by Dan Abnett
Uxor Rukhsana blinked. ‘For starships?’ she echoed.
He was taking a slight risk in sharing this information, but John Grammaticus’s mind was finely trained to sort and appraise data. He knew exactly what he could give up and what he couldn’t. He believed it mattered very little if the Imperials found out that Mon Lo had once been an extraplanetary set-down. It was a halting site, in fact. The Cabal used to visit here, long ago. That’s why they knew about the Nurthene culture.
‘For starships, uxor.’
‘Are you sure?’ Uxor Rukhsana asked.
‘Absolutely,’ Grammaticus replied. ‘I have excellent sources.’
‘And when you say “originally”, Konig, what does originally mean?’
‘It means something between eight and twelve thousand years ago, enough time for sea-levels to change, for flood plains to rise, and for a massive, stone-cut extraplanetary harbour to fill with water and become a harbour of a more traditional nature.’
It was eleven thousand, eight hundred and twenty-six years, in fact, and the construction work had taken eighteen months. Grammaticus felt it wise to fudge the precision of his knowledge.
The aides started speaking all at once.
‘That would place construction during the Second Age of Technology,’ said one.
‘Around the time of the First Contact Event, and the first Alien Wars,’ said another.
‘Is there any evidence as to which xeno form might have been responsible?’ asked another.
‘Do the Nurthene know of its provenance?’ asked Tuvi.
‘Tuvi frames the best question,’ said Grammaticus, shutting down the chatter. ‘Do they know? Well, I don’t believe they do. They possess myths and legends, as all cultures do, and some of them contain elements that might be interpreted as containing some race-memory of xeno contact or intervention. But until the 670th Expedition came along, the Nurthene believed they were alone in the galaxy. Remember, the Nurthene don’t even realise they were originally colonists from Terra.’
‘That is the true misery of this war,’ Rukhsana nodded. ‘They do not recognise us as kin.’
Grammaticus felt her discomfort. Kinship meant so much to the geno uxors. Indeed, he found this aspect of the Emperor’s Great Crusade especially troubling. In its youth, mankind had spilled out across the stars, colonising thousands of worlds, forming the first human stellar community. Then the Age of Strife had come down, like the blade of a guillotine, and for the better part of five thousand years, warp storms had rendered interstellar travel impossible. The out-reaches of Man had become cut off, beleaguered, isolated. In that turmoil, many offshoots had entirely forgotten who they were or where they had come from. Such was the case with Nurth.
When the Emperor, a figure long foreseen by the Cabal, had finally unified the anarchic fragments of Terra, he had undertaken a Great Crusade – oh, how telling was that title! – to seek out, and reconnect with, the lost outposts of the human race. It was astonishing how often the lost worlds resisted those overtures of reconnection. It was unconscionable how many times the roving expedition fleets had been forced to go to war with the very cultures they had set out to rescue and embrace, just to bring them to what the Emperor had euphemistically called compliance. It was always, so the official line went, for their own good.
John Grammaticus had met the Emperor once, close on a thousand years before. The Emperor had been just another feudal warlord then, leading his thunder-armoured troops in an effort to consolidate his early Strife-age victories, and pave the way to eventual Unification. Grammaticus had been a line officer in the Caucasian Lewies, a significant force inveigled by truce and pact to support the Emperor’s assault on the territorial holdings of the Panpacific Tyrant, Dume.
After a bloody conquest at Baktria, Grammaticus had been one of a hundred Caucasian officers invited to a Triumph at Pash, hosted by the retinues of the thunderbolt and lightning army. During the festivities, the Emperor – even then he had been known only by that objectionable epithet – had grandly toured the tables to personally thank his foreign allies and the leaders of the mercenary clans. Grammaticus had been one of hundreds present to receive his grateful handshake. In that moment of contact, he had seen why the Emperor was a force to be reckoned with: a psyker of towering, unimaginable strength, not really human at all by any contemporary measure of the fact. Grammaticus, who had never met anyone else like himself, had shuddered, and felt like a drone insect in the presence of its hive king. The Emperor had felt Grammaticus in the same passing second of contact. He had smiled.
