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Genefather – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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CHAPTER ONE

UNWANTED GIFTS

In a room of scant comforts, Alpha Primus slept.

He appeared peaceful in his sleep; a giant slab of machine-made muscle laid so still, so unmoving, that were it not for the slow rise and fall of his enormous chest, it would have been possible to think him dead.

His quarters were stark as a mortuary, and bare of adornment. The sole features were his bed, a stand for his bolter, pistol and chainsword, and a glass-fronted case built into the wall where his enormous armour hung on a frame, the dead eyes of the helm glowering disapprovingly on the sleeping giant, as if it resented being set aside.

Cold blue light from the armour case cast a frosty sheen on the room’s unpainted metal. Primus’ bed was a single block of steel risen up out of the floor, enormous in dimension. For a pillow, there was a smaller block moulded to the contours of his neck and head. The sole concession to human softness was a coverlet of fur, threadbare now with many years of use, but that was crumpled, wrapped about one leg tightly; discarded in his sleep as a weakness, perhaps, though Primus, stiff and solemn as a sarcophagus sculpture, did not appear to have moved.

The room was freezing, but Primus slept naked, and his body was a strange winter landscape in the glow of the armorium. The input sockets for his power armour were scattered fortifications, his muscles grim and unconquerable hills, his scars cold roads dividing the patchwork textures of his skin into fallow fields. He was not beautiful, Alpha Primus, yet nor was he truly ugly, for there was a sort of glory to the roughness of his features. He had the look of something suited to its purpose. There was artistry in his creation, and love if not of the form, then at least of utility.

Belisarius Cawl had crafted him well.

Calm: the calm of death, the calm of duty ended. That was the atmosphere within this sepulchre, yet Primus was no monument, he was a living man, and his chest rose, and it fell, and his breath steamed on each exhalation. Peace and quiet, where beyond the walls of his cell was the industrial clamour of Cawl’s kingdom-ship, and beyond that the endless wars of the Imperium.

His calmness was deceptive. Behind serene features, the giant was dreaming, and his dreams were not gentle.

Primus was in the eye of the storm.

The restless energies of the warp battered at him, loud as hurricane winds. His soul flared and guttered under their strength, teasing out streamers of corposant from the glowing form he possessed in that insane and impossible place. Despite the soul-searing pain he experienced, he held his position, seeking enlightenment. Flashes of presentiment coursed through his being and he saw a complex dancing of stars. A flat world. War.

Far off, great and terrible intelligences were becoming aware of him. He felt the shift in the sea of dreams, as of leviathans stirring the water as they rose from the deeps.

Something enfolded him. A presence, or many presences, he could not tell. Golden light. A great eagle leapt up from nowhere, twin heads screaming. One head stared at him, the other was blind. The eagle erupted into a cloud of sparks that whirled away upon the psychic tempest. Beyond, he glimpsed the great beacon of the Astronomican, and a figure, or figures, writhing within its light, then it was gone.

Primus.

A voice.

Primus.

It was broken, cracked, a used-up voice long past the peak of its powers. Fragmentary, almost a chorus of itself, so broken into pieces it was.

Primus. Cawl.

He felt a regard with that voice. There was a concern in it verging on disgust, and something else… Curiosity? Hope? Those two emotions, certainly; others too, he thought.

Primus. A rival to your maker.

A spear of gold hurtled towards his head, piercing it before he had time to move. The churning landscape of the empyrean vanished, and he saw instead a pair of eyes, a striking violet. Beautiful eyes, but set in an old face full of a hateful cunning.

The spider comes.

He saw the whole of the figure, a Space Marine of the old Legions. Who, he did not know. Their kind were sadly numerous, each of their forms a reflection of their unique depravities. It was impossible to know them all.

The Spider Comes.

Primus came awake suddenly, flailing at invisible enemies. He was half off his bed before he remembered where he was. He lowered himself back onto the metal, head drooping, letting the cold certainties of reality banish the dream. But it was not just a dream. Purple foxfires clung to the corners of the room, fading now, leaving a tart stink; the aftermath of manifest psykana.

He took in a breath. It shuddered. Not like him to feel fear. The pains that dogged him always seemed especially harsh on waking, like frigid knives sliding between his muscles.

He gripped the bed’s unforgiving edge and pushed himself up. He dressed himself in his armour undersuit, and put a hooded robe over the top.

He must speak with Cawl.

Cawl was bent into an uncomfortable shape over a workbench. Upon it was a tiny, delicate device held firm in a gravity field. Primus watched him silently from the shadows. Cawl had a thousand places he liked to work, but it had been no problem for the Space Marine to find his creator. There was a link between them that he doubted he would ever be able to sever.

