The foul-weather kits were bulky and cumbersome, but they were glad of them. Stones dripped, and every surface shone with liquid. The place stank of rot and organic decay.
Soneka had brought a locator. ‘How far do we have to go?’ he asked.
Grammaticus took the device from him and activated it. He watched the display resolve, and turned slowly, checking other readings.
‘Two hours, maybe three,’ said Grammaticus. ‘We’ll keep heading west.’
Soneka looked at the chart display. ‘You know where you’re going, right?’
‘Pretty much,’ said Grammaticus. ‘The Imperial landing forces will be concentrating on the Shivering Hills.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s where the halting site is, and they’ll assume the Cabal is there.’
‘Isn’t it?’ asked Soneka.
Grammaticus laughed. ‘Peto, the Cabal is as cautious about this meeting as the Astartes are. The Cabal is all too aware of mankind’s propensity for shooting first, especially when it comes to xenoforms. Until the members of the Cabal are certain that the Alpha Legion hasn’t simply come here with the sole purpose of exterminating them, they’re not going to show themselves. Would you wait in the open for a stranger whose intentions were unclear?’
‘Not really,’ said Soneka.
They scrambled down a slope of loose rocks onto a series of wide, cubic blocks. Grammaticus helped Rukhsana all the way. Every now and then, he reached out with his mind, and looked into hers in an attempt to monitor her wellbeing. There was nothing there, nothing he could read, just a blizzard of thought noise and panic.
‘So the Cabal is staying out of the way?’ Soneka asked.
Grammaticus looked back at him. ‘The halting site is just an inert structure, a series of well-founded platforms and deep stone pilings designed to support the mass of the Cabal’s vessel when it visits. Alpharius showed us the scans, and there was no vessel there, a slight logic flaw that he didn’t seem to appreciate.’
‘So?’
‘Alpharius should have listened to me,’ Grammaticus said. ‘He should have come down here with me, instead of landing a full military expedition. I’m the passport, you see, Peto, the matchmaker. I make contact, bring them together, and make sure both parties are comfortable. Then they talk. That’s how it was supposed to go.’
‘But Alpharius is far too wary?’ mused Soneka.
‘Exactly. He doesn’t like unknowns. If he doesn’t know something, it means he can’t trust it. He likes to be in control all the time.’
They ascended a slope through scrolls of drifting vapour.
‘On the other hand, the Cabal is very circumspect when it comes to humans,’ added Grammaticus. ‘I’m afraid to say they have a fairly poor opinion of mankind.’
‘Why?
‘Humanity is a young race, a barbaric upstart child in the eyes of the Old Kinds, but, by the stars, it’s vigorous and massively successful. It is spreading out and annexing the galaxy faster than any race has ever done before. It thrives like weeds, and finds purchase in even the harshest climes. The Cabal has been forced to recognise that mankind is a serious player on the galactic stage, and can no longer be ignored or sidelined, and, of course, they’ve seen what’s coming.’
‘This war you talked about?’
Grammaticus nodded. ‘A civil war. It will tear the Imperium apart. The Cabal doesn’t especially care about that. What matters is that a civil war in the Imperium will unleash Chaos. The Primordial Annihilator, the power they have fought to deny since the start of all ages, will use humanity’s terrible conflict to gain final ascendancy.’
‘They want the war prevented, then?’ said Soneka.
‘It’s too late for that. They want the war won the right way.’
‘Let’s rest for a minute,’ said Soneka. ‘The uxor looks tired.’
Rukhsana looked especially pale. She was trembling from the cold. Grammaticus sat her down on a stone block. ‘It’s all right, Rukhsana my love. Everything is going to be all right.’
She looked up at him. ‘Konig?’ she asked.
‘Yes, yes! That’s right, Rukhsana. It’s Konig. It’s me.’
‘Konig,’ she repeated, and then gazed out over the misty rocks.
‘You know where the Cabal’s hiding?’ asked Soneka.
‘Yes,’ said Grammaticus.
‘We go to them, make contact…’
‘We go to them, make contact, reassure them that the Alpha Legion means to listen, and then I’ll go back to Alpharius.’
‘Go back?’ Soneka asked, incredulous.
‘And bring him here.’
