Chapter 117: I Can Help You Save Guilliman
Duvette drew a long breath, suppressing the residual pain pulsing at the base of his skull, and held the gaze of those pale faces floating in their nutrient tanks.
Before a construct of this order of rationality, any lie was futile. Only a stake of sufficient weight could purchase the right to survive.
"I am Duvette. A Colonel-Commissar of the Astra Militarum." His voice carried through the small room. "I know the content of the agreement between Roboute Guilliman and Belisarius Cawl. I know the Sangprimus Portum exists. I know the Armour of Fate. And I know what the Archmagos has been preparing in secret for the past ten thousand years."
The green characters on the cogitator array froze.
Then all twenty mouths opened at once, and the overlapping synthetic voices responded without mercy.
[Logic conflict. According to archived log records, Primarch Roboute Guilliman entered stasis with a critical wound and is currently incapacitated. Deductive conclusion: the Primarch cannot have conducted any exchange of information with a mortal officer at the present time node. You are lying.]
Duvette's expression did not change. He had an answer that resolved every logical inconsistency the construct could raise.
"I did not meet the Primarch in realspace."
He held those pupil-less eyes directly.
"During an expedition into a space hulk, my force was caught inside a catastrophic Warp storm."
"Within the Warp's disordered temporal flux and its visions, I glimpsed the Primarch's battle against the daemon prince. I also glimpsed Cawl's ancient communication with the Primarch, from ten thousand years past. That was how I came to know this ultimate secret concerning the future of the human Imperium."
The room fell briefly silent. Only the machinery hummed.
The sub-avatar was clearly conducting calculations of enormous complexity. Several seconds passed before the synthetic voice returned.
[There is a 0.00031% probability of this category of information leak occurring. Warp visions are ordinarily accompanied by Chaos corruption, however no Warp mutation signatures have been detected on your physical form.]
[Logic determination: this is the only explanation consistent with your knowledge of highest-classification secrets and your ability to name both the Sangprimus Portum and the Armour of Fate.]
Duvette was on the verge of exhaling when the sub-avatar's line of inquiry shifted entirely.
[However. The secret between my creator and the Primarch cannot be known by any third unauthorized individual. Give me a reason not to reinitiate the self-destruct sequence and inter you beneath this bedrock along with everything you know.]
"Because I can help him." Duvette raised his chin without retreating a single step, meeting the pressure that hung in the air between them. "I can help Belisarius Cawl truly save Roboute Guilliman."
[Prove it.] The sub-avatar's answer was clean and entirely free of emotional register.
Duvette reached inside his coat and searched for a moment, then drew out a metal medallion. The Macragge Honour Medal, the highest distinction the realm of Ultramar conferred, and one that only the Ultramarines Chapter could award in person.
[Verification complete.] The sub-avatar's tone remained perfectly flat. [A medallion bearing Ultramar's highest honour, but a medallion is mortal metal. It may demonstrate a degree of political standing. It cannot prove that you are capable of influencing the fate of a Primarch. Logical conclusion: insufficient.]
"It can open the doors of Hera Fortress for you." Duvette came back immediately. "Belisarius Cawl may hold enormous technical renown across much of the Imperium, but you understand the Astartes' temperament better than I do."
He pressed one step forward. "For the Ultramarines, their gene-father is sacred beyond the reach of any defilement."
"Without the backing of internal influence, without someone vouching from inside, how would you convince those intractable warriors to permit an Adeptus Mechanicus outsider, one whose work carries the smell of heresy to their instincts, anywhere near Guilliman while he lies critically wounded in his stasis field? They would not allow your ship within Ultramar's orbital reach."
The sub-avatar appeared to be processing that sequence of logic. Its vocalizer produced the faint electrical sound of an argument forming — and died before it completed, because Duvette cut it off without ceremony.
He put his real question on the table.
"And access is not the only concern." His eyes stayed on the cogitator array. "Even if the Ultramarines concede, the Armour of Fate can heal and sustain the physical damage of the fatal wound your creator fashioned it for. But the wound the daemon prince's venomed blade left upon the Primarch's soul — what is your creator's plan for treating that?"
