And then, in turn, his tiny, inconsequential self.
Patience Kys strolled onto the Hinterlight’s main bridge, her eyes on the principal display screen. It showed a view out across the Lagoon as captured by the forward pict-systems.
The bridge was quiet. Most of the primary crew-stations had been vacated. Oliphant Twu, Preest’s unnervingly reticent navigator, had been detached from his socket so he could enjoy a few hours rest in his quarters after the lengthy voyage. Kys was glad he was absent. Twu was always unfailingly polite and courteous to any passengers he encountered, but there was a loathsome aura about him that made most people uncomfortable and Kys positively ill. It was the constant, seething turmoil of his mind. It made her feel seasick. In its way, it was as bad as the blunter, Wystan Frauka.
Frauka himself was present on the bridge, though his limiter was active. He had slumped in the second helmsman’s throne, one leg swinging over the arm, smoking as if it was his primary function in life. He nodded to Kys as she came in, and his face curled into an expression that she realised, with horror, was probably his idea of an alluring smile.
She ignored him. A trio of Preest’s tech servitors was running standard overhauls on some of the tertiary system consoles on the far side of the bridge. She could hear the hiss and stutter of their gas-powered digits as they unscrewed retaining bolts.
Halstrom occupied the shipmistress’s throne, maintaining an intent check on both the ship’s engineering turn-around and external activity. He looked to Kys very much the part of a shipmaster, confident and proud of his place. Preest so seldom left the Hinterlight herself, it was rare he got the opportunity to stand in.
Thonius sat at the primary helm console to his left. He was flicking through hololith displays projected to his repeater screen from the main actuality sphere, manipulating the images with his good left hand, his right bound up in a sling. He seemed bored and preoccupied.
A few metres in front of Frauka, Ravenor’s chair sat locked to the deck by its mag-clamps. The inquisitor’s unit seemed inert. Fat cables spooled out of the chair via opened access points in its surface armour, and connected to four chunky portable units arranged around the chair on the deck. Psi-booster units. More cables ran from the units to an open inspection hatch in the side of Thonius’s console, linked directly to the Hinterlight’s potent astrocommunication dishes.
Kys walked up to Halstrom and perched her bottom on the edge of his console desk.
‘Mistress Preest doesn’t approve of people sitting on the bridge stations,’ Halstrom began.
‘Oh dear,’ said Kys. ‘Is she on the bridge?’
‘You know she’s not…’ Halstrom began.
‘Then I’d say it was up to the acting master who sits where.’
Halstrom coloured slightly and then grinned. ‘Point, Mamzel Kys. This is my watch for a change. You’re fine where you are.’
She grinned back. She liked Halstrom. Old school, reliable, kinda sexy too, if a girl had a mind to go for distinguished older males. Which she never had. Not after Sameter.
‘How are they doing?’ she asked.
‘They’ve left the airgate. Heading down the jetty towards the station threshold.’
‘They’re taking their frigging time about it,’ Thonius complained tersely.
Kys looked over at Thonius. ‘What’s your problem? Got a hot date waiting?’
Frauka sniggered loudly. Halstrom chuckled and made himself busy.
‘Screw you, Kys,’ Thonius said.
And so the banter begins, Kys thought. Since they’d met, she and Carl Thonius had spent their time sparring. It was part of the team spirit. But, she considered, ‘screw you’ lacked a great deal of the expected Thonius finesse.
She slid off Halstrom’s console and crossed to Thonius’s side.
‘What’s up?’
He shrugged and glanced up at her. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘Nothing to be sorry for. You’re tense.’
‘I don’t know why they’re taking so long,’ he said. He reached out with his left hand and methodically tapped out a control function that would normally have taken him an instant with both hands. The display image dissolved and changed. Now it showed an overview of the docking jetty through one of the Hinterlight’s starboard pict-sources.
