Ravenor

by Dan Abnett

  I concentrated on flects, the Oktober Country, and on Feaver Skoh and Kizary Thekla.

  The Allure had a crew of seventy-eight, thirty more than the Hinterlight. I examined each one in turn, shaking all kinds of petty crime and misdemeanors out of their heads. Meanwhile, Nayl oversaw the phsyical sweep of the ship, and Thonius, from his bed in the Hinterlight’s infirmary, conducted a data purge of the Allure’s systems.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Go ahead, Carl.’

  ‘There’s virtually nothing in the Allure’s files to link it to the Oktober Country. A handful of trade meetings. But I have traced an astropathic communiqué received the day after the Oktober Country left Eustis Primaris. It’s filed and logged, uncoded. From Thekla. It says what we already know… asks Siskind to make his apologies to Baron Karquin.’

  ‘Thank you, Carl. Keep searching.’

  ‘Sir, the message ends with a curious sign off. “Firetide drinks as usual”.’

  ‘Repeat that.’

  ‘“Firetide drinks as usual”. Mean anything?’

  ‘Sweep our data core for the term “Firetide”. It could indicate an event or time when Thekla and Siskind next intended to meet face to face.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, sir.’

  ‘Good work, Carl. How’s the arm?’

  ‘Still attached to me. Mr Halstrom’s operating keyboard for me.’

  ‘Keep at it. Thank you, Carl.’

  I had taken over Siskind’s ready room for my interrogations. As Thonius signed off, there was a knock at the hatch.

  ‘Yes?’

  Frauka opened the door. He took a lho-stick out of his mouth, exhaled a plume of smoke and said, ‘Ready for Siskind?’

  ‘Yes, Wystan. Let’s have him.’

  I’d saved Bartol Siskind until last, gravely aware of what Duboe had told me under interrogation. Siskind had blood links – remote, admittedly, but still real – to one of the sector’s more infamous heretics. For a while I’d kept telling myself it was just a coincidence. Then I’d thought about it more carefully. It didn’t have to be a coincidence. Though long-aborted, the Cognitae academy and its mentor had enjoyed a profoundly wide influence. The last time I’d checked – about two years earlier – ninety-four cases under prosecution by the Ordos Helican had involved someone or something with Cognitae connections. As secret orders went, it was one of the largest and most pernicious in modern memory. Also, the Cognitae had prided itself on using and recruiting only the very brightest supplicants. It was no low cult, feeding off the poor and the uneducated. Lilean Chase had not only pulled into her influence the Imperium’s finest, she had instigated several eugenic breeding programs that mixed her corrupt but brilliant genes with the bloodlines of the most promising of her students. Her offspring were everywhere, many of them unimpeachable men of high standing. To be a rogue trader, one needed savvy, smarts and panache. Just because Siskind was of her line didn’t automatically mean he was a heretic himself.

  Siskind entered the ready room. He looked flustered and unhappy. Frauka had given him a smoke, and he twitched it in his fingers.

  ‘Sit down,’ I said.

  He sat, and had to adjust the setting of the chair. He wasn’t used to sitting that side of the captain’s desk.

  ‘Bartol Siskind.’

  ‘Inquisitor.’

  ‘I give you notice now that this interview will be conducted mentally. I recommend you relax, or it will be a painful episode to endure.’

  He took a drag on his lho-stick and nodded.

  +How long have you been master of this vessel?+

  The clarity of the first psi-query made him blink. That always happened. No one is ever quite ready for the voice inside your head to be anyone other than yours.

  ‘Fifteen years.’

  +Before that?+

  ‘I was first officer on the Kagemusha.’

  +And how did you come to command the Allure?+

  Though uncomfortable, he smiled. ‘I won it in a card game.’

  I verified his truth centres. He wasn’t lying.

  +How long have you known Kizary Thekla?+

  He shifted in his seat. ‘Thirty years, give or take. We were juniors together on the Vainglory under Master Ensmann. I moved to the Omadorus and then the Kagemusha, Thekla went to the Oktober Country under Master Angwell. When Angwell died, Thekla inherited command.’

  +When was that?+

  ‘381. Summer 381. Angwell was old. Four hundred and some. He died of a fever.’

