‘If she can build this device then we will be able to unlock the full potential of the Great Reader.’
‘That is my hope,’ agreed Zeth, running a golden hand across the icy surface of Maximal’s chill body. She could feel the subtle vibration of the data wheels churning within the mechanisms of his body, as though in anticipation of learning the innermost workings of the universe. ‘If she can build Ulterimus’ device then we can enhance the empath’s mind to the degree where it will be fully receptive to the knowledge impressed upon the aether. Then we will know everything.’
‘Yes… the empath,’ said Maximal. ‘The use of a psyker disturbs me. If Dalia Cythera already has a connection to the aether, why not simply use her as the conduit?’
Zeth shook her head. ‘Prolonged exposure to the aether eventually burns the conduit out. There are plenty of psykers to be had, but Dalia is one of a kind. I would not be so careless with such a valuable resource as to squander her.’
Her answer seemed to satisfy Maximal and he said, ‘It is great work we do here, but there will be those who seek to stop us if they should learn of it.’
‘Then we must ensure that they do not.’
‘Of course,’ nodded Maximal. ‘But already I detect the interest of the Fabricator General and his cronies in the work carried out in your forge. Info-feeds gossip on the air and data packets are like bodies, they do not stay buried forever. You are a brilliant technologist, but you make few allies with your open scorn for Kelbor-Hal. Be careful you do not make too many enemies and attract undue attention. Such things may cost us dearly.’
‘You speak of the attack on your reactor?’
‘Amongst other things,’ replied Maximal, watching the holographic image of Dalia as she organised her fellow workers in their tasks. ‘At the Council of Tharsis, Princeps Camulos denied involvement in the attack, and, much as it surprises me, I believe him.’
‘Really? From what I gather, Mortis are agitating for open warfare between the factions.’
‘True, and the destruction of my prime reactor would be a logical first step in weakening their strongest opponent, Legio Tempestus, for they greatly depended on its output.’
‘The Magma City will cover their shortfall.’
‘I told Princeps Cavalerio that very thing,’ said Maximal, ‘but you and I both know that is only a temporary solution. Mortis and Tempestus are rivals of old, and with the reactor gone, the strength of those friendly to our cause grows weaker.’
‘So why do you not suspect Legio Mortis involvement?’
Maximal sighed, another affectation since he had no lungs to speak of, and a mist of cold air billowed around him. ‘Camulos’ bluster was too confident. He knew we couldn’t prove anything because there was nothing to prove. He may have helped plan the attack, but I do not believe any engines from Mortis took part.’
‘Then who did?’
‘I believe Chrom was behind the execution.’
‘Chrom? Because you do not like him?’
‘I find his manner insufferable, that is true, but there is more to it than that,’ said Maximal with a precisely modulated conspiratorial tone of voice. ‘There are rumours of the work he is pursuing in his forge, experiments on engines designed with artificial sentience.’
‘Rumours? What rumours? I have heard nothing of this,’ said Zeth.
‘Few have,’ said Maximal slyly, ‘but few things escape my data miners. It is whispered that Chrom has even built such an engine. Supposedly, it matches the description given by the Knight pilot who saw the machine that attacked my reactor.’
Zeth shook her head. ‘If Chrom has built an engine with artificial sentience, he would be a fool to let it be destroyed.’
‘Perhaps it wasn’t destroyed,’ said Maximal. ‘If it escaped into the pallidus we could search for a hundred years and not find it.’
Zeth sensed hesitancy in Maximal’s manner, as though there were other facts he was aware of, but was unsure about sharing.
‘Is there something else?’ she asked.
Maximal nodded slowly. ‘Perhaps. Each time a rumour of this machine surfaces, the data conduits whisper a name… Kaban.’
Zeth ran the name through her internal memory coils, but found no match for it.
