[Ravenor 01] Ravenor - Dan Abnett

by Dan Abnett

  Approaching Preest, he turned her a deft bow.

  "Do I have the habit of acquainting Shipmistress Zeedmund?" he said. Though he was making an effort to affect a tone of high-born class, he could not disguise the common twang in his voice, nor the fact that Low Gothic was not his native tongue.

  "I am Zeedmund," said Preest.

  "I am most audible to meet you," said the little master. I tried to scan him, but realised he was wearing some type of blocker. "Mistress, what say we chivvy us up some appendable tenders, attire ourselves some disgustable comestibles, and revive to a private booth for interculation?"

  Preest smiled at him. "Why... would we do that?"

  "It has been brought to my apprehension by the Vigilants that you are in the marketplace, so to speak, for suggestive retail propositioning. In that rearguard, I am your man."

  "Really," Preest said. "Who are you?"

  "Milady, my mamzel... I am Sholto Unwerth. Do not be deceived by my diminutive stature. I may not stand tall, but I cast, so to speak, a long shadow. And that shadow is entirely made up of trade."

  He said the last with emphasis, as if we should be struck with wonder at his pitch. We were, though it's fair to say not for the reasons he hoped.

  "Do you want me to get rid of him?" I heard Nayl whisper to Preest.

  Unwerth heard him too. He held up a hand, the chunky fingers splayed. "Now, now. There's no need for musculature."

  Nayl glared at him. Unwerth tugged his own earlobe. "I miss nothing, eaves-wise. Ears as sharp as pencils, me. No, no. All fair. If Mistress Zeedmund here finds me an abject increment in her affiliations, and wants no more of me, all she has to overtake is a word in my general. A simple ingratitude from her, and I will be, so to speak, out of your air. Without any requisite for shoving, slapping or harsh language. On the however hand, if what I have so far expleted trickles her fancy, I would be most oblate to dispell some more, at her total inconvenience, on the subject of what I have pertaining in my cargo hold."

  "A moment. Master Unwerth," Preest said.

  "By all means, have a sundry of them," he said.

  Preest turned to Nayl and me. "He's just the thing. Trust me on this. I know how places like this are. Can't you just smell the desperation? He's so hungry for trade, his tongue's going to be a lot looser than most around here."

  "It's your call," I said.

  "Just hang around and look bored," Preest said.

  "Not a problem." Nayl growled.

  "Master Unwerth." Preest announced, turning back to face him. "I would be delighted to discuss potential trade opportunities with you."

  He looked stunned for a moment. "Really?" he mouthed. Even his manhound temporarily lost its dejected expression. Unwerth recovered fast. "Well, I'm ensconced by your cordium. It quite inflates me. Let us revive at once to a booth and digress in private."

  He became quite animated, leading us through the crowd and up one of the marble staircases to the first gallery. As he went, he summoned tenders and made a great show of ordering up a handsome dinner. We followed. As it turned to fall into step with us, the manhound gave me a long-suffering shrug that quite warmed me to it.

  Unwerth found a free booth and pulled himself up onto one of the seats. Preest stepped down off her carriage and sat opposite him. Already, tenders were arriving with trays of sweetmeats, savouries and drinks. The manhound went to sit down beside its master, but Unwerth glanced at it sharply and hissed, "Not on the furniture, Fyflank."

  Rebuked, it curled up on the floor outside the booth and began to scratch its neck lugubriously with a hind-claw, causing a slapping ripple to travel up its overhanging jowls.

  One of them - Unwerth or Preest - activated a pict-opaque field, and Nayl and I were left outside to guard the carriage. We leaned the canopy poles against the wall. The manhound looked at us, then settled its chin on its paws and began to doze.

  I followed Harlon to the gallery rail and we looked out across the salon.

  "This is taking a long time..." he said.

  "I never expected this to be quick." I replied. "Or easy. I have faith in Cynia. We take her skills as a pilot for granted. It's about time we made use of her skills as a trader."

  "Maybe. Kara okay?"

  "Yes. I can sense her. She's in and moving."

  "That's something."

