Where did they go, I wondered? What really happens when the life goes out of us? The Texts tell us that our souls walk into the Emperor’s Light, but do they? I have been on many worlds and seen and heard many things and I do not know if I believe that any more. Perhaps I never truly did.
One or two of the tech-adepts joined in the ritual, more from curiosity it seemed than for any reason of sentiment or belief. Perhaps I do them wrong. Or perhaps they were simply being diplomatic. While we saw to the empty shells of our fallen comrades, they did the same for the vehicles. Sometimes out of the corner of my eye I saw them performing their rituals with the same care that we did.
For a brief moment, the oddness of it struck me. I felt as lost and alone as I sometimes did as a child. I was standing amid the rubble of a burned-out hive city breathing the strange air of a world unimaginably far from the planet where I had been born. All around me men were performing rituals that had been old when my home-world was first colonised.
Near at hand were the corpses of those whose souls were about to take a journey beyond all comprehension. By the light of burning bodies, amid the shadows of ancient war machines, I saw the rapt faces of Ivan and Anton and the New Boy and Hesse and I felt something, a closeness that I cannot find the words to describe even now.
Amid the ancient darkness and gloom, I felt the comradeship the living have in the face of the immeasurable dead. We were all tiny sparks of light, like those rising from the flames of that pyre and disappearing into the unknowable darkness.
Sometime after the funeral ceremony, the Understudy stopped gibbering. The light of intelligence returned to his eyes.
‘Water,’ he said. His voice was strange and rasping as if all those hours of making that inhuman sound had damaged his vocal cords. His face was grim. I am not sure what had happened to him. It was as if during the long madness of that day his spirit had left his body and something new and darker had crept in. When he looked at me, there was a feral insanity in his eyes, well-concealed but present.
I handed him the canteen and he drank from it without wiping the mouth, which is not something he would have done in the past.
‘Report,’ he said in that croaking voice.
Corporal Hesse brought him up to date on the situation. His burning glance moved from face to face. If he was embarrassed by what he had been told of his performance he gave no sign. He accepted all of the information with a brusque nod of his head. He got up and he walked around what was left of the pyre. He stirred the ashes with the toe of his boot and then he returned to where we sat.
‘We need to report to Company HQ for reassignment,’ he said.
‘We need to find it first, sir,’ said Hesse. I could tell he was as disturbed by this apparition as we all were.
‘I don’t think that should prove beyond our wit, corporal,’ said the Understudy. ‘Those adepts have access to the comm-net. We can use their machinery to contact Company.’
Hesse looked confused for a moment then he smiled and said, ‘Yes, sir.’
All of us nodded. We were accustomed to following orders and it was reassuring to have someone who could tell us what to do again. ‘I’ll see to it at once, sir,’ Hesse said.
‘We need to set sentries for this evening,’ he said. ‘This sloppiness stops now.’
He kept barking out commands until we responded like a well-drilled infantry company and only once everything was organised to his satisfaction did he settle down by what was left of our fire. He just sat there staring into the flames, unmoving as a puppet whose strings had been cut. He was still doing it as those of us not on watch drifted off to sleep.
He was in the same position when Anton woke me at dawn to relieve him on watch. I wondered what he was seeing in the ashes.
The next morning one of the techs came over and spoke to the Understudy.
‘Some of our units are going to Central Command. If you wish you may accompany them in our vehicles.’
The Understudy nodded. ‘Get ready to move out,’ he said to us. He turned to the adept and said, ‘We’re ready to go whenever you are.’
‘Our units will be in ready state for departure in five minutes and thirty-one seconds,’ the adept said. ‘You may ride in vehicle number two. Be warned – tamper with nothing on pain of extinction.’
The Understudy looked at the tech. ‘You do not have the authority to execute me or my men.’
‘You misunderstand me – tampering with our equipment without the requisite ritual may cause extinction without intervention on the part of any.’
The Understudy nodded. It was as clear to him as it was to me what the tech meant. He looked at Corporal Hesse. ‘You heard that! Make sure every man in the unit knows the same.’
Hesse nodded and turned to me and said, ‘You heard the second lieutenant. Make sure everyone knows not to touch any of the stuff. Explain to them that if the techs or the gear do not kill any would-be tinkerer then I will. And I particularly mean you, Anton!’
‘When have you ever known me not to do something stupid, corporal?’ Anton said with one of his most maddening grins.
‘When you are asleep,’ Hesse replied. ‘And even then I don’t doubt your dreams are full of idiocy.’
We loaded as much gear as we could carry into our backpacks. Mostly it was ammunition and food with one or two keepsakes from our fallen comrades. I stood at the back of the Atlas, unwilling to get into the recovery vehicle as the others filed past me. I glanced back at our old Baneblade, now covered in strange white technical symbols, determined to get a last look at it.
I did not move until Corporal Hesse pulled me in and then slammed the heavy metal door shut behind me. The last I saw of the ancient war machine was its gigantic shattered hull that reminded me of bones peeking through the flesh of a corpse. I can still see it now, if I close my eyes and let the memories come.
It was distinctly cold in the interior of the Atlas. We found places wherever we could. The techs had not done anything to make us more comfortable. Heavy metal packing boxes were stacked everywhere. Salvaged parts were thrown among them and we found spaces wherever we could to sit down or lie down. It was quite dark and no one had thought to put the lights on. I suppose the techs relied on their night vision goggles. Anton banged on the bulkhead and someone upfront must have understood what he meant for a glowglobe flickered on and illuminated the scene dimly.
The Understudy sat on top of one of the packing cases and stared off into the distance even though there was nothing to see. He seemed lost in thought. It was almost as if he was a machine himself and had just shut himself down while he waited. The rest of us studied the packing cases curiously. All others were wondering what was in them and I know that Anton and Hesse in particular must have been feeling a bad case of itchy fingers. However, the warnings of the techs took effect and nobody made any move to try and open one of them.
I felt confined inside the Atlas in a way that I never had in the much more restricted interior of the Baneblade’s command cabin. I stood there, swaying with every lurch of the recovery vehicle, holding on to some pipework on the wall and wondering why that should be. Perhaps it was because there was nothing for me to do except stand there and because I had no control over anything that happened. I will say one thing for being the driver of a Baneblade – it gives you a tremendous sense of power having those mighty engines respond to your command.