[Dark Heresy 02] - Innocence Proves Nothing

by Sandy Mitchell - (ebook by Undead)

  “About rutting time,” Kyrlock agreed, cocking his head to listen to a scraping of metal somewhere in the distance. “It’s been Throne knows how long since the last drop.” He prodded Trosk with the toe of his boot, and the shaven-headed youngster rose to his feet, with his habitual air of detachment. “Better come on, if you want to eat something other than rat for a change.”

  With a growing sense of relief, Elyra heard the booming echo of the bulkhead hatch, somewhere beyond the tumbled heaps of ore surrounding them. It seemed Ven had been speaking no more than the literal truth for once, although, given his propensity for vagueness and misdirection, it was equally likely that he’d been feeling the presence of some warp entity scrabbling at the ship’s defences.

  “You heard the man,” she agreed, and glanced round at the makeshift camp. Ven would be a liability on the supply run, but she didn’t like the idea of splitting the group now. The brief spasm of violence they’d witnessed a few days before was an early warning sign, she was sure, and anyone left on their own would be all too vulnerable to the predators beginning to emerge among the refugees. “Zu, can you bring Ven?”

  “Sure,” Zusen said, moving away from Kyrlock with palpable reluctance. Ever since the Guardsman had rescued her from a would-be violator on Sepheris Secundus, she’d practically glued herself to him, seeming to find his presence reassuring; at least Elyra hoped that was all it was. For a moment she found herself wondering if Keira had managed to work through her manifest infatuation with Horst yet, or was still in denial about her feelings, but such speculation was fruitless, so she let it go. There was more than enough to be concerned with here and now.

  “I can manage,” Ven said, his expression truculent, and Elyra breathed a faint sigh of relief. If he was entering one of his lucid phases, that would be one less thing to worry about.

  “Good,” she said. “Then come on.” She led the way over the treacherous surface of shifting shale, avoiding the spots which seemed to fluoresce in the all-pervading gloom, not looking back. Kyrlock would be right behind her, she knew, and the juvies would follow: the person she was pretending to be wouldn’t show the slightest concern for anyone else, so neither should she.

  “You heard the lady,” Kyrlock said, right on cue. He shouldered his chainaxe, the supporting harness rigged for a fast, one-handed draw if he should need it, and hefted his shotgun meaningfully. “Bring the packs and bedrolls.” They’d be returning to the same spot, and the fire which kept the rats at bay, but leaving property unattended here would be tantamount to throwing it away.

  “Right you are,” Trosk agreed, a faintly mocking tone in his voice as always, and shouldered Elyra’s pack along with his own. That was good, she’d left it there to see if anyone would bring it along for her without being instructed to; the fact that the most recalcitrant of her unwanted charges had done so meant that her de facto leadership of the group was going unchallenged, at least for the moment. There was nothing in it she particularly needed in any case, her laspistol was already tucked into the waistband of her trousers, a visible deterrent to anyone prepared to make trouble.

  A few moments of slipping and sliding brought the little group to the main entrance to the hold, where a trio of Shadow Franchise goons were standing, shotguns of their own held ready for use. They were accompanied by a pair of the ship’s crew, easily distinguished from the franchisemen by the patches on their jackets depicting a stylised bear astride some cylindrical object surrounded by water, who were carrying a large crate between them.

  “Room service,” one of the franchisemen said, as the voiders set the heavy box down with a faint grinding of stone against stone. The others laughed, mocking and humourless, while Elyra and her charges joined the growing crowd of refugees hovering around the group. “Fair shares all round, and remember to play nice.” They began to retreat back towards the portal, the crewmen first, and then the gangers, who kept the crowd covered with casual disdain.

  “They’re nervous,” Zusen whispered. “Trying not to look afraid.”

  Elyra nodded, eyeing the tableau narrowly. “That much was obvious, even without the little wyrd’s dubious gift of empathy. Afraid we’ll make a break for the rest of the ship,” she replied softly. Well, she could hardly blame them for that; conditions here were pretty bad, and without the threat of firearms she had no doubt that a few of their fellow travellers would have been desperate enough to try it.

