They Too Serve
While Ciaphas Cain, SAVIOR OF CASSANDRON, relaxes and basks in the approval of the Cassandronians, people are working behind the scenes to see that it stays that way...
The Sobor, Cassandron High Slavonic съборъ, was a formal Cassandronian gathering of the twenty local Bishops together with other clerical and lay delegates representing the Church of the Saviour Emperor to deal with matters of faith, morality, rite, and canonical and cultural life. It was in Secretary of Cabinet and Larder First Class Polonia Laerta Smith's opinion mostly redundant in terms of what it was supposed to accomplish, but a good lever to pull if you needed to keep religion from getting in the way of actually running the planet.
Officially speaking Cassandron was governed by the aptly titled Governor. In truth it was ruled by the covens which were heretical congregations of blood-drinking mutants, but not otherwise all that bad as far as Imperial rulership went. The Ecclesiarchy claimed to lead Cassandron in the Light of the Emperor. She had little idea what that might have meant had the Cassandron Civil Service not engaged in a millennia long campaign of divide and conquer and had no intention to find out.
The Cassandron Civil Service was the body that ran the planet. They sat at boring budget committees to see that infrastructure was maintained and the bills got paid, they audited the various buys of everything from construction and highway maintenance equipment to PDF and SDF contracts, buildings, and agridomes which they also had to launder as they had more of those than the strictly speaking were supposed to. They made sure that, no matter the crisis, no matter the chaos or pirate embargo, once the dust settled there would still be society left.
"...it is unnatural and unseemly and we will all be burned alive! Our virgins will be raped on foul altars! This visit is merely a devious scheme devised, deviously, to have Ciaphas Cain, if that is his real name, ascend over us and rule with an iron boot!" said Bishop Elmar Calpurnius who acted as the Presiding Ecclesiarch for the Sobor, winding down a surprisingly elaborate fit of panic.
"My lord Presiding Ecclesiarch, the Warlord Cain has after long and tense negotiations..." of grand total of five minutes which consisted of Sir Harold telling them how things would be run from now on "...granted us the Edict of Faithful Separation and the Declaration of Tolerance which..."
"Then the new Governor, cursed be his collaborating ways, is breaking the First Covenant! Then this Warmaster Cain will ascend to power and rule over us all with an iron boot! They are all cultists!" the Abbess Kunegunda Antos of the Civil Sisterhood of the Blood of Sainted Martyrs exclaimed. In her red and white robes the gracefully aging woman looked the very picture of an Emperor's Bride.
Polonia Laerta happened to know that the Civil Sisterhood of the Blood of Sainted Martyrs was in fact a front for their true rulers. The woman was a blood cultist herself aiming to be Exalted before the rejuvenation treatments stopped working. The joke would be on her though, Polonia Laerta would still outrank her despite being a human.
If she was a human.
"This Liberation Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all people may and must fulfill their duty to worship their chosen True God or Gods with immunity from coercion and harassment in civil society," she read out loud from the Edict of Tolerance which was frankly decadent in it's liberty. It wasn't as though it wasn't in the Council's name of course, but who even knew, maybe this wouldn't be phased out in a few years' time?
"As beings endowed with reason and free will and therefore privileged to bear personal responsibility all humans should be at once impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to reject the personification of primordial rot and cancer known as Nurgle which masquerades a True God and in doing so seeks to destroy the human sense and right of responsible freedom, which is not driven by coercion, but motivated by equality and progress. The True Gods are as named here: the Prince of Pleasure and Princess of Exaltation Slaanesh, the God of War Khorne, the Explorer of All Futures Tzeentch and the God-Emperor of Mankind and his incarnation as the Omnissiah! WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO WORSHIP HIM STILL!" Polonia Laerta's voice echoed off the paneling of the walls.
The really nice paneling of the walls. The Cinnabar Chamber that had for nearly ten thousand years served as the meeting room for the Sobor, give or take a few decades of necessary renovation, it was a room tried much too hard, Polonia Laerta decided. The walls were paneled in absurdly expensive hardwood, and discreet stained glass lamps set in golden fittings lit the place with warm, crimson light. In fact, gold was much in evidence, even in places where it didn't, strictly speaking, belong. The floors were imported marble.
