The Speaker moved to the old man’s side, placed a gentle hand on his frail shoulder and smiled down at him. ‘This,’ he told Karras and the others proudly, ‘is Murhad Ganeen. This is the man who will guide you. It is Ganeen, beloved of the tribe, who will get you inside the Tower.’
‘He can hardly stand under his own power,’ Solarion said with a sneer. ‘What qualifies him for the task?’
The false Speaker looked across at Solarion, meeting those cold grey eyes, unflinching. A smile creased his face. It was Agga’s smile. All her motherly warmth and patience glowed there. Karras alone could see it. The false Speaker’s aura radiated with Agga’s own energy.
‘He is the only man who can,’ she told them through her son. ‘Because he is the only living man ever to escape from the Tower alive. If the famed Lizard-in-Shadow cannot get you inside Alel a Tarag, no one can.’
Twenty-two
So much cooler down here in the lower levels. Such a relief from the heat above. Gloomier, too, with no apertures to spill blazing daylight into the room and less artificial lighting than the upper levels. The relative gloom reminded her of the sconce-lit corridors of Imperial ships, of the dark sanctity of Ministorum chapels and Inquisition libraria. It made her feel more comfortable than she ought to among the hated aliens.
She glanced sidelong at the figure on her left.
Shas’O T’kan Jai’kal.
Shas’O, his rank. Commander.
T’kan, his planet. Tychonis to the Imperium. His for now only.
And Jai’kal, his name, the name by which she called him in her mind.
Coldwave.
He stood unblinking, unmoving, waiting for the procedure to begin. They’d both watched it before, of course, and more than enough times. But Epsilon never tired of it, never tired of the thrill that this might lead, as so desperately hoped, to something unprecedented and powerful, something that could change everything in the war with the Y’he.
Coldwave, for his part, seemed to watch out of some dark duty, a penance, a need to give witness to the horrors in which he was colluding for the sake of his race.
He had returned earlier that day with the latest shipment of prisoners from Chu’sut Ka. Before them now, on the other side of the impenetrable plaz, was the first of those prisoners to be processed.
If the fire warrior felt her looking at him, he gave no sign. He kept his eyes straight ahead, but she could see how tense he was. His fists were clenched. His jaw was tight. Silently, privately, she enjoyed his suffering. She might have to work with him now, but no amount of cooperation would ever override the deep training and conditioning the ordo had given her. The t’au were the lesser of two evils, but their turn would come, and the Imperium would erase their species.
But not while they are useful.
She turned back to the room beyond, where earth caste techs were strapping the lightly drugged t’au dissident down onto an operating table. This one was male, slight of build, with the fine-boned features of the water caste.
She wondered at the percentages. How many of the rauk’na belonged to each caste? Were there more fire caste rebels than earth or air or water? The t’au would never let her see that data. What they allowed her was so carefully managed. She, of course, never told them any more than she wanted or needed them to know. She and the xenos were locked in a strange dance of lies, half-truths and uncomfortable cooperation.
And all because of Al Rashaq.
She would never have come this far if not for the discovery in the ruins of that tyranid-ravaged world. Not what she had been looking for, but so important that it immediately superseded everything else. Even Blackseed. And though the strange, flinty smell of the t’au and their clicking, jabbering ways of speech grated on her badly, she would endure anything for the possibility to serve the Imperium as few on record ever had. She alone, after all, had finally found proof of that legendary, half-mythical installation. In all these thousands of years, only she…
Coldwave muttered something in T’au, not caring to slow or enunciate his speech for her benefit. It didn’t matter. Epsilon’s skills were sharp. She caught it.
‘They are ready to begin,’ he’d said.
She saw the earth caste techs hastily retreating from the room beyond the plaz, saw the prisoner struggling uselessly against his bonds. The drugs were wearing off now. The prisoner began shouting, railing in the T’au tongue against the techs as they left.
‘What are you doing? What is this? Release me! I have done no wrong!’
