by Dan Abnett
I was pleased to see that Ravenor was present. His injuries were healing, the physical ones at least, and though he was quiet and a little withdrawn, I felt he was beginning to come through the shock of Arianrhod's death.
Surskova, a short, ample woman in her forties, was quietly briefing Bequin on the progress of the newer Distaff initiates. Aemos chuntered on to Psullus and Nayl about the events on Lethe Eleven and they listened intently. Psullus, enfeebled and prematurely aged by a wasting disease, never left the Ocean House and devoted his life to the maintenance and preservation of my extensive private libraries. If Aemos hadn't related the story of our last mission to him, I would have made sure I did. Such tales were his only connection to the active process of our business and he loved to hear them. Nayl, an ex-bounty hunter from Loki, had been injured on a mission the year before and had not been able to join us for the Lethe endeavour. He too lapped up Aemos's account, asking occasional questions. I could tell he was itching to get back to work.
Von Baigg and Kircher chatted idly about the preparations for the Novena that were now gripping the hives of Thracian, and the security consequences they brought. Kircher was an able man, ex-arbites, and dependable if a little unimaginative. As dessert was served, the discussion broadened across the table.
They say the Bestowment will be the making of the Warmaster,' Nayl said, his loaded spoon poised in front of his mouth.
'He's made already, I'd say,' I retorted.
'Nayl's right, Gregor. I heard that too/ said Ravenor. 'Feudal Protector. That's as good as Imperial Lord Commander Helican admitting the War-master is on an equal footing with him/
'It's a sinecure/
'Not at all. It makes Honorius the favourite to become warmaster-in-chief in the Acrotara theatre now that Warmaster Hiju is dead, and Hiju was being groomed for a place on the Senatorum Imperialis, perhaps even to sit amongst the High Lords of Terra/
'Honorius may be "Magnus", but he's not High Lord material/ I ventured.
'After this he might be/ said Nayl. 'Lord Commander Helican must think he has potential, or he wouldn't be giving him such an almighty hand up/
Politics left me cold, and I seldom empathised with political ambitions. I only studied the subject because my duties often demanded a detailed working knowledge. Imperial Lord Commander Helican, which is to say Jeromya Faurlitz IV of the noble Imperial family Faurlitz, was the supreme secular authority in the Helican sub-sector, for which reason he styled himself with the sub-sector's name in his appellation. On paper, even the cardinals of the Ministorium, the Grandmaster of the Inquisition, the senior luminaries of the Administratum and the Lords Militant had to answer to him, though as with all things in Imperial society, it was never as easy as that. Church, state and military, woven together as one, yet constantly inimical. In favouring Warmaster Honorius with the Bestowment, Lord Helican was throwing his lot in with the military – an overt signal to the other organs of government – and clearly expected the Warmaster to return the favour when he rose to levels of government beyond those of a single sub-sector. It was a dangerous game, and rare for so senior an official to play openly for such an advantage, though the battle-glory that surrounded Honorius made a perfect excuse.
And that made it a dangerous time. Somebody would want to redress that balance. My money would be on the Ecclesiarchy, though it's fair to say I'm biased. However, history has shown the Church to be chronically intolerant of losing power to the military or the state. I said as much.
There are many other elements/ Aemos chuckled, accepting a refill of dessert wine. 'The Faurlitz line is weak and lacks both support in the Adep-tus Terra and a ready ear at the Senatorum Imperialis and the courts of the Golden Throne. Two powerful families, the De Vensii and the Fulvatorae, are seeking to make gains against the Faurlitz, and would take this as an open show of defiance. Then there's the House of Eirswald, who see their own famous son, Lord Militant Strefon, as the only viable replacement for Hiju. And the Augustyn dynasty, let's not forget, who were ousted from power when High Lord of Terra Giann Augustyn died in office forty years ago. They've been trying to get back in with feverish determination these
last few years, pushing their candidate, Lord Commander Cosimo, with almost unseemly impudence. If Nayl's right and the Bestowment makes Honorius a certainty as Hiju's successor, he'd become a direct competitor with Cosimo for the High Lord's vacant position.'
