Ptolemy found the Tlulaxa work interesting, although he thought the basic human body was already too weak. He himself had been too weak to stand against the raving hordes that destroyed his facility and killed Elchan. If he were going to accept a new body, Ptolemy never wanted to feel weak again. He wanted something powerful and impressive.…

When a shipment arrived from Kolhar bearing the medically sustained brains of ten more failed Navigators, Ptolemy was glad to have new candidates for his expanding ranks of Titans. The other proto-Navigator brains available to him were already ensconced in preservation canisters, so they could be installed into any cymek walker. Now he had even more specimens to work with.

When the cargo ship was ready on the loading dock, workers carried the Navigator brains on suspensor pallets, and Ptolemy sent them to his laboratory. The ship also brought two of VenHold’s private Suk doctors, specialists who had extracted the brains from the spice-saturated bodies on Kolhar. They had come to Denali to observe Ptolemy’s work firsthand.

With his lungs still scarred from exposure to Denali’s caustic atmosphere, Ptolemy coughed while greeting them. “I’m grateful for the assistance and advice from graduates of the Suk School. My new thoughtrodes are adaptive, easily connected to the living tissue of an aware brain. Our work is far superior to—” He had to fight back an intense fit of coughing, then wiped away an embarrassing smear of blood from his lips. The guest doctors fussed over him, but Ptolemy brushed them aside. “I already have my diagnosis. It’s not relevant to our discussion here.” And he pushed on.

Inside his main development chamber, he was proud to show the Kolhar team his preservation tanks and test beds, while assistants prepared the new Navigator brains. Ptolemy was well practiced in how to install them into his cymek walkers, but he was always creating and testing new modifications in an effort to perfect the advanced machine bodies. His special Titans might not be powerful enough to fight an Arrakis sandworm alone, but they were sufficient to slaughter any number of Butlerian cowards.

And that, Ptolemy knew, would be good enough.

INSIDE THE HANGAR dome, Administrator Noffe took a detailed inventory to ensure that the proper demonstration models were aboard the shuttle for transfer back to Kolhar. Directeur Venport would be eager to see the latest creations from his captive scientists.

In the years since his rescue after a Butlerian purge, Noffe had worked here, hoping to advance human capabilities and help bolster civilization against antitechnology phobia. He wanted the Imperium to grow, colonies to expand, humans to live longer and achieve greater things. Years ago on Thalim, Noffe had regarded the blight of Butlerian ignorance as a troublesome, distant thing … until the barbarians surged onto his world, ransacked his laboratory, and marked him for death because of his “unacceptable investigations.”

Uneducated, superstitious fools! How were they better qualified to choose the future than he was?

Admittedly, the Tlulaxa people had committed crimes during the long Jihad, selling black-market organs, falsifying death records, experimenting with clones. Yes, his people had cringed with racial guilt for many years, but after Directeur Venport rescued him, Noffe cast aside that guilt. He and other Tlulaxa researchers could accomplish tremendous things — and here on Denali, they had done just that. Noffe knew that once these technological miracles were delivered to VenHold, the future of humanity was in good hands. So long as the Butlerians did not win. And those savages must not be allowed to win.

Now, as Noffe supervised the activity from inside the shuttle’s cargo hold, workers loaded carefully packed prototypes along with new explosive mixtures and pulse scramblers that could incapacitate a barbarian army. The administrator made a notation of each crate as it was loaded; in the manifest he included a personal message that explained each of the new deliveries. Directeur Venport always demanded reports.

When Noffe studied the crate containing the first hundred of Dr. Westpher’s mechanical crickets, though, he found damage on the bottom, a small crack that had been … enlarged? He saw a tiny form dart into the shadows of the cargo hold, disappearing between the crates. Then three others scuttled after it. Squinting, he bent down, saw movement — and knew what it was.

He yelled to the workers in the bay. “Some of Westpher’s mechanical crickets have escaped! We need to clean them up here.”

On the other side of the hangar, he heard a man shout, “There’s a fuel spill under the shuttle — the lines are leaking. Get a repair tech right now!”

Noffe glanced into the shadows, where the crickets had vanished. “Fuel spill?” He hurried down the ramp. “If that’s a fuel spill, we’d better—”

A tiny robotic insect skittered into the puddle of volatile fuel. Noffe watched in horror while the cricket rubbed its back legs together as it was programmed to do, striking, striking, striking — until a spark appeared.

The spark became a wall of flame that engulfed Noffe and hurled him backward.

IN THE INFIRMARY dome, when Ptolemy saw the charred Noffe, the blackened and oozing red wounds that made his friend’s flesh look like badly cooked meat, he couldn’t stop thinking about how Dr. Elchan had burned alive.

Somehow, Noffe clung to life — at least for now.

The visiting Suk doctors worked desperately, using all of their techniques, pumped him full of fluids, connected him to life-support machines. Though awash with drugs in a medical coma, Noffe writhed in tremendous pain.

Ptolemy hovered in the infirmary, but could do nothing to help the doctors. He had studied science and engineering, but was no medical expert. Once again he felt so powerless! Even with all of Ptolemy’s accomplishments, like the titanic machine walkers he had built, he couldn’t help another friend in his time of terrible need.

Overcome with emotion, he touched Noffe to reassure him he was there — and even in his coma, the burned man recoiled in pain.

“We can do very little to help him,” said one of the doctors.

But Ptolemy had been considering possibilities. Previously, he had delayed taking the next step, but now he had no choice.

He coughed, and his lungs burned. He controlled the spasms with shallow breaths until he could form words again. He looked down at the bandaged, suffering patient. “There is one more thing we can do — and I need you to help me.”

Chapter 56 (One of my primary tasks in advancing the)

The Imperial Court sparkled with ladies in jeweled gowns and dashing noblemen in exquisitely tailored uniforms, sashes, and caps. For the evening festivities, the courtiers and Corrinos were entertained by exotic performing artists, including talented musicians and dancers.

Reverend Mother Dorotea and Prince Roderick sat in smaller chairs beside Salvador on his immense throne of green crystal. Together, they watched a young woman perform a baliset ballad from her homeworld of Chusuk, a romance set during the time of thinking-machine brutality. The singer sat on a stool in her colorful native costume, holding the streamlined instrument so Dorotea could recognize the work of the master artisan Varota. At first glance, the Chusuk girl seemed too young to be entrusted with something so valuable, but she had an extraordinary talent, delivering a full range of tones with the baliset to accompany her haunting voice.