Lords of Mars Page 21

  The summons had come less than an hour later, and Roboute was just surprised it had taken that long, given the immediacy with which the priests of Mars could communicate. The clipped message from Archmagos Kotov gave no clue as to the tone of the forthcoming audience, but Roboute had no doubt there would be preening outrage, followed by an immediate cessation of all privileges aboard the Speranza and the revoking of his contract with the Mechanicus.

  A pair of high-function valet-servitors in robes of pale cream escorted him through the gilded doors of Kotov’s stateroom, a lavishly appointed chamber with numerous anterooms, libraries and sub-chambers branching off with what felt like mathematical precision.

  He felt like a convicted murderer on his way to execution, yet the thought gave him little trouble. Roboute was ready to take whatever punishment Kotov felt fit to dispense, be it incarceration or execution, but was equally ready to fight tooth and nail to see to it that his crew were exempted from his fall from grace.

  The servitors led him into an enormous circular chamber of tall marble columns supporting a domed roof that was easily three hundred metres wide and adorned with frescoes depicting the early colonisation of Mars. Complex holographic representations of sacred geometries, holy algebraic equations and trigonometric proofs floated in the spaces between the columns, endlessly working themselves through from origination to completion.

  Around the curved walls were hundreds of headless mannequins, armour stands and portions of robotic armatures, or so Roboute thought until he recognised a number as being bodies Kotov had worn over the course of the expedition. The servitors halted in the middle of the chamber, wordlessly indicating that Roboute should remain while they departed.

  Roboute turned on the spot, looking up at the fresco on the curved inner faces of the dome, now seeing that it was in fact an immense map of Mars. Olympus Mons was represented at the centre of the dome, as though Roboute was looking down on the immense mountain from high above. At its dizzying peak stood a red-armoured warrior atop a bound man with skin of scaled silver. Surrounding the warrior were a host of artists, poets and musicians, each of whom were masters of their art. Golden light haloed the warrior’s upraised head, and that light spread across the surface of the Red Planet like irrigating flows of knowledge that illumined the far corners of the world.

  ‘I believe it is called Mars Vanquishing Ignorance, Mister Surcouf, one of Antoon Claeissens’s last pieces before his untimely death during the legendary nano-plague at Hive Roznyka during the wars of Unity,’ said Archmagos Kotov, striding in from what the compass points on the pediment above told Roboute was the eastern approaches. ‘It lay fading and disintegrating in a forgotten vault beneath the Tharsis Montes and I spent a considerable sum restoring it for transplantation to the Speranza.’

  For this audience, Kotov had come clad in robes that made him look much more like the archmagos he was, instead of a jade or gold-armoured knight. Black and white chequerboard patterns lined the hems of his robes and a clicking armature of whirring mechadendrites enfolded his torso like electromagnetic coiling. Two of the bland-faced valet-servitors accompanied the archmagos, together with Tarkis Blaylock and a pair of beetle-armoured skitarii, both with gold dragons inlaid onto their shoulder guards.

  ‘It’s an impressive piece,’ said Roboute, surprised Kotov hadn’t launched into a tirade of binary-spewing outrage at his duplicity.

  ‘It is propaganda and history disguised as art,’ said Kotov with the sharp tone of a schoolmaster. He pulled back his hood before continuing. ‘Every element of Claeissens’s work is laden with symbolism and metaphor, most of which time has erased or we can no longer understand, but here and there it is possible to interpret the meaning behind a pictorial element. The bound man, for example, can be read as symbolising a puritanical sect of contemporary monotheists, or simply as a physical representation of ignorance.’

  Kotov pointed towards what looked like a cave opening at the end of a series of long canyons that cracked the landscape like a spiderwebbing fractal pattern. Something silver glittered within the cave, but it was impossible to make out what it was for certain.

  ‘And do you see the cave? Wild speculation claims that this is the cave of the–’

  ‘Archmagos,’ interrupted Roboute. ‘You didn’t bring me here for an art history lesson, so can we just cut to the chase? I’m sure Magos Blaylock has crowed enough to you by now, so just say what you have to say and be done with it, because I’m in no mood for a sermon.’

