The Greater Good

TWENTY-THREE

‘What did they want with that?’ Jurgen asked, furrowing his brow in puzzlement.

‘To kill it, I would imagine,’ I said. ‘You saw what they did to the gaunts from the other swarm.’

‘But how did they know it was there?’ my aide persisted.

‘A good question,’ Sholer said. Jurgen looked faintly surprised, then pleased with himself, praise from a Space Marine being rare enough at the best of times, let alone aimed in his direction. ‘But it seems the hive fleet must be aware of its existence somehow, even though dormant[162].’

‘Then the gaunts were still operating on instinct when they swarmed in here after all,’ I said, happy to at least be able to discount the presence of a lurking synapse creature somewhere on the premises.

Sholer nodded. ‘It appears so,’ he said, turning to lead the way back to the exit. ‘But the implications are disturbing.’

‘Most definitely,’ I agreed, my mind rather more focused on regaining the warmth of the upper levels than the implications of what we’d discovered. Time enough to discuss those once we’d thawed out, if you asked me. I reached for the handle of the thick metal door, and tugged at it. It refused to budge.

‘Allow me,’ Sholer said, with a hint of amusement. He reached out a hand, and slapped the plate of the genecode reader. Instead of registering his presence, however, the machine spirit remained obdurate, and the door securely locked. ‘Override,’ he said, ‘in the name of Sholer, Apothecary to the Reclaimers.’

‘Lockdown in progress,’ the machine spirit responded, in a vox-coder drone uncannily like Dysen’s[163]. ‘Voiceprint recognition suspended. Genecode recognition suspended.’

‘How did you get through?’ I asked Yail, and he shrugged, quite a sight for a Space Marine in full armour.

‘Forced it,’ he said, to my complete lack of surprise. ‘But it was easier from the other side.’

‘It would be,’ I agreed. Pushing, he and his comrades would have been able to put their whole weight behind it, whereas on this side the handle provided the only point of purchase. Only one of the Adeptus Astartes would be able to pull at a time, and with his superhuman musculature, supplemented by the power of his armour, the chances were he’d only succeed in yanking the thing clean off.

‘I can get it open,’ Jurgen offered, steadying his melta, and Sholer nodded his approval.

‘Quicker than taking the bolters to it,’ he agreed.

‘Won’t that give the specimens the run of the shrine if any revive?’ I asked.

Sholer inclined his head again. ‘In theory,’ he agreed. ‘But they can’t thaw out while the refrigeration plant remains operative. And doors can always be replaced.’

‘True,’ I said, my desire to be out of the bone-numbing cold as quickly as possible overwhelming any other objections I might have had. ‘Whenever you’re ready, Jurgen.’ I closed my eyes against the anticipated flash, which punched through my eyelids as brightly as it always did when he fired his favourite weapon this close to where I was standing, and felt the backwash of heat flow over me, restoring a semblance of feeling to my numb extremities at last.

‘That’s got it,’ he said, which was hardly surprising given that he’d hit it from point-blank range, and I blinked my vision clear of the dancing after-images. The thick metal slab was half-melted, slumping against its hinges, and without another word[164] the two Reclaimers accompanying Yail stepped forwards. Ceramite gauntlets reached out to grasp it, their fingers sinking into the softened metal, and with a groan like something alive and suffering the door gave way at last.

‘Where to?’ I asked, jogging gratefully through the gap into the relative warmth of the corridor beyond, doing my best to keep up with the superhumanly long strides of the Space Marines.

‘To the power plant control chapel,’ Sholer said, scattering red-robed tech-priests ahead of him like autumn leaves in a squall as he made his way through the maze of passageways on the lower levels. ‘Sub-level three.’ Which confirmed my tunnel rat’s instinct that we were still a fair distance below the surface. As I trotted along in the wake of the Adeptus Astartes I filled Zyvan in on what was going on, somewhat breathlessly I must admit, as I had less wind than usual left for talking.

‘You were right, they are insane,’ the Lord General commented. ‘The sooner you’re back up here the better.’