The very polished marble floor reflected quite clearly the melta Bishop Claus Smith of no relation was toting. Who even let him into the room with a gun?
"The people of Cassandron will never tolerate this! We will never tolerate, this is heresy! We are proud imperials!" he roared. Polonia Laerta threw the two scrolls of vellum she was holding on the round table between them.
"Why wasn't I allowed to bring my power spear if..." the Abbess begun.
"And what about Magos Celsus Cubic-MgCu2 's mechadendrite?" another voice called out.
"Order in the Sobor!" the Presiding Ecclesiarch called hypocritically, but that gave her the opportunity to continue.
"According to the Edict of Faithful Separation the Imperium has been corrupted into a tool of dishonor or unworthiness, especially when dealing with poor or uneducated people. The very word emperor comes from the High Gothic imperāre 'to demand the production of, levy, give orders, exercise authority, hold political power.' The God-Emperor protects human souls from the evils of the Warp and guides our ships so that the Imperium of Man may in fact be an empire and not a sea of isolated islands, but due to the injuries he had suffered due to Nurgle's perfidy and constraints of immobility he does not rule..." She had never spoken so fast before.
"WHAT?"
"As per the Edict of Faithful Separation the High Lords of Terra have performed a soft coup in the absence of his guidance and as such must be forces to adhere to the truth, once it is known..."
"WHAT?"
She knew, okay? She was just working here.
"Soft coup is the de facto removal of a national leader from decision making process, amounting to a coup, but carried out without military force." As defined in said edict. Revolutionary didn't begin to describe this. "As such the High Lords of Terra are traitors and heretics and the Most Holy Institution of the Emperor has been divorced from the political body of the Empire of Mankind. At least for now and if we don't bow down we will starve to death."
The silence that fell was brief, but heavy. None of them, not even Polonia Laerta, knew how bad the situation was globally, but at least in Hive Primus the soyaries were down to the dregs.
"We will gladly starve if collaboration is the price of this food!" one of the older Bishops roared and now there wasn't a soul sitting down in the chamber, except for Sofranka Silva. Voices congealed into a porridge of noise.
Silva was one of the three token lay delegates of the Sobor and she looked so sad. The mousy-looking woman was the Chairwoman of the Freshwater Charity Initiative and no doubt knew that people could put up with all kinds of atrocities if that was the price of the essentials of living. Polonia Laerta felt horrible doing this to the single moral person in the room, but the Slawkenberg delegation had requested a delegate of faith unsullied by corruption.
"We will of course form our loyal opposition - loyal to the Imperium and not to Slawkenberg. I am of course ignorant of much of how the Faith operates, but doesn't this call for the Fourth Great Reconciliation?" she did her best to merely speak stately and not scream over the noise.
Silence couldn't be said to have fallen, but noise level went noticeably down.
The First Reconciliation of Primus had arisen in a theological dispute among the clergy of Cassandron concerning the nature of the Primarchs, their origin, and relation to God-Emperor the Father circa late 37K. No detailed acta of the First Council existed as they did for later councils, so the exact sequence of the council's debates was uncertain. The view held was that the Primarchs were were distinct people of their own and not incarnations of their eternally self-generating father.
The Great Reconciliations Two and Three each had detailed acta, but had accomplished nothing of note because that would have required a super-majority.
"Namely in order to protect the purity of faith on Cassandron we must define the nature of the divide and relationship of the Emperor and the Omnissiah, as well as their Most Holy Imperium and the High Lords of Terra, the Ecclesiarchy and the Adeptus Administratum as the ruling body of the Imperium." Though it didn't come naturally for her Polonia Laerta gave her best badly hidden cocky smile.
"I'm sure you would delight if the Adeptus Administratum was declared to be any relation to the Divine, dear," Kunegunda Antos said snidely.
She wasn't even a member of the Administratum proper, luckily enough.
"The Omnissiah isn't an incarnation of the Emperor, but a God in his own right! The Emperor conquered him and in doing so subjugated the creations of humans to human agenda!" Paracelsus Moran of the Lay Brotherhood of Blessed Acceleration protested.
