Even Norma Cenva had to struggle for perfection, and never achieved it.
— Origins of the Spacing Guild
Life confined in a tank… but a mind without boundaries. Who could ask for more freedom?
Permanently addicted to the spice gas that swirled in an orange mist around her, impregnating her every pore, every cell, she never left the sealed enclosure anymore. Norma didn’t even know if she could leave. Survival might not be possible for her on the outside. Not anymore.
During her long and eventful life, Norma had been many things, from a scorned and misshapen dwarf to a mathematical genius… to a beautiful wife and mother. And now, the next phase— something much, much more.
Even in a sealed spice tank, she was not prevented from traveling anywhere she wished. She could guide VenKee ships safely through the labyrinth of folded space. The whole universe lay open before her.
She drew all of the nutrients she needed from the spice itself. Her direct physical senses were deadened, and Norma no longer cared about taste, touch, or smell. She still required her hearing and eyesight, but only to communicate with Adrien and the VenKee assistants, who fulfilled any needs she expressed to them.
But it was so difficult to talk down to their level.
Her alternate, deeper form of sight was much more significant and interesting than what she had lost. Triggered by the transformation she’d undergone during Xerxes’s torture years ago, Norma had evolved beyond physical boundaries, beyond human.
She found it remarkable to see webbing between her fingers and toes. Her face, once blunt-featured and later flawlessly beautiful, now had a small mouth and tiny eyes surrounded by smooth folds. Her head was immense, while the rest of her body atrophied to a useless appendage.
But none of that mattered in the least to her.
With her prescience, Norma saw the future, like reflections within reflections, echoing to infinity. In her mind she could see— and encompass— the entire universe, and she knew there were no limits to what she could achieve. She watched the direction humanity would take, toward an interplanetary empire connected by her spacefolder ships… the lifeline of commerce for trillions of people.
Serena Butler’s Jihad and the resulting antithinking machine fanaticism— as well as an abiding horror of the terrible biological weapons unleashed by Omnius and the appalling atomics used in the Great Purge— would leave an indelible mark on humanity for millennia.
But humanity would survive, and would create a vast realm of politics, business, religion, and philosophy, all held together by the spice melange.
With her new prescient vision, she could guide VenKee spacefolders on safe and instantaneous journeys across vast distances. And Norma could not complete all the work alone. She had to make others capable of navigating with their own prescience, enhanced by using massive amounts of spice gas….
* * *
SHE NEVER ASKED Adrien where he found his first ten volunteers. As the fabulously wealthy directeur of VenKee Enterprises and its newest venture, the Foldspace Shipping Company, Adrien had numerous connections. Already, the candidates were confined to chambers filled with gradually increasing concentrations of melange gas. They would begin mutating and changing, much like Norma. One day these volunteers would navigate fast company vessels throughout the League and the Unallied Planets, but Norma knew they would never have the far-reaching vision she possessed.
Norma felt impatience as she waited for her own mutations to reach the end of their genetic journey. She envisioned the political, commercial, religious, philosophical, and technological tomorrows scrolling off into an infinite distance.
She would blaze a trail through the cosmos. Like no other person who had ever existed, she had a unique, highly specialized set of talents.
But even with her unparalleled prescience, Norma could not determine what would eventually become of her.