Ben Counter - Black Adeptus

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++Priority Transmission: Coding/Delta/Rouge++

++Recipient: Loyal Imperial Commanders – as designated

by Commissariat, The Librarius Staff, Inquisitor Baptiste

& Canoness Arrea.++

++Subject: Traitors and Executions++

++Author: [Rus]Incubus – Scrivenor-in-attendance to

Inquisitor Nikolay Vinogradov++

++Thought for the Day: To cheat is both cowardly and

dishonourable++

Attention all loyal citizens of the Imperium!!!

Scanning of sacred books is a mortal sin!

*********

Whispered by Tzeentch, Lord of Hidden Knowledge.

Inspired by Slaanesh, Master of Forbidden Pleasures.

Resist foul machinations of the Dark Gods and buy

books from the Black Library.

***********

Thought of the Day: All traitors will be executed

without mercy and compassion!

Inquisition are watching YOU!

To Helen

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2006 by

BL Publishing,

Games Workshop Ltd.,

Willow Road, Nottingham,

NG7 2WS, UK.

10 987654321

Cover illustration by Philip Sibbering.

Black Library, the Black Library logo, Black Flame, BL Publishing, Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo and all associated

marks,

names, characters, illustrations and images from the Warhammer 40,000 universe are either •, TM and.'or • Games Workshop Ltd 2000-

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 13: 978 1 84416 242 0 ISBN 10: 1 84416 242 7

Distributed in the US by Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020, US.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bookmarque, Surrey, UK.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,

mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior

permission of the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this

book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is

purely coincidental.

See the Black Library on the Internet at

www.blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop and the world of Warhammer 40,000 at

www.games-workshop.com

IT IS THE 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is

the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a

rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom

a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

YET EVEN IN his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested

miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the

Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers arc the Adeptus Astartcs,

the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary

defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inqui-sition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their

multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse. To BE A man in

such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales

of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the

promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an

eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

CHAPTER ONE

'I long for death, not because I seek peace, but because I seek the war eternal'

- Cardinal Armandus Helfire, 'Reflections on the Long Death'

The sky of Chaeroneia shuddered with static and changed, displaying a new channel of geometric patterns.

Holy hexagons representing the six-fold genius of the Omnissiah merged with the circles representing the

totality of knowledge that the tech-priesthood sought. Double helices, fractals born of sacred

information-relics, litanies of machine code, all swirled against the sky of the forge world, casting the pale

light of knowledge over the valley of datacores. The smokestacks of the titan works were silhouetted

against the holy projections, ironwork bridges spanning gigantic factory towers, sky-piercing obelisks where

tech-priests watched the heavens, radio masts where they listened for the voice of the Omnissiah in solar

radiation. The valley itself, lined with towering cliffs of obsidian datacores, was a long deep slash of

shadow.

Projected onto the thick layer of pollutants in the forge world's atmosphere, the sacred arcs and angles

were a visual representation of that evening's data-prayers being intoned by thrice-blessed

worship-servitors in the Cathedrals of Knowledge. Beneath the titanium plated minarets rows of identi-cal

servitors would be standing, their vocal units emitting streams of digital information, singing the praises of

the Omnissiah in the binary of pure Lingua Technis.

Magos Antigonus knew that meant a new solar cycle was starting. The pollutants over Chaeroneia were so

thick there was no sun, so it was only the clockwork-regular services of the Cult Mechanicus that gave

time any meaning on the forge world. That in turn meant he had been on the run for three Terran standard

days. It was a long time to go with no food or sleep.

The datacore valley was a good place to hide out. Visual sensors were often confused by the pure

blackness of the datacores themselves and the impenetrable shadows that flooded between them. The

information in the cores was so pure that sensoria were dazzled by the intensity, while even augmented

eyes could miss a single man in the darkness. But Antigonus knew he was still far from safe.

He turned to the servitor next to him. Like all servi-tors, this device was built around the frame of a

once-living human being, the baser levels of its brain computing its functions and its nervous system

relay-ing commands to its augmetic limbs. It was a basic manservant model, programmed to follow its

owner and execute simple commands.

'Epsilon three-twelve.' said Antigonus and the servi-tor turned its face towards him, large round ocular

implants whirring as they focused on the tech-priest. 'Journal additional.'

Epsilon three-twelve's hands clicked as the long articulated fingers reformed, reaching inside its hol-lowed

chest cavity and bringing out a roll of parchment. A dextrous servo-arm reached out of its mouth, holding a

quill.

'Third standard day,' said Antigonus. The servo-arm dipped the quill into an inkwell concealed in the

servitor's left eye socket and wrote down Antigonus's words in a stilted, artificial hand. 'Investigation halted.

