Lords of Mars Read online

  Linya assisted him in this, insisting that she was well enough to work despite the injuries she had sustained aboard the Tomioka. The bruising had faded and she bore no outward sign of her brush with death at the hands of the robotic sentinels, but Vitali sensed something deeper troubling her than any pain she might still be feeling.

  ‘Did you see that one?’ asked Vitali, gesturing to a star system whose stellar bodies orbited one another with chaotic, elliptical wanderings. ‘A spectroscopic and eclipsing triple star. Three blue-white main sequence stars. Two are in close orbit and appear to revolve around each other once every nine Terran days.’

  ‘And they in turn orbit a third star once every one hundred and fifty days.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Vitali. ‘And to think, we never even knew these were here.’

  ‘Someone did once,’ said Linya, consulting a millennia-old tabulus of celestial accountings. ‘But they were recorded as being in the final stages of their existence and those readings were of light already hundreds of thousands of years old. They should have gone nova by now.’

  ‘And yet here we are,’ said Vitali, stepping away from the controls and beckoning the triple star system closer with the haptic implants in his clicking, metallic fingers. The stars magnified as they approached, graceful and ordered like clockwork by the primal forces of the galaxy.

  Watching the dance of the stars, Vitali could easily imagine the hand of a watchmaker setting them in the heavens. He knew better than that. Ancient physical laws, set down nearly fourteen billion years ago in the opening moments of the universe’s birth, determined their movement and properties. Moments like that were miraculous enough without the presence of a creator.

  ‘Our predecessors would have wept to see what we can see,’ said Vitali, more to himself than to Linya. ‘Flamsteed, Maskelyne, Halley and the composer of Honovere… how they must have dreamed of such things, trapped as they were on Old Earth and forced to scrabble in the heavens for their knowledge. But for all that, I sometimes envy them, Linya.’

  ‘You envy them? Why? We know so much more than they did and we have discovered things they could never have begun to comprehend.’

  Vitali nodded, setting the triple star back into place with a gentle wave. ‘All true, but think of how wondrous it must have been back then. When all you had was a polished mirror fashioned in a mould of dung and set in a wooden tube, sitting on a frosty hillside with an inefficient organic eye pressed to an imperfect lens.’

  ‘Give me the orbital galleries of Quatria any day,’ said Linya.

  ‘We continue their work, but they began it,’ pressed Vitali, feeling the need to impress upon his daughter how magnificent a time the heady days of early astronomy must have been. ‘Those men first brought the heavens within Mankind’s grasp. They denied the geocentric models, and they grasped towards concepts of deep time and distance. They made astronomy a science and they understood our place within the galaxy. Something we have since forgotten, I fear.’

  Vitali stepped away from the control panel and walked through the emerging star maps of this region beyond the galactic fringe.

  ‘So rarely do we have the chance to just explore,’ he said. ‘All too often our works are subverted by Imperialistic concerns: identifying systems of military significance, locating worlds rich in materiel resources, breadbasket regions, asteroid belts to be used as staging areas or determining system suitabilities for star forts. How often are we afforded the opportunity to explore for the sheer joy of it and the act of exploration itself? A chance as rare as this should not be squandered, Linya, we should embrace it and revel in the simple joys of discovery.’

  Linya smiled and it seemed a great burden had, if not removed itself entirely, at least eased its pressure upon her.

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ she said. ‘But we still have a job to do, we still have to find a world of high enough mineral density to feed the forges. Magos Turentek and Magos Kryptaestrex are crying out for raw materials to keep the reconstruction work going.’

  Vitali drew another system to his hands, centred upon a softly-glowing yellow dwarf star with a dozen planets clustered tightly together in various elliptical orbits. Three of the planets were too close to the star to be habitable, while the outermost seven were either vast gas giants or ice-locked rocks. But the fourth and fifth planets travelled in stable orbits within the band of space that allowed water to exist in liquid form.

  ‘Either of these should do,’ said Vitali. ‘Though if I were forced to chose, I’d say the fourth planet offers the best risk to reward ratio. I have taken the liberty of naming it Hypatia.’

