[Dark Heresy 02] - Innocence Proves Nothing

by Sandy Mitchell - (ebook by Undead)

  Keira tried to fight his will, battering it down as she had done the rogue psyker aboard the Misericord, but the effort was futile; the inquisitor’s mind was honed, sanctified by the Emperor, and infinitely more powerful. She found herself moving with no more volition than a clockwork toy, an impotent and furious passenger in her own body, sheathing the sword and turning towards the door.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Karnaki said, “once I’ve been able to confirm the conclusions I’ve come to. Now out you go.”

  And, seething inwardly, unable to do anything else, Keira went.

  Eighteen

  Hive Sibelius, Scintilla

  258.993.M41

  “Whichever way you look at it, things have gone klybo,” Keira said, in her usual forthright fashion. She’d arrived back at the safe house to find a lively debate already in progress about Quillem’s offer of an exchange of information, and her account of her interview with Karnaki had simply made matters worse.

  Horst nodded. “The question is, what are we going to do about it? Inquisitor Finurbi’s instructions were perfectly clear. We were to avoid all contact with the Calixian ordos, and now we have two of their inquisitors breathing down our necks. I think we should cut and run, while we’ve still got a chance.”

  “I don’t reckon that’ll work,” Drake said. “This Inquisitor Grynner’s people are good. I don’t give much for our chances of evading their surveillance now they know where to find us.”

  “We’re pretty good ourselves,” Horst reminded him. “And we’ve still got the shuttle.”

  “Which they can track from orbit the second we lift,” Drake replied gloomily. “They know where it’s berthed, and they’ve got a starship. Not what I’d call an even match.”

  “The proposed alliance would offer us a number of advantages,” Vex put in. “It’s clear that they possess a great deal of information which we don’t, and would be grateful for our assistance.”

  “Two words,” Drake said. “Special Circumstances. The inquisitor said not to trust anybody.”

  “Well, we know he trusted Grynner,” Keira said. “Sharing information with him was the main reason he was coming here. Karnaki’s the one who worries me.”

  “Then perhaps we can play one off against the other,” Horst said, the germ of an idea beginning to take shape in his mind. “If we can’t get out from under Grynner’s surveillance anyway, we might as well play along with his people for as long as it suits us. If nothing else, whatever information they’re sitting on might give us another lead to Elyra. Vos is working on it from his end, but if he can’t make the connection after all, she’s going to be left flapping in the breeze.”

  “Good point,” Keira agreed, nodding. “But what about Karnaki?”

  “If he’s working with Grynner anyway, we’ll be able to keep an eye on him at the same time,” Horst said. “And perhaps we can exploit any tensions there might be between them.”

  “I’m still not happy about any of this,” Drake said doggedly. “It all seems very convenient this Quillem guy just happening to be there when Hybris was attacked. How do we know he didn’t set the whole thing up himself to gain our confidence?”

  “It’s possible, of course,” Vex said. “But the balance of probabilities is against that. It’s far more likely that the techpriests who assaulted me were working for Magos Avia. They were clearly intending to abscond with the artefact, whereas Quillem was extremely surprised to find it in my possession.”

  “Then how did they know where to find you?” Keira asked.

  “Deductive reasoning, of course,” Vex said, evidently happy to be back on the firmer ground of pure intellect. “That street was the most logical route for me to take back to the transport hub. Once they knew I’d entered the shrine, they merely had to wait for me to leave again, and walk past the point they’d chosen for their ambush.”

  “All right,” Drake said, “I’ll buy that. But how did they know you were visiting the shrine in the first place?”

  “My biometric data was already on file there,” Vex said. “Anyone with access to the system would know I’d entered the building to consult the records.”

  “Fair enough,” Horst said. He sighed. “Are we agreed, then? Accept Quillem’s offer, and watch our backs carefully?”

  “That’s the most rational course of action,” Vex said, nodding faintly.

  “I suppose so,” Drake conceded, with visible reluctance. “But I don’t like it. It feels like we’re being manipulated.”

