It was said of Norma Cenva that one could not judge her on the basis of appearances. No matter her physical failings or the classic beauty that eventually replaced them, neither represented the essence of the woman. She was, above all else, a cerebral powerhouse.
— PRINCESS IRULAN,
Biographies of the Butlerian Jihad
When she returned to Rossak, the silvery-purple jungle in the deep rift valleys brought back an avalanche of memories from Norma’s childhood. The skies were still stained with toxic smoke from distant volcanic action, and the smell of the life-laden atmosphere rose up like a miasma from the dense undergrowth below the cliff cities. There, the jungles swarmed with the most unusual plant and insect life, flora and fauna fighting for survival in the sheltered, fertile cracks.
Norma remembered as a young girl going out on expeditions with Aurelius and his botanical specialists, hunting in the lush jungles for plants, fungi, berries, even insects and arachnids that could be converted into pharmaceuticals. VenKee Enterprises still reaped great profits from their drug harvests on Rossak, though melange had become the company’s dominant export product.
In Norma’s recent vivid vision, however, she saw that nearly everything here would be destroyed. Soon. Something terrible would happen to Rossak, to the Sorceresses, to everyone. She hoped she could convince her half sister of the urgency, though Ticia would want proof, details, explanations. Norma could offer nothing like that… just a very strong premonition she had had during an intense melange-induced dream.
Ticia would not be very amenable to taking Norma at her word.
Many years ago Ticia had gone out on one of the last raids against cymeks; she and her fellow Sorceresses had been prepared to unleash their mental powers, to take enemy cymeks with them as they died. All of Ticia’s companions had sacrificed themselves, and Ticia herself would have been the next in line. But then the cymeks had retreated, leaving Ticia the sole survivor, her sacrifice not needed… and somehow she had always resented not getting her chance. Ticia’s personality was formed of regrets, blame, and determination. She could find many ways that her life had soured, and as many people to identify as the cause.
The Supreme Sorceress had always ignored Norma to the point of pretending she didn’t exist, letting her work alone on Kolhar with her ships and her space-folding engines. She was as devoted to her projects as Norma was to hers. In an odd way, that allowed Norma to understand her half sister.
Now that the Jihad was over, there was no longer any call for the women of Rossak to be trained as suicidal mental juggernauts. Now the Sorceresses devoted their energies to studying and managing all the bloodlines they had compiled over generations, along with all of the new genetic material they’d collected during the worst of the Omnius Scourge.
“I suspect your inspiration, your premonition, comes more from the distortions of too much melange than from any real prescience,” Ticia said, after listening to Norma’s message. They stood together on a cliff balcony, staring down into the thick jungles.
As Supreme Sorceress, she wanted little to do with drugs and artificial crutches. As far as she was concerned, only the weak were forced to rely on drugs. VenKee had made enormous profits by distilling stimulants, hallucinogens, and medical treatments from the exotic jungle plants. The whole matter was distasteful to Ticia, as was her half sister’s obvious addiction to the spice from Arrakis.
Both women looked icily beautiful, tall and pale-skinned, with platinum-blond hair and precise features. Inside her mind, though, Norma still saw herself as the dwarfish, blunt-featured woman who could easily be intimidated by domineering Sorceresses, like Ticia.
“It was not my imagination,” Norma said. “It was a warning. I know that among the Sorceresses, precognition is occasionally manifested as a talent. You certainly have the records to prove that.”
“I will send a message if your dire prediction comes to pass. Just go back to Kolhar and do your work.” Ticia lifted her chin regally. “We have our own important duties here.”
Norma looked at her half sister through sparkling blue eyes that seemed to veil a whole universe beyond. She touched her own temple and smiled complacently. “I am working on the calculations every moment. I can do them here as easily as on Kolhar.”
“Then perhaps we’ll both see whether your bad dreams come to pass.”
* * *
BUT FOR DAYS, nothing terrible had happened, and Norma could provide no further details of her premonition.
Each morning during her extended visit, Norma walked alone through the densest jungle, selecting roots, berries, and leaves and tucking them away in her pockets without ever explaining why. Such a strange person, Ticia thought, watching her half sister from afar.
Hazy sunlight glinted off Norma’s unnatural gold hair and milky skin as she made her way trancelike up a steep path from the jungle floor, toward the high cliff opening where the Supreme Sorceress stood. So preoccupied, so absentminded. How amusing it would be if Norma were to trip and tumble to her death….
Their mother had abandoned Ticia as a baby in order to spend all her time with Norma, choosing this… freak over her, over a perfect Sorceress. Fall, damn you!
When Norma’s gliding steps brought her up the steep path to the cave opening, Ticia continued to stare at her, never moving. Norma spoke directly to the Supreme Sorceress, as if she were continuing a dialog she’d been having for some time, probably inside her head. “Where do you keep the computers?”