‘My sentiments exactly,’ I agreed, trying not to pant too audibly. By this time we were approaching the control chapel, and I picked up my pace a little more, reluctant to fall too far behind the reassuring bulk of the Space Marines. The heads of the acolytes manning the genetorium snapped round in our direction as we burst through the door in a flurry of weapons and armour, visibly shocked by our sudden unmannerly intrusion into so sacred a space. Like many of their shrines, it was long on polished steel and blinking lights, with innumerable dials and switches set into lecterns and wall displays. Pict screens were flashing up icons and images which meant nothing to me, which was probably just as well for my peace of mind.

‘Thank the circuits you’re here,’ Kildhar said, looking up as we shuffled around, trying to find somewhere to stand. The chapel was large enough, as such places go, but a quartet of Space Marines take up a lot of room, particularly when they’re waving bolters around, and Jurgen’s melta wasn’t exactly compact either. ‘This corruptfile imbecile won’t vent the reactors into the cryogenitorium.’

‘Good for him,’ I said curtly. ‘Considering we were locked in there.’

‘Were you?’ Kildhar looked confused for a moment, and then returned to her argument with the senior tech-priest present, which our arrival seemed to have interrupted. ‘Well, you’re not now, so let’s get the static things vaporised before they eat us all.’

‘That’s a bit of a turnaround,’ I muttered to Jurgen. The palms of my hands were itching again, a sign I’d learned to trust. Something really wasn’t right about this. ‘She’s the one who was hell-bent on preserving them.’ Sholer was looking puzzled too, in so far as I could read his expression at all.

‘With respect to your exalted position, magos,’ the tech-priest buzzed, the insect-like harmonics added to his voice by a loose wire somewhere in his vox-coder growing increasingly irritating with every syllable, ‘our understanding is that the reactor is to be vented only if the specimens currently in cryogenic storage present a clear and present danger to the shrine.’ Had he a jaw still capable of movement, doubtless he would have set it at this point. When a mid-ranking functionary begins any sentence with ‘with respect’, you know he’d rather take a swim in an open sewer than budge a millimetre from his stated position.

‘It’s my opinion that they do,’ Kildhar said. ‘And if you haven’t the throughput to get the job done, I have.’ Shouldering past the incredulous tech-priest, she stabbed at a bank of switches with the tips of her fingers. At once, a row of lights turned red, and a warning klaxon began to sound somewhere in the depths of the building.

‘This course of action is premature,’ Sholer said, as a clockface appeared on one of the pict screens, counting down seconds with what seemed to me to be unnecessary eagerness. He turned to the tech-priest. ‘Abort the venting.’ With a relieved nod, the red-robed minion took a step towards the lectern.

‘Stop right there,’ Kildhar said, cold and determined. ‘I’ll decommission anyone who goes near the vent controls.’ She drew a bolt pistol from the depths of her robe, a master crafted one if the finely wrought chasing of the devotional iconography was anything to go by, and the tech-priest stopped moving as abruptly as if she’d already pulled the trigger. At this range she stood a fair chance of penetrating the Space Marines’ armour, let alone my tender hide, and I hoped she knew enough about the weapon to avoid discharging it by accident.

Of course, you don’t point a gun at a group of Adeptus Astartes and expect them to just stand there making idle conversation. In a heartbeat, three bolters and a bolt pistol were pointing right back at her, while the genetorium acolytes scurried for whatever cover they could find. Jurgen began to raise the melta too, but I forestalled him with a gesture. If anyone so much as hiccoughed, Kildhar would be reduced to shredded scrap and offal in a heartbeat, and I didn’t see any point in barbecuing the remains into the bargain. Besides, there was a lot of delicate equipment scattered around the place, all of which probably needed to be kept in one piece if the almost inconceivable energies of the fusion reactor were to remain confined. I hadn’t the slightest objection to the ’nids being vaporised, but the notion of sharing their fate was considerably less attractive.’

‘Magos,’ I said, trying to keep my voice pitched to a conversational level, ‘this hardly seems necessary.’

