‘There you are,’ said Luna Fazekiel, walking over to them.
‘Is there a problem?’ asked Hark.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of it yet.’ She handed Hark the folded slips of paper bearing Elodie Dutana’s signature.
‘I wanted to see where you think we should go with this,’ she said.
‘You were going to ask me to marry you, and then you didn’t,’ said Elodie.
‘It’s not quite like that,’ said Daur.
‘Then what are these papers for? This petition?’
‘All right. It is like that. A little like that.’
Elodie took a deep breath.
‘So, it’s Zhukova,’ she said, rather too fast. ‘She turns up, and you rekindle your old romance, and suddenly marrying me doesn’t seem like such a great idea–’
‘Oh, Throne,’ said Daur. ‘Please, listen to me. Zhukova means nothing to me. I knew her years back, in the Hive Defence days on Verghast. She was incredibly young. Incredibly stupid, too. She had a crush on everybody.’
‘Including you?’ Elodie asked.
‘Yes, including me. She likes… ambitious and successful men. Officers. I was in her sights for a while, but it was never reciprocated. It was just interesting to see her again. A reminder of old times, of mutual friends long gone. I was being polite.’
She sniffed.
‘You were really that jealous?’ asked Daur.
‘Yes. I always will be.’
He nodded, half-shrugged.
‘I’m honoured to be the subject of such jealousy,’ he said.
‘What about the petition?’ she asked. ‘Explain that.’
He was silent for a long time.
‘I wanted to ask you to marry me,’ he said at last, quietly. ‘I got the paperwork organised, ready for written permission from Gaunt. Then I realised the timing was bad. You know, because of what it would look like.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Guardsmen who get married on the eve of war, they only do it for one reason.’
‘And what’s that?’ she asked.
‘Because they assume they’re going to die,’ said Daur. ‘They want to make sure their wife has the paperwork to support her claim for a widow’s pension from the Munitorum. They do it so their spouse qualifies for the benefit. They do it because they’re not coming back.’
He looked at her.
‘I want to come back,’ he said, ‘and I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t going to.’
Curth didn’t want to use the intership vox, or send a message through channels. It was too impersonal. She went to Gaunt’s quarters and knocked quietly on the hatch.
When he didn’t answer, she let herself in, intending to leave him a private note asking him to come and see her.
Maddalena was just coming out of the bedchamber. She was naked. When she saw Curth, she didn’t grab clothes or anything to cover herself. She grabbed her weapon and aimed it at the doctor.
Curth yelped and leapt backwards, her hands raised.
Gaunt came in, pulling a sheet around his waist.
‘Put that away,’ he said to Maddalena. ‘It’s Doctor Curth.’
Maddalena lowered the weapon, put it aside, and disappeared, naked and long-limbed, into the bedchamber.
‘This is awkward,’ said Gaunt. ‘Sorry.’
‘Yes. I shouldn’t have come in without permission.’
‘I assume it is important, Ana.’
She nodded.
‘Out of curiosity, how long has this been going on–’
She stopped herself.
‘Forget it,’ she said, closing her eyes and shaking her head. ‘It’s not my business, and it was inappropriate of me to ask.’
Gaunt looked uncomfortable. The scar across his abdominals was old and pale.
‘You can ask,’ he said. ‘We’ve known each other a long time. It’s been going on since the conjunction. I don’t know what it is. It’s just sex.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Curth, without any warmth.
Gaunt frowned. He looked lost for words.
‘Just a hint,’ she said, ‘from a friend. If I was the girl in the bedchamber, overhearing this conversation, I don’t think I’d be happy to hear it was “just sex”.’
‘If you were the girl in the bedchamber–’ Gaunt began.
‘Yes?’
‘Ana, I–’
‘You know what, Ibram. I always thought I might be the girl in the bedchamber one day. Funny that.’
He took a step towards her. The edge of the sheet snagged on the door frame. She held up a hand and turned away.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Just get dressed and come down to the infirmary, please. I’ll wait for you there. I came to find you because Dorden is dying. He’s going now. There isn’t much time left for him, and I think he needs you to be there.’
