Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 273

At the outmost edge of the Cippum stellar system Tezla charted a lonely course. She sailed far from sight, steering away from any contact. She was not a happy ship, deep and cutting had been the purge of her crew, the treacherous and the untrue cast into the void like trash. Adepts and Magos and Logos-savants, none had been so highly placed to avoid the cull. Her crew had been replaced wholesale, only the lowest ratings left to toil in endless drudgery, it mattering little what they thought of the recent mutiny. Tezla's new commander had a lot of rebuilding to do, but for today Wulfe had other concerns.

The Rotundus was stood deep within the Tezla, in a most unique chamber. A recent addition to the Tezla, fitted in great haste and secrecy. He was aware the Enginseers who had performed the refit had been silenced, flushed into space along with the Traitors. A poor reward for loyal service, but the security of his ship was paramount. No more loose talk could be allowed, no more spies could be tolerated, not on this ship.

The room was spherical in nature, split in half by a mesh grille floor. It was filled with arcane machinery that leaked red light from below. Twenty servitor heads lined the circumference, which featured two doors, an entrance and a dedicated Astropath's billet, who would remain in this facility for the rest of his life. It was a strange device, one that made Wulfe uncomfortable and one he would not have tolerated, were he granted any choice in the matter.

The servitor-heads spoke in unison, "An agreement was made, you cannot break this accord."

"I never agreed ta this garbage," Wulfe snarled.

"Irrelevant, you struck a bargain with Belisarius Cawl, Prime Conduit of the Omnissiah."

"Ye can take your bargain and shove it up yur arse!" Wulfe snapped, "You never said it would involve this stupidity!"

"We are not Belisarius Cawl, Polymath and Savant beyond compare, we are the Cawl Diminutive."

"A cheap knock-off is what ye are," Wulfe growled.

The servitor heads went silent and cogitator stacks whirred as the device processed this insult. Wulfe loathed speaking to the machine, its annoying tone and sycophantic terms for its maker reeking of smugness. Wulfe was aware that Cawl had made a similar device for that arrogant blowhard Roboute Guilliman, how he managed not to smash his version into scrap mystified Wulfe.

A click issued from its depths as the Cawl Diminutive reassessed its responses and uttered, "Surely you can see the benefits of this project."

"I see the benefits for you," Wulfe grunted, "For me, fiery death, if word leaks out."

"But that is why you are so ideally placed!" the machine exclaimed, "The purge of the Tezla was the perfect opportunity to recrew the ship. Every magos on board is hand-picked, every adept personally chosen by Belisarius Cawl, most prolific and talented inventor of the age. No more spies, no hidden factions. The Tezla is secure, her crew committed to the mission. All of them were Hereteks and inventors, hunted by the Ruststalker commandos for producing Maletek Incarna. None of them would dare raise word of what we do here, none of them want to."

"Says ye," Wulfe muttered, "It be my head on the chopping block. If word of this gets back to me Holds I'll be named oathbreaker and outcast. The trousers ritual would only be the start."

"Belisarius Cawl, resurrector of Primarchs and builder of futures, assures you that will not happen."

Wulfe shifted his weight as he growled, "If ye dannae quit sucking-up, your logic engines are gonna have a wee accident, involving my Gravity Hammer."

The Cawl Diminutive however replied calmly, "And what of your life-debt? Brontes saved your life, and you swore to repay him in kind. That debt stands unfulfilled, you did not save him. The burden of responsibility does not end with his passing."

Wulfe bit back a curse as the truth sank in. He hated it, he hated having that burden lie upon his shoulders but there it was. Wulfe owed Brontes a life-debt, and the bitter old bag of bolts only had the unmitigated gall to die before it could be repaid. For a Rotundus that was unbearable, an oath was a sacred thing, to be remembered and honoured so long as memory endured. Death was no end to oaths, the onus passing through generations, handed down from father to son like relic weapons. A Rotundus would sooner suffer a thousand woes than break a promise, sooner die than let a debt go unpaid.

The Cawl Diminutive probed, "I take your silence as agreement?"

