James Swallow - The Flight of the Eisenstein

'When are they not?' Oliton piped. 'Even without sword or gun, when are they not?'

His answer was lost as the hatch slammed open and the reverberation put every other sound to silence. A towering form in marble-white armour bent to enter the compartment and the iterator saw the glitter of pol­ished brass on an eagle's-head cuirass. Sindermann stepped forward and gave a shallow bow to the Death Guard, fighting down his trepidation. 'Captain Garro, welcome. You are the first Astartes to come here.'

Garro looked down at the slight man. He was thin and nervous, a cluster of sticks in an iterator's robes, but his gaze was steady and his voice did not waver. 'Sindermann,' noted Garro. He looked around at the inside of the reservoir. It was a large, cylindrical space some two decks tall, with grid-decked gantries on dif­ferent levels and a network of pipes and vent shafts protruding into the chamber. Tall sheets of metal extended out from the walls to act as baffles when the drum was full of water, but when the chamber stood empty as it did now, they gave the place the look of a chapel knave rendered in old, bare steel. Cargo pallets from the service decks had been arranged as makeshift seating and there was an altar of sorts made from a fuel cell container. Are you the architect of all this?'

'I'm only an iterator/ replied the man.

'What are you doing in here?' Garro demanded, a conflict of anger and frustration rising inside him. 'What do you hope to achieve?'

'That would be my question for you, Nathaniel.' The imagist, the woman they were calling the Saint, walked forward into the light of a string of biolumes. 'Keeler/ he said carefully, 'you and I will speak.' She nodded and beckoned him. 'Of course.' You won't hurt her!' The other remembrancer, the one Qraze identified as Mersadie Oliton, snapped at him. Her words were half in threat, half in despera­tion, and Garro raised an eyebrow at her temerity.

Keeler spoke again, her voice carrying to all the silent congregation in attendance. 'Nathaniel is here because he is no different from any one of us. We all seek a path, and perhaps I can help him to find his.'

And so, saint and soldier found a place in a shaded corner, and sat across from one another at the fringes of the lamplight.

'There are questions,' she began, pouring cups of water for Garro and for herself. 'I'll answer them if I can.'

The captain grimaced and took the tiny tin goblet in his hands. 'This cult goes against the will of the Imperium. You should not have brought your beliefs here.'

'I could no more leave this than you could leave behind your loyalty to your brothers, Nathaniel.'

Garro grunted and drained the cup with a grim sneer. And yet I have done exactly that, some would say. I have fled the field of battle, and for what? Horas and my own primarch will name me deserter for doing so. Men I have sworn to honour I have left to an uncertain fate, and even in my fleeing I have exe­cuted that poorly.'

'I asked you to save us, and you have.' Keeler watched him kindly. And you will. You are the

embodiment of your Legion's name. You guard us against death. There is no failure in that.'

He wanted to dismiss her words as insincere and accuse her of speaking empty platitudes, but despite himself, Garro found he was grateful for her praise. He forced the thoughts away and pulled Kaleb's papers from his belt pouch, the brass icon and its chain wrapped around them. "What meaning do these things have, woman? The Emperor is a force against false deities, and yet your doctrine talks of him as a god. How can this be right?'

You answer your own question, Nathaniel,' she replied. You said "false deities", did you not? The truth, the real Imperial truth, is that the Master of Mankind is no sham divinity. He's the real thing. If we acknowledge that, He will protect us.' Garro snorted, but Keeler kept speaking. 'In the past, a priest would ask you for faith based on nothing but words in a book, a tract.' She gestured to the bundle of papers. 'Does the Emperor do that? Answer my ques­tion, Astartes. Have you not felt His spirit upon you?'

It took an effort of will for Garro to speak. 'I have, or so I think… I am not certain.'

Keeler leaned back in her chair, and her beatific, metered manner dropped away. She became chal­lenging and focused, eschewing the saintly serenity he expected from her. 'I don't believe you. I think you are certain, but that you are so set in your ways that to voice it frightens you.'

'I am Astartes,' Garro growled. 'I fear nothing.'

'Until today' She eyed him. 'You are afraid of this truth, because it is of such magnitude that you will forever be remade by it.' Keeler placed her hand on his gauntlet. What you do not realise is that you have already been changed. It's only your mind that lags

behind your spirit.' She studied him carefully. 'What do you believe in?'

He answered without hesitation, 'My brothers, my Legion, my Emperor, my Imperium, but some of those are being taken from me.'

Euphrati tapped him on the chest. 'Not from here.' She hesitated. 'I know you Astartes have two hearts, but you understand my meaning.'

'What I have seen…' His voice grew soft. 'It pulls at the roots of my reason. I am questioning all that I thought absolute. The xenos psyker child that saw into me, that mocked me with jibes about what was to come… Gralgor, dead and yet returned to life by some gruesome infection… and you, glimpsed in my death-sleep.' He shook his head. 'I am as adrift as this ship. You say I have certainty but I do not sense it. All I see are paths to ruin, a maze of doubt.'

The woman sighed. 'I know how you feel, Nathaniel. Do you think that I wanted this?' She pulled at the robes she wore. 'I was an imagist, and a damned good one. I depicted histoiy as it was made. My art was known on thousands of worlds. Do you think that I wanted to feel the hand of a god upon me, that I dreamed one day of becoming a prophet? What we are is as much where destiny takes us as it is what we do with the journey' Keeler gave a slight smile. 'I envy you, Captain Garro. You have some­thing I do not.'

"What is that?'

A duty. You know what it is that you must do. You can find that clarity of vision, a mission that you can grasp and strive to fulfil. But me? Each day of my call­ing is new, a different challenge, constantly striving to find the right path. All I can be sure of is that I have an aspiration, but I can't yet see its shape.'

'You are of purpose/ murmured the Astartes.

We both are/ agreed Keeler. We all are.' Then she reached out and touched his cheek, and the sensation of her fingers against his rough, scarred face sent a tin­gle through Garro's nerves. 'Since you delivered this ship from the predations of the warp, some of the crew have been praying here for a miracle to save us. They asked me why I did not join them in their calls to the Emperor and I told them there was no need. I told them: "He has already saved us. We only have to wait for His warrior to find the means".'

'Is that what I am? The Emperor's divine will, made flesh?'

She smiled again, and with it she brought forth again the flutter of powerful emotion that Garro had felt alone in the barracks. 'Dear Nathaniel, when have you ever been anything else?'

'Status,' ordered Qruze, catching Sendek's eye at the control console.

The Death Guard nodded at the Luna Wolf with more than a little weariness in his manner. 'Unchanged/ he replied, casting about the bridge to see if any of the officers had anything else to add. Carya met his gaze and silently shook his head. Many of the shipmaster's crew, including the woman Vought, had been granted temporary suspension of their duties in light of the empty void where they found themselves, leaving the ever-wakeful Astartes to man the bridge while the men and women took some small respite. 'Machine-call signals continue to cycle on the short-range vox, although at a generous estimate they will not reach any human ears for at least a millennium.'