Thonius shrugged. "I'm happy." He rose to his feet. "Can I help you with that, Gall?"
"Thank you." Ballack replied. Carl began to comb Ballack's mane with his fingers to tie it up.
"We'll wait for the others to return," said Ravenor. "You can get started in the morning."
"So what's keeping Nayl?" grimaced Plyton as Kys slowly released her torso from its confinement.
THREE
Sleet whipped against the windowpanes of the ground level hangar. The work crews had gone for the day, and the underboats sat in their ice pool like grey sea beasts, sleeping. Only a few spotlights shone down from the iron gantries.
Angharad made a soft noise like a sigh and rolled off him. They lay together in the dark for a while listening to the patter of sleet.
"I'm glad you lived," Nayl said.
"That's a funny thing to say," she replied, turning her shoulder against his chest.
"Is it?"
"Obvious then. You didn't need to say it. I felt how glad you were."
"Right then."
"We should get back," said Nayl.
"Is that thing really necessary?" she asked, nodding to the little psyk-block unit beside them.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"It's hard to explain. Ravenor... I don't want to hurt him."
"Hurt him?"
"You're so like Arianhrod."
"I don't understand."
"Forget it. Trust me. I've come to know how hard it must be for Gideon to be the way he is. He's human, after all."
"He has his mind."
"Yes, but he has his memories. It's just a feeling I get."
"That he wouldn't approve?"
"Maybe. It'd be like rubbing his face in it. If he had a face."
It was warm and dark under the vent panels. They'd made a bed of cold weather furs from a locker.
"We should go," she said. She rose in one fluid motion, and began to look for her clothes. She was silhouetted against the bay's lamplight for a moment.
He looked at her. "Maybe another five minutes won't hurt," he said.
FOUR
Waiting made Kara Swole tense, and tension gave her a headache. At least, she hoped it was the tension. She didn't want to think about the other possibility.
She was alone on the Arethusa's main bridge, nominally on watch, although there was little to watch for. Most of the ship's systems were shut down and de-powered: just enough juice running through the conduits to maintain basics. As soon as they had arrived at high anchor above Utochre, Unwerth had turned off the commercial transponder and deactivated the ship's carrier number and beacon. They had no wish to advertise their location, let alone their identity. Every three hours, automated systems lit up the Arethusa's vox-grid and allowed her to check in with the surface team. The silences in between were numbing. Naturally, if any problems developed, Ravenor could always summon them without waiting for the routine vox-check. Kara had made sure a lander was ready in the belly hold.
She checked her chron. Another forty-five minutes before the next check in. She was fidgety. She'd tried a workout to shake it off, a little blade practice, but it hadn't done the trick. She'd felt rusty, slow, her heart not in it. It had been a long time since they'd seen any combat. She had no lust for combat, but the discipline kept her sharp.
The worst of it was, her mind was cloudy. She felt befuddled, and she wasn't sure why. She remembered Ravenor remarking on it back on Tancred, just before they'd left, some comment about him sensing something on her mind. She could remember getting a little steamed about that, but couldn't recall why. Guilt, probably. She'd never told Ravenor about her illness, nor of its miraculous remission. She hated keeping secrets, especially from him.
The cloudiness had been on her since then. Maybe that's what he had detected. Maybe that's why he'd asked her to lead the second team and stay aboard the ship as back-up. Perhaps he didn't feel she could cut it as a principal agent any more. Perhaps he was right, but she hated the feeling that she was being sidelined.
She hated it almost as much as she hated the cloudiness. It was a nagging sensation, like the haunting awareness of a memory that temporarily refused to form. There was something on the tip of her tongue that just wouldn't realise itself.
Of course, forgetfulness was one of the primary symptoms to watch for.
She realised she was rubbing her temple with her fingers. She pulled her hand away.
She got up quickly and walked off the bridge, down the echoing spinal corridor of the ship. Most of the Arethusa's twenty-strong crew were sleeping, apart from a few running spot repairs in the enginarium. The old, wretched hulk creaked and groaned around her. The walls were scabby and decayed. Unwerth's vessel was neither a beautiful nor a reliable machine.
