Armorum Fidei Chapter 3
Ratsy felt the deck swaying under his feet as he inched down the narrow passageway, the familiar thumping rhythm of huge tracks turning far below vibrating everything. He walked with a steady gait, accustomed to the rumble shaking his bones. It was so familiar that he didn't even notice it anymore, merely another background noise like the grumble of the engines or the thumping of his heart. So he pressed on, content that all was right with the world.
Ratsy was small, which made him look younger than he was. His build was slim and lacked muscle, signs of a life spent in cramped conditions with little food. He wore ragged overalls with many pockets and his face and hair were caked with dirt and grease that was never washed off. A bundle of charms and trinkets hung on twine cords around his neck, tangled and knotted around each other to form one solid mass. Boots of cheap make rang on the floor, drowned out by rumbling machinery, or at least he hoped so.
The passageway was narrow and dark, all lumen orbs long since burned out. The plasteel walls rattled in tune with rumbling machinery and the air was hot and close. Ratsy always felt nervous at this part. It wasn't the chance that the Proctors would catch him and dragged him before the uncaring Enginseers, but rather the idea that something important would give way and drop him into crushing gears and pounding pistons. It was daft, he knew this section had stood for centuries without issue and would do so for centuries more, but the idea troubled him. The sense of danger making his hair stand up.
His swift passage brought him near an exhaust port and his eyes began to water. The air here was foul and heavy with oil residue. Ratsy had no wish to coat his lungs with this muck so took a deep breath and then hurried along, trying to reach his goal quickly. The air grew torpid and exhaust fumes lay heavy upon his clothes, but he kept his head down and his mouth shut, determined not to breathe. He was glad when he felt a cold wind rush over him, blowing the fumes away and he let out a gasp of relief as the atmosphere cleared.
Before him rose a ladder, merely metal rings sticking out of the wall. He grabbed the lowest and began to ascend, climbing with surprising speed. The air grew colder and he shivered but a bright light drew him upwards, promising daylight at last. In a few minutes he reached the top, high enough to make his head spin, and he heaved himself over the lintel, to find himself confronted by two burly men with clenched fists.
"It's me!" Ratsy yelped, "Only me!"
"You're late," grumbled the nearest.
"Overseers kept the shift late Behras, dammed Algae baths cracked a leak and they wouldn't let us go till it was cleaned up."
The other leaned in and hissed, "You got the stuff?"
"You got my coin Tommes?"
"Right here," said the man opening his hand to reveal brass coins."
Ratsy grabbed them and stuffed them in a pocket, then fished in another and took out two small packets, filled with greenish mush. He handed them over furtively and said, "You get caught with that…"
"We'll make sure to forget your name," Behras scoffed.
Tommes shook his head and said, "We don't have to do this here, why not meet in the lower decks?"
"And miss the view?" Ratsy scoffed.
The men chuckled as they stepped aside. Both wore thick jackets and gloves against the chill, and both had tangled charms around their necks like his own, but that wasn't why he was here. Ratsy stepped past them into a small cupola, filled with the bulky mass of a Heavy Bolter. He leaned over the gun and stuck his head out the low-angled hole, seeing Suna with his own eyes. An endless vista of sweeping plains greeted him, seen from a hundred metres up the horizon was a vast sweep of green. The sun was low and cast a massive shadow across the landscape, the carriages of Narthi silhouetted on the ground. To the left was a wake of churned earth, Narthi chewing up the ground and swallowing Algae blooms as it passed, but to the right was the Train-City itself. Ratsy craned his head and saw carriages stretching away, eight kilometres of rumbling tracks and slab-sided walls fading into the distance. Artillery barrels, vox-masts and Ornithopter landing pads were just visible, ever ready to defend the Train-city. The walls were etched with wards and marks of aversion, a protective measure far more valuable than guns and walls could ever be.
Ratsy squinted and made out a few motes in the distance, tripedal machines scooping up algae into broad coffers set behind the riders. Augmenting Narthi's constant consumption of the planet's prime resource. Ratsy breathed, "Look at that, imagine what it must be like to go outside."
