by Dan Abnett
In addition to fatigue and the pain of my wounds, what darkened my mood was the news about Gideon Ravenor. Now, of course, we all understand what a priceless and brilliant contribution he was to make to Imperial learning, and how that would never have happened if he had not been confined to a life of mental rumination.
But back then, in that stinking hospice ward off the Street of Prescients, all I saw was a young man, burned and crippled and physically paralysed, a brilliant inquisitor ruined before he could fulfill his potential.
Ravenor, in the eyes of some, had been lucky. He had not been amongst the one hundred and ninety-eight Inquisition personnel killed outright by the crashing fighter that fell into the Great Triumph beyond the Spatian Gate.
He, like fifty others, had been caught on the edge of the explosion and lived.
My pupil was barely recognisable. A blood-wet bundle of charred flesh. One hundred per cent burns. Blind, deaf, mute, his face so melted that an incision had been made in the fused meat where his mouth should have been so he could breathe.
The loss touched me acutely. The waste even more. Gideon Ravenor had been the greatest, most promising pupil I had ever taught. I stood by his plastic-sheeted cot, listening to the suck and drool of his ventilator and fluid drains and remembered what Commodus Voke had said in the arbites sector house on Blammerside Street.
'I will make amends. I will not rest until every one of these wretches is destroyed and order restored. And then I will not rest until I find who and what was behind it.'
Right then, there, for Ravenor's sake, I made that promise to myself too.
At that time, I had little idea what that would mean or where it would take me.
I returned то the Ocean House at last on what would have been the ninth and final day of the Holy Novena. There was no one to greet me, and the place seemed empty and forlorn.
I stalked into my study, poured a too-large measure of vintage amasec and flopped down into an armchair. It felt like an eternity since I had sat here with Titus Endor, worrying over speculations that seemed now so insignificant and remote.
A door opened. From the instant chill in the air, I knew at once it was Bequin.
'We didn't know you'd returned, Gregor.'
'Well, I have, Alizebeth.'
'So I see. Are you alright?'
I shrugged. Where is everybody?'
'When the…' she paused, considering her words. 'When the tragedy occurred, there was a great public commotion. Jarat and Kircher took the staff into the secure bunkers for safety, and I locked myself away with the Distaff in the west wing, waiting, hoping for your call.'
'Channels were out.'
'Yes. For eight days.'
'But everyone is safe?'
Yes.'
I leaned out of my chair and looked at her. Her face was pale and drawn from too many nights of fear.
Where's Aemos?'
'Outside, with Betancore, Kircher and Nayl. Von Baigg's around too. Is… is it true what we've heard about Gideon?'
'Alizebeth… it's…'
She crouched down and put her arms around me. It is difficult for a psyker to be hugged by an untouchable, no matter how long and close their personal history. But her intentions were good, and I tolerated the contact for as long as seemed polite. When I gently pushed her back, I said, 'Send them in. In fact, send everyone in here.'
They won't all fit, Gregor'
The sea terrace, then. One last time.'
Sitting or standing around in the lime glow of the sea terrace, the numerous members of my faithful band looked at me expectantly. The place was packed. Jarat had fussed around, bringing out drinks and sweetmeats until I had pressed a glass of amasec into her gnarled hands and forced her down into a chair.
'I'm closing the Ocean House/ I said.
There was a murmur.
'I'm retaining the lease, but I have little wish to live here any more. In fact, I have little wish to be on Thracian any more. Not after this… Holy Novena. There seems no point maintaining a staff here.'
'But, sir, the library?' Psullus said from the back.
I held up a finger.
'I will take up a contract arrangement with one of the hive accommodation bureaux to keep the house in working order with servitors. Who knows, sometime I might have need of a place here again.'
I refilled my glass before turning back.
'But I wish to move my centre of operations. It's compromised, if nothing else.'
At that, Jubal Kircher looked into his cit-juice uncomfortably.
