Beyond the energy shielded glass, undulant plains stretched off into the distance, the grey emptiness of the polluted wastelands somehow beautiful to Dalia. Unfinished or abandoned mag-lev lines stretched off into invisibility in long rows of sun-bleached concrete Ts, and the sight brought a forlorn ache to Dalia’s chest.
It had been years since she had seen a landscape as vast as this, and even though it was bleak and inhospitable, it was wide open and the heavens above held the landscape protectively close to them. Bands of pollutants striped the sky like sedimentary rock, and columns of light pierced the darkness as ships broke atmosphere.
A shiver travelled the length of Dalia’s spine as she felt the aching loneliness that had become part of her soul since her connection with the thing beneath the Noctis Labyrinthus. The desolate emptiness outside was so endless that Dalia could easily imagine Mars to be dead, a world utterly scoured of life and abandoned for all eternity.
She was tired, but couldn’t sleep. The black emptiness behind her eyes lurked in the back of her mind like a hidden predator that would strike the instant she allowed the shadows to cloak it.
‘Can’t sleep, eh?’ asked Zouche, and Dalia looked up. She had thought him to be asleep.
‘No,’ agreed Dalia, keeping her voice low. ‘A lot on my mind.’
Zouche nodded and ran a hand over his shaven scalp. ‘Understandable. We’re out on a limb, Dalia. I just hope this journey turns out to be worth it.’
‘I know it will, Zouche,’ promised Dalia.
‘What do you think we’re going to find out there?’
‘Honestly, I’m not sure. But whatever it is, I know it’s in pain. It’s been trapped in the darkness for such a long time and it’s suffering. We have to find it.’
‘And what happens when we do?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When we find this thing, this… dragon. Are you thinking about freeing it?’
‘I think we have to,’ said Dalia. ‘Nothing deserves to suffer like it’s suffering.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ said Zouche.
‘You think I’m wrong to want to help?’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Zouche, ‘but what if this thing is meant to suffer? After all, we don’t know for sure who put it there, so perhaps they had a very good reason to do so? We don’t know what it is, so maybe whatever it is should be left in the darkness forever.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ said Dalia. ‘Nothing deserves to suffer forever.’
‘Some things do,’ said Zouche, his voice little more than a hushed whisper.
‘What, Zouche?’ demanded Dalia. ‘Tell me who or what deserves to suffer forever?’
Zouche met her stare. She could see that it was taking all his control to maintain his composure and she wondered what door she’d opened with her question. He sat in silence for a moment, then said, ‘Back before people lived freely on Nusa Kambangan, it was once a prison, a hellish place where the worst of the worst were locked up – murderers, clone-surgeons, rapists, gene-thieves and serial killers. And tyrants.’
‘Tyrants?’
‘Oh, yes indeed,’ said Zouche, and Dalia thought she detected more than a hint of bitter pride in his voice. ‘Cardinal Tang himself was held there.’
‘Tang? The Ethnarch?’
‘The very same,’ nodded Zouche. ‘When his last bastion fell, he was taken in chains to Nusa Kambangan, though he was only there a few days. Word got out of who he was and another prisoner cut his throat. Though if you ask me, he got off lightly.’
‘Having your throat cut is getting off lightly?’ asked Dalia, horrified by Zouche’s coldness.
‘After what Tang did? Absolutely,’ said Zouche. ‘After all the bloody pogroms, death camps and genocides, you think his suffering should have ended swiftly? Tang deserved to rot in the deepest, darkest hole of Terra, condemned to suffer the same torments and agonies he inflicted on his victims. In the end, his suffering was much quicker than the millions he put to death during his reign. So, yes, I make no apology for thinking he got off lightly. Trust me, Dalia, there are some that deserve to be left in the darkness to pay for their crimes for all eternity.’
Tears rolled down Zouche’s cheeks as he spoke, and Dalia felt a wave of sorrow as she felt a measure of his pain, even though she didn’t fully understand it.
‘My parents died in one of Tang’s camps,’ continued Zouche, wiping the tears away with the sleeve of his robe.
