Sandworms Of Dune Part 30

Erasmus stared at him and mockingly reshaped his flowmetal face into a perfect likeness of the old man that represented Omnius. His expression reflected disbelief, as if he considered Paolo's p.r.o.nouncements a joke, the rantings of a deluded child. A flare of anger rose within Paolo. This robot wasn't taking him seriously!

Paolo saw the whole canvas of the future unrolling before him, broad strokes revealed by the incredible magnifying power of ultraspice. Some of the upcoming events became razor sharp, and he discerned more specifics, intricate details. The super-potent melange was even stronger than he had imagined, and the future became intensely focused in his mind, fractal minutiae unfolding before him in an infinite, yet completely expected, pattern.

In the midst of this mindstorm, something else was unleashed from within his cells: All the memories buried there from his original life. With a roar that briefly drowned out even the other clamoring knowledge, he suddenly remembered everything about Paul Atreides Paul Atreides. Though the Baron had raised Paolo and the machines had corrupted him into what they imagined would be their puppet, he was still himself at the core.

He scanned the chamber, viewing everyone from a new perspective: Jessica, dear Chani, and himself himself lying in a pool of blood, still twitching, gasping a last few breaths. Had he done that-a bizarre form of suicide? No, Omnius had forced him. But how could anyone really force a Kwisatz Haderach to do anything? Details of the fight with Paul clashed in his mind, and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to drive back the disturbing images. He didn't want to serve Omnius. He hated the Baron Harkonnen. He could not let himself be the cause of such destruction. lying in a pool of blood, still twitching, gasping a last few breaths. Had he done that-a bizarre form of suicide? No, Omnius had forced him. But how could anyone really force a Kwisatz Haderach to do anything? Details of the fight with Paul clashed in his mind, and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to drive back the disturbing images. He didn't want to serve Omnius. He hated the Baron Harkonnen. He could not let himself be the cause of such destruction.

He had the power to change everything. Wasn't he the ultimate Kwisatz Haderach? Thanks to the ultraspice and his own Atreides genes, Paolo now possessed a greater prescience than had ever before been possible. Not even the smallest event could slip past him.

In a glorious tableau, he knew he could see everything about the tapestry of the future. Every tiny detail, if he wanted! No unexplored terrain, no wrinkles or nuances in the topography of events to come.

Paolo paused in his restless pacing and gazed ahead, seeing beyond the walls of the grand machine cathedral, feeling overwhelmed by thoughts that no other human could begin to understand. His eyes changed to more than an intense blue-within-blue, to black black and gla.s.sy, rippled and impenetrable like a landscape of seared dunes. and gla.s.sy, rippled and impenetrable like a landscape of seared dunes.

In the background, he heard the Baron's voice. "What's the matter with you, boy? Snap out of it."

But the visions continued to shoot at Paolo like projectiles from a repeater gun. He couldn't dodge them, could only receive them, like an invincible man standing up against ferocious firepower.

Outside in the grand machine city, he heard a tremendous commotion. Alarms rang, and quicksilver robots rushed out of the cathedral chamber to respond. Paolo knew exactly what was happening, could see it from every angle. And he knew how each action would turn out, regardless of how Omnius, the humans, or the Face Dancers tried to change it.

No longer able to move, Paolo stood staring at moments that were yet to come, everything he could influence and all that he could not. Each second sliced into a billion nanoseconds, then expanded and spread out across a billion star systems. The scope of it threatened to overwhelm him.

What is happening? he asked himself. he asked himself.

Only what we brought upon ourselves, whispered the voice of Paul-within.

With new eyes Paolo saw moment by unfolding moment, expanding outward from the machine city, beyond the planet, the whole scope of the Old Empire, the farthest reaches of the Scattering, and the vast thinking-machine empire.

Another nanosecond pa.s.sed.

The ultraspice had given him absolutely uncontaminated revelation. He saw time folding forward and backward from the focal point of his consciousness.

Perfect prescience.

Caught in the tidal wave of his own power, Paolo began to see much more than he had ever wanted to see. He witnessed every heartbeat a thousand times over, every action of every single person-every being-in the entire universe. He knew how each instant would play out from now until the end of history, and in reverse, to the beginning of time.

The knowledge flooded into him, and he drowned in it.

