While the swarm of new ships was rushed through construction on Poritrin, Savant Holtzman performed his work on Salusa Secundus. The legendary inventor stood inside an isolated laboratory chamber within one of the most secure zones, pacing with his hands on his hips and frowning in disapproval. It was the persona he showed whenever people expected him to do something important.

With armored walls and power conduits cut off from the rest of Zimia’s grid, the large government facility was supposedly safe and protected. In theory, the hostage Omnius was completely contained.

But this lab was not set up the way Holtzman would have liked. He preferred to choose his own diagnostic tools, analytical systems, and slave assistants who could be conveniently blamed if anything went wrong. A small, aging man with a gray beard, Holtzman prided himself on being able to manage resources. The Savant was sure he could provide these Jihad military scientists with good advice. If words failed him, he might have to refer the matter to his many eager assistants back on Poritrin, who constantly found ways to impress him.

From behind secure transparent barriers, the team of legislative observers watched his every move, along with the Cogitor Kwyna, who had once again been removed from her place of restful contemplation in the City of Introspection. Even through the impenetrable barriers, Holtzman could sense the watchers’ anger and fear.

A silver gelsphere floated in front of him, glistening as it spun in the air within the invisible suspensor field. This incarnation of the evermind was completely under his power. Where once he had felt fear at being so close, now the greatest enemy of the human race seemed like such a small thing. A child’s toy! He could have held the complex sphere in the palm of one hand.

The silver gelsphere contained a complete copy of the computer evermind, albeit a somewhat dated version now. During the atomic raid on Earth at the very beginning of the Jihad, Vorian Atreides had seized this update from a fleeing robot vessel. Over the years, the League’s “prisoner” had provided valuable insights into thinking machine plans and reactions.

The evermind’s programs had been copied, dissected, and examined by League cybernetic experts. As the first rule, all data was considered suspect, perhaps intentionally distorted by Omnius, though such deceit was supposedly impossible for the computer mind.

The Army of the Jihad had undertaken a few military ventures based upon information obtained from the evermind copy. When the fighters launched an offensive against cloud-locked Bela Tegeuse, they had obtained detailed specifications from the captive Omnius. But that engagement had ended inconclusively.

Now, after twenty-three years without updates, the intelligence data stored in the captive evermind had grown stale. The captive Omnius had been unable to warn them of the return of the robot war fleet against Zimia— though that second attempt had been thwarted by Primero Xavier Harkonnen— nor had the evermind prepared the League for the unexpected massacre on Honru, which had cost the lives of so many undefended colonists. Still, it had been of some value.

Holtzman scratched his thick mane of hair as he watched the sphere spin in the air. Despite its shortcomings, this one provides us with clues. It is just a matter of interpreting them correctly.

“Erasmus often praised the unending creativity of human imagination,” said a bored synthesized voice from speakers linked to the sphere, “but your interrogations have grown tedious. After so many years, have you not learned everything from me that your small minds can grasp?”

Holtzman slipped a hand into a pocket of his white smock. “Oh, I am not here to entertain you, Omnius. Not at all.”

Over the years, he had communicated with this Omnius, but never with such intensity. In the weeks that he had recently focused on the effort, the famed inventor had failed to secure any breakthroughs, despite his past successes in other realms. Holtzman hoped he had not painted himself into a corner with everyone’s unrealistic expectations.

He tried to count back, remembering when things had happened. It had been a full quarter century since he had invited the young genius Norma Cenva to work with him. A stunted and unattractive girl of fifteen then, Norma was an ugly duckling compared to the statuesque beauty of her mother, a powerful Rossak Sorceress. But Holtzman had read some of the girl’s innovative papers and determined that she had much to offer.

Norma had not disappointed him. Not at first. She worked diligently, developing one strange scheme after another. His highly successful scrambler fields protected entire planets from the thinking machines, but Norma had suggested adapting the concept to smaller portable scramblers used for offensive purposes on Synchronized Worlds. Norma had also used his field equations to concoct the now-ubiquitous suspensor platforms… and from there, bobbing glowglobes, lights that never dimmed. They were baubles, toys— albeit extraordinarily popular and profitable ones.

