'Then how do we know the difference?' the grey man in the corner asked. 'We can hardly bring in every social and criminal organisation in the city for questioning.'
'That's a good point, sir,' I said. Even though I still didn't have a clue who he was, he sounded like someone in authority, and he'd had the sense not to speak until he had a specific question. Under the circumstances, I felt it best to be polite.
'But believe me, the problem won't be confined to the city. Chances are the cults will be established in every major population centre by now. If they're showing their hand openly it's because they think they're strong enough not to fear retaliation.'
'Or they're panicking,' Beije interrupted. 'Knowing that the wrath of the Emperor's servants is about to fall upon them—'
'Ought to drive them even deeper underground,' I pointed out mildly. He glared at me and shut up.
'The man in grey nodded. That much seems evident.' He turned to Vinzand, pointedly ignoring the rabble of aristos. 'I'll need to consult with the Arbites[24] and see if they've noticed anything out of the ordinary.'
'Of course, general,' Vinzand said, and I blessed the impulse to have been polite, this must be the commander of the local PDF. No doubt they'd be as undisciplined as most of their kind, but at least their leader looked as though he knew what he was doing.[25] Vinzand turned to Zyvan. 'Might I also suggest General Kolbe liaises with your people too? Your greater experience of these things might well prove helpful.'
'Indeed.' The lord general turned to me. 'Perhaps Commissar Cain could be prevailed upon to make the arrangements, since he and the general already have an acquaintance in common?'
Well you might think I'm pretty dense, but it was only at that point that the coin dropped, and the significance of the general's name became clear to me.
'How is your son?' I asked, hoping my guess was accurate. It was, as it turned out, gently enhancing my reputation for being on top of the little details.
Kolbe senior nodded. 'Recovering well, thank you.'
'I'm glad to hear it,' I said. 'He showed exemplary courage under extremely trying circumstances.'
General Kolbe swelled a little with paternal pride. I was to learn later that his youngest son's decision to join the praetors rather than the military had rankled for some time, and that the incident at the bridge had initiated a reconciliation that both would have been too stubborn to try for under other circumstances, so at least some good had come out of it. (Other than a pile of dead heretics, of course, which always brightens the day.) Out of the corner of my eye I could see Beije all but grinding his teeth at the sight of me hitting it off with yet another high ranker, which made the moment all the more enjoyable.
'Then that's settled,' Zyvan said. 'We'll arrange a joint intelligence committee to pool what information we have. The regent will be appraised of what we can determine at the appropriate time.'
'That's entirely unacceptable,' a new voice cut in as one of the overdressed fops stood up to lean on his lectern. Up until that point I'd almost forgotten they were there, to be honest; it was as if one of the chairs had had the temerity to interrupt. Zyvan frowned at him, like an eminent tragedian peering over the footlights to try and identify a drunken heckler. 'And who might you be?'
'Adrien de Floures van Harbieter Ventrious, of House Ventrious, rightful heir to the…' A sudden clamour of outrage from all the other parasites drowned the rest of his sentence and continued until Vinzand pointedly called the meeting to order.
'One of the members of the Council of Claimants,' he corrected, and Ventrious nodded tightly, conceding the point.
'For the moment, yes,' he said. 'And therefore entitled to be kept appraised of all that affects our world. Especially in the current dire circumstances. How else are we to reach a swift and effective consensus about what is to be done?'
'A point of order, if I may.' A pale, colourless youth in turquoise hose and a shirt trimmed with fur rose to his feet, his acne flaring with embarrassment, he caught Zyvan's eye and bowed awkwardly. 'Humbert de Truille of House de Truille. Um, I know I haven't been to many meetings and all, but, um, well, aren't there supposed to be, you know, emergency powers and stuff? So the regent can act without convening the council in, well, emergencies I suppose.'
'There are.' Vinzand nodded in confirmation. 'And your point is?'
Humbert flushed even more deeply. 'Well, it seems to me, um, this is sort of an emergency. Shouldn't you, you know, invoke them or whatever? So things don't get bogged down like they usually do?'
'Out of the question!' Ventrious thundered, striking his lectern, while several of the other drones nodded in approval. 'That would strike at the very heart of the reason for the council's existence. How am I…' he corrected himself hastily, 'is the eventual appointee supposed to govern effectively after being sidelined during the biggest crisis our world has ever faced?'
'A lot more effectively than he would after being slaughtered by heretics,' Zyvan said, his voice all the more resonant for not being raised. 'The lad's suggestion should be adopted.'
'Absolutely not,' another periwigged halfwit chimed in. 'House Kinkardi will not stand for it.'
'Nevertheless the proposal has been made,' Vinzand said mildly. 'All those in favour please indicate in the usual way.' The silken rabble prodded at runes on their lecterns, and an ancient hololith sparked into life over the stage, projecting three green dots and a rash of red ones into the air. Zyvan nodded slowly, taking in the result.