The techs vanished through a portal to the right. Heavy doors hissed shut behind them, followed by the click-clunk of near-unbreakable locks.
Seconds later, a large rectangular panel in the ceiling began to lower itself on thick hydraulic pistons. Through the audio relay in the room, Epsilon could hear wet, hissing breaths.
The prisoner turned his eyes up towards the end of the panel that was descending towards him.
Slowly it came into view, a figure in clamps, restrained just as he was and yet not like him at all.
The dissident cried out in desperate fear and anguish.
We are enemies by birth, thought Epsilon, but we share the same nightmare, and we face the same terrible darkness.
The panel continued to descend. The monstrosity clamped securely to its upper side was limbless, arms and legs amputated, utterly unable to move anything but its grotesque head and neck. It was no less terrifying for all that, however. The t’au prisoner was wailing hysterically now, begging for aid, for forgiveness and release. Ancient tales of terror, fell visions of monsters glimpsed in sleep – none compared to the horrible reality of the visage that fixed its pale violet eyes on him.
Hungry, eager, unfeeling eyes.
Its jaw opened. Long, sharp teeth glistened with saliva.
‘I am t’au,’ screamed the rauk’na, eyes finding Coldwave’s beyond the glass. ‘Do not do this to me. I am your own!’
Epsilon cast another sideways glance at the shas’o. The muscles along his jawline rippled, but his breathing was slow and steady.
‘You are not t’au,’ he growled in low tones. ‘t’au serve the T’au’va.’
The panel ceased its descent now, juddering to a halt, bringing Epsilon’s attention back to the procedure.
Only a metre remained between the faces of predator and prey. The genestealer’s barbed tongue lashed out like a whip. Once. Twice. Still not close enough, but it sent the t’au prisoner into paroxysms of raw panic. Spit rimed his mouth. More flew with every scream. Epsilon recalled her surprise the first time she had watched a t’au infection, noting that the t’au had evolved tear ducts just as humans had and, just as surprisingly, wept from them for many of the same reasons.
That fact hadn’t aroused any pity in her then. As tears rolled in rivers down the doomed prisoner’s blue-grey cheeks, it aroused no pity in her now.
At the push of a button by one of the earth caste techs, the apparatus holding the limbless genestealer shunted forward about sixty centimetres. The prisoner’s eyes went wide. All his panic and thrashing stopped dead. His mind had snapped, broken by the terror of the moment. The creature didn’t hesitate. It plunged the sharp, hard point of its tongue deep into the flesh of the blue-skin’s neck.
The rauk’na howled one last time, long and heart-wrenching.
For a moment, predator and prey were frozen there in a grim and horrific tableau. Then the beast retracted its tongue. The glistening prehensile flesh disappeared behind those terrible teeth once again.
And the creature became calm, its strongest urge satisfied. It had infected its prey as it had been born to do. It settled back into its restraints. The clamp retracted, pulling it away, and the panel began to rise back up into the ceiling, taking the monster from view.
The prisoner, too, was becalmed, dull eyes gazing into space. The moment the tyranid�
��s tongue pierced his neck, it released not just its potent genetic material but a cocktail of sedatives, relaxants and mind-altering enzymes to ensure the prey did not fight back after infection, did not attempt to self-terminate before the package of tyranid DNA began to work its mutative effects. By the time the prisoner awoke, he would truly be one of them.
The sian’ha, the t’au called them. The word had so many nuances. Rendered in Imperial speech, it meant simply the infected.
To Epsilon and to Blackseed, however, they were so much more than that.
They were hope.
Coldwave refused to match the woman’s pace. Her long legs ate up the corridor at a far faster clip than his, but he would not hurry himself on her account. So he forced her to slow down as they walked to the area she always referred to as the creche. On the way, they passed the doorways to the birthing chambers.
He scowled. He hated the noises from behind those doors. The sounds of t’au females giving birth should be a joyous thing, a music celebrating more members of the extended family that was their glorious race. But these births were dark, bloody, fatal affairs.
