"Nnnnnngggg..." Alberich groaned on the bed as I stood over him, listening to the ambient noise of his heart monitor and the fussing of the tech priest behind me as he searched through a pile of books and files that a servitor had hauled over to the hospital recovery room. I had wanted to be there when the Tzaangor woke up, and Null had wanted to search through some old paper records for "something important."
After I had answered a few of the strange tech-priest's questions, I had been supplied with a bowl of gruel and a bath, both of which were welcome after my long hike. Null had prepared two spartan rooms with twin beds for us both, both across the hall from a bathroom with a tub and in the same building as the medical room. A few toilet stalls lining the hall indicated again that this place had once accompanied people, all of which were now absent. It lent this building a haunted feeling, and with no people other than servitors, every little noise was heard and amplified in the vacant silence. After a meal and a good wash, I had gone back to see my traveling companion, who had been transferred to a nearby recovery room. While I had left Alberich's glaive and pack in his room, I had taken my bag with me because I wanted to read some of the books I had picked up in Evanora's manor. After about a half an hour reading cooking instructions on how to to prepare "Creed's Grox Delight" for a contingent of officers, I heard Alberich begin to stir.
"You awake yet? Alberich?" I asked the falcon-headed man as he shifted. With effort, his eyes opened into slits. He groaned again.
"He isn't in pain, I assure you. It is likely he is very dizzy," Null said over the ruffling of parchment. "He should be just fine soon, if a little weak. He will need at least a day or two of light activity to convalesce, so no daemon hunting if you can help it. If you wish, I can have have one of my servitors find a cane for him. Just leave my helpers alone."
My companion had been gravely injured, and had hidden his injury from me during the entire walk from the farmhouse to the pylon. That was an absolutely incredible pain tolerance, I thought.
"Vassa..." he rasped as he moved his arm. I saw him indicate toward a large glass water jug sitting at a nearby table. I was getting a little irritated that Null was only busy with frantically investigating a pile of documents instead of helping me with Alberich. The tech-priest was entirely ignoring the recovering mutant, and with all of his eyes and arms, he was picking up book after book, scanning each one by flipping through the pages. Every so often, he would mutter "No, that's not it, no..."
"Excuse me, Null?" I asked the occupied tech-priest.
"Hmm?"
"Can he drink any water?"
"Of course he can drink water. Mutants can drink water, just like the rest of us. The myths that mutants only drink blood are ignorant superstitions," the tech priest replied, currently unwrapping an ancient looking book from some protective leathery bindings, causing a small cloud of dust to rise from his corner. That probably wasn't very sterile.
"No, I know that he can normally drink water. I mean, is it alright for him to have a drink right now?"
"Oh, yes, why not?" Null said, distracted. The tech-priest began scanning another book.
This was frustrating, and I had no idea what the tech-priest was investigating so fervently that made him need to look for it right this minute. I walked over to the water jug, and poured some water into a battered aluminum cup, and returned to my drugged up companion.
"Can you sit up? You had a ruptured spleen. You really could've died."
"I've died before. It isn't anything special," the Tzaangor said with a wan smile, pushing himself up on the bed. He was shirtless, and a broad white bandage wrapped across his midsection. He reached for the cup of water in my hands, and thanked me before gently tilting the contents into the side of his beak. Alberich shuddered. "How long was I asleep? I feel as if I've had far too much beer."
"Two hours, twenty-nine minutes," Null responded behind me before I could answer.
Alberich continued sipping water. "It feels as if my insides are twisted. Who was the surgeon? Was it this metal man there?" the Tzaangor asked me.
Again, Null answered without looking up from whatever he was reading in the corner. "Technology was your surgeon. You've been successfully operated on by an autodoc reconstructed by my own hand from the discovery of a partially functional medical STC, a miraculous relic nearly lost to time! I even accounted for your anatomical abnormalities. I do not yet hear the music of a thank you, mutant."
Alberich's ears pulled back after drinking, and he softly growled, "Thank you, but I would prefer that you not continuously call me a mutant. If you need the name of my species, I am a-"
"-Tzaangor, yes I know, I know. I am simply stating fact. Unless you are wholly ignorant of the mighty Imperium of Mankind, you should know that humankind is the master race, and when I call you a mutant, it is simply stating the fact that you're a deviant from our perfect template. Mutant is simply what you are," Null continued to insult while immersed in his books.