"An oath is an oath," Wulfe grunted unhappily, "But this is playing with fire, and we will all get burned."

"Excellent," the machine accepted, "This will be communicated to Belisarius Cawl, most high savant..."

It cut off as Wulfe growled angrily, turning on his heel and storming out. He strode into an elevator and slammed the cage shut, watching the chamber slide out of view as the lift ascended. Wulfe chewed on his beard silently as the decks flashed past, taking him to another part of the ship, one equally hidden and twice as heretical. He wished he could go anywhere else but his word was his bond and he would not shirk from the consequences.

The cage stopped with a thump and Wulfe stepped out into a broad workshop. As vast as an arena, with votive candelabras hanging above and pulpits dotted randomly about, from which wizened clerics recited Binaric psalms. The area was divided into many Diviones of study, analyticae, computational-simulacra, construction and testing, mechanical propulsion and Motive Force generation. A whole corner was given over to two great biers, upon which rested the bodies of Brontes and Polydorus, the pair of Cadmus robots laying dissembled like anatomical drawings of a vivisected man. Many adepts were crawling through the flayed wires and sectioned parts, studying, comparing and excitedly pouring over quantum circuits. From the sounds of things they had discovered much and expected more revelations to appear in time.

A hunch-backed adept limped over, his frame made bent by the mass of cogitators and memno-stores bolted to his frame. He wrung his hands together eagerly as he said, "Magos Explorator, What word from the Archmagos?!"

"Nothing but hot air Egor," Wulfe grunted.

"That is not my name."

"I know, I dannae care," Wulfe snorted, "You're all toadying menials. What'a the wee bairns?"

The adept, Egor Wulfe deemed him, turned to another section and expounded, "Abstract cognition is increasing at an exponential rate. We measure fourteen percent growth of synthetic neurons in the last ship-cycle alone."

"At that rate they'll be smart as you in a coupl'a days, smart as a mastiff in a week."

"This is no laughing matter," Egor chided, "The singularity is nearly upon us. The true awakening will be a marvel to behold."

"Wasnae jesting," Wulfe muttered, "Was concerned as ta what happens next."

But Egor crowed, "See our progress for yourself!"

The pair of them stared at a cleared section of floor where a trio of heavy machines were moving back and forth. Broad they were and well armoured, with piston limbs and reinforced chassis, to withstand tremendous damage. A passing glance could mistake them for artefacts of the Legio Cybernetica, Battle-automata, but the shape of the armoured cowls over their many-eyed sensor domes was eerily familiar. Anyone who had met Brontes and Polydorus could not help but recognise the resemblance, though there were differences.

The first of them walked on two legs but had four arms and two sensor-domes, making it appear as if two chests had been fitted onto one set of legs. Another had a humanoid torso but four legs, like a Centyr of proto-history. The third had no lower body but coasted along on a ring of anti-grav impellors, floating over the floor without concern. None of them were fitted with weapons, not yet, but they tracked their target as if they were.

A steel ball the size of a grown man was being rolled between them, batted back and forth with jerks of their limbs as teams of adepts measured every movement. There was something off with their movements, an uncoordinated sense of over-exaggerating, as if they did not know how their bodies worked. Child-like was the only way Wulfe could describe it, a bairn trying to discover its footing and learning how to walk without falling over. It looked comical, save that a couple of days ago they had been rolling on the floor, unable to stand. They were learning fast, faster than he felt comfortable with.

Egor however looked upon them and sighed, "Glorious invention, the most wondrous creations ever seen."

"Inos, Agrave, Samala," Wulfe recited, "The Filii-Cadmus live."

"We shall usher in a new age," Egor boasted, "Once more mankind shall command legions of iron men, undefeatable, untiring and unbreakable. The Space Marines were but a passing fad, Silica Animus are, and always were, the true way. Man and machine working in blessed harmony. As it was in the Golden Age of Technology, so shall it be again!"

Wulfe however didn't sound so sure as he whispered, "Cawl better be right about this, or we will all burn."