The Army of the Jihad can try to prepare for the next scheme of Omnius, but we will always fall behind the thinking machines, for they can develop their evil thoughts with computer speed.
— PRIMERO QUENTIN BUTLER,
private letters for Wandra
While Abulurd was gone to Parmentier with Supreme Commander Atreides, Quentin Butler felt an increased weight of responsibility for protecting the League capital world. Under the provisions of the Jihad Council, the primero became the ranking officer in the Salusan system. He never felt the need for a moment to himself or a day of rest. For months now, ever since the first fateful messenger had come from Rikov announcing the Omnius Scourge, he had felt humanity’s dire peril.
Thus, Quentin drove himself harder each day, accepting unnecessary assignments, wanting to be everywhere at once. The jihadi soldiers he commanded could use the down time in the incessant chaos of the quarantine and lifeboat efforts, but Quentin himself would have none of it. His son Faykan was the same way. Rather than taking well-earned leave, he offered to spend days on standard picket patrols out on the fringes of the Salusan system.
“You and I are setting a fine example for our soldiers. Imagine— the primero of a large battalion along with a high-ranking and heavily decorated segundo spending tedious hours on sentinel duty.”
Faykan’s chuckle came back over the comline. “It’s not often the thinking machines give us a chance to experience tedium, Primero. For the time being, I’ll welcome it.”
“I fear that Omnius has more in mind than just spreading plagues. We are so very vulnerable now.”
Faykan said, “We’ll have to keep a sharp eye out.”
The two men flew modified long-range kindjals, drifting within only a few light-seconds’ transmission delay from each other, close enough that they could hold long conversations. The primero appreciated those simple discussions more than any trip to a League spa or resort designed for pampered nobles. In a way, though he recognized he was being unfairly harsh to Abulurd, he considered Faykan his only remaining son.
From the time he had been a young man, Quentin had been a war hero, earning his reputation in the Army of the Jihad after the successful conquest of Parmentier, one of the most surprising victories in the Jihad. Though only a lieutenant at the time, he’d beaten an overwhelming force of combat robots by using devious tactics that had made even Supreme Commander Vorian Atreides proud. Afterward, he’d never outgrown the title of “Liberator of Parmentier.” Beautiful Wandra Butler herself had pinned on his medals during a ceremony. Smitten, Quentin had courted her. They were a perfect couple, and when they finally married, he accepted the great name of Butler instead of keeping his own.
Though of course her body still clung to life, he wondered what life would be like now if Wandra had not been stolen from him by that terrible stroke while giving birth to Abulurd. He grimaced at the thought of his youngest son, who now chose to call himself by a hateful name. Harkonnen!
For decades, Wandra’s family had tried to overcome the shame of what their deceased patriarch had done. They performed extravagant deeds, sacrificed themselves, threw their lives into the unending Jihad. But now foolish Abulurd— of his own volition!— had chosen to nullify all that progress, reminding everyone of the inexcusable crimes Xavier Harkonnen had committed.
Where had Quentin gone wrong? Abulurd was intelligent and well educated, and should have known better. At the very least he should have discussed the matter with his father first, but now the brash decision had been implemented. Quentin could not face him, though honor did not allow him to completely disown his youngest son. Perhaps one day Abulurd would redeem himself. Quentin only hoped he might live long enough to see it happen….
For now, he had only Faykan.
The two spent hours chatting about old times. Faykan and Rikov had both been rogues in their younger years, the famed Butler Brothers who took pride in proving their father’s motto, “Butlers are servants unto no one.” The impetuous brothers had bent orders, ignored direct commands, and made their mark in the history of the Jihad.
“I miss him, Father,” Faykan said. “Rikov could have fought for many more good years. I wish he’d at least been given the chance to fall in battle instead of dying in bed from that damned virus.”
“This holy war has always been a trial by fire,” Quentin said. “It’s either a crucible to temper and strengthen us, or a furnace to destroy the weak. I’m glad you weren’t one of the latter, Faykan.” As he said it, he wondered if Abulurd fell into a different category. If not for the benevolent mentorship of Supreme Commander Atreides and the Butler family clout, Abulurd would no doubt be a clerk organizing supply runs for isolated outposts.
