by Dan Abnett
They had stopped to let Voriet rest again when the Great Machine resumed function. The sudden clattering roar and movement made them all flinch.
‘If this has restarted…’ Voriet began.
‘…the animations might restart too,’ finished Drusher.
Nayl nodded. He checked the autorifle he’d taken from Blayg’s corpse and took out his Tronsvasse.
‘Which do you want?’ he asked Macks.
‘You got clips for both?’ she replied.
He nodded.
Macks pointed to the combat rifle, and Nayl handed it over.
‘Don’t I get a gun?’ asked Drusher.
Nayl and Macks looked at him.
‘We’ve only got two,’ said Nayl.
‘It was sort of a joke,’ said Drusher. ‘I’m tired.’
‘We’re all tired,’ Nayl agreed. ‘One last push. One last ascent. I think we can make it up to the gantry and get to the tower exit. Just a bit of a climb left.’
He looked at Voriet. The interrogator, deathly pale, nodded affirmatively.
‘We may have to fight our way past the Cognitae,’ said Nayl.
Macks was putting the last of the spare clips in her jacket pockets.
‘I don’t have any problems with that,’ she said.
‘Or rescue Eisenhorn,’ said Drusher.
‘If he’s alive,’ said Macks. Drusher could hear the doubt in her voice.
‘Well, let’s do it like we mean it,’ said Nayl.
‘That’s odd,’ said Drusher. They looked at him.
He was peering at an insect that was crawling along the platform’s metal handrail. It was small, less than two centimetres long, a locustform specimen.
‘I haven’t seen any insects in here,’ said Drusher.
‘So?’ asked Macks.
‘I’m just saying,’ said Drusher. He picked the insect up and let it scurry over his hands, examining it.
‘Chaopterae metalepta,’ he said. ‘Short horned plains-hopper. Family Acrididae. Not native.’
‘To where?’ asked Macks sourly.
‘To Gershom,’ said Drusher. ‘And from what I saw out of the window, not here either.’
‘What window?’ asked Voriet, slowly getting to his feet.
‘Just a window,’ replied Drusher.
‘What did you see?’ asked Macks.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Drusher. He picked up the insect by its wing cases and held it up. Its legs writhed. ‘How is this here? See the red banding on the thorax? That’s swarm-phase colouring. These things live in huge colonies. When overcrowding becomes an issue, it stimulates the release of serotonin, and the insects shift from statary to migratory morphs. They change colour, and then they begin an upsurge.’
‘So?’ asked Macks again.
‘Well, you wouldn’t see just one coloured like this,’ said Drusher. ‘By definition, an upsurge morph is never seen alone.’
Macks stared at him levelly.
‘I’m very glad you find the insect fascinating,’ she said. ‘Can we get on now?’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said. He shook the insect off his hand, and it fluttered away. They started up the next flight of stairs, Nayl leading, then Macks, then Drusher helping Voriet.
‘There’s another one,’ said Voriet. Another locustform had settled on the steps.
‘Why don’t we turn this into a nature ramble?’ Macks hissed back at them.
‘There’s quite a few of them, actually,’ said Drusher. Two more insects fluttered past. Several more were crawling on the steps and the rail.
‘Where are they coming from?’ asked Macks.
‘Uhm, my original point,’ said Drusher.
More insects began to billow around them.
‘Ugh,’ said Macks, brushing one away, ‘they are swarming.’
Drusher peered over the rail. By the light of the sump fire far below, he could see thousands of tiny motes swirling in the spaces between the gears of the Loom. Hundreds of thousands.
‘Yes, they are,’ he said. ‘A major upsurge outbreak.’
‘Could it be the heat?’ asked Nayl. ‘The heat of the fire?’
‘Oh, Throne!’ exclaimed Macks. ‘Yes, let’s all stop and study nature!’
An insect landed on Nayl’s cheek. He flicked it away.
‘She’s right,’ he said. ‘Keep moving.’
