The Orphaned Worlds (81 page)
Greg looked up at her. ‘Ye ready?’
Catriona met his gaze and something requiring no words passed between them. Then slowly, reluctantly, he handed the canister to her.
She held it in both hands as if judging its weight. ‘Hmm – all that advanced Forerunner tech surviving for millennia. Thought it would be heavier, somehow …’
Then with a calm, resolute gaze she looked inside, studying it, eyes widening before she drew back, a rapt expression on her face. The blue motes of the Zyradin began pouring out, filling the air around her and becoming a dense cloud. The canister fell from her clasp, empty, turning end over end, while she raised her hands and swept them slowly through the hovering, drifting myriad blue points. Then the radiant cloud drew inward, condensing around her, brightening. The collective luminescence lit up the stone floor and walls, a pure blue glow that showed up every groove and chip, every maker’s mark, as well as every spreading patch of lichen and sprigs sprouting in notches.
Now the Zyradin’s blue points were sinking into her skin, watched over by Catriona who marvelled at the sight, occasionally giggling. Eventually every last one had been absorbed, and she looked up.
‘Is that how it went for you?’ she said.
Greg nodded. ‘Pretty much. Doesna look too bad from where I’m standing. With the Zyradin in your corner, there’s not much that can touch ye, as long as ye eat properly, keep up yer strength …’ He paused. ‘So, is that it? Can we nip off for a bite somewhere? Dunno what the restaurants are like on Nivyesta, but I’m telling ye, I could eat a large domesticated farm animal, hooves an’ all …’
Catriona’s upraised hand halted his desperate chatter. ‘It says there’s more,’ she said. ‘Much more.’
Abruptly, her skin started to brighten and there was a quick intake of breath. She was starting to glow, not blue but a faint roseate hue as she drifted up off the ground. The simple robe she wore slipped off her shoulders, and the seams of her other garments unstitched themselves. Soon she was utterly naked, her slender form radiating that rose-coloured flush, almost as if she had been exposed to the sun too long, yet without any kind of angry redness. Greg’s eyes prickled with tears at the beauty of her.
She smiled at him and held out one small hand.
‘Goodbye, Greg,’ he heard her say, though her lips never moved.
He lifted his hand towards hers but was too late. One moment she was standing there before him, the next her form disinte-grated into a slow-swirling mass of radiant roseate specks, undulating and stretching like a vast flock of birds surging this way and that. Then the expansion accelerated and the motes in their millions flew outwards in every direction, a wave of enigma racing out to every corner of Segrana.
The Brolturan gunship, still soaring over the treetops of Segrana, hunting the Spiral zealots through the dense forests, was on the trail of a heavily armed group moving east along the banks of a broad river. Its captain never noticed the roseate radiance that was rising from the canopy beneath in a wave, until it engulfed the craft fully, from prow to stern. The fleeing zealots below, who had for hours been desperately dodging missiles and explosive rounds, suddenly found themselves ducking and hiding from a deluge of parts and components, armoured hull sections, uncased ammunition, interior fittings, couches and deckplates, all the elements of the former gunship which were scattered over a wide area.
Similar treatment was meted out to the Spiral interceptors and fighters. Their swooping trajectories turned into a terrifying ride for their pilots as the craft disassembled and came apart around them. Any Brolturan ship that ventured out across Segrana’s green ocean received the same treatment.
Those on the forest floor holding flechette rifles, pistols, beam carbines, flamers, shoulder launchers and grenades one by one saw their weapons fall apart into useless piles of junk. Faced with the abrupt loss of the means of attack and defence, both the Brolturans and the Spirals armed themselves with cudgels improvised from branches and gathered together in larger numbers for mutual protection. Some headed for higher ground or the coastal regions, while others set up camps to wait out the night.
Later, the new unity of Zyradin and Segrana used specialised midlevel plants to produce a gaseous soporific that drifted down through the foliage onto the unsuspecting intruders. After that teams of Uvovo transported the narcotised antagonists to places where they could not cause harm to Segrana, the Brolturans to their battered base off Pilipoint, and the Spiral zealots to an isolated island several miles off Segrana’s west coast.
