Thou must bequeath it solemnly (40K one-shot)
Posted: 2005-12-23 05:45am
This is a piece that came to me while reading this and thinking of the arguments I put forth here, now and then, (somewhat more tongue in cheek) for C'tanocracy being the best plausible outcome for the 40K universe.
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Inquisitor ‘Lady’ (an inherited honourific quite aside from her rank as an inquisitor) Jena Orechiel strode confidently across the floor of the main concourse of the palace of governor Takis, the Imperium’s overlord of the ‘civilised world’ of Hope. The flagstones were blue and turquoise, put together with the care and intricacy typical of such places, but they weren’t what caught Jena’s eye. Near to a door, leading into a reception chamber, an irregular gold hexagon was built into the floor, containing, on a black background, a stylised jewel, from which curved lines radiated, below a crescent, all on a black background, with lines made of some enchanting silver she had never seen before breaking up the background.
The resemblance to the icon of the C’tan, the terrible star-gods she was quickly making a career out of investigating and thwarting, was acute. If it hadn’t been enough that this Tarkis had warranted the attention of the Inquisition for his apparent traffic with aliens, and failure to pay tithes, or the disappearance of an officio assassinorum operative dispatched to dispatch him, then this alone was evidence of heresy.
Jena was, truth be told, a traditionalist, in some ways. She believed that the Inquisition should come at night, when least expected. And so, was she brushed past the guards of the governor’s concourse, waving her inquisitorial seal with a certain sureness that could only come of knowing the terror that the inquisition’s very name inspired in the common man. In her right hand, she felt the comforting warmth of the wraithbone grip of an alien weapon, a shiruken pistol she had acquired some time ago, and that had (with some modification to let it fire ammunition more crude than that it had been designed for, The cliché was that no-one expected the Inquisition when it came for them.
Hence, Jena was rather surprised, as she breezed through the reception chamber, ignoring the elaborate tapestries depicting the successes of Tarkis’ ancestors, to enter a room dominated by a magnificent banqueting table, set for two people. The obvious assumption was that the governor must have some kind of mistress with him, or some such mundane explanation, but his manner, as he stepped from behind a wall-hanging seemed… insane.
Dressed in voluminous robes of office that contrived to hang magnificently from what was clearly a spectacularly maintained body – even more so given the comforts of his position, he seemed to be as much amused by her appearance as anything else, a slight smile creeped onto his lips, “Very brave my dear girl, you are to be commended. Most would acquire some backup before coming to apprehend a planetary governor,” he said.
Jena’s eyes narrowed a little, “I’m insulted. I have a flotilla of destroyers in orbit, with orders to put high-powered torpedoes into this palace if my life-signs cease,” she held up a palm-sized device, flickering with a blue light that seemed to match her pulse. “You are under arrest by order of the Most Holy Orders of the God Emperor’s Inquisition, for the high crime of apostasy.”
Still seeming unperturbed by the gun pointed at him, and a little amused, he pulled out a seat from under the table, “Oh, please, do be seated, and tell me all about all the wicked things I’ve done…”
“We’ll start with consorting with aliens,” she said, refusing to move from her spot.
Tarkis laughed to himself, “Oh, if only you knew,” he said, “though I must say, I’m just a little disappointed in your deductive abilities. So, tell me, which aliens have I been consorting with.”
“C’tan,” she said, after a moment, and he chuckled again.
“Actually, I’ve been consorting with humans, you see, I am a star-god…”
A graven cup smashed into a thousand ceramic fragments as a shriuken tore through it, lacerating the silken table cloth. Others punched straight through the table beyond, but not one truly contacted the C’tan, passing through his ethereal form without hindrance, causing little breezes to disturb his robes, and nothing more. He waited for Jena to run out of ammunition, “Are you finished now my dear? While it was a splendid display of righteous hatred,” he sounded mocking, “all you’ve actually accomplished is wrecking a perfectly good table. I’ll have you know that it took a skilled craftsman a month to make that…
“And don’t bother running away. If I wanted to harm you, you’d be dead or worse by now.”
Trembling slightly, with unwanted adrenaline, she lowered the weapon, “So what is it you do want?” she asked, tentatively.
Takis shifted the chair a little way along on the table, “I want you to sit down, then I feel like talking. It is so rare to get the opportunity to speak with anyone who has been so successful in being a thorn in my side, but you have managed to prove quite exceptional in your determination and drive. Please, sit. Be as gracious as your heritage dictates, and take breakfast with me, Lady Orechiel…”
Depositing the gun inside her cloak, Jena decided she really didn’t have much choice. If even half of the things she had learnt about this ‘Jackal God’ were true, then ordering the bombardment would be futile, and serve only to get her killed, which would serve no one. She walked slowly towards the table, and sat, slowly. It was surreal to have the ‘star-god’ slide the chair forwards, and casually place a gilt-edged napkin on her lap.
He, it, she reminded herself, walked around the table, but not before shifting the elaborate meal to lie in front of her, and noting that the custom on Hope was to wash one’s hands in the bowl of warm water to the left before eating. He sat opposite her, and casually did so, “So,” he said, “I trust your journey here was pleasant?”
“As much so as usual,” she said tersely, “why are you doing this?”
“Humm?” the jackal god said, casually lathering honey onto a broken piece of bread, “Well, I don’t need to eat, but it is a wonderful element of social interaction. Generally I transmute what I eat into energy.”
“I meant, why am I dining with you, instead of being on the menu myself?”
