by Dan Abnett
“Have we indeed?” asked Dorden. He turned to leave.
“How did you get him to show up?” Curth asked.
“The ayatani? I sicced Gaunt on him,” Dorden replied.
“And how did you get him to sit still for the samples? Zweil hates needles.”
Dorden showed her his left arm. His sleeve was rolled up and there was a small swab dressing taped in the crook of the elbow. “I did everything I was going to do to him to myself first to show it wasn’t going to hurt.”
“Very clever.”
“I learned that dealing with children years ago. It’s a technique that works on the old and cranky too.”
Curth laughed. “And Zweil’s ancient. He’s got all of… what, five years on you?”
“Age is a state of mind, Ana,” Dorden replied with pretend hauteur. “Anyway, thank you. I have to go.”
She followed him back into the examination room.
“Doctor Curth is going to finish up for me,” Dorden told the old priest.
“Is she?” asked Zweil suspiciously. “She’s not a real medicae, you know. She hasn’t got any qualifications. Gaunt just lets her hang around because she’s pretty.”
“I’m sure that’s exactly right, father,” said Curth, sitting down at the desk.
“Your hands better not be cold,” Zweil warned her.
“Why?” asked Curth. “All I’m doing is making notes.”
“Damn!” said Zweil.
Sniggering and shaking his head, Dorden let himself out of the room and joined the human traffic in the hallway. His amusement was superficial. An ugly mood had settled on him that was as cold and sudden as the snowstorm outside.
As he approached the entrance to the temple house, he saw Gol Kolea in the crowd. The big Verghastite major was smiling.
“Afternoon, doctor.”
“Gol.”
“Active Pending, eh?”
“You look delighted.”
Kolea nodded.
“Could be the posting we’ve been waiting for,” he said.
“You think so?”
“Orders had to come through sooner or later.”
Dorden nodded.
“To be frank, major, if it is our orders coming through, and we’re being posted back to the front, that hardly fills me with delight.”
“We’re going gak-happy here, Doc. The Ghosts need a tour. It’s overdue,” said Kolea.
“You seem to forget, major, that when we go to war, people die. That’s hardly something to look forward to.”
They went into the temple house. The snow beat against the tall, narrow windows. The senior staff were finding places to sit. All the company commanders had assembled, or were represented by adjutants or juniors. Dorden saw Kolosim, Obel, Raglon, Sloman, Arcuda, Domor, Theiss and Baskevyl, as well as Elam and Seley, who had been promoted to the commands of H and L companies respectively to replace men lost at Hinzerhaus. He could also see Mkoll, the master of scouts. Bonin was the representative for B Company in Rawne’s absence, Daur’s adjutant Mohr for G Company, and a very nervous-looking Dalin Criid for Meryn’s Company E.
“Take your seats. Let’s have you!” Commissar Ludd called out, climbing onto the stage. “That’s enough, come on!”
“A little order and attention, please, gentlemen!” Baskevyl called, backing the young commissar up. The noise level dropped appreciably.
“Thank you,” said Baskevyl. “Door, please, Shoggy.”
Shoggy Domor got out of his seat to close the temple door, but Hark walked in and shut the door behind him. Hark marched to the front, all eyes following him. Dorden noticed that at some point during the assembly Eszrah ap Niht had slipped into the temple and was standing at the back in the shadows.
“What’s going on, Hark?” Baskevyl asked.
“Have we got marching orders?” Kolosim added. “We’ve got marching orders, haven’t we?”
There was a general murmur.
Hark cleared his throat. Dorden realised that he didn’t like the look on Hark’s face, and it wasn’t for the reasons he had expected.
“As of twenty-seven minutes ago,” Hark began, “Aarlem Fortress is on security lockdown.”
Everybody started talking.
“Shut up and listen!” Hark shouted. “Security condition two has been imposed on this station, and on Balopolis and the Oligarchy The PDF is locking all orbital links, and transit is forbidden. An advisory has been issued.”
