Vaults of Terra- The Hollow Mountain - Chris Wraight

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘I still serve. I wish only for the strength to do His work a little longer.’

  ‘As do we all.’

  ‘You have questions.’ Revus nodded. The priest pulled a thumbed sheaf of parchment from his cloak, and handed it over. ‘Here are names your master will wish to study, when he can. The usual sources – whispers in confession, the accusations of the desperate. Who knows? Some may even be guilty.’

  ‘And have you noticed a… worsening?’

  Heinwolf croaked a laugh. ‘You feel it too?’ He turned to face Revus, exposing a drawn, ash-white face under his cowl. ‘Every night, in this place, we have prophets telling us the End Times are around the corner. I never believed them.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘They may have a point.’

  Revus stowed the parchment. ‘Inquisitor Crowl wishes he could come in person,’ he said. ‘He is detained with matters of great importance, but wished me to convey his thanks for the work you do on our behalf.’

  ‘Crowl is a good man.’

  ‘He has one particular query.’

  ‘Does he, now.’

  ‘You know the name Aido Gloch?’

  Heinwolf coughed – a dry, cold ratchet. ‘Quantrain’s thug. Yes, I know the name.’

  ‘Gloch has information that would be of use to us,’ said Revus. ‘For some reason, he is proving elusive. Has he been here?’

  The priest shook his head. ‘Not for a long time.’

  ‘Do you know of anyone who might know his whereabouts?’

  ‘Your job, surely? If you can’t keep up with your own kind, not much hope we can.’

  ‘Then, if you wish to help us further, keep an ear open. You know how to contact me if you need to.’

  Heinwolf pulled his robes tighter around his skinny frame. It was cold in the chapel, and the candles’ smoky flames did little to change that. ‘I could ask why, perhaps. I might be concerned, if some feud between your agencies were to find its way down here.’

  ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘See, now I’m truly concerned.’

  Revus got up, giving the altar a respectful nod as he did so. He admired the Militarum. ‘I wish you strength for your sacred duties, father,’ he said.

  ‘There is someone you could try,’ said Heinwolf, looking up at him. ‘I have a contact, out in the Mordant factories. She’s reliable. Remember the organ-gangs you broke up three years ago? That came from her. We used to talk a lot, but she’s gone quiet. I’d investigate myself, but they keep me busy here.’

  Revus hesitated. ‘How is this related to Gloch?’

  ‘She informs for him, too. She didn’t want me to know it, but you know how these networks are – one person talks, another one hears, it gets around. Quantrain doesn’t have much going on in Salvator, so I think she’s useful to him. If you’re looking for him, you might want to look for her too.’

  ‘A name?’

  ‘Elija Roodeker. Technician in the parchment-works for the scribe houses. Good with a knife.’

  Revus nodded. ‘My thanks. I’ll look her up.’ He walked over to the chapel’s doorway.

  ‘You know what they’re singing, up there?’ Heinwolf called after him. ‘Though Night Falls, My Faith Endures.’

  Revus paused at the threshold. ‘And does it, father?’

  Heinwolf sniffed. ‘I don’t know. Something’s up, captain. Maybe one thing’s true, and the other isn’t.’

  Revus hesitated, wondering if that was a weak attempt at a jest, or something he should be concerned about. It was not unknown for a priest to fall into corruption. And yet, Heinwolf looked destroyed already, hunched over in a forgotten chapel to a forgotten regiment. There were some weaknesses not worth worrying about.

  ‘Careful what you say, priest,’ Revus told him, walking back out into the dark. ‘Not everyone on Terra is as tolerant as me.’

  You had, of course, to forget.

  That had been Haldus Revre’s motto for a long time, and it had served him fairly well. So much of the business of survival on Terra was bound up with not knowing. Knowledge, of any kind, was terribly dangerous. To know that a man was a heretic, or that a woman was a trafficker in prohibited items, or that an official was taking bribes beyond a level tolerated by whoever had control over them, was to become complicit in their crimes and thus a target. Perhaps that heretic or arms-runner or official was not what they seemed, and you were merely becoming entangled into something more extensive, which was even worse. Some nets of confidence spread, like insect super-colonies, deep below and high above. It was better, all things considered, not to know. And if somehow, despite your efforts, you still knew, the next best thing was to forget.