The existence of a heretical cell has been con-firmed. Primary goal executed.' Antigonus paused. He had

thought that finding them would be the worst of it. He had been utterly wrong. Unforgivable.

'The heretics are between ten and thirty in number.' continued Antigonus, 'representing all Adepta of the

Mechanicus, including genetors, lexmechanicus, xenobiologis, metallurgus, pecunius, digitalis and others

unknown. Also include ranks from menial to archmagos and probably above. No upper limit to penetration

of Chaeroneia's ruling caste.'

Antigonus stopped suddenly and flicked his ocular attachment upwards. Its large glass orb surveyed the sky

above, still swarming with the sacred imagery. He was sure he had heard something. But he had been on

the run for three days and had been unable to risk accepting maintenance on Chaeroneia for some time

before that, so perhaps his aural receptors were fail-ing him just as his motive and circulator units were

wearing out.

Epsilon three-twelve waited patiently, quill poised over the scroll. Antigonus waited a few moments more,

the ocular orb searching up and down the valley. The sheer sides of the chasm were glossy and black,

drinking in the pallid light, while the floor was littered with rusting, unrecognizable chunks of machinery.

Antigonus was sure he and his servitor were well-hidden behind one such massive slab that looked like the

engine from a mass-lifter vehicle. However, he knew better than to think that made them safe - a heretic

tech-priest with a powerful auspex scanner set to detect Antigonus's life signs could sniff them out.

'The nature of the heresy itself is not fully under-stood. Secondary objective incomplete.' Antigonus shook

his head. The ways of the Machine-God were often argued over by the tech-priests of the Adeptus

Mechanicus, but he still did not under-stand how any of them could turn to such base heresy as he had

witnessed here. 'Sorcery and warpcraft are suspected but not proven beyond doubt. The heretics venerate

the Omnissiah, but through an avatar or mouthpiece. The nature of this avatar is not known, but

cross-reference previ-ous entries on any pre-Imperial presence on Chaeroneia.'

A hot, dry wind swept down the valley, throwing a few pieces of rusting sheet metal around. A

mainte-nance servitor drifted overhead on thrumming grav-units, its fat belly full of antioxidant foam to

spew over any fire or corrosive spill that might threaten the precious datacores. Far above, the data-sermon

was coming to an end, the sacred geometry fading. In its place, work rotas and diagrams of emer-gency

procedures flickered by, ensuring that the forge world's menial population was constantly reminded of its

duties to the Mechanicus. So many people lived utterly normal lives in the factories and mineshafts, never

knowing the monstrous blasphemies festering in the ruling population of tech-priests.

'The origins of the heresy and the individuals responsible for its dissemination are unknown. Ter-tiary

objective incomplete. But see note on pre-Imperial presence above.' That was the most frus-trating of all.

Antigonus's evidence was compelling but incomplete. He had read the debased datapsalms describing the

Omnissiah as a force for destruction instead of knowledge. He had witnessed minor tech-priests, their

bodies swollen with forbidden biomechanical augmetics, using base sorcery to escape the tech-guard

commanded by Antigonus. He had seen those same tech-guard driven mad by warp magics that any

tech-priest would abhor. But he knew so few details. He did not know what the heretics wanted, or who

they were. He did not know how all this had started. He did not know how to stop it.

Now it was just him, fleeing through the under-belly of Chaeroneia with his servitor in tow, augmetics

failing through lack of maintenance. They were hunting him down. He was sure of it. The heretics were

everywhere on the planet, at every level from the menial barracks to the control towers.

'Personal note.' Antigonus heard the sounds of the scratching quill change as the servitor dutifully altered its

handwriting to something less precise. 'The cell is not large but it is well organised, highly motivated and

thoroughly ingrained into the society of Chaeroneia. Its existence is suspected only by those who are

members or are otherwise under the cell's control. There is no upper limit to the seniority of its members. I

can only hope it does not extend off-world. My primary objective completed, I believe the best course of

action is for me to leave this planet at the first opportunity and recommend a full purge of Chaeroneia by

the authority of the archmagos ultima. I also recommend that the Fabricator General be appraised of the

situation on Chaeroneia given that the nature of the heresy is such that...'

Antigonus paused again. He was aware of some-thing huge and dark flitting over the valley, blotting out the

projections overhead for a moment.

'There is no logic in fear.' he told himself. The servi-tor wrote the words down automatically, but Antigonus

ignored it.

Antigonus rose to his feet, mechadendrites snaking from below his grimy rust-red robes. His

augmenta-tions were not designed for combat, but he could still handle himself if it came down to it - each

mechadendrite could extrude a monomolecular blade and he had enough redundant organs to keep him alive

through terrible injuries.