This thing we do dishonours us all, he thought. And it is my hands that are the filthiest.
The Aun had given ultimate permission, of course, but the project proceeded under Coldwave’s direct authority. The terrible impregnations were each authorised by him alone. All the blood spilled here at the prison, at Na’a’Vashak, stained his name. And every time he passed these doors, the unnatural screeching of abominable newborns ripping their way out of their mothers’ bellies reminded him all too sharply of it.
Of all the worlds in all the spheres, why did the damned woman have to be picked up closest to his?
They could have killed her outright. Should have, perhaps. But she brought with her the promise of an answer to the biggest threat his people faced. Aun’dzi could turn her away. All too well did the t’au know the devastation wrought by the tyranid race. The Y’he could be held at bay for a time, even redirected given adequate sacrifice, strategy and good fortune. But they could not be stopped. Time was on their side. Eventually, they would flood across the septs, consuming everything, and the glory and light of the t’au race would be snuffed out like a flame.
He gritted his tooth-plates. There was no way they could have refused the woman. She was not to be trusted, but without her research, without the data and the proposals and everything else she had brought to bargain with, there would be no hope for an end to the swathe of destruction the tyranids perpetrated with relative impunity.
He glared at her out of the corner of his eye. This had better bear fruit, you pale-skinned serpent. Because if you have made us do this for no gain, I will sink my blade into you a hundred times.
The sounds from the birthing chambers receded behind him. Coldwave realised he had sped his steps to expedite that, and became angry at himself, because he knew it would give away the depth of his discomfort to the woman. Did she enjoy his anguish at all this? Surely she knew by now how much it cost him every time. Easy for her. These were not her people they were inflicting horrors on. She claimed to have done much of that already, of course. Somehow, he suspected she felt just as little watching gue’la infection procedures as she surely felt watching the rauk’na.
The human Imperium’s greatest monsters were not the war-mad giants in black armour – the hated Deathwatch. The worst of them were smaller, apparently weaker ones that pulled all the strings. He resolved to remember that. It was easy to forget when faced with the might and ferocity of Space Marines, but this woman was more terrible than either of her slaughter-loving bodyguards.
‘I bring you the gift above all gifts,’ said the woman suddenly as they walked abreast, ‘and yet, somehow I fear you dislike me, shas’o.’
Had she read his mind? Did she have that power, too? Some of the gue’la, he knew, had impossible gifts. If she were such a one…
‘You smell so badly of deceit,’ he said, ‘it hurts my face. How can any profess to like such a one?’
She laughed. ‘Deceit? I give you the chance to save your people. Perhaps your only chance. I could ask for entire worlds, and such would be small payment.’
He was disinclined to respond. She often tried to provoke him like this. He refused to let it work.
Continuing in silence, they soon arrived at the doors of the creche. Heavily armed guards bowed in deference to the shas’o. He nodded back, enjoying their open disdain and lack of acknowledgement towards the foul woman, not that she seemed to care.
The guard on the left turned to a panel and pressed his hand to it, and the doors hissed open. Coldwave and Epsilon passed through into the space beyond. Automatic security systems tracked them as they walked the short inner corridor that led to the main chamber.
‘Have the earth caste techs issued updated estimates on the birth of the first purestrains?’ Epsilon asked.
‘I would have told you,’ he growled. ‘This is new ground for us too.’
‘That’s why I said estimates, shas’o. The earth caste ought to have some idea by now.’
‘The accelerated birth-growth-reproduction cycle is proving difficult to predict. A fourth-generation birth must be close. Perhaps today they will have news.’
More guards, more heavy security doors, and beyond these, Coldwave and Epsilon stepped out into a cavern-like space above a transparent floor of toughened acid-proof plaz. They stopped at the edge of a railing-rimmed walkway and cast their eyes down into the chamber below.
It was impossible to stem the sudden surge of loathing and innate fear at what he saw.
