IV
VERITAS

2
Fenksworld, Josian Reach

A popular joke among Scintilla's nobility was that Fenksworld answered all questions. The implications were dubious, and the Lady Inquisitor had assigned more than a few observation warrants to equally questionable figures for its citation.
The Lady found herself reminded of the saying as Commissar Audes took a seat across from her, his gleaming new augmetic legs lightly whirring. The Lady had sought more answers to more questions on Fenksworld than Freia thought, and upon coming to Fenksworld, she discovered they could be answered.
"I suppose you'll want to skip the formalities," Audes said.
The Lady shook her head. "No need. I have plenty of time… as do you, I imagine."
"Plenty of time wasted before it even comes." Audes shifted in his seat. "Though, I got permission from the Commissariat to execute the idiot who made my regiment a human mine-sweep. That's today, so I do have to leave at some point."
"What happened?" the Lady tilted her head, though she remembered to nod to the serving woman who put her recaf down on the table.
"Like I said, the General who was in charge of our most recent combat sent them into a no-man's-land surrounding a fortified super-fortress." Audes took his rotgut without a word to the serving lady. "The word is, the Munitorum intends to permanently retire the fifty-something troops that remain here in Calixis. Fifty! Fifty Korpsmen, confused and unfamiliar with civility, all of them just tossed out after receiving the biggest insult of all: failure."
"Sounds like someone I know, from about a year ago."
Audes was about to put his drink to his lips when the Lady said this. "How is Heidrich?" Audes asked, putting his bottle back down.
"He's fine, for the most part. It's too long a story to describe, really," the Lady Inquisitor told him. "But I wanted to know a few things about him…"
Audes narrowed his eyes. "What makes you think I know anything about him?"
"You seemed to be quite obsessed with his wellbeing when you offered him to me." The Lady took a sip from her recaf. "Logic would suggest you know more about him than you let on, otherwise I suspect you would have put an end to him yourself."
"Let it be clear, first of all, that my judgment is not stained by any act of favoritism."
The Lady held up a hand. "I understand, and I wasn't implying any such thing."
Audes eased back into his chair, and sighed. "Very well. Yes, I do know a lot about him. Colonel von Klauser, when he was still alive, kept an extensive record on the boy's past." When the Lady Inquisitor raised an eyebrow at this name, Audes leaned forward. "That was the Colonel who was in charge of the regiment before dying during Trojus."
"Right." The Lady took another drink from her recaf and crossed her legs. "Why would he take such an interest in Heidrich?"
"As it turns out, Herman von Klauser was old. Very old. I think somewhere in the range of forty to sixty years. It's rare to live to his age among Kriegers," Audes explained. "Anyway, his age meant a lot of things. For starters, he had been in command of three whole regiments before he was put in charge of guarding one of Krieg's cloning facilities. He had a lot of respect for being a bit more competent than the usual Krieg commander. Mind you, some troops viewed him with suspicion, as no proper Korpsman could possibly live so long if he 'did his duty to the Emperor' and charged a battletank."
"Go on," the Lady urged.
"Well, one day in that cloning facility," Audes shifted in his seat, "A couple adepts looked at the logistics and noticed a clone was missing from indoctrination. This could have represented a severe security situation, so von Klauser immediately devoted himself and his team to it.
"Turned out, one of the Enginseers had kidnapped the clone, a wee infant, before he could be given an identification number. The Tech-Priest heavily resisted the security team which came to take the clone away, even snapping one's neck and stabbing another."
The Lady's eyes widened at this. "Why the blazes did he do all this?"
"Not 'he'," the Commissar corrected, and drank from his bottle. "But she. As it turned out, the Enginseer had desperately wanted to have her own child, in spite of its nature as heresy to the Mechanicus. Von Klauser spoke to her at-length on the matter, and, apparently swayed, agreed to take care of the baby. That infant wound up becoming our Heidrich. Technically, he failed to achieve numerous parts of the Korps's indoctrination standards. Technically, he should have been culled before he could waste any more resources. But von Klauser made sure he became a soldier, and took him on as an adjutant when he got a command post again."
The Lady Inquisitor uncrossed her legs and leaned in. "Who was this Enginseer?"
Audes paused for a moment, thinking. "I can't rightly remember."
The Lady sighed.
"But, I do have the original file with all the info von Klauser kept. I saved it from his quarters on Trojus," Audes told her. "He really liked to keep it with him. I can only assume that this Tech-Priest was convincing, because you'd certainly have to be in order to have gotten von Klauser to break his convictions like he did."
"Can you give me the file?" the Lady asked.
Audes held up his hands. "I'm afraid I don't have it on me at the moment."
The Lady grinned. "Don't be sly with me," she joked. "Where do you have it?"
"Back at my billet, over in the local garrison."
"Then I'd be grateful to you if we could run and get it."
The Commissar grunted with a slight pain in his legs as he stood up. "Certainly. I have to say, I'm surprised you've taken such an interest in the boy."
"He's proved to be more help than you can imagine," the Lady said as they walked.
"Then I can only say thank you for taking care of him. I knew he could be something."

