Presently Erasmus appeared on the balcony, once again disguised as a matronly old woman. Gazing dispassionately at the robot, the Baron announced, "I will go aboard the no-ship. I want to be the first to"--his lips quirked in a smile--"greet our visitors."
The old woman's eyes twinkled. "Are you certain that would be wise, Baron? We aren't sure yet exactly who is aboard the vessel. You could be in peril if anyone recognizes you. In your past life, quite a few people were not entirely pleased with you."
"I certainly don't intend to go unprotected! In fact, I expect you to provide me with full security. Some of your sentinel robots, perhaps--or better yet, an armed contingent of Face Dancers. Paolo will remain here safe, but I will go aboard." He planted his hands on his hips. "In fact, I demand it."
Erasmus seemed amused. "In that case, we had better give you the Face Dancers. Go aboard, Baron, and be our ambassador. I'm sure you will employ all the diplomacy the situation requires."
We shall face the Enemy, and die if we must die. My strong preference, however, is to kill what we must kill.
--MOTHER COMMANDER MURBELLA,
transmission to human defensive forces
Ten thousand Guildships against an infinite number of Enemy vessels.
For this confrontation, the Mother Commander had prepared all the warlords, political leaders and other self-proclaimed generals, as well as her ferocious Sisters--what remained of them. Spread out across the path of the oncoming thinking-machine forces, her human defenders dug themselves in.
Guildsmen had been rushed in at the last minute to help crew the numerous battleships, launching them to their designated rendezvous points in space. The untested military commanders were as ready as the Mother Commander could make them. Like ghost soldiers, redeyed refugees from planets already ground under the machine boot heel volunteered in droves. Each craft was loaded with Obliterators produced by the tireless Ixian factories.
Unfortunately, Omnius had been preparing for centuries.
Like a force of nature, the thinking machines advanced, not dodging or changing course, without regard to the strength of planetary defenses arrayed against them. They simply rolled over anything in their path.
For Murbella's plan to work, the line of Enemy ships had to be stopped at every point, in every star system. No battleground was unimportant. She had divided her defenders into a hundred discrete groups of one hundred new Guild warships apiece. The battle groups were positioned at widely scattered but important points outside inhabited systems, ready to fend off the approaching Enemy.
As a last line of defense, Murbella's one hundred newly constructed vessels patrolled space in the vicinity of Chapterhouse, along with a number of smaller, older vessels to flesh out the military force. They knew Omnius considered this planet a primary target. Waiting for the clash, the Mother Commander thought her new ships looked magnificent, the line formidable. The fighters aboard were more confident than afraid.
By the New Sisterhood's best estimates, though, the thinking machines outnumbered them by more than a hundred to one.
To shore up their confidence, the fighters had all watched holos of the Ixian tests of the new Obliterators on dead Richese, admiring the massive destructive force contained in each of the powerful weapons. Bene Gesserit observers had monitored the Ixian production lines, and technicians had verified the complex weapons after they were installed in Murbella's fleet. She clung to the hope that this line of last stands could turn into a rout for the forces of Omnius.
More than she had for the past quarter century, the Mother Commander wished Duncan Idaho could be at her side again, facing this final conflict with her. Feeling the loneliness of command, tempted to bow to primitive human superstition and offer up a prayer to some invisible guardian angel, she hardened herself.
This has to work!
Her great ships prowled the edge of planetary orbit, not knowing from which direction the Enemy fleet would come. Down below, the refugees who had filled temporary camps on the plague-emptied continents were anxious to evacuate from Chapterhouse, but even if there were vessels to transport them away, they had nowhere to go. Every functional craft in the sector had been commandeered to face the thinking-machine ships. It was everything the human race could rally.
"Enemy ships approaching, Mother Commander," said Administrator Gorus, receiving a message from the sensor deck. His pale braid looked somewhat frayed, his skin whiter than usual. He had been convinced to stay aboard the main ship at the central battlefield, to stand by the new ships his factories had produced; he didn't look at all happy about it.
