Navigators of Dune

58

With dimensional space rippling around her tank, Norma Cenva hurtled back to Kolhar, driven by the adrenaline of prescience. Urgency and desperation echoed like thunderclaps in her mind. With a crack of displaced air, her sealed chamber reappeared on its central dais in the field of Navigator tanks in the middle of the night.

Something terrible was about to happen. Not even Josef’s defenses could prevent the approaching threat. The Butlerians were coming here to destroy, and they would arrive soon.

Bright stars shone through cloud veils in the dark sky. Around her, more than eighty tanks sparkled in reflected monitor lights and suspended security glowglobes. Some tanks were occupied; others were empty.

A powerful sense of alarm pulsed through her. Her children were threatened — all of them! She had to evacuate the ones still undergoing transformation, and get the true Navigators to depart on their own before it was too late. Only she could fold space with her mind; all other Navigators required the use of Holtzman engines. She had to get them aboard spacefolders and take them away.

Norma sent a summons to the Navigators aboard the orbiting VenHold ships, informing them that she was retrieving all of the Navigator tanks, taking them to safety before the impending holocaust.

There was no way she could stop it.

Her announcement caused great anxiety and consternation, but they listened. Thankfully, they paid close attention.

As she began to help her Navigators, Norma realized that Josef was also in danger, and she decided to warn him personally. But evacuating all of Kolhar would never be possible. There was not enough time.

Norma was fond of her great-grandson, whose personality reminded her in some ways of her late husband Aurelius Venport, back when she had been merely human and capable of that sort of love. Aurelius had always cared for Norma, even when her own mother considered her a freak. He had given the young woman everything she needed or wanted as she transformed into this incredible being.

Even today, long after Aurelius’s death, Norma continued to evolve. Josef and his powerful commercial empire had made it possible for her precious Navigators to become what they were today. She needed him. It only made sense, logically and emotionally, that she had to protect Josef as well.

Recognizing the consequences of her own actions, Norma realized that she was herself partly responsible for this catastrophic chain of events. By prematurely withdrawing the VenHold fleet from Salusa Secundus, she had given the Butlerian leader a boost of perceived power while making her great-grandson look weak, cowardly, and vulnerable.

Now, she intended to make up for it by saving him. As soon as Norma knew that the rescue of her Navigators was under way, she went to warn Josef.

IN THE SILENT hours of the night, Josef lay intertwined with Cioba in their spacious private dwelling. Even as he dozed, his mental wheels did not stop turning.

His wife had just returned from Wallach IX with her disappointing news that the Sisterhood refused his overtures for a rapprochement with the Emperor and an alliance. That angered Josef, after all he had done for them when they were outlaws. He made up his mind to withdraw his daughters from the school, not wanting to risk the Sisters using them as hostages.

The news from Draigo Roget had been much better. The robot Erasmus had revealed the location of forty intact thinking-machine battleships adrift in space. Denali engineers were repairing them now, and Josef had already dispatched a hauler with Holtzman engine upgrades for all of them. They would make his VenHold fleet significantly stronger.…

The crack and thump of displaced air woke him immediately. Josef sprang out of bed and landed in a crouch on the carpeted floor. Cioba also came alert, and they stared at the cumbersome tank that had just appeared in the open area of their bedroom.

Josef wrapped a sheet around himself. “What is it, Grandmother?” He knew Norma followed her own capricious thoughts. Perhaps she had recalled some concept she wanted to discuss with him, heedless of the hour or place.

“I came to warn you.” Norma’s voice sounded distorted, beyond that of an ordinary human, containing a tangential otherness. “Remove your ships from Kolhar,” she said. “There is little time. Leave immediately.”

He was fully awake now, but not pleased. “Kolhar is our fortress world. How can we be in danger?” He thought of his well-armed guardian ships, the layers of heavy shields that embraced the planet.

“The Butlerians are coming, Josef, a huge force of them. They will destroy you.”

He was so surprised he couldn’t even laugh. “Those primitive barbarians could never break through our advanced defenses.”

“Heed my warning, Josef. Trust my prescience. My Navigators need to be evacuated.” Norma’s ornate vault vanished in a rush of displaced air, leaving Josef and Cioba confused and alarmed.

“She’s been behaving strangely,” he said, “ordering one evacuation after another.”

“At Salusa, she sensed that the spice stockpile was being raided — and she was right,” Cioba pointed out. “We have to trust her.”

“Even with her prescience, we arrived at Arrakis too late,” Josef said, feeling a sudden chill. “I have no idea what she’s worried about this time, but if she wants us to leave, I think we should.”

While he and Cioba dressed themselves and grabbed a few possessions, Josef sounded an alarm for all spaceport operations and ground troops. He increased the planetary shields and called for VenHold warships to take a defensive posture — only to discover that Norma had already withdrawn two large foldspace carriers from orbit and brought them down to the Navigator field.

Taking a fast groundcar, he and Cioba raced out to the valley, which was in turmoil. Dazzling glowglobe security lights blazed in the air, shining down on the two landed spacefolders that covered the barren ground. Enhanced suspensor fields added structural integrity to the vessels that were normally meant for open space rather than the stress of a planetary gravity field.

The cargo hatches were open, and uniformed VenHold employees used antigravity clamps and suspensor rigs to move the tanks containing the proto-Navigators. They wrestled with one at a time, keeping the melange gas supply connected to the tanks.

Josef was shocked to see such a large-scale evacuation. One breathless VenHold worker with a stubble of beard spoke to him. “We are moving as swiftly as possible, Directeur — as ordered.”

“By Norma?” Josef asked, trying to calm himself.

