The First Heretic

They are not alone in their flaws. The unwinding years will bring these biological errors to light. Gene-seed degeneration resulting in organ failure, stealing the ability to salivate venom; intolerance to certain radiation will alter a warrior’s skin and bones.

‘The Imperial Fists,’ said Malnor. ‘And the Salamanders.’

‘But what of us?’ Dagotal asked.

There was a pause as Ingethel whisper-laughed behind their eyes. What of you?

‘Will we suffer from those... impurities?’

‘Answer him,’ said Argel Tal. ‘He asks what we all wish to know.’

The code written into your bodies is purer than most. You will suffer no special degeneration, and endure no unique flaws.

‘But there is something,’ he said. ‘I hear it in your voice.’

No Astartes is as loyal to their primarch as the XVII are to Lorgar. No Imperial warrior believes in their father’s righteousness with as much faith and ardent devotion.

Argel Tal swallowed. It felt cold, and tasted sour. ‘Our loyalty is bred into our blood?’

No. You are sentient creatures with free will. This is no more than a minor divergence in an otherwise flawless code. Your gene-seed enhances the chemicals in your brain tissue. It gives you focus. It grants you unbreakable loyalty to your cause, and to Lorgar Aurelian.

‘I do not like the turn this revelation is taking,’ the captain confessed.

‘Nor I,’ admitted Torgal.

The surprise you feel is false, Argel Tal. You have seen this before, reflected in the eyes of your brother Legions. Think of the compliance of Cassius, when the pale sons of Corax watched you with distaste, arguing against your savage purge of the heathen population. The Thousand Sons at Antiolochus... The Luna Wolves at Davin... The Ultramarines at Syon...

All of your brothers have watched you and hated you for your unquestioning, focused wrath.

He moved back to Guilliman’s pod, examining it rather than paying attention to the technicians below. ‘I will speak of this no further.’

It is not a flaw to believe, Word Bearer. There is nothing purer.

Argel Tal paid the daemon’s words no mind. Something else had caught his attention and wouldn’t let go.

‘Blood of the... Look. Look at this.’ The captain crouched by the lower half of Guilliman’s coffin-womb. A bulky generator box was half-meshed with the main machinery behind the gestation pod. Coolant feeds quivered as they pumped fluid, and the details that could be made out through gaps in the armoured covering showed the generator’s internal compartments were filled with bubbling red liquid.

Dagotal looked over Argel Tal’s shoulder. ‘Is that blood?’

The captain gave Dagotal a withering look.

‘What?’ the sergeant asked.

‘It’s haemolubricant, for a machine-spirit. These secondary generators are fastened behind each pod. And look, they run along the spinal columns of these structures, up the tower.’

Dagotal and the others looked around. ‘So?’

‘So where have you seen power generators of similar design before? What engine requires a machine-spirit of this complexity to function?’

‘Oh,’ the sergeant said. ‘Oh.’

The Word Bearers looked up at the central column, juddering and humming with its machine-parts and multiple power supplies.

At last... Yes...

‘This is more than an incubation tower,’ said Xaphen.

You are so close now...

Argel Tal looked at the pods, each in turn, and the insanely complex array of machinery coupling them to the central column.

Yes... Yes... Witness the truth...

‘This is a generator,’ his voice softened in disbelief, ‘for a Geller Field.’