The murmurs continued, but a chorus of soft voices replaced the words and the laughter, and every ear seemed to be covered with a high silken mist - even if the sound that came through was hissing and distorted.
Valler had been listening for nearly half an hour, his casual interest turning into keen attention and soon into rapt attention.
Septimus looked at the apothecary more often than at the hologram, and he noticed that Valier's pale lips never stopped trembling as he tried to translate the unfamiliar words in his mind.
"grown ups--"
Septimus tried again, but was interrupted by a raised fist.
If he spoke again, Valier would probably call.
"Dietrian."
After a few heartbeats, Valek spoke.
"What's wrong? Skinner, what do you hear in the Eldar's voice?"
"The game has changed, let me go to the surface of Nathan Six."
As soon as these words came out, Dietrian's spectacle lenses immediately rotated in a circle and refocused in the eye sockets.
"I will take negative action against procedures that completely violate Talos' orders and plans, or require you to submit sufficient reasons."
Valiel did not answer immediately, still listening distractedly to the Eldar language, which Septimus thought sounded like some kind of song sung by people who wanted their voices to be heard.
It was great, but still gave him goosebumps.
"The game has changed."
A minute later, Valier repeated his previous words.
He turned around the simple command podium and scanned everything with his cold blue eyes, but saw nothing.
Dietrian was indifferent to Valier's whispers in the distance.
"I reiterated my opinion that if you want to amend the clause, it becomes a requirement, then provide sufficient reasons, otherwise you have no authority to make the order."
Valere finally focused his eyes on something—specifically, Dietrian, who was wearing a red robe and had a skull face half hidden in the folds of his hood.
"Eldar——"
Valier said softly:
"They whispered their prophecies, and the Eighth Legion mercilessly bled them out over the following decades. Do you understand? They didn't pursue us because Talos's mind screamed... They cursed us. of stupidity, they need to cut off their unwanted future from the shackles of fate.”
Dietrian made a false abort sound that amounted to a contemptuous snort.
"That's enough. The alien's witchcraft is irrelevant, and the alien's superstition is irrelevant. The order I received is the most important thing."
Valiel's eyes turned to the distance again, and he listened to the aliens singing in their whispers.
"That's it."
The apothecary blinked and stared at the Bishop again.
"You don't understand, they're trying to prevent some future... something that's not yet to come, where Talos leads the Eighth Legion in a crusade against their dying species, and they sing songs like children praying. , I hope God has mercy on them, do you hear that? Are you listening to what I say?"
Septimus took a few steps back to make way for the apothecary.
Valier walked over and stared at the sitting bishop. Septimus had never seen Valier with such a high temper.
The pharmacist was narrating something almost through gritted teeth.
"They're out to kill a future that scares them! One they can't allow to happen! It's a huge risk for them, so they corner us and hunt us down with ships piloted by ghosts! That’s how they want Talos dead.”
Dietrian repeated the negative.
"Everything you say is pure speculation based on a foreign language."
"What if they're right? The Prophets of the Eighth Legion will rise at the end of the Dark Millennium and bleed the Eldar far more than their dwindling population can handle! Damn it, you're not interested in anything other than work Are you blind to everything, can’t you hear what I say? Listen to me, you heretical sorcerers, in the future they saw, the prophets destroyed their craft world!”
Dietrian had to admit that he was struggling to make a decision.
Talos had asked him to take a series of actions to get both the people and the cargo off the ship safely, but the apothecary had made a compelling case—even if it couldn't be boiled down to practicality and possibility.
"To deal with the odds of this ship surviving a direct engagement with an enemy fleet requires the kind of calculations that few biological minds can comprehend, and suffice to say, you understand, the odds are against us."
Dietrian might have grinned right then and there if he could have smiled sincerely, rather than as a natural byproduct of a metal skull.
He takes great pride in his ability to understate things.
But Valier was neither impressed nor amused.
"Adjust the gears that squeak behind your eyes. If the Eldar are so afraid of this prophecy coming true, that means Talos could possibly survive this war, and we have a chance...my brother's fate is anything but. To die miserably in this worthless world, I was going to give him a chance and let him take that chance."
Dietrian's cold exterior didn't even change.
"Talos's last orders are still in effect. This container is now the gene-seed repository of more than a hundred fallen soldiers of the Eighth Legion. This genetic material must reach the Great Eye. This is my oath to Talos. I swear this promise." .”
This last sentence made him very uncomfortable.
"You should run, but I won't."
Valier turned to Septimus.
"Number seven."
"grown ups?"
"Prepare your gunships and get me off Naisen Six."
Just when Valier announced that he was leaving the shuttle, Octavia was doing something she had not dared to do for a long time - using her talent to try to peer into the outline of the subspace.
It took her a long time to calm her nerves before she closed her eyes and untied her headscarf, risking being seen by unwanted presence.
The rest didn't take much time, in fact it was almost easy - similar to the feeling of falling halfway down a difficult climb.
Octavia, once the Eurydice of her family, may not have been born with the blood of a powerful navigator, but her experiences aboard the temperamental but determined ship of the Eighth Legion honed the skills she possesses.
As she stared into the endless black tide, she couldn't help but wonder where she and Septimus would go, how they would escape the Eye of Terror.
This thought seemed less pessimistic than before, and she didn't know why.
Seeing the Sea of Souls was as simple as opening her third eye, and while she knew some Navigators would allow spirits to enter the Warp, she didn't need to.
Her father could only see the Warp with three eyes open, she never knew why, they both had their own personal habits.
When she saw it, she just watched the ebb and flow of the half-formed nothingness with mysterious eyes, shapeless but like a tide, shapeless but like a snake.
Shamans and witches from the primitive days of ancient Terra would have thought this was no different from their rituals of peering into the mysterious hell.
But as she searched, she couldn't help but hold her breath each time until her beating heart and aching lungs forced her to breathe again.
She realizes that on some logical level she is projecting sights through the evil Warp, perhaps even projecting fragments of consciousness into space - but Octavia is unconcerned with this concept.
What matters is what she can find with her second sight.
Not so long ago, they had run again and again through the Eldar blockade, following the path of least resistance through the tide, she guiding the cursed echo as best she could, riding the waves.
All the while she was caught between two states, looking at the fractured subspace and feeling her hands on her swollen belly.
Now free from the stress of navigating the warp, she was free to gaze upon it.
Octavia stared harder, her gaze reaching deeper, past the black shadows beyond the rays of the star torch, searching for any source of light among the conflicting clouds.
For the first time she began to see what Talos had done.
The collision of demonic substances was torn by savage wounds and seeping into each other before her eyes.
She could hear her name in the stormy waves, a whisper, a scream, a wail...
Octavia pulled herself back and opened her eyes.
The Warp is always changing, and it was reactivated in the hours after the Scream first sounded.
Now, however, she's preparing to guide a strange ship into unnavigable territory.
The navigator replaced her bandana, tied her ponytail back, and stretched on the uncomfortable throne, trying to relieve the pressure on her back.
She thought for a moment about the attendants standing outside the door, who must have been crowded in the narrow corridor.
Thinking of Septimus in a distant manner was painful in itself.
What's more, no matter how reluctant she was to admit it, even to herself—she wanted Septimus to be with her.
How foolish to fall in love in the darkest galaxy, in the darkest corner.
As Octavia shifted in her seat, her eyes widened with sudden shock at the news she had just received.
The message was from Septimus, it was short, but it made her heart drop to hell.
Then, she slowly put a hand on her belly and felt the new life moving inside her.
