Deathwatch

by Steve Parker

  Cordatus dismissed the others and strode to the hangar’s edge. He looked out into the charcoal grey afternoon long after the glow of the shuttle’s jets had gone from sight.

  ‘Return to us alive, Lyandro,’ he murmured to himself. ‘The Watch will change you in the ways we need, but only if you survive it. You must return alive.

  ‘For without the Cadash[8], mankind will falter and die.’

  7

  Nedra finished counting out the coins from the last performance, added the total to that of the morning show and proudly announced the sum to Ordimas, who lay on his shabby cot dozing lightly.

  ‘Three ducats and seventeen centims! That’s half a ducat more than yesterday, boss.’

  Ordimas opened his left eye, looked over at the boy and threw him a grin. ‘Take thirty of those centims and get us something hot to eat, my lad. We’ve earned it. Before that, though, take another twenty and ask old Skaiman in the next block to fix those shoes.’ He pointed a finger at Nedra’s feet. ‘They’re about to fall off. Shoes first. I don’t want my dinner getting cold before you get back.’

  Nedra practically jumped off his stool. ‘Really, boss? It’s okay?’

  Ordimas closed his eyes again and gave a short nod. ‘Just don’t waste it on re-processed grox-burgers from the stand. I want real food tonight. Your choice, hear, but something decent.’

  Joy suited Nedra. It suited those bright eyes and that face so void of malice. Ordimas thought back to the day he had found the boy, a little less than a year ago. Nedra had been hiding in a length of broken outflow pipe on the city’s southern edge. His sobs had given him away. He had been brutally beaten by one of the miners after refusing to surrender the contents of his begging bowl. He still bore the scars, inside and out. Ordimas had never found the perpetrator. It was too late now to hope he ever would. A pity, that; dispensing a little righteous violence would have been very satisfying. Now, though…

  Only a few more days. Damn it, I’ll miss you, boy.

  ‘On your way, now,’ he told Nedra. ‘I need a nap.’

  The boy pocketed the coins, grabbed a cloth bag from a hook by the door, tugged his cap on, yanked the door open, and vanished off into the street.

  The door swung shut. Ordimas listened as Nedra trotted past the rusting window shutters. When the sound had faded, he swung his short legs over the side of the cot and stood up. The twisted leg ached as he moved. It always did, but he’d learned to ignore it most of the time. Turning and leaning down, he pulled a black plasteel case from beneath the cot, carried it over to the table and sat. It bore no markings, but it was heavy and its construction was flawless, a thing far too valuable to belong to a mere street performer. There was a keypad on the surface. Ordimas tapped in a twenty-four digit access code, fingers moving in a blur. There was a soft hiss as the stasis seal disengaged. The lid slid backwards about two centimetres before rotating into a vertical position, revealing the powerful field cogitator and burst-comms unit within.

  Ordimas leaned forwards and let a small laser lens in the unit’s upper housing scan his left retina. There was a half-second delay before the glossy black screen flickered to life.

  Select function, it said.

  ‘Report 227a/Cholixe,’ Ordimas told the machine in a hushed voice.

  Review previous entry(s)? Begin new entry(s)? Other?, asked the machine.

  ‘Begin new entry.’

  Ready for connection.

  Ordimas did something then that he could never let Nedra see. Raising thumb and forefinger to his right eye, he pressed inwards at the corners. After a second, a rubbery skin – the white of the eye, the brown iris, the black pupil – came away in his hand. Beneath this overlay, sitting deep in the eye socket, was an orb of gunmetal-grey. In the centre of the orb glowed a red lens about half the diameter of a one-centim coin.

  He hunched forwards to bring his optical implant in line with the unit’s scan-lens. The machine spent a moment acquiring him before a pencil-thin beam of red light formed a bridge between them. This was the data-stream, and Ordimas committed all the day’s relevant observations to it. Smells, sights, sounds, even those elements that only his subconscious had noted; everything was transferred to the machine’s crystal matrix memory drive.

  It took less than a minute.

  When it was done, Ordimas leaned back and fitted his false eye-cover into place.

  ‘Save entry and transmit,’ he told the machine.

