AllFreeNovel
Share Us
--DUNCAN IDAHO,
A Thousand Lives
The leader of the Face Dancer myriad arrived at Synchrony, bearing a long-anticipated gift for the evermind. The thinking machines still viewed Khrone as nothing more than a servant, a delivery boy.
Omnius and Erasmus never suspected that the shape-shifters might be formulating their own schemes independent of both humanity and the thinking machines. Naive, oblivious, and so very typical. The evermind would treasure this new melange for his grandiose plans, and it would keep the machines from doubting Khrone and his Face Dancers. He intended to make the most of it.
With their brutality and arrogance, the "old man and woman" had long ago given the new shape-shifters reasons to break their loyalty. Erasmus fancied himself reminiscent of a Face Dancer, but much more . . . and similar to a human, but greater. And like Omnius . . . but infinitely more powerful.
Khrone and the rest of the myriad had never truly given their allegiance to the thinking machines. He saw no more reason to accept slavery under machine masters than to have accepted the domination of the original Tleilaxu who had created their predecessors so many centuries ago. Forced allies, second-class partners . . . The evermind was merely one more layer in the grand pyramid of those who thought they controlled the Face Dancers.
After so much effort, Khrone couldn't wait until he could drop this endless deception. He was no longer amused by the number of masks he had to wear and the complicated threads he continued to pull. Soon, though . . .
Alone, he flew his small ship directly to the heart of the modern machine empire. The location of Synchrony had been genetically programmed into all new Face Dancers, like some sort of homing beacon. As he entered the airspace over the technological metropolis, Khrone let his thoughts drift back to Ix. The fabricators and engineers had successfully completed a special demonstration at dead Richese, and now Obliterators were emerging from the production lines. Mother Commander Murbella had been impressed with the power she witnessed, and she'd been entirely convinced by the show. Fool!
But not in all things. In her prior meeting with Chief Fabricator Shayama Sen, Murbella had forced him to administer a biological test that proved he wasn't a Face Dancer. Given what had happened, Khrone was vastly relieved that he had not replaced the man, as he'd been tempted to do many times in the past.
Face Dancers already controlled most of the important positions on Ix, and when the Chief Fabricator blithely distributed the biological tests to all the main engineers and team leaders (never suspecting there might actually be a majority of Face Dancers among them), the myriad had been forced to act precipitously. When an indignant Sen announced the Sisterhood's suspicions, the infiltrators had finally been forced to kill him and assume his identity. They had already taken care of the troublesome Bene Gesserit line supervisors and production monitors. And so the deception continued, unmarred.
Enhanced Face Dancers quickly subsumed the last humans among the leaders of Ix. Then, working together, they contrived all the necessary tests, selected the required scapegoats, substituted convincing data, and submitted everything to Chapterhouse in accordance with Murbella's demands. All in perfect order.
After surviving the plague, the Sisterhood's leadership had forced all human protectors to finally band together against the thinking-machine fleet, to defend their race rather than simply their own worlds. The hundreds of new ships that emerged from the Junction shipyards were being loaded with enough Obliterators for a final, concerted stand against the oncoming wave of Omnius's ships. So far, the evermind's forces had encountered very little significant resistance, and now they were on their way to Chapterhouse. For the last time.
Khrone had actually been tempted to let the Reverend Mothers and their last-stand defenders succeed. Given enough functional Obliterators, they could send the machine fleet reeling. Humans and thinking machines could easily annihilate each other. However, that was simply too . . . easy. Kralizec demanded much more! This time, the fundamental shift in the universe would get rid of both rivals, leaving all the remnants of the Old Empire for the Face Dancers.
Khrone felt completely confident in the future as he landed his ship in the convoluted labyrinth of copper steeples, golden turrets, and interlocked silvery buildings. Sentient structures shifted aside to allow a place for his ship to settle. When the small vessel came to rest on a smooth quicksilver plain, Khrone stepped out, breathing air that smelled of smoke and hot metal. He did not spare a moment to look around.
The central machine world was based entirely on theatrics. He suspected the touch of Erasmus in this, though Omnius had such an overblown perception of his own importance that he no doubt wanted all machine minions to bow before him as a god--even if the evermind had to program them to do so.
Rectangular plates appeared on the ground, laying down an interlocked pathway that guided Khrone to his destination in the magnificent arched cathedral. Head held high, he strode along carrying his precious package, refusing to look like a supplicant summoned before his lord. Rather, Khrone was a man on a mission with important business to complete. Omnius would be pleased to have the concentrated ultraspice for use with his cloned Kwisatz Haderach. . . .