They were watching him.

Antigonus whirled around as another shadow passed over him. His left hand - the non-bionic one - reached

inside his robes and took out a brass-cased autogun. The weapon was a good, solid Mars-pattern gun, but

Antigonus had never fired it in anger. He was a seeker of knowledge, a metallurgist in service to the

Priesthood of Mars - he had been sent to Chaeroneia because he had a sharp and inquisitive mind, not

because he was a warrior able to face down vengeful heretics by himself. When it came down to it, could

he survive?

Antigonus sighted down the barrel at the shadows between the wreckage that littered the valley.

'Query.' said the thin, grating voice of Epsilon three-twelve. 'Procedure terminate?'

'Yes, terminate.' said Antigonus, annoyed. The servitor's limbs folded up as it stashed the scroll back in its

chest.

The light levels changed, flooding the valley with a pale greenish glow. Antigonus searched for the source,

knowing it must be the searchlight of a hunter-servitor or armed grav-platform, come to chase him down

like an animal. But there was noth-ing.

Then Antigonus looked up to the sky.

Magos Antigonus, read hundred metre-long letters projected onto the clouds.

Join us.

The letters hung there for a few moments then dis-appeared, replaced by a new message.

You are ignorant and blind. You are like a child, like a menial. Blind to the light.

The Avatar of the Omnissiah is among us.

When you see it, you will know it is beautiful and pure. You can take this understanding back to

Mars. You can be our prophet.

Antigonus shook his head, glancing around, pan-icking. His finger trembled on the trigger. He held out his

bionic right arm and grabbed the gun with steel fingers, steadying his aim. 'No!' he shouted. 'I have seen

what you are!'

We are the future.

We are the way.

All else is darkness and death.

Antigonus began to move, jogging through the hunks of wreckage, trying to find somewhere they couldn't

see him. They must have a grav-platform watching him from somewhere above, perhaps even a vehicle in

orbit with sensoria that could cut through the thick pollutant clouds. Epsilon three-twelve waddled after

Antigonus on its ill maintained legs, its subhuman mind oblivious to the threats all around them.

You will never have a greater chance than this, Magos Antigonus. Your life does not have to

continue as a statis-tical irrelevance.

Antigonus sped up. If they could track him through the valley then he was trapped. At one end of the

val-ley was a massive cogitator housing where the contents of the datacores were searched and filtered. It

was staffed mostly by tech-priest information spe-cialists - the heretics would find him there. But the other

end led into a tangle of workshops and factory floors, many half ruined. It was populated mostly by menials

and roving servitors. Antigonus might be safe there. He broke into a run, servitor in tow, the servos on his

withered legs grinding painfully as they took the strain.

One chance is more than the Adeptus Mechanicus will ever give you. Look upon the face of the

Omnissiah, Antigonus, and understand!

Antigonus ran as fast as he could, the servitor somehow keeping up. He was ill-lubricated and low on

power but he re-routed all his non-essential sys-tems to keep him moving. His vision greyed out as his

ocular implants switched down to minimal and his digestive system shut down temporarily. The

multi-layered factory complex loomed up ahead - its warren-like structure and menial population would

mask him from observation. It was his only chance.

Then it seems you are as small-minded and inflexible as all your kind. You are a disappointment.

You are obsolete.

Who could orchestrate the hijacking of the pro-jector units and the kind of surveillance technology needed

to follow Antigonus here? The names were few. Scraecos, the archmagos veneratus who mas-terminded

Chaeroneia's extensive data networks and commanded all the planet's formidable reserves of information.

Archmagos Ultima Vengaur, responsible for liaising with the Imperial authorities about Chaeroneia's tithes

and adher-ence to Imperial law. Another archmagos veneratus, named Thulharn, whose domain was

Chaeroneia's orbital installations and space traffic. There were very few others with the necessary seniority

and ability.

But could a small heretic cell really sway such men? Men who had risen so far in the hierarchy of the

Adeptus Mechanicus that they could barely be called men at all any more?

Epsilon three-twelve.

Execute.

Antigonus turned just in time to see Epsilon three-twelve fold out its augmetic limbs, this time with the

articulated tines bent into wicked claws. It lurched forward crazily and crashed into Antigonus, bar-relling

him to the floor. Antigonus's head smacked into the grime-slicked rockcrete.

The servitor's mechanical parts made it heavy and its rugged construction made it strong. Antigonus was

trapped on his back and had to drop his gun to grab the servitor's wrists and stop it from clawing at him. He

was face-to-face with Epsilon three-twelve – the servitor's eye sockets were polished bone, but the nose

and mouth beneath them were grey, expres-sionless dead flesh.

