Legends of Dune SS02b02


Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

DUNE:   WHIPPING MEK
(before “The Machine Crusade”)






When the armored Jihad warship arrived, the population of Giedi Prime expected news of a great victory against the evil thinking  machines. But with only a glance at the battle-scarred vessel, young Vergyl Tantor could tell that the defense of Peridot Colony had not gone at all as planned. 
On the crowded fringe of Giedi City  Spaceport, Vergyl rushed forward,  pressing against the soldiers stuck there as ground troops, like himself: wide- eyed green recruits or veterans too old to be sent into battle against Omnius’s  combat robots. His heart hammered like an industrial piston in his chest. 
He prayed that his adoptive brother, Xavier Harkonnen, was all right. 
The damaged battleship heaved itself into the docking circle like a dying sea beast beached on a reef. The big engines hissed and groaned as they cooled from the hot descent through the atmosphere. 
Vergyl stared at the blackened scars on the hull plates and tried to imagine the kinetic weapons and high-energy projectiles that combat robots had inflicted upon the brave jihadi defenders. 
If only he had been out there himself, Vergyl could have helped in the fight. But Xavier—the commander of the battle group—always seemed to fight against his brother’s eagerness with nearly as much persistence as he fought against the machine enemy. 
When the landing systems finished locking down, dozens of egress hatches opened   on   the   lower   hull.   Middle-ranking   Jihad   commanders   emerged,   bellowing for assistance. All medically  qualified personnel were called in from  the city; others were shuttled from across the continents of Giedi Prime to help the wounded soldiers and rescued colonists. 
Triage  and  assessment  stations  were  set  up  on  the  spaceport  grounds.  Official military personnel were tended first, since they had pledged their lives to fight in the great struggle ignited by  Serena Butler. Their crimson-and-green  uniforms were stained and badly patched; they’d obviously had no chance to  repair them during the many weeks of transit from Peridot Colony. Mercenary soldiers received second-priority treatment, along with the refugees from the  colony. 
Vergyl rushed in with the other ground-based soldiers to help, his large  brown eyes flicking back and forth in  search of answers. He needed to find  someone who could tell him what had happened to Segundo Harkonnen. Worry scratched at Vergyl’s mind while he worked. Perhaps everything was all right . . . but what if his big brother had been killed in a heroic rally? Or what if he was injured,  yet  remained  aboard  the  battered  ship,  refusing  to  accept  help  for  himself until all of his personnel were tended to? Both of those scenarios would have fit Xavier’s personality. 
For hours, Vergyl refused to slow down, unable to fully grasp what these jihadi fighters had been through. Sweating and exhausted, he worked himself  into  a  trancelike  stupor,  following  orders,  helping  one  after  another  of  the  wounded, burned, and despairing refugees. 
He heard muttered conversations that told of the onslaught that had wiped out the small colony. When the thinking machines had attempted to absorb the settlement into the Synchronized Worlds, the Army of the Jihad had sent its  defenders there. 
Peridot Colony had been but a skirmish, however, like so many others in  the dozen years since Serena Butler had originally rallied all humans to fight in her cause, after the thinking machines murdered her young son, Manion. Xavier’s son. 
The ebb and flow of the Jihad had caused a great deal of damage to both sides, but neither fighting force had gained a clear upper hand. And though the thinking  machines  continued  to  build  fresh  combat  robots,  lost  human  lives  could never be replaced. Serena gave passionate speeches to recruit new soldiers for her holy war. So many fighters had died that the Jihad no longer publicly  revealed the cost. The struggle was everything. 
Following the Honru Massacre seven years earlier, Vergyl had insisted on joining the Army of the Jihad himself.  He considered it his duty as a human  being, even without his connection to Xavier and the martyred child, Manion. At their estate on Salusa Secundus, his parents had tried to make the young man  wait, since he was barely seventeen, but Vergyl would hear none of it. 
