[Dark Heresy 02] - Innocence Proves Nothing

by Sandy Mitchell - (ebook by Undead)

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Muon replied, plying his cloth over the pristine surface of the counter top. It was thinly veined marble, of out-system origin, and imparted an air of elegance to the establishment which its regular clientele found reassuring. The tables were wrought iron, with a thin patina of gilt, worn thin enough in places to show the duller glint of the underlying metal; the regulars found that reassuring too. It meant Muon’s had been here a long time, a rare point of stability in a constantly shifting milieu of quasi-legal entrepreneurship. On his stroll down the Esplanade to get here, Quillem had spotted over a dozen new businesses which had sprung up since his last visit, flourishing like fungus on the corpses of the less successful. “I hope you’re not going to ask for a refund.”

  “The Emperor will step down from the throne before that,” Quillem reassured him, referring to a popular superstition that His Divine Majesty would resume His corporeal form at the turn of the millennium. He didn’t believe it, of course, any more than Muon probably did; the expression had become a colloquial reference to something that would almost certainly never happen. Like Muon relinquishing any money that had come into his hands. “Your information was sound. Things just didn’t work out at our end, that’s all.”

  “I see.” The bartender’s inflection was cautiously neutral. Muon had only a vague idea of who Quillem represented, the interrogator had made sure of that, but he undoubtedly had his suspicions. After all, the Scintilla System was widely known to house the headquarters of the Calixian Conclave, and the kind of information Quillem bought and bartered could only be of interest to a few groups other than them.

  “I’d really like to know how you heard about it,” Quillem said quietly. “Not to mention what was on board.”

  “Xenos stuff, that’s all I heard,” Muon said. “Just like I told you the last time.” He was a short man, florid of complexion, and tilted his head back a little to look Quillem full in the face, the better to give the impression of earnest sincerity. “One of the crew was getting a little drunk in that booth over there, and said something about xenos, then everyone else shut him up.” Quillem glanced at the booth in question, currently unoccupied. It was angled so that very little of it could be seen from the bar. Muon’s voice took on an aggrieved tone. “They weren’t subtle about it either. Took me ages to get the stains out.”

  “Who were the voiders talking to?” Quillem asked.

  “I’ve no idea,” Muon said, probably truthfully. If he had anything to offer, he’d have tried to sell it by now. “Stationers for sure, I could tell by their accents, but that doesn’t narrow it down much.”

  “Well, that’s something,” Quillem said, knocking back the drink. Most of the major brokers, not to mention the minor ones, were owned and run by families native to the void station, but that tiny snippet of information would eliminate a few. As for the rest, they’d just have to do it the hard way, trawling through innumerable data records in the hope of finding out which brokerage had arranged to shift cargo aboard the doomed freighter. Not that it would necessarily help, even then: there was no guarantee that this hadn’t been a private arrangement negotiated by a handful of crewmen, to the fatal ignorance of their shipmates.

  “I might take a guess, though,” Muon said thoughtfully, refilling Quillem’s glass, just as he was about to stand.

  “Based on what?” Quillem asked.

  “Not much, really,” the bartender admitted. “But when I cleaned up after they left, I found a transport pass in the pocket of the one they’d left behind.” He looked momentarily aggrieved. “They’d helped themselves to his money, the thieving skags, but at least I got a couple of creds for the clothes. And a few more for the body, of course.”

  “Of course,” Quillem echoed. Pointless asking who the buyer had been; it could have been anyone, from an unsanctified tech dabbler wanting spare parts for a malfunctioning servitor, to the owner of one of the bushmeat stalls scattered around the Esplanade, or any one of a dozen even less savoury explanations.

  “Anyhow,” Muon went on, “the pass was still good for a return trip to the lower docking arm. So I’m guessing that’s where the ship was.”

  “Seems likely,” Quillem agreed, taking another sip of his drink. “Which helps me how?”

