[Dark Heresy 02] - Innocence Proves Nothing

by Sandy Mitchell - (ebook by Undead)

  “Was that the last of them?” Carys asked, and Quillem nodded.

  “All the ones we were told to look out for,” he agreed. “But keep your eyes open. There may be others.” He doubted it, having worked with the Deathwatch team often enough to have complete faith in their expertise, but you never knew. Heretics didn’t play by the rules, and they weren’t predictable. Besides, there was always the human factor to consider; sooner or later someone would stumble across the bodies of the sentries they’d taken out, and the Franchise would be roused. He took a final look at the plan on the screen of the slate, checking the gap in the cordon around their objective which Rufio had so carefully opened up, and stowed the small device in an inside pocket, where it bumped against his bolt pistol in its shoulder rig.

  “I can’t feel any unusual disturbances,” Arken said, and Quillem nodded again.

  “Then let’s go and do some disturbing ourselves,” he suggested, setting off down a passageway leading in the direction of their objective.

  The Misericord, the Warp,

  Date and Time Meaningless

  “Better let me take point,” Drake said, catching up with Jenie. “I’ve been trained for this.”

  “Be my guest,” she said, dropping a pace or two behind him with evident relief. “I’m beginning to think I’m in way over my head.”

  “You get used to it,” Drake told her, sweeping the beam of his luminator along the passageway ahead of them. It had evidently been used for access originally, rather than the main corridors they’d been following up until now; it was wider than it was high, forcing him to crouch a little, although the girl beside him was still able to walk more or less upright without banging her head on the ceiling.

  “Do you really do this sort of thing all the time?” Jenie asked, sounding sceptical, and Drake nodded.

  “Pretty much,” he agreed. Now he came to think of it, an awful lot seemed to have happened since that fateful day in the forests of Sepheris Secundus.

  “I don’t know how you stand it,” Jenie said.

  “Neither do I,” Drake said, only half-joking. At least there weren’t any shafts along here to negotiate; he’d had more than enough of swinging around and over chasms, where one misstep would mean falling to a very messy death. He kept the beam of his luminator moving, covering every wall, the ceiling, and the floor, and his finger on the trigger of the lasgun. Something about one of the shadows up ahead didn’t seem right, and he held up a hand to forestall the others.

  “What is it?” Horst asked quietly.

  Drake edged forwards, trying to bring the shadow into focus. “There’s a grille in the floor,” he said. He deflected the beam upwards, to illuminate another, identical, rectangle of mesh in the ceiling. “And another above it.”

  “Part of the ventilation system,” Vex said. “Don’t forget, they’d have been in the walls originally.”

  “I know that,” Drake said. He’d already stepped over several similar ones. “But this one’s been moved.” It wasn’t quite flush with the floor, which was why it had cast the shadow that had seemed subtly wrong to him.

  “Receivers scavenging?” Keira suggested, and Jenie shook her head.

  “They’d have taken the grille, if they’d been able to remove it,” she pointed out.

  “It doesn’t look as though it’s been booby trapped,” Drake said, edging closer. There were no telltale twists of wire, which might lead to an improvised detonator, but he drew his Guard-issue combat knife and probed it carefully in any case. The grille moved slightly as he prodded it. “Something’s under there, too bulky to let it drop back into place.”

  “A Receiver’s stash?” Keira suggested.

  “Could be,” Drake agreed. “Looks like a bundle of rags, wrapped around something.” He coughed, as the repellent stench of decay caught the back of his throat. “Whatever it is, it smells pretty rank.”

  “Better check it anyway,” Horst said, moving up to join him. “If it’s any of our stuff, we’ll know we’re on the right track.”

  “Right.” Drake squatted on one side of the grille, while Horst took the other. To his surprise it felt lighter than he’d expected, unwieldy rather than heavy, and they lifted it easily between them. “Holy Throne!”

  “What is it?” Keira asked, stepping forwards, her hand dropping to the hilt of her sword.

