by Dan Abnett
"Molotch is alive." Ballack had told me plainly. "He staged it all so he could disappear behind a faked corpse. You were right, sir, Molotch was here on Tancred, and now he's alive and free. The Inquisition believes he's dead. We were betrayed. Someone in the Ordos betrayed us. That's the only way Molotch could have known."
"And you come to me because?"
"Because, sir, you were right, and you're the only one I trust." Molotch had escaped me too many times. Molotch had cost me too many times. Majeskus. Oh Throne, dear Will and Norah and Eleena. The memory of their screams wakes me still.
Too many times, Zygmunt Molotch, but not anymore. Even if it costs me my reputation and my career.
Someone inside the Ordos betrayed Fenx to Molotch. Thus, the simple equation: the Ordos cannot be trusted. To finish Molotch, I have to operate without their support or knowledge. I have to move in secret, and find Molotch before I am found.
It was always going to come down to this. Molotch is my nemesis. He was always going to be the one to destroy me.
Kara has just signed off. The vox-grid is dead again. She says everything is all right aboard the Arethusa, and I trust her, although I am still bothered by the mysterious secret she keeps. I stay awake and I think. I listen to the constant ticking of my obsession. Am I breaking all the rules I swore I'd never break, in order to do mankind a great service, a great service that only I am in a position to accomplish? Or am I just breaking all the rules? Either way, I fear I have led my friends into hell. I have doomed them all.
The Inquisition is not forgiving.
Kys, Maud and Carl are asleep. They are tired. I let them rest. Nayl is somewhere, screwing the Carthaen. He thinks I don't know. I'm happy for him and for her, and I want to kill them both. Throne, I haven't felt this way for a long time.
Not since the day I ended up in this box. It's quite enervating.
Bastard. That you're screwing her I don't mind. That you're hiding it from me, that I most certainly do. Did you think you were sparing my feelings? Did you? Did you?
SIX
The spoil wells lay deep under the hive, deep in the subterranean foundations below the permafrost. They were dank, badly lit rockcrete vaults dozens of kilometres long where the slurry from the mining operations was dumped on a regular basis. The air smelled of stone dust and moisture and raw minerals. A bitingly cold wind seeped in from the surface, invading through loading slips and drop shafts, and gusted around the numbered silos raising a grey dust.
"Hiram Lucic?" Ballack called out.
The man halfway up the spoil slope rose and looked down at them. He was skinny, but bulked up by furs and thermal body lagging, topped off by parts of an old hostile environment suit. He was holding a hand scanner unit. Five rusty old prospector-servitors sorted and scrabbled around him on the heap, tossing lumps of black rock into their battered panniers with corroded skeletal forelimbs.
"Who wants to know?"
"We do."
A male and a female stood at the base of the heap. They stared up at him.
"Yes, I'm Lucic. But I'm also busy. I've paid through the nose for two hours' free sweep of this mass, and I won't waste a minute of that. 'We' can go away and come back later. Or just go away."
"I think you'll want to speak with us," the woman said. "We were told to ask for you. We need an introduction."
Lucic paused, and glanced at the scanner in his hands. Pretty much nothing was showing. The spoil coming out of Deep Nineteen was poor these days. That probably explained why he'd got the free sweep at a knock down.
He sighed and slithered down the loose rock waste towards them. He moved with the expert tread of someone used to moving about on broken spill.
"Go on, then," he said. Close up, they didn't give much away, except that they were clean and well dressed, which suggested money.
"An introduction at Stine and Stine," Kys said. Lucic was an odd fish, thin and lean, just sinew and bone under his cold gear. His face was all cheekbones and jaw corners and a long blade nose. He had large eyes, which seemed to bulge from meagre sockets.
"An introduction? That's an expensive undertaking."
"We understand that," Ballack said.
"I know Stine and Stine," Lucic said, "in my capacity as a prospector. They buy my stuff sometimes. Let's see, an introduction." He did a little math in his head, gauging them by their manner and their clothes. Too little and he diddled himself. Too much, and he'd lose the job. He assayed the circumstances. He was good at assaying things.
