Part 11

Insurrection

The two problems could in some part share a solution, assuming they weren't working together, thinking quickly the bridge crew and Enginseer Gaetaen vented compartments, deployed armsman squads, and closed bulkheads to guide the lower deck zealots and the servitor army towards each other, with satisfactorily bloody results. Casualties on the lower and middle decks were high, but acceptable, and the guards on the critical zones were holding for now. But something needed to happen to break the deadlock.

Halit Kurt was that something.

Mutation is a fact of life in the Imperium, and one of it's greatest dangers, although the Administratum allow great latitude in how most worlds operate, they do have a few rules which are not to be challenged, the first is that all worlds must pay their tithes, usually in the form of materials, but labor or conscription are acceptable as well, the second is there must be no other religion than the Imperial Cult, again there is much leeway to be had, and the Emperor as sun god on one world is as respected(usually), as the traditional one of Him being the Master of Mankind on Terra, so long as he is prime, the Imperium is happy, the last is in two parts, one is that mutation must be controlled, and the other is that all humans with psychic abilities must be held and sent to Terra via the Black Ships.

Mutation expresses itself in a multitude of ways, from the sad victims of random physical changes, to the more or less stable abhuman races like the Ogryn, and of course the usually completely human seeming psyker. As the Emperor exemplifies the ideal of the human form, the mutant represents it's desecration, and while psykers are needed, and abhumans can be useful, the random mutation is not, thus, throughout the galaxy, mutants, or “twists”, are a massive underclass with no rights, perceived at best as sad victims of chance, or at worst as harbingers of direst heresy, mutants serve as slave labor on forge worlds, cannon fodder on the battlefields, and work the most dangerous jobs on starships, they do so under the worst conditions and are compensated only by the opportunity to bring meaning to their pitiful existence by serving and dying at the pleasure of the Imperium.

Halit Kurt knew this better than anyone, as the Twist-Catcher on Parte Visiblis he had served the Bale family for years now as their spy and overseer of the mutant population in the bilge decks, many a revolt had been quelled before it started by the Twist-Catcher's intervention, the mutant slaves were needed it was true, but they were also a viper held to the breast of the holy ship, and had to be controlled.

Halit Kurt knew this because he was one himself. His life was controlling his fellows and monitoring the hullghast population and he knew that he was doing the Emperor's work,.

As Twist-Catcher, he was the only member of the mutant class tolerated on the upper decks, and that not for long, so when he appeared on the bridge during the initial outbreaks of the mutiny, using secret paths known only to himself, he was greeted with suspicion and denied access to Captain Bale. This he accepted with equanimity, he knew what he was after all. So he waited for some hours, eventually his quiet persistence, disquieting presence, and appalling odor prompted someone to notice him and in a moment of relative calm he approached the Captain. Bale had always dealt fairly with him and his kind, not gently, no, never that, but fairly and that made him bold enough to make his offer.

He was not an appealing figure, even swathed in an attire composed of loose fitting rags and robes, with his face habitually covered by a handmade gas mask it was clear that he would never pass for human, one leg was obviously shorter, or was it longer? Than the other, and he was... lumpy, with obvious bulges pushing through is rags seemingly at random, more unsettling was that those bulges did not remain still, shifting slowly but perceptibly over time. No one ever asked him if that hurt.

It did.

Despite his appearance, he spoke Low Gothic with an educated accent.

“Sir, we in the bilge decks are at great risk from these Red Redemption zealots, already they slaughter who they can find, if they take the ship they will surely purge us all, so I bring to you a suggestion.”

Bale concealed his distaste, poorly, but Halit appreciated the effort anyway and responded:

“What sort of suggestion?”