Brian Herbert - Navigators of Dune

For years, rival foldspace shipping companies such as Celestial Transport and EsconTran had tried to learn how to create the superior mutated humans, but no one else had succeeded—even though it was obvious they were immersed in tanks of spice gas, that was only part of the secret.

Now, however, Roderick had a live specimen that he could poke and prod and interrogate and even dissect. Josef dreaded what the Imperial researchers would discover. It was just possible that his scientists might be able to derive the secret.

Navigators … Norma Cenva … spice … foldspace travel … the vast wealth in interplanetary banks … the tapestry of commercial interactions that held the Imperium together. It was all connected, with Navigators at the center. Josef would not let it all unravel.

Restless and agitated, he emerged from his office, surprised to find Cioba waiting for him there in the hall. With her Sorceress blood and Sisterhood training, she sometimes showed hints of prescience herself.

He reached out to stroke the side of her classically lovely face with its porcelain complexion, her long and silky brown hair. “Sometimes you surprise me, my love. How did you know?”

“Wherever you’re going, I am pledged to accompany you.”

The open field of Navigator tanks held hundreds of sealed chambers, each containing a candidate in metamorphosis. Some writhed and thrashed, inhaling melange gas; others drifted, curled in fetal positions. Thanks to modifications in the process, under Norma’s careful guidance, two-thirds of the Navigator candidates survived the transformation, which was a vast improvement from earlier efforts.

He and Cioba passed workers using mobile pumping reservoirs to fill the spice tanks. The VenHold employees bowed in respect to the Directeur, but Josef was preoccupied with thoughts of how extraordinarily expensive melange was going to be until he managed to build up his stockpile again—a very difficult task if he had to worry about the security of his operations on Arrakis. The efforts of the Emperor and the barbarians had redoubled against him.…

Norma’s platform was empty. She had vanished on one of her own voyages, as she sometimes did. “ The universe is ours ,” she often said. But the destruction of the melange stockpile as well as the loss of the Navigator Dobrec had affected her deeply.

Josef just stared at the empty space, feeling empty himself. He needed to speak with his great-grandmother, commiserate with her, even scold her for what had happened. Norma’s mind was so distant from political realities, though, that he was not at all certain she understood the consequences of what she had done at Salusa, and the dire position Venport Holdings was now in. So much political damage to mitigate!

“Maybe it’s best that she is not here,” Cioba said. “Our needs and priorities frequently align with Norma’s—but not always. She is focused on her Navigators, while we have to consider the entirety of Venport Holdings—and your own aspirations. What do you wish to achieve, my husband? If you could control every action and reaction, what would your preferred outcome be?”

Josef frowned. “My own aspirations? I thought they were clear, especially to you. I want to protect my company, conduct business across the Imperium, and ensure the steady growth of civilization. Without me, we would revert to a dark time of low technology and rampant superstition, of omens and signs and ignorance.”

He saw one of the newer Navigator candidates spasming in the orange melange gas, her distorted face stretched in a rictus of pain, her eyes swollen shut behind reddened eyelids. Most of her hair had fallen out, and the remainder hung in odd tufts and wisps. The transformation process seemed like a horrific procedure, but in the end, successful Navigators did not regret it—or so they claimed.

“To achieve my goals, I need to have both Navigators and spice—and I need the barbarians defeated.” He felt a knot in his chest. “Of utmost importance, I need the cooperation of Emperor Roderick, or some other Emperor sitting on the throne in his place … preferably not me.”

Cioba stepped closer to the tank where the proto-Navigator twitched and turned to look at him. “After the fall of the thinking machines, humanity needed to achieve its potential,” Cioba said. “Mankind became free to expand, explore, and evolve. Headmaster Albans founded his Mentat School to train minds that could think like the most advanced computers. Mother Superior Raquella founded the Sisterhood school to improve human abilities as well. Other schools also explore human potential.”

She touched the smooth plaz of the tank, and the creature inside jerked away, as if that faintest of vibrations felt like a thunderclap. “And these Navigators—this is evolution too. Forced evolution. A supreme demonstration of what humans can achieve.”

Josef drew close and peered into the tank, noting the awful physical changes that he himself had authorized. He didn’t remember this particular candidate at all, was unaware of her name, didn’t know where she had come from or whether she had openly volunteered or been forced into the tanks.

Looking around at all the tanks, he saw dozens of the creatures, many almost completely transformed, their heads and eyes enlarged, their bodies atrophied, their skin flaccid and discolored. Evolution … advancement of the species … but was this what humanity was destined to be?

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.

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.