Ultimately, it is not what you are but who you are that matters.
— Erasmus Dialogues,
final entries
Though he was numb in his heart and body, Swordmaster Istian Goss continued to fight. Corrin, at least, was a proper battlefield for his skills.
For the weeks of travel across space to the final Synchronized World, he had been disturbed and restless, keeping to himself. Aboard the ship he encountered many of the Cultist zealots whom he hated so much. If he didn’t stay away from them, he might be tempted to lash out and break their bones.
Instead, Istian trained alone in sealed chambers, pushing himself, improving his fighting skills much as the young Jool Noret had done. But no matter how hard he worked, Istian still did not feel the spirit of the great hero moving through him. Even so, as he smashed one test opponent after another, he realized that the inner silence of Jool Noret did not in fact make Istian any less effective. He was a skilled swordmaster in his own right.
After the riots and demonstrations on Zimia had resulted in the deaths of both Nar Trig and the sensei mek Chirox, Istian had had no qualms about volunteering for this final assault on Corrin. Fighting the forces of Omnius yet again was far preferable to killing fellow human beings in order to assuage his anger and guilt.
When the Vengeance Fleet finally clashed above the last stronghold of Omnius, plowing through the defensive lines of robotic battleships, Istian and his fellow mercenaries armed themselves, prepared for the combat. But the space battle was not part of a swordmaster’s fight. Istian had done little more than fidget aboard the ship, waiting, itching to use his pulse-sword in hand-to-hand combat.
At last, when the wreckage of the machine forces lay strewn in orbit, along with many dead ships from the Vengeance Fleet, Supreme Bashar Atreides turned them loose. Istian Goss and his fellow mercenaries climbed aboard a fast personnel shuttle, ready for a final assault on the primary city on Corrin. Beside him he had seen accompanying javelins and ballistas full of mercenaries blown up by repeated machine fire.
But some survived. Enough of them to do the job.
The personnel shuttle streaked down through the atmosphere, accompanied by twenty similar craft. It would be the mission of Istian and his fellow warriors to make Corrin safe, to eradicate the rest of the thinking machines, to plant the precision atomic charge that would exterminate the last evermind.
Beside him in the shuttle rode twenty-three other swordmasters, survivors of old battles, like himself. After the Jihad, many of them had found other callings in life, but they had returned for this conflict. One last opportunity to prove their combat skills.
As the personnel shuttle skidded to a halt in the chaos of the machine city, the hatches opened and the swordmasters poured out, their pulse-swords ready. Nearby, two other shuttles landed, bearing diplomatic markings instead of the Army of Humanity insignia. Enthusiastic but clumsy, Cultists carrying cudgels and crude imitations of pulse-swords raced out to destroy any enemy they could find.
His heart pounding, Istian turned away, not wanting to be distracted by fools when he had a real opponent to fight. An enemy that mattered.
However, he realized that the Cultists didn’t care if they lost two or three fighters for every machine they managed to deactivate. This was pure jihad for them, more so than for anyone in the Army of Humanity. Unlike when they were back on Salusa Secundus, attacking useful machines such as Chirox, right now these zealots were actually Istian’s allies. He found it strange to think of them as such….
After Istian and his fellow mercenaries had exited, the shuttle pilot took off again, while anti-aircraft fire peppered the sky. Explosions rocked the streets of the primary Corrin city. Combat robots swarmed out of glistening geometrical complexes. With a loud yell, the swordmasters ran to meet them.
Eager for combat, Istian got there first. Before him, ominous combat meks stood to face the swordmasters, their weapons arms extended and optic threads sparkling, as if a machine could experience hatred.
Every one of them bore an eerie resemblance to Chirox.
After having watched the sensei mek sacrifice himself rather than hurt a human being, Istian hesitated, feeling a heaviness in his heart. He wished Chirox could be there beside him now. Even more influential on him than the visceral spirit of Jool Noret, the reprogrammed combat mek had guided Istian’s life.
He groped for Jool Noret inside his heart— and finally felt an emotional, spiritual connection. In front of him, these warrior robots were simply brute-force fighters. And they would fall. The moment that his pulse-sword clashed against a combat mek, he realized that all similarity to Chirox was an illusion.
With the sensei mek’s training, Istian was more than a match for them. He dispatched two opponents in the first wave and threw himself without thought upon the next combat mek, who had just killed one of the rampaging Cultists. While blood still dripped from its sharp flowmetal arms, Istian fried its gelcircuitry systems and spun about to seek another enemy.
As he continued to fight, all his ghosts and doubts burned away.
