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Voice of Experience – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Voice of Experience

J C Stearns

I’ve given up trying to get my xenos friends to understand the true size of humanity’s galactic population. When I speak of figures in multiples of quadrillions, there’s always an inevitable breakdown in communication where my listener assumes one of two things: either I have a faulty grasp of mathematics, or one of us has a faulty grasp of the other’s language. I’m not aware of any hive worlds subsumed into the Greater Good thus far, so to my knowledge the t’au have never actually seen the extent of mankind’s fecundity. I, however, have been to many hive worlds, and jostled shoulder to shoulder in crowds so massive that their edges couldn’t be seen by the naked eye. I have a solid grasp of the scope of humanity’s size, and consequently I understand what a monumental honour it is to be counted among the infinitesimally small percentage of that population who have stood within arm’s reach of an ethereal, and been treated as a sure and loyal friend.

‘Gue’vesa’vres,’ he said, and inclined his bald head in my direction in the slightest of bows.

My new title still felt strange to hear. Trusted human helper, translated literally – a reflection of my position on the station, the highest-ranking of the human auxiliaries aboard the Suu’suamyth. Originally the Glory of Argyre, the orbital shipyard had come into t’au possession early in the Fifth Sphere expansion.

I bowed my own head in respect. The other t’au that were present did as well. Aun’song made it easy to respect him. The ethereal was graceful and poised. After a life spent in trenches and foxholes, up to my knees in the blood of my own troops and the dismembered corpses of the enemy, his presence was like something bordering on the divine.

‘Your service to the Greater Good has been nothing less than impeccable, Kalice Arkady.’ The even curve of the low, oblong table suggested no head, but the deference of the other commanders would have made it clear who the leader was even if I hadn’t known his caste. When he spoke, the four other t’au hung on his every word. I’ve never seen anyone in the Imperium given that degree of attention out of respect rather than fear.

‘You honour me, wise one,’ I said. My T’au was clumsy, but I saw El’Ganret, the representative of the water caste, smile and give me a slight nod of encouragement.

The other three were much harder to read, but then most t’au are. They can’t be read by their faces. Their emotions are instead betrayed by secondary clues such as tone, inflection and body language.

There were no bodyguards in the room, which demonstrated a stupendous level of trust in me, although I have no doubt that all four of the representatives – most notably the dour-faced and compactly muscled fire caste commander – would have borne me down and beaten me to death with their bare hands before they allowed their ethereal to come to harm.

‘Your service honours you,’ Aun’song replied, ‘and by turn, honours us.’

In the society of the Imperium, this sort of back and forth would have been so much high-handed jaw-flapping. Honorifics and accolades hadn’t mattered much to me in those days. A campaign medal and a pretty speech from a famed general might mean something to the rank and file, but by the time I’d made lieutenant I already knew what it really amounted to: nothing. Empty words that didn’t cost the lords anything and would keep the grunts on the front lines. The t’au, on the other hand, set great store in their words. It meant something to them that we belonged, that we knew we were as much a part of their empire as they were. That integrity meant more than all the speeches in the galaxy ever could.

‘How then may I honour us further, wise one?’ These conversations, while rewarding, could also go on for a ludicrous length of time if one side didn’t move to business first, and I’d long since learned that the t’au expected a certain degree of impatience among their alien allies. Being able to save face for everyone while still moving the conversation along was one of the many valuable skills I’d developed.

The representatives looked at one another in a scattering of half-glances – the t’au equivalent of uncomfortable fidgeting. There was something that they were clearly uneasy about.

El’Ufafri, the bulky fire caste commander, I knew. His skin showed the grey pebbling along its edges indicative of old age in his people, which wasn’t terribly surprising. I knew he was one of the members of the Fourth Sphere expansion and that he had been transferred to the station to command the fire caste forces here in recognition of his many achievements. Beyond that we’d had precious little interaction, even though I was theoretically his direct subordinate. He avoided my presence and I had begun to think he might harbour ill feelings towards humans in general. Not a surprising attitude for the Fourth Sphere warriors, who had suffered hardships beyond imagining, first in their long sojourn in the warp, then again later in the years of isolation in the Nem’yar Atoll. As a veteran myself, I could hardly bear a grudge against him for the psychological scars of his battles.

