Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [211]
He dumped the paraphernalia into the airlock booth and considered the rumpled debris of a past life. It seemed like so little, but with such great portent. He stepped back and reached for the controls.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed a strand of hair still clinging to his sleeve. One of Murbella’s hairs had come loose from her garments, a single amber strand . . . as if she still wanted to cling to Duncan.
He plucked the hair with his fingertips, looked at it for a long, painful moment, and finally let it drift down among the other items. He sealed the airlock door and, before he could think, cycled the systems. The last breaths of air were evacuated, and the material was swept out into space. Irretrievable.
He stared out into the emptiness, where the objects quickly disappeared from view. He felt immeasurably lighter . . . or perhaps that was just emptiness.
From now on, Duncan Idaho would rise above any temptations that were thrust in front of him. He would be his own man, no longer a piece to be moved around on someone else’s game board.
At last, after our long journey, we have reached the beginning.
—ancient Mentat conundrum
T
he Enemy ships cruised toward the Old Empire, thousands upon thousands of enormous vessels, each carrying weapons sufficient to sterilize a planet, plagues that could eradicate entire populations. Everything was going extremely well after so many millennia of planning.
Back on the central machine world, the old man had dropped his illusions. No more games or façades, only rigid preparations for the final conflict foretold both by human prophecy and extensive machine calculations: Kralizec.
“I assume you’re quite pleased that you have already destroyed sixteen additional human planets on your march to victory.” The old woman had not yet dispensed with her guise.
“So far,” said the booming old man’s voice that echoed from all buildings and all screens everywhere.
The structures in the endless machine city were alive and moving like an immense engine, tall towers and spires of flowmetal, enormous blocky constructions built to house substations and command nodes. With each new conquest, cities just like Synchrony would be built on planet after planet.
The old woman looked at her hands, brushed the front of her dress. “Even these forms seem primitive to me, but I have grown rather fond of them. Perhaps accustomed is a more precise word.” At last, her voice faded, changed, and settled on an old familiar timbre. In her place stood the independent robot Erasmus, intellectual foil and counterpoint to Omnius. He had retained his platinum, flowmetal body, draped in the plush robes to which he had grown accustomed so long ago.
Having discarded his physical form, Omnius spoke through millions of speakers in the great city. “Our forces have pushed to the fringes of the human Scattering. Nothing can stop us.” The computer evermind always had such grandiose dreams and aspirations.
Erasmus had hoped that by constraining the evermind within the guise of an old man, Omnius might begin to understand humans and learn to steer clear of these extreme gestures. That had worked for a few thousand years, but when the violent Honored Matres careened into the carefully reconstituted Synchronized Empire, Omnius had been forced to respond. In truth, the anxious evermind had simply been looking for an excuse.
Now he said, “We will prove that the Butlerian Jihad was merely a setback, not a defeat.”
Erasmus stood in the middle of the vast, vaulted chamber of the central machine cathedral. All around them, the buildings themselves stepped back, shifting aside like sycophants. “This is an event we should commemorate. Behold!”
Though the evermind thought he controlled everything himself, Erasmus made a gesture, and the floor of the chamber cooperated. The smooth metal plates spread apart,