‘What happened?’ he asked, holding the laspistol casually, but clearly ready to use it if he had to.
Elyra breathed a faint sigh of relief, keeping her expression neutral and both her hands in view. At least he seemed willing to ask questions before he started shooting. She shrugged, affecting an air of wry amusement, and chose her next words very carefully. ‘I think we’ve just saved you some commission,’ she began.
Icenholm, Sepheris Secundus
103.993.M41
‘A most stimulating evening,’ Keira said, and yawned elaborately. The lights were dim in the member’s lounge of the Conclave, the comfortable chairs clustered in companionable groups around low glass tables unoccupied for the most part, the vast majority of the self-styled philosophers having long since departed. ‘Time I was in bed, I think.’
‘I was just thinking the same thing,’ Adrin said, tilting his glass of well-matured amasec with every sign of satisfaction, and peering at her speculatively over the rim.
Suppressing the urge to snap his neck for his presumption, Keira smiled easily in return, and reached for her drink. What was it about men, she thought irritably. Suddenly, it seemed, every single one of them she came into contact with wanted to sin with her. At least Danuld had been honest about it, and had apologised for his weakness. And if Mordechai really had been harbouring lustful thoughts, if not the purer form of affection her imagination kept returning to in spite of her rational mind insisting on the ridiculousness of the whole idea, he’d had the decency to keep them to himself.
Contemplating that remote possibility ignited the curious fluttering sensation in the pit of her stomach again, and her skin tingled, as though in anticipation of a caress. Her mouth felt suddenly dry, and she sipped the smooth alcohol gratefully. Although she knew that sinning involved touching one another, she was vague about the details, and, secure behind her redoubt of Redemptionist rectitude, had never thought to ask.
Perhaps when Elyra returned she could seek her advice. The psyker had been intimate with men, with the inquisitor even, and everyone knew that inquisitors were the hands of the Emperor and therefore incapable of sinning. So maybe that meant that if His truly pious servants indulged in that sort of thing it wasn’t a sin at all. It wasn’t if you were married, she knew that, at least according to the Ecclesiarchy, although, since most of them were lamentably lax on the doctrine of Divine Wrath, she wasn’t sure how far they could be trusted on other moral issues.
‘Then I really shouldn’t detain you any longer,’ she replied airily, noting a flicker of disappointment cross his features with a certain amount of vindictive satisfaction.
‘Most considerate, as always, my lady,’ Adrin said, taking another sip of his amasec. He glanced at the elaborate gold chronograph on a chain around his neck, and nodded thoughtfully. ‘Especially as I’m afraid I’ve rather a late night to look forward to tomorrow.’
‘My dear Adrin,’ Keira said, deciding she might as well pretend to take the lure, ‘I’m beginning to think that you simply live for pleasure.’
‘I would that were so,’ Adrin said, allowing the foppish mask to slip a little, ‘but in some matters, I can assure you, I’m very much in earnest.’
‘You certainly seemed so in the discussion this evening,’ Keira said. To her surprise he’d vigorously opposed the motion, arguing eloquently that psykers in general, and unsanctioned ones in particular, were the greatest single threat facing the stability of the Imperium. Partly from devilment, and partly to further establish her credentials as a heretic manqué, she’d taken the liberal view, arguing for greater tolerance of the warp touched, despite the ashen taste such blasphemous words had left on her tongue.
‘It went quite well, didn’t it?’ Adrin said blandly. ‘Though I must admit I was a little surprised by the fervour of your argument: rather more passion than logic there, I fancy.’
‘Perhaps there was,’ Keira agreed, sipping her drink thoughtfully, ‘but it’s easy to daemonise people if you don’t understand them.’ In this, at least, she was speaking from experience, having had far too many of her old Redemptionist certainties battered beyond recognition by her exposure to a wider, more varied galaxy than she’d ever dreamed existed while clinging to the underside of Ambulon. Despite that, she told herself that the power of her faith was still undiminished and her core beliefs were still intact, even though experience had eroded a few of the peripheral tenets.
‘I’ve heard it argued that psykers aren’t really people at all,’ Adrin said blandly, ‘just lumps of the warp walking around among us.’
