Dune: The Butlerian Jihad Read Online Free PDF

evermind. Erasmus obeyed Omnius’s commands as well, but he had more freedom to interpret. Over the centuries, he had developed his own identity and semblance of an ego. Omnius considered him something of a curiosity.
    As the robot continued to walk with perfect grace, he detected a buzzing sound. His optic threads picked up a small flying orb, one of Omnius’s many mobile watcheyes. Whenever Erasmus ventured away from the ubiquitous screens found throughout all buildings, the avid watcheyes followed him, recording his every move. The evermind’s actions spoke of either a deep-seated curiosity . . . or an oddly humanlike paranoia.
    Long ago, while tinkering with the original AI computers of the Old Empire, the rebel Barbarossa had added approximations of certain personality traits and goals. Subsequently the machines had self-evolved into a single grand electronic mind that retained a few of the imposed human ambitions and characteristics.
    As far as Omnius was concerned, biologicals, even bastardized cymeks with human brains and machine parts, could not see the epoch-spanning vistas that the gelcircuitry of a machine mind could encompass. When Omnius scanned the universe of possibilities it was like a vast screen. There were so many ways to win, and he was constantly on the alert for them.
    Omnius’s core programming had been duplicated on all the machine-conquered planets and synchronized through the use of regular updates. Faceless, able to watch and communicate throughout the interstellar network, near-identical copies of Omnius were everywhere, vicariously present in innumerable watcheyes, appliances, and contact screens.
    Now, apparently, the distributed computer mind had nothing better to do than snoop. “Where are you going, Erasmus?” Omnius demanded from a tiny speaker beneath the watcheye. “Why are you walking so fast?”
    “You could walk, too, if you chose to do so. Why not give yourself legs for a while and wear an artificial body, just to see what it is like?” Erasmus’s metallic polymer mask reshaped itself into a smile. “We could go for a stroll together.”
    The watcheye buzzed along beside Erasmus. Corrin had long seasons, because its orbit was so far around the giant sun. Winters and summers each lasted for thousands of days. The rugged landscape had no indigenous forests or wildernesses, only a handful of ancient orchards and agricultural fields that had gone to seed since the machine takeover, left to propogate untended.
    Many human slaves went blind from exposure to the pounding solar flux. As a consequence, Erasmus fitted his outdoor workers with custom eye protection. He was a benevolent master, concerned for the well-being of his resources.
    As he reached the entry gate of his villa, the robot adjusted the new sensory-enhancement module grafted by neurelectronic ports onto his body core and hidden beneath his robe. A unit of his own design, the module allowed Erasmus to simulate the senses of humanity, but with certain unavoidable limitations. He wanted to know more than the module could provide, wanted to feel more. In this respect, the cymeks might have an advantage over Erasmus, but he would never know for certain.
    Cymeks— especially the original Titans— were a narrow-minded, brutal bunch, with no appreciation for the more refined senses and sensibilities that Erasmus worked so hard to attain. Brutality had its place, of course, but the sophisticated robot considered it only one of many behaviorial aspects worthy of study, both positive and negative. Still, violence was interesting and often pleasurable to employ. . . .
    He was intensely curious about what made cognizant biologicals human . He was intelligent and self-aware, but he also wanted to understand emotions, human sensibilities, and motivations— the essential details that machines never managed to reproduce very well.
    During his centuries-long quest, Erasmus had absorbed human artwork, music, philosophy, and