Choose Your Enemies, page 16
‘Once they’ve dug themselves out,’ I said. ‘The briefing mentioned something about that particular cavern being sealed.’ Which, for all I knew, it did. No point making it obvious that she’d already spoken to Kasteen, Broklaw and myself about the matter in person.
Amberley nodded. ‘It was the last time I saw it,’ she agreed, a trifle indistinctly, until she’d washed the remaining bun residue away with a quick mouthful of recaff, ‘but a bit of a rock fall isn’t going to stop an army of eldar for very long. In fact I’d be amazed if they hadn’t dug a fresh tunnel already.’
‘Then why haven’t they attacked us already?’ Fulcher asked, reasonably enough under the circumstances.
‘Because the general’s right,’ I said. ‘They’re waiting to coordinate their attack with the incoming fleet.’ I nodded judiciously, making it obvious that I was considering all the pertinent factors. ‘And because an underhive isn’t exactly an ideal environment for large-scale troop movements. They’re going to have to travel on foot, and in relatively small groups.’ Which at least meant we wouldn’t be facing any heavy ordnance, or those bloody jetbikes. ‘My guess is they’ll try to rendezvous somewhere within close striking distance of the lower levels of the main hive, and attack in force once they’ve built up sufficient concentrations of troops.’
‘I concur,’ Porten said. He glanced down at his data-slate, then across to the governor. ‘If you wouldn’t mind…?’
‘Of course not,’ Fulcher said, and a hololith display flickered into life above the conference table, showing a tactical map not startlingly different to the one I’d already looked at back at our own headquarters with Kasteen and Broklaw. The same checkpoints had been highlighted, with icons indicating the presence of a planetary defence force unit or two at each, although I wasn’t yet sufficiently familiar with the local conventions to be able to tell much about them. For all I could deduce, it could have been anything from a crack squad of Tempestus Scions to a handful of tertiary reservists armed with a carving knife tied to a broom handle.[115]
Porten indicated the display. ‘These are the lowest levels of the hive we keep permanently manned posts on,’ he said, ‘alongside the prefects.[116] But Clarys would be able to fill you in on their resources down there better than I could.’
Osric turned towards me, then back to Amberley, apparently unable to decide which of us most needed to know whatever information he had to impart, before settling for addressing the air roughly equidistant between the two of us, which resulted in the slightly surreal spectacle of one of the most senior Imperial officials on Ironfound apparently conversing earnestly with a potted plant. ‘In her absence, perhaps you’ll allow me.’ Which seemed fair enough, as she reported to him in any case, so he probably had at least a rough idea of what was going on down there. ‘Essentially the prefects are there to regulate traffic flow through the gates, and prevent contraband getting through in either direction.’
And good luck with that, if any of my childhood memories could be relied on, although perhaps they couldn’t; certainly in the hive I used to call home, a steady stream of illicit merchandise flowed across the dividing line both uphive and down. People, too.
‘I remember them,’ Amberley said. ‘They didn’t seem terribly thorough.’
Osric shrugged. ‘They do what they can. But they’re overworked and under-resourced.’
‘And interfering too much with the unofficial economy isn’t going to work out too well for anyone,’ I added, just to show I understood how things were. If the underhivers could get what they wanted by tacitly tolerated illicit means, everyone made a bit of money, and the governor wouldn’t have to deal with any insurrections. Come to that, goods and services coming up from below would improve the official tithing figures as well, leaving that bit more to be skimmed by Fulcher and his cronies. (I was pretty sure he would have some, as in my experience everyone in a position of power has a few. How else are they going to feel important?)
I turned back to Porten. ‘You said permanently manned,’ I said. ‘Do you ever go lower?’
The general nodded, his extravagant moustache oscillating wildly.
‘We send a squad or two down a few levels every couple of days to do a quick sweep. Nothing major, just a general reminder for the scofflaws downgate that we’re not that far away, so they’d better mind their manners.’