"And what did I even expect from a lowly heretek of questionably schematics, sense to keep his mouth shut for once? As defined by of the Council of Terra in 012.M31 the Omnissiah is the Emperor in his personification of the Eternally Self-Creating Deus Ex Machina, that means God from the Machine in case your lay education hasn't covered High Gothic!" Celsus Cubic-MgCu2 immediately screamed and if there was any poetry in the soul of the universe the glares the pair sent at each other would have set fire to the hardwood.
The Lay Brotherhood of Blessed Acceleration was despite its name neither a brotherhood nor dealt with vehicles exclusively, but rather was a non-discriminating workers' union for mechanics that had managed to accumulate quite a lot of power by pretending to be a religious organisation. Polonia Laerta didn't judge; life was hard on Cassandron and everybody protected their own with what they had at hand. But Celsus Cubic-MgCu2 was a deeply religious man and would have deeply loved to turn the man into a servitor. The drill at the end of his mechadendrite emitted quite the worrisome hum.
"Oh, so you say my education now defines whether Deus Ex Machina means..." came the glib response.
The Lay Brotherhood was a strong organization and Adeptus Mechanicus was unusually weak on Cassandron. Every time it had begun to get too big for its support struts some ancient heretek cabal or a roaming band of technomads would pop up in one or more city's underhive and start selling up Imperial standard technology, even cutting the prices. Tech crusade would follow, costing Mechanicus a lot of time, resources and lives, yet no source of the technology would be found, only dead skitarii patrols.
Until the enemy would suddenly disappear! How mysterious!
Torredon was too insignificant and far away, Cassandron rating only a single Magos and Logis and no hope for a Mechanicus fleet. Damnation, they couldn't even get the Imperial Navy to pay attention to them when they needed some!
And the Magos stayed his extremities.
"I see I am not welcome. Before this Reconciliation begins in truth, I must first steal away Sofranka Silva. Our new benevolent overtyrants have requested that I bring a religious representative unsullied by the more sordid monetary aspects of life to the negotiations with the Tetrarchy," she cut in while she still could.
"But I handle money all the time?" Silva said in confusion. "I couldn't hold my position otherwise."
"And you have done so for seven years now without resorting to embezzlement, conspiracy or any kind of fuss. Congratulations for being exceptionally conscientious for a person of note, you haven't even tried to evade taxes in your time as the chairwoman." Maybe that was a little cattier than necessary, but the current company wasn't the most self-aware sort. "Do you wish to give your vote to someone before leaving this chamber or state something for the records' sake?"
"Paracelsus Moran gets my vote and there is one thing I wish to state," Sofranka Silva climbed on her feet, looking determined. "As Gordianus Ciolacu no doubt wishes to make his pretentious, false claim once again, I will state that the historical independence of the Ecclesiarchy of Hive Carmina is groxshit as neither the Imperial law nor Cassandron bureaucracy acknowledge the Carmina Denomination even exists."
And those were the fighting words. Sofranka Silva marched out of the Cinnabar Chamber with her head held high even as Bishop Ciolacu and Celsus Cubic-MgCu2 both screamed protests. Polonia Laerta fully expected it would take a day at minimum for the Sobor to even agree whether or not this crude parting shot made it into the acta. The last clear words drifted after them:
"But what about the melta?"
"You realise that you can't pretend to collaborate indefinitely, right?" Sofranka Silva said once doors had slammed shut. "I can tell what you are doing and it is a kind thing, to try and preserve their lives like this. But if those benevolent overtyrants choose to demand their lives regardless, there will be no measurable difference between pretending to collaborate and actually collaborating."
"I collaborate as much as my mother demands," she said because she had to be loyal to someone. It should be reserved for the one she loved the most.
She made a quick work of informing the various Confessors, Preachers, Techpriests, Sisters and just plain secretaries that a Great Reconciliation had been called in response to the crisis. They very conveniently didn't pause to ask for who had called it, but started running around to arrange for more food and hygiene products.
The two of them meanwhile were shooed into one of the diplomatic tubes. The Confessor doing so gave her a subtle nod and she knew she would be kept updated if something catastrophic happened, like the Sobor decided that they wanted out after all.
Diplomatic tubes were pretty much just horizontal elevators without any sickness risk involved with only slight dips here and rises there to dodge a lane or a bridge. She liked dip-tubes, the way she could just stare out of the window and enjoy feeling utterly unneeded maybe even whole twenty minutes. Here it was just the three, plus or minus a few seconds.
