by Dan Abnett
"It was peculiar," said Thonius. In truth, he could remember little about it. The memory of pain eclipsed just about everything else. But he had a feeling of being stretched from within, hollowed out. He was exhausted.
"I'm exhausted too," Ravenor said. "It saps me, especially over such a distance. And... in such traumatic circumstances."
Thonius swallowed. "My arm. Where... where is my arm?"
"Back where it should be," said Zarjaran.
Thonius looked down at himself for the first time. His entire right arm was swathed in dressings, with many drug-shunt tubes and wound-drains curling out of it. But they were his fingers protruding from the binding gauze.
"We were able to re-attach it..." the medicae began.
"Doctor Zarjaran is being modest," said Ravenor. "He spent sixteen hours on you with micro-servitors."
Zarjaran bowed his head slightly.
"It's early days, interrogator," he said. "But I think the regraft is taking. You might have some long-term loss of function, but the injury was surprisingly clean."
"Be thankful." Mathuin growled, "that the men of the Slaughter Guild take pride in keeping their blades astonishingly sharp."
Thonius tried to flex his fingers, but he could not.
Then he looked up. "Sixteen hours, you said. How long have I been out?"
"Two days," said Ravenor.
"What have I missed?"
"Little. Nayl and Kara are on the surface, looking for Siskind. I withdrew everyone else. Everyone who might have been connected to the incident."
"What about... Kinsky and his friends?"
"I've yet to talk to them," said Ravenor.
"He's making them sweat," said Mathuin.
Someone was crying. Zael could hear the sobbing sound echoing up through the hab-stack. It was still dark, early. He got out of his little cot into the pre-dawn chill and crept out of the backroom he shared with his sister. Nove's bed was empty. She hadn't been back that night.
Grandma was asleep in the family room, snoring a phlegmy snore. Zael could smell the sharp stink of glue. There was a light on, a single glow-globe over the cupboard. It illuminated the little effigy of the God-Emperor that granna kept there.
The sobbing wasn't granna either, though it had been on many nights. It was coming from outside. The stack landing. Zael padded forward, through the kitchen to the door. Through the frosted glass, he could see a figure pressed against the door, head bowed. He could hear the ragged sobbing now. He could even see how each sob gusted brief condensation over the other side of the glass. "Nove?"
The crying continued. "Sis? Is that you?" More sobs.
"Nove? What's happened?"
The crying ebbed. A bare hand splayed flat against the glass, pressed tight, imploring.
"Nove? You're scaring me..."
The door handle turned slowly and released. It did it again. Zael saw the dead bolt was thrown.
Let me in...
"Nove? Answer me. Is it you?"
Let me in, Zael...
Zael remembered the stories going round the stack. Raiders, in the night, knocking up poor families, breaking in...
There was nothing to steal here. But, the stories said, the raiders didn't just want to steal...
"Nove?"
Zael... let me in...
"Tou're not my sister," Zael said, backing away. He looked around for a weapon. There was a blunt paring knife on the sink-edge. He grabbed it.
Something to tell you...
"What?"
Something he needs to know...
"Who?"
Let me in... he must know...
"Go away!"
The handle turned again. Then the nurl of the dead bolt began to rattle to and fro.
"Go away!"
The dead bolt began to slide back.
"Go away!" Zael yelled. "Granna! Come quick! Granna!"
But... oh, now, that was right. His granna was dead.
And this was all... all...
The bolt slunked back and the door began to open.
Zael shrieked.
Kys slapped his cheek hard and he fell onto the metal deck. "What the hell's the matter with you, boy?" she said.
Zael looked up at her, blinking. He was in the corridor. The door to his cabin was open behind him, and he'd dragged most of his bed-roll cover out into the hallway after him.
"I..." he began.
"I was asleep, and I heard you screaming," Kys said harshly. Then she sighed, and crouched down beside him. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to hit you. I didn't know what else to do."
"I..." he said again. "I had a bad dream."
"Right."
Involuntarily, Zael wrapped his arms tight around Kys. She flinched and went stiff. Slowly, though gently, she pried his arms away from her.
