by Neil
‘What are you?’ Jomi thought fiercely; and even then he resisted the impulse to speak out loud, and risk being overheard by a fellow worker. Was the languid voice male, or was it female? Perhaps neither…
‘What are you, voice?’
‘Before you can understand the answer, you need to learn much. Tell me: what shape has your world?’
‘Shape? Why, it’s all sorts of shapes. It’s smooth and rocky. It’s up and down – ‘
‘Seen from afar, Jomi, seen from afar so that hills and valleys are as nothing. Seen by a bird flying higher than any bird has ever flown.’
‘I guess… like a plate?’
‘Oh no… Listen, Jomi, your world is globular like an eyeball. Your world is a big moon that swings around a giant world wholly made of gas, which is an even bigger eyeball. Your blue sun is the hugest eyeball hereabouts.’
‘How can that be? The sun’s so much smaller than the giant.’
‘But hotter, hmm? Have you never wondered why it’s hotter?’
‘Sure I have.’
‘But you thought it wiser not to ask, hmm? Wise, Jomi, wise.’ How the voice fondled him. ‘You can ask me without fear. Your sun is so vast that its own weight burns it. It’s a star; and so far away that it looks like a thumbnail at arm’s length. As I myself am far away from you, my Jomi.’ The voice seemed to sigh. ‘Indeed, much further than your star.’
Jomi continued sorting the slippery, reeking entrails into different trays. ‘It can’t be a star. The star-lanterns are tiny and cold.’
‘Ah, innocent youth. The stars aren’t lanterns. Let’s take this step by step, shall we? Your moon and your sun and the giant and the stars are all spherical in shape.’
‘Spherical?’ What words this voice knew, such as the lords in Urpol might use.
‘Circular. Think loudly of a circle floating in empty space.’
‘I’d rather not!’ A circle was the shape of a wheel, the terrible taboo wheel. No man must make any wheel, nor use one save for the punishment wheel, or else witches would triumph and rule the world.
‘Calm yourself, sweet youth. The wheel is the beginning of knowledge. I will tell you why, if you will concentrate on imagining a circle. That helps me to… focus on you.’
‘Focus?’
‘To see you, as through a lens.’
‘What’s a lens?’
‘Ah, you have so much to learn, and I will be your secret teacher.’
When Jomi washed himself later, Galandra Puschik stood with hands on giant hips surveying him as if he was the next day’s dinner; and to his horror he overheard her thoughts…
She lusted to run her meaty hands all over Jomi. She yearned to kneed him like dough then bake him like bread in her hot embrace. Farmer Puschik would be going on a business trip away from the farm some day soonish. Then she would enjoy the boy…
Jomi could hear thoughts. It was as if the voice in his head was massaging muscles of his brain that had been puny as threads till now; was tickling sensation into nerves of his mind that had previously lain loose, causing them to knot and knit.
He could hear thoughts. Therefore he was a witch.
‘Be tranquil,’ the voice advised. ‘Yet think loudly of the circle. Thus I can find you. Thus I can save you, my bewitching boy.’
For many days the voice told Jomi about the pleasures and beauties of the wider universe beyond his farming moon where there was only toil and sweat and fear.
The delights and glories that the voice described seemed somehow like memories of memories, echoes of echoes, as if the experiences in question had occurred too many years ago to count, and the voice no longer quite understood their nature, yet felt compelled to recount them even so.
IN THE CABIN of the space cruiser Human Loyalty, Inquisitor Torq Serpilian brooded about the paradox which had begun to haunt him. He keyed his coded diarium and spoke to it.
‘It is a week since we emerged safely from warp-space, benedico Imperatorem. We are in orbit around the gas-giant Delta Khomeini V.’ Beyond the quatrefoil tracery of the viewport the huge orange ball of storming hydrogen and methane held on an invisible leash the crescent of a single large moon that gleamed with atmosphere.
‘Propositum: for millennia past our undying Emperor has defended humanity against psychic attack from the warp, so that – one far-off day – humankind can evolve psychic powers puissant enough to protect itself…’
Battle banners hung from ochreous plasteel walls which were the hue of dried blood. Bleached alien skulls and captured armour were mounted as trophies. For this was a ship of the Legiones Astartes, the Space Marines.
