[Dark Heresy 02] - Innocence Proves Nothing

by Sandy Mitchell - (ebook by Undead)

  “What is it?” Barda asked after a moment, ingenuous as ever.

  “Trouble,” Horst said shortly, slipping the casket into his jacket pocket.

  “How can you tell?” Drake asked, no longer caring about seeming blasé. He’d realised that much already, without needing to be told, and been a soldier long enough to know that the more information you had when trouble came calling, the better equipped you were to deal with it.

  “The sigil’s blue,” Keira said, as if that explained everything.

  “Which means what, exactly?” Drake asked.

  “It means we don’t even think about opening it until we’re back aboard the shuttle,” Horst said, looking around as though expecting to find an enemy lurking here, in the heart of the Inquisition headquarters. Meeting his gaze as she glanced up from an intense discussion with the next scribe in line, a red-headed woman smiled a brief greeting, before resuming her argument.

  Well, if Horst was worried, so was Drake; the Guardsman checked the impulse to reach for his Scalptaker. Probably not the wisest place in the sector to start waving firearms around, he thought wryly.

  “Blue means Special Circumstances,” Keira explained, glancing around with the same hunted expression Horst had just acquired, and beginning to follow the team leader back towards the gatehouse. “The inquisitor doesn’t trust the ordo any more, and that means neither do we.”

  “I see,” Drake said, although that was something of an overstatement, falling in at her shoulder as he spoke. “So what do we do now?”

  “We complete our mission, of course,” Keira said, as though that was both simple and obvious.

  “Oh, right,” Drake said, hoping her evident confidence wouldn’t turn out to be misplaced.

  No one said anything else until they were back aboard the shuttle, with the hatches sealed. Barda disappeared into the flight deck as soon as the atmosphere seals had hissed into place, and began reciting the catechism of engine activation, his voice echoing faintly from the cabin speakers. The whine of the engines grew louder, and, after a moment or two, the vessel lifted from the ground; as it did so, Drake saw his colleagues relax perceptibly.

  “Right. Let’s see what we’ve got.” Almost as soon as they passed over the outer wall, Horst opened the box, and the rest of the Angelae crowded round to see whatever it contained. Drake had expected some further elaborate security precaution, a genecode scanner built into the locking mechanism at the very least, but there had been nothing like that: simply a metal catch, worn shiny with generations of thumb pressure, which clicked as Horst released it.

  “What’s in there?” Keira asked, leaning forwards to get a look inside.

  “Just this.” Horst withdrew a slip of paper, seeming faintly surprised to find nothing else. He scanned it briefly, then passed it to Keira, who handed it to Drake. Out of courtesy, the Guardsman angled it so that Vex could read the note too.

  It was short, to the point, and written in a clear and confident hand.

  The conspiracy reaches further and wider than I could possibly have imagined. Trust no one in the Calixis Conclave: even there, treachery may lurk. I will contact you at the earliest opportunity.

  Until then, may the Emperor walk with all my Angelae.

  Carolus Finurbi

  Thirteen

  Tarsus High Orbital Docks, Scintilla System

  255.993.M41

  The first indication that the Ursus Innare had finally made it to its destination was a series of reverberating booms, like the tolling of a great bell far off in the bowels of the ship, which echoed through the hold like distant thunder. Kyrlock glanced up from his position by the firepit, reaching instinctively for the shaft of his chainaxe, and looked over to Elyra, who hadn’t moved a muscle. As the sound died away, the murmur of distant voices could be heard echoing round the mineral heaps, as the alarmed passengers began arguing among themselves about what was going on.

  “What was that?” Trosk asked, his habitual pose of uninterest undermined a little by the higher than usual register of his voice.

  “A step on the road,” Ven told him, unhelpfully, while Elyra rose slowly to her feet, her expression of unconcern a great deal more convincing than the young psyker’s. Heartened by this, Kyrlock followed her lead, and stowed the chainaxe in its sling across his shoulders, hoping that his companions would assume that was why he’d picked it up in the first place. Trosk and Ven hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary in his demeanour, he was sure, although Zusen smiled shyly at him as he glanced in her direction, probably having sensed his momentary flare of alarm.