  “One of the missing Riggers, I think,” Horst said, flinching from the stench, which had intensified more than Drake would have believed possible now that the grating had been removed. “But it’s hard to be sure.” A metal duct, about two-thirds of a metre wide and deep, ran beneath the floor, intended to circulate fresh air, as Vex had deduced. Now it was choked with the ragged remains of a human cadaver, which looked as though it had simply been stuffed there.

  “That looks like their livery,” Jenie said, edging closer, then recoiling as she caught a clear sight of the corpse for the first time. “Emperor on Earth!” She turned aside, and was noisily sick.

  “What did that to him, do you suppose?” Keira asked, curiously. Swathes of muscle tissue had been flensed from the corpse, revealing glimpses of the bone beneath. “Looks like a blade of some kind, but pretty crude.”

  Vex nodded. “A knife would be my guess, too, but a very primitive one.” He leaned closer, examining the body with every sign of interest. “And there are quite clearly teeth marks on parts of the exposed bone.” He pointed. “Particularly around there, where the flesh has been torn rather than cut.”

  His scalp prickling, Drake swept the luminator beam up and down the corridor, but there was no sign of movement.

  “Plague zombies, do you suppose?” Keira asked, and Vex shook his head.

  “The ones we dealt with on Scintilla wouldn’t have used knives,” he said. “But some victims do retain a vestige of intellect. I’d be more inclined to suspect mutants, though.” He turned to Jenie, who was just straightening up after a further bout of dry heaving. “Have you ever heard rumours about things like that infesting the outhulls?”

  “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, her face grey in the light of the luminators. “And I don’t want to either. Let’s just get the warp out of here before whatever ate the poor bastard comes back.”

  “That does seem quite likely,” Vex agreed. “Given the way the corpse was concealed, and the remains of its clothing were wrapped around it, I’d imagine who or whatever is responsible intends returning for further meals.”

  “Anything that tries snacking off us is in for a big surprise,” Keira said, with easy confidence, and Drake nodded his agreement.

  “Damn right,” he agreed, checking that the power pack of his lasgun was fully charged. Nevertheless, as they set out again, despite a complete absence of both sound and movement, he couldn’t quite shake the uneasy feeling that they were being watched.

  Nine

  The Ursus Innare, Scintilla System

  247.993.M41

  Elyra felt the Ursus Innare make the transition back to the material universe like the sudden cessation of a nagging migraine. Even mundanes, she knew, could sometimes feel the pressure of unreality scrabbling against the void shields during warp travel, but for psykers the experience was unrelenting, and deeply unpleasant.

  “What happened?” Kyrlock asked, looking faintly puzzled in the perpetual half-light, and she smiled as reassuringly as she could. She wasn’t sure how the psychically deaf perceived the shift between the realms of Chaos and the Emperor, but some of them had spoken of a momentary sense of disorientation at such times, and Kyrlock had clearly found his first experience of warp travel disturbing.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Trosk cut in before she could speak, his voice taking on a tinge of derision. “We’ve arrived.” Since the fight with the bandits he’d been tacitly challenging her authority at every opportunity, although so far he’d stopped short of outright rebellion. That could be a problem; she needed him and his friends if she was going to follow the trail any furth
er once they got to Scintilla. At least Zusen still seemed to trust her, though, and Ven was too far out of it most of the time to really count as either an obstacle or a potential ally.

  “Good,” Kyrlock said, refusing to let the juve’s tone get under his skin, although it probably galled him to let it go. He’d made his point after the fight, and didn’t seem to feel the need to return to the topic, to Elyra’s relief. He had a volatile temper, she knew, but fortunately he seemed able to keep it under control in the interest of the mission. Though she’d hardly known the man when they set out on this assignment together, she’d come to trust him, and his judgement. “The sooner we’re off this barge the better.”