Yet aliens as such rarely worried Serpilian. Even the most devious of aliens were, after all, natural creatures born and bred in the same universe as humankind. Aliens were as nothing compared with the terrible parasites that dwelled in the warp. On Serpilian’s home world a certain unpleasant wasp would inject its hooked eggs into the flesh of beasts and men. Warp parasites could lay their equivalent of eggs in human minds. Those “eggs” would hatch into entities that controlled the body, consuming it and using it to spread contamination. Other warp creatures could seize human souls and drag them back into darkness to feast upon, slowly. And there were far mightier daemonic entities too.
Psyker-witches were beacons shining into the warp. They attracted parasites and daemons that could lay waste a world and make its people unhuman.
‘Subpropositum: wild, unguided, wayward psykers must be sought out by our Inquisition and destroyed.’
‘Counterpropositum: so as to nourish our Emperor, hundreds of fresh young psykers must daily sacrifice their souls – aye, gladly too – to feed his own huge anguished soul.’
Yes indeed, emerging psykers were sought out avidly and sent to Terra by the shipload. Those of high calibre, who could be trained to serve the Imperium, were soul-bound to the Emperor for their own protection, an agonizing ritual which generally left them blind. Exceptional individuals such as Serpilian were allowed to guard themselves mentally. The cream of such free psykers became inquisitors. Yet daily hundreds of those transportees to Terra, duly guided in the blessings of sacrifice, were yielding up their lives in the sucking gullet of the God-Emperor’s mind. And elsewhere throughout the galaxy, untamable psykers were being exterminated as witches.
‘Paradoxus: we root out as weeds what we cannot harvest. Yet whether we harvest or root out, the new crop is largely crushed, in so far as is within our power. How then can humankind evolve that independent future strength it so desperately needs?’
Serpilian imagined a meadow of grass being trampled repeatedly for millennia. He visualized new green blades struggling up into the light only to be flattened remorselessly lest they feed the malevolent creatures of the warp.
Would the Emperor eventually relax his crushing pressure by permitting himself to die? Thus allowing the grass suddenly to sprout up straight and tall and strong, a crop of superhumans?
Yet until that wonderful epoch, utter repression?
‘Let me not become a heretic,’ murmured Serpilian. ‘I must not.’ On reflection, he erased this last entry.
During Serpilian’s career he had encountered situations sufficient to persuade him of the Emperor’s wisdom. He had been a party to enough acts of harshness; had been the initiator of such deeds of necessary savagery – most recently at Valhall II, where enslavers had been invading from the warp and instigating a fierce insurrection against the Imperium.
‘The universe,’ he told his diarium, ‘is cruel, savage, unforgiving. A battleground. And the darkest enemies hide in the warp, like tigers ever ready to pounce on the human herd. If one of that herd attracts the notice of a tiger, the rest of the herd may be ravaged – or worse, possessed and twisted obscenely into evil.’
Was not Serpilian himself thus forced at times to act like a beast, presiding over atrocities in the service of a tyrant?
Serpilian did not exactly pride himself on his independence of thought. He
rather regretted such intrusions of doubt. Still and all, these qualities produced a certain flexibility and ingenuity, thus best serving the cause of the Emperor and of the human race.
His attire reflected that independent demeanour. He wore a long kilt of silver fur, an iridescent cuirass suggestive of the shell of a giant exotic beetle, and a blood-red cloak with high collar. On both forefingers he wore rare jokaero digital weapons, one of these a miniaturized needler, the other a tiny laspistol. Orthodox guns were always secreted about his person. Amulets jangled round his neck, making exorcistic music as he moved.
Serpilian was tall, dark, and lean. His drooping black moustache resembled some insect’s mandibles. On his right cheek was the tattoo of an ever-watchful eye.