  Entry saved. Beginning transmission…

  Several minutes passed.

  Transmission sent. Select next function.

  ‘Stand by,’ said Ordimas.

  If he judged right, and he usually did, Nedra wouldn’t return for another forty minutes. Ordimas left the machine on the table. He was thirsty. He was always thirsty after a transfer. He walked to the tiny kitchen, turned on the noisy, flickering lume-strip in the ceiling and poured himself a cup of watered wine. He drank half on the spot, the cold liquid soothing his throat, then returned to the table. There he sat, thinking and sipping from the cup.

  He wouldn’t miss this filthy cesspit of a city. Part of him wasn’t looking forward to leaving, but only because of the boy. He remembered the sorrow he’d felt at leaving the others. It always lessened in time, but he never forgot them, not any of them. Despite his hopes, the realist in him knew most of those children were probably dead by now. His Lordship didn’t send Ordimas Arujo to safe, healthy places. His arrival anywhere meant a cancer had developed already, something deeply wrong, something that the Great and the Powerful needed him to observe on their behalf.

  Chiaro was no different. The whole planet was like a giant workhouse. The Imperium’s rapacious hunger for resources had forced two different peoples to settle this hellish world – the Hasmiri, or Daysiders, and the Garrahym, known here on Chiaro as the Nightsiders. And how they hated each other for all their religious and genetic differences. Both were Imperial loyalists, of course. They worshipped the Emperor as the Ecclesiarchy demanded of them. But the writings of their patron saints were, in places, at great odds. The Daysiders mined provium, darksilver and carzum – all of which were used in the Geller field projectors so important to warp transit. They toiled beneath the heat-blistered rock of the baking sunward hemisphere. The Nightsiders, on the other hand, worked far beneath the deep-frozen surface of the void-facing hemisphere where no sunlight ever reached the ground. They searched for veins of soledite and margonite, both of which were found only on a scattered two-dozen or so Imperial worlds. Ordimas didn’t know what these materials were used for. Very few did.

  For all their differences, both peoples endured the same daily reality. Life on Chiaro was only possible in the Twilight Band. That meant living in the canyon, the Nystarean Gorge, and one of the two cities built within it: Cholixe or Najra.

  I can’t take him with me. That hasn’t changed. I can’t stop working for His Lordship, either. Old Ordimas knows too much by half. There’s no retirement for the likes of me, unless I count death a retirement, which I guess it is.

  A winking glyph on the little screen caught his eye, and he wondered how long it had been flashing at him while he sat there thinking.

  One message, it said. Priority A-2.

  Ordimas’s breath caught in his throat. It was the first A-2 communiqué he had ever received. His Lordship never initiated comms before an assignment was properly completed. At least, he had never done so before.

  Ordimas licked his lips, suddenly dry.

  ‘Display message,’ he told the machine.

  Recipient: Asset 16

  Source: Priority A-2 DSC – Key ‘Sigma’

  Identicode: Classified ‘Uridion: Eyes Only’

  Most recent transmission received. Under review. New orders as follows:

  Contrive entry to active mining sector as part of work-detail. Gather observational intelligence. Everything relevant. One shift sufficient. Two days hence, rendezvous with Ordo representative, field code White Phoenix. Transfe
r all data to representative and exfiltrate. Expect off-world transport options limited. White Phoenix will advise.

  Protocols and data-files attached. Access by opticom only. Full auto-erase will begin immediately after transfer.

  That is all.

  Ave Imperator.

  White Phoenix? That assignation wasn’t familiar to Ordimas. He sensed an urgency in the message he couldn’t put his finger on. The work-party placement meant a stealth kill first. He didn’t look forward to using the drug. His genes were his curse, and he knew all too well that he would never be free. His unique chromosomal heritage had brought him to the attention of the Holy Inquisition in the first place.

  And once you’re in, you never get out.

  Familiar footsteps sounded outside, echoing along the alleyway, announcing the return of young Nedra. But something was wrong. Ordimas read dismay in the sound. Almost panic.

  Thrusting his face forwards, closer to the machine, he whispered, ‘Session end.’ The unit on the table closed and locked itself abruptly. With a hiss, the stasis-seal re-engaged. Ordimas hefted the case off the table and hastily slung it back under his cot. He was rising just as Nedra burst through the door.

