Lords of Mars Read online

  Roboute nodded, as though this were the most sensible thing she had suggested.

  ‘And when I have need of an agaith, you will be the hidden blade in my hand.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I will.’

  Any fears that, upon achieving his goal, Kotov would be disappointed by what he found at the end of his quest had been shattered utterly in the last three days. The final approach to Telok’s forge world had been a sensory overload in unique celestial phenomena. Not only were the star systems around the forge world clustered tighter than any other system-grouping Kotov knew, but the Kuiper belt, planetary bodies and asteroid fields within the central system travelled in orbits as precise as any engineered by an atomic clockmaker.

  The system – which Kotov still insisted on leaving unnamed – comprised twelve planets, each one equidistant from its inner and outer neighbour. All were of roughly Terran size and composition, with the exception of three gas giants in the system’s central belt, between which vast fields of asteroid debris hung in glimmering curtains of ejected matter and ice.

  The impression was of rocky fragments on the floor of a sculptor’s workshop, of discarded components from some vast, and yet unfinished, engineering works. Such was the unnatural order imposed on the system that even Vitali Tychon had been coaxed from his daughter’s sickbed to provide stellar analysis and plot new cartographae charts. Though every moment away from Linya chafed the venerable stargazer, even he was held mesmerised by the dizzying ramifications of this system.

  The bridge of the Speranza, normally a place of continual binaric back and forth, coded hymnals and clattering servitor operation, was now draped in reverent hush. Though no one worthy of the rank of Cult Mechanicus gave any credence to the notions of any deity beyond the God of All Machines, it was hard not to imagine the hand of a divine creator in the celestial architecture of this star and its attendant worlds.

  Even the solar wind was a thing of beauty.

  The rush of electrons and protons flaring from the upper atmosphere of the star was being filtered through the Speranza’s augmitters, and the normally chaotic interaction of particles was rendered into a geomagnetic symphony. It was a cascade of perfectly modulated integers that to an unaugmented ear would sound like soft surf on a beach, but to the superior Mechanicus aural implant became a harmonious interaction of perfect numbers, helicoidal patterns and waveform sounds that were as beautiful as they were artificial.

  Holographic projectors displayed the system’s twelve worlds in floating veils of light, together with fleet deployment and the ongoing data inloads from the Speranza’s forward auspex arrays. The projectors encoded each of the system’s worlds with differing colours representing the various atmospheric, geological and climatological systems at work.

  At the astrogation plotters, Azuramagelli co-ordinated the manoeuvres of the Kotov fleet to bring the Speranza into a declining orbital track in a way that maximised its defensive posture without appearing to be overtly hostile. Every ship was pulled into close formation, with the fleet’s three remaining warships tucked in close-defence positions. Moonchild and Wrathchild hugged the Speranza’s flanks, while Mortis Voss trailed in the tail gunner position. The rest of the Kotov fleet, fuel tenders, supply ships and refinery craft, were spread over its upper sections, ready to cluster in for defence at the first sign of trouble.

  Vitali Tychon worked alongside Azuramagelli, and though his daughter had shown up an error in the Master of Astrogation’s calculations upon their first meeting, he had expressed his deep regret at Mistress Tychon’s wounding.

  Across from Azuramagelli and Vitali, Kryptaestrex continued to oversee the ongoing ship-wide repair works from his Manifold link to Magos Turentek’s prow forges. Despite Kotov’s deep mistrust regarding the concessions he had been forced to make to Abrehem Locke, Kryptaestrex was reporting that the new working dynamic between the Mechanicus and its bondsmen was already paying dividends in terms of productivity and efficiency.

  Magos Blaylock moved amongst the magi and servitors like an anxious scholar at proficiency examinations, assessing their work, offering suggestions on superior analytical technique or refining aspects of their binary. Kotov watched his Fabricatus Locum at work, seeing something more than simple devotion to duty in his observations.

  Putting aside Blaylock’s curious behaviour, Kotov turned his attention to the world occupying the central position in the viewing bay. Telok’s forge world was bathed in a purple haze of borealis, beautiful in a way that only devotees of the Machine could truly appreciate. The shimmering corona was a by-product of inhumanly massive energy generation on a planetary scale. Kotov had seen such hazes around forge worlds before, but never on so bright and consistent a level. The quantity of energy being generated was enough to empower the manufactories of at least six Exactis Prima-level production hubs.

