[Dark Heresy 02] - Innocence Proves Nothing

by Sandy Mitchell - (ebook by Undead)

  “It’s the ‘if’ that worries me,” Horst replied. “This ship’s the size of a small hive. Anyone making it to the outhulls could stay hidden indefinitely.”

  “Like the Malcontents,” Jenie said, emerging from the balnerea. The three Angelae turned to look at her. She was dressed in practical coveralls, and stout boots, and seemed a great deal more comfortable in them than in her working clothes, which she carried balled up under one arm. She’d scrubbed the heavy make-up from her face as well, the residual dampness of her ablutions lending the dark brown skin of her cheeks a glow of vitality that had been missing from her features before. Somehow, Drake thought, she seemed far more attractive now than she had done in the revealing attire she’d just discarded.

  “Who are they?” Horst asked.

  Jenie shrugged. “Anyone who doesn’t like the caste they were born into, or who asks too many questions about the rules. The captains and the Obeyers call that treason against the ship.”

  “Treason’s usually regarded as a capital offence,” Vex remarked, and the girl nodded grimly.

  “Here too. So if you step out of line, your only chance is to head for the outhulls before they catch you.” She shrugged. “Not many do, and even fewer make it, but the stories persist. Some say there’s a whole guild of Malcontents down there, but I doubt it.”

  “That does seem unlikely,” Vex agreed. “Even on a vessel this size, resources are limited. If there are indeed outlaws at large in the far reaches of the ship, they must be quite few in number.” He glanced up as Keira entered the cramped common area, nodding to Horst as she pushed the door closed.

  “I took care of that thing we discussed,” she said.

  “Thanks.” Horst echoed the gesture. “Better grab some food and rest while you can.”

  “Sounds like we’re pulling out soon,” Keira said, an edge of eagerness entering her voice.

  “I’ve managed to refine my image of the area around the shaft,” Vex said, “and plot a conjectural route, which ought to get us to our destination reasonably expeditiously.” He handed his data-slate to Jenie, who took it awkwardly, and peered at the map with what looked to Drake like vague bafflement. “We’re here, and this is the section of outhull we’re interested in.”

  “Oh yes, I get that now,” Jenie said. She shrugged, and dropped the bundle of clothing on a nearby chair, raising a faint cloud of dust. “It looks kind of different on the screen.”

  “Do we need to work our way around the damaged section?” Drake asked, and Vex shook his head.

  “Not according to Barda. The impact site was nearby, but none of the passageways we need have been sealed.” He looked at Jenie for confirmation. “Does this route seem plausible to you?”

  “Good as any,” the joygirl agreed. “No telling until we get down there, really.” She smiled, a little uncertainly, at the assembled Angelae. “It’ll be fine. Trust me.”

  The Emperor’s Justice, Scintilla System

  242.993.M41

  “This man Voyle.” Inquisitor Grynner inclined his head, and glanced at the data-slate in front of him. “You’re certain he was the shipping agent who dealt with the Eddia Stabilis the last time she was in dock?”

  Quillem nodded. “I spoke to a couple of the men he hired to shift the cargo. None of them noticed anything out of the ordinary, although they were certain the ship was smuggling something.”

  “Were they indeed.” Grynner permitted a faint trace of interest to enter his voice. “Why so, if nothing was out of the ordinary?”

  “Because it’s the lower arm,” Quillem said. “It would be more unusual if a vessel docking there didn’t have something to hide.” He gestured towards the data-slate. “Besides, Voyle’s on the fringe of the Franchise. Not a full member, but a confirmed associate of several known gangers.”

  “A connection I’m sure he finds useful in his legitimate business dealings,” Grynner said dryly.

  “Quite.” Quillem nodded confirmation. “In return for which, he does the Franchise an occasional favour, like holding cargo for them.”

  “Which he seems to be doing at the moment, according to these informants of yours.” Grynner read on in silence for another minute or two. “Were they at all forthcoming about what he’s taking care of so diligently?”

  “They have no idea,” Quillem told him. “The ship departed again a little over two hours after docking, and Voyle didn’t hire any casual labour to handle the heavy lifting.”