“Are you mad? We have no thinking machines here!” Ticia was shocked that her half sister would have guessed their secret. Is she… really prescient? Should I take her warning seriously?
Norma looked at her without ire, not believing Ticia for a moment. “Unless your minds have been trained to the organization and capacity of a computer, you must be using a sophisticated system to maintain such vast amounts of detailed genetic data.” She studied Ticia with the intensity of a deep-scanning instrument. “Or are you doing a poor and sloppy job because you’re afraid to use the necessary tools? You don’t seem the type.”
“Computers are illegal and dangerous,” Ticia said, hoping it would be enough of an answer.
Norma, as usual, fixated on the problem and refused to let go. “You need not fear suspicion or paranoia of machines from me— only curiosity. I myself took advantage of computerized organization and response systems to solve the foldspace navigation problems. Unfortunately, the League failed to admit the benefits, and I was forced to discontinue that highly productive line of work. I would not begrudge you their usefulness for your own research.”
Before Ticia could develop a viable-sounding excuse, she heard the sudden shrill whistle of something hot and fast screaming through the air. In unison, they looked at the hazy morning sky where silver descent trails streaked down, targeted toward the deep, sheltered rift valleys. Large projectiles crashed into the treetops, plunging through foliage and thudding into the jungle floor.
Norma bit her lower lip as she nodded slowly. “I think this is the start of what I saw in my vision.” She turned to Ticia. “You had better sound an alarm.”
Hearing the impacts outside, white-robed Sorceresses rushed from their cave chambers and moved about with intense, determined speed. At the base of the cliff, one of the projectiles that had embedded itself in the soft loam began to shudder and open like an eggshell. A flurry of metal parts sprang out, dug into the ground, and dumped dirt, pebbles, and other materials into a processing hopper.
Despite her fearsome premonition, Norma studied the crashed projectile with detached curiosity. “It appears to be an automated factory— though not as sophisticated as a genuine thinking machine— using local resources to assemble something.”
“It’s a machine,” Ticia said. She grew rigid, ready to generate a power source in her body that would enable her to fight in the only way she knew. “Even if it is not a cymek, it is our enemy.”
On the jungle floor, several men in VenKee uniforms approached the crash site. Filled pouches were clipped to their belts from a day of harvesting the underbrush. One pale, distorted-looking young man accompanied them like an eager puppy; he was cow-eyed and misshapen, an unsettling freak, and Ticia scowled at him from her high vantage, wishing the Misborn would just die when they were cast out into the jungle….
Then, as the curious group approached the landed projectile, the automated factory spat out its first completed products: small silver spheres that flew like armored, hungry insects. They rose in a swarm, scanned the area, and then rushed en masse toward the VenKee party. The misshapen young man scampered away with surprising speed and vanished into the thick and tangled underbrush, but the VenKee men did not move fast enough.
“They are small, but they must have crude sensors,” Norma said, still sounding analytical.
The flying metal mites swirled around their victims like a cloud of angry wasps, then struck like tiny buzz saws, shredding the men, stripping cloth and skin, sending out a spray of blood and bits of ground-up flesh. Then men shrieked and screamed, running, thrashing, but the piranha machines pursued them, ate away at them, mangling their bodies.
Then the fanged mites streaked toward the cave openings. “They have targeted us,” Norma said.
Ticia shouted to the other Sorceresses, and the powerful women of Rossak stood together, facing the oncoming cloud. The buzzing little drones, covered with sharp metal spines, whirred forward like bullets. Ticia began to shake, calling up her mental abilities.
Behind the Sorceresses, the children and men of Rossak crowded into safe chambers. Ticia and her companions raised a crackling wind with their minds, sending forth small blasts of telekinetic power like a mental hurricane. Clusters of the oncoming mechanical mites were scattered, then pulverized in the air. Then more came. The crashed factory probe was manufacturing the machine mites by the thousands.
“This doesn’t require as great an effort as vaporizing a cymek,” one of the Sorceresses said, “but it still satisfying in its own way.”
“Omnius has found a way to send a new weapon against us, even from behind the League’s barricade,” Norma said. “These machines are programmed to hunt us down and destroy us.”
Metallic clouds of artificial insects filled the air in front of the cliff cities, seeking out victims. The Sorceresses were surrounded by ozone and invisible wind. Their pale hair flew about, their garments rippling with telepathic currents. Ticia raised her hand, and with a concentrated burst the women wiped out another wave of machine mites. Then, joining their efforts together, the Sorceresses blasted the factory cylinder itself, imploding its mechanisms into a thick lump.
“Send men down with flame cutters and explosives,” Ticia said. “They need to destroy that cylinder before it can repair itself.” She felt exhilarated and smug, even to the point of acknowledging her half sister’s dire prediction.
“The war is not over,” Norma pointed out. “It may be just starting. Again.”