  Muon looked at him as though there was drool on his chin. “The dregs down there see a lot, don’t they? Maybe one of them knows who set up the deal, or saw who the crew was talking to. If you really get lucky, you might even find the one who carried the boxes aboard.”

  Quillem nodded. It was a long shot, but he’d taken wilder ones in his time. “Worth a try,” he conceded. Leaning across the counter, he palmed a high-denomination scrip, and let it flutter to the floor beside the bartender’s foot. “Oh look, you’ve dropped something.”

  “So I have.” Muon scooped it up, and came level with the bar again. “Will there be anything else?”

  “I don’t think so,” Quillem said. A few more patrons had drifted into the establishment while they’d been talking, laying claim to unoccupied booths, where Muon’s underlings scurried to take their orders, but a couple of them were taking up stations at the bar, including an underdressed and over made-up joygirl of indeterminate age. From Muon’s apparent indifference, it was clear that she paid some kind of rent for running her business from his.

  “Well, remember to drop by any time you’re passing,” Muon said, and began to polish another piece of glassware.

  The Misericord, the Warp,

  Date and Time Meaningless

  Drake hadn’t been entirely sure what he expected the Gallery of Sin to be like, but his first impression of it was a curious mixture of surprise and vague disappointment. It seemed to have been a cargo hold originally, but a few generations ago someone had started to build a town inside it: the corridor they’d entered the Gallery by had suddenly opened out into an alleyway between two buildings, faux feral in style, like pretty much everything else he’d seen since coming aboard. That, in turn, opened out into a square, choked with people and market stalls.

  He glanced around, trying to get his bearings. “Nothing particularly sinful here that I can see,” he said, trying not to sound as though he felt cheated.

  “Sinfulness is everywhere,” Keira replied, ever the Redemptionist; moved by curiosity, he’d once asked Horst what her creed involved, and, after a short conversation, felt very relieved that he hadn’t actually made a pass at her that night in the villa. He couldn’t quite quash a faint stirring of envy when he considered the girl’s obvious infatuation with the team leader, but all things considered, he was well out of that one. Good luck to Mordechai if he ever tried to do anything about it.

  “Perhaps we should split up,” Vex suggested. “This deck is quite extensive, and we ought to be able to cover it more efficiently if we go our separate ways.”

  “No.” Horst shook his head. “I don’t trust anything on this ship. No one goes off alone.” He nodded at the assassin. “Apart from Keira, if we need to use her talents.” Thanks to her formidable scouting ability, they already had a reasonably detailed picture of the parts of the ship immediately adjoining the Beyonder’s Hostelry, to supplement the map Vex was painstakingly building up from Barda’s auspex readings.

  “I agree,” Drake said, “but Hybris does have a point. Maybe if we pair off?”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Horst conceded. “You two head that way, Keira and I will take the other. We should meet up again somewhere on the opposite side.”

  “A reasonable compromise,” Vex agreed.

  “Right.” Drake nodded, and turned to follow the techpriest, who was already striding towards an alleyway on the opposite side of the square. For a moment he lost sight of him through the press of the crowd, then, to his relief, caught a glimpse of a white robe, and picked up his pace.

  “Good morrow, honoured traveller,” a voice cried out, and a slim fellow in a leotard dyed in patches of violently clashing colour cartwheeled in front of him. “Welc
ome to the Gallery of Sin, where jocularity reigns, and spirits are light.”

  “Not now,” Drake said, trying to step round him. “I’m in a hurry.” Vex had already disappeared down the mouth of the alley.

  “How can you be in a hurry in a place where time flows backwards?” the entertainer asked, pulling a face of exaggerated puzzlement.

  “I just am.” Drake suppressed the urge to plant his fist in the middle of that infuriating grin. Horst wouldn’t be pleased if he drew attention to himself, he knew, and his soldier’s instincts hadn’t deserted him, even here; out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of burnished metal. A Merciful patrol, making sure that whatever passed for law and order here was being maintained. If he started a brawl now, he’d probably get his kneecaps shot off before he could identify himself. Come to think of it, judging by Raymer’s attitude, if they did recognise him they’d probably be glad of the excuse. Instead, he reached into a pocket and pulled out a couple of coins. “Can you do conjuring tricks?”

