Dune: The Butlerian Jihad by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson Page B

again— after all, he had ridden Shaitan!— Selim crawled down from the rocks and scurried out to the patch of melange. There, he raised a wary gaze in the direction of the ominous hulk.
    Standing in the rust-hued sand, he scrabbled with his hands, scooping up the dry red powder. He gobbled it, spat out a few grains of sand, and immediately felt the stimulant of raw spice, a large quantity to take all at once. It made him dizzy, gave him an explosion of energy.
    Finally sated, he stood at a distance from the flaccid worm, hands on his hips, glaring. Then he waved his arms, shouting into the utter silence, “I defeated you, Shaitan! You meant to eat me, old crawler, but I conquered you instead!” He waved his hands again. “Can you hear me?”
    But he detected not even a flicker. Euphoric from the melange and foolishly brave, he marched back toward the long sinuous body that lay on the dune crest. Only a few footsteps away, he stared up into the face. Its cavernous mouth was studded with glittering internal thorns. The long fangs looked like the tiniest of hairs in relation to the creature’s immense size.
    Now the dust storm approached, accompanied by skirling hot breezes. The wind seized grains of sand and fragments of rock, whipping them against his face like tiny darts. Gusts stole around the curved carcass of the worm with a whispery, hooting sound. It seemed as if the ghost of the beast was daring him , prodding him forward. The spice thrummed in Selim’s bloodstream.
    Boldly, he strode to the worm’s maw and peered into the black infinity of its mouth. The hellish friction-fires inside were cold; not even an ember remained.
    He shouted again, “I killed you, old crawler. I am Worm Slayer.”
    The sandworm did not respond even to this provocation.
    He looked up at the daggerlike fangs, curved shards that lined the wide, smelly mouth. Buddallah seemed to be urging him on, or maybe it was simply his own desire. Moving before common sense could catch up with him, Selim climbed over the lower lip of the worm and reached the nearest sharp tooth.
    The young outcast grabbed it with both hands, feeling how hard it was, a material even stronger than metal. He twisted and wrenched. The worm’s body was soft, as if the tissues of its throat were losing integrity. With a suppressed grunt, Selim uprooted the fang. It was as long as his forearm, curved and pure and glistening with milky whiteness. It would make an excellent knife.
    He staggered back out, holding his prize, utterly terrified at the realization of what he had done. An unprecedented act, as far as he knew. Who else would have risked not only riding Shaitain, but stepping into its maw? His body trembled to its core. He couldn’t believe what he had dared— and accomplished! No other person on all of Arrakis possessed a treasure such as this tooth-knife!
    Although the remaining crystalline fangs hung down like stalactites, hundreds of them that he could sell in the Arrakis City spaceport (if he could ever find the place again), he felt suddenly weak. The rush of the melange he’d consumed was beginning to fade.
    He scrambled backward onto the soft sand. The storm was almost on top of him now, reminding him of his Zensunni desert survival training. He must make his way back to the rocks and find some sort of shelter, or he too would soon lie dead upon the dunes, a victim of the elements.
    But he no longer thought that would happen. I have a destiny now, a mission from Buddallah . . . if only I can understand it .
    He backed away, then turned and ran toward the line of rocks, cradling the fang in his hands. The wind nudged him onward as if anxious to get him away from the carcass.

Humans tried to develop intelligent machines as secondary reflex systems, turning over primary decisions to mechanical servants. Gradually, though, the creators did not leave enough to do for themselves; they began to feel alienated, dehumanized, and even manipulated. Eventually