Dune: The Machine Crusade Read Online Free PDF

appropriate, calculated moments. “Our victory is paid for with human blood. Serena Butler’s tiny son has already paid that price, as have millions of valiant jihadi soldiers. The ultimate victory not only merits such an expense, it requires it. To lose is unthinkable. Our very existence hangs in the balance.”
    Around the hall, heads nodded, and Iblis maintained an inward, concealed smile of satisfaction. Though the secondary monk remained silent beside the plaz brain canister, the Grand Patriarch sensed that Kwyna might even agree. No one could resist his words, his passion. Visible tears of appreciation sparkled in Iblis’s eyes, just enough to show how much he really cared about humankind.

One can compare this new Jihad to a necessary editing process. We are disposing of the things that are destroying us as humans.

    — COGITOR KWYNA, City of Introspection Archives
    I nside a coffin of perfect crystal, the little boy lay peaceful and pristine. Like a spark encased within a glass shell, Manion Butler was isolated from everything that had been wrought in his name. And Serena remained secluded with him inside the walls of the City of Introspection.
    She knelt on a stone platform at the front of the shrine, as she often did, looking both beatific and grim. Long ago, devotees in the contemplative retreat had stopped asking to install a fine bench where she could sit and pray over her child. For twenty-four years now, Serena had faced her thoughts, her memories, her nightmares this way, on her knees before the crystalline case.
    Manion looked so serene here, so sheltered. The boy’s delicate face and fragile bones had been shattered when the monstrous robot Erasmus had dropped him from a high balcony, but Iblis Ginjo had seen to it that his true form and features were repaired by cosmetic morticians. Her son was preserved exactly as Serena wanted to remember him. Yes, faithful Iblis had taken care of everything possible.
    Had he lived, Manion would be a full-grown young nobleman now… old enough to be married and have children himself. Gazing upon Manion’s beautiful face, she thought of the potential he might have attained, if not for the evil thinking machines.
    Instead, the innocent boy had given birth to a jihad that blazed across star systems, with humans fomenting revolution on the Synchronized Worlds, attacking robot ships and all incarnations of Omnius. Billions of people had already died for the holy cause. Erasmus himself must have been destroyed in the atomic attack that annihilated thinking machines on Earth. But the computer evermind still held dominion over the rest of his realm, and humans could not rest.
    The pain did not go away. Serena’s very soul had been smashed by the murder of her son. Meditating in his presence gave her all the inspiration she needed to keep leading the Jihad. This particular shrine, containing Manion’s actual body, was reserved for her, and for a few select devotees.
    Additional shrines and elaborate reliquaries had appeared across Salusa Secundus and on other League Worlds. Some were adorned with paintings or depictions of the divine boy, the sacrificial lamb, though none of the artists had ever seen him in life. Some reliquaries purported to contain bits of cloth, hair, even microscopic cellular samples. Though Serena doubted the authenticity of such exhibits, she did not ask to have them removed. The people’s faith and devotion were more important than perfect accuracy.
    After the Jihad had failed to overthrow the Synchronized World of Bela Tegeuse, and after the thinking machines had once again attacked— and been driven from— Salusa Secundus, Iblis had convinced Serena that she must not dilute her power or risk her safety for such meaningless political activities as trade accords and minor laws. Instead, she reserved her public appearances for matters of great importance. Without Serena Butler’s inspiration, he insisted, humanity would not have the will to fight.