‘Well?’ Jern asked.
‘Our missions will not lack for interest.’
‘Was his visitor present?’ Gherak asked.
‘Visitor?’
‘The ship that docked beside ours while we were on the surface. It sent a shuttle over about an hour ago.’
Teiras shook his head. ‘There was no one else there but Dagover.’
‘Well, old friend?’ Dagover asked.
One of the statues moved. Shadows pulled away from grey armour. Canoness Setheno did not remove her helmet, but Dagover felt her gaze behind it. It was a sensation whose discomfort never faded. ‘Your evaluation of the Black Dragon was correct,’ Setheno said.
‘I understand Inquisitor Lettinger is about to descend upon his company.’
‘Then so shall I.’
The pitiless cold of her voice lingered long after she was gone.
Fearful Symmetries
by Rob Sanders
‘Fidus Kryptman,’ the inquisitor spoke into the identi-vox. ‘Three thirty-two thirty-four. Ordo Xenos.’
The security lamps in the passage flashed an urgent amber.
‘Kryptman,’ the tinny voice of the logic engine returned. ‘Inquisition. Clearance: Tetra-Denticus. Admission granted.’
The adamantium security gate to the dungeon vivisectorum scraped slowly to one side. The young Kryptman waited. Taking off his spectacles, the inquisitor proceeded to clean their infrared lenses with the edge of his hooded cloak. ‘After you, arch-genetor,’ Kryptman offered. ‘After all, this is your world.’
Behind him, garbed in rich carmine robes, stood the master of the Opus Ersaticus forge-world – Arch-Genetor Zillicus Vandrasarc, also a celebrated organicist, had long maintained working relationships with the holy ordos and the Adeptus Astartes as well. The genetor’s scalp was threadbare and his cantankerous mask of a face gnarled and ancient. Kryptman spied the faces of liver-spotted cherubim peeking out from miniature hoods in the ample folds of Vandrasarc’s robes. It was these homunculi familiars, growing from the arch-genetor’s own flesh, which kept Vandrasarc alive, assuming for him some of the cancers and dilapidations of his extreme old age. Each pair of eyes fixed the inquisitor with their withered gaze; Kryptman couldn’t begin to imagine what the venerable priest made of his ear-bauble, brow studs and eyeglasses.
‘And of course, this is your facility, magos,’ Kryptman acknowledged as a female tech-priest followed the arch-genetor into the vivisectorum. Magos Lisbex Orm was Kryptman’s ordo contact on the forge-world. A magos xenobiologis of great skill, Orm had been invaluable to Kryptman in his recent investigations. From the back of her augmented skull hung slender mechadendrites that slithered about her like protective serpents.
‘And this, your highly irregular request, inquisitor,’ Vandrasarc carped back in a chorus of voices, from the many mouths adorning his ungainly body. ‘We do not ordinarily sanction the vivisection of living xenos specimens here on Opus Ersaticus. It’s reckless! You won’t be satisfied until you’ve infected us all.’
‘This is a maximum security compound, and the subject has been transported in perfect stasis. Magos Orm has taken every precaution, I assure you.’
‘You can assure me of no such thing,’ Vandrasarc replied crabbily.
‘I can,’ Kryptman returned, ‘and I can say with confidence that despite the dangers inherent in this xenological research, there is no facility safer, nor more secure, in this entire sector.’
‘We shall see, sir,’ the arch-genetor cautioned, ‘we shall see. What you fail to appreciate is that I am responsible for every one of the Omnissiah’s subjects on this planet, and–’
‘And I for the God-Emperor’s across the Imperium,’ Kryptman told him. ‘Your concerns are duly noted. You are welcome to observe this procedure, as your rank and responsibility allows, but I must now give my full attention to my work. So, if you will excuse me…’
Kryptman entered the high security vivisection pit. The large chamber had been partitioned into two concentric sections: a sealed outer observatorium dominated by pict-recorders, auspectra, gun servitors and thick armourglas screens providing views of a secured inner section. Though the secure section was empty, the walls were adorned with arrays of servo-arms, mechadendria, automaton restraints and surgical toolery. Sentinel weaponry watched over the chamber. Armour-plated flooring and a vaulted roof section of darkened lancet ports, constructed from the same tinted armourglas as the observatorium screens, rose over and above the pit.