‘That rather proves my point,’ Keira said easily. ‘None of them asked to be touched by the empyrean.’ She used the archaic term deliberately, conscious of her pose as a student of metaphysical poetry, and aware that heretics often affected it as a way of distancing themselves from the truth about what they were actually discussing: the realm of Chaos itself. ‘There must be something more positive we could do than just rounding them up and treating them like daemonspawn.’
‘An easy stance to take in a debate,’ Adrin said, his intention of leaving apparently forgotten, ‘but I’ll wager you’d feel differently if you were faced with a genuine wyrd.’
‘Then you’d lose,’ Kiera snapped, allowing the appearance of tiredness and overindulgence in alcohol to make it seem as though she was letting her guard down inadvertently. ‘I did see one once. There was a servant on one of my aunt’s estates who had a gift for training animals. Everyone knew he was a bit simple, but he was a good-hearted lad, and whatever creature you were having trouble with you just took to see him. He’d pat it, and talk to it, and you’d never have a moment’s trouble with it again.’
‘That’s a familiar enough story,’ Adrin said, ‘and one that seldom ends well.’
‘It didn’t,’ Keira said. ‘They came for him one morning when I was twelve, a whole squad of arbitrators, and some Inquisition lackey. They beat him to a pulp, threw what was left into a shuttle, and took him off to Emperor knows where. He never stopped screaming the whole time, just begging them to leave him alone. Then they burned down his cottage, and shot every animal he’d ever touched.’ She allowed her voice to catch, as though fighting back tears. ‘They even killed my pony. I never forgave them for what they did to Mordechai.’ A small corner of her mind wondered why she’d picked on that particular name, and then dismissed it. She’d needed one in a hurry, and just said the first thing that came to mind. Aware that he was probably listening, she felt another faint stirring in the pit of her stomach, and forced her mind back to business.
‘I see.’ Adrin was gazing levelly at her, his expression evaluating. Keira knew that look. She was sure she had him. He’d taken the bait. Then he rose, and offered her his arm. ‘Perhaps I owe you an apology, for doubting your word, and for making you relive some unpleasant memories.’
‘It was a long time ago,’ Keira said, as though attempting to recover her composure.
Adrin nodded. ‘Nevertheless, perhaps you’ll allow me to make amends. If I could prevail upon you to accompany me tomorrow evening, I’m sure you’d find it most rewarding.’
‘Another discussion group?’ Keira asked, allowing herself to be steered towards the lobby.
Adrin shook his head. ‘A rather more exclusive gathering, at my downside residence.’ He gestured towards the floor. ‘Rather tiresome, I know, but I have to spend a little time among the grubbers if I’m going to retain my holdings.’
‘Really?’ Keira smiled, as though the idea was appealing. ‘I’ve never visited the Gorgonid. I’m sure I’ll find it very interesting.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ Adrin said, the mask of vacuity settling once more across his face.
The Tumble, Gorgonid Mine, Sepheris Secundus
103.993.M41
The head of the airshaft was surrounded by ramshackle structures, around which a surprising number of people came and went. Used to the diffuse citylight, Drake found the pole-mounted luminators markin
g the periphery of the site glaring and harsh, but he was grateful for them all the same. They meant he had a clear view of everything going on inside it, while the sentries peering out past them in his general direction would see nothing but darkness and the silhouettes of the surrounding slag heaps. He’d found one with a clear view of the site, and had inched his way to the top on the far side. He lay just behind the crest, only his head protruding, its outline blurred nicely by the brim of his hat.
‘I’m in position,’ he reported, speaking quietly. The prevailing wind was towards him, but there was no telling who else might be listening out there in the darkness. The chill in the air foretold snow by morning, but not much, and he hoped his greatcoat would keep most of the cold out. He’d brought a flask of recaf with him, but he was reluctant to reach for it. A wisp of steam from the warm liquid would give away his position at once to anyone sufficiently alert to notice. Resigning himself to a long, uncomfortable vigil, he slipped the amplivisor out of its case and raised the lenses to his eyes.
‘Acknowledged,’ Vex said. ‘Can you tell much about their disposition from where you are?’