  Linya smiled. ‘A worthy name,’ she said, using the levers of the control panel to shift the focus lenses over to the projected worlds her father had brought up. Without the benefit of his haptic implants, she was forced to rely on archaic controls to bring up the noospheric tags from which she could pull information. The chemical composition of the planet’s atmosphere appeared in shimmering bands of colour, together with deep-augur mineral scans of its lithosphere and oceans.

  ‘At this distance, a lot of these readings are approximate,’ she said. ‘But I think you are right. The fourth planet appears to be just what we’re looking for. Shall I exload this to Magos Kryptaestrex?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure he’ll be pleased.’

  ‘I don’t think being pleased is a state with which the Master of Logistics is familiar.’

  ‘Very true, my dear,’ grinned Vitali. ‘I believe Magos Kryptaestrex views the Speranza’s supply decks as his own personal fiefdom and it infuriates him when people have the temerity to ask for things they need.’

  Vitali laced his hands behind his back and continued his stroll through the constantly updating representation of space beyond the Milky Way. His path across the acid-etched floor, not unnaturally, took him towards the glimmering orrery of systems and worlds orbiting the shining star at the centre of the latticework of impossibly geometric stars.

  ‘And now we come to you, my mysterious friends,’ said Vitali, spreading his arms out and enlarging the system his extrapolation simulation had identified as being the source of the unimaginable power that had kick-started Arcturus Ultra’s rebirth.

  ‘Tell me, Linya,’ said Vitali, turning to face his daughter. ‘Do you still think there is no intelligent designer? Here we have an arrangement of systems whose geometrically perfect alignment clearly implies the presence of a watchmaker, blind or otherwise.’

  Linya left the battered control terminal and joined her father in the midst of the orbiting systems. Each one followed a precise path through space, their relative speeds within the dome vastly increased to give their relationship a more obvious correlation. Just as the Imperium’s planets orbited suns within a star system, those systems in turn orbited the super-massive black hole at the galactic centre. And just as its celestial bodies orbited, so too did galaxies, circling around clusters of galaxies or some other vast centre of mass.

  ‘The scattering of stars and planets across the galaxy owes nothing to design,’ said Linya. ‘No matter how ordered they might at first appear. Only the all-encompassing forces of gravity, time, pressure and a host of other physical constants define how the structure of the universe evolves. You know that as well I do, so why the question?’

  Vitali gestured to the ordered movements and positions of the star systems orbiting the central world in the entoptically-generated imagery.

  ‘This arrangement would seem to contradict that supposition,’ said Vitali. ‘This is clearly a planned arrangement. And if this system is arranged according to a design, cannot that be extrapolated as being part of a universally ordered design? Perhaps such order exists, but we have not the senses or means to apprehend that order.’

  ‘Advocatus diaboli? Really?’

  ‘Indulge me.’

  ‘Very well, I agree there is the definite appearance of design here, which, in this case, suggests the work of a designer, but that does not make
it so for the rest of the universe. If Archmagos Kotov is correct then this world is indeed one upon which we will find Telok–’

  ‘Difficult to see how it could not be a forge world, given the uniquely Mechanicus emissions surrounding it.’

  ‘If this is a forge world upon which we may find Telok, why can we discern next to nothing of it or the systems surrounding it with any clarity?’

  ‘Now you’re thinking,’ said Vitali, pleased Linya had grasped the inherent flaw in the map.

  ‘We must question the source,’ said Linya, nodding as one supposition supported another. ‘The majority of this data came from the Tomioka’s cogitators. And Telok is unlikely to have left every aspect of his forge world’s secrets encoded within a ship he intended to destroy.’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘And every shred of information we brought back from Katen Venia was exloaded by Galatea…’

  ‘An unreliable narrator if ever there was one,’ said Vitali.

  ‘Then we need to convince it to allow us access to the raw data in its memory.’

  ‘And you think it would let us?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ conceded Linya. ‘But if we are forced to question the veracity of Galatea’s information, then every aspect of this map must be considered tainted. We can rely on none of it, not even Hypatia.’