"Gonna be two or three, minimum," he said.
"Hundred?" asked Kys.
"Hundred thousand." Ballack corrected.
"I am right?" Ballack asked.
Lucic nodded. "What you want is costly."
"What we want is an introduction," said Kys.
"Let me get cleaned up," he said.
He re-joined them in a dirty public canteen where the spoil well workers and prospectors met and rested. He had changed into a grey bodyglove and a fur-lined coat. There was still dirt on his hands. Ballack bought three hot drinks and some wizened pastries from the stall. There was steam in the air, and the rank scent of over-worked heating units.
Lucic sat down with them at a battered metal table, lit a lho-stick in his nimble fingers, and put an old data-slate on the table top. Miners in bulky work suits shuffled past.
"I'll need names, details," Lucic said. "This isn't something you can just walk into."
"So we've found," said Kys.
"You don't look like the normal sort," Lucic said.
"And what's that?"
"Nobility. The kind with nothing better to do."
"What do we look like?"
Lucic stuck his tongue in his lean cheek so it bulged. He thought about it. "Trouble?" he suggested. "Look, the halls don't like to be mucked about. They have real pull here. Magistratum, Arbites... hell, even the Inquisition. That's a no-no. Especially the Inquisition."
"I understand," said Ballack.
"What would happen if that was the case?" Kys asked.
"You'd get dead, and me along with you."
"Wouldn't that cause a problem? I mean," said Ballack, "if we were Inquisition, let's say?"
"Here? No, not really. Easy to hide a corpse or three here. The spoil smelters. The pack ice. The undersea. Easy to get lost."
"Well, we're not Inquisition," said Ballack, "or Magistratum or anything like that. But you've spotted we're not your regular type of clients, so we'd better come clean."
"Go on."
"We're operatives working for a certain important individual. He has business interests in this sub, and he wants an inside track to guide his investments. There's a lot at stake."
"And he trusts the House to provide that guidance?"
"Shouldn't he?"
"Oh, the House is good. Investments, eh?"
Ballack handed Lucic a data crystal. The prospector loaded it into his slate.
"My name is Gaul," said Ballack. "My associate here is called Kine."
There was a pause while the slate hummed. "Linking to the hive substrate," said Lucic. "Just be a second. Gaul, Kine. There we go. From Eustis. Your biowork checks out."
It ought to, thought Kys, the work Carl put in.
"I think we can do business," said the prospector.
"Well?" Kara asked slowly.
"Everything's good. There's no sign of any regrowth." Belknap began to pack the medical kit away, carefully folding up the more delicate parts of the scanner.
He looked at her. She smiled. They embraced.
"I was so scared!" she sighed.
"So was I. When you came to me like that. Kara, my love, I don't want to scare you or jinx this, but you know you should-"
"What? Be dead?"
"You should be dead. The woman I met and fell in love with on Eustis Majoris had barely six months. Then, overnight, just like that, the cancer went. I kept thinking I'd made a mistake, that I'd missed something or it would come back. And w
hen you came to me tonight... But, unless I'm very bad at my job, it hasn't. It isn't there. No sign. You're clear."
She got up. They were alone in the ship's infirmary, apart from Frauka and the comatose boy in the ward nearby. Unwerth and Fyflank were up on the bridge.
"Are you?" Kara asked.
"Am I what?"
"Very bad at your job?"
He laughed. "No."
She kissed his neck. Then she sat back.
"What's that look?" he asked, reclasping his kit and carrying it to a wall locker.
"I never told Ravenor. I kept it a secret. Now it's gone, but that secret inside me still remains."
"What do you mean?"
Kara shrugged. "I hated keeping it from him. I trained myself to cover the truth. Now there's no truth to cover, it still feels like I'm covering for something."
"You've lost me," he said.