  “Hardly surprising, under the circumstances,” Grynner said, glancing up from his reading again. “A bulk freighter would normally take several days to unload, not just a couple of hours. Whatever it delivered wasn’t part of its regular cargo.”

  “Just what I thought,” Quillem said. “Another xenos artefact for the Faxlignae, perhaps?”

  “It’s possible,” Grynner agreed. “Voyle may have overseen the transfer of the wraithbone to the Eddia Stabilis on their behalf as well; even if he didn’t do so directly, someone close to him probably did.”

  “Then perhaps,” Quillem said speculatively, “we should pay Mister Voyle a little visit.”

  “Perhaps you should,” Inquisitor Grynner agreed, with a barely perceptible nod of the head.

  The Misericord, the Warp,

  Date and Time Meaningless

  “Just through here,” Jenie said, standing in front of the doorway in the shadow of the now deserted reception hall, through which the Angelae had pursued the thieves on the evening of their arrival. She seemed a little tense, which was hardly surprising under the circumstances; every now and again Horst noticed her staring at Drake’s Guard-issue lasgun in horrified fascination. They’d stopped off at the shuttle for some extra equipment on the way, and being reunited with the weapon seemed to have improved the Guardsman’s spirits considerably. “I don’t have the access codes, though.” She made the admission nervously, as if fearful of the reaction it might provoke.

  “That shouldn’t prove a problem,” Vex assured her, commencing some ritual with the aid of his data-slate and a small device he’d produced from a pocket in his robe.

  “I don’t like this,” Keira said quietly. “We’re too exposed.” She glanced around the vast expanse of the hall, which echoed eerily without the throng of passengers passing through it. The luminators had been dimmed, intensifying the shadows, and the columns supporting the roof loomed threateningly. It was easy to imagine unseen assailants crouched behind them, taking careful aim…

  “It won’t be for long,” Horst assured her, hoping he was right. A moment or two later his patience was rewarded, as Vex muttered a final incantation, consulted the screen of his data-slate, and punched a sequence of numbers into the lock. The doors began to grind open.

  Drake was through first, his lasgun levelled, and Horst heard a startled yelp from the corridor beyond; hurrying through after the Guardsman, he found him covering a thin fellow in grey overalls, accompanied by a hulking servitor festooned with bundles of wires, springs, small cages and bags of rotting food. The man’s eyes were wide with shock.

  “Identify yourself!” Drake snapped, and the fellow nodded eagerly.

  “Norvik Cotto, journeyman dispatcher of the Communion of Ratters. I’ve got a docket…” He held up a piece of tattered flimsy, on which scrawled words could be faintly discerned among the stains. “There’s a nest around here, see? Don’t want ’em getting beyonderside, and alarming the ladies, do we?” His lips stretched, in what he probably hoped was an ingratiating smile.

  “That seems in order,” Drake said, after a cursory glance, as if he knew what he was looking at. He lowered the las-gun, to the ratter’s evident relief.

  “So get lost,” Jenie said, staring at him in a belligerent fashion. “You’ve never seen Merciful in plain clothes before?”

  “Don’t think so,” Cotto said. “But then how would I know?” Now the gun wasn’t pointing at him, he seemed intrigued rather than frightened. With a gesture to the servitor, which lurched into m
otion behind him, he wandered off down the corridor, whistling a tune Horst vaguely remembered had been popular on Scintilla a generation ago. The words were vulgar in the extreme, concerning a joygirl and an ecclesiarch, and he glanced at Keira, but fortunately she didn’t seem to recognise it.

  “Would you like me to deal with that too?” she asked quietly, and Horst shook his head.

  “Thanks, but I don’t think it’ll be necessary this time.” He turned to Jenie, raising his voice to a normal conversational level. “That was quick thinking.”

  The joygirl shrugged. “Ratters are all a bit simple. Small caste, heavily inbred. He’ll have forgotten all about us by this evening, and even if he hasn’t, he’ll believe what I told him.”