  “It’s just the docking clamps,” Elyra said, beginning to gather her belongings, and after a moment Kyrlock followed suit, picking up the pack he’d been using as a pillow. “They must have brought us in to Tarsus High for unloading.”

  “That’s the orbital docks, right?” Kyrlock asked, and Elyra nodded.

  “In geostationary orbit over Hive Tarsus, which makes it the most important economic hub in the system. Hardly a thing moves on or off the planet without coming through here.”

  “Which means it’s being watched all the time for people like us,” Trosk said. He glanced at Elyra, as if wondering how much he should take her into his confidence. “That’s why we were supposed to go through the void station.”

  “Well, we’re here now,” Elyra said. “Better just hope your friends in the Sanctuary have a back-up plan.”

  “Of course they do,” Zusen said, beginning to sound more like the self-confident young woman they’d first met in the depths of the Gorgonid, now the long, arduous trip appeared to be over. She turned to Elyra. “I told you, they can keep us safe for ever. You too, if you’ll trust them.”

  “I don’t trust anyone,” Elyra said, then glanced at Kyrlock. “No offence, Vos.”

  “None taken,” Kyrlock assured her. According to their cover story, their alliance was one of expediency rather than friendship, and that was the best way to keep playing it. Elyra would go with the Sanctuary when the time came, of that there was no possible doubt, and if they refused to accept Kyrlock too, there couldn’t be any suspicion of Elyra’s apparent willingness to part from him.

  “Were you given any contact details for a situation like this?” Elyra asked, addressing the question to Zusen, presumably because she knew Trosk wouldn’t give her a straight answer anyway.

  The young empath shook her head. “No. We were just told we were being taken off by shuttle in the outer system.”

  “By someone from the void station, presumably,” Elyra said.

  Trosk shot her a sharp look, then nodded slowly. “Presumably,” he agreed.

  “They weren’t very specific,” Zusen said, a trifle apologetically.

  “Which was very sensible of them,” Kyrlock said, “but rut all use to us now. What do we do, just sit around and wait for a vox call?”

  “No,” Elyra said, “we wait for Greel to get one.” She smiled at the young wyrds, without a trace of humour. “If he’s making as much money as I think he is from letting your babysitters use his network, he’ll have been trying to arrange an alternative rendezvous with them ever since things went paps up on the void station.”

  She might have said more, but attempting to speak suddenly became pointless. With a grating sound, punctuated by squeals like the shrieks of the damned, the main cargo hatch began to crank open. The clear yellow light of powerful luminators began to seep in through the widening gap, and Kyrlock found himself squinting, unused to normal levels of illumination after spending so long confined in the semi-darkness of the mineral hold.

  “Up and out, come on, let’s go.” A trio of franchisemen appeared, chivvying the rest of the apprehensive passengers in front of them, clearly in no mood to delay.

  Despite the shotguns they carried, they hesitated when they came to Elyra’s group, and she smiled in a manner calculated to leave them thinking they were wise to do so.

  “Where to, exactly?” she asked.


  “The docking arm,” one of the franchisemen explained, glancing warily at her pack, which she’d left hanging from her shoulder where she could draw the laspistol inside it in a heartbeat. Word of her emasculation of Kantris had no doubt got around fast, and no one was keen to provoke her. “We can get you aboard the harbour through one of the utility shafts. But we have to be quick, before they open the discharge hatches.”

  “Works for me,” Elyra said, turning away even as she spoke. She began to follow the rest of the nervously milling refugees without so much as a backwards glance.

  Trusting her judgement, Kyrlock fell in beside her. “Will the juves follow?” he asked quietly.