  “How soon’s that likely to be?” Zusen asked, looking up from her ration pack. The franchisers had made another delivery of food a while back, although how long ago that had been Elyra wasn’t too sure; mired in this unremitting twilight it was all too easy to lose track of the time even without the peculiar tricks the warp played on the mind. If the gangers had noticed the absence of a handful of their passengers they’d made no mention of the fact, presumably expecting a certain amount of attrition before the freighter reached its destination. The other refugees certainly had, though, eyeing Kyrlock and herself with a wary mixture of gratitude and fear as they took their turns to collect their food, and giving the other members of their party as wide a berth as possible.

  “A few more days,” Elyra told her. “We’ll have left the warp on the fringes of the system, so we’ll be coasting in towards Scintilla for a while yet.”

  “Except we’re not going to Scintilla,” Trosk said. “Maybe you and the cattle are, but we’re getting off at the void station.”

  “Since when?” Elyra asked, and Trosk smirked.

  “Since we started out on this trip,” he said.

  Zusen nodded. “It’s true,” she confirmed, “they told us back on Sepheris Secundus. We’re being taken off in a shuttle.”

  “And you’ve only just thought to mention this?” Kyrlock put in, sounding more resigned than irritated.

  Trosk shrugged. “You never asked,” he pointed out reasonably, turning to Elyra. “And you’ve made it pretty clear from the moment we met that you’ve got your own plans once we hit Scintilla. Why would you care where we go?”

  “Because I promised to get you there in one piece,” Elyra said. “When I’ve done that, and talked to your babysitters, I might stick around; or I might go bounty hunting with Vos after all.” She shrugged. “Depends on what they’re offering.”

  “But you must come with us,” Zusen said earnestly. “The Sanctuary can help you too, I know they can.”

  “Sanctuary?” Kyrlock asked, with a clear lack of interest in whatever the answer might be. “Is that some religious thing?”

  “It’s the people helping us,” Zusen said. “The Sanctuary of the Blessed. They find people with special talents, and protect them from persecution.”

  “What’s in it for them?” Elyra asked, still playing her role to the hilt, and allowing no hint of the quickening of interest she felt to rise to the surface of her face.

  “Nothing,” Trosk said, with a hint of impatience. “They’re psykers too, looking after their own. Isn’t that enough?”

  “In the galaxy you live in, maybe,” Kyrlock said, stepping in instinctively to draw the juvies’ attention back to himself before they realised how much they were giving away. “But over here in the real one, nobody takes that kind of risk without expecting some serious payback. Usually with interest.”

  “Well, that’s where you’re wrong!” Zusen said vehemently, with enough emphasis to tell Elyra that she must have entertained doubts about this herself, and was desperate to suppress them. “All they’ve asked is that we use our gifts to help people, and save more psykers from the Black Ships if we get the chance.”

  “Lovely.” Elyra shrugged. “Well, I’ll talk to them. But if I don’t like what I hear, I’m gone.”

  “Can’t say fairer than that,” Trosk agreed, with elaborate uninterest.

  The Misericord, the Warp,

  Date and Time Meaningless

  “That’s odd,” Vex said, looking at his data-slate in some perplexity. “This bulkhead should be sealed.”

  “Well, it’s not,” Keira said, unnecessarily, while Drake flashed his luminator along the length of the corridor beyond the open door. Nothing moved in the darkness except a startled rat, which squeaked and fled the moment the light speared it. Drake’s finger twitched on the trigger, but he overrode the impulse to fire, Keira noted with approval. Letting panic dictate your actions was a sure way to get killed.

  “Do we need to go that way?” Horst asked, and the techpriest shook his head.

  “No. That leads to the impact site.” A faint look of puzzlement crossed his face for a moment. “The hull can’t have been breached after all, or we’d feel the air moving towards the leak.”

  “Maybe the Riggers patched it before ending up in the larder,” Keira said impatiently. “But that’s not really important, is it?”

  “It’s not immediately relevant to the mission, no,” Vex agreed. “But it is anomalous. Perhaps we should investigate.”

  “And perhaps we should keep our minds on what we’re doing down here in the first place,” Horst said. “Recovering the manuscript.”

