The mission comes first, Keira thought, one of the fundamental tenets her collegium tutors had schooled her in. Everything else is secondary. But letting such cancers in the body of the Imperium live on left a sour taste in her mouth. Resheathing the knife, and loosening the tension in the crossbow string, she prised the lid off the lorry’s equipment locker and extricated what she needed.
‘All right, five protein packs per tonne,’ the driver said, his deal apparently concluded. ‘Provided it’s as pure as you say, and not mostly shale like the last lot.’
‘Iss pure,’ the mutant assured him. ‘You think uss madmen?’ It laughed mirthlessly, a phlegm laden gurgle that made Keira’s skin crawl. ‘We cheat the Franchisse, no one deal with uss again, everyone sstarve.’
‘You cheat the Franchise, you won’t live long enough to starve,’ the driver said, grinding the stub of a lho stick beneath his heel.
The mutant’s shoulders shifted, in what might have been a shrug of resignation. ‘We deliver, night after nexsst.’
‘Yeah, right,’ the driver said, swinging up into the cab. ‘Usual place, usual time, five packs per. Make sure you’re there, ’cause the shuttle’s not waiting.’
Then the engine had roared into life, and Keira had melted back into the darkness, clutching her grubby prize. As she’d anticipated, the patina of dust blended it almost imperceptibly into the pile of rubble, supplementing the more active camouflage of her synsuit, and reducing the possibility of a chance reflection from the lenses of the amplivisor giving her position away. A faint flurry of snow began to fall again, blurring the outline of her sanctuary even more, and she smiled, certain now that she had the Emperor’s approval.
Relieved that she’d made the right decision after all, she mulled over the conversation she’d overheard, trying to remember the exact words. She knew that Mordechai would ask for the minutest of details, his detective’s mind chewing every last shred of intelligence from the raw data. She felt the familiar warm tingling in the pit of her stomach at the thought of providing fresh information and proving her value to him. He might even drop the supercilious manner long enough to smile at her for once, or say something approving for a change, instead of being such a pompous prig all the time.
‘Keira.’ Preoccupied with her pleasant reverie, the sudden actuality of his voice in her comm-bead took her completely by surprise. She started guiltily, the irrational thought that he might somehow know she’d been thinking about him making her face flame scarlet, the stones beneath her rattling gently against one another as she moved. ‘Are you receiving?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, a little of her shock and embarrassment leaking into her voice. Maybe he’d take it for simple surprise, since she wasn’t supposed to check in again until dawn. ‘What’s happening?’ They were meant to keep comms silence as much as possible, that was standard operating procedure, so something had obviously changed.
‘We need you back here,’ Mordechai said. ‘Can you pull out?’
‘Yes,’ Keira replied, after a moment’s thought. The Tumble was almost deserted, its nocturnal denizens gone, and the spoil tippers and heap scavengers were not due to start work until daybreak. If she moved fast, she could get clear of the mine before too many people were abroad. It would be daylight before she could make it back to her hidden set of glidewings, but they were a common enough sight around Icenholm for her not to attract any attention when she landed at the villa, and she doubted anyone else would be abroad in the foothills to notice her departure. ‘What about Elyra and Vos?’
‘They’ll just have to take care of themselves,’ Mordechai said flatly. ‘We’ve got a possible lead, and you’re the only one who can follow it.’
The warm glow in Keira’s stomach intensified, leaving her breathless for a moment. He needed her, and he’d just admitted it. ‘Pulling out now,’ she said, trying to keep her voice level, and beginning to stow her kit.
‘Are you all right?’ Mordechai asked, and she flushed again, her inexplicable embarrassment metamorphosing almost at once into irritation. He thought he was so smart. ‘Your voice sounds a little strange.’
‘Dust in my throat,’ Keira said, worming her way out from under the canvas, and beginning to pick her way cautiously down the side of the spoil heap. A few fresh snowflakes began to fall, and she breathed silent thanks to the Emperor, grateful for their help in blurring her outline. Losing herself in the disciplines of the stalk, she let the strange and unwelcome emotions leak away, until only the predator was left.
