Dune: The Battle of Corrin

by Brian Herbert; Kevin J. Anderson

  “But Vorian Atreides— which was the trick?” Now Erasmus showed another familiar face on the screen, the hated visage of one of the Tlulaxa traitors. Rekur Van. The camera was close, showing only the genetic wizard’s face.

  The flesh merchant spoke in a taunting voice. “Omnius is not so foolish as to discard a person with such potential as Serena Butler. The burned and tortured body we sent back to the League was a clone of Serena Butler, grown in our tanks on Tlulax. You know we kept genetic samples of her in our organ farms. The entire plan was designed by Grand Patriarch Iblis Ginjo.”

  Erasmus added, “Vorian Atreides, believe my statement: Omnius did not kill Serena Butler. The images that so inflamed the human race were falsified by Iblis Ginjo.”

  Vor felt sick and hollow inside. He remained standing though his legs grew suddenly weak. Unfortunately, the accusation was all too probable.

  The robot’s eyes narrowed, and his face took on a conspiratorial look. “Iblis, in fact, perpetrated many tricks on you. Were you aware that the preserved baby displayed so proudly in your League is also a fake?”

  Vor didn’t respond. He had indeed known that the innocent child’s body kept in the City of Introspection was a mere mannequin, though few outsiders realized this.

  Now the image returned to Serena, and one of the guardian robots held up a small child, dangling it threateningly. No observer could mistake the implied threat.

  “Consider: What if we were able to hold Serena’s child in stasis?” Erasmus said. “I felt that with a substantial surgical effort, we could repair most of the damage. Now think of your choice to attack Corrin, Vorian Atreides. If you allow your armada to come closer, all of these hostages will be killed— including Serena Butler and her baby. I doubt you want that to happen again, Vorian Atreides.”

  “I cannot believe what you are showing me,” Vor said, his voice low and threatening.

  Rekur Van said, “It is the Priestess of the Jihad in the flesh.”

  Rayna Butler’s shrill voice cut across all the communication channels. “A miracle! Serena Butler has returned to us— and Manion the Innocent!”

  Over a high-security comline Vor heard Viceroy Faykan’s agitated, panicky voice. “What shall we do now? We must rescue Serena if there is the remotest chance! Champion Atreides, answer me!”

  Vor snapped, “Get off this channel, Viceroy. According to the rules of space and the Army of Humanity, I am in command of this military operation.”

  “What do you intend to do?” Faykan sounded very uneasy. “We have to reconsider.”

  Vor drew a deep breath, knew that once again he had to make the tough choice. He would never be able to live with himself otherwise. “I intend to complete my mission, Viceroy. As Serena herself used to say, we must achieve victory at any cost.”

  Vor blocked the incoming comline, preventing any further interference from outsiders. Then he broadcast to all of his ships and crews, to every chamber on every vessel: “Do not forget that Erasmus is the one who murdered Manion the Innocent, throwing the child off a high balcony! He himself set this entire Jihad in motion. I believe his entire human shield is a subterfuge, a trick designed to turn us back.”

  Vor’s eyes were dry, sharply focused. Even the stunned hush around him seemed to pound loudly in his ears. He saw Abulurd staring at him with an expression he had never seen before, but Vor looked away. Right now he had a job to do.

  There are many similarities between men and the machines they created, and many differences. The list of differences is comparatively small— but the items on that particular inventory are of tremendous consequence. They form the heart and soul of my frustration.

  — Erasmus Dialogues,

  one of his last known entries

  After delivering his ultimatum to the League Vengeance Fleet, Erasmus undertook an even more difficult task. At least Gilbertus was safe.

  Following a circuitous route, the autonomous robot hurried into a tunnel system underneath the plaza and reached the chamber where the damaged Omnius Prime had been placed beneath the former location of the retracted Central Spire. The walls of the chamber, like the spire mechanism itself, were constructed of the finest flowmetal, but their previous luster had turned to black. The bifurcated evermind did not have the “artistic flair” of the now-blasted Omnius Prime— only one of their disturbing flaws.

