But the spectacle was not finished. The other worms rose beside Monarch, and all towered over her. Sheeana stood motionless, at once horrified and fascinated. Would they devour her, too? She steeled herself for her own fate, but had no fear of it. As a young girl, after a worm had destroyed her village on Rakis, Sheeana had run wildly out into the desert and screamed at the huge creature, calling it names, insisting that it eat her. "Well, Shaitan-do you have an appet.i.te for me, now?"

But they did not want her. Instead, the seven worms gathered together, tumbling one upon the other, writhing like a ma.s.s of snakes. With Leto inside them now, the worms were transforming. Six worms wound themselves around the largest beast that had swallowed the boy. They twisted and twined, wrapping their sinuous bodies like vines around a tree, and then moved together.

Sheeana scrambled back up the rubble pile to keep herself safe from falling debris. The fleshy rings of the separate sandworms began to merge and metamorphose into a much larger form. The differentiation among the creatures became less distinct; the rings united, joining into one incredible sandworm: a behemoth greater even than the largest monsters from legendary Dune.

Sheeana stumbled, falling backward on the rubble but unable to tear her gaze away from the immense sandworm that towered in front of her, rippling and twining, its body stretching back hundreds of meters.

"Shai-Hulud," she murmured, intentionally refusing to use the term Shaitan Shaitan, just as she had always done. Truly, this was the G.o.dlike Old Man of the Desert. The dizzying odor of melange was stronger than ever.

At first she thought the leviathan would consume her after all, but the giant worm turned away and smashed down into the ground with a great thunder of noise, tunneling downward beneath the machine city.

Its new home.

A shudder of supreme pleasure ran through her. She knew the great worm would divide beneath the surface. This union between Leto II and the creatures would have a greater resistance to moisture, enabling them to survive until they could remake parts of this former machine planet into a domain of their own. One day, new sandworms would grow and thrive on this world, always lurking beneath the surface, always watching.To defeat the humans, one option is to become like them, granting no quarter, chasing and destroying them to the last man, woman, and child. Just as they tried to do to us.-ERASMUS, databank on human violence

With my curiosity, ages of existence, and understanding of both humans and machines," Erasmus mused as he and Duncan remained joined, fused together mentally and physically, "am I not the machine equivalent of a Kwisatz Haderach? The Shortening of the Way for thinking machines? I can be in many places at once and see a myriad of things that even Omnius never imagined."

"You are not a Kwisatz Haderach," Duncan said. He became aware of his comrades rushing toward him. But the liquid metal now flowed across Duncan's shoulders and face, and he felt no desire to tear himself away.

Duncan let the physical reaction between him and the robot continue. He didn't want to escape. As the new standard bearer of humankind, he needed to advance. So he opened his mind and let the data rush in.

A voice rang out in his head, louder than all the whirlwind memories and streams of data. I can impress all of the key codes you seek, Kwisatz Haderach. Your neurons, your very DNA, form the structure of a new networked database. I can impress all of the key codes you seek, Kwisatz Haderach. Your neurons, your very DNA, form the structure of a new networked database.

Duncan knew this was the point of no return. Do it. Do it.

The mental floodgates opened, filling his mind to bursting with the robot's experiences and coldly factual, regimented information. And he began to see things from that entirely alien viewpoint.

In thousands upon thousands of years of experimentation, Erasmus had struggled to understand humans. How could they remain so mysterious? The robot's incredible range of experiences made even Duncan's numerous lives seem insignificant. Visions and memories roared around the Kwisatz Haderach, and he knew it would take him much more than another lifetime just to sift through it all.

He saw Serena Butler in the flesh, along with her baby, and the startling reaction of the mult.i.tudes to what Erasmus had thought was a simple, meaningless death . . . howling humans rising up in a fight they had no chance to win. They were irrational, desperate, and in the end, victorious. Incomprehensible. Illogical. And yet, they had achieved the impossible.

For fifteen thousand years, Erasmus had longed to understand, but had lacked the fundamental revelation. Duncan could feel the robot digging around inside him, looking for the secret, not out of any need for domination and conquest, but simply to know. to know.

