The Emperor Expects

by Gav Thorpe

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Koorland crossed the small cell-like chamber and sat on the fold-down cot along one wall. It sagged under his weight, the reinforced braces creaking. ‘Let me tell you, my brothers and I fought with courage, honour and discipline. There was nothing we could do to match the power of the attack moon.’

  ‘My point exactly, captain.’ Urquidex paused as the door hissed open.

  Standing on the threshold was a mostly mechanical apparition, which Koorland at first took to be a servitor.

  ‘Good evening, Captain Koorland,’ said the thing, in a voice that had the thrum of artificial modulation but was unmistakably that of Phaeton Laurentis.

  ‘Emperor’s Throne!’ swore Koorland, standing up. ‘What happened to you?’

  The tech-priest looked nothing like he had the first time Koorland had met him. He now stepped through the doorway on a tripod of legs, his mechanical lower torso clanking and whirring with pistons in an effort to maintain balance. Most of Laurentis’ upper body was covered with his robes but beneath their thick layer were unnatural bulges and twists of hidden cables, jutting pipes and trembling implants. His arms were double-articulated miniature cranes, tipped with quad-digit grabbing claws that clacked open and shut as Laurentis raised a hand in greeting. Nothing remained of his face except for a small patch of flesh and one eye, which had been relocated to a central position. The rest was heavily riveted metal plates, speaker grilles and sensor-cluster lenses and spines.

  ‘My physique has undergone a number of repairs and upgrades. No cause for alarm.’

  ‘When I saw most of you splayed out on that examination gurney I thought they would put you back together the way you had been.’

  ‘There were some very inefficient systems in that body,’ said Urquidex before Laurentis could offer an opinion either way. ‘Magos Laurentis’ newly adapted form is far better for the sort of tasks he will be performing.’

  ‘That sounds like a demotion,’ said Koorland, sitting down again now that his surprise had subsided. ‘Have you offended your superiors in some way, tech-priest?’

  ‘The offence is to the Machine-God,’ said Laurentis. ‘I perhaps spoke out of turn concerning the actions of my fellow techna-liturgia during the Ardamantua crisis. Only by thorough debriefing have I been allowed to continue in the role of magos. However, this body and these duties of which my colleague speaks are not a punishment. Most of my flesh was destroyed and many of my hard-lined systems corrupted. Fortunately my core data store remained intact.’

  ‘If I understand it right, I have you to thank, what little it is worth, for my life.’

  ‘Gratitude is not required, captain. I simply acted on a most illogical stimulus.’ The construct-man’s head rotated strangely to regard Urquidex with a cluster of red lenses. ‘I believe I have formulated a new axiom of research.’

  ‘Indeed?’ exclaimed the magos biologis. ‘That would be unprecedented. Are you quite sure that your faculties remained intact following your violent interaction with the orkoids?’

  ‘It is called a “battle”, magos. Not a “violent interaction”. I know; I was involved in it.’ Koorland could not help but feel some amusement at the irony of this statement. It was Laurentis that had once called the Chromes’ claws ‘digital blades affixed to or articulated from forelimbs’. Though his body had been rendered even more artificial and mechanical, Laurentis’ personality seemed to have lurched towards the biological.

  ‘This axiom, I am very proud of it,’ Laurentis continued. ‘Perhaps if it is adopted it shall be named after me. And this is it: “When all rational explanation has been exhausted, any explanation, no matter how irrational, must be the solution.” Do you like it?’

  ‘Nonsensical drivel of the highest order. It was exactly this unbecoming manner that brought censure from Magos Van Auken.’

  ‘By all rational explanation, there were no survivors of Ardamantua. Yet here you are, captain.’ Laurentis returned his attention to the Space Marine. ‘My own recollection, somewhat hazily rendered by my damaged editicore processors, is of acting not out of any extant proof that you were alive, or indeed that there were any other survivors. Not as far as I was consciously aware. In my fragmentary state I believe I happened upon a further stage of enlightenment concerning the artifices of the Machine-God. Through unconscious and subconscious deduction I formed the illogical hypothesis that someone might be alive. My adjustment of the scanning parameters was equally unfounded by rational deduction.’