  “Of course we are,” Keira said. “But if it makes you feel any better, we’re using them at least as much as they’re using us.”

  “Oh good,” Drake said, with heavy sarcasm. “That makes it all right, then.”

  “Keira?” Horst asked. Technically, he didn’t have to ask her opinion; as team leader, the decision would be his alone to make. Nevertheless, he found himself wanting to know how she felt, more than any of the others.

  “Make the call,” she said, shrugging. “If they are part of the conspiracy, at least we can watch them while they’re watching us.”

  “Pretty much what I was thinking,” Horst agreed, and went to find Vorn.

  * * *

  Hive Tarsus, Scintilla

  258.993.M41

  Greel’s office was exactly as Kyrlock remembered it, although this time no one made the mistake of attempting to bar his way, simply glancing at him as he passed through the outer layers of security with wary respect. It seemed that either word of his last visit had got around, or Greel had made it clear that he was to be left alone the next time he appeared on the premises. Nevertheless, if there was going to be trouble, he was sure he’d be ready for it; after calling the vox code Elyra had given him, he’d returned to his room at the hostel and slept for a few hours, wanting to be sharp when he next spoke to the franchiseman.

  The discovery that the other Angelae were also on Scintilla had been a welcome one; used to fending for himself, he’d been surprised to find how much the idea that he had backup again if he needed it had improved his outlook.

  “You took your time,” Greel said, glancing up from a data-slate as Kyrlock entered his office.

  Kyrlock shrugged. “You didn’t say it was urgent,” he pointed out reasonably, dropping into a nearby chair without waiting to be invited.

  “No, I suppose I didn’t.” Greel set the slate aside, and looked at him appraisingly. “Did he pay up, or did you have to hurt him?”

  “Neither.” Kyrlock pulled the data-slate Dylar had given him out of his pocket, and leaned forwards to place it on the desk. “He said you were waiting for this. If he was lying, I can always go back and smack him about a bit.”

  “I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Greel said, picking the slate up, and paging through it avidly. “Not this time, anyway. I know someone who’ll pay real money for this.”

  “Good,” Kyrlock said. “And speaking of money…”

  “Of course.” Greel smiled, and threw a heavy purse at him.

  Kyrlock caught it easily, one-handed, an instant before it would have hit him in the face, and smiled back. “Thanks.” He’d been expecting something like that, another test, or a reminder not to get too cocky with the boss. Hive or Tumble, it seemed, the rules were the same wherever you went. The two men shared a glance of mutual understanding.

  “Any more little errands you’d like me to run, before I go and squander this on ale and whores?” Kyrlock asked, tucking the purse inside his shirt without bothering to count the contents. The first payment would be generous, he knew, calculated to reinforce his loyalty, and hint at bigger things to come. Subsequent ones would be far more dependent on results.

  “I’ll let you know,” Greel said, effectively dismissing him, and Kyrlock stood, taking the hint. On the way out, he paused in the door, as if struck by an afterthought.

  “If you’re seeing Elyra soon,” he said, “remind her she owes me ten credits.” Then he stepped outside, without waiting to see if
the franchiseman had risen to his carefully baited hook. Mentioning the woman’s name in connection with a trivial amount of money might just be enough to remind Greel of the considerably greater sum he stood to gain from contacting her.

  Emperor willing, of course. As he regained the stifling street, and narrowed his eyes against the glare filtering through the outermost kilometres of the hive, Kyrlock found himself fervently praying that He would be.

  The Emperor’s Justice, Scintilla System

  258.993.M41

  “Do you think they’ll cooperate?” Inquisitor Grynner asked, and Quillem nodded, prepared for the obvious question.

  “I don’t think we’ve left them any choice,” he said. “They might opt to go underground again, but they must know if they try we’ll pick up their trail without too much trouble. And the techpriest will certainly argue for allying with us, if only to find out more about the wraithbone.”

  “Which is where, at the moment?” the inquisitor asked dryly. “I presume you didn’t allow them to keep it?”