"Exactly on time. Exactly as expected," Murbella said. "Disperse our vessels into the widest possible firing spread, so we can hit the Enemy all at once, before they can react to us. Machines are adaptable, but they rarely take the unexpected into account."
Gorus looked at her sourly. "Are you making assumptions based on old records, Mother Commander? Extrapolating from the way Omnius reacted fifteen thousand years ago?"
"To some extent, but I trust my instincts."
As the heavily armed machine ships approached, they looked like a meteor shower that grew larger and larger. The monstrous vessels loomed huge--thousands of them against the Sisterhood's desperate hundred. All along the line, at a hundred other systems, she knew her defenders were facing similar odds.
"Prepare to launch Obliterators. Stop them before they get any closer to Chapterhouse." Murbella crossed her arms over her chest. Across the commlines, each captain announced his or her readiness.
The oncoming machine ships slowed, as if curious to see what this small obstacle might be. They will underestimate us, Murbella thought. "Maximize targets. Fire into close groupings of Enemy ships. Consolidate explosions."
"Targets locked, Mother Commander," Gorus said, his message transmitted immediately by his sensor technicians.
Murbella had to preempt the thinking machines before they could open fire. "Launch Obliterators." She held herself steady.
Silver sparks spat out of the launch tubes, Obliterators twirling toward the line of Enemy ships, but the glints faded. Nothing happened, though some of the heavy weapons must have struck their targets. The machine vessels seemed to be waiting for something.
She looked around. "Confirm that the Obliterators are armed. Where are the explosions? Launch the second volley!"
Alarms began to ring. In a frenzy, Gorus ran from one station to another, shouting at the Guildsmen on the upper decks. A harried-looking Reverend Mother charged into the command center, skidding to a stop in front of Murbella. "Our Obliterators are doing nothing. They are all useless."
"But they were tested! Our Sisters watched the manufacturing lines. How could they be faulty?"
Then, all at once, the one hundred Chapterhouse defender ships went dead in space, their engines shutting down, lights flickering. The thrum of station-keeping thrusters faded.
"What is happening?" Gorus demanded. "Sabotage? Were we betrayed?"
As if they had expected this all along, the machine ships closed in.
A Guildsman transmitted in a hollow voice over the speaking screen, "The artificial navigation systems no longer respond, Administrator. We are shut out of our own controls. Our ships are . . . nonfunctional." Emergency lights lit the decks with an eerie glow.
"Did the machines figure out how to neutralize our systems?"
Gorus turned to Murbella. "No jamming, Mother Commander. They . . . they just don't work. None of them."
Suddenly the machine forces were upon them, a thousand vessels that would easily overwhelm the defenders. Murbella prepared to die. Her fighters could not protect themselves, or Chapterhouse, which she had sworn to guard.
But instead of attacking, the Enemy fleet cruised slowly past the defenders, taunting them in their impotence. The machines did not bother to open fire, as if the Sisterhood's defenses weren't even worth noticing!
Far behind them, just arriving at the distant edge of the solar system,
came another wave of thinking machines, closing in on Chapterhouse. The same thing must be happening everywhere, at all of her carefully staged last stands across a hundred star systems.
"They knew! The damned machines knew our Obliterators wouldn't work!" As if Murbella's vessels were no more than a pebble on the path, the Omnius ships flowed around them on their way to the Sisterhood's now-unprotected homeworld.
Not one of her new Guild war vessels had a living Navigator aboard; most of the Navigators and their Heighliners had disappeared. Every ship in her battle groups used Ixian mathematical compilers for guidance. Mathematical compilers! Computers . . . thinking machines.
The Ixians! Now her silent curse was directed at herself for overconfidence in the new Obliterators and her own ability to predict the Enemy's tactics.
"Follow me, Administrator. I want to see these Obliterators for myself." She grabbed Gorus's arm hard enough to leave bruises.