Duncan had difficulty focusing amidst so much information. Presently he withdrew, and felt the flowmetal move the other direction, away from him-though not completely, for his internal cellular structure was forever changed.

In an epiphany, he realized that he was a new evermind, but of an entirely different sort from the original. Erasmus had not deceived him. With eyes that extended to centillions of sensors, Duncan could see all of the Enemy ships, the fighting drones and worker robots, every cog in the awe-inspiring reborn empire.

And he could stop everything in its tracks. If he wanted to.

When Duncan returned to himself, in his relatively human body again, he looked through his own eyes around the great chamber. Erasmus stood before him, separate now and smiling with what seemed to be genuine satisfaction.

"What happened, Duncan?" Paul asked.

Duncan let out a long breath of stale air. "Nothing I didn't initiate, Paul, but I'm here, I'm back."

Yueh rushed up. "Are you hurt? We thought you might be trapped in a coma like . . . like him." He gestured toward the still-frozen Paolo.

"I'm unharmed . . . but not unchanged." Duncan looked around the vaulted chamber, and gazed out into the vast city with a new sense of wonder. "Erasmus shared everything everything with me . . . even the best parts of himself." with me . . . even the best parts of himself."

"An adequate summation," the robot said, undeniably pleased. "When you merged into me and kept going deeper and deeper, you made yourself vulnerable. Had I wished to win the game, I could have tried to take over your mind and program you to do exactly what benefits me and thinking machines. Just as I did with the Face Dancers."

"But I knew you wouldn't," Duncan said.

"From prescience, or faith?" A crafty smile crept across the robot's face. "You now have control of the thinking machines. They are yours, Kwisatz Haderach-all, including me. Now you have everything you need. With the power in your hands, you will change the universe. It is Kralizec. See? We have made the prophecy come true after all."

Seemingly alone in the remnants of a vast empire, Erasmus walked casually around the chamber again. "You can shut them all down permanently, if that is your preference, and eliminate thinking machines forever. Or, if you have the courage, you can do something more useful with them."

Jessica said, "Shut them down, Duncan. Finish it now! Think of all the trillions they've killed, all the planets they've destroyed."

Duncan looked at his hands in wonder. "And is that the honorable thing to do?"

Erasmus kept his voice carefully neutral, not pleading. "For millennia I studied humans and tried to understand them . . . I even emulated them. But when was the last time humans bothered to consider what thinking machines could do? You only despise us. Your Great Convention with its terrible stricture, 'Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.' Is that really what you want, Duncan? To win this ultimate war by exterminating every vestige of us . . . the way Omnius wanted to win the war by eliminating you? Didn't you hate the evermind for that fixed att.i.tude? Do you have the same att.i.tude yourself?"

"You have an abundance of questions," Duncan observed.

"And it is up to you to choose the single answer. I gave you what you need." Erasmus stood back and waited.

Duncan felt a new sense of urgency, perhaps imparted to him by Erasmus. Possibilities roiled through his head, accompanied by a riptide of consequences. With his growing awareness he saw that in order to end Kralizec, he needed to stop the eons-old schism that separated man and machine. Thinking machines had originally been created by man, but though intertwined, each side had tried repeatedly to destroy the other. He had to find a common ground between them, rather than let one dominate the other.

Duncan saw the great historical arc, a social evolution of epic proportions. Thousands of years ago, Leto II had joined himself with a great sandworm, thereby acquiring vastly greater powers for himself. Centuries later, under the guidance of Murbella, two opposing groups of women had joined forces, fusing their individual cultures into a stronger synthesized unit. Even Erasmus and Omnius had been two aspects of the same ident.i.ty, creativity and logic, curiosity and rigid facts.

Duncan saw that balance was required. Human heart and machine mind. What he had received from Erasmus could become a weapon, or a tool. He had to use it properly.

I must serve as a synthesis of man and machine.

He locked gazes with Erasmus, and this time he and the robot connected without making physical contact. Somehow the Kwisatz Haderach retained a ghost image of Erasmus within himself, just as Reverend Mothers carried Other Memories inside.