  The robot wasn’t sure how much time he might have. He anticipated that Vorian Atreides and his superstitious and fanatical hrethgir followers would decide the terms were unacceptable, and the Army of Humanity would withdraw without inflicting further destruction. Seeing what they believed to be the genuine Serena Butler should be the deciding factor.

  Rekur Van had recovered from the injuries he sustained when ThurrOm and SeurOm neutralized the Corrin-Omnius, and he had continued to work on the shape-shifting biological robots, as Erasmus asked him to do. He had hoped to use the new fleshlike flowmetal of the face-altering machines to fool the Army of Humanity, but the innovative biometals suffered frequent failures, and the test robots often displayed unsettling facial meltdowns. Some of the test robots managed to imitate Serena’s expressions and movements, but one mistake would have ruined the entire illusion.

  That meant Erasmus’s plan had to rely on the Serena Butler clone. Gilbertus would certainly be upset, but for now it was necessary. He did not doubt that the hrethgir would scheme to find some other way to destroy the last Synchronized World. The independent robot did not trust the two everminds to find flexible solutions. He decided to increase the odds.

  Using access codes, Erasmus forced open the shell of the old Spire, and at its very heart found what he was looking for: a tiny piece of metalglaz inside a ball of crystal. The overthrown Corrin-Omnius had been severely damaged, but perhaps Erasmus could salvage some of the mental contents.

  Carefully, he lifted out the glassy ball. Taking a chance, doing what he had previously refused to do, Erasmus loaded the ball into an access port in his own flowmetal torso, “swallowing” it. Perhaps he could assimilate some of the remnants of the huge evermind. He had to take the chance. Everything was riding on it— the future of thinking machines… the future of an empire.

  The robot’s input drive adjusted itself to the size and shape of the inserted object and vibrated as his data-acquisition system tried to activate the evermind. The SeurOm and ThurrOm versions of Omnius had obviously been corrupted, and though Erasmus and Omnius Prime had experienced many dangerous disagreements, he decided to bring the original copy back online.

  The evermind had substantial recovery routines, fail-safes that should have kept it intact even from significant damage. Erasmus hoped he could trigger it to heal itself. “If this works, you will have no further cause to call me Martyr,” he said aloud, then realized he was imitating a strange human habit of smugness.

  His attempt did not succeed.

  Disappointed, the robot initiated his own processor’s recovery routine, yet nothing happened. The backup evermind must be too severely damaged, unable to start and transfer itself into Erasmus’s complex gelcircuitry. Dead. Useless.

  Until, finally, he provoked a spark of response, the sluggish first movements of the data-reconstruction routines inside the fused core of the evermind.

  Suddenly Erasmus noticed a watcheye hovering near his head, peering at him. Though ThurrOm and SeurOm were occupied with the threatening military impasse, he knew this little electronic spy was still connected to the pair of everminds, whether or not they were paying attention to it. He calculated that it would not be wise for his actions to be seen and interpreted. Erasmus snatched the watcheye out of the air, planning to crush it in his metal hand.

  But the voice that issued from its tiny speaker did not belong to Omnius. “Father, I have found you.” The signal was weak, distorted, but clearly came from Gilbertus Albans!

  Inserting a needle probe from his hand into its tiny self-contained systems, Erasmus used his own programming to boost the gain, filter ou
t the noise. The device glowed, and a holoprojection lit up, filled with information. In a flash, Erasmus scrolled through the exhaustive records, checking images.

  With extreme speed, he scanned thousands upon thousands of images of the crowded sentient creatures trapped inside, huddled together as if simple closeness could protect them from the imminent explosions. Then Erasmus saw something that shocked his internal programming to the core. No. It must be a mistake.

  He saw the clone of Serena Butler. And beside her, Gilbertus! Transmitting from one of the booby-trapped cargo containers up in the Bridge of Hrethgir.

  Gilbertus held one of the machine sensors aboard the booby-trapped cargo container. “There you are, Father. I have linked this system to one of the watcheyes.”

