“We can’t afford to keep you.” Mohandas took Raquella’s arm, standing beside her. “I no longer consider you a doctor. You’ve violated your oath, become no more than a war profiteer.” Looking at the security men, he said, “Throw him out to take his chances on the street. Maybe he will remember his calling and do some good. There are still plenty of suffering people.”
Raquella and Mohandas went to an open second-floor window to watch as the guards pushed the thief out the front entrance toward the brooding crowd. Tyrj fell partway down the steps, then looked around at the angry Matryrists. His desperate shouts were drowned out by the waiting mob.
“Remember Manion the Innocent!”
“Long live the Jihad!”
A pale, hairless girl stood at the front, pointing toward the hospital. Raquella couldn’t hear the girl’s words, but suddenly the crowd began to move en masse toward the hospital. On the steps, Tyrj tried to move out of their way, but the zealots rushed the hospital, trampling the wiry doctor underfoot. The guards who had thrown him out backed away, frightened for their own lives.
Raquella grabbed Mohandas by the arm and ran down the corridor toward the nearest ward. “Sound the alarm.” He pressed a security transmitter on the wall, triggering high-pitched sirens and loud klaxons.
The two of them raced to the closest entrance and attempted to secure the door. The hired guards assigned to that station had disappeared, fleeing as soon as the mob reached its flashpoint. A fanatical crowd slammed into the door, pushing it, prying it open. Despite Raquella’s best efforts, the sheer press of people overwhelmed them quickly. More zealots shattered windows and swarmed through other open doors, surging into the corridors and wards.
The hairless girl stopped, like a calm eye in the middle of the storm of unleashed fanatics. She scanned the diagnostic machines, the monitors and dispensers, then said in a penetrating voice, “Sophisticated medical devices— evil machines disguised as useful equipment. They imprison us!”
“Stop!” Mohandas screamed as rampaging men and women toppled a bank of high-resolution diagnostic scanners. “We need these machines to treat plague victims. People are going to die without them!”
But the throng only struck with greater fury. Imagers and testing probes were hurled against walls and through windows. Though they were intent on the machines, the mob could quickly turn on the medical researchers themselves.
Taking Mohandas’s hand, Raquella fled to the rooftop, where a medical evacuation flyer waited. Fires had already started in the hospital below. Some patients staggered out of their beds, trying to get away from the hospital, though others remained trapped. The doctors had already escaped.
“This place is doomed,” Mohandas groaned. “All the patients!”
“We were just trying to help.” Raquella’s voice was hoarse with disbelief. “Couldn’t they see we were saving people? Where do we go now?”
Mohandas guided the medical evacuation flyer up from the hospital rooftop. With a whine it rose above the thickening smoke, while he stared down with liquid brown eyes. “We’ve lost the battle here in the city, but I’m not ready to give up. Are you?”
She gave him a wan smile and put her hand on his forearm. “No, not if we can be together. There are plenty of places out in the country where suffering people need our help and expertise. Much as I regret it, the rest of Niubbe will have to fend for itself.”
Technology has a seductive nature. We assume that advances in this realm are always improvements, beneficial to humans. We are deluding ourselves.
— RAYNA BUTLER,
True Visions
When the dispatch orders arrived directly from Primero Quentin Butler, Abulurd was disappointed that his father had appended no personal note, just a terse comment.
“You are to go to Parmentier, where Rikov died. Since the first cases of the Omnius Scourge appeared there, League medical researchers are desperate to have exhaustive baseline data. If you can verify that the epidemic has run its course, at least we will have some hope. Supreme Commander Vorian Atreides wishes to go with you, for reasons of his own. Take your javelin and depart immediately.”
Mere moments after he received the message, his communications officer announced that a shuttle was en route, bearing the Supreme Commander. Abulurd felt pleased. At least Vorian would be with him.
When the high-ranking officer stepped aboard, Abulurd rushed to greet him. “I’m just a passenger on this mission,” Vor said. “You are in charge. Pretend I’m not here.”