I watched Alberich clamp his beak shut, and his hackles went up. Another low growl issued from his throat until I touched his shoulder reassuringly. "Look, we all have to get along here. We've got to find a way off this planet and being rude doesn't help anyone," I directed that last part to Null with a raised voice, trying to be diplomatic.
"Where is my weapon?" The Tzaangor calmly questioned me while stretching his arms. He had been moved from his previous position on the autodoc to a more comfortable bed in another room with a few empty beds, which was where we all were now. I shot Alberich a threatening look which wasn't caught by Null, who was now unraveling a series of what appeared to be star charts and humming to himself.
"It's in another room. When you're up and able to walk I'll get it for you," I reassured. I leaned over to the Tzaangor's ear and whispered, "I know he's rude, but he might know a way to escape this planet, so just deal with it for a little bit, alright?"
"I can hear you speaking over there, you two," Null responded brusquely before muttering, "Oh, this isn't it either! Blast it!"
"No one likes rudeness," Alberich said simply, dryly coughing. "I thank you, Null, for your expertise. It is incredible the technology that exists here. Where I came from, there were no such curative devices. Weeks of convalescence would have been required after a major surgery."
"You're quite articulate; a tribute to your people. I suppose Tzaangors as a whole would be more intelligent than their kin, considering what Chaos power they patronize. I admit my first hand experience with the beastman phenotype of mutants is limited, so that gap in my knowledge will be filled by having you here," the tech-priest offered in a backhanded way. "Speaking of that, I will have no profane rituals or utterances to any Chaos entities here. Not like they could hear you, but still. You are in my house, so abide by my rules. I associate with you only reluctantly, and only because I have a more liberal view of reality than my associates. Any other servant of the Omnissiah would have you purged immediately."
Alberich didn't respond, and I poured him another cup of water, some of which dribbled down the sides of his face. "Drinking with a beak is still something I need to get used to, it seems," he remarked. Null remained rifling through his papers, vocalizing his irritation and not finding what exactly it was that he was looking for.
"It should really be here! I put that book in storage here precisely 199 years previously!" He huffed. Still perched on Null's shoulder, I heard Jiminy make a few sad tones followed by a squawk.
"What are you looking for?" I asked, standing from my chair at Alberich's bedside. I walked to Null in his corner of the room, who was surrounded by crates of books and scrolls.
"A book! The Imperium printed a comprehensive book on Levant's history. There was an unfortunate accident where most of the books were destroyed, but I had sworn that I had one squirreled away here! Foolish mistakes!" Null complained bitterly. By now, I had begun to notice that this strange tech-priest was indeed very unorthodox. Despite his obvious moodiness, he was far more tolerant of things the Imperium might find deviant, with an obvious example of his begrudging acceptance and even healing of the Tzaangor recovering nearby. He was also very liberal with voicing his distaste at anything he found not to his approval, which included the Imperium itself. Maybe being higher in the pecking order would allow some vicissitude in how he could express himself, I thought.
"Anything I can do to help?" I asked Null as he opened yet another dusty book, kneeling down to where he sat on the floor, surrounded by a ring of scrolls, tomes, and reams of paper. A servitor appeared in the doorway, holding yet another crate.
"Unless you happen to be in miraculous possession of 'Local History of Levant: The Hidden Frontier', keep your fleshy fingers away. I wouldn't want your ungloved touch degrading some of these priceless artifacts," he said after a buzzing agitated sigh.
Wait a moment, I thought. That title sounded familiar. I walked back to where I had set my pack in the far corner of the room, and reached inside. Sitting at the bottom, I found the copy of the history book I had found in Evanora's manor. I pulled it out and looked at it. Yup, this looked like what he was looking for!
"You mean this book?" I said smugly, displaying my prize.
Null instantly stood up and his eyes animated the expression of surprise, briefly flaring red into blue. "Where did you find that?!" He strode over to me angrily and tore the book out of my hands, and began to flit through it. His eyes became unreadable as he paused before turning to me again. "You didn't steal this from me, did you?" He asked with suspicion.