The room went absolutely still.
The sub-avatar began its search. Clearly, it was finding nothing.
A full thirty seconds passed before it spoke again.
[Your conclusion carries a certain probability.] The sub-avatar delivered its assessment. [I will attempt to transmit this information, and your existence, directly to my creator. Due to current Warp interference, the probability of successful transmission is 21%.]
A crisp mechanical tone. On the cogitator platform, a cover plate slid aside. A small data-chip of pale cold crystal, emitting a faint luminescence, ejected from the housing.
[Take it. In the event that direct transmission fails, this serves as the alternative.] The sub-avatar's instruction was precise.
[Insert it into the primary cogitator array of any sector-level Astropathic hub. Doing so will actively transmit an encrypted record of this exchange to my creator. Note: the insertion will cause the hub network to temporarily collapse, and it will inevitably draw the Conclave's attention.]
Draw the Conclave's attention. An odd expression moved across Duvette's face. He was arguably the last person in the Imperium who needed to fear that consequence. Juno still had need of him. Through Juno, access to a sector-level Astropathic hub's primary cogitator was not an unreasonable prospect.
With that thought settled, he got to his feet from the grating, moving with rather more effort than usual. The psychic shock had left his muscles with opinions they were still expressing.
He walked to the Explorator's body, now burned down to charred architecture, and extended his hand. The data-chip sat in his palm. He closed his fingers around it, then worked it carefully into the deepest inner pocket of his coat.
[This exchange is concluded. Cawl sub-avatar Node 3218/B preparing to enter deep dormancy and go offline—]
"Wait."
Duvette spoke before the sequence could fully engage.
The cogitator array's lights flickered. The sub-avatar suspended its dormancy routine. All twenty heads turned in the nutrient tanks with slow, uniform attention, their blank gaze directed at him.
[What further question?]
"I want to know." He cast a look around the small control room. "Since this is a secret laboratory, what exactly are you concealing here?"
The sub-avatar did not answer immediately.
After his words had settled, the circular room, barely twenty square metres, produced a low mechanical groan. The metal wall directly ahead began to divide and roll apart to either side.
With the sound of mechanical transmission, the space behind the wall revealed itself.
Duvette could not help it. He held his breath.
Under cold blue illumination, hundreds and hundreds of enormous stasis field capsules stood in dense rows, extending far beyond the reach of the light. And inside those capsules, sleeping figures of staggering scale.
They wore heavy armour, unpainted, in the bare state before any final finishing. Their frames were visibly larger than a standard Astartes.
"Primaris Space Marines." The words came from somewhere before any deliberate decision was made. "You have already used the Sangprimus Portum. You have... made them more perfect."
[As you see.] Something entered the sub-avatar's voice that it should not have possessed. [Since you claim to hold the final piece required to awaken the Primarch, showing you the creator's great work increases the probability that you will carry out that task. Witness, mortal. This is the future of the Imperium.]
Duvette said nothing. He stood and looked at the sleeping legion that could change the balance of the entire galaxy.
Several dozen seconds later, the wall rolled back and sealed, and the magnificent sight disappeared into the dark again.
The cogitator array's lights died one by one. The last pale head sank below the shadow of the grating, and the control room returned to complete silence.
Duvette stood alone in the empty room and drew a slow breath. He reached up and pressed his hand against the outside of his coat, feeling the shape of the pocket that held the data-chip through the cloth.
The cold coming through the fabric confirmed that everything which had just occurred was not a hallucination.
He had, it seemed, genuinely obtained an entry ticket to the Imperium's innermost councils. A way to attempt contact with the greatest and most dangerous mind the Adeptus Mechanicus had ever produced.
He turned and walked toward the melted doorway.
If he could use what his previous life had given him, and awaken Roboute Guilliman before the despair of the 13th Black Crusade arrived...
The dark galaxy's future would take an entirely different path.