She heard Belknap's voice, picked up her pace, and then slowed again, realising he was in conversation. Through an open hatch, she spied him, sitting in the forward communal on the other side of a table from Sholto Unwerth. They were chatting and drinking glasses of dry Thracian muskell. Belknap got on with Unwerth better than most of them, with the exception of Kys, who had bonded with the little shipmaster during the perilous hours in Petropolis, and now deflected the worst of the teasing the likes of Carl and Nayl dished out at Unwerth's expense.
Belknap got on with everybody, of course, because medics usually possessed that reassuring knack. But Belknap and Unwerth were both outsiders, part of Ravenor's team only because of the support services of conveyance and healing they provided. Though both had faced serious danger on Eustis Majoris, neither was employed as a fighter or principal agent.
Unwerth had suffered badly. He had been tortured and mutilated at the whim of the infamous bounty hunter, Lucius Worna, before Kys had rescued him, but he had held out, loyal to them all. One look at his hands showed the pain he had endured for them, and yet the likes of Carl still delighted in teasing and mocking-
Carl. His name stung in her head as she thought of him. She frowned at the inexplicable strength of her own reaction. What had Carl ever done to her, except be an odious twit?
She backed away. Unwerth was telling Belknap some long and involved story about his own family history.
"...it is much derailed, in places high and low," she heard the shipmaster saying, "that there ever was a race of beings of the name the squats, and many scholams and those of the high mindful claim it's just a myth, a thing that never was, but my direst old grand avuncular swore to me that the Unwerth lineament has some timbre of that blood in it, right back in all perspective, I mean..."
Kara had no wish to intrude. More properly, she wanted to speak to Belknap alone. She backed silently away.
"Kara?" Belknap called, looking around from the table. Eyes in the back of his head, that one. The old vigilance of an Imperial Guardsman on sentry duty.
"Just walking around," she shrugged.
"Join us," Belknap said.
"Have a sniff of this here numbskull," Unwerth smiled, jiggling the bottle. "We are just of mindless confabuling."
"In a while, maybe. I've got to be on hand when the grid wakes up."
She walked away, following a side corridor down to the ship's infirmary. She turned on the lamps and began to search the scrubbed steel cupboards for a pain killer. Her head was really thumping.
It couldn't be back. It couldn't be back, could it? Please, Throne-
She stopped searching, aware that she was starting to hyperventilate. Panic, that wasn't like her. She leaned on the side counter, breathing deep and slow. Nearby, packed into its carrying modules, was the expensive medical equipment Ravenor had purchased on Eustis Majoris. Belknap had used it to diagnose her condition and monitor it. He still checked her once every fortnight or so. She remembered the last occasion, en route from Tancred. She remembered his delight at the improbability of her health. The same every time. His joy.
How could she tell him? How could she ask?
"Are you all right?"
Kara switched arou
nd Wystan Frauka stood in the doorway.
"Sorry. You startled me," she said.
Frauka shrugged. "I saw the light on in here. Are you all right?"
"Bit of a headache," she admitted.
Frauka dropped his half-smoked lho-stick onto the corridor deck, ground it out with his heel, and entered the infirmary. He opened a glass fronted cabinet and fished out a vial of capsules. "I find these work pretty nicely," he said.
"They're pain killers?"
He frowned, as if the question had never occurred to him. "I suppose. The blue ones there are a lot stronger, but they give you funny dreams and a dry thirst. These are what you might call headache strength."
"I didn't know you suffered from headaches," she said, taking the vial from his hand.
"Well," he began.
"Suffering from headaches is something I would be sympathetic to," she said. "As opposed to, say, random, secret experimentation with the infirmary's pharm supply."
Frauka nodded sagely. "Then we'll call it headaches," he said, "and say no more about it. I was just trying to help." He stepped towards the door.