Elyra had slept badly, as she’d known she was going to, the discomfort of her injuries and the smell of the bedroll combining to keep her from anything other than a light doze, so when she’d woken for the third or fourth time she’d insisted on changing places with Kyrlock. She’d half expected him to argue, but the former soldier was too pragmatic for any pretence of gallantry, and had taken his turn on the rank blankets with alacrity. Now he was snoring gently, his right hand still on the stock of his shotgun, stirring at every sound beyond the curtain that shielded them from the makeshift bar.
Elyra watched him sleep, sitting on another of the ubiquitous crates, as far as she could get from both the curtain and the rancid slops bucket in the corner. Her pack was on her lap, her hand inside it, grasping the butt of her new laspistol, an identical model to the one she’d given Barda after the shuttle crash. Kyrlock might have been prepared to trust his brother to some extent, but Elyra had been an Inquisition operative for far too long to take anyone’s loyalty for granted, with the single exception of Carolus. Horst, Vex and Keira she knew well enough to be reasonably certain of their reliability, although the evident tension between the former arbitrator and the young assassin was a little disquieting, not least because neither of them seemed capable of acknowledging its cause, or doing anything positive about it even if they were. Kyrlock, on the other hand, was an unknown quantity. She trusted Carolus’s judgement about bringing him and Drake into the team, but neither of them had proven themselves yet, and the thought that her life might depend on a man she barely knew was hardly a comforting one.
Startled by a faint beeping from inside the rucksack, she flinched, her finger tightening involuntarily on the trigger of her laspistol, and breathed a silent prayer of thanks to the Emperor that she’d left the safety on.
‘Elyra,’ she said quietly, extricating the personal vox from the bottom of the pack, next to the gun. It was a standard civilian model, quite unremarkable to look at, although Vex had made some careful alterations to its inner workings, ensuring that any transmissions made to or from it would be incomprehensible to anyone else attempting to listen in. Carrying it was a risk, perhaps even more so than the gun. Her assumed identity as a fugitive would at least explain the weapon, but there was no obvious reason for her to be carrying a communications device. After some debate, Horst had insisted she take it, and claim she’d just packed it from force of habit if anyone challenged her, but she’d only given in because Carolus had left him in charge. Now, it seemed, his insistence was justified.
‘It’s Mordechai,’ he told her, unnecessarily. ‘I thought you should know I’ve just had to pull Keira out.’
‘I see.’ Elyra kept her voice level, despite the surge of irrational panic that accompanied the words. The thought that the young assassin had been following their every move, watching their backs, prepared to intervene if they got into trouble, had been more comforting than she’d realised. ‘Is she coming back?’
‘I don’t know,’ Horst admitted. ‘We need her up here, on a new line of enquiry. She’s going undercover too, so she might be hard to redeploy in a hurry.’
‘Well, nothing’s going to happen down here for a while,’ Elyra said, taking what comfort she could from that. ‘Vos’s contact, who turns out to be his brother by the way, doesn’t seem to think this fixer he knows will show before it gets dark again. We’ll be in touch as soon as we know more.’
‘We’ll be listening out,’ Horst assured her,
and broke the link.
‘Who was that?’ Kyrlock asked, opening his eyes, and yawning as he watched her stow the vox in the bottom of her pack.
‘Mordechai,’ Elyra said, wondering how he was going to react to the news of their abandonment. ‘He’s had to reassign Keira. We’re on our own, at least for the moment.’
‘No change there, then,’ Kyrlock said, rolling over and going back to sleep.
Icenholm, Sepheris Secundus
097.993.M41
‘Those were their exact words?’ Horst asked, intrigued. ‘They definitely mentioned the Franchise?’
‘Yes, both of them. The man, and that thing he was talking to,’ Keira said, an edge of revulsion seeping into her tone. She’d arrived back at the villa a few moments before, swooping down onto the terrace like a piece of the night sky made manifest, shrugging her wings off and leaving them for Vex to stow. The conversation she’d overheard seemed to have struck her as particularly significant for some reason, and she’d insisted on recounting it verbatim as soon as she’d got inside. ‘Do you know what it means?’ She leaned forward eagerly on the overstuffed couch, her synsuit rippling as the kaleidoscope of colours from the stained glass walls played randomly across it.
