Mentats of Dune

Chapter 18 (Humans are endlessly perplexing)

With Gilbertus away on Salusa Secundus, the independent robot used the spy-eyes he had installed throughout the Mentat School to observe the activities of the trainees. The students diligently followed the guidance of proctors and administrators, forcing their brains into proper focus and following the Headmaster’s curriculum … never imagining that the foundation of their instruction came from a reviled thinking machine — who watched them all the time.

Erasmus enjoyed the irony, but he was also frustrated. For centuries in the thinking-machine empire, he had been an avid researcher, participating in hands-on experiments. He had found it invigorating to manipulate human test subjects and shed blood in the name of understanding. Gilbertus had helped Erasmus in many of the experiments. Those had been excellent times.

The human subjects had not been willing participants, but throughout the history of science, what laboratory animal had happily sacrificed its life for the greater benefit of knowledge? In his research, Erasmus had come across an old saying: There were many ways to skin a cat, and cats liked none of them. The humans he had skinned (literally) did not appreciate the experience either.…

Now, trapped and impotent, the robot core’s only refuge lay in assessing the students from a distance. He observed a group of them crowded around a stainless-steel dissection table on which they had spread a reptilian swamp dragon. The dead specimen, two meters long, had spiny ridges and overlapping green armor plates, as well as curved teeth to hook prey.

Erasmus focused in on the view, increased the magnification.

His tiny robotic helpers had worked hard to place spy-eyes outside the walls of the school complex as well, so he could watch any trainee who fell prey to swamp predators. He monitored every such exercise, calculating the odds and — yes, he admitted to himself — hoping to see a bloody attack. He wanted to observe how Mentats-in-training defended themselves. So far, none had bested a swamp dragon in direct combat, though two had put up an extraordinary struggle.

Now, in the laboratory, the students used surgical knives and serrated cutting tools to make incisions through the dragon’s armor plates. Erasmus wished he could participate, standing in his former flowmetal body or even a more cumbersome mek body. He remembered his beautiful physical form with the delicate silver hands that were able to manipulate complex tools.

Personally, he had always gained more insights from dissecting human subjects while they were still alive. What better way to analyze reflexes and pain responses? Living subjects, in pain, also provided the best data on emotions. He would watch and measure the expression in their eyes, the begging and pleading, the sheer panic, and then — a distinct change that was obvious once he’d learned what to look for — the loss of hope just before the onset of death.

Now, the students pulled apart the gray muscle fibers and removed the reptile’s internal organs. Though dead, the swamp creature twitched reflexively, and its long jaws clamped down. One of the students jerked out of the way, barely in time to keep her hand from being bitten off. Even so, the curved tooth left a deep red scratch on her arm.

Erasmus focused in on the scratch. He knew that the marsh reptiles carried deadly bacteria in their saliva. A scratch from this tooth could become infected, grow gangrenous, and the student might die, feverish and babbling, in excruciating pain. Erasmus hoped the school’s medical team wouldn’t treat the scratch. It would be very interesting to study the effects of delirium on an enhanced Mentat mind.…

He switched to another set of spy-eyes to watch a room full of new trainees poring over pages and pages of random numbers, which they were then asked to reproduce from memory. The exercise helped them organize their brains, to replicate the skills of a machine (except a thinking machine never needed to practice). Many inductees failed at this stage and were released from the school, but others did manage to learn. Erasmus admired them for their persistence and determination, because humans had such great disadvantages with their soft and chaotic brains.

Erasmus took all of his basic thinking skills for granted. Long ago, he had been identical to so many other robots, programmed by Omnius to serve the Synchronized Empire. The computer evermind had been duplicated across hundreds of worlds, each separated memory core maintaining parity via update ships such as one flown by Vorian Atreides.

Erasmus had gained uniqueness only through a fortunate accident. After falling into a glacier crevasse on Corrin, he’d been trapped for over a century, during which time he had nothing to do but ponder his existence and develop his advanced personality. By the time Erasmus was rescued, he was different from any other independent robot … and that was the point at which he’d begun to do great things. His suffering had been necessary to transform him into such a superior thinking machine, one with a very creative mind.

In a sense, his current situation was similar — trapped and helpless, disembodied. But Gilbertus could save him at any time.

Now that the two of them had been hiding for so long among feral humans, Erasmus worried that his ward had become corrupted, even sympathetic to the rest of his race. It was time for them both to leave Lampadas, to change their parameters, to create a new identity for Gilbertus. The Butlerian delusions were interesting, but dangerous — and growing more so.

