The tracker starts to move, following the psyk-sense it has devoured. The Word Bearers fall in behind it.
‘What about him?’ one of them says to Ulmor Nul, indicating the twitching remains. ‘You could end his pain.’
‘Pain is something we learn from,’ says Nul, ‘and mercy is a waste of ammunition.’
The Ultramarines captain puts up a decent fight. Cornered and outnumbered, he tries to do as much damage as possible before the inevitable.
Sorot Tchure makes the kill. He puts two mass-reactives into the bulkhead behind the Ultramarine, and the force of the blasts, in the enclosed space, rams the cobalt-blue figure out of cover.
He tries to get up, but it’s too late. A third shell takes his head off.
Tchure walks back to the yard’s master control room. He masses his squads marshalling human prisoners, or dragging out the bodies of the enemy dead. A sheen of blue smoke hangs in the air. The Zetsun Verid Yard is now secure.
It’s taken longer than expected. This irks Tchure. He had hoped that sheer bewilderment would knock the fight out of the XIII, but they stuck to it.
His only solace is that the shadow magi have exceeded their estimates too. They’re still at work, recalibrating the yard’s main systems. Kor Phaeron’s displeasure will mostly be reserved for them.
In the master control room, some magi are working with power tools, removing still more deckplates and wall panels to access sheafs of cables. Others are performing more delicate processes, probing intricate circuitry with watchmaker instruments, many of which are fused into their digits. A few have linked directly via the MIU ports, freeing their minds into an improvised noospheric environment in which they can rebuild the yard’s shattered manifold architecture. They are bathing in the warm essence of the Octed code loose in the systems.
Kor Phaeron, Master of the Faith, is not exasperated. Tchure finds him in a control office overlooking the main chamber, a glazed brass box like an ecclesiastical confessional. He is reading from a roughly-bound book. The Book of Lorgar. It is not the whole book, of course, merely one volume. The Book of Lorgar fills an entire datastack, and has been transcribed by hand into nine thousand seven hundred and fifty-two volumes. The number increases regularly. Kor Phaeron has personally gathered a ten-thousand-strong staff of rubricators and scribes to copy the book, and to multiply those copies. Each senior officer of the XVII, and each planetary overlord appointed by the Word Bearers, is expected to own and study a set. Tchure understands that sets are also being prepared as gifts for each of the primarchs who have thrown their loyalty behind Horus. Copies of copies of copies. Perturabo’s edition will be bound in etched steel. Fulgrim’s will be bound in living flesh. Alpharius will be presented with two editions, each subtly different from the other.
Horus’s set will be wrapped in the tanned hide of betrayed legionaries.
Copies of copies of copies. Lorgar reviews each edition, line by line. Transcription errors are punished by death, or worse. Just the day before they translated into the Veridian System, a rubricator was disembowelled for missing a comma.
Tchure enters the control office. He can see, now he is closer, that the book Kor Phaeron is reading is one of the master copies, one of the original manuscripts. It is in the primarch’s own hand, directly as he composed it. This is the latest volume, ready for dissemination. Kor Phaeron always makes a close, personal study of the new instalments before passing them to his staff for copying, archiving and publication.
Kor Phaeron is reading secrets that no one else has yet seen.
‘I apologise for the delay,’ says Tchure.
Kor Phaeron shakes his head, raising a claw hand, still reading.
‘The magi have explained it,’ he says. ‘Our devastation of the Calth noospherics was more fundamental than we hoped. There is a lot to rebuild. Another ten minutes, as I understand it.’
‘I will be happy when you are securely back aboard your ship, master,’ says Tchure.
Now Kor Phaeron looks up. He smiles.
‘Your care is noted. But I am safe here, Sorot.’
He looks frailer than ever. A halo of filthy empyrean light flickers around him. Tchure can see flashes of his bones through his skin, like sporadic X-rays. Kor Phaeron is maintaining a vast degree of warpcraft.
‘Come, Sorot,’ he says. ‘Read with me, for a moment.’
Sorot Tchure steps to the console and looks at the open book. He notes the intricate beauty of the handwriting. There is barely a hint of blank paper on the pages.
‘He uses a stylus. And ink,’ says Kor Phaeron, as if marvelling. ‘In this day and age. A stylus. Of course, I have the rubricators do the same thing.’
‘I understand that–’
Kor Phaeron looks at him.
‘What, Sorot?’
‘I was going to say, master, that I understand Guilliman also uses a stylus.’
‘Indeed. Who told you that?’
‘Luciel.’
‘The one you killed?’
‘The first sacrifice, yes.’
‘He was your friend.’
‘That is why the death had value,’ says Tchure.
‘Yes, I believe that Roboute Guilliman uses a stylus,’ says Kor Phaeron. ‘He writes. A lot of words, as I have been told. Not a great deal of content, however. He writes… a treatise. On warfare. On combat mechanics. On the theory of fighting. Childish concerns. The man clearly has no soul or character. And no interest in the metaphysical subjects that challenge those of more considerable intellect. Our beloved primarch already knows all there is to know about killing. He has no need or reason to write it down. The principles are simple. That is why he is able to go beyond records of gross practicality, and invest his time and energy in consideration of the great mysteries. The workings of this universe, and others. The nature of existence.’
Kor Phaeron looks at him.
‘You know, Lorgar simply records what is dictated to him? What is whispered to him and him alone?’
‘By the gods?’ asks Tchure.
‘By the powers of eight,’ replies Kor Phaeron. ‘By the speakers of the void and the voices of the abyss. By the Primordial Annihilator, out of the throat of the warp.’
There is a call from outside. The magi have finished their work.
Kor Phaeron closes the book and rises to his feet.
‘Let us put their good work to use, shall we?’ he asks.
The Zetsun Verid Yard systems come on-line, restarted by the shadow Mechanicum. A data-engine resumes operation. Sensing that the planetary weapons grid is inactive, and that the inactivity has been caused by the inexplicable loss of the data-engine hub located aboard Calth Veridian Anchor, the engine automatically obeys protocol and assumes control, taking up the slack reins of the grid system. Zetsun Verid contains one of the advanced engine hubs capable of substituting, in an emergency, for the primary orbital hub.
The Calth weapons grid goes back on-line. Its manifold reignites.
Kor Phaeron observes the work, observes how the scrapcode of the Octed is firmly established in the noospheric architecture. He determines his target, and the magi hurry to set and lock the coordinates.
All the orbiting weapons platforms, as well as several ground-based stations including the polar weapon pits, activate and begin to track as their power reservoirs come up to yield.
It takes approximately ten minutes before authority lights flicker green along the master control room’s main console.
‘Target resolution achieved,’ reports the senior magos, scrapcode binaric chattering behind his meatvoice.
‘You may fire when ready,’ says Kor Phaeron.