by Dan Abnett
‘Arise them gainfully, you defuncts!’ he called out. He was still in shadow.
‘You,’ said a voice. It was low, so very, very deep.
Sholto Unwerth turned and gazed up at the titanic figure behind him. He blinked. He knew all too well who this man was, and what line of business he was in.
‘I do not have a remembrance of inviting you aboard my ship, Master Worna,’ he said, trying and, for the most part, failing to keep the note of anxiety out of his voice.
‘That’s because you didn’t, Unwerth,’ replied Lucius Worna.
‘You know m-my name?’
‘Sholto Unwerth, shipmaster of the Arethusa. It’s my business to know facts like that. Particularly as I’ve been looking for you.’
‘L-looking? For me? W-why? Why? Why for have you been looking for me?’
‘Because we’re going to have a conversation.’
‘I have nothing to converse with you, sir. My lips are soiled.’
‘I heard you usually had plenty to say, Unwerth. A babbler, that’s what I’ve heard. Plenty to say and ninety per cent of it crap. I’m interested in the ten per cent of sense you sometimes manage.’
Unwerth drew himself up to his full height – which put his eyes on a level with Worna’s navel – and said, ‘I would be most ingratuitous if you were kindly permissive and removed your personable from my ship.’
Lucius Worna turned casually and struck one of the repair servitors with the back of his hand. The force of the brutal slap sent the delicate machine tumbling across the deck, dented and cracked, sparks fizzling from torn hoses and servo-meshes.
‘A conversation,’ he rumbled. ‘End of story.’
Worna took the shipmaster up to the small retiring lounge behind the bridge. En route, Unwerth saw other intruders aboard his ship, rough-looking crew-types, all of them armed with handguns. They were standing watch at hatches and junctions, ready to greet any of Unwerth’s own crew who came back. Several more were on the bridge itself, searching through the database and the paper records.
Unwerth would have been bristling with outrage, if total fear hadn’t been eclipsing every other emotion and thought. He was not a brave man, and avoided confrontation at all costs. In a quiet life of trading, he’d never been boarded, never been attacked, and never had his life and welfare threatened so comprehensively.
He said nothing, just did what he was told. Worna indicated he should sit down on the leather bench built into the retiring cabin’s end wall.
Worna remained standing. The bounty hunter idly began to unclasp and remove the armoured gauntlets of his carapace armour, and set them on a side table. His big hands were as scarred and gnarled as his head.
‘You were at Bonner’s Reach, for Firetide.’
Unwerth shrugged, not sure if it was a question, and not at all certain he wanted to answer it if it was.
‘Then you came down the sub-lane during the course of the season, via Encage, Bostol, that route. And ended up here, six days ago.’
Unwerth shrugged again.
‘Good trip, was it? Good trade? You carry cargo?’
‘Some pulchritude of an amount. It has been a poor season.’
‘Gonna get worse yet,’ Worna said. ‘What about passengers?’
Unwerth said nothing.
Worna smiled. ‘You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?’
‘I cannot receive of a notion why I shouldn’t be.’
‘Damn right. I’m a scary man. And maybe that’s what’s gluing up your famous blabbermouth. Maybe you’d be happier talking to a kindred soul?’
Worna went to the cabin door and beckoned for someone. A red-haired man in a jacket of Vitrian glass entered the room.
‘Hello, Unwerth,’ he said. ‘You know who I am?’
Unwerth nodded. ‘Master Siskind of the Allure.’
‘Now don’t mind Lucius here. He’s working for me. Help me out, and I won’t pay him to damage you.’
‘I am most revived to hear so, Master Siskind. In what fashionable way can I help you?’
‘Let me start by apologising, Unwerth,’ Siskind said. ‘Boarding your ship like this, taking control. No master likes to be treated like that.’
‘Indeed not.’
‘But understand, until I get what I want, my men will remain in control. And any of your crew who tries to alter that fact will regret it. I’m looking for the Oktober Country, Unwerth. I’m looking for the Oktober Country and its master, Kizary Thekla.’