  He was about to say something else when mere was a sudden commotion on the salon floor below us. The manhound raised its head sleepily. Nayl and I straightened up from the rail for a clearer view.

  A fight had broken out. The crowds of merchants drew back to give it room, peering at the action. In a few scant seconds, Vigilants had appeared, swords drawn, and formed a cordon around the fracas. I expected them to stop it, but they didn't. They simply kept the crowds at bay. It seemed that any physical dispute was allowed to find its own resolution, provided those involved stuck to the station rules about weapons.

  There were four combatants: a slender human trader with a mane of frizzy white hair, dressed in a long, grey blastcoat, his two skin-gloved bodyguards, and a big brute wearing carapace armour that looked as if it had been made from mother-of-pearl. The armoured man was bare-headed. He had a stripe of bleached hair running across his scalp and his face was threaded with old scars. His nose and ears were just nubs of gristle. He was swinging a power maul in his left hand.

  The trader, screaming out to the crowd and the Vigilants for sympathy and help, was trying to stay out of the actual clash. His minders had drawn short swords and wore buckler shields on their left wrists. The armoured brute took one out almost at once, leaving the man twitching on the deck, his body crackling with dissipating electrical charge. The onlookers clapped and whistled.

  The other bodyguard flashed in, stabbing with his sword and deflecting the maul with his buckler. The sword made no dent whatsoever on the pearl armour. Ducking under a final, desperate stab, the armoured man swung the maul in hard and connected with the minder's face. The minder slammed backwards, turning an almost complete backflip. He was dead, of that I was certain. The electrical charge of the maul was enough to incapacitate, but the physical blow alone had crushed his skull.

  More approval from the crowd.

  His bodyguard down, the trader turned and tried to flee. The Vigilants pushed him back into the open. As the armoured man came charging towards him, uttering a bellicose yell, the trader frantically reached into his blast-coat and pulled a revolver.

  One of the Vigilants turned and broke from the cordon with stunning speed. His sword whistled down in an elegant slice and severed the trader's hand at the wrist. Hand and gun hit the deck and bounced.

  A half-second later, the power maul had laid the trader out. Holstering his maul in a leather boot across his back, the armoured man grabbed the trader's convulsing, sparking body and held it up with one hand, the frizzy white hair pulled back to reveal the man's face to the crowd. With his other hand, the armoured man raised a warrant slate that displayed a hololithic picture of me trader's face.

  The crowd began to boo and jeer, returning to their business. The cordon broke up, and the Vigilants gathered up the fallen bodies.

  "Bounty hunter," Nayl said.

  "Yeah?"

  "You saw him flash the warrant. This place is crawling with hunters. They're looking for absconders and evaders. My guess is they locate them here and then either pick them up once they leave or... if they're bold like Worna there... take 'em down in public."

  "You know him?" I asked. It was silly question. Nayl had been a bounty man himself for many years. He knew the industry, and its more notable players.

  "Lucius Worna? Of course. Been in the game fifteen decades. Piece of shit."

  "And there are others around?"

  "Everywhere. We've been scanned at least six times since we came in. Hunters check everyone out. They never know who they might run into in a place like this."

  I was alarmed. I hadn't noticed. Waring a body like Mathuin, I expended a lot of my power si
mply controlling the form. It deprived me of the full scope of abilities I enjoyed in person. Suddenly, I felt vulnerable. I understood Nayl's worried state.

  This was a dangerous place.

  The solar flashes were coming so frequently now that Halstrom had dimmed the bridge screen resolution. He remained seated in the mistress' throne, running and rerunning diagnostic checks on the main console display to take his mind off the wait. Ravenor's chair was just a silent shape, immobile.

  Thonius had crossed to Frauka, and the two men were playing virtual regicide on a hololith repeater. Kys watched them. Thonius accepted another of Frauka's lho-sticks and they carried on, smoking, playing, chatting quietly.

  Frustrated, Kys paced up and down the main aisle of the bridge between the consoles for a while. She was so bored, she even stepped into the vacant Navigator's socket to try it out for comfort.

  "Please, don't do that." Halstrom called.

  Kys looked at him.

  "Even on my watch. Twu is very particular about his socket."