Maximal read her lack of information in the streams of data floating in her infosphere and said, ‘Even I can find only the most cryptic reference to Kaban in the vaults. Supposedly, he was an ancient potentate of the Gyptus who built the lost pyramid of Zawyet el’Aryan. Though in the few hieratic records that remain, his name is transliterated as Khaba, which may either imply dynastic problems or simply that the scribe was unable to fully decipher his name from a more ancient record.’
‘And the relevance of this?’
‘Purely academic,’ admitted Maximal, ‘but, interestingly, the records hint that Khaba may be the king’s Horus name.’
‘A Horus name? What is that?’ asked Zeth, knowing that Maximal loved to show off the vast expanse of his archives in his knowledge of ancient times.
‘The kings of Gyptus often chose names that symbolised their worldly power and spiritual might to act as a kind of mission statement for their rule,’ said Maximal, and Zeth could hear the whir of data wheels as he called up more information. ‘Usually the king’s name was carved upon a representation of his palace with an image of the god Horus perched beside it.’
‘The ‘god’ Horus?’
‘Indeed, the name is an ancient one,’ said Maximal. ‘A god of the sky, of the sun and, of course, war. The ancient Gyptians so enjoyed their war.’
‘And what did this Horus name symbolise?’ asked Zeth, intrigued despite herself.
‘No one knows for sure, but it seems likely that it was to imply that Khaba was an earthly embodiment of Horus, an enactor of his will if you like.’
‘So you are suggesting that this machine, whatever it is, was built for Horus Lupercal.’
‘That would be a logical conclusion, especially as Chrom enjoys the favour of the Fabricator General, and we all know whose voice he listens to.’
‘I have heard this before, but I cannot believe Kelbor-Hal values the counsel of the Warmaster over the Emperor.’
‘No? I hear that Regulus has recently arrived in the solar system with missives from the 63rd Expedition. And his first port of call is Mars, not Terra.’
‘That doesn’t prove anything,’ pointed out Zeth. ‘Regulus is an adept of the Mechanicum, there is no reason to suspect any ulterior motive behind his coming to Mars first.’
‘Perhaps not,’ agreed Maximal, ‘but when was the last time an emissary from the fleets reported to Mars before the Sigillite of Terra?’
1.04
IF ANY OF the tissue that caused the chemical and neurological reactions associated with awe were still part of what little organics remained of the Fabricator General’s brain, he would no doubt have found the view through the polarised glass that topped the peak of his forge awesome.
But Kelbor-Hal – as his human name had once been – was capable of little in the way of emotional response these days save bitter anger and frustration.
Far below him, the vast forge complex of Olympus Mons stretched away beyond sight, the towering manufactorum, refineries, worker-habs, machine shops and assembly hangars covering thousands of square kilometres of Mars’ surface.
The vast hive of manufacture was home to billions of faithful tech-priests of the Machine-God, the great and powerful deity that governed every aspect of life on Mars, from the lowliest tertiary reserve unit of the PDF to the mightiest forge master.
Greatest of the structures arrayed before him was the Temple of All Knowledge, a towering pyramid of pink and black marble, crowned with a dome of glittering blue stone and a forest of iron spires that pierced the sky and pumped toxic clouds into the atmosphere.
Vast pilasters framed a yawning gateway at its base, the marble inscribed with millions of mathematical formulae and proofs, many of which had been
developed by Kelbor-Hal himself. Mightier, and home to more workers, priests and servitors than the Mondus Gamma complex of Urtzi Malevolus – where untold thousands of suits of battle plate and weapons were produced to supply the Astartes Legions of the Crusade – the Olympus Mons forge was less a building and more of a region.
The Fabricator General knew he should be proud of his accomplishments, for he had uncovered more technology than any before him and had overseen the longest reign of increasing production quotas in the Mechanicum’s long history.
But pride, like many other emotional responses, had all but vanished as the organic cogitator once housed in his skull had been gradually replaced with synthetic synapses and efficient conduits for logical thought. The Fabricator General was over eighty per cent augmetic, barely anything that could be called human remaining of his birth-flesh, a fact of which he was supremely glad.
