Sandworms of Dune - Brian Herbert [175]
The old man sneered down at the frozen, useless boy Paolo and the dead Baron. “All that work on our own clone gave us no advantage. Extremely wasteful.”
Erasmus shaped his flowmetal face into a sympathetic expression and addressed the recent arrival. “I knew I was drawn to you for a reason, Duncan Idaho. If you really are the Kwisatz Haderach, you stand in a position to alter the course of the universe. You are a living watershed, the harbinger of change. You can choose to stop this conflict that has made enemies of humans and thinking machines for thousands of years.”
Duncan realized that Yueh, Jessica, Chani, and Paul had all played their parts, and now the focus had shifted to him.
Erasmus stepped closer to them. “Kralizec means the end of many things, but that end need not be destructive. Just a fundamental change. Henceforth, nothing will be the same.”
“Not destructive?” Jessica raised her voice. “You said your thinking-machine ships are attacking worlds in the Old Empire. You’ve already sterilized and conquered hundreds of planets!”
The robot seemed unperturbed. “I did not say our approach was the only way, or even the best one.” The old man glowered at Erasmus as if he had been insulted.
Suddenly the sky above the great machine city was torn by multiple booms of displaced air as a thousand Guild Heighliners appeared like storm clouds. Emerging from foldspace, the fleet of huge vessels easily carried enough weaponry to level the continent.
Omnius’s old man guise flickered as his concentration was wrenched by the dramatic shift. Across the city of Synchrony, robots buzzed about, fighting the sandworms that continued to rampage. Now they had to shore up defenses against the new enemy overhead.
Inside the vaulted building, Erasmus altered his form again to the kindly old woman, as if he believed this presentation more convincing and compassionate. “I’ve run probabilities beyond the limits of my original calculations. I believe you have the power, Duncan Idaho—stop these Guildships from destroying us.”
“Oh, please stop prattling,” Omnius said.
Duncan looked around, crossed his arms over his chest. “I am not afraid of the Guild and their Navigators. If I have to die to end this, I’m willing to do so.”
Yueh added bravely, “Everyone here has died before.”
“It doesn’t matter. Let them destroy Synchrony.” The old man did not seem overly disturbed. “I am dispersed across many locations. Annihilating this entire planet, this node, will never eradicate me. I am the evermind, and I am everywhere.”
A crack sounded at the center of the wide cathedral hall. Then, with a blur and a bang of folded space, an image appeared above the bloodstained floor. The shimmering transmission appeared to be solid one moment and a staticky ghost the next. In moments, the shape clarified to a beautiful and statuesque human woman with classically perfect features. Then she shifted to become stunted and dwarfish, with a blunt, unattractive face, short arms and legs, and an overly large head. After another flicker, the image was nothing more than a disembodied face that wavered in the air. It was as if she could not remember exactly what she was supposed to look like.
Duncan immediately knew who—or what—this was. “The Oracle of Time!”
The face swiveled to scan the people and robots in the great hall, before the image hovered closer to him. “Duncan Idaho, I have found you. I searched for years, but your no-ship and your own . . . strangeness protected you.”
Duncan no longer questioned the bizarre storm of occurrences around him. “Why did you come now?”
“You emerged from your no-ship only once before on the planet Qelso, but I did not follow you swiftly enough. I sensed you again when your no-ship was damaged and captured. Now, with the thinking machines attacking, I was able to trace the lines of the evermind’s tachyon web and follow Omnius to you. I brought my Navigators with me.”
“What is this apparition?” the evermind demanded. “I am Omnius. Begone from my world!”
“Once I was called Norma Cenva. Now I