Chương 28: Chapter twenty-eight

The chapel is plain and even more warded than the navigator's throne chamber. Beneath the floating altar in a recess cut into the floor is the speckled, blue and purple screen of a stasis field. A blonde child lies behind the field, his hair at odd, floating angles, not having had time to settle before he was frozen in time. He wears robes in the Rey'a'Nor grey and red with a blue sash with a sea-green buckle. A platinum, diamond shaped ornament rests on his forehead, set with a large, black opal.

I use my machine integration module to request data from the stasis chamber. Green text wriggles over my vision. Quaani Saade Rey'a'Nor Junior Navigator No mutations detected. Revive? Y/N I trigger the resurrection protocol and the field ceases. Qaani flails and gasps, then sits up, his eyes wide as he whips his head back and forth, then freezes.

"Tech-priest? What is going on? How much time has passed?" His voice is high and his tone demanding.

"For you? Eighty years. For the Imperium? I do not know. The Distant Sun is adrift, far beyond the Emperor's light."

"I see, and my family?"

"Dead, along with the rest of the crew. You and I are the only survivors." He shudders, then stands, the hovering altar moves aside automatically.

"Was it quick?"

"The navigator died on impact." He nods, "A better end than most can hope for. I suppose I am needed?"

"Not yet. There is plenty of time for you to be a kid for a while yet."

"You're rather odd for a mechanicus. A natural voice, no visible implants or red robe yet there is no doubt to what you are with the tattoos of your order running beneath your skin."

"I'm surprised you can tell." Quaani shrugs, "Even with my third eye still forming and the protective amulet in place, I can still see through your suit."

"Everyone is naked to you, eh? What a strange way to live."

"It's an incentive to practise, at least. No one wants to see your wrinkly ass." I laugh, "Well, if you can joke, you can recover. You hungry, kid?"

"I am Quaani Saade Rey'a'Nor, tech priest! Know who you stand before and think!" I hold up both my hands, palms open, before my chest, "Just as I am Magos Aldrich Issengund. No need to get all pissy. We're the last two on the vessel, might as well be friends."

"By the Emperor! Will the wonders never cease? A chatty toaster licker." I stretch out my hand, "Well?" Quaani stomps over, "Fine." My large hand engulfs his feeble palm and wrist. He freezes as we touch, then shakes his head.

"You have something old hiding in you." He shaked my hand slowly, "Vast and grinding cogs fill the earth and sky, an infinite well of knowledge shaking off aged rust, oiled by an indifferent, golden light."

"Not just a naked geezer then," I let go of his hand.

"No," Quaani snorts.

"You are a greater monster than I will ever be."

"Then we shall work together so that neither of those things come to pass."

"The last two on the vessel? I'm not sure there is any point." I ruffle his hair, "None of that now, kid. We can handle anything, no matter how big the galaxy." He slaps my hand away with unnatural strength and scowls, then his shoulders slump and Quaani sighs, "Fine."

"Let's get you out of the spire. Sleeping with the dead is one thing, skipping across corpses every time you need to take a shit is much nastier." Quaani grimaces, "Leave the spire? I've never been outside," he blinks rapidly then his eyes widen.

"Well I can't get lynched by the crew if they're all dead. Maybe it will be safe after all."

"Wow, that's depressing! Would they really attack the people who steer their ship through the warp?"

"You're assigning knowledge and critical thinking to slaves and ratings. Most see a mutant and reach for the closest fire. Young navigators stay in their spires or their family compounds until they are old enough to defend themselves from ignorance with fire of their own." I shake my head, "What a nightmare." Quaani shrugs, "Mechanicus ships are usually a little better. It's the civilian pilgrim vessels, or Adeptus Ministorum ones, that navigators hate being posted on."

"No point worrying about it now. I'll set you up in one of the apartments attached to my quarters so you have someone to talk to. I'm going to be busy fixing the ship, but I'll make time to eat together each day and once I've automated more things we'll start some home schooling and I'll work on learning navigator lore so I can teach you that as well." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Can I help fix the ship? I want to go home."

"That's what school is for. No need to rush though, kid. Repairs are going to take at least twenty years and could easily be twice that, then we have to cross the Koronus Expanse. We're going to need more than duct tape and prayer to manage that." Quaani turns away from me, "Twenty years?" He sniffles then turns back, his eyes wet.

"Well, I should have at least five hundred in me. There's time to see my home again." I pat Quanni's shoulder, "That's a good attitude to have." We go to Quaani's room and fill a crate with enough clothes and a few of his knick-knacks, including a data slate and a family portrait. We grab him a rebreather and a winter coat from the security checkpoint, then we leave the spire. I end up doing a second trip to the spire's pantry so we can have some real food.

I could grow a planet's worth of plants with the power that's used to keep the spire's pantry in stasis, but that doesn't dampen my enthusiasm for my first grox steak and vegetables. I may not have to eat or sleep most of the time, but it does keep me feeling human. Quaani follows me about when I return to work, alternating between exploring the city sized ship and reading on his dataslate, but always remaining close by. The next two years pass without incident. My knowledge expands and Quaani grows.

