For a moment Barda found himself tempted to accept the offer, and return home secure in the protection afforded by Inquisitorial patronage, but by now he’d seen too much of life beyond the limited horizons of his birth guild to settle for so little anymore. Besides, protected or not, he’d always be known as a jonah, a pilot who’d lost his ship, shunned by the other Cloudwalkers for the rest of his days.
“It’s a kind offer,” he said, after pausing just long enough to seem as though he was thinking it over, “but, everything considered, I’d rather tag along to Scintilla.” He returned his attention to the controls. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to concentrate for the next few minutes.”
They were close enough to the vast vessel by now for the encrustation of spires, auspex arrays, hatches and other ironmongery which clung to the surface of the Misericord to have become more visible, making it look uncannily like a vast misshapen log, coated in metallic bark. Barda fed power to one of the manoeuvring thrusters, rolling the tiny vessel neatly around the last piece of debris; Horst’s reflection ahead of him flinched, looking mildly nauseous, but there was no time to wonder about that: the vast hatch of the main hangar bay was hauling itself over the metal horizon, and it was time to line up his final approach.
The vox chimed. “Approaching shuttle, you are not authorised for this flight lane. Break off at once.”
“Sorry about that.” Barda glanced up at Horst. “I should have warned you. Misericord flight control has a reputation for being difficult. They’ll probably keep us in a holding pattern for hours before they allocate us a landing slot, just because they can.”
“No they won’t,” Horst said, taking a couple of paces into the flight deck to activate the vox himself. “This is Inquisition shuttle Righteous Indignation demanding immediate clearance, authorisation code transmitting now.” He keyed a complex set of digits on the cogitator pad. “Put us somewhere out of the way of the rest of the passengers, and have someone in authority waiting to meet us. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.” The response was immediate, and, Barda was sure, tinged with apprehension. “Proceed at your earliest convenience.”
As he banked the shuttle slowly towards the growing maw of the docking bay, Barda found himself grinning. It seemed his new vocation had quite a lot going for it.
Keira wasn’t exactly sure what she’d expected to find aboard the Misericord, but the reality felt strangely anti-climactic. Although she wouldn’t care to admit it, Drake’s words back at the villa had disturbed her; she was firmly of the opinion that the Emperor made luck, good or ill, as a sign of His favour, or, more frequently, displeasure, but there was no denying that some places and individuals attracted misfortune to an unusual degree. Given the great age of the Chartist vessel, and its close connection to the warp, it would hardly be surprising if it was indeed tainted in some way, but it wasn’t that thought which left her so uneasy; by the logic of her beliefs, the miasma of ill-fortune which Drake seemed so convinced clung to the vessel could only be the result of some deep-rooted sinfulness endemic to it.
As always, the contemplation of sin, in any of its manifold forms, made her pulse quicken, the righteous anger swelling in her chest, along with the desire to extirpate it by shedding the blood of the unworthy. Not that she’d be able to give way to the impulse here, she thought regretfully, even if she did find any evidence of moral laxity; she’d been an Inquisition operative for too long to lose sight of the bigger picture, and breaking the psyker underground took priority over everything else she could envisage. On the other hand, if His Divine Majesty thought her worthy enough to dispatch a few more sinners to His judgement, and arranged things so that they crossed her path in any case, she wouldn’t exactly object.
Mordechai caught her eye. “Are you all right?” he asked, and she nodded, trying to ignore the peculiar sensation of pressure in the pit of her stomach which seemed to appear out of nowhere whenever she became the object of his attention.
“You seemed a little distracted there for a second.”
“I’m fine.” She glanced around, trying to get a sense of the ship they’d so recently boarded. The hangar bay didn’t seem all that different to those she’d passed through before, on previous voyages through the warp on the Emperor’s business. “Just trying to get our bearings, that’s all.”