  Kys sniffed and got out. "Aren't we all?"

  She wandered back to Halstrom.

  "You're bored," he observed.

  "No. Oh, all right, yes. But edgy too."

  "I know what you mean." Halstrom smiled. Almost involuntarily, he flicked up another screen display. "See that?"

  "Un huh," she said. "What is it?"

  "Haven't the faintest," he replied. "Just a bunch of figures and runes. I keep punching it up, looking at it, but... no idea what it means."

  She looked at him. "You're joking."

  Halstrom grinned. "Of course I am. It's the atmosphere post-process chart. But the point is made. I'm just filling time. Is it always like this?"

  "What?"

  "Work. Your work. As a Throne agent I thought it would be exciting. Cloak and dagger stuff. We don't get to sample it much, us in the crew. You're down on planets, doing who knows what. We're up at anchor, waiting. I got quite excited when the inquisitor said we were going out hunting in Lucky Space. But it's... it's not really what I imagined."

  "Believe me, it often goes this way," Kys said. "Waiting, watching, getting jangly with nerves. Sometimes I think boredom is a more serious threat to us than heresy."

  Halstrom chuckled. "You must have devised coping strategies by now."

  "Must we?"

  "Of course."

  "You're the ones who do the waiting usually." Kys reminded him. "What do you do?"

  Halstrom waved his hand at the console display. "This, mostly."

  She sat on the arm of his throne. Behind them, Frauka won another game, and he and Thonius celebrated by lighting another pair of lho-sticks.

  Kys looked back at Halstrom. "What else do you do?" she asked.

  "We talk," he replied. "Reminisce. Preest is good at that. Her stories are wonderful. Have you heard any?"

  "No. I don't know her very well at all."

  "Magnus, the second helmsman, he's good value too. I get all my jokes from him. We talk about our lives and where we come from and so forth."

  "And it passes the time?"

  "Passes it fairly. We could try that, Mamzel Kys. I know nothing about you."

  "I know nothing about you, Mr. Halstrom."

  He sat up. "Mutual ignorance. I think that sounds like a grand place to start. You first, where were you born?"

  "Sameter, in the Helican sub."

  "Ah, dingy Sameter. I know it well."

  "You?"

  Halstrom shrugged. "My family comes from Hesperus, but I was born on Enothis."

  "That's a long way away. In the Sabbat Worlds."

  "Indeed. We travelled a lot. My father was in the Fleet, and I followed after him."

  Kys leaned back. "Into service, you mean? You were a captain once, weren't you?"

  "Yes," he said. Absently, he switched the display to another diagnostic graphic. "But it's my turn to ask. Is that your real name?"

  Kys shook her head. "It's my trophy name."

  "What does that mean?" asked Halstrom.

  "I thought we were taking it in turns?"

  "This is still my turn. What's a trophy name?"

  "It's one you get given when you're a trophy. Terra, Mr. Halstrom! You think Patience Kys is a genuine name?"

  "I did wonder. It sounded rather... how can I put it?"

  "Ridiculous?"

  "No, no... I was shooting for theatrical."

  Kys laughed. "My sisters and I were all given names. It was part of the game."

  Halstrom turned in his seat to look straight at her. "Game? I get the impression from your tone that this game was far from pleasant. It may be something you don't wish to talk about-"

  "Correct."

  "But still," he shrugged. "If it's a name that you were given against your will, why would you keep it? Why don't you go back to your original name?"

  Kys thought before she answered. Her face went serious. "Because it keeps me sane to remember where I've been. And I made a promise, a long time ago, that the name wouldn't be forgotten."

  "Oh," Halstrom said.

  "I think that makes it my turn," Kys said. "Why aren't you a fleet captain anymore?"

  Halstrom sat back and closed his eyes. "I think your ground rules established that there are some things we don't wish to talk about."

  "No fair!" Kys said, slapping him harmlessly on the arm. "You can't dodge the question."

  "They're pretty," Halstrom said. "Are they a recent acquisition?"

  He was pointing at the glittering fish scales looped over her throat stud.

  "Thank you. Yes, they are. I picked them up on Flint. But you're avoiding my question again."

