by Various
From the orchestra came a complex drum beat, followed by the shrill bleating of horns. The spotlights twisted around and stabbed their beams down at the large entryway. Its doors had opened, and through it came a flat hovering platform. A large cube of some kind, draped entirely in purple satin, rested atop it. Four beastmasters, nearly naked save a few strategically placed pieces of armour, escorted it into the centre of the arena. Then, with great pageantry, each of them grabbed a corner of the fabric and pulled. The purple cover came away in equal quarters to reveal a large cage underneath.
Aun’Shi started. Inside the cage were three tau.
They were of the earth caste: shorter than he was and broad across the chest. Their hands were large and their limbs were thick with muscles. Their faces were covered in cuts and bruises, and their eyes were wide as they tried to take in the incomprehensible scene around them. Their clothing had degenerated into rags, but he recognised them all the same.
They were supposed to have been his rescuers.
Arthas Moloch.
The world was cold and bleak: a mottled sphere of grey rocks and white ice fields. Even the sun in the sky had long ago sloughed off its heat and light, until only a brown dwarf remained. Had he not been following in the footsteps of another, he never would have come here. It was a planet that one came to only if one had a specific reason for doing so. Aun’Shi’s reason was to better understand Farsight.
Shas’o Vior’la Shovah Kais Mont’yr, more commonly and simply called Commander Farsight, had been one of the greatest tau military minds to ever live. More than two centuries ago, he had led the effort to repulse gue’la invaders from the Imperium of Man. The last of that resistance was routed here, from Arthas Moloch, and the Tau Empire claimed victory. It was a fantastic moment in history, a triumph of the Greater Good over the uncivilised barbarity of the galaxy. But instead of returning home to bask in well-earned honour and glory, Commander Farsight took a cadre of his closest men and left. He turned his back on everything he had fought to protect, headed out beyond the Damocles Gulf, and established his own enclave peopled entirely by members of the fire caste. He who had so valiantly upheld the Tau’va in battle, had in his final act, completely undermined it.
The loss of so beloved a figurehead, and the unanswered mystery of why he had turned renegade, whittled away at tau society in the years that followed. Many wondered whose example was to be followed: the ethereals who taught that individuality pales in comparison to the needs of the greater whole, or Farsight, whose final message to the Empire was that its people should seek their own paths? At last, the situation had become untenable. Farsight’s influence was more widespread than ever, despite his absence. And so, the tau leadership decided to repatriate this wayward general: to bring him back into the fold and by doing so, unite a fractured and divided people. Someone would have to travel out beyond the security of the Empire, find Commander Farsight, and extend the hand of brotherhood. That person was Aun’Shi.
Aun’Shi had spent his life in an obsessive struggle to understand others. He had immersed himself in the specialities of the tau castes. He had studied in depth every alien species the Empire had come into contact with. Now, he had to understand Farsight. Aun’Shi was determined to go where he had gone, to experience what he had experienced. Only then could they deal plainly with one another. So, he had come to Arthas Moloch.
The tau leadership had forced upon Aun’Shi everything they thought he might need. He left the Empire with a starship full of weapons, diplomats, and equipment, a bodyguard of highly decorated fire warriors, and even a young ethereal to act as his adjutant. The moment his shuttle touched down on the planet’s surface however, he told them all to go home. This, he said, was a journey for himself alone. Even though they were aghast, everyone complied, save for his bodyguards, who claimed that their oath to protect him couldn’t be broken under any circumstances. He nodded, instructed them to guard his ship, and left them standing ankle-deep in the snow.
He walked a short distance to Colony 23, a town established by the earth, water, and air caste members Farsight had left behind two hundred and thirty-two years previous. This was a town on the very edge of tau space, far removed from the regimented, civilized heart of the Empire. Everything had a makeshift, frontier feel to it. The space port, as such it could be called, was nothing more than a large field with a single control tower and communications dish. The streets were wide but unpaved. The buildings were low and round and obviously prefabricated. Aun’Shi liked the place immediately.
