by Dan Abnett
‘And execute a teenage boy?’ Kara turned away. ‘Sholto has a fix on what he believes is the Allure. We are trying to talk Carl into pursuing it. I wish I had your backing on that, Patience, but you’re... messed up. I’m sorry.’
She left the tank. The door slammed shut and the lock turned.
‘Kara!’ Kys screamed.
‘Well, that was unpleasant,’ Frauka said as he walked down the brig block hallway with Kara.
She paused, and looked around at him. ‘If it turns out there’s any truth in what she said, Wystan, I will gut you myself. That’s a promise.’
‘Fair play,’ he replied, ‘but I’m telling the truth.’
Kara nodded. ‘I’ve got to get upstairs.’
‘Are we going after this Allure then?’ Frauka asked.
‘I hope so.’
There was a long, awkward pause as they faced one another. ‘Well, it’s been pleasant chatting,’ Frauka said, and turned. She watched him walk away down the companionway.
Kara headed for the bridge.
Most of the crew had assembled on the bridge deck. A few looked up as Kara walked in.
Sholto Unwerth was in his command seat, studying several consoles of flickering data.
Belknap was waiting by the main entry hatch. He stopped Kara and held her for a moment.
‘I didn’t enjoy that,’ he said quietly. ‘Kys is your friend, mine too, I thought, but she was just crazy. I had to stop her. I’ve never seen–’
‘It’s all right,’ Kara replied. ‘Kys has been through a lot. You did what you had to do.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘With me? Nothing. Something at the back of my mind.’
‘Still?’
‘I’ll get over it.’
She broke from him and walked down onto the main bridge deck of the Arethusa.
‘Sholto?’
Unwerth looked up from his consoles. ‘Is Patience all right?’ he asked.
‘She’s fine. What have you got?’
‘A strengthy lead,’ Unwerth replied. ‘We have been able to fixate a vehicle pattern on that yonder. I’m plucking it up for you now.’
Graphic display detail lit up on the main viewer: the digitally enhanced plot of one of the sixty starships at high anchor over Utochre.
‘That’s the Allure?’ she asked.
‘It took a good deal of fidgetation to locate,’ Unwerth replied.
‘But it’s the Allure?’
‘I would staple my life on it,’ said Unwerth. ‘It’s displaying alternating running codes and signals, but its inheritable pattern is that of the Allure.’
‘Current situation?’
‘It’s taking on supplies from service boats prior to disembarkation,’ said Plyton.
‘How long before it breaks anchor?’
‘Six hours, eight maybe,’ Plyton said.
Kara nodded. She turned and looked at the pale man standing by the main viewer, a galeweave throw draped around his hunched shoulders.
‘Carl?’
Thonius turned to look at them. ‘What do you want me to say, Kara? We don’t have the manpower or the firepower to board or seize them. They’re three times our displacement.’
‘We’re just going to let them go?’ she asked.
Thonius shrugged. ‘I’d love to bring them down, but I don’t see how.’
‘A stealth boarding raid,’ suggested Ballack. ‘Two or three gigs with muzzled drives.’
‘A loveable conception,’ said Unwerth, ‘accept for the veritable factor that the Arethusa doesn’t have two or three gigs. It doesn’t even have one. We have two cargo landers, and that’s the summation. Neither are muzzleable.’
Fyflank nodded.
‘See?’ said Thonius. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’
‘Except watch them translate away?’ said Ballack. ‘Throne, Carl, that ship is our last lead to Molotch.’
Thonius sighed. ‘I’m tired of hunting Molotch. I say we lay course for Thracian Primaris now and get the unpleasantness over with.’
‘We could, in all benediction, follow them,’ said Unwerth quietly.
‘Follow a ship through the warp?’ Thonius scoffed. ‘I knew you were short, Unwerth, I didn’t realise you were also short on brains. We could translate after them, but after that, in the Immaterium...’
‘That was not my meaning,’ said Unwerth. ‘We could follow them, if we knew where they were going.’
‘There’s a sort of brilliant, simple logic to that,’ said Kara.
‘Oh, yes, let’s give the shipmaster a big round of applause,’ said Thonius.
