servitors note 19, (ii) fires heavy stubber note 20.
Two human adversaries pulped note 21, (iii) severs head of mutant, vaults backwards note 22 and impales human adversary. Pict-source moves down note 23.
VOICE OFF:
Pict-source makes partial capture as (iii) is hit repeatedly by energy fire, (iii) convulses, explodes. Pict-source hit by blood mist note 24. note 25 (ii) is yelling, moving ahead out of view, firing heavy stubber. Sudden crossfire laser effect note 26.
note 28 (i) is just ahead of pict- source, charging into wide, flat chamber lit by green chemical lamps note 29. Subject (i) positively identified as Inquisitor Hetris Lugenbrau.
LUGENBRAU:
VOICE note 30: /
Lugenbrau (i) moves off-image. Pict-source pans. Image jerky. Body parts scattered on chamber floor note 31. Major detonation(s) nearby. Image shakes, pict-source falls sidelong.
note 33 Lugenbrau partly visible off frame left, engaged in combat. Afterglow-residue of force hammer blows remain burned on image for several seconds note 34.
Pict-source turns to focus on Lugenbrau. Lugenbrau engaged in hand-to-hand combat with unknown foe. Movements too fast for pict-source to capture.
Blur. Human figures note 35 move in from right frame. Heads of human figures explode. Figures topple.
note 37 Jerky shots of ground and wall. Refocus blurring. Pict-source reacquires Lugenbrau and adversary in combat note 38. Combat as before too rapid for pict-source to capture. Extensive background noise. Glowing line note 39 impales Lugenbrau. Image shakes note 40. Lugenbrau immolates note 41.
note 43 Close up of face looking into pict-source. Identity unknown [subject (iv)[. (iv) is handsome, sculptural, smiling, eyes blank.
VOICE (iv):
Light flash.
Scream note 44.
ONE
A cold coming.
Death in the dormant vaults.
Some puritanical reflections.
Hunting the recidivist Murdin Eyclone, I came to Hubris in the Dormant of 240.M41, as the Imperial sidereal calendar has it.
Dormant lasted eleven months of Hubris's twenty-nine month lunar year, and the only signs of life were the custodians with their lighted poles and heat-gowns, patrolling the precincts of the hibernation tombs.
Within those sulking basalt and ceramite vaults, the grandees of Hubris slept, dreaming in crypts of aching ice, awaiting Thaw, the middle season between Dormant and Vital.
Even the air was frigid. Frost encrusted the tombs, and a thick cake of ice covered the featureless land. Above, star patterns twinkled in the curious, permanent night. One of them was Hubris's sun, so far away now. Come Thaw, Hubris would spin into the warm embrace of its star again.
Then it would become a blazing globe. Now it was just a fuzz of light.
As my gun-cutter set down on the landing cross at Tomb Point, I had pulled on an internally heated bodyskin and swathes of sturdy, insulated foul weather gear, but still the perilous cold cut through me now. My eyes watered, and the tears froze on my lashes and cheeks. I remembered the details of the cultural brief my savant had prepared, and quickly lowered my frost visor, trembling as warm air began to circulate under the plastic mask.
Custodians, alerted to my arrival by astropathic hails, stood waiting for me at the base of the landing cross. Their lighted poles dipped in
obeisance in the frozen night and the air steamed with the heat that bled from their cloaks. I nodded to them, showing their leader my badge of office. An ice-car awaited; a rust-coloured arrowhead twenty metres long, mounted on ski-blade runners and spiked tracks.
It carried me away from the landing cross and I left the winking signal lights and the serrated dagger-shape of my gun-cutter behind in the perpetual winter night.
The spiked tracks kicked up blizzards of rime behind us. Ahead, despite the lamps, the landscape was black and impenetrable. I rode with Lores Vibben and three custodians in a cabin lit only by the amber glow of the craft's control panel. Heating vents recessed in the leather seats breathed out warm, stale air.
A custodian handed back a data-slate to Vibben. She looked at it cursorily and passed it on to me. I realised my frost visor was still down. I raised it and began to search my pockets for my eye glasses.
With a smile, Vibben produced them from within her own swaddled, insulated garb. I nodded thanks, put them on my nose and began to read.
I was just calling up the last plates of text when the ice-car halted.
'Processional Two-Twelve,' announced one of the custodians.
We dismounted, sliding our visors down into place.
Jewels of frost-flakes fluttered in the blackness about us, sparkling as they crossed through the ice-car's lamp beams. I've heard of bitter cold. Emperor grace me I never feel it again. Biting, crippling, actually bitter to taste on the tongue. Every joint in my frame protested and creaked.
My hands and my mind were numb.
That was not good.
Processional Two-Twelve was a hibernation tomb at the west end of the great Imperial Avenue. It housed twelve thousand, one hundred and forty-two members of the Hubris ruling elite.
We approached the great monument, crunching up the black, frost-coated steps.
I halted. Where are the tomb's custodians?'
'Making their rounds,' I was told.
I glanced at Vibben and shook my head. She slid her hand into her fur-edged robes.
'Knowing we approach?' I urged, addressing the custodian again. 'Knowing we expect to meet them?'
'I will check,' said the custodian, the one who had circulated the slate. He pushed on up the steps, the phosphor light on his pole bobbing.