  ‘I have already begun corroborative surveys of the spatial volumes illuminated by Galatea’s data, but so far only these deliberately ordered systems are proving coy in revealing their secrets.’

  ‘Our augurs are being blocked?’

  ‘Not blocked, per se,’ said Vitali. ‘More like obscured by a confluence of strange forces I cannot, as yet, identify.’

  ‘Deliberately?’

  ‘Hard to say, my dear, hard to say.’

  ‘Then we definitely need to speak to Galatea.’

  Vitali turned to his daughter and put a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘No, Linya,’ he said. ‘That we must manifestly not do. Galatea is a very dangerous entity, and if it is obfuscating our understanding of these systems on purpose, then it will take steps to silence anyone who questions it.’

  ‘Galatea saved my life,’ pointed out Linya. ‘If it wanted me dead, it could have let that battle robot kill me.’

  ‘I am aware of that,’ snapped Vitali, shying away from the thought of how close Linya had come to death on the Tomioka. ‘And we still do not fully understand how it was able to neutralise the robot’s command cortex.’

  ‘Would you rather it hadn’t?’ asked Linya.

  ‘Of course not, but please promise me that you will, under no circumstances, make an approach to Galatea with our concerns over its agenda here. At least not until we have a better understanding of why it might seek to mislead us.’

  Linya hesitated before answering and Vitali turned her to face him. What little organic features were remaining to him were fretted with concern.

  ‘Please, Linya, promise me,’ begged Vitali.

  ‘Of course,’ said Linya. ‘I promise.’

  The last time Marko Koskinen had seen the tech-priests this panicked had been when the Wintersun opened fire on the Moonsorrow in the training halls. This panic was just as urgent, but didn’t have the focus of so obvious a catastrophe. He skidded to a halt in the infirmary, trying to figure out what had caused the magi attending the princeps to trigger a Legio-wide alarm.

  At first glance, nothing looked amiss. Both princeps appeared to be adrift in their fluid-filled suspension tanks as normal, twitching within their hibernation-comas. But then Koskinen saw the brain-activity monitors spiking like crazy with neural activity. These were readings that might be expected in the midst of a furious, multi-vectored engine brawl, not in the downtime between implantation.

  ‘What in the name of the Oldbloods is going on?’ he shouted.

  None of the tech-priests looked up, but Koskinen saw Hyrdrith desperately affixing a Manifold interface array to the armourglass of the Wintersun’s casket. He ran over to his princeps, placing his palms against the casket’s warm sides and feeling the heat of the bio-gel within.

  ‘Hyrdrith, talk to me,’ he commanded. ‘What’s going on?’

  Lupa Capitalina’s tech-priest shook her head and shrugged. ‘The Winter-sun and Moonsorrow have established a Manifold link between their caskets.’

  ‘What? Who established the connection?’

  ‘No-one, they did it themselves,’ answered Hyrdrith.

  ‘How is that even possible?’

  ‘Admission: I do not know,’ said Hyrdrith. ‘I think we are learning that there is a great deal we do not know of a princeps’s abilities.’

  Koskinen looked over to the Moonsorrow’s casket, where the wizened form of Eryks Skálmöld drifted into view, his truncated form like a foetal ancient, heat-fused limbs drawn up to his chest where his elongated skull perched like a scavenger bird. Wired optics trailed from his eye sockets and blue-white light shimmered behind his sutured lids.

  ‘They’re together in the Manifold?’

  ‘So it would appear,’ answered Hyrdrith.

  The door to the infirmary slammed open and Joakim Baldur entered. Koskinen saw he had his pistol drawn and placed his hand on the polished walnut grip of his own stub-pistol.

  ‘So the Wintersun wants to finish the job?’ asked Baldur, aiming his pistol at Arlo Luth’s casket.

  Koskinen immediately put himself between Baldur and his princeps, one hand extended outwards, the other curling a finger around the trigger of his own gun.

  ‘Easy, Baldur,’ said Koskinen. ‘Think about what you’re doing. You’re pointing a gun at your alpha. That’s enough to get you mind-wiped and turned into a gun servitor. Is that what you want?’

  ‘The alpha is trying to kill my princeps,’ snarled Baldur.