Antigonus lashed out a mechadendrite and the tentacle-like appendage wrapped itself around the stock of

his autogun. Antigonus whipped the mechadendrite back and clubbed the servitor in the head with the butt

of the gun. Sparks spat off its brass-chased skull but the servitor didn't move its weight off Antiogonus and

the tech-priest felt one of his ribs break in a flare of pain. Painkillers pumped out of his bionic heart and the

red mist flowed away. Antigonus used the moment of clarity to wrap one mechadendrite around the

servitor's throat, forcing its head back, fighting the servo motors in its spine. He reeled back another and

thrust it forward, its tip tearing through the servitor's forehead and into the biological brain.

Epsilon three-twelve convulsed. Its hands broke free of Antigonus's grip and flailed madly. Its mouth

opened and its vocal unit let out a grating, garbled scream. The mechadendrite in its head was ripped free

by the strength of the servitor's spasms, whip-ping back and forward like a striking snake.

Antigonus forced a knee up under it and rolled over on top of the servitor, scrambling to grab his gun again.

The servitor bucked and threw Antigonus onto the ground, pain rushing up at him again as sil-vered

augmetics crunched against the hard ground.

The servitor was quickest to its feet, spraying gore from the massive pulsing wound between its hollow

eyes. A mechanical hand clamped around Antigonus's throat and slammed him against the val-ley side, the

black glass of the datacore material splintering into razors that sheared through Antigonus's thick robes into

the pallid skin of his back.

The servitor's mouth lolled open and the tiny mechanical arm shot out, stabbing the gold-nibbed quill through

Antigonus's bionic eye.

A white star burst in front of Antigonus's vision. White, knife-like pain rifled through his head. His back, his

neck, his eye, so much of him was shrieking in pain at once that he couldn't tell where he was, or what he

was doing.

He only just remembered that he still had the gun. Roaring through the pain, he stabbed the gun into the

servitor's gut and fired. He fired again and again, until its grip went limp. Antigonus slid to the floor and

realised he must have blown the servitor's spine out, severing the connection between its upper and lower

body. The servitor stumbled a few steps, its arms and head hanging limp, before the dead weight of its

upper half dragged it down to the ground.

Everything was suddenly silent. The only move-ment was the oily smoke sputtering from the servitor's

ruined body. Antigonus's vision, already muted, was now somehow skewed, as if shifted side-ways.

Antigonus only had one eye left - his normal, unaugmented one, which meant he was limited to the visible

spectrum and couldn't zoom in any more. He had lost a mechadendrite and his ribs were bro-ken. He was

bleeding somewhere inside, but his internal alterations were probably robust enough to cope with that.

Already his bionic heart was forcing his pulse down to calm him. He was hurt, though and it would only get

worse without maintenance -and no way in the Emperor's great creation would he ever let anyone on this

tainted world repair him. He had to get off-world.

Antigonus struggled to his feet and began to run, the shadows of the industrial complex rolling over him. As

black iron and red-brown rust closed over him the heretic projections flickered off overhead and were

replaced with work rotas for the menials.

They couldn't watch him from overhead now. But they had hijacked the projection units, seduced the

highest ranks of the tech-priesthood and sabotaged his personal servitor which had been sent with him from

Mars. They didn't need eyes in the sky to watch him. They would find a way.

CHAPTER TWO

You may say, it is impossible for a man to become like the Machine. And I would reply, that only the smallest mind

strives to comprehend its limits.'

-Fabricator General Kane (attr.)

Magos Antigonus wasn't supposed to die like this. Light was scarce beneath the complex. A single charred

bulb cast a dull brownish glow over the abandoned workshop he had found. Old work-benches covered in

rusted equipment were piled up against one wall and the low ceiling was hung with corroded cabling.

Antigonus sat against the other wall, rivulets of rust-red water running down his back from the sweating

metal behind him, trying to fix the failed servo in his motor units. His legs were with-ered and weak and

without the servo-powered braces that encased them he could barely walk. He wasn't designed to fight. He

was there because he had a facility with information systems and he could access Chaeroneia's data

networks with ease. His purpose on Chaeroneia had been to debunk the apparently spurious rumours about

heretical practices among the planet's tech-priests, then take that news back to Mars to satisfy the

tech-priests there that their forge world was free from the taint of blasphemy.

'Primary objective failed.' he thought.

Antigonus sat bolt-upright. The voice had come from everywhere at once. He was alone in the work-shop

and yet there was something else in there with him. He pulled out his autogun again but he knew

instinctively that it wouldn't do any good.