‘For the crime of falling in love when they were genetically assigned to other partners. They kept their relationship a secret, but when I was born it was obvious to everyone they’d produced an inferior offspring and they were hauled off to Tang’s death camp on Roon Island.’
‘Oh, Zouche, that’s terrible,’ said Dalia. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.’
Zouche shrugged and stared beyond the glass of the compartment. ‘How could you? But it doesn’t matter. Tang’s dead and the Emperor guides us now. People like Tang won’t ever rise again now that the Imperium’s in his hands.’
‘You’re not inferior,’ said Dalia, cutting across his train of words.
‘What?’ he said, looking back at her.
‘I said you’re not inferior,’ repeated Dalia. ‘You might think you are because you look different to the rest of us, but you’re not. You’re a brilliant engineer and a loyal friend. I’m glad you’re with me, Zouche. I really am.’
He smiled and nodded. ‘I know you are and I’m grateful for that, but I know what I am. You’re a good girl, Dalia, so I’d be obliged if you didn’t mention this to anyone, you understand?’
‘Of course,’ said Dalia. ‘I won’t say a word. I think the rest are going to sleep all the way there, anyway.’
‘Quite probably,’ agreed Zouche, a discreetly extended mechadendrite linking with the port in the compartment’s wall. Flickering light ghosted behind his eyelids as he linked with the mag-lev’s onboard logic-engine. It was easy to forget that the Mechanicum had substantially modified Zouche, for most of his augmetics were subtle, and he was reticent about openly displaying them to one not of the Cult Mechanicum. ‘It’s going to take us two days to reach the point nearest the Noctis Labyrinthus, an outlying hub of Mondus Gamma in the northern Syrian sub-fabriks.’
‘Two days? Why so long?’
‘This is a supply train,’ explained Zouche. ‘We’re going to pass through a lot of the borderland townships on the edge of the pallidus. According to the onboard timetable, we’re about to reach Ash Border, then we’ll pass through Dune Town, Crater Edge and Red Gorge before we begin the descent to the Syria Planum and Mondus Gamma.’
‘Not big on originality when it comes to their settlement names, are they?’ observed Dalia.
‘Not really, I suppose they just name it as they see it,’ said Zouche. ‘When you live out on the edge of civilisation, there’s a virtue in simplicity.’
‘I think there’s a virtue in that wherever you are,’ said Dalia.
THE HAB WAS warm, but then it was always warm. Hot air rising from the magma lagoon rolled up the flanks of the volcano in dry, parching waves to leach the moisture from the air like a giant dehumidifier.
Mellicin lay on her bed, with one hand thrown over her forehead. Sweat gathered in the spoons of her collarbones and she felt uncomfortably sticky and hot. The atomiser was turned on, but might as well have been switched off for all the difference it was making. She rolled onto her side, unable to sleep and unable to stop thinking of what might be happening to Dalia and the others.
She told herself it wasn’t guilt, but only half-believed it.
Zeth had placed her with Dalia with the express purpose of passing on her impressions and insights into the young transcriber’s mind, and that was exactly what she had done. There had been no betrayal, no breach of trust and certainly no disloyalty.
The only betrayal would have been if she had failed in her duty to her mistress.
Why, then, did she feel so ba
d about telling Adept Zeth of Dalia’s plans?
Mellicin knew exactly why she felt bad.
In the weeks she had worked with Dalia Cythera, Mellicin had rediscovered the joy of working on the frontiers of technology. Together they had discovered new and wondrous things, devices and theoretical science that they had gone on to prove valid. How long had it been since she, or indeed anyone in the Mechanicum, had done that? True, Adept Zeth was forever pushing the boundaries of what was known and accepted, but she was a tiny cog in a larger machine and there was only so much she dared risk.
The Mechanicum was old and unforgiving with those who disobeyed its strictures.
They had been gone less than a day and already she missed them. She wished she knew where they were so she could have tapped into the Martian networks to follow their progress, but she had wiped Dalia’s destination from her memory coils.
