Legion (35 page)

‘Some order please, ladies!’ Bronzi barked at the lokers. A couple of them had already slipped over, much to their chagrin.

‘What isn’t this?’ Bronzi roared.

‘A fug-fingered ramble!’ they chorussed back.

‘Could have fooled me,’ he muttered.

Men began to call out as they pushed forwards into the lower levels of the cubic hills. They’d found things.

Bronzi went to look, and Mu and her aides followed him, stepping from block to block as if they were paving stones.

There were dead things amongst the stones. Drooling black matter, putrescent jelly, and bits of bone and quill lay in pool cavities or on flat blocks. Some were as large as men, some as small as rats. It was impossible to tell what they had been in life. No real structure remained, no anatomy. Local xenofauna, Bronzi presumed. It was as if some great tide had rolled out and left strange marine life forms behind to rot. That’s what the stench reminded him of: beached fish, decomposing on a rocky shore.

Mu bent down to examine a few of the congealing horrors.

‘Any thoughts?’ Bronzi asked.

‘The brief said this zone was an artificially generated climate,’ Mu said. ‘I suppose these are the remains of fauna types abundant in the planet’s natural climate. They died here as the air, pressure and chemistry changed.’

The aides had all pulled up the hoods of their foul-weather suits, and buttoned collars up over their mouths and noses. Bronzi saw the anxiety and revulsion in their eyes. Huddled in their hoods, they looked like a scholam outing that had ended up in entirely the wrong place.

The Jokers advanced steadily into the hills, ignoring the litter of organic decay. Signals came in reporting that their supporting units were on the ground and advancing. No scan by eye, device or ’cept could detect any contact ahead. So far, the humans were the only living things on that abyssal shore.

‘Keep scanning,’ Bronzi called as he puffed and climbed up the blocks. A man behind him slipped over on his arse with a hard thump.

‘I’ll pretend I didn’t see that, Tsubo,’ Bronzi growled. ‘Oh, fug!’ he added. Reaching for a handhold, he’d dipped his fingers into something slimy and gristly. He shook the gloop off in disgust. The fish gut reek was noxious.

‘Is it turning out to be as much fun as you hoped?’ Mu asked him. ‘Ha ha,’ he replied.

T
HEY COULD SEE
a good distance from the tops of the hills. A jumbled valley of grey blocks and glinting black pools fell away below, and stretched north, into the shadows of a great, dark wall of monolithic cliffs, split by gorges. The scale of the child’s building blocks had increased. In places, they could detect the long, white ropes of cascades falling down rock faces. At the feet of the cliffs, vapour gathered like white smoke.

‘When you said precipices with waterfalls, I thought you were joking,’ said Tche.

‘So did I,’ Bronzi replied glumly. He checked his locator against the maps from the order packet. Mu did the same.

‘The notation says they’re called the Shivering Hills,’ Bronzi said.

‘How long to get up there?’ she asked.

‘A day, if we find a decent gorge or vent to follow.’

‘Well, that’s where they want us, so we’d better get going.’

He nodded. ‘Are you ’cepting anything?’ he asked. ‘No,’ she replied, ‘but I’m cold and uncomfortable, and that doesn’t help. This is… a difficult circumstance.’

‘I’d prefer a good, honest war,’ said Bronzi. ‘You know where you are when someone’s shooting at you. This is just getting creepy. Waiting for something to happen, that’s just going to rack up the spooks. See what you can do to keep the men level.’

‘Understood,’ she replied.

‘Tche!’ Bronzi called.

‘Yes, het?’

‘Ten-minute halt here. Then we’re going to head out across the valley. Tell the boys to have a drink, and a pinch of peck if it makes them feel jollier.’

‘Yes, het.’

Bronzi wandered along the rocks away from the main group. He slipped the green metal scale out of his pocket and studied it again. It bore a code, standard Alpha form. The phrase ‘Your father cheers, your mother cries, that is the lot of the soldier’ had been written in Edessan to make it personal to him. He quickly substituted each letter for its numerical place in the alphabet, combined them as he had been taught, and ended up with two, seven digit channel codes.

Bronzi clambered up a line of blocks to the nearest vox officer, and borrowed his field set. He slipped on the headset, tapped in one of the codes and waited.

‘Speak and identify,’ said a voice.

‘Argolid 768,’ Bronzi said.

‘Are you deployed, Hurtado?’

‘I’m on the surface.’

