by Dan Abnett
the water. Gorges and the occasional pitch showed flares of red light from lava rivers and asthenospheric cauldrons of molten rock.
We no longer had to rely on the lamps. The cave systems were lit by streams of glowing magma, flaming lakes of pitch and promethium and thick, sticky curtains and rafts of bio-luminescent fungi that thrived in the heated ducts. The pod's air-scrubbers were no longer able to remove the scent of sulphur from the cabin air, and the cooling system was inadequate. We were all sweating, and so were the interior walls of the cabin. Condensation dribbled down the bare metal of the hull's inner skin.
'Dead stop, please/ Aemos said.
Medea cut the thrusters and let us coast slowly over a seething lake of lava that radiated a glare of almost neon brilliance from beneath its blackened crust.
Aemos checked the chart against the spectroscope readings that the min-eralogicae assayer was sending to a small repeater screen in the cabin bay.
'This is it. The source location for the last transmission/
'You're sure?' I asked.
He gave me a withering look. 'Of course/
'Swing us around, slowly/ I told Medea. We craned to look out of the pod's front ports, playing the lamp array up and down to make sense of the stark shadows in the cavern walls.
What are those? Tube tunnels?'
Auspex says they pinch out in a few hundred metres. God-Emperor, it looks pretty primordial out there!' Medea wiped a trickle of perspiration out of her eyes.
'What's that the lights are catching there?'
Aemos peered to where I was pointing. Amygdules/ he said. 'Cavities filled with quartzes or other secondary minerals/
'Okay/ said Medea, unscrewing the stopper of a water-flask. 'Seeing as how you know everything… what's that?'
'Well, I… most perturbatory/
It was a hole, perfectly circular, thirty metres in diameter, cut into the far rock wall.
'Edge closer/ I said. 'That's not a natural formation. It's too… precise/
'What the hell made a hole like that?' Medea murmured, nudging us in.
'An industrial mining drill could-'
'This far down? This far from any mine infrastructure?' I cut Aemos short. 'Look at this place. Only sealed units like this pod can function at this depth/
'Barely/ Medea commented, ominously. She was keeping a weather eye on the hull-integrity read-out. Amber runes were twitching on and off.
'It's deep/ I said. I looked at the display for the forward scanners. 'Goes off as far as we can read and maintains its shape and size/
'But it's cut sheer through igneous rock… through the side of a forty kilometre square batholyth! That's solid anthragate!' There was a note of confusion in Aemos's frail old voice.
'I've got tremors,' said Medea suddenly. The needles on the rolling seismograph had been scratching away for a good hour or more, such was the background instability this deep down. But now they were skritching back and forth wildly.
There's a pattern to them/ Aemos said. That's not tectonic. That's too regular… mechanical almost/
I paused for a moment, considering our options. Take us into the shaft/ I said.
Medea looked at me, as if she was hoping she'd misheard me.
'Let's go/
The cut shaft was so perfectly circular it was scary. As we sped down, we could see that the inner surface of the tube was fused like flowstone, with radiating patterns of furrows scooped into it.
This was plasma-cut/ said Aemos. 'And whatever cut it, left an impression of its motivators in the rock before it cooled and hardened/
The tube snaked occasionally, whilst maintaining its form. The bends were long and slow, but Medea took them cautiously. The seismograph was still jiggling.
I took out a holoquill and wrote a phrase down on the back of a chart-pad.
'Can you convert this into simple machine code?' I asked Aemos.
He looked at it. 'Hmmm… "Vade elquum alatoratha semptus"… you have a good memory/
'Can you do it?'
'Of course/
What is that?' asked Medea. 'Some kind of sorcery?'
'No/1 smiled as Aemos got to work. 'It's like Glossia. A private language, one that hasn't been used in a long time/
There/ said Aemos.
'Punch it into the vox-ponder and set it to continuous repeat/1 said.
'I hope this works/ said Aemos. 'I hope you're right/
'So do I/ I said.
Instrumentation pinged. We're approaching the end of the bore-hole!' Medea called. Another kilometre, and then we're out into a huge cavity!'
