‘And what would you have us do, Agelastus?’ Cornelius turns on his adversary, teeth clenched. The best laid plans of men, indeed. Meat always finds its way. ‘We won’t have this opportunity again. The parabola of the Nepenthe’s trajectory makes it clear. If we do not take our chance now, we will not see the vessel in our lifetimes. It will be another millennia before it enters realspace again and by that time, we’ll be nothing but scrap.’
The enginseer’s regard is placid. ‘You will be, at least.’
How Cornelius loathes him. Squat, perpetually swaddled in red robes too long for his frame, his mechadendrites sloppily architectured, devoid of any sense of aesthetics. No ambition. Nothing but the bare formalities of biological function. Lupus is a waste of resources, unfulfilled potential. A mere cog. But a blood clot can asphyxiate the most brilliant mind. And here, here was a nodule of useless mass, waiting to be a cause of death.
‘Magos, this is entirely up to you.’ Cornelius cocks his head towards Veles. ‘If you insist that we stand down–’
‘No.’
‘You can’t be serious,’ Lupus snarls. ‘Be reasonable, Magos. I understand that you wish for our Explorator fleet to be recognised. But surely, you understand the absurdity of the situation. What Cornelius is suggesting – you cannot seriously be considering this debacle.’
‘Your objections will be taken into consideration, Enginseer Agelastus. If you’d like to place a formal complaint, I invite you to follow the appropriate procedure.’ The timbre of Veles’ voice disguises nothing of its disdain, and it is all Cornelius can do to not laugh. ‘This is not your jurisdiction, enginseer. If you wish to circumvent the possible consequences of your doomsaying, perhaps you should take the next few hours to evaluate the condition of our equipment.’
‘Magos–’
Cornelius’ fingers bifurcate, steeple, a prism of wires and attenuated silicone.
‘Magos,’ he echoes, tone adjusted for a luxuriant pitch. Conciliatory, even compassionate towards his nemesis. Survival, he’d learned, necessitates a mastery of politics, however distasteful its flavour. ‘I believe–’
He is not permitted to finish.
‘Both of you. Quiet.’ Veles traps the bridge of his nose between gloved fingers.
‘Magos,’ Cornelius hisses.
‘Magos,’ Lupus echoes.
Veles evidences no immediate awareness of their acknowledgement. Along the edge of Cornelius’ perception, he sees the bridge being evacuated. No one wants to be collateral damage. It is only when the space is bereft of conversation, no sound save for the hum of navigational cogitators, that Veles straightens, hand collapsing to his side. ‘The purpose of the Explorators has always been to make sense of the unknown. Where others falter, we strive forward. We cannot surrender this opportunity. It is antithetical to who we are.’
‘Magos, I understand that. But it would not take long for the Ultramarines–’
‘They’d raze it to the ground,’ Cornelius cuts in, unable to help himself, his horror raw. ‘It wouldn’t matter if the vessel was free of hostiles, or even if it contained a – a crew of living tech-priests, preserved by the hand of the Omnissiah. They’d destroy it.’
And her, he thinks, for a sliver of a moment.
‘A regrettable possibility,’ Lupus ripostes, stepping forward. ‘But the reverse will put this entire ship at risk.’
‘And isn’t that the damned point?’ Cornelius barks in counterpoint. ‘The entire purpose of the Cult Mechanicus? To recover and preserve knowledge? Here, we have the opportunity to examine something – something no one has touched in hundreds of years. We cannot be afraid. The flesh is merely vehicular. If we must die for the cause, so be it.’
‘Your passions…’ Veles steers his bulk to an adjacent panel, fingers deft despite their size. Monitors come alive in a cosmos of computations and Cornelius’ voice hitches at the vision, pleasure serrating his thoughts. He recognises them, the visualisations fractalising across the screens. Veles had been listening. More vitally still, they had him. ‘…Have always caused you and your brother trouble, haven’t they?’
‘It was necessary, Magos.’ A subtle tilt of his head. ‘We were raised on a forge world. Our parents were worthless but we always knew we were meant to be more than cattle in the abattoir. We worked tirelessly to be recognised and the Adeptus Mechanicus rewarded our diligence with its attention.’
