‘Yes, sir.’
Namatjira took a sip of wine and tilted his head to one side reflectively, watching the drop-ships fall. ‘I believe it will be instructive to learn how the picture fills in now that we have more pieces of it,’ he said, ‘particularly in terms of the Astartes and their manipulation networks.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Chayne replied.
THE DROP-SHIP lurched and fell. Metal spilling from the release claws showered backwards in a glittering tail behind it.
They began to pull two Gs, three. The airframe began to vibrate. Bronzi held out his hand and Mu took it. She squeezed it.
‘Here we go,’ Bronzi said.
FOUR
Orbital, Eolith, continuous
SONEKA OPENED THE cell hatch and stepped inside. He put his satchel down on the steel table.
‘What? More cheese?’ asked Grammaticus snidely. He was sprawled on the cot, dispirited.
‘Get up. Quickly,’ Soneka said.
‘But we haven’t eaten our lunch,’ said Grammaticus.
‘Shut up and get up,’ Soneka told him. He looked back at the open hatch and the corridor beyond it. ‘Hurry.’
Grammaticus sat up, frowning. ‘What’s going on, Peto?’
‘Just follow me.’
Soneka turned towards the cell door and peered out cautiously. Grammaticus rose to his feet.
‘Peto? What is this? Has the primarch agreed to let me drop with him and—’
Soneka looked back, his eyes narrow. ‘Will you shut up? I’m doing what you asked. Keep a lid on it. Shere is everywhere.’
Grammaticus blinked in surprise. ‘Oh,’ he managed to say.
‘Just follow me and keep quiet,’ said Soneka. He opened the satchel over his shoulder and drew out a laspistol.
Grammaticus looked at the weapon as if he’d never seen one before. ‘Oh my word,’ he murmured. ‘Peto, Peto just stop for a moment and look at me. Look at me. Control word Bedlame.’
Soneka turned and faced him. His eyes were vacant.
‘What’s your name?’ Grammaticus asked.
‘Peto Soneka.’
‘What are you doing right now, Peto?’
‘Your bidding, John.’
‘Glory!’ said Grammaticus. He stepped back, his hand to his mouth, staring at Soneka. ‘I didn’t think it had worked,’ he said, laughing in surprise. ‘I really didn’t think it had worked. All those lunches, five months of casual lunchtime conversations, dropping a weighted tell word in, now and then. I thought you were resistant.’
Soneka remained blank.
‘Peto, I’m truly sorry to have abused you this way,’ said Grammaticus solemnly. ‘I want you to know that. We’re friends, I’d like to think. You have shown me great kindness. I hope one day, you will see the broader picture, and forgive me for doing this to you. Do you hear me?’
‘Your voice, I can’t fight it,’ growled Soneka, glassy-eyed. ‘Every day, I could feel you doing this, and I couldn’t fugging fight it. You took advantage of my disaffection. You’re a bastard, John Grammaticus.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. Can you get me off this barge?’
‘I can do my best,’ replied Soneka.
‘Thank you, Peto, thank you. Control word Bedlame.’
Soneka blinked awake and steadied himself against the cell wall. ‘What the fug was that?’ he asked. ‘I was dizzy for a moment.’
‘You were saying something?’ Grammaticus cued.
Soneka shook his head. ‘Come on, I was saying. We’ve only got a small window. The fleet is deploying.’
‘Already?’
‘Come on, John.’
They hurried down through the quiet detention block to the cage shutters. Soneka waved his hand and the cages withdrew.
‘What’s your plan?’ whispered Grammaticus. ‘How do we reach the surface?’
‘Drop-pod,’ Soneka replied. ‘They’re all primed and certified for the Legion’s landing. We’ll head for the bay on underdeck eight. I checked the deployment schedule, and they have been assigned for the second landing wave in six hours’ time, so it should be quiet. But there’s something we have to do first.’
‘What?’ asked John Grammaticus.
‘Something you’ll thank me for. Something I need to do,’ Soneka replied.
They turned onto the vast spinal corridor, and came face to face with a maintenance servitor. The servitor jolted, whirring as it studied them, upper limbs raised in query.