There was the jetty, encased in its gleaming sleeve of void-fields, stark against the blackness around and beneath it. She could see the landing party. Preest – in full robes and finery – riding aboard an ornamental floater carriage that she controlled with an actuator wand in her right hand. Two bodyguards – tall, heavyset men – walked with her, one on either side of the carriage. They were clad in long, quilted coats and ornamental full-face helms, and each carried a long pole upright. The two poles supported a small canopy above Preest’s head.
Behind them came a train of six cargo-servitors laden with caskets.
The bodyguard at Preest’s right hand was Nayl. The one to her left – nominally – was Zeph Mathuin. But to all intents and purposes, it was Ravenor. The inquisitor was waring Mathuin’s body.
‘They’re just making a dramatic entrance,’ Kys suggested. ‘You know the mistress. She likes to arrive in style. Regally.’
‘Maybe,’ Thonius said.
Kys leaned over and tapped a few keys, swinging the image around to show more of the bastion itself. Mysteries and rumours adhered to Bonner’s Reach as they did to all outlandish places. Some said the first venturers to come here found unimaginable treasures deep in the bastion’s chambers. Others said there were still corridors and halls cut into the rock down there that no one had yet traced or followed. Many supposed that ancient and profoundly powerful xenos technology, left behind by the builders of the place, had been found. One particular, popular story had it that once in a while, a visitor would go missing… lost forever after taking a wrong turn somewhere, or perhaps taken by the spirit of the place as a payment for continued human use of the structure.
Every few minutes there was a brief flash or fizzle of light. These were photonic flare-patterns, beginning to stutter out from the planet’s old and dying star. At this early stage, these emissions were just precursor flashes. In ten or twelve hours’ time, they would have matured into a full-blown solar storm that would fill the sky with flame and last for three days. The storms happened every thirty-five months.
That was Firetide, when the ships put in at Bonner’s Reach and their masters feasted and drank while the heavens blazed.
Kys sighed. Thonius’s edginess was infectious. ‘I don’t know why we can’t just march in and flash our warrants and–’
‘Look out there, Mamzel Kys,’ Halstrom pointed, indicating the main display. ‘Look at the ships gathered there over the Lagoon. I see rogue traders, far venturers, merchantmen of all sizes… and that? What’s that? And that? And that over there, the disk-shaped vessel? That’s two hundred kilometres away, to give you some sense of scale. This is a frontier in both directions, Mamzel. A fair number of the visitors here have never heard of our authority. Those that have care less for it.’
‘That’s what free trade station means,’ Thonius said. ‘This is Lucky Space, free space, a gateway. We Imperials are only tolerated visitors here.’
‘The stuff you know,’ Kys mocked.
‘You wouldn’t believe,’ Thonius replied.
They were approaching the entry gate at the end of the jetty. Its ancient stone form was decorated with interwoven carved figures that symbolised leaping flame. Heaps of votive offerings were piled up either side of the gate pillars. Dolls, figurines, ritual pots, small tied-up sacks, drinking vessels, ribbons, occasionally an icon like an aquila; and those were simply the ones of human origin that Nayl could identify. Any others were alien objects he could make no sense of. It was customary to leave a token offering at the gate on departure, to vouchsafe one’s next voyage.
Two Vigilants awaited them at the gate.
‘You ready with the tribute?’ Preest whispered.
‘The servitors have been instructed,’ Ravenor replied through Mathuin’s mouth.
The Order of Vigilants administered the Reach. They collected tariffs, saw to the station’s smooth running, and to the congress of fair trade. The pair that now approached them were lean and tall, at least as tall as Harlon or Zeph. They walked with an easy, nimble step that told Nayl right off they were consummate close fighters. Each Vigilant wore a sleeveless, antique gown of ribbed armour, marvellously constructed, baggy black pantaloons that were tight-cinched at the ankle, and black felt slippers that were shaped around the big toe. Their exposed arms were either bionic, or encased in some form of skinplant technology. It was a tech-design neither Nayl nor Ravenor had ever seen before. Sheathed over their shoulders they carried ceremonial hand-and-a-half swords.