‘Good,’ I said. If the eldar really were on the move, one of the defence force patrols would be the first to encounter them, giving us some warning of the xenos’ approach. ‘Any of them come across unusual activity in the sub levels?’
Porten shook his head. ‘Not really. Although there seem to be more scavvies on the move than usual, coming up from the sump.’
‘Saying what?’ I asked, and Porten shook his head again.
‘Nothing. Not to our troopers, anyway.’ Which was hardly surprising, since the average underhiver’s response to seeing a large group of people carrying guns is to move rapidly in the general direction of away. Unless they’ve got more of both, in which case they’ll try to take the weapons for themselves, which generally doesn’t end well for anyone involved. All of which goes double for any incursion by the up-hive authorities.
I turned back to Osric. ‘Do you have any informants down there reporting back to your office?’
‘Not as such,’ he replied, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘Clarys has a network, of course, and she passes on anything she thinks might be of interest to the enforcers, but that’s not an awful lot, to be honest. Most of what she gathers is of purely local interest.’[117]
‘So you haven’t heard anything which might indicate whether or not the eldar are on the move yet either,’ I said, and Osric shook his head, in a faintly sullen manner.
‘I have a few local informants of my own,’ Amberley said, to everyone’s evident surprise except mine. ‘They’re based in the spire, but they have dealings with the underhive on a regular basis, so I’m inclined to give their reports a reasonable amount of credence. According to them, a lot more people than usual are moving upwards from the lowest levels, though no one’s sure why. Some of them are talking about ghosts and daemons in the sump, or hivesteaders going missing. No one’s heard anything from Ebon Flow in over a week, and no one’s come back from there after going to take a look either.’
‘I take it that’s a settlement close to where you discovered the portal,’ I said, and Amberley nodded.
‘The closest,’ she said. ‘They were armed, and well organised by underhive standards, perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. If they’ve gone quiet, it doesn’t look good.’
‘No,’ I agreed, ‘it doesn’t.’ I was beginning to get a distinct sinking feeling about this. ‘I suppose we’ll have to send someone down there to recon.’ And I was pretty sure I knew who was going to get the job. After all, Amberley was well aware of my affinity for places like that. ‘And the sooner the better.’
Sure enough, she was smiling at me. ‘My thoughts exactly,’ she agreed.
FOURTEEN
It wasn’t quite as cut and dried as all that, of course; I still had to oversee the implementation of a coherent defensive strategy, which basically boiled down to putting as many of the Ironfound Defence Force troopers as possible around the gates leading to the underhive, as they would be the primary choke points on an eldar advance into the main part of the complex. It would also give us a reasonable number of troops in reserve, which we could use to blockade the narrower tunnels lower down, and, with any luck, prevent the pointy-ears from even getting as far as the gates – if we could locate them quickly enough.
The approaching fleet was another matter entirely, and the closer it got to Ironfound, the more attractive a recon expedition into the bowels of the underhive began to look. At least it was an environment I knew and could use to my advantage; I was pretty sure if push came to shove I’d be able to evade the eldar a lot more easily down there than they’d be able to evade me. At which point a disquieting little voice at the back of my head reminded me that I’d thought the same thing on Drechia, and that hadn’t exactly ended well.
‘I think we’re done, then,’ Fulcher said at long last, and I rose with the others, wondering for the first time since I got here how I was going to get back. Fulcher might offer me the use of another air car, I supposed, but under the circumstances I wasn’t that keen on trusting my safety to another member of his household. I could have summoned Jurgen, of course, but with so much vertical distance to travel it would take him a good couple of hours to get here, even at the pace he usually drove. But before I could reach a decision the governor stopped talking for a moment, listening to something in his vox-bead, then turned back to me. ‘Commissar, would you mind staying a few more minutes? Defroy has some information you might find of interest.’
‘By all means,’ I said, resuming my seat, and being pleasantly surprised to find Amberley settling into the one next to me which had lately been vacated by the arbitrator. Fulcher looked at her in a faintly quizzical manner, but, probably wisely,[118] let it go.
