BLOODLINES
An Agusto Zidarov novel by Chris Wraight

NO GOOD MEN
A Warhammer Crime anthology by various authors (August 2020)

FLESH AND STEEL
A Noctis and Lux novel by Guy Haley (September 2020)

DREDGE RUNNERS
A Baggit and Clodde audio drama by Alec Worley

Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer Crime

Aberrant

Exit Wound

The View from Olympus

Impurities

No Use for Good Men

Cold Cases

Against the Grain

About the Authors

An Extract from ‘Bloodlines’

A Black Library Imprint

eBook license

It is the 41st millennium, and far from the battlefields of distant stars there is a city. A sprawling and rotting metropolis of ancient hives, where corruption is rife and murder a way of life.

This is Varangantua, a decaying urban hellscape, full of fading grandeur and ripe with squalor. Countless districts run like warrens throughout its cancerous expanse, from greasy dockyards and factorums to gaudy spires, decrepit slums and slaughterhouses. And looming over all, the ironclad bastions of the Enforcers, the upholders of the Lex and all that stands between the city and lawless oblivion.

To be a citizen in this grim place is to know privation and fear, where most can only eke out a meagre existence, their efforts bent to feeding an endless war in the void they know nothing about. A few, the gilded and the merchant-barons, know wealth, but they are hollow and heartless creatures who profit from suffering.

Violence is inescapable on these benighted streets, where you are either a victim or a perpetrator. Whatever justice exists can only be found through brutality, and the weak do not survive for long. For this is Varangantua, where only the ruthless prosper.

ABERRANT

CHRIS WRAIGHT

The city sweated.

From Revenna to High Ledge, from the old Scarlands to new Novgy, from the flat coastal sumps where a limp wind moaned over dried-black grasses to the high praesidium spires of armourglass and plasteel, it was all baked hard and wet with the heat. Workers lolled at their stations, beads glistening at the end of their noses. Functionaries lolled at their cell-stations, greasy palms gripping their quills. Vladars lolled in their thrones, barely lifting their hands to give an order.

Agusto Zidarov, probator at Bastion-Urgeyena, looked up into the pale sky, wrinkled his nose a little, and found himself praying for rain. The Urgeyena city district had two seasons, each as unbearable as the other when at their height. When you’d had one for long enough, you begged for the other to come. And then, when it did, you wanted to go back again.

He leaned back against an unpainted rockcrete wall. He’d taken his overcoat off three months ago and hadn’t reached for it since. His shirt had been pressed overnight, but now clung to his chest and stomach, spotted with damp patches. It was harder to be out of condition in the heat. In the rain, he could mostly ignore how much heavier he was getting. Under the beat of the sun, every surplus inch of flesh made its presence felt.

He really ought to get in shape. Milija, his partner, had been begging him to for years. Still, they both ate the same things, both worked the same punishing shifts. She could have set an example, if she had really wanted to. Now that their daughter had left for military training and they had the hab to themselves again, so many things ought to be easier than they were.

The heat didn’t help. It was hard even to think, let alone work.

He blinked, and his iris – the internal augmetic coiled around his cheekbone and up into his retina – fed him the latest order-batch. Most of his caseload was well under control – things that he either had in hand or could be ignored for some other chump to look into. The one thing he couldn’t put off any longer was the priority signal routed over the city’s dataveil from the Ecclesiarchy’s upclave liaison office.

Zidarov didn’t like priests. Never had. Many people did, clinging to the clerics for some kind of relief from the dead weight of their overloaded lives. He’d often wondered if those people ever got much satisfaction. The Church seemed keener on loading them up with more injunctions. But perhaps that was just him. Perhaps other people genuinely did find their souls placed at ease by contributing a little more to the district tithes, or adding an extra visit to the altars. You couldn’t assume anything about people. Maybe all those supplicants told the truth, even to themselves. Maybe.

He glanced at the bulletin, glowing in virtual runes across his visual field. The priest’s name was Yvgen Asparev. He was a senior cleric in the Vostoka Communion, working directly for Deacon Stanislasca, one of only a few who was said to have the old woman’s ear. Since Stanislasca was a senile old harridan who’d long since traded her last scraps of acumen for bootleg bottles of slatov, that was no particular honour. Asparev probably ran things in the communion more or less as he liked to.

Asparev also had a privileged node on the dataveil, so Zidarov used his iris to give him notice he was on his way. He knew he could probably walk the short distance to the Ecclesiarchy’s spires, but given the heat he decided he’d take a groundcar, and escape from the shimmering asphalt for just a few moments.

After that, he just stayed where he was, mouth half-open, looking up into the sky.

The day would only get hotter.

The Ecclesiarchy compound was standard. Perfectly standard, just like they all were everywhere. Not that Zidarov had seen many others – he only had the other sites in Urgeyena to go on – but he knew that they all looked the same across Varangantua, across Alecto, across every world in the Imperium. There were templates used to design them, sacred documents in their own right, held carefully in heavily protected vaults, hoarded by missionaria loremasters.

He got out of his groundcar, straight into a wall of itchy humidity, and looked up at it. It was brutal. Its flanks were clad in heavy granite, over-carved with gargoyles, angels and skull-faced monsters writhing together like hormone-addled teenagers. The grand entrance had a chipped golden portico. It all glistened, not just from the tarnished metal, but from the just-visible aegis of a repeller field. Gigantic columns supported jet-black statues of the holy primarchs, each one contriving to look suitably noble under a dried crust of palumba droppings and atmospheric filth. Several big spires soared up behind an immense outer wall, all skull-topped, all floodlit even in the melting heat.

A failure of imagination, he thought. It was ugly, even more so than the monolithic hab-blocks around it, and it was fraying badly at its edges. Perhaps the cathedrals on Terra itself, the models used for all these provincial temples, were genuinely impressive. Perhaps they were made of solid gold, and smelled of more than drains and refuse.

The approaches to the compound were crowded with tatty supplicants, all of whom kept their distance, herded into long queues, patiently waiting for the command to come forward. Zidarov secured his groundcar, ignored the cordoned waiting pens and walked up a long stairway to the first perimeter gate. The guards at the summit wore long white robes and carried cumbersome flamers. Their eyes were hidden behind metal visors, and the visible skin of their face was heavily inked. For all their weaponry, they looked listless in the heat. It must have been a chore just keeping hold of one of those flamers.

‘Probator, Bastion-U,’ Zidarov told them, exposing his holo-seal. ‘Here to see Father Asparev.’

There was some chatter over the compound’s internal vox-net, and the lead guardian nodded tersely. The gates clunked open, allowing him to walk inside. Before he could get far across the internal courtyard, a woman in black robes came to meet him. Her head was shaved, her skin puckered with what he initially thought were augmetics, but which on closer inspection were probably penance studs. She had a limp, maybe also self-inflicted, and had an electro-scourge hanging from her belt.

‘Greetings, probator,’ she said. ‘Please allow me to direct you to the priest’s chambers.’

Zidarov looked at the scourge distastefully. ‘Lead on.’

They passed through a series of cloisters, marked with thick colonnades and gurgling fountains. Acolytes and prayer-servitors shuffled around in the shadows, mouthing benedictions or memorising catechisms. Statues were everywhere – the Agony of Sanguinius, the Resolution of Saint Agata, the Martyrdom of the Alectian Penitents. Incense hung heavily in the still air, even more so once they moved inside again, padding down dark and narrow corridors lined with carved texts.

Asparev’s chambers were several storeys up. The attendant rang a chime, opened the doors for him, then left without another word. Zidarov walked into an open room, heavily carpeted and decked with ponderous furniture. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with portraits – cardinals, saints, archdeacons, all staring from the canvas with accusing, hollow eyes.

Asparev was sitting at one of a number of large desks, and got up to greet Zidarov. He was a thin man, very dark-skinned, grey-haired, sharp-featured. His robes were dark purple and looked like real velvet. He smelled of the Ecclesiarchy – incense, mustiness, the faint hint of burning.

‘Probator,’ he said, his voice as furred as his robes. ‘Thank you for coming. Have a seat.’

Zidarov found an armchair, one with hard leather arms, facing narrow windows that looked north. Asparev sat opposite him, placing his thin hands in his lap. His movements were deliberate, precise, restrained.

‘Are you a devout man, probator?’ Asparev asked.

Well, then. That was a question. ‘We’re all devout, aren’t we?’ he replied.

‘Not as many as I’d wish.’

It was hard to see how that could be true. Every citizen of the city was required to attend the cult temples and cathedrals with numbing regularity. There were more priests in Urgeyena than enforcers. Everything, all the time, was about the Church – the times of the day, the greetings, the dress codes, the work patterns. What more could he possibly want?

‘Well, we don’t always get what we wish for,’ Zidarov said.

‘It is not what I wish for that matters. Only the work of the Throne.’

So this one was a zealot. Zidarov didn’t mind the corrupt priests so much – the ones who spent their tithes on topaz and parties. You could have a drink with them, at least. No, it was the true believers who chilled him. They were the ones who’d get you turned into an arco-flagellant, given half a chance.

‘You had a complaint,’ Zidarov said, steering things back to business.

Asparev smiled. ‘A complaint. What a quaint expression for the prosecution of duty.’ He reached for a dossier and handed it to him. ‘Take a look.’

Zidarov flicked the seal, pulled out some parchment leaves with official stamps. It was all High Gothic, so bound up in legal expressions as to be almost unreadable. Still, he could get the gist.

‘Aberrations,’ he said.

‘I fear so,’ Asparev said, making a sign of warding across his chest. ‘After the last purge, I trusted that we had removed the scourge entirely. Now, though, you can see we have signed witness testimony. Sightings, throughout the habclave, verified under interrogation.’

Zidarov flicked through the testimonials. You could learn very little from such things – anyone finding themselves facing an Ecclesiarchy official across a steel table in a lightless cell would tell them whatever they wanted to hear. Still, the rumours had likely come from somewhere.

‘These are all from Vostoka,’ Zidarov said.

‘Yes, and in a fairly small area. I should think it would be easy to locate the source of this contagion.’

Possibly true. Still, moving around in such places wasn’t either entirely safe or straightforward. ‘How did these come to you?’ Zidarov asked.

‘My clerics work wherever there is a need,’ Asparev said. ‘There is a great need, down where your law runs only fitfully. What they hear comes to me, in time.’

‘Though these are only rumoured sightings,’ Zidarov said, doing his best to make sense of the arcane language. ‘No reports of actual outbreaks, disorder?’

‘Nothing so tangible.’ Asparev sniffed. ‘They are beasts, but given a share of cunning. They stay out of the light.’ He leaned forward a little, and fixed Zidarov with a hard glare. ‘But they are foul, and devious, and if left alone, they will spread.’

Zidarov rubbed his chin sceptically. ‘So we’re always told.’ He put the parchment back in the folder. ‘I can keep these?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then I’ll get to work. Thanks for the names – they’ll be a great help.’

Asparev bowed. ‘A pleasure. If I can render any further assistance, do not hesitate to ask for it. I have troops under arms, cult-sanctioned, including those schooled in the ways of sacred flame.’

Of course he had. Zidarov had no intention of letting those fanatics anywhere near this. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ He got up. ‘And I’ll be in touch if I find anything.’

Asparev remained seated, managing to look both saintly and belligerent at the same time, which was quite impressive. ‘Go under the Throne’s gaze, then. May its light watch over you.’

The classic double-handed benediction, part promise, part threat.

‘Thanks for that,’ he said, walking back to the doors. ‘I’m sure it’ll come in useful.’

Aberrations. Mutants. The twisted, the void-changed.

One of the Trinity of Hatreds, alongside the witch and the xenos, the mutant was a subject of universal fear and loathing. No child grew up without having stories of such creatures’ deviance drummed into them, first in the family hab, then by their instructors. Zidarov could remember the fear vividly, waking up in the middle of the night, his sheets drenched with sweat, crying out that they were coming for him.

You could, if you tried, entertain the thought that xenos did not exist at all, or were so far away that you’d never see one. You could, if you wished, make yourself believe that witches were something that might never be stumbled across, for they were rarer than an honest man with plentiful slate. But you could never fool yourself into thinking that aberrations didn’t exist, for the evidence was everywhere. Every city medicae facility had dedicated incinerators for the infants born with gristle for eyes, or transparent skin, or spines in place of hair. Every cargo hub had illicit vid-footage of the things living in the bilge chambers of starships, wriggling in the dark, flinching from the light of flames.

The problem was where to draw the line. Mankind was a galactic species, one scattered across a million worlds. Some planets were high-grav, some low-grav. Some were poisonous hell-swamps, others regulated urban centres. That induced variation, melding and stretching the original physical frame of humanity. Some mutations were deemed so common and benign that they were sanctioned, creating the abhuman class. Some subtle alterations were hard to detect, even by the individuals in question. So what was a true mutation, and what was merely an environmental adaptation? No doubt scholars on Terra spent their lives codifying answers. On a backwater world like Alecto, such certainty was harder to come by.

Zidarov remembered attending a case when he’d still been a sanctioner – the armed wing of the enforcer corps – out at one of the mercantile port hubs. A big cargo carrier had ended up berthed in Alecto’s voidspace, and its crew had come down planetside for a little rest and relaxation before the next stage. That had been a mistake – their skin was a touch too grey-tinged, their mouths a little too wide. Word got out, and a mob gathered. By the time Zidarov’s squad was activated, it was too late – the ringleaders had stormed the compound and dragged the crew out onto the streets. Thirty men and woman, burned alive, screaming their innocence as the promethium-fuelled flames turned them to fatty, blackened meat-strips.

No one faced retribution for that. There were too many in the crowds, thousands by the end. In any case, most of the sanctioners on duty had been sympathetic.

‘You never know,’ one of them had muttered to Zidarov, looking grimly at the smouldering pyres. ‘Maybe they were.’

Zidarov hadn’t disagreed. Better safe than sorry, he’d found himself thinking. Let a mutant in, just one, and you could lose it all. Keep them out. Keep them all out.

Still, it had been hard to listen to the screams. Particularly the juveniles. Hard to shake those off.

He rubbed his forehead, wiping the sweat away. The gaudiness of the Ecclesiarchy compound felt a long way away. After the meeting with Asparev he’d gone straight downclave, heading into the depths of Vostoka’s manufactoria areas. The Vostoka habclave was old, just part of Urgeyena’s vast and varied sprawl, and its towers were crumbling and decrepit, intermingled with mag-tracks and viaducts. Chameleon-screens flashed and flickered, their content hard to pick out in the shimmer of midday. Dust was everywhere, filming the sidewalks, clustering in the commercia hoardings, caking the faces of the workers. Haulers rumbled by, kicking out smoke. Servo-skulls buzzed like flies, and the sky was pocked with gas flares.

A good place to spend a hot afternoon. He pulled at his damp shirt, feeling the catch of his autopistol holster against his belt. He checked the name he’d taken from Asparev’s dossier, and looked up at the commercia unit in front of him.

It was a vaporium – an industrial laundry facility. Its entire frontage was half lost in a veil of steam, smelling of caustic agents and mould. Enormous pipes snaked over its doorways and slit-windows, lined with rust and draped with old prayer-strips that hung wetly in the vapour.

Zidarov climbed the stairs and went through the open metal slide-door. Inside, the air was so heavy with steam that it was hard to breathe. He caught a glimpse of a big chamber further back, stuffed with gleaming boil-vats. Servitors were lumbering around in the gloom, their organic parts wrinkled like the skin of ancients. Huge stacks of soiled linen stood waiting for processing, teetering like miniature hab-towers. The walls, floors and ceilings were all pressed-metal, all streaming, all hot to the touch.

A woman shambled up to him. She was old, bent-over, her podgy body wrapped in cheap synthlinen. Her watery eyes flickered up at him, nervous. He didn’t need to show her his holo-seal to get her attention.

‘I can help you, ser?’ she lisped. The right-hand side of her face didn’t move, as if she’d had a stroke.

‘Technician Gion Bachev. He’s around?’

She nodded, turned around, beckoning him to follow, and limped away. The two of them climbed up a series of stairways, open to the ferocious heat, little more than ladders and gantries. After a while they squeezed down a long corridor with identical worker-cell doors lining both walls. The windows were opaque with condensation.

She pushed one of the doors open, revealing a tiny cubbyhole stacked with mechanical equipment, tools, bearings. A man sat among it all, thin as a spider, his overalls clinging to him like wound-gauze.

Zidarov squatted down in front of him. The woman left them to it.

‘Bachev?’ Zidarov asked.

The man nodded. He had been working at something, and it fell into his lap. His shrewish face, a picture of malnourishment and light deprivation, stared up. One eye twitched.

‘I’m from the Bastion. Probator Zidarov. I’m told you reported seeing something. Down here, at night. Is that right?’

Bachev’s eyes flickered back and forth, as if he were trying to gauge whether he could get out and get away. ‘Not me,’ he said, in a voice so soft it could have been a whisper.

Zidarov sighed. ‘I have your name on a sealed deposition from the Ecclesiarchy clerks.’

‘Not me.’

‘You want me to take you back to them?’

Bachev started to breathe very hard. ‘You… say anything.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When they talk to you. You tell them what they–’

‘All right. Don’t risk blaspheming.’ Zidarov settled on his haunches. He looked around. The cell was dark, dank, running with moisture and heat. ‘See, though, they’re not going to make this up. Not entirely. So they had a reason for coming to talk to you, yes?’

Bachev looked miserable.

‘Either you saw something, or someone else did, and your name got mentioned. Is that it?’

‘I don’t know anything.’

‘But you know someone who does? Someone who saw some-thing?’

Bachev went silent. His lower lip thrust out, like a petulant child. He was scared of Zidarov, that was clear enough, but more scared of other things. The Church. Guilt by association. Possessing some kind of useful knowledge.

‘I don’t want to take you back with me,’ Zidarov said, wearily. ‘The chasteners would break you before you got a word out – it’d be a waste. And I don’t want to be here, either. In a few minutes, I want to have forgotten your name, and to be able to tell the priests that you’re clean, and they can wipe you off their records. I can do that for you. But I’ll need something in return.’ He clasped his hands in front of him. ‘You saw something. Or you know someone who saw something. Tell me what it was, where it was. Then I’m gone. Never coming back.’

Bachev looked up, his miserable ratty face a mix of hope and scepticism. People didn’t keep promises to men like him. Life was a procession of traps to be avoided. You had to go warily, eke out trust like it was your last food ration.

‘I had to get a machine part,’ he said, eventually. ‘For the rotary blades, used in the silos. It was late. Noctis-shift, hora secundus. I went on my own.’

Finally. Zidarov listened carefully, activating the translexer on his iris.

‘I could have been wrong. My eyes aren’t good any more. But there was a cargo hauler, a tracked one, like from the mines. They were unloading. Only, it wasn’t ore. It was people. Pale people. Pale, white, with black eyes. Strange. Smelled strange. I can still smell, see? They weren’t… right. On the Angel, they weren’t right.’

‘Where was this?’

‘The repair yards. For the mag-trains, out along the clave-spine.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘It’s where I was.’

Zidarov looked at him carefully. He didn’t look like he was lying. He didn’t have any reason to. ‘What would a cargo hauler be doing at a mag-train yard?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know.’

Zidarov held his gaze just a little longer. ‘And where did these… people go? Inside the yard?’

‘Didn’t see.’

‘No, I’m sure you didn’t.’

Zidarov got up. ‘I’ll take a look myself, then. Thanks for your time, citizen.’

Bachev didn’t meet his eyes. He just wanted this to end.

‘Make sure you get them, though,’ he muttered, his soft voice suddenly vicious. ‘The evil ones. Make sure you get them. Make sure you kill them.’

Zidarov paid a visit to two others from Asparev’s list – a worker in a munitions manufactorum, and a medicae orderly from an Imperial cult-run disease control station. Both had similar stories of sightings, though less clear-cut, both in the same rough area. They agreed with Bachev on the fundamentals – the way the things had looked – and on the need to hunt them and get rid of them. The woman on the munitions assembly line had been the most vociferous, her mouth flecked with spittle as she told Zidarov what should be done, using what instruments.

By the time he was done collecting testimony, the day was fading fast. The grimy skies had darkened to a bruised-grey pallor, and the klaxons for the noctis-shifts rang out over the smokestacks and assembly yards. He went to a municipal refec-house and ordered a greasy plate of paraja. He sat in the dingy cell for a while, watching people come and go. Most of them were workers coming off-shift. They had the familiar marrow-tired look, the one that told of hours sat at a milling station or hammering shell casings. They ate hunched over, spooning steaming dollops into chapped mouths, not saying a word. The refec-house was almost silent, save for the clatter of plates and the shuffle of feet in queues. Over the counter hung a faded sign bearing the words Be Thankful For His Provision!

Zidarov waited a little longer, taking a shot of caffeine and some confection that promised to be organic, but was more likely a synth-sucrose bar injected with fat. The refec-house gradually emptied as the workers trudged back to their hab-units. As the lumens were turned off by the staff, Zidarov got up and headed back out onto the streets.

It was, at least, a little less hot. The air still tasted gritty and acrid, like an unwashed jerkin after several days’ wear, but you could take a breath without feeling that your lungs were being scraped out. He found his groundcar, unlocked it, and set off towards the district Bachev had indicated – out along the long transit-spine that cut the habclave in half. For much of its distance, the huge transport artery was hoisted up on massive rockcrete pillars, creating a shadowy world underneath. Maglev tracks ran alongside it for many miles, weaving between the columns in a tangle of rusty repulsion plates. Habitations and manufactoria clustered up against any spare gap in the foundations, bursting out like organic trunks and branches, clambering up the piers and tower-struts, wrapping every black patch of rockcrete in layers of corrugated plasteel and sweaty awnings.

This was a world of poorly regulated manufactures, where tiny labour yards nestled right up against big machine tool facilities. Access was difficult, with rat runs squirming their way through a permanent twilight of blown lumens and dank oil sumps. Much of the work done down here came from the bigger, legitimate trade houses, sent this way to keep it out of the way of prying eyes.

The workers who shambled around in the dark looked the part: suspicious glares from under grimy cowls, snatches of gristle-grey flesh, the bulges of badly made augmetics distorting the line of jerkins and overalls. Many carried weapons openly – flare-guns or short-bladed knives, the kind of thing a hab-rat would take for protection.

Zidarov followed the mag-tracks for a while, going as far as he could before even the groundcar’s machine-spirit couldn’t navigate the maze of twists and turns any further. He got out, taking his two weapons with him – a Tzarina autopistol, and a jawsnapper knuckleduster. Then he shut down the groundcar’s systems and secured it a little more carefully than normal.

After that, he was walking, heading deeper into a murky world of industrial stinks and mouldering foundations. The narrow walkways were sparsely occupied, but gangs of workers still lingered around braziers or food stalls, glaring at him as he passed them. Further back, in the deep shadows of the archways and culverts, you could just make out servitors still at work, their dumb frames wired up to jury-rigged power packs. Metal gantries zigzagged overhead, black against the night sky, hung with rotting streamers and Ministorum prayer-pennants.

The deeper in he went, the quieter it became. Zidarov was aware of eyes on him the whole time, but increasingly few of them were out in the open. Public walkways were replaced by narrow passages worming their way between cooling vats, or pit-like courtyards guarding the entrance to foundries spitting with flame.

Eventually he reached the place Bachev had spoken of. There were a few tooling firms around, the kind of places that could replace a broken machine blade for a little slate. The mag-tracks ran overhead, swooping low against the reinforced roofs of the forges. The little light came mostly from open fires, belching out into the still-hot air.

Zidarov took it all in. No room for a hauler to make it down this far. Ahead, though, were the repair yards for the mag-trains, floodlit and surrounded by multiple banks of electro-charged flaywire. Beyond that, you might be able to get a decent-sized hauler down between the overhanging eaves.

He activated his iris’ augmentation field, and scanned the landscape ahead. Adding a heat-pickup gave an indication of where the major activity was. He shifted his gaze, going slowly, letting the augmetic’s logic engine siphon and analyse.

Over to his right, down a steep incline, maybe fifty yards out from where the haulers must have been brought, was a foundry, mostly buried, putting out more heat than the rest combined. It was almost invisible from the outside, covered in other tangles of buildings and scaffolds. No signs, no exterior lumens, just what looked like the entrance to a mineshaft, forlorn and unremarkable.

Zidarov drew his sidearm, activated the jawsnapper, and headed down the slope. By then, he couldn’t see any movement from another living soul, though the grind and hum of machines working was ever-present. The further he went, the more it felt like being buried alive. He looked up, and saw only layer upon layer of metalwork, cross-braced and riveted. The walls on either side pressed closer, blank and unmarked, as dark as the soul of a sworn heretic.

At the base of the slope was a locked iron door. He scanned it and detected no heat signatures on the far side. He reached for a lock-cycler and clamped it over the latch. A few clunks later and the mechanism sprang open. Not a sophisticated operation, then. Zidarov leaned against the panel and eased it open.

On the far side was an unlit corridor. It stank of sweat, with a strange tang to it, as if the place were riddled with disease. When he stepped across the threshold, he gagged, and had to stop for a moment, clamping his hand across his mouth.

His heart started to beat harder. Something about the smell was horrific. He found himself wanting to go back, to slam the door shut and forget he ever came. Every breath brought more of the stench in, catching at the back of his throat.

He forced himself onward. The corridor led further down. The steel walls were cold to the touch, telling him he was now below ground level. He breathed through his mouth, trying not to take in more of the stench than he had to.

He could hear movements above him, echoing down from other walkways, all around him, reverberating from buried machinery. The walls trembled faintly, as if rocked by constant tiny earthquakes. Without the image-augmentation of his iris, he would have been walking blind.

Eventually he reached a wider corridor, running transverse to the one he’d come down. Ahead of him was another door, one with an iron grille and heavy locks. These were mechanical, ringed with chains, and would take time to get through. The smell was appalling. It was coming from behind the grille.

Zidarov took a deep breath, then held it. He edged forward, gingerly looking through the opening.

For a moment, he didn’t see anything at all. It was a chamber, cold, perfectly dark, hard to gauge the dimensions.

Then, something moved. His iris caught it, and the machine-spirit made filter-adjustments. He saw a vast creature, a raft of tentacles, seething across the floor of the chamber, its flesh lapping up at the edges. Then he blinked, corrected, and realised that there were dozens of bodies in that space, cramped together, locked so close their long limbs meshed and mingled. Pale faces turned to look at him – white flesh, black-in-black eyes, white tongues, white lips. They were naked, or near naked, wearing agony-collars and clamped with thick lengths of iron chain. Even in the dark he could see that they weren’t human, or not properly human – their backs were too arched, their muscles strangely swollen. They were hairless, huge, misshapen, stinking like animals confined in pens for too long. Each one of them looked horribly strong, horribly powerful, and the chains that bound them were heavy and overlapping.

Zidarov blinked a few static picts, then withdrew. A powerful sense of revulsion filled him, a response schooled into him over his whole life, until it became an instinct so powerful he could almost feel his hands slipping to his weapon, ready to slot it into the grille and just start firing.

But then he heard the clang of heavy bootfalls, coming from the corridor behind him. Almost immediately he heard a shout, then the noise of running breaking out. He activated the jawsnapper, backed away from the door.

They came around the corner, running hard: five, maybe six of them; huge, armoured, carrying power mauls. Zidarov aimed high and shot, sending a warning bullet clanging from the roof, but they sprinted straight on at him.

‘Probator!’ he roared. ‘Stand down!’

They paid no notice. Too late, Zidarov saw the stimm-bulked muscles, the locked-down noctis-helms with rage-feeders in the collar. They launched themselves right at him, mauls whirling in the dark.

Zidarov ducked away from one blow, shooting the bearer in the neck, then lurched back, swinging his jawsnapper into the face of another. He heard bone crack as the disruptor-field flared, and shot again, sending another one of the thugs tumbling. A maul got him – smacking into his thigh, sending a jolt of hot pain up his leg as the shock-field kicked in. He staggered, punching out again, missing, before jerking up to see another power maul coming straight for his forehead.

He flinched, pulling away hard, but the blow never fell. He never heard the order to desist, but it must have come from somewhere, perhaps over a comm line. The rage suddenly died away, the thugs fell back. Two of them lay on the ground, one twitching.

Zidarov dropped to one knee, panting, keeping his autopistol raised. Another figure, a woman, picked her way through the debris of bodies, eventually standing over him. She was unarmed and wore forge fatigues – thick overalls with protective heat panels. Her hair was loose and her face was mottled with what looked like ash. She looked at his gun and shook her head.

‘You’ll want to put that away,’ she said.

He looked up at her. Then he looked at the remaining stimm-thugs, all of whom stood close by, mauls at the ready, itching to get right back to it.

He clicked the safety back on. ‘You might be right,’ he said.

They took him further up into the facility. They climbed up stairways, back into chambers with working lumens. The smells got better – burned metal, synthetic chems, honest human sweat. Eventually they took him to a small chamber, windowless, just the one door, a dirty floor, a couple of chairs. Zidarov was shoved into one of them. The woman took another, then pulled a chipped table between them.

Zidarov crossed his arms, and waited.

She looked at him. Her face was unsmiling, full-fleshed, almost ruddy. She had a badge of office on her overalls, marking her out as the station operator. If the name on it was to be trusted, she was called Alissya Gordova. When she spoke, her voice was rust-sharp, scraped by the harsh environment: a voice used to giving orders.

‘So what are you doing down here, probator?’ Gordova asked.

‘My job, citizen. What are you doing down here?’

She sniffed. ‘Not safe. This is a foundry, see? You could have been hurt.’

‘I was.’

‘You need a warrant to come here.’

Zidarov laughed. ‘A what?’

‘A warrant. To come here.’

‘I go wherever I want. That’s the Lex.’

Gordova reached into her jacket, pulled out some parchment, smoothed it out, handed it to him. ‘See these? They’re authorisation documents. Certificates of safety, operations. Take a look.’

Zidarov read them. The text was unremarkable. The seal at the base of them was not. He knew it immediately – it came from Vladar Aista Fyodor Meleta, the political official with responsibility for the entire Vostoka habclave and the district. The more he looked, the worse it got – Meleta was bankrolling the facility, and had a stake in its operations going back at least five cycles.

‘Your holo-seal stopped you getting killed,’ Gordova told him. ‘That won’t work a second time. Forget about whatever brought you here. Go home. Find something else to stick your nose into.’

Zidarov pushed the parchment back at her. ‘So what are those things? In the cell?’

‘I’d forget about them, too.’

‘They didn’t look like sanctioned abhumans.’

‘It’s dark down there.’

‘I saw enough.’

Gordova looked supremely unconcerned. ‘I think you saw nothing. And if you somehow made a mistake, probator, and think you did, and you come back again to find it, or report it, or do anything but go away, it won’t be mauls coming for you next time. Understand? This is Meleta’s place. You know what that means. I don’t think you’re that stupid.’

Zidarov thought for a moment. ‘They work harder. That it? You can push them, raise your quota, all for free. Hells, it’s a risk, though.’

Gordova got up, went to the door, and held it open for him.

‘I won’t see you again,’ she said.

Zidarov hauled himself out of the chair. His leg still throbbed from where the maul had got him.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you will.’

They took him out, back to ground level, escorted all the time by those damned stimm-junkie guards. Zidarov kept a look out as they passed through the operational levels, where the forges spat and hissed and the tools clattered by on segmented conveyer tracks, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. A few servitors on station, lots of menial-class workers, a lot of sweat and toil. If they used the mutants for forced labour, they were evidently employed in the deeper levels, or maybe at other times, or maybe the cell was just a staging post for deployment elsewhere.

They reached the surface, emerging into a holding yard for the compound’s ground vehicles. Most of the machines parked there were single-occupant transports, plus a few rickety-looking cargo wagons. Near the gates stood an ore hauler matching the description Bachev had given. Zidarov reached out for its gigantic track sections, and gave the rubberised surface a wry pat.

‘That’s what started this all off, see?’ he said, giving his escort a bleak smile.

Nothing came back but blank stares. Two guards held the gates open for him. They never said a word.

Then he was out, walking the narrow streets again, surrounded by the overhanging terraces and the sparse lumens. It took him a while to orientate himself in the dark. Once he did, it took a long time to get back to the groundcar. And then it was a wearying drive back to his hab. All the way there, he told himself that this was at an end now. He’d done his duty, but the road was now blocked. He needed some sleep, some food, and another day would come. You couldn’t solve everything, not for the stipend he drew.

Whenever he thought that, his mind’s eye went back to the writhing sea of flesh in that pit, locked away from sight, swimming in its inhuman stench. He saw the strange faces, human but also not-human, staring at him, locked tight between misery and fear.

But you couldn’t solve everything. That way, only madness lay.

Dawn came with fresh aches. His leg looked like it had been sprayed with purple dye, and the flesh was swollen and fragile. Just using the pulse-shower was painful, and he limped between the chambers of his modest hab like an invalid.

Milija had been asleep when he got in, and out on shift before he awoke again. That was how it had been with them for a while. Sometimes a week would pass like that, just a few words exchanged, a few glances at one another, watching age bear down on them before duty called again, squeezing out the time they’d once spent as a couple.

He put off activating his iris veil-feed as long as he could. Once he did, the first bulletin was, unsurprisingly enough, from Asparev.

> I trust all has gone well. Your report on findings and proposed action is awaited. They must be eliminated. The Emperor Protects, and Watches All.

So there was the lingering problem. Asparev was powerful, the master of a fief with its own private army of zealots. He could make life very difficult for the entire Bastion if he felt his complaints weren’t being taken seriously. Meleta, on the other hand, ran the government of the district, and could lay his hands on a similar-sized army of paid thugs whenever he needed to. Half the Bastion’s sanctioners were likely on his payroll in some form or another, so taking him on was as close to suicide as made no difference. The choice ended up being a fine one: stare down the lug of a power maul, or gaze into the muzzle of a flamer. The results, bar a few unimportant details, would be the same. It all depended which one of the Imperium’s obsessions you thought was most important – meeting the district’s tithe quotas, or fulfilling the injunctions of the Holy Throne.

Zidarov poured himself some caffeine, fixed something to eat, and mulled it over. The simplest option would be to tip Asparev off, keeping his name out of it, letting him and Meleta fight it out among themselves. That had downsides, though – Asparev’s flamers might well go in mob-handed and torch the foundry, but that left the source of the aberrants still unknown. Meleta would be free to start up again, this time with better protection. So nothing very important would change, save that the Ecclesiarchy and the Administratum would be knocking chunks out of one another while the mutants were still coming in from somewhere. Castellan Vongella wouldn’t like that, and retribution would probably find its way back to him sooner or later as a result.

There were days when he hated his job.

Once he’d eaten, he pulsed a response to Asparev over the dataveil.

> Enquiries proceeding. Progress made. Respectfully, please await further updates.

That bought him a little more time. Not much, but a little.

After that, he left the hab. He took his groundcar again and drove out to the district’s edge. He reached a high ridge on the curve of the transitway, pulled over and cut the engines. It was early, but already the heat was shimmering up from the asphalt, curling like smoke from a fire. The manufactoria’s chimneys and vents had started up, staining the haze of morning with dirty lines of brown-grey. From his vantage, he could see a long way over Vostoka’s sprawl, heading west, up towards the Urgeyena district’s gilt-zones and the high towers on the horizon. It was teeming, all of it, a jumble of dirt and plasteel, crawling all over itself, infested, like an insect’s labyrinth.

He could see the movement down in the canyons – the tiny specks of human bodies, corpuscles in a bloodstream, the grind of ground traffic, the swing and spark of mag-trains clattering through it all, in motion, everything in motion, and yet, below ground, out of sight, buried, there were pale limbs locked into darkness, known about but never spoken of, propping it all up, working the forges until they expired.

He checked his iris. Nothing. He felt listless in the gathering press of warmth, like the spiatrees in the municipal recreation zones that were already going brown and shedding spines on to the gravel. The food had made him feel sick. Or maybe it wasn’t the food.

Eventually, he kicked the engines into life again. He resumed his enquiries, chasing down the remaining names on Asparev’s list. It took him a while to find them all, and when he did, they offered him little that he didn’t already know. Some were scared, some angry. The refrain remained the same. Make sure you kill them. Make sure you make them go away.

By the time the alert came in, it was dusk again. He’d expected that. The operation would have to work under cover of darkness, and so the hauler would remain static during the diurnus-shifts. Now it was moving again. His iris picked up the signal from the tracker he’d lodged in the vehicle’s tracks when he’d patted it, and he superimposed the beacon on a virtual map of the city’s streets.

The hauler was heading north, going slowly through the maze of narrow routes. He watched it for a while, making an educated guess as to where it would break out onto the major spines. Then, once he had a trajectory, he set off after it, tracing a roundabout route through the darkening transitways.

For a while he was driving through the heart of the district, crammed with hab-towers, viaducts, chameleon-screens blaring out commercia messages and the smells of paraja being fried on heat-discs. Then, slowly, that all died away. He drove through a crumbling industrial region, its warehouses roofless and plundered for metals, its streets half-empty and blown with refuse. Eventually he crossed the Urgeyena boundary itself, and entered the jurisdiction of Korsk, the neighbouring district. This was a major change – a vast urban division of its own, with its own habclaves and its own Bastion, one where, under the Lex, his official powers amounted to very little. After another hour of progress, the terrain dissolved into a flatland of rockcrete plates, broken up by scrub, dotted with empty observation towers.

He caught sight of the hauler ahead of him, bumping across a potholed road and kicking out smoke. He killed his lumens and prowled after it, keeping his distance. After a while it turned off the metalled road and out across the broken ground. Ahead, hard to see in the murky night, was a fenced compound and a scatter of low buildings.

Zidarov pulled over to the far side of the road, staying a long way off, rocked the groundcar down into a dirt depression, and cut his engines. He shuffled over into the passenger seat, rolled down the armourglass door-window and activated his iris’ augmentation filters.

The compound was large. It looked like the fence ran for several hundred yards along its edge on all sides, enclosing a wide rectangular space. No lumens shone, but a few tiny marker-lights blinked at ground level. There were no habitations for what looked like miles around – they might as well have been out in the empty flats towards the ocean, or one of the toxic pans of the Scarlands.

Zidarov turned his attention to the hauler. A couple of figures had clambered down from the cab. They both looked like the ones he’d encountered at the foundry – over-big, their outlines spiky with armour plates and rage-collars. More shadowy figures came to meet them. One was a fat man, bald, in civilian clothes – a loose jerkin and synthleather trousers. Three others were unmistakably sanctioners, likely from Bastion-K, their autoguns held casually by their sides. Zidarov zoomed in and dialled up the audex-feed. One of the sanctioners was a sergeant, the other two regular troopers.

Before he could catch any exchanges between them, a rumble overhead caused the audex intake to hiss with static. Zidarov deactivated it, then looked up. Something was coming in from high up, a silhouette against the starfield, boxy and thudding with turbines. He craned his neck to get a better look and saw an atmospheric lifter dropping down steeply towards the landing site. Dust and grit spiralled as the downdraught bit, making the figures at the perimeter turn away and shield their eyes.

The lifter was a heavy-built model, all armoured panels and chunky engine housings. It was unmarked, not bearing any trade house or municipal sigils, and it had a pair of nasty-looking rotary cannons slung on either flank. Its flight lumens were all doused. Those kinds of things were used by Alecto’s defence forces, or, more rarely, by shock-response sanctioner squads. As it neared touchdown, the engine pitch whined up to a howl, and the scrubgrass at the perimeter fence swung wildly about before being flung flat amid a hail of blown dust.

Zidarov studied it carefully. A machine like that was capable of high-altitude work, maybe even as far as the grav-stations where orbital shuttles came to dock. Its range was good too, making it hard to guess how far it had come. If you wanted to bring something down from a voidship, passing it through all the stages from high orbit to ground level, this is the kind of thing you’d want for the final leg.

The lifter crunched down heavily, and the turbines cut out. The sanctioners and guards hurried over to it, and a hatch cantilevered open, exposing a cavernous interior. The lifter’s crew emerged – a dozen, plus cargo-servitors strapped into exo-suits fitted with power claws. As the lifter’s chassis steamed, a large cargo crate emerged, guided by a swing-out crane. The crate was big enough to house a standard trade-pallet, which gave it plenty of room for human bodies – up to about twenty, depending on whether you cared about them surviving.

Zidarov took static picts, but nothing on the crate’s flanks gave away the nature of the contents. Once it was down, the hauler rumbled up alongside, blocking his view. Something was transferred, along with a lot of shouting and gesticulating from the crew. The stimm-thugs had taken out their mauls by that stage, and the three sanctioners all had their autoguns drawn. Once the transfer was complete, the hauler backed away again, leaving the servitors to hoist a now-empty crate back into the cargo hold. There was more shouting, more frantic gestures, and then the lifter was being prepped for take-off again. It all happened very quickly, as if the movements were well rehearsed.

The hauler made its way out of the take-off area, and came to a halt again at the gates. The lifter powered up its engines, secured its hatches, and took off with a throttled roar. It swung heavily up into the air, hovered for a moment as it swung its blunt nose around, and then gained altitude rapidly, diminishing until it was a black blot against a black sky.

The fat man, the stimm-thugs and the sanctioners met in a huddle by the side of the hauler. Zidarov activated the audex-feed again, and zoomed his sights up close. They looked relaxed, joking with one another, laughing again.

The sanctioner sergeant took something from the fat man – a slate-transfer, by the look of it.

‘Any more coming in soon?’ he asked.

The fat man shook his jowly head. ‘Tell him to make use of what he’s got. I’ll let him know when I hear.’

‘Yeah, you make use of what you’ve got, eh?’

The fat man laughed again. ‘Perks of the job,’ he said.

The sergeant laughed back, but with an edge now. ‘You’re disgusting.’

‘You’re jealous.’

Then the sanctioners were off, heading back to their own transport. The stimm-thugs clambered up into the hauler, and both vehicles swung out of the gates, back onto the road. The sanctioners turned left, heading towards their own district’s inhabited zones. The hauler turned right, going back to Urgeyena. Zidarov watched the lumens disappear into the night, leaving nothing behind but the hot, dusty air.

The fat man, alone now, locked up the gates and trudged back across the compound towards one of the low buildings. Zidarov saw him open a door and go inside. A lumen came on a moment later, before shutters came down and blotted it out again.

Zidarov sat motionless. The presence of sanctioners made this even more tortuous. Meleta was probably paying them. Or maybe Meleta was paying the fat man, and the local enforcers were taking a cut. Either way, it complicated the situation.

He waited for a little longer, just enough to ensure that no one was coming back. Then he got out, drew his pistol and powered up the jawsnapper. He walked over to the perimeter fence, stumbling a little on the uneven ground before reaching the rockcrete plates. The lock was a crude mechanical brace – easy enough to shatter with the snapper’s energy field. Then he was inside, stealing carefully up to the building. The place looked like it had once been a control tower, maybe when the compound had been a commercial set-down for transports, but it was now virtually derelict. Only the ground level looked occupied, and cracks of light peeped around the edge of the shuttered windows.

Zidarov edged quietly towards the door, running a scan for noise and heat on the other side. Then he took a step back and kicked the handle heavily. The latch snapped, sending the door slamming inward, and he followed it inside.

The fat man jerked his head up, eyes wide. Zidarov shot him in the shoulder, sending his flabby body skidding along the floor. He squealed, wriggling away as Zidarov shut the door behind him and strode over, taking out a pair of immobiliser-cuffs as he did so. The fat man tried to wriggle towards a second closed door, but Zidarov got to him first, hauling his arms behind his back and snapping the cuffs on. The fat man spasmed, then lolled uselessly, blood spreading across his shirt, sweating in thick sheets. The immobilisers locked him down, clamping a weight-field over him, seizing up his jaw muscles to keep him quiet and pinning him like an insect to the floor.

Zidarov took a look around him. The chamber was filthy. Some cheap furniture leaned against stained walls and a few strip-lumens hung from wires in the ceiling. Bottles of jeneza stood on a sideboard along with freeze-dried ration packs. There was a vid-unit in the corner with a cracked lens, a couple of threadbare rugs on the rockcrete floor. It smelled foul, like mould spores.

Zidarov kept his autopistol drawn. The man had been trying to get to the other door. His eyes kept flickering towards it even as his jaw locked tight. Zidarov went silently, sidling up to the frame, nudging it open and letting it swing.

The smell on the other side was worse. It reminded him of the cell in the foundry, only masked with something else now, like caustic bleach. The lumens were off, so he switched to his iris’ noctis-vision. The fat man tried to blurt something, and Zidarov turned the pistol on him, giving him a warning stare. That shut him up.

Then he moved inside. This chamber was even more filthy than the first. All the shutters were down, and the lumens were disconnected. More jeneza bottles, many empty, lined the walls. A few ration packs lay on the floor, one open. There was only one piece of furniture – a steel-frame bed with a stained mattress. A woman lay on the bed.

Only, it wasn’t a woman – not a true woman. She was dressed in dirty workers overalls, but you couldn’t mistake the signs – pearl-white skin, black-in-black eyes, white lips, over-long limbs, powerful muscles. She was shackled to the bed frame at the wrists and ankles with inch-thick manacles. Around her neck was an agony-collar, lashed up to a power unit clamped to the ceiling.

She looked at Zidarov with those unearthly eyes.

He looked back at her, keeping his pistol trained on her ribcage. He felt himself sweating. He felt his trigger finger twitch. He wanted so very much to pull it.

‘Are you going to shoot?’ she asked, eventually.

Her voice made his teeth grind. He’d never thought they could talk. He’d imagined they’d snarl, if they tried, like caged dogs. As it was, she spoke Gothic, heavily accented, unpleasant to listen to, but understandable enough.

‘I’d like to,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘Yes, you’d like to.’

Slowly, with effort, he lowered his pistol. He looked at the manacles. They were the most solidly made things in the entire place. You could have kept an ogryn locked down in those.

He shuffled closer, one step at a time, as if she could leap up any moment and sink her teeth into his neck. She watched him come.

‘You came down on one of those transports?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me about that.’

She smiled sourly. ‘For paid work. That’s what they told us.’

‘You’re abominations.’

‘We are.’

‘You can’t work.’

‘Then I guess they lied.’

Zidarov began to find the smell overpowering. It wasn’t that it was strong, just that it was… alien. He could almost hear his instructors at the ministorum scholam screaming at him to kill the horror, end it, cut it off.

‘The fat man,’ he said, gesturing towards the slab of a body visible in the doorway. ‘He kept you here. Why?’

‘A lot of shipments come through this place. I guess he wanted some help with them. From someone who couldn’t talk.’

‘So he never, uh…’

‘He uses his electro-lash. Likes that, I guess. Makes him feel powerful.’

‘Any others?’

‘Not here. They go in the vehicle.’

Zidarov blinked hard. He flicked the safety on his pistol, holstered it, and rubbed his face roughly. Then he squatted down on his haunches, resting his elbows on his thighs.

‘Why?’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Why… do all this?’

The woman smiled at him again, bitterly. ‘Because we’re better. We’re stronger. Work harder. We see everything in the dark. We cope with heat, we cope with cold. They’re scared of us. They hate us, they need us, but they’re scared of us. Take this collar off me, and you’d be scared too.’

He remembered the limbs in the cell, twisting like snakes. He remembered how quickly the guards had come, and how bulked-up they’d been. Yes, they had been scared. You didn’t put that many chains on something that wasn’t very dangerous.

‘It’s a death sentence for me, you realise that?’ he said. ‘Just talking to you.’

‘Sorry to be an inconvenience.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ he snarled, nearly reaching for the gun again. ‘Hells, shut up.’ He pushed his hands up to his temples, kneading them. ‘I hate that you’re here.’ Then, more softly. ‘I hate that I’m here.’

She stared at him unblinkingly.

He got up again. He paced back, then forth, thinking hard. The stink made it harder. It got his thoughts confused.

‘I’m not a devout man,’ he said. ‘If I was, you’d be dead now. But there’s… I don’t know.’ He looked up at her. ‘This is fouled up. This is wrong. I hate it.’

He walked up to the wall, placed his hands against it, felt the stickiness against his palms.

‘So, I have a priest who knows you’re here, wants you all to burn. I have a vladar who’s paying to bring you in. One of them’ll get me.’

He walked back again, back to the bedside. He sat heavily on the edge of the mattress. Under the bed, he saw the empty capsules of sedatives, topaz blisters, antisep canisters. He looked at the woman’s flesh, now nearly touching his, and saw the sores where the manacles bit, the lacerations around her eyes and mouth, the tips of welts from the electro-lash.

He rubbed his face again, as if he could scour the doubt away.

‘I know where they took the others,’ he said. ‘They’re locked up, guarded, underground. I have the lock-codes. I could tell you how to get there. If you went, if I let you, you could get them out?’

‘Yes,’ she said, flatly.

‘Thought so.’ Then he winced, and looked up at the ceiling. Just one shot would do it. Get her voice out of his head. Do his duty. ‘I can’t help you do it, though. You understand that? I can’t be anywhere near you. It’s got to look like you got out. I couldn’t stand you anyway. I’d snap. I’d kill you, or you’d kill me. You know how much I want to kill you, right now?’

‘Yes.’

‘You can get them out, then you can all get the hells out of Urgeyena. Get some clothes, I don’t know, wrap up, find a way to get out. You can do that? It won’t be easy. You can do that?’

‘Yes.’

‘I mean get a void transport. As long as you’re on Alecto, they’ll hunt you.’

She never blinked. ‘Why are you doing this?’

That was a good question. He tried to meet her stare. ‘I don’t know. Don’t ask me again. I might change my mind. But it’s not… right. You understand? I deal with these people all the time. You can’t touch them. You even forget to hate them. You should hate them, because of what they do. How they live. What they do to the rest of us, and call it faith or duty.’

His eyes wandered down to her collar. It was a vicious-looking thing, capable of sending jolt after jolt into a nervous system. If he unclamped it, if he pulled the manacles off, she’d be capable of killing him very quickly. She was a monster. An aberration.

She saw what he was thinking. She didn’t try to reassure him.

‘The man,’ she said, her gaze slipping over to where the fat man still lay, face down in a pool of his own blood and drool. The look she gave him was one of pure, unfiltered loathing.

‘Yeah, he needs to go. I don’t care what you do, how you do it, but whatever you leave of him, make sure they can’t find the bullet wound or the cuffs. I can’t be part of this. You got out on your own, somehow. Understand?’

‘You’re so scared,’ she said.

‘Of everything. That’s what it is to be human.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

Part of him wanted to ask her questions, then. Where they were from, how they were captured, what the journey had been, where they might go if they could. That was the probator in him, but what difference did it make? The injunction against knowledge was so very strong. Better not to know. Better to live in ignorance than burn in enlightenment.

Then he looked at her collar again. One snap, one twist, and it would be off. The mutant would be loose. He couldn’t move his hands to do it. They were like lead.

But then he forced himself, going quickly so he couldn’t back out – one swift movement and the torc fell open, revealing a red-raw neck.

He froze, realising what he’d done. For an instant, the woman’s eyes flashed, suddenly flooded with hatred and energy, free to strike out, to break the manacles and come for him, repaying all the pain. She could do it. They both knew that.

‘What’s your name, human?’ she asked.

‘Agusto,’ he replied, his mouth dry.

‘Do you want to know mine?’

‘No.’

She smiled for a third time. It wasn’t sour this time, but vicious, and alive, and full of unlocked malice.

‘Then you should get out of here, Agusto,’ she said. ‘You should get out quickly. It’s going to get messy.’

He did what she told him. He didn’t sleep in what was left of the night. The next day passed in a blur of numbness and anxiety. He ignored another message from Asparev, shut down his iris, kept away from the Bastion. The following night was almost as sleepless – every time he closed his eyes, he saw the white lips of the mutant grinning at him. Eventually, near dawn, exhaustion carried him over the edge, and he got a few hours of forgetfulness.

The following day, he made some enquiries over the dataveil, checking for reports of disturbances in both the Urgeyena and Korsk jurisdictions. He performed some analysis of those, as well as looking into Ministorum and Regio Custos records of aberrants apprehended, of which there were none.

With that done, he couldn’t put it off any longer. He blinked a message to Asparev’s staff, and within the hour he was on his way back to the communion.

By the time he made it back into that office, with its plush carpets and expensive furniture, he could feel the headache growing behind his eyes. The heat on the way over had been, if anything, more intense than before. He wasn’t hydrated enough, and the wound he’d taken from the power maul proved stubbornly resistant to healing. He felt like he was falling apart.

Asparev didn’t seem very pleased to see him. The priest’s calculatedly urbane manner was a bit brittler this time, though any overt irritation was held in check by a lifetime of courteous restraint.

‘A report at last,’ he said, once Zidarov had taken a seat. ‘I had begun to wonder when I would get one.’

‘Things proved complicated.’

‘Don’t they always?’

‘Not all the time.’

‘Then why don’t you tell me all about it.’

Zidarov folded his arms, and settled back into the chair. ‘Your sources were right. There were aberrations in Vostoka. I checked the statements. I did some work to see where they might be coming from. The problem was, the trail led not just out of Vostoka, but all the way out of Urgeyena. I don’t have jurisdiction out of Urgeyena. So not much I could do. I did start thinking about putting in a request for an exitus warrant, so I could take a look, but that takes time.’

Asparev was looking at him like he was some recalcitrant acolyte trying to explain why he had forgotten the basic catechisms. That was fine, though. Asparev was welcome to think he was a fool, just not a criminal.

‘But now it looks like things have moved beyond me,’ he said.

Asparev nodded. ‘Yes, it does.’

‘I can’t do much more.’

‘I guess you can’t.’

‘But I think this thing might have solved itself anyway.’

Asparev gave him a hard stare. ‘Maybe so. See, I heard two interesting things. You know them anyway, I think. First, there was an aberration loose in Korsk. It’s certain. That’s where they were coming down. Seems the beast got out, somehow, and killed its handler. And then it disappeared. They had a hard time doing anything with the man’s body. What was left of it. He got what he deserved, of course, but the monster got away. Cunning, as I told you.’

‘Yes, they have that reputation.’

‘And then, the very same night, a foundry is destroyed in Vostoka. A series of runaway explosions. A lot of slate lost. My people tell me the place had some link to the vladar, which makes it all rather inexplicable.’

‘Reckless,’ Zidarov agreed.

‘He’s not a man to tangle with.’

‘No, he’s not.’

‘So what do you make of it?’

Zidarov spread his hands. ‘Nothing. We’ve not been asked to investigate it. I don’t know why. Until we are, I have no theory.’

‘Why would they not ask for the law to look into it, do you think? They lost everything. The supervisor killed, many workers lost.’

‘It’s not for me to say. I can’t force them to file an incident. Like you say, word is that it’s the vladar’s place. You want me to tell him how to run his affairs?’

Asparev studied him carefully, looking for a chink, his acute eyes narrowing.

‘You seem confident that this is all concluded. That we won’t be seeing any more aberrants in Vostoka.’

‘I don’t know that. We’ll keep an eye out. That’s what we’re here for.’

Asparev pursed his lips. ‘I’ve got people placed in the Regio Custos. The voidports. I’ll be keeping an eye out too. I’ve already sent some of my faithful into Korsk. I’m not going to let this lie.’

‘That’s commendable, father. If I can be any help, don’t hesitate to let me know.’

And then Asparev leaned forward, his long neck craning. His eyes flashed for an instant, just like hers had, with the same kind of vicious relish. ‘You have a bad limp, probator. You don’t look very well. Did you see something out there that upset you?’

Zidarov looked him in the eye. ‘I saw some monsters, yes,’ he said.

‘But they’re gone now.’

‘No. Not really.’

Then he got up, turned around, and started to walk away.

‘This isn’t over, probator,’ Asparev called out after him. ‘My eye is on you. His eye is on you. Know that the guilty soul will betray itself in the end.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ Zidarov said, walking to the door, never turning back. ‘Because, when the time came, I did nothing. Get that? Not a thing.’

He kept an eye on the Bastion read-outs. Every time he checked, he expected to see a report from the preceptors, or maybe a sanctioner unit – aberrants intercepted, transports destroyed, enquiry launched.

It never came. After a while, he stopped checking. Either they’d got out of Urgeyena somehow or they’d died in its warrens. He didn’t know how to feel about either outcome. Better they were dead, in some ways – the galaxy cleansed of their taint. Better they’d got out, for selfish reasons. No tales to tell, no bodies to be discovered. But what should he feel about his sin, in that case? That he’d looked a mutant in the eye, could have killed it, but let it loose? Was that a sin of damnation? Would that see his soul burn forever, like the priests said?

He remembered how the woman had been with him. He remembered her sardonic, pain-filled smile. Then he thought about what the fat man had done, what Gordova had done, and what Asparev would have done, given half a chance.

He drove through the sweltering city, going up high, along the trade-ridges, where you could get a glimpse of the suborbital discs. Once he hit the summit, he pulled over, wound down the door-window, and looked up.

Trails of lifters streaked across an empty sky, white against blue, dozens of them. Every day it was the same – the churn of traffic, goods coming down, goods going up.

He watched them for a while. He imagined what might be in those holds.

‘If you made it,’ he said, quietly, ‘good luck to you.’

EXIT WOUND

DARIUS HINKS

Cyrus was screaming in the back room. ‘Judah! She’s here! She’s found us!’

Judah could hear him thrashing and kicking on his bunk, scattering plates across the floor, trying to drag himself away. Outside, macro haulers droned overhead, causing the walls to judder while manufactoria groaned, pumping fumes through the streets, drowning out Cyrus’ complaints with their endless, mindless vigour.

Judah carried on dressing, fastening clasps on his coat and securing the gun in a holster under his armpit.

‘Damn you!’ howled Cyrus. ‘She’s here!’

Mühlhausen watched Judah from the corner of the room. She was curled up in her usual spot, balanced precariously at the edge of the couch, encircled by her tail.

He paused to stroke her, eliciting a grudging purr, before crossing the room to the locust tank. They whirred and hopped at his approach, but it was not their turn to eat. He lifted the lid, reached in and plucked out a handful. They struggled in his grip, then he put them in his mouth and chewed, crunching the dusty carapaces and swallowing the insects quickly. Even now, after all these years, he had not got used to the taste. He was careful to save one of the wings, pressing it to the roof of his mouth with his tongue.

Judah stood there for a moment as the toxins flooded through him. Warmth spread from his gut and to his extremities, filling his body with a strange vitality, but he had the sense not to try moving yet. He knew what came next. After a few seconds the nausea hit. He doubled over, determined not to be sick this time, swallowing hard.

He vomited in spectacular fashion, spattering his boots and filling the tiny room with an acrid stink.

‘Judah!’ wailed Cyrus in the next room, hysterical now, barely lucid. ‘Judah, Judah, Judah! She’s found us! The door! They told her! She’s here! It’s Ravin!’

Judah stayed at the window, hunched over, until he was sure he wouldn’t vomit again. Then he wiped his mouth, finished fastening his coat, crossed the room and unlocked the door to the hallway outside.

Mühlhausen was still staring at him.

‘Damn you,’ he muttered, his hand still on the lock. ‘You know the catalyst won’t last. And the gland won’t work without it. I don’t have time for his shit.’

The gyrinx held his gaze, conveying the same disapproval she used to pour on heretics in their old life.

Judah sighed, shook his head and backed away from the door, heading into Cyrus’ room.

