Saturnine

by Dan Abnett

  ‘You’re right,’ said Keeler. ‘I’m not remarkable. Just a person with ordinary features and dirty clothes’ She held the slate so she could look at it, fidgeting with her mitten as if it was in danger of sliding off her hand. The only remarkable thing about me, Hari, the reason I’m in here, is the idea in my head. Apart from a little offhand mention, there’s nothing about that. The way I look doesn’t matter. The way I think does. There should be page after page about it. Hasn’t Kyril talked to you about it?’

  ‘No, mam,’ said Hari. ‘He hasn’t spoken to me about theist ideology. Not to me, or any of the group.’

  Keeler looked at Sindermann. ‘I’m disappointed, Kyril,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’ Sindermann replied. ‘You thought I’d carry on without you? Publicly renounce, and secretly continue?’

  ‘You could have done that,’ she said.

  ‘So could you,’ Sindermann replied. ‘Defying the edict of the Sigillite is sedition, Euphrati. And an issue of sedition inside this city is a problem we don’t need when we already have enough of them. Does that make me a coward? You could be outside, preaching in secret, but something, I don’t know… Pride? Something made you stand by your beliefs. And here you are, making a point where no one can hear you. So let’s not go there. We both made a decision. We have both stood by them.’

  ‘They watch me,’ Keeler said quietly. She put the slate down, and slid it back across the table to Hari. ‘They watch me closer than anyone. There’s nothing I could have done outside. All I could do was keep my faith.’

  ‘And I could not,’ said Sindermann. ‘Not the way you needed me to.’

  ‘But it wasn’t faith, Kyril,’ she said. ‘You had proof. The evidence of your senses. You no longer had to rely on faith. You’d seen it, so many times, Kyril! But at the port especially, with me, you witnessed-‘

  ‘Witnessing it is what broke me, Euphrati,’ said Sindermann. She looked astonished. ‘Faith has a very special quality,’ he said. ‘When presented with proof, the mind does other things. I was elated, for a day, maybe two. But evidence erodes the patience that faith supplies. I began to think, “if He is divine, and I have seen proof of that, why does He not act? Why doesn’t He end this? Because surely He can! Why does He let us suffer?”’

  Sindermann hunched forward, eyes down, rubbing his finger around some knot-mark on the table’s top. ‘My faith could not survive the proof,’ he said. ‘I could not bear the idea He was allowing this.’

  He looked up at her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘An existential threat is about to overwhelm us. I found something else 1 could do, something practical. Everyone needs to work together, contribute in whatever way they can. We need a unity of intent-‘

  ‘The Emperor is unity,’ said Keeler.

  ‘Don’t preach to me.’

  ‘I’m not. It’s just truth.’

  ‘Your truth,’ said Sindermann, ‘and it’s a beautiful one, I still believe that, but your truth won’t win this war. So I came to ask you to consider-‘

  ‘It will,’ said Keeler. ‘It might be the only thing that can.’

  ‘Are you going to listen?’ asked Sindermann. ‘I think I’ll let Hari lay it out for you-‘

  ‘I don’t need either of you to explain it,’ said Keeler. ‘It’s the same argument as when we set out to join the fleets. War is a necessity, but our culture is more than that. It has to be.’

  ‘Rule of law. Freedom. Ethical values…’ Sindermann nodded.

  ‘Responsibly documented history,’ she went on. ‘Progress, not stagnation. Advancement beyond simple obligations of conquest. A human society that does more than exterminate external threats. Because that, to answer your question, is what the Emperor is – the embodiment of a great scheme. His scheme, dreamed in the first ages. Mankind as a great, sentient power. Civilisation. A purpose.Why destroy threats if those threats threaten nothing but our lives? Why are our lives of any value? Because we are more than destroyers. We are not an army. We are a culture.’

  ‘That happens to have an army,’ said Hari.

  ‘I’m growing to like him again,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve been asked to re-form a small order of remembrancers,’ said Sindermann. ‘It seems like a luxury at this hour, perhaps, but it’s not. It represents the things we are fighting for. The essence of us.’

  ‘The ethical framework that justifies us,’ said Keeler. ‘Like the decent treatment of prisoners. Yes, I’ve had long chats with the warden. He makes a good point.’