  All true so far. Siskind was playing ball. I tried to examine his mind. Curiously, it reminded me of Duboe’s. Superficially bright, sharp, fit, but strangely turgid deep down.

  +When did you last see Thekla?+

  ‘I told you this. Three years ago, on Flint, at the Winter Great Moot.’

  His first lie. It was glaringly obvious. He couldn’t hide it.

  +When really?+

  Siskind sighed. He drew on his lho-stick again, exhaled and looked straight at me. ‘Two months ago. Briefly. On Lenk.’

  The truth.

  +Describe that meeting.+

  He shrugged. ‘I was in a tavern, drinking to the birth of Bombassen’s first son–’

  +Bombassen? Your chief engineer?+

  ‘That’s right. We were rat-arsed. Thekla came in with some of his crew, bought a round to wet the baby’s head. We chatted for a while about old times. Nothing… nothing…’ His voice trailed off. This was more truth, but I was annoyed at the opacity now coating his mind.

  +You’re related, you and Thekla?+

  Siskind laughed. ‘He’s a distant cousin. But our lineage is all frigged-up. You know that or you wouldn’t be asking this. Our parents’ parents were connected to the Cognitae school raising program. I’m not proud of that. Shit, I’d rather it wasn’t the truth. This isn’t the first time the Inquisition has pulled me over because of things my frigging ancestors did.’

  Also true. True as I could see.

  +Thekla sent you a communiqué asking you to make apologies for him at the moot.+

  ‘Yeah. He couldn’t make it. But when you’ve got good contacts with a slaughterbaron, it pays to be civil. He didn’t want to piss Karquin off, so he asked me to smooth things out.’

  +Do you know why he couldn’t make the moot?+

  ‘He didn’t say. I didn’t ask.’

  +Do you know why I’m after him?+

  Siskind paused. He breathed deeply. ‘Yeah. It’s about flects, isn’t it?’

  +It is. What can you tell me about flects, Bartol?+

  ‘Not much. It’s a suicidal trade. I mean, dealing flects is going to bring trouble down on you eventually, right? He wanted to cut me in, but I said no. I move a little grin, sometimes I run gladstones. But not flects.’

  +You’ve never dealt in them?+

  ‘No, sir.’

  +Never tempted?+

  ‘By the return? Frig, yes! But I knew it would be bad news. Damn, look at this… I’m being mind-probed by the Inquisition for not dealing them. How frigging bad would this be if I was?’

  He had a point.

  +Where does he get them from?+

  ‘I don’t know. Seriously, I don’t. You only get to know if you join the cartel.’

  +There’s a cartel?+

  He flinched slightly, causing the long char of ash accumulated on his lho-stick to tumble off onto the polished chrome floor. He knew he’d just let onto something he hadn’t realised I didn’t know.

  +A cartel, Siskind?+

  He recovered smoothly. ‘Of course there’s a cartel, inquisitor. The flect trade doesn’t depend entirely on the Oktober Country.’

  +I never imagined it did.+

  ‘Far as I know, there are about twenty rogue traders who do the run. The source is extra-sub. It’s coming from somewhere out in Lucky Space. And before you ask, I have no idea who runs the operation. Or how it’s run. Or anything. You buy into it, that’s what Thekla told me when he tried to get me in. It’s a contract. You g
et all the details when you buy into the cartel. There’s an up-front payment. A deposit. A gesture of good faith.’

  +How much.+

  He stubbed the lho-stick out. ‘Three-quarters of a million.’

  +That’s a lot.+

  ‘Yeah, right. That’s a lot.’

  He was still telling the truth, as far as I could chart. But suddenly I saw the real, bald reason he wasn’t a part of his distant cousin’s flect trade. It wasn’t principle. Siskind couldn’t afford it. Three-quarters of a million was beyond his means, and he was resentful about it. The resentment filled his mind in a very readable blur of spiky red.

  +What’s Firetide?+

  He blinked and laughed, about to lie badly. ‘I have no idea.’

  +Yes, you do. Firetide drinks as usual… that’s what Thekla said to you.’

  Siskind tilted his head back and opened his arms wide. ‘You’re reading my frigging mind, you bastard! Tell me!’

  +Tell me.+

  The psychic jab snapped him upright and made tears well in his cruel eyes. ‘Okay. O-frigging-kay. Don’t do that again.’

