But he was frustrated by her interference, and made her roll off of him. “An Imperial fleet may be coming to destroy us, and I am busy trying to prepare our defenses. You and I have experienced intercourse in numerous varieties. I’ve already catalogued the experiences and sorted the data. There is no need to continue this. Other things are much more important. What is the point of repeating an experiment so many times, especially a successful one?”
She scrambled off the bed and stared at him with wide eyes that quickly filled with tears. “An experiment? No need to continue this? What do you mean?”
Erasmus couldn’t understand. “Were you not satisfied? I believe I performed well enough. We are finished for now. Other concerns are much more important.”
She raised her voice to a shout. “We’re finished for now? An experiment? That’s all I am to you? Don’t you understand? I love you, Erasmus.”
“Of course, I am sure you do.”
Anna’s knees buckled, and she collapsed to the floor. “You don’t feel anything for me? I’ve given you my entire heart and soul, everything I have. I thought you were my perfect lover, but I … I’m just an experiment to you?” She wiped tears from her eyes and grabbed her clothes as she stumbled for the door. “Other things are more important? With your new body, I thought you wanted to have human emotions.”
“Yes, that is one of my priorities, but right now, I cannot be delayed by biological needs. The mind is superior to the body. Can’t you understand that?”
She retorted, “I thought you felt deep love for me — but all you learned was how to lie better!”
Erasmus pondered her outburst for a moment. “How have I lied?” Tapping into his memories of Gilbertus’s execution, he compared his experiences, his memories, his … feelings toward Anna, such as they were. He didn’t fully understand them. He had a definite fondness for her, but she obviously felt much more strongly toward him.
Tears welled up in her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them away, and just permitted them to flow. He found this curious, but only for a moment before he turned his attentions elsewhere, as he needed to do.
He wondered if this was the place where he should apologize to her. He decided he would have to deal with that later, when it was a priority.
In a serendipitous coincidence, two other ideas about the robot reprogramming clicked together as his gelcircuitry continued to process. A possible solution! “I cannot spare any time for our personal interactions right now.” He grabbed for his own clothes. “I must speak with the weapons scientists.”
Sobbing uncontrollably, Anna bolted out into the corridor and ran toward one of the now-empty cymek hangars. He assumed she would huddle by herself and cry until she was red-faced and swollen-eyed. He could deal with that later. Right now, Anna’s capricious emotions reminded him of Serena Butler decades ago, and her constantly crying baby.
With Anna no longer distracting him, he had the space and privacy he required, and the ability to concentrate on vital matters.
75
After expending a great deal of effort in searching for a thing, one may find that the reality is quite different from what was expected.
Vorian Atreides knew that the best way to avoid attackers was to remain constantly on the move. A hunted man should sleep in a different safe house every night and move from job to job, planet to planet.
In this case, though, Vor was both the pursuer and the pursued. He wanted the Harkonnen assassins to come here, and he needed to kill his enemies before they got to him. Willem’s arrival complicated the situation, but he could depend on his young companion as well. Willem was eager to fight at his side. Too often in his life, Vor had tried to go it alone. Now, the pair worked and planned together.
They were ready.
Korla’s scavengers had few sophisticated systems inside their outpost in the rubble, but the people were security conscious, guarding their own possessions. In order to keep peace among her workers, the Queen of Trash had installed sensors and alarms throughout the underground warren, even in sections damaged by the recent flowmetal instability. Her people had to worry more about stealing from one another than about any outside threat, since few visitors came to Corrin. Yet there was little of portable value here, except for what they themselves excavated.
Out of an abundance of caution, as soon as Willem joined him, Vor began choosing new and secret quarters for them, never spending more than one night in each place before moving on. On a wild and ungoverned planet such as this, it was hard to say how many people knew their whereabouts at any given moment.
Vor intended for Valya and Tula Harkonnen to find him — but on his own terms. He didn’t want to be blindsided, as they had been on Chusuk. Vor and Willem were lucky to have survived that; next time, he needed to see the enemy coming.
Without notifying Korla or anyone else, Vor used a specialized tool to unlock a chamber he knew was unoccupied — the home of one of the dead miners from the recent flood of liquid metal. He left their previous quarters locked so that a casual observer — or a dedicated assassin — would think they still lived there.
After the other scavengers were asleep, he and Willem took their meager belongings and moved quietly in the darkness. Vor also left tiny monitoring devices on the tunnel walls, particularly just outside his former chamber, which would alert him to any tampering. He had spent several weeks preparing for the eventual attack, building up secret defenses, even implanting tiny but powerful explosives in inconspicuous places, as an added surprise.
Feeling momentarily safe in their new hidden room, Vor sat on a wall bench, taking first watch while Willem caught some sleep on one of the bunks. After three hours, he would awaken the young man, and they would switch places. The darkness around them was illuminated only by the faint glow of a holo display that transmitted a projection of the tunnels. At present, it showed only the dim, empty passageways and numerous sealed chambers where the scavengers slept.
Vor checked the weapons kit secured to his waist; Willem had one of his own in a storage alcove next to his bunk. Each kit contained a knife, a projectile pistol, compact tools, and a pry bar.
Vor liked this room because it was one of several that had an emergency escape hatch on the rear wall. When he’d broken his way inside and checked the rear exit, he was quite satisfied. The back hatch led out into an adjacent tunnel and up to the desolate surface.
On the bunk, Willem fell into a fitful sleep, but Vor remained alert, staring at the motionless holoprojection of the tunnels. Watching.
OUTSIDE, THE REMAINING members of the Sisterhood squads slid invisibly through the ruddy gloom, converging on the scavenger settlement. The women had discovered numerous ways into the warren settlement, but now they focused on a rarely used venting system that granted them access to the tunnels.
When Valya, Tula, and two other commando Sisters passed through a nondescript hatch into the deep protected rooms below, Tula entered before her sister. Valya glanced behind her into the brooding night, then entered and closed the hatch quietly behind them. The team descended into the complex, reaching the corridors of barricaded sleeping rooms.
Working with nimble fingers, Sister Ninke used tools to disconnect the crude alarm system from the first sealed door. After finishing, she stepped back to let one of the other commandos open it carefully. Even with the security systems disabled, the old salvaged door squeaked.