'Heretics!' shouted Antigonus, struggling to his feet. 'You can hide from me but the Mechanicus will find

you! More will follow me! More from Mars!'

The only answer was Antigonus's own voice, echo-ing back through the empty workshops.

Antigonus crept through the darkness, wishing his servos were quieter. There was no one else in the

workshop, but they must be near. He knew he couldn't put up much of a fight any more, but he wasn't

going to go down easily. They would have to work for their kill.

More will follow. More will die. This is the way of our Machine-God.

The voice was too close, little more than a whisper directly into Antigonus's ear. It had to be someone in the

room. Either that or someone controlling a machine in the room, like a servitor or machine-spirit, something

complex, something that could speak. But Antigonus had secured the area before he stopped to rest. There

was nothing like that in here.

Nothing, that is, apart from his own augmenta-tions.

Clever boy.

Antigonus dropped the gun and grabbed the screw-driver he had been using to repair himself. The heretics

were doing to him what they had done to Epsilon three-twelve, hijacking his more complex systems and

taking control. Either they were control-ling one of his augmentations directly or they had infected him with

a machine-curse, an insidious self-replicating set of commands that could cause a system to self-destruct.

Which system? Like many tech-priests above the most junior rank, Magos Antigonus had several

sophisticated augmentations, including datalinks that would provide a perfect point of infection. At least they

hadn't got his bionic heart, otherwise he would be lying dead right now. His bionic eye was destroyed but

the control circuits were still there, spi-ralling around his optic nerve. His mechadendrites? They were

plugged directly into his nervous system through an impulse link. His bionic arm? The intel-ligent filtration

systems in his throat and lungs?

Closer, closer. But not close enough. Know you the way of the Omnissiah, fellow traveller. The

avatar speaks with us even now and it speaks to us of your death.

Antigonus jabbed the screwdriver under the hous-ing of his bionic eye and levered the unit out of its socket,

forcing himself to ignore the unnaturally dull, cold pain that throbbed from the ruined bionic. With a gristly

sound the eye came out, taking a chunk of artificial flesh with it and landing on the floor with a blood-wet

plop. Antigonus gasped as the shocking cold of the air hit the raw nerves in the wreckage now filling his

eye socket.

Closer.

Antigonus scrabbled on the floor, dizzy and sick-ened by the awful raw throb spreading across his face. His

natural hand grabbed the autogun on the floor and he put the barrel against the side of his head.

Don't let them take you, he told himself. They'll make you one of their own.

Even if you are dead, fellow traveller.

'Get out!' yelled Antigonus crazily. 'Out! The Machine-God commands you! By the light of under-standing

and the rule of Mars I cast this unclean thing from this machine!'

An enginseer sent by the Adeptus Mechanicus to maintain the war machines of the Imperial Guard would

know the tech-exorcism rites off by heart. But such things were not often needed on Mars, the heartland of

the priesthood where Antigonus had learned his role in the Cult Mechanicus. Antigonus knew he couldn't

banish the thing with words alone, but right now they were all he had.

If it had his bionic arm, it would be using it by now to force the gun away from his head. No, it was

something inside him, something it couldn't use to kill him straight away.

'I cast you out!' Antigonus put the gun barrel against his left knee and fired.

A thunderbolt of pain, the worst Antigonus had ever suffered, ripped right through him and knocked him

unconscious as his left leg was blown clean off at the knee. Paralysing pain reached down and dragged him

back to his senses, gripping hard and not letting go. Antigonus screamed, but somewhere inside him he

heard the tech-infection scream too, as part of it was ripped away and the rest fled into the mechanisms of

his right leg.

It was in the servos that powered his leg bracings, infesting the systems that carried commands from his

nerve-impulses to the motors. Maybe it had got in when he had scoured Chaeroneia's information nets for

suspicious power spikes early in his investigation, or when he had been forced to have his nerve impulse

units repaired a few days ago. Maybe it had been in him since he arrived, waiting to see how much he

would uncover before striking.

Either way, now he could kill it.

His heart was working overtime, leaching so much power from the rest of his augmetics that his bionic arm

fell limp. It filled him full of enough painkillers to all but kill him and he dragged himself away from the

twitching mess of charred flesh and metal that had been his left leg.

Mmmaake you sufferrrr...

'Don't like that, do you?' spat Antigonus, blood running down his face where he had bitten a chunk out of his

lip. 'Did you think they would send just anyone? Someone you could defeat with a machine-curse? They

teach us well on Mars, heretic tech-pox.'

Nnnot machinnne-cuuuurse... much worssse... much, much worssse...

