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  ‘Stand where you are and make no attempt to resist,’ Omegon ordered, bolter aimed. He adjusted channels. ‘We’re secure.’

  Light wafted. Alpharius materialised, with Shere at his side.

  The primarch walked forwards. ‘Cabal,’ he said. ‘We meet at last, on my terms.’

  EIGHT

  Eolith, continuous

  ‘THERE’S A SHIP approaching,’ said Mu. Bronzi called the company to halt and looked up into the saturated cloud cover. He couldn’t see anything.

  ‘There’s no drop due,’ he said, ‘and we haven’t been notified of air support. I can’t see anything.’

  ‘It’s there,’ she insisted, staring up into the sky. Her ’cept had caught its approach.

  A dot appeared out of the clouds, and swooped down across the block valley, trailing vapour. It was a Jackal gunship.

  ‘What does he want, I wonder?’ asked Tche.

  The gunship made two passes over the Jokers’ position, and then banked in and hovered down to settle on the flattest patch of rock in the immediate vicinity.

  As soon as its claws bit into the ground, figures dismounted from the side hatch and ran towards the waiting geno company.

  ‘Lucifer Blacks?’ Mu murmured uneasily.

  Bronzi felt a shudder of panic. ‘No, no,’ he whispered.

  The three companions, armed and armoured, covered the ground sure-footedly, and reached the Jokers. They came to a halt in a row, apparently oblivious to the surly glares of suspicion that they were getting from hundreds of big, gene soldiers.

  ‘Hetman Bronzi,’ said the lead companion. ‘Identify Hetman Bronzi.’

  A murmur ran through the company. Bronzi realised that he was trembling. There was absolutely no way he could run or hide from this. He did the only thing he could.

  ‘That’s me,’ he called, walking out of the huddled troops to face the Lucifers. One of them immediately stepped forwards and disarmed him. Bronzi didn’t fight.

  ‘What the fug do you think you’re doing?’ Tche exclaimed.

  ‘Hetman Bronzi,’ the lead companion announced, ‘you are detained by order of the Lord Commander. You will come with us.’

  The Jokers started to yell and protest, spilling forwards out of their lines in outrage.

  ‘Keep your places!’ Bronzi yelled. ‘That’s an order! Keep your places! This is just a misunderstanding, and we’ll get it cleared up!’

  ‘You will come with us now,’ the lead companion demanded.

  ‘No,’ Honen Mu snapped, striding out to stand beside Bronzi. ‘I can’t allow this. You cannot remove my hetman during an operation.’

  ‘Your objection is noted, uxor,’ said the companion, ‘but it is overruled. Step back.’

  ‘This is a disgrace!’ Mu yelled. ‘How dare you—’

  ‘Step back, uxor,’ the companion repeated. ‘Don’t provoke them, Honen,’ Bronzi told her gently. ‘I’ll get this sorted out and be back as quickly as I can.’

  ‘What is this about, Hurtado?’ she asked, horrified. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Bronzi, what have you done, you silly old dog?’ she pleaded.

  ‘Nothing,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve done nothing.’ He clasped her hands in his and looked down into her eyes. ‘I’ll come back, Honen. Look after my Jokers for me, all right?’

  ‘Hurtado…’

  He bent and kissed her cheek, and then let go of her hands and allowed the companions to walk him back to the gunship.

  He never looked back.

  As she watched him walk away, Honen Mu had the most profound feeling that she’d never see him again.

  ‘THIS IS NOT how it should be!’ Grammaticus roared. ‘Be quiet,’ said Alpharius.

  ‘No!’ Grammaticus spat, turning to face the primarch. ‘This is exactly the sort of confrontational duress I was trying to avoid. This is no way to deal with the Cabal. You cannot turn your guns on them and force them to—’

  ‘I can do anything I want,’ said Alpharius, ‘and what I want is to be in control of this situation. Your Cabal has persistently and covertly schemed to manipulate the Alpha Legion. That is no basis for trust. I’ll hear them out, but I will not let them use my Legion, or lead it into a trap.’

  ‘It’s not a trap!’ Grammaticus wailed.

  ‘Not any more it isn’t,’ Omegon agreed.

  Grammaticus put his head in his hands and backed away. He looked up, and saw Soneka and Rukhsana.

  ‘You used me,’ he sighed in disbelief.

