[Gaunt's Ghosts 07] - Sabbat Martyr

  “That’s not possible. This is a hospital, and there are sick men here who need rest.”

  “The Saint has touched men here!” an ayatani declared. “We must have audience with these men and test them for faith and truth.”

  “Go away,” said Dorden.

  Ayatani Kilosh moved towards him through the gathering crowd.

  “Show me the men,” he said to the old doctor.

  “Can’t this wait?”

  Kilosh shook his head. “Corroboration must be had and witnessed, and testimony recorded so that these miracles may be written into the holy record.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Doctor, if a plague breaks out do you not try to contain it, identify it and document it for the good of the Imperium?”

  Dorden blinked. “Of course.”

  “Well, a wonder has happened here that has profound significance for the Church of Man. We must investigate it and document it so we can understand fully what it means. The God-Emperor has spoken to us, and we need to find out what it is He has said.”

  Dorden sighed. “Just you then, Ayatani Kilosh. You and your scribes. I will not have the other patients discomforted.”

  The air was heavy with the hot smell of baking bread. Down the promenade from the scholam where the Tanith were billeted there was an arcade of merchant shops — a weaver, a milliner, a measure-arbitrator, a meat-packer and a bakery. It was nearly dawn, and a civic light-keeper, a long-bodied servitor, was clunking down the arcade, adjusting the wall-mounted phospha lamps to the day setting. The bakery was the only business up at that hour. The ovens were running in the back of the store, and the lamps were lit in the windows. In less than an hour, the hive’s morning function pattern would begin, and the area would be busy with workers walking from their habs to the main-hive elevator banks to get to work. The bakery, which did a busy trade every morning in breakfast rolls and sugar-loaves, was preparing for the morning rush.

  This early, it was still eerily empty. The antique speaker horns along the promenade were playing the same soft music they had been broadcasting throughout the night cycle, and the public address screens were scrolling random, soothing texts from the Imperial creed.

  It reminded Soric of Vervunhive. He felt sadly nostalgic. He’d always loved this time, the early calm at the start of a day in the hive, the brief hiatus between night shift and day shift He remembered rising at this time, walking to work, purchasing caffeine and a sosal from the food-house on his hab-block, seeing the open gates of the smeltery as he approached.

  He’d knocked on the door of the bakery and got the bleary assistant to sell him some soft dough-twists, still warm from the ovens. Not sosals, but still… Now he and Milo sat under the gantries of the upper walkway, munching the food. A pair of arbites wandered past but they didn’t spare them a second glance Two off-duty soldiers, heading home after a night in the taverns.

  “So… you think you’re a psyker?”

  Soric’s mouth turned into a firm, upside-down U. “That’s not what I said, Brin.”

  “But you’re worried about these… these happenings?”

  “Of course I am! Worried… terrified.”

  Milo ate the last of his dough-twist and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  “You know what happens, chief.”

  “I know. I know, gak it.”

  “Seriously, I don’t know why you’re talking to me.”

  “Because—”

  “Because this said so?” Milo produced the crumpled blue paper from his pocket.

  “I don’t want to die, Milo,” Soric said.

  “No one said anything about d—”

  Soric shook his head. “A bullet in the head. That’s what I’ll get. They don’t even have to prove anything. If anyone thinks, or even thinks they think, that I’m touched by the warp, I’ll be executed. No hesitation.”

  “Gaunt wouldn’t—”

  “Wouldn’t he? It’s his job. It’s the duty of every one of us. If I found out one of my boys was touched, I’d do them myself. No question. I’m not an idiot. You don’t take chances with gak like that.”

  Milo thought for a moment. “By rights, then, I should shoot you. Or report you at least. Why have you trusted me?”

  “I heard things.”

  “Heard what?”

  “Things. Things about you. I thought you might be sympathetic. I thought you might know what to do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re still here. Gaunt never shot you.”

  Milo widened his eyes. “Chief, I’d be lying if I said you don’t scare me. The feth you’ve told me tonight… I should be running away and screaming for you to be gunned down.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “No. I was interrogated. By an inquisitor. Did you know that?”