"Sorry," she called. "Sorry. Forgive me. I've got a real tension headache. Your life is quite boring, isn't it, Wystan?"
The blunter shrugged. "It has its moments. They're usually brief and quite violent. The rest of the time... well, thanks for noticing."
Kara poured a glass of water from the scrub sink and rolled some of the capsules into her palm. "Two?"
"I usually take three or four," he said. He patted his thick chest sadly. "But then again, I've got more body mass than you, and usually very little to get up for in the morning."
She laughed, and knocked down two of the pills.
"How's the boy?" she asked.
"Why don't you come and see?"
He led her down the short linking companionway to the small wardroom adjoining the infirmary and surgical chambers. Only one of the six cots was occupied. Zael lay, pale and thin, in his endless sleep, attached to a feeder and bio-monitor. Beside his cot, there was a single chair, and a cabinet on which sat a lamp, a data-slate, and a bowl full of lho-stick butts. "Any change?" she whispered.
"Yeah. He woke up and started dancing. I forgot to tell you."
"Shut up," she scolded with a grin.
"I won't half miss him when he wakes up," Frauka said with a sadness that surprised her. "Who's going to listen to my stories then?"
"Can I get you anything?" she asked. Frauka shook his head.
"Well, good night, and thanks."
She left. Frauka wandered over to the chair and sat down. He lit a lho-stick and picked up the data-slate, thumbing it live. The glow of the screen reflected on his face.
"Where was I?" he said. "Ah, yes... 'Her nipples were hard and pink with excitement. She squealed in delight as his loincloth dropped to the deck. Very slowly, he-'"
Your nose is bleeding.
"What?"
Your nose is bleeding.
"Dammit!" Frauka said, moustaching his left index finger across his upper lip to staunch the flow. He put down the data-slate, slid the burning lho-stick into the dish, and pulled out a handkerchief. He swabbed his nose, and peered at the smeared linen. It wasn't the first time it had been spotted with blood. The old spots looked like rust. "Not much. It's stopped."
But your nose was bleeding.
"Yes. So what?" He tucked the handkerchief away again, sniffing.
Why?
"Why?" Frauka drew on his lho stick. "Why? You ask why?"
I'm waiting for the answer.
"Because it was. Shut up."
Noses bleed for a reason.
"I'm sure they do. In my case, sonny, it's because I picked it."
Both nostrils?
"Do me a favour. Shut up. I was reading."
I'm bored with the endless dirty stories.
"Well, hey, I'm not." Frauka snapped. He raised the slate again. "Her full breasts were as white and round as-" He lowered the slate and gazed at the boy. "You know what I have to do if you wake up?"
Yeah. I can feel the weight of the gun in your pocket and the weight of the promise you made to the Chair in your head.
"Well, then."
There was a long pause.
Then Wystan said. "I'm an untouchable. There shouldn't be any way you can feel anything in my head."
And yet?
"Shut up. Where was I?"
Something about breasts?
"Right. Yes."
You can't trust any of them anymore. You know that? So many dirty stories. So many secrets. Kara, Thonius, Ballack, Nayl...
"So I won't tell anyone. Will you?"
The boy on the cot lay as still as death.
"Right, where was I?"
She was making her way up the spinal corridor to the bridge when Belknap appeared.
"Hi," she said.
"Still just walking around?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Sholto's asleep. Too much numbskull. He's got some great stories. You know, he believes his family is descended from-"
"I'm scared," she said abruptly.
He looked at her. He didn't need her to tell him why.
"Come with me to the infirmary."
"I can't. I have to get to the bridge. The grid's going to wake in five minutes."
"All right. Be calm. Check the grid. I'll go and set up, and then come and get you."
She nodded again.
"Everything will be fine," he said. He took hold of her hands and folded them into the sign of the aquila across her breasts. "Have faith."
He kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck as if she was going to break it.
"Ten minutes," he said, pulling away.
She walked in the opposite direction.