“What the feth?” Kolea grumbled.
“There was a serious incident this afternoon in the Oligarchy. All I know is that Section was attacked by forces unknown.”
“An attack?” echoed Obel. “Are you kidding? Who attacks Balhaut?”
“Somebody,” said Hark. “This is serious. We are to remain on base until further notice. Nobody goes off-site.”
“On whose orders?” Baskevyl asked.
“Section’s, and it’s been ratified by Guard Command. Beltayn?”
“Yes, commissar?”
“Consult the day-book and check with the other adjutants. I want a list of all personnel off-site as of right now.”
“Yes, sir,” Beltayn nodded.
Hark gestured to Kolea, who had quietly raised a hand.
“Yes, major?”
Kolea breathed a sort of sigh, and then said, “What’s the scale of this? Has the Archenemy mounted a counter-offensive? Have they punched right through?”
“We’d know about it,” said Mkoll.
Kolea looked over at the chief scout.
“However optimistically you want to place the Crusade front line on the star-maps,” Mkoll said, “Balhaut is over a sector’s distance from the fight zone. If an enemy counter-offensive had pushed through, we’d have heard about it months ago.”
“But a long, deep-warp jump? A bounding strike into our heartland?”
“Doesn’t feel like that Gol,” said Mkoll.
“I agree with the chief,” said Hark, “but that’s not important. It isn’t our business to figure this out. Orders are simple. We confine ourselves to base and lock down. No one leaves. No one is unaccounted for. All Guard strengths on the surface are to secure their base facilities and stand ready for deployment.”
Bonin looked up at the ceiling.
“I hear incoming,” he said. “Engines.”
The steadily increasing throb of turbofan motors drew them out into the snow. Six flying machines, running nose to tail in a line, were hacking in from the city, through the snowstorm, their running lights blinking. They came in low, and circled Aarlem Fortress. The lead bird banked and began to settle towards the open expanse of the lamp-lit quad.
The six machines were Valkyrie gunships. They blew up mini blizzards with their jetwash as they settled side by side across the quad.
“Oh feth,” murmured Hark. “Would somebody like to tell me what they’re doing here?”
Baskevyl looked at Hark, and the commissar pointed.
On the side of each Valkyrie, plainly visible despite the snow, was the rosette crest of the Inquisition.
FOURTEEN
The House of Doctor Death
In the early evening, when his day’s work was done, and he was in the scrub room washing the instruments of his trade, Doctor Kolding thought he heard a vehicle pass by on the street outside.
This seemed unlikely, for many reasons. It was snowing heavily, and that kept the traffic light, particularly in the hilly streets of Old Side. More specifically, no one ever drove up or down Kepeler Place unless they were lost, which was infrequent to say the least, or they were the ambulance men from the Civic Office, who brought him his work, and they made their deliveries before ten each morning.
Nevertheless, he’d heard the sound of a motor vehicle passing by. It had been a bronchial chuckle, rounded out by the acoustic muffle of the snow lining the otherwise empty street: the ugly engine-cough of a badly maintained truck or van ailing in the freezing conditions.
Doctor Kolding put
the last of the stainless steel tools back on the cart’s red cloth, covered them, and dried his hands. He let the tap run to rinse away the last of the brown stains in the enamel sink, and his mind returned to the sound. Perhaps it was the ambulance men. Sometimes, rarely, the Civic Office sent rush-jobs up at unsocial hours, outside the timetable of his usual casework deliveries. That would be it, he decided. It was the ambulance men, bringing him an urgent piece of work.
He was poised for the doorbell, but the doorbell did not ring. There was no sound of rear doors thumping open, or of the gurney’s legs unfolding with a clatter as it slid off the carrier. He went to the window, and pulled the blind aside. Outside, the street was empty and snow-silent. Fat snowflakes drifted like ancient, amber stars through the light-cones of the streetlamps.
He had been mistaken.