‘This section is monitored and private. Show me your authority,’ the servitor’s vox speaker rasped.
Soneka shot it through the head. The servitor issued a thready whine, and clattered sideways against the wall, smoke trailing from its exploded cranium.
‘Run,’ Soneka said.
THEY RAN UNTIL they were hoarse and out of breath, and cut away from the main spinal corridor into a maze of sub-halls and gloomy compartments. The strips of mauve lighting made it feel like twilight in an empty city. No alarms sounded, but the air was pregnant and still, as if it was about to explode with noise.
‘Where is everyone?’ Grammaticus asked.
‘In the arming chambers, preparing for deployment,’ Soneka replied. He beckoned Grammaticus towards a heavy hatch shutter.
‘Here,’ Soneka said.
Grammaticus put his hand to his temple. An expression of pain, wonder and realisation filled his face. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘I hear her.’
‘I know,’ said Soneka.
‘She was calling out to me, all the time, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you, Peto,’ Grammaticus whispered. He looked as if he was close to tears.
Soneka faced him, and put a steadying hand on his shoulder. ‘John, listen to me, this will be a shock. The Alpha Legion interrogated her, and damaged her in the process.’
Grammaticus looked at Soneka. ‘I understand.’
‘I hope you do,’ said Peto Soneka, and waved his new hand in front of the shutter’s lock reader.
The hatch opened. In a corner of the small dark room beyond, something stirred and whimpered.
Grammaticus pushed past Soneka and crossed the room, holding out his hands reassuringly.
‘Hush, hush,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. It’s me.’
Snivelling and trembling, Rukhsana looked up at him, with wild eyes. She was pressed into the corner, her legs pulled in, and her arms wrapped around her body. Her robes were tattered. She looked at his face and cried out.
‘Rukhsana, Rukhsana, it’s just a beard. I’ve grown a beard.’
She put her hands over her eyes.
‘Rukhsana, it’s all right,’ Grammaticus whispered. He touched her gently, and she recoiled. ‘It’s all right,’ he repeated.
‘Please be quick, John,’ Soneka hissed.
Grammaticus embraced Rukhsana and rocked her. She buried herself against his chest and began to cry.
‘What the fug did they do to her, Peto?’ he asked.
‘They let Shere have her. He went into her mind, looking for you and for any information on the Cabal,’ Soneka replied. ‘The process shattered her sanity. She’s been like this since Nurth, five months ago. I’ve brought her food every day, and tried to keep her clean and healthy, but she’s little more than feral.’
‘Oh, Rukhsana,’ Grammaticus whispered, hugging the uxor to him and tenderly stroking the lank blonde hair that had once glowed like spun gold.
‘John, please, we haven’t got much time,’ Soneka urged. He stood in the doorway, watching the corridor outside. Grammaticus coaxed Rukhsana to her feet, and led her across the dark chamber, keeping her tight against his side.
‘I’ve got her,’ he said. ‘Lead the way.’
UNDERDECK EIGHT WAS an extensive space of industrial metal, thick pipe work, violet lighting and oily shadows. There was a constant background murmur of engines and the barge’s heavy atmosphere plants. Every now and then, a distant sound of tools or machine shop activity echoed back to them. So muc
h pipe and duct work ran along the roof space, the access ways felt low and claustrophobic.
Soneka brought them to a long hallway that had eight massive blast hatches in its left-hand wall. Gigantic rotor fans turned lazily in the roof cage.
The identical blast hatches, each one large enough to accept a large transport vehicle, all stood open, waiting. They stopped outside the first of them, dwarfed by the hatch frame, and looked inside. Four armoured drop-pods sat in an oily black launch cradle, like bullets loaded into a revolver’s drum. The chamber was lined with greasy black hydraulics. Feed lines were attached to the pods, and steam wreathed up slowly from the cradle mechanism.
‘This’ll do,’ said Soneka quietly. He nodded towards the adjacent hatches. ‘They’re all the same, four in each.’
‘Whatever you say, Peto. This is your plan.’
Soneka led them over to the far side of the hallway. Rukhsana remained clenched against Grammaticus’s side. He watched as Soneka woke up a large cogitator system built into the bulkhead. Soneka called up several pages of data, touch flicking through them, moving from one menu to the next.