  ‘No more than you thought you were using me, John,’ Soneka replied, ‘and you did try very hard to do that.’

  ‘But—’ Grammaticus said.

  ‘This is what my lord wanted, and this is what I delivered for him,’ said Soneka. ‘He wanted to see where you would go, given the chance.’

  ‘And you too,’ Grammaticus murmured, looking at Rukhsana. ‘It was all a sham.’

  She opened the throat of her protective gear and revealed the pendant hanging there. ‘Psionic scrambler, Konig,’ she said. ‘It made my mind seem as if it were out of joint.’

  ‘Oh, Rukhsana, why?’ he begged.

  Playfully, she continued to unbutton her suit, and pulled the seam aside to show half of her right breast. The hydra brand appeared like a beauty spot on her pale skin.

  Grammaticus looked away and sank to his knees.

  ‘Who speaks for the Cabal?’ Alpharius asked, advancing across the platform towards them.

  ‘They will all speak through me,’ clicked G’Latrro. ‘Lord Alpharius, our agent is correct. This is no way to conduct business. The Cabal deplores your aggression.’

  ‘But they want to talk to me, so they’d better get used to the situation and begin,’ Alpharius replied. ‘I have limited patience. What is so important that you’d go to such lengths to draw me here?’

  The Cabal’s interpolator did not reply. Behind him, in low, odd tones, the Cabal members consulted one another.

  ‘Stay sharp,’ Pech said to Shere, his boltgun trained on the aliens. ‘Any sign of trickery…’

  Shere nodded. ‘There is psychic activity, but it is purely communicative. None of it is active.’

  ‘Let me know if that changes,’ said Pech.

  The buzzing, mumbling stir of alien voices ceased. G’Latrro looked up at Alpharius.

  ‘The Cabal will speak, though it resents the position you have placed it in,’ it said. ‘It is typical of human zeal and belligerence.’

  ‘Begin,’ said Alpharius.

  ‘The Cabal will deal directly with the primarch of the Astartes Alpha Legion,’ G’Latrro stated.

  ‘You are,’ said Alpharius.

  ‘With the entire primarch,’ said the insectoid.

  Alpharius paused. ‘You are,’ he repeated.

  ‘A show of trust is perhaps in order on your part, seeing that you hold us at gunpoint?’ said G’Latrro. ‘A token to signify that true secrets can be shared between us?’

  Alpharius glowered for a moment, and then nodded. Omegon, in his gleaming, blue-black infiltrator armour, walked slowly over to stand at Alpharius’s side. Soneka and Rukhsana exchanged brief glances of confusion. Grammaticus looked up, fascinated.

  ‘Cut off one head and two shall grow in its place,’ said G’Latrro. ‘Alone amongst the gene sons of the Terran Emperor, you are the only twins. You are both the primarch, one soul in two vessels.’

  ‘The fact is not known outside our Legion,’ said Omegon.

  ‘It is our most closely guarded secret,’ said Alpharius. ‘How did you know?’ asked Omegon.

  The insectoid’s mouthparts twitched. ‘Through a careful study and comparison of the known primarchs that has lasted for decades. It became clear to us that the oldest and the youngest sons were the most significant of all. Horus, for what he will do, and you for what you will undo.’

  ‘What will Horus do?’ asked Alpharius.

  ‘He will let the galaxy burn,’ said G’Latrro. ‘He will ignite the civil war.’

/>   ‘You speak heresy!’ Omegon growled.

  ‘Exactly so,’ the interpolator replied.

  Alpharius shook his head. ‘This is futile. Like your agent before you, you speak of a coming war and a great doom. You describe a division that could not possibly happen. Horus Lupercal is Warmaster. He is the Emperor’s right hand, and the most loyal of all. What he does, he does for the Emperor.’

  ‘I believe you intend to sow the seeds of dissent with these wild tales,’ Omegon told the interpolator. ‘You wish to undermine the foundations of the Imperium.’

  ‘They are not wild tales,’ said G’Latrro.

  ‘They are baseless and offensive to us!’ Omegon snapped. ‘You supply no specifics, you deal in vague pronouncements.’

  ‘It has been farseen,’ said G’Latrro.

  ‘Again with this!’ Alpharius laughed. ‘Some vision, some shamanic dream? A worthless prophesy, a hollow auguring! It all means nothing! You cannot know the future, and therefore you cannot show us any proof.’

