‘What?’
+Open the gate, Carl.+
‘You expect me to go into a pen full of frigging tuskers?’
+Sigh. Actually, they’re demi-pachyderms. Quite placid, despite their size.+
‘I know as a fact the average demi-pach on this scum-world weighs in at forty tonnes and has shovel-tusks the size of an ork’s bill-hook.’
+Indeed. Carl, you asked for my help and I’m trying. As I sense it, there are sixty-eight of the baron’s slaughtermen coming down the pen track towards you, out for blood. I’m not even counting the angry drover-men with them, or the armed traders coming along for the bounty. I’ll pacify the demi-pachs. Just get across the yard.+
Carl Thonius sighed and slid back the gate bolt. The sound of it made the herd inside sound and low. Huge hooves trampled forward. ‘I—’
+Get the hell on with it, Carl.+
Thonius pushed the hefty gate open and slid into the pen. He leaned the gate shut behind him. The demi-pachs were huge shadows in the chilly night. He could smell their weight, their dung. He could see their snorting breath fuming the cold air.+Carl? Let’s go.+ He walked forward.
Terra, these things were big. Even in the utter dark, they were monsters. They loomed over him. He could sense their parasite-clotted, wrinkled hides. He edged past two or three, then one turned its massive head and he had to duck to avoid collision with a pair of two-metre tusks.
‘I’m dead,’ he whispered.
+Shut up, Carl. I’m trying to save you here. Keep going. Another twenty paces.+
‘Euwww…’
+What?+
‘One of these things just defecated on me.’
+It’ll wash off, Carl. Come on. Get with me.+
‘I see the gate.’
+Good. Head for it. Open it.+
Head low, Thonius scurried through the forest of legs and distended bellies, hearing their multi-stomach gurgle, smelling their constant gas.
He reached the far gate and drew back the slider bolt.
+Wait—+
Thonius didn’t. His heart was fluttering with fear now. He so wanted to be out of the pen, away from the gigantic beasts.
+Carl, I—+
Thonius pulled the gate open and dashed out into the drystone corridor outside. He only dimly registered the figures in front of him.
He raised his gun as fast as he was able.
The slaughterman’s face was fixed in a grimace, marked with dried blood. The chainblade sang.
The toothed cutter severed Thonius’s right arm at the elbow. His whole forearm, the hand still clutching the Hecuter 6, flew off into the dark.
KYS HEARD THE scream of pain and outrage. ‘Carl! By all that’s holy, Carl!’
HE’D NEVER BEEN worn. There’d never been a circumstance where it might have to happen. Ravenor didn’t even know if Carl Thonius could be worn.
But there was no choice.
The wraithbone pendant shone like fire.
NFFF! PAIN! EXCRUCIATING, dominating… total. I try to blank it, but it’s overwhelming. Blood’s pumping out of my severed arm. I’ve fallen down, I’m passing out.
There’s a slaughterman standing over me, his murderous chain blade raised, gore flecking from the cycling teeth.
Focus. Focus!
This… this is a surprisingly soft place. Warm, inviting, educated, refined. Thonius’s mindspace is like a gentleman’s club. No, a private dinner party. Every place setting perfect, every line of discourse wise and ironic. God-Emperor, it’s so genteel, so polished.
Except for that man at the end of the dining table. The man with the severed arm, spraying blood all over the pressed white table cloth, screaming, soiling himself. I raise a crystal glass, dignified, and toast. I am the host here. I’m in charge.
The man with the shorn-away arm stops screaming. He looks at me, puzzled, like I’m some gate-crasher.
We look into each others eyes for a moment. There’s a door behind him in the wood-panelled wall, A door into a secret room. The man really, really doesn’t want me to go in there. I don’t. There’s no time. A brute with a chainblade is about to decapitate me.
CARL THONIUS’S MUTILATED body springs up onto its feet and avoids the downstroke of the chainblade. It circles wide and kicks the chainblade’s operator in the face so hard several of his teeth come flying out.
Then there’s a man with a knife. Even missing a limb, Thonius’s body disarms him easily and leaves the knife wedged under his left eye.
The other two men have lances. Herd lances, with long, broad, bronze tips.