"Look, boy. I'm not a people person."
"My name is Zael."
"Yeah, I knew that. Zael." Kys nodded, though until that moment she'd been struggling to remember the kid's name. "You had a bad dream. We all do. Damn, you wanna try being psy. Then you get bad dreams you didn't order."
She became aware he was staring up at her. He looked so young. "It's fine. Honestly," she said. "Wanna tell me about it?"
"It was my sister."
"Throne, Zael, I have sisters. I know how scary that can be."
"My sister is dead."
"Oh."
"She was knocking on my door. She wanted to come in."
"Right. Real nightmare stuff. I've had shit you-" She stopped and looked at him again. "You don't want to hear that. You need to sleep. Come on."
She rose and hoisted him up. "Pick up your bedding," she said.
He scooped his bedroll up. She led the way into his cabin. He shrank back when he saw she'd pulled a dagger.
"What's that for-"
"Shhhhh!" she said, a finger to her lips. Warily, she looked under the cot, then threw open the closet, then leapt into the shower room, blade raised.
"Just checking for monsters. None here. It's safe."
He smiled. "That was really silly," he said.
She shrugged and sheathed her blade. "Frig it, I said I wasn't a people person. Go to bed."
"Okay."
"And next time you have a bad dream..."
"Yes?"
"Wake some other bastard, will you?"
"Okay."
Kys walked out of Zael's cabin and shut the hatch. She was about to turn away when she paused. She stretched out a long finger and ran the tip of it through the thawing film of frost that surrounded the hatch frame.
She felt the unmistakable buzz of psychic energy.
She walked quickly back to her own cabin and activated the intership vox.
"Ravenor?"
"Make it quick. I'm busy," Ravenor said. He was gliding down the main dorsal corridor of deck three. Kys had to double-time to keep up.
"It's the boy."
"Zael?"
"Yeah, Zael."
"What about him?"
"He's borderline psy... maybe nascent. Growing too..."
"I know."
"You know?"
"Patience, why in the name of Terra would I have brought him from Eustis and made him welcome here if I didn't think he had potential?"
"Well, I wondered..."
"The boy was picking my transmissions up on Eustis Majoris. He's clearly sharp. I want to examine him further, when time permits."
Kys nodded. "But, if he's sharp... he could be dangerous. Shouldn't you hand him over to the Black Ships for processing?"
"No. He's sharp, but he's passive sharp. Not active. I can read that much. He's a reflector. An echoer. I don't think he's going to turn into a Kinsky. Or a Ravenor. But I want to know what he's absorbed. Recorded, if you will. Of all the flect users we traced on Eustis, he was the only psyker."
"I think he could be trouble," Kys said.
Ravenor swung his bulky chair round to face her. "I think so too, Patience. But I'll decide. It's my call. He'
s here because I say so."
"All right."
"Now go away," Ravenor said.
"Why?"
"Because I'm about to speak with the Ministry agents, and I don't want you to kill them."
"Fine," she said. And strode away.
The hatch hissed open and Ravenor hovered through. Ahenobarb was sitting at the end of the long conference table, his chin on his arms. Kinsky was leaning back in his seat, flicking nuts from a bag up into his mouth. Lost kernels dotted the floor. Madsen rose as Ravenor entered.
"This is cooperation?" she said.
+Shut up and sit down.+ Madsen sat down immediately, as if struck.
Kinsky flicked another nut into the air. It missed his mouth. Without looking at Ravenor, he said, "Pull another psy play like that, inquisitor, and I will face you down. Do you understand me?"
He flicked another nut. It went up... and then hovered in the air over his open mouth.
"I believe it's you who must come to understand the way of things now, Kinsky. You are here to help, not to lead. To advise, not to demand. This is my ship. You are guests. This is my case, you are allies of the Inquisition."
Ravenor let the nut fall. Kinksy flicked it aside with his hand and got up.
"Very slick. Very tough. You want to go now? You and me?"
"Sit down, Kinsky." Madsen snapped.
"You and me, you frigging crip!"