He watched Paul Atreides in his death throes and saw his counterpart go motionless, haloed by the crimson puddle on the floor, eyes staring into blessed oblivion.

Paolo, who had wanted to be the final Kwisatz Haderach so badly he had killed for it, now became petrified by the utter tedium of his own existence. He knew every breath and pulsepoint in the entire history and future of the universe.

Another nanosecond pa.s.sed.

How could any person endure this? Paolo was trapped in a predetermined path, like a computer's infinite loop. No surprises, choices, or movement. Absolute foreknowledge rendered Paolo entirely irrelevant.

He envisioned himself sinking in slow motion to the floor and lying face up, unable to move or speak, unable even to blink his eyes. Fossilizing. Then Paolo saw the last and most terrible revelation. He was not not the true and final Kwisatz Haderach, after all. It was not him. He would never accomplish what he had dreamed. the true and final Kwisatz Haderach, after all. It was not him. He would never accomplish what he had dreamed.

With spice roaring through him, the past went dark, and Paolo could only stare fixedly into the future, which he had already seen a thousand times over.

Another nanosecond pa.s.sed.One can always find a battlefield if one looks hard enough.-BASHAR MILES TEG, Memoirs of an Old Commander

Remnants of dust and sand from the emptying hold swirled out into the no-s.h.i.+p's corridors, but the worms were gone, and Leto II with them. Bright sunlight from the machine world shone through the gaping holes. Stunned, Sheeana listened to the sounds of the behemoths cras.h.i.+ng through Synchrony. She longed to be with them. Those once-captive sandworms were hers hers as well. as well.

But Leto was closer to them, a part of them, and they were part of him.

Duncan Idaho came up behind her. She turned, the smell of grit clinging to her face and clothes. "It's Leto. He's . . . with the sandworms."

He flashed a hard smile. "That's something the machines won't expect. Even Miles would have been surprised." He grasped her arm and hurried her away from the open cargo hold. "Now we've got to do something just as dramatic for ourselves."

"What Leto is doing will be a hard act to follow."

Duncan paused. "We've been running from that old man and woman for years, and I don't intend to sit here in this no-s.h.i.+p prison anymore. Our armory is filled with weapons stockpiled by the Honored Matres. We also have the rest of the mines that the Face Dancers didn't use to sabotage this s.h.i.+p. Let's take the fight outside, to them!"

She felt the steel of his determination and found her own. "I'm ready. And we have more than two hundred people aboard trained in Bene Gesserit combat techniques." Inside her mind, Serena Butler imparted visions of terrible combat, humans against fighting robots, incredible slaughters. But in spite of these horrors, Sheeana felt a strange exhilaration. "It's been programmed into our genes for thousands of years. Like an eagle to a serpent, a bull to a bear, a wasp to a spider, humans and thinking machines are mortal enemies."

AFTER DECADES OF running and many escapes from the tachyon net, this would be their final showdown. Tired of feeling helpless, the running and many escapes from the tachyon net, this would be their final showdown. Tired of feeling helpless, the Ithaca Ithaca captives crowded forward to the armory. All were eager to fight back, though they knew the odds were heavily against them. Duncan relished it. captives crowded forward to the armory. All were eager to fight back, though they knew the odds were heavily against them. Duncan relished it.

The stockpile of armaments was not particularly impressive. Many of the stored weapons fired only flechettes, razor-sharp needles that would not be effective against armored combat robots. But Duncan handed out old-style lasguns, pulse launchers, and explosive projectile rifles. Demolition squads could plant the remaining mines against the foundations of thinking-machine buildings and detonate them.

The Tleilaxu Master Scytale pushed his way through the crowded corridor, trying to reach Sheeana, looking as if he had something important to say. "Remember, we have more enemies out there than just robots. Omnius has an army of Face Dancers to stand against us."

Duncan handed a flechette rifle to Reverend Mother Calissa, who appeared as bloodthirsty as any Honored Matre. "This will cut down plenty of Face Dancers."

The little man announced with a thin smile, "I have another way to help. Even before we were captured, I began to produce the specific toxin that would target Face Dancers. I made sixty canisters of it, in case we had to saturate all the air aboard the s.h.i.+p. Unleash it against the Face Dancers in the city. It may make humans a little nauseated but it is lethal to any Face Dancer."

