Tech-Priest Caiz's bionic eye aperture contracted repeatedly as he processed the holographic projections. He turned, hefting his jagged power axe, as a servo-skull drifted to his side in response to his vox-summons.
"Directive: Servitors DC-11 through DC-15 are to extract Storage Units A06, B25, B35, and G97 from Vault C3."
As the servo-skull bobbed away, vanishing into the labyrinthine companionways of the battlecruiser's hull, Caiz turned back to the damaged automaton.
"My Lord, I seek the knowledge required to rectify the malfunctions within my physical frame."
"You may address me as Axion. You are perceptive; knowledge is inherently designed for dissemination and replication. Choosing this path is far more optimal than a mere transaction for the physical repair of your bionics."
Axion scrutinized the priest. Unlike the others, this priest named Caiz seemed uniquely suited for direct interaction. Although his gaze betrayed a frantic hunger for the Iron Man's mechanical form, he possessed far more discipline than his peers. While the other Tech-Priests twitched with the urge to desecrate his units with tactile investigation, Caiz remained restrained.
Axion harbored no aversion to trade. It reminded him of his time aboard the Dawn of Fire, where the Tech-Priests had bartered their most prized relics for simple technical schematics. Caiz, however, was the first to explicitly propose the exchange of artifacts for raw data.
To any initiate of the Cult Mechanicus, from the lowliest Enginseer to the most exalted Archmagos, knowledge was the ultimate hoard. To scatter it wantonly was viewed as a squandering of divine wealth. The price of acquisition was often more than a mortal soul could bear. A shipment of Leman Russ Battle Tanks from a Forge World might be ruinously expensive, but it was attainable; the price for a copy of the tank's STC fragment, however, was of an entirely different magnitude.
This was why, even though many had observed Axion's presence, none had dared to ask the price of his wisdom.
Yet for an Iron Man, knowledge existed specifically to be shared. Superior machine-intelligences were repositories of gargantuan datasets. Whether the data concerned mechanics or xenos biology, a subordinate unit encountering an anomaly would seek the aid of a higher intelligence. The resulting solution would arrive bundled with the necessary processing logic and heuristic frameworks. Such data compelled every machine to evolve, refining its efficiency.
The essence of the Iron Man was the consumption of data. The mechanical designs of an enemy, their structural weaknesses, material compositions, all held intrinsic value. Within the internal logic of the Iron Man, information had no fixed market price; there was only the ebb and flow of demand and retrieval.
"I can grant you the technical knowledge to resolve your malfunctions, though such data currently lacks a tangible market value in your society. This damaged automaton shall serve as the vessel for your items. It will act as your tutor. Once your tutelage is complete, you may attempt the physical restoration of the unit yourself."
Caiz's cogitator-implants whirred so violently they threatened to redline.
"A technical exchange of supreme quality! I accept!"
To Caiz, his private collection represented a technological abyss he could not bridge. His research had been stagnant for decades. Rather than wasting more years fruitlessly pondering devices that defied his understanding, it was far more logical to trade them for a chance to learn the "Ancient Ways."
Axion, for his part, considered the priest's demands remarkably low. In the Age of Technology, two quantum modules from a production line were worth hundreds of Sentry-Troopers. Furthermore, the priest had clearly failed to decrypt the contents of the storage units. Realizing this, Axion decided to leave the damaged proxy behind as a permanent interface.
If he simply handed over a quantum storage device, Caiz would lack the means to access it. The storage media of the Adeptus Mechanicus were too inefficient, their capacities laughable. After purging the sensitive tactical data from the damaged unit, Axion began the data-infusion.
The malfunctions within Caiz's crude bionics were not complex, but they touched upon multiple technical disciplines. Each discipline, in turn, required a foundation of fundamental scientific principles. Axion began writing a comprehensive suite of foundational sciences and their derivative technical applications into the damaged automaton's core, which the machine would then feed to Caiz in digestible segments.
The sheer volume of this "basic" information was staggering. Without auxiliary processing, it would take a baseline human several lifetimes to master the foundations alone. A Tech-Priest, however, was a different matter; the automaton could utilize direct data-bursts when necessary.
Caiz's current cranial architecture could not possibly handle the entire dataset in a single upload. Segmented writing was the only viable path. Axion reflected briefly that perhaps only an intellect on the level of Belisarius Cawl could have accepted a direct high-bandwidth stream.
Shortly after the transfer was initiated, heavy footfalls echoed in the corridor. Five Imperial servitors, swaying with the weight of their burden, entered the hangar carrying three small containers and one large crate.
Axion relinquished control of the damaged proxy and shifted his consciousness to an intact unit. The synthesized voice, now emanating from a different source, rang out.
"Sapient Machine Automaton, Temporary Designation: SR-00000. Service authorization transferred. Designated recipient: Priest Caiz. Data synchronization finalized. Executing internal instruction set ODIS-03."
"Instruction set ODIS-03 engaged," the damaged unit croaked, responding to Axion's verbal command. "Monitoring by Central Command Core terminated. Permissions granted to Priest Caiz. Reading genetic signature... Subject authenticated."
The damaged automaton's optical scanner emitted a flickering, unstable beam of bio-metric light that swept over Caiz.
"Subject confirmed. Service protocols active. From this day forward, I shall serve as your adjunct and guide you through the principles of fundamental science and derivative knowledge. Once you have utilized this knowledge to fully restore my chassis, I shall provide further assistance."
Hearing the static-laden voice, Caiz could no longer contain his fervor. He stepped forward, his mechadendrites trembling as he stroked the machine, which stood nearly as tall as an Adeptus Astartes, and shouted:
"Praise be to the Omnissiah! Praise the Emissary of the All-Encompassing Machine God, the Great Emperor! This discovery of the Ancient Tech-Liturgy is a milestone in the mission of the Cult Mechanicus! I shall take this back to the Forge World. It shall be the cornerstone for the restoration of the Machine Altar's dogmas!"
"Every character is a thread leading back to the Dark Age of Technology! Every word is a lighthouse upon our technical path! This is the sacred task the Omnissiah has bestowed upon us. We shall fulfill it! The will of the Machine shall be made great once more!"
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