Nayl pressed the hatch-stud and closed the door behind him. He moved through the gloom, and snapped on a few glow-globes. A status monitor by the door showed a pulsing red light. They were warp-bound now. He’d felt the shudder.
His cabin was quite small and situated on the end of a corridor. The shipmistress had bequeathed an entire deck to Ravenor and his entourage as their own private, sovereign state. The Hinterlight’s crew never came here, except by invitation. It was even off-limits to the cleaning servitors, which probably explained why his room smelled of socks.
To his left, in an alcove, an unmade bunk, surrounded by scattered clothes, data-slates and books. Various pict-shots decorated the wall over the cot like a shrine. Most of them were faded, the emulsion peeling. In the main part of the room stood a small table and three chairs, a codifier terminal linked to the vessel’s data system, and a row of recessed cupboards built in between the bulkheads. To his right was the sliding door into the head and the upright washroom.
Nayl dropped his kitbag on the floor, where it became one of many. The main area was littered with equipment packs, rolled-up body gloves, boots, pieces of armour, tools, and various weapons that he really should have returned to the arsenal. One of these days he was going to get up in the night for a piss and tread on a loaded handcannon. Then he’d have to do some frigging explaining. And, most likely, go hunting for some missing toes.
Nayl wandered across to the bulkhead cupboards. He was limping. He ached. The free-for-all in the Carnivora had been less than fun. Reaching out to the cupboard latch, he noticed how skinned and raw his knuckles were. Grime-black, caked in dried blood, the calloused skin torn. He needed a shower. The effort didn’t appeal to him.
He raised his left hand and held it out alongside his right. The missing finger seemed like a smack-in-the-mouth slur, an offensive lack. Ironic… that finger had once been his favourite insult. Now its very absence seemed obscene. All these frigging years, he been shot and stabbed and left for dead but he’d never lost a part of himself. It was like an omen. He’d never needed augmetics. He thought of Gregor Eisenhorn, replacing and supporting his battle-torn body bit by bit. Then – shit – he thought of Ravenor.
Was this where it started? Was this the beginning of the end? First a finger, then what? An arm? A leg? A major organ…
He’d liked that frigging finger. It had been on his top ten list of favourite fingers.
He poured himself a drink, amasec, from a bottle in the cupboard. It took him a while to find a glass, and longer to decide that the glass didn’t actually have to be clean. Sipping it, he reached out to press the activator stud of the player unit in the cupboard. Nothing happened. So that’s what that finger had been for. He used an existing finger this time, and low volume melodies flowed out into the cabin.
He’d have to go and see Antribus, get himself a new finger, augmetic, whatever and–
Nayl paused. Antribus? Ravenor’s medicae was six years dead. One of Molotch’s victims at Majeskus. The Hinterlight had a new medicae now. Nayl couldn’t remember the fellow’s name.
He sat down at the table, looking for a space to put his drink down. A carapace armour unit occupied most of the table top. He’d been repairing it on the way to Eustis Majoris, and the job was unfinished. He pushed aside powered drivers and stinky pots of lube.
The music was good. It was an old tile, one of his favourites. He hummed along, taking off his shoulder rig and disarming his pistol.
He took off his boots. He was hungry. He was sleepy. He was pissed off.
He was old.
He was thinking about the guests as he walked over to the bulkhead cupboards for a refill. He didn’t like it, not at all. Didn’t like them. Something about them, probably no more than the fact they were intruding into his work, into the inquisitor’s work. Kinsky was dangerous. The other two… who knew? Nayl reckoned he could take Ahenobarb out, if it came to it. Madsen, though. She was a blank page. And only the inquisitor could handle Kinsky.
He heard a little noise outside his cabin door. Just a little noise. A glance reminded him he’d left the hatch unlocked.
Nayl put down his drink and picked up a sleek Tronsvasse 38 from under a pile of soiled clothes. Its tiny red tell-tale light showed it was loaded and armed.
He walked towards the door, gun raised, and popped the stud.
Zael as good as fell into the room.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Nayl asked.
‘I got scared,’ the boy said.
A little amasec calmed him down. The drink made him flushed and smiley. He lolled on the edge of Nayl’s bunk, holding the glass in both hands.
