The Burden of Loyalty

by Various

  ‘These honourable men and women are here at the Council’s directive, true enough. But who they are specifically answerable to in these circumstances is unclear, and there have been some jurisdictional clashes.’

  Vethorel jumped in the moment Rantal took a breath, as if the Grand Marshal had already made his point and was not about to propose something else.

  ‘I cannot agree more with Marshal Rantal,’ she announced as she rose from her seat. ‘This is just one of the several issues related to Mars that confront the Council, issues I have brought before the learned lords many times. As a result of the war, we are, I believe, faced with the problem that the Treaty of Olympus is both still in force and under attack. The promises it embodies must be kept. The Mechanicum and the Imperium are a partnership. Mars is not a vassal of Terra. With regards to the noble Titan Legions, I am sure the Council feels that clarity and respect are necessary, particularly in these fraught times. Therefore…’

  As she spoke, a part of Vethorel pulled back and observed her performance. She was dismayed at how quickly she had acclimatised to the political atmosphere she now breathed. She spoke a language of oblique reference, veiled jabs and shifting nuance. It was as far from machinic clarity as she had ever been forced to stray. There was shame in this dialogue, even as it was undeniably necessary to grease the wheels of the political engine.

  ‘Therefore, I propose, for as long as hostilities with the renegade Warmaster continue, the provisional formation of an Adeptus Mechanicus.’

  The lords of the Council looked at her in silence. Their quiet rippled outwards to the rest of the Chamber, as if the words “Adeptus Mechanicus” were a sorcerous incantation, robbing those who heard them of breath.

  Malcador’s gaze sharpened. The expression on his aged face shifted minutely, and Vethorel thought she might even detect a glimmer of surprise in the Sigillite.

  Simion Pentasian, Master of the Administratum, was the first to speak. ‘What purpose would this serve, Ambassador Vethorel?’ He was a compact, wizened man. His skull looked pinched, his frown constant. His was the physiognomy of concentration so precise that it made no distinction between the important and the trivial, viewing them as an unbreakable continuum. He treated any neglected detail as a personal affront.

  ‘The purpose, my lord, would be to grant the priesthood an official voice in matters concerning the future of the Imperium. The children of Mars were always intended to remain autonomous, under the terms of the Treaty. Since the loss of the Forge World Principal, this fact is no longer being considered.’

  Rantal sneered. ‘And who would be the master of this new Adeptus?’

  ‘Fabricator General Kane is the natural choice,’ Vethorel replied, ‘even though it would make great demands of his time and attention. As I said, the measure is a provisional one–’

  Pentasian did not let her finish. ‘This Council knows all too well how much weight to place on the word provisional,’ he said, looking around at his fellow High Lords with all the contempt usually reserved for trespassers. ‘Provisional is merely the way of getting others to accept now what will soon be permanent.’

  ‘I agree,’ Rantal added with a knowing, theatrical nod. ‘This is a power grab, and a clumsy one at that. You cannot retain autonomy while claiming elevation to an Adeptus, or we would have a body represented on this Council that is not answerable to it – a body of already questionable loyalty.’

  Vethorel stiffened. ‘I will not permit–’

  ‘You will not permit what?’ Rantal rose to his feet, the better to perform his indignation. ‘You will not permit the rest of us to have reasonable doubts about the Mechanicum and all its works? Has Mars not had a civil war of its own? And is it not currently in the hands of traitors? Has none of its unrest travelled with the exiles to Terra? Your priesthood is at war with itself, ambassador. Is your proposal really meant to inspire our confidence in it once more?’

  The gathering rumble in the tiers was the answer to the Marshal’s questions. Isolated shouts grew into an angry chorus. Rantal rode the wave expertly.

  ‘And after the “Adeptus Mechanicus”, what is next? Will others seek the same status, giving the Fabricator General allies on the Council? Is this conquest by political means?’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Vethorel sighed.

