballroom, pausing to look at a number of faces, including Serena’s. “My friends, we have always lived under the threat of annihilation, and now I must ask every one of you to devote your time, energies, and money to our cause.”
He gave tribute to the tens of thousands of Salusans who had died in the cymek onslaught, along with fifty-one visiting dignitaries. “The Salusan Militia remains on full alert here, and messenger ships have been dispatched to all League Worlds, warning them of the danger. We can only hope that no other planets were attacked.”
The Viceroy then called upon Tio Holtzman, recently arrived after nearly a month in transit from his laboratories on Poritrin. “Savant Holtzman, we are anxious to hear your assessment of the new defenses.”
Holtzman had been eager to inspect his orbital scrambler fields, to see how they might be modified and improved. On Poritrin, the flamboyant nobleman Niko Bludd funded the Savant’s research. Given his past accomplishments, League members always held out the hope that Holtzman would pull some other miracle out of his pocket.
Slight of body, Holtzman moved with grace and an enormous stage presence, wearing clean and stylish robes. The iron gray hair that hung to his shoulders was square-cut, framing a narrow face. A man of immense confidence and ego, he loved to speak to important dignitaries in the Parliament, but now he appeared uncharacteristically troubled. In truth, the inventor could not bring himself to admit a mistake. Unquestionably, his scrambler network had failed. The cymeks had broken through! What would he say to these people who had relied on him?
Reaching the speaking platform, the great man cleared his throat and looked around, glancing oddly at the imposing presence of the Cogitor and the looming attendant monk. This
was a most delicate matter. How could he shift the blame from himself?
The scientist used his best voice. “In warfare, whenever one side makes a technological breakthrough, the other attempts to top it. We recently witnessed this with my atmospheric scrambler fields. Had they not been installed here, the full thinking machine fleet would have laid waste to Salusa. Unfortunately, I did not factor in the unique abilities of the cymeks. They found a chink in the armor and penetrated it.”
No one had accused him of lax work or poor planning, but this was the closest Holtzman would come to admitting that he had overlooked a major flaw. “Now it is our turn to surpass the machines with a new concept. I hope to be inspired by this tragedy, pushing my creativity to its limits.” He then stalled and looked embarrassed, even endearing. “I’ll be working on that, as soon as I get back to Poritrin. I hope to have a surprise for you very soon.”
A tall, statuesque woman glided toward the lectern, drawing attention to herself. “Perhaps I have a suggestion.” She had pale eyebrows, white hair, and luminous skin that made her seem ethereal, but charged with power.
“Let us hear from the women of Rossak. I gladly yield to Zufa Cenva.” Looking relieved, Holtzman hurried back to his seat and slumped into it.
The pale woman carried an air of mystery about her; she wore glowing jewelry on a black, diaphanous gown that revealed much of her perfect body. Pausing at the Cogitor’s life-support case, Zufa Cenva peered inside at the enlarged brain. Her brow furrowed as she concentrated, and as she did so, the brain itself seemed to vibrate; the electrafluid swirled, bubbles formed. Alarmed, the devout attendant monk withdrew his hand from the liquid.
The tall woman relaxed, satisfied, and stepped to the podium. “Because of oddities in our environment, many of the females born on Rossak exhibit enhanced telepathic abilities.” Indeed, the powerful Sorceresses of the dense, barely habitable jungles had parlayed their mental quirks into political influence. Rossak men exhibited no such telepathic enhancements.
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