eralogicae assayer was sending to a small repeater screen in the cabin bay.
'This is it. The source location for the last transmission/
'You're sure?' I asked.
He gave me a withering look. 'Of course/
'Swing us around, slowly/ I told Medea. We craned to look out of the pod's front ports, playing the lamp array up and down to make sense of the stark shadows in the cavern walls.
What are those? Tube tunnels?'
Auspex says they pinch out in a few hundred metres. God-Emperor, it looks pretty primordial out there!' Medea wiped a trickle of perspiration out of her eyes.
'What's that the lights are catching there?'
Aemos peered to where I was pointing. Amygdules/ he said. 'Cavities filled with quartzes or other secondary minerals/
'Okay/ said Medea, unscrewing the stopper of a water-flask. 'Seeing as how you know everything… what's that?'
'Well, I… most perturbatory/
It was a hole, perfectly circular, thirty metres in diameter, cut into the far rock wall.
'Edge closer/ I said. 'That's not a natural formation. It's too… precise/
'What the hell made a hole like that?' Medea murmured, nudging us in.
'An industrial mining drill could-'
'This far down? This far from any mine infrastructure?' I cut Aemos short. 'Look at this place. Only sealed units like this pod can function at this depth/
'Barely/ Medea commented, ominously. She was keeping a weather eye on the hull-integrity read-out. Amber runes were twitching on and off.
'It's deep/ I said. I looked at the display for the forward scanners. 'Goes off as far as we can read and maintains its shape and size/
'But it's cut sheer through igneous rock… through the side of a forty kilometre square batholyth! That's solid anthragate!' There was a note of confusion in Aemos's frail old voice.
'I've got tremors,' said Medea suddenly. The needles on the rolling seismograph had been scratching away for a good hour or more, such was the background instability this deep down. But now they were skritching back and forth wildly.
There's a pattern to them/ Aemos said. That's not tectonic. That's too regular… mechanical almost/
I paused for a moment, considering our options. Take us into the shaft/ I said.
Medea looked at me, as if she was hoping she'd misheard me.
'Let's go/
The cut shaft was so perfectly circular it was scary. As we sped down, we could see that the inner surface of the tube was fused like flowstone, with radiating patterns of furrows scooped into it.
This was plasma-cut/ said Aemos. 'And whatever cut it, left an impression of its motivators in the rock before it cooled and hardened/
The tube snaked occasionally, whilst maintaining its form. The bends were long and slow, but Medea took them cautiously. The seismograph was still jiggling.
I took out a holoquill and wrote a phrase down on the back of a chart-pad.
'Can you convert this into simple machine code?' I asked Aemos.
He looked at it. 'Hmmm… 'Vade elquum alatoratha semptus'… you have a good memory/
'Can you do it?'
'Of course/
What is that?' asked Medea. 'Some kind of sorcery?'
'No/1 smiled as Aemos got to work. 'It's like Glossia. A private language, one that hasn't been used in a long time/
There/ said Aemos.
'Punch it into the vox-ponder and set it to continuous repeat/1 said.
'I hope this works/ said Aemos. 'I hope you're right/
'So do I/ I said.
Instrumentation pinged. We're approaching the end of the bore-hole!' Medea called. Another kilometre, and then we're out into a huge cavity!'
'Get that signal going!' I urged my elderly savant.
We were on it almost before we were ready. A massive tube of machined metal, thirty metres in diameter and seventy long, with a huge plasma cutting-screw at the front end and rows of claw- like impellers that cycled down its flanks like the active teeth of a gigantic chainsword. It had cut its way from the tube and was grumbling across the clastic silt of the chamber floor away from us, pumping thick clouds of vapourised rock and steam out behind it.
'Emperor protect me! It's huge!' Aemos exclaimed.
What in the name of the Golden Throne is that?' gasped Medea.
'Slow down! Slow down!' I cried, but she was already braking us back behind the leviathan.
'Oh crap!' said Medea. Recessed hardpoints along the giant's flank had swivelled and opened, and multi-laser batteries had popped out to target us.
I grabbed the vox-set's hand-mic.
Vade elquum alatoratha semptus!' I yelled into the mic. Vade elquum alatoratha semptus!'
The weapons – which could have obliterated us in a single salvo – did not fire. They remained trained on us, however. Then heavy shutter doors on the back end of the enormous machine opened slowly, revealing a small, well-lit hangar space.
'We won't get another invitation!' I told Medea.
With a worried shrug, she steered us inside.
I led the pair of them out of the pod into the arched dock-bay. The shutters had locked shut behind us, and pungent sulphurous fog pooled around our feet as it was pulled out of the bay by chugging air processors.
The bay was of a grand design, fluted with brass fittings and brushed steel. There was a brand new prospector pod, painted oxide-red, in the docking cradle next to the one that had received our singed specimen. Three other cradles, new and black with oil, lay vacant. All the light came from phosphorescent gas filaments in caged glass hoods around the room, and the effect was a flickering, lambent glow. An iron screwstair with padded leather rails led up to a boarding platform above us.
That's a good sign/ I said. The bas-relief roundel of the Adeptus Mechanicus was visible above the inner door lock on the platform.
We all started as long servitor arms whirred out from compartments in the walls. In a second, six were trained on us: two with auspex sensors, sniffing us, and four with weapon mounts.
'I suggest we don't move/ I whispered.
The inner lock clanked and opened. A hooded figure in long orange robes seemed to hover out onto the platform. It grasped the handrail with both hands and looked down at us.
Vade smeritus valsara esm/ it growled.
Vade elquum alatoratha semptus/ I replied. Valsarum esoque quonda tasabae/
The figure pulled back its hood, revealing a mechanical skull finished in oil- smudged chrome. Its lens-like eyes glowed bright green. Fat black cables under its jaw pulsed and the vox-caster