‘You are not alone. You were given the codes so that you could remain in contact during this event. Check in every two hours. We will inform you if you are required to take any specific action. Consider yourself on standby,’

‘Understood.’

The signal finished. Bronzi erased the code from the vox-set’s log, and carried the device back to its owner.

T
HEY LEFT THE
drop-pod in the clutch of the scorched rock that had caught it, and moved west along a line of grey, buttress hills in the wet murk.

Rukhsana seemed to have recovered a little composure. Grammaticus believed that seeing him again had settled her mind slightly. She insisted on staying at his side and holding onto his hand.

The foul-weather kits were bulky and cumbersome, but they were glad of them. Stones dripped, and every surface shone with liquid. The place stank of rot and organic decay.

Soneka had brought a locator. ‘How far do we have to go?’ he asked.

Grammaticus took the device from him and activated it. He watched the display resolve, and turned slowly, checking other readings.

‘Two hours, maybe three,’ said Grammaticus. ‘We’ll keep heading west.’

Soneka looked at the chart display. ‘You know where you’re going, right?’

‘Pretty much,’ said Grammaticus. ‘The Imperial landing forces will be concentrating on the Shivering Hills.’

‘Why?’

‘Because that’s where the halting site is, and they’ll assume the Cabal is there.’

‘Isn’t it?’ asked Soneka.

Grammaticus laughed. ‘Peto, the Cabal is as cautious about this meeting as the Astartes are. The Cabal is all too aware of mankind’s propensity for shooting first, especially when it comes to xenoforms. Until the members of the Cabal are certain that the Alpha Legion hasn’t simply come here with the sole purpose of exterminating them, they’re not going to show themselves. Would you wait in the open for a stranger whose intentions were unclear?’

‘Not really,’ said Soneka.

They scrambled down a slope of loose rocks onto a series of wide, cubic blocks. Grammaticus helped Rukhsana all the way. Every now and then, he reached out with his mind, and looked into hers in an attempt to monitor her wellbeing. There was nothing there, nothing he could read, just a blizzard of thought noise and panic.

‘So the Cabal is staying out of the way?’ Soneka asked.

Grammaticus looked back at him. ‘The halting site is just an inert structure, a series of well-founded platforms and deep stone pilings designed to support the mass of the Cabal’s vessel when it visits. Alpharius showed us the scans, and there was no vessel there, a slight logic flaw that he didn’t seem to appreciate.’

‘So?’

‘Alpharius should have listened to me,’ Grammaticus said. ‘He should have come down here with me, instead of landing a full military expedition. I’m the passport, you see, Peto, the matchmaker. I make contact, bring them together, and make sure both parties are comfortable. Then they talk. That’s how it was supposed to go.’

‘But Alpharius is far too wary?’ mused Soneka.

‘Exactly. He doesn’t like unknowns. If he doesn’t know something, it means he can’t trust it. He likes to be in control all the time.’

They ascended a slope through scrolls of drifting vapour.

‘On the other hand, the Cabal is very circumspect when it comes to humans,’ added Grammaticus. ‘I’m afraid to say they have a fairly poor opinion of mankind.’

‘Why?

‘Humanity is a young race, a barbaric upstart child in the eyes of the Old Kinds, but, by the stars, it’s vigorous and massively successful. It is spreading out and annexing the galaxy faster than any race has ever done before. It thrives like weeds, and finds purchase in even the harshest climes. The Cabal has been forced to recognise that mankind is a serious player on the galactic stage, and can no longer be ignored or sidelined, and, of course, they’ve seen what’s coming.’

‘This war you talked about?’

Grammaticus nodded. ‘A civil war. It will tear the Imperium apart. The Cabal doesn’t especially care about that. What matters is that a civil war in the Imperium will unleash Chaos. The Primordial Annihilator, the power they have fought to deny since the start of all ages, will use humanity’s terrible conflict to gain final ascendancy.’

‘They want the war prevented, then?’ said Soneka.

‘It’s too late for that. They want the war won the right way.’

‘Let’s rest for a minute,’ said Soneka. ‘The uxor looks tired.’

Rukhsana looked especially pale. She was trembling from the cold. Grammaticus sat her down on a stone block. ‘It’s all right, Rukhsana my love. Everything is going to be all right.’

She looked up at him. ‘Konig?’ she asked.

‘Yes, yes! That’s right, Rukhsana. It’s Konig. It’s me.’

‘Konig,’ she repeated, and then gazed out over the misty rocks.

‘You know where the Cabal’s hiding?’ asked Soneka.