  The planet was roughly double the Martian mass and boasted an atmosphere capable of being processed by human lungs. Its geology was unknown, as was anything else of its surface conditions. Initial surveys had proved maddeningly inconclusive, with each sweep of the auspex revealing contradictory data-streams that on one pass revealed a planet undergoing traditional – if somewhat accelerated – ageing, while on another echoed Vitali Tychon’s data from Hypatia, which appeared to indicate signs of geological regression. Yet, as impossible as such readings appeared to be, Kotov had almost become used to encountering the inexplicable. After all, had not the Breath of the Gods remade Arcturus Ultra and transformed it from a dead system into one that would eventually prove to be habitable?

  The collateral effects of such dizzyingly complex stellar engineering were a mystery, and the space in which such an event had occurred was bound to throw up anomalies for centuries to come. Yet for all that his mind was just about able to reconcile the cognitive dissonance of physically impossible spatial anomalies, Kotov couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something was, if not wrong, per se, at least not quite as right as he would like.

  He pushed the nagging sentiment aside, feeling a mounting excitement in his floodstream as the noospheric range counter streamed closer to high orbit. No matter how Kotov conditioned the biological responses of his brain, he couldn’t suppress the sense that fate had led him here. He remembered the darkest moments of his despair with shame, when the second of his forge worlds had been destroyed and he had cursed the Omnissiah for forsaking him. But out of that abject misery had come the discovery of the Speranza.

  From the ashes of his broken hubris, Kotov had recognised a last lifeline to serve the Machine-God, that everything he had suffered was a test. Despair became hope and a newfound devotion to the Omnissiah.

  This was where it had brought him, to impossible wonders beyond imagining, a reconnection with the past and a chance to rebuild the future.

  All that spoiled this perfect moment was the presence of Galatea.

  The hybrid machine intelligence prowled the bridge like a stalking arachnid, moving between the veils of light displaying the twelve worlds and studying each one. Each examination was cursory, saw Kotov, as though it was already aware of what was displayed. A tremor of unease passed through Kotov at the sight of Galatea’s studied nonchalance, seeing an echo of Blaylock’s peculiar behaviour in its perambulations.

  Galatea said it wanted to kill Archmagos Telok, but Kotov no longer believed that. For all its pretensions to humanity and Kotov’s increasing distance from his own, Galatea’s lie no longer carried any conviction. Some other motive was at the heart of the machine intelligence’s desire to be reunited with Telok, and that unknown variable gnawed at Kotov like pernicious scrapcode.

  Magos Blaylock concluded his wanderings through the other magi and returned to his station beside Kotov’s command throne. The gaggle of servitor dwarfs fussed around his train of pipework and hissing regulators.

  ‘Is it all you hoped for, archmagos?’ asked Blaylock.

  Putting aside thoughts of Galatea, Kotov said, ‘It is more than I could
have hoped for, Tarkis.’

  Blaylock nodded slowly. ‘I must confess I doubted the wisdom of this quest. I believed your reasons for its undertaking to be motivated by pride and desperation, but now that we are here… I…’

  Kotov turned to face his Fabricatus Locum, surprised by his uncharacteristic loss for words and candid admissions. He had long known that Blaylock harboured doubts, but had thought them put to rest after their walk in the Processional Way. Blaylock’s features were no indicator of his mental status, having long since been submerged in mechanised implants, but the ripples in his noospheric aura were clear indicators of his conflicted status, like a machine stuck in an infinite loop attempting to reconcile two conflicting doctrina wafers.

  ‘Is something the matter, Tarkis?’

  Blaylock didn’t answer, and Kotov was about to repeat the question – though he knew full well Tarkis must have heard him – when he received an answer it was the last answer he might have expected.

  ‘I do not know,’ said Blaylock with disarming honesty.

  ‘You don’t know? Here we are, surrounded by wonders no priest of Mars has seen in thousands of years, on the verge of reaching the quest’s goal, and you don’t know if something is the matter? You surprise me, Tarkis.’

