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

was a rising star in the military ranks.
    Now three people who cared about him watched the shuttle lift into the sky on a plume of orange exhaust. Vergyl held Serena’s hand, bravely trying to comfort her. “Xavier will be all right. You can count on him.”
    She felt a pang for her departing love, but smiled warmly at the wide-eyed boy. “Of course we can.”
    She would have it no other way. Love was one of the things that separated humans from machines.

The answer is a mirror of the question.

    — COGITOR KWYNA,

    City of Introspection archives
    T he temporary meeting chamber for the League delegates had originally been the home of the first Viceroy, Bovko Manresa. Before the Titans had taken over the weak Old Empire, Manresa had built the mansion on then-isolated Salusa Secundus as a way of celebrating wealth garnered from his planetary land dealings. Later, when refugee humans began arriving, driven out by the cruel rule of the Twenty Titans, the big house had become a meeting hall, with chairs and a lectern set up in the grand ballroom, as they were today.
    Months ago, within hours of the cymek attack, Viceroy Butler had stood on a pile of rubble beneath the broken central dome of the Hall of Parliament. While the poisonous dust settled in the streets and fires still blazed in damaged buildings, he had vowed to repair the venerable old facility that had served the League for centuries.
    The governmental edifice was more than just a building: It was hallowed ground on which legendary leaders had debated great ideas and formulated plans against the machines. The damage to the roof and upper floors was severe, but the basic structure remained sound. Just like the human spirit it represented.
    It was a frosty morning outside, with fog on the windows. Leaves on the hills had begun to turn lovely autumn shades of yellow, orange, and brown. Serena and the representatives came inside the temporary meeting hall, still clinging to their coats.
    She gazed at the walls of the crowded old ballroom, at paintings of long-dead leaders and depictions of past victories. She wondered what the future would bring, and what her place might be in it. She wanted so badly to do something, to help in the great crusade of humankind.
    Most of her life she had been an activist, always willing to get her hands dirty, to assist in aiding the victims of other tragedies such as natural disasters or machine attacks. Even during pleasant times, she had joined the work crews of harvesters to pick grapes from the Butler estate vineyards or olives from the gnarled groves.
    She took a seat in the first row, then watched as her soft-featured father made his way across the wood parquet floor to the antique lectern. Viceroy Butler was followed by a monk in a red-velvet tunic carrying a large plexiplaz container that held a living human brain in viscous electrafluid. The monk lovingly placed the container on an ornate table beside the lectern, then stood beside it.
    From her front-row seat, Serena saw the pinkish gray tissue undulate slightly within the pale-blue life-support liquid. Separated from the senses and distractions of the physical world for more than a millennium, stimulated by constant intense contemplation, the female Cogitor’s once-human brain had grown larger than its original size.
    “The Cogitor Kwyna does not often leave the City of Introspection,” Viceroy Butler said, sounding both formal and excited. “But in these times we require the best thoughts and advice. If any mind can understand the thinking machines, it will be Kwyna’s.”
    These esoteric disembodied philosophers were seen so infrequently that many League representatives did not understand how they managed to communicate. Compounding the mystery that surrounded them, Cogitors rarely said much, choosing instead to marshall their energies and contribute only the most important thoughts.
    “The Cogitor’s Secondary will speak for Kwyna,” the Viceroy said, “if she has