He returned to the theatre, turned the wall tap on, and began to play the hose across the tiled floor. The room smelled of damp stone and disinfectant. He’d been mistaken. It hadn’t been an urgent job coming his way after all. As the hose in his hand spattered out onto the floor, he looked up at the steel drawers and smiled. None of his work was ever truly urgent, not, at any rate, to the people it most intimately concerned.
He was just turning the hose off when the doorbell rang. He froze for a moment, listening to the last of the water gurgling away down the floor drains. Had he imagined the bell?
He had not. After a long period of silence, it rang again. This time it did not sound as though someone had pressed the white stud on the brass plate beside his street door; it sounded as though someone had leant on it. The drawn-out blare of the electric bell rattled through his chilly, empty house.
Doctor Kolding took his hand off the wall tap and let the empty coils of the hose slap onto the floor. He wiped his hands on his apron. This was unseemly. This was a strange turn of events, and it disturbed him. It disturbed the very ordered pattern of his life. He attempted to manufacture scenarios in his head to explain things. The Civic Office had sent him some urgent work, but the crew driver was a relief fill-in, unfamiliar with Doctor Kolding’s location. He’d overshot. He’d driven past, perhaps as far as to the junction where Kepeler Place met Flamestead Street. In this weather, that was not surprising. He’d been obliged to turn around, to turn around in the snow and make his way back. This accounted for the interval between the sound of his vehicle, passing by, and the ringing of the bell.
It rang again, a third time. The finger stayed on the bell-press for a full, indignant, insistent ten seconds.
Doctor Kolding stiffened, and hurried from the theatre. He went up the stone steps into the long hall. The floor was polished dark wood, and it fuzzily reflected the white light of the glass shades overhead in circular splashes like pools of sunlight. He searched for his glasses, which were, of course, in his apron pocket, and put them on. Blue twilight took the edge off the hard, white lamplight.
He reached the door. There was someone on the other side. He could hear them shuffling.
“Wh-who is it?” he called through the heavy door.
“Are you a doctor?” a voice called back. It was a male voice, heavy, impatient or distracted.
“Wh-who is there?” Doctor Kolding called. “Please t-tell me who you are.”
“Are you a doctor?” the voice repeated. “I need a doctor.”
“Y-you’ve come to the wrong place,” Doctor Kolding called out.
“You have the medicae sign on a pole outside. I can see it.”
The voice sounded irritated. Doctor Kolding hesitated. He did have the medicae sign above the door of his old townhouse, because that was his profession. It had been his father’s profession, and his father’s uncle before that. Nine generations of Koldings had worked as surgeons at this address on Kepeler Place, and that was why the serpent-staff of Asklepios hung proudly from the brass rail above his door. That couldn’t be denied. It was as plain as day, even with a crust of snow on it.
But, of course, it was more complicated than that, and it had been more complicated ever since the Famous Victory. Doctor Kolding felt very tense and unwell. This was a strange turn of events, and it disturbed him.
“Hello?” the voice outside called.
“Hello?” Doctor Kolding answered.
“Are you going to open this door?” the voice demanded.
“A-are you from the Civic Office?” Doctor Kolding asked, his cheek almost touching the cold black paint of the front door so that he could hear clearly.
“The what?”
“The Civic Office.”
“No.”
“Then I feel sure you have, as I said, come to the wrong place.”
“But you’ve got the sign up.”
“Please,” Doctor Kolding began.
“This is an emergency!” the voice said, angrier than before. “It’s cold out here.”
Please go away, please go away, this is a strange turn of events and—
Knuckles banged against the door so sharply that Doctor Kolding jumped back.
Sometimes this happened. He’d heard of it happening to others who plied the same trade. The serpent-staff could attract visitors of other types to your door, undesirable types. They had problems of their own. They had needs. They had habits to feed. To them, the sign suggested a source of pharms, a medicae to be pleaded with or threatened, a medicine bag to be shaken out for stimms, a drug cabinet to be raided.
