‘I think I might know what these were,’ said Roboute, bending to sift through a rotten bundle of patterned cloth and carefully lifting something small that gleamed dully in the light of the crackling machinery on the roof of the cave.
He held the object up for the others to see, and Kotov instantly matched it to the fragment that had disintegrated in Tanna’s hand beneath the Tomioka.
‘What is that?’ asked Tanna.
‘Part of the firing mechanism of a xeno-weapon,’ said Roboute.
‘How do you know that?’ said Kotov.
‘Please, archmagos, I’m a rogue trader, it’s my job to go places and see things that would get most people a one way trip to an excruciation chamber,’ said Roboute. ‘But, specifically, I once attended a very exclusive auction held by one of the borderland archeotech clans out on the fringes of the Ghoul Stars. Very exclusive, strictly invite only. Even then they were cautious, conducting every aspect of the transaction via servitor proxy-bodies and requiring every attendee to submit to biogenic non-disclosures not to reveal what they’d seen. Glossaic-sensitive venom capsules, neural pick-ups linked to implanted mycotoxin dispensers. Pretty standard stuff among the more cautious collectors.’
‘So how can you tell us now?’ said Kotov.
‘You think that was the first contraband auction I’ve been to, archmagos?’ said Roboute, almost offended. ‘There isn’t a confidentiality technology I don’t know my way around. Anyway, the last lot of the auction was a custom-made stasis sarcophagus containing a xenoform with a weapon that had a firing mechanism just like this.’
As Roboute spoke of the auction, the metal in his hand began to crumble with accelerated degradation.
‘What manner of xenos?’ asked Tanna.
‘They called it a Nocturnal Warrior of Hrud,’ said Roboute.
Phosphor-streaked highways ran the length of the Speranza, neon bright against the darkness. Molten datacores flared brightly, miniature suns against the matt darkness of the void surrounding them. The impossibly dense and complex datascape of the Ark Mechanicus spread before Abrehem, wrought in glittering binaric constellations.
This was what lay beneath the rude matter of the Speranza, a network of pulsing information rendered down to its purest, most unambiguous form. No walls of steel or stone constrained the informational light’s journey around the ship, no aspect of its life worked independently of another.
said Abrehem, relishing his newly implanted knowledge of lingua-technis.
Light enfolded him as he passed effortlessly through the virtual structure of the vessel he had always assumed was as solid and impermeable as any planetary body. He saw the lie of that now, freed from the confines of his flesh and given free rein of the invisible datascape within the Speranza.
Abrehem watched myriad lightstreams converge, their whole becoming brighter than the sum of its parts. He saw geometric shapes transform as fresh data reshaped them. He flew alongside shoals of fleeting data as it skimmed the surface of a glittering superhighway of knowledge.
Sometimes the data clotted, becoming dull and unresponsive until the patterns of light rerouted. Pathways split and the flow altered like water in a river.
What did such changes indicate?
Abrehem had no idea, but he watched the light twist into new patterns throughout the ship, constantly reorganising and reformatting itself. How long had it been since Magos Tychon and Chiron Manubia had sat him in the polished throne at the heart of Forge Elektrus and let the haptic implants in his mechanised arm mesh with its divine circuits?
A minute? A year?
Hexamathic calculus filled Abrehem’s head, an interconnected web of quantum algebraics, axioms of metatheory, four-dimensional geometries, N-topological parametrics and multivariate equations. Even the simplest concept was utterly bewildering to Abrehem’s conscious mind. Only the deepest regions of his psyche were able to process the many illogical, acausal and counter-intuitive tenets of hexamathics.
His introduction to this arcane branch of mathematical techno-theology had been brutally, painfully rapid. Optical inloads were driven straight through his eyes to the neocortex of his brain.
An imperfect means of knowledge implantation and one that, according to Magos Tychon, would fade without continual reinforcement. Only a complete remodelling of his cognitive architecture and numerous invasive cerebral implants would allow the inloads to permanently bond with his synaptic pathways.