  “But of course.” The entertainer bowed deeply. “I’m a journeyman of the Company of Imbeciles, which means I can prestidigitate with the best of them. Not to mention tumble, juggle, recite a lay, sing you a ballad, mum, mime, or…”

  “Then vanish,” Drake interrupted, flicking the coins in the man’s general direction. They were snatched out of the air by reflexes almost as acute as Keira’s. “Swive off and entertain someone else.”

  Getting past the man at last, he sprinted for the mouth of the alley down which Vex had disappeared, and swore under his breath. The techpriest had vanished completely.

  * * *

  Scintil VIII Void Station, Scintilla System

  240.993.M41

  The lower docking arm was well away from the main body of the station, at the end of one of the booms projecting from the main superstructure like questing roots from a tuber. Once the primary point of access to the whole structure, the hangar bays and anchor points out here had declined in importance as the station grew, and larger, better appointed facilities had been built around the central hub, which had been enlarged and extended so much over the intervening millennia that now the original Scintil VIII was little more than a blister on the hull of its own distended senescence. These days, the lower arm’s relatively isolated position made it the perfect place for ships to dock if the business which brought them here was better carried on away from official scrutiny.

  Quillem had taken the local transport system to get there, since the walk was long, and the luckless crewman Muon had told him about had ridden on it at least once; Inquisitor Grynner had impressed upon him repeatedly over the course of their association that even the smallest detail could be significant, and there was no telling what might be unearthed by following in the footsteps of one of the conspirators. In fact, nothing had been, beyond a reminder of how uncomfortable the contraption was to ride in, and why he generally preferred to avoid it.

  Quillem clambered down from the rattling cart, lined with benches, which had slowly emptied as the conveyance trundled further and further from the more densely populated heart of the station. As he, and a handful of other passengers, stepped off the slowly moving vehicle onto the platform beside the track, the brakewoman eased her weight off the heavy lever currently pressing pads against the wheels, allowing the cart to pick up speed again. It clattered into the conduit between the decks reserved for it, and its many equally uncomfortable fellows, dragged along by the piston in the pneumatic tube between the guide rails, and vanished.

  Quillem dawdled away from the platform, content to let the tide of drifting humanity carry him along, observing his surroundings. As if conscious of its heritage, the station looked older here, the metal of its corridors duller, passageways a little darker and narrower, the votive shrines to the Emperor unkempt, and the offerings they held meagre. The people seemed shrunken too, at least those he took for local residents, the crews of the docked starships wandering among them generally at least a head taller.

  Despite its relative isolation, though, the community here seemed to be thriving. Just a few metres from the conduit platform, Quillem found a miniature replica of the Esplanade, complete with bars, shops, street hawkers and a few more dubious enterprises aimed at parting visiting crewmen from their coin.

  Interesting, but unhelpful. Sidestepping a local joygirl who seemed to regard him as a potential client, and ignoring the subsequent gesture implying that he preferred the company of his own gender, Quillem started down a side passage. Hostelries catering to the ship crews wouldn’t be much use to him; he needed somewhere the locals hung out.

  He found the ideal place without too much difficulty, guided as much by his nose as by his eyes, a small shanty jammed into an angle between two buttresses supporting an overhead walkway. Like those surrounding it, the ramshackle building sprawled out from its supports to annex as much of the passageway as its proprietor thought he could get away with without blocking the passing traffic entirely. The smell of cooking wafted towards him, and he found himself unexpectedly salivating; it had been a long time since his last meal.

  As the curtain across the entrance fell into place behind him, every pair of eyes in the place swivelled momentarily in his direction, then away again, with elaborate displays of uninterest. Just as he’d expected. Round here, a strange face would mean one of two things: trouble for its owner, or trouble for someone else. Either way, no one would feel like drawing attention to themselves until they were sure which way the equation was going to operate.