Unwerth cleared his throat. ‘Then you have importuned your radiation in the unrequisite direction, Master Siskind. I am not he, nor is he here, in manner of fact. When last I left my eyes on him, he was at the Reach, during Firetide.’
‘You saw him there?’ Siskind said, picking up an astrolabe from a shelf and toying with it.
‘In consideration, yes. I spoke at him. He was deferably present, as was Master Akunin, and other worthied eminencies of their cartel.’
‘All of whom had left the Reach by the time I put in,’ Siskind told Worna. He looked back at Unwerth. ‘What did you talk to Thekla about?’
‘I took a meeting with the beneficial master, and extravagated about mercantile dealings that might arise, perspicaciously, between our two selves.’
Siskind burst out laughing. ‘Unwerth, Unwerth… the cartel Thekla and Akunin belong to is out of my league, let alone yours. How do you deal with the shame, trying to broker deals with men like that? Throne, you’re a nothing. A nobody midget in a tramp ship.’
Blinking hard, Unwerth looked aside.
‘Listen to me, Unwerth,’ Siskind said. ‘I was supposed to meet Thekla at the Reach, but I was delayed. By the time I’d got there, he’d gone. Under normal circumstances, he would have left a message for me, but he didn’t. Naturally, I was worried. So I hired Master Worna to do some hunting around. Guess what he turned up?’
‘I have no ideology of that answer,’ Unwerth said.
‘Just after Firetide, a bulk lifter, registered – according to its transponder codes – to the Oktober Country, docked at Bonner’s Reach. Its occupants were not identified. In fact, the Vigilants’ records show the lifter’s occupants chose anonymity. But there’s one thing the records do show. Those people, whoever they were, took a private meeting with you. Shortly after, this heap of junk left the Reach and began its journey here.’
‘Who were those people?’ Worna asked.
‘I can’t quite reminisce…’ Unwerth began.
‘Don’t give me that!’ Siskind spat. ‘We saw the records. Facts, Unwerth. Don’t embarrass yourself with a lie. Either you met with Thekla, or with representatives of his ship, or you met with people who had somehow acquired a lifter belonging to the Oktober Country. Which was it?’
Sholto Unwerth, so small his feet swung off the bench seat and didn’t reach the ground, bravely shook his head.
‘You carried passengers on this run, didn’t you?’ Worna growled. ‘All the way from the Reach to Eustis.’
‘Just cargo,’ Unwerth said.
‘Ornales?’ Siskind called. Another man came into the cabin, and handed Siskind one of the Arethusa’s leather-bound manifests. Siskind skimmed through the pages to the last entry.
‘Here, in your own hand, Unwerth. Passage arranged from Bonner’s Reach to Eustis Majoris. Eight persons. Price agreed. No names recorded.’
Unwerth knew when lying was hopeless. ‘I was pertained by those persons to act as conveyance. They have quit the ship now.’
‘Who were they?’
‘Traders, I conceive. I asked no query of them.’
‘Come on, you little bastard!’
‘If I knew names,’ Unwerth blurted, ‘I would not obligate you with them! A shipmaster and his clients enrapture the principles of privatisation and confidence! As a master yourself, you know that!’
‘You know,’ grinned Siskind, handing the manifest back to his first officer, ‘I admire your professionalism, Unwerth, I really do. Client confidentia
lity. That’s something I try to uphold in every circumstance. But I’d waive the privilege like a shot if my ship was being held by force and I was in the same room as Lucius Worna. So… give me the damn names.’
‘No,’ said Unwerth.
‘All right, answer this. What do you know of a man named Gideon Ravenor?’
‘Nothing,’ said Sholto Unwerth flatly.
Siskind turned to Worna. ‘Your witness,’ he said.
Lucius Worna reached into a belt pouch and took something out that began to chitter and vibrate.
‘Know what a cisor is?’ he asked.
Unwerth shook his head and slowly shrank back into the couch until he could go no further.
‘Well,’ said Worna. ‘You’re going to find out. Unless you answer the questions. Do you know Gideon Ravenor?’
‘Yes,’ said Unwerth.
‘He was your passenger? Him and his team?’
‘Yes,’ Unwerth said in a tiny, tiny voice.