She turned a glance of withering scorn in my direction. ‘Haven’t you worked it out yet?’ she demanded. ‘It all fits!’

‘Of course,’ I said, the pieces clicking into place at last, leaving me wondering how I could have been so blind. ‘You were on the Spawn of Damnation too. No wonder you seemed so keen to preserve the implanted serfs, and bring them back here.’

‘I’m not sure I follow, sir,’ Jurgen said, his brow furrowing and dislodging a few flakes of skin in the process.

‘The serfs weren’t the only ones brought into the brood mind,’ I said. ‘They let themselves be brought to Fecundia, knowing the most senior of the people ostensibly studying them was a part of it as well. And the so-called research was just an excuse to allow them to build up their numbers.’

‘Exactly,’ Kildhar said, the muzzle of her bolt pistol rock steady. ‘Far more quickly than they could ever have done while trying to remain concealed among the general populace.’

‘That’s how they got out, too, isn’t it?’ I asked, almost blinded by the obvious. ‘The genecode readers around the secure area were set up to recognise the print of someone whose genes had already been subverted. Every genestealer and hybrid in the shrine could simply walk through the door whenever they liked.’

‘Then why didn’t they?’ Yail asked, looking ready to pull the trigger at any second. Not something I wanted him to do until I was sure I had all the answers; our alliance against the tyranids was shaky enough as it was, and if it turned out I was wrong, then its collapse could doom us all.

‘Because they were waiting for the hive fleet to arrive,’ I said. Now I was thinking about it in a wider context, it was no wonder the carapace markings of the gaunts Kildhar had brought in seemed familiar – they were the same as the ones on the genestealers that had done so much damage on the upper levels, and that I’d fled in terror from in the darkened labyrinth of the Spawn of Damnation.

‘That’s right,’ Kildhar said, chipping in at just the right moment. ‘They must have hoped to make it to the hives, and disrupt the defence effort.’

‘Didn’t they tell you?’ Sholer asked, sarcastically.

‘I’m not the corruptfile traitor!’ Kildhar shouted, all attempts at tech-priestly detachment long past. ‘Why would I have upgraded the fleet auspexes if I wanted the tyranids to invade?’

‘Because that’s what implanted genestealer victims do,’ I said wearily. ‘I’ve seen it before. They fight alongside you as hard as anyone, until the brood mind exerts its influence. Most of the time they don’t even know what they are. But the brood mind’s still in there, nudging them now and again.’ I turned to Sholer for confirmation. ‘Who was it who kept arguing in favour of bringing the gaunts inside?’

‘Magos Kildhar,’ he said, in tones of deadening finality.

‘Precisely.’ I turned back to the distraught tech-priest. ‘You have to admit, you did precisely what the hive mind wanted you to do. Bring its meat puppets into the shrine, so it could try to neutralise the one thing on the planet it’s afraid of.’

‘But I’m me!’ The hand holding the bolt pistol was trembling now, Sholer square in its sights. ‘He’s the one who damaged the locking mechanism and let them into the cryogenitorium!’

‘An accident,’ Sholer said dismissively.

‘Of course you’d say that!’ Kildhar laughed, a short, ragged bark, with an edge of hysteria. ‘You’re the one who approved my request to study the implanted serfs in the first place. Covering your tracks!’

‘A ridiculous assertion,’ Sholer said. ‘I was accompanied by my battle-brothers on every occasion I boarded the hulk. Or are you asserting that entire squads of us have been implanted?’ I glanced sidelong at Yail, trying to judge how he was taking all this, but I didn’t know him well enough to pick up any subtle cues he might be trying to suppress.

‘You’ve certainly given us a lot to think about,’ I said levelly, maintaining eye contact with Kildhar as I spoke. Truth to tell, I didn’t know what to believe by now, other than that the vital thing was to keep all her attention on me. Jurgen and I were half-concealed by the towering bulk of the Adeptus Astartes in their power armour, and I took advantage of that to signal to him with my hand. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him nod, almost imperceptibly, and begin to move away, after propping his melta against a convenient lectern. ‘But then, you’re the one hell-bent on killing the bioship fragment. If anyone’s doing what the hive fleet wants, right now, it’s you.’