Thonius’s body reaches down into the filth and prises the Hecuter 6 from the dead fingers of a severed right arm.
Left-handed, it raises the gun. The grip doesn’t fit its hand.
Who cares?
A tight squeeze puts it on auto. The charging spearmen come apart like gristle dolls.
Only then do I sink to my borrowed knees, drop the gun and sag. I’ve staved off the effects of Thonius’s blood loss long enough.
Kys is there. She smiles down at me.
She says ‘Gonna be fine. I’ll get you out of here.’
And she means it.
THREE
WHEN HE WOKE up, he was flat on his back, with three hard, white suns shining into his eyes, and a tall figure standing over him. The figure was a shadow, silhouetted by the clustered suns.
Although he knew Ravenor could never be a figure, an upright figure, not any more, he was sure that was who it was. It was big and strong, and it was assured. Perhaps this was some lingering part of the strange things that had been done to his mind.
The figure reached up a hand and, with a casual, godlike gesture, swung the suns aside in the sky.
With their light tipped away, he realised they were not suns after all. Just a bank of chrome-hooded photo-lumin surgical lamps on a multi-poise armature. And the figure wasn’t Ravenor. Or the God-Emperor.
It was Zeph Mathuin.
The bodyguard was naked except for a pair of white, draw-string shorts and a heavy packing of surgical dressings strapped across his broad torso. Thonius could see the entirety of Mathuin’s left arm; the polished mechanisms of a chrome-plated augmetic limb. He could see the old scars where silver metal and caramel flesh folded into one another at the shoulder. He thought of his own arm and—
The stuff you know.
‘He’s awake,’ Mathuin said, and turned away. Ravenor hovered his chair across the infirmary to Thonius’s bedside. ‘Carl?’
Zarjaran, the medicae, appeared from somewhere and checked the diagnostic displays above the head of the cot. ‘My head hurts,’ Thonius said, his voice sounding to him like it was coming out of distant speakers. ‘Naturally,’ said Zarjaran. ‘I want to sit up.’
Zarjaran reached up to a dangling control box and elevated Thonius’s cot into a half recline.
Thonius looked around the room. He’d never been a patient in the Hinterlight’s infirmary before, except for periodic health checks and shots prior to planet visits. Ravenor was there in front of him, his armoured shell giving nothing away. Mathuin had crossed back to his own rumpled cot and was sitting on its edge, sucking drink from a flask through a plastek straw. There was an overwhelming smell of counterseptic wash. ‘I’m sorry,’ Thonius said. ‘For what?’ Ravenor asked. ‘The mess.’ ‘Things happen in the field, Carl. I’m just glad you’re alive.’
Thonius felt as if he might burst into tears. He breathed hard, and felt the tension pull at sutures. He didn’t dare look down at his right arm. He wanted Ravenor to mind-speak, so he could hear his real voice and tone and inflection, instead of that bloodless, emotionless voxsponder. But he didn’t know if his splitting, psi-abused mind could take it.
‘You and Kys got me out.’
‘We did,’ said Ravenor. ‘I’m sorry I had to ware you like that. I would normally ask permission of a friend first, and I don’t like to ware someone who’s not experienced it before. But it was a necessity.’
&
nbsp; ‘It was peculiar,’ said Thonius. In truth, he could remember little about it. The memory of pain eclipsed just about everything else. But he had a feeling of being stretched from within, hollowed out. He was exhausted.
‘I’m exhausted too,’ Ravenor said. ‘It saps me, especially over such a distance. And… in such traumatic circumstances.’
Thonius swallowed. ‘My arm. Where… where is my arm?’
‘Back where it should be,’ said Zarjaran.
Thonius looked down at himself for the first time. His entire right arm was swathed in dressings, with many drug-shunt tubes and wound-drains curling out of it. But they were his fingers protruding from the binding gauze.
‘We were able to re-attach it…’ the medicae began.
‘Doctor Zarjaran is being modest,’ said Ravenor. ‘He spent sixteen hours on you with micro-servitors.’
Zarjaran bowed his head slightly.
‘It’s early days, interrogator,’ he said. ‘But I think the regraft is taking. You might have some long-term loss of function, but the injury was surprisingly clean.’