For a man who could no longer walk, Cyrus had an impressive ability to make a mess. The bunk he was lying on was surrounded by mounds of rotting food and broken machinery. Judah could never be sure what he was trying to build with the junk he brought him, but Cyrus spent every waking hour fiddling with powercells and sparking cables. He had told Judah, several times, that he was making a gun to kill him with, but they both knew it was a hollow threat. Without Judah, Cyrus would quickly become food for the sump-rats. It was his curse: he was bound to the man who had ruined him.

Cyrus’ spine was a coil of mangled bone but he was in such a frenzy that he had managed to haul himself up into a sitting position.

‘Damn you!’ he howled, pointing at an empty patch of wall, spit flying from his mouth. ‘Don’t just stand there! She’s here! Get your gun!’

Mühlhausen padded into the room, still watching Judah.

Cyrus hurled one of his pieces of machinery, a bulky transformer, heavy enough to crush a skull, but Judah easily dodged it.

Cyrus looked like a hate-filled cadaver, resurrected from a tomb of filthy sheets. Judah wanted to leave him to his delusion but he could feel the feline watching him.

He picked his way through the mess, opened a chest on the floor and rummaged through glass vials and boxes until he found what he needed. He grabbed an inhaler, walked over to Cyrus and shoved it in his mouth.

Cyrus took a deep breath then cursed and tried to punch him, falling off his bunk in the process.

Judah picked him up and shoved him back on the bunk.

The sedative took immediate effect. The terror faded from Cyrus’ eyes. His features softened as he slumped into the mattress.

‘She’s dead,’ said Judah, wiping the inhaler and dropping it back in the chest. ‘Remember? We killed her.’

‘You killed her.’ Cyrus lay back, his eyes closed.

Judah glanced at his forearm. The tattoo was hidden under his sleeve, but he could feel it, like a brand burned into the limb, a warning that the past never lets go. There was not a single day that he did not think about her; about what he’d done.

As Judah headed back across the room, Cyrus stayed sprawled on his bed. ‘Useless piece of shit,’ he muttered.

Judah hesitated. He did not normally register Cyrus’ bile but the toxins were surging through his body, making him edgy.

Cyrus laughed bitterly. ‘Kill me. Go on. I know you want to. Do it.’

Judah took a deep breath. Then he reached up to a high shelf and flicked the clasp on a clockwork music box. A lullaby chimed from the broken cylinders, filling the room with discordant notes.

‘Screw you!’ howled Cyrus, his face flushing with colour as he hurled more scrap. He had the strength to drag himself from the bed, but there was no way he could reach the music box. It would torment him for hours.

Judah blew him a kiss and closed the door.

The city limped. Wounded and unpredictable. And never more dangerous than when it was quiet. When the smog stopped howling. When the drunks stopped screaming. That was when the really bad things happened. The Reaping. Everyone knew when it was coming. Sanctioners from Bastion-Z would wander into Paavo like they had made a wrong turn, ask a few idle questions, then butcher anyone too slow to crawl away. Paavo was considered fair game by anyone who wanted to let off steam. And the enforcers had more steam than most. As Judah left his hab, he was relieved to hear screams and curses. It was a normal day in Varangantua.

His hab-block had been salvaged from the ruins of an old smelting manufactorum. The steps were always heaped with drunks, obscura addicts and broken servitors, so he took his usual route, climbing down an old filter pipe from the fifth floor.

Paavo’s endless bromine rain lashed into his face as he stepped out onto the street. It was viscous, like glue, and the colour of blood. Storms blew in constantly from the promethium refinery over on Rabula and, for the people not lucky enough to have a hovel to hide in, it brought madness and disease. Judah strapped on his rebreather and hurried through the downpour, dodging spray as a groundcar squealed past, drenching the wretches in the gutter.

He headed up 12th and over onto Zhurak, past the manufactoria and warehouses until he reached Hismael’s. There were drinkers spilling onto the street despite the rain, and Judah had to shoulder his way into the bar.

Vulchalo was waiting inside, perched majestically over the quagmire. Everyone else in Hismael’s was grey. Grey faces. Grey teeth. Grey fatigues. The glow-globes leeched colour rather than revealing it. But Vulchalo was wearing an acid-yellow doublet and a tricorn hat. He looked absurd, with one gloved hand draped over the head of his cane and the other cradling a book. His chin was raised and his eyes were half-lidded as he pretended to ponder something elevated. Vulchalo had spent a lifetime creating his persona and it had served him well. In all the years Judah had worked for him, he had yet to meet anyone who guessed that this absurd popinjay was one of the most powerful players in the whole of Paavo.

Vulchalo looked up in mock surprise as he approached. ‘Judah Mazlov, as I live and breathe.’ His voice was a liquid gurgle because his head was contained within a glass, liquid-filled sphere. The liquid was a breathable cocktail of rejuves and antitoxins that left Vulchalo’s face weirdly smooth, like the flawless surface of a porcelain doll.

He indicated that Judah should sit, waving his book with an elaborate flourish and tapping the seat with his cane.

‘You look like a man in need of a drink.’ He smiled, revealing a mouthful of perfect teeth.

Vulchalo was one of the tallest men Judah had ever met and the combination of his height, clothes and headgear gave him the air of a circus performer.

Judah shook his head. The hit from the locusts was still growing in ferocity, causing him to tap his heel on the floor. Hopefully, he would have time to acclimatise before the job. He glanced around, making sure not to be overheard, then leant across the table, keeping his voice low. ‘Who and where?’

Vulchalo waved a disapproving finger. ‘All this hard work, Judah, and you never make time to enjoy the fruits of your labours. Life will pass you by, if you let it.’

Judah stared at him.

‘How exactly do you spend all this money?’ Vulchalo smirked. ‘We have paid you a small fortune over the years.’ He laughed, filling the sphere with bubbles. ‘Not even a small fortune. A large fortune, Judah. You must have very expensive tastes. What are they? Tell me. Where do you find your pleasure? I hear you are involved in something extremely illegal. What is it? Let me in on your secret. Perhaps I can provide more of the same. I have contacts in places you might not expect.’ His eyes widened. ‘I can procure the most exotic morsels.’

Judah remained silent.

Vulchalo looked disappointed. He closed his book and placed it on the table. ‘There is an inauguration ceremony taking place today.’

Judah nodded, already guessing what was coming next but letting him continue.

‘Since that most unfortunate fire at the Storax Palace, Paavo is in dire need of a new vladar.’ Vulchalo gazed into the middle distance, his eyes flashing through the rejuves. ‘Dire need. The city has forgotten its children. The people have been betrayed. We need someone different in office this time. Someone with a sense of civic pride. Someone who can dampen the powder keg. Wouldn’t you agree?’

The man loved the sound of his own voice. If Judah responded, he would talk for hours. He just stared.

‘Of course you agree,’ continued Vulchalo. ‘A better vladar is what we need.’ He raised a finger and frowned. ‘But there is a problem, dear Judah, isn’t there? Skaalinger is really not our man. Not at all our man. Far from it in fact. He is exactly the kind of low-born crook that has kept Paavo on its knees all these years. He has bribed, threatened and bullied his way to this inauguration. And now no one dares to point out that we are about to elect a psychopath for our vladar.’

Judah almost cracked. Almost let himself get drawn into the conversation. The idea of Vulchalo taking the moral high ground was even more ridiculous than his outfit.

Vulchalo caught the derision in Judah’s gaze and his expression hardened. ‘It is important that Skaalinger is not inaugurated today. But it is equally important that people see what happens if they try to take things that aren’t theirs. It would have been easy enough to end his career before this point, but my employers would prefer Skaalinger’s campaign to reach its conclusion in the full glare of a stab-light. They would like him dealt with in the most high-profile way possible.’

Vulchalo had to pause as an abhuman stomped past, a towering, boulder-headed oaf wearing the uniform of an auxilia regiment. He was too drunk to realise he was trailing half a table behind him.

‘So we find ourselves in a delicate position,’ continued Vulchalo once the ogryn had crashed back out onto the street. ‘We need someone who can get close to Skaalinger just as he is about to be invested. And we could only think of one person with the requisite skills.’

‘Give me the details.’

Vulchalo smiled and pushed a vox-bead across the table. ‘As and when, Judah. As and when.’

Judah pocketed the bead and rose to leave.

‘I will meet you back here,’ said Vulchalo, gazing into the middle distance again. ‘When justice has been done.’

The Astragalus was one of Paavo’s few intact municipal buildings. It had served many functions over the centuries. It had been a Militarum barracks, a financier’s private playhouse and, more recently, a labyrinth of Adeptus Administratum counting houses and archives. It was populated by armies of crook-backed scribes and haunted by the growl of enormous logic engines. As Judah made his way through crowds at the front of the building, sanctioners were trying to clear room around the gates, clubbing people with shock mauls and hurling orders through laud hailers.

Judah veered off across the square in front of the building, shoving his way through the rain-lashed crowds until he reached the slumped, rusted gates of the ornamental gardens.

The gardens were usually littered with beggars and obscura addicts but the sanctioners had been busy, clearing the area in preparation for the inauguration. Judah slipped quickly through the overgrown steelthorn. In the distant past, genetors had weaved their biologis tech-magic over the plants, leaving them immune to the rain, but after years of neglect they had become towering, monstrous things. Judah felt as though he were passing through a nightmare of deformed giants, barbs and thorns clawing at him as he fought through.

His muscles were singing with the heat of the toxins but he knew the effect only lasted for an hour or so. He had to be quick. He crossed the gardens in minutes, bounding up the broad, stone steps on the far side and circling round to the back of the Astragalus.

As he predicted, there were freight trucks parked outside. The vehicles were huge – lumbering, filthy leviathans, crowded with smokestacks and trailing rusty, crooked eagle wings. Servants were running back and forth, unloading crates and trunks and rushing them into the hall out of the rain.

He waited near the pedestal of a broken statue, keeping to the shadows as he looked for his opportunity. The statue was a likeness of an Imperial saint. It must once have been an impressive thing – a spear-wielding figure in power armour with a blazing halo. But the years not been kind. Centuries of pollution had left it looking like a mouldering corpse. The face had been sloughed away by toxic weather, and scoria worms had peppered the spear with holes.

Judah had not been waiting long when one of the servants slipped away from the others, sheltered under a porch and lit a lho-stick.

Judah watched to see if anyone would follow, then crept closer.

There was a time when Judah had killed without compunction or hesitation, lethally naive, confident that he was doing the God-Emperor’s work. Since then he had rid himself of several childish notions. And now he was more careful who he killed. Skaalinger was a monster. The people preparing his feast were not.

He rose, silently, behind the servant and briefly squeezed the base of the man’s neck.

The man fell, unconscious, but Judah caught him and dragged him back into the doorway, placed him in a sitting position, and then checked again to see if anyone was approaching.

The other servants were still busy unloading crates so Judah turned back to the man he had stunned.

His breath was shallow but steady. He would have no more than a sore head. The training Judah had received in his former life had been comprehensive. He could disable a target just as effectively as he could kill one.

Judah removed his right glove, revealing a small, round hole in the palm of his hand. He had not kept many mementoes of his former profession, but the lacrymole gland was priceless. It came from a creature born on another world. It was a piece of vile, inhuman biology. And it was the only reason he was still alive.

He held his palm close to the servant’s face, letting the man’s breath wash over the hole in his hand.

Judah shivered as someone else’s thoughts brushed against his. Then he felt his body tighten and stretch, rearranging itself, reacting with the catalyst from the locust. The process was painful and deeply unnerving. Judah had learned to do much of his work without ever using the gland. But there were times, like today, when it enabled him to achieve the impossible.

He removed his coat and mask and dressed in the servant’s uniform. Paavo was never cold and the man was sheltered from the rain, but Judah threw his coat over him anyway.

‘Making ingress now,’ said Judah, speaking quietly into the vox-bead. He put his gun under the stolen jacket and smoothed down the uniform.

He put a finger in his mouth, picked out the locust wing he had saved and placed it on the floor near the servant. Then he strolled away from the porch, grabbed a crate of victuals and headed into the kitchens with all the other servants.

Talitha found Skaalinger in the long gallery, admiring paintings of Paavo’s previous vladars and burgraves. His hulking, pit-fighter frame had been levered into the same braided uniform as the figures in the pictures, but on him it looked like a joke. There was a servitor fluttering around him, making final adjustments. It was an iron skull skirted by oily, jointed limbs that clicked as they polished medals and straightened braids. It was a wasted effort. Skaalinger could never look anything other than brutish. He was a bare-knuckle bruiser masquerading as a statesman. If people had not been so terrified of him, they would have laughed in his face.

‘There’s a problem,’ said Talitha, barging past dignitaries and waving the servitor away.

He smiled, his face full of triumph. Talitha had worked for years to bring him to this point, and the idea of victory being snatched away was more than she could bear.

He sighed and gave her a pat on the shoulder. ‘No one can get through these doors. Unless they have been personally vetted by you. I trust you completely. Trust yourself.’

‘There is a problem.’

A few guests broke off from their conversations and looked over, noticing her tone.

Skaalinger’s smile faltered. He nodded and waved her through a door into a side room.

It was long, rectangular and lined with bookcases and there was a broad desk at the far end, heaped with papers. There was a servitor hunched over the desk, a headless mono-drone that consisted of withered, scabby arms attached to a rusty, plasteel casket. The drone was furiously transcribing text from one document to another, squeaking and wheezing as it worked.

Talitha waved at the door and the servitor neatened the piles of documents before trundling out of the room.

Skaalinger wandered over to the documents and smiled at them. ‘Such mundane methods of governance, Talitha. How did we come to this? We won’t be able to solve everything with auto-rounds any more.’

‘There’s someone in the building,’ she said.

He shook his head. ‘There are a lot of people in the building. They are here to watch me assume power.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Legitimate, district-sanctioned power.’

‘There is someone in the building who is not working for us,’ said Talitha. ‘Someone who is not meant to be here.’

‘Nonsense. What are you talking about? These doors do not open for anyone that has not been approved and bio-scanned. You swore to me that was the case. Are you saying the people you employed can’t be trusted? Are you telling me–’

She held out the fragment of locust wing.

Skaalinger squinted at it. ‘Is that a scab? What is it? What are you showing me? I have people to speak to, Talitha. What is this?’

‘Do you remember what we found after the death of Keros?’

He frowned. ‘I remember you saying something about insects.’

‘And when Monimus was killed?’

Skaalinger glared at her. ‘Yes, yes. Insects. A wing. I remember. Is that what you’re trying to tell me? The same insects are here? Is this the threat you’re in such a panic about? Insects? Am I to be attacked by killer insects before I can recite my oath?’

‘It’s a kind of locust,’ she said quietly. ‘The same kind, all of them, and they carry the same toxin. When we found the wing on Keros, I thought perhaps he had been poisoned.’

‘Not much point poisoning a man you just shot through the eye.’

‘Exactly. But then we found traces of the same toxin on Monimus. I also had Nassuk’s body recovered and–’

‘Recovered?’ Skaalinger grimaced. ‘What was left?’

‘Enough. Enough for me to find traces of the same toxin.’

‘So he was poisoned? What are you getting at? What does any of this matter? I have a ceremony to prepare for. People have travelled across Varangantua to see this. And while they look for my hand to shake I’m in here talking to you about insects.’

He was still smiling but his words were terse and clipped. This was how he behaved when he was unnerved. He could not follow her logic but he could sense from her tone that there was something serious happening. He knew her well enough to know she did not scare easily.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘You aren’t responsible for the deaths of Keros and the others. If you were… Well, we don’t need to go into that. Let us just say I would not have been so understanding. Besides,’ he shook his head, ‘you made it very clear what would happen to anyone who fails us today.’ He grimaced, glancing at the blood that was still under her fingernails.

‘Five minutes ago,’ she said, ‘a victualler was found unconscious near the rear entrance. There were traces of toxin on his face, near his mouth.’ She stroked the electoo that snaked down her neck. ‘Its composition matched the formula I recorded at Keros’ death scene, so I investigated further. I found the wing on the ground nearby.’

She waited for Skaalinger to respond but he just stared at her. She struggled not to yell at him. If Skaalinger died, killers would be lining up at her door. And the man was about to walk straight into his own execution.

‘None of those men were poisoned,’ she said. ‘I’m not talking about killer insects. What I’m saying is this: whoever executed Monimus, Keros and Nassuk is here, and he has just incapacitated a man at the rear entrance of the Astragalus.’

Skaalinger paced around the room. ‘So Nassuk’s killer is here. He still can’t get in the building. And I assure you, Talitha, this ceremony will go ahead. What are you going to do?’

She looked at the fragment of wing, rolling it between her thumb and forefinger, trying to make the connection that was just beyond her grasp. ‘He’s not using this toxin to kill people, but he is using it.’

Skaalinger took the wing and sniffed it. Then shrugged and gave it back. ‘So he’s an addict. This is Varangantua. Who isn’t? Have you tried smoking it?’

She shook her head. ‘I spoke to a magos biologis, over in the Scorab Mechanicus District. He’s expensive, but I trust him. This is a slow-acting poison but it’s not what killed our men. It wouldn’t be lethal in the short term. But it would be addictive and, after a few years of taking the stuff, your organs would start to rapidly atrophy. I’ve never encountered it before. These insects come from off-world. Someone very well travelled has brought them to Paavo. I’d need more time to understand exactly what it is.’

Skaalinger looked at it with more interest. ‘Addictive? There might be money to be made then.’ He shook his head. ‘But I don’t have time for this. I’m minutes away from having Paavo in my fist. Don’t spoil the moment by panicking about a deranged addict bullying serfs.’

He still made no move to leave the room.

She shook her head. ‘It’s not just a deranged addict. There’s something happening here. He can’t have left this wing by accident. Not every time. It’s a message. A warning.’

Skaalinger laughed. ‘How?’

She frowned. ‘Ancient Terran religions described locusts as agents of the gods, sent to cleanse the world of sinners. They were harbingers of change. Warnings to those who strayed into misbelief.’

Skaalinger’s expression darkened. ‘You have served me well, Talitha. Far longer than any of your predecessors. But you are starting to sound hysterical. A warning to sinners? Who on Alecto is without sin? Besides, even if this locust eater has left a warning, what would you have me do? I paid a fortune to bring these stars into alignment. We won’t get this opportunity again.’

Skaalinger’s hands were opening and closing and Talitha took a step back. This was a dangerous moment. She had seen him snap necks when he was in this mood. She had been about to reveal the rest of her findings. The rumours of a killer called Orthoptera, who only preyed on those he deemed worthy of death. She decided now was not the time.

‘I understand,’ she said as her back pressed against the door.

He loomed over her, his eyes glazed and flat, like a predator about to feed. ‘If we fail to secure my position, today, all those bribes and threats will be for nothing. The vladars and their officials won’t avert their gaze indefinitely, however much they’re paid. The ceremony will go ahead as planned.’

Talitha had her hand on a stiletto at her belt. She could kill Skaalinger so fast he would not have time to wince. And the hole would be so tiny he’d barely bleed. She considered it for a moment, relishing the idea of him slamming to the ground; but she knew it was impossible. Everything she had was tied to his survival. She was too far down the line. If Skaalinger died, she died. ‘I’ll have more guards posted at the rear of the building,’ she said. ‘Whatever this locust eater is planning, they’ll get no further.’

‘There’s something moving in there,’ said Judah, peering into one of the storerooms.

‘What are you talking about?’ demanded the reckoner, shuffling over to look. The ceremony was only minutes away from starting and the meal had not been set out yet. Everyone in the building was on edge and the lackey was muttering as he reached Judah. He was draped in thick, dusty robes and trailing a forest of parchment strips, all crowded with handwritten text and studded with wax seals. His face was mostly hidden behind whirring, grubby augmetics and he was carrying a bundle of tally sticks, each one made of yellowed bone and scored with columns of numbers. ‘There is only wine in here,’ he said, his voice a thin wheeze that emerged through an emitter in his mouth-grille. ‘Three hundred and seventy bottles of Milesian red, fifty bottles of Tundis and ninety flasks of Marano. I have checked them myself, twice this morning and once yesterday. I have no idea why you might–’

‘Scab rats, maybe?’ said Judah, doing his best to sound nervous.

The reckoner looked even more alarmed and shoved his way into the storeroom, triggering strip-lumens as he entered.

Judah followed and quietly closed the door behind him.

‘I can’t see anything,’ muttered the man, peering behind crates and lifting tarpaulins. ‘Are you sure? I think things are exactly as I left them. Let me just check again.’ He stooped over some crates and began to count, glancing anxiously at his tally sticks.

Judah studied the clockwork implants at the base of the man’s skull, then leant over and disconnected a bundle of wires.

The reckoner collapsed onto a pile of sacks, letting out a groan of surprise.

There were people moving past outside, clattering plates and calling out instructions, so Judah moved fast. He dragged the reckoner behind one of the crates and checked his pulse. He nodded, then uncovered the lacrymole gland in his palm and held it to the man’s mouth.

Judah grimaced as the locust toxin responded, washing through his body, but he kept moving, removing the man’s filthy robes and dressing in them. Then he covered him with sacks and headed over to the door, pausing briefly to smooth out his attire before heading back out into the dining hall.

The grand table was already crowded with serving platters and goblets, but the hall was still a frenzy of activity as servants rushed back and forth. Some were lighting candelabras and placing them on anti-grav trays, before shoving them up into the hazy, smoke-filled air; others were crawling over the towering stained-glass windows that lined the walls, polishing a glorious multitude of saints, serpents and warp-entangled battle cruisers.

Judah assumed a preoccupied air as he marched past them, giving brisk nods to anyone who looked his way as he crossed the hall, but keeping his attention on his jumble of tally sticks as he made for the double doors that led towards the front of the building.

There were guards waiting either side of the doors. Senior ranking types, by the look of them, with rows of polished medals and elegant pistols rather than power mauls.

One of them nodded as Judah approached, a sneer on his face. ‘What did she say?’

Judah sometimes felt a rush of foreign memories when he adopted a new persona, but they were fleeting at best. Never enough for him to have an idea of who he had become. He had no idea what the guard was talking about.

He took a chance. ‘She said yes.’

The guards stared at him in shock.

Judah wondered if he had said the wrong thing. He moved his hand closer to the pistol in his armpit.

The guards burst out laughing.

The one who had spoken clapped Judah on the back, shaking his head.

‘You’re a good liar, Sirven, damn you. You almost had me.’

Judah laughed, playing along, then adopted a serious tone. ‘I have important accounts to deliver before the ceremony begins. A detailed breakdown of continuous variables and correlations.’ He lifted up the tally sticks. ‘I can explain in detail if you would like me to take you through the–’

The guard looked appalled and held up a hand. ‘No details, Sirven,’ he said. ‘I beg you.’

Judah saluted as the guard waved him on through the doors.

He entered a long, carpeted hallway, lined with sideboards displaying silverware and ornaments. There were more servants rushing back and forth from the rooms off the hallway but they all stepped aside as a woman strode towards Judah. She was tall and powerfully built, wearing a black bodyglove worth more than most people in Varangantua would ever earn. Her head was shaved, apart from a tall, bleached topknot, and one of her eyes had been replaced with an augmetic. She radiated an aura of reptilian cool and Judah recognised her immediately. Talitha. Skaalinger’s henchwoman. He scanned her body and spotted the stiletto at her belt. He had seen her use it with impressive skill. She was the only person in the Astragalus he needed to be wary of.

‘You!’ she snapped, pointing at Judah as she stormed up to him.

Judah’s hand rose towards his weapon. Then he paused and thought the situation through. Talitha had an autopistol at her belt and was showing no sign of using it. She did not know who he was. He lowered his hand. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he replied as she reached him.

Up close, he could see that she was not as nonchalant as she would like to appear. There were beads of sweat on her brow and her expression was rigid.

‘What’s your name?’ she demanded.

‘Sirven, ma’am,’ he replied, remembering the name the guard had used.

She gestured back the way she had come. ‘Take a message to Holt. Tell him I’ve gone to check the rear of the building and he is not to let the ceremony begin without my sanction.’

‘Ma’am,’ snapped Judah, bowing.

She frowned and leant closer to him, peering into his augmetic mask, looking as though she wanted to tear his head off.

‘You look half-drunk. Tell me what I just said.’

‘Take a message to Holt. Tell him you’ve gone to check the rear of the building and he is not to let the ceremony begin without your sanction.’

She gave him one last, disgusted glare, then marched on into the dining hall.

‘Now!’ she called, before the doors slammed shut.

The servants stayed silent, staring at Judah.

‘You!’ he barked, singling out a wide-eyed youth in Administratum robes. ‘Take me to Holt.’

The clerk was clearly of a lower rank than Sirven but he blushed and shook his head. ‘Sir, I have to transcribe three more archive copies of the guest list before the–’

‘Archive copies?’ Judah’s voice was quiet and dangerous.

The man blushed a deeper shade of red. Then he nodded and stumbled off down the corridor, waving for Judah to follow. ‘Holt will still be in the Hall of Martyrs with the other guests. This way.’

The clerk led Judah through the palace with such an air of panic that the crowds parted ahead of him, no one wanting to be drawn into the man’s personal hell. They passed through libraries and staterooms, servants’ quarters and then a baffling labyrinth of counting rooms. Judah had no intention of finding whoever Holt was, but he suspected that all of Skaalinger’s advisors would be gathered to witness the crime lord’s inauguration, so the youth was leading him to his prey. He also needed to borrow another persona if he was going to keep one step ahead of Talitha.

Five minutes later the clerk entered a stretch of hallway that was devoid of either officials or servants and Judah decided to make his move.

‘Wait,’ said Judah, stopping and holding out one of the tally sticks to the man. ‘Do these ordinals seem right to you?’

The clerk halted, shaking his head as he took the piece of bone and peered at it. ‘Ordinals?’

Judah placed a hand on the man’s shoulder, triggering a monofilament needle underneath one of his fingernails. It punched through the man’s robes and released its tiny payload of neurotoxin.

The clerk looked up, confused, then his eyes glazed over and he fell backwards.

Judah caught the clerk, dragged him into a side room and put the lacrymole gland to work.

He clenched his teeth as his body reformed. So many transformations in such a short space of time was pushing his body to the limits. His bones creaked and moaned as they stretched into new shapes and his heart laboured furiously.

He had to sit for a moment, until the pain was manageable. Then he took the clerk’s robes and laid him down behind some curtains.

As he left the room and re-entered the hallway he almost walked into a line of sanctioners.

‘I’m meant to be at the balcony before the ceremony starts,’ he said, sounding flustered. ‘Are you headed that way?’

Most of the sanctioners ignored him, but one of them gave him a vague nod so Judah fell in line behind them.

‘Sirven?’ Talitha shook her head. ‘That’s impossible.’ She was in a storeroom, surrounded by bottles of wine and a squad of the sanctioners Skaalinger had on his payroll. They were all looking at the reckoner Judah had left under a pile of sacks. ‘I’ve just seen a reckoner called Sirven. I sent him to find Holt. This must be someone else.’ She shoved past the enforcers and crouched beside the man, turning his face towards hers. Then she stroked the electoo at her neck, using its subcutaneous circuits to summon a precise memory. ‘But this does look like him.’ She stared at the slackened features, not wanting to accept the peculiar idea that was forming in her mind. ‘Does Sirven have a twin?’

There was an official by the door and he shook his head. ‘No brothers at all that I know of, ma’am.’

Talitha stood and yanked her topknot. ‘He can’t have doubled back.’ Talitha knew the layout of the Astragalus intimately, having studied it countless times in preparation for this day. The man could not have headed off in one direction and then ended up back here, unconscious.

‘When did you find him?’ she asked, looking over at the man by the door.

‘Five minutes ago, ma’am.’

‘Impossible! I spoke to him five minutes ago, heading through the main doors.’ She looked at the sanctioners. ‘Did you find any insect parts? Locusts?’

They stared at her, then at each other, shaking their heads. ‘Locusts, ma’am?’ muttered one of them.

She cursed and dismissed them. Then she hunched even closer to the man and sniffed the air around his face. There it was – the same, chemical, slightly sweet aroma that had been on the bodies of Keros and the others. ‘What is this?’ she muttered, playing the facts through in her mind. The locust eater had killed some of Skaalinger’s most useful allies and employees. The same individual had also been outside the Astragalus and incapacitated a servant. Then he had gained access to the building. That was impossible for anyone other than Skaalinger’s staff or security detail, but the man sprawled in front of her was proof of the fact that he did it.

‘It’s him,’ she said.

‘Ma’am?’ asked one of the sanctioners.

She ignored him. She had not slept for two days and she felt as though tiredness was eroding her sanity. This was the work of the same killer. The one with the peculiar moral code. The one who called himself Orthoptera. It had to be. Somehow, he was stealing physical identities. It made no sense, but she was suddenly sure that was the explanation. This was how he’d been keeping ahead of her. This was how he killed the others.

‘Wake that man up!’ she snapped, heading out of the storeroom. ‘I don’t care how, just get him talking. Find out what happened.’

Talitha strode through the crowded dining hall and headed over to the two guards at the doors.

‘Do you know who Sirven is?’ she demanded.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ they both barked in reply.

‘When did you last see him?’

‘A few minutes ago,’ replied one of them. ‘We let him through these doors just before you arrived.’

‘I know you did.’ She frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Ma’am?’

‘Why did you let him through? Access is restricted. What business did he have beyond these doors?’

The guards glanced at each other, looking hesitant.

Talitha raised her autopistol and calmly pressed it to the forehead of the man who had replied to her. ‘Quickly.’

He paled. ‘Sirven had a message to deliver, ma’am. Some kind of report.’

Her pulse quickened. ‘Deliver to whom?’

The man licked his lips. ‘He didn’t say, ma’am.’

Talitha nodded, her pulse hammering. ‘Didn’t say.’ She considered how much mess there would be if she pulled the trigger.

She lowered the gun and the guard exhaled in relief.

She strode through the doors. Then she stopped at the threshold and glanced back. ‘Do not leave your post. When the ceremony is over, I will come back here to continue our conversation.’

She marched on, triggering the vox-bead in her collar as she headed down the corridor. ‘There is a reckoner by the name of Sirven headed to Skaalinger. He must not reach the balcony. I repeat, he must not reach the balcony or Skaalinger. If you see the man, detain him and report to me immediately.’

A chorus of acknowledgements flooded her ear.

She interrogated the servants who were gawping at her and found out that Sirven had moved on with another Administratum clerk. It seemed that Sirven’s demeanour had been fierce enough to make an impression and it was an easy enough matter to follow the route he had taken.

‘Ma’am,’ said a voice over the vox-bead. ‘Skaalinger will not wait any longer. He’s about to go out.’

She heard the emitters on the front of the building blare out triumphant horns.

‘Throne!’ she snapped. ‘Tell him I almost have the locust eater. Tell him he must not go out yet!’

‘Ma’am.’

She broke into a run, calling out to people as she passed them, following Sirven’s route until she reached a familiar scene – a crowd gathered around a slumped figure.

She shoved them aside. ‘The clerk,’ she gasped, noting the Administratum icon tattooed across the youth’s pale, scrawny chest.

‘There will be another,’ she muttered, hearing how deranged she was starting to sound as the assembled servants frowned at her. ‘Identical to this one. He’s here, on the floor, but he will also be up ahead somewhere, headed to Skaalinger.’

‘Ma’am?’ said one of the servants, clearly baffled.

She touched the electoo on her neck, summoning the schematics she had memorised of the Astragalus, looking for the fastest route to the front of the building and the balcony.

‘The old service lifter,’ she said, nodding down another corridor. ‘Does it still work?’

The serf looked baffled but nodded.

She raced down the corridor, picking up speed as she saw the lift at the far end.

‘Seize every clerk!’ she cried into the vox-bead. ‘Do not let any near the balcony! Do you understand me!’

There was a torrent of confused replies.

She reached the service lift, wrenched the doors open, jumped in and sent it hurtling upwards. ‘You see a clerk on the balcony, you kill him.’

The replies were more confident this time.

The lift rattled to a stop and Talitha rushed out into the stateroom that looked out onto the balcony. She was just in time to see Skaalinger, surrounded by a mob of sycophants, about to stride out into the light.

She began shoving her way through the room, striking people who moved too slowly, then she halted, catching the same chemical scent she had smelled earlier.

She touched the electoo and realised that the smell was not coming from the balcony, it was coming from another antechamber, just off the stateroom.

‘He’s in there,’ she muttered.

‘Get to the balcony!’ she cried, gesturing furiously at the guards as she headed towards the antechamber. ‘Surround Skaalinger. Kill any clerk who tries to approach him!’

Talitha burst into the anteroom. The windows were open and the curtains were billowing back from a balcony. This balcony flanked the one Skaalinger was about to use.

She approached the balcony cautiously, gun raised and her stiletto gripped in her other hand.

As she reached the doors leading out onto the balcony, she let out a curse. There was no one out there.

‘Only you can get close to him,’ said a voice in her ear.

She tried to turn, but there was a bright pain in her neck and darkness took her as she slammed onto the floor.

Judah walked out onto the balcony. There were fifty or so people gathered around Skaalinger and any one of them would have been worthy of Orthoptera’s attention. It was a sickening display of corrupt politicians, worldly priests and crime lords masquerading as legitimate merchants.

Dozens of armed guards looked up as Judah approached Skaalinger. Recognising his face, they bowed and backed away, muttering, ‘Ma’am.’

Judah reached the railings on the far side of the balcony, pretended to check the position of the guards, then dropped something and rolled it into place with his foot.

The music blasting from the emitters had reached a deafening crescendo and the crowd below were cheering and howling, prompted, no doubt by Skaalinger’s heavies.

With everyone distracted, Judah moved a small canister between the railings, depressed a button on its casing and backed away.

Skaalinger caught sight of him and gave him a quizzical look.

Judah smiled reassuringly and Skaalinger grinned back, looking victorious.

‘Citizens of Paavo!’ roared Skaalinger, stepping to the front of the balcony and basking in the applause.

Judah crossed the balcony, stood a few feet to the side of Skaalinger and reached for his pistol, keeping the weapon low, hidden in the crowd as he took aim.

Talitha cried out in pain and jolted up into a sitting position. She could feel the antivenoms pouring from her electoo, battling whatever the assassin had injected into her bloodstream. She was drunk with agony and nausea but she could tell from the sound of the crowd outside that she was not too late. Skaalinger was still alive. Her clothes had been taken so she snatched some filthy robes from the floor and donned them, before grabbing her autopistol and climbing unsteadily to her feet, staggering back towards the balcony where Skaalinger was greeting the crowd.

‘Stop him,’ she tried to cry out, but her voice was a feeble croak.

‘Paavo has been forgotten for too long!’ cried Skaalinger as the crowd below grew wilder.

Talitha could just make out the bubble of armourglass surrounding the balcony. It was tough enough to withstand pretty much anything, but the danger was not out there in the crowd.

‘There he is!’ she gasped, spotting an exact likeness of herself, just a few feet from Skaalinger. She felt like she was in a dream, watching herself move closer to the balcony.

‘Stop him!’ she cried, but no one heard. The crowd roared louder and the blaring music seemed to be caught in a loop.

She raised her gun and took aim at her doppelganger.

‘There he is!’ shouted one of the guards, looking her way. ‘The scribe! He’s here! Take him!’

Talitha backed away as every guard within earshot raised their guns.

Judah looked back just as Talitha jerked and fell in a cloud of blood. Then he nodded to the guards, giving them a look of stern approval, before turning back to Skaalinger.

Skaalinger was just pausing for breath when the balcony lit up with a deafening explosion, torn apart by the device Judah had planted on the opposite side.

The blast was so dazzling that most people on the balcony were momentarily blinded but Judah’s retinal implants dimmed the glare and he saw that several people had been thrown back by the blast. Blood splashed over the armourglass dome and people were reeling and howling.

Judah fired. The dart punched into Skaalinger’s neck but it was so coated in anaesthetic that he did not notice. He carried on bellowing orders and stomping through the carnage.

Judah did not wait to see the dart take effect.

By the time Skaalinger’s neck exploded, Judah was already leaving the stateroom, praying silently for the souls of everyone he passed.

‘Let me come with you,’ gurgled Vulchalo, leaning across the table with a lascivious smirk. ‘I could show you how to really enjoy this kind of slate.’ His eyes were magnified by the rejuvenat in the glass sphere and they looked peculiar as they stared at Judah.

They were back in Hismael’s but the bar was half-empty. News of Skaalinger’s death had spread quickly and people had taken cover, preparing for the imminent power struggle.

Judah shook his head and pocketed the slates. It had been a particularly lucrative job. Vulchalo was always true to his word. Judah knew he was too useful to be double-crossed.

Vulchalo smirked. ‘Do you think your tastes are too dangerous even for me? The word is that you spend your money on something that is utterly forbidden.’

Judah stood up to leave and Vulchalo looked disappointed. Then he shrugged. ‘Well done for working so efficiently. My client is very pleased. You are a loyal servant, Judah. A loyal servant.’

Loyal servant. The words rattled against Judah like stones and he grimaced. He was on the verge of saying something, but then he remembered how long Vulchalo could talk for, so he simply nodded and left the bar.

The rain was still pouring as he marched out onto the street. Vulchalo’s words had brought back a host of unpleasant memories and he gripped his forearm where the hidden tattoo was.

‘Think of the slate,’ he muttered as he crossed the street, dodging through the groundcars and spray and making for the street opposite.

The street lumens in Paavo were intermittent at best and, after a few blocks, Judah was in almost total darkness. The only light was the bloody glow that radiated constantly from the smog banks overhead, giving the hab-blocks and joy houses a hellish glow.

The further he went, the narrower the streets became, and the more dilapidated the buildings. He paused several times, making sure Vulchalo had not followed him. These were the darkest corners of Paavo and Vulchalo was right. No one must learn how he used his slates.

He finally reached an old warehouse with a lurid image of a naked smile-girl painted across its doors, proclaiming that it was the cheapest joy house in Paavo.

Judah laughed quietly, thinking how disappointed Vulchalo would be if he saw him bringing so much money to such a pitiful establishment.

He approached a grille in the doors, pressed a rune and spoke quietly. ‘Pray for me.’

There was a vague crackle of recognition through the grille and then, after a few minutes of standing in the rain, Judah heard footsteps approaching on the other side of the door.

Rubeus had been old when Judah first met him, years earlier. Now he looked like something that had been preserved in salt. His face was a corrugated mass of liver spots and grey whiskers and he was so hunched he had to twist his neck to look up at Judah. He was dressed as smartly as ever though, in a carefully pressed suit.

‘It has been a long time,’ said Rubeus, peering out into the street before ushering Judah inside.

Inside the doors there was just a vast, open space. The warehouse had not been used for years and the only sign of its glory days was a few empty cargo crates stacked at the far end, singled out in a shaft of crimson light that spilled down from the broken rafters.

Judah shrugged. ‘I come when they send me.’

Rubeus nodded. Even after all these years, he had never questioned Judah’s claim that he was simply a courier. ‘Well,’ he croaked, waving him on across the warehouse floor. ‘You’re a welcome sight.’

Rubeus led Judah to the pile of crates and, after looking around again, he moved one of them aside, revealing a bolted hatch.

Judah moved quickly, sickened by the idea of watching the old man struggle with the slab of plasteel. He wrenched the hatch up and they descended a flight of narrow steps down into the darkness.

There was a strong smell of damp as they walked down an unlit tunnel, then Judah saw light up ahead as they turned a corner.

They entered a room that was about twenty feet square, lit by a single strip-lumen that revealed dozens of filthy mattresses.

There was over thirty people crowded into the damp, gloomy space and they were all painfully thin. Some of them were only young children, and others were nearly as withered as Rubeus. A few grinned at Judah and whispered thanks but he scowled and shook his head. ‘I’m just the messenger,’ he muttered.

There was a table in the middle of the room and he placed the slates from Vulchalo on the scratched surface.

Rubeus stared at them. ‘So much,’ he muttered. ‘You have to tell me who this is from.’

Judah shook his head. ‘No names. If you are ever found down here, names could be tortured out of you.’

Rubeus nodded. ‘Of course.’ He continued to stare at the slates. ‘This will buy more than just food. If you keep bringing these kinds of amounts we could buy a way out. Passage from the city to somewhere safer.’

The man was deluded if he thought anywhere was safe, but Judah just nodded and looked around at the people watching him. On his previous visits he had tried to avoid seeing them too clearly, but this time something was different. Perhaps it was his annoyance at being called a loyal servant. Whatever it was, he let his eyes roam across the huddled group. Even in such poor light their mutation was unmistakable. From their scalps to the napes of their necks, each of them bore a crest of pale, coiling flesh. They looked like bundles of translucent worms, writhing and tumbling over their bony shoulders. The bromine plague. A symptom of Paavo’s polluted water supplies. Such visible mutation was enough to earn them a death sentence, but Judah had learned that not everything was as black and white as people believed. These wretches were abnormal but they were not the monsters. The monsters were the vladars, merchants and burgraves who made them like this, squeezing the city until it bled poison.

He turned to leave.

‘You must pass on our thanks, at least,’ said Rubeus as they left the room and headed back up into the warehouse.

Judah nodded.

As they reached the door back out onto the street, Judah had another urge to say more. Rubeus was so frail. What hope did he have of saving those wretches? Perhaps he could do more to help them than simply give them his slate? Then he thought of the hidden tattoo on his arm and shook his head. His days of idealism were gone. He had killed them.

‘Good luck,’ he said, heading off through the rain as the door slammed behind him.

Cyrus was asleep when Judah stumbled back into their domicile. He could hear him snoring. He went into his room and laughed as he saw the music box, smashed on the floor. ‘Good shot,’ he said, spotting the piece of scrap Cyrus had hurled.

Mühlhausen was also asleep, lying on Cyrus, sprawled flamboyantly across his chest. As Judah picked the sheets from the floor and placed them over Cyrus, the feline stirred briefly, giving him a disapproving look.

Judah stroked her then went into his room and sat heavily on his bunk. The toxin had worn off as he walked home and his stomach was knotted with painful cramps.

But, as he looked out into the endless rain, Judah was not thinking about his stomach. He was thinking about the tattoo on his arm. His badge of shame. His exit wound. He rolled back his sleeve to study it. The symbol was so faded now that others might not have even recognised it, but he could still make out the design: the Thorian rosette that once marked him as the most devoted servant of the woman he’d killed: Inquisitor Ravin.

THE VIEW FROM OLYMPUS

GARETH HANRAHAN

A servitor took my flak coat at the door; another led me through the lower levels of the spire, guiding me through an endless labyrinth of empty, echoing ballrooms and silent galleries, following a route burned into the doctrina-wafers in its polished skull. We walked along a glass-walled corridor, the windows looking down on the clouds, with only a few of Varangantua’s tallest towers piercing the pink-grey shroud. A glimmer of fire told me dawn was somewhere out there beyond them. Or maybe it was some distant foundry. I’d never seen the city from this perspective before.

The mansion belonged to the Mons family.

They could afford the view.

They could afford anything.

The castellan made it clear to me, in a vox-call which woke me before dawn, that this investigation wasn’t an investigation. There would be no scrutiny of the family, no uncomfortable questions. This was just a formality. A courtesy, really.

The cyborg servitor showed me into a waiting room, then it stepped into a wall alcove, drew the drapes across, and shut down.

Silence, except for the endless slow breathing of the spire’s air-filtration systems, the distant whirr of machines.

It was a waiting room, so I waited.

It felt strange to think of a Mons as ‘victim’ rather than ‘exhibit’. I’d probed more than my share of murder cases over the years, and in a good portion of those the murderer had used a Mons-forged gun.

I picked up a vase with the family sigil emblazoned on it. It looked a lot fancier in porcelain than in gunmetal.

‘Probator Vorzhen?’

I looked up and nearly mistook the old man for another servitor. I’d seen healthier faces in the mortuarium. He introduced himself as Lord Mons’ factotum. I asked him his name and he had to think about it for a moment.

‘Talin,’ he said finally.

‘The castellan,’ I said, ‘told me there’d been an accident.’

‘A terrible one. This way, please.’

He talked in a low voice as we walked. I could hear raised voices when we passed the ornate doors of the family dining room – a man and a woman arguing – but Talin hustled me along before I could make out any words. ‘Lord Mons was in his private study. He was examining a laspistol when the weapon, ah, misfired.’

‘Was anyone with him? Anyone see it happen?’

‘It was a private study. The door was sealed. There are no panoptica or scanners inside.’

‘I’ll need to see it.’

Talin swallowed. ‘Lord Mons’ remains are still within.’

‘I need to see those, too.’

The door to the study was taken, Talin told me, from the starship that had brought the Mons family here, the first ship to bring settlers to Alecto, long, long ago. It was massive, air-tight – and equipped with a privacy lock that sealed it from within.

‘If the door was locked from the inside, how’d you get in? Is there an override mechanism?’

Talin shook his head. ‘No. Logis Artorius was able to… use his arts to open the door. But by then it was too late.’

‘And who is Logis Artorius?’

Was that a sniff of disapproval? ‘Logis Artorius is a counsellor to Lord Mons’ son Jerik. He is a priest from the Lunar Sanctum.’

A tech-priest, then. I knew that much. I had no idea what a logis was, or why one would be counselling Jerik Mons.

I knew who Jerik Mons was, though – everyone did. Lord Mons’ firstborn son and heir. Almost as famous as his sister, Cecila Mons, the angel of the lower city.

I stepped over the threshold of the blast door, and saw that someone had got blasted in here.

The mortal remains of Lord Pelorus Mons mostly sat behind the gigantic xehogany desk. The rest had dripped from the ceiling, splattering the desktop and its contents with brown-red spots and fragments of bone. I ran my eyes over the gory desk first – a cogitator terminal, locked down. Next to it, the metal hand of an auto-quill, and a stack of recently written sheets on formerly pristine vellum. Through the blood splatters, I could see the words WILL AND TESTAMENT OF PELORUS MONS on the first page of the paper-feed.

In my business, we call that a clue. Stop me if I’m being too technical.

There, in the corpse’s hands, was a Mons-pattern laspistol. An antique model. I pulled on my gloves and transferred the weapon to a veriquary casket. The casket sealed itself with a hiss, preserving any physical evidence.

I glanced up at Talin, who lingered by the door, unwilling to trespass in this sanctum. ‘Who else has been in here since you found the body?’

‘The immediate family. Logis Artorius. Myself. No one else.’

I prepped another veriquary for the paper-feed of the will. I paged through it, flash-recording an image of each sheet with my ocular implant. I let out a low whistle. ‘Have you read this?’

Talin nodded.

‘And the family know what’s in here?’

He nodded again. That explained the raised voices, anyway.

I paused on the last page, where the document was signed, sealed – and witnessed. ‘Who’s Doria Beshombe?’

‘One of the clerks.’ Talin stared at the ruin of his employer. ‘She was, ah, working late last night.’

‘I’ll need to talk to her. And call a sanctioner squad to bring this to the Bastion for verispexy.’ I lifted the casket containing the laspistol.

‘And the other?’ The will. The world-changing will.

‘I’ll retain that for now.’

I glanced back at the body. By rights, I should call for a greater veriquary for the corpse, but I was under orders to keep this matter private for now, and requesting a body bag would draw attention. ‘Can you arrange to have the remains moved to a chapel?’

‘Of course.’ His face sagged into what might have been an expression of relief.

I gave the body a cursory examination. ‘The laser,’ I told Talin, ‘would have burned through the flesh of Lord Mons’ face instantly, but bone’s denser. More resilient. It would have flash-heated the cerebral fluid into steam, hence…’ I waved a gloved hand at the mess on the ceiling.

‘A terrible accident,’ he said. He took the veriquary and left. In my gut, though, I knew the verispex wouldn’t find anything on that gun.

With one gloved finger, I gently pushed back the remains of Lord Mons’ jaw, exposing the strangulation marks on his neck. ‘If it was an accident,’ I muttered to myself, ‘it was post-mortem.’

I nearly made it to the family dining room.

Logis Artorius intercepted me first.

If Talin looked like a servitor stripped of augmentations, leaving nothing but chemically preserved flesh and bone, then the tech-priest was all cybernetics. I could make out few recognisably human parts within those red robes.

‘Probator. It is unacceptable for you to conduct this enquiry.’ His voice emanated from some vox-speaker in his torso, not his mouth. I wasn’t sure if he still had a mouth, for that matter, beneath all those tubes. ‘The matter is of supreme importance.’

‘One of the most influential nobles of Varangantua – the Lord of the Mons foundries – has died in questionable circumstances,’ I replied. ‘A probe is perfectly warranted. In fact, I have a number of questions for you, logis. I’m told you opened the sealed door to Lord Mons’ office.’

Some servo beneath the cowl clicked in irritation.

‘Probator. It is unacceptable for you to interrogate me. This matter should be transferred to the Adeptus Arbites.’

That was exactly what the castellan wanted me to avoid. Keep things quiet. Avoid undue embarrassment to the Mons family. ‘On what grounds?’

‘The manufacturing facilities owned by the family Mons are of vital importance to the security of this sector. Disruption cannot be tolerated. Only a properly accredited and invested lord may undertake certain legal and official duties. A legal probe would be an unacceptable delay to the investiture of the heir.’ The glowing lenses of his eyes blazed green. ‘The Adeptus Arbites would expedite the matter in an efficient and discreet manner, unlike local law enforcement.’

To the warp with that. This was already a locked-room murder, and the cyborg in front of me was apparently able to open locked doors. I wasn’t going to be intimidated by a prime suspect.

I held up the casket containing the will. ‘This is Lord Mons’ will. If you call in the Arbites,’ I said, ‘I’ll make sure this goes in front of the slowest, most irritating justicius in the city. It’ll be decades going through the courts.’ I gave him my most punchable grin. ‘Want to avoid delay? Answer my questions.’

‘That will is clearly invalid! Lord Mons was clearly not in his right mind when he wrote it!’ he snapped, and there was a flash of very human anger there. I couldn’t tell if he really believed that Mons had killed himself, or if he knew the lord had been strangled and then shot.

The servo clicked again. ‘Ask,’ he said.

‘What’s your role here?’

‘Counsellor to Jerik Mons.’

‘Why does Jerik Mons need a tech-priest counsellor?’

He paused. ‘The Mons manufactorum is significant. It is ancient. The patterns here were laid down more than fifteen thousand years ago, and such ancient technology can be cryptic…’ The servo under his cowl clicked once more. ‘Even dangerous if not given proper reverence, if the correct rituals are not observed. It is a regrettable quirk of history that one family came to inherit such a burden. The Adeptus Mechanicus wishes to assist. Jerik is willing to accept our aid.’

I mentally boiled that speech down to ‘we want control of the factories, and Jerik is our way in’. I wondered if Jerik really was ‘willing’ to take their help, or if there was some other force at work.

‘You overrode the lock and opened the door to Lord Mons’ study. How?’

‘I communed with the machine-spirit of the door.’

‘What did you see?’

In response, he reached out a hand to my ocular implant. The synthetic flesh on his finger peeled away, revealing a squirming bundle of cables and wires like writhing worms. One wire slithered over my implant, my eye, and bit deep. In a sickening rush, I saw what he saw – or, I reminded myself, what he wanted me to see.

Pretty much the same scene, only there was still a little steam rising from the corpse. Fluids still dripping from the ceiling.

‘Did you examine Lord Mons’ remains?’

‘No.’

‘Could you tell if the door had been opened earlier that night?’

‘I can confirm that it was last opened when Clerk Beshombe departed. It remained sealed for the rest of the night, until I demanded entry this morning.’

‘And the door can only be operated from the inside, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Except you could override it.’

‘Yes.’

‘You found the will?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You know what it says?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll have more questions for you later.’

The servo clicked twice, sharply, and he glided away down the corridor. The nerves in my head connected to my ocular implant began to throb painfully, like there was hot lead in my sinuses. Some after-effect of the data transfer, I guessed.

Well, I certainly got his message.

The family dining room could have seated thirty or forty people, easily, but only three sat there this morning, all clustered around the far end of the long, dark table. Liveried servitors stood in alcoves along the wall, their mechanical eyes staring up at the titanic crystal chandelier, all silently waiting for a command.

I commanded a cup of caff, black as the void, from the servitor nearest the door. Then I embarked on the long march past all those empty chairs to where the family of the deceased waited for me.

At the head of the table, Jerik Mons. I knew him from the news-picts, from holo-portraits, from the statues of him that decorated Mons compounds all over the city. Usually, when you see someone in person, they’re smaller than the myth, but not Jerik Mons. He could have stepped out of an illuminated manuscript about the virtues of the nobility. Handsome, cultured, the skull on his shoulder a reminder of humility and sacrifice.

Next to Jerik, his sister, Cecila – I recognised her too. She, too, lived up to her public myth, but in a different way. I’d seen images of her at orphanages, at hospitals, at almshouses. In those images, she was ethereal: an earthly angel, generous and merciful. In the flesh, she was distractingly… physical. Especially in that low-cut diaphanous gown.

Her eyes were red-rimmed from weeping.

The third individual I didn’t know at all. Younger than the other two, clearly a close relative judging by his facial features. Dressed in street clothes, grime on his face, cut by the tracks of tears. He sat next to Cecila, slumped in his chair, his hands twisting and untwisting a cloth napkin.

Jerik leapt up. ‘Probator, it’s unacceptable for you to conduct this enquiry. The matter is of supreme importance and–’

The exact speech I got from Jerik’s friend Logis Artorius. I held up my hand to interrupt him. ‘Forgive me, lord, but I should make it clear that this is not a formal enquiry. I was sent here as a courtesy by the castellan to ensure this incident was treated with the care and discretion it obviously warrants.’

‘The Adeptus–’

I interrupted him again. ‘However, it can become a formal enquiry if necessary – and there are some troubling aspects that I’d like to resolve unofficially if possible. Without calling in enforcement or any other investigators.’

‘Call an exorcist,’ muttered the younger man. ‘This family is haunted. Cursed.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. You are?’

Cecila rose, put her slim hands on the young man’s shoulders. ‘This is our brother, Teratus.’

‘All right.’ I sat down, put the veriquary case on the table. ‘This is your father’s will, sealed and witnessed last night. Are you familiar with its contents?’

Jerik let out a noise somewhere between a choke and a laugh. ‘You mean, do I know my father suddenly decided to pass me over entirely, and hand over all control of the family business to Cecila? Yes. I noted that little clause.’

‘Had your father ever discussed the inheritance with any of you?’

‘It was assumed,’ said Cecila, ‘that Jerik would inherit. Certainly, the will came as a shock to me.’

‘What about his death? Had he ever given you the impression he might take his own life?’

Jerik said ‘no’ immediately.

Cecila mouthed ‘yes’, but didn’t speak.

Teratus just stared at the table.

I took a long, slow drink of caff, let the silence hang in the air, to see who’d feel compelled to break it.

It was Cecila. ‘Our family has a long history of terrible accidents. None of us knew this was coming, but it’s not a surprise, either.’

A subtle cough from the door from Talin. I spoke to him outside in the corridor.

‘I passed the evidence casket on as you instructed,’ he said, eyes locked on the other casket in my hand. ‘Also, I tried to locate Doria Beshombe, the clerk who witnessed the signing of the will. She left the servant’s wing last night, and took a mag-shaft to the lower city. She has not returned this morning. I took the liberty of contacting her family – they do not know where she is.’

The last person to see Lord Mons alive had vanished into the depths. That’s another one of those ‘clues’ you’ve heard so much about. Or at least a very odd coincidence.

I stuck my head back into the dining room.

‘I’ll need to speak with each of you individually,’ I said. ‘It’s just a formality. I’ll be with you shortly.’

I voxed the Bastion for an enforcer squad to look for the missing clerk. With luck, she’d be easy enough to spot – it’s unusual for a clerk from the upper city to go below. But there are billions of people in this city, and every moment I delayed was another moment for her to vanish – or get killed in some alleyway. I got transferred directly to the castellan’s secure vox.

‘Ma’am, there’s a complication.’ I described the changed will. And the strangulation marks.

‘Saint’s bones,’ she cursed. ‘Vorzhen, I wanted this to be quiet. A quick wax. You were supposed to just stick a seal on the death scroll and come back.’

‘I can’t change the facts, ma’am. And it’s going to get investigated no matter what I do – either he changed the will and then shot himself, which means the will can be contested on grounds of mental stability. Or someone killed him and made it looked like a suicide. So, the question is, do you want me on this, or do you want Fort Gunlysk?’

‘You. For now.’

Interview one: Jerik Mons.

And, apparently, Logis Artorius. The tech-priest stood in a dark corner of the drawing room, visible only by his glowing eyes. I could hear the wheeze of his breathing apparatus, the flexing of his mechadendrites. I could have demanded to interview Jerik alone, but my authority here was on shaky ground – and anyway, I knew that they’d already conferred. For now, I didn’t argue.

‘Where were you last night?’ I asked Jerik.

‘Consulting with the logis.’

‘I can provide date-stamped memories of our conversations,’ added Artorius.

‘The logis mentioned plans for, ah, assistance by the Adeptus Mechanicus, regarding the ancient Mons family foundries,’ I said, and Jerik nodded. ‘Did you ever discuss such plans with your father?’

‘We often argued about it. He disliked the idea.’

‘Enough to disinherit you?’

A click of irritation from the corner. Jerik shrugged. ‘I have prepared, all my life, to take on the mantle of guiding this great enterprise. A Mons must lead. And neither of my siblings, though I love them dearly, are up to the task.’

‘Was your father up to the task?’

He thought about that one for a moment. ‘No. Not really. And I think he knew that, too.’

‘What can you tell me about Doria Beshombe?’

Jerik shrugged and looked over at the tech-priest.

‘Doria Beshombe. Clerk, second class. Speciality: archivist,’ said the logis, clearly reciting some personnel files gleaned from the Mons company records.

‘Do you know why she was in your father’s office last night?’

‘No.’

Interview two: Cecila Mons.

‘Come in, probator. I’m just getting changed.’

I stepped over the diaphanous gown on the floor of her bedroom. She’d laid out a black mourning dress on the bed, but had yet to put it on. She sat naked on the bed, and waved me over to a chair.

‘My lady, this–’

‘Is an informal interview, you said. Let’s get it over with.’

‘All right.’ I sat down in the chair and crossed my legs. ‘Where were you–’

‘Are you the best probator they have?’

‘No. But I’m the one who knows when to stop asking questions. Now, where–’

‘Isn’t asking questions a probator’s purpose? Why is it good to have one who doesn’t ask all the questions?’

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. There was a huge oil painting on one wall that I hadn’t noticed until this moment, and I nodded over towards it. The painting depicted a strapping young Imperial Guardsman, shirtless and sweating on some distant battlefield, heroically shooting a Mons-pattern autocannon at some unseen enemy.

‘Look at that fellow there,’ I said, indicating the hero in the painting. ‘His autocannon jams and he calls a technician. Sometimes, he wants an enginseer who can take the gun apart, really look at everything, find out what went wrong and fix it. Replace out the offending part. And sometimes, he just needs a hedge mechanic who won’t take the time to do a full repair. Just clears the jam and gets the gun shooting again. A kick and a prayer that’ll last until the end of the battle.’

‘And that’s the sort of probator you are?’

‘Right now, that’s the sort of probator you need.’

‘My brother,’ she said, ‘thinks we have too many of the second sort. We can’t fix or even understand our own machines any more. That’s why he called in the tech-priests.’ She yawned. ‘Ask your questions.’

‘Where were you last night?’