"I really am sorry. The food distribution is on the Cainite Protectorate's side handled by members of a pleasure cult," she confessed.
"Well, why didn't you say so? I was worried for my safety, Why are you even sorry?" Sofranka Silva huffed. Polonia Laerta was looking at a truly obnoxious billboard advertising some kind of facial cream that was supposedly made of real fish and edible in a pinch. It was terrible, gauche and she could never forget it now.
"Because you are in danger?" she more asked than stated.
"Pleasure cults aren't dangerous, you now. You realise I've been to the underhive, right? I'm a member of one," Silva confessed like that was something people just did. "It's just so the locals trust me better, I think the holy limerick nights are kind of silly, but I don't think the Emperor really objects to them..."
"I have a feeling we are thinking about really different bits of the underhive. Slaanesh is worshipped here?" With limericks?
"They are all terrible parts, that's why it's called the underhive. The smart people down there learn very young to find pleasure in the immaterial." Sofranka Silva looked sad once more and then shook her head like she could shed the emotion away with enough determination. "And we don't worship Slaanesh, never, ever suggest we are heretics in front of a Devout of the Emperor in Resplendence, you can get into real trouble for that! The dogma is that the Emperor has decreed humanity should live in in a state of mutual pleasure and dignity; dignity in pleasure and pleasure in dignity. Those are the two main schools..."
Polonia Laerta Smith had been looking at an advertisement about some kind of fish fat people were supposed to slap on their face instead of putting it down their gullet when the world stopped making even a little bit of sense.
"The holy limerick nights are actually holy nights of jest because they are about parodying holy sermons in the form of dirty limericks with the specific intent of venting frustration about Ecclesiarchy corruption. The Emperor has been betrayed by the existence of said corruption and it eats away at his soul. We chase away the desperation with a rite of a divine form of madness. I think it's that anyway, I'm condensing a lot of purely oral amateur theology here. But as long as nobody's hurt, I don't think the Emperor would mind people having fun for once in their miserable lives." Silva looked at her with the most earnest innocence.
Polonia Laerta thought that her previously imperial sensibilities would have been less mortified by monthly holy orgies. What part of this was dignified?
She was still reeling from the revelation when the dip-tube came to a stop and they stepped into the most awful lobby on Cassandron, at least hopefully. If there was even a worse place she didn't want to know of it. There were all the snobbish fripperies of Important People: gold inlays on wood, semi-precious gems turned into a floor mosaic and stained glass in a shade of pink that in a better universe wouldn't have existed. It was all inedible and cold in equal measure and unlike the Cinnabar Chamber ugly on top of that, luxury without any real value.
She hadn't used to be scared of starving or dying in some kind of food riot or being made effectively a slave. She was self-aware enough to understand a lot of people on Cassandron had lived with this their entire lives and she didn't appreciate being made feel like a monster or an ignorant twit. She tried when she could, okay? She didn't slap fish fat on her face! But the floor she was walking on was mocking her.
And in this room were six people. A beautiful, curvy woman whose hair colour had changed since Polonia Laerta had last seen it, now almost bluish, smoky dirty blonde that complimented her purple-and-silver dress nicely. Sir Harold was there as well in his blue robes and no-nonsense air and four USA soldiers in their red power armour. This was much less force than she had expected, but considering how thoroughly the Nergalites had been thrashed and the general strength and competence the USA had shown it was merely the needed amount. Her mother's security would do the rest.
"May I introduce, Krystabel Cainopolica who is the leader of Emeli's Handmaidens and a member of the Liberation Council, previously of no surname she cares to remember due to unfortunate political connotations, Sofranka Silva of the lower hive Silvas of Hive Secundus who used to be water usurers before Silva found a religion in the form of an Emperor-worshiping pleasure cult," she said. Names and history were important and this wasn't that kind of a pleasure cult. Any connection she could foster between the two of them might save Silva's life.
"Why are you dressed like that, dear? You don't have to pretend anymore, you are free now. Sexy Ecclesiarchy is very fashionable in Slawkenberg now, just a look after your make-over and people will feel like they are rolling in sin." Krystabel promised, taking both of Silva's hands and kissing her on the cheek. "If you want to join a send-away orgy after this the offer is open."