Guided by emergency illumination, they rushed to the weapons deck where the armaments had been installed. Inside, rack upon rack held the burnished silver eggs of the planet-melters that Ix had manufactured. A distraught Guildsman intercepted them. "We tested the weapons, Administrator, and they were installed correctly. The firing controls are operational. We just launched dozens of Obliterators, but none of them detonated."
"Why didn't they function?"
"Because . . . because the Obliterators themselves . . ."
Murbella marched over to where the man had opened one casing at random. Beneath a complicated labyrinth of circuitry and delicate components, the Obliterator charge was fused into the shell of the mechanism, making the whole thing inoperable. The weapon had been neutralized.
"It is useless, Mother Commander," said Gorus. "Sabotaged."
"But I saw the tests myself. How can this be?"
"A timing mechanism may have shut everything down at a prearranged time, or the Enemy fleet might have sent out a deactivating signal. Some devious trick that we could not have anticipated."
Murbella stood appalled, guilty of the same error she had been so certain the machines would fall victim to: She had failed to plan for the unexpected. Together, they opened another Obliterator to find it similarly fused and nonfunctional. A coldness froze her heart and spread into her bloodstream. These weapons had been built over the course of years by the Ixians, at a cost in melange that nearly bankrupted the Sisterhood. She had been duped, and her fleet had been castrated by the Ixians before the battle could even begin.
"And what about our engines?"
"They can be made to function, if we operate them without the mathematical compilers."
"I don't give a damn about the compilers! Find a way to salvage some of the Obliterators. Are they all inactive? Every single one?"
"The only way to know, Mother Commander, is to open and inspect each of them."
"We could just launch them all and hope a few still function." Murbella nodded slowly. It was indeed an option. At this point, it cost them nothing. She had to find some way to fight, and she hoped her other battle groups were faring better than this . . . but she doubted it. Without functional Obliterators, every one of the planets on the front line was essentially unprotected in the face of certain destruction.
And it was all her responsibility.
Some say that survival itself can be the best revenge. For myself, I prefer something a bit more extravagant.
--BARON VLADIMIR HARKONNEN,
the ghola
On a whim, the Baron told the ten Face Dancers accompanying him to pose as Sardaukar from the old Imperium. He didn't know if anyone would even recognize the joke--fashions changed and history forgot such details--but it helped him present an air of command. During his original lifetime he had achieved a great victory over House Atreides with illicit Sardaukar at his side.
Leaving the restless Paolo with Erasmus, supposedly "for his own protection," the Baron dressed himself in a nobleman's uniform frosted with gold braids and ornate chains of office. A ceremonial poison-tipped dagger hung at his side, and a wide-beam stunner was concealed in his sleeve for easy access. Though the imitation Sardaukar were his guards and escort, he didn't particularly trust them, either. One could never be too careful.
When the Baron's entourage marched to the imprisoned no-ship, however, they could not find a door on the kilometer-long hull--a frustrating and embarrassing moment, but Omnius was not to be hindered. Guided by the evermind, parts of nearby buildings transformed into gigantic tools that tore open the hull, peeling away plates and structural girders to leave a wide gash. Brute force was easier and more direct than locating an appropriate hatch and deciphering unfamiliar controls.
With the no-ship suitably opened, the Baron and his escort ducked under low-hanging debris and sparking circuitry. Prepared for an ambush, but moving with an outward show of confidence, they made their way through the winding corridors. Several of Omnius's floating watcheyes zoomed ahead of them down the passageways to scout out and map the interior of the vessel.
The captives would surely see that surrender was their only option. What other conclusion could they draw? Unfortunately, in his original lifetime the Baron had had considerable experience with fanatics, such as the mad Fremen bands on Arrakis. It was possible that these poor wretches intended to mount a desperate, hopeless resistance until they were all slaughtered, including the purported Kwisatz Haderach among them.
Paolo would then be the only contender, and that would be that.
Inside the no-ship, they first encountered Duncan Idaho and a defiant-looking Bene Gesserit woman who identified herself as Sheeana. The two waited for the boarding party in the middle of a wide corridor. The Baron only vaguely remembered the man from the records of House Atreides: a Swordmaster of Ginaz, one of Duke Leto's most trusted fighters, killed on Arrakis while protecting Paul and Jessica in their escape. From the sneer on Idaho's face, he could tell that this ghola had his memories back, too.