‘He might just execute you, John.’
Grammaticus shrugged. ‘I can’t worry about that. This is too important. This is about deciding what the future will be about for everyone.’
SIX
Carrier Loudon, orbital
‘WHICH OF YOU men is Franco Boone?’ Chayne asked.
The six Chiliad genewhips standing in conversation in one of the hangar deck’s check stations turned to look at him. Alarm flashed across their faces for a second as they realised that the question had come from one of the Lord Commander’s companions. Chayne had shuttled to the Loudon in full Lucifer Black armour.
‘I am,’ said Boone.
‘We will converse,’ said Chayne. ‘Come here.’
‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ said Boone, ‘but I’m a little occupied. We’re marshalling the second wave for drop. Come back in a couple of hours.’
Boone turned back to his fellow genewhips, and they continued to compare and check their data-slates.
‘I believe,’ said Chayne, ‘that you understood my instruction to be optional, Franco Boone. It was not. We will converse. Come here.’
Boone tensed. His men looked on in concern, as Boone turned and walked across to the Lucifer Black.
‘What?’ Boone asked. He was a big man, but he had to look up into Chayne’s visored face.
‘We will converse, Franco Boone.’
‘So you keep saying. What about some courtesy, sir? Remove your helmet so that I can see your face.’
‘Why?’ asked Chayne.
‘Because that’s what men do when they converse.’
Chayne didn’t move for a moment. Then he raised his hands, unlocked his helm seals, and took the helmet off. He tucked it under his arm. His face was drawn and hard, and his eyes chilled Franco Boone’s soul.
‘Thank you,’ said Boone. ‘Your name? You seem to know mine.’
‘Chayne, bajolur, companion guard.’
‘Well, Chayne, bajolur, companion guard, how can I help you this day?’
‘You can walk with me for a moment, you can answer my questions, and you can dispense with the verbal sport.’
Boone shrugged. They began to walk along the edge of the vast deck, past shouting flight crew and rattling tools. An autoloader cart zipped past them.
‘This is a busy day for us, bajolur,’ said Boone. ‘Get on with it.’
‘What can you tell me about Peto Soneka and Hurtado Bronzi?’
‘Why?’
‘I simply require you to answer the question, genewhip,’ replied Chayne.
Boone frowned. ‘They’re two of the Chiliad’s most respected hetmen. One’s downstairs on 42 Hydra Tertius, the other was lost on Nurth.’
‘During the last week of operations on Nurth,’ said Chayne, ‘both came under suspicion of treasonous behaviour.’
‘They did,’ Boone replied. ‘I was gunning for the pair at one point, and I believe you arrested and questioned both of them. They were clean. We both found that.’
‘I am reviewing the case material,’ said Chayne.
‘Why?’ asked Boone. ‘One of them’s five months’ dead, for fug’s sake.’
‘New data has been gathered,’ Chayne told him. ‘It casts doubt on the stories they told us.’
‘Look, Chayne…’ Boone began. He paused. ‘One moment, bajolur.’ Bo
one took a step aside. ‘You. You men there!’ he yelled out across the deck. ‘Pick up your kit, you idiots. It’s blocking the service strip. Come on, you gee-tards. You know the drill. Stay behind the cue line!’
The men from Mannequin Company hurried to oblige.
Boone turned back to the Lucifer. ‘You were saying? New data?’
‘New data,’ Chayne replied.
‘What sort of new data?’ asked Boone.
‘That’s classified. It’s beginning to appear that Het Soneka and Het Bronzi were not so innocent after all.’
‘Listen to me,’ Boone growled, looking the companion in the eye. ‘You’d better have some fugging watertight facts before you come down here dragging the reputations of two of my hetmen through the gutters.’
‘Ah, the famous Chiliad loyalty,’ said Chayne. ‘How does it go? “Company first, Imperium second, geno before gene”? I was told to expect that you’d close ranks.’
‘We look after our own, companion, and I’m not sure I like what you’re implying,’ Boone answered.
Chayne nodded. He knew when to be forthcoming with a morsel of information. ‘There were spies at work on Nurth, Boone. We assumed they were Nurthene agents. It now appears that they were part of the Alpha Legion Astartes infiltration network.’