There were dozens of them. So miserably twisted. So sickening, like figures from the darkest imaginings of the pre-enlightenment age. Noting the movement above them, the abominations raised their heads, gazing back at him, eyes shining with unnatural light. Some hissed or screeched, and in their mouths he saw smaller versions of the razor-like teeth of the tyranid genestealers they used for first-stage infection. Many had additional limbs, the hands twisted into claws. On some, the hands had not developed at all – the bones of the forearms had grown into scythe-like blades.
Coldwave had seen such things on the battlefield. He had faced purestrain tyranid forms. While he had lived, many he had thought stronger and better than he had not. The memories still caused him pain. He recognised the hallmarks of the tyranid genetic material expressing itself in the horrors below, but these were stage threes. There was still much about them that was recognisably t’au.
And that made it even harder to look upon them.
‘Several of these are far along,’ said Epsilon. ‘Ready for mating. Have any third-stage males been bred to third-stage females yet?’
‘While I was at the capital, yes,’ replied Coldwave.
There was an edge to the woman’s tone now. He had ordered her and her bodyguards to be confined to the upper levels during his short absence from the facility. Much of the project was performed under her guidance, but he would not allow her access to the creche or the birthing rooms while he was not here to keep watch on her. There was still far too much she was withholding from them.
‘If the accelerated gestations we saw in stages one to three are any indication,’ she said, ‘we could see our first purestrain within a matter of days.’
‘What then?’ he asked. ‘You assured us of isolation from the hive-mind, but how will we know it is permanent? How will we know it is not just the effect of your strange machine?’
‘Your people are not as we are. There are ways to test for what we seek that I cannot explain in a way your science would understand.’
‘Human witchcraft, then. I have seen it. It is not a subject on which we t’au are entirely ignorant.’
She grinned at that. ‘There will be risks. I have told you already of the things I need brought from the Imperium. A rogue psyker for one. Alpha class. If you wer
e not so adamant about vetting all my communications–’
‘If our roles were reversed, you would do the same.’
‘You want results,’ she said with a shrug. ‘You will have to make the requisite allowances. There is no reward without risk, shas’o.’
He bristled at the way she spoke to him. ‘If you attempt to burn us,’ he hissed, ‘to betray the trust we’ve placed in you, I swear you shall be the next one strapped to a table to await the ’stealers’ kiss.’
Epsilon’s face was a mask of absolute passivity. Not a single flicker of emotion crossed it. ‘I don’t doubt that, commander,’ she replied. ‘Just remember that the Aun was free to reject my offer when I came to you. Suggesting an alliance took great faith and sacrifice on my part. It was no small thing to come here without the authorisation of my superiors, but I stand by my decision. Aun’dzi understands the need, as do you. Neither your race nor mine can hold back the dark-that-swallows-all forever. And what I ask in return is so little – data that cannot hurt you, safe passage through your space. There is no knife hidden in my sleeve, no poison waiting to be slipped into your cup, shas’o. We see this through, and you may or may not get the weapon your people need. In any case, I get my promised safe passage, and you will not see me again.’
Coldwave did not look at her as she spoke. As he listened, he found himself locking eyes with one of the mutations below. The creature glared at him, its face a sick and twisted mockery of his own, still t’au enough to be recognised as such, but too tyranid to be allowed to live. It twitched and trembled with the compulsion to kill him, working its jaws as if it was already tasting his flesh.
Curse them, he thought. Curse them all, gue’la and Y’he both. And curse us for entering this damnable bargain. It may save our race, but it will rob us of all honour first, and the blood may never wash off.
Twenty-three
Even with night-vision goggles set to full illumination, the going was tough. The walls of the tunnel were craggy and sharp – natural formations unsmoothed by the hands of men. Perhaps that was why the old tunnel still existed at all. It was unworked because it was unknown, not present on any map. Old Ganeen was the only one ever to get out this way, and that was the year before the coming of the blue-skins.
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