--DUNCAN IDAHO,
A Thousand Lives
The leader of the Face Dancer myriad arrived at Synchrony, bearing a long-anticipated gift for the evermind. The thinking machines still viewed Khrone as nothing more than a servant, a delivery boy.
Omnius and Erasmus never suspected that the shape-shifters might be formulating their own schemes independent of both humanity and the thinking machines. Naive, oblivious, and so very typical. The evermind would treasure this new melange for his grandiose plans, and it would keep the machines from doubting Khrone and his Face Dancers. He intended to make the most of it.
With their brutality and arrogance, the "old man and woman" had long ago given the new shape-shifters reasons to break their loyalty. Erasmus fancied himself reminiscent of a Face Dancer, but much more . . . and similar to a human, but greater. And like Omnius . . . but infinitely more powerful.
Khrone and the rest of the myriad had never truly given their allegiance to the thinking machines. He saw no more reason to accept slavery under machine masters than to have accepted the domination of the original Tleilaxu who had created their predecessors so many centuries ago. Forced allies, second-class partners . . . The evermind was merely one more layer in the grand pyramid of those who thought they controlled the Face Dancers.
After so much effort, Khrone couldn't wait until he could drop this endless deception. He was no longer amused by the number of masks he had to wear and the complicated threads he continued to pull. Soon, though . . .
Alone, he flew his small ship directly to the heart of the modern machine empire. The location of Synchrony had been genetically programmed into all new Face Dancers, like some sort of homing beacon. As he entered the airspace over the technological metropolis, Khrone let his thoughts drift back to Ix. The fabricators and engineers had successfully completed a special demonstration at dead Richese, and now Obliterators were emerging from the production lines. Mother Commander Murbella had been impressed with the power she witnessed, and she'd been entirely convinced by the show. Fool!
But not in all things. In her prior meeting with Chief Fabricator Shayama Sen, Murbella had forced him to administer a biological test that proved he wasn't a Face Dancer. Given what had happened, Khrone was vastly relieved that he had not replaced the man, as he'd been tempted to do many times in the past.
Face Dancers already controlled most of the important positions on Ix, and when the Chief Fabricator blithely distributed the biological tests to all the main engineers and team leaders (never suspecting there might actually be a majority of Face Dancers among them), the myriad had been forced to act precipitously. When an indignant Sen announced the Sisterhood's suspicions, the infiltrators had finally been forced to kill him and assume his identity. They had already taken care of the troublesome Bene Gesserit line supervisors and production monitors. And so the deception continued, unmarred.
Enhanced Face Dancers quickly subsumed the last humans among the leaders of Ix. Then, working together, they contrived all the necessary tests, selected the required scapegoats, substituted convincing data, and submitted everything to Chapterhouse in accordance with Murbella's demands. All in perfect order.
After surviving the plague, the Sisterhood's leadership had forced all human protectors to finally band together against the thinking-machine fleet, to defend their race rather than simply their own worlds. The hundreds of new ships that emerged from the Junction shipyards were being loaded with enough Obliterators for a final, concerted stand against the oncoming wave of Omnius's ships. So far, the evermind's forces had encountered very little significant resistance, and now they were on their way to Chapterhouse. For the last time.
Khrone had actually been tempted to let the Reverend Mothers and their last-stand defenders succeed. Given enough functional Obliterators, they could send the machine fleet reeling. Humans and thinking machines could easily annihilate each other. However, that was simply too . . . easy. Kralizec demanded much more! This time, the fundamental shift in the universe would get rid of both rivals, leaving all the remnants of the Old Empire for the Face Dancers.
Khrone felt completely confident in the future as he landed his ship in the convoluted labyrinth of copper steeples, golden turrets, and interlocked silvery buildings. Sentient structures shifted aside to allow a place for his ship to settle. When the small vessel came to rest on a smooth quicksilver plain, Khrone stepped out, breathing air that smelled of smoke and hot metal. He did not spare a moment to look around.
