The march of human civilization is a constant succession of achievements and setbacks, always proceeding uphill. Adversity may make us stronger, but it does not make us happier.
— SUPREME BASHAR VORIAN ATREIDES,
Early Assessments of the Jihad (Fifth Revision)
On ancient charts, their next destination was known as Wallach IX.
Quentin had never heard of it. The planet had no place in human history, as far as he knew. Apparently not even Omnius had considered it an important part of his Synchronized empire.
Still, this planet had been a target in the Great Purge. One of the Jihad battle groups had come here, releasing squadrons of pulse-atomic bombardiers to drop scattered warheads to vanquish the evermind, and then departing as flashes and shockwaves swept through the atmosphere….
Wallach IX showed little evidence that it had ever been civilized, even before the attacks— no major industries, only sparsely populated settlements. Someone had crushed the natives to the edge of survival well before the Army of the Jihad bore down on them like an avenging angel.
But Wallach IX was the next destination on Porce Bludd’s mapped-out plan of inspection and aid. The Poritrin lord flew his space yacht in a quick survey. Beside him, Quentin studied the scarred and poisoned landscape that grew larger beneath them. “I am highly skeptical of finding survivors down there.”
“We never know what to expect,” Bludd said with contagious optimism. “But we can always hope.”
They cruised over the flattened, skeletal ruins of several old settlements, but detected no recent signs of life, no rebuilt structures, no indications of agriculture. “It’s been almost twenty years,” Quentin pointed out. “If anyone had survived, they would have made some sort of mark by now.”
“We need to be thorough, for humanity’s sake.”
In the city with the largest buildings, they also encountered the most destruction. The ground, rocks, and structural frameworks were glassy and blackened.
“Radiation levels remain high,” Quentin said.
“But not immediately lethal,” Bludd added.
“No, not immediately lethal.”
Surprisingly, they did discover signs of new construction, including large columns and heavy arches that were unsettlingly ornate. “Why would survivors waste time building gaudy memorials when they don’t have any way to feed themselves?” Quentin asked. “Showing off?”
“I’ve detected a few scattered power sources.” Bludd ran his fingers over the controls. “But there’s too much radiation for me to pinpoint them. I knew I should have invested in upgrading the yacht’s capabilities. It was never designed as a survey vessel.”
Quentin stood. “Why don’t I use the small scout flyer? We can cover more ground that way.”
“Are you in a hurry, my friend? Once we depart from Wallach IX, we can only look forward to more long weeks in transit.”
“Being so close to… all this makes me uneasy. If there’s nothing to be found here, I’d rather get the job done soon and be on our way.”
Quentin flew out in the small scout ship designed for short excursions over planetary surfaces. Bludd’s space yacht had too many conveniences, and there was nothing for a man to do besides sit back and let all the operations take care of themselves. This was much more interesting. It felt good to be out on his own, actively scanning an area, holding the engine power at his fingertips. Just like when he’d first led the raid on Parmentier, long ago….
The Poritrin lord landed the large yacht in a devastated area near what had been a ruler’s palace on Wallach IX. He transmitted to Quentin’s cockpit, “I’m suiting up and going outside to see what I can learn about these new towers. Who built them and why?”
“Be careful.” Quentin cruised in an ever-expanding circle. The destruction had a sickening sameness to it: charred rubble, dirt melted into glassy puddles. He saw no trees, weeds, or movement. Like Earth, Wallach IX was thoroughly dead, completely sterilized. But that had been the goal of the Army of the Jihad, he reminded himself. At least there was no sign of Omnius here.
Without warning, a burst of weapons fire hit him, damaging the flyer’s engines and sending him into a deadly spin. Quentin yelled, hoping the comline would automatically pick up his words. “I’m under attack, Porce! Who— “
He struggled to regain control. Another explosion ripped his wing, and all Quentin could do was hang on. His view through the cockpit window twirled, alternating between the scarred ground and open sky. Suddenly he saw movement below, large mechanical things with articulated bodies. Combat robots? Had Omnius survived somehow? No, it didn’t look right.