They made their way up three more platform sections. From a curved catwalk, they could clearly see the main gantry above them, bathed in noxious light. The air was full of churning insect clouds. The locustforms were settling everywhere: on the catwalk deck, on the rail, on their clothes. The chirring drone of their stridulation was as loud as the din of the furious Loom.
‘They’re making my damn skin crawl,’ yelped Macks, flicking one off her earlobe.
‘Focus,’ snapped Nayl, brushing more insects off his scalp. ‘Look…’
He pointed.
‘This walkway curves all the way around to that staircase on the far side of the tower. See? If we can get around there, we can go up. The main hatch is up there.’
‘What about Eisenhorn?’ asked Drusher. He spat instinctively as an insect nearly flew into his mouth.
‘You three go around,’ said Nayl. ‘I’m going to sneak up this way and see if I can get a look at the gantry.’
He pointed to a narrow service ladder nearby that connected their catwalk to a platform six metres above.
‘We stay together,’ said Voriet.
‘This is probably going to come down to shooting,’ said Nayl. ‘Be good if we had two angles on them.’
Macks nodded.
‘Don’t be an idiot, Nayl,’ she said.
‘Too late to change my approach to life now, marshal,’ he replied. ‘Just shepherd Voriet and Balls of Steel around to the hatch, all right?’
Nayl started to climb the ladder. Macks hoisted her autorifle, flapped locustforms off her nose and mouth, and began to lead Drusher and Voriet around the catwalk ring.
Nayl reached the top of the ladder. It connected to a control platform immediately below the main gantry. There were banks of cogitator units, several of which had been smashed or damaged. On the deck, he saw traces of blood, some discarded and bloody medical dressings, and a broken injector unit.
Keeping low, he clambered over the rail onto the deck. Swarming insects billowed around him.
‘Where are they all coming from?’ Davinch asked in disgust, looking at the insects that were streaming in the air and swirling under the lighting rigs.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Gobleka. He was more fascinated by the cage and the man inside it.
‘Is this a manifestation?’ asked Davinch. ‘Is the Loom backwash doing this?’
‘I hardly care…’
‘This has never happened before, Gobleka,’ Davinch snapped. ‘We’ve had a few apports and some light displays… never this!’
He turned and looked down from the gantry rail.
‘Maybe they’re coming from below,’ he said. ‘Down in the sump, maybe. The fire…’
He trailed off. There was a man on the control platform below them. He was moving forwards, his head down.
‘Gobleka!’ Davinch yelled. He snatched out his twin laspistols and began blasting.
‘What the hell?’ Gobleka cried, turning.
‘There’s someone down there,’ yelled Davinch. ‘I think it’s one of the old bastard’s men!’
He fired again. The man he’d spotted had ducked out of sight. Davinch edged along the rail, trying to get a better angle.
He glimpsed the man again, and fired with both guns. Below, a cogitator unit blew out in a cascade of sparks.
‘Get round! Get round!’ he yelled to Gobleka.
Gobleka snatched up his autorifle, and began to move around the edge of the gantry, aiming down.
‘Where?’ he called.
‘Control deck,’ Davinch answered. He fired again. ‘Just below us!’
Shots from a
large-calibre pistol cracked back up at him. One hit the gantry rim, another buckled the handrail. Davinch jerked back.
‘If you can’t plug him, push him my way!’ Gobleka shouted, aiming over the rail at the platform below.
Davinch swung back to the rail and rattled off shots with his weapons. He blew out a desk, hacked divots from the decking, overturned a wheeled stool and sent a stack of paper fluttering into the air.
Gobleka saw the target through his scope. A big, bald man, trying to keep low, pushed out of cover and back along the control deck by the fury of Davinch’s double-fire. He tracked, settled to fire–
The target vanished. Gobleka’s scope went blank, and his suppressed burst went wide. He realised a damn insect had landed on the lens of his scope. He shook the weapon to dislodge it and tried to find the target again.
Suddenly, shots were coming at him. From a different angle. They struck the gantry decking, drawing sparks as they gouged the metal. A second shooter.
Gobleka rolled aside. Where the hell was that coming from? Several more shots thukked into the gantry under him.