  ‘Sadly, he does,’ said Sindermann, ‘which makes it essential we fight to cling on to the things that separate us from animals – knowledge, ideas, a moral code-‘

  ‘Is history really high on that list?’ she asked.

  ‘If we survive this, do you want to repeat it?’ Sindermann asked.

  She sighed. ‘Who charged you with this noble calling, then, Kyril?’ she asked.

  ‘Dorn,’ he said.

  Keeler nodded, grudgingly impressed.

  ‘The mighty warlord is full of surprises,’ she said. ‘He really wants this?’

  ‘He wants it done. It matters to him. But he has his hands full. He charged me to assemble a modest body of remembrancers. Whatever else you are, whatever else you may have become, you are a veteran of that service, so I thought of you at once.’

  Keeler picked up the warrant again.

  ‘Nowhere on this does it say “remembrancer”,’ she remarked.

  ‘But you guessed my purpose straight away.’

  ‘Because you never change.’ She looked at the warrant. This symbol, the “I” icon…’

  For “Interrogation”. We have a warrant to interrogate and record. The word “remembrancer” has unfortunate connotations for many.

  We will interrogate any who have the time to speak.’

  ‘And publish where? When?’ she asked.

  Sindermann shrugged. ‘Maybe nowhere, maybe never.’

  ‘Because we’re all going to die?’ she asked.

  ‘That, or the things we record are too sensitive,’ Sindermann replied. ‘Too hazardous for civilian consumption. Dorn has the final say. For now we compile. Collect and compile. The material we gather may be published when this is done, or sequestered for official record.’

  ‘Or burn with us?’

  ‘The other possibility,’ said Sindermann.

  ‘Keeler sat back, toying with the warrant. She looked at her old friend.

  ‘I would imagine the things I might wish to record are just the kind of things our Imperium would restrict.’

  ‘I imagine so, Euphrati. But that’s no reason not to record them.

  I’d like your help.’

  ‘I’d like to do more than just sit here,’ she admitted.

  ‘Unfortunately…’

  The three of them looked around. The Custodian had appeared from the shadows. His gold armour seemed to glow like dying ambers in the prison gloom.

  ‘Unfortunately?’ asked Sindermann.

  ‘The Praetorian’s seal conveys great authority,’ said Amon Tauromachian. ‘But in matters of ideological conviction, the word of the Sigillite carries more. My orders are plain. Keeler is not permitted to go beyond the bounds of this vault, because she refuses to relinquish the observance of her faith. She cannot leave. So, she cannot be part of your work.’

  Sindermann sat back sadly. ‘I feared that might be the case.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Amon. ‘Unlike you, the Lady Keeler will not set aside her ministry. She has been open about that.’

  ‘I believe the Emperor is a god,’ Keeler hissed across the table at Hari in mock conspiracy.

  ‘I know,’ said Hari.

  ‘An actual god.’

  ‘I know, mam.’

  ‘And that’s not a popular concept,’ she hissed, ‘especially with the Emperor.’

  ‘Please stop that,’ said Amon.

  ‘
It’s as if He doesn’t want people to know, or something,’ Keeler said. She looked at the Custodian. ‘So I can’t leave, Amon?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How many inmates are there, Custodian? In Blackstone?’

  ‘Nine thousand, eight hundred and ninety-six.’

  ‘They all have stories too,’ she said. She picked up the warrant and looked at Sindermann. ‘I’ll do it, Kyril,’ she said, ‘but I’ll have to work from my place of residence.’

  ‘What did you make of her?’ Sindermann asked.

  ‘Not unremarkable,’ Hari replied. The visitors’ gate of the Blackstone had closed behind them. They walked across the access bridge, past dormant anti-air batteries swaddled under tarpaulins, to join the busy foot traffic of the main thoroughfare. The stone mountain of the Hegemon rose before them, cased in shield-plate and strung with weapon emplacements that clung like ivy to every platform and ledge. Above them, the sky was a pulsing violet, threaded with black. Sindermann could almost see the rippling distortion of the aegis. To the east and north-east, the sky shimmered with saffron light Abrupt white flashes, brief flourishes of bright sparks, spoke of titanic struggles dwarfed by the distance.