  “Throne on Earth no,” Quillem said, unable to completely suppress a smile at the absurdity of the idea. “I gave it to Brother Paulus as soon as I docked.” The Deathwatch Librarian was a powerful psyker, even more so than most Astartes of his calling, and was the most fitting custodian of such a tainted artefact. “He’s attempting to determine whether it’s the same one that went missing from the Eddia Stabilis.”

  “That would seem to be the most likely hypothesis,” Grynner agreed. “Which, unfortunately, raises a number of new questions, of course.”

  “Like how it got to Sepheris Secundus,” Quillem said.

  “Quite.” The inquisitor’s head inclined in a vestigial nod. “We’ve been extremely remiss, Pieter. We had copies of their reports to young Carolus. We should have realised that this artefact they kept referring to was the wraithbone.”

  “We had no real reason to make the connection,” Quillem pointed out. “The Eddia Stabilis was attacked in the Halo Stars, not the Calixis Sector. The psykers who took it must have had an exceptionally fast ship to get it to Sepheris Secundus so quickly.”

  “Indeed.” Grynner nodded thoughtfully again. “The timing is quite anomalous, Pieter. Even if the warp currents were particularly favourable, they couldn’t have made the journey much faster than we did, yet this wretched man Tonis clearly had his hands on the wraithbone for some considerable time.”

  “Perhaps we can learn more when we debrief the techpriest properly,” Quillem said. “He’s been studying the manuscript they recovered from the heretics quite intensively, so he may be able to shed a little more light on the matter.”

  “Perhaps,” Grynner replied. “I must confess I’m agreeably surprised that he relinquished the wraithbone quite so readily.”

  “It was a matter of logic,” Quillem said. “We’re Ordo Xenos, and it’s a xenos artefact. Therefore, it’s our responsibility.” He smiled faintly. “And, I imagine, he was getting rather tired of people attempting to kill him to obtain it.”

  “Yes, I imagine so too,” Grynner said.

  Tarsus High Orbital Docks, Scintilla System

  258.993.M41

  The novelty of a garden on an orbital habitat, even one as derelict and overgrown as this one, still astonished Elyra. After the privations they’d endured aboard the Ursus Innare, she found herself enjoying the simple pleasures of grass underfoot and the warmth of the sun on her neck, despite the sense of urgency and imminent danger she was never quite able to shake.

  “I brought you a hat,” Zusen said, breaking into her reverie. “You’re starting to burn.” The young empath scratched absently at a phantom itch on the back of her own neck, just where Elyra was beginning to feel the first faint tingle of overexposure to the sun. The older woman’s albinoid skin, common to the void-born, succumbed easily to the ultraviolet, and she took care to remain covered up in the open on most worlds, but it was hard to remember to take the same precautions aboard an orbital.

  “Thank you,” she said reflexively, remembering to inflect it with a tone of indifference at the last minute.

  “You’re welcome.” Zusen grinned, her mood light, probably for the first time in her life. “Do you think Sanctuary will be anything like this?”

  “I haven’t a clue,” Elyra said truthfully, her taciturn response evidently precisely what the teenager was expecting. “But I doubt it.” In her experience, psykers falling into the hands of heretic groups were unlikely to be left alone to enjoy the scenery. Zusen’s sense of contentment wasn’t going to be punctured that easily, though.

  “Oh well.” She shrugged. “This’ll be a nice memory to take with us when we go.”

  “There is that,” Elyra agreed. No point in spoiling the girl’s happiness; whatever happened, it was going to be fleeting enough. If she managed to get through to Carolus, Zusen would be on a Black Ship to Terra before the month was out, along with the rest of the wyrds hiding here, and if she couldn’t, the reality of the so-called sanctuary the girl hoped to find would almost certainly turn out to be equally unpleasant. Of course in that event Elyra would probably be dead by then, or, knowing what she did of heretic cults, devoutly wishing that she was…

  “I don’t know why you’re so worried all the time,” Zusen said. Like most of the wyrds taking refuge here, she seemed to be using her powers more and more casually, heedless of the potential danger to her soul, and had clearly picked up on the anxiety Elyra was trying so hard to suppress.