‘Now we’re getting somewhere. What happened to Thekla and his ship?’
‘I don’t know! In absolution, I do not! They did not tell me!’
‘Maybe they didn’t. All right, here’s another. Where is Ravenor and his crew now?’
‘I don’t know. On the surface. That’s all I can explicate, to the best margin of my knowing.’
‘On the surface. Uh huh. And how do you contact them?’
‘I don’t! Our arrangementage is finished!’
‘You must know where they are, what they’re doing?’
‘I applore you, I don’t! They made a special immensity of not telling me the pertinence of their business! They said I shouldn’t know for the good of my health!’
Lucius Worna slowly raised the sawing cisor.
‘How wrong they were,’ he said.
Fourteen
Piece by piece, Carl Thonius was extracting the secrets of Tchaikov’s riddle box. He’d been deciphering for two days. He wrote every scrap of data down on index cards and soft-gummed them to the wall of the east bedroom, rearranging them as more details fitted in. The entire wall was speckled with cards. Every once in a while Carl went to his cogitators, and checked a fact via his link to the Informium, or ran details through his arithmometer.
The sheer scale of the Contract Thirteen operation was becoming evident. It had been going on for years. I had suspected that thousands of tainted devices had been smuggled into Petropolis, but the actual figure was currently close to five million.
Five million! If that were true, vast substrates of the Administratum in the hive were currently using warp-infected engines on a daily basis. And the Contract Thirteen cartel had become very rich indeed. It was evident from the funds Tchaikov had been laundering for them. The Contract itself had paid out well, regularly, and it had been fearsomely supplemented by the trade in flects.
The foolish trade in flects. The greedy side-order they hadn’t been able to resist, the very reason I had discovered their vile dealings in the first place. Their own greed had betrayed them.
I was still troubled by the deeper connections. The vein of Cogitae that ran through the players in this game. Thekla, Tchaikov, Siskind, though I didn’t think that last fool was a player any more. Trice intrigued me, given his power and status, and Carl had been unable to draw up any background on the man. But I knew he employed powerful psykers. Kinsky, for one, and the unidentified fellow at the diplomatic palace. Then, of course, there had been the assassination attempt itself. Trice had other enemies. Enemies who could conjure an incunabula. My gut feeling was the Divine Fratery. Carl’s initial findings showed they had cells operating on Eustis. That made me especially wary.
I was locked into their future predictions, their prospects. If they were attacking Trice, that meant my struggle with the cartel was somehow interfering with the fearful event that they were so keen to see happen.
So many pieces, like a vast game of regicide. At the centre of it all, I worried, was the mysterious, prophesied figure known as Slyte. The Divine Fratery’s messiah. What was he, what was it?
Zael’s true name was Sleet. He was a mirror farseer, and so, by Eisenhorn’s definition, especially luminous to the fraters. Had I really been so gullible as to accept a daemon into my midst? Was my sympathy for Zael my undoing, and the undoing of a subsector besides?
I prayed not. I was a man of careful, considered ambition. Though everything pointed to Zael, that seemed too easy. From experience, I know the universe is a far, far more complex mechanism.
I hovered behind Carl as he continued his work. He seemed to me to be edgy and restless. When he mis struck a key on the board of his cogitator, he cursed and oathed.
+Gently.+
‘So much data,’ he murmured. ‘So much to co-ordinate. It gets me worked up.’
One thing we had fathomed from the riddle box: some of the cartel members had grown so rich on their profits that they had already quit and retired. That was virtually unheard of, a rogue trader selling up his ship and retiring to a life of luxury. But such were the vast earnings of these men. Marebos had purchased an entire island on Messina. Braeden had retreated to a castellated abbey above the Great Falls on Mirepoix. Counting their money, no doubt, rolling in it.
Athen Strykson had sold his ship and, combining that huge fund with his cartel earnings, had bought a retreat in a private canton of his homeworld.
Athen Strykson came from Eustis Majoris. The place he had purchased was in Farthingale, a rural seat fifteen hundred kilometres inland from Petropolis hive. For the first time in our investigation, we had an opportunity to meet with a cartel member face to face.
