Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor. People are decisive.
— MAO TSE-TUNG,
a philosopher of Old Earth
Unable to believe his triumph had finally come after more than a century of pain and bloodshed, Supreme Bashar Vorian Atreides guided his command shuttle toward the center of the main square of Corrin’s primary city. The impending victory tasted like metal in his mouth, the pleasure dulled by his continuing anger against Abulurd. At the moment of greatest crisis, he almost cost us everything. And Seurat had betrayed him as well.
There would be time to deal with his emotions later, after he had witnessed the end of the computer evermind.
As Vor brought his command shuttle in from above, the robotic soldiers looked like children’s toys spread across a stylized, smoking battlefield. The remnants of the mechanical army massed in a protective formation around a central shielded dome. Though defeated, they fired at the League’s small kindjals and transport craft that buzzed overhead.
Shouting into his command link, Vor sent a wave of kindjal attack flyers against the last stronghold of Omnius, softening it up and removing any ground robot defenses, so that the mercenaries could approach and complete their surgical strike. In an ingenious technical innovation, the evermind seemed to heal the dome with each blast that struck, sealing a flowmetal layer over the destruction like a creature regrowing injured skin.
Wary, Vor called in a heavier bombardment from some of the surviving ballistas, and they descended through the flaming wreckage to pound the final stronghold of the evermind. With the larger armaments, the blasts went deeper, killing entrenched thinking machines. Finally, the protective dome crumbled under the massive detonations, and could not use flowmetal technology to restore itself.
As he landed his shuttle, Vor summoned the surviving Ginaz mercenaries and sent them forward with demolitions equipment and weaponry to finish obliterating any vestiges of the evermind.
I must watch for a final trap. In the endgame of this long Jihad, when things looked so bleak, the thinking machines could still come up with a clever last effort, something surprising and devastating.
As Vor strode into the machine city, he was reminded of the design and grid of Earth’s huge Omnius metropolis where he had spent his youth. Viceroy Faykan Butler had also landed and was strutting around the battlefield, surrounded by other nobles who wanted history to record that they had been there personally.
Wild members of the Cult of Serena raced through the city in an orgy of destruction, and Vor let them indulge their penchant for chaos. He realized cynically that a single, well-placed atomic-pulse would get rid of Rayna and her furious Cult, the politically ambitious Viceroy, and the evermind all at once. He needed only the disloyal Abulurd Harkonnen to round out all the enemies of humanity in a single place….
But Vor shook away his dark thoughts. Iblis Ginjo might have approved of such a scheme, but not Vorian Atreides. He vowed to leave a legacy of honor after this momentous day.
Seeing Vor, one of Faykan Butler’s noble companions rushed up. “Champion Atreides! Rayna and some of her people were near the citadel before the bombardment! We’re afraid they’ve been buried under the rubble. You have to dispatch crews to dig them out! The Viceroy is there now.”
Vor couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Why would she be there? Doesn’t she know we’re bombarding the structure? This is no place for civilians. Corrin is a battle zone!”
“Maybe the poor girl expected to be protected by Saint Serena,” the noble said with just a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “Please send workers and medical personnel— it’s a direct request from the Viceroy.”
Vor scowled, resenting that he had to take valuable personnel away from important missions to aid Rayna. Finally, suppressing his frustration, he summoned a group of engineers, soldiers, and battlefield surgeons.
While swordmasters stormed into the rubble of the citadel, battling combat robots that remained intact even after the bombardment, Vor made his way toward the center of the destruction. As he watched, Ginaz mercenaries threw scrambler grenades, sending pulses of disruptive Holtzman energy that wiped out gelcircuitry brains.
Near the embattled citadel, he saw the Viceroy standing at the excavation site, looking concerned. His troops had already removed dozens of human bodies from the rubble. Sighing, Vor stepped up to Faykan. “Have they found your niece yet?”
“Not yet. But I hold on to hope.”
Vor nodded. “Yes, I suppose this is a place for hope.”
