Read Online Helsreach by Aaron Dembski-Bowden - Free Book Online
Authors: Aaron Dembski-Bowden
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Machine-God was limited, he found this a curious flaw.
‘I will speak with the princeps majoris of Invigilata, even if I have to shout up to the cathedral itself.’
They had no orders pertaining to such an action, and lacked the cognition to make an assessment of how it would matter to their superiors, so they remained silent.
‘Reclusiarch…’ Priamus voxed. ‘Must we bear this foolish indignity?’
‘No.’ The skull helm scanned the skitarii each in turn, its red eyes unblinking. ‘Kill them.’
She floated, as she had floated for seventy-nine years, in a coffin-like tank of milky amniotic fluid. The metallic, chemical tang of the watery, oxygen-rich ooze had been the only constant in almost a century of life, and its taste, its feel, its intrusion into her lungs and its replacement of air in her respiration had never ceased to feel somewhat alien.
That was not to say she found it uncomfortable. Quite the opposite. It was forever unsettling, but not unnatural.
In moments of battle, which always seemed too few and far between, Princeps Majoris Zarha believed with cold certainty that this was what gestation within the womb must have felt like. The cooling fluid supporting her would become warm in sympathy with the plasma reactor at Stormherald’s core. The pounding, world-shaking tread echoed around her, magnified like the beat of a mighty heart.
A feeling of absolute power coupled with being utterly protected. It was all she needed to focus on to remain herself in those frantic, bladed moments when Stormherald’s broken, violent mind knifed into her consciousness with sudden strength, seeking to overpower her.
She knew that there would come a day when her assistants unplugged her for the last time – when she would be denied a return to the machine’s soul, for fear its ingrained temperament and personality would swallow her weaker, too-human sense of identity.
But that was not now. Not today.
No, Zarha focussed on her simulated regression to the womb, and it was all she ever needed to push aside the clinging insistency of Stormherald’s blunt and primal advances.
Voices from the outside always reached her with a muffled dullness, despite the vox-receivers implanted where the cartilage of her inner ears once were, and the receptors built into the sides of her confinement tank.
They spoke, those voices, of intrusion.
Princeps Majoris Zarha did not share their appraisal of the situation. She turned in her milky fluid, as graceful as a sea-nymph from the tales of the impious Ancient Terra, though the augmented, wrinkled, hairless creature within the spacious coffin was anything but lovely. Her feet had been removed, for she would never need them again. Her bones were weak and soft, and her body curled and hunched.
She replied to them, to her minions and brothers and sisters, with a stab of thought.
I wish to speak with the intruders.
‘I wish to speak with the intruders,’ the vox-emitters on her coffin droned in a toneless echo of her silent words.
One of them came closer to the clear walls of her amniotic chamber, looking in at the floating husk with great respect.
‘My princeps,’ it was Lonn speaking, and though she liked Lonn, he was not her favourite.
Hello, Lonn. Where is Valian?
‘Hello, Lonn. Where is Valian?’
‘Moderati Carsomir is returning from the hive, my princeps. We thought you would still sleep for some time.’
With all this noise? What was left of her face turned into a smile.
‘With all this noise?’
‘My princeps, Astartes are seeking to gain entrance.’
I heard.
‘I heard.’
I know.
‘I know.’
‘Your orders, my princeps?’
She twisted in the water again, in her own way as graceful as a seaborne mammal, despite the cables, wires and cords running from the coffin’s mechanical generators into her spine, skull and limbs. She was an ancient, withered marionette in the water, serene and smiling.
Access granted.
‘Access granted.’
— Access
‘I will speak with the princeps majoris of Invigilata, even if I have to shout up to the cathedral itself.’
They had no orders pertaining to such an action, and lacked the cognition to make an assessment of how it would matter to their superiors, so they remained silent.
‘Reclusiarch…’ Priamus voxed. ‘Must we bear this foolish indignity?’
‘No.’ The skull helm scanned the skitarii each in turn, its red eyes unblinking. ‘Kill them.’
She floated, as she had floated for seventy-nine years, in a coffin-like tank of milky amniotic fluid. The metallic, chemical tang of the watery, oxygen-rich ooze had been the only constant in almost a century of life, and its taste, its feel, its intrusion into her lungs and its replacement of air in her respiration had never ceased to feel somewhat alien.
That was not to say she found it uncomfortable. Quite the opposite. It was forever unsettling, but not unnatural.
In moments of battle, which always seemed too few and far between, Princeps Majoris Zarha believed with cold certainty that this was what gestation within the womb must have felt like. The cooling fluid supporting her would become warm in sympathy with the plasma reactor at Stormherald’s core. The pounding, world-shaking tread echoed around her, magnified like the beat of a mighty heart.
A feeling of absolute power coupled with being utterly protected. It was all she needed to focus on to remain herself in those frantic, bladed moments when Stormherald’s broken, violent mind knifed into her consciousness with sudden strength, seeking to overpower her.
She knew that there would come a day when her assistants unplugged her for the last time – when she would be denied a return to the machine’s soul, for fear its ingrained temperament and personality would swallow her weaker, too-human sense of identity.
But that was not now. Not today.
No, Zarha focussed on her simulated regression to the womb, and it was all she ever needed to push aside the clinging insistency of Stormherald’s blunt and primal advances.
Voices from the outside always reached her with a muffled dullness, despite the vox-receivers implanted where the cartilage of her inner ears once were, and the receptors built into the sides of her confinement tank.
They spoke, those voices, of intrusion.
Princeps Majoris Zarha did not share their appraisal of the situation. She turned in her milky fluid, as graceful as a sea-nymph from the tales of the impious Ancient Terra, though the augmented, wrinkled, hairless creature within the spacious coffin was anything but lovely. Her feet had been removed, for she would never need them again. Her bones were weak and soft, and her body curled and hunched.
She replied to them, to her minions and brothers and sisters, with a stab of thought.
I wish to speak with the intruders.
‘I wish to speak with the intruders,’ the vox-emitters on her coffin droned in a toneless echo of her silent words.
One of them came closer to the clear walls of her amniotic chamber, looking in at the floating husk with great respect.
‘My princeps,’ it was Lonn speaking, and though she liked Lonn, he was not her favourite.
Hello, Lonn. Where is Valian?
‘Hello, Lonn. Where is Valian?’
‘Moderati Carsomir is returning from the hive, my princeps. We thought you would still sleep for some time.’
With all this noise? What was left of her face turned into a smile.
‘With all this noise?’
‘My princeps, Astartes are seeking to gain entrance.’
I heard.
‘I heard.’
I know.
‘I know.’
‘Your orders, my princeps?’
She twisted in the water again, in her own way as graceful as a seaborne mammal, despite the cables, wires and cords running from the coffin’s mechanical generators into her spine, skull and limbs. She was an ancient, withered marionette in the water, serene and smiling.
Access granted.
‘Access granted.’
— Access
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