Down the table, Bequin yawned and caught my eye.
'Cosimo's never going to make it/ Psullus put in candidly. 'His house is far too unpopular with the Adeptus Mechanicus, and without their consent, however tacit, no one ever makes it to High Lord rank. Besides, the Ministorum would block it. Giann Augustyn made no friends there with his reforms. They say it was a Callidus of the Officio Assassinoram, under orders from the Ecclesiarcy, that took old Giann off, not a stroke at all/
'Careful what you say, old friend, or they'll be sending one after you/ Ravenor said. Psullus held up his bony hands in a dismissive gesture as laughter rippled around the table.
'It is, still, most perturbatory/ Aemos said. 'This Bestowment could lead to a House war. Quite apart from all the obvious opponents, Lord Helican and the Warmaster could find themselves tasked by Imperial families who are thus far neutral. There are many who are quite comfortable with their situation, and who would strike with astonishing ruthlessness simply to avoid being drawn into an open bloody clash.'
There was silence for a moment.
'Psullus/ said Ravenor quickly, changing the subject with a diplomat's deftness, 'I have a number of works for you that I collected on Lethe, including a palimpsest of the Analecta Phaenomena…'
Psullus engaged the young interrogator eagerly. Aemos, von Baigg and Nayl continued to debate the Imperial intrigue. Bequin and Surskova made their goodnights and withdrew. I took my crystal balloon of amasec to the glass wall and looked out into the oceanic depths. Kircher joined me after a moment. He smoothed the front of his navy blue jacket and put on his black gloves before speaking.
'We had intruders last month/ he said quietly.
I looked round at him. "When?'
Three times, in fact/ he said, 'though I didn't realise that until the third occasion. During night cycle about six weeks ago, I had what seemed to be a persistent fault on the alarms covering the seawall vents. There was no further sign, and the servitors replaced that section of the system. Then again, a week later, on the service entrance to the food stores, and the outer doors of the Distaff annex, both on the same night. I suspected a system corruption, and planned an overhaul of the entire alarm net. The following week, I found the security code on the outer locks of the main door had been defaulted to zero. Someone had been in and left again. I scoured the building and found vox-thieves buried in the walls of six rooms, including your inner chambers, and discreet farcoders wired into three communication junction nodes, spliced to vox and pict lines. Someone had also tried, and failed, to force their way into your void-vault, but they didn't know the shield codes/
'And there were no traces?'
'No prints, no microspores, no follicles. I washed the air itself through the particle scrubber. The in-house pict recorders show nothing… except a beautifully disguised time-jump of thirty-four seconds. The astropaths sensed nothing. In one place, the intruder must have walked across four metres of under-floor pressure pads without setting them off. In retrospect, I realised the two prior incidents, far from being system faults, were experimental tests to probe, gauge and estimate our security net. Trial runs before the actual intrusion. For that, they used a code scrambler on the main doors. If they'd actually been able to crack it, they could have reset the code and I'd never have known they'd been in/
'You've double-checked everything? No more bugs to be found?'
He shook his head. 'Lord, I can only apologise for-'
I held tip a hand. 'No need, Kircher. You've done your job. Show me what they left/
Kircher unrolled a red felt cloth acr
oss the top of a table in the quiet of the inner library. He was nervous, and beads of sweat were trickling down from his crest-like shock of white hair.
I hadn't wanted to alarm anyone, so I had asked only Ravenor and Aemos to join us. The room smelled of teak from the shelves, must from the books, and ozone from the suspension fields sustaining especially frail manuscripts.
The felt was laid out. On it lay nine tiny devices, six vox-thieves and three farcoders, each one set in a pearl of solid plastic.
'Once I'd stripped them out, I sealed them in inert gel to make sure they were dead. None were booby trapped/
Gideon Ravenor stepped in and picked up one of the sealed vox-thieves, holding it up to the light.
'Imperial/ he said. 'Unmarked, but Imperial. Very high grade and advanced/
'I thought so too/ said Kircher.
'Military? Secular?' I asked.