‘You have a fine mind, John,’ he had said, without having to ask Grammaticus his name. ‘We should talk, and consider the options available to beings like us.’
Before any such conversation could happen, Grammaticus had died, that painful, stupid first death.
Looking back, Grammaticus wondered if he would ever have been able to influence the Emperor’s course if he’d lived. He doubted it. Even then, in that tiny moment of connection, it had been clear that the Emperor was never going to turn away from the road of catastrophic bloodshed he was set upon. One day, he would unleash upon the galaxy the most dreadful killing machines of all: the Astartes.
How ironic it was that Grammaticus’s current task was to broker cooperation with one of those fearsome Astartes Legions.
Gahet had once remarked to Grammaticus that the Emperor was the only human who would have ever made a viable addition to the Cabal’s inner circle. ‘He sees the long picture of it,’ Gahet had said. ‘He understands the vast, slow cycle, and is content to allow it to run its course. He appreciates the epochal dynamic of true and thorough change.’
‘Have you ever met him?’ Grammaticus had asked.
‘No, John, I haven’t.’
‘Then you have no idea what a bloodthirsty bastard he really is.’
Gahet had smiled. ‘That’s as may be, but he understands that the Primordial Annihilator is the true enemy of everything, so perhaps we need a bloodthirsty bastard on our side?’
‘Konig?’
‘I’m sorry, uxor,’ Grammaticus said.
Rukhsana smiled down the table at him. ‘You were quite lost in thought.’
‘I was. I apologise. Where was I? Uhm, it is my belief that the extraplanetary harbour was built by some xenos kind several hundred years before this world was colonised by the original human out-ships. As far as the Nurthene are concerned, it has always been here.’
‘So it is an intriguing aside, and not pertinent to our combat evaluation?’
‘Indeed not. But for all their parochial mindset, the Nurthene have an appreciation of extraplanetary matters. They have lived in fear of first contact, of discovery by beings from other worlds. In their doctrine, our arrival proves to them the universal presence of evil. There is no dealing with them.’
‘None at all?’
‘No, uxor.’
He wanted to tell her that they were dealing with a human culture that had succumbed to the corruption of the Primordial Annihilator, but he knew she simply wouldn’t understand what Chaos meant. Very few humans did. Grammaticus did, because he had shared the Cabal’s Acuity. He had a feeling, deep in his gut, that the Emperor knew all too well.
So why hadn’t he told any of his children? Why hadn’t he forewarned them about the deathless abomination they would encounter if they ventured out into the stars?
The briefing turned to matters of fortification and placement. Grammaticus had brought the plans he had carefully hand drawn.
Discussion began on the best practice of attack on Mon Lo. Tuvi surprised him by suggesting the most perceptive tactical solutions. She would be a full uxor soon, with a pack of aides of her own. Rukhsana let her lead the plotting, nodding contentedly at her stepdaughter’s excellence.
As the talk went to and fro, Grammaticus decided, wilfully, it was time to switch places. He put himself behind Rukhsana’s eyes – she was far too preoccupied to resist or even notice – and looked ba
ck down the table at himself.
He saw what she saw: a well-made man of mature years, strong in the back and arms, with a very handsome face and grey hair. The man wore a scarlet dress coat with ornate double hogging down the front, and he was perspiring very slightly.
Not bad, thought John Grammaticus, not bad at all. It wasn’t the body he’d been born with, but at least it pretended to be from the Caucasus, which was where the first John Grammaticus had been born, towards the end of the Twenty-Ninth Millennium.
‘If we are going to commit to an attack,’ Tuvi was saying, ‘we need to know more about the enemy disposition in these lines, and along the north wall here, and here.’
‘I wasn’t able to collect data,’ Grammaticus replied, ‘but you’re right. I’ll be going in again tomorrow. In three days, I should have the information you need.’
‘Good,’ said Rukhsana. She paused. ‘You’re going inside again?’
