by Guy Haley
Abhani let out an angry noise and shook off her mother’s hand.
‘Be at peace, granddaughter. We are understrength. We are hunter killers. The battle to retake Theta-Garmon V will be a head-on clash between scores of heavy maniples. If we face the Tiger Eyes and Legio Vulpa in open combat, they will be victorious. Let the Firebrands earn their glory here. This is their kind of war. We will be more useful elsewhere.’
‘I won’t have it. Those dogs of the Legio Vulpa are still here! We can kill them, take them down. It’s our right! Why can’t we stay and aid the Firebrands?’
Mohana Mankata Vi’s outline moved in the amnion.
‘Ah, Abhani Lus, I see where your demands stem from. Your hatred of our old rivals is commendable, but your modus is unbecoming for a princeps. You will remember your place, and calm yourself, or your position as commander of the Os Rubrum shall be granted to another. Perhaps a spell as a steersman will cool your temper, and allow you time to think properly on the strategic exigencies of engine war.’
Abhani’s face went white. ‘I…’
‘Kneel, Abhani Lus.’
Abhani dropped to her knees. Her reddish hair flopped over her face, hiding her shame.
‘I do not judge you harshly, granddaughter, for I too suffer the burden of human emotion. Do you think I called you here to relay this piece of information, when you could receive it with the rest of the order? Why do you think a mere Warhound princeps should be brought into my presence? I assure you it is not because I seek your counsel. I do you honour by speaking with you of such matters, and you show your respect by questioning my judgement?’
‘I am sorry, forgive me. Do not take Os Rubrum from me. I will show my worth, I swear!’ Abhani said.
Mohana Mankata Vi’s tone softened. ‘I wished to see you both because the Legio will most likely be split. Perhaps not immediately, but it will have to be so. Esha is the last of my natural daughters, you are my last true granddaughter. The pair of you are part of me, not creatures spun of artificial genes whose code was stolen from my own, or clones born from copies of copies. You are my children. We are family.’ Her voice quietened further. ‘That once meant something to humanity, before this madness we experience replaced the brief hope of Imperium. Stand, granddaughter. Come close to my tank. Forget your anger, remember our bond.’
Abhani moved to the glass. Something came forward. Esha saw her mother’s silhouette more clearly than she had for a dozen years. Despite the lines snaking back through the liquid and all the accoutrements of technology sustaining her life far beyond its natural span, she was still human. A shadowed head moved closer, then a hand thumped against the glass. It was white, pallid, swollen with fluid absorbed from the amnion, but it was a hand of flesh and blood. A living hand. Abhani flinched.
‘Yes, yes,’ Mohana Mankata Vi said, as if seeing Abhani for the first time. ‘Handsome, upright, as a woman of House Vi should be. I see you, Abhani Lus. You are like me. I too was proud and headstrong. Unbridled power was my reward. So too was this watery prison. Master your impulsive nature, or it will be your undoing.’ The hand squeaked down the glass and vanished back into the murk. ‘I am glad to see you, but you have much to learn. We are family and remember that counts for much, but remember also that always, always Legio comes first.’
‘I swear I shall learn,’ said Abhani. ‘I shall redouble my efforts. Triple them. I am sorry.’
‘Give me the satisfaction of pride in your maturity, not apologies for its lack. Now go, granddaughter of mine. I wish to speak to your mother. May the Machine-God guide you to better understanding, and watch over the functioning of your machine.’
The door opened. Abhani bowed, and made her way back out of the cramped confines of the czella. The door shut behind her.
‘You still have not told her, last of my daughters,’ said Mohana Mankata Vi when she and Esha were alone.
‘No. I never will. She cannot know.’
In the tank, Mohana Mankata Vi’s head moved within its nest of cables.
