The Beast Arises

To learn without thinking is dull, to think without learning is dangerous.

— from the teachings of the Ancient Confucian

One

Immaterium — Phall transit, 544. M32

Combat lighting cut uneven diagonal strokes across the command deck of the Fists Exemplar battle-barge Dantalion. She creaked and groaned like a submersible descending into the deep, uncharted black. The real space cocoon of her Geller field rippled under the eddying pressures of the empyrean.

From null-shielded podia positioned around the principal deck to form an apotropaic symbol, cherubic serfs of the Chapter Librarius sang warp-soothing verses. The vaulted, cathedral-like space had been designed as much for its acoustics as for its strategic value, for indeed what were the choristers but another aspect of defence? Within hermetically walled-off command turrets, operations serfs worked efficiently under grainy pools of light. Shotgun-wielding Chapter armsmen, in grey carapace armour devoid of insignia, watched over their bodies. The chorus soothed their doubts and girded their souls. Reinforced by the confessional susurrus of muted conversation and the continual lifting up and setting down of hardline communication units, the song echoed down the mighty support pillars to the cogitation tiers below. Mindless though they were, even the servitors and the clicking, whirring, humming machine-spirits they tended had their contribution to make to the chorale.

The refraction field that blanketed the blast doors powered down, and the metre-thick, silver-rebarred adamantium parted with a pneumatic hiss. A dozen multilaser cradles and frag-launchers pivoted to cover the kill-zone that ramped upwards from the doors to the deck.

That was the sum of the reaction generated by First Captain Zerberyn’s arrival on deck. Fortunate then that he felt no need for the acclaim that Koorland and Thane received from the masses.

Zerberyn was humble, considered, austere: an Exemplar in his founder’s example.

Deactivating the priority summons, he stamped up the ramp with a whine of actuators and power servos, a pale-faced giant encased in armour of unpainted grey ceramite. He was pale, because he was the mortal child of a world whose light could kill. He was a giant, because his gene-fathers had seen the worth of making him so.

He ascended the deck at the same time as the blast doors resealed and the refraction field snapped back to full power. He felt the auto-turrets disengage their lock on him and return to sentry protocols.

‘Report, shipmaster.’

The crippled shipmaster stood stiffly in the middle of a ring of terminals in the vox-turret. His posture was no affectation. The augmetic brace that clad his entire right side in a metal skeleton and allowed him to stand did not also allow him to bend. He worked at attention, he ate at attention, he slept at attention. He glanced at the analogue chrono face mounted on the turret wall. It read 05:17. Still on Terran time.

‘I hadn’t expected you so soon.’

‘Your summons was flagged “priority”.’

As if to protest, Shipmaster Marcarian opened the corner of his mouth that still functioned, an eyelid flickering withlocked-in frustration, and stumped forty degrees about to face the vox-liaison. She was identically outfitted to the serfs she spoke for: glittering void suit, bulky headset, sidearm clamped under the rest of an armoured console chair. There was nothing to differentiate rank. Not on a Fists Exemplar ship.

The shipmaster worked saliva through his palsied mouth. ‘05:07, ship time, Vox logged receipt of an Adeptus Astartes distress beacon. Lexicography haven’t yet purified enough of the signal corruption to retrieve the message.’

‘The Navy abandons systems wholesale at the rumour of an attack moon in a neighbouring sector. Worlds burn, our own amongst them, the Throneworld itself is besieged, and hourly we receive a plea for deliverance. And you summon me for a distress beacon?’

‘I trust you weren’t called away from anything too pressing?’

Zerberyn looked down over the blinking lights of his gorget softseal.

Marcarian swallowed with difficulty. ‘Just curious.’

‘I was in the Locutory with Brother Columba. The sergeant and I were debating the meanings of Guilliman’s extended proverbs.’

The shipmaster produced a smile. ‘I’ve not yet had the chance to congratulate you on your promotion to captaincy of the First. The command crew held a vigil in your honour.’

‘I chose not to attend.’

‘Vardy brought amasec.’ Marcarian’s good eye wandered towards the spiralling waves on the vox-liaison’s screen. ‘We were able to provision a crate on Terra. The lord sergeant would be a worthy First Captain, but he’s a hard… task… master…’

Zerberyn’s eyes drilled parallel holes into the side of the shipmaster’s head. The man cleared his throat.

‘We have something,’ said the vox-liaison, crisply.