In the Uvovo temple, after Catriona’s transformation and transcendent disintegration, Greg had stood there under the circular roof opening, staring up at the smoke-veiled, branch-interwoven heights, watching the bright shafts and gleams of sunshine shift and fade, studying the night’s progress through the layers of foliage. The faint radiance of ineka beetles and ulby roots began to appear, and before the last shreds of daylight faded some Uvovo scholars entered and quietly lit several lamps. The realisation that she was not coming back finally became bleakly real in his thoughts, and slowly Greg sat down. After a time, he began to weep.
Flanked by two bodyguards, the Henkayan general Hurnegur followed the Spiral Prophet up the hillside track leading to the immense promontory. Sunup was less than an hour away but the feathery greyness of pre-dawn was lightening the horizon. The darkness atop Giant’s Shoulder remained unbroken. As they approached it from the ridge, the only light came from the torches and lamps carried by their guards and attendants. This place was, according to the Prophet, the sacred repository of the tomb of Agiserri, one of the founding Father-Sages, but the Brolturan fortifications that came into view lessened the impact somehow.
Behind him, Jeshkra, the Gomedran general, cleared his throat.
‘Still reading no lifeforms, Exalted One.’
‘Good,’ said the Prophet as he limped along. ‘You see, Hurnegur? Our enemies disperse, by virtue of our divine purpose and the guarding presence of Arigessi, praise the light of his words.’
‘Praise their everlasting light,’ Hurnegur and Jeshkra said in unison, but Hurnegur couldn’t shake off an imperceptible thread-like sensation of menace. The Brolturan units guarding the passes had been broken by his fervent battalions and, as the Prophet had promised, the Hegemonic enemy had abandoned their citadel. Such desirable outcomes caused the believer in him to give hearts-praise to the spirits of the Father-Sages, but the tactician in him could not stop being cautious and wary.
By torchlight they came out onto a wide expanse of rocky ground which became an area of rough concrete. It was flat and empty, overseen by squat towers and broken up by sections of low wall angled to force a ground attack into a bottleneck, a gap opening onto the next crossfire arena. Probing cones of light revealed signs of battles, charred lumps of metal which, on closer examination, proved to be the remains of battle mechs. This only served to provoke stronger feelings of unease in Hurnegur as they proceeded onwards to a large, multi-levelled bastion. When he voiced these fears, the Spiral Prophet was dismissive.
‘Trust to the Father-Sages, General. Gaze upon these impregnable yet vacated fortifications and see how that vaunted power has been rendered impotent by unseen hands and invisible intent. Ahead lies an abomination, built over that sacred resting place – picture it torn aside to allow that divine presence to rise to the celestial spaces, to its rightful and illustrious station. Come, walk with me, you too, Jeshkra.’
With Hurnegur in the middle, the three of them continued with their guards following.
Now they were crossing a well-surfaced plascrete landing pad. Two more wrecked droids came into view, some distance apart, and Hurnegur began to wonder if some horrific ambush or booby trap awaited them within the darkened structure. The Prophet indicated the main entrance, a pair of doors made from some opaque material and adorned with a stylised interlocking-gears symbol. They were just a few paces away when a deep synthetic voice boomed out across the promontory.
‘Wily and dauntless Hereditants, be welcome in this place of my triumph!’
Suddenly combat-alert, and angry at not having paid more attention to his instincts, Hurnegur drew his hand projector and scanned the surroundings. Then he realised that the Prophet and Jeshkra showed no sign of alarm or agitation. Instead, they had stopped to smile at each other.
‘He is here,’ said the Prophet.
‘He is indeed formidable,’ replied Jeshkra.
Hurnegur stared at them in fearful incomprehension. ‘Revered One,’ he said to the Prophet. ‘Who is it that is here? Is it … Arigessi? … Jeshkra, old friend, what is this all about?’
But neither responded. The Gomedran and the crippled Henkayan turned to gaze up at some point in the dark and shadowy upper air.
‘We greet you, Illustrious Progenitor, and stand humbled in the light of your mastery. How may we serve you?’