Nayl, Kys and Mathuin were en route right now. They were going to ask the ex-shipmaster a few pointed questions.
‘So much data,’ Carl complained again, pasting another card on the wall. ‘Couldn’t Zael help?’
‘No,’ I transponded. ‘I sent him to the kitchen to brew you some caff.’ Truth was, I wanted Zael as far away from this as possible. If he was Slyte…
There was a chime alarm. I heard Frauka go to the front door. He came back and leaned in to see me. ‘It’s the physician,’ he said.
I left Carl to his work and hovered down to greet Belknap. True to his promise, he’d come back to check on Kara.
He stood in the doorway, his bag in his hand.
‘Medicae.’
‘Inquisitor.’
‘I appreciate this.’
‘Good.’
‘Come up.’
He followed me up the stairs. He was a good man, a very principled man, I could feel that now, just as Kys had told me.
We went down the upper corridor towards Kara’s room. A cry stopped him in his tracks.
‘What was that?’ he asked.
‘Nothing that needs to concern you, doctor,’ I replied.
Another cry.
‘You want me to trust you, don’t you?’ Belknap said, turning to face me. ‘What the Throne was that?’
‘Our guest,’ I replied. ‘He does that from time to time.’
‘Let me see him.’
‘No.’
‘Then I’m leaving, Ravenor.’
‘Very well.’
I led Belknap down the hall and nudged open the door of Skoh’s room. Pulling at his shackles, Skoh screamed again for effect.
‘Holy Throne…’ Belknap said, gazing into the room.
‘They’re chafing me!’ Skoh cried. ‘They’re chafing my wrists so sore!’ He held up the manacles to show us.
‘This is disgraceful,’ Belknap said.
‘Skoh is my prisoner. A dangerous man. Don’t pity him, whatever you do,’ I said.
Belknap glowered at me. ‘He’s a man even so, stricken in health. My oath as a medicae means I have to see to him.’
‘Very well.’
Belknap walked over to Skoh and examined his manacles.
‘You have to release him. The binders are rubbing him raw and the sores are infected.’
�
�He is an enemy of the Imperium, doctor,’ I said. ‘The binders stay on.’
‘Then I have to take him to the local medicae facility…’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I told you that secrecy was our only power here. Take Skoh to the local infirmary and he’ll blow our cover. He knows too much.’
‘Then what would you have me do, inquisitor?’
‘Treat him.’
Belknap produced a liniment from his bag and began to smooth the cream into Skoh’s wrists. ‘It’s a start,’ he said. ‘But I’m still not happy.’
Kara Swole was asleep when we went in. The medical apparatus Belknap had ordered was set up around her bed, pulsing and blinking.
‘Glory,’ Belknap said, looking at the equipment. ‘I made a list of things that would be useful and you went out and bought them all?’
‘I value Kara very much.’
‘All this stuff,’ Belknap said. ‘You don’t blink at the price. I could have equipped an entire low-stack surgery with this. What kind of people are you?’
‘The kind that will donate all of this to your practice, once we’re done,’ I said.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and started to examine Kara’s belly wound.
She rolled in her sleep and mumbled.
I went out of the room.
‘Vox from Nayl,’ Frauka said. ‘They’re in position and await your pleasure.’
‘Understood,’ I said. ‘Listen, Wystan, things are going to be quiet around her for a few hours. Why don’t you take Zael to a gallery? Maybe a museum. With so few of us around, I’d rather not leave him here to his own devices. Given what you told me.’
‘I understand,’ he said. ‘You want him kept away from anything sensitive when there’s no one around. No problem.’
He went off to find the boy. I slid into Carl’s room. ‘I’m going bodiless to work with Harlon. Wystan’s taking Zael on an excursion so you’ll be able to concentrate on the work.’
‘Good,’ he said.
‘Don’t forget to check on Skoh.’
‘Of course not.’
I went back into my private room, locked off my chair’s mobilisers, and sent my mind into the sky.
Waring Zeph Mathuin, I walked up the gravel path to join Kys and Harlon. Farthingale was a quiet interior town of broad avenues and pollarded trees. The sky was cloudy and morose. Athen Strykson’s mansion lay before us.