‘Maybe that is for the best. Maybe it would have been for the best even were we not at war. Abhani Lus abhors the Death Stalkers, as any woman of our Legio should, but her hatred of Vulpa surpasses that of any other huntress. This is the mark of her father. Vulpa are a vengeful, angry breed. Perhaps, I wonder, does she know, deep down?’ She paused. ‘But then who needs any other reason to hate the Death Stalkers, their being what they are. The Legio Vulpa are cruel warriors.’
‘They are not alone,’ said Esha. ‘There has always been a surfeit of cruelty among the armies of the Emperor.’
‘Do you defend our erstwhile allies, daughter?’
‘I do not,’ said Esha. She looked above the Great Mother, where the glass narrowed, and the great bundle of cabling that kept her alive entered through a thin neck of glass collared in metal. ‘What they did was indefensible. Even before they turned traitor their methods were questionable.’ She looked at the greyish blob that was Mohana Mankata Vi’s head. She wondered what the old woman must look like. Esha had been born so long after Mohana Mankata Vi had been submerged in the tank, the last of her frozen ova successfully brought to term, that she had never seen her mother as a young woman. She had seen picts, and it was said by those who had known Mohana when she was still mortal that Esha resembled her a great deal. Esha’s imagination, usually so ruthlessly subordinated to the task of commanding her Reaver, filled in for her a picture of horrific decrepitude, of skin so loose it hung like wet, white cloth, and eyes shrivelled to black fruit pits. She had never been able to see her mother as anything other than a crone, and she saw the same fate approaching for herself in the mirror as age laid its siege lines over her face. ‘I do question if they ever had much choice. If any of us did.’
Mohana Mankata Vi’s voxmitter let out a curious electronic blurt. Perhaps it took the place of a sigh. It was doubtful the machine priests had included mental pattern recognition for something so human as a meaningful exhalation. To many of them, such a human, flesh-bound thing would appear devoid of informational content. It chilled Esha how far the priests of their religion had diverged from humanity.
‘I think that sometimes,’ said Mohana Mankata Vi. ‘But I am in error doing so. All the achievements and woes of my life stem from one instant of decision. You are familiar with how I became Grand Master?’
‘Of course,’ said Esha. She hesitated. ‘Great Mother, I have heard the story a score of times from you yourself.’
The Great Mother was silent for a moment. ‘I am growing forgetful. A consequence of old age,’ she said. ‘I could have left the prize behind. Instead I took it up. All this would have been otherwise had I not. Legio Solaria would have been a very different Legio. It would not bear the cognomen of the Imperial Hunters, were its engines not piloted by experts of the hunt. If the Knights rather than the huntresses of House Vi had given their gene stock and traditions to Tigris, perhaps it would be no better an order than the Death Stalkers. But we shall never know, because that did not happen.’
‘Indeed not,’ said Esha.
‘Do you believe in fate?’ asked the Great Mother.
Esha shifted slightly. She clasped her hands behind her back, and straightened her spine.
‘You are uncomfortable answering,’ said the Great Mother. ‘A large percentage of the apocrypha to the Sixteen Universal Laws wrestle with this conundrum.’
‘Law eight – the Omnissiah knows all, comprehends all.’
‘Quite. If he knows and comprehends all, then by definition the Machine-God’s plan is knowable and comprehensible. By extension, if the Machina Cosma operates to predictable principles, then those principles can be known and comprehended. The universe is a code to be deciphered, according to this philosophy, if one can but reach the highest level of comprehension.’
Esha said nothing. To state an opinion either way was to put oneself into the
camp of one of the major divisions within the erstwhile Mechanicum.
‘I do not believe that all is knowable,’ said Mohana Mankata Vi. ‘The Machine-God made mankind to understand the mysteries of his creation. What would be the point of that if we had no choice, but rolled like steel bearings down the paths of a random decision generator? I have come to decide that my actions were not fated. That moment on that glorious day I could have ridden aside from the chase. I could have chosen not to take my horse out in the first place. I could have watched the Knights cross the finishing line from the stand with my sisters and mother. But I was a huntress, so I did go out. I am impulsive, and I chafed against the restrictions of our culture, so when the time came and my brother dropped the trophy, I made the decision to pick it up. I did not feel guided. I did not feel it was inevitable. I remember making that decision, daughter. There was no great cosmic weight bearing down on me, forcing me to do it. I chose to, as surely as a hunter chooses to loose his arrow at his quarry, or not. As surely as you choose the moment to unleash the solar furies of your plasma destroyer. It was my choice, Esha.’