‘Hurt and Peto? Never!’
‘Why never?’
‘I’d have known. I knew them both,’ Boone exclaimed.
‘I have identified the spy at the heart of the business,’ said Chayne. ‘He was using the name Konig Heniker, and operating under the guise of an Imperial agent. Uxor Rukhsana Saiid was running him during the Nurthene operation. Bronzi and Soneka were arrested after an attempt to remove her from the palace. Was that the Chiliad covering itself, I wonder?’
Boone felt his mouth drying up. He breathed deeply, and steered the Lucifer Black out of the path of a trundling servitor truck laden with ground attack missiles. He led Chayne into a nearby repair shop where crews were working on service parts.
‘Get out,’ he told the men.
They withdrew, puzzled.
Alone, Boone turned to Chayne. ‘Of course the Chiliad covers itself. We see a weak link, we clean house. Saiid was in bed, literally, I believe, with the spy. Soneka and Bronzi were simply covering our arses. I sanctioned them. You can’t blame the Chiliad for that. We cleared up our own dirty laundry.’
‘I won’t blame you, Boone,’ Chayne replied. ‘Tell me about Strabo.’
‘Fugging Strabo?’ Boone asked, raising his eyebrows.
‘Why is he called that?’
‘I dunno. It’s a long standing joke. Do you Lucifers make jokes, Chayne?’
‘Never,’ Chayne replied.
‘Why am I not surprised?’ Boone replied. ‘All right, what’s Strabo got to do with anything?’
Chayne walked away towards the shop’s workbench and inspected some of the tools idly. ‘He made a report, after the extraction from Nurth.’
‘I think he may have,’ Boone said.
‘Don’t be coy, Franco Boone,’ Chayne said. ‘With the Lord Commander’s personal authority, I have accessed the Chiliad’s private record base.’
‘That’s illegal,’ Boone spat. ‘You’ve no right!’
‘Council of Terra edict 1141236a, powers of search and inquiry, as governed by the martial process,’ Chayne responded. ‘During war operation, the authority of any Lord Commander, or commander holding a position of equivalent authority over an expedition or similar task force, or equivalent mandate, may be allowed, under suspicion or general threat of insurgency, to seize, audit, copy, access and otherwise examine any data files compiled and stored by any military section of a regiment under his purview. That’s my right. Tell me about Strabo.’
‘It was nothing,’ said Boone, miserably. ‘Strabo was head bashaw of the Clowns. They’d lost their het. Soneka was sent in as proxy, to see them through. As Strabo reported it, Soneka left the Clowns on station under bashaw command during the last few hours of the Nurth campaign.’
‘Why?’ asked Chayne. ‘Isn’t that rather unusual?’
Boone shrugged. ‘According to Strabo, Soneka just took off. Strabo, and bashaw Lon, who’s a much more reliable source, said that Soneka had taken a spy into custody, and was personally escorting him to us genewhips. Then Nurth came down around our ears and no one ever saw him again.’
‘Thank you,’ said Chayne.
‘That’s it?’ asked Boone.
‘One last request,’ said Chayne. ‘Supply me with the surface drop coordinates of Het Bronzi.’
‘Why?’
‘He is not working for us, genewhip,’ said Dinas Chayne, ‘and he hasn’t been for a long time.’
SEVEN
Eolith, continuous
THEY SCALED A steep slope of jumbled rock littered with decomposing residue. Soneka saw poking ribs and split fatty blubber, filled with liquid putrescence. The stench was intolerable.
‘Come on, just a little further,’ Grammaticus urged. He had become imbued with a boyish vigour. Soneka and Rukhsana followed on behind him, Soneka clasping the uxor’s hand now.
‘Down here!’ Grammaticus called. They followed him down into a depression between leaning stone blocks. A cave of sorts lay before them, its basin flooded with black liquor between the scattered slabs.
The cave was cold and had an odd echo. Grammaticus leapt from stone to stone to avoid the stagnant water, hopping from one raised block to another as if they were stepping stones in an ornamental water garden. Soneka and Rukhsana followed him.
The cave opened out into the most enormous chapel of stone. Moisture dripped and trickled down out of the arched roof. There was a wide stone shelf in the centre of the space, like a stage. The wet rock shone like glass. Grammaticus helped Peto and Rukhsana up onto it.