  ‘She was slightly terrifying,’ Hari admitted.

  ‘Terrifying?’

  ‘Not the right word,’ said the young man. ‘A ferocity. Self-possession. As though she has seen things she can’t adequately relate, or knows things she can’t properly articulate.’

  ‘You didn’t find her articulate?’

  ‘Yes. There’s conviction there.’ Hari paused. ‘But the notion that the Emperor is divine… That’s just a comfort, isn’t it? A production of the eschatological mindset.’

  ‘Because our world is ending, she clings to whatever seems to offer hope?’

  ‘It’s a common syndrome,’ said Hari. ‘Like a… a deathbed conversion. In a lime of powerlessness, we look for meaning and a source of strength. The Emperor is that, above and beyond us, so much more than human. It becomes easy to believe He is an actual god, especially as we face what other ages would have deemed to be daemons. The entities of the warp are explained in supernatural terms, because we have no sufficient language to describe their nature. If a supernatural darkness exists, then a supernatural light must exist also, because humans respond to symmetry. The Emperor manifests in god-like ways, ergo He must be a god. It’s a comfort. The resort of the desperate. We seek to believe that some higher power will save us. The Emperor fits that bill easily, despite any evidence or proof.

  Because we want to be saved.’

  ‘So it’s a mental issue?’ asked Sindermann.

  ‘Clinically, I suspect so,’ Hari replied. ‘And entirely understandable.

  Superstition is rife these days. Lucky boots, lucky guns, lucky caps.

  We seek signifiers to reassure us.’

  ‘You don’t think the Emperor will save us, Hari?’

  ‘I hope He will,’ said Hari. ‘I think He will. But not because He’s a god.’

  They walked on, across Hegemon South Plaza, through the crowds A cloister hell was ringing clear, slow, dull notes above the murmur of the throng. It had started to rain, the acidic back-fall of second hand atmosphere.

  ‘Have I offended you?’ Hari asked.

  ‘What? No. I was just thinking you sound like me.’

  ‘You when?’

  ‘Seven years ago, Hari,’ said Sindermann.

  ‘You don’t speak of it much,’ said Hari. ‘At all, in fact. You shared her beliefs for a while. Promoted them. What made you believe?’

  The things I saw,’ said Sindermann.

  ‘And what made that belief fade?’

  ‘It didn’t.’

  Sindermann stopped, and turned to look at the young man.

  ‘But it isn’t a fire, the way hers is. And I don’t speak of it, because it is too easily dismissed as a mental issue. Do you want to know the truth?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Religion was a blight that shackled us for millennia. Faith almost ruined us, many times over. Willing ignorance. The eager embrace of that which cannot be demonstrated. It held us back. Do you want to know another truth?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of. That’s what makes me reticent. That she’s right.’

  ‘Oh,’ said I lari.

  ‘How much would we suffer, Hari, if we are forced to accept that gods and daemons are real after all? Do you want to know a real truth?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then go and find it. Interrogate the world. Find it for yourself.’

  Most of the others were waiting for them under the portico of the Hegemon’s civic entrance. Acid rain drummed on the stone peristyle that had admitted congregations for public ballot for over two centuries. Puddles were forming on the flagstones, and a faint mist hung where stone was being gnawed by chemical action. The bell continued to toll. Ceris was there, bundled up in a quilted military jacket with a fur-trimmed hood; Dinesh in weatherproof slickers; Mandeep, and eight more of Sindermann’s initial recruits.

  Ceris looked excited.

  ‘We have been given disposition permits and travel waivers,’ she said.

  ‘This is from Diamantis?’ asked Sindermann.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘He was grudging. I think we’re a bother he wants to be rid of. But he has to do as he’s told.’ She produced a plastek folder, fat with official documents and tags.

  Sindermann took it from her, and began to look.

  ‘Grants of authority, so we can be dispersed among line units,’ she said as he looked. ‘Some in the Sanctum. Some in Anterior.’

  ‘Some of these postings will be hazardous,’ said Sindermann.

  Ceris scowled at him. ‘Duh,’ she said. ‘Where isn’t hazardous? We stand here much longer, the rain will kill us.’ Someone laughed.