The central machine world was based entirely on theatrics. He suspected the touch of Erasmus in this, though Omnius had such an overblown perception of his own importance that he no doubt wanted all machine minions to bow before him as a god--even if the evermind had to program them to do so.
Rectangular plates appeared on the ground, laying down an interlocked pathway that guided Khrone to his destination in the magnificent arched cathedral. Head held high, he strode along carrying his precious package, refusing to look like a supplicant summoned before his lord. Rather, Khrone was a man on a mission with important business to complete. Omnius would be pleased to have the concentrated ultraspice for use with his cloned Kwisatz Haderach. . . .
Inside the ostentatious hall, the ghola of Baron Harkonnen stood with young Paolo at a nine-level pyramid chess board. Glowering, the Baron knocked over a rook on one of the top levels. "That move is not allowed, Paolo."
"It enabled me to win, didn't it?" Pleased with his ingenuity, the young man crossed his arms over his chest.
"By cheating."
"It's a new rule. If we are as important as you say, we should be allowed to make up our own rules."
A flash of anger crossed the Baron's face, and then vanished into a chuckle. "I see your reasoning--and that you are learning."
When Khrone stepped forward, they looked at him with identical expressions of distaste. "Oh, it's you." The Baron sounded entirely different from when he'd been tormented by the Face Dancers. "I didn't think we'd be seeing you again. Bored of Caladan?"
Ignoring them, Khrone noted that the two principal thinking machines had resumed their guise of an elderly couple in gardening clothes. Why were they wearing these personas now? For the benefit of these two gholas? It wasn't as if the thinking machines were keeping secrets from anybody here. Khrone had never been able to determine a pattern in their behavior.
Perhaps it was linked to the fact that Omnius and Erasmus wanted to receive all of the lives Khrone had gathered and assimilated during his last mission among the humans. They looked forward to the sharing of their Face Dancer "ambassadors" each time one of the far-flung representatives returned. It seemed to make them feel superior, and allowed the independent robot to feel that he belonged to the human race, somehow.
"Look, he's brought something," Paolo pointed out. "A present for us?"
Khrone went directly to the old man and woman. As the woman leaned toward him, her visage had a feral and hungry look. "I think you brought more than just a package, Khrone. You haven't been back to Synchrony in some time. Show us the personas you've acquired. Every little bit adds to us, makes us greater."
"I have had enough." The old man turned away. "I am beginning to find them somewhat distasteful. They are all the same."
"How can you say that, Daniel? Every human is different, so beautifully chaotic and unpredictable."
"Exactly what I mean. They are all confusing. And I am not Daniel, I am Omnius. Kralizec is upon us, and we have no time for further preparatory games."
"Sometimes I still like to consider myself Marty. In many ways it's more appealing to me than the name or guise of Erasmus." The old woman took a step closer to Khrone. The Face Dancer didn't dare flinch, though he despised what was about to happen. Her hand was gnarled, with large knuckles. It felt clawlike when she touched his forehead. She pressed harder, and Khrone shuddered, unable to block the intrusion.
Each time a Face Dancer mimicked a human shape, he sampled the original subject an
d acquired both a genetic trace and an imprint of the memories and persona. The thinking machines had set the shape-shifters loose into the Old Empire. Infiltrating the humans, they gathered more and more lives as they subsumed useful people and played their roles. Whenever a Face Dancer returned to the machine empire, Erasmus in particular wanted to add those lives to his vast repository of data and experience.
Out of forced subservience, Khrone and his comrades surrendered that information. But though the thinking machines could upload the various lives the Face Dancers copied, they could not take their core personas. Khrone held onto his secrets, even as he offered up all those people he had been in recent years--an Ixian engineer, a CHOAM representative, a crewman on a Guildship, a dock worker on Caladan, and many others.
When the process was finished, the old woman's hand withdrew. Her wrinkled face wore a satisfied smile. "Oh, those were interesting ones! Omnius will certainly want to share them."
"That remains to be seen," the old man said.