Below. The shooter was below him.
He slid forwards to line up.
Macks lowered her autorifle for a second.
‘Come on!’ Drusher yelled at her. ‘Germaine!’
‘I see him,’ she growled. ‘That bastard who killed Hadeed!’
She fired off another suppressed burst. Shots came back at her, plinking off the catwalk frame, shivering hundreds of settled insects into the air in an agitated flurry.
‘Move,’ she yelled at Drusher and Voriet. ‘Get to the stairs!’
Drusher looked at her and knew she wasn’t going to shift position until she’d taken her target out. He got his arm around Voriet and began to scurry around the catwalk circuit towards the stairs.
Macks kicked off another burst. She’d lost sight of the bearded man. Over the din of the machine, she could hear overlapping gunshots: Nayl’s Tronsvasse, answered by cracking bursts of las-fire.
Further volleys of heavy fire ripped across the gulf at her, rattling and scoring the catwalk. A support cable snapped with a whip-crack.
She looked around. There had to be a better angle. Blayg’s autorifle had a broken strap, so she gripped it carefully, slid under the handrail on her belly, and jumped.
She landed a metre lower on the cast-iron casing of a Loom section. She teetered. The surface was slippery with machine oil. There was nothing to hold on to. She began to edge along. Locusts got in her face. Her foot slipped. She remained upright. If she followed the casing, she’d be within grabbing range of a service ladder.
Shots whined past her at a steep angle. Two pinged off the casing behind her. Macks moved fast and took a running jump off the end of the casing. She hit the ladder, and clung on with her free hand, desperate not to lose her hold on the rifle.
She started to climb.
Gobleka tried to track the woman. He saw her take a huge risk and jump from the catwalk. Now she was virtually beneath him. The damn insects were everywhere, fogging air that was already clouded with smoke.
He had to get lower. The bald man was still off to his right on the control deck beneath him, trading shots with Davinch. If he jumped down, he could probably get the drop on the bald man from behind, then take up a better angle on the elusive woman.
He took a last glance at Eisenhorn, glowing like a tiny sun in the cage, and crawled over the edge of the gantry.
He dropped and landed in a crouch on the control platform. There was no immediate sign of the bald man, but both he and Davinch would be out of sight around the curve of the deck. Gobleka stepped forwards. If Davinch was keeping the ordo thug busy, then he could come up on him from behind…
He saw movement and turned sharply. The woman was clambering up through a deck hole not three metres from him. He could see her hand on the rim, struggling to haul herself up the service ladder and retain a grip on her weapon.
Pathetic. Too easy. He raised his autorifle to hose the deck hole, the moment the woman’s head appeared, and send her plunging down the long drop below.
Then he paused. The fact that any of Eisenhorn’s people were still alive had come as a surprise. It was time to regain complete control of the situation.
The sound of his own movement masked by the din of the Loom, he crept forwards until he was right over the deck hole. The woman, the female marshal he’d captured earlier in the day, was climbing up with her back to him, breathing hard.
He waited, then snatched out his hand, grabbed her by the back of her jacket collar and slammed her against the rim of the hatch. She cried out in pain. He slammed again two or three more times, driving her back into the hard metal frame of the hatch. She lost her grip on her weapon, and it plummeted away.
Gobleka dragged her out of the deck hole and threw her down. She lay gasping on the deck. He rolled her onto her back, put his boot on her chest and aimed his autorifle at her face.
‘How many more of you?’ he asked.
She coughed and growled something. A curse.
‘How. Many. More?’ he snarled.
Nayl curled up tight under the cogitator bank as yet another blitz of las-fire raked the platform. The shooter was close, he had a raised angle and was wielding a pair of high-power laspistols. The onslaught was huge.
The shooter had another advantage too. His last salvo had almost killed Nayl. Nayl had only just made it to cover. He’d taken glancing shots to his right forearm and shoulder, scorching his jack armour. What would probably have been a lethal shot had been deflected by his Tronsvasse. The las-bolt had exploded off his handgun, instead of going through his face.