‘What’s this frigging music?’ he asked.
‘It’s frigging bouzoukis playing frigging reels from my frigging homeworld,’ said Nayl from his seat at the table.
Zael thought about this. ‘It’s a bit plinky-plunky, isn’t it?’
‘Not to me.’
‘Just saying.’
‘Don’t.’
‘Okay.’
The boy swung his legs and looked around.
‘When do we set off?’ he asked.
Nayl looked at him. ‘We’ve been in transit for about thirty minutes already.’
‘Oh.’
‘Didn’t you feel the translation?’
‘No. What was that, then?’
Nayl sighed. ‘The moment we went warp. A vibration? A shaking?’
‘Oh, that’s what it was. I thought–’
‘Thought what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Thought what?’
Zael smiled a weak grin. ‘I thought it was withdrawal. I’ve been getting witchy-twitchy now and then.’
Nayl snorted and knocked back some drink.
‘Where are we going?’ Zael asked.
‘Never you mind.’
Zael pursed his lips and rocked back and forward. He looked around. ‘You’ve got a lot of guns in here.’
‘Don’t touch anything.’
‘Well, duh!’
Nayl frowned. ‘And don’t tell Ravenor I’ve got a lot of guns in here either. He’ll only fret.’
‘Okay.’
Zael took a sip from his glass and flopped back on the bunk so he was looking upside-down at the picts Nayl had stuck on the wall there.
‘Who’s that?’
Nayl looked across.
‘That’s Kara.’
‘She looks different.’
‘Her hair was black then. It was a few years ago.’
‘She’s nice.’
‘Yeah, she is.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘That’s Will. Will Tallowhand. And the girl is Eleena Koi.’
‘They look nice.’
‘They were the best. Friends of mine.’
‘Are they on board?’
‘No, Zael. They’re dead.’
‘Oh.’
His feet stopped swinging for a moment, but he still lay on his back and stared up at the picts.
‘My mumma and pappa are dead. And my granna. And Nove.’
‘Who’s Nove?’
‘My sister. She fell off a stack.’
‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘It wasn’t your fault.’ Zael pointed. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Kara again.’
‘She looks so different each time.’
Nayl leaned back and smiled. ‘That’s Kara. But she’s always Kara.’
‘Is she your girl?’
Nayl laughed. ‘I wish. Once, almost and sort of. Kara and me are friends now.’
‘She’s laughing a lot on that pict. She looks pretty. Why is the bottom half of it folded up?’
Nayl frowned and leaned forward to look at the pict, then grinned and leaned back again into his seat. ‘Because I knew one day I’d end up with a maybe-teen boy in my cabin who’d ask all sorts of frigging stupid questions and get over excited at the sight of bare bosoms.’
Zael sat up, maintaining h
is gaze on the pict.
‘Her bosoms were bare?’
‘Yeah, they were.’ Nayl cupped his glass and looked down into it. He remembered the night. Fooling around, drinking, laughing, making love. Kara had brought the picter along. Nayl wondered if she’d kept the pictures of him.
‘I bet they’re really nice…’ Zael whispered.
‘I’m not even going to have this conversation,’ snarled Nayl.
There was a painfully long silence.
‘Yeah, they really are,’ Nayl admitted at last. They both started laughing. Really laughing. Zael rocked back and forth, snorting and wheezing.
God-Emperor, it was the best laugh Nayl had found in a very long time.
‘Understand me,’ said Nayl, fighting his laughter, ‘you ever take that pict down to look at the fold, I’ll kill you.’
‘That’s fair,’ giggled Zael. ‘You have lots of guns. Probably worth it, though.’
‘Oh yeah.’
They burst out laughing again.
‘Who’s that? He looks like a real hard knuck.’
‘Who are you pointing to? Oh, yeah. That’s Eisenhorn.’
Zael looked at Nayl. ‘And he is?’
‘Dead, I think. My old boss. Another inquisitor.’
‘The Chair’s not your first boss then?’
Nayl smiled. The Chair. Funny, and obvious the kid would think that way. ‘No, I worked for Eisenhorn before.’
‘He looks like a double-hard bastard.’