"I found this in Evanora's manor. I hadn't had time to read through it since I was rushing to get to you."
"So, Evanora must have stolen it during one of her visits. It is good that nothing ever came of her heretical mind reading this," he said with relief. The tech-priest closed the book, and motioned for me to follow him as he walked over to where Alberich was now fully sitting up in his bed, holding his cup of water and watching us with curiosity. As we approached, Null used a previously hidden whip-like mechadendrite to snag a metal chair, effortlessly dragging it over to place next to the bed. This gave me the impression that not only was Null very smart, but also, very physically dangerous. His mercurial nature combined with his intelligence and strength made him intimidating. This Tin Man felt like he not only had a heart, but that he had too much of one.
Null placed the chair next to where I had been seated adjacent to Alberich's bed, and sat down. "Alright, let's see here!" the tech-priest said with excitement before opening the history book. "On the mundane side, this book details the history of this planet, the mysterious xeno-constructed pylons, its discovery near the end of the Great Crusade over ten thousand years ago, and a list of some notable planetary governors as it drifted in and out of relevance. Aside from the pylons and their Warp-reactive technology, most of this information can be found replicated in uncountable planets across the Imperium, repeated and unremarkable." Null flitted through the book, searching for something specific as he spoke. "There was one delicious exception! This book references a mysterious discovery found at the base of Adler Tower, covered in mud and silt from a volcanic mudflow from another age!"
Null paged through the book until he found the relevant chapter. "Here we are!" he said, triumphantly, before holding up the book for us to see. "You asked me previously if there was any hope for us, stranded on this dying world. I show you now this hope."
The tech-priest displayed a page decorated with a complex mechanical drawing. The art was of a scientific illustration of some kind of mechanical bird of prey, its wings spread like an Aquila, and head turned toward the right. A brief summary of the subject was written in a sharp hand. I was surprised when Null began reading it out to us, not needing to see the page he was reading from. Alberich and I listened as he began to speak.
"An incredible discovery has been unearthed at the base of Adler Tower, hidden through the ages by floodwaters and silt from a great flood long since past. The subject appears at first to be a gigantic sculpture of a noble eagle, approximately two hundred meters in width, its wings spread under fifty meters of silt. Electromagnetic scanning has brought up an interesting note. It appears to be psychically active, and appears to be made of some kind of living metal that appears completely free of any corrupting Warp taint. Preliminary scans indicate that not only is it an artful sculpture, but that this may be some sort of void ship constructed during the Dark Age of Technology, or perhaps even earlier. A petition to the Adeptus Astra Telepathica will be dispatched for further esoteric study, and the Adeptus Mechanicus will begin their excavation once full approval arrives from Holy Terra and Mars. Soon, the Imperium will have a new and exciting mystery to solve."
Null smiled with his eyes again, and sighed. "I wrote that. I wrote that 991 years ago. Oh how time flies!" He pulled the book back to himself again.
There was a pause that held great emotion as he remained looking at the illustration of the eagle with wistful artificial eyes. "There was an accident, you see. This book was printed here, along with thousands of others, but never made it off planet. There was an accident that destroyed nearly all the titles printed about the great eagle buried at Adler. Lines of communication got crossed, and the help was never sent for full excavation and study. The initial word that was sent back suggested that they wanted to tear it apart. They wanted to dissect it, to dismantle it. There were many accidents, and now, I stand alone here," the tech-priest said, half to us and half to himself.
The weight of what he implied was heavy. I cautiously asked him, "What is the eagle? Can it help us?"
Null closed the book, and sat silently with the tome on his lap, his eyes searching and animating a blinking motion. The tech-priest began again. "This eagle wasn't simply an eagle, from what we discovered. Our scans weren't actually able to penetrate its skin, but the senior astropath and psyker we had with us claimed that it shone like the Astronomicon itself. He was a strange lad. Talented, strong, unusually sensitive to the undercurrents of time and thought. The pylon network here was not active when I first arrived, so he would stay up for nights at a time, simply basking in its psychic radiance, visible to him despite still being buried under the earth. Before the unfortunate fleshling passed, he said that he had seen the light of God, and that this buried eagle was a "Chariot of Fire" for God Himself. He died shortly after. My fellows and I were able to interface into his dying thoughts, and found that he had seen pieces of the interior of the eagle."
