by Dan Abnett
He could quote, extensively, chapter and verse from Imperial texts, philosophies, poetry, ecclesiarchal lore. His scholarship rivalled Aemos's. But just as he refrained from condemning himself with heretical utterances, he also refrained from actually professing loyalty to the golden throne. He conducted our conversations in a subjective, uninvolved way. He did not attempt to dissemble and play the part of the loyal citizen. I appreciated that this represented his respect for me. He did not insult my intelligence by lying.
More often still than politics and ethics, we talked of history. Again, in this area, his learning was tremendous, but there was also, for the first time, an eagerness, a hunger. He never asked directly, but it was clear he longed to know in detail about the events that had taken place in the two hundred and twelve years since his death. His family had clearly told him little. He made leading remarks to draw answers out of me. I gave him some, and sometimes volunteered accounts of major events, political changes and Imperial gains. I had decided beforehand not to make any mention of Imperial defeats or losses, to avoid giving him anything he might relish. The picture that Pontius Glaw got from me was of an Imperium stronger and more healthy than ever before.
Even so, it delighted him. Precious glimpses of a galaxy he had long been divorced from.
The rest of that long transit time was spent in preparation and study, daily regimes of weapons practice and combat training. Fischig ran hand-to-hand sessions each afternoon, and set himself to honing Bequin's natural dexterity and speed. I pressed weights in a makeshift gymnasium, and ran tens of kilometres each day around the empty halls and corridors of the Essene. Slowly, I brought myself back to peak fitness.
I worked my mind too. A disciplined regime of psychic exercises, some conducted with Lowink's help.
Aemos and I studied extensively. We worked through all the archive data we had to hand, researching the saruthi. It added little to our knowledge. The extent of their territories was known, but virtually nothing beyond that. There had only been a handful of officially recorded contacts in the past two thousand years. I wondered how much was known about them by the rogue traders who sailed beyond the Imperial veil, men like Gor-gone Locke.
All we knew with any certainty was that the saruthi were an old xenos culture - insular, secretive, lying outside the bounds of the Imperium. They were technically resourceful, mature and well-established. We knew nothing of their culture-type, beliefs, language... not even their physical appearance.
4Ve can at least conjecture they have some religious beliefs or values/ Aemos told me. 'Or, at the very least, they hold certain relics of their past in high regard for some symbolic or sacred purpose. Our foes only excavated that material on Damask because they knew it had value to the saruthi/
'Holy items? Icons?'
He shrugged. 'Or ancestor spirits - or simply a desire to recover and repatriate cultural materials from their past/
'And we know their territory was once bigger. Extending as far as Damask, even if that was but a distant outpost/ said Lowink.
We sat around an inlaid table in one of Maxilla's staterooms, the polished table top smothered in open books, scrolls, data-slates and record tiles.
'And Bonaventure/ I said. 'The wheel-graves. Bequin remarked that the site at North Qualm reminded her of those on her birthworld/
'Perhaps/ said Aemos. 'But I am no archaexenon expert. The wheel-graves of Bonaventure are classified as 'of unknown xenos manufacture' in all the texts I can find. They are but one among hundreds of unidentified relic sites in the Helican sub-sector. All traces of a long-vanished, or at least long-shrunk, saruthi civilisation... or the remnants of many miscellaneous forerunner species that roamed this part of space before man ever came this way/
I set down a data-slate and picked up the item that lay in the centre of the table, wrapped in felt. It was the single ancient tablet that had
escaped Damask with us. I had taken it from the crate during the standoff, and it had still been in my hand when we had thrown ourselves aboard the gun-cutter. Like the stonework dug-out in the flame hill mine, it was made of a hard pale material glittering with flecks of mica that we all agreed was not indigenous to Damask. And it was octagonal, but not regularly so, being peculiarly long on two edges. The back of it was burned and scored where it had been cut away. The reverse showed a bas-relief symbol, a five-pointed star sigil. But it, too, was irregular: the radiating spars of the star were of unmatched length and they protruded at a variety of angles.