  After a moment the hatch boomed closed again, and the crowd surged forwards.

  “Back!” someone shouted, his face partially obscured by the shadow of some structural girder high above their heads, blocking one of the fitfully working glowglobes. As he turned, casually punching one of the other refugees to the deck, his visage was revealed; to Elyra’s complete lack of surprise, it was the victor of the brief, brutal fight she’d witnessed before. He was flanked by the rest of his party, most of whom were bearing makeshift weapons of one kind or another, mainly mining tools. “This is ours, and we’re keeping it!”

  “It’s supposed to be for everyone!” one of the women shouted, and the man laughed.

  “Take it then,” he suggested, to the evident amusement of his cronies. The sharpened shovels and pickaxes in their hands made it all too evident that they’d been planning this since the last supply drop, correctly divining that controlling the food supply meant power over the ragged groups of refugees. The faction the woman belonged to, mainly families with children, milled uncertainly. “Or perhaps you’d like to do something for me in exchange.” His tone made it pretty obvious what he had in mind.

  “You can’t talk to my wife like that!” A thickset fellow, who looked more than capable of taking care of himself under most circumstances, strode forwards aggressively.

  “I’ll talk to the bitch any way I want to.” The ringleader swung the handle of his pickaxe, taking the fellow in the face: he fell heavily, the woman screamed, and most of the children in the group started crying.

  “Rut this,” Kyrlock said loudly. The would-be bandit king turned in astonishment, wondering who else would dare to challenge him, and began to look uncertain for the first time. The former Guardsman grinned ferally, and cocked his shotgun, with a clack which echoed loudly in the cavernous space. “You and your sumprats are going to go away now. While you still can. Because if I can still see or smell you ten seconds from now you’ll be dead. Understand?”

  “You’re bluffing,” the man said, trying and failing to sound confident.

  “Am I?” Kyrlock said evenly. “I know some of you saw what happened to the last piece of bootscrape I found picking on a woman. Seven seconds.”

  Little ripples of alarm began to flicker around the gang, which intensified as Elyra drew her laspistol. She caught the muttered phrase “shot him in the nads and left him to bleed to death”, and summoned up a grin as vindictive as Kyrlock’s own. “Happy to repeat the trick,” she said, “even with a smaller target.”

  “Four seconds,” Kyrlock added, conversationally.

  That was enough: even if their leader was stupid enough to hold his ground, his cohorts were beginning to sidle away, and he started to follow them. “This isn’t over,” he blustered, moving away from the box at last.

  “Then you’re an even bigger fool than you look,” Elyra said, striding forwards to take possession of it. She heaved the lid open with her free hand, not wanting to risk relinquishing the laspistol for a while yet, and pulled out a greasy block of reconstituted protein. “Families with children first, then everyone else. One pack each.”

  “Thank you!” The habwife was gazing at Kyrlock as if he was Saint Angevin reborn, while her husband climbed groggily to his feet. He bowed in Kyrlock’s direction, swaying a little as he did so.

  “In your debt, noble sir,” he said, as though the Guardsman was a minor aristocrat rather than a petty criminal who’d come into the service of the Inquisition by a series of bizarre coincidences. But then deference was practically hard-wired into the DNA of
a Secundan serf.

  Kyrlock shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable. “Don’t mention it,” he said.

  “Vos, you were amazing!” Zusen said, mercifully deflecting attention from Elyra, and she began to sigh with relief.

  “Growing a conscience?” Trosk asked quietly at her elbow. “I’d have thought you’d be wanting to keep it all for yourself now, not give it away.” He was staring at her appraisingly again, his tone faintly mocking as always, and once more Elyra began to feel uneasy.

