‘He wasn’t lying about Nurth,’ said Soneka.
F
IVE MONTHS BEFORE
, Nurth had died, exactly as John Grammaticus had said it would. The final day, which had never properly dawned, had dragged out, darkening and thickening, into a primordial night. The atmosphere had congealed in a toxic caul of ash and soot, and hurricane winds that had flayed the surface of the world and boiled the oceans.
Lord Namatjira had at first categorically rejected Alpharius’s instruction to abandon Nurth. He had laughed derisively in the primarch’s face at the very idea of giving up on the hard-won victory presently in his grasp. His scornful laughter had grown hollow as conditions worsened, however, and it had become clear, even to him, that it would be suicide to remain. Gripped by a fury as fierce as the gathering damnation storms, Namatjira had ordered the retreat.
Turmoil had followed. No force the size of the 670th Expedition could be deployed or withdrawn easily, even under emergency protocols. Waves of landers and heavy lifters braved the vicious windshear to set down at makeshift extraction points where Army companies had hastily gathered. Imperial strongpoints and vehicles were abandoned. Entire units, struggling to make their way to evacuation rendezvous, were lost forever in the encroaching blackness. Some lift ships, fully laden, failed to make it back through the blizzarding atmospheric wrath to orbit. Others returned to the fleet with their holds empty, having been unable to locate a landing site or anything worth rescuing.
The panic-fuelled nightmare of evacuation had finally been called off after seventeen hours. Almost half of the expedition’s strength failed to make it off Nurth alive. The logistical difficulties of extracting heavy vehicles meant that armour companies suffered particularly heavy losses. Princeps Jeveth openly denounced Namatjira. A lack of specialist super-lifters resulted in six of his Titans being left behind. A week after the fall of Nurth, Jeveth detached his force from the 670th Fleet and returned to Mars, warning the Lord Commander that he might never expect collaboration from the Mechanicum again.
No one in the Imperial expedition ever laid eyes on the object that slew Nurth. No confirmation was ever made of its size, construction, or process, nor even if it was actually a Cube at all. No one could account for its effect, or properly explain exactly the manner of the doom it unleashed, except that it was likened to some invasive disease, a plague that swept through organic and inorganic structures alike.
Imperial minds felt it, however. Its molten hiss escaped the failing edges of Nurth’s atmosphere and bit corrosively into the astrotelepathic orders of the fleeing expedition fleet. It triggered madness and delusion. The uxors of the Geno Chiliad felt it less profoundly, but they felt it all the same. Privately, they agreed that it sounded like the mewling and squealing of some daemon, awakened and trapped in the lightless, broiling cinder pit that Nurth had become.
Peto Soneka still dreamed about the havoc of that day. He no longer slept well at all. When he wasn’t dreaming about the roiling black clouds sweeping in to annihilate them all, he dreamed uneasily of diorite heads, and the verses lodged in Dimi Shiban’s throat.
TWO
High anchor, 42 Hydra Tertius, the next day cycle
G
RAMMATICUS WAS DRESSED
and ready when Soneka arrived. He sat at the metal table, exhibiting a sort of anxious excitement.
‘I imagine he’s ready to speak with me,’ said Grammaticus.
‘He is.’
‘Finally,’ said Grammaticus, and got to his feet. ‘We’re at high anchor?’
‘At high anchor above 42 Hydra Tertius. An interesting choice of location, John.’
Grammaticus smiled. ‘It was selected very particularly, as a token of respect for the Alpha Legion’s iconography. Do they approve?’
‘I think the name just makes them suspicious. Then again, everything makes them suspicious.’
Grammaticus laughed, but Soneka could hear the nervous edge in it. ‘John,’ he said, ‘I don’t really understand what this is about, but if you want things to go your way, if you want your mission to succeed, you have to get yourself together. You’ve been in here too long. You’re wired. Try to calm down. Please don’t be hyper, or joke around with them.’
Grammaticus nodded and cleared his throat. He took a deep breath. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the advice. I am a little tense.’
They left the cell together. Grammaticus took one last look back, as if he fully expected to see himself still in it.
Soneka led him down the dull metal hallway of the detention block, past the blank hatches of other cells, and through two cage doors that slid open when he waved his hand in front of the lock plates.
‘How is the hand?’ Grammaticus asked.
‘Better than the old one,’ Soneka replied.