'Most perturbatory/ said Aemos, looking at it for the umpteenth time. 'Symmetry - at least, basic symmetry - is a virtual constant in the galaxy. All species - even the most obscene xenos kinds like the tyranid - have some order of it.'
'There's something wrong with the angles/ agreed Lowink, furrowing his unhealthy, socket-pocked brow. I knew what he meant. It was as if the angles in the star symbol made up more than three hundred and sixty degrees, though that of course was unthinkable.
Who has been in here?' I asked at the start of my next session with Pontius. I glanced around the frost-caked chamber. Bequin shrugged, blowing on her hands. Aemos also looked puzzled. 'The casket has been moved again. Just slightly. Who has been in here?' 'No one,' Pontius remarked, his artificial voice colourless. 'I was not directing the question at you, Pontius. For I doubt you would tell me the truth.' 'You wound me, Gregor/ he answered softly.
Are you sure it's not your imagination?' Aemos asked. 'You said before-' 'Perhaps/1 frowned. 'I just feel something is... changed/
I dined with Maxilla most evenings during the long voyage, sometimes in company with the others, sometimes alone. One evening in the twenty-fifth week, only Maxilla and 1 sat at the stateroom table, as the gilt servitors brought in our meal.
'Tobius/1 said at length, 'tell me about the saruthi/
He paused, and set his food-laden fork back down on his salver.
'What would you have me tell you?'
'Why you claimed to know nothing of them when I told you we were heading into their territory/
'Because such places are forbidden. Because you are an inquisitor, and it does not do to admit transgressions to one such as you/
I toyed with the lip of my half-empty glass. You have aided me eagerly and generously up to now, Tobius. I suspected your motives at first, a detail for which I have apologised. I see now you are as keen to serve the Emperor of Mankind as I. It troubles me that you would withhold information now/
He bared his pearl-inlaid teeth and dabbed at his lips with the comer of his napkin. 'It does more than trouble me, Gregor. It has plagued me, a crisis of conscience/
'It is time to speak then/ I refilled both of our glasses with vintage from the decanter. 'Imperial knowledge of the saruthi is scant, and as you say, forbidden. I am more than aware that rogue traders know a great deal more about the outside systems and their species than we do. You are no rogue, but you are of the merchant elite. I think it unlikely that you have never come across any information pertaining to this xenos breed/
He sighed. As a young man, over ninety years ago, I travelled into saruthi space. I was a junior crewman aboard a rogue trader called the Promethean. The master was Vaden Awl, long dead I imagine. Now there was a true rogue. He was sure he could strike a trading deal with these unknowns, or at least rob them blind of treasures/
And did he?'
'No. Remember, I was junior crew. I never left the bowels of the ship, or went to the surface of any worlds. All I knew was the miserable duration of the voyage. The senior crewmembers were tight-lipped. It took them, as I understand it, a long time to find the saruthi at all, and then they were less than forthcoming. The third officer, a man I knew reasonably well, confided to me that the saruthi played tricks on Awl's trade envoys, hid from them, tormented them.
Tormented how?'
Their worlds were eerie, disarming, uncomfortable - something about the angles, the officer said/
The angles?'
He laughed sourly and sh
rugged. As if something ill and twisted had infected their dimensions. We came back empty-handed after a year. Many of the crew quit and left the Promethean on our return, especially when Awl, who was a sick and driven man by then, declared he was going back to try again. I quit then too, but only because I couldn't face another year below decks/
'And Awl?'
'He went back. I presume so, anyway. A few years later I heard his ship had been taken in the Borealis Reach by eldar renegades. That's the sum of it. You can perhaps see why I was unwilling to tell you these things before... because there is nothing useful to tell. Except to incriminate myself by admitting I had gone beyond/
I nodded. 'In future, do not hold information back from me/
'I will not/
'And if you "remember" anything else...'