Behras snorted, "Outside the walls… no thanks. It's bad luck to go outside."
Tommes scratched his ear and muttered, "Never understood how it works. I mean we eat the stuff, we make clothes out of it, so how do we brew Promethium out of algae?"
"Trade secret," Ratsy replied with a grin.
Behras asked a little too casually, "Care to tell us how you grow the good stuff?"
"That's my head if I tell anyone," Ratsy scoffed, "Maybe I'll pass along the secret when I buy my way out of here and go outside."
Tommes chuckled, "I don't know why you find it so interesting, there's nothing worth seeing out there. It's dull."
"You try spending your life bent over a Nutri-tray, seeing nothing but metal walls all your life, then tell me about dullness," Ratsy retorted.
"It's not all dull," Behras sniffed, "We turned left last week, got to spend the day watching Narthi come about. Oh, and there was a good show the other day."
"Really?"
"Yeah, the preachers came around again, trying to push their eagle onto us. We offered up the usual rabble to fob them off, but those losers got tricky and tried to run."
"We got to watch the whole thing," Tommes cackled, "It was a bloodbath, and then a second hanging. Then they made some speeches, before driving back to their eagle-nest."
Ratsy fumbled with his charms and said, "Eagle I've got one of those… yeah right here, see."
Behras peered at it and mused, "Two-headed, I ain't got that one yet. Got the three turn spiral, a lucky Weevil Foot, the ascending Star, a salted hardcrust, a mirror, an obsidian feline, the crossed fingers and a penny I found unlooked for."
Tommes scoffed, "Weak! I got me a wish-shell the other day."
"What's that?"
"Mistress Geryte told me you take a Mould beetle shell, leave it to soak in starlight overnight, then have a child whistle over it thrice and it'll keep you safe from bad luck."
"That works?"
"Course it does. Evil things can't abide starlight and innocence. Stands to reason, dun' it."
Ratsy shook his head and muttered, "I'll keep the eagle thanks, it's got to do something, right?"
Behras sighed, "I don't get these Eagle-preachers. Harping one about one spirit. Makes no sense, more spirits is better, gotta be. Sure I bow to the eagle when they come by, but I'm not giving up my protections."
Tommes snorted, "You can keep your eagle, it's never been any good against the Psybrids."
The man trailed off as all three of them scowled. He'd said it, he'd named the Xenos, the ultimate taboo on Suna. You never named them, you called them Outsiders, Star-locusts, Nightsingers, Far Strangers, the Hungering, or simply 'Them'. The people of Suna lived in eternal fear of the Xenos, their entire lives pivoting upon the dread of hourglass starships darkening the sky and lamprey-mouthed horrors falling from above. Two millennia of raids and invasions, two millennia of the Imperium never doing enough to stop them. Even the vaunted Space Marines couldn't stop them, always off fighting a distant war.
Ratsy has heard tales that once his ancestors had lived in static cities, brewing bio-fuel for the Imperium. If true they had abandoned such obvious targets, packing themselves into Train-cities in the belief that eternally moving would keep them out of danger. Ten thousand souls were crammed into Narthi and it was only one Train-city. They covered it in guns, artillery and Ornithopter pads but these were feeble defences. Only layers of wards kept them safe from alien domination, plus the charms and rituals passed out by the shamans, which the people hoarded like Misers.
"Quick, Avert their gazes!" Behras crowd and. All three men hastily touched their right hips then their left shoulders then spat on the deck.
Ratsy sank back and hissed, "Damn it, be more careful."
"Sorry, it was a slip of the tongue," Tommes protested.
Behras muttered, "Mistress Climya said this was an ill-omened year. She looked into the crystals and saw the Black Mastiff hanging over Suna."
Tommes gasped, "That's the worst sign of all. Ratsy, you better keep your head down."
But Ratsy scoffed, "Are you jesting? Bad times mean more business for me, people will pay anything for the good stuff when troubles come."