They walked out into one of the battle-barge’s main spinal corridors. The deck was mesh, and the corridor was so large that a tank might have been comfortably driven along it. The gunmetal walls, banded with horizontal bars of frosty mauve lights, seemed to stretch away forever. Their footsteps echoed on the metal. There was no one else around.
‘They trust you,’ Grammaticus remarked.
‘What?’
‘To send you to fetch me, with no escort.’
‘This is an Astartes battle-barge, John, one of the most fortified and secure warships in human space. Where exactly would you run to?’
‘Good point. They do trust you, though,’ said Grammaticus. ‘Did you ever wonder why they let you do this?’
‘Do what?’
‘Fraternise with me? Eat lunch with me every day?’ Soneka made a sour face. ‘I don’t ask. In almost all respects, I’ve been as much of a prisoner as you.’
‘You must have thought about it,’ Grammaticus pressed.
‘I suppose,’ said Soneka, ‘they believe you’ll relate to me better than to any of them, human to human.’
‘Or whatever it is I am,’ Grammaticus chuckled.
Soneka glanced at him. ‘Actually, I asked their permission. They’re not like me. They don’t even eat, or not that I’ve witnessed. For the first few days, I’d dine alone, and then bring you your food. It seemed stupid not to combine the two events.’
‘And they said yes?’
‘They said yes,’ Soneka agreed. ‘Of course, it quickly occurred to me what they were really after. They wanted me to build a rapport with you, the sort of rapport that none of them could fashion personally.’
‘Didn’t they worry that I might somehow… influence you?’
Soneka looked Grammaticus in the eyes. ‘I think they were actually hoping that might happen.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Grammaticus.
‘You wouldn’t dare try anything with an Astartes, but with a lowly operative? I believe they were interested in what they might learn about you if you did try something.’
Grammaticus pursed his lips. ‘That’s remarkably perceptive of you, Peto. So, do you think you’ve fallen under my thrall?’
Soneka shrugged. ‘How could I tell? I know you’re a dangerous man, John, and that you can achieve with words what a Lord Commander couldn’t with Titans. My impression has been that we’ve always talked as friends. I doubt you’d admit otherwise.’
Grammaticus nodded. ‘Of course I wouldn’t,’ he said.
A
LITTLE FURTHER
on, Grammaticus stopped and looked over his shoulder.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Soneka.
‘I thought,’ Grammaticus began. ‘I thought I heard—’
‘What?’
‘I thought I heard her calling out to me,’ he said. ‘It was your imagination, John,’ Soneka told him.
I
N THE LONG
walk from the detention block to the briefing chamber, they saw no signs of life, except for a pair of polished arachnoid servitors working at a wall panel and a busy cyberdrone that zipped past high overhead and vanished into the distance of the vast corridor.
The hatch was a huge blast shield, with the emblem of the hydra graven on its oiled surface. Soneka had seen many parts of the barge during his time on board, and all of them had been spare, functional and utilitarian. This was the only piece of decoration he had come across.
As they approached, the hatch opened, lifting a thick, toothed base up out of slots in the deck. It rose like the gate of a portcullis.
The chamber beyond was almost pitch black, but they could both sense how large it was. Twenty metres in front of them, illuminated by a single amber glow-globe, Alpharius sat on a heavy, undecorated steel throne. He was wearing his full armour, and his helm sat on the broad arm of the throne beside his right hand. He stared at them.
‘Approach.’
‘John Grammaticus, lord,’ said Soneka.
‘Thank you, Peto. Stay, please.’
Soneka nodded, and stepped to one side.
‘John,’ said Alpharius.
‘Great lord,’ Grammaticus replied.
‘I believe there will be a reckoning,’ said Alpharius. ‘Your cooperation is expected.’
‘And will be given, to the best of my abilities,’ Grammaticus said.
‘We stand at high anchor above the world you selected,’ the primarch said. ‘The expedition fleet is about nine hours behind us. As soon as it has arrived and recomposed, we will commence surface deployment.’
Grammaticus swallowed briefly. ‘That suggests a war footing, as does your armour.’
Alpharius nodded. ‘I don’t venture into the unknown unarmed, John. You told me that this Cabal of yours asked you to bring me here. You say they wish to talk of weighty matters. I welcome discourse, and enjoy the stimulation of meeting new minds and new ideas, but I am no fool. The Imperial Army and my forces will assemble and make ready. At the slightest sign of disingenuity or betrayal, your Cabal, if it is really here, will face extreme sanction.’