Ice-cold fingers of information scraped up Antigonus's spine. The tech-priest writhed on the floor, the edges

of his vision turning white, a high scream filling his ears. He fought the chill seeping up through him, forcing

its way through his augmetics into his flesh, the whispering voice quivering with anger. It wanted revenge.

It was supposed to just con-trol him, but now it wanted to kill him instead.

Antigonus choked back the horror that had infected him and forced it, nerve by nerve, back down into the

smouldering servo units in his remaining leg. He tried to pull himself upright but only got into a lopsided

crawl, dragging the tattered stump of his left leg behind him as he slithered out of the workshop. He had to

get out of there - it was a dead end and he was trapped. Perhaps he could find a menial down here that

could help him, or a better weapon. Anywhere was better than the work-shop, because the infection, or

whatever it was, must have been capable of transmitting his location to the heretics.

The resources required to acquire - or, Omnissiah forbid, even create - such a sophisticated machine-curse

were massive. There were relatively few even on Mars who could have done it. Antigonus didn't even

want to think about what the heretics must have had to do to get hold of it.

The voice was a low stutter now, hissing darkly from the depths of Antigonus's augmetics. Antigonus made

his way painfully out into a long, low gallery, like a natural void formed between the strata of col-lapsed

factory floors. The ceiling dripped rust-coloured water and pools of it gathered on the floor. From

somewhere far below came the throb of an ancient, powerful machine, probably one of the geothermal

heatsinks that provided so much of Chaeroneia's power. Antigonus dragged himself to where the ceiling

had fallen in and a faint reddish light bled down from above.

No ussse, tech-priest... they willll find you, they always do... I am not the only one...

Antigonus ignored the voice and dragged himself up the incline of the fallen ceiling. The floor above was

more intact, with knots of machinery and hiss-ing steam pipes everywhere. Somewhere he heard men's

voices shouting. As he moved the noises got louder - shouting, machinery, humming genera-tors, the

lifesigns of a forge world.

The painkillers dispensed by Antigonus's augmetic heart were killing most of the agony from his shattered

leg, but they were flooding his body in such amounts that they made the world dull and distant. Every metre

he moved drained him as if he had sprinted it and he kept trying to push himself forward with a left leg that

wasn't there.

He was a mess. When they got him off this planet he would have to spend months being cleansed of the

tech-curse and then getting all his wrecked augmetics replaced. He imagined the hos-pitals where servitors

trundled the corridors keeping everything clean, the polished steel of the operating theatres and the spidery

arms of the autosurgeon that flensed away weak flesh and grafted on strong metal. The bionics experts

who would take him apart and put him back together again.

He shook the images out of his head. He was exhausted and starting to see things. If he lost his focus and

started letting his mind wander the tech-infection would take a hold and rot him away from the inside.

He rounded a corner and saw he had come across a functioning factory floor - dilapidated and danger-ous,

but still working. Several massive stamping machines thudded on, forming metal components that were

carted away by conveyor belts.

Antigonus tried to find a menial or a tech-priest who could help him. A bent-backed servitor stood hunched

over a conveyor line leading from a broken stamping machine, its hands working away to per-form some

routine modification on parts that no longer moved past it. Antigonus ignored the servitor - even if it had

been sophisticated enough to inter-rupt its programmed task and summon help, the machine-curse inside

him could have leaped into the servitor and used it to cut Antigonus to ribbons.

Antigonus pulled himself up against the casing of the closest machine and used it to steady himself as he

inched forward on his remaining leg. The machine-curse was hissing and spitting, whispering abuse at him.

He had hurt it, but he also knew that such things were self-repairing and soon it would be strong enough to

take him over again.

Antigonus rounded a corner and saw more servi-tors, but no menials. The menials were the lowest class on

any forge world, men and women who were little more than living machines ordered and directed by the

tech-priests. They were there simply because there were many tasks that servitors could not do, but their

servitude was self-reinforcing because it was from the ranks of menials that many junior tech-priests were

recruited. At the moment Antigonus could trust a menial rather more than he could a fellow tech-priest,

which counted as a sort of heresy in itself.

The servitors ignored Antigonus as he forced himself to traverse the factory floor. A battered iron stairway

led upwards - Antigonus didn't fancy his chances of get-ting up them in his current state but it was better

than waiting in the deserted factory for the heretics to hunt him down.

Getting desperate? Now you realise. This whole planet is against you. It is only with the rats and

dregs that you can hide. What life is that? Not life at all. So much of you wants to join usss,

traveller. It is no great hardship for the rest to agree.

'Shut up.' spat Antigonus as he struggled up the spi-ral stairs. 'You know nothing. You do not even have the

blessing of the Omnissiah, you should not even be.'

No Omnissiah dreamed me into being. No, not that god. Another one.

'There is no other.'