Fyflank was on the bridge, running some impenetrable system checks on the main helm. The manhound looked up and grunted when she appeared, and then carried on with its work.
Kara sat down at the vox station. She rubbed her eyes with both palms and drew a deep breath.
The board lit up. Systems woke on automatic. Runes glowed, and then scrolled across the main comm screen. She waited for the graphics to settle down, and then keyed in the carrier signal.
Nest wishes Talon, she typed. Above and starward, the voices of friends.
A pause. Then letters typed out across the screen.
Too tired for Glossia, Kara. Everything's all right here. We have a lead, a possible in. How are things up there?
Everything's fine, she typed.
Good. Talk to you again in three hours. Goodnight, Kara.
Goodnight, Gideon.
FIVE
Berynth is a dark, dirty, ugly hive clamped to the south-western tip of Utochre's second main landmass, ringed by fifty smoke-belching mine stations. This mass of industry and habitation, over ten thousand kilometres in area, cannot be seen from orbit. It cannot be seen by the Arethusa. This is due to Utochre's miasmal cloud cover. Most of the moon, land and oceans both, is ice-clad, and the atmosphere a dense, opaque cloud mass, thanks to an impact winter that has lasted thirty thousand years. Astronomers blame the foul climactic circumstances on a past collision with a lesser moon.
I sift and consider such farts, to keep my mind turning.
A moon itself, the eighth moon of twenty-eight, Utochre circles the well populated Imperial world of Cyto at a great distance. Notably a claw-shaped new moon in Cyto's winter skies, Utochre has a reputation as a dark place. The early settlers on Cyto had invested Utochre with myths, suggesting it was a repository of evil, a place to which bad or twisted souls migrated after death.
Perhaps it is a repository of evil. Certainly, it has become a famous place. Nobility, and the wealthy, make pilgrimage to Utochre, usually on charter passage from the main planet. The ferries are regular. Fecund with minerals, metals and precious stones, thanks to its complex and active structure, Utochre has become, over the years, a place of intensive ore mining and, secondarily, a ce
ntre for lapidary craft. The rock seams under the moon's ice regularly yield the best uncut gems in the sector. All the key Imperial jewellers, and many hundreds of lesser halls, have set up premises at Berynth, exploiting this resource. The sector's nobility come here to indulge themselves, partly because of Utochre's resources, and partly because it is exclusive. Only the very rich and the most nobly born can afford the prices, and the effort, of the ferry connection.
But there is another service that Cyto's twenty-eighth moon offers, for those who are very wealthy, or very superstitious.
Or very desperate.
I have a bad feeling that I fall into the last category.
It is a risk. The Wych House was always going to be a risk. There have been so many attempts to find it and close it down over the years. It is elusive. It is well protected. It is dangerous. It is never wrong.
Going to the Wych House had been Carl's idea. I had blocked the notion to begin with, until Ballack weighed in with his support for it. I like Ballack, I admire him. Perhaps that's why I finally demurred and brought us to Utochre.
From the moment we left Tancred high anchor, we were rogue. Not Special Condition, rogue. The word has a specific definition in the Inquisition's rubric. It denotes an agent or agents who are deemed negligent, insubordinate and criminal. I have broken direct orders from my superiors. I have turned my back on an assigned duty. I have taken a mission upon myself without leave or permission. I have hidden myself so that I cannot be rebuked or stopped. Rogue.
I never thought, never imagined myself in commission of such a sin, but this was my deliberate choice.
On Tancred, on the very hour of our departure, Ballack and Angharad had come to find us in secret. This was in the immediate aftermath of Molotch's bloody trap. Ballack had come forward and offered his intelligence to me. He had not dared to go to Myzard.
I had scanned the interrogator carefully, several times, with and without Ballack's consent. The story was consistent every time: closing on Molotch with Fenx, being trapped and picked off, one by one. Molotch jeering as he left Ballack to his doom, cuffed to a turbine hub. Angharad arriving just in time to cut Ballack free with her steel and haul him to safety.