  ‘That is part of the problem,’ said Blaylock, shaking his head, as though clearing it of some irritant code. ‘No-one from Mars has been here in thousands of years, yet I feel that this arrangement of stars and planets is somehow familiar.’

  ‘You feel they are familiar?’ asked Kotov.

  ‘Apologies, archmagos, but there is no other word in my lexicon that fits the situation. I feel as though I have seen these stars before. And this is not the first time I have had this sensation.’

  ‘When did you have it before?’ said Vitali Tychon, approaching from the astrogation hub.

  ‘Just before the energy emission from this planet reached the Tomioka,’ answered Blaylock.

  ‘Interesting,’ said Vitali. ‘As I am reading a great deal of similarity in this arrangement of planets and celestial/temporal interactions to an archived monograph on idealised stellar geometry inloaded by Magos Alhazen of Sinus Sabeus. Your former mentor and, if I am not mistaken, something of an evangelical devotee of Archmagos Telok.’

  Blaylock paused as he accessed his internal database.

  ‘No, you are mistaken, Magos Tychon,’ he said. ‘I am familiar with every submission made by Magos Alhazen to the Martian Tabularium Mons. He submitted no such monograph.’

  Kotov shared Vitali’s surprised expression.

  As soon as Vitali mentioned the monograph, Kotov had retrieved it from the Speranza’s archives and instantly digested its contents. Sure enough, the postulations put forward by Alhazen were a close, and in some cases identical, match to the stellar data displayed on the command bridge.

  That Blaylock seemed unaware of it was as close to impossible as Kotov could imagine.

  Before he could pursue the matter, every single holographic display on the bridge flickered and was snuffed out by an incoming transmission from the planet below. The Speranza had been exloading generic hails and Mechanicus greeting protocols as soon as it had entered the system’s edge, but they had all been ignored until now.

  Each of the holographic hubs filled with a rotating icon of eight bodies seemingly issuing forth from molten bedrock or a swirling rush of what might represent flames. Kotov had never encountered the image, but he recognised a Mechanicus hand in its formation, the golden ratio tracing a line through each of the figures’ elbows and giving the whole a pleasingly ordered form.

  ‘Starship Speranza, this is forge world Exnihlio,’ said an automated vox. ‘Prepare for inload.’

  ‘From out of nothing,’ said Vitali, voicing the Low Gothic translation of the name.

  ‘Exnihlio,’ said Kotov, rising from his command throne. ‘This is Archmagos Kotov, High Lord of Mars and Explorator General of this expedition. Do I have the honour of addressing Archmagos Vettius Telok?’

  Kotov was about to repeat his question when the image of the writhing figures was replaced with complex navigational waypoints tracing a narrow transit corridor through the highly-charged atmosphere. Only a vessel of sufficiently low displacement would be able to fly such a passage, and even a cursory parsing of the data indicated that deviating from the prescribed pathway would be extremely hazardous.

  ‘Landing co-ordinates,’ said Azuramagelli. ‘An older format, but that is only to be expected from a world without hexamathic enhancements.’

  Kotov nodded, feeling a potent sense of anticipation at the thought of setting foot on Telok’s forge world. Travelling to the fiefdom of another magos was always a time of great importance, a chance to share data, pursue new directions in the interpretation of techno-arcana and barter services and information to further the Quest for Knowledge. What might he learn on the world of an archmagos unfettered from the censure of his peers and the restrictions of Universal Laws?

  ‘Archmagos?’ asked Blaylock. ‘What are your orders?’

  ‘Send word to Sergeant Tanna,’ said Kotov. ‘I am going to have need of the Barisan.’

  All evidence that human beings had once occupied this space had been removed and the chamber returned to its former state of abandonment. The remains of Hawke’s still had been removed, and its component parts placed in reclamation funnels. The lumen globes recessed in the coffers were dimmed and the images of the saintly figures wreathed in shadow. Ismael had taken Abrehem to a shrine below the waterline, leaving Totha Mu-32 to complete the internment of Rasselas X-42.

  ‘Abrehem should never have found you,’ he said, circling the slumbering killer.