During the same period, Holtzman and his patron Lord Niko Bludd had developed and marketed personal shields, which brought profits to Poritrin as fast as League ships could bring statements from the central bank accounts. Unfortunately, the commercial exploitation of glowglobes had somehow slipped out of their control. Norma Cenva had simply handed the technology to her friend Aurelius Venport, whose VenKee Enterprises had widely exploited and distributed the devices.

But the naïve woman’s suspensor and glowglobe concept had been developed while she was working under his auspices, using his original field equations. Lord Bludd had already filed briefs in League court, demanding restitution of all profits VenKee Enterprises had reaped from unauthorized use of proprietary technologies. Undoubtedly, they would win.

Now, as the Savant stared at the floating silver gelsphere, like a wizard attempting to decipher a spell, he wondered what Norma would have done if she’d been here. Ignoring his advice, Norma had devoted years of effort to reconfiguring a massive set of equations derived from his own innovative work. She would not explain the details to him, suggesting that the Savant himself might not understand them. Such disparaging remarks irritated him, but he put them in context. Despite some contributions to the war effort, Norma was losing focus on what was important; she was becoming useless to him.

By now, after showing infinite patience, Holtzman had become disenchanted with her. With little choice in the matter he had gradually cut her off from his numerous other projects and sought other assistants— brilliant young inventors who were looking for a big break. He gave priority to his eager and ambitious team of worshipful young assistants who were full of brains and ingenuity. So, the Savant had moved Norma Cenva from prime laboratory space in his main tower to a far inferior set of workrooms down by the docks. She didn’t even seem to mind.

Now he wondered if she might give him any clues to understanding Omnius.

The gelsphere looked like a spinning metal planet glinting in the chamber’s light. So many threads of the evermind’s information led in countless directions, and the incredibly intricate AI-mind defied complete examination.

But the great Tio Holtzman needed to show some sort of progress. One way or another.

Smiling, he lifted a small transmitter from his pocket. Something waits to be discovered here, on a deeper level. I am certain of it.“This is just a faint pulse from one of my scrambler generators. I know it will wreak serious havoc on gelcircuitry systems, so perhaps it will give you sufficient incentive to cooperate.”

“I see. Erasmus also explained to me the human penchant for torture.” The synthesized voice was suddenly laced with static.

A voice intervened from the observation alcove, Kwyna’s secondary, speaking for the ancient Cogitor. “That could lead to irreparable damage, Savant Holtzman.”

“And it could lead to important answers,” the scientist insisted. “After all these years, it is time to put Omnius to the test. What do we have to lose at this point?”

“Too dangerous,” one of the council observers said, rising to his feet. “We’ve never been able to replicate the sphere itself, so this is the only…”

“Do not interfere with my work! You have no authority here!”

As one of his conditions for participating in this project, Tio Holtzman did not answer to anyone, not even to the Cogitor Kwyna. Still, the observers— especially uneducated and superstitious politicians breathing down his neck— remained an irritation. The Savant would have preferred to give them written reports and summaries, which he could slant any way he liked. But Holtzman had something to gain here, certain ideas he wanted to explore.

“I have already been thoroughly interrogated and debriefed,” Omnius pointed out in a bland voice. “I presume you have put the military information to good use, the fleet placements, the cymek strategies.”

“Everything is too far out of date to be of any use to us,” Holtzman lied. In reality, the Army of the Jihad had staged half a dozen surprise raids on thinking machine forces in the early years after obtaining the sphere, using the information from Omnius to good advantage. The machines had seemed so predictable in their military operations then, using old methods over and over, traveling the same galactic paths, using familiar defensive and offensive maneuvers.