‘An alms-giving benediction, down in Lower Fumarole. Orphans maimed in factory accidents, I think. There were thousands of people there.’

‘The event went on all night?’

‘There was a party afterwards.’

‘Did your father ever discuss his will with you? Did you know he intended to pass over Jerik and make you his heir?’

She rolled over in the bed, took out a lho-stick from a bedside drawer. ‘No, and no.’ She rolled back. For discretion’s sake, I reached up to shut down my ocular implant.

She laughed. ‘Probator, you should understand something about my family. We’ve been very, very wealthy for hundreds of generations, and that breeds boredom. One looks for… diversions. For new and unknown pleasures, to while away the monotony of infinite luxury.’ She bit her lip. ‘And why not? With my money, I can do an equal amount of good. Why should I feel shame?’

‘What about the danger of scandal?’

‘Isn’t that what we have people like you for? A kick and a prayer, you said. Anyway, I’m not Lord Mons, or his first heir. I’m not under the same scrutiny. Not much is expected of me.’

‘But you’re Lady Mons, now – assuming the will is upheld.’

‘I know.’ She rolled over again, her head hanging over the edge of the bed, platinum-gold hair cascading over the silken sheets. Her eyes flashed. ‘Awful, isn’t it?’

‘Do you have any idea why your father might have made you his heir?’

‘Cruelty? I wept for the loss of my freedom.’ She sat up, started to pull on the black dress. ‘Or he had another big fight with Jerik about that tech-priest?’

‘Do you have any idea why he might kill himself?’

She shrugged. ‘Boredom? I think he was feeling it, too, but he couldn’t distract himself like I do. He tried, but… I could tell he wasn’t content. I’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time. Servitors, attend me.’

She stood up, and a trio of servitors emerged from a hidden door. They glided around her, diligently fastening the black dress, arranging her hair.

‘What do you know about Doria Beshombe?’

‘Who?’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Oh, that mousy little clerk from the archives? I think Father was sleeping with her.’

The servitors settled a black veil across her face, adorned her with a necklace of silver skulls.

Cecila stood before me, the image of a sorrowful mourner. She clasped her hands in mock prayer. ‘May Saint Thor guard his soul. I need to begin the funeral arrangements. I suppose you’ll talk to Teratus next?’

‘I intend to, yes.’

‘He’s a sweet boy. Be gentle with him.’ She gave me an impish smile from behind the veil. ‘You could have been much rougher with me.’

I waited until she was nearly at the door of the bedroom before I added, ‘What if I told you this was a murder enquiry?’

She whirled around, stumbled, steadied herself against a marble statue. ‘What? Who– but it was a suicide, Jerik told me. He said… he said Father shot himself.’

Her surprise seemed genuine, but by the time I’d crossed the palatial bedroom, the moment of vulnerability was gone, the armour back in place. She took my hand, flashed that same devil’s smile.

‘You think I’m a murderess! How exciting!’

Interview three: Teratus Mons.

I’d asked each of the three scions to wait for me in one of the mansion’s many, many rooms. Out of all of those rooms, he’d chosen a private chapel.

I crossed the echoing nave, glanced up at the vaulted ceiling hundreds of feet above me. In some unseen gallery high above, I could hear a choir singing. I wondered if they were part of the funeral arrangements, or if the Mons family just employed a choir to sing here all the time. Maybe some Mons ten generations back had asked for a hymn, and never said stop, and they’d been hiring new choristers when old ones died off for centuries. Or maybe those weren’t human throats making that beautiful sound, but cherubim grown in some sanctified vat, augmented with celestial vox-speakers.

Teratus didn’t look up at me as I made the long pilgrimage to his pew. This family seemed to delight in making me uncomfortable.

‘Father was murdered, wasn’t he?’ he said as I sat down.

‘What makes you say that?’ I asked. I’d come here straight from Cecila’s boudoir, but there was time for them to have communicated.

‘A presentiment. We’re cursed. This family is cursed.’ He looked at me, now, his eyes feverishly bright. ‘Jerik knows it. Cecila too. That’s why Jerik wants to hand everything over to the machine priests. Why Cecila is so holy, always giving alms and blessings, hoping the faith of the masses will shield her. They know we’re cursed.’

‘Who cursed you?’

‘The things we made. Abominable things,’ he whispered, as if afraid someone was eavesdropping, even though we were the only two living souls on the floor of this vast cathedral.

‘The Mons-pattern weapons? Your family’s factories?’

He snorted derisively, didn’t give an answer.

‘Where were you last night?’

‘Out.’

‘Out?’

‘Down.’

‘Down where?’

‘In the city. I… I like to walk. I have friends, down there, in the Dredge. In the foundries.’

‘Can I get a name? Someone who’ll vouch for your presence there last night?’

He laughed. ‘They don’t like talking to enforcers.’

‘What about you? This isn’t a formal enquiry yet. You’re not obliged to talk to me. You can just walk away.’

‘It makes no difference,’ he muttered. ‘They should have sent an exorcist, not a probator.’

A thought struck me. ‘I asked Talin to move your father’s body to a chapel. Why isn’t it here?’

‘Oh,’ said Teratus vaguely. ‘They probably used the big chapel for that.’

I went back to Lord Mons’ study. The body was gone, but otherwise, the room was unchanged.

I tapped at the cogitator terminal. It was still locked down. There was an ornamental receptacle, beautifully carved with faint markings. I ran my fingers over it; it was the inverse of the Mons family crest. I guessed that there was some signet ring or talisman owned by Lord Mons that permitted access. I felt a needle, too, hidden in a recess. A genetic lock. Both blood and signet ring were needed to access the terminal.

I got up, crossed to the door, examined the locking mechanism. There was a big, heavy switch, and above it, a small viewscreen. I pressed the switch, and the door swung shut and sealed itself. The viewscreen lit up, showing me the corridor outside. Only someone already in the room could unlock the door.

Unless they could commune with the machine, invoke some rite to open it. Logis Artorius was, by default, the prime suspect. He had the means to gain access to the locked study. He’d tried to shut down my investigation, get matters handed over to the Adeptus Arbites – and once they got hold of the case, it would be shuffled off to some rarefied realm far beyond Varangantua. The logis and his masters in the Adeptus Mechanicus were concerned with control of the Mons company foundries, with the massive weapons factories down in the lower city. When two great institutions of the Imperium, Mechanicus and Arbites, got involved, the fate of one man – even a stupendously wealthy and influential noble like Lord Mons – was something very small indeed. Something to be overlooked.

But there was the will. The will was exactly what Artorius didn’t want – it bypassed Jerik and put Cecila in charge. If Artorius wanted to avoid the will coming to light, he could have destroyed the only copy when he opened the study.

Maybe he was interrupted. I mentally ran through the chain of events.

Say Artorius is guilty.

Jerik and Lord Mons have an argument: ‘You won’t hand over our family’s factories to those tech-priests! Over my dead body! I’ll cut you out of the will first!’

Lord Mons goes up to the study, writes a new will.

Has Doria Beshombe witness it. Seals it.

Beshombe leaves, goes to the lower city for unknown reasons. Mons shuts the door. Artorius overrides it, strangles Mons, then shoots him. He finds the will – but before he can destroy it, someone comes in. He puts the will back, hastily, and–

Wait. Go back. Why strangle Lord Mons if you’ve got a gun? The laser made it look like a suicide – why not shoot him dead, and then put the gun in his hand? I got up, prowled around the office, checking the drawers. Was the gun here in the first place? There was no way of knowing. There was something bizarre about the whole case – the killer was both brilliant and sloppy.

I checked my ocular implant to review the image Artorius sent me, and found myself scrolling through images of Cecila by mistake. If Artorius had the means, she had the motive. Her father’s will made her Lady Mons. She might claim that she didn’t want the scrutiny and responsibility that went with the title, but I wasn’t sure if I believed that. I couldn’t dismiss her as a suspect, but how could she get through the door?

An absurd mental image: Cecila in bed with the tech-priest, Artorius’ red cloak wrapping around her bare body. Maybe something like that was the deal. Not the two of them together – I doubted the logis needed sleep, or anything else that might be found in Cecila’s bed – but a business arrangement between the two. Say Jerik wasn’t as cooperative in private with Artorius, and the tech-priests switch to the second heir in line. Cecila inherits the company, but not the responsibility as the tech-priests run everything. Everyone wins – apart from Jerik. And Lord Mons, obviously.

I rolled the thought around, but it didn’t feel right. Maybe I was wrong about everything.

It was hard to think in this airless room. It was much, much too quiet – the thick walls blocked out all sound. I’d never been in such a silent place before: everywhere else in the city, you can always, always hear the presence of other people. Distant voices, footsteps, coughing or the like. The Mons mansion was bad enough – so few people in such a vast space, just a few humans and a host of silent servitors – but the study was much worse. It was like the top of the spire had disconnected from the mansion and floated off into deep space, and I was completely removed from the rest of humanity, lost in the void.

Here, I felt utterly alone.

I sat down at the desk, reviewed my own recordings of Lord Mons’ body. I wasn’t a trained verispex, but I knew ligature marks when I saw them. Someone had definitely strangled Lord Mons. However, without a full autopsy, I couldn’t be sure that he’d been killed by strangulation.

Another scenario: as Cecila suggested, Lord Mons is having an affair with the clerk Beshombe. She partially strangles him as part of their lovemaking. Before or after that – or, why not, during – Lord Mons changes his will. Beshombe leaves. He shoots himself. Enter the probator, who spins a mad theory about murder. Gets everything wrong, creates a huge scandal out of nothing. Ends his career, disrupts the Mons foundries, the planet fails to meet its munitions-tithe and is placed under Ministorum edict. Riots in the lower city, Adeptus Arbites investigations for a hundred years. All is woe.

I was missing some key pieces. I had to find Doria Beshombe.

It was a relief to get out of the study. I found Talin, ordered him to delay any ritual bathing or preparation of Lord Mons’ corpse. It’d be a closed-casket funeral anyway. He quibbled, but when I threatened to call in an evidence casket for the body instead, he relented. The factotum was as eager to avoid the hint of scandal as anyone.

‘Lord Mons’ laspistol, the one that, ah, caused the terrible accident. Where was that kept?’

‘In a safe in the study,’ answered Talin. ‘It’s a relic – one of the first such weapons made according to the family pattern.’ His face betrayed his horror at the thought of such an antique being subjected to forensic testing.

The fact that the weapon was close at hand, but not immediately accessible – that confirmed the initial murder was a hasty or spontaneous act, followed by a laser-powered cover-up. And whoever did it needed the combination to the safe. I reviewed my ocular images of the room – it was a mechanical safe, a lifeless machine. Logis Artorius couldn’t have communed with it the way he did with the door.

‘Who has the combination to the safe?’

‘I don’t know. Master Jerik, perhaps. Or Mistress Cecila.’

I glanced at the old man, tried to judge how much strength remained in his withered hands. Was the factotum strong enough to strangle his master? Maybe Talin had nursed some grudge for years. He could have slipped in when Doria Beshombe left, attacked Lord Mons.

‘You’ve served the family for years – did you have the combination?’ I asked.

‘Oh no, sir.’ A tone of disgust, as if the prospect was unthinkable. ‘I rarely waited on Lord Mons when he was in his study. He preferred… Well, it was–’

‘Yes, a private study. So you said. And what did Lord Mons do with that privacy – say, with Doria Beshombe?’

I studied the wrinkles on his face, as complex as the whorls and ridges of a fingerprint, watching for some reaction. A twitch, a frown, any response to my barbed question.

‘I really couldn’t say, sir,’ he replied. His face betrayed nothing, but my gut feeling was that he was as single-minded and devoted as a servitor, so devoted he was unable to think of turning on Lord Mons. My guess was that, contrary to some two-slate holo-novel, the factotum didn’t do it.

I let Talin shuffle off to preserve the body, and voxed the Bastion. I hadn’t expected much from the verispexy of the gun, and they confirmed that they hadn’t found anything on it except Lord Mons’ fingerprints.

They did, however, have a lead for me – a sighting of Doria Beshombe.

Going down into the lower city was like waking from a strange dream. The crowds surging around me were familiar. Dirty and busy and fretful, full of humanity. In contrast, the empty halls and chapels of the Mons spire seemed like a bizarre abstraction, something hollow and cold. I imagined, for a moment, these crowds spilling into the ballrooms of the mansion, falling like cyber-mastiffs on the heavily laden dinner table.

I could imagine Cecila being amused by that. Or maybe Teratus, given his professed liking for rubbing elbows with the common folk.

Teratus didn’t fit in my head. He seemed eccentric, but the Mons could afford eccentricity by the truckload. No, he was scared. Scared of something he couldn’t name.

What could frighten a scion of the Mons family? What threat could penetrate the shield of wealth and power that wrapped Teratus and his siblings?

The mag-shaft carriage rattled as it slowed down, then ground to a halt. I joined the crowds shuffling out of the six-storey carriage into the mag-shaft station.

‘Probator!’ An enforcer saw me shoving my way through the mob, waved me over. The crowd parted instantly at his gesture – plain-clothes probators don’t engender the same terror as armoured sanctioners.

‘Report,’ I told him.

‘The mag-shaft staff saw a woman matching the description you gave us arriving early this morning.’ Morning was an abstraction down in the lower city – sunlight rarely penetrated the smog layer, and the arc-lumes in the foundries never dimmed – but tradition mandated we keep to the old terms. ‘We made some enquiries.’ They beat some people up.

‘And?’

‘One of the ticket inspectors recalled that she paid him for the location of the nearest pawn shop that might sell her a gun, sir. I have the address.’ The sanctioner’s expression was unreadable behind the helmet. ‘I understand this is a sensitive matter, sir. I’ll leave this with you.’

The pawnshop was in Upper Fumarole, a district I hadn’t been to in years. And the last time I was down here, I was carried out by an enforcer med-evac team. I rubbed my chest, feeling the old wound. These weren’t my original heart or lungs, the medicae told me. A lot of me was vat-grown, now. After that, I was more careful about the cases I took as probator, and started specialising in ones that were less likely to get me shot by a street gang.

The pawn shop owner scowled at me when I entered, and shifted to a different scowl when I showed him my probator’s warrant.

‘Hey, hey, everything here’s legal. It’s just that we had a flood last week, right, and a lot of paperwork got–’

‘Do you know this woman?’ I handed him an image of Doria Beshombe.

‘She was in earlier. Waiting outside when we opened.’

‘What did you sell her?’

‘A Mons-pattern laspistol. A model 402.’

‘How did she pay?’

In response, he pointed to a jewelled necklace in a locked case. ‘Traded in that for the gun and a fistful of slates.’ The Mons family crest glittered, engraved on the gemstone that dangled from the necklace’s golden chain.

‘Where did she go?’

He jerked a thumb, pointing out the door and to the right. ‘Thataway. What am I, a tarot-reader?’

I walked down the corridor, trying to put myself in Beshombe’s place. I just fled the Mons mansion in the dead of night. Bribed a ticket inspector. Bought a gun. Do I know where I’m going? Am I angry? Scared? On the run? The corridor opened onto a shaft that spanned dozens of levels. Below me, the fires of the furnaces and foundries down in Fumarole. Above, the lights of the Dredge.

I worked all of yesterday, and stayed up half the night with Lord Mons. Whatever else, I’m exhausted.

And there, across the shaft, one level down, a neon sign proclaimed CHEAP HOTEL.

Five minutes later, I was outside Room 305. According to the receptionist, Beshombe was in here.

I knocked on the flimsy door. ‘Miss Beshombe? I’m Probator Vorzhen. Can I come in?’

No answer, but I heard the distinctive sound of a laspistol charging up. I stepped to the side, just in case she tried firing through the door, but instead she opened the spyhole and peered at me.

‘Are… are you armed?’

I held up my gun. ‘I am. But I’m going to put it down here, see?’ I laid it down carefully in front of the door. A gesture of trust.

‘I just want to talk.’

She opened the door, pointed the laspistol at me. Her hands were shaking, and she hadn’t noticed the safety switch was on. Still, I let her think she had me under the gun, and followed her directions when she told me to go sit on the bed. She closed the door behind me, then sat down on the chair opposite.

‘Did Lord Mons send you?’ she asked.

‘Lord Mons is dead.’

‘Oh. Oh no. Oh no.’

‘You were the last person to see him alive.’

The gun slipped to the floor, and she buried her face in her hands. I gave her a minute, then started teasing out the truth. She told me that Lord Mons wanted her help going through old records – very old records. Family genealogies, bargains and treaties signed centuries ago. He never told her what he was looking for. Last night, he called her up to his private study.

‘Was he suicidal?’

‘He… he was worried. About the family. About… and something else. I don’t know. Like he was cursed.’ Teratus’ word. It felt different, coming out of her mouth. ‘And he was angry. I knew that he and his son Jerik had been talking. He was always angry after those conversations. About… about the machine priests.’

I nodded.

‘He wrote up a new will, and made me witness it. He said that it was a safeguard. I didn’t know what he was talking about. Once I’d witnessed it, he went back to looking at the old records. Very old ones, from the earliest years of the foundries. He just told me to leave. I went back to my room.’

‘So you–’

She kept talking, like she couldn’t stop, like this all had to be said in one flood of words. ‘I was getting ready for bed when someone attacked me from behind. Someone in robes. I remember…’ Her hand went to her throat. ‘Metallic fingers grabbing me. Choking me. But I broke free and ran, and ran, and… I think it was him. The tech-priest.’

‘Are you quite sure it was the logis?’ I asked.

Beshombe’s hands twisted. ‘I didn’t see him, but… who else?’

‘Why did you come down here?’

‘I knew Lady Cecila was down in the Fumarole. I hoped she’d protect me from her brother, from… from the logis.’

‘The necklace you pawned. Where did it come from?’

‘Lord Mons gave it to me.’

I raised an eyebrow, and she flushed and shuddered at the same time.

‘No! I know about the rumours, but I would never… No, he gave it to me for all the extra work in the archives. I had to cart files up from deep storage by myself. He said not to talk to anyone. He wouldn’t even let me use a serv–’

A knock at the door.

I glanced over at her. She shook her head, terrified again.

‘Armed probator,’ I shouted, ‘clear off.’

‘He’s not armed,’ muttered someone outside in the corridor. ‘I just found his fragging gun on the mat.’

Oh, yeah. Next time I want to win someone’s trust, I’ll bring a box of confectionary.

Or a second gun. A second gun would have been a really good idea around then.

‘Let’s kill them both,’ said someone else outside.

And two gunmen came barrelling through the hotel room door.

What happened next was confused, and messy.

I threw myself across the room towards Beshombe, trying to knock her out of the line of fire. She grabbed the laspistol and fired, found the safety was on, hit the switch, and tried again. The laspistol beam seared one of the attackers – big, street clothes, a heavy protective plastek apron, maybe a foundry worker? – and he went down in the doorway. Oh, and I got hit – by a bullet, not a las-blast. There’s ballistic armour in the lining of my flak coat, but it still hurt.

The fried attacker was screaming, Beshombe was screaming, I’m pretty sure I was screaming, and the crazy-eyed second attacker just fired wildly. I wrestled the laspistol out of Beshombe’s hands, got hit again, and fired back.

There’s a knack to using a laspistol. If you aim it right, you can incapacitate without much risk to the life of your target. The heat from the beam can cauterise at the same time it wounds, so you end up with, say, a charred ankle but your target doesn’t bleed out. You can bring a perpetrator down, capture them, interrogate them. Ask them questions like, ‘Who are you?’ or ‘Who hired you to kill Doria Beshombe? Was it a tech-priest?’

If you hit your target in the wrong spot, though, you end up with a very messy explosion, like Lord Mons’ popped head.

In my defence, I’d just been shot twice, so I didn’t have time to aim right.

I wasn’t that badly hurt, all things considered. I’ve had worse. Still, I was out for several hours. During that time, the sanctioners responded to reports of gunfire by storming Cheap Hotel and beating up lots of bystanders. They put Doria Beshombe under guard in the lockhouse, and took me to the Bastion medicae, where the painkillers made me dream of Cecila.

When I woke – reluctantly – the castellan warned me that Probator Thayis had taken over the investigation into the Cheap Hotel attack. Normally, a firefight in Upper Fumarole wouldn’t warrant an investigation, but they’d shot a probator. Even though both gunmen were already dead, the enforcers wanted payback.

‘It’s my case,’ I insisted.

‘You don’t have a case,’ the castellan reminded me. ‘You have an unofficial investigation, as a courtesy to the Mons family. Talk to Thayis – she’s found something you should see. But first, you’ve got a visitor.’

Cecila. She glided into my recuperation room, looking as beautiful as the sculpted image of a saint. No theatrics this time – or if they were theatrics, she was being a lot more subtle now. Her face radiated genuine concern.

‘I’m told you were wounded protecting Doria Beshombe.’

‘I left my gun outside the room,’ I muttered, ‘to give them a sporting chance.’

‘I shall send a Mons family physician, to deliver you from these butchers. You’ll have the best of care.’ She laid a cool hand on my brow, brushed her long fingers over the bandages, and the medicae’s leechline that fed meagre relief into my bloodstream. ‘They haven’t even given you the good drugs,’ she muttered. ‘Try these.’

She produced a small silver snuffbox, tapped four white pills out onto the bedside table. She took one herself, left the other three for me.

Whatever they were, they made the pain vanish. They made it harder to think, though. I tried to ask a clever, oblique question that would elicit the information I sought, but what came out of my mouth was: ‘Your brother Teratus babbled about curses and ghosts. Is he insane?’

Cecila laughed. ‘He’s harmless. He’s convinced the mansion is haunted. And the factories, too. A family ghost, or maybe a chorus of ghosts. Everyone killed by a Mons weapon, the stories say. Teratus said it used to talk to him in the night. It made Father very angry.’ She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘For a while, I used to pretend I heard the ghosts too, just to annoy Father.’

‘Shouldn’t you be back at the mansion?’

‘Oh, Talin’s handling the formalities about Father’s funeral. And Jerik and the logis are off plotting a coup against me, I think.’

‘Besh… Besh…’ The clerk’s name was hard to say. The drugs made my lips numb. ‘Beshombe thinks that the logis attacked her last night. Wait, the night before last.’ I’d lost a few hours to unconsciousness. ‘Has the tech-priest ever threatened you?’

‘Never.’ She seemed a little nervous at the thought, though.

I yawned, suddenly tired. ‘Excuse me.’ The room began to swirl and grow dark.

I think Cecila kissed me goodnight, but I couldn’t be certain. My lips were numb, and it’s not my original heart anyway.

I woke an hour later, feeling a lot better. I declared myself fit for service, got a new gun from the armoury – and a spare, just in case – and set off. The castellan told me to talk to Probator Thayis, so I went down to Lower Fumarole. As the mag-shaft descended, I thought about what Beshombe had said. Lord Mons was working with old files, from the archive. Records from centuries ago, maybe longer. The wealthy and the powerful can afford different perspectives. Down in the Dredge, your horizon’s constrained. At best, you can’t look further than the next corner, the next meal. On a bad day, you’re squeezed even tighter, thinking in heartbeats, in steps to cover.

But up in the spires, in the churches, they have the luxury of looking forward, looking back. Thinking in centuries, in millennia. Something in the old files scared Lord Mons. Only someone who’s that rich, that free of mundane concerns could get scared by things from thousands of years ago.

Me? I was somewhere in the middle. I clawed my way out of the lower city, learned to see a bit further, but I still wasn’t up there in the spires with the great and the wise. I could think four or five steps ahead, see how this case could have repercussions beyond this city, but I wasn’t remote enough to think of Lord Mons as nothing but a cipher, a footnote in history. A man had been murdered in my town, and I wanted to know who’d done it.

Down in Lower Fumarole, the air’s so thick with smoke and toxins that you can’t see more than a few feet ahead. It’s so greasy and gritty you can feel the gunk accrete on your skin as you walk. And dangerous, so very dangerous. Hive gangs, cutters, crazies, mutants, gunheads. Even xenos, they say.

There was a time, when I was young and unshot, that I willingly took cases that brought me down here, close to the action, but not any more.

Thayis, though, still had a taste for it. Her sanctioner backup led me through the toxic corridors until we arrived on the edge of a vast industrial compound. I crossed a walkway over a dark chasm, and wondered how long I’d be falling if I stepped off. The city goes deep in these parts.

They showed me through an archway bearing the Mons crest, and pointed at a huge ferrocrete structure across a courtyard. ‘In there.’

I entered the building. It was dark inside, but my shoulder-lume illuminated ancient machines – or parts of machines, to be accurate, industrial edifices so massive that this cathedral-sized structure only contained a small fraction of the machinery. Perspective, again – what sort of mind could encompass something so huge and complex? Could the logis grasp the full schematics of these ancient engines? Or would he chop the problem up, bring in a swarm of red-robed priests, each one poking at a different component, delving into every cog and valve and circuit?

I saw another lume-beam in the distance, and set off across the ferrocrete floor.

My bullet wounds ensured I felt every inch of that long, long walk; the drugs lingering in my bloodstream ensured I didn’t mind.

As I walked, my lume showed me unexpected things. Broken crystal wine glasses. A trestle table. A discarded shoe.

My head was still fuzzy from the painkillers, and I didn’t put it together quickly. Instead, I just stepped over the shoe and headed towards the light.

‘Probator Thayis!’ I called.

‘Vorzhen. You’re not dead, then?’

‘That sort of brilliant deduction is why they made you a probator.’

‘I’ve heard not caring is why you’re still one.’ Her lume flashed in my face like a chastiser’s lamp. ‘Is that true? The word is that you’re the castellan’s cleaner – that you make problematic cases vanish instead of solving them.’

I ignored the barb. ‘What have you found?’

She shone her lume up on one wall. Painted there were strange sigils, markings I didn’t recognise. The beam tracked across the floor, illuminating more symbols, a circle of candles.

‘A cult?’

‘That’s my guess. Those look like occult glyphs to me. Ever seen anything like those before?’

‘They might be,’ I paused dramatically, ‘occult glyphs of some sort.’

She shone the light back in my face. ‘This place is a Mons family facility. The two fraggers who tried to kill you and the clerk worked here. Any reason someone would want the clerk dead?’ I could sense her hunger, her desire to chase down this mystery. She still thought that if you pushed hard enough, you could change this city, make it better. She hadn’t learned that things push back.

‘The castellan,’ I said, ‘told me you found something I should see. I can’t see that this has anything to do with any matter I might be investigating.’

She scowled. ‘I did some digging about your two gunmen. I got their names, Fik and Gnell. I may have found out who hired them. There was an alms-giving here. The Mons family, raining blessings on the poor.’

An alms-giving benediction, down in Lower Fumarole District, Cecila had said. For orphans maimed in factorum accidents, I think. There were thousands of people there.

‘They gave out money to the workers. Most people got maybe five hundred slates. Your gunmen got fifty thousand each from Cecila Mons.’

‘Like I said, I can’t see that this has anything to do with any matter I might be investigating.’ I didn’t like lying to her, but the castellan had ordered me to handle the Mons case. So I was handling it.

‘I won’t drop this,’ said Thayis. ‘Tell the castellan that. Tell the justicius. Tell the Mons family.’

I took the mag-shaft back to the upper levels, and stared out the window as the city fell past me. The acceleration pushed me into my seat. For some reason, it put me in mind of escape velocity. If you don’t have anti-grav, you’ve got to boost hard to reach orbit. If you don’t have enough thrust, you might climb really high, higher than the spires of the city, but you’ll fall back down.

I felt like I was falling back down.

I felt like I was missing something.

The atrium of the mansion was full with black-clad mourners. The funeral of Lord Mons wouldn’t be for another few days, but they came anyway, to pay their respects to the family, and to ingratiate themselves with the new Lord Mons. Jerik greeted them, Logis Artorius by his side.

The new will clearly wasn’t yet public knowledge.

I met Cecila in the dining room, twenty levels above the atrium. She was waiting on a balcony. The stars were above us in the night sky, and the lights of the city were below.

‘Everyone downstairs thinks Jerik’s still your father’s heir,’ I said.

‘You’ve got the only copy of the will,’ she reminded me. ‘You haven’t lost it, have you?’

‘I sent it to the vault in the Bastion before I went down to the lower city. It’s safe.’

‘Pity. Maybe it’d be easier if it had been lost.’ Abruptly, she turned and sat up on the balcony railing, heedless of the vertiginous drop into darkness behind her. ‘I can’t stop thinking about what you said. The logis attacking Beshombe. Do you think he killed Father, too?’

‘I’m still investigating. According to his alibi, the logis was with your brother at the time Beshombe was attacked. And you were down in Lower Fumarole, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘At the alms-giving, or at the party afterwards?’

‘I have no idea. One of them.’

‘Where was the party?’

‘Some theatre or felicitoria. I wasn’t paying much attention. Ask Teratus.’

‘He was there?’ I said in surprise.

‘I think so.’ Her perfect brow furrowed in thought. ‘No. He was just at the gala. It was his idea, you know. I’m the face of the family’s charitable endeavours, but he helps organise them. He walks among the people in disguise, so he can see where the money would do the most good.’

‘Why didn’t Teratus come to the party?’

‘You’ve met him. It’s not really his scene. He stayed on at the foundry, or the warehouse, or whatever the place was.’

‘Did you give out money?’

‘Alms for the poor, yes. You’re interrogating me. Why?’

‘Who did you give money to?’

‘Grubby orphans. Maimed workers. People who needed it. People who wanted it.’

‘Do the names Fik or Gnell mean anything to you?’

‘No.’ Still sitting on the balcony, she leaned back, her upper body hanging out over the abyss. If her grip on the rain-damp railing slipped, she’d go tumbling back. I stepped a little closer, just in case.

‘Did you give them money?’

‘I don’t know who they are, probator! Yes! No! Maybe! I don’t care. Someone hands me a purse of slates, I press it into a pair of filthy hands and smile. Then on to the next in line!’

‘They tried to kill Doria Beshombe. They’re the ones who shot me yesterday.’

She hopped back down from the railing, and stared at me with hollow eyes. ‘I didn’t order anyone to kill you, if that’s what you’re asking. And if you think I did, you’re wrong.’ She shivered. ‘I’m getting cold. Would you like a drink?’

‘I’m working.’

‘Suit yourself.’ She pushed past me and went inside, leaving me alone on the balcony.

Somewhere, down there in the city, I imagined Probator Thayis, following the trail of money. Sooner or later, she’d run out of other leads. Sooner or later, she’d come knocking on the mansion door. I know to be political, to be circumspect. I can see trouble coming, and flinch away from it. I know what doors not to knock on, what questions not to ask.

Thayis is braver than I am. She wouldn’t be afraid.

I went looking for Teratus, but I couldn’t find him. For a while, I wandered through empty halls, finding no one. A servitor lumbered past, carrying a bundle of black drapes for the windows. They’d need hundreds of miles of black drapes for all the windows of the Mons spire.

‘Probator.’

The logis advanced towards me. His mechadendrites chittered and clacked. His armoured hands were pressed together as if in prayer.

‘Logis.’ I have a gun, I reminded myself, just in case. Two, in fact.

‘I have occupied myself with a study of the Mons company. Now that Lord Mons is no longer blocking access, I was able to examine certain ledgers previously barred to me.’ The green eyes were reflected in the dark glass of the windows, like there was something watching us from outside.

‘And?’

‘There are considerable financial irregularities in the records. A large amount of money has been misspent.’

He kept advancing. ‘On what, I cannot yet determine. Special projects. Encrypted accounts.’

‘Alms-giving?’ I ventured.

‘A fuller examination is required.’ He’d backed me into a corner.

‘When did this begin?’ Was it Cecila? Her father?

‘That cannot be determined from the data available. It started at least two thousand years ago. Perhaps longer.’ He stopped advancing and turned around. ‘Perhaps much longer. A curious, repeated pattern.’

He’s pacing, I realised. He’s thinking. ‘This is significant,’ he repeated. ‘This is significant. I must contact my superiors so this anomaly can be investigated.’

‘I’ll look into it,’ I said. His green lenses stared right through me. I could hear the cogitator circuits in his skull chittering away at high speed.

‘Have you seen Teratus Mons?’ No answer.

‘Did you attack Doria Beshombe?’ No answer.

‘Show me those files.’ No answer.

To the logis, I wasn’t even a footnote. His mind was off in vast spaces of thought I couldn’t follow, encompassing the machinations of thousands of years. Mechanicus and Ministorum and Ecclesiarchy and Arbites, great cogs meshing across the galaxy. No mortal thinks on such scales.

My own thoughts were beginning to race once more, my brain finally working properly again after the injury. I walked the empty halls of the mansion, no longer looking for Teratus. Just thinking.

I found myself back in the study. The body was gone, the desk scrubbed clean. So were the walls. The cogs of the machine were grinding on. The old Lord Mons was gone. That part needed to be replaced with a new Lord Mons, or Lady Mons. The system didn’t care. I toyed idly with the lock controls on the wall.

I sealed myself away from the world. I let the world back in.

Sealed it away.

Back in.

And then I remembered.

I ran out into the corridor, shouting into my vox. ‘Put me through to the lockhouse!’ They put Doria Beshombe on the line.

‘Doria. Listen. Tell me exactly what happened as you were leaving Lord Mons’ office.’

‘I witnessed and signed the will. He said it was a safeguard. He put it back in the autoscribe tray. And then I left. He didn’t say another word.’

‘Doria – how did he activate the lock from his desk? The control’s on the wall, across the room. How did he close the door?’

‘Oh,’ she said vaguely, ‘there was a servitor there.’

There was no servitor there when I first visited the crime scene. No servitor there in the logis’ memory-record. The cyborg servitors were ambulatory furniture; no one noticed them, no one paid attention to them. Household servitors weren’t programmed for violence, but if some force could suborn a servitor – maybe by corrupting its machine-spirit – it could override the door in the same way. Beshombe’s attacker might have been a servitor. Mons’ killer was a servitor.

I ran back into the gallery where I’d encountered Logis Artorius earlier. He was still there, moving back and forth like a pendulum in a clock.

‘Logis!’ I cried. ‘What would it take to override a servitor? And to alter the data-records of the spire?’

The green lenses irised wide open.

‘Ah,’ said Logis Artorius. ‘The abomination.’

In every investigation, there’s a time to stop asking questions. Sometimes, that means you’ve got to accept that the universe is terrible and cruel, and people are just evil, or greedy, or foolish. Sometimes, that means letting yourself be pushed back by greater forces you can’t hope to overcome. Sometimes, it’s out of a sense of self-preservation, to avoid learning what cannot be unlearned.

Like I said, I’m usually good at knowing when it’s time to shut up. And I knew we’d just gone past it.

A grey shape rushed out of a corner of the room, moving incredibly quickly.

The world shattered, and something slammed into my face. And after that, it’s just wind and darkness and screaming.

After that, not even the justicius could hold back the Adeptus Arbites. The death of a high-ranking logis demanded investigation.

No, sir, there’s no truth to the rumour that the logis attacked me, Clerk Beshombe or Lord Mons.

No, sir, there’s no truth to the rumour that Lord Mons was murdered. No official autopsy was ever conducted – and he was in a locked room at the time of death, anyway. As to the rumours that he blocked his eldest son’s alliance with the Adeptus Mechanicus to ensure his youngest son would not be investigated… well, I can’t speak to that, sir.

No, sir, I do not wish to continue in my employment as a probator. I don’t think it would be appropriate.

I was interrogated over and over, until my own memory of the events was rubbed smooth by repetition. Until I stopped remembering what actually happened, and just remembered my account of the incident: how a malfunctioning, errant servitor threw itself at the logis, knocking both of them through the window to plunge to their destruction.

The Adeptus Mechanicus withdrew their interest in the Mons foundries. Too costly, I suppose, with the logis dead and Jerik disinherited. I heard he went off-world, signed on with a rogue trader according to some accounts.

Probator Thayis finished her investigation. She found evidence of an anarchistic cult operating in Lower Fumarole. The two gunmen who tried to kill Doria Beshombe were part of this sect. Her investigation linked the cult to dozens of murders, mostly cold cases. The sect was bankrolled, it seems, by Teratus Mons. He denied it, but the evidence was incontrovertible. The rest of the sect members were arrested; as befits a man of his station, Teratus was allowed to quietly join the Ecclesiarchy. No more questions. It all ended so very, very neatly. The Arbites got their verdict of accidental death, Thayis got her cult, the locked-room murder was a suicide.

And Cecila? She thrived. Lady Cecila Mons, taking over from her father. The machine kept grinding on, a new replacement part in place. The foundries kept burning, the factorums kept working. She was the perfect fit for the Mons leadership, the perfect figurehead.

I didn’t ask any more questions. I didn’t talk to anyone. I’m good at shutting up. Even with my limited perspective, I could sense forces moving around me, slotting pieces into place. As long as I held my tongue, as long as I didn’t say that Mons had been murdered, the system could move on. Everyone could move on.

Except me.

I kept thinking. I read – histories, mostly. I was looking for a new perspective. I read religious texts, old ones. I visited black markets in the depths of the city to buy forbidden scrolls stolen from the Adeptus Mechanicus. I could only understand a fraction of them, but there I found a name for the thing I’d come to suspect.

Abominable Intelligence. Silica Animus.

A few months later, I was summoned to the Mons mansion again. A fresh-faced young servant let me in. The place was alive with light and laughter. I scanned the crowd of bright young things. Unsurprisingly, Lady Mons had abandoned the use of servitors after the incident.

Another servant brought me up to her office. The ancient blast doors were gone, replaced with a great crystal window looking out across the cloud-topped spires. Cecila waited for me there, the blazing sun a halo behind her.

‘No probator’s warrant any more?’ she asked.

‘No, Lady Mons.’

‘But they let you keep the augmetic eye, I see.’

‘They did.’

A knowing smile. ‘I have a job offer for you, Vorzhen. I find myself in need of a new head of security. My former bodyguard was far too protective. Now, I know we didn’t part on the best terms, but–’

‘I’ll do it.’

‘Good. It’ll be good to have someone I can trust around here.’

Some might say, when they look at me, that my life has been all about selling my morals out, over and over. Sell out mercy to become a probator. Sell out justice to become the castellan’s cleaner. And sell out even honour to become a gun for hire. They control servitors with lobotomies and cybernetics, and men like me with money.

And that’s all true. I rose from the warrens of the lower city to this glittering spire, and I didn’t take the mag-shaft to get here. I climbed up on top of a lot of bodies.

What you see is what you get.

More or less.

There are a hundred thousand eyes in the Mons family mansion. Eyes hidden in ceilings, in walls. In cogitator terminals and servo-skulls. More eyes down in the foundries, where ancient machines labour according to some purpose forgotten by mankind. There’s only one mind watching through all those eyes, watching and plotting.

I’m not the first to discover this. Lord Mons, Logis Artorius, even Teratus in his way – and before them, who knows how many others over the centuries? How many members of the Mons family died untimely deaths? How many scholars and enginseers stumbled across the unknowable secret? Hell, how many probators?

They all discerned the presence of that malign intelligence. So it eliminated them. It protected itself.

It nearly eliminated Doria Beshombe, but I saved her, and kept her alive long enough for it to see that she wasn’t actually a threat. I can’t let it see me as a threat.

Not yet.

I don’t know what it wants. Maybe it’s burrowing deep into the city, like a parasitic worm. Maybe it’s building something down there. I don’t know if it’s malicious, or if it defends itself by reflex. I don’t even know if it really thinks of us at all, or if it’s so vast and complex that our little lives don’t have meaning.

If I ever speak, if I ever let slip that I’ve spotted it, it’ll eliminate me. So I keep silent. I don’t push.

Yet.

I think it loves Cecila too, in its way. It finds her useful. She distracts attention from it, provides both scandal and sanctity. Alms given to orphans, to the victims of factorum accidents. She stops people asking too many questions.

I think she suspects, like Teratus suspected. But who knows where there’s a hidden vox-thief, a lurking servitor? We share intimate, terrified glances, but never speak. There’ll come a time, though, when she stops being useful, and it’ll try – in its clumsy, brilliant, inhuman way – to eliminate her, too. Another terrible accident, maybe.

But when it happens, I’ll be there.

The sort of probator she’ll need.

IMPURITIES

GRAHAM McNEILL

Fumes from the oceanic filtration vats and wharfside render-mills gave the air in the alley the greasy flavour of dead animals. Drifts of trash climbed the salt-crusted walls of ochre-brick warehouses, where barely legible ganger tags were sprayed one on top of the other.

Too many ways in and out to cover. Overlooked by too many open windows to be safe.

Ship bells pealed over the water, and a lighthouse beam swept over the roofs at regular intervals.

A dumb location for a ransom exchange, but what could you expect from amateurs?

Jovian Colbrand’s first impression of Ambershadow was that he was a dangerous idiot – the kind of man who’d look down the barrel of a gun to see if it was loaded then shoot his friend. The kind of stupid that’d walk away unharmed from an ambush that got everyone else killed.

Oletha’s psych-profile said Ambershadow could be reasoned with, but the filmy narco-sheen in the juve’s eyes as he climbed down from the cab of a rusted cargo-8 made Colbrand doubtful.

Typical of the Saltstone gangs, his skin was inked with mortis imagery: grinning skulls, murder-blades and High Gothic script that didn’t mean what he thought it meant. Pierced and modded too, a badly grafted ocular implant and silvered teeth. A rusted hand that might be scavenged augmetic, might be just an armoured gauntlet.

‘You Colbrand?’ he asked.

‘None other. You must be Ambershadow.’

‘Yeah,’ said the juve, banging his metal fist on the side of the cargo-8.

Four wharf-rat punks clambered out the back of the idling transport. Their faces were electooed and weathered by the hot, vaguely acidic spray that came in off the sludgy ocean. Patched-up dusters, canvas caps and wide belts hung with rigging-buckles and leather loops. Knives and stub-pistols. A driver remained at the wheel.

Ambershadow was twitchy on whatever stimm he was glanding, and his fingers beat a chemical drumbeat on the grip of a gold-chased autogun slung low at his hip.

I bet it has a name.

Colbrand blink-clicked them for hidden weapons. His own augmetic eye was medicae-grade, more used to mapping torn arteries, bullet fragments, or shrapnel paths through flesh than detecting weapons, but it picked out a combat blade or pistol just as easy as metal bone-weave or synthetic organ.

Nothing much more than he could already see. A couple of knives, and one kid at the back had what looked like a shotgun under his duster. Couldn’t read if it had a load or not.

‘You bring the money?’ asked Ambershadow.

Colbrand patted the musette bag hung from his shoulder.

‘All of it?’

Colbrand shrugged and shook his head. ‘Sorry, I lost most of it on a couple of bad hands of zanabas at Menem-Ba’s on the way here. What can I say?’

‘Really?’

‘No, frag-brain,’ snapped Colbrand. ‘It’s all right here.’

The wharf-rats behind Ambershadow flinched. Clearly they weren’t used to a leader being spoken to like that. Colbrand guessed they were all new and desperate. Ambershadow had likely got his last gang killed in some stupid turf war or avenging some overblown slight.

The bone conduction vox-bead behind Colbrand’s ear twitched and Oletha’s voice sounded in his head, crackling with interference like she was on a ship in orbit. For all he knew, maybe she was.

‘I said you could reason with Ambershadow. Antagonising him will likely make that difficult.’

‘Okay,’ said Colbrand.

‘Show me,’ demanded Ambershadow, thinking Colbrand was talking to him.

‘Bring me the girl first.’

Ambershadow drew his autogun and aimed it at Colbrand’s head.

‘Show me the money or the Oracle here gets to tell your future. And it ain’t gonna be good.’

‘Oracle?’ said Colbrand. ‘That’s what you call your gun?’

‘Yeah, and her predictions are always… murder.’

Colbrand laughed – laughed hard – bending over to rest his hands on his knees. ‘Oracle? Oh, that’s good, I was expecting it to be something scary sounding, like Deathmaker, Blood-thunder or something like that. But Oracle? I bet that sounded better in your head, right?’

‘Are you tryin’ to get killed, mister?’

‘No, sorry,’ said Colbrand, composing himself. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just… Oracle?’

He shook his head and ran a hand over the shaven right half of his skull. The upper left quadrant of his skull was a bronzed curve of metal plating that incorporated his augmetic eye. Angular tattoos of interlocking thorns and lightning bolts patterned the skin of his neck.

‘Okay, right. Let’s do this,’ said Colbrand. ‘So, I have your money here. All of it. Now, let’s get this done so we can all get out of here. I’m guessing we’ve all got better things to do, yeah?’

‘Sure,’ said Ambershadow, walking back to the cargo-8. ‘You got it.’

‘Too easy,’ said Oletha. ‘He’s going to do something stupid.’

‘You don’t say…’ whispered Colbrand.

‘I advise caution. You only have one body.’

Colbrand grunted. ‘Maybe you should have come instead.’

‘Now, now, Jovian. You know I do not like to get my hands dirty.’

Ambershadow hammered his fist on the driver’s door.

‘Bring the girl out!’ he yelled.

The wheelman of the cargo-8 got out and went around the back of the transport. He returned a few moments later with a young woman in expensive clothes and a face that had never known hunger or a want that hadn’t been instantly satisfied. Her hands were bound with baling twine that bit bloody grooves into her wrists, and her expression was more exhilaration than fear.

Well, hello, Moonrae-ska Faylona Nokanen.

First daughter of Zanja Nokanen, Saltstone District’s formidable burgrave.

‘Mamzel Nokanen, my name is Jovian Colbrand,’ he said. ‘Just hold tight and this will all be over soon, okay?’

She nodded, looking around like she was an explorator discovering a fascinating new planet. Colbrand supposed Saltstone would feel utterly alien to someone raised in a hermetically sealed compound up on Varangantua’s western Palatyne Spyre.

The girl was practically a stranger in her own city.

Ambershadow took hold of her arm and shoved her forward.

‘She’s all yours, Colbrand.’

‘He’s not going to ask for the money first? Throne, he really is stupid.’

‘Works for me,’ said Colbrand, unslinging the musette bag from his shoulder.

Moonrae-ska Faylona Nokanen walked hesitantly towards him, glancing over her shoulder as if suddenly worried she might get shot in the back. Not an unreasonable suspicion.

‘Hey, mamzel?’ said Colbrand, locking his gaze to hers. ‘Eyes on me. Keep walking and we’ll get you back home within the hour. Come on, that’s it.’

She nodded, and took one step after another.

She’d covered half the distance between them when Colbrand heard the distinctive snap-click of an autogun being primed.

‘You dumb bastard…’ he whispered.

He looked up to see Ambershadow with his gold-chased autogun aimed squarely at the back of Moonrae-ska Faylona Nokanen’s head.

‘Hey, Colbrand, new plan. We keep the girl and the money. Then I shoot you dead.’

Colbrand took a moment’s pause and scratched the skin below his eye. He glanced up at the open windows, letting his eyes travel from one side of the alley to the other. Wondered if Ambershadow had any men up there. Decided he didn’t, then gave a slow, deliberate nod.

‘You could, sure,’ he agreed. ‘But then Burgrave Nokanen’s sniper would blow your damn head off.’

‘Sniper? What sniper?’

‘The one with that augmetic eye of yours lined up in the crosshairs of a long-las.’

The juve’s gaze zipped around the upper reaches of the alley. ‘I don’t see nobody.’

‘You think you’re gonna see a barrel poking out a window? That’s not how snipers operate. You don’t know they’re there until a hotshot punches through your eye socket, flash-boils your brain, and heat pressure blows the back of your skull out.’

‘You’re lying,’ grinned Ambershadow, exposing bloodied gums.

‘Maybe I am, but you want to take that chance?’ said Colbrand. ‘Come on, be smart. You give me the girl, I give you the money. That way we both get paid and nobody has to die. Sound good?’

Ambershadow relaxed his grip on the gun, but didn’t lower it.

Colbrand shook his head. ‘First shot’s in your head, then every one of these idiots gets one in the throat. I’ll give you to the count of three.’

Ambershadow laughed, but Colbrand heard the unease behind it.

He switched to speak directly to Moonrae-ska Faylona Nokanen.

‘Mamzel? Every number, you step to me. Got it?’

The girl nodded, biting her bottom lip.

‘It’s going to be fine, I promise you. Remember, every number, you step.’

Ambershadow scanned the windows, running the odds of his head being in a sniper’s sights.

‘Three,’ said Colbrand.

Moonrae-ska Faylona Nokanen stepped closer.

‘You’re full of shit, there ain’t no one up there,’ said Ambershadow.

‘Two.’

Another step.

Ambershadow’s eyes narrowed and he half turned, looking deep into the shadows of the alley’s upper windows.

‘One,’ said Colbrand lifting his hand and touching the tips of his thumb and middle finger like he was about to snap them together. He held his other hand out to Moonrae-ska Faylona Nokanen.

Ambershadow lowered his gun and laughed, like he’d always planned to play it this way.

‘All right, all right,’ he said. ‘I’m just messin’ with ya! She’s yours, now toss the money.’

Colbrand took the girl’s hand and pulled her behind him.

He dropped the musette bag onto the ground and said, ‘Get it yourself.’

Colbrand backed away with Moonrae-ska Faylona Nokanen to the street beyond the alley where his bad-tempered Dymaxion Corvair was parked.

He sketched a salute and said, ‘Pleasure doing business with you, young man.’

‘I see you again, I’ll just pull the trigger,’ said Ambershadow, turning away and circling a finger above his head. The wharf-rats climbed aboard the cargo 8, and Colbrand let out a relieved breath as it reversed out of the alley.

‘A sniper?’ said Oletha. ‘Really?’

‘Best I could think of at short notice,’ he said.

Oletha’s laugher echoed in his head.

‘Colbrand, you have got a pair of adamantium balls on you, I will give you that.’

He pulled the Corvair to a halt at the Palatyne Spyre’s western entrance. The high-walled gatehouse was a squat, monolithic block that looked like it could withstand an assault from an entire regiment of Tempestus Scions. Behind it, the spyre itself loomed over the western port district of Saltstone, a basalt-black obelisk against the striated, chemical sky. Nothing like as titanic as the central hives where the planetary governor lorded over Varangantua, but still impressive.

Colbrand had only ever seen the central hives once.

Six years ago. The day he’d arrived on Alecto.

Viewed through a haze of pain-balms and the rain-smeared armourglass port of a Militarum trans-orbital, the soaring, artificial mountains gradually resolved from the perpetual rain and smog of the city’s hub. Lit by strobing flashes of crackling generatoria and the vent-plumes of the manufactory hinterlands spreading from their foothills, each was a vast anthill lording over a twilight wasteland of tangled steel and stone.

This far west, you’d only ever see the central hives on a clear day, but since there were no clear days in Varangantua, that meant you never saw them.

He’d never seen them again, and never bothered to try.

And that suited Colbrand just fine.

The centre of the immense continent-spanning megalopolis meant bureaucracy, officials, paperwork and the kinds of scrutiny he was just as happy to avoid.

Colbrand and the rescued first daughter climbed from the Corvair under the watchful gaze of a dozen heavily armed guards fitted with high-end cybernetics. A pair of defence turrets on the roof of the gatehouse zeroed in on the groundcar, each capable of reducing it to atomised fragments.

Careful to keep his hands where the guards could see them, he and Moonrae-ska Faylona Nokanen were met by a brute with a metal-sheathed skull and some fearsome-looking close-combat augments who looked at Colbrand like he’d personally kidnapped the girl.

‘That’s far enough,’ he said.

‘Hey, Chroma-66,’ said Moonrae-ska Faylona Nokanen, skipping past the chimeric warrior as though being rescued from killer gangs was an everyday occurrence. The brute’s expression didn’t change, but Colbrand sensed his irritation.

‘Lovely girl,’ he said. ‘Got a lot of spirit.’

The brute turned back to face him, and the warm light of a threat-auspex gave him a thorough examination. Colbrand felt the itch of it all the way down to his deep tissue.

‘A lot of metal in you,’ said Chroma-66.

‘I’ve taken a lot of knocks over the years.’

‘Surgical steel. Medicae sterile.’

‘Good eye you’ve got.’

‘Only the best for Burgrave Nokanen’s men.’

‘You sure about that?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’d maybe ask him for an upgrade,’ said Colbrand. ‘Maybe you won’t lose his daughter again.’

Veins swelled on the chimeric’s muscular arms, and his breathing changed pitch with the release of aggressor-stimms and a spike in his adrenal output.

‘Maybe I’ll just kill you,’ said Chroma-66. ‘Save the burgrave having to pay you.’

‘You know, you’re the second person who’s tried that tonight,’ said Colbrand. ‘But, sure, whatever. Then who’s gonna find that girl the next time she sneaks past your security net to slum it down in Saltstone. You?’

Chroma-66 grunted. ‘Time for you to go. Slates’ll be wired to you by morning.’

Colbrand nodded and walked back to the Corvair.

‘Tell the burgrave, he’s welcome.’

He didn’t doubt the girl would find a way to slip out again. He’d already slipped her a contact card on the way here. Her father paid pretty well to get her back, and it couldn’t hurt to be in his thoughts next time she fled for the grime and good times of the wharfside bars.

Tracked by the turret guns until he was out of their line of sight, Colbrand guided the Corvair back down the hill, keeping his speed low to admire the ghastly beauty of Saltstone.

The district’s vastness was mind-numbing, so large as to be almost incomprehensible.

Colbrand had walked the streets of at least nine planetary capitals, but had never seen anywhere else of such scale and ancient grandeur. The former was the result of rapid growth spurred by centuries of sector-wide wars and a concurrent expansion in trade, both of which had been in decline for almost a century. The latter was thanks to Alecto being a world its masters claimed had been settled in one of the first expansions from Old Earth, but who really knew if that were true?

On the least inaccurate map he had yet seen, Varangantua stretched from the ruins of the dead glacier hives of the south, where convoys of tanker-rigs ran the rails between promethium deposits beneath the ice, to the rad-scorched mountains of the north and east. It spanned entire latitudes of climate, stretched over multiple time zones, and was home to uncounted millions: a wildly disparate agglomeration of human cultures living cheek by jowl.

That such an inhuman scale of human endeavour could exist, let alone function was staggering, but it was a place where a man could get lost and pass unnoticed.

And that suited Colbrand just fine.

He came off the canyon hill road, turning back towards Saltstone proper.

Down by the ocean, the rain was dark and got you wet through without you noticing. It reflected from scummed pools in the cratered roads and shimmered on the glass and plasteel storefronts in oily rainbows.

Even this late, the low streets were bustling with vibrant life. He saw corner-punks hawking narcotics, streetwalkers selling flesh, and junkers promising superhuman abilities with knock-off augments hard-stamped on illegal presses running down at Water’s Edge.

Lumens were strung in zigzag patterns across the road, swaying gently in the hot thermals blowing up from the rotten pipework that threaded the bones of the city like leaking veins. A ragged preacher on a street corner rang a bell and blared hymnals from a voxmitter implanted in his chest, while his disciples harangued passers-by with talk of the end times.

A pair of flitting skulls followed him momentarily, darting ahead to pulse a brief flare through the windscreen. He flashed the Corvair’s high beams and they flew away with a screech.

Who did they belong to? Zavadan’s enforcers or just some juves splicing a Mechanicus feed?

Or maybe they were Nokanen’s, checking he wasn’t secretly in league with Ambershadow.

Whatever. He was tired and didn’t much care.

He turned off the main drag, driving a winding route through sagging hab-blocks and gambrel-roofed tenements towards the two welded-together container pods slung below Bad Cardinal’s Bridge that doubled as his home and sometime office. Rain pooled in the streets, the drains backed up as usual, and the stink of the ocean scum was pervasive, even through the Corvair’s filters.

A clattering transport of exhausted workers chugged overhead on elevated rails, spitting sparks and trailing static ghosts in its exhaust fumes. Another growled past in the opposite direction, though looking at the pinched faces through the cracked windows, it was hard to tell which train was heading towards the manufactory hab-hives and which was heading away.

He’d just pulled into the iron-shuttered arch beneath the pods when he heard the soft click of connection in his skull.

‘I’m done for the night, Oletha,’ he said. ‘I’m tired and I need my beauty sleep.’

‘I think you will want to hear this,’ she said.

Colbrand yawned. ‘I doubt it.’

‘The mother curia made contact while you were on the Palatyne Spyre.’

The hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention. ‘Marika? What did she want?’

‘It is Sister Lyza.’

‘What about her?’

‘I am afraid she is dead, Jovian.’

The Obsidian Order’s mission hospice was set back from the rain-slicked road, nestled between a slab-sided graving dock and ranked-up storage silos containing lubricants rendered from fish oil.

You didn’t want to be anywhere downwind on a hot day.

The hospice was one of Saltstone’s oldest structures, or so the rusted plaque beneath the statue of its child-saint founder claimed. The bronze icon stood on a raised plinth at the centre of the courtyard, so pitted with salt corrosion and acid rain that the saint’s features were impossible to make out.

Once, the hospice had stood in splendid isolation, a grand edifice dedicated to the leavening of suffering among Varangantua outpost’s children, but now it was dwarfed by the decaying industry around it. Its walls of black marble were streaked with white salt lines like pale tears, and its roof was a spattered mess of guano from Saltstone’s nightgulls and vapour residue from its neighbours.

A square-cut clock tower rose above the central portico, though each face on the tower told a different time, earning it a faintly blasphemous nickname: the four-faced liar.

Inside, the hospice was as dreary and drab: tiled floors and walls of counterseptic-scrubbed ceramic, hemmed in chambers of dark wood, and a wide templum with a tall statue of the Emperor in His aspect as the divine healer and protector.

But at the heart of the hospice was the treatment ward, a high-ceilinged cathedral to suffering.

High windows ought to have let in the sun’s natural light – such as it was in Varangantua – but centuries of petrochemical emissions and salt accretion made sure that the illumination was as sickly as those the mission house treated. A golden mosaic of the Emperor had been crafted on the far wall, wrought of tens of thousands of coloured glass chips. It must have been spectacular in its day, but now it was patchy with missing pieces and dulled by time.

Colbrand passed swiftly through the ward, trying not to gag at the reek of healing unguents and textured fumes exhaled by the struggling recyc-units rattling in the upper reaches of the chamber.

A thousand or more beds filled the ward, packed so tight they were almost touching. Every single one was occupied with a child who was either sick or dying, a resource Varangantua produced in endless supply.

Even a cursory glance told Colbrand that most were no more than ten years of age.

Mothers and fathers held tight to one another, helpless in the face of the inhuman suffering that no parent should ever feel. Hacking coughs and wet retching echoed the length of the ward, accompanied by soft weeping, low voices and the chattering gurgles of ancient machinery.

People looked up as he passed, men and women desperate for even a sliver of hope, but he had none to give. Little enough for himself, let alone anyone else.

The Sisters Hospitaller of the Obsidian Order were ill-equipped to deal with the various maladies common to Varangantua: ocean ague, salt-lung, rad-throat, Uhlren’s echo, eyeburn, and countless others. Nor were they equipped for the sheer number of patients. Colbrand hadn’t set foot in the hospice for over a year, but immediately saw things were far worse than he remembered.

He tried not to let the misery of the ward’s occupants reach him, because he knew if he did, he wouldn’t be able to function. His past life had shown him enough blood and death to last a hundred lifetimes, and he knew full well the endlessly inventive ways the universe had to inflict pain on its inhabitants. Far easier to simply shut it out, to not care. Keeping the number of lives you cared about small wasn’t selfish, it was the only way to survive in a galaxy where individual lives mattered not at all.