‘He was.’
‘So how long have you worked for The Chair?’
Nayl had to think about it. It had been a fluid thing. He’d been in Eisenhorn’s band for a long time, right up until the infamous mission to Ghul, really. But by then he’d also been working with Ravenor. When Eisenhorn disappeared, that arrangement had sort of become permanent.
‘Since the late eighties, pretty much. Nearly fifteen years.’
Zael nodded.
‘Who’s that?’
‘That’s Ravenor.’
Zael sat up and peered hard at the pict. ‘He’s really handsome. Is that what he looks like now, inside that chair?’
‘No, Zael, it isn’t.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘Thracian Primaris, back in ’38. The Triumph. A great procession of the great and good. The forces of the Enemy struck, and caused a… a… well, it’s been called the Atrocity. Ravenor was caught in a firestorm and burned really badly. He’s been in that force chair ever since. His mind is the only thing left to him.’
Zael considered this. ‘That’s really bad,’ he said.
‘Yes, it is.’
‘And who’s that?’
Nayl leaned forward to see.
‘Now, that’s–’
He stopped. ‘Damn,’ he said, ‘I’ve forgotten to do something important.’
Zarjaran. That was the new medicae’s name. Zarjaran. Nayl nodded to him as he swept Zael through the infirmary towards the cryo-stacks.
The hatch opened. Cold air fumed out.
There she lay, sleeping like she had done ever since ’86.
‘Is she dead?’ Zael asked.
‘No, she’s not.’
‘Alive?’
Nayl frowned. ‘Not that either.’
‘She’s very beautiful.’
‘Yeah, she is. Look… every time I come back aboard, I make a point of saying hello to her. Maybe she can hear me, maybe not. She’s been in this… state for fifteen years. She was Eisenhorn’s most loyal ally, and a good friend to me too.’
‘What was her name?’ Zael wondered.
‘Alizebeth Bequin. Lizebeth? Hi. It’s me. Harlon. Just come to say hello.’
‘She’s frozen!’ Zael said.
‘Yeah. She’s not dead or alive, just preserved here. Maintained in the cold-hold of the Hinterlight for a decade and a half. Maybe she’ll live again one day. Maybe she’s dead. I like to think she can still hear us.’
Zael leaned forward and pressed his hand against the armaglas cover of the cryo-bin. His fingerprints remained as frost-blooms.
‘Hello lady,’ he said. ‘My name is Zael.’
Two
‘Screw this,’ said Madsen, turning and climbing back down the grassy slope. ‘It’s a waste of time.’
Carl Thonius nodded. They’d missed this beast-moot by several weeks. The vast stock yards were empty. A bitter gale swept across the derelict pastures where the tents and cage-pens had been pitched. Some rusting iron pegs and hoops and a copious amount of dried, white dung were the only signs that this area had seen any life in years.
The sky was grey and fast: sliced strata of cloud hurtling west across the salty margin, beyond which the dark ocean boomed and rattled.
‘We’ll push south,’ Madsen said. Thonius nodded again, but realised she had been directing the words at Ahenobarb and Kinsky. They were wandering the sparse moot-space. The psyker was saying something, but his voice was hindered by the wind. Ahenobarb hovered close to Kinsky, waiting, watching.
‘What did he say?’ Thonius asked, squinting.
Madsen looked at him. The wind tugged at her white-blonde hair.
‘The usual psyker crap, Mr Thonius,’ she said.
The Western Banks was hard, saline country, a ragged hem where the great plains of Flint’s largest continent met the uncharted sea. The planet boasted a few thriving colony cities down in the temperate south, but it was out here in the unforgiving west that the trade on which Flint prospered was conducted: stock, beast-flesh, meat.
Dynasties of stockmen, drovers and herders inhabited the great plains, dutifully following routes and trails established by their ancestors, driving the super-herds. Straight-horn, flange-horn, demi-pachyderm, the behemoth tuskers. Drove-dynasties specialised in one breed or another, catered their skills and disciplines to that breed, but all for the same purpose: driving them west each season for the beast-moots along the Western Banks.
