‘Hey, Leo?’

‘Yes, Mac?’

‘I’ve been thinking a little—’

‘Always a dangerous task.’

‘Yeah, yeah, whatever. Shut up and have another sausage. Anyway, I’ve been thinking, and there’s something I can’t wrap my head around.’ 

‘Well colour me surprised. What is it this time, Mac? Still can’t read a hand-chrono? Trouble with the requisition forms? Want to know why the nice woman with the white hair and the big boltgun didn’t respond to your vox signals?’ 

‘No no, nothing like that. See, I was wondering… well, I was wondering how the Emperor had his sons.’

‘…You what, Mac? Are you kidding me? Saints above, don’t do this to me now. We’ve been sat here on this bloody hill for three cycles, freezin’ our arses off, eatin’ nothing but cold sausage and waiting for this damned bluey big-wig to show his face so that we can blow it back to the other side of the Damocles Gulf. Is now really the time to have the talk about the avians and the apis?’

‘What? No, no, not that! I know all about that, Leo, ‘course I do. You came with me to that fun house on Tenebrum, remember? The one in the red lumen district that served Abhumans?’

‘Oh yeah, right… Well, what are you asking then?’

‘What I’m asking is, if he did it the regular way, ya know, the usual way that these things are done, then how come we’ve never heard of their mother? Or mothers, for that matter, because frankly nine is quite a lot even for us Ratlings, let alone baselines.’

‘Huh. Well, they, uh, they probably just weren’t that important to the whole process. Could’ve been anyone, ya know?’

‘That hardly seems fair. Especially considerin’ they would’ve been doing most of the actual work.’

‘Oh, for the love of – look, maybe he didn’t need anyone else, alright? Maybe he just summoned them out of the fabric of creation or somethin’. He can do that, he is the God-Emperor.’

‘Alright… but in that case, how is that different from regular people doing the same thing? ‘cos the preachers are always saying that vatborn ain’t got no souls, like the Cherubs, or the Kin, or those Kreiger loonies, so what if -‘

‘Corporal Macharius Fallowhide, that is heresy you’re talkin’! Of course they had souls! They were his sons, who all died in glorious battle to bring about the Imperium! Except for one of ’em, who’s back now, I guess. And maybe another one too… Anyway, the point is that he can do it, even if no one else can, alright? Because he’s the bleedin’ Emperor!’

‘Alright Leo, keep your tanna down. Here, have another sausage. Look, I’m just curious, okay? If he could make ‘em just like that, then why did he stop at nine? Why not make a hundred, or a thousand!’

‘Ah, well that’s just common sense, isn’t it, Mac? Everyone knows the Emperor raised nine sons to stand against the nine devils of the dark powers, so as each one had their counterpart, see? He had to have nine sons to match the nine devils, and there had to be nine devils to match his nine divine sons. It’s a whatcha-call it, big fancy word, like the whole fowl and ovine conundrum.’

‘Dialectic?’

‘Yeah that’s the one, a dialectic! One of them things. They both came about at the same time, and that meant that neither side could’ve been different, ’cos of the balance of the universe or some crap.’

‘Ah, now you see that’s interesting, ‘cos I’ve heard different. I’ve heard that the Emperor actually had eighteen sons and that half of them turned evil and became the nine devils, and plunged the new Imperium into a second age of darkness, and that was what the Great Heresy was actually all about.’

‘… Mac, where in the hells did you hear that load of groxwash?’

‘Oi, just because I’m taking interest in matters of an ecumenical nature don’t make it a load of – Wait, hold up. Is that the one, comin’ out of the north gate? Big hat sitting on top of the floatin’ disk?’

Mac dropped his sausage and raised his binoculars to stare at the entourage that had just emerged from one of the strange, smooth, disturbingly skull-free buildings on the plain far below them. Leo quickly followed suit, shouldering his rifle and carefully tucking his own sausage behind his ear for later.

‘Yeah, yeah that’s him, Leo! Looks just like the profile. He’s talking to the grunts, seems to be doin’ some sort of ceremony. You got him?

‘I got him, Mac.’

‘Good, good. He’s about six-five-five from us, sharp decline, with no intervening terrain, crosswind of about seventy. Two thirds G and with a Martian curvature. I don’t spot a shimmer on him, should be a clean shot. I’ll give you a par two, five thrones?’

‘You’re on.’

‘One in the chamber, confirm?’

‘Confirm.’

‘Ready?’

‘Ready.’

‘Fire. Fire. Fire.’

On the third word the bullet left the rifle and made a careful arc through the pouring rain, powering against the wind that battered it from its starting place at the crest of the hill, more than half a kilometre away from its target. When it finally drove through the soft flesh of the blue alien’s head and into the wall of the bunker behind, pulverising the bone and brain matter that got in its way. The crack of the rifle had already been swallowed by the howling wind.

‘Good shot mate, bloody good shot!’ Mac cried. ’Right, whadda we do now -?’ 

But Corporal Leontus Dunling was already halfway down the hill, rifle slung over his back and sausage in hand, sprinting as fast as his short legs could go. Macharius Fallowhide only had a moment for his mind to catch up before the distant shouts, the rising alarms and the sound of engines forced his feet to follow. 

‘Oh yeah, right, that was it. Take the shot, and run like hell.’