‘Yes,’ said Grammaticus.

‘We go to them, make contact…’

‘We go to them, make contact, reassure them that the Alpha Legion means to listen, and then I’ll go back to Alpharius.’

‘Go back?’ Soneka asked, incredulous.

‘And bring him here.’

‘He might just execute you, John.’

Grammaticus shrugged. ‘I can’t worry about that. This is too important. This is about deciding what the future will be about for everyone.’

SIX

Carrier Loudon, orbital

‘W
HICH OF YOU
men is Franco Boone?’ Chayne asked.

The six Chiliad genewhips standing in conversation in one of the hangar deck’s check stations turned to look at him. Alarm flashed across their faces for a second as they realised that the question had come from one of the Lord Commander’s companions. Chayne had shuttled to the
Loudon
in full Lucifer Black armour.

‘I am,’ said Boone.

‘We will converse,’ said Chayne. ‘Come here.’

‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ said Boone, ‘but I’m a little occupied. We’re marshalling the second wave for drop. Come back in a couple of hours.’

Boone turned back to his fellow genewhips, and they continued to compare and check their data-slates.

‘I believe,’ said Chayne, ‘that you understood my instruction to be optional, Franco Boone. It was not. We will converse. Come here.’

Boone tensed. His men looked on in concern, as Boone turned and walked across to the Lucifer Black.

‘What?’ Boone asked. He was a big man, but he had to look up into Chayne’s visored face.

‘We will converse, Franco Boone.’

‘So you keep saying. What about some courtesy, sir? Remove your helmet so that I can see your face.’

‘Why?’ asked Chayne.

‘Because that’s what men do when they converse.’

Chayne didn’t move for a moment. Then he raised his hands, unlocked his helm seals, and took the helmet off. He tucked it under his arm. His face was drawn and hard, and his eyes chilled Franco Boone’s soul.

‘Thank you,’ said Boone. ‘Your name? You seem to know mine.’

‘Chayne, bajolur, companion guard.’

‘Well, Chayne, bajolur, companion guard, how can I help you this day?’

‘You can walk with me for a moment, you can answer my questions, and you can dispense with the verbal sport.’

Boone shrugged. They began to walk along the edge of the vast deck, past shouting flight crew and rattling tools. An autoloader cart zipped past them.

‘This is a busy day for us, bajolur,’ said Boone. ‘Get on with it.’

‘What can you tell me about Peto Soneka and Hurtado Bronzi?’

‘Why?’

‘I simply require you to answer the question, genewhip,’ replied Chayne.

Boone frowned. ‘They’re two of the Chiliad’s most respected hetmen. One’s downstairs on 42 Hydra Tertius, the other was lost on Nurth.’

‘During the last week of operations on Nurth,’ said Chayne, ‘both came under suspicion of treasonous behaviour.’

‘They did,’ Boone replied. ‘I was gunning for the pair at one point, and I believe you arrested and questioned both of them. They were clean. We both found that.’

‘I am reviewing the case material,’ said Chayne.

‘Why?’ asked Boone. ‘One of them’s five months’ dead, for fug’s sake.’

‘New data has been gathered,’ Chayne told him. ‘It casts doubt on the stories they told us.’

‘Look, Chayne…’ Boone began. He paused. ‘One moment, bajolur.’ Boone took a step aside. ‘You. You men there!’ he yelled out across the deck. ‘Pick up your kit, you idiots. It’s blocking the service strip. Come on, you gee-tards. You know the drill. Stay behind the cue line!’

The men from Mannequin Company hurried to oblige.

Boone turned back to the Lucifer. ‘You were saying? New data?’

‘New data,’ Chayne replied.

‘What sort of new data?’ asked Boone.

‘That’s classified. It’s beginning to appear that Het Soneka and Het Bronzi were not so innocent after all.’

‘Listen to me,’ Boone growled, looking the companion in the eye. ‘You’d better have some fugging watertight facts before you come down here dragging the reputations of two of my hetmen through the gutters.’

‘Ah, the famous Chiliad loyalty,’ said Chayne. ‘How does it go? “Company first, Imperium second, geno before gene”? I was told to expect that you’d close ranks.’

‘We look after our own, companion, and I’m not sure I like what you’re implying,’ Boone answered.

Chayne nodded. He knew when to be forthcoming with a morsel of information. ‘There were spies at work on Nurth, Boone. We assumed they were Nurthene agents. It now appears that they were part of the Alpha Legion Astartes infiltration network.’