'Before you commit yourselves to your final vote, please bear in mind that the alternative is the imposition of martial law. Make no mistake, I have no desire to take so drastic a step, but I will do so if the alternative is to leave our forces hamstrung by a lack of clear leadership.' His voice had that ''damn the plasma bolts'' quality again, making several of the councillors quail visibly in their seats. Gradually the red dots began to change to green, although a few remained glaring defiantly red. Looking at Ventrious's face I had no doubt that his was one of them. 'The motion is carried,' Vinzand said, tactfully refraining from gloating at the result. 'Supreme executive authority is hereby transferred to the regent for the duration of the emergency.'
'Good.' Zyvan permitted himself a wintry smile. 'Then if you would be so good as to clear the chamber we can get to work.' A howl of outrage rose from the assembled aristocracy as it suddenly dawned on them that they'd voted themselves out of the loop.
'Gentlemen, please!' Vinzand tried vainly to restore order. 'This is most unseemly. Will the delegate from House Tremaki please withdraw that remark.'
'Allow me.' Zyvan gestured to our table. 'Commissars, would you be so kind as to escort the councillors into the foyer? They seem to need some fresh air.'
'With pleasure,' I responded, and three black-coated figures rose to their feet to back me up. Beije, I noted, was noticeably slower, trailing after the rest of us as we shepherded the aristos out of the room and closed the door on them, abruptly attenuating the noise.
'Good.' Zyvan relaxed for the first time since we'd arrived and sat back in his chair with every sign of satisfaction. 'Now let's hunt some heretics.'
FIVE
'When the traitor's hand strikes, it strikes with the strength of a legion.'
- Warmaster Horus (attributed)
TO MY GREAT delight, the extra duties Zyvan had so casually dropped in my lap kept me in Skitterfall for the better part of two weeks, making the most of the equitable temperatures, while Kasteen and Broklaw took the regiment off to our assigned staging area in the frozen wasteland of the dark side. As I'd expected, the troopers were in something of a holiday mood at the prospect of being back in sub-zero temperatures again, and this exuberance manifested itself in a steady stream of minor infractions which kept me busy enforcing discipline and placating a succession of bar owners, praetors, and aggrieved local citizens whose sons and daughters apparently found something irresistible about the contents of a Guard uniform. Fortunately, as always, the ever-reliable Jur
gen proved to be an invaluable buffer between me and the more onerous aspects of my job, politely informing most of my callers that the commissar was unavailable and would be dealing with whatever they were upset about at the earliest opportunity.
The positive aspect of all this was that, in the interests of appearing to be both interested and conscientious, I was able to visit a wide selection of bars and gambling dens in the guise of investigating these complaints while my aide dealt with the paperwork, and was thus able to discover a few congenial places to while away my leisure time far more quickly than I might otherwise have done.
Fortunately, by the end of the first week the troops had all been deployed, which left me free to concentrate on the more important matters of filtering the reports from the joint intelligence committee and taking full advantage of my impromptu recon sweeps. There was no way a single regiment could be expected to hold down an entire hemisphere on their own, so they were being held in reserve at a mining complex close to the equator where the dropships from the Emperor's Benificence could, in theory, rush them to wherever the approaching raiders looked like touching down before the invaders got there. Assuming the Tallarns or Kastaforeans didn't ask for them first, of course; that was a real headache for Zyvan, who kept harrying the rest of our task force to get their act together and join us as quickly as possible in an increasingly terse series of astropathic messages. Five regiments with which to defend an entire planet[26]was beginning to seem like a bad joke, less and less funny as the punch line got closer. The Tallarns naturally got the hot side to deal with, and I have to admit I was heartily pleased to see them go. I hadn't encountered either Beije or Asmar since the briefing in the council chamber, but the knowledge that they were the other side of the planet from our own regiment was a great relief. At least the sand-shufflers' abstemious habits meant that they were unlikely to turn up in the bars and bordellos frequented by our grunts, any more than a trooper from the 597th was likely to waste any of their R&R time going to church, so the brawls I'd been dreading never broke out. (At least not with the Tallarns. It went without saying that I was swapping datafiles with my opposite numbers at the 425th Armoured and the two Kastaforean regiments with monotonous regularity. Or I would have done if Jurgen hadn't been keeping on top of it for me, citing the pressing need to collate intelligence reports for the lord general to cover my absence.)
The 425th, to their evident disappointment, were stuck in Skitterfall for the foreseeable future instead of joining our people out on the glaciers, as Zyvan wanted the tanks to defend the capital when the raiders arrived. I couldn't fault his logic, as, at the time, it seemed to be the most likely target for the invaders to strike. The Kastaforeans, too, were deployed around the shadow zone, bolstering the PDF wherever they looked particularly weak (which to my apprehensive mind meant practically everywhere).
As things settled down, however, I began to find the assignment as congenial as could be expected. Whatever state of readiness his men might be in, and time alone would answer that, General Kolbe at least seemed competent enough. True, he'd never seen any actual combat, apart from a few occasions when the PDF had been mobilised by the Arbites to put down the sort of civil disorder that flares up from time to time pretty much anywhere in the Imperium, but he was methodical, incisive and bright enough to listen to advice. It was at his suggestion that we went back through the archives with the benefit of hindsight, trying to see if there was any possible link between some of those previous incidents and nascent cult activity.
'At least if we can find a connection, that'll give us some idea of how long they've been active on Adumbria,' he pointed out.
