Sandworms of Dune - Brian Herbert [22]
“And what is the result so far?”
“Acceptable losses. Our first emissaries have disappeared, but we will continue the effort. We plan for all eventualities—even disaster.” Casually, he led her out onto a broad, open field under the half-assembled hulk of a huge ship. “Thus, we are comfortable with extending certain beneficial terms to the New Sisterhood. You have always been a valued customer, but the order you submitted is massive. Even under wartime conditions, you have asked for more ships than we are able to provide.”
“Then offer your workers more incentive.”
“Ahh, Mother Commander, but will you provide enough incentive to us?”
She bristled. “How can you think solely of profits when the fate of the human race is at stake?”
“Profits determine all our fates.” The Administrator gestured casually, as if to encompass the huge assembly of the ships around him.
“We’ll pay what you demand, and the Guild Bank will offer us loans if necessary. We need those ships, Gorus.”
He smiled coolly. “Your credit is good, but we must address another problem. We do not have enough Guild Navigators to man so many new ships. All of the vessels we build for you will have to be equipped with Ixian mathematical compilers, rather than traditional Navigators. Is that acceptable?”
“Provided the ships function as we require, I have no objection. We don’t have time to develop and train another population of Navigators.”
Obviously pleased, Gorus rubbed his hands together. “Of late, Navigators have proven somewhat intractable, due to the shortage of spice—a shortage which your Sisterhood created, Mother Commander. It is because of you that we had to look for alternatives to Navigators.”
“I have no fondness for Navigators, or for your obscene profits. I don’t care how the Guild accomplishes it, but we need those ships.”
“Of course, Mother Commander, and we shall provide what you wish.”
“That is precisely the answer I need.”
What is the advantage of prescience if it serves only to reveal our own downfall?
—NAVIGATOR EDRIK,
message to the Oracle of Time
The Guild bureaucrats had the audacity to call Edrik’s Heighliner back to the shipyards on Junction. Staring ahead with his milky eyes, Administrator Gorus blithely announced that the Heighliner would be fitted with one of the new Ixian mathematical compilers. “Our spice supply line is undependable. We must be certain each vessel can operate safely if its Navigator fails.”
Over the past two years, more and more Guildships had been outfitted with the hated artificial controls. Mathematical compilers! No simple engine or tool could adequately complete the phenomenally complex projections that a Navigator performed. Edrik and his fellows had evolved through immersion in spice, their prescient vision strengthened through the power of melange. There could be no mechanical substitute.
Nevertheless, Edrik had no choice but to accept a team of qualified and arrogant Ixian workers who shuttled up from the Junction shipyards. The tight-lipped men boarded the Heighliner under the watchful eyes of the Guild, with their smug expressions, compiler machines, and dangerous curiosity.
In his tank, Edrik was concerned that they would snoop around under the pretext of completing their installation. The Navigator faction could not risk these men finding Waff’s laboratory, the genetically altered sandtrout, and the small mutated worms he was producing in his tanks. The Tleilaxu man claimed to be making excellent progress, and his work must remain a secret.
Therefore, when the Ixian installers were all safely aboard, Edrik simply folded space, informing no one in the shipyards where he was going. He carried his empty Heighliner far out into an isolated wasteland between solar systems, and there ejected the disbelieving Ixians, along with their accursed navigation machines, out into the cold vacuum.
Problem solved.
His acts would be discovered eventually, but that could not be avoided. Edrik was a Navigator. Mere human Administrators had no hold over him.
Edrik suspected that the