Long before the cabin door opened to admit Commander Hachard, Serpilian expected his arrival. The inquisitor was a powerful senser of presence, who knew where everyone was within a generous radius. An unusual offshoot of this sense allowed him to anticipate intrusions from the warp. That was why Human Loyalty had come to the Delta Khomeini solar system. Shortly after leaving Valhall II, Serpilian had dreamed of a sickly-sweet coaxing voice that was neither man’s nor woman’s cajoling a bright young mind far far away; and that young mind was… special, in a way that the young Serpilian’s had been special, only more so, much more so, it seemed. Thus, even across the light years, and through the immeasurable fluctuating currents of the warpsea, Serpilian heard… something that resonated with his own psyche; that plucked at his instincts, as if threads of dark destiny bound him direly to that mind and to that eerie, seductive voice.
A casting of the runebones by Serpilian in tandem with a Tarot divination performed by the ship’s Navigator had indicated the blue star that was fourth brightest in the constellation of Khomeini…
‘We are in orbit around the parent planet,’ Hachard reported respectfully, with only the merest hint of reproach, which he would hardly dare voice. ‘I thought it diplomatic not to order our captain to orbit the moon itself till I had presented our compliments by comnet to the governor.’ Scar tissue on Hachard’s chin stood out whitely as though he had been punched. His cheek-tattoo was of a skull skewered by a dagger. His teeth were painted black as a signal that any smile of his was dark. A vermilion badge of nobility – a stylized power-axe – adorned his right knee-pad modestly so that, whenever bending to the Emperor’s image during devotions, he should kneel upon this heraldic honour. His gloved hand strayed to the Imperial eagle emblazoned in purple on his lavender dress cuirass, as if to emphasize his unquestioning loyalty.
Serpilian knew that the commander would far rather have returned to the Grief Bringers’ base after the action on Valhall II, to take their dead home and to renew their strength.
Even Grief Bringer Marines had been hard put to quash the enslavers disorder. Losses had been heavy. Only three platoons of the warriors remained. Perhaps the Valhall mission should best have been entrusted to one of the redoubtable Terminator teams, but none had been available. Truly, the resources of the Imperium were stretched thin. En route to Delta Khomeini, during a refuelling stopover at a high-gravity world, Serpilian had commandeered the services of two platoons of ogryn giants as a fighting supplement; also, of a lone, mechanically-minded squat, for the Grief Bringers had lost their tech-priest on Valhall II. It was an uneasy mixture.
‘Yes, that’s sensible, Commander,’ said the inquisitor. ‘And have you presented my compliments yet?’ Thus did Serpilian emphasize his personal authority, at a time when he nevertheless felt beset by doubts.
‘That I have, my lord inquisitor. Governor Vellacott felt obliged to mention that he maintains adequate planetary forces in case of alien attack, and that preachers on that moon root out any psykers fiercely.’
‘Would you describe him as an independent-minded governor?’
‘Not obstructively so. We are welcome to land and investigate.’
‘Just as well for him.’
‘He suggested that we wouldn’t need too many Marines to cope with a moonful of farmers, where there isn’t even any obvious threat.’
Serpilian snorted. ‘The level of threat is for me to decide. The worst threat is often the threat that hides itself.’
‘The governor suggested – most politely, you understand – that it might be beneath our dignity to blow human rabbits to pieces. I wonder whether he has any inkling that our strength is depleted? Perhaps his court astropath somehow eavesdropped on ours; though I rather doubt it. I suspect he has some guilty reason to fear for his dynasty.’
‘Such as irregularities in Imperial taxes?’
‘The Vellacotts control the finest grox farms in this celestial segment. Much of the meat and other produce goes to Delta Khomeini II. That’s a barren mining world, producing rare metals for our Imperium. Perhaps there are secret financial arrangements.’
‘Which are none of our concern.’
‘I implied as much, without saying so.’
‘Ah, a Marine commander needs many skills, does he not?’
‘I thank you, my lord inquisitor.’
Serpilian felt obliged to ask, ‘How goes morale?’ For the Grief Bringers had also lost their Chaplain in action on Valhall II. Hachard hesitated. ‘Be frank. I will not be offended.’
‘The ogryns… they stink.’
Serpilian attempted an injection of humour. ‘They are famous for stinking. If one cannot tolerate some body odour, how can one bear the stench of scorching flesh in combat?’
