His audio-visual systems flickered and greyed as they adjusted to the new reality they perceived. Static hash fuzzed his vision and the roaring of an impossibly distant sea sounded in his aural receptors.
The Fabricator General's internal Geiger counter detected elevated levels of radiation - a form he could not identify - and his chromatographical readers picked out numerous compounds in the air that could not be positively identified.
A hazy mist drifted from his body as peripheral systems overloaded, and when his vision cleared, Kelbor-Hal saw that the door to the Vaults of Moravec was open.
His newly awakened senses detected the dreadful power of the things that lay within, whispering energies that were not of this world and which spoke of secrets long forgotten, but were now ready to emerge from their long slumbers.
'Can you feel it? The power?' asked Regulus, his voice no longer the blurted cant of pure binary, but the hashing, static-laced beauty of scrapcode.
'I can,' confirmed Kelbor-Hal. 'I feel it moving through my system like a panacea.'
'Then we are ready to begin, my lord,' said Regulus. 'What are your orders?'
Freed from the last vestiges of human loyalty, Kelbor-Hal knew the time for guile and subterfuge had passed. Since the Warmaster's agents had first come to Mars, a war of words and ideals had been waged on the planet. Debate, schism and dissension had waxed and waned across the surface of the red planet for decades, but the time for words was over.
Now was a time of action, and he knew what order he must give.
'Contact Princeps Camulos,' said Kelbor-Hal. 'It is time for Legio Mortis to walk.'
1.07
Work on the Akashic reader progressed swiftly, with everyone working around the clock to ensure their component parts of the project were produced to Adept Zeth's exacting standards. Dalia refined her designs for the theta-wave enhancer, each refinement building upon the last and allowing an exponential improvement in the machine's overall performance.
Dalia had only the dimmest sense of how remarkable such a thing was or that they were operating on the frontiers of scientific advancement, for it was no more than the application of the things she had learned in her readings and the things she… just knew.
Before meeting Koriel Zeth, Dalia had not understood how she could have known these things, but with the revelation of the aether and her innate ability to tap into its edges, she felt a growing excitement as each piece came together.
Why she should have such an ability and not others was a question that had occurred to her each night as she lay in the tiny, one bed hab she had been assigned. Adept Zeth called it a stable mutation in her cognitive architecture, the evolutionary result of generations of growth and development in her brain's structure that had begun thousands of years ago.
Zeth's answer seemed too rehearsed, too quickly given to be entirely true, and Dalia had the sense that the Mistress of the Magma City did not understand her gift - if gift it was - as completely as she made out.
However Dalia had come to make this connection, she sought to develop it each night, studying technical data Adept Zeth supplied. She read texts on fluid mechanics, particle physics, mechanical engineering, biotechnology, warp-physics and countless other disciplines, finding - and often filling - the gaps in each one where the research was either missing or had not been taken to its logical conclusion.
None of the texts made any reference to the Machine-God or contained the prayers of supplication to the machine-spirits, a glaring omission she found all the more startling given her many years spent under the harsh, unwavering supervision of Magos Ludd.
In the Librarium Technologica, Magos Ludd had a prayer for even the most mundane of technical issues, from the changing of a fused capacitor to the awakening of a logic engine at the beginning of a shift of transcription.
Dalia found none of this in the texts supplied by Koriel Zeth and had asked her about this once as they discussed further refinements to the Akashic reader.
'The Machine-God…' nodded Zeth. 'I wondered when you would bring this up.'
'Oh… was that wrong?' asked Dalia.
'No, not at all,' said Zeth. 'It is good that you do so, for it is central to my work here.'
Dalia looked up into Zeth's mask, wishing she could see her mistress's face, for it was difficult to read her moods with only the tone of her voice to go on. Dalia didn't know how much of Koriel Zeth was bionic, for her armour covered any trace of flesh or machine enhancements. Her body language was largely neutral and gave little away.