She paused.
‘Actually, I’m not sure he does. He seems quite content. But I think you need you to be there.’
Most of the regiment had gone to the dining halls for supper. Shift bells were ringing. She was walking back along a half-empty main spinal when Blenner saw her.
‘Doctor Curth, has Dorden gone?’ Blenner asked, crossing to her in concern.
‘No. Not yet.’
‘But you’re crying.’
‘Tension. It’s a tension valve, commissar.’
‘Dear lady, I told you I know very well when people are lying,’ he said. ‘It comes with the job.’
‘It’s the truth,’ she said.
‘It’s not the whole truth, though.’
She snorted a laugh, wiping her eyes.
‘Dorden’s going to die. There’s nothing I can do about it. He’s part of this regiment’s soul, and he’s been my mentor and friend and everything else besides since I signed up. I don’t know what I’ll do without him, and that’s only just hitting me. I’ve known for months, and it’s only just making horrible sense now. He’s going to leave us and we’re supposed to carry on.’
Blenner nodded. He patted her shoulder.
‘And that, on top of everything else, made me realise that nothing and no one lasts. Nothing lives forever, no matter how much we want it to. No matter how hard we fight. No matter how patiently we wait. I see that now.’
‘You were… waiting for something?’ he asked.
‘And I waited too long. It’s never going to happen. I understand that now.’
She wiped her eyes again and looked up at him.
‘I have to go to the infirmary, to make sure Dorden’s comfortable. I have to wait for Gaunt there, and brief him. Later on, I am going to need to be very seriously cheered up. I intend to get extremely drunk, Commissar Blenner. I believe you’re the sort of person it’s fun to get drunk with.’
‘My reputation precedes me.’
‘I will require sacra. I trust you’ll be able to procure some?’
He nodded.
‘I should warn you,’ he added, ‘I feel it’s only fair. After a drink or two, I sometimes forget myself, Doctor Curth.’
She looked him dead in the eye.
‘It’s Ana,’ she said.
FIFTEEN
The Marginals
Ship bells rang, and then a siren sounded, alerting every soul on board to the imminent translation.
A judder, a shake that rattled the bones of the ship, and they spat free and clear into realspace. New sirens blasted and a synthetic voice repeated the words ‘Hostile zone, war footing’ over the speaker system.
Spika had brought them to the target three days early.
‘We’re decelerating into the Rimworld Marginals,’ Spika told Gaunt and Eadwine. ‘Navigation has confirmed our realspace position and vector. Sixteen hours of deceleration into the gravimetric plane of this junk system, and then another five as we close on the target location. From this point we are running battle-ready and shields lit; this is a vox-silent phase. I suggest you begin final preparation. You should be re
ady to deploy from three hours out.’
‘I’ll make that five,’ said Gaunt.
Spika nodded.
‘I will issue half hourly notices to that point,’ he said.
‘What does it look like?’ Gaunt asked.
Beside him, the Space Marine chuckled, as if the question was an idle whim.
Spika raised his eyebrows and called out to a deck officer. The realspace shutters covering the massive bridge ports rumbled open, and weak yellow light spilled in. There was nothing to see except a murky brown haze with a small bloom of light in its lower right corner, like a lens flare. White speckles, like grains of salt or flakes of snow, glittered past them, moving sternwards: a dingy emptiness where the frail available light looked like it was coloured with urine.
‘You see?’ asked Eadwine.
‘I see nothing,’ Gaunt replied.
‘My point precisely,’ the Silver Guard rasped, amused.
Spika reached out and adjusted some dials on his console. He barked another instruction or two to the observation and resolution officers at the sculptural cogitator stands below him.