"Oh ho, I see that you know me."
Idaho didn't budge. "I escaped from Giedi Prime as a boy, Baron. I beat Rabban on one of his hunts. I've lived many lifetimes since then. This time, I hope to watch you die with my own eyes."
"How boldly you speak, like one of those yipping dogs Emperor Shaddam used to keep at his side: full of annoying barks and growls, yet easily stepped on." Protected by the Face Dancer Sardaukar, he peered ahead down the hall. "How many people do you have aboard?" He snapped. "Bring them forward for our inspection."
"We have already assembled," Sheeana said. "We're ready for you."
The Baron sighed. "And no doubt you've scattered commandos or snipers throughout the decks? Your personnel records will have been doctored. A childish resistance that may cause us a few headaches, but will gain you nothing. We have enough troops to mow all of you down."
"It would be foolish for us to resist," Sheeana said, "at least in such obvious ways."
The Baron scowled, and he heard the little girl's voice inside his head. She is playing with your mind, Grandfather!
"So are you!" he hissed to himself, startling the others.
"Five hundred more of our men are coming aboard," said the counterfeit Sardaukar commander. "Mobile machine sensors will scour every chamber on every deck, and we'll find anything there is to find. We will locate the Kwisatz Haderach."
"A Kwisatz Haderach?" Idaho asked. "Is that what the old man and woman have been looking for? On this ship? You're welcome to waste your time."
Sheeana added harshly, "If we had a superman aboard, you would never have been able to capture us."
That remark disturbed the Baron. At the back of his mind he heard the maddening voice of Alia chuckling at his discomfiture. His face flushed, but he forced himself not to speak aloud. What a fool, debating with the unheard voice of an invisible tormentor! New groups came down the no-ship corridors to gather in front of him like troops for inspection.
One small-statured teenaged ghola unsettled him the most. The young man
was thin and sallow-skinned, his face etched in a scowl. His eyes burned with hatred for the Baron, though he did not find the fellow at all familiar. He wondered what he had done to that one.
Look more closely, Grandfather. Surely you recognize him? He almost killed you!
I swear I will find some way to rip you out of my head!
With a neutral expression on his face, he looked again at the dour ghola, and suddenly understood the crude black diamond marked on his forehead. "Why, it's Yueh! My dear Dr. Yueh, how good to see you again. I never got a chance to tell you how much you helped the Harkonnen cause so long ago. Glad to see that I have an unexpected ally aboard this ship."
Yueh looked skinny and ineffectual, yet the gleam in his eyes was genuinely murderous. "I am not your ally."
"You are a weak little worm. It was easy enough to manipulate you before--I can do it again." The Baron was surprised that the scrawny man did not back down. This version of Yueh seemed stronger, perhaps transformed by the lessons of his ignominious past.
"You no longer have leverage over me, Baron. You have no Wanna. Even if you did, I would not repeat my earlier mistakes." Crossing his arms over his narrow chest, he thrust his pointed chin forward.
The Baron turned abruptly from the Suk doctor as even more no-ship captives came forward. One bronze-haired young woman of about eighteen looked exactly like the lovely Lady Jessica. The way she viewed him with palpable revulsion proved that this ghola also had her memories restored. Did Jessica know she was really his own daughter? What entertaining conversations they might have!
Standing protectively beside the youthful Jessica were a younger woman dressed as a Fremen and a dark-haired young man--the perfect image of Paolo, only older. "Why, is this young Paul? Another Paul Atreides?"
A swift slash, a mere nick from the poisoned dagger, and the rival Kwisatz Haderach would be gone. But he shuddered to think how Omnius would react to that. The Baron wanted Paolo to assume his position of power, of course, but he wasn't willing to sacrifice his own life for the boy. Though the Baron had raised and trained Paolo, he was still, after all, an Atreides.