  But also impossible, in his profession, and so a middle ground had to be sought.

  He pushed his RE-4x Condor gun-shuttle down through the grime, adjusting its descent against the perilous inter-spire thermals. The streets – what he could see of them amid the flying grey dust – were still strewn with the detritus from the long-ended Sanguinala. It would take weeks more before the last of it was gathered up by the gutter scavengers, scrabbling around for the cheap tatters of red ribbon and gauze and devotional pamphlets, none of which had any value except for the truly destitute or insanely religious.

  He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, feeling greasy and tight. The air had been thicker, it seemed like, ever since the end of the festivals. It wasn’t just him who had noticed – Enyi in the next scribe-chamber along had complained of it so much she’d been given a sanction by the section commander. The watch officers were grumbling, he’d been told, about unrest boiling over in places where you wouldn’t expect it. They didn’t like it when it got truly hot – frayed tempers and failing air processors made it harder to keep a lid on things. If Revre had been interested, he might have enquired a bit further about what was going on, but he wasn’t, and so he didn’t. You had to forget.

  The platform below – an octagon of dark metal swimming up from the gloom – beckoned him down with a flurry of blinking lumens. Gaudy signage snapped on and off around it, below it, above it. Most of that was religious in nature, some security-related, and a smattering was commercial. Galaganda was not a rich district, despite being in such close proximity to the Hall of Judgement. The kind of thing Revre was after didn’t exist so obviously in rich districts. For all that human society had evolved, some things never changed, no matter the heat, the cold, the age or the season.

  The Condor was a standard transport for an official of his station and had capacity for four passengers besides the pilot. Normally there would have been another official with him and two bodyguards drawn from the enforcers’ close protection cadres, but not tonight. That was a risk, given the location, but then everything was a risk – Terra was not a safe world, not even in the highest fragranced domes of the highest spires, and you couldn’t be overlooked all the time.

  He touched down with a flex of landing spurs. The Condor whined down to cold, and the main access hatch cantilevered open. Revre unbuckled his restraints and emerged into the open, adjusting the grit-filters over his mouth and nostrils and pulling his plasfibre robes tighter around him. The dull roar of traffic made the air above him thrum. Menials were already hurrying to secure the gun-shuttle, but he ignored them, striding to the edge of the platform where the elevators stood. In every direction, the mighty spines of the hive-towers reared up, filling the sky, glittering like dark mountains limned with lurid spots of yellow. The usual cacophony punched through the background roar – tinny vox-bursts from state-authorised commerce outlets, cries from the clogged pedestrian piers, the snarl and skid of groundcars hemmed into their swirling transit-spans.

  A guard was waiting for him at the elevator entrance – a skinny figure in a battered carapace breastplate carrying an old electro-lance. Revre presented his credentials, then waited for them to be
verified on a clunking pattern-reader. After the all-clear, he got into the descent cage and the locks slammed back. A moment later and he was clattering down the shaft, holding on to the main roll-bar to keep his feet. The roar of the exterior disappeared, along with the hot breeze and the stink of engine oils. He saw the flicker-pattern of the hab-levels rolling past – just glimpses into worlds he would never visit. They were all much the same – dirty flares of under-powered lighting and long, filth-packed corridors receding into the dark.

  The cage hit its destination level, and he disembarked. This was a long way down, far enough that the reek of engine oils had been replaced by earthier aromas – mould, damp, rust, human sweat. A long corridor ran off ahead, and he walked casually down it. At the end, lit by a painfully strobing neon tube, was a hatch. By the hatch was a locked door with no signage. Inside the hatch was a woman with an ironwork grille riveted over her eyes and long, painted fingernails.

  ‘Ser Klenda,’ she said, nodding at him. ‘How are you today?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Revre, handing over his ident-wafer and placing his finger up to the blood-check needle.