  “What are you doing there? You should be in a safe place. I made sure of it.”

  “But Serena is up here. The records were easy to follow. Sentinels were rounding up the last of the humans to put aboard the containers so I came with them.”

  This was the most terrible thing the robot could imagine. He didn’t even pause to realize that the extremity of his reaction went far beyond the norm for a thinking machine. He had done so much work with Gilbertus, trained him, turned him into a superior human being— only to discover that he was about to die with all of the others. With the inadequate clone to whom he showed so much silly love and devotion.

  In spite of all that Erasmus had experienced and knew, none of it mattered anymore, except for one thing: He would do whatever was necessary to rescue his son.

  On the outside datascreens, he saw that though the Vengeance Fleet had hesitated briefly, now they appeared to be moving forward, despite the threat.

  “Gilbertus, I will save you. Be prepared.”

  He had no time to waste on the partially recovered core of Omnius Prime. Angrily, he set it aside and fled the underground chamber.

  * * *

  I MUST AWAKEN.

  Data began to flow, but much work remained before the gelcircuitry memory would be fully restored. The two unsynchronized Omniuses had inflicted extreme injury to his systems, but had not bothered to finish the job. They had discarded his cybernetic remains in the core of his Central Spire and then occupied themselves with other matters.

  Corrin was about to fall, because of them.

  Before the two faulty copies struck him down, Omnius Prime had developed a perfectly acceptable means of escape, a way to allow the core copy of his evermind to survive. He had the ability to code all the information that comprised his entity into a giant datapacket. As a mere signal, not a gelcircuitry construction, it would be able to pass through the scrambler net. “Omnius” would drift across the galaxy until he found some receiver, anything that could download him. Anything he could inhabit.

  The two usurper everminds could stay here and fight against hopeless odds. They would be destroyed, but Omnius Prime could not permit that to happen to himself. First, he had to regenerate his systems.

  Only thinking machines see decisions in absolute black and white terms. Anyone with a heart has doubts. It comes with being human.

  — BASHAR ABULURD HARKONNEN,

  private journals

  Reports streamed in from the watchdog vessels and from the decks of the flagship. The Army of Humanity soldiers were profoundly uneasy.

  And then the human race would lose the war.

  Beside him on the bridge and totally focused on the task at hand, Vor said, “If Omnius believes we will back down now, he is sorely mistaken! This tactic is yet another demonstration of how badly the thinking machines underestimate human determination.”

  Across a high-security channel to the LS Serena Victory, the Viceroy spoke again, sounding conciliatory. “Perhaps I was a bit hasty, Champion Atreides. You were quite correct. Although you and I fought side by side in many engagements during the Jihad, I am now the League Viceroy. I’m no longer a military man, so I wash my hands of the decisions here. You alone are in charge of this operation. The military authority, and the responsibility, are yours, with my blessing.”

  After separating himself from the impending tragedy, the Viceroy ordered his diplomatic vessel to drop well away from the battlefield over Corrin, taking his niece Rayna and the contingent of noble representatives with him to a safe distance.

  “He’s just positioning himself,” Abulurd muttered, in disgust. “Everything my brother does is political, even out here.”

  Vorian fixed his stony gaze forward; Abulurd knew his commander was setting an example for the uneasy but dutiful crew members on the bridge. The Supreme Bashar’s comline was linked to all the numerous ships that had come to make their last stand. “We will advance, regardless of the threats made by the thinking machines. I have no intention of stopping now. Damn the machines and their treachery.”

  “But, sir, the cost!” Abulurd cried. “So many innocent lives. Now that the circumstances are changed, we have to reconsider— think of another way.”

  “There is no other viable way. The risk of waiting is too high.”

  Abulurd drew a sharp breath. He had never seen his mentor so determined and implacable. “Omnius is logical. He will not do this if he knows he will be exterminated.”

  “His extermination is nonnegotiable,” Vorian said. “We have shed so much blood already, I am willing to spend a few drops more to ensure our victory.”

  “A few drops!”

  “It is necessary. They were already doomed when we came here.”