"Uh," said Sofranka Silva.
"And you, your hair has so much potential," Krystabel continued, turning towards Polonia Laerta.
"Uh," said Polonia Laerta.
She had black, coarse hair that was almost painfully straight and would, if not strictly controlled, eat scissors and make her look like she was a vengeful ghost about to eat someone alive.
"We just have to cut it a little, let it out and you need a girdle, but after that you'll look like someone who treads on people's backs for a living and makes them beg prettily," Cainopolica continued, which. Was pretty much what she did for a living, only through the intermediary of paperwork that didn't involve any real paper and was about as titillating as a bowlful of cold, congealed porridge.
And because they weren't really in a hurry despite the expected travel time and the two of them were too stunned to come up with polite refusal they waited while Cainopolica ordered for haircare products, make-up and a selection of her own clothes to be sent. She had just enough sense to remind the woman of water and even remembered to finish the introductions.
And then they were dragged into small private booths along with three additional handmaidens. Then she was primped and polished above a large enameled basin -full of drinking-grade water! - and subjected to make-up products and scissors.
"What do you think about a metallic shade? Emerald?" Rabella Cainopolica asked.
"I think something muted would work better. More olive maybe," Corina Balka countered, wielding her soft brush like a weapon.
Silva didn't make a peep in the nearby booth and Polonia Laerta wondered if the poor woman was scared now that she was being stripped.
In the end she got away with her clothes back, along with a black girdle with gold accents - not real gold thread, she noted - atop her Secretary First Class' robes. Wasn't that supposed to be underwear? Why did she have to wear underwear on top of her clothes? But when she was finally pushed out of the booth and shown a full-body mirror the effect was striking.
Her hair wasn't much shorter, but it now had a helmet-like cut. Her face was severe and the girdle offered the eye something to see in otherwise uniform olive robes. Now she really looked like someone people would pay to step on them.
Then Sofranka Silva stepped out of hers and Polonia Laerta's jaw dropped. Her brown hair had somehow acquired golden accents, been curled and fell down the left side of her face. Her make-up was all red and cold and her robes resembled those of Confessor without the skulls and the book - if not for the asymmetrical hem that reached down to the ankle on the right side and revealed a pale leg to the mid-shin on the left. She wanted to fall down and apologize for all of her filthy thoughts and she wasn't even into women!
"I think I like this. Pity it will be years before I can walk down the street like this and not be stoned," Sofranka mused, content.
Oh, yes. Clergy parody cultist. What did she even expect?
"If we will get down to the elevator now, it will take us down to the Old Hawkin' Palace?" she suggested as steadily as she could. Which was quite a lot, she had gotten five years worth of experience at keeping a straight face at various budget committee meetings. "The Tetrarchy has agreed for it to serve as a neutral meeting place."
"Weren't you expecting for security?" Sir Harold asked, suddenly suspicious.
"Kindness Is The Privilege Of The Strong Smith is my mother, her forces will protect us. My tribal name is Productivity Is The Source Of Success, shortened to Productivity. Address the CEO of the Vârcolac Construction Compact with the full name at first and after this as Matriarch Smith unless she invites you to do otherwise."
Kindness Is The Privilege Of The Strong Smith, of the Coven Vârcolac, wasn't actually related to Productivity Smith, probably. It was the second most common surname on Cassandron. There wasn't a single hab block without at least one Smith family.
But the groundlevel tribe Kindness hailed from practiced capture adoption. Kindness had taken one look at a young Secretary of Cabinet and Larder Fourth Class with the same name as hers, decided it was close enough for government works and claimed the up-and-coming young bureaucrat as a daughter. She had told Productivity quite pleasantly that she had until she was thirty to choose to be made a vampire and if she didn't then she would be made one anyway. It would just be neater if she didn't have to use force.
She had already decided to say yes of course. Her birth mother had once forgotten her birthday two years in a roll and Kindness had given her a spy in the Ecclesiarchy for their first birthday together. She just wanted to spend a few more years in the sun.