'Get that signal going!' I urged my elderly savant.
We were on it almost before we were ready. A massive tube of machined metal, thirty metres in diameter and seventy long, with a huge plasma cutting-screw at the front end and rows of claw-like impellers that cycled down its flanks like the active teeth of a gigantic chainsword. It had cut its way from the tube and was grumbling across the clastic silt of the chamber floor away from us, pumping thick clouds of vapourised rock and steam out behind it.
'Emperor protect me! It's huge!' Aemos exclaimed.
What in the name of the Golden Throne is that?' gasped Medea.
'Slow down! Slow down!' I cried, but she was already braking us back behind the leviathan.
'Oh crap!' said Medea. Recessed hardpoints along the giant's flank had swivelled and opened, and multi-laser batteries had popped out to target us.
I grabbed the vox-set's hand-mic.
Vade elquum alatoratha semptus!' I yelled into the mic. Vade elquum alatoratha semptus!'
The weapons – which could have obliterated us in a single salvo – did not fire. They remained trained on us, however. Then heavy shutter doors on the back end of the enormous machine opened slowly, revealing a small, well-lit hangar space.
'We won't get another invitation!' I told Medea.
With a worried shrug, she steered us inside.
I led the pair of them out of the pod into the arched dock-bay. The shutters had locked shut behind us, and pungent sulphurous fog pooled around our feet as it was pulled out of the bay by chugging air processors.
The bay was of a grand design, fluted with brass fittings and brushed steel. There was a brand new prospector pod, painted oxide-red, in the docking cradle next to the one that had received our singed specimen. Three other cradles, new and black with oil, lay vacant. All the light came from phosphorescent gas filaments in caged glass hoods around the room, and the effect was a flickering, lambent glow. An iron screwstair with padded leather rails led up to a boarding platform above us.
That's a good sign/ I said. The bas-relief roundel of the Adeptus Mechanicus was visible above the inner door lock on the platform.
We all started as long servitor arms whirred out from compartments in the walls. In a second, six were trained on us: two with auspex sensors, sniffing us, and four with weapon mounts.
'I suggest we don't move/ I whispered.
The inner lock clanked and opened. A hooded figure in long orange robes seemed to hover out onto the platform. It grasped the handrail with both hands and looked down at us.
Vade smeritus valsara esm/ it growled.
Vade elquum alatoratha semptus/ I replied. Valsarum esoque quonda tasabae/
The figure pulled back its hood, revealing a mechanical skull finished in oil-smudged chrome. Its lens-like eyes glowed bright green. Fat black cables under its jaw pulsed and the vox-caster screwed into its throat spoke.
'Gregor… Liber… It's been a long time/
NINETEEN
Walking through stone.
Lith.
The Inmate.
This is Medea Betancore,' I said, once Geard Bure's strong mechanical grip had finally released my hand.
'Miss Betancore/ Bure bowed slightly. 'The Adeptus Mechanicus of Mars, holy servants of the God-Machine, bids you take sanctuary in this, its worthy device/
I was about to hiss at Medea and explain mat she had
been greeted formally, but, typically, she needed no prompting.
She deftly made the machine-fist salute of the Mechanicus and bowed in return. 'May your devices and desires serve the God-Emperor until time runs its course, magos/
Bure chuckled – an eerie sound when it came from a prosthetic voice-box – and turned his unblinking green eye-lights to me.
'You've trained this one well, Eisenhorn/
1-
'He has, magos/ said Medea quickly. 'But that response I learned from study of the Divine Primer/
'You've read the Primer?' Bure asked.
'It was basic study in air school on my home world/ she replied.
'Medea has a… considerable aptitude for machines/ Aemos said. 'She is our pilot/
'Indeed…' Bure walked around her and uninhibitedly caressed her body with his metal fingers. Medea temporarily humoured him.
'She is machine-wise, yet she has no augmentation?' Bure questioned me.
Medea stripped off her gloves and showed him the intricate circuits inlaid into her hands.