‘Don’t mock, Carl,’ said Kara.
‘Please,’ Thonius retorted. ‘Do I actually have to remind you that we don’t know where they are going? Which largely clobbers the brilliant, simple logic out of Unwerth’s idea.’
‘They know where they’re going,’ said Plyton, nodding at the screen plot.
‘Well, of course they do,’ replied Thonius.
‘Right now,’ Plyton pressed, quietly, ‘they’ll have chosen a heading, begun stellar translation computations, started the disembarkation rituals. The Navigator will already be focusing and preparing, readying himself for the trials of the Empyrean...’
‘So if somebody got aboard,’ said Kara, ‘say via a service boat...’
‘Oh, no,’ said Thonius. ‘No, no, no.’
‘Carl,’ Kara began.
‘Please, Carl,’ said Ballack. ‘I think it’s worth a try.’
‘It would be suicide,’ said Thonius. ‘Even if a person could get aboard, and stay out of sight and harm’s way, even if that person could identify the destination, and signal the information, they would never get out again.’
‘If I got in,’ said Kara, ‘I’d get out.’
‘If it was you,’ said Ballack. ‘However, I’m volunteering.’
‘Wait a minute,’ objected Plyton. ‘I called it–’
‘No one called it,’ Thonius snapped. ‘No one’s going!’
‘One last try, Carl,’ Kara said. ‘For Gideon’s sake. One last try to find Molotch and finish him.’
Thonius didn’t reply. He stared at the deck and shrugged. ‘You’re mad,’ he said.
‘I’m not mad,’ said Kara, ‘but I am going.’ She looked at Plyton and Ballack. ‘Sorry, no arguments. Only one of us three has been on that vessel before. Someone get a lander prepped for me, quickly.’
Kara walked back to the hatchway where Belknap was standing.
‘I’m not very happy about this,’ he said quietly. ‘Thonius is right, this is suicide. There are too many risks and too many variables.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I knew you wouldn’t like it, but this is what I do.’
‘Kara, the risks–’
She smiled at him, and made the sign of the aquila. ‘Have faith,’ she said.
Frauka walked back into the infirmary and righted his chair. He sat down.
Thank you.
‘For what?’
Protecting me.
‘I don’t know why I did. I don’t know anything any more.’
But you can hear me?
‘Yes. That still bothers me. I shouldn’t be able to.’
No, you shouldn’t. I think the time’s coming when you won’t be an untouchable any more. I’ve burnt you out. I’ve made you touchable. I’m sorry about that.
‘I know this is all wrong. I know you’ve screwed up my head. You made me lie.’
Not really.
‘I should tell someone.’
No.
Frauka blinked, and seemed to find focus for a second. Fear crossed his face. ‘Throne, I know what you’re doing to me! Stop it! For Throne’s sake! You made me lie, you made me lie to them! To Kys, and Swole, and–’
Quiet, Wystan.
‘I will not be quiet!’ he rose to his feet, and scrabbled for the wall link. ‘I need t–’
Sit down. You need to sit down and be quiet. We’re not
there yet.
Frauka lowered his hand and sat down, obediently. His eyes were blank.
‘Mmm, yes,’ he said. ‘Sit down. That’s a good idea.’ He picked up his data-slate.
‘Where were we?’
‘She was gasping in gleeful pleasure as he took her’. Uh, Wystan?
‘Yes?’
Your nose is bleeding.
Frauka looked down at the spots of blood plipping onto his shirt front.
‘Damn, my nose is bleeding.’
Get a swab.
‘I’ll get a swab,’ he said, rising up out of the chair.
Kys crouched against the door of the brig tank, her ear to the lock. Once again, she tried to kine her way through the tumblers and align them so that the bolt would slide. Ravenor himself had inscribed the tumblers with wards to make it hard for a psyker to manipulate them the day he had taken over the Arethusa.
There was a clunk. The door remained in place. She cursed aloud and placed her ear back against the key hole.
+Kys.+
Patience lurched back.
+Hello?+
There was silence. Her imagination.
She leaned back to try again.
+Kysssss.+
‘Throne!’ she pulled back and scrambled away from the door on her backside.