“Ah,” he said, “well, you impress me. Your desires, unlike so many of your compatriot’s, are impressive. Independence seems to be something you want, but most interestingly, knowledge. It’s always been like that, since you were a child, you’ve wanted to know more than everyone else. About aliens in particular, too, I note.
“They say that knowledge is dangerous, and that one shouldn’t aspire to know more than it is one’s station to know. A necessary survival precaution in this eon, I must admit. But you, remind me of the past.
“As such, I’m going to offer you a little game of sorts. A wager, if you will.”
“Oh?” she asked. Normally, such things would be out of the question, but this creature could obviously dictate whatever terms it liked.
“Yes. A simple wager, I will wager this world against your loyalty,” he said, casually munching on the bread…
This was stunning enough, “What? My loyalty is not for sale,” if there was one thing the Schola Progenita instilled, it was loyalty to the Emperor of Man, “at any price!”
“Oh yes, I know that,” he said, smiling a little more, “but let me elaborate. I will explain, truthfully, if you’ll believe it, why my plans are what your life would be best spent furthering. Give me one rotation of this planet, twenty-two hours, and if, at the end of that time, you know that my ends are those you would be best off serving, then you will serve me, and I will gain the use of your prodigious talents. Otherwise, I will leave this world to you, and your Imperium may have its resources back, though of course, not before being very careful to make sure you don’t remember anything from this point on...”
“And if I don’t accept this wager of yours?”
“I assure you, my dear child, that I can be quite creative with the forfeits,” the creature said, becoming suddenly far more intimidating, though its ‘Takis’ voice seemed similar.
“Well, in that case, it seems I must accept and play your,” she sneered, “game.”
The ‘Deceiver’ clapped his hands together, “Splendid,” he said, smiling practically from ear to ear. “So, first things first, let me disclaim the activities of the other C’tan. I have had to put up with their brutish kind for a time since massive lizards ruled your homeworld, and your ancestors were quadrupeds. I would dearly love to be able to be rid of them, but alas I have not managed yet. But be assured, that when I am done with your Ruinous Powers, I shall turn my attentions on them…”
“Right,” Jena said, sceptically, as she devoured a slice of the food, she was, after all, hungry. With any luck, she would be able to humour this creature, and maybe learn some means of dealing with it.
“Now, tell me,” The C’tan asked, “why do you think I am so evil?”
She stopped for a moment, then pointedly finished eating the bread, “Because you stand in the way of Mankind,” she said. It didn’t need any further explanation than that. She knew more than that, but fundamentally, simply being alien was the greatest evil.
“Is that so,” he asked, smiling wryly, “I doubt many people on this world would say that I stand in the way of mankind? The Imperium perhaps, but not mankind itself, you forget that your state and your race are not the same.”
Jena shook her head, black hair brushing her bare shoulders, “Untrue. The Imperium is humanity. Those that deviate from the Imperial ideal are no longer humans. Only loyalty to the Imperium of Man can ever be loyalty to Mankind.”
“And the Imperium of Mankind serves humanity?”
“Absolutely,” she said with conviction.
“Aaah, I see. There was me thinking that it spent most of its time supporting a disparity of privilege built on the exploitation of the unfortunate. Tell me,” he asked, “have you ever been to a hive world?”
“Of course,” she said, “what kind of provincial do you take me for?”
Mephet'ran smiled broadly once more, at something he evidently found hysterically amusing, “And do you think of them as monuments to humanity?”
“They are an example of the power of Man when unhampered by his enemies, yes.”
He laughed, “Funny little human minds, how you ever get around in them is beyond me,” his smile was unshifted by the reflexive tightening of her facial muscles, “have you considered what it says about your race that all of its greatest achievements are built on the most profound misery? That’s why your emperor-worship is so successful at generating fervour. The true misery of your race’s vast majority is often only pacified by the hope it brings.”
“The salvation of the Emperor is not false hope,” she said tersely, glancing at a timepiece from her sash, it had only been minutes, and already this rhetoric was affecting her.
“I never said that it was. Let’s play another little game,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his robes, and taking a pair of small cubes. Let’s imagine you’re going to become a random human,” he tossed one across the table to her, “If you get a one to three, you’re born into the Imperium. Actually it’s slightly less, but anyway, roll.”
“I won’t play such pointless games,” she said, watching him as he rose from his chair.
“Then you know that one half of your race lives in that celestial canker of the eldar’s design? Do you ever stop to reflect what a life that must be for its victims? If the underclasses of the imperium are dammned, then the humans born to the chaos gods have never even glimpsed salvation.”
“And? You know of some way to prevent that? To do something that the Imperium has struggled to do for ten millennia.”
“Oh yes,” he said, “not quickly, but in the end, once my designs are fulfilled, certainly. I plan a universe where such nonsense as monstrous runaway emotional echos do not dictate the lives of trillions. Hence I shall destroy them.” He twitched a finger at Jena, “Rise.”
Gritting her teeth, she obeyed, “And where are we going now?” she didn’t quite believe what he said about the Ruinous Powers.
“The Hive Primus on the world of Lastrati…” he said, pausing to take the life-signs monitor from her, and taking a moment to alter it to work no matter what happened, a simple enough bypass of the sensor circuitry ensured that current reached the transmitter regardless. He tossed the device on the table, “I don’t suppose you know it beyond a few historical notes.”
“An interstellar journey?” she asked, “You said a day.”
The C’tan brushed a tapstry aside, revealing a shimmering wall of green light, “Indeed I did…” he said.