Feeling drained, Khrone caught his breath and straightened himself. "That is not why I came." His voice was shamefully weak and quavering. "I have obtained a special substance you will find invaluable for your Kwisatz Haderach project." He held out the ultraspice package, as if offering a gift to a king, precisely as Omnius expected him to behave. The old man accepted the package, scrutinized it carefully.
The Face Dancer gave Paolo a condescending look. "This potent form of melange is sure to unlock the prescience in any Atreides. Then you will have your Kwisatz Haderach, as I have always promised. There is no need to continue pursuing the no-ship."
Omnius found the comment amusing. "Strange you should say that now."
"What do you mean?"
Beside him, the old woman grinned. "This is a momentous day, since both of our plans have come to fruition. Our patience and foresight have paid off. Now, what shall we do with two Kwisatz Haderachs?"
Khrone paused, startled. "Two of them?"
"After so many years, the no-ship has finally fallen into our trap."
Khrone slid his surprise back into himself and went rigid. "That is . . . most excellent."
The old woman rubbed her hands together. "Everything is culminating at once. It reminds me of the climactic movement in a symphony I once wrote."
The old man began to pace around the chamber, holding the package of ultraspice in his hands. He sniffed it.
Paolo turned away from the chess game. "You don't need another Kwisatz Haderach. You have me. Give me spice now!"
Erasmus shot him an indulgent smile. "Perhaps in a little while. First we'll see what the no-ship has for us, who their Kwisatz Haderach is. It should be interesting."
"Where is the vessel?" Khrone asked, focusing on the main question. "Are you sure you have it?"
"Our cruisers are surrounding it even now, and our operatives aboard took steps to guarantee that it could not escape again. Your Face Dancers did a fine job, Khrone."
Omnius interrupted, "And, on a greater scale, our largest battleships are closing in on human defenders in their Old Empire. We will conquer Chapterhouse soon, but that is only one of many simultaneous targets."
"It should be quite a spectacular battle." Erasmus sounded more dry than eager.
The evermind was stern. "Triumph will be assured as soon as the proper conditions are met, according to our mathematical prophecies. Success is imminent."
With glee on his flowmetal face, Erasmus beamed at Paolo and the Baron. "Two Kwisatz Haderachs are better than one!"
Time is a commodity more precious than melange. Even the wealthiest man cannot buy more minutes to put into each hour.
--DUKE LETO ATREIDES,
last message from Caladan
A gossamer net of jeweled colors closed around the Ithaca. The no-ship's engines strained, but could not break away. Scrambling to reassert control over the helm and drag themselves free of the strange bonds, Duncan powered up the Holtzman engines, preparing to rip a hole through the glimmering mesh. It was their only way out.
Glaring at the dead Face Dancer on the deck, Sheeana ordered two Sisters nearby, "Remove that thing from the navigation bridge!" Within moments, the women carried away the limp and bloody shape-shifter.
Now that the net was visible to them all, Duncan focused his Mentat awareness to study the woven grid that ensnared them. He searched frantically for holes or weak spots in the powerful structure, but found nothing to suggest the slightest defect, no frayed point that might allow them to escape.
He would try brute force, then.
Years ago, he had broken free of the net by using the Holtzman engines in ways they had never been designed to function, flying the Ithaca at just the proper angle and speed to penetrate the fabric of space. It had reminded him of a Swordmaster's move, using a slow blade against a personal shield.
"Accelerating now," he said.
Teg leaned over the navigation controls, sweating. "This is going to be close, Duncan." The large ship pulled against the multicolored strands, tore several, and then picked up speed. "We're breaking free!"
Duncan felt a brief moment of hope, a surge of triumph.
An explosion rocked the ship, followed by another, and another. Vibrations and shock waves rang through the hull and decks as if some titan were smashing the vessel with a great hammer. The navigation bridge shuddered.
Holding his chair, Duncan called up diagnostic maps. "What was that? Is the Enemy firing on us?"
The detonations threw Teg to the floor, but he scrambled back to his feet and gripped the console for balance. "The stolen mines! I think we just found them." His words tumbled out in a rush. "Either Thufir or the Rabbi must have set them to go off--" As if to confirm his speculation, another explosion rocked the deck, much closer than before.