Returning to Salusa after a difficult  skirmish, Xavier had surprised their  parents by offering a waiver that would allow underage Vergyl to begin training in the army. The young man had leaped at the opportunity, not guessing that  Xavier had his own plans. Overprotective, Segundo Harkonnen had seen to it  that Vergyl received a safe, quiet assignment, stationed here on Giedi Prime  where he could help with the rebuilding work—and where he would stay far  from any pitched battles against the robotic enemy. 
Now Vergyl had been in Giedi City for years, rising minimally in rank to second decero in the Construction Brigade. . .  never seeing any action. Meanwhile, Xavier Harkonnen’s battleships went to planet after planet, protecting free humanity and destroying the mechanized legions of the computer evermind Omnius. . . . 
Vergyl stopped counting all the bodies he’d moved. Perspiring in his dark green uniform, the young construction officer and a civilian man carried a makeshift stretcher, hauling a wounded mother who had been rescued from her devastated prefab home on Peridot  Colony. Women and children from Giedi  City hurried among the workers and wounded, offering water and food. 
Finally, in the warm afternoon, a ragged cheer penetrated Vergyl’s dazed  focus, as he set the stretcher down in the midst of a triage unit. Looking up, he drew in a quick breath. At the warship’s main entrance ramp, a proud military commander stepped forward into the sunshine of Giedi Prime. 
Xavier Harkonnen wore a clean segundo’s uniform with immaculate golden insignia. By careful design, he cut a  dashing military figure, one that would  inspire confidence and faith among his own troops as well as the civilians of  Giedi City. Fear was the worst enemy the machines could bring against them.  Xavier never offered any observer reason for uncertainty: Yes, brave humanity  would eventually win this war. 
Grinning, Vergyl let out a sigh as all his doubts evaporated. Of course  Xavier had survived. This great man had led the strike force that liberated Giedi Prime  from  the  enslavement  of  cymeks  and  thinking  machines.  Xavier  had  commanded the human forces in the atomic purification of Earth, the first great battle of Serena Butler’s Jihad. 
And  the  heroic  Segundo  Xavier  Harkonnen  would  never  stop  until  the thinking machines were defeated. 
But as Vergyl watched his brother walk down the ramp, he noticed that the brave commander’s footsteps had a heavy, weary quality, and his familiar face looked shell-shocked. Not even a hint of a smile there, no gleam in his gray eyes. Just flat stoniness. How had the man gotten so old? Vergyl idolized him, needed to speak with him alone as a brother, so that he could learn the real story. 
But in public, Segundo Harkonnen would never let anyone see his inner feelings. He was too good a leader for that. Vergyl pushed his way through the throng, shouting and waving with the others, and finally Xavier recognized him in the sea of faces. His expression lit with joy, then crashed, as if weighed down by the burden of war memories and realizations.  Vergyl  and  his  fellow  relief  workers  hurried  up  the  ramp  to  surround the lead officer and escorted him into the safety of Giedi City. 
 
Along with his surviving sub-commanders, Xavier Harkonnen spent hours dispensing reports and debriefing League  officials, but he insisted on breaking  away from these painful duties to spend a few hours with his brother. 
He arrived at Vergyl’s small home unrested, eyes bloodshot and haunted. When  the  two  of  them  hugged,  Xavier  remained  stiff  for  a  moment,  before  weakening  and  returning  his  dark-skinned  brother’s  embrace.  Despite  the   physical dissimilarities that marked their separate racial heritage, they knew that the bonds of love had nothing to do with bloodlines and everything to do with the loving family experiences they had shared in the household of Emil and  Lucille Tantor. Leading him inside, Vergyl could sense the tremors Xavier was suppressing. He distracted Xavier by introducing him to his wife of two years, whom Xavier had never met. 
Sheel was a young, dark-haired beauty not accustomed to receiving guests of  such  importance.  She  had  not  even  traveled  to  Salusa  Secundus  to  meet  Vergyl’s parents or to see the Tantor family estate. But she treated Xavier as her husband’s welcome brother, instead of as a celebrity. 