'I wish to relocate the household to the estate on Gudran. Its environment suits me better than this… hive-hell. Jarat, you and Kircher will
supervise the packing and organisation for the move. I would like you to undertake the duties of head of household at the Gudrun estate, if you are willing. I realise you have never been off Thracian/
She sat forward, her eyebrows raised, considering this sudden change to her life. 'I… I would be honoured to do so, sir/ she said.
'I'm pleased. The country air will do you good. The estate is managed by a caretaker staff, so I'll need a good housekeeper, and a good chief of house security. Jubal… I'd like you to consider that job.'
'Thank you, sir,' said Kircher.
'Psullus… we're going to transplant the library permanently to Gudrun. That task is yours, as is the ongoing duty of being my librarian. Can I entrust you with it?'
'Oh, yes… there will be problems, of course, the handling and care of certain shielded texts and-'
'But I can leave it with you?'
Psullus waved his frail hands at me in a gesture of excitement that made everyone laugh.
'I know this wholesale move will take months to manage and carry out. Alain… I'd like you to supervise and oversee the whole thing.'
Von Baigg looked suddenly awkward. 'Of – of course, inquisitor.'
This is a weighty task, interrogator. Are you up to it?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Good. I will return to the Gudrun estate no later than ten months from now. I trust it will be the home I expect/
It was a promise I would fail miserably to keep.
"What of the Distaff, sir?' asked Surskova.
'I want to divide that/ I said. 'I want six of the best Distaff members sent to Gudrun to bide there at my wishes. The future of the Distaff itself I see as separate from my living arrangements. I have a lease on a spire-top residence on Messina. That will be the new official home of the Distaff. Surskova, you will supervise the move and establishment of the untouchable school there/
She nodded, shocked. Bequin seemed taken aback.
I looked round at the hundred-plus servants, warriors and aides crammed into the room.
'That's it. Until I see you all again, may the God-Emperor protect you/
I was left alone with Aemos, Bequin, Medea and Nayl.
'Not for us the chores of moving house/ I said.
'I had a hunch not/ smirked Medea.
'For us, two missions/
'For us?' asked Bequin.
Yes, Alizebeth. Unless you think you and I are too old for such diversions?'
'No, I– I-'
'I've been too long at the back of things. Too long relying on my capable staff. I yearn for field work/
The last field work we were in nearly got you killed/ scolded Bequin darkly.
'Proving that I'm losing my edge, I think/
'For shame!' muttered Nayl with a smile.
'So we're going to have an adventure, all of us. Just the few of us. Remember what those were like, Aemos?'
'Frankly, I'm still not over them, Gregor, but yes/
'Alizebeth?'
Bequin crossed her arms ill-humouredly. 'Oh, I'd just love to come and watch you get killed…'
We're all agreed, then?' I said. I can't help being deadpan. Gorgone Locke made sure of that. But my delivery was good enough to get Nayl and Medea raucous with laughter and Aemos chuckling.
Aliz
ebeth Bequin grinned despite herself.
Two missions, as I said. After this briefing, I'll allow you to recruit a few personnel from the staff. Nayl – a fighter or two you can count on. Aemos – an astropath we can use without worry. Alizebeth – one or two from the Distaff. A maximum of ten in the party, all told. No more, you understand? Argue it out between yourselves. Don't bring me into it. We leave in two days, and I don't want to even hear about any arguments second hand/
'So what are the missions?' asked Medea, lounging back in her padded chair and slipping her long legs over the arm. She took a long swig of her weedwine and added, 'You said two, right?'
Two/
I pushed a stud on a data wand in my hand and a hololithic screen fogged into life over the table. The words of the message I'd received before the start of the tumult on Thracian were displayed in shimmering letters: 'Scalpel cuts quickly, eager tongues revealed. At Cadia, by terce. Hound wishes Thorn. Thorn should be sharp/
'Shit!' cried Nayl.
'Is that authentic?' Medea asked, looking at me.
'It is/
'God-Emperor, he's in trouble, he needs us…' Bequin murmured.
Very probably. Medea, you have to arrange transit for us to Cadia. That's the first port of call/
'What's the second?' asked Aemos.