Colbrand’s gaze was drawn to a diminutive figure with long, bone-white hair, sat at the head of one of the ward’s bunks. At first he thought it was a young girl sitting vigil by her baby brother, but quickly saw his mistake.

She wasn’t a young girl; she was a ratling, a short-statured offshoot from the human genome.

Colbrand had served with ratlings before, and though some soldiers laughed at them, he’d seen enough of their handiwork to know they weren’t to be underestimated.

Sensing Colbrand’s gaze, she looked up before he could turn away. Dark hollows ringed puffy eyes set in a face lined with anguish. He knew that expression. He looked closer at the bed and understood its tiny occupant wasn’t a baby brother, but her infant son. The boy was asleep or unconscious, his skin sallow and sweat-sheened. A series of wheezing, pumping machines gurgled as they helped him breathe.

With her back to the wall, she looked like she was expecting a threat to materialise at any moment, and Colbrand was intimately familiar with that default aggressive posture.

Her appraising gaze swept over him, taking the measure of him in a heartbeat.

‘Militarum?’ she said, her voice a whispering rasp, her breathing laboured.

Colbrand shook his head.

‘Yeah, you are. I know the walk,’ she said.

‘Sharpshooter?’

She nodded. ‘Roza Kovshova, Nagant Rangers long-las champion. At least I was until a gas attack turned sixty per cent of my lungs to shit. What’s your name, son?’

‘Colbrand.’

‘Who’d you serve with?’ she asked, with the ease of old soldiers who see the echoes of past wars in each other’s eyes.

‘How’d you end up here?’ asked Colbrand, ignoring her question. ‘Alecto hasn’t been on the regular Militarum war routes for decades.’

A weary smile cracked her weather-beaten face. ‘Since when has the Navy or the Munitorum been able to do anything right?’

‘True,’ said Colbrand. ‘And you just… stuck around?’

‘Wasn’t planning to,’ said Roza, nodding towards the bed. ‘Didn’t know I was pregnant with this one when I got wounded. By the time he decided to show up, regiment was half the galaxy away, and I kind of had a reason not to catch up to them, you know? Just don’t tell the praefectus, yeah?’

‘My lips are sealed,’ said Colbrand, looking down at the tiny figure in the bed. A rebreather mask covered his face, too large for his head and only held in place with surgical tape and elasticated bands. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Nanosh. He’s got the sickness, same as every other bugger in here.’

The pain in her voice was like a knife in his heart, threatening to open old wounds and awaken ingrained instincts.

‘Then he’s in the best place,’ said Colbrand. ‘The Obsidian Order know their business.’

‘That they do, Colbrand,’ said Roza. ‘Look, I can see you’re in a hurry to be someplace, so I ain’t gonna keep you. But if you can spare the time for a prayer to the Emperor, I’d sure appreciate it.’

‘I’ll do that,’ said Colbrand, surprised to find that he meant it.

He turned and walked away, keeping his gaze fixed on the mosaic of the Emperor on the far wall. The Master of Mankind was clad in golden armour, rays of sunlight rendered in yellow glass haloing His head, though age and bad air had stolen their lustre and rendered them into the perfect metaphor for this place.

And standing like a statue beneath the mural, her hands laced before her in prayer, was the mother curia of the Obsidian Order.

Sister Marika was a woman of inexhaustible patience and resolve, a stoic woman who had faced the unimaginable suffering of innocents and still turned into it. She wore a habit of fuliginous black, with a mesh veil hung with tiny shards of obsidian crystal that made it look as if she were crying gleaming black tears. A polished amethyst on a golden chain hung around her neck, and her face was deeply lined with the effort of holding overwhelming sorrow at bay.

She greeted Colbrand with typical brusqueness. ‘I contacted your assistant two hours ago.’

‘Oletha isn’t my assistant, Sister Marika,’ said Colbrand. ‘We just work together sometimes.’

‘Two hours,’ repeated Marika, turning on her heel and marching deeper into the building.

Colbrand caught up to her as she turned down a series of twisting passageways towards the mortuarium. The tiled corridor was lined with wooden doors like a row of cells, but his step faltered as he saw the door at its end was wrought from polished steel. Until now, he’d hoped there had been some mistake, a hideous miscommunication they’d laugh about a year from now.

The sterile steel doors ahead of him told him there had been no miscommunication.

‘It’s true then,’ said Colbrand, a tourniquet of grief tightening on his heart. ‘She’s… dead?’

For a moment, a flicker of empathy softened the lines around Marika’s eyes. She knew how Lyza had helped him in the earliest days of his arrival on Alecto and turned a blind eye to his past when others might have cast him out.

Lyza had saved his life and Marika knew that.

‘I’m sorry, Master Colbrand, but yes, Sister Efreen Lyza is dead.’

There were any number of ways to die in Saltstone, even more in Varangantua, especially working at such close proximity to the sick. He supposed it didn’t much matter how anyone died. They all ended up as ash on the wind, blowing out to sea.

But he had to know.

‘How…?’

Marika’s answer was like a bullgryn’s punch to the guts.

‘She was murdered, Jovian,’ said Marika, pushing open the mortuarium doors. ‘And I need you to catch her killer.’

Colbrand’s breath misted the cold air.

Gleaming steel gurneys, wheeled trolleys of surgical equipment, the acrid tang of counterseptic. He hadn’t missed these sights and smells, that was for sure.

Swathed in midnight-black surgical robes, he and Marika watched as a medicae servitor with creaking joints deposited a cold body bag of thick canvas on the slab before them. Fresh from a refrigerated compartment, steam misted from the bag’s stiffened surfaces as two young novitiates began the process of unlacing it.

Teeth grinding together, Colbrand held his breath as they worked, sweating despite the arctic temperature in the room. The novitiates pulled the cords through the final eyelets and gently pulled the folds of the bag open. They stepped back, and Colbrand felt his legs begin to shake.

He’d seen so many friends and brothers killed over the years.

He knew how to handle seeing death.

Even the little Marika had told him ought to have prepared him for the sight of Lyza’s body.

But it didn’t, not by a long shot.

She hadn’t been mutilated or disfigured by some enraged psychopath. She didn’t bear some terrible wound so catastrophic that survival would have been impossible.

No, it looked like she was sleeping.

She was young and pretty, with a kindly face and cornflower-blue eyes beneath her closed lids. Her hair was kept short, as required by the Obsidian Order, and the only things marring her pale skin were the neat black bullet holes in her left cheek where two hard rounds had penetrated.

Colbrand’s surroundings suddenly became too vivid, the smells too overpowering. The harsh lumens felt as though they were strobing into his eyes like needles. The breath pulsed in his chest, as if his heart were expanding to fill the cavity and crush his lungs.

He couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t enough air in the room.

He held to the edge of the slab as the weakness in his legs travelled up his spine.

‘No,’ he whispered. ‘No, no, no…’

He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to take one slow breath after another.

‘Murdered?’ he said, still unable to accept it. ‘How can Efreen have been murdered?’

‘That is what I want you to find out,’ answered Marika.

He shook his head, still not looking. ‘It doesn’t make sense. The sisters of the Obsidian Order only venture beyond the walls of the hospice for supplies and no one would dare touch them.’

‘Clearly someone did not share that sentiment.’

Colbrand let out a shuddering breath and opened his eyes. Like he’d always done when the cruelty of the universe struck him, he detached from the pain of the emotion and forced himself to focus on what mattered right here, right now.

‘Tell me everything you know. Where did it happen? Who found her? Everything.’

Marika recognised the need in him, the relentless focus, and told him everything.

When she was done, Marika led the novitiates from the chamber, leaving Colbrand alone with Lyza. He’d tried to compartmentalise his emotions as Marika spoke, but it was hard to be objective when the subject was someone who’d saved his life and never given up on him, even when he’d given up on himself.

If not for Sister Lyza, it would have been him on a slab like this.

But there would be no one to mourn his passing.

The medicae servitor in the corner twitched and its eyes whirred as they refocused.

The lumbering cyborg limped over to the slab and placed a rough, callused hand on Colbrand’s shoulder. Its lips moved soundlessly and a grunting hiss of dank air sighed between its teeth.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the servitor.

‘Thanks, Oletha,’ said Colbrand as the hijacked servitor moved around to the opposite side of the slab and swept the glow of its augmetic eye along the length of Lyza’s body. He’d seen her proxy her consciousness into countless cybernetics over the years, but it was still unsettling to hear her cultured voice issuing from something so brutish and ugly.

‘Shall we begin?’ said Oletha with the servitor’s voice.

‘Sooner we’re done here the better,’ said Colbrand.

‘Very well. First things first, where was she found?’

‘Marika said some scavver-juves found her at the entrance to an alley at Water’s Edge.’

‘The Edge? An unlikely location for a sister of the Obsidian Order to be roaming,’ said Oletha, circling Lyza’s body and examining each of her limbs in turn. ‘There is little wholesome to be found in west Saltstone. Only abandoned fabricatus plants, illegal tech-presses, slums and bloody turf wars.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought,’ said Colbrand. ‘Perhaps she was killed somewhere else and whoever did this dumped her body there?’

‘Possible,’ said Oletha. ‘But why bother?’

‘To make it look like a random gangland slaying.’

The servitor looked up, and even though its glassy, lifeless eyes weren’t Oletha’s, Colbrand felt her presence through them. Not that he knew what her eyes looked like, of course.

‘This was a clean kill. It was no random gangland slaying.’

‘No,’ agreed Colbrand, bending over the slab. ‘This was an execution. Professional.’

The servitor turned Lyza’s head and its augmetic eye clicked and whirred as its bone-penetrating auspex scanned the interior of her skull.

‘The angle of the entry wounds tells me the killer stood over her. Likely right-handed. She was on the ground. He stood over her and fired twice in quick succession.’

‘There’re no exit wounds,’ said Colbrand, leaning down.

‘Small-calibre shells. The fragmented remains are still lodged within her brain.’

‘Anything useful we can recover?’

The servitor shook its head. ‘No. Standard slug pistol round. Not enough is left to identify the weapon’s specific characteristics.’

‘Shame,’ said Colbrand. ‘Come on, let’s see if there’s anything else.’

The servitor turned Lyza over, and Colbrand forced himself to think of her not as someone he’d once known, but just another empty shell fed to him by the meat grinder of war. A nameless body, a number to be processed before moving on to the next one.

He couldn’t think of her as a person now, she had to become simply a process.

It hurt, but it helped.

The examination of her body was necessarily thorough, and revealed only two other suspicious injuries. Some grazes on the undersides of her forearms that might have been defensive wounds, and two puncture marks in the small of her back, the flesh around them an angry red.

‘What do you think these are?’ asked Oletha, gesturing to the marks on her back.

‘Too large to be medical needles,’ noted Colbrand. ‘Skin around the holes is scorched…’

He straightened as he realised what he was looking at.

‘Shit, this is an electro-goad burn. Bastard shocked her to the ground then shot her in the face.’

Anger surged through him, but he pushed it back down, ready to tap when he needed it.

He took another breath as they continued their examination, but little else was revealed that offered any clues as to how Lyza had ended up dead in an alley with a goad burn on her back and two bullets in her brain.

Finally, Colbrand lifted her hands, the flesh cold and slick with droplets of condensing moisture.

Devotion to duty had hardened the skin of her palms. He remembered her holding his hands while he writhed in the sickness of withdrawal. She had never let go, no matter how much abuse he screamed in her face, no matter how desperately he begged her to give him the loaded autopistol he kept by his bed.

Colbrand turned her hands over. The palms were grazed, her nails splintered.

Together with the grazes on her forearms, they suggested her last moments had been desperate.

‘What is that?’ asked Oletha. ‘Under her fingernails.’

Colbrand retrieved a needle-nosed scalpel and Petri dish from a pewter tray on a nearby trolley.

He scraped the scalpel carefully under her nails, letting the loosened residue gather in the dish.

He held the blade up to his augmetic eye.

‘Fragments of brick and mortar by the look of it,’ said Oletha.

‘Some other stuff too,’ said Colbrand, stirring the contents of the dish. Tiny neon-yellow particulates were mixed in with the grit. ‘Chem residue?’

‘Perhaps. I suspect they are paint flakes. Perhaps from a ganger tag?’

‘Yeah, maybe.’

A haze of blue light shimmered in the servitor’s eye, bathing the Petri dish in auspex light.

‘I will run the composition of this through my database of chemical samples I have taken throughout the western districts,’ said Oletha. ‘Perhaps we will get a match and I can more precisely locate where this residue came from.’

‘Good idea,’ said Colbrand, gently placing Lyza’s hand back on the slab.

‘Why do you suppose she was even there?’

‘Sister Marika said she’d been looking into why more and more people were getting sick. Said Lyza was hoping to speak with the vladar about it.’

‘The vladar?’ said Oletha. ‘Why would a sister of the Obsidian Order want to speak to Saltstone’s illustrious leader?’

Colbrand shrugged. ‘Maybe she found something. Thought he could help.’

‘Did she get her meeting?’

‘Marika didn’t know.’

‘So what will you do next?’ asked Oletha.

Colbrand sighed. ‘I’ll talk to Zavadan in the morning. Marika told me it was officers from his precinct that brought her to the hospice.’

‘Zavadan? Is that wise?’ said Oletha. ‘He wears the badge of a sanctioner, but he is little more than a bought-and-paid-for thug. And he has little love for you.’

‘Trust me,’ said Colbrand. ‘The feeling’s mutual.’

‘I’m telling you, Colbrand, there’s no great mystery to it,’ said Emil Zavadan, chief enforcer of Saltstone’s Windward Bastion House, as a barmaid swathed in gold silk poured an amasec that looked to Colbrand like it had once served as engine grease in a Samaritan. ‘The sister was in the wrong place at the wrong time. End of story.’

‘She was wearing the black veil,’ said Colbrand. ‘That ought to mean something.’

‘Ought being the operative word,’ said Zavadan, knocking back his drink and gesturing to Colbrand’s caffeine. ‘I mean, not everyone out here on the coast is as morally upstanding as you.’

‘That alcohol wouldn’t touch me anyway,’ said Colbrand, reaching up to touch the faint scar just below his Adam’s apple where, five years ago, Lyza had implanted a toxiphage that neutralised anything stronger than caffeine.

Zavadan swirled the bad amasec around his glass and said, ‘Pity.’

They’d arranged to meet at Menem-Ba’s, as neutral a place as it was possible to find in Saltstone.

The gambling establishment was built within the rusting superstructure of a nameless, half-built warship that had been under construction within one of Saltstone’s planetside graving docks. That structure had collapsed roughly a century ago, during a time of upheaval the locals still talked about and knew as the Great Opening – though no one quite knew why – leaving the incomplete skeleton of the abandoned warship behind.

Destined never to see the stars, its forlorn remains had served many masters over the years, but were now run by Menem-Ba, a dark legend in Saltstone, and it played host to scores of decks of gaming tables designed to part the gullible – both high-born and low – from their hard-earned cash.

Large sums changed hands here every day, from the high tables in the upper levels to the penny-ante tables below the waterline. So long as a percentage of those sums found their way into the pockets of Emil Zavadan, his enforcers turned a blind eye to the rest of Menem-Ba’s morally dubious activities.

A cut of those, too, was required for the chief enforcer’s good graces.

The morning crowd was already brisk, the tables filled with noctis-shift workers looking to blow their pay on a respite from the nocturnal grind. Colbrand knew his way around games of chance and cards, but he wouldn’t risk a copper coin at any of these tables.

‘Look,’ said Colbrand. ‘Lyza wasn’t stupid. She knew Saltstone. She wouldn’t have gone down to the Edge if she didn’t have good reason.’

‘And what reason do you think she had?’

‘I’m not sure yet,’ said Colbrand, unwilling to play too many of his cards up front. ‘But something made her think it was worth the risk of going there.’

Past cases had seen Zavadan and Colbrand cross paths a few times already, and none of those experiences had left either man entirely trusting of the other. With connections to the office of Saltstone’s vladar, the chief enforcer made for an unreliable ally, but likely a worse enemy.

‘Look, I know the two of you were close,’ said Zavadan, managing to make it sound like an insult. ‘But there’s nothing more to this than some stimmed-out juve with a gun and a bad case of crap-for-brains.’

‘You’re sure there’s nothing else you can tell me?’ said Colbrand. ‘Did you canvass the area? Did you find any witnesses?’

Zavadan laughed. ‘Witnesses? In the Edge? You know everyone down there walks around with their eyes shut and situational amnesia. A greenskin could shoot the place up with a lascannon and people walking by would swear on The Sermons of Sebastian Thor that “I din’t see nothin’, sir”, or “I ain’t never seen that guy”.’

That much was true at least. The people of Water’s Edge might not have much, but at least they had a shared hatred of authority.

‘What about anything you recovered from the scene?’

‘Nothing to recover. I told you,’ said Zavadan, lifting a finger to order another amasec. ‘We collected the body and returned it to the Obsidian Order. Sister was unlucky. I mean, you walk around the Edge, trouble’s going to find you, black veil or not.’

Zavadan reached down and pulled out a folder. He slid it across the table to Colbrand.

‘This is the best I can do, friend.’

‘What are these?’

‘Picts from the scene.’

Colbrand flipped open the folder, letting his eyes drift over the picts.

Black brick walls, ganger tags, wet permacrete, iron downpipe…

Sister Lyza lying face down in the rain…

He felt Zavadan’s eyes on him and closed the folder. The enforcer was an emotional leech, and Colbrand didn’t want to give the man the satisfaction of seeing his grief.

‘Can I keep these?’

‘Sure, but I’m telling you there’s nothing to find.’

‘I’m sure you’re right, but… you know, I owe it to her to be thorough.’

The silken barmaid brought Zavadan his drink.

He clinked the glass on the rim of Colbrand’s caffeine mug and said, ‘I don’t mind gangers killing one another, makes my job easier, but I draw the line at respectable people, so let me know if you do find something.’

‘Sure I will,’ promised Colbrand.

Colbrand walked towards Water’s Edge, travelling streets that were already thronged with people, cargo haulers and passenger trolleys rumbling over sparking tracks. Shift workers trudged to and from the transit hubs linking Saltstone to the eastern foundries and mine-workings.

He’d left the Corvair locked up in the shuttered arch beneath his hab-pods. To bring it down to the Edge would be crazy. It would be stolen and stripped for parts in the blink of an eye.

So he walked, and to his great surprise, found himself enjoying the journey.

He’d left Menem-Ba’s as soon as he could legitimately extricate himself from Zavadan’s presence. The chief enforcer’s help, such as it was, always came at a price, and more often than not that price was having to endure his colossal ego for longer than was bearable. The man never heard a secret he didn’t want to share just to puff out his own self-importance, and as unpleasant as he was, it sometimes paid off with a nugget of valuable information.

Zavadan’s current gossip was a covert operation his enforcers had recently conducted alongside the Adeptus Arbites of Fort Gunlysk. Colbrand had caught whispers of this via Oletha: something about a heretic preacher and a cult that rejected all forms of medicae treatment as being against the natural order of the universe.

Zavadan had leaned in with a conspiratorial glance over his shoulder, gleefully telling Colbrand of the blasphemous items the Arbites had discovered, and relishing every mention of a corrupted tome or poxed cultist they’d dragged away for incineration.

By all accounts Saltstone’s enforcers had been little more than perimeter crowd control and clean-up, but to hear Zavadan’s retelling, he’d led his men in desperate hand-to-hand combat against fanatics straight from the Eye of Terror.

He put the enforcer from his mind as he passed the statue of some old admiral looking heavenward that marked the accepted boundaries of the Edge. Almost as soon as he’d passed it, he felt a change in the atmosphere.

Those who cared about such things claimed Water’s Edge was where the first settlers to reach Alecto had established a beachhead on this new world. That might be true, but Colbrand knew of at least a dozen other places along the coast that proclaimed the same. The buildings here were older, built of dark stone made pale by millennia of salt build-up. Not a single structure stood straight, every one of them supported by groaning braces of rusted iron and taut cable-anchors.

Colbrand passed beneath swaying chain bridges hung between the buildings, draped with limp banners painted with gang symbols and local slang he couldn’t understand. Iron grates in the road and overhead ductwork vented foul steam, giving the sky the yellow cast of a smoker’s breath. Humming power lines strung through iron rungs bolted to the sides of buildings made the metal plate grafted to his skull itch and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

Bright murals in streaked paint adorned the gable ends of numerous structures, a mixture of weirdly abstract patterns, images that might once have had faces but which had blurred in the acidic fogs, and misspelled Low Gothic inscriptions: crude insults, declarations of love.

Sturmas is a xenos-lover! The Emperor is dead! Angels or Daemons? Futhamutter!

Wind-beaten faces with red-rimmed eyes turned to stare at him with suspicion.

People knew him down here, but he wasn’t from the Edge.

He followed the mental map in his head, hoping not too much had changed since his last visit. The occasional collapse and the relentless accretion of ad hoc construction changed the layout on a weekly basis, so it was anyone’s guess whether he could reach his destination without getting hopelessly lost.

He passed through crowds thronging a bustling market built into the rusting hulk of an old tanker barge the inhabitants had somehow managed to drag from the shoreline and set on crumbling brick stanchions. Or perhaps it had been deposited here by one of the storm season floods and the people of the Edge had simply found a use for its carcass. Stalls sold all manner of scavenged metal, uniquely Edge-style street food, and, of course, weapons. The smell of roasting ocean-cultivated fungus, thousands of unwashed bodies pressed together, and the omnipresent tang of salt made him hungry and thirsty, but he knew better than to buy any of the food or cloudy water from their scabbed hawkers.

A few groundcars rattled past him, most of which were still running several centuries or more beyond what their makers had ever envisaged, held together by a mixture of faith and scavenged parts. Tar-black smoke belched from fuel cells repurposed to burn the frothed petrochemical residue skimmed from the ocean surface.

‘If the Mechanicus would ever stoop to coming down here, the innovation on display would shock them,’ said Oletha in his vox-bead.

‘Horrify them, you mean.’

‘That too. But ever are the priests of Mars too hidebound to see the potential of what is right in front of them and will seek to stamp it out.’

Colbrand opened his mouth to reply but shut it as people were starting to look at him strangely.

Someone talking to themselves wasn’t big news down in the Edge, where mental breakdowns and lunatic behaviour were the norm, but still you gave them a wide berth. He tensed as he saw a man with a salt-burned face and tattooed skull step out from a stall with a bronzed autorifle held out before him. Colbrand slipped his hand under his long storm coat towards his holstered autopistol, a matt-black Sulymann Encarmine.

‘Whoa, da, gazdman!’ said the man, reversing the weapon. ‘Just seein’ f’you wants something hit summa harder’n that popgun you got under there.’

‘How do you know what I’m carrying?’ replied Colbrand when he’d parsed the argot.

The man laughed and tapped his eye. ‘I a purveyor of lethalities, gazdman. I ken what you types pack. That thing gotsa lotta shells, but you want to put a futha down, you g’on need this bad boy.’

‘I’m good, thanks,’ said Colbrand, moving on.

The man laughed. ‘Hey, this the Edge, man. Remember… you wanna live, bring some real heat!’

‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ said Colbrand, pushing through the crowds and making sure he kept a firm grip on his possessions. He emerged from the shadow of the market and its fug of competing smells, and paused at the corner of a building that leaned dangerously overhead. A pair of interlaced beams braced it against its neighbour, and droplets of water fell from a leaking gutter.

A crooked alleyway ran between the two buildings, and the reek of piled-up refuse was like something from a death world swamp.

‘That word the gun seller called you – gazdman? Do you know what it means?’

‘I do, yeah. Forget about it,’ said Colbrand, peering down the alley. ‘Is this it?’

‘Yes, the chemical composition under Sister Lyza’s nails narrowed the location down to an area of two hundred square feet. And since this alley is the only open space within those parameters, it is logical to assume this is the alley from which the enforcers collected her body.’

Colbrand switched his augmetic eye to low-light and stepped into the alley.

The cobbles underfoot were loose, and the walls slick with sweating mortar. The air tasted of rotting vegetation and the only illumination came from a narrow sliver of yellow-grey light filtering down through a haze of smoke drifting between the buildings. Raised voices and weeping issued from openings in the painted brickwork, with sheets of clear plastek nailed into rotting frames. A kid with wide eyes and hollow cheeks watched him from one such opening, looking at him like he was some kind of unknown xenoform.

‘What in the world would bring a sister of the Obsidian Order here?’ said Oletha, her voice sounding loud in the confines of his skull and the alley.

‘Whatever it was, it would have to be something important,’ said Colbrand. ‘Someone in trouble, maybe? Or something she could only get in the Edge?’

His eye scanned the walls and ground, and it took him a moment to realise what was different about the entrance of the alley.

‘Wait, do you see this?’ he said.

‘Not unless you allow me to splice into your ocular feed, remember? That was our agreement after that night with one of Menem-Ba’s dancers and the–’

‘Yeah, yeah. I remember,’ said Colbrand, cutting her off. ‘Sure, you can splice in.’

He didn’t feel Oletha patching into his eye, but felt the ghostly presence of her in his skull like a subtle pressure on his thoughts.

‘You could do that whenever you wanted, couldn’t you?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ admitted Oletha, ‘but I promised I would not ever do it again without your permission. Now, what was it you wanted me to see?’

‘That.’

A section of the ground at the base of the wall and the brickwork up to waist height was entirely devoid of salt. Above that line, grey-white crystals pocked the surface, but down low and for five yards either side of them… nothing.

‘Interesting. Cleaned.’

Colbrand knelt beside the alley wall and leaned in to sniff the brickwork.

‘Now that’s something I haven’t smelled in a long time.’

‘What is?’ asked Oletha.

‘Munitorum-issue sterile jetwash,’ said Colbrand. ‘They used something like this to hose the blood out of transport compartments in the back of med-evac Samaritans. Someone cleaned this area pretty thoroughly.’

‘Standard protocol for a closed crime scene,’ pointed out Oletha.

‘Yeah, but why bother? The bullets are still in Lyza’s head, so it’s not like there would have been a lot of blood to clean. And, anyway, who’d care about some blood in an alley down here?’

‘There is something else,’ said Oletha.

‘What?’

‘This area is not in the two hundred square feet where the chemicals under Lyza’s nails came from.’

Colbrand thought about that for a moment, turning in a circle and looking deeper into the alleyway. He took a step, tapping a finger to his chin and picturing their examination of Sister Lyza’s body, the grit and paint flakes under her nails.

The grazes on her palms and forearms.

‘She crawled here,’ he said, sinking to his haunches. ‘Whoever shot her did it farther back. He thought she was dead, and left her there. But she was still alive…’

‘And then she tried to crawl out to get help…’

Colbrand clenched his fists.

He rose and moved down the alley, pushing the anger down, knowing it would only cloud his judgement. The smells of rotten food and decay grew stronger the deeper he went. Old instincts kicked in, and he overlaid a wire grid of light onto the back of his augmetic retina.

He began quartering the ground, looking for anything that might offer a clue.

There – a crudely painted mural depicting a Space Marine in neon-yellow armour, but one so grossly out of proportion it was almost comical. The warrior towered over painted buildings, smashing them with a giant hammer surrounded by purple lightning bolts.

‘I had no idea the Adeptus Astartes were so large,’ said Oletha.

‘Thank the Emperor they’re not,’ said Colbrand, reaching down to pull a thin knife from his boot. Placing the edge against the Space Marine’s bright yellow leg, he scraped off a handful of painted brick dust. He cupped it in his hand and held it up to his eye.

‘What do you want to bet this’ll match the paint flakes under Lyza’s nails?’

‘I am not the gambling kind, but if I were, I would take that bet.’

Kneeling by the foot of the wall, Colbrand scanned for what he knew he would find.

Around a handspan from the ground, in the middle of the Space Marine’s boot, were faint scratches in the brickwork like…

…fingernails frantically scraping at the mortar.

Colbrand crouched, lying almost flat. This close to the sticky ground, the mortar had the consistency of desiccated putty. A portion of it had been scraped from the wall, and he eased the tip of his knife into the gap between the bricks.

‘Something in here,’ he said, gently working the blade and levering out a hidden object.

It fell into his palm, small and metallic.

A personal data-stick.

‘Clever girl,’ said Colbrand.

The interior of Colbrand’s container habs was neat and squared away. A heavy curtain separated the working area from the living space, where he’d built a simple sleeping alcove, a corner cooking area and a hidden ablutions cubicle that could be rotated into the walls. It was simple, functional and efficient.

Just like him, Oletha used to joke before she saw the look in his eye.

His working area comprised an impractical-looking desk he’d purchased at an estate auction when the owner of a nearby tenement had been arrested by Zavadan’s enforcers and never come back. A cogitator terminal that had once been part of a starship’s bridge and refurbished by one of Oletha’s proxy-servitors sat to the side of the desk. Its chunky frame, mechanical keyboard and cracked display were relics that had likely come from the other side of the galaxy.

Colbrand liked to imagine it had once coordinated void battles.

Oletha had spliced it into the data-lines running along the underside of the bridge above, which allowed him access to portions of the city’s information manifold, so long as he didn’t go prodding anywhere too sensitive. Most of Varangantua’s records and infrastructure were still enabled and archived by quills or parchment, but such was its size that its major systems required Mechanicus arcana to function and for that data to travel via means most of its citizenry would perceive as miraculous.

He sat at the terminal with an ebony servo-skull floating at his shoulder. One eye socket was closed off with a bronzed plate, the other a glowing green spatial ocular.

Oletha was no longer behind his eye, having jacked into the skull on the way back from Water’s Edge. The black lacquer marked the skull as a data-runner, and a coiled cable ran from a socket in its parietal bone to the back of Colbrand’s cogitator.

‘Ready to see what’s on this?’

The skull bobbed in the air and its enamelled jawbone eased open.

Colbrand slotted the data-stick home, and the cogitator’s display flickered to life with text and file directories. Before Colbrand could read it, the screen filled with a mishmash of symbols and letters that overlaid the image in a continually rotating series.

‘Encrypted,’ said Oletha in his head. ‘Lyza had some specialised knowledge for a sister of the Obsidian Order.’

‘She wasn’t always part of the order,’ said Colbrand. ‘She had a life before she took the black veil, but don’t ask. I’ll not tell.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Can you crack it?’

‘I can, yes.’

‘How long?’

‘Not long, it’s me.’

Colbrand nodded, knowing it would only slow her down to ask any more questions. Instead, he left her to it and went back into the living area to fix himself a mug of recaff. While he waited for the water to boil, he looked back into the office. The skull swayed in the air as Oletha worked her data-mining skills on Lyza’s information. Not for the first time, he wondered what Oletha looked like and where she lived.

Was she even in Varangantua? Or on Alecto, for that matter?

They’d come into one another’s orbit around a year or so after he’d arrived on Alecto, when he’d saved an augmented girl from murderous tech-scavs. To this day, he wasn’t sure why he’d intervened.

Old habits died hard, he supposed.

A series of anonymous couriered messages sent to him via Saltstone’s voxgraphic network or strangely articulate servitors arrived over the next few days, and though at first he’d thought maybe the augmented girl was Oletha, the messages had swiftly disabused him of that notion and warned him not to seek her out. Through her diverse proxies, she’d hired him for various investigative errands, and returned the favour whenever he required assistance with technology that wouldn’t be approved by any Mechanicus adept.

It had proved convenient over the years, and their affection had become something as real as any platonic relationship in the real world. He’d given up any thoughts of ever actually meeting her in the flesh, but often wondered if maybe he already had.

He guessed he’d never know, and was all right with that.

A hash of triumphant binharic echoed from the hard metal walls and the skull twitched in the air.

‘Got it,’ said Oletha, sounding as though she were right behind him.

‘Damn, that was fast,’ said Colbrand, pouring his recaff and heading back to his seat in front of the cogitator.

‘She had some skill, but I am the grand master of data mining.’

‘Okay, enough grandstanding, what is it?’ said Colbrand as text flowed across the screen, every file directory now clear and legible.

He scanned their names with a growing sense of unease.

Military-Grade Toxicology of Water-borne Petrochemicals.

Hyper-Concentrations of Mutagenic Compounds in Saltstone’s Drinking Water.

Hospice Vitae Work Results/Correlations.

‘Holy Throne…’ said Colbrand.

Three hours later, and Colbrand had read everything on Lyza’s data-stick.

His fingertips drifted to the pale line of scar tissue at his throat again. He’d had the toxiphage implanted to stop his self-destruction in the claws of addiction, but looking at his empty mug of recaff, he wondered how much else it had saved him from.

‘Holy Throne,’ he said as he closed the last file.

‘You said that already,’ said Oletha via the servo-skull, circling above the cogitator and still linked via its connector cable. Its green eye blinked in time with Colbrand’s.

‘I know…’ said Colbrand, struggling to process what he’d just read.

Unfolded on the desk beside him was a colourful map he’d bought from Baerand, an antiquarian friend who ran a junk shop of tech-scraps and mouldy books in the Scriveners’ District on Waverly Hill. His empty mug held down one side, the Sulymann Encarmine pistol holding down the other.

The map was a thing of beauty, but as she had warned him, it was at least a century out of date and hopelessly inaccurate in its depictions of volatile locations such as Water’s Edge, Ash Harbour and the Rad-Fords.

But Colbrand wasn’t looking for accuracy right now, and had marked a red X at the forty-three locations where Lyza had taken water samples.

They formed a rough circle around and within Saltstone’s notional perimeter.

‘Emperor’s Mercy, every person in the district is drinking tainted water,’ he said. ‘No wonder so many are getting sick. Lyza saw the pattern and tried to find out what was at the root of it.’

‘Do you think this is why she was down in Water’s Edge?’

‘It has to be,’ said Colbrand, fighting to control his anger. ‘She must have had a lead, a contact or something that explained why people were getting sick.’

‘Looking at the results of her vitae scans, it is not just sickness rates that are spiking, but instances of mutation.’

‘I don’t understand how this is possible,’ said Colbrand. ‘I thought Saltstone’s drinking supply came from a freshwater aquifer under the continental shelf.’

‘It does,’ said Oletha. ‘A billion cubic miles of low-salinity water the Mechanicus hydro-processors render into potable water to supply the tens of thousands that live in Saltstone. The reserves formed when Alecto’s ocean levels were lower and rainwater permeated the ground in land areas that were not submerged until this world’s ice age ended, some fifty thousand years ago.’

‘So why is it poisonous now? What’s changed to render it so contaminated?’

‘That I cannot answer, but the most logical answer is that Saltstone’s water is no longer being drawn from its aquifer.’

‘Then where’s it coming from?’

‘To answer that, we will have to dig a little deeper.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I mean, I have to splice into the manifolds of both the vladar and the Mechanicus.’

‘Won’t that be dangerous?’

‘Oh, absolutely,’ said the servo-skull, and Colbrand swore it was grinning a little wider.

‘When will you start?’

‘I am doing it already,’ said Oletha as the skull’s ocular attachment flickered bright green and the display on his cogitator dissolved into buzzing static.

Slowly it resolved into the rotating outline of a skull-stamped cog.

Each of the city’s vast infrastructures maintained its own manifold, a complex agglomeration of data, command protocols and sedimentary information layers. Some, like the planet’s orbital defence grid, stood apart from the others, isolated in data-hardened bunkers, while others were interdependent or guardedly shared necessary information between them.

Only a fraction of that information travelled along secure noospheric networks. The vast majority of packets travelled along a serpentine network of hardlines running through the city like the impossibly complex nervous system of an ancient and decaying leviathan.

Binharic code scrolled past, too quick to follow even had Colbrand been able to parse Lingua-technis. Icons and cursor prompts came and went as Oletha navigated the bewildering complexity of Varangantua’s infosphere. Warning icons flashed and vanished as she threaded the needle of security systems with frightening ease.

‘How are you doing this?’ he asked the skull, though he wasn’t sure he wanted an answer.

The flickering in its eye socket grew painfully bright and Colbrand felt electric heat radiating from the surface of the skull as the lacquer began to melt. A wisp of smoke curled from behind the hinge of its jawbone and the unpleasant smell of boiled meat reached Colbrand’s nostrils.

By now the skull had ceased its gentle swaying and was twitching in the air as if in the early stages of a seizure. Could a servo-skull suffer an overload seizure? He’d never heard of it, but knew there were organics within the bone cavity, so it was presumably possible.

Abruptly, the skull stopped moving, and the screen changed from the hash of Lingua-technis to plain Low Gothic. Colbrand laughed and slid behind the terminal and began to read.

‘Hurry,’ said Oletha’s voice from the skull, sounding as though she were speaking from a great distance. ‘The security measures are closing in, and I do not know how much longer I can hold them at bay.’

‘Going as fast as I can,’ said Colbrand, clicking through reams of purchase orders, contracts and financial records. Some were direct copies, others hazy picts of pages in ledgers, while others were simply handwritten notes. He read direct communications between the office of Saltstone’s vladar and the fabricatus primus of the neighbouring district of Skarun Cross, scheduled meetings, and instructions issued to their subordinates.

The more he read, the more the pieces fell into place.

He knew why Saltstone’s residents were getting sick.

He knew why Lyza had been in Water’s Edge.

And he was pretty sure he knew who had killed her.

‘Okay, you can disengage now,’ said Colbrand, without looking round. ‘We got it.’

Oletha didn’t answer and a braying screech of feedback blasted from the side of the terminal.

The plastek display filled with a pulsing Imperial Eagle.

‘Throne!’ cried Colbrand, pushing himself back from the desk.

He turned from the cogitator. ‘Saint’s balls, Leth, what in the warp’s going on?’

The servo-skull had tilted over and was looking at the floor. The cable that had linked it to the cogitator hung limp below it like a pendulum.

‘Oletha?’ said Colbrand.

No answer.

He tapped the skull with his forefinger. It drifted backwards.

Then swivelled up, its green eye now a burning red coal.

‘Securius violatus!’ it screeched.

Colbrand threw himself backwards as the skull flew at him.

Its toothed jaw snapped shut inches from his face. He went down hard on his backside, too shocked to make for his pistol.

‘Securius violatus!’ it screamed again, the sound deafening in such close confines.

Colbrand rolled aside as the maddened skull dived towards him. The link-cable whipped like a gleaming steel spinal cord. It wrapped around his neck, biting deep into the skin like a garrotte.

‘Securius violatus!’

The cable retracted into the skull, tightening around Colbrand’s throat.

He scrabbled on the ground, fighting to get his fingers under the wire. It was too tight already, he couldn’t break its grip. Colbrand gagged, fighting for breath.

He smelled the boiled-meat stink of the skull’s interior boiling away to gruel.

The skull jerked itself from side to side. It was screaming.

Blood trickled down the skin of his throat as the wire of the garrotte choked the life out of him.

He felt his vision grey at the edges and flailed for his boot.

His legs were going into spasm. Oxygen was cut off from his brain just as he needed it most.

Colbrand felt the top of his boot, the round pommel of his knife and the contours of its textured grip. He drew it and tried to reverse the blade, but the fingers of his right hand spasmed in pain, and it fell to the ground.

His vision had narrowed to a point of light in an impossibly long and narrow tunnel.

The knife was there! Right in front of him, but it might as well have been back on Arkhona.

Back where he should have died at the hands of Commissar Paskow.

His fingertips brushed the edge of the knife.

Can’t…

He felt consciousness slipping away, slipping into the darkest of memories.

…knee-deep in blood, surrounded by the bodies of his comrades.

…looking up into the barrel of a bolt pistol.

…a flash of light and hot, searing pain.

As though that flash had ignited a sudden rage within, he pushed his hand forward and closed his fingers on the knife. The thought that those who’d started this whole mess might go unpunished fuelled that rage, pushed him past the point where any normal person would have given in and died.

With a roar, Colbrand stabbed up and back.

He plunged the blade through the blue cloth patch covering the empty eye socket.

It sliced cleanly through the molten organic matter that was all that was left of the servo-skull’s lobotomised brain. Colbrand twisted the blade around and around, trying to do as much damage as possible.

The garrotte of steel loosened as the biomechanical apparatus controlling the skull finally died. Still holding the knife, he reached up with his free hand and prised the cable from around his throat. He unwrapped it and let it fall away, scrambling onto his knees as he drew a painful, shuddering, sucking breath. It burned like fire in his lungs, but at least it was a breath.

More than he’d expected a few moments ago.

Keeping his eye fixed on the floating skull, he stood on shaking legs and swept up the Encarmine.

‘Oletha? You still in there?’ he said, his voice coarse and breathless.

No answer, but he hadn’t expected one.

Whatever security protocol had finally tripped up Oletha, it would at the very least have burned out the connection to her proxy. Wherever she was, Colbrand hoped there wasn’t a whole killclade of ruststalkers about to smash down the door on her.

Tentatively, he reached out to the skull’s slack jaw. His fingers closed on Lyza’s implanted data-stick, half expecting the teeth to snap shut on him.

But the skull was dead, and he pulled the data-stick out with a satisfying click.

Despite the arms dealer’s insistence that he’d need something bigger, the Sulymann Encarmine was entirely up to the task at hand.

His first shot almost deafened him in the close confines of his office, blasting the upper quadrant of the skull to shards. A second slug punched through the ocular implant to destroy its repulsor.

Skull fragments and the sopping wet mass within fell at Colbrand’s feet.

It wasn’t entirely justice, and didn’t even start to make up for Sister Lyza’s death.

He put down the gun and sat back with a sigh at the terminal.

Gulping with the pain of each breath, he rubbed his neck, already feeling the raised weals and bruises to come.

He looked up in alarm as the venerable cogitator clicked back to life and words began to type themselves onto the screen.

> Colbrand, it is Oletha. Are you all right?

Wearily, he typed out a reply: I’m fine. Damn skull tried to kill me.

> Apologies, the security systems around the vladar’s palace were more aggressive in their response than I had anticipated. But please tell me you got what we came for.

Again he typed: I did.

> Most excellent! So what is our next move?

Colbrand didn’t need to think about it for more than a millisecond.

I’m going to see the vladar.

He typed one last thing before standing and making his way from the pod.

The cursor blinked at his last words.

But first I need to pay a visit to the hospice of the Obsidian Order.

Two days later, as the first bell of evening rang out over Saltstone, Colbrand pulled the Corvair to a halt by the liveried auto-servitors at the upscale entrance of Menem-Ba’s.

He climbed out and took his ticket, paying extra to have the vehicle parked in the fenced-off protected zone, where armed servitors would keep it safe from avaricious eyes.

‘You look good,’ said Oletha, watching from behind his eye as he caught sight of himself in the chrome-and-glass frontage of the gambling house.

‘I only bring this out for special occasions,’ said Colbrand, ‘but I still feel like I’m wearing someone else’s skin.’

Dressed in a tailored suit of palatinate silk with a black shirt and lozenge-patterned necktie, he turned more than a few heads with his newly smart appearance. Gone were the functional canvas breeches and linen shirt. Gone was the long duster with integral shoulder rig.

The Encarmine was locked in its clip under the driver’s seat of the Corvair.

He hadn’t even brought his knife.

The only weapon he’d brought was information and will.

The evening crowds were thick with humanity; a fresh shift had come in from the manufactory district of Skarun Cross. Skilled workers from the steel mills, tank factories and fabricatus yards rubbing shoulders with slumming uphive scions from the Palatyne Spyre and beyond. Careful sorting by the security personnel and filtering barriers kept rich and poor apart, but though the high and low of Saltstone were segregated, they all had one thing in common.

They all had money to burn, and Menem-Ba’s dealers stood ready with the promethium.

‘Are you sure this is the way you want to play this?’ she asked.

‘I am,’ said Colbrand.

‘There will be consequences.’

‘Good. There ought to be.’

‘Do you think she will come?’

‘That’s about the only thing I am sure of tonight.’

Passing through the entrance, Colbrand passed into a towering glass-vaulted vestibule that would once have been the warship’s spinal processional. He’d travelled on ships grander than this, but still it was impressive to see what this vessel could have been had it ever been finished.

Roving stab-lights painted the plated steel and stone of the skeletal starship’s interior structure in coloured light, and Colbrand felt a moment’s pity for the vessel. Someone had commissioned its construction, whole teams had designed it, but none of that potential had been realised. A warship was a tool of destruction, capable of wreaking awesome devastation in mere moments, but the grandiose beauty of an Imperial ship of the line was impossible to deny.

Whatever this ship was, whatever purpose it had been intended to fulfil, was now forgotten.

He shook his head with a rueful smile.

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing, just feeling a moment of kinship with an abandoned starship.’

‘You’re not feeling fatalistic, are you?’

‘Very much so,’ said Colbrand, brushing through the crowds of masked guests. This deep in the ship, the evident riches and strangeness of the wealthier clientele became more visible in the presence of gilded augmetics, hissing rebreather tanks of shimmering golden liquid, canes that clicked with electrical discharge, and exotic gene-wrought pets. Holographic cherubs flitted overhead and darting skulls with fluttering wings chirruped as they carried messages and secrets.

Silk-swathed youths of both sexes sought to draw gamblers off to the tables, but one look at Colbrand’s appearance and the less-sophisticated lures peeled away, to be replaced by Menem-Ba’s choice baits.

A man and a woman, both over-indexing on attractiveness thanks to careful gene-work and surgical augments. They flattered and praised, cajoled and laid conversational traps to read his preferences and level of risk-aversion. When Colbrand’s sexual orientation became obvious after a few moments of conversation and retinal-tracking, the man artfully disengaged, and the woman linked her arm with his.

She said her name was Kassandra with a sincerity that made Colbrand think that might actually be the truth, and she was truly spectacular: midnight-black hair with light streaks of purple that just so happened to match the colour of his suit, tasteful facial jewellery and eyes just a little wider than was natural. Her voice was husky without being theatrical, playful without sounding insincere.

‘Look, Kassandra, you’re good,’ said Colbrand. ‘You’re really good, and whatever they’re paying you here, it’s not nearly enough. But I’m here with a purpose, and it isn’t to lose money.’

‘You don’t want to feel the thrill of not knowing how the dice will land?’

‘Oh, I know how they’re going to land tonight,’ said Colbrand.

She misread his words as the confidence endemic to the professionally deluded gambler and gave his arm a squeeze.

‘I’m sure you do,’ she said. ‘So what table can I take you to?’

‘That one,’ said Colbrand, pointing to a table where a young woman with honey-blonde hair sat sipping a drink the colour of a cloudless sky. She wore a long and fabulously expensive dress that was cut to subtly reveal glimmering electoos on her thighs and shoulders, and rippled with variegated body-heat patterns.

The young woman looked up as Kassandra brought him over and smiled in welcome. As professional as the hostess was, Colbrand caught her hesitation as she realised who it was.

‘Mamzel Nokanen,’ said Kassandra, blushing as she broke character for a moment. ‘It’s an honour… The burgrave didn’t inform us you were joining us tonight.’

‘It was a last-minute kind of thing,’ said Moonrae-ska Faylona Nokanen, giving Colbrand another dazzling smile. ‘How wonderful to see you again, Master Colbrand.’

‘The honour is all mine, Mamzel Nokanen,’ he said. ‘I trust it wasn’t a challenge for you to leave the Palatyne Spyre tonight?’

‘Father’s upped his security, but not in any meaningful ways,’ she said, setting her drink down and taking Kassandra’s place at his side.

‘I hope this won’t get you into any trouble,’ said Colbrand.

‘Chroma-66 will be angry for a while, but he’ll get over it.’

‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’

‘Please, this invitation was far too intriguing to refuse,’ she said. ‘Besides, your friend Oletha is very persuasive. Is she here tonight?’

Colbrand grinned. ‘In a manner of speaking.’

Kassandra struggled to read the dynamic between them. Colbrand didn’t envy her. He wasn’t sure what it was either. In lieu of anything better, the hostess fell back on a standard response.

‘So can I take you to any particular table?’

Moonrae-ska Faylona Nokanen answered, gesturing imperiously with a well-manicured hand to where a pair of gilded glass-and-gold elevator doors led up to the warship’s bridge and the executive tables.

‘We’re here to join the vladar for dinner,’ she said.

The ride up to the bridge took less than a minute, but felt like years.

Colbrand tried to tell himself it was the tightness of his collar, the unfamiliarity of wearing a suit, or the esteemed company he was keeping, but he knew better. He’d stared death in the face before, many times, but it had always been on the battlefield, always facing an enemy he could recognise.

Well, almost always.

The elevator chimed, and the golden doors slid soundlessly open on what had once been the nerve centre of a war machine capable of destroying planets. Colbrand had only ever set foot on the bridge of a starship once before, and it had been a stark, hard-edged place of quiet professionalism.

This was not like that in any way.

The command bridge’s original purpose was entirely submerged in panels of gold and silver, glass and chrome. Upon a lush carpet of patterned ivory, tables of polished hardwood – some for gaming, some for dining – were strategically placed throughout its vaulted arches, and spread around them were the men and women of Varangantua’s noble houses, clans and dynasties, together with their gold-skinned body slaves, hard-boned lifewards and sickly-looking psy-blockers.

Here and there, Colbrand saw the brocaded uniforms of high-ranking Astra Militarum officers. There weren’t supposed to be any standing regiments on this world, and he felt his breath quicken at the sight of them.

‘This way,’ said Kassandra, stepping off in the direction of a long table set on a raised promontory of gleaming black ouslite beneath a glass dome at the far end of the bridge.

‘Coming?’ said Moonrae-ska, when he didn’t immediately follow.

‘Sure,’ he said, stepping from the elevator.

‘Into the ambull’s den,’ said Oletha through the bone of his skull.

‘That I could handle,’ he whispered under his breath. ‘This, I’m not so sure.’

The chime of expensive flatware, rich laughter and the ambient sound of choral music filled the command deck. He smelled food that made his mouth water, smoke from cigars imported from half a sector away, and unknown accents that were surely not Alectian.

People turned to look at them as they passed, her the first daughter of the Palatyne Spyre, him an unknown. However this played out, the city’s gossipmongers would have fodder to chew over.

Moonrae-ska Faylona Nokanen acknowledged those people she knew, speaking with an easy familiarity he could never match. Colbrand was reminded of how like a stranger in a strange land she had looked upon their first meeting.

How in her element she looked now, while he sweated bullets in a new suit.

He was in her world now.

Colbrand sighed at the universe and its love of melodrama.

He kept his gaze fixed on the far end of the room. The gleam of the stab-lights shone through the dome, tempered by the armourglass. A spray of stars were just visible on its inner surfaces, and a tapering balcony jutted from the back of the platform, spearing out into the night like the bowsprit of a sailing ship.

Colbrand could imagine the diners at the high tables enjoying an amasec and smoking a cigar while leaning on its polished wooden rails and looking down upon the people they were supposed to represent and protect. A selection of those same people sat at the long table set beneath the dome.

At the centre of the table sat the vladar himself, Aedar Cullen. He was an impressive-looking man, dressed in a long crimson frock coat edged in gold and emblazoned with Saltstone’s crest of a rearing horse with spiral horn at its brow. Subtle augmetics were just visible beneath the vladar’s dark hair, and his patrician features were cut from granite.

Colbrand saw a man who was used to getting his way, by fair means or foul.

To the vladar’s right was a chimeric woman with a half-mask of filigreed silver from her cheekbones down. Her attire straddled the line between Cult Mechanicus robes and an elegant ballgown, an effect he presumed was entirely deliberate. He blink-clicked her image to Oletha.

Her reply came a moment later.

‘Alixa Baroda, fabricatus primus of Skarun Cross District.’

‘Figures,’ he said.

On the vladar’s left sat Menem-Ba himself, a man whose face betrayed an intimate familiarity with every vice. Of indeterminate age, he had the bearing of someone who’d seen the world and decided he didn’t much like it, but would profit from what he’d seen anyway.

His clothes were expensive, but well worn, his physicality broad and intimidating, but it was in his eyes that the true threat lay. Colbrand had seen his type before: the kind of man who knew your weakness the minute he saw you, the exact moment and place to drive home the knife.

Rumours abounded as to where he was from and what his story was.

Colbrand had heard he was Saltstone born and bred, an off-worlder, a Terran, a clone, a servitor who’d thrown off his machine-shackles and killed his master, and a dozen other origin stories. Some were clearly ludicrous, others likely plausible, and, given his own chequered history, Colbrand was reasonably certain Menem-Ba himself was responsible for spreading a great many of these tales.

It never hurt to lay false trails in your wake to throw the hunters off your scent.

At the far end of the table, taking advantage of the high-quality alcohol was Emil Zavadan. The chief enforcer glanced over, but clearly didn’t recognise him. Dressed as Colbrand was and in this place, he almost didn’t recognise himself.

A host of violent emotions ebbed and flowed within Colbrand at the sight of Zavadan.

He struggled to push them down.

He had to detach from his visceral, gut response, or this was never going to work.

But, Throne, it was hard…

Other lesser dignitaries, flunkies and associates of those currently in favour with the vladar made up the rest of the diners, but he knew immediately who held the power and who was dangerous.

Kassandra halted at the steps to the ouslite platform as a pair of gene-bulked combat-servitors stepped in front of her. Both were armed with subtly concealed, but visible if you knew where to look, heavy pistols. From the outlines pressed into their absurdly oversized suits, they were most likely Hecuters, and he didn’t doubt they’d have close-combat augments about their person too.

‘I have guests for the vladar’s table,’ Kassandra told them.

‘They are not authorised,’ said the first. ‘All expected guests are accounted for.’

‘I have Moonrae-ska Faylona Nokanen, first daughter of Burgrave Zanja Nokanen.’

The name registered. Even a servitor’s limited protocols had to be aware of the Nokanen name.

Regardless of that, it didn’t seem to make any impression on them.

Colbrand stepped forward and said, ‘Tell the vladar I want to speak with him.’

‘He does not want to speak to you.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Colbrand. ‘You don’t even know who I am.’

‘Identify yourself.’

Colbrand raised his voice. Not to a shout, but just loud enough for it to carry to the diners on the table behind the guards. At his tone, Kassandra stepped back before melting into the crowds, recognising trouble when she heard it.

‘My name is Jovian Colbrand,’ he said. ‘I’m here to talk about the contamination of Saltstone’s drinking water and the murder of Sister Efreen Lyza of the Obsidian Order.’

‘That name is unknown to me.’

Colbrand smiled and said, ‘Not after tonight it won’t be, I promise you that.’

Zavadan’s head snapped up as Colbrand spoke his name, at last recognising him. He pushed himself up from the table and came down the steps towards him.

‘Aedar Cullen,’ said Colbrand. ‘Four months ago, you diverted Saltstone’s supply of drinking water from its natural underground aquifer to the neighbouring district of Skarun Cross. Instead of clean drinking water, the people of Saltstone have been drinking water taken directly from the ocean, and I don’t need to remind everyone here how dangerously toxic that is, do I?’

Zavadan had reached him by now, and took a hard grip on his shoulder.

‘You need to leave now!’ he snarled.

‘Actually, he doesn’t,’ said Moonrae-ska, placing her hand on the enforcer’s elbow.

Zavadan looked down at her hand as though it were a venomous serpent. For an instant Colbrand thought he might make the monumentally stupid decision to try to physically remove it.

One arched eyebrow from Moonrae-ska reminded him of the terrible power her father held.

The enforcer looked back to the top table for guidance.

Aedar Cullen immediately read the politically volatile nature of the situation and beckoned with an impatient twitch of his fingers.

Zavadan retreated, careful not to touch Moonrae-ska.

‘Search them for weapons,’ he snapped at the servitors.

‘They are unarmed,’ said the servitor guards. ‘They would not have reached here if they were.’

‘Search them again anyway,’ said Zavadan, gesturing at Colbrand. ‘This one thinks he’s clever.’

The servitors gave Colbrand a none-too-gentle patting down, though they settled for an auspex-wanding on Moonrae-ska.

‘They are unarmed,’ repeated the guard.

Both bodyguards and Zavadan formed a cordon around Colbrand and Moonrae-ska as they were led to the vladar’s table.

Aedar Cullen looked up and said, ‘I’m trying to understand what is driving you to create such a scene, Master Colbrand.’

‘If you figure it out, let me know,’ said Colbrand. ‘But stupidity can’t be ruled out.’

Cullen shook his head and grinned. ‘No, that’s not it. I look at you and I don’t see a stupid man, I see one driven by a fierce sense of justice. Of black and white morality, right and wrong. If there’s anything that’s put you in front of me tonight, it’s that.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ said Colbrand.

‘You shouldn’t, it’s the belief of a child.’

‘Everyone who’s dying in Saltstone right now is dying because of you.’

‘Really? How so?’

Colbrand pointed to the stained-glass doors behind the table that led out onto the tapered balcony.

‘It’s easier if I show you,’ he said.

Cullen’s eyes narrowed. ‘You think you have something, don’t you? Tell me, what is it you think you have?’

‘Let me show you.’

‘Really, Master Colbrand. I’ve tolerated your interruption and your unfounded allegations, but you are beginning to bore me now.’

‘It’ll be worth it, I promise.’

Cullen sighed and pushed his chair back with a theatrical flourish.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Alixa, Zavadan, with me.’

The bodyguards escorted Colbrand around the table as Cullen pushed open the doors.

The fabricatus primus and chief enforcer hurried to follow Aedar Cullen, as the two servitors ushered Colbrand and Moonrae-ska outside.

The low rumble of the city at night swelled in volume as they emerged onto the long balcony overlooking Varangantua. A warm wind blew over the balcony, freighted with the burnt-oil taste of Alecto’s southern glacier hives. Winking lights on the hab-blocks overlooking the refitted carcass of the warship stretched beyond sight to the north and south, while the darkness of the western ocean was punctuated by the flare stacks of drilling platforms on the horizon. Fires burned from the foundries of the north and the hammer blows of the hinterlands industries were like a distant heartbeat.

Cullen reclined against the polished wood railing of the balcony.

‘It’s quite beautiful from up here, don’t you think?’ he said.

Colbrand nodded, looking out over the city.

‘From up here? Yeah,’ he said, leaning over the balcony and pointing to the shadowed streets below. ‘It’s a different story down there. People are dying because of the decisions you’ve made.’

‘I am the vladar of Saltstone, and I make a lot of decisions every day,’ said Cullen. ‘Some of them very likely get people killed. You’ll have to be more specific.’

‘The water,’ said Colbrand. ‘Four months ago, you switched the water supply of Saltstone. The clean water from the aquifer was diverted to Skarun Cross District. We decrypted the correspondence between your office and the fabricatus primus. Stupid of you not to get rid of it, but I guess you never even considered that someone might look into it. I know the water supply to the tank foundries and weapon manufactorum was too contaminated. The chlorine levels were so high it was corroding the machine parts, so the fabricatus primus petitioned you to supply her industrial needs for a substantial sum. I know that you partitioned off enough for the district’s high-born, but the rest of us… well, you just left us to drink the shit filtering in through the coastal processing plants.’

Cullen’s expression didn’t change, but the fabricatus primus and chief enforcer weren’t politicians, and the widening of Alixa Baroda’s eyes told him he was right.

‘But Sister Lyza of the Obsidian Order saw people getting sick, and knew something was terribly wrong. She sampled the water around the district and she found out why it was happening.’

‘Sister Lyza? I don’t know that name,’ said Cullen.

Colbrand felt his anger rising, and fought to control it.

‘Yes you do,’ he said. ‘She contacted you, told you what she’d found. She begged for an audience, thinking it was all a terrible mistake, that some undetected accident or spill had contaminated the supply. She sought your help, but she didn’t know you were doing it deliberately.’