‘What are you doing?’ Grammaticus asked.
‘I’m checking that the navigation systems are programmed for the venue zone. Yes, that’s good. Set. Right, I just have to countermand the launch notice.’
‘What?’
Soneka gestured at the waiting pods behind them, and then carried on moving through screens and data scrolls. ‘When one of these launches, a notification will flash up immediately on the excursion monitor on the bridge. I’m cancelling that instruction. They’re going to know we’re gone soon enough, and it won’t take them long to realise a pod’s missing, but I’d like to postpone discovery for as long as possible.’
‘You can do that?’ asked Grammaticus, impressed.
Soneka smiled and held up his new hand. ‘They trust me, remember? They’ve given me the highest clearance, built in.’
‘More fool them,’ Grammaticus grinned.
‘This should only take a couple of minutes,’ said Soneka. ‘Down on the right, there’s a locker store. We’re going to need three sets of foul-weather gear. See what you can dig out.’
Grammaticus nodded and hurried to oblige, as fast as Rukhsana would let him. They came back after five minutes with a bundle of suits tailored to fit operatives. Soneka was ready.
Together, the three crossed back through the huge blast hatch and clambered into one of the pods.
Soneka waved his hand. The massive blast hatch began to close. Hazard lights started to flash around the chamber, and a low electrical hum filled the air, mounting in intensity.
FIVE
Eolith
THE FIRST THING that hit them was the stench. It was vile and unexpected, like wet rot, like liquescent decay. It permeated the cold wet air. As soon as they had spread clear of the fumes from the howling drop-ships, it was all they could taste.
The Jokers ran forwards, fanning out across the slick, wet rocks. Some were gagging, or complaining about the reek.
‘Don’t be babies! Get on with it!’ Bronzi yelled. He sniffed. ‘Fug me, that’s awful,’ he said to himself.
The banner was up. The company was extending in a line away from the landing zone where the drop-ships waited, lifting spray from their idling jet wash.
Bronzi got his bearings.
They were in a flat-bedded valley between two lines of rock hills that were curiously regular, like plinths or flat roofed towers. It was cold, but the dampness was worse. The air seemed wet, less than rain, less than drizzle, just a swirling, particulate moisture. He could feel it on his skin like cold sweat. The Jokers were already soaked. Capes had gone lank, and armour gleamed with droplets.
The sky was low and dense with squally clouds. The terrain was grey rock, a hard stone rendered slippery by the accumulating wetness. The stone seemed to have a natural propensity to split and shear in quadrilateral plains, forming blocks and steps that looked unnervingly like they’d been cut by a stone mason rather than geology. Bronzi realised that the rock’s planar property explained why the hills looked so much like cubic buildings. He’d never seen such a geometrically rigid landscape. It was dominated by straight verticals, hard edges and flat surfaces. He felt like he was standing in the jumbled heap of some giant child’s building blocks.
To the west, more drop-ships were whining down out of the cloud cover. Tche signalled that the lokers were clear, and Bronzi sent an instruction to the pilots. Hatches began to slide shut, and ramps retract. The sound of the engines rose in pitch as the drop-ships prepared to lift off.
Bronzi moved forwards through his extending ranks, mindful of planting every step carefully. Underfoot, the flat stone felt as spongy as bone marrow. Cavities had filled with black water, like rock pools.
‘Some order please, ladies!’ Bronzi barked at the lokers. A couple of them had already slipped over, much to their chagrin.
‘What isn’t this?’ Bronzi roared.
‘A fug-fingered ramble!’ they chorussed back.
‘Could have fooled me,’ he muttered.
Men began to call out as they pushed forwards into the lower levels of the cubic hills. They’d found things.
Bronzi went to look, and Mu and her aides followed him, stepping from block to block as if they were paving stones.
There were dead things amongst the stones. Drooling black matter, putrescent jelly, and bits of bone and quill lay in pool cavities or on flat blocks. Some were as large as men, some as small as rats. It was impossible to tell what they had been in life. No real structure remained, no anatomy. Local xenofauna, Bronzi presumed. It was as if some great tide had rolled out and left strange marine life forms behind to rot. That’s what the stench reminded him of: beached fish, decomposing on a rocky shore.