Machine fleets had been attacking or retreating depending upon probabilities worked out in detail by onboard computer systems. For the Jihad leaders, it was simply a matter of determining what the enemy was likely to do. Traps were laid, showing purported Jihad weaknesses in order to lure machine forces in. Then, at precisely the right moment, the trap would be sprung, and hidden Jihad forces moved in for the kill. Many robot fleets had been destroyed in such engagements.

After initial Jihad successes, however, the thinking machines began to “predict” that they would be tricked, and they were no longer so easy to fool. For the past seven years, the information from Omnius had been of decreasing value.

Smiling, Holtzman refocused on the shimmering gelsphere in front of him. “I would hate to have all of your thoughts eradicated in a single pulse, Omnius. You are hiding something from me, aren’t you?”

“I could never conceal anything from the great scientific and technical prowess of Savant Tio Holtzman,” the voice retorted with an odd undertone of sarcasm. But how could a computer be… sarcastic?

“People say you are Satan in a bottle.” The scientist calmly adjusted the transmitter and heard high-pitched machine sounds in response. “More like Satan in a bind, I’d say. You’ll never know what memories I have just erased, what thoughts and decisions you just lost.”

The legislative observers squirmed. So far, he hadn’t actually harmed the silvery ball. At least he didn’t think so; one of his assistants had invented this particular device. “Are you ready to tell me your secrets?”

“Your question is vague and meaningless. Without specificity, I cannot answer.” Omnius did not sound defiant; he simply stated a fact. “All the primitive libraries and databases on this planet could not contain the data I hold within my evermind.”

Holtzman wondered what the Jihad Council expected him to discover. Though grudgingly passive, the captive evermind had been relatively forthcoming. Scowling, he prepared to adjust the pulser to a higher setting.

“Much as I enjoy seeing Omnius writhe in pain, that will be sufficient for now, Savant Holtzman.” Grand Patriarch Iblis Ginjo entered the secure chamber, blithely walking past the barriers and into the lab itself. He wore one of his trademark black blazers adorned with golden tracery.

Knowing that he could easily erase all the gelcircuitry with a single burst from his scrambler, the scientist composed himself and switched off the device. Holtzman looked back to the plaz barricades, noting that three of Iblis’s nondescript Jipol attendants had taken up wary positions near the more agitated representatives.

The silver update sphere, still hovering in the air, said in a loud voice, “I have never experienced anything quite like that… sensation.”

“You felt the machine equivalent of human pain. I think you were about to scream.”

“Do not be absurd.”

“Oddly enough, computers can be as stubborn as humans,” Holtzman commented petulantly to the Grand Patriarch.

Iblis wore a thin smile, though his own skin had crawled at the sound of Omnius’s synthesized voice. He hated the computer evermind, wanted to take a club and smash it. “I did not mean to disturb you, Savant. I simply came here searching for the Cogitor Kwyna.” He looked wistfully at the ancient brain in its preservation tank. “I have many ideas and questions. Perhaps she can help me to focus my thoughts.”

“Or to misinterpret more scriptures?” the yellow-robed secondary said, his voice flat as a paving stone.

Iblis was alarmed at the audacity. “If the meanings are clear to no one, who is to say I am misinterpreting them?”

“Because people die whenever you find meaning in old runes or ancient writings.”

“People die in every war.”

“And more people die in a Jihad.”

The Grand Patriarch showed a flicker of anger, then grinned. “You see, Savant? This is exactly the type of debate I wish to have… although I would prefer more time in private, if the Cogitor will allow me?” His dark eyes flashed.

Frustrated by his lack of success against the captive evermind, Holtzman gathered his equipment. “Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to continue this series of interrogations at the moment. A space liner is due to depart shortly for Poritrin, and I have important obligations back on my home world.” He looked over at Iblis. “The… uh, project suggested by Primero Atreides.”

The Grand Patriarch smiled at him. “While that plan may not be exactly ‘scientific,’ it may fool the thinking machines nonetheless.”

Holtzman had hoped to depart from Zimia in triumph, but his weeks here had been disturbingly unfruitful. Next time, he would bring along some of his best assistants; they would find a way to solve the problem. He decided not to include Norma Cenva.