  Soric blanched. “No!”

  “Back on Monthax. It was before your time. Before Verghast. Right from the Founding, I was regarded as a bit of a lucky charm. You know the story.”

  “Corbec told me a little. You were the only civilian to get off the world alive.”

  “Right.”

  “Because of Gaunt.”

  “Right He saved my life I was the only non-com to make it off Tanith. And the youngest. All the men looked at me like I was special, like I was a little piece of Tanith, saved and preserved.”

  “But you were special, weren’t you?”

  Milo sniggered. “Oh, yes. A kid, surrounded by grown-up soldiers that I so desperately wanted to impress. Corbec, Cluggan, Rawne — I guess. Gaunt himself, certainly. I loved the fact they paid attention to me, took me seriously. I think I milked it a bit.”

  “Milked it?” Soric sat back.

  “I had a knack of knowing things. Well, that’s what they all thought I was the mascot, the lucky charm. If I had a funny feeling, they all took notice of it. Believe me, chief, it was child’s play.”

  “You faked it? Gak!”

  Milo shook his head. “No, no… nothing like that. I did get a feeling every now and then. A sense of premonition. But look at it this way. I was a kid, following men round into war zones. Shit was likely to happen at any moment Bombardments. Raids. Sneak attacks. I mean, probability law alone means I got it right a lot of the time. I was scared and jumpy. When I jumped, the men listened. When I jumped and they listened and something happened… well, bingo. As far as they were concerned, I was a lucky charm who had a sixth sense for danger. You know troopers, chief. They’re a superstitious lot.”

  “Gak me,” said Soric, deflated. “So it was all a turn. Little Brinny-boy doing his thing so the troops would love him.”

  “Not quite,” said Milo. “Are you going to finish that?” he asked, nodding at the half-eaten twist in Soric’s hand.

  Soric shook his head and passed it to Milo.

  “There were times,” Milo said, through a mouthful, “there were times when it seemed real. I know Gaunt was worried. He didn’t know what to do. If I did have a touch about me, he knew he’d have no choice but to execute me. But he didn’t dare.”

  “Because?”

  “Come on, chief! I was the kid, the lucky mascot, the last living civilian from Tanith. What the feth would it have done to the Ghosts’ morale if he’d shot me?”

  “I see your point…”

  “Anyway, this inquisitor got wind of it. Varl had been playing on my rep to stage a few ‘entertainments’ on the troop transport and some of the other regiments got nervous. I was reported. Next thing I know, I was in front of this inquisitor.”

  “I’ve never had the pleasure. Was he a bastard? I’ve heard they are.”

  “He was a she. Lilith. But yes, she was a bastard. Put me through the wringer. Gaunt was there Tried his best to keep me out of the crap.”

  “And?”

  “And… she did her job, Agun. She got to the truth and uncovered it. She found out I was a fake and exposed me. And that’s why I’m still alive.”

  Soric breathed heavily and ru
bbed his dry hands together. “You were a fake…”

  “Not deliberately. I had been starting to believe myself. But she got the truth out. And I realised I’d been playing with fire. If that’s all this is, chief, stop now.”

  “It isn’t,” said Soric. He reached into the thigh pocket of his fatigue pants and fished out a crumpled packet of lho-sticks.

  “I thought you’d given those up.”

  “So did I,” Soric said, lighting one. “They help with the headaches. I get this pain across my skull, and in my dead eye.” He reached up with his left hand and splayed the fingers across his scarred head. “It hurts, a lot.”

  “You should tell Gaunt,” said Milo.

  “About my headaches?”

  “About everything. Tell him. If I know anything about Gaunt it’s that he’s no bastard. He’ll protect you. He’ll do what is necessary to keep you safe without breaking Imperial law.”

  “The black ships…” Soric murmured.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. All I know is, I’m not touched. Never was. I’m not in any way special. But I know how hard it can get if they suspect you. So tell Gaunt. Maybe that’s why the message told you to speak to me. Sound advice.”

  Soric exhaled a plume of fragrant smoke. “I need to do something. The messages are getting…”

  “What?”

