FOURTEEN

Walking the Spiral

'How can this be?' Luther demanded, his voice crackling with tension in the confines of the Grand Master's sanctum. He had abandoned the massive oaken chair behind the sanctum's wide desk and had begun to pace across the room. 'How is it possible that no one noticed this before?'

Damaged servo-motors whined as Zahariel folded his arms. He and Astelan stood side by side before the Grand Master's desk, fresh from the transport that had carried them from Sigma Five-One-Seven. The sanctum was crowded with portable logic engines, stacks of papers and map tables, and half-empty cups of caffeine steamed in little clusters on the stone floor. They had interrupted a high-level operations meeting to deliver their report; the antechamber outside the sanctum was crowded with regimental officers and staff members who were doubtless wondering what all the secrecy was about.

Only Lord Cypher had been allowed to remain in the room to hear the warriors' report. He stood by one of the chamber's windows, silent and half-hidden by shadow. Brother-Librarian Israfael was also present; the Master of Caliban had summoned him as soon as he'd heard the gist of Zahariel and Astelan's report.

'The clues were there all along,' Zahariel replied. 'What else could have created the great beasts? What else could have shaped a wilderness so relentlessly malevolent and deadly to human life?'

'Caliban is a death world, brother,' Israfael pointed out. 'Like Catachan or Piscina V. That doesn't mean it's inherently tainted.'

'Perhaps not,' Zahariel admitted. 'Perhaps the two traits are unrelated, but the fact remains that Caliban is tainted somehow. I saw it with my own eyes.'

Luther paused in his restless pacing and fixed Astelan with a penetrating stare. 'What about you, chapter master? Did you see evidence of this as well?'

Astelan had stood at a rigid parade-rest, shoulders squared and hands clasped behind his back as he and Zahariel had delivered their report. He met Luther's flinty gaze unflinchingly. 'There was nothing natural about the creatures we fought, my lord,' he said. 'I confess that I did not see the traces of corruption that Brother Zahariel reports, but I'm no psyker. If he says that's what he saw, then I believe him.' He shrugged. 'The Northwilds were always thought of as haunted, my lord, as you yourself must know.'

The answer did little to please Luther. 'Damnation,' he hissed. The Master of Caliban turned to Israfael. 'How could the Imperium have missed this?'

The Librarian shrugged. 'Because no one asked us to look,' he said.

'Have a care, brother,' Luther growled. 'I'm in no mood for jests.'

'I'm not trying to be impertinent,' Israfael answered. 'There were no obvious signs of corruption when the fleet arrived here; if anything, we were surprised at how few psykers we found among the planet's populace.'

'That's because witches and mutants were slain out of hand for hundreds of years,' Astelan grunted.

Israfael acknowledged this with a wave of his hand. 'Another characteristic common to worlds that survived the Age of Strife and the fall of Old Night,' he said. 'Had any of these great beasts still survived by the time we found your world, we might have seen the need to investigate more closely, but as it was, there was nothing obvious to arouse our concern. This warp-taint, whatever it is, must be buried very deep indeed.'

'I agree,' Zahariel said. 'And I believe that it only became readily accessible recently, when the insurrection began. We know that warp taint feeds on human strife and bloodshed. The arcology riots could have been the catalyst that set the events at Sigma Five-One-Seven into motion.'

Luther's eyes narrowed. 'So you're saying the rebels are behind this?'

'Not at all,' Zahariel replied. 'There was no evidence of rebel activity at the site whatsoever. I think that the attacks and the riots created an environment that others have succumbed to.'

'Like who?' Luther demanded.

Zahariel considered his reply carefully. 'We accounted for the bodies of the Jaeger garrison, the reaction force, and the labourers that had been sent to work on the thermal plant. The Terran engineers assigned to the plant were nowhere to be found.'

'They may have been elsewhere at the site,' Israfael countered. 'You reported that your squad didn't search the labourer's dormitories, for example. They might well have been murdered in their sleep.'

'I'd considered that,' Zahariel said, 'but it was clear to Astelan and I that the site's garrison was betrayed from within. All of the Calibanite labourers had been, murdered, along with the Jaegers. That leaves only the Terrans.'

Before Israfael could offer a counter-argument, Luther interjected. 'All right, let's assume for the moment that the Terrans were responsible. What was the point of the ritual?'

'That's difficult to say,' Zahariel answered. 'Clearly the reaver worms were an integral part of it. Why else would the Terrans go to so much trouble to provide hundreds of corpses for the worm queen?' He thought the situation over for a moment. 'The sorcerers were gone long before we arrived, so we have to assume the ritual was completed successfully, and they'd gotten what they'd come for. The ritual itself was complicated and obviously required a great deal of planning to execute. Given that the Terrans had only been at the site for approximately six days, I think it's also clear that the whole operation was conceived elsewhere and put into action at the site.'

'Where had these Terrans come from?' Luther asked.

'Northwilds arcology,' the Librarian answered. Suddenly he straightened, remembering something he'd dismissed in the early stages of the mission. 'And that's where they must have returned to as well. Just before we entered the perimeter I picked up a civilian shuttle on our surveyors off to the west, headed in that direction. They fled the site minutes before we arrived.' The pieces started to fall into place. Zahariel nodded thoughtfully. 'I think this ritual was just one element of a much larger scheme, brothers. They performed the ritual at Sigma Five-One-Seven, gathered the fruits of their sorcery and returned to the arcology for the next phase of the operation.'

Luther started to pace again, his hands clenched tightly behind his back. 'There are more than a thousand Terran engineers operating out of that arcology,' he growled. 'We'll have to investigate every industrial site they've worked on in the last month, just to be sure there haven't been any other rituals we don't know about.'

Israfael bristled. 'You act like every Terran in the arcology has been corrupted!'

'Show me a Calibanite that's been corrupted and I'll revise my assumptions,' Luther answered coldly. 'In the meantime we need to track down every one of those engineers as quickly and quietly as possible.'

'That will be difficult, my lord,' Astelan said. 'Those engineers built Northwilds arcology. There are miles upon miles of tunnels and maintenance spaces they could be hiding in at this point - to say nothing of the rebel activity already tying down our troops in that sector.'

'The rebels be damned!' Luther snapped. 'They can burn the arcology to the ground, so long as we catch these Terran devils and no one is the wiser!'

Israfael's eyes widened in alarm. 'Surely you don't mean to say that we can keep this a secret. We have to report this to the primarch and the Adeptus Terra at once!'

'If word of this reaches Terra, Caliban will die.' Luther declared. 'Worlds have burned for far less.'

The Terran started to protest, but found he could not. 'It's true,' he said heavily. 'I cannot deny it.'