The Hall of Records, when he found it, turned out to be the cargo container from an interstellar transport. It had been converted into a three story building. The exterior still bore the markings of Farsight’s final expedition, faded to near illegibility. Inside, a trio of water caste tau, older even than he, were more than happy to regale him with tales of the past. The Commander had gone west, they said, a day’s journey or so to a nearby ice field. There, at the bottom of a canyon, he found a cluster of ancient alien ruins. Exactly what happened next wasn’t recorded, but the aftermath certainly was. Farsight returned from the ruins, gathered up only the fire caste, boarded the vessel that had brought everyone here and left.
‘Alien ruins,’ Aun’Shi mused as he sipped a cup of warm fish juice offered him by one of the scholars. ‘Of what origin?’
‘That is difficult to say,’ came the reply. ‘Arthas Moloch is covered with many such sites, and not all of them built at the same time or by the same species. The ones in the northern reaches, for example, are frighteningly huge in scale, square, blocky, and many millions of years old. Others are twisted and crumbling heaps of stone. A few are smooth and aesthetically pleasing, and so pristine they might as well have been built yesterday. There are even structures on the moon. Arthas Moloch has apparently been something of a galactic crossroads for many untold ages.’
‘If that is where Farsight went,’ Aun’Shi told them, ‘then that is where I must go next.’
One of the archivists laughed lightly. ‘That will make Gue’run happy.’
‘I’m sorry, who?’
‘Fio’vre Gue’run.’
‘Overseer of alien buildings?’ Aun’Shi repeated. It was a title he’d never once come across.
‘A name he gave himself,’ another of the record keepers said. ‘Gue’run is of the earth caste. He fancies himself a master of xenothropology and a student of alien architecture. He spends nearly all of his time camped out at one site or another.’
‘Only returns here to Twenty-Three a few times a year,’ the third archivist said. He was blind in one eye and had lost most of his teeth. ‘Gathers supplies, has some equipment repaired, finds a few apprentices foolish and young enough join him and then goes back out into the wild.’
‘And why should my arrival make him happy?’ Aun’Shi asked.
All three of the water caste tau laughed.
‘Because,’ said the toothless one, ‘he’ll finally have someone to talk to who hasn’t heard all his stories.’
The next morning, Aun’Shi procured a transport and sped off across the frozen wastes. The feeble sun was setting as he approached the excavation site. He stopped the skimmer just outside the perimeter of the archaeologist’s camp, gathered his pack and began to walk. The fabric of his travelling robes retained most of his body heat, but even so he hunched his shoulders against the increasing wind. Tiny ice crystals stung his eyes.
Dark and threatening shapes began to loom around him. The tau buildings were tiny, cream-coloured domes huddled against enormous, curving, alien structures and vertical glacier walls. He stopped when he noticed someone loping towards him. It was a tau, presumably of the earth caste, whose stoutness was comically exaggerated by the thick layers of thermal clothing he wore. He carried a portable glowglobe that bathed everything in the immediate area in pale yellow hues.
Aun’Shi raised his right hand in forma
l greeting. ‘Tau’monat,’ he shouted over the wind.
‘Tau’monat’la!’ the other replied. He ran within arm’s length and then stopped panting heavily. His wore a wide and excited grin, and looked around with childlike expectation. ‘You’ve come at last. Where are the spare parts?’ he asked.
Aun’Shi shook his head. ‘I’m not here to deliver anything, if that’s what you think.’
‘You’re not?’ The young tau’s face fell.
‘Did no one at Colony Twenty-Three inform you that I was coming? The esteemed gentlemen in the Hall of Records, perhaps?’
The youth shook his head. ‘We have no communications array. The overseer says that isolation sharpens one’s observation skills. We requested additional equipment some time ago, and when the perimeter sensors picked up your vehicle, I assumed…’ he trailed off in bitter disappointment. Then he frowned. ‘Who are you then?’