'Do you believe in the Machine-God?' asked Dalia, feeling like a child as the words left her mouth. 'I mean, if you don't mind me asking.'
Zeth drew herself up to her full height and lifted a piece of machinery from the workbench in front of her. Dalia saw that she held a piece of switching gear.
'You know what this is?'
'Of course, it's a switch.'
'Describe it to me,' ordered Zeth.
Dalia looked at Zeth as though this was a joke, but even allowing for her mistress's neutral body language, she could tell she was deadly serious.
'It's a simple switch,' said Dalia. 'Two metal contacts that touch to make a circuit and separate to break it. There's a moving part that applies an operation force to the contacts called an actuator, in this case a toggle.'
'And how does it work?'
'Well, the contacts are closed when they touch and there's no space between them, which means electricity can flow from one to the other. When they're separated by a space, they're open, so no electricity flows.'
'Exactly right, a simple switch based on simple principles of basic engineering and physics.'
Dalia nodded as Zeth continued, holding the switch between them. 'This switch is about the simplest piece of technology imaginable, yet the dogmatic fools who perpetuate this myth of the Machine-God would have us believe that a portion of divine mechanical will exists within it. They tell us that only by appeasing some invisible entity - whose existence cannot be proven, but must be taken on faith - will this switch work.'
'But the Emperor… isn't he the Machine-God? The Omnissiah?'
Zeth laughed. 'Ah, Dalia, you cut right to the heart of a debate that has raged on Mars for two centuries or more.'
Dalia felt her skin redden, as though she had said something foolish, but Zeth appeared not to notice.
'There are almost as many facets to the beliefs of the Mechanicum as there are stars in the sky,' said Zeth. 'Some believe the Emperor to be the physical manifestation of the Machine-God, the Omnissiah, while their detractors claim that the Emperor presented himself as their god in order to win their support. They believe that the Machine-God lies buried somewhere beneath the sands of Mars. Some even believe that by augmenting their bodies with technology they will eventually transcend all flesh and become one with the Machine-God.'
Dalia hesitated before asking her next question, though she knew it was a logical step in their discourse. 'And what do you believe?'
Zeth regarded her from behind the blank facets of her goggles, as though debating whether to answer her, and Dalia wondered if she'd made a terrible mistake with her question.
'I believe the Emperor is a great man, a visionary man, a man of science and reason who has knowledge greater than the sum total of the Mechanicum,' answered Zeth. 'But I believe that he is, despite all that, just a man. His mastery of technology and his refutation of superstition and religion should be a shining beacon guiding the union of Imperium and Mechanicum towards the future, but many on Mars are willfully blind to this, determined to ignore the evidence before them. Instead, they embrace their blind faith in an ancient, non-existent god closer to their chest than ever before.'
As Zeth spoke, Dalia watched her become more and more animated, the neutrality of her body language giving way to passionate animation. The miniature servo-skulls attached to her shoulder plugs stood erect and the biometrics on her manipulator arms flashed urgently.
'Wh
at is now proved was once only ever imagined, but only a fool relies on faith,' said Zeth. 'Trust in facts and empirical evidence. Do not be swayed by passion or rhetoric without proof and substance. As long as we are free to ask what we must, free to say what we think and free to think what we will, science can never regress. It is my great regret that we live in an age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of people who try to. Trust what you know and that which can be proven. Do you understand?'
'I think so,' said Dalia. 'It's like experiments… until you have proof, they're just theories? Until you prove something, it's meaningless.'
'Exactly so, Dalia,' said Zeth, obviously pleased. 'Now, enough theological debate, we have work to complete.'
The prototype of the enhancer was brought down from the workspace above and intensively tested within the confines of Zeth's inner forge. With Dalia's intuitive grasp of the machine's structure and Zeth's centuries of accumulated wisdom, the device began to take on a new and more elaborate structure as the results of those tests revealed hitherto unforeseen complications.