  “Works for me,” Drake said, sweeping the luminator around the chamber they’d just arrived in. There were several potential exits ranged around the walls, all of them choked with shadows. He turned to Jenie. “Where’s the bottom of that shaft from here?”

  The girl looked around, with a hint of uncertainty. “Hang on a minute,” she said, “I just need to get my bearings.”

  “I believe this way would be the optimum route,” Vex said, pointing to a narrow conduit, and Jenie nodded.

  “Me too,” she agreed.

  “Well then, let’s get to it,” Horst said.

  “I’d better go first this time,” Keira offered. “I’m more used to moving around in tight spaces.” Horst nodded his agreement, and she clambered up to the service duct Vex and the harlot had indicated. It was cramped, as she’d expected, but there was still room to move freely, and she wriggled inside without difficulty, flashing the beam of her luminator ahead of her.

  The duct was dusty, but clear of obstructions, and she moved forwards at a rapid crawl; a moment later the clangour of metal against metal informed her that Drake was behind her, and finding his lasgun a little difficult to handle in the confined space. Ignoring the distraction, she kept moving, her eyes fixed on a metal grille in the distance; it reminded her of the one they’d found the corpse behind, and she tried to ignore the mental image of a similar blockage abruptly appearing in front of her.

  “I think this is it,” she said, her voice echoing around her, and pressing her face to the grille. The space beyond was vast, she could tell that at once from the quality of the silence, like the nave of a cathedral, and she struck at the rusting metal with a force which could shatter bone. It popped out abruptly, and fell away; a moment later a carillon of overlapping echoes confirmed her first impression of the size of the chamber.

  “Looks like it,” Drake agreed, doing his best to peer past her rump, and she leaned outwards, shining her luminator down towards the floor. “How big’s the drop?”

  “Just a couple of metres,” Keira said, diving head first through the gap, and twisting in mid-air to land softly on the soles of her feet, bending her knees as she landed to absorb the impact and deaden the noise. She raised her luminator to the duct, picking out Drake’s shock of blond hair and pale face in the gloom.

  “Mind where you’re pointing that,” he protested, squinting, and began to wriggle out of the hole like a tube worm in search of food. He descended reasonably quickly, and hurried to join her, the lasgun back in his hands with an evident sense of relief. “See anything?”

  “We’re definitely in the right place,” Keira said, picking out the mangled remains o
f a handcart in the beam of her luminator. A tangle of metal beyond it had probably once been the bridge; she directed the light upwards, finding a rectangular hole in the high ceiling which looked about the same dimensions as the shaft she remembered so well.

  “It looks like another hold,” Horst agreed, joining them, and adding his light to theirs. Doorways could be seen halfway up the walls, where other corridors had presumably once joined the vast room. “Like the lake chamber, but unflooded.”

  “I suggest we split up and search the area,” Vex said, standing aside to make room for Jenie as she scrambled awkwardly down from the open grille.

  Drake snorted with derision. “Why not? It worked so well the last time.”

  “The circumstances are entirely dissimilar,” Vex said. “Unlike the Gallery of Sin, there are clear lines of sight, and no crowd to get lost in.”

  “And no rogue psykers trying to part your hair with a fireball,” Drake added.

  “Spread out,” Horst instructed, stepping in to curtail the discussion before it became acrimonious. “Make sure you can see whoever’s on either side of you at all times. And keep your weapons handy; you might not run into any rogue psykers, but someone dismembered the poor bastard we found back there.”

  “Or something,” Keira added, the image of the daemon Adrin’s coven had inadvertently raised suddenly appearing in her mind.

  “You’re looking for a box, right?” Jenie asked, and Keira nodded. “Like you told Verren?”

  “That’s right,” the young assassin confirmed. “But if you find anything else that looks interesting, sing out anyway. It might help to point us in the right direction.”

  “All right.” Jenie still looked out of her depth, but rallied fast. “And there was a reward, you said?”

  “You’ll be well paid for helping us, I can assure you,” Horst said.

  “After what I’ve been through, I’d better be,” Jenie replied tartly, and wandered over to take her place in the line, between Keira and Drake.