Istian reached the final level of abandonment, the true secret of Jool Noret’s fighting style. He felt energized. This was what he had devoted his life to. This would always be the focus of his heart and mind.
He and his comrades made their way toward the central Omnius nexus, awaiting the final signal to plant their city-killer warheads and end their mission. Swinging his pulse-sword, Istian felt he could fight like this forever— and there were certainly enough thinking machines to keep him busy.
* * *
WHILE THE FINAL battle raged around Corrin, Erasmus paused to listen to the peaceful sounds of water trickling from numerous mechanical fountains and streams, punctuated with the background noises of battle in the skies above the capital city. Seeing the unfortunate course of the fighting— yet feeling no guilt for his own part in the terrible losses— the independent robot had retreated here to where he might seek solace for his troubles and await the end. Or terminate himself.
Abruptly, as he witnessed the return of his beloved ward, Erasmus changed his mind. With his crimson robe flowing around him, the robot strode forward to embrace a shaken-looking Gilbertus Albans, rescued from the cargo containers of the Bridge of Hrethgir. Even though the last Synchronized World was falling around him, he could think of only one thing. “You are safe, my Mentat. Excellent!” The expression of joy on his flowmetal face was not simulated, but a genuine, unconscious reaction.
The welcoming hug was so fervent that the powerfully built man gasped. “Father— please, not so much enthusiasm!”
Erasmus loosened the embrace and stood back to admire the man he had raised, trained, and cared for over so many decades. Gilbertus looked dirty and tired from his ordeal, but uninjured. That was the important thing. And the robot said, “I never thought I’d see you again.”
“I felt the same.” Gilbertus’s large olive-green eyes misted over. “But I was also sure you would find a way to bring me back. You would not let me get hurt.” He gave a worried frown. “But Serena is still up there. We must rescue her.”
“Unfortunately, I am unable to help her now. Most of our defenses have been obliterated by human pulse-atomics. I fear that Corrin is lost to us,” Erasmus said. “The League fleet will be here soon.”
“At least she wasn’t aboard one of the machine ships,” Gilbertus said, striving for any sort of consolation. “Then she would be dead already.”
The independent robot did not lie to him. “If Vorian Atreides follows his previous pattern, you and I may not have much longer, either, my Mentat. He will sterilize Corrin as he did the other Synchronized Worlds, and we will be obliterated. Up on the Bridge, your Serena may survive.”
“I don’t believe they will send waves of atomics to kill us all, Father. I saw their troops landing and entering the city— although their commander has already proved that he’s willing to sacrifice millions of hostages. I cannot understand why the explosive trigger failed in the Bridge of Hrethgir.”
“It did not fail, Gilbertus. I deactivated it— in order to save one person.”
Gilbertus was stunned. “You did that for me? You sacrificed Corrin, the entire machine civilization? I am not worthy of that!”
“To me, you are. I have completed extensive projections, and it is clear that you will become a very important man one day. Perhaps when all the thinking machines are gone, you can teach your fellow humans how to think efficiently. Then all my work will not have been for nothing.”
“You taught me how to think, Father,” Gilbertus said. “I will honor you by explaining that these techniques come from you.”
The robot shook his head. “No machine will escape Corrin today. Not even me. The battle is lost. I could show you the ongoing projections if we could activate one of the Omnius wallscreens. Our robot lines are crumbling. The League fleet has just driven another entire battle group through the scrambler network. We have very few active ships remaining in orbit. Already, the hrethgir have breached our tightest defenses. I can only hope that they choose to act with precision and spare some of the beauty of this world… and save you.” He looked off in the distance, where the booming sounds of battle added a harsh counterpoint to the gentle peace of his garden.
“This is truly the twilight of the thinking machines. But not for you, Gilbertus. You must travel in human circles from now on, and never admit any connection with me. I killed Serena Butler’s baby and sparked the mass mania that followed. Never mention my name or your association with me. The treasured moments we spent together can only be retained in your marvelous mind. You must pretend you have been a simple human slave here on Corrin. Change your clothes. With luck, the hrethgir will rescue you and take you back to the League of Nobles.”
“But I do not wish to go.” Though alarmed, Gibertus raised his chin. “If I do survive, then there is something I must do for you in return.” He placed his hands on the robot’s metal shouders. “Will you trust me?”
“Of course. It is illogical even to ask me such a question.”
* * *
DEEP BELOW THE plaza of the besieged city, underneath the flames, the rubble, and the thronging human conquerors, the recovering Omnius Prime began to move the flowmetal that encased him, material that had formerly been his Central Spire.
Fully functional now, the primary evermind intended to regain control of the planet.