Severine spent her days virtually chained to her graphics station, turning Dalia and Zeth's new ideas into workable patterns for Zouche to machine and Caxton to assemble. Mellicin organised their labours with her customary zeal and even her normally stern features were alight with the joy of creation.
Dalia had never given any thought to the notion of creation in the biological sense until one day working with Severine and Zouche on the raised dais, checking measurements on the schematics against those that had been constructed by Zeth's fabricators.
'The housings for the dopamine dispensers are slightly off,' said Dalia, leaning over the skull assembly.
'Damn, I knew it,' cursed Zouche, the squat machinist already at eye-level with the assembly. 'Never trust a fabrication servitor, that's my motto.'
'I thought you said ''Only use a carbon dioxide gas laser for cutting'' was your motto?' said Severine with a wink at Dalia.
'I have several mottos. A person can have more than one motto can't they?'
'I suppose,' said Dalia. 'If they were a fickle person.'
'Fickle?' snapped Zouche. 'A less fickle person than I would be hard to find.'
'What about Mellicin?' suggested Dalia.
'Apart from her,' replied Zouche.
'He's handsome,' said Severine. 'Don't you think he's handsome?'
Dalia and Zouche shared a look of puzzlement. 'Who?' asked Dalia.
Severine nodded towards the empath strapped into the throne of the enhancer. 'Him, don't you think he's handsome. I wonder what his name is?'
'He's a psyker, he doesn't warrant a name,' said Zouche, his lip curling in distaste.
Dalia came around from the back of the enhancer and took a good look at the unconscious empath. In the days since they had first laid eyes on him, he had not stirred so much as a muscle, and Dalia had begun to think of him as just another component of the machine.
'I hadn't really thought about it,' she said, troubled at the thought that she had treated a human being in such a clinical way. 'I suppose so.'
Severine smiled. 'No, there's only one man occupying your thoughts, eh?'
'What are you talking about?' asked Dalia, though her eyes slid over to one of the metal workbenches at the chamber's edge where the robed figure of Caxton was rebuilding one of the emitter arrays.
'Ha! You know exactly what I'm talking about,' said Severine triumphantly.
'No, I don't,' said Dalia, but couldn't help smiling as she said it.
'He likes you too, I saw you holding hands when we first came here.'
'I don't like heights,' said Dalia, 'Caxton was just…'
'Just?' prompted Severine when Dalia didn't continue.
'The lad likes you,' put in Zouche. 'You're attractive enough and though I'm no expert, he seems like a handsome lad, though he could use a bit of fattening up. You'd make comely children and they would probably be clever too. Yes, you should pair yourself with the lad… What?'
Dalia and Severine looked at Zouche's pugnacious features and they both laughed. 'No messing about with you, Zouche? Was that how they courted women in the Yndonesic Bloc?' asked Severine.
Zouche puffed out his chest. 'The atoll-exclave of my clan didn't have time for courting.'
'Then how do you choose a wife?' said Severine.
'Or a husband?' added Dalia.
'Choose?' scoffed Zouche. 'We don't choose. I come from Nusa Kambangan, where children are genetically mapped at birth. When they come of age, they are paired with a partner with compatible genes that offer the best odds of producing offspring that will benefit the collective.'
Dalia found the notion of such a premeditated selection process unsavoury, and tried to keep her feelings from her voice. 'But what about attraction? Love?'
'What of them?' asked Zouche. 'Are they more important than survival? I don't think so.'
'But don't people fall in love where you're from?'
'Some do,' admitted Zouche, and Dalia saw a shadow of some nameless emotion flicker across his normally stoic features.
'Yeah,' said Severine. 'And what if a person falls for someone they're not matched with?'
'Then they will produce children who are of genetically inferior stock,' snapped Zouche. 'And they will be punished. Severely punished. Enough questions, we have work to do, yes?'