Much to Abrehem’s relief, such procedures were beyond the skill of any in Forge Elektrus to perform, and the nearest medicae deck was under siege. So, agonisingly painful optical inloads it was.
But it was worth any pain to see the ship like this, to fly its length in the time it took to form the thought. The largest forges, temples and information networks were hyper-dense novae of light. The command bridge was incandescent, too bright to look upon.
Each critical system was a pulsing star of layered information, stored knowledge and the collected wisdom of all who toiled within. Nor was Abrehem’s sight confined simply to the ship’s systems.
Scattered like nebulous clouds of glittering dust, the Speranza’s crew billowed through the traceries of scaffolding light as microscopic flecks. Confined by millennia of dogma to prescribed pathways, none could fly the datascape as free as Abrehem.
Yet even the brightest adepts were tiny embers compared to the heart of the ship where its gestalt spirit took shape. The sum total of their knowledge was insignificant next to the things the ship knew in its deepest, most hidden logic-caches.
Vitali and Manubia had warned him not to venture too far from Elektrus, that this was simply a test to see if he could fly the datascape at all. He was given strict instructions to keep clear of any system infected by Galatea’s presence. He had yet to learn its subtleties. Many were those whose awe had led them into dangerous archipelagos of corrupt code and left them brain-dead, their bodies fit only for transformation into servitors.
Abrehem doubted any of those unfortunates were Machine-touched, so guided his course down to the nearest datacore, one of many that regulated the ship’s atmospheric content. It took the form of a simple sphere of pure white light, that very simplicity suggesting extreme complexity within.
Streams of coruscating binary flared from it like solar ejections, lattices of chemical ratio-structures, air-mix formulae and the like, all passing into the river of information flowing through the Speranza.
Abrehem took up orbit around the datacore’s equator, glorying in its roaring, furnace-like heat. Its heart was pure molten data, yet something else squatted within it, something that should never have been allowed into the datascape, something parasitic.
whispered Abrehem.
Aware it was observed, the parasite within the datacore uncoiled like a slowly wakening serpent. Abrehem knew immediately that Galatea’s presence was something unwholesome, something with the potential to destroy the datacore in the blink of an eye.
Realising he was in terrible danger, Abrehem tried to fly away, but whipping lines of light lashed him. Pulled him down. Pain jackknifed him. Ice enfolded his heart, his autonomic nervous system crashing as the thing took pains to kill him slowly and carefully.
Abrehem tried to speak, to plead for his life, but induced feedback was eating through into his cerebrum. Even as it killed him, it studied him; curious at this unbound traveller in its domain.
it said.
he said, the words dragged from his mind.
said the parasite,
Abrehem felt its squirming coils crushing him, wondering if anyone in Forge Elektrus would even know he was dying. Would he be convulsing with feedback agonies? Would his body have voided itself as he lost control of his bodily functions?
chuckled Galatea.
ut that, won’t we?>
Abrehem tried to keep his thoughts secure, but Galatea penetrated every defence with ease. It peeled back the layers of his psyche like poorly sutured grafts, digesting all he knew piece by piece.
How galling to die on his first time in the datascape! How Vitali would be disappointed to find that his hoped-for saviour was a fraud. He had hoped to salve the venerable stargazer’s pain by helping him fight Galatea, but how naïve that hope now seemed.
Angry at his failure, Abrehem lashed out.
And a pure white light exploded from him, searing the serpentine coils of parasitic data to inert cubes of black ash. Galatea’s scream of pain echoed across the binaric vistas of information as this aspect of its infection was burned out. Abrehem stared in wonder as the datacore pulsed hotter and brighter now that the cuckoo in the nest had been excised.
The dreadful cold fell away and his heart kicked out like a drowning man as it fibrillated with sudden spasms of life. Abrehem felt himself being pushed away from the datacore, the binaric spirit at its heart wishing him gone.
He understood why. It feared Galatea would return.
He lifted his head and soared high above the main highways of code, feeling vengeful tendrils of Galatea’s presence closing in.