  ‘Yes, we can,’ said G’Latrro. ‘If that is what you need, we will share the Acuity with you.’

  ‘How exactly is that done? asked Omegon warily.

  ‘It cannot be accomplished here,’ said G’Latrro. ‘We must first bring our vessel to the halting site, and transfer to it with you. As a matter of trust, we will allow you to escort us, under guard. We need you to know, Alpharius Omegon. We need you to see.’

  ‘Do it,’ said Alpharius and Omegon simultaneously.

  NINE

  Orbital, Eolith, three hours later

  THEY TOOK HIM to a cell in the brig deck of the Blamires, and had him strip. Then they made him watch as they shredded his clothing and dismantled every piece of his equipment.

  After that, they locked him in an iron restraint chair.

  They did not speak once the entire time. After a while, when he realised that they weren’t ever going to answer him, he stopped asking questions. From that point, the processing continued in silence.

  The hatch opened. Dinas Chayne entered the cell, accompanied by a burly officer of the brig and two assistants in floor length plastek aprons. Chayne conversed quietly with the three companions who had brought Bronzi in and processed him.

  He turned to the painfully restrained hetman.

  ‘Hurtado Bronzi.’

  Bronzi said nothing.

  ‘You are detained on suspicion of being a covert operative of the Astartes Alpha Legion,’ said Chayne. ‘The Lord Commander takes a dim view of spies, and of internecine espionage. If you are found to be working for the Astartes, it will be considered a gross act of disloyalty to your regiment, the Imperial Army, the expedition, and the Lord Commander. Do you have anything to say?’

  Bronzi flexed his throat and jaw against the iron bars trapping them. ‘This is a mistake,’ he said. ‘This is wrong. You’ve got the wrong man.’

  Chayne remained impassive. He walked across to the metal side table where the debris of Bronzi’s clothing and kit sat in boxes. He reached into one, and produced the green metal scale. He held it up to make sure Bronzi could see it.

  ‘I don’t know what that is,’ Bronzi said. ‘You’ve planted it there.’

  Chayne returned the scale to the box and walked back to his prisoner. He pointed his right index finger at the brand mark on Bronzi’s right hip.

  ‘And that, hetman? Did I plant that too?’

  Bronzi scowled.

  ‘You are in no position to equivocate, Bronzi,’ said Chayne. ‘Tell me. Tell me your secret.’

  Bronzi gritted his teeth. Very slowly and deliberately he said, ‘My name is Hurtado Bronzi.’

  He looked at Chayne, and winked. ‘There, I’ve said it,’ he smiled. ‘I’ve said it and I can never take it back. The secret’s out.’

  ‘Don’t annoy me, Bronzi,’ said Chayne. Tell me the rest.’

  ‘Ah. The rest?’ said Bronzi. ‘Well, if I must sir…’

  ALL THE DEEP range scopes began to sound contact alerts. Van Aunger, master of the expedition fleet, got up from the leather throne in the middle of the Blamires’s wide main bridge and strode across to the tracking station. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘Contact echo, sir,’ the tracking officer replied. ‘An object just appeared on the scopes, inbound to 42 Hydra Tertius.’

  ‘Appeared?’ Van Aunger repeated.

  ‘I don’t understand it, sir,’ the tracking officer replied, adjusting his control panels with fast, expert hands. ‘There are no energetic or magnetic profiles that would suggest a real space translation. The object just appeared. I speculate that it was previously cloaked.’

  ‘Track it and project, full assessment,’ Van Aunger ordered.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ replied the officer.

  ‘General quarters!’ Van Aunger called out. ‘Shields and batteries to stand by!’

  A klaxon started to sound. The bridge staff, over a hundred officers, bustled to their stations, their voices overlapping as they exchanged data and instructions.

  ‘Trajectory projection!’ the tracking officer announced.

  ‘Main display,’ Van Aunger replied.

  The primary hololithic display lit up with a complex graphic diagram of the planet, the position of the fleet components, and the sweeping vector of the object.

  ‘That will take it directly to the venue zone,’ Van Aunger murmured. ‘Have you identified vessel type or designation?’

  ‘Negative, sir,’ the tracking officer replied. ‘It doesn’t even read like a vessel. It’s inert on all scans. It’s… oh Terra…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m marking it in excess of point eight superluminal, and it’s big, sir. It’s at least as big as we are.’