‘I’d like a word with you as well,’ Amberley said, while everyone else filed out, trying not to look as though they were hoping for some clue as to what she might want with me. ‘I’ll fly you back, and we can talk on the way.’
‘Fine with me,’ I agreed, as the last of the wannabe eavesdroppers left the room with curious backward glances.
‘Commissar.’ Defroy pushed his way through the final stragglers, and closed the door on them with the kind of firm politeness Jurgen generally used to keep people I couldn’t be bothered to deal with[119] out of my office. ‘We’ve found something which may be significant.’ He laid a data-slate on the table in front of me. ‘This was discovered by a spirejack on the outer wall, about eight hundred metres below the mansion. Do you recognise him at all?’
‘Not really,’ I said, keeping my voice conversational with some difficulty. Throne alone knows I’ve seen more than my share of violent death over the decades, even considering my vocation, but this was something out of the ordinary even by those standards. ‘What with him not having a face and everything.’ The corpse in question was tangled in a vox-array, which probably hadn’t been made any more effective by its addition, the impact having been violent enough to shatter bone, burst flesh, and put a serious crimp in several of the antennae.
‘Pistol bolt to the head,’ Amberley commented, glancing over my shoulder with professional detachment, no doubt having produced a similar effect herself on more than one occasion. Defroy’s eyebrows rose as recognition dawned, and his mouth opened, clearly about to ask her what she was doing here. Amberley forestalled him, raising a hand in greeting and displaying her electoo as the palm opened. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m just here to help. Or make your life very uncomfortable if you get in my way.’
Defroy turned to Fulcher. ‘She’s the inquisitor we’ve been hearing rumours about?’ he asked, in much the same tone of incredulity that the governor had used.
‘Apparently so.’ Fulcher shrugged. ‘Just go with it.’
‘The uniform’s the same as the man who tried to kill me,’ I said, dragging the conversation back to the matter in hand. ‘So I take it that’s the real chauffeur?’
‘We believe so,’ Defroy said. ‘Clarys is getting her medicae to do a genetic match, but it’s going to take a while to recover the body and make certain. Till then, our best guess is that the assassin waylaid him, switched places and dumped the body, either from the air car or directly out of the airlock before leaving. It was pure chance that the wind shear brought it back close enough to the spire to become entangled.’
‘Which means that an armed assassin was able to wander around the governor’s mansion unchallenged,’ I said. ‘Hardly an encouraging prospect.’
Fulcher smiled thinly. ‘Try looking at it from this seat,’ he said.
‘Or mine,’ Defroy added. ‘We’re investigating how that might be possible, but with thousands of servants on the staff, it’ll take some time before we can tell if anyone’s missing. And if nobody is, of course, that raises a whole lot of other questions.’
‘Then we’ll leave that in your capable hands,’ Amberley said, rising. ‘Let us know how you get on.’ She glanced at me. ‘Coming?’
‘By all means,’ I said.
To my surprise, and, I must confess, a degree of relief, we didn’t take to the air again from the hangar at which I’d arrived. Instead, Amberley led me through a tangle of richly carpeted and over-ornamented corridors to the cavernous entrance hall I remembered from gatecrashing the governor’s soiree. Liveried flunkies bowed us out through the thick steel door, with its inevitable display of the Fulcher crest, as though we were simply regular visitors,[120] and I found myself in an armourcrys biome, the transparent walls and ceiling of which afforded a dazzling view of the curvature of the planet so far below – or, at least, of the upper layer of the noxious clouds which hid the surface. I vaguely remembered having arrived here for the welcoming party, but at the time the crowds and the constantly moving vehicles had made it hard to appreciate the vista. Now it was empty, apart from a couple of distant servitors raking the gravel and clipping the topiary, and I was able to appreciate the scale and magnificence of the gardens surrounding the mansion. Rolling lawns led the eye to a small lake, which no doubt doubled as an ornamental reservoir in case of prolonged siege, artfully set around with formal beds, hedging and clumps of trees to break up the open space, making it feel both more intimate and larger than it actually was. From a tactical point of view, I noted cynically, it would also funnel a massed assault into clearly defined fire lanes.