  Sindermann looked up at them.

  ‘You’re prepared for this?’ he asked. ‘There are no names assigned, so we can choose. I don’t want you all grabbing the high-risk places. They’re high risk, nothing romantic about them. And there’s a lot of good work to be done inside the Sanctum. It’s not all about the glamour of the front line.’

  ‘I’ve already begun interrogations in the refugee camps,’ said Mandeep. ‘I’d very much like to continue with that project. There is a great wealth of material from eye-witnesses.’

  ‘Good, exactly that,’ said Sindermann.

  ‘I thought, perhaps, the manufactories,’ said Leeta Tang. The munition plants in particular.’

  ‘Yes, to chronicle that this immense war effort isn’t simply about lighting,’ said Sindermann. ‘I think that’s a valuable approach, Leeta.’

  ‘May I look?’ asked Hari.

  Sindermann passed him the folder. Hari began to leaf through the dockets.

  ‘I’d like to take this one,’ he said, showing Sindermann a tag. ‘1 had family in the north reach.’

  Sindermann read it, and nodded. ‘If that’s what you want.’

  ‘Go and find it, you said,’ said Hari.

  ‘It may not be there.’

  ‘Then I’ll start there.’

  ‘You don’t get to choose, though,’ Ceris told Sindermann.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The mighty Huscarl Diamantis was very clear,’ she said. ‘I got the feeling it was an instruction from the Praetorian himself. He wants you, and a companion, if you like. He has something specific in mind for you. You’re to report to Bhab tomorrow.’

  Sindermann glanced at Hari. The young man was studying the docket he’d selected. Sindermann looked away, back at the group. ‘You, then, Therajomas, you come with me.’

  He looked at the rest of them.

  ‘Well? Let’s begin our histories,’ he said.

  The enemy ramparts were advancing. A kilometre-wide stretch of them: plasteel-threaded ceramite plates, mounted like dozer blades on the frames of gian
t tractor units, rolling forward with their edges almost overlapping. I founding fire crackled and sparked from loops in the plates, or came over the plate-tops from heavier batteries mounted under mantlets on the backs of the tractors. Behind the advancing rampart, in the driving rain, walked the heavy infantry, diseased storm troops, chanting as they trudged, smacking pike-shafts against shields in a funereal rhythm.

  The Imperial line, ranged below the Colossi Gate outworks, began deterrent fire. Field guns began to crump and sling, teams working furiously in shuddering gun-pits that quickly filled with dust and smoke, despite the rain. The first shells fell short, lifting geysers of filth from the chewed flats. Others struck the advancing wall, puncturing ceramite, washing up great waves of mud that plastered the machines. Missile batteries and box-launchers on the outer wall above joined in, spitting rockets that streaked into the shield wall.

  Infantry units stayed low in the outwork trenches, fixing bayonets and readying pole-arms. Chainblades test-rewed. Fire gullies were lit. Most of the troops were mixed Imperialis Auxilia brigades, selection-led by veterans of the Antioch Miles Vesperi and the Kimmerline Corps Bellum, both regiments of the Old Hundred. Among them, flashes of yellow and red, a few scattered Space Marines, spread out to bulk fighting units.

  Banners rose and unfurled behind the travelling wall line. Their profanities shivered in the rain. White smoke was fuming off the open ground, almost pure white, like cirrus cloud, where the outwash of military chemicals and gas mixed with the acid content of the rain had tortured soil. At the fringe, the white billow was trimmed with a fine embroidery of hard black smoke running off the fire trenches.

  The traitor forces had spent nine days pushing down from the fallen port. They had razed almost everything in their path, leaving a tumbled desert of smoking debris where once had stood an entire city reach. Colossi was the holding point, the northernmost and first of the huge fortress lines that guarded the approach to the Lion’s Gate. Colossi had not been converted to defence like some of its noble brethren. It was not a civic structure reworked for war like the massive build-outs at Gorgon Bar. The Colossi Gate was a principal fortress of the Anterior Barbican, a massive series of wall lines and concentric fortifications, its inner lines fitted with their own void shields It was designed to stop and break any advance from the north.