  Kotov nodded and said, ‘Very well, Mister Surcouf. We shall dispense with the human pleasantries. Yes, Tarkis here has informed me of what he has learned concerning the authenticity of your Letter of Marque. Would you care to elaborate on his accusations?’

  Roboute had come expecting to be lambasted by the archmagos, not to be offered a discussion on the nature of Unity-era artwork or the chance to speak in his defence. Sensing there was a subtext to this audience of which even Tarkis Blaylock was unaware, Roboute felt himself relax a fraction.

  If Kotov wanted to throw him to the wolves then he had no reason to indulge in this charade, which suggested the possibility of a lifeline being offered. Instincts that had served Roboute so well in the past now told him he wasn’t about to have his head mounted on a spike. Roboute felt a burgeoning sense that this situation might yet be salvaged, but that would mean taking the initiative and holding onto it like a mother to her newborn.

  ‘Do you mind?’ he asked, pulling the cigar from the breast pocket of his coat.

  ‘Go right ahead,’ said Kotov. ‘The chemicals in the smoke will have no effect on me.’

  Roboute nodded and reverently lit the cigar with a flame-lighter hanging from the chain of his pocket-chronometer. He took a long draw and smiled as the taste – warm woodsmoke with hints of vanilla and cinnamon – unlocked a host of memories.

  Roboute held the smoking cigar out to Kotov.

  ‘I bought this twenty years ago on Anohkin, from a stall in the Iskander Hive commercia,’ he said, walking around the edge of the dome. The light of the sacred holographics lit his face with a soft blue glow as he walked. ‘The fellow had tobacco from across the subsector, though Emperor alone knew how he had the connections. Didn’t look the type to have high-end contacts in the trading cartels, but by thunder he had a magnificent collection of rolled leaf. This particular brand of cigar is favoured by the Lord Militant General of Segmentum Pacificus himself, did you know that?’

  ‘I did indeed,’ said Kotov. ‘I am familiar with the vices of a great many important men, but is there a point to this tangent?’

  ‘Patience, archmagos,’ said Roboute with growing confidence as he saw Blaylock’s obvious consternation at Kotov’s lack of immediate condemnation. ‘You Mechanicus are all purpose, but sometimes the telling of a tale is the purpose. You summoned me here to account for my actions, so allow the tale room to breathe.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Kotov. ‘Tell on.’

  ‘You know that the eldar who rescued me from the wreckage of the Preceptor eventually deposited me in the Koalith system?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kotov, matching his pace around the dome’s inner circumference, with Blaylock following in the smoky wake. ‘That much you have already told.’

  ‘They didn’t leave me there empty handed,’ continued Roboute. ‘An eldar craftsman named Yrlandriar gave me a stasis chest with a uniquely-crafted lock, the one I put the Tomioka’s memory coil in, you remember?’

  ‘All too clearly,’ said Kotov.

  ‘Yes, well, it was full when they gave me it,’ said Roboute. ‘Full of what to his people were offcuts from their lapidary craftsmen, but which were priceless gemstones to us.’

  ‘Why should this craftsman do such a thing?’

  ‘I don’t know, the eldar vanished before I could ask. Perhaps it was his way of saying goodbye or a way to ensure I didn’t survive the hell on the Preceptor just to die in a gutter on the first Imperial planet they dropped me onto. Either way
, it gave me a start, and I was able to parlay those gemstones into a lucrative career in… exotic jewellery sales.’

  ‘Illegal jewellery sales,’ pointed out Blaylock. ‘Trading in xeno-artefacts is a capital crime.’

  ‘Then you understand why I omitted that part of my history,’ said Roboute with a dismissive shrug. ‘Anyway, I soon gained quite a name for myself among the preening elite of Anohkin, adorning the décolletages of some of the most highly placed mistresses on the planet. I didn’t just trade in xenos gems, of course, I diversified into numerous markets: off-world property, passenger transit, cargo-haulage, art dealing, financial shenanigans, modest philanthropy and a host of other highly lucrative endeavours. To someone raised in Ultramar, it was almost obscenely easy to become one of the richest men on the planet. I owned numerous palatial villas, a small fleet of trans-orbital shuttles and inter-system ships that ran between every inhabited planet within reach.