Mu bent down to examine a few of the congealing horrors.
‘Any thoughts?’ Bronzi asked.
‘The brief said this zone was an artificially generated climate,’ Mu said. ‘I suppose these are the remains of fauna types abundant in the planet’s natural climate. They died here as the air, pressure and chemistry changed.’
The aides had all pulled up the hoods of their foul-weather suits, and buttoned collars up over their mouths and noses. Bronzi saw the anxiety and revulsion in their eyes. Huddled in their hoods, they looked like a scholam outing that had ended up in entirely the wrong place.
The Jokers advanced steadily into the hills, ignoring the litter of organic decay. Signals came in reporting that their supporting units were on the ground and advancing. No scan by eye, device or ’cept could detect any contact ahead. So far, the humans were the only living things on that abyssal shore.
‘Keep scanning,’ Bronzi called as he puffed and climbed up the blocks. A man behind him slipped over on his arse with a hard thump.
‘I’ll pretend I didn’t see that, Tsubo,’ Bronzi growled. ‘Oh, fug!’ he added. Reaching for a handhold, he’d dipped his fingers into something slimy and gristly. He shook the gloop off in disgust. The fish gut reek was noxious.
‘Is it turning out to be as much fun as you hoped?’ Mu asked him. ‘Ha ha,’ he replied.
THEY COULD SEE a good distance from the tops of the hills. A jumbled valley of grey blocks and glinting black pools fell away below, and stretched north, into the shadows of a great, dark wall of monolithic cliffs, split by gorges. The scale of the child’s building blocks had increased. In places, they could detect the long, white ropes of cascades falling down rock faces. At the feet of the cliffs, vapour gathered like white smoke.
‘When you said precipices with waterfalls, I thought you were joking,’ said Tche.
‘So did I,’ Bronzi replied glumly. He checked his locator against the maps from the order packet. Mu did the same.
‘The notation says they’re called the Shivering Hills,’ Bronzi said.
‘How long to get up there?’ she asked.
‘A day, if we find a decent gorge or vent to
follow.’
‘Well, that’s where they want us, so we’d better get going.’
He nodded. ‘Are you ’cepting anything?’ he asked. ‘No,’ she replied, ‘but I’m cold and uncomfortable, and that doesn’t help. This is… a difficult circumstance.’
‘I’d prefer a good, honest war,’ said Bronzi. ‘You know where you are when someone’s shooting at you. This is just getting creepy. Waiting for something to happen, that’s just going to rack up the spooks. See what you can do to keep the men level.’
‘Understood,’ she replied.
‘Tche!’ Bronzi called.
‘Yes, het?’
‘Ten-minute halt here. Then we’re going to head out across the valley. Tell the boys to have a drink, and a pinch of peck if it makes them feel jollier.’
‘Yes, het.’
Bronzi wandered along the rocks away from the main group. He slipped the green metal scale out of his pocket and studied it again. It bore a code, standard Alpha form. The phrase ‘Your father cheers, your mother cries, that is the lot of the soldier’ had been written in Edessan to make it personal to him. He quickly substituted each letter for its numerical place in the alphabet, combined them as he had been taught, and ended up with two, seven digit channel codes.
Bronzi clambered up a line of blocks to the nearest vox officer, and borrowed his field set. He slipped on the headset, tapped in one of the codes and waited.
‘Speak and identify,’ said a voice.
‘Argolid 768,’ Bronzi said.
‘Are you deployed, Hurtado?’
‘I’m on the surface.’
‘You are not alone. You were given the codes so that you could remain in contact during this event. Check in every two hours. We will inform you if you are required to take any specific action. Consider yourself on standby,’
‘Understood.’
The signal finished. Bronzi erased the code from the vox-set’s log, and carried the device back to its owner.
THEY LEFT THE drop-pod in the clutch of the scorched rock that had caught it, and moved west along a line of grey, buttress hills in the wet murk.
Rukhsana seemed to have recovered a little composure. Grammaticus believed that seeing him again had settled her mind slightly. She insisted on staying at his side and holding onto his hand.