‘What else did he say?’ asked Laksheema.
Domor shrugged.
‘I don’t know. We were under constant fire, and I was too busy shovelling this shit into carry-boxes. We all were. I wasn’t really listening.’
Fazekiel pulled out a data-slate and consulted it.
‘The record states that the area was a “college of heritence”, a weapons lab, run – according to the asset – by the Anarch’s magir hapteka, or weaponwrights. All the material was said to be inert. That is to say, not actively tainted.’
‘You had the asset’s word on that?’ asked Laksheema, dubiously.
‘There were compelling reasons to believe it so,’ Fazekiel said. ‘More volatile, warped material was held in other areas.’
‘A college of heritence,’ Grae said.
‘For weapons development,’ Fazekiel said, reading from her thorough notes. ‘One of many facilities constructed by Heritor Asphodel to supply war machines to the Anarch.’
‘Asphodel, the insane genius,’ mused Laksheema. ‘Very probably a corrupted adept of the Mechanicum, possibly immensely old, sharing Mechanicum perverted secrets with the enemy.’
‘That supposition is probably not cobalt-rated, ma’am,’ said Grae.
‘The drone hasn’t blocked it,’ she replied, glancing at the cyberskull hovering nearby. ‘However, if I had said, in addition, that Asphodel is reckoned to be–’
Her mouth continued moving, but they could no longer hear her speaking. A faint buzzing from the cyberskull was blocking her words, redacting the classified information. Grae was nodding. He could hear her.
‘Yes,’ he said with a shudder, ‘that’s definitely vermilion clearance.’
Baskevyl, Domor and Fazekiel glanced at one another.
‘Asphodel, curse his soul, is dead,’ said Domor. ‘Long dead, on Verghast. Colonel-Commissar Gaunt killed him. I mean… Militant Commander Gaunt.’
‘The asset suggested that Asphodel was just one of many “heritors” working for the enemy,’ said Fazekiel. ‘The greatest, perhaps, but one of many. A cult of demented weaponwrights, presumably “inheriting” secrets from the Mechanicum, to follow your line of thought.’
‘I am already fully aware of those theories,’ said Laksheema curtly. ‘I want to know details of your regiment’s experience at the point of collection. What did the asset say about the place and these stones?’
‘According to Gaunt’s verbatim report,’ said Fazekiel, returning to her transcript, ‘the asset called them the Glyptothek. A “library in stone”. He remembered them being brought to the Reach years before, and being treated as valuable even then. They were said to be xenos items of significance, recovered from one of the Khan Worlds. He wanted them collected, and considered them very important. He didn’t know why, he just appreciated their significance, the significance the weaponwrights considered them to have. He considered them “a discovery of singular value”.’
‘They now have another name, do they not, Major Baskevyl?’ asked Laksheema.
Baskevyl sighed and nodded.
‘There is reason to believe they may be called eagle stones, ma’am,’ he said.
‘Because of the Aigor Nine Nine One incident?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Which you were present for?’
‘Yes, I was.’
Laksheema looked at her data-slate.
‘You, and Major Kolea, whom I met yesterday, and two troopers, Maggs and Rerval?’
‘That’s correct, ma’am,’ said Baskevyl.
‘You heard a voice?’
Bask shook his head.
‘I did not, ma’am,’ he said. ‘The voice was only heard by Rerval and Gol. Uhm, Major Kolea.’
‘But you saw something?’
‘We fought something, ma’am. A daemonic shadow. It slew two of our party. We drove it off.’
‘Horrible,’ said Grae, wrinkling his face in disgust.
‘Afterwards,’ asked Laksheema, ‘did Gol relate what the voice had said?’
Don’t use his name like that, Baskevyl thought. Don’t talk about him like you know him.
‘He made a full report, to our commanding officer. To Militant Commander Gaunt,’ said Baskevyl. ‘He also told me what the voice had said.’
‘In private?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did Gol confide in you?’
‘Because I’m his friend,’ said Bask.
‘And what did Gol say it said, major?’
‘The voice… identified itself as the “voice of Sek”. It said, “Bring me the eagle stones”.’
‘And at the time, this meant nothing?’ asked Laksheema.
‘It meant nothing to anybody,’ said Fazekiel.
‘But then after that, during the boarding action?’ asked the inquisitor.
‘We found the damn stones had spilled out on the deck,’ said Domor. ‘In a pattern. Fapes… that’s Major Bask’s adjutant… he said they looked like an eagle. Wings spread.’
Laksheema turned to the bank of screens. She adjusted her wand again. The eight hololithic images copied themselves onto one screen, and formed into a pattern.
‘Like that?’ she asked.
‘Just like that,’ Domor nodded.
‘And from the shape, and prompted by your adjutant’s remark, you made the connection?’ Laksheema asked Baskevyl.
‘It’s just a guess,’ he said. ‘A gut feeling. A coincidence that made too much nasty sense.’
‘Are they here?’ asked Domor. ‘The actual stones?’
‘No,’ said Grae. ‘Versenginseer Etruin is examining the artefacts at the Mechanicus facility at–’
A soft buzzing blocked out the end of his sentence.
‘That’s vermilion, colonel,’ said Laksheema.
‘My apologies,’ said Grae.
‘There is another detail which lends weight to the proposition that these are the eagle stones prized and desired by the Archenemy,’ said Laksheema. ‘Your ship was spared.’
‘That’s in the report too,’ said Fazekiel stiffly.
‘You suffered a translation accident, and were helpless,’ said Laksheema. ‘You were overrun by enemy personnel. An enemy killship of significant displacement, the–’
She checked her slate.
‘–Tormageddon Monstrum Rex, had you at its mercy, but elected instead to destroy the Archenemy units boarding you. It then left you alone.’
‘The grace of the Emperor is strange and beyond our understanding,’ said Baskevyl. ‘He works in–’
‘Spare me the platitudes,’ said Laksheema. ‘An enemy battleship, not the most stable, restrained or logical entity in this universe, saved you and spared you. Does that not suggest there was something on board your vessel that was too valuable to annihilate?’
‘That’s one way of reading it,’ said Baskevyl.
‘It looks very much like it was ordered not to vaporise you,’ Laksheema continued. ‘Indeed, that it was ordered to protect said treasure, even from its own kind.’
‘It would take the command of a magister or the Archon himself to halt and control a killship of that aggressive magnitude,’ said Grae.
‘Then there is the matter of the broadcast,’ said Laksheema. ‘The broadcast made by the killship.’
‘I don’t know about any broadcast, ma’am,’ said Baskevyl.
‘The broadcast was intercepted by a Major… Rawne,’ said Laksheema. ‘By his vox-officer. It was translated by your asset, the Etogaur.’
‘I wasn’t aware of this,’ said Baskevyl.
‘Me neither,’ said Domor.
‘It’s in the mission report,’ said Fazekiel. ‘It was considered need-to-know only.’
‘It seems this Major Rawne has some appropriate notion of confidentiality,’ said Laksheema.
‘Domor and Baskevyl are cobalt-cleared now, inquisitor,’ said Grae.
Laksheema smiled. She looked at her data-slate and began to read. ‘Let’s see how far I get,’ she said. ‘The transcript of Mabbon Etogaur’s translation reads, “That which is born must live” or perhaps “That which was constructed must remain whole”. In full, “That which was made must remain whole… the offspring of the Great Master… all this shall be the will of he whose voice drowns out all others”.’