One of Aurelius Venport’s merchant ships had arrived only a week before, carrying melange from Arrakis. Sheel had  gone out this afternoon and spent a  week’s pay to get enough of the expensive spice to add to the fine, special dinner she prepared. 
As they ate, their conversation remained subdued and casual, avoiding any mention of war news. Weary to the bone, Xavier seemed barely to notice the  flavors of the meal, even  the exotic melange. Sheel seemed disappointed, until  Vergyl explained in a whisper that his brother had lost much of his sense of taste and  smell  during  a  cymek  gas  attack,  which  had  also  cost  him  his  lungs.  
Although Xavier now breathed through a set of replacement organs provided by a Tlulaxa flesh merchant, his ability to taste or smell remained dulled. 
Finally, as they drank spice-laced coffee, Vergyl could no longer withhold his questions. “Xavier, please tell me what happened at Peridot Colony. Was it a victory, or did the—” his voice caught “—did the machines defeat us?” 
Xavier lifted his head, looking far away. “Grand Patriarch Iblis Ginjo says that there are no defeats. Only victories 
and . . . moral victories. This one fell into the latter category.” 
Sheel  squeezed  her  husband’s  arm  sharply,  a  wordless  request  that  he withdraw  the  question.  But  Vergyl  didn’t  interrupt,  and  Xavier  continued,  “Peridot Colony had been under attack for a week before our nearest battle  group received the emergency distress call. Settlers were being obliterated. The thinking  machines  meant  to  crush  the  colony  and  establish  a  Synchronized  World  there,  to  lay  down  their  infrastructure  and  install  a  new  copy  of  the  Omnius evermind.” 
Xavier sipped spice coffee, while Vergyl put his elbows on the table, leaning close to listen with rapt attention. 
“The  Army  of  the  Jihad  had  little  presence  in  this  area  aside  from  my  warship and a handful of troops. We had no choice but to respond, not wishing to lose another planet. I had a full shipload of mercenaries anyway.” 
“Any from Ginaz? Our best fighters?” 
“Some. We arrived faster than the thinking machines expected, struck them swiftly and mercilessly, using everything we had. My mercenaries attacked like madmen,  and  many  of  them  fell.  But  a  lot  more  thinking  machines  were  destroyed. Unfortunately, most of the colony towns had already been trampled by the time we got there, the inhabitants murdered. Even so, our Army of the  Jihad drove in—and by a holy miracle  we pushed back the enemy forces.” He  drew a deep, convulsing breath, as if his replacement lungs were malfunctioning. 
 “Instead of simply cutting their losses and flying away, as combat robots  usually do, this time they were programmed to follow a scorched-earth policy. They devastated everything in their wake. Where they had gone, not a crop,  structure, or human survivor was left behind.” 
Sheel swallowed hard. “How terrible.” 
“Terrible?” Xavier mused, rolling the sound of the word on his tongue. “I  cannot begin to describe what I saw. Not much was left of the colony we went to rescue.  Over  a  quarter  of  my  jihadi  fighters  lost  their  lives,  and  half  of  the  mercenaries.” 
Shaking his head sadly, he continued. “We scraped together the pathetic  remnants of settlers who had fled far enough from the primary machine forces. I do  not  know—nor  do  I  want  to  know—the  actual  number  of  survivors  we  rescued. Peridot Colony did not fall to the machines, but that world is no longer of any use to humans, either.” He heaved a deep breath. “It seems to be the way of this Jihad.” 
“That is why we need to keep fighting.” Vergyl lifted his chin. His bravery sounded tinny in his own ears. “Let me fight at your side against Omnius! The Army of the Jihad is in constant need of soldiers. It’s time for me to get into the real battles in this war!” 
Now Xavier Harkonnen seemed to awaken. Dismay flashed across his face. 
“You don’t want that, Vergyl. Not ever.” 