‘Is that true, Aedar?’ demanded Moonrae-ska. ‘I think my father would take a very dim view of such behaviour. Trust me, he’s very protective of what he considers his property.’

Cullen didn’t answer her, now understanding why Colbrand had asked her to join him.

‘She petitioned you every day,’ said Colbrand. ‘She pleaded for an audience until you got sick of her constant letters and visits to your palace.’

Colbrand turned to Zavadan, his face a mask of anger.

‘So then I’m guessing you got your lapdog here to pretend to be a whistle-blower, an informant in your staff. He arranged to meet her in Water’s Edge, claiming he had proof of what was going on. When she went to the Edge, he used an electro-goad to shock her in the back, because that’s just the kind of coward he is. And then, when she was on her knees, begging for the lives of her people – because Efreen Lyza would never beg for herself – he shot her twice in the head and left her to die.

‘But you couldn’t even do that right, could you?’

‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Zavadan, squirming in the glare of Colbrand’s anger.

‘Because she wasn’t dead!’ snapped Colbrand, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. ‘She hid everything she’d found out and then tried to crawl for help. She got as far as the entrance to the alleyway before she died.’

Colbrand turned to the railing of the balcony, looking over to the building opposite, a crumbling hab-block with scattered lights amid the broken windows of empty habs.

‘And what she found?’ said Cullen. ‘I’m guessing you have that, and, given what you’ve just said, I have to assume you have a data miner who broke into my palace manifold.’

The vladar paced to the far end of the balcony and spread his arms wide.

‘Everything you have just said is true, Master Colbrand, but look around you,’ he said. ‘The Imperium is built upon sacrifice. In the face of endless wars and the growing darkness, even a million deaths is a price worth paying. The Emperor’s armies need tanks. His soldiers need weapons. What would you have me do, tell the Imperial governor that Alecto will fail to meet quota because some of the workers are getting sick? He’d have me executed, and he’d be right to do it.’

‘These are your people,’ said Colbrand.

‘They are the Emperor’s people,’ snapped Cullen. ‘Their lives and their deaths are spent in service of His glory. If a few hundred have to die to make sure we play our part in the salvation of our species against the myriad foes ranged against us, then that’s how it has to be. And if death is a price they won’t willingly pay, then I’ll pay it for them.’

‘Really? Death?’ said Colbrand. ‘That’s a price you’re willing to pay?’

Cullen’s eyes narrowed, searching Colbrand’s face for a trap.

‘Of course,’ he said, nodding towards the servitor guards. ‘We all must be.’

‘I’m glad you said that,’ said Colbrand, lifting his hand, and touching the tips of his thumb and middle finger like he was about to snap them together.

‘What are you doing?’ said Cullen.

‘Paying your debt,’ he said, and snapped his fingers.

And the servitor guard nearest him dropped as the back of his head blew out in a silent puff of blood and brain matter. A second shot punched through the eye of the other, and it too fell with the contents of its skull vaporised.

The vladar and Alixa Baroda dropped to the ground in shock.

Zavadan scanned the crumbling hab-block, more angry than fearful.

‘Sniper!’ he yelled, hunkering down.

‘That’s Roza Kovshova,’ said Colbrand. ‘Long-las champion of the Nagant Rangers. Her son is sick with your poisoned water, and she’s not ready to sacrifice him to your greed. Because that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Not some higher service to the Emperor.’

Another shot struck the railing next to the vladar, splintering the wood and blasting away the supports. Cullen scrambled away from the edge, but another shot punched through the metal decking of the balcony.

‘I’d stop moving if I were you,’ said Colbrand. ‘Move another muscle and Roza will put a hotshot through your ear.’

‘Throne, Colbrand! I’m the vladar, you can’t do this!’

‘I have a sniper ready who is more than willing to blow your brains out,’ he said. ‘I think I can.’

‘What in the name of the warp do you want?’

‘For you to switch the water supply back,’ said Colbrand.

‘I can’t do–’ said Cullen as another shot struck the metal a finger’s breadth from his groin.

‘Are you sure you can’t?’

‘All right, all right!’ cried Cullen, looking frantically to the doors back into the warship’s bridge.

Colbrand grinned. ‘I wouldn’t be expecting any help from that direction,’ he said. ‘I have another friend who you already know is very clever when it comes to things like data mining. She’s also very good at blocking vox communications. As far as anyone inside knows we’re having a nice, civilised conversation.’

‘Alixa, do it,’ yelled Cullen. ‘Issue an order to switch Saltstone’s water back to the aquifer.’

The eyes of the fabricatus primus misted over and Colbrand heard a series of electric clicks from within her skull. Her head twitched and her eyes returned to their normal appearance.

‘It is done,’ she said.

‘The water’s back?’ said Colbrand.

‘It will take a day or so for the supplies to completely switch over, but yes.’

Colbrand nodded. ‘Good.’

‘You’re a dead man, Colbrand,’ said Zavadan. ‘You think you can just walk away from threatening the vladar and his chief enforcer?’

Colbrand stood over Zavadan and said, ‘No, I don’t.’

He reached down and hauled Zavadan to his feet, holding him close enough to let the man feel the fury radiating from him.

‘You killed my friend, a woman who saved my life and never gave up on me,’ he said. ‘You think you can just walk away from that?’

Colbrand spun around, and slammed Zavadan into the broken section of balcony. The twisted metal gave way, and the enforcer fell out into thin air. He screamed as he plummeted to his death, his arms flailing uselessly in terror.

Colbrand watched him fall, waiting until he saw the body disintegrate on the ground far below.

‘You wouldn’t have wanted that,’ he whispered to Lyza’s ghost, ‘but I needed it.’

Moonrae-ska put her hand on his back and said, ‘I had a feeling this night would be interesting…’

Colbrand nodded, his emotions running too close to the surface for him to reply.

He turned and they made their way to the doors leading back inside.

‘Is that the end of this?’ shouted Aedar Cullen. ‘Is this over?’

Colbrand paused and looked back over his shoulder.

‘The man who killed my friend is dead and no one else in Saltstone has to die,’ he said, looking back over to the hab-block and lifting his hand again. ‘So that part’s over, yeah, but you know… I’m not sure I trust either of you not to just switch the water back once we’re gone. And one last thing. Roza’s son nearly died, and I don’t think she’s as forgiving as I am.’

‘What? No, you can’t b–’

Colbrand snapped his fingers and two more perfectly aimed shots rang out.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said to Moonrae-ska as the bodies hit the floor.

Colbrand sat in the front pew of the Obsidian Order’s templum, still wearing his new suit, though three days had passed since the events at Menem-Ba’s. Since then, he’d been waiting in his hab-containers, waiting for some kind of retribution, but it had never come.

He’d cut himself off from all outside communications, resigned to a team of sanctioners breaking down his door at any minute. He kept the Encarmine beside him at all times, unloaded, but ready to point at the first man through the door so they would have to kill him.

Better that than have them drag him off to the nearest Bastion and discover his real identity.

But the crash of a hydraulic ram had never come, and after the third day, he risked venturing outside, still fully expecting a snatch-team of enforcers to bundle him into the back of a black-painted Chimera and beat him to death.

Only when a servitor with more of a glint in its eye than any servitor had a right to have approached him as he bought a mug of recaff from a cycle-cart trolley did he release the pent-up anxiety he’d been carrying.

‘Sister Marika says you should to come to the hospice,’ it said.

He’d turned to thank Oletha, for it could be none other, but the servitor glitched and she was gone. So here he was, sitting alone on a cold wooden bench before a cloth-draped altar, upon which sat the simple flakboard coffin of Sister Efreen Lyza.

Towering over her was a tall statue of the Emperor, carved from a block of polished pink marble.

Colbrand looked up into His eyes.

‘You always take the good ones first and leave the rest of us to suffer, don’t you?’

‘That’s not a very charitable thing to say,’ replied a voice beside him.

Colbrand jumped in surprise as Roza sat down beside him.

‘Where did you come from?’ he asked, looking around the empty templum. ‘I never heard you.’

‘I’m a bloody sniper, I move silent and deadly,’ she said with a wink as she hopped onto the pew with her swaddled son cradled in her arms. Colbrand smiled, and peered at the youngster. The baby ratling’s head was no bigger than an apple, and wrinkled like a prune.

‘He’s just had a feed,’ said Roza. ‘Should sleep for hours now. Sisters say he’s on the mend and I can take him home in a few days.’

‘I’m happy for you, Roza,’ said Colbrand, as he felt a soft presence make itself known within his ocular implant.

‘Oletha?’

‘I am here,’ she said. ‘I am sorry I could not linger earlier. I was in the final stages of aggressively expunging the fact that you and Moonrae-ska were ever at Menem-Ba’s three nights ago. I have performed a deep purge of local data cores, but it is probably best if you do not show your face around there anytime soon. Picters, vox-captures and auto-servitors I can erase, but people are harder.’

‘Even if no one else remembers us, Menem-Ba surely will,’ said Colbrand.

‘Let us call that a challenge for another day…’

‘Sounds like a good idea.’

‘Talking to your ghost lady again?’ asked Roza.

‘Yes.’

‘Thank her from me. I know if it wasn’t for her help, I wouldn’t have my little Nanosh here.’

Colbrand felt Oletha’s affirmation as a warm glow at the nape of his neck.

‘She heard,’ said Colbrand as Sister Marika entered the templum from the vestry, dressed in her formal raiments of a black habit and obsidian-flaked veil. A black-veiled bride on her way to her groom’s funeral.

‘I see your assistant got my message to you,’ she said.

Angry heat built at the back of his skull, and Colbrand nodded.

‘Yes, she did. Thank you.’

‘Good,’ said Marika. ‘We will begin in a moment.’

‘Why not now?’ said Colbrand, looking around at the empty templum. ‘We’re here.’

‘You are not the only ones who wish to pay your respects,’ said Marika.

And the doors at the back of the templum opened wide as the people of Saltstone poured inside. They came in their hundreds: men with tears in their eyes, mothers with their offspring newly returned to health, old women with fresh vigour to their strides, and children who laughed instead of coughed their lungs into bloody surgical gauze.

They streamed down the central nave, singing as they went, filling the pews from the front of the templum to the back until there was no more room to sit. So they stood in the aisles, and beyond the main entrance. They filled the wards and corridors of the hospice to say farewell, because they knew who had stood for them when no one else would.

Tears streamed down Colbrand’s face at the sight of so many.

‘They loved her,’ he said.

Roza took his hand.

‘We all did, lad,’ she said. ‘We all did.’

NO USE FOR GOOD MEN

GUY HALEY

DECRYPTING

>>>>Incoming vox-script message

>>>>Originator Probator (First Class) Fyedor Blovast, ident 032567AZ#-Princus, Lex district Nearsteel (sub-area Inner/Outer rings)

>>>>Intended recipient Chief Justicius Maskell Resk, Lex district Nearsteel (greater designation)

>>>>Message begins

Justicius Resk, I am pleased finally to bring you a little positive news. Attached to this message is the first entry from Probator Symeon Dymaxion-Noctis’ journal that we have managed to decode. Alas, the transcript cipher continues to frustrate the best of our lexators. I continue to petition the Adeptus Mechanicus for official aid in decrypting the documents but they are unforthcoming. I shall persist. Forgive me, I make no excuses, I only seek to keep your honour apprised of all discoveries appertaining to this sorry affair, no matter how small.

In the meantime, there is some interest to be gleaned from Dymaxion-Noctis’ account here regarding the state of his mind a few months before the incident. It is noteworthy that the journal appears to be addressed to a reader, as yet whom I have not been able to determine. Dymaxion-Noctis himself will not say. He remains remarkably stubborn in this regard. Since his district records were purged – almost certainly by his hand – it has been hard to pin anything down regarding his past. His family are deliberately obstructive, and will not release their archives to me. They have influence that goes beyond anything I can personally bring to bear, and the Adeptus Arbites have made it quite clear to me that they will not be involving themselves any further. If I may be so impertinent to ask, perhaps you might have more success with either the higher authorities or with the family? Your station is more exalted than mine; they may listen to you.

I think Dymaxion-Noctis is enjoying my frustration. His heart rate spiked when I told him we’d cracked a part of his journal, and although he was back to his usual, contemptuous self within minutes, I admit to a certain triumphalism in my attitude towards him afterward, as I felt we may be getting somewhere. For this small sin I ask forgiveness of both you and the Emperor, my lord. I assure you my enthusiasm did not affect my judgement.

The entry we decrypted comprises a mixture of audex, vid, pict and text (all materials appertaining to this document are appended to this missive [ref Omicron-7, eyes only]). However, Dymaxion-Noctis seems to favour writing as his key mode of expression. He has a bit of literary flair, so for ease of digestion I have taken the liberty of condensing the original into this text version, supplementing it in the one or two places it was necessary with words of my own based upon the other materials [see appended index for additional elements].

Your obedient s’vnt,

Fyedor Blovast, probator, first class

>>>vox-script ends

>>>decrypted entry begins

Deet-deet, deet-deet.

The vox-clarion makes a noise too much like sand biters for my liking. It reminds me of what was, before I left my life behind. Deet-deet, deet-deet. That’s how it goes, just like the biters. Anticipation of the alarm colours my dreams, taking me down routes of memory I would rather not travel, back to the deserts on the high estates, and those few moments I enjoyed with my father.

I hate it, but I can’t bring myself to change it.

My augmetic arm is difficult to control after sleep. It requires time to mesh with my nervous system. I have to work it through several exercises to encourage good synch rates. I rarely have time. As a result, I’ve smashed more vox-units with my steel fist than I care to admit. In my dreams my right hand is still flesh. When I awake, I don’t remember that it’s gone.

This time, I found the button and pressed it down. The vox-channel opened. Its distinctive click helps anchor me in the here and now. It reminds me of who and what I am.

‘Noctis,’ I said. I couldn’t help but yawn. Last night had been a late one. Not work, just Shebeena, me and a bottle of amasec.

‘Probator, I am sorry for the earliness of the hour, but you asked to be informed.’

I sat up and rubbed my face. The augmetic is good, but it’s not real. The plasteel between the synflesh pads rasps on my stubble. It’s always cold in the morning.

‘I’ve fourteen alerts out with Bastion command, Borostin, which is it?’

My mouth felt terrible. There was a cup of cold caffeine next to my bed. I sipped it and winced, but I didn’t put it down, and got out of bed.

‘Sorry, sir,’ said Borostin. He was good at his job, though he needed a bit of prodding. He’s dead now. That was my fault. Another lead ingot of shame to carry. ‘It is Yerzy Demedoi. The missing persons case.’

‘Marchenstka,’ I said.

The missing persons case – such a bland phrase for so career-ruining an affair, I thought. There was a Lord Marchenstka, nasty piece of work, but I’ll get to him some other time. His daughter Xuliana was an idealist, a bit like me, but more stupid. Because she was an idealist and more stupid than I was, she was missing. Kidnapped almost certainly. Probably dead. The children of rich men get taken for slates all the time, but there are worse kidnappings driven by the need to bring the mighty low. I figured it was that kind, because I couldn’t find a trace of her. That was a problem. Pressure was being brought to bear. It was annoying me, though not as much as it was annoying Castellan Illois.

‘Where is he?’

‘Chainward.’

‘Fine, got anything more specific?’

‘Yes. I have his exact location, as of three hours ago.’

‘I’ll go check it out.’

There was a pause. ‘There’s an active sanctioner operation going on in the Chainward underside.’

‘Food riots?’ There was a problem with supply to some of Varangantua. There’s never been quite enough to eat on Alecto, but genuine shortages are getting normal. A lot of people are dying.

‘Yes. Again. District-wide.’

‘Was it the sanctioners that voxed Demedoi’s position in?’

‘No, sir,’ said Borostin. ‘Informant.’

‘Aren’t they the most reliable?’ I said sarcastically.

‘If you’re lucky, he’ll still be there.’

‘If I’m lucky,’ I said. My head was unusually clear, and I thought the amasec must have been real for once. The real stuff is rare in Varangantua. My father once boasted there were probably only a few thousand bottles on the whole planet, but you can tell it’s real when it doesn’t give you a bad head. I lucked out there.

‘Vox ahead, let them know I’m coming. Tell them it’s a priority matter. Castellan Illois to seal-stamp it. I don’t want any trouble, sanctioners are hotheads at the best of times.’

‘I am on it, sir.’

‘Borostin?’

‘Sir?’

‘Good work,’ I said grudgingly, because it was good work and nobody ever gets enough praise.

‘Thank you, sir,’ and he was gone.

I went to the window and finished the caffeine. I live high up, it’s the one concession I make to who I was. I don’t let people come to my place. I don’t want them to see how I live, perhaps because I feel guilty about it, even now, even when this domicile is nothing like what I grew up with. I had to make a choice. Do I deny everything I was, and live in the dirt, or do I buy myself a little comfort?

I considered living poor. I tried, for a while. I drank a lot. I hung about in places where people with a probator’s holo-seal don’t go. I think I might have been trying to kill myself, being deliberately careless like that. It was a phase, it passed. In the end I figured, if I am going to do my job properly, like I said I would, swore I would when I walked out on a king’s life, then I could live a little high. You don’t need to wallow in the dirt to save people from it. Getting your hands grubby gives you a bit of perspective, and that’s enough for me. So I live well.

I never said I was perfect.

My coat and trousers and shirt were dumped on the floor, each covered with dust. I shook them off, not caring about the mess. I have a servant. Let them take care of it. Like I said, I’m not perfect.

Shebeena gave me the big brown eyes before I left. I gave her a look to say no. She slinked across the floor and cried. The mewling beast wanted out.

‘You can’t go out,’ I said. ‘You can never go out,’ I tell her, every day. ‘If I let you out, you’ll get stolen for sale or for food.’ I rubbed her head. She forgave me, she always does. What I never tell her is that there are mutant felids living wild and free in the undercity, big as Maliwan tigers. She’d only get ideas.

I fed her. She gave me a hard stare, but seemed to be content with breakfast.

There’s a lifter direct from my place to the vehicle park. There’s a lot of rich people in my habclaves, a lot of private groundcars in the low levels. I was in my own in moments.

I don’t know if you remember what Nearsteel is like this time of year, it’s a long time since you left, but before it gets cold in winter, it’s hot. The wind comes off the Westering Ocean, full of water, hits the barrens, then Varan Mountains, dumping the first snows and rains on the far side, then comes down on us with hot teeth of dust, and they bite hard. Some climactic effect makes it hot; it’s weird, but it’s natural. They say you can tell how cold the winter will be by how warm the wind is. It doesn’t last long, but it was one of the hot days.

The wind feels like anger when it comes like that, and it heats up Nearsteel like a pot on a fire. It was the kind of day where violence was going to happen. You could taste it on the air, heavy, metallic, like blood. The ordinary men and women on this heap of a planet get kicked in the teeth all the time; on days like that they get one extra for free. Praise the Emperor.

Chainward is a subdistrict of Nearsteel, and right at the foot of the Steelmound. I took the Chainward road down from the upper slopes. Nearsteel crawls up the mountains, trying to escape the dirt. You can see the snow on the peaks from my place, on the rare clear day. The city is old there. Deep levels fill old valleys. Father had a map in his study. I used to look at it for hours. He encouraged me, one of the rare few times the old bastard had anything nice to say to me. There was a valley here. You can’t see the valley, but you can see the shape of the mountains either side, buried under climbing ranks of habclave spires, like a mouth, full of steel teeth. Emperor alone knows what’s down there underneath. We enforcers never venture far into it. Chainward is as deep as we go.

The biggest tooth of all is the Adeptus Mechanicus enclave of Steelmound, and it stabs the sky like it means it. It’s a proper spire. The top is a blade that cuts the clouds, taller than the mountains ever were. At the side there’s a voidport, only halfway up but most of the way into space, leaning out. I often think of it as a mushroom, the kind that eats metal in the undercity. Sometimes I see it as a veesper nest, all the ships coming and going into the docks like insects. I’ve seen them bring big voidships down there, but it’s small for a voidport, or so they say.

Normally I can see the Steelmound from my habclave. There’s one spot I can stand in my domicile and see through the close-packed blocks on the slopes to the denial zone and the redway around the bottom. That morning I couldn’t see anything. The wind brought a cloud of dust fine as a vladar’s make-up. The kind you can always taste, no matter how good the filtration is, grit and dust and dryness. It makes you thirsty. It’s arid, used up. That’s what Alecto tastes like. A man I know, he’s called Hon Jin, once told me that we’re lucky, in Nearsteel, to be able to taste the planet at all. Most people in Varangantua don’t get that close to nature, he says. But nature doesn’t taste like that. I know better places than this. Alecto is mummified. Varangantua is a bloom of rot on the side.

The streets were empty. There were warnings of worse weather to come, ash storms and grit big enough to kill, with cold weather coming on the tail of the hot. There was a prohibition on travelling in all the mountain districts. The groundcar whispered down the road alone. Dust flew up behind and was snatched off by the wind, to rejoin the flowing ribbons coursing down over the mountains. The dust cut visibility down to fifty yards or so. With winter coming the nights were already getting into their stride. The morning was piss weak, and it wouldn’t get much lighter. The sky was orange, the buildings were black shapes. The groundcar gave me guidance; I wasn’t going to crash, but tech can’t take away the sense of claustrophobia the dust brings.

The road bottomed out. I should have been able to see the Steelmound poking the sky, but I couldn’t see anything. Just a hint of a void where the Redway was, that empty circle that keeps Them separate from Us.

Maybe you don’t know. Maybe they don’t teach you this. I’ll just lay it out. There isn’t only one Imperium, not like we think of it. There’s Terra and Mars. Each runs a part of the realms of mankind. Their relationship is complicated. We know that here, living so close to the Adeptus Mechanicus that we breathe their second-hand air, rich with the stinks of tech-sorcery. We live in the shadow of their hive.

I turned off into an access tunnel that headed under the weight of buildings crushing Alecto’s rock, and into Chainward.

There’s an environment seal on all the major undercity accesses in the mountain zones. It’s cheaper to keep the dust out and let the people rebreathe the same air when the storms come than it is to try to filter the atmosphere. There are double gates, right across the road. There were three other groundcars waiting for entry, one private, two official. The gate will take forty at a time, that gives you an idea of how quiet it was, but the door opened, and on the other side, different story. People everywhere, and, that close to the surface, other groundcars. I had to turn my clarions on to join the main Chainward route. Others on the road get out of the way quickly enough. That makes me feel powerful, and I don’t like it. The only thing that makes me feel better is reminding myself of the real power I gave up for this life, and the job I have to do. That puts the scared faces and the dangerous hurry as the traffic clears out of my way into perspective. It stops me feeling like any other spire-born swine lording it over the lessers.

But it still tastes sour.

‘You can’t go any further, Symeon. Not in your groundcar.’

‘Why?’ I said. I’d wound down my window to speak with Balthuis. I knew him a little. He was a decent enough man for a sanctioner. ‘Didn’t Borostin vox you?’

Balthuis didn’t answer my question, but looked back over the barriers closing the road. ‘Food riot. It’s coming. We’ve got boots on the ground, going in to pull out the ringleaders before it gets out of hand, but it’s going to start. We can’t stop that.’

I nodded. ‘Even if I didn’t know, I’d be able to smell it. It’s on the wind.’ I could smell the dust too, even down there. It ground between my teeth. My eyes were dry with it.

‘It’s a hot wind blows no good,’ he said.

‘It’s the war.’

‘What? Keeping the food from hungry mouths?’ Balthuis snorted. ‘You’ve always been soft. When isn’t there a war on somewhere?’

This is true, but what was happening out there beyond the system was like nothing ever before.

‘This is just an excuse for insurrection,’ Balthuis went on. ‘They need to be punished.’

I drummed my hands on the guide wheel of the groundcar. ‘This war’s bigger than them all, so I heard.’

‘You listen too much to rumours.’

‘That’s why I’m good at my job.’

Balthuis had his helmet off. That always looks wrong. In full gear, a sanctioner is faceless. He is a limb of the vladar’s government, which is an extension of the authority of the lord commander of Alecto, and so ultimately each sanctioner represents the Imperium itself, in their own small way. They are the visible will of the Emperor. We probators could be anyone. We don’t wear a uniform. The sanctioners look the part, with their armour, badges and the weapons: black and more black, the colour of authority, the colour of death.

With their helmets off, though, they look like they’re pretending.

‘You’ll know that I shouldn’t let you through, unless it’s official.’

‘It’s official. Borostin told you.’ I was pretty sure they’d spoken.

‘I need to see the papers,’ said Balthuis.

Of course he did. You’ll never see a sanctioner give up the chance to lord it over a probator. I leaned across the passenger seat and pulled out a dataslate from the groundcar’s storage compartment. It’s a mess in there. I like to keep my vehicle clean, I paid for it after all. But the box is a mess. Food wrappers, penance scripts, all sorts gets shoved in there until it can take no more, then I empty it out and start again. Balthuis raised an eyebrow at the difference between the mess and the pristine, polished plastek of the rest of the interior.

‘What can I say?’ I said. ‘I like a little contrast in my life.’

He shook his head. The gesture of a down-to-earth man dismissing the pretensions of the higher classes. They all hate me for what I was. They think I’m pretending. Balthuis took the slate. It was a department-issue, and activated in proximity to the ident-bead buried in his wrist.

‘Detention warrant?’ He read the name on the file. ‘Yerzy Demedoi.’

‘Like Borostin said.’

‘Let’s assume your underling didn’t get me. Warrant,’ he repeated.

‘It’s only a warrant if I need it to be,’ I said. ‘I need to talk to that man. He might have a lead on a case I have, but I don’t want to bring Demedoi in if I don’t have to.’ I waved my real hand vaguely. ‘Too many ripples of the wrong kind.’

‘I don’t care what you’re doing,’ said Balthuis. ‘But this says you can go.’ He frowned again. ‘If you don’t need to arrest him, why do you have the detention warrant?’

‘I smelled what’s coming,’ I said, gesturing at the air as if I could still smell the wind as well as I could still taste the dust. He followed it with suspicious eyes. I wear a glove to cover the augmetic, but people know about it. Augmetics stir up all kinds of emotions, most bad. ‘And I like to do things properly.’

‘Then I’m going to have to let you in.’ Balthuis frowned. ‘Leave the groundcar there.’ He pointed to a stretch of oily pavement two feet wide running alongside the carriageway.

‘Seriously?’

‘I’ll watch it. You’re not taking it into Deeper Chainward. All travel in and out is at our discretion.’

He gave a piercing whistle and waved at one of his men. The rumble of a heavy engine set up. Thick blue exhaust fumes pumped from an armoured vehicle.

He picked up the vox-bead dangling from his throat. ‘Omnicast,’ he ordered it. It chimed. ‘All units, Probator Symeon Noctis inbound to operational zone. Do not interfere.’ He dropped the bead and let it dangle again from its wire. ‘My orders are to maintain this perimeter, and to permit no traffic through – beyond that, I have no interest. If you see any action, stay out of it. The men are all pumped up on stimms and their orders are to hit anything first, interrogate later.’

‘Aren’t those their orders all of the time?’ I said. His eyes hardened. You can fault the sanctioners for a lot of things, but disloyalty isn’t among them.

‘One of my men will take you in,’ he said slowly, ‘then you’re on your own. I like to do things properly too.’

Balthuis’ driver was a sullen man who wouldn’t give up his name. After asking twice without response I went in the back of the Bulwark and sat down. They are not the most comfortable vehicles. Huge wheels make the ride tolerably smooth, but the belly is close to the ground to stop people getting under it, and if it hits anything in the road it rings like a damn bell. If the Bulwark catches something, it screeches until it gets scraped off. There’s no suspension to speak of, and little acoustic baffling. The barrier blade on the front restricts the view from the front window whether it is up or down. It’s hot, noisy, and because of the nature of its usual passengers, it stinks. I couldn’t think in there, so I extended my stun stick, checked the charge, then put it away again. I also pulled out my gun, made sure I had a bullet in the chamber, then placed it loosely in my armpit holster.

The Bulwark lurched to a halt.

‘We’re here, probator.’

‘His Hand,’ I said, giving the normal professional courtesy. The driver didn’t look back. The scowl I gave him was lost on the back of his head. The side doors squealed open and I stepped out. Balthuis’ man was already turning the vehicle around before I was clear, and I jogged out of the way.

The Bulwark backed up, finished its turn and growled off, leaving me in a single-lane tunnel. It was narrow and low, the kind they send servitor carts down. Chainward is dirt poor, and none but the arterial roads see much traffic.

The tunnel curved round. Orange lumens made a glowing spine along the ceiling. It was stiflingly hot with little air movement. Sometimes, if the population become rebellious, they’ll turn off the air to places like this, until the ruckus dies down, but I’d had no notice of air cessation, though that didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen.

‘Another damn thing I’ve got to take on trust,’ I grumbled.

I rolled up my jacket sleeve and activated the cogitator I wear on my augmetic arm. I don’t like direct visual feeds. Visor displays are worse. Both distract you. I keep my information where it belongs, where I can get at it easily, but only when I want it. A probator needs to use his eyes. Too many men are occupied with their info-feeds. They miss things. Spending all your time watching data screed is a good way to be bad at your job.

The arm unit has a built-in dataslate with a decent screen, high-fidelity crystal unit with hololithic projection capabilities. It’s another thing my family paid for. They don’t give this kind of tech out to people of our rank. Like my arm, and the car. Flashing wealth doesn’t do me many favours, but I suppose I don’t care, or I wouldn’t do it. Way I see it, the money helps with the work. Nobody understands that it is all about the work with me.

I called up a cartolith to show me the way. Whistling, I set off down the tunnel.

In a few minutes I was on the inner ring way, Chainward’s main via that goes right the way around the Steelmound. It’s high enough for buildings several dozen storeys tall, and wide in places. The district had a heavy atmosphere. There was no one about. I saw a couple of shadows pull back from the windows of the high tenements, but that was it. Those not gathering for the confrontation with the sanctioners had hidden themselves away. The people in places like that always know what’s going to happen before we do.

I was completely underground. There was a ceiling up there somewhere that was the underside of a more fortunate district. Chainward’s one of those miserable places that never sees the sun. Tenements filled all of one side of the via, on the other was a bewildering maze of shacks, workshops and small manufactoria. Varangantua has a lot of industry, but most of the poor, and that’s mostly everybody, can’t afford what’s made in the official manufactoria. If you want a spoon or a shirt or a gun and you’re poor, this is the kind of place where you come.

I’d been here before, many times. Usually Chainward was a racket of activity. The air was unusually clear; that wasn’t a good sign. It meant nobody had fired up their furnace or cookhouse, which meant whatever was going on down there had been brewing for at least a day. I had to be quick. Luckily, I didn’t have far to go. I headed into the warren of workshops, loose metal sheeting that made up the streets banging underfoot, until I reached the edge.

This is why they call it Chainward. The Steelmound punches down through the layered undercity to the valley floor, then through the crust. Some say it goes all the way down, to where the rocks go soft and hot enough to cook you. On the nominal surface there’s the Redway to divide Alecto sovereign territory from that of the Adeptus Mechanicus. It’s not so clear-cut underground.

Golden chain hangs in a curtain to mark the periphery, following the red line on the surface that separates our bit of no-man’s-land from their bit of no-man’s-land. For the first vertical hundred yards or so, the delineation is obvious and severe. I stood close to the curtain and looked up. You can see up to the underside of the Redway, all the way. There’s a clear space of two hundred yards at the top, a hundred yards either side of the curtain, but below that it begins to get messy, narrowing as the AdMech tower spreads its base, and the men and women of Chainward fill more of the space at the edge, getting closer and closer to the chains. Like the Imperium itself, I suppose. A division between the Adeptus Mechanicus and the rest of men that exists only on the surface. Past a hundred yards deep, the Chainers build their hovels and workshops right up to the edge, and on the other side, the Mechanicus have a proliferation of machinery. In places, they almost touch, only a thin curtain of shining alloy links keeping one world separate from the other. In other places there are heaps of shacks, Varangantuan vernacular, the academics laughingly call this kind of building, that finish at an abrupt chasm plunging down.

The chain itself is always pristine. It shimmers with a thin coating of oil. Though it’s not the weirdest thing I’ve seen, it’s weird enough. The border looks flimsy but it is real. Put a hand through that curtain and you’ll lose it. If you go through you’ll die. They can do that in the Steelmound – kill you dead, no matter who you are, and there’s not a thing me, any enforcer, arbitrator, aristocrat or anyone else on this used-up husk of a world can do about it.

There was a narrow way between the backs of the workshops and the chains, little more than an alleyway. There was junk and metal scraps in heaps waiting to be reused, and hard not to fall over. I had my gun in my left hand. I shoot that way now. It doesn’t feel right in my right any more. I was ready. I checked my location on a tri-d map. Cartolith’s the only way to be sure of good navigation in a place like that. A steady red light shone on the map, marking the hovel-cum-ironsmith’s Yerzy was hiding out in.

I took a moment. My breath was loud in my ears. I was painfully aware of the junk at my feet. One wrong step would announce my presence to the cyborg masters of the Steelmound three miles above my head, never mind the scum I needed to grab a hundred yards away.

I heard it then, the chanting. Large groups of people, hundreds. The riot. I came to myself a little, reconsidered my position.

I cast a look down the back of the shacks piled up by the fall of flawless gold links. I was in a good place to get ambushed.

I decided to go in through the front.

I took a passage away from the chain and back out onto the main thoroughfare. It was only half-accurately portrayed by my cogitator. Things change down in Chainward all the time. Someone had straightened the road out, zoned the buildings, tidied things up. I thought it could be the work of a rising burgrave, behaving responsibly as he trod the blind path that leads from altruist to crime lord. I’d seen it happen a thousand times. Best intentions are no guardians of morals.

There was a line of sanctioners blocking the road, two ranks, forty yards across, for the way had been widened considerably there. The roads were built wide in ancient times, you can tell when you look at it carefully. Shanty towns and rickety factories spring up, crowding them like weeds before being cut back. It’s the cycle of life in the lower city. At the moment, the main way looked almost impressive.

The enforcers were backing up from the line in lockstep, stamping their feet and slamming their riot shields down in time. The thunder of law enforcement boomed off metal skies.

The crowd refused to listen. They were shouting all at once, singing uncoordinated snatches of songs about injustice and oppression. They’re all bad, those songs, and the singers didn’t know more than half the words.

A vox-amplified voice barked from the centre of the sanctioner line.

‘Return to your habs! Return to your toil! You are in violation of the Lex-Alecto. Disperse, or suffer the consequences.’

He didn’t quote which articles of the law he referred to, or where it came from. There was no point. He could have been making it up on the spot. As far as the rioters believed, he probably was.

The crowd moaned and cooed. It’s a strange noise, so many people together. People lose themselves in crowds. It becomes one beast, with one voice, as loud and layered as that of the sea. Food, it was shouting. Hungry. Unfair. Drums rumbled. Metal clashed on metal.

‘Return to your homes!’ the leader shouted. I didn’t recognise his voice, and I could not see from which sanctioner it came. I probably knew him, but they were supposed to be faceless, and it worked.

I didn’t have time to watch this. Yerzy’s hidey-hole was still some fifty yards behind the retreating sanctioners, but they’d soon back up past it. I ran up behind them, making sure to broadcast my presence to them. They didn’t turn, but they knew I was there.

‘Present mauls!’ their leader shouted. They parted their shield wall a little, showing their shock mauls. They thumbed them on. Lightning flickered down the line. That got the crowd’s attention, and it stopped, but this was going to get bloody. It was written in the stars. I moved quietly along the street towards the ironsmith’s, trying to outrun the approaching violence.

At that moment, Yerzy put his head out a first-floor window to see what was going on. I was certain he was going to see me. For a long second he watched the protest, then, inevitably, he decided to look back. He saw me. His eyes widened; he knew I was coming for him. His head pulled back in and he vanished.

I swore, and ran. The door exploded inward to a punch from my augmetic arm. There were three women and a number of children in a small room. They screamed as I burst in. I shoved them out of the way to get to the narrow stairs behind them. As I cleared the first three steps, las-shot seared away the gloom and lit up a heat spot on the metal wall, but it was wild, and I took the chance that Yerzy was running and would not shoot again.

‘Yerzy Demedoi, if you’re innocent, you’ll stop!’ I said, then threw myself around the corner of the stairs. I didn’t fire. I needed Yerzy alive.

He wasn’t innocent. He knew I knew that, so he was running. Through a door thrown back so violently it jammed open I saw his heels vanishing through a window. He took quite a leap, I’ll give him that – head first, arms out, over a narrow cut-through. He hit the roof on the other side, rolling agilely and springing up. He looked back. He was nimble, but breathless. No one down there has health worth a damn. I took a shot then, grazing sparks from the thick plasteel by his feet. Legshots are hard. It’s why you’re supposed to aim for the centre of mass on a target, but Yerzy could live without a leg. He needed his heart and lungs to talk. He fired back wildly, a las-bolt flicking on then off and scoring black carbon on the ceiling. I was more cautious going through the window than he, mindful I was a good target, but he wasn’t waiting, instead scampering up a ramp to a higher roof and running.

‘Stop!’ I shouted.

He didn’t stop.

I jumped, glad that the noise of our weapons was swallowed up in the noise of the protest. The sanctioners were on a hair trigger. They were going to charge the crowd. That’s what they do, it’s inevitable, but I didn’t want to be the man to set them off. There’s enough blood on my hands.

We were running above the crowd. The smell of them was intense, a hot, rising wind of unwashed bodies and incipient sickness. But they were energetic in taunting the line, banging their drums, shouting and singing.

Yerzy sprinted hard along the rooftops. I followed him. I made a long jump coming down on a shanty roof that nearly caved in. He bounced from roof to roof with practised ease, but I was faster. Yerzy was your standard low-city peon, stunted by years of erratic nourishment. A benefit of my job is better food than most citizens will ever see. Then there’s my family connections. The bottom line is, I was a lot healthier than him. I gained on him. Nearer, nearer. He jumped, simian light, landing in a crouch on a corrugated plastek roof. It bounced as he loped to the other side. I followed him.

Being healthier means being heavier.

I landed on the roof of a shack while he was still crossing it. The plastek gave way, and we both fell into the building. We landed on metal struts and broken plastek sheets, me more awkwardly than him. He was up first. The Emperor must have spared me a little blessing, for Yerzy had lost his gun. I still had mine. I pointed it at him, freezing him on the brink of the building.

‘Where is she, Yerzy? Where’s the Marchenstka girl?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ he said. His voice was ruined by years of bad air. His eyes slipped sideways down to the street, judging the leap. We were twenty feet up. That’s a long way to jump.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said. ‘It’d be better if you came with me now.’

‘We both know that’s not true,’ he said. He jumped. I fired. I missed him again. I’ve never been a great shot, with my left hand I’m worse than I was before. I needed more time on the range. There was a heavy length of rail pinning my leg down, but it wasn’t hard for my augmetic to lift. The limb is strong, but the muscles and bone it attaches to are those of a mortal man, and I felt hot, tearing pain as the machinery kicked in.

I was on my feet in time to see Yerzy blundering up from a tangle of limbs. He pushed his way through people, stirring up an angry current in the ebb and flow of the crowd.

‘Stop!’ I shouted. I didn’t dare fire again. Too many people. Too many sanctioners waiting for an excuse.

Cursing, I jumped down after him. I had a worse landing, hitting hard ground rather than soft bodies. A spike of pain shot up my shin into my knee. I ignored it, hobbling on and cursing. My arm hurt, my knee hurt.

‘Yerzy, get back here!’ I pushed my way through a living forest of limbs and bodies. It was hot in the crowd, and the smell was overpowering. Faces flashed by me in a variety of shocked and outraged expressions. Yerzy’s blundering progress left a channel of displaced bodies, and once or twice I caught sight of him ahead, looking back. Now it was his time to move quickly. He was smaller, wiser to the ways of crowds like this, and his Throne-damned knee wasn’t on fire like mine.

I could have fired my gun, I could have proclaimed who and what I was. I’d like to think you’re smart enough to see how damn stupid that would have been.

Yerzy was wise to his advantages over me, and was cutting back down through the protest, directly away from me and putting more distance between us with every moment. He was trying to get far enough ahead that I couldn’t see where he was going, then he’d be off into the buildings away from the Steelmound and I’d never find him again.

A horn blared. The enforcers roared. The time had come, they were charging the crowd. I could hear the buzz and crack of shock mauls. The crowd bunched up. The movement within became chaotic. Singing and shouts turned to screams.

‘Terra condemn us all,’ I whispered. I keyed a rune on my cogitator, sending a cocktail of stimm and painkiller into my bloodstream. The pain from my injuries immediately diminished. I was still aware of it, but it was reduced to a warm, pleasant glow.

Then I raised my gun and fired.

‘Down, down, down! Probator business!’

There were screams then. People were too panicked by the approaching sanctioners to react violently to me, scattering instead. They tripped up and fell outward, like an opening flower. I got a clear look at Yerzy, some forty feet away, and went after him. My knee ground, but painlessly. The crowd’s opening made it easier for him too, and he shoved his way out. The sanctioners were coming deeper into the crowd, standard riot-breaking tactics. They don’t take the brightest as enforcer recruits, and they’re nothing if not predictable. A wedge of men, driving into the group, lashing out on all sides as they came. The crowd buckled. They call these riots, but mostly they’re not, not until we get involved. Most of the people were fleeing, bashing into me. But others were turning back to fight, going against combat-conditioned sanctioners in full armour kit with nothing more than lengths of pipe and bred-in grievance.

I couldn’t catch up to Yerzy, but I could trap him. I angled away from the Steelmound and the chain barrier, pushing him towards the workshop shanty around the exclusion zone. He was looking over his shoulder, but he saw me, and the approaching phalanx of enforcers. The crowd was scattering, movement was easier, so I began to run again, Yerzy made to go into the tenements where people were fleeing, but I shook my head, moving quicker to push him back inward. Seeing the sanctioners about to catch him, he forced his way past the running people and back into the ring of workshops around the Steelmound’s roots.

I followed before my less-refined colleagues could catch up.

I was in a big shed, high ceiling, lots of rusty chains hanging down and rows of lathes occupying the floor. Yerzy was in there somewhere, in that place they made Emperor-knew-what for Emperor-knew-who.

I went slow now. My heart was hammering from the stimms and my leg was dangerously hot, but everything was crystal clear and sharp. I was going to suffer for it the day after, but right then, the world was a vibrant place, and every danger a challenge.

Gunfire started from across the street, sounding small and ridiculous at that distance. The crowd’s screams were thin as the wails of the seabirds in the ocean districts. Sanctioners bellowed threats. They were kicking in the doors, harsh crashes that came closer, but it was still quiet enough for me to hear Yerzy’s blundering progress. I followed him. His poorer health was telling, and he was slowing. The irony was, his masters probably cared about him more than the supposedly legitimate owners of this district did about the inhabitants. But his bosses didn’t care enough. It’s how I always get these people, through the soft, unprotected underbelly of the abused and dispossessed. I almost felt sorry for him.

Yerzy was panting loudly. It echoed around the machine shop.

‘I can hear you, Yerzy! You sound like a broken engine!’ I shouted. ‘Just stop, man, let’s talk.’

‘They’ll kill me! They’ll kill my family!’ he shouted back.

I swivelled to where his voice came from, and walked stealthily. My knee was stiff, swelling making my gait unsure, throbbing with heat like a fusion reactor, but I kept my weapon up. I panned the gun around, holding it in both hands, covering the corners, the girders overhead, the bases of benches, anywhere he might be hiding. I got close, and he made a break for it. They always do.

He ran rat-fast down an aisle between two rows of workbenches towards a door leading out to the chain guard. I followed him, a living finger resting on the trigger. I took my time, waiting for a clear shot. There was a line of pallets of rusty scrap in between him and the door. He had to climb it. This time when I fired, I hit him.

He gave a cry. A dark stain bloomed on his trouser leg. He pitched forward off a pallet and crashed down. Little bastard had a lot of fight in him, because he got up, limping on his wounded leg towards the door. I went after him, hardly more graceful. I could barely bend my knee, and had to walk around the scrap.

He was failing fast. He had got out of the door, but couldn’t manage more than that and was crawling when I found him again. Death was walking patiently behind him, and I’m not talking metaphorically about myself. I must have nicked an artery in his leg, because he was pissing blood, leaving a wide smear on the metal.

The chains were twenty feet away from the back of the manufactory. On the other side the gap between Alecto and forge world sovereign territory opened up. There was a darkness there that suggested a deep shaft, and a constant draught blowing up from somewhere that made the chains sway and chink for a hundred yards in both directions. I could hear machinery murmuring to itself. Lights shone in the thickets of pipes on the Martian side.

I raised my gun, taking aim at his back. I didn’t need to. I’d already killed him.

‘Unburden yourself, Yerzy Demedoi. Tell me where the Marchenstka girl is.’

‘You’re no priest,’ he gasped, doggedly clawing his way over the plated metal ground to the chains.

‘The Emperor will punish you if you die with evil in your heart.’

‘Screw the Emperor!’ he snarled. He was by the chains. The pit yawned. He dragged himself to the very edge, and rolled on his back to look me in the eye. He was breathing fast and shallow, in that way the dying do. ‘The Emperor’s done nothing for me, not ever. He condemned me and all my kind to live in this hole in the ground. So sincerely, He can go fuck Himself with His own Throne-damned holy golden sword.’

‘I can save you,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to die. Get that hole patched up in your leg. You help me, there’ll be a reward.’

He laughed. ‘Yeah, a hail of bullets or a sinner’s pyre. The lords and ladies are not the forgiving types.’

I stood over him. ‘I won’t shoot you.’

‘I know,’ he said.

‘I’ll help your family.’

He grinned, defeated. ‘I half believe that. I’ve heard you’re a good man, Noctis. More fool you, I say. What use has Varangantua for good men?’

‘You don’t have to die,’ I said. I holstered my gun to show I meant it.

He smiled. ‘You know what we say down here? We’re all born dead.’

I could see it coming. I lunged for his leg, but he hauled himself over the lip of the drop with arms wiry with a lifetime of relentless work, and fell soundlessly into the dark.

There was a loud crack, the kind generated by a large las discharge, and a flash. I put my head by the chains, but knew not to put it through. I saw nothing beyond the swaying of the links.

I sighed. The stimms and anaesthetic were wearing off. My knee and side were beginning to hurt. I limped back towards the machine shop. There was noise and danger on the far side of that building, but nowhere else to go.

Three sanctioners burst out of the door. They saw the blood, they saw me.

‘Stop, in the name of the Lex-Alecto!’

‘I’m stopped,’ I said. I held up my hands. ‘You can lower your weapons. I am Pro–’

One of them had a webber and a vicious need to use it. He sprayed me with a cloud of constricting filaments that squeezed the air out of my lungs and the ability to talk with it. One of the others held up his maul to the side of my head, turned down the charge, then tapped me on the temple.

I hate those things. Like being punched by an ogryn. Everything went away for a while.

I was still peeling bits of web off my coat when the Bulwark door slid back.

‘You look like shit,’ said Balthuis. He was grinning. He’s a bag of asses, that man, but I kind of like him.

‘My head hurts, my knee’s shot and I tore all the muscles down my side.’

‘Fancy augmetics do you no favours,’ Balthuis said.

I got up off the bench. In truth, a lot more than head, knee and side hurt. All of it did, apart from my metal arm, and because of that it felt more alien than usual.

‘Try saying that when you lose an arm,’ I said. I limped out.

‘My men will be disciplined,’ he said.

‘Yeah, before or after you buy them a drink?’

He rested his hand on my shoulder. I winced.

‘Did you get your man?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Let’s say he found his own way out of Varangantua’s miseries.’

‘Too bad,’ he said. I think he meant it.

‘Too bad,’ I said, and limped back across the road to my groundcar. I had a felid to feed. Nothing much else seemed important right then.

‘See you around, Symeon Noctis!’ Balthuis shouted.

I ignored him, and let the autodrive take me home.

I’m writing this later that same day. I’m still messed up. My knee will take a week to fix, at least. The winds are dropping. The rains will follow, then the snow; it’s only a few days now. Winter’s herald has blown his trumpet, as the half-slate seers say down on Tinker’s Row. I still haven’t found the Marchenstka girl. Demedoi was my best lead, and I lost it. This is going to be problematic.

I don’t know if you’ll ever read these words. I don’t know if I can find you. And if I do, what then? You’ll be changed. Wherever they sent you, Alecto will just be one world to you, Varangantua one city among millions of other grimy shitholes. The best I can hope for is that you’ll read these accounts, and you’ll get to know me, a little, as a man. I hope you don’t condemn me for what I am.

I don’t know what kind of man I am. Perhaps I’ll find out too.

Maybe Yerzy was right. Maybe I am good a man, and maybe that does make me a fool. His words trouble me now.

What use does Varangantua have for good men?

Decrypted journal entry ends>>>>>>

COLD CASES

MARC COLLINS

It was always cold in the southern city. The ice-bound precincts of District Polaris-Nul shivered, wracked by the chill of the gale.

Quillon Drask was inured to it now. He drew his long, thick coat tight around him and rubbed his hands together despite his gloves, trusting in the last of the night’s amasec to keep him warm. He had not expected to be called out. He knew, of course he knew, that he ought to always be ready for trouble… Knowing was not the same as caring, though.

So here he was, walking the streets past the Vatragian Docks, just off the Via Artis. The summons had come late, a runner to his hab, and the wan sun had long since set.

A murder. Perhaps more.

He had logged a missive with the verispex, via the dataveil, just in case. They were used to his demands by now. His eccentricities.

The first of the night’s snows had fallen earlier and Drask felt it crunching under his feet. Flurries of it still fell, caught in the microclimate winds of the southern streets, tumbling past the buzzing neon of signs, turning the night strange and fractal. There was beauty here, if you had a mind to see it. Or cared to. The city, Varangantua, was capable of many illusions. It could embrace you as a lover, till scorned, then cast you to the hounds.

This city eats men.

Alexius had always said that, when he was drinking. By the end that had been often, and so it had become the refrain of Drask’s training as a probator. He shivered, but not from the wind’s bite. Memory had a chill all its own.

He passed below the gutted-out windows of a crumbling hab-block, ducked behind an iron fence and found himself looking at a ruined expanse of waste ground. Something moved in the dark, and he almost went for his sidearm, but then the looming shadow inhaled and the diffuse light of a lho-stick flared, revealing the features and uniform of a sanctioner.

There were two of them. They had been turned away, waiting, and only faced him as he approached. Drask cursed. ‘At ease,’ he growled. ‘Been enough bad decisions tonight already.’ He reached up and pinched the stick from between the smoker’s lips. He tilted it, and then took a long drag. The smoke was warm, fragrant, soothing. He blew a cloud of it and then dropped the stick to the ground, crushing it into the snow beneath his boot.

‘Those things are against regulations, you know,’ he said, idly, leaning in and squinting for their identification. There was no chance of catching their names in the low light, but it was the gesture that mattered. ‘Sanctioners…?’

‘Kallos,’ said one. A well-built man, his pale skin marking him as a local.

‘Jydha,’ his partner husked. She had been the smoker, looked to be mid-district. A transfer maybe. Her eyes were wide, too surprised to form any response beyond her name. Her fingers were balled into fists of black leather. That made him smile, petty though it was.

‘Good. Now we’re all friends, and no one has to report anyone.’ He gave a dry chuckle. ‘Probator Drask.’ He fumbled his holo-seal out and then looked around. The death’s head and crowned serpent glimmered in the twilight, casting its own soft glow. ‘I take it you’re guarding my scene?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Kallos was quick off the mark, his words running together into a hurried yessah. ‘Over here, sir.’ He reached to his belt and produced a stab-light. It engaged with a click, flooding the flat, white expanse with brilliant illumination. Rocks and debris from nearby collapses jutted from the ground, all stark shadows and sharp edges. Like bones from flesh. He bit back the morbid thought and gestured to Kallos, clicking his fingers until the man grudgingly gave up the light.

Drask pushed ahead. He could already hear the beginnings of a whispered conversation. Jydha’s rasp and Kallos’ urgent, almost childlike explanation.

‘Is that–’

‘It is, you’ve heard–’

‘Always the strange ones–’

He ignored it. That sort of thing had dogged his steps so long that it could no longer find purchase. That he was a broken man, bound to cases painfully close to esoterica. That he was the sum of his mentor’s mistakes. He had heard much worse. To his face as often as behind his back. He raised a hand and wiped his mouth, breath fogging in the bitter night air. Throne, but he needed another drink. It was too late in the day for this.

He kept his eyes low, and his stab-light steady, not wanting to stumble on anything that could be mistaken for evidence. It did not quite prepare him for the moment he found the first signs of the horror.

There was blood on the snow.

Not enough for the murder to have been committed here, he noted, but enough to have made its crimson patterns, its disturbing constellations. Like an artist’s leavings, flicked from the brush. Not even the true expression of a craft, just an after-thought.

And this killer was no artist.

Whoever had done this was a butcher. Drask leant in, fascinated and repulsed all at once. The victim had been nailed against the railings at the edge of the waste ground, just out of sight of the street. The light picked out where the long slivers of metal had pierced the wrists, in a brutal confluence of flesh and bone and iron. The face, what was left of it, was twisted in an animal rictus of pain. The eyes… gone. Long, ragged gouges reached down the chin, rimed with old blood.

Drask had seen death many times in the line of duty: gangers blowing holes in one another, narco-deals gone awry, the aftermath of serial murders. But this was an order above that. The victim had been mauled, with an almost bestial frenzy. The cuts and stab wounds were far too inconstant to be an animal though, showing utterly no uniformity save their savagery.

A single cut across the neck. Two deep slashes in the chest. Another three across the belly. Beyond that it blended together into a tapestry of violence: reckless, wanton and thorough.

‘I…’ Drask took a deep breath, aware of the eyes at his back. ‘I’m going to need you to summon the verispex.’

In the end Bastion-P had only been able to spare one adept, but she was enough given the circumstances. Verispex were not strictly field agents, but the kinds of cases that got passed to Drask demanded a certain attention. He had contacts, a precious few left force-side, and that gave him a degree of professional elasticity.

He stood by the sanctioners and watched the woman, Oliar, work. It was a study in contrasts, considering her. She worked diligently, where his focus had long since lapsed. She had light-coloured hair, sparsely wound around the cortical braids sutured into her skull, where he was ruddy and dark. She was younger, though the implants stole from that, and more attentive, and oddly she did not look at him with the stolid judgement that so many others did. Give it time, he thought, ungenerously.

‘We thought it looked…’ Kallos interjected, haltingly. ‘Maybe, ritual?’

‘Ritual?’ Drask laughed. ‘I wouldn’t throw that word around, son. Draws the wrong kind of attention. If this was anything like that, it’d have been bumped up the chain.’ He pointed skywards. ‘And things of that nature tend to disappear down avenues we should not think of.’

‘Well…’ Kallos trailed off, ‘it was that or the Silver Coin.’

‘If that were the case, I wouldn’t be anywhere near it. For better men than me.’ Drask winced as he spoke: the memory of the Silver Coin Killer’s crimes was not one he willingly wished to revisit. His hand slipped into one of the pockets of his coat, closing around the familiar weight of the notebook. Like a talisman.

Oliar cleared her throat, and he looked to her before he patted Kallos on the shoulder and headed over to the corpse. ‘Anything of interest?’

‘You could say that.’ She looked up at him, eyes long ago replaced by flickering cybernetics, the steel-rimmed lenses folding back as they decreased their magnification and retracted into her sockets. Her grey robes shifted as she moved, as though she were seeking the optimal efficiency of motion. ‘Most of the damage appears to be post-mortem, done with some sort of large blade – though I suppose it could have been a form of spike, or pick. The wounds will have to be analysed further to tell me more.’ She rubbed her gloved hands together, then stood and stretched. ‘There’s some discolouration throughout the tissue, potentially environmental. Also, I found traces of an unidentified mineral particulate under his nails, and a dusting of it in some of the cuts.’

‘I take it we won’t know more until you get the body back to the mortuarium?’

‘Unlikely.’ She was already peeling off the plastek gloves. She held out her hand. ‘I’m not sure we were properly introduced, sir. Verispex Adept Oliar.’

‘Quillon Drask.’ He took her hand firmly. ‘Probator.’ She tilted her head slightly at that. Her face did not crease with suspicion or doubt and fear – as many others did. Instead she simply inclined her head, and smiled.

‘A pleasure, probator,’ she said, and then her eyes widened and she reached down to pull something from the case before her. She took hold of the gleaming orb of a servo-skull, and it fluttered into the air – shuddering on its anti-grav plume. There was a roll of parchment hanging from the aperture where once its lower jaw had sat, and the upper teeth were gone, replaced by a nest of fine quills. ‘I also found this. I sourced the image of a tattoo from the body. Damaged but retrievable.’ She yanked the parchment free, looked at it, and handed it to him.

A syringe, needle prominent and sharp, but the glass vessel was shaped into a stylised blade-edged hourglass.

‘Something worth following up, certainly.’ He looked back at the two waiting sanctioners. ‘There was nothing in the mouth, was there?’

‘The mouth? Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing under the tongue, in so far as there is any left. Potentially bitten off.’ She tilted her head again, catching herself before she rambled. ‘You’re not thinking it’s the Silver Coin, are you? Completely different modus operandi.’

‘I know.’ He held up his hands, ‘I know. It’s just the sanctioners being skittish.’ He laughed, unconvincingly. ‘I’ll start chasing down contacts, see what I can drum up. You can arrange for the transfer of the body, and let me know if anything else turns up?’ Oliar nodded. ‘Excellent.’ He turned on his heel and strode past Kallos and Jydha, barely slowing as he gave them one last order.

‘Make sure she’s not disturbed, and everyone gets back in one piece, yes? You’re doing the Throne’s work.’

As soon as he was out of sight he slipped his hand into his coat and pulled out the flask, raising it eagerly to his lips. The air clouded with the sudden heat of his breath and the amasec, and he felt the warmth spread through him with a bloom of slow clarity. He replaced the flask, let his fingers flex, and then forged on into the city’s streets. The first shifts were beginning to wake and to change, and the main thoroughfares were more crowded than before. The first peals of bells, whistles and sirens echoed out across the docks. Merchant freighters were disgorging their crews, ice-breaker prows gleaming cold, even as replacement sailors flooded towards them. Workers slunk from their factorums, eyes downcast, faces ashen.

Drask pushed on, shouldering past the drudging multitudes, not caring as angry shouts dogged his progress. The numbing heat of the alcohol helped. He reached up and shook snow from his hair, then detoured down a side street. The main roads were bustling, but the alleyways that wound towards the Glacis Commercia were clearer. Preachers screamed their imprecations from makeshift pulpits, and penitents whipped themselves raw under their rabid eye. Men hawked servitors, of good and honest provenance, even as the cyborgs hung slack and silent like stringless marionettes. The smell of fresh meat drifted from ice-covered troughs of grox and other delicacies. There were things that were apparently fish held in murky tanks, or laid out in their own trays – gawping and dull-eyed. The stink of brine and blood made his nausea surge and he bit back bile as he crossed through the market square, ducking down another alley.

The smell followed him, run-off dribbling down the gutters as he cast his eyes up, hunting signs both obvious and subtle. The hot sodium yellow of the lumes rendered everything in stark contrasts, and he slunk into the shadows beneath a doorway, knocking briskly.