  ‘A guess,’ said Urquidex. ‘Random extrapolation of chaos. The Machine-God works in a convoluted manner, Laurentis, but if you believe that you are some new prophet of his artifice I must disappoint you. Evidently you have suffered a deeper malfunction to your core centres than we believed.’

  ‘A hunch,’ said Koorland. He shook his head in disbelief. ‘A tech-priest acted on an instinct, a hunch? It seems Ardamantua was remarkable in one more respect.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Laurentis. Two of his sensor antennae bent upwards in something that might have been an attempt at a smile. ‘A hunch.’

  ‘It would be in your interest not to announce such a thing in the presence of Van Auken,’ said Urquidex. ‘He is already minded to have you core-stripped and data-mined for all information regarding the events at Ardamantua. This heretical nonsense does no credit to your continued deterministic existence, Laurentis.’

  ‘That will not happen,’ said Koorland. ‘Though Magos Laurentis does not acknowledge his efforts, I do, and I am bound by my traditions to honour the debt I owe to him. There will be no punitive measures or investigations carried out, do you understand?’

  ‘It is not your place to interfere in an internal matter of the Adeptus Mechanicus, captain. Your opinion in this matter is inconsequential.’ Despite his words there was a note of equivocation in the tech-priest’s tone.

  Koorland stood up, his head nearly brushing the ceiling of the recuperation cell. Without seeming to expend any effort at all, the Space Marine grabbed Urquidex’s robes in a massive fist and lifted the magos from the deck. Koorland turned so that Urquidex was pressed up against the yards-thick glass of the viewport. The magos’ mechadendrites and bionic limbs squirmed.

  ‘Perhaps you will find floating in vacuum of no consequence, magos,’ said the captain. ‘That will be your fate should I learn of anything befalling Magos Laurentis. Equal unpleasantness will ensue for Van Auken or anyone else that acts against the interest of the magos. Am I understood?’

  Urquidex nodded. Koorland lowered the tech-priest and relinquished his grasp.

  ‘Very well. You may leave now.’

  Without another word Urquidex scuttled out of the room, head and appendages bobbing with disapproval. Koorland watched the tech-priest disappear down the corridor outside and then sat down once the magos had turned out of view. He realised that Laurentis was regarding him with a full suite of sensors, his one remaining eye staring directly at the Space Marine.

  ‘Interesting,’ said the tech-priest.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Though not intimately acquainted with every battle-custom and facet of Chapter orthodoxy concerning the Imperial Fists, my data-files were significantly invested with relevant material before my association with your warriors began. I do not recall any specific blood-debt traditions or requirements, the likes of which you appear to have invoked. That being the case, in absence of other evidence, I assume that you have taken it upon yourself to extend a protective oath in my favour for another reason. I am at a loss to explain what that reason might be.’

  Koorland leaned forwards, thick forearms resting on his knees.

  ‘Let us just call it a hunch.’

  Four

  Terra – the Imperial Palace

  The Sigillite’s Retreat.

  Vangorich wondered if the small walled garden had been named as a place of repose for the fou
nder of the Council of Terra, or if it perhaps drew on an even more ancient history for its inspiration.

  The area was square, about thirty foot across, quite unimposing by the standards of the Imperial Palace. A single log split in two down its length and shaped by carpenters formed a cross-shaped bench at the centre of the garden, at a diagonal to the four archways by which the cloister could be entered. The paths were of pure white gravel between beds of larger stones in dark grey and black, arranged something like a floor plan, though Vangorich suspected a purpose more symbolic or metaphysical informed the layout.

  The Grand Master wondered if there had once been plants here. If so, they had died long ago for lack of care; no mouldering leaf or root, or speck of soil remained amongst the sterile rock.