  ‘Busy, are you?’ the woman asked idly, running the wafer through an old verifier unit.

  ‘You know, we are,’ said Revre, leaning against the door frame. ‘It’s becoming unhinged. Something’s in the water.’

  ‘Cholera,’ said the woman, humourlessly. She handed the wafer back. ‘That’s all fine, ser. I wish you much pleasure.’

  Revre put the wafer back in his wallet and pushed the door open. As he did so, the familiar smell of the place wafted over him, blotting out the urine-tang of the corridor. He unclipped his nostril filters and breathed it in.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Time to forget.

  The space inside was as scratchily plush as the space outside was grimy. A crimson carpet, frayed at the edges, ran down a narrow walkway. A few dozen doors, all locked, were set into the walls on either side. Some dog-eared picts had been stapled up – images of paradise worlds, or heroes of the Militarum in dress uniforms. One of them had been scribbled over and defaced, and no one had done anything about it. Black spiderwebs of fungus radiated out from the walls’ edges, glistening faintly.

  He reached his usual cubicle, and used the ident-wafer to gain entry. The space was very small – three metres square, with a single armchair and table. Revre could see the incense-steam tumbling softy through the air-filters, so pungent it made his eyes water. He took off his facial gear and massaged his jawline. He took off his overcoat and his jacket, then rolled up his left sleeve. On the table was a vial and a needle and a tube. He connected them up, sat down, and took a breath.

  He knew this room almost better than his own hab-chamber. He’d stared at these faded pink walls for hours, though much of that time was lost to the blur of memory loss. It was a comforting space. Its size made you feel safely enclosed, locked away, cut off from the limitless sprawl above and beyond. What he had told the woman at the doorway was right – his labours had been getting crazy, and it was making him jumpy. The enforcers were always run ragged, chasing a hundred different insurrections across a dozen urban sectors, but it had felt like it was getting out of control for some time now. Keeping order on Terra was essentially a confidence trick – if the masses ever truly realised what power they had in their vast numbers, and somehow coordinated, they would be virtually unstoppable. You had to keep them afraid. Keep them busy. Keep them looking at their feet and their neighbours rather than up at the smog-banks and gun-drones.

  Revre sighed. These were not good thoughts to have. He had to break the cycle, get back to thinking more positively.

  He popped the lid on the vial, connected the tube, and slipped the needle into a vein. Then he sat back, and waited for the contents to do their work. Almost immediately, the boundaries of the chamber grew fuzzy. The ceiling appeared to recede, the floor to drop away. The sense of gravity, of confinement and weight, that was always present on Terra lifted. He smiled, and sat back in the armchair. Soon he wouldn’t remember anything of the last twelve-hour shift. For just a short time, it would all be gone, washed away by the soft blur of this agreeable poison.

  He closed his eyes for just a moment.

  When he opened them again, he was no longer alone.

  Revre sat up sharply, his free hand scrabbling for his service sidearm. A man, one of the two figures who stood opposite him, reached down to prevent him. The other figure, a woman, remained where she was.

  ‘Haldus Revre,’ she said.

  He tried to focus. She was wearing nondescript clothing – the kind of thing everyone wore down here. Her companion was the same, but his grip was incredibly strong. How did she know his name? His heart began to pound.

  ‘What do you want?’ he slurred.

  ‘Haldus Revre, Scribe Primus in Hall processing silo Twelve C? Confirm quickly. The longer you wait, the worse it will get for you.’

  He blinked twice, trying to clear his head. ’N-no,’ he mumbled. ‘Lef Klenda, machine operati–’

  The woman leaned over him. She held a little bottle in her right hand. He couldn’t see her face clearly, but she was powerfully built and looked capable of hurting him badly.

  ‘You’ll need this soon,’ she said. ‘It’s the only antidote to the filth you’ve put in your veins. Talk to me, and you can have it. Don’t talk, and I’ll keep it here.’