"Our weapons could do the rest-or our bare hands," Sheeana said, then turned to the other workers. "Get the canisters! There's a battle outside!"

A fierce army of humans streamed out through the gaping hole torn in the Ithaca Ithaca's hull. Sheeana led her Bene Gesserits. Reverend Mothers Calissa and Elyen guided groups through the s.h.i.+fting streets in search of vulnerable targets. Reverend Mothers, acolytes, male Bene Gesserits, proctors, and workers rushed out carrying weapons, many of which had never been fired before.

With a loud battle cry, a well-armed Duncan charged forward into the bizarre metropolis. In his original lifetime, he had not survived long enough to join Paul Muad'Dib and his Fremen Fedaykin in b.l.o.o.d.y raids against the Harkonnens. The stakes were more desperate now, and he intended to make a difference.

The streets of Synchrony were in turmoil, the buildings themselves pumping and writhing. Leto's sandworms had already tunneled beneath the foundations of the structures, breaking through the pliable, living metal and knocking down tall towers. Across the galaxy, Omnius's thinking-machine fleet was engaged in numerous climactic battles. Duncan thought of Murbella out there somewhere-if she was still alive-facing them, fighting them.

Combat robots swarmed the streets. They emerged from between buildings, fas.h.i.+oning and firing projectile weapons from their own bodies. The Bene Gesserits scrambled out of the way, finding shelter. Lasbeams cut smoking holes through the fighting machines; explosive projectiles smashed them backward into debris.

Running headlong into the fray, Duncan used his long-dormant Swordmaster skills to attack the nearest robots. He wielded a small projectile launcher as well as a vibrating sonic club that transmitted a deadly blow each time it struck a fighting machine.

From all directions, Face Dancers rallied against the humans, while combat robots turned their attention to the destructive sandworms. The first ranks of shape-s.h.i.+fters advanced with blank and unreadable faces, armed with machine-designed weaponry.

When the first canisters of Scytale's curling, gray-green gas landed among them, the frenzied Face Dancers did not understand what was happening. Soon they began to fall, writhing, their faces melting off their bones. Sensing the danger too late, they scrambled to retreat as Sheeana's fighters launched more poison gas into their midst.

The Bene Gesserits continued to push forward. Their demolition crews planted mines against looming buildings that could not uproot themselves in time. Powerful explosions brought down the shuddering metal towers. Sheeana rushed her teams to shelter until the thunderous collapses were over. Then they surged forward again.

Duncan decided to hang back. In the center of the city, the huge, bright cathedral drew him like a beacon, as if all the intensity of the evermind's thoughts were being channeled through it. He knew Paul Atreides was in that structure, perhaps fighting for his life, perhaps dying. Jessica was inside, as well. Compelling instincts born of memories from his first life told Duncan where he had to go. He needed to be at Paul's side in the den of the Enemy.

"Keep the machines occupied, Sheeana. Even the evermind can't fight on an infinite number of fronts at once." He jerked his head toward the cathedral building. "I'm going there there."

Before she could say anything, Duncan ran off.Enduring my own mistakes once was bad enough. Now I am condemned to relive my past, over and over.-DR. WELLINGTON YUEH, interview notes taken by Sheeana

The Suk doctor, in a teenage body but with the burdens of a very old man, knelt by the dying Paul. Although he had administered every emergency treatment at his disposal, he knew he could not save the young Atreides. With specialized skill, he had halted most of the bleeding, but now he shook his head sadly. "It's a mortal wound. I can only slow his death."

Despite the betrayal in his past life, Yueh had loved the Duke's son. In those bygone days he had been a teacher and mentor to Paul. He had seen to it that the boy and his mother had a chance of surviving in the deserts of Arrakis after the Harkonnen takeover, so long ago. Even with his full Suk knowledge restored, Yueh didn't have the facilities to help this Paul. The knife had penetrated the pericardium, cut into the heart. Through sheer tenacity the young man still clung to a thread of life, but he had already lost far too much blood. His heart was stuttering its last few beats.

Despite the chances offered by a second lifetime, Yueh was unable to escape his previous failures and betrayals. He had been suffering inside, wallowing in the cesspool of his past mistakes. The Sisters on the no-s.h.i.+p had resurrected him for some secret purpose that he had never been able to fathom. Why was he here? Certainly not to save Paul. That was out of his hands now.