  “They will if they don’t want to make a return trip to Sepheris Secundus,” Elyra said, remaining in character despite the minimal risk of being overheard. She shrugged, indicating the megatonnes of fractured stone surrounding them. “Besides, they’re about to unload this lot the same way they got it in here. It’ll all fall through a hatch in the floor, and it’ll be damned uncomfortable for anyone left behind.”

  That was something of an understatement, Kyrlock thought, picturing the sudden torrent of displaced rubble. It would make the rockslide Trosk had started look like a scuffed pebble. Anyone still left in the hold would be crushed to death almost instantly.

  As that alarming thought struck him, he glanced round involuntarily for Zusen, and was relieved to find the young wyrd picking her way cautiously over the stones in their wake, the other two following a few paces behind. Noticing the movement of his head, she smiled wanly at him for a moment, then returned her attention to the tricky matter of not stumbling on the treacherous surface.

  Having spent a large proportion of his life among the spoil heaps of the Tumble, Kyrlock had no such concerns, his stride almost as sure-footed as if he was on solid ground. Sure for the moment that the trio of psykers were out of earshot, he returned his attention to Elyra. “If you’ve anything to say, better make it fast,” he said. “They’ll be able to hear us again in a minute.”

  “Right,” Elyra said. “First thing: this information has to get back to the Tricorn. If we get separated, that’ll be up to you.”

  “Got it.” Kyrlock nodded once. “How do I do that? I don’t think you can just walk up to the door and ask to see an inquisitor.”

  “You’d be surprised.” Elyra smiled at some private joke. “But there’s a vox-code Carolus gave us for emergencies. You can use that if you don’t want to break cover.” She reeled it off, not quite managing to hide her astonishment when he repeated it back verbatim on the first try. “It connects to a safe house in Sibelius middle hive, and the warden there can pass on the message.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “You might not need to use it, though. I’m sure Mordechai’s reports got here long before we did, so chances are you’ll be contacted by another Angelae cell before long. Or maybe Mordechai himself, if they were able to follow us.”

  Kyrlock didn’t bother to ask how she expected their colleagues to know which ship they were on; she evidently did, and she knew them better than him, so that was enough.

  They were approaching the main door of the hold now, and he was able to catch a glimpse of the interior of the starship itself for the first time. The franchisemen they’d spoken to before remained behind, completing a sweep of the cargo space for any stragglers, but another armed man was waiting by the hatch, and directed them down the corridor outside with a wave of his shotgun. It seemed vaguely disappointing, just a grimy, nondescript passageway; if he hadn’t known they were aboard a vessel capable of transiting the warp, Kyrlock might have taken it for part of a barrack block or a manufactorium.

  Another equally bored guard directed them though a narrow gap where a panel had been removed from the wall, and down a cramped, winding staircase, which Kyrlock assumed was normally the domain of the vessel’s enginseers, judging by the number of exposed conduits and yellowing prayer scrolls they passed; the other passengers were bunching up a little in the confined space, and the two Angelae hung back slightly, although the babble of voices rising up the stairwell meant that the risk of being overheard was minimal. After descending about a hundred metres, the staircase abruptly terminated in another corridor; as they ducked through the open inspection hatch to reach it they brushed past a rack of hostile environment suits, their enclosed helmets and life support packs shelved neatly nearby. Kyrlock eyed them apprehensively.

  “We’re not going to need those, are we?” he asked, lumping from Icenholm with the glidewings had been bad enough; the thought of crossing the outer hull, where a single misstep could send him spinning off into open space, was a thousand times worse.

  Elyra shook her head. “No, they’re all still in place.” Kyrlock exhaled noisily with relief as she continued, glancing around as though this was an environment she was perfectly comfortable in. “We must be in one of the dorsal utility locks. They’ll have made a hard seal with one of the external hatches on the station.”

  She was right: beyond the airlock chamber, both doors of which had been propped open to let the passengers disembark as quickly as possible, a flexible tunnel connected the vessel to an almost identical portal a few metres away.