Gilbertus had already installed stronger defenses around the Mentat School, on the pretext of protecting the Emperor’s sister. High walls now surrounded the school complex, and the approach through the labyrinth of marshes was difficult. The gates were barred, the landing field small and secure. The lakeshore was protected with electronic and physical defenses as well, augmented by dangerous predators in the water.

But it was not enough, as far as Erasmus was concerned.

Using tiny robotic drones to complete the work, the robot core had laid down advanced conduit paths and installed hidden high-intensity power-dispersal units, a grid that could project a microwave pulse to incapacitate human enemies. He still did not let down his guard.

Erasmus’s attention continued to roam throughout the school. The time ticked away as he studied activities that had once been so fascinating, but now were boring. In an instruction chamber, seven Mentat students stared at a wall that projected blips of light in predetermined grid squares, following a complex pattern that the trainees were asked to decipher. The lights twinkled like a random display of static, and the trainees tried to predict the sequence. Most of them failed. Only one — the intriguing Anna Corrino — identified the correct sequence every time. He watched her lips move as she muttered the answers.

For a thinking machine, time was infinitely flexible, every second broken into countless pieces, but Erasmus chose to speed up the time now, slowing down his thought processes so that the lonely day passed in a blink. When he let himself become aware again, it was night outside — and Anna had returned to her quarters. Now, things would get interesting.

His external sensor pickups detected a cacophony of swamp noises, buzzing and clicking, mating calls, the screams of dispatched prey, the rustling of large animals through the underbrush, a splash of razorjaws swimming through the thick sangrove swamp.

He channeled his attention into Anna’s quarters. She was eager to go to bed every night now, because whenever she lay next to the tiny speakers implanted in the walls, she listened for his soothing voice, and answered him.

“Tell me again about your lover, Hirondo Nef,” Erasmus said.

The young woman grew alternately emotional and detached as she talked about the palace chef who had made her swoon but who — in Erasmus’s assessment — had been a mere diversion and certainly not worthy of a majestic and valuable female specimen such as Anna.

“Salvador destroyed our love,” she said with a hitch in her voice, glad to have a sympathetic listener. “He sent Hirondo away, drove us apart.”

“I’m sure he had your best interest at heart,” Erasmus suggested.

“No, my brother was thinking only of protecting his throne. He murdered Hirondo. I know it!”

Indeed, Erasmus hoped so. He wished he could witness her reaction if she discovered proof that it had really happened. It would be interesting to see the emotions on her face, and hear her screams of despair. “Tell me more about your brother,” he said.

Anna blinked in the dimness. “Which one? Roderick, or Salvador?”

“Both. We have plenty of time.”

She began to list a curiously organized set of facts: the birth dates of Roderick and Salvador, their heights, the names of their wives, the names and birth dates of Roderick’s four children. From the dreary tone in her voice, Erasmus could tell that she missed all of them terribly.

Then Anna slipped out of her analytical state. “Why do you ask so many questions? Aren’t you a memory inside my head? You should know all of this.”

“I am your friend, and friends talk with each other.” Erasmus thought of how Gilbertus had been his loyal and worshipful student, how the two of them had talked at great length, played pyramid chess until late hours, and studied the results of experiments on various human subjects. “Whatever you have to say, Anna, I will find it fascinating. You are a most intriguing—” He caught himself before he said specimen. Instead, he said, “—young woman. I want you to be my special protégée.”

He thought of the swamp dragon the Mentat trainees had dissected. Someday, if Erasmus ever got a new body so he could handle tools and equipment, perhaps he would study Anna’s brain more closely, cutting it apart and deconstructing it in order to help her … or at least in order to learn more about the human mind in general.

“I want to be a friend like you’ve never had.”

She caught her breath. “I have always wanted that.”

Anna continued talking about her brothers, and about Lady Orenna, whom she viewed as a true mother-figure. She told him how much she missed the palace on Salusa and her special retreat in the tangles of a fogwood tree.

Partway through one of her stories, Anna began to sob. Erasmus could have offered her simple platitudes to make her feel better, but he remained silent, while continuing to observe closely. Better to let this moment play out, so he could study where it would go.

Yes, she was a unique and fascinating young woman, and he could envision her brain cut wide open on a laboratory table.