  “More urgent. I’ve had a warning. I don’t know what it means, but it’s gonna be bad. I have to tell someone… Gaunt, who knows? But if I tell, that’s the end for me. Goodbye, Agun, nice to have known you. I don’t know, Brinny. Should I be looking after myself or looking to the greater good?”

  Milo got up, dusting crumbs from his lap. “I think you know the answer to that, chief.”

  Milo walked away down the promenade.

  Soric sat for a moment in silence. “All right already!” he hissed, reaching into his leg pouch. The brass shell had been wriggling like a rat.

  He unscrewed it and routinely tipped out the note.

  Nine are coming. Stop gakking around and be a man. Milo can be trusted, but he’s lying. He IS special. Don’t tell him. Don’t scare him. The clock’s reached midnight.

  “I presume you have a pass, trooper?”

  Milo stopped in his tracks in the scholam entrance.

  “Sir?”

  Hark stepped out of the shadows. “An exeunt pass, permitting you to stray from quarters.”

  “I haven’t sir.”

  Hark nodded. “Who were you with?”

  “No one, sir. I was just taking a walk.”

  “With Sergeant Soric. I saw you.”

  “It’s nothing, sir.”

  Hark raised a gloved hand and beckoned Milo over to him with one crooked finger.

  “I will judge what is something and what is nothing. I have my eye on Soric.”

  “Why, sir?”

  Mark’s eyes were hooded. “Reports. I don’t intend to divulge my sources to a common trooper.”

  “Of course not, sir.”

  “You lead a charmed life, Brin Milo. The Tanith dote on you. Gaunt dotes on you. All I care about is the well being of this regiment. Its health… spiritual, physical… mental. I believe that you, like any of the Ghosts, would tell me if there was something — wrong — going on. It would be your duty.”

  “It would, sir.”

  “Tell me about Soric.”

  “The chief is upset, sir.”

  “Upset?”

  “He is suffering from headaches.”

  “And?”

  Milo shook his head. “And nothing. Headaches.”

  Milo stiffened as Hark produced a scrumpled piece of blue paper from his storm-coat pocket and opened it out, holding it so that Milo could see.

  It read: Guheen’s going to get himself pulped if he goes that way. The tank is behind the cabinet maker’s shop.

  “I have no idea what that means, sir,” said Milo.

  “Soric is warp-touched, isn’t he?”

  “Not that I know, sir.”

  “If I find out he is, and that you’ve been covering for him, I’ll have your neck as well as his. Clear, trooper?”

  “Crystal, sir.”

  “Get to your billet!” snapped Hark.

  Milo hurried away and Hark turned and stared up at the massive window lights that ran along the promenade bay. Up in the deep blue, stars were shining.

  Some of the stars were ships.

  On the wide bridge of the frigate Navarre, Executive Officer Kreff leaned forward in his padded seat and said, “Authorise.”

  The bridge crew nodded, touching console switches. There was a low hum as the gravitic assemblies in the massive ship’s underbelly cycled and flat-banded mag waves to compensate for the ship’s orbital drift.

  A proximity horn started to wail.

  Kreff tutted and got up, sauntering over to the main pilot well where the helm servitors sat in recessed floor sockets. The demi-human crew sat hunched forward, their plug-crusted skulls looping hoses behind them like braids.

  “Station keeping,” he ordered.

  “Maximal one oh one,” the nearest servitor croaked from its augmetic voice-box.

  With a press of his hand on the imprint reader, Kreff cancelled the siren. Orbital space above Herodor was thick with ships, most of them informally registered pilgrim tubs. Every few minutes, as the elegant frigate reclined in orbit, tracking sensors would fire off, warning of another near miss. It had become routine.

  Kreff walked into the actuality sphere in the centre of the bridge space, and looked around at the speckle of glowing ship-phantoms that appeared in 3D in the light-impressed sphere around him. Tactical readouts glowed beside the various images, blinking as the images slowly tracked. There was a mass conveyance called the Troubadour, part of a newly arrived pilgrim caravan, that kept wandering into the Navarre’s collision cone.

  The vox beeped. It was the captain.