‘Surly,’ Drake said, unable to resist the feeble joke, before his military training took over and he began to assess the site below with professional detachment. ‘It’s a fortified compound. Berms on all sides, three to four metres high, look like they’ve been made from the waste cleared to level the ground on the inside. One gate, pretty solid, probably made from old pit props and scrap metal. Open at the moment, two guards, one with a lasgun, one with a stubber, probably more inside. There’s a hut near the gate, could be a guard post. Sentries walking the walls, teams of two, various small arms, but I’ll need to see a complete circuit before I can tell you how many there are.’
‘From which we can infer that they’re quite determined to keep intruders out,’ Vex commented dryly.
‘I’d say so,’ Drake confirmed. ‘Frontal assault’s out of the question, unless we can borrow a platoon or two of Scourges.’ He’d spoken in jest, but the tech-priest seemed to take the remark quite seriously.
‘It might be quicker to mobilise Captain Malakai’s storm troopers if that becomes necessary,’ he replied.
‘It might at that,’ Drake said, trying to keep his voice level. That option hadn’t even occurred to him, and for the first time since joining the Angelae he began to understand quite how much power the badge in his pocket enabled him to wield. No wonder Mordechai was so serious so much of the time. He swept the amplivisor across the compound. ‘Five large huts, and what looks like a tunnel mouth. I’m guessing that’s the air shaft.’
‘A reasonable deduction,’ Vex agreed. ‘Anything else?’
‘No sign of Vos or Elyra,’ Drake said, unable to recognise any of the people milling around below. A small group was leaving one of the buildings, and he trained the device on it, sharpening the focus. ‘There’s one face that doesn’t fit: Void-born by the look of him.’ He’d encountered starship crew on occasion, usually while providing a guard of honour at official functions for members of the royal family, and the loose-limbed gait of those subconsciously poised to compensate for minute fluctuations in the gravity surrounding them was unmistakable.
‘Interesting,’ the tech-priest commented. ‘Can you get a pict?’
‘No problem.’ Drake eased the imagifer out of his pocket, centring the man in the little pict screen, and zooming the image as much as he could. ‘He’s got some kind of insignia on his jacket.’ The image froze momentarily as he captured it. ‘I can’t magnify it enough to make it out from here, though.’
‘Not a problem,’ Vex assured him. ‘I can enhance the image when you get it back to me.’
‘Good.’ His attention attracted by a growing noise, Drake went back to the amplivisor, training the device on the gates. The guards had been joined by a handful of others, their weapons levelled, but looking too relaxed to be expecting any real trouble. ‘Something’s happening. Looks like a large group approaching the compound.’
A moment later, his deduction was confirmed, an inchoate mass of human sized figures resolving themselves in the amplivisor. As they came fully into focus, Drake’s breath froze in his throat. ‘Muties,’ he breathed, unable to suppress his instinctive revulsion at the sight.
There could be no doubt about the true nature of the shambling figures approaching the compound. Most were swathed in hooded cloaks, which concealed face and form alike, but the fall of the cloth made it abundantly clear that the limbs and bodies beneath them were grotesquely misshapen. The few exceptions were dressed like most of the other denizens of the pit, their deformities apparently subtle enough to allow them to pass unremarked among the pure, at least with the aid of the darkness.
Drake tried to estimate their numbers, but the lumbering cavalcade stretched back into the void beyond the lights, most of its members pushing crude handcarts piled high with ore. By the time the tail end of it had reached the gate, the first arrivals had long since tipped out their piles of clattering stone on the periphery of the wide open area that filled the centre of the compound, and returned to the darkness whence they’d come.
There must have been three or four dozen at the very least, unless some of them were making a round trip, returning with another load or two before leaving for good. Drake couldn’t be sure, so few of the shrouded obscenities below displaying enough individuality to pick out again even if he did see them twice. At any event, there was no mistaking their leader, who had hobbled over to the void-born as soon as the head of the column had passed through the gate, and begun a conversation, which seemed to involve a lot of arm waving and head shaking on both sides.