The necron outpost below the hive was tiny, though Jena had never had the misfortune to see one before, she could tell that much. It had been little more than a portal and a few devices, with a solitary, spider-like guardian. Then there was the underhive many kilometres above (though with the expedience of teleportation, she’d not been required to endure such a trip) the outpost.
She had been expecting the environment to be what she was used to, and so the first thing she noticed, aside from the ringing pressure in her ears from the teleport process, which was significantly less disconcerting than the sensations which accompanied the sanctioned teleportation-engines she was not used, but accustomed to, was the smell. It hit her like a wall of disgust. If the foetid underbelly of civilisation had a smell, then this was surely it.
It was the smell of the pit of ten thousand years of human habitation, compressed to breaking point. There were traces of urine and blood in the air, as well as dust that coated everything, occasionally disturbed by traces of footprints or handprints in the dirt.
“So,” Jena said, deciding to play along, “where are we?”
“The subterranean levels of the hive, un-inventively known as the underhive. This particular region is what’s known as a ghetto for ‘Subs’ a contraction of ‘Sub-humans.’ Typical lazy abuse of your language that just makes the damn thing more context-dependant. I’m sure you know what they are, anyway.”
“Any number of stable mutant breeds that are occasionally permitted to live.”
“Quite,” the C’tan said, waving a hand over the doorway to the chamber, and being rewarded by a soft ‘click’ of a bolt opening.
“Listen, if you’re here to make some kind of point about the immaterium causing mutation, and degrading the quality of humanity, don’t bother, I know all about that.”
“Oh no,” he said, “nothing so patronising. I just want you to see things from a broader perspective. You needn’t worry, by the way, they’ll not see or hear us.”
Jena sighed, and followed, drawing a cloth from the sash around her waist and clamping it over her nose and mouth in a vain effort to stem the odour of effluents. “So,” she said, “Just what am I here to see?”
“I want you,” the ‘Messenger’ said, walking through a room that was home to a dozen small constructs of metal and string that Jena realised had been intended as cribs, “to observe rather, the humanity your Imperium ignores.”
“You’re wondering why a single pairing of these creatures,” he waved idly to a sallow-skinned mutant female in the corner of the single room, whose skull was visibly deformed, with a shrunken mouth with a jaw that was locked into place, immobile, “breeds so often.”
It wasn’t a statement of fact, but a telepathic reading. The star-god leaned his hands on the sill of the small, glass-less hole that served as the room’s only illumination, a window letting in a flickering electrical light from a common area outside. A child whined, rather than cried – its noise was not that articulate – and the mother rose to try and still the child’s moans of distress, “It’s a simple answer. With the conditions here, even should they live to old-age, a dubious proposition, nine out of ten children won’t. They only keep a stable population by other, unstable mutants being driven down here periodically.”
Jena sighed, and took the handkerchief away from her mouth a little way to speak, “So, what’s this to do with your claims of benevolence. You don’t expect me to believe that you care for these, things, do you?”
“Not in the way you would, no – which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. You’re an advanced social animal, and should, by nature, have some kind of concern for members of your species, especially those who are unfortunate. I do care for them in a different way though. I can comprehend the scale of these things, and I mean this without any false confidence, in a way you could never truly match.”
“But eventually, you aim to enslave everything.”
He laughed, it wasn’t a particularly nice sound, yet it conveyed the emotions he wanted it to, “In a way, ultimately, you’re right, that’s true But only loosely. I’m sure your head is filled with ideas of my wishing to ‘eat’ everything. But truly, that’s not really it at all, I’m hardly some sort of tyranid; though there is an aspect of that, when the ‘consumption’ of humans and their ilk is pleasing and worthwhile…”
“And you expect to win me over than that?”
“Of course, if we must deal with this now, then I suppose we must. I consume, on average, far less humans than your Emperor does, and you revere and worship him.”
“The sacrifice of pskyers is not the same thing at all,” she snapped, “It is necessary to the survival of the Imperium.”
The C’tan’s lips twisted into the same half-smile he had worn earlier, “So, you think that a necessary evil is less evil than an unnecessary one? That is an interesting view.
“Tell me then, if you’re prepared to sacrifice a thousand people a day that the limited protection your god provides is sustained, then why do you balk at the prospect of sacrificing a hundred a day to one who would give total protection?” he drew close to the wailing child and waved a hand, stilling its cries with an illusion that only it could see.
Jena glared defiantly, “So then, if I accept what you’re saying, which I don’t – as if you have the means to provide total protection - then why should I think you care; you’ve already said you don’t.”
“Quite true,” he said, “I don’t relate to things in the same way you do. Your view of the universe is greatly different to my own in every conceivable way. What I want, you could say, is an ultimate expression of ego. I want to remake the universe in accord with my own will - this galaxy at first, and then of course, beyond.
“You could say I am a lord of order, and the desire to impose it on everything. The dominance-complex that comes with being born of one’s self is quite different from the interaction you humans desire.”
“So, you do want to enslave everyone then? At least we’re on familiar ground here,” she laughed.
“After a fashion, yes. In much the same way your Emperor enslaves his citizens,” he held up a hand to forestall a response, “who have duties, but no rights.”
“Rights?”
“Automatic privileges. You must understand that humanity, along with every other race, will ultimately, always be enslaved. Whether it is to the mob mentality, a single autocratic leader, or a deity. The variables are how much this dominant force exercises its power detrimentally in the lives of the individual and what it demands of them, the extent of its ability to protect, and the degree to which it ensures the opportunities for happiness to its slaves.