The Distant Sun is freed of corpses, though it is no less worn by time and battle. I also remove all the AI booby traps, though I am not confident I have found them all. As I read Quaani a bedtime story, Aruna pops up on the end of Quaani's bed and also on Quaani's dataslate propped up on his bedside table. It took an immense amount of persuasion to make the snobby bugger put his face on the 'basic' device. Aruna's voice seeps into my head and plays from the speaker simultaneously.

"We have arrived. The Distant Sun is in a stable orbit around the rogue planet Mote. Your orders, Magos?" I glance at Quaani, shaking and grinning beneath his thick duvet.

"Do you want to take a look?"

"Yes!" Quaani rolls out of bed, grabs his clothes and runs to the ensuite. The door shuts behind him.

"Are you sure?" I shout, "There won't be much to see and it is quite late."

"What else is there to look at?"

"Well, you do have a point."

"Of course I do. There are no wrong navigators, they're all dead." I sigh, I've been trying to stifle the boy's haughty ego but he's a gene-forged transhuman of immense strength and intelligence with an irreplaceable role to humanity's survival. Persuading him to view anyone other than another navigator as an entity possessing worth and rights was troublesome. The only thing that resonates with him are dire tales exhorting the ugly demise of disdainful dictators with fewer hands than they have peasants.

Thankfully, Quaani's transhuman gifts allow him to count above two, even if he likes to claim his third eye should count for at least a dozen extra appendages.

"Aruna, please ensure the observation dome is facing Mote."

"Aruna has already done so. It knows what you will want before you even think of it."

"From a human, that would be arrogance," I chuckle.

"Aruna is not limited by the failings of the flesh."

"I can never tell if you are making a joke or not."

"Aruna's point stands." Even with all my modules, I can't outthink a light cruiser class machine spirit so I copy the mechanicus machine appeasement method, "I am grateful for your consideration, Aruna." The mechanical cat swishes its tail once then disappears. For all machine spirits claim they are above mortal failings, they are just as susceptible to praise as humans. We traverse the dilapidated vessel, passing the occasional, suited servitor plodding along the cavernous corridors.

All the old ones have been recycled and I'm up to seven thousand of my own design. The auto-taskmaster and concurrent conscious cascade modules keep them loaded with tasks, but I am approaching practical control limits as while I can technically control millions of the lobotomised clones, I can't troubleshoot a million problems simultaneously as, even with all my practice, I only have ten concurrent thought streams, even if they do run incredibly fast.

I've no trouble when they're manufacturing goods, but repair work, even with the STCs to hand, is trickier, as waiting for the servitors to bruteforce solutions wastes time, energy, and materials. The savant module I put in each servitor does help when they come across the same problem, but not similar problems. The data should allow for the development of more sophisticated logic. Eventually.

The research matrix is chugging away helping me design custom mods for my command throne and cogitators so I can plug myself into more computing resources, as I can't afford the polymer tissue replacement upgrade, nor do I particularly want it. I'm far too attached to my organic processing unit. We arrive at the observation dome. I like this location so it's clean and the air is fresh. The stone gardens are well raked and delicate fountains slosh and chime.

I can still feel the thrum of the engines through my feet and the constant hum of electronics is irritating. The noise is supposed to be a feature, as most tech priests view it as an expression of faith. My refit plans contain a lot of additional sound insulation. Quaani and I lie on plasteel recliners near the centre of the dome and gaze into the void. A great warp rift cuts across the whole galaxy, splitting the Imperium in two. Looking at it is uncomfortable and I turn my attention to Mote.

We're close and it looks the size of a football, though it's actually similar to Mercury. All I can see is a dirty smudge, a shadow obscuring a small patch of space. Even so, I smile.

"It looks like hope." Quaani yawns, "I guess."

"Do you want to sleep here tonight?"

"Yes please."

"I'll have a servitor bring some blankets."

"OK." A small light powers towards the dark smudge.

"What's that?"

"The grumpy swan. I sent the thunderhawk to scan the planet up close. When it finds something we need, I'll send an arvus lighter and a score of servitors to collect more data."

"Can't the Distant Sun do that?"

"It's been scanning the planet for over two years, the thunderhawk is starting with Aruna's best guesses." Quaani snorts, "An ork is more likely to own sufficient dakka before a tech priest concedes they have all the data they need."

"That is depressingly accurate, at least we crash and burn less often."

"If you say so."

"What's with the attitude?"

"All we do is work and study! I want to do something fun!"

"We watch a film every night."

"Your films are old."

"I dare say I have the largest collection of pre-dark age media in the galaxy."

"Did you rob a museum?"

"Cheeky brat. I'm up for doing something fun." I point at Mote, "That's no garden world though. Do you have any ideas?"

"Can't you make a game or something. Don't you have someone in your galaxy sized collection? Can we leave the vessel? I want an adventure!" I rub my chin, "Alright, I'll set something up. On one condition."

"I'll do it!"

"For the love of the Emperor, never again shall you wish for interesting times." Quaani frowns, then laughs, "Oh, I get it," he says, likely picking the meaning from my surface thoughts.

"Good idea."