‘Looks like a business deal of some kind,’ Drake concluded, having filled Vex in on as many of the details as he could in a few terse words. He’d abandoned the amplivisor, and resumed taking picts, assuming that Horst would want as much evidence as possible to help identify the guilty. He took a couple of images of the guards on the walls, their weapons pointed inwards to cover the steady stream of mutants passing by below, and a close-up or two of the crude crossbows and carefully fashioned slingshots that most of the new arrivals seemed to be carrying, ready for use if necessary. ‘I don’t think either side really trusts the other.’
‘Hardly surprising, given its clandestine nature,’ Vex concurred.
‘Well, they seem to have reached an agreement,’ Drake reported a short while later.
The pile of ore had grown to a surprising volume, spreading out from its original dumping point as it had grown too high for the carts and barrows to be tipped out easily, and the voider had inspected it carefully, picking out lumps at random and running some kind of hand-held auspex over them. After a while he nodded in satisfaction, and gestured to a couple of the men accompanying him, who led a party of the mutants over to a nearby shed. Before long the remaining barrows had been piled with sacks, and the misshapen band had departed with their booty.
‘That’s about it,’ the Guardsman added, as the last of the mutants shuffled away into the darkness. ‘Excitement’s over.’ The guards on the walls were relaxing, lighting lho sticks and resuming their leisurely circuit, while a couple of the others heaved the heavy gate into place. Settling as comfortably as he could on the pile of stones beneath him, Drake swept the amplivisor across the compound, resigning himself to a long and tedious vigil. As he did so, a flicker of movement in the mouth of the tunnel caught his attention, and he stiffened. ‘Wait, there’s movement in the airshaft.’
‘Interesting,’ Vex commented, a faint thread of tension becoming evident beneath his habitually level tone. ‘Elyra seems to be on the move. Is it her?’
‘I can’t tell yet,’ Drake said, his attention wholly absorbed by the tunnel mouth. The figures emerging from it were becoming more clearly visible as they moved closer to the pool of light cast by the luminators, but they were still little more than shadows in the gloom. ‘There’s a whole group of them. Five are walking, and the two in f
ront seem to be carrying a body.’ He paused for a moment. ‘No, scratch that, it’s still twitching. Don’t give him long without seeing a chirurgeon though.’ He craned his neck, as if he could somehow see past the obstructing silhouettes, and catch a glimpse of the trio walking behind them a few paces further down the tunnel.
‘Do you recognise the casualty?’ Vex asked, the more specific question he didn’t want to ask hanging in the air unspoken.
‘Never seen him before,’ Drake reassured the tech-priest. As the injured man and his bearers moved aside, he was able to see into the shaft without hindrance at last, and sighed with relief as he recognised the distinctive silhouette of his friend, the familiar chain axe jutting unmistakably over a fur-clad shoulder. ‘Vos is behind them, still armed.’
‘Then I think we can safely infer that their cover story has been accepted,’ Vex said, not quite managing to keep a faint note of relief from his voice.
Down below, Kyrlock and his companions stepped into the full glare of the luminators at last, and Drake fumbled for the imagifer, hoping to get a pict of the man accompanying him. ‘Elyra’s there too,’ he reported, ‘talking to someone: a man, early middle age, civilian garb. Looks like an off-worlder.’ Another flash of movement caught his eye, and he turned his head. ‘The voider’s going to meet them. They’re talking.’
‘Can you read their lips?’ Vex asked.
‘Not from here,’ Drake said. ‘I can use the amplivisor.’
‘I would advise you to continue taking picts,’ Vex said. ‘They might give us more to go on.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Drake agreed. ‘They’re still talking, making introductions by the look of it. Elyra’s saying something to the voider, and Vos is nodding. Looks like we’re in business.’ He tensed a little as the psyker reached into her knapsack, acutely aware of the laspistol secreted in there, and wishing for a moment that he still had his lasgun with him instead of the Scalptaker. He was good with the longarm, and could have provided covering fire easily if things looked like turning bad. However, Elyra was smiling, something shining in her hand for a moment as she held it out for inspection. The man with her nodded and said something, and everyone laughed.
Scourge The Heretic Page 29