“In all of those criteria, I can assure you, my goals will by far surpass the credentials of your Emperor, or any other master you can imagine.”
“So you plan to destroy the Ruinous Powers, how will you do that, and then I might start considering your plans more than the idle ranting of a megalomaniac.”
He laughed again, “My, I’m surprised that the Eldar who so obviously manipulate you haven’t told you all about that.” Jena bristled in anger and he smiled, “This is best explained by another trip…”
They disappeared with twin thunderclaps of air rushing to fill voids, and the ‘Sub’ mother glanced around nervously, fortunately, the children had long been used to such sounds – the ghetto wasn’t exactly geologically stable.
Beneath the relentless beat of the rays of an expansive red star, twin pillars flickered with life, tendrils of green lightning forming between them, arcing from one pillar to another. They clashed in the middle, and a rippling wall of green water-light formed. Takis stepped out, and Jena a moment later. A pair of tall and imposing necron lords snapped their staves out in front of them in salute.
Jena looked up and around, the sky was a great red orb that pulsed with energies and a strange life, it seemed so low that she could practically reach out and touch the star. Jena was an educated woman, especially when contrasted with the ignorance of the Imperium’s masses, and so her first question was a simple one, “Why aren’t I dead?” she asked, gawping at the gargantuan star above her.
“What?” the C’tan asked, pretending to be confused, “Oh yes, the machines around you absorb all radiation but for a light intensity equal to that of the necrontyr homeworld, that lets guests see, and it looks mighty impressive. You don’t want to blind yourself.”
Jena’s head snapped down, “What is this place?” she asked, gazing around at a metal landscape of massive structures that writhed with energy, visible power conduits flowing in rivulets around the bases of massive ziggurats and obelisks of green and silver metals.
“This is my humble little abode. It’s what was, in your race’s distant past, called a dyson sphere – though you never built one - a construction that encloses a star, in this case, a red giant.”
The sheer scale of the thing was creeping into her consciousness, “Just how big is this thing?”
“It has an internal surface area of approximately seven to the exponent sixteen square kilometres. One hundred and thirty seven million times the surface area of your Holy Terra.”
That was more than enough. Jena leant forwards, collapsing to her knees, clutching her belly through armoured robes and threw up before passing out.
Jena awoke lying on a smooth tablet of metal, her cloak removed, but the rest of her robes intact. “Ah, you’re awake,” it was the same voice, but the creature speaking with it was very different. About the same size as her, it was distinctly alien, a naked golden skinned figure surrounded by turquoise and white linens suspended by unseen winds, with a thin but muscular structure that was every bit the image of masculinity. Its head however, somewhat dampened the image of virility, sporting as it did a depression in the forehead reminiscent of the alien Tau, as well as a number of horns that swept backwards from its head.
The creatures eyes were almost painful to look at, and its voice, taking on a silky-smooth texture, added, “I am impressed. You’re every bit as formidable as I’d hoped. The minds of others have broken when confronted with the scale of the thing.”
Jena glared, “If you have all this, why don’t you just crush the Imperium. We couldn’t compete.” It was of course, a treasonous heresy of the first order to say as much.
The alien smiled, “Well, that isn’t my aim, as I’ve said. All this is devoted to destroying the warp. It already generates measurable interference for a radius of some hundreds of light years, and as the mass of the star is absorbed and converted into more suppression mechanisms, that radius grows, expanding little by little, day by day.
“In a few millennia, it will cover the entire galaxy, and the things you call the Ruinous Powers will be severed from their food source, as will the other denizens of their realm. More to my taste, the psykers who are linked to that realm will be unable to call on it. Everything from the Eldar witches to the Tyranid hives will fail.”
“And the Imperium’s astropaths and navigators?”
“They will be simply normal humans.”
“You’re aware that all those hive-worlders you were giving me sob-stories about will be starved when that happens?”
He smiled a little, “In the short term, my merchant marine will be quite capable of dealing with such a problem by then. In the longer term, I am thinking about making a civilian network of the compression-gates you have been travelling through to allow population self-re-distribution and trade. Though I suppose I’ll have to be careful to ensure that it’s not possible to bring weapons through them – I’d rather not have you all falling to murdering one another in my realm…”
Jena laughed tersely, “So, what is this about? What do you want me for, if all this is so inevitable?”
He smiled, “Oh, nothing is ever inevitable my dear – would you care for a drink, you’re not looking too well.”
She nodded, and a green beam projected from the shadowed depths of the vaulted ceiling hit the tablet beside her, building up a glass of water from the outside inwards in a fraction of a second.
“You can make yourself more than useful in the coming millennia,” he said, “by keeping my operations secret, keeping an eye on the C’tan minions in the Adeptus Mechanicus,” she winced, that was a sore spot on her psyche still , “and keeping an eye on the Eldar for me. Even I can’t be everywhere – though I do try – and my immortal servants can’t exactly pass unnoticed.”
“Speaking of immortality,” Jena said, taking a sip of the water, washing the bitter feeling from her throat, “you realise that I won’t be living for thousands of years? I’m no Eldar.”
He waved a slightly clawed hand dismissively, “easily fixed.”
“What, by becoming like a necron? No thank you.”
The creature tilted its head back, “Yes, unfortunate, but beneficial to me in the end. I note that even if I wanted to reverse that particular transformation, I don’t have the programs and ciphers needed to do it, but I assure you, that if you were to serve me, you would lose none of your independence. It’s the trait that has made you useful to the Imperium, and it’s the trait that would make you useful to me. So, what do you say?”