Moot-towns studded the broken coastline like buckles on a tangled belt: Droverville, Salthouse, Trailend, Huke’s Town, West Bank, West Trail, Endrover, Fleshton, Slaughterhouses, Ocean Point, Mailer’s Yards, Beastberg, Great West Moot, Tusk Verge. To each one, at the close of each season, the stock was brought in to market. Off-world traders thronged around each moot, landing their fliers and bulk-lifters on the scorched commerce fields to inspect the best of the merchandise.
Nayl and Kara had headed up towards Huke’s Town and all points north. Thonius’s team was covering the southern reach of the Banks.
The wind off the foreshore was picking up.
Kys was waiting for them by the half-track they’d leased from a drove specialist in West Bank. Thonius and the three Ministry agents trudged down to join her on the bleak roadway.
She was looking out to sea. The dark ocean was crashing in onto the rudely worn rocks, each wave impacting with a sound of shattering glass.
They drove south along the coast highway, the sea on one side, the slipped, craggy land on the other. The road was unmetalled and raw. Several times they had to slow to overtake work gangs on foot. Some were freelance drovers, shabby in treated hides, trudging with decorated herd-poles held aloft towards the next moot. They looked like troglodytes to Kys: skin-clad, caked in dung and clay that had dried white, their leaders decorated with skulls and antlers.
Other work gangs were slaughtermen, dressed in long, button-front black coats, and carrying the ritual chainblades in engraved biers stretchered over their shoulders. Their shaven faces were marked with finger-drawn patterns of blood.
Kys slowed and leaned out of the cab to question them. ‘Beast-moot?’
Their answers were contradictory and useless.
They passed through empty, wind-blown coast towns: Endrover, Western End, Tally Point. The places had been scarred and eroded by the ocean’s eternal blast and now, out of moot-season, were almost devoid of life. Tall grasses grew in the moot-yards; the buildings were shackled up and boarded. Paint peeled. The g
reat raised stock-boards over the highway displayed fading chalk-scrawls costing last season’s going rate for tusk-bison.
The towns were an odd mix. Big or small, wealthy or struggling, they followed the same essential pattern: wide tracts of commerce fields for the off-world ships to land, wider and greater moot fields where the stock was penned and displayed, and little clutches of buildings, the town itself. Taverns and barter halls, constructed in the local style, using great, curved beams as both wall posts and rafters, with a wattle-and-daub of mud-straw and flak-board in between, sat alongside more modern, rockcrete-built rendering silos. Kys wondered aloud where on this treeless plateau the locals had found the timber to raise the old barter-halls.
‘Not timber… tusks,’ Thonius said. ‘Some of these buildings are very old. Traditionally, they use the tusks of mature animals as frame ribs.’
Kys was driving. She slowed right down as they passed through Tally Point. The bare, yellowed ribs forming the superstructure of the weatherbeaten town hall were twenty metres long.
‘What kind of animal carries–’
‘None. Not any more,’ said Thonius. ‘The real big, mature bulls were all slaughtered centuries ago, during the early colonisation. A bull has to live a good few hundred years to sport tusks like that. We’ll not see their like again.’
Kys looked across at him. ‘But they still herd these things here?’
Thonius nodded. ‘It’s the key to Flint’s economy. The big placental herbivores grow fast, put on a lot of mass. The great plains are lush. A demi-pachyderm can develop enough bulk to be worth slaughtering in under five years. But their tusks don’t grow half as fast. Given the rate of supply and demand, this world will never see another giant bull with eighteen metre tusks.’
‘The stuff you know,’ she chuckled.
He smiled back. ‘I know what every trade economist worth his salt knows… and what every slaughterbaron on Flint chooses to ignore… at this rate of slaughter, Flint will be wasted out in another century.’
She realised there was nothing but grim finality in his smile. ‘The stuff you know,’ she murmured again.
They pressed on south, through several dead towns that trade and life had already disowned: Fleshton, West Walkaway, Ling’s Berg. The yards there were totally overgrown, the drystone pen walls collapsed. In each town, the buildings were faded and abandoned. Kys saw crumbling jetties and fallen-down piers half-overwhelmed by the ocean spray. Once the trade had come by sea, shipping the meat down to the southern cities on barges.