  Pentasian seized upon the words, keen to hijack the debate to his own ends. ‘What is ridiculous is the proliferation of the Adepta.’ He kept his seat and leaned forwards. Somehow, the motion seemed to project his frown across the Chamber, even to the highest tiers. ‘Each new Adeptus lessens the very meaning of the word. Are we to flood the Council with voices, until not one can be heard over the clamour, and nothing can ever be accomplished?’

  He did not look at Rantal, though his meaning was obvious. The foundation of the Adeptus Arbites was still recent history, and the Adeptus Terra had opposed the motion from the beginning. Vethorel was surprised to hear her earlier concerns echoed by one of the High Lords, no less, but she knew that this session of the Council was already lost to her.

  Pentasian shook his head, reclining once more. The Master of the Administratum was not well liked. He was not a charismatic speaker. He was, for the other lords of the Council, a man whose purpose in life appeared to be to explain why nothing could be done, and everything was impossible. That he managed to keep the monstrous organism that was the Administratum functioning at all was a feat bordering on the miraculous.

  ‘No,’ he murmured. ‘No. The ambassador’s proposal is without merit.’

  Simion Pentasian was always expected to be obstreperous, but today his objections were welcomed. He and Rantal had captured the mood of the Council.

  The rest of the debate was a formality.

  Vethorel went through the motions of defending the proposal, but her mind had already moved on from the present engagement. Her gambit had stalled, and that in itself would bring about certain consequences.

  The session ended in denunciation and uproar. When Vethorel left the Chamber, the roar of the surf had become angry, like waves in a storm crashing hard against the rocks. Her voice had been heard today, and it had been rejected with violence.

  Access memory recording A-E5502. Designation: Acceptable Sacrifice.

  Begin playback.

  Vethorel stood before Kane once more, in her recorded memory. The thunder of the foundry machines was unending.

  ‘And what will we do when the proposal is rejected?’ he asked her.

  She gazed at the fall of molten metal. She thought about the destructive aspect of creation. She knew that she might well be part of what was destroyed in that process. ‘Then we will do what we must.’

  ‘They will come for you.’

  Incandescence hissed and flowed. The heat was intense.

  ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘But the mechanism is what is important. Not the hand that operates it.’

  The messaging servitor came for Vethorel on the spiral staircase above the Great Chamber. It halted two steps above her and held out a data-slate.

  The message was from Malcador. The Sigillite wished to see her. The servitor pivoted on its mechanical legs and climbed back up, and Vethorel followed.

  Two landings further on, the servitor opened a wrought-iron door and led Vethorel onto a long, narrow balcony. Columns lined the parapet, casting deep shadows. Malcador stood halfway down, hooded, leaning on his staff and looking out over the lower ramparts of the Imperial Palace.

  The messenger stopped dead beside the Sigillite. Malcador waved a hand and the servitor departed, heading down towards the far exit.

  Malcador did not look at Vethorel. ‘Do you and Zagreus Kane know what you’re doing?’

  ‘We do, Lord Regent.’

  ‘So your proposal was not the initial bargaining position, with a different goal in mind?’

  ‘No, Lord Regent.’
<
br />   ‘Then this is what you truly intend.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And you’ll continue to fight for it.’

  ‘I will.’

  Coming from anyone else, the Sigillite’s questions would have seemed redundant or patronising. Instead, the quiet, grim solemnity of his tone turned them into a ritual. He was not raising doubts about Vethorel’s intelligence – the aged psyker was well acquainted with the cold minds of the augmented, and he was testing her commitment. Accordingly, Vethorel’s answers felt like oaths.

  Malcador turned to face her, then.

  ‘Your determination does you credit, ambassador,’ he said.

  ‘But my intent does not?’

  ‘Ahh, but I did not say that…’

  ‘Is that an evasion, Lord Regent?’

  ‘It is not.’ He hesitated. ‘I am... I am examining the possible consequences both of rejecting and accepting the creation of the Adeptus Mechanicus. I know you are too.’

