Secunday, Rami 23rd 067.M42

Maddy finally came back late in the night again. I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to sleep. They're up on this level again, I don't know if sleeping would let them send me dreams again. But they've clearly gotten to Mum and Dad, I didn't want to give them the opportunity to try to get at me again. Mum spent a couple of hours trying to call me, but I wasn't going to answer. Not without talking to Maddy.

She came in alone at first. I didn't know if this was good or bad, but the anxiety that I'd been stewing on for the last several hours tightened into a huge knot in my belly and I nearly vomited before she got a chance to even say anything. I almost didn't want to hear what she had to say, in case it was the worst case scenario. Thankfully, she had some… news. I hesitate to call it good. But then there's little good about this whole situation, no matter how hard I try to find something.

However, my life isn't forfeit - for now. There's a use for me, if nothing else as a local guide and an adept, with access to the data stacks if needed. If I conduct myself well, then there may be an ongoing use for me in her Master's operation. But she said there's every chance that during this, my usefulness may prove itself limited, and in that case… But if there is a place for me in her Master's service, then that will be the end of Rewalt Mason the Scribe-Adept of Asphodel's Office of Tithing and Export Management. I'll still be Rewalt, but I'll be nobody to the galaxy at large, a man who doesn't exist any more.

As we were talking, the others came in. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting. The stories you hear about the Inquisition involve leather-clad Lords, striding through hives and casting death wherever their gaze lands. Assassins and orbital bombardments. But I'm pretty sure that I wasn't expecting a group of three men and another women who looked just as ordinary and unremarkable as me. I wasn't told who exactly they were, or what their purposes are. I was given names - Nate. Kel. Remy. Jakob. From the sheer size of him and the muscle built onto his frame, I can posit that Jakob is or was some manner of soldier. And I think Nate is the leader of this… group. Cell. Whatever you want to call it. The others seemed to defer to him at least.

I wanted to tell Maddy about my family, about what had happened and what Mum had said to me, but once the group was gathered in our hideout, the talk went straight on to the extent of the infestation. From what I could gather from the discussion occurring, Maddy had realised that the cult had taken root, but didn't realise that it had extended so far or become so advanced. So when she called in for back up, she sent the call for a small group of specialists who would handle it surgically - stepping in to find the core and cut it out, then mopping up the rest while the cult was in disarray from the removal of its heart. But Kel confirmed with the explosion of unrest between the Kai-Tens and the Hadrigans, it seems the cult are feeling confident enough to move into their later-stage plans. It's apparently a known progression for these… things. They move slowly - it's possible that this infestation has been in place for years, possibly decades - infiltrating their way through the lower levels of the hive, building up a power base of the disaffected and the lost, hypnotising them and corrupting them, spreading their infection as far as they can. They also work to infiltrate the structures of power in their adopted home, infiltrating their people, or those who are controlled by them into significant positions, so that when they're ready they can start shutting things down from all levels and then take over completely.

That led to some arguing about the group's position here, about whether things are too far gone to excise the cult and save the Hive, or whether Asphodel is irredeemably corrupted. It was bizarre, nightmarish - listening to these strangers with accents that I've never even heard before discussing the merits of my world, my home, and what is worth struggling to save, whether there is anything that might be salvaged or whether it's better just to let everything burn to deny its worth to the enemy that has festered within.

There was no consensus reached in that discussion. Remy was of the opinion that the world is done for, that the corruption has spread too far and that the threat of the enemy is too great, that any lighter sentence would possibly leave seeds of corruption to take root once more, if not spread on the winds from here. Maddy and I both argued that even if Minos can't be spared, we've not been able to find any indication that the cult has yet spread to the other hives - if Minos must be lost, surely Asphodel itself might still be saved? Kel and Jakob got stuck arguing about whether saving Imperial lives and assets was more important than denying the enemy the opportunity to spread. Nate reminded everyone that the specific threat that is being dealt with here, these Genestealers, are infiltrators. They're designed to spread throughout a population and to do it well. But he also took a care to point out that just destroying an entire world is not something that should be done without being sure that it's absolutely the only option left.

He ordered Maddy to take him, Jakob and Remy out into the hive, so that he could see the extent of the corruption with his own eyes, and so that perhaps they could try to pin down the root of it, the core from which it grew. He ordered Kel and I to go to the central data stacks - not just those belonging to the Office of Tithing and Export Management, but the big Administratum ones near the core - and for us to search whatever records we could find across all of the hives on Asphodel to try and figure out how far this infiltration has spread. If it seems that it's relatively contained to Minos, then we might have some hope. But if it's moved any further beyond that, then our chances of rooting out all of the corruption are effectively nil, and my home, like my own life, may end up being forfeit.