The high ceiling overhead was vaulted, throwing back the din of the seething activity around them, and chased with devotional murals, obscured almost to opacity by generations of accumulated grime. Narrowing her eyes a little, Keira could just about make out the figure of the Emperor Himself, apparently shrivelling things with too many eyes, tentacles, and teeth to ashes with a single gesture.
“An invocation of His protection against the denizens of the warp,” Vex said, following the direction of her gaze for a moment. “Quite a common image aboard vessels of this kind.”
“That makes sense,” Keira agreed. Despite knowing how irrational the impulse was, she found herself looking for anything which looked like the daemon they’d encountered in Adrin’s mansion, but if there was a representation of the tentacled monstrosity which had fought them there, it was too thickly covered to find.
“I can’t see any other passengers,” Drake said, glancing around suspiciously as he descended the shuttle’s boarding ramp to join them. The other utility craft they could see were all cargo lifters, the contents of their holds being removed by deckhands in particoloured livery, who were conversing and complaining in some shipboard patois which seemed to intersect with Imperial Gothic at roughly one word in ten as they sweated boxes and bundles onto wheeled pallets. Here and there, Keira caught a glimpse of the looming bulk of heavy lift servitors, too far away to see in much detail, but the general impression she got was of long use and decrepitude, their lurching gait betraying worn components and necrotising flesh.
“They’ll be coming aboard on the main reception decks,” Horst explained. “As we need to keep a low profile, I instructed the crew to direct us to one of the secondary cargo bays.”
Keira nodded, acknowledging the wisdom of this. Their shuttle had no obvious indication of its ownership, beyond the crimson and grey livery which marked it as the property of the Inquisition to anyone familiar with the organisation they served, and the chances of anyone aboard being aware of what that signified was extremely remote. On the other hand, after the raid on Adrin’s mansion the previous night, rumour and gossip would be sweeping all levels of Secundan society, and it was just possible that someone about to take passage on the Misericord would have heard enough to register something suspicious about their arrival if they were seen.
Her pulse quickened. It was even possible that a few heretics had slipped through the net, and were hoping to find refuge here. She hoped so; a blood hunt would help to while away the tedium of the voyage.
“This is just a secondary bay?” Drake asked, his tone incredulous, and Keira nodded.
“By the standards of this ship, yes.” Remembering he’d never been off-world before, she tried not to sound too patronising. “Most of the Chartist vessels are big, but this one’s huge even compared to them.”
“Quite so,” Vex confirmed, consulting his data-slate. “The Misericord’s unique; there’s no other vessel like it in the sector, if not the entire Imperium.”
“Thank the Throne for that,” Drake muttered, glancing around at the bustle surrounding them as though expecting ruin and misfortune to suddenly appear behind him.
“That must be our reception committee,” Horst said, and Keira turned her head to follow the direction of his gaze. A small group of people were trotting towards them, their status in the shipboard hierarchy immediately apparent from the speed with which the bustling deckhands hurried out of their way, and the armed escort accompanying the new arrivals.
“About sinning time,” she said sourly. Horst had invoked the authority of the Inquisition, demanding the presence of someone senior among the crew to meet them, and so far as sh
e was concerned, that meant the delegation of shipfolk should have been waiting on their arrival, not the other way around. “Don’t they realise who they’re dealing with?”
“I imagine that was the reason for the delay,” Horst said, apparently finding something amusing about her irritation. “They probably felt there was safety in numbers.”
“Well, they got that wrong,” Keira said, with quiet satisfaction. If the Angelae found any irregularities aboard the Misericord worth reporting to the Tricorn, the entire crew could be purged if necessary.
“Quite,” Horst said, taking a couple of steps towards their new hosts, and holding up his rosette where it could clearly be seen. It was a pointless gesture, the identification code he’d transmitted on their approach having established their bona fides beyond all reasonable doubt, but the effect was gratifying all the same. As the blood-red letter “I” caught the light from the overhead luminators, it flared threateningly, and the little party of shipboard dignitaries quailed visibly.