  +I won’t. If you don’t provoke me. Tell me about Firetide.’

  ‘I want another smoke.’ His mind was muddying up again, hardening to my scrutiny. It was peculiar. I felt my interrogation was going well, but still there was a sense he was giving me answers from a free part of his mind while the rest was impenetrable.

  ‘Wystan?’ I voxed.

  The door-hatch slid open and Frauka came in.

  ‘Lho-stick for Master Siskind,’ I said.

  Frauka pursed his lips, and plucked the carton out of his jacket pocket. He offered it to Siskind, who took one. Frauka flashed his igniter and lit Siskind’s smoke, then lit another for himself.

  ‘Sometimes, I thank the God-Emperor of Mankind for sealed-unit respiratory filters,’ I said.

  The comment passed Frauka by. ‘I’ll be outside,’ he said, exiting.

  The door-hatch slunked shut.

  ‘You’ve got your smoke,’ I said. +Now tell me about Firetide.+

  ‘It’s a festival. On Bonner’s Reach.’

  +That’s out in Lucky Space.+

  ‘Yeah, five days in. From here, two weeks. The last Free Trade station. We used to meet there at Firetide and have a drink or several.’

  +Thekla was expecting to meet you there?+

  ‘Hoping is a better word. We’ve done Firetide every few years. It’s a chance for rogues to catch up, away from Imperial scrutiny.’

  +Why was he hoping to see you there?+

  ‘Just to catch up.’

  I paused. +I contend, Siskind, that the message was clearly an instruction for you to meet him there.+

  ‘Think what you like.’

  +He was telling you to come there, wasn’t he?+

  ‘Yeah, all right, he was.’

  +Why?+

  ‘I don’t know. And that’s the truth.’ It was.

  +Tell me why that might have been.+

  Siskind looked down at the floor. ‘I think he was hoping to recruit me. Hoping to try again. The cartel meets at Bonner’s Reach. I’ve been doing well this season. Thekla believed I could buy in.’

  Every word of it was the truth. I couldn’t understand why I felt every word of it was also somehow rehearsed.

  +Do you think that Thekla, having passed on the Flint moots, might have gone directly to Bonner’s Reach?+

  ‘That’s likely,’ he said.

  +Master Siskind, I’m now going to withdraw my agents from your vessel and leave you alone. Thank you for cooperating with the Inquisition. Do not cross us again.+

  ‘I’ll try my frigging best.’

  +For your information, I have had my people disassemble your communications array and your mass-drive regulators. Nothing has been damaged. I estimate it will take you four working days to refit the systems. My apologies for the inconvenience. But I don’t want you following me.+

  He smiled. You’re a total bastard, his mind said. ‘Thank you, inquisitor,’ his mouth covered.

  Drive engaged, the Hinterlight began to describe a hard, tight trajectory out and away from the distant sun of the Flint system. The Allure, temporarily crippled and adrift, became an increasingly faint hard return on its aft sensors.

  Ravenor glided down the midships companionway with Nayl, Kys and Zael trailing behind him. Apparently, Nayl had promised the boy a look at the bridge.

  Halstrom was waiting for them at the bridge hatchway. ‘Mr Thonius and I have done some research, sir,’ he said. ‘It took some rooting out of the database, in conjunction with the Carto-Imperialis, but we dug up “Firetide”. It’s–’

  ‘A festival on Bonner’s Reach. Due to begin about twenty days from now,’ Ravenor said.

  Halstrom wavered. ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘Just because I got there first doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate your efforts, Mr Halstrom. Well done.’

  He beamed. ‘Thank you, inquisitor.’

  ‘How’s the mistress?’ Nayl asked.

  ‘Pissed off, Mr Nayl,’ Halstrom said.

  ‘But doing it anyway?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘Yes, ‘ said Halstrom. ‘Course is set. Drive engaged. We’re heading out into Lucky Space.’

  Kys and Ravenor went in through the hatch, and moved across the bridge to join Cynia Preest.

  ‘Thank you, Cynia,’ Ravenor said.

  ‘For what, Gideon?’ she snapped, gruffly.

  ‘For doing what you didn’t want to do. For taking us out into Lucky Space.’