Zyvan nodded slowly. The three of us, Vinzand and Hekwyn, the senior arbitrator on the planet, were cloistered in a heavily-shielded conference suite in the high-class hotel Zyvan had commandeered as his headquarters. If nothing else the place was extremely comfortable, as befitted his status, and I'd lost no time in grabbing a room for myself there too. After all, I was supposed to be liaising closely with his staff, so it made perfect sense for me to hang around there now that my regiment was half a hemisphere away.
'Up to a point,' he agreed. 'Although it would be safest to assume they've been infiltrating here for a generation at least. Possibly several.' The three Adumbrians looked shocked at that, even more so as I concurred.
'It might be worth checking the starport records for the last century or two as well. Chances are that the local cult was founded by a handful of heretics arriving from offworld.'
Hekwyn, a stocky man with a shaven head and the pallid complexion of most Adumbrians, paled even further. 'That would be millions of names,' he said.
Vinzand nodded. 'Possibly as much as a billion,' he agreed drily, with the indifference to large numbers common to Administratum functionaries. He made a note on his datapad. 'I'll have my staff look into it. But frankly I'm not hopeful.'
'Neither am I,' I admitted. 'But right now we're critically short of hard data. Even a shred would help.'
'I'll have my people follow up from their end,' Hekwyn offered. 'We monitor the cargo areas closely, checking for contraband. It's possible we might have netted a heretic or two along with the smugglers.'
'Excellent.' Zyvan nodded. 'Any leads from your street sources?'
Hekwyn shrugged. 'Vague at best. There have been a few incidents, gang fights and the like, but if there's an agenda behind it the pattern's hard to read.'
'I'll take a look at it,' I said. My years of paranoia have given me the ability to sometimes see connections that others with a less finely honed survival instinct might miss. I turned to Kolbe. 'Any unusual incidents involving the PDF?'
'If you mean have we been infiltrated, nothing's come up so far to suggest that.'
His voice was level. 'But given the amount of time these heretics may have been active we have to assume that cultists have penetrated the command structure.' My respect for the man rose even more. Most PDF commanders in my experience would have been outraged at the idea, vehemently denying the possibility and refusing to allow a proper investigation.
'I meant have any of your units come under attack?' I said. Since the strike against the Tallarns four days ago we'd been braced for more similar incidents, but the second boot resolutely refused to drop. Of course we'd tightened security since then, so the heretics wouldn't find so soft a target again, but somehow I thought that was unlikely to deter them. With the Guard regiments on a state of alert and the PDF providing a plentiful supply of easy targets spread out across the entire shadow zone, they ought to be next in the firing line by any reasonable logic. Of course reason and logic aren't exactly high on the entry requirements for a Chaos cult, so second-guessing them is never going to be easy, unless you're as bonkers as they are.
Kolbe shook his head.
'Since you've raised the matter,' Zyvan said mildly, 'what precautions are you taking against infiltration?'
'We're running thorough background checks on every officer, starting at the highest level and working back down the chain of command.' He essayed a wintery smile. 'I'm pleased to report that so far I appear uncompromised.'
'And who investigated the investigators?' I asked, the palms of my hands beginning to tingle as a bottomless spiral of mistrust and suspicion began to open up beneath my feet.
Kolbe nodded. 'A good question. So far they've been investigating each other, two teams independently verifying the loyalty of a third. It's not infallible, of course, but it should go some way towards preventing fellow cultists covering for one another. If there are any there in the first place, of course.'
'Of course. And in the meantime they've got us chasing our own tails, diverting Emperor knows how many resources and man hours…' I broke off, suddenly sure that this was the main reason for the cultists alerting us to their presence by attacking the Tallarns in the first place. But if that was their agenda, we had to go along with it; any other course of action would be impossible. I voiced my suspicion and Zyvan nodded.
/>
'I'd come to the same conclusion.' He shrugged. 'But that's Chaos for you. A hidden agenda in even the most irrational-seeming action.' He sighed in irritation.
'Why is there never an inquisitor around when you actually need one?'[27]I kept quiet at that remark, having discovered more about the Inquisition and its methods than I'd ever wanted to know, since becoming Amberley's occasional cat's-paw, but reflected that just because you can't see them it doesn't necessarily mean they're not there. A thought which brought little comfort, stoking as it did the sense of paranoia that had already got me in its grip.
'We'll just have to do the best we can with what we've got,' I said, unsure as ever just how much Zyvan knew about my tangential activities as a reluctant agent of the Inquisition. He must certainly have been aware of the personal relationship between Amberley and myself, and he was definitely astute enough to realise that it probably went further than the merely social, but had never asked and I wasn't about to volunteer the information.'[28]
'Quite so.' Zyvan stood and stretched, walking around the conference table to the small one at the side of the room holding a pot of recaff, some tanna tea for me (which nobody else would touch, but he knew my fondness for the stuff and was considerate like that) and a selection of snack foods. It was a common enough thing for him to do, especially as the conference had already been going for over an hour, but this time it was to save his life. 'Can I get anything for anyone else while I'm up?'
[Caiphas Cain 03] The Traitor's hand Page 6