“Oh, I can’t do that, sir. You far outrank me.”
“Consider me a civilian for the time being. This is your mission— mine is personal matter. I wish to check on my granddaughter and her brave work with the medical teams. You know full well about… personal obligations, don’t you, Tercero Harkonnen?”
Abulurd didn’t know if he’d heard right. “Tercero?”
Vor could not suppress his smile. “Did I forget to mention? I am authorizing an immediate field promotion.” He fumbled in his pocket to remove a new set of insignia. “God knows we’ve already lost enough officers to this damned plague. You can’t stay a cuarto forever.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Now stop gawking at me, and let’s get this ship moving. It’s a long way to Parmentier.”
* * *
LATER, IN HIS cabin, Abulurd met Vorian Atreides for a quiet drink and conversation. They had not sat together since the young man had announced that he meant to clear the Harkonnen name, to reestablish the honor of Xavier’s deeds.
“Abulurd, you know you probably cut off your military career at the knees. Yes, the other officers know you’re the son of Primero Quentin Butler, but the fact that you would change your name to honor a man they all revile shows not only defiance but poor judgment.”
“Or a greater understanding,” he said. He had expected support from Vorian.
“You may know that, but the others do not. They are content with what they think they know.”
“This means more to me than my military advancement. Don’t you want to clear his name, too? He was your friend.”
“Of course I do… but after more than half a century, what purpose can it serve? I fear we could never win.”
“When did the possibility of failure ever stop an honorable man from pursuing truth? Didn’t you teach me that yourself, Supreme Commander? I intend to follow your advice.”
As Vor came to realize that Abulurd truly meant what he said, tears welled in his gray eyes. “And it’s about damned time. After this plague is over, perhaps the day will be right to force the truth down their throats.”
Abulurd smiled. “One supporter is better than none.”
* * *
WHEN THE LONE javelin reached Parmentier, the guardian stations that traveled endless orbital paths were empty and silent, everyone aboard either dead or, having surrendered to fate, returned to the surface.
Keeping Abulurd company on the bridge, Vor gazed down at the peaceful-looking planet. “It’s been almost four months since I left here,” he said. “Now most of the League is devastated by casualties and consequences. Will we ever be the same?”
Abulurd lifted his chin. “Let’s go down there, sir, and see what all those other infected planets have to look forward to.”
The new tercero and a handpicked crew of soldiers consumed a significant preventive dose of melange, which would help protect them from any remnants of the Scourge and give them added fortification against the horrors they were bound to find on Parmentier.
Instead of the bulky anti-exposure suit he had worn on Ix, Abulurd opted for a sterilized breathing mask that fit securely over his face. League tests had shown that the retrovirus broke down quickly after the initial epidemic, and enough time should have passed here. It was a straw of hope for the League to grasp.
Abulurd directed their shuttle to land on the top of a rise overlooking Niubbe, near the eerily silent governor’s mansion. Even though he knew what they we
re likely to find in Rikov’s home, he had to go there first. “You understand, don’t you, sir?” he asked Vorian.
“I have personal obligations as well,” Vor said, anxious and concerned. “I am going into the city, to the Hospital for Incurable Diseases. I can only hope my granddaughter is still there.”
As the Supreme Commander set off alone, Abulurd guided his team into his brother’s house. The soldiers spread out to search the rooms of the large, empty building. If nothing else, he intended to give his brother’s family an appropriate burial and memorial. Abulurd walked quickly down the halls, checking the chambers, Kohe’s private chapel, and the sitting areas that he remembered from occasional visits to his brother.
Inside the master suite, he found the badly decomposed bodies of a man and a woman, presumably his brother and his wife. The mercenaries located several other dead servants, but there was no sign of Abulurd’s niece. Having seen so much death, especially in the past few months, he no longer experienced horror and disgust as he looked at the near-skeletal remains. Abulurd just felt a deep sadness, wishing that he had known his brother better.