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Inquisitor ‘Lady’ (an inherited honourific quite aside from her rank as an inquisitor) Jena Orechiel strode confidently across the floor of the main concourse of the palace of governor Takis, the Imperium’s overlord of the ‘civilised world’ of Hope. The flagstones were blue and turquoise, put together with the care and intricacy typical of such places, but they weren’t what caught Jena’s eye. Near to a door, leading into a reception chamber, an irregular gold hexagon was built into the floor, containing, on a black background, a stylised jewel, from which curved lines radiated, below a crescent, all on a black background, with lines made of some enchanting silver she had never seen before breaking up the background.
The resemblance to the icon of the C’tan, the terrible star-gods she was quickly making a career out of investigating and thwarting, was acute. If it hadn’t been enough that this Tarkis had warranted the attention of the Inquisition for his apparent traffic with aliens, and failure to pay tithes, or the disappearance of an officio assassinorum operative dispatched to dispatch him, then this alone was evidence of heresy.
Jena was, truth be told, a traditionalist, in some ways. She believed that the Inquisition should come at night, when least expected. And so, was she brushed past the guards of the governor’s concourse, waving her inquisitorial seal with a certain sureness that could only come of knowing the terror that the inquisition’s very name inspired in the common man. In her right hand, she felt the comforting warmth of the wraithbone grip of an alien weapon, a shiruken pistol she had acquired some time ago, and that had (with some modification to let it fire ammunition more crude than that it had been designed for, The cliché was that no-one expected the Inquisition when it came for them.
Hence, Jena was rather surprised, as she breezed through the reception chamber, ignoring the elaborate tapestries depicting the successes of Tarkis’ ancestors, to enter a room dominated by a magnificent banqueting table, set for two people. The obvious assumption was that the governor must have some kind of mistress with him, or some such mundane explanation, but his manner, as he stepped from behind a wall-hanging seemed… insane.
Dressed in voluminous robes of office that contrived to hang magnificently from what was clearly a spectacularly maintained body – even more so given the comforts of his position, he seemed to be as much amused by her appearance as anything else, a slight smile creeped onto his lips, “Very brave my dear girl, you are to be commended. Most would acquire some backup before coming to apprehend a planetary governor,” he said.
Jena’s eyes narrowed a little, “I’m insulted. I have a flotilla of destroyers in orbit, with orders to put high-powered torpedoes into this palace if my life-signs cease,” she held up a palm-sized device, flickering with a blue light that seemed to match her pulse. “You are under arrest by order of the Most Holy Orders of the God Emperor’s Inquisition, for the high crime of apostasy.”
Still seeming unperturbed by the gun pointed at him, and a little amused, he pulled out a seat from under the table, “Oh, please, do be seated, and tell me all about all the wicked things I’ve done…”
“We’ll start with consorting with aliens,” she said, refusing to move from her spot.
Tarkis laughed to himself, “Oh, if only you knew,” he said, “though I must say, I’m just a little disappointed in your deductive abilities. So, tell me, which aliens have I been consorting with.”
“C’tan,” she said, after a moment, and he chuckled again.
“Actually, I’ve been consorting with humans, you see, I am a star-god…”
A graven cup smashed into a thousand ceramic fragments as a shriuken tore through it, lacerating the silken table cloth. Others punched straight through the table beyond, but not one truly contacted the C’tan, passing through his ethereal form without hindrance, causing little breezes to disturb his robes, and nothing more. He waited for Jena to run out of ammunition, “Are you finished now my dear? While it was a splendid display of righteous hatred,” he sounded mocking, “all you’ve actually accomplished is wrecking a perfectly good table. I’ll have you know that it took a skilled craftsman a month to make that…
“And don’t bother running away. If I wanted to harm you, you’d be dead or worse by now.”
Trembling slightly, with unwanted adrenaline, she lowered the weapon, “So what is it you do want?” she asked, tentatively.
Takis shifted the chair a little way along on the table, “I want you to sit down, then I feel like talking. It is so rare to get the opportunity to speak with anyone who has been so successful in being a thorn in my side, but you have managed to prove quite exceptional in your determination and drive. Please, sit. Be as gracious as your heritage dictates, and take breakfast with me, Lady Orechiel…”
Depositing the gun inside her cloak, Jena decided she really didn’t have much choice. If even half of the things she had learnt about this ‘Jackal God’ were true, then ordering the bombardment would be futile, and serve only to get her killed, which would serve no one. She walked slowly towards the table, and sat, slowly. It was surreal to have the ‘star-god’ slide the chair forwards, and casually place a gilt-edged napkin on her lap.
He, it, she reminded herself, walked around the table, but not before shifting the elaborate meal to lie in front of her, and noting that the custom on Hope was to wash one’s hands in the bowl of warm water to the left before eating. He sat opposite her, and casually did so, “So,” he said, “I trust your journey here was pleasant?”
“As much so as usual,” she said tersely, “why are you doing this?”
“Humm?” the jackal god said, casually lathering honey onto a broken piece of bread, “Well, I don’t need to eat, but it is a wonderful element of social interaction. Generally I transmute what I eat into energy.”
“I meant, why am I dining with you, instead of being on the menu myself?”
“Ah,” he said, “well, you impress me. Your desires, unlike so many of your compatriot’s, are impressive. Independence seems to be something you want, but most interestingly, knowledge. It’s always been like that, since you were a child, you’ve wanted to know more than everyone else. About aliens in particular, too, I note.