‘I think it’s necessary, uxor.’
‘Then may the Emperor protect you,’ Tuvi said, and several of the aides echoed her.
Oh, I’m quite sure he won’t, Grammaticus thought.
‘That’s all for today,’ Rukhsana told her aides. ‘Be off with you. I’ll finish the brief myself.’
Grammaticus sensed annoyance and disappointment as the aides filed out.
The door closed behind them. There was a long silence.
‘Where were we?’ Uxor Rukhsana asked. ‘You were about to undress,’ he said in demotic Scythian.
‘Was I indeed?’ she laughed, answering in the same language. ‘I had no idea you were fluent in my native tongue, or knew me to be of Scythian extraction. You’re very clever, Konig.’
You don’t know the half of it, he thought. I’m fluent, instantly, in every tongue, every language I encounter. It’s my particular talent, and my curse.
‘I’m sorry to be forward,’ he said, again in Scythian, ‘but I’ve seen the way you look at me.’
‘And I’ve seen the way you look at me, sir.’
‘Is it so bad?’
Rukhsana smiled. ‘No, Konig, it’s flattering. But I’m no aide-cadre hussy. I’m not about to disrobe for some sordid little tryst in this briefing room. I’m not sure I’m going to disrobe for you at all.’
Grammaticus allowed a smile to cross Heniker’s face. ‘My dear uxor,’ he said, ‘the simple doubt expressed in that sentence is all I could ever ask for.’
IN THE OLD times, in the time of inchoation, races built their fastnesses in places of safety, and left the darker places unexplored. It had been the primitive instinct of man to behave this way. It had kept him safe from the wolf and the sabre-cat. Grammaticus wished his species had kept hold of this instinct, and not forsaken it. The darker places were darker places for a reason. He was fairly certain it was the eternal influence of the Emperor that had quashed that particular taboo.
He thought of Terra’s old maps, with their quaintly phrased notations of warning, here be dragons. That had always been a shorthand motto of man’s ignorance of the darker places of his universe.
‘What did you say?’ Rukhsana asked, rolling over sleepily.
‘Nothing,’ he replied.
‘You said something about dragons, Konig.’
‘I may have.’
‘There are no dragons, Konig.’
It was late afternoon. The palace compound had sweltered out another day, so close to the sea everyone could smell it, yet so far away its cooling influence did not reach.
The sex had been exceptional. The emotional intimacy had almost reduced him to tears. He hated allowing himself to get so close. Seven hundred years was a long time, long enough for him to forget the consequences of proper connection. He had felt her hunger, her appetite to prove she was still something of significance even though her uxorhood was sloughing away like dead skin.
He had allowed himself to love her, and allowed her to reciprocate, and now he faced up to the consequences of that decision.
‘Konig?’
She didn’t even know his real name. He wanted to tell her.
‘Do you have to go back in?’ she asked, rolling over and lying sidelong. Her lithe, naked body made him stir, but he resisted the temptation.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sure we can do the rest of the tactical plan with drone spotters and the fleet appraisal.’
‘You can’t. You need me in there.’
+John.+
‘Oh no.’
‘Oh no, what?’ she asked, sitting up. He rose to his feet. ‘Nothing, my love.’
‘My love. That sounds very serious.’
+John.+
Not now.
‘You’ve gone quite pale, Kon. Are you all right?’
He paced away from the bed, bare-foot, towards the wash room. ‘I’m fine. Absolutely fine. I just need a sip of water.’
Rukhsana rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. ‘Don’t be long,’ she called.
Grammaticus entered the wash room, closed the door behind him, and paused for a moment, head down, leaning his hands on the edges of the stone basin. ‘Not now, really not now,’ he moaned softly. The stone was cool under his palms. He poured some water into it from the jug. All the while, he could feel the old, chipped mirror hanging on the wall behind him.
He turned around.
Gahet looked out at him from the mirror’s cloudy surface.
+You have taken a wrong step, John Grammaticus. The intimate bond you have made with this female is impairing your mission.+
‘Go away.’