For a moment, Aun’Shi considered lying. Whenever other tau knew that there was an ethereal in their midst, they felt compelled to put on great shows of hospitality and compliance. All he wanted was to be left alone to explore these ruins and delve into Farsight’s mind.
‘My name is Aun’Shi,’ he sighed at last. Personal preferences, he reminded himself, rarely served the Greater Good.
The apprentice’s eyes grew wide, and he bowed deeply. ‘Aun,’ he breathed. ‘It is an honour to receive you, unworthy as I am.’
‘Perhaps we could go inside?’
‘Certainly!’ The young tau stretched out his arms, and waited. Aun’Shi sighed again, then shrugged off his pack and gave to the apprentice. Together, they walked through the gathering dusk towards the nearest building.
‘What shall I call you?’ Aun’Shi asked.
‘I have yet to choose a name, aun.’
‘Well, you are only at the beginning of your life’s journey,’ Aun’Shi said, as paternally as he could. ‘There will yet be time.’
‘Overseer Gue’run has, for the meantime, christened me as Fio’la Cha’la. You may call me that, if it pleases you.’
Aun’Shi thought the name spoke more about the one who had given it than the one who bore it. Cha’la literally meant ‘action creature’, or in the tongues of other species, ‘go-to man’.
They came in out of the wind and cold into a dome-shaped room filled with crates and equipment. Enough space had been cleared to accommodate two computer workstations. A connective tunnel led off into spartan sleeping quarters. A ceiling-mounted heating unit struggled to make the room tolerable. Huddled over one of the workstations was a burly earth caste tau. A black visor covered his eyes. Cables ran from it to a glove on his right hand. He made a flicking motion in the air, leafing through a stack of papers that only he could see.
‘Did that courier bring us a new baryonic imaging scanner, Cha’la?’ he said absently.
‘Regrettably, no,’ Aun’Shi replied.
At the sound of the unfamiliar voice, the visored tau looked up. ‘And why not?’
‘Because I am not a courier.’
Gue’run removed his visor and let it clatter to the desk. He glowered at Cha’la for letting an apparent stranger waltz into his research site, and then demanded, ‘Well, who are you, then?’
Aun’Shi bowed his head. Even though he himself was of a far higher social standing, he was a visitor here. It was right for him to show deference to the head of the household. ‘I am Aun’el Viora’la Shi.’
Gue’run’s face went slack for a moment before he charged around his desk to greet Aun’Shi. In his haste, he forgot to remove his interface glove, and the visor, still attached, dragged across his workstation. Pieces of white stone and electronic scraps scattered across the floor. ‘It is a great honour,’ he gasped. ‘A great honour. I am Fio’re Gue’run. Welcome, Aun’la, to my humble research outpost.’
‘Aun’Shi, please.’
The Overseer paused at the invitation to address one so high above him as a familiar. ‘As you prefer,’ he said slowly. ‘To what do we owe the visit?’
Again Aun’Shi hesitated, wondering exactly how he should answer. His assignment to find and repatriate Commander Farsight was not technically a secret, but neither did he want the whole Empire to be aware of it. There was a very real possibility that it would come to nought, and he hated to raise up the people’s hopes only to dash them further. ‘I am on a fact-finding mission,’ he said carefully. ‘My search for insight has apparently led me here.’
Gue’run’s face lit up, just as the three old archivists had predicted it would. ‘If it is facts that you seek, then I would be only too happy to provide them.’ He began pulling at the fingers of the interface glove. ‘Cha’la here will prepare a meal while I take you on a tour. You will doubtless wish to see the structures I have excavated firsthand.’
Before anyone could even reply, Gue’run had grabbed a heavy coat from next to the door and charged off into the arctic night. Cha’la smiled weakly, bobbed his head, and excused himself. Aun’Shi took a deep breath, and went back outside.
‘I have been told, Gue’run,’ Aun’Shi said as he jogged to catch up to the rotund scientist, ‘that this planet has played host to a wide and varied number of alien species over the centuries.’