“They say that knowledge is dangerous, and that one shouldn’t aspire to know more than it is one’s station to know. A necessary survival precaution in this eon, I must admit. But you, remind me of the past.
“As such, I’m going to offer you a little game of sorts. A wager, if you will.”
“Oh?” she asked. Normally, such things would be out of the question, but this creature could obviously dictate whatever terms it liked.
“Yes. A simple wager, I will wager this world against your loyalty,” he said, casually munching on the bread…
This was stunning enough, “What? My loyalty is not for sale,” if there was one thing the Schola Progenita instilled, it was loyalty to the Emperor of Man, “at any price!”
“Oh yes, I know that,” he said, smiling a little more, “but let me elaborate. I will explain, truthfully, if you’ll believe it, why my plans are what your life would be best spent furthering. Give me one rotation of this planet, twenty-two hours, and if, at the end of that time, you know that my ends are those you would be best off serving, then you will serve me, and I will gain the use of your prodigious talents. Otherwise, I will leave this world to you, and your Imperium may have its resources back, though of course, not before being very careful to make sure you don’t remember anything from this point on...”
“And if I don’t accept this wager of yours?”
“I assure you, my dear child, that I can be quite creative with the forfeits,” the creature said, becoming suddenly far more intimidating, though its ‘Takis’ voice seemed similar.
“Well, in that case, it seems I must accept and play your,” she sneered, “game.”
The ‘Deceiver’ clapped his hands together, “Splendid,” he said, smiling practically from ear to ear. “So, first things first, let me disclaim the activities of the other C’tan. I have had to put up with their brutish kind for a time since massive lizards ruled your homeworld, and your ancestors were quadrupeds. I would dearly love to be able to be rid of them, but alas I have not managed yet. But be assured, that when I am done with your Ruinous Powers, I shall turn my attentions on them…”
“Right,” Jena said, sceptically, as she devoured a slice of the food, she was, after all, hungry. With any luck, she would be able to humour this creature, and maybe learn some means of dealing with it.
“Now, tell me,” The C’tan asked, “why do you think I am so evil?”
She stopped for a moment, then pointedly finished eating the bread, “Because you stand in the way of Mankind,” she said. It didn’t need any further explanation than that. She knew more than that, but fundamentally, simply being alien was the greatest evil.
“Is that so,” he asked, smiling wryly, “I doubt many people on this world would say that I stand in the way of mankind? The Imperium perhaps, but not mankind itself, you forget that your state and your race are not the same.”
Jena shook her head, black hair brushing her bare shoulders, “Untrue. The Imperium is humanity. Those that deviate from the Imperial ideal are no longer humans. Only loyalty to the Imperium of Man can ever be loyalty to Mankind.”
“And the Imperium of Mankind serves humanity?”
“Absolutely,” she said with conviction.
“Aaah, I see. There was me thinking that it spent most of its time supporting a disparity of privilege built on the exploitation of the unfortunate. Tell me,” he asked, “have you ever been to a hive world?”
“Of course,” she said, “what kind of provincial do you take me for?”
Mephet'ran smiled broadly once more, at something he evidently found hysterically amusing, “And do you think of them as monuments to humanity?”
“They are an example of the power of Man when unhampered by his enemies, yes.”
He laughed, “Funny little human minds, how you ever get around in them is beyond me,” his smile was unshifted by the reflexive tightening of her facial muscles, “have you considered what it says about your race that all of its greatest achievements are built on the most profound misery? That’s why your emperor-worship is so successful at generating fervour. The true misery of your race’s vast majority is often only pacified by the hope it brings.”
“The salvation of the Emperor is not false hope,” she said tersely, glancing at a timepiece from her sash, it had only been minutes, and already this rhetoric was affecting her.
“I never said that it was. Let’s play another little game,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his robes, and taking a pair of small cubes. Let’s imagine you’re going to become a random human,” he tossed one across the table to her, “If you get a one to three, you’re born into the Imperium. Actually it’s slightly less, but anyway, roll.”
“I won’t play such pointless games,” she said, watching him as he rose from his chair.
“Then you know that one half of your race lives in that celestial canker of the eldar’s design? Do you ever stop to reflect what a life that must be for its victims? If the underclasses of the imperium are dammned, then the humans born to the chaos gods have never even glimpsed salvation.”
“And? You know of some way to prevent that? To do something that the Imperium has struggled to do for ten millennia.”
“Oh yes,” he said, “not quickly, but in the end, once my designs are fulfilled, certainly. I plan a universe where such nonsense as monstrous runaway emotional echos do not dictate the lives of trillions. Hence I shall destroy them.” He twitched a finger at Jena, “Rise.”
Gritting her teeth, she obeyed, “And where are we going now?” she didn’t quite believe what he said about the Ruinous Powers.
“The Hive Primus on the world of Lastrati…” he said, pausing to take the life-signs monitor from her, and taking a moment to alter it to work no matter what happened, a simple enough bypass of the sensor circuitry ensured that current reached the transmitter regardless. He tossed the device on the table, “I don’t suppose you know it beyond a few historical notes.”
“An interstellar journey?” she asked, “You said a day.”
The C’tan brushed a tapstry aside, revealing a shimmering wall of green light, “Indeed I did…” he said.
The necron outpost below the hive was tiny, though Jena had never had the misfortune to see one before, she could tell that much. It had been little more than a portal and a few devices, with a solitary, spider-like guardian. Then there was the underhive many kilometres above (though with the expedience of teleportation, she’d not been required to endure such a trip) the outpost.