The Ithaca reeled out of control, its engines paralyzed. The deck tilted, as artificial gravity generators were knocked offline. Duncan felt a sickening disorientation as the vessel spun off axis.
The shimmering net grew brighter, tightening like a noose.
Finally, out in the distance, Enemy ships drew into view, like hunters approaching a trap they had set. Duncan stared at the external screens. Who had pursued them for so long? Face Dancers? Some vicious, unknown race? What could be frightening enough to drive the Honored Matres back into the Old Empire?
"The bastards think they have us." Duncan made a fist.
"Don't they?" Looking up from his status screens, the Bashar was dismayed by the severe damage indicators lighting up sections of the vessel like fireworks displays. "The mines have ruined our most vital systems, and we're dead in space."
Using Mentat focus, Duncan studied the panels on his command console. The intricate displays showed the strangling net all around them. He jabbed his finger toward a knot in the diagram, an area of pulsing, flickering electronic signals. At first glance the tangle seemed no different from the rest of the interconnected strands, but as he studied it, he thought he might have found a weakness. "Look there."
Teg feverishly bent closer. "A loophole?"
"If only we could move!" Racking his brain, Duncan stalked back and forth in front of the controls. "It would be quite a drunkard's dance to get through that maze--if this ship could fly at all."
"If we all worked together, the entire crew, it would take a week to make repairs. We don't have that much time." The Bashar gestured to the tactical screens that displayed data from the long-distance sensors. "Enemy ships are closing in. They know they've snared us."
Duncan accepted the grim reality. "Holtzman engines are dead. No way to make the repairs in time, no way to escape." He hammered his fists on a panel next to the tangled, pulsing loophole on the console's projections. "But I know I could do it. Why won't this damned ship fly?"
Teg glanced at the sensor blips that indicated the encroaching Enemy, saw the automated damage reports streaming across the display, and knew exactly what had to be done. Only he could do it.
"I can
fix the ship." He had no time to explain. "Be ready." Then he simply vanished.
MILES TEG ACCELERATED his metabolism, kicking himself into the hyper-fast speed he had learned after surviving unendurable torture at the hands of the Honored Matres and their underlings. Around him, time slowed. This would be dangerous to him because of the extreme energy requirements, but he had to do it. The rapidly strobing alarm lights became a slow pulsation that seemed to take an hour for each cycle, brightening and dimming. Re-accessing the archival records of the ship's systems would take too long, but Teg had examined them before. As a Mentat he remembered everything, and now he set to work.
By himself.
Even at his accelerated speed, Teg exerted himself to run as fast as he could. On deck after deck, everyone aboard stood like statues, their expressions showing concern and confusion. Teg flashed past them to the nearest damage sites.
Where the first mine had gone off, he stared in amazement and consternation at the twisted metal, the melted craters in the machinery, the vaporized systems. Teg hurried from one explosion to the next, determining how far the damage extended and which systems were crucial for their immediate escape. The Face Dancer infiltrators had planted and hidden the eight mines well, and each detonation had resulted in a crippling blow: navigation, life-support, foldspace engines, defensive weapons.
Teg made snap decisions. His life had primed him for emergencies; on the battlefield, one could not hesitate. If Duncan couldn't manage to fly the Ithaca away right now, they would never again require life-support systems. He, or someone else, could fix those later. An acceptable gamble. The no-field generators were offline.
Engines. Four of the eight mines had been set to damage the foldspace engines. The Face Dancer saboteur had deliberately flown the no-ship close to the Enemy's stronghold, and the detonations had left them crippled and stranded.
With hyper speed Teg studied, analyzed, and compiled a plan using his Mentat abilities. He inventoried spare materials, replacement components, emergency equipment. He needed to work swiftly with what he had; there was no one to help him. First, he rerouted and reprogrammed the weapons, and prepared them to launch a volley of blasts at the oncoming ships. That might grant them an extra few moments.