"Where is the boy?" Moerchen asked as he ducked through the doorway.
Isnic was on the floor, shirtless, performing his exercises; Gerfrid sat cleaning his weapons; then there was Lamortes, who was reading over books – mounds of books, volumes he had acquired that day at a local librarium.
"Heidrich is helping offload things at the port," the Magos distractedly responded, turning the page of a fat tome on local history.
The Chaplain grumbled with dissatisfaction, and slowly stepped into the room. "Yet again he evades my words."
"The boy needs time alone, I feel," Lamortes said.
"He has had nearly two weeks alone." Moerchen glanced around the room, trying to gauge what the others were doing, then back at Lamortes. "There is a time when we reach the maximum of what we can individually do for ourselves. I would seek to help him with his troubles."
"I'm impressed a Chaplain would care so dearly about a mortal," the Magos noted, shutting the book.
Moerchen straightened out his pose, and put his hands behind his back. "The common man has greater need of my words than Space Marines. We are desensitized to these sorts of things, we draw strength from seeking the vengeance of our fallen comrades... but Heidrich is no Marine. He has been through much these last few months. He deserves counsel."
Lamortes chuckled. "As ever, Chaplain, you do not cease to amaze me."
Moerchen did not respond to this. "When do we anticipate him to return?"
"He'll be back with the Lady," Isnic grunted as he sat up on the floor.
"And when is the Lady anticipated?"
"She called, not too long ago, to say she was on her way."
Moerchen turned his head. "I do not understand why she did not call upon me."
"Because you would draw attention," Lamortes told him as he put the books aside. Equal parts amused and irritated by this response, the Chaplain sank to the wall, and began praying.

Twenty-five years ago, the Enginseer Atrielle Sevanar was exiled from the Calixian world of Belacane; the Magi there had concluded her resources and aptitude were best-used on Krieg, in the far-off Segmentum Pacificus, but had placed a very major note on her relocation forms for the Administratum's benefit: Weak of the Flesh. When word of this reached Omniprophet Tarashik on Scintilla, his conclusion was that this rather infamous message referred to doubts of Atrielle's loyalties, as her sister, Magos Lunelle Sevanar, had already been excommunicated.
Atrielle, von Klauser had vouched in his writing, was a woman of incomparable brilliance: she had, on three separate occasions, repaired critical failures in the flesh-vats which would have cost the Death Korps fifty fetuses; another day, she had managed to awaken the machine-spirits of an entire unused birth-hall, thus enabling the Korps to swell with even greater numbers.
All of the Enginseer's successes paled in comparison to the spit upon protocol she would become so reviled for, however. One day, a rare cell-culture believed to be from Colonel Jurten, the legendary Guard commander who had ordered Krieg incinerated in nuclear flame, turned up missing, and was never found again. Security was baffled, and a conclusion was reached that the culture had been accidentally used to fertilize one of the flesh-vats.
The truth of the matter was, however, that Atrielle had stolen the culture. All her adult life, the sterile Atrielle had yearned to be a mother – it was one wish which the Adeptus Mechanicus had horribly failed to quell. As she had the authority to choose what genetic templates would compose the parents of each Krieger, she filled one specific flesh-vat with a culture of her own cells, and cloned an ovary of her own – then, she gave it life with the stolen culture.
Months later, Enginseer Sevanar ensured she was the only one present for the day the fetus reached maturation; with none to suspect her of any wrong-doing, she stole away the newborn before the facility Quartermaster and a contingent of Tech-Priests came to take note of the birth.
For several months, Atrielle hid the child in her quarters, playing the part of mother to her rightful child. Security was none-the-wiser that one of the best workers in the facility was, on a daily basis, committing a vast number of offenses to the Machine God's laws.
That changed when Atrielle grew careless: knowing that she could not hide the infant forever, she had begun to consider ways to sneak him either off-world or to put him in a favorable situation there on Krieg, so that she could keep guiding his growth. The Enginseer began to raise suspicions when she attempted to test the trust of those she felt would be necessary for her plans. Soon enough, Sevanar had the facility's security breaking through her door. Von Klauser, almost immediately upon entering the Enginseer's quarters, discovered the missing infant in a cradle.
The Colonel had originally been steadfast in his intention to punish Atrielle Sevanar; but as he questioned Atrielle on her motivation, he softened. Von Klauser described the feelings which overtook him to help the Enginseer as sinful, but yet he felt it to be a good and proper thing to do. He vowed to help keep the baby safe from harm, and would not interfere if the Enginseer guided him subtly, less a parent than an observer. The apprehension incident was essentially quieted, and Atrielle Sevanar was returned to her duties… but as to the child, who had been given the personal name Heidrich by his mother, von Klauser created an identity number for the baby, which only ever registered as a minor calculation error on the part of the clerks responsible for newborn codification.
Atrielle, however, persisted in attempting to remain present in the child's life. By the time Heidrich entered his fourth year of growth, the Enginseer was once again conspiring to be a true parent for him. Von Klauser was being returned to active duty, however, and thus when Atrielle attempted to once again spirit away Heidrich, she was apprehended and her plans laid bare for the Adeptus Mechanicus.
The Magi of Krieg were horrified, and quickly concluded that they did not wish to touch the subject of Atrielle Sevanar; she was exiled from Krieg, and made a prisoner aboard a ship bound to take her back to the Calixis Sector for trial there. The vessel never emerged from the warp.
Heidrich grew, never aware of his truly bizarre birthright. When he came of age, von Klauser ensured the boy was thrown into his regiment, and to keep his promise made the Enginseer's son his adjutant.
The Lady Inquisitor closed Commissar Audes's file, and rubbed at her eyes. Long ago, Inquisitor Sobek had told her that all things were ultimately interconnected...
Watching Heidrich doze in the seat across from her, tired and filthy from work, the Lady suddenly realized what her teacher had meant – for in her employ was a living link to Magos Lunelle Sevanar.