  Ordimas turned and saw at once that his young charge was shaking. Nedra’s eyes were brimming with tears yet to spill. He stood fighting to hold them back.

  ‘I-I saw him, boss,’ he stammered.

  Ordimas didn’t need to ask who. He’d seen Nedra like this only once before.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The meat market,’ managed the boy.

  Only a few blocks away! Ordimas felt raw hatred clench his stomach. A scowl twisted his lop-sided face. ‘Did he see you?’

  Nedra shook his head and the first tear spilled over, rolling and dropping from his cheek. Conscious of it as it splashed on the toe of one of his newly repaired shoes, the boy turned aside, not wanting his boss to see him break down. Other tears began to flow.

  ‘I’m sorry, boss,’ he sniffed. ‘I didn’t get any food. I…’

  ‘Peace, lad,’ said Ordimas, moving to the boy’s side. He laid a hand on Nedra’s shoulder. ‘It’s well that you found him. I’ve business with the bastard.’ And I may be able to kill two birds with one stone, he thought. ‘Come. Show him to me.’

  Nedra shook his head. ‘I can’t. He’s twice your size, boss. Big as a bull grox. Let’s just stay here. I’ll get some bread from Clavian’s on the corner. We’ll eat.’

  ‘No! You’ll take me to him. And don’t underestimate me, boy. There’s much about old Ordimas Arujo that none would guess, not even you.’

  Nedra turned again, gaping, tears forgotten. Ordimas had never spoken to him so sharply before. It was like being slapped. A stony, unfamiliar hardness had entered the puppeteer’s gaze. In those eyes, the boy glimpsed a cold confidence in the stunted, hunch-backed little man. There was no change in his physical stature, but Ordimas seemed strangely taller and stronger than he ever had before, unruffled and somehow suddenly dangerous.

  ‘I… I’ll take you there,’ said Nedra, though his own words shocked him. He seemed to be speaking them against his will. ‘I’ll show you, but please…’

  Ordimas allowed himself a predator’s grin. It had been over a year since he’d last killed. This ill-minded oaf, this abuser of the weak, was a Nightside miner. Ordimas had his new orders: infiltrate one of the work-parties, get into the mines, and report anything of note. Fate had brought two separate threads together this day. Such moments were a gift. He flexed his fingers and rolled his misshapen shoulders. With a touch, he confirmed the presence of the short black knife in his waistband, its blade coated in a very rare and potent paralytic. With another touch, he confirmed the injector packs filled with their milky purple drug, nestled patiently in a side pouch he never removed save to make ablutions. The pouch sat on his left hip beneath the hem of his dirty, sack-cloth shirt, each tiny phial inside it worth more Imperial ducats than an entire Cholixe city block.

  Readiness was ever his way. He had everything he needed. It was time for some real work.

  As he herded Nedra out into the alleyway, he thought of his favourite line from a book – the only children’s storybook he had ever owned. It was a line from which he had often drawn strength and confidence in the past, especially in the face of danger, and it was simply this:

  The smaller the scorpion, the deadlier the sting.

  8

  ‘He is superb,’ admitted Sergeant Saigan. ‘You cannot deny it.’

  ‘I’ve never said otherwise,’ murmured Captain Shrike.

  From a balcony high in the western towers of the Ravenspire, the two Raven Guard Space Marines looked down on a training ground within the fortress-monastery’s inner wall. The subject of their conversation, a battle-brother named Siefer Zeed, was surrounded by twenty-three others, all of whom wielded blunted training weapons. They had asked Zeed for training outside the standard Chapter curriculum. Shrike knew he should have been pleased, but it rankled. In the eyes of most captains, Siefer Zeed was an unrepentant troublemaker. If only the Chapter Master agreed…

  ‘You cannot keep passing him over, captain,’ said Saigan. ‘Not even sergeant rank? By rights, he should have been inducted into the Wing long ago. Every soul in the Chapter knows it. How long will you set him aside?’