Right now, they could be anywhere, en route to the far side of the planet for all she knew.
Mellicin had got used to their foibles, strengths and blind spots. She had nurtured them, blended them together until they were a team, working more efficiently and more enthusiastically than any of them had ever worked before.
Now they were off making good use of that mentoring and she was left behind.
She swung her legs out of bed and ran a hand through her hair. It was matted and sweaty, and no amount of time in the sonic shower would make it feel clean. She padded softly from the bed alcove and made her way to the kitchenette to fix a pot of caffeine. If she wasn’t going to get any sleep, she might as well use the time productively.
She yawned as the heating ring fired the pot, wiping sweat from her brow as the pot bubbled and hissed. She poured a cup and sat in the dining nook within the polarised glass bay that looked out over the surface of the red planet.
This high up, Mellicin was above the distorting fumes that filmed the lower level windows with grime and pyroclastic deposits. Far below her, the Magma City blazed with light, an ocean of glowing industry in a desert of industrial wasteland. Silver trails of mag-levs spun out from the city, travelling to all parts of Mars, but beyond them the planet was shrouded in banks of dust and polluted fogs.
Mellicin put down her cup and leaned her forehead on the hot glass. Lights moved in the city, and glittering transits ferried cargo and supplies to the port facilities.
‘Wherever you are, Dalia, I wish you well,’ she whispered, feeling very alone.
She frowned as she realised she wasn’t alone.
Her biometric surveyors were reading another life form in her hab.
‘I was wondering when you would notice me,’ said a voice from the shadows.
Mellicin jumped at the sound, looking up in frozen surprise as a lithe, sensual woman glided from the darkness. She was clad in a skin-tight red bodyglove and a pair of finely-wrought pistols were sheathed at her hips.
Mellicin covered her surprise and said, ‘I knew you were there, I was just waiting to see when you would announce yourself.’
‘A lie, but one necessary for you to feel you are still in control,’ said the woman.
‘Who are you, and what are you doing in my hab?’ asked Mellicin, still too surprised to feel anything but annoyance.
‘My name is irrelevant, because soon you won’t remember it,’ said the woman, and as she moved into the light, Mellicin saw the golden death mask she wore. ‘But for the record, it is Remiare.’
Mellicin’s annoyance turned to fear as she realised what this woman was. ‘That’s half my question answered.’
Remiare cocked her head to one side and said, ‘You still think you have a measure of control, don’t you?’
‘What do you want?’ asked Mellicin, pushing herself further into the dining nook.
‘You know what I want.’
‘No, actually,’ said Mellicin, ‘I don’t.’
‘Then I shall tell you,’ said Remiare. ‘I want you to tell me the whereabouts and destination of Dalia Cythera.’
Mellicin furrowed her brow, as if in thought, and activated her silent alarm. Adept Zeth would now be aware of her plight and a squad of Mechanicum Protectors would soon be despatched to her rescue. All she had to do was stall.
‘Dalia?’ she said at last. ‘Why do you want to know about her?’
‘No more questions,’ said Remiare. ‘Tell me what I want to know and I promise you won’t suffer.’
‘I can’t,’ said Mellicin. ‘Even if I wanted to. I might have known what you want, but I don’t remember anymore.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘I’m not. Adept Zeth had me erase any knowledge of where Dalia was going from my memory coils.’
She regretted her smug tone instantly as Remiare ghosted closer and Mellicin saw the red light of the magma lagoon reflected on her death mask. Her face was the visage of something vile and terrible, a leering monster from her darkest nightmares. Even amid her fear, she recognised the exquisite work of the assassin’s gravitic thrusters, the sinuous form of a killer bred and trained from birth.
‘Then that’s very bad news for you.’
‘And why’s that?’ asked Mellicin, trying to muster some bravado.
‘Because nothing is ever really erased, Mellicin,’ said Remiare as a silver spike extended from her forefinger.
Despite the heat in the small dwelling hab, Mellicin suddenly felt very cold indeed as she recognised it as a data spike.