+Who is that? Who is that?+
+It’s me, Kys. It’s me.+
She swallowed. +Gideon?+
+It’s me, Kys. I’m just here, on the other side of the door.+
+The door?+ Kys hurried back to the lock and examined it. +Gideon?+
+Still here, Kys, but so far away. It feels like a thousand years. I am so trapped, so lost. I want to be there.+
+Gideon, great Throne, you’re alive!+
There was a long silence.
+Gideon?+
+Kys? I lost you there. I’m weak. So very weak. I lost you there for a moment. Are you still there?+
+Yes, I am!+
She pressed her cheek harder to the cold steel door, listening at the keyhole.
+Gideon? Gideon?+
+I’m here, but I’m so far away. I want to be there. I’m hurt. I’m locked in. The door won’t open.+
+I’m trying to open it!+ Kys fell back, panting with the effort.
+I want to be with you, Kys. I can feel it coming. I’m weak. I don’t know what to do.+
+What’s coming?+
+Death. I can feel it. It’s coming. I can taste it. It wants me. It wants to take me. I’ve been keeping it at bay, fending it off, but I can’t much longer.+
+How can I help you?+ she sent, frantically.
+Open the door. Open the door. Open the door.+
+I’m trying! I’m trying, Gideon!+ she sent back, fumbling with her mind into the delicate cylinders of the door’s lock. +I think I can open it!+
The lock squeezed tighter. With a gasp of fatigue, Kys fell back.
+Kys, can I ask you a question?+
+Of course!+
+Who’s Gideon?+
Kys scrambled back from the hatch into the far corner of the tank. +What do you mean? What the hell do you mean “Who’s Gideon?” Who am I talking to?+
+Don’t be like that, Kys.+
+Who am I talking to?+
The handle of the tank door began to move by itself, jerking impotently up and down. A sheen of ice suddenly crackled across the face of the door, forming slow, lazy crusts across the metal. Laughter, manic and wild, began to echo out of the keyhole.
+You know who I am,+ the voice said.
Nine
Medicae Ludmilla Bashesvili was a tall, scrawny woman in her late fifties. She had spent too much of her career treating dog troop Guardsmen for clap, ear infections and sprains. She entered the infirmary and her gaze fell on the battered chair, her hands tucked into the front pocket of her smock.
‘What the hell is this?’ she asked. ‘I’m a doctor, not a tech adept.’
‘It’s a life-support system,’ said Nayl, standing nearby under the careful watch of two armed troopers. Angharad and Iosob had already been taken away into detention. Lang had allowed Nayl to stay with Ravenor.
‘And who might you be?’ Bashesvili asked.
‘My name is Harlon Nayl,’ Nayl replied.
‘Oh, fancy,’ said Bashesvili. ‘Tough guy, I suppose?’
‘You mean me or the chair?’ asked Nayl.
Bashesvili bent down and examined the chair. She peered at it, and ran her hands over the chair’s surface, touching the dent-wounds and scratches. She wiped an index finger into some of the discharged fluid, sniffed it, and made a face. ‘Does he speak?’
‘Ordinarily, but his voxponder is broken. He sends to me.’
‘He’s a psyker?’
Nayl nodded.
Bashesvili exhaled and stood upright, putting her hands on her hips. ‘He’s dying. That much is clear. Critical impairment to the support system and the device’s integument.’
She gently steered the chair into the diagnosis bay, pushing aside the gurney where her more regular patients usually reclined. Nayl watched her. Bashesvili turned on a number of the devices, including an array of raised scanner pads held upright on a chrome frame. She bent a few of them over to better address the chair. Monitor screens lit up on the display consoles, and she studied them. Then she took out a paddle sensor and ran it over the casing.
‘This is thick armour,’ she said. ‘I dread to think what might have punched holes in plating this tough. Trouble is, it’s so thick, I’m not getting any kind of useful imaging through it.’
‘What can you do?’ asked Nayl.
‘I could attempt to link up an external life support system to stabilise him, but...’ She bent down to examine the recessed ports and ducts in the chair’s back.
‘But?’
‘But... looks like the connectors and feeds are non standard fitting. This chair is a custom build. So that’s no good. It’d be a stop-gap anyway. To attempt to save him, I’ll have to get in there.’