Of late, Faykan had begun to settle down, concerning himself more with the broad landscape of League politics than with adventure. He said he would rather lead people and guide society than order soldiers to their deaths.
“You’ve changed too, Father,” Faykan pointed out. “I know you would never shirk your duty, but I’ve watched your attitude. It seems to me that your heart is no longer in the battle. Are you weary of the war?”
Quentin hesitated longer than the transmission delay required. “How can I not be? The Jihad has gone on for so long, and the deaths of Rikov and his family have been a terrible blow for me. Since the Scourge, this is no longer a war that I can easily understand.”
Faykan made an assenting noise. “We shouldn’t even try to understand Omnius. But we should fear him and be watchful at all times for some new plan.”
Quentin and Faykan gradually widened their patrol net. Though the primero drifted with his idling engines cooling down and his shields off, he did not doze. He let his thoughts wander, preoccupied with memories and regrets. Still, a lifetime of combat service— both on the ground fighting and on the bridge of his battleship— had trained him always to be alert for the slightest anomaly. A flicker of unexpected movement could mean an attack.
Though his wide-range scanner detected no unusual activity, only a few small blips below the instrumentation’s error threshold, Quentin spotted a glinting metal object. The albedo was too high for a simple rock or even a comet. This was a geometrical shape with a smooth metal shell— the flat and polished planes of an artificial object that did not appear on his sensors.
Quentin studied his screens and gently powered his kindjal’s engines, increasing acceleration just enough to close the distance and determine what he was seeing. He wanted to signal Faykan, who was also within range, but he feared that even a secure comline transmission would alert this silent intruder.
The mysterious craft was drifting out of the system, its velocity just sufficient to overcome the star’s gravitational pull. Since the intruder generated no artificial power pulse, it was not likely to be detected on long-range League scanners. But Quentin had sighted it, and he eased himself closer until the configuration was unmistakable: a thinking machine ship, a robotic scout sent to spy on Salusa Secundus.
Moving cautiously, as if afraid even the noise of soft clicks in his cockpit might alert the stealthily moving enemy, he loaded fast-deployment artillery shells along with two self-guided scrambler mines. Quentin carefully locked in the target.
Then he saw a spike of energy from the machine ship, as if it suspected something. An active scan beam rippled across the hull of Quentin’s kindjal. He tried to jam the reflections, but the thinking machine spycraft powered up immediately. Quentin hit hard acceleration, which slammed him back into his seat, making it difficult even to lift his hands to operate the controls.
With his lips drawn back and his lungs compressed, Quentin sent a direct signal to Faykan, wherever he was. “Found a robot… spycraft! It’s trying to get out of the system. Have to… stop it. No telling what recon data… it’s got.”
With a sudden burst of speed, Quentin closed the gap halfway, but the robotic scout’s afterburners fired in a long and hot acceleration that no human could have survived. Before giving up, Quentin launched his full spread of fast-release artillery shells. The projectiles shot out far faster than Quentin’s kindjal could fly, spreading like a swarm of deadly wasps.
Quentin held his breath, watching the blips converge, on target…. But at the last minute, the robotic spycraft pinwheeled in an astonishing blur that must have been beyond the material limits of traditional hull metals. His artillery shells exploded, sending waves of energy and shock pulses through empty space. The robot ship continued to pick up speed, though it began to weave erratically, as if it was either still trying to dodge or had been damaged somehow.
Quentin maintained pursuit acceleration, nearly blacking out, though he saw that he would never catch up. His heart felt even heavier than the leaden foot of gravity pressing down on his chest. The robot spy was going to get away! There was no way he could stop it. Cursing his failure, he eased off on the acceleration, gulping huge breaths again and fighting back dizziness.
For a moment he thought it was a hallucination, then he recognized the new streak as Faykan’s kindjal, roaring in on an intercept course toward the machine infiltrator.