 
Vergyl  secured  an  assignment  working  aboard  the  Jihad  warship  as  it  underwent repairs for the better part of two weeks. If he couldn’t fly off and fight on alien battlefields, at least he could be here recharging weapons, replacing  damaged Holtzman shield systems, and strengthening armor plating. 
While Vergyl diligently performed every task the team supervisors assigned to  him,  his  eyes  drank  in  details  about  how  the  ship’s  systems  functioned.  Someday, if Xavier ever relented and  allowed him to participate in the Holy Jihad,  Vergyl  wanted  to  command  one  of  these  vessels.  He  was  an  adult— twenty-three years old—but his influential brother had the power to interfere  with anything he tried to do . . . and had already done so. 
That afternoon, as he checked off the progress of repairs on his display pad, Vergyl came upon one of the battleship’s training chambers. The dull metal door stood  half  open,  and  he  heard  a  clattering  and  clanging  of  metal,  and  the  grunting sounds of someone straining with great effort. 
Rushing into the chamber, Vergyl stopped and stared in astonishment. A  long-haired, battle-scarred man—a mercenary, judging from his wild, disheveled appearance—threw  himself  in  violent  combat  against  a  fighting  robot.  The  machine had three sets of articulated arms, each one holding a deadly-looking  weapon. Moving in a graceful blur, the mechanical unit struck blow after blow against the man, who defended himself perfectly each time. 
Vergyl’s heart leaped. How had one of the enemy machines gotten on board Xavier’s battleship? Had Omnius sent it as a spy or saboteur? Were there others spread out around the ship? The beleaguered mercenary landed a blow with his vibrating pulse sword, causing one of the mek’s six arms to drop limply to its  side. 
Letting out a war cry, knowing he had  to help, Vergyl snatched the only  weapon he could find—a training staff  from a rack by the wall—and charged  forward recklessly. 
The mercenary reacted quickly upon hearing Vergyl’s approach. He raised a hand. “Hold, Chirox!” 
The  combat  mek  froze.  The  mercenary,  panting,  dropped  his  fighting  stance. Vergyl skidded to a halt, looking in confusion from the enemy robot to the well-muscled fighter. 
“Don’t alarm yourself,” the mercenary said. “I was simply practicing.” 
“With a machine?” 
The long-haired man smiled. A spiderweb of pale scars covered his cheeks, neck, bare shoulders, and chest. “Thinking machines are our enemies in this  Jihad, young officer. If we must develop our skills against them, who better to fight?” 
Awkwardly, Vergyl set his hastily grabbed staff on the deck. His face flushed hot with embarassment. “That makes sense.” 
“Chirox is just a surrogate enemy, a target to fight. He represents all thinking machines in my mind.” 
“Like a whipping boy.” 
“A  whipping  mek.” The mercenary smiled. “We can set it to various fighting levels for training purposes.” He stepped closer to the ominous-looking combat robot. “Stand down.” 
The robot lowered its weapons-studded limbs, then retracted them into its core, even the impaired arm, and stood  waiting for further commands. With a  sneer, the man slammed the hilt of his  pulse sword against the mek’s chest,  knocking the mek backward a step. The optic-sensor eyes flickered orange. The rest of the machine’s face, with its  crudely shaped mouth and nose, did not  move. 
Confidently,  the  man  tapped  the  metallic  torso.  “This  limited  robot—I  dislike the term thinking machine—is totally under our control. It has served the mercenaries of Ginaz for nearly three generations now.” He deactivated his pulse sword,  which  was  designed  to  scramble  the  sophisticated  gelcircuitry  of  a  thinking machine. “I am Zon Noret, one of the fighters assigned to this ship.” 
Intrigued, Vergyl ventured closer. “Where did you find this machine?” 
“A century ago, a Ginaz salvage scout found a damaged thinking machine ship, from which he retrieved this broken combat robot. Since then, we’ve wiped its memories and reinstalled combat programming. It allows us to test ourselves against machine capabilities.” 