  ‘The Wintersun is your princeps now, or had you forgotten that?’

  ‘Moonsorrow is my princeps. Once Reaver, always Reaver.’

  Koskinen shook his head. ‘No, you’re Warlord now, Joakim.’

  The gun wavered, but was still too close to the Wintersun’s casket for Koskinen’s liking. The anger in Baldur’s eyes wasn’t showing any signs of lessening and Koskinen fervently hoped he wasn’t going to have to shoot the man. Baldur had his gun drawn, but his attention was switching between the two princeps’ caskets. If Koskinen wanted to kill him, it would be easy enough, but shooting a moderati was like vandalising one of the irreplaceable Legio Titanicus murals on Terra.

  As it turned out, Koskinen was spared the necessity of murder.

  The infirmary door opened again, and the Legio’s Warhound drivers entered; Elias Härkin encased within his clicking, ratcheting exoskeleton and Gunnar Vintras in his dress uniform.

  Härkin took one look at Joakim Baldur and said, ‘Put that bloody weapon down, you damn fool.’

  Baldur nodded and lowered his gun, backing away as the two Warhound princeps took charge. Koskinen saw he had failed to safe the weapon or holster it, so kept his own finger resting lightly on the trigger of his own pistol.

  ‘You!’ snapped Härkin, beckoning Hyrdrith with a snap of bronze calliper-fingers. ‘Front and centre, what in the Omnissiah’s name is happening here?’

  ‘We are not sure, princeps,’ said Hyrdrith. ‘A Manifold link between the princeps’ caskets was initiated nine point three minutes ago, and–’

  ‘Nine point three minutes ago? And you wait until now to summon us?’

  ‘There was no need,’ said Hyrdrith. ‘The connection appeared to be entirely benign, with concurrent data flow between the Wintersun and Moonsorrow.’

  ‘What changed?’ demanded Härkin, as Vintras examined the data-feeds on the slates attached to each princeps’s casket.

  ‘Admission: we do not know. The transition from their rest-state neural activity to readings comparable to a high-stress engagement was instantaneous and unforeseeable.’

  ‘They’re fighting,’ said Gunnar Vintras, reading the matching brain-wave activity on th
e senior princeps’ readouts. ‘They’re trying to kill one another.’

  Amarok’s princeps seemed more amused than horrified by the revelation and laughed aloud.

  ‘Emperor damn it, they’re fighting,’ he said. ‘Looks like the Wintersun has gone back to finish what he started on the training deck.’

  ‘No,’ said Hyrdrith. ‘That possibility has been discounted.’

  ‘Really,’ said Vintras. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Because it was the Moonsorrow that initiated the Manifold connection.’

  They came together like two great boulders crashing into one another with such force that both must surely be smashed to powder and flying chips of stone. The thunder as they met echoed from the cold green evergreens surrounding the arena, ringing up and down the mountainside like the peal of the Bell of Lost Souls atop the Tower of Heroes.

  They both fell back from the impact, but the first to rise was Luth. He grappled with Skálmöld, whose flesh had been torn in the collision of claws. Luth raked his opponent’s marmoreal skin and hooked his claws beneath the bronze torq at Skálmöld’s neck. He snarled and wrenched it forwards.

  Sensing the danger, Skálmöld punched Luth in the face. Luth fell away, dislodged, and Skálmöld wrenched the torq from his neck with a screech of twisting metal. Then like an avalanche he hurled himself down on Luth, his form blurring as the wolf within roared in release.

  The very rock of the mountain shook with the impact as Luth rolled and loosed his own lupine howl of anger. He drove his fist into his opponent’s gut, raking his claws up as Skálmöld bit down near Luth’s throat. Drops of hot blood flew through the air. Luth slammed his elbow into Skálmöld’s ribs, and the Moonsorrow lurched sideways in winded pain, giving Luth time to scramble upright again.

  Snow was falling and Luth’s neck and shoulder were wet where Skálmöld’s fangs had drawn blood. He felt his own teeth lengthen in response to the blood-stink.

  For a moment the two wolf princeps stood apart, circling the arena and getting their breath back.