There was a shouted invitation from within, and he opened the door. He shook snow and slush from his clothing as he entered, looking into the subdued light of the studio like a man peering into the underworld. There was a low buzzing, the subtle odour of blood and the tang of cauterised flesh.

‘Who is it?’ The voice came from the centre of the adjoining room, and Drask advanced on it. The chamber was filled with rows of tables, and the man who had spoken stood amidst them. A servitor, its hands replaced by whirring needles, was working on the back of his shoulder. They dipped and bit at the skin, too fast to truly follow, and ink blossomed in his flesh. Whorled patterns of black and red, sharp and suggestive.

‘Probator Drask,’ he said, keeping his voice level. It was warmer here, setting him more at ease. ‘How’s business, Barnabas?’

Barnabas Rawl looked at him and smiled, grimly. ‘You know me, Quillon. Keeping out of trouble.’ The inksmith winced as the servitor’s attention shifted along the bone. ‘How can I help the enquiries of the enforcers? Or are you finally here to have some work done?’

‘Need your eye on this.’ He pulled the folded drawing from his pocket and handed it to Barnabas. The man leant forward, scratched at his chin. He looked bemused.

‘Surprised someone in your profession’s never seen an hourglass of dust before.’

‘An hourglass of dust?’

‘Old gangland art amongst the rejuve dealers. Knew a few Vidora who had nice ornate ones, back in the day, before all their trouble. Speaks to the lifeseller merchant types – one hand giveth, the other taketh. The top half of the glass holds life, the bottom holds death. You sometimes see each grain in the bottom as a little skull, if the artist’s any good, at least.’ He looked at it again and chuckled. ‘This one isn’t, I would say. The overly sharp edges? An almost childish show of force. Crude imagery, crude ink.’ He handed it back and shrugged. ‘Couldn’t tell you who did it, probably wouldn’t want the credit, anyway. Bad work, as I say.’

There was bustle off to one side of the chamber. A door opened and other clients and inksmiths filed out, under the watchful eyes of security. Drask’s eye followed them as they left, past the alcoves where dormant servitors waited alongside vats of florid ink.

‘Thanks, Barnabas. I appreciate it.’ He tucked the paper back into his pocket. ‘Soon as I’m able, I’ll go look up some of the livelier rejuve merchants.’ He stretched. ‘Long night, and it’s only just begun.’

‘Or ended, depending on your viewpoint.’ Barnabas shook his head. ‘I lose track of time down here, in the shadows – what’s your excuse?’

Drask laughed without pity, and headed out the door, calling over his shoulder as he went. ‘Guess I’m just too damn busy.’

He took the mag-trans home, an aged and rattling construction which always felt one jolt away from collapse. It wound through the body of the city like an artery, branching and dividing to service the monumental needs of the ever-growing populace and their urban sprawl. He drummed his fingers against cold, grimy synthleather, and stared absently out of the smeared windows. He could see the spires in the distance: not quite a hive, not yet, merely more of mankind’s perpetual grasping expansion upwards.

It was routine, by this point. No matter the route, it was the same slow march back to a cold hearth, and an empty bed that saw less and less use. Most nights he woke in his chair, one glass or another tipped over, and the dreams ever at his heels.

Ever since the killings had started again, three months ago.

The Silver Coin cast a long shadow, one that seemed to have swallowed Drask’s career entirely. The way it had swallowed his mentor’s. Alexius Voight had been a seasoned veteran while Drask was climbing the ranks, a man with an enviable arrest record and one of the keenest minds he had ever encountered. Thirty years on, that had not changed. Drask could have shone under his tutelage.

But Alexius had been consumed by the Silver Coin Killer. The murderer had danced across the city, killing young and able labourers, leaving a silver coin under every tongue. People spoke of ‘the Tithe’, but to them he was always the Silver Coin. Day and night the failure to hunt him down had worn upon Alexius, until he had been dismissed outright. Sequestered away in some low-hive madhouse perhaps, to rot amidst lesser men and broken minds. By then the murders had stopped, but now… now they had returned, or there was a simulacrum, like a spectre of the hated past. Task forces dashed this way and that, but to no avail. And none of them wanted Drask, or the memory of Alexius, dogging their trail. They wanted to work on. Without insight, without spectre or shadow hanging over them.

He shook his head. ‘Ritual. Of all the things to call me out for. Rookies will be the death of me.’

He heaved himself up and off the seat, staggering with the motion of the railcar as it juddered to a stop. He disembarked and walked the cold, lonely stretch of road to his hab-block. Up three flights of rickety iron steps, until he came to the worn brown door which marked his hab. He fumbled for his keys, and then struggled to unlock it in the dim and cloying light of the stairwell. It finally opened, and the stale reek of alcohol and neglect seeped out to welcome him home.

He sank into his chair, so tired he could barely stand, raised his hands to his eyes, and pressed until there was only darkness and pain. He reached across to the heavy pile of documents, picts and reports, and began to read. It always came back to the case. Like a stone around his neck, dragging him under.

He must have drifted off. He dreamed again.

Alexius stared at him with weeping eyes from behind the bars of some nameless gibbet. He opened his mouth to speak, to call out for help maybe, but all that slipped from it was blood and tarnished silver coins.

He awoke with a start, jerking up in his chair, eyes wide and breathing laboured. He could already taste acid in the back of his throat as he struggled to suppress the urge to vomit. Sometimes he wasn’t sure whether it was too much drinking or not enough that brought on this weakness.

He rose shakily, steadying himself against the wall, fingers digging into the flaking plaster. Increasingly this place was more pauper’s grave than home.

This city eats men.

The memory again, the voice of a ghost. He shook it off and walked to the small ablutionary chamber in the next room, splashing his face with cold water and shaking himself. He brought his hands up over his face and smoothed them through his greying hair, willing himself together.

‘Come on,’ he muttered. ‘You can do this.’

He pushed back from the chill ceramic and headed for the door. He glanced up at the chrono hanging from the wall as he passed. Barely an hour of respite. The day was still young.

Drask went back out into the cold of the stairwell, down and out into the morning sleet. He hugged his arms around his body, even as the cold wetness sluiced down his coat. He rubbed his shoulders gingerly. Drask knew where he had to go, where the local branch of rejuve peddlers made their lairs. A short walk, all things considered. He reached into his coat and pulled out a flask, taking a quick nip to dispel the pervasive cold. His grubby boots glimmered with a contradictory cleanliness as he kicked his way through the slushy muck that rimed the pavements. Alone, he pressed on through the fug and gloom of the early morning.

The hab-blocks leered over him, stooping as though in complementary drunkenness, catching him in their shadow. Slowly they faded, the landscape changing in a gradual landslide of old industrial concerns and abandoned warehouses. Many had been repurposed or occupied, either by desolate souls hiding from the elements, or less savoury enterprises that had failed to find purchase in the heaving and corrupt commercias of the Dredge.

Rejuve dealers always made Drask’s skin crawl. He understood mundane vices; he had many of his own. He could comprehend how a human might debase themselves for pleasures, narcotics, power, wealth. He could accept that there were opportunists who might provide them. But to hold youth, life itself, over someone else? That took a special degree of callousness. He almost could not put it into words.

He stepped past the shadowed doorway and flickering crimson light of an underground brothel, his eyes fixed ahead of him. The next warehouse seemed nondescript, bearing the sign of a faded medicae supply depot. Two muscular thugs, not far off the size of ogryns, glared down at him. They were mountains of leather and grafted muscle, and one eagerly slapped a meaty fist into the opposing palm.

‘What you want?’ he glowered, the words slurred. Drask held up his hands, trying for a gesture of peaceful harmlessness.

‘Just to talk. Got a business proposition for your bosses. Nothing more, nothing less. No funny business.’

‘No funny business?’ The muscle blinked.

‘None at all. In fact, it might be very profitable business.’ Drask reached into a pocket, produced a handful of slate. ‘You see? Money. You get money, I get money. Money all round.’

His partner turned and went inside, while the speaker glared at Drask. The moments bled out, like he was probably going to, when there was a muffled banging at the door. The muscle pulled it open, and gestured for Drask to enter. ‘No funny business,’ he repeated dumbly, even as he snatched the currency from Drask’s grip.

The interior was sparse, evincing an atmosphere of medical detachment. Gurneys and tables sat to one side, not in use. Drask thought of Barnabas’ studio, though the procedures here were an order more invasive. Needles sat in gleaming rows along one trolley, and he was keenly aware that they were long and sharp enough to penetrate bone.

‘What do you want?’ The voice drifted from somewhere ahead of him and his attention snapped to it with sudden focus, the implements forgotten. The woman who spoke was pale, her face framed with dark hair. She seemed overly smooth, like a doll or a very precise waxwork. There was an uncanniness to her. It felt to him that she was either not quite real enough, or on some level too real. She moved from one medicae table to another, hefting canisters of some dark fluid. She barely looked at him as she worked, and he was glad to be spared the chill of her attention. ‘What do you want?’ she asked again. ‘And who are you?’

‘I’m Drask.’ He bowed his head gently. ‘And you are?’

‘Nikola.’ Her lips barely twitched, as though seeking a smile. ‘That will suffice for the moment.’ She inclined her head. ‘You have the look of a probator about you. Have you heard the old joke? That an officer of the Lex is not obliged to tell you that they are such, but that they usually lead with it anyway?’ Her laughter was strange, older than it ought to be.

‘I–’ He paused, knowing it would be fruitless to deny it. ‘I am. Yes.’ She clicked her tongue, mockingly scolding. She shook her head.

‘That’s a silly thing to admit to.’ She leant forward, folding her hands together as though assessing him. ‘Either you’re here to do us an injury, in which case you have come very ill-prepared, or you’re here to seek a blessing.’ Her eyes were bright but her lips remained pursed, unable or unwilling to echo the mirth in her voice. ‘But you don’t seem old or down enough on your luck to require a gift of life.’

‘I’ve come looking for answers. I have no intention of–’

‘You have no ability to bring us to heel,’ she interrupted, her words plain and unvarnished. ‘We have friends in high places, and you? You have no friends, and a bad reputation.’

‘You know me?’

‘It’s our business to know, Quillon Drask. Now ask your question.’

He fumbled in his pocket, and drew out the image of the tattoo. ‘I need to know if you know who wore this art – a rough but distinct hourglass of dust.’ He walked across the pristine smoothness of the floor, his boots leaving trails on the white tile. She held out her hand and took it, regarded it for a second, and then snorted.

‘This is what you ask for? The body art of a charlatan?’

‘You know him then?’

‘Oh yes, we know him.’ Those old eyes glittered with amusement. ‘Ephraim was not of our coterie, though he moved in similar circles. A con artist and hustler. He stole much business from under us, and to add insult to injury he did most shoddy work. I would not be surprised if a competitor took a stubber to his head, or a blade to his heart.’ She leant forward, suddenly predatory – a carnodon assessing its prey. ‘Is that so?’

‘A little more than a professional disagreement, I think. He was…’ Drask trailed off. ‘It was personal.’ His hands flexed absently. ‘Has there been anything odd recently? Anyone who stood out?’

‘Hmm.’ Nikola tilted her head and closed her eyes, as though communing with something he could not see. Like some Throne-damned mystic. Drask wasn’t sure whether to make the sign of the aquila or reach for his gun. He was about to speak when she held her hand up again. There was a comms rig he could not see, or some other explanation. This was pantomime. Nothing else. ‘There was someone. A priority case. He had means, and money. He was ill. Ailing. In a very bad way. He wanted our help. Said another had played him false.’ She smiled her shallow smile again. ‘Do you know what bad practice does in this business? It can fracture a man’s mind, and then core out his flesh. They fall apart, piece by piece.’ She shook her head. ‘I have done my due diligence, and there are none here who have erred. We told this ailing man to come back when he had the money to pay us true, but nothing since.’

‘Thank you, but that doesn’t really help me.’ She looked at him, impassively, her eyes seeming deader than before. ‘Who was the client? Was he known to you? Could you describe him?’

‘We may hand you the name of our enemies, but we are not in the habit of betraying clients, potential or otherwise.’ She clasped her hands. ‘Your business here is concluded, Probator Drask.’ He almost walked straight into the guards as he staggered back, turning suddenly at their presence. Both pairs of eyes regarded him with hostile amusement.

‘Please. Just a name.’ Behind him, Nikola began to click her tongue.

‘You cannot leave without a parting gift, probator. You have earned that much, at the least.’ Her voice was steady, hollow, as though all her patience had bled away to a single nadir of empty resignation. ‘We cannot be seen to be holding the hand of the law, rather than its leash.’ He did not turn to see her nod. He did not have to.

The fists that began to rain down upon him were answer enough.

He regained consciousness with a heaving gasp, gulping for air. He had been lying on his side, with gutter water lapping at his mouth. He spat, and tried to move. Pain scissored through his ribs and cascaded down the side of his face. He could already feel the bruises blossoming, cuts seeping blood. One eye was swollen shut, and he winced as he reached up to touch it. ‘Throne…’ he groaned, as he pushed himself to his feet, tottering unsteadily.

He staggered the streets in a daze, his head pounding so hard that he had to pause and vomit. He braced himself against the rockcrete wall of a commercia, slick with condensation, and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He tried to make sense of time, to figure out how long he had been out. The daylight had reached its midday zenith. It was weak, sickly light, barely filtered through the industrial smog above, but it was there. Live here long enough and you grew attuned to the city’s little gestures and nuances. He had work to do.

He stumbled past crowds who studiously ignored his condition, their eyes sliding off him as he weaved from side to side. One of them waved a smoking censer at him, as though the incense might drive away his stink and his madness. They might have thought him drunk and seething from the previous night’s fight, or they might have thought him a victim of thieves or gangs. Whatever they thought, it was none of their concern. They clung to their aquilas, or drew down the hoods of their robes. They ignored him.

‘This city,’ he laughed – at the irony, at the reality – ‘this city eats men.’

When he finally arrived at the solid iron doors of Bastion-P he had regained some of his composure. He looked like death – rough and bruised, scraped and pale – but that was a common enough occurrence. He shook himself as he pushed open the doors, and edged into the bustle of the precinct.

Few paid him any attention. Those who did nodded uncertainly, as though some taint might rub off on them. He shouldered past sanctioners as they hefted prisoners from booking to cells, and almost knocked over a scribe laden with documents. He raised a hand apologetically and moved around the central island of activity.

There was the clatter of fingers on keys and the scratching of quills as statements were taken and transcribed. Cogitators buzzed and clicked with a reassuring repetition. Servo-skulls hovered from alcove to alcove with the flicker of passive scanners, or carried missives from one department to another. There was a bark as the vox-horns announced deployment schedules, shift patterns, and somewhere the frantic tocsins of high alerts sounded. Despite the noise he always felt a peace here: amongst the workings of justice, if not the people who administered it. He slowly made his way through the throng, and down to the mortuarium levels.

The air was chill, filtered, devoid of the claustrophobic bustle above. Drask felt as if he were entering another world, though one that was chillingly familiar given his day so far.

If I never see another mortuarium again, it’ll be too soon. He bit back the thought like the gallows humour it was. Necessity, as in all things. The necropsy would be concluded by now, or near enough. He had to be here; he had to see this. He had to know. Some of it had to be worth it.

Drask could hear the sound of writing as he entered, and met Oliar’s eyes as she looked up. She smiled, curtly. ‘Well.’ She shook her head a little. ‘You look as though you’ve been through the wars.’ There was concern there, mixed with curiosity. He wasn’t sure whether she pitied him, or wanted to see how he worked. Was his sense of friendship so atrophied that he no longer recognised the overtures?

‘You could say that.’

‘I was going to send a runner to your hab. The necropsy is soon to conclude.’ She put down her paper and quill, and folded her hands. ‘You ought to tidy yourself up. There is still time.’

‘Won’t be necessary,’ he said, laughing dryly. ‘I think we’ve less time than you assumed.’ He nodded to the door to the main mortuarium, where an older woman was already bustling out. Her greyed brow furrowed as she regarded Drask, her head slowly beginning to shake, as though to say another fine mess you’ve got yourself into. Medicae-Primus Amelya Visarth sighed.

‘Do I even want to know what brings you here looking like that?’

‘Probably not.’

‘Of course it’s you, of all people, it would have to be you.’ She shook her head again.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Visarth said nothing. She simply held up the veriquary casket.

Inside, almost mockingly, glimmered a silver coin.

He stared at it for a long time, running his hands over the surface of the casket. His fingers almost left indents in the surface, wearing at it. It was such a simple thing. A silver coin, its surface engraved on one side with a hooded figure, its eyes hidden in shadow. On the other were the spread wings of an eagle, though not the refined image of a true Imperial aquila. He stared for so long that he barely heard Visarth or Oliar as they spoke. Their words drifted, indistinct.

‘Drask? Probator.’

His head snapped round, his fingers knotted against the coin. He was aware of the whiteness of his knuckles.

‘I’m here. Sorry. Go on.’

‘We found it.’ Visarth sighed as she spoke. She loomed as she did so, peering down at him with her pale green flesh eye, and one sharp blue augmetic. It twitched and flickered, until she reached up and tapped it with her steel-tipped fingers. ‘We found it in the victim’s stomach. It appears to have been forced down, post-mortem. The same as previous killings. A silver replica of an old First Landing obyl. Obsolete Founding Family currency.’ Drask nodded and she continued. ‘Wounds were made by, as Adept Oliar supposed, a mining implement. At best comparison, it is a Kortoz-pattern delving spike. Used for precise hand-mining in deep crust environs. This would explain the mineral deposit, which is still in analysis by the way. Taking its time.’

‘You’re sure it’s some sort of tool?’ Drask felt the words leave his lips almost too quickly, a rush, a babble. ‘The Silver Coin, he uses a knife. He’s very particular. It’s the same knife, every time – the same precise cuts, not this animal savagery.’

‘Steady.’ It was Oliar who spoke now. ‘Drask, we know it does not quite match up, but it is worth considering. It could have been done for effect, or to make us think it’s just another one of the serials. There’s any number of explanations for this, when none of the other details tally with the ongoing investigation.’

‘She’s right,’ Visarth said, shaking her head. ‘I’ve been here a long time. I remember you coming up the ranks, and you had promise then. You’ve lived your whole life in Alexius’ shadow. Don’t let it swallow you whole. He was a good man, one of the finest we ever had here, but his weakness was his fixation. His obsession, and if you don’t catch it early, then it will be your weakness as well. Throne knows it’s done enough damage already.’

‘I know!’ he snapped, and they flinched back from the sudden rage. He sagged, running one hand through his hair. He let go of the coin. ‘I know. Just–’ He sighed, dejectedly. ‘What else is there?’

‘We did an expedited blood and muscle assay on the body when we got it in,’ Oliar said, her scientific manner suddenly eager. Drask could smell unguents and the scent of machine oils from whatever techno-eldritch process such an assay involved. ‘What we’ve seen tallies with your theory on illegal rejuve. The victim was in a bad way – the chemicals he was using were causing a gradual genetic disintegration, hence the discolouration in the body. Throne only knows what it would do to any of his “patients”.’

It can fracture a man’s mind, and then core out his flesh. They fall apart, piece by piece. Nikola’s toxic wisdom bloomed again in his mind. He swallowed hard.

‘Evil born of opportunism. No wonder someone took a weapon to him. But why the subterfuge? Why the coin? Either it’s someone pretending to be the Silver Coin, or it’s the Silver Coin killing against their nature.’

‘Seems straightforward,’ Oliar said. ‘Misdirection. Trying to get a body lost in the shuffle, drown us in evidence that ties this victim to the most infamous murderer we’ve had in the last three months.’ She frowned as soon as she mentioned the date.

‘Three months,’ Visarth echoed. ‘That’s an odd one.’

‘What is?’ Drask asked.

‘Just…’ She looked to Oliar again. ‘Tentatively, the victim was killed earlier than the previous night, and was preserved. Frozen. This is corroborated by deep tissue probes, necrosis sequencing and alchymical analysis.’

‘So? It’s Polaris-Nul, the environmental conditions alone would have seen to that.’

‘Again…’ Visarth sighed. ‘Entirely speculative, but there’s deterioration that when mapped against the approximate degree of preservation would suggest…’

‘Suggest what?’ Drask leant in, curious now.

‘That this man was killed at least three months ago.’

‘Before the Silver Coin killings started up again,’ he finished for her. ‘He was killed first, before anyone knew there was a killer. Before there was even the rumour of this simulacrum.’

‘Exactly.’

He sat back in his seat, as though the wind had been knocked out of him. The implications felt like a body blow. He was still struggling to process it, when the first clattering footsteps echoed above. Visarth stormed out and up the stairs, and he could hear her distant shouting as she enquired as to the commotion.

When she came back down, she was quiet. Subdued. Worry ruled her face, and she could barely meet Drask’s eye.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘There’s been another one,’ she stated, numbly.

He almost rushed out of the precinct, but Visarth convinced him to wait and let her have a look at his wounds. He sat through her poking, prodding and disinfecting, wincing as she cleaned out the cuts on his face. Swiftly, efficiently, completely without emotion.

When she was done, he hurried out into the cold and wet. The weather never wavered from its incessant malice, the steady erosion of the iron and brickwork as sure as the decay of this world. This city. This society.

By the standards of the wider Imperium, Alecto was a world at peace, and Varangantua was a standard example of a hive sprawl. Crime though, especially aberrant crime, was a form of warfare all its own. The bulwarks of honest Imperial society would crumble, as surely as the stone was worn away by sleet and rain. Cities like Varangantua were cesspits, overflowing with filth and corruption. Too much city, not enough enforcers. All you could do was hold the line, that line of cold steel between the order of the Lex and the criminal rot, even as the line wore away more every day.

Overhead, the mag-rails fizzed and spat in the damp, the tracks providing meagre shelter as Drask hurried through the bustling streets. He barrelled into someone, almost knocking the man over as he rushed headlong through the crowd. He was manic, even his burning need for a drink stifled beneath the intensity of his obsession.

Was this how Alexius felt? Is this what drove him mad?

He rounded the corner, ducked down an alley as he tried to remember the directions Visarth had sourced from the crime report, and almost ran straight into a sanctioner. There was a crackle of a shock maul activating, even as Drask reached for his holo-seal.

‘Leave him!’ A voice cut through the bustle and the guard turned, deactivating the maul as he did so. ‘He might be a reprobate but he’s a known reprobate.’ Senior Probator Marita Konstantus pushed past the sanctioners securing the scene, looking down at Drask as she drew her own coat tight about her. They were about the same age, products of different schools of thought and yoked to different masters, but neither had forgotten the other. Her star was ascendant, where his had long since lost its spark.

‘Marita,’ he offered, tersely. ‘Didn’t know this was your racket.’

‘They could fill datastacks with what you don’t know, Quillon.’ She bared her teeth in a grin. ‘Especially when it concerns these simulacrum cases.’

‘Simulacrum?’ He almost laughed. ‘You’re so sure?’

‘Balance of probabilities, isn’t it?’ She shrugged. ‘Either it’s a simulacrum, borrowed glory all around, or the original killer has come back and started killing again while barely breaking his stride. Thirty years is a long time, Drask. A long time to be away, and a long debt of years to pay.’

‘So he was arrested, or left the city, or the planet.’

‘And now he’s back? You sound like the Old Man.’ She held up her hands at Drask’s glare. ‘I know, I know. He showed you the ropes, put you on the path such as it was. But following his footsteps? Solving his case? You’d have more luck fighting an ogryn.’ Drask shook his head at that.

‘I just wanted to see. That’s all,’ he said. Not a lie, he allowed himself, just not exactly the truth.

She looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head – not with disappointment but with wry indulgence.

‘All right.’ She gestured to the sanctioners and they parted. ‘But you were never here, you never saw anything, and you touch nothing. Even my patience isn’t limitless, Quillon.’

He nodded absently, mouthing platitudes he did not truly feel, as he crossed into the crime scene, and saw for himself.

By the standards of the previous murder, this was positively restrained. The body lay, as though in state. Pale, cold, unmoving. The lines in the corpse were delicate compared to the ruthless butchery inflicted on Ephraim. Drask looked down on it with pity: a man, somewhere in his mid-thirties perhaps, muscular build. All the signs of a life of labour. His eyes stared up, already filmy. Water had pooled there, and dappled across his face. A fleck of silver glimmered, caught in the man’s lips.

‘He’s getting sloppy,’ Konstantus remarked, gesturing at the protruding coin. ‘Usually underneath the tongue, tucked away like a dirty secret. This simulacrum though – mimicry lacks elegance.’ She snorted at her own humour. ‘The real killer must be turning in his grave, not that I feel for the bastard.’

‘Anything else out of place?’ Drask was drinking in every detail of the scene: the coin and its subtly wrong placement, the victim’s position, the cuts… ‘There’s something wrong with the cuts. He was always precise, surgical. We thought he was ex-medicae, or a meatworker, some sort of specialised training. But they’re ragged.’ Like Ephraim. He knelt, careful not to touch or dislodge anything. ‘It’s minute, but it’s there.’

‘How in the Emperor’s name would you even know that?’ Konstantus breathed the question with a low gust of fear.

‘That’s what happens when you study crime scene images nightly, for years.’ And you did, every night, with his dry whisper ever at your ear.

‘Look, boy. The monster is in there, somewhere in the details. In every picture and statement. He is in there.’

He shook himself free of the phantom’s grip. For a moment it seemed as though the body had aged, twisted into the wizened, grinning corpse of Alexius. He rose, gulping heavily. He could feel the tightness in his throat, the churning in his stomach. But he would not shame himself in front of her.

‘Get out of here, Drask.’ He saw Konstantus shiver despite her coat. ‘Sometimes I think you have the reek of the psyker about you, like one of those muzzled bloodhound mutants they drag out for the weird stuff.’

‘A pleasure to see you too, Marita.’ He looked down again. The victim stared back at him, their cloudy eyes like tarnished silver in the alleyway’s dim light. He turned from them, and did not look back.

He stood before the door, gathering his nerve. It took a lot for any man to face his past, to stare down the ghosts that had stalked his every move since Alexius had gone.

He had walked back to the Bastion in silence, avoiding the sanctioners on the street. Avoiding the thrumming crowds of humanity. He had slipped through a side entrance and taken the winding iron stairs down into the bowels of the building, deeper even than the insulated levels of the mortuarium. The chill was just as acute here, temperature controlled to protect a resource just as precious as bodies.

ARCHIVIUM, the simple brass sign proclaimed with an understated grandeur.

He pushed open the door, felt the rush of air as pressure stabilised, and stepped inside. It was silent, save for the shuffling of servitors. The cyborgs trundled here and there, documents piled high on the trays that had replaced their arms. They swivelled in unison, picking up and dropping off, shifting great mountains of information in patterns that were known only to their stunted, programmed minds.

He heard a cough and turned, facing a cubicle set into the wall to his right. A clerk in pale grey robes regarded him with placid boredom from behind the wires of a data isolation cage. At least he thought it was boredom. The glimmering crimson bionics made it hard to tell.

’Rank and request?’ the clerk asked, with a tone of complete resignation.

‘Probator Quillon Drask, grade secundus. Authorisation sigma-four-nine-six. I’ve come to look at any files pertaining to the original Silver Coin murders.’

‘Ah.’ The man gave him a quizzical look, as though he should obviously know better. ‘Those files, I can assure you, have already been requisitioned by Senior Probator Konstantus.’

‘Of course.’ He shook his head. ‘Of course.’ What wouldn’t she take? What’s too good for the senior probator and her neat little simulacrum case? ‘Perhaps you can help me with another matter. I would like to see any supplementary case notes, as reported by Senior Probator Alexius Voight.’

The man looked away and typed into the cogitator bolted to its station. The click-clack of the keys echoed through the empty stacks as the clerk’s augmetic fingers moved in a blur of motion. The servitors did not notice, or look up. Drask felt the weight of the place pressing down on him. History. Justice. Judgement. It was no wonder the archivium was nestled in the foundations. Had it been on any of the higher levels, it would have crushed them beneath the pressure of its very substance.

Being here, doing this; to him it felt more than right. It felt righteous.

‘Yes. Those files are still in situ. We can retrieve them for you presently, probator. Shall I have them brought to your desk, or would–’

‘The scriptorium here is fine,’ he said eagerly, perhaps too eagerly. The man looked at him, then gestured to a door across the way. As he turned, Drask could see the cabling that dangled from the back of his neck, winding its way into the fabric of an archive that he did not simply serve, but was also a part of. He folded his silvered hands, watching as Drask crossed into the other room, and closed the door. There was the renewed clatter of keys, and from somewhere in the stacks came a monotone muffled ‘compliance’, as one of the servitors set about finding the files.

Drask sat in the scriptorium, drumming his fingers against his knees. It was cold, but he did not care. He closed his eyes and reached into his coat. His fingers found the book again, and he drew it out. It was old, worn and battered from repeated, almost relentless use. It was more precious to him than any number of flasks, or any vintage of liquor. The core. The crux. His last tangible link to a dead and forgotten mentor, a man who had been more of a father to him than the dourly cynical dockworker who had grudgingly raised him.

Alexius’ notes had always seemed arcane to him, grimoires of secret observation and detective’s ken. The man had been miserly with them, preferring to impart his knowledge by word and action than in dry spidery script. Drask had found it waiting for him on his desk, the last day anyone had seen Alexius.

He opened it, tracing a finger along his mentor’s lost words and thoughts. It was as though he were here, living through the pages, his spirit carried through the very text. Drask read as the servitor trudged in and out, slowly adding to the growing pile of documents beside him. They rose like a rampart, enclosing him, locking him into the patterns of the past. All because you were too vain to see, Marita. All because you care so much about appearances. You ignore this wealth.

He began to sort through them, one-handed. He took the files, one by one with his left hand, and laid them out as he held the book open with his right. He looked from one to the other, cross-referencing names and observations.

There was Jonah Murian, who had been a scribe of little note. Present in the area of the murders. Nothing previous beyond low-level malfeasance. Opportunity had been plentiful, but there was never enough to convince Alexius of his true guilt. He had killed himself, in all likelihood due to their scrutiny, and the murders had continued. Such a death had weighed on them all. The pages were streaked with ink, with great sweeping devastation as Alexius had vented his frustration, rage and guilt. They had spent months on Murian, and it had all been for naught.

Sargas Hylath had had so much potential. He remembered Alexius’ eager remonstrations. ‘Guilty,’ he had said. ‘As sure as the stars, boy. Guilty. Gilded types like him know no law, understand no justice.’ There were reams of paper, dozens of files and mentions in the book. He had been young, brash and wealthy. His family dealt in mining concerns, tapping seams of adamantine out in the eastern wastes. They had enough clout to make any accusations disappear. Where the investigations had destroyed a man like Murian, they had been an inconvenience to Hylath. Alexius had tried his best to continue, but it had failed. Thwarted from above.

By the time Hylath’s father had recalled him out to their estates beyond the city, he was already out of reach. A moat of coin had separated them from their quarry, every bit as tainted and tarnished as the currency they pulled from the mouths of the dead.

He was worth looking into, but then there were so many leads. Drask put his head in his hands, and tried not to scream. Still too many leads. So much time, so many new cases, and still he did not know where to look. There had to be something.

No wonder the Old Man had gone mad.

He felt as though he had dozed, dreamlessly. Perhaps he merely thought he did, suspended between moments, caught in his own tortured refrain. He only moved his hands and allowed his eyes to open when he heard the clink of metal on metal.

When he looked up, Oliar was sitting across from him with a cup of recaff in her hands. She had placed another one in front of him, and he raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t used to casual kindness.

‘Thought you could use something to perk you up.’

‘Not my usual, but thanks.’ He picked up the cup and raised it to his lips. The heat was sharp and sudden, but welcome. ‘I keep looking at all this,’ he sighed. ‘I keep looking through all these suppositions and musings. Ravings, when you get down to it.’ He drummed his fingers against the desk, making the pile of documents shake. ‘I try to find the connections, to do right by him. It just feels like it isn’t enough. Like I’m letting him down. Like I’m failing.’

Oliar’s hands were tight around the cup, savouring the warmth. ‘Tell me about him,’ she said, her eye-lenses clicking as they focused. ‘Tell me what he meant to you. What you gained from him. What you owe him.’ He looked at her, as though doubting her motives. She shrugged, and her skull implants rattled with the gesture. ‘Sometimes it is only by unburdening ourselves that we can make progress.’

He picked up the book and slid a pict from the back of it. A much younger Drask and Voight stared back. There was just a hint of a smile on the older man’s lips. The whisper of pride. He remembered this being taken. A rare moment of peace, not long after he had been assigned to Alexius. Even tinged with sepia, the city seemed brighter. Even hopeful. Water glimmered faintly behind them, mercifully free from late-winter ice.

‘It’s hard to put into words.’ He took another sip and grimaced, before continuing. ‘Same as anything, really. He saw me, more than anyone else. My potential, the path I could take, whatever you want to call it.’ He stared past her, through her. ‘I had to watch him crumble, implode. Hollowed out by the one case he couldn’t solve. By the end he was jumping at shadows, convinced that the killer was dogging his every step. That it was personal.’

‘That can’t have been easy.’

‘It wasn’t,’ he snorted. ‘It’s like watching someone die in front of you. By degrees. Every single day you do what you can, and another facet slips away. Until eventually they’re gone. He didn’t die, as far as I’m aware. Just, gone. The city…’ He paused. ‘The city ate him.’

‘But you’re still here.’

‘Yes. I am,’ he said. ‘For what it’s worth.’

‘It’s worth something.’ Oliar tapped the pile with one outstretched finger. ‘You’re here. You’re doing the work. Whatever anyone else thinks, that’s worthy of admiration.’ She paused, hesitating. ‘He would be proud, I think.’

‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘Why are you here, anyway? Not just to check on me, I take it?’

‘We finally got the mineral analysis back. Had to run it past a magos geologis, as it turns out. Very few verispex mineralogists.’ She laughed at her own joke and then stopped when she noticed his quiet, even stare. ‘Turns out we had trouble identifying it because you rarely see it as a particulate. It’s adamantine. Locally sourced, if the machine-spirit’s auguries hold true.’

‘You said adamantine?’ Drask exploded into a flurry of activity, pulling files from the tower and thumbing open the book. He pulled a pict out and slammed it down in front of her. The man’s hair and eyes were dark, glowering up from the sepia of the image. There was a sneering, casual cruelty there, a surety of existence if not of purpose. This man’s own sense of superiority bled through, defining everything he was and everything he did.

‘Sargas Hylath,’ Drask declared. ‘Aristocratic heir to a minor mining dynasty. Holdings in the east that overlook their adamantine mines. Voight had him pegged as a major suspect for a good portion of the investigation, before politics got involved.’ He shook his head. ‘His father’s money made a lot of problems go away.’

Oliar looked at the pict and then back to Drask. ‘And this was from the time?’

‘It was.’

‘That means he would be…’ She scratched her chin. ‘In what? His sixties? Seventies? He couldn’t still be taking down younger, stronger working men. That’s half the justification for it being a simulacrum. Time.’

Time, running away from them. Slipping through their fingers like dust. Like dust through an hourglass.

His eyes widened.

‘But what if he wasn’t old?’

He burst into Konstantus’ office with such force and with such a rush of words that none of it made sense until she pounded her fist against the desk and jabbed a finger at the chair across from her. Drask’s chest heaved from the effort of climbing the flights of stairs from the archivium, his skin was redder than usual, and he collapsed into the chair with an exaggerated sigh.

‘I’ve solved our case,’ he said, mopping his brow with the back of one hand.

‘My case, you mean,’ she said, firmly. ‘We’re not working the same case, we’re not operating on the same level.’

‘Throne take your rank!’ he spat. ‘This isn’t the time for old grudges or departmental politics. I. Have solved. Our case. The same case.’

She looked at him for one long, drawn-out moment, and then sat down.

‘You have five minutes.’

‘Sargas Hylath–’

‘An exonerated former person-of-interest, now well past his killing prime–’

‘Sargas Hylath,’ he repeated. ‘A man passed over in the investigation because of his father’s connections, and bribery. A man with links to the mining conglomerates, with ample opportunity and the means to hunt down workers. To afford, or have stocks of, contraband obsolete currency.’ He stopped, catching his breath. ‘A man who could afford good rejuvenat, if he wished it.’

‘And has he had any?’

‘Not officially, but my victim? Illegal rejuve dealer by the name of Ephraim. Dead, with a silver obyl stuffed into his stomach. Killed before the new murders began. Killed to cover Sargas’ tracks. He can’t help himself. It’s an obsession. Has to play the showman, has to be in control. Even with the killing he tries to bury, he has to leave his mark.’

‘But why?’ she asked, leaning forward to rest her chin on her steepled fingers.

‘Why do any of them do anything? We’re not recruits any more, Marita. We’ve seen things. Evil, vile, unlawful things. Men who break and weep and hiss that it was never their fault – that the voices from the void made them do it, that the sickness in their blood drove them to it. It is a compulsion. A desire-as-disease.’

‘We’ve had no reports of anyone matching this description, young or old.’ She gestured to the pict. ‘Just random mutterings of mutant activity. The question remains, why now?’

Drask tapped his finger against a line on one of the files. ‘The father. Dead, not four months ago. Without the restraining bolt, Sargas would have the run of the business, and be back to his old tricks.’ He waited. Marita looked at him, tilting her head as she considered. She sighed.

‘There’s some good work here,’ she allowed, carefully. ‘It’ll need validation, but I think there’s enough for us to mount a confirmatory raid on these mine holdings. Is this his last known legal residence?’

‘It is.’

‘Excellent.’ She rose from her desk. ‘As the commanding officer of this investigation I trust you understand that any and all oversight is mine, and as a result so is any credit from a successful arrest?’

He scoffed. ‘I was never in this for the fame, Marita. I just want to make sure we catch the bastard, or put him down. Whichever comes first.’

‘Be that as it may, I’m not taking you with me.’

‘I see.’ He bunched his hands into fists, took a deep breath and exhaled. He reached out and picked up the book, placing it back in his pocket. ‘I understand. You have to do right by the investigation.’ He held out his hand, and she shook it. ‘Good luck, senior probator.’

He sat alone and gazed out of the precinct’s observation deck, staring down at the city in its vastness. The spires of it climbed as inexorable as mountains, rendering it mighty and obscene. A giant’s playground of iron and stone and plasteel. It had a subtle beauty to it, if viewed from the right angle. Its lights glistened in mimicry of something from the deep sea, like bioluminescence: a reminder that every crevice of it crawled with life.

Yet there was so much death. He had witnessed it up close countless times, failed to stop so many murders. He let his hand close on the book.

Someone coughed, and he looked up in surprise. Oliar was there. She nodded absently.

‘Konstantus has asked me to accompany the confirmatory verispex team out to the mines. Vindication, I suppose.’

‘It’s a good result, and in no small part thanks to you. You should go.’

‘I plan to,’ she smiled. ‘What about you? What are you going to do?’

‘I have one last lead to follow up.’ He took the book out of his pocket. ‘There’s an old Hylath family holding, here in the city.’

‘Drask–’

‘No, hear me out. I’m just going to go and look it over. If I find anything, we’ll have verispex on standby.’

She sighed. ‘Look after yourself, Quillon.’

‘Wait,’ he said as she started to turn away. He ripped a page from the book, smiling as her eyes went wide. He handed it to her. ‘There’s the address. If you get time after your analysis and haven’t heard from me, that’s where I’ll be.’

‘Thank you.’ She returned the smile, and moved to leave.

‘Happy hunting.’

The manse was in District Aureseum-Sanctus, across the sprawl towards the spires. The notes had been thorough, and a secondary cogitator confirmation meant he knew where he was going. Drask endured two maglev transfers, and forced his ailing body up the steep, narrow market closes which dominated this part of the city. Gargoyles and graven heroes gazed down at him, eyes unseeing, mouths agape. There was the weight of history here: storied, authentic in ways that the outlying docklands could never hope to match.

The air was close and tense, electric with a building storm. The wind scythed down the narrow streets, and he was almost struck from his feet half a dozen times. Beneath the cold light of a distant moon, he soldiered on.

He came to an old iron gate, rusted and already half-open. The grounds were neglected and overgrown, weeds protruding through cracked slabs that crawled with lichen. He picked his way across them cautiously until he arrived at the front door. It was a worn but grand affair, carved with diligent workers and their tools. Drask let his hand close around the bronze handle, vaguely surprised when the door slid open easily. Unlocked.

Within, the house was a dismal ruin. A layer of dust coated everything, and the corners were mired in the workings of arachnids; the whole place seemed to be sliding into decay, untouched and unhindered by human hands. He passed from the cavernous audience chamber and through a variety of side rooms, into a spacious refectory. There were macro-scale cryo-units there, still drawing power as the rest of the house crumbled around them.

Big enough to hold a body or two, certainly.

He reached out at the thought, hand hesitating before another door. There was a creak. Not from the door. He looked up, scrutinising the ceiling as though it would betray its secrets. There had been a shifting of boards. Just the stirrings of an old building, perhaps… He moved out of the refectory, following the noise – following his gut. He slowly advanced up the servants’ stairs, round and into one of the main drawing rooms.

Two antique chairs, all grox-leather and old wood, stood before a dead fireplace. He could see the dull moonlight filtering in through the grubby windows, just picking out the outline of an arm hanging across one of the armrests.

Drask reached into his coat, drew his Tzarina sidearm, and stepped forward. The boards creaked again, this time betraying him and not his quarry. He cocked the pistol as the figure rose unsteadily, facing away from him.

‘Sargas Hylath! By the authority of the Lex Alecto, I hold you to account for your crimes against its citizenry.’

The figure’s shoulders shook as though with laughter, and it turned. The dim light picked out the details of its face, hideously warped as they were, and yet so familiar.

It was not Sargas Hylath.

Drask’s hand trembled; he almost dropped the gun as the ghoulish thing stalked forward, more apparition than man.

‘It may,’ Alexius Voight hissed, ‘be too late for that.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Drask whispered, like a child. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘It took me time as well, to see.’ The thing that had been Alexius wore his madness on his skin. That was the worst part. It was drawn and jaundiced, spotted with strange bruise-blotches. Rotten teeth tottered perilously in the slit of his mouth. His clothes, all borrowed finery, hung off him like a famine victim. His eyes, though, were alive. Alight with that same insanity. They glimmered, like the silver knife he held in his hands. ‘But I do see. I see it all now. Even before he explained it to me.’

‘Then explain it to me.’ Drask’s voice was low with pain and confusion. ‘Help me see.’

‘They cast me out. They cursed me, and they damned my vision. Every last one. Left to lesser men!’ He slammed one trembling fist against the chair. ‘I couldn’t have that. My legacy wasn’t for Konstantus and others like her. Not even you could help.’ He shook his head. ‘Took all I had, and I went about it on my own. It was a private affair for many years. Oh yes, free from the confines of the Lex. From the corruption. Watching, and waiting. Getting older, every day. Gathered every last saving and I took it to the lifesellers, when they were reliable. I got my youth, became a new man with a new face, and I became a miner.’ He laughed, dryly, and it was like grave dirt shifting in his throat.

‘A… miner?’

‘Eventually. I had to get close, you see. Had to know. The Hylaths needed strong arms. And I watched, and I waited. The evidence was there, all you had to do was look. Look! Not blinded by coin and corruption! And I would find it.’ He shook his head. ‘Needed more though. Slow study wasn’t enough. I played the longest game. I waited years, and I bought more years, and then I became a miner.’

‘And then?’

‘When his father passed, then I knew it was time. He would be eager, reckless. I had to act – time, you see, was against me. Harder and harder to get the treatments, so I paid less, for the work of the gutter. I think it was then I really began to see. What this city is. What it was, and what it did. And I couldn’t let it go on.’ He chuckled, and then coughed. He held a hand to his chest and winced. ‘I took my mining spike… and I put it through Sargas. He screamed.’

‘You’ve lost your mind.’ Drask shook his head. ‘You had a chance to bring him in, and you threw it away. For what?’

‘They always squeal at the end, don’t they?’ Alexius continued as though he hadn’t heard Drask. ‘Begged me not to do it. Told me everything. Where he kept his family’s counterfeit coins, the affectations of the First Nobility that they never matched.’ He paced as he spoke, and Drask risked edging closer.

‘That’s far enough.’ Alexius grinned, and held up his knife. ‘Where I can see you.’

Drask froze, with the creep of muscle memory. That power of command. That charisma. I would have followed that voice anywhere, and even now the order finds its mark.

‘I took everything, and then I went back and I showed the one who sold me the treatment. I wanted him to see. I wanted him to know. Took my time, getting used to it. Because…’ His face crumpled. ‘Because I knew, but I didn’t understand. He told me why – cleaning the streets, useless labourers, so far beneath him. But I didn’t understand. So. I practised. Not on Sargas. I left him tucked away. Safe. No, I had to try my hand. And know, and understand, and see.’

‘You killed innocent people.’

‘Did I? Is that what they were?’

‘You’re too far gone. You can answer for your crimes. I’ll see to it. This ends now.’

‘No!’ He jerked back, eyes wide with anger. ‘You don’t understand either! I’ll make you understand!’

Alexius threw himself forward even as Drask thrust his gun hand up. The shot went wide, and he heard something expensive shatter. He brought the butt of the gun around and cracked Alexius in the side of the head, but it did not slow him down. Drask wondered if his ravaged and broken system still felt pain. How much of him had fallen apart and corroded?

He barely felt it when the knife opened him up. The sudden rush of pain and wetness in his abdomen. His eyes went wide, and his hands beat helplessly against his old mentor’s chest. Alexius looked at him as though he were nothing, and let him drop. He paced, agitated, and looked down at Drask. He shook his head.

‘If anyone understood, it should have been you.’ Drask barely heard. He had dropped his gun. He forced himself over and onto his belly, slithering along, hands digging into the soaking carpet. ‘I told you, so many times. This city, it eats men. Good men, evil men. Proud men and determined men. It chews them all up and it swallows them down.’

Drask’s fingers found the gun, drawing it back into his palm. He could feel the last of his strength flowing out of him as surely as life.

There was a clatter somewhere, far away and yet so close. Alexius looked up, turned towards the door. He could hear the sounds of boots on the stairs, a voice cutting through the gloom.

‘Sanctioners! Make way and declare yourself!’

He watched Alexius’ face contort in visceral, animal rage. The ghoul looked around, as though seeking an answer. Drask forced himself over again, dragging the gun up with him. He saw the flash of sad betrayal in the once-man’s eyes.

‘Boy–’

He pulled the trigger. There was a burst of unclean blood, and Alexius tumbled backwards. Silver obyls seemed to pour from his pockets, and the blood that ran from the gaping head-wound was a tainted rush. In the moonlight it did not seem black. It was silver.

Drask was still staring at it, into it, even as the blackness took him.

He slept, and for the first time in so very long, he did not dream.

He opened his eyes, hissing with pain as he did so. The medicae-bay was white, sterile and serene, utterly at odds with the shadowed nightmare he had left behind. He sat up, gingerly pushing himself onto his elbows. He looked around, and a hand passed him a cup of water.

‘Still alive then?’ Oliar said.

‘Barely. You found me?’

She smiled. ‘Of course we did. That’s why you gave me that page, after all. We got out to the holding and it was bedlam, men running the business into the ground too scared to enquire after their imperious master. We found him locked upstairs – plenty of evidence of his old predilections. Too neat for suicide, so we sent a squad out to check up on you.’ She spread her hands. ‘And here you are. They found you and… him. Managed to get to you in time.’

‘And I’ll live?’

‘You’ll have a scar, probably some lasting pain. But yes, they imagine so.’

He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. ‘I never thought it would be him.’

‘No one did. No one expected anything like this to happen. Old cases, they have a way of surprising you.’ She shook her head. ‘Konstantus has taken the lead, and the credit. Made it all a bit neater. They’re blaming Hylath. So there’s some vindication in there.’

‘Not nearly enough.’ He tried to move again, to swing round and sit up, but the pain came in a raw wave. She placed her hand on his shoulder.

‘Rest.’ She stood up and moved to the door. ‘I’ll get the medicae. Once you’re recuperated, then you can consider your next moves.’

‘Next moves?’

‘Your next cases.’ She smiled, dryly. ‘Konstantus might not want to admit it, but you did good work. There’s plenty of better cases that could use your attention.’ She opened the door.

‘Oliar?’ She looked back. ‘Thank you,’ he said, with a nod.

She nodded in turn, and hurried out into the hall.

Drask sat alone, staring at the whiteness of the wall. He had thought himself cursed, for a time. Consumed by the past, by his own vices. He had seen the truth now, what obsession could do to a man.

He let himself fall back, into the all-consuming white of the room. Like the untouched snow of the ever-cold southern city.

Quillon Drask closed his eyes, and finally let himself rest.

AGAINST THE GRAIN

NICK KYME

‘Please,’ he begged, ‘please… don’t do this.’

The desperate words carried like dying wishes, fading into the darkness of the cavernous room.

‘You’re sweating,’ came the voice.

‘I’m begging you…’

And it reeked, a cloying, saccharine odour that threatened to turn his stomach.

‘But then again,’ said the voice, ‘Genovska is hot this time of year. Don’t you think? You can feel it in the air, the heat I mean, and it’s not just the factorums and the vents – it’s in the blood too. Every poor, lightless soul in the southern city is steeped in it. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’

‘Don’t do this. It’s not necessary, it’s not–’

‘It makes you wonder,’ the voice insisted, irritated at the interruption, ‘what it’ll take before a person breaks. Before his mind turns to violence. All this heat, boiling the brain, pushing them so… If you look really carefully you can see it, you know. A shimmer in the air, a haze. A person shows you who they really are through that heat haze, reveals their true nature. What’s your true nature, eh? Shall I turn up the heat so I can see you through the haze, see who you really are?’

‘Please, you don’t need to–’

‘Because you already look hot. Are you feeling hot, over there? Is that why you’re sweating all over my clean floor? I just had it polished this morning, and now… well, it’s a fucking mess is what it is. Sweat, toil, it’s what this city was made from, but shall I tell you what raised it above the smoke and the heat?’

‘I won’t say anything, I don’t even know–’

‘I can see you want to know, sweating like a swine on my deck. Is that your nature? Are you curious? I can see you really want to know, so I’ll tell you.’

Somewhere in the shadows, somewhere in the large room that smelled of sap and sweat and shit, an aroma so pungent it was practically tangible, there was the clank of heavy machinery. It churned like a combine, dull and metallic, the echo making it hard to pinpoint its exact position.

Then came the snorting, shuffling gait of something below. Several somethings. Whatever it was kicked up a worse stench than the room could muster.

‘It’s ambition. That’s what made Varangantua the city it is. And the thing about ambition, it drives people to excel, to find higher station. These are people who have come from nothing, from gutter-warlords to merchant-fucking-kings!

‘And the thing about people who have come from nothing to something is… well, they will do anything to keep it. Anything. That’s my nature.’

‘Please, I am not a threat to you. I’m nobody.’

‘Oh, I know,’ said the voice as the sound of the mechanism changed. ‘I definitely know that.’

The deck slid away, a gangplank abruptly retracted, leaving only air underfoot. A body fell, hitting the ground below. A brief scuffle ensued, a frantic clambering watched dispassionately from above. And the snorting and shuffling became squealing, and finally… screaming.

As he slid back the bolt of the fifth lock, Efrem knew he wasn’t alone.

Poised outside the door to his domicile, he loitered in the juddering half-light of the corridor, wondering who or what had got in. The air tasted like dust inside, and not for the first time Efrem wondered what it would take to get him out of the low-habs and into a better part of the district. Slate, he supposed. And he didn’t need to check his finances to know he was short a few thousand.

He also detected cologne, too expensive and too genuinely fragrant to be one of his. And there was something else, meat and adrenaline. Stimm sweat. Someone had been recently glanding. He reached for the Vulper strapped under his arm, sweeping back his rust-red longcoat until he felt the heavy grip. A Bullock-class shot pistol. Low ammo, but it packed enough punch to flatten an ogryn. Why fire ten bullets when one will do the job? It had stopping power.

He leaned in to the door and heard breathing through the half-inch crack he’d made.

Damn bastard is right behind the door.

Efrem stepped back and kicked. The door swung inwards and hit something hard. It sounded like meat and his mind went to the frozen grox carcasses in the slab markets. He also heard a grunt and a couple of reverse steps. A choice invective hissed through curled lips. Rushing through the opening, Efrem panned the pistol wide, searching. It was dark, the intruder having had the sense to douse the lumens, but enough ambient light from the flickering sodium lamp in the corridor outside framed a silhouette.

Efrem fired, hoping to hit an arm or shoulder. The muzzle flare was bright as cold sunshine and rendered in pale monochrome a huge figure dressed in a tailored suit. Two eyes glared from behind a near-featureless mask. He moved, did the man. Fast. Stimm-fuelled, or maybe he had an aug. But he dodged the Vulper. He dodged the Throne-damned bullet.

Next thing Efrem knew, he couldn’t breathe, his gun was on the floor and black ink patches were spoiling his vision.

‘Shiii–’ he choked – not his finest hour – and reached for the nightstick he carried in his pocket. It swept out like a whip, unfolding and stiffening in a single wrist-flick. A minor shift in attitude suggested his assailant had registered this new factor in their engagement and was moving to intercept, but Efrem lashed the nightstick against the masked man’s wrist and, when he released him from the chokehold, smacked his left knee to cripple him.

Through the blur of oxygen deprivation and encroaching darkness, the man’s startled cry told Efrem the strike was effective. He scrambled back, nightstick held out in warning.

‘Who…’ he rasped, struggling to talk as he aimed his weapon at the stricken man lying in a heap on his floor, ‘the hells… are you?’

A low grunt and the man staggered to his feet, uncertain and in pain. If looks could kill through that mask he wore…

The gun lay out of reach of both, kicked off to the side, lost to the shadows for now.

Efrem tensed as the masked man made to lunge, despite his ambulatory impairment.

‘Stop.’ A woman’s voice cut through the room, knife sharp and accustomed to being obeyed.

The masked man stopped, like a servitor issued a command wafer. He had frozen mid-lunge, and only his heavy, angered breathing gave away the fact that he was a man at all and not some flesh-golem created to do its mistress’ bidding.

‘Lumens…’ the voice intoned, revealing a small hexagonal vox-device standing on a table by the door. Efrem’s table – stained, cracked veneer, past its best, much like its owner. The vox-device did not belong to him.

‘What in the shitting saints is going on here?’

It seemed like a reasonable question. This was his domicile after all – run-down though it most assuredly was, it was definitely his. He hadn’t mistakenly wandered into the wrong hab again. He’d barely had a drink tonight. And he hadn’t taken any klay, so Efrem knew he was level.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded of the man, who had straightened his posture to stand by the vox-device: a hound – a damn big one – at heel. ‘What are you doing in my Throne-damned hab?’ He spotted the Vulper, skidded off to the edge of the room away from the door. Decided he wouldn’t go for it. The golem would be on him in two strides and Efrem would be back to not breathing again. Better to let whatever this was play out.

‘Describe the habitation to me, Stave,’ said the woman. Cultured, Efrem decided, upper districts, and he added this to the store of useless information he had accrued so far.

Stave did as he was told, describing a three-chamber box-hab, comprising dorm, refectory and ablutionary. Worn, untidy flaking plaster, a large currently veiled window at the far end. Cheap, reclaimed furnishings; threadbare carpet; low-grade recyc unit; reheater; cold storage; gun casket. He was thorough. And scathing in a sort of neutral, ostensibly non-judgemental way.

‘And the man.’

‘I assume you mean me,’ growled Efrem, his patience waning despite the imminent threat of being staved in by Stave. ‘Look, madam, whatever, wherever and whoever you are, what the fu–’

Stave interrupted with a second description.

Male. Early forties – he was thirty-three almost to the day – gaunt and pale, shaved left temple, medium-length white hair. Ragged attire, rust-red coat.

‘Shabby,’ concluded Stave, and Efrem wanted to throw a punch.

The servant, or bodyguard, or whatever he was took the vox-device and presented it towards Efrem. The low hum of activation preceded a burst of hard light and within it the near-perfect rendering of a woman in upmarket attire. The quality was staggering. It was as if she were standing in the same room and not a facsimile created by the hololith’s projection nodes.

She had no visible augmetics, but her skin was smooth as Saltstone ice and about the same pallor, and obviously heavily painted. Her hair was up, framed by a high collar, pinned fast in a stylised pompadour, and her long, tapered coat swept out at the edges like tail feathers and was made of uncommon materials. The rest of her assemblage was well appointed too, and her thin, angular face spoke of genetic manipulation.

A noblewoman. Here. At least, in a manner of speaking.

‘I am Velhena Calicus,’ she announced, ‘and I need your help.’

Efrem’s gaze went from his upturned domicile to the masked thug in his doorway to the hololithic image of the noblewoman. He frowned.

‘I don’t mean to be rude, but who the fuck are you?’

Stave burst through the projection, crossing the room in a blur. Efrem felt the wall rush to meet his back as he was slammed against it.

‘Hey! Shitting Throne!’

‘Stave, release him.’

Efrem glared at Stave then the woman who had identified herself as Velhena Calicus.

‘You’re not exactly endearing me to your cause, madam.’

‘Stave is my manservant. Loyal, but sometimes impetuous,’ she replied, and Efrem noted it wasn’t an apology. ‘You are Efrem Thade,’ she went on. ‘A probator.’

‘Technically, I’m a jaeger. A freelancer,’ Efrem corrected.

‘Yes. I am informed your specialty is finding those who are missing.’

‘It’s a roaring trade in this town. I like to think of it as a growth market, but I’ll be honest you’re not my usual clientele.’

‘I am also informed you are discreet,’ she added, as if Efrem had never spoken.

‘If the price is right.’

‘Stave will provide a time and location so we might converse in person and I can provide particulars.’

‘I haven’t said whether I’m available.’

‘You will find funds by way of a retainer have been transferred to your accounts.’

An audex-unit on his wrist chimed. Efrem’s eyes widened as the amount scrolled across the small vid-screen.

‘It appears I’m available,’ he said, looking back up at Velhena Calicus and wondering just how rich she was.

‘Then it is agreed. I look forward to our conversation, Mister Thade,’ she said, lying.

‘And I look forward to more of your money, Mamzel Calicus.’

She scowled, upsetting her thickly applied face paint, and gave the slightest nod before the hololith flickered out, leaving Efrem and Stave alone again.

The manservant took a data-wafer from his jacket and tossed it onto the floor in front of Efrem.

‘Don’t be late,’ he growled, his voice deep and tinny from behind the mask. ‘I’ll be watching.’ Then he turned and left, the door gaping in his wake.

Efrem stooped to retrieve the data-wafer. He felt a little heat as soon as the material touched his bare skin. First an address, then a time flashed up. Three seconds later and the data-wafer burned up in his hand, a flash-flare so fast it was like an eye-blink. Or a blind grenade. Efrem cursed, wafting his scorched fingers in midair and regarding the tiny pile of incendiary dust left behind by the wafer. Fortunately, he had an eidetic memory. He wondered if Velhena Calicus knew about that too, as well as his name and profession.

He also wondered why an up-city noblewoman needed a low-rent jaeger like him. It was either his lucky day or about to be his worst to date.

A long, wearying day suddenly fell heavily upon him. He shut the door behind his rude guest, first checking the corridor to make sure Stave had gone and wasn’t lurking in some shadowy alcove somewhere or trying to blend in as some featureless statue. He would make a good statue, Efrem decided.

