So much is based upon perception. We see events through the filter of our surroundings, making it difficult to know if we are doing the right thing. In this terrible taskI must undertake— a sinful act by any objective measure— the problem becomes more apparent than ever.
— SUPREME BASHAR VORIAN ATREIDES
During the process itself, Quentin had not been forced to observe the gruesome surgical operation that had separated him from his human body. The cymek vivisectionists had scooped his brain out of its skull before he’d ever regained consciousness. Now, with his optic threads, Quentin would be forced to watch the whole horror show for Vorian.
Juno seemed particularly proud of all the sinister-looking apparatus in the chilled operating chamber. For now, the medical tools gleamed with polished metal and plaz; soon they would all be stained with blood.
Even isolated in his brain canister Quentin could not quell the absolute revulsion he felt. He prayed the Supreme Bashar knew what he was doing….
Two of the hybrid secondary-neos moved about, reluctantly assisting in the operation that would convert Vorian Atreides. Like Quentin, the secondary-neos were unwilling participants, but he doubted they would help him. They silently prepared the room for the surgery.
Large articulated machinery was connected to the room’s walls and ceiling, a variety of drills and cutting lasers, nimble needle probes, diamond saws, and pry clamps. Metallic bins rested beside a polished table where discarded limbs and organs would be tossed. The operating table had deep channels that led to drains.
“Things tend to get messy for a while,” Juno pointed out brightly. “But the end always justifies the means.”
“Cymeks have always justified their actions,” Quentin said.
“Is that bitterness I hear, pet?”
“Do you deny it? I’m having difficulty justifying it myself, but the Supreme Bashar has told me I must try.” He hated the words even as he spoke them. “Becoming a cymek was never my choice. You can’t expect me to accept it easily… though, I am beginning to see certain advantages.”
“I know how stubborn men can be. I’ve spent more than a thousand years with Agamemnon.” She chuckled again.
For his upcoming participation, Quentin was granted a small walker-form with manipulating arms, a mechanical body that was no threat to Juno’s larger, more sophisticated structure. She was a Titan and could easily crush any neo.
As the mechanical monks sterilized the surgical machinery, Juno relished describing how Vorian would be brought inside and laid out on the table. “I’ve considered giving him sufficient anesthetic to make the surgery easier. However, in a sense, there’s something pure and elemental about raw pain experienced by physical flesh. This is the last chance Vor will have to feel it.” She made a tittering laugh; Quentin thought it more likely that she was simply being vicious. “Maybe we should use the cutters without any drugs… just to give him a last memory of genuine agony.”
“Sounds more like sadism than a favor,” Quentin said, continuing to play the resigned and unresistant part so that she would not suspect his anticipation. “If the son of Agamemnon has voluntarily joined your cause, why would you want to anger him?” He moved forward, studying the surgical lasers, the cutting and manipulating digits designed for delicate cerebral surgery.
Juno positioned herself to guard the major medical equipment. She kept him away from the powerful cutters and heavy weaponry in this horrific surgical chamber, though she didn’t think the beaten Jihad officer would do anything so foolish as to attack her here. He would never gain access to the large tools.
But that was Juno’s greatest blind spot: She overlooked the need to think small. Quentin understood weaknesses that the Titans did not worry about. The cymeks had more than one Achilles’ heel.
During his earlier brash and violent attempts at rebellion, Juno had easily subdued him by neutralizing the thoughtrode connections that linked his brain to its walker-form. A simple disconnection had effectively paralyzed him. The Titans used the technique as an easy, nondestructive method of shutting Quentin down whenever he grew too unruly.
For that, he didn’t need powerful or destructive weaponry— just finesse. Quentin had only to seize his chance.
Working with his mechanical hands while Juno continued to jabber about the torture she would inflict upon Vorian Atreides, he picked up a small low-intensity laser. He felt like a boy selecting a pebble to fight Goliath, as in a story Rikov and Kohe had read to their daughter on Parmentier.
Quentin’s greatest concern would be to aim the small tool precisely. Juno wasn’t worried about him. Not yet.
Moving dutifully and silently, the secondary-neos cleared the metallic surgery table and activated the heavy equipment beside it. Soon she would call for Vorian to be brought into the chamber. But one of the clumsy, bizarre helpers accidentally tipped over a tray, causing a loud clatter. Juno swiveled her head turret in response to the noise— giving Quentin sudden access to an external port. He moved in a flash and ripped away the shielding plate with his augmented arms, exposing her protected thoughtrode network.
Juno reared back, but Quentin shone the diagnostic laser into one of her delicate receptors, blinding her sensors. From intense practice and studying the configurations of cymek bodies, Quentin knew exactly where to aim.
The power surge was enough to overload and disconnect one of the links from Juno’s preservation canister to her walker-form’s mobility circuits. Stunned, she lurched and reeled, trying to regain control, but Quentin dropped the tiny diagnostic laser and raked the end of his metal arm along three other thoughtrode links, severing them.
The shock to Juno’s circuits caused her articulated legs to slump as if they had lost physical integrity. But unlike a human falling into unconsciousness, Juno remained awake. Her brain canister glowed bright blue with fury. She simply could not move.
“What foolishness is this?” One of the walker legs twitched. “Thoughtrodes regenerate quickly, you know. You can’t stop me for long, pet.”
He acted swiftly, scuttled closer, and again used the diagnostic laser to burn out the rest of the mobility thoughtrodes. Temporarily paralyzed, Juno shouted and cursed him, but Quentin had her entirely at his mercy.
He found the thoughtrodes that connected her voice synthesizer, and next to them the stimulators that fed into her sensory centers. Pain centers. “I would love to hear you scream and keep screaming, Juno,” he said, “but I can’t afford the distraction right now.” With another blast, he disconnected her speakerpatch, so Juno could make no more sounds. “I’ll simply have to imagine all the pain you are going to be enduring, and be content with that.”