Noret patted the robot on one of its ribbed metal shoulders. “Many robots in the Synchronized Worlds have been destroyed because of what we learned  from this unit. Chirox is an invaluable teacher. On the archipelago of Ginaz,  students pit their skills against him. He has proved to be such an advantage and a repository of information to utilize against our enemy that we mercenaries no longer refer to him as a thinking machine, but as an ally.” 
“A robot as an ally? Serena Butler wouldn’t like to hear that,” Vergyl said guardedly. 
Zon Noret tossed his thick hair behind his head like the mane of a comet. 
“Many things are done in this Jihad without Serena Butler knowing. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn of other meks like this one under our control.” He made a dismissive gesture. “But since we all have the same goal, the details become  insignificant.” 
To Vergyl, some of Noret’s wounds looked only freshly healed. “Shouldn’t you be recuperating from the battle, instead of fighting even more?” 
“A true mercenary never stops fighting.” His eyes narrowed. “I see you’re an officer yourself.” 
Vergyl let out a frustrated sigh. “In the Construction Brigade. It’s not what I wanted. I wanted to fight, but . . . it’s a long story.” Noret wiped sweat from his brow. “Your name?” 
“Second Decero Tantor.” 
With no flicker of recognition at the name, Noret looked at the combat mek and then at the young officer. “Perhaps we can arrange a little taste of battle for you anyway.” 
“You would let me . . . ?” Vergyl felt his pulse quicken. 
Zon Noret nodded. “If a man wants to fight, he should be allowed to do so.” Vergyl lifted his chin. “I couldn’t agree more.” 
 “I warn you, this may be a training mek, but it is lethal. I often disconnect its safety protocol during my rigorous practices. That is why Ginaz mercenaries are so good.” 
“There  must  be  fail-safes,  otherwise  it  wouldn’t  be  much  good  as  an  instructor.” 
“Training  that  entails  no  risk  is  not  realistic.  It  makes  the  student  soft, knowing he is in no danger. Chirox is not like that, by design. It could kill you.” Vergyl felt a rush of bravado, hoped he wasn’t being foolish. “I can handle myself. I’ve gone through Jihad training of my own.” But he wanted a chance to prove himself, and this combat robot might be as close to the fight as he ever got. Vergyl focused his hatred on Chirox, thought of all the horrors the fighting  machines had inflicted upon humanity, and wanted to smash the mek into scrap metal. “Let me fight it, just as you were doing.” 
The mercenary raised his eyebrows, as if amused and interested. “Your choice of weapons, young warrior?” 
Vergyl fumbled, looked at the clumsy  training staff he had grabbed. “I didn’t bring anything but this.” 
Noret held his pulse sword up for the younger man to examine. “Do you know how to operate one of these?” 
“That looks like one we used in basic training, but a newer model.” 
“Correct.” Noret activated the weapon and handed it to the young man. Vergyl hefted the sword to check its balance. Shimmering arcs of disruptive energy ran along the surface of its blade. 
He took a deep breath and studied the combat mek, who stared back at him dispassionately, its eyelike optic sensors glowing orange . . . waiting. The sensors shifted direction, watched Noret approach and prepared for another opponent. 
When the mercenary activated the mek, only two of the six mechanical arms emerged from the torso. One metal hand clasped a dagger, while the other was empty. 
 “It’s fighting me at a low difficulty setting,” Vergyl complained. 
“Perhaps Chirox is just testing you. In actual combat, your adversary will never provide a resumé of his skills beforehand.” 
Vergyl moved carefully toward the mek, then shifted to his left and circled, holding the pulse sword. He felt moisture on his palm, loosened his grip a bit. The mek kept turning to face him. Its dagger hand twitched, and Vergyl jabbed at the robot’s weapon with the electronic  sword, hitting it with a purple pulse  that caused the robot to shudder.  