Cawl hummed as he worked, some ancient and peculiar-sounding tune. Tiny tool attachments darted out from his numerous supplementary limbs to solder or cut. A tap from a mummified-looking finger spun the device a quarter turn, a claw flipped open a compartment cover. A hair-thin mechadendrite wormed its way inside, and stark blue flashes of a micro-plasma welding torch scattered hard shadows across Cawl’s human face, which would otherwise have remained hidden in the depths of his crimson hood. Servo-skulls crowded him, watching all he did with their hollow eye sockets. They were dumb devices, yet Primus ascribed eagerness to them, like medicae students jostling for space round an anatomist’s table.

Primus watched a while, feeling, unaccountably, like a child. At least he assumed that was how he felt. He had never been a child, and his understanding of the state was born of pure supposition. But he imagined how a child waiting in the doorway of his father’s workshop would feel, hesitant to enter and disturb him, making the terrible night-time fears that had brought him there seem suddenly foolish.

A snake-like appendage twisted a series of miniature knobs on the gravity vice. The machine Cawl was making flipped over and around, and he set to work on another part. It was incredible to Primus that such a bloated, ancient monster could create something so delicate. For some reason he did not comprehend, the thought provoked a wave of hatred within him. For the briefest moment, he considered storming forward and snapping the old man’s neck. Only for a moment, but the intensity of the desire was undeniable.

Cawl cleared his throat, interrupting his humming. ‘Are you going to hang about glowering in the shadows all night, Primus, or are you going to tell me why you have sought me out at this hour?’ He continued to work as he spoke.

‘Hour? Time has little significance to you or I,’ Primus said. He came into the room.

Cawl chuckled. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Time wears us all down, in the end. Nothing lasts forever, not even me, or you, I’m sorry to say.’

‘I meant day or night, light or dark, they are all the same to us, only vectors for duty.’

‘I see you’re your usual cheery self.’

‘I have not come here to make idle talk, my creator,’ said Primus. He took another heavy step forward. Cawl’s flock of skulls rose up out of reach, scattering like nervous birds. Cawl paused in his work, and half turned in his seat.

‘Then why are you here?’

Primus shrugged. It didn’t seem very important now. ‘You are making a new memcore.’

Cawl glanced at his handiwork. ‘I am.’

‘A new Qvo?’

‘Indeed.’

‘The eighty-eighth is still alive.’

‘Hmmm, alive is such a subjective term, my boy, but yes, he is still with us. However, there is always going to be the need for more, and there is always room for improvement. Best to be ready, say I, and I’m glad to say that I think I’m getting closer to completing this project.’

‘You cannot bring back the dead.’

‘I’m Belisarius Cawl,’ said Cawl wryly. ‘I can do anything.’

Primus bit back another surge of anger. Cawl could not do anything. He could not stop Primus’ pain for one. Or perhaps he could, and did not care to.

‘If you say.’

Cawl turned back to the bench. ‘I do.’ His limbs recommenced their work.

Primus watched him for a minute. He considered leaving, his message undelivered. Duty forbade that.

‘I had a dream,’ he said.

‘A dream?’ said Cawl. That he did not turn around again made Primus angry.

‘A premonition. A warning.’

‘Oh?’ said Cawl distractedly.

‘A voice spoke to me.’

‘Whose?’

‘It is the empyrean. It is hard to tell. A religious man would say the Emperor, but I am not a religious man.’

Cawl laughed then, further irking Primus. ‘You got out of bed to tell me that the Emperor-Omnissiah sent you a warning?’

‘There is someone coming. A rival to you. One of the fallen Astartes.’

Cawl snorted. ‘There is always someone coming for me.’ He was interested, though. ‘Which of their abominable number was it?’

‘I do not know. But he was not monstrous as some are. However, he was old. Very old. And I sensed purpose, and malign intelligence.’

Curls of vaporised solder rose around Cawl. ‘Very good. Thank you,’ he said. His mind was almost wholly on his task.

‘You must listen!’ Primus growled, his anger suddenly spilling out. ‘You must be careful. You are not invulnerable. You are not immortal! There are beings in this universe who are your match. Listen to me. What is the point of giving me all these gifts’ – that word was said bitterly – ‘if you do not heed the warnings they provide? Be careful.’

Cawl continued to work. He began humming again.

Primus set his mouth and turned. What was the point?

‘Primus!’ Cawl called after him, when he was halfway to the door.

Primus stopped. He did not turn back. His fists clenched.

‘Thank you.’ Cawl hesitated. ‘I work on these iterations of Friedisch because I miss him. You know that. I wanted to say that you are as important to me as he was, do you understand?’

Primus tensed. Violence bubbled dangerously close to the surface of his thoughts.

‘Primus?’ Cawl asked.

In a supreme act of will, Alpha Primus unclenched his fists and strode away.

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2023.
This eBook edition published in 2023 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Artur Nakhodkin.

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