  “Alarms woke me, Kreff.”

  “Nothing to worry about, captain. Just routine.”

  Captain Wysmark signed off.

  “Bloody hulk is wandering again…” Kreff said.

  “Troubadour is signaling, sir,” said one of the deck officers. “They have a fire on board. Major fire, in the hold space. Requesting urgent assist.”

  “Check it.”

  “Navarre is reading massive heat build in the hold section. They’re burning alive.”

  Kreff nodded. “Fire suppression teams to standby. Board teams to ready. Move us in, helm, and tell the Troubadour to stand by for immediate docking. Let’s hustle.”

  “Should I have the troops stand by, sir?” asked Colonel Zebbs, the ship’s senior armsman, standing to attention behind Kreff.

  “It’s a bloody pilgrim ship, not a hostile,” said Kreff.

  Ensign Valdeemer took the data-slate from the waiting deck servitor, reviewed it quickly, and then began to stride purposefully across the steel deck of the Omnia Vincit towards the fleet captain’s pulpit To his left, where the edge of the bridge deck dropped away, the dozens of helm servitors, tech-priests and astropath navigators were arranged in descending tiers, like the upper circle of a great theatre. It took a massive crew to control a battleship the size of the Omnia Vincit, a massive bridge crew alone The bridge space was vast and vaulted like a gigantic basilica, its high domed roof painted with beautiful frescos of the actes sanctorum.

  Valdeemer was just a small part of that crew, and a recent part too. He’d joined the ship just eighteen months before, but already he was a junior deck officer. He knew he had a bright future. One day, it would be him sitting up there in that magnificent throne, bio-linked to the ship’s systems, commanding the power of a god in the Emperor’s name.

  To get there, he had to shine. To excel. To do his job in exemplary fashion and be seen to be doing it too. He could have voxed the report for the fleet captain’s attention, but it was important, and suited personal delivery. Besides, it brought him to the fleet captain’s attention.

  H
e hurried up the alabaster steps of the pulpit pausing briefly at the top as the Navy armsmen guards scanned him and then stood aside.

  Fleet Captain Esquine terrified every member of the great ship’s crew. Even Valdeemer, for all his confidence, was cowed by him. It was hard to tell where the fleet captain’s gilded throne ended and his own body began. He was encased in golden armour, intricately wrought and etched, and his armour engaged directly with the throne so he formed a solid, engraved structure. His hands and arms were fused into the arms of the seat, and the back of his head, in its skullcap of gold, was locked against the throne’s high back.

  Esquine’s hands were set palm-down on the arms of the throne, and only his gold-jacketed fingers moved, dancing like a pianist’s. At their bidding, multi-jointed servo arms raised and lowered in front of the fleet captain’s eyes, presenting pict-plates, larger actuality screens, and data-slates. The fleet captain held them up, sometimes four or more at a time, overlaying, comparing, transferring data from one to another with a blink, interlocking and compressing information into tight holographic spheres that floated around the throne.

  Esquine’s face was long-browed and noble. His blade of a nose had a slight hook to it, and his pale eyes were lashed with nearly invisible white hairs. The gold tracery of circuitry was woven into his ears, his cheekbones and the skin of his forehead from the edges of the skullcap, giving his flesh a jaundiced tinge. His mouth was invisible behind the grille of a vox-caster that rose from his gilded chest plate like a breathing mask.

  Valdeemer smoothed the crisp front of his uniform jacket, shook out his braided cuffs, adjusted the sit of his emerald sash, and stood to attention.

  “You have a report for me, ensign?” Esquine asked. His voice was soft and fluid, each word sounding like a rounded stone dropped into a deep pool.

  “Sir,” Valdeemer nodded, and held out the data-slate. Esquine’s fingers flickered, and a servo arm extended out from the throne’s side and took the slate, swinging it back before the fleet captain’s eyes.

  “From the astropathicae,” Valdeemer went on. “They have detected an advance perturbation in the Empyrean, warp modulus eleven two nine nine seven, at a point—”

  “Nine AU out from Herodor. I can read, ensign. A standard Imperial arrival vector.”