  Revre frowned. He was feeling groggier than usual. ‘What’re you talking–’

  ‘You normally take five quints,’ she said. ‘There are fifty quints in that vial. You know what that means. Unless you wish to spend your last hour vomiting your own stomach up, stop lying and start talking.’

  His eyes went wide. He suddenly felt the rush, and knew she was telling the truth. He tried to reach out and grab the bottle, but the man kept him clamped in place. ‘Holy Throne!’ he blurted. ‘Why would you–’

  ‘You are a servant of the Adeptus Terra,’ the woman said emotionlessly. ‘By polluting your body and mind you have already earned the death that now comes swiftly for you. You have one chance to redeem yourself. Take it. You are Haldus Revre.’

  He started to sweat. The cramps would begin soon. A cold terror rose up with his stomach and threatened to close like a vice around his throat.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, unable to take his eyes off the bottle. He needed it. He needed it quickly.

  ‘I require the location of all records of investigations pertaining to the orbital quarantine enacted prior to Sanguinala. You understand me? The communication between the Hall of Judgement and the Speaker’s representatives.’

  Revre stiffened. ‘I cannot give you that!’ he stammered, wriggling in the other man’s heavy grip.

  ‘Then you will die here.’

  Revre started to cry. ‘They’ll know…’ he started.

  ‘That is a risk. No worse than the one you took coming here.’

  The room began to sway. He felt his heart rate start to accelerate. ‘I… cannot…’

  ‘You are running out of time, Haldus Revre.’

  ‘Hall twenty-six!’ he gasped. ‘Level four-five-eight. They’re sealed, though.’

  ‘You have an ident wafer, and a blood sample. Will that be sufficient?’

  ‘Yes, yes, if you get that far.’ His head was swimming now. It felt like insects were crawling through his innards. He could scarcely feel the man drawing the ampoule of blood, nor the ident wafer being taken from his pocket. ‘There are security cordons.’

  The woman handed him a data storage slug. ‘You know the codes. Input them here.’

  He looked up at her. ‘All of them?’

  ‘All of them.’

  The man released him to work. His own fingers had got fatter, it seemed. His mind was following them, turning to mush and making it hard to think. Somehow, he managed to punch them out, the ones he could
still recall. Then he added a final one. He tried to hand the slug back, but the woman folded her arms.

  ‘Outer zone access codes. All the way in. Work faster.’

  He went as fast as he could. He could feel his core temperature rising fast, and the nausea beginning, and the numbness that rose from his feet and would climb steadily through his muscles until the real pain started.

  His hands shaking badly now, he handed the slug back. The two figures before him had morphed into four, overlapping and spiralling.

  ‘Please…’ he said, reaching out for the bottle.

  The woman tucked the slug into her jerkin and instructed her accomplice to check the door. Then she turned towards him and handed him the bottle.

  ‘It won’t help,’ she said, her voice cold with contempt. ‘Your sins have found you out, scribe.’

  Revre pulled the lid off, and cold water spilled on to his hands. For a moment, he just looked at it, appalled, watching it drip through his shaking figures.

  The woman walked calmly away, following her companion through the door.

  ‘But you still have your sidearm,’ she told him, pulling the heavy panel closed behind her. ‘In what time remains to you, I suggest you locate it.’

  Frantically, Haldus Revre started to rummage in his tunic, shivering and sweltering. As he slipped to the floor, still scrabbling, the door closed with an echoing clang, sealing him in. The world began to shrink around him, terrifyingly fast.

  Spinoza strode swiftly along the perfume-drenched corridor. Hegain came with her, studying the data slug carefully.

  ‘How does it look?’ she asked.

  Hegain glanced up at her. ‘Yes, very much what is required, I think so,’ he reported. For once, he seemed somewhat lost for words.

  ‘Unpleasant work, sergeant,’ said Spinoza, reaching the main entrance. ‘But necessary – time is short.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Hegain agreed. ‘Of course, you have the right of it.’

  They passed through the main portal. There was no sign of the woman at the hatch, nor of the guards who had been there earlier.