Mechanicum

'Ah, Zeth, you're almost making it too easy for us,' chuckled Melgator. 'Can you track this Dalia Cythera?'

'I can, but it will be easier just to take the information from the people she knows,' said Remiare. 'Archived work dockets list her as being assigned to a team of four individuals: Zouche Chahaya, Severine Delmer, Mellicin Oster and Caxton Torgau. Only Mellicin Oster is still within the Magma City.'

'Where?'

'Within Arsia Mons sub-hive Epsilon-Aleph-Ultima,' said Remiare. 'Fiftieth floor, shutter seventeen. Off shift until 07:46 tomorrow morning.'

'Find her,' hissed Melgator. 'Learn everything she knows.'

The mag-lev was full, every seat taken, but the threatening presence of Rho-mu 31 assured them a private cabin, though it was still cramped with the five of them wedged in tight. Rho-mu 31 stood at the door to their cabin, his weapon stave held tight across his chest, leaving the four seats for Zouche, Dalia, Severine and Caxton.

Zouche and Severine sat across from her, and Caxton lay with his head on her shoulder, snoring softly. The pale, artificial light from the window gleamed from his tonsure's scalp, and Dalia smiled as she leaned back against the faux leather chair. She looked out over the Martian landscape as the rest of her companions slept. Even Rho-mu 31 was resting, the glow of his eyes dimmed as he conserved power, though his internal auspex was still vigilant.

Beyond the energy shielded glass, undulant plains stretched off into the distance, the grey emptiness of the polluted wastelands somehow beautiful to Dalia. Unfinished or abandoned mag-lev lines stretched off into invisibility in long rows of sun-bleached concrete T's, and the sight brought a forlorn ache to Dalia's chest.

It had been years since she had seen a landscape as vast as this, and even though it was bleak and inhospitable, it was wide open and the heavens above held the landscape protectively close to them. Bands of pollutants striped the sky like sedimentary rock, and columns of light pierced the darkness as ships broke atmosphere.

A shiver travelled the length of Dalia's spine as she felt the aching loneliness that had become part of her soul since her connection with the thing beneath the Noctis Labyrinthus. The desolate emptiness outside was so endless that Dalia could easily imagine Mars to be dead, a world utterly scoured of life and abandoned for all eternity.

She was tired, but couldn't sleep. The black emptiness behind her eyes lurked in the back of her mind like a hidden predator that would strike the instant she allowed the shadows to cloak it.

'Can't sleep, eh?' asked Zouche, and Dalia looked up. She had thought him to be asleep.

'No,' agreed Dalia, keeping her voice low. 'A lot on my mind.'

Zouche nodded and ran a hand over his shaven scalp. 'Understandable. We're out on a limb, Dalia. I just hope this journey turns out to be worth it.'

'I know it will, Zouche,' promised Dalia.

'What do you think we're going to find out there?'

'Honestly, I'm not sure. But whatever it is, I know it's in pain. It's been trapped in the darkness for such a long time and it's suffering. We have to find it.'

'And what happens when we do?'

'What do you mean?'

'When we find this thing, this… dragon. Are you thinking about freeing it?'

'I think we have to,' said Dalia. 'Nothing deserves to suffer like it's suffering.'

'I hope you're right,' said Zouche.

'You think I'm wrong to want to help?'

'Not necessarily,' said Zouche, 'but what if this thing is meant to suffer? After all, we don't know for sure who put it there, so perhaps they had a very good reason to do so? We don't know what it is, so maybe whatever it is should be left in the darkness forever.'

'I don't believe that,' said Dalia. 'Nothing deserves to suffer forever.'

'Some things do,' said Zouche, his voice little more than a hushed whisper.

'What, Zouche?' demanded Dalia. 'Tell me who or what deserves to suffer forever?'

Zouche met her stare. She could see that it was taking all his control to maintain his composure and she wondered what door she'd opened with her question. He sat in silence for a moment, then said, 'Back before people lived freely on Nusa Kambangan, it was once a prison, a hellish place where the worst of the worst were locked up - murderers, clone-surgeons, rapists, gene-thieves and serial killers. And tyrants.'

'Tyrants?'

'Oh, yes indeed,' said Zouche, and Dalia thought she detected more than a hint of bitter pride in his voice. 'Cardinal Tang himself was held there.'

'Tang? The Ethnarch?'

'The very same,' nodded Zouche. 'When his last bastion fell, he was taken in chains to Nusa Kambangan, though he was only there a few days. Word got out of who he was and another prisoner cut his throat. Though if you ask me, he got off lightly.'

'Having your throat cut is getting off lightly?' asked Dalia, horrified by Zouche's coldness.