  Shrike felt a surge of fresh irritation and forced himself to suppress it. Saigan was right, and he knew it. That was what bothered him most; he knew he had waited too long to honour Zeed. The insult had been dealt. It could not be taken back now, even had he strolled out onto the training field this very morning and reversed his position.

  He gazed off into the distance, angry that things had gone this far. Far away, the barrier of the force-dome shimmered, shielding the Ravenspire from the void of space, fractionally distorting the horizon. Beyond the barrier, across that dusty grey expanse where no breathable atmosphere existed, Shrike could see another heavy transport lifting off from the freight station at Leiros, hauling freshly processed metals from Deliverance to the planet Kiavahr.

  That vast orange orb wasn’t visible above the Ravenspire today. The atmospheric enclosure fields were high enough for clouds to form within, and today they had.

  Fourteen hours ago, an adept from the Chapter’s communicarum had brought word of a ship seeking approach clearance. Shrike had been expecting it. Soon enough, a shuttle from that ship would descend through those clouds.

  I am committed now, but no matter. I was right to do it this way.

  Lowering his eyes again, he watched as Zeed selected three battle-brothers from the group surrounding him and told them to attack him from each side. Then, slowly at first so the others could study his movements, he began a series of simultaneous parries and attacks that would have brutally disarmed and eviscerated his foes.

  Zeed’s balance and control were superb, beyond anything the Chapter had seen for long years. Shrike harboured momentary doubts that even he could stand against him. He knew he should have been proud to count Zeed among the men of his company. Yet he could not.

  ‘I would have been glad to honour him, Saigan, if he would only follow doctrine. But he will not listen. He is rebellious, arrogant, even disrespectful at times.’

  ‘And his brothers love him for it,’ said Saigan with a half-grin on that scarred, leathery face of his. ‘These below…’ he said, gesturing at the crowd around Zeed. ‘These are only the brothers for whom this hour is free from other duties. Many more wished they could attend, but for duty.’

  ‘You do not help his case, sergeant. That he leads others astray is what counts against him most. He has become a problem. He should have become the Chapter’s champion instead. Corax knows, he’s an exceptional asset in the field. But I can’t allow him to continue like this. The more his legend grows, the more he draws his battle-brothers away from the true teachings. You’ve seen the sensorium feeds. No sense of strategic avoidance. He throws himself headlong into any fight he can find like a damnable madma
n.’

  A light rain began to fall now. The wind whipped at Shrike’s cloth tabard. Down on the grassy training field, Zeed had finished teaching his three-foe execution pattern in slow-motion. Now he demonstrated it at full speed.

  Shrike heard Saigan curse quietly under his breath.

  Zeed was a dark blur. Up towards the high balcony, there came the clash of training claws on ceramite as he disabled the three brothers attacking him with zeal. The sound was all too brief. If the flow of deadly movement had taken more than a single second, it was not by much. The brothers being instructed clashed their right fists on their breastplates in awed applause. Zeed stepped out of the centre, selected one of the others to take his place, then carefully led him through the series of defensive counter-attacks.

  ‘I’ve half a mind to take lessons with him myself,’ grunted Saigan. He sensed Shrike tense in anger at the words, and added, ‘Sorry, captain. I was just–’

  Shrike raised a hand in placation. ‘Forget it, old friend. If I am angry, it is with myself. I cannot help thinking I could have guided him better, that his flaws are the result of my own failings.’

  ‘That cannot be so, captain. Truly, is it not always the way? The most exceptional are ever the most pig-headed and independent.’ He laughed then. ‘Without meaning offence, so it was with you. I remember Captain Thune despairing of your unruliness. In days long past, of course.’

  ‘Perhaps I was lucky, Saigan. Perhaps Thune was a better mentor than I have been. I tried with Zeed. I still do. But the more I try, the more he seems to rebel. I can expend no more energy on him. There are others to whom I must turn my attention. They deserve the same opportunities I have given Zeed.’

  ‘Then what is to be done with him?’

  Even as Saigan said this, a black shape materialised, dropping into view beneath the rain-laden clouds to the far south-west. It was sleek and fast, and the roar of its engines echoed over the hills beneath the Ravenspire like peals of deep thunder.