The man didn’t seem to know. “We were given only one hour. Both of these carriers have to be loaded and ready to depart. Our Holtzman engines are on standby. The Navigator on deck is preparing to fold space without even leaving the surface. I don’t know how that’s—”

Cioba interrupted, “Has anyone been told the exact nature of the danger?”

The frantic workers could not answer, but they continued to load the Navigator tanks with great haste, clearing the eighty sparkling tanks.

“The planetary shields are in place,” Josef said, but even he wasn’t convinced it would be enough.

Norma’s tank appeared on its dais, overlooking the mostly empty Navigator field. “We depart in moments, Josef. Join us. We are beneath the shields now, but will reappear above them.”

“How can I just leave everything behind — my industries, spaceport, ships, construction yards?”

“You have no choice,” Norma said, “if you wish to live.”

Josef looked at Cioba, then they hurried aboard the nearest carrier. The rest of the Kolhar workers hunkered down to defend themselves against a threat they had not even seen yet.

Once the great ships were sealed, the Navigators simply winked them out of existence, disappearing from the ground and reappearing in far orbit above Kolhar, bypassing normal dimensional paths to get around the planetary shields.

But even in orbit, they were far from safe.

MANFORD TORONDO’S FLEET appeared without warning.

The faithful aboard had been drilled en route from Salusa Secundus, and every person knew their role. The captains of the 115 ships fully understood Manford’s plan.

At first, his faithful had been horrified to learn about the stockpile of atomics that Anari had distributed among their vessels — atomics exactly like the ones that had devastated so many thinking-machine worlds. Despite the current prohibition against such doomsday weapons, the Butlerians did relish the idea of bombarding the headquarters of the machine lovers.

Manford knew that Directeur Venport had no chance against such an onslaught, but he also knew that his forces could not afford a prolonged space conflict against superior enemy warships. He had to saturate Kolhar with the atomics and then leave as quickly as possible.

When his Butlerian spacefolders emerged into real space and accelerated toward the planet, he looked across at Anari, who was staring through the windowport at their destination ahead. The Swordmaster contacted the other captains, then gave him a hard grin. “Only two of our vessels were lost in transit, Manford — navigation errors. Acceptable losses for a mission such as this. We have no need of the monster Navigators Venport uses. Your followers are blessed, and we are destined to achieve a great victory today.”

“Indeed we are, Anari.”

Manford was familiar with the history of Serena Butler’s Jihad, the climactic bloodbath of atomic devastation that wiped out countless Synchronized Worlds, and he had supplemented this knowledge by reading the Erasmus journals, which recounted the horrific final attack on Corrin. Manford knew exactly what was about to happen now — and looked forward to it.

Impossibly, though, someone had alerted Josef Venport ahead of time. The devil’s defenders were ready, a fleet of warships with weapons activated, and the planetary shields increased. Two large VenHold carriers appeared high above the planet, evacuating, but he was focused on the heavily armored vessels standing between him and Kolhar.

Under normal circumstances, Manford’s fleet would have been cut to ribbons in a full-fledged battle. They could not have breached the orbital defenses with conventional weapons, much less destroyed the planetary shields. But Manford had something the Directeur would not expect.

As VenHold warships opened fire on his fleet, the Butlerian leader smiled.

Anari gave the ominous order. Manford’s first five vessels surged forward to launch atomic projectiles, paying no heed to the VenHold battleships standing against them. The nuclear warheads detonated in the atmosphere like small, brilliant suns. Energy shock waves swept the VenHold ships aside like a child scattering unwanted toys.

Like incandescent battering rams in space, three more strategically fired atomics stunned the last effective Kolhar defenses, and the planetary shields began to go off-line.

Manford took a moment to enjoy what he was seeing as the rest of his holy fleet charged into the open wound. “Unleash our warheads — every single one. I do not want any survivors left on that accursed planet, human or animal. The whole place is contaminated.”

These powerful weapons would grant him a glorious victory, but they also made him feel soiled. Yet, he could think of no more satisfying way to dispose of them all.

The next wave of atomics obliterated the planetary shields above VenHold’s industrial facilities, and Manford knew that his fifty remaining warheads would be more than sufficient to finish the job.

THE TWO VENHOLD carriers pulled away, rescuing all of the proto-Navigator tanks as well as any refugees who had rushed aboard at the last moment. Josef watched in horror as massive detonations wiped out his defensive ships and planetary shields. Then explosion after explosion blistered the surface of Kolhar and eradicated the spaceports, cities, outposts … and all living things.

“Atomics!” Cioba cried. She squeezed her husband’s hand so tightly he thought she might break his bones. “I can’t believe that even the barbarians would dare!”

A few defensive VenHold ships managed to limp away, and some of the Butlerian forces broke formation to pursue them like ravenous hyenas.

Josef’s thoughts went wild. Such weapons were utterly forbidden in the Imperium. Atomics! Emperor Roderick would never have authorized this strike — Manford Torondo and all his followers would now be shunned, banished from imperial society.

Or … would Roderick gloss over the horrendous war crime as the price of vengeance? Josef was sickened. Did the Emperor even know about this?

The VenHold spacefolders began to accelerate as they escaped. With waves of detonations behind them, Josef knew there was nothing he could save on Kolhar. The planet would be a radioactive wasteland, uninhabitable for decades. He didn’t want to think about the death toll down there.

Josef had the Navigators send messages to any remnants of his fleet, and tell them to join him where he was going. He needed to go someplace safe where he could think — and plan his counterattack.

“Take us to Arrakis,” he said. “We’ll be safe there. For now.”