  Like many other parts of the Palace, the Sigillite’s Retreat had been cut off by collapsed bastions and fallen walls, isolated by the ruin brought down upon Terra during the Heresy War. Only a chance remark in one of the old annals even admitted its existence, and it had taken three whole years of diligent investigation for Vangorich to identify its position, and a further six to secretly excavate and conceal passage into the garden.

  Overhead must once have been open to the sky, but now the only light was dim, filtered through a dirty window mesh dome in the roof of the greater Palace nearly half a mile above. If one looked above the twenty-foot-high walls, the towering edifice of the Palace crowded down, piled up on great columns floor after floor, a teetering mass of dormitories and offices for the Administratum. It was if the garden existed in its own little bubble of reality now, a cave amongst the strata of hab-complexes and scriptoria.

  But here in the midst of the bureaucracy and madness was a place of utter charm and utter calm. It was all the more precious to Vangorich because only he knew of its existence. The volume that named the space had been hidden deep within the Librarius Sanctus where nobody else would find it; the convicted criminal labourers sequestered from the Adeptus Arbites had been handed over to the Adeptus Mechanicus for induction as servitors after they had completed their work.

  Alone, quiet and undisturbed, Vangorich sat on the wooden bench and considered his options without risk of discovery. It was perhaps the only place in the galaxy he lessened his guard for a moment.

  It was, therefore, something of a shock to the Grand Master to hear a delicate cough behind him.

  He was on his feet in a moment, las-blade flicked from his sleeve, digital weapons glinting with power as he flexed his knuckles in preparation to fire.

  Wienand stood leaning against the inside of one of the arches, her arms crossed, her face a mask of smugness. Her features were young for one of her position, though anti-agapics and age-reducing therapies were a possibility. She was not quite as tall as Vangorich, of athletic build, with short, pale grey hair and a narrow, sharp-boned face. Not unpleasant to look at by any measure, but also not so pretty that she would attract undue attention at a gathering.

  She was dressed in a dirty coveralls, much patched, over a chunky shirt of grey canvas-like fabric. Workman’s boots and an oily rag spilling from a pocket completed the disguise. Vangorich realised she must have been forced to masquerade as a menial in order to gain entry to his refuge. He didn’t know exactly where the security breach was, but that fact alone narrowed it down to a few possibilities.

  ‘Surprise,’ said the Inquisitorial Representative, showing pearl-white teeth in a grin.

  ‘Surprise be damned, you wretched woman,’ snapped Vangorich, rattled for the first time in many decades. ‘I might have killed you.’

  ‘Now, now, Grand Master, at least have the grace to admit when you have been outdone.’

  Vangorich sheathed his blade and deactivated the digi-weapons. He conceded the point with a single nod of the head and gestured Wienand towards the bench.

  ‘It was too much to hope that I might be permitted just a single place of sanctuary,’ he said, sitting down while Wienand advanced along the path, the gravel scrunching under her tread. The noise brought fresh irritation; a reminder of the peace he sought being broken. Also, it was just clumsy to be heard so easily and it irked all of Vangorich’s instincts for stealth.

  ‘You can be assured that I will not tell anybody else,’ she said, sitting on the bench to Vangorich’s left, across from him. ‘I am rather glad you have a little bolthole, Drakan. It makes me feel safer knowing that a man who puts himself under so much stress has somewhere he can relax. The last thing we need at the moment is a Grand Master of Assassins getting tetchy.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Your little outburst during Lansung’s war council. It was stupid.’

  Vangorich blinked, shocked twice in a short space of time, this time by the inquisitor’s bluntness. ‘At least I was in attendance, in a position to oppose this disastrous plan.’

  ‘Disastrous? Do you think there should be no response against the ork attacks? You might well think that Lansung and his games are the greatest threat to the Imperium but it is not your position to judge! The orks will not wait for us to reorganise ourselves and any response, no matter how late and no matter what the motivation behind it, must be welcome. There is an actual war, Drakan, and we are very close to losing it. Perhaps you think your operatives will be able to assassinate every one of the greenskins?’