  The main item on the menu, chalked up on the wall behind the counter, appeared to be fine-ground offal stuffed into lengths of animal intestine, served with pulped tubers. None of the locals eating here seemed to have been poisoned yet, and it certainly smelled appetising enough, so Quillem ordered a plateful, and glanced round for somewhere to sit. Perfect. There was a gap in one of the communal benches lining the walls, between two heavily muscled men who quite clearly worked the docks here. He squeezed himself into the space, with an affable nod, just sufficient to apologise for the inconvenience, and began to eat.

  “Are you sure you’re in the right place?” the man on the left asked, after a moment, just conversationally enough to mute the incipient challenge if Quillem turned out not to be the one in trouble here.

  The interrogator chewed, swallowed, and nodded. The food was better than he’d expected; quite palatable, in fact. “I’m hungry, they’ve got food. I’d say so.”

  “It’s just that we don’t get many shipfolk in here,” his interlocutor persisted.

  Quillem ate another mouthful, and shrugged. “That explains it. I’m not one.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the men surrounding him evaluating this fresh and unexpected piece of information. If he wasn’t off one of the ships in dock, he must have come from the main body of the station. People didn’t do that without a very good reason. Add in the fact of his easy self-confidence, and he came down heavily on the Trouble for Someone Else side of the balance. Suddenly he had incrementally more elbow room, despite the crowded nature of the benches. He smiled easily. “I’m looking for anyone who might have helped load a freighter called the Eddia Stabilis, Stobart-class freight hauler, came through here about four months back.”

  “What do you want know for?” the man on the other side asked, a little too casually, before poking another forkful of food through a minuscule gap in his beard.

  Quillem ate another mouthful or two, then glanced pointedly around the crowded chop house, packed with people pretending not to eavesdrop. “That’s my business.” He stressed the word “business” just enough to make it clear that he was prepared to pay for the information he wanted, and noted the sudden quickening of interest among his immediate neighbours with wry amusement. “I want to know which broker handled her cargo, and if anyone who helped shift it noticed anything unusual.”

  “What sort of unusual?”

  Quillem shrugged. “The sort they’d have noticed if it
was there, believe me.”

  “I see.” His interlocutor went quiet, and chewed his food thoughtfully.

  “You want Downunder Reach,” the first man said after a moment. “Lot of dregs down there might know something. Lucky for you, we’re going that way. We can show you, if you like.”

  “Very kind,” Quillem said dryly. He finished his meal at a leisurely pace, and stood. “Whenever you’re ready?”

  The Misericord, the Warp,

  Date and Time Meaningless

  Like most men of his calling, Hybris Vex wasn’t very comfortable with people. Long familiarity with the other Angelae enabled him to predict their responses under most circumstances with a fair degree of accuracy, but, on the whole, people baffled him. They were capricious, and irrational, and he much preferred the orderly dictates of dispassionate logic. That was why he’d become an acolyte of the Machine-God in the first place.

  Ironic, then, that he’d become a foot soldier for the Inquisition, a calling which, despite his distaste for it, kept inflicting human contact on him regardless. On the other hand, being a member of the Angelae also enabled him to further his understanding of the Omnissiah in ways forever denied to most of his brethren. The psychic booster which Tonis, the renegade techpriest, had built, for instance, was a complete perversion of all the Machine-God stood for, and yet there were elements of its construction which had been quite breathtaking in their elegance. The loss of the manuscript had been a grave blow indeed; there was no telling what further secrets a prolonged study of it might have revealed.

  “Mind the way, there, sir!” a cheerful voice cried, breaking his reverie, and Vex stepped back a pace, just in time to avoid a collision with a man in a floppy green hat, pushing a handcart loaded with small, ripe fruits. “Tempt you to a punnet of hayberries, straight from the agridecks?”