‘Yes.’ Horst nodded, trying to ignore the disturbing manner in which the shifting patterns emphasised the curves of her body. ‘The Shadow Franchise is a crime syndicate, which operates all over the sector. We didn’t know they had an operation going on Sepheris Secundus, but it makes sense. They’d certainly have the contacts and resources to shift black market ore off-planet.’
‘How about people?’ Keira asked. ‘Could they be the ones Elyra and Vos are going after?’
‘It’s possible,’ Horst said, considering it. ‘Probable even. We knew whoever was moving them had to have some serious backing, and the Franchise certainly fits the bill.’ He nodded judiciously, and smiled at the girl, acknowledging her contribution to the investigation. ‘This could turn out to be quite significant.’
‘No problem.’ An unexpected grin appeared on Keira’s face, and Horst found himself wondering if the implied praise, mild as it was, had been a mistake. If she really was infatuated with him, the last thing he needed to do was encourage her.
‘Does this change anything?’ Drake asked, stifling a yawn, and taking a gulp from the mug of recaf that Horst was beginning to think was permanently grafted to his hand.
Horst shook his head, grateful for the distraction. ‘No. We knew we were dealing with a dangerous and well-resourced group to begin with. Keira’s given us an indication of which one it might be, which could be useful if we need to follow up off-planet, but the plan remains the same as it always was: get Elyra and Vos into the pipeline, and find out where it goes.’
‘And find out if any psykers are along for the ride,’ Keira reminded everyone.
‘Quite,’ Horst said, as diplomatically as he could, and trying to ignore a faint moue of dissatisfaction that flickered across her face at the minor rebuff.
‘Shouldn’t we tell the Arbites?’ Drake asked, depositing the empty mug on a nearby tabletop, with a faint clack of glass against glass. He’d gone to bed late, and slept badly, his gamboges silk pyjamas almost as rumpled as his hair, most of his conversation since rising a litany of malediction against overly soft mattresses. ‘If this Shadow Franchise is operating in the Gorgonid, they ought to know.’
‘No.’ Horst shook his head emphatically. ‘Not yet, anyway. The last thing we need is a platoon of enforcers charging around down there, disrupting the operation before we can get our people inside. Once Elyra and Vos are in place, and we’ve got all the evidence we’re after, we can send the local headbusters in to roll up the network.’
‘Works for me,’ Keira said cheerfully, before a faint shadow passed across her face. ‘Still can’t help wishing I’d sent those two to judgement while I had the chance, though.’
‘You did the right thing,’ Horst assured her, provoking a spontaneous smile that transformed the sullen mask he was used to seeing in a wholly unexpected fashion. For a brief moment the attraction he felt for her seemed entirely natural, and then the momentary glimpse of the woman she might have been without her violent upbringing faded away into the familiar neutral expression. ‘We might never have uncovered the Franchise connection if you hadn’t used your initiative.’
‘That reminds me,’ Keira said, her demeanour entirely businesslike. ‘What’s this new lead you want me to follow up?’
‘You’re going to love this,’ Drake said as Vex entered the lounge, Keira’s glidewings, expertly stowed, hanging from one hand.
Horst wasn’t so sure about that, but he nodded anyway. ‘Hybris has been constructing a new identity for you,’ he said, as the tech-priest propped the wings against a convenient table leg and muttered the prayer of activation over his data-slate.
‘Quite a simple task,’ Vex assured him, most of his attention still on the pict screen. ‘I just had to alter a few property records and some credit files, and plant a few stories in the newsprint archives. If anyone runs a background check, Lady Keira Sythree will appear to be entirely genuine.’
Until she opens her mouth, at least, Horst thought. The rudiments of imposture were standard training at the Collegium Assassinorum, however, and Drake was familiar enough with aristocratic manners to instruct her in the basics. They’d just have to hope that any flaws in her performance were put down to her off-world origins. The Secundan nobility tended to be an insular lot, forced by the conventions of their feudal society to live within the domains they administered, and few had even met an off-worlder face to face, let alone travelled to other planets. That made Tonis’s apparent emigration to the Lathes as a young man even more intriguing.
‘You want me to pretend to be a lady?’ Keira asked incredulously.