The Tetrarchy were the CEOs of the four largest construction megacorporations on Cassandron. Their power stemmed from the very nature of the planet as a hive world. Cassandron was buildings all the way down to the planet's crust, layers resting upon layers until elevators had to take acclimation stops between them to avert elevation sickness. And of course it was the nature of all buildings to break down with time. And while the old skyscraper that now existed as a support pillar for a larger megastructure coming down would have been worse news for the underhivers living in it, the upperhivers would hardly find it pleasant to come crashing downwards either.
This meant they had to care, no matter how unpleasant it was to part with money. The Tetrarchy made their business by shoving up the higher levels, rebuilding the lower endlessly in pieces. Their influence might not be the widest on the planet, but it definitely went the deepest. When it came to coordinating food aid at the lower levels there were no better people to contact.
"We are going down to level twenty-two - don't fear, it's Accorded Neutral Territory," she explained more for Silva's sake than the dignitaries who should have had this explained already.
"Accorded by whom?" Sofranka obviously asked. "The local gangs? The local corporations?"
The various covens which would inevitable sometimes fight with each other, though they were careful to not escalate it into an obvious civil war. They had old accords in place to prevent the worst excesses and the Old Hawkin' Palace was neutral because no-one wanted to drive the planet into global depression.
"It's still classified, but the entire Cassandron will find out soon enough," she answered.
If she was lucky it would be when the Great Reconciliation was still ongoing and she wouldn't have to convince to sit down and write a strongly worded missive again.
The diplomatic lift a small, round room with sofas, a table, a fridge and the inevitable elevator music and fake windows to show beautiful sights.
"Why is an elevator like this," Sir Harold asked.
"It goes slow up and has two mandatory pause points. It won't matter between here and our destination, that's just one kilometer, but three kilometers up is dangerous already." Why was that a question?
"Will we be there in time? I thought we had plenty of it," Krystabel asked as she tried a pickled mushroom.
"Down isn't as dangerous unless you have some underlying heart condition. The upper hive is a lot like being on top of a mountain. Probably just a high green, but too quick change can be tricky when you go up. The ships drop the air pressure too to spare oxygen, but gradually so we people don't notice. You should drink some water too, it helps."
And the speaker was one of the bodyguards. That surprised Productivity; usually security was expected to not be heard unless it related to their charges' safety.
"What happens if you go too fast?" Krystabel acted like it was a normal occurrence.
"Headache and dizziness, nausea and vomiting if you're unlucky. If you really have it bad your lungs start to fill with fluid. Or your brain swells and you just die." Impressively enough the power armor allowed for a smooth shrug.
Her communicator made a specific ping and Productivity didn't let herself move with haste as she took it in hand. That noise meant a message from Confessor Cormac Ciolacu.
Living Blood
The Fourth Great Reconciliation has taken a pause when the floor was damaged in a melta accident at 13:10. No injuries or fatalities occurred. Bishop Smith is believed to be the culprit, but I can't confirm at the moment. Currently the Sobor is debating where they should move to continue the Great Reconciliation. So far none have tried to call it off or leave the building on their own, I'll send SOS if that occurs.
Your servant
"Nothing worrisome," she said to allay any possible worries. "Just a notice of structural damage to an important meeting hall's floor. Not really even my business to fix at this rank."
She would have to send some grox meat to Ciolacu as a bonus when this was over. Even the Ecclesiarchy and nobles had had to ratio strictly and her mother always brought her a nice bounty when they met; the benefit of regular hunting trips.
And then they were there already.
[Level twenty-two, the Old Hawkin' Palace.]
Funny how many assumed this was as far down as the elevator would go just because no more buttons were visible.
Her mother had sent five men, one of them a vampire. None of this would usually have been necessary here, but Nergalite stragglers this high up were still a remote possibility. They all wore tactical vests with the Vârcolac company, a lopsided T that was supposed to represent a tower crane. He also wore one of those old-fashioned groxfur hats and a badge with the Vârcolac down-pointed dagger pinned on it.
"It is good to meet you, little cousin. I am Radovan Filip, direct descendant of Helmut Harkon," he said in Low Slavonic and gave a bow. In her mind Productivity scrolled down the list of people who would rank her in the future and didn't find his name there.
"Well met, cousin," she said and gave a small bow of her own. It never hurt to be polite.