"Sit down, Kinsky! Now!" Madsen shouted.
Kinsky sat.
"Inquisitor," Madsen said. "I wish to apologise for the actions of my team. Kinsky's confrontation just then was out of line, but I'm sure you know how volatile it can be with psykers."
Ravenor stayed silent so Madsen went on.
"On the surface, our procedures... I understand they sparked a situation. And that resulted in injury to one of your team."
"It did."
"How is Interrogator Thonius?"
"Alive. Reunited with his arm."
Madsen leaned forward. Her eyes were clear and honest. "I'm glad. Inquisitor, may I talk with you privately?"
"Perhaps. Just be happy I didn't allow agent Kys to attend this meeting. She would have killed all three of you."
"She would have tried..." Ahenobarb chuckled.
Then he froze and reached towards his neck, gagging.
Ravenor released him. "She would have succeeded. I have never known anyone as murderous as Patience Kys. You three would be offal by now if I'd let her have her way. Madsen... outside."
Madsen rose. Swinging round, Ravenor gazed back at Kinsky. "You bested me before, Mr. Kinsky. Well done. But you were right there and I was at my range limit from orbit. Do not... not for one moment... expect a rematch to be so easy. I will burn out your mind in an instant."
"Whatever," said Kinsky. The nut he had just thrown up turned in mid-air, shivered, and smacked off his cheek with a bulleting force.
"Whatever indeed," said Ravenor.
Wystan Frauka was waiting for them outside. Madsen shivered as she sealed the door behind them and faced Ravenor.
"Wystan?" Ravenor said politely.
Frauka deactivated his limiter. He plucked a lho-stick from his card pack and lit it, looking bored.
Ravenor faced Madsen. "No more chances, Mamzel Madsen. You work with me or I ditch you."
"I understand. Kinsky is a loose cannon and-"
"No, he is not. He is a powerful psyker who should be enclosed in the bosom of the Guild Astropathicus, and not freelanced as a governmental pawn. Ahenobarb is just a minder. You, to me, are the mystery."
"Me?" she said.
"You, Madsen. You are clearly in charge of this Ministry team. I know why I should be wary of the psyker, and his brute minder. But they answer to you. Therefore you worry me."
"I assure you-"
"I don't even know your given name."
"Lusinda Madsen. Happy now?"
"No. Work with me, in all manner of effort, Lusinda Madsen, or I will eject you and your allies into the void."
She straightened up and faced him. "You would not dare. I am here by the authority of the lord subsector."
"Yes, you are. I am here by the authority of the Ordos Helican. This far out, on the verges of Lucky Space, who would know... who would care... if I had you three voided from an airgate?"
Lusinda Madsen smiled then. She said, "I think we understand each other, sir."
But Ravenor thought... a smile. What a strange reaction.
"There he is," said Nayl. He opened the chipped driver's door window of the cargo-8 they sat in so they could get a better look across the crowded street.
"You sure?" Kara asked.
Nayl nodded. It had taken him a few hours of quiet questions and a roll of never-to-be-seen-again cash to get the skinny on Shipmaster Siskind from the traders in Tusk Verge. Trade custom along the Western Banks was notoriously tight-lipped, as Kys' team had discovered, and Nayl and Kara had found on their own foray north. The moot-coast prided itself on being just outside rigid Imperial law, and was never happy to be pumped for answers.
But the uproar during the moot had changed that. Ironically, Nayl had benefited from the mess Thonius had been at the centre of. The locals were in mortified disarray, the slaughterbaron had suspended trading. There was unrest and rancour. The off-world traders felt edgy and vulnerable suddenly, not knowing whether to risk waiting until the moot re-opened or to get out while they were still able. What's more, a shipman had been murdered in the firefight. As a result, the traders were closing ranks, and exchanging protective gossip, tipping one another off to slaughterman guild inspections. Nayl's questions had seemed just part of that process.
"That's Siskind definitely. Red hair, glass jacket, pale tan ATV with red panels on the mudguards."
"He's rolling," said Kara.