Really? What of your Corpse-Emperor?

'Two faces of the same being. The Omnissiah is to the machine as the Emperor is to His servants.'

What was Antigonus saying? Why was he debating with this thing?

So innocent to think such things. So easily led. My god is something else. My god is one of many, the

many who serve the One, the End, the Future that is Chaos...

Out!' Antigonus was yelling now. 'Stop these lies, heretic thing!'

The traveller starts to understand. Not a machine-curse, not a tech-pox. Something older, something

stronger.

Daemon...

There was movement up ahead, footsteps and voices through the grinding of the machines. They were too

urgent to just be more menials going about their business. Antigonus spotted the beams of pow-erful torches

cutting through the shadows.

Daemon. It was a lie, just another way of rattling him. Antigonus had to concentrate on getting away. He

looked around and saw a cargo elevator, rusted and old. Faded lights winked on the control panel and

perhaps the machine still worked. Antigonus got across the factory floor to the elevator, trusting the noise

of the machines would cover the sounds of his movement.

He let his mechadendrites haul the rusted gate open, keeping hold of his gun with one hand and steadying

himself with the other. The socket in his back where Episilon three-twelve had torn out the mechadendrite

was just one of a thousand points of dull raw pain forcing their way through the painkiller haze.

With an effort Antigonus shut the gate behind him and jabbed a mechadendrite at the control stud. The

cargo elevator shuddered and moved grudgingly upwards. Antigonus heard someone shouting from below -

they had guessed he might be escaping on the elevator but the factory complex down this far was a warren

of dead ends and it was better to keep moving that to let them close him down.

He didn't even know what he was running from. Maybe they had hunter-servitors with scent-vanes that

could track him through the filthiest corners of Chaeroneia's undercity, servo-skulls with auspex scanners

that already had his lifesigns logged. But he had to hope. The grand machine of the universe moved

according to the Omnissiah's will and he had to keep the faith that the machine would move to keep him

safe.

Antigonus leaned against the back wall of the ele-vator. Crushed strata of factories and workshops

marched past, reduced to claustrophobic voids in the mass of twisted metal. Gouts of steam burst from

fractured pipes. Rivers of pollutants and fuel forced their way through fissures in the metal, feeding

rain-bow-slicked underground rivers. Thousands of years of industrial history were crusted on the surface

of Chaeroneia - charred ruins, glimpses of faded finery, strange machines that perhaps represented some

technology lost to the Mechanicus, hidden places where escaped menials or wild servitors had carved out a

short existence, even abandoned chapels of the Cult Mechanicus long since replaced by magnificent

cathedrals and temples far above.

And somewhere, something beneath the surface that had created a heresy worse than Antigonus had ever

imagined.

The elevator juddered to a halt. The doors chattered open and freezing vapour rolled in. Antigonus crawled

out warily, feeling the temperature dropping rapidly around him and letting his newly unaugmented vision

adjust to the half-light. Antigonus saw that he was in a stratum that must have lain undisturbed for decades

or even centuries. It was relatively clean and intact and lit by hundreds of tiny blue-white lights mounted on

control panels and readouts. Data-engines, huge constructions of knotted cables and pipe work like slabs of

compacted metal intestines, stood like monoliths in long rows. Heavy ribbed coolant pipes hung from the

high ceiling and the deep chill in the air suggested that the coolant systems were still working. This was

archaic technology, the kind that Antigonus had only seen on abandoned parts of Mars and which was

obsolete on even the most traditionalist forge worlds. These engines had held information in crude digital

forms, before the newer datacore technology was rediscovered and disseminated. Antigonus wasn't even

sure how such things might work. There must have been thirty such engines, great rearing knots of obsolete

technology, silent and untouched. The structure of this floor was intact and Antigonus couldn't even see the

trails of vermin or stains of corrosion that touched everywhere else in Chaeroneia's undercity.

'Lord of Knowledge be praised.' whispered Antigonus instinctively, as it was appropriate to offer a prayer

to the Omnissiah when confronted with such old and noble technology. But he couldn't stop and offer

proper respects to the machine-spirits -there wasn't anyone to help him here and he had to get help or find

safely.

He stumbled past a few of the data-engines, mechadendrites steadying him against the frost-cold metal.

There didn't seem to be a way out other than the cargo elevator behind him. Such a facility would be well

sealed against contaminants and the elevator itself had probably been protected originally, before its

shielding was taken by menials and used some-where else. At most he could hope for an access vent, but

he wasn't confident about his ability to crawl through a small space with one leg missing and his head fuzzy

with painkillers.