She steepled her hands in front of her mouth thoughtfully and breathed out. "It's hard to explain. I feel like I'm keeping a terrible secret, but there's no secret left to keep."
"The mind becomes conditioned," Belknap said. "It gets used to what it gets used to. It'll pass."
"I hope so. I wake up sometimes and feel I can almost catch what it is."
"The secret?"
"Yes, the secret. It has something to do with Carl."
"Carl?"
Kara sniggered. "I know. It's stupid, but why do I feel like I'm lying on Carl's behalf all the time?"
"Guilt," he said. "Just your sense of guilt towards Ravenor. Throne knows why that has attached itself to Carl. Do you know something about him that I don't?"
"He's a pompous arse, he wears too many rings, and he's very good at his job."
"So, no then?"
She shrugged. "So why am I so muzzy? So clouded? Why have I got, doctor, this pressing sense of unease. This forgetfulness?"
"Lack of exercise," he replied.
"Right."
He paused, and looked around at her. She knew that look. "We're alone, you know?"
"Frauka's in the next room."
"Oh, what does porn-boy care?"
He kissed her, dragged off her vest, and cupped her breasts with his hands. She pulled him down onto the infirmary couch.
"Exercise, you reckon?" she murmured.
"Have you ever wondered just how much you can get away with before someone notices?" Thonius asked.
"That's a curious question to ask." Ravenor replied.
They had gone up onto observation bay high in Berynth Hive to pass the time while they waited for Ballack and Kys. With the dome shutters up, there was a considerable view of the icebound landscape and the belting, eternal storm.
There was no one else around apart from a courting couple, low habbers, at the far end of the rail. The place was like a temple to the elements.
Thonius sat down on a metal bench beside Ravenor's chair.
"Have you, though?" Carl asked.
"Have you what?" Maud Plyton asked as she joined them, carrying two metal cups of hot secum she'd bought at a stall in the hallway outside the bay. She handed one to Carl and then sat down on the other end of the bench.
"Thanks," Carl said.
"I'm intrigued," said Maud, sipping her drink.
"Carl just asked me if I'd ever wondered just how much I could get away with before someone noticed," Ravenor said.
"That's a curious question to ask," Plyton said.
"That was my response." Ravenor agreed.
"No, look," said Carl. "We've gone rogue. I understand why we had to, and I support the decision. That's well and good. I just wondered how much you would risk? I mean, how much you would do in plain sight of others before you thought they would notice?"
"Myzard's people will be looking for any hint of our activity. So, very little is my answer."
"It fascinates me," Carl said, getting up. "Subterfuge fascinates me. What a person can get away with, I mean."
"You'd be surprised what a person can get away with," Maud Plyton said, "in my professional experience." Ravenor's voxponder made a sound that indicated he was chuckling.
"Oh, I think I wouldn't," said Carl. He put his cup down. "Our work, sir, it's all about secrets, isn't it? Keeping secrets, opening secrets up. Molotch, forgive me for mentioning his name, is so damn dangerous because of his ability to keep secrets."
"Does a point come with that, Thonius?" asked Plyton.
"I think so, Maud," Carl replied. He looked out at the storm. "It's not just keeping a secret, is it? It's about how you use it. What latitude you have."
"'Latitude'?" asked Ravenor.
"Yes, sir. What you say and what you don't say. It's not just about keeping the secret locked in. It's about having the strength and confidence to reveal your secret when you know it won't matter."
"That's an interesting notion," Ravenor said. "Develop it, Carl."
Carl laughed. "We're in class now, are we?"
"We're in class till I say we're not, Carl Thonius." Ravenor replied.
"Fair point," said Carl, although his face darkened. "For a start, they say that liars have the best memories."
"Old school lore," said Plyton. "First day on the job at interrogation, I learned that. Fakers need good memories to remember what they've faked. You need a first-class memory to hold a false story together under inspection."
"Sound Magistratum advice." Ravenor remarked.