+John, you are risking everything. You know what’s at stake. What are you doing?+
‘Being human for a change,’ Grammaticus replied.
+John, we have eliminated agents for less.+
‘I’m sure you have, not in the old days, but in these latter days. I’m sure you have.’
+I am not threatening you, John.+
‘Yes, you actually are,’ he told the mirror.
+The galaxy must live.+
‘Right, right, and can’t I be allowed to live in it a little?’
Gahet’s face faded slowly.
Grammaticus rinsed his face in cold water from the stone basin. ‘Bastards,’ he spat.
BEFORE DAWN, IN a cool, mauve twilight, the escort arrived to take Grammaticus back to the insertion point. He had already been up for an hour, ritually packing and re-packing his small bag. He told the escort to wait with the vehicle, and finished his chores, sipping tepid black caffeine and eating some preserved fruits and spelt bread left over from the night before. She surprised him by waking up.
‘Were you planning on leaving without a goodbye?’
‘No,’ he lied.
‘Good.’ Rukhsana brushed a strand of long, blonde hair off her face and looked him up and down. He had dressed in a simple desert suit of soft brown kid-skin, with Army-issue boots and a canvas jacket.
‘You don’t look much like a native.’
‘That part comes later.’
All she was wearing was the sheet from the bed. ‘Well, goodbye, then. The Emperor protects.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ he agreed.
‘Try to come back,’ Rukhsana said. ‘I’d like to see you again.’
‘I’ll come back,’ he replied, not lying this time, ‘because I want to see you again.’
Uxor Rukhsana smiled and tilted her head slightly to one side, regarding him. ‘There’s something about you, Konig. It’s as if you see right into me.’
‘That’s because I do,’ he said.
THE ESCORT, A young geno company bashaw and three sleepy troopers, were waiting for him in the rear yard of the palace compound. The ride was a light speeder, the hull of which had been sand-blasted back to bare metal by the environment.
‘Sir,’ the bashaw saluted as Grammaticus walked out of the lit doorway into the darkness of the yard with his bag over his shoulder. It took a second to place the man’s background accent… Yndonesia, Purwakarta Administ
rative District, perhaps one of the Cianjur hives.
‘What’s your unit?’ Grammaticus asked in Bahasa Malay. The bashaw blinked in surprise and smiled.
‘Arachne, sir,’ he replied. ‘I didn’t know you were a Pan-Pac, sir.’
‘I’m not. I’m from all over.’
They got in and rode out of the yard, and through the descending levels of the ancient desert palace, via checkpoints, gateways and night-watch barricades where sentries lurked beside sputtering braziers, their rifles hooked through their folded arms. Papers and biometrics were routinely checked.
The Nurthene had a subversive streak. Experience had taught the Imperial Army that the Nurthene had spies of their own, saboteurs too. It felt odd to be a spy checked on the way out.
Outside the palace perimeter, the speeder picked up velocity and coasted along the bombed-out avenues and dust-dressed streets of the township surrounding the compound. The sun was threatening to rise behind the passing ruins. Grammaticus sat back in the rear seat, trying to relax, trying to compose his focus into identity immersion, feeling the breeze of motion against his face. He began to regret making a connection with the young bashaw. The officer, sitting up front, kept leaning around and talking to Grammaticus about places in Cianjur that Grammaticus had never visited, nor had any wish to visit. Grammaticus had been in Cianjur once, long ago. He’d been there as part of an army that had burned the place down, five hundred years before the hive the bashaw had grown up in had even been planned.
He closed his eyes and thought of Rukhsana.
It’s as if you see right into me. There was too much truth in that. His mind saw into everything. It made him think of the thing he tried never to think about: that day, long ago, meeting the Emperor, shaking his hand, tasting the power, and seeing, behind the glamour of that handsome, noble, healthy face, seeing…
Just for a nanosecond. Seeing…
‘Are you quite well, sir?’ the bashaw asked. ‘You went rather pale all of a sudden. Is it motion sickness?’