From habit, Keira devoted a little more of her attention to the armsmen escorting them; if, against all rational expectation, the approaching group were bent on treachery, they would be her most pressing concern. Though not much of one, she suspected; there were only a dozen of them, armed and armoured in a fashion she found most curious. All carried semi-automatic shotguns, which looked well cared for and functional, but their clothing looked as though it would have been more at home on a feral world somewhere. All wore archaic sallet helms and brightly polished breastplates over shirts of mail, which would undoubtedly offer some protection against conventional melee weapons, but very little against the Angelae’s guns, and none at all against the monomolecular edges of her own blades.
The most senior member of the detail was easy to pick out, his gleaming armour covered with a bright azure cape, and his helmet crested with a long crimson feather, which she found a reassuring sight; for a moment she wondered if he shared her faith, before reason reasserted itself. Red was hardly a colour exclusive to the Redemption. He’d clearly noticed her scrutiny, and returned it, bright blue eyes lingering on her for a moment before moving on to take in the rest of the Inquisition party. A moment later his attention was back on her, and he nodded a coolly professional greeting.
Keira returned it, quietly impressed. The fellow had recognised her as the most immediately dangerous member of the group, rather than Drake or Horst, as most people would have assumed, which spoke highly of his professional abilities. If they needed to fight their way out of here, he’d be the one to watch.
“Why’s the one in the middle wearing a mask?” Drake asked, and Keira’s attention switched to the most conspicuous of the shipboard dignitaries surrounded by the cluster of armsmen.
“Evidently a local custom,” Vex said, consulting the data-slate again. “The shipboard officers wear masks at all times when on duty, revealing their true faces only to members of their own caste.” He paused, paging down the document on the miniature display screen. “At least that was the case when this account was written; it’s only seven hundred years old, so I don’t suppose things will have changed much in the interim.”
“They have a caste system here too?” Drake asked, apparently relieved to find something about the Misericord he was able to understand.
Vex nodded. “At least as rigid as the one on Sepheris Secundus, if not more so. All with their own customs and practices, which make little sense to outsiders.”
Horst nodded too, trying to sound reassuring. “Don’t worry about it. All the Chartist vessels have their own traditions, particularly when it comes to interacting with their passengers.”
That was true, Keira thought. The stewards aboard the Splendour Empyrian, which they’d travelled on to reach Sepheris Secundus, had spoken entirely in rhyme; even a simple request for an evening meal had provoked the recitation of a menu couched in the form of a villanelle. At least their counterparts aboard the Misericord could hardly be that annoying.
“She looks pretty senior, at any rate,” Drake said, glowering suspiciously at the woman in the mask. The blank visage turned slightly, as if aware of his scrutiny. “Judging by all that ornamentation.”
That didn’t mean much, Keira thought; in some places she’d been, the more elaborate the clothing the lower the status of the wearer, but in this instance she thought the former Guardsman was probably right. The midnight-blue of the woman’s mask was encrusted with embroidery in gold thread, depicting the swirl of the galaxy, angled so that Holy Terra itself was centred in the middle of her forehead. The cloth it was composed of must have been of a particularly fine weave, since she could evidently see where she was going despite the film of fabric across her eyes. In contrast to the elaborate mask, the robes she wore were plain, the blue fabric gathered at the waist with a simple knotted belt, from which a small cloth bag hung, embroidered with a stylised sun and moon.
“Greetings, in the name of our captains, and the lives they command.” The woman curtseyed, her back straight, addressing Horst directly. The archaically armoured troopers fanned out, flanking the boarding ramp of the Inquisition shuttle with every sign of being no more than an honour guard, although Keira had little doubt that they could turn out to be far more than that with no more warning than a barely perceptible gesture from the woman in the mask. The guard commander and another man she’d barely noticed stepped forwards to flank her. “Who might your leader be?”
“It might be me,” Horst responded, with a hint of amusement probably only Keira knew him well enough to recognise. “So let’s assume it is, and get down to business. Who are you?”