"Yes, yes," said Carl, "but a liar... a real liar... needs to vent himself sometimes, just to stay sane. He needs to confide, or act openly when he's sure no one will notice. He needs to be able to get away with telling the truth once in a while. Just to test the integrity of his deception."
"You think Molotch might be so driven?" asked Ravenor.
"He might. It's worth considering."
"So noted," Ravenor said. "That's good, clean thinking, Carl."
Carl smiled. "Thank you, sir. I mean to say, what if a person did this, right in front of you?"
He waved his right hand. Plyton set her cup down and drew her sidearm out of her jacket. She cocked it and set the muzzle against the side of her head.
"I think you're fretting, Carl," Ravenor said. "The tension's getting to you."
"Or this?" Carl said, grinning, He waved his hand again. His hand was beginning to glow with a dull, red light.
At the far end of the platform, the courting couple was kissing. The man suddenly jerked away from his girl and floated backwards in the air towards the dome windows. She yelped, disbelieving, and stared at him. He was trying to cry out. His arms were flailing. He floated backwards, and hit the glass gently, like a balloon.
Then he went through the glass, like a hand through water.
Outside, hanging there, he screamed. No one could hear him, although his lover squealed at the sight. The sleet storm shredded his clothes and slammed him against the glass.
The constant barrage of the ice particles, like blades, shredded the meat off him in about thirty seconds. His skeleton, with gory strands of flesh and clothing still attached, with wounded organs still throbbing inside his ribcage, slowly slid down the glass leaving a red smear, and dropped away onto the blackness.
"I mean," said Carl. "What about that?"
"The storm is quite magnificent, don't you think?" Ravenor said. "The primal quality of it."
"You didn't see, did you?" Carl murmured. "I did that, and you didn't see. Well, that's something."
He looked at Maud Plyton. "Not today," he said.
She made her weapon safe and put it away. Then she picked up her cup and sipped again.
Carl lowered his hand. It had stopped glowing.
"That's good. Very good."
Plyton looked up. "Sir? Why is that woman down there screaming?" she asked.
Lucic walked into the hall, past the sensors and the waiting servitors. He tracked muddy footprints across the worn bronze flooring.
"Get out. We're closed," said Stine from behind the desk.
"I'
ve got an introduction to make," Lucic said. He sat down on one of the leather couches.
"Really?" Stine sneered across the desk.
"Yes, really. You'd better stay sharp."
"Is it remunerative? Or is it like the last few losers you've brought in, Lucic? Stine and Stine is getting tired of your time wasting."
"Neither. The Inquisition is onto us. Get ready."
Stine looked up sharply, suddenly interested. "The Inquisition? How do you know?"
"I was paid to know," said Hiram Lucic.
SEVEN
Stine waited by his wooden desk in the hall's main chamber of display. He was nervous, his palms sweating. He began to pace.
He stopped suddenly at the chime of a vox-link in the shadows nearby. There was a brief crackle of muted transmission, and then a voice said, "Understood."
The red-haired man who had been standing in the shadows stepped into one of the pools of emerald light containing the chamber's showcases. He was slipping a link back into his pocket.
"That was Lucic," the man said. "They're on their way. Five minutes."
"I don't like this at all," said Stine.
"You'll like the alternative even less," said the red-haired man. Stine didn't know the man's name. He'd only met him an hour ago. "Are you ready?"
"This isn't the way it's done," said Stine. "The relationship between the halls and the House is very delicate. We don't abuse it. There's too much at stake. Our livelihoods-"
"Stine-"
"Listen to me! If these people are agents of the Inquisition, then they cannot be allowed access to the House. We are very strict about this."
"What? You jewellers gonna club together and take out an Inquisition team? I don't think so."
"It's been done before," Stine said haughtily. "I think you underestimate how zealously we protect our interests or how capable the halls of Berynth are. Usually it doesn't come to that. We detect Inquisitorial approaches and frustrate them with false leads or dead ends. Since the foundation of the hive, no Ordo agent has got past us, or close to the House."