‘Why do you want to find Dalia?’ asked Mellicin, the words coming out in a fear-induced rush. ‘I mean, she’s nothing, just a transcriber from Terra. All she did was take notes of our work. Really, why do you want her?’
Remiare’s head darted forward like a feeding bird’s and she laughed, the sound soulless and dead. ‘You are trying to keep me talking because you believe help is on its way, but it isn’t. No one is coming, Mellicin. I am the only one hearing that insultingly simple silent alarm your implants are broadcasting.’
‘I’m telling you, I erased the things you’re looking for!’
‘You may have erased your memory coils, but the soft meat beneath remembers,’ said Remiare while softly wagging her finger. ‘The Mechanicum never deletes anything.’
Mellicin glanced down at her cup of caffeine and wondered if she would be quick enough to throw it in the assassin’s face. That question was answered a moment later. One second, the red-clad woman was standing before her, the next she was seated next to her, pressing her against the warm glass of her hab.
A hand with fingers like steel rods shot out and gripped her throat, tilting her head back.
‘I don’t know what you want!’ screamed Mellicin as the assassin’s data spike pressed against the augmetic orb that replaced her right eye.
‘I’ll find what I want,’ promised Remiare. ‘All I have to do is dig deep enough.’
2.06
HE HAD ALWAYS dreaded this, but now that it was his life, he knew there had been nothing to fear. In the world of flesh, his body had been aging and weakening, but here in this world of amniotic suspension he was all-powerful and all-conquering.
In a simulated engine war, Princeps Cavalerio fought and killed like a living metal god, bestriding the virtual arena like a colossus of battle. His enemies died: skitarii crushed underfoot, Reavers torn to pieces in the terrible, smashing hell of engine combat and Warlords blasted apart with weapons fire in murderous killing salvoes.
The world of flesh was over for Cavalerio. The world of metal was now his domain.
Liquid data spiralled around him, fed to him through receptors implanted beneath his skin, filling his sensory apparatus with information that would overwhelm the brains of those less augmented than he. Darts of light, each one carrying a welter of data, swirled around him like shoals of glowing fish as he ended yet another simulation as the victor.
Cavalerio was unrecognisable as the spare, limping mortal that had walked the surface of Mars. A man he had been, but a creation of the Mechanicum he was now. His pallid
flesh floated in nutrient-rich jelly, hung from a multitude of cables that connected him to the world around him in ways too numerous to count.
Each day since his incarceration within the casket brought new attachments, new augmetics and new sensations. Only now did he realise how imperfect had his existence been as a mere mortal, confined to a mere five senses.
A thick inflexible cable pierced his spine between the lumbar vertebrae, while other, more delicate wires were plugged into his eye sockets. A forest of cables extruded from the rear of his cranial cavity that would link to the Manifold when he once again took charge of an engine. Both arms were encased in metal to his elbows, and both his feet had been amputated and replaced with haptic sheaths.
The transition had been difficult and not without setbacks, but his famulous, Agathe, had been with him every step of the way, soothing him, cajoling him and encouraging him to overcome every problem. Though initially hostile to the idea of a famulous, Cavalerio now appreciated how vital such a person was when you were confined to an amniotic tank.
The terrible, aching loss of Victorix Magna still haunted his nightmares, as he knew it would for the rest of his days. No princeps survived the death of his engine without psychological scarring, but with every simulated engagement, his warlike confidence grew stronger. Soon his ability to command an engine became faster and more efficient, until he knew he was better than he ever had been in his previous life.
As this latest simulation came to an end, the fury of battle and the exhilaration of connection faded from his consciousness with a sharp pang of regret. It wasn’t the same as physically disengaging from an engine, but it was close, and he could already feel the hunger to go back in creeping at the edge of his psyche.
he canted in a soft sigh of binary.
His awareness of the world around him swam into focus as the images of battle faded like banished phantoms. Slowly the world of reality began to impose itself on his perception. Though Cavalerio no longer saw the world as he once had, the sensorium installed as part of his casket allowed him even greater acuity than ever before. He identified the biometrics of the two people standing in his casket chamber before any visual recognition was made.