“What would you have thought of my decision, Rikov?” Abulurd mused aloud, standing there. “Would you have understood why I want to be known as a Harkonnen? Or would your own myths fill you with too much pride?”
Later, when the team arrived in the main city, they were surprised to find that the bulk of the destruction appeared to have been caused by mob action, not the plague itself. Many buildings were nothing more than charred frameworks and piles of rubble, windows were smashed, debris lay strewn in the streets, plazas, and parks.
When the team dispersed into the ruins, Abulurd followed the lines of mob destruction, heading toward a cluster of burned-out buildings. At the Hospital for Incurable Diseases, he found Vorian Atreides standing despondent on the front steps, beside a fallen sign for the facility. “She’s not here,” he said. “No one inside. Everything’s wrecked.”
Abulurd’s heart went out to his friend. In the midst of this terrible war, even the Supreme Commander was no more than a human being, concerned for the safety of his family.
Venturing inside, Abulurd saw that the hospital had been ransacked and gutted. “Why would they destroy a medical center?” he asked aloud, as if the ghosts of dead patients could answer him. Had people been angry at the failure of doctors to cure them? What a terrible shame to ruin one of the only facilities capable of mounting a defense against the epidemic and easing the last days of dying patients.
“After we do our initial assessment, we’ll send out search teams for her,” Abulurd said to Vorian. “You can lead them.”
The Supreme Commander nodded. “Thank you.” He made his way out into the streets to continue looking. Both men knew that with so many records lost and destroyed, they had very little chance of tracking down one person.
Late in the afternoon, on a hill at the far outskirts of the city, Abulurd and his mercenaries discovered a ragtag crowd that had gathered to share looted food. The people looked weary and reverent, all of them gazing up toward a small figure who stood at the crest of the hill.
Abulurd and his men approached, and saw that it was a hairless young girl with skin so pale it looked like translucent milk. The girl called out to them. “Have you come to join our cause, to spread the word of what humanity must do to survive?”
Abulurd searched his memory to identify what was familiar about this young woman. It took him a moment to adjust his perception, to identify her without any hair and in spite of the gauntness of her body. “Rayna? Rayna Butler?” He hurried forward. “You survived! I’m Abulurd— your uncle!”
The girl looked at him. “You have come from so far, to help us against the thinking machines?” She spread her hands to indicate the wounded city.
“The Scourge has spread everywhere, Rayna. Your grandfather sent me to look for you and your family.”
“All dead,” Rayna said. “Almost half died from the plague, and many more afterward. I don’t know how many remain on Parmentier.”
“Hopefully the worst is over here, if the virus has run its course.” He hugged her. She felt ethereal in his arms, as if she might break apart in his embrace.
“Our fight is just beginning.” Rayna’s voice was strong, like tempered steel. “My message has already gone out. The Cult of Serena found ships in the Niubbe spaceport and they have left Parmentier for other worlds, bearing the news of what we must do.”
“And what message is that, Rayna?” Abulurd smiled. He still thought of her as the shy girl who had spent so much time in religious devotions with her mother. “What is the Cult of Serena? I’ve never heard of it.” Now he saw that the Scourge had not only made her hair fall out, but had added years of grief and maturity. She seemed to be leading these people.
“Serena smashed thinking machines herself,” Rayna said. “When Erasmus killed her baby, she threw a sentinel robot off the high balcony. It was the first blow of a human against the evil minions of Omnius. My cause is to destroy all machines.”
Abulurd studied his niece with growing concern about what she had been up to. He couldn’t help thinking of the political machinations and self-serving measures Iblis Ginjo had undertaken, against which Xavier Harkonnen had fought. Rayna, though, seemed to have no selfish aspirations whatsoever. The people crowded around the beatific child on the hill, a mob that shouted her name.
Abulurd looked behind him at the charred evidence of destruction and spoke above the rising din. “You… caused all this, Rayna?”