  “What, and pass up the chance to keep the sheep happy?” She shrugged dismissively. “Now they’re too grateful to ask any awkward questions, and they’re less likely to turn me in if the bounty warrant on my head’s made it as far as Scintilla.”

  “How very pragmatic,” Trosk said dryly, handing a ration pack to the nearest refugee. “Are we leaving anything for those charming fellows who tried to take it all?”

  Elyra made a show of considering the matter. “Might as well,” she conceded at length. “They’ll only steal some if we don’t.”

  “Maybe you should have killed them while you had the chance, then,” Trosk suggested casually.

  “Maybe,” Elyra said, feeling as though she was being tested in some way. “But Vos would never have pulled the trigger so close to the crowd. Shotguns spread, and he might have hit one of the sheep by mistake.”

  “So he’s the one with the conscience, eh?” The idea seemed to amuse Trosk greatly. “Who’d have thought it?”

  The Misericord, the Warp,

  Date and Time Meaningless

  “They were Receivers of Bounty,” Raymer said. Despite the archaic armour he wore, his office was efficiently functional, to Horst’s carefully concealed relief. Apart from the banner depicting the Misericord gripped in a mailed fist hanging from the wall above the captain’s desk, where he would normally have expected to see the Imperial aquila, he might have been in any provincial precinct house. Here, on the crew side of the armoured bulkheads separating the shipfolk from their passengers, there was no attempt to conceal the metalwork of the walls, which Horst appreciated; he’d been an investigator for far too long to feel comfortable with that degree of artifice. It smacked of deception, which, in his experience, meant that the deceiver had something to hide.

  “I’m sorry.” Horst shrugged. “The name means nothing to me.”

  “I don’t suppose it does,” Raymer said, his tight smile failing to disguise his antipathy. Which was hardly surprising under the circumstances, Horst thought; practically the first thing the Angelae had done after coming aboard was to maim two of his men. The Merciful officer hadn’t mentioned the incident, and Horst felt that it would be tactless to raise the matter himself, so the subject had been avoided so far, increasing the gently simmering undercurrent of resentment he’d felt permeating the air since his arrival.

  “Are they one of the shipboard castes?” Drake asked, from his seat on Horst’s left. After some deliberation, the arbitrator had elected to bring him along; Vex would need peace and solitude to refine the resolution of the map to something usable, and Drake was far too keyed up to sleep. Keira too, probably. He found himself wondering where she was, and forced the thought away; she was perfectly able to take care of herself.

  “They’re one of the oldest,” Raymer said, looking faintly uncomfortable for the first time. “But many of the members in the outhulls don’t conform to their original purpose.”

  “Which was?” Horst asked.

  “Which was, and is, to scavenge reusable materials for the Company of Fabricators, the Followers of the Wire, and anyone else who needs them.” Raymer shrugged. “There’s a considerable element, however, which interprets that remit in the widest possible way.”

  “Stealing from the passengers,” Drake said.

  “Mainly the passengers,” Raymer said. “Which means the majority of our people don’t much care what the Receivers do.” He smiled coldly. “With the Merciful being the obvious exception.”

  “Obviously,” Horst said, with a careful lack of inflection. Let Raymer interpret that how he liked. “Where do we find them?”

  “The outhulls, mostly,” Raymer said. His expression hardened. “You’ve already found your way into the fringes of those without too much trouble, I hear.”

  “I hope your men are recovering,” Horst said, relieved to have the source of the tension out in the open at last.

  “The Suterers tell me they’re stable,” Raymer said coldly. “No thanks to you.”

  “They were obstructing Inquisition agents in the pursuit of heretics,” Drake said. “They should consider themselves lucky to be alive.”

  “Of course.” Raymer inclined his head a few millimetres in a parody of respect. “I’m sure Kalum thinks the loss of his hand a small price to pay for the recovery of your underwear.”

  “What we may have lost or recovered is no concern of yours,” Horst said, with a quick glance at Drake to forestall an angry reply.

  “You said they were mostly in the outhulls,” Drake said, changing the subject with a surprising display of tact. “Where else would we find Receivers?”