Nayl saw it. He turned the cargo-8's engine over, got a throaty rev or two, and then edged out from the street-side after the tan ATV as it nudged down the thoroughfare through the bustling pedestrians.
The morning was cold and set fair. An emaciated lemon sun ached through the flat grey sky over the shore. There was a strong wind in off the sea. The town of Tusk Verge seemed dismal and bleak, filled up with people who had no wish to be there.
Siskind's ATV turned east through the town and followed the walled roads up towards the commerce fields. It picked up a little speed as it left behind the more crowded streetways. "Not too close," Kara said. "Oh, please..."
Still, he idled back, and allowed a trader's articulated cargo-12 and a billowing dung-wagon to get in between their vehicle and the ATV.
The dung-wagon turned off towards the highway viaduct. A few minutes later, the cargo-12 pulled to the right and grumbled down a causeway into the eastern loading docks of the moot pens. Nayl drove on through their dust and followed Siskind's ATV out onto the windswept commerce fields that occupied the high pastures above the moot-town. Here, even during the day, canfires burned, marking out landing plots along with heavy-duty mechanised beacon posts that had been hammered into the dry soil. On almost all of the wide plots sat a freighter, cargo doors agape. Inter-orbit lifters of every size and design were ranged along the commerce field plots, often with small fliers and landers parked next to them. Crews lounged about, bored, smoking, drinking.
Nayl eased back again, as if he was about to turn in to one of the plots. The ATV bellied on ahead, heading up to the north end of the landing field.
They followed, slowly. The tan ATV turned right and slewed to a halt in front of the jaw-doors of an ancient bulk lifter that sprawled across its appointed plot like a wallowing hippo. Its entire rust-riveted bulk was raised from the scorched ground on six vast hydraulic legs.
Nayl pulled them over and they sat and watched. The ATV drove up to the foot of the bulk lifter's ramp and paused, allowing Siskind to jump down. Sunlight flashed on the links of his glass jacket. As he began to converse with the dynast-appointed lander man, the ATV revved again and nosed up into the belly of the lifte
r. Expressing steam, the vehicle's huge cargo doors began to close.
"He's leaving," Kara said.
"Let's go," agreed Nayl.
Nayl killed the engine and they jumped out either side of the truck. Siskind was still arguing with the local plot official. A dispute over landing tariffs, perhaps. Kara and Nayl ran up along the adjacent plot, keeping a battered old Latimar Ind bulker between them and Siskind's lifter.
It was a long run. Each plot was about three hundred metres long. By the time they had reached the far end of the plot and had turned in and behind Siskind's vessel, it was raising thrusters and sealing for take-off. Siskind, distant now, was turning from the argument with a dismissive shrug and heading for the gangway. He jogged his way up it, and sealed the hatch behind him. The automated gangway retracted into the bulk lifter's flank and heat-shield armour extruded to cover its socket.
The roar of the lifter's power plant rose abruptly by a factor of ten. There was a fierce downrush of jetted air and AG repulsion that Kara and Nayl could feel even from the edge of the plot. It was suddenly like trying to walk into a gale. Dust and dry grass kicked up in a blizzard. The lifter began to rise, arduously, into the air, creating a heat-haze distortion between itself and the soil.
Shielding his face, Nayl raised the heavy-gauge coil-bow he'd been carrying and aimed it up at the ship, into the deluge. Kara shouted something he couldn't hear. He pulled the trigger and fired the bow, feeling the solid kick of the coil-spring. A direct hit impacted on the belly line of the ascending cargo ship. A direct hit that went completely unfelt by the ship's crew.
The bow-shot load had been custom made. A wad of adhesive suspension coating a disk of very special material. Wraithbone.
Siskind's lifter rose into the morning air, nose dipped, gouted black smoke, swung heavily to its left and then turned and began to climb on full down-thrust, its burner-flares blue-white. Rapidly, it became just another dot leaving a contrail in the flat grey sky. Nayl keyed his link. "Mr. Halstrom?"
"Mr. Nayl?" the vox contact crackled. "On your scopes, I trust?"
"Tracking it now."