Their heads were bare and shaved. More of the curiously-wrought skinplant tech encased their necks, so that their heads seemed to be resting on slender columns of intricately inscribed metal. The skin of their faces and scalps was entirely covered in swirling flame tattoos, echoing the design around the doorway. Their eyes were augmetic implants that glowed a dull green.
‘Welcome,’ said one. Its voice was like silk.
‘The immaterium has brought you to Bonner’s Reach,’ said the other, its tone rasping and deep.
‘Free trade is welcome here,’ uttered the first.
Perched on her hovering platform, Preest bowed. ‘Thank you for your greeting and welcome,’ she said. ‘I most humbly crave admittance. I have brought a tribute for the welfare of all.’
‘Let us examine it,’ said the rasping one.
At a signal from Nayl, the servitors brought forward the caskets and opened some of them. Foodstuffs, much of it stasis-fresh, wine and some flasks of amasec.
‘This is acceptable tribute,’ said the rasping Vigilant.
‘Welcome,’ repeated the silky one. ‘Do you wish us to advertise your presence and identity to the merchants here?’
‘I am Shipmistress Zeedmund. Of the sprint trader Tarnish. I am here for Firetide, but I also seek interesting commerce.’
‘Zeedmund. Tarnish…’ they echoed.
‘I have serious collateral,’ she added. ‘Make that known. I am interested in genuine business.’
‘You appreciate the Code of the Reach?’ asked the Vigilant with the silk voice.
‘Peace and discourse,’ Preest replied. ‘And no weapon within the bounds of the Reach with a range longer than a human arm.’
Nayl and Mathuin dutifully displayed the empty holsters at their hips, the ritual sign of unarmed intent.
‘You are familiar with our rules,’ said the silky-voiced Vigilant.
‘You have been here before,’ the rasping one said. It was more of a statement than a question. Nayl stiffened.
‘I am a trader,’ said Preest. ‘I go where I please.’
‘Voice-pattern records show you to be Cynia Preest, shipmistress. Not Zeedmund.’
‘Traders change their identities. Is that a problem?’
‘Not at all. We are ever discreet.’ The Vigilants stood aside and ushered them through the threshold. ‘Enter and make your trade.’
Beyond the gate, they entered a capacious chamber hewn out of the planetary rock. The air was still muggy and over-used. The place was bathed in a yellow, fulminous light from bioluminescent tank-lamps mounted at regular intervals along the wall. Archways led off into other chambers, and at the far end, a well-lit tunnel disappeared away into the free trade areas. More Vigilants appeared, to conduct Preest’s servitors to the communal larders where the tribute could be left.
One of them, his voice a whisper, approached the shipmistress.
‘Do you require a guide? A translator? Any other service?’
‘I will ask if I need any such service,’ she said. The Vigilant bowed and backed away.
With her bodyguards either side of her, Preest began to glide sedately down the long tunnel.
On Bonner’s Reach, visiting traders could avail themselves of drink and nourishment free of charge. Indeed, almost all services were free. A berthing fee was required, of course, but once that was paid, a trader could luxuriate in the bountiful hospitality of the station. The level of comfort was designed to relax visitors and encourage profitable, unhurried mercantile negotiation. The Vigilants merely expected a fee equivalent to one per cent of gross on any deal or transaction made within their precincts.
Of course, this apparent largesse was helped enormously by the recognised custom of tribute. Every captain, master or venturer, human or otherwise, was expected to offer something in the way of foodstuffs, liquor or other intoxicants upon arrival.
Preest’s tribute was conducted down three kilometres of rock-cut corridors into a handling bay that adjoined one of the station’s many food preparation areas. There the servitors set the caskets down as instructed and made their way back to the Hinterlight. A Vigilant labelled the caskets with storage instructions. Before long, kitchen labour would sort through the caskets and distribute the contents: perishables into cold stores and stasis vaults, wine to cellars, dry goods to the well-stocked pantries, specialist foods into appropriate containers, and narcotics to the tenders who walked the floors of the free trade salons.
