"Herbert, Frank - The Machine Crusade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

When the four Jihad ballistas circled around to the opposite side of the planet, the machine forces dropped another deployment of combat robots. The enemy had learned and adapted after their first attempt to establish a beachhead. Now Omnius's forces moved with great speed and efficiency to set up the morning's offensive. Battalions of fearsome soldier meks and combat vehicles had been assembled, the battalions of Omnius began a rolling march toward Darits, laying down boosters and substations with each kilometer they conquered.
Farther down the sedimentary canyon, highly paid Ginaz mercenaries spread out, led by Zon Noret. They ran along the tops of ridges and followed gravelly water courses, setting up small roadblocks. Detonating charges, they collapsed the walls of narrow canyons to inhibit the advancing machines, though the robots had enough firepower to blast through the barriers eventually.
More mercenaries raced along flat, wide arroyos, planting lines of landmines to wipe out the front ranks of combat meks. Each Ginaz mercenary wore a protective Holtzman shield that surrounded his body with an invisible barrier. The robots relied on projectile weapons, bullets and sharp needles, but the personal shields foiled such attacks. The mercenaries plunged in among the robots to do hand-to-hand lighting.
Zon Noret had given each commando clear instructions. "Your job is not to obliterate the enemy, though damage is certainly acceptable." He smiled. "Your task is to take potshots, enough to lure the thinking machines forward. Taunt them, provoke them, convince them that the native humans mean to resist the machine occupation. We're good at that."
But the carefully staged, ineffective resistance must also lull the robotic battalion into believing that the humans had nothing worse waiting for them. Noret's independent fighters had to be carefully incompetent.
The robots surged ahead, bound by their internal programming.
As the sun spilled its jagged first light upon the landscape, Vergyl Tantor staggered along the wall of the dwelling where he had slept. The house smelled of vomit and diarrhea. Feeling betrayed, many of the soldiers moaned, lurched, and retched, barely able to move. Reaching the doorway, Vergyl blinked and coughed. The Zenshiite natives came out of their dwellings looking smug.

Vergyl gasped at them. "YouЕ poisoned us!"
"It will pass," the bearded farmer said. "We warned you. Outsiders are not welcome here. We want no part of your war with the demon mechanicals. Go away."
The Jihad officer swayed, clutching the rough door jamb to keep himself upright. "ButЕ you'll all die this morning! It's not us they want, it's you! The robots -" He retched again and realized the villagers must have taken their own antidotes or medicines.
Then his comline signaled, calling urgently for him. Vergyl could barely cough out his acknowledgment. The dispersed jihadi squadrons and surveillance teams reported that the robotic marauders; had begun to move out from their new staging point. Ginaz mercenaries had already set up along the advance path to goad the robots. The assault was about to commence.
"The machines are coming!" Vergyl called hoarsely, trying to rouse his men. "Everyone, to your stations!" Ignoring the villagers, he went back into the dwelling and started dragging soldiers out into the dawn light. They had donned Zenshiite farmers' clothes so that they would not appear to be jihadis, but now the fabric was drenched with fever sweat and stained with vomit.
"Wake up! Shake it off!" He pushed one barely conscious man toward the nearest camouflaged artillery emplacement. "To your stations. Man the weapons."
Then Vergyl noticed with sick dread the sentries curled up in convulsions on the ground next to the weapons. He ran like a broken toy, summoning all his remaining balance and speed, into the nearest building that housed a large projectile launcher and stared at the heavy weapon. A groggy gunner came in beside him, and Vergyl tried to activate the launcher's power systems. He rubbed his bleary eyes. The targeting cross seemed to be malfunctioning.
His gunner flicked the controls again, men opened the panel and let out a cry of surprise and dismay. "Someone tore up the wires - and the power supply is gone!"
Suddenly Vergyl heard broken shouts echoing from other gun emplacements throughout the village. Angrily, he exclaimed, "We have been stabbed in the back by the people we're trying to rescue!"
His anger gave him the strength to vanquish his dizziness for the moment. Vergyl staggered out of the dwelling to face the Zenshiite farmers, who stood looking satisfied.
"What have you done?" Vergyl cried, his voice rough. "You fools, what have you done?"
The future, the past, and the present are intertwined, a weave that forms any point in time.
-from "The Legend of Selim Wormrider," Zensunni fire poetry
Standing just inside the large tribal cave, Selim Wormrider gazed across Arrakis's soothing ocean of dunes, watching for the moment when the sun would first rise over the horizon. He waited, then felt his pulse quicken as golden light poured like molten metal across the undulating desert, purifying and inevitable - like his visions, like his mission in life.
Selim greeted the day, taking a deep breath of air so dry that it crackled his lungs. Dawn was his favorite time, after just waking from deep sleep filled with mysterious dreams and portents. It was the best time to accomplish meaningful tasks.
A tall, gaunt man came up beside him, always knowing where to find his leader at daybreak. Loyal Jafar had a heavy jaw, sunken cheeks, and deep blue-within-blue eyes from years of a spice-rich diet. The lieutenant waited in silence, knowing Selim was aware of his presence. Finally, Selim turned from the rising sun and looked up at his most respected friend and follower.
