“I acknowledge my opponent,” he said. Still standing, the Headmaster faced the mek in a traditional gesture of respect that caused a troubled murmuring to pass through the audience.

Anari Idaho stood next to the legless Butlerian leader, who rested on a padded palanquin. Her sword was drawn and ready in case she needed to fight the combat mek.

Manford said, “This is a challenge between the soul and the soulless, the holy mind of man and the accursed mind of machine. My Mentat, Headmaster Gilbertus Albans, formally challenges the demon machine to a game of pyramid chess. Humans do not need sophisticated technology to achieve our potential. My Mentat will prove that humans are superior to machines in every way.”

Gilbertus thought it a needlessly jingoistic speech. Every person in the audience knew what was about to occur and what the stakes were. Thinking back to ancient human history, he brought to mind Colosseum battles, gladiator against gladiator, downtrodden religious followers pitted against ravenous predators, though they had no chance of survival. Pyramid chess was a different sort of combat, but the fighting robot before him was like one of those doomed Christian prisoners.

No doubt Manford had formulated an appropriate response even if Gilbertus should lose, ready to call this a “moral victory” rather than an actual one. In that case, the Butlerians would get their revenge on the Mentat School later.

But Gilbertus didn’t plan to lose. He sat at the game table and waved an arm casually. “As challenger, I cede the first move to my opponent.” Granting the first move gave the mek a slight advantage. Gilbertus wanted to show clearly that he was not cheating or otherwise taking advantage of the robot.

Leaning forward in his seat, Roderick Corrino looked surprised; Salvador seemed disturbed. Manford had not expected him to make such an offer, but he didn’t react; the expression on his classically handsome face showed that he had utter confidence in the Mentat Headmaster.

The robot moved its Lion figure forward and up a level, to another fighting platform. Gilbertus responded with the heroic-faced Martyr, moving to block. The robot chose the Infant in a sacrificial play. The very idea disturbed the audience, bringing to mind the murder of Serena Butler’s baby by Erasmus — the event that had triggered the Butlerian Jihad.

Gilbertus countered with his own Lion, rising up three levels. He was attuned to the fine points of the game, focused on unfolding scenarios and strategies, planning ten moves ahead and thinking of a counter to any approach the mek might take.

The thinking machine moved another piece, a simple foot soldier, in a curious gambit. Gilbertus seized the foot soldier and removed it from the board. When the robot made its next move, a cascade of possibilities fell into place, and Gilbertus saw the machine’s strategy. There was indeed a good chance that his opponent might actually win. Gilbertus fine-tuned his own plans. He began to perspire a little, painfully aware that the robot would never show such a human frailty.

One of the noblemen in the audience let out a too-loud gasp; he had also caught the robot’s intention, although most of the other spectators didn’t understand. Gilbertus made a defensive move on the multilayer board, and the robot blocked it, diminishing Gilbertus’s viable options. He saw a narrow path and hoped the robot didn’t recognize it as well.

The mek was relentless, countering, blocking Gilbertus in, forcing him into a vulnerable corner on the lowest level. The audience grew restless. In his peripheral vision, he noted Manford’s stormy expression.

Gilbertus reapplied all his Mentat focus to the game. He knew one thing the audience could not possibly guess, something that even the combat mek didn’t know: For the past century and a half, he had regularly played pyramid chess with Erasmus. The independent robot was a skilled opponent who had honed Gilbertus’s tactics, teaching him many subtle tricks. This combat mek might have the rules embedded in its programming, but Gilbertus knew how to use those rules to ensure his own victory.

Two more moves of retreat by Gilbertus, and the mek advanced each time, toward the trap that the Headmaster was setting. Emperor Salvador looked decidedly uneasy. Sister Dorotea whispered in his ear, but whatever she said did not reassure him. Gilbertus made one more move, and the combat mek responded as expected.

Then the Mentat sprang his trap. He seized the Lion, and in the next two moves used one of his foot soldiers to block the Mother’s escape and then capture the piece. In three more moves, he turned the game around by capturing the Grand Patriarch and tossing the piece aside disrespectfully.

The crowd roared. The robot recognized its inevitable defeat but continued to play. Gilbertus had no choice but to finish the victory, in all of its details. He did not believe that every vestige of technology should be scorned and trampled, but this was a role, and he played it well. Though his feelings were conflicted about thinking machines, he of course sided with humanity.

Manford applauded. “The Mentat Headmaster proved what we already knew. Machines are not only evil, but are obsolete, irrelevant, and inferior to man. They serve no useful purpose. They can all be destroyed, and our civilization would be better for it. We can improve ourselves without the taint of machines.”

Anari Idaho stalked forward. Instead of her regular sharp-bladed sword, she carried a modified pulse-sword, the type once used by Swordmasters to battle robots at the height of the Jihad. She delivered the coup de grâce, thrusting her pulsing blade into the combat mek, discharging an energy burst that scrambled its gelcircuitry, unleashing a crackle of sparks. The bolted-down mek stuttered and twitched, then fell motionless.

Anari withdrew another weapon from her hip, a heavy alloy hammer, which she used to pummel the machine into a dented ruin, to ever-louder cheers.

Gilbertus stood motionless, accepting the result. This entire spectacle served little purpose except to give Manford Torondo an excuse for propaganda, and Gilbertus had knowingly played into it.

When Anari finished her exertions, she wiped sweat from her brow and stepped back. Picking up the pulse-sword in one hand, the heavy hammer in the other, she smiled at Gilbertus. “Good work, Headmaster.”

He accepted her praise, but in the secret passageways of his mind, he credited the victory to his mentor, Erasmus.

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.…