While the fleshy organ remained in his head, he could feel every biological portion decaying with each passing moment, each relentless tick of the clock a moment closer to the grave and the loss of everything he had learned over the centuries.
No, it was better to be free of flesh and the doubts it fostered.
Far below, thousands of workers filed along the stone-flagged roadway of the Via Omnissiah, its surface worn into grooves by the sandalled feet of a billion supplicants. A score of Battle Titans lined the wide road, their majesty and power reminding the inhabitants of his city, though they needed no reminding, of their place in the equation that was the workings of Mars.
Monolithic buildings flanked the roadways – factories, machine temples, tech-shrines and engine-reliquaries – all dedicated to the worship and glorification of the Omnissiah. Vast prayer ships filled the sky above the volcano, gold-skinned zeppelins broadcasting endless streams of binaric machine language from brass megaphones. Bobbing drone-skulls trailing long streams of code on yellowed parchment swarmed behind the zeppelins like shoals of small fish.
The people below would be hoping their prayers would cause the Machine-God to turn his face towards them and grant a boon. To many of those below, the Omnissiah was a tangible being, a golden figure that had last trod the surface of Mars two centuries ago…
The False God who had enslaved the Martian priesthood to his will with his lies.
The Fabricator General turned from the vista spread before him, his own fiefdom, as he heard a chiming blurt of binary from the ebony-skinned automaton – robot was too crude a word for a work of such genius – standing behind him.
Its form was smooth, athletic and featureless, a gift from Lukas Chrom some years ago that sealed the compact between them. Had the automaton worn a suit of skin, its form would have been indistinguishable from that of a human. Such was Chrom’s genius with automata that he could craft designs in metal and plastic so perfectly that they would have shamed the Creator of Humanity himself had he existed.
Though its form appeared unarmed, it was equipped with a multitude of digital weapons worked into the lengths of its fingers, and energised blades could spring from its extremities at a moment’s notice.
The automaton was warning him of approaching life forms, and the Fabricator General turned his attention to the brass-rimmed shaft in the floor behind him. The pale, rubberised mask of humanity he wore when meeting those who served him slipped over his mechanised face, a face that had been unrecognisable as human for many years.
A wide disc of silver metal, ringed with brass and steel guard rails, rose up through the floor with a pneumatic hiss. Borne upon the disc were four individuals, three swathed in the robes of adepts of the Mechanicum, one in the dark, fur-collared robes of an ambassador.
The circuitry on the back of the mask meshed with the machine parts of Kelbor-Hal’s face, the features of his false visage manipulated into the approximation of the human expression of welcome.
The dark-robed figure, Ambassador Melgator, stepped from the transit disc and inclined his head towards the Fabricator General. Melgator was no stranger to this place, his political duties taking him all across Mars – but always bringing him back to report on the machinations and tempers of the Martian adepts.
Save for the ribbed cabling covering the elongated cone of his skull, the man’s face was loathsomely organic, his skin waxy and his eyes saturnine, dark and reptilian. Melgator had sacrificed the gift of further augmentation since his role as Mechanicum ambassador often took him to the gilded halls of Terra. The fleshy rulers of the Emperor’s realm were stupidly squeamish with those whose communion with the Machine-God rendered them strange and almost alien to their limited perceptions.
Behind Melgator came two of Kelbor-Hal’s most trusted followers, adepts who had followed his lead in all things, who had sworn the strength of their forges to him: Adept Lukas Chrom and Adept Urtzi Malevolus.
Chrom was the larger of the two adepts, his wide-shouldered frame swathed in a deep crimson robe that did little to disguise the many mechanised enhancements with which he had been blessed. Ribbed pipes and cables looped around his limbs and linked into a hissing power pack that rose like a set of wings at his back.
His human face had long since been replaced by an iron mask fashioned in the form of a grinning skull. Wires trailed from the jaw and a pulsing red light filled both eye sockets.
Master Adept Urtzi Malevolus favoured a dark bronze for his face mask, and a trio of green augmetic eyes set into the metal illuminated the interior surfaces of his red hood.