  ‘But the thing about money is that once you have enough to live like royalty, the act of making more becomes almost unbearably tedious. I was earning vast profits in every corner of the Koalith system, but it just wasn’t enough. Not the money, you understand, I had plenty of that, but the challenge simply wasn’t there. I wanted to reach out beyond the Koalith system, to push the boundaries of what I could achieve, but there was one stumbling block in my path.’

  ‘You needed a Letter of Marque to operate with impunity beyond the system borders.’

  Roboute stabbed his cigar at Kotov and said, ‘Correct. And the Adeptus Terra aren’t exactly handing them out like party favours around Bakka. The last one I know of that was granted, was to a family that could trace its origins back to the Age of Apostasy, or so they said, and that took three centuries of negotiations, fancy bureaucratic footwork and copious amounts of bribery. I didn’t have that long, so I arranged a meeting with Anohkin’s senior Administratum adept, a man for whom the word vulgar might well have been invented and who was the ultimate authority in granting such documentation around Bakka.

  ‘I invited this man over to one of my villas for a sumptuous dinner in order to show him certain spectacular pieces of xenos gemstones I’d kept back for just this sort of contingency. On similar occasions where I’d hoped to sell the eldar gemstones, I employed the services of a dear friend whom I’ll call Lorelei. Trust me, archmagos, if you or Tarkis here had any human desire left in you, you would both have fallen hopelessly in love with her immediately.’

  ‘You sought simply to buy a Letter of Marque?’ asked Kotov.

  ‘Nothing quite so crass,’ said Roboute, ‘but not too far off the mark. I seated Lorelei directly across the dining table from the adept, giving him eight courses to gape at the nova rubies and deep garden emeralds glistening in the candlelight against her body-sheer dinner dress. All the while, the adept’s “companion” for the evening, a parasitic woman who represented the very apex of poor taste, slurped her soup and mangled her meat beside him. With Lorelei always in view, the intended transference took place in the adept’s mind: upon purchasing the jewellery and adorning his lady, she would become as lovely as my lady.

  ‘Lorelei and I had run this psychological manipulation many times, and the illusion usually ended up further fattening my coffers and Lorelei’s investment portfolios. Not to mention that it would enhance the stature of the adept with his companion, while providing her with an impressive memento against which her next conquest would have to compete. Everyone would walk away happy. Usually.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’ asked Kotov, and Roboute saw he was hooked.

  ‘This particular adept had been snared by a vapid nymph encased in white satin that clung to her curves only slightly less tightly than she to his credit flow. By the time the meal was concluded, it was clear to me that Lorelei’s customary hypnotic spell had again trumped reason and that the deal would be sealed over drinks and fine cigars.

  ‘Ushered to a lush leather wingchair, the adept settled in while his companion curled up coyly at his feet. Again, the lovely Lorelei was carefully seated directly opposite to ensure the trance of her beauty would remain unbroken. I poured snifters of expensive amasec for everyone, the personal touch you understand, and subsequently held out an open humidor so that the adept might select a cigar from among the best in the subsector. While the adept’s position had allowed him to sample many exotic pleasures, he had not yet had occasion to experience the finest of cigars. He carefully watched me remove the band from my cigar and clip it with a sterling cutter. The adept, as any avid student would, followed suit, but, alas, tragedy soon struck.’

  Roboute grinned, savouring the moment and relishing Blaylock’s obvious impatience. He had come here expecting Kotov to break Roboute on the wheel, but the initiative had slipped from his grip and Roboute wasn’t about to give it back.

  ‘Just as I dipped the head of my cigar in the amasec and struck a match, the trophy mistress at the adept’s feet rose to her knees, partially blocking his view of the dip-and-light process. Attempting to emulate what he thought he had seen, the hapless adept dipped the foot of his cigar deeply into the amasec and lit the saturated end. A mighty flame roared up, resolving itself in a huge clot of char. Fumbling helplessly for an ashtray the startled adept waved the maimed cigar in the air, dislodging the blackened blob of char, which plunged straight down the already plunging neckline of his companion. The lady wasn’t burned, but she was mightily outraged and shrieking obscenities that would have made a Munitorum overseer blush, fled into the night, profoundly vilifying her former true love and vowing never to come within a hundred metres of him again.’

