Argel Tal held his bolter in his fists, waiting for the bridge doors to open once more.
‘When the creature arrives, do not look at it.’ He seemed to be addressing everyone, while looking at none of them. ‘This is not a matter of decorum or politeness. Do not look at it. Do not meet its eyes. Try not to breathe too much of its scent.’
‘Is this creature toxic?’ asked Sylamor.
‘It is dangerous,’ the Word Bearer allowed. ‘When I say these instructions are for your safety and sanity, I mean those exact words. Do not look at it. Do not even look at its reflection in any screen or monitor. If it speaks, focus on anything but its words. And if you feel nauseous or afflicted in its presence, leave your station at once.’
Sylamor’s laugh was patently false. ‘You are unnerving my crew, captain.’
‘Just do as I ask, please.’
She bristled, not used to being given orders on her own deck. ‘Of course, sir.’
‘Don’t act so offended, Janus.’ The Word Bearer forced some warmth into his voice, which his helm’s vox-speakers immediately stole and twisted. ‘Just trust me.’
When the doors finally opened, the first thing to wash over the bridge was the smell, which caused several of the human crew to gag.
Commendably, only one turned around to see what entered, escorted as it was by a full squad of Word Bearers – and that one soul was Captain Janus Sylamor.
In accidental defiance of the promise she’d made only minutes before, she turned to the opening doors and saw the creature framed in the light of the illumination globes in the corridor behind. The first heave of bitter sick hit her teeth and lips so fast she didn’t have time to open her mouth. The rest spread onto the floor as she went down on all fours, purging her stomach of the morning’s caffeine and dry rations, and painting the decking with her bile.
‘I warned you,’ Argel Tal said to her, without taking his eyes from the creature.
Her answer was to heave some more, ending with a string of saliva hanging from her lips.
Ingethel wormed its way onto the bridge, leaving a discoloured smear in its wake. The tap, tap, tap of the staff’s base on the metal floor acted as accompaniment to the sound of its slick flesh slithering across the deck.
Officers abandoned their posts by the captain’s throne, stepping away with undisguised disgust and covering their mouths and noses. More than one vomited into their hands as Ingethel drew nearer, though for the creature’s part, it seemed to notice none of this. Its malformed eyes stared dead ahead at the storm taking over the occulus.
Sylamor rose to her feet again, after taking Argel Tal’s offered hand.
‘What have you brought onto my bridge, captain?’
‘It is a guide. Now with the greatest respect, Janus, wipe your mouth and do your duty. Next time, perhaps you will listen to me.’
She was familiar enough with Argel Tal from fleet command meetings to know that this curt treatment wasn’t like him at all. Of all the Word Bearer commanders, he’d always been the most approachable, and the most inclined to hear the concerns of the human officers.
She said nothing. Instead, she nodded, breathing through her mouth to hinder some of the obscene reek that only fuelled her nausea. The foulness of the stench wasn’t the worst part; it was the familiarity of it.
As a young girl on Colchis, she’d survived an outbreak of rotten lung in her village, and had been one of the few left to witness the arrival of a coven of mortuary priests from the City of Grey Flowers. Over the course of a single day, they’d erected a great pyre to cleanse the dead before scattering their ashes across the desert. The smell of that funeral pyre had never left her, and when it resurfaced now, it was all she could do not to choke at the creature’s stench.
A curious drip, drip, drip ate at her attention, drawing her glance to the deck by the creature’s sluggish body. A greasy, opaque plasm dripped from the muscled folds of its serpentine lower half, bleaching the steel decking where it fell.
‘Full speed ahead,’ said Sylamor, and swallowed before another purge took hold.
Orfeo’s Lament trembled – ever the eager huntress, ever the keen explorer – and increased her pace. The storm swelled in the occulus before them as they cruised closer to its edge.
‘Have the flagship’s augurs managed to measure the afflicted area of space?’ she asked.
Thousands upon thousands of solar systems lie within the Great Eye.
She froze, cheeks paling. ‘I... I heard a voice.’
‘Ignore it,’ ordered Argel Tal.
You could sail your mortal craft for a hundred lifetimes within its depths, and see no more than a shadow of its full glory.
‘I can still hear it...’
Argel Tal growled, deep and low, his head tilted towards the creature. ‘Do not toy with their lives,’ he said. ‘You have been warned.’
None of them will survive this journey. You are a fool to believe they will.
‘Did... did it just say...’
‘It said nothing,’ Argel Tal interrupted her stammer. ‘Ignore the voice. Focus, Janus. Attend to your duties, and leave all else to us. I will not let the creature harm you, or anyone in the crew.’
She does not believe you.
‘Be quiet, false angel.’
She knows you lie. You hear her heartbeat, as I do. She is terrified, and she knows you are lying to her.
Across the bridge, two menials vomited over their consoles. Another fainted at his station, with blood running from his ears in a slow trickle.
‘Will this keep happening?’ Sylamor asked Argel Tal, careful not to look at the creature over the warrior’s shoulder, and hoping her voice wasn’t shaking.
The Word Bearer didn’t answer immediately. ‘I believe so,’ came the eventual response.
One of the helmsmen jerked in his seat, cracking his head against the back of the throne. Through clenched teeth, he managed a thin wail before falling into a seizure, kept in place only by his restraint harness.
‘Medicae team to the helm,’ ordered the captain.
Sylamor’s patience was close to its end when one of her adjutant servitors unplugged itself from its post and began to painstakingly crawl across the floor. The servitor in question had no legs below the thighs, having had them surgically removed in order to better remain at its post at all times. When it detached itself from its bronze cradle and started clawing its way over the decking, Captain Sylamor watched this unprecedented behaviour for several stunned moments. The augmetic servant trailed wires and cables from its spine and severed legs, viscous oil leaking from its nose.
‘Blood of the Emperor,’ Sylamor cursed under her breath. ‘Stand back, everyone. Stand back.’
She put the servitor down herself with a single pistol round to the back of the poor thing’s head, and ordered two deckhands to remove it at once.
Vox-officer Arvas turned to his captain as she passed on the way back to her throne. ‘Do you hear that?’ he asked her.
‘A contact? Another vessel?’
‘No.’ He held his earpiece, face darkened by concentration. ‘I can hear him, captain.’
Mounting irritation overrode her unease. ‘Hear who?’
Janus had known Arvas for over a decade, and on one night in particular four years ago, she’d known him – and four bottles of silver Yndonesic wine – regrettably well. Despite that lone indiscretion, he was one of her most adept and loyal crew members. ‘Tell me who you hear, lieutenant.’
He tried to retune his console, twisting a row of dials. ‘I can hear Vanic dying. He screams, but not for long. The rest is white noise. Listen,’ he offered her his earpiece. ‘You can hear Vanic dying. You hear him scream, but not for long.’