‘All security protocols observed,’ Orm reported. ‘All counter-measures employed. Containment is ready for us, inquisitor.’
Donning a vox-thief headset, Kryptman spoke with confidence. ‘Confirmed. All pict, vox and auspex set to archive. Magos, you may begin the procedure.’
The observatorium trembled as a floor section of the inner chamber parted to admit a rising platform from the containment-tomb below. The platform supported four crackling colonnades, between which a large organic specimen resided.
Kryptman felt the bile rising at the back of his throat.
The xenos organism was a living testament to revulsion: a large, bulbous pod, alien in its fleshiness and oozing a mucous coating. Shaped like a fat, tapering bullet, the thing was raw and repulsive.
‘Subject is Specimen Phi-Delta two-seven-four-five-six,’ Kryptman narrated into the headset. ‘Recovered from the orbital path of the planet Tyran, on the Eastern Fringe; classification Rho, tithe grade Aptus Non. Cross reference Technis file zero-zero-one-zero-one-zero.’
Kryptman nodded at Orm, and the sizzling colonnades shimmered before settling to an inert stillness. The stasis field – the integrity of which the colonnades had maintained – collapsed through its chronometric dilations until, finally, the xenos organism became one with actuality. Mucus dribbled and glopped to the pit floor. The pod-flesh began to move, rippling and bubbling beneath its membranous surface.
‘Specimen is rated as Inquisition clearance Beta-Major and a Class-Four threat,’ Kryptman continued. ‘Designated as “Mycetic Spore”, specimen was recovered by the explorator supply tanker Gorgus en route to Tyran Primus and placed in stasis-quarantine. The Gorgus failed to deliver its promethium shipment, because the research outpost on Tyran had been destroyed. The ocean world itself has suffered a catastrophic event. Every microbe of life – floral and faunal – has been wiped from the face of the planet, including the benthic and atmospheric medium. The Gorgus found a dead world. A sterile ball of rock. My own investigations on the devastated planet revealed a data-codex secreted deep below the outpost by explorator personnel. It detailed not only a pattern of other dead worlds on the Eastern Fringe, presaging the progress of an extragalactic invasion fleet, but also the outpost’s record of Tyran’s own alien invasion. It seems that these spores were instrumental in bringing a new and previously undocumented xenos species down to the surface – an organic drop-pod, if you will. To honour the first known casualties of this alien threat, I have designated these monstrosities Xenos horrificus and their breed “the tyranid”.’
‘Permission to simulate aerodynamic heating, inquisitor?’ Orm asked.
‘Initiate,’ Kryptman replied.
Two hydraulic servo-arms extended from their wall-anchors to present the scorched nozzles of mounted flamer appendages. Fat tanks of promethium percolated at the servo-arm’s base as the pilots were ignited. Under the deft control of the magos’s tendril mechadendrites, the pit appendages bathed the mycetic spore in chemical fire.
‘The data-codex demonstrates the tyranids to be a highly hostile and adaptable race – an alien swarm made up of many different forms, each engineered for a specific purpose. Their aggression seems not to proceed from cultural prejudice or territorial concerns. They exist only, it seems, to assimilate encountered life into their bio-matrix. The building blocks of such life are then employed to propagate the tyranid
species further. The gene-harvesting of victim-species assists in the engineering of further organism types and convey upon the alien swarm various environmental and aggressive advantages. A genetic arms race, if you will, in which the tyranid grows stronger with each new conquest.’
As the flamers withdrew and the inferno dwindled, the roasted, steaming surface of the pod was revealed: gone was the mucous layer, and in its place was a blackened shell.
An awful cracking sound filled the chamber and the spore – still burning in places – began to morph into a different shape. As the organism’s muscular carapace proceeded to reorganise itself beneath the cauterised shell, splits and seeping cracks appeared. The thing changed from streamlined ghastliness to the foulness of a ruptured organ.