Drawing a deep breath, Duncan faced the overwhelming question. "When you and Omnius manifested yourselves as an old couple, you demonstrated the differences between you. Erasmus, while maintaining your own independence, you acquired the evermind's vast store-house of data, the intellect, while Omnius in turn learned about heart heart from you, what it means to have human feelings-curiosity, inspiration, mystery. But even you never fully achieved all the aspects of humanity you sought." from you, what it means to have human feelings-curiosity, inspiration, mystery. But even you never fully achieved all the aspects of humanity you sought."

"But now I can. With your consent, of course."

Duncan turned to face Paul and the others. "After the Butlerian Jihad, human civilization went too far by completely banning artificial intelligence. But in forbidding any sort of computers, we humans denied ourselves valuable tools. That overreaction created an unstable situation. History has shown that such absolute, draconian prohibitions cannot be sustained."

Jessica said skeptically, "Yet eradicating computers for so many generations forced us to grow stronger and become independent. For thousands of years, humanity advanced without artificial constructions to think and decide for us."

"As the Fremen learned to live on Arrakis," Chani said with clear pride. "It is a good thing."

"Yes, but that backlash also tied our hands and prevented us from reaching other potentials. Just because a man's legs will grow stronger by walking, should we deny him a vehicle? Our memory improves through steady practice; should we therefore deny ourselves the means to write or record our thoughts?"

"No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, to use one of your ancient cliches," Erasmus said. "I threw a baby off a balcony once. The consequences were extreme."

"We didn't do without machines," Duncan said, crystallizing his thoughts. "We just redefined them. Mentats are humans whose minds are trained to function like those of machines. Tleilaxu Masters used female bodies as axlotl tanks-flesh machines that manufactured gholas or spice."

When Paul looked back at him, Duncan thought that the young man's face seemed deeply old. Recovering from his past life had drained him even more than his mortal wound had. As a Kwisatz Haderach himself, as Muad'Dib, Emperor, and blind Preacher, Paul understood Duncan's dilemma better than any human present. He nodded slightly. "No one can choose for you, Duncan."

Duncan let his eyes take on a far-off glaze. "We can do much, much more. I see it now. Humans and machines cooperating fully, with neither side enslaving the other. I shall stand between them, as a bridge."

The robot responded with genuine excitement. "Now you see, Kwisatz Haderach! You have helped me to achieve understanding along with you. You have shortened my way, too." Erasmus's flowmetal body shifted like a mechanical version of a Face Dancer, becoming again the wrinkled body of the kindly old woman. "My long quest is complete. At last, after thousands of years, I understand so much." He smiled. "In fact, there is very little that interests me anymore."

The old woman walked over to where the still-transfixed Paolo lay, staring blankly upward. "This failed, ruined Kwisatz Haderach is an object lesson for me. The boy paid the price of too much knowledge." Paolo's unblinking eyes seemed to be drying out. He would probably wither away and starve to death, lost in the infinite maze of absolute prescience. "I don't want to be bored. So I ask you, Kwisatz Haderach, help me understand something I could never truly experience, the last fascinating aspect of humanity."

"A demand?" Duncan asked. "Or a favor?"

"A debt of honor." The old woman patted his sleeve with a gnarled hand. "You now epitomize the finest qualities of man and machine. Allow me to do what only living beings can do. Guide me to my own death death."

Duncan had not foreseen this. "You want to die? How can I help you do that?"

The old woman shrugged her bony shoulders. "All your lives and deaths have made you an expert on the matter. Look inside yourself, and you'll know."

Over the millennia since the Butlerian Jihad, Erasmus had considered distributing backup copies of himself as Omnius had done, but he had decided not to. That would have made his existence far less stimulating, and less meaningful. After all, he was an independent robot, and needed to be unique.

Duncan saw that along with all the codes and commands that controlled the host of thinking machines, he had received the life-function commands that regulated Erasmus. He could shut down the independent robot as easily as Erasmus had shut down all of the Face Dancers.