“Selene Tweendecker, Magistratrix of Hospitality to the Beyonders Exalted, of the Lords, Siblings and Officers of the Misericord.” She curtseyed again.
“Mordechai Horst. You already know who I work for.” The leader of the Angelae nodded once, curtly. It was a technique Keira had seen him use before: the more elaborate or effusive an official greeting, the less impressed he was going to seem by it. It emphasised that however important his interlocutors thought they were, that meant nothing to the Inquisition.
“Of course.” The mask made Selene Tweendecker’s expression unreadable, but Keira could tell from her body language that Horst’s bluntness had rattled her. The woman’s posture radiated nervous tension, however well she was able to modulate her voice. “May I introduce Captain Raymer of the Merciful, and Provider Prescut of the Minions of Stewardship?”
“You may,” Horst said, while the two men accompanying her bowed formally. He gestured to his own companions. “That’s Vex, Drake, and Milady Sythree.” He glanced at Keira as he made the final introduction, presumably to see if she’d noticed the little joke at her expense; she’d impersonated a minor aristocrat on Sepheris Secundus in order to infiltrate Adrin’s cabal of heretics, and her success in so doing still seemed to amuse him. She inclined her head a millimetre or two in acknowledgement, despite her instinctive disapproval of levity at a time like this. They were about the Emperor’s business, after all.
“We are honoured by your presence.” Despite her even tone, Tweendecker’s attitude made it abundantly clear that she would have preferred the honour to have fallen to someone else, preferably on a different ship. Her head tilted back slightly, as she glanced up the cargo ramp. “Will your pilot be joining us?”
“No.” Horst shook his head. “He’ll remain aboard the shuttle for the duration of the voyage. Once our luggage is unloaded, the hatches will be sealed, and none of your people will enter this hangar until we reach Scintilla. Is that understood?”
“Perfectly, Exalted Guest.” Raymer nodded, the crimson plume in his helmet bobbing respectfully. “I can post sentries outside, if that be your wish.” He looked at Horst appraisingly, gauging his reaction.
“That won’t be necessary,” Horst said, and Raymer nodded, clearly having expected nothing less. Accepting the offer would have implied that the Inquisitorial team felt vulnerable, something no agent of the Th
rone would ever admit. Not to mention the fact that an armed guard outside would be bound to excite curiosity among the crew. “Our own precautions will be more than adequate.” He didn’t elaborate: the Inquisition’s reputation for ruthless efficiency would be all the deterrent required to ensure Barda’s solitude for the foreseeable future.
“That won’t be a problem for us,” Tweendecker assured him. “Once these cargoes have been removed, there won’t be any need to disturb your hireling in any case.”
“I’m sure our colleague will be pleased to hear that,” Horst said, implying that Barda was an acolyte, with the full authority of the Tricorn behind him, without actually saying so. Keira appreciated the subtlety. Mordechai could be an insufferable prig sometimes, it was true, but he was able to use words as cleanly and precisely as she could the blades she carried.
Tweendecker had clearly taken his meaning, as her back stiffened even more than before, and she nodded with only the barest pretence of affability. “Then we’re most gratified,” she said.
“Good,” Horst said, favouring her with a wintry smile. “I’m glad we understand one another.”
“That being so,” Tweendecker said, “I withdraw to convey your greetings to the bridge. Have you tidings for me to carry to the captain of the day?”
“I’ll summon him myself if we need to speak to him,” Horst said.
“Your servant, as are we all,” Tweendecker said, curtseying again, and withdrawing behind the protective line of her archaically armoured escort as quickly as she decently could. With a crisp salute, Raymer followed, and the whole detachment moved away as rapidly as decorum allowed, disrupting the routine of unloading as comprehensively as their arrival had done.
Only Presort, the chief steward, remained, standing at the bottom of the ramp as if waiting for orders, as patiently as one of the servitors in the distance.
[Dark Heresy 02] - Innocence Proves Nothing Page 3