  “In the Gallery of Sin,” Raymer said after a moment. “Some of them come in from time to time to sell whatever they’ve salvaged.” He put just enough stress on the final word to imbue it with palpable cynicism.

  “If you know they’re congregating in the outhulls, why don’t you just take a squad or two down there and arrest them?” Drake asked.

  “Because it can’t be done,” Raymer replied, with a hint of impatience, “even if I was prepared to try suppressing an entire guild without the consent of the captains. You’ve seen the fringes; imagine that, stretching for kilometres in every direction.”

  Having seen several underhives in the course of his life, Horst was able to do so with little difficulty. He nodded. “I take your point,” he said. “What’s down there, exactly?”

  “Pretty much everything,” Raymer told him curtly. “Beyonderside takes up less than five per cent of the Misericord. Next to that you’ve got the bridge, officers’ quarters and the holdings of the castes who deal directly with the passengers. Then you’re out to the fringes, where the main cargo holds, the engines, the Renderers’ farms and the other support stuff is. Outhull’s hardly used at all, unless we get more cargo than usual.” He hesitated, looking uneasy. “Outhull’s best avoided, even for the shipborn. Although with your attack bitch along, you’ll probably be safe enough.” He didn’t look altogether convinced of that, although he clearly didn’t care too much one way or the other.

  “That’s reassuring,” Horst said blandly. “I’ll tell Keira you were appreciative of her skills.”

  “You can tell her whatever you like,” Raymer said. “So long as you keep her on a leash around my people.”

  “Don’t worry,” Horst said, relieved he’d had the foresight not to bring the young assassin to the meeting; if he had, the conversation would probably have ended in bloodshed by now. “We’re just as keen as you are to avoid any further unfortunate incidents.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it,” Raymer said. “And if you could avoid slaughtering too many of the passengers between here and Scintilla, I’d appreciate that too.”

  “We’ll do our best,” Horst assured him, standing to leave.

  Five

  Scintil VIII Void Station, Scintilla System

  240.993.M41

  Muon’s Bar was halfway along the void station’s Esplanade, at the confluence of two of the most heavily travelled corridors. One led to the primary docking bays, the other to the commercial zone, where the cargo brokers were based, and pretty much anything could be bought or sold. Its location made it the perfect spot for brokers and ships’ crews to meet and haggle, and its owner overheard a lot. Which made him one of Quillem’s most useful assets.

  “Mr Quillem,” Muon said as he walked through the door, a non-physical barrier of multicoloured smoke kept swirling in place by an arcane system of air jets
; like most such establishments on the station, Muon’s never closed. “This is an unexpected pleasure.” He put down the glass he was polishing, and poured a careful measure of a thick blue liqueur into it, while Quillem stepped over a recumbent patron halfway between the door and the bar. His pockets had been expertly turned out, although by the staff or his erstwhile companions, Quillem couldn’t be bothered to guess. “Your usual?”

  The code was simple enough; the colour of the drink meant we can talk freely. Or at least as freely as possible in a public space. Quillem nodded, took a cautious sip in case any of the handful of patrons occupying seats in a few of the booths happened to be glancing in their direction, and found to his relief that it was actually quite palatable.

  He settled on a bar stool, and leaned over the counter, contriving to look as if he’d had quite a lot to drink already. Au fait with the routine, Muon adopted the distantly polite expression of bar staff everywhere listening to rambling recitations of misfortune or personal aggrandisement. If any of the earnest whisperers in the shadows were to look up from their dealing now, all they’d see was a maudlin drunk boring the bartender, although if Quillem was any judge, none of them were likely to. Letting your attention wander in a place like Scintil VIII was liable to cost you plenty, and you’d be lucky if money was all you lost.

  “The Eddia Stabilis was a dead end, Muon,” Quillem murmured, toying with the drink. No one else was at the bar, but he couldn’t be certain that was going to last; better to get straight to the point.