“Looks like a dumb machine to me.” He had imagined combat like this.  Vergyl darted toward his opponent and struck the torso with the pulse sword, leaving a purple discoloration on the metal body. He tapped a blue button on the weapon’s handle until it reached the highest pulse setting. 
“Go for the head,” Noret counseled. “Scramble the robot’s circuits to slow him. If you strike Chirox just right, he will need a minute or two to reconfigure.” Again Vergyl struck, but missed the  head, sliding down to the armored  
shoulder. Multicolored sparks covered the mek’s outer surface, and the dagger dropped from its mechanical grip to clatter on the floor of the training chamber. A wisp of smoke rose from the robot’s hand. 
Vergyl moved in for the kill. He didn’t care if anyone needed this fighting unit for training. He wanted to destroy it, to burn it into molten remains. He  thought of Serena, of little Manion, of all the humans slaughtered . . . and of his own inability to fight for the Jihad. This scapegoat mek would have to do for  now. 
But as he stepped forward, suddenly the flowmetal of the robot’s free hand shifted, reshaping itself, to extrude a short sword with barbs on the blade. The other hand stopped sparking, and a matching weapon also formed there. 
“Careful, young warrior. We wouldn’t want the Army of the Jihad to lose your construction skills.” 
Feeling a surge of anger at the remark, Vergyl snapped, “I’m not afraid of this machine.” 
“Fear is not always unwise.” 
“Even against a stupid opponent? Chirox doesn’t even know I’m ridiculing him, does he?” 
“I am just a machine,” the mek recited, his synthesized voice coming from a speaker   patch.   Vergyl   was   taken   aback,   thinking   he   had   caught   just   a   hint of sarcasm in the robot’s voice.  Like a theatrical mask, his face did not  change its expression. 
“Chirox doesn’t usually say much,” Noret said, smiling. “Go ahead, pound him some more. But even I don’t know all the surprises he might have in store.” Vergyl moved back to reassess his opponent. He studied the robot’s optic 
sensors, which glowed a steady orange, focused on the pulse weapon. 
Abruptly,   Chirox   lunged   with   the   barbed   short   sword,   exhibiting   unexpected speed and agility. Vergyl tried to dodge the blow, but not quickly  enough, and a shallow gash opened on one of his arms. He went into a floor roll to escape, then glanced at the wound as he leaped back to his feet. 
“Not a bad move,” Noret said, his tone casual, as if he didn’t care whether the robot killed Vergyl. Killing was both sport and profession to him. Maybe it took a harsh mindset to be a mercenary for Ginaz, but Vergyl—endowed with no such harshness—worried that he had gotten into this situation on impulse and might be facing a challenge more difficult than he was ready for. The combat  mek  kept  advancing  with  jerking,  unpredictable  speeds,  sometimes  lunging,  sometimes with an astonishing fluidity of motion. 
Vergyl darted from side to side, striking blows with the pulse sword. He  executed proficient rolls and considered attempting a showy backflip, but didn’t know if he could pull it off. Failure to properly execute a move could prove fatal. 
One of his pulse blows struck the panel box on Chirox’s side, making it  glow red. The robot paused. A thin, agile arm emerged from the robot’s torso  and adjusted something inside. 
“It can repair itself?” 
“Most combat meks can. You wanted a fair shot at a real machine opponent, didn’t you? I warned you, this robot does not fight below its abilities.” 
Suddenly Chirox came at Vergyl harder and faster than before. Two more arms extruded from the body core. One held a long dagger with a jagged tip for snagging and ripping flesh. The other held a shimmering branding iron. 
Zon Noret said something in an anxious tone, but the words blurred. The entire universe that Vergyl had known up to this point faded, along with all  unnecessary sensory perception. He focused on only survival.  