  ‘I am convinced that not forming an Adeptus will lead to catastrophe. It is the only way of resolving the Binary Succession. The Mechanicum cannot have two leaders.’

  Malcador nodded. ‘There is more that I hope you understand. You did not achieve your ends in the Council today, but your words themselves were a statement. Events are unfolding now because of that. You may believe that Master Pentasian and Grand Marshal Rantal were reacting from their own petty considerations and, true enough, pure political instinct may have been part of it.’ His gaze turned cold. ‘But let me assure you, Ambassador Vethorel, the High Lords are not only political animals. They believe in the Imperium. They would lay down their lives in its defence. Their objections to the Adeptus Mechanicus are important. They call this a power grab – that is what the Council perceives as a real possibility, a real threat. Whatever your motivations, the creation of this Adeptus would greatly alter the balance of power on Terra.’

  ‘The power of the Mechanicum, even divided, exists whether the Adeptus does or not,’ she replied, choosing her words carefully. ‘There is more than one possible solution to the equation. The Council cannot afford the wrong sort of Martian unity.’

  The Sigillite gave Vethorel a long look, gripping his staff tightly. ‘I should wonder what you mean by that,’ he said, letting the words hang for a moment. Then he softened his tone just a little. ‘There is power, too, in what you unleashed today.’

  ‘The Fabricator General and I never believed that things would be otherwise.’

  ‘I thought so. I am glad to know I was right. But we must all deal with those consequences now – the situation with the Mechanicum and Mars is already uncertain. Your loyalties were questioned before. Now they are subject to outright suspicion.’

  There would be plenty of suspicion on all sides in the days ahead, she knew. She also knew that Kane would be at the centre of that particular storm. ‘All of what you say is true, Lord Regent. But this motion must be approved.’

  ‘Perhaps. May we all make the correct decisions, then. I bid you well, Ambassador Vethorel.’

  He trudged away, his frail figure disappearing into the shadows between the columns.

  Vethorel stood a while longer in quiet contemplation. Yes, she had known how their actions would appear to the High Lords. She also knew how they would likely appear to the other loyalists within the Mechanicum. She had always expected the first step to be unsuccessful but, despite her realism, she found herself wishing that she had made even a hint of progress with the Council.

  Then Zagreus Kane would have something to use in the trials that awaited him, even if that was nothing more concrete than Vethorel’s own, flawed hope.

  When the hour approached for Mars to rise, Vethorel arrived on the Stellarum Vigil ramparts early. She stood at the centre of their span, her back to the parapet, facing the robed celebrants. They would have questions. They would have accusations. She wanted them to know that she was here to answer them.

  All eyes, organic and bionic, were upon her. The moment of the ritual drew closer, when silence must prevail, but silence was there already. The adepts of the Mechanicum filled the ramparts, their ambassador at their centre, and no word was spoken. There was not even the briefest burst of binaric. There was no communication at all.

  Vethorel glanced about, nervously. The unsaid, the surmised, these things built tension.

  She waited until the last second before she resigned herself and turned to watch the sky. Looking up and down the ramparts she saw, at some distance to her right, that a number of Titan princeps and moderati had joined the observance for the first time.

  Mars rose, and the ceremony began. The shared act of contemplation and mourning took place as it had countless times before. Vethorel gazed up at the red glimmer on the horizon. She grieved for her sacred home world, but her attention was drifting.

  Tonight, the sight of Mars was less a reminder of what had been lost, and more a sign of the conflicts that the schism had engendered here on Terra. All worshippers of the Omnissiah on the Stellarum Vigil were exiles because they were loyal to the Emperor as well as to Mars. Taymon Verticorda himself had shown that there was no contradiction between those loyalties. They were the same, because the Emperor was the living avatar of the Omnissiah...

  Time passed. Mars reached its zenith, then began its descent. The closer the moment came to the extinguishing of the red spark, the more smothering the silence became.

