The news from Draigo Roget had been much better. The robot Erasmus had revealed the location of forty intact thinking-machine battleships adrift in space. Denali engineers were repairing them now, and Josef had already dispatched a hauler with Holtzman engine upgrades for all of them. They would make his VenHold fleet significantly stronger.…
The crack and thump of displaced air woke him immediately. Josef sprang out of bed and landed in a crouch on the carpeted floor. Cioba also came alert, and they stared at the cumbersome tank that had just appeared in the open area of their bedroom.
Josef wrapped a sheet around himself. “What is it, Grandmother?” He knew Norma followed her own capricious thoughts. Perhaps she had recalled some concept she wanted to discuss with him, heedless of the hour or place.
“I came to warn you.” Norma’s voice sounded distorted, beyond that of an ordinary human, containing a tangential otherness. “Remove your ships from Kolhar,” she said. “There is little time. Leave immediately.”
He was fully awake now, but not pleased. “Kolhar is our fortress world. How can we be in danger?” He thought of his well-armed guardian ships, the layers of heavy shields that embraced the planet.
“The Butlerians are coming, Josef, a huge force of them. They will destroy you.”
He was so surprised he couldn’t even laugh. “Those primitive barbarians could never break through our advanced defenses.”
“Heed my warning, Josef. Trust my prescience. My Navigators need to be evacuated.” Norma’s ornate vault vanished in a rush of displaced air, leaving Josef and Cioba confused and alarmed.
“She’s been behaving strangely,” he said, “ordering one evacuation after another.”
“At Salusa, she sensed that the spice stockpile was being raided—and she was right,” Cioba pointed out. “We have to trust her.”
“Even with her prescience, we arrived at Arrakis too late,” Josef said, feeling a sudden chill. “I have no idea what she’s worried about this time, but if she wants us to leave, I think we should.”
While he and Cioba dressed themselves and grabbed a few possessions, Josef sounded an alarm for all spaceport operations and ground troops. He increased the planetary shields and called for VenHold warships to take a defensive posture—only to discover that Norma had already withdrawn two large foldspace carriers from orbit and brought them down to the Navigator field.
Taking a fast groundcar, he and Cioba raced out to the valley, which was in turmoil. Dazzling glowglobe security lights blazed in the air, shining down on the two landed spacefolders that covered the barren ground. Enhanced suspensor fields added structural integrity to the vessels that were normally meant for open space rather than the stress of a planetary gravity field.
The cargo hatches were open, and uniformed VenHold employees used antigravity clamps and suspensor rigs to move the tanks containing the proto-Navigators. They wrestled with one at a time, keeping the melange gas supply connected to the tanks.
Josef was shocked to see such a large-scale evacuation. One breathless VenHold worker with a stubble of beard spoke to him. “We are moving as swiftly as possible, Directeur—as ordered.”
“By Norma?” Josef asked, trying to calm himself.
The man didn’t seem to know. “We were given only one hour. Both of these carriers have to be loaded and ready to depart. Our Holtzman engines are on standby. The Navigator on deck is preparing to fold space without even leaving the surface. I don’t know how that’s—”
Cioba interrupted, “Has anyone been told the exact nature of the danger?”
The frantic workers could not answer, but they continued to load the Navigator tanks with great haste, clearing the eighty sparkling tanks.
“The planetary shields are in place,” Josef said, but even he wasn’t convinced it would be enough.
Norma’s tank appeared on its dais, overlooking the mostly empty Navigator field. “We depart in moments, Josef. Join us. We are beneath the shields now, but will reappear above them.”
“How can I just leave everything behind—my industries, spaceport, ships, construction yards?”
“You have no choice,” Norma said, “if you wish to live.”
Josef looked at Cioba, then they hurried aboard the nearest carrier. The rest of the Kolhar workers hunkered down to defend themselves against a threat they had not even seen yet.