On the no-s.h.i.+p he had tried to take action by doing what he thought was necessary and right, but he had only caused more tragedy, more pain. He had killed an unborn Duke Leto rather than another Piter de Vries. Yueh knew he had been manipulated by the Rabbi/Face Dancer, but he could not accept that as an excuse for his actions.

Chani sat on the floor at Paul's side, calling his name in an unfamiliar husky voice. Yueh sensed that something about her had changed; her eyes had a wild steeliness much different from the gaze of the sixteen-year-old girl he knew.

He realized with a start that the horror of holding Paul's b.l.o.o.d.y, dying body in her arms must have pushed her over the edge. Chani had her original memories back-just in time to experience the full magnitude of her imminent loss. Even Yueh reeled from the cruelty of it.

The Baron made despairing sounds of his own, at first confused, then angry, and now desperate. "Paolo boy, answer me!" He crouched by the gla.s.sy-eyed young man, raging. He raised a hand as if to strike the warped copy of Paul Atreides, but Paolo didn't flinch.

From one side the independent robot Erasmus watched the whole scenario with intent curiosity, his optic threads glistening. "Apparently, neither of the Paul Atreides gholas is the Kwisatz Haderach we expected. So much for the accuracy of our predictions."

The moment he saw the Baron's growing confusion, Yueh knew that only one thing remained for him to do. Struggling to regain his composure, he rose from the side of the dying Paul and made his way over to the Baron and Paolo. "I am a Suk doctor." His sleeves and trousers were drenched in Paul's blood. "Perhaps I can help."

"Eh? You?" The Baron sneered at him.

Jessica glared after the doctor, and the restored Chani looked as if she wanted to flog Yueh for leaving Paul's side. But he concentrated only on the Baron. "Do you want me to help, or not?"

The Baron moved out of the way. "Hurry, then, d.a.m.n you!"

Going through the motions, Yueh bent and pa.s.sed his hands over Paolo's face, felt the cold clamminess of the skin and the barely discernible pulse. Young Paolo sat frozen and transfixed, staring into a coma of infinite awareness and paralyzing boredom.

The Baron leaned close. "Make him snap out of it. What is the matter with him? Answer me!"

Grabbing the Emperor's dagger from Paolo's waistband, Yueh spun in a single fluid movement. The Baron staggered back, but Yueh was quicker. He thrust the sharp tip at an angle under the hateful man's chin and rammed it all the way to the back of his skull. "This is my answer!" is my answer!"

The answer for being coerced into betraying House Atreides, for all the schemes, the pain, the resultant guilt, and most of all for what the Harkonnens had done to Wanna.

The Baron's eyes opened wide in shock. He flailed his hands and tried to speak, but could only gurgle helplessly as a crimson geyser spouted from his neck.

Spattered in blood, Yueh jerked the Emperor's dagger back out. He considered plunging it into Paolo's midsection, just to be certain he killed both of them. But he couldn't do that. Though the boy had gone wrong, this was still Paul Atreides.

The Baron collapsed onto the hard floor. All the while, the Paolo ghola continued to stare upward without blinking.

Dr. Wellington Yueh allowed himself a relieved smile. At long last he had accomplished something positive and true. Finally, he had done something right. For a long moment he held the dagger, covered with the Baron's blood as well as Paul's. A potent impulse prompted him to turn the point toward himself. Yueh closed his eyes, clutched the handle of the knife, and took another deep breath.

A firm hand clasped his wrists, staying his suicide thrust. He opened his tear-filled eyes to see Jessica standing beside him. "No, Wellington. You don't need to redeem yourself like that. Help me save Paul instead."

"There is nothing I can do for him!"

"Don't underestimate yourself." Her facial muscles tightened. "Or Paul."No education, training, or prescience can show us the secret abilities we contain within ourselves. We can only pray those special talents are available in our time of greatest need.-The Bene Gesserit Acolytes' Handbook

Death.

Paul skirted the edge of the interior blackness, dipped briefly into infinity, and danced back out. He wavered on the balance point of his own mortality. The knife wound was deep.