  ‘Battle stations!’ Van Aunger cried. ‘Raise shields!’

  The klaxon changed tone immediately. Van Aunger activated his vox-wand.

  ‘My Lord Namatjira,’ he said.

  ‘What’s going on, fleet master?’ the Lord Commander’s voice came back.

  ‘An unknown craft of significant displacement is about to cut right across the fleet inbound to the planet.’

  ‘Mobilise the picket,’ Namatjira ordered. ‘Interdict it now.’

  ‘It’s moving too fast, sir,’ Van Aunger said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  ‘Fleet master, I want you to—’

  Namatjira’s voice was lost in a wash of static. Every screen on the bridge stations suddenly milked out, and the main lights died. In the darkness that followed, a violent vibration shook through the mighty flagship for a few seconds.

  The lights came back on. One by one, the screens came back to life.

  ‘—an Aunger? Van Aunger?’ Namatjira’s voice blurted from the vox. ‘What in the name of the Emperor just happened?’

  ‘It went past us, sir,’ replied Van Aunger. ‘Whatever it was, it just went right past us.’

  HONEN MU CRIED out. When Tche turned to look, he thought she’d slipped over on the wet rock. Then he saw that her aides were down too. He ran back over the flat topped rocks to reach her.

  He began to feel it too, through the ’cept. All the men felt it, and they had come to a halt.

  ‘What is it? What is it, uxor?’ he asked.

  She was down on her hands and knees, shivering with pain. ‘I don’t know,’ she gasped, shaking her head. Huddled on the ground behind her, her aides were sobbing and wailing.

  Thunder rolled. Tche and the Jokers looked up at the overcast sky and the thick banks of cloud.

  ‘Is it a storm?’ asked one.

  More thunder, deep and heavy, shook out. The echo it left rolled down the wide valley that the Jokers were still only half way across.

  A wind began to pick up, strong and lusty, and wet cold. Their banners and capes flapped. Spray lifted off the puddles and pools in the rocks around them.

  Thunder sounded again, as if the sky was splitting. This time, Tche and his men saw lightning flare above the clouds, back lighting them. The
pulsing discharges made it look as if the clouds were on fire inside.

  The men started to point at the sky and cry out. ‘Holy fug,’ Tche mumbled.

  A city was falling out of the sky on top of them.

  At first, it was a great copper dish, half as wide as the visible sky. Streaks of luminous white and blue pulsed out from the centre of the dish, to its rim and back. The rim was turning like a spinning top, and flashing with iridescent patterns. The dish passed overhead, plunging them into shadow. It made an infrasonic murmur that quaked their internal organs and made them involuntarily squeal in fear. There was a smell of ozone, and sizzling bolts of forked lighting seared down from the clouds all along the length of the valley.

  The copper dish, so vast that the very size of it was terrifying, swung in over the monolithic black cliffs of the Shivering Hills, and slowly descended. Now, they could see its upper surface, where giant copper structures resembling fans and leaves bloomed like a cyclopean, abstract water lily from the top of the dish.

  It sank lower and lower, until the spinning dish was obscured by the cliffs. There was a colossal boom that shook the ground under them, and caused splinters of rock to topple over and come crashing down the face of the black cliffs. The dish had set down somewhere beyond the hill line. They could see the golden fans and petals of its upper structure rising above the Shivering Hills like the spires and monuments of some heavenly city.

  Stray lightning continued to spark and flicker in the clouds, but the wind dropped as quickly as it had risen.

  Tche helped Mu to her feet. Blood was seeping from her left nostril. They gazed in silent awe at the gilded shapes of the new skyline.

  ‘What… what is it?’ Tche asked.

  Honen Mu had no answer for him.

  NAMATJIRA SLOWLY STUDIED the orbital pictures. ‘It’s huge,’ he murmured.

  ‘A xenosform vehicle of some kind,’ nodded Van Aunger. ‘I’m afraid we can’t determine any details apart from its size. It is resistant to our probes.’

  ‘It has landed precisely at the location Alpharius instructed me to secure,’ said Namatjira.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Van Aunger, ‘inside the Shivering Hills area, at the heart of the atmospheric anomaly, and directly upon structures that our scans identified as artificial.’