Once the great ships were sealed, the Navigators simply winked them out of existence, disappearing from the ground and reappearing in far orbit above Kolhar, bypassing normal dimensional paths to get around the planetary shields.
But even in orbit, they were far from safe.
* * *
MANFORD TORONDO’S FLEET appeared without warning.
The faithful aboard had been drilled en route from Salusa Secundus, and every person knew their role. The captains of the 115 ships fully understood Manford’s plan.
At first, his faithful had been horrified to learn about the stockpile of atomics that Anari had distributed among their vessels—atomics exactly like the ones that had devastated so many thinking-machine worlds. Despite the current prohibition against such doomsday weapons, the Butlerians did relish the idea of bombarding the headquarters of the machine lovers.
Manford knew that Directeur Venport had no chance against such an onslaught, but he also knew that his forces could not afford a prolonged space conflict against superior enemy warships. He had to saturate Kolhar with the atomics and then leave as quickly as possible.
When his Butlerian spacefolders emerged into real space and accelerated toward the planet, he looked across at Anari, who was staring through the windowport at their destination ahead. The Swordmaster contacted the other captains, then gave him a hard grin. “Only two of our vessels were lost in transit, Manford—navigation errors. Acceptable losses for a mission such as this. We have no need of the monster Navigators Venport uses. Your followers are blessed, and we are destined to achieve a great victory today.”
“Indeed we are, Anari.”
Manford was familiar with the history of Serena Butler’s Jihad, the climactic bloodbath of atomic devastation that wiped out countless Synchronized Worlds, and he had supplemented this knowledge by reading the Erasmus journals, which recounted the horrific final attack on Corrin. Manford knew exactly what was about to happen now—and looked forward to it.
Impossibly, though, someone had alerted Josef Venport ahead of time. The devil’s defenders were ready, a fleet of warships with weapons activated, and the planetary shields increased. Two large VenHold carriers appeared high above the planet, evacuating, but he was focused on the heavily armored vessels standing between him and Kolhar.
Under normal circumstances, Manford’s fleet would have been cut to ribbons in a full-fledged battle. They could not have breached the orbital defenses with conventional weapons, much less destroyed the planetary shields. But Manford had something the Directeur would not expect.
As VenHold warships opened fire on his fleet, the Butlerian leader smiled.
Anari gave the ominous order. Manford’s first five vessels surged forward to launch atomic projectiles, paying no heed to the VenHold battleships standing against them. The nuclear warheads detonated in the atmosphere like small, brilliant suns. Energy shock waves swept the VenHold ships aside like a child scattering unwanted toys.
Like incandescent battering rams in space, three more strategically fired atomics stunned the last effective Kolhar defenses, and the planetary shields began to go off-line.
Manford took a moment to enjoy what he was seeing as the rest of his holy fleet charged into the open wound. “Unleash our warheads—every single one. I do not want any survivors left on that accursed planet, human or animal. The whole place is contaminated.”
These powerful weapons would grant him a glorious victory, but they also made him feel soiled. Yet, he could think of no more satisfying way to dispose of them all.
The next wave of atomics obliterated the planetary shields
above VenHold’s industrial facilities, and Manford knew that his fifty remaining warheads would be more than sufficient to finish the job.
* * *
THE TWO VENHOLD carriers pulled away, rescuing all of the proto-Navigator tanks as well as any refugees who had rushed aboard at the last moment. Josef watched in horror as massive detonations wiped out his defensive ships and planetary shields. Then explosion after explosion blistered the surface of Kolhar and eradicated the spaceports, cities, outposts … and all living things.
“Atomics!” Cioba cried. She squeezed her husband’s hand so tightly he thought she might break his bones. “I can’t believe that even the barbarians would dare!”
A few defensive VenHold ships managed to limp away, and some of the Butlerian forces broke formation to pursue them like ravenous hyenas.