The air and earth caste members of the administrative council aboard the station were almost complete mysteries to me. I’d been before the council twice before, which were the only times I’d even seen the air caste representative. Tall and willowy like the rest of her caste, she had a tendency towards brusqueness that would have bordered on rudeness in human society, but she spoke to her peers in the same manner she did to me, so I assumed it was a trait of her culture rather than a reflection of her views towards aliens. The earth caste representative and I had met a handful of times on the station since most of the humans aboard worked as engineering labourers that operated under the earth caste’s jurisdiction.

‘You are familiar with the collapse of the loading ring yesterday?’ Por’el Ganret was by far the most familiar of the advisory council which served, for most purposes, as the ruling body of the space station. I knew there was an ethereal council of indeterminate membership as well, although they rarely interacted with the rest of the facility and only occasionally chose to issue orders to the advisory council. At least, that was the image which was maintained.

‘I am,’ I said. ‘Seven people were killed, unfortunately.’ Six humans and a t’au. I was not only familiar, I’d signed the mortifaction notices for the deceased personally. I could still remember each of their names.

‘A great and sorrowful loss,’ said El’Ganret. I believed him. Like all of the water caste, his face had a much greater range of expression than was usual amongst the other t’au – a trait that made him far more relatable. The sympathy on his features was genuine, which I appreciated. ‘Of even greater sorrow is the truth – it was not seven, but seventeen who perished. A further ten members of the earth caste were immolated when the ring was destroyed.’

I was shocked, but the rest of the council didn’t react. Clearly this was information they were already aware of. Transparency wasn’t a huge virtue for the t’au, which I suspect is a commonality in leaders the galaxy over. Outright falsehoods, however, were comparatively rare and it was enough to take me aback. Surely there was a reasonable explanation.

‘Nor is this the first accident,’ said El’Ganret. ‘The engine failure on the Dawning Eye did not claim an empty ship through an autopilot misfire, as has been publicly reported. There were twenty-two t’au aboard the vessel when it broke from its trajectory and exploded.’

‘You suspect sabotage.’ It wasn’t a question. The pieces were all there. Two accidents were a coincidence, but I immediately began to recall others. ‘The pressure failure last month on deck twenty-one? The air regulation malfunction on the departing cruiser before that?’

El’Ganret nodded gravely. ‘Beginning with the toxicity-driven food shortage two months ago, yes.’

I was troubled that I’d heard nothing and angered that someone had struck out against us in this way, but not horribly surprised. The gue’vesa who had accompanied the Fifth Sphere fleet from the t’au homeland to the Nem’yar Atoll were drawn from many human communities, some of which were recent additions to the T’au Empire. Misguided Throne loyalists were something to be expected: those that were too indoctrinated into the Cult Imperator to accept the Greater Good, but unable to escape before their worlds had joined the empire. Such malcontents often kept their heads down and most eventually saw reason, but they sometimes formed small resistance cells that could prove a nuisance to fleet operations.

‘You suspect humans.’ That wasn’t a question either. The council had reported the human deaths while downplaying the t’au ones. They were refusing to give the terrorists any attention for their actions while doing a damn fine job of making it appear that the sabotage was doing more harm to their own people than to the t’au.

Aun’song gave a slight nod.

‘Quite.’ El’Ganret nodded again, smiling at me as though I were a particularly bright scholam pupil. ‘Given your military background and your position among the humans, we believed it would be in our best interest to have you spearheading the inquiry. If it should come to light that we’re investigating the gue’vesa population, it will ease tensions to have a human trusted by both sides asking the questions.’ He glanced at Aun’song, who nodded again. ‘We also feel that it would do well to show the other species aboard the station that you have our full trust as well. To this end, we’ve authorised jidan protocols for the duration. Your mandate will be in effect until all of the saboteurs have been brought to justice.’

‘Make no mistake, Kalice Arkady, a swift resolution to this matter is required.’ El’Ufafri’s voice was soft and high, at odds with his martial appearance. ‘Each successive attack has escalated in severity. If one of these attacks were to reach a station commander, or one of the ethereals, the effect on station morale and operations would be catastrophic.’

He reached beneath his robes and then leaned across the table to set a pulse pistol in front of me. I nodded, swelling with importance. Jidan, or the bearing of live weapons outside of a military theatre, was an honour rarely accorded to anyone not of the fire caste. This was a tangible, visible reminder of the respect that I was being granted.

‘I am honoured to serve,’ I said.

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