  “Good.” Horst turned to Drake. “Try to remember there are a lot of shipfolk around on the upper levels. You can’t shoot them all.”

  “Right. Sorry.” Drake slung the lasgun across his shoulder. “I didn’t think, just went straight into the standard drill.” He looked a little crestfallen, and Horst patted him on the shoulder, next to the strap of the lasgun.

  “Good. We’ll need those Guardsman’s reflexes of yours further down. Just try and keep them under control until we do.”

  “No problem,” Drake assured him, looking a good deal happier. He glanced at Jenie. “Which way from here?”

  “The stairs.” She indicated the staircase opposite the portal, where Vex was standing, consulting the data-slate. “They’re the fastest way down, at least to begin with.”

  “That’s my conclusion too,” Vex said, and the girl relaxed, barely perceptibly.

  “Then let’s go,” she said. Despite the confident ring of her voice, she held back a little, waiting until Keira and Drake had taken point before commencing her descent after them.

  The staircase was wide and well lit to begin with, and they made good time, descending a score of levels in as many minutes. At first the landings and branching corridors were bright and well used, and they caught sight of a number of crew members going about their business, mostly, to Horst’s relief, from a distance. Many of their liveries and accoutrements were unfamiliar, no doubt denoting membership of castes essential to the running of the ship rather than the welfare of the passengers, although he caught a few glimpses of blue-clad officers, their faces masked as Tweendecker’s had been. On the few occasions they passed shipfolk more closely they drew the odd curious glance, but little else, before the Misericordians’ attention returned to their own affairs.

  The first time this happened Keira’s hand dropped to the hilt of her sword, but it soon became evident that they weren’t to be challenged, and even she began to relax a little. “Don’t they care who we are?” she asked, a tone of mild incredulity suffusing her voice.

  “Of course they don’t,” Jenie said. “We’re not part of their caste, or doing anything that impinges on their work. The only ones who’d even notice us are the Merciful, and they hardly ever come this deep unless they’re summoned.”

  “Is it just me, or is it getting darker down here?” Drake asked, and Vex nodded sagely.

  “Ambient illumination has decreased by twenty-seven per cent over the last twelve levels. We appear to be transiting a region consisting mainly of storage areas, where little activity would be expected during a voyage, so it would be reasonable to reduce energy usage wherever possible.”

  “So we can expect no light at all lower down,” Keira said, with little enthusiasm.

  Recalling the darkness of the shaft down which their luggage had vanished, Horst nodded. “Looks that way,” he agreed.

  “Lucky we brought the luminators, then,” Drake said.

  “They should prove sufficient,” Vex agreed. He’d checked them all personally before leaving the shuttle. “All are fully charged.”

  “Well then,” Drake said, with a reassuring smile at their guide, “we should be fine.”

  “We appear to have reached the lowest level in this section,” Vex said. Drake and Keira left the bottom of the staircase, looking in opposite directions along the passageway it opened onto, as they had done at every intermediate flight. Drake still had his lasgun slung, but his left hand eased the strap from his shoulder, and he kept his right ready to take the weight of the butt. Keira had her miniature crossbow strung, ready for use, strapped to her right thigh next to a quiver full of quarrels, but her hand still hovered over the hilt of her sword, which didn’t surprise Horst at all; she’d always preferred her bloodshed up close and personal.

  “We have,” Drake confirmed, after a cursory glance at the blank metal wall where the next flight of steps should have been. “So what now?” He spoke to Jenie, but it was Vex who replied, the green glow of his data-slate display reflecting eerily from his white robe in the deepening gloom.

  “There seems to be a navigable shaft on the other side of this hold,” he said, indicating a stout metal door ahead of them.

  Horst approached it. As he’d expected, another keypad controlled access, and he stood aside wordlessly to let Vex commune with the mechanism as he had before. After a moment the portal began to grind open, releasing a blast of warm, foetid air which made him gag.

  “Sinning hell,” Keira said. “It smells like something died in there.”

  “Well, you’d know,” Horst said, hoping to lighten the mood a little, and began to draw his bolt pistol. Pale illumination was visible beyond the opening door, and he could hear movement, and the murmur of voices.