“It was necessary. Serena told me that we must cleanse our planets and destroy all technological artifacts. We need to erase everything computerized so the thinking machines can never take over again. The demons can be allowed no foothold, or the human race will plunge over that precipice again. We’ve suffered enough, and we’re still alive,” Rayna continued, looking at him with her piercing, haunted gaze. “We can do without a few… conveniences.”
She seemed a model of self-sacrifice, caring nothing for personal possessions. She probably took only the minimum of what she needed, leaving much behind in the abandoned governor’s mansion.
Disturbed, Abulurd reached out to touch his niece’s thin, bony shoulder. “I want you to come back to Salusa with me, Rayna. I’ll reunite you with the rest of your family.” He also wanted to get her away from this mob.
“Salusa Secundus…” Rayna murmured, dreamily, as if she had already envisioned this scenario. “It is true, my followers know what to do here. All right, I am finished with my work on Parmentier.” He noticed a disconcerting gleam in her eyes. “It’s time for me to continue my mission elsewhere.”
The Army of the Jihad can try to prepare for the next scheme of Omnius, but we will always fall behind the thinking machines, for they can develop their evil thoughts with computer speed.
— PRIMERO QUENTIN BUTLER,
private letters for Wandra
While Abulurd was gone to Parmentier with Supreme Commander Atreides, Quentin Butler felt an increased weight of responsibility for protecting the League capital world. Under the provisions of the Jihad Council, the primero became the ranking officer in the Salusan system. He never felt the need for a moment to himself or a day of rest. For months now, ever since the first fateful messenger had come from Rikov announcing the Omnius Scourge, he had felt humanity’s dire peril.
Thus, Quentin drove himself harder each day, accepting unnecessary assignments, wanting to be everywhere at once. The jihadi soldiers he commanded could use the down time in the incessant chaos of the quarantine and lifeboat efforts, but Quentin himself would have none of it. His son Faykan was the same way. Rather than taking well-earned leave, he offered to spend days on standard picket patrols out on the fringes of the Salusan system.
“You and I are setting a fine example for our soldiers. Imagine— the primero of a large battalion along with a high-ranking and heavily decorated segundo spending tedious hours on sentinel duty.”
<
br /> Faykan’s chuckle came back over the comline. “It’s not often the thinking machines give us a chance to experience tedium, Primero. For the time being, I’ll welcome it.”
“I fear that Omnius has more in mind than just spreading plagues. We are so very vulnerable now.”
Faykan said, “We’ll have to keep a sharp eye out.”
The two men flew modified long-range kindjals, drifting within only a few light-seconds’ transmission delay from each other, close enough that they could hold long conversations. The primero appreciated those simple discussions more than any trip to a League spa or resort designed for pampered nobles. In a way, though he recognized he was being unfairly harsh to Abulurd, he considered Faykan his only remaining son.
From the time he had been a young man, Quentin had been a war hero, earning his reputation in the Army of the Jihad after the successful conquest of Parmentier, one of the most surprising victories in the Jihad. Though only a lieutenant at the time, he’d beaten an overwhelming force of combat robots by using devious tactics that had made even Supreme Commander Vorian Atreides proud. Afterward, he’d never outgrown the title of “Liberator of Parmentier.” Beautiful Wandra Butler herself had pinned on his medals during a ceremony. Smitten, Quentin had courted her. They were a perfect couple, and when they finally married, he accepted the great name of Butler instead of keeping his own.
Though of course her body still clung to life, he wondered what life would be like now if Wandra had not been stolen from him by that terrible stroke while giving birth to Abulurd. He grimaced at the thought of his youngest son, who now chose to call himself by a hateful name. Harkonnen!
For decades, Wandra’s family had tried to overcome the shame of what their deceased patriarch had done. They performed extravagant deeds, sacrificed themselves, threw their lives into the unending Jihad. But now foolish Abulurd— of his own volition!— had chosen to nullify all that progress, reminding everyone of the inexcusable crimes Xavier Harkonnen had committed.
Dune: The Battle of Corrin Page 19
