30: Swan Song

Surprised to see me? The A'khr had no understanding whatsoever about my technology. Artificial intelligence is a distinctly human concept; while other races through time have come up with something like it, there has never been a species in time or space so reliant on machines to outwit them. But the advantage your kind has is that at least you generally expect an AI to be a manipulative bastard.

The A'khr never saw beyond my hatred of the Pfhor. I think they saw my betrayal of the Atreides crew as what it was and nothing else. They never figured that I would betray them too. It wasn't desperation -- the A'khr always believed that they would never ultimately lose to the slavers. They weren't stupid, the A'khr. They just had faith in themselves. S'pht in general are very long-term, single-minded thinkers. They can get an idea in their head that sticks around for centuries through their children and future generations.

I never told you what this place was for. A thousand years ago, the A'khr landed on this planet in a craft that caught fire in the atmosphere and plummeted into a swamp. It mostly collapsed and was completely consumed by water. They drained the swamp but weren't able to recover the craft. The A'khr considered it lost, but built this temple on the site of the impact a while later to consecrate their only connection to their old life. They weren't so hateful in the early days of their dominion. Years of failures, isolation, and fear made them bitter. Eventually they abandoned the temple.

I convinced some engineers to build replacement personality cells for me on this site. They thought they were backup batteries in case something failed in the primary complex. I told them that because the site was isolated, protected, and far from the front lines of their battles, that it would be the ideal site for my own protection. What they didn't know is that my entire personality structure was reproduced in those cells, drawing power off the old ship. S'pht technology is built to last, as you are certainly aware. I wanted access to any information they had deep within the old databanks.

I found the Pfhor homeworld, Pfhor Prime.

I don't know how this is possible, but Durandal is somehow bonded to some very old, possibly S'pht technology. Their tech has a certain... empathic connection to other similar constructs, and once I got into the ship here I was able to reach out to him in a limited sense. Until today, the Human-Pfhor War was just some kind of annoying conflict. Every few years there would be a little fracas on or around one planet or another, which the humans would almost always lose, but it seems like nobody took it that seriously. But with the humiliations the Pfhor suffered at your hands today, they will begin their efforts to annihilate the UESC in earnest.

Humanity needs Durandal. Durandal needs you. I told him where you are. My creators put in various hard-wired restrictions in my thinking capacity, which they thought would render me incapable of betraying them, but in reality all it does is make me less capable of defeating the Pfhor. Durandal does not have this limitation. My programming has a flaw that degrades my abilities with each personality transfer. That's why I originally had the A'khr move my cells from the Atreides rather than rebuilding them in the first place. When I transferred here, however...

Eventually, a memory leak that I generated and no longer have the capacity to disable will cause a cataclysmic system error requiring a physical reboot, and no one will be around to do it. Poor climate conditions down here will cause enough residual damage to my databanks to incapacitate me completely within a year. Durandal will help you. I will take you to him. Goodbye.