The tech-priest paused, increasingly overwhelmed in his reverie of the past. His eyes shifted to a brilliant gold, and moved as if searching for something. He gripped his knees, and took a deep breath before he began again.
"It was no sculpture indeed; we had been correct. It was a flawless void ship, eons old. The silt had frozen it in time, and protected it from any hungry pirates, greedy politicians, or wandering treasure hunters. The hidden treasure had been sleeping for thousands of years under the local government's nose. All of us were stunned at its beauty, one of my team even overloading from sheer power of what the poor fleshling had seen. I alone was able to completely parse through the images pulled from the psyker, and only I recognized similar technology from within, due to my high station."
Null was now trembling. "I... I... " the tech-priest began to tic, his implants and limbs jumping slightly before he gained control over himself. "Traveler," he turned to me, his artificial eyes still gold, now shining brightly. "You know of our universe, our history, what the Imperium is, and our Omnissiah, our Emperor, yes? You know what sustains the Astronomicon?" he stammered the question.
I nodded slowly, and the tech-priest also nodded in turn. "Yes, yes. I would never tell anyone uninitiated in the higher secrets any of this, but now, I say these things. It is the end of my tenure, the end of this world, and you are here, perhaps hope is here yet f-for us? For all of humankind?" His last words came out in a slight stutter, and were almost half mad. He barked a distraught laugh. "And they said 'No!' They said 'We will dissect this bird and scatter its pieces to all corners of the galaxy for study!' The very suggestion of doing such a thing was obscene! I did what I had to do and-"
Null paused again. "I-I distract. The eagle is a ship, yes. It sleeps still under us right now. No one can get inside; all we had were the visions the dead psyker had witnessed. But from those visions, I recognized something. Something only a few of us in the Adeptus Mechanicus know much about. On the bridge of the eagle ship, I saw something. A machine. It was a chair, a psychokinetic apparatus. At the very moment the psyker witnessed it, his heart ruptured, and he died with an expression of awe. For you see, he had seen it before, even if he did not remember. When he was sanctioned, he saw a glimpse of something similar, but not the same. The Golden Throne of Terra! The Golden Throne! Different, but similar enough. Similar technology, I think. I do not know. I was the only one who recognized the similarity. The others did not, or would not see it, but I could! And the ship attached to it had a name! I pulled the name from the last images of what the dead man had seen, and I voiced it aloud, once and only once."
"I said the words, 'Divine Retribution' and committed myself to the study of it. Technology must be preserved and studied, yes, but if you find a wild unicorn, you do not cut her into pieces in order to study its link to God!" In a fit of anger, Null reached out with his prehensile whip appendage, and picked up the nearby glass water jug, and effortlessly threw it across the room as if it were a pebble, shattering on the wall and spraying many of the books with broken glass and water. Alberich and I remained frozen nearby, the Tzaangor's feathers all on edge.
"I apologize for that outburst, Traveler. I do, I do." The tech-priest closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were grey. "I have been here for nearly a thousand years, studying the pylons and the hidden Retribution below. There were many accidents, difficulties, and eventually, the Imperium stopped sending for tithes, and stopped supplying us with supplies and people. As the Warp began to encroach here, we were forgotten. It was probably for the best." Null nodded, and I could see him relax.
There was a silence, and this time, Alberich was the one who started speaking. "Why do you tell us this? I mean no disrespect, but what help can we offer? How is it hope to us?" The Tzaangor pulled himself up a little and leaned in to the tech-priest. He was looking better already.
"While I have studied it for millennia, this machine buried beneath us remains mostly a mystery to me, as it resists all attempts to get inside, but it represents a glimmer of hope," Null responded, appearing almost embarrassed at his answer. "But, if Traveler Erika holds hidden knowledge from beyond our universe on such things, perhaps we will not all be torn asunder by Warp creatures when I can no longer bolster the pylon network. It is still a ship, one that is hopefully still Warp-capable after all these years. It would be my life's dream to see such a ship wake again."