Doctor Kolding felt quite flustered. He opened the door of the long-case clock that stood at the foot of the stairs. The clock hadn’t worked for fifteen years, but Doctor Kolding had been unwilling to get rid of it because it had belonged to his father’s uncle and it had always stood there. It didn’t serve as anything more than a cupboard now. He opened the case door and reached inside. The pistol was there, on a dusty little shelf behind the impotent pendulum. It was the pistol that had been left behind. He snapped the safety off and held the gun against his palm in his apron pocket.
The knuckles banged on the door again.
“Hello?”
Doctor Kolding reached up and tugged open the brass latch with his free hand. As he did so, he saw that his hand was shaking.
His hand was shaking, and there was a tiny spot of someone else’s blood on the back of it just under the knuckle of the middle finger.
Doctor Kolding opened the door.
“What do you want, please?” he asked.
A man was standing on his doorstep. He was a rough-looking man, a military man. He was wearing a black combat uniform. He seemed quite threatening. The people who came after pharms were often military or ex-military types with habits that were the legacy of combat tours. The man was standing on the doorstep with the snow coming down around him, lit by the single lamp above him in the roof of the stone porch. To Doctor Kolding, the dark street behind him was a blue void.
“Are you the doctor?” the visitor asked.
“I… Yes.”
“What’s the matter with you, keeping us standing out here? It’s freezing, and this is an emergency. Why did it take you so long to open the door?”
“I was surprised to have a visitor this late,” said Doctor Kolding. “It is a strange turn of events, and it disturbed me.”
“Yeah, well, sorry to knock for you after hours, but emergencies choose their own moments to happen, you know what I mean?”
“Not really,” replied Doctor Kolding.
The visitor peered at him, puzzled.
“What’s with the dark glasses?” he asked.
“Please tell me what you want,” said Doctor Kolding.
“I want to come inside.”
“Explain your business first, please.”
“It’s an emergency,” said the visitor.
“And the nature of the emergency?”
“Well, up to a few minutes ago, it was something else, but now it’s that bits of my anatomy are about to freeze off!”
Doctor Kolding gazed at him. This was a strange turn of events, and it
disturbed him.
It disturbed him even more when the visitor simply pushed past him into the hall.
“You can’t just walk in!” Doctor Kolding cried.
“Actually, I can. This is an emergency, and I’m tired of trying to do this nicely.”
“You can’t just walk in!”
The visitor looked back at him.
“Are you the doctor?” he asked.
“I said I was. I told you that.”
“You’re not an assistant or something? I wondered if you were the manservant or something.”
“No, I’m not.”
“So you’re in charge?” the visitor asked.
“I’m the only one here.”
The visitor nodded and looked around again. He went a few steps down the hall, and peered up the stairs to the first floor. Then he bent over the rail and looked down the stone steps into the basement theatre. As the visitor turned his head, Doctor Kolding saw that there was dried blood on the right-hand side of his face and his right ear.
“You’ve been hurt,” said Doctor Kolding.
“What?”
Doctor Kolding pointed to the visitor’s head with his free hand. “You’ve been hurt. Is this the emergency?”
The visitor touched his ear as if he’d forgotten all about it. His right hand was also, now Doctor Kolding came to notice it, covered in dried blood.
“No,” he said. “No, it’s not.”
At that moment, Doctor Kolding realised that the visitor had said something that had disturbed him more than anything else. In the confusion and tension, it had been passed over. Only now, with his mind painstakingly running back over the conversation again, did Doctor Kolding see it.
It was a single word, and the word was “us”.
What’s the matter with you, keeping us standing out here?
“I’d like you to go, please,” said Doctor Kolding.
“What?” the visitor asked.
“I’d like you to go. Leave. Please leave.”
“Haven’t you been listening to me? I need a doctor. It’s an emergency.”
“I’d like you to leave these premises, now,” said Doctor Kolding.
“What’s that in your pocket?” the visitor asked.