The Vigilant was called away. Two pot-men were having an altercation in the nearby kitchen.
Preest’s caskets were left unattended against the wet quartz wall of the handling bay.
The lid of the fourth casket along popped open. Telescopic levers hissed taut, lifting the produce tray up, revealing it to be merely a shallow false top.
Breathing deeply and slowly, Kara Swole slid herself out of the hidden cavity. She had contorted her body into a tiny space. As she emerged, she paused, grimacing, to pop her shoulder joints back into place.
Kara looked around. There was no time to complete a full body recovery here. She reached her hands up and detached the fibre-optic patch from over her left eye. The adhesive took some lashes with it. She rubbed her eye and wound the patch up in its long string of wire, unplugging the far end of it from the inside of the casket. Thanks to the fibre-optic, she’d been able to see a cold-light view of the outside and judge the best time for emergence accordingly.
Keeping a watchful eye around her, Kara tucked the fibre-optic into a hip pouch. She was wearing a skin-tight light-reflective bodyglove with only her head exposed. He thick red hair was slicked into a tight latex net that made her look bald. She opened the next casket along, and removed its false top layer too. Her equipment was stowed beneath. First, a small, prepacked rucksack on a tight fylon harness. Then, a compact vox, and a multikey that slipped neatly into holder loops on her waistband.
Her limbs and back were sore. She stayed wary, expecting discovery at any moment. The thin combat knife slipped into place in her glove’s calf sheath. Nearly done.
She could hear footsteps approaching. One last task. Two almost empty tribute caskets would be more than a little suspicious. She tore open the shrink-wrapped packs of dehydrated kelp and shook their dry contents out into the bottom of each casket. Then she tore the top off a water flask and emptied its glugging contents after them.
Footsteps came closer. She pushed the produce trays back into place, closed the casket lids, and dashed into the shadows at the far end of the handling bay. Then, like an arachnid, she went clear up the sheer quartz wall. The palms and soles of her bodyglove were angle-ribbed with razor-steel filament hooks that could find purchase on almost any surface. She reached the top of the wall, slid into a rocky cavity, and lay still.
A troupe of kitchen labourers wandered into the bay below her, flipping up the lids of Preest’s caskets to examine the fare. As she watched, they opened the casket where she had been concealed and took out the top tray.
The rest of the casket was chock full of glistening kelp. She heard the labourers scoff and moan. It was typical cheapskate rogue trader behaviour. Come bearing plenty when in fact most of the makew
eight was sea cabbage.
Kara grinned to herself.
As soon as the labourers began to heft the caskets out into the larders, Kara began to move again, scuttling across the rock wall and in under the great flinty arch to the kitchen. Her arms and legs were throbbing with pain. Sheer climbing put an enormous stress on musculature, and her body wasn’t yet limber from the forced contortions of the casket.
She forced herself on. A cramp in her left calf lost her some grip, but she clenched her teeth and persisted.
The kitchen below her was a vast and dingy haze, steam surging up from a dozen canisters on a dozen stoves, smoke trailing off roast veal and orkunu and marinated sinqua on the fire pits, drums of broiling ketelfish, pans of frying lardons, tureens of potage, steamers of fubi dumplings and blanching wilt-leaf. The roof of the chamber was a thick smog, which suited her just right. Though stone-cut, the kitchen hall was bolstered with thick crossmembers of steel that formed ceiling beams. She dropped down onto the nearest one, swathed in oily smoke and vapour. There, invisible to the staff twenty metres below her, she stood for a long while, tension-flexing and relaxing her tortured body. Arms, joints, digits, spine, ribs, pelvis. As if performing to some great invisible audience, she began to stretch and slide, backflip, rotate and split. Then she lay on her back on the beam, the kitchen clattering and broiling below her. She was still sore – that was inevitable after two hours in the box. But she was at last spry and warmed up.