  “Have we arrived, noble sir?” a voice asked, and a man in the cheap utility clothing of a Secundan peasant peered hopefully round the widening gap.

  “Not yet,” Horst said, removing his hand from the weapon as the scene in front of him became clear for the first time. The cargo hold stretched into the distance, packed with milling humanity, seeming almost as crowded as the reception hall had been; evidently the thralls they’d seen there had just been the latest arrivals. The air stank of unwashed bodies, greasy cooking smoke and the sharp, bitter reek of human waste. “I’m afraid we need to disturb you for a few minutes, that’s all.”

  “That doorway over there,” Vex said, pointing, and Horst nodded, just able to make out the distant portal through the maelstrom of humanity. Breathing as lightly as he could, he began to forge a way through the press of bodies.

  Within seconds he’d lost sight of all his companions, and began to feel an irrational surge of panic rising within him. He turned his head, his attention fixated on the doorway in the distance, convinced that if he lost sight of it he’d never be able to find it again, and would remain trapped in this hellish place for eternity. The faster he tried to get to it, the further away it seemed, and he found himself fighting the temptation to draw the bolt pistol after all, and clear the way with a few well-placed shots. If it hadn’t been for the instinctive way the Secundans moved aside for an evident social superior, without ever coming into physical contact with him, the claustrophobia might have overwhelmed him completely.

  “Mordechai?” Keira appeared at his elbow, regarding his floundering progress with evident amusement, and the sensation of panic ebbed away, replaced at once by relief. “What is it with you and crowds?”

  Suddenly they were making progress, just as they had in the marketplace, and he reached the cold metal door to find Vex already at work on the locking mechanism. He leaned his back against it, looking around for Drake and Jenie.

  “There’s Danuld,” Keira said, pointing, and Horst caught sight of the former Guardsman at last, forging through the crush with grim determination. Jenie was with him, clinging to the strap of his lasgun as though she feared that to let go would invite catastrophe.

  “I have the code,” Vex said, and the door began to squeal open, dislodging a shower of rust, which pattered uncomfortably down the back of Horst’s jacket. “Interesting. This section is apparently little used.”

  Something of an understatement, Horst thought, stepping into the darkness beyond. The air here felt dry and musty, tic
kling the back of his throat, and as he kindled his pocket luminator he wasn’t surprised to find the deck plating underfoot drifted with dust.

  “The maid’s day off, do you think?” Drake said, with heavy-handed humour, as Vex pressed the runeplate to close the door behind them. The stench and the babble of voices were abruptly cut off as the thick slabs of metal clanged together, and he unslung the lasgun with a palpable air of relief, snapping his own luminator onto the bayonet lugs.

  “What was your first clue?” Keira asked, then turned to Jenie, whose face appeared to have acquired a greyish tinge, a hint of concern entering her voice. “Are you all right?”

  “I will be,” the girl said, with a transparent attempt to make light of the matter. “Who were those poor people?”

  “DeVayne thralls, on their way to Scintilla,” Horst told her.

  “Oh.” She considered this. “I thought all the beyonders stayed in the hostelry.”

  “All the ones that aren’t classified as cargo,” Horst said. “It’s a pretty rough galaxy out there.”

  “Right.” Apparently recovered now, Jenie straightened up, and glanced at Vex. “Shouldn’t you be locking that behind us?”

  “What’s the point?” Vex asked, a hint of surprise entering his voice. “Where would they go?”

  “Oh,” she said again.

  “Better keep moving,” Horst reminded everyone. “We’re still a long way from where we need to be.”

  “We are indeed,” Vex agreed. “And the going will be considerably more difficult from now on.” He consulted the data-slate again. “This way, I think.” He glanced at Jenie. “Do you concur?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” The girl roused herself from her reverie with an obvious effort, and Horst watched her carefully as she walked over to join the techpriest. The encounter with the thralls had obviously affected her more deeply than she was willing to acknowledge, and, for the first time, he began to wonder if their guide was going to be more of a liability than an asset.