Horst nodded. ‘After you’ve had a bath, obviously,’ he said, regretting the remark at once, both for the mental images it provoked and for the filthy look Keira directed at him in reply.
‘I’d like to see you looking vacseal fresh after grubbing around in the Tumble all bloody night,’ she said.
‘See?’ Drake interjected with a grin. ‘She’s talking like an aristo already.’
‘And you can go rut a mutant while you’re at it,’ Keira said, completely taken aback by Drake’s loud and spontaneous laugh in response.
‘Perhaps this isn’t the optimum strategy after all,’ Vex ventured after the briefest of pauses, his carefully modulated tones sounding even more mannered by contrast. He blinked at Keira in mild perplexity. ‘If you feel the task is beyond you.’
‘I never said that.’ Keira took a deep breath, and looked straight at Horst. ‘You’re right, I do need a bath, and some sleep.’ She glanced sideways at Drake. ‘I didn’t mean to jump down your throat, either.’
‘That’s all right,’ Horst said, completely astonished by her awkward attempt at conciliation, and hiding it as best he could. ‘My remarks were inappropriate. I should apologise to you.’
‘Well, if you must.’ Keira shrugged, the faint scar below her cheekbone growing more clearly visible as her face coloured. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘We’d like you to become her,’ Horst said, indicating the pict screen. Keira rose, and crossed the room, pulling up a chair next to Vex for a better view. ‘Danuld and I have already seeded the rumour that a noble lady from Scintilla is due to arrive in Icenholm, and I’m afraid you’re the closest we’ve got.’ Realising an instant too late how this might sound if she was still determined to take offence, he winced, anticipating another glare, but Keira barely seemed to have heard him, already immersed in the details of her cover story.
‘I’ve falsified credentials for you as a member of the Conclave of the Enlightened’s lodge in Ambulon,’ Vex said. ‘Partly because it’s the hive you’re most familiar with on Scintilla, and partly because the Conclave lodge there is relatively small and obscure.’
‘I see.’ Keira nodde
d slowly. ‘So as well as an aristocrat, you want me to pass for an intellectual.’ A mischievous grin appeared on her face, and she glanced up at Horst. ‘I’m flattered you think I can do it.’
‘I wouldn’t even have considered this if I didn’t,’ Horst said, concealing his doubts, and receiving another fleeting smile in return. He kept his own face impassive, and tried to ignore the pang of sympathy he felt at the barely perceptible expression of disappointment that replaced it. This was no time to allow emotions to get in the way of duty.
‘What’s my area of study?’ Keira asked, pointedly addressing the question to Vex.
The tech-priest scrolled down a few lines of text. ‘Theosophical poetry, with a particular interest in works produced during the Age of Apostasy. That should establish your credentials as an unconventional thinker.’
‘Sounds more like you want me to play at being a heretic,’ Keira said, the familiar truculent tone beginning to edge into her voice again, and Horst began to wonder if this was going to work after all. Before he could speak, though, Drake cut in.
‘Not exactly,’ the Guardsman said, ‘but you will be looking for signs of heresy among the people you’re infiltrating. If any of them are part of a subversive group, they’re more likely to reveal themselves if they think they’re talking to someone willing to listen to their lies.’
‘Precisely,’ Horst said, with a grateful glance in Drake’s direction. Keira still seemed to be listening, anyway, rather than rejecting the proposal out of hand as he’d feared she was about to. ‘That’s why we need someone of unimpeachable faith to do this.’ To his relief the girl was nodding slowly, the implied flattery doing its job the way he’d hoped.
‘I see,’ she said. Then a tone of doubt began to seep into her voice. ‘I’m not sure I can pass for an expert in this stuff, though. What happens if some real scholar wants to discuss it with me?’
‘Luckily they’re pretty thin on the ground,’ Vex said. ‘Most of the members are dabblers and dilettantes at best, and none of them are particularly interested in that area of literature.’ He paged down the screen. ‘These are the most well-known titles on the subject; mention them, quote a few lines, and you should be able to bluff your way through a conversation with no real difficulty.’ He brought up a fresh page of text. ‘These extracts ought to serve for most purposes.’
Scourge The Heretic Page 17