‘You must do as you see fit, lord,’ said Grammaticus. ‘In the spirit of cooperation, I would say that the Cabal does not find threat postures especially endearing. It would prefer to undertake its dealings with you without the duress of a military presence. However, I believe the Cabal will make allowances. They appreciate that you are a warlord, and that you will behave according to your nature. It is, after all, precisely your nature that interests them.’
Alpharius nodded again. ‘Then we have a first measure of understanding.’ He raised his left gauntlet.
There was a series of deep, mechanical thumps, and light began to shaft into the chamber, as the entire starboard wall began to retract into the roof. Soneka realised that a row of immense blast shutters was gradually opening to reveal a vast stellar observation port. The light, soft yellow but bright, like a summer’s haze, poured under the opening shutters, and slowly flooded the chamber.
The briefing chamber was as large as he had expected, with a black grille floor, heavy bulkheads of bare metal, and a vaulted roof. Everything in it was bathed in the smoky golden radiance that streamed in from outside. Along the inner wall, behind Alpharius’s spare, cyclopean throne, thirty-five fully plated Alpha Legion Astartes stood like monumental statues. They had been there all along, silent in the darkness.
They were all captains or squad leaders. Soneka recognised Pech and Herzog by their company marks, Omegon in his almost black armour, and Ranko in the monstrous plate of the Terminators. They were illuminated, in the golden light, like some elysian vision.
Grammaticus had seen them too. Soneka saw the pang of undisguised fear in his eyes.
Alpharius rose to his feet. The shutters ground to a halt, fully open. The view through the giant observation port was as impressive as the revealed post-human warriors. The vault of space, more profoundly deep than Soneka had ever seen it, was thick with distant stars that shone like motes of dust in sunlight. Radiant streamers of gas, as delicate and multicoloured as moth wings, lay across the star field like veils, causing some stars to glitter like faceted jewels, and others to fog and blur like uncut stones.
Nearby, perhaps only a hundred and fifty million kilometres away, lay a pale red sun, the local star and the source of the bathing yellow sunlight that made both the view and the chamber seem as if they were set in amber. Closer still, looming below them, was the night-side of a planet.
Alpharius pointed at the star. Hololithic graphics immediately lit up across the observation port, outlined the star, and contoured it. Numerical columns rapidly scrolled up the port, followed by block statistical data.
‘Freeze there. Dim radiance and magnify by six,’ said Alpharius. The hololithic projection blinked, and centred a glare-adjusted magnification of the star on the port display.
‘42 Hydra,’ said Alpharius. ‘It’s an old, population II star with poor metallicity. Its life is reaching an end. 42 Hydra, would you care to comment, John?’
Grammaticus looked lost for words.
‘Lord?’ said Soneka.
‘Speak, Peto.’
‘As I understand it, 42 Hydra was selected as a mark of homage to the Legion. An inside joke, if you will. I believe that, in hindsight, John possibly regrets the flippancy of the gesture.’
Alpharius nodded.
‘That,’ Grammaticus said, coughing but recovering some composure, ‘that is the case, lord. No disrespect or mockery was intended. 42 Hydra was chosen because of your emblem.’
‘Is this typical of the symbolism and nuance we can expect from the Cabal?’ asked Pech.
‘No,’ said Grammaticus.
‘Good,’ said Omegon, ‘because it’s childish.’
‘42 Hydra has six planets,’ Alpharius continued. ‘The third one, designated 42 Alpha Tertius, being the one you directed us to, John. We sit in orbit above it.’
‘Above Eolith,’ said Grammaticus.
‘Repeat?’
‘Eolith,’ said Grammaticus. ‘The Cabal’s name for this world, 42 Hydra Tertius, is Eolith.’
‘So noted. Isolate and enlarge.’
The graphics returned the star to its original position, and then surrounded the dark globe below them, sectioned it, and brought it up into the centre of the port. More graphics spooled across the projection.
‘Small and unremarkable,’ said Alpharius, ‘it is wracked by pestilential weather and acid precipitation. Uninhabited, according to our vital sweeps, auto-probes detect only basic xenofauna.’ He paused. ‘Distinguish,’ he ordered.