  As they stepped up onto the lip of the hatch, and he was able to see the interior of the ore chute beyond for the first time, Kyrlock felt a momentary twinge of vertigo. The far wall of the chute was at least five hundred metres distant, and the metal catwalk they found themselves on swayed alarmingly as it took their weight, suspended by chains over a drop of at least thirty metres.

  “You said the first thing,” Kyrlock reminded her, as their bootsoles rang on the metal mesh. Despite himself, he was unable to resist the impulse to glance up, and see a little of the starship which had brought them here. It didn’t look like much, a blank metal ceiling, dull and corroded, the outline of the discharge hatch etched clearly into the pitted surface, and with a thrill of horror he realised that the docking port was normally open to the vacuum of space, only the fabric of the ship itself sealing in the air they needed to breathe. The fear of it drifting away, leaving them to suffocate, was completely irrational, he knew, but nonetheless real for all that, and he quickened his pace involuntarily. “What was the second?”

  They were halfway along the catwalk by now, and he was able to see that it terminated in another doorway, identical to the one they’d just entered the station by. The notion of solid decking under his feet again was an almost irresistible lure, but he checked the impulse to break into a run. There was no telling what lay beyond, and he had no intention of finding out the hard way if it was dangerous.

  “The void station,” Elyra said, planting her feet with a faintly exaggerated care which told Kyrlock she was as uncomfortable on the swaying bridge as he was. The chains seemed to be attached to a boom, tens of metres above their heads, and after a moment he realised that it could be swung out of the way of the cargoes being dumped down the chute. “Most of the freight handled there is trans-shipped for forwarding to other systems. Maybe our psykers weren’t heading for Scintilla after all.”

  “Which means you could be on your way to Emperor knows where before too much longer,” Kyrlock said.

  “Exactly,” Elyra nodded soberly. “If I’m right, I’ll try to get a message to Carolus as soon as I know our final destination, but there are no guarantees.” Without a word being said, somehow, it seemed, they both accepted that this was going to be the parting of the ways.

  Kyrlock made a last attempt to puncture the mood. “If the Sanctuary take us as a team,” he said, “I’ll be there to watch your back. If not, I’ll follow the Franchise connection. Maybe Greel knows where everyone’s going.”

  “I doubt it,” Elyra said. “The Sanctuary might have been using the Franchise smuggling operation to get its own people off Sepheris Secundus, and possibly other worlds in the sector, but if they trust them with the next stage of the pipeline, my mother’s a virgin.”

  “We won’t let you down,�
� Kyrlock said, vaguely surprised to discover that he meant it. He wasn’t used to the idea of duty, or responsibility, or even loyalty to anyone other than Danuld, but he liked Elyra, and the idea of her being cut adrift without any backup was disturbing.

  There was no more time for discussion, however, as by now they’d reached the end of the catwalk. Kyrlock stepped through the metal doorway facing them, to find another identical portal a couple of metres beyond it, also open.

  “Coming?” Elyra asked, turning to check on the progress of the three wyrds, underscoring the fact that they were now too close for the Inquisition agents to discuss their business openly.

  “Right behind you,” Trosk said, shepherding Ven as usual. The young seer seemed to be in one of his more lucid phases at the moment, much to Kyrlock’s relief, walking along the narrow catwalk in a reasonably straight line, and with his eyes focused on his surroundings. Zusen was a pace or two ahead of them, and took his arm as she caught up. She was clearly sensing his unease, as she smiled at him reassuringly.

  “You can’t have spent much time in Icenholm,” she said.

  “No.” Kyrlock shook his head. None of the wyrds had said much about their backgrounds, but the lack of facial tattoos, marking them out as the vassals of one or other of the barons, had been enough to tell him that none were of peasant stock. It was hardly surprising if Zusen had grown up in the suspended city, as indifferent to the void beneath her feet as Drake would have been. For a moment he wondered if she was of noble blood, or merely the offspring of servants, but he didn’t particularly care; there were far more pressing matters to concern himself with at the moment. “I was a forester before Elyra fell on me. Most of the time, anyway.”