Sandworms of Dune - Brian Herbert [123]
“I still want to see it with my own eyes,” Murbella said. “Then we’ll throw everything into a defense against the machine advance.”
“Deploying the nodes now,” transmitted one of the Ixian pilots. “Please observe.”
Four balls of light spat from the quartet of Ixian ships, and the incandescent Obliterators spun like pinwheels toward the cracked world below. They shuddered and expanded as they descended, throwing off rippling waves that grew brighter instead of dampening.
The atmosphere of Richese had already been scorched, its forests and cities leveled in the first chain reaction. Even so, the Ixian-modified weapons found sufficient fuel to set the world ablaze all over again.
Murbella remained silent as she watched the awesome swiftness of the flame fronts. She stared without blinking until her eyes felt dry. The planet flared like an ember in a breeze. Cracks appeared across the continents; orange rifts blazed up. Finally, she spoke to her daughter, not caring that the Ixians could overhear on the open commline. “If we deploy such a weapon in the midst of a thinking-machine battle fleet, it will wreak inconceivable havoc.”
“We might actually have a chance,” Janess said.
Shayama Sen interrupted through the speakers, “You assume, Mother Commander, that the thinking machines will be foolish enough to fly their ships in such a tight cluster that one weapon will suffice.”
“We know a great deal about the Enemy’s battle plan and how their fleet has been advancing. They do not use foldspace engines, so they move methodically from one target to the next, step by step. With the thinking machines there are few surprises.” Murbella looked at her daughter, then back at the burning planet before snapping orders to the Ixians. “Very well, no need to squander any more Obliterators. When we finally hurl them at machine battleships, that will be demonstration enough for me. I want at least ten Obliterators aboard each of our new warships. No more delays! We have waited too long already.”
“It will be done, Mother Commander,” Sen said.
Murbella chewed at her lower lip as she watched Richese continue to blaze. It wasn’t like the Chief Fabricator to be so cooperative, failing to demand additional payment. Perhaps, after seeing countless worlds already destroyed, the Ixians had at last recognized their true enemy.
Whether we see them or not, there are nets everywhere, encompassing our individual and collective lives. Sometimes it is necessary to ignore them, for the sake of our own sanity.
—ship’s log, entry of
DUNCAN IDAHO
Face Dancers aboard.
In her quarters with little Alia and twelve-year-old Leto, Jessica felt very much like a mother again—after all these centuries. The three of them had a shared past and bloodline, but no other knowledge or memories in common. Not yet. To Jessica it seemed that they were little more than actors memorizing lines and playing roles, trying to be who they were supposed to be. Her body was only seventeen, but she felt much older as she comforted the two younger ones.
“What is a Face Dancer?” three-year-old Alia asked, toying with a sharp knife she kept at her side. Since the time she could walk, the girl had harbored a fascination for weapons, and she often sought permission to practice with them, rather than playing with more appropriate toys. “Are they coming to get us?”
“They’re already in the ship,” Leto said, still shaken. He could not believe that Thufir had been a Face Dancer and that he hadn’t known it. “That’s why we were all tested.”
“No others have been found yet,” Jessica said. She and Thufir had been decanted in the same year. In the crèche, she had been raised with the ghola of the warrior-Mentat, and never had she noticed any change in his personality. It did not seem possible that Thufir could have been a Face Dancer from the very beginning.
The real Hawat, Master of Assassins and former weapons master of House Atreides, had been a veteran of numerous successful campaigns like Bashar Miles Teg, serving three generations of House Atreides.