"I am curious to see what lies on the other side of the great divide between life and death." The robot looked at Khrone and the identical shape-shifter bodies strewn on the floor of the cathedral chamber.

But it wasn't as simple as flipping a switch or sending a code. Duncan had lived and died over and over, and learned more about life and death than anyone. Did Erasmus want him to understand whether or not a robot could have a soul, now that the two of them had been inside each other's mind?

"You want me to serve as a guide," Duncan said, "not just an executioner."

"A fine way to put it, my friend. I think you understand." The old woman looked at him, and now her smile held a hint of nervousness. "After all, Duncan Idaho, you have done this over and over again. But this is my first time."

Duncan touched her forehead. The skin was warm and dry. "Whenever you're ready."

The old woman sat on the stone steps. Folding her hands in her lap, she closed her eyes. "Do you suppose I will ever see Serena again?"

"I can't answer that." With a mental command, Duncan activated one of the new codes he possessed. From inside his own mind, reaching down to touch his own numerous death experiences, he showed Erasmus what he knew, even if he didn't entirely comprehend it himself. He wasn't certain the ancient independent robot could follow. Erasmus would have to make his own way. He and Duncan parted, both of them traveling on utterly separate journeys.

The aged body slumped quietly on the steps, and a long sigh flowed from the old woman's lips. Her expression became utterly serene . . . and then went completely motionless, with the eyes staring straight ahead.

In death, the robot's human shape held.Where there is life, there is hope. . .or so the old sayings tell us. But for the truly faithful there is always hope, and it is not determined by either death or life.-TLEILAXU MASTER SCYTALE, My Personal Interpretations of the Shariat

Out under the burned sky of Rakis, Waff's despair took him to a place as bleak and dry as the devastated landscape around him. On a vitrified dune nearby, only one of his precious armored sandworms stirred with the last flickerings of life, while the others were already dead. He had failed his Prophet.

The cellular modifications he had made were insufficient, and he had neither sandtrout specimens, nor the proper facilities to create additional test worms. He felt the last grains of sand slipping through the hourgla.s.s of his life. His body wouldn't last long enough for him to try again with a new line of the hybrid worms, even if he'd had the chance. Only the hope of restoring these sandworms to Rakis had kept him from surrendering to the damage in his accelerated ghola body, but now he was falling apart.

Raising his fist to the sky and shouting into the dry, caustic air, he demanded answers from G.o.d, though no mortal had the right to do so. He hammered his hands on the hard, cracked ground and wept. His clothes were dirty, his face smeared with sooty residue. Sprawled atop what had once been magnificent dunes lay the dead worm specimens. Truly, they symbolized the end of all hope.

Rakis was forever cursed, if even the Prophet no longer wished to live there.

Then, as he huddled on the ground, Waff felt a shudder from deep beneath the surface. The resonant vibration grew stronger, and he looked up in wonder, blinking his stinging eyes. The last dying worm twitched, as if it, too, could sense something important happening.

With a thunderous crack in the thin, whistling air, a fissure raced across the gla.s.sy ground. Waff stumbled to his feet and stared at the zigzag progress of the widening split, hardly able to comprehend what he was seeing.

Widening, jagged lines appeared like fine fractures in reinforced plaz struck by a hard blow. The dunes bucked and heaved as something emerged from below.

Waff staggered backward. At his feet the last slumped sandworm stirred, as if to warn the Tleilaxu Master that it was about to end its days-and that the man, too, was about to die.

A sequence of explosions erupted like sand geysers from deep beneath the dunes. The crevices gaped wider, revealing forms stirring underground. As if in a waking dream, he saw enormous ridges crusted with stones and dust, huge behemoths rising in a cascade of sand.

Sandworms. Real sandworms-monsters of the size that used to roam the desert in the days when this world was known as Dune. A legend and a mystery reborn!

Waff stood transfixed, unable to believe, yet filled with awe and hope rather than fear. Were these survivors of the original worms? How could they still be alive after the holocaust?

