You spent several hours in the little library, your hand gliding over books, wishing you had forever to read them all, and every book in every little library like it. It was common knowledge that the Imperium had lost more knowledge than anyone could know, but Sister Charitina had told you it wasn't so, it wasn't
lost in the sense that it no longer existed, it was buried, uncategorized, lost in the stacks on stacks in the endless archives. All of Imperial history, and much of the history before, had been dutifully recorded, copied, stored, and forgotten about, the press of ten thousand years compressing that which came before like the pressure of an ocean's depths.
Or it existed in little libraries like this one, as little stories that would never go farther.
Your finger stopped on a book. Something ancient stirred within. Carefully, gingerly, you slipped it from the case and laid it out. It fell open, and you began scanning through it. Cass, curious at your intensity, scooted her chair closer and joined you.
It was a story, a very old story. It was written in an ancient dialect of Trade Gothic, and had gone through several translations to get there. You understood maybe one word in three by reading it, but slowly you pieced it together. It took the form of a series of short stories in verse, told between a diverse group of refugees hiding deep in a hive city. Between each was prose about the storytellers, commenting on each tale and reacting to the cataclysmic events happening above them. They seemed scared to give a name to whatever had driven them from their home.
They were pious, modest people, whose devotion was obvious in every word. Some were identified by trade or station; the factory worker, the merchant, the mayor, the clerk and her wife. Others were identified by where they came from; the Pacifican, the Albian, and the Princess of Mercia, who always ended up in such stories. That meant it was set on Old Terra, usually.
But there was something else. They spoke of the Emperor, as
their Emperor, so post-Unification. You soon noticed they spoke of a Temple, not the Ecclesiarch or the Ministorum. From your understanding, that meant this story was written sometime before the mid-33rd Millenium, but the tale was clearly set in the past. You got the impression the reader was supposed to recognize the event they were hiding from.
When you told her that. Cass brought out a sheet of paper and began making notes, translating as best she could.
There were two dozen stories, all of them very different. The longest was told by a character identified as The Remembrancer, a trade you didn't recognize; he told a story about the Great Crusade which sprawled on and on with names and places, never quite making it to its conclusion. One was told by a child, who told a simple tale of a rabbit which you gathered was supposed to have some kind of religious moral or meaning but which made no sense to you.
The Princess of Mercia told her usual story, which you'd seen a dozen variations of; at a great ball she meets a noble from Himalazia, an exotic prince who was effortlessly charming and perfect, but upon her accepting his proposal revealed he just wanted the fortunes of Mercia for himself. She fled, as she always did, and disappeared into the dark of the underhive, and now here she was.
Then, there was the story of the Pacifican, the foreigner who it was clear nobody really liked. Nobody wanted to let him speak at first, to hear his lies, but eventually they agreed that'd all tell a story, and he told his. It was short and simple.
"Of yore, a Pilgrim trod the path to Roma,
Was halted by a Stranger, shrouded, dark,
Who sought to learn the ruler of the land.
The Pilgrim spat and voiced, 'No lord commands,
Not even Europa's noble-born sons.'
The Stranger asked, what of the Emperor,
The Master of Mankind, whose legions sweep
Across the realms. The Pilgrim scoffed, 'He?
What right holds He o'er the whole of the world?
What lineage boasts He to claim such might?'
The Stranger declared, 'The line of Caesar,
Of Alexander the Great Conqueror,
Of Gilgamesh, Abraham, and Khan!
His is the right of every King of old,
How could any deny a man of such noble blood?'
The Pilgrim mused, the smiled, laughed deep and long,
'Emperor!' he proclaimed, 'crown me thus,
For thirty thousand years have passed, and sure,
My blood commingles with such regal lines.
Where is my throne, so I may rest my legs?'
Pilgrim and Stranger walked in silence,
Mile on mile, till Roma's outskirts they reached.
There! Warriors, in golden armour clad
descended, and the once-great city burned.
The old river flowed afresh with blood.
The Stranger gestured to the flames and spoke,
'Hark! You see now how noble lines are made,
That the blood of kings spills from humble veins
and the river crimson their claim to rule.'
The Stranger loosed his cloak to reveal,
An eagle of gold and bearing noble,
The Pilgrim, defeated, saw his Lordship,
And fell to his knees, a loyal servant."
Unlike the other stories, this one had no denouement, no commentary from the others, and the absence was so striking it felt to you like perhaps it had been left out. You read on. There were six more stories, names of places and people you'd seen before, and others you hadn't. Cass filled two more pages with notes before the end.