‘This is it?’ asked Soneka, looking around at the ominous shadows, dubiously.
Grammaticus nodded.
‘What happens now?’
‘Wait, Peto, wait,’ Grammaticus replied. He turned in a slow circle, gazing up at the walls. He seemed to be listening for something. ‘I can’t feel them,’ he murmured. ‘Where are they?’
‘I may have to fleet,’ he decided after a moment.
‘You may have to what?’ asked Soneka.
‘Fleet! Fleet!’ Grammaticus said, as if everybody understood what the arcane term meant. He jumped off the stone platform and bent down beside a rock pool. He skimmed the surface of the water with his fingers. ‘Please, please,’ he mumbled.
Nothing happened.
‘Come on!’ he snapped, flicking his fingers across the water.
It suddenly went very cold.
Rukhsana pulled herself against Soneka.
+There is no need to fleet, John Grammaticus.+
Grammaticus looked up at the cave roof. ‘You hear me? You’re here?’
+We’ve been here all along, John.+
‘Show yourselves!’ Grammaticus called out.
‘Oh fug me,’ Soneka breathed, holding Rukhsana close. She was crying and agitated.
Shapes were beginning to appear around the platform of rock, alien forms cohering into place.
Soneka swallowed hard as he saw the inhuman nature of the things solidifying in front of him: ghastly shapes, mockeries of creation, a gathering of the most disturbing xenosforms. Some were pallid, multi-limbed entities, others whispered their respiration through fluttering mats of gelatinous pseudopods. Others were stalk things, or crouching vulpine shapes, or asymmetric insects. Some were horned, or boneless, or armoured in bizarre environment suits. A giant mollusc uncurled, glistening, from its vast shell. Two spavined avian creatures hopped forwards and peered with bright, curious eyes. Something mechanical rose up on four, club-footed limbs. One entity seemed to be nothing more than a beam of discoloured light. An imposing eldar in pearl white armour, somehow the most terrifying thing of all with its oh-so human shape, walked to the front of the congregation.
Grammati
cus opened his arms wide, and bowed. ‘Hello, my masters,’ he sighed.
An insectoid scuttled out in front of the mighty eldar and writhed its mouth parts.
‘Greetings, John,’ G’lattro announced in perfect Low Gothic.
‘My friend, hello,’ Grammaticus replied.
‘Who have you brought with you to this place?’ asked G’Lattro.
‘Rukhsana Saiid, who is my heart love, and Peto Soneka, my friend,’ said Grammaticus. ‘I have come to arrange the meeting. The Alpha Legion awaits. I’m tired, sirs. This has been a long and punishing task, but it is done, and the Alpha Legion, though painfully cautious, is ready to hear what you have to say.’
Slau Dha, the autarch, murmured something.
‘The autarch wishes to understand why you have brought mon-keigh things with you,’ G’Latrro piped. ‘Where are the envoys of the Astartes Alpha Legion?’
‘I had to improvise,’ Grammaticus said. ‘The Alpha Legion is not easily manipulated. I could not allow suspicion and mistrust to debase this meeting. I did not want a misunderstanding to lead to bloodshed. Now that I have vouched for their intent, we can contact them directly and—’
‘Mon-keigh!’ Slau Dha boomed abruptly.
Grammaticus turned. Peto Soneka was aiming his laspistol right at him.
‘Peto?’ Grammaticus said, incredulously. ‘Control word bedlame. Bedlame?’
Soneka laughed. ‘You really thought that had worked, didn’t you, John?’ he asked. He tossed the locator to Rukhsana.
‘Got it, Peto,’ she said. She activated the beacon setting.
‘Rukhsana?’ Grammaticus stammered. ‘No!’
Stained light blinked and flickered all around the cave. There was a chorus of rapid, harmonic chimes. One by one, around the edges of the chamber, Alpha Legion warriors appeared in the shivering light display, weapons already trained. The teleport delivery left a dry, gritty scent in the air. In less than four seconds, fifty Alpha legionnaires were covering the Cabal from every angle. The members of the Cabal jostled and quivered, and jabbered in consternation. Slau Dha glared and reached for his weapons.