Josef’s thoughts went wild. Such weapons were utterly forbidden in the Imperium. Atomics! Emperor Roderick would never have authorized this strike—Manford Torondo and all his followers would now be shunned, banished from imperial society.
Or … would Roderick gloss over the horrendous war crime as the price of vengeance? Josef was sickened. Did the Emperor even know about this?
The VenHold spacefolders began to accelerate as they escaped. With waves of detonations behind them, Josef knew there was nothing he could save on Kolhar. The planet would be a radioactive wasteland, uninhabitable for decades. He didn’t want to think about the death toll down there.
Josef had the Navigators send messages to any remnants of his fleet, and tell them to join him where he was going. He needed to go someplace safe where he could think—and plan his counterattack.
“Take us to Arrakis,” he said. “We’ll be safe there. For now.”
All this obsession with the biological activity of procreation! I do not understand it. Humans are preoccupied with the smallest nuances of sex, almost elevating it to a form of religion. But then, I have never really understood religion, either.
—ERASMUS, Secret Laboratory Notebooks
Anna Corrino remained by his side every day, talking about the most trivial matters, engaging in seemingly endless conversations, so that Erasmus longed for the times when he had been in full control of their relationship. Back at the Mentat School, he had expended a great deal of effort to shape her to be this way, to reconfigure her malleable mind so that she was focused on him. Instead of this, he wished for the frustrating, but intellectually challenging, resistance of a strong woman like Serena Butler.
Anna also required frequent reassuring physical contact from him. Even when she could see him standing right next to her, she would touch his arm, as if she didn’t believe he truly existed in this form. From a psychological standpoint, Erasmus understood the need of a damaged person, but the distractions were beginning to interfere with the progress of his other important experiments.
In order to have some time alone and undisturbed, he found himself concocting tasks to keep Anna busy. He sent her off to collect the former human names of the failed Navigator brains in their tanks, which took her hours. It was not necessary, or even interesting, information, because he didn’t care about their prior identities, or personal histories.
After Anna returned with a full list of names, he asked her to find out which planets had been the original homes of the exiled Denali researchers; many were Tlulaxa, but others came from different planets that had also been oppressed by Butlerian fanaticism. Again, he had no use for that information, but she went off to do whatever he asked, and found the people to direct her to the records. It kept her happy to think she was contributing to his research. This task took her two days, and Anna completed it with such dedication that he realized he could perhaps rely on her for real work.
Erasmus also wanted to travel to the recovery operations with the old robot ships, but Draigo Roget would not allow him to leave the research planet. He was able to review Hana Elkora’s reports, however, and allowed Anna to look over his shoulder. He found her presence irritating, but wanted to see what she could do that was worthwhile, and also knew what the emotional consequences would be if he told her to leave him alone.
After studying this experimental subject for so long, he understood that poor Anna needed such reassurance. Not only was her mind unstable and fragile, but her self-esteem could be easily manipulated—as Erasmus himself had done many times during their unusual relationship. For her sake, he tolerated Anna’s behavior and tried to learn from it, in his continuing analysis of her damaged psyche and emotions. He had, after all, initiated her intense attraction toward him in the first place.
Erasmus had pulled on Anna’s heartstrings long before she ever saw his new body, and he was beginning to understand the consequences of those manipulations. He studied her adoring expression, her dreamy eyes, and knew she would do anything for him. Even though he had no quantitative way to measure her emotions, he realized that she loved him.
Thinking back on his centuries of interacting with humans—captive slaves, lab subjects, even a number of turncoat collaborators—Erasmus realized that never before had anyone truly loved him in a romantic way. That was an interesting revelation, and warranted further study.
Yes, Gilbertus had been loyal and dedicated, a true friend. After witnessing his cruel execution, Erasmus comprehended part of the range of human emotions. He’d felt genuine grief, even despair over the death—and anger and a desire for vengeance toward Manford Torondo and his Butlerians.
But love … love was something different. A very complex emotion, with many aspects—like looking into the most complex facets of a diamond.