Inside the ostentatious hall, the ghola of Baron Harkonnen stood with young Paolo at a nine-level pyramid chess board. Glowering, the Baron knocked over a rook on one of the top levels. "That move is not allowed, Paolo."
"It enabled me to win, didn't it?" Pleased with his ingenuity, the young man crossed his arms over his chest.
"By cheating."
"It's a new rule. If we are as important as you say, we should be allowed to make up our own rules."
A flash of anger crossed the Baron's face, and then vanished into a chuckle. "I see your reasoning--and that you are learning."
When Khrone stepped forward, they looked at him with identical expressions of distaste. "Oh, it's you." The Baron sounded entirely different from when he'd been tormented by the Face Dancers. "I didn't think we'd be seeing you again. Bored of Caladan?"
Ignoring them, Khrone noted that the two principal thinking machines had resumed their guise of an elderly couple in gardening clothes. Why were they wearing these personas now? For the benefit of these two gholas? It wasn't as if the thinking machines were keeping secrets from anybody here. Khrone had never been able to determine a pattern in their behavior.
Perhaps it was linked to the fact that Omnius and Erasmus wanted to receive all of the lives Khrone had gathered and assimilated during his last mission among the humans. They looked forward to the sharing of their Face Dancer "ambassadors" each time one of the far-flung representatives returned. It seemed to make them feel superior, and allowed the independent robot to feel that he belonged to the human race, somehow.
"Look, he's brought something," Paolo pointed out. "A present for us?"
Khrone went directly to the old man and woman. As the woman leaned toward him, her visage had a feral and hungry look. "I think you brought more than just a package, Khrone. You haven't been back to Synchrony in some time. Show us the personas you've acquired. Every little bit adds to us, makes us greater."
"I have had enough." The old man turned away. "I am beginning to find them somewhat distasteful. They are all the same."
"How can you say that, Daniel? Every human is different, so beautifully chaotic and unpredictable."
"Exactly what I mean. They are all confusing. And I am not Daniel, I am Omnius. Kralizec is upon us, and we have no time for further preparatory games."
"Sometimes I still like to consider myself Marty. In many ways it's more appealing to me than the name or guise of Erasmus." The old woman took a step closer to Khrone. The Face Dancer didn't dare flinch, though he despised what was about to happen. Her hand was gnarled, with large knuckles. It felt clawlike when she touched his forehead. She pressed harder, and Khrone shuddered, unable to block the intrusion.
Each time a Face Dancer mimicked a human shape, he sampled the original subject an
d acquired both a genetic trace and an imprint of the memories and persona. The thinking machines had set the shape-shifters loose into the Old Empire. Infiltrating the humans, they gathered more and more lives as they subsumed useful people and played their roles. Whenever a Face Dancer returned to the machine empire, Erasmus in particular wanted to add those lives to his vast repository of data and experience.
Out of forced subservience, Khrone and his comrades surrendered that information. But though the thinking machines could upload the various lives the Face Dancers copied, they could not take their core personas. Khrone held onto his secrets, even as he offered up all those people he had been in recent years--an Ixian engineer, a CHOAM representative, a crewman on a Guildship, a dock worker on Caladan, and many others.
When the process was finished, the old woman's hand withdrew. Her wrinkled face wore a satisfied smile. "Oh, those were interesting ones! Omnius will certainly want to share them."
"That remains to be seen," the old man said.
Feeling drained, Khrone caught his breath and straightened himself. "That is not why I came." His voice was shamefully weak and quavering. "I have obtained a special substance you will find invaluable for your Kwisatz Haderach project." He held out the ultraspice package, as if offering a gift to a king, precisely as Omnius expected him to behave. The old man accepted the package, scrutinized it carefully.
The Face Dancer gave Paolo a condescending look. "This potent form of melange is sure to unlock the prescience in any Atreides. Then you will have your Kwisatz Haderach, as I have always promised. There is no need to continue pursuing the no-ship."
Omnius found the comment amusing. "Strange you should say that now."
"What do you mean?"
Beside him, the old woman grinned. "This is a momentous day, since both of our plans have come to fruition. Our patience and foresight have paid off. Now, what shall we do with two Kwisatz Haderachs?"
Khrone paused, startled. "Two of them?"
"After so many years, the no-ship has finally fallen into our trap."
Khrone slid his surprise back into himself and went rigid. "That is . . . most excellent."
The old woman rubbed her hands together. "Everything is culminating at once. It reminds me of the climactic movement in a symphony I once wrote."
