Part 23 (1/2)

*You must have Emperor-given patience. I can't stand her myself.'

Colophon stepped closer, leaning in to where the recording of the signal still turned on the bra.s.s table top. The naturalness of Colophon's movements struck Cyrus. Astropaths often possessed psychic senses that allowed them to see the world through a veil of telepathic resonance. But if it were not for his empty eye sockets, Cyrus would have said that the old man could see perfectly.

Colophon c.o.c.ked his head to one side, listening. The recording rasped through the last syllables of its cycle and began again.

*So this is the signal that brought you here, the one that has everyone so puzzled?'

Cyrus nodded. *Yes, it is what brought us here. It is distorted but it appeared to be a call for help.' Colophon did not reply but waited while the message finished.

*Yes, yes. I see what you mean,' he said finally. *But as Rihat and Hekate told you, no signal has been sent from here. Certainly not one of this nature.' He gave a chuckle. *I should know.' He turned away from the projection, sucking his teeth. *Librarians are versed in the basics of astropathic transmission; had you not considered the possibility of temporal distortion?'

The possibility had occurred to Cyrus. Astropathic messages pa.s.sed through the warp, and were subject to that realm's inconsistent flow of time. A message might arrive millennia after it was sent, or be broken into incomprehensible pieces, or even arrive before it was sent. The message might be a plea from a future waiting just beyond the horizon of the present. It was that possibility of an unknown future that had made Cyrus linger.

*It had occurred to me,' Cyrus said. *Do you think it likely?'

Colophon shrugged. *The possibility alarms you?'

Cyrus thought of the ash of the dead world running through his fingers. *Yes, particularly given recent events.'

Colophon's eyebrows rose. *Recent events?'

Cyrus frowned. The incursions were only fragments of a sudden flaring of conflict around the Eye of Terror. Never a place of peace, in recent times it had become a place of all out war, a war that the Imperium might lose. Forces from several Chapters were involved, and the front was spreading.

*The incursion from the Eye,' he said, *the manifestation of the Accursed Eternity. This is a strategic station; word of these things must have pa.s.sed through here?'

Colophon shook his head. *This is a relay station: a hundred of my kind sifting the void for messages, absorbing them and echoing them on far beyond the reach of the original sender. We do not hear the messages that pa.s.s through us, any more than a pipe drinks the water that pa.s.ses through it.'

*I thought that as senior astropath you might have received word of the war...'

A frown spread wrinkles across Colophon's face. *No, I am simply concerned with the flow of messages, not their content. If anyone knows it will be Hekate. She must have thought it unnecessary to tell me. She is our chief watchdog, our ”Savant Immaterium”. An honourable position, though she loathes the fact that a primaris must sit here and look after us less gifted souls.' He gave a snort. *You would never have guessed would you?'

There was a pause and Cyrus was about to speak again when the old man seemed to shake himself of worry. He gave a smile that only looked a little forced and tapped his cane on the floor. *Come, let us walk, Cyrus Aurelius of the White Consuls. It will do my bones good and might ease whatever is worrying you.' He began to walk off, cane tip clicking. Cyrus followed, wondering about echoes and messages from an unknown future.

Colonel Rihat had never seen an angel of death before. He had been a soldier for most of his life a had seen people die: a few pirates during the scouring of the margin worlds, a few deserters a but he had never been in a fight larger than a skirmish.

In his old regiment he had been a platoon officer, though after a few decades he had known that he would never rise any higher. One day the regiment had been s.h.i.+pped to the Cadian Gate. He had been in transit from a garrison duty on a backwater mining world and missed the redeployment. There was nowhere for him to go, so they had sent him to join the Helicon Guard.

The Helicon Guard was a regiment of veterans pulled together from units that had suffered such high casualties that they were no longer viable as a combat force. Recruits took its ochre and red fatigues and bronze battle armour when they joined, casting off their former allegiances. Most were from regiments raised in systems around the Eye: hard people from hives or population sinks on worlds where you could look up and see the Eye glaring back out of the night sky.

Rihat knew that he had no right to the respect of the men and women under him. Command had fallen to him by a technicality: he had been the most senior officer when he joined and had thus been promoted to the role. He was not a hero, he knew that. He did his best, and tried to lean on what experience he did have. But that experience did not include a detailed knowledge of the Adeptus Astartes.

His first reaction was fear. When the blast doors of the station dock opened, he had felt a cold knot tighten in his guts. It was not just the warriors' size a that they were taller than any of the troopers ranked behind him a it was something about how they moved and looked at you. He remembered as a child seeing one of the ice lions of his home world. The beast had padded out onto the tundra road in front of their vehicle, its movements slow, muscle s.h.i.+fting under its patterned pelt. It had stopped and looked at them. Rihat had looked back into the animal's yellow eyes. For a second he had known that he was looking into the soul of something utterly indifferent to him, something whose nature was to kill or not as it chose. Looking into the eyes of the one called Cyrus he had felt an echo of that memory.

