Eisenhorn Omnibus

thousand years. I wondered how much was known about them by the rogue traders who sailed beyond the Imperial veil, men like Gor-gone Locke.

All we knew with any certainty was that the saruthi were an old xenos culture – insular, secretive, lying outside the bounds of the Imperium. They were technically resourceful, mature and well- established. We knew nothing of their culture-type, beliefs, language… not even their physical appearance.

4Ve can at least conjecture they have some religious beliefs or values/ Aemos told me. 'Or, at the very least, they hold certain relics of their past in high regard for some symbolic or sacred purpose. Our foes only excavated that material on Damask because they knew it had value to the saruthi/

'Holy items? Icons?'

He shrugged. 'Or ancestor spirits – or simply a desire to recover and repatriate cultural materials from their past/

'And we know their territory was once bigger. Extending as far as Damask, even if that was but a distant outpost/ said Lowink.

We sat around an inlaid table in one of Maxilla's staterooms, the polished table top smothered in open books, scrolls, data-slates and record tiles.

'And Bonaventure/ I said. 'The wheel-graves. Bequin remarked that the site at North Qualm reminded her of those on her birthworld/

'Perhaps/ said Aemos. 'But I am no archaexenon expert. The wheel-graves of Bonaventure are classified as 'of unknown xenos manufacture' in all the texts I can find. They are but one among hundreds of unidentified relic sites in the Helican sub-sector. All traces of a long-vanished, or at least long-shrunk, saruthi civilisation… or the remnants of many miscellaneous forerunner species that roamed this part of space before man ever came this way/

I set down a data-slate and picked up the item that lay in the centre of the table, wrapped in felt. It was the single ancient tablet that had

escaped Damask with us. I had taken it from the crate during the standoff, and it had still been in my hand when we had thrown ourselves aboard the gun-cutter. Like the stonework dug-out in the flame hill mine, it was made of a hard pale material glittering with flecks of mica that we all agreed was not indigenous to Damask. And it was octagonal, but not regularly so, being peculiarly long on two edges. The back of it was burned and scored where it had been cut away. The reverse showed a bas-relief symbol, a five-pointed star sigil. But it, too, was irregular: the radiating spars of the star were of unmatched length and they protruded at a variety of angles.

'Most perturbatory/ said Aemos, looking at it for the umpteenth time. 'Symmetry – at least, basic symmetry – is a virtual constant in the galaxy. All species – even the most obscene xenos kinds like the tyranid – have some order of it.'

'There's something wrong with the angles/ agreed Lowink, furrowing his unhealthy, socket-pocked brow. I knew what he meant. It was as if the angles in the star symbol made up more than three hundred and sixty degrees, though that of course was unthinkable.

Who has been in here?' I asked at the start of my next session with Pontius. I glanced around the frost-caked chamber. Bequin shrugged, blowing on her hands. Aemos also looked puzzled. 'The casket has been moved again. Just slightly. Who has been in here?' 'No one,' Pontius remarked, his artificial voice colourless. 'I was not directing the question at you, Pontius. For I doubt you would tell me the truth.' 'You wound me, Gregor/ he answered softly.

Are you sure it's not your imagination?' Aemos asked. 'You said before-' 'Perhaps/1 frowned. 'I just feel something is… changed/

I dined with Maxilla most evenings during the long voyage, sometimes in company with the others, sometimes alone. One evening in the twenty-fifth week, only Maxilla and 1 sat at the stateroom table, as the gilt servitors brought in our meal.

'Tobius/1 said at length, 'tell me about the saruthi/

He paused, and set his food-laden fork back down on his salver.

'What would you have me tell you?'

'Why you claimed to know nothing of them when I told you we were heading into their territory/

'Because such places are forbidden. Because you are an inquisitor, and it does not do to admit transgressions to one such as you/

I toyed with the lip of my half-empty glass. You have aided me eagerly and generously up to now, Tobius. I suspected your motives at first, a detail for which I have apologised. I see now you are as keen to serve the Emperor of Mankind as I. It troubles me that you would withhold information now/

He bared his pearl-inlaid teeth and dabbed at his lips with the comer of his napkin. 'It does more than trouble me, Gregor. It has plagued me, a crisis of conscience/

'It is time to speak then/ I refilled both of our glasses with vintage from the decanter. 'Imperial knowledge of the saruthi is scant, and as you say, forbidden. I am more than aware that rogue traders know a great deal more about the outside systems and their species than we do. You are no rogue, but you are of the merchant elite. I think it unlikely that you have never come across any information pertaining to this xenos breed/

He sighed. As a young man, over ninety years ago, I travelled into saruthi space. I was a junior crewman aboard a rogue trader called the Promethean. The master was Vaden Awl, long dead I imagine. Now there was a true rogue. He was sure he could strike a trading deal with these unknowns, or at least rob them blind of treasures/

And did he?'

'No. Remember, I was junior crew. I never left the bowels of the ship, or went to the surface of any worlds. All I knew was the miserable duration of the voyage. The senior crewmembers were tight-lipped. It took them, as I understand it, a long time to find the saruthi at all, and then they were less than forthcoming. The third officer, a man I knew reasonably well, confided to me that the saruthi played tricks on Awl's trade envoys, hid from them, tormented them.

Tormented how?'

Their worlds were eerie, disarming, uncomfortable – something about the angles, the officer said/

The angles?'

He laughed sourly and shrugged. As if something ill and twisted had infected their dimensions. We came back empty-handed after a year. Many of the crew quit and left the Promethean on our return, especially when Awl, who was a sick and driven man by then, declared he was going back to try again. I quit then too, but only because I couldn't face another year below decks/

'And Awl?'

'He went back. I presume so, anyway. A few years later I heard his ship had been taken in the Borealis Reach by eldar renegades. That's the sum of it. You can perhaps see why I was unwilling to tell you these things before… because there is nothing useful to tell. Except to incriminate myself by admitting I had gone beyond/

I nodded. 'In future, do not hold information back from me/

'I will not/

'And if you 'remember' anything else…'

'I will tell you at once/

Tobius/ I paused. 'You say the voyage of the Promethean was long and fruitless, and the crewmembers were tormented by the beings they eventually encountered. Do you not have misgivings about returning there?'

'Of course.' He smiled a thin smile. 'But I am bound to serve you as an agent of the Emperor, and I will do so without question. Besides, part of me is curious.'

'Curious?'