AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Carrying a stack of reports, Laera did not react well to the news. "But Mother Commander, you've been gone so long. Many documents await your attention. You have to make decisions, give proper--"
"I decide the priorities."
Kiria, looking scornful, bit her words back when she noted the Mother Commander's complete seriousness. They all crowded aboard an empty ornithopter, then waited for the tedious takeoff preparations. Murbella wouldn't sit still for a moment. "If I don't get a pilot, I'll fly this damned thing myself." A young male pilot was quickly brought to her.
As the 'thopter took off, she finally turned to her advisors and explained, "The Guild demands an exorbitant payment for all the warships we have under construction. Ix already accepts payments only in melange, and now that soostones from Buzzell are no longer economically viable, everything hinges on spice. That is our only coin significant enough to appease the Guild."
"Appease them?" Kiria snapped. "What madness is this? We should conquer them and force them to produce the weapons and vessels we need. Are we the only ones who understand the threat? Thinking machines are coming!"
Janess was astonished by the other woman's suggestion. "Attacking the Guild would create open civil warfare at a time when we can least afford it."
"Do we have enough resources to spend on these ships?" asked Laera. "Our credit has already been strained past its limits with the Guild Bank."
"We all face a common enemy," old Accadia said. "Surely, the Guild and Ix would be willing--"
Murbella clenched her hands. "This has nothing to do with altruism or greed. Despite the best intentions, resources and raw materials do not appear like rainbows after a storm. Populations must be fed, ships must be fueled, energy must be produced and expended. Money is only a symbol, but economics is the engine that drives the whole machine. The piper must be paid."
The 'thopter raced across the sky, buffeted by dry winds and blown dust long before they saw the desert. Murbella gazed out the curved window, sure that dunes had not extended this far across the continent the last time she'd visited the desert. It was a spreading antiflood, total dryness sweeping outward in waves. At the heart of the desert, the worms grew and reproduced, keeping the cycle going in a perpetually increasing spiral.
The Mother Commander turned to the woman behind her. "Laera, I require a complete assessment of our spice-harvesting operations. I need to know numbers. How many long tons of melange do we gather? How much do we have in our stockpiles, and how much is available for export?"
"We produce enough to meet our needs, Mother Commander. Our investment continues to go into expanding the operations, but our expenditures have increased dramatically."
Kiria muttered a bitter comment about the Ixians and their endless bills.
"We may need to bring in outside workers," Janess pointed out. "These obstacles can be overcome."
The 'thopter swooped toward a chimney-plume of dust and sand thrown up by a harvester. Around it, like wolves circling a wounded animal, several sandworms approached the vibrations. Already the operations were beginning to wrap up, with miners rushing and carryalls hovering to snatch the heavy machinery away as soon as worms ventured too close.
Murbella said, "Squeeze the desert, wring out every gram of spice."
"Beast Rabban was given the same task long ago, during the days of Muad'Dib," said Accadia. "And he failed in a spectacular fashion."
"Rabban did not have the Sisterhood behind him." She could see Laera, Janess, and Kiria all making silent mental calculations. How many workers could be diverted to the desert zone? How many offplanet prospectors and treasure hunters could they allow on Chapterhouse? And how much spice would be enough to keep Guild and Ixian engineers producing the desperately needed ships and weapons?
The male pilot, having been silent until now, said, "While we are out here, Mother Commander, shall I take you to our desert research station? The planetology crew is studying the sandworm cycle, the spread of desert, and the parameters necessary for the most effective spice harvest."
" 'Understanding is required before success is possible,' " Laera said, quoting directly from the old Orange Catholic Bible.
"Yes, let me inspect this station. Research is necessary, but in times like these it must be practical research. We have no time for frivolous studies concocted by the whim of an offworld scientist."
The pilot banked the 'thopter and accelerated far out into the open desert. On the horizon, a lumpy, black ridge showed a reef of buried rock, a safe bastion where worms could not go.
Shakkad Station had been named after Shakkad the Wise, a ruler from days before the Butlerian Jihad. Nearly lost in the mists of legend, Shakkad's chemist had been the first man in history to recognize the geriatric properties of melange. Now, far from Chapterhouse Keep or any outside interference, a group of fifty scientists, Sisters, and their support staff lived and worked. They set up weather-testing devices, traveled out onto the dunes to measure chemical changes during spice blows and monitor the growth and movement of sandworms.
When the 'thopter settled onto a flat cliff outcropping that served as a makeshift landing pad, a group of scientists came out to meet them. Dusty and windblown, a survey team was just returning from the edges of the desert where they had set out sampling poles and weather-testing instruments. They wore stillsuits, exact reproductions of those once used by the Fremen.
A majority of the scientists at Shakkad Station were men, and several of the older ones had made brief expeditions to charred Rakis itself. Three decades had passed since the ecological destruction of the desert planet, and by now few experts could claim firsthand knowledge of the sandworms or original conditions on Dune.
"How may we assist you, Mother Commander?" asked the station manager, an offworlder who pushed dusty protective goggles up onto his forehead. The man's owlish eyes had already begun to turn a faint blue. Spice had been in his diet every day since his arrival at the outpost. His body gave off an unpleasant sour odor, as if he had taken his assignment in the waterless belt with particular seriousness, even to the point of foregoing regular bathing.
"Assist us by getting more melange," Murbella answered bluntly.
"Do your teams have everything they need?" Laera asked. "Do you require additional supplies or workers?"
"No, no. We just want solitude and the freedom to work. Oh, and time."
"I can give you the first two. But time is a commodity none of us has."
We can conquer our enemy, of course, but is it worthwhile to achieve victory without understanding the flaws of our opponent? Such an analysis is the most interesting part.
--ERASMUS,
Laboratory Notebooks
The machine-based cathedral on Synchrony was a mere manifestation of what the rest of the galaxy might become. Omnius was pleased at the progress the thinking-machine fleet had made in the past few years, conquering one system after another, but Erasmus knew that so much more remained to do.
The voice of Omnius boomed much louder than necessary, as he sometimes liked to do. "The New Sisterhood offers the strongest resistance to us, but I know how to defeat them. Scouts have verified the secret location of Chapterhouse, and I have already dispatched plague probes there. Those women will soon be extinct." Omnius sounded quite bored. "Shall I display the map of star systems, so you know just how many we have encountered and conquered? Not a single failure."
Displays jabbed into Erasmus's mind, regardless of whether he wanted to see them or not. In bygone days the independent robot had been able to decide what he wanted to download from the evermind, and what he didn't. Increasingly, however, Omnius had found ways to override the robot's decision-making abilities, forcing data into his internal systems, sliding it past multiple firewalls.
"Those are mere symbolic victories," Erasmus said, intentionally shifting to his disguise of the wrinkled old woman in gardening clothes. "I am pleased that we have made it to the edge of the Old Empire, but we still have not won this
war. I have spent millennia studying these stubborn, resourceful humans. Do not assume victory until we actually have it in our hands. Remember what happened last time."
Omnius's snort of disbelief echoed through the entire city of Synchrony. "We are by definition better than flawed humanity." From a thousand watcheyes, he looked down upon Erasmus and his matronly disguise. "Why do you persist in wearing that embarrassing shape? It makes you look weak."
"My physical body does not determine my strength. My mind makes me what I am."
"I am not interested in your mind either. I simply wish to win this war. I must win. I need to win. Where is the no-ship? Where is my Kwisatz Haderach?"
"You sound as demanding as Baron Harkonnen. Are you unconsciously imitating him?"
"You gave me the mathematical projections, Erasmus. Where is the superhuman? Answer me."
The robot chuckled. "You already have Paolo."