His second reaction was curiosity. The one called Phobos had asked to appraise the station, and so Rihat found himself walking beside the angel of death down the station's pa.s.sages and colonnades. As they walked he could not help but glance at the s.p.a.ce Marine's blunt face. There was a compact ferocity to it, a predator cast to the set of the eyes and brow. He wondered what kind of soul moved behind that face.

*Something worrying you, colonel?' said Phobos, his voice a stony growl.

*No, my lord,' said Rihat, trying carefully to hide his unease.

The s.p.a.ce Marine grunted. *Phobos, colonel. I am no lord, and you are a commander of men, an officer.' He turned an emotionless gaze on Rihat. *My given name will suffice.'

Rihat gave a small nod that Phobos did not seem to notice.

They turned into a wide pa.s.sage which ran around the inside of the kilometre-wide central hub of the station. Walls of verdigris bronze arched up to a central spine hung with glow-globes clasped in eagle claw fittings. This was the largest and greatest of the central pa.s.sages. Any part of the station could be reached from its circle.

*You have not seen a warrior of the Adeptus Astartes before.'

It was a flat statement, Rihat realised. It was difficult to judge what Phobos intended. There was no emotion in his words, at least none that Rihat could sense. He watched as a woman in the robe of a Cipher looked at Phobos, the mnemonics she was muttering fading to nothing as she stared.

*No, I don't think many here have.'

*The primaris psyker, the one called Hekate; she has,' said Phobos in the same flat growl.

Rihat frowned. Hekate seemed to know a lot more than anyone else around her and was never shy of saying so. How she had talked to the s.p.a.ce Marines in the docking bay had shocked Rihat. It was almost as if she held them in contempt. *Perhaps,' he said, shaking his head at how anyone could face one of these creatures and speak to them as if they were ignorant children. But Hekate had done just that.

*Are we so strange to your eyes?'

The question made Rihat blink with surprise for a moment. He almost wanted to smile. *Yes. To be honest, yes, you are.'

Phobos gave a thoughtful grunt, head nodding slightly in its armoured setting. *The angels of death walking amongst mortals.'

*Yes, something like that,' said Rihat, frowning. For a moment he had heard a hint of something he could not quite place in the s.p.a.ce Marine's voice.

Phobos stopped and turned to Rihat. Behind them the honour guard clattered to a halt. The s.p.a.ce Marine looked steadily at Rihat, his storm-grey eyes unblinking amongst ridges of glossy scar tissue. His armour was white, but Rihat could see gouges and score marks under the paint. The crux on Phobos's left shoulder was a death's head of dull stone. There were patches where damage had been ground smooth. A sword hung in a bronze-worked scabbard at his waist, its grip bound with hide, its pommel a silver skull. Rihat doubted he could easily lift it.

Phobos's armour clicked and whined as he s.h.i.+fted his posture, leaning closer. A smell of machine oil filled Rihat's nose. He raised an eyebrow. *Tell me, do I look like an angel?'

*No... No, you don't. You look like the most terrifying thing I have ever seen.'

A ghost of a smile twitched across Phobos's face. *Very good, colonel,' he said, and turned to walk on, seeming to growl as he moved.

After a few steps, Rihat realised that the s.p.a.ce Marine was chuckling.

*How long have you been an oracle?'

The question had come after they had walked the corridors and chambers of Claros station for several hours, Cyrus striding alongside the shuffling old man. They had talked and Cyrus found himself warming to Colophon's wry remarks and sharp questions.

*For as long as I can remember,' Cyrus said. The brief years of his youth opened in his mind. The fear of his parents at their child's strangeness, the shuddering terror of his dreams: all long ago on a world that existed now only in his memory. *It was the first sign of my talent. I would see s.n.a.t.c.hes of things that would later happen.'

Colophon nodded. *The first awakenings of psychic talent are always the worst,' said the old man softly.

*Yes,' said Cyrus. The Librarian found himself wondering at what might have happened to him if he had not proved strong enough in mind and body to be sent from the Black s.h.i.+ps to the White Consuls. Would he have been shuffling along these corridors, blind to everything beyond his mind's eyes?

They turned to walk down a central chamber of one of the five wings of the station. It was wide and tall enough that a t.i.tan could have strode between its stone pillars. People crowded its black stone floor. Administratum Ciphers hurried past, muttering mnemonic rhyme as they carried information from one part of the station to another. Hooded adepts talked in small groups, their mouths hidden by wide grey hoods. Menials in drab grey carried stacks of bra.s.s data sceptres, the tattooed marks of their service bright on their shaved heads. Wide eyes followed Cyrus from the crowd, fear and awe mingling on their faces. Some had knelt until he pa.s.sed. It made him uncomfortable. He was a warrior used to the company of his brothers, not the grovelling fear of those he tried to protect.

*It must be a burden,' said Colophon, breaking Cyrus's thoughts. *To see the future, to know what must happen.'