Behras signed, "You're playing a dangerous game, if you get caught the Enginseers will chuck you to the eagle-preachers to hang."
"Nothing good comes without risk. You see, I'm not going to spend my life stamping ration bars or polishing a gun. I'm gonna be someone important, I'm destined for grander things. A soothsayer sang over my crib that I would stride the world as a colossus."
"A wonderful sign," Tommes gasped."
"Nah, I made that up myself, but you'll see. I'm going places. I'll be a steersman one day, if not an Enginseer myself."
"Keep dreaming," Behras snorted, "Those snobs don't apprentice just anyone."
"Just you watch," Ratsy rejoined as he pushed past them and made for the ladder.
His hands were freezing cold as he grasped the ladder and made his descent. He left the gunners to their freezing cupola as he descended back into the darkness, making his way deeper into Narthi. He negotiated the choking fumes and the dark passageways beyond. A twisted maze of pipes and ducts awaited but he passed by without trouble, then began climbing stairs and ladders again. He left the grinding machinery below, ascending past vast vats of Promethium fuel until he reached the upper decks, where the populace lived.
The upper reaches of Narthi were more of the same bare metal, only now they were packed with people. Dirty workers pushed past mothers trying to keep screaming children in tow. Hawkers sold their wares in whatever alcoves they could find and grumbling laundry women pushed carts piled high with wet attire. Here and there curtains partitioned off Soothsayers and fortune-tellers, plying their mystical trade to lines of people queuing to hear their fates read aloud. Black-clad Proctors forced a passage through the crowds with shock-staves, so richly appointed Enginseers could pass untroubled, followed by envious eyes. The mech-elite of Suna, who kept the Train-cities alive and moving, tending to matters physical, as the shamans did the spiritual.
The noise was a racket in the ear and the smell of too many people crammed together clawed at the nose but Ratsy ignored it. His belly rumbled and he eyed a vendor hawking ration bars. The coins in his pocket were dwelling in his mind but he resisted the urge to spend his money. Flashing wealth was a sure way to draw unwanted attention, from the Proctors as well as thieves. Plus he worked in official ration-production and knew the stuff sold privately was riddled with beetles, weevils and engine grease.
He put his head down and pushed through the crowd, careful to keep one hand wrapped around his pocket. Soon he reached a blank door and opened it with a small key, not much protection but it sufficed. Inside he found his billet, a small square room with little to commend it. A metal slab and a coarse blanket passed for a bed, a latrine in the corner that smelled awful at the best of times and a few shelves with tools and ragged overalls. This was all Ratsy was given by Narthi, a standard billet for unmarried workers. He couldn't really remember his parents, they'd died when he was young, leaving him to scrape for a living however he could. Unimpressive it may be, but it was his.
Ratsy looked about the room then locked the door behind him. He looked again, making sure nothing had been disturbed in his absence. Satisfied he stepped to a blank wall and felt around the edges of the panels. One sheet was loose, cunningly set so not to be obvious and with practised hands he lifted it out and set it aside. Behind the panel was a deep recess and a wet, peaty smell hit him as he opened it. He grinned wickedly, for it had taken him ages to get the latrine to smell bad enough to cover that telltale aroma. Effort that paid off royally.
In the recess was his secret. Trays of algae-rich nutrients, broken parts he had flinched from stores and meticulously repaired. A small heat-lamp lit the space red, powered by spliced cables running further back into the wall. The trays were filled with a strange fungal growth, flecked with pink and red. The Good Stuff, he called it, a powerful sporific that was both profitable and illegal. The Enginseers thought they'd stamped it out, but those in the know had ways to keep the trade alive.
Ratsy knew if he was caught with this he wouldn't even get to the eagle-preachers, the Proctors would throw him under the tracks of Narthi and burn his stash. Still he wasn't about to let that stop him. He carefully added stolen Nutri-gel from his pockets to the trays then resealed the recess and stepped back. All was as it should be and Ratsy grinned as he whispered, "Grow strong and fast, I've got customers waiting. I'm going places and you're my ticket out of here."