A large, gridded sub-frame extended from the port sill to cover the bulk of the window space. It was made of thick armaglass, and inlaid with hololithic sensors and actuators. The frame was thick with armoured trunking and clusters of small repeater screens and secondary monitors. It lit, igniting a graphic overlay of luminous green across its grid, which quickly began to section and analyse. Bands of colour-coded sensory data spiked up the edges of the main grid and across the repeater screens. Columns of text data played out. Spika fine-tuned his controls, centred the main green crosshairs on the bloom of light, and began to enhance and magnify the area until the hololithic pict image filled the grid and blocked out the real view.
There was a little more detail. Magnified, the white bloom was a tangle of solids, rendered white by the reflected glare of the local star. It was still blurry and fuzzy, but Gaunt could see enough to tell it wasn’t a planetoid. There was no regular geometric form. It was like a knot, and skirts of tangled matter trailed out of it to a great distance, like the broken ring of a gas giant. The ‘snow’ effect was more intense on this image. There was a density of moving white specks, almost like static. The image resembled some pallid, flaking, submerged thing viewed under water that was thick with sediment and micro organisms.
‘That,’ said Spika, ‘is Salvation’s Reach.’
The Space Marine seemed slightly interested.
‘The specks?’ asked Gaunt. ‘Is that interference?’
‘Debris,’ Spika replied, shaking his head. ‘The debris field is exceptionally dense, and will grow denser the closer we get to the target. Our shields will bear a lot of it, but there will be manoeuvring, and that will degrade our approach time.’
‘Making us more vulnerable,’ said Eadwine.
Spika shrugged.
‘We will be visible for longer, yes,’ he agreed, ‘but the debris belt will also disguise us. If I do my job right, we can approach the main location and we’ll appear to be nothing more or less than another lump of tumbling junk.’
‘As we proceed from here,’ said Gaunt, ‘I’ll need eyes on this.’
‘Why?’ asked Eadwine.
‘I have operational command, brother-sergeant. As we progress with this raid, I want to be aware of all the information possible, interior and exterior. If the shipmaster identifies a threat, I don’t want to know about it later on.’
‘You’ll see it for yourself,’ said Eadwine. ‘The strategium will afford you quite enough–’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Gaunt, ‘you seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that I will be on the bridge during the attack.’
‘Of course,’ said Spika, ‘commanding the operation. I have a place prepared for you. Where else would you be?’
‘I will be leading Beta Strike from the front.’
‘You… you’re going in?’ asked Spika.
Eadwine made a sound that approximated laughter.
‘That has always been my practice,’ said Gaunt. ‘I will not send men in to do something I’m not prepared to do myself.’
‘No wonder Veegum liked you,’ said the Space Marine. ‘There is a spot for you on Alpha Strike at my side.’
‘Appreciated. But you know your business, and I know mine. Major Kolea and Major Baskevyl will lead the regiment with you at Alpha.’
‘And Gamma Strike?’ asked Eadwine.
‘Major Petrushkevskaya and Captain Daur,’ said Gaunt. He turned in his seat and pointed across the upper bridge area to the Tanith trooper waiting beside the main access hatch.
‘That’s my adjutant, Beltayn. I want him in my place here at the strategium, with access to your vox system.’
‘My vox heralds can communicate all data between us,’ said Spika.
‘I have no doubt, but I require you to allow Beltayn’s presence. If he translates an order to you from me, it carries my full authority.’
‘I understand,’ said Spika.
‘You should also have your armsmen stand ready,’ said Gaunt.
Spika frowned.
‘Very well. For a boarding action?’
‘Yes. But also for counter-boarding. We will be opening channels into that target. That means if things go wrong, they can get at us.’
Gaunt rose. The other two got up.
‘Let us prepare,’ said Gaunt.
Spika made the sign of the aquila.
‘The Emperor protects,’ rumbled Eadwine.
Gaunt walked off the bridge, Beltayn coming after him.
‘You’ll set up in there,’ said Gaunt. ‘He’s not the most accommodating person in the Imperium, but I’ve made it clear he has to cooperate. You have access. You relay everything. If he tries to fence you out, let me know and put me on speaker.’