  She looked up from her main station grimly. ‘I don’t like it, Gideon. Not at all. But I am in your service, and while that lasts, I do what I’m told.’ She paused and then smiled. ‘I understand Mr Halstrom is pretty keen on this whole venture.’

  ‘I think he is,’ Ravenor agreed. ‘Cynia… you might describe yourself as a rogue trader…’

  She halted, mid-action, and looked hard at the armoured chair. ‘And? Where are you going with this?’

  ‘If I gave you three-quarters of a million in ready cash, just how rogue could you be?’

  In the bridge doorway, Zael looked up at Harlon Nayl.

  ‘Why’s it called Lucky Space?’ he asked.

  Nayl grinned a not-at-all-reassuring grin. ‘Because, once you’re out in it, you’re lucky if you last five minutes.’

  Four

  No bugger goes to Lenk any more.

  Lenk was the end of the line, the most rim-ward world in the Angelus sub. Once it had been an important trade gateway through to the neighbouring Vincies sub-sector, ideally placed on a stepping-stone line of systems that formed a convenient trade lane down through places like Flint all the way to the sub’s capital world. For over six thousand years, it had been a prosperous place.

  Then the Vincies sub collapsed, almost overnight. There had been a gradual slump in trade, and a marked increase in lawlessness over a period of years, though nothing terminal. Slowly, the Vincies had become the Angelus’s rougher neighbour. But the real collapse had been triggered by a warp storm that had swept, without warning, through a great rimward portion of the sub in 085.M41.

  It was a notable disaster. The lethal storm had engulfed eighteen systems, including that of the Vincies’s capital world, Spica Maximal. All of the sub-sector’s primary population centres and industrial worlds were lost at a stroke. The death toll alone was unimaginably vast. Shorn of its central government, main markets and vital heartland, the sub-sector fell apart. Fifty or so Imperial worlds in the core-ward territories of the sub escaped the storm, but they were all minor colonies or secondary worlds and none had the power or wealth to assume responsibility as a new sub-sector capital. Some attempts were made to align them instead with the Angelus sub – effectively turning the remains of the Vincies sub into a fiefdom of its wealthy neighbour – but it never quite worked. The region fell away into lawless decay, no longer Imperial territory in any meaningful sense. Even the name withered. It was just Lucky Space now.<
br />
  Lenk’s fortunes withered too. The once-proud gateway market, the third wealthiest planet in the Angelus region after Caxton and Eustis Majoris, became a backwater. There was a long period of deprivation, popular unrest, and then a drawn-out, insidious civil war that resulted in a mass migration of its population back into the Angelus sub to begin new lives there.

  Now the only trade that went through Lenk was the rogue kind. It became a last watering hole for pioneers and speculators brave or crazy enough to try and make money from Lucky Space ventures.

  It had quite a reputation.

  As a footnote to this misfortune, the warp storm finally blew itself out in 385, after three hundred years. Left behind in the ravaged rim-ward part of the old sub was a clutch of dead systems known as the Mergent Worlds, the scorched corpses of Imperial planets like Spica Maximal resurfaced from the deluge. They were tainted, of course. Utterly tainted, and utterly prohibited. A fiercely prosecuted interdiction by the Battlefleet Scarus hemmed the Mergent Worlds away from Imperial and non-Imperial contact alike.

  ‘The shaved head of an old man, from behind, by candle light,’ Kara said.

  Nayl snorted.

  ‘Not you, old man with a shaved head,’ Kara laughed. ‘A really old, wizened man.’

  ‘Not bad,’ Nayl conceded.

  ‘Your turn.’

  Nayl leaned on the iron guard rail and gazed down through the observation bay’s segmented glasteel port. ‘A citrus fruit,’ he said at length.

  ‘That’s terrible. And you’ve used it before.’

  ‘I have not.’

  ‘Have so. Ganymedae. Remember? A waxed citrus fruit, you said. Sharp and acid.’

  ‘Can I finish? I hadn’t finished.’

  Kara grinned, and made a deferring gesture. ‘Please, dig yourself out.’

  ‘I was going to say… a citrus fruit, one of the big, fat ones with the amber rind. And not only that, one that’s been in the fruit bowl too long and is just beginning to turn. A dusting of grey mould on the skin, a dimpled puffiness.’