Navigators of Dune

He looked around and raised his voice, as if all of the Navigators were listening to their conversation. The VenHold employees with their pumping tanks and medical monitors studiously pretended not to hear. “I promise I have only the best of intentions for humanity. I don’t need more power or wealth for myself—I have enough of both. I just want to do what is right for civilization.”

Cioba’s expression grew hard, and her voice carried a tone of warning. “I’m sure General Agamemnon and the Twenty Titans also had the best of intentions.”

Josef was so surprised by her comment that he felt a chill go down his spine. He looked up to see movement inside all the Navigator tanks. The drifting, twisted forms, the successfully transformed candidates as well as the newer volunteers, all turned their faces in his direction, and Josef was certain that they were staring directly at him.

Achieving a goal can be a blessing or a disappointment. The reality is never exactly as one envisions it—for better or for worse.

—Untitled philosophy book, the Erasmus library

With the optical sensors connected to his memory core, Erasmus inspected his new body drifting in amniotic fluid. When Dr. Danebh and his Tlulaxa technicians drained the biological vat and brought the pale, naked form into the open air, Erasmus felt oddly disturbed … and let down.

As Anna held his memory core in her hands, he could sense her trembling with excitement. She had rushed into the biological laboratory as soon as she received word that the body was fully grown and ready. The human form, alive but without a consciousness, lay face up on a medical table with supplementary nutrient tubes strung from the moist, soft flesh. The smooth chest rose and fell in rhythmic breathing, but the eyes were closed.

Erasmus had watched this body grow from week to week with accelerated development—a clone from the cells of Gilbertus Albans. With perfect recall he remembered how he, as an independent robot, had raised the real Gilbertus from a dirty, feral child more than two centuries ago. This cellular replica was a near-perfect copy of Gilbertus Albans, in physical form, but Erasmus knew that the sharp mind of his ward and protector was forever gone. Indelibly recorded in his memory sphere, Erasmus saw the last moments of the real Gilbertus, when the proud Headmaster had knelt before Anari Idaho’s sword.

Now the robot noticed slight differences in the body, smooth skin that should have been scarred, a missing mole on the left shoulder. This mindless twin looked eerily similar, but was not the same. “Did you encounter any errors in the growth process?” Erasmus inquired. “Why are there any differences at all?”

“The DNA is the same, but even identical twins are not entirely the same. Biology is not perfect.”

“Of course. I have realized that many times.” He knew that this body was never meant to be a new Gilbertus Albans, but rather a new Erasmus.

“I think it’s beautiful,” Anna said. “And it will be even more beautiful once it becomes you, with your mind and storehouse of memories.”

“The body is acceptable,” Erasmus said. He could think of so much to do after he entered this body and controlled its movements, so much to experience! So much to see and touch and feel! “A far greater challenge will be to install and interface my memory core with the nervous system.”

“We have experience with similar situations,” Danebh said. “Our cymek work has paved the way.”

In recent months, the Denali surgeons had become quite adept at connecting human minds to compatible, receptive machine components. Now they had to do the reverse: unite a thinking machine memory core with human systems.

Utilizing the sensory package connected to his gelsphere, he watched Anna study the newly decanted body. She reached out to touch the face, caressed the skin.

Soon, Erasmus would have his new body and would feel her touch—a biological form for the first time in his centuries of existence. His thoughts churned with anticipation. He said to Danebh, “I am anxious to begin.”

* * *

USING THEIR SOPHISTICATED cymek bodies and precision surgical apparatus, Ptolemy and Administrator Noffe performed the operation themselves, supervised and assisted by Danebh.

Once disconnected from the sensory package he’d been using thus far, Erasmus could not determine exactly what was happening around him. He was in limbo, with no stimuli except for his own thoughts and memories … all internal. So he immersed himself in replaying an accelerated recollection of his existence under the computer evermind Omnius—the days of humanity’s enslavement and his own part in their eventual revolt, followed by the years of hiding.