“I am a jihadi,” Vergyl whispered. He  resigned himself to fate and at the  same time decided to inflict as much damage as he could. He recalled a pledge that even the Construction Brigade had to memorize: “If I die in battle against the machines, I will join those who have gone to Paradise before me, and those who follow.” He felt a near-trancelike state consume him and remove all fear of death. He plunged into battle, flailing away, striking the pulse sword against the 
mek, discharging the weapon repeatedly. In the background, someone shouted something, words he couldn’t make out. Then Vergyl heard a loud click, saw a flash of color, and bright yellow light immersed him. It felt like a blast from a  polar wind and froze him in place. 
Immobilized, helpless, Vergyl shuddered, then toppled. He fell for what  seemed like a great distance. His teeth chattered, and he shivered. He didn’t  seem to land anywhere. 
Finally he found himself looking up into the robot’s gleaming optic sensors. Totally vulnerable. “I can kill you now.” The machine pressed the jagged tip of the long dagger against Vergyl’s neck. 
The combat mek could thrust the blade through his throat in a microsecond. Vergyl  heard  shouts,  but  could  not  squirm  away.  He  stared  up  into  the   implacable optical sensors of the robot, the face of the hated machine enemy. The thinking machine was going to kill him—and this wasn’t even a real battle. What a fool he had been. 
Somewhere in the distance, familiar  voices—two of them?—called out to  him. “Vergyl! Vergyl! Shut the damn thing off, Noret!” 
He tried to lift his head and look  around, but could not move. Chirox  continued to press the sharp point against his jugular vein. His muscles were  paralyzed, as if frozen inside a block of ice. 
“Get  me  a  disruptor  gun!”  He  recognized  the  voice  at  last.  Xavier.   Somehow, incongruously, Vergyl worried more about his brother’s disapproval than dying. 
But then the mek straightened and  removed the dagger blade from his throat. 
He  heard  more  voices,  the  thumping   of  boots,  and  the  clattering  of   weaponry. Peripherally, Vergyl saw movement, and the crimson-and-green of  jihadi uniforms. Xavier shouted commands to his men, but Chirox retracted the jagged dagger, its other weapons, and all four arms into its torso. The fiercely  glowing optic sensors dulled to a soft glimmer. 
Zon Noret placed himself in front of the robot. “Don’t shoot, Segundo.  Chirox could have killed him, but didn’t. His programming is to take advantage of a weakness and deliver a mortal blow, yet he made a conscious decision  against it.” 
“I did not wish to kill him.” The combat robot reset itself to a stationary  
position. “It was not necessary.” 
Vergyl finally cleared his head enough to push himself into a stiff sitting  position. “That mek actually showed . . . compassion.” He still felt dazed from the mysterious stun blast. “Imagine that, a machine with feelings.” 
“It wasn’t compassion at all,” Xavier said, with a contentious scowl. He  reached down to help his brother to his feet. 
“It was the strangest thing,” Vergyl insisted. “Did you see his eyes?” 
Zon Noret, intent on his training mek, looked into the machine’s panel box, studied instrument readings and made adjustments. “Chirox simply assessed the situation and went into survival mode.  But there must have been something  buried in his original programming.” 
“Machines don’t care about survival,”  Xavier snapped. “You saw them at  Peridot Colony. They hurl themselves into battle without concern for personal  safety.”  He  shook  his  head.  “There’s  something  wrong  with  your  mek’s   programming, a glitch.” 
Vergyl stared over at Chirox, caught the gaze of the glowing optic sensors. In  the  depths  of  the  twin  lights,  the  young  construction  officer  thought  he  detected a flicker of something animate, which intrigued and frightened him at the same time. 
“Humans can learn compassion, too,” Chirox said, unexpectedly. “I’ll run it through a complete overhaul,” Noret said, but his voice was uncertain. 
Xavier stood in front of Vergyl, checking his brother for serious injuries. He spoke in a shaky voice as he led his brother out of the training chamber. “That was quite a scare you gave me.” 
“I just wanted to fight . . . a real enemy for once.” 
Xavier looked deeply saddened. “Vergyl, I fear that you will have your chance, eventually. This Jihad will not be over anytime soon.”