They were led into those office carts people used to actually get anywhere and the Old Hawkin' Palace opened before them in its majestic, patchwork glory. From the outside it was no doubt as ugly as all superstructures on this level, but only the people living on this level would ever see it from the outside. According to a legend it had once been four office buildings around a market square with some official name that the locals had called the old hawkin' place. Later some tycoon had bought it, built a business tower on the square and the surrounding buildings had grown into each other.
Nowadays it housed two rail companies that bitterly hated each other, one elevator company, four shipping companies, the Primus Broadcast Company with it's two subsidiaries and that one really kitchen appliance company that was a subsidiary of an pharmaseutical company of all things. They mostly sold inexplicably popular bunsen burners into normal lower hive households who remained unawares that PanPharma Absolut was something that existed.
Oh, and there were the First Faithful Trust Bank and the Throughbridge Infrastructure too. And this wasn't counting the various side offices, among which were the Tetrarchy's.
It was in short a monolith of a gravestone to times long since past when building something like this so far down the lower hive had made sense.
Yet the gravestone was defended along with half a level. The economical splash effect to the level and to a lesser degree up and down a level made the layering of Hive Primus deeply weird.
Finally they reached a large meeting room, a public for so as to not favour anyone. It had wood too, but only in the form of a tabletop and a lot of glass in places where glass strictly speaking didn't belong.
Business suit hardly should look feral, but Kindness' facial tattoos, a spider's fang piercing her right ear and the giant roach carapaces she had strung for a belt helped a lot. Productivity knew a lot of people preferred to pretend to forget where they never-ever came from, but Kindness always wore her victory tokens with pride. She had once told that her maker had had to order her to wear only two at once to avoid looking like a particularly morbid walking totem.
"Productivity' it's waters to see you! You look great, has the uniform changed?" she said, getting up from the glass-top table.
"No, mother, it was the ambush of the fashion guerillas," she said as her mother embraced her. Then she got a grip. "May I introduce Kindness is the..."
"Sofranka gem, I didn't know you would be present. Do you believe you'll have the time to attend the next music raree? Do you believe we might properly meet after this?" Another person rose from his chair and Productivity didn't quite gape this time.
"I could always take you back if our esteemed guests don't have the time to wait."
It was a close thing. Ion Ilie was a beautiful, poisonous thing like some exotic flower she had only ever seen in a picture. With long hair and clothes ambiguously cut, he was making no secrets of his origins either.
Ilie had been a prostitute in one of the better bordellos in level twenty-six, the first properly counted as underhive. The clientele had been the sort of upper-hivers and spire-folk who found slumming titillating. Ilie had managed to install himself as a lover up in level eight and even gotten a third of an education out of it before his patron had died. He hadn't been suspected of that death, he had stood gain nothing and lose everything, but Productivity was quite certain he had killed at least three former patrons.
The fourth had been quick and painless enough it could really have been an aircar crash.
Sofranka was really turning her image upside-down today.
"We are both members of the same cult. Mister Ilie has a beautiful tenor, we often sing duetto," Sofranka explained.
"You sing? I have never met Emperor-worshiping pleasure cult before, what kind of other practices you have?" Krystabel asked, utterly unbothered by how everything had gone off the rails. Usually going along with other people stealing the show like this was a sign of weakness. Productivity had a feeling she was gathering information or insinuating herself or doing something equally vaguely ominous.
"Couldn't this..." She tried.
"A pleasure cult!" The voice was higher than it should have been. "There is no room in the Faith in Him for any cults! Or pleasure for that matter."
Constantinus Cottius was old money all the way back to Age of Apostasy which he never let anyone forget. He had a blue wig, shirtsleeves with ruffles under a dark plum coat and he looked at the Protectorate's representatives not with a sneer, but a kind of horrified resignation. The sentiment was returned with something far darker.
"You were Mister Cottius, the CEO of Superious Constructione Inc. It's so wonderful to finally meet one of this fair planets' most important businessmen. Now please tell me what is your opinion on starving your workers or working them to death? Towards the end Krystabel was leaning on the table and her voice was satine-similar to Ilie's. The red-armoured men shifted a little and her mother's were very dangerously still.
"That's preposterous! How can starving or dead men work for me? And who are you to question me on my business practices?" He blustered.