‘My men will fight alongside the abhumans, with honour. But they don’t like it much. Having to share a ship with those Stenches. I suppose, my lord inquisitor, you insisted on pressing the ogryns into service because, being abhuman and frankly thuggish, they’re more expendable.’
Serpilian winced momentarily. What Hachard implied was perilously close to unthinkable impertinence; yet Serpilian had invited the commander to be outspoken, had he not? The loss of so many brave fighters in the earlier action – however justifiable – was a slight blot on the inquisitor’s personal escutcheon of honour. Marines would willingly sacrifice their lives. They were not, however, suicide-berserkers. To replace them with “expendable” abhumans somewhat smeared the pride of the Grief Bringers, amounting almost to an error of judgement on Serpilian’s part.
One did not polish a fine sword with mud, nor repair a broken one with wood.
Muttering a brief prayer, Serpilian unclipped a pouch from his belt. Breathing deeply and slowly to induce a light trance, he cast his rune bones upon a desk of polished black wood. Those finger and toe bones, minutely inscribed with conjurations, had belonged to a rogue psyker mage whom the Inquisition had executed five centuries earlier. Now these relics served Serpilian’s psychic sense. They were a useful channel for his talent, a focus.
As he concentrated, the pattern of white bones against black swam till a foggy picture formed, visible to him alone.
‘What do you see?’ whispered Hachard reverently.
The thought drifted through Serpilian’s mind, like some seductive siren song, that it wasn’t totally unknown for an inquisitor to sicken of his harsh duties and flee to some lost world, some primitive pastoral planet or other.
Not one such as this moon, certainly! The inquisitor resumed his breathing routine.
‘I see a strapping, comely boy. Though his face isn’t clear. I see the circle of a portal opening from the warp, and coming through it is… abomination.’
‘What species of abomination? Enslavers again?’
A sensible question. The warp entities known as enslavers could open a gateway through the very flesh of a vulnerable psyker and spill out – to do as their name suggested.
Serpilian shook his head. ‘The boy’s being given an aura of protection now to hide him. He’s somewhere within a hundred or so kilometres of the capital city. He’s becoming a powerful psychic receiver. Other psychic talents are sprouting in him. I think he’s about to be possessed. Unless we reach him first.’
&n
bsp; ‘To capture him, or destroy him?’
‘I fear for his potential power. One day perhaps,’ and Serpilian sketched a pious obeisance, ‘he might be a little like the Emperor himself. Just a little.’
‘Not a new Horus, surely?’ What loathing crept into the commander’s voice as he uttered the name of the corrupted rebel Warmaster who had betrayed the Imperium, and besmirched the honour of so many Marine Chapters, long long ago. ‘If that’s the situation, maybe the relevant quadrant of the moon should be sterilised… though that would include Urpol city and the spaceport, and many grox farms. Delta Khomeini II would starve as a consequence… And the moon has orbital defences as well as its surface troops, who would fight us… They won’t have much battle experience. I think we could do it. I think. Perhaps with our last drop of blood…’
‘Let us pray it doesn’t come to that, Hachard, though your zeal is commendable.’
‘What is finer than death in battle to defend the future of mankind?’
‘If we are in time, this boy must needs be a gift to our Emperor, for His own divine wisdom to judge. Let us head for that moon as soon as our present orbit permits.’
Serpilian uttered a silent prayer that his inner eyesight might pierce the veil that now partially hid the boy.
‘THINK OF THE circle,’ crooned the mouth within Jomi’s head. ‘It grows larger, larger, does it not?’
The boy watched a floater of grox meat depart from Puschik Farm. The engine and cargo section were spattered with mystic runes to help hold the vehicle in the air and encourage the robot brain to find its way to the city. Those runes had recently been repainted. If runes faded or flaked off the hull, the floater might stray from its course or its chiller unit might fail.
Clouds of flies buzzed around a couple of sledges on which piles of scaly hides, some barrels of blood, and sacks of bones were setting out for the much shorter journey to Groxgelt, there to be rendered into glue, and sausages, and crude armour. Whips cracked, slicing through the aerial vermin to tickle the draught-horses into action. The runners creaked across stones worn smooth by centuries of such local transport.