‘Arsehole…’ he muttered, and retreated inside.

He glanced at the ablutionary, deciding whether to bother dousing his body in low-alkalinity or not. After ditching his coat and sniffing his armpits, he decided he could go another night and fired up his cogitator instead. It was a cheap piece of kit, scavenged but upgraded by an old tech-savant friend who had owed him a favour for services rendered. As such, it ran fairly well off-grid and had a covert connection to the dataveil, the proprietary informational vox-network utilised by the city’s probators. He couldn’t access a specific probator’s case files or comms, but he could review general vox traffic and alerts. Far more useful than that was the data-cache maintained by Bastion-G, which comprised information on gangs, merchant-combines and persons of note.

The boxy unit came alive with a jerk of noisy servos, a low hum of retrofitted capacitors emanating from the cogitator’s plastek casing coinciding with a low sodium glow from the vid-slate screen.

He accessed the dataveil, entered search parameters and went to make himself a drink. Noblewoman or not, Velhena Calicus had broken into his apartment through her muscular factotum after dark without enquiry or explanation. He wanted to know why.

The search cycled, sifting. Efrem sat on his pallet bed, swilling the dark amber liquid in his glass. He took a sip, winced at the acidity and then took another. The cycling ceased and a series of data-inloads flashed up.

‘Tell me everything,’ he said, and poured himself another drink.

The morning came in a bright haze of migraine-inducing light. He didn’t remember crawling into bed, or stripping off, but there he lay, head thundering like a Militarum barrage. He tasted cordite in his mouth and in a sudden panic reached for his leg, but relaxed as soon as he felt metal and not a ragged void. Just a sense memory, nothing more, though the rattle of an explosion ten years past still echoed, as did the cries of the dying…

Efrem rose gingerly, needing to throw off the night stupor, and limped over to his window. On the way, he noted the empty bottle of root-whiskey. That and his aching head reminded him of the previous night’s alcoholic largesse. It was hot like a crematoria again and haze shimmered in the air like reality distortion.

Naked, he stood slightly lopsided against the grey fogged glass of the iris-shaped window. A vague, almost cadaverous outline presented itself. Beyond his disappointing, but not remotely surprising, reflection was the Swathe. Sorghum and canola. It went on for miles, a green-and-mustard sea, staggering in its scale, the army of harvesters and tractor-engines marshalling its acres bewildering in their own right. And the ships. Merciful Throne, the ships. Veritable armadas of low-atmos landers and tropospheric crawlers, descending and taking off, their holds ever eager for more and always left burgeoning. The grain, the slab… rations in their megatons bound not for the starving populace of Genovska but for the suborbital landing fields, and from there the sky-docks and eventually the void and the distant forces of the Militarum, fighting near-mythic wars in far-off parts of the galaxy.

A thickening pall hung over the Swathe like a brown veil. This hot, the air had substance. Men and women toiled in that lethal fog, trussed up in worn environment suits and substandard rebreathers. Efrem could just about make them out, staggering around, bringing in the shipments, working the tractors and the harvesters, filling the helmet-shaped silos until the seams looked ready to burst. Everything so hungry, yet never sated.

And to the east and west – barely visible through the agricultural fog, but looming all the same like old, decrepit Titans – the monoliths of the merchant-combines. Dozens and dozens of them, huge towering spires of industry as rampant and eager as the landers coming to fill their bellies with their grain. Shanaka Victuals and Bodin Agri. Karridinus Farms and the Sustenance League, each a city state in its own right, every one of them vying for the biggest contracts, preferably military. The tithe was the tithe was the tithe, so the saying went, and it was expected, demanded in fact, but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t slate to be made. Supply more, earn more. That was the mantra of the merchants.

Power resided in the dust-streaked walls of the conglomerates and in the spire-palaces of the earth guilds. In Genovska, dirt meant money. An obscene amount of money.

‘Feed the war,’ Efrem remarked bitterly. ‘That much agri…’ He whistled, savouring one last look before he headed for a much needed pulse-shower. ‘Someone is definitely getting rich. And it’s certainly not me.’

He thought of his would-be benefactor, an array of facts and information tumbling like gambling chits in his mind as a picture of the evening’s discoveries began to reform. The pulse-shower helped, the hard knives of water drumming his flesh a tonic for both mind and body. He had to be careful though. The water was mildly alkaline, and if he didn’t wrap up his leg the mechanism could short again. Worse, it could rust, seize up. It had taken him six months to hoard enough slate to afford the upgrade – ex-military stipends were for shit, frankly – and to the hells if he was throwing that away. So he bound it up in plast-wrap, looped it around the creamy ceramic, taking extra care over the exposed metal joints. An augmetic. Left leg, from his robotic foot to just above his metallic knee. Phantom pain flared just as it always did come dawn to add to his other very real aches. He sank into the ablutionary, propping himself up against the frosted plas-glas, and let the water batter him. His serenity wasn’t to last.

The chrono pinged, announcing the hour, and reluctantly Efrem shut off the pulse-shower.

Velhena Calicus awaited, a low-ranking noble he had discovered by dint of wealth if not dynasty, but hells she was way higher up the socio-economic food chain than him and she paid well.

Efrem dressed hastily, snatched up his credentials and the holstered Vulper from his desk, and was about to leave when he paused. Sinking to his knees – no mean feat with an aug for one leg – he felt around for the loose tile next to his bed. Callused fingertips found what they were looking for, the haptic connection well worn and familiar. A small vestibule harboured a lock-casket, which opened with the turn of a drum tumbler. Several sticks of umber-coloured material lay within, wrapped in flaky vellum. They had the consistency of softened resin. Efrem took one, rolled it over onto itself and then placed it beneath his tongue.

Military-grade narco. Hard to come by. Expensive. Mildly illegal. But, damn, if it wasn’t effective.

Everything sharpened instantly, like his senses had been put through a high-definition filter. Ocular saturation, auditory acuity, haptic nuance, enhanced olfaction, gustatory refinement. Clarity came in little packets of vellum and they called it klay.

With his upscaled senses, his nocturnal endeavours solidified.

His research hadn’t yielded much, but it pointed in a certain direction. The fact she had sent a servant in her stead and communicated via a proprietary vox-unit, that she had enlisted the services of a low-rank jaeger like himself, it spoke to something obvious.

Velhena Calicus was scared.

The maglev, a rattling, semi-reliable metal tube of human sweat and concentrated flatulence, took Efrem part of the way upclave. It was stifling, and the tube hummed in more ways than one. Efrem didn’t own a groundcar any more and looked on enviously as the sleek Corvairs, Luxers and even the blunt-looking Brontos cruised by on the main transitway, driving under the sweep of grand arches or the shadows of colossal statues depicting saints and Imperial heroes.

Genovska sloped past his grimy carriage window, a cluster of low-level shanties, mid-tier tenements and upmarket dwellings. The habclaves varied in size and exclusivity. Electro-warded gates and high walls segregated the dregs from the affluent, the kind that had their own private armies or a tech-priest in their employ. Servitors were more expensive, but cybernetics didn’t need feeding like biologicals. Efrem caught a glance of a shiny silver battle-automata standing sentry at one gatehouse and whistled at the sheer extravagance. If he sold his box-hab, his gun and all his belongings then doubled it, he still wouldn’t even be close to affording something like that.

He patted his aug, a nervous affectation – he found the solidity of the metal reassuring, or maybe it was just to check it was still there – and wondered if Velhena Calicus had accommodations of the quality flitting by his window. As the maglev rattled to an uncertain halt, he also wondered how the hell he was going to gain passage farther upclave to find out.

Turned out that was one problem he need not have worried about.

Stepping off the maglev and onto the crowded dock with its hawkers and menials, its scribes and servitors, the doomsayers and labourers, one figure stood out amongst the swell. The rest of the unwashed gave him a wide berth. They smelled money. And trouble.

Stave had come to collect him.

‘And I didn’t even vox ahead…’ said Efrem as he approached the masked manservant, who was potentially even bigger in sickly daylight. ‘No need to fetch my bags, my good man,’ he flashed Stave a shit-eating grin, ‘I don’t have any.’

Efrem strode past, Stave falling into lockstep behind him – had a cloud of pollutant just obscured the sun? – but only made it a few feet to the exit lifter before a hand on his shoulder halted all forward momentum.

‘Are we going to have to do this again?’ Efrem asked, slipping his fingers around the hilt of his nightstick. He could swear the manservant was favouring a slight limp and this made him inordinately happy.

‘With me,’ Stave growled, indicating a private lifter that was gated off from the rest of the citizenry and patrolled by a pair of grim-looking sanctioners in close-fitting carapace who hugged depowered shock mauls. The city’s brutish enforcers were not strictly in the employ of the rich and well connected but these two clearly had their orders, parting swiftly to let Stave through with his ‘guest’.

Efrem gave a mocking one-fist salute, declaring stridently, ‘Ave Lex!’

Glaring from behind slit visors, the sanctioners tightened their grip on their shock mauls but were powerless beyond that. If scowls could kill…

Once aboard the private lifter, the gate clanking shut in their wake, Efrem nudged his slab-like companion. It was like nudging rockcrete.

‘Your scowl was better,’ he said with a wink. ‘And don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.’

Stave stared ahead, arms by his sides and fists clenched.

Velhena Calicus was as imperious in the flesh as she was via hololith.

She looked smaller though, slightly diminished, as if here in the relative security of her domicile – a very fine establishment located above the veil of agri-fog coming off the Swathe – she could express something of her pain and vulnerability.

‘It is something, isn’t it…’ she murmured, her lithe figure poised like some crusade darling etched on the hull of a Militarum gunship and framed by the dun light coming through the window. She referred to the same view Efrem had in his rather shabbier habitation, only his was lower and grimier, with all the scabs and privation visible.

The pearlescent oval through which Velhena Calicus took her vantage described a serene ocean, the labourers mostly hidden by the agri-fog, the winking lights of landers and hauler rigs like colourful stars. Up here, obscured by mist and wilful ignorance, it could almost be considered beautiful like the vista of some strange and exotic foreign world, lustrous and beckoning.

‘I only see dirt,’ said Efrem, honestly.

‘Of course you do.’ She turned, the dark dress she wore almost funerary but figure-hugging to the point of indecency. ‘How could the lower caste be expected to dream, to see beyond the material to something greater?’

‘Oh, we dream,’ Efrem countered, ‘but it’s usually of a decent meal, better habitation, not getting killed… you know, the really aspirational stuff.’

‘You are a trying man, Mister Thade.’

‘I am told that.’

‘Is that how you lost your leg?’

Efrem looked down at the aug. It was hidden by his breeches but he assumed she had been fed the information by one of her auto-scryers. The servo-skulls flitted around the grounds of the Calicus domicile like macabre insects, monitoring, gauging. Idly, he wondered who the skulls had belonged to before being confined to eternal, mechanised service.

‘Do you mean did someone cut it off? In a manner of speaking, yes, but I didn’t get a word out so I don’t think it was in response to my charming character.’

She scowled. She had a face that looked comfortable scowling. Efrem decided to relent.

‘Faulty frag grenade,’ he lied, because a lie was more acceptable than the truth. ‘Went off when it shouldn’t have. Shredded the hell out of my left side. Still got scars aplenty. Leg took the worst of it. Chirurgeon couldn’t save it.’

‘A military man then.’

‘I think you probably already knew that, didn’t you?’

Velhena Calicus’ non-response answered for her.

But she didn’t know everything, she didn’t know how or why. Or how many had died…

‘I expect you’d like to know why I have summoned you here?’ she asked instead.

‘Your husband is missing and you need me to find him.’

Velhena Calicus shifted her posture to regard Efrem curiously, as if seeing something in her grubby guest she had previously overlooked. She nodded.

Efrem took it as a sign to continue.

‘Byron Calicus, part of a wealthy family, self-made but not of dynastic nobility.’ Efrem paused, taking note of how Velhena Calicus stiffened at this remark – it appeared even the rich had hierarchy. ‘My initial impression was wrong in that regard. The Calicuses are part of a conglomerate, a smaller part but not so small that remuneration doesn’t grant its comforts…’ He gestured to the gallery where Velhena Calicus had deigned to receive him, with its finely upholstered furnishings, its tasteful art and clean, fragranced air. ‘Not obscene, but a little north of just affluent. Karridinus Farms, yes?’

She nodded again.

‘What did he–’ Efrem hastily corrected himself. ‘Does. Sorry. What does he do? Tithe?’

Another nod, her face a stony mask.

He wondered where Stave was in that moment; the manservant had left them alone as soon as he had deposited Efrem in the gallery, the lady already waiting. Outside, no doubt, hoping for an excuse to burst in and start swinging.

‘Do you think my husband is dead, Mister Thade?’ asked Velhena Calicus, interrupting his brief reverie.

‘It’s one possibility. I assume you must be fairly desperate to call on someone like me. I don’t tend to get contracts this far north of the agri-fog.’ He leaned forward in the plush armchair where he was seated. ‘Did you have a good marriage, Missus Calicus? I only ask because you didn’t correct me in my hab when I referred to you as mamzel.’

‘You think he has left me then?’

‘Another possibility, but you didn’t answer my question.’

‘I am not on trial here, Mister Thade.’

‘I also can’t find someone who is missing without getting a sense of who they are and what mental state they might have been in on the day they disappeared.’

She conceded the point, her flash of anger subsiding.

‘It was not physical, but…’ She paused, fighting to hold the veneer in place. ‘It worked. We worked.’ She sneered then. ‘I know what you must think of me. A hard-edged bitch, coldly calculating how best to assure her continued prosperity, but I tell you, Mister Thade, I love my husband and wish to see no harm come to him.’

‘Then I have to ask you, Missus Calicus – who would?’

Velhena Calicus sagged a moment and needed a deep calming breath to restore her icy composure. ‘I do not know. Truly. But Karridinus… you have to understand, these are powerful men. My husband’s employers. The agri-barons. Ruthless. Untouchable.’

‘Would they have reason to do him harm?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Are you aware of any arguments or disagreements he may have had with those he worked for or with?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Had your husband’s behaviour changed recently, anything to indicate something might be wrong?’

She paused, and in it Efrem saw the lie being framed. ‘I don’t know.’

He exhaled and licked his lips.

‘Look, you are paying me well for my services and I tell you, Missus Calicus, I am good at what I do, but I need more to go on than “I don’t know”.’

She sighed, but conceded. ‘He was a private man, and I respected that privacy. He does manage the tithe, you are right about that, and dealt with any number of void captains, Munitorum clerks and even rogue traders. The tithe, is the tithe–’

‘Is the tithe,’ Efrem supplied, ‘yeah, I know it. What does he do exactly?’

‘Numbers. He is a fiscal-savant and scrivener-primus. Byron has a gift for it.’

‘And who is his direct superior?’

‘All the scriveners, regardless of rank, report to one man. Baron Ohram Varr.’

‘Have you ever met him?’

‘Why does that matter?’

‘You seem to be a shrewd woman, I just wondered what your gauge of him was.’

‘I haven’t met him. Byron likes to compartmentalise his life.’

‘I assume he has an officium at the Karridinus spire?’

‘Yes, but he hardly ever uses it. He has a private domicile closer to the docks and silos.’

Private, that was interesting.

‘I assume he’s not still there for some reason?’

‘For ten days? I sincerely doubt that, Mister Thade.’

‘You know this for sure?’

‘I sent Stave.’

‘And you trust him.’

‘With my life, Mister Thade.’

‘I see.’

‘What are you implying?’

‘Nothing yet. Genuinely. I just need to establish some facts.’ Efrem took a moment to ruminate, watching his would-be employer keenly. ‘What are you afraid of, Missus Calicus?’

‘I am not afraid of–’

‘When was the last time you left this fortress? I saw electro-wards, slaved gun servitors and a small private army patrolling the grounds. To gain access to this room, I had to pass three layers of security. My sidearm is in a lockbox with one of your gate-masters. I’ve been auto-scryed six times since I entered this gallery. Need I go on?’

She gave a small shake of her head, then stared intently into his eyes before deciding. ‘I need you to see something.’

Ah, the earlier lie…

A curt gesture of her hand – Efrem only belatedly noticing the activation rings she wore – and a hololith appeared in the middle of the room from a hidden projector prism. It was Byron Calicus, it had to be. Older than she was, but who could tell with the rich and their flagrant use of rejuvenat? He could be a lot older. In any case, he had short dark hair though greyed at the temples. Strong cheekbones defined a slightly weathered but handsome face. Smartly groomed, well attired in a fine blue suit with a high, gold-trimmed collar. A silver ring glinted on his left hand, the simulacrum of an abacus wrought into the metal signet, presumably his Karridinus seal of oath and authority.

He looked tired.

‘Velhena…’ he began, the audio crackling a little, ‘I have…’ He took a breath, then looked up, perhaps hoping for intervention from the Throne. ‘I can’t think how best to say it. I have learned of something. At least, I think it’s something. It was in the numbers, but now, well… I can’t…’ He ran a hand over his lower jaw, trying to find the words. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I need something more. Proof.’ He paused, hand over his mouth, eyes far away for a moment. ‘I can scarcely believe it, the magnitude of this. Throne of Terra… I just… I just don’t know. If they knew, oh holy Emperor, if they knew. Stay in the domicile. Keep Stave close. Just until I can find a way out of this. For us both.’ The recording ended there, Byron Calicus frozen in the act of terminating the transmission. A haunted portrait of a desperate man.

Efrem’s first thought: Byron Calicus is probably dead.

Instead of that, he said, ‘Proof of what?’

‘I have no idea. This was the last time I heard from my husband.’

‘Ten days is a long time, Missus Calicus.’

She snarled, ‘Do you want paying or not? I charged you with a contract, now I expect you to fulfil it. Until I see a body…’ A nerve pulsed in her neck, as thick and red as a hangman’s rope. Efrem could tell she was barely holding it together.

He nodded slowly. ‘Very well. I need access to your husband’s private domicile and everything he might have been working on. Does he keep anything here?’

‘Nothing. As I said, he prefers to compartmentalise, but I’ll make sure you have what you need.’

‘Good. Then I’ll start there. Oh,’ he added, ‘one more thing.’

‘Name it.’

‘I need a groundcar. Preferably something expensive.’

A sleek, black Corvair gently rolled into the barren lot facing the habclave. Efrem used the bay designated for Byron Calicus, noting it was empty. If he had his own transportation, he hadn’t left it here. Efrem had seldom experienced what he imagined was true luxury. The gallery in Velhena Calicus’ fortress had given him a taste, now he had this precision piece of Dymaxion engineering to appreciate. The contracts of Dymaxion Holdings went beyond lucrative. The Mechanicus adepts with whom they were in business had an excellent reputation with the Departmento Munitorum. As such, Dymaxion not only supplied high-end groundcars for Varangantua’s upper crust, but also traded in mass-produced machine parts for Salamander command vehicles, Chimera troop carriers and anything else based on that most ubiquitous standard template for the Militarum.

Dirt and steel, mused Efrem, two of the industrial pillars holding up the merchant-combines.

After lingering inside the plush interior a little longer than he strictly needed to, Efrem eased his body out of the Corvair.

A fairly nondescript building faced him, dun coloured, effigies of Imperial saints carved into the unimaginative slab-work on the outside. A proselytising Sebastian Thor stood vigil over the property’s access gate, his graven features uncannily lifelike in the late afternoon light. Efrem used a bronze solar medallion Velhena Calicus had given him to bypass the gate, just as he had used it to pass through the outer ravelin delineating the habclave’s northern border, though the wardens standing at the armoured merlons had given the jaeger a sour look through the groundcar’s windscreen.

Man and machine clearly looked incongruous together, which they were.

A corridor led inside, a dimly lit vestibule the conduit through which Efrem found a winding stairwell at whose summit was located Byron Calicus’ private domicile. Again, the medallion opened all doors to him and he began to wonder what else the nondescript talisman could open. It was referred to as a ‘right of passage’, a form of currency the gilded used to move more freely within the city. For now, Efrem settled for the hab.

A large window dominated the east side of the place. Shroud glass let in plenty of light but kept prying eyes blind to the comings and goings within. A main hallway led to three other rooms. To the left a dorm-chamber, the bed within utilitarian but expensive and unmade. An antechamber housed an ablutionary, again functional but not cheap despite its ostensible plainness. To the right, a refectory, simple but well appointed. Byron Calicus had a penchant for understatement, it seemed, but revealed little else by his domestic predilections, save for one factor – rumpled bed sheets, the trace of steam heat in the ablutionary and perishable victuals in the refectory all suggested recent habitation. Someone had been here. Either Stave had lied to his mistress or the inhabitant hadn’t wanted to be seen. Regardless, the decor was a far cry from the ostentation Efrem had been privy to at the Calicus fortress, and he wondered if this was a point of contention between husband and wife. If Byron did live, he may have to revisit his infidelity theory. And certainly someone was alive, and using this place.

The room ahead proved even more interesting. Larger than the other two, this was clearly where Byron worked. A large desk dominated a space of warm russet hues, thick carpets and heavy drapes. Not opulent per se, but in terms of its contents, of staggering quality. Efrem put his nose to the dark veneer of the desk, ran a hand across the surface and couldn’t decide if it was actual wood. If it was, its value would be north of indecent. He thought of the starveling masses, the poor fucking dregs ground down by the city’s boot heel, and decided he liked Byron Calicus a little less.

Papers, vellum and parchment, littered the desk. Grids and fiscal calculations, columns circled in red ink, obscure marginalia; Efrem could make scant sense of the man’s accounting. Though clearly Byron Calicus had been looking for some kind of correlating factor in his figures. The documents in the lock-casket underneath the desk and accessed by the solar medallion proved more informative.

A data-ingot stood out. It looked promising, so Efrem pocketed it along with the loose slate Byron had left inside. He also found a deed stamped by the Adeptus Alecto for a property in the Dredge, likely a silo or warehouse, since most of the commercia in that shitty district fell into one or other category. A second document referenced a low-end cybernetics workshop, cheap augs, data-shunts and servitor maintenance according to the inky writing scrawled across the vendor’s proclamation of service. It matched the script on the fiscal calculations, which meant it was probably Byron Calicus’. An authorisation mark stood out, stamped onto the parchment. It was different to the image fashioned into the ring he’d seen Byron Calicus wearing on the hololith, and Efrem wondered who it belonged to. What interest a fiscal-savant would have with such an establishment remained unclear. An address in crude type-block had been underlined. An intention to visit, perhaps? Lastly, a stack of cargo manifests. Void-borne vessels judging by the origin points, none of which Efrem recognised. He assumed freighter or larger, given the approximate tonnage of the recorded cargo. Minerals, spices and other raw materials made up the bulk but also listed amongst the contents of the holds was something called gedge. Again, Efrem was none the wiser and assumed it referred to sundries, and he was just tucking the salient documents into his pocket for later consideration when a flash of movement caught his eye.

Old instincts and heightened senses from the klay he’d taken urged him to duck a second before the solid slugs riddled the desk. Splinters rained and he covered his head, tiny needles of wood jabbing the exposed skin of his hands.

‘Throne and shit!’

It stung like all the hells.

Efrem pulled the Vulper, one smooth movement from his shoulder holster, and blind-fired. The discharge boom reverberated, trembling the shroud glass and probably announcing to any nearby sanctioner or habclave warden that trouble was afoot. It hadn’t been his plan to draw attention, but then he was being shot at. That warranted a response.

Another salvo replied, tearing the veneer to shreds and turning the desk into so much expensive firewood that it hurt Efrem’s heart to think about it.

Pulse thundering, he returned fire. Another boom followed, just as violent as the first, and this time he caught a glimpse of his assailant fleeing back through the door and into the hallway.

‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘Don’t you fucking move!’

He jumped up, vaulting the bullet-pocked desk with a boost from his aug, and was on their heels. Bursting through the door, only belatedly realising how unwise that was given his attacker could be waiting to ambush him on the other side, he saw the unmistakable figure of a woman dashing across the hallway like the devil Horus was at her heels.

Efrem had a clear shot, the Vulper extended before him like the hand of the God-Emperor Himself, but didn’t fire. Instead he cursed, leg giving him hell, and gave chase. He reached the stairwell just as the mystery woman had made it halfway down. She looked up as he clasped the bannister rail, and whipped off a slew of shots meant to dissuade further pursuit.

‘Saint’s piss!’

Efrem ducked back, parts of the bannister exploding as solid slugs tore through it. Giving it a few seconds, he lurched back to his vantage point. The woman, a grey hooded cloak concealing her identity, had reached the vestibule and bolted for the way out. The cloak flared as she ran, revealing a charcoal suit and knee-length boots. It wasn’t much, but enough to deduce it wasn’t Velhena Calicus.

Efrem eyed the shattered rail, then tried to gauge the distance to the bottom. He frowned, swore under his breath, and jumped. The other floors blurred like smeared paint. The ground met him three seconds later, jarring his hip and spine, but he landed on the aug and it took most of the impact. The drug helped too. Swearing profusely, he limped out of the habclave and straight into the hellguns of the wardens.

‘Lose the weapon!’ The laud hailer emitted a banshee-like wail, quivering bone and tripping raw-edged nerves. Rigged into a warden’s vox-mask, it looked like a snarling mouth. Muggy rain that did nothing to alleviate the heat came down in lazy squalls, glistened on black carapace body-weave. Helm visors beaded with it. Hoods bowed. Rifle muzzles dripped like gaping sewer pipes as a slew of red-dot sights peppered Efrem’s longcoat like skin-pox.

He set the Vulper down, slow and careful.

‘Raise your damn hands!’

Efrem obeyed the semi-mechanised growl, eyes searching the rain for the woman, but she had fled before the wardens had come, or else they had let her pass. Heat fogged the air, creating a mist with the agri-spoil. She’d given them the slip somehow.

‘Eyes down, deg!’

‘I’m here on official business,’ said Efrem, ignoring the slur.

A warden laughed, voice grating through his vox-mask.

‘Fucking jaegers…’

Booted feet, metal toecaps flashing against stab-lights, approached.

‘Honestly, I am–’ Efrem began, and felt the crack of a hellgun stock against the back of his head. The ground tilted, day turned to night as darkness encroached and then… nothing.

Efrem squinted, the light glare flashing blurred after-images across his retina.

‘Seven…’ he answered, blinking as the light died.

The medicae gave an exasperated sigh.

‘He’ll live.’

Standing up from a crouching position, she retrieved her medical bag, turned and left the room.

To Efrem, she looked like a smudge in a long grey-white coat. Her departure revealed a second figure in a plain black uniform, leaning against a desk. Light-grey piping snaked up the folded arms, her mantle of authority palpable without need of further trappings.

‘I wish to make a formal complaint…’ Efrem began.

‘Tell it to the chastener waiting with a pair of excrutiators,’ the figure replied.

‘I wish to immediately withdraw any and all complaints. Ave Lex.’ He saluted. Badly.

She smiled, the figure, and shook her head. ‘What in the hells were you doing at that habclave, Thade?’

‘Thade?’ he said, sitting up as if suddenly affronted, ‘Thade, is it? Is it really so long ago that we–’

‘Several lifetimes,’ she cut in sternly. ‘Answer the question.’

Bare rockcrete surrounded him, the overhead sodium lamp flickering and chirping as it went through its death throes. A single door led out into a grey hall. It was banded with plasteel and had a slit for a window. A cell.

‘First of all,’ Efrem replied, ‘I assume I have you to thank for not being a shit-kicked heap and left for dead in some back alley by those wardens.’

‘No, but I’m the reason the Bastion-G sanctioners didn’t leave you a shit-kicked heap in some back alley. Why were you there?’

She leaned in so the light touched her face. She looked good, as good as he remembered. Lean-faced, short white hair, pale scar on her forehead. Shrapnel wound. A bad one. He patted his aug as a phantom limb protested.

Efrem smiled. ‘Even back in the regiment, I knew authority would suit you.’

She had lost none of her athletic frame. Broad-shouldered, heavy boots. He could imagine Seraf Ciastro kicking down doors and beating on degs all in the name of the Lex-Alecto. Close up, she smelled of rosewater and gun oil.

‘Fewer arseholes shooting at me…’ she said, with a hint of nostalgia. ‘Just.’

‘Look at us, eh? Two old friends reminiscing over old times.’ He reached for a piece of klay he didn’t have.

‘Very old times. I reckon I’ll summon that chastener after all…’ She made to move for the cell door.

Efrem raised his hands in a gesture of appeasement.

‘Whoa, whoa, no need for any of that. Ease off the thumbscrews, I’ll talk.’

She resumed her position leaning against the desk.

‘Seem to recall it was hard to get you to stop talking…’

‘Now who’s reminiscing?’

Her face hardened. All business. ‘The habclave. Why? Now.’

‘Byron Calicus.’

‘Is that name supposed to mean something?’

‘It does to his wife, Velhena Calicus. She hired me to find him. He’s a fiscal-savant for Karridinus.’

Seraf whistled. ‘Throne, you’d best be careful with that mercantile house.’

‘It’s my next stop.’

‘Go in there with your usual charm, it could end up being your last. I hope she’s paying you well.’

‘Well enough. Is that fear I’m hearing, Seraf?’

‘Pragmatism. And it’s Lieutenant Ciastro to you, sergeant.’

‘Not any more. Like you said,’ he added sadly, ‘lifetimes…’

‘More like ten years.’

‘But you serve the Lex-Alecto now, eh? Justice, law and all that. He’s missing, Seraf. Presumed dead.’

‘Presumed by whom?’

‘By me.’

‘Then who was allegedly shooting at you in the Calicus residence?’

‘One of several mysteries before me.’

‘You find any proof of wrongdoing at Karridinus and I’ll bring every sanctioner in the district.’ She eyed him shrewdly, that look she had, and he was back at the privateer barracks again. ‘But you haven’t got any, have you?’

‘Nothing approaching certainty, but…’

‘And you really think he’s dead, the man you’re looking for?’

‘It’s a possibility. I know someone shot at me for sniffing around his domicile.’

Her eyebrow raised a fraction. She still had the same tells. ‘Find anything interesting while you were there?’

Efrem shrugged. ‘Didn’t get a chance. Too busy ducking bullets. Am I free to go?’

After a few more seconds of scrutiny, Seraf nodded.

Rising from the chair, he groaned with the usual aches. Coming down again… Bones felt like overstretched rubber, skin like tenderised meat.

‘I need a small favour…’

A scowl. ‘I am this close to pistol-whipping you myself,’ she said, showing him the tiny gap between her pinched thumb and forefinger.

‘I need your sanction, Seraf. A castellan’s will opens doors.’

‘And yours won’t? You have a licence, don’t you? Lex-officiated?’

‘Not for the audience I want. I think there’s more to this than a missing person, Seraf. I need to move quickly.’

Seraf scowled, then swore. She nodded.

Efrem pressed his hands together like a penitent, ‘You are ever my saviour.’

‘You better behave yourself at Karridinus, or by the God-Emperor Himself, I will fucking shoot you.’

‘His Hand,’ said Efrem, bowing.

‘You don’t get to say that. Get out.’

‘One last thing… Do you know what “gedge” means?’

‘No clue. Leave now or you don’t get to leave.’

He smiled warmly, and paused as he was about to step through the door. ‘They were good old times though, right?’

Still leaning against the desk, Seraf stared at the cell wall. ‘You’re running out of favours, Efrem.’

‘I know,’ he said, passing into the corridor beyond, ‘but…’

‘But what?’

‘You did just call me Efrem.’

Karridinus Farms was a gothic monolith, towering and implacable through veils of agri-fog. Flocks of servo-skulls attended it, and pale-skinned cyber-cherubim, their censers filtering out the worst of the airborne spores to maintain its shimmering glory. Like all the major merchant-combines of Genovska, it thrust into the Varangantuan skyline like a spear of glass and metal. Armies had laid siege to more modest fortresses than this, nations had warred for lesser spoils than those harboured within.

At the base of the gargantuan building, below the hazy band of aerosolised mulch and dirt particulate, buttressed footings reinforced it. This was where Karridinus kept its industrial processors, spewing out smoke and chemical pollutant, rendering the meat and grain into slab and carb rations. Keeping the Militarum fed, keeping the war engine on its feet, was its motto. Let the other merchant guilds provide tanks and guns; the agri-barons would fill the soldiers’ starving bellies. On the level above were the gangs of cutters and sealers: butcher-accountants, dividing slab, apportioning grain, readying for bulk transit to the Swathe. Only slightly less begrimed than these lower echelons were the officia, tiny cell-like cubicles with vision slits for windows, hundreds strong: fiscal-savants, scribes and scrutineers, measuring and keeping the scales of profit tipped in the favour of the combine. As stained utilitarian rockcrete yielded to glass and chrome, an even higher caste was revealed. The spires harboured the agri-barons and their chosen vassals, men and women who brokered in power, a literal dividing line between serf and master. And at the summit of the spires stood the pinnacle, a glittering obelisk of obscene wealth, the palatial domain of Lord Karridinus himself. Thus was the industry of Karridinus maintained, and the pillar of its fortunes keenly balanced.

Efrem saw the entire scope of the enterprise through the glass wall of the tube-lifter as it pushed him ever upwards, a flitting vista of grimy labour gangers, dead-eyed servitors and smoke-hung rendering machines; of blood-smeared slaughtermen, emaciated cutters and hangar-like warehouses; of stooped and squint-eyed scribes, cyber-augmented savants, churning reams of ticker-tape and endless sheathes of parchment and vellum. Everything – every dirty cog and wheel and bolt that kept the engine running. Industry of a most gruelling sort, the kind that fed on blood and bone and sweat, and churned out profit for its gilded masters on the other side.

As he neared his destination, the tube-lifter slowed and the sense of vertigo threatening to forcibly evacuate his stomach and bowels lessened. Even so, Efrem had to grasp a rail for support as the floor seemed to pitch and yaw beneath him.

Abruptly, the sense of pneumatic propulsion cut out and the door in the side of the tube-lifter opened to reveal an armoured doorwarden in rust-red chrome and chased silver. A chain veil obscured his face, an electro-pike clutched tightly in clenched gauntlets. An elaborate-looking pistol, some kind of flagration weapon, sat in a leather holster on the doorwarden’s hip.

Efrem took out the sanctioned seal, which had the electro-pike deactivate and the doorwarden crisply stand aside.

‘At ease,’ Efrem remarked as he passed, flicking a casual salute, but the guard remained stoic and didn’t rise to it.

The klay had really lost its edge now and in its absence came lassitude and irritation. Efrem vowed to himself that he would try not to let that get him killed. Thoughts tumbled through his mind as he walked the gilt but utterly charmless corridor that led to the chambers of Ohram Varr. He felt ill at ease, and not solely on account of the guards and their lethal weaponry. The woman who’d shot at him was an unknown. Evidently, he had surprised her and she’d fired on instinct. She had him pinned but she’d chosen to run rather than fight. That either meant she was scared or she didn’t want to reveal her identity. It didn’t explain her connection to Byron Calicus, though Efrem had his suspicions. He also considered why he had lied to Seraf. He told himself it was that he didn’t know anything yet, at least not of import. In truth, he wondered if it was actually because he didn’t trust her, not entirely. Their days in the regiment had never seemed so distant. It was easy to trust in the Militarum, your enemies were usually the ones trying to kill you. In Varangantua, between the scum of the low-clave and the upclave gilded, it wasn’t nearly as straightforward. He simultaneously longed for and loathed those days of war, when the fight had been more honest, if a lot bloodier. He patted his aug, and realised he had reached the end of the corridor.

A pair of bronze doors impeded him. An artist had crafted a stylised simulacrum of two Imperial labourers into the bronze, a man and a woman, one with a rake, the other a hammer, heads raised proudly to an image of the Golden Throne surrounded by a vibrant sunburst. Glorious endeavour, honest toil, all for Him on Terra… the greatest lie of the Imperial creed.

A servo-skull detached itself from a rookery above the door, gliding down on humming suspensor fields to bathe Efrem in grainy red sensorium light. After a few seconds, the light turned from red to green and the deadly needlers mounted to either temple retracted back into the servo-skull’s cranial vault.

<Proceed…> it bleated in a rough, machinic cant and hovered back to its perch.

Efrem had left his Vulper with the guards at the outer gate. He had considered not declaring a weapon, and wondered now what would have happened had he not. The parting doors arrested any further conjecture about that, opening out into the opulent chambers of the agri-baron.

A long, rectangular room stretched away from Efrem, the doors closing gently behind him. A plushly carpeted aisle, flanked by white marble columns, led to a large black desk. The columns formed a sort of interior arcade. On one side, a grand aperture of shroud glass offered a panoramic view of the Swathe; on the other, a gallery of framed line sketches depicted archaic agri-machines – tractor-engines, threshers, combines and irrigators. One piece stood out from the rest, a zoological study of the grox. The artist had painstakingly rendered the saurian from several angles, and included close-up vignettes of teeth, claws and tail.

‘Remarkable creatures…’

The man sitting at the desk didn’t look up from his writing, an auto-quill scratching noisily on the sheaves of parchment laid out before him.

‘Herd beasts, discovered by the first Imperial settlers. Harvested for meat, hide for leather, teeth and claws for blades. Snout to tail,’ he went on, the cybernetic limb that had been furiously scribing pausing as he did. ‘I apologise,’ he added, a warm smile changing the aspect of a young, dark-skinned face, and indicated to the parchments. ‘Ledgers. The need for slab has never been greater. There is war out in the void, or so I’m told.’

Slab, a heavily processed, high-protein meat. Cheap to manufacture, slow to degrade. Perfect fodder for troops out in the void.

‘When isn’t there,’ Efrem remarked as he approached the desk. He felt like a cadet in the presence of his discipline master.

The man conceded this with a nod, and rose to his feet. His hair was black, neatly cut. He wore a simple tan suit, military in aspect. His umber waistcoat looked stiff, and Efrem wondered if it was subtly armoured. An ebony ring shone on his left hand, the sigil upon it too difficult to make out in the dim lighting.

‘Docile, but savage if roused to anger. Omnivorous, that is to say,’ added the man, ‘they will eat anything. Grain, leaf, flesh and bone. Even cloth, plastek.’

‘Remarkable,’ echoed Efrem but without the zeal.

‘You are here enquiring as to the whereabouts of Byron Calicus,’ said the man, wrong-footing the jaeger, as he deftly navigated the stout black desk and gestured to a pair of grox-leather chairs. A small round table stood between them, holding an ornate decanter. Darkly golden liquid shimmered within and Efrem felt his tongue begin to salivate.

‘I am…’ he answered.

Efrem eyed the space behind the desk. A portrait of the man loomed above it. Sat regally in some artist’s studio, he wore the exact same suit but with an added cape of crimson wool tossed over one shoulder and a sculpted silver guard over the other. An alcove behind the desk and directly below the imperious portrait was heavily in shadow, but Efrem caught the edges of a statue.

Vanity, thy name is Ohram Varr, he thought as he joined the man by the grand glass aperture.

‘You seem surprised, Mister…?’

‘Efrem Thade,’ Efrem supplied.

‘Usually the people you wish to question aren’t as amenable?’

‘It’s as if you know exactly what I’m thinking, Mister Varr.’

‘It’s a gift,’ said Varr, smiling again as he reached for the decanter and two crystal chalices. ‘Would you–’

‘I would very much like a drink, ser,’ Efrem interrupted. ‘See,’ he added, ‘I can read minds too.’

Another smile, more laboured. ‘Very droll, Mister Thade.’ He began to pour but was interrupted again by the accounts ledger landing in front of him.

‘What do you make of this, Mister Varr? I assume you are familiar with fiscal matters? Now myself,’ said Efrem, the grox-leather creaking as he leaned back in his chair, ‘I don’t know much about numbers, but apparently Byron Calicus did.’

Varr set the half-poured chalice down to examine the parchment.

His eyes narrowed. ‘Where did you get this?’

Asked so idly, so nonchalantly, he could have been enquiring about the weather. But the mood had changed, Efrem felt it like a vein of ice through the heat.

‘A private domicile, belonging to Byron Calicus.’

‘I didn’t know he had one.’

‘Apparently, he liked to compartmentalise.’

Varr made a half-interested show of reviewing the ledger. ‘I’m not a savant, that’s what I have men like Byron for.’

‘Men like Byron?’

‘He is a dutiful worker, well compensated for his talents. I believe he has a habclave north of the agri-veil. Perhaps he is unwell, have you visited his residence?’

‘I have. He wasn’t there. What was he working on? Did he seem unwell, on edge?’

‘The work is rigorous, the wars beyond our borders hard on us all.’

‘You seem to be flourishing.’

Varr replied with a cold smile. ‘We are all suffering in our own way.’

‘That is one way to put it.’

‘And how, Mister Thade, would you… put it?’

‘Tell me, Mister Varr, what am I thinking right now?’

Varr regarded him with new-found animus.

‘Karridinus’ yields are currently waxing, Mister Thade. They have never been higher and our production rates the same. Profits are soaring, the Departmento Munitorum tithes are burgeoning and thusly the Militarum upon whom we depend so much for our continued safety, freedom and prosperity are kept strong and well fed. All for His glory upon Terra. It takes a toll, on the savants more than most.’ Varr leaned back, mirroring his guest. ‘That is what I make of this. But the real question, is what have you made of it? And by made, I mean manufactured of course. I have been nothing but compliant, Mister Thade, though I do believe you have entered these premises under false pretences.’

‘There is nothing false about my pretence, Mister Varr, I can assure you of that.’

‘I offer you my hospitality, my courtesy and you repay it with a cheap stunt.’

‘It’s no stunt, Mister Varr, though I will admit to being cheap. But I’m not the one deflecting, am I. Did you kill him, Mister Varr?’

Varr finished pouring the drinks, and took a sip as he considered the jaeger.

‘You are out of place here, Mister Thade. That is Jovian silk cognac. I’d warrant it’s worth more than everything you own, even that augmetic leg that must have emptied your cache of slate. You think because you are not of my world that I cannot reach you, that you are beneath my notice and therefore ignored. I am an assiduous man. I ignore nothing. You think the low-clave back alleys are dangerous, I tell you, ser, you are dramatically underprepared for just how dangerous it can be above the agri-veil.’

‘Flesh, bone and cloth, eh?’

Varr frowned.

‘You may take your leave now, Mister Thade. I have nothing more for you. Do not return.’

The statue in the alcove shifted, and Thade realised it wasn’t a statue at all but a man, although not strictly speaking a man either, as the left eye flooded the shadows with crimson light. A servitor. A bodyguard, to be precise.

‘Or I will have Canid throw you out, and he is not gentle.’

The lurch of grinding servos, of mechanised lethality, reached them from across the alcove. The servitor lumbered a few steps, metal feet thudding heavily on the carpeted floor. Efrem imagined concealed chainblades and other weapons embedded within its cybernetic frame. He downed his drink, smacking his lips at the sudden warmth.

‘Not bad,’ he said.

The fingers of the servitor’s left hand splayed, split and parted to reveal an energy sword, the blade dulcetly crackling. It looked Martian. And expensive.

‘A pity to mess up all of this finery,’ said Efrem.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry. It cleans easily enough.’

‘Canid?’

‘What else would you call a loyal and obedient servant?’

Efrem gave a hollow smirk, then nodded and took his leave.

Varr’s voice followed him down the carpeted aisle. ‘I genuinely hope you find him, Mister Thade.’

‘Oh, I will,’ Efrem answered, ‘I can assure you of that.’

Night had drawn in over the district like a headsman’s cloak. Outside the upper echelons of the Karridinus compound, the heat returned and with interest. Sweat drenched the back of Efrem’s shirt, the air thick with agri-spores, and cloying. His rebreather filtered out the worst of it, kept in his longcoat and readily to hand for when it was particularly bad. His breath fogged the cup as he made for the half-empty lot where he had left the Corvair, and not for the first time that day Efrem longed for a piece of klay to take the edge off. His leg was starting to seize, exposure to the grubby atmosphere fouling the joints despite the ceramic casing. He had just about reached the Corvair, thoughts concerning Ohram Varr and the wisdom or not of deliberately antagonising him turning over and over in his mind, when he felt the pistol jab in his side.

Withdrawal must be making me careless…

‘A gut wound at close range will kill you slowly,’ she hissed, her breath warm against his neck. ‘You won’t be able to move. You’ll die here, in this grubby yard, and it’ll be very, very painful.’

‘Stub pistol?’ Efrem ventured, hands slightly raised.

‘Dumdum bullets.’

He nodded, catching the faintest aroma of citrus blossom. ‘That’ll do it. I assume we’ve already met?’

‘See that speeder, the one over by the corner?’

Efrem glanced over, and found said vehicle across the yard where he’d parked the Corvair. He hadn’t noticed it earlier but there it was, buoyed on anti-gravitic repulsors a few inches above the roadway. Weathered, chipped red paint; it had a clamshell roof and a shrouded windscreen.

‘Nice,’ he lied.

She jabbed him hard with the stubber. ‘Get in.’

They walked to the speeder together, her slipping an arm into his, like two lovers out for an evening stroll. He turned and caught just a glimpse, a half-glance, of a hooded grey cloak, the hint of pale skin.

‘Eyes front,’ she warned, clipped and with just enough threat so he knew she meant it.

‘Are you going to tell me where we’re going?’ Efrem asked as they reached the transport.

‘No.’

He got in, as did she, and they left the yard together.

The transitways out of Karridinus were busy with freight loaders and shift traffic. Maglevs buzzed alongside groundcars, and labour serfs, petitioners and low-level scribes clogged the footways. Lit braziers cast flickering shadows across the patrician faces of immense statues abutting municipal structures or holding up bridges on their broad, granite backs. Ecclesiarchy temples stood like gothic monuments amongst the heaving masses, beseeching all to seek sanctuary in the Emperor’s light. Citizens flocked to their great bronze gates in lines that stretched around street corners. Priests cast incense and spat catechisms, holy fear the great motivator, and the Church’s coffers overflowed. Moral turpitude, like everything else in Varangantua, had currency.

Through the weft and wend of the city, all its rude mechanisms exposed, Efrem tried to get another look at his abductor in the inner reflection of the shroud glass windscreen. Little revealed itself. Same grey hood, a tightly pinched mouth. Collar up high and tight. Young, judging by what he could discern of her features. A theory started to form.

She kept one hand on the wheel, the other on the pistol held across her body and aimed unerringly at Efrem’s stomach.

‘Very, very painful,’ she said, eyes ahead.

‘I remember.’

The speeder coursed through slowly thinning traffic, and the thronging citizenry thinned too as they drove into one of Genovska’s murkier slums. Hollowed-out factorums and lonely tenements lurched into sight as the roadways became narrower and more labyrinthine. Flickering sodium lamps hung from sagging wires strung between opposing hab-towers. Drum fires blazed, shadowy fingers huddled around them baring their hands for warmth. Despite the heat, it felt colder here, as if some vital part of it had been cored out and left to slowly die.

She brought the speeder to a halt outside a dive bar called Ghetto.

‘A little on the nose…’ Efrem remarked.

‘Out.’

He obeyed, feeling the implied heat of the pistol trained on his side.

‘Byron Calicus,’ he ventured, and almost heard the involuntary twitch in her movements as she exited the speeder, ‘you know him.’

She gave a mirthless chuckle as she rounded the back of the transport. ‘Hardly deductive.’

‘Did Missus Calicus know?’

She stiffened, jabbing the pistol in Efrem’s back.

‘Inside.’

‘So, she did know.’

That’s interesting.

Another jab, harder. Efrem felt tears welling in his eyes.

‘Shitting saints,’ he hissed between clenched teeth.

They entered the bar.

Dingy sodium lamps cast a yellow haze over a grim, run-down sort of a place. It had booths throughout, the bar itself found at the back, a long strip of scratched and scorched ceramic. A burly barman, ex-ganger practically etched all over him, tended to a gaggle of drunks currently propped up against the bar. A doorwarden, much rougher but no less intimidating than those at the Calicus habclave, gave the newcomers a half-glance but nothing more. Gene-bulked muscle bulged beneath dark green leather. Even her numerous tattoos looked brawny.

‘She a friend of yours?’

Another jab made him regret that. It also goaded him into a nearby booth.

‘Sit,’ his abductor said, the pistol slipped beneath the table as she sat across from him. She pulled back the hood, Efrem got his first decent look at her.

Young, as he had first assumed, with dark, shoulder-length hair. She had no visible scars but a physique and countenance that spoke to rigorous physical training. What at first he took to be heterochromia, with her one green and one amber-coloured eye, Efrem realised was some form of retinal lens, likely dataveil. Though she didn’t look like any probator he had ever seen before.

‘Veronika Kaulder,’ she introduced herself, and extended a gloved hand. The haptic implants in the fingers shimmered slightly in the half-light.

‘Is that thing going to read my ident print, and cascade the information to that dataveil implant you’re wearing?’

‘Good eye,’ she conceded, but kept her hand extended.

‘Not as good as yours,’ Efrem replied, and took her hand when he realised the injunction wasn’t an invitation.

Veronika Kaulder had a firm grip: either the glove had augmetics or that training she evinced was more rigorous than Efrem had supposed. She held his hand for a few seconds, staring straight ahead, and then released him.

‘Did I pass?’ Efrem asked.

She lowered the gun.

‘Efrem Thade, low-clave jaeger.’

‘I could have told you that, had you asked.’

‘Ex-Militarum.’

‘So that I wouldn’t have divulged. Care to share who the hells you actually are?’

She gave a thin, tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes, the kind of expression Efrem had seen on drill abbots right before they ordered a twenty-mile run in full gear. The scrape of metal against the table pulled his eyes downwards to a small aquila badge, forged from dark iron so it wouldn’t catch the light. The iconic fist and scales of His judgement had been emblazoned upon the two-headed symbol of the Imperium. It was unmistakable.

‘Fuck me.’

He glanced back to Veronika Kaulder, then the badge, and then back to her again.

‘An arbitrator?’ He whistled. ‘Shit. Should I be worried? I can count on one hand how many times I’ve crossed paths with the Arbites.’ He held up a clenched fist. ‘Oh look, never. Not once. What are you doing in Varangantua?’

‘Byron Calicus,’ she uttered simply. ‘As to your first question, it depends on your interest in him.’ She put the badge away, and placed both hands on the table, one atop the other.

‘So, we’re allies now?’ asked Efrem, assuming she had holstered the stubber.

‘Like I say, it depends.’

‘I’m looking for him. It’s a contract,’ Efrem explained. ‘From his wife, Velhena Calicus. What’s the interest for the Arbites, and why all the cloak and dagger?’

‘I’m looking for him too.’

‘And sleeping with him. Isn’t that against regulations or some-thing?’

‘Very amusing,’ she said flatly, refusing to be hooked on something that wasn’t true. Even if she wasn’t his mistress, they had some kind of relationship. She was trying to keep him safe.

‘Have you met his employer?’

‘Ohram Varr, I am aware of him.’

Efrem narrowed his eyes as a piece fell into place. ‘It’s covert, isn’t it? That’s why I don’t see jackboots and electro-mauls. It’s just you.’

Kaulder appeared to hesitate, then nodded.

‘Are you going to tell me what this is about? Is he dead?’

‘No, and I don’t know. I lost contact with him a few days ago.’

‘Did he have something on Karridinus? I’ve seen the hololith he made for his wife.’

‘He shouldn’t have done that.’

‘You didn’t answer my first question.’

‘Are you familiar with the duties and responsibilities of the Adeptus Arbites, Mister Thade?’

Efrem leaned back in his seat. ‘Please enlighten me.’

‘I serve the Lex Imperialis. Imperial law, Mister Thade. Imperial, not Alectian. I am not interested in who kills who, or petty gunrunners or gangers, or any of the inconsequential politics or corruption that is rife throughout your district and your city. I am interested in this world, insofar as it adheres to the edicts laid down by the Adeptus Terra, the ongoing tithe of men and materiel, and the persecution of the heretic, the witch, the mutant and the xenos. Id est… that which threatens the tenuous state of the galaxy. I have no other charge, no other remit than to ensure the Lex Imperialis is maintained in this regard.’

‘And which aspects are you prosecuting, and why the need for secrecy? Unless, of course, you don’t know for sure?’

Her mouth tightened and Efrem realised this was it.

‘An investigation,’ he said. ‘Karridinus?’

She gave no answer, which was as good as an answer in its own right.

‘Karridinus,’ he confirmed to himself. ‘Then why not descend upon them with the mailed fist of the Lex? Surely you could co-opt every sanctioner in the city, as well as anything in its arsenal.’

‘It is not so simple.’

‘What could be simpler than…’ he began, then chided himself for being so short-sighted. ‘It’s the tithe, isn’t it? Karridinus are amassing huge amounts of produce. Slab by the tonne. Shut them down, and the agri stops too. Even if it’s just one bad cog in the machine. The whole operation gets shuttered. Throne, all those rations… Can’t let the troops go hungry now, can we.’

‘You speak of it as if it is a game, Mister Thade, just some distant concern beyond your reach or regard.’

‘Dying shot up in some gutter is my concern. I’ve fought in the wars, seen them for what they are. It scares me what’s out there, but the threats within are more immediately likely to kill me,’ he said, surprised at how angry he felt. He moistened his lips. ‘You know what really scares me? That the merchant-combines of Varangantua have grown so powerful and influential that even the Adeptus Arbites has to hesitate before holding them to account.’

‘No one is above the Lex,’ Kaulder replied, as if by rote.

‘I doubt you truly believe that.’

‘I’m trying to. That’s why I’m here.’

‘Alone.’

‘Yes, alone.’

‘And how should I take that exactly?’

‘Step away.’

‘As I said, I have a contract.’

‘Then renege. You’re getting in my way.’

‘And if I refuse?’

Her hand moved back under the table, to the holstered stub pistol.

‘You’ll make another powerful enemy in the same evening.’

‘Or I’ll be dead.’

‘Or that.’

Efrem regarded her, hard-edged in that way of Militarum officers or commissars, a product of schola progenium training. Tough to be sure, but going against the merchant-combines, against the grain… He didn’t like her chances. He conceded, however, that his would be even worse.

‘Any remuneration in this for me?’

Kaulder glowered and stood up from her seat.

‘Don’t follow me,’ she warned. ‘I never want to see you again, Mister Thade.’

‘I’m getting a lot of that recently,’ said Efrem.

She left without reply, and after a few seconds Efrem ordered a drink. A stiff one.

Still nursing his fifth glass, Efrem decided he should probably call it a night. The grain whiskey still burned as he drained the dregs. Not exactly Jovian silk cognac, but it did the job. For now. He rose unsteadily, left a few slates for the bill and staggered out of the bar, offering a sly wink to the doorwarden, who stoically ignored him.

Outside, he was headed for the nearest maglev hub so he could go to retrieve the Corvair and figure out how to tell Velhena Calicus he wouldn’t be taking her slate after all, when a man confronted him.

Inwardly, Efrem groaned. ‘Of all the arseholes in this city…’ he muttered.

Stave filled the alley, his shoulders practically scraping the walls either side. His mask glinted in the sodium light.

Efrem wagged his finger playfully at the giant manservant. ‘Have you been following me, Stave?’

He felt the sneer behind the mask without needing to see it, as Stave answered. ‘Your presence is requested.’

‘Oh, Stave,’ he said, affecting false airs and graces, ‘I have had quite the evening. Can this possibly wait until morning?’

‘Immediately.’

‘That’s a “no” then. I’ll need an hour or so to retrieve the Corvair, but as soon as I’ve done that I promise to be right along,’ said Efrem with mock solemnity, his right hand held across his heart. ‘On my honour.’

‘It’s already taken care of. And you have no honour.’

‘Are we really going to get into this again, old friend?’

Stave looked like he dearly wanted to, but his mistress’ hold over him was absolute. Instead, he turned, grunting, ‘Follow.’

With little other choice, Efrem followed him.

A sore head and more than a little hurt pride at Kaulder’s rejection did little to improve Efrem’s mood as he sat back in the gallery again, facing his former employer.

Velhena Calicus wore long, loose-fitting robes so diaphanous as to be revealing of her rejuvenated physique when the low lighting passed through them. A purplish cloud of obscura threaded the air around her from the hookah pipe she was smoking. He didn’t know whether she was genuinely toying with him or whether this was simply how she lived her life. In any event, she appeared more distracted than usual but adopted the same position as she had before by the window, as if she were looking for something.

Which, of course, she was.

‘What have you learned?’ she asked, without moving her gaze.

‘Not much,’ Efrem admitted. ‘I’m not the only one looking for him.’

She turned her head slightly, just enough so the light limned her statuesque profile, and let out a thin plume of the mildly hallucinogenic smoke.

‘Another woman?’ she asked mildly, still staring out of the window.

‘Has he had many? Mistresses, I mean.’

‘I know what you mean without elaboration, Mister Thade,’ she answered curtly, then admitted, ‘Some. He has needs. I have needs. They must be met if we are to continue to prosper.’ She took another sup of the pipe, and exhaled through pursed lips. ‘Who is she?’

‘It’s worse than you think. I have a better question,’ Efrem answered, ‘why are the Throne-sworn bloody Arbites interested in your husband?’

That got her full attention.

‘Allow me to elaborate,’ he said, seeing the horrified look on Velhena Calicus’ face. ‘Her name is Veronika Kaulder, and she’s Arbites. And she also told me in no uncertain terms to leave this well alone. I’m thinking that might not be such a bad idea.’

She pinched her lips then, a prelude to a confession judging by the sudden tightness of her shoulders and the arch of her neck, and Efrem realised she was about to reveal something important, something that she had previously hidden.

‘He’s alive,’ said Velhena in a quiet voice. ‘I’ve seen him.’

Efrem’s face contorted with incredulity. ‘What?’

‘I’ve seen him.’

‘Here? When?’

‘No, not here.’ She gestured to the window, a trail of purplish obscura smoke hanging in her wake. ‘Out there. Tonight.’

Efrem went to the window, staring intently at Velhena Calicus, trying to discern if she was being genuine or this was some game the rich play with the commoners for amusement. He found no trace of mendacity. Nor could he find any trace of Byron Calicus in the distant streets below.

‘You’re sure?’ he said, still searching.

‘It’s why I brought you here. To tell you. And also…’

Efrem turned sharply, gripping her by the arm a little more tightly than he meant to. As before, Stave had been dismissed and the two of them were alone.

‘Speak!’

She didn’t recoil or summon any security. Her eyes were fearful but also aroused. Efrem let her go.

‘Tell me what?’ he said calmly, easing away from the noblewoman.

‘I think he has been watching me.’

Efrem felt his anger rising again, the klay withdrawal, the alcohol and this entire shitty evening wearing his nerves down to a fine thread, but he kept himself in check.

‘I would define this as pertinent information, Missus Calicus, the kind that men in my rarified profession find useful.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, genuinely surprising him with her apology. ‘I thought it some lackey from Karridinus, sent here to keep an eye on me. That’s why I had Stave bring you in. I’ve seen a figure standing out there, at the edge of the Swathe, for several nights. The night after Byron disappeared, and every night since. I thought no more of it than I have already told you, but then I saw him. A flare of light, a sudden flash of a passing maglev… I don’t know what it was, but for a few moments the street lit up. And there he was, still in shadow but him. Byron. My husband.’

Grabbing his longcoat, which he’d slung across a chair, Efrem was headed out of the gallery when Velhena’s voice stopped him. ‘Will you find him for me, Mister Thade? I implore you. He is alive. Please find him. Please bring him back.’

‘I’ll find him, but not for you. For the truth.’