  ‘If Lansung gets his way, it will lead to a reunification, in practice if not law, of the Navy and Guard. Surely you can see what a threat that poses.’

  ‘Greater than the orks? Not yet. Let us not get ahead of ourselves. We will burn that bridge when we get to it. You really are starting to overstep your mark, Drakan. While you were busy destroying whatever credibility you had left by responding to Lansung’s posturing, I have been hard at work protecting the Imperium. Your meddling is causing more problems than it is solving. In fact, have you done anything useful lately? I know you have a cell on Mars, do they have anything to report?’

  In no mood for banter, Vangorich stood up, straightened his coat and started walking towards the archway ahead.

  ‘If you leave, you will never find out what I was going to tell you,’ said the inquisitor.

  Vangorich stopped at the arch but did not turn. ‘Really? Do you think me such a useful hound that you can feed me scraps at your whim to keep me loyal?’

  ‘I bring a warning.’

  Turning, Vangorich raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

  ‘Yes, a warning,’ said Wienand, standing up. ‘You are making enemies, Drakan. Powerful enemies.’

  ‘That is not news, my dear Wienand.’ Vangorich smiled with genuine amusement. ‘How nice of you to care for my well-being.’

  ‘It is the Inquisition that you are starting to alienate, Grand Master.’

  Vangorich kept his tone light, hiding the concern he felt at this statement.

  ‘I thought we were friends, Wienand. I know we have had our odd duel, but we are allies, are we not?’

  ‘And that is your other mistake. We are allies for the time being, of a sort, but do not think for a moment that I place any concern for you above the greater protection of the Emperor and the Imperium. We would use and discard each other in an instant, do not pretend otherwise.’

  ‘My other mistake?’

  ‘Your first is to conflate the Inquisitorial Representative with the Inquisition. I am not a Lord High Admiral, a Grand Master, not even a speaker. My position is entirely arbitrary, sustained by the goodwill of my fellow inquisitors and no small amount of political games I must play away from the Senatorum. There are many who are beginning to doubt the wisdom of my continued presence in that role.’

  ‘It sounds as if you have enemies, not I. I wish you every fortune in your future endeavours away from the Senatorum Imperialis.’

  ‘You vain idiot, shut up and listen!’

  The words were like a slap across the face, sharp and stinging. Vango
rich took a step towards Wienand, hand half-raised to strike her. He gathered his temper and turned the fist into a pointing finger.

  ‘Pick your words carefully, inquisitor, if you wish to retain such allies as you currently possess. It seems to me that you come seeking help but cloak it as threat.’

  ‘There is movement against me within the Inquisition on two fronts, Drakan. Firstly, they believe I have been too tolerant of the excesses of the Senatorum during recent events. In fact they feel that the entire Imperium’s governance has been allowed to fall to ruin in the past few decades. They want to extend a stronger, more obvious control over the Senatorum.’

  ‘The Inquisition may have absolute authority, but they cannot survive without the cooperation of the likes of Lansung, Zeck and Gibran. Your temporal power is limited by the resources others place at your disposal.’

  ‘There are some that forget such truth. They believe, in no small part due to the influence of the Ministorum, that they answer a genuine calling by the Emperor. Righteous men and women make for dangerous rulers.’

  ‘There is another reason for your position becoming more precarious?’

  ‘My treatment of you, Grand Master. The Officio Assassinorum is a weapon to be deployed at the behest of the High Lords, not an organisation to sit in judgement of them. Some amongst my order wish to make an example of you and your temples.’

  ‘We would retaliate.’

  ‘If you wish to plunge the Imperium into anarchy whilst it is beset from outside by xenos of untold destructive potential. They rely upon you, Drakan, to stay true to your loyalty and duty.’