Flicking switches and rerouting power, he activated a secondary thruster and managed to stabilize his path, though he was losing altitude swiftly. One engine was on fire. He had barely enough lift to keep himself aloft for a few more minutes, putting more distance between himself and the mysterious attackers. Just long enough to get back to Bludd’s yacht, with any luck.
He tried to squeeze out distance and power. Another explosive projectile soared up from the bizarre machines below, detonating close to him. The shockwave shorted out a full bank of his controls.
Now Quentin finally recognized what had attacked him. Enormous walkers, just like the ones he had seen in historical images… or like those that had attacked him on Bela Tegeuse long ago. “Cymeks! Porce, prepare to get away. Return to your ship.” But he couldn’t tell if his comline still functioned.
He was going to crash.
The mechanical behemoths marched across the blackened landscape, emerging from their lair to continue firing on the unexpected human scout. With great strides, they moved across the melted radioactive ground, hurrying to intercept him.
Oily smoke spurted out behind him like blood spilled in the sky. The cockpit rattled and lurched. The ground rushed up at him. He edged another burst from his attitude jets, a nudge to keep him aloft just long enough to pass a line of jagged black rubble, then he dropped into a gentle bowl.
With a screech, the scout ship’s lower hull ground against the crumbled and sterile soil. Spraying sparks and clods of dirt, the flyer slewed, nearly tumbling end over end, but Quentin scrambled to keep it level, like a careening sled. Half of the left wing sheared off as the scout flyer made one last lurch into the air and slammed back down with a loud crash.
The restraints against his chest were so tight they nearly suffocated him. The plaz cockpit window cracked in a spiderweb pattern, and greasy dust splashed across his view. Finally the nightmarish ride stopped, and the mortally wounded scout ship collapsed on the open ground.
Quentin shook his head, realizing he must have blacked out for a few seconds. His ears were ringing, and he smelled smoke, lubricants, burned metal, shorted electronics… and dripping fuel. When he couldn’t unfasten the restraining straps, he worked loose his ceremonial combat knife and slashed himself free. His body ached with mere hints of all the pain he would feel as soon as the shock wore off. Quentin knew he was in trouble, realized that his left leg was probably broken.
Tapping unsuspected reservoirs of energy, he managed to lift his head and shoulders out of the wreckage. And saw cymeks coming for him.
* * *
BLUDD RECEIVED THE urgent call as he stood clad in his antiradiation suit before an obelisk decorated with ornate scrollwork. It had been erected near the ruler’s hall as some sort of ridiculous Golden Age memorial. He whirled as Quentin’s emergency signal rattled through his helmet. In the distance he saw the scout flyer under fire, weaving through the air, and finally careening down into an open area far from him. The flyer slewed, tore up the dry ground, then came to a halt in a pile of debris.
Alarmed, Bludd hurried back toward the space yacht, clumsy in the thick suit. Feeling a crawling fear, he turned around again to see nightmarish combat walkers like the ones that had long ago attacked Zimia. The Titans had returned! Cymeks had set up a base here in the radioactive ruins of a Synchronized World.
Like enormous metal-shelled crabs, the cymek walkers stalked over the debris, stomping on anything that blocked their way to the scout ship. Bludd stared, paralyzed with dismay. He could never get to the crashed flyer in time to rescue his friend.
Still conscious after the crash, Quentin shouted over his suit’s short-range comline. “Get away, Porce! Save yourself.”
Bludd scrambled aboard the space yacht, sealed the hatch, and removed his helmet. He didn’t bother to take off the rest of his antiradiation suit. Throwing himself into the pilot chair, he activated the still-warm engines and lurched the space yacht into the contaminated air.
* * *
OVER A RISE, the cymek walkers converged on the downed scout flyer.