‘Mucus film removed,’ the inquisitor continued, one finger on the headset’s earpiece. ‘Spore appears to have changed its outward form, perhaps to reduce aerodynamism and slow what it senses to be atmospheric descent. Augur scans confirm the presence of multiple life forms within the spore.’ Kryptman looked up, watching thin wisps of smoke rising towards the darkened gallery above. ‘The first thing that always strikes me about the tyranid is the efficiency of their design and economy of their purpose. They waste nothing, not even energy. It is my belief that the creatures, demonstrated to be so hyperactively hostile in the data recovered from the Tyran Primus outpost, remain in a dormant state until primed. Heat generated by rapid descent through a planetary atmosphere might act as a trig–’
Even Kryptman was shocked by the speed of the attack.
Tentacles erupted from the scabbed pod and whipped their sinewy lengths around the flamer-equipped servo-arms. Orm attempted to retract the arms but the spore had entwined its barbed tendrils through their gears, pistons and fluid lines. The remote appendages groaned as the cogs in their motorised joints fought and slipped. If anything, the spore’s grotesque appendages seemed to be winning the tug of war.
‘Do you want me to use the incinerators?’ Magos Orm asked Kryptman, who remained fascinated by the conflict. ‘Inquisitor?’
The pod suddenly relaxed its grip, allowing the servo-arms to lurch back towards the wall. As they did, the ripper hooks on the tentacles slipped through both the fuel and hydraulic lines, spilling promethium and fluid onto the pit floor and turning the weaponised appendages into shuddering, sputtering wrecks. The tendrils writhed and coiled across the metal floor about the pod, sampling the featureless decking before being steadily retracted into the disgusting blob.
‘Hostilities re-established with an attack on the apparatus,’ Kryptman related calmly into the vox-thief. Stepping to one side, he briefly took in the runescreen bank in front of Magos Orm. ‘Scans still show dormant life-signs within. Hypothetical diagnosis: the spore could be defective, carry a genetic design flaw or simply may have been mis-launched. This could explain the limited payload and the location in which the wayward spore was discovered.’ Kryptman nodded to himself. ‘Let’s reduce the magnitude of the threat. Lisbex, you may begin Stage One of the surgical vivisection.’
Moving in past the twitching flamer appendages, a surgical mechadendrite closed with the fleshy surface of the pod. The prehensile limb was adorned with heavy-duty clamps and retractors, within which a selection of surgical saws, las-scalpels, suction lines and a plasma torch resided. Anchor-clamps thudding into the rippling surface of the pod, the arm proceeded to cycle through its toolery and ignite the blinding tip of the torch.
‘Orm has selected the major axis, about the equatorial bulge of the oblate spheroid,’ Kryptman identified. ‘This being a site of previous appendage eruption, we might reasonably expect to incise between protective layers of sub-dermal carapace.’
As the plasma torch cut a sectional path down through the spore’s surface, flesh bubbled and spat. Retractors moved in and prised the thick membrane aside with hydraulic determination. At this, twin surgical saws closed in to slice and burn their way through the alien sinew beneath.
Ichorous fluids of different colours and consistencies began gushing down the side of the spore as Orm’s handiwork ruptured something within. Suction lines siphoned off the worst of the bleeding ooze but still a clotted pool of discharge began to collect on the floor beneath the pod.
With the same sudden reflexive rush, tentacles shot out from the incised area and grappled the mechadendrical toolery. Magos Orm even flinched at her control-bank.
‘Magos. Initiate safeguards,’ Kryptman ordered.
The vivisection pit flashed briefly with the crackle of electricity. Bolts of energy arced between the surgical tools and across the metal of the mechadendrite arm. The alien tendrils recoiled and shot back into the body of the pod, trailed by steam and smoke.
Kryptman regarded the thing coldly for a moment. ‘Introduce prey specimens.’
The floor at the opposite end of the chamber began to part and another platform rose in its place. Tethered to the platform with ankle chains was an adult grox, with a juvenile cowering between the thick, reptilian legs of its mother. A gossamer net of wires trailed from needles in the grox’s tough hide, monitoring the animal’s biological functions. All horns and scaly hide, the beast of burden let its forked tongue slither out to taste the air.