  Clad head to foot in black, the arco-flagellant sat with its ironclad head bowed, a flickering light stuttering like a malfunctioning strobe beneath the smooth inner face of its pacifier helm. Images of Imperial holy men and divine visions of harmony played out before X-42, keeping it locked in a state of perpetual bliss.

  Given what Totha Mu-32 knew of the Impaler Cardinal’s reign of blood, it was a more merciful fate than any he had accorded his victims. The arco-flagellant’s muscles twitched as rogue synapses flared and sparked in its brain, the inevitable result of a sword to the skull.

  ‘I wonder what effects the damage is having on the visions within your skull?’ wondered Totha Mu-32. ‘Whatever the repercussions, I hope they hurt. You deserve to suffer for the things you have done. And once this chamber is sealed, you will suffer them until the Speranza finally ends its days.’

  Totha Mu-32 continued his circling of the arco-flagellant, checking that every restraint was as tight as it could be made and that every dormancy connector was firmly attached. He checked every spinal shunt, every cortical inhibitor and every neurological blocker.

  Satisfied everything was in order, he ran a final diagnostic on the pacifier mechanisms, ensuring that the machinery was functioning within acceptable operating parameters. Hooked directly into the Speranza’s power grid and with multiple redundancies, the mechanism could keep an army of arco-flagellants sedated for longer than the Ark Mechanicus was likely to survive.

  Totha Mu-32 backed out of the chamber, still, despite every precaution and check he had just made, unwilling to turn his back on the cyborg killer. He paused by the shutter to the dormis chamber as a cold wind sighed from within, like the last exhalation of a slumbering predator who is just waiting out the winter before emerging to hunt once more.

  Rasselas X-42 remained unmoving, a hunched statue of caged murder and horror. Even dormant, it exuded dreadful danger. Though it should be impossible for the arco-flagellant to break the psycho-conditioning holding it fast, Totha Mu-32 half expected the creature to raise its head one last time.

  The arco-flagellant twitched and the light beneath its helm flickered on.

  Totha Mu-32 swept a hand over the hidden door mechanism and the heavy bulkhead shutter slammed down into the floor with a percussive boom of engaging locks. A handprin
t of dried blood was smeared in the centre of the door and Totha Mu-32 placed his own hand over the impression of what he knew was Abrehem’s hand.

  This, coupled with a trigger word, had caused the locks to disengage and begun X-42’s reactivation sequence. Totha Mu-32 spat on the bloodstain and rubbed the sleeve of his robe over the flaked blood until nothing remained of it.

  Taking a last look around the empty chamber, Totha Mu-32’s gaze was met by the hundreds of iron black skulls set into the walls. Part temple, part prison, part sepulchre; each interpretation was apt for the monster entombed within.

  A flicker of code squirmed through the walls, fragmentary binary debris from whatever conduits had once passed through this chamber en route to unknown destinations. Much of it was degraded to the point of simply becoming squalling gibberish, and soon it would be entirely reabsorbed back into the noosphere.

  Totha Mu-32 turned and strode from the chamber, leaving the lumens to gutter and die as the code encircling the chamber finally faded out. The empty sockets of the grinning skulls set in the bleak walls glimmered with the dying code, as though they alone were custodians of a secret they wished to tell, but were forever sworn to keep.

  Like Totha Mu-32, they knew that some doors were best left unopened.

  But they also knew that some doors can never be shut entirely.

  Like the phoenix of myth, the Barisan had emerged from the flames of its rebirth stronger than ever. The damage it had suffered on Katen Venia had been almost entirely erased by the ritual ministrations of Magos Turentek and his army of artificers. The compression fractures in its hull plates were repaired, the impact trauma to its superstructure was undone and the torsion stresses in its spine had been unkinked.

  For all intents and purposes, the craft was as good as new, as fine as the day its frame had been struck in the Tyrrhenus Mons forge-complex. Turentek had seen the seal of the Fabricator General and had bent his every effort into restoring the work of Mars’s pre-eminent worker of metals and spirit. The Barisan had suffered greatly in the crash, and its machine-spirit was a vicious, cornered beast of a thing, but Turentek had eventually earned its trust with the quality of his workmanship and the devotion of his servants.