Not entirely true. Not entirely inaccurate either.
Cornelius recites the story with the practice of a pastor, muscle memory flattening the tale into a perfect truth. Lupus exhales, mid-way, a loud noise, intended to bring pause.
‘We’ve heard this all before. No need to get into this again. Is there a point to this, Magos? Or do you intend that we listen to this blowhard repeat his history all over again?’
Veles dismisses the complaint with a motion. ‘I hadn’t asked for an interruption. And you, Cornelius. He’s right, you know? There is no point to your rhetorics. Not everything is an excuse to expound on your history. A shorter answer would have sufficed. Whatever the case, I’ve made a decision. A boarding party will be dispatched to the Nepenthe when it reenters real-space. You, Agelastus, and your brother shall lead it.’
Cornelius tilts a look at Lupus, picters keyed to the microcosm of his expressions. But if the proclamation angers the enginseer, if it upsets him in any way, his face admits to none of it.
‘Whatever pleases you, Magos,’ Agelastus declares.
‘Good.’ Veles cuts at nothing with the flat of his hand. ‘I imagine you’ll need four maniples of combat servitors, at least. Take whatever you need.’
Klaxon notifications, repeated in a claret glow. Against expectations, the Nepenthe arrives early, spilling into the world like a portent, a warning of what is to come.
‘If it isn’t a space hulk,’ Cornelius confides to his brother, ‘it might as well be.’
Marcus says nothing, unnerved by the unease frissoning down his spine. The dimensions of the vessel exceeded their initial estimates, nearer in proportions to a battle barge than a mere cruiser. He’d thought they’d mapped the ship completely, but there is so much space unaccounted for, bulwarks and bays that had resisted imaging. How could they have been so mistaken?
What if it wasn’t their fault? What if something, something alive and sapient, had occluded their investigations? Edited the structural report? For one moment, the tech-priest is seized by the impulse to terminate the mission, reveal that the operation has been compromised, but there is no question. It’d mean lobotomy, indentured servitude until their muscles gave out from rot.
He glances over at the servitors they’d been assigned, their bodies inert, slack in the harnesses descending from the ceiling of the shuttle. Like so much meat, Marcus thinks. Carcasses rocking from a butcher’s hooks.
‘Have you…’ Marcus begins, each word slow and thick, ‘ever considered what it might be like to be one of them?’
‘The leucotomisation process is painless these days. In the past, physicians would drive an orbitoclast through the bone at the summit of the eye socket and cut.’ Cornelius taps his mask, where the alloyed carapace contorts into a subtly anguished brow. ‘Now, it is a strategic overstimulation of the interface-meshing, at least in the case of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Very humane.’
‘That hardly answers my question.’
Cornelius sags. ‘No. But the theory fascinates. In all honesty, I think it might feel like a bit of a respite. Consciousness is terror, after all. With self-awareness comes the knowledge of one’s eventual demise, the understanding that cessation is inevitable. Our entire biology is servant to that existential dread. Everything we do, everything that we are, revolves around the impulse to arrest that eventuality. It is really quite inefficient. Look at the genus Tyranidae. They’ve committed the burden of autonomy to their Hive Minds. Look at what they’ve accomplished.’
‘The extinction of countless solar systems. Entire galaxies, eaten down to their heart.’ Marcus palms his face, looking out again through the porthole. Outside, in the cthonic abyss, the Nepenthe floats, defiant of classification. Matte panelling and no viewports, no turrets, nothing that approaches the familiar accoutrements of a ship, a rectangular cuboid like someone had carved the ship wholesale from the void itself.
‘Yes, but it isn’t personal.’ Cornelius rises, restless, moves to examine the servitors, while Marcus watches the Nepenthe expand from improbability to irrefutable fact. Probes orbit its obsidian mass, magnesium scintilla that somehow cast no reflection on the oil-deep surfaces. He charts their transmissions; still no indication of where a docking area might reside. If this keeps up, they’d have to gouge a route of their own. ‘Tyranids do not have agendas. Their motivations are pure. It’s simple hunger, bestial and uncomplicated.’
