He was able. He had been educated on Terra. He was no heathen backworlder energised by crude fanaticism. He rose quickly, from rank and file to appointed officer, from that to overseer, from that to his current position as a confided lieutenant. The name for this is majir. His sponsor and superior is a Word Bearers legionary called Arune Xen and, through him, Fowst has been honoured with several private audiences with Argel Tal of the Gal Vorbak. He has attended ministries, and listened to Argel Tal speak.
Xen has given Fowst his ritual blade. It is an athame blessed by the Dark Apostles. It is the most beautiful thing he has ever owned. When he holds it in his hand, byblow gods hiss at him from the shadows.
The Brotherhood of the Knife is not so-called because it favours bladework in combat. The name is not literal. In the dialect of the Holy Worlds, the Brotherhood is the Ushmetar Kaul, the ‘sharp edge by which false reality might be slit and pulled away to reveal god’.
Fowst’s attention has wavered. The oblator has finished keying in the eighth name. The slip of paper is burning in his hand. Smoking scads are falling from his fingers. He is shaking, trying not to scream. His eyes have cooked in their sockets.
Fowst remembers himself. He raises the sidearm to deliver mercy, but its clip is empty. He tosses it away, and uses the athame that Battle-brother Xen gifted him.
It is a messier mercy.
Eight names are now in the system. Eight names broadcast into the dataflow of the Imperial communications network. No filter or noospheric barrier will block them or erase them, because they are only composed of regular characters. They are not toxic code. They are not viral data. But once they are inside the system, and especially once they have been read and absorbed by the Mechanicum’s noosphere, they will grow. They will become what they are. They will stop being combinations of letters, and they will become meanings.
Caustic. Infectious. Indelible.
There are eight of them. The sacred number. The Octed.
And there can be more. Eight times eight times eightfold eight…
Majir Fowst steps back, wipes blood from his face, and welcomes the next man up to the vox-caster with a kiss.
Still over twelve hours out of Calth orbitspace, the fleet tender Campanile performs a series of course corrections, and begins the final phase of its planetary approach.
7
‘I can assure you, sir,’ says Seneschal Arbute, ‘the labour guilds are fully aware of the importance of this undertaking.’
She’s a surprisingly young woman, plain and businesslike. Her robes are grey.
Sergeant Selaton revises his estimate. What would he know? She’s not so much plain, just unadorned. No cosmetics, no jewellery. Hair cropped short. In his experience, high status females tended to be rather more decorative.
They have accompanied her from the Holophusikon to the port, following her official carrier in their speeder. She is a member of the Legislature’s trade committee. Darial and Eterwin have more power, but both insist that Arbute has a much more effective relationship with the guild rank and file. Her father was a cargo porter.
The port district is loud and busy. Huge semi-auto hoists and cranes, some of them looking like quadruped Titans, are transferring cargo stacks to the giant bulk lifters on the field.
Captain Ventanus seems to have wearied of the effort. He stands to one side, watching the small fliers and messenger craft zip across the port like dragonflies over a pond. He leaves Selaton to do the talking.
‘With respect,’ says Selaton, ‘the guildsmen and porters are falling behind the agreed schedule. We’re beginning to get back-up in the mustering areas.’
‘Is this an official complaint?’ she asks.
‘No,’ he replies. ‘But it has been handed down from the primarch. If you can put in any kind of word, my captain would appreciate it. He’s under pressure.’
She smiles quickly.
‘We’re all under pressure, sergeant. The guilds have never undertaken a materiel load on this scale. The estimated schedule was as accurate as they could make it, but it is still an estimation. The porting crew and loaders are bound to hit unexpected delays.’
‘Still,’ says Selaton. ‘A word to their foremen. From a member of the city legislature. A little encouragement, and an acknowledgement of their effort.’
‘Just so I know, what is the shortfall?’ asks Arbute.
‘When we came looking for you, six minutes,’ he says.
‘Is that a joke?’
‘No.’
‘Six minutes is… Forgive me, sergeant. Six minutes is nothing. It’s not even a margin of error. You came to find me, and dragged me here from the Holophusikon ceremonies because of a six-minute lag?’
‘It’s twenty-nine minutes now,’ replies Selaton. ‘I do not wish to sound rude, seneschal, but this is a Legion-led operation. The tolerances are tighter than in commercial or regular military circumstances. Twenty-nine minutes is bordering on the abominable.’
‘I’ll talk to the foremen,’ she says. ‘I’ll see if there’s any reserve they can draw on. There has been bad weather.’
‘I know.’
‘And some incidence of system failure. Junk information. Corrupt data.’
‘That happens too. I’m sure you will do what you can.’
She looks at him, and nods.
‘Wait here,’ she says.
‘In your considered opinion?’ Guilliman asks.
Magos Pelot is the senior serving Mechanicum representative aboard the flagship Macragge’s Honour, and he’s just been required to present the primarch with awkward news. He thinks for a moment before replying. He does not want to tar his institution with verdicts of incompetence, but he has also served the primarch long enough to know that little good ever comes of sugaring the pill.
‘The scrapcode problem we have identified is a hindrance, sir,’ he says. ‘It is regrettable. Especially on a day like today. These things do happen. I won’t pretend they don’t. Natural degradation. Code errors. They can occur without warning for any number of reasons. The Mechanicum dearly wishes we weren’t being plagued by them during this event.’
‘Cause?’
‘Perhaps the sheer scale of the conjunction itself? Precisely because today is important. The simple mass of data–’
‘Is it proportional?’ asks Guilliman. ‘Is it the proportional increment you would naturally expect to find?’
Magos Pelot hesitates. His mechadendrite implants ripple.
‘It is slightly higher. Very slightly.’
‘So it’s an abnormal level, in the experience of the Mechanicum? It’s not natural degradation?’
‘Technically,’ Pelot agrees. ‘But not in any way that should be deemed alarming.’
Guilliman smiles to himself.
‘So this is just… for my information?’
‘It would have been inappropriate not to inform you, lord.’
‘What are the implications, magos?’
‘The Server of Instrumentation insists he can continue to oversee the operation, but the Mechanicum believes his attention would be better spent identifying and eradicating this scrapcode problem before it develops any further. For the duration of that activity, the server would suspend discretion, and oversight would be managed automatically by the data-engines in the orbital yard hub.’
Guilliman considers this. He looks out through the crystalflex at the stars.
‘A group of seniors from the Mechanicum, your esteemed colleagues, Pelot, dined with me on Macragge just a month ago. They were extolling the virtues of the newest generation cogitators that had been installed to run the Calth yards and grid. They were immensely proud of their machines.’