She had been expecting the environment to be what she was used to, and so the first thing she noticed, aside from the ringing pressure in her ears from the teleport process, which was significantly less disconcerting than the sensations which accompanied the sanctioned teleportation-engines she was not used, but accustomed to, was the smell. It hit her like a wall of disgust. If the foetid underbelly of civilisation had a smell, then this was surely it.
It was the smell of the pit of ten thousand years of human habitation, compressed to breaking point. There were traces of urine and blood in the air, as well as dust that coated everything, occasionally disturbed by traces of footprints or handprints in the dirt.
“So,” Jena said, deciding to play along, “where are we?”
“The subterranean levels of the hive, un-inventively known as the underhive. This particular region is what’s known as a ghetto for ‘Subs’ a contraction of ‘Sub-humans.’ Typical lazy abuse of your language that just makes the damn thing more context-dependant. I’m sure you know what they are, anyway.”
“Any number of stable mutant breeds that are occasionally permitted to live.”
“Quite,” the C’tan said, waving a hand over the doorway to the chamber, and being rewarded by a soft ‘click’ of a bolt opening.
“Listen, if you’re here to make some kind of point about the immaterium causing mutation, and degrading the quality of humanity, don’t bother, I know all about that.”
“Oh no,” he said, “nothing so patronising. I just want you to see things from a broader perspective. You needn’t worry, by the way, they’ll not see or hear us.”
Jena sighed, and followed, drawing a cloth from the sash around her waist and clamping it over her nose and mouth in a vain effort to stem the odour of effluents. “So,” she said, “Just what am I here to see?”
“I want you,” the ‘Messenger’ said, walking through a room that was home to a dozen small constructs of metal and string that Jena realised had been intended as cribs, “to observe rather, the humanity your Imperium ignores.”
“You’re wondering why a single pairing of these creatures,” he waved idly to a sallow-skinned mutant female in the corner of the single room, whose skull was visibly deformed, with a shrunken mouth with a jaw that was locked into place, immobile, “breeds so often.”
It wasn’t a statement of fact, but a telepathic reading. The star-god leaned his hands on the sill of the small, glass-less hole that served as the room’s only illumination, a window letting in a flickering electrical light from a common area outside. A child whined, rather than cried – its noise was not that articulate – and the mother rose to try and still the child’s moans of distress, “It’s a simple answer. With the conditions here, even should they live to old-age, a dubious proposition, nine out of ten children won’t. They only keep a stable population by other, unstable mutants being driven down here periodically.”
Jena sighed, and took the handkerchief away from her mouth a little way to speak, “So, what’s this to do with your claims of benevolence. You don’t expect me to believe that you care for these, things, do you?”
“Not in the way you would, no – which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. You’re an advanced social animal, and should, by nature, have some kind of concern for members of your species, especially those who are unfortunate. I do care for them in a different way though. I can comprehend the scale of these things, and I mean this without any false confidence, in a way you could never truly match.”
“But eventually, you aim to enslave everything.”
He laughed, it wasn’t a particularly nice sound, yet it conveyed the emotions he wanted it to, “In a way, ultimately, you’re right, that’s true But only loosely. I’m sure your head is filled with ideas of my wishing to ‘eat’ everything. But truly, that’s not really it at all, I’m hardly some sort of tyranid; though there is an aspect of that, when the ‘consumption’ of humans and their ilk is pleasing and worthwhile…”
“And you expect to win me over than that?”
“Of course, if we must deal with this now, then I suppose we must. I consume, on average, far less humans than your Emperor does, and you revere and worship him.”
“The sacrifice of pskyers is not the same thing at all,” she snapped, “It is necessary to the survival of the Imperium.”
The C’tan’s lips twisted into the same half-smile he had worn earlier, “So, you think that a necessary evil is less evil than an unnecessary one? That is an interesting view.
“Tell me then, if you’re prepared to sacrifice a thousand people a day that the limited protection your god provides is sustained, then why do you balk at the prospect of sacrificing a hundred a day to one who would give total protection?” he drew close to the wailing child and waved a hand, stilling its cries with an illusion that only it could see.
Jena glared defiantly, “So then, if I accept what you’re saying, which I don’t – as if you have the means to provide total protection - then why should I think you care; you’ve already said you don’t.”
“Quite true,” he said, “I don’t relate to things in the same way you do. Your view of the universe is greatly different to my own in every conceivable way. What I want, you could say, is an ultimate expression of ego. I want to remake the universe in accord with my own will - this galaxy at first, and then of course, beyond.
“You could say I am a lord of order, and the desire to impose it on everything. The dominance-complex that comes with being born of one’s self is quite different from the interaction you humans desire.”
“So, you do want to enslave everyone then? At least we’re on familiar ground here,” she laughed.
“After a fashion, yes. In much the same way your Emperor enslaves his citizens,” he held up a hand to forestall a response, “who have duties, but no rights.”
“Rights?”
“Automatic privileges. You must understand that humanity, along with every other race, will ultimately, always be enslaved. Whether it is to the mob mentality, a single autocratic leader, or a deity. The variables are how much this dominant force exercises its power detrimentally in the lives of the individual and what it demands of them, the extent of its ability to protect, and the degree to which it ensures the opportunities for happiness to its slaves.
“In all of those criteria, I can assure you, my goals will by far surpass the credentials of your Emperor, or any other master you can imagine.”