‘Precisely,’ Sholer said. ‘We have to continue our researches to the last possible moment.’

‘The risk is too great,’ Kildhar insisted, with a quick glance to the rapidly diminishing numerals. ‘And if you’ve been implanted, that’s the hive mind talking.’ On the verge of making a dive for the control panel, Jurgen hesitated, and drew back. For a second, I must admit, it crossed my mind to simply shoot her, but if a stray round destroyed the lectern, there was no telling what might happen. For all I knew the reactor might run completely out of control, levelling the entire shrine, instead of simply belching the tyranids to vapour[165]. If my aide was going to seize his chance, I had to get her full attention, and keep it for a few vital seconds.

‘I could say the same,’ the Apothecary rejoined, accurately, but unhelpfully given our current circumstances.

‘When did you last have an augmetic upgrade?’ I asked, and a flicker of confusion appeared in the tech-priest’s eyes. Clearly, whatever she’d been expecting me to ask, this wasn’t it.

‘I don’t know. A while back. What does it matter?’

‘A magos of your seniority usually has far more visible enhance-ments,’ I said. If I’m honest, I was more or less guessing, although that certainly seemed true of the cogboys I’d encountered before.

‘I’ve been busy,’ she snapped.

‘For how long?’ I asked. ‘Since your time on the Spawn?’

‘I don’t know.’ Confusion was being replaced by doubt, now. ‘Upgrades… system log…’ Her eyes unfocused for a moment. As they did so, Jurgen grabbed his chance, leaping for the control lectern behind her, and pushing as many switches as he could reach back the way they’d been before. The lights went back to green, the clock on the pict screen vanished, and the siren stopped howling in the bowels of the building.

‘Stop it!’ Kildhar turned on him in a fury, bringing up the bolt pistol to fire. Before she could, I took her square in the middle of the chest with a laspistol round. Reckless, you may say, with the panel still behind her, but with Jurgen’s life in the balance I simply took the shot, and worried about the possible consequences later. She staggered, and stared at me in outraged astonishment, charred wiring sparking and popping inside her ribcage. ‘You couldn’t… you shouldn’t… last upgrade…’ The bolt pistol fell from her nerveless fingers. Jurgen swooped, like a raptor on a vole, scooping the weapon up, and stuffing it into one of his collection of pouches for safe keeping[166]. Then Kildhar’s eyes cleared for a moment. ‘You were right. Sixty-three years ago.’

‘Because the screening prior to the augmentation process would have revealed the genetic contamination,’ Sholer said, handing his own bolt pistol to Yail. Faint scuffling sounds behind the lecterns indicated that the tech-priests were getting their courage back, or were more worried about the consequences of leaving the machine spirits to fend for themselves for much longer than they were of emerging from cover, and a few nervous heads began to appear above and around the serried ranks of instrumentation. ‘I should be confined until it’s determined whether I too have been polluted.’

‘If you think it’s necessary,’ I said, ‘but I don’t think there’s much chance of that.’ Space Marines had their health checked down to the molecular level on a regular basis. ‘And the magos?’

I turned back to Kildhar, bringing my laspistol into line for a clean headshot. I’d granted the Emperor’s Peace[167] more times than I cared to recall, but still I hesitated. The tech-priest met my eyes.

‘Wait,’ she husked. ‘Valuable specimen. Study me…’ Then her eyes rolled up in their sockets, blood loss and trauma from the chest wound taking the matter out of my hands. Perhaps fortunately; to this day, I couldn’t tell you what decision I would have made.

‘Preserve the body for dissection,’ Sholer said, as he left the room, accompanied by one of the helmeted Reclaimers.

‘I’ll take care of it,’ I assured him, relieved to note that Jurgen had retrieved his melta, and was covering my back once again. Right now, he was the only other person on the planet I felt I could trust.