Working hurriedly but carefully before the thoughtrodes could reassemble themselves and give Juno back her control, Quentin detached the preservation canister from the walker-form. He lifted it with his own strong metal arms and placed the container on the table where Vorian Atreides was scheduled to be converted into a cymek.
* * *
AGAMEMNON LUMBERED OVER to the banks of grooming equipment, anxious to proceed with the fondly remembered activity. “Ah, Vorian, you are indeed the prodigal son. You scorned your destiny for more than a century, but now you’ve finally come to your senses. Everything will soon be perfect, just as I’ve always hoped.”
“If we are to be immortal, what is the significance of a mere century? It’s just a tiny blip on the time line of our lives.” Vor stepped forward, remembering the intricate steps of the grooming process. “Even so, it seems like a very long time since I did this for you.” He thought of the extravagant cities on Earth, the towering monuments to the glorious Time of Titans. He had almost forgotten that he’d been happy then….
“Too long, my son.” Like a large, obedient pet, the Titan removed his extraneous chain-mail adornment from the heavy walker-form and then settled into the maintenance bay. He almost purred while his son climbed carefully on top of the walker, cleaning and polishing the exterior, using metalsilk cloths and buffing compounds.
“A Titan should inspire awe and majesty,” Vor said. “Just because you cymeks are all alone here on Hessra is no excuse to get sloppy.”
As he cleaned the mechanical parts and performed external maintenance on the walker, the life-support systems, and connectors to the preservation canister, Vor felt a twinge of nostalgia. Then he reminded himself why he was here.
One death to avenge all the murders this cruel tyrant had committed.
* * *
THE SECONDARY-NEOS STOOD watching everything Quentin was doing. They did not comment, did not flee. Nor did they attempt to stop him.
Now that he had full access to the heavy surgical machinery, Quentin used the diamond saw to cut through Juno’s thick-walled preservation canister, spilling blue electrafluid. At last, he exposed the female Titan’s soft, vulnerable brain that had been so hateful for centuries.
“Considering all the fear you caused, Juno,” Quentin spoke aloud, knowing that with her sensor network disconnected she would not be able to hear his words, “you don’t look all that frightening— not now, my pet.”
Next he brought in the heavy surgical lasers, and powered them to their highest levels. “This may tend to get messy,” he said, paraphrasing what she had told him. Then he fired dazzling incineration beams to slice Juno’s brain into small hunks of smoking gray matter. Trickles of fluid and oozing biological matter drained into the troughs, just as Juno had said would happen.
He stepped back to look at the blackened mass, shapeless and unimpressive.
With one of the three remaining Titans now dead, Quentin swiveled his head turret and saw the secondary-neos still watching him. “Well? Do you intend to oppose me, or will you assist me?”
“We hate the Titans who murdered our masters, the Cogitors,” said one of the strange hybrids.
“We applaud what you have done, Quentin Butler. We will not hinder you from continuing your interesting work,” added another.
Finally, after a pause, the third one said, “And you would make an interesting cymek in a superior walker-form.”
The mechanical secondaries worked to detach Quentin’s own brain canister from the small and impotent mechanical body, then reinstalled him in the powerful Titan walker that had recently belonged to Juno.
With all his thoughtrodes reconnected and his new systems activated, Quentin felt terrific. Better than terrific, in fact. Juno’s body had full weaponry and complete access to all of Hessra’s defensive systems. The potential for utter destruction was exhilarating.
Agamemnon, Dante, and every neo-cymek could die, as far as Quentin was concerned. The galaxy would be better for it.
* * *
IN ORDER TO perform the most effective job on his father, Vor opened storage compartments on the walker, where the general kept interesting objects from his travels and exploits. Gruesome trophies, shiny baubles, ancient weapons. “Move a little, please, so I can clean inside this compartment.”
The cymek obliged, shifting his body core. “I really should have kept one or two of the secondaries alive in their human bodies so they could perform this service. I had forgotten how… gratifying it can be.”
Inside the opening, Vor found what he was looking for, an antique dagger, an ineffective piece that should never have been able to harm a Titan’s warrior form.
“In our heyday centuries ago,” said Agamemnon in a reverie, “we used human slaves to perform the task you’re doing, but as renegade cymeks we no longer have this option.”
“I understand, Father. I’ll do my best job ever.”
He disconnected the preservation canister from the walker-form. Just as he had always done.
Knowing that the cold citadel had a small army of neo-cymeks who would never let Vorian live if he tried anything, Agamemnon began to talk about his glory days as the ruler of all humanity, and his dreams of how he and his son could establish a similar leadership in a new empire, now that Omnius was defeated.
While his father waxed nostalgic, Vor worked. Already disconnected, the walker was useless; Vor had not yet unhooked the optic threads or the external sensors from the thoughtrodes. Even so, Agamemnon was now completely vulnerable.
Polishing the brain canister, Vor said, “I’ll just move this ventilation panel a bit and clean around it.”
As the general continued to ramble about his glory days, Vor slid open a narrow panel on the canister, revealing the fleshy mass inside. He gripped the antique dagger. One swift movement would drive the tip down into the spongy contours of Agamemnon’s brain. Then it would all be over.
Just then, the door to the chamber burst open, and a monstrous Titan lumbered through. Startled, Vor dropped the knife, which clattered to the floor. Juno? Or Dante? Neither of those Titans had believed in his supposed conversion to the cymek cause.
The mechanical warrior was ominous, bristling with weapons and spined armor. “I thought I might find Agamemnon here,” a synthesized voice said. “And Vorian.”
The Titan strode forward and seized Vorian, lifting him away from the vulnerable brain in the preservation canister. Only inches away. He had come so close….