Ravenor shrugged. ^Ve could source them to likely manufacturers, but they likely supply all arms of the Imperium/
Aemos's augmetic optics clicked and turned as he peered down at the objects on the cloth. The farcoders/ he began, 'similarly advanced. It takes singular skill to patch one of these successfully into a comm-node/
'It takes singular skill to break in like they did/ I countered.
They have no maker markings, but they're clearly refined models from the Amplox series. Much more refined than the heavy-duty units the military use. It's just conjecture, but I'd say this was beyond the Ministorum too. They're notoriously behind when it comes to tech advancements.'
'Who then?' I asked.
The Adeptus Mechanicus?' he ventured. I scowled.
He shrugged, smiling. 'Or at least a body with the power and influence to secure such advanced devices from the Adeptus Mechanicus/
'Like?'
'The Officio Assassinorum?'
'Who would break in to kill, not listen/
'Noted. Then a powerful Imperial house, one with clout in the Senato-rum Imperialis.'
'Possible…' I admitted.
'Or…' he said.
'Or?'
'Or the one Imperial institution that regularly employs such devices and has the prestige and determination to make sure it is using the best available equipment.'
'That being?'
Aemos looked at me as if I was stupid.
'The Inquisition, of course.'
I slept badly, fitfully. Three hours before the end of the night cycle, I sat up in my bed, suddenly, coldly awake.
Dressed only in the sheet I had wrapped around me, I stalked out into the hall, my grip firm on the matt-grey snub pistol that lived in a holster secured behind my headboard.
Dim blue light filtered through the hallway, softening the edges of everything. I crept forward.
I was not mistaken. Someone was moving about down below, in the lower foyer.
I edged down the stairs, gun braced, willing my eyes to accustomise to the gloom.
I thought to hit a vox and alert Kircher and his staff, but if someone was inside, skillful enough to get past the alarms, then I wanted to capture him, not scare him off with a full blown alert. In the few hours since I had arrived back at the Ocean House, a nasty taste of treachery had seeped into my world. It might be largely paranoia, but I wanted an end to it.
A beam of white light stabbed across the foyer floor from the half open kitchen doors. I heard movement again.
I sidled to the doorframe, checked the safety was off, and slid, weapon first, through the gap in the doors.
The outer kitchen, a realm of marble-topped workbays and scrubbed aluminium ranges, was empty. Metal pots and utensils hung silently from ceiling racks. There was a smell of garlic and cooked herbs in the still air. The light was on in the inner pantry, near the cold store, and the illuminated backwash filled the room.
Two steps, three, four. The kitchen's stone floor was numbingly cold under my bare feet. I reached the door to the inner pantry. There was movement inside.
I kicked the door open and leapt inside, aiming the compact sidearm.
Medea Betancore, clad only in a long, ex-military undershirt, roared out in surprise and dropped the tray of leftover ketelfish she had been
gorging on. The tray clattered on the tiled floor in front of the open larder.
'Great gods alive, Eisenhorn!' she wailed in outrage, jumping up and down on the spot. 'Don't do that!'
I was angry. I didn't immediately lower my aim. 'What are you doing?'
'Eating? Hello?' She sneered at me. 'Feel like I've been asleep for a week. I'm famished.'
I began to lower the gun. A sense of embarrassment began to filter into my wired state.
'I'm sorry. Sorry. You should… maybe… get dressed before you come down to raid the larder.' It sounded stupid even as I said it. I didn't realise how stupid until a moment later. I was too painfully aware of her long, dark legs and the way the singlet top was curved around the proud swell of her bust.
'You should take your own advice… Gregor/ she said, raising one eyebrow.
I looked down. I had lost the sheet kicking open the door. I was what Midas Betancore used to call 'very naked'.
Except, of course, for the loaded gun.
'Damn. My apologies.' I turned to scrabble for the fallen sheet.
'Don't stand on my account,' she sniggered.
I froze, stooped. The muzzle of a Tronsvasse parabellum was pointing directly at my head from the darkness behind me.