  Elyra shrugged. “Just waiting for the boom,” she said.

  “What boom?” Zusen asked, a faint frown of puzzlement appearing on her face.

  “There’s always a boom,” Elyra said. “Sooner or later. Everything seems to be going well, then… Boom. Better not to forget it. Then at least it won’t take you by surprise.”

  “You can’t really believe that,” Zusen said. A faintly pitying expression crossed her sharp features as she thought about the feelings she was picking up from the older woman. “Holy Throne, you probably do. What a sad, bleak life you must lead.”

  “Works for me,” Elyra said. “You try looking over your shoulder for the next few decades, then come and tell me about the simple joys of existence.” Despite herself, a thread of amusement at the idea of being told how to live her life by a girl a third of her own age began to filter through her pessimistic musings. “Till then, when I want the opinions of a cocky adolescent, I’ll tell you what they are, all right?”

  “All right.” Detecting the lightening of her mood, Zusen refused to take offence, and trotted away, traces of the poised and confident woman she’d one day become beginning to manifest in her posture, and Elyra sighed. One way or another, that destiny was going to be brutally snatched away from her, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  “There you are.” Voyle was walking towards her, and she adopted a neutral expression as she turned in his direction. He seemed to be hurrying, and as the obvious explanation occurred to her, she fought down a sudden stab of panic. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Have they found us a ship already?” she asked, managing to mask her fear of the answer behind the tone of scepticism she’d been cultivating since they met. To her well-concealed relief, he shook his head.

  “Not yet,” he said. “But maybe tomorrow.”

  “What do you want then?” she asked.

  Voyle looked a little puzzled. “It seems our friend Greel wants to talk to you. Any idea why?”

  “The jewellery I stole,” she said, jumping to the obvious conclusion. “Before I decided to go with you, he offered to fence it for me. I guess he still wants to deal.” She shrugged, slipping easily into the assumed persona of self-obsessed thief. “Maybe I should think about it; I might need the money later.”

  Voyle laughed. “I doubt that. The Sanctuary takes care of its own. But the Franchise are useful, and it wouldn’t hurt to throw Greel a bone if you feel like it.”

  “Fine,” Elyra said. “
Then I’ll set up a trade with him.” This could be the chance she’d been praying for to contact Carolus, and she intended to seize it. But she’d have to play things very carefully. “On one condition.”

  Voyle looked at her curiously. “What’s that?”

  “Vos makes the contact. I know him, and I don’t trust Greel.”

  Voyle laughed. “You don’t trust anyone, do you?”

  “Maybe you, a little,” Elyra said, looking at him appraisingly. As she’d expected, Voyle looked both pleased, and somewhat taken aback.

  “Then let me take the package for you,” he suggested. “I’ve got some business with Greel myself before we leave.”

  Elyra shook her head. “I said a little. Not that much. The shinies stay with me until I see the cash. And Vos.”

  Voyle smiled, and sighed tolerantly. “I can’t do that. If Diurnus ever found out I let you leave here, he’d have my head.”

  “Then don’t tell him,” Elyra said reasonably. “I wasn’t planning to; he might want a cut.”

  “By all the powers, you’re a piece of work,” Voyle said, seeming genuinely amused.

  Elyra echoed the smile. “It shouldn’t take long. Maybe when we get back here we can celebrate.” It was far from the first time she’d used the prospect of sex to get what she wanted since becoming an agent of the Throne; a lot of men, and a surprising number of women, had short-circuited their brains and their sense of self-preservation over the years at the idea of joining her in bed. Generally, to their disappointment, the promised tryst had either failed to materialise, or turned out to involve rather more people with guns and brusquely asked questions than they’d anticipated. On a few occasions, however, she had made good on the promise, either to maintain a cover story, or, if she was honest with herself, simply because she found her target pleasant enough company and thought she might as well take advantage of the situation. She wasn’t sure if Voyle would fall into the latter category or not, but in any event, the hint seemed to be having the desired effect.