‘Cast off your disguising shells, my Scions. The final phase awaits us.’
With a trembling hand, Hurnegur brought up the projector and aimed it at the Gomedran.
‘Jeshkra, my friend, if you do not tell me what is happening, I will shoot you dead, I promise.’
Jeshkra and the Prophet glanced sideways at him but said nothing, just smiled. Hurnegur uttered a prayer for forgiveness, and blew Jeshkra’s leg off at the knee.
The Gomedran went down, making no sound even as blood gouted from the ragged stump. Then Hurnegur swore as Jeshkra forced himself up onto his knees, smile fixed, unvarying. This time he aimed at the head, but before he could fire Jeshkra jerked as if struck in the back and his head lolled forward. There was a grinding sound, then a wet tearing. The Prophet too had fallen to his knees but his head was leaning further and further to one side until there was a terrible crack, a ripping noise, something spattering on the ground. And the Prophet flopped forward like a boneless husk, revealing the thing that had been inside him, a metallic object like a tapered cylinder less than a metre long. Streaked with blood, it rose to hover in midair while Jeshkra’s tormented body split apart in a dark spray to expose a similar monstrous passenger.
In all his years of combat, Hurnegur had encountered many examples of vileness and base depravity but this superseded them all. Awash with incredulity and seized by an unanswerable terror, he flung out his beam projector and emptied its charge. Bloodstains were crisped and charred to ash but otherwise the two metal things were unaffected. He threw away the weapon, turned and ran.
He heard other weapons firing behind him, and only got as far as the edge of the landing pad when he felt something needle-sharp stab into his neck. He staggered a couple of paces before a spreading numbness reached his legs and he slumped to his knees. The next thing he knew he was being lifted into the air.
His senses swam. He tried to bellow his fear but even his throat had rebelled. Then whatever it was that had him in its grip turned him to face it, and a grotesque shape swung into view. With a flattened hull, it seemed to be a craft fashioned to resemble certain sea creatures he knew of – it even had several tentacular limbs protruding from the forward section. The hull was adorned with a hooked pattern, dark reds and greens with silver details. There were no obvious weapon ports but it was hovering, which meant that it had to have suspensors on board …
His vision blurred a little, followed by a wave of dizziness which he fought against. Then he realised through the fear that a few of the tentacles were no more than stumps but before he could complete the thought everything blurred and just fell away from him.
The Knight regarded the unconscious Henkayan, held aloft in one of its lesser tentacles.
>The Henkayan is greatly respected by the followers of the Spiral Prophecy sect. Through him the movement can be manipulated to your advantage<
>Only and for all time and beyond, honoured Progenitor<
The Knight considered the captive and recalled the other two experimental subjects, the Human and the Uvovo.
The Scions moved away from the organic guises that had been sloughed off, a symbolism that the Knight chose to ponder with approval. The Brolturan building was entered with ease and the Knight began to receive datafeeds from his Scions as they descended to the warpwell chamber, the very heart of their ancient enemy. Before long he was receiving images of the chamber and the broad circle of the warpwell, which was strewn with odd stone blocks, many of them fitted together.
And as far as could be made out, the Sentinel was not present.
>Illustrious One, it appears that the Sentinel of the well has been destroyed<
A stream of data came through, directly from the crude devices employed by the Hegemony scientists. Crude or no, they had successfully provided Ambassador Kuros and his advisers with detailed information about certain warpwell functions. The Knight could see where their investigations were leading before their inexplicable halt. Together with his own knowledge, gleaned from the ruins of other Forerunner warpwells down the millennia, the data offered the key to warpwell operation. And, of course, it was knowledge that his Scions also possessed.
>Illustrious Progenitor, once the well is activated we propose that one of us enters it and makes the descent with the aim of contacting the Legion’s survivors and guiding them to the well if necessary. Soon after the first has gone, the second shall follow with the logic bomb, intending to detonate it within the warpwell pattern access field. There is an 8.3 per cent chance that the first of us will survive the journey into the abyss. The second of us has an 11.1 per cent chance of surviving the warpwell’s inversion, although the chance of a successful detonation is 92.6 per cent<