  The end of the ritual was the signal, as Mars vanished behind the jagged horizon of Palace spires, and the silence at last was broken. Vethorel lowered her eyes, and found Magos Gerantor standing beside her.

  ‘What have you done?’ he snapped. ‘Your actions have undermined the Treaty of Olympus. The word of the Omnissiah has been disobeyed.’

  ‘You are wrong to think so little of my faith, magos.’

  ‘How can we think otherwise? You propose to formalise Terra’s control of the priesthood. We will be slaves, and Mars will be forgotten.’

  ‘That is not the purpose of what I have proposed. This is only intended to…’ Vethorel trailed off. She realised, then, that the tech-priests would not believe the situation was temporary any more than Rantal and Pentasian did. Instead, she returned to the real issue. ‘An Adeptus Mechanicus would be in a position to force the Council to listen to Martian concerns.’

  ‘As much as it listens to you now.’

  ‘The Council looks at us and perceives refugees. The accuracy of that impression is irrelevant. What matters is–’

  Vethorel looked beyond Gerantor to see the crowd that had grown around them. Glowing multi-optics narrowed their focus on her. There was metallic shifting from all sides.

  She was acutely aware that her lack of visible machinic alterations counted against her. To those who believed that she had spoken against the Treaty and the Mechanicum today, the implication of her very human appearance was gaining far too much significance.

  ‘For the sake of Mars and the Imperium,’ she continued, ‘the Adeptus Mechanicus must become a reality. In the name of the Omnissiah, I pray that all of you will see the necessity of this.’

  Gerantor put out his machine arm to grip her robe. ‘We will be slaves.’

  ‘Unhand me, Magos Gerantor,’ she sighed. ‘If you wish to turn this into a circular argument then you may do so without my help. It is clear that nothing I say will convince you that my actions are the full expression of my devotion to the Omnissiah, and the will of the Fabricator General of the Mechanicum. Believe otherwise if you will, but the Adeptus Mechanicus must become a reality, and I will fight to see it happen.’

  She moved away, and the other tech-priests parted to let her pass. Murmurs of Gothic and hissing bursts of binaric cant surrounded her. She was done with the debate for now, but it was alive and burning in the crowd. Good. The matter was out in the open, and contentious. By the next session of the C
ouncil, her popular support might well have grown.

  She was midway across the width of the parapet when Gerantor replied.

  ‘No.’

  Vethorel turned. He stood where she had left him, staring at the ambassador down the length of the widening gap in the crowd. ‘What do you mean, no? You forget yourself, magos.’

  ‘No. We cannot let you dishonour the Treaty. We cannot let you crush the Mechanicum, and the independence of Mars.’

  She sensed movement at her rear. She whirled round to find Passax blocking her path. The magos’ metal limbs reached for Vethorel, saws spinning and plasma cutters ignited. Vethorel jerked back, but one of the mechadendrites wrapped around her left arm and held tight.

  They will come for you.

  I know.

  This was not the same treachery that had torn Mars apart. Gerantor and Passax believed – truly, truly believed – that Vethorel was the traitor, that she was the heretic.

  Despair gripped her heart, but she could not give in. She carried no weapon, but the ambassador was not helpless; she channelled the energy coursing through her hidden, subcutaneous electoos, and in a fraction of a second, a massive charge of biological and mechanical electricity built in her captive arm.

  She sent the burst through Passax’s mechadendrite. It overloaded the circuits, and the limb spasmed. Vethorel pulled free, jumping back.

  There was rapid movement to her left and right. Alarm spread through the gathered adepts. Some began to move to her aid, but many others retreated, confused about where the truth of Martian loyalty lay. Gerantor remained where he was, a witness at the execution he had arranged, content to let other hands perform the deed.

  A gallant adept grabbed Passax’s right arm. The magos’ telescoping digits twisted back and slashed at Vethorel’s would-be saviour with the plasma torch, driving him back.