‘Be thankful,’ Mathuin growled, ‘that the men of the Slaughter Guild take pride in keeping their blades astonishingly sharp.’
Thonius tried to flex his fingers, but he could not.
Then he looked up. ‘Sixteen hours, you said. How long have I been out?’
‘Two days,’ said Ravenor.
‘What have I missed?’
‘Little. Nayl and Kara are on the surface, looking for Siskind. I withdrew everyone else. Everyone who might have been connected to the incident.’
‘What about… Kinsky and his friends?’
‘I’ve yet to talk to them,’ said Ravenor.
‘He’s making them sweat,’ said Mathuin.
SOMEONE WAS CRYING. Zael could hear the sobbing sound echoing up through the hab-stack. It was still dark, early. He got out of his little cot into the pre-dawn chill and crept out of the backroom he shared with his sister. Nove’s bed was empty. She hadn’t been back that night.
Granna was asleep in the family room, snoring a phlegmy snore. Zael could smell the sharp stink of glue. There was a light on, a single glow-globe over the cupboard. It illuminated the little effigy of the God-Emperor that granna kept there.
The sobbing wasn’t granna either, though it had been on many nights. It was coming from outside. The stack landing. Zael padded forward, through the kitchen to the door. Through the frosted glass, he could see a figure pressed against the door, head bowed. He could hear the ragged sobbing now. He could even see how each sob gusted brief condensation over the other side of the glass. ‘Nove?’
The crying continued. ‘Sis? Is that you?’ More sobs.
‘Nove? What’s happened?’
The crying ebbed. A bare hand splayed flat against the glass, pressed tight, imploring.
‘Nove? You’re scaring me…’
The door handle turned slowly and released. It did it again. Zael saw the dead bolt was thrown.
Let me in…
‘Nove? Answer me. Is it you?’
Let me in, Zael…
Zael remembered the stories going round the stack. Raiders, in the night, knocking up poor families, breaking in…
There was nothing to steal here. But, the stories said, the raiders didn’t just want to steal…
‘Nove?’
Zael… let me in…
‘You’re not my sister,’ Zael said, backing away. He looked around for a weapon. There was a blunt paring knife on the sink-edge. He grabbed it.
Something to tell you…
‘What?’
Something he needs to know…
‘Who?’
Let me in… he must know…
‘Go away!’
The handle turned again. Then the nurl of the dead bolt began to rattle to and fro.
‘Go away!’
The dead bolt began to slide back.
‘Go away!’ Zael yelled. ‘Granna! Come quick! Granna!’
But… oh, now, that was right. His granna was dead.
And this was all… all…
The bolt slunked back and the door began to open.
Zael shrieked.
KYS SLAPPED HIS cheek hard and he fell onto the metal deck. ‘What the hell’s the matter with you, boy?’ she said.
Zael looked up at her, blinking. He was in the corridor. The door to his cabin was open behind him, and he’d dragged most of his bed-roll cover out into the hallway after him.
‘I…’ he began.
‘I was asleep, and I heard you screaming,’ Kys said harshly. Then she sighed, and crouched down beside him. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hit you. I didn’t know what else to do.’ ‘I…’ he said again. ‘I had a bad dream.’
‘Right.’
Involuntarily, Zael wrapped his arms tight around Kys. She flinched and went stiff. Slowly, though gently, she pried his arms away from her.
‘Look, boy. I’m not a people person.’
‘My name is Zael.’
‘Yeah, I knew that. Zael,’ Kys nodded, though until that moment she’d been struggling to remember the kid’s name. ‘You had a bad dream. We all do. Damn, you wanna try being psy. Then you get bad dreams you didn’t order.’
She became aware he was staring up at her. He looked so young. ‘It’s fine. Honestly,’ she said. ‘Wanna tell me about it?’
‘It was my sister.’
Throne, Zael, I have sisters. I know how scary that can be.’
‘My sister is dead.’
‘Oh.’
‘She was knocking on my door. She wanted to come in.’
‘Right. Real nightmare stuff. I’ve had shit you—’ She stopped and looked at him again. ‘You don’t want to hear that. You need to sleep. Come on.’