‘No,’ said Nayl firmly. ‘He doesn’t allow that.’ The armed guards either side of him tensed, ready to restrain him.
‘Does he allow himself to die?’ Bashesvili asked Nayl.
‘What?’
‘I simply can’t help him if I can’t get in there. Will he allow that, if his life is in the balance?’
Nayl shrugged. ‘He is an Imperal inquisitor. His name is Gideon Ravenor. As far as I know, he hasn’t been out of that chair since he was placed in it.’
‘How long ago?’
‘Decades. He is a private person.’
‘I’m a medicae,’ said Bashesvili. ‘We reach our own understandings.’
She ran her hands over the cowling of Ravenor’s chair again.
The hatch banged open. It was Lang and two more troopers.
‘Colonel!’ said Bashesvili, straightening up and saluting.
‘Doctor,’ Lang nodded. She looked at Nayl. ‘We have consulted with the local ordos. They’re searching their records. So far, they cannot find any trace of your credentials. Nice try. The badge had me fooled.’
‘Colonel–’ Nayl began.
‘They’re still checking,’ Lang said, ‘and signals have been sent astropathically to nearby sector conclaves. I have been promised an answer with all due haste, but realistically, this could take days, even weeks. In the meantime, sir, I have to presume the worst and deprive you of your liberty.’
‘Please,’ said Nayl.
‘This is wartime,’ said Lang, ‘and wartime rules apply. I cannot take post security anything less than seriously. The rebels have attacked this station before and may do it again, at any moment.’ She stared at Nayl. ‘They may already be here.’
‘Take him to the cell block,’ Lang told the guards. They marched Nayl out of the room.
‘This one needs attention, colonel,’ Bashesvili said. ‘He’s in a poor state.’
‘Do what you can to make him fit for interrogation,’ said Lang.
The colo
nel and her escort left. The hatch closed. Alone, Bashesvili looked down at the battered chair.
‘Where possible,’ she said, ‘I like to establish a dialogue with my patients.’
A tiny rasp of response came from the machine.
‘You know,’ said Bashesvili, ‘a does it hurt? Doesn’t it hurt? Say “ahhh” type of thing.’
There was another tiny gasp.
‘I shouldn’t do this,’ said Bashesvili, ‘but I’m wilful, and menopausal, and at the bad end of a long drudge tour out here on Rahjez.’ She reached up into her hairline and slowly unscrewed her blocker implant. She set it down on the polished table beside her.
‘Is that better? Hello in there?’
+It is better. Can you hear me?+
‘Extraordinary! Yes, I can. You’re strong. Like a song in my head. You have a nice voice. Mellow. You were a handsome devil, weren’t you?’
+I don’t know.+
‘Yes, you were, once. I can tell. Now, what’s your name?’
+Gideon.+
‘Hello, I’m Ludmilla. Don’t you dare think of messing with my head now, you understand? I have a responsibility here.’
+I won’t. I promise. Believe me, Ludmilla. All I want is for this pain to stop.+
‘Yeah, well, you’re screwed. I can tell just by the whiff of you. You’re rotting inside that box. I need to open you up. Your friend seemed to think that was a no-go. What do you say?’
+I say... I can’t hold on much longer, Ludmilla.+
‘That’s a start,’ she said. She reached over and swung in a hinged table of sterile tools. ‘What happens? Do you open your case, or do I have to crack it with a cutter?’
+Wait.+
‘What for?’ she asked. She wiped at her face suddenly, as if cobwebs had brushed against it. ‘What are you doing? I can feel that! What are you doing?’
+Forgive me. I was looking into your mind.+
‘Oh. Kindly don’t do it again.’ She paused, and then asked, ‘What did you see?’
+I saw enough to know I can trust you. I have to trust you. I will open the casing. Please don’t be distressed by what you see inside.+
‘Bloody hell, Gideon,’ she snorted. ‘You haven’t got anything I haven’t seen before. How does the casing open?’
Ravenor didn’t reply. There was a slow hiss of releasing catches, and the upper part of his chair slowly lifted away. Vapour oozed out. A dull, blue light shone from the open cavity.