Mohana floated close to the glass front of her tank again. ‘Choices are made by men and women all over the galaxy every single moment of every single day. These are conscious moments of decision. They are what drives history onwards. It is man’s will that beats the path of time, not the designs of gods, or fate, or whatever you wish to call it. I am my own mistress. That is why we, of all the species in the galaxy, are the favoured of the Machine-God and made in his holy image. Nothing dictates what I shall do. I command gods in his name. They do not command me. Do you understand?’
‘As you say, mother,’ said Esha, bowing her head respectfully. ‘I have understood since the beginning.’
Mohana Mankata Vi drifted back in the murk. ‘You were always among the cleverest. I am proud of you. You know that it is will that allows us to master the Titans. You are possessed of it in abundance. It is a rare gift, and so I have made another choice.’
Esha looked up.
‘It is time for me to name my successor as Grand Master of the Legio Solaria. I have decided that you should bear the mantle. This is my pronouncement. Let it be so from this moment forth. You are the heir apparent.’
For once, Esha lost her composure. Her stance loosened. ‘Why me? I am not the best warrior, or the best leader. There are others that are worthier.’
‘I disagree. You are leader of Second Maniple and you are the last of my true daughters.’
‘Continuity is powerful symbolically,’ said Esha. ‘But it is no justification for my naming as your heir.’
‘Daughter, there have been better princeps in this Legio, and there have been better leaders. But of those of us surviving, you possess both qualities in the best proportions. You will do this, for I so command. I will announce my decision soon. I thought it kinder to let you know in advance.’
‘Do you think you will fall in battle?’ Esha asked. ‘Is the situation so dire that even you fear for the Legio?’
The Great Mother laughed loudly. The machinery enabling her to speak was confounded by the strength of her humour, and interpreted it as a barking, synthetic warble.
‘I have no fear for my engines or my daughters! We are the Legio Solaria! Never has a foe bested us. Never have we turned our face from battle. By our blood and our will the Legio will persist for all time.’
‘Then why now?’ she asked. ‘Why name me as your successor?’
‘I called you here with Abhani Lus because I wished to see you together. This could be the last time that grandmother, mother and daughter are present at once. It is selfish, but I am still human. I am the last of the founding mothers. An era is passing for our order, for better or for worse. But I have no fear for the Legio, Esha, because it will be in safe hands. Your hands.’
‘Then what is happening?’
‘You know what is happening. Say it aloud.’
‘I cannot,’ said Esha. But she had known since she had seen the candles in the sally port, and the unfinished equations. She dropped her head. To name it was to make it real.
‘Then I shall say it,’ said Mohana Mankata Vi proudly. ‘I am dying, my daughter, and I do not have long left.’
Thirteen
Dark Mechanicum
Brightness made Harrtek’s headaches worse. Between battles he craved darkness. The lumens in his room lacked a dimming function. They glared in his face spitefully. One night, when drunk, he methodically broke all of them but one. The last he covered over with a sheet of red cloth. The result was a dark, bloody glow the same as the combat lighting of Nuntio Dolores’ czella. It comforted and disturbed him in equal measure. His body needled him with a hundred little pains. His head pounded. His soul urged him into communion with his machine.
He refused to give in. His will was stronger than his cravings.