Now, inside one of the laboratories, Tlulaxa scientists were monitoring a fresh Navigator brain. All the protected brains in their canisters had just become inexplicably agitated. None of the researchers could understand why, not even Ptolemy or Noffe.
The scientists were likewise becoming agitated. “The Navigator brains have to be prepared,” Ptolemy said. “The cymek attack force must be ready for launch—we need to rely on these brains to destroy the Butlerians.”
Erasmus found their consternation amusing. He worked the muscles in his face to form a smile. “Perhaps they just need the appropriate stimuli.”
He had been practicing the subtleties of human facial expressions. The real face he had now was far more sophisticated than his best flowmetal body in the old days, as it provided him with precise motor skills and involuntary muscles. To her credit, Anna had helped teach him to smile and laugh, poking and prodding his face as if it were a mask of clay. Even in his robot body, he had been able to imitate laughter, but this was different—and it actually felt good.
Now he reacted to Anna’s intent expression. She was watching him, instead of the scientists, who were ignoring Erasmus in their angst over the agitated Navigators. So he shifted his focus to her, touched her arm, and gave her his best imitation of a heartfelt smile. She beamed in response.
He had already learned so much in assessing sensations from his nerve endings—the simple satisfaction of breathing and eating, tasks that even the youngest human infant could perform, but which no machine had ever done before. Even this damaged woman had taught him much.
He had also determined that the sexual act was quite pleasurable, objectively speaking, although Anna wanted to engage in intercourse far more often than was necessary for his research purposes. Plotting his own sensations on a curve, he developed a pattern to the sexual activities and did his best to model and measure her own responses. There was quite a significant variation each time, though.
Knowing she wanted his attentions now, he led Anna away from the preoccupied scientists. She seemed extremely pleased that he would take the initiative. For his own part, Erasmus devoted a section of his mind to considering further experiments he could perform on the Navigator brains. They were certainly interesting subjects.
But first he had sexual obligations; otherwise, Anna would not leave him alone. It was an investment in overall efficiency.
<
br /> Always before, Erasmus had interpreted romance as an example of human illogic and inefficiency. Once, he had quipped to the machine ruler Omnius that if robot manufacturing lines required such a complex and unpredictable mating dance before reproducing a new combat mek or worker robot, the thinking machines would never have spread beyond a single world.
But at this time, as he continued his series of physical experiments with Anna Corrino, he began to grasp some of the nuances. From his many years on Earth, Erasmus had memorized a wealth of human writings, including a series of well-regarded professorial handbooks on sex. He accessed that information and put those techniques into practice, much to Anna’s delight. His new biological body, though, did not have the stamina of even a common robot form, and he finished long before completing the steps in the opening chapter of the first handbook.
Afterward she clung to him anyway, snuggling close. “You are the ideal lover, Erasmus. You were made just for me. Everything is so perfect! We’re sheltered in this dome, away from the Imperial Palace and planetary wars, away from everything … just you and me. Oh, how I wish we could stay here forever!”
“Forever seems longer than necessary.” He knew that the Denali facility had been created for the purpose of developing weapons against the Butlerians, and Erasmus fully intended to avenge the death of Gilbertus. But he knew that if he revealed this priority to Anna, he would hurt her feelings, and that would be counterproductive.
As he pondered, she surprised him by asking, “Do you think we could have children?” She propped herself up on an elbow and turned her bright blue eyes on him. “I’d like to have a baby. Just think of what sort of son or daughter we could produce!”
Erasmus rose from the bed in alarm. He had accepted his biological body without fully considering the implications of sexual intercourse. If Anna were to have his baby, that would be an unnecessary complication, a time-consuming distraction. He’d dealt with babies before in his experimental laboratories, and had never enjoyed being around them. And he was sure that the experience of childbirth and the pressures of motherhood would damage Anna’s already fragile psyche.
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