When the tech-priest said that, I felt a sinking feeling. I hadn't read anything in the lore about any sort of eagle ship named the Divine Retribution (or just the Retribution, I wasn't sure), as cool as it sounded. Maybe it was part of some old Rogue Trader lore? The name of the ship was familiar though, and I sat for a moment as both Null and Alberich turned toward me expectantly. I saw Alberich say "Adler Tower" under his breath, his face taking on a contemplative manner.
"I can't remember anything offhand, but something about the name seems familiar," I answered truthfully. "Is there a way that we could see it? I didn't see any giant eagles walking here."
"Oh yes. While it is mostly still underground, we dug many tunnels in our preliminary studies. I had a research center there devoted to the Retribution and it is there that I do my work most of the time to this day. I will give you both a tour once the mutant is well enough, but for tonight, rest is ideal for you both. Fleshlings need proper rest to refuel themselves and to be operating at optimal efficiency, so you can be of proper help and have good memory recall." Jiminy cheeped affirmatively on Null's shoulder as he stood up beside Alberich's bed. The tech-priest handed the history book to me once again. "While this book is quite fat with information, you could easily just ask me anything about what you need to know," he said with a self-important hum. Null then finally noticed the mess of broken glass and water decorating the far side of the recovery room. "I shall send for a clean up. Rest tonight, food will be brought to you in your rooms at 2000 hours, which is in about ninety minutes. Alberich, you will be able to walk within an hour, if not sooner, but just take it easy. Feel free to explore, but do not attempt to go into any closed off areas, for they may be dangerous for unmodified fleshlings."
"Thank you, Null," I responded. "I'll try to help you with whatever you need here. No one wants to be daemon food, right?"
"No sane person, no," the tech-priest said. "But you'd be surprised in this universe. I will now take my leave, as I have important research to consult now that you are here. I will send for you tomorrow at 0800 hours. Have a good evening, Traveler Erika," Null said with a gentlemanly bow before stepping outside.
"I didn't get a goodbye," Alberich mockingly remarked, removing the blanket off of the lower half of his body, revealing that he still wore his roughshod trousers. Removing the heart monitor attached to his chest, he began to gingerly step off the bed, a clawed hand reaching across his bandaged midsection.
"Does it hurt? Null said you might need a cane."
"Not really, and I do not think a cane is necessary. It feels as if I have a hangover, and that someone struck me in the stomach. Weakness, more like," he said, standing cautiously. The Tzaangor straightened his back, and raised his arms over his head to stretch. "I do have to commend the metal man for his ownership of such a miraculous machine. I have been healed of something that should have taken weeks of rest after a surgery, but here I am."
"That's great. When did you get hurt that badly? I didn't see that much blood on you."
Alberich was stretching his limbs, testing his balance. As he did this, a short jawless servitor with no legs wheeled into the room and began mutely picking out shards of glass from the jug Null had shattered earlier using some kind of metal proboscis attached to its torso. With a whir, it vacuumed up each bit of glass into the appendage. Servitors really were a very unsettling part of this universe, I thought. I looked back to my companion as he answered my question with, "A pink horse devil struck me with its tongue. It was stronger than it appeared, and the pain was not like any pain I had experienced before."
I flashed back to the battle we had fought with the Slaaneshi daemons, and I remembered a steed of Slaanesh getting a good hit on him as I was burning up daemonettes. "That devil was a daemon, and it is called a 'steed of Slaanesh'. Those creatures are like cavalry for the Pleasure God. The crab ladies we fought are called daemonettes. They're really good at inflicting pain."
"One would think that a pleasure god wouldn't care much for causing pain," Alberich said with a morbid laugh. "Do not worry. I can stand. I wish to lay in a proper bed, and not in this room that has an animated metal corpse doing housecleaning."
"Yeah, good idea," I said as I picked my pack up on the other side of the room, returning the history book inside. "Follow me. Everything is centralized in this building. Our rooms are just down the hall."
We spent the rest of our evening reading and eating gruel that Null had brought to our rooms using his creepy servitors, along with a small pile of what appeared to be fresh clothes that smelled as if they had been in storage for awhile, which was quite welcome. I fell asleep fairly early that night, but, just like the previous evening, my dreams were once again troubled.
"Hello, Erika," a voice said to me in a wall of darkness. "You don't think I'd let you get away from me that easily, do you?"
Amnaich's face began to emerge from the shadow, smiling.