Jafar extended a small plate. "I have brought you melange for the morning, Selim, so that you may better see into the mind of Shai-Hulud."
"We serve him, and our future, but no one can understand the mind of Shai-Hulud. Never make that assumption, Jafar, and you will live longer."
"As you say, Wormrider."
Selim took one of the wafers, spice mixed with flour and honey. His eyes reflected the deep blue of addiction as well, but the sacred spice had kept him alive, granting him energy even during times of greatest trial and deprivation. Melange opened a marvelous window on the universe and gave Selim visions, helping him to understand the destiny Buddallah had chosen for him. He - and his ever-growing troop of desert exiles - followed a calling greater than any of their individual lives.
"There will be a testing this morning," Jafar said, his deep voice even. The newborn sun exposed secret footprints made during the night. "Biondi wishes to prove himself. Today he will attempt to ride a worm."
Selim frowned. "He is not ready."
"But he insists."
"He will die."
Jafar shrugged. "Then he will die. That is the way of the desert."
Selim emitted a resigned sigh. "Each man must face his own conscience and his own testing. Shai-Hulud makes the final choice."
Selim was fond of Biondi, though the young man's brash impatience was better suited to the life of an offworlder at the Arrakis City spaceport, rather than the unchanging existence of the deep desert. Biondi might eventually become a valuable contributor to Selim's band, but if the young man could not live up to his own abilities, he would be a danger to the others. It was better to discover such a weakness now, than to risk the lives of Selim's faithful followers.
Selim said, "I will watch from here."
Jafar nodded and left.
Over twenty-six standard years ago, Selim had been falsely accused of stealing water from one of his tribe's stores; subsequently, he had been exiled into the desert. Manipulated by the lies of Naib Dhartha, Selim's former friends had chased him from their cliff cities, throwing rocks and insults at him until he ran out onto the treacherous dunes, supposedly to be devoured by one of the "demon worms."
But Selim had been innocent, and Buddallah had saved him - for a purpose.
When a sandworm had come to devour him, Selim discovered the secret of how to ride the creature. Shai-Hulud had taken him far from the Zensunni village and deposited him near an abandoned botanical testing station, where he'd found food, water, and tools. There, Selim had time to look inside himself, to understand his true mission.
In a melange-enhanced vision, nearly drowning in thick reddish powder cast up from a spice blow, he had learned that he must prevent Naib Dhartha and his desert parasites from harvesting and distributing melange to offworlders. Over the years, working alone, Selim had raided many encampments, destroying any spice the Zensunni gathered. He had earned a legendary reputation and the title "Wormrider."
Not long afterward, he had begun to accumulate followers.
Jafar had been the first, two decades ago, forsaking the protection of his own village near Airraids City in order to search for this man who could ride the great desert beasts. Jafar had been almost dead by the time Selim found him, dehydrated, sunburned, and starving under the dazzling bright sky. Looking up at the lean and hardened outcast, Jafar had gasped through cracked lips - not a request for water, but a query. "Are youЕ the Wormrider?"
By then, Selim had been alone for more than five years - too alone - faced with a sacred task too great for a single man. He nursed Jafar back to health and taught him how to ride Shai-Hulud. In the following years, the pair had gathered rugged followers, men and women dissatisfied with the strict rules and unfair justice of life in the Zensunni cliff colonies. Selim told them of his mission to stop spice harvesting, and they listened, enthralled by the gleam in his eyes.
According to Selim's repeated melange visions, the activities of the offworld merchants and the Zensunni gatherers would shatter the peace of the desert planet. Though the timeframe was dim, stretching into a vague, distant future, the spread of spice across the Galaxy would eventually lead to the extinction of all worms and a crisis of human civilization. Although his words were frightening, when they saw him proudly riding atop the mountainous curve of a great sandworm, no one could doubt his claims or his faith.
But even I do not understand Shai-HuludЕ the Old Man of the Desert.
As a young scamp, exiled from his tribe, Selim had never wanted to be a leader. But now, after decades of living by his own wits and making decisions for the group of followers who depended on him for guidance and survival, Selim Wormrider was a confident, clear-headed general who had begun to believe the myth that he was indestructible, a demon of the desert. Despite devoting his life to preserving the worms, he did not expect the capricious Shai-Hulud to show him any gratitudeЕ
Unexpectedly, Jafar returned to the high chamber, making so much commotion that Selim stepped away from the window opening and saw that his friend had brought a newcomer. She looked dirty and lean, but her dark eyes shone with a haughty defiance. Her dusty brown hair had been cropped short. Her cheeks were sunburned below her eyes, but the rest of her seemed intact. The young woman must have been wise enough to wrap herself against the worst ravages of the sun. A curved white scar like a crescent moon rode above her left eyebrow, an exotic punctuation to her coarse beauty.
"Look what we found out in the desert, Selim." Jafar stood tall and stoic, unflappable, but Selim caught a hint of humorous gleam behind his deep blue eyes.
The young woman stepped away from the tall man, as if to prove she did not need his protection. "My name is Marha. I have traveled alone in search of you." Then her face flickered with uncertainty and awe, making her look unexpectedly young. "I amЕ honored to meet you, Selim Wormrider!"