On this very spot, the Central Spire of an earlier Omnius had once stood. Here also, Serena Butler had given up her life for the cause of humanity. So it was with a tremendous feeling of awe and a sense of history that Vor watched his troops use heavy machinery to search the rubble, while some of the Cultists used their bare hands to help.
On the plaza perimeter, combat engineers searched for hidden openings that might lead down. Sophisticated detection beams played over the rubble and patches of exposed pavement. The mercenaries were ready with special warheads.
One of the sensor operators sent Vor a comsignal. “We found something beneath what’s left of a plazcrete monument that was inside the dome,” the man said. “It’s all recent construction, and I’m picking up hollow spots down there. Some side passageways, too, and a large void in the middle.”
“Spectral analysis indicates unusual metals,” another soldier said.
“Dig it out,” Vor ordered.
Suddenly the plaza cracked open, scattering Vor and his engineers. Like a snake bursting out of its hole, the silvery, tentacular growth of the Central Spire lunged out of the rubble and shot skyward.
Soldiers shouted, and the Cultists made warding signs, screaming to vanquish the unexpected demon. The liquid-silver flowmetal spire twisted and reshaped, billowing out at the end like an inverted umbrella, a parabolic dish of some sort. A transmitter!
With a groan like a dying sea beast, the Central Spire convulsed and then vomited a flash of light, shooting a signal upward through the atmosphere like a scream out into space, where it would dissipate across the parsecs. Then the Central Spire collapsed, lost its integrity, and splattered into puddles across the broad, rubble-strewn plaza.
“What in the name of Serena was that?” Faykan cried.
“Nothing good,” Vor said. “You can be sure of it.”
He heard a cheer, and a short distance away saw soldiers and ragged Cultists pulling a battered Rayna Butler out of the debris. The young woman was covered with dirt and abrasions, but alive. Within moments she stood on her own, wavering, and brushed herself off. A bright stain of blood marked her robe, but she said it was not her own. Shakily, she climbed on top of a broken slab of plazcrete, gathered her breath, and shouted, “Saint Serena has protected me!”
“Saint Serena has done enough protecting for one day,” Vor muttered to Faykan. “Get your niece and all of your people out of here— because I’m blowing up what’s left.”
He received an acknowledgment from the mercenaries, as they arrived at their target with three surgical pulse-warheads. Thanks to the aerial bombardment of the Central Spire, the robot ground defenses had crumbled. The rest was just an exercise. Vor and the Viceroy retreated with all of the other personnel, standing at a safe distance.
The flash was no more dazzling than all the previous ones, but the cheers from raw and ragged throats were louder. Omnius was gone. Forever.
* * *
GILBERTUS ALBANS DISENGAGED the independent robot’s memory core, the same small sphere he had saved when Omnius demanded the erasure of Erasmus. He wrapped it in a cloth and tied it with loving care. The little bundle fit neatly into his pocket, where no one would think to look for it. It was a priceless record of Erasmus’s remarkable life, his mind… his soul.
The robot’s metal body, now empty and deactivated, remained in the middle of his beloved contemplation garden, surrounded by soothing classical music and the serenity of whispering fountains. His plush robe hung in heavy folds. Erasmus looked like a statue.
Now Gilbertus decided he had to find the Serena Butler clone. His next challenge would be to rescue her, if she was still alive. There was too much he did not know.
With a last glance over his shoulder at his mentor, Gilbertus ran from the villa and melted into a mob of uniformed human soldiers, mercenaries from Ginaz, and antimachine Cultists who were destroying everything in sight. One of them fired a rocket at the ornate villa, where Erasmus’s beautiful platinum body stood. Gilbertus winced, then turned away as the villa erupted in flames. The crowd of zealots cheered, then ran on to the next target.
For hours, Gilbertus pretended to help the humans destroy thinking machines and the structure of the only society he had ever known. He ran with them, stumbling and sickened, but promising himself that he would reach safety.
It was what Erasmus would have wanted.