  ‘Then it would seem that your plan had failed, Mister Surcouf,’ said Kotov.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Roboute. ‘The adept was inordinately pleased to be rid of this particularly troublesome and expensive wench, and went to great lengths to expedite the passage of my Letter of Marque. With his assistance, I was easily able to penetrate the impenetrable walls of red tape and obtain copies of the Administratum hololithic imprints necessary for the fabrication of such a document. All that he asked was that I destroy them afterwards.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Of course, I am a man of my word, after all.’

  ‘I do not see the purpose of this irrelevant story,’ said Blaylock. ‘It has no bearing on your flouting of Imperial and Mechanicus laws.’

  ‘That’s because you have no soul, Tarkis. You don’t feel the need to mark any moment with an emotional reminder of why things happen the way they do.’

  He held the smoking cigar out to Kotov and said, ‘This brand of cigar was the one that went up in flames and hence secured me my Letter of Marque. The day before I left Anohkin, I bought a single cigar from the stall in the commercia, and I’ve kept it ever since.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘I knew it was only a matter of time until someone figured out my Marque had been faked, especially on an expedition like this, so as the beginning of my career as a rogue trader was marked by such a cigar, so too would be its ending.’

  Kotov nodded, as though understanding the significance of Roboute’s tale.

  ‘A colourful tale to embroider the beginnings of your career as a rogue trader, Mister Surcouf,’ said Kotov. ‘Comical details that add a level of verisimilitude I suspect you hope will lessen my anger towards your ongoing deception.’

  Roboute said, ‘For what it’s worth, the story’s true, but did it have the required effect?’

  ‘The effect was unnecessary,’ said Kotov. ‘I already knew your Letter of Marque was fake.’

  The silence between Kotov’s words and Blaylock’s disbelieving outburst was seconds at most, but felt like a geological epoch.

  ‘You knew, archmagos? You knew and you allowed him to lead us beyond the galaxy anyway?’

  ‘Of course I knew, Tarkis,’ said Kotov. ‘Did you think I would not examine every detail of this man’s life before taking him at his word that he had a relic of Telok’s lost fleet
? I may have lost my forge worlds, but I have not lost my capacity for reason and due diligence. I knew all about Mister Surcouf’s encounter with the eldar and his subsequent dealings and exploitation of the Adeptus Terra’s representative at Bakka. The precise details of how you acquired your Letter of Marque were a mystery to me, but I confess to being greatly amused by your tale.’

  ‘Archmagos,’ protested Blaylock. ‘This man has grossly misrepresented himself. How can we take anything he has said or presented to us at face value? Every aspect of the Mechanicus’s dealings with him must be called into question. Every scrap of data and every word out of his mouth is tainted by deceit and falsehood. That he acquired a Letter of Marque under such circumstances should, at the very least, see everything he owns be impounded by the Mechanicus. His ship, his wealth, his crew, his–’

  ‘Leave my crew out of this, Tarkis,’ warned Roboute. ‘They knew nothing of this. As far as they were aware, the Renard was a legitimately licensed vessel. I won’t let you punish them for what I’ve done, do you understand me?’

  Kotov held up a hand of machined silver and said, ‘Mister Surcouf, be at peace. No-one is being punished, what would be the point? We are far beyond Imperial space and that you were able to facilitate the fabrication of so complex a document speaks volumes to your ingenuity and tenacity. I, for one, would far rather have such a man leading me into the unknown than some foppish, inbred fool who earned his Marque by virtue of hereditary inheritance.’

  ‘You cannot let this deception go unpunished, archmagos!’ said Blaylock.

  ‘What deception, Tarkis?’ said Kotov, gesturing to the holographic veils of light hanging between the titanic columns supporting the dome. Roboute followed Kotov’s gesture and saw a series of elliptical hexamathic proofs vanish, to be replaced by an entry in the Registrati Imperialis.

  ‘No…’ said Blaylock, instantly processing what took Roboute a moment to understand.