The final story goes unfinished. The Merchant was telling a tale about bolts of silk when he is cut off by the child exclaiming that they were saved; that the Emperor had sent a Space Marine to rescue them. The mother silences her child, and the story ends abruptly, their fates unknown.
You made more notes, and left deep into the evening, placing the book carefully into the basket to be sorted back. You wondered when it would be read next.
---
The next day, you were met at the elevator to the common decks by a member of the local enforcers, dressed in an ancient and patchwork void suit with a silver badge to denote their authority. He was not tall, only a few inches more than you; though the stereotype was that void-dwellers grew stretched,
Pilgrim's Wake maintained standard gravity even in the lesser areas, a rarity. The little man was plainly anxious about having to tell the guest from the Inquisition
no, but to his credit he held his ground.
"It's not safe!" he insisted, as you stared at the air past him, as though you were being held up by an invisible wall rather than a visible, and visibly terrified, man. "We simply cannot let you go down there."
Were they hiding something? Scared of what you might see? Telling you not to go was the best endorsement of going you could think of. With a gesture from you, Cass stepped close to him, close enough to press her pauldron against his cheek. The words
SLAM SECTOR took up most of his vision.
"Who is
we?" she asked.
"T-t-the Ministry of Security, y-y-you are our charges as guests aboard the… but-"
"Cass," you said simply, and she stepped back, grinning. "Let me make something plain. We're going down to walk the halls. If our safety is your responsibility, and it is dangerous, the proper thing to do is to arrange an escort, not stop us. You understand?"
"B-but-" You met his eyes, and he wilted. "Y-yes, Miss Interrogator. I will inform-"
"And what makes it so dangerous down there?" you asked, and he froze.
"T-the deviation from our normal course and change of routine has… riled up the… the crew. Old conflicts, sectarian conflicts, flare up, you understand? Last time there were… bombings, it would be-."
"Sectarian conflicts?" you asked. He winced.
"Yes. Um, between, well, it will seem foolish to you…" he gasped, and you indicated to Cass to press the call elevator button as he shrank away.
"Explain on the way, will you? I would like to be informed."
By the time the elevator had descended, you had the basics.
Pilgrim's Wake had a patron Saint, Saint Malpeus of Junction 32-B, and there were squabbles over the details of his life. A lay saint, clearly, but that meant little; you knew many of Saints were canonised not because their deeds were truly miraculous, but for political purposes, and many true miracle-workers overlooked for the same. Perhaps this Saint Malpeus had been the real deal, but was overlooked like millions of other faithful for his distance from the seat of power.
(You were particularly suspicious of the small canon of Living Saints and their tendency to be beautiful young women; you suspected this was merely a series of historical Cardinals independently converging on a cover story for dalliances with unsanctioned witches. Oh sure, when
you saw and did impossible things it was the work of daemons, but when the tall blond Sororita with big tits did it, well, that's a
miracle.)
The doors opened onto a curious space, though not an unfamiliar one.
Pilgrim's Wake was a sort of mobile town more than a transport, trading labour and labourers with the out of the way ports, and sure enough it looked far more like a small city than a ship in its habitation decks. The hallways and junctions were streets and intersections, with bulkheads carved out to create shopfronts and living spaces. It was as densely-packed and noisy as any hive city, swarming with people, animals, and even small vehicles which fought for every move against the tide.
You
beamed; this was a far cry from the ancient and empty halls below the command decks you'd wandered before. It was a living place, continuously inhabited as long as some of the oldest cities in the Imperium, awash with stories. It would be just a handful of city blocks on the surface of a planet, but here in the void it was a whole world unto itself.
"What is your name?" you asked the security man who you'd forcefully promoted to tour guide.
"G-G-Galane, M-miss Interrogator…"
"Galane! Is there a church to this Saint Malpeus?"
"Two, you see, that's… the issue," he said. "P-perhaps somewhere else, first? Get a feel for the place?"
You felt the Catachans draw closer to you as you moved out into the street, fighting to create a safe cordon. They looked nervous. Maybe you shouldn't be so casual about the danger.
"Perhaps…"
---
[ ] The Old Market, to see what wonders of the galaxy had arrived here. Perhaps something worth your stipend?
[ ] Hammock-Hang Junction, where the poorest of the crew slept in and lived in the open halls. It is where Praxis would have gone.
[ ] The Enforcer Station, who surely would have at least some grasp of the security situation, and might be able to direct you to the groups responsible.
[ ] On second thought, none of that is as interesting as simply heading to one of the churches and getting to the bottom of things.