The robot spycraft saw him much too late. Faykan was already opening fire. Two of his son’s seven artillery shells struck their target, detonating against the robot’s hull. The explosions imparted force in several different directions, sending the craft tumbling as it sputtered flames and globules of molten metal. The glow of its hot engines flickered and died.
The robot spycraft spun, entirely out of control, and the two League kindjals closed in, locking tractor beams to stabilize it. Working together, they drew it in like predators snaring a juicy piece of meat.
“Stay on your guard,” Quentin transmitted over the comline. “He may just be playing dead.”
“I hit him hard enough to make him play dead forever.”
Side by side, their kindjals finally halted the robot ship’s erratic motion. He and Faykan squirmed into their suits inside the cramped confines of their kindjal cockpits. Thinking machines had no need for life-support systems, and it was unlikely the interior of the robot spycraft would be pressurized.
Quentin and Faykan emerged from their kindjals and drifted in space, anchored to the captive vessel. Working together, they used cutter torches and hydraulic grapplers to slice open an access hatch in the spy vessel’s belly. When they finally tore the hole in the hull wide enough for their two suited forms to enter, an ominous fighting robot loomed before them. Its several limbs bristled with weapons, swiveling to get a good shot at the pair of humans.
Quentin already had his scrambler-pulse generator primed and ready. He fired a blast, part of which diffused against the ragged hull opening, but the rest ricocheted and shivered through the robot. The combat mek twitched and shuddered, fighting to reset its gelcircuitry systems.
Faykan pulled himself inside. Using his own mass, he knocked the robot off balance in the low gravity. The combat mek tumbled, still jerking, unable to reset itself.
“We’ve found ourselves a prize,” Faykan said. “We can purge its systems and reprogram it to teach swordmasters on Ginaz, like that combat mek they’ve had for generations.”
Quentin considered for a moment, then shook his head inside his helmet. The very idea offended him. “No, I don’t think so.” He unleashed a potent scrambler pulse, which turned the lone robot into a motionless hulk of scrap metal. “Now let’s see what this damned machine was really up to snooping around Salusa.”
Long ago, when Quentin had undergone basic command training under Vorian Atreides, he had learned the rudiments of thinking-machine datasystems and computer controls. Considering itself perfect, the evermind had not altered its operating systems in centuries, so Vor’s information remained valid during the entire time frame of the Jihad.
Now Quentin went to the controls of the deactivated spycraft. Faykan frowned at the systems, trying to understand the purpose of the large convex devices studded on the outside of the vessel. “They’re broad-range sensors and mapping projectors,” he concluded. “This ship was taking a full sweep of everything in the Salusa system.”
Quentin rerouted enough power to operate the log and datasystems inside the robotic vessel. It took him a moment to understand everything he was seeing, and another few seconds to assess the horrific magnitude of what the spycraft had done.
“This is filled with information about League Worlds: our military defenses, our resources… and how hard the Scourge has hit us. All of our vulnerabilities, all focused here! This one ship studied a dozen League Worlds and collated an entire invasion plan. The main target seems to be Salusa Secundus.” He pointed to the three-dimensional maps, the numerous inbound routes the machines had automatically plotted, finding the path of least military resistance. “It’s everything Omnius needs to plan a full-scale invasion!”
Faykan indicated one of the record fields. “According to this, it’s one of a hundred similar recon ships sent all across the League.”
Through the faceplates of their suits, Quentin looked at Faykan, seeing that his son had drawn the same conclusion. “With our population and our military devastated by the Scourge, now would be the perfect time for Omnius to stage his final assault.”
Faykan nodded. “The thinking machines have something very unpleasant in mind for free humanity. Good thing we caught this one.”
The spycraft was too large for the kindjal scouts to tow back to the inner system. Quentin detached the computer memory core and took it with him while Faykan placed a locator buoy on the dead vessel so that League technicians could come back and analyze its systems.
Right now, both men had only one priority: to get back to the Jihad Council and report their news.