Gue’run gave a look of pleasant surprise. He sealed up his coat and pulled a pair of thermal gloves from out of the pockets. ‘The aun has been told correctly. Arthas Moloch contains ruins from at least twelve different races. It seems everyone stopped here to visit at one time or another. Most fortuitous.’
‘How so?’
The sun had vanished now, and the two of them walked beside a string of tiny glowglobes. The lighted path led away from the habitat domes and down beneath the glacier. The biting wind was stifled.
‘Well,’ Gue’run answered, ‘we get to study the peoples of the galaxy without leaving the comfort of the Empire. Perhaps the aun is unaware that I have spent half my life on this world. Fifteen local years. I’ve put names to several of this world’s visitors.’
They came around a corner and entered a spacious chamber hollowed out of the ice. Large glowglobes made it as bright as noon. In the middle of the space sat an ornate machine crowned with sensors and blinking lights. Part of its side had been pulled way, and an earth caste tau sat before it, prodding it with tools. Aun’Shi was more taken with what lay beyond however. The wall of ice was not a typical pale blue or white. It was red. From top to bottom, it seemed as if the glacier had been coated with melted, crimson wax. Jutting out from this was a single, curving structure the colour of pale bone. A large platform, made of the same material, emerged at the bottom. The immediate impression was that he had stumbled across the rent flesh and exposed rib of some ancient and titanic beast.
Gue’run noted Aun’Shi’s shock. ‘Ah, yes,’ he chuckled, ‘the Blood Wall can be disturbing when first seen.’
Aun’Shi licked his chapped lips and recovered himself. ‘The Blood Wall?’
‘That’s what Cha’la called it when we first discovered it. The name has regrettably stuck, even with me. Although it appears the ice is made of frozen blood, I can assure the aun that it is not. The discolouration is natural and actually caused by iron oxides and hypersaline water flow.’ He crossed his arms and looked quite pleased with himself.
Aun’Shi was unable to shake a sudden and powerful sense of foreboding. He gestured up at the alien structure that emerged from the ice. ‘Natural or not, who would choose such a site to build?’
‘The original occupants left few records behind. This archway, and several other similar buildings, formed an outpost of sorts, I think.’
‘You think?’ Aun’Shi knew as soon as he spoke that his voice carried too much of an edge.
Gue’run shrank back slightly. ‘It’s a guess, aun, but a very educated one. I assure you. Core samples taken from the surrounding ice indicate they abandoned this pl
ace more than thirty-five thousand local years ago. Over time, this chamber froze solid, but I have been using coherent particle beams to melt the ice and map the internal circuitry of the arch. In fact,’ Gue’run frowned, ‘we should be doing so now. Please excuse me, aun.’
Gue’run stormed off towards the machine, and began a hushed but furious conversation with the other earth caste tau. Aun’Shi followed behind slowly. Perhaps it was the stifled atmosphere inside the ice chamber, or the disturbing wall of blood, but he felt as if he were moving through a dream. He craned his neck and looked up at the arch. The surface wasn’t smooth he saw, but finely pitted. It wasn’t just the colour of bone. It was bone. Or something very much like it. There were species in the galaxy that utilised such biotechnology, he knew; peoples ancient and unknowable. Contact between them and the tau was infrequent to say the least, but Aun’Shi had spent a lifetime in study. His brain was filled to bursting with obscure reports and references.
Gue’run was still interrogating his fellow scientist. ‘Bentu, you are supposed by running a spectrographic scan of the crystals imbedded in the platform section,’ he hissed. ‘Why is this not being done? Can’t you see we have an important visitor?’
The seated tau struggled to his feet. His environmental suit was rimed with frost that flaked off as he bowed. ‘Forgive me, fio’vre. I was performing the scan. Everything was going well. Then the feedback pulse hit.’
‘Feedback? What feedback?’
‘I don’t know. An energy signature from the arch itself. It overloaded the scanner, and I’ve been trying to repair it ever since.’