“So you plan to destroy the Ruinous Powers, how will you do that, and then I might start considering your plans more than the idle ranting of a megalomaniac.”
He laughed again, “My, I’m surprised that the Eldar who so obviously manipulate you haven’t told you all about that.” Jena bristled in anger and he smiled, “This is best explained by another trip…”
They disappeared with twin thunderclaps of air rushing to fill voids, and the ‘Sub’ mother glanced around nervously, fortunately, the children had long been used to such sounds – the ghetto wasn’t exactly geologically stable.
Beneath the relentless beat of the rays of an expansive red star, twin pillars flickered with life, tendrils of green lightning forming between them, arcing from one pillar to another. They clashed in the middle, and a rippling wall of green water-light formed. Takis stepped out, and Jena a moment later. A pair of tall and imposing necron lords snapped their staves out in front of them in salute.
Jena looked up and around, the sky was a great red orb that pulsed with energies and a strange life, it seemed so low that she could practically reach out and touch the star. Jena was an educated woman, especially when contrasted with the ignorance of the Imperium’s masses, and so her first question was a simple one, “Why aren’t I dead?” she asked, gawping at the gargantuan star above her.
“What?” the C’tan asked, pretending to be confused, “Oh yes, the machines around you absorb all radiation but for a light intensity equal to that of the necrontyr homeworld, that lets guests see, and it looks mighty impressive. You don’t want to blind yourself.”
Jena’s head snapped down, “What is this place?” she asked, gazing around at a metal landscape of massive structures that writhed with energy, visible power conduits flowing in rivulets around the bases of massive ziggurats and obelisks of green and silver metals.
“This is my humble little abode. It’s what was, in your race’s distant past, called a dyson sphere – though you never built one - a construction that encloses a star, in this case, a red giant.”
The sheer scale of the thing was creeping into her consciousness, “Just how big is this thing?”
“It has an internal surface area of approximately seven to the exponent sixteen square kilometres. One hundred and thirty seven million times the surface area of your Holy Terra.”
That was more than enough. Jena leant forwards, collapsing to her knees, clutching her belly through armoured robes and threw up before passing out.
Jena awoke lying on a smooth tablet of metal, her cloak removed, but the rest of her robes intact. “Ah, you’re awake,” it was the same voice, but the creature speaking with it was very different. About the same size as her, it was distinctly alien, a naked golden skinned figure surrounded by turquoise and white linens suspended by unseen winds, with a thin but muscular structure that was every bit the image of masculinity. Its head however, somewhat dampened the image of virility, sporting as it did a depression in the forehead reminiscent of the alien Tau, as well as a number of horns that swept backwards from its head.
The creatures eyes were almost painful to look at, and its voice, taking on a silky-smooth texture, added, “I am impressed. You’re every bit as formidable as I’d hoped. The minds of others have broken when confronted with the scale of the thing.”
Jena glared, “If you have all this, why don’t you just crush the Imperium. We couldn’t compete.” It was of course, a treasonous heresy of the first order to say as much.
The alien smiled, “Well, that isn’t my aim, as I’ve said. All this is devoted to destroying the warp. It already generates measurable interference for a radius of some hundreds of light years, and as the mass of the star is absorbed and converted into more suppression mechanisms, that radius grows, expanding little by little, day by day.
“In a few millennia, it will cover the entire galaxy, and the things you call the Ruinous Powers will be severed from their food source, as will the other denizens of their realm. More to my taste, the psykers who are linked to that realm will be unable to call on it. Everything from the Eldar witches to the Tyranid hives will fail.”
“And the Imperium’s astropaths and navigators?”
“They will be simply normal humans.”
“You’re aware that all those hive-worlders you were giving me sob-stories about will be starved when that happens?”
He smiled a little, “In the short term, my merchant marine will be quite capable of dealing with such a problem by then. In the longer term, I am thinking about making a civilian network of the compression-gates you have been travelling through to allow population self-re-distribution and trade. Though I suppose I’ll have to be careful to ensure that it’s not possible to bring weapons through them – I’d rather not have you all falling to murdering one another in my realm…”
Jena laughed tersely, “So, what is this about? What do you want me for, if all this is so inevitable?”
He smiled, “Oh, nothing is ever inevitable my dear – would you care for a drink, you’re not looking too well.”
She nodded, and a green beam projected from the shadowed depths of the vaulted ceiling hit the tablet beside her, building up a glass of water from the outside inwards in a fraction of a second.
“You can make yourself more than useful in the coming millennia,” he said, “by keeping my operations secret, keeping an eye on the C’tan minions in the Adeptus Mechanicus,” she winced, that was a sore spot on her psyche still , “and keeping an eye on the Eldar for me. Even I can’t be everywhere – though I do try – and my immortal servants can’t exactly pass unnoticed.”
“Speaking of immortality,” Jena said, taking a sip of the water, washing the bitter feeling from her throat, “you realise that I won’t be living for thousands of years? I’m no Eldar.”
He waved a slightly clawed hand dismissively, “easily fixed.”
“What, by becoming like a necron? No thank you.”
The creature tilted its head back, “Yes, unfortunate, but beneficial to me in the end. I note that even if I wanted to reverse that particular transformation, I don’t have the programs and ciphers needed to do it, but I assure you, that if you were to serve me, you would lose none of your independence. It’s the trait that has made you useful to the Imperium, and it’s the trait that would make you useful to me. So, what do you say?”
[size=0]Not a serious post.[/size]