'I will tell you at once/
Tobius/ I paused. 'You say the voyage of the Promethean was long and fruitless, and the crewmembers were tormented by the beings they eventually encountered. Do you not have misgivings about returning there?'
'Of course.' He smiled a thin smile. 'But I am bound to serve you as an agent of the Emperor, and I will do so without question. Besides, part of me is curious.'
'Curious?'
'I want to see these sarathi with my own eyes.'
I should mention the dreams.
They did not over-trouble me during the voyage, but still they lingered, every few days or so. I seldom dreamed specifically of the blank-eyed, handsome man, but he lurked obliquely in other dreams, a bystander, looking on, observing, never speaking.
The lightning flashes escorted him, closer in each dream.
At ship-dawn of the third day of the twenty-ninth week, I rose silently and left my quarters, heading down towards the hold area where Pontius was secured. It was a good four hours until our daily conversation was due to start.
I climbed into a service duct adjoining the hold space, and crawled down until I reached a circulation grille that looking down into the hold itself.
There was frost on the grille.
Below, a figure crouched by the casket, huddled in robes, lit only by a hand-lamp. The overhead lights were not on.
Pontius was awake. The frost told me that much, and I could see the tiny flashes of firing synapses and hear the low hiss of his voice.
Tell me of the Border Wars, the ones you mentioned last time. Imperial losses were great, you said?'
'I tell you much and you tell me little back/ replied the figure. 'That was not our agreement. I said I would secretly help you if you helped me. Power, Pontius, information. If you want me to act as your emissary, I need a show of trust. How can I communicate your will to your allies, if I know nothing of the "true matter"?'
A pause.
'What is this about?' the figure asked. What is at stake, what thing of great value?'
Another pause.
'You should go before they discover you. Eisenhorn is becoming suspicious/
Tell me, Pontius. We're nearly there, just a few days to go. Tell me so I can help you/
'I... will tell you. The Necroteuch. That is what we are after, Alizebeth/
EIGHTEEN
KCX-1288 by the light of the quill-star. Into the Wound. The wrongness.
On the first day of the thirty-first week, just under a day outside Maxilla's estimate, the Essene burst back into realspace deep inside the system designated KCX-1288. Almost at once we were in danger.
The local star was a vast, swollen fireball pulsing and retching out its last few millions years of life. Distended and no longer spherical, it glowed with a malevolent pink fire beneath a cooling crust of black shreds and tatters that looked like rot infecting its granular skin. Firestorms swirled and blistered across its enlarged surface and vomited gouts of stellar matter out into the system. An immense column of excreting gas and matter plumed away from the behemoth star, almost a light year long. It looked like a huge, luminous quill stabbed into the soft ball of that sun.
From the moment of our arrival at the translation point, sirens and alarms began shrilling on the bridge. External radiation levels were almost immeasurable, and we shuddered and rocked through waves of searing star debris. The entire system was lousy with drifting radioactive banks, ash clouds, flares and the splinters of matter they projected, and magnetic anomalies. Our shields were full on and already we were taking damage.
Maxilla said nothing, but furrowed his brow in concentration as he steered the juddering ship in through the treacherous course, negotiating the gravity pools and radioactive undertows.
'It's falling apart/ said Aemos, awed, gazing at the main projection screen and the furiously scrolling bars of data that flickered across it. The whole damn system is in a state of collapse.'
'Any sign of them?' I called to Maxilla.
'We must be right on their tail. They were half a day ahead of us, no more. Damn this interference. Wait-'
What?'
He said something I couldn't hear over the cacophony.
'Say again!'
Maxilla cancelled the screaming sirens. The juddering and shaking continued, and now we could hear the groaning and creaking of the Essene's hull under stress. He pointed to the pict-plate that overviewed the Essene's sensor operations.
'I'm picking up their drive-wake and gravitational displacement, but in these conditions it's getting really hard to read them with accuracy. There-' He tapped a gloved finger on the plate. That's undoubtedly a drive-wake, but how do you explain it?'