"Prophet, you have returned!" At first he saw five of the gigantic sandworms, then a dozen emerging at once. All around him the broken ground sp.a.w.ned more and more. Hundreds of them! The whole dead world was like an immense egg, cracking open and giving birth.

Breaking free of their underground nest, the sandworms rampaged toward the distant encampment in the rubble of Keen. Waff supposed they would swallow up Guriff and his prospectors, devouring all of the Guildsmen.

The sandworms would make Rakis their own again.

He reeled forward in ecstasy, his hands raised in joyous worship. "My glorious Prophet, I am here!" G.o.d's Messenger was so great that Waff felt like a minuscule speck, hardly worth noticing.

His faith swelled again, and he saw that his insignificant efforts on Rakis had never mattered. Regardless of how hard he had worked with the sandtrout, trying to seed these dead dunes with enhanced worms, G.o.d had His own plans-always His own plans. He showed the way by producing a flood of life, like the wordless revelation of s'tori s'tori.

And Waff realized what he should have known all along, something every Tleilaxu should have understood: If each of the sandworms sp.a.w.ned from G.o.d Emperor Leto II's great body actually contained a pearl of the Prophet inside them-how could the worms themselves worms themselves not have been prescient? How could they not have foreseen the coming of the Honored Matres and the impending destruction of Rakis? not have been prescient? How could they not have foreseen the coming of the Honored Matres and the impending destruction of Rakis?

He clapped his hands in glee. Of course! The great worms must have envisioned the terrible Obliterator weapons. Forewarned that the surface of Rakis would become a charred ball, some sandworms had been guided by Leto II's prescience to tunnel deep and encyst themselves protectively far beneath the sands, perhaps kilometers down. Away from the worst destruction.

This world can take care of itself, Waff thought.

Arrogant humans had always caused trouble here. When it was a pristine desert planet, Rakis was what it should have been before human pride and ambition terraformed it. The efforts of outsiders to "improve" Dune had resulted in the apparent extinction of the great worms, until the death of Leto II brought them back. After which humans-the Honored Matres-had wiped out the ecosystem again.

Rakis had been beaten, stepped on, raped . . . but in the end, the magnificent world had saved itself. The Prophet had remained there all along and contributed mightily to the survival of Dune. Now all was as it should be, and Waff was immensely pleased.

Two giant sandworms churned toward the Tleilaxu man, who stood transfixed. Plowing through the crusted ground, the worms scooped up the flaccid carca.s.ses of the weak test worms, devouring them as if they were mere crumbs.

Overcome by joy, Waff fell to his knees and prayed. At the last moment, he looked up into the giant mouth, with its deep, simmering flames and crystalline teeth. He smelled the spicy exhalations.

Smiling beatifically, the Tleilaxu Master lifted his face to heaven and exclaimed, "G.o.d, my G.o.d, I am yours at last!" With the speed and fury of a crashing Guild Heighliner, the worm descended. Waff inhaled a deep, satisfying breath of spice and closed his eyes in rapture as the monster's cavernous mouth engulfed him.

Waff became one with his Prophet.Life is about determining what to do next, from moment to moment. I've never been afraid of making decisions.-DUNCAN IDAHO, A Thousand Lives

Through the broken cathedral's high dome, a preoccupied Duncan saw the sky flicker like a pattern changing in a kaleidoscope. A wealth of vessels appeared side by side, pulled along by the returning Navigator-controlled Heighliners.

Even before the signal came to him, Duncan sensed that someone very special was aboard one of the newly arrived ships. His expanded mind showed him her face, very little changed after all these years. Murbella! Murbella! Some past part of him was terrified at the prospect of being near her again, but he was so much more than that now. He was eager to see her. Some past part of him was terrified at the prospect of being near her again, but he was so much more than that now. He was eager to see her.

A thousand Navigator-faction Heighliners hovered over Synchrony, uncertain of their role, now that the Oracle was gone. Using his newly acquired abilities, Duncan communed with them all in a commondenominator language. The Navigators would understand him in their own way, as would the thinking machines and the humans. Duncan barely touched on his enhanced knowledge to do so.