He left, longcoat whipping behind him.

The shudder of the maglev was a balm to Efrem’s thoughts as he made his way back to his box-hab. Crammed with sweating bodies, the claustrophobic metal tube granted him a certain sense of anonymity and security, and he used it to try to order what he knew, or thought he knew.

Velhena Calicus had been in that domicile too long, and was either mad or desperate. Or both. Or she was actually telling the truth, did see Byron Calicus and against all the odds and the evidence, the man was alive. Efrem found that difficult to countenance.

He recalled the details about the warehouse in the Dredge and the ship manifests he’d taken from Byron’s private domicile. And whatever gedge was. The data-ingot might provide more clarity or further obfuscate. Either way, he needed to know what was on it. This led him to Veronika Kaulder. To disobey the Adeptus Arbites was to sign your own death warrant, but Kaulder was alone and had nothing or else she would have acted already. Efrem wagered she might not have seen what was in the lock-casket secreted under Byron’s desk. Else why wouldn’t she have asked him to hand it over? Unless she didn’t care? And how did a fiscal-savant fit in to any of this? Relationship or not, they had clearly been in contact for some time before the man’s disappearance. And then for him to return to torment his wife from afar… The pieces fell askew. And so the picture stayed muddled.

He arrived back at his domicile without realising, the journey automatic and dogged by ill-formed thoughts. The Corvair stood waiting for him, the faint shimmer of a protection field visible when the larger motes of agri-particulate brushed against it. He assumed Stave or some other flunky had returned it for him. Velhena Calicus had expected him to stay on. The idea gnawed at him, to be so predictable. He told himself he wasn’t being manipulated but the conviction felt hollow.

Like his bones.

He really needed some klay. Just a nub. So he could sleep, get perspective.

Nearly falling through the door to his box-hab, he hastily slid across the locks and went for the stash hidden under the loose tile. He unwrapped the vellum with shaky fingers and broke off a piece. A nip of klay, that was all. A bad idea before sleep, he knew. The dreams would come. Old memories like sour meat left to fester. But as he climbed into his pallet bed, his skin like a flensed nerve, Efrem didn’t care. He bit down, savouring the tang on his tongue.

‘Let them come…’ he beckoned.

The earth shook, the vibrations carrying across the jungle. Efrem barely gave it a second thought. The bombardment was miles away. They were hitting the sundered Rochu Plains to the east, hammering the greens with every scrap of ordnance they had.

‘Up,’ he called, ‘move up.’

The men obeyed without comment, easing into patrol formation. Ganthro took the lead, flamer nozzle flickering in the gloom. Then Chekka and Prust, lascarbines held low and easy. Chekka had a medi-kit strapped to his gear, and loosened his helmet to wipe a line of sweat from his forehead.

‘Keep that helm secure, soldier.’

Efrem looked over to find Lieutenant Ciastro standing over them, one booted foot braced against a shallow ridge. Her chainsword lay against her shoulder, her grip relaxed but well practised.

Efrem saw his quick salute reciprocated, as was the sly smile.

‘Any word on the greens?’ he asked. ‘They still pushing up north?’

Ciastro referred to the vox-officer crouched in the hollow just below her, who had the receiver cup of the radio pressed to his ear but he shook his head.

‘That’s a negative, it would seem, serg–’

An explosion cut off the rest, throwing Guardsmen from their feet, earth and leaf litter sent flying.

‘Incoming! Incoming!’

Someone was shouting. From his prone position, it took Efrem a few seconds to realise it was him.

Las-beams cut through the jungle, shredding foliage and scything through bark.

The staccato rattle of stubbers replied, solid slugs tearing the other way. Prust got hit, jerking like a marionette at some Saturnalia Day fair before collapsing.

The rest of the Guardsmen kept firing, hunkered down behind fallen trunks or old dugouts. A deep bellowing and grunting resounded, louder than the chattering stubbers. It sent something cold up Efrem’s spine that he fought to stay the master of.

Half the platoon was coming up in support of the forward patrol. Fire-teams set up tripod-mounted heavy guns. A lascannon shrieked, hitting something far off in the growing churn of mist and mulched jungle debris. A second explosion cut through the noise, one of theirs. A walker, perhaps? Efrem couldn’t tell.

Then he saw the greens, lumbering through gloom… Thick-browed, leathern skin, curved tusks jutting up from slab-sided overbites. Red, porcine eyes promising only violence and pain.

‘Orks!’ Efrem roared, as a fusillade of las-beams lit up the jungle’s false night.

Skin burned, limbs were severed, eyes scorched black, but the greens kept coming. Their return fire was poor, but the orks wielded heavy cleavers, blades and fanged chainaxes. At close quarters, they would tear through the Guard platoon like a bushfire.

‘Where the hells did they come from?’

It was Ciastro, scurrying down next to him. She fired off a burst from her bolt pistol, the mass-reactive rounds shattering an ork’s skull and turning its left arm into a stump. It staggered on three more paces before a shot to its torso ripped open the ribcage and ended it.

‘Forward scouts said nothing about a warband this deep,’ she went on. ‘We should have been warned!’

Efrem noticed the master vox looped over her shoulder. Its previous incumbent evidently hadn’t made it.

‘Doesn’t matter now,’ said Efrem between shots, ‘we just have to live through it.’

A low rumble sounded overhead, growing loud enough to compete with the bellowing greens.

‘Is that…?’ Efrem looked up as an even deeper shadow fell across the jungle canopy, and the thud-thud of heavy rotors filled the air. The bombers hadn’t been miles away, he realised. They had been much closer, and waiting. Waiting for the orks to take the bait.

‘Marauder squadron…’ uttered Ciastro, nonplussed, her eyes skyward.

The high-pitched whine of an incendiary payload overwhelmed the stretched yawn of engine noise as the bombers made their strafing run.

Right above them.

‘Seraf!’

Efrem leapt at Ciastro, tackling his lieutenant to the ground and hurling her into the nearest dugout. He scrambled, half dazed, lasgun swinging madly from its strap in his urgency to join her. The bombs hit like a cascade of bottled thunder, sending up plumes of dirt and splitting the ground. The world tilted and Efrem felt it fall away beneath him, his body thrown to the heavens, left leg trailing ribbons of skin and sinew. A flare of pain, a sense of disassociation, then the hard return to earth. It jarred bone, broke bone. A half-stifled cry. Blood in his mouth. Smoke-choked air. Barely breathing. Numb at first. Then came heat. Then came pain, like blunt-edged razors raked across every nerve. As Efrem looked down at the ruin of his leg, he gave in. And started screaming.

The fog of waking clung to Efrem like a weighted funeral shroud. He rose groggily, throat hoarse from the klay. And the screaming. Fever sweat veiled his body in a fine, moist film. He took a drink, the heat hitting him like a mailed fist now. Red, gauzy light burned through the pollutant clouds, and streaked in through his window. Sun was up. It was already afternoon.

Still carrying a little of the klay’s effects, Efrem went straight to his cogitator and coaxed its machine-spirit to life. The engine sputtered at first, but then hummed with activation. Finding the data-ingot inside the pocket of his longcoat, he shoved it in the inload port then, as it began to parse the information, took the rest of the evidence he had collected and laid it out on the grubby floor.

Back at the private domicile of Byron Calicus, he had been searching quickly, mindful of discovery. Now he could take his time and properly analyse everything.

On its own, the warehouse address in the Dredge was largely meaningless so he switched his attention to the manifests and found an interesting correlation. Each of the cargo records came under the auspice of a single rogue trader house. The ships were all different, and had arrived at the Varangantuan suborbitals from different regions and subsectors, but receipt of contents had been overseen by the same household. A faded stamp proclaimed rightful ownership of each charter, a trident emblazoned over a nautical compass. According to the fine print on the parchments, this was the dynastic sigil of House Mermidian.

What connection would Karridinus have with a rogue trader household, and why in the hells would this be of interest to a fiscal-savant?

Exports, he could understand. It wasn’t unusual for the merchant-combines to use Chartist Captains of all stripes to get their goods out of terrestrial dock and into the void, but the manifests referenced goods and chattels coming into the city. And in large quantities.

At least he recognised the authorisation mark on the proclamation of service from the cybernetics workshop. He hadn’t realised at first, and it took the residual influence of the klay and casting his mind back to the meeting with Ohram Varr to link one to the other. A sickle. It was the same icon Varr had on his ebony ring. Not easy to see at the time with everything else that was going on, but now, thinking back, he was certain of it.

It only begged further questions, none of which he had answers to. Not least of which was the conundrum of Byron Calicus himself. Alive. Apparently. He supposed this could be attributed to Velhena Calicus’ growing desperation and psychological stress, but regardless of whether she was seeing what she wanted to see, he did believe her when she said someone had been watching her domicile. It only remained to establish who. As for Byron, he was almost certainly dead. And if not, then why hadn’t he reached out? Perhaps he feared for his wife’s safety if he did? But then, Kaulder had not heard from him either. It all pointed towards the discontinuation of Byron Calicus’ existence.

Efrem ran a hand through his hair, hoping to coax some brain cells into sudden and revelatory activity, but he had nothing. He should let it go, renege on the contract as Kaulder had warned him to, but something about it gnawed at him like a hangnail he couldn’t bite off.

A dulcet chime emanated from the cogitator, signalling that the data-ingot had been fully inloaded. Efrem went to the vid-slate and began to cycle through the cluster of hard-render pict files that had flashed up on the screen.

The first few images were dark and tough to make out, but as he cycled further he made out the dingy interior of a warehouse or silo. A large cryo-vault featured in one of picts, unspooling clouds of white gas through which Efrem noted rank upon rank of carcasses, hanging by hooked chains from some upper rafter he couldn’t see. A further image had been taken from farther out, revealing the cryo-vaults to be shipping containers of some kind, more slabs of frozen meat jammed within. It was impossible to discern exactly how much and how many of the containers were in the warehouse, but he gauged the amount to be considerable. On the side of one a brand stood out, declaring it as property.

It was the mark of House Mermidian.

Having looked through each of the picts with care, Efrem went back to the evidence scattered on his floor. He picked up the deed for the warehouse in the Dredge, then considered the images on the vid-slate.

He needed to know, and this was as good a lead as any.

‘To hells with it…’

The solar medallion given to him by Velhena Calicus did not only grant access to certain properties in Genovska, it also afforded Efrem certain privileges when traversing across districts. A mere flash of the talisman through the Corvair’s windscreen and the walled gatehouse barring one part of Varangantua from another parted.

The Dredge beckoned.

A shanty town of market bazaars, stinking wharfs, dockside hostelries and beaten-down manufactoria spread out beyond Efrem’s window like leechweed. Grubby dock labourers, skin slick with oil and tanned by accumulated muck, trudged the narrow thoroughfares, rubbing shoulders with scribes and priests and burly sanctioners, the churning melting pot of the district ever in flow like the goods spilling into and out of its ports. Merchants in iridescent silks attended by coteries of armed servitors and body-slaves heckled and cajoled from florid stalls and painted wagons, trying to get the attention of the milling crowds. Flocks of uthraptors wheeled overhead in frenzied murmurations, cawing for scraps. Everything for sale, nothing beyond price, so it went in the Dredge.

Efrem drove through it without slowing, grateful to be rid of the crowded piers and run-down berths as the district began to thin out and turned into a conglomeration of warehouses and oversized hangars.

He found the yard where the warehouse specified on the deed was located and pulled up in the Corvair, mindful to activate the groundcar’s protection field after he got out. The crowds had lessened here, reduced to gaggles of labour-serfs and rowdy voidfarers, but Efrem noticed more than a few avaricious glances aimed his way. Dull-eyed servitors paced back and forth, burdened by fuel drums for the landers or carrying packaging crates in their pneumatic claw arms. One or two of the cyborganic slaves had been fitted with optical bionics, and they stood out like tiny burning rubies as the light began to fade.

As he navigated between warehouses and silos, Efrem noticed colonies of smaller enterprises: junkyards and machine-vendors dealing with scrap, little better than opportunist scavengers. Part of an old vehicle chassis stood out amongst the debris and he was drawn to its familiarity, hauling back the dirty oil-stained tarp someone had laid over it.

‘Repulsors are still good. Checked ’em myself. Yours for two-fifty,’ drawled a reedy voice behind him.

Efrem turned to see an emaciated junker in rough-hewn green leather and patched overalls, rubbing his grimy hands together in a pair of fingerless gloves. The junker had a crude armature affixed to his skull; some of the cranial bolts were rusted and the entry wounds weeping. He glared through the attached ocular lens like an appraiser haggling for his best price.

‘Where you’d get it?’

The junker shuffled closer, and Efrem saw the wrench hanging off his belt.

‘Rightful salvage,’ rasped the junker, suddenly wary as he nodded to two of his mangy cohorts, who advanced slowly with tools in hand. ‘Why you wanna know?’

Efrem swept back his coat, revealing his jaeger’s licence and, more pertinently, the holstered Vulper. He also had a holdout piece, a one-shot, in a special compartment built into his aug, but he doubted he’d need that.

‘Get lost. Now.’

The junker’s eyes widened and his fingers started trembling as soon as he saw the gun. He gave a curt signal to his thugs and all three melted back into the shadows, leaving Efrem on his own.

The mood he was in, he might have killed them. The vehicle was a speeder. Weathered, chipped red paint. Clamshell roof. It had been poorly hidden, and there was no denying it belonged to Veronika Kaulder.

If they’re willing to take on the Lex directly… He should turn back, forget he’d ever met Kaulder or rode in her piece-of-shit speeder. He about-faced, got three paces, swore loudly and returned to the speeder. He never had been good at letting things go. Or making good decisions. Call it a personality defect.

He searched the vehicle but it had been stripped bare. This fact, and its appearance in the junkyard, did not bode well for the fate of the arbitrator. Efrem had liked her, despite the fact she’d shot at him, and her presence here meant he was getting close to something important. He only hoped he wasn’t too late for it to matter.

Possessed by a greater sense of urgency, he found the warehouse at the edge of the yard. A nondescript structure of corrugated ferrocrete and rough iron panels, it had a large front gate, bolted shut and mag-locked, and looked deserted. Efrem took a short tour around the perimeter. Several drums and spent crates had been piled up against one wall. He clambered onto them to reach a low gantry and from there a vent hatch large enough to admit him. It was sealed but not as securely as the gate. He kicked out with his aug and the hatch bent inwards, capitulating easily. A hollow clang rang out as the deformed metal hit a second gantry on the inside. Efrem climbed through the hatch, bracing himself for what he would find.

The warehouse was empty.

A vast benighted space opened out below him, accessed by a ladder that led from the gantry to the ground. It had been cleared, but hastily. Efrem snapped a lumen to his Vulper and panned it around. Drag marks stood out in the grainy light, and scuffed footprints. No shipping containers, but the evidence of their presence remained. The faint acerbity of cryo-freeze on the air, and the chains hanging from the beams above glinting with hoarfrost. No doubt, this was the place from the picts. The containers had left large impressions in the soft earth underfoot. A porcine smell emanated around one. The lumen picked out deep, narrow cavities in the ground nearby. Together they delineated a patch of earth roughly six feet square. Efrem rummaged around in his longcoat until he found the battered auspex he kept in one of his many pockets. The scanner took a few moments to warm up, its machine-spirit old and recalcitrant. The small, square screen lit and Efrem knelt by the patch of earth, gently sweeping the auspex back and forth. A shrill ping led him beyond the invisible borders and to a piece of metal buried in the mud. He clawed at it, digging with his bare hands until enough of it was exposed that he could prise it out.

He held the metal fragment up to the light.

It had been bitten in half, teeth marks on the gnawed edges and scratches thatched across the back that formed two letters ‘h’ and ‘h’. He turned it over to its front and realised it was a wing made of dark iron, a partially chewed aquila that barely caught the light.

Veronika Kaulder was almost certainly dead.

Efrem slumped onto his backside as the import of that sank in.

Whatever business Karridinus had found itself in, it was serious enough to kill an adept of the Arbites. Such a thing brought sanctions only unheard of. Tithe or not, it would not be overlooked. And if they had been bold enough to murder an arbitrator… Efrem felt the ground sliding under him, lofted by that explosion all over again, pieces of him torn away by its fury. He had stumbled blindly into a matter well beyond him, one that would likely get him killed and that he was powerless to extricate himself from. The truth was a kaleidoscope, constantly collapsing and reforming, a pattern impossible to pin down.

The last light of the day streamed through a skylight above, and Efrem looked up into its hazy shaft. He could not possibly fathom what ‘h’ and ‘h’ meant but it had almost certainly been scratched by Kaulder’s dying hand. A partial message, one she would never finish? Or just desperate disfigurement, as he reached for some meaning that simply wasn’t there. One man had the answers he sought. A dead man, he had assumed.

Velhena Calicus had said the figure had watched her every night. Efrem recalled the time when he had last visited the Calicus domicile. Only a few hours away.

After he had climbed back out of the warehouse, Efrem ran for the Corvair. Only one way out of this. The truth. It all led back to him, to Byron Calicus. Alive or dead.

I’ll ask him myself.

Beyond the high walls of the habclave, the city went about its nocturnal business. Citizens shuffled by, their collars turned up against the rain, their rebreathers fogged with exhalation. A light drizzle made the tarcrete on the road shine and glisten. To Efrem, sheltering inside the Corvair with a good vantage of the street, it reminded him of blood.

How much, he wondered, had been spilled since the city’s founding?

Enough to drown nations.

The engine ticked as it cooled, the only sound other than the slow drumming of the rain outside the groundcar. He worried he might have arrived too late, hurtling through the Dredge and into Genovska before screeching to a stop in the habclave’s looming shadow. But then he had seen Velhena Calicus languishing at the window, the brooding presence of her manservant behind her. She had lifted the shroud glass, perhaps so her husband could see her, if it was actually him and not some cruel tormentor. She gave Efrem not a second glance, but Stave stood transfixed on the Corvair as soon as it pulled up. His glare could have cut flak armour.

Arsehole, mouthed Efrem, hoping the manservant had been given ocular implants so he could lip-read from distance.

Velhena Calicus suddenly moved up to the window, her fingers splaying against the glass, and Efrem averted his gaze back to the street. A figure had stepped out into the glow of a hanging lumen. Its heavily cloaked appearance and the rain obscured any details. Agri-spoil from the Swathe turned the air into a soupy fog, and made identification from a distance practically impossible, so Efrem stepped from the Corvair and began to walk.

Belatedly, he realised he’d left his rebreather, but wasn’t about to go back for it. He stifled a cough, a rag held up to his nose and mouth as he forged into the night. A maglev rattled by overhead, repulsors crackling, the sudden surge powering the overhanging lumen, which flared like a blind grenade and lit up the entire left side of the figure’s face.

Efrem staggered to an abrupt halt. ‘Shitting saints…’

It was Byron Calicus.

He resumed walking, and then the walk became a jog, then a run as Byron Calicus about-faced and returned to the shadows of the alley from where he had first appeared.

‘Byron Calicus!’ Efrem shouted, uncaring who else heard and how insane he looked or sounded, running through the rain and mist, bellowing at a man who neither stopped nor paid him any heed.

He reached the edge of the alley, coughing badly now as spores began to fill his nose and mouth. The rag was a poor substitute for a rebreather but Efrem’s life was framed by regrets worse than this, so he pressed on. Sodium lamps cast the alley in a watery azure hue, their cracked casings sparking in the rain and giving off the reek of ozone. One such flash revealed Byron Calicus from the back, slowly moving away.

Even as he disappeared into a warren of narrow streets, Efrem thought he could still catch him. But as he neared the end of the alley, a sudden blow to the stomach pitched him onto his knees. A second blow caught his shoulder, bone-jarring force ripping down his arm like an electric shock. He rolled away, his attackers blurs in the rain and fog, and managed to gain his feet. Breathing was proving difficult, and he tasted mould on his tongue. He counted three of them, all armed, closing off the alley ahead. Masks hid their faces, eagle masks made from cheap plastek, watery rivulets running down the hard features like cold tears. And they wore fatigues. Jackboots and Munitorum-issue flak jackets.

Militarum?

He didn’t recognise the regiment and the gear didn’t look like Guard. And he knew Guard.

Navy then.

No, that was wrong too. The uniforms had privateer written all over them. Not literally, of course, but as Efrem dodged a lunging knife he got a look at the service tattoo on his assailant’s hand.

A trident and compass. Mermidian.

Well, shit me…

Stepping into his attacker and away from the blow, Efrem trapped the knife in the crook of his elbow and used his other hand to break the armsman’s wrist. A bleat of agony slipped his attacker’s mouth as Efrem took a cosh against his forearm, the pain making his teeth clench. Kicking the still-agonised ex-knife wielder aside, he focused on the one with the cosh. He parried a second swipe, throwing a punch that failed to land, just as a third attacker hit him in the ribs with brass knuckles. Efrem let out a groan and fought the urge to vomit. A swift jab to the chin had Knuckles reeling, but the cosh caught Efrem’s shoulder, numbing it. A savage cross to the side of the head and white-hot pain put him on his knees again, looking up through the rain at the three men. He was slowly choking to death, he realised, wheezing like an obscura addict.

‘Well…’ he gasped, ‘I suppose everyone is only one bad fight away from a moment like this.’

The three men, their faces still hidden by their masks, looked down impassively.

‘Made to look like a gang mugging, is that it?’ Efrem gasped, really struggling now. At least the rain down his neck was cooling.

‘I never much cared for this life anyway,’ he said, about to close his eyes, when a freight hauler collided with the nearest thug, lifting him up off the ground and throwing him into the wall. Bone crunched. Broke. A man screamed. The freight hauler swung out a fist, snapping it like a piston into a second thug’s solar plexus. A grunt as the second thug crumpled, ribs fractured, lung punctured.

The third thug lashed back, and got in a good hit with an iron maul. The resulting jolt jerked the freight hauler back, except it wasn’t a freight hauler at all. It was a man, a man who struck the alley wall and saw his own mask dislodged.

Stave seethed, rain trickling down his face, his actual scar-ravaged face. Terrible burns had turned his skin to chewed meat, his lip curled into a permanent snarl. Old wounds, seldom exposed. He advanced on the last thug, a broad-shouldered hulk, stepping up with a pugilist’s ferocity and swagger. A wild lunge of the shock maul met air instead of flesh as Stave dodged it, a rain of blows his savage reply. He swung and hit with metronomic precision, alternating between face and body, between left and right, chaining punches into a devastating beating.

The other two men lay dead or dying, this one not far off either and Efrem cried out with the little breath he had left.

‘I need one alive…’

Stave stopped. He simply stopped, as if in sudden stasis. His opponent, or rather punchbag, staggered back against the wall, slid down and sat still.

‘You need to be quick…’ Stave snarled, his blood up, but still master of his bile as he stooped to retrieve one of the eagle masks. With a tearing of plastek, he ripped out the rebreather concealed behind the mask and threw it to Efrem, who caught it and pulled it over his nose and mouth. He took a few breaths until he was breathing more or less steadily again. Stave had gone to retrieve his own disguise and Efrem noted the nose plugs he wore and the serial number branded into his brawny neck, only visible for a moment until it was concealed behind ceramic again.

He turned his attention to the thug, seizing the dying man’s chin and pulling his face up to the light. Purple bruising deformed already swollen, gory features. Efrem only hoped Stave had not broken the man’s jaw.

‘You’re Mermidian, rogue trader crew, yes?’

Despite his gruesome state, the man smiled and revealed bloodstained teeth. Two were missing.

‘Did you kill Veronika Kaulder?’ Efrem demanded. ‘Did you know whom she served?’

No answer.

‘What are you bringing into the city and why?’

Efrem clenched the man’s jaw tighter when he still wouldn’t answer.

‘I’ll get you to a chirurgeon,’ he lied. ‘You can live, but I want answers. What’s in those shipments? What’s “gedge”?’

A reaction at last, a gurgling of blood as the man strained to clear his throat. Efrem leaned in close, warm and rasping breath against his ear, the man’s last.

‘You’ll see… You’ll see…’

He tried to laugh, Efrem readying to beat the truth out of him, whatever was left of him to beat, when the man slumped into a heap and the light left him. Efrem pulled at his uniform, slapped him hard across the face but there was nothing.

‘Fuck!’

He lashed out, kicking a chunk of brick from the wall, pulverising it with his aug.

‘It’s old Navy slang,’ said Stave. ‘I’ve heard some Alectian freighter captains and deckhands use it. Not common though.’

‘What?’ Efrem paused, anger cooling by the second, the rain a welcome balm steadying his thoughts. It took him a moment, probably on account of his battered skull. Then it came back in a flood.

The serial number, the scarring on Stave’s face, the kind one gets from a plasma burn.

‘You were a Navy rating?’ asked Efrem, then narrowed his eyes. ‘No, an armsman. Why did you get discharged?’

‘I didn’t,’ Stave said, answering both questions and posing several more.

Efrem nodded, a moment of understanding passing between them. ‘I suppose we’re all running from something, aren’t we?’

Stave shrugged and Efrem pictured tectonic plates shifting somewhere beneath them.

‘Salvage,’ said Stave, ‘alien salvage, that’s what it means.’

‘But what would they be doing with…?’ Efrem was turning Kaulder’s broken aquila in his hand, flipping it front over back. His gaze alighted on the back just as the sodium glow hit it. It wasn’t two letters, not ‘h’ and ‘h’ at all. It was a number: 44.

‘Oh shit… oh Throne and shit!’ He started to run, back down the alley.

‘What are you doing?’ Stave growled as he passed by.

‘Vox Castellan Seraf Ciastro,’ he replied. ‘Tell her to bring every sanctioner she’s got to the Swathe, to Karridinus holdings.’

‘What for?’

‘To get to the truth. To end this.’

Efrem slewed the Corvair around, tyres shrieking, and gunned the engines hard. Rain smeared the windscreen like paint, obscuring the way ahead. As he drove through the downpour, hunched behind the wheel, Efrem considered the empty warehouse he had found in the Dredge. Mermidian could not have cleared it out and found somewhere else so quickly. And they couldn’t have left the containers, not after Kaulder discovered them. Even if she was dead, they couldn’t trust she wasn’t alone or that the Arbites wouldn’t send someone else. Perhaps she’d been tortured for what she knew; Efrem hoped not. He tried not to think about the small patch of earth where he’d found her half-chewed badge or the noisome porcine stink that pervaded it.

He took a corner hard, mounting the pavement and narrowly missing another groundcar. Their shouted curses already fading, he aimed for the access road that led to the only place he could think of to go, to ‘44’.

He headed for the Swathe.

It had been sealed for the night, auto-fences having sprung up around acres of agri-plantations and grazing land for the massed herds like walled settlements dividing petty fiefdoms. Mercantile concerns both large and small had a claim, the largest being the combines themselves, who towered over the rest like Titans. A roadway speared through it, the main artery that led to each of the mercantile compounds and therefore neutral territory. It was wide enough for bulk freighters, even tanks.

Small armies patrolled at the compounds, mainly servitors on account of the fact they didn’t tire and had more resilience to exposure to the earth and mulch particulate lathering the air. It stuck to the Corvair’s windscreen, glomming around the edges, softening the tread of tyres that had begun to slip and drag with the accumulated filth girdling them.

No lumens burned, save for the stab-lights strafing the outer markers of a merchant guild’s lands and property. And then Efrem saw one that did. A faint glow in the distance, a sure sign of habitation and activity.

He made for it, the Corvair ill-suited to the conditions but just about managing, and was satisfied as he drove within view to see the massive machine-stamped label on the side of a huge depot. In stencilled numerals, it read 44.

Slowing the Corvair to a crawl, he pulled up short of the depot and well out of sight of any Karridinus guards. As he brought the groundcar to a halt, he found the rag he had used in the alley. Unravelling the rag, he muttered a heartfelt apology.

A sudden blast of fire and noise brought men running, as the groundcar that had just languidly rolled up to their front gate exploded in a bright flare of light and violence. Autoguns sweeping the darkness as they issued bellowed commands for the servitors to come and douse the blaze, the guards never saw the figure sneaking through their overstretched cordon. And by the time the crisis had been contained, he was long gone, lost to the shadows.

Efrem had made sure to bring his rebreather, and held his Vulper low and to the side as he hugged the edge of the depot. Alone, there was probably little he could do to prevent what was happening inside. His only ambition was to find proof of what Karridinus was doing, and why a dead man had seemingly returned to life. A side door, no more than a maintenance hatch, provided a way in, a kick from his augmetic the necessary key.

Cold hit him as soon as he crossed the threshold, a tangible veil of vaporous gossamer hanging in the air. Efrem pushed through it, realising that the atmosphere of the entire compound was cryo-cooled. He didn’t need his rebreather any more, so put it away, but the air chilled him and he pulled his longcoat up around his body, suppressing a shiver, exhaling in ghostly plumes.

He regretted torching the Corvair – it had been a beautiful vehicle – but it served as a necessary distraction. Out of tricks, Efrem hoped his wits would be enough for what came next. Immediately that was a set of narrow steps leading up into shadows, so he took them, his Vulper trained on the way ahead. Machine noise filtered through the icy dark, nearby and carried through the walls with rippling vibrations. A processor of some kind, perhaps? Surely industrial-grade. He headed towards the sound.

Mercifully, the route he had taken was unguarded, a series of deserted corridors encrusted with hoarfrost where every turn prompted a fresh moment of anxiety at the threat of being discovered. His boots crunched underfoot. If anyone had thought to check for interlopers, they would have seen a trail of crisp footprints leading precisely to Efrem’s location.

After a few more turns and a couple more floors, Efrem arrived at a door, its edges limned with light. Slowly, quietly, he stepped up to it and pressed his head against the cold metal. The machine noise was much louder here and almost certainly whatever was making it was beyond this door. He couldn’t hear anything else, however, no idle chatter or the telltale thump of booted feet making a patrol. He took a chance and tried the handle. It opened freely enough, the mild crack of partly hardened frost the only disturbance. Light bled onto the small landing where Efrem was standing, a sliver at first then a flood as he pulled the door wide enough to slip through the gap.

He emerged onto a gantry that overlooked an immense hangar below.

Haulage servitors lumbered in dull-eyed trains, carrying bales of plas-wrapped meat fresh from several large and noisy grinders. The air stank with it, cold and bloody and reeking of churned flesh. Rank upon rank of thawed grox carcasses were being fed into the machines, the herd beasts rendered into slab and destined for hungry Militarum bellies.

But that wasn’t all.

A second meat supply supplemented the first, and Efrem balked at the sight of it. A great heap of corpses were being thrown into the grinders. Limp and blank-eyed, shot through with las-beams or bullet holes. A tangle of malformed limbs, and tusks and hooves and brutish snouts, and slit-nosed faces and lithe bodies. He recognised greenskins and a few others. Heat flared across his skin, despite the cold room, and his heart hammered as the barrage fell upon him again, taking his leg, tearing him apart just like the meat in those wretched fucking grinders. The sheer horror of it, wondering how far the conspiracy went, how deep. Most of Varangantua’s citizens hadn’t ever seen a xenos, and those that had, not in decades. Many thought aliens were just a myth.

Efrem fought the urge to vomit, knowing it might reveal his presence to the handful of bored-looking House Mermidian armsmen roaming amongst the servitors. The bales were being loaded onto several large but currently disengaged anti-grav pallets.

It looked like a shipment was being readied for departure.

The magnitude of what he was seeing sank in like a cold blade. It was headed for the void, to Throne only knew where, to the Militarum, to the Navy. Entire regiments subsisting on this tainted filth… That was how Karridinus had managed to increase its quotas: they had found another meat source.

It took an effort of will for Efrem not to discharge his Vulper there and then, and try to kill them all. He wouldn’t win. Instead, he looked for the architect of this madness. And then he found him.

Ohram Varr stood off to the side, in every way apart from the workers doing his will. Wearing a finely tailored suit of soft navy-blue wool with a high-collared crimson half-cloak cinched to a silver shoulder guard. He looked pleased with himself. A king surveying his vassals.

A sick feeling in Efrem’s stomach turned to bile and he levelled the pistol at Varr’s head. He couldn’t kill them all but he could kill that bastard and send him straight to the hells. He was about to pull the trigger when he saw a second figure join the first, Varr’s indomitable servitor, Canid.

Except it wasn’t only a servitor, it was Byron Calicus.

Neither alive nor dead, but somewhere in between.

The proclamation of service from the maintenance workshop, a backstreet enterprise with greyed-out morals. The sickle stamp of Ohram Varr, his authorisation.

‘Holy Throne…’

Varr had planned to cyborgise Byron from the start. He must have known Calicus had discovered his secret, and about Kaulder too. He had lured Kaulder, killed her and then left a trail for Efrem to follow…

An ill feeling began to foment. Byron Calicus or, rather, Canid had brought him to the alley. Whether some residual memory in his partially lobotomised brain had compelled him to seek out his former habclave, or through a simple act of cruelty designed to torment his widow, Canid had led him into danger. With Stave’s intervention Efrem had believed that danger ended, but perhaps it never had. The cold pressure of a gun muzzle against the side of his head confirmed it.

‘You made a big fucking mistake coming here,’ uttered a voice Efrem didn’t recognise. Down below, Varr nodded mockingly up to the gantry where he was crouching.

‘Son of a–’

For the second time in as many days, Efrem’s world turned to darkness.

A throbbing headache, like nails being hammered into his skull, brought him around and as the blur began to fade, Efrem saw Ohram Varr standing before him. The blank-eyed golem that was Canid stood behind the baron. It was hard to think of the servitor as anything but a machine, the man it had once been reduced to a mask of flesh that resembled his old face.

‘You are very tenacious, Mister Thade,’ said Varr. ‘I thought that about you the moment we met. He’s a tenacious one, I thought to myself. A pity that our acquaintance ends here.’

The fog lifting from his senses, Efrem realised he was perched on a small metal platform and dangled precariously over a deep pit. A stench rose from the pit, from the soft earth at its base. A porcine odour, as well as sweat and shit, the same reek he had detected in the warehouse. Puddles shone in the churned-up depressions below, viscous and dark. The other smell was a mixture of copper and iron.

‘What now, Varr? You toss me in this damn pit?’

Varr appeared not to hear him, and gestured to their surroundings. ‘I usually keep this part of the hangar warm. It’s better for the herd, you see. Before they’re slaughtered.’

Efrem snatched a glance at the pit. Upon a second look, he noticed a barred hatchway, darkened but something definitely lurking behind it. Distant snorting and grunting reached him from below. It wasn’t just a pit. It was a feeding pen. He considered running, but then noticed the House Mermidian armsmen had moved to stand guard around him.

‘But as you can see,’ Varr continued, and his gestures grew more expansive as he indicated the shipments being loaded onto the anti-grav pallets, ‘we are in the midst of preparing cargo for void transit.’

‘This is heresy, Varr,’ Efrem countered, hoping to stall for time. ‘They won’t just kill you for this, they’ll have the Black Hoods take you. There are rooms for men like you, places of punishment that make a chastener’s interrogation chamber look like a joy house.’

Varr snarled as he bit back, his attention snagged at last. ‘The Inquisition won’t touch me. They can’t sanction what they don’t know about. The risk dies with you,’ he said. He jabbed a finger at Efrem, ‘I told you, I warned you that I could reach you, that any transgression against me or my enterprise would be dealt with severely. And you have transgressed, Mister Thade.’

‘Says the man shipping xenos meat to the Militarum.’

‘And you have transgressed,’ Varr repeated, letting his irritation show. ‘Shall I tell you what makes this city great, Mister Thade? Before you die, shall I tell what raises it above the filth and the smoke?’

‘Is the answer more shit and you’re the one sat on top of the shit pile, a king of actual shit? That’s it, isn’t it?’

Varr scowled, his moment ruined, and Efrem felt a petty swell of pride.

‘I keep part of the herd back,’ he answered coldly. ‘They are usually such docile creatures, unless abused. The feral grox, well… savage is a poor description.’

Beyond the bars, the snorting and grunting intensified. Efrem thought he saw narrow, porcine eyes glinting redly in the gloom. Eyeing their next meal.

‘They are starved, of course, but when they feed…’ He feigned a ripple of pleasure. ‘They are devourers.’

The grunting from behind the bars grew more agitated and not for the first time that evening, Efrem wished he had a little klay to soften the hard reality of the moment.

‘Flesh, bone…’ said Varr. ‘They’ll eat anything. Everything.’

The bars retracted and the heavy, scaled herd beasts trotted out, snorting and tasting the air. They were easily the size of a man, only bulkier and more squat. Marks from pain goads scored their backs and snouts.

‘So, yes,’ uttered Varr, ‘I am the king of actual shit, but you’re the one who gets to eat it.’

Frantically, Efrem looked around, desperate for a way out. Chained pulleys swayed in the air above the pit, too high to reach. They had taken his Vulper, his nightstick, but left the one-shot, though reaching it before one of the armsmen got him was impossible. He tried to find Byron Calicus in the dead gaze of the servitor, some vestige of the man it had been. It was like staring into the muzzle of a lasgun.

‘Byron…!’ The name echoed across the vast room, as if by thinking it Efrem had somehow summoned it into being.

A woman’s voice, grief-stricken and in pain.

Velhena Calicus stood out upon the meat-packing floor, her hulking manservant by her side, a dead armsmen at his feet with a broken neck.

She must have been thirty or forty feet away but the servitor turned his head at the sound of his name being called. Then he twitched as she started to rush towards him.

Varr gave an exasperated sigh. His moment of triumph fore-stalled.

‘Kill her…’

Las-beams scorched the shadows as the Mermidian armsmen opened fire. Stave had kept pace with his mistress and dragged her into cover, the haulage servitors below taking hits as they hurried through them. A few fell, stricken by headshots, dumping their cargo. Others carried on, mutely going about their tasks, mindless and oblivious.

With the guards distracted, Efrem threw himself at Varr, ‘You soulless piece of–’ but as Varr backed off, the platform slid away and the world tilted again as Efrem fell…

He lurched, fingers snagging the edge of the pit, and held on, legs dangling beneath him, the weight of his aug like an anchor.

‘Byron Calicus,’ Efrem bellowed, and the servitor turned his head to regard him. ‘That’s your wife out there. She loves you, and will do anything to save you.’

The fusillade from the armsmen continued, Varr hanging back at the dull snaps of Stave’s return fire even as he urged his mercenaries to kill both servant and mistress. Only when he looked round to see why his meat-shield hadn’t joined him did he see Efrem still hanging on.

‘Aren’t you dead yet?’ he said, and tried to stamp down on Efrem’s fingers.

‘Byron,’ Efrem yelled, as he dodged the first boot stomp, ‘she’ll die if you do nothing.’

Canid’s bionic eye glowed marginally brighter and then he moved, advancing with grim purpose… He took the first armsman by surprise, tearing off his arms and discarding what was left to bleed out on the floor. The screaming drew the attention of the others, half of which trained their weapons on the servitor; the other half went deeper into the hangar in search of the other trespassers. Las-beams seared Canid’s flesh, but didn’t slow him.

‘Canid, obedience protocol,’ shouted Varr, and the servitor paused. ‘To me, slave,’ he intoned and the servitor took a few faltering steps. ‘I said to me!’

Another step, and then Canid stopped. His mouth worked soundlessly, reaching for a means to cogitate what he wanted to say. The anguish was etched on his face, a slow and terrible realisation of what he had become, the mouth-agape frustration of a creature denied its voice. And then he spoke.

‘No…’

The servitor swung at Varr, who backed up a step. ‘Shoot it!’ he quailed to his men, as Efrem reached up for his ankle and pulled Varr down into the pit with him.

Efrem hit the ground hard, but the soft earth broke his fall. Crouched in the muck and the half-congealed blood, he knew he couldn’t climb out.

As he rose unsteadily to his feet, he gripped the soft earth and his hand came away with a partially chewed ring. And now he saw it, he noticed other items half buried in the shit-stinking sludge. Half a boot. An earring. A few broken links of chain. A tooth.

Varr got to his feet, a look of utter disbelief on his face at his sudden change in circumstances. The grox had yet to really take the bait, still snorting around their foetid paddock, but a few were beginning to show some interest.

As Efrem touched the hidden compartment in his aug, the one-shot popped out smoothly and into his hand. He had been about to raise it when he heard a telltale click. Varr drew down on him, a silver-chased autopistol in his outstretched hand.

‘I’m not going to kill you,’ he promised, a gash across his forehead bleeding freely like warpaint down his face. His expression was murderous.

Above them, the sounds of the battle went on, the hiss-crack of las-beams and the tearing of flesh followed by screaming.

‘How many?’ asked Efrem. The grox were getting close, their discombobulation at the sudden change in their surroundings fading as they scented meat. The grunting and snorting turned into snarling.

Varr frowned, not understanding.

‘Bullets in your pistol,’ Efrem elaborated, risking a half-glance over his shoulder as he felt the presence of the beasts coming closer. ‘How effective are they against scaled hide?’

‘I only need one to kill you.’

‘And then what? I’m ready to die, Varr. Are you?’

Varr glanced around uncertainly. The beasts had slowly encircled them. The sweet stench of their bodies mixed with the filth and blood was sickening.

‘Are you?’ Efrem repeated.

Varr’s aim wavered. They must have smelled his fear sweat, as one of the grox began to lunge. A burst of auto-fire ripped up its belly, the slugs tearing it to pieces inside. Efrem pulled his one-shot, took aim and fired.

The pulley chain came down, its fastenings broken by a well-aimed shot, and Efrem jumped, putting everything he had into his aug. He caught the end of the hanging chain, the one-shot disappearing below as he swung up with his other hand to get a better grip and wrap the chain around his wrist.

Varr was backing up, trying to find space. He saw Efrem, raised his pistol. Anger changed to fear then desperation, revenge discarded for survival as he turned the weapon on the herd.

He killed two more before a third brought him down, his strangled cry cut off as the grox pushed him into the earth and began to feed…

Efrem averted his gaze, and had to grit his teeth against the terrible sounds that followed.

He hung there, his tethered arm slowly losing feeling, for what felt like hours. In truth it only took the herd minutes to devour their feast… flesh, bone and even cloth. Only the signet ring remained, resting proud of the earth, a glint of silver tarnished by a splatter of red.

Bellies full and their rage sated, the grox sloped back to their pens, disappearing through the hatch, which closed automatically behind them.

Efrem got his wrist loose – it was pale as alabaster – and dropped unceremoniously to the ground.

A face regarded him from the lip of the pit, well, actually a masked face.

‘Saving your hide again,’ Stave said evenly.

‘If you wouldn’t mind…’

Efrem staggered to the platform, every inch of him silently screaming to get out of the pit. He feared he might never lose the stench of it. As he gratefully climbed out, the truth of what had happened above was revealed.

The Mermidian guards were all dead. Most had been torn to pieces, rent limb from actual limb or split in two, the twin halves neatly – and horribly – cauterised. A few had been shot.

Velhena Calicus was not there to greet him. She knelt by her husband’s side, cradling his head, stroking what was left of his hair. Resilient though servitors were, they were not invulnerable. Not much of Canid’s body, flesh or metal, had been left unscathed. Las-burns had torn him open and burned him almost entirely black.

‘He always had such lovely hair…’ said Velhena to no one in particular.

Stave watched. Efrem could do little more than that himself.

Byron Calicus, for that was who inhabited his dying frame now, looked up at his wife and a gentle smile pulled at his lips as he died.

Velhena allowed a few moments to pass before she wiped away her tears and said, ‘No one can ever know.’

Efrem was about to protest when he realised it was pointless.

‘You never raised Seraf Ciastro, did you,’ he said to Stave.

The manservant didn’t reply. It didn’t matter. He had his answer.

‘What now then?’ Efrem asked.

‘Now,’ Velhena replied, ‘it’s finally over.’

The same lightless cell he had occupied several days earlier echoed to the sound of Seraf’s angry pacing.

‘Nothing,’ she repeated, turning on her heel to face the jaeger sitting in the chair opposite her. ‘You are saying you know nothing about the Karridinus compound burning down?’

Efrem shook his head.

‘Don’t you lie to me, Thade,’ she warned. ‘I swear to the Throne, if you’re lying to me…’

‘You’ll shoot me yourself?’ he opined.

‘Worse.’

‘I want to help,’ he said, ‘but I can’t tell you what I don’t know.’

‘And if I summon a chastener, have them torture it out of you?’

‘Torture is an ineffective method of interrogation,’ Efrem replied. ‘You see, the victim is so traumatised that they will simply say whatever it is–’

‘It’ll make me feel better!’ Seraf cut in, her face a new shade of apoplexy.

It was a mess, Efrem had to concede that. A Karridinus compound up in flames. No sign of the agri-baron responsible for it and apparently the only one privy to its contents or workings. The merchant-combine had closed ranks, and the Arbites weren’t interested as Karridinus pledged to maintain its tithe quotas without interruption.

Seraf looked inclined to rage further but then sagged as the anger bled out of her like poison extracted from a wound.

‘I don’t want to see you again, Thade. Ever,’ she said, weary now.

Efrem nodded, feeling the sting of that, but got up to leave.

‘Do you still lie about it?’ Seraf asked.

‘About what?’

She gestured to the leg. ‘About how you got it.’

‘That the Imperium which I so dutifully served used me and my comrades as bait for our enemies then bombed the living shit out of us to kill them?’ He made a face like he was weighing up a decision. ‘Yeah, I still lie about it.’

‘Is that why you left?’

‘No one really leaves the Militarum, Seraf, you know that. You still serve, one way or the other.’

‘You know what I mean.’

Efrem reached the door. ‘No,’ he uttered quietly, looking Seraf in the eye and feeling the old pain rise anew, ‘that wasn’t why I left.’

She looked back, about to reply, but Efrem turned and walked away.

‘Be seeing you,’ he called.

‘No, you won’t.’

‘No, suppose not.’

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Chris Wraight is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Scars and The Path of Heaven, the Primarchs novels Leman Russ: The Great Wolf and Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris, the novellas Brotherhood of the Storm, Wolf King and Valdor: Birth of the Imperium, and the audio drama The Sigillite. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written The Lords of Silence, Vaults of Terra: The Carrion Throne, Vaults of Terra: The Hollow Mountain, Watchers of the Throne: The Emperor’s Legion, Watchers of the Throne: The Regent’s Shadow, the Space Wolves novels Blood of Asaheim and Stormcaller, and many more. Additionally, he has many Warhammer novels to his name, including the Warhammer Chronicles novel Master of Dragons, which forms part of the War of Vengeance series. Chris lives and works in Bradford-on-Avon, in south-west England.

Darius Hinks is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 novels Blackstone Fortress, Blackstone Fortress: Ascension and three novels in the Mephiston series, Mephiston: Blood of Sanguinius, Mephiston: Revenant Crusade and Mephiston: City of Light. He also wrote the audio drama The Beast Inside and the novella Sanctus. His work for Age of Sigmar includes Hammers of Sigmar, Warqueen and the Gotrek Gurnisson novel Ghoulslayer. For Warhammer, he wrote Warrior Priest, which won the David Gemmell Morningstar Award for best newcomer, as well as the Orion trilogy, Sigvald and several novellas.

Gareth Hanrahan’s three-month break from computer programming to concentrate on writing has now lasted fifteen years and counting. He lives in Ireland and has written more gaming books than he can readily recall by virtue of the alchemical transmutation of guilt and tea into words. His first story for Black Library, ‘Castle of the Exile’ was published in Inferno! Volume 5.

Graham McNeill has written many Horus Heresy novels, including The Crimson King, Vengeful Spirit and his New York Times bestsellers A Thousand Sons and the novella The Reflection Crack’d, which featured in The Primarchs anthology. Graham’s Ultramarines series, featuring Captain Uriel Ventris, is now six novels long, and has close links to his Iron Warriors stories, the novel Storm of Iron being a perennial favourite with Black Library fans. He has also written the Forges of Mars trilogy, featuring the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the Warhammer Horror novella The Colonel’s Monograph. For Warhammer, he has written the Warhammer Chronicles trilogy The Legend of Sigmar, the second volume of which won the 2010 David Gemmell Legend Award.

Guy Haley is the author of the Siege of Terra novel The Lost and the Damned, as well as the Horus Heresy novels Titandeath, Wolfsbane and Pharos, and the Primarchs novels Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter, Corax: Lord of Shadows and Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia. He has also written many Warhammer 40,000 novels, including Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work, Dark Imperium, Dark Imperium: Plague War, The Devastation of Baal, Dante, Baneblade and Shadowsword. His enthusiasm for all things greenskin has also led him to pen the eponymous Warhammer novel Skarsnik, as well as the End Times novel The Rise of the Horned Rat. He has also written stories set in the Age of Sigmar, included in War Storm, Ghal Maraz and Call of Archaon. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son.

Marc Collins is a speculative fiction author living and working in Glasgow, Scotland. He is the writer of the Warhammer 40,000 short story ‘Ghosts of Iron’ and when not dreaming of the far future he works in Pathology with the NHS.

Nick Kyme is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Old Earth, Deathfire, Vulkan Lives and Sons of the Forge, the novellas Promethean Sun and Scorched Earth, and the audio dramas Red-Marked, Censure and Nightfane. His novella Feat of Iron was a New York Times bestseller in the Horus Heresy collection, The Primarchs. Nick is well known for his popular Salamanders novels, including Rebirth, the Sicarius novels Damnos and Knights of Macragge, and numerous short stories. For Warhammer Horror, he wrote the novel Sepulturum and his short story ‘Stitches’ appeared in the collection Invocations. He has also written fiction set in the world of Warhammer, most notably the Warhammer Chronicles novel The Great Betrayal and the Age of Sigmar story ‘Borne by the Storm’, included in the novel War Storm. More recently he has scripted the Age of Sigmar audio drama The Imprecations of Daemons. He lives and works in Nottingham.

An extract from Bloodlines.

Down, down below, down under the flyovers and the transit arches, down to where the lumens floated on wheezing suspensors and the windows were steamed with condensation. People packed in on all sides, some high on topaz, some exhausted, all smelling of euphoria.

She breathed it in. She let her fingers graze along the rockcrete of the close wall, feeling its coldness against the wet heat of the night. She looked up, and saw the smear-glow of private club entrances, vivid in neon. She heard the rumble of turbine traffic overhead, and the hiss of groundcars on damp asphalt.

She’d taken it. Topaz. It was as good as she’d hoped – she was giddy, enjoying the freedom. Every face she looked at was one of a friend, smiling back at her, rouged, whitened, darkened, flared with photoreactive pigments, glittering with augmetic baubles. Music thumped away, spilling from the open doorways of the sanctioned haze dens, threatening to drag her in, smother her in the heat and the noise.

She could have walked along that street forever, just drinking it in. She liked the smells, overlapping one another, competing like jostling suitors for her attention. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her overcoat, pushed her shoulders back, slipped through the crowds.

She didn’t know what time it was. The deep of the night, for sure, a few hours before dawn. It didn’t matter. Not any more. That was the point of freedom – make your decisions, stupid ones, good ones, get out, do your own thing.

A man lurched into her way, grinning and drunk. He shoved up against her, and she smelled his breath.

‘Hello, young fish,’ he slurred at her, swaying. ‘Come to swim with me?’

He had plastek-looking hair, too clean, too sculpted. She kept on going, sliding past him, out into the middle of the street. The press of people swept him away, giving her more faces to gawp at. Fireworks went off in the sky, dazzling, smelling of chems, picking out high arches overhead engraved with skull-clusters and fleur-de-lys finials. Commercia chameleon-screens flashed and whirled, spinning pixelated images one after the other – a woman smiling, a man gazing at an altar, a Navy drop-ship wheeling across a starfield, troops in uniform marching under a crimson sky on another world.

For the first time, she felt a spike of danger. She had walked a long way, away from the friends she had come with. She had almost forgotten about them entirely, and had very little idea where she was.

She looked back and saw the plastek-hair man following her. He was with others, and they had latched on to her.

Damn.

She picked up the pace, skipping on her heels, darting to the street’s edge, to where the grand avenue, scarred with twin steel ground-tracks, met another one, cobbled and glinting, that ran steeply downwards.

If she hadn’t taken topaz, she’d have stayed, by instinct, with the crowds, where the press of bodies provided its mute kind of safety. But it got darker quickly, and the lumens faded to red, and the old cobblestones underfoot got slippery. The beat of the music felt harder – dull, like the military dirges they transmitted every evening over the communal prop-sets.

Down, down, down.

She felt a bit sick. She shot a glance back and saw that they were still coming, only jogging now, four of them, all drunk on jeneza or rezi or slatov. They all had those sharp, fake haircuts, smart dress, clean boots. Defence-corps trainees, maybe – officer-class, full of entitlement, untouchable. She’d come across the type so many times before. Hadn’t expected to find them down here – perhaps they liked to slum it from time to time as well, to skirt against the grime for fun, see whether it stuck to their uniforms.

Just as she began to worry, someone grabbed her by the arm. She pulled back, only to see a girl smiling at her, a girl her age, pale emerald skin, orange hair, a metal serpent-head stud in her cheek.

‘Come on,’ the girl said, her irises glittering. ‘I saw them too.’

She followed her. She went down a narrow passageway between two big hab-blocks built of dark, crumbling prefab slabs. It soon smelled of urine and old sweat, of drains and discarded carb-bars. As she wound further down the alley, the noise of the men’s footfalls, their laughter, faded. Perhaps they’d gone straight on past. Perhaps they’d never really been that close.

It got hotter. She felt the boom of the music well up from under her, around her, as if the walls themselves were vox-emitters. She needed a drink. For some reason she was very thirsty.

The girl brought her to a door – a heavyset door in a blockwork wall, one with a slide panel in the centre. She activated a summon-chime, and the slide opened, throwing out greenish light from within.

‘Elev in?’ the girl asked.

‘He is,’ came a man’s voice.

The door clunked open. Warm air billowed out, and music came after it, heavy, thumping music. She felt it move through her body, make her want to get going, to get back to that place she’d managed to reach a while back, where everything was forgotten save for the movement, the heat, the heartbeat of escape.

The girl pushed her inside. They were at the head of a long flight of plastek-topped stairs. The walls were bare cinder blocks, the floor sticky with spilled drinks. It was hard to hear anything at all over the music, which seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

‘Down,’ said the girl, smiling at her again, encouragingly.

They went together. Soon they were in a bigger chamber, one full of bodies moving, throwing shadows against lumen-scatter walls. What had this place once been? An assembly chamber? A chapel, even? Not now. The light was lurid, vivid, pulsing in time to the heavy smack of the music. She smelled sweat fighting with commercial fragrances. She smelled the acrid tang of rezi. There was a high stage with murals half-hidden in a haze of coloured smoke, men and women dancing on platforms surrounded by kaleidoscopic lumen flares. The floor was jammed, crushed with damp bodies in motion. It was hard to breathe.

‘Just keep moving,’ said the girl, taking her by the hand.

They somehow threaded through the crowds. A drink was passed to her and she took it. That made her feel better. She started to look for the source of the music. Faces swelled up out of the dark, flustered and glowing, all grinning at her. They were nice, those faces, and interesting, with their slim metal exo-frames and their holo-halos that waved and flashed like prisms. Where had they all come from? Did they work in the manufactories she had heard about, during the drab day? Or were they all the sons and daughters of the gilded, writhing down here until they collapsed into narc-induced sleep? They were like exotic beasts, feathered, horned, wrapped in silks and sequins, coming in and out of the flickering shadows, fragments of strange bedtime stories, moving in unison under old gothic arches.

She danced for a while. The girl seemed to have gone, but that was fine. She thought back to the past, to the rules that had kept her in her chamber every hour, all the hours, at her studies, learning the catechisms and the rotes, and wanted to scream out loud for the joy of being free of it. Her limbs moved, clumsily, because she had never been able to do this before, but she learned fast, and the topaz made it easier.

They pressed around her, the others – reaching out for her hair, her arms. She lost track of time. More drinks appeared, and she took them again.

And then, much later, the girl came back. She led her from the chamber of lights and heat, and down some more narrow, slippery stairs. That was a relief, for she was getting tired. It would be good to rest, just for a moment. Away from the music, it was cooler, and she felt the sweat patches on her shirt stick to her skin.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked, and was surprised to hear how the words slurred.

‘Time out,’ said the girl. ‘I think you need it.’

It was hard to follow where they went. Some stairs went down, some went up. At one point she thought they’d gone outside, and then in again, but she was getting very tired and her head had started to hurt.

‘Do you have any water?’ she asked.

‘That’s where we’re going,’ came the reply. ‘To get some.’

And then they were through another heavy door. She had the impression of more people around her, though it was very dark, and increasingly cold. They went down yet more stairs, a well so tight that it scraped against her bare arms, even though she wanted to stop now, just sit on the floor, clear her head.

Eventually they ended up in a narrow, empty room with bright overhead lumens that hurt her eyes. She really wanted a drink.

A man was there, one with sallow skin, a tight black bodysuit and collarless shirt, a knotwork tattoo just visible at the base of his neck.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked, pleasantly enough.

‘Ianne,’ she replied.

‘Ianne. That’s unusual. I like it. Are you having a good time?’

‘I could use a drink.’

‘Fine. Come with me, then. We’ll get you something.’

By then, the girl seemed to have gone. She felt hands on her arms, and she was heading down again. The lumens were turned down low, and she struggled to make anything out.

She had the vague sense of being surrounded by people again. She heard a noise like breathing, in and out. She shook her head to clear it, and saw metal shelves, many of them, all with glass canisters on them. She saw tubes, and she saw machines that had bellows and ampoules and loops of cabling. She saw the padded couches, in rows, running back into the dark, and it looked like people were sitting on them.

She felt a lurch of worry. There was no music. It was quiet, and cold, and she didn’t know the way back out.

‘Where am I?’ she asked.

They found a chair for her. It was a recliner, but it was hard and uncomfortable. She thought she should struggle then, but it became hard to think about anything clearly. She felt something wrap around her wrists.

‘Where am I?’ she asked again, more urgently, suddenly thinking of all those catechisms, and the rules, and home, and its certainties.

A face loomed up out of the shadows. She didn’t recognise this one. It was a hard face, with hollow cheeks, and the smile it gave her made her feel suddenly panicky.

‘You’re Ianne? Just relax. You’re in the right place.’

She tried to kick out, but something had tied her ankles down. She looked up, and saw a collection of needles hanging over her, glinting in the cold light. Fear welled up fast, as if she would drown in it.

‘Get me out.’

‘Don’t worry about a thing,’ said the man soothingly, reaching up for one of the needles. It was connected to a slender tube, which looped down from a bag of clear fluid. ‘It’ll all be fine.’

‘I want to get out!’ she cried, starting to struggle.

‘Why would you want that?’ the man asked, tapping the needle and preparing to insert it. He looked up and down the rows on either side of her. Her eyes had adjusted. She could see that the other couches were all occupied. No one lying on them was moving. ‘You’ll do so much good here.’

He set one of the machines running. The device beside her started to whirr, with a thud-tick-thud that sounded like some monstrous heartbeat.

‘Wh– what are you doing?’ she asked, her throat choking up with a thick sense of horror.

‘Just relax,’ he said, reaching over her. ‘I say the same thing every time. This is a place of dreams. So I’m going to give you something now. Something good. And after that – believe me when I say this – you’re going to live forever.’

WARHAMMER CRIME

A Black Library Imprint

First published in Great Britain in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover design by Rachel Williams.

No Good Men © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2020. No Good Men, Warhammer Crime, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78999-371-4

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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