The data-engine closest to him shuddered. It coughed out a spray of super cooled air and some old

mechanism inside it ticked over as it wound up to operate. Antigonus shrunk from the engine, reluc-tant

even in his current state to disrespect a machine-spirit. More of the machines seemed to stir, lights

flickering. The power coming into the room was fluctuating. Something was interfering with the power

supply and Antigonus knew it wasn't a coinci-dence.

A sudden howling of metal tore from the far wall. Antigonus saw sparks showering and the readouts on the

data-engines turned an angry red, their machine-spirits objecting to the rudeness of the intrusion. A

whirring, screaming sound of tortured metal filled the floor. Antigonus took shelter behind the closest

data-engine, wishing his bionic eye still worked so he could banish the shadows and see what was forcing

itself into the room after him.

Had he really thought he could escape?

No escape.

'Shut up. You are no daemon.'

Lie to yourself. It makes me stronger.

A huge, dark form lumbered into view between the data-engines, sparks still spitting off the massive

breacher drill that formed one of its forearms. It was a servitor, a heavy labour pattern designed for

min-ing. One arm was a drill and the other was an enormous pneumatic ram. Its torso was broad and

packed with synthetic muscle, controlled by the tiny shrunken head almost buried by the massive muscles of

its shoulders. It was easily twice the height of a man. It blasted through the hole it had ripped in the wall on

a track unit that belched greasy black smoke.

There were more figures behind it. Dark, robed. Tech-priests. Further back Antigonus could make out

beams of torchlight - the gunlights of tech-guard, the standing armed forces of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

No doubt these men and women were used as igno-rant foot soldiers by the heretics.

Antigonus shrunk back, hoping to make it to the cargo elevator. His right knee servo locked and he fell

backwards, hitting the freezing cold floor hard enough to send a bolt of pain punching through the

painkillers. Antigonus yelled. The tech-priests would certainly have heard him.

Got you.

'Get out! Give me my body back! When I die, you die!'

Run, traveller! Run! My kind never dies, just moves on, always moving, always changing...

A deep, sibilant voice spoke a streak of zeroes and ones - pure Lingua Technis machine code. The huge

breacher servitor paused, its drill still spinning, com-pressed air whistling from its ramming arm.

More Lingua Technis. Antigonus could have trans-lated it instantly if his auto senses had been operating,

but all auxiliary power was being diverted to his bionic heart to keep him alive. He was naked, ignorant,

helpless and trapped by heretics in this holy place.

'Magos Antigonus.' said the voice again, this time in Low Gothic. 'You are a resourceful man. But a man is

all you are. It is impressive that you found us at all and while there was never any chance of your doing us

meaningful harm there was always the possibility that Mars would send someone more competent when

you reported back to them of your failure. So this is the way it has to be.'

Antigonus gave up trying to get away. His body was half-paralyzed.

'They will.' he spat, determined to spend his last few moments defiant in the face of heresy as the

Omnissiah would demand. 'When I don't return. They'll send a whole Diagnostic Coven. Blockade the

planet. Switch the cities off one by one. Hunt you down.'

'Will they really now?' The lead tech-priest walked into view. His robes were deep grey, made of some

superfine mesh that flowed around him like water. His hood was thrown back and Antigonus saw that the

upper part of his face was pulled so tight that it was barely more than two gleaming silver eyes in a skull.

The lower jaw had been removed entirely and replaced with a nest of slender mechadendrites that hung

down to the floor, writhing like tentacles. In place of his hands the tech-priest had nests of long, metallic

filaments that waved like the fronds of an underwater plant, fine and dextrous. He moved with a strange

sinuous grace, more like some living, bone-less thing than a machine, even though the tech-priest was

undoubtedly more heavily aug-mented than almost anyone Antigonus had ever seen.

'Scraecos.' breathed Antigonus. The leader of the tech-heretics was the archmagos veneratus who

com-manded Chaeroneia's data-reserves. He had probably tracked Antigonus all the way through

security pict-stealers and sensor-equipped servitors. He had just been waiting to see how much Antigonus

knew and what he would do next before moving in. He had known all along exactly where Antigonus was

and what he had been doing. Antigonus had never had a chance, not from the moment he had set foot on

Chaeroneia.

'And that.' said Scraecos, his synthesized voice thick like syrup, 'is why you have to die. So curious. And

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++PriorityTransmission:Coding/Delta/Rouge++++Recipient:LoyalImperialCommanders–asdesignatedbyCommissariat,TheLibrariusStaff,InquisitorBaptiste&CanonessArrea.++++Subject:TraitorsandExecutions++++Author:[Rus]Incubus–Scrivenor-in-attendancetoInquisitorNikolayVinogradov++++ThoughtfortheDay:Tocheatisboth...

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