Dalia flinched at the vehemence in Zouche's voice, and exchanged a concerned look with Severine, who simply shrugged and returned to her contemplation of the unconscious empath.
'Well, I think he's handsome,' she said.
At last the final iteration of the machine began to take shape, the various errors corrected and the refinements devised by Dalia and Zeth worked into the design. Under Mellicin's expert direction, the first working model was completed two days ahead of schedule and the golden throne on the dais was replaced with the new model.
Diagnostics were run on every piece of the machine, all without recourse to prayers, holy unguents, chanting or sacred oils. Every portion of the device functioned exactly as its builders had hoped and, in some cases, exceeded their greatest expectations.
Two days after Caxton assembled and installed the last circuit board, Adept Zeth declared that they were ready for a full test and ordered the empath to be woken from his drug-induced slumbers.
A thrumming, bass hum filled the chamber as generators powered by the heat of the magma lagoon diverted vast quantities of energy into the mechanics of the Akashic reader. The air within the great dome had a greasy, electric feel to it, and the emitters placed between the psykers' capsules embedded within the walls of the chamber crackled with silvery sparks.
A pair of muscled servitors lifted the unconscious empath from his gurney and gently sat him upon the padded seat of the newly-installed theta-wave enhancer. Dalia and Mellicin watched as Zeth bent to her ministrations on the man, plugging him into the device with eager, nimble fingers. Barely visible scads of light flickered in the noosphere above the adept's head, and Dalia wondered what manner of information was arriving in Zeth's skull and from where.
She returned her attention to the empath, watching as his eyelids fluttered and his consciousness began rising to the surface of his mind now that he was free of the drugs keeping him quiescent. In the time they had been working on the device, the empath had lost weight, and his once healthy physique now resembled the figures encapsulated in the coffers of the dome's walls.
Working beneath their sightless eyes it was easy to forget the psykers were human beings, albeit dangerous humans with powers beyond those of ordinary mortals. With the first full test of the enhanced Akashic reader upon them, Dalia felt an unexpected surge of protectiveness towards their silent audience.
'Will this hurt them?' asked Dalia, pointing towards the thousands of men and women above.
'The experience will be draining for them I expect,' said Zeth without looking up from her labours. 'Some may not live.'
&nbs
p; The coldness with which Zeth spoke chilled Dalia and she felt a knot of anger settle in her belly. Her lips tightened as she looked into the serene face of the empath.
'And what about him?' she asked. 'Is he going to die to make this machine work?'
Zeth looked up from her work, her expression unreadable behind her studded mask. 'Voice-stress analysis leads me to believe you are concerned for this individual's wellbeing. Am I correct?'
'Yes,' said Dalia. 'I don't like to think that people are going to suffer for what we're doing here.'
'No? It is somewhat late in the process to be thinking of such things,' said Zeth.
'I know,' said Dalia. 'And I wish I'd thought more about it sooner, but I didn't.'
'Then the matter is closed,' said Zeth. 'But this will kill him, won't it?'
'Not if your design works as I believe it will,' said Zeth. 'The theta-wave enhancer should expand the empath's capacity for learning at an exponentially greater rate than he will be receiving information.'
Zeth gestured to the myriad of bulky vox-thieves and data carriers arranged around the dais. 'In theory, the empath will simply be a conduit for information to pass from the aether to these recording devices.'
'Good,' said Dalia. 'I don't like the idea of him suffering.'
'Nor I,' said Mellicin in a rare show of emotion.
'Your compassion is laudable, if misplaced,' said Zeth, as a stream of flickering data arrived in her noosphere. 'Now finish the empath's revival process. Adept Maximal has arrived to observe and verify our results.'
Zeth straightened and descended to the chamber's floor, leaving Dalia and Mellicin alone with the empath on the dais.
'Well, you heard what she said,' nodded Mellicin. 'Let's get finished up here, eh?'
'Aren't you concerned at all?' asked Dalia. 'Do you care that he might suffer?'
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