Without any awareness of what was going on around him, he felt an intense coldness spreading from the tips of his fingers to the back of his head. Like a distant whisper, he could still hear the lava fountain blazing nearby. Despite the hard stone floor beneath him, Paul felt as if he were floating, his spirit drifting in and out of the universe.

His skin detected a warm, syrupy wetness. Not water. Blood Blood . . . his own . . . spreading in a great pool across the floor. It filled his chest, mouth, and lungs. He could hardly breathe. With each feeble heartbeat, more of it spilled out, never to be retrieved. . . . . . . his own . . . spreading in a great pool across the floor. It filled his chest, mouth, and lungs. He could hardly breathe. With each feeble heartbeat, more of it spilled out, never to be retrieved. . . .

It seemed as if he could still feel the long blade of the Emperor's knife inside him. Now he remembered. . . . In the last desperate days of Muad'Dib's jihad, the conniving Count Fenring had stabbed him. Or had that occurred at a different time? Yes, he had tasted a knife blade before.

Or maybe he was the old blind Preacher in the dusty streets of Arrakeen, stabbed by yet another knife. So many deaths for one person . . .

He couldn't see. Someone squeezed his hand, though he could barely feel it, and he heard a young woman's voice. "Usul, I am here." Chani Chani. He remembered her most of all, and was glad she was here with him. "I am here," she said. "All of me, with all my memories, beloved. Please come back." am here," she said. "All of me, with all my memories, beloved. Please come back."

Now a firmer voice yanked his attention, as if strings were attached to his mind. "Paul, you must listen to me. Remember what I taught you." His mother's voice. Jessica Jessica . . . "Remember what the real Lady Jessica taught the real Paul Muad'Dib. I know what you are. You have the power within you. That is why you aren't dead yet." . . . "Remember what the real Lady Jessica taught the real Paul Muad'Dib. I know what you are. You have the power within you. That is why you aren't dead yet."

He found words within his throat, and they bubbled up through the blood. He was amazed at the sound of his own voice. "Not possible . . . I'm not . . . the the Kwisatz Haderach-the ultimate . . ." He was not the superbeing that would change the universe. Kwisatz Haderach-the ultimate . . ." He was not the superbeing that would change the universe.

Paul's eyes flickered open, and he saw himself lying in the great machine cathedral. That part of the prescient dream had been true. He had seen Paolo laughing with victory and consuming the spice-but now Paolo himself rested on the floor like a fallen statue, frozen and mindless, gazing into infinity. The Baron lay dead, murdered with a look of disbelief and annoyance on his pasty face. So the vision was true, but all the details had not been available to him.

Some kind of commotion came from beside Omnius and Erasmus, and Paul looked there, his gaze bleary. Watcheyes flitted in, displaying images. The old man stood with an impatient expression on his face. The Face Dancer Khrone seemed unsettled. Paul could hear voices shouting. The whole cacophony wove itself in oddly incomprehensible strands through the buzzing tapestry in his head.

"Sandworms attacking like demons . . . destroying buildings."

". . . a rampage . . . armies emerging from the no-s.h.i.+p. A poisonous gas that kills-"

The old man said drily, "I have dispatched combat robots and Face Dancers to fight them, but it may not be sufficient. The sandworms and the humans are causing considerable damage."

Erasmus picked up the conversation. "Rally more Face Dancers, Khrone. You didn't send all of them out."

"That is a waste of my people. If we fight the humans, their poison kills us. If we go out to battle sandworms, we will be crushed."

"Then you will be poisoned, or crushed," Erasmus said lightly. "No need to fret. We can always create more of you."

The Face Dancer's features s.h.i.+fted and blurred, a storm crossing his putty face. He turned and marched out of the vaulted chamber.

Meanwhile Yueh raised Paul's head, ministering to him with Suk medical techniques. But Paul folded his eyes shut again and dropped backward into the pain. Again he danced along the edge of the chasm that opened wider and wider before him.

"Paul." Jessica's voice was insistent. "Remember what I told you of the Sisterhood. Maybe you aren't the ultimate Kwisatz Haderach that the thinking machines want, but you are are still a Kwisatz Haderach. You know that, and your body knows it as well. Some of your powers are the same as those of a Reverend Mother. A still a Kwisatz Haderach. You know that, and your body knows it as well. Some of your powers are the same as those of a Reverend Mother. A Reverend Mother Reverend Mother, Paul!"