I shook my head. I'm no mariner.
They've split/ said Midas, looking over our shoulders. The main portion has fallen back, maybe out of the system itself to a safe distance, and a smaller, core group has continued on in. Maybe five ships, six at most/
That's how I read it too/ Maxilla agreed. 'A fleet division. I'd guess they didn't want to risk sending their biggest ships into this maelstrom/
'I can see why/ murmured Bequin, gazing at the seething turmoil on the main display.
'Forget about the ones that have withdrawn. Follow the lead group in/ I said.
'I would advise-' Maxilla began.
'Do it!'
With the aid of his navigational servitors, he adjusted the Essene's trajectory and set on after the drive-wake of the smaller group, driving in system.
There! There, look!' Maxilla called out suddenly, adjusting a secondary display unit to magnify and enhance an image. It was distant, but we could see the burst-open hulk of an Imperial cruiser drifting in a halo of slowly dissipating energy.
'Definitely one of Estrum's ships. Holed by meteor storms. They ran into trouble the moment they pressed on/
The Essene shook again.
What about us?' I asked.
Maxilla conferred with Betancore. There was a particularly violent shudder and the main lights went out for a second.
'We need shelter/ Maxilla told me frankly.
As far as the Essene's bewildered and over-taxed sensors could establish, there were fifteen planets in the system, as well as millions of planetoid fragments, mostly ragged embers of wasted rock and venting energy. Our
quarry's drive wake led directly to the third largest, one of the inner worlds. It was a scabby, ruined, semi-shattered ball with lingering swathes of swirling bluish atmosphere. Craters covered its northern hemisphere-some impacts had been so large that they had torn open the mantle and exposed the livid red core beneath, like a skull cracked with devastating wounds. Even as we watched, we saw scatters of light dot and blossom across the surface as meteors struck and incinerated continents far below.
We tore in through the convulsing fabric of space, past moons of blood and striated mackerel clouds of dust. A vast sheet of stellar fire swept out at us, throwing the ship wildly off course and hurling silver lumps of rock and ice against our shields.
'Madness!' cried Fischig. They wouldn't have come here! It's death!'
Maxilla looked at me, as if hoping I'd agree with the chastener and call us off for the sa
ke of the Essene. are sure of their traces?'
Maxilla, his hands flexing on the controls, swallowed and nodded.
'Get us down there, into whatever shelter the planet's bulk can give us. At least let's confirm their corpses before we leave/
Descent took twenty minutes, none of them smooth and none of them guaranteeing a sequel. I wanted to use the time to get Lowink or Maxilla's astropaths to check on the approach of the task force from Gudrun that had set out, on my instructions thirty weeks ago, to rendezvous with us here.
But it was impossible. The stellar distortion rendered astrotelepathy blind.
I cursed.
We went in steeply, down towards the dark side of the wounded planet. Blooms of fire consumed crater-pocked landmasses in the darkness below and ammoniacal storms raged in oceanic measures. Even here, with the planet between us and the convulsing sun, the ride was hard and rough. We saw, for a second as we passed, another ship ruin, another of Estrum's fleet splintered and destroyed. A death world; a death system.
'Our enemies must have made a mistake/ said Aemos, holding on to the edge of a console to steady himself. The saruthi can't be here. If they ever inhabited this system, they must have long since abandoned it/
Yet/ I countered, 'the heretic fleet's advance group presses on with great determination and purpose/
The Essene continued to descend, closer than it would normally come to a planetary body. Only ribbons of atmosphere remained, and Maxilla clung to the ragged surface, passing barely ten kilometres above the bare rock. Drizzles of shooting stars rained past us.
What's that?' I asked.
Maxilla adjusted his sensors and the resolution of the display. A huge wound in the planet's crust yawned before us, a thousand kilometres wide; a cliff-like lip of impact-raised rock with a vast cavity beneath.
The sensors can't resolve it. Is that meteor damage?'
'Perhaps, from an angled strike/ said Aemos.