Quentin watched them come, knew he had less than a minute. He wore only a flight suit, not an antiradiation suit, and could not survive in the poisoned environment for long.
As his enemies approached, his mind raced, thinking of his military training and experience, clawing through possibilities. The scout flyer carried no armaments at all. He couldn’t defend himself— not in any conventional way.
But he did not intend to go down without a fight. “Butlers are servants unto no one,” he muttered to himself, like a litany. His ship’s fuel cells were cracked, leaking volatile fluid into the engine chamber and all around the crash site. The smell was sharp and acrid in his nostrils.
He could ignite it, detonate the tank, and maybe drive back the cymeks. But he would have to do it by hand. He would be caught in the explosion himself, incinerated. Even so, that might be better than letting the cymeks seize him.
Quentin heard the heavy movement in the still, dead air. Footfalls like pile drivers slammed into the dirt as the massive walkers approached, humming with hydraulics, buzzing with weapons preparing to fire. They could launch another explosive bombardment and roast him where he crouched in the meager shelter of the wreckage.
But they wanted something.
Ignoring the sharp pain in his broken leg, Quentin worked frantically with his hands and the emergency tool kit he recovered from a storage pocket in the cockpit. Fuel gushed out as he cracked open the caps of the sealed power cells. His eyes watered and stung, but he kept working. An electronic pulse beacon would do him no good. He found a primitive flare that would produce a hot spark, an intense shower of fire.
Not yet.
The first cymek walker reached the crashed scout and hammered on the rear hull. Quentin scrambled back into the pilot seat, gathered the shreds of his restraints around him, knotted them across his chest as best he could.
A second mechanical form approached from the left side, raising long spiderlike metal legs. He heard another cymek coming toward him.
With cool precision despite his growing alarm, Quentin activated the hot flare, tossed it behind him into the leaking fuel reservoir, and then with a quick prayer to God or Saint Serena or anyone who might be listening, he triggered the emergency ejection controls on the pilot seat.
Fire and fuel combined in a startling gush of heat and a shockwave like a mallet striking the air. The ejection seat hurled Quentin out of the cockpit, racing the explosion beneath him as the remnants of the scout ship detonated.
He tumbled through the air, the wind knocked out of him, his face and hair burned. The view was surreal and nauseating, but he did catch a glimpse of one of the cymek walkers lying mangled in the flaming wreckage of the downed ship. Another walker, obviously damaged, staggered away, one of its articulated legs destroyed, dangling in a stump that showered sparks.
Then he dropped with crushing force onto the ground again. The pain was excruciating, and he could hear a succession of bones crack inside his body: ribs, skull, vertebrae. The frayed restraints snapped, and as the ejection seat rolled, his body fell to one side like a discarded doll.
Looking at the site of the scout’s explosion, he barely focused on the flurry of mechanical walkers. The surviving cymeks used laser cutters and heavy, sharp arms to tear open the few intact scraps of the hull, like hungry creatures trying to remove a savory morsel from a can. As if having a temper tantrum, one of the Titans tore the crashed flyer to shreds while two others lurched toward him.
His vision obscured by a red haze, Quentin could barely see and could hardly move, as if much of his muscle control had been severed. His left hand dangled at a useless angle from his wrist. His flight suit was covered with his own blood. Still, he forced himself to his knees and crawled forward in agony, trying to flee in any direction.
Behind him, the ratcheting sounds of walker-forms approached, growing louder and more ominous. The cymeks were like monsters from his most frightening dreams. After his close call at Bela Tegeuse long ago, Quentin had never wanted to see cymeks again.
Hearing a ragged noise, he looked up and saw Porce Bludd’s space yacht rise up in the distance and dwindle away into the sky.
With a trembling hand, Quentin withdrew his ceremonial dagger. As the angry cymeks came after him, he prepared to fight. The cymek walkers fell upon him, a single human, helpless and unprotected on a devastated landscape.