The second?'
The second mission?'
I looked at them all. 'We all know how serious the Cadian matter is. But I made a vow to Gideon. I want to find out what was behind the outrage here. I want to find it, hunt it out and punish it/
You know, it's funny how things turn out.
It was late, and we were devouring a splendid meal Jarat had prepared for us. Nayl was telling a devastatingly crude joke to Aemos, Medea and
Bequin and I were talking over the rearrangement of the Distaff and the missions ahead.
I think she was feeling excited. Like me, she'd been taking a back seat for too long.
Kircher came up the terrace, entering the filmy green light.
'Sir, you have a visitor.'
'At this hour, who?'
'He says his name is Inshabel, sir. Interrogator Nathun Inshabel.'
Inshabel was waiting for me in the library.
'Interrogator. Has my staff offered you refreshment?'
'None needed, sir.'
Very well… so to what do I owe this visit?'
Inshabel, no more than twenty-five, pushed his thick blond hair out of his eyes and looked at me fiercely. 'I… I am masterless. Roban is dead…'
'God-Emperor rest him. He will be missed.'
'Sir, do you ever think what it would be like if you died?'
The notion stopped me in my tracks. I had, in all honesty, never considered it.
'No, Inshabel. I haven't.'
'It's a terrible thing, sir. As Roban's senior acolyte it falls to me to disburse his staff, his fortune, his knowledge. I'm left to tidy up, as it were. I have to make sense of Roban's estate.'
You will not fail in that duty, interrogator, of that I'm sure/
He smiled weakly. Thank you, sir. I had… I had thought to come to you, and beg you to take me on. I so very much want to be an inquisitor. My master is dead, and I know that your own… your own interrogator is…'
'Indeed. I choose my own staff, of course. I-'
'Inquisitor Eisenhorn. Begging you to take me on as a driftwood student was not why I came here. As I said, I had to close up Roban's estate. That meant filing and authorising the pathologica statement of his death. Inquisitor Roban was killed by a cargo servitor manipulated by a rogue psyker.'
'Yes?'
'So to complete the papers, I had to review the death notice of Esarhad-don so as to establish causal motive/
That is the procedure/1 admitted.
The statement was very brief. Esarhadon's corpse was burnt from the calves upwards and utterly immolated. As in the incidents of spontaneous human combustion, the relics left by the plasma weapon were little more than the flesh and bones of the feet and ankles. Just bare vestiges/
'And?'
There was no Malleus brand on the ankle flesh/
'It– What..?'
'I don't know who Inquisitor Lyko burned on the lawns of the Lange house… but it wasn't the heretic Esarhaddon/
NINE
Eechan, six weeks later.
A word with the Phant.
Knives in the night.
The bicephalic minder in the squalid doorway of the twist bar regarded us with one of his lice-ridden heads, while the other glazed out, smoking an obscura pipe.
'Not your place, not your kind. Get on/
The sap rain was falling heavily on our heads through the rotten awning, and I had little wish to stand in it any longer. I nodded a sidelong glance to my companion, who tugged back his hood and showed the minder the cluster of malformed, winking eyes that mottled his cheek and ran down his pallid throat. I raised my own damp cloak and revealed the knot of stunted tentacles that sprouted from an extra sleeve slit under my right armpit.
The minder got off his stool, one head nodding dozily. He was big, broad and tall as an ogryn, and his greasy skin was busy with tattoos.
'Hnh…' he muttered, limping around us as he sized us up. 'Maybe then. You didn't smell like twists. Okay…'
We went inside, down a few dark steps into a nocturnal club room that was fogged with obscura smoke and pulsing with a brand of harsh, discordant music called 'pound'. Panes of red glass had been put over the lights of the lanterns and the place was a hellish swamp, like the damnation paintings of that insane genius Omarmettia.
Mal-forms, deforms, halfbreeds and underscum huddled or gambled or drank or danced. On a raised stage, a naked, heavy-breasted, eyeless girl
with a grinning mouth where her navel should have been gyrated to the pound beat.