'I beg to differ, magos/
He took her hands in his and gazed in hungry wonder. Drool-like ropes of clear lubricant oil trickled out between his chrome teeth like spittle.
'A Glavian! Your enhancements are… so… beautiful…'
Thank you, sir/
You've never thought to permit any other augmentation? Limbs? Organs? It is quite liberating/
'I… get by with what I've got/ smiled Medea.
'I'm sure you do/ Bure said, suddenly swinging round to face me. 'Welcome to my translithopede, Eisenhorn. You too, Aemos, my old friend. I must admit I can't conceive what brought you here. Is it the Lith? Has the Inquisition sent you to deal with the Lidi?'
News of my disgrace clearly hadn't reached him, and for that, I was thankful.
'No, magos/ I said. A stranger quirk has brought us here/
'Has it? How odd. When I first detected your signal – in dear Hapshant's old private code – I couldn't believe it. I nearly shot you down/
'I took a chance/ I said.
'Well, that chance has led you to me and I'm glad. Come, this way/
His skeletal silver hands ushered us towards the door lock.
Bure had no lower limbs. He floated on anti-gravity suspensors, the hem of his orange robe hanging a few centimetres above the plated deck. We fell in step behind him and walked the length of a long, oval companion-way lined with brass bulkheads and more gas filament lamps.
This burrowing machine is a wonder/ Aemos said.
'AH machines are wonders/ Bure replied. This is a necessity, the primary tool of my work here on Cinchare. There were, of course, a number of lesser prototypes before I made the necessary refinements. This translithopede was engineered from my designs by the Adeptus fabricatory on Rysa and shipped here for my use three standard years ago. With it, I can go where I please in this rock, and unlock the secret lore of Cinchare's metals/
Magos Bure had been a metallurgy specialist for two hundred years, his knowledge and discoveries almost worshipped by his brethren in the tech-priesthood. Before that, he had been a fabricator-architect in the titan forges of Triplex Phall. To my certain knowledge, he was almost seven hundred years old. Hapshant had occasionally hinted that Bure was far older than that.
Not a shred of the magos's flesh remained. The vestigial organic parts of Geard Bure the human being – his brain and neural systems – were sealed inside his gleaming mechanoid body. I had never learned if this was a matter of design or necessity. Perhaps, as is the case with so many, disease or
grievous injury had forced such extreme augmentation upon him. Or perhaps, like Tobias Maxilla, he had deliberately discarded the weakness of flesh in favour of machine perfection. Knowing the technophiliac disposition of the Mechanicus priesthood, the latter seemed more likely to me.
My late mentor, Inquisitor Hapshant, had encountered Magos Bure in the early part of his career, during the celebrated mission to secure the STC Lectionary from the ashrams of Ullidor the Techsmith. As I have remarked, the Inquisition – indeed most august bodies of the Imperium – find dealings with the Cult Mechanicus problematic at best. Its power is legendary and its insularity notorious. The cult is a closed order which guards the secrets of its technologies jealously. But Bure and Hapshant developed a beneficial working relationship based on mutual esteem. On several occasions, Bure's specialist wisdom assisted my mentor in the prosecution of important cases, and on several others, the favour was returned.
That is why, a century before, I entrusted an item of particular importance to his expert custody.
The control chamber of the wheezing translithopede was a split-level chapel where a raised command podium, like a giant brass pulpit, overlooked two semi-circular rows of busy control stations. The rivetted iron walls were painted matt red and etched with the various aspects and runes of the Machine God. The forward wall was shrouded in long drapes of red velvet.
Six oil-streaked servitors worked at the chattering control stations, their hands and faces plugged directly into the systems via thick, metal-sleeved cables or striped flexes marked with purity seals and parchment labels. Glass valves and dials flickered and glowed, and the air was heady with the scent of oils and sacred unguents.
Two relatively human tech-adepts in orange robes were overseeing the activity. One was linked directly into the vehicle's mind-impulse unit through a trio of neural plugs, and he murmured aloud the rites and scriptures of the Adeptus. The other turned and bowed as we came onto the podium.
