Sandworms of Dune - Brian Herbert [188]
Smiling coolly, Duncan said, “As the Kwisatz Haderach, I know there are—and always will be, even as I evolve—limitations on my knowledge and my abilities.” He tapped the robot in the center of his chest. “Answer me. Did you manipulate the prophecies?”
“Humans created countless projections and legends long before I existed. I simply adapted the ones I liked best, generated the complex calculations that would produce the desired projections, and fed them to the evermind. Omnius, with his usual myopia, saw only what he wanted to see. He convinced himself that in the ‘end’ a ‘great change in the universe’ required a ‘victory’ for him. And for that he needed the Kwisatz Haderach. Omnius learned many things, but he learned arrogance too well.” Erasmus swirled his robes. “No matter what the evermind or the Face Dancers thought—I have always been in control.”
Raising his hands, the robot gestured to the sentient metal cathedral around them, indicating the whole city of Synchrony and the rest of the thinking-machine empire. “Our forces are not entirely leaderless. With the evermind gone, I now control the thinking machines. I have all the codes, the intricate, interlinked programming.”
Duncan had an idea that was part prescience, part intuition, and part gamble. “Or the final Kwisatz Haderach can take control.”
“That seems a much neater solution.” An odd expression moved across the robot’s flowmetal face. “You interest me, Duncan Idaho.”
“Give me the codes and the access I need.”
“I can give you more than that—and, yes, it will require much more. A whole machine empire, millions of components. I would have to share an . . . entirety with you, just as my Face Dancers shared all those marvelous lives. But for a Kwisatz Haderach, that would be just the thing.”
Before the robot could laugh again, Duncan reached forward and grabbed the platinum hand that extended from the plush sleeve. “Then do it, Erasmus.” He pressed closer, reached out his other hand and pressed it against the robot’s face in a curiously intimate gesture. Prescience seemed to be guiding him.
“Duncan, this is dangerous,” Paul said. “You know it.”
“I’m the one who’s dangerous, Paul. Not the one in danger.” Duncan pulled himself to within inches of Erasmus, feeling all the possibilities roil within him. Though there were troublesome blind spots in the future, pitfalls and traps he might not be able to foresee, he felt confident.
The robot paused, as if calculating, then gripped Duncan’s hand and—in a like gesture—reached out with the other to touch his face. Duncan’s dark brows knitted as he experienced strange sensations. The cool metal felt alarmingly soft, and he almost had the sensation of falling into it. He extended himself, stretching his mind toward the uncharted territory of the independent robot’s thoughts, just as Erasmus did the same to him. The robot’s fingers elongated, spreading out over Duncan’s hand like a glove. As flowmetal covered Duncan’s wrist and ran up his forearm, it felt bitingly cold as Erasmus began to talk. “I sense a growing trust between us, Duncan Idaho.”
As moments passed, Duncan couldn’t tell if he was taking from the robot, or if Erasmus was surrendering what the nascent Kwisatz Haderach needed, everything he needed. And, though the two of them were fused, Duncan had to go further. A viscous, metallic substance covered his arm like the sandtrout that had engulfed young Leto II’s body, so long ago.
I hear the clarion call of Eternity beckoning me.
—LETO ATREIDES II,
records from Dar-es-Balat
With the machine city heavily damaged and the evermind Omnius gone, the major components of Synchrony stopped moving. The buildings no longer pumped and shifted like interlocking puzzle pieces, no longer morphed into strange shapes. Like an immense broken engine, the city had ground to a complete halt, leaving many streets blocked, structures half buried or partially formed, and tramcars suspended in the air, dangling on invisible electronic wires. Grotesque