The response was instantaneous. The grox let out a fearful snort before bellowing and heaving its rugged head, legs and swollen belly away from the mycetic spore – a deep and primal fear. Two of the restraints snapped immediately, leaving the beast to heave against the remaining manacles. The juvenile, knocked around between the adult’s straining legs, sensed its mother’s panic and began to wail.
The final two chains snapped and the grox ran at the reinforced screens, and Arch-Genetor Vandrasarc gasped with all of his mouths before backing away. The grox struck the screen with bestial force, but the thick armourglas held, forcing the animal to slink its knotty flank along the screen in dazed fright.
‘Fear not, arch-genetor,’ Kryptman reassured the Adeptus Mechanicus overlord. ‘Magos Orm has built us a facility which is completely specimen-proof.’
A trill of pure animal terror drew their attention back to the pit: the juvenile grox had been following in its mother’s thunderous footsteps, only to be seized from the rear by the explosive tentacled grasp of the spore. The mother grox stamped its feet and snorted, refusing to approach the alien horror even in the face of its infant’s struggles. The juvenile’s awful cries were suddenly silenced as the pod’s writhing tendrils enveloped it.
Mummified in the slick sinew of the feeler swarm, the animal was dragged rapidly across the length of the vivisection pit. The mycetic spore petalled open like a germinating pod, forming a horrified semblance of a fleshy, dribbling mouth which swallowed the struggling creature whole.
‘Fascinating...’ Kryptman murmured.
With the mother grox’s terrified bellows filtering through the section wall, Kryptman watched as the spore once again assumed a spasmodic throbbing. Rather than muscular morphage, the movement appeared more like hatchlings swarming within the stomach of a pregnant serpent.
‘I see that our guests are no longer dormant,’ the inquisitor murmured to Orm. The magos didn’t respond. She didn’t need to.
The thrashings of grox butchery within the mycetic spore soon moved to the spore itself. The floor about the disgusting thing had become a small lake of acidic ichor which blistered the deck. Criss-crossed slashes started to blotch the pod’s fleshy dermis, while the blob itself seemed to shrivel and contract like a piece of giant fruit rotting at speed. The spore husk rocked this way and that. Something was fighting within. Fighting to be free.
‘Any time now,’ Kryptman spoke into the vox-thief.
Moments passed. The mycetic spore withered and died.
Without warning, scraps of carapace, sinew and flaccid flesh were sprayed in every direction by an internal jolt. Like a lurid blur, a succession of vicious organisms launche
d from the pod’s remains at the mother grox – spindly, chitinous horrors, visited one after another upon the beast of burden and latching onto its hide.
The animal roared its fear and ran for its life, stomping its way around the exterior of the vivisection pit and running its scaly side along the screens and wall in an attempt to dislodge them. Orm was forced to raise some of the larger mounted servo-arms as the animal crashed around the chamber perimeter in raw terror.
Everything about the things upon its back was predatory: their arachnoid speed and mantid gait; their frenzied limbs; their whipping tails; the glistening reach of their scything talons and their rows of needle-like fangs. They were at once gristle-boned and powerful, ungainly athletic and raptorial. Things of loathsome perfection.
The grox crashed to the pit floor, the bone-blades of the attacking horrors slipping effortlessly through the animal’s thick, scaly hide and plunging straight through its innards. The creature emitted one last high-pitched cry as the killers drooled and thrashed their stabbing appendages through its ruined torso.
‘Assimilation of first prey specimen is complete,’ Kryptman began again, without taking his eyes off the latest attack. ‘The tyranids are a highly economical species. Nothing is wasted. Everything is biologically reinvested and reassigned. The spore has delivered its payload and has been sacrificed to fuel the hostilities of a vanguard xenoform – a sub-species I recognised from the Tyran Primus data-codex, although the tyranids seem to be immeasurably varied and in a state of constant hyper-evolution. This particular genus I have designated Gaunti and this sub-genus Gaunti gladius. There are many strains but I think it fair to indicate that, despite their abundant lethality, the gaunts are one of the smaller and less powerful tyranid forms. They are swarming predators that attempt to overwhelm their prey, with a combination of numbers, relentless aggression and almost surgical artistry.’
Hammer and Bolter Presents: Xenos Hunters Page 21