The master of Mondus Gamma’s red robes were fashioned from vulcanised rubber, thick and hard-wearing, and a monstrously large power pack was affixed to his back, its bulk held aloft by tiny suspensor fields. Remote probe robots darted back and forth from his body, kept in check by the coiled cables that connected them to the senior adept.
Current flowed between their three forges as a sign of good faith, shared freely and without recourse to monitoring. Of course the greater part of that current was directed to the Fabricator General’s forge complex, but such was his right and privilege as master of Mars.
The final figure to join the Fabricator General in his sanctum was one who had not set foot on Mars for some time, an adept who had seceded his forge and all its holdings to Kelbor-Hal when he had left to accompany the 63rd Expedition to the furthest corners of the galaxy.
His robes were a deep red and gave no clue to what form lay beneath them, though Kelbor-Hal knew that little remained of his humanity.
His name was Regulus and this favoured son of Mars had returned with news of the Warmaster’s campaigns.
‘Fabricator General,’ said Regulus with a deep bow, making the Icon Mechanicum with clicking metal digits that unfolded from beneath his robes. ‘I welcome the flow of current from your forge along my limbs and within the primary locomotive engine of my body. Power whose generation comes not from Mars is bland and without vitality. It serves, but does not nourish. Each time I return to the wellspring of power and knowledge of Mars I realise how much poorer is energy generated beyond our world.’
‘You honour my forge, Regulus,’ replied Kelbor-Hal, acknowledging the compliment and turning his attention to his vassal adepts. ‘Chrom, Malevolus. You are welcome here as always.’
The two adepts said nothing, knowing that Kelbor-Hal could read their acceptance of his dominance by the subtle fluctuations of their electrical fields.
‘What news of the Warmaster?’ asked Kelbor-Hal.
In the little contact he had with emissaries from Terra, the Fabricator General was often forced to indulge humans in needless oral formalities, protocols and irrelevant discourse until the subject eventually turned to the matter at hand. With adepts of the Mechanicum such trivial matters were deemed irrelevant and quickly dispensed with. This entire conversation would be conducted in the binary fluency of the lingua-technis, a language that left no room for u
ncertainty or ambiguity of meaning.
‘Much has happened since the Emperor took his leave of the expeditionary forces,’ said Regulus. ‘Alignments shift and new powers emerge from the shadows, offering their aid to those with the strength of vision to heed them. Horus Lupercal is one such individual, and he is now assuredly a friend of the Mechanicum.’
Kelbor-Hal’s language centres easily read the implications of Regulus’ words and, though his emotions had long since been cut from him like a diseased tumour, old rancour rose to the surface as he recognised sentiments identical to those espoused in the bargain struck with Terra.
‘I have heard words like that before,’ he said, ‘when Verticorda led the Emperor to my forge over two centuries ago and I was forced to bend the knee to him. The ruler of the grubby Terran tribes promised us an equal role in his grand crusade of conquest, but where is that vaunted equality now? We toil to provide his armies with weapons of war, but receive nothing for our efforts but platitudes. Horus Lupercal is a warrior of vision, but what does he offer but more of the same?’
‘He offers these,’ said Regulus, as a silver-skinned arm rose from behind his shoulders, a delicate bronze calliper clutching a data wafer of silver and gold. Regulus reached up and took the proffered wafer with one of his primary arms before offering it to the Fabricator General.
‘On the world of Aurelius, the Warmaster’s Legion met and overcame a foe known as the Technocracy. Its armed forces bore a striking similarity to those of the Astartes and it was clear that they had access to functioning STC technology.’
‘Standard Template Construction,’ breathed Adept Malevolus, unable to keep the hunger from his voice. Kelbor-Hal had long been aware that both Malevolus and Chrom retained some unpleasantly human traits: avarice, ambition and desire to name but a few. Distasteful and unseemly in such senior adepts, but useful when it came to aligning their factions to his own.
‘This Technocracy had access to a functioning STC?’ pressed Malevolus.
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