It lowered. Harlon Nayl looked me up and down for a moment in frank dismay and then raised a warning finger to his lips. He was fully clothed, damn him.
I retrieved my sheet.
What?' I hissed.
'Someone's in. I can feel it/ he whispered. 'The noise you two were making, I thought it was the intruder. Didn't know you were so keen on Medea/
'Shut up/
The two of us fanned out back through the outer kitchen. Nayl pulled up the hood of his vulcanised black bodyglove to cover his pale, shaved head. He was a big man, a head taller than me, but he melted away into the darkness. I watched carefully for his signals.
Nayl waved me left down the hall. I trusted his judgment completely. He had stalked the galaxy's most innovative and able scum for three decades. If there were intruders, he'd find them.
I entered the Ocean House's main hall, and saw the front entry was ajar. The code display on the main lock was blinking a default of zeros.
I swung round as a gun roared behind me. I heard Nayl cry out and sprinted back into the inner foyer. Nayl was on the floor, grappling with an unidentifiable man.
'Get up! Get up! I'm armed!' I shouted.
In reply, the unknown intruder smacked Nayl's head back against the floor so hard he knocked him out, and then threw Nayl's heavy sidearm at me.
I fired, once, and blew a hole in the wall. The spinning gun clipped my temple and knocked me over.
1 heard a series of fleshy cracks and impacts, a guttural gasp and then Medea Betancore's voice shouting, 'Lights up!'
I rose. She was standing astride the intruder, one hand braced in a fierce fist, the other pulling down her undershirt for modesty.
'I got him,' she said, glancing round at me.
The dazed intruder was clad in black from head to foot. I wrenched off his hood.
It was Titus Endor.
'Gregor/ he lisped through a bloody mouth. 'You did say you were home.'
FOUR
Between friends.
An interview with Lord Rorken.
The Apotropaic Congress.
'Grain joiliq, with shaved ice, and a sliver of citrus/
Seated in my sanctum chamber, Endor took the proffered drink and grinned at me. 'You remembered/
'Many were the nights, in those fine old days. Titus, I've mixed your drink of choice too many times to count/
'Hah! I know. What was that place, the one off Zansiple Street? Where the host used to drink the profits?'
The Thirsty Eagle/ I replied. He knew full
well. It was as if he was testing me.
The Thirsty Eagle, that's it! Many were the nights, as you say/
He held up his tumbler of clear, iced spirits.
'Raise 'em and sink 'em and let's have another!'
I echoed the old toast and clinked my lead-crystal of vintage amasec against his glass.
For a moment, it was indeed like the fine old days. Both of us, nineteen years old, full of piss and promethium, newly promoted interrogators ready to take on the whole damn galaxy, students of old Inquisitor Hapshant. Five years later, almost simultaneously, we would both be elected full inquisitors, and our individual careers would begin in earnest.
Nineteen years old, drunk on our feet, carousing in an armpit of a bar off Zansiple Street after hours, mocking our illustrious mentor and
bonding for life, bonding with that unquestioning exuberance that seems to me now only possible in youth.
It was like regarding a different life, so far away, almost unrecoverable. I was not that Gregor Eisenhorn. And this man, with his long, braided grey hair and scarred face, sitting in my sanctum dressed in a body-heat masking stealth suit, was not that Titus Endor.
'You could have called/ I began.
'I did.'
I shrugged. 'You could have joined us for dinner tonight. Jarat excelled herself again/
'I know. But then…' he paused, and rattled the ice around in his drink thoughtfully. 'But then, it might have become known that Inquisitor Endor had visited Inquisitor Eisenhorn/
'It is well known that those two are old friends. Why would that have been a problem?'
Endor set down his drink, unpopped the fasteners around his waistband and pulled the top half of his stealth suit up over his head. He cast the garment aside.
'Too hot/ he remarked. His undershirt was dark with sweat. The jagged saurapt tooth still hung around his neck on a black cord. That tooth. Years ago, I'd dug it out of his leg after he had driven the beast off. Brontotaph, twelve decades ago and more. The pair of us, alongside Hapshant, in the mist-meres.