"No, no, no. Of course not. It's not nearly enough, Morpheus."
Following the sharp, singing chi of clashing steel, Varcus flicked his tongue out, tasting a bead of blood that had trailed down his cheek. An unnamable hunger stirred in the void of his soul. In the suffocating boredom of this ship, he had finally found a new toy; he had no intention of stopping now.
"Give him to , and we can continue our... brotherhood."
The combat servitor responded by raising its gun-barrel again, the exposed cabling glowing with the hum of a charging power cell.
"Get this through your head: who is interfering with whom?" the Apothecary's voice crackled through the vox, cold and utterly impatient. "Telax notified that he was sending a delivery. If you dare obstruct , you will never receive another drop of stimms from my lab as long as you live."
The threat carried enough weight to make Varcus's expression shift through several shades of frustration. Finally, he offered a resentful snarl of concession.
"How dull. To have one's play interrupted by such a sightless thing. Brother... I'll find you again soon. Rember , brother."
After striking what he clearly thought was a theatrical pose, Varcus vanished into the shadows of the corridor.
Enkidu lowered his sabre, staring at the "Apothecary's Servitor" with a heavy, complicated knot in his stomach.
He rembered this servitor.
On the day he first opened his eyes, he and this creature had "born" together in the vats of the Velvet Abyss as fellow initiates. The only difference was that Enkidu had maintained his sanity, while this one had been a victim of chemical overload from the start.
It never even had the chance to tell him its na.
"Subject Four." The servitor turned its head with a chanical jerk, its ocular implants flickering with an irregular red light. "You have wasted a significant amount of ti. Do you require instruction on how to proceed?"
"No. I know why I'm here. Telax discovered a xenos strain. He wants you to use the samples I've brought to fashion specins for his collection."
Enkidu suppressed his sentintality and presented the stasis-crate. Thanks to the extra protective layers he'd added before leaving the Lash, the contents hadn't been shredded during the duel with Varcus.
"See that you rember. Follow . Do not let yourself be 'distracted' again."
The servitor turned and began to march into the unknown dark.
This ship is rotting from the inside out.
That was the singular thought in Enkidu's mind as he followed the cyborg through the vessel.
The skin-grafts on the floor were beginning to putrefy. No one had bothered to clean them; they had simply laid new layers over the old, creating a soft, muddy sensation underfoot that felt like walking through a marsh. Pink mists drifted across the deck, coiling eagerly around anything living that passed by. Countless limbs were nailed to the bulkheads—so xenos, but most human—with strange bio-chanical apparatuses stitched into the at. They hissed and giggled incessantly, their very breathing a discordant harmony.
"Do you find the music pleasing? It is Orpheus's masterwork."
As Enkidu kicked away a protrusion of ship-flesh that tried to root him to the spot and entered the Apothecarion, Morpheus offered the cold joke without looking up from his workbench.
"This 'art'... is far too sophisticated for my tastes."
Morpheus let out a dry chuckle. He swiveled his chair around, revealing the face of a refined, scholarly gentleman.
"No wonder Telax is so fond of you. You are dangerously, excessively lucid."
"What is that supposed to an?"
Enkidu frowned and opened the crate, releasing a puff of white nitrogen mist that clung to the purplish flesh of the Patriarch.
"Exactly what I said." Morpheus used a delicate chanical arm to lift a sample. Upon seeing the quality of the at, his clinical gaze shifted into one of genuine fascination. "Do you truly think that maintaining your sanity in a place like this is a blessing?"
"I think being a junkie like Varcus is worse. A thing that only lives for its next hit... it's pathetic."
"Many shared that sentint once."
Morpheus smiled. He drew a liquid sample into a syringe, watching the murky column rise. He placed one portion into a centrifuge and another into an analytical array. The machinery began to hum and vibrate, adding a frantic sort of life to the quiet lab.
"But in the end, they all embraced Varex."
"Why?"
"Why?" Morpheus gave him a cryptic, mocking look. "For joy, of course. To a mortal, our lives have no end. If you don't find sothing to occupy the centuries, the boredom will kill you faster than a bolter shell."
"Imagine it: you are created to be a living weapon, yet no one gives you orders. No one tells you what the goal is. No one restrains you. And you have thousands of years to fill. For most, isn't the logical conclusion to do whatever makes you feel... anything?"
"On that point, I beg to differ."
"And that," the Apothecary said, returning his attention to his dials, "is exactly why Telax loves you. He dreams of us returning to the old ways. Clad in purple and gold, carving through enemy lines like a performance, holding grand triumphs and etching new honors into our plate amidst the cheers of mortals. Endless logistics, endless glory, an eternal crusade... perhaps even replacing the Corpse and making the Third Legion the masters of the Imperium."
It is an impossible dream, Enkidu realized. And everyone, including Telax, knows it.
"What?"
Enkidu was genuinely stunned. He had never imagined that the grim, sadistic drillmaster harbored such a grand, romanticized delusion.
And more importantly... Telax loves ? What the hell?
"Is it so strange? To him, that dream is more important than his life. He has been searching... searching for an initiate who won't imdiately fall into Varex's lap," Morpheus glanced at him, amused by Enkidu's shock. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a recruit like the ones from the Great Crusade? They are either too mutated to function or so drunk on stimms they can't see straight. Almost no one returns from Varex's banquets with their mind intact."
"To make his dream a reality, Telax gave everything he owned to Lord Fabius Bile. And that investnt resulted in you."
"So, I'm the foundation of his 'Grand Restoration'?"
"Sothing like that."
A sharp electronic beep interrupted them. Morpheus hurried to the monitor, scanning the data-readouts. A smile of pure, scientific glee spread across his face.
"Fascinating! Truly fascinating! I thought such exquisite specins could only be found in Lord Fabius's private vaults. Telax has sent a king's ransom!"
He began frantically slicing sections of the Patriarch's flesh, dropping them into various unnad chemical solutions and watching the reactions with wide eyes.
"Viral infectiousness, potent bio-toxins, and even a localized psychic-genetic expression! I will fulfill his request for the specins, certainly—provided he gives a few more... or even just one live one! With this, I can develop superior combat stimms, accelerate my research projects..."
The Apothecary rubbed his hands together, the ecstasy of a new discovery shining in his eyes. Finally, he looked back at Enkidu.
"Since you are the one who brought this good news, initiate, I will allow you to ask for a small favor. Nothing too excessive, mind you."
Unbidden, a cold shiver ran down Enkidu's spine.
~~----------------------
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