But the Tronsvasse was scrap. It looked fairly intact, but the impact had fused the slide and the trigger mechanism. It was basically an ugly paperweight.
The shooting had stopped. Nayl kept low, peering out. He watched the shadows. The air was thick with swarming insects and the black smoke from down below. But the strongest light source was coming from the gantry above and behind him. He could see the shadow cast by the handrail of the short access steps that linked the control deck to the platform. They were close by, just four or five metres ahead of him.
He saw another shadow. Movement.
There. The distinct shadow of two long guns held ready, panning.
The shooter was edging down the steps. He was keeping low, almost crouching against the handrail, weapons ready to fire at any movement.
Just you come closer, Nayl thought.
But it was an idle wish. There was no way the shooter wouldn’t see Nayl crouching under the cogitator station, the moment he reached the control deck level. Then it would all end in a flurry of las-fire.
It was die, or bluff. Bluffing was a fool’s game, but it was preferable to just dying. Nayl waited as long as he dared. He waited for the shadow to edge down further. He waited to detect the sound of a footstep on the deck.
Come on, come on…
He could see the man’s shadow moving clear from the shadow of the handrail.
Now or never.
‘Don’t move!’ Nayl yelled.
The shadow froze.
Drusher hauled the exhausted Voriet up the last few rungs of the ladder, and they sat panting on the platform in front of the tower’s entry hatch. The shooting had stopped. Drusher wondered who was still alive.
Voriet sat back, eyes closed, far gone with pain and fatigue. Drusher slowly got to his feet, keeping low, and looked across the gantry.
The upper levels of the tower were heavy with black smoke. The swarming insects were everywhere, blizzarding through the dirty air. The Loom was thundering, racing at full power. A fierce light shone from the iron cage in the centre of the gantry.
There was a figure inside it.
A man, cuffed, kneeling, his back arched. A man in agony. Terrible sounds were coming out of him, terrible words that were not words. The sound of them made Drusher feel sick.
‘Eisenhorn,’ h
e murmured.
Voriet didn’t reply.
‘Voriet,’ Drusher cried, shaking him. ‘It’s Eisenhorn!’
‘What?’ Voriet blinked at him, confused.
‘That’s Eisenhorn. Down there. In the cage.’
‘It can’t be…’
‘I’m telling you it is.’
‘Where are you going? Magos?’
‘I’m going to get him,’ said Drusher, keeping low and heading down the short flight of steps onto the gantry. ‘I’m going to help him.’
‘Magos!’ Voriet shouted. ‘Magos? Drusher… come back!’
TWENTY-SIX
The Cage
Drusher crept onto the gantry. The light from the cage was blinding. It burned his skin. The sound of the voice burned his mind.
There was no one around. No sign of anyone. He scurried over to the cage. He could feel the awful heat of it.
Eisenhorn was rigid. He was kneeling, and the light was shining through his skin and from his eyes. Every muscle of his body was locked and seized. The chain of the cuffs binding his wrists was pulled tight.
Only his mouth was moving. Un-words dribbled from it like blood from an open wound.
‘Eisenhorn!’ Drusher called. He banged on the bars of the cage. ‘Inquisitor! Can you hear me?’
He tried the cage door. It was locked shut. Of course it was.
‘Eisenhorn! Talk to me! How do I get you out of here?’
Drusher felt an odd, bubbling sensation in his head.
+Leave. Me.+
‘Eisenhorn?’
+Leave me here.+
Eisenhorn’s mouth was continuing to speak un-words in a non-stop stream. But his mind was speaking separately.
‘I’m not leaving you,’ replied Drusher. He paused to spit out a locust that had flown into his mouth. ‘I said I wouldn’t, so I won’t. How do I get you out of here?’
+You don’t.+
It was a cage. A cage sealed with an un-word, just like the ones he had released Macks and Voriet from. He’d figured out how to do that. If only he had a bullet left…
‘Can you open it? Eisenhorn? Eisenhorn! Listen to me. Can you open the cage door? Use one of your words and open it.’
+Can’t.+
‘Why can’t you?’
+Busy.+