“I am dissecting an angel. I imagine I am on the line of the heretical, but my fascination prevents me from yielding to the bounds my beliefs should hold me to. I have a chance I shall never have again. To feel the flesh of an angel. To look inside and see blessed organs. To catalogue and study a divine, even one as ancient and twisted as this. An experience beyond my wildest expectations.”
“Primary incision occurs at 17:62 Deck-Time. Opening from the jugular notch down the surface of the expected rib-cage. Incision extends almost two feet from commencement to cessation. Surface skin yields to within calculated normal human values of cutting pressure. Thin, showing mild desiccation, as to be expected from the condition the body was found in.”
“A tomb within a tomb. I had to carve away his armour with careful saws – baroque, heavy plates of dark metal – lest any damage come to the miracle of its body or the blessed – formerly blessed – workings of its structure. Partially fused to his epidermis by time and dust alone, we had found him bound within his command cradle. A crypt throne at centre of the silent sepulchre his vessel had become, locked amid the fragmented graveyard of void-ships, that necropolis of mankind’s journeys beyond its home…
“Wait.”
“A divergence from human norms. From accepted modification even. Rib cage and sternum fully ossified. Multiple bone plates overlap. Fused. Interlaced with fibres reminiscent of his armour. Filaments extend from beneath rib plates. Contact basal skin epidermis, adhere to it. I will attempt to excise and examine site of attachment prior to opening of the rib cage.”
“It twitched! The tendril moved when I detached it. Like a sightless worm, or a leech removed from its blood-meal. I have it held and still it twists. I can barely examine it, perhaps once extricated from the bone chest plate and whatever abominable organ extrudes them. The intricacies of it! The bone seems dense, it will take significant force to bring this loose.”
“Bring me a high pressure blade.”
“Chained blade activated. Attempting to breach chest bones. Blade makes contact and primary opening with ease. Bone less dense than imagined. Depth of cut at 1.762 units when simultaneous detachment of cilia occurs. Threads reach for cutting blade. I maintain blade action. First threads make contact with blade edge. Fibrils shatter at contact points. Remains attempt to circumvent blade edge. Multiple damaged fibres bind to chain-blade. Chain motion prevented. Increasing power. Motion remains impeded for 176.2 Deck-Time minimal units. One strand snaps at exit from bone plates. All others release blade. All fibres retract to beneath rib plate.”
“They reacted to my actions. With thought. With awareness even! I have to know what sits beneath these bones. What secrets are they hiding! The saw is making progress, my weight pressed upon it, so great is my desire! The fibre fragments are being sampled. I could barely keep from the body long enough to start the process. I must be getting closer. The heat of the saw is cooking flesh and bone. Its scent is all I can taste. Divine flesh, rancid with age, charred by man’s investigation. I must press on. The stench is sickening. But I must.
There! Through! [Words lost in laughter] The elegance of the system! No mere machinery used to replace weaker flesh.
And this! The truth!
No longer will I cower in the darkness of this medical-deck! My discoveries will change it all. They will be seen by all! And their truths can be spread. The layers of modifications that shape them. Making them different from us. Changing them from what they once were into Angels, Gods! Divines so far beyond our reach! And yet… They were once as we are. Theywere mortal humans! We have made them more and now we shall know it once more!”