It was the middle of the night watch. Harrtek stared at his patchwork trophy flag in the ruddy dark. He drank from a spherical glass of amasec that shook in his hands. He felt sick, unable to eat. The squares in the flag were all the same colour in the red light, hard to tell apart – meaningless, even. They seemed a poor way to commemorate his victories. The skulls within his Warlord’s czella and mounted upon its carapace pediment were more fitting. Perhaps he should…
‘Why, by Terra, would I want to mount skulls in my sleeping quarters?’ he muttered to himself. He sipped the amasec. His sense of taste was dulled; the subtle flavours of the alcohol escaped him. All that was left was the burn at the back of the throat. He took little pleasure from the flavour or the effects, but stolidly drank it anyway.
He rubbed at his head. His hair had been falling out so quickly of late that he had shaved the remainder off. His fingers traced the differing texture of scar-smooth skin and the velvety patches where hair still grew. He found it soothing, and he fell into a trance balanced between calmness and the raging agony of his headache.
The door chime sang. He had a visitor.
‘Go away,’ he said, not loud enough for anyone but himself to hear.
The door opened, flooding the room with weak lumen glow from the corridor that was, to Harrtek’s eyes, unbearably bright. A shadow fell across the patchwork flag.
‘What do you want, Casson?’ said Harrtek. He didn’t look at the door, but it could have been no one else. Only his servant had access to the lock codes.
‘Good evening, princeps majoris.’ The voice was unfamiliar, age-cracked and haughty.
‘You’re not Casson.’ Harrtek twisted around in his chair. The motion brought a wave of nausea. Alkali saliva flooded his mouth. His stomach turned and he swallowed the rising vomit. He was drunker than he had thought.
An adept of the New Mechanicum entered his room. He was tall, but unnaturally thin, and his lower body was of a shape that suggested a form of locomotion other than legs. The hem of the black robes that covered him from head to foot stirred around him with a life of its own.
He raised a delicate, silver hand.
‘Ah, the problems of idleness. Legio Solaria withdraw, and you have nothing to fight.’
‘I am resting,’ said Harrtek.
‘You are drinking, princeps majoris.’
‘It is better than taking more combat stimms. One addiction is enough for me.’ Harrtek automatically rose the glass to his lips but did not sip. He thought better of drinking more, and set the glass on a side table where the bottle of amasec stood. ‘We go into battle soon. Iridium will be ours.’
‘You know that’s not true. We lack the fleet to defy theirs, and so cannot press our advantage in engine numbers. Things are as they were before, in deadlock. I would like to change that.’
‘Wouldn’t we all,’ said Harrtek rancorously.
‘Perhaps I should come back on another occasion, although your servant assured me this was a good time to
find you.’
‘Bloody Casson. He has no right to say who can and who cannot visit me.’
Harrtek turned his chair about and looked at the tech-priest. The corridor light burned his eyes, the priest a shifting silhouette against it. Harrtek’s discomfort was obvious enough, so the tech-priest moved aside. The throbbing purr of a small grav motor stung Harrtek’s head.
Without the priest to block the light, it fell on Harrtek with full force. He held up his hand. The tech-priest went to the corner of his room and hovered there, a nightmare apparition. Harrtek wondered if he was, indeed, asleep.
‘What do you want with me?’
‘I come with an offer.’
Harrtek snorted. ‘It must be a bad one, for you to be sneaking around in the dead of the late watch.’
‘Night and day make no difference to me,’ said the priest. ‘Dark and light are one of many divisions that are arbitrary and limiting, as they so evidently are aboard this station. There is no night and day here, only what is imposed by us. Victory and defeat are similar. They are choices. You wish for victory. I have a new way to gain it. Choose victory.’
‘What a stupid thing to say,’ said Harrtek. ‘Any princeps wants victory.’
‘Not so much as you,’ said the priest. ‘You are driven. You have a cause.’
‘Don’t we all have a cause?’
‘Not as personal as yours.’
‘What are you talking about? Do you think me worried the others censure me for withdrawing? Wesselek’s Maniple Eighteen are alive only because of what I did. He covers his shame with mockery.’
‘I am not talking about that. You were right to pull back, objectively speaking.’
‘What then, objectively speaking, are you talking about?’ Harrtek snarled.
‘Your offspring.’