The only vehicle parked outside the house was Amberley’s limousine, which I recognised at once, hovering a few centimetres above the drive, its gravitic repulsors humming gently. The windows were fully polarised, dark reflective pools in which our doppelgangers imitated our every move. After a moment the door hummed open, and I followed Amberley into the obscured interior, dropping into the seat beside her before I realised the air car already held another passenger.
‘Commissar. We meet again,’ Vekkman said, as though contemplating an imminent attack of indigestion.
Amberley leaned towards Pelton, who was, as usual, occupying the driver’s seat, the chauffeur’s cap perched on top of his head doing absolutely nothing to make him look more like a household servant than concentrated harm looking for someone to happen to. ‘The Imperial Guard post, Flicker, if you wouldn’t mind. And take your time. We’ve things to discuss.’
‘I’ll take the scenic route, then,’ he said, the edge of sarcasm in his voice not so much concealed as lurking in ambush. He fed power to the gravitics, and the limousine rose smoothly into the air, in stark contrast to the jolting progress I’d experienced in the governor’s air car. Which, come to think of it, made a lot more sense now it was obvious my driver on that occasion’s primary skill set had little to do with the piloting of aerial vehicles.
‘How’s your investigation going?’ I asked, hoping for a little good news at least.
‘Slowly,’ Vekkman replied, as though that were somehow my fault. ‘It would be far easier to trace connections back from Drechia, where the cult’s been dragged into the open, than try to uncover a potential cell from this end.’
‘Then you’ll need to ask the eldar to get out of your way,’ Amberley said, as Pelton guided the limousine through the cavernous airlock chamber. The great bronze doors of the inner entry way ground closed behind us, sealing with an echoing clang! which resonated through the armoured bodywork of the air car, and we glided to a halt in front of the outer one, which – inevitably – was decorated with the Fulcher family crest, each constituent of which was larger than the vehicle we rode in. ‘Good luck with that.’
‘If you don’t mind me asking,’ I said, ‘what exactly are you doing here?’ Amberley had made no secret of her desire to keep him at arm’s length, so finding him waiting in her car had come as a real surprise.
‘I wanted a word with you about the attempt on your life,’ Vekkman said. ‘Could the heretics be responsible?’
‘The head of the household troops thinks they were,’ I said. ‘Though I’m not sure why they’d bother, to be honest.’
‘Neither am I,’ Vekkman agreed. ‘They seem to have gone to a great deal of trouble and expense, infiltrating the governor’s household, and fitting out a couple of air cars with heavy weaponry. That implies access to a lot of resources, which would be more purposefully employed advancing their agenda, rather than frittered away seeking revenge.’
The outer door began to grind open, revealing the purple sky behind it, clotted with aerial traffic. There seemed to be a little more of it than I remembered, including an increase in the number of shuttles and other spaceworthy craft, and after a moment I realised that they’d probably come from the orbital void stations, seeking refuge in the illusory safety of the hive. I doubted that the eldar would resort to a sustained bombardment from space, as destroying the hive utterly would bury the webway portal under trillions of tonnes of rubble,[121] which would pretty much put an end to any hope they might have of swarming through it to retake the planet they’d abandoned millennia before.
‘Quite.’ Amberley nodded, in reluctant agreement. ‘If they could sneak an assassin into the mansion, why not just take out Fulcher while they had the chance, and have done with it? Quick coup d’état, job’s over, heretics in charge. Probably through some well-meaning idiot distantly related to him.’
‘Who knows?’ I said. ‘They’re all barmy anyway.’
‘No,’ Vekkman said emphatically. ‘They are not. Irrational, deluded, and extremely dangerous, yes, but there’s always some purpose behind their actions which makes perfect sense to them.’