We reached the bar, a soiled curve of hardwood under a series of hard white lights. The barkeep was a bloated thing with bloodshot eyes and a black snake tongue that flickered between his wet, slit mouth and rotting teeth.
'Hey, twist. What will it be?'
'Two of those/ I said, pointing to clear grain-alcohol shots that a waitress was carrying past on a tray. She would have been beautiful except for the yellow quills stippling her skin.
Twists. We were all twists here. 'Mutant' is a dirty word if you're a mutant. They delight in referring to themselves by the Imperium's glibbest and most detrimental slang, as a badge of honour. It's a pride thing, a common habit with any underclass. Non-telepaths do it when they call themselves 'blunts'. The tall, slender people of low-grav Sylvan do it when they call themselves 'sticks'. A slur's not a slur if you use it on yourself.
Labour laws on Eechan permit twists to work as indentured labourers in the industrial mill-farms and the sap distilleries, provided they abide by the local regime and keep themselves to the licensed shanty towns huddled in the skirts of the bad end of Eechan mainhive.
The barkeep slapped two heavy shotglasses down on the counter and filled them to the brim with grain liquor from a spouted flask.
I tossed a couple of coins down and reached for my drink.
The bloodshot eyes leered at me.
'What's this? 'Perial coins? Come now, twist, you know we ain't allowed to trade in those.'
I paused. A glance down the counter showed me that the rest of the clientele were paying in mill-authorised coupons or nuggets of base metal. And that they were all staring and scowling at us. A basic mistake, right off the bat.
My companion leaned forward and sipped his drink. 'Don't get fret with two thirsty twists who's happened to have lucked into a good black score, eh?'
The barkeep smiled and his black tongue flickered. He scooped up the coins. Ain't no fret, twist. You earn 'em, I'll take 'em. Just sayin' you might not want to go flashing 'em, s'all/
We took our drinks away from the bar, looking for a table. It had taken six weeks to reach Eechan, and I was impatient for a lead.
The beat chang
ed. Another pound number began pumping through the underfloor speakers, which to my untutored ears was simply a variation in auditory assault. But the crowd clapped and roared approval. The naked girl with the grinning stomach began rotating her hips the other way.
'I have a feeling I should be leaving this to you,' I whispered to my companion.
'You're doing fine.'
'"Don't get fret, twist…". for God-Emperor's sake… where did you learn to talk like that?'
You never hung with twists?'
'Not like this…'
'So I'm guessin' you don't s'love that genejack pound beat, twist?'
'Stop it or I'll shoot you.'
Harlon Nayl grinned and blinked with all his sixteen eyes in mock offence.
'Sup up, twist. If that ain't Phant Mastik, I'll poke my eyes out.'
'Oh, let me,' I hissed, and slugged back my shot. 'Raise 'em and sink 'em and let's have another!' I grimaced to myself as the burning spirit scalded down my oesophagus, and then scooped two more drinks from the tray of the porcupine girl as she sashayed past.
Phant Mastik sat with his cronies in a side booth. Generations of rad-storm mutation had made him an obese thing with wrinkled flesh and enlarged features. His ears were frayed fan-like swathes of veiny skin and his nose was a drooping proboscis. An incongruous tuft of thick red hair decorated his neanderthal brow.
His eyes were deep-set and black.
And sad, I thought. Tremendously sad.
He was drinking from a big tankard by snorting the alcohol up through his dangling nose. His mouth, distorted by tusk-like jags of tooth, was useless. A twist whore, with an unnecessary number of arms, was sipping her drink, smoking an obscura stick, retouching her makeup and doing something to Phant under the table that he was clearly enjoying.
We approached.
Phant's minders got up immediately to block us. A homed brute and a twist whose entire head was a wrinkled skin hood for an outsized eye. They both reached into their robes.
'How you tonight, twists?' puffed Horn-brute.
We fine. No fret, just s'gotta talk to the Phant,' said Nayl.