  "I know," he began. "I don't like to talk about-"

  Halstrom broke off. There had been a quick, choppy, blurt on the ship's intervox.

  Suddenly sharp, he leaned forward.

  "What was that?"

  "You tell me," Kys said, rising to her feet. Frauka and Thonius were still playing their game.

  Another blurt came across the speakers A scared voice, indecipherable, cut up by the intercom channel switching on and off.

  "What the hell..." Halstrom muttered.

  "Where's it coming from?" Kys asked.

  "Just checking," said Halstrom, running his fingers over the keys. Another blurt sounded. A frantic scratching and a low moan, broken by the switching click of the system.

  "Someone's trying to use the intervox. Fumbling with it..." Kys reasoned.

  "I've got the source." Halstrom told her. "Cabin eight fifteen."

  "Zael," she sighed. "I bet the little freak is having another nightmare."

  "We should-" Halstrom started to say. But Kys was already striding away towards the hatch.

  "Relax," she called over her shoulder. "I've got it."

  "Damn."

  "What's the matter, Harlon?" Ravenor asked. Nayl backed up from the rail, looking round. "What?" Ravenor asked again from Mathuin's mouth.

  "We're being scanned again," Nayl said. "I think someone's taken an interest."

  Behind them, the pict-opaque field dropped and Preest emerged. The manhound looked up at her as she strode past.

  "Anything useful?" Ravenor asked her.

  "Indeed. Let's move."

  Preest stepped up into her carriage and started sliding it forward. Ravenor and Nayl took up the canopy poles and muddled it into position.

  As they moved away along the gallery, Unwerth appeared from the booth. "Mistress!" he called out after them. "Mistress, are you concumplished that no exhilarated trade may partake between us? Mistress? I am most heartless in my disabusement!"

  "Ignore him," Preest said.

  "Fine," Nayl said. "I could even kill him, if that would help."

  "No need," she whispered. They moved down the stairs into the throng of the salon floor. "Master Unwerth has been most useful."

  "Go on," Ravenor said.

  "The Oktober Country is here. Unwerth has been pestering everyone, and tried it
on with Thekla earlier today. Attempted to get Thekla interested in the useless gee-gaws in Unwerth's cargo. Thekla gave him the brush off. See, I told you a dunce like Unwerth would be useful."

  "I'm impressed. What else?" Ravenor asked, keeping his voice low.

  "I asked him about flects, of course. Unwerth went coy. It's way out of his league. But he knew the basics. The cartel meets in the second salon. That's through here. And the man to speak to, according to Unwerth, is a merchant called Akunin."

  "Akunin? Anything else?"

  Preest paused and looked round at Mathuin's face.

  "You seem to want the world from me, Gideon. Haven't I just done terribly well?"

  "You have, Cynia. And I'm grateful. But we don't know anything about this Akunin. Agents of the Throne can't just march up to people and demand to be cut into the flect trade."

  "No, they don't." Preest admitted. "But rogue traders can. You've got the currency orders, Harlon?"

  "Inside my glove, mistress," Nayl said.

  "Well, unbutton and make ready. We're about to do business."

  The door of Zael's cabin was shut, but not locked. Kys slid it open and looked into the dark.

  "Zael? Zael, you freak? What are you playing at?"

  She heard a moan from over by the shower closet.

  "Zael? Are you all right?"

  Another soft moan.

  Kys stepped inside the cabin and reached for the lights. She pressed the activator, but nothing happened. Were they broken? Blown?

  Kys advanced into the darkness, her eyes adjusting. She could hear sobbing. The air was warm and damp.

  "Zael? Where in the name of frig are you?"

  Something moved in the gloom at the sound of her voice. She flinched, but it was just a body coiled on the floor.

  Kys reached down and found Zael. His breathing was fast and shallow. From the smell of it, he'd wet himself.

  "Zael? It's me. It's Patience. Get up."

  Zael just twitched.

  "Come on, you trigger. We have to get you cleaned up."

  She picked him up, and steered him towards the shower stall. Zael began to scream and thrash.

  Kys slammed his quaking form up against the wall and held it in place.