  “I disagree, sir. The other victims of the Jihad might have been necessary casualties, but not these. The situation is stable enough that we can take a little time to reconsider our options. We should meet with the other officers, see if anyone has— “

  Vor turned to the younger officer. “More talk? I have heard interminable, useless discussions in the League for the past twenty years! Oh, it’ll start out as a brief delay, and then the Viceroy will reconsider and ask us to send messengers back to Salusa. Then the nobles will weigh in.” He balled his fists at his side. “We have made too many mistakes in the past, Abulurd, and paid a terrible price for our lack of resolve. That changes today, and forever.”

  The commander fixed his gaze on the screen, on the cancerous tumor of Corrin that needed to be excised from the universe. “All weapons active, all ships full forward.”

  “But, Supreme Bashar!” Abulurd stood insistently on the bridge. “You know Omnius is not bluffing. If you pass beyond the boundary, the automated destruct sequences will be activated. You’ll be dooming all those people— including Serena and her baby.”

  Vor seemed distant. “I’ve done it before. If a handful of victims must become sacrificial lambs here for the future freedom of the human race, so be it.”

  “A handful? Sir, there are more than two million— “

  “And think of the billions of soldiers who have already died. Serena herself understood that sometimes innocent bystanders become casualties of war.” Now his gray eyes focused on Abulurd, and the younger man thought he saw a stranger there. “Make no mistake— Omnius is executing them, not me. I did not create this situation, and I refuse to accept this as my responsibility. I have enough blood on my hands.”

  Abulurd’s heart pounded, and his breaths came quick. He didn’t care how many crew members were listening. “We can take the time we need to consider this carefully, sir. The thinking machines have been imprisoned on Corrin for two decades. Why must you attack now— with more than two million people at risk? Just because our forces are here? Omnius poses no greater threat today than he did yesterday, or the day before.”

  Vor’s youthful face went stony and cold, the only way he allowed his displeasure to show. “I allowed Omnius to live at the end of the Great Purge. We suffered from a fatal lack of resolve, even though our jihadis were ready to commit the final effort and pay the ultimate price. We never should have faltered then, and I do not intend to do so again.”

  “But why not at least try to mediate a solu
tion, find a way to save some of those people? We can make a calculated strike the way my father and brothers did when they liberated Honru. Our ships are full of fast kindjals and bombers loaded with pulse warheads, and we have a great many Ginaz mercenaries on board. Maybe enough of our mercenaries can slip through and deliver targeted warheads to annihilate Omnius.”

  “They will still have to cross the line in space to do that.” The Supreme Bashar’s gaze turned stony. “There will be no further discussion, Bashar. We will proceed and use every weapon at our disposal. History will mark this as the last day of the thinking machines.” Vor leaned forward in his command chair, intent on the tactical screens again.

  Abulurd wanted to scream. This is not necessary! His heart felt as if it were being ripped out of his chest. He kept his voice even. “I can’t let you throw away your own humanity like this, Supreme Bashar. We can hold the line here. We have our Vengeance Fleet in place. We can keep the machines bottled up on Corrin for another twenty years until we think of something else. Please, sir, work with me to find an alternative.”

  Vorian rose from his command chair, turning with cold fury on his executive officer. The bridge crew was clearly uneasy about the prospects of so much unnecessary slaughter, and Abulurd’s argument was only deepening their doubts.

  Vor squared his shoulders and glared. “Bashar Harkonnen, I have made my decision and given my orders. This is not a discussion group.” Raising his voice, he barked at the rest of his bridge crew. “Power up your weapons and prepare for the final plunge.”

  “If you do this, Vorian,” Abulurd said, not caring about the consequences, “then you are no better than your father. This is the sort of thing the Titan Agamemnon would have done.”

  Like a glowglobe being extinguished, all emotion left Vor’s face. A rigid mask froze on his handsome features, and his voice came out as level and frigid as the ice plains of Hessra. “Bashar Harkonnen, I hereby relieve you of duty. You are confined to your quarters aboard this ship until the culmination of the Battle of Corrin.”