Sandworms of Dune - Brian Herbert [197]
Alarmed, Murbella glanced at Sheeana, then back at him. “Duncan! Thinking machines have been our mortal enemies since before the Butlerian Jihad—more than fifteen thousand years.”
“I plan to untie that Gordian knot of misunderstandings.”
“Misunderstandings! Thinking machines slaughtered trillions of human beings. The plague on Chapterhouse alone wiped out—”
“Such is the cost of inflexibility and closed-minded fanaticism. Casualties are so often unnecessary. Honored Matres and Bene Gesserits, humans and thinking machines, heart and mind. Don’t our differences strengthen us rather than destroy us?” The reality-expanding wealth of information Erasmus had given him was tempered by the wisdom he had earned through numerous lifetimes. “Our struggle has reached an end and a watershed.” He flexed his hand, and he could feel innumerable thinking machines out there listening, waiting. “We have the power to do so much now.”
Utilizing perfect prescient and calculational knowledge, Duncan knew how to bring about an everlasting peace. With humanity and thinking machines balanced in the palm of his hand, he could control them all and seize their powers, preventing them from making further war. He could force cooperation among the Navigator-faction Heighliners, the Ixian-modified ships, and the thinking-machine fleet.
With his developing prescience, he foresaw the joint future of humankind and thinking machines—and how to implement it every step of the way. Such breathtaking power, greater than the God Emperor or Omnius combined. But power had eventually corrupted Leto II. How, then, could Duncan handle this even greater burden?
Even if Duncan Idaho acted for the most altruistic of reasons, there were bound to be dissenters. Would he eventually be corrupted, regardless of his good intentions? Would history remember him as an even worse despot than the God Emperor?
Facing an avalanche of questions and responsibilities, Duncan vowed to use the lessons of his numerous lifetimes for the benefit and survival of the human race and thinking machines. Kralizec. Yes, the universe had indeed changed.
How terrible for a mother to bury her own daughter. There is no greater pain, not even the Bene Gesserit Agony. Now I have had to bury my daughter twice.
—LADY JESSICA,
Lament for Alia
Just one casualty among uncounted trillions.
Later, as Jessica gazed sadly at the cold form of her daughter, she knew that one little girl did matter as much as all the others. Each life had value, whether a ghola child or a natural-born person. The titanic struggle that changed the future of the universe, the defeat of the thinking machines, and the survival of the human race seemed as nothing to her. She was completely preoccupied with preparing Alia’s body for burial.
As she touched the small pale face, stroking the forehead and wispy dark hair, she remembered her daughter. An Abomination, Alia had been called: a child born with the full intelligence and genetic memories of a Reverend Mother. It had come full circle now. In her original lifetime, the little girl had killed Baron Harkonnen with the poison gom jabbar; later, as an adult and haunted by the evil presence of the Baron, Alia had taken her own life, throwing herself through a temple window high above the streets of Arrakeen. Now the reborn Baron had killed the reborn Alia, before she’d ever had the opportunity to reach the potential she deserved. It was as if the two of them were forever locked in mortal combat, on a mythical scale.
A tear rolled down Jessica’s cheek with the grace of a falling raindrop. She closed her eyes and realized that she had been frozen in the same position for a long moment, caught up in memories. She hadn’t even heard the visitor approach her quarters.
“Is there any way I might help you, my Lady?”
“Leave me. I want to be alone.” But when she saw that it was the somber Dr. Yueh, her demeanor softened. “I’m sorry, Wellington. Yes, come in. You can help me.”
“I don’t wish to intrude.”
With a wan smile she said, “You’ve earned