Beltayn nodded.
‘Major Rawne and Major Kolea said to let you know that preparation’s begun, sir,’ he said. ‘We’re arming up, and the assault vehicles are being serviced in the through deck hangars ready for loading. There’s this to approve and sign.’
He handed Gaunt a data-slate.
Gaunt read it as he walked.
‘Well, that’s something to cherish,’ he said, authorising the document with a press of his biometric signet ring.
‘Captain Daur wonders–’ Beltayn began.
‘We’ll make time for it,’ said Gaunt.
‘Commissar Hark wants a word.’
‘I see him,’ said Gaunt.
Hark was waiting for them at the entrance to the spinal hallway.
‘What is it, Viktor?’ Gaunt asked.
‘We’ve uncovered a disgrace,’ said Hark. He had taken Gaunt to his quarters, where Ludd, Fazekiel and Rawne were waiting. It was quiet and private. The room was painstakingly neat and ordered, exactly the preserve one might expect of a man like Viktor Hark.
‘I hesitate to use the word “scam”,’ said Hark, ‘because that really doesn’t adequately express how monstrous this is. It’s an ingenious fraudulent scheme. I’ve no idea how long it’s been running. Possibly since before I joined the regiment. Possibly since the Founding.’
Gaunt read his way across the paperwork that Hark and Fazekiel had spread out across the desk. Some of it was torn, or very old. Several pieces were fresh print-out copies from archive sources. His jaw clenched.
‘We only stumbled across it by accident,’ said Hark. ‘Credit where credit’s due, Luna found it. It’s so insidious, it was nigh-on invisible.’
‘What are we looking at?’ Gaunt asked, still studying the various documents.
‘As far as we can tell,’ said Fazekiel, ‘there are three main areas of fraud, but there is significant overlap. First of all, there are fraudulent claims for widows’ benefit for women that don’t exist.’
‘They are all viduity allowances filled out in the names of dead troopers,’ said Hark.
‘In other words, fictional wives were being create
d, and paperwork retroactively completed, so that claims could be made on the names of deceased troopers,’ said Fazekiel. ‘But there are also viduity claims being made in the names of real wives and partners who are long dead. Women who died with Tanith, or on Verghast. Finally, there are real women, unmarried, like Elodie Dutana, whose identities are being used as spousal signatories. Better than an invented name, you see?’
‘The individual viduity payments are minimal,’ said Hark. ‘But together, and in such numbers, and over such a length of time…’
He stopped and rubbed the bridge of his nose, eyes closed.
‘Someone is generating a significant income stream,’ he said. ‘They are defrauding the Munitorum. It’s quite possible that the Munitorum is already aware of the fraud, but it could take years, or decades, before an investigation catches up with the perpetrators.’
‘That’s probably what they’re counting on,’ said Rawne.
‘Someone is making money out of the regiment’s dead,’ said Hark, ‘from those fallen in combat, and from the civilian casualties. It’s desecration. It’s monstrous. Stealing from corpses. Robbing from graves.’
‘Do we know who’s behind this?’ asked Gaunt. His face was white with rage.
‘We’re not yet sure how the money’s being claimed,’ said Fazekiel, ‘or where the payments are put once they have been. They could be getting washed clean through the regimental accounts somehow. That would require collusion from low-grade Munitorum staffers. They could be getting laundered through gambling dens and the black market during shore leave.’
‘They could be stuffed in a musette bag under a cot,’ said Rawne.
‘We’ve got one name,’ said Hark. ‘Costin.’
‘That little bastard,’ Gaunt murmured.
‘He’s definitely involved,’ said Fazekiel. ‘But Hark and I don’t think he could have done this on his own. We suspect he has co-conspirators. And one of them might be quite senior.’
‘It’d be hard to run this without a friendly officer to sign off the occasional card or petition,’ said Ludd.
‘Years ago,’ said Gaunt, ‘I nearly executed Costin.’
‘Aexe Cardinal,’ Rawne nodded.