"He is far from the worst employer I know," Productivity hastened to defend the man. Who seemed very aware that he was being damned by faint praise. Damn. she really didn't want this to turn out violently.
"Maybe he's a Giorba, only with common sense and competence? And a lot nicer wig," Sir Harold said, looking at his companion.
"And maybe all this fascinating religious discourse can wait until we have coordinated the food aid precisely so nobody starves?" Klaus Verres just looked like a normal human and tapped the tabletop with his stylus. Productivity could have kissed him.
She finished the introductions fast, unnecessary as it was at this late point, and went to take her place at the table. Or she tried anyway, but first Ilie took Sofranka's arm and led her to the end of the table face to face with Verres, sitting down by her side. Then Kindness very insistently led her to Ilie's empty place right next to herself and she realised half of this had been a planned maneuver. Message sent.
It didn't seem to bother either Krystabel or Sir Harold. Both took their seats with suspicious amicability.
"So, first item is moving several hundred tons of stopgap food to the underhive, the second is choosing the best locations for production centres. Let's start with Hive Primus. The route down should be chosen with the best logistical transit connections in mind," Sir Harold said. His audience took a moment to take in the words "underhive" and "transit connections" in a shared context.
"Dead Man's Float, maybe. That's an old industrial elevator that goes down from twenty-five to twenty-seven," said Verres after a moment of thought. "It's an industrial elevator that leads to a factory that's been abandoned since before the Age of Apostasy at the least. We keep it in good repair because we use it in our operation in those levels. On twenty-six there's an old railway, the metal has long since been scavenged, but we have car-driven trains..."
And the meeting got properly started. Alternatives were discussed, accepted or discarded, and if Cottius kept glaring at the Protectorate delegation at least there had been no violence so far. Things could work out.
And then.
Inevitably.
Ping.
Living Blood
SOS Abbess Antos had a prayer session, has decided to Atone for her Sisterhood's lack of action and space capabilities by stealing Protectorate's and fighting pirates. I managed to drug the incense and dragged her into a closet. The rest didn't notice, too busy arguing. Please advice.
Your servant
Emperor have mercy on me!
Productivity wanted to scream like she had wanted very few things before, but she was a professional. She didn't want to be Polonia Laerta right now, it was bad enough being Productivity.
"Productivity?"
She serves the Volkihar. Convince her they know what they are doing. If all else fails convince her that she's had a holy vision of martyred blood and needs to immortalise it for future generations. Drug her again if necessary.
And how Ciolacu did that was his own damn problem. Damn, civil was an important part of the Civil Sisterhood of the Blood of Sainted Martyrs. They had a few antique weapons, but that was that! No training, no armour, nothing.
"Productivity?" her mother said again and she realised everyone was staring.
"Infrastructural damage has decided to move to space, but that's nothing a holy vision won't fix," she said as calmly as she could. Sofranka and Cottius flinched. "Now may we please continue so I can run off to become a vampire already and this is all somebody else's problem."
"But what," Sofranka asked softly, "is a vampire?"
AN: This was supposed to be an exploration of the kind of problems that will occur aggressively monotheistic planet gets taken over by by a weirdly ecumenical splinter sect of its former enemies, but was mostly me being mean to my own character and world building. Which is weird because all of this will no doubt be jossed in the future, but here we go.
No, the Old Hawkin' Palace doesn't predate the Great Crusade or anything even more ridiculous. PL/P doesn't know it, but it was originally a social experiment on uplifting a level without gentrification. The theory was to choose a low enough level that the upper-levelers don't want to move there, but not too low. It was a success, but was deemed an impractical one due to the time, money, work and outright intimidation involved to make it happen. It was sold as cheap free estate, but some companies moved down there literally at gunpoint.
Altitude sickness really wouldn't be so bad going up just a kilometer, but if you want to go something like three kilometers in five minutes then you should be ready to feel utterly miserable.
Have we actually gotten Krystabel's surname at any point? Since she studied in Saint Trynia Academy for the Daughters of Gentlefolk I think it's plausible that her family was Giorbas supporters and she dropped the name out of revolutionary fervour. I'm not sure if Sir Harold's name is first or last so I kept it as was.