She rose and hoisted him up. ‘Pick up your bedding,’ she said.
He scooped his bedroll up. She led the way into his cabin. He shrank back when he saw she’d pulled a dagger.
‘What’s that for—’
‘Shhhhh!’ she said, a finger to her lips. Warily, she looked under the cot, then threw open the closet, then leapt into the shower room, blade raised.
‘Just checking for monsters. None here. It’s safe.’
He smiled. ‘That was really silly,’ he said.
She shrugged and sheathed her blade. ‘Frig it, I said I wasn’t a people person. Go to bed.’
‘Okay.’
‘And next time you have a bad dream…’
‘Yes?’
‘Wake some other bastard, will you?’
‘Okay.’
KYS WALKED OUT of Zael’s cabin and shut the hatch. She was about to turn away when she paused. She stretched out a long finger and ran the tip of it through the thawing film of frost that surrounded the hatch frame.
She felt the unmistakable buzz of psychic energy.
She walked quickly back to her own cabin and activated the intership vox.
‘Ravenor?’
‘MAKE IT QUICK. I’m busy,’ Ravenor said. He was gliding down the main dorsal corridor of deck three. Kys had to double-time to keep up.
‘It’s the boy.’
‘Zael?’
‘Yeah, Zael.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s borderline psy… maybe nascent. Growing too…’
‘I know.’
‘You know?’
‘Patience, why in the name of Terra would I have brought him from Eustis and made him welcome here if I didn’t think he had potential?’
‘Well, I wondered…’
‘The boy was picking my transmissions up on Eustis Majoris. He’s clearly sharp. I want to examine him further, when time permits.’
Kys nodded. ‘But, if he’s sharp… he could be dangerous. Shouldn’t you hand him over to the Black Ships for processing?’
‘No. He’s sharp, but he’s passive sharp. Not active. I can read that much. He’s a reflector. An echoer. I don’t think he’s going to t
urn into a Kinsky. Or a Ravenor. But I want to know what he’s absorbed. Recorded, if you will. Of all the flect users we traced on Eustis, he was the only psyker.’
‘I think he could be trouble,’ Kys said.
Ravenor swung his bulky chair round to face her. ‘I think so too, Patience. But I’ll decide. It’s my call. He’s here because I say so.’
‘All right.’
‘Now go away,’ Ravenor said.
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m about to speak with the Ministry agents, and I don’t want you to kill them.’
‘Fine,’ she said. And strode away.
THE HATCH HISSED open and Ravenor hovered through. Ahenobarb was sitting at the end of the long conference table, his chin on his arms. Kinsky was leaning back in his seat, flicking nuts from a bag up into his mouth. Lost kernels dotted the floor. Madsen rose as Ravenor entered. ‘This is cooperation?’ she said.+Shut up and sit down.+ Madsen sat down immediately, as if struck.
Kinsky flicked another nut into the air. It missed his mouth. Without looking at Ravenor, he said, ‘Pull another psy play like that, inquisitor, and I will face you down. Do you understand me?’
He flicked another nut. It went up… and then hovered in the air over his open mouth.
‘I believe it’s you who must come to understand the way of things now, Kinsky. You are here to help, not to lead. To advise, not to demand. This is my ship. You are guests. This is my case, you are allies of the Inquisition.’
Ravenor let the nut fall. Kinksy flicked it aside with his hand and got up.
‘Very slick. Very tough. You want to go now? You and me?’
‘Sit down, Kinsky,’ Madsen snapped.
‘You and me, you frigging crip!’
‘Sit down, Kinsky! Now!’ Madsen shouted.
Kinsky sat.
‘Inquisitor,’ Madsen said. ‘I wish to apologise for the actions of my team. Kinsky’s confrontation just then was out of line, but I’m sure you know how volatile it can be with psykers.’
Ravenor stayed silent so Madsen went on.
‘On the surface, our procedures… I understand they sparked a situation. And that resulted in injury to one of your team.’
‘It did.’
‘How is Interrogator Thonius?’
‘Alive. Reunited with his arm.’
Madsen leaned forward. Her eyes were clear and honest. ‘I’m glad. Inquisitor, may I talk with you privately?’