He had a wire-mesh speaker where his mouth should have been. When he spoke, it was in a pulse of binary machine code.
Bure responded in kind, and for a few moments they exchanged tight bursts of condensed data. Then Bure floated over to a brass lectern built into the podium's rail and opened his robe. Two probing neural cables extended from his chrome sternum like sucker-worms hunting for prey and connected swiftly with the polished sockets on the lectern.
Now Bure was also conjoined with the translithopede's mind-impulse unit.
'We make good speed,' he told us. He twitched, and the velvet drapes at the far end of the chamber drew aside automatically, revealing a large holographic display. Secondary images overlaid the main one, showing
three-dimensional charts and power/speed graphics. The main image was just a dark rushing blur laced with crackles of blue energy.
This was the view directly ahead of us, the rock disintegrating before the awesome destructive force of the plasma cutting-screw. We were travelling straight through solid rock.
'Perhaps it's time we discussed what's going on here/ I said.
We hunt,' sad Bure.
'You've been hunting for a long time, magos/ said Aemos. 'Eleven weeks now. What are you hunting for?'
'And why is Cinchare minehead derelict?' I added.
Bure paused as he selected the correct electrograft memory. He was almost lost in the euphoria of mind-impulse union.
'Ninety-two days ago, as far as I am able to reason it, an independent prospector called Farluke, working under license for Ortog Promethium, returned from a long tour of assay rock side and presented his masters with a unique discovery. They tried to keep it secret for a while, hoping, I believe, to exploit it for their own ends. That error in judgment was costly. By the time they realised their mistake, and shared their data with the Adeptus, it was already too late/
"What had Farluke found?' asked Aemos.
'It is called the Lith. I have not seen it, but I have studied extracts recovered from the bodies of tainted men/
'Recovered?' breathed Medea, unnerved.
'Posthumously. The Lith is a hyper-dense geode of approximately seven hundred tonnes. It is, as I understand it, a perfect decahedron four metres in diameter. Its mineral composition is exotic and inexplicable. And it is alive/
"What? Magos! Alive?'
'Sentient, at least. It is infused with the wretched filth of Chaos. How long it ha
s lain undiscovered in the depths of this world, I do not know. Perhaps it has always been here, or perhaps it was hidden in pre-Imperial times by unknown hands to keep it safe… or to dispose of it. Perhaps, indeed, it is the reason Cinchare has broken from the order of its stellar dance and drifted, rogue and wild, through the stars. I had hoped, initially, to find it and recover it. Its composition alone promised a wealth of precious knowledge. But now I hunt for it… simply to destroy it/
'It has corrupted this world, hasn't it?' I said.
'Completely. As soon as it came in contact with men, it began to twist their minds with its malign power. It subjugated them. The Ortog work teams sent down to examine it were the first. What is, to all intents and purposes, a cult sprang up spontaneously. Each initiate had a splinter of rock shaved from the Lith buried beneath his skin in a simple, brutal ritual/
'We've seen the marks/
'Disorder spread through Cinchare minehead as the cult grew. The Lith couldn't be moved, but splinters were brought up and used to infect more
and more of the workforce. Once tainted, the workers began to disappear, setting off on pilgrimages down into the mines to make worship to the Lith. Many never made it. Most have simply vanished. I've tried to follow their tracks, sometimes encountering hostile cult elements bent on protecting their deity. But Farluke's original data is unreliable. I cannot find the Lith's true location. I fear it is just a matter of time before the cult manages to extend its reach beyond Cinchare. Or…'
'Or?'
'Or they will complete some arcane task instructed by the Lith and awaken its power in full… or allow it to connect with its own kind/
We considered this grim possibility for a moment. Aemos quietly pulled up an entry on the screen of his data-slate, undipped the device from his wrist, and handed it to Bure.
'Does this help?' he asked.
Bure stared at the slate. His green eyebeams dilated into hard, bright points.
'How in the name